More Early Twentieth Century Evidence for Paranormal Phenomena

In the post here I discussed some early twentieth century evidence for paranormal phenomena. In this post I will discuss additional evidence for the paranormal from such a time. 

On page 112 of the book Enigmas of Psychical Research by James Hyslop, we read an account by Caroline Barber that reminded me of two events I have experienced myself.  We read the following:

"I had one day been spending the morning in shopping, and returned by train just in time to sit down with my children to our early family dinner. My youngest child — a sensitive, quick-witted little maiden of two years and six weeks old — was one of the circle. Dinner had just commenced, when I suddenly recollected an incident in my morning's experience which I had intended to tell her, and I looked at the child with the full intention of saying, 'Mother saw a big, black dog in a shop, with curly hair,' catching her eyes in mine, as I paused an instant before speaking. Just then something called off my attention, and the sentence was not uttered. What was my amazement, about two minutes afterward, to hear my little lady announce, ' Mother saw a big dog in a shop.' I gasped. ' Yes, I did ! ' I answered ; ' but how did you know ? ' 'With funny hair,' she added, quite calmly, and ignoring my question."

I have had experiences just like this with my own family members. Once I was at a zoo with my two daughters. We had not seen any apes that day, and were not close to any glass. For some reason I thought of a time about 10 years earlier when the three of us had briefly seen a gorilla just behind a wall of glass. I was just about to say something like, "Do you remember that time years ago when we saw that gorilla behind the glass?" An instant later, before I said anything like that, one of my daughters asked me exactly that question. On another day, I was just about to say, "See you later, alligator" to the same daughter. But I decided not to say that, thinking that she might be offended by such a remark. So I simply said, "See you later." She then said, "See you later, alligator" -- a phrase I had never heard her use before. 

 On page 85-86 of the book Death and Its Mystery: Before Death by the astronomer Camille Flammarion, we read of a man who had a horse accident that caused him to break his collarbone while he was trying to return home. At the very same time, his wife far away was struck by the conviction that her husband must have died or been injured. 

On page 33 of Volume 7 of the Annals of Psychical Science (1908), we have an account of a woman who went into trance and started to speak with the "voice, gestures, and play of features habitual with" her mother, and that "strange to say, her eyes changed color; being naturally brown, they became blue, the color of" her mother's eyes.  

On page 556 of Volume 6 of the Annals of Psychical Science (1907), we have the following statement asserting that levitation and apparitions of hands were observed under carefully controlled conditions, by quite a few distinguished scientists and professors:

"A SERIES of seances with Eusapia Paladino have just been held in Naples. They have been perhaps more important than all that have preceded them, because conducted under even more severe scientific control. These seances took place in the laboratory of Professor Ph. .Bottazzi, Director of the Physiological Institute in the University of Naples. There were also present, Dr. G. Galeotti, Professor of General Pathology in the University of Naples; Dr. T. De Amicis, Professor of Dermatology and Syphilography at the same University, Dr. 0. Scarpa, Professor of Electro-Chemistry at the Polytechnic School in Naples; M. E. Jona, Senator, President of the Italian Electro. Technical Association; Dr. A. Cardarelli, Senator, Professor of Clinical Medicine in the University of Naples; M. N. Minutillo, Professor of Jurisprudence in the University. Mme. Bottazzi was also present at two seances, in the course of which mediumistic faculties revealed themselves in her-which disturbed her considerably. By the light of three lamps the table round wbich the experimenters were seated was seen to rise as high as nearly half a yard (4oc.) or to float in the air untouched, without any contact with Eusapia, for about twenty-five minutes; then apparitions of hands began, and of black heads, etc." 

More details about these "apparitions of hands" can be found on pages 105-109 of the same volume.  On pages 120-130 of the same volume, we have an astonishing paper entitled "The Levitations of the Medium Zuccarini." It discusses observations of levitations by the medium M. Amedeo Zuccarini witnessed by several observers. On page 127 of the same volume we read the following, written by a Professor O. Murani:

"Whilst the left leg of the medium was stretched out in the air behind the curtain, where there was no possible object to support it, and whilst his body was bent forwards, the foot on the edge of the table first contracted extraordinarily, then rose gradually, and not by jumps, and the medium's body remained poised in space for a period of from ten to twelve seconds ! The phenomenon was exceedingly interesting : on the first impression one would say that the medium's body did not obey the laws of gravity. How is this to be explained no one knows; it is necessary to suppose that another force, opposed to that of gravity, prevents the fall."

Following page 134 we have photographs documenting this claim. In the nineteenth century a similar levitation phenomenon was observed by a host of distinguished observers in seances of the medium Daniel Dunglas Home, observers including the world-class scientist William Crookes (as discussed here).  

Professor M. L. Patrizi testifies to the same effect, that Zuccarini levitated. He states, "The duration of the suspension was variable, lasting while we could count from four to thirty-six, as also was the distance of his feet from the surface of the table (approximately from two to twenty inches)."  On page 140 of the same volume the same professor states the following;

"Sceptical readers, perusing the record of so many precautions, so many doubts, and so much initial scepticism, will have recognised that the conviction of the genuineness of this phenomenon was only reached, by me also, slowly and with difficulty. Of the four seances at which I was present, I may say that only the last, of March 23rd, gave me complete certainty ; of the eight journeys which I made between Modena and the meeting place in Milan, the final one back to the laboratory alone constitutes my 'journey to Damascus.' "

I was surprised to read recently on the online web site of Scientific American an interview with journalist Leslie Kean, the author of the excellent book Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife.  What I was very surprised by was that the interviewer (John Horgan) actually allowed Kean to talk at some length about evidence for life after death, the type of evidence that Scientific American almost never allows its readers to hear about. Kean referrred us to a remarkable piece of evidence from the early twentieth century, involving the medium Indridi Indridason. 

The evidence (discussed in detail here) involves statements of a "drop-in communicator" speaking though the lips of the medium Indridi Indridason. In a seance with Indridason held in Reykjavik, Iceland on November 24, 1905, this seemingly paranormal "drop-in communicator" identified himself as Mr. Jensen, and stated that a fire had started in a factory in Copenhagen, Denmark (more than 1300 miles away) on that evening (November 24, 1905) about midnight, and that the fire was quickly brought under control. It was soon found out that exactly such a thing had happened. A newspaper reported that in Copenhagen on November 24, 1905, a factory fire had started about midnight, and was soon brought under control. There were no telephones in Reykjavik until the next year, and no telegraphs until 1918, so there is no way in which electrical communication could have made such a thing known to Indridasson or anyone else at the seance.  Not many days later the same "drop in communicator" more specifically identified himself as Emil Jensen. 

No one present knew whether such an Emil Jensen had ever lived. But it was found out many years later through the investigation of Erlendur Haraldsson that an Emil Jensen had lived and died in Copenhagen, Denmark, very near to the place where the Copenhagen fire had occurred.  The "Emil Jensen" in the seances identified himself as a manufacturer who was a bachelor, and the actual Emil Jensen was such a person. 

Very remarkably, this "drop-in communicator" at the seance (speaking through the lips of the medium Indridi Indridason) had spoken in Danish, a language which Indridason did not even know (pages 218-219).  We read this on  page 221:

"At many sittings Jensen was seen by sitters appearing in a 'luminous, beautiful light-pillar', usually very briefly but several times during the same séance and at various locations in the hall. This 'pillar of light' would first appear in the darkness, and after that Jensen would appear in it. The 'pillar of light' was larger than Jensen and emitted light in such a way that Jensen and Indridi could sometimes be seen side by side at the same time (Gissurarson & Haraldsson, 1989, pp.82–85). Both of Indridi’s hands were at the same time being held by a witness to exclude the possibility of fraud."  

The physical manifestation reported above was only one of many extremely dramatic physical manifestations that occurred during the seances of Indridi Indridason. A special building was constructed to scientifically study this medium.  Under conditions under which fraud should have been impossible, a large number of witnesses (often including some of the top scientific or medical authorities in Iceland) reported seeing the following at the seances of Indridi Indridason (pages 203-204): 

• Mysterious gusts of wind, cold or hot
• Mysterious raps and other noises
• Mysterious voices or choir music
• Levitations and inexplicable movements of objects
• Levitations of Indridi Indridason himself
• Playing of musical instruments as if by invisible hands
• Mysterious fire balls or fire-flashes
• Writing appearing on paper without human touch
• Luminous clouds as large as several feet

In the paper here, Haraldsson discusses how the Indridason/Jensen case bears a remarkable resemblance to one of the best documented cases of the paranormal: the description of a distant fire by Emanuel Swedenborg in 1759, a fire that came close to his home in Stockholm. Before 15 witnesses Swedenborg described the fire while in another city of Sweden (Gothenburg, more than 200 miles away), and days after his description his account was found to be uncannily accurate. 

When People Speak in Languages They Never Learned

In the recent scientific paper "Lost in Another Language: A Case Report," we read a remarkable account of a 17-year-old Dutch boy who woke up from an operation speaking and understanding only English, a language he had used only in school.  The syndrome persisted for about 24 hours, and then faded away, with the boy returning to his language habits of understanding Dutch and using Dutch. It seems this was an example of a rare syndrome called foreign language syndrome in which similar events happen.  As remarkable as such a case is, it seems that even more remarkable language anomaly cases have been recorded: those in which a person seemed to use a language he had never learned.

In Volume 2 of the 1855 work Spiritualism by Judge John W. Edmonds (who served as Chief Justice of the New York State Supreme Court), we have a remarkable account of a psychic who is not named. Edmonds says he will give "a brief account of one medium whose whole progress I have witnessed with intense interest." 

First we are told the woman developed powers of clairvoyance. We hear a reference to the sea disaster in which more than 300 people on the SS Arctic died in 1854:

"Since then this faculty of knowing things at a distance has greatly improved. She saw the wreck of the Arctic when it was occurring. She saw and detailed with great accuracy, as subsequent accounts showed, the recent collision on the Canada Railroad, and that a few moments after it happened, and while the dead and wounded were being lifted out of the ruins. She has seen and described the state of things at Sebastopol and its vicinity, and she has frequently described scenes and conversations going on at the moment, at the distance of several hundred miles from her ; and all this, not when she was in a trance, but in a state of mental consciousness to all around her."

The account gets even stranger when we are told that the woman could speak in languages she never learned:

"She next became developed to speak different languages. She knows no language but her own, and a little smattering of boarding-school French. Yet she has spoken in nine or ten different tongues, sometimes for an hour at a time, with the ease and fluency of a native. It is not unfrequent that foreigners converse with their spirit-friends through her in their own language. A recent instance occurred where a Greek gentleman had several interviews, and for several hours at a time carried on the conversation on his part in Greek, and received his answers sometimes in that language and sometimes in English ; yet until then she had never heard a word of modern Greek spoken. About the same time her musical powers became developed. She has repeatedly sang in foreign languages, such as Italian, In- dian, German, and Polish."

On the same page we get this remarkable claim:

"Her next advance was to see spirits and spiritual scenes, and now scarcely a day passes that she does not describe the spirits who are present, entire strangers to her, yet very readily recognized and identified by their inquiring friends. This has of late been witnessed by very many persons, and many an, unbeliever in spiritual intercourse has been overwhelmed with the evidence of identity which thus by sight and by communion has been presented."

On this page of a book by another author, we read that this woman was a  daughter of Judge Edmonds, Laura Edmonds:

"Miss  Laura  Edmonds,  a  daughter  of  the  Judge,  also  pursued  her researches  in  the  same  direction,  and  became  developed  as  an  excellent medium  for  trance  speaking,  the  discerning  of  spirits,  the  gift  of  tongues, including  several  dead  and  living  languages  utterly  unknown  to  herself,  the ability  to  travel  clairvoyantly  to  distant  places,  and  communicate  with  absent friends  by  the  mental  telegraph."

A much later case of someone seeming to speak in a language he never learned occurs here. It involves statements of a "drop-in communicator" speaking though the lips of the medium Indridi Indridason. In a seance with Indridason held in Reykjavik, Iceland on November 24, 1905, this seemingly paranormal "drop-in communicator" identified himself as Mr. Jensen, and stated that a fire had started in a factory in Copenhagen, Denmark (more than 1300 miles away) on that evening (November 24, 1905) about midnight, and that the fire was quickly brought under control. It was soon found out that exactly such a thing had happened. A newspaper reported that in Copenhagen on November 24, 1905, a factory fire had started about midnight, and was soon brought under control. There were no telephones in Reykjavik until the next year, and no telegraphs until 1918, so there is no way in which electrical communication could have made such a thing known to Indridasson or anyone else at the seance.  Not many days later the same "drop in communicator" more specifically identified himself as Emil Jensen. 

No one present knew whether such an Emil Jensen had ever lived. But it was found out many years later through the investigation of Erlendur Haraldsson that an Emil Jensen had lived and died in Copenhagen, Denmark, very near to the place where the Copenhagen fire had occurred.  The "Emil Jensen" in the seances identified himself as a manufacturer who was a bachelor, and the actual Emil Jensen was such a person. 

Very remarkably, this "drop-in communicator" at the seance (speaking through the lips of the medium Indridi Indridason) had spoken in Danish, a language which Indridason did not even know. On page 222 of the document we are told that the Icelandic medium Indridason had minimal education and "learned how to write and read but no Danish."  We read this on  page 221:

"At many sittings Jensen was seen by sitters appearing in a 'luminous, beautiful light-pillar', usually very briefly but several times during the same séance and at various locations in the hall. This 'pillar of light' would first appear in the darkness, and after that Jensen would appear in it. The 'pillar of light' was larger than Jensen and emitted light in such a way that Jensen and Indridi could sometimes be seen side by side at the same time (Gissurarson & Haraldsson, 1989, pp.82–85). Both of Indridi’s hands were at the same time being held by a witness to exclude the possibility of fraud."  

Swarnlata Mishra was born in Shahpur, in northern India in 1948. When she was three, her father took on a trip to another city, and Swarnlata made odd statements rather suggesting a previous life in the city. Then two years later she (according to this account) "began performing dances, first for her mother and then for others, while also singing in a foreign language she had never had the opportunity to learn."

Iris Farczády was a young Hungarian medium who in trances might seem to be taken over by the spirit of some deceased person, as sometimes seems to occur during seances.  We read the following:

"In 1933 she was taken over by a spirit who identified herself as a 41-year-old Spanish charwoman named Lucía Altarez de Salvio. Lucía did not leave Iris, as earlier communicators had done. She spoke Spanish, understood no Hungarian, and only gradually learned German, the language spoken by Iris’s family. She said that she had died three months before in Madrid, leaving a husband and numerous children. After the transformation, Iris found a new talent in cooking and enjoyed singing Spanish songs and flamenco dancing....Iris was nearly eighty at the time of the last interviews, but still identified herself as Lucía."

The case is also described here, where it explicitly states that Iris had never learned Spanish, but spoke it well. We are told "Lucía’s mastery of Spanish in the Madrilene dialect was precise." The case resembles the astonishing case of Mary Lurancy Vennum described here. But in that case Mary Lurancy Vennum for only three months claimed to be someone else (Mary Roff, who had died a year after Mary Lurancy Vennum was born).  In the case of Iris Farczády, we have someone who apparently claimed to be a different person (Lucía Altarez de Salvio) for more than sixty years. 

Another similar case is the case of Uttara Huddar, an Indian woman described below by an entry in the Psi Encyclopedia of the Society for Psychical Research:

"This is a 1970s Indian case of an educated woman, Uttara Huddar, whose personality and memories abruptly changed at the age of 32 to those of a rural villager, Sharada, who had lived and died a century and a half earlier. The transformation proved temporary, but the Sharada personality continued to appear intermittently throughout Uttara’s life. A striking feature of this case is the linguistic element: as ‘Sharada’, Uttara was unable to speak Marathi, her native language, only Bengali, which she previously knew only a little, but could now speak fluently, and in an archaic dialect."

You can read about this fascinating case here.

The article on xeonglossy at www.encyclopedia.com states the following: 

"According to the book Modern American Spiritualism, by Emma Hardinge Britten (1870), in addition to Laura Edmonds, the gift was demonstrated at an early period by Jenny Keyes, who sang in trance in Italian and Spanish, and by a Mrs. Shepherd, Mrs. Gilbert Sweet, a Miss Inman, a Mrs. Tucker, Susan Hoyt, A. D. Ruggles, and several others whose names she was not permitted to make public. They frequently spoke in Spanish, Danish, Italian, Hebrew, Greek, Malay, Chinese, and Indian....In The Two Worlds (March 31, 1933), F. H. Wood wrote of the medium Rosemary and 'Lady Nona,' her ancient Egyptian control: 'The fact is now established beyond disproof that over 140 Egyptian word-phrases which were in common use when the great Temple of Luxor in Egypt was built, have been spoken fluently through an English girl who normally knows nothing about the ancient tongue.' " 

Luxor Temple in Egypt

The long book Man and His Relations by Samuel Byron Brittan MD is a little-known gem of psychology and parapsychology. In a chapter that includes some fascinating accounts of people performing extremely complex tasks while sleepwalking, on page 373 we have some fascinating accounts of people who could speak in languages they had never learned (references to "magnetic sleep" referred to hypnotized subjects): 

"Fernel  reports  the  facts  respecting  a boy  who  could  speak Greek  and  Latin  when  in  the  magnetic  sleep.  Lorry  also mentions  the  case  of  a girl  of  ten  years  that  would  make long  speeches  when  her  mother  placed  one  hand  on  her head.  When  the  hand  was  removed  the  flow  of  words  and ideas  was  immediately  interrupted.  Professor  Agardh,  of Lund,  Sweden,  furnishes  another  interesting  example.  He met  with  a magnetic  sleeper  in  the  person  of  a boy  who could  speak  Latin  with  greater  fluency  than  his  native tongue.  He  could  also  converse  in  French.  On  one  occasion, when  a person  educated  in  the  English  language  had expressed  doubts  of  his  ability  to  speak  languages  he  had never  learned,  the  boy  immediately  commenced  a conversation in  English,  and  the  skeptic  was  obliged  to  acknowledge that  he  spoke  the  language  as  freely  and  correctly  as  an  educated Englishman.  At  the  same  time  the  teacher  affirmed that  his  pupil  had  never  learned — by  the  ordinary  process of  scholastic  training — a word  that  he  had  uttered."

In another equally long and equally fascinating book on paranormal phenomena ("Psychical and Supernormal Phenomena, Their Observation and Experimentation" by Dr. Paul Joire), we read of a paranormal "twofer": a levitation combined with a speaking in a language unknown to the speaker. In the middle of several pages (pages 451-454) documenting levitations of the Italian medium Eusapia Palladino we read this quote from a Dr. Ochorowicz:

"Another  most  surprising  and  very  rare  fact  (also obtained  at  the  Congress  at  Milan)  was  the  complete levitation  of  the  very  person  of  the  medium,  who,  held throughout  by  the  hands  and  feet,  was  raised  from  the ground  and  carried  in  a  cataleptic  condition  along  with her  chair  on  to  the  table. 'I  will  raise  my  medium  in  the  air,'  Eusapia  said  in very  correct  French  (a  language  she  does  not  know  in  her normal  condition),  and  she  was  actually  raised.  Such was  at  least  my  impression  during  several  seconds.  By passing  my  hand  under  her  boots  I  am  able  to  testify  that there  was  a  space  of  from  four  to  five  inches  between  them and  the table. On  another  occasion  the  medium  was  suddenly  raised from  the  floor.     She  was  standing,  and  Mme.  Ochorowicz had  time  to  pass  her  hand  between  Eusapia's  feet  and  the floor."

In his book The Voices (which can be read here) the writer William Usborne Moore (formerly a Vice-Admiral) discusses his experiences with the medium Etta Wriedt.  The excellent scholarly work Psychics, Sensitives and Somnambules by Rodger I. Anderson says this on page 186 about Wriedt:

"Wriedt's voices regularly carried on intelligent conversations in Arabic, Croatian, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Serbian, and Spanish....Wriedt's communicators were often very successful in identifying themselves to the sitters, providing correct names and personal histories, referrring to facts and circumstances that were unknown to the sitter at the time but subsequently verified as correct....Wriedt was investigated scores of times by multiple researchers, all finding in her favor." 

Moore's long 400-page book (published in 1913) gives very many accounts corroborating such claims. He describes seances  occurring mainly in 1912, in a room without any audio equipment, at a time when all voice transmission technology was bulky and primitive. The loudspeaker was not really invented until four years later, judging from this quote:  "When Bell Labs introduced the first electronic vacuum tube amplifier in 1916, the true loudspeaker became possible." (Another source dates 1915 as the date when the first "practical dynamic audio speakers" were invented.)

Postscript: On page 9 of the document here, we have this account of xenoglossy (the reference to a guide seems to refer to a spirit guide):

"ADELA ALBERTELLI, Argentine, of Italian parentage, normally speaks only Spanish, and was educated merely at a primary school. _ Yet, in trance, when she gives also clairvoyance and clairaudience, she speaks and writes in English, German, Italian, French, Dutch and Portuguese. With the help of her guide, she has written in Latin about the life of Jesus. Names and places unknown to her have been correctly spelt, and she uses signs that are not employed in Spanish. There is a poem in English, and a love-letter in German, signed, apparently, by Byron, dated August 25, 1819, headed 'Bologna,' and addressed to Teresa Guiccioli, a 16-year-old girl. Another poem is written in a language which has not vet been identified. Sometimes she uses her own handwriting; but usually, especially when foreign languages are involved, the writing changes. 'Two Worlds,' which reports this case, prints a photograph showing five distinct styles of writing."

Levitation Reports: The Best Cases

Modern scientists typically maintain that nothing can rise into the air without there being some physical explanation for such a rising that scientists can explain. Those who maintain this opinion have typically never studied any of the very many accounts refuting such an opinion, accounts often written by very reliable observers.  Such accounts seem to establish very well the reality of inexplicable levitations utterly beyond the power of scientists to explain. 

In his massive two-part 1857 work A Treatise on Turning Tables, the Supernatural in General, and Spirits, Agenor Gasparin described some examples of inexplicable levitation, along with innumerable accounts of tables mysterious turning or tilting.  On page 53 we read the following description of the levitation of a table:

"Let us return to the demonstration par excellence the elevation without contact. We began by accomplishing it three times. Then, as it was suggested that the presence of witnesses exercised a more certain influence over a small table than a large one, over five operators than ten, we caused a round table, made of spruce, to be brought in, and which the chain reduced one-half, sufficed to put in rotation. Whereupon, the hands being raised, and all contact having ceased, the table elevated itself perpendicularly seven times at our command." 

In Volume 9 of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, beginning on page 245, we have a long account of paranormal occurrences at seances of the very well-respected figure William Stainton Moses.  The account includes numerous reports of levitations.  For example, on page 301 we read a witness stating, "The table was floated to the level of our heads; this in clear light."

In a previous post I quoted an account of how a large number of distinguished professors witnessed the levitation of a table at a seance of Eusapia Palladino. Here is part of the account quoted: "By the light of three lamps the table round wbich the experimenters were seated was seen to rise as high as nearly half a yard (4oc.) or to float in the air untouched, without any contact with Eusapia, for about twenty-five minutes."  Such levitations were observed very many times on many different days by professors during experiments with Eusapia Palladino, under conditions in which she was physically constrained or observed so closely that no secret fraud was possible. (Transgressions under looser conditions do nothing to discredit such observations under stringent conditions in which secret fraud was impossible.) Numerous photographs of such levitations have been published.  Below is one, from a page of an Italian book:

On pages 417-418 of this book we have a description of a session with Palladino attended by Professor P. Foa and two doctors. We read not merely descriptions of levitations of a table, but the mysterious piece-by-piece dismantling of a table before the eyes of witnesses. We are told the table "continued to break up under the eyes of every one present," and that "its different parts were torn off, then the boards themselves went to pieces."

Referring to table levitations at the seances of Palladino, an observer states this:

"I have probably seen several hundred of these levitations, now, under every conceivable condition and in excellent light, and I consider them so far established that, as Count Solovovo said, the burden of proof is now on the man who asserts that they are not real ; not upon the man who asserts that they are. I have seen levitations take place time after time in a brilliantly-lighted room, when Eusapia's feet were clearly seen, when her knees were held, and no part of her clothing was in contact with the table, when her feet had been tied with rope to the feet of her chair, when both Eusapia's feet were held under the table by a third controller, when the ' stocks ' ap paratus was in use, when the controllers on either side of her passed their hands to and fro repeatedly between the medium's legs and body and the table, when her hands were off the table altogether, when the medium was standing up. These levitations, too, were not all of them of the sudden, almost instantaneous character seen by us in Naples. We have had levitations lasting twenty and twenty-five and thirty seconds, and even longer, as timed by the watch on the stenographer's table. These levitations, too, some of them, have been two feet or more from the floor....During nearly all these levitations the controllers had ample time, as a rule, to pass their hands between the table and the medium's body, in order to prove that no hook or similar attachment was possible, as Mr. W. S. Davis suggested, and, in fact, publicly stated was the case !"

In the previously mentioned post of mine I also quoted a professor Murani who reported seeing levitations of the medium M. Amedeo Zuccarini. In the photos preceding page 136 of the publication here we see a man suspended about 18 inches above a table, with two observers holding his hands (something done to rule out trickery such as using a hand to hold on to a wire hanging from the ceiling).   On page 136 we read this:

"Our hands, not bent at all, but drawn upwards by the medium's arms, simultaneously felt that his body was ascending. The duration of the suspension was variable, lasting while we could count from four to thirty-six, as also was the distance of his feet from the surface of the table (approximately from two to twenty inches)."

The key issue here is whether Zuccarini could have been propping himself up using the hands that held his. The testimony that such hands were "drawn upwards by the medium's arms" rather than pushed downward rules out such a possibility. 

Volume VIII of the Annals of Psychical Science (July-September 1909) has a long account by the distinguished scholar and psychical researcher Julian Ochorowicz, author of the long and fascinating work Mental Suggestion. Ochorowicz describes at great length a long series of experiments with Stanislawa Tomczyk, who among other wonders could apparently manipulate the dials or needles (under glass) of various instruments. Tomczyk was also apparently able to levitate a variety of objects. The beginning of the volume contains nine very clear photos of such levitations.  Two of them are below. 

Mysterious rise of a magnet

Tomczyk in action

Although there is no sign of such a thing in any of the photos I mentioned, Ochorowicz mentions sometimes very faintly seeing a thread-like thing between Tomczyk's hands, but only seeing such a thing during some of the levitations.  On page 369 he describes levitation which cannot be explained by any thread between the hands:

"From the moment when I mentioned having seeing a thread, the medium behaved as if she wished to contradict these suspicions in various ways: the thread being no longer visible, the medium held her hands motionless for the greater part of the time, and in spite of this, objects were raised and removed, sometimes to right and sometimes to left, sometimes even turning, and when she raised her hands parallel with the object, she moved the fingers about or executed little descending and ascending movements, independent of the object. Her hands, always very cold and very wet, were, moreover, empty, and did not leave the table a single instant."

On page 370 Ochorowicz formulates the following remarkable hypothesis compelled by his strange observations:

"It is possible to create mediumistically, between the medium's hands, a sort of thread, possessing for some minutes a certain consistency, which diminishes and disappears with the putting apart of the hands. The formation of the mediumistic thread is accompanied by a sensation of chill. This thread, created by the unconscious imagination of the medium, seems to present a case of objective material ideoplasm : the strong desire to raise a small object at a distance, brings by association the idea of a thread which would do this." 

In investigations of the medium Indridi Indridason, many reports of levitations were made, both of inanimate objects and of Indridi Indridason himself. Below are some excerpts from a paper by the distinguished researcher Erlendur Haraldsson:

"At the Second Congress in Warsaw in 1923 Nielsson reported on violent poltergeist phenomena around Indridi, much of which took place in full light and involved violent levitations of Indridi and those who tried to protect him from attacks... After the summer of 1905 movements and levitations of objects continued. For example, a table would levitate without anyone touching it, and on another occasion the sitters were unable to thrust a levitated table down with their hands. Knocks and bangs on walls and floor and in mid-air were common. There were levitations of the medium....Movements and levitations were frequent, of objects, small and large, light and heavy, and over short or long distances within a room or hall and sometimes quite high....Many levitations are reported, often with the medium holding onto another person."

Below are some quotes from the work "The Icelandic Physical Medium Indridi Indridason" by Loftur R. Gissurarsun and Erlendur Haraldsson:

Page 70: "A small table with three legs levitated so high that it 'bumped' into the sitters' faces...The sitters then tried with a very heavy table, which tilted a few times without being touched and once levitated completely off the floor."

Page 71: "A small table was abruptly levitated off the floor and up onto another table....Then another table behind Indridason levitated and landed on the table they were sitting at." 

Page 76: "Very soon the medium was levitated in the basket chair a great distance from the floor -- the creaking in the chair being heard while it glided, containing the medium, above our heads -- and was eventually rather noisily deposited on the floor behind the chairs."

Page 116: "The zither levitated many times.  It was seen flying at different speeds in various directions (the phosphorescent tape indicating this). There is no doubt that some of the movements were so far away from Indridason that he could not have reached them."

Page 126: "Many of the objects that moved and levitated around the hall were borrowed from various people."

The eminent scientist William Crookes was the co-discoverer of the element thallium, and was the inventor of the Crookes tube that was the forerunner of all television sets.  Crookes reported observing inexplicable levitations of both objects and people. In his Researches into the Phenomena of Modern Spirtualism, he states on page 37, “On three successive evenings a small table moved slowly across the room, under conditions which I had specially pre-arranged, so as to answer any objection that might be raised as to the evidence.”  Crookes states on page 40, “On five separate occasions, a heavy dining table rose between a few inches and 1 ½ feet off of the ground, under special circumstances, which rendered trickery impossible.” He also states on page 41, “At another time two children, on separate occasions, rose from the floor with their chairs, in full daylight, under (to me) most satisfactory conditions; for I was kneeling, and keeping close watch upon the feet of the chair, and observing that no one might touch them.”

 Describing levitations of the medium Daniel Dunglas Home, Crookes states the following on page 38:

"The most striking cases of levitation which I have witnessed have been with Mr. Home. On three separate occasions have I seen him raised completely from the floor of the room. Once sitting in an easy chair, once kneeling on his chair, and once standing up....There are at least a hundred recorded instances of Mr. Home rising from the ground, in the presence of as many separate persons."

On page 5 of his book Mysterious Psychic Forces, the astronomer Camille Flammarion states the following:

"I have so often seen a rather heavy table lifted to a height of eight, twelve, sixteen inches from the floor, and I have taken such undeniably authentic photographs of these; I have so often proved to myself that the suspension of this article of furniture by the imposition upon it of the hands of four or five persons produces the effect of a floating in a tub full of water or other elastic fluid, that, for me, the levitation of objects is no more doubtful than that of a pair of scissors lifted by the aid of a magnet."

 Very specifically, Flammarion states on page 6 that on March 29, 1906, he saw a table rise 15 to 20 inches above the ground while he and the medium Eusapia Palladino were standing above the table with their hands on it (the other observers being at a distance), and also while one of Eusapia's hands was resting on Flammarion's hand. On page 7, Flammarion says, “This phenomenon of levitation is, to me, absolutely proved, although we cannot explain it.” He also states this on page 7:

"I will add that quite often the table continues to rise even after the experimenters have ceased to touch it. This is movement without contact."

On page 47 of his book On the Threshold of the Unseen, the physicist William Barrett describes an experience in observing a levitation:

"Then the table began to rise from the floor some 18 inches and remained so suspended and quite level. I was allowed to go up to the table and saw clearly no one was touching it, a clear space separating the sitters from the table. I tried to press the table down, and though I exerted all my strength could not do so; then I climbed up on the table and sat on it, my feet off the floor, when I was swayed to and fro and finally tipped off. The table of its own accord now turned upside down, no one touching it, and I tried to lift it off the ground, but it could not be stirred, it appeared screwed down to the floor. At my request all the sitters' clasped hands had been kept raised above their heads, and I could see that no one was touching the table; — when I desisted from trying to lift the inverted table from the floor, it righted itself again of its own accord, no one helping it."

Below is a report from page 340 of Volume 18 of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, involving the  medium Stella Cranshaw, and referred to as Stella C.:

"The sitters having taken their places at table, incense lighted, and musical - box started , the ' Slade' table began to move almost immediately . It then started turning ( compelling the sitters to leave their chairs ), and was at once levitated to the height of several inches. Within the next twenty minutes the table was completely levitated at least six times — once for six seconds at a height of about six inches. During these levitations , which took place in the full light of the 60 - watt red lamp, the finger-tips only of the sitters were on the table top . Ceaseless movement of table followed , and once it turned over ; and then , upon request, righted itself....The sitters and medium pushed their chairs well away from the table; linked hands and held them high in the air; and without the slightest contact with sitters or medium , the table ( weight 43.5 lbs . ) , with a few preliminary raps and creaks, slowly moved . These movements without contact were kept up for nearly ten minutes, the table moving in every direction , with decided attempts at levitation...During one of these violent manifestations , the table was poised upon two legs, and the combined efforts of Captain Bennett ( exerting his entire strength ) , who was pushing the table - top in a downward direction , and the other sitters , who were trying to pull the table down , could not shift the table from its poise on two legs."

On page 341 of this account, the observer (Harry Price) states that once when a table was moving "of its own volition" during one of the seances of this Stella Cranshaw, the temperature inexplicably dropped to 43 degrees in the seance room.  On page 343 we read this about a seance with Stella Cranshaw:

"Several complete levitations were accomplished, the table finally turning over with its four legs upwards. In this most difficult position, again the table rose completely, some of the levitations being of 4 , 5, or 6 seconds’ duration."

Following page 285 of Volume VIII, No. 50 of the Annals of Psychical Science (April - June 1909), we have a long description of levitations at seances of Francesco Carancini, which are preceded by quite a few photos, one of which (Figure 37) shows a violin floating in the air. Figure 5 shows a table levitating above the shoulders of the medium, and Figure 7 (shown below) shows a trumpet levitating in the air.  The text describes observers witnessing levitations matching those shown in the photos. 

On page 305 of this account we read this: "At the seance held on the evening of November 27th, 1908, the phenomenon of the levitation of the medium occurred; he was levitated to the height of one yard, a phenomenon distinctly visible to the spectators; the controllers verified all absence of support from the table or chair."

W. J. Crawford was a lecturer in mechanical engineering, and the author of some conventional scientific works such as Calculations on the Entropy-Temperature Chart.  After years of research, Crawford wrote the book The Reality of Psychic Phenomena: Raps, Levitation, Etc.  The 270-page book describes in precise detail Crawford's exact experiments in which inexplicable levitations abundantly occurred. 

On page 44 Crawford states this:

"The levitation of the stool was the most spectacular case of the phenomenon I have seen. So high was the stool in the air, it is no exaggeration to say that if I had bent my head I could have walked right under it from one side of the room to the other."

On pages 62-63 Crawford tells us that he saw a 16-pound table levitated to a height of 2 feet, 5 inches, and that this occurred at his own house. We are told the table was "levitated many times,  the longest period being certainly over a minute."  The location of his own house rules out any possibility of some trickery prepared at some special room of a psychic.  A similar situation occurred with Crookes, who reported observing levitations at his own house.  Of course, since Crawford was an expert in mechanical engineering, he would have been the type of person most likely to have spotted any mechanical trickery if it had been rigged up at someone else's house, and he never reported seeing such a thing. 

On page 63 Crawford tells us this about one of these levitations of a 16-pound table observed at his own home: 

"During one of the levitations...I entered the circle and pressed down with my hands on the top of the table. Although I exerted all my strength, I could not depress the table to the floor. A friend who is over six feet in height then leaned over the circle and helped me to press downwards, when our combined efforts exerted to the limit just caused it to touch the floor."

While such a thing might happen if there were very powerful air jets coming from under the table, such jets could never have been installed through trickery in Crawford's own home, undetected by a mechanical engineering expert such as him. 

In his book The Reality of Psychic Phenomena: Raps, Levitation, Etc. (which can be read here) and his book Experiments in Psychical Science (which can be read here), Crawford describes exhaustive experiments with mysteriously levitated tables, none of which revealed any evidence of fraud or trickery. Below is Figure 1 from his Experiments in Psychical Science. 

Here from page 8 of the book is the text describing this figure, and the next figure:

"At a recent seance the table turned over on its side with edge of surface and two legs on the floor, surface remote from medium. Then it levitated in that position (Fig. 1) remaining in the air for about half a minute, with lowest edge about a foot above the floor. The surface (S) was about 4 feet from the body of the medium. It levitated again in the same way and then turned over in the air, very slowly at first and then jerkily, until its surface was horizontal and it had attained a normal levitated position. Fig. 2 gives successive positions."

Here from page 9 of the book is the Figure 2 mentioned in the text above:

Given unlimited piano wire and air jets to play with, a magician would be unable to achieve such a manipulation of a table in the air. 

Quite a few witnesses have reported levitations occuring during poltergeist incidents.  The Psi Encyclopedia's article on the famous 1977 Enfield poltergeist case includes reports of several levitation observations. 

Claims are sometimes made that levitation is unthinkable, as it would involve a violation of the law of gravitation. Such a thing is not at all true. We need not believe in any suspension of gravity during levitation, but merely the application of some unknown force exceeding the weak force of gravity. Every time you jump in the air you are exceeding the weak force of gravity that acts like it was trying to keep you from rising.   

As remarkable as inexplicable levitation is, I do not regard it as anything like the most impressive paranormal manifestation ever documented.  As described in the accounts above, levitation does not involve any extremely precise control over matter. I think a far more impressive manifestation is the unexplained phenomenon of dramatic patterns very massively occurring during photography of falling water drops, with hundreds or thousands of consecutive repetitions of very distinctive patterns or motifs, which has been enormously documented in published photos.  That phenomenon involves a degree of precise control over matter far greater than takes place during any reported paranormal levitation. 

Postscript: On the page here you can read eyewitness accounts by six named witnesses who claimed to have seen Margaret Rule levitate around 1697. At the page here you can read an account of Henry Gordon levitating, being witnessed by a church congregation. 

The post here has dealt only with cases in recent centuries. In Chapter 2 of his book Miracles: A Parascientific Inquiry Into Wondrous Phenomena (which can be read here), D. Scott Rogo describes at length earlier reports of levitations occurring with saints such as St. Theresa of Avila or St. Joseph of Copertino (1603-1663). Many people reported seeing such events. 

Her Book on the Great Beyond Is Startling But Substantive

Author of a best-selling book on UFO's, investigative journalist Leslie Kean has written a recently published book entitled Surviving Death: A Journalist Investigates Evidence for an Afterlife. The book includes some startling eyewitness accounts by the author, and has ten chapters written by various researchers (mostly PhD's or doctors) who have accumulated evidence relevant to this topic.

The first part of the book deals with evidence for reincarnation. Such evidence was first systematically gathered by psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, who spent decades documenting cases of children who claimed to have had a previous life, often doing a birthmark corroboration that links birthmarks on the child with the cause of death of a previously living person. Stevenson was able to find many cases of children who reported past lives, with the details apparently matching the lives of previously living persons. His research has been continued by Jim Tucker, MD, who contributes a chapter to Kean's book. Kean describes an interview with a family with a son who claimed to have had a previous life as a minor show business figure. Kean presents a list of 55 similarities between the child's account and the life of a minor show business figure named Marty Martyn.

On page 229 Tucker says that 70% of the children who claim to remember past lives say they died in their previous lives by violence, accidents or suicide. Could it be that reincarnation occurs only to those who didn't live to old age? It should be noted that a particular “past life” case never proves a universal tendency for people to reincarnate. There are always still possibilities such as voluntary reincarnation and the possibility that knowledge is being transferred in some paranormal way that does not involve reincarnation.

The second part of the book deals mainly with near-death experiences. There is a chapter by a person involved in one of the most famous cases, the social worker who found on a hospital ledge a dark blue tennis shoe that a patient claimed to have seen while floating out of her body. One chapter discusses children who claimed to recall a life between earthly incarnations. We are told on page 128 that one in five children who claim to remember previous lives report remembering some otherworldly or heavenly existence where they existed between earthly incarnations.

There is a chapter by Peter Fenwick, an MD who is the author of the excellent book The Art of Dying. Fenwick discusses deathbed visions, in which people close to death often report seeing visions of dead relatives. Fenwick's chapter includes this strange narrative (page 141) of people seeing a mist-like thing leaving the body at death:

What is seen has been described to us variously as a “smoke,” a “gray mist,” a “white mist,” a “very wispy white shape,” seen leaving the body, usually from the chest or through the head. Some describe the air being wavy, like the heat haze of a mirage. It can also be an almost solid white form.

In Part 3 of the book, Leslie Kean discusses her experiences with mediums, psychics who claim to be able to contact the dead. She discusses what she calls an “almost perfect reading” with a medium, one in which the medium mentioned 19 things that seemed to be accurate. There is a chapter by Julie Beischel, PhD, who has long done scientific research involving mediums, getting “highly statistically significant results” suggesting some real paranormal effect (an example of one of her papers is here). 

In Chapter 19 (page 231) Kean reports hearing the voice of her dead brother saying, “Leslie..I'm fine. It's okay.” She reports other strange experiences such as electrical disturbances and bottle caps flying off bottles. She also reports seeing a weird dark apparition that slowly dissolved. She says on page 238, “This really, actually, and without question was something otherworldly, ghostly, inexplicable, an apparition that I had witnessed right there next to me.”

In Part Four of the book there is a discussion by psychic researcher Erlendur Haraldsson, PhD of observations of a large variety of stunningly paranormal phenomena produced by the Icelandic medium Indridi Indridason while he was in a specially constructed observation center created to observe the strange effects he was producing, under controlled conditions apparently offering no possibility for cheating. As reported at length here, Indridason was observed at length in such a center by some prestigious people such as a professor and someone who would later become a prime minister of Iceland. Such witnesses could find no evidence of trickery or fraud. In a similar vein, Kean discusses some utterly paranormal activity at a séance she attended. Not wishing to give too many “spoilers” about her book, I won't describe this jaw-dropping activity in detail.

Nearly 400 pages in length, and including many references at the end, Kean's fascinating book is one of the more substantive treatments of life after death to appear in recent years. The book includes very many relevant accounts I haven't mentioned. Although the parapsychological significance of some of her personal accounts are debatable, Kean deserves credit for sticking her neck out and reporting astonishing personal incidents that many people might never reveal out of fear of being ridiculed. 

Postscript: In Chapter 3 of his book The Scalpel and the Soul, Allan J. Hamilton M.D. discusses a strange phenomenon he has observed. Hamilton says:

A dull, waxy, yellowish light accumulates around those who are about to die....This glow would seem to shine from underneath the patient's skin. Invariably, when I saw it, patients would die soon....I've seen patients precariously close to dying in the ICU, who have had this soft, candle-like light come into their being. Then it faded back to a crisper, cleaner white light as they recovered. But when the yellowish hue comes, the individual is near death.  

Poltergeists: 12 Dramatic Cases

Of people who experience spooky disturbances, some of the most widely discussed are those who seem to experience poltergeist activity. The average person associates "poltergeist" with the idea of some unseen, uncommunicative and mischievous spooky presence. one that makes itself known by making rapping sounds, tossing around or shaking objects, or opening and closing doors (either full-sized doors or cabinet doors). Let us look at some of the best documented cases of this type. 

The Tedworth Drummer, 1661

In 1682 a Rev. Joseph Glanvil published an account of an apparent poltergeist case he had witnessed in 1661. I cannot find the original text, but the text is reproduced in readable form in a chapter of the book here.  The paragraph here summarizes the strange occurrences:

"There are diverse particulars in the story, in which no abuse or deceit could have been practised, as the motion of Boards and Chairs of themselves, the beating of a Drum in the midst of a room, and in the air, when nothing was to be seen: the great heat in a chamber that had no fire in excessive cold weather, the scratching and panting, the violent beating and shaking of bedsteads, of which there was no perceivable cause or occasion. In these and such like instances, it is not to be conceived how tricks could have been put upon so many, so jealous, and so inquisitive persons as were witnesses of them." 

The Epworth Disturbances, 1716-1717

In 1720 John Wesley (the founder of the branch of Christianity known as Methodism) investigated mysterious sound disturbances reported as occurring between December 2, 1716 and the end of January 1717.  Here is part of the account he wrote up of the investigation, based on family letters and interviews with the family members:

"Presently a knocking began under the table. She took the candle and looked, but could find nothing. Then the iron casement began to clatter and the lid of a warming-pan. Next the latch of the door moved up and down without ceasing.... She heard someone coming down the garret stairs, walking  slowly by her, then going down the best stairs, then up the back stairs, and up the garret stairs. And at every step it seemed the house shook from top to bottom."

Starting at the point here you can read many pages of letters written by the witnesses of this strange phenomenon, followed by John Wesley's account of his investigation. 

The Hinton Ampner Disturbances, 1771-1777

In the April 1893 edition of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research (Volume 6), there appears an account of a  poltergeist case. Although occurring long ago, the account is based on letters written when the events occurred. The Journal introduces the case like this:

"The following is a case of so-called 'haunting' — inexplicable noises being constantly heard by the tenants of the house during an occupancy of about 6.5 years, and unrecognised phantasms being seen three times, on one occasion collectively, while some time earlier a figure, which was said to have some resemblance to the late master of the house, had been seen there by one of his old servants. A similar case —that of the ' Haunted House at Willington ' — was printed in the Journal, December, 1892, and though the present one is even more remote, it has the same merit of having been fully and carefully recorded at the time by exceptionally intelligent and trustworthy witnesses."

The Journal then gives a very long account, using letters written long ago. 

The "Stockwell Ghost" 1772

In her great long survey of the paranormal The Night Side of Nature, which can be read here, Catherine Crowe quotes a German publication describing dramatic occurrences of the poltergeist type. The pamphlet was entitled "An Authentic, Candid, and Circumstantial Narrative, of the astonishing Transactions at Stockwell, in the County of Surrey, on Monday and Tuesday, the 6th and 7th days of January, 1772, containing a Series of the most surprising and unaccountable Events that ever happened, which continued from first to last, upwards of Twenty Hours, and at different places."

We read this account of the beginning of the affair:

"On Monday, January 6th, 1772, about ten o'clock in the forenoon, as Mrs. Golding was in her parlour, she heard the china and glasses in the back kitchen tumble down and break; her maid came to her and told her the stone plates were falling from the shelf; Mrs. Golding went into the kitchen and saw them broke. Presently after a row of plates from the next shelf fell down likewise, whilst she was there, and nobody near them; this astonished her much, and while she was thinking about it, other things in different places began to tumble about, some of them breaking, attended with violent noises all over the house : a clock tumbled down and the case broke; a lantern that hung on the stair-case was thrown down, and the glass broke to pieces; an earthen pan of salted beef broke to pieces, and the beef fell about: all this increased her surprise, and brought several persons about her, among whom was Mr. Powlidge, a carpenter, who gave it as his opinion that the foundation was giving way, and that the house was tumbling down, occasioned by the too great weight of an additional room erected above,  so ready are we to discover natural causes for everything ! But no such thing happened, as the reader will find, for whatever was the cause, that cause ceased almost as soon as Mrs. Golding and her maid left any place, and followed them wherever they went."

Stranger things later happened:

 "A fresh scene began; the first thing that happened, was a whole row of pewter dishes, except one, fell from off a shelf to the middle of the floor, rolled about a little while, then settled; and, what is almost beyond belief, as soon as they were quiet, turned upside down; they were then put on the dresser, and went through the same a second time; next fell a whole row of pewter plates from off the second shelf over the dresser to the ground, and being taken up and put on the dresser one in another, they were thrown down again....A pestle and mortar, that stood nearer the left-hand end of the chimney shelf, jumped about six feet on the floor. Then went candlesticks and other brasses, scarce anything remaining in its place. After this, the glasses and china were put down on the floor for fear of undergoing the same fate; they presently began to dance and tumble about, and then broke to pieces. A teapot, that was among them, flew to Mrs. Golding's maid's foot, and struck it. A glass tumbler that was put on the floor, jumped about two feet and then broke. Another that stood by it jumped about at the same time, but did not break till some hours after, when it jumped again, and then broke. A china bowl that stood in the parlour jumped from the floor to behind a table that stood there. This was most astonishing, as the distance from where it stood was between seven and eight feet, but was not broke."

We read of more household items violently jumping about:

"A candlestick that stood on the chimney-shelf flew across the kitchen to the parlour door, at about fifteen feet distance. A tea-kettle, under the dresser, was thrown out about two feet; another kettle, that stood at one end of the range, was thrown against the iron that is fixed to prevent children falling into the fire. A tumbler with rum-and- water in it that stood upon a waiter upon a table in the parlour, jumped about ten feet, and was broken."

Later we are told of more astonishing events:

"A nine-gallon cask of beer, that was in the cellar, the door being open, and no person near it, turned upside down. A pail of water that stood on the floor, boiled like a pot. A box of candles fell from a shelf in the kitchen to the floor; they rolled out, but none were broken: and a round mahogany table overset in the parlour."

The pamphlet ends with this declaration:

 "The above narrative is absolutely and strictly true, in witness whereof we have set our hands this eleventh day of January, 1772.

 Mary Golding.

 John Pain.

 Mary Pain.

 Eichard Fowler.

 Sarah Fowler.

 Mary Martin."

The Willington Disturbances, 1835-1847

In 1892 Volume 5 of the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research published a diary recording a record of mysterious disturbances starting in 1835 and lasting until 1847. The diary was written around the same time the disturbances occurred. It begins like this:

"Particulars relating to some unaccountable noises heard in the house of J. and E. Procter, Willington Mill, which began about three months prior to the present time, viz., 1 mo. 28th, 1835, still continuing, and for which no adequate natural cause has hitherto been discovered. About six weeks ago the nursemaid first told her mistress of the state of dread and alarm she was kept in, in consequence of noises she had heard for about two months, occurring more particularly nearly every evening when left alone to watch the child [my eldest brother, then about two years old] to sleep in the nursery, a room on the second floor ; she declared she distinctly heard a dull heavy tread on the boarded floor of the unoccupied room above, commonly pacing backwards and forwards, and, on coming over the window, giving the floor such a shake as to cause the window of the nursery to rattle violently in its frame. This disturbance generally lasted ten minutes at a time, and though she did not heed it at first, yet she was now persuaded it was supernatural, and 'it quite overset her.' "

On page 335 we read of apparitions being seen in the same place:

"For about two months previously there had rarely been 24 hours without indications by noises.... not in any other way accountable, of the presence of the ghostly visitant, to some or all of the inmates. A few days previously a respectable neighbour had seen a transparent white female figure in a window in the second storey of the house. On the 13th of last month (November), early in the evening, two of the children in the house, one aged about 8, the other under two years, both saw, unknown to each other, an object which could not be real, and which went into the room where the apparition was afterwards seen, and disappeared there.... Soon after going to her bedroom T. M.'s wife went out of the house for some coals, and was struck with a figure in the window previously referred to [nothing being between the two houses but a kitchen garden and a road] ; she called her husband, who saw the same figure passing backwards and forwards and then standing still in the window. It was very luminous and likewise transparent, and had the appearance of a priest in a white surplice. T. M. then called out the relative of the family and his own daughter. When they came the head was nearly gone and the brightness somewhat abated, but it was fully ten minutes before it quite disappeared by fading gradually downwards. Both when standing and moving it was about 3 feet from the floor of the room."

Later we read of some spooky poltergeist activity: "About the 21st...E. P. and nurse Pollard both felt themselves raised up and let down three times." On the same page we read this: "He said that something under the crib raised him up very quickly many times, and wished to know what it could be."

There follows a long account of many spooky disturbances and inexplicable noises in the house, which dragged on until the family finally fled the house in 1847.  We read this spooky account of the resident's last night in the house:

"Finding life in the house to be no longer tolerable ; fearing also an unhappy effect, if not a permanent injury on the minds of their children should they remain longer in such a plague-ridden dwelling, they finally left it in 1847, and went to reside at Camp Villa, North Shields, social and other reasons also influencing them in taking this step. My parents have both repeatedly told me that during the last night they slept in the old house, the rest of the family having preceded them to the new one, there were continuous noises during the night, boxes being apparently dragged with heavy thuds down the now carpetless stairs, non-human footsteps stumped on the floors, doors were, or seemed to be, clashed, and impossible furniture corded at random or dragged hither and thither by inscrutable agency ; in short, a pantomimic or spiritualistic repetition of all the noises incident to a house-hold flitting."

The Phelps Case, 1850

The Phelps case is reported at length in Henry Spicer’s 1853 book Sights and sounds: the mystery of the day: comprising an entire history of the American "spirit" manifestations, pages 101 to 110. Phelps was a Presbyterian Reverend. 

The case started on March 10, 1850 when Rev. Eliakim Phelps returned to find his doors (which had been locked) unlocked, and that  "a number of figures, probably eight or ten, constructed with great skill by means of various articles of wearing-apparel and bed-room furniture, were found in the middle of the room, in a kneeling attitude." Regarding a boy of about 11, we read, "On one occasion he was fairly lifted from the ground, as though by a powerful man, and borne partly across the room." This was followed by a mysterious rising of a table. 

We read the following:

"The accounts of what was daily transpiring at Dr. Phelps's created, as may be supposed, an immense excitement and curiosity, and in the course of a few days the place was visited and inspected by fifteen hundred persons. The utmost facilities for investigation were afforded. Every nook and corner of the house was explored. Persons known as being the most incredulous on the subject were invited to spend days and nights in the family....So confident was Dr. Phelps himself that there was no trickery or deception in the case, that he issued a sort of public challenge to the effect that, if any one would visit the house and perform similar movements, under similar circumstances, and yet escape instant detection, he would present him with the house itself and all it contained."

One witness to the marvels (not a member of the Phelps family) stated the following:

"I have myself witnessed those phenomena, both alone and in company with others than the family, more than a hundred times, and, in the great majority of instances, under circumstances in which it was absolutely impossible, from the nature of the case, that it could have been done by any member of the family, or by any visible agency whatever....I have myself seen things in motion more than fifty times, and when no power was visible, by which the motion could have been produced. And so in regard to breaking windows. I have been present, and myself seen several panes of glass in the ' very act ' of being broken, and when I knew positively that no person in or about the house, could have done it without instant detection."

Here is what Eliakim Phelps himself had to say about these poltergeist disturbances at his house:

"The troubles at my house continued for at least seven months. During that time, events which cannot be accounted for occurred, to the number of two or three thousand. Many of them, to be sure, were of such a nature that they might have been done by human agency. But, in multitudes of instances, they have taken place in a way which rendered all trick or collusion utterly impossible. I have myself seen articles moved from one place to another; not, as your correspondent says, 'found them moved.'  I have seen things in motion more than a thousand times, and, in most cases, when no visible power existed by which the motion could have been produced. I can produce scores of persons, whose character for intelligence, piety, and competence to judge in this matter, no one who knows them will question, who will make solemn oath that they have witnessed the same things. As to the reality of the facts, they can be proved by testimony a hundred-fold greater than is ordinarily required in our courts of justice in cases of life and death."

The Cideville Case, 1850-1851

The Cideville case is reported in pages 220-225 of Robert Dale Owen's 1860 book "Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World." Strange disturbances began on November 20, 1850, and continued until February 15, 1851, typically in the presence of two children.  In the middle of these events there was a court trial involving a defamation case, in which a person accused of being involved in the incidents sued the accuser for defamation. As part of the court trial,  sworn testimony was made of the recent spooky events. From such testimony, Owen tells us the following:

• On Tuesday November 20, 1850 two children started to hear mysterious rappings that continued until the next Sunday. 
• On that Sunday someone requested "Strike louder!" The rappings then grew louder. 
• By December 3 there were mysterious movements of a table. 
• Later tongs were seen leaping from a fireplace.
• Later various people asked for there to occur a number of raps equal to the letters in their name, and they instantly heard the correct number of raps. 
• Various people asked for the raps to be made to the beat of popular songs, and the raps occurred in such a way. 
• The table the children were sitting at was seen to mysteriously move in a way the children apparently could  not have produced. 
• One day "every piece of furniture there was set in vibration... the witness confessed that he expected every moment that the floor of the apartment would sink beneath his feet," and "felt convinced that if every person in the house had set to work, together, to pound with mallets on the floor, they could not have produced such a. racket."
• After a table was seen moving by another witness, the table "moved forward a second time about three meters (about ten feet) into the room, the children not touching it."

The Atlantic Monthly Case, 1867

At the link here we can read the August 1868 edition (Volume XXII No. CXXX) of the Atlantic Monthly, one of America's oldest magazines (now publishing as The Atlantic).  The first seven pages have an article entitled "A Remarkable Case of 'Physical Phenomena.' "  We read an extremely well-documented case of poltergeist activity that dramatically dragged on for two months, with very many astonishing phenomena reported occurring during the months of July and August 1867. The writer (an H. A. Willis) quotes from a journal logging a great variety of inexplicable movements of objects.  Although the writer describes himself as very skeptical about deceased spirits producing effects in earthly homes, he seems to have believed in the physical reality of the inexplicable phenomena he described. One of the most dramatic events reported was the repeated ringing of bells suspended eleven feet high from the ceiling, which occurred only when young Mary Carrick was in the room. This occurred even after the bell wires had been removed, and often occurred with "violent agitation."  

We read the following summary of some of the incidents:

"Loud and startling raps occurred on the walls, door and windows of any room where the girl was at work, and followed the girl from room to room, and could be heard in her bedroom at night when she was apparently fast asleep. A little later, chairs were upset, crockery thrown down, tables lifted and moved, and various kitchen utensils hurled about the room. This was during July. In August a careful daily record was kept. The writer of the article states that he saw the table at which the girl had been ironing suddenly lifted when no one was near enough to touch it. This also happened when a child was sitting on the table, and when the writer and other persons tried to hold the table down."

The Indridi Indridason Case, Around 1905

There were innumerable inexplicable occurrences observed around the medium Indridi Indridason. A special observation society with many members was formed, and a dedicated building was used in Iceland to observe the very diverse spooky phenomena.  The society made careful daily records of their observations, which were the basis of later reports. At page 201 of the document here, we read the following:

"Haraldur Nielsson reported on Indridi’s physical phenomena and mediumship at the First International Congress for Psychical Research in Copenhagen in 1921 (Nielsson, 1922). At the Second Congress in Warsaw in 1923 Nielsson reported on violent poltergeist phenomena around Indridi, much of which took place in full light and involved violent levitations of Indridi and those who tried to protect him from attacks. One night these attacks, such as hurling of objects at Indridi and throwing him around, became so violent that he and his two protectors had to flee the apartment in the Experimental House (Nielsson, 1924)."

Indridi Indridason

The Eleonore Zugun Case, 1926

This case is reported in the August 1926 edition of the Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research, Volume XX Number 8, in the paper "which can be read here by scrolling to page 475. The account is written by the widely-read paranormal researcher Harry Price, who witnessed first hand some of the phenomena in May, 1926. We read this about events surrounding the 13-year-old Eleonore:

"Countess Wassilko has divided the phenomena witnessed in her household into several groups: 1. Raps on furniture, etc. 2 . ' Apports' from various rooms in the flat. 3. Stigmatic marks and weals on breasts, arms and wrists; scratches and abrasions. 4. Telekinetic movements and displacement of objects (some large) of true poltergeist type. 5. Automatic writing. 6. Disappearance and reappearance of objects which sometimes are ' lost ' for weeks. ( Comparable to groups 2 and 4 .) 7. Independent voice—very rare. 8. Sudden displacement of pins and needles which are found buried in the medium's hands, arms, etc."

We read the following:

"If the raps are of infrequent occurrence, 'apports' in the shape of ornaments, toys, etc., are transported considerable distances from one room to another. Locked doors seem no hindrance to the transport of these objects. A brush, say, will be carefully put away in its proper place and ten minutes afterwards will drop from apparently nowhere into the midst of the' Countess’s family who are' quietly reading within closed and fastened doors. This has happened over and over again."

We later read this, which ends up using the word "alight" which means "to descend from the air":

"Telekinetic movements and the abnormal displacement of objects constitute the great bulk of the phenomena witnessed through Eleonore, and place this mediumship in the category of poltergeist manifestations. Counting each well-authenticated ' movement ' as a separate phenomenon, the Countess Wassilko has had as many as 67 in one day, and 1,050 in three months....'The objects displaced fly across the room— though no one sees them in transit, and no one sees them commence their journey; they are frequently seen to alight, however."

On page 469 Price gives this conclusion:

"As regards the poltergeist manifestations, I feel convinced that some of the telekinetic phenomena witnessed by me were not the work of normal forces. The falling of the cushion, the flight of the stiletto, and the aerial transit of the toy dog were, I am certain, absolutely genuine and convincing phenomena. No system of springs, wires, etc., could have been installed for the purpose of deceiving me without instant detection on my part. It is not at all easy to propel a heavy object across the room without somewhat elaborate apparatus. I am quite convinced of the impossibility of anyone in the room having had a hand in the movement of the objects. Apart from my own observational periods, the Countess has had Eleonore under her care for months and, as I have stated, she has already witnessed over a thousand different phenomena. We cannot ignore the very careful work of the Countess who has recorded, arranged, tabulated, and dissected the phenomena in a scientific manner....Professor Hahn, of Vienna University, has likewise had some experience of Eleonore’s phenomena and thinks they are genuine."

The Enfield Case, 1977

In an article in the Psi Encyclopedia, we read this:

"In 1977, a house in the north London suburb of Enfield was the scene of violent disturbances of apparently paranormal origin. The occurrences were similar to those reported in other cases of the ‘poltergeist’ type: knockings and other noises with no apparent cause; doors opening and closing by themselves; furniture overturned; small objects hurled across rooms; picture frames ripped from walls; small fires that started and went out by themselves, and suchlike. The events continued for just over a year and in many cases were witnessed by neighbours, investigators, technicians, press reporters and broadcasters, police officers and others."

The Lalm Kindergarten Case, 2010

Below is an astonishing account on page 7 of the March 2019 edition of Edge Science magazine published by the Society for Scientific Exploration:

"In press reports from 2010, Lalm kindergarten in Gudbrandsdalen (meaning Gudbrand’s Valley), Norway, appeared to be a veritable haunted house. Between April 26 and June 15, all 15 employees witnessed diverse objects— cups, mugs, stones, jars, etc.—flying through the rooms! Sometimes these items seemed to appear out of thin air. In addition, doors opened and closed by themselves, figures were drawn with crayons moved by no one’s hand (no human’s hand that is...), feathers used for decoration organized themselves into specific patterns, and so on. More than 90 seemingly inexplicable episodes occurred. And, interestingly enough, many of these events were observed by two or three adults simultaneously. In some cases, there were even as many as 20 witnesses."