Way back in 1682, when men were men and poltergeists were still thought to be nothing more than ghostly, table-flipping Foley artists, Richard Chamberlain, the secretary of the colony of New Hampshire, was hanging out at a local watering hole when most of all hell broke loose. Utensils took to the air and flew at the patrons and staff. Bricks and rocks cut deadly arcs through the barroom. Hammers, spits and iron-crows rose in unassisted flight and assaulted the confused crowd of onlookers. When the chaos ended, Chamberlain immediately confronted the pub’s owners, George and Alice Walton, coining the phrase “WTF?” in the process.

16 years later, Chamberlain published “Lithobolia: or, the stone-throwing devil,” a journal-style pamphlet in which, describing himself as an “Ocular Witness of these Diabolick Inventions,” he recounted the Walton’s woeful tale of three tortuous months spent battling the formidable pitching arm of the tavern’s invisible assailant. To this day, “Lithobolia” remains one of the most detailed layman accounts of poltergeist activity. The conclusion it reaches: demons are to blame. Or, possibly, witches.

288 years later in Rosenheim, Bavaria, another detailed account of poltergeist activity was created – this time by an animistic (an approach centered on human-generated psychic energy rather than atmospheric spirit energy) parapsychologist and two German physicists. When office equipment at Sigmund Allen’s law firm began operating independently of the clerical staff, Allen called the power company, who responded with robust shrugs. When dozens of voiceless phone calls disturbed the office, Allen contacted the phone company, who also had no explanation. When the light fixtures started swinging, Allen called the police, who called in famous parapsychologist Hans Bender and two physicists, Doctors Karga and Zicha, from Germany’s prestigious Max Planck institute.

After taking hours of video footage and interviewing dozens of witnesses, the only conclusive causal link that anyone could find was a young secretary – Annemarie Schneider – who was consistently present whenever the strange phenomena occurred. Interviewing Schneider, the scientists learned that a recent romantic entanglement had left the 19-year-old emotionally traumatized. The doctors also felt that, even disregarding her boy troubles, the young woman seemed to demonstrate pronounced neuroses and other symptoms of psychological imbalance – like, the type of imbalance that might cause someone to, say, fake ghost attacks as a means of attracting attention. While Karga and Zicha conceded that the events defied rational explanation (though they never accused Schneider of perpetrating a hoax), neither concluded, as many subsequent amateur students of the Rosenheim case have, that the events were clearly paranormal.

Annemarie Schneider lost her job and the poltergeist activity immediately stopped. And that’s where Lithobolia author Richard Chamberlain would see Schneider hanged for witchcraft. Or where, today, you or I might conclude that it was all a hoax. But there’s still Hans Bender, who, thanks to the work 1930s psychologist Nandor Fodor, reached an entirely different conclusion. That’s right – Grrl power.

(continued Friday)

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