Book Review: Confessions of a Reluctant Ghost Hunter

The other day I was looking through book reviews in back issues of The Cauldron and saw one that caught my eye.  Confessions of a Reluctant Ghost Hunter: A Cautionary Tale of Encounters with Malevolent Entities and Other Disembodied Spirits by Von Braschler was the book.  The title sounded like it was right up my alley and The Cauldron rarely steers me in the wrong way.  I wasn't disappointed.

The problem I have with most books about ghosts, hauntings, and ghost hunting in general is that they either make all ghosts seem as friendly as Casper (Oh, all ghosts want is to be loved and acknowledged.  Please, feel free to go and try to hug the angry elemental.)  or they make ghost hunters look like white knights fiercely laying to rest malevolent monsters that lurk in every corner (An evil demon, fear not! My mighty flashlight and salt shaker shall save you!).  I was delighted to find that this book did neither of those things.

This is, quite possibly, the most realistic book I've ever read on what encountering spirits and other metaphysical beings is actually like.  At first I was skeptical.  Braschler explains that his "training" to "de-ghost" houses consisted of two meetings with a cheerful new-ager who said to talk to the spirits and get them to move on, and to simply "stake and salt*" the house if it didn't want to go.  As you might imagine, this did not inspire my confidence in the tales to come.  However, Braschler then details just how insufficient that information was and how problematic it made his later encounters. 

The encounters described in this book will be instantly recognizable to anyone experienced with the paranormal as residual hauntings, intelligent hauntings, spirit flight, and non-human hauntings - though Braschler never describes them as such.  The details of the hauntings Braschler experiences are incredibly authentic in their sheer banality.  Most hauntings that you read about in books are fairly spectacular (books flying off shelves, screaming in the night, scratches on the unwary etc.), but the average haunting is just not that interesting.  Real hauntings are made of fleeting images out of the corner of your eye, odd chills at unexpected times in unexpected places, and utterly unverifiable "coincidences" that make you think you're losing your mind. These are the hauntings Braschler describes, with a few exceptions.  

The thing that most struck me about Braschler's tale that make me actually believe him is the way he describes his experience of the paranormal.  He doesn't talk about glowing lights or strange writing, he talks about having to ground and center himself and deliberately open his mind to the frequency where the paranormal can be perceived.  He doesn't describe it as easy or natural, but as a skill that requires practice and effort.  He talks about freaking himself out when going into a building that he's been told is haunted, but never really perceiving anything there that can make him confidently say the place is or isn't haunted.  He doubts his perceptions and he doubts his ability to do anything about what he perceived.  That is the reality of dealing with the paranormal: thinking you probably understand what's going on but always doubting and always needing more proof.

 There are, of course, exceptions to the normally dubious veracity of the paranormal.  I've come across the undeniably paranormal (think demons trying to eat your head) two or three times.  Braschler deals with it twice.  This is totally believable, unlike those ghost hunters who claim to banish demons every damned day.  In the last encounter described in the book Braschler gets called in by a friend to de-ghost their trailer and ends up facing down a dark non-human entity that he's woefully unprepared to deal with.  It doesn't go well. This should surprise no one.  It takes a trained and experienced practitioner to deal with the nastier dark entities. 

If you're interested in dabbling in the paranormal I highly recommend you read this book first.  Read about what actual encounters are like before you go into that purportedly haunted house.  If you recognize yourself in the stories then do yourself a favor and get some solid defensive training before you hurt yourself.

Experienced practitioners that enjoy tales of the paranormal will enjoy this too.  I know I did.

*Braschler describes the process of staking and salting a property as driving four large iron spikes (think railroad size nails) into the ground at the cardinal points of the property and calling the watchtowers to guard the property, then to create a line of salt as a perimeter to keep the spirits out.  Yes, these actions can be a part of a successful banishing but alone they're not going to do much against something that really wants to stick around.

Book Review: Fighting Malevolent Spirits

So on a lark I picked up the ebook of Fighting Malevolent Spirits: A Demonologist's Darkest Encounters by Samantha Harris. It's a book of one woman's accounts of performing cleansings/banishings of negative entities for others.  I'm always up for seeing how other people do what I do and their feelings on it, and hey for $10 why not? Oy vey.  I wouldn't say I enjoyed this book as much as I enjoyed pulling it apart (which I really did enjoy enough to make it worth the price).

First, my personal bias.  This book is written from a fairly mainstream spiritialist viewpoint with strong Christian tendencies and ideas.  I don't do well with Christian/monotheist terminology and viewpoints.  I'm a Pagan and a dark one at that.  I have dealt with too many close-minded monotheists (and light and love spiritualists) not to have a negative knee jerk reaction.  I had to constantly remind myself that there was nothing wrong with the author's point of view and to translate her terms into ones my brain didn't want to throw things at.  But that's my problem, not the author's.  Also, her tone is also a little overwrought at times, but no everyone can face horror with stoicism and it does make the stories more compelling to read if a little over the top.  So yeah, my review may be a little overly harsh because the author presses some of my buttons.

What this book gets wrong from my point of view

Frequency.  The author's definition of demon is way too liberal.  Just because something is happening that is paranormal and negative doesn't mean it's demonic.  There are plenty of things out there that are strong enough to make people unhappy that aren't demons.  If you've done 80+ cleansings in five-ish years you are just cleansing anything - not that you can perform too many cleansings.  My definition of demon is pretty narrow - malevolent entities that are just pure evil, not just amoral, but evil.  We're talking infernals only in my books and in the last 15+ years of messing about with dark magick I've encountered three, three!  I literally spend my free time mucking about in the darkest psychic landscapes I can find and I've had to deal with three infernals on this plain.  Quit scaring yourself, demons just aren't that common.  (And seriously, doing cleansings does not a demonologist make.)

Who's susceptible.  Ok, this is more of a word choice/tone issue than anything else.  The author repeats multiple times that demons prey on weak or ill.  Yes, people who are weakened emotionally/spiritually/psychically are easier prey for negative entities but that doesn't mean you need to be broken for a demon to mess with you.  This might be an issue of the author's broad definition of demon again - actual infernals are drawn to a lot of different types of people, not just the weak ones.  Lower level negative entities are much more drawn to those who are weakened because they need the easier prey.  Weakness/illness can cause cracks in your aura (your natural psychic barrier), making you more susceptible to psychic attack from anything.  But actual attack, from anything, is extremely rare. 

Causality.  I found a strong implication in this book that people/families who are afflicted by negative circumstances such as ill health, substance abuse, mental illness, and rashes of terrible luck are being plagued by demons and that those demons are the cause of the unfortunate circumstances.  I call bullshit.  People are plenty screwed up without the aid of demons thank-you very much.  Ill health and bad luck create negative energy that can attract negative entities, but most of the time it's just negative energy breeding more negative energy - the basic principle of like attracts like.  Bad luck and your life going to hell in a hand basket doesn't mean a demon is fucking with you.  Seriously, some times life just sucks.  However, whether the circumstances are caused by a negative entity or just pure concentrated energetic crap a seriously cleansing will help so I guess there's no harm done.  It's questionable whether letting people externalize the source of their problems causes more harm than good in the long run, but I'm no psychologist to say one way or the other.

Technique.  Ok, what the author says she does in her cleansings is fine for low level entities and general psychic smut.  Having faith and surrounding yourself with "white light" is all well and good when you're dealing with ghosts and most common fay, but it's not enough to face the truly demonic.  What the author does seems to be the general centering, shielding, and basic energetic cleansings that any magickal practitioner would know - she just doesn't call them that or bother thinking about why/how they work.  Her cleansings consist of the typical going through the house with sage and salt while reciting prayers: essentially using her psychic will to cleans and sanctify the house.  Which, as I said before, is fine for low level negativity but not nearly enough to chase out an infernal permanently. 

Lack of protection.  For the love of all you hold dear, if you're going to piss off negative entities on a regular basis you need a strong personal protection regimen.  The author doesn't say anything about what she does to protect herself from the entities she encounters and then bemoans the fact that entities constantly mess with her at home.  If you're going to much about with demons you need to shield the ever loving fuck out of your own house and cleanse like there's no tomorrow after leaving a client - no matter how well things went.  Maybe she does have a personal regimen that she doesn't describe, but since it's not in the book I assume it doesn't happen.

What the book gets right 

Symptoms. When the author describes what symptoms people experience that make them think a negative entity is around, that is when I believe her.  Sulfurous smells, nightmares, scratches of unknown origins, knocking in the walls (not caused by loose pipes or broken ducts), abrupt mood swings, odd shifts in a person's eye color, etc. are all signs that something very negative is around.  Her descriptions of the events she experiences do have all the hallmarks of negative entities, though not necessarily demons.  I you or someone you know ever experience they kinds of things she describes, it's time for a cleansing or three.

Prayer. Yes, prayer in the faith of the persons being affected can help a lot when dealing with malevolent entities.  Prayer strengthens spiritual will and makes it more difficult for negative entities to get a toe hold in a person.  Enough prayer and faith can act as a fairly effective shield against common negative entities, depending on the strength of belief of the person.  It's not an end all be all, but it helps.  Just don't expect reciting the Lord's Prayer to help an atheist - it's all about belief.

Final thoughts

All that being said, this is a book of personal accounts of what happened as the author perceived it.  There's no right or wrong to your own memories.  And, the stories are interesting and it's good to be reminded of how different people from different backgrounds approach these kinds of problems.  For me it was an interesting set of case studies where I could analyze the situations and think about what I would have done differently (which is pretty much everything, but hey I'm a shadow witch and I do most things a bit differently).  The important thing in scenarios like the ones presented in this book is that the people involved get the help they need to move forward without oppression and, at least as it's presented here, it seems the author has done that. 

Would I recommend this book to someone looking to learn how to do cleansings - absolutely not.  Would I recommend this to an experienced practitioner looking to understand the way other people do things - maybe.  I enjoyed this book in the same way I enjoy watching ghost hunting tv shows and shlocky horror movies - I enjoy entertaining stories and dissecting what people do wrong.  It's the joy of throwing popcorn at the screen and feeling smug.  This isn't a bad book, it's just one that really doesn't mesh with my experiences or my style of dealing with the paranormal.  Take that as you will.

On Demons and Demonology

This weekend I read a book called Encounter with Hell by Alexis McQuinllan.  It's a supposedly true account of a woman with some psychic ability and her encounter with a demon.  It's a very quick and rather thought-provoking read, though I'm not entirely sure if I liked it or not.  The basic gist of it is that Alexis moves to a smallish town and immediately becomes obsessed with a haunted house.  She goes there and ignores a bunch of metaphysical red flags that would have had me out of there in a heartbeat.  She goes blundering about and eventually really pisses off the demon that happened to be living in the basement.  She then fails to get proper help in dealing with the situation she's created for herself and her life becomes a living hell for a while - as it would.  This book is a worthwhile read as a cautionary tale of what never to do.  The author seems to realize this and repeatedly points out the mistakes she made, which I respect.  I certainly didn't do everything (or if I'm honest even most things) right the first time I came up against a demon, but at least I had a better idea of what I was dealing with.  If you're interested in how demons tend to actually behave this is a worthwhile read, just do not emulate the author.  If you think you've encountered a demon get help, serious help, wherever you can find it.

Reading this book really got me thinking about demons and demonology. What most people think of as demonology is based in Ceremonial Magick (see The Lesser Key of Solomon and other Goetic grimoires for more info) and Ceremonial Magick is based on Abrahamic lore.  There are lots of books and websites (like Demonicpedia) that list out all of the Goetic demons, their descriptions, habits, dominions, and places in hell.  That's all well and good if you believe in the Abrahamic cosmology - heave, hell, purgatory, and all that.  However, I don't.  Therefore, the classical view of demonology just doesn't work for me.  Yes, yes, I know that all of these cosmologies are just frameworks through which people learn to relate to things we don't understand rather than how things actually are; and yes this framework is so pervasive that it's gotten enough energy put into it to make it "real" even if things weren't that way originally.  However, I just can't work with this.  Further, it just doesn't fit with my experiences.  

I've had the misfortune of dealing with a couple of demons in my time (and I sincerely hope that I won't again).  In my experience demons are essentially distilled malevolence with independent thought and a lot of power.  Now, that picture probably has a lot to do with how I experience energy; I feel it intuitively and sometimes "see" it.  I didn't learn about energy from within an existing framework with ideas of how things should be, so I didn't immediately label particular energies (e.g. oh that energy is a pixy, that energy is an imp, that energy is Amon the seventh lord of hell).  Rather, I'd feel the energy and look at the behavior it exhibited and try to fit it with the best label I could find (this is the method behind all the identifications in my book Defense Against the Dark).  Using this method of feeling out what things are, nothing I've encountered and labelled as a demon makes me think they were any of the Goetic demons. 

In my experience demons seem to evaluate people as either prey or a threat.  If you have the misfortune of being identified as prey, well you're going to have a very bad day.  Demons are insidious bastards and will do everything they can to sour every good thing in your life without you realizing what's happening until it's too late.  They threaten, cajole, and generally manipulate the shit out of you.  If you are identified as a threat you are probably going to be attacked - hardcore.  I'm talking scratching, biting, pushing, screaming, nightmares, visions, and anything else it can think of to get you to run far, far away and never come back.  They are horrible miasmas of malevolence.  There is nothing good about them and they need to be banished back to wherever they came from or completely dispelled.  There are no other ethical options in my opinion.

Goetic demons are an entirely different thing.  They seem to be intelligent, non-human, amoral entities that can be worked with as long as the practitioner understands their natures and is cautious.  I personally believe that Goetic demons are just thought forms and that calling them demons at all is a misnomer, which is why a lot of practitioners call them daemons (after the greek intermediaries) rather than demons - totally different connotation.  

It's for this reason that I don't think traditional demonology is terribly useful in defensive situations, except psychologically.  If you encounter something horrible and decide it's a particular Goetic demon then you have a psychological advantage.  Something with a name that other people have dealt with is a lot less scary than dealing with an unnamed, unseen malevolence (think of the difference between scary movies that show you the monster verses the ones that just suggest it and leave your imagination to fill in the blanks).  In the human mind if you can name something you can have power over it.  So, using traditional demonology as a tool can be helpful, but it's just not quite accurate. 

The entities I call demons are not the same as Goetic demons and require a very different method of approach.  In my encounters with demons the best defense you can possibly have is a strong sense of self, extreme confidence, and either massive shields or a totally uncracked aura (easier said than done).  Demons can taste weakness and will exploit it to the Nth degree.  All the circles, incense, and prayer in the world won't help unless you KNOW that they will keep you safe.  All it takes is one seed of doubt for your fortifications to crack and let it in.  Demons are not to be messed with by the inexperienced - they are scary, scary bastards and can take down even the most skilled and experienced if they get caught on the wrong day. 

If you think you might encounter a demon one day be diligent in your shadow work and heal those cracks in your aura.  Every internal demon you vanquish is one less thing for an external one to prey on.  And, for the love of all that is good, get help IMMEDIATELY!

The Woman in Black

I love old Hammer horror films - the ones that always seemed to star either Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing, or both.  I'm a total sucker for a spooky atmosphere and a little thought.  I'm not a big fan of gore films (no Saw films for me thanks), so I really haven't seen any new horror flicks lately.  When I heard that Hammer was alive and making films again I got very excited, when I found out their new film was starring Dan Radcliffe I got a bit giddy.  I figured it was either going to be awesome or a total disaster - worth seeing either way, so on Saturday Rae and I went and saw The Woman in Black.  It did not disappoint.  I spent a good half of the movie curled into a ball on my seat watching through my fingers.  If you want to see a good heart-pounder, then I highly recommend this movie.

One of the things I most enjoy about watching supernatural thrillers is analyzing their treatment of the paranormal.  I may, in fact, be a total nerd - but you've probably figured that out by now. 

***spoiler alert - I am going to discuss the movie in detail, including the ending.  You've been warned*** 

The Woman in Black is basically the story of a hungry ghost. In short, a hungry ghost is the spirit of someone who either has been severely wronged in life and thirsts for revenge or is the spirit of someone so evil that they keep hungering for destruction in death.  In this case the titular woman in black is the ghost of an unstable woman who had her son taken away from her.   When that son died while under the care of her sister she went full buggers, killed herself, and started haunting the town.  Whenever she is seen she finds one (or more) of the town's children, possesses that child, and forces the child to kill him/herself in various horrifying ways.  In the film Dan Radcliffe's character kicks off the action by going to the house where the woman in black's spirit resides. 

In a way it's a classic story.  There are several traditional tales of the mothers of who lost their children, went mad, died, and then became hungry ghosts who went after other people's children.  The most famous is the tale of La Llorona who, depending on which version you read, either drowned her own child or neglected it to death then went mad and killed herself, came back as a spirit and drowned any child who strayed too near the river without supervision for revenge.  The woman in black is definitely a spirit of vengeance.  We learn of her intense resentment and instability during life from a series of letters where she clearly states that she will have her revenge on the people she feels have wronged her. 

If this scenario had not been fictional, the likelihood of someone in this position becoming a hungry ghost would be extremely high.  When you combine madness with being genuinely wronged and an implacable will you have the perfect recipe for creating a haunting.  Most traditional hungry ghosts were not insane during their lives, so their behavior after death is somewhat predictable - they go after the people who have wronged them or those that fit the same profile.  In this film the woman in black has a definite profile for her victims (children), but she doesn't confine herself to those who wronged her - she goes after any child within her reach (which appears to be localized to the immediate vicinity around the spot where her child died and she committed suicide).  The unjustness of her choice of victims is explained by her madness, as is her choice of triggers.  To bring down her wrath all you have to do is see her.  You don't have to defile her grave, speak out against her, or wrong the memory of her child.  You just have to see her, and she positions herself so she is seen.  She's about as malevolent as you get.

What I found most interesting about this movie was the ending.  As I watched the movie I thought to myself that if I were the main character I would try to end the haunting by giving the woman in black's child a proper burial (which he never got). Ghosts want something or they wouldn't still be around, so giving a ghost what it wants is the best way to lay it to rest.  It's a tribute to the paranormal savvy of both the modern horror audience and the studio that the main character tried to do exactly that. Radcliffe's character finds the body of the child, presents it to the woman in black to reunite her with her son and then buries the boy with the woman in black's body.  For the spirit of a sane person that probably would have worked; it really should have worked.  Unfortunately for the character, but great for the chills, the ghost is unsatisfied and goes on to the movie's grisly end.  *I won't spoil everything for you*  Great horror flick.

One of the things this movie has me pondering is the possibility of a hungry ghost actually becoming a demon.  Several of the woman in black's behaviors - extreme malevolence, implacability, intelligence, and the ability to possess - are far more common in demons than hungry ghosts.  Most hungry ghosts have the ability to lure people and trick them into harming themselves (e.g. coaxing people off of unseen cliffs, making people so frightened that they don't watch what they're doing), but it's rare for a ghost to actually be able to fully possess someone, at least without their cooperation.  It is possible for ghosts to oppress people and get into their heads, but they really can't force someone to harm themselves (rather like a hypnotists can't make someone harm himself).  Most entities that possess people are non-human, usually demonic.  I wonder if it would be possible for any ghost to be strong enough to transform into a demon?  If it were possible I would think madness and will would be the biggest factors.  I don't know, but it's something to ponder.