Demonic Hauntings And Why You Don't Want An Exorcist Who Advertises, Part Two

This is the second part of my two-part article on demonic hauntings and why you don't want an exorcist who advertises. You can read the first half of the article here. But if you're ready, let's get into the scariest possibilities of a demonic haunting.

POSSESSION

Before we get too deeply into this part of the discussion, let's take a moment to consider the fact that true possession is extremely rare. With hauntings, only about 5% of the cases paranormal teams investigate are legitimately haunted. Of legitimately haunted locations, only 5-10% are negative in nature--most are residual, too, and don't involve an intelligent haunting. These kinds of statistics are mirrored when it comes to true possessions. In the same December, 2018 article from The Atlantic, the Catholic priests (who all have over ten years' experience as exorcists) that were interviewed all said they'd worked on "only a handful" of true possessions in their careers.

This is for a couple of reasons. First off, the Catholic church has a seriously thorough discernment process before they commit to an exorcism. Father Thomas laid this out in our LiveSciFi interview as well. Before the church risks the spiritual and physical health both of the victim and the exorcism team, the person is subjected to physical examination and then a psychiatric evaluation. Only if the victim gets through both of those will an exorcist consider whether or not the individual is possessed.

If someone claims you need an exorcism and does NOT require medical and psychological competency testing, run away.

Fast.

You think I'm kidding, but I recently witnessed an "archbishop" who frequently shows up on paranormal television shows tell two people in ten minutes that they were possessed and required an exorcism. He didn't know the history of the two people, their medical history, their psychological state, or their motivations. And neither of these people were walking up walls or spitting up pea soup either. But somehow, this "archbishop" was able to diagnose the need for spiritual warfare within minutes of being in the same place at the same time as the people he alleged to be possessed.

Putting it frankly, that's bullshit.

A true possession occurs when the victim finally succumbs to the diabolical influence in their life that's been gradually breaking them down through the infestation and oppression stages we've looked at already. After suffering through infestation and oppression, the victim is extremely depressed by this point and is on the brink of giving up the only thing the demon wants--their soul.

At the end of the day, the struggles against diabolical agents all come down to the same thing. The longer the victim fights against becoming fully possessed, the worse the paranormal activity surrounding him becomes. Bringing in investigators at this point just endangers them. Only legitimate exorcists can help the victims of true possession--and legitimate is the key phrase here. In my opinion, the majority of legitimate exorcists are within the Catholic church--and you can find those exorcists by contacting the diocesan offices your local priest answers to--along with a very few ordained clergy and demonologists outside the Catholic faith. Sure, the clergy from your family's church are a great option when it comes to blessing a person or location. But to do spiritual battle with the demon(s) behind a possession requires special training, like what's offered at the Vatican's Pontifical University of Regina Apostolorum in Rome or its sister school in Chicago. Students do not have to be Catholic priests; the church has opened the doors to exorcist training to practitioners of all faiths. However, there's one place you absolutely do not want to go.

The internet. Why?Fake Exorcists

Anyone who advertises themselves online as a demonologist or exorcist is neither. Can't be stated any more strongly than that. If an exorcist or a demonologist has to advertise for clients that's a huge red flag. Another huge red flag? They offer "courses" where for $99, you get reading material AND a certificate meant to validate you as a paranormal investigator or a demonologist or an exorcist.

Total BS, folks.

Considering the surge of purported oppression and possession cases in the world, why would an exorcist need to advertise? Exorcist is pretty much at the top of the list of "jobs no sane person wants".  There is NOTHING fun or exciting about confronting a demonic entity. So why would an exorcist need to drum up new clientele?

There are two answers to that question. First, the exorcists who are looking for new clients and more notoriety are the ones who are skulking around on the rotating "guest appearance on paranormal reality shows" list. But second--and pay attention, because this one's the most important--

Remember way up at the top of this article when I quoted the statistics for legitimate hauntings, demonic hauntings, and demonic possession cases? Possessions are extremely rare. So the odds that he'll confront a for-real demon are basically nil. Those odds are always in a fake exorcist's favor. Fake exorcists are snake oil salesmen who exploit their clientele, performing deliverance ceremonies on people who aren't even close to being possessed. They're the equivalent of faith healers who hide chicken livers in their hands and pretend to pull "tumors" from patients' bodies. A fake exorcist demands no medical or psychological exams; they have no real discernment protocols. They are running a huge scam for fame and excitement, which is basically the spiritual equivalent of giving someone chemotherapy for a splinter in their big toe.

Anyone can read from the Roman Ritual--you can download .pdf files online. But the Ritual doesn't have the power to confront a real demon unless the person reading the Roman Ritual has the spiritual backing that ordination in the Church or training and education by the Church or valid religious backgrounds confer.

Beware, too, of variations on the Catholic Church. Learn to differentiate between the REAL Catholic faith, not a fake one claiming to exist because of a schismatic bishop of Utrecht (this digs deeply into dogma, so we'll refrain from getting into this until the paranormal parasites article coming up.) BUT doesn't have a single church he or she preaches at. Seriously. If the "archbishop" who's advertising as an exorcist has no congregation, no link with a legitimate denomination, and if their mailing address is obviously their apartment? That's not a valid member of the clergy. There are purported archbishops out there where the entirety of their religion appears to be an archbishop, three or four bishops, a couple of deacons, and that's about it. They have more clergy than parishioners because there are no parishes. Many fake exorcists claim to be of the OLD Catholic Church. Word to the wise--there is no Catholic Church older than the Roman Catholic Church. There is a schismatic branch called the Old Catholic Church that the Vatican recognizes as a legitimate arm of the Church, but the real Old Catholic Church has things like churches, denominations, Mass, et cetera and doesn't require a mailing address at a strip mall.

So if for some reason you don't want a Roman Catholic exorcist, your best bet is to contact credible paranormal researchers who can set you on the right path.

Like here, for example. Always glad to help. My article on paranormal parasites is coming next, so hopefully I'll be able to help you protect yourself from the diabolical--both human and supernatural. In the meantime, if you have questions or are afraid that you're dealing with a demonic haunting then contact me through this blog or email me through my website: celina(at)celinasummers(dot)com. I'm more than happy to help you find a legitimate paranormal research team and to hook you up with the avenues you need to take to seek help from the clergy.

The REAL clergy.

(By the way, all those cool illustrations? Those are woodcut engravings from 1818's Dictionnaire Infernal by Collin de Plancy--and pretty much the only thing of value to be found in this decidedly fictional demonological lexicon.)

Demonic Hauntings And Why You Don't Want An Exorcist Who Advertises, Part One

 For some reason, demonic hauntings have been on the rise globally. The Catholic Church is playing catch-up and installing an exorcist in every diocese in the US but still can't meet the demand...

This scenario was unfathomable in 1973, when the film version of Peter Blatty's horror masterpiece The Exorcist was released. In fact, most people were unaware that such things as demonic possession or exorcists actually existed. The Catholic Church had spent a century backing away from any public association with such things, and especially from the rite of exorcism, which had been first been given official guidelines in 1614. Those guidelines weren't updated until 1999, and now twenty years later the explosion of desperate requests for spiritual rescue from the diabolical has rendered the entirety of the process cumbersome and difficult to navigate.

But recently, the Church has been changing its tune. The Catholic Church is in the process of assigning an exorcist in every diocese in the US--all one hundred and ninety-seven of them--which is a turnabout of dogma no one could have foreseen. That's a huge investment of money and time, but even then, it's not enough. The exorcist for the Diocese of Indianapolis told The Atlantic in its December issue from last year that his office had fielded over 1700 requests (and counting) for exorcisms for 2018.

While there are now denominations on the Protestant side of the aisle that perform legitimate rites of deliverance, there's also a swelling preponderance of paranormal parasites that use people's fear of the diabolical to create fame for themselves. If someone suspects the demonic is attacking a friend, member of the family, or even himself, knowledge is necessary to protect oneself not only from the demons tormenting them but from the paranormal parasites that would torment them. Exorcisms are not a game and cannot be taken lightly, because this ritual sometimes leads to the death of the very person who sought help in the first place.

This article is an extremely broad beginner's guide to demonology, one that will hopefully enable readers to arm themselves against diabolical agents--both the demonic and the paranormal parasites. We will discuss the stages  of demonic attacks and their symptoms, lay out the safest options to find help, and the best way to keep yourself from dancing with the devil in the first place.

Three Stages of Demonic Attacks

INFESTATION

There are three universally recognized stages of demonic intrusion into a person's life. The first stage is manifestation or infestation. In this stage, the diabolical agent begins to insinuate itself into its victim's environment. Why does it need to do such a thing?

Because a demon must first be invited into a person's life and then be given permission to remain there.

That doesn't mean sending an embossed greeting card that says, "I invite you to screw my whole world up." A demon can be invited into a person's life in many innocuous-seeming ways. The Ouija board fad that swept through your middle school. Or that faze you went through in high school, when you and your three BFFs started your secret "coven" like they did in the movie The Craft. Or when you decided you'd become a paranormal investigator and without knowledge or training bought equipment and headed to as many haunted places as you could to provoke a few spirits like they do on TV.

I've seen the results of all three of this stories because they are real stories I've been told when investigating an apparent demonic infestation. The consequences of all those innocent excursions into the diabolical realm are severe, life-wrecking, and traumatic.

Satanic worship is, of course, the quick and easy way to catch the notice of the infernal. Father Gary Thomas, exorcist for the diocese of San Jose, CA informed me in a 2017 video interview  I did for LiveSciFi that generational curses (when a whole family is cursed by an outsider or when a mother consecrates her unborn child to the demonic) are more prevalent than anyone realizes. But tragically, a history of sexual abuse also can lead to demonic notice.

(Yep. You can watch the interview right here)

Demons stalk their prey the same way the big cats in Africa do. They usually target the weak...the vulnerable. After zeroing in on the easiest kill, they undertake a strategy to weaken their victim more. The more terrified and hopeless that victim is, the easier it is for the demon to push them into total submission.

A demonic infestation can revolve around a location, like the purported Gary, Indiana "demon house" of the Ammons family. Because the alleged haunting was focused on the home, the Ammons family was able to flee the residence into safety. (Of course, the subsequent owner, Zak Bagans, bulldozed the house after he finished his documentary on the alleged activity, so no one else can validate his alleged experiences there. Quite convenient.) But usually, an infestation is centered around a person, and if that person moves they take the haunting with them to their new residence. During the earliest stages of the infestation, the demon begins to wind itself into the fabric of its victim's world. But even after a demon starts to impact its victim's life, it needs permission to stay. That doesn't mean that you have to physically tell the thing it can stay. It means that you accept its influence within your environment, and more importantly, upon your person.

If a demonic entity succeeds in creating a link with its victim, it can then move forward into the next stage.


Demonic Oppression

Now that the demon has the necessary introduction into the victim's life, it can begin to impact its victim more strongly. In this stage, usually, the innocent-seeming haunting escalates in intensity. The demon begins to attack its victim. Scratches, bite marks, and unexplained bruising batters the person's body. Sexual attacks may also occur. These attacks are designed to a wear a person down, to take away their willpower and make them easier to subdue.

Usually at this stage, the haunting expands as well. The victim's family and home may be terrorized with paranormal activity. That's why this is typically the time when a family brings a paranormal investigation team or a psychic into their home, desperate for some validation of what's happening to them and hopefully some kind of rescue plan. Unfortunately, that's not going to work, for one big reason:

PARANORMAL INVESTIGATORS CANNOT FREE A LOCATION OR PERSON FROM A DEMONIC OPPRESSION.

By the time a paranormal group is called, the demon is already solidly lodged in its victim's life. The demon has been invited in by accident--remember that tarot reading game you "played" in high school?--and then inadvertently given permission to remain. The only remedy at this point is spiritual, and that means the clergy.

But paranormal investigations do provide a very necessary function to the victims of a demonic haunting, and that's documentation. Evidence that's been captured on video or audio equipment can validate the victim's story. You can't just call your diocese, tell them your house is haunted, and an exorcist pulls up in the Ghostbusters ambulance ten minutes later. That's not the way it works. You have to have that documentation just so the Church doesn't dismiss you as being a passenger on the cray-cray train. So yes--call someone in to investigate and hopefully get that validation for you. (Don't do it yourself, though. You're too invested in proving there's a haunting. A legitimate paranormal team isn't.) I'll be delving deeply into how to find a trustworthy paranormal investigation team in an upcoming article.

Let me reiterate: for a true demonic oppression, your only recourse is through a spiritual intervention. The Roman Ritual (aka the Rite of Exorcism) is the clergy's weapon against the diabolical. However, the clergy isn't normally brought into a case until the victim reaches the third and final stage of demonic hauntings.

We'll get into possessions and why you don't want an exorcist who advertises in part two of this article tomorrow. Once it's up, I'll activate the link to the rest of the story here.In the meantime, if you have questions or are afraid that you're dealing with a demonic haunting then contact me through this blog or email me through my website: celina(at)celinasummers(dot)com. I'm more than happy to help you find a legitimate paranormal research team and to hook you up with the avenues you need to take to seek help from the clergy.

The REAL clergy.

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Zozo...And A Few Things You Didn't Part Two

Author's note: This is the second part of our look at Zozo, the so-called Ouija Board demon. For part one, head to this page. And as always during paranormal season, DO NOT TRY ANYTHING WE DISCUSS ON THIS BLOG. DEALING WITH DEMONS IS DANGEROUS. LEAVE IT TO THE PROS. Just because you watch people trying to Ouija up Zozo on YouTube doesn't mean you can. Folks like Tim Wood at LiveSciFi know what they're doing. You don't. Okay? And yes, I know--some of you are already ignoring me. Read on for the consequences of that decision.)

Yesterday, we really dug into Zozo's origins on multiple levels, and believe me when I tell you that post could have been one hundred times as long and still wouldn't have scratched the surface. What we discussed yesterday was rudimentary demonology. Today, we're going to sort through Zozo in the modern day, and we'll be getting into some dark and dangerous stuff. Read at your own risk.

Ouija, Spirit, and Talking Boards and Zozo

The first patent issued for a device used for contacting the dead was in the mid-nineteenth century, not for a talking board but a gadget that could be used in automatic writing. The first mention of spirit boards was in 1886 by the Associated Press, when they were touted as the newest and most accurate communication device used in Ohio spiritualist camps. 

The Ouija board as we know it today was invented in 1890 and patented (the planchette was the reason the board could be patented considering that handmade spirit boards were already in common use at the time) by Charles Kennard in 1891. So many people were desperate to communicate with their loved ones following the Civil War and then three decades later for World War I that the Ouija board became an essential part of the grieving process as well as a drawing room's entertainment option. That is...until disturbing coincidences began to pop up in Ouija board communication. Zozo is perhaps the best-known of these today, having earned the nickname of “the Ouija board demon” in the past twenty-five years.

Encounters with the entity that called itself Zozo reportedly began to occur on the Ouija board in the second half of the twentieth century. In the 1960s and 70s, the Ouija board was marketed as a toy, thereby ensuring that most users of the board were under twenty-five. Ouija use had an upsurge in the eighties. As the internet was developed in subsequent decades and became more accessible, Zozo encounters gradually rose and victims began to compare notes. Darren Evans’s website publication in 2008 gave those victims a forum. Once video streaming equipment improved, Zozo videos increased at an exponential rate—particularly in the last four years. 

Of course, the reason for that is easily explained.More people are looking for Zozo.

There are non-paranormal explanations for Zozo as well. Zozo could be the result of a tulpa—an entity or phenomenon created through mental discipline, like the Philip experiment in Toronto, Ontario allegedly managed to do in the early 1970s. For that matter, what people take as communication on a Ouija board could actually be the result of ideomotor movements--involuntary twitches of the hands that propel the planchette across the spirit board in a predictable and repeated manner. 

With escalating visibility on platforms like YouTube, the unsuspecting, or the thrill seekers who "play" Ouija are a rich pool of potential prey for the demonic realm to feed upon.

That doesn't mean Zozo is fake. Tulpas are alleged to exist and take on personalities and agendas of their own. At the present moment, Zozo is a dangerous reality, whether it's hung around for centuries or was created by the subconscious minds of people popping LSD-laced sugar cubes in 1975. The Zozo entity is not only real, but it's growing stronger and being fed by the resulting craze around it.

And oh, how it's grown. Zozo has exploded on a global level, as has the number of people claiming to have had experiences with the entity. The 2012 movie I Am Zozo undoubtedly had a great deal to do with that, as did the 2014 major motion picture Ouija and investigations conducted by the Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures show at about the same time. In fact, during the 2014 Christmas season, Ouija board sales were up 300% from the year before. 

Currently (August, 2019), there are 36.5 million hits on Google when searching for Zozo. That's a lot of people focusing their energy on the same entity or tulpa...a lot of fuel. If Zozo didn't exist before the Dictionnaire Infernal in 1818, it certainly does now. 

Zozo Characteristics/Behavior

Items associated with Zozo: Blackbirds, Louisiana, slavery, Voodoo and other French/African religious blends, the number 28, French/Basque and African etymology, sex or sexual assault, possession of humans, possession of animals, Ouija or spirit boards, death and/or suicide, and haunted locations.

Behavioral habits: When the entity first presents itself, it’s usually pretending to be a dead friend or family member so it can make a connection with the person it’s targeting on the board. Once the relationship between the Ouija user and the entity is established, Zozo announces its presence on the Ouija board when it appears. The planchette either begins to move rapidly from side to side in an arc between the letters Z and O, or it starts an escalating series of figure 8 movements in the center of the board.

But once the bond is established between Zozo and a board user, the entity departs from “normal” demonic behavior. The Zozo entity names itself at the beginning of each interaction. Zozo, Zaza, Zizi, Oz, Ozoz, Mama, and Abacus are all known aliases of the Zozo entity. The entity frequently refers to “paradise” and uses the word “abracadabra” as well, which has a disputed etymological history dating back to ancient times. 

The first known mention of the word was in the second century AD in a book called Liber Medicinalis by Serenus Sammonicus, physician to the Roman emperor Caracalla, who in chapter 51 prescribed that malaria sufferers wear an amulet containing the word written in the form of a triangle. "Abracadabra" has also been attributed to Gnostics, Greeks, and Sumerians, but is almost certainly Hebrew/Aramaic in origin. 

Perhaps the most ominous behavior of the entity is the countdown. The board counts down from ten to one, and that usually prefaces extremely negative paranormal activity.

The most terrifying behavior is its knowledge of things it shouldn't know, like something that happened in a board user's childhood and none of their current friends knows about *or* something as totally invasive as knowing what color a person's underwear is. 

And through it all, Zozo is acknowledged as a demonic entity. I absolutely think Zozo is demonic in nature. So do many paranormal researchers, investigators, and scholars...not to mention clergy.

So why, then, haven’t attempted exorcisms of the Zozo entity worked? In 2017, LiveSciFi founder Tim Wood and I conducted a month-long experiment, trying to learn as much about this puzzling entity as we cold without endangering ourselves, each other, or any of the half a million subscribers on YouTube who showed up nightly to witness our live-streamed investigation. I believe our conclusions from the Zozo experiment explain why this isn't just a demon, but an evolution of something entirely different.

The Zozo Experiment and Subsequent Conclusions

The Zozo demon can’t be exorcised for one very simple reason—Zozo isn’t a demon.We believe Zozo is something entirely different—an alias used by multiple demonic entities in order to gain access to potential victims. 

You can’t exorcise Zozo because it’s not a demon. It’s a gateway. Some kid can ‘play’ with the Ouija board one time and he’s opened the gate and invited whatever’s close by and looking for a victim to come on in. 

You’ve heard of demons or psychics or demonologists talking about Legion, right? Zozo is the revolving door of Legion, and you never know if you just invited the ghost of a pissed-off librarian to haunt your house *or* if you invited Beelzebub to possess your body and feast on your soul.

That’s why exorcisms of the Zozo entity don’t work. Victims of Zozo are actually being tormented by multiple demons who are using the name as an alias. Legitimate exorcisms that are conducted by the clergy of the Catholic church take weeks, months, or even years before the name of the demon is forced from the unwilling adversary. Many oppressions/possessions pit the exorcist against a number of demonic foes. With a Zozo attachment, this proves even worse than usual.

If the person has only the beginnings of an attachment to Zozo, then you just sever the person’s use of the name. Don’t say Zozo anymore or acknowledge it. But if a person has an actual attachment (a demonic infestation, oppression, or possession) then they have to discover the name of the actual demon attacking them and sever their attachment to the name of Zozo and the board. Only then can they have a clearing or deliverance done.

And that exorcism needs to be performed by a legitimate member of the clergy and not someone who started his own "church", maybe claiming it was an Old Catholic church that broke away from the Vatican because they disagreed with the canon of Papal infallibility in something called the Utrecht schism.  Yes, there are legitimate Old Catholic churches out there that did follow the bishop of Utrecht, but those churches have actual congregations. 

Most of the paranormal clergy advertising their services online aren't legitimately Old Catholic. Their entire church consists of several bishops under the dominion of a self-proclaimed archbishop and a deacon or two. No congregations. No physical churches. No parishioners despite naming these bishops as the head of parishes. Best way to tell is easy: Google maps. Put in their physical address and look up the location on street view. If it comes up as an apartment building, a house, a strip mall, or a church that's a completely different denomination? It's not a real church and therefore the archbishops and bishops and deacons aren't legitimate clergy. 

Did I mention the next article I do is about paranormal parasites like these? Okay, good. We'll break down the Utrecht schism and how that works in legit Old Catholic churches in that article. 

But in the meantime--and pay attention, folks. The best and easiest way to not have to deal with Zozo is not to go looking. Regardless of how it's marketed, the Ouija board is not a game. It's a form of conjuration, and opens the door to any kind of interaction with the spiritual world imaginable. But you can't trust what any entity says on the talking board. Not a word, and especially if that entity self-identifies as Zozo. 

By communicating with Zozo, you have invited the diabolical into your life. Once that door is open, it's almost impossible to close--and then I'll get an email or a phone call from a paranormal group trying to help you but that can't. That's the end result of most Zozo-created infestations, and unless there's a legitimate exorcist involved there's no way to know what demonic entities have come through that board. 

So yeah. 

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME.

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME.

AND DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME.

Everything You Wanted To Know About Zozo...Plus A Lot Of Things You Wish You Didn't Part One

The Zozo demon is commonly referred to as "the Ouija Board demon". Because of some paranormal groups' preference for using a Ouija board on investigations, Zozo has been a frequent...and frightening...guest on many videos. But who--or what--is Zozo, exactly? The historic and arcane history of the entity is fairly difficult to track and impossible to document. That is, until the internet's explosion in the late 2000s and early 2010s. 

But what's really terrifying is how impossible the entity is to combat. If Zozo is taken at face value, it's a demonic entity that can't be fought using the tools and methods that have expunged the demonic since Christ exorcised demons and sent them into the bodies of pigs. Two millennia of demonic warfare doesn't get rid of Zozo, and we want to know why.

In this two-part article, we'll break down the roots and history of the so-called "Ouija Board Demon", its growing visibility in modern society, what the diabolical agent seems to really be, and why exorcisms do not and cannot work. That's why my usual warning regarding the diabolical is appearing twice. TRYING TO CONTACT ZOZO IF YOU AREN'T A PROFESSIONAL RESEARCHER/INVESTIGATOR IS THE SPIRITUAL EQUIVALENT OF PLAYING RUSSIAN ROULETTE. Do NOT try any of this at home.

History Of Zozo

The first mention of any entity named Zozo occurred in an 1818 reference guide written by Jacques Collin de Plancy, a self-proclaimed occultist and author, in his Dictionnaire Infernal. The story as related in the Dictionnaire’s entry under the word POSSÉDÉS (Possession, in English) goes as follows:

In 1816, an unmarried girl from a town called Teilly in the Picardy region of France found out she was pregnant. She promptly announced that she was possessed by three “imps”—one named Mimi, one named Crapoulet, and the third Zozo. The girl would walk around the town on all fours or on her hands, and acted as if she was possessed. A Jesuit priest from Spain performed an exorcism on the girl, which was described in the text:  Mimi went quietly; Zozo was more tenacious and broke a window of the church when he tried to escape through the roof. As for Crapoulet, he was pursued in vain, even with the blessed tool (I think this tool is a holy item such as an aspergillum) he could not be removed, and eventually took a position in the genitals of the girl, only leaving at the Jesuit’s insistence. Eventually, the town leaders put the pregnant girl in the hospital and the Jesuit was told that if he did any more exorcisms, he’d be arrested as a fraud.

Nineteenth century France in the wake of the revolution and the ascendance of Napoleon, prided itself on its science and logic and fought against old “superstitions” like exorcism or demonic possession.

That being said, this incident is related in a book written by an author with no particular expertise in research and there’s no way to verify anything he wrote in that book either. In fact, Collin du Plancy was nothing more than a pulp fiction writer, capitalizing on the rise of the spiritual movement to sell more books. And it worked! The only positive thing the Dictionnaire Infernal actually did was to publish probably the greatest collection of early nineteenth century engravings and illustrations of the occult and demonic. That’s about it.

I have found absolutely no references to a demon named Zozo prior to the Dictionnaire Infernal. And despite multiple claims to the contrary, there are no references to a demonic entity named Zozo at any point of history before the publication of that one particular book. Specifically, there are no documented "medieval manuscripts" that list Zozo in the lexicon of known demons, in arcane

knowledge or grimoires, and not even in Church documents which is absolutely where you'd find such a reference. Regardless, one self-proclaimed Zozo-ologist told me personally that not only was there a history of Zozo the demon stretching back to medieval manuscripts in the twelfth century (1300) but that he personally has a copy/has seen a copy of that manuscript.

That, of course, became a challenge from the time we discussed it (in an August, 2017 Live Sci Fi investigation of Goatman's Bridge in Denton County, Texas). I was in the process of writing Stalked by the Zozo Demon with LSF founder Tim Wood and hadn't found even a whisper of a demon named Zozo despite having conducted (and still conducting) years of research regarding medieval demonology and the history of the Inquisition and the witchcraft trials. Fortunately, my background in Latin and Greek, not to mention being brought up in my French mother's bilingual home and therefore able to read/translate French put me in a great position to see what such a manuscript said. That's why I asked to see it. 

Unfortunately, I'm still waiting.

Here's the thing: if Zozo was even a minor demon on the fringes of some obscure diabolical lexicon, I am pretty sure I would have found it by now. That's why I'm a researcher--I know how to research things. Right? Instead of being provided a medieval manuscript or a link to a scan of it (because obviously, a 700-year old manuscript would require expensive protective storage and restoration), however, I found a story which I find fascinating. That story begins with this: 

There is a history of “zoso” stretching back (at least) to the sixteenth century in this form, but it’s not used in a book or document as a name for a demon and has nothing to do with what we call Zozo today. Zoso is a sigil, an illustration used to represent the Greco-Roman god Saturn who governs the house of Capricorn in the zodiac--essentially a drawing that can be used as a magical implement. It allegedly possesses arcane power. That's why self-confessed Thelemist Jimmy Page used the sigil on Led Zeppelin’s unnamed fourth album—because he’s a Capricorn, not because there is a demon named Zozo.

  

The earliest verified use I've found of the Zoso sigil is the 1521 (some references list the publication date as 1511, making the 1521 book a second edition) grimoire entitled Le Veritable Dragon Rouge--a book about necromancy that you can download if you really want to. The first well-documented use of the sigil appears in Gerolamo Cardano’s 1557 book Ars Magica Arteficii, which translates roughly to “The Art of Magic” or “The Magical Arts”. Cardano was a mathematician and physician, and in the sixteenth century astrology was an important part of both sciences. So the sigil, at least, appears some five hundred years ago.

But this history, while fascinating, has nothing to do with Zozo, demonology, or spirit boards. The sigil was used in astrology because most people couldn’t read. Most likely, this gentleman researched the sigil after seeing it on the Led Zeppelin album sleeve, found a link online for the sigil, and without comprehending what that actually meant assumed this was a direct reference to the entity. I don't think it was an intentional thing. 

I do think that misinformation, especially regarding the demonic, can be dangerous. 

So, the only real history for the name is linguistic as opposed to historic or religious.You can read more about the Zoso sigil, its meaning, and how it got tangled up with Led Zeppelin and demonology in modern culture on www.zososymbol.com, which is an outstanding resource and links to all the pertinent books, articles, and websites.

This 1850 version of Le Dragon Rouge is a reprint of  an earlier 1521 text “The Red Dragon and The Black Hen, including the secrets of Artephius, the secrets of Cleopatra and how to make yourself invisible“. Courtesy of www.zozosymbol.com

Zozo Etymology and the Power of A Diabolical Name 

The linguistic roots for Zozo are combined in both French-based and African tongues. In Haitian Creole, the word ‘zozo’ means bone (also slang for penis). In Louisiana French Creole, ‘zozo’ means blackbird or raven—a word which survived from the medieval Basque language of southern France/northern Spain. During the early twentieth century, French travel guides in Greece referred to

Zozo as an alternate name for the demon Pazuzu, but there is nothing else to support that claim. In Zulu, the word ‘uzozo’ means a wound that never heals, and the word moved into modern slang when the small huts crafted of tin in the poor areas of African cities were known as ‘izozo’ or today’s ‘zozo huts’. In current French slang, ‘zozo’ means nitwit or dude.

However, the linguistic roots of the name do give us a clue about something disturbing.

Every demonologist and exorcist will tell you that demons do not willingly give up their names to anyone, which is why the Catholic Rite of Exorcism is specifically designed to force the demon to name itself. Knowledge of an entity’s name gives the exorcist power over it. That's why any search for a legitimate historical trail involving the entity is pretty much a waste of time, regardless of how many people try to create a history for Zozo. 

Zozo creates a paradox.

Zozo identifies itself by name and claims to be a demonic entity, but demons just don't blurt out their real names to a teenager with a Ouija board.

Demons reveal their names only after long spiritual battles, like exorcisms. So right from the outset, there’s something suspicious about this entity. Zozo is either not a demon at all, or Zozo is just a bluff—an alias behind which one or multiple demons can approach the users in a spirit board session without endangering itself. And no matter what imaginary medieval manuscripts say, there's only one surefire link to Zozo. 

The Ouija board.

(Part 2 of this article is here and it deals with the Ouija board and the modern evolution of the Zozo entity, including observations and conclusions from the 2017 Zozo experiment with LSF founder Time Wood. As with any of my demonic articles, DO NOT TRY ANYTHING YOU READ ABOUT IN THIS ARTICLE AT HOME. If you do it's a really, really, REALLY bad idea. I'll link part two once it goes live, but until then you can check out my other paranormal articles including the Bell Witch series here. )