Psychophysics and Cognitive Dissonance Laboratory, Lyon, France
—
Introduction: Poltergeist phenomena (also known as recurrent spontaneous psychokineses) have been reported since ancient times and in many geographical regions. Numerous studies have been carried out to present cases in detail or with comparative analyses. Studies have also analyzed recurrences and phenomenological trends based on online forms, hypothesizing a one-dimensional factor underlying ghostly episodes. It would be interesting to complement these approaches by focusing on the individual and his perceptions with detailed statistical analyses of documented cases involving multiple witnesses and objective physical phenomena. To date, there appears to be no digital repository containing a wide variety of cases with their associated phenomenology. This project, which began four years ago, consists of putting online a database of over 1,300 international cases, including, for more than 1,000 of them, a detailed phenomenology of the type of events that took place.
Methods: A survey was carried out among main organizations likely to collect cases, including CIRCEE (France), IGPP (Germany), IMI (France), IONS (USA), PA (USA), PRF (USA), SPR (UK), and SSE (USA). The construction of this repository was mainly based on detailed international bibliographical research (56 countries). The starting point was the 500 cases proposed by Gauld and Cornell (1979), supplemented by 250 Italian cases from Biondi and Caratelli, and additional local case studies. Cases involving only apparitions were excluded, as the database focuses on physical manifestations.
To characterize phenomenology, a set of 92 detailed parameters was developed for the repository, and a more synthetic set of 30 parameters was built for statistical studies. Typical parameters include: duration, movement of objects, high-energy events, apports/teleportation, water-related phenomena, fire lighting, knocking/raps, noises, aggression, spontaneous breaking of objects, strange trajectories, intelligent behavior, communication with the phenomenon, electrical disturbance, light effects, apparitions, identified poltergeist agent, agent characteristics, house-centered phenomenon, end through ritual ceremony, link with death, fraud, and natural cause.
Results: A database prototype developed with MySQL and PHP will be presented featuring: search functionality for poltergeist cases by specific phenomenology combinations; statistical results for the entire reference database by period or geographical zone; a user interface for proposing new cases; traceability tools; validation processes for new cases; and change request processes for error detection.
Discussion: This repository is an ongoing project aimed at opening it up to the entire parapsychological community. Contacts will be made with organizations so they can use it and submit new entries. The connection with other online resources concerning psi will also be evaluated. An article on detailed phenomenology of poltergeists, illustrated by over 100 cases from this directory, is currently being published.
—
Eric Dullin is a researcher at the Psychophysics and Cognitive Dissonance Laboratory in Lyon, France, specializing in poltergeist phenomenology, database development for parapsychological case studies, and statistical analysis of spontaneous psychokinetic phenomena.
—
The Parapsychological Association is an international professional organization of scientists and scholars engaged in the study of psi (or ‘psychic’) experiences, such as telepathy, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, psychic healing, and precognition. The primary objective of the PA is to achieve a scientific understanding of these experiences.
Follow the PA: https://linktr.ee/parapsychologicalassociation
Donate to support the mission of the PA: https://donorbox.org/support-the-parapsychological-association
Published on April 2, 2026
