intelligent actions are not consciously done. As such, they are not horrors, but act in a state of ‘automatism’. One sees here how studies of mediums were of great importance for the development of dynamic psychiatry.36 In contrast, parapsychologists and spiritualists were fighting for the recognition of these abnormalities in young mediums as giving credence to the reality of their powers. They fought for the reconsideration of a residue of phenomena that did not fall into the category of proven frauds. Notwithstanding, in 1903, Xavier Dariex reproduced Grasset’s analysis of this case in the Annales des sciences psychiques, the major French journal devoted to psychical research at that time. Parapsychologists in the nineteenth century appreciated this tenuous link between adolescence and haunting, which subsequently opened a real avenue of research. They postulated that such extraordinary phenomena may, in fact, be the product of an extraordinary energy, which is concentrated and suddenly released, during the ‘crisis of adolescence’.
4. Parapsychology and the Teenager as a Focus Person for Recurrent Spontaneous Psycho-Kinesis
The merge between ‘adolescent crisis’ and ‘poltergeist’ in the nineteenth century was built on many ambiguities: it grouped together ideas around the adolescent as a hoaxer, the general abnormalities of adolescence and any ‘supernormal’ abilities that may accompany them. So much so that, for decades, researchers would strive to conduct batteries of psychological tests on young subjects caught up in tumultuous events. There is a wealth of data on such cases though, unsurprisingly, much of it is contradictory (as summarized by Catala37). The parapsychologist William G. Roll, who coined the term ‘recurrent spontaneous psycho-kinesis’ (RSPK), was able to detect repressed aggressiveness, hostility against the father, a hidden hostility against the mother, anger, guilt, a sense of injustice, dependency, emotional immaturity, dissatisfaction, insecurity and so on. German studies noticed an unstable personality, irritability, emotional immaturity, low frustration tolerance, uncontrolled impulses, conflicts in the areas of social esteem and sexuality, a move in aggression on other targets, covering conflicts and so on.38 In short, and in the words of the German parapsychologist Hans Bender, as the dream is for Freud, so the poltergeist is ‘the royal road to the unconscious’ for parapsychologists. The unfortunate consequence of all this confusing and obfuscating data is that parapsychologists have lost sight of the individual and the traumatic cases of personal psychological conflict involved.
Many had tried to define a particular syndrome: for example, the parapsychologist and psychoanalyst Nandor Fodor spoke of a ‘poltergeist psychosis’,39 which would later be studied in detail by John Palmer and William G. Roll.40 But Fodor also supported the idea of a kind of ‘poltergeist neurosis’, this time based on the model of hysterical conversion – that is to say, the movement of a fantasy to its concrete expression.41 Both result from ‘emotional stress’, a term that still holds some vagueness. Other easy metaphors support this idea: Iris Owen thought the poltergeist was a psychokinetic channel for the expression of suppressed excitement;42 Daniel Scott Rogo saw it as a projection of hostility or as displaced aggression.43 These psychodynamic interpretations and speculations merely repeat in chorus the postulate of an ‘inside’ that would end up ‘outside’. The image is that of a cooking pot on the verge of explosion. Roll also sought support from the field of neurology, asking if these phenomena could be attributed to a disorder of the nervous system.44 Admittedly, some cases lend themselves to such analysis, since the chosen subjects often suffer from epilepsy or severe migraines. But, in the final account, Roll did not find a higher rate of neurological disorders in his sample group than in the general population. His theory seems too vague to be either tested or falsified. As parapsychologists were unable to reach enough evidence for a theory of poltergeist/RSPK based on its connection with adolescence, they began to criticize this faded track.45 From this, previous investigators were shown to have worked from positions of personal prejudice, quickly selecting the teenager suspected of being behind the events, without considering the other people around them. When they detected emotional conflicts, this was often done with unquestioned ‘projective’ methods – such as evaluation using inkblots – which are generally regarded to invariably point the finger towards something psychologically problematic, regardless of the person involved. Moreover, adolescents, as often being naïve and naturally in heightened emotional and psychological states, made obvious prime targets in such cases.
This fluctuating relationship between the poltergeist and the supposed teenage anomaly can be seen to come from either a defect in how diagnoses were made or the plurality of possible profiles. This second hypothesis brings us back to the starting point as there is not one kind of person identified as being more likely to experience a haunting, and thus no typical ‘naughty little girl’. In the second half of the twentieth century, new voices have been heard in the discussion. For example, Dr Alain Assailly has drawn attention to the frequency with which a middle-aged adult has intervened in poltergeist phenomena.46 But this search for a new socio-demographic profile has had similar faults. A more comprehensive approach has been developed, as noted by Rogo and Phillip Snoyman, that claims that family dynamics, as a whole, are more responsible for the evolution of the phenomena than just an isolated individual, at least in the poltergeist cases they investigated.47 This view of the poltergeist as the product of an organized group, in a ‘systemic’ perspective, became the dominant approach thereafter, both therapeutically48 and at the theoretical level.49 The model of pragmatic information developed by physicist and psychologist Walter von Lucadou offers a phenomenological description of the four stages of development of poltergeist activity that also includes critical observers and society in general. This model applies much more constructively to the case of Jeanne, which was examined earlier. Despite this, however, the myth of the naughty little girl – or more generally the myth of the teenage source of poltergeist – still thrives in the twenty-first century. Many still give credence to this simplistic explanation and consequently repeat the damage and trauma of earlier times. Today, teenagers themselves identify and even find agency of sorts with this fascinating and frightening figure, propelled into the media through the uncontrollable Carrie created by Stephen King or Regan McNeil from The Exorcist (both reproduced and adapted across various films, novels, comics etc.).50 It must be said that parapsychologists have contributed to the wide spread of this myth. Not only did they sometimes invite the media to share the fruits of their investigations, but some have subsequently become ‘scientific’ advisors for Hollywood. Indeed, when Steven Spielberg produced the movie Poltergeist (1982), American parapsychologists William G. Roll, Charles T. Tart and Daniel Scott Rogo signed a document, for which they were paid, authenticating the phenomena presented in the film as inspired by a true story. As such, this short chapter can also claim to be inspired by a true story.
Notes
1Hubert Haddad, Théorie de la Vilaine Petite Fille (Paris: Zulma, 2014).
2Alan Gauld, ‘Frank
