he early 20th century is mostly remembered for times of war, but there have been so many other events taking place that history books are overseeing today. One of the reasons for this is that there aren’t enough texts written about such stories or events and those who lived to see them have sadly passed away. If you type Elenora Zugun on the web you might not get that much information and this is because this information is presented only in a couple of books, only one of which is written in English.

Elenora Zugun was a girl that came from a small village in Romania known as Talpa from the county of Botosani, the same county I was born in. I was always told stories by my great grandfather about Elenora and how her powers scared the whole village, but later on, when I grew up I thought that this was only a local children’s fairytale. Until one day when I stumbled upon a book entitled “Poltergeist Over England” written by Harry Price in 1945. Within the book, there are accounts of Elenora Zugun and entries from specialists that had been examining her paranormal behavior.

The author was very interested in Elenora’s story as he had done ample research during the 1930s and 1940s. Throughout his research, he had found many accounts from specialists around the world about Elenora and her powers. He even had published reports from 1929 of specialists who had analyzed Elenora in laboratories for years. This drew me towards doing some research of my own by trying to locate Elenora’s family for more information.

Elenora Zugun’s Missunderstood Power

However, before I get into more detail here is the story of Elenora Zugun. Elenora was born on the 24th of May, 1913 in a family of peasants represented by most of the Romanian population at the time. All of the elders from the village of Talpa are afraid to speak of Elenora as they think it will awaken back the devil within her, but her nephew who is now 61 years old is the only person who talks about her past.

Marcel Zugun was the best source of information about Elenora. When she was still alive, Marcel would always ask about her past and how she traveled the world as a small child, but for the wrong reasons. Elenora didn’t really wanna talk about her past, but her nephew kept insisting until she told him what happened.

When Elenora was 7 years old, paranormal activities would occur around the village. She was too small to see it at the time, but anything she would think in her mind would actually occur in the village. All of the villagers were frightened and their first thought based on cultural belief was that a devil had entered the village.

She told me that when she was little she would walk on the road and the rocks would align. Whilst she was inside the house many objects would randomly appear in the house, including rocks from the lake that would smash the windows as they came into the house. One time a hunter had been called by her grandfather to see what was lurking in the attic. When the hunter went up all of the objects started hitting him. Elenora used to get beaten by her older cousin and one time she told him to stop it otherwise he would run naked around the village. Her cousin hit slapped her across the face and later on that day he was seen by the whole village running around naked. (Quote by Marcel Zugun)

Her family did what any family within that region would do and that was to take her to a priest for an exorcism. She was taken by her family and 40 other villagers to a priest who was well known for his ability to fight the demons within people. As soon as Elenora entered the monastery all the windows had shattered. The priest tried everything, but he did not manage to do anything and this is because there was no demon as far as the accounts of specialists such as Harry Price go.

The interest of Specialists

From the accounts of Harry Price, she was first taken to Vienna in September 1925 where German and Austrian physicists started examining her. At the age of 12, she was placed in a mental asylum within the region. She was rescued from there by the Austrian Countess Zoë Wassiliko van Serecki who had a big interest in poltergeists and the study of parapsychology. Whilst she was studied by specialists in Austria, she lived with the Countess in a place where she was examined most of the time.

Word started to get around as things started to worse in the village of Talpa. This was not a phenomenon to be heard by news agencies in Romania, but all over the world. Fritz Grunewald, a well-known engineer and psychical researcher from Berlin had huge interests in the girl due to all the controversy that took place in the press.

Here is an account from Grunewald when he started examining Elenora:

“I arrived in Vienna on April 30, 1926, and began my observational periods the next day. I found Eleonore to be an intelligent, well-developed, bright girl with a sunny disposition. She was then nearly thirteen years old. Though physically strong and healthy, she was ‘young’ mentally. In many ways, she was more like a girl of eight: her shyness; her extreme fondness for simple toys; her simple games, and childish ways. But she could read and write well and was even something of an artist. She was five feet tall and weighed 123 pounds.”(Account is taken from “Poltergeist Over England” written by Harry Price page 258)

What is very interesting is the simple, yet smart study that had been performed by physician Groenewald which proved that Elenora was truly in possession of some sort of paranormal powers.

“As I watched my hostess examining the join, a steel stiletto with handle, used for opening letters, the whole about ten inches long, shot across the room from behind me and fell against the closed door. I instantly turned round and a minute investigation revealed nothing — and no one — that could have projected the stiletto, which was normally kept on the writing table behind us, against the wall farthest from where we stood. Let me say at once that no one in that room, and certainly not Eleonore, could have thrown the paper-knife. We were at least ten feet from the table; I had both Eleonore and the Countess in full view. Eleonore had one half of the ball in her right hand, and the gun in her left; the Countess had the other half of the ball in her hand, and I was actually watching both my hostess and the child; the stiletto came from behind and to the right of us, and I was between the missile and the door. It was a brilliant introductory phenomenon.” (Account is taken from “Poltergeist Over England” written by Harry Price page 259)

There have been many other similar tests performed by different specialists. During the next following years, Elenora was taken to labs in Germany and then to London for another couple of months. There had even been an old article written around that time by a publication called “Sunday Mail” from Brisbane, Australia. The article mentioned that one day when Elenora was served tea in the lab she dropped the cup of tea and screamed as if she was hurt. Suddenly a bite mark appeared on her hand as if she was viciously bitten by something although everyone was there the whole time.

The bite marks on her hand disappeared an hour later as if nothing had happened. I must mention that some of the things that have happened could be made up by news agencies as it was quite a hot topic at the time. In 1927 she was moved to London to be examined by specialists over there. They even wrote a journal full of the different examinations that they had done on her.

Within the journal, they even describe in better detail the bite marks which would occur quite often. They believed it was the devil within her trying to maltreat her by inflicting pain through bites.

“The fall of the franc was the first telekinetic phenomenon of Eleonore’s witnessed at the Laboratory, concerning which I was absolutely satisfied. The falling of the coin off a ledge may be a simple movement, but for this movement to take place automatically by mechanical means would require fairly elaborate apparatus which could not be rendered invisible. I could fill many pages with accounts of the phenomena we witnessed, under scientific conditions, during Eleonore’s stay in London. (1) Her visit caused the greatest interest among scientists and others who attended many of the observational periods, and those whom I invited included: Dr. R. J. Tillyard, F.R.S., Mr. W. R. Bousfield, F.R.S., Mr. Edward Heron-Allen, F.R.S., Professor William McDougall, F.R.S., Professor Hans Thirring (who travelled specially from Vienna in order to see our experiments), the Hon. Everard Feilding, Professor A. O. Rankine, F.R.S., Dr. Thea. B. Hyslop, late chief of Bethlehem Hospital, the London mental asylum, and many more. If the ‘Poltergeist’ phenomena were interesting, her stigmata were equally puzzling, and they deserve a chapter to themselves. Eleonore had an idée fixe that Dracu — the Rumanian Devil — used to bite and otherwise maltreat her — an obsession that we tried to eradicate, without success. The painful weals, teethmarks and scarifyings that she experienced were more than a match for our logic.” (Account from Proceedings of the Nat. Lab. Of Psy. Research, Vol. I, Part 1, London, Jan. 1927)

Researchers from around the world, especially in America were interested in studying her, but everyone had to wait their turn. In 1928 when Elenora became 15, her powers disappeared without any sort of treatment or action. She became a normal adolescent and therefore she was sent back home to her village as there was nothing left to examine.

Powers vanishing overnight

Scientists didn’t want to believe that there was truly a devil controlling her as the Romanian culture kept saying, they wanted a more scientific reason. They tried to analyze her powers from a Parapsychological point of view which combined the psychology of paranormal activity with psychic phenomenons. This is a study that had been invented in the 19th century and is still researched today.

Academics within the field started re-evaluating Elenora’s examinations in 1999. The re-evaluation is presented in The Journal of Parapsychology (Vol. 63, Issue 1) in which it had been argued by Peter Mulacz that the disappearance of her powers could have been caused by the long period of constant examination. It was also mentioned that this could actually be an RSPK case (recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis) which is used to explain in more scientific terms cases of poltergeists.

The question that is probably in most people’s minds is if this is actually true. Based on the accounts written by reputable institutions and well-respected researchers from their own fields I believe it is, especially seeing the fear within elders from the Talpa village when hearing the name Elenora Zugun. Elenora passed away in 1996 yet the story of her vivid life still lives on.