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The Joller Family

The head of the family affected by poltergeist activity in this case during 1860 was a journalist and member of the National Council of Switzerland, Melchior Joller, His home was in Stans near Lake Lucerne and he recorded his experience in his diary which was then published in a pamphlet entitled Narrative of Personally Experienced Strange Phenomena published in 1863 and referred to in Alan Gould and A.D. Cornell’s account of the case in their book, Poltergeists.

Joller was described as methodical and somewhat obstinate. After two years these characteristics were broken by the onslaught of the poltergeist activity. Joller lived ‘in moderate affluence’ with his wife Caroline, their four sons Robert, Edward, Oscar and Alfred and three daughters Emaline, Melanie and Henricka, plus their house servants. In the autumn of 1860 one of the maids complained that she could hear knocking noises on her bedstead; this was the begin ning of all that was to follow. Some weeks later Joller’s wife and daughter (who had been sharing a bedroom) were woken up by knocking noises but Joller thought this of no importance at the time. In June 1861 Joller’s son Oscar missed supper and was discovered unconscious in the wood store. He explained, on coming round, that he had heard knocking sounds and had gone in to investigate when suddenly the door had burst open and ‘a whitish formless shape came in’.

The other children complained of hearing noises — footsteps and so on and Henricka saw the apparition of a small child. In the autumn one of the maids complained of seeing ‘grey shapes’ and reported that on one occasion during the night someone had come up the stairs, which gave into the upstairs living room, and gone past her. The maid heard her name called many times. From the living room the maid heard ‘profoundly disturbing sobs’. Joller dismissed that maid, believing her to be superstitious, and in October 1861 she was replaced by a girl of thirteen. All was quiet until the summer of 1862 when ‘trouble began in earnest’. On 15 August 1862 Joller, his wife and son Robert went to Lucerne at seven o’clock in the morning. The rest of the family and the servant girl stayed at the house. Henricka heard rapping noises and told Melanie (then aged fourteen) and the servant girl. She then went into the corridor that the knocks seemed to be coming from, to investigate. Melanie called out, ‘In God’s name, if there is anything to it, let it come and rap.’ There seemed to be a reply in rapping noises. Oscar arrived and was told the story, called out the same challenge, but received no reply; Edward also repeated the formula.

They became frightened; there seems to be no particular reason for this beyond, probably, the contagion of fear that can spread between people. They fled the house. While they were sitting on the stone steps outside, a fist-sized pebble fell between Melanie and Alfred (spontaneous falls of stone are quite common in poltergeist cases, see in particular ‘The Jammed Gun’ pp. 277—8). At lunchtime they went back into the house to prepare a meal and found every room- and cupboard-door wide open. These they closed, bolting them where possible, but soon they were all open again, including those which had been bolted. The children heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs and ran out into the garden again. The servant girl peered back into the kitchen and saw ‘coming towards her a shape somewhat like a sheet hung up by one corner’. When she called to it the figure disappeared. Eventually the children hid in a barn where some labourers were at work and made occasional reconnoitres to see what was happening at the house. Fairly traditional poltergeist activity seemed to be taking place: sounds, moving furniture and what appeared to be the sound of a deep and melancholy voice saying, ‘Even if no one is around.’ A spontaneously formed ‘death’s head’ shape was seen on the floor (as if poured on) but it soon faded.

In the early evening a light was seen coming down the chimney. When the maid looked up to see what it was, she could see an object ‘with innumerable little blue flames’. It apparently exploded inside the chimney, dowsing the fire with water. Joller did not believe the stories he was being told. It was on Tuesday 19 August that he himself suffered the poltergeist activity and he recorded this in his diary. He heard rapping noises which seemed to reply to his own striking on the wall and promised the family that he would investigate it. The following day Joller witnessed the door between the bedroom and the kitchen visibly bending as the banging sounds struck up again. He raised the catch and the door burst open. Immediately he could see a dark form but could not make out its shape. Suddenly it moved from the door to the side of the chimney but investigation of the chimney located nothing. The following day Joller witnessed a force ‘as powerful as a wooden mallet might make when swung with all the strength of a powerful arm’; doors slammed and opened with enormous force. The subject began to become the matter of discussion locally because other people could hear the sounds. In the kitchen Joller saw that the poltergeist had attacked bottles, glasses and other containers, leaving them as if they had been struck by a metal implement. Sounds arising from different parts of the house were so rapid in succession that it would have taken four or five people to have perpetrated them — one person simply would not have been able to move around fast enough. On the night of 23 August in a first-floor bedroom Joller, his wife and a servant were all touched on the head ‘as if by hand’. Both Joller and his wife grabbed at the hand and ‘found it to be small and warm like a child’s’.

On 16 September Joller witnessed an apple hopping around strangely. It jumped down the stairs, along the corridor and into the kitchen, After having been put on the kitchen table it again jumped off towards the corridor; the servant threw it out of the window but in an instant it flew back in again and landed on the kitchen table and then proceeded to bounce further around the house. On 6 October a figure was seen on four different occasions by five different people; it was similar to a figure that had been reported on 10 September by Emaline. The figure was a melan cholic woman with a bowed head. Late in October 1862 Joller and his family fled to Zurich. What exactly happened to the family after that is uncertain but when contacted by Fanny Moser in the 1930s Emaline said that the phenomenon did not follow the family; neither did it continue in the house after the family’s departure.

Emaline did say that her father had had an experience one night after which he had said, ‘Now I understand.’ It was never revealed what the experience was or what it was he had come to understand. Joller died in 1865, the last three years of his life (following the poltergeist onslaught) a ruin compared to his former lifestyle. He had been ridiculed and attacked by family and friends and driven from his home. He died in poverty in Rome, an exile from his own country. Italy | New York | Wiltshire | Activity | Activity | Activity | Borley | Brazil | Brazil | Brazil | Burma | Canada | Corney | East Drive | Edinburgh | Finland | France | France | Germany | Ghostly | Lincoinshire | Manchester | Middlesex | Northern ireland | Northern Romania | Nova Scotia | Paraguay | Phenomena | Poltergeist Information | Scotland | Scotland | South London | Suffolk | USA | Washington State | West Norwood | Whitechapel |