A poltergiest is a noisy attention seeking spirit as a opposed to a laid back chilled one we know as ghosts. This results in objects being moved, various non-fun sounds, levitations and odours. Dispappearing objects often result in fully freaked out residents.
The non chilled sprite tends to thrive on physcokinetic energy particulary around those journeying on the emotional and phsycial changes of puberty and growing up. And yes it is a total conincidence I live in a house of teens and young adults.
Why do we love all things that go bump in the night?
Why were we so drawn to a vampire named Edward (and why do we sometimes still think of him and his irrevocable eyebrows wistfully … sorry that might be just me).
As a small pudgy child with far too much imagination I spent an inappropriate amount of time thinking about things that go bump in the night. Would my Raggedy Anne go joy riding around my room? (see Anxiety)
As I grew older I became more sophistated in my paranormal approach. If I held a freshly sharpened pencil over crisp white file paper with my head snapped back, my eyelids flickering perhaps some wayward spittle involuntarily escaping my mouth I could offer myself up as a vessel for James Dean or a Bronte (anyone would suffice) so I could reveal to the world (or the cat on the couch) their innermost secrets and insights.
Raggedy never left the shelf by her own steam but she did get a sassy haircut by me that made my mother levitate. (See Anxiety) Eventually I got on and did my homework with my pointy pencil clamped in my sweaty hands breathing a sigh of relief that …. any passing spectre had had the good sense not to visit me as they couldn’t bear the noisy fallout.(See Anxiety)
But what is it that draws us to the supernatural or the possibility of something other than our ‘gravity abiding bodies’ is out there. Why do we take delight in being scared … for me it is a comfortable scare … I don’t like horror or any thing over a PG rating. (See Anxiety) My favourite witch of all time is Samantha from Bewitched. Wiggle nose … Yes. Drink sacrificial blood … No!!
Is it because we all yearn to visit a place in which the ordinary rules we are governed by – you know time, space, matter – those old chestnuts – are no longer relevant. Sometimes we need to say piffle to logic and rational thinking and go to our creative places even if it’s just for a short time. When we have finished turning reality on its head, it is also very reassuring to return to our ‘normal’ world in the knowledge that a vamp of significant eyebrows will be awaiting our return with each non beat of his non beating heart. Again that could just be me.
Now onto our friend Edgar, he seems typical of the spirit that has unresolved issues. There is a chocolate bar with his name on it somewhere beyond time and space, leaving him utterly fixated on sweet treats.We can all be a bit like Edgar – stuck– stuck in our own thoughts and feelings– what should have been, what could have been. We can be stuck like a girl trapped in a mirror for over sixty years. We are all walking around with our own ghosts.
Neil Gaimon puts it eloquently when he describes what ghosts frighten him the most –
“The ghosts of today that terrify me mostly are ideas that are uninspected and continue to haunt us … I don’t know if what you’re saying is true. It may have been true once, a long time ago. But it died. And you don’t know. And you are walking around being haunted by dead ideas that need to be buried … Look around and see where you are today!”
Even children carry around these uninspected ideas I am bad at Maths. I am bad at sport. I have less friends than everyone else in the world. I can’t draw. Dead ideas based on fleeting but altering experiences that need to be examined and then cast aside.
This quote really resonates with my characters particularly Lily, as she moves from timid to confident.
All very profound but not very spooky, let’s go back the need to be spooked or make sense of the inexplicable. In my novel Heart a home seance is firstly seen as a quick thrill for a cheap night in. But when things start to happen our trio is freaked out of their tiny minds.
Our trio accidentally open up the portal to a fence sitting ghost soldier who is stuck in no man’s land and unable to move on as he does not know what happened to his true love back home in Australia. Being blown to smithereens also didn’t help his post death state of mind. Am I dead? Oh yes it appears I am. Bugger. Stuck!*
In my research I am yet to come across anything remotely plausible in professional ghost hunters, some sad ghost hunter said she had never seen a ghost but had been touched on the bottom by one. Touched by an angel? I think not. Poked by a person. More than likely. Still I keep searching … the truth is out there.
At the moment I am working on a new YA novel that explores reincarnation and possession in the context of my celtic ancestry. At the core of it is a girl who is weighed down by dead ideas so it has psychological complexity – to what lengths will you go to to claim what should have been yours in life? This is made a titch more chilling as the dead ideas girl is dead and has been for decades.
Ask students to draw and script a story board in which a ghost needs their help? Or perhaps the ghost has a message for them? Spooky!
