The Grrl Power theory of poltergeist phenomena basically states that adolescent girls are like psychokinetic pressure cookers. Puberty heaps on the hormones, while historically male-biased cultural norms encourage young women to repress their burgeoning sexuality. Teenage angst! Social pressures! Familial stress! In certain young women, the combination of these factors supposedly leads to involuntary Carrie-style outbursts that are suspiciously similar to activities traditionally labeled as poltergeist goings-on.

To be fair, the theory doesn’t apply exclusively to the fairer sex. Psychologist Nandor Fodor, who was fascinated by the notion that poltergeist activity could be the result of an unknowing human agent’s psychic temper tantrums, felt that anyone with an undue amount of repressed rage or sexual desire was a likely candidate for psychokinetic agenthood (though his most famous case, the 1938 Thornton Heath poltergeist, did involve a neurotic woman). It wasn’t until the 1960s, when North Carolina’s William Roll got into the action, that blame fell squarely on the smooth, freckled shoulders of womanhood. Roll, of course, admitted that male teenagers have the capacity for psychic upheaval, but that young women, due to the aforementioned social and cultural factors, combined with their sugar-and-spice genetics, are much more susceptible to what he dubbed Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK).

Remember Gauld and Cornell, the guys from Monday’s column who allegedly collated over 500 poltergeist reports and created a percentage-based list of case-to-case similarities? They weren’t fans of Roll or Fodor, and claimed that both parapsychologists’ methods and conclusions were spurious (this is interesting in light of Roll’s claim that he used all of 116 cases in crafting his claims about the prevalence of teenage females in poltergeist incidents). Unfortunately, neither researcher ever detailed a plausible alternative theory. Even today, those who reject Fodor’s and Roll’s talk of unbounded psychic energy argue that most poltergeist cases are caused by angry ghosts. In recent years, poltergeist research has moved beyond teenagers to look at RSPK (or similar phenomena) in adult schizophrenics, depressives, manics and psychotics.

Knee-jerk feminism would almost certainly accuse Roll of sexism, but I think there’s a bit more to his ideas. The man’s a liberal-leaning fringe psychologist conducting his research amidst the cultural revolution of the 1960s. If anything, Roll’s theory is a back-door indictment of the repressive ideals of the ‘50s packaged as a finger-wagging pseudo-scientific document of the chickens-coming-home-to-roost variety. Women are robbed of irrepressible conscious power that then manifests unconsciously and unpredictably. Really, every poltergeist theory centers on the empowerment of the societally disenfranchised, whether they be kids, women or the mentally ill (and, hey, ghosts are corporeally disenfranchised). More than that, if we accept that a majority of poltergeist cases do, in fact, center on members of at least one of the aforementioned groups, and that, in all likelihood, the reports are fabricated, or the phenomena is rigged, by said disenfranchised people, then, at the very least, the empowerment is real. The mere possibility of poltergeist activity, via hoax or RSPK, has led to discussions about society’s attitudes towards women and the mentally ill, and about the emotional needs of adolescents. So all of you sexually repressed neurotic chicks, and all of you disregarded crazy dudes – keep flipping tables and slamming doors. Become agents. Grab the world by the light fixtures, and make yourselves heard.

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)

Internet paranormal enthusiasts love to cite the work of parapsychologists Alan Gauld and A.D. Cornell, who famously collated over a 170 years’ worth of reported poltergeist incidents into a comprehensive database organized by the specific qualitative symptoms of the phenomena. For example, based on Cornell and Gauld’s rubric, out of more than 500 studied poltergeist cases, 64% involved the movement of small objects, 58% were more active at night, 48% featured knocking or rapping (though only 2% featured beat-boxing), 36% involved the movement of large objects, etc. What good is this data to anyone? Well, it’s pretty helpful if you write for Weird Things and need to introduce the basics of poltergeist activity (and ladies – if you run into Agent Mulder at a bar, it couldn’t hurt to pull out the ol’ “12% of poltergeist incidents involved the opening and shutting of doors” line).

How do these trinket-tossing ghoul infestations differ from classic hauntings? Good question. In the past, the distinction between the two really just hinged upon the perceived mischievousness of the entity: ghosts were restless depressives who stamped around houses out of discomfort and anger; poltergeists were ethereal miscreants who joyfully roused sleepers and vandalized property to satisfy their voracious adolescent appetites for prankery. As (ahem) research progressed throughout the 20th century, however, the poltergeist phenomena began to look less and less like traditional spirit activity. In modern day parapsychology circles, the party line is this: reported hauntings are generally centered on a place or an object, and last for extended periods; poltergeists are usually linked to individual people (most commonly females under the age of 20) and stop abruptly after only a few months. According to Gauld and Cornell, 98% of reported hauntings are actually cases of poltergeist activity, and that’s a number you can trust because it’s math AND science!

Was I what? Winking?! No! Why would you even say that? You’re funny.

The fact that “poltergeist” is a German word (“polter” coming from “poltern” meaning “to make noise,” and “geist” meaning “spirit” or “ghost”) helps to hint at the phenomenon’s international prevalence – poltergeists have been reported throughout Europe, Asia and both North and South America (I guess Africa’s too busy dealing with witchcraft and AIDs to be bothered by a few inexplicably airborne black market TEC-9s). So what are the scientific, psychological and supernatural ramifications of these wild non-ghosts?

Check back Wednesday and Friday for answers that are guaranteed to include talk of psychokinesis, female sexuality, befuddled physicists and the word “lithobolia.” In short – everything you’ve ever wanted, plus lithobolia.