December 1965.
In this month, a respectable Catholic family in the small town of Jabuticabal, 220 miles from the city of Sao Paulo but within the borders of the state of that name, was first visited by one of the most persistently malevolent poltergeists in history. First, pieces of brick began to fall inside the house, apparently from nowhere, although there was a pile of similar bricks out in the back yard. The family decided that someone was playing tricks with them. But nobody could suggest who, or how, and the phenomena went on for several days, until it became clear that if anybody was throwing the bits of brick, it wasn’t anybody visible. So the good Catholic family sent for the local priest, who duly came and went through his traditional ritual of exorcism, with much arm-waving and prayer-intoning. The phenomena immediately became much worse.
[… The family had] a neighbour, a dentist named Joao Volpe, [who had been] trained and oriented by Cairbar Schutel, one of the pioneers of the Kardecist-Spiritist movement in Brazil. The Catholic family turned to a Spiritist as a last resort. They always do. Volpe came over to his neighbour’s house on December 21st. He soon decided that a quiet and pretty eleven-year-old named Maria Jose Ferreira who was living in the house with the servants, was a natural medium and was unknowingly enabling the phenomena to take place. He immediately offered to take the girl into his own home, keep her under observation, and do what he could to treat the problem. For a few days all was quiet, but then stones began to fly around the Volpe house whenever Maria Jose was around. The bombardment became so intense that Volpe was finally able to count a total of 312 stones of all shapes and sizes, one weighing no less than 3.7 kilos.
Then the disorderly spirits began to throw eggs around. They became so fond of this that before long it was impossible to keep an egg intact in the house. One day, a dozen eggs were placed on the egg rack inside the refridgerator. Out in the yard, Volpe’s granddaughter was feeding the chickens, when she suddenly noticed three eggs underneath one of them. This would be quite normal, except that it was a cock and not a hen, as were all the others she was feeding at the time. Back in the kitchen, it was found that there were only nine eggs in the fridge, although nobody had opened the door.
Stones kept on falling at all hours. One Sunday the Volpes went to lunch with their next-door neighbours. During the meal, a stone descended from the ceiling and split into two about four feet from the ground, the two parts proceeding in different directions as they fell to the floor. One of the women present immediately picked up the two pieces of stone and noticed that they fitted together like pieces of a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. Moreover, they seemed to snap together as if magnetically attracted to each other. The stone was passed around the table, and everybody noticed the strange magnetic effect, which soon weakened and disappeared.
Next door, at the Volpes’ home, little Maria Jose was getting quite accustomed to the behaviour of her unseen playmates. She found that she only had to ask them for a flower, a piece of candy or some other small object, and hey presto, it would appear at her feet! […] For a few days, nothing serious happened to or around Maria Jose. Joao Volpe gave her special treatment in his private study, where on two occasions stones appeared in the presence of Volpe and a doctor colleague. One landed with considerable force on a writing desk, shattering its glass cover. Phenomena also took place in the open air; on one occasion as Volpe and a friend were walking along the street with Maria Jose, the girl suddenly mentioned that she would like a little brooch for herself, whereupon one fell at her feet. Shortly afterwards, Maria Jose was pelted with sugarapple fruits while she was out in the yard. The fruit had been inside a bag in the house. Then stones would fall onto her plate while she was trying to eat her meals. The spirits still retained a certain sense of humour; Maria Jose was trying to pick a guava from a tree in the garden, but found she could not reach it. So she asked Mrs Volpe to pick it for her, and as the lady stretched out her hand, the guava simply vanished.
Then one day all hell wwas let loose, and for almost three weeks a succession of plates, glasses and even heavy flower vases was flung about the house in all directions, until the Volpes had no unbroken crockery left at all. Invisible hands began to slap Maria Jose on the face or the bottom, leaving clearly visible bruises. The spirits began to bite her all over her body. They threw chairs at her, and even a large sofa. A gas cylinder was wrenched away from the wall and hurled in her direction. Pictures jumped off walls and flew from one room to another.
On one occasion, two witnesses actually saw a glass dish from the kitchen and a mirror from the bedroom cross in mid air before heading for bedroom and kitchen respectively.
Attempts were made to suffocate Maria Jose by forcing cups or glasses over her mouth and nose while she was asleep. There are indications that they also tried to violate her, though the poor eleven-year-old’s descriptions of such attempts were none too precise. Next, about forty days after the initial outburst of brick-throwing, they began to attack her with needles. It was always her left heel. Needles would simply appear thrust deep into the girl’s tender flesh, even while she slept with her shoes and socks on, and sometimes even while she was out walking. On one occasion, fifty-five needles had to be extracted at the same time. When her heel was bandaged, the bandages would be wrenched off without the knots being untied.
On March 14 1966 Maria Jose caught fire. She was eating her lunch at school when her clothing suddenly began to smoulder from a round burn that had appeared as if from a cigar-butt. The same afternoon, the Volpes’ bedroom burst into spontaneous combustion, and while Joao Volpe was ripping the bedclothes off the burning mattress, he burned his hand quite badly on the pillow, which had caught fire inside without his noticing.
Maria Jose stayed with the long-suffering Volpes for about a year. The phenomena eased off somewhat, but never stopped altogether for long. […] The Volpe’s home circle gave the little girl all the intensive treatment they could, with special prayers and appeals for help from their spirit guides in addition to repeated magnetic passes over her body. They managed to do away with the really serious attacks, such as those with needles, but the spirits refused to stop throwing things around, especially fruit and vegetables. They had come to stay.
Maria Jose’s life came to an unexpected and tragic end. When she was thirteen, she went back to live with her mother, and one day in 1970 she was found dead. She had apparently committed suicide by taking formicide mixed with a soft drink, dying almost at once.
From chapter 12 of ‘The Indefinite Boundary’ by Guy Lyon Playfair, 1976.