Demonologist or dangerous and deluded?

On 13/03/16 the Daily Mirror featured a report  regarding one Kelly Angel, real name Bebbington, who purports to be a "demonologist" and "demon hunter" entitled "Meet the woman who sends demons back to Hell for a living after realising she could see ghosts" Stories such as this are ten a penny as are individuals making such claims, the reason this one caught my attention is the seeming disregard both Kelly and the Mirror seemed to show towards the dangers of propagating the harmful mythology of demons and exorcism.

Before tackling that, it's interesting to note that this isn't the first time the paper has featured Kelly. on October 29th, 2016 they ran a story entitled "'I work in Greggs by day but I'm a demonologist by night'" the title of which alludes to the fact that, at the time Kelly was dividing her time between banishing demons to hell and serving tepid baked bean and sausage slices in down market pastry shops.

The only seeming change in Kelly's story between these articles is the elaboration of her connection to the paranormal before discovering her gift. In October 2014, she states: "I was 19 when I discovered I had The Gift. A medium had told me I was very clever and suggested I got myself a set of tarot cards. It was the first time I'd been to see a medium and I'd only gone along with a friend. I've always been into spooky things so I decided to give it a try."-29th Oct 2014

As of March this year this interest in "spooky things" had become a full-blown ability to see the dead! All of which leads one to question why she needed the medium to tell her about her gift at all. Surely it should have been self-evident to Kelly?

"I was “taken” into demonology. As far back as I can remember, I’ve been interested in the world of spirits. I’ve always been able to see ghosts, but it wasn’t until I visited a medium when I was 19 that I realised I had this special ability."

That doesn't make much sense to me. There are likely to factors at play here: Most people who claim to have this kind of abilities tend to add new elements to the origin stories of their "powers" as time goes on. Kelly has probably ran through the tale so many times that she's failed to see her embellishments have resulted in a story that no longer makes sense. Another possibility is that the ever ethical journos at the Mirror have dragged the ghost element out of Kelly in order to enhance the "click-bait" strength of the piece.

In the article Kelly expresses her frustration in the article at those that don't realize she is a demonologist not an exorcist, the difference being, she says: exorcists remove demons from INSIDE people, whilst she removes demon attached to people's outsides!

So far so what... I'm sure you're are thinking Kelly sounds like something of a harmless crank. The first hint of irresponsibility from Kelly comes when she boasts of her lack of training:

"I didn’t need to read up on the subject, be trained or learn anything. I knew how it all worked because 80 per cent of my past lives have been connected to spiritual work, I have been a Satanist, and into Devil worship, which is how I got to know how Satan works and how the demons serve him. Because of that, I can now deal with them in my present life."

Perhaps this is the major difference between her and an exorcist for the Catholic Church, presumably, despite it being two forms of the same bullshit, they are at least trained! Kelly claims to have despatched with this thanks to experience in her "past lives". Imagine a doctor making such claims, unlikely you'd lie down on the operating table. It also separates Kelly from most so-called demonologists, who protest the title is more than just self-appointed. Kelly seems almost proud of this point.

Another major difference between Kelly and the Catholic Church, the latter have a strict selection process, not everyone who requests an exorcism is granted one. Kelly, on the other hand, sees demons and negative energy almost everywhere:

""I’d say nine out of ten houses are inhabited by bad energy, so I get a lot of work! And usually, once I start working on the person’s house, I can sense if the inhabitants have demons attached to them too...They usually do, as the bad energy sticks to people. It’s rarely just a building that is affected."

This reminds me of a quote Joe Nickell once made about Ed Warren which I'll paraphrase, like Ed, Kelly has probably never walked into a house she didn't think was haunted. But unlike Ed, she thinks the owners are likewise afflicted too.

All this leads to the same concerns I have with many paranormal groups, Kelly really doesn't seem to have considered the psychological effect of telling a believer, someone who is possibly quite afraid of such things, that they are literally surrounded by demons.

""It can manifest in several different ways," explains Kelly. "Many people feel tired and depressed – suicidal even."

The fact that Kelly makes above statement about the people she "helps" only makes it more damning that she has seemingly never considered the damage her bullshit could inflict in these people's lives. Kelly should not be dealing with people she feels are suicidal. She should be ensuring they get the correct help. There's nothing more disturbing than when people such as Kelly can't pull themselves out of the "paranormal hero" narrative long enough to see what might be harmless fantasy to her, could have serious ramifications for others with mental health issues that she interacts with.

Of course, Kelly spends a fair proportion of the article talking about the negative effects of her "work" on her:

"This is the scary bit because they then try to attach themselves to me. But I’m usually OK because I protect myself, using the help of my guides and various angels, well in advance.... I can get really sick and actually vomit. Once, I was violently sick for two hours. It’s caused by all the negative energy the demons hurl at me. Sometimes after a session I sleep for 24 hours; other times, I get insomnia and can’t sleep for days. If I do five or six clearances in a day, it’s pretty exhausting and I feel drained."

This focus on Kelly's problems in battling demons, I'm sure in her mind, mark her out as a self-sacrificing hero, but when I consider the plight of children killed during exorcisms all over the world, she seems naive and thoughtless.

And what about the journalists at the Mirror, why isn't someone at that paper putting two and two together. On February 26th, 2016 the same paper reported on the murder during exorcism of a baby boy by his mother, Irene Mbithe, who believed he was possessed by demons. Two weeks was all it took for the paper's editor to forget the terrible conotations of the last "demon" story they ran. The potential causal link was lost. Do the staff at the Mirror believe that the perpetuation of the demon/exorcism myth isn't connected to that death because it occurred in Nairobi? This sort of thing is happening increasingly in the west too, and the media have to consider responsibility.The propagation of ignorance, superstition and fear knows no geographical or cultural boundaries. I doubt that the staff at the Mirror believe demons exist, they are still feeding that dangerous belief to the vulnerable, susceptible and the mentally ill.

Kelly may be deluded and thoughtless, perpetuating this rubbish from a need for attention or self-worth. The Staff at the Mirror are positively callous. They perpetuate this horseshit for greed and advertising revenue.

Hollywood and The Warrens: Rewriting History Again...

Horror fans are likely waiting with bated breath for 10th June 2016, and the release of the sequel to the hugely successful 2013 film The Conjuring, directed by James Wan. The film will see Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprise their roles as "paranormal investigators" the late Ed Warren and his surviving spouse Lorraine, the poster even features the tagline "the next true story from the case files of the Warrens."  Many, with more than a passing interest in the paranormal scene, likely had a slightly different reaction when the film's full title, The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist, was revealed a few months ago, and to the return of Ed and Lorraine, not to mention the aforementioned tagline which should induce at least a snort of derision from anyone aware of the Warrens' history.

The reason for these raised eyebrows?

Anyone who is aware of the Enfield poltergeist case knows that, barring a fleeting, uninvited visit to the family home,  Ed and Lorraine Warren had fudge-all to do with it! Sure Ed made various comments about Enfield, frequently referring to the alleged haunting as the work of a demon, something that the case's actual investigators, Guy Lyon Playfair and the late Maurice Gross of the SPR were in direct opposition to.

Now, cards on the table, firstly I'm not going to delve into Enfield too much. Frankly, it's been done to death, if you want more background, Joe Nickell wrote this excellent account for CSI. Also, I'm not a fan or Playfair or Gross, I think the investigative methods the pair used were shoddy at best. They gave the children at the center of the case just enough freedom to fake "phenomena" at will, as did the various journalists who visited the family over the course of the incidents.

A great example of Playfair's blindness to the idea of Janet and her sisters faking occurrences comes in this interview with the Righteous indignation team back in 2011. Interviewer Michael marsh asks if the girls could have faked any of the happenings recorded. Playfair responds that it's not possible, as every time they did fake something, he and Gross caught them! Seriously listen to the whole interview, Playfair unintentionally reveals many of the clear flaws in the investigation. As a side note to this side note, go and listen to the first 90 or so episodes of RI. It truly is the best skeptical podcast I've ever listened too. The interviews, many with believers and advocates of the paranormal and such, were conducted with such respect. but firmness, very were quite unique.

 I miss it a lot....

Anyway. Whatever I think of Lyon and Playfair, this was their investigation. This hijacking of their work to further the myth being weaved around the Warrens is disgraceful. Playfair has quite rightly spoken out about it, in an interview with Darkness radio. 

Playfair says:

"They did turn up once, I think, at Enfield, and all I can remember is Ed Warren telling me that he could make a lot of money for me out of it. So I thought, “well thats all I need to know from you” and I got myself out of his way as soon as I could. I said was not impressed.... I don’t think anybody in the family had ever heard of him until he turned up. Uninvited. I had a brief conversation with Ed at Enfield, and as I say, he was telling me how much money he’d help me make, and I politely declined his help, and I strained that that’s not what we exist for in the SPR, and that was the last time I saw him."

The repeated references to money will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the Warrens. Let's be frank. That's all they ever gave a damn about. Also just turning up at the site of an alleged haunting was totally part of their MO. No doubt the narrative of this film will contain the victims of this haunting seeking out Ed and Lorraine, just as the first film did. The truth is, Ed and Lorraine just turned up unwarranted at the Perron's home just like they did at Enfield.

So why have the filmmakers chosen this case, rather than focus on an investigation that the Warrens were legitimately (not that Ed and Lorraine ever did anything legitimate) involved with? The truth if that the other cases the Warrens were involved with, and crucially, have the film rights to, probably wouldn't fit a popcorn, big studio horror-by-numbers.

Werewolf demon? Is a modern audience going to buy that as a true story? Unlikely.

What about the case of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, a 19-year-old tree surgeon, who murdered his landlord in a frenzied knife attack, and called in the Warrens to help him prove the devil made him do it? Well, the Warrens can hardly be heroes in this, the jury were, unsurprisingly unimpressed with the claim and voted to convict Johnston. Plus, the Warrens don't own the rights to this exclusively, Lorraine is unlikely to want to share the spoils with Johnson's family, with whom she co-owns the rights.

Should we be surprised by this revisionism? The Warrens do have form.

Fact Vs Fiction: Spot the difference between the real Warrens and their Hollywood likenesses 













As I wrote in this piece for Doubtful News in 2014, the Warrens were reinventing their own history long before Hollywood pitched in, so none of this should really come as much of a surprise. In fact, Ed and Lorraine investigated purely ghost-related phenomena until the release of the Exorcist in 1973, from then on in it was demons all the way. That's where the money was, the Hollywood movie deals and book deals.

Ed and Lorraine were, and are, sideshow carnies nothing more. They exploited vulnerable families and situations in some pretty foul ways. Author Ray Garton, who wrote the account of the Connecticut haunting "In A Dark Place" told interviewer Blake Smith in this monstertalk interview, of Ed Warren's disdain for the families they purported to "help":

"I have quite a few tapes and I couldn’t get the Snedekers, their stories, the details of their stories weren’t meshing. They weren’t adding up. I went to Ed Warren and I explained to him that this was happening. I said, “I’m not sure how to go about this.” I had never done any nonfiction before. This was a new experience for me and I was trying, I wanted to have all the information laid out in chronological order in front of me, and it just wasn’t adding up. I told Ed and he said, “Well, they’re crazy.” He said, “All the people who come to us are crazy. That’s why they come to us.” He said, “You just use what you can and make the rest up.”

Another example of this disregard for those affected by their investigation comes from Ed's justification for the ex-funeral home at the center of the "Haunting in Connecticut" case being infested with demons. Ed stated it was due to acts of necrophilia committed whilst it was trading. Think about the upset that absolutely baseless accusation could cause to the families whose loved ones were interred there after death. And worse, that was a family owned business, the ex-owners were well known in the local community. Allegations like this could have ruined their lives. And did Ed ever provide evidence of these allegations? Of course not.

Give me flawed investigators like Playfair and Gross over these exploitative charlatans any day of the week. Thankfully for the family at the center of the Enfield case, they got there before Ed and Lorraine. Ed and Lorraine would have turned this damaged family into a side show to be paraded around trashy US daytime TV. Don't, believe me, watch the appearance of the family involved in the "haunting in Connecticut" case on an episode of Sally Jesse Raphael show entitled "I was raped by a demon"

The Warrens shouldn't be movie heroes, they were villains and hucksters through and through. Their glorification frankly sickens me.

Irish Teenage Demon Fighter and Ultimate Haunted Ireland: Cashing In On the Paranormal?

Irish Teenage Demon Fighter....

...Sounds like it really crappy idea for a Buffy the vampire slayer rip off doesn't it? Well I have to inform you that the Irish Teenage Demon Fighter is an  individual who actually exists. His real name is Rhys Byrne.  He is actually Irish. And I'm pretty sure he is nineteen, so technically a teenager (though he'll need a swift rebrand next year). Does he actually fight demons? That's the question. Another pertinent question would be, is Rhys actually helping people or is he exploiting vulnerable people for the sake of self promotion?

He has a card, must be professional. Right?

 Here is how Rhys describes himself and his mission on his website.
"Irish Teenage Demon Fighter is Ireland's youngest Demonologist recognized by the international Paranormal community."

Unfortunately it isn't exactly clear what recognition
from the international paranormal community entails, And why this actually matters. Recognition
isn't exactly endorsement is it? Also a community isn't bound by universal standards as a single organisation may be.

Its likely that there are as many individuals within the "international paranormal community" who think that the idea of demons and demonology are a dangerous and ignorant throw back to the dark ages as there are those who would be prepared to "recognise" Rhys in any fashion.

Apparently Rhys has some special gift which enables him to battle demons, his story of how he acquired these abilities is almost identical to that of most mediums and psychics:

"At an early age I realized that I was different to most kids.And could see and speak to dead people, and see them in the format that they died. This was scary as a child but something that I learned to work with."

Some would suggest that this occurrence of special powers during childhood reflects a need in a child to feel special or different from their peers. In an article from the Cork News Rhys continues, attributing the enhancement of his powers that allows him to fight demons to an undefined period in a coma!

 "When I came out of a coma at 15 it came in stronger than usual. I found the normal spiritual stuff of mediumship wasn't enough and I needed to do more, so I said I'd take on demonic. It kicked off from there. That's what I am good at." 

That's an awful casual mention of a coma there! It almost suggests that Rhys is making this up as he goes along, did the reporter not consider that the reason Rhys was in a coma was worth mentioning?

Another thing that Rhys fails to provide in the article is any evidence, and, perhaps very  tellingly, not even any anecdotes about occurrences during his battles with demons. He justifies this by stating that his client's confidentiality prevents him from sharing this information.

"I don't disclose information about who contacts me but cases I'm working on at the moment are mostly demonic possession. In some cases they are life threatening..." 

This amounts to absolutely nothing concrete to work with, we can't be sure that Rhys has even had any clients. I admire his convictions, but surely there are other ways of protecting his client's identities whilst still showing some evidence that he has actually had clients.

Rhys is similarly vague about the methods he uses to combat the "demonic". We are told in his Cork News article that he is a Buddhist  who doesn't use the Bible and a crucifix in his exorcisms. So what are his methods. All we are told is:

"...The teenager favours a "one-on-one" approach: "I get aggressive with it, and do what I have to do." he said..."

Erm... OK. Very macho but that doesn't actually tell us what Rhys' procedure for exorcism is. And this vagueness from Rhys is common across the board. In no interview I've read, at no point does Rhys divulge any further information about the above topics.  

A strangely standoffish interview with RTL2FM only served to cast more doubt on Rhys' tale of his youth. He claims to have been studying Buddhism for five years, and to have spent time studying with monks in India. As he is only nineteen, you can clearly see the problem with this story. When exactly did he squeeze all that meditation and training in?

Came out of a coma at fifteen, presumably left school at sixteen.... he's only nineteen now...

When asked this Rhys stumbles and stutters, seemingly knowing he has to be quite careful to adjust his story in order to not be caught out. Also this story about the gifts he received upon awakening from his coma are different. In this later interview he states he awoke with a greater understanding of Buddhism.

Could this be why Rhys is reluctant to reveal too much about his exploits, he knows that he can't think on his feet quickly enough not to be caught out?

One thing Rhys has no problem revealing is that he has an agent that all and any media consultation should go through. Represented by Mr Fintan Cullen of The Entertainment Factory, Rhys seems to be listed as an actor not a "speciality act" oddly enough. 

He also lists as his skills:

"Military-Boxing-Rugby-Gym-GAA-Motocross-Quads-

Hand to Hand Combat-Weapons specialist -
Military tactics,Manoeuvres,

Swimming,Diving,Go Karting,Sky Diving,Off Road Driving, Tactical Driving,

Travelling & living in various countries, Dogs, Reptiles,All Animals both domestic & wild,

Demonologist,Buddhism,Working with kids,disabled and able bodied,Soccer,Survival Skills, (sic)"

Wow! One has to wonder when Rhys had time to master all these skills. being only nineteen, and having spent a year in India studying with monks, and working as a demonologist involved with "life threatening cases". How does a nineteen year old fit all that in with military and combat training....and a little coma! Unless its all fabricated?

Sorry for the cynicism, but Rhys seems to me to be desperate for "fame" and is willing to take any avenue to achieve it.  He isn't alone. 

The problem is, that the route Rhys is using to achieve fame is exploiting potentially harmful and destructive superstitions. It may be feeding the delusions of some very damaged and ill people. Rhys may be a delusional and damaged person himself, but something tells me his desire for fame maybe his main problem. 

Update!

Slick Graphics!

It seems that Rhys isn't Fintan Cullen's only foray into the paranormal. Fintan himself is about to star in a TV show called "Ultimate Haunted Ireland"produced by SWV productions. From the images I came across it looks like yet another "wander around in the dark, jumping at nothing" paranormal TV show in the vein of Most Haunted and Ghost Hunters. 



Unfortunately, can't tell you when UHI will air, as it doesn't seem to have been picked up by any TV stations as of yet. A website for SWV productions displays nothing but a similar image to that above and a link for potential buyers, and may only exist for Copyright purposes.

There is a little more information on the Spooky News site and some images from the show on the Irish Paranormal News and news worldwide Facebook page: 

"Calls went out around Ireland for our top Paranormal Investigators and Mediums to come forward for an exciting new show called Ultimate Haunted Ireland.  The call was answered and the pilot has been filmed! ANN O’REGAN caught up with Writer and Producer Sandra Hickey of SWV Studios to find out a bit more…"

Unfortunately, I couldn't read further without sharing to Facebook, which quite frankly, I'm not going to do! When they say "calls went out around Ireland..." I can't help but wonder if actually means "calls went out from Fintan's Roladex.."

We are told exactly who these "top paranormal investigators and mediums" are on the aforementioned Facebook page: 

"Ultimate Haunted Ireland the new TV Show coming soon. Featuring Fintan Cullen, Shay Carry and Dorothy Shiels and many more Spiritual mediums and Paranormal investigators."

We get some lovely photos too!

Ooh look its Fintan (right) investigating ghosts an' stuff!

Who's that with Fintan there? Its Shay Carry, you will never guess this but Shay is also listed on Fintan's Entertainment Factory site as an actor! What a massive coincidence! 

Here's Shay. He doesn't claim any paranormal abilities as
Skills though. 

Hmm... I don't know about you but I am starting to get the impression that these projects are nothing more than a mercenary attempt to make money from the paranormal field. Fintan wouldn't be the first if this is the case and he certainly won't be the last.  The problem is that it ruthlessly exploits those with paranormal beliefs, and ridicules the work of groups trying to conduct ACTUAL research.

I've heard many a paranormal researcher complain that the problem with paranormal teams at the moment is every other one is attempting to get themselves on TV. That shallow pursuit of fame seems to be at work here. 

I wonder how long it will be until Rhys younger brother, also listed as an actor on the Entertainment factory's site is roped into all this as well?