The Troublesome Poker...
“Words were originally magic, and to this day words have retained much of their original magical power.” –Freud 1915
It is believed that art, literature and music can be ‘psychotropic’, an example being "Szomorú vasárnap"/’Gloomy Monday’ , a Hungarian song from 1933 said to be so mournful as to be responsible for a number of suicides and is banned from being played on the radio.
The Troublesome poker is a ‘lost’ children’s story, whose one and only known publication was around 1875, although its origins, and exactly when it was written are a mystery, as no author can be attributed to writing it. This story has never been published since, for it has gained some notoriety as being able to have a (sometimes terribly) negative effect on some of those who read it, and it has been attributed to cases of mental disturbance, hallucinations: both aural and visual, accompanied by bouts of pathological anxiety, sometimes developing into psychotic episodes, self harm/mutilation, and night terrors. Although actual evidence linking the story with actual cases of psychological harm and mental disturbance is tenuous at best and has likely more to do with speculation and rumour, and the way urban myth and folklore can colour reality, and vice versa. Another such case in point being ‘Springheeled Jack’ , who was a character from around 1850,with a very strange appearance who would startle or attack people, and sometimes blow fire in their faces, and make his escape by leaping over walls, outbuildings, and along roofs. Read more
“Auditory hallucinations are the most common phenomena reported after reading ‘The troublesome poker’. With accounts of sounds or a voice heard just by the ear, they are terrifying to those that may be suggestible enough to imagine such things, but most people don’t realise that a room carries an unnoticeable ambient noise, a room being like the inside of a plugged in speaker box with a current running through it. After about 2 to 3 years of age a child will learn to tune out this sound, but it is possible that some right brain dominant individuals, and of high intelligence who are creative, imaginative, sensitive and/or empathic, having read this rather creepy ‘children’s story’ with its strange way with words , and with their senses heightened, might ‘notice’ the voice of the poker in this ambient, unnoticed ‘white noise’. After that, a second sense will seek to validate this perceived danger that is fresh in the mind, -the eyes may discern shapes in a dark room, and as a poker is a simple form in itself, it wouldn’t be such a leap of imagination to glimpse it lurking in the room, if that is what one in such an anxious state is looking for.- Other sensory deceptions may include unconscious micro muscle contractions due to anxiety interpreted as ‘the brushing of cold hard fingers’ on ones lower back. once the psyche has been imprinted by this ‘experience’ it is then expected, feared, and listened/looked for again-thus becoming an anxiety habit, then phobia, and maybe even psychosis.
-From ‘The living Myth Phenomena’ by Dr Hugo Summers.1973
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