A Rasch Hierarchy of Haunt and Poltergeist Experiences
2001; Rhine Research Center; Volume: 65; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0022-3387
Autores Tópico(s)Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs
ResumoRENSE LANGE [1] ABSTRACT: Although it has long been suspected that haunt and poltergeist phenomena form a hierarchy, compelling empirical evidence for this suggestion has been lacking. Using data of 865 student respondents from 2 previous studies, Rasch scaling of 8 items from Poltergeist subscale of Anomalous Experiences Inventory (V. K. Kumar, R. J. Pekala, & C. Gallagher, 1994) revealed existence of a well-defined probabilistic hierarchy of events. Statistical dimensionality tests validated that 8 items indeed constitute a unidimensional continuum, and this continuum is not significantly affected by gender-related response biases. The results do not discriminate among various parapsychological and conventional explanations for these experiences, and several theoretical perspectives on findings are discussed. Our research program (e.g., Lange & Houran, 1998, 1999, 2000) has actively focused on constructing a process model of haunts and poltergeists, that is, a mathematical description of what Teguis and Flynn (1983) called the holistic patterns of interpersonal relationships, background factors, and social-psychological variables ... crucial to understanding nature, etiology, and meaning of such occurrences (p. 61). However, we have not examined in detail holistic patterns among different haunt and poltergeist experiences. A few studies have investigated how qualitatively different phenomena correlate with one another (e.g., Alvarado & Zingrone, 1995; Houran, 2000; Houran & Thalbourne, 2001), but Palmer (1974; Pratt & Palmer, 1976) was first to propose interesting notion that phenomena might progress systematically over time. According to Guy Lyon Playfair (1980), there are approximately 19 symptoms of poltergeist, beginning with raps and ending with equipment failure of cameras, tape recorders, and so forth. Individual cases may involve only half a dozen of these symptoms, but Playfair (quoted in Wilson, 1993, pp. 388-389) asserted that: You always get them in same order. You don't get puddles of water before stone throwing, you don't get fires before raps. So that there is a predictable behavior pattern. They appear to be random to us, but they're obeying some sort of rules that they understand even if we don't. We are unaware of any published research supporting Playfair's assertion, but Houran and Brugger (2000) similarly argued that haunts and poltergeist experiences could form a hierarchy and that determining probability of certain anomalies should provide clues to nature of haunts and poltergeists. Building on this earlier work, we address question of whether haunt and poltergeist phenomena form a hierarchy as defined by self-reported experiences derived from Poltergeist subscale (Kumar & Pekala, in press) of Anomalous Experiences Inventory (AEI; Kumar, Pekala, & Gallagher, 1994). The AEI was originally constructed to measure general paranormal belief, experience, ability, drug use, and fear of paranormal (see Gallagher, Kumar, & Pekala, 1994). However, Houran identified eight items on AEI that parallel experiences typical of haunts and poltergeists (see Table 1), and Kumar and Pekala (in press) subsequently used these items in a study on how haunt and poltergeist experiences relate to hypnosis-specific attitudes and behaviors. The 8-item Poltergeist subscale addresses two broad types of occurrences: (a) seemingly subjective phenomena (i.e., not normally perceived collectively), such as apparitions, and (b) more objective phenomena that involve physical environment, such as object movements (Roll, 1977). The range of specific experiential content measured by Poltergeist subscale is admittedly limited. For instance, Lange, Houran, Harte, and Havens (1996) identified seven specific categories of haunt and poltergeist experiences,[2] but Poltergeist subscale covers perhaps only three of these categories (visual, sensed presence/tactile, and object movements). …
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