Saudi Family Sues Genie

A Saudi family has taken a genie to court, citing theft and harassment over the last two years.  Some say this case is being taken more seriously because every person in the family alleges the genie's existence and testifies to the theft and harassment.  A local charity has moved the family to a temporary residence while an investigation is conducted.

The family says they were first made aware of the djinn's existence two years ago, when they began hearing strange noises.  While they dismissed them at first, the events became more boisterous and impossible to overlook.  The family alleges threatening voicemails, theft of their cellphones, even assaults by rocks!

Many Saudis believe jinns, djinn, or genie exist and are even capable of daemonic possession.  The belief is prevalent in the Islamic religion, as the creatures are even mentioned in the Quran.  Djinn are Elementals.

© C Harris Lynn, 2009

Up and Running!

Today will be a good one (barring any unforeseen events), as we finally got our DSL up and going. I know I already have a full-plate when it comes to topics I'm working on, but I got one of the sources I've used before back out of the library, so I'm going to try and get a few more stories and accounts out of it.

Of course, there's no way of knowing what will be useful and what isn't until it's needed, but so long as I have it, I'm going to go through and share whatever tickles my fancy. Having that book and reading the Bogey entry at the time that Ghost Hunters EVP was made was serendipitous to the point of fantastic. I guess it depends on how you feel about "coincidence." No matter how it came to pass, I am certain I correctly identified that EVP -- even though it's only one more clue as to what sort of entity they were dealing with.

Like I said in the post, given the nature of the Hell-Fire Caves, it is very possible the entity was malevolent -- whether or not you want to keep the Bogey as an entity or classification (which I would not suggest), as whatever communicated may have been Elemental or may have been some sort of once-human remnant -- but it is definitely controlled by some sort of intelligence.

Anyway, we'll get into all of it in just a few.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008

Ghostbreakers Gain Relevance?

A British housing council paid a psychic a little over $100 to exorcise an elemental manifestation, as it was the cheapest method of assuaging the tenant.

To their credit, the council -- and the tenant and her family -- truly believe the place is haunted and were not simply trying to shut her up.  23 year-old Sabrina Fallon claims to have experienced moving objects and even called police to report loud noises which frightened her and her children.

The housing council paid half the psychic's fee and now believes the place is free of activity.

Fallon said the incidents began shortly after Christmas.  While the family was away, her brother-in-law let himself in to check on things.  He later called her, "crying like a girl," and told her he had heard whispers and voices from upstairs. When he threatened to call police, a nightgown floated down the staircase and landed at his feet.

The family has been traumatized by the events, but says the place now has a "lovely atmosphere."

©C Harris Lynn, 2008

The Many Faces of the Bell Witch

This is one of the accounts of the Bell Witch that is often overlooked or underplayed - even I had forgotten about this part of the tale until reading about it earlier:

Some time after the events began, the Bell Witch decided to claim that she was, in fact, Kate Batts' "witch," saying, "It was she, dancing around a pentagram, who conjured me here."

Shortly thereafter, The Spirit claimed to be four, seperate entities: Black Dog (after John Bell's first encounter with the Spirit - the black "dog" he shot at on his property), Cypocryphy, Jerusalem, and Mathematics.

Of these, Black Dog was the most heinous and violent and took charge of the other voices, but according to the school teacher, they were all one and the same. Even though they each were slightly different, they were all strongly feminine in quality.

Sometimes, all four voices would get into "drunken brawls" and alternate. Often, beyond the cacophony, could be heard the sound of pots and pans clanging and dogs barking.

All of this behavior is far beyond what is normally associated with poltergeist activity.

Historical Accuracy and the Bell Witch

I really want to bring you some of the accounts I am coming across as they are written. I mean, it's one thing to tell you the story, but direct quotes are always stronger.

The problem is that these events occurred back in the early 20^th-Century. Things were a lot different back then. And I don't say that to insult anyone's intelligence; I say that to make the point: things were very different back then. Nowadays, the way people talked, the way certain people were treated, the very issues-at-hand, are far from politically correct.

Now, this goes every which way. I mean, it isn't just about white people using "The N-Word." In fact, the very quotes I wanted to bring you are from black people using "The N-Word." But that isn't the extent of it; there is a lot of disparaging talk about Native Americans because these events occurred not long after Red River was settled. Red River has a long and violent history of Indian attacks, which are key to Tennessee's history, and to leave that portion of the story out is detrimental all the way around.

Even more, there are some religious issues as to denomination: John Bell was "excommunicated," or banished, from the local Baptist Church (even though many of the congregation - including the pastors - continued to associate with both him and the family) and began attending the local Methodist chapel. While the specific language involved isn't necessarily derogatory to either denomination, Southern Baptists are... well, it's hard for me to even discuss them without my blood rising. If you are a Southern Baptist who gets drunk and beats his children, you "have problems"; if you are of any other denomination and act the same way, you are "possessed by The Devil." But it isn't just that I worry that my personal issues and experiences with such people will tarnish my coverage, it is also that I would be forced to dredge-up a lot of religious history and personal experiences in order to put things in perspective.

So, I put it to you: how would you prefer I handle these things?

We rarely get comments here - in fact, we don't even get that many visitors, in general - so I don't want to offend anyone. On the other hand, I also don't wish to whitewash this historical event or bow down to self-appointed PC "peace officers."

The story of the Bell Witch really is one of the best-supported cases of an entity infestation in American history. And since I am mere hours from the site where it happened and have access to a host of important information concerning the events, people, places, and history surrounding it, I feel it incumbent upon myself to bring you what I can. But I want to do so the right way: not "tone it down" or modernize it - nor do I wish to sensationalize it.

Of course, I am truly not looking to offend anyone. So I'm a little confused as to where I should go from here.

A Hymn from the Bell Witch

As I mentioned, one of the recurring phenomena reported in conjunction with the Bell Witch was its recitation of hymns, songs, and prayers with which no one who heard them was familiar. It is said the entity sang in the sweetest voice - a voice which would bring listeners to tears, in fact - and the selections (“all agreed,” according to Charles Bailey Bell) were of the finest quality.

This is one such hymn the Bell descendant reported and attributed to the Spirit:

Come, my heart, and let us try
For a little season
Every burden to lay by
Come and let us reason

What is this that casts you down?
Who are those that grieve you?
Speak and let the worst be known.
Speaking may relieve you.

Christ by faith I sometimes see
And he doth relieve me,
But my fears return again,
These are they that grieve me.

Troubled like the restless sea,
Feeble, faint, and fearful,
Plagued with every sore disease,
How can I be cheerful?

The Bell Witch: A Revised Introduction

I found yet another book on the Bell Witch the other day - the one on which the movie, American Haunting, was based - and in the introduction, the author notes that while many authors refer to the case as being “world-famous,” it is not as well-known outside the area as those writers claimed. This had never really occurred to me, since the concepts involved have been drawn upon by just about every pop-culture poltergeist-based work I can think of.

Poltergeist used the whole Indian burial ground concept; King Diamond (who is not even American) has made at least 3-4 albums based on the case; parts of the account can be found throughout several books on American history (usually in relation to Andrew Jackson’s encounter); and so on. But this doesn’t make the case “world famous.” Of course, being born and raised in Tennessee, I have always heard of the case and, as the author said, a lot of writers who have covered the events have said it was world famous, so I guess it was somewhere between an assumption and misinformation that led me to simply accept this was the case.

Being better-informed now, I suppose I need to go back and restate the general story so that everyone has some idea why this whole thing is so important. I also realize that a cursory history of Tennessee is in order for you to get a good understanding of all the concepts involved - particularly the Indians, Red River, and so forth.

Of course, whether world-famous or not, the case has gotten ample coverage by many better writers and researchers, but the facts remain that many of them either distorted accounts or downplayed them for various reasons; some people fictionalized certain facets of the story in order to sensationalize them, while others tried desperately to “explain-away” the phenomena so as to remain “trustworthy.”

My intentions are to get as much of the story correct as I can, working from the various sources on the topic itself, along with the myriad local history resources I have at my disposal, being in the area. This is especially important in this time and age, as so many people became interested in Genealogy recently, so a lot of other “independent researchers” have done much of the important work for me.

Suffice it to say, the Bells, the Gardners, Adams, TN, the Red River, and many of the other facts involved can be readily verified. And regardless of what parts of the story have been sensationalized or fictionalized, a thorough reading of the available materials is going to give me a very good idea as to what exactly happened. But I’m not fooling myself; between the Bells’ and neighbors’ reluctance to discuss the subject, the many years that have passed since it happened, and the facts having become occluded by their passing into folklore and campfire stories, we will never know exactly what happened in those terrible years.

But being so close to the location of this historical, and truly Supernatural, event, I would be remiss not to take advantage of this opportunity to delve into one of the most celebrated hauntings of all time.

What Is/Was the Bell Witch?

Much has been made of what, exactly, the Bell Witch was. Obviously, many of the contemporaries thought her to be a witch, but this wasn’t long after the whole witch-burning thing that swept through the Western world, so that is understandable. With advances in parapsychology, it has often been referred to as a poltergeist, or “noisy spirit,” but this is not accurate, either. There have been several poltergeists recorded over the years and they do not possess the powers the Bell Witch did - or, if they do, they never show them.

I have said before that the Bell Witch was/is an Elemental and have gone to some lengths to explain what, exactly, an Elemental is. In case you don’t feel like doing the reading, an Elemental has never lived in the way we know it; it has never been human and has never experienced life or death the way we know these things.

Even many of the contemporaries dismissed the witch theory and considered it to be a “spirit from Hell” or “Greater Spirit.” The family itself referred to the Bell Witch as the “Spirit.”

And while reports conflict (at least one claims the Spirit identified itself as an Indian, while the name “Kate” came from an incident in which the Spirit claimed it was the spirit of a woman with whom John Bell had been involved in a court dispute over land [and won]), this particular quote comes from Charles Bailey Bell’s The Bell Witch of Tennessee, when the witch was speaking to James Johnston:

“I am a spirit from everywhere, Heaven, Hell, the Earth; am in the air, in houses, any place at any time; have been created millions of years; that is all I will tell you, Mr. Johnston.”

Introduction to The Strange Case of the Bell Witch

One of the things about living in Tennessee - one of the only things - is that I have access to all sorts of historical resources you aren’t likely to find in any other state. Amongst these are actual accounts of the “Bell Witch,” whom many called “Kate,” but the Bell family insisted on referring to simply as The Spirit. The family resented the use of their family name in conjunction with the Spirit, who terrorized all but two of the family: the mother and John Bell, Jr. The former for her piety; the latter for his intelligence and courage.

For some reason, the witch took particular glee in tormenting John Bell, the father and eldest of the household. She even said she would kill him and eventually, she did exactly that.

Of course, the problem with this classic tale of the paranormal - much as with all the others - is that many of the historical books in which an account appears (for it is one of the most sensational tales in the state’s history, and the world, in fact) take a dim view of it and include only for completeness. One historian in particular, a Hugh Walker, makes a brief, two-page mention of it in his book, Tennessee Tales, and states, “Perhaps the tale more properly belongs in the category of folklore.”

Someone should have taken Mr. Walker aside and explained to him that the case of the Bell Witch is possibly the most well-documented and best authenticated of all hauntings, and its “performances,” as many in the Bell family refer to them, were witnessed by many prominent Americans and Englishmen (the Bells were originally from England).

Over the next several months, before I move (as I still intend to do), I will delve very, very deeply into the history of this phenomenon. I live only a few hours away from Johnson County and can visit the very land and caves on which the events took place (the structures have long since been torn down), but I am more concerned with visiting the libraries there and peering into their microfilms. Of course, I don’t know that I will be able to do that, so I may have to be content with doing what research I can do from where I am.

I found out today that the microfiche here goes back to at least 1893, which is many years after these events occurred, but the Tennessee resources room is chockful of historical data which, as I noted, usually contains at least a mention of the events.

A Truly Local Shower

This is one of the accounts I read a long, long time ago and could never get out of my head - I think you’ll see why. It makes no sense whatsoever and, excepting the specific event itself, fits no real stereotype or cliche:

One clear, summer morning, an Oyster Bay, NY, science teacher was in his driveway when he saw a small, dark cloud circling above his house. According the the victim, it appeared to move and change shape from a small globe to a larger sphere, then finally to some sort of dark vaporous, “something” which split its “lips” and sprayed both he and his car with a stream of liquid.

The cloud vanished completely. The teacher changed his clothes but kept the ones he had been wearing for examination at his school lab, where the liquid proved to be 100% water.

That's a spooky story. If true.

Headless Spirits

There are a host of apparitions who are said to appear headless, many of whom are said to carry their heads. A lot of these were actually known to have died by decapitation or to have had their heads removed after their deaths - Anne Boleyn being one of the more famous of these. Others though appear without their heads for no known reason. Of these, their headless appearances are often reported only sometimes; they are also seen with their heads fully intact.

While reading on this, something struck me as to the extensive research I did many, many, many years ago for a comic book project involving vampires: in many cases, particularly if the victim had died of Consumption or possessed a good color for a long time after death, certain measures were taken to ensure the corpse did not return as a vampire. One of these measures was to decapitate the body and either bury the head separately or burn it. Then, of course, there is also the matter of grave robbers, which continued to be a serious problem well into the 19^th-Century.

Now, this may sound like a stretch, but since one of the prominent ideas concerning hauntings is that disturbing one’s grave can upset their spirit, it logically follows that cutting one’s head off would disturb their spirit.

Now, this is just a theory that obviously hasn’t really been put to any sort of testing, but I think it a pretty good one. This says absolutely nothing about headless horsemen, which are often seen as portents of impending doom or death, and are most likely Elemental in nature (and quite possibly Daemonic).

Emotional States and Chemical Changes

As I mentioned over to The Rundown, I am amazingly disorganized. And I use that word specifically; I am not unorganized - I am disorganized, meaning that I have "A System" and I have files and folders and cabinets and shelves, they're just in such a state of disarray that I can never find what I am looking for when I want it, and tend to come across stuff I've completely forgotten I even had at random times.

Today was one of those days.

I was (and still am) looking for notes on the S.A.F.E. RPG system for the website, and I came across a page of notes from some research I was doing a year or so back which I found interesting and pertinent to the recent conversation, re: poltergeists, Dæmonic infestation, Elementals, and so forth.

I was apparently thinking along the lines of the sometimes controversial and thoroughly modern scientific belief that emotions are caused and controlled by chemical changes within the body - something with which I stringently disagree. The priests of the great god, Science, have been trying for years now to reduce human life to a binary code - a series of chemical processes and switches in which there is no spirit, no real free will, no such thing as "being." I disagree with this in principle, and not necessarily on any socio-psycho religious basis, though those beliefs I hold cannot be completely divorced from the matter; suffice it to say that I believe people have a soul or spirit - even if you just want to call it a “personality” - which may have some scientific structure and can certainly be pondered from a scientific standpoint, but is not a fully scientific matter.

In my notes, I say, “If an agitated state at the time of death is associated with prolonged spiritual attachment to the prime material plane - and a haunted site is said to be likewise emotionally impacted - this proves that emotions are not chemical reactions. Unquestionably, emotional states result in chemical changes, but these chemical changes are the result of emotional status, not vice-versa. This then points toward emotional status and emotions [in general] being atmospheric in nature - occurring naturally on their own [separate from any internal chemical influence], but affected by other atmospheric influences.”

What this means is that, for example, you don’t get mad because your body suddenly dumps a load of Testosterone (that didn’t come out exactly right, did it?); your body produces Testosterone because you get mad. This sounds basic, but Science has been trying for a very long time to posit the reverse. Science is trying to tell us that we have no soul, no spirit, and no real individual personality; we are nothing more than a series of chemical reactions, and this simply is not true.

We are each possessed of an individual spirit which, though affected by our environment and experiences throughout life, are somehow formed when we are born. You can see this in the individual actions of children! This is important for many reasons, but goes a long way in proving the existence of Evil as a force unto itself.

Blows Invisible

In continuing on the theories I've advanced as to Elemental Manifestations, I wanted to discuss the real dividing line between what I would consider "mischievous" behavior and that which is downright maleficent. And to this, I bring some accounts of inexplicable attacks on human beings by forces Unknown, referred to as "Invisibles" by some.

In their seminal book, Phenomena: A Book of Wonders, authors John Michell and Robert Rickard begin discussing the Invisible with accounts of hair-stealing. While originally thought to be localized to China, they discuss a short outbreak of similar events in London in December 1922. In some cases, the hair was said to disappear as soon as it was cut and the victims claimed to have felt their hair "being pulled."

While certainly injurious to the victims' appearance and ego, with very few exceptions, these attacks were not actually physically harmful, and so cannot be completely deemed "maleficent" or Evil. On the other hand, they are congruent with other activity reported to surround Elemental Manifestations and thus hint to me that they are no mere hauntings. Hair plays an important part in many Occult practices and rituals and has held a sort of mystical quality since Biblical times or before (Samson and Delilah).

But in this same discussion, the authors mention the bizarre events surrounding spontaneous wounds - some of which are said to be deadly to the victims. The most interesting of these involves the reported activity surrounding Coventry Street in London in April, 1922. A man was brought in with a stab wound to his neck, but all he could tell the doctors was that he had been walking along Coventry Street and, when he turned off of it, he had fallen to the ground. By the end of the day, two more men with the same wounds and the same story were admitted. The report was given in The People, April 1922.

In further posts, we will discuss more about Elementals, what they are and how they may come to be created. Assuming this report to be true and not - as it could be posited - an April Fool's joke, this is an Elemental that can be classified as a "Hate." Created by Evil thoughts when an Evil man is murdered, the Hate is said to seek revenge for its creator's death. This is a True Elemental, borne from the mind of Man, formed by Evil and angry thoughts, desires, hopes, or feelings. The advent of the man's death by murder is said to create such a spirit form.

But, again, given the fact that it appeared in a magazine in April and the events have not been repeated since, it may have been an April Fool's Day prank (they were pretty popular around that time). The number three is important in many branches of the Occult.

More on Elementals

I know I've gone on about this lately, but I have had this train of thought going for a long time now and either had problems posting (like this weekend) or kept putting it off, so I figured I'd go ahead and get most everything I have on my mind about it out now, while it's still fresh and then worry about what else I have to say another day (besides, I'll have Ghost Hunters to talk about tomorrow):

Keep in mind that the word "demon" comes from Elemental, so I posit that we refer to these hauntings in general as Elemental Manifestations, but within the investigative community, we make a clear distinction between those hauntings which feature mercurial personalities and those that feature malefic ones.

This has nothing to do with the actual phenomena present; prescience, clairvoyance, telekinetic activity - these abilities may very well be the sole domain of one or the other force, but that is not the question. All we are concerned with is whether or not the force is Evil or not, and that's not to say that it cannot be mischievous or even callous from time to time, just to say that if the activity is mean-spirited and dangerous in general, it is Dæmonic activity. A phenomenon such as the Duenda de Zaragoza is Elemental (by all accounts I've read) in nature, for example.

Still, I think it important that the name be specifically changed to Elemental Infestation as opposed to Demonic for the general public's sake. It takes the religious connotations out of the word.

Daemons and Elementals

To forward the idea of classifying spirits and Supernatural phenomena, I proffer the following:

There is a difference in general Supernatural phenomena and Dæmonic activity and this division must be nurtured. We can discern all sorts of very obvious, very straightforward differences between such hauntings as those involving an image or other insubstantial (incorporeal) advents, those involving the physical manipulation of solid objects (poltergeist), and those involving what can only be considered malefic forces. Consider the truly bizarre phenomena surrounding the Bell Witch, which was far more than mere poltergeist activity.

Let us then turn to the matter of Elementals, from which the term "Demons" was culled. Elementals are spirits, not necessarily tied to the elements themselves (contrary to popular belief), that have never existed in human form. They are sometimes malefic, but usually mercurial in nature, and are said to often possess such abilities as clairaudience, clairvoyance, prescience, and telekinesis. They also produce solid materials from nowhere.

"Dæmon" is basically a corruption of Elemental, and since the former has become so intimately associated with religion, I say we should turn back to the original word, but keep the general meaning. Of course, this demands a greater division, since simply assuming that all Elemental hauntings are basically "mercurial in nature" is fallacious; there are undeniably Evil forces at work in certain places/people and many psychics and mediums have claimed to hear the guiding, disembodied voice (invariably male, by my research) of something with prescience. This voice(s) is sometimes called "The Masters" (Occult) but also often referred to as "Elementals" or just plain "Spirits."

The phenomena surrounding such obviously intelligent spirits, who also frequently seem to have a prurient (or at least hyperactive) interest in sex as well as a cutting and sometimes callous wit, cannot be chalked-up to simple poltergeist activity, such as the moving of objects, rapping on surfaces, and so on. And "traditional" hauntings, where the phenomena centers around specific images or incorporeal activity, are easily separated from either of the other two.