The Occult Section

Isn’t it funny how psychics, and their defenders,  always have excuses ready to go when the “psychic” turns out to be utterly wrong? Actually, it’s not funny, especially when people’s lives are at stake, or when families are grieving over loved ones. Here’s yet another example of how blowhard Sylvia Browne made a huge mistake in declaring someone to be dead, when she really wasn’t.

There’s a special place in Hell for you, Ms. Browne. My psychic powers told me so.

One of the world’s most recognizable self-proclaimed psychics was wrong yet again about the fate of a missing child, and her followers on social media are taking her to task.

Browne’s prediction about the fate of Amanda Berry was not her first attempt to explain the fate of a child, but her fans on social media demanded acknowledgment from the self-proclaimed spiritual leader.

On Wednesday, Browne released the following through her Facebook page:

For more than 50 years as a spiritual psychic and guide, when called upon to either help authorities with missing person cases or to help families with questions about their loved ones, I have been more right than wrong. If ever there was a time to be grateful and relieved for being mistaken, this is that time. Only God is right all the time. My heart goes out to Amanda Berry, her family, the other victims and their families. I wish you a peaceful recovery.

On Facebook and Twitter, Browne sends inspirational messages to hundreds of thousands of fans, often advertising her latest appearances or one of 45 books she has published (most recently Afterlives of the Rich and Famous). She reached a high level of visibility after years appearing as a regular guest on Montel Williams’ television show, a long-running daytime talk program that subsisted on paternity test results, cheating spouses and half-baked psychic predictions before it stopped production in 2008.

Browne’s Facebook followers are using her most recent post to ask for a better answer about Amanda Berry. Photograph: Facebook

“I remember you on Montel Williams telling the family of Amanda Berry she was dead,” wrote one commenter on Browne’s Facebook page. “What do you have to say for yourself? What a horrible horrible thing to say to a family holding on to nothing but hope and faith.”

“Can you admit that you’re a hack now?” asked another.

“I hope todays events seal it for you and everyone else who take advantage of those in mourning,” wrote another.

Not likely.

Browne announced the death of Amanda Berry in 2004, when she appeared on Williams’ show to tell Berry’s mother, Louwana Miller, that her daughter was “in heaven and on the other side” and that her last words were “goodbye, mom, I love you”. Miller would die a year later, of heart failure.

In fact, Berry escaped Monday from a Cleveland home where she had been held captive with two other women for more than a decade. A child who is hers was also removed from the home, according to police.

As Jon Ronson wrote in his 2007 profile on predatory psychics, Browne has spoken face-to-face with many distraught parents and wrongly forecasted life or death. Shawn Hornbeck was a missing child whose parents were told by Browne that their son was buried between two boulders. When he was found alive after four years in 2007, Browne’s publicist told CNN in a written statement: “She cannot possibly be 100% correct in each and every one of her predictions. She has, during a career of over 50 years, helped literally tens of thousands of people.”

For her part, Browne told Montgomery Media in Pennsylvania in April that she’s exceptional at spotting imposters:

“You can always see when they start doing guessing games.”

On Facebook, some of Browne’s fans are defending her predictions. “everyone makes mistakes. Even doctors, lawyers … Psychics,” wrote one.

“Sylvia you were right on for me, you have my support,” added another.

The Guardian has asked Browne for comment.

Are there people who are really psychic? Who knows. I don’t discount the possibility. I’ve had things happen to me that made me think perhaps I was able to see something that was going to happen before it did. But it’s far more likely that it was just a coincidence, and our minds just want to link these things when we’re right. We don’t remember the times we were wrong, because that’s not “freaky.” Hell, statistically speaking, you can take a multiple choice test in a subject you know nothing about, guess every answer, and still average about 65% correctness. I feel that’s pretty much what every single psychic averages. So yeah, they’re bound to be wrong sometimes. Because they don’t have super powers. They are making educated guesses. That’s all. And once again, I’m glad Sylvia Browne was wrong.

Thanks to my brother Jeff for letting me know about this story

Technorati Tags: abduction, amanda berry, celebrity, Cleveland, debunking, hoax, media, montel williams, News, ohio, paranormal, pennsylvania, people, psychic, supernatural, sylvia browne, thoughts, tv show

We’ve done lots of stories on haunted locations for sale (like this one, and this one), and now comes this lovely haunted house (“the area’s own version of the ‘Amityville Horror’) in the beautiful neighborhood of Wilkes-Barre. Though I’m still not sure why everyone still believes in the legend of the Amityville house, as it’s been proven to be an elaborate hoax. I mean, Ed and Lorraine Warren investigated it, so, pretty much by definition, it was a hoax. And they investigated this house too, so, you do the math…

“But Ed and Lorraine Warren said it was haunted, and they are reliable! ‘Sheisty’ is another word for reliable, right?”

The sales listing for a Wilkes-Barre property touts it as an “authentic haunted house.”

City resident Betsy Summers, who lives across the street, designed the advertisement hoping to stir up interest in the 46 S. Welles St. property. The owner, Katherine Watkins, died last year, and Summers said she is trying to help the family sell it.

Summers said she’s not making up the haunted claim, which has been detailed in several published reports.

“It has a pretty nasty reputation,” she said.

The house was featured in several Times Leader news articles from 1979 through 1982, with one prior owner describing the place as the area’s “own version of the ‘Amityville Horror.’ ”

Walker Bennett told reporters he moved out of the property in 1978 because it was haunted.

He described the ghostly figures of a well-dressed man with a cane and a girl in a nightgown, inexplicable sounds coming from the attic and walls, and bloody spots on walls and pools in the living room.

Bennett said he witnessed his daughter trip at the top of a steep flight of stairs in January 1977 and float slow-motion through the air to land on her feet at the bottom, unharmed. His wife witnessed the same thing happen again a month later, he said.

He said he knocked down the wall in a back bedroom seeking the source of strange sounds coming from that area and discovered a tin box containing a red ribbon, human molar and chicken bones tied together in the form of a cross. He theorized the objects were part of a voodoo curse against industrialist Augustus C. Lanning, who built the house in the mid-1860s as part of his estate.

Bennett also found a photo of Lanning and said it was the same man who kept knocking on his door.

He blamed the haunting on family illnesses and stress and brought in a priest to bless the house.

The Bennett family fled the house, leaving expensive electronic equipment and many other belongings, in March 1978, when Walker said he awoke to a thunderous roar, even though the weather was clear. He described footsteps pounding in the attic, a rattling front door, dishes crashing in the kitchen and the cry of a child behind a wall.

News reports said prior inhabitants committed suicide in the home in 1950 and 1940.

Paranormal investigators Ed and Loraine Warren, famed for their investigation of the Amityville house in New York featured in the book and movie, toured the Welles Street property in March 1980. A photograph of Lorraine shows her holding her hand “as if in pain” as she emerged from the home.

“I sense a terrible despair. The effect on people who lived in this house was very, very negative,” she said.

Neighbors have expressed mixed opinions on whether it was haunted.

Watkins purchased the four-bedroom, mortgage-foreclosed property in August 1982 for $20,000, generating an article with the headline, “‘Haunted’ house sold in Heights.” Watkins told reporters she was not afraid of ghosts.

A representative of the mortgage holder said the property had been remodeled and occupied by tenants after the “ridiculous publicity” about the haunting. The tenants said the property was not haunted.

Summers said Watkins, who was her friend, told her her family experienced unexplained phenomena, such as a shaking bed, moving objects and a light or television turning off when the power was still on.

Paranormal investigators also have captured activity in photographs and on audio recordings, said Summers, a veterinary sales worker who has run for several local elected offices.

The 2,092-square-foot home is assessed at $63,200 and listed for sale at $30,000, though Summers said the family will consider any fair offers. Potential buyers can contact her at 610-955-6361.

The advertisement, which was listed in the Wilkes-Barre Independent Gazette, led to two showings of the property, she said.

“They were interested because it is haunted,” she said.

Summers said the family may opt to use the house for a haunted bed-and-breakfast if it doesn’t sell.

She said she regularly pops into the house to make sure it’s secure.

“I take care of what I have to do and get out. I try to ignore any noises I hear,” she said.

It’s interesting to me that people have lived there and not experienced anything, but others claim to have experienced paranormal activity. The stories in this article don’t really sound like paranormal activity, though. It sounds more like what paranormal activity looks like in a Hollywood movie, so I’m chalking this up more to the dude’s imagination than an actual experience. Real supernatural phenomena just doesn’t happen like that.

Technorati Tags: debunking, ed warren, ghost, ghost hunters, ghost hunting, ghosts, haunted, haunted house, haunted houses, haunting, hoax, lorraine warren, media, new york, News, paranormal, pennsylvania, people, picture, supernatural, thoughts, welles street, wilkes-barre

We blogged a while back about Jackass star Ryan Dunn dying in a car crash and the alleged paranormal claims that resulted from it. Well, I came across this story today claiming that a person is on Craigslist attempting to sell “haunted” parts from Dunn’s car. It’s good to see that some people on Craigslist are staying classy and not selling their farts or wanting to have sex with people while wearing a clown costume.

As you may remember, Jackass star Ryan Dunn drunkenly crashed his Porsche in West Goshen, Pennsylvania back in the summer of 2011, killing himself and his passenger.

And apparently, someone recovered some small parts from the crash and is attempting to sell them on Craigslist.

Joe.ie tipped me to the posting, which comes from Philadelphia. It offers up the parts (small enough to fit inside a shoebox) for $300.

Apparently, the original collector doesn’t want them anymore – because they may be haunted.

“A week after the accident I went to the accident and scooped up minor parts I saw lying on the ground. The parts are all remotely tiny, and all fit in a shoebox. I don’t want them anymore because weird shit has happened since I put it under my bed. I guess it’s because it’s a weird thing to have, but I was a huge Jackass fan and thought it would be a cool something to have. If you want proof they are his parts, I have pictures of the crash site I took myself,” reads the ad.

We’ve tried to contact the poster and will let you know if we find anything else out. I guess you really can find anything on Craigslist.

I’m guessing the weird stuff that happened to this guy is from karma, and not a ghost. Why anyone would want small parts from a horrific car crash, and then try to sell them on Craigslist is beyond me. But then again, I have a soul. I think. Yeah, there’s still a tiny bit of it still there.

Technorati Tags: celebrity, ghost, ghost hunters, ghost hunting, ghosts, haunted, haunting, hoax, humor, jackass, media, News, paranormal, pennsylvania, people, philadelphia, picture, porsche, ryan dunn, supernatural, thoughts, tv show, West Goshen

Mama, the highly anticipated ghost story directed by Andy Muschietti from his 2008 short by the same name and executive produced by Guillermo del Toro, was released in theaters across this fine nation Friday, January 18. The story follows a young couple, Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Annabel (Jessica Chastain), who, after spending five years tirelessly searching for his nieces, Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse), find and adopt the long-lost and now feral girls. No one is quite sure how they managed to survive all this time on their own, but Lucas is determined to take custody and raise his nieces. Unfortunately for Lucas and Annabel, the girls already have a mother and she is not looking for joint custody.

For some reason, and I am still not sure why, when Gilly del T works on a film that is in Spanish, like The Orphanage or The Devil’s Backbone or a project that simply has roots in Spanish, like Mama, the all-round quality of the film is heads and shoulders better than something in English, like Don’t Be Afraid of The Dark. One thing I definitely appreciate about this movie, as well as The Orphanage and The Devil’s Backbone, is that it is a throwback to an earlier era of horror when plots were simpler, the scares were classier, and audiences were more open to playful chills and bumps in the night. Where Mama falls flat is that it is narratively thin, repetitive, and relies too much on “gotcha” moments that quickly grow tiresome. However, I suppose that is to be expected when one stretches what was originally a three-minute short into an hour and a half full-length feature.

At the risk of dishing major spoilers, I have to say that there is one thing I absolutely love and one thing I hate about Mama. I want to end on a good note, so let’s start with the bad. Gilly has fallen prey to America’s greatest fraud (that something interesting is never worth explaining), so we, the audience, must take it upon ourselves to fill in the blanks. I have unanswered questions about Mama’s untenable borigin story – that’s a mix of boring and origin for those who didn’t know – and the symbolism of the moths.

The character of Mama bares some similarities to the Mexican folk legend of La Llorona, a beautiful young woman(aren’t they all?) who drowned herself and her children after getting dumped by the man she loves. Though accounts differ, most retellings warn that La Llorona will kidnap wandering children who resemble her missing children or children who disobey their parents. However, all we know about Mama is that she escaped from the nervous hospital for “sad people,” broke into the church next door, kidnapped a baby, burned it’s eyes out, jumped off a cliff, dropped the baby, and drowned. We don’t know any of the particulars about how she came to be in the hospital or why her child was removed from her care. We don’t even know for sure if that baby was actually hers! Mama also has unusual facial features. There is no clear bone structure to her face. I am not sure if this is the screenwriters trying to convey a sense of her being underwater, as is the case with her flowing hair and clothing, but it leads me to believe that her elongated, Modigliani-inspired appearance might be an outward symptom of a birth defect or disfiguring illness that would have landed her in a hospice in the 1800s and would have also classified her as an unfit mother at the same time, assuming she was even pregnant before entering the hospital for that matter.

Now, what is the deal with the moths? In my efforts to uncover the mysteries of the moth symbolism in film and literature, I found that our fuzzy-winged friends are closely associated with vulnerability, concealment, shadows, dreams, psychic awareness, secret knowledge, – whatever that means – and ironically enough, subtlety. I think that from these key terms, we can easily enough suss out the connection on a surface level. A master of disguise, the moth can blend in to the point of invisibility. This is a metaphor for us to use our environment to our advantage, blend in when necessary, adjust and adapt when the situation requires it. But what about that weird cocoon thing at the end? I personally feel that the resolution is the moment when the film is at its weakest. Funny enough, the same goes for future-moths and could-be butterflies when they are undergoing metamorphosis. Obviously, this has to do with the changing of Mama’s character. In particular, moths and butterflies have a parallel use, where moths are often thought of as “ugly” or ”dark,” variations of the ”beautiful” and ”pure” butterflies. The contrast between the two as similar beings with differing attributes is often used to show two sides to characters, or in this case, the melding of Mama and Lily.

Time for the good news! I am not a fan of CGI. In most movies, I find it distracting, unnecessary, overused, and cheap-looking in most cases. However, I am pleased to announce that Mama was played by an actual person! Yes, an honest to God human being, Javier Botet, who readers might know as the emaciated demon girl in [REC]. While there is clearly some CGI in play, I want to be clear that Botet wore an actual costume and makeup for the part. Mama’s movements are his movements. It gives me hope that maybe other films, genre aside, will tone down the CGI and utilize more elaborate make-up and costume design.

“…Botet as Mama was done entirely practically, with shots layered over each other to get the proper spooky effect…”

In closing, if I were to rate this movie on a scale of full price, matinee, Netflix, torrent, or streaming, I would give it a solid matinee. Like The Ring and others that came before it, during Mama you will be stressed out and extremely tense for no other reason than the amount of pressure you are under to keep cool in front of your fellow movie-goers. And while you collect your belongings and file out of the theater, you won’t feel frightened. However, Mama is a torpedo that shoots into your brain but doesn’t detonate until the sun goes down. Once you pull on your jam jams and roll into bed, every creak and groan of your poorly maintained Brooklyn apartment will become that spider-finger bitch creepin’ around, feeding bugs to your kids and ruining your wallpaper.

Read more about the making of Mama here

Technorati Tags: Andy Muschietti, Book Review, celebrity, ghost, Guillermo del Toro, haunted, haunted house, Javier Botet, Jessica Chastain, Mama, media, movie, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, paranormal, pennsylvania, supernatural, thoughts

Sometimes a story just smells fishy from the get-go, and this is one of those stories. I’m not sure why the police would make up a story about this guy stating that a Bigfoot attacked his trailer. Then again, maybe they were just trying to shame him. On the other hand, maybe this guy was trying to get a little media attention for his Bigfoot hunting group, and then recanted because, well, he didn’t want to make it look like he was only trying to get attention for his Bigfoot hunting group. Whatever the case may be, there was some damage done to a trailer. Yep.

What kind of monster would destroy such a thing of beauty?

LYKENS, Pa. (WHTM) - A Lykens man who had the taillights and windows smashed out of his motor home told a state trooper he has seen bigfoots in the area where the crime occurred.

State police in Lykens said the trooper was called to John Reed’s home in the 400 block of Division Street, where Reed reported that he has seen bigfoots near his 1973 Winnebago on Lykens Road in Jackson Township.

Police said Reed told them that after he had turned on the RV’s outside light, a bigfoot began throwing rocks at the light to prevent being discovered. Reed, however, provided a different account to abc27 News Friday afternoon. He said he believes the crime was committed by vandals.

Reed is a self-described bigfoot tracker and a founder of the Lykens Valley Sasquatch Hunters. His postings on the group’s Facebook page refer to the RV as “The Doghouse,” their official base camper.

The Facebook postings indicate the damage done to the camper was found during bigfoot hunts on September 11 and September 28.

Reed told abc27 News that he’s seen a bigfoot three times.

“While we were in the camper, I seen something walk by the window, not just walk by but kind of duck down like it was trying to duck under the window, like he didn’t want to see us,” Reed said. “I thought maybe one of my friends was messing with me until I realized the window was six-foot high. What I seen was the back of something’s head which was covered in hair, like six, seven-inch hair.”

Whether or not bigfoot is to blame for the RV damage, a state police spokesman said the incident is being taken seriously and will be investigated.

“We take every call seriously, whether it involves bigfoot or nor,” Trooper Adam Reed said. “The bottom line is there was some damage done, there was some vandalism done to his property.”

Another thing that stands out is that the state trooper and this Bigfoot hunter have the same last name. That might be worth digging into, to see if there’s any relation or connection. Also, the writer of this article needs to look at our post regarding the correct spelling and pluralization of “Bigfoot.”

Technorati Tags: adam reed, bigfoot, cryptozoology, debunking, john reed, lykens, media, News, paranormal, pennsylvania, people, rv, sasquatch, thoughts, winnebago, yeti