Maurice Grosse: The Jewish Mastermind behind the Enfield Poltergeist
The Enfield Poltergeist is widely regarded as one of the classic paranormal cases in history. It occurred in Enfield – a suburb of London – from August 1977 to the closing months of 1979 in the house of newly divorced mother Peggy Hodgson. The principal victims of the supposed entity were Hodgson’s daughters Margaret and Janet (13 and 11 respectively at the beginning of the disturbances).
The disturbances – which were allegedly caused by the spirit of an ‘old woman’ according to jewish medium and all-round charlatan Gerry Sherrick who supposedly ‘cleared the house’ but ‘the spirit came back’ somehow – (1) didn’t start out as a poltergeist, but rather as a simple haunting. (2)
It was only when Maurice Grosse - the Warden of the Muswell Hill Synagogue - (3) and Guy Lyon Playfair – both sent by the Society for Psychical Research to investigate - showed up that the disturbances suddenly took on the guise of a classic poltergeist. (4)
Grosse in particular testified that he ‘immediately believed’ that a poltergeist was present from the outset (5) and that it was Grosse who was the key believer and proponent of the poltergeist narrative as Playfair documented in his 1980 book on the disturbances. (6)
As Will Storr has observed; Grosse and his sheer credulity is absolutely central to the case (7) as he was trusted by Peggy Hodgson, while she refused to trust any other investigator outside of Playfair. (8)
This was probably because three independent investigators; professional magician and psychic investigator Milbourne Christopher, parapsychologist Anita Gregory (who was herself jewish) (9) and skeptic Melvin Harris. All concluded that there was no evidence for a haunting let alone a poltergeist, but rather the disturbances were just the result of deliberate actions of a ‘very, very clever little girl’ who realised it was a great way to get the attention she wanted in the wake of her mother’s acrimonious divorce from her father. (10)
Grosse’s general credulity – so rightly criticised by Nickell – (11) however was in some respects extremely cynical.
An example of this would be when Gregory managed to catch Margaret and Janet in the act of faking the disturbances and got them to confess about what they had been doing in front of several witnesses. (12) It was Grosse who promptly and almost hysterically browbeat the two girls into recanting their confession and continuing on with the charade for months on end. (13)
Thus we can see that in many respects; Maurice Grosse masterminded the creation and perpetuated the hoax of the Enfield Poltergeist for his own ends, which included a ferocious and credulous belief in the existence of life after death resulting from the death of his own daughter in a car accident some years previously. (14)
References
(1) https://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/features/seen-a-ghost-who-do-you-call-1.11028; https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/enfield-poltergeist
(2) Joe Nickell, 2012, ‘The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead’, 1st Edition, Prometheus: Amherst, p. 329
(3) https://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/features/seen-a-ghost-who-do-you-call-1.11028; https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/kabbalist-takes-on-ghost-1.8529; https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-jewish-chronicle/20061027/282355445239353
(4) Nickell, Op. Cit., p. 329
(5) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054842/Enfield-Poltergeist-The-amazing-story-11-year-old-North-London-girl-levitated-bed.html
(6) Guy Lyon Playfair, 1980, ‘This House is Haunted: The True Story of a Poltergeist’, 1st Edition, Stein and Day: New York, pp. 37; 53; 233
(7) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2016/06/13/the-conjuring-2-what-really-happened-during-the-enfield-haunting/
(8) https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/may/01/the-enfield-poltergeist-a-skeptic-speaks
(9) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Gregory
(10) Nickell, Op. Cit., pp. 329-330
(11) http://www.csicop.org/si/show/enfield_poltergeist
(12) Playfair, Op. Cit., pp. 196-197
(13) Ibid, pp. 218-221
(14) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Grosse#Psychical_Investigator