One of Den­mark’s most vio­lent out­bre­aks of Pol­ter­gei­st acti­vi­ty took pla­ce on Told­bod­ga­de in 1887. Read the incre­dib­le story of flying kni­ves and spi­rits here

Whe­re: Told­bod­ga­de 71 (then Ny Told­bod­ga­de 49), Copen­ha­gen (GPS 55.6860977, 12.5964981)

When: Novem­ber 1886 to April 1887 

Good to know:

Similar Cases: The Devil in Sal­mon Stre­et, The Got­hers­ga­de Pol­ter­gei­st, The Vogn­ma­ger­ga­de Haun­ting

About the case

During the late 1800s the cor­ner section of this buil­ding was lea­sed by Carl Berendt Lorck, con­sul gene­ral and book publis­her. He was respon­sib­le, among other thin­gs, for publis­hing H. C. Andersen’s wor­ks in Ger­man trans­la­tion. Lorck had pea­ce­ful­ly resi­ded with his exten­ded family here for years, until one night in Novem­ber of 1886, when their lives were tur­ned com­ple­te­ly upsi­de down.

Some mem­bers of the family had alre­a­dy gone to bed whi­le others were still in the living room, when at about 22:30 three heavy kno­cks were heard on the door of the bot­tom floor of the hou­se. When the door was ope­ned no one was to be found, even after sear­ching the enti­re stairca­se. This was alre­a­dy a bit stran­ge, becau­se the door that ope­ned to the stre­et was clo­sed, and it would­n’t have been pos­sib­le to get into the buil­ding wit­hout a key.

A few moments later, all hell bro­ke loo­se. The family began to hear loud scrat­ching nois­es, fol­lowed by kno­ck­ing on walls and doors, and they wit­nes­sed their fur­ni­tu­re shaking and levi­tat­ing. This acti­vi­ty con­ti­nu­ed in various ways throug­hout the night and until the next day. At one point it beca­me so inten­se that seve­ral chairs were pus­hed down the stairs, as if by an invi­sib­le for­ce.

For the next seve­ral days, the dis­tur­ban­ces con­ti­nu­ed. Mr. Lorck awo­ke one night becau­se a lar­ge clo­t­hing-rack came flo­at­ing into the bedroom. One mor­ning the family discove­red that a lar­ge water tub from the third floor had been thrown into a cor­ner at the gro­und level of the buil­ding during the night. Other times, objects would start to move when family mem­bers pas­sed by them, or the shower would sud­den­ly turn on by itself. In one of the more chil­ling epi­so­des, the con­sul gene­ral was fol­lowed down the stairs by a kni­fe.

Carl Lorck in his older days

Final­ly, the family deci­ded to con­ta­ct the local aut­ho­ri­ties in hope of stop­ping it all. After pre­sen­ting their pro­blem at the local poli­ce sta­tion, the family was joi­ned by poli­ce offi­cer Thor­vald Smit and a group of his assi­stants who, uncon­ven­tio­nal­ly, ended up staying over­night in a sepa­ra­te room in order to wit­ness the pheno­menon first hand. During that night they expe­ri­en­ced all the same types of acti­vi­ties that the family so far had dealt with. The poli­ce offi­cers had to admit that they could not deter­mi­ne a phy­si­cal ori­gin behind them. Nevert­he­less, this did not help the family with their pro­blem and they were told only to con­ta­ct the poli­ce again if the situ­a­tion beca­me down­right dan­gerous.

Being almost out of options, the Lorcks then deci­ded to reach out to local mag­ne­tist and spi­ri­tist Chr. Han­sen (not to be con­fu­sed with then famous sta­ge hyp­no­tist Carl Han­sen, also acti­ve aro­und this time) , who arran­ged for a sean­ce at the hou­se, to deter­mi­ne the sour­ce of the dis­tur­ban­ces and get rid of them once and for all. Han­sen used a vari­e­ty of tech­niques, such as com­mu­ni­cat­ing by kno­ck­ing under tab­les and making “it” pro­du­ce seve­ral stran­ge pheno­me­na on com­mand.

Wor­king toget­her with the family, the sour­ce of the specta­c­le was final­ly deter­mi­ned to be the spi­rit of Mrs. Lorck­’s disea­sed bro­t­her, Hjal­mar, who had died in the hou­se a whi­le back. Han­sen furt­her­more voi­ced the the­ory that the youn­gest of the Lorck chil­dren were acting as a sort of unwit­ting con­du­it for the rest­less spi­rit. Towards the end of the sean­ce, the spi­rit expres­sed towards Han­sen & The Lorcks that the dis­tur­ban­ces would not con­ti­nue for much lon­ger. And inde­ed, thin­gs began to slow down almost imme­di­a­te­ly afterwards, even­tu­al­ly com­ing to a com­ple­te halt during the fol­lowing days.

One of the many news­pa­per arti­c­les at the time about “The Ny Told­bod­ga­de Wit­che­ry”

Expla­na­tions and Con­clu­sions

The Ny Told­bod­ga­de case stands as one of the most specta­cu­lar and well-docu­men­ted Danish pol­ter­gei­st inci­dents, that until recent­ly had been more or less for­got­ten. News­pa­pers at the time, from all over the coun­try, prin­ted and reprin­ted count­less arti­c­les about “The Wit­che­ry At Ny Told­bod­ga­de” and rea­ding through them it beco­mes clear that it has most the hal­l­marks that we know from clas­si­cs such as The Enfi­eld or Enti­ty pol­ter­gei­st cases: spon­ta­neous kno­ck­ings and scrat­chin­gs, heavy objects moving or being thrown aro­und, the see­m­ing­ly aggres­si­ve mood of the “spi­rit” as well as an attra­ction to/connection with youn­ger family mem­bers.

The­re is of cour­se the pos­si­bi­li­ty that it was all an ela­bo­ra­te and well orga­nized prank. A local boy was in fact suspected of being behind the ini­ti­al kno­ck­ing on the door, but with the specta­c­le that fol­lowed eve­ry­o­ne rea­lized that somet­hing lar­ger had to be at play. A few arti­c­les also men­tion a young boy living at the Lorck hou­se as being the poten­ti­al sour­ce of it all, but seve­ral times when fur­ni­tu­re was flying aro­und he was found to be asle­ep in bed.

One also has to con­si­der that the Lorck family them­sel­ves could have orche­stra­ted the events as a hoax, alt­hough it is very hard to see what they would gain from this. The family do appear to have play­ed a part in drawing atten­tion to the specta­c­le, but it seems they did not do so out of a gene­ral desi­re for publi­ci­ty, but more out of des­pe­ra­tion becau­se they were run­ning out of options. In this con­nection it is important to note that nobo­dy doub­ted the Lorcks’ sin­ce­ri­ty. Seve­ral arti­c­les poin­ted out, howe­ver, that Chr. Han­sen, the invol­ved hyp­no­tist and spi­ri­tist, had a history of doub­t­ful pra­cti­ce and frau­du­lent behavi­or. But sin­ce he did not enter the pic­tu­re until very late, and furt­her­more appa­rent­ly hel­ped end the specta­c­le, it is dif­fi­cult to lay the bla­me on him.

In the end, even by taking a scep­ti­cal stan­ce, one is left with the clear impres­sion that somet­hing unusu­al hap­pe­ned at the Lorck resi­den­ce during tho­se mont­hs of 1886–87. But exa­ct­ly what, we will pro­bably never know.

Select sour­ces

  • S. Von Huth — Spi­ri­tis­me Kon­tra Mate­ri­a­lis­me
  • Tids­skrift for Mag­ne­tis­me og Hyp­no­se