Source of Incinerating Rage
One day a fellow psychiatrist from a small Transylvanian village told me an amazing story about arson cranes. If the crane, returning from the south, sees that its last year's nest on the roof was destroyed, it will certainly avenge this on the owner of the house: it will pick up a firebrand from some fire, throw it on the thatched roof and set the house on fire. My friend assured that this was not a fiction, while referring to his experience. The question of whether the Transylvanian crane is really so vengeful will be left open for now. Let us touch upon the danger that the phenomenon known as the "poltergeist arsonist" poses.
As a rule, the source of a poltergeist is the depressed psyche of a teenager who enters the stage of puberty. Due to some temporary anomalies of the nervous system, its energy spring mysteriously straightens, throwing its animate projection into space and becomes an evil invisibility that throws stones, breaks dishes and destroys everything that comes to hand. Usually, the "noisy spirit" is completely satisfied with the perfect one and calms down on its own, but sometimes it discovers the gift of an arsonist, and such a discovery for the family of an unhappy teenager is more dangerous than all the previous "fun" put together.
In the minds of the layman, a poltergeist and a ghost get along almost as something related, so let's start by considering some of the fundamental differences between them.
A paranormal phenomenon - a poltergeist is generated by a person and he rampages during the day, chasing the victim wherever she tries to hide. In this personal affection, the poltergeist is constant. In addition, the duration of its existence is limited. At the height of puberty, the energetic "outgrowth" of the teenager's psyche, as you can see, is pulled back and the ugliness in the house stops there. A poltergeist is not a "spirit": it has no individuality and will never bring news from the world of the dead. It is only an emotional clot that burst out into space and focused on destruction. So, a poltergeist is a product of an oppressed psyche, overflowing with anger, anger and frustration.
Unlike a poltergeist, a ghost is "tied" to a specific location. He "works" at night, moving automatically, like a mystically animated body picture - neither give nor take, a nightmare that has emerged from the sleeping brain and has forgotten the way back. If a poltergeist is an earthly "inhabitant", then ghosts are clearly not of this world. Its term of existence is unlimited and does not depend on the behavior of the residents of the "restless" house. In an abandoned dwelling, the ghost feels very comfortable. Probably, the whole raison d'être of ghosting is to be a kind of "echo" of events long past.
If strange sounds are heard in your house at night, a ghost makes itself felt; at least not exactly a poltergeist. It is enough just to leave home to be outside the sphere of its influence.
The situation was further complicated by the spiritualists who assert that the ghost is not a simple materialized “dream of space” with the deceased in the “main role”, but the very real spirit of the deceased, which for one reason or another remained on the earthly plane. This spirit is not only at the highest level in relation to both the ghost and the poltergeist, but can, if desired, take the same actions. He is endowed with personality, can leave messages and acts within the framework of certain goals.
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Such confusion can lead to serious conflict if, say, we try to contact the poltergeist with the help of a medium, as if it were in reality the spirit of the deceased. In this case, somatic dissociation can develop into mental dissociation - which, by the way, happened in Thornton Heath. Whether the poltergeist was to blame, a ghost or an "evil spirit," the Borley Rectori mansion actually burned down, as promised in the message received with the planchette.
• Something similar happened in Amherst, Nova Scotia. A human voice (and the poltergeist usually does not give it) warned of the upcoming arson, after which fire began to flare up everywhere in the house, and set fires began to fall from the ceiling onto the bed one after another. This mysterious "ghost" (let's consider him so, because he cannot be denied individuality) was inflamed with mortal hatred for the unfortunate Esther Cox. “Esther Cox, you are mine, and I will kill you,” the invisible man said aloud. At the same time, the same statement appeared on the wall, as if someone had scratched them with a fingernail. And then an invisible knife that appeared out of nowhere stabbed the hostess in the back. He also behaved like a poltergeist: when Esther, who had moved to the farm, walked past the barn, a fire broke out there. The woman was arrested on arson charges,she was sentenced to four months in prison and only released a month later under public pressure.
Let us recall the "shirt of Nessus", which destroyed Hercules: perhaps a trace of a poltergeist will be found at the base of this legend too? Recall that the centaur Nessus was killed by Hercules, who desired his wife, Dianeira. Mixing seed, blood and olive oil, Dianeira made poison and soaked it in the shirt that Hercules was supposed to wear during the sacrifice ceremony. The poison from the heat melted and Hercules' body crawled, as if from instant gangrene … But what if the priests who worshiped the fire falling from heaven (mentioned in the Old Testament) were also connived by the arsonist poltergeist?
• 1953 June - Dr. Ervin Bencalo, in Fate magazine, talks about the curious history of the Codex Cada, which died in a fire in the ancient monastery of Cinta (Portugal). On the cover and first pages of the book (which was printed in 1620 in Hungary), a burn mark was clearly visible, clearly inflicted by the palm of a person. On each subsequent sheet, the print became fainter and by the hundredth page it disappeared altogether. This trace, according to the history professor Dr. E. Friedrich, was left by Bishop Stephen Kada, or rather, the hand of his ghost.
Once, a ghost appeared in front of Father Francis Anassius in the monastery of Privigi and asked him to celebrate Holy Mass in order to free the soul from purgatory. Father Anassius, recognizing the voice of the late bishop, wanted to get some evidence that all this had nothing to do with the machinations of Satan. "The devil has no power over the sacred books!" - said the ghost and lowered an invisible hand on the cover of the Codex. The room smelled of singed skin, smoke poured from the monastery window. For two and a half centuries, the Codex has bore the imprint of a fiery hand!
• Is it possible to cause harm with fire? This question arose in connection with one of the episodes in the story of the "Bell Witch" from Tennessee. To one participant in the drama, William Potter, the witch got into the habit of getting into bed - with the sole purpose of "warming" the chosen one.
“The blanket continued to roll down and slide to the edge of the bed, no matter how desperately I clung to it,” he wrote in his memoirs. - I jumped out of bed and saw that the witch was completely wrapped in him. “Yeah, you got caught, you scoundrel! - it dawned on me. “Now I’ll set you on fire.” I grabbed the package and ran to the fireplace. Suddenly my load became heavy and smelled terribly. As soon as I reached the center of the room, I dropped the witch on the floor and ran out for a breath of fresh air. I have never met a more vile stench in my life."
The means of self-defense chosen by the "witch" is quite typical. One could hardly expect fragrances from this vicious ghost killer, who became the protagonist of the most famous real-life ghost story in the United States today.
In my practice, I encountered an arsonist poltergeist only once, when objects in the house of New York spiritualist Lillian Fisher began to be charred every now and then. The last sensational story of this kind to date was told in the magazine "Fate" by R. E. Hogan. Numerous eyewitnesses from Talladega, Alabama, in particular, the captain of the fire brigade S. Kh. Joyner.
• The house of Calvin Tuck (who had six children, ages three months to nine years old) caught fire 22 times over three days. Gradually, the fire completely destroyed the building and the family was practically left without property. Flames almost always flared up from the ceiling.
Leslie R. Hutto, a Talladega County road builder, and Otis Horton, a local contractor, claim that the fire went on for absolutely no reason right before their eyes. As soon as Hatto held a knife blade along the fireplace lid (the article does not tell about the reasons that prompted him to such a radical gesture), a flame immediately flashed in his face. He later threw the knife into a circle on the wall. A fire sheaf flew out from the point of impact, part of which "stuck" to the blade.
While they were in the house, flames flared up there every 15 minutes. Police Lieutenant Ben Cooley saw a smoldering blanket hanging from a tree. “I would never have believed that this could be if it had not happened before my eyes,” he said.
Of course, 9-year-old Calvin Takka Jr. was accused of arson, threatening him with interrogation with the participation of a sorcerer. The boy "confessed" to everything, but his testimony did not correspond to the facts to such an extent that the head of the fire brigade refused to close the case.
Takka's son, most likely, was in reality the culprit. However, he caused these arson unconsciously: what was happening in the house was clearly beyond his physical capabilities. The culprits of the poltergeist are its main victims. They feel very strange, realizing that they are in some way responsible for the family's unhappiness, and are in an inexplicable terror.
It remains only to regret that a professional psychologist did not visit Takkov's house: it was clearly necessary to pay special attention to the boy's relationship with adults. There is some reason to believe that the root cause of the poltergeist in Talladega was literally the boy's "incinerating" hatred of his father. By the force of this feeling, the nervous energy of the young organism was concentrated, brought out into space and here gave rise to the phenomenon of spontaneous combustion.
Fodor Nandor