Via Newspapers.com

If, for some strange reason, you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll know that I periodically post old news items about that liveliest of creatures, the goat. This one probably tops them all. From the “York Dispatch,” June 18, 1932:

WERNIGERODE, Saxony, Germany, June 18.--A scrawny billy-goat smeared with blood and honey and the scrapings of church bells, but still a billy-goat, bore mute evidence here, today that modern psychic research had won round one against the witches on "the Brocken," Germany's magic mountain.

At an eerie ceremony, in the cold and clammy fogs on top of the mountain, last night, the billy-goat failed to change into a man, although modern British and German psychic researchers faithfully carried out the old witches formula, supposed to achieve that result.

Round two takes place tonight, however, in the same setting, made famous in Goethe’s "Faust.” and in German witchcraft lore. What happened last night was this:

The experimenters, headed by Harry Price, London psychic expert, trooped up the sides of "the Brocken" leading the billy-goat and carrying an ancient witches formula, in manuscript, brought from the archives of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, London.

With them was Miss Gloria Gordon of England, for the formula called for a maiden "pure of heart,” and Miss Gordon said she guessed she was "as well qualified as any girl nowadays" for the part.

Atop the mountain, they anointed the goat with the blood, the honey and the scrapings of church bells. They used the proper pine to light a fire, described a circle of the proper size and uttered every one of the Latin incantations stipulated.

The goat then was led into the circle by a silver cord. A white sheet was thrown over him. More prescribed abracadabra was intoned. Then, in a weird monotone, expert Price boomed "one!” He continued booming until he reached "ten!” with proper pauses.

While a hundred or so spectators, huddled in overcoats, looked on in breathless silence, Miss Gordon, the maiden pure in heart, jerked off the white sheet.

But no handsome young man stepped out to greet her. Instead, there stood the same be-smeared billy-goat, shivering in the cold.

The witches had failed, and everybody applauded, for that is what they set out to prove. As Dr. Erich Bohn, a German scholar interested in the experiment, said:

"It is far from our expectation to summon witches and spirits. Nevertheless there is no reason why these ancient recipes and rituals should be merely cast aside, for it is the business of science to reject nothing so long as the method it employs is a scientific one."

The scientists will beard the spirits on the spot again tonight. But all the debunking in the world won't change "The Brocken” for its neighbors. When ominous blue-black clouds pour over the top and the wind swoops down the valleys in a frenzy, uprooting mammoth firs and screeching around the eaves, it’s creepy story time in the little timbered houses of the mountain dwellers and probably always will be.

The billy-goat was all right this morning but Gloria Gordon, the "maiden pure of heart,” was confined to her bed with a severe cold, contracted in the raw night wind on the magic mountain.

Gloria, a pretty blonde with wavy bobbed hair, broke down and confessed that she was really Urta Bohn, daughter of a Breslau attorney. "Dad wanted to avoid publicity,” she said.

Several of the spectators at last night's experiment were rubbing sore eyes today from the fumes of the powder flares, which, they said were more diabolical than any medieval witches incense.

Goats, I have noted, possess an uncanny ability to get people to make utter fools of themselves.

For those who assert there is such a thing as genuine poltergeist activity (as opposed to the skeptics who attribute it all to natural phenomena, over-imagination or hoaxes) the question becomes: "What is a poltergeist, anyway?" Believers fall into, roughly speaking, two different camps: some posit that polts are independent spirit beings--ghosts with a taste for nasty practical jokes. Others are of the opinion that what we are dealing with are manifestations unwittingly created by the troubled emotions of some member of the affected household--usually a child or teenager.

That debate will likely never be solved on this side of the grave. However, famed ghost researcher Harry Price recorded one English "poltergeist" case which strongly suggests that these "spirits" or "demons" are evidence of the awesome and little-understood power of our subconscious minds.

The story centers around the family of a Sutherland doctor named Wilkins. In 1940, Wilkins' 19-year-old daughter Olive became engaged to a young flight lieutenant in the RAF. Her parents were not in favor of the match. Although they had nothing against her beau, Dr. and Mrs. Wilkins felt Olive was too young for marriage. Even more seriously, the current war meant that odds were good their daughter might soon go from bride to widow. In the end, however, the course of true love ran smoothly and the young couple married in the fall of 1941.

The newlyweds settled in a rented flat near the Wilkins home, and Olive found work as a secretary. When her lieutenant was on duty, Olive spent much of her time with her parents. She had left many of her belongings in her old bedroom, so the Wilkinses must have often felt like Olive had never left home at all.

On February 26, 1942, Mrs. Wilkins borrowed a pin from her daughter's room. After being out for the day, Mrs. Wilkins came home and went back to Olive's room to return the pin. She was stunned to find the bedspread carefully turned down. She had not touched the bed all day, and she knew no one else had been in the house.

Three days later, Mrs. Wilkins was in the kitchen. She heard the front door open, followed by the unmistakable sound of Dr. Wilkins's footsteps, along with the clicking of her daughter's high heels. She was surprised to see only her husband enter the room.

"Where is Olive?" she asked.

"I don't know," he replied. Dr. Wilkins had come in alone, and had not heard the second pair of footsteps.

Four days after this, Mrs. Wilkins noticed that Olive's bed was mussed up, as if someone had been sleeping in it. A short time later, one of Olive's books had mysteriously been taken from the bookcase and left open on the windowsill. A week later, Mrs. Wilkins again heard the front door opening, followed by footsteps in the hallway. This time, she heard only one set of footsteps: Olive's. The steps went upstairs, and into Olive's room. Then, the steps went into the bathroom, where after a moment, Mrs. Wilkins heard the toilet flush. Then, there was silence. Mrs. Wilkins went upstairs, only to find no one there. When Dr. Wilkins came home, his wife told him her strange story. He went over to Olive's flat. She stated that she had not been to her parents' house all day.

The next few weeks saw two important events: Olive announced that she was pregnant, and her husband was posted overseas. As Olive's pregnancy advanced, so did the weird paranormal activity in her old home. Olive's former bed would not stay fixed. Mrs. Wilkins was constantly finding the bedclothes rumpled, or folded neatly down, or stripped from the bed altogether. Olive's dresser drawers were frequently found open, with the contents placed on the bed. It was now a regular event for Mrs. Wilkins to hear what she swore were the sounds of Olive opening the front door and walking up the stairs and into her old bedroom. When Mrs. Wilkins would go investigate, the footsteps immediately stopped. One day, Mrs. Wilkins arrived home to find that a photograph of Olive that was normally kept on the dining room mantelpiece had been placed on the table. Mrs. Wilkins, fearing this was some sort of bad omen, immediately called her daughter's workplace. She was told that Olive had unexpectedly gone into labor, and had been taken to the hospital.

Happily, Olive was safely delivered of a healthy girl, whom she named Enid. The baby's arrival simultaneously marked the end of the paranormal activity that had plagued the Wilkins home. The "poltergeist"--or whatever one cares to call it--was gone for good.

There was an obvious link between the Fortean events and Olive's marriage and pregnancy, but what did it all mean? Did Mrs. Wilkins' natural anxiety about her daughter, and desire to have her back home, cause her subconscious to create a "phantom Olive" who never married and left the family nest? Or were they manifested by Olive herself? Forced to deal with the combined stress of a husband in active service and her first pregnancy, did she secretly long for her more carefree unmarried life?

The Wilkins case is a perfect illustration of how "poltergeist activity" is virtually impossible to categorize, let alone understand.