Reimagining the poltergeist in twentieth-century America and Britain
cIRcle (University of British Columbia) January 1, 2016 Christopher Laursen 2 citations
Twentieth-century American and British psychical researchers, psychoanalysts, and parapsychologists reframed the poltergeist—traditionally attributed to spirits, demons, or elementals—as a product of the human mind, proposing the psychokinesis hypothesis: that the mind could affect the material environment. This shift was a form of scientific boundary-work aimed at gaining epistemic authority. The author argues that collaborative knowledge-making between researchers and those who experienced poltergeist manifestations enabled this hypothesis. No one is certain what causes the poltergeist phenomenon today, and few study it first-hand. The hypothesis itself became a mischievous force in twentieth-century culture and science.