I am inclined to favour the theory that in all cases of poltergeists, where non-human sources of power are indicated, careful psychic analysis will reveal some inanimate matter which has been in contact with either evil-living mortality or the dead, and is serving as the focus and reservoir of the force. The power appears to be sporadic and cumulative, but it can be destroyed or dissipated both by material and by occult means if it can be traced to its source. The latent cumulative effect of such an evil relic may possibly stimulate the extension of psychoplasm by unconscious mediums brought within its sphere of influence. This seems indicated where an exchange of physical mediums in the one centre of inflection has produced parallel results. There is also some ground for supposing that the phases of the moon affect the manifestation. It is, of course, fashionable to deride the moon, but any seaside doctor will admit that his patients die with the ebb of the tide; and, further, it is highly illogical to suppose that an influence which can affect the vast masses of the tides is without its influence on the tenuous fluids of vitality. The lunar effect is probably due to a screening or projection of specific solar or ethereal vibrations below the range which we see as light and colour and above that which we recognize as electrical phenomena. “The simple undirected energy display of a poltergeist phenomenon may be converted into a specifically malignant phenomenon. The energy may be used to form a vehicle for an evoked elemental succubus or incubus, or might under certain different conditions be similarly utilized to accommodate or materialize a ‘familiar’ of a higher order,” says Duchesne, writing of some researches carried out in the Var, “but I am still at a loss to know what induces the phenomena to appear with such fulminant energy and purposeless commencement.” * * * * * A peculiar case of poltergeist occurred in Hertfordshire last spring.[47] The farm bailiff of a home farm complained that his cottage, which looked out on the yard of the farmstead, had become intolerable. Crockery was smashed on the dresser, pots and pans flew about while nobody touched them, and when the whole family were at midday lunch in their living-room a kettle of boiling water which was simmering on the kitchener hob was brought through an adjoining open door and slammed down among the diners at the table without spilling a drop. Stones were thrown, windows broken, and even bedclothes snatched off. I went down in response to an invitation by the owner of the estate and soon convinced myself that the phenomena were authentic. The family consisted of the bailiff, his wife, a girl of fourteen, and a son of twenty. The latter was not much in the house, being about on the hills with the sheep, as it was lambing time.