Do You Believe In The Devil?

MB: I didn’t know what to believe. I didn’t have this fascination with spirits, ghosts or demons at all. I think that really helped me out, because I went in with this real objective approach trying to look at it as a journalist would. Beyond just trying to put it into a Sunday school vernacular, I really wanted to understand, almost from a scientific journalistic standpoint, what are these things, what role do they play?

Read complete article here {via The Examiner}

Does the devil exist – or is the concept simply a way of making excuses for dark and sinister actions. {source: ParanormalTV}

Satan's Holy Water?

Now here’s something new to me. Satanists using holy water for satanic rituals. How the heck does that work?

Rome, 12 June (AKI) – An Italian church outside Rome has stopped offering ‘holy water’ to worshippers because the parish priest fears it is being stolen for satanic rituals. Walter Palombi, the parish priest at the Santa Maria Stella Maris church at Fiumicino, on the outskirts of the capital, said the water is no longer provided for people to bless themselves.
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Portal to Hell?

This is a good little article on the history behind the haunted honky tonk, Bobby Mackey’s Music World.

I paid my second visit to Kentucky this year last week. Ten hours from Baltimore and a world away. The last time I was here was a visit to Louisville and the notorious Waverly Hill Sanatorium. This time I was visiting the site of murder, Satan worshiping and hauntings.
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Now this haunt in Montego Bay, Jamaica, has just as much lore as it does bad juju. And that bad juju appears to be the real deal. Annie Palmer, a.k.a “The White Witch of Rose Hall,” received her voodoo training at an early age from a Haitian nanny. When Annie was only 10, her parents died mysteriously, leaving her to be raised by her big bad voodoo nanny. Makes you kind of wonder if she was sent to her room without dinner after a spat with mom and pops, and out from under the bed came the voodoo dolls. Who knows, but this seems to be when Annie became the woman who got what she wanted, when she wanted, or there would be hell to pay.
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The ReaL Deal

It’s not a sequel or a prequel or a reboot or a remake, but a film based on Mark Opsasnick’s book The Real Story Behind The Exorcist is on the cards from Vertigo Entertainment (The Ring, Quarantine). 

The Exorcist story, The Haunted Boy, is a single chapter (serialised in full here) in Opsasnick’s tome of supernatural investigations, subtitled A Study of The Haunted Boy and Other True Life Horror Legends. In it, the author tracks down and speaks to the priests involved in the 1940s exorcism, local residents from the time, and the actual “Rob Doe” who became Regan in the novel and William Friedkin’s film. Hmm: sounds like a similar approach to Requiem, the German film that told a close-to-the-truth version of the story of the exorcism and death of Anneliese Michel, which also inspired the Hollywoodised The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Read the complete article here. {via empireonline.com}

The Devil's Toilet!

I was going to wait and write this tomorrow but if I can keep even one person from spending their hard earned dough on this fraud of a movie, well I’ve done my good deed for the week. The Devil’s Tomb is the story of an “elite” group of soldiers sent on a rescue mission in some unknown dessert. They soon find out that the mission isn’t really what it’s all cracked up to be, more like a search and destroy in an ancient tomb. But with the Nephilim, you know, the offspring of some hard up fallen angels and human ladies. This is where it gets good. Actually, wait a minute this is where I got duped into purchasing this DVD. Yes, I was a bit over ambitious and in need of some good demonic cinema. I mean come on, the title is “The Devil’s Tomb.” And it stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Ron Perlman, and even Ray Winstone for cripe’s sake. Boy, did I whiff on this one.
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For those of you interested in the demonic side of the paranormal, the new book The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist by journalist Matt Baglio, sounds like one heck of a read. Baglio heads to the Vatican where he follows a Catholic priest’s training as an exorcist. And part of the training is actual apprenticeship on actual exorcisms. You can’t get any closer to the source than that. Actually sounds a little too close.

“Truth is stranger than fiction … and far more terrifying. Forget what Hollywood tells you about demonic possession
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Full interview with ordained priest and exorcist, Father Andrew Calder about the realities and dangers he has seen firsthand involving ghost hunting and the paranormal. Father Calder is a paranormal investigator as well and discusses tricks, traps and dangers that the demonic and spirit world often use to trick newcomers as well as seasoned paranormal investigators. Over 9 minutes of Q&A advice for anyone who is interested in ghost hunting or becoming a paranormal investigator. For more information and more videos and interviews, go to MySpace.com/dangersoftheparanormal or DangersoftheParanormal.com

While driving through Upstate New York to a family gathering for Easter, I caught up on some of my favorite paranormal radio. One of the topics that kept coming up was the process of protecting ones ass during an investigation. And with all these new paranormal groups popping up by the second, I started thinking about what some of these folks might be exposing themselves to and not even know it. Now the consensus seems to be that the chances of running into satan the first time out are pretty slim. But why take the chance if you don’t have to, right?
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