Other Worlds (10 page)

The unhappy Bell family was caught somewhere in the middle. Mr. Bell and his more intelligent friends denied the possibility of witchcraft. Others were more susceptible to the old superstition, and from these individuals we get the stories of black dogs and other strange animals, of evil smells and horses that refuse to move—all typical of the medieval witch's performance.

Eliminate these, however, and we are left with facts that are all the more significant because they do not fit into a preconceived framework. Perhaps that is why we find them contradictory and baffling. We, too, are accustomed to see psychic phenomena conform to an unconsciously accepted pattern of belief.

Yes, gentlemen, there it is—the word you have all expected and dreaded—the unconscious! In that single word we have the true explanation of the poltergeist. It is not a ghost or a disembodied spirit. It is a part of the haunted person—a segment of his or her own mind. No wonder it expresses itself in terms of the individual's cultural milieu.

I assume you are all familiar with the concept of multiple personality. It has formed the subject of a number of popular books and films. The landmark study of this phenomenon was made around the turn of the century by Dr. Morton Prince. He was consulted by a young woman named Christine Beauchamp, after a nervous breakdown had reduced her to a wreck of her former self. In the course of his analysis Dr. Prince found Christine to be an abnormally shy, withdrawn young woman, oppressed by a puritanical conscience. A conventional enough case, so far; imagine the
good doctor's consternation when one day an unfamiliar voice addressed him through this girl's lips.

Christine had no less than three separate personalities. Not only did they speak in different voices, but the very appearance of the body they occupied changed. The most engaging of the three was laughing, fun-loving Sally Christine knew nothing of this person, but Sally knew all about Christine, and despised her for her meekness and sobriety Often she played rude practical jokes on her alter ego, taking over the communal body and going for long walks. When she submerged herself and allowed Christine to waken, the bewildered young woman found herself miles from home with no memory of how she had gotten there.

I need not point out to you the dazzling significance of this discovery for psychic research. The spirit "controls" who speak through an entranced medium—the demon who possesses an innocent child and performs unspeakable obscenities—the poltergeist itself—may not these be examples of such a schizophrenic disturbance? Consider some of the characteristics of these secondary personalities, as reported by analysts who have studied them, and see how well they conform to the characteristics of the poltergeist.

Because the secondary personality is a rejected and suppressed segment of the mind, it is the direct antithesis of the original personality—cheerful and frivolous instead of serious, vulgar instead of puritanical, free and easy instead of shy. Often its behavior verges on the infantile; it plays practical jokes and makes rude remarks, as a child would do.

The secondary personality is extremely susceptible to suggestion. It may even be brought into existence by the indirect, unconscious hints of the therapist. Furthermore, it often displays greater intelligence than the original personality Some spirit "controls" have written poetry and even complete books, have composed music and
invented entire new languages. The explanation for this lies in the fact—I will try to put it as simply as possible—that the brain is a vast storehouse of untapped information. Somewhere in that mysterious labyrinth lies every scrap of information ever received, heard, or read. The unconscious mind can refer to memories, detailed and vivid, which the conscious mind has utterly forgotten.

The Bell Spirit was such a secondary personality. Its infantile behavior, its uncanny familiarity with Scripture and religious literature, its vulgar expressions—all fit the diagnosis of schizophrenic dissociation familiar to psychoanalysts. It did not develop into full and active existence until the unwitting Mr. Johnson challenged it to respond to his questions, and from that time on it reacted precisely as the individuals who encountered it expected it to react— singing hymns to Mrs. Bell, cursing and threatening the slaves, debating theology with the preacher.

So far so good, Podmore and Houdini will say. My theory is a little farfetched, but it accords with their belief that Betsy Bell's hands and vocal cords produced the tricks that came to be called the Bell Witch. Not at all, gentlemen.

The agent was not Betsy, but Betsy II—a split-off part of the girl's mind, functioning without her conscious knowledge. And it did not always employ Betsy's physical body.

I agree with Podmore that fraud is responsible for many poltergeist cases. But not all—no, not all. The disturbed personality demonstrates a form of energy. Children approaching puberty are almost by definition disturbed; they displace enormous amounts of psychic energy. Recent studies in extrasensory perception have proved beyond a doubt that such mental powers exist. The most significant of them, from our point of view, is psychokinesis—PK, as it is sometimes called—the ability to move objects by purely mental energy. Experiments at Duke University in America, at Freiburg in Germany, and more recently in the Soviet
Union indicate that even under laboratory conditions certain individuals can produce and control this force. When it is the product of strong emotion or mental disturbance, the force is even more powerful. There was undoubtedly some fraud in the Bell case, but I do not doubt that Betsy II, the dissociated, disembodied fragment of the girl's mind, was able to affect and modify physical space by means of psychic energy

Such disturbances are not produced by casual neuroses, they are the result of a profound cleavage, an explosive loosening of an infantile part of the psyche in which severe conflicts are repressed. What could cause this psychic lobotomy in a healthy young girl?

The Spirit hated John Bell. If it was indeed a part of Betsy Bell's mind, the conclusion is inescapable. Betsy hated her father. Her conscious mind had to suppress her hatred and the guilt it induced. This bundle of repressions was projected in the form of a poltergeist, who tried to work out the conflict by expressing both emotions in action—destruction of the hated parent and self-punishment for the crime. John Bell died; Betsy Bell was tormented and deprived of her lover.

But why did Betsy hate her father? Dislike is not hate, normal childish resentment of a stern parent is not a sufficient motive for murder. The onset of puberty in Betsy was the catalyst that gave birth to the Spirit. This event is often linked with outbursts of poltergeist activity Why not? It is an event of great emotional and physical upheaval. The onset of puberty in the female is marked by a dramatic physical change, with terrifying psychological implications. In earlier times the cultural-societal implications were equally traumatic. From the strictures of St. Paul to the medical opinions of nineteenth-century physicians, women were taught that they were vessels of iniquity; that no pure woman desired or enjoyed sexual intercourse; that their natural feelings and needs were sinful. It is a wonder, my friends, that any woman ever made a reasonable adjustment to this preposterous concept. It is no wonder that some of them found the adjustment impossible. Podmore's investigations indicated, correctly, that in the past the majority of poltergeist frauds were naughty little girls. The picture has changed in recent years, as outmoded sexual conventions have given way to a healthier attitude. We now find as many, or more, naughty little boys!

In Betsy Bell's case, however, some more intense trauma must have caused the intense hatred of her father and the resulting dissociation. My suggestion is purely speculative. It will shock and appall some of you. But it is based on years of clinical experience in psychology.

John Bell took sexual liberties with his daughter. This is the worst traumatic foundation for the development of later psychosis or neurosis.

John Bell's physical symptoms were self-induced, by shame and guilt. They are classic examples of psychosomatic disorders. The swelling of his tongue and the pain in his jaws, which prevented him from speaking—from confessing his sin; the nervous tics and convulsions, signs of irrepressible conflict and self-punishment. Child molestation, gentlemen, is not confined to brutish, uneducated men. It has occurred in the best families and in men of outwardly puritanical habits. Betsy, too young to fully comprehend what had been done to her, repressed her horror until the shock of puberty produced a regressive earthquake. If a fragment of her personality had not split off under the unbearable strain, she would probably have ended up in a hospital for the insane. Therapeutically the "witch" saved her reason. By revenging herself on her father, and punishing herself by self-mutilation and the loss of her lover, she attained sanity and lived, as we have seen, to a ripe and healthy old age.

But I see Sir Arthur is about to burst with indignation. Speak, my friend. I am ready for your criticism and your reproaches.

Your bundle of projected repressions, my learned friend, is a bundle of nonsense. Why, if everyone who suffered from suppressed emotions projected them in such a form, half the houses in the country would be afflicted with poltergeists. Your schizophrenia doesn't fit, either. You yourself said that the original personality is usually shy and puritanical. Betsy was cheerful,
healthy, outgoing—the exact opposite of Miss Beauchamp, and "Eve" and the other cases we've read about.

As for the suggestion of conscious fraud made by Houdini and Podmore—yes, many mediums and child poltergeists have been caught playing tricks. I admit that, but I believe they only resort to fraud when their spiritual powers fail for one reason or another. You investigators observe a youngster playing a trick and then conclude that all the phenomena, even the ones you didn't see, were produced by trickery. If that's your idea of logic, I want no part of it.

You are only correct about one thing. Betsy Bell was the center of the disturbances. Why, gentlemen, isn't it obvious that Betsy was a powerful natural medium? This is proved beyond the shadow of a doubt by her convulsive seizures. I have seen the same thing happen when a spiritual entity attempted to gain control of the body of an inexperienced medium. A trained sensitive can help a discarnate entity to accomplish this without difficulty. The "control" can then speak through the medium; having no vocal cords of his own, he has no other means of achieving the direct communication such spirits desperately desire. Betsy was unfamiliar with the procedure; it frightened her so badly that she resisted instead of helping, and after seeing that it was causing the girl pain and distress, the Spirit considerately refrained from its attempts.

There is evidence that when a life has been cut short before it has reached the term God set for it, a residue of psychic force remains, which has to work itself out. Such was the origin of the Bell Spirit. As soon as someone had the courage and the intelligence to question it, it replied.

If only the admirable Mr. Johnson and the good ministers of the gospel had had more experience! They did their best, but they did not know how to guide a troubled spirit to its rest.

The first, spontaneous reply of the Spirit to the question "Who are you and why are you here?" holds the key to the mystery—a key which, tragically, was never used. "I was once happy, but have been made to suffer and am now unhappy." How often have I heard similar statements! How often have I had the happiness of assisting a disembodied sufferer to understand its conditions or to fulfill an unfinished task, before guiding it into the beautiful world awaiting it.

Very often, too, I have heard frivolous and mischievous replies such as the ones that misled the earnest questioners of the Bell Spirit. For once contact has been made, once the door to the other world has been set ajar, a host of waiting intelligences may crowd through. This well-known fact accounts for the seeming contradictions of the Spirit's behaviour. There was not one single Spirit, there were many. One, the dominant, original visitor, was the sweet-voiced singer of hymns who quoted Scripture with such touching effect and who loved the goodness of Mrs. Lucy Bell. Others, such as the "witch family," are clearly examples of mischievous spirits, and I don't know why you should be surprised that disembodied spirits should be hoaxers. The same intelligence, inside a human body, often derives amusement from capricious tricks. The silly man, the arrogant man, the cocksure man is always a safe butt for such a joker.

The phenomena that have driven you gentlemen to such questionable lengths in attempting to explain them are commonplace to psychic investigators. Materialization of objects such as the fruit offered Mrs. Bell, the sensitivity of animals to spiritual presences, the ability of a discarnate entity to conquer the limitations of space and time—such things have been observed and recorded, not once but many times. None of the features of this case is unique, not even the voice. Mrs. Crandon, the marvelous medium to whom Houdini here was so unkind, had a control named Harry, whose
voice and vocabulary were decidedly masculine, quite unlike her own refined tones. And you, Fodor, investigated the "talking mongoose" case in 1931; you granted the similarities between its voice and that of the Bell Spirit, and admitted you did not believe the mystery would ever be solved.