Authors: KATHY
Other Worlds (9 page)
Mr. Westlake went to Berkshire with an entirely open mind. The first day he saw nothing, but attributed the inactivity of the poltergeist to the factor called "witness inhibition" by some of my colleagues. They claim that the presence of an outsider, particularly a skeptic, puts a damper on the poltergeists ability to perform. Well, it does, but not for the reason they think.
Westlake observed that the parents, Mr. and Mrs. Turner, were genuinely puzzled and distressed. So was one of the children, a boy, who does not enter into this story. The other child, dwarfish little dark-haired Polly, said little at first; she sat in the chimney corner cuddling her two cats.
Later that day Mr. Westlake wrote as follows: "The Ghost is a humbug now, whatever it may have been. I made friends with the cats, and their mistress, poor child, gave me a private sitting of some two or three hours, in the course of which she moved between forty and fifty objects when she thought I wasn't looking. On at least seven occasions I had a clear view of her hands in contact with the objects, and saw them quickly moved."
This case is so typical of others I have encountered that I consider it offers the true explanation of the so-called poltergeist. Naive persons believe a mere child would be physically incapable of engineering the effects, and too sweet and innocent to worry her family in such a way. Balderdash, gentlemen—or, as Houdini might say, "Bunk!" Children aren't angels, they are human beings at a particularly troubled time of life. Resenting the control exercised over them by adults, they are too weak to fight back and too helpless to escape. No wonder they enjoy seeing the big bullies who rule them frightened and confused! As for the skill necessary, that too is a fallacy, though I admit one has to see the little dears at work before one can believe how devilishly clever they are.
Miss Betsy's lissome, twelve-year-old form flitted noiselessly along the dark halls of that isolated house, tugging at her brothers' hair, scratching and rapping and growling like a dog. The absence of artificial lights made the production of uncanny noises and whispering voices childishly simple. How often, in the narrative, did you notice the phrase "when the lights were brought in"? The phenomena ceased when a candle was lit.
Particularly significant is the story of the nuts and grapes presented to Mrs. Bell when she was sick in bed. Whose room was it that was directly over Mrs. Bell's? The fruits were in season in the nearby woods. The evidence of the witnesses, that there was no crack or hole in the ceiling above the bed, doesn't count for a jot.
How on earth were ladies in their tight corsets and full skirts to climb up far enough to make sure there were no loose boards?
Betsy didn't want to marry Joshua Gardner. Perhaps her parents were urging her; perhaps Joshua was becoming too insistent, and Betsy had her eye on the young schoolmaster. Why not use the monster she had created to rid her of the nuisance? Self-inflicted injuries are common in cases of fraud and hysteria. The little victim shrieks, "Ah, it is slapping me!"—claps her hands to her cheeks—natural enough—and behold, red marks are seen on her skin. "Help, it is pulling my hair!"—some twisting and writhing, an agitated attempt to push the invisible hands away—and a consummate little actress, breathing hard, tugs her own hair down.
The Bell Spirit was an inveterate gossip. It knew everything that went on in the neighborhood, and in places far distant. We needn't take this literally, for we know how this seeming omniscience operates in the cases of spiritualist mediums and fortunetellers. One or two lucky hits and the seer's reputation is established. After that, credulous people will believe everything he says. Betsy knew the neighbors well and played with their children. Do you think children do not gossip? They are the most dangerous of gossips because they tell the literal truth. "Papa was drunk again last night; he hit Mama, and she cried, and called him . . ." Betsy listened to her friends, to the slaves— who often know a great deal more about their masters than the latter would like—and to adults, who ignore the presence of a quiet, well-behaved child. And voila! that evening, the Spirit told all.
I won't try your patience by commenting on each detail of this story; only think it over in the light of my suggestion, and you will find that all the pertinent facts are explained. However, I must say something about the death of John Bell, for despite
my supposed prejudice against little girls I do not believe this child poisoned her father. Mr. Bell was in his late sixties. A medical man could account for his symptoms more readily than I, but I venture to suggest that any number of natural ailments, from allergies to nervous disorders, might explain his aches and pains. And Heaven knows the man had reason to suffer from nervous tension. The mysterious brown medicine that is supposed to have finished the poor gentleman off could not have produced that final coma—not if it was the same substance that sent the cat into immediate convulsions.
That Miss Betsy disliked her father I do not deny. I was struck by her remark, made some years afterward, that he often tried to prevent her from going on pleasure expeditions by lying to her. Interesting, is it not, that she should still remember this seventy years later? Mrs. Bell was happy to promote her children's pleasure; her daughter truly loved and admired this kind woman. Her stern father was only an authority symbol, and Betsy was not sorry when he died, though she would not have deliberately sought his death. Once he was gone she could enjoy herself and marry the man she secretly wanted. She was probably tired of the "witch" by that time, and was ready for more adult amusements.
"Well done, sir," the stranger said heartily. "To tell you the truth, when you gentlemen asked me to be present this evening 1 was a mite reluctant. I've always had a pretty dim view of this spiritualist business, and I guess I pictured you as—well—"
"Crouching over a Ouija board calling on the spirit of Aunt Sallie?" Fodor suggested with a smile.
"Something like that. I can admit it now, since I'm obliged to apologize. That was an ingenious summary, Mr. Podmore. I'm
glad to see some of you gentlemen are as cynical as the members of my own profession."
"You must have known Houdini was a cynic," said Doyle, with a touch of asperity.
"I wouldn't have come if I had not known he would be here," the stranger admitted.
Even Doyle laughed at that. Houdini remarked, "You see, Sir Arthur, unlike some prophets I am not without honor in my own country. Let me add my analysis to Podmore's; as you have probably anticipated, he and I are in substantial agreement."
Houdini:
A Case of Misdirection
With
MISS
Betsy
in the dock and myself a member of the jury, I would have to add a second "guilty" verdict. But I wouldn't be so ungallant as to have her stand there alone. No, my friends, there would be two others with her—her brothers John and Drewry.
John admits that he and Drew were suspected of having learned "magic tricks" while in New Orleans. Now that charming old city is, and was, the home of a unique kind of black magic carried to American shores from the West Indies.
Can't you see the Bell brothers—young, healthy, curious— walking the romantic streets of New Orleans with money in their pockets and time on their hands? They wouldn't have been normal young men if they had not taken advantage of the opportunity to enjoy some of the more exotic pleasures of the city. Witch doctors and conjure women, gruesome incantations and love charms—such experiences gave them tales and tricks to carry home to their unsuspecting parents and siblings.
The first raps and scratches on the outside walls of the house were produced by natural causes—wild animals, perhaps—but they stimulated the mischievous imaginations of these restless young men. Where did the first manifestations inside the house occur? Why, in the bedroom shared by the boys. And it was the younger children whose hair was pulled. Podmore has, quite rightly, mentioned the darkness in which most of these tricks occurred, but none of you city dwellers can imagine the total blackness of those country nights. It was May when Richard was lifted upright in bed by the hands clutching his hair; on a spring night, leaves and foliage would cut off even rays of moonlight, and there would be no fire to cast its dying glow.
Drewry's name keeps recurring in the earlier part of the narrative; if you remember he, as well as Betsy, "saw strange animals about the place," and it was he who violated the Indian grave and would be most likely to remember the story and his father's scolding when someone asked the Spirit to account for its presence. The next explanation the Spirit offered is even more interesting. Here, I suspect, John took a hand and set up a joke that forced his brother to put in a hard day's work digging. Drew could hardly refuse when the others were so keen without exposing his part in the plot.
Then Miss Betsy got into the act, with or without her brothers' encouragement, and the same darkness aided her performances. Think of the scene in which so many of these demonstrations took place—the Bells' reception room, in the late afternoon or at night. The windows were small, the walls thick; in that pioneer home the illumination was in all probability no more than the light of the fire.
Does that description remind you of anything, gentlemen? The conditions are exactly like the ones that prevail in most seance rooms. That is how false mediums produce their phenomena, under cover of darkness. I have exposed many of them; an ultrared photograph shows how they do it.
Now we come to the voice of the Spirit, which is certainly the most mysterious of the phenomena. Even at the time certain skeptics suspected Miss Betsy of ventriloquism, and tried to test her by placing their hands over her mouth. The Spirit spoke anyway.
Of course it did. Ventriloquism is one of the oldest of the so-called magic arts, but its mechanism was imperfectly understood at that time. There is no question of throwing the voice. The trick lies in a combination of simple breath control and misdirection—and of the two, misdirection is the more important, as it is in all sleight of hand. A trained ventriloquist learns how to muffle his tones by certain movements of tongue, lips, and throat, but even an amateur can create the impression of a distant voice simply by looking or pointing at the spot from which the voice is supposed to come. The soft whispers and whistles that passed for the Spirits first attempts to speak are particularly hard to localize. By the time its voice reached full strength the audience believed in it, and was in a mental state of uncritical receptivity.
This is the second factor that makes for success in magic, and that contributed to the phenomenon of the Bell Spirit—the belief, if not the active collaboration, of other people. Once the existence of the Spirit was established, every unusual incident or odd coincidence was attributed to its machinations. A branch is blown from a tree during a high wind, and a boy rushes home to report that an invisible spirit is hurling missiles at him. A stray cat or dog, seen in the gray of twilight, becomes a monstrous animal. Or an amiable bachelor who has imbibed a little too much of his own excellent whiskey has a nightmare and dreams of struggling with the witch.
So the harmless joke of a pair of bored young men infected a child who was at an age ripe for mischief, and grew into a monstrous thing, nurtured by the morbid superstitions of half the county. It was beyond their control, and as their unhappy father began to suffer the normal ills of old age, exacerbated by worry and nervous hysteria, John and Drewry were unable to endure the memory of their wrongdoing. The most significant part of the case, in my opinion, is the way these men reacted to their fathers death. Drewry was the only one of the Bell children who was so distressed that he became a virtual recluse, tormented by fear. Fear—or guilt? He was older than Betsy, old enough to realize his responsibility for the Frankenstein's monster he had carelessly created. He lacked the complacent conceit of John Junior, which is so evident in that gentleman's account of his dealings with the Spirit. John
had
to believe in the reality of this demon; it was his way of denying his guilt. He cursed it and condemned it, and it responded by telling him what a fine fellow he was. But it was John who threw the fatal bottle into the fire.
I don't believe in all the peculiar things you psychiatrists have invented, Fodor—your ids and your egos and your subconscious minds—but I've seen enough of human nature to know that people can actually reshape their memories of the past, forgetting the things they don't want to remember. John and Betsy succeeded in doing just that. Drewry failed, and suffered. Smile at my theory if you like, Fodor, but I'll wager that if we had been called into this case when it first began, we'd have met John and Drewry in the dark halls of the house, not Miss Betsy.
Fodor:
A Bundle of Projected Repressions
I
wouldn't dream
of laughing at you, Houdini. Indeed, I must thank you for introducing a concept that forms a vital part of my own interpretation—the obliteration of unpleasant memories. The technical term for it is "repression," and I'll have more to say about it later—more, perhaps, than you wish to hear.
You made another important point when you stressed the fact that the Bell "Witch" came into existence twenty years before the birth of spiritualism. The disembodied voices and mysterious rappings of the seance room were not new. Similar demonstrations had been known for centuries, under various names. Witchcraft, haunted houses, poltergeists, psychokinesis, communication with the spirits of the dead—all are different interpretations of the same essential phenomena, reflecting the cultural biases and backgrounds of the observers. But the most interesting thing about the poltergeist—we may as well continue to use that term—is that it
alters its behavior to suit the expectations of its audience. During the Middle Ages, when witchcraft as well as knighthood was in flower, the poltergeist performed the tricks common to witches and their familiars. After the advent of spiritualism, the same noisy spirits played tambourines and trombones and told eager inquirers that they came from a region of sunlight and love.
