This week I read about poltergeists in The Mystery Library: Haunted Houses, by Patricia D. Netzley. The word poltergeist is derived from the German words poltern, meaning noisy, and geist, meaning spirit. Basically what these certain spirits do is make loud noises, move objects around, and push, pinch, and shove people. They might can also cause unexplainable fires or strange incidents related to water, such as appearing in a room of puddles with no cause. One of the most common cases of poltergeist activity was the incident of The Amityville Horror. Kathy and George Lutz and their three children moved in to the house in Amityville, New York in 1975. The home had been the site of a murder in 1974. Within a few days the family began to hear banging doors and windows and mysterious noises. The poltergeist started to use physical contact with the members of the Lutz family. The family claimed that they were pushed, pinched, and beaten, and Kathy Lutz reported that she levitated off of a bed on one occasion. The family also reported that green slime had dripped from the ceiling. Only twenty eight days after moving in, the family abandoned the house. The previous occupant of the house, Ronald DeFeo Jr., murdered his parents and four siblings in the house and pleaded insanity during his trial. He told the judge that a ghost had forced him to commit the killings, but the jury believed that DeFeo just wanted his parents insurance money. DeFeo's attorney, William Weber, believed the Lutzes' faked the occurances in the house to make money off of it. The house inspired author Jay Anson to write a book, titled The Amityville Horror, which became a best-seller and also became a movie in 1979.
I don't believe in poltergeists at all. I'm still not even sure if I believe in ghosts, but I do think that if ghosts do exist that they wouldn't try to scare or hurt people for no reason. I think that the Amityville Horror was just a scheme for the Lutzes' to make money off of their home. On page 45 it says that "new owners had moved in to the house, and they were experiencing absolutely no poltergeist activity. Moreover, they felt that the Amityville book and movies were damaging to their quality of life by turning their house into a tourist attraction" (45). If the house really was haunted, then why don't the people living there now undergo any supernatural experiences like the Lutz family did? I really do have mixed beliefs about ghosts. I can't decide if I believe in them or not because some of the research that I collect makes them seem real, but then as I countinue to study the topic I find other research that convinces me otherwise. I'm still so confused..
Good discussion 50/50
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