Recurrent Spontaneous Psychokinesis (RSPK) is a hypothesis developed within parapsychology proposing that reported Poltergeist activity — objects moving, furniture displaced, unexplained noises — may originate from a living person's own unconscious Psychokinesis, rather than from an external spirit or ghost. It is the dominant living-agent explanation for poltergeist cases within parapsychology, as distinct from the traditional interpretation of a poltergeist as a discrete, disembodied entity.
Origin
The term was coined by parapsychologist William G. Roll following his 1958 investigation, alongside Joseph Gaither Pratt, of the Seaford, New York case, in which the Herrmann family reported repeated unexplained disturbances in their home. Roll proposed that the phenomena might stem from an unconscious psychokinetic ability in a specific living household member, rather than any external agency — a significant departure from the "ghost" framing traditionally applied to poltergeist reports.
The agent pattern
Analysing dozens of subsequent cases, Roll identified a consistent pattern: reported activity tends to centre on a single individual within the household, referred to as the "agent" or "focus person," and typically ceases once that person leaves the location. Roll's own analysis of 92 cases found this pattern present in 62 of them. The agent is most commonly an adolescent, leading proponents to theorise that RSPK may represent an unconscious channel for emotional stress, repressed anger, or hormonal change — most often linked to puberty — expressed as unintentional physical disturbance rather than psychological symptoms.
Notable cases
Beyond the original Seaford case — later re-examined by sceptical investigator Joe Nickell, who concluded the phenomena were explainable by deliberate trickery from the family's twelve-year-old son — RSPK has been applied retrospectively to numerous other poltergeist cases, most notably the Enfield Poltergeist (1977–1979), where proponents including Guy Lyon Playfair linked the reported activity to the emotional stress experienced by 11-year-old Janet Hodgson during her parents' separation, and the 1967 Rosenheim case in Germany, where activity was similarly linked to a young office employee.
Scientific reception
RSPK has never been accepted by mainstream science as an established phenomenon. Critics attribute apparent RSPK cases to a combination of deliberate fraud by the agent (often to gain attention), unconscious trickery, misperception of ordinary events, and investigator bias, noting that in several prominent cases the agent was directly observed producing phenomena by conventional means. Some sceptics have gone further, characterising the parapsychologists who investigated RSPK cases, including Roll himself, as excessively credulous investigators.