Let's Talk About Paranormal Shows and TV Exorcisms--From the Supreme to the Suck

Author's note: Thanks to everyone who contacted me about the glitch in this blog post. Took about an hour of redoing all the HTML code, but we're good to go now. Thanks and enjoy!

Nowhere was this title more apt than this past Halloween weekend. From the supreme to the suck, paranormal shows ran the gamut from great to horrendous. 

Thanks to Kate and the Bell Witch legend, along with another, intensely personal and terrifying demonic event I witnessed as a young adult, I have always been very interested in the paranormal. Once television began to create shows like SyFy's Ghost Hunters or Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures, I was pretty happy. I could watch similar experiences to my own happening safely to people I didn't know and hopefully learn as a result. The two shows I just mentioned are two, perhaps, of the best. While both shows have had episodes where I've sat back and thought, "Yeah, right. Your jacket got pulled ten minutes into a live show--because all the shows you've done before tell us how rare paranormal events are and how difficult to capture." both shows have also had episodes where the evidence seemed to be legitimate and inexplicable. So if there can be such a thing, I'd have to place TAPS and the GAC at the top of my list for paranormal television viewing. 

And then, of course, there's the internet. You know as well as I do that about 95% of the "real ghost caught on tape" YouTube videos are crap, and that the methodology and even the makeup of most "paranormal investigation teams" online is laughably similar to the two shows I've named above. But there are paranormal videos/evidence/investigators online who also can teach us things about the supernatural and who, I believe, after extensive vetting, are also legitimate sources of information. ?In fact, I've created a playlist on my YouTube channel of investigations and documentaries I consider to be useful. LiveSciFi.tv, with its salty and irreverent host Tim, not only livestreams all its video feeds from ghost hunts, most notably at the Sallie house in Atchison KS and the Welles house in Pennsylvania, but also undertakes a lot of folklore rituals like Bloody Mary and the recent Charlie Charlie pencil game *{add in FRAUD here since it was a viral advertising campaign}. 

Tim also conducts multiple sessions each month, live streamed, where he works with a spirit board, ghost box and Ovilus, and real time EVP burst sessions that have captured ("in my opinion) viable entity communications. Fair warning--DO NOT try to emulate what he does. The internet is also littered with videos of "ouija gone bad" and that personal experience I referred to earlier originated with ouija board communications. Tim may also be battling demonic attention, as the names Zozo, Beelzebub, Abacus, and Azrael pop up frequently. While you--like me--may be skeptical of spirit board communications, Tim has worked with legendary investigator and demonologist John Zaffis, the nephew of Ed and Lorraine Warren, and they actually have investigated together on LiveSciFi which ups his credibility significantly in my book. 

A second outstanding paranormal option is the Fourman brothers' Living Dead paranormal group, that produces incredibly professional and entertaining documentaries of its ghost hunts and has captured some extraordinary evidence. Their investigations of Pennhurst, the Monroe (IN) house, and the Glore Psychiatric Hospital are amazing--and terrifying. They seem like the real deal, and present their evidence in a straightforward, non-hyperbolic fashion that I really appreciate. 

Both these groups have channels, which I frequently confess to binge watching. If you want to see what investigators mean about how rare true evidence is, take a gander at one of LiveSciFi.tv's 15 hour DVR videos, that are presented, unedited, from their ghost hunts.

And finally, believe it or not, I have to add in a group/TV show that I used to really laugh at. The UK's Most Haunted show is probably the longest-running paranormal show in the world, and now that they seem to have chucked the mediums and are headed in a more evidentiary direction, they've just released what is most likely the closest video evidence to parallel the Bell haunting. More on that in a bit--and never fear. I'll provide links to websites and YouTube channels, as well as a link to my own playlist of particularly awesome online investigation videos. 

So after all that, let's talk for a minute about "Exorcism-Live!" that was produced by the Destination America channel last Friday night. 

I was very interested in Exorcism-Live last week. First off, it was being shot at the "Exorcist house"--the actual house in St. Louis where Roland Doe was possessed--the source material for both the book and the movie The Exorcist. This location was investigated last year by the GAC guys, and Nick Groff actually had something malicious follow him home. I don't know that's why he left Ghost Adventures (pretty sure it was Zak Bagans tormenting him to be honest), but the timing of the two events makes me a little suspicious. At any rate, this location has experienced documented paranormal activity since 1949, so I was curious to see what would happen. The Tennessee Wraith Chasers paranormal group (Tennessee boys, which makes me fond of them, naturally) conducted an investigation of the property live--they are the Ghost Asylum show on DA. Chip Coffey, a spiritualist medium that anyone who watched Paranormal State or Psychic Kids is familiar with, would lead a seance in the house using a Ouija board. And then Bishop James Long would perform an "exorcism" of the location to close out the show. 

There's a reason for the quotes there. The "Exorcist" Bishop Long is not a Roman Catholic bishop, but an Independent or Old Catholic bishop. "Independent Catholics separated from the Roman Catholic church over doctrinal differences, mostly dealing with papal authority. And while their orders are acknowledged by the Roman Catholic church for the most part, they don't exactly have a hotline to the Vatican. Does that make a difference really? 

Well, I don't know. 

I do know that the St. Louis archdiocese released a strong statement against the show last week, The statement reads in part:

St. Louis, Mo., Oct 30, 2015 / 03:16 pm (CNA/EWTN News)- A television show’s promise of a live exorcism rite is more dangerous than it thinks, the St. Louis archdiocese warned on Thursday. 

“Any attempt to use the solemn Rite of Exorcism as entertainment exposes all participants to the danger of future hidden satanic attack,” Bishop Robert Hermann said Oct. 29. “We cannot play games with Satan and expect to win.” 

Bishop Hermann, an auxiliary bishop emeritus of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, said no exorcism can take place without the authority of the local Catholic ordinary.St. Louis’ Archbishop Robert Carlson has not granted permission to any priests or bishops for the event.

In my PERSONAL opinion, that makes a difference. The Catholic church has strict tests that are applied to candidates for the rite of exorcism. That's why few people actually get permission to receive the rite of exorcism, and only a few priests are permitted to engage in them. Without the official backing of the Roman Catholic Church, I find it difficult to believe that a rite like exorcism can be successfully performed. We're not talking about smudging a house with sage here. We're talking about spiritual warfare--using consecrated objects like holy water, a crucifix, the priestly vestments--performed by a consecrated priest who is trained in the rite by the church who actually has a demonology institute in Rome where both priests and laity can be trained in the ritual.

So even before the show began, I was very skeptical about what we would see. But, you know, I could be wrong. So I watched and hoped for the best.

I did not get it.

 The Ghost Asylum guys, God love 'em--they did their best to conduct a real paranormal investigation--something almost impossible to achieve in an hour stuffed full of commercial breaks, interviews with a very cheesy host, social media checks by a radio host who would read a question and never answer it, a full contingent of multiple film crews, and actual protesters howling down the street. There's no way their evidence is uncontaminated, and even if the investigation was conducted live the evidence couldn't possibly have been analyzed with any degree of thoroughness under those circumstances. Sorry, guys--it was a bust. Totally not your fault, either. Hopefully, you got to investigate AFTER the show was done. I'm sure whatever lingers in that house was well and truly pissed off about 3 am and you got some great evidence then.

And then we get to Chip Coffey's ten minute seance.

Seriously, dude? Are you kidding me? I don't play with Ouija boards--although I have used them in the distant past--but even as a giggling thirteen-year-old at a sleepover I knew that the session MUST BE PROPERLY CLOSED. This session was barely even opened when Chip asked one question--Is there a darker entity trying to take over the board--allegedly received an affirmative answer (impossible to determine since the participants' hands completely obscured the entire board)--and then they all got up and left WITHOUT CLOSING THE BOARD for a cheesy one on one with the cheesy host and a conveniently timed commercial break.

For someone who makes his living allegedly communing with the other side, this was such an obvious mistake that Twitter exploded under my fingertips even as I typed BULLSHIT. Even Tim from livescifi.tv tweeted "What a joke that Ouija session was lol" while the first commercial was playing.

So at this point, there was less than ten minutes left before the show ended, and the world was treated to the kind of exorcism ritual you might get at Sonic if they conducted religious rites there. The show went a few minutes over, but Bishop Long and his assistant Chip Coffey emerged from the house and triumphantly announced the exorcism was successful.

Now let's stop and think about that for a second.

This location was, in 1949, the site of a long-running, extensive, and extremely intense MAJOR rite of exorcism--where multiple priests conducted spiritual warfare with demons for a teenaged boy's soul. If the house is still infested by demons in 2015, then OBVIOUSLY THOSE EXORCISMS CONDUCTED AT LENGTH, BY MULTIPLE PRIESTS IN TANDEM, OVER DAYS, WEEKS, AND MONTHS DID NOT WORK. And now Bishop Long, Chip Coffey, and Destination America would have us believe than ten minutes of standard Catholic prayers, some holy water, and the participation of a few cameras managed to rid the house of an infestation that has persisted for almost seventy years? When a Ouija session had just been conducted by ONE OF THE ASSISTANTS OF THE EXORCISM and the session left OPEN by him just a commercial break before?And how did they KNOW that it worked? Especially considering that in most cases of demonic infestation, it's well documented that the house might be quiet for a few days, but then the attacks return and actually worsen?

You can't finish an exorcism, walk out the door, and announce, "Okay, we won! Yay for us!" The fact of the matter is that you don't know--can't know unless you freaking check. EVP session, EMF scan, K2 reading--something. The only thing that was successfully concluded with Bishop Long's proclamation of triumph was the show, thank God. Anything else is nothing but bullshit.

Exactly. Embrace the suck. I couldn't do anything after the "exorcism" ended. I just kind of sat there, staring at the TV, wondering if television executives really think the American public are that stupid.

Evidently, the answer is yes.

See, I had an advantage. I've witnessed demonic occurrences and I can tell you 100% that a ten minute recitation of basic prayers and a holy water spritzer aren't going to do anything with a true demonic entity except annoy it. I saw a friend of mine, who was demonically oppressed, suffer as three burns the width of his thumb rose for no apparent reason on his skin. They started below his left ear, went all the way down his neck, the center of his chest, and terminated on the right side of his torso. I have seen the rage of a devil, and that drive-by Hail Mary wouldn't affect it in the slightest.

So we have to ask ourselves--how far will we willingly suspend our disbelief?In stark contrast to the absolute idiocy of Exorcism-Live...? (punctuation change mine) stood two paranormal shows I watched this weekend. First was the Ghost Adventures investigation of Deadwood, SD--and if you weren't creeped out by that, then you're not going to be creeped out by anything. For the Ghost Adventures episode, obviously, there isn't a YouTube link that I'm aware of but I'm certain that the Travel Channel will replay the two-hour show this Saturday night.And second, oddly enough, was the Most Haunted investigation of 30 East Drive in Pontefract. This show explores a case that as best I can tell most accurately reflects some of the occurrences in the Bell Witch haunting. The location is billed as the site of the most violent poltergeist activity in the world and has been since the 1960's. When you watch it, think back to the story I just related about my friend's burns from nowhere--and you'll instantly understand what I saw.

The link is on my Scariest Paranormal Investigation videos playlist, along with several other videos you might like and that I feel are worth watching. I'll be constantly adding to that playlist, by the way, as I run across new things.

Whenever you are confronting questions about the paranormal, it pays to be skeptical. A good healthy skepticism is the advantage of a logical mind. While it may be easier to just believe in everything, it's not always smarter. You can, if you choose, watch paranormal videos for just the entertainment. Many people do.

But, take this little nugget with you and ponder: any paranormal group, show, author, psychic medium, inventor, or religious individual who makes grandiose claims about CURING or EXORCISING or CLEANSING or ELIMINATING any kind of paranormal threat is more than likely full of it. And if you're experiencing a traumatic paranormal event, the worst thing you can possibly do is to be taken in by a charlatan--something I very much fear happened Friday night in St. Louis.

Whether intentional or not, Destination America, Bishop James Long, and Chip Coffey delivered a promise that they were patently incapable of keeping. There wasn't an Exorcism--Live! on TV Friday night. There was a parody of epic proportions--the kind of thing that sets back sincere, realistic paranormal investigations light years.

(Author's Note--well over two years later, I discovered that Chip Coffey muted me on Twitter. Hell, I didn't even know he HAD a Twitter. So I'd just like to say--thanks, Chip, for reading this blog post! Hope you learned something from it. Ciao!)

The REAL Legend of the Bell Witch: Let's Take a Timeout to Discuss Paranormal Hypotheses

I assume that if you're reading this blog series, you have a serious interest in the paranormal. This post involves theories and my own hypothesis regarding the Bell Witch haunting. If you're touchy about your religion, stop reading now. If you're too skeptical to consider paranormal possibilities, stop reading now. If you want to explore the hows and whys of how Kate was able to speak and are willing to range far afield in the process, keep reading. 

Don't be shy about paranormal curiosity. I suffer from it too, and the Bell Witch Legend was the catalyst for that interest. I've mentioned in passing that I had several significant paranormal encounters on or near the land that once comprised the Bell farm and the community surrounding it. Unfortunately, the one manifestation of the legend that I've always really wanted to experience never happened too much around me. Although I have EVPs from the cave, farm, cemetery, and even the old Bell school, I rarely heard a disembodied voice and never actually interacted with one. 

What makes this rather puzzling is the fact that Kate's loquaciousness is the manifestation that sets this haunting apart. The entity's ability to speak was witnessed and documented by hundreds of people, from family to neighbors to complete and utter strangers. Even Andrew Jackson, Old Hickory himself, had a conversation with Kate that is backed up by a number of original sources. So one of the facets of this case that has always intrigued me is Kate's ability to speak. How did the spirit learn to accomplish such a feat? Why did it choose to do such a thing? Why did it stop? And why, despite the continuation of the haunting in the area and especially on Bell land, isn't it speaking now?

Today we have all sorts of tools to investigate the paranormal with--and particularly to communicate with spirits that are haunting a site or person. Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVPs) are a huge part of every ghost hunting group and are featured on every ghost hunting show. Usually, when a spirit voice is recorded, it does so at an audio level and volume that humans cannot hear without the aid of technology. In fact, if all the investigators find evidence-wise at a suspected haunting is three or four EVPs, that hunt is considered a huge success. 

But rarely do the investigators actually hear a disembodied voice interacting with them, and when that really does happen the voice is a low whisper or sounds distant. From all the evidence in the Bell haunting, this was definitely not the case with Kate. Richard Williams Bell described Kate's speaking ability as follows:

The voice, however, gradually gained strength in articulating, and soon the utterances became distinct in a low whisper, so as to be understood in the absence of any other noises. I do not remember the first intelligent utterance, which, however, was of no significance, but the voice soon developed sufficient strength to be distinctly heard by everybody in the room...The voice was not confined to darkness, as were the physical manifestations. The talking was heard in lighted rooms, as in the dark, and finally in the day at any hour.

I believe this is extremely important information as we try to dissect this case.  What Richard Bell is describing is basically that the entity learned how to speak, and as it grew stronger so did the voice. When you add in the following tidbit, the puzzle develops even more strongly:

This new development 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.

Italics are mine.

I am not a paranormal expert by any means, but I have a theory involving this phenomenon and the sentence I highlighted is integral to that. I've gone through the source material and assembled a timeline that roughly parallels Kate's speaking ability. Let's put it down in outline form--

1.  The earliest manifestations begin--these are nonverbal.
2.  The Bells suffer in silence for several months, until the episodes become so alarming that John           confesses their 'family trouble' to his minister, Reverend Johnson.
3.  Reverend Johnson believes the haunting is of an intelligent nature, and encourages the Bells to             bring in other members of the community to witness this for themselves.
4.  As people interacted with the entity and encouraged it to communicate, the spirit learned to speak. 

5.  This development brought the Bell's neighbors to witness the entity.

6.  Those visitors, beginning with the preachers, began to urge the spirit to speak more.

7.  At first, the voice was a low whisper but gradually strengthened to a normal human-volume.

8.  When news of this got out, hordes of people began to show up at the Bell farm to witness it.

9.  Kate's voice grew stronger, allowing her to sing, shout, and interact with people who weren't even         close to Bell land.

10. Even more people came to see the famous talking Witch. 

11. Kate began to develop stronger abilities, like omnipresence and apportation.

12. John Bell dies, and the Witch takes credit for that--then shows up at his funeral singing bawdy            songs accompanied by the reek of alcohol, as if it were drunk and celebrating.
13. Once the sensation died down, so did the witch's ability to speak--except for one notable exception that we'll discuss later in this article.

Paranormal researchers commonly accept the theory that in order for an entity to manifest--that is, to create the visual and audible encounters that inspire fear in us--it will drain energy from something in the environment in order to power that manifestation. These days, there's no shortage of electronic equipment and technology even in the poorest homes that a supernatural being can siphon its strength. But in the 18th century, nothing existed like batteries or computers, so the only thing an entity could have stolen energy from was restricted to what was most readily available. John and Lucy Bell, with a large and thriving family,including several children in or near the age of puberty as well as a small community of slaves, initially powered the spirit's original manifestations--the scratching, the clawing, the chewing, snatching of covers, banging on the walls. It's important to note that speaking didn't occur until after the Bells began to invite people into their home to see the haunting for themselves.

In other words, I've come to the conclusion that Kate only gained the ability to speak when there were enough people present to charge her supernatural batteries. Put it in perspective--the nightly visitors at the Bell farm had traveled long distances by horse or wagon, over roads that we'd consider little more than a game trail through a thick, heavily forested territory, basically so they can witness something miraculous and/or get the crap scared out of them. After the Bells had fed their uninvited guests and stabled their horses, that group of people would congregate in the large central room of the house, getting more excited and more amped up as the sun fell and darkness descended upon the banks of the Red River. The atmosphere would have been charged by anticipation, fear, suspicion, Every little noise would have cranked that energy up more and then, finally, when the whole house was electric with it, the witch would begin to speak. The guests would feed off that, and she would feed off them--until our paranormal AAA is charged full up to the brim. In a cold, dark, and isolated frontier world, that house would have resonated like a supernatural beacon, and the cycle would escalate even more every time a new horse started up the trail to the Bell homestead.

To me, that makes a lot of sense. But then, I run into a problem. With all the energy sizzling through the world these days, spirits holding court in modern living rooms during weekly ghost hunting shows--well, then why in the world aren't all hauntings involving spirits with Kate's gift of gab? Surely, the energy that powers our modern technological-dependent world is more than sufficient to grant any spirit with the psychic fuel it would need to speak. And let's keep in mind, too, that when the Ghost Adventures crew flooded the Bell Witch cave with energy, they too were hearing disembodied voices in the cave when they were outside and no one was anywhere near the instruments. 

Oh, in case you were wondering, the cave is several hundred yards down a precarious cliffside trail from where the GAC guys were hanging out. NO ONE could get into the cave without their knowledge.

NO ONE. And that trail? Running up it in the middle of the night scared half to death sucks, especially when the witch runs you out by turning off the lights and slamming the heavy iron gate behind you.

Just sayin'. Okay, back to the conversation at hand.

For one thing--again, if we accept modern parapsychological theory, there are four accepted types of hauntings: residual, intelligent, poltergeist, and inhuman. The Psychic Library explains this much better than I--interesting reading too. Residual hauntings occur when the spirits do not interact with the living--instead, they replay moments from moments from their life. The Stone Tape theory, first proffered in the 1970s, hypothesizes that certain types of stone  (quartz or limestone are the most commonly cited) actually record events and replays them. So the stereotypical ghost that walks the hall and disappears into a wall every May 1 would be a residual haunting.

Obviously, Kate is not a residual haunt. The Paranormal Network blog has a great explanation of the Stone Tape theory as well as subsequent hypotheses built off the original concept.

An intelligent haunting occurs when a spirit interacts with the humans it encounters. An example of a famous intelligent haunt would be if granny comes into your room and tells you to pick up your trash three years after she was buried. But while the ghost may interact with people, the kinds of phenomena Kate produced is well beyond the capability of most entities.

Which leaves us with two possibilities. The first--a poltergeist haunting--fits the Bell haunting profile extremely well. They are primarily associated with kids (usually girls) when they hit puberty. The resulting hormonal surge is believed to fuel the child's inherent and untapped psychokinetic ability--hence the name, which means "noisy ghost". Poltergeists like to throw things, stack things, open and close doors, and bang on the walls. They like to make things disappear from their normal place and reappear somewhere it would never normally be put--sometimes months or years after they first disappear. And since Betsy Bell was thirteen when the haunting began, it seems to really tie in with this kind of haunting.

But, I think that the fourth type of haunting, an inhuman haunt, is the most likely explanation for what tormented the Bells. An inhuman haunting occurs when an entity that has never lived as a human being is the force that generates the paranormal event. If you read the Psychic Library post, you'll note that they call this fourth and worst type of haunting a demonic in nature.

It is obvious from the documented events of the Bell case that they were dealing with some entity above and beyond what could be considered a "normal" haunting, and most probably one of the strongest entities ever encountered in paranormal history. The appearance of the strange black animals, the injuries inflicted on countless individuals, the specialized torture of its two primary targets John Bell Sr. and his daughter Betsy--all these things don't fall in line with any of the other three categories. When you factor in the evidence of the entity talking and interacting verbally with scores of witnesses, the materialization of fruit and other gifts when Mrs. Bell was ill, and finally the death of John Bell, it's difficult to believe that these events were generated by a poltergeist.

If your spiritual beliefs include a heaven and hell, the concept of demons is something easier for you to accept than for the atheist/agnostic individual. But even if you don't follow a standard Judeo-Christian based religion, logically you have to wonder what type of supernatural agency possesses the vast power required to do what Kate did. Granny who wants you to pick up your trash isn't going to have the ability to stop Old Hickory's wagon trail in its tracks, or to quote verbatim two Sunday morning church sermons that took place at the same time in two different churches by two different preachers several miles apart. But an inhuman entity--a demon--most certainly would.

And if I'm right, that inhuman entity would be able to feed off the human energy streaming toward the backwoods of Robertson County's forest by the wagon. Every new witness gave the entity that much more power, more fuel charging through it. And so an entity that had learned to verbalize found it incredibly easy to whisper, then say a few words, then sentences, then shout, then sing, then communicate with the very people fueling it for days on end.

The paranormal equivalent of a psychic wind turbine farm in a non-ending hurricane.

Think my theory's out there? Well, check out these words that the entity spoke to John Bell Jr. on its return to the Bell farm seven years after it initially departed.

"There are spirits millions of years old, John, that never have been connected with a body, but were created spirits...I have seen over and over again, things happening in the same country for millions of years; the human mind cannot grasp the meaning of always, eternity, or the infinity of space..."{The Bell Witch, Charles Bailey Bell}

Don't worry. You'll hear a lot more about Kate's return visit on a later post. And the fact that she returned and spoke at great length with John Bell Jr. despite there not being crowds of witnesses lends credence to the theory that this isn't just your average ghost.

So that's my hypothesis. The entity at the center of the Bell haunting is, in my opinion, an inhuman entity with far greater power than a run of the mill ghost--and when hordes of people descended upon the Bell farm seeking proof of the paranormal, they inadvertently fueled that entity, not only with enough energy for it to learn how to communicate easily, but also to fulfill its stated purpose for the haunting.

For everything that Kate did from the moment it first scratched on the walls of the Bell homestead was geared toward a single, horrific goal--to murder John Bell, Senior, and to be able to laugh and sing at his funeral.

For more paranormal theories, check out the Long Island Paranormal Investigators website--http://www.liparanormalinvestigators.com/theories.shtml.

Next time, we'll take a look at one of the more spectacular episodes in the Bell Witch case, including a standoff with a future President of the United States.

The Bell Witch--The REAL Legend, Part Two--TheExplosion of a Phenomenon--The Birth of "Kate", The Bells and How They Coped

In my last post, we talked about some general information surrounding the Bell Witch haunting--the area, the Bell family, the community, and how the paranormal events began. Now we're going to extend that a little further, and take a look at how the Bells began to cope with the notoriety once they revealed their secret first to their community, and then the world. 

But first, let's talk about Kate.

By the time Rev. Johnson encouraged the Bells to share their family secret and to invite others to witness the phenomena, the entity had already begun to torment them. As Richard Bell said in his journal, written some forty years later:

Mr. Johnson listened attentively to all of the sounds and capers, and that which appeared like someone sucking air through the teeth, and smacking of lips, indicated to him that some intelligent agency gave force to the movements, and he determined to try speaking to it, which he did, inquiring, "In the name of the Lord, what or who are you? What do you want and why are you here?" This appeared to silence the noise for considerable time, but it finally commenced again with increased vigor, pulling the cover from the beds in spite of all resistance, repeating other demonstrations, going from one room to another, [it was]becoming fearful.The persecutions of Elizabeth were increased to an extent that excited serious apprehensions. Her cheeks were frequently crimsoned as by a hard blow from an open hand, and her hair pulled until she would scream with pain. Mr. Johnson said the phenomena was beyond his comprehension; it was evidently preternatural or supernatural, of an intelligent character. He arrived at this conclusion from the fact that it ceased action when spoken to, and certainly understood language...{Our Family Trouble, Bell}

From the beginning, therefore, it was obvious that whatever this spirit was, the potential for communication was there. This is significant for a couple of reasons. First off, spiritualism as we know it didn't become widespread or popular for another twenty plus years. Kids weren't sneaking off to have seances, and the concept of spirit communication was neither commonplace or familiar. There weren't mediums who claimed to speak with the dead--that didn't become the norm until after the Fox sisters grew famous for spirit communication starting around 1848, and wasn't popular in the US until the Civil War resulted in so many deaths. The pioneers in northern Tennessee were much closer to the Salem witch trials than they were to the Ghost Adventures or  TAPS paranormal investigation groups of today. But second off, and I think this is more important to this particular story, what followed this initial assessment of Rev. Johnson and the Bells was evidently a period where the entity learned to speak. 

If you think about it, that's almost more creepy than the paranormal stories we hear today. Because the Bells, with the assistance of Rev. Johnson and their neighbors, began to encourage the entity to communicate, in a remarkably short time that spirit had figured out how to channel its energy into the creation of speech. Richard Bell continues:

By this time, the mystery had gained wide notoriety, and people came from every direction, the house being crowded every night with visitors...and neighbors persevered in their efforts to induce the witch to talk, calling on it to rap on the wall, smack its mouth, etc., and in this way the phenomena was gradually developed, proving to be an intelligent character. When asked a question in a way that it could be answered by numbers, for instance, "how many persons present? how many horses in the barn? or how many miles to a certain place?" the answers would come in raps, like a man knocking on the wall, the bureau, or the bed post with his fist, or by so many scratches on the wall like the noise of a nail or claws, and the answers were invariably correct.

Using knocks to answer questions is a technique still used by paranormal investigators today. But back then, there were no paranormal investigators. As we've already seen, the Spiritualist movement and medium-conducted seances were still several decades in the future. But even two hundred years later, there is still a cause and effect that we can identify.

As more people came and interacted with the entity more frequently, it gained more power. There's a fairly standard theory within the paranormal research community that spirits have to draw energy from somewhere in order to affect the real world--people, appliances, even the warmth of the air. That's the accepted explanation of why batteries so frequently drain at haunted locations.

But then, and most probably as the result of the increased energy from which the spirit could feed, the spirit began to talk. The first words of the entity are not recorded, but before long it was able to answer the question Who are you and what do you want?" At first, the voice which  had begun as a whisper but had now strengthened until everyone in the house could hear it easily, said,"I am a spirit; I was once very happy but have been disturbed." {Bell} But before long, the spirit had a second, more inflammatory response. When another local minister, Reverend James Gunn engaged it in a conversation and demanded to know its origins, the spirit replied:

I cannot trifle with a preacher or tell you a lie, and if you must know the truth I am nothing more nor less than old Cate Batts' witch, and am determined to haunt and torment old Jack Bell as long as he lives.

Here is where the real difference between the early 19th century and the modern day comes into play. Cate Batts was a neighbor of the Bells, and unfortunately was one of those types of people of whom nothing bad can be said but that no one really likes despite that. Married to a disabled man, Mrs. Batts had taken over the management of their farm and was extremely good at it. The Batts were well-to-do as a result of her skill, and that's the kind of success that would definitely put the backs up of the men in the area. This era was closer to the Salem witch trials than it was to today, and for the superstituous, the stupid, and the supremely sexist members of the community, hearing that 'old Cate Batts' had a witch made a lot of sense. How else to explain how a woman was able to thrive in a man's world? No doubt if the Batts were genteelly starving in their cabin, the whole populace would have appreciated Mrs. Batts for being a helpless female saddled with a worthless husband and a passel of no-good kids.

At any rate, after this pronouncement by the spirit, it became commonly referred to as Kate. And so, from this point on, so will I.

By this point, word of the witch was spreading like wildfire through the scattered communities of the region. Kate began to develop a distinct personality. One of the strangest foibles Kate had was a strong knowledge of and apparent devotion to Christianity. She enjoyed getting into scriptural debate with the ministers of the neighborhood, and could easily quote chapter and verse to back up her arguments. She also loved singing hymns, which she did to soothe Mrs. Bell when she was ill, and also at Sunday services which she attended along with the family. If the minister delivered a sermon she approved of, Kate could be heard thumping invisible hands on the wall and shouting, "Amen!"--no doubt to the serious disturbance of the entire congregation.

But Kate soon developed into one of those church ladies--the self-proclaimed moral arbiter of the community who relished tattling on wrongdoers.Ingram explains:

Kate the witch never slept, was never idle or confined to any place, but was here and there and everywhere, like the mist of night or the morning sunbeams, was everything and nothing, invisible yet present, spreading all over the neighborhood, prying into everybody's business and domestic affairs; caught on to every ludicrous thing that happened, and all of the sordid, avaricious meanness that transpired; diving t he inmost (sic) secrets of the human heart and, withal, was a great blab-mouth (sic); getting neighbors by the ears, taunting people with their sins and shortcomings, and laughing at their folly in trying to discover the identity of the mystery...

All I can really say about that is--damn. That must have really sucked. Ingram continued:

The avaricious were careful not to covet or lay hands on that which belonged to their neighbors, lest Kate might tell on them. No man allowed his right hand to do anything that the left might be ashamed of--

Yes, I laughed at that too. If Kate were here, she'd be telling on me for having a dirty mind.

--No citizen thought of locking his smokehouse or crib door, nor of staying up through the night to guard his hen roost or watermelon patch...No incident out of the regular routine of everyday transactions occurred that the witch did not know all about the affair, and would tell the circumstance to someone in less than an hour.  

Richard Bell corroborates this with specifics:

A man, whose name I will call John, put in, remarking that he did not believe there was any sin in stealing something to eat when one was reduced to hunger and could not obtain food for his labor. Instantly, the Witch perniciously inquired of John "if he ate that sheepskin." This settled John. He was dumb as an oyster, and as soon as the subject was changed he left the company and was conspicuously absent after that. The result was the revival of an old scandal, so long past that it had been forgotten, in which John was accused of stealing a sheep-skin.

This warlock was indeed a great tattler and made mischief in the community. Some people very much feared the garrulity of its loquacious meddling, and were extremely cautious, and it was this class whom the invisible delighted in torturing most.

 So at first, Kate was almost a kind of...well, a catalyst for good in the community. People were afraid to misbehave because it was quickly apparent that there was NO chance they'd get away with anything. As a result, I'd be willing to bet a lot of pettiness and even violence was averted, especially since if a person didn't really care that everyone knew his 'sins' Kate was likely to start beating the crap out of him just to make a point.

Which she did on several occasions. More on that later in this post.

At any rate, words of Kate and the goings-on at the Bell farm spread like wildfire. People started to travel hundreds of miles to try and see this phenomenon for themselves. That's no small feat. Think about it. Even now, if you want to visit the Bell farm, you have to drive to the middle of nowhere. There are no hotels in Adams, no campgrounds, no bed and breakfasts--nowadays, you'd have to stay in Nashville, Springfield, or Clarksville, which are all 15-50 miles away. Back then, of course, even a trip from Clarksville would have been a full day's journey. People just started showing up at the Bell's front doorstep, wanting to see the witch.

If that happened today, the homeowner would probably call the cops. But back then, the world was different. When these total strangers barged in on the Bell's privacy,  the Bells housed them, stabled and fed their horses, and fed the people too. He never charged anyone a dime. Apparently those "guests" rarely went away disappointed. Kate never had much of a problem showing off to the crowds.

But those strangers weren't familiar with Kate's ability to ferret things out about people that they might not want known. Richard Bell tells one story that speaks strongly about the consequences of poor behavior.

A stranger showed up at the Bell farm one night who introduced himself as Detective Williams. He told John Sr. that he'd come a long way to investigate the haunting, and because he had experience in spotting sleight of hand or other tricks thought he'd be able to expose the truth of the "witch" if they gave him the chance to try.

Father bid the gentleman a hearty welcome, telling him that he was just the man that was wanted. "Make my house your home, and make free with everything here as if your own, as long as you think proper to stay," said Father, and Mr. Williams politely accepted the invitation and hung up his hat.

For that night, and the following day, however, Kate was unusually quiet. Mr. Williams, on the other hand, was not. His favorite topic was himself, and all the amazing adventures he'd had exposing frauds and criminals. By the second night, Mr. Williams was talking even more freely, and he began to insult his hosts.

He said to a coterie of gentlemen who were discussing the witch that he was convinced that the whole thing was a family affair, an invention gotten up for a sensation to draw people and make money, and the actors were afraid to make any demonstrations while he was present, knowing his profession and business, and that he would most assuredly expose the trick. One of the gentlemen told Father what Williams had said, and it made him very indignant. He felt outraged that such a charge should be made without the evidence, by a man professing to be a gentleman, to whom he had extended every courtesy and hospitality...and in a rage he threatened to order Williams from the place immediately.

Just at this juncture, Kate spoke, "No you don't, old Jack; let him stay. I will attend to the gentleman and satisfy him that he is not so smart as he thinks."

That night, the house was packed with people. Everyone sat around the fire, waiting for the witch to speak, but she didn't say a word and there wasn't a single bit of spiritual activity anywhere in the house. Mr. Williams began to boast again that the witch wouldn't appear again as long as he stayed. Mrs. Bell brought out several straw mattresses for her guests to sleep on. So the lights were blown out, and everyone settled down to go to sleep.

But as soon as the house was quiet, Kate decided the time had come to teach the arrogant detective the lesson he so richly deserved.

Mr. Williams found himself pinioned, as it were, to the floor by some irresistible force from which he was utterly powerless to extricate himself, stout as he was, and the witch started scratching and pounding him with vengeance. He yelled out to the top of his voice calling for help and mercy. Kate held up long enough to inquire of the detective which one of the family he though had him, and then let (sic) in again, giving him an unmerciful beating while the man pleaded for (his) life. All of this occurred in less than two minutes, and before a candle could be lighted--and as soon as the light appeared, the pounding ceased but Kate did a good deal of talking--more than Mr. Williams cared to hear. The detective was badly used up and the worst scared man that ever came to our house. He sat up on a chair the balance of the night, with a burning candle by his side, subjected to the witch's tantalizing sarcasm, ridicule, and derision, questioning him as to which of the family was carrying on the devilment, how he liked the result of his investigations, how long he intended to stay, etc. As soon as day dawned, Mr. Williams ordered his horse, and could not be prevailed upon to remain until after breakfast.

And that, my friends, is why I tell you that there was absolutely no need for any Hollywood production company to add to the Bell Witch story. If a movie was ever made just about what really happened, it would be the scariest darn movie imaginable. Aside from the physical abuse Richard Bell describes, stop to consider the emotional and psychological trauma Kate inflicted on that admittedly scummy dude who imposed upon the Bells and then was slimy enough to insinuate that they were not only faking the whole thing for profit--which, considering the fact that they were housing and feeding him for free was a remarkably stupid thing to say--but also that these money-grubbing schemers were too chicken to try their fake ghost tricks while he was in the house! She beat him, yes, but two minutes of invisible ass-kicking couldn't possibly have been as traumatic as the whole, long night he spent, shaking in a circle of dim candlelight, while a disembodied voice verbally destroyed him in front of the family he'd so grossly insulted as well as the captive audience he'd spent all evening bragging about himself to.

The diabolical cleverness of all this is amplified even more by the fact that this was a plan. Remember, Kate let him stew for a day and two nights--probably affording the family the first night of good sleep they'd had in months--without doing anything to betray there was a real entity in the house. And then, when John Bell was going to throw the ingrate out, she told him not to and that she'd take care of him herself.

So when you put all this together--the spirit's ability to learn to speak, its seeming omniscience involving the community, its familiarity with Christianity, its frequent tattletelling on people, knowing if not the thoughts then the general faults of anyone in its sphere, and finally the skill with which it planned and executed punishments upon those who tried to abuse or cheat the Bell family--you come up with something so bone-chilling that it cannot be ignored. This wasn't some residual haunt, endlessly replaying an event from its life on some perpetual loop. Kate was a sentient, maturing, and intelligent being, with likes and dislikes just like us. But Kate was also a supernatural  being, possessed of some inexplicable power that even with all our technology we are completely incapable of explaining.

And any being, alive or otherwise, who could set up and execute the plan with which Kate ensnared and then punished Williams for is, in a word, dangerous. As the Bells and their neighbors were to discover, Kate was both single-minded and complex--and she always devised a way through which she would achieve her ultimate goal.

Tragically, Kate almost always got her way.

Author's note: When I quote directly from a source, I try to turn off my inner editor and leave the peculiarities of the nineteenth century grammar and spelling intact. Believe me, while I can write very long sentences, my editorial eye cringes at sentences with 200 words and 60 semicolons. It hurts. But, if I directly quote a source, I think it's important to leave the wording and even the terrifying punctuation exactly as the original writer first put it down. Also, I'm going to use the correct spelling of Cate Batts's name with a C, and the entity will be Kate. Cate Batts was as much a victim of the haunting as the Bells, and I think the differentiation needs to be made between the woman and the witch.

The Bell Witch--The REAL Legend Part One: How The Most Infamous Haunting in History Began And What Makes It Unique

All right, let's start off with a little information and a few ground rules. 

I grew up on the outskirts of Clarksville, Tennessee, about 15 miles away from the mega-metropolis of Adams. Adams is TINY. It basically consists of an old-school convenience store, a couple of churches, a railroad crossing and a turn of the century schoolhouse that was once an antique mall and now is a center of all trades. Rural does not even begin to describe that part of Robertson County, and it's that part of Tennessee where farms extend as far as the eye can see on either side of the road.

But there's something else in  Adams--a unique industry that cannot be claimed anywhere else in the world. It consists of two graveyards--one public and one hidden--a cave, a room in the schoolhouse-cum-community center, and all that aforementioned farmland. That industry was launched in 1817, on the farm of the community's most prosperous land owner, John Bell, when his family became the victims of what is arguably the best-documented paranormal event in American history. Of course, I'm talking about the Bell Witch. You already knew that because you're smart and read the title. The Bell haunting is historically significant for a couple of reasons. First, it is the only such episode ever investigated by a state government and deemed to be supernatural. And second, the Bell Witch's most famous encounter was with Old Hickory--Andrew Jackson, before he was elected President. 

As of late, though, the Bell Witch is gaining new notoriety. In fact, the reason you're reading this blog is most likely because you googled the new reality show on A&E Cursed: The Bell Witch, or saw the truly excruciatingly bad and non-researched movie An American Haunting or last year's Ghost Adventures episode where they were the first paranormal television show to investigate the Bell Witch Cave. But I have to tell you--anytime you add film cameras or Hollywood to a story, the 'reality' portrayed isn't always the reality. 

Aside from growing up in the area, I have a couple of other legend advantages. First off, I started researching the Bell Witch legend in the 1980s while I was in college. I knew the longtime owner of the farm where the Bell Witch cave is located for years--he was a farmer, my dad owned a farm store--and so I was able to learn a lot of what happened in the decades his family had been on the land. While I was attending Austin Peay State University, the famous playwright Arthur Kopit was brought in as the first artist-in-residence for the Center of the Creative Arts. While he was at APSU. Kopit wrote a play based on the legend that the theater department produced. I contributed research for that project. And finally, I have had my own paranormal experiences in and around Adams, both when I visited the owner of the Bell farm like a proper young adult (which included a couple of all-night investigations in the Bell Witch Cave) and when I visited the Bell farm like a stupid and lawbreaking young adult in the middle of the night (when I could find the hidden Bell cemetery through corn fields, woods, and even in bad weather. What? It's only a mile or so from the road...) 

Sic transit gloria... Yes. I was one of those kind of kids.

At any rate, there are my bona fides. I plan to write a multiple post blog series that will incorporate the historical facts behind the Bell Witch legend, along with anecdotes regarding paranormal activity in and around Adams from people I interviewed as well as my own paranormal experiences on what was the Bell land. So--ready to get started?

There are three primary source materials for the Bell Witch legend. First is the 1934 book "The Bell Witch of Tennessee" written by the physician and direct descendant of the Bells, Charles Bailey Bell. This source is important because it contains the memories of multiple Bell family members who had experienced the haunting. Second, and probably the more expansive source is M.V. Ingram's 1894 book "Authenticated History of the Bell Witch (and Other Stories of the World's Greatest Unexplained Phenomenon)". These book also include "Our Family Troubles", a previously unpublished journal written by Richard Williams Bell, who was the next-to-the-youngest son, being around seven when the haunting began.(Richard Bell's account was written from memory some forty years after the haunting ended, and is the only known account produced by any of the Bell family who were present during the haunting.) In my opinion, the Ingram book is the better source. His understanding of the haunting was perfectly summed up on the cover page of his book. Ingram billed the story as being about "the mysterious talking goblin that terrorized the west end of Robertson County, Tennessee, tormenting John Bell to his death."

That right there, folks, is a succinct and horrifically accurate description of what this legend entails. The entity talked--in fact, carried on full conversations with whoever happened to be present--and possessed a distinct personality and agenda. And that agenda was simple: the Bell Witch existed to torture and eventually murder the Bell patriarch, John with a secondary mission of forcing his daughter, Betsy, to not marry Joshua Gardiner, a young man with whom she 'had an understanding'.

And that's exactly what happened.

That's the simple, unvarnished truth of the matter--and that's why I'm writing this blog series. There's absolutely no need to exaggerate what occurred on the Bell farm during those years when the entity was torturing the family. In the end, what's the most important thread of this story is very straightforward--the Bell family was haunted by an entity who said from the very first utterance of words that it was there to torture and kill John Bell, Senior. So let's chuck all the BS and relate the legend, simply, as it was originally recorded by witnesses. I'll throw in anecdotal tales from my research in Adams from the 1980's, 90's, and 2000's and my own paranormal experiences. But all the speculation, the hyperbole, the 'dramatic license' crap? We'll leave that to filmmakers.

There's no witchcraft in this story. The experience of the Bell family was a haunting, plain and simple. But this haunting was so spectacular, so incredible, so infamous that for several years people from all over the world traveled to the Bell farm to witness the antics of this entity. Being simple, God-fearing folk, they didn't call the bizarre things going on a 'haunting', and I doubt they even knew what a 'poltergeist' was. They identified it as a witch, and that led to some serious ramifications for one woman who lived in the neighborhood. You know how in every neighborhood there's one woman who's so mean that no one likes her? In 1817 Adams, that neighbor's name was Cate Batts, and the 'witch' claimed to originate from her. And so the entity came to be called--and answer to--the name Kate. Therefore, I'll refer to her the same way, and use the feminine pronouns when referring to her.

I do have one hypothesis to put out there, however. Looking back 200 years, we do have to consider that Kate was a manifestation of some demonic entity. There's no way to prove that theory, unfortunately. There has not been at any time. as far as I know, any formal investigation or acknowledgement of the Bell Witch by a religious organization or representative. I think the ongoing paranormal events in Adams today really are nothing more than a haunting, and that any diabolical influence left with the original entity's well-documented departure. I have no idea who or what is haunting the cave, farm, the old Bell school, or the structures on the original Bell lands now. But if I had to make a guess, I do think the original witch was either a demon or an entity working on behalf of one. The abilities demonstrated by Kate are unmatched to this day, even by the most famous hauntings in the world like Amityville or the Enfield poltergeist, and are in my personal opinion indicative of something much stronger than a regular run of the mill ghost.

If there is such a thing.

So let's begin.

In 1804, John Bell brought his wife, Lucy, and their growing family to settle in Robertson County, Tennessee on the banks of the appropriately named Red River. The Bell family were well-to-do back in North Carolina, and so John Bell was able to carve out an extensive property in what is now the tiny bump in the road named Adams. The Bells had a large family, with two daughters--Esther and Elizabeth--and a horde of sons--John Jr., Jesse, Drewry, Benjamin, Zadok, Richard Williams, and Joel, and became one of the leading families in the region. {They also owned several slaves--which is a historical fact and an important part of the story so I'm not going to gloss that aspect over, okay? Don't blame me--I'm just the writer.}

The two oldest sons served under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812--a fact that will become important later. The older daughter, Esther, was married and in a home of her own when the haunting began. The younger daughter, Betsy, was thirteen--an age that proponents of the poltergeist theory cite as being significant, especially as she was specifically targeted as the secondary victim of the witch's anger. But what makes the poltergeist theory suspect, in my opinion, is the fact that the inciting incident for the haunting didn't happen in the house, in Betsy's range of potential influence. That first encounter happened literally in the middle of one of John Bell's huge cornfields, in the fall of 1817, followed by a series of other outdoor sightings experienced by various other members of the Bell extended family.

John Bell was walking through the field with his gun--as any smart pioneer would do back in the untamed wilderness that made up the majority of Tennessee--when he suddenly came face-to-face with a bizarre black animal. The creature--which he finally identified (dubiously) as some kind of weird feral dog--was just sitting in the middle of a row of corn, staring at him. The silent confrontation went on for a few moments, until John finally shot at the thing and it ran off.

A few days later, his young son Drewry--we'll call him Drew--ran across a huge black bird that he originally thought was a turkey. He ran into the house for a gun to kill it, and when he came back the 'turkey' was still sitting there, watching him. As he got closer, he realized that this bird wasn't a turkey. For one thing, it was too big and for another it was completely black. As he got close enough to raise his gun, the bird flew off.

Not too long after that, Betsy was walking in the woods with the younger children, when she ran into a pretty little girl dressed in green swinging high up in the branches of an old oak tree. The little girl wouldn't acknowledge their calls, and before long she disappeared. Soon after that, Betsy encountered a strange woman near their house. She spoke to her, and the woman disappeared.

One of the Bell slaves, Dean, was married. His wife, Kate, belonged to one of the Bell's neighbors, so every night Dean went to visit his wife. After the above events, a strange black dog began to show up in the middle of the road at the exact same place every single night. It would go the rest of the way with Dean to his wife's cabin and then disappear.

To this day, there are sightings of strange animals in and around the Adams area--something I experienced for myself during the most significant paranormal encounter I ever had there.

More on that in a later post.

In the winter of 1818, the manifestations moved into the Bell house. Don't fall into the trap of thinking this was some grand Southern plantation, by the way. I've been to the sinkhole where the remnants of the Bell homestead collapsed and we are not talking about some pioneer mansion here. In fact, it was used as a corn crib not too long after the haunting ended, which should give you a pretty good idea of its size. The house was big for its time, most likely, and because the Bells were prosperous may have possessed some finishing work their neighbors couldn't afford--like glass windows, perhaps siding over the original logs or plaster on the inside walls. But that was probably it. The upstairs was divided into at least two rooms--one for the boys and one for the girls that Betsy occupied alone since the marriage of her sister--and perhaps a third bedroom space, which would have been used by guests or if it was the Bells' turn to board the schoolteacher. John and Lucy Bell slept in a room downstairs. Within a few weeks from the commencement of the haunting, every single room in the house experienced some sort of phenomena.

The haunting progressed slowly into a kind of daily torture. At first, the Bells heard scratching and rustling-- Richard Williams Bell described it as a sound like "a rat gnawing on the bedpost". The boys would light a candle so they could kill the rat, but when the candle flared to life the scratching stopped and there was no rat--or gnaw marks--to be found. The scratching noise moved to the walls, and was quickly followed by knocking then beating on the outer walls of the house. The knocking moved to the front door, as if someone was banging loudly to wake the household. But when someone went to the door, there was no one there.  As soon as whoever'd investigated went back to bed, the noise would start right back up and frequently last through most of the night.

The Bells were keeping these disturbing events quiet. At first, they thought they were being tormented by some mischief-maker in the neighborhood, but it soon became clear that no one else in the community was having these types of troubles and that the disturbances were increasing in frequency and severity. The entity was now making sounds like a person about to speak--sounds like the smacking of someone's lips, gulps, choking sounds, or someone clearing their throat. Richard reported that now blankets were being pulled from the beds, that sounds like big stones rolling down the roof overhead, chains dragging on the floor or chairs being knocked over were now keeping the family awake night after night.

And then, finally, the entity began to physically abuse people in the family. Richard wrote that he 'felt my hair beginning to twist, and then a sudden jerk, which raised me. It felt like the top of my head had been taken off.' (Our Family Trouble, Richard Williams Bell) The entity began to systematically terrorize Betsy, who as the only girl at home had the dubious distinction of a room to herself, pulling her hair, slapping her face, and pinching her. Then John Bell Sr. started to display the first symptoms of the spirit's enmity and the strange physical ailment that would eventually lead to his final illness, His tongue would abruptly stiffen--which he described as feeling like a piece of wood was stuck sideways in his mouth--and while it was like that he couldn't eat or talk.

The worsening situation in the Bell home had reached the breaking point. For around a year, the family had kept the phenomena secret, but now the nightly torture had escalated to such a level that they no longer could. They needed answers, but had no idea where to go for them. But being a pioneer family with strong roots within their church, they had an idea who might be able to help.

So, John Bell told the family minister, James Johnson, what was going on, and invited him to spend the night at he Bell farm to witness these goings-on for himself. Rev. Johnson and his wife came, and that night before everyone went to bed he held a service for the Bell family. Through dinner and the rest of the evening, the entity had been quiet--which, if you think about it, is an even more cruelly refined torture than what they'd been experiencing. 1818 is not that far removed from the witch trials in the grand scheme of things. Can you imagine what the Bells were thinking? Here they've finally confessed to their minister what they've been suffering through, and when he gets there the damn ghost doesn't do a damn thing! Imagine them sitting through an early 19th century prayer service, desperately afraid of what's tormenting them but even more afraid that it'll leave them alone that night and not do anything. I mean seriously--which option would you pray for?

But the quiet didn't last any longer than it took for the family and their guests to snuff out the lights and go to bed. The spirit began its nightly rampage, going from room to room and finally landing into the guest bedroom where Rev. and Mrs. Johnson lay, listening to all the noises. The entity jerked the blankets from the bed, shocking the good Reverend, who sat straight up in bed and demanded that the spirit "reveal itself and tell for what purpose it was there". (Ingram, Authenticated History of the Bell Witch) Subsequently, Rev. Johnson, in talking the matter over with the Bell family, became convinced that whatever was lurking in the shadows was some kind of intelligent being. After all, he pointed out, the spirit certainly understood language and when it was spoken to all other activity ceased for a moment, as if it was listening. He thought that the entity could probably talk. He encouraged the Bells to let the news of what was happening to them spread, and bring other people into their home to witness and therefore document their experiences. The Bells took his advice, and they surely didn't have a clue of what would happen to them as a result. The next few years saw the Bell household packed to the rafters, as first their neighbors and then hordes of people--wholly uninvited, unannounced, and unknown--descended upon their farm to see this spectacle for themselves. The Bells housed and fed every single guest, and it must have cost them so much, especially back in those days when every morsel of food on their table was produced through months of back-breaking labor from the entire family. They were basically running a B&B for nonpaying guests.

But there was a bigger consequence of Rev. Johnson's first visit. His belief that the spirit could communicate with them led to what is probably the most fascinating aspect of the haunting. For within a short while, the witch learned how to talk. Not whispers in a sound range above or below the auditory range that is a human's ability to hear. Not EVPs or moving a planchette or knocking once for yes, twice for no. The single-most unique element of the Bell Witch haunting is that Kate learned how to talk, to shout, to sing. She carried on long conversations with guests, she repeated two religious sermons taking place at the same time but seven miles apart word for word, she sang songs to soothe Mrs. Bell when she was ill, and sang bawdy songs at John Bell's funeral.

Let's put that into perspective. There are a lot of paranormal research groups out there, and information is more readily available on the subject now than ever before. I've spent the last couple of days chasing leads, trying to find any haunting that parallels the Bell case solely on the basis of an entity being able to converse with any and all people it chose to, in front of witnesses. I can't find a single one. Oh, sure, there's lots of documented cases where a person hears a disembodied voice once or twice. But Kate, once she began to talk, never shut up. She talked off and on, all day, every day--through Betsy's breaking of her engagement, through John Sr's death in 1820, until she departed over three YEARS after her first words. And when she returned as promised seven years later, she was talking like she'd never left at all--leaving a series of remarkable prophecies in her conversations with John Jr in 1928 that were documented by his son.

And when Kate talked, everyone could hear her. Her conversation with General Jackson occurred in the middle of the forest with scores of witnesses--and they were miles from the Bell farm when it happened. She showed up at other people's houses, at church, during community events--in short, wherever or whenever she pleased. There was no equivocation in any witness testimony either. They all, universally, corroborate the fact that Kate had vocal interactions on a daily basis as if she were, in fact, another person sitting in the room. That fact alone elevates this haunting to a level that is unmatched historically.

But all the source materials agree on one thing. After Rev. Johnson declared that the entity was some kind of intelligent supernatural being, the Bells and visitors began to encourage it to speak. Richard Bell described the process that led finally to a conversant entity:

"...visitors  persisted in urging the Witch to talk and tell what was wanted, and finally it commenced whistling when spoken to, in a low broken sound, as if trying to speak in a whistling voice, and in this way it progressed, developing until the whistling sound was changed to a weak, faltering whisper, uttering indistinct words. The voice, however, gradually gained strength in articulating, and soon the utterances became distinct in a low whisper, so as to be understood in the absence of any other noises. I do not remember the first intelligent utterance, which, however, was of no significance, but the voice soon developed sufficient strength to be distinctly heard by everyone in the room. This new development 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..." (Our Family Trouble, Bell)

 This description is, in my opinion, overlooked by paranormal investigators. Ever since Harry Houdini was busting fraudulent mediums who hid their creative husbands behind secret panels in the wall to whisper grieving widows out of their pensions, the paranormal field hasn't given much credence to the concept of spirits verbalizing. The Bell Witch case is unique, and to my mind it begs the question--if simple American pioneers in early 19th century Tennessee can encourage an entity to learn to talk, how hard would it be for paranormal researchers to do the same now, with the advantages technologically that we have--as well as not having to worry about the neighbors using you for firewood if you succeed?

So now, the Bell Witch was talking, and nothing would ever be the same again.

Seems like a good place to end this first installment. So think about it, really consider how this supernatural event began to take shape for John Bell and his family--and next time we'll dive into some ridiculously detailed information of how the Bell household rather quickly turned into the pioneer version of a three ring circus--complete with chaos, tragedy, and the heartbreak of young love denied.

 Gentle Readers--I've linked to source materials that I encourage you to check out. If you have any questions or comments to add, please do so and I'll be happy to answer them as best I can--or point you in the right direction if I don't know the answer. The Bell Witch haunting is a huge case history, coming up on its 200 year anniversary and as long as Adams remains haunted that file will just continue to grow.