SPIRITS:
There are many hauntings that manifest the same phenomena. Some
spirits even seem to have a sense of humor. After a priest
conducted an exorcism on a monk haunting such a house and
proclaimed the exorcism a success, a candle came in and floated
under the priest's nose. Another poltergeist levitated white gloves
and pretended to be a conductor for singing xians.
However, not all are so funny, and I'm going to focus on one of the
scariest poltergeists ever documented for this, the "Bell Witch"
case.
Started in 1817 with the typical heralding of scratching and
knocking noises, the Focus appears to have been a 12-yr-old girl
called Betsy (formally named Elizabeth). The poltergeist grew
malevolent and begin to physically assault people. The full range
of poltergeist phenomena occurred, and then some.
One such unique instance was when the Bell Witch showed it could be
two places at once by pulling the hair painfully of both Betsy and
her father (who were in seperate rooms and waked from sleep).
The "witch" attacked nearly all, and pins and needles were
teleported into food. Oddly enough, Betsy often vomited up pins and
needles to the mystified horror of witnesses.
An interesting aspect that suggests this was an independent Entity
is this account given by friend of the Bell family, William Porter.
He was awakened when the Bell Witch attempted to rip off his
clothing (something the Entity often tried with those she
attacked). He quickly threw the covers over the Entity which began
to struggle. He wrote:
"In an instant I grabbed the roll of covers in my arms and started
to the fire, intending to throw the covers, Witch and all, in the
blaze. I discovered that it was very weighty and smelled awful. I
had not got 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 rolls was the most offensive stench I ever
smelled..."
[I would like to take a moment to compare to another
incident----
From Vampires Among Us by Rosemary Ellen Guiley
"A miller at D-- had a healthy servant-boy, who soon after entering
his service began to fail. He acquired a ravenous appetite, but
nevertheless grew daily more feeble and emaciated. Being
interrogated, he at last confessed that a thing which he could not
see, but which he could plainly feel, came to him every night about
twelve o'clock, and settled upon his chest, drawing all the life
out of him, so that he became paralyzed for the time being, and
neither could move nor cry out. Thereupon the miller agreed to
share the bed with the boy, and made him promise that he should
give a certain sign when the vampire arrived. This was done, and
when the signal was made the miller putting out his hands grasped
an invisible but very tangible substance that rested upon the boy's
chest. He described it as apparently elliptical in shape, and to
the touch feeling like gelatin, properties that suggest an
ectoplasmic formation. The thing writhed and fiercely struggled to
escape, but he gripped it frimly and threw it on the fire. After
that the boy recovered, and there was an end to these
visits."--Occult Review in 1924, by Dr. Franz Hartmann.]
Interesting enough, Betsy's father, John, gained the specific ire
of the Entity calling itself the Bell Witch (yes, the Entity spoke,
and would get into alot of trouble with its obscene and non-PC
rantings now). It swore to kill John Bell. (Nandor Fodor, an expert
on this phenomena and, while a believer in PK, a skeptic of
spirits, believes that John was molesting Betsy and that the "Bell
Witch" was a PK charged fragment of Betsy's mind that attacked her
father.)
It should also be noted that like many poltergeists such as this,
the Focus would become drained. In this case, the Bell Witch and
other voices would cease when Betsy would collapse in a faint.
While a few have suggested this 12-yr-old girl threw her voice to
imitate several voices, including a grown man with a deep voice
that caused the walls to shake, others compare Betsy to a
medium.
Eventually, the voice of the Witch claimed to have "put some
medicine for old Jack that would kill him." John Bell later died,
supposedly of poison teleported into his food. The Witch shrieked
with triumph when John Bell died.
In 1821, after 3 years of harassment (and shortly after the death
of John Bell), long after such poltergeist activities should have
stopped, an object like a cannonball rolled down the chimney and
into the dining room where the family was eating, and turned into
smoke. The witch's voice cried, "I am going and will be gone for 7
years!"
According to Colin Wilson, the witch never returned. But D. Scott
Rogo says that there was documentation of the return of the "Bell
Witch" 7 years later, although the Entity was much more subdued and
lasted only 2 weeks (although she invaded other homes, which is
extremely unusual) before disappearing for good. Dr. Philip Stander
and Dr. Paul Schmolling also list the Bell Witch as having returned
7 years later. Those who believe the Bell Witch is an independent
entity that merely drew upon Betsy for its power note that upon the
witch's return, Betsy was married and living elsewhere. But those
who insist it was Betsy claim that this was a fragment of Betsy's
mind that had taken a life of its own, charged by Betsy's PK
powers.
Here, to demonstrate that others at this time were haunted by
"hags", I would like to comment that Sir Walter Scott described a
patient who thought he was tormented by a hag every night at 6 in
his home. A doctor treating him offered to keep him company.
The patient seemed to have forgotten his terror and the doctor
thought the night would pass without incident, but at 6 sharp, the
patient suddenly went white and yelled, "The hag comes again!" The
patient saw the door come open and a hag fly in on a stick that was
used by the hag to beat him senseless.
The doctor saw no changes, except for his terrified patient
"beating at himself" (could he have been warding off the blows?)
and was deemed psychotic. Perhaps so, as this case does not include
the poltergeist effects of the Bell Witch case, but it does seem
possible to me that the doctor and the patient were in two
different realities.
In Poltergeists & The Paranormal by Dr. Philip Stander &
Dr. Paul Schmolling, the doctors list their conversation with a
woman in NYC who was seemingly molested by a spirit that broke into
her apartment (Ch. 5 Margo: A Case of Incubus Attack?), and fit the
poltergeist model while it lasted. They found her credible, and
list much of the taped interview with her background.
As Morpheus asks in The Matrix, "What is real? How do you define
real? If real is what you can see and taste and touch, then reality
is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain."
Years ago, I saw some show, I think Unsolved Mysteries, in which
people were being filmed while waiting to see a promised appearance
of the Virgin Mary. At the appointed time, many people saw the sun
come flying down over their heads and Mary appeared.
The camera showed nothing, except for several people ducking in the
same direction at the same time! Other around looked around at the
others a bit confused.
Yet those who had fallen to the hysteria reported not only Visions
and Peace, but also demonstrated miraculous healings. Real or not,
it produced very real effects that were beneficial in this world.
This may be a benign manifestation of the forces that also produce
the Bell Witch.
However it should be noted that in the late 20th century,
benevolent witches and demonic xian spirits have also been
appearing. Do we create such entities by our belief, do we summon
already existing entities by our belief, or are we merely creating
phantasms on such entities in order to make sense of them, by
whatever our beliefs are?
