Ghosts, Limited

As I've written about before, despite having a complete disbelief in an afterlife, spirits, and hauntings, I do still enjoy watching shows and or movies about them. Although sometimes over the top, Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures can be entertaining, perhaps precisely because of their hammy performances.

So I tuned in last night to Animal Planet's "Demon Exorcist." I was first surprised to see it had nothing to do with animals -- which was good, because I never would have tuned in, and besides, I think they already have a haunted pets show or something -- and then surprised to find out it had no exorcisms either. Seriously, unless you count wiping some "holy water" on the doors and walls of a house, it was an hour of nothing.

I'm sure Father Karras would have been surprised to find out as well that all it took to remove a spirit from a house was a brief group prayer, the aforementioned holy water dispersal, and a simple incantation to leave the house. Poof! Gone!

Particularly since one of the "victims" had been haunted by several specters her entire life after giving herself over to the dark side to save her sister from the fate when they were just children -- sacrificed, as they were, by their own Satanist parents no less! -- basically saying "boo" to the demon sent him hightailing it out of the house. The woman and her sister seemed more to have some deep emotional problems than a case of demonic possession.

The second case had potential though. A family with three kids lived in a house that was supposedly possessed by a demon and they've been forced to resort to sleeping together in one room because of the haunting. The interviews with the kids built up some suspense that maybe there would be some raucous goings on, but alas! no. Results were the same: group prayer, a holy water dousing, and begone! It was laughable when after wiping the holy water all over the house the "demonologist" was surprised to see the remaining water turn cloudy. "I've never seen that before." Hey buddy, do you think you might have been transferring some dust from the walls to the water? And the wife seemed to describe what sounded more like having a wet dream rather than being attacked by an incubus.

Proof the "exorcism" was successful lie (lay? I can never remember which) in the reaction of the homeowners when they returned to the house. If they felt good about the place, then all was well. Seeing the mother and son stand looking into a closet and the mother saying, "Now that feels like a closet" was hilarious.

In short, there was nothing "there" there. It was just an hour long talkfest. Jason and Grant at Ghost Hunters, along with Zac and the boys at Ghost Adventures, have lowered the bar so far that shows like Demon Exorcist can get greenlighted. How many years has Ghost Hunters been on and they've never caught anything on camera that hasn't been able to be debunked as Grant pushing the envelope? Those darn ghosts only want to be filmed at the very edge of sight, not up close and personal, no matter how many cameras are placed in a house.

And other than Ghost Adventures flying brick in the first(?) episode -- where Zac and the others inexplicably ran screaming from the building rather than investigate further -- have been unable to catch proof of anything either.

So Demon Exorcist can now come on and purport to exorcise spirits from a house with little more than what you'd see staged by kids playing with an Ouija board -- and again filming even less "proof" than Ghost Hunters/Adventures -- and getting it on the air.

Don't waste an hour of your own life watching another episode of Demon Exorcist. It was simply awful.

Amityville in Teaneck

Suddenly the Amityville Horror house is in the news again. Even the venerable Wall Street Journal had an article about the new owners of the home where Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot and killed his parents and four siblings as they slept in their beds back in 1974.

While the new owners say they're not happy about the attention their purchase of the house has brought, you have to wonder why they're granting interviews to the media. And they were unaware of the home's history till after they signed the lease?

It's true the house doesn't look the same as it did back in the 1970's as the iconic quarter round window have been replaced with regular double hungs, but you'd think when you're moving into Amityville some bell would sound in your head and maybe ask, "Hey, this isn't the house from that horror movie is it?" Apparently not.

But I never bought into claims by DeFeo that the house was possessed and he heard voices telling him to kill his family. As much a I love Halloween and all the creepiness it entails, I don't actually believe in ghosts and spirits, supernatural beings, or paranormal normal activity. Hey, I love watching Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures just as much as the next guy, but I don't believe a word of it. In fact, and at the risk of offending those who may be religious, I'm also an atheist. So I think that when you die that's it. You go in the ground and rot. The possibility that your corpse might arise again -- however cool the concept is for my haunt -- is not something that can happen.

Having said that, about four year ago I bought the house I live in and had converted the third floor room into my office where I would sit and write all day. Built in 1921, I expected it would have its share of creaks and being very much a realist, I'm always able to find a rational explanation for "paranormal" activity that occurs, or at least to know that there is a rational explanation even if I can't find it at the moment.

Always, that is, except for two times. While sitting in my office one morning working assiduously on the day's output, I was suddenly brought upright (I sit hunched over) at the sound of a footstep on the stairs on the first floor. At the time I lived in the house alone and no one would just walk in unannounced. Having been the victim of a burglary one time before, I always have my doors locked, even when I'm at home.

I sat there listening for a moment when I very clearly heard someone ascending the stairs from the first floor up to the second. This wasn't just a creak or two, this was solid footfalls on the wooden treads. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up as I imagined someone had broken in, so grabbing my trusty .38 cal. Smith & Wesson from the draw next to me, I quickly ran down the stairs to the second floor. It had happened so quickly -- from hearing the footsteps to grabbing the gun and going down the stairs -- that I should have actually run into the person coming up. Except there was no one there.

I went down and checked the doors and windows and they were all locked and secure. I wasn't able to find a rational explanation for that incident, and it happened one more time with no one being on the stairs. I still like to refer to it a my run-in with my ghost.

My ghostly friend visited me once again, just a month or so ago. I was sitting in my living room watching TV and home alone once again. My wife had gone out with her daughter and I was thoroughly enjoying my alone time. As I sat there, I felt like a puff of air on my left arm. It ran from about the middle of the forearm up to my shoulder.

Now it was summertime and the windows were open and I had a fan running in the dining room so I dismissed it as coming from one of those sources. About two minutes later, though, it happened again. I looked at the windows and the sheers my wife has hanging across the windows were completely still. The trees in my yard were also still. In fact, the air was completely dead.

Now I thought it possible it was the fan in the dining room, except that the dining room was off to my right so presumably any breeze from the fan would have been felt on the right side first, no? Also, it would have had to go across my body, but this breeze went from front to back. In essence, if it was the fan, it entered the room, completely avoided my right arm and chest (okay, stomach, I'm not petite), made a left turn and ran up my left arm.

So real was this breeze -- really, it was like a puff of air someone might blow out of their lips -- that I thought maybe my wife had snuck back into the house somehow and was hiding behind the couch and playing with me (she loves to hide around corners and jump out and scare me. I'm sure she's after my life insurance money). Except that would have required the air to run from back to front instead of front to back. I checked the doors again and they were still locked.

So those are my two run ins with activity that I can't give a rational explanation for. At least I didn't hear anyone telling me to "Get out!"