After an interval for tea, Mr Feilding read the account of the case of “Poltergeist” phenomena witnessed by Mr Grottendieck, which is printed below, and a discussion followed. Mr F. Podmore pointed out that it must have been difficult or impossible for Mr Grottendieck to watch the boy lying on the floor at the same time that he was seeing the stones come through or from the ceiling. He remarked that the abnormal slowness of motion of the stones was a phenomenon frequently described in Poltergeist cases, and that this, combined with Mr Grottendieck’s impression that the movements of the boy were extraordinarily slow, suggested that he was at the time in a slightly abnormal condition, during which he might have been liable to illusions.
Sir Lawrence Jones remarked that considering the length of time that the phenomena appeared to have been going on, it was curious that not more than about twenty stones were finally picked up.
Mrs Sidgwick said that, as Mr Grottendieck himself had suggested, it seemed possible that part of the phenomenon was hallucinatory. If so, some of the stones he imagined himself to have seen falling might have been hallucinatory stones. […]
A Poltergeist Case.
The following is the account of some “Poltergeist” phenomena witnessed by an Associate of the Society, Mr W.G. Grottendieck, of Dordrecht, Holland, and discussed at the meeting of the Society on March 30th, 1906, as reported above. The account was accompanied by a number of drawings, not reproduced here. These show the construction of the house as described in Mr Grottendieck’s letters. All the rooms were on one floor, raised above the ground by wooden piles, which passed vertically up through the floor and supported the sloping roof. The partitions between the rooms were wooden frameworks, consisting of vertical and horizontal beams, the spaces between which were covered with “kadjang” leaves. The rooms were unceiled and the partitions between them did not reach up to the roof. Mr Grottendieck’s native servant slept in the room next to him, there being a wooden door in the partition between the two rooms. The point in the roof from which the stones fell was approximately over this partition. Mr Grottendieck writes:
Dordrecht, January 27th, 1906.
… It was in September, 1903, that the following abnormal fact occurred to me. Every detail of it has been examined by me very carefully. I had been on a long journey through the jungle of Palembang and Djambi (Sumatra) with a gang of 50 Javanese coolies for exploring purposes. Coming back from the long trip, I found my home had been occupied by somebody else and I had to put up my bed in another house that was not yet ready, and had just been erected from wooden poles and lalang or kadjang. The roof was formed of great dry leaves of a kind called “kadjang” in Palembang. These great leaves are arranged one overlapping the other. In this way it is very easy to form a roof if it is only for a temporary house. The house was situated pretty far away from the bore-places belonging to the oil company, in whose service I was working.
I put my bullsack and mosquito curtain on the wooden floor and soon fell asleep. At about one o’clock at night I half awoke hearing something fall near my head outside the mosquito curtain on the floor. After a couple of minutes I completely awoke and turned my head around to see what was falling down on the floor. They were black stones from 1/8 to 3/4 of an inch long. I got out of the curtain and turned up the kerosene lamp, that was standing on the floor at the foot of my bed. I saw then that the stones were falling through the roof in a parabolic line. They fell on the floor close to my head-pillow. I went out and awoke the boy (a Malay-Palembang coolie) who was sleeping on the floor in the next room. I told him to go outside and to examine the jungle up to a certain distance. He did so whilst I lighted up the jungle a little by means of a small “ever-ready” electric lantern. At the same time that my boy was outside the stones did not stop falling. My boy came in again, and I told him to search the kitchen to see if anybody could be there. He went to the kitchen and I went inside the room again to watch the stones falling down. I knelt down near [the head of my bed] and tried to catch the stones while they were falling through the air towards me, but I could never catch them; it seemed to me that they changed their direction in the air as soon as I tried to get hold of them. I could not catch any of them before they fell on the floor. Then I climbed up [the partition wall between my room and the boy’s] and examined [the roof just above it from which] the stones were flying. They came right through the “kadjang”, but there were no holes in the kadjang. When I tried to catch them there at the very spot of coming out, I also failed.
When I came down, my boy had returned from the kitchen and told me there was nobody. But I still thought that somebody might be playing a practical joke, so I took my Mauser rifle and fired 5 sharp cartridges into the jungle from [the window of the boy’s room]. But the stones, far from stopping, fell even more abundantly after my shots than before.
After this shooting the boy became fully awake (it seemed to me that he had been dozing all the time before), and he looked inside the room. When he saw the stones fall down, he told me it was “Satan” who did that, and he was so greatly scared that he ran away in the pitch-dark night. After he had run away the stones ceased to fall, and I never saw the boy back again. I did not notice anything particular about the stones except that they were warmer than they would have been under ordinary circumstances.
The next day, when awake again, I found the stones on the floor and everything as I had left it in the night. I examined the roof again, but nothing was to be found, not a single crack or hole in the kadjang. I also found the 5 empty cartridges on the floor near the window. Altogether there had been thrown about 18 or 22 stones. I kept some of them in my pocket for a long while, but lost them during my later voyages.
The worst part of this strange fact was that my boy was gone, so that I had to take care of my breakfast myself, and did not get a cup of coffee nor toast!
At first I thought they might have been meteor-stones because they were so warm, but then again I could not explain how they could get through the roof without making holes!”
==
In answer to our questions, Mr Grottendieck gave further particulars in later letters as follows:
“February 1st, 1906.
In the Dutch East Indies this phenomenon seems to happen pretty often; at least now and then it is reported in the newspaper, generally concerning a house in the city. But I never gave myself the trouble to examine one of these cases, for the simple reason that it is an impossibility to control at the same moment all the people that are living around…
Just because the house where I was sleeping was situated all alone, far away from other houses, I thought that this case might be of more interest than other similar cases. Let me repeat the following particulars of it.
1. All around the house was jungle, in front, behind, to the left and to the right.
2. There was no other soul in the house and kitchen than myself and the boy.
3. The boy certainly did not do it, because at the same time that I bent over him, while he was sleeping on the floor, to awake him, there fell a couple of stones. I not only saw them fall on the floor in the room, but I also heard them fall, the door being at that moment half open.
4. While the boy was standing in front of me and I shot my cartridges, at that same moment I heard them fall behind me.
5. I climbed up the poles of the roof and I saw quite distinctly that they came right through the “kadjang.” This kadjang is of such a kind that it cannot be penetrated (not even with a needle) without making a hole. Each “kadjang” is one single flat leaf of about 2 by 3 feet in size. It is a speciality of the neighbourhood of Palembang. It is very tough and offers a strong resistance to penetration.
6. The stones (though not all of them) were hotter than could be explained by their having been kept in the hand or pocket for some time.
7. All the stones without exception fell down within a certain radius of not more than 3 feet; they all came through the same kadjang-leaf (that is to say, all the ones I saw) and they all fell down within the same radius on the floor.
8. They fell rather slowly. Now, supposing that somebody might by trickery have forced them through the roof, or supposing they had not come through it at all, – even then there would remain something mysterious about it, because it seemed to me that they were hovering through the air; they described a parabolic line and then came down with a bang on the floor.
9. The sound they made in falling down on the floor was also abnormal, because considering their slow motion the bang was much too loud.
The same thing had happened to me about a week before; but on that occasion I was standing outside in the open air near a tree in the jungle, and as it was impossible to control it that time (it might have been a monkey that did it), I did not pay much attention to it…
—
February 13th, 1906.
The construction of the house is very different from that of European houses. It is all open, as all houses in the East Indies are. There was no ceiling in the house. The walls forming the rooms did not extend as far up as the roof, so that there was an open space between the walls and the roof. This last circumstance was the reason why I examined the phenomenon so closely and climbed up along the vertical poles of the wall up to the roof, to assure myself that the stones were not thrown over the wall through the open space.
The partition between the place where I was sleeping and the place where the boy was sleeping was continuous all around the four sides of the room, there being a closed door between us two. This partition was a wooden framework, with kadjang nailed on it, forming that way a solid wall, which did not however extend up to the roof (as just described). The only wooden floor was formed of 2 inch boards, nailed together, there being no holes in the floor.
I am sure of the date, 1903, because in June, 1903, my sister died, and after this strange phenomenon occurred to me, I began to ponder whether there might possibly be any connection between my sister’s death and the falling stones. After the phenomenon had taken place, I bought a book about spiritism, to try to find an explanation. Before the phenomenon occurred to me I had read nothing about spiritism, but I had often thought about it. I am not at all convinced that there was any connection between the falling stones and my sister’s death. At the moment that the phenomenon occurred to me, I did not think about spiritism.
As I said before, one of my impressions was that the stones might have been meteor-stones, on account of their being hot. I put them in my pocket and carried them about with me for a long time, as there was a geological Professor coming to visit us and to inspect our work. I intended to have the stones inspected by him, but before he came the stones had been lost.
I hope that my plan is plain enough to give you an idea of the way in which I watched the stones coming through the roof. I was inside the room, climbed up along the framework to the top of the wall, held on with one hand to the framework to the top of the wall, held on with one hand to the framework and tried to catch the stones with the other hand, at the same time seeing the boy lying down sleeping outside (in the other room) on the floor behind the door, the space being lit up by means of a lamp in his room. The construction of the house was such that it was impossible to throw the stones through the open space from outside.
I wrote before that it seemed to me that the boy had been dozing all the time after I awoke him. I got the impression because his movements seemed to me abnormally slow; his rising up, his walking around, and everything seemed extraordinarily slow. These movements gave me the same strange impression as the slowly falling stones.
When I think over this last fact (for I remember very well the strange impression the slowly moving boy made on me) I feel now inclined to suggest the hypothesis that there might have been something abnormal in my own condition at the time. For, having read in the Proceedings about hallucinations, I dare not state any more that the stones in reality moved slowly; it might have been on account of some condition of my own sensory organs that it seemed to me that they did, though at that time I was not in the least interested in the question of hallucinations or of spiritism. I am afraid that the whole thing will ever remain a puzzle to me.”
===
The criticisms on the case made at the meeting of the Society on March 30th having been communicated to Mr Grottendieck, he wrote again on April 3rd, reiterating in further detail his reasons for thinking it impossible that the boy could have thrown the stones without being detected by him; viz., that three stones came through the roof while he was touching it with his left hand and looking over the top of the partition at the boy; again, while he was leaning over the boy to awaken him and facing towards the open door leading into his own room, he both saw and heard two stones falling there: also, while he was shooting into the jungle, the boy standing a little in front of him and to his right, so that he could see if he moved, he heard stones falling on the floor behind him. He was entirely alone in the house, but for the boy. The coolies had brought his instruments and tools there and then gone on to the bore-place, about four kilometres from the house, to which the boy also went when he ran away. On the first occasion referred to when he witnessed some stones falling and thought they might possibly have been thrown by a monkey, another servant was with him – a Soendanese native – whereas on the second occasion the boy was a Malay Palembang coolie.
Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, May 1906.
https://archive.org/details/IAPSOP-spr_journal_v12_1905-6/page/278/mode/2up?q=native
Mr Grottendieck sends us the following details in answer to some enquiries from Mr E. Westlake as to the geological character off the stones, etc., with some comments on Mr Podmore’s criticisms of the case, printed in the last Journal. He tells us also that the “boy” was about 16 or 17 years old.
“The stones were black and polished and about 1/8 to 3/4 inch in size. The biggest one was certainly not more than 1 inch. They were not smooth like pebbles. They were not like volcanic cinders; not crystalline. They were slaty, arranged in layers and looked very much like anthracite, but the edges were not quite so sharp as pieces of anthracite. They were not so heavy as meteoric iron, but more light like anthracite is.
On the evening the phenomena occurred, I noticed that they all fell down within a certain radius of about 3 feet. Next morning I found them where I had left them myself the night before, and did not find any other stones in the house.
The sound of falling on the floor was decidedly much too loud. I do not remember with absolute certainty that I threw them upwards, although I am inclined to think that I did. But I remember that the sound with which they came down on the floor was also slightly different from the ordinary noise. The sound was more ‘hollow’ (or explosive).
The hut was not specially my home, but I knew very well the surrounding jungle. The house (or hut) was situated near a river (Meranti-river). In this river there is an immense lot of “braun-kohle,” so-called “junges pliocan.” You can just walk over the braunkohle banks, just as in the Kapass-river, but there is decidedly no anthracite. As far as I know there is no anthracite on the whole island of Sumatra, but an immense lot of braunkohle. But the stones were not braunkohle. They were much too black and polished for that.
As to Mr Podmore’s criticisms, my comments will be put in the form of questions and answers:
1. Where was the boy when I was climbing up the partition? Answer: I do not know, because I was not clairvoyant and could not look right through a kadjung partition.
2. Where was the boy when I had reached the top of the partition? Answer: He was lying down on the floor, apparently asleep. I saw him there directly when I looked over the partition and during the time that I saw the stones coming through the roof.
3. What conclusion do I now draw? Answer: That the boy must have returned from the kitchen during the time that I was climbing up the partition, and that he must have put himself down on the floor again to continue his sleep.
4. Would this be probable? Answer: Certainly it would, because, when you awake a native boy at night, then he will put himself down on the floor again to continue his sleep, just as soon as he does not see his master any more.
There is still another detail which I now remember and which shows me also that I could not see him at the moment that I climbed up. It is this: At the moment that I looked over the partition and saw the servant, I kept myself up with my right hand and searched the roof with my left hand. When you take now into consideration that the stones appeared through the roof somewhere above the door, then there follows as an absolute necessity that I must have climbed up at the right-hand side of the door, which means behind the open door. So of course I could not see him coming back. (A rough plan of the rooms shows this).
The servant was certainly not fully awake before I shot my five cartridges,but I really do not know whether he was “in trance” or not, because I do not know much about trance. The only thing I have ever seen of it is with Mr. B., and he behaves “like a fool.” The boy never behaved in that way on that night, but he moved abnormally slowly, just as the stones also did. But my own movement did not give me the impression of being slow.
So you see that, notwithstanding I have communicated everything I remember, I can only come to this conclusion; and I think the fact that I could not of course remember a thing that I could not have seen explains what seemed to be a discrepancy.
W.G. Grottendieck.
Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, July 1906.
A similar case to the above is cited by Signor Ernest Bozzano, in his Phenomena of Haunting
(translated into French from the Italian by Monsieur C. de Vesme). It
appears that a certain Mr Grottendieck, of Dordrecht, in Holland, had
the following strange experience when in Sumatra in September, 1903.
According to his own narration he had crossed the jungle from Palembang
to Djambi on this Island, with an escort of fifty native Javanese on an
exploring expedition, and on returning from this expedition to his point
of departure he found to his annoyance that his usual quarters were in
the occupation of strangers. It was therefore necessary for him to
transport his hammock to another hut. The hut in question was in an
unfinished state, constructed of wooden beams, the roof being covered
with large dried “kadjang” leaves. Mr Grottendieck stretched his hammock
over some planks of wood, put his mosquito net over all, and was soon
asleep.
“Towards one o’clock in the morning,” he narrates, “I
found myself half awakened by the sound of an object which had fallen
close to my pillow, outside the mosquito net. Two minutes later I was
completely awake and looked around to see what could be falling. I then
perceived that it was some black pebbles of about two centimetres in
length. I got up and took the lamp which had been placed at the foot of
my bed, and putting myself in a position to observe what was taking
place, discovered that the stones were dropping from the ceiling and in
doing so were describing a parabolic curve and falling close to my
pillow. I then went into the next room and woke up the Malay boy I had
with me, bidding him get up and search the jungle around the cabin.
“While
he did so I assisted him in the search, throwing the light of an
electric torch on the foliage. All this time the pebbles had continued
dropping inside the hut. I set him to keep a look-out in the kitchen,
and in order to be able the better to watch the fall of the stones I
myself knelt close to the pillow and tried to seize them as they fell.
This, however, proved impossible, for the stones seemed to make a leap
in the air the moment I jumped up to seize them. Thereupon I climbed on
to the partition which separated my room from that of the boy, and
examining the roof from the point from which the pebbles seemed to come.
I satisfied myself that they were emerging from the bed of “kadjang”
leaves which nevertheless was absolutely intact. I tried again to seize
them at the point from which they started in their passage from the
roof, but always without success.
“When I came down the boy came
in and told me there was no one in the kitchen. I was, however,
convinced that some practical joker was hiding himself somewhere, and
arming myself with my Mauser I fired five times from t he window in the
direction of the jungle, with the sole result that inside the cabin the
pebbles commenced to fall more furiously than before. I succeeded,
however, by doing this, in completely waking up the boy, who before I
had fired seemed stupefied and sleepy. As soon, however, as he realised
that the stones were falling he cried out that it must be the Devil who
was throwing them, and was seized with such terror that he fled into the
jungle in spite of the fact that it was in the middle of the night.
“From
the moment that he disappeared the rain of pebbles ceased, but the boy
did not come back, and I lost him for ever. There was nothing very
remarkable about the pebbles themselves, except that in touching them
one noticed that they appeared warmer than they would have been
normally… The worst part of the adventure so far as I was concerned
was that the boy’s flight obliged me to prepare my own breakfast and to
do without my usual hot coffee and toast.”
In reply to questions
put to him with regard to this narrative, Mr Grottendieck observes:
“From the point of view of fraud the boy is beyond suspicion, for when I
bent down over him to wake him up (he was sleeping on the mat close to
my door) two stones fell one after the other, and I saw and heard them
fall, the door being open at the time. The stones fell with an
extraordinary slowness of movement, so that even on the hypothesis of
fraud there would still be something else mysterious to account for.
They actually seemed to hover in mid-air, describing a parabolic curve,
but finally striking the ground with violence. Even the noise they
produced by their fall was abnormal, for it was too loud relatively to
the gradual nature of their fall. The boy himself seemed to be somnolent
and in an abnormal state until I had fired off the rifle.”
Mr
Grottendieck adds, what appears a very significant fact, that the
lethargic nature of the boy’s movements produced in him exactly the same
strange impression which he experienced as the result of the slow
motion of the stones through the air.
Such is the strange
narrative, which it will be noticed is curiously parallel with the case
which Joseph Glanvill describes, “In which a bed-staff was thrown at the
minister, but so favourably, that a lock of wool could not fall more
softly.” Here, however, though the stones hover in the air, at the last
they fall with violence.
Notes of the Month, in the Occult Review, April 1921.