2024-2025 Vol. 88(1) 62-92
Editor:
John G. Kruth
Copyright:
Parapsychology Press
Citation
Williams, B. J. and Solfvin, G. F. (2024-2025). A Conceptual Replication and Extension of William G. Roll’s Database of Reported Cases of the “Poltergeist”/RSPK-Type: Preliminary Survey. Journal of Parapsychology, 88(1), 62-92. https://www.parapsychologypress.org/jp-88-1-62-92
Article
A Conceptual Replication and Extension of William G. Roll’s Database of Reported Cases of the “Poltergeist”/RSPK-Type: Preliminary Survey.
Bryan J. Williams, and Gerald F. Solfvin
Psychical Research Foundation
Center for Indic Studies, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
In the late 1970s, William G. Roll had compiled and conducted a survey of a database of 116 cases of the “poltergeist”/RSPK-type spanning the period from 1612 to 1974. Here we report our efforts to conceptually replicate this database by reconstructing it in digital form almost entirely from the ground up, and then extending its coverage up to the end of 2021. A preliminary analytical survey of this extended database of 212 cases is also presented, which yielded several findings consistent with Roll’s original survey, as well as being in line with the results of two other subsequent case surveys. This relative consistency across surveys suggests that further in-depth study of spontaneous cases of the “poltergeist”/RSPK-type using a more systematic approach would be worth pursuing.
Keywords:
anomalous experience, poltergeist, recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (RSPK), spontaneous case research, anomalous episodic communal kinetic occurrence (AECKO)