Buescher talks about Stage Magicians and Spirit Mediums. Both want to mystify their audience with acts beyond human comprehension: magic or mediumship. The key difference between the two is that the stage magician will admit the trick behind the act while the mediums will not. In the article, he also shows different examples of magicians and mediums and what they do.
4. Author:
John Benedict Buescher has a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia centered around Buddhism and Christianity. At the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, he was the assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion. He has written important books and articles regarding nineteenth-century American Transcendentalists and Spiritualism. This piece of information is important because Spiritualism is considered a spiritual movement and a religion in its own right.
5. Key Terms:
‘Mundus vult decipi;decipiatur,’ refers to the magicians and mediums who know the truth and are the few who can deceive the world.
2. Buescher mentions that if the magician kills the ‘magic’ or the mystery behind the trick, they cannot make any more profit from the same trick. Mediums, on the other hand, can reuse the same methods and make more profits than magicians.
6. Three Quotes:
“One basic rule of stage magic is that you don’t warn your audience that you’re about to play a trick on them” (214). “‘
“The same fundamental desire stimulates both the medium and the magician. Both feel the urge to mystify the public. Both have held to the same theory: ‘Mundus vult decipi; decipiatur,’ and they enjoy the privilege of belonging to the chosen few who can deceive the world.’’ In other words, magicians and mediums were doing the same things except that the magicians admitted what they were doing, whereas the mediums did not” (215).
“And if magicians succeeded only in exposure, in killing real magic, as they declared, what audience would remain after they’d emptied their audiences’ pockets on succeeding days?” (220).
7. Value:
This source helped me realize the implications behind the scammers’ and mediums’ practices and why they would refuse to tell others that they are fake. I was able to apply the key concepts to my paper with the support of a peer-reviewed source and expert on this subject. It also explained the reason why magicians and mediums perform their demonstrations.
Cholbi’s article on grief and how it impacts rationality help put my argument into perspective. People deal with grief in different ways and depending on the method of coping, can impact your rationality. Grief occurs when a person is grieving not just about themselves, but the ‘grief’s object.’ This ‘object’ can be anything, but in this case, it’s the dearly departed. Cholbi said, “no episode of grief can be rational unless the actions that constitute grieving accurately gauge the change in a person’s normative situation wrought by the loss of [their] relationship with the deceased” (257). (The normative situation refers to the grieving person’s state of mind). This quote means that people will suffer from irrationality unless they heal from the loss of their loved ones. This fact is important because who knows if the people that come to visit the Fox Sisters have recovered from their loss. People have likely gone to the Fox Sisters, in their state of grief and irrationality, to find closure with people whose career is built on lies.
Cholbi, Michael. “Grief’s Rationality, Backward and Forward.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 94, no. 2, Wiley Subscription Services, Inc, 2017, pp. 255–72, doi:10.1111/phpr.12353.
My thesis statement: The Fox Sisters have sparked controversies with their careers as mediums. These controversies need to be addressed because they have the potential of targetting and scamming people dealing with grief after losing a loved one. Other examples of people being a scammer and being scammed are Sylvia Browne and Mary Lincoln. Furthermore, the spiritual movement that they practice, Spiritualism, has the potential to become a tool to heal people’s grief.
One source that I partially disagree with is Davenport’s “The Death-Blow to Spiritualism: Being the True Story of the Fox Sisters.” I disagree with some sections of this source because it is highly biased and has a lot of Davenport’s speculation and indignation. I do agree with some of the things he has said, but I will only use his source as a way of speculation and bringing up the potential controversies on the Fox Sisters. But it needs to be said that he has conducted interviews on the Fox Sisters and people who met them, so I will reference from that section of the text.
A source that will strongly object to Davenport’s article is Leah Underhill’s (who used to be known as Leah Fox) book on her experiences as a medium. These two sources will spark debate because of their opposing biases and opinions on the Fox Sister’s careers. Davenport shows it in a negative light with a manipulative narrative from the Fox Sisters. Underhill shows it in a positive light as acts of goodwill and service to the public.
This diagram shows John Henry Anderson’s speculation on how the rapping sounds are made. This image is important because it shows one of ways the sisters would have tricked the public. It is also interesting to see how the skeptics speculate or debunk paranormal activity.
For the Fox Sisters and Spiritualism section, I will use the Fox Sisters as my case example. The Fox Sisters have conducted many demonstrations in their career as mediums. The problem with these demonstrations is the implications and questionable motivations behind them. They were able to trick their believers into believing they could communicate to spirits.
Sources used for this section:
Cyranka, Daniel. “Religious Revolutionaries and Spiritualism in Germany around 1848.” Aries, vol. 16, no. 1, Jan. 2016, pp. 13–48. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1163/15700593-01601002.
Davenport, Reuben Briggs. “The Death-Blow to Spiritualism: Being the True Story of the Fox Sisters.” Project Gutenberg.
Stuart, Nancy Rubin. “The Fox Sisters: Spiritualism’s Unlikely Founders.” HistoryNet, American History Magazine, August 2005,
Underhill, A. Leah (Ann Leah). The Missing Link in Modern Spiritualism. Project Gutenberg.
Walker, David. “The Humbug in American Religion: Ritual Theories of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism.” Religion and American Culture, vol. 23, no. 1, University of California Press, 2013, pp. 30–74, doi:10.1525/rac.2013.23.1.30.
For the grief section, I will use the psychic Sylvia Browne and Mary Lincoln to demonstrate scammers targetting grief-stricken people. It is known that there are people out there who are willing to target people who recently lost loved ones. Costly funeral services are an example. Sylvia Browne is a well-known psychic who made failed predictions on people and, in one case, scammed a grieving parent. Mary Lincoln lost family members throughout her life and went and consulted to mediums as a way to cope with the loss.
Sources used for this section:
Cholbi, Michael. “Grief’s Rationality, Backward and Forward.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 94, no. 2, Wiley Subscription Services, Inc, 2017, pp. 255–72, doi:10.1111/phpr.12353.
Kommel, Alexandra. Seances in the red room. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2021, from https://www.whitehousehistory.org/seances-in-the-red-room
Shaffer, Ryan and Agatha Jadwiszczok. Psychic Defective: Sylvia Browne’s History of Failure. Skeptical Inquiry Vol.34, Issue 2. Skeptical Inquirer, April 2010.
Why did people believe in the paranormal events of The Amityville Horror and the Fox Sisters?
How does spirituality play into people’s beliefs in the supernatural?
The Amityville Horror and Fox Sisters both became well known for the supernatural events surrounding them. They received enough attention to cause controversy among the public for the truthfulness of their stories.
(The book was published under the Western Folklore.)
Work Cited
Summary
Thompson argues that the treatment of ghosts and souls in the physical world impacts them when they die. He explains his perspective with the help of different cultures, mostly with Native American beliefs.
About The Author: Tok Thompson
He graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology. In 1999, Thompson received a Master’s Degree in Folklore from the University of California, Berkeley. Then three years later, he got a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the same university. He studied with Alan Dundes, a folklorist, and worked with the Centre for Irish-Scottish Studies at Trinity College, Dublin for two years in the postdoctoral position.
Key Terms
Ethical/Ethics: Thompson has used this term to describe the treatment of ghosts or souls, usually to humanize them.
Haunting: The hauntings described in this book shows the different motivations and connections these ghosts have with the living.
Quotes
“In many Native American societies, the lack of proper respect towards animals (for example, killing more than you need, or neglecting to use all of the animal, or neglecting requisite funerary rituals) could result in vengeful animal ghosts. The role of the shaman in these traditions is often deeply tied to this possibility; one of a shaman’s main functions is to attempt to placate the angry spirits of dead animals who have been disrespected, in order to restore balance between the human world and the world of the animal spirits” (Thompson 44).
“Ghost stories often give voice to the oppressed and morally wronged; the failure to successfully move into the afterlife and the reason for hauntings can also be tied to harm experienced during life, not just disrespect during or after death” (Thompson 45).
“In many Native American traditions, reciprocity with the lived environment is of clear importance to leading an ethical life, since violations of this reciprocity produce harmful ghosts” (Thompson 45).
Value
This book will help give me insight as to why people believed in the Amityville Horror story. Since the book explores ghosts and souls from different cultures, it can also explain people’s stance towards ghosts or why spirits become violent. To some of the public’s belief: they think that the Amityville Horror occurred because the deceased DeFeo family wanted revenge for being murdered in cold blood. As a result, the DeFeo family members haunted the Lutz family.
Topic In this research proposal, I will look into the controversy about the Amityville Horror. Arson and residents of this haunted house wrote a book about their experiences and it later got a movie adaptation. But because of its paranormal nature and other circumstances, people question the truthfulness of the story.
Research Question Why did people speculate that the Amityville Horror story was a hoax? What inconsistencies in the Lutz family story made it seem like a hoax? Was there an evil force behind the dark history of the house?
Theoretical Frame The Amityville Horror became known as a haunted house because of the detailed documentation from the Lutz family. Before the Lutz family moved into the house, Ronald DeFeo Jr. shot and killed both his parents and four siblings while they were asleep in the Amityville house. DeFeo claims that an evil spirit possessed him and made him kill his family. The DeFeo family murder should be straightforward, but there are some inconsistencies. One of the most puzzling pieces of evidence is when Robert used a shotgun as his choice of weapon. The sound from the shotgun should have been heard from at least four to five blocks away. Not to mention that when they found the gun there was no suppressor (a gun attachment to lessen the sound of a gunshot).
After the murders, the Lutz family moved into the same house, but after 28 days, they fled from their home because of the paranormal hauntings caused by an evil entity. They documented their experiences by writing and selling a book that became an international bestseller, The Amityville Horror: A True Story. Despite the success of the bestseller and movie adaptation, the Amityville Horror went under scrutiny of the legitimacy of the events in the house. There have been no further reports of paranormal activity in the Amityville house from other residents since the Lutz family moved. Even William Weber, the lawyer of DeFeo, admitted that he helped write the story with the Lutz family while intoxicated. Not to mention that the subsequent owners of the house reported that they did not experience any paranormal activities that happened with the Lutz family. These conflicting revelations suggest that the Lutz family and Weber fabricated or exaggerated some if not all of the horror story. People have accused that the family was trying to profit off their embellished lies.
Some of the inconsistencies include the Lutz claiming to find a demonic hoofprint in the snow, but this is false because the weather records showed that it hasn’t snowed during the time they had stayed in the house. Throughout their book, they said that the evil spirit broke their locks, doors, and windows. However, the people who later bought the house said that the original fixtures were still intact, and they found no evidence of repairs. The chances of this story could be a hoax because of the inconsistencies of the Lutz family’s story and Weber’s confession. Or it could only be an exaggeration of the Amityville Horror. Because when the Lutz family obtained the house, George Lutz had some financial problems. So there is a chance that the family experienced paranormal activity (even if it isn’t real), but they exaggerated their story to appeal to the audience.
Research and Plan I learned the whole story about the events surrounding Amityville Horror through Lutz’s bestselling book The Amityville Horror: A True Story. The book recounts how the house already had a bad reputation with Ronald DeFeo murdering his family. DeFeo said that he murdered his family because an evil spirit made him commit the act. Then it goes into detail about how the Lutz family bought and lived in the house. However, they had to leave the house because of the paranormal events that happened in it: hearing voices, foul odors, even green slime oozing through the walls, saw eyes watching them, and more incidents. Another book called Ghost Stories from the Uncanny Valley by Tok Thompson talks about the reason behind why people believe in ghosts. It gives insight into why people believe in the supernatural elements of Amityville Horror.
The Real Amityville Horror (Full Documentary) gives viewers an inside view of the haunted house. It also interviewed people who were related to the case and have them explain their side of the story. They interviewed the neightbors, people working on the DeFeo murder case, Robert DeFeo, George Lutz, William Weber, and more. It covers the history of the DeFeo murder, the Lutz family’s 28-day stay at the house, and the creation of a book and movie, and other people’s experiences with the house.
While finding sources for this research proposal, I found an Amityville Forum page that featured a series of posts about the Amityville Horror. The thread had detailed police evidence which included Robert DeFeo’s testimony for the DeFeo Murders, Rick Moran’s proposals, and other topics related to The Amityville Horror. Dan the Damned (the account user) explains the incident extensively, and it matches with the official sources themselves (books and documentaries). They have also compared Rick Moran’s interviews about the incident and found some inconsistencies.
The article Was ‘Amityville Horror’ Based on a True Story?, by Snopes Staff, draws attention to the inconsistencies within the retelling of the Amityville Horror. They have also mentioned how DeFeo’s lawyer, William Weber, and the Lutz family created “this horror story over many bottles of wine.” The article also lists their references at the end of the text.
How has the Amityville horror captured the attention of many people?
Why does the Amityville horror story have controversial topics?
Work Cited:
BARTHOLOMEW, ROBERT E., and JOE NICKELL. “The Amityville Hoax at 40.” Skeptic, vol. 21, no. 4, Dec. 2016, pp. 8–12. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=120458146&site=ehost-live.
FEHRMAN, TREVOR. “Growing Up in the Amityville Horror.” Skeptic, vol. 18, no. 3, Sept. 2013, pp. 58–59. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=90413650&site=ehost-live.
Lynch, Jason, et al. “Amityville Ghosts.” People, vol. 63, no. 15, Apr. 2005, pp. 115–116. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=16701543&site=ehost-live.
My topic idea hasn’t changed since Blog #1. The topic idea is already refined as it is an individual case: Amityville House.
2. Tell us what you find online:
The following key terms were useful:
Amityville: Horror; Amityville Movie; Amityville, New York; Famous Haunted Houses; Curse; Murder; Haunting; Exorcism
I found wikipedia pages, articles talking about the story and some trying to debunk it, a couple books, movies, and documentaries. The issues they talked about is the legitimacy of the event that has occurred in Amityville’s haunted house. Wikipedia tells the audience that Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed all six of his family members with a gun in the house. Later the Lutz family moved into the same house and a month later they were driven out in fear because of the paranormal phenomena that occurred.
3. Tell us what books or scholarly articles seem important:
4. What ideas about your topic did you get from this search?
While going through the searches, l found out that people were skeptical of the house being haunted and Lutz’s story. Furthermore, they talked about the events that supposedly happened there: strange noises, moved furniture, upside-down cross, etc. They even called in a priest to solve the problem. Another section the sources like to talk about is the previous owners of the house and the murders.
This book is useful because it recounts the Amityville Horror’s backstory of Ronald DeFeo Jr.’s murders and cursed the house with an evil spirit or energy. Also recounts the Lutz’s family’s experiences in the house in narrative detail.
This article talks about the legitimacy of the story of The Amityville Horror. There were a few “glaring discrepancies in the various accounts of the event,” and the residents living in the house after the Lutz said that they haven’t “experienced anything remotely similar to the [paranormal] disturbances” (Shorey 2018). It seems to be useful because there are links to the claims made in this article.
6. Did you find any controversies over your topic?
The major controversy of The Amityville Horror is whether or not it is a hoax and if the Lutz family fabricated their experience for monetary gain. One piece of evidence is that Butch DeFeo’s lawyer, William Weber, and the Lutz family “created this horror story over many bottles of wine” to gain a new trial for his client (Shorey 2018).
Paranormal Spectacle 