Lately I've been reading Charles Mackay's famous 1852 book, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. An unabridged version is available for Kindle for only $.99. The book is a carefully researched, often entertaining, occasionally tedious overview of mass movements encompassing harmless fads and fashions (the length of men's hair, the catchphrases of the urban lower classes), destructive economic bubbles (Holland's tulip mania, the short-lived boom in joint stock companies), and disruptive social contagions (the witch-hunt hysteria, the Crusades).
A lot of this material is of interest when considering the psychology of Spiritualism, which – despite what I consider elements of underlying truth – took on many of the features that Mackay finds in other fads. He does not cover Spiritualism, which was still in its infancy when the book came out. My guess, though, is that he would have been entirely skeptical of it.
The section of Extraordinary Popular Delusions that is most relevant to our interests on this blog is the chapter titled "Haunted Houses." A short chapter, it's exclusively concerned with debunking the whole idea that spirits might wander the earth and cause mischief. The few examples Mackay provides of haunted houses seem to be clear-cut cases of fraud. In one case, which is representative of the others, a group of monks who wanted to gain possession of a property adjoining their monastery apparently faked a series of hauntings on that property, then petitioned the king for the chance to take it over and sanctify it. This generous offer was immediately accepted, the monks moved in, and the hauntings ceased. Nothing too mysterious about that.
But in the same chapter, Mackay moves on to what would today be called poltergeists, though he doesn't use that term. These cases strike me as more problematic for the author's easy skepticism. Here is the first of them:
Mrs. Golding, an elderly lady, who resided alone with her servant, Anne Robinson, was sorely surprised on the evening of Twelfth-Day, 1772, to observe a most extraordinary commotion among her crockery. Cups and saucers rattled down the chimney—pots and pans were whirled down stairs, or through the windows; and hams, cheeses, and loaves of bread disported themselves upon the floor as if the devil were in them. This, at least, was the conclusion that Mrs. Golding came to; and being greatly alarmed, she invited some of her neighbours to stay with her, and protect her from the evil one. Their presence, however, did not put a stop to the insurrection of china, and every room in the house was in a short time strewed with the fragments. The chairs and tables joined, at last, in the tumult, and things looked altogether so serious and inexplicable, that the neighbours, dreading that the house itself would next be seized with a fit of motion, and tumble about their ears, left poor Mrs. Golding to bear the brunt of it by herself.
Even allowing for exaggeration, it sounds as if something rather dramatic was going on – something frightening enough to scare off the neighbors and, before long, to chase Mrs. Golding out of the house herself.
She took refuge with Anne Robinson in the house of a neighbour; but his glass and crockery being immediately subjected to the same persecution, he was reluctantly compelled to give her notice to quit. The old lady thus forced back to her own house, endured the disturbance for some days longer, when suspecting that Anne Robinson was the cause of all the mischief, she dismissed her from her service. The extraordinary appearances immediately ceased, and were never afterwards renewed; a fact which is of itself sufficient to point out the real disturber.
Now I don't doubt that Anne Robinson was the source of the phenomena, in some way. But the conclusion we are asked to accept is that she necessarily had to be faking the whole thing. To more modern researchers, it is well-known that poltergeist phenomena typically center on a particular individual and will follow that individual from place to place. This may be because the poltergeist actions are produced by subconscious psychokinesis on the part of this person, or it may be because the poltergeist – if it is an independent spirit – is somehow attracted to or associated with this person. In any event, the fact that the activities stopped when Miss Robinson was dismissed does not prove that the phenomena were not genuine.
But, Mackay hastens to tell us, there was a confession in the case, which ought to remove all doubt:
A long time afterwards, Anne Robinson confessed the whole matter to the Reverend Mr. Brayfield. This gentleman confided the story to Mr. Hone, who has published an explanation of the mystery. Anne, it appears, was anxious to have a clear house, to carry on an intrigue with her lover, and resorted to this trick to effect her purpose. She placed the china on the shelves in such a manner that it fell on the slightest motion, and attached horse-hairs to other articles, so that she could jerk them down from an adjoining room without being perceived by any one. She was exceedingly dexterous at this sort of work, and would have proved a formidable rival to many a juggler by profession.
And so ends the story. I find several problems with this simple resolution. First, we get these details twice removed. They come to us by way of Mr. Hone, who obtained them from Rev. Brayfield, who apparently obtained them from Miss Robinson many years after the events.
More important, the story told by Miss Robinson (if indeed she did tell it) doesn't seem to explain the phenomena that we read about just a couple of sentences earlier. Perching the china precariously on the edges of shelves, or even jerking items around via horsehairs, would hardly account for "cups and saucers [that] rattled down the chimney—pots and pans [that] were whirled down stairs, or through the windows; and hams, cheeses, and loaves of bread [that] disported themselves upon the floor." Nor would it explain how "the insurrection of china" left "every room in the house ... strewed with the fragments," or how "the chairs and tables joined, at last, in the tumult." And much of this in the presence of witnesses.
Indeed, Miss Robinson must have been "exceedingly dexterous at this sort of work," which would be the envy of any professional magician, even today.
As I said above, even if we account for exaggeration and embellishment, the phenomena sound too dramatic to be explained so prosaically. But why would Miss Robinson to confess to trickery, if she wasn't guilty of it? (We will assume that she really did confess, although again we are getting her confession at thirdhand, many years after the fact.)
Well, I can think of one rather plausible motive. It may be embarrassing to be thought of as a trickster and the cheat who scared a foolish old woman, but in that era it was far worse to be suspected of witchcraft. Mackay, of all people, ought to know this, since earlier in his book, he devotes a long and gruesome chapter to the imprisonment, torture, and execution of hundreds of people on the charge of witchcraft. Most of these people were arrested on far slighter grounds than might have been cited against Miss Robinson. It may well be the case that she decided it was better to laugh off the whole business as a childish prank than to allow any lingering taint of collaboration with occult forces.
The fact that she apparently made her confession to a clergyman is perhaps not irrelevant. In many of the cases of witch hysteria cited by Mackay, it was an overzealous clergyman who got the ball rolling.
Mackay provides a second instance of what today would be called a poltergeist episode:
The latest instance of the popular panic occasioned by a house supposed to be haunted, occurred in Scotland, in the winter of the year 1838. On the 5th of December, the inmates of the farm-house of Baldarroch, in the district of Banchory, Aberdeenshire, were alarmed by observing a great number of sticks, pebble-stones, and clods of earth flying about their yard and premises. They endeavoured, but in vain, to discover who was the delinquent; and the shower of stones continuing for five days in succession, they came at last to the conclusion that the devil and his imps were alone the cause of it. The rumour soon spread over all that part of the country, and hundreds of persons came from far and near to witness the antics of the devils of Baldarroch. After the fifth day, the shower of clods and stones ceased on the outside of the premises, and the scene shifted to the interior. Spoons, knives, plates, mustard-pots, rolling-pins, and flat-irons appeared suddenly endued with the power of self-motion, and were whirled from room to room, and rattled down the chimneys in a manner which nobody could account for. The lid of a mustard-pot was put into a cupboard by the servant-girl in the presence of scores of people, and in a few minutes afterwards came bouncing down the chimney, to the consternation of every body. There was also a tremendous knocking at the doors and on the roof, and pieces of stick and pebble-stones rattled against the windows and broke them. The whole neighbourhood was a scene of alarm ...
Once again, we must allow for exaggeration and embellishment. Nevertheless, it seems as if something unusual was happening, and it doesn't appear as if it could be explained by simply placing breakable objects in unstable positions or manipulating objects with hidden strings.
Stories of the phenomena became more far-fetched as more people got involved.
The note of fear being once sounded, the visitors, as is generally the case in all tales of wonder, strove with each other who should witness the most extraordinary occurrences; and within a week, it was generally believed ... that the devil had been seen in the act of hammering upon the house-top of Baldarroch. One old man asserted positively that, one night, after having been to see the strange gambols of the knives and mustard-pots, he met the phantom of a great black man ... It was also affirmed and believed, that all horses and dogs that approached this enchanted ground were immediately affected; that a gentleman, slow of faith, had been cured of his incredulity by meeting the butter-churn jumping in at the door as he himself was going out; that the roofs of houses had been torn off, and that several ricks in the corn-yard had danced a quadrille together, to the sound of the devil’s bagpipes re-echoing from the mountain-tops.... The goodwife herself, and all her servants, said that, whenever they went to bed, they were attacked with stones and other missiles, some of which came below the blankets and gently tapped their toes. One evening, a shoe suddenly darted across a garret where some labourers were sitting, and one of the men, who attempted to catch it, swore positively that it was so hot and heavy he was unable to hold it. It was also said that the bearbeater (a sort of mortar used to bruise barley in)—an object of such weight that it requires several men to move it—spontaneously left the barn and flew over the house-top, alighting at the feet of one of the servant-maids, and hitting her, but without hurting her in the least, or even causing her any alarm ...
Toward the end, all credibility was lost:
It was said, that when the goodwife put her potato-pot on the fire, each potato, as the water boiled, changed into a demon, and grinned horribly at her as she lifted the lid; that not only chairs and tables, but carrots and turnips, skipped along the floor in the merriest manner imaginable; that shoes and boots went through all the evolutions of the Highland fling without any visible wearers directing their motions; and that a piece of meat detached itself from the hook on which it hung in the pantry, and placed itself before the fire, whence all the efforts of the people of the house were unable to remove it until it was thoroughly roasted; and that it then flew up the chimney with a tremendous bang.
In fairness, these later stories seem to have originated outside of the household, and were told by people with no firsthand knowledge of events.
Then came the denouement:
At last, after a fortnight’s continuance of the noises, the whole trick was discovered. The two servant lasses were strictly examined, and then committed to prison. It appeared that they were alone at the bottom of the whole affair, and that the extraordinary alarm and credulity of their master and mistress, in the first instance, and of the neighbours and country people afterwards, made their task comparatively easy. A little common dexterity was all they had used; and, being themselves unsuspected, they swelled the alarm by the wonderful stories they invented. It was they who loosened the bricks in the chimneys, and placed the dishes in such a manner on the shelves, that they fell on the slightest motion. In short, they played the same tricks as those used by the servant girl at Stockwell, with the same results, and for the same purpose—the gratification of a love of mischief. They were no sooner secured in the county gaol than the noises ceased, and most people were convinced that human agency alone had worked all the wonder.
As with the first case, I have to wonder if this explanation is entirely satisfactory. "A little common dexterity" does not seem quite sufficient to explain "a great number of sticks, pebble-stones, and clods of earth flying about their yard ... for five days in succession," or "spoons, knives, plates, mustard-pots, rolling-pins, and flat-irons [being] whirled from room to room."
I gather that the girls did confess, but only after being "strictly examined," which in those days probably meant being subjected to harsh physical abuse. Two scared, ignorant, helpless girls facing a prison sentence, with no one to stand up for them, might confess to almost anything if they thought they could obtain some mercy. And if one or both of the girls were the focus of the poltergeist activity, it wouldn't be surprising that the phenomena stopped as soon as they were put away.
Moreover, if either of the girls thought she was the center of the activity in some unfathomable way, she might have been tempted to confess to an elaborate prank rather than expose herself to more serious risks. Though the main phase of the witch hysteria was long since over, Wikipedia tells us that some people in that era continued to be victimized, primarily by private citizens taking the law into their own hands:
Despite the official ending of the trials for witchcraft, there would still be occasional unofficial killings of those accused in parts of Europe, such as was seen in the cases of Anna Klemens in Denmark (1800), Krystyna Ceynowa in Poland (1836), and Dummy, the Witch of Sible Hedingham in England (1863). In France, there was sporadic violence and even murder in the 1830s, with one woman reportedly burnt in a village square in Nord....
In 1895, Bridget Cleary was beaten and burned to death by her husband in Ireland because he suspected that fairies had taken the real Bridget and replaced her with a witch.
In such an atmosphere, taking refuge in a childish prank would surely seem safer than suggesting even a hint of a supernatural influence, which would have been taken as a sure sign of consort with "the devil and his imps."
Perhaps Mackay is correct in his skepticism of these two poltergeist cases. But he starts from the assumption that any sort of haunting is impossible, which makes him willing to accept some rather far-fetched non-occult resolutions. Those of us familiar with the past hundred years (or more) of research into poltergeists may be more willing to consider another possibility.
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