The Occult Section

If you’ve been watching the news lately, you’ve no doubt noticed story after story of students being abused by teachers. Teachers bullying children with autism, male teachers putting cameras in the girl’s bathrooms, and even female teachers sleeping with underage male students. What does any of this have to do with the paranormal? Read on…

“Hey, at least I’m not sending ‘I luv u’ texts to your 14 year old son!”

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Danielle Harkins, 35, was arrested Tuesday after police said she cut a child to ‘remove an evil tick,’ and then performed a ritualistic burning to ‘expel evil spirits.’

In an arrest affidavit, a St. Petersburg Police officer claims Harkins pressured the victim to allow her to cut the child’s back to “get rid of an evil tick” in a “demonic” ritual performed on Saturday.

She then poured perfume on the child’s hand, and lit it on fire to “prevent any more evil spirits from entering” the child.

Bond has been set at $50,000.

I’m really starting to wonder what the screening process is for teachers these days, not just here in New York City where teachers seem to be getting into trouble left and right, but nationwide. Potential police officers must go through a very thorough psychological screening process. I’d say it’s about time teachers were held to the same standards.

Technorati Tags: Danielle Harkins, demon, demonic, florida, ghost, ghost hunters, ghost hunting, ghosts, haunted, rituals, st. petersburg, teacher

There seems to be more and more paranormally-motivated crime happening these days. That, or people are just crazy as they ever were and ghosts and demons are just the new excuses. A man in Memphis is now behind bars for allegedly trashing his hotel room, because he needed to get rid of the (you guessed it) ghosts and demons.

Dude…that’s NOT ectoplasm on the bedspread.

(WMC-TV) – An Arkansas man is behind bars in Memphis after he allegedly demolished a motel room to free the demons and ghosts trapped in its walls.

Police were called to the Airport Inn, 1441 E. Brooks Rd., early Saturday morning after workers got into an argument with a guest over damage he allegedly did to his room.

The motel’s manager said he watched as Mabry Guenther left his room while water poured from underneath its door. The manager went into the room and told police that Sheetrock had been ripped from the bathroom walls and a microwave and broken pieces of furniture were piled in the bathtub.

Police stopped Guenther, who was wearing only a t-shirt and boxer shorts, about a block away. The 22-year-old told officers he destroyed the room because it was filled with demons and ghosts that needed to be freed, according to court records.

Motel workers said Guenther caused $10,000 in damage to the room. Guenther has been charged with vandalism.

I’ve heard of paranormal investigators using black lights during their investigations, and if this guy had used one, he would have seen that there are far scarier things in motel rooms than ghosts.

Technorati Tags: demon, ghost, ghost hunters, ghost hunting, ghosts, haunted, haunted house, haunted houses, haunting, hoax, humor, media, memphis, motel, News, paranormal, people, supernatural, thoughts

You scream; I scream; we all scream for – scary movies! Yes, even the upcoming ones that have just a smidgeon of a chance to turn out totally lame. Enter “Ouija,” Universal Pictures’ newest interest in the realm of paranormal-genre movies. Although the idea sounds a bit cheesy, hit director Michael Bay’s production company is being mentioned often, which is doing a great job of keeping the interest factor high. So what is all the hype about? Why is the Ouija (or anything relating to the use of one) always so intriguing?

“Ouija,” with a release date set for sometime in 2013, has been on and off of the chopping block in the past, with a script that seemed left for the dead. It was, however, recently revived, only with a budget that seems to have lost a little blood. Interestingly, Jason Blum; the producer behind the “Paranormal Activity” set, is also poised to pounce on this opportunity to connect the dead, with the living, again. We can only hope for him to pull off something as insidious as, well, “Insidious.”

A movie about the Ouija board? Well, at least that hasn’t been done for a few years… but wait, if we WATCH someone doing the Ouija, isn’t that supposed to open us up to being bothered by evil spirits? Or is that only if you’re touching the board? So really, you are signing up to join a movie theater full of demon-possessed zombies? Count me in. I’m certain watching five million dollars be totally wasted will be worth it, as long as I get to take home my very own ghost!

Technorati Tags: demon, ghost, ghost hunters, ghost hunting, ghosts, haunted, haunted house, haunted houses, haunting, horror, horror movie, media, movie reviews, movies, News, ouija, ouija board, ouija movie, paranormal, scary, scary movies, thoughts

I’ve never been to keen on exorcisms. There’s just something about them that seems overly melodramatic. And there’s something about them that doesn’t sit right with me. I mean if Satan (or a demon) can possess someone’s body, make them speak in tongues, and perform all sorts of other supernatural feats, why not do something that would really prove that it was Satan (or a demon)? How are these people confined to a bed? Again, I’m not saying there haven’t been certain cases that have been intriguing, but for the most part, I feel like “demonic possession” can be explained away as metal illness 99.9% of the time. And with that in mind, I present to you this story from Yahoo News (as well as our 300th post here at The Occult Section!):

Scary shit.

Vampires, the devil’s deceit and mental illness are among the hot topics for some 300 exorcists who flocked to Poland this week from as far away as Africa and India for a week-long congress.

Held at Poland’s Roman Catholic Jasna Gora monastery, home to the venerated Black Madonna icon, this year’s congress “examines the current fashion for vampirism in Europe and the world-over, schizophrenia and other mental disorders as well as the devil’s deceit during exorcism,” according to the monastery’s radio station.

Also attending are “priests and lay people who work with exorcists or who are themselves practitioners in cases which do not involve possession but rather other forms of harassment by evil spirits,” Polish exorcist, Father Andrzej Grefkowicz was quoted as saying.

Hailing from India, world-renowned exorcist Father Rufus Pereira as well as chief exorcist of the Archdiocese of Vienna Larry Hogan are among the participants, the radio reported. The unusual meeting is held once every two years.

The Jasna Gora monastery’s venerated Black Madonna icon is believed by many Poles to work miracles.

Legend has it that it was painted by the apostle Saint Luke on a table top from the home of the Holy Family, according to the Jasna Gora website. Records suggest the icon arrived in Poland during the 14th century.

With around 90 percent of the population declaring themselves Roman Catholic, Poland remains one of Europe’s most devout countries.

I’ve experienced some strange, scary shit in my time on this planet, and I’m sure I will experience some more before I depart this world. But I haven’t ever experienced anything nearly as dramatic as an exorcism. And whether it really is demonic possession, or simply mental illness, I really don’t ever want to.

Technorati Tags: black madonna, demon, devil, exorcism, exorcist, ghost, ghost hunters, ghost hunting, ghosts, haunted, media, News, paranormal, people, poland, possession, satan, thoughts

Now I know I’m a little behind the curve, but I finally just got around to seeing “Paranormal Activity.” I thought it was overall a good movie, though the ending could have been a little better (like maybe not so, er, in your face). It’s good to leave things to mystery sometimes! Anyway, since I’ve been a bad ghost huntress blogger by not even acknowledging the movie up until now (since I wanted to see it before I wrote about it), I’m going to try to redeem myself by posting a review now. Over a month after it’s been released. Whatever! I don’t need any judgments! And when I say I’m posting a review, what I mean is I am posting someone else’s review, written in hilarious British speak.

First things first. Paranormal Activity did not chill me to the bone, freak me out or leave me sleepless for weeks. It is not the scariest film ever, but then nor was The Blair Witch Project which became one of the highest-grossing films of all time in ratio to the thruppence ha’penny or whatever for which it was made.

Oren Peli‘s ultra-low budget film has already achieved box-office phenomenon status after a mighty run in America and there is certainly something interesting about Paranormal Activity. But it isn’t the business aspect, nor the spooky factor, the things going bump in the night while a bickering young couple – We’re engaged to be engaged” – try to sleep in their smart San Diego starter home.

What’s really at play isn’t a demon or poltergeist which knocks keys off the table or makes the bedroom door snap open; rather, it’s the relationship the characters develop with film itself, an obsession with watching and recording footage. The character of Heather in Blair Witch was possessed by little more than a desire to film, and Micah (the actors use their own names for their characters here) is equally committed to capturing his girlfriend Katie’s trauma on his new high-definition video camera.

The film’s most fascinating moments are thus the time-lapsed ones of the couple asleep, caught in night vision mode by the camera positioned religiously on its tripod every night, at the end of the bed. We, the audience, then watch the couple speeded up with the time code ticking away as they toss and turn until the replay slows down to playback speed, signalling something scary is about to happen. This is an ingenious cinematic device, a new way of ratcheting up tension and arriving at release.

What I don’t get is how a couple who is clearly several years younger than me can own a house. And a really nice house at that. With nice furniture. I mean, I know he’s a “day trader” or whatever. But seriously. Very few people at their level of maturity have their act together that much to actually own such a sweet piece of property (and did you SEE her car in the beginning?). If they weren’t haunted by some demon-thing, would Micah even still have his job, or would the couple have plummeted into financial ruin? Maybe Katie did him a favor after all…

Technorati Tags: blair witch project, california, demon, film, ghosts, haunted, haunted house, haunted houses, micah, movie, oren peli, paranormal, paranormal activity, san diego