Poltergeists Read Free

existing unseen entity in the house. These are, of course, the kind of activities present in poltergeist cases, but they are merely a fringe activity underlining the need for communication. They are not the entire case, nor are they as disorganized and wanton as the true poltergeist cases. In the case of Rye, New York, the physical activities followed long-time mental activities such as apparitions and impressions of a presence. The physical phenomena were primarily used here to make the message more urgent. Not so with the true poltergeist case, where there is no possibility of mental communication simply because the causing person in incapable of actual thinking. In such a case all energies are channeled toward destructive physical activity and there is neither the will nor the ability to give mental impressions to those capable of receiving them, since the prime mover of these activities is so filled with hatred and the desire to manifest in the physical world that he or she will not bother with so rational an activity as a thought message.
    It is therefore difficult to cope with cases of this kind since there is no access to reasoning, as there is in true ghost cases when a trance medium can frequently make contact with the disturbed and disturbing entity in the house and slowly, but surely, bring it back to the realm of reason. With the true poltergeist case nothing of the sort can be established and other means to solve it have to be found. It is therefore quite natural that anyone who becomes the victim of such activities and is not familiar with them or with what causes them will be in a state of panic, even to the point of wanting to abandon his property and run for his life.
    On September 1, 1968, I was contacted by a gentleman by the name of L. H. Beaird. He wrote to me from Tyler, Texas, requesting that I help him understand some of the extraordinary happenings that had made his life hell on earth during the period of three years between 1965 and 1968. Through his daughter who was married in Austin he learned of my work with ghosts and finally concluded that only someone as familiar with the subject as I could shed light on the mysterious happenings in his home. He had purchased their home in 1964, but after three years of living with a poltergeist and fighting a losing battle for survival he decided that his sanity and survival were more important, and in 1968 he sold it again, losing everything he had put into it. The move, however, was a fortuitous one, for the new home turned out to be quiet and peaceful. Once Mr. Beaird got his bearings again and learned to relax once more he decided to investigate what had occurred during the previous three years and find some sort of answer to this extraordinary problem.
    I had never heard of Tyler before and decided to look it up on the map. It turned out to be a city of about 60,000 inhabitants also known as the “rose capital” because of the large number of horticultural activities in the area. Tyler is connected with Dallas and Houston by a local airline and lies about halfway between Dallas and Shreveport, Louisiana. It has one television station, one newspaper and some pleasant ordinary citizens going about their various businesses. The people of Tyler whom I got to know a little after my visit later on are not concerned with such things as the occult. In fact, anyone trying to lecture on the subject would do so in empty halls.
    Howard Beaird works in a nearby hospital and also runs a rubber stamp shop in which he has the company of his wife and more orders than he can possibly fill. Their son, Andy, was enrolled in barber school at the time of my visit and presumably is now cutting people’s hair to everyone’s satisfaction somewhere in Texas. The big local hotel is called the Blackstone and it is about the same as other big hotels in small towns. Everything is very quiet in Tyler, Texas, and you can really sleep at night. There is aspirit of not wanting to