It was summer 2006, and I was sitting in the office of Michael J Hallowell’s home in South Tyneside, typing up our case notes and discussing the bewildering chain of events that had occurred that very morning at 42 Lock Street, which was, at that time, the home of the South Shields poltergeist.1
Suddenly, the urge came over both of us to go and put the kettle on. As we left the office area we passed a bookshelf containing a large number of books; one of these books was a very large hardback – probably weighing at least 4lb – entitled The Borough of South Shields by George B Hodgson. As we made our way past the bookshelf, we heard a strange noise followed by a loud thump; we both jumped, turned around and were astonished to see The Borough of South Shields on the floor. Somehow, the hefty tome had removed itself from the shelf.
“Do you think we have brought something back with us?” I said to Michael.2
CONTAGIOUS POLTS
It’s an interesting question. Can a poltergeist follow you home? Can a poltergeist attach itself to you during an investigation? Can it ‘reach out’ and infect those that get too close to it? It sounds like a ludicrous notion – closer to a horror movie than real life – but, it happened to Michael and me, and it occurred on more than one occasion during the course of our investigation.
I had first come across the suggestion of the poltergeist being contagious during the 1980s when reading the late Guy Lyon Playfair’s book about the Enfield Poltergeist; and again in 1996 in a study by John and Anne Spencer, in which they state: “Where responsiveness leaves and contagion takes over is not always clear, but the evidence is that poltergeists do have an element of contagion attached to them. Those involved find that they ‘take a little home with them’ after working in poltergeist infested houses.”3
However, we can go back to the 1970s to find earlier references to poltergeist contagion. The noted American parapsychologist and author D Scott Rogo wrote in his 1979 book The Poltergeist Experience: “It is common for the poltergeist to follow its primary victims, who, as I have pointed out before, are probably causing the disturbances to begin with. But on rare occasions a poltergeist will also infest neighbouring houses. Few poltergeist investigators are aware of this fact. Such events cannot be explained by the theory that the poltergeist focus is himself producing the effects. They indicate that the poltergeist is a much more complex phenomenon than many parapsychologists would have us believe.”4
So, clearly, I wasn’t the only person to have noticed this. What puzzled me, though, was why no one hadboth during and after our investigation, both Michael and I decided to research the phenomenon. We were surprised at what we eventually discovered, and therefore we wrote what we believed to be the first full examination of poltergeist contagion. The book also explores the many remarkable parallels between poltergeist cases, including unnerving similarities between the cases we investigated after South Shields, and offers theories as to why so many poltergeists ‘do the same things’, how contagion be initiated and, more importantly, it might happen. However, before we proceed any further, I should define is meant by contagion, and can be affected.
