In the Journal of the Society for May, 1907, there is a report of a typical poltergeist occurring in a Vienna suburb. The report is sent by an eye-witness of some of the disturbances, Mr Warndorfer, a member of the S.P.R. living at Baden, near Vienna. Regarding this case Miss A. Johnson (Research Officer of the S.P.R.) writes to me as follows:
“Mr Warndorfer, whom I know personally, is an unusually cool-headed and competent observer, and a very intelligent and open-minded man. He is genuinely interested in psychical research, and would, I feel sure, be prepared to give an impartial account of anything he witnessed.” Miss Johnson adds that she believes Mr Warndorfer “is not convinced of the genuineness of this case, or of any telekinetic phenomena; what it amounts to is that he investigated this case carefully, and did not discover any fraud in it.”
The principal points in the narrative are as follow: A smith named Zimmerl has a shop near Vienna (address given), where he employs two apprentices. The shop is at the end of a long court, in the souterrain of a large house inhabited by tradespeople, so that it is entered by going down a short, open stair. Zimmerl had the shop some four years, but nothing unusual occurred until July, 1906, when a report appeared in a Vienna paper of the mysterious disturbances that had broken out in this smith’s shop.
On July 16th, 1906, Mr Warndorfer visited the shop and heard from Zimmerl how tools, bits of iron, etc. had been flung about the place, and both the master and one of his apprentices had been hurt by one of these missiles. He had watched the boys, but could not detect any tricks on their part; in fact, when they were outside the shop the missiles still flew about, and from an opposite direction to where they stood, and where a solid wall intervened. The police had investigated the matter and could find nothing to account for the disturbances. The tools, etc., had to be put into boxes and moved outside, as they were afraid to work otherwise. The man was much scared, and lost customers through this mysterious annoyance. Once a pipe flew from one side of the shop to the other, and then came back and settled on the anvil in the middle of the room; another time the pipe was taken from Zimmerl’s mouth and fluttered on to the lathe.
Mr Warndorfer made several subsequent visits, and heard still more remarkable accounts, and was able to witness many of the occurrences. On one occasion he saw more than a dozen objects thrown about, and was “perfectly certain none of the persons present could have thrown them”; one was thrown when he happened to be alone in the shop. He never saw the objects acually fly, but heard them fall; some dropped close to him, and three struck him on the head. In reply to enquiries from the S.P.R., Mr Warndorfer relates five cases of inexplicable movements of objects, which he witnessed in daylight, and of which he believes “the chances of mal-observation were very small indeed.”
One of these cases was as follows: A small glazed picture which he had seen hanging on the wall a few minutes before came fluttering through the air to the middle of the shop, where it fell on the floor, but did not break; in fact, it moved like a sheet of paper. At the time he was standing about a yard and a half in front of the picture, nobody being near it, nor in that part of the shop through which it moved. He did not see it leave its place, but saw it when it was about a couple of yards from where it alighted. Mr Warndorfer adds that he thinks “it would be very difficult, though not impossible, to throw or drop such a picture without its breaking.”
Another incident witnessed by Mr Warndorfer occurred when the smith was out of the shop and the two apprentices were drilling a hole in a piece of iron. He was watching their slow work and noticed that their four hands were all engaged at their work; of this he was “perfectly certain”, when suddenly one of the boys screamed in pain; a pair of big iron compasses, which had been lying on the work-bench a yard behind the boy, had flown across and hit the boy sharply on the temple, causing a swelling and a little blood. Mr Warndorfer saw the iron compasses ricochetting as it were off the boy’s head and falling on the ground. He himself was five times hit – three times on the head, as already mentioned, and twice elsewhere, once rather severely, with pieces of iron and steel that unaccountably flew across the room and struck him.
The disturbances continued for two months, and then ceased. One of the lads, round whom the disturbances seemed to cluster, was taken to the police court and fined, though he denied all guilt, and there was no direct evidence of his having thrown anything. The boys were nevertheless dismissed and the disturbances ceased. Mr Warndorfer, however, does not consider this proves anything, and he is right, for if his observations were correct the boys could not have been the culprits.
In ‘Poltergeists, Old and New’ by Professor W.F. Barrett, in Proceedings of the S.P.R., 1911.