Poltergeists (was: who's going to die; Weatherby

[Rita Winston]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., lyorkus at y... wrote:

> Peeves is definitely the ghost of a human.  A poltergeist ("geist"
> is the German word for "spirit" or "ghost")

As in Zeistgeist, the spirit of the era, as in saying that 1848 and 
1968 shared a Zeitgeist of rebellion.

> is supposed to be the ghost of an adolescent.  The rebellious or
> mischievous nature of the poltergeist supposedly has something to  
> do with a combination of the nature of the person's death (there's 
> unfinished business this person never got around to, he/she is 
> upset about that) and the basic  instability of a teenager's   
> personality.  As a result, this ghost is having a hissy fit for 
> eternity.

I just about entirely disagree. There may be some folklore in Germany 
that a poltergeist is the ghost of a dead adolescent, but 'psychic 
researchers' in the English speaking world generally agree that a 
poltergeist is not a being at all, but rather all those things are 
being thrown around by the unconscious psychokinesis of a living but 
frustrated adolescent. 

As Peeves seems to quite clearly be a Being, I suppose that 
poltergeists in the Potterverse are Beings and not just a 
manifestation of a troubled teen-ager. If the kind of being that a 
poltergeist is, is the spirit of a dead person, then 1) judging from 
the other ghosts we've seen, it would look something like what it had 
looked like at the moment of death, and 2) Nearly Headless Nick 
wouldn't have said that Peeves isn't a real ghost. "My dear Friar, 
haven't we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all 
a bad name and you know, he's not really even a ghost -- I say, what 
are you all doing here?"

Another opportunity for my new theory: as the Poltergeist is a Being 
(in the Spirit division), therefore the reason it is often found in 
households with frustrated adolescents is not that it was created by 
the adolescents. So maybe the reason is that it feeds on frustration, 
and hangs out where the teen-ager produces a steady food supply. The 
talk about poltergeists and frustrated adolescents usually mentions 
frustrated lust, but if the poltergeist feeds on frustrated anger 
and other kinds of frustration, then maybe the reason it does so 
much damages and harrasses people so much is IN ORDER to make the 
people feel angry and frustrated. So that the poltergeist can eat 
their anger and frustration.