CIA poltergeist case files: full transcription

The Poltergeist and Cultural Values: A Comparative Interpretation of a Brazilian and an American Case

David J. Hess: Interdisciplinary Writing Program, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY 13346

The interpretations of both the members of the afflicted families and of the parapsychology researchers are compared for two poltergeist cases: the Powhatan case of the United States and the Guarulhos case of Brazil. The "recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis" interpretation of the American case expresses Anglo-Saxon values such as individualism, whereas the sorcery interpretation of the Brazilian case expresses Latino values such as personalism. An alternative approach which might supersede these value-laden theories is suggested.

Most parapsychologists who belong to the Parapsychological Association interpret poltergeists as the "recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis" (RSPK) of an "agent," a person around whom the phenomena focus. This paper examines some of the cultural values and implicit assumptions behind this interpretation by comparing a typical poltergeist case in the United States with one in Brazil. This comparison will lead to a series of questions regarding the values that inform the current approaches to the study of poltergeists. I begin by reviewing two poltergeist studies in two cultures; the first is based on the work of Hernani Guimarães Andrade on the poltergeist of Guarulhos, a city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and the second is based on the research of John Palmer on the poltergeist of Powhatan, a town in the southern United States.

The family involved in the Guarulhos case spent most of their time in this city, which is located outside of São Paulo. In the beginning, an extended family lived together in two connected houses. This included the presumed poltergeist "agent," whose name was Noémia. Noémia was recently married and pregnant, and she lived with her husband, a one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, her husband's father and mother, and their family of three daughters and two sons. The family all belonged to the Pentecostalist faith, a religion that is growing rapidly in Brazil by attracting large numbers of converts among the working class.

Andrade divides the case into three major phases. During the first phase, from April 27, 1973, to May 1, 1973, the family experienced cuts on the furniture, some disappearances of money, and apparitions of a monstrous, animal-like figure. The poltergeist ended after prayers and Bible readings. During the second phase, from the end of April, 1974, to October 25, 1974, the family experienced rock showers, bodily cuts (first on the husband, then on Noémia's daughter, then on Noémia), tears in their clothing, broken objects, mysterious appearances of rosemary branches, disappearances of money, and fires. During this period Noémia's family moved to her parents' home, but the poltergeist followed them. In August of 1974, the family moved to a new home in Guarulhos and held an evangelical session in their home, which was successful.

A third phase began on March 28, 1975; no date of termination is given. During this phase the family experienced missing money, moving and breaking objects, and falling stones, but no more cuts. In addition, one of the children and a girl who did chores also showed signs of spirit possession, and Noémia reports having lost a tooth while she was sleeping. The religious leaders of the family's church held a ceremony in which they anointed the corners of the house with a special oil, and this brought relief to the family.

The family expressed two broad interpretations. Noémia's father-in-law believed that her husband had caused the problems because "he began to fall away from the principles [of the Gospel] and we knew that something would happen." The father-in-law believed that there were three monsters involved, one of which he defeated in a physical struggle. According to Noémia's husband, the poltergeist diminished after Noémia saw the figure of a deformed Satan and became more religious. Together these comments indicate that one interpretation was that the phenomena represented divine retribution for lack of religious faith.

The second interpretation, which Andrade supported, was that the phenomena were due to sorcery. A mysterious pair of women attempted to enter the house on more than one occasion, and Noémia noted that the women were carrying a clear plastic bag with candles and rosemary in them, which in Brazil are often materials for black magic rituals. In addition, sensitives of the family's religion made a psychometric reading of a piece of clothing and said that someone had performed a work of black magic against them. Noémia's husband believed that the person responsible might have been an old lover. Furthermore, Andrade notes that the monster which some members of the family saw corresponds to the Umulum spirit of the Umbanda/Quimbanda religion, and he argues that sorcery was the best explanation for the poltergeist of Guarulhos. He rejects the RSPK interpretation and argues that there were no signs of sexual repression or family conflicts.

A different type of poltergeist is found in Palmer's report (1974) on the Powhatan poltergeist in the rural South of the United States. The presumed agent of this case was a ten-and-a-half-year-old boy, J.E., who lived with his elderly foster parents. According to J.E., the poltergeist attack began on December 2, 1971, and Palmer investigated the case on January 6, 7, and 10, when the case was still active. The report does not give a precise date of termination, although it appears to have ended prior to J.E.'s foster mother's death in April, 1972. The witnesses, which included J.E.'s great aunt, maternal grandmother, and local doctor, experienced stomping noises and object movements.

Like the Guarulhos case, the interpretations of the people involved were split. J.E.'s foster father believed that the phenomena represented "a revelation of God," and later he interpreted them as portents from God warning about the impending deaths of his wife and J.E.'s great aunt. Prior to her death, J.E.'s foster mother said that J.E. "had the devil in him." The only other interpretations that Palmer discusses are those of J.E.'s great aunt and the family doctor, whose naturalistic point-of-view contrasts sharply with the religious meaning that the events had for the foster parents. The great aunt told Palmer that the events "fascinated" her more than they "scared" her, and the doctor appeared to believe that the boy had psychokinetic abilities. Palmer does not discuss the meaning of the poltergeist to the other witnesses; his own interpretation focuses on personality and psychodynamic factors that might have patterned what he interprets as ostensible RSPK centered on J.E. Palmer notes that J.E. was a severe behavior problem in school and that it was likely that he denied feelings of aggression because at one level he felt thankful that his foster parents had taken him in.

The two cases bring out three major types of interpretations of the poltergeist. In the Brazilian case, the percipients oscillate between the religious and sorcery interpretations, and in the American case, some percipients find a religious meaning more suitable, whereas others find a more naturalistic, RSPK-type interpretation more appropriate. In the Brazilian case, the researcher sides with the sorcery interpretation, and in the American case, he sides with the RSPK interpretation.

The religious interpretation of the poltergeist (either as a portent of God's will or as a demoniacal infestation) cuts across the two cases and is a product of their shared Western, Christian cultural background. The significant division in the two cases is the difference between the sorcery and the RSPK interpretations. Few, if any, poltergeist studies in Anglo-Saxon cultural contexts by Anglo-Saxon researchers deviate from the RSPK interpretation, and the sorcery interpretation is rare if nonexistent.

In contrast, during my dissertation research in Brazil, I met with Andrade and talked with him several times, and when we discussed his research on poltergeists, he pointed out that of the poltergeist cases for which he has collected some information, the vast majority involve sorcery. However, not all poltergeists in Brazil are linked to sorcery. The sorcery interpretation is therefore relatively absent in the American and Western European context, whereas it is relatively commonplace in Brazil.

The two contradictory interpretations of the poltergeist, RSPK and sorcery, are therefore linked to two different cultural contexts, the United States and Brazil.

Andrade argues that the necessary and sufficient factors for a poltergeist outbreak are the following: "1) a sorcerer, 2) the discarnate agents that obey the sorcerer and act as intermediaries, 3) the empirical magical practices that act on the discarnate agents and lead them to molest the victim, and 4) the presence, at the location of the phenomena, of a human epicenter that is capable of furnishing the energy or substance necessary for the discarnate agents sent by the sorcerer; in the absence of the epicenter, discarnate agents appear to be capable of using the accumulated energy that the epicenter furnishes." In academic language, Andrade clearly formulates Brazilian cultural concepts regarding the elements of sorcery.

The sorcery interpretation therefore transforms the poltergeist into a series of hierarchical, personal relations: the victimizer goes to the sorcerer, who acts as patron and in turn binds the evil spirits and sends them to perturb the victim. The victim, in turn, calls on religious authorities, in this case the Protestant pastor and Noémia's father-in-law, who serve as counter-balancing patrons in this spiritual feud.

In contrast, the phrase "recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis" replaces the network of personal relations with one actor, the agent, who is a prototype of the Western individual. The RSPK interpretation focuses on how the social context (a family situation) affects the psychology of the individual; it translates the social into the psychological. The essential conflict then becomes not one of two feuding hierarchies but of an individual (the agent) versus the community (the family).

Cultural comparison has the advantage of relativizing what appears to be a "universal" and "scientific" interpretation of the poltergeist: the RSPK theory. By showing that in other cultures the sorcery interpretation appears to make more sense to both the afflicted and the researchers, the RSPK interpretation appears in contrast to express modern cultural values such as individualism and the conflict between the individual and the community.

This comparative study may raise a series of questions for the parapsychologist. Which theory is right? Is the RSPK interpretation the universally valid theory and the sorcery interpretation the traditional, "popular" theory? Or does the "poltergeist itself" vary across cultures, and therefore might each interpretation be correct in its own cultural context? In other words, do the sorcery and RSPK interpretations represent culture-bound theories?

A more relativistic and anthropological perspective would substitute the question of "Can we explain the poltergeist?" with "How do we interpret the poltergeist?" In other words, what does the poltergeist mean to the people whom it afflicts? In what ways is it serving as an "idiom of distress" for the articulation of conflicts, needs, dilemmas, and both personal and cultural meaning? From this point of view, both the RSPK and the sorcery interpretation become not endpoints but starting points; they become pathways to the discovery of the meaning of the poltergeist to the afflicted.

The Guarulhos Poltergeist: A Reassessment of Andrade's (1984) Monograph

Michel-Ange Amorim: Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 56, No. 820, July 1990

A presentation is made of an RSPK investigation conducted over several years, in the suburbs of São Paulo, Brazil. A monograph describing the case, and interpretations of the phenomena, was published in Portuguese by H. G. Andrade and his collaborators at the IBPP, in 1984. Based on the phenomena reported during the interviews of family members and other witnesses, Andrade interprets the case in terms of discarnate agents and black magic rites. The purpose of the present pages is to describe the Guarulhos poltergeist in some detail, and to explore an alternative interpretation of the phenomena, one based upon the living agent hypothesis, and related factors, such as religious context, expectancies, and possible personality disorders.

Marcos, a plumber, aged 29 years, inhabitant of Guarulhos.

Noemia, his 21 year old wife, the mother of baby Ruth (18 months).

Pedro, father of Marcos, a builder and amateur exorcist aged 55, who lives with his family in a house on the back plot of Marcos's house.

Judite, Pedro's wife, aged 54, the mother of three daughters and two sons whose ages range from 11 to 20, none of them married.

Eliza, a 15 year old girl who came to stay with the Marcos family.

Adauri, a 16 year old boy who witnessed some of the incidents.

Antonia, a married woman and a Catholic who lives next door to the Marcos family.

Lamartine Ribeiro, minister of the Pentecostal Church (Assembleia de Deus) to which the Marcos family belongs.

The first set of disturbances (Stage 1) started on 27 April 1973 and ended apparently by itself on 1 May, 1973. It consisted mainly of the cutting of furniture and apparitions.

The second set of events (Stage 2) started at the end of April 1974 with the stoning of the house and the cutting of people, and ended on 25 October 1974. In the meantime Pedro and his family moved temporarily to Guaianazes, leaving only Marcos, Noemia and Ruth in the front house. However, Pedro did return to perform an exorcism against the 'invisible agent' which seemed to stop all RSPK phenomena there for two months. In the same period Marcos, Noemia (pregnant at the time) and Ruth went to Noemia's parents' home where the troubles began again (cutting phenomena, the disappearance of money, movement of objects). After the birth of their second child Raquel, they left the house in August and stayed some days in Pedro's house in Guarulhos. After four days of peace some of the RSPK phenomena resumed. Marcos took a job for one month in Taubaté and left his family in Suzano at Noemia's sister's home; the outbreaks continued here too. On an especially troubled night involving movements of objects, the family returned to Guarulhos.

The third set of events (Stage 3) began on 28 March, 1975 and consisted of fire phenomena, 'apport'-like phenomena and stoning. The disturbances seemed to have ceased in August 1975 when Marcos's family moved into a new house (the third) located in Guarulhos which Marcos himself had built with his father. Nevertheless apport-like phenomena involving rosemary branches continued. They stopped after the intervention of the Church minister. But in mid-September 1976, after four months of calm, other phenomena began to recur sporadically: throwing of objects and stones, disappearance of money, spontaneous fires, and Ruth's possession fits. These grew suddenly in intensity during a two-week stay of a 15 year old girl (named Elza) with the family; she also contracted the possession-fits. Finally, beginning October 1976, following an especially troubled night, the family asked for help from the Church and from Pedro, and apparently an effective exorcism ended the outbreaks.

From Stage 4 until the seventh and last interview of the witnesses by Andrade and his collaborators on 21 April, 1984, the only occurrences noted were an occasional disappearance of money and the movement of objects. Meanwhile Pedro died on 29 July, 1979. The disturbances seemed to have definitively ceased when Noemia had a vision of an invisible assailant, and had a dialogue with him; as a result of this encounter she decided to adopt a more spiritual life style.

(1) Cutting phenomena. Stage 1 began with extensive parallel cuts in the upholstery of the furniture and in the mattresses, as if these were being ripped apart by a pocket knife or enormous claws. Initially, it was thought that the cuts were being produced by a three year old boy, Pedro's grandson. The little boy was taken away, but the activity did not stop. The phenomenon happened either in the presence or in the absence of people. The opening of the upholstery was witnessed at least by Pedro, Noemia, and Adauri, a boy of sixteen from outside; none of them could see who or what was producing the cuts. In Stage 2, cuts were found many times in the form of a cross, on pillows, clothes hung out, purses, slippers, blankets, even those folded in the wardrobe, on Marcos's document case and on two Bibles; but in these cases the cuts were not witnessed while they occurred. People also began to be cut. Marcos awoke with his left arm bleeding on 2 May, 1974 (between 2 and 3 a.m.). On the same afternoon, an 18-month-old daughter of a friend's wife was cut on the calf of her leg while she was inside the house with Ruth, at the bedroom doorway, and the adults were chatting in the yard. From this day on, Marcos suffered one more cut on the left side of his forehead whereas Noemia had her face cut practically every morning. These cuts were extremely thin, three or four at a time, and she noticed them by feeling a burning sensation on her face. During the time the family stayed in Guaianazes, Noemia had her face repeatedly cut while she went at night to Pedro's Church. On October 1974 another child suffered a deep cut in his thigh, while his mother was praying with Noemia in the bedroom of Marcos's house in Guarulhos. They looked for a blade on the bed where the boy sat but did not find one.

(2) Apparition phenomena occurred during the entire RSPK case under different forms. In Stage 1, during one cutting event Pedro stated he had the vision of the forearm "of a wild beast, a monster, not a man. It was very strong and big; sharp-clawed, 2 cm, black, shiny and curved. The fur was red, thin, shiny and short as that of a cougar." Noemia, while feeling some cuts, also perceived something similar to a gorilla. Pedro called his neighbours, Mrs. Zina and her husband, in order to witness the cuts. The woman was quite skeptical. But as she was questioning Noemia about the apparition, she saw an enormous hand passing in front of her and she fainted. She declared having seen in the twinkling of an eye "this hairy and dark thing."

During the Stage 2 incidents Noemia perceived, on three occasions, a wolfhound shape on the wardrobe as she went to sleep, while Marcos only felt shivers. She also stated having seen a hairy hand trying to seize her husband by his neck. In Stage 2, at the same moment as Marcos had his left arm cut (2 May, 1974), Noemia saw "a hairy beast, like a cougar, or it was a gorilla, a monkey, something horrible with a face in fire and big teeth," passing in the house towards the bedroom where after this Marcos was hit by a brick as they prayed there. And in Stage 3 she started to have a dialogue with an entity in the guise of Satan, "of a man, with a totally distorted face, teeth outside and throwing fire when he spoke." Ruth, during the period of her fits, also saw "a beast, a cat, a dog." In Stage 3 she still saw it, and Raquel (2 years) said she saw a horse, a description which corresponds with the one the sensitives of the Church gave during an evangelical exorcism in the house, reporting the presence of an animal shape "in the form of a horse."

On another occasion (Stage 2), as Pedro was praying with his wife and their son-in-law, he saw a figure 1.5 m high, with a strong thorax, "in a not black color but half-caste, very dark," two meters from them. Finally Pedro led a 'magical struggle' against an invisible assailant (May 1974), one abundantly described in the monograph. He claimed indeed having won this fight using an 'imaginary' sword, all this while in a trance-like state, which Pedro considered to be "the management of God Spirit."

(3) Possession-like trances began in Stage 2, two weeks after the moving of Marcos's family into their new house (the second) in Guarulhos. At 2 a.m. Ruth woke up screaming that she was seeing beasts on the wardrobe, a wild cat, a dog. The child would have attacks, once or twice a day. She would turn purple; she was taken to a doctor and no signs of epilepsy were found. In Stage 3, Ruth (now four years old) still had her fits; during these her face, hands, and feet would twist. Again she screamed that she had seen "a beast." Later, during Eliza's stay in the family (September 1976), she too displayed the possession symptoms; her eyes and face would seem to become contorted. Of interest here is that when Ruth was at her grandmother's home, she had no such fits; similarly, Elza showed no abnormal behaviour outside Marcos's house.

(4) Stone phenomena. It typically occurred in daytime till 7 or 8 p.m. According to Pedro, "the stones didn't seem to be thrown but dropped on the house." In February 1975, during an interview, Pedro estimated that about 20 kg of such materials had been taken off the roof. In Stage 3 (April 1975) a fall of stones began at 11 a.m., consisting of smaller stones. Finally some of the missionaries of the Church, after an exorcism (October 1976) in Stage 3, were also hit. Marcos noted however that these stonings of people did not actually hurt anyone.

(5) Object movements. In Guarulhos also (Stage 2) objects were broken or thrown, like Bibles. The same afternoon (at 3 p.m.) the family was in the kitchen praying with their Church Minister, Lamartine Ribeiro and his wife, and two guests; a Bible placed on a little table, among other books, was thrown violently on the floor. As the disturbances grew in the new house in Guarulhos, Marcos witnessed his shoe levitating and forcefully hitting the bedroom ceiling stucco where it left a mark and then falling on the bed; this recurred several times during the night. The invisible agent seemed to move cups and glasses coming out of closed cupboards; objects were taken out and damaged. "They only heard the noise when they fell down and crashed! During prayers such occurrences were common."

(6) Apport-like phenomena seemed to occur during the whole poltergeist case. Disappearance of money was especially frequent.

(7) Fire phenomena. Stage 3 was especially marked by spontaneous fires. These consisted of burning papers, clothes, and curtains. The fires began at different spots simultaneously and were sometimes found near a family member praying, as if wishing to disturb her. The fires alarmed the family greatly as they had a baby and a gas cylinder in the house.