Aeiirii

Aeiirii, also known as a Terrors from Beyond, poltergeist, demon, elemental, tommyknocker, bucca, gremlin, domovoi, gnome, goblin, or kobold

Origin: this type of spirit has its origins in the most ancient human folklore, but the term Aeiirii first appears in the Carnacki supernatural detective stories of William Hope Hodgson.

Description

Generally malevolent but relatively harmless inhuman spirits normally incapable of, or possessing limited capacity for materialization into the physical world, capable at best of limited manipulation of solid objects. These entities rarely manifest themselves in crowded, urban settings, and seem to instead prefer isolated, often natural settings, though they can attach themselves to specific human beings or objects and "ride" their hosts as the hosts move to a new setting, and occultists and other humans have noted that certain occult practices can deliberately or accidentally open the door to the spirit world and create an elemental haunting. Most cultures have developed methods of sacrifice to such spirits in the form of small offerings or gifts of food, treasure, space in or near the home to occupy, etc. in a bid to placate the spirits and prevent them from disturbing humans. Others have developed rituals of exorcism crafted to drive such spirits away from locations, objects, and/or people.

Aeiirii

Aeiirii are a type of non-human, incorporeal, physically invisible, generally malevolent spirit which can produce sound and other effects without fully materializing, and may even be able to manipulate solid objects - "the usual Aeiirii forms of semi-materialisation". Aeiirii may be psychically visible to sensitive viewers, mediums, and psychics, might also be rendered temporarily visible through arcane technological means, and may also take on some shape in the Astral Plane and other outer worlds, typically in inhuman or quasi-human forms.

Poltergeist

In folklore and parapsychology, the related concept of a 'poltergeist' (German for "noisy ghost" or "noisy spirit") is a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed. They are purportedly capable of pinching, biting, hitting, and tripping people. Most accounts of poltergeists describe the movement or levitation of objects such as furniture and cutlery, or noises such as knocking on doors. Poltergeists are sometimes regarded by parapsychologists as "subconscious manifestations of pyschokinetic activity", but poltergeists have more traditionally been described as troublesome spirits who haunt a particular person instead of a specific location: this type of haunting is often associated with specific people, usually pre-teen girls, and can happen sporadically, with several occurrences perhaps recorded in a day, followed by up to weeks of inactivity. Such alleged poltergeist manifestations have been reported in many cultures and countries for millennia.

Elemental Haunting, Gremlin

The related concept of 'elemental hauntings' refers specifically to a type of spirit that was never a living a human being, but rather something that was never a human being, and probably never had a physical, corporeal form. The signs of a haunting by an elemental spirit are varied, but are associated with mental imbalance, confusion, disorientation, heightened emotion, a sense of unease or generalized anxiety, violent mood swings, manic-depression, and even hysteria in their victims; mysterious sounds (like knockings and tappings, or strange tones or music with no apparent physical source); small objects that disappear or move (or sometimes appear/reappear) on their own; animals frightened or disturbed by the (unseen) spirits; disembodied (and typically bizarre, frightening, or alien) voices; peculiar and unexplainable smells, otherwise unexplainable malfunction of mechanical or technical devices due to tampering by the spirit; occasionally, they are reported by sensitive viewers as dark shapes of black animals or humanoid shadows seen briefly from the corner of the eye and similarly subjective manifestations (see Djinn, Shadow People).

Terror From Beyond

In the short story "From Beyond", Lovecraft describes a host of unseen, inhuman shapes that co-exist with the physical human world, revealed in the light of a Tillinghast Resonator, which might resemble the physical forms of beings otherwise seen only in astral form: "Indescribable shapes both alive and otherwise were mixed in disgusting disarray, and close to every known thing were whole worlds of alien, unknown entities. It likewise seemed that all the known things entered into the composition of other unknown things, and vice versa. Foremost among the living objects were great inky, jellyish monstrosities which flabbily quivered in harmony with the vibrations from the machine. They were present in loathsome profusion, and I saw to my horror that they overlapped; that they were semi-fluid and capable of passing through one another and through what we know as solids. These things were never still, but seemed ever floating about with some malignant purpose. Sometimes they appeared to devour one another, the attacker launching itself at its victim and instantaneously obliterating the latter from sight." In the story, the majority of these entities are near the bottom of a food chain that includes particularly dangerous predators, horrible to behold in the light of the Resonator, which, once attracted to the material plane, are capable of hunting and then feeding on human victims to the point of disintegration, resulting in mysterious disappearances; those entities that usually interact with the material world in the form of Poltergeists, Demons, and Inhuman/Elemental hauntings would seem to reside somewhere in the upper-middle or higher spans of this food chain as apex predators in their native environment, or even as intelligent (if thoroughly alien) beings.

Associated Mythos Elements

• tome: Sigsand Manuscript contains descriptions of the spirit obtained from "Ab-human Priests of the Raaee"
• tome: "The Saaamaaa Ritual" allegedly provides some relief or protection from oppression by these spirits
• cult: the Carnacki Institute has popularized the term
• cult: the Ab-human Priests of the Raaee seem to have had some special insight into the nature of these beings

References

• fiction: William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki the Ghost-Finder stories, and Simon R. Green's pastiche Ghost Finders series
• fiction: the "Terrors from Beyond" that appear in "From Beyond (fiction)" might be thought of as astral forms of Aeiirii
• film: Judas Ghost (2015 film)
• film: Poltergeist (1982 franchise)
• film: The Haunting (1963 film) and the Shirley Jackson novel of the same title the film was based on (in the reference to a rain of stones that supposedly fell on Eleanor's house as a child)