Philip the Imaginary Ghost

A transcript of two programmes you can watch here on YouTube. 

They feature AR George Owens and Iris Owens' Philip Experiment. It's really interesting to see the group in action around the table. I'm not so sure there's some strange force at work tipping the table. I mean they don't believe there's a ghost tipping the table - that's the whole point of the experiment. But they do seem to believe there's some weird force going on. And having done the old 'levitation' trick at school where you lift someone up - well no, you don't feel like you're doing anything. But that doesn't mean that you aren't.

The bumps are of course much more interesting - assuming someone isn't making them deliberately by cracking their knuckles on the table or something. You'd like to think they'd have the integrity not to. But perhaps meeting every week gets boring if nothing happens. If there are genuinely bumping noises, well that's something that does need explaining.

It would also be interesting to find out more about 'Lileth' from the other experiment that was running. I'd not heard of this before. I wonder how many other experiments have ever been run? The problem of course is that they're rather time-consuming and you need committed participants.


Philip the Imaginary Ghost (1974 documentary).

Narrator: Over the last hundred years or so there have been many groups of people who meet regularly to sit in what are called mediumistic circles. This is done in the hope of receiving messages from the spirits of their deceased friends and relatives. In a typical sitting or séance the participants are seated with their hands on top of the table, sometimes with their fingers touching, sometimes not. It is said that the spirit who is supposed to be present often causes a variety of strange physical effects to occur, as suggested by this engraving made in 1871 when spiritualism was in its heyday. In the old days there was serious doubt as to whether these phenomena were genuine. It was believed that for them to occur, a specially endowed person known as a spirit medium had to be present if the spirits were to be able to manifest these effects. Undoubtedly many of these spirit mediums were fraudulent. 

It was also easy to cheat because it was believed that the sittings or seances had to be in darkness or in a subdued light. Research by Sir William Crookes who worked with the famous medium D D Home in a good light, and by Harry Price and other famous investigators who studied Stella Cranshaw in 1923, proved that some of these physical phenomena were genuine and not the result of trickery. Whether we believe in spirits or not, it shows that there are forces in the universe at present unknown to science, and different from the four forces known to physicists. 

In 1972 a group consisting of eight members of the Society for Psychical Research in Toronto, Canada, decided to find out more about this mysterious force. They wanted to find out firstly whether it could be produced in full light. Secondly, whether a spirit medium was necessary or if instead it could be generated by ordinary people. And thirdly, if the force was produced by disembodied spirit, or instead was generated by the living participants in the circle. Dr George Owen, director of the Toronto SPR, guided the sessions from the beginning.

George Owens: The members of the group are regarded as perfectly normal people, or as normal as anyone can actually be. Four are housewives, Sue, Dorothy, Andi and Iris. Sid is a salesman, Bernice an accountant, Al is an engineer, and Lorne a designer. None of them claimed to be a medium. Psychical research is just one of their many diverse interests. As researchers the group had to be scrupulous in their approach. The first problem they had to solve was this – how to be sure that if they got physical effects, these were not due to a spirit. So they decided to make up a completely fictional character. An imaginary person with the given name of Philip, and a completely imaginary biography. A week later, she [Sue] narrated the story of Philip. 

“Philip was as aristocratic Englishman, living in the middle 1600s at the time of Oliver Cromwell. He was married to a beautiful but cold and frigid wife Dorothea. One day when out riding Philip came across a gypsy encampment and saw there a beautiful gypsy girl, Margot, and fell instantly in love with her. He brought her back secretly to live in the gatehouse near the stables of Diddington Manor, his family home. For some time he kept his love nest a secret, but eventually Dorothea, realising he was keeping someone else there, found Margot and accused her of witchcraft and stealing her husband. Philip was too scared of losing his reputation and his possessions to protest at the trial of Margot, and she was convicted of witchcraft and burned at the stake. Philip was subsequently stricken with remorse. Finally one morning his body was found at the bottom of the battlements where he had cast himself in a fit of agony and remorse.
“Ooh that’s nice story! You really used your imagination on that one!”

The group discussed the character and life they had given Philip until they were all agreed on the details. A picture was drawn by Andi and agreed to be a true likeness of Philip. It should be stressed that although Diddington Manor is a real place, there is no evidence that no one like Philip ever lived there. In addition, some historical errors were deliberately introduced into the story to emphasise its fictitious nature.

To consolidate the idea of Philip and to put themselves in mutual rapport, the group met weekly to meditate on Philip and his adventures. No apparition of Philip appeared, but observers occasionally noted a slight mistiness in the centre of the circle. However, this may merely have resulted from visual fatigue. In the fall of 1973, the group changed their approach as the result of reading articles by Mr [?] and Mr Brooksmith and Mr Hunt which appeared in the British SPR. These investigators have got physical effects by sitting round the table as in the old spiritual seances, but they created an atmosphere of jollity and relaxation. They told jokes, sang songs and exhorted the table in a light-hearted way to obey their commands. The Toronto group adopted the same approach, singing such ditties as Lloyd George Knew My Father, to the tune of Onward Christian Soldiers, playing music such as Greensleeves or Amazing Grace, and addressing questions to the table as if it really were Philip.

And between sittings, objects [familiar?] to Philip, such as fencing foils, 17th century manuscripts and pictures of Diddington Hall were kept. For most sittings the same four-legged table was used.


Narrator: It’s not easy for eight responsible normal adults to fool around in this way. They had to train themselves in a particular psychological attitude. They had to imitate a stage comedian who may give a very farcical performance on stage, but off the stage is sober and practical. As soon as the group adopted this new approach they got phenomena. First there came a vibration in the table. Also raps came out of the table. They seemed to come from inside the woodwork.

“Hello Philip, are you there?” “Good morning Philip” “Hi Philip, I heard you bought some more new horses.” “Come on, speak up, let’s hear some knocks.” “Come on let’s get some bangs. Come on, let’s get going.” “Have you brought Dorothea with you. Have you seen Dorothea lately? No? Would you like to see Dorothea lately? No? Didn’t you love Dorothea in your time? No. That was two. Yes we need them louder. Do it louder. Did you like Dorothea? (Knock knock). Ooh! Did you love – Margot?! Yes! Say it again, did you love Margot? (Knock). Good.

(The table rocks about).

GO: Then the table would actually move, it would glide over the thick pile carpet or even rear up on one or two legs only. Attempts to reproduce this motion by pushing always failed. It was impossible to imitate the table’s spontaneous motion.

Narrator: The group had succeeded many times. Visitors have watched the proceedings in bright light or even joined the group at the table. It’s clear that there’s no possibility that the phenomena is produced by trickery. The society’s research committee under Professor Owen has taken every precaution to obviate fraud and can state categorically that the phenomena are genuine and paranormal.

(Much rather drunken sounding singing ‘Up in the air and upside down!’. The table tips towards one side, until on its side completely).

GO: We found that Philip, the imaginary communicator, will answer questions put to him by sitters or visitors. One rap for yes, two raps for no. Philip of course has no independent existence. He says just what a majority of the sitters happen to think he ought to say. It is a case of psychokinesis by committee. If a question has an obvious answer, the response, in the form of one rap or two, comes promptly and with emphasis. If however, the members of the committee take time to individually reason out what the question means, or are doubtful as to the right answer, then the response is feebler and delayed.


Narrator: Dr Joel Whitton, a medical psychologist, was asked to comment: “Well I’d first like to emphasise that this is an important experiment because it’s done in the laboratory and it’s reproduceable. Now from the psychological point of view there are several considerations. First is, I have to ask myself what are the psychological conditions necessary to produce this phenomenon? It seems to me that the group is in a childlike creativity. This is brought on by the playing and the singing and the humour. The group lets their hair down. As opposed to the adult who says ‘This phenomena can’t be done because its against the laws of physics’ the child simply says ‘If I want to do it, it can be done’. Now second, I ask myself ‘What does this rapping and the table turning mean symbolically? Is it some type of concentration of energy or er, is it an elaborate defence mechanism against some deep-seated unconscious conflict? Third, the group is involved in a joint feeling of mutuality. Each member almost intuitively senses the other person and their feelings, and as such it has important overtones in various group programmes.”

One of the group: I think this Philip experiment has forced me to look at the whole spectrum of parapsychology. I’ve always believed that there’s a little bit of telepathy and precognition. But two years ago if you had told me that a group of us would be able to take this table and move it without any physical force, I, I think I would have laughed at you.

“This whole concept has made me much more aware of energy forces around – before you were aware of but didn’t really think about.”

GO: “I can’t see any way that any of this can move the table ourselves so there’s got to be energy or something which would be very interesting if we could find out how it works.”

Sue: “The experiment on Philip has been a very exciting thing for me because it’s taken an abstract thought of mine and made it into a concrete experiment.”

Lorne: “It’s offered an alternative explanation to me for the theory of spirits of the dead causing hauntings. The hauntings seem to be real but I have no faith in the departed spirits theory.”

“I think it’s been the most exciting parapsychological experiment that I’ve ever taken part in. We’ve been interested in these physical phenomena for so many years and I feel that at last we’ve made a breakthrough.”

Narrator: The group of eight has shown that a group of normal non-mediumistic people can acquire a kind of psychological skill enabling them to generate a strong physical force without the aid of spirits or supernatural influence. They have proved that this force is latent in most ordinary human beings. To gain understanding of this force they are continuing their work. They hope also that with new and original variations it will be imitated by other investigators.

II

ESP- Extra Special People - with Allen Spraggett.

AS: On this programme you meet ESP – Extra Special People – who explore that shadowy world that lies on the border between science and superstition, the known and the unknown. And on the programme today, you won’t believe it, our guest is a talking table called Philip. Now just a minute, before you tune out, I’ve not freaked out completely! We’ll explain who and what Philip the talking table is. I have a guest in human form – Mrs Iris Owen of the Toronto S PR. And of course Iris, we’ve worked together in the society for some time now. Tell us about Philip, the talking table, the imaginary ghost – how the whole thing started.

IO: Well it sounds absolutely crazy of course, but in fact it is a serious scientific experiment. George and I, my husband, have been interested in this field for many years.

AS: Now let me just say Iris, because you might be too modest – your husband George Owen is a distinguished parapsychologist as well as being a noted scientist in other areas.

IO: Yes indeed, and we were very fortunate to come to Canada five years ago to devote most of our time to the fringe areas of science and particularly parapsychology. This actual experiment arose out of a discussion we were having one night on ‘what was the nature of a ghost’. And it followed the investigation that we had done in Toronto of a haunted house where in fact some of our investigating team had seen what they thought was an hallucination or a ghost, and we discussed what it could be. Was it really the spirit of departed people, and we couldn’t believe this was so – but if it was an hallucination (which was the conclusion we came to), well why can’t we create our own hallucination? If we could create our own hallucination ourselves, then we would know a bit more about this. So we decided to make our own ghost. We called the group that were doing it ‘the ghost-creating group’. We didn’t know at first how to go about it – there aren’t any do-it-yourself ideas about it. So we decided that if we were going to prove that it wasn’t a departed spirit we had to invent a story, a character, not even a well-known story book character would do. One of our group, Sue, who had a beautiful imagination, invented our ghost for us. And then we spent a year, and I mean one night every week a for a whole year, we spent in meditation and thinking about our ghost and trying to conjure up a vision of him.

AS: Now you had a character, you invented him, you gave him a name – Philip, and you gave him a history, and then you tried to get him to communicate. What was the history of Philip?

IO: Well we set him in the 1500s in England at the time of Oliver Cromwell. He was a Cavalier, he had been a supporter of Charles. He was married to a beautiful and frigid wife Dorothea, married for the sake of joining the estates. He was riding around his estates one day and he met a beautiful gypsy girl, Margot, dark eyes, beautiful gypsy girl, and he fell instantly in love with her. Took her back to the castle where he hid her in the stables or in the dower house, and later his wife discovered her and blamed her, charged her with witchcraft and said she’d stolen her husband. And Philip himself was too concerned both for his own personal safety (by then Cromwell was on the throne) and also for the financial side of his estates, to defend her, and so she was tried and burnt at the stake.

AS: He was a craven wretch!

IO: Well we didn’t think he was quite that craven! In fact afterwards he was so distraught that he jumped from the battlements of the castle one night, and his body was found at the foot of the battlements. And then in the story that Sue invented, every century or so his ghost is seen walking the battlements searching for his lost love.

AS: OK, how did you go about getting this imaginary ghost to communicate?

IO: Well as I say, at first we, we, meditated for a whole year and we didn’t get anything very much in the way of results, and were beginning to feel a bit despondent and maybe we were wrong after all. And then we came across the work of some English experimenters in the British Society for Psychical Research, some eight to nine years ago, where they had worked on an experiment to make a table rise, to levitate a table. They were working on what we call (in the trade I was going to say, but as parapsychologists) the physical phenomena: rappings, movement, the sound of trumpets, the kind of thing that happened a great deal in the Victorian-type séance room when spiritualism began, and when this kind of thing was more of a parlour game than anything in its beginning. But [Kenneth Spatcheldore] had evolved a theory that if you trained yourself in a certain psychological skill, which was similar to the Victorian séance room, in other words if you sat around and sang repetitive songs and you told jokes and you worked in a relaxed atmosphere and literally ‘got into the spirit of the thing’, you would produce these physical phenomena, the raps and so on.
At that stage we said to ourselves well if this works for physical phenomena, why shouldn’t it produce our ghost? And so we decided to try this. Now we read the literature very thoroughly and there are many many papers on it. There is a philosophical reasoning as to why it works – and this is too short a programme for me to explain it. And we tried it, and the first sitting or two we were a little bit self-conscious. It’s not very easy, we’re all serious scientifically-minded people really. And to sit around and do all this sort of nonsense – talk to a table! We weren’t at that stage thinking we were talking to the table. We were surprised when suddenly one night we heard a rap from the table. Quite a loud rap! And we thought, you know – what is this? And we sat there very much surprised, and I think Dorothy said ‘perhaps it’s Philip!’ and immediately there was another rap. And so we said ‘Rap once for yes and two for no – are you Philip?’ and there was another rap.
And so this did surprise us very much. We carried on a little conversation like this rather non-plused the first time.

 AS: Did you get movements then rather quickly?

IO: Shortly afterwards the table kind of slid a bit, and we accused each other of pushing it, naturally. We couldn’t believe it would move by itself. In fact the first few months we were watching each other like hawks, and if anybody’s finger moved the slightest bit – you’re pushing! This sort of thing.

AS: Iris, we're going to take a break. We’re going to come back and introduce our viewers to Philip the talking table, and the rest of the Philip group. And we hope Philip will put in an appearance and do some communicating with us today.



III

(The group are stood around a table with their fingers on it).

AS: Here we are, and our guest is Philip the talking table and his eight friends, and you’re going to be introduced to each one of them in a moment. Right now Philip has been communicating through some raps.

(Various members of the group talking in a tone usually applied condescendingly to a child or animal): Come on – a real loud one! Come on! Say hello! That’s right, now do it louder. Say hello to all the people. It’s a big audience you’ve got out there. Say hello to everybody. (The table creaks). Go on, show off. You know you’re a ham actor. You can do it. A really loud one. Look we don’t want you to move, we want lots of nice loud raps. Come on! We’ll sing you a song.

AS: Why don’t we go around the table and each one of you give your name and say hello to Philip and we’ll ask him to respond.

IO: Hello Philip, this is Iris, you know me! Say hello. No, he’s not.

Hi Philip, this is Sidney, are you gong to say hi today? A little one?

AS: I’ve should say we’ve got a microphone under the table to pick up these ‘pings’ or raps.
(slight ticking)

It’s Andi. Gonna say hi to me? You said it before.

Hello Philip, it’s Bernice, are you gonna say hello tonight? Good, yes…

IO: Louder, Philip.

Lorne: Hello Philip! Did I get one there?

You try . Oh yes! One for Al. He likes Al.

AS: A little louder, Philip, if you please.

Hi Philip, it’s Dorothy here! (ooh there’s one)

Hello Philip, it’s Sue. (a bump and an ooh)

Say hello to Allen.

AS: Hello Philip. (thud) – there’s a good one. Another one.
AS: I think we should say that these raps have come in a number of different circumstances with outside witnesses present, including a psychiatrist, and they have agreed that the raps do indeed seem to come from inside the table. They’re not being produced by anybody here. The microscope is picking up these raps and they do seem to come from inside the table.

IO: You can see that all our hands are absolutely still and we’re standing up and our feet are on a carpeted floor so nobody could be kicking or tapping, or the sort of things that are usually alleged.

AS: Right. Why don’t you ramp it up and see if Philip will put on some antics for us.

IO: Oh I’m sure he will. There’s nothing he likes better. (Much hubbub) Come on! Show them what you can do! Right up in the air! (The table tips and sways quite violently. They sing in a drunken fashion. The table almost tips over.) Mind the microphone, Philip! (One table leg folds under the table. The microphone falls over). Bring it back here Philip! Mind the microphone! Let’s lift it back!

AS: How many tables have you demolished since you started?

IO: We’ve demolished quite a number!

AS: I can say I was present on one occasion when you were using quite a heavy wooden table and the leg broke off it that night.

IO: And actually we have used two or three heavy wooden tables but one of the troubles… (much talking over her).

Come on! Right over! Mind the microphone! Don’t knock the mic! What are you doing! Get away! Chase Sidney then!

AS: Now in some experiments you have put paper doilies on the table under your hands, to show that you couldn’t possibly be applying pressure or friction, and yet the table has bounced around just the same way.

IO: And sometimes thing will stick to the table, if we put a sweet or something, even though the table…

AS: I’m putting my ring onto the table. Do you think it might stay?

IO: Swallow it right up! Now Philip you’ve got his ring! Bend it! Bend it, Philip! (Much exhorting) (It falls on the floor. The table leg has bent up again). Not the leg!

AS: I take it that if you’ve demolished several tables, Philip then doesn’t have a preference for one 
particular table. He moves from one to the other.

IO: Oh yes any table anywhere.  One of the reasons why we don’t use the big tables quite so much is because we’re frightened about the house getting damage. Last time we used a wooden garden table it went and knocked holes in the wall.

AS: And he’s also produced raps and thumps in the wall, hasn’t he? What about the big question – has Philip ever been able to get the table off the floor completely - all four legs?

IO: Yes! Well why don’t you do it tonight, Philip? He did it once, only about ½ an inch off the floor, and it only went for two or three feet. But there were two other witnesses in the room, and er, it was a thick carpeted floor, if it had been… (indistinct).

AS: Well let’s try it now.

IO: Come on this is your big opportunity! Maybe your last opportunity! Come on, right up! Straight up! Come on! Shall we sing you a song?! Up in the air! (rather drunken-sounding singing) (The table wobbles and the leg collapses).

AS: He’s wrecked four tables and now he’s working on his fifth! What about turning the table upside down – and I know that this happened, getting the raps while the table is upside down? Let’s do that. Let’s keep it within range of our trusty microphone here. All right, now the bottom of the table is clearly exposed.

(They crouch and put their hands on the upturned table)

IO: Hello Philip! Are you enjoying being here tonight?! Come on, Philip!

Come on Philip, say hello, are you still there?! (a bump) Aah.

IO: Philip, if you perform you can have a nice big pint of beer, would you like that? (a bump)

AS: Now that was the loudest rap of the evening.

He loves his beer, hahah. (Rather drunken sounding singing of ‘one hundred bottles of beer on the wall’ including hiccups and laughing).

IO: Would you like two bottles of beer? Yes? A little bit louder than that. Let Allen hear you want two bottles of beer.

AS: Yeah, there’s a rap.  Now all hands are visible, let’s just dwell on this point. All hands are visible, but at this point all raps are clearly coming from, it would appear, certainly, from within that table. 

Let’s try it again. Philip, give us a good loud clear rap.

IO: For one bottle of beer. (Bump) Louder than that!

Louder for two! Come on Philip. If you want a bottle of beer, rap loudly! Louder, Philip! Come on Philip, louder! Here comes the microphone! It has to be louder or Allen won’t buy it! One rap right under the microphone. Here Phil, right here. Come on Philip, louder. Louder! That’s better! Ooh!

AS: Congratulations Philip. Alright, let’s stand him up right side up. What sort of questions does Philip respond to, can we ask him about er… (much laughter) … sex and beer are his, er.. Well let’s ask him some questions.

IO: Philip have you got Dorothea with you? No. Have you got Margot with you? Yes!

AS: Now Margot was his lover, the gypsy girl.

IO: What else shall we ask him. Oh yes, did you bring.. Is Lileth here?

AS: Now who is Lileth?

IO: It’s from another group. Now I told you this was a scientific experiment, and experiments have to be repeatable. So we decided that if our thesis was true, another group of people should be able to do the same thing with a different story.

AS: So Lileth is another imaginary ghost?

IO: Another imaginary ghost. A heroine of the French Resistance who lived in Canada and was sent up during wartime to work with the French Resistance. She was betrayed and shot as a spy by the Germans. And she had a Canadian Officer lover. And Philip has met Lileth and he’s quite friendly with her.

AS: Can I ask any of you who would like to answer – now you are all thoughtful intelligent people. You have professional backgrounds, you’re skilled in your various fields. How do you really feel about this Philip phenomenon? Sue?

Sue: I think it is purely a physical thing, coming from the brain, that any human being who has trained in the skill can do it. It’s just it takes some training to develop the skill, and I think it’s a source of energy which perhaps we have helped to find, and then maybe it can someday be used as a source of energy.

AS: Lorne, how do you feel about it?

Lorne: I just think that.. in respect to the fact we’ve produced artificially the sort of effects that you generally get from, what are supposed to be ghosts.

AS: In other words, the minds of you people working together have been able to produce movements in this table, raps in answers to your questions – all the things that traditionally ghosts have done. So are you saying that the traditional ghost may have been a projection from the minds of living people?

Lorne: That’s my view.

AS: Do you all agree with that?

It could be, it could be that. Yeah. It could be one of the answers to it.

AS: OK let’s ask Philip a question, we’ve got about one minute left for Philip in this command performance here. What’s going to get him to give us a good loud answer, as a kind of grand finale for him. You people know his feelings. Does he love, what’s the gypsy?

IO: Do you still love Margot, Philip?

Sue: Do you want to come on TV again, Philip?

He’s gone shy all of a sudden.

AS: Are you still there Philip? (a creak) Give us one more rap for goodbye.

IO: Say goodbye to Allen.

A real loud one. Louder than that.

IO: He’s saying no. He doesn’t want to go.

Give us one rap, Philip.
 We must go Philip, one loud goodbye for everyone.
Do you miss (Jo?) Hmm ?hmm. Louder still. Say goodbye George.

AS: We’re going to have to say goodbye to Philip for now, and we’ll be back in a moment to ‘rap’ this up with some more information about Philip.



IV

AS: My guest on Extra Special People is Iris Owen from the Toronto Society for Psychical Research. And Iris, that must be about the wildest sequence ever seen on television! A group of grown people with a table bouncing around and answering questions. But let’s get serious now. It’s a marvellous party game, having a talking table. But there’s something deeper than that involved. What the implications of this Philip experiment?

IO: Well of course as you say, Allen, there is a serious scientific experiment. And there are two aspects of it that are important. Firstly, the part that is of interest to the physicists – how does a combined thought from a group of people transform itself into something that can produce a physical effect such as a noise or a table movement.

AS: I should say that to me these pings from within the table are the most singular thing about the phenomenon. And I have put my hand on the table more than once and have felt the vibration, the pulsation, directly under it.

IO: Yes, it is the most extraordinary thing.

AS: The second thing –

IO: The second thing is of interest to psychologists. The physical, the psychological background of a group of people getting themselves into a state of mind where they can in fact share a common thought and a, produce these things.

AS: For one thing, you have to be in a kind of childlike frame of mind, don’t you?

IO: We describe it as a psychological skill, and it’s learnt just as in the same way as when you’re learning to the piano you have to start with the scales and go all the way through until you can play something in the nature of classical music, this is a psychological skill that we learn, in this way. And this is why it’s, erm, it doesn’t happen as often as one would think it must.

AS: Well maybe you’ll have some more imaginary ghosts around. Well, Iris Owen, it’s been marvellous having you on the programme, and we will be back again with more Extra Special People, and we’ll be talking to interesting folks who inhabit that shadowy world that lies on the border between science and superstition, the known and the unknown. They’re all unusual. They’re all Extra Special People.

 

Can We Explain The Poltergeist?

A transcript of the short documentary programme here on YouTube. Dr A R George Owen, author of the book of the same name, presents some witnesses of poltergeists, including the doctor involved in the Sauchie case (which is described more fully in his book). Dr Owen also later led the 'Philip Experiment'.

It's so refreshing to watch something that isn't a hammed-up 'paranormal extravaganza' - but this is 1965 and not 2020. People just recount their stories while sitting in their living rooms. There are no silly reconstructions and no screaming. ARG Owen stays overnight in one of the houses and literally nothing happens. 



Presenter: Do you believe in ghosts? No? Well perhaps not. But then a week ago, neither did the Howells family, who live in this house in Rhondda [jump in film]... Martia, 20, her 25 year old husband David, and their two young children, are convinced that the house has been invaded by a poltergeist. Mrs Howells describes what’s happened, on Monday afternoon.

Mrs Howells: Well it was about five o’clock in the evening and I’d just poured my little girl a cup of tea in my mother’s room. I went up back to the kitchen, as I came up this bottle came flying towards  me. And of course I shut the door to protect myself. I opened it again and I seen this other bottle. So I just picked up the children and ran out the house. As I ran out my husband was coming down the street here, and he ran straight in the house, and by the time he got in the there all of the place was turned upside down.

Dr George Owens (Trinity College Cambridge): A strange word, ‘poltergeist’ – it comes from old German folklore. It means a noisy spirit. In fact it’s just one of the many European words for ‘things that go bump in the night’. Our ancestors thought of the poltergeist as something just akin to the spirits of nature that haunt meadow and field and make noises in the mines. In fact their idea of the poltergeist was very like that of the modern child’s conception of an elf or goblin. 

In one very famous case 300 years ago – in the house of John Mompesson, the squire of Tidworth, on Salisbury Plain, people heard the beating of a drum. “For an hour together it would beat Roundheads and Cuckolds, and several other points of war, as well as any drummer. After this they would hear a scratching under the children’s beds, as if by something that had iron talons.”

Voiceover: It would turn with mighty violence and applied itself wholly to my youngest children, whose bedsteads it would beat, when there has been many of strangers as well as ourselves present in the room, that we did expect that at every blow expect they would have fallen into pieces. Then it will run under the bedsteads and scratch, as if it had iron talons. And then heave up the children and the bed, and follow them from room to room, and come to none else but them.

ARGO: In 1695 on this site where the Divinity School now stands, there was a house where a poltergeist was raging. ‘There came by Mr Isaac Newton, a very learned man, fellow of Trinity College, and seeing several scholars about the door – “Oh ye fools” says he, “Will you never have any witch? Know ye not that all such things are mere cheats and impostures? Fie Fie, go home for shame!” And he would not go in.’ 

            Superstition had to give way to scepticism. Scepticism seems natural in these scientific times, symbolised so well by the sweeping curves of the great dome of New Hall, calculated I sincerely trust according to Newtonian mechanics to withstand the pull of gravity. But do the scientists really know all the forces that there are in nature? When I was young they admitted of only two: magnetism and gravity. Now they tell us there are two more: the atomic forces of the strong and the weak interaction. All this must I think make the layman ask – is this the lot, or are there not other powers at work in the universe? 

But the scientists are right in requiring us only to believe in things for which there is real evidence. Evidence on poltergeists has not been easy to collect. For the reason that poltergeist outbreaks actually occur far more rarely than even the uncommon crime of murder. But statistics do disclose two odd and curious facts. It seems that in every afflicted household the strange happenings tend to be mysteriously connected with just one member of the family. This person is usually a young person, someone in the age group 11 years up to 21 years old. And here perhaps we ought to pause for thought. Perhaps it really is all trickery. Perhaps it really is the type of mischief that a young lad - like that - might be wanting to get up to. However, what of this housewife, 22 year old Martia Howells of Swansea. She seems to me to be a most sincere and truthful witness.

Mrs Howells: It was about three days after we moved into Rhondda Street, my husband and I went to bed, and we woke up feeling as if somebody was choking us. My husband he opened the windows and went downstairs to see if any gas had been left on, but nothing like that had happened. So we went to bed, we thought no more of that. Then my husband always locks the doors before going to bed, and one night I had to go downstairs and the door was open. So I locked it, went back to bed and told him he didn’t lock the door, but he said he had. Then when we went downstairs in the morning the door was open again. These things happen over a period of months. Then one afternoon I was having tea with my mother in her room, and it was on the Monday, and she said that she had to go across the shop, so I said alright I said I’m going back to my room now to do a bit of work. So as I went out the children come down the passage behind me, and I opened the door of my room, and I seen a bottle rise off the mantelpiece. I thought I was seeing things. I seen the bottle coming towards me so I shut the door to protect myself, and the bottle smashed against the back of the door. So I opened the door again, and I seen another bottle rising off the mantelpiece. So I just shut the door and picked up my children, and went and waited on the doorstep for my mother to come home. So she came back and I told her what had happened. So she said to me, ‘Don’t be so daft,’ she said. So we went back into the room and by that time all my furniture was upside down. So I waited on the doorstep again until my husband came home from work, and well we didn’t say nothing about it to anybody, we just cleaned up the mess. 

So then Tuesday, nothing happened strange at all. It was on the Wednesday when my little girl was in nursery school. It was about five to three, my mother was out in my room so I said to her that I’d better go out and find one and catch the bus. So she said alright I’ll get the knitting from my room and come back in here with the baby. Alright, I said. So I went to get the bus for school, and when I come back my mother was on the doorstep so I asked her what was the matter and she said the same things had happened again. That all my furniture was upside down. So we both went in to have a look, so I could see that my room was in the same kind of a mess, so we went out the back kitchen to see if anything had been touched out there. Well that was alright, nothing had been touched. So we went back, we went upstairs then to see if anything had been touched upstairs. And upstairs was alright. So I said come on wait on the doorstep for my husband to come home again. So we waited, we didn’t hear no sound of anything at all. 

So when he came home I said that my room was in the same kind of mess. And then we went on to the kitchen, and my gas stove was all turned up, well we didn’t hear any sound of anything. Then we went upstairs to go to see if the bedrooms were alright, and we couldn’t open the bedroom door. So my husband said that he thinks that we better call the police. So I told him, I was crying and I said, we better not call the police because we couldn’t tell them our furniture was flying about by itself! Well anyway he called the police and the police had to force the bedroom door to get in. And my big double bed was on top of the baby’s cot behind the door. And well he always used to go to bed in the afternoon and I don’t know why I didn’t put him then. And if he’d have been in it he would have been killed.

ARGO: I don’t think there was any trickery there. But we can do better than this. At Sauchie in Scotland, a few years back, a little girl of 11 years old, Virginia Campbell, was the centre of intense poltergeist activity observed by many reliable witnesses, including the family physician, Dr William Logan. He was called into the case because at school her teacher had seen a desk rise and float about 2 inches above the ground. Dr Logan recalls some of his experiences of five years ago.

Dr Logan: My first involvement with the Virginia Campbell poltergeist was in the evening of Saturday 26th of November 1961. I was called to the house because of the incidents and happenings that had been taking there during that night, and as it turned out, on previous nights. When I arrived at the house the householders were in a state of excitement and tension, and informed me that there had been knockings and noises and pieces of furniture being moved, and that something odd was going on. So I went up to see the child, who was lying in bed looking fairly relaxed despite all this commotion that had been going on, and I asked her to try and forget as much as possible that I was in the room beside her. After I had been in the room for about, oh, ten or fifteen minutes, I noticed that one of the pillows beside Virginia was beginning to move in a rather unusual fashion. If you can imagine Virginia lying with her head on this pillow here, and another pillow beside her, and this pillow started to turn in a rotatory fashion, thus. In addition I noticed round about the same time or shortly afterwards, that there was an impression or indentation beginning to occur as if something was either pulling from inside or pushing, but there was no obvious physical force bringing this movement about. 

I checked thoroughly that Virginia herself was in no position to bring about these odd movements, both by observation and by checking her position of her hands and feet. Furthermore there was no other person close enough to Virginia or the pillow to bring this about. I waited for a little while, and only one other phenomenon occurred and this was a puckering of the bedclothes. Now again, if you can try and imagine this piece of cloth as part of the coverlet on Virginia’s bed, the bedclothes appeared to be pulled up and pulled towards Virginia, as if some force was trying to pull this coverlet. One of the noises was a very characteristic sawing sound (he draws his fingernail over the material several times). The other noise that was present was a knocking, tapping noise similar to this (he flicks the arm of the chair repeatedly, fast). After a short while we decided to go home thinking that perhaps Virginia would settle down and go to sleep once we had left. Just as we were going out the door a very unusual thing happened. Or it seemed unusual at the time. That was that the noises, the knockings, seemed to take on a character, in that they became extremely hurried and agitated, as if something was trying to get us to stay in the room or attract the attention to the child in the bed. The noises became as I said agitated, something like this (he flicks faster). And that is the end of my own personal contact with these phenomena, but I have been given permission to read extracts from a diary that I suggested a close relative of the child should keep, shortly after the events started.

She noted down very carefully in her own words – by the way, this, erm, diary has never been published or read in any form before to the public, erm, and she was very kind in allowing me to read some extracts from it tonight.

I would like to read the first the description of the first night on which the phenomena started. It’s dated Tuesday 22nd of November 1960. At about 10.30 pm Margaret and Virginia were lying in bed. There was a noise like a ball bouncing on the floor. I looked under the beds in the room but couldn’t see anything. No sooner had I left the room when it started again. Margaret and Virgina went downstairs thinking that perhaps a mouse was under the bed, for a brush. The thing seemed to follow them down the stairs. 

Her friend had just been visiting the house, and after he left, I quote: ‘An apple jumped out of the dish. Virginia ate it. I went away to the phone. Virginia was in the house with dad. He said while I was away an apple came out of the dish three times. The pot came off the cabinet and hit Virginia on the nose. It settled on the chair just before I came back.’

Again we read: ‘A piece of chocolate jumped off the sideboard. Also a pencil. A brillo pad came out of the kitchen into the living room. The light went on twice. Virginia was using the cleaner. It went off and the rubber flew off the handle. There was a knocking under the table. Virginia gave three knocks. Then there were three knocks back.’

Later she says: ‘Nothing happened this day. There was knocking on the table at dinner time. Someone was punching the girls in bed.’

And on another occasion: ‘The top of the hot water bag was open, and there was scraping… The girls were getting pinched sore… Virginia’s leg was getting tickled. There has been writing on the girls faces for the past three nights… Virginia’s lips went bright red three times, and there was a noise like a ball bouncing.’ 

Incidentally this ‘bright red’ description, really, as far as I can make out, what she really intended to express, was that Virginia’s lips appeared to glow bright red, and this she saw herself.

‘The bed cover turned red. It was a green cover. There was a noise like somebody walking across the floor… There was knocking on the bed, also on the mattress.’

And on occasions she writes ‘All went well during the past two weeks’. And she goes on again, ‘there was a lot of knocking on the bed this morning. Virginia was getting nipped.’

Until we get to the last statement in the book, in which she simply states , it’s dated Sunday 23rd of April 1961: ‘There was a knocking on the cupboard door.’

ARGO: The Sauchie poltergeist case is to my mind a wonderfully diagnostic one. A living person, Virginia Campbell, was for some weeks at no wish of her own, the centre of a mysterious force. This force was fitful and capricious; sometimes it moved solid objects. At other times it produced strange sounds. Here is a tape recording made by Dr Logan. (A shriek. Four fast knocks. Five knocks. Three knocks.)

But, unlike the good people of Tidworth, I do not think that it was a demon or a goblin or yet a disembodied spirit. I think it was a force. A force admittedly unknown to orthodox science, but yet a force proceeding in some way from Virginia herself. Until recently, in fact until two weeks ago, I thought of the Sauchie poltergeist case as the very pattern and type of all poltergeist cases. Now I have to tell you that I am beginning to think that there may be yet another kind of case of this sort: in some ways different, and in some ways akin to the old notion of the haunted house. And so I am going to ask you to come with me (in spirit of course!) to North Fleet in Kent. 

This is 16 Waterdales, Northfleet Kent. Built about 30 years ago, it seems a perfectly normal house, and not the kind we would expect to be haunted. But four years ago a young couple, Mr and Mrs Maxstead, moved in. Quite often when Mr and Mrs Maxtead were sitting downstairs in their sitting room, which is beneath where I am now, they would hear the sound of footsteps crossing the floor here in this room. Although in fact it was at the time absolutely empty. Another thing which puzzled them a great deal was that a strange smell permeated the house. An unpleasant chemical kind of smell, it came and went mysteriously. But the Maxteads stuck it out despite all their troubles and bewilderment until finally Mrs Maxwell [sic] saw a strange apparition. She awoke in the middle of the night - in fact just about the time it is now! She saw coming towards her what seemed to be the figure of a little girl about six years old. But as the vision advanced, it grew strangely taller and taller until it turned into a figure seen in profile and rather indistinct, but bending over her in an uncanny kind of way. After this, not unnaturally, the Maxsteads thought that enough was perhaps enough, and they moved out. But the house, though empty, was not at peace, as Mrs Margaret Harrison, who lives next door, can tell us.

Margaret Harrison: The noise started off in the hall first, then it came like a – well you can’t very well describe it, it was like a child’s ball falling down the stairs. And it was, it was, a sound it was going (she smacks her hands four times) like that all the way down the stairs, you know. And then it sort of shot, the sound shot up into the bedroom to where I was, and it was like a scratching noise, you know, under the bed. And it sort of, as if it was bonking up the bed. But it wasn’t just in one part of the bed, you know it was all over underneath. And it was sort of scratching all the time, you know, but it wasn’t a sort of a clawing noise, it was like this all the time (she scrabbles about continually with her fingers on the arm of the chair), you know, under the bed. 

ARGO: Although Mrs Harrison lives next door, her bedroom is in actual fact above the stairway of number 16. After the Maxteads, Mr and Mrs Essex moved into the house. They too were persecuted. They also heard footsteps in the bedroom when no one was there. But also noise of furniture moving. They too had a strange smell seeping through the house, but this time it was that of something old and musty rather than something chemical. Then one night Mr Essex was awakened by a strange whistling noise in his ears. He discovered his bed was being shaken. Indeed, it was being lifted up. Beside the bed the weirdest of phantoms was forming itself. It glowed with a pinkish orange light. It was transparent at the edges, but queerest and most peculiar of all, it was in the form of a woman without a head. 

Well, I’ve spent now some six hours or so in the house at night. Nothing has so far happened. But I propose to stay on here until dawn – hoping, waiting for something to turn up. 

ARGO: Well, the dawn did come, and nothing happened to me. I was not unduly disappointed because these things are notorious wayward and fitful. However Northfleet did leave me with an unanswered question. Is it possible that sometimes a place and the people in it can conspire together to generate a poltergeist energy? One big question hangs over the whole subject – why is it that some people and not others can be a centre for the poltergeist force? We know a little about this – we know that they tend to be young, are more likely to be girls than boys. We know that they are basically healthy, indeed rather intelligent but possibly a trifle highly strung. Stress, it seems and emotional tension, can act as triggers helping to set off the manifestation. But clearly this cannot possibly be all, or otherwise poltergeists would afflict every home in the land. One thing is certain: these stories have happy endings. The effects are short-lived. Virginia Campbell today is a normal, happy and charming teenager. 

What is the origin of the poltergeist force? I wish I knew. I regret I cannot tell you. All I know is that it exists. Why has it stayed unrecognised for so long? Perhaps it’s because of the great variability of poltergeist cases. A milk bottle flew up, said Mrs Howells. An apple rose out of the dish, said Dr Logan. There were noises galore at Sauchie, and yet everything happened in complete silence at Swansea. Yet, where sounds did happen, it’s very striking how similar they were – the scratchings and the bouncings: long ago at Tidworth, and in our own time at Northfleet and in Scotland. I think myself, that although its physics and its mode of application is mysterious and obscure, the poltergeist force itself has its origin in living human beings, and not in ghosts or hauntings. However, the Northfleet case remains very puzzling to me, and something of an exception to my theoretical scheme. There the poltergeist activity, the physical phenomena, were all it seems attached to the house and not to the particular people in it. Just what influence it is and what awoke it to activity at 16 Waterdales, and why it has brooded over the house these four years past, is something that is going to remain for the time being, unknown.