you have Nandor Fodor writing about how poltergeists are the projected sexual repressions of traumatized adolescent girls.”
Laurel must have grimaced because Brendan nodded sagely. “Yeah, how Freudian, right? Blame it on the girls. Downfall of man, and all that.”
That made her smile in spite of herself, and he winked at her.
“Then Rhine comes along just at the same time as the science of statistics was invented, and the scientific method is in. The space program kicks into high gear … everything has to be scientifically quantified. So Roll and Rhine start in with the scientific terminology: focal person, attenuation—”
“Yes.” Brendan pointed at her with his chopsticks. “Sounds great, right? RSPK—how scientific is that? The focus of the Rhine Lab was to bring parapsychology into line with the ‘real’ sciences. So here we go with all the scientific terminology and the flow charts and the quantifiable results. And because it’s really tough to scientifically quantify the afterlife, researchers focused on the theory that poltergeists aren’t ghosts at all, but projections of human energy. But I think …”
He dipped into his noodles again, and scarfed them down in a prolonged slurp, before he continued. “I think that was all window dressing. Well, and the zeitgeist.
“Now, our man Leish was coming at it from a completely different perspective. He’d headed up these poltergeist investigations in Europe and reported back that poltergeist manifestations usually increased over the course of an incident—and actually stepped up once an investigator was on the scene. Leish didn’t think it was one agent at all. He thought it was a group dynamic that fueled poltergeist energy, that poltergeists were actually created by a spiraling group dynamic—which included the investigators.” He quoted: “ ‘The expectation and desire to experience a poltergeist factored into the manifestations.’
“Now look,” Brendan waved a chopstick for emphasis. “The post-RSPK theory is that poltergeists and hauntings are facets of the same phenomenon. Haunted houses can host RSPK outbreaks, and hauntings may to an extent be person-oriented. Most contemporary researchers admit in retrospect that the combination of haunting and poltergeist features is the rule, rather than the exception.”
His face grew serious and at the same time suffused with light. “But you know what I say? This isn’t a science. Not nohow, not no way. It is, I submit, asinine even to try to find the science in it.” He picked up the mysteriously moving glass and shook it at Laurel. “It’s the unknown, for Christ’s sake. But … but.” He paused, and waited until he had her absolute attention, then continued. “The psychology of it all is a different story. You can learn a lot about human psychology by studying test subjects’ reactions to completely unscientific phenomena. And that’s our book.”
“Our book?” she stammered. At the same time she felt a thrill start from the base of her spine and sizzle through her body to the top of her head.
“Of course, our book,” he said expansively. “It’s obviously big enough for a book.” He suddenly leaned across the table and snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Have you not been paying attention?” His eyes glowed with the candlelight. “This is huge. This is the meaning of life. Who are we? What are we capable of? What the hell other forces are we sharing this planet with? Do we have the freaking power or do we not?”
He was, she had to admit, completely mesmerizing. And he knew it, too, because he suddenly leaned back in his chair with his hands on his thighs, smirking, as if he’d won something.
“So what’s the current psychoanalytical construct for poltergeists, hmm? What is a poltergeist, for us, today? What does it look like? What does it want?”
Laurel just stared at him, speechless.
“That, my dear, is an award-winning book. I guaran-fucking-tee it.”
He leaned abruptly forward over the table, startling her. “So we’re going to do this, right?”
She looked at him, caught up in a miasma of feelings—helpless confusion, amusement, distrust, excitement. “Do what? How?”
“I—don’t know,” he admitted. “But whatever it is, we’re close.” His eyes were alight. “Don’t you feel that? We’re so close.”
And he was right. She had the sense of standing outside a door that was slowly opening, beyond which there were worlds she’d only begun to imagine. Her entire body was cold, trembling, alive.
“We’re on Leish’s trail, now. What have we got to lose? At the very least we can write an article on how the prevalent psychoanalytic theories of the time influenced the