CHAPTER Xin 



ONE of the most extraordinary of phenomena, or alleged phe- 

 nomena, of psychic research, or alleged research if in quasi- 

 existence there never has been real research, but only approxima- 

 tions to research that merge away, or that are continuous with, 

 prejudice and convenience 



"Stone- throwing." 



It's attributed to poltergeists. They're mischievous spirits. 



Poltergeis\s do not assimilate with our own present quasi-system, 

 which is an attempt to correlate denied or disregarded data as phe- 

 nomena of extra-telluric forces, expressed in physical terms. There- 

 fore I regard poltergeists as evil or false or discordant or absurd 

 names that we give to various degrees or aspects of the unassimil- 

 able, or that which resists attempts to organize, harmonize, system- 

 atize, or, in short, to positivize names that we give to our recogni- 

 tions of the negative state. I don't care to deny poltergeists, be- 

 cause I suspect that later, when we're more enlightened, or when 

 we widen the range of our credulities, or take on more of that 

 increase of ignorance that is called knowledge, poltergeists may 

 become assimilable. Then they'll be as reasonable as trees. By 

 reasonableness I mean that which assimilates with a dominant force, 

 or system, or a major body of thought which is, itself, of course, 

 hypnosis and delusion developing, however, in our acceptance, to 

 higher and higher approximations to realness. The poltergeists are 

 now evil or absurd to me, proportionately to their present unassimil- 

 ableness, compounded, however, with the factor of their possible 

 future assimilableness. 



We lug in the poltergeists, because some of our own data, or 

 alleged data, merge away indistinguishably with data, or alleged 

 data, of them: 



Instances of stones that have been thrown, or that have fallen, 

 upon a small area, from an unseen and undetectable source. 



London Times, April 27, 1872: 



"From 4 o'clock, Thursday afternoon, until half past eleven, 

 Thursday night, the houses, 56 and 58 Reverdy Road, Bermondsey, 



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