The Geist House
At some point between 1860 and 1880, a person or persons collected a range of materials and housed them within a carved wooden box. The materials were a collection of stories, poems, reports and recounts regarding a mysterious cabin in the woods that was alleged to appear all over Europe.
To this collection, they added a summary of the gathered lore, a series of predictions about the future, a collection of bizarre diagrams, and hundreds of pages of arcane symbols.
These materials, together, constitute the first hypothetical video game. They are called The Geist House.
Everything about The Geist House is a mystery. It has been called 'The Voynich Game', a reference to the mysterious codex, The Voynich Manuscript, which has similarly baffled historians for several hundred years. There are currently very few reasonable theories regarding its creator or creators, and the date of its creation can only be narrowed down to a 20 year time period. Several independent components have been tracked back further, verifying that it is not entirely a work of fiction. There are a series of vellum pages, for instance, that are known to have been the property of Hans Christian Anderson, and are thought to be from the late 15th or early 16th century. One of the plates, previously assumed to have been created by whoever wrote the remainder of The Geist House, is now thought to have been in the possession of a Mr Karloff Jacobson in 1866, New Jersey Supreme Court Associate Justice Elias B. D. Ogden in 1848, and a Sarah Taggart from 1820-1824.
The Geist House is a thing of antique beauty. The box is made from a smooth, dark mahogany and its surface is a patchwork of loops, swirls and fleurs. The lid, in which its title have been carved above a picture of a cottage poking out from behind a series of pines, sits atop an internal rim that holds it is in place. At some point in the past, there is evidence of a locking mechanism having been fitted, though this is now notably absent. Scientists and historians have both studied The Geist House over the years, most recently in 2015, when a team used a technique known as deep-ion emission testing to reveal that the box has been varnished at least three times since its creation.
Currently, The Geist House is property of an anonymous collector and was purchased at auction in 2012 for a 'substantial amount' from film maker and animator Tim Burton. It was allegedly a wedding gift to Burton from actor Jack Nicholson, who had purchased it in a private auction. Ownership of The Geist House can be traced back further to some extent, but by 1979 the trail runs cold. It is rumoured that the current owner has arranged for the willing of The Geist House to The Hungarian Natural History Museum (though sceptics note that the museum has no technology department at present and thus, it is questionable as to where it would be housed.)
Whilst elements of the text are written in German, Italian, Latin, Greek and English, the majority of the text and all of the typewritten portion, are Hungarian, leading many to assume that the creator of the box and the additional material was likely a Hungarian native.
Within the box, there are five discernible types of document which are generally arranged in vague sections. As they are not bound, some historians have argued that the individual texts may have been re-arranged by one or more of the owners throughout the history of The Geist House, as suggested by two separate attempts at page numbering in the corners of some sections. It has been suggested that the texts were arranged far more dynamically with focus passing between sections regularly. For ease of understanding, I will refer to these as sections.
The first section tells the story of The Geist House, a haunted cottage that appears in wooded areas through the world, via snippets of folk story, legend, written accounts and interviews with villagers in remote locations. The majority of these appear to be in central and Eastern Europe, however, some notes refer to the house's (or perhaps houses') appearance in America, Peru, Iceland, Tunisia and Egypt. In each version of the story, a person or group of people are drawn to the cottage through a variety of circumstances ranging from seeking shelter from stormy weather, to seeking out the cottage in an attempt to locate a missing lecturer. In each story, the house in question is described differently, but the events that occur within its walls share common themes. The protagonists of each story are threatened by rapidly escalating paranormal activity. Doors and windows open and close, the fire in the hearth bursts to life and dies out suddenly, the temperature in different rooms drops dramatically to the point that frost forms on their eyelashes. They hear moaning and wailing from other rooms and hear footsteps pounding the landing. In some stories, candles flicker and are vanquished by 'ghostly airs', in others the house is lit with gas lamps that are snuffed out or electric bulbs that crackle, fizz, flicker and explode. A common feature is isolation and entrapment, the narrators are bound inside the house by doors that refuse to open, windows that refuse to break, or otherwise outside forces even more sinister threaten them. However, the true horror of the situation is not apparent until the forth section.
The second section is a compilation of letters between two people in Hungarian. One is an increasingly frustrated engineer named Ferenc Kemény (likely a pseudonym formed by combining the names of statesman Ferenc Deák and writer Zsigmond Kemény.) The other remains anonymous but is assumed to be the author of The Geist House. It is this section from which the most material appears to be missing, making it is hard to track the passage of time. Some historians believe that as little as six months passes between the first letter and the last, other suggest as much as a decade. There are also numerous interpenetrations of the order in which the letters should be assembled, though most agree that the current configuration (thought to have been the theory of whoever owned the manuscript in 1917) is at least partially wrong. Topics of discussion in the letters include religion, politics, the dawn of man, war, Ancient Greek philosophy, trade negotiations with America and family. However, time and time again the author refers to a great project or work that he is bidding Kemény to collaborate upon. Time and time again, the engineer refuses.
The third section, thought to be mostly complete, is the shortest. It is a series of seven essays in which the author refers to a series of 'forces' and laments the ability of mankind to accurately measure these. It is within this section that the famous 'Geist Plates' appear – fully rendered images printed separately from the text and inserted (perhaps at a later date).
In the first, arrows flow from a snow flake, to a rain drop to a boiling pan of water to a series of spider like shapes or beings. In the next, differing numbers of arrows pass from a series of illustrations that depict the body of a parakeet through various stages of decomposition. The final six plates are the only images that seem sequential. Arrows pass through a human eye to the brain. Arrows pass from one brain to five others. Arrows pass from a brain into several objects including a feather, a cube of metal, a fork and a door. The next plate shows those same objects in the same place, cycling arrows among one another. Arrows pour out of the objects and into the empty space on the paper. The final plate shows the arrows within the space circulating as they had when within the objects.
There have been many suggestions as to what these images represent. Doctor Athilia Silverman notes their similarity to the imagery used for patent requests of the time and notes that, “in Europe...clerks were expected to work alongside those requesting patents and would often assist in the artistry of diagrams. Whether the individual responsible for the plates within The Geist House is the same individual who first collated and wrote the material is up for debate, but whoever provided the artwork most likely had experience within a patent clerk's office or similar field.”
The prevailing theory is summarized by by Francis Aulderman within his work Iconography: mysteries of illustration. He claims that the plates are an attempt by the author to show the passage of energy.
“It is only the final six plates, the so called Geist Plates, which are of relevance. The diagrams prior to these serve only to establish the discussion. In the first plate, arrows translate from a solid snowflake to a drop of liquid to the steam coming from a pan of water. The arrow then translates to a spindle-limb insect of some kind but I believe that this is an attempt by the author to convey electricity. The remainder of the plates show how energy is released from the body of living things and into the atmosphere. These are the author establishing their terms, presenting the understanding of the time before they make the hypothesis they are actually interested in conveying. The Geist Plates are an attempt to show how this life energy is absorbed, proliferated and maintained not merely though living things, but inanimate objects. The feather, the table, the glass bead, all act as batteries which hold this energy and charge one another, only for it to be released at a later date.”
The forth section continues the narrative of the first section. The numbering on many of these pages suggest that this is where the most shuffling of papers has been conducted and that these stories and reports were once all held together with their counterparts. There are a total of three 'starts' in the first section that do not continue in the forth, and a total of seven 'ends' in the forth section which do not correspond to starts in the first.
The true horror of the situation facing the narrators of each story is realized in full. After finally escaping the haunted cottage, the various characters return to their lives. However, it is not long before the paranormal behavior begins once more. Seemingly their experiences at the Geist House have left them permanently altered in some way, serving as conduits for their very own homes to turn against them. No matter where they go or what they do, the haunting effects of the Geist House follow them until they are driven mad, die of fright or take their own lives.
However, it is the final two sections that are perhaps most amazing and mysterious. Without them, The Geist House is a strange collection of horror stories and correspondence, but nothing that would have generated the curiosity that The Geist House is famous for.
The fifth section begins with a map which has been described as both blueprints and schematics. The map shows a two-story house containing a host of familiar objects, but many that resemble nothing notable. In the very center of the house is a large orb from which arrows pour out in every direction and flow into almost every object. There are evidently several pages missing after this, but it if Francis Aulderman's analysis of the Geist Plates is true, it appears that the author is attempting to show a centralized power generator providing energy to a range of implements within a house. It is after these diagrams that the 'title page' appears. It is a single page containing only a few words - “The Geist House – an interactive parlor game for the future.'
This is the project that the author appears to be pestering the engineer over in the letters in section two. In these sections, the author makes specific and strangely accurate predictions of the future. Though he is clearly at a loss of reference points and is unable to comprehend the science behind his imagination, he tells of a world where houses are networks of energy, where the different rooms of a building are unified by 'invisible and impossible forces that whisper silently to one another, sharing the information of what they see'.
'How marvelous it will be then,' the author writes, 'to have The Geist House. I hope only that it survives long enough to see the necessary technology that it requires to operate'.
The Geist House is a video game perceived and designed long before video games were a reality. Perhaps most surprising of all, it is a multiplayer interactive horror game. The full extent of the author's imagination is hidden within the final section, but they make several references to the game play within the fifth section.
“As the players enter the bathroom, they may see ghostly appearances on the glass of the mirror, just as a magic lantern or dissolving view apparatus allows. How mystified they will be, when the horrifying images sculpted within the view, reflect their own visages!”
“The home of the future will be heated and cooled via independent means from room to room, allowing different temperatures to occupy each space. As players wander The Geist House, they may suddenly feel themselves frozen to the point of shivering, only to be miraculously warm the next moment.'
'However, the denouement of the experience, occurs days, perhaps even weeks later. Just as the player who owns the home is beginning to recover from their experience! The Geist House may revisit, striking fear when they least expect it. The horror of the situation is just as the horror of the stories – for The Geist House follows and bewitches those who visit. To enter The Geist House is an unforgivable transgression and the players will never know when they will once more be assailed by slamming doors, opening windows, screams from other rooms and the stench of rot as the food within their pantry is spoiled using energies! More terrifying still, those who have visited the home of another to play will take home the seed of The Geist House. Unbenownst to them, their own homes will soon to be a source of much vexing and mayhem as chilling events unfold slowly and unexpectedly around them.”
The sixth section is 243 pages long and is comprised of row after row of arcane symbols. Until recently, it was assumed that this writing was occult in nature. The symbols are an alphabet with each letter formed from three lines. There are seventy nine different letters and whilst some appear regularly on every page, a total of eighteen appear only once. It is only in recent years that those who study The Geist House have recognized the pages upon pages of symbols for what they are – whether through inspiration or delusion, the author of The Geist House has created their own coding language. Despite multiple attempts to decipher it, linguists are yet to reveal its secrets. Time will perhaps tell whether The Geist House, as envisioned by its creator, will ever be played.