what is the meaning of poltergeist?

Answer 1

Definition
Poltergeist (help·info) (German for noisy ghost) is a term for a supposed spirit or ghost that manifests by moving and influencing inanimate objects (rather than through visible presence or vocalization). Stories featuring poltergeists typically focus heavily on raps, thumps, knocks, footsteps, and bed-shaking, all without a discernable point of origin or physical reason for occurrence. Many accounts of poltergeist activity detail objects being thrown about the room, furniture being moved, and even people being levitated. A few poltergeists have even been known to speak (The Bell Witch, 1817; Gef the Talking Mongoose, 1931). Most classic poltergeist stories originate in England, though the word itself is German. Forteans sometimes will informally refer to poltergeists as "polts".

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Research
Poltergeist phenomena are a focus of study within parapsychology. Parapsychologists define poltergeist activity as a type of uncontrolled psychokinesis. Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK) is a phrase suggested by parapsychologist William G. Roll to denote poltergeist phenomena. The longevity and consistency between poltergeist stories (the earliest one details the raining of stones and bed shaking in ancient Egypt) has left the matter open for debate within the parapsychology community.

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Major Hypotheses
Discounting the obvious one of delusion or hoax, researchers have devleoped some basic models for poltergeist activity, which may or may not overlap.

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Poltergeist activity originates with humans, specifically in uncontrolled psychokinetic activity on the part of humans.
Poltergeist activity tends to occur around a single person called an agent or a focus. Focuses are often, but not limited to, pubescent children. Almost seventy years of research by the Rhine Research Center in Raleigh-Durham, NC, has led to the hypothesis among parapsychologists that the "poltergeist effect" is a form of psychokinesis generated by a living human mind (that of the agent). According to researchers at the Rhine Center, the "poltergeist effect" is the outward manifestation of psychological trauma.

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Poltergeists have a separate existence from the people experiencing them.
Poltergeists might simply exist, like the "elementals" described by occultists.

Another version poists that poltergeists originate after a person dies in a powerful rage at the time of death. According to yet another opinion, ghosts and poltergeists are "recordings." When there is a powerful emotion, sometimes at death and sometimes not, a recording is believed to be "embedded" in a place or, somehow, in the "fabric of time" itself. This recording will continue to play over and over again until the energy embedded disperses.

However some poltergeists have had the ability to articulate themselves and to have distinct personalities, which suggests some sort of self-awareness and intent. Practioners of astral projection have reported the existence of unfriendly astral life forms, which Robert Bruce called "negs" (who we might also identify with elementals). If they exist, these may well have the ablity to affect the physical world.

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See also
Mischevious fairies
Undead
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Some research theorize that poltergeists are caused by physical forces.
Some scientists propose that all poltergeist activity that they cannot trace to fraud has an explained physical explanation such as static electricty, electromagnetic fields, ultra- and infrasound and/or ionised air. In some cases such as the Rosenheim poltergeist case, the physicist F. Karger from the Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik and G. Zicha from the Technical University of Munich found neither none of these effects present, and psi proponents claim that no evidence of fraud was ever found, even after a sustained investigation from the police force and CID, though criminologist Herbert Schäfer quotes an unnamed detective watching the agent pushing a lamp when she thought nobody was looking. John Hutchinson has claimed that he has created poltergeist effects in the lab.


See also:
Hutchinson effect

All poltergeist cases originate out of self-delusion and hoaxes.
Skeptics think that the phenomena are hoaxes perpetrated by the agent. Indeed, many poltergeist agents have been caught by investigators in the act of throwing objects. A few of them later confessed to faking.

Skeptics maintain that parapsychologists are especially easy to fool when they think that many occurrences are real and discount the hoax hypothesis from the start. Even after witnessing firsthand an agent throwing objects, psi-believing parapsychologists rationalize the fact away by assuming that the agents are only cheating when caught cheating, and when you do not catch them, the phenomenon is genuine. One excuse given is that the agents often fake phenomena when the investigation coincides with a period of time where there appears to be little or no 'genuine' phenomena occurring, which the agents believe makes them look foolish.


Examples
William Roll, Hans Bender and Harry Price are perhaps three of the most famous poltergeist investigators in the annals of parapsychology. Harry Price investigated Borley Rectory which is widely regarded as "the most haunted house in England."

But according to the two physicists this did not rule out what they called "short duration forces" or the case that the effects that they were looking for were not constant, but only happening at the time of the phenomena, which was witnessed by Hans Bender, the police force, the CID, reporters, and the physicists present and the phenomena such as the rotation of a picture and swinging lamps were captured on video (which was one of the first times any poltergeist activity has been captured on film) and strange sounds that sounded electrical in origin were recorded. The claims were aired in a documentary in 1975 in a series called "Leap in the Dark".


Famous alleged poltergeist infestations
Although poltergeist stories date back to the first century, most evidence to support the existence of poltergeists is anecdotal. Indeed, many of the stories below have several versions and/or inconsistencies.

The Bell Witch (1817)
Eleonore Zugun - The 'Poltergeist Girl' (1926)
The Haunting of The Fox sisters (1848) - arguably one of the most famous, as it started the Spiritualism movement.
The Borley Rectory phenomena (1929)
The Rosenheim Poltergeist (1967)
[1]

The Enfield Poltergeist (1977)
The Mackenzie Poltergeist (fairly recent) - Famed for haunting Greyfriars church yard, Edinburgh, UK
The Canneto di Caronia fires poltergeist (fairly recent (2004 - 2005)) - Famed for defying all attempts at a scientific explanation, Sicily, Italy [2].
The Entity Case allegedly involved a single mother of three named Carla Moran who was being repeatedly raped by an invisible entity and his two helpers over the course of several years. However, much like the so-called Amityville Horror, this case remains highly suspicious, for while it has received extensive coverage from sensationalist media and also seems to have served as a means to financial gain for a number of people (just as in the case of the Amityville Horror, a novel and a movie were inspired by it), evidence of its authenticity was never given by any serious parapsychologist or other reliable observer.
The case of Tina Resch, widely reported in the media in 1984
Although some parapsychologists suggest that poltergeists could be a form of recurrent PK, there is very little evidence for PK recorded on film or witnessed by objective parties. There are famous cases where the activity was seen by several people however.


Poltergeists in fiction
Both the name and concept of the poltergeist became famous to modern audiences by the Poltergeist movies and the subsequent TV series Poltergeist: The Legacy. The first Poltergeist movie actually gave an excellent depiction (during the first half of the film) of a "typical" poltergeist infestation, right down to the depiction of the focus as a prepubescent girl.

There is a poltergeist named Peeves in the Harry Potter books. Peeves, however, does not conform to the classic definition of a poltergeist. The fact that he manifests visually would seem to indicate that he is something similar to a ghost, though J. K. Rowling has stated that a poltergeist is not the ghost of any person who has ever lived. Perhaps she intended Peeves to be more of a literal translation of the word poltergeist, as Peeves is quite noisy and mischievous. However, it is also possible that Harry and other students can perceive Peeves because they are Wizards, and that he would be still invisible to Muggles. It is also interesting to note that Peeves appears in color, where the other ghosts at the school appear as white, misty figures.

The Terry Pratchett Discworld novel A Hat Full of Sky features an "ondageist" named Oswald. This is the opposite of a poltergeist: a spirit obsessed with cleaning and tidying.

On October 20, 1942, the old time radio show Lights Out featured a story called "Poltergeist" in which a trio of girls experience horrific, unexplained assaults from flying stones after one walks over a grave.

On Tuesday, November 15th, 2005, Supernatural aired a show involving a multiple haunting in the old house of Dean and Sam. The owner of the house would claim there were rats in the house, but never actually saw them, only heard scratching and rustling noises. The poltergeist in the house flung knives, opened baby cribs and fridges, and claims the hand of a repairman trying to fix the garberator.

Some Castlevania games feature a few poltergeist phenomena. For example, certain furnitures may suddenly spring to life and attack (some of these furnitures are named Ouija Table). Another case is the enemy Alastor, where a giant sword floats around in the air, wielded by an occasionally visible, invulnerable spirit. In some disputed game canon, it is said that a yet unseen character called the Poltergeist King takes charge of the Belmont family weapons between quests.

The popular Ju-on series of horror films in Japan and the Americanized version The Grudge, feature poltergeist elements including the replaying of the tragedy, and the violent nature of the ghosts.

The 2002 novel, The Bishop in the West Wing, written by Catholic priest and author Andrew M. Greeley, includes a poltergeist as a central feature of the story.

[edit]See also
Haunted Hollywood
Stigmatized property

External links
Haunted Ontario - Founded in 1996 by Bob Milne, Haunted Ontario chronicles the ghosts, spirits, spooks, and poltergeists said to haunt Canada's most populated province.
Spirit Searchers - the UK's leading paranormal investigators
Poltergeists
Dehaunting Techniques
www.GhostFinders.co.uk
Paranormal Animal Research Group
Rhine Research Center
International Journal of Parapsychology
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research
Skeptic's Dictionary
Ufopsi
Haunted People - Poltergeist Girls Articles on Mysterious People Website
The Harry Price Website Articles on Eleonore Zugun, Borley Rectory, Gef the Talking Mongoose and the Battersea Poltergeist
[3] The Entity Case
Poltergeist The Legacy
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poltergeist"

Answer 2

Poltergeist Meaning

Answer 3

Poltergeist Definition

Answer 4

is a term for a supposed spirit or ghost that manifests by moving and influencing inanimate objects (rather than through visible presence or vocalization). Stories featuring poltergeists typically focus heavily on raps, thumps, knocks, footsteps, and bed-shaking, all without a discernable point of origin or physical reason for occurrence. Many accounts of poltergeist activity detail objects being thrown about the room, furniture being moved, and even people being levitated. A few poltergeists have even been known to speak (The Bell Witch, 1817; Gef the Talking Mongoose, 1931). Most classic poltergeist stories originate in England, though the word itself is German. Forteans sometimes will informally refer to poltergeists as "polts".

Answer 5

Poltergeist - (noun) a ghost or other supernatural being supposedly responsible for physical disturbances such as maikng loud noises and throwing objects around.

ORIGIN: mid 19th century from German poltergeist, poltern 'create a disturbance' plus Geist 'ghost'

Answer 6

Kinda like a mischevious ghost. Example? In the book ''Harry Potter'', Peeves is the poltergeist...

Answer 7

A poltergeist is supposedly a mischevious but not malicious ghost that tends to move things around.

Answer 8

RE:
what is the meaning of poltergeist?

Answer 9

The word poltergeist is German for 'noisy ghost'.

Answer 10

A noisy, mischievous spirit that manifests itself by slamming doors, moving objects and the like. The word is german, from "Poltern" meaning, to make noises, rattle or knock and the word "Geist" meaning, ghost.

Answer 11

An invisible noisy destructive presence usually associated with the presence of a teenage girl.