Paranormal Parasites Episode One--Exorcists and Exorcisms, Part One

In 2016, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles was rocked by the news that a priest, Erwin Mena, had been arrested on multiple charges--twenty-two felonies and eight misdemeanors--for crimes ranging from fraud to theft. Shocking news at the best of times. 

“We had always been raised not to question authority figures. He’s a priest — what he said is holy writ,” Joaquin Oviedo, a retired high school teacher, said. “We never imagined he was a phony.” Problem was...Mena wasn't a priest. In fact, he was an imposter. Not only did he abscond with tens of thousands of dollars (and that's only what they know about) but weddings had to be re-officiated by legitimate priests, as did baptisms, christenings, and other sacraments. But lost in all the legal mumbo-jumbo, there's a more intimate, painful, human cost. 

Mena's not the only such imposter. More fake priests are defrocked every year. In 2018, for example, a man named Miguel Angel Ibarra was exposed right before Christmas after eighteen years of posing as a Catholic priest. The Colombian native was caught at the parish he'd been preaching at in Medina Sidonia, Spain after investigation proved he'd falsified his ordination paperwork. 

Religion is a huge part of the human experience. Roughly a decade ago, the Pew Research Survey counted well over two billion Christians on this planet, and is now nearing two and a half billion worshipers. In recent years, there's been a huge rise in reports of dark or demonic hauntings. The Catholic Church was overwhelmed with requests for exorcisms, becoming so inundated that they were caught off-guard. This led to the establishment of a Course on Exorcism and Prayersof Liberation at the Pontifical University of Regina Apostolorum within the Holy See.

What's that, you ask? It's literally exorcist school. Right now, the Vatican is working to place an exorcist into every diocese in the world, including here in the US. In fact, the exorcism course is a non-denominational class, where prospective exorcists from any religion can study the most dangerous form of spiritual warfare possible. If that doesn't convince you of the urgency the Holy See is approaching the rising threat caused to humanity by the diabolical, nothing will. 

And this is where the paranormal and spiritual worlds collide in a very pragmatic and potentially lethal way. Although only about a third of America's nearly 200 dioceses have official exorcists who've been trained by a Catholic church, there are innumerable exorcists who claim to conduct spiritual warfare against demons outside of Catholicism. While some of these exorcists are sincerely going toe to toe with demonic entities, some are not. If the subject of a demonic attack gets hooked up with a fake exorcist, his situation can go from worse to worst. 

Yes, I used worse/worst instead of bad/worse deliberately. 

So how do you tell the difference between a real exorcist and a fake one? Well, it requires someone that most victims of demonic attacks are running a little short on. Meticulous attention to detail. 

Let's clear something up at the onset. Do you have to get a Catholic priest to help you if you're under demonic attack? Once upon a time--and a surprisingly recent time, too--the clergy of protestant denominations would tell people who'd come to them for help that only a Catholic priest could exorcise a demon. Even then, though, the Catholic church wasn't exactly happy to help someone out. Especially after the release of William Peter Blatty's 1971 novel The Exorcist and the subsequent film two years later, exorcism suddenly came 'into fashion'. The tag line 'based upon a true story' titillated audiences, and the idea that demonic possession was actually real permeated pop culture almost overnight--something that rarely happened in an age before the internet. 

In an interview I conducted with top US Exorcist Father Gary Thomas (San Jose, CA diocese) in 2017, the Exorcist craze caught the church off-guard because Catholicism itself was in a state of flux. There was a growing sense among the Catholic clergy that Satan and demons were allegorical--basically literary devices created to personify evil and give it a form of sentience. 

But that's not necessarily the case. While sure, there's a definite trend towards tulpas (a belief so powerful that it essentially creates what the person/people believe in) as a possible explanation for the growing number of demonic cases in the US, there's still a significant number of exorcisms conducted in the world--not only by the Catholic Church but by ministers and priests of a wide number of religions. So no, you don't necessarily have to have a Catholic priest exorcise you or your family or your home. 

But you need to do your due diligence. Make certain the clergyman you talk to is a practicing minister of a legitimate religion. Many scam artists operate under the umbrella of the "old Catholic Church" or the "Order of Exorcists" or "The Sacred Order of St, Michael the Archangel". Some purported exorcists claim to be able to train you to become one as well--for a nominal fee. The fact of the matter is that in my opinion, you need to go first to the minister of your own church and ask him or her for guidance. And before you let anyone drag you into a spiritual struggle with the demonic, you have to be--NEED to be--vetted medically and psychologically. That's a condition the Catholic Church has imposed in order for an exorcism to take place, and believe me: that's something you want to make absolutely certain happens. 

The easiest way to find out if an exorcist isn't what he or she purports to be is to run the street address provided on their webpage through Google maps. If the street level view is of a strip mall (with a UPS Store or Mailboxes storefront in particular) or an apartment block, I wouldn't trust my health, safety, and spirituality to that alleged exorcist. 

You could ignore me, naturally. I wouldn't recommend it. 

Stay tuned, folks. There are about to be a lot of new entries in the coming weeks. I'm researching my new books on the paranormal, Demonic Synchronicity (about common occurrences in pre-internet demonic hauntings) and The Bell Entity (why "Bell Witch" is an inhuman entity perpetrating one of the longest and most violent hauntings in America). I'll be investigating several sites just as soon as the quarantines lift, and I'll post my findings here. If nothing else, it should be a rip-roarin' spooky time. 

But even that pales in comparison to what could happen to anyone who falls into the clutches of the paranormal parasites. Next up in this series? Textbook cases of exorcisms gone bad and why they did. 

The Annaliese Michel case, and why that's not the only horror story out there. 

Paranormal Reality Shows and Shifting Societal Beliefs--And The Profits

No matter where you turn, it seems like reality entertainment based on the paranormal is everywhere. From long-running television shows like SyFy’s Ghost Hunters to Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures and Dead Files and YouTube channels run by investigation groups, the options for the paranormal enthusiast are everywhere.

And while a segment of the population is strongly skeptical, a Harris Interactive poll indicates that 51% of the public, including 58% of women, and 65% of those aged 25 to 29 but only 27% of those aged 65 and over, believe in ghosts, while a Live Science article from 2011 indicates that 71% of Americans believe they have experienced some sort of paranormal phenomenon.

The popularity of paranormal-based entertainment seems to reinforce the empirical evidence. These shows are long-lived because the target audience is growing. And now that science is beginning to make a concerted effort to explain paranormal phenomena, that belief is growing. Whereas once, ghost hunting was done by groups seeking knowledge, now it’s big-time entertainment with big-time dollars – and not just in Hollywood. A October 31, 2014 Fortune article entitled “The Boo-tiful Business of Ghost Tourism”by Melissa Locker makes this clear.

Ghost tourism is its own cottage industry that stretches from coast to coast. San Diego’s Whaley House, home of the city’s first public gallows, runs ghost hunts for $50 per investigator with extra-spooky activities running throughout the month of October. Pennsylvania’s Eastern State Penitentiary is a boon for amateur and professional ghost hunters alike. The crumbling prison’s Halloween activities even have corporate sponsors, including the expected (Spirit Halloween stores) and the unexpected (Peanut Chews).

While supernatural attractions are cashing in on the public’s interest in the paranormal, theactual business of paranormal investigations isn’t really a business at all: “It’s a very expensive hobby.”

Paranormal tourism is taking off, and many families are starting to see the appeal.  John Williams of Kennesaw, Georgia took his wife and youngest son on a paranormal vacation last year. “My kid watches paranormal TV shows and was interested. My wife was thinking, ‘Whatever.’ But it was a great bonding experience for us as a family. We went to nine haunted sites in seven states. Best money I’ve ever spent. Great family experience, even though we had no experiences of our own.”

Many allegedly haunted sites offer ghost-hunting overnight stays if you’re an amateur investigator – another side of the ghost tourism business – and haunted location owners are cashing in. For example,The Sallie House in Atchison, Kansas is run by the local Chamber of Commerce and charges $189 per person per night.

Ghost-hunting groups have to pay those fees too, along with the cost of their equipment which can be extremely expensive. The added advantages of new video technology don’t come cheap. One night-vision camera can cost up to $500, while the thermal FLIR camera can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $8,000. These groups have tens of thousands of dollars of equipment without the benefits of a production company’s backing. And as most paranormal groups don’t charge to investigate a site, their hobby is very expensive indeed.

But most people live vicariously through ghost-hunting shows, and not all of those shows are on television. I’ve got a history of shredding poorly done paranormal shows like A&E’s Cursed: The Bell Witch(a legend I am intimately familiar with as I grew up in the area) and Destination America’s laughable Exorcism Live. Even the longest-running television paranormal shows have come under scrutiny amid accusations of faking evidence and hoaxing – both prospects being much easier with production company equipment and the drive to produce payoffs for each weekly episode.

Williams watches both televised ghost-hunting shows and online investigations. “It doesn’t seem like online groups have as much incentive to exaggerate,” he explained. “We love televised programs, but it seems like they would have more motivation to fake stuff. Shows like LiveScifi seem totally sincere.”

I agree. That’s why I believe the best paranormal shows can be found on YouTube. It’s where you’ll discover anything about ghost investigations you could possibly hope for – and in many cases in such a fashion as to preclude the possibility of hoaxing. To these groups, the money is unimportant. What they’re after is information – and knowledge. But you have to know how to negotiate the tangle of groups looking to cash in on the paranormal craze and find the few that balance more on the side of investigation than entertainment.

 
LiveSciFi Bloody Mary Ritual Investigation

One channel I enjoy a great deal is LiveSciFi. LiveSciFi offers a multitude of different investigative styles. Its founder, Tim Wood, does frequent Ouija Board sessions that he live-streams on YouTube. Feeling brave? Here’s a link to the terror. What makes those sessions interesting to me is that he also runs a voice recorder at the same time, and catches multiple EVPs (electronic voice phenomena) in most shows.

But even more interesting are the LiveSciFi live feeds from haunted locations, where viewers can watch uncut, unedited film for 48-72 hours as the investigations are occurring. LSF has done live feeds everywhere, from the infamous Sallie House to the Whispers Estate in Mitchell, Indiana. And for Creepypasta fans, his ritual live streams about legends like Bloody Mary or the Midnight Man are a lot of fun. LiveSciFi is the largest paranormal channel on YouTube with over 300,000 subscribers over its 10-year life span and over a billion views. The Sallie House alone provides hours of binge watching opportunities.

 
Living Dead Paranormal Investigation of Haunted Willow Creek Farm

The Living Dead Paranormal group is another outstanding online option. Comprised of three brothers – Josh, Rocky, and Shaun Fourman, who lived through a serious haunting in their childhood home – and a friend, Jeff Brown, their body of work is impressive. Their investigations are presented as documentaries, with high production values. The two investigations they’ve done at the Monroe house in Hartford City, Indiana are among the best work I’ve seen. (You can find those investigations here and here.) If you’re made of sterner stuff, a recent demonic haunting investigation is guaranteed to make you jumpy.

We’re not talking about Elvira, Mistress of the Dark shows here. We’re talking about regular guys in sweatshirts and jeans, alone in reputedly haunted locations, and only those guys. No tech crew. No directors. No producer hanging out in the background pulling fishing line attached to props. And trust me: You may watch for hours and see not one darn thing, which makes the things you do witness that much more interesting.

I approach most paranormal claims with a healthy dose of skepticism. You have to if you ever intend to sleep with the lights off. I’m not a gullible person, but my life experiences have led me to an interest in the paranormal – a search for validation of things I’ve seen or witnessed that defy logical explanation.

That doesn’t mean that I automatically accept everything I see; in fact, the jury is still out for me on Bigfoot and UFO sightings. I’ve laughed myself silly at some poorly executed hoaxes on television and at many, many paranormal “investigators” I’ve seen on YouTube. Kind of hard not to. Early Most Haunted  shows are great for that, by the way. Never underestimate the comedic possibilities with a Derek Acorah or a Chip Coffey.

But there are groups out there that might make you think – if you know where to look and what to look for. Hint: If the lead investigator looks like a high school sophomore or is obviously costumed in front of a set that looks like The Munsters, it’s probably best to just move on.

If, like me, you find the paranormal fascinating and entertaining, stop looking in your TV Guide and do a check on paranormal YouTube channels. You can experience all the aspects of an investigation from the comfort of your living room, and sometimes even simultaneously with the ghost hunters, without all the curse words getting beeped out. Because they can approach these alleged hauntings without the obligation to get bang for their buck, their credibility factor is higher. And believe me, if nothing has happened during the first three hours of a live stream, you’ll know that too – which is about 99% of what happens during any investigation.

That’s what this boils down to.

Instead of spending thousands of dollars on equipment and insurance, instead of staying up all night and evaluating scores of hours of footage, instead of walking around in the dark with instruments and talking to whatever inhabits an alleged haunted building, paranormal reality shows allow you to investigate without ever leaving your home. That, in turn, inspires some viewers to either explore paranormal tourism, at sites that now are charging fees so people can enjoy them for themselves – or to actively investigate, spending their money on equipment. And even if you stay at home and live secondhand through television, you’re subjected to commercials up to a third of the show’s running time. Paranormal investigating has turned into big profits for everybody involved.

Except the independents, the ones with their YouTube channels and blogs. That’s where the best paranormal reality can be found. But you have to know where to look as much as what to believe. And while each webisode has both creepy moments and uneventful ones, there’s unexpected fun too – the hilarity of finding out a big guy who hunts for ghosts is terrified of birds, or someone walking face-first into the corner of a wall, or sometimes just the nervous laughter that happens after they’ve been spooked. The entertainment factor of these independent channels is undeniable. The reality part I’ll leave to you to decide.

And that’s what paranormal reality shows are changing in our culture.

“My belief has definitely increased. I was a skeptic. I’ve gone from assuming it’s all BS to belief. Watching Ghost Adventures and then LiveSciFi shows – they’re hard to refute,” Williams explained. “In our family, we say, ‘Okay – whether it’s true or not, they seem to believe.’”

Originally published by Blogcritics, July 8, 2016

Let's Bring Cursed: The Bell Witch to a Merciful Close

First off, let me apologize for not posting this blog earlier. I'm recovering (slowly)from strep and not only could I not blog about the show, I couldn't even watch the show.

Only so much crap one can endure when sick. 

Apparently, I didn't miss too much since the first thing that happened the final episode was a pagan ceremony to appease the 'sentinel' that started the curse because John Bell desecrated the land--a ceremony that goes back centuries and was even mentioned by Julius Caesar in his self-aggrandizing book Commentaries on the Gallic Wars. Ancient Druids used to burn actual people, but later ones, instead of burning a human (as we Christians would be doing only a few centuries later) constructed an effigy of straw or wicker and set it on fire on the summer solstice. Pagans, Wiccans, and other non-Judeo-Christian religions and/or groups still practice this ceremony today. In fact, the ceremony has evolved into a popular kind of festival such as the Burning Man Project in Black Rock City, Nevada.  And if you look closely at the straw man John sets on fire, you'll note its similarity to the little corn dolly that showed up dangling from a tree in an earlier episode as well as the ones that showed up randomly in The Blair Witch Project--and the universality of the figure is probably the only thing that is keeping the Blair Witch producers from suing A&E for copyright infringement. 

I have to wonder, though, if there's a tongue in cheek nudge involved from the producers of Cursed. Maybe the 'straw man' is representative of how we usually use the phrase--an argument or position that is offered as a deliberate red herring by someone to his opponent, and then defended by him in such as manner as to deflect his opponent's real interest away from something that he wishes to hide. A sham argument, in fact. An intentional and premeditated falsehood, used to completely obfuscate the originator's real purpose or vulnerability. 

At any rate, the burning of the straw man was touted as the way to appease the sentinel who was cursing the Bell family as a result of the desecration of sacred land. It is irrefutable that there are many Native American burial sites in and around Adams and on the old Bell homestead. There's even an empty grave in the Bell Witch Cave. Contemporaries of the haunting themselves believed that there was potentially a Native American tie to the entity, and I know for a fact that belief has persisted through the oral and written legends in the area.

But something doesn't quite ring true on that front for me. Remember when we discussed what type of haunting the Bell Witch was and I hypothesized that the entity was inhuman. Never having walked the earth as a human, that would relegate the spirit to a demonic-type haunting--something that I believe is borne out by the events of the Bell haunting and the torments employed against not just the family but neighbors, slaves, and even total strangers. In fact, John Zaffis appeared to share my opinion on the show--which makes me wonder something very basic.

They had a foremost demonologist on set and yet they still thought burning a Blair Witch effigy in a mockery of an ancient pagan ceremony was going to resolve the 'curse' aka/the haunting on the Bell land? I refuse to believe that Zaffis was standing behind the camera going, "Yeah, man--burning a six foot tall corn dolly will solve all your problems." And so, I have to believe that no one bothered to ask Zaffis what to do.

And the only reason they wouldn't have? Because there was never any intention of resolving the haunting, and because there was never any curse. So imagine my surprise when--shock!--the ritual didn't work.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that if someone is going to undertake 'magic'--and make no mistake, that's what this ritual was intended to be--then that person needs to

1) Believe in the religious/magical source of the ritual.
2) Know what they're doing.
3) Mean it.

I don't think any of those elements were in place.

Which brings us to Pastor James Vivian.

*sigh*

Folks, I've been in that cave countless times. I've explored the land. I've gone to the cemeteries both during the day and in the middle of the night. I've heard organ music in a field in the middle of nowhere, dodged creepy animals sitting in the middle of the road, and when I knocked on Mr. Eden's door while he was at the store heard the furniture shifting around inside the house. And believe me when I tell you, sitting in the Bell Witch Cave shouting "I break the curse!" isn't going to do a damn thing but make whatever inhabits that place laugh. A lot. Loudly.

Kind of like I did.

Keep in mind, too, that the Bells were devout Christians, and two of their staunchest allies and supporters during the haunting were the two local ministers. But that didn't affect Kate, because she not only could quote chapter and verse of the Bible, sing hymns, and argue theology but she actually attended church services both with and without the family. Facts which are documented both within and outside the family. So while I cannot dispute the power of prayer, I have to say with one hundred percent certainty that nothing has changed in Adams--or the cave.

Also, too, I seriously doubt that the current owners of the cave (who are turning it into a tourist spot) would permit anyone to exorcise their pet profit-making scheme. No way. Adams doesn't have much--a deserted pre-Depression downtown of crumbling buildings no bigger than a block, a Dollar Store, a community center. The annual Adams Threshers Show is awesome fun, but aside from that all that's there are farms and the Witch. That's it. So the idea that they would jeopardize that is ludicrous.

In the end, A&E's Cursed: The Bell Witch was nothing but...well...bullshit. It was obviously a (poorly) scripted show, that distorted the legend and the history in order to make spurious and patently ridiculous claims regarding this so-called curse that, according to John's own pre-show monologue, apparently only has affected what? Three guys in two hundred years?

Some curse.

And what's lost in Hollywood crapola like this is the REAL legend, the REAL human witnesses, the REAL toll upon the small frontier community of Adams. And not only that, but the absolutely ridiculous way the show portrayed the people of Adams, Robertson County, and Tennessee is grossly insulting and stereotypical. Showing people at a local diner as suspicious people who have it in for the two 'investigators' is just stupid. And throughout the whole affair, the two men--who are from Mississippi, after all, and should be careful about what they condescend to--acted as if they thought their lives were in some kind of danger, running around in the woods with their guns AS IF A BULLET COULD STOP A GHOST.

Almost criminally negligent, in my opinion, and the show's producer's should never be cut loose ever again in public to film any sort of *reality* show ever again.

So there you have it. We all wasted five weeks of our lives on a show that was a piece of garbage, with absolutely nothing to recommend it from beginning to end. If you are interested in the Bell Witch, I recommend that you get the books by MV Ingram and Charles Bailey Bell. They will tell you the real story. Go to Adams, and meet the wholly friendly and kind folks who live there. Go through the little museum and the restored slave cabin, check out the cave and the cemetery. And go in October, so you can check out the play that my old friends from the theater department at APSU put on there every fall. They are all much better actors than I ever was, and I had a nice little career on the stage for a full decade after leaving the area.

Because you'll find out everything you ever wanted to know about the legend that way, instead of wasting your brain cells on a farce like Cursed: The Bell Witch.

A&E should be ashamed of itself. This whole ordeal has convinced me of one thing at least.

I'll never watch another show on that channel, and I strongly advise you to do the same.

So let's toss this stupid straw man on the bonfire, watch it burn, and head to a bar. Much better way to spend our time. 

Cursed the Bell Witch: Episode Three--Keystone Cops Meet Google Maps

Anyone else getting the feeling that there's not one single person involved with this show that has a single clue regarding the history of the Bell Witch, paranormal research, ghost hunting, or what the woods sound like at night? Boy, I am sure am. And even though we left off last week with a modicum of hope that this ongoing weekly shipwreck was finally getting out of the iceberg field, tonight's episode ripped a big gash into that theory before the first ten minutes passed. I was so angry that I only wrote half this post during the show and had to rewatch it today to see what happened in the second half of the show.

Gentle readers, only for you would I torture myself that way.

First off--how about the shortest ghost hunt in history? You know, experienced--and even amateurs who watch paranormal shows--investigators spend the entire night, usually, searching for evidence, using as much technology as they can carry. These two fellows don't seem to have even watched a ghost show before. They were in and out of that cemetery in minutes, not hours. What makes that even more bizarre is the trek through the woods to get there, totally ignoring the perfectly easy to navigate trail in the woods that goes from the old Edens' property and site of the cave to the private graveyard of John Bell and some of his family or, for that matter, the dirt road to access the site from the opposite side. So we get to watch them going through those woods--cause, you know, woods are scary and stuff--instead of driving the whole two minutes on the trail.

And once the real investigator's camera goes kaput--fairly standard around the old Bell homestead--these two police officers resort to the next best investigative tool. 

Pendulum divining.

Since the investigator told them that using something intensely personal would be best to use as the pendulum, they choose--

An amulet that the strip mall witch Tish had given them the day before. 

Dude, that's just...wow. Really?

So the first question he asked over the grave of John Bell Sr, was "Is this the grave of a Bell family member?" Apparently the amulet knows how to read, as it was in perfect agreement with the easily read block letters that read JOHN BELL SR not even six inches behind it. Then they asked if John Bell shot John Black, to which the amulet also agreed. Then they asked if a member of the Bell family had caused the curse, to which the amulet also agreed...none of which, I'm sure, had anything to do with the air current rustling through all those scary wood trees. 

A very agreeable amulet. And then the car alarm goes off, and our brave policemen rush off to deal with a broken out tail light and END THE INVESTIGATION.

Do what?

Let me also toss this out there regarding the 'bash and run' of the car. "Somebody's messing with us!" John declares, like Adams is sooo heavily populated. Well, let me show you how possible it was to "mess" with these guys in the middle of nowhere. 

Exhibit A: The satellite view of the area of Adams around the cemeteries.

The big public cemetery, Bellwood, is in the bottom left hand corner. The site of John Bell's burial is in the top right hand corner. You'll note there's not even a house in sight, and the tiny road that leads to both the private Bell graveyards dead ends before it reaches the main road. Oh, and want to take a look at the bustling metropolis of Adams as a whole?

Exhibit B.

The red x's mark Bellwood Cemetery and the John Bell burial site. You'll note the absolute lack of people in the area who could potentially be running around in the middle of nowhere breaking out the tail lights of a random truck in the woods. And let's be very specific here--I have a difficult time believing the good people of Adams are going to break out the tail light of a guy's car. What reason would they have to do that? Whereas someone involved in the production, say, might have every reason to up the tension of the episode. And all you have to do is take a look at the map, and you'll realize that if someone had broken that tail light and ran, all they would have needed to find the perp was flashlights. There's nothing in any direction to provide any realistic kind of cover, no buildings to hide in, nowhere to run without being seen. And the fact that they didn't even bother to look? That, to me at least, negates the possibility of this being a random act of violence from the evil, voodoo-practicing, inbred natives of Adams this show is trying to make you believe in.

Feel free to go check out Adams and the surrounding area on Google Maps yourself. It's definitely going to help you understand the community, its size, and the absolutely ludicrous suggestions A&E seem to expect you to buy into.

That being said...

Regarding the 'investigation' at the John Bell cemetery evidence--Chad, you tell us that it's a light on a tree. You're there in the middle of nowhere with flashlights and a FILM PRODUCTION CREW. Of course there's a damn light on the tree. 

"Is this curse caused by a member of the Bell family?" -- and they hear a female voice say "Betsy" on the EVP. Okay...well, let's try on this for size. 

THE BELL WITCH, KATE, SPOKE IN A FEMALE VOICE.

Idiots. 

Apparently, our pair of intrepid tree-fearers did manage one bit of Bell Witch research, however. They watched the truly abysmal 2005 movie An American Haunting, starring Donald Sutherland and Sissy Spacek, which was so accurate and factual that they even filmed the darn thing in Czechoslovakia. Somehow, they're going to attempt to demonstrate that a girl who was 12 or 13 years old when the haunting started, did so because she wanted revenge on her sexually abusive father--and managed to create ALL the inexplicable events that took place in multiple places (some of which she wasn't even present at the time) in front of literally hundreds of witnesses without ever ONCE GETTING CAUGHT. Does anyone else see any problems with this theory?

Look, let's discard for a moment our relative beliefs in whether the paranormal is real or some elaborate, mysterious psychological kind of self-deception that some people can generate without even being aware of it. Let's just examine the logic of this claim. In order for Betsy Bell to devise and implement this plot at the age of twelve means that she was an absolute psychopath. And a damn genius for that matter. I'm pretty clever and I write books with some pretty spectacular murders in them. I research those fictional crimes from every single angle I can think of, looking for not only ways to pull off such an act but also for the single clue that will/must eventually trip up the murderer. To commit and get away with murder, the act needs to be as swift and as simple as possible because that reduces the odds of actually leaving any evidence behind. And to somehow arrive at the conclusion that a child in 1817 was capable of creating such an elaborate hoax, terminating in a murder four years later, without getting caught is beyond ridiculous. It's flat out stupid. 

Especially considering the show's entire premise is based upon the viewer's belief in the supernatural actions of an entity with the power to 'curse' an entire family. So question--if Betsy Bell was responsible for the murder of her father, using poison which is a completely realistic premise for law enforcement--doesn't that NEGATE the existence of any sort of supernatural curse? 

John Calleach demands that we, the audience, buy into his belief that all the alleged misfortunes of his family are the result of a supernatural agent--a curse, attributed to a supernatural entity. He demands that anyone who watches this show must suspend their disbelief on this point, because that one element is the premise for the entire show. Okay, fine. We do that, right?

So he CANNOT subsequently discard the supernatural element at will without compromising the veracity of the show and its claims.

If the curse is real, then so too must be the haunting, the entity, the entity's power, the witch family--you'll hear all about them only too soon--the continuing paranormal activity in Adams AND most importantly for this particular element the return of the entity to the Bells remaining on the original homestead in 1828, when Betsy Bell Powell was no longer there. All this tedious 'research' regarding the potential murderer is nothing but a red herring, because in order for us to believe in the curse, the show has to establish without the shadow of a doubt that the supernatural activity in Adams--and therefore the curse--are real. 

But instead, after Cate Batts and the Jack Black murder turn into--as I predicted--dead ends, these two men who are tasked with solving crimes in the real world have now arbitrarily decided that "The old man was doing something he wasn't supposed to" with his youngest daughter, and she killed him for it. 

See, here's the thing guys--and I can't believe NO ONE at A&E brought this up--you cannot investigate the Bell haunting as if it were a modern crime scene. It's not. And it's long been established that John Bell Sr. was poisoned. That was the contemporary conclusion as well. But there's more than just arsenic that turns flames blue. Just for a partial list: ethanol, methanol, alcohol, cooper chloride, lead compounds, and butane in addition to arsenic. So naturally, arsenic becomes the weapon of choice, even though John Bell's symptoms as described do not line up with the abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, vertigo, dark urine, and delirium. Long term arsenic poisoning would lead to darkening or discoloration of skin, wart-like protrusions, redness, swelling, and Mees' lines (white lines) in the fingernails. Then, too, during the 19th century, arsenic was used in all sorts of things from rat poison to an oral treatment for clear skin. So just because the fire turned blue and arsenic can do that doesn't make the symptoms line up for John Bell being poisoned by arsenic. And all respects to the chemist from my alma mater, but her comment about mixing the arsenic with ethanol betrays the fact that she, at least, mentioned other possibilities for the blue flames that were probably edited out. 

Just saying...

And let's just rein that 'easy availability' of arsenic in frontier Tennessee. Nothing was easily available on the frontier. Such supplies would either come in on the flatboat's return from New Orleans after selling their crops, or from a trip to a town--like Nashville, which was still tiny and beyond the reach of a 12 year old girl. Port Royal was the nearest 'town' and was little more than a couple of buildings, while Clarksville, my hometown, was a long day's ride in a wagon. We're not talking about Britain, where the average person could go to a 'chemist' and buy arsenic. We're talking the western edge of the American frontier.

Could she have run into arsenic in the barn? Of course, if there was some. But frontier folk had no reason to stockpile tons of arsenic. They had cats for the mouse problem. And according to several articles I took a look at today, arsenic as a poison wasn't really in use at that time. A method for detecting arsenic wasn't even created until the 1830's, and I'm reasonably certain the Bells didn't eat seafood or have Paris Green wallpaper. 

As for Bob Bell's call about his psychic secretary seeing 'a girl with black hair' following them into the funeral home? One thing the contemporary sources are ALL agreed upon is the fact that Betsy Bell had blonde hair--especially evidenced in Charles Bailey Bell's book The Bell Witch of Tennessee and verified by both Richard Williams Bell and John Bell Jr, Betsy's brothers.  There IS however a tradition of the girl with black hair, and a post in my blog series soon will be about the 'witch family' of which the black-haired girl is one. So this was sort of a hit, but a huge miss in saying it was Betsy Bell, the arsenic patricide. 

And finally, after John nearly makes the 'curse' a self-fulfilling prophecy by driving like an idiot, we reach Mississippi and Betsy Bell Powell's gravesite.  Can I just say here that anyone who does twenty investigations at one poor woman's grave--especially one like Betsy Bell--is more than likely disturbing a soul that kind of deserves to sleep in peace now? Especially since during her lifetime, Betsy never could sleep alone in a dark room again, and had to sleep on the inside of the bed facing the wall? That particular story is, by the way, something I've heard before. 

Chad--you're in Mississippi. Things buzzing in your ears are more than likely the mosquitoes the size of dinner plates you guys grow down there. And that's probably what your poor dog is nervous of too. I've seen those skeeters down there--they sound like buzz saws.

And so now we're going to take a medium to really torture poor Betsy's soul and wake her up? Lovely. And oh, so nice. Perhaps the 'curse' originates from torturing your forebears, John-whose-last-name-is-coincidentally-Gaelic-for-witch.So now they're setting up for what promises to be another fifteen minute investigation, especially if they're attacked by more of that scary wood. 

"I don't carry sophisticated equipment"--and then she whips out a K2 meter. Good lord, woman. 

This medium has the absolute worst grammar knowledge I've ever seen on any TV show except, perhaps, Mountain Monsters.

And then we find out that--according to a flashlight (and she's never had that much action on her K2? Why bother carrying it?) Betsy knows there is a curse and it's still going on. The medium smells perfume--even thought they're in a CEMETERY where there are, you know, FLOWERS. And then the dog leads them to scary woods and they run away and begin to hear things...

And that's, thankfully, the end of the episode. And I see in the preview that NEXT week, they appear to be going into the Bell Witch Cave--which makes me happy. Why, you ask?

Kate has a longstanding history, one spanning two centuries, of being incapable of tolerating either stupidity or someone badmouthing the Bells. These two have been guilty of both things. The most concentrated activity in Adams is in that cave, and I'd be willing to bet that--whether they show it or not--the bumbling crusaders will not enjoy their weekly fifteen minute investigation in that cave.

Because it's surrounded, by more mean scary woods--where Kate, the Bell Witch haunts and is just waiting for them to dare the cave. Finally, I can't wait for next week's episode, because I bet good money that it'll be outright hilarious. 

Part Eight: Kate Meets The Neighbors

Back to the legend we go, before tomorrow's next travesty...erm...episode of Cursed: The Bell Witch.

Some of the best stories in the Bell haunting involve Kate's interactions with the community around the Bell farm. Families back then were, obviously, much larger and therefore the Bells intermarried within the area so the extended family was fairly large. As the oldest Bell children were just starting out when the haunting was going on--oldest son Jesse was born in 1790 making him twenty-seven the haunting commenced. John Bell Jr. was born in 1793, Drewry in 1796, Esther in 1800, Zadok in 1803,Betsy in 1806, Richard in 1811, and Joel was the baby, born in 1813. Only Jesse and Esther were married and therefore out of the house. Jesse had married Martha Gunn, daughter of their neighbor Rev. Gunn, while Esther was the very young (in our eyes) wife of Alex Porter. 

The neighborhood was a fairly large pioneer community of the early nineteenth century, and the Bell family met both support and suspicion from their neighbors. As Richard Williams Bell remembered:

Many of our neighbors were frightened away, fearing they would become involved in a tragical termination. Others, however, drew nearer, and never forsook us in the most trying ordeal. James Johnson and his two sons, John and Calvin, the Gunn families, the Forts, Gooch, William Porter, Frank Miles, Jerry Batts, Major Bartlett, Squire Byrns, and Major Pickering were faithful and unremitting in their sympathy, and attentions, and consolations, making many sacrifices for our comfort, and not a night passed that four or more were not present to engage the witch in conversation, and relieve father of the necessary attention to strangers, giving him much rest. {Bell, Richard Williams Our Family Trouble}

Any of you guys learn how to diagram sentences in middle school? I did and that last sentence is a bear. Darn Victorian writing styles.

At any rate, these families along with Joshua Gardner, Betsy's lovelorn boyfriend, and her two best friends Theny Thorn and Rebecca Porter, were the mainstays of the Bells' existence during those trying four years. Note if you will that one of the people Richard Bell listed is Jerry Batts, who is one of Cate Batts' children. Makes that hypothesis that there was bad blood between the Bells and the Batts kind of a wash, doesn't it?

One of the more famous incidents involved the Johnson sons, John and Calvin, who one night wanted to 'shake the witch's hand'. According to Richard Bell, these two young men interacted with the entity more than anyone outside the family. The entity evidently liked to get into long conversations, and the Johnsons obliged. John was a smart young man, and he used these talks to try and get the witch to slip up and reveal some kind of clue to her existence, while his brother, Calvin, was a more straightforward type of person. 

One night, the conversation turned to the nightly abuse Kate heaped upon the Bell children. Everyone agreed that the sound was like an open hand against the cheek, so Calvin decided to ask the witch to shake hands with him. Richard Bell continued:

After much persuasion, Kate agreed to comply with the request on one condition, that Calvin would first promise not to try and grasp or hold the hand that would be laid in his. This he agreed to, and then holding out his hand, in an instant he felt the pressure of the invisible. Mr. Johnson testified that he felt it very sensibly, and that the touch was soft and delicate like the hand of a lady, and no one ever doubted his statement.  John Johnson begged Kate to shake hands with him, persisting that he was as good a friend as his brother, but the witch refused, saying, "No, you only want a chance to catch me." John vowed that he would not attempt anything of the kind. Kate still refused, replying, "I  know you, Jack Johnson; you are a grand rascal, trying to find me out, and I won't trust you."

This is a great story for a couple of reasons. First off, the entity complied with a request for someone to have a tactile experience, and did so in such a manner that the subject was able to describe vividly what her 'hand' felt like. And second off, that uncanny prescience the witch had shown on numerous occasions proved that she, at least, knew what John Johnson's real intentions were. 

But perhaps my favorite story is also one of the most famous--the night the Bell Witch got into bed with William Porter. William Porter was a frequent guest, and claimed to enjoy talking with Kate. As a result, the entity said she liked him too, and so they got along very well--which can only have been a good thing for the Bells. If talking with Porter distracted her from tormenting the family, then he was probably one of their favorite people. Porter was unmarried, living alone in a log house that Richard Bell describes as follows:

The building was a large hewn log house, with a partition dividing it into two rooms. There was one chimney having a very large fireplace, and the other end was used for a bedroom--entered by a door in the partition....Said he: "It was a cold night and I made a big log fire before retiring to keep the house warm. As soon as I got into bed I heard scratching and thumping about the bed, just like Kate's tricks, as I thought, but was not long in doubt as to the fact. Presently I felt the cover drawing to the back side, and immediately the witch spoke when I recognized the unmistakable voice of Kate. 'Billy, I have come to sleep with you and keep you warm.' I replied, 'Well, Kate, if you are going to sleep with me, you must behave yourself.' 

Are you kidding me? This man had some serious stones, telling the devil to behave herself! Richard Bell continues, as William Porter had told the story to him:

"I clung to the cover, feeling that it was drawing from me, as it appeared to be raised from the bed on the other side, and something snake-like crawling under. I was never afraid of the witch, or apprehended that it would do me any harm, but somehow this produced a kind of chilly sensation, a freak of all overishness that was simply awful.

Pause. How many times have you heard an investigator talk about this exact same feeling, and showed the hairs standing up on end on his arm? 'A freak of all overishness' is probably the best description I've ever heard for that sensation, which I experienced myself on several occasions in the Bell Witch Cave. It really is simply awful. Back to the text--

"The cover continued to slip in spite of my tenacious grasp, and was twisted into a roll on the back side of the bed, just like a boy would roll himself in a quilt, and not a strip was left on me. I jumped out of bed in a second, and observing that Kate had tolled up in the cover the thought struck me, 'I have got you now, you rascal, and will burn you up.'

Pause. Here's a moment where the differences in our society come full force to smack us in the face. If this happened today, our first reflex would be to what? Right--grab the cell phone and hit record. We are a social media driven culture, and our first instinct wouldn't be to destroy the entity, but to document it. But William Porter was a pioneer in 19th century backwoods Tennessee. His first instinct was to try to rid his friends and neighbors of this entity that was torturing them. To resume:

"In an instant, I grabbed the roll of cover in my arms and started to the fire, intending to throw the cover, witch and all, in the blaze. I discovered that it was very weighty and smelt awful. I had not gone halfway across the room before the luggage got so heavy and became so offensive that I was compelled to drop it on the floor and rush out of doors for a breath of fresh air. The odor emitted from the roll was the most offensive stench I ever smelt. It was absolutely stifling and I could not have endured it another second. After being refreshed I returned to the room, and gathered up the roll of bed clothing,shook them out (sic) but Kate had departed and there was no unusual weight or offensive odor remaining, and this is just how near I came catching the witch." (Bell/Ingram)

I find this story fascinating for a few reasons. First off, it's damn funny. If you're burdened with an imagination like mine, it's easy to visualize a big guy in his long johns, fighting to throw a struggling force wrapped up in quilts into his fire and instead having to bolt out into the cold because of the smell. Second off, this seems to be one of the rare instances where Kate was taken off guard. That's interesting to me because it strikes a blow at that strange knowledge the entity had displayed so often and that we've already discussed. In the earlier story, the entity knew better than to trust John Johnson to shake her hand. "No, you only want a chance to catch me."

And yet, it never seemed to occur to the entity that wrapping herself up in William Porter's blankets like a burrito might not be a good idea. It's a very human mistake--she and William Porter were 'friends' and enjoying talking to each other. So Kate never imagined her 'friend' was hiding ulterior motives, and all their conversations together might have blinded her to the real thoughts Porter had. It's possible to enjoy talking with someone even though you know they're just a terrible person. I don't know if William Porter was deliberately buttering Kate up with an eye to finding a way to rid the Bells of their terrifying tormentor; I suspect he wasn't. I think that we can take his relation of events pretty much as they were told to Richard Bell and later committed to paper in his journal. But to survive on the frontier, even in the midst of a small community like the one in Robertson County, a man would have had to be both opportunistic and bold--traits that would have carried him through dangerous situations both in the forest and when an entity stole his blankets.

So to me, both these stories set up the dichotomy in Kate's character--the supernatural, powerful side as well as the more human, fallible side. There are loads more stories of Kate and the neighbors--I'll probably do another post with more accounts soon. But these two stories I specifically wanted to get out there now--because Kate does have that more human side to her nature, and I think it's important to understand that facet of the haunting. So after tomorrow's post about the the next episode of Cursed: The Bell Witch, we'll explore the relationship between Kate and Lucy Williams Bell, John Bell's wife.

Why? Because believe it or not, there is no doubt that the entity that killed John Bell, Sr., was otherwise nothing but kind and considerate to his wife. 

Timeout For Some More Paranormal Theories

Never fear--another Bell Witch post is coming for tomorrow. It takes me a while to write those posts, because I'm being very careful to cross refer through all the available source material in an effort to present the best possible relation of events as, if not fact (for two hundred years later it's hard to discern fact from legend) then at least the salient points of the original sources. In particular, I want the Bell family memories to be accurately related because, in my opinion, those stories hold the most weight and are the most likely sources to be accurate in regards to what really happened. So I'm going to hold a story from Richard Williams Bell's journal as more probable than any of Harriet Parks Miller or MV Ingram's Victorian flights of fancy. 

Now then...let's take a look at something I have been pondering this week. In my post on paranormal video viewing, I mentioned that Most Haunted's investigation of 30 East Drive's 'most violent poltergeist in the world' as one that closely mirrors the Bell haunting. You could have blown me over when I discovered that the MH guys ALSO did their live Halloween investigation there last week. I watched it last night--and you can too, on YouTube. The show is broken down into three parts, but should play back to back without you having to search for the next installment. 

Now, can I say for certain that MH's whole show isn't faked? No. Do I buy into everything that happened? No, of course not. Anytime you evaluate a paranormal show, you have to include a healthy dose of skepticism even if you do believe in the supernatural. I'd be 100% skeptical if I hadn't experienced paranormal events personally. Heck, I'm still waiting for proof on Bigfoot and UFOs and psychics and all that fun stuff. However, that's for me--my own personal belief system is based on what I experienced, and it's not my place to destroy someone else's personal experiences just because I wasn't there. So whenever paranormal activity occurs in front of a camera and a live audience, I take it at face value. 

And it's no secret that I've laughed a lot at Most Haunted in the past. Still do, to be honest, especially when some cadaverous-looking dude starts bellowing incantations to Satan in poorly pronounced Latin.

But I discovered something last night, after watching the show, that set my wheels to turning. 

In the past few years, 30 East Drive has been investigated  by numerous groups. Throw in Most Haunted's two regular episodes, and then add in the live Halloween investigation. Not only did you have the team in the house, but the incredible energy of multiple film crews and, for the live show, a horde of spectators outside on the street. Then figure in the millions of people who watched the event live internationally, thanks to their live stream on YouTube. That's an immense amount of energy, if theories regarding what fuels a haunting are accurate. But with this particular location, there's also something else that is both fascinating and disturbing. 

30 East Drive, in Pontefract, Yorkshire is now a B&B.

You think I'm kidding? Take a look for yourself.  250 pounds per night. Yowsa! At today's exchange rate, that's $376.24 per person, per night. I'd better get a luxury suite for that price, not a semi-detached house furnished in 1970's style furniture that's been beat up by a poltergeist. 

But then, it hit me. 

This poltergeist is not only getting fueled by all these investigations, but now there are casual tourists booking that house every. Single. Night. 

And they wonder why the house is haunted, and the intensity of the haunting has increased. If you take a look at the waiver all guests have to sign, you can pick up some interesting tidbits as well. Keep in mind that this is the entity that allegedly has been flinging knives around. The owner of the property is anxious to exploit the notoriety of the haunting, but is not anxious to take responsibility if some total idiot gets hurt in the course of the night. They also don't want anyone exorcising the entity because their cash cow would dry up. Additional digging on the site reveals that the owner of 30 East Drive is the producer of When The Lights Went Out--a fairly atrocious movie about the haunting from 2012. 

So this house is getting constant and increasing attention, bringing more people within the sphere of the entity and resulting in more and stronger paranormal events. 

Sound familiar?

What's going on around 30 East Drive is the twenty-first century equivalent of what happened on the Bell farm. Remember this from Richard Williams Bell?

This new development (i.e.--the entity beginning to speak) added to the sensation already created. The news spread, and people came in larger numbers, and the great anxiety concerning the mystery prompted many questions in the effort to induce the witch to disclose its own identity and purpose...The excitement in the country increased as the phenomena developed. The fame of the witch had become widely spread, and people came from all quarters to hear the strange and unaccountable voice...the house was open to everyone that came; father and mother gave them the best they had, their horses were fed and no one allowed to go away hungry; many offered pay and urged father to receive it--

There you go, Cursed: The Bell Witch idiots. Proof positive that John Bell was a horrible person that brought the curse upon himself and his family because of his lack of generosity and greed.

--insisting that he could not keep up entertaining so many without pay, but he persistently declined remuneration and not one of the family ever received a cent for entertaining.

We've already theorized that the growing number of spectators gave the entity the power and strength to continuously increase its ability to interact with witnesses. Right now, in Yorkshire, the exact same thing is happening with the same result--and the added advantages of money obviously outweigh any potential risk to visitors with the owner, whose motivation appears to be basic simple greed. So I have to wonder--what comes first?   An entity's stronger displays of power? Or people, instruments, technology, gizmos, and gadgets? 

I'm starting to see a strong case for people. Because IF the Bell Witch could talk from the beginning, why didn't she from the get go? And IF the Black Monk of Pontefract could apport knives out of boxes and throw them at people from the beginning, why didn't he chuck some butcher block innards at the Pritchard family back in the day instead of using marbles? 

I'm thinking that within the anatomy, for lack of a better word, of a haunting, there is a finite point beyond which an entity cannot go UNLESS the energy it feeds upon is substantially increased. So in our curiosity to know more about the other side, we are inadvertently empowering that which we inherently fear. 

So I started looking a little further. On my Scariest Paranormal Investigations playlist, (Note--there's a permanent link to the playlist now at the top of the left sidebar. Check back often; I'm always adding to it!) I've also listed two separate investigations by the Fourman Brothers' Living Dead group at the haunted Monroe house in Hartford City, Illinois. They were brought to the Monroe house as the result of an investigation conducted by DIGGS Paranormal that has more than FORTY videos of multiple investigations at that location. (I've since added one of their truly interesting and scary videos to my playlist) And just doing a swift check of the other groups and videos regarding that location, there is a substantial increase over the past six years from one video in 2009 to well over 50 in 2014-15 and at least ten different paranormal groups. In fact, in one of the Fourman videos, the owner of the house states that he's afraid opening up the house to paranormal research has increased the severity of the haunting--a haunting that most people consider to be demonic in nature. 

It would be interesting to conduct a serious study of haunted locations to see if investigations or tourism actually increase paranormal activity, either in frequency or intensity. In fact, I'm kind of seriously considering doing just that once the Bell Witch haunting series is completed. I was planning to consult a few paranormal experts in regards to this project, but I may give that a whirl earlier than expected. There are a lot of folks out there that contact paranormal groups when something in their house is scaring them. 

It would probably be important to them to find out that what they think is the cure is actually making their paranormal problems worse--and capable of much, much more dangerous things.

Cursed: The Bell Witch--Travesty...I mean...Episode Two

Okay, folks. Anyone who follows me on Twitter witnessed some of my outrage last night at this latest attempt by A&E to Hollywood their show Cursed: The Bell Witch. So today, let's break down the episode and discuss something that may have actually redeemed this show just a little bit.

A very little. 

First off, let's establish a foundation at the beginning. If you're going to produce a show that purports to investigate actual, documented events, it behooves you to KNOW THE SOURCE MATERIAL. If at any time John Ceallach and the producers of the show could have read any of the published works based on the recollections of the Bell family who were actually victims of the haunting and eliminated all this bogus rumor-mongering that so far has been the basis of the show and could therefore avoid the heinous and borderline stupid mistakes they've made so far. This leads me to question the authenticity of the show from the get go, especially when you compare John's last name, Ceallach, to the Gaelic word cailleach. Why is that important, you ask?

Cailleach is the Gaelic word for WITCH.

Uh huh. Exactly. 

Anyone who had read the source material would be aware that John Bell died BEFORE Cate Batts, thereby nullifying any idea that he'd knocked her up and killed her. Anyone who had read the source material would be aware that John Bell's excommunication from the church was based on a spurious usury charge, but that everyone in the community was well aware that the notoriety of the haunting and the subsequent effects on the area had been responsible for the action--a community-based effort to protect themselves from the demon infesting the Bell farm. Anyone who read the source material would have known that Mrs. Batts' name was Cate, and the witch's Kate was spelled differently to differentiate between the two. Anyone who read the source material would have known that Cate Batts was an eccentric woman, looked upon with suspicion for succeeding in her disabled husband's role, but that she was respected, at the very least, by the people in the area. 

And, of course, anyone who read the source material would have read the statements of John Bell Jr., where the entity specifically says "I will not haunt or curse your descendants."

Poof. There goes the premise of the show. 

So, what did this week offer us? First off, two cops in the woods around Adams were more than a public nuisance--they were a positive danger, whipping out their handguns and panicking every time they heard a rabbit or possum in the woods. They're lucky some poor hunter didn't get blasted out of their absolute ignorance of what lives in the woods. Do they not have woods in Mississippi where there's wildlife? Cause if every little crackle of leaves around them makes them leap to the conclusion that the witch is around, then they're really, really, REALLY stupid. 

In fact, wood seems to offer a particular terror for these guys. First, there's the scary tree that's "as cold as a coca-cola right out of the ice chest". (How many nights did Chad sit up, plotting a way to use that line? He must have loved it since he's used variants of it twice.) Then there's the four by four that falls out of a barn when one of those scary noises in the woods causes our two intrepid officers of the law to whip out their handguns and charge after the witch. And then, the itty bitty little tree that falls gently onto the top of the house. 

If not the witch, the spirits of the forest definitely have it in for you dude. 

Then, of course, was the visit to Tish the Witch. Ah, Tish! After confirming that the (made out of wood) corn dolly is indeed a voodoo doll--because people in rural Tennessee are known to practice voodoo, right?--she proceeds to offer to burn said voodoo doll and that she's going to sage her shop as soon as they leave. 

Note to Tish--Febreze works better.

This brings up the Cate Batts-John Bell affair theory, which they then extrapolate to mean that she was carrying his illegitimate child and that he killed her and the baby to hide his shame. Of course, the fact that she was older, than the sources list her own children as already grown when the haunting commences, added to the fact that she not only fulfilled all her wifely duties, but ran the farm as well as a cottage industry of clothmaking with her slaves--without whom she was rarely if ever seen. Cate Batts was also a fervent member of the local church, and a really funny story about her at a revival is something I'll share in a later post. Any of these documented facts would have headed this bogus theory off at the pass, but our suspiciously named cop and his buddy apparently don't worry about things like that. 

This alarms me for the state of crime solving in the state of Mississippi. 

Then John and Chad head down to talk to the descendants of the Batts family, who would never have let this pair into the house if they knew how they'd been desecrating the memory of their ancestress for the past show and a half. But there, finally, the red herring they've been chasing for an interminable hour and a half comes to an end. Even Katie Bell, God love her, laughs in Chad's face when he tries to correct her knowledge of her own family and insists that Cate died before John Bell. 

And considering that--you know--the entire Bell family at the time of the haunting categorically denied the idea that Cate Batts was the source of or behind the witch, it seems like perhaps their woefully ignorant descendant has finally learned how off-base he was. So, strike her off the list. 

At this point, the audience--and the Wonder Twins--begin to be confronted with actual facts, so to cap that off, they then begin to--

Look at something else entirely unrelated. 

Are you kidding me? Seriously? So now, you're going to opine that John Bell cursed himself and his family and his own descendants? Well, if you're going to head down that road, let's bring on Pat Fitzhugh on and see what he has to say. 

But hold on a second here. The story goes that in North Carolina, before the Bells moved to Tennessee, John Bell shot his overseer John Black because of comments he made about how much he liked the oldest Bell daughter, Mary--according to Fitzhugh. And yet, on Fitzhugh's own website, on the genealogy page, the oldest Bell daughter is named Esther, not Mary, and was born in 1800. The Bells came to Robertson County, Tennessee in 1804-05. So there is no Mary Bell and if she had existed--say, for example, a child who died before the move to Tennessee, she wouldn't have been old enough for any overseer to talk smack about getting in her knickers.(And if he was talking about a child of that age, I don't blame John Bell for shooting the SOB in the gut, quite frankly, and I doubt anyone else would either) The oldest Bell child, son Jesse, was born in 1792. The oldest any mythical daughter named Mary could have been was 10-11 when the Bells left North Caroline for the frontier of Tennessee. 

By the way--Jesse is the oldest Bell son, and he lived a seemingly pleasant and prosperous life, happily married with nine children. He ultimately moved to Mississippi and passed away in 1843 in unremarkable circumstances.

Some curse. 

So yeah, after the first dose of reality in the whole damn show, they go to a Bell Witch expert who spins a completely bogus yarn about an imaginary daughter and incident that didn't even exist as far as I know--and as far as the expert's own website relates. That's just...wow. As for the Bells fleeing North Carolina because of the murder of their overseer, here again you only have to look at the source material--and Fitzhugh's website--to discover that two failed crops (1801 and 1804) were the impetus for the decision to go west. 

But here, the episode takes a turn that actually, for the first time, gives me the tiniest sliver of hope about the direction of the show. Getting a hold of the Bell family bible from Bob Bell, a bible that is contemporary with the haunting, from another Bell descendant is the first actual bit of evidence portrayed so far that I have never seen. This is so much more compelling than hanging fake voodoo dolls on a tree in the woods! Why in the HELL would anyone think that would somehow make this story more frightening or compelling? Ridiculous. But when the Bell family bible--which the actual family believes to be haunted, passes into John's hands, then finally the show starts to deliver the tiniest bit on its promise.

(But, oh Mr. Bell! You're really going to let these two keystone cops handle your two century old family heirloom bible, haunted or not? Oh geez...the antiquarian book collector in me is cringing.)

So then another Skype call home to John's son, and then--a nugget of activity that begins to give me hope. Of course, the idiots run out with their guns--because guns work soooooooooo well against the Bell Witch as we've already discussed in a previous post--and more noise in the woods has our guys acting like total idiots again. A teensy little tree is leaning against the house--conveniently against the bedroom where John sleeps. 

Maybe it's the famed Adams Bigfoot? Surely A&E can cook up a dude in a ghillie suit, right?

But then a little irregularly shaped mist floats into view on the cctv feed, and for the first time we are confronted with an anomaly that might actually be paranormal in nature. It makes sense, actually, since the history of the Bell bible is attached to bizarre supernatural events in the past and the bible is even now sitting in the cabin (in probably horrific conditions for the preservation of two century old paper and leather--someone send Mr. Bob Bell some acid-free tissue and a storage box pronto!). So now, for the first time, someone on the production staff has a GOOD idea. They call in John Zaffis, world-renowned demonologist, paranormal investigator, and haunted collector.  

Now, at last, someone with experience, relevant knowledge, and real insight is talking about the paranormal aspects of the case. No voodoo crap, no scary trees, and the deliberate mention not only of the Native American connotations of the case but also poltergeist AND demonic haunting potentials. And while the poster falling off the wall's timing if VERY convenient, I find it difficult to believe that John Zaffis would knowingly participate in any sort of hoax. I will point out, however, that the poster in question is secured with an alligator clip dangling off a nail--and it wouldn't be all that amazing for it to fall EXCEPT for the timing of that fall. So if it had happened without Zaffis there, I'd totally dismiss it. His presence, however, saves A&E from that particular scathing blog post--one that I'm sure I'll be able to use at some future conveniently timed occurrence though. 

And then we come to the stupidest question on the face of the earth. "Do you think this bible caused this curse on my family?"

What? WHAT? You REALLY think that a BIBLE can engineer a generational curse? Are you that stupid? Let's stop and think for a minute. If you believe in the concept of a curse, then you are automatically bound to assume will and intent--two specific energies that can only be propelled by a sentient being, whether human, animal, or paranormal. A BIBLE can't generate that kind of energy. It's a BOOK. It can have energy attached to it, but I'd be inclined to consider that kind of a paranormal residue, a miasma of energy siphoned off from the true paranormal event that lingers in and around the object. 

So now, the dynamic duo have added a real paranormal investigator to the hunt, and they're headed out--finally--to a site where paranormal activity is known to have occurred: the old Bell -cemetery, where John Bell, Senior is interred. And for the first time, an event that is frequent in paranormal investigations occurred and one that I have witnessed myself. The camera inexplicably stops working. There's a long history of this happening on the old Bell homestead, especially around the cave which is just a quarter of a mile away. In one particularly famous incident locally, the TV show Unsolved Mysteries came to the cave in the 1980's. They set up their camera equipment on top of the cliff and began to film as they descended the trail to the mouth of the cave. But once they got into the cave, none of the equipment worked. They went back up to the top of the trail and everything worked fine. They went down again--no film equipment. The UM crew tried unsuccessfully to film the cave for the better part of a couple of days, but finally gave up. They packed up and left and until the Ghost Adventures episode in the cave last year, no one had ever been able to record activity in the cave except for the occasional tourist or local. 

So I was so outraged last night that I didn't even bother to try to write this post. I waited until today, watched the episode again, and have written this post as the episode was running. I have to tell you--I'm in a quandry. Do I find the show entertaining? No, because all the BS and the apparent disregard of the legend and historical fact completely distracts me from viewing this show like any other paranormal based entertainment. I find myself completely incapable of buying into this man and his proclaimed concern about this curse--a curse I know for a fact was never placed in the first place, according to the Bells that lived at the time as well as the entity itself. The suspicious correlation of this man's last name and the Gaelic word for witch makes me feel STRONGLY that this is a clue that this man's entire story is BS, planned by the network so they could exploit the legend of the Bell Witch. But, in the second half of the show, there were some small moments of activity that could be paranormal, including an incident that I know for a fact many have also experienced in the same place with the camera difficulties in the old, private Bell cemetery. John Zaffis's addition to the episode counterbalances the absolutely bogus red herring of the North Carolina murder that Pat Fitzhugh related, and finally brings some authenticity to a show that, up to this point, has been, quite frankly, crap. And with the addition of a real paranormal investigator, perhaps John and Chad won't be so prone to whip out their guns. 

How they managed to shoot a whole season without one of those guys killing an innocent hunter in the woods is beyond me. I would not be surprised, however, if there were a couple of near misses--or that the guns were empty and are really props to help establish the identities of the two primary cast members. Anyone who knows even the slightest bit about the paranormal would know better than to think a gun would have any effect upon an entity or spirit. What are they going to shoot at? Mist? The wind? 

Just ridiculous. 

But I've made a decision. Halfway through the episode, I was about to chuck the whole mess and not watch anymore. But I'm going to keep watching--not because I think anything valuable will come from this fiasco, but because I'm having a hell of a good time fact-checking such a blatant fount of bullshit and letting you guys know what a veritable insult this whole production really is. And, of course, keep reading my blog series, The REAL Bell Witch Legend, for the FACTS regarding the Bells and the haunting that took place on their farm from 1817-1821 and still haunts Adams today. 

And most importantly, the cursed that was never placed on the Bells and their descendants--except for poor John Ceallach (remember--Gaelic for witch is cailleach),who's apparently colluded with A&E and invented this whole ridiculous mess for some kind of self-aggrandizement that becomes more evident with every single minute his face is on the television set. 

Stay tuned for episode three! Thank God there's football to pass the time before next Monday!

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