We have always been impressed by the Statement of Purpose published in each and every issue of NEXUS, to make available 'hidden knowledge', otherwise known as 'gnosis', in order to assist people cope with the changes that the planet is going through. Whilst the paranormal may not have the serious consequences for people as war or environmental concerns, it would be difficult to state with any confidence that psychic phenomena and the UFO issue have not engaged public attention on a grand scale. The reasons for this boom are obscure, except that it could be said that people are looking for something that makes their lives meaningful.

As for myself, I have been an investigator of anomalies for almost 16 years and have certainly found a rich source of fascinating material & emdash; and, recently, an inventor who has helped me make sense of one of the prime mysteries of our time: poltergeists.

It is the amazing discoveries of this man, one John Hutchison, from British Columbia, Canada, that I would like to share with you here.

POLTERGEIST ACTIVITY

The general public has been treated to big-budget, special-effects movies on poltergeist activity and has been led to regard it as consisting of spectacular phenomena involving spirits from other dimensions who enter our domestic world and wreak havoc. I suspect that few film-goers realise that there is a reality behind this movie mythology, where furniture does move, objects do levitate and sail round the room, fires do start behind locked doors and in impossibly enclosed places, water does mysteriously vanish, objects do appear to arrive from nowhere and seem to vanish just as strangely, iron bars are found twisted and broken, and mirrors shattered.

Probably most bemusing, however, are the effects on electronic devices and electrical equipment, causing them to perform strange feats. Television sets switch themselves on and off, repeated telephone connections are made which engineers consider 'impossible', and computers show programmes that have not been installed by anyone or information that is inaccessible through normal use. What causes these weird and unnerving effects, and what do they have to do with an inventor in Canada?

Allen Budden