Is it All in Their Head?

Poltergeist, noisy spirits. Harry Price referred to them as being a presumed spirit, an entity, and a secondary personality. Others call them the playful ghost, but the Toronto Society for Psychical Research called one of them Phillip. Phillip was different from all the "ghosts" before him as he lacked the one thing other ghosts had, he had never been alive! In fact he never existed except for in the minds of the researchers who created him. Perhaps I have gotten ahead of myself, let's begin at the beginning shall we?

In September of 1972 the society began to assemble at the house of founder Isis M. Owen. Their goal was to test the human mind and see if it would be possible to create paranormal activity, through aware thought. It was than that the team began to create a background story for a ghost they called Phillip. They gave him a history and a tragic life that led to his death and return as a ghost.

After establishing a history for the entity they began to meet to make communication with the entity. Each member would visualize Phillip and focus hard on his background. While no contact seemed to be made members of the team began to report feeling a presence in the room with them, and a strong feeling that it was a male entity.

After months of failure, and the urge to call it quits the idea of table tipping was brought up at one of the many meetings. Table tipping was made rather popular during the spiritualist movement and continued to draw interest even to this day. Simply put the entity in question is asked a series of yes or no questions. They than respond with knocks and movements on the table that each member of the team would be touching lightly. On the 3rd or 4rth session of table tipping the team felt a slight but present vibration in the table. Soon the small rumble became loud knocks that were clearly heard and felt by the entire group.

One team member curious to find an answer asked if Phillip was the source of the unexplained movement and a loud knock resonated through the room. Using a simple code of one knock for yes and two for no they began to ask questions and talk with their ghost. Phillip could easily and quickly answer any question pertaining to the life the team had created for him but was unable to answer anything else. He could not give historical information or even the simplest data that had not been given to the creation process.

There were times were late comers to the session would be greeted by the table moving toward them as if to say welcome. In one remarkable instance the table cornered a researcher into the corner of the room. Phillip would knock on the table in rhythms resembling songs and melodies.

In 1974 a film was made that showed one of the sessions of table tipping that showcased the table lifting 1 inch in the air and traveling over 4 foot across the floor. These sessions began to puzzle the researchers as they had created Phillip and by all scientific accounts he should not be capable of the actions he was taking on a regular basis.

Finally during a session one of the researchers brought up the fact that Phillip had been created and did not truly exist. This was not a good idea as soon after the statement was made, Phillip no longer communicated. In fact several sessions went by and the ghost was gone. The research continued years later with a different team and similar, but less amazing results were gathered. Did Phillip stop existing when the team's mind was awakened to the obvious fact that he never existed anyways, or was Phillip a real ghost who had projected his own history into the minds of the researchers? In reality the Phillip experiment further proved to some extent the theory of PK activity resulting in poltergeist activity but it also proved the power of the human mind is great and uncharted. I will leave you to make your own decision. Happy Hunting!!!!