The Bell Witch: The Full Account (35 page)

rituals often branded witchcraft incorrectly as

“demon-worship.”

After North America was discovered and

Europeans began migrating to the new land,

witchcraft came into practice by some of the early

colonial settlers. Since it had previously been

branded as “demon-worship,” witchcraft was

forbidden throughout the North American colonies.

Despite this decree by the powers of the day, some

colonists secretly practiced witchcraft knowing they

would be hanged or burnt if caught. It has been said

that certain rituals performed by the early-American

witches helped shield their settlements from attacks

by Native Americans.

Allegedly, magic can affect many outcomes both

good and evil, depending on the type of magic and

the intentions of the practitioner. The better-known

types of magic are denoted by colors.

Black magic
is performed with the intention of

harming another being, either as a means of building

the practitioner’s power or as the goal itself. The

underlying ideology upon which Black magic is based

states that the practitioner and his or her pursuit of

knowledge and/or physical well-being are more

important than other concerns, theological or ethical.

Green magic
involves the practitioner’s attuning

himself or herself to nature and the world around

him or her.
White magic
is where the practitioner

attempts to attune him or herself to the needs of

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261

human society and attempts to meet those needs.

This is a form of “personal betterment” magic, and

does not entail harming other beings.

Grey magic
is magic that is neither green, nor

black, nor white, and which usually replaces the

absolute stand of these realms with an ethical code

that is particular to the practitioner. It is a type of

magic all its own, and may be used for many

different purposes.

Folk magic
is an eclectic collection of herbalism,

faith healing, curses and hexes, candle magic, and

other workings that have thrived in rural areas for

centuries. There is also the term
hedge wizard
,

which refers to an individual who attempts to

practice magic with little or no formal training.

The notion that Kate was a “witch” makes very

little sense, if any. One might argue that the “Bell

Witch” was the product of Black magic being

practiced by Kate Batts or others in the Red River

community; however, such an argument lacks

compelling evidence and credibility. The terms,
witch

and
Black magic
, have been associated with the

legend of the “Bell Witch” for many years. Another

term has been associated with the legend in more

recent years:
sorcery.

Sorcery

Sorcery
is the magical practice involving the

summoning, binding, and commanding of multiple

entities to impose altered perceptions of reality upon

others, a condition known as
ensorcellment
. Sorcery

does not identify with any specific color of magic, but

can instead encompass any type of magic – even that

which is unknown to all but a select few. The

sorcerer or sorceress uses a philosophical approach

to magic as opposed to a theosophical approach.

262 P A T

F I T Z H U G H

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

What Was “Kate?”

W E HAVE EXAMINED AND COMPARED the

characteristics of several supernatural

entities and learned that Kate, at one point

or another, possessed characteristics associated with

all of these entities. Who or
what
was Kate? What

intelligent being could have inflicted such torment on

an entire community and one of its most prominent

families, escaping detection and baffling researchers

for nearly two centuries?

For the purposes of the following discussion, the

author uses the term, “Kate” in reference to the

entity that disturbed the Bell family from 1817 to

1821, and again in 1828. We shall further assume

that “Kate” is not the cause of unexplainable

incidents on the old Bell farm today, for reasons that

we will address later. Where did Kate fit in the

plethora of supernatural entities and concepts we

discussed in the previous chapter?

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263

One Entity or Many?

Were John Bell’s family and the small pioneer

community along the Red River terrorized by just one

supernatural entity, or by multiple supernatural

entities acting in concert? To put pose this question

another way, was Kate a lone entity or an entire

conglomeration of entities?

While it would seem that Kate was composed of

multiple entities because of the different

characteristics she displayed, it is interesting to note

that those characteristics all fall within the orders of

Spiritual progression at some point or another. Let

us examine this more closely.

We saw where John and Elizabeth Bell bore the

brunt of the physical disturbances and how they

subsided so quickly after John Bell’s death. The

physical torture indicates a low level of Spiritual

purity, the Third Order, and “maps” to poltergeist

activity at the 5th, or “danger” stage.

Because the early stages of poltergeist activity are

consistent with the 6th Spiritual subclass (the

transitional subclass between the Third and Second

Orders), and the later stages of poltergeist activity

are consistent with the 10th Spiritual subclass, it can

be hypothesized that a poltergeist is a Spirit unable

to attain purity beyond the Third Order (beginning at

the 5th Spiritual subclass).

Not coincidentally, there are five stages of

poltergeist activity and five Spiritual subclasses

between the Third and Second Spiritual orders.

Was She Really a Poltergeist?

One could argue that if John and Elizabeth Bell’s

physical torture was indeed the work of a poltergeist,

it drew its “power” either directly from John and

Elizabeth’s pain, or indirectly from the fear and

264 P A T

F I T Z H U G H

emotions of those who witnessed these physical acts

– thereby fueling a vicious cycle of fear and physical

torture (characteristic of a low Spiritual order and

the highest level of poltergeist activity). In other

words, one (fear) fuels the other (torment), which

fuels the first again (fear) – keeping the poltergeist

active at this level until some stronger power forces it

back to the first level to start over again (remember

that poltergeists recycle at some point after reaching

the fifth stage).

In opposition to this theory, one might argue that

the acts of physical torment were not the doings of a

poltergeist at all, but those specifically associated

with a low-order Spirit attempting to effect a “rite of

passage” to a higher Spiritual order or subclass.

To affect a rite of passage to a higher Spiritual

order or subclass, the Spirit must remove all

obstacles along its path – even if it meant, in this

case, John Bell’s life. This is characteristic of the

10th Spiritual subclass, which is part of the third and

lowest spiritual order. The acts performed to achieve

this rite of passage to a higher order fall into the

category of self-serving benevolence – the promotion

of benevolence for the Spirit’s own sake, as opposed

to the sake of humankind.

How could the life of one man and the engagement

of his daughter to a boy she loved very much, have

impeded a Spirit’s progression to a higher order?

And, assuming that the “rite of passage” argument is

valid, was Kate’s intention to effect benevolence for

the goodness of humankind or to fulfill a self-serving

desire to advance to higher Spiritual orders?

There was more to Kate’s activities than just

physically torturing people; and as such, our

attention needs to be focused on areas beyond

poltergeist-like activity and Spiritual rites of passage.

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265

Spiritual Aspects

Many of Kate’s acts were completely spiritual in

nature, exhibiting characteristics that only a Spirit

can exhibit. Kate’s continued evasion of the

question, “Who are you and what do you want?” was

clearly Spiritual in nature, and characteristic of the

Third Order (lowest), and the 8th and 9th subclasses

in particular.

When she attempted to answer this question

during the early and middle parts of her visit, as was

the case when she persuaded three men to dig for

treasure by the Enchanted Spring, her contentions

fell within the 9th subclass – mystification, trickery,

and falsehood.

During the latter part of her visit, however, Kate

utilized both fact and fiction when declaring an

identity. This in effect “promoted” her from the 9th to

the 8th subclass. One such example of Kate’s mixing

fact and fiction was when she claimed to have been

the Spirit of someone buried in the woods nearby

and whose bones had been disturbed, and was

searching for a lost tooth.

While it was true that Drewry Bell and
Corban
Hall

had disinterred a Native American grave and

accidentally dropped a tooth under the Bells’ front

porch, Kate told everyone who had searched for the

tooth (at her insistence) that her claim of having been

that Spirit was nothing more than a joke for “Ol’ Jack

Bell.”

Another of Kate’s acts that was entirely spiritual in

nature was her singing hymns and bringing

hazelnuts and grapes to Lucy Bell during her illness.

These benevolent acts towards Mrs. Bell, along with

her bringing fruit to Elizabeth and her friends on

occasion, placed Kate in the 5th Spiritual subclass

during the 1819 period. gg

266 P A T

F I T Z H U G H

If Kate was a Spirit in the strictest sense of the

word, her activities outlined in the preceding

discussion suggest that she progressed five Spiritual

subclasses, spanning two Spiritual orders, over the

two-year period from 1817 to 1819. Her Spiritual

progression continued beyond this period, however.

It continued up until 1828, but at a much slower

rate than in earlier years.

The highest Spiritual subclass to which Kate

progressed was the 2nd subclass, one step below the

First Order — perfection. Kate’s most notable act

that was consistent with the 2nd subclass was her

relaying detailed information about the Spirit world

to John Bell, Jr. on her return-visit in 1828. He

asked many questions and gained a remarkable

knowledge of the Spirit world. She refused to answer

some questions, stating that she was “not permitted

to share” certain things, which is another

characteristic of the 2nd subclass. This suggests

Kate progressed three Spiritual subclasses, from the

5th to the 2nd, during the nine-year period between

1819 and 1828.

The correlation between Kate’s activities and the

different levels of Spiritual progression suggests to

some degree that Spiritual influence was present

whether she was a Spirit or merely the “product” of a

Spirit. Given our discussions about various

supernatural entities and how Kate personified each

of them on different occasions, it becomes obvious

that Kate was not a single entity at all, but many

different entities acting in concert.

An Answer

The author believes that Kate was the product of

sorcery
; that is, “the magical practice involving the

summoning, binding, and commanding of multiple,

THE BELL WITCH: THE FULL ACCOUNT

267

supernatural entities to impose altered perceptions

and/or interpretations of reality upon others.”

An Explanation

While Kate personified different supernatural

entities at different times, all of her demonstrations

shared a common thread in that her aversion to

Elizabeth’s engagement and insistence upon killing

John Bell remained constant throughout her visit.

Demonstrations and statements made by Kate

concerning Elizabeth’s engagement and the demise of

John Bell varied with the type of entity present at

any given time, but were constant nevertheless.

Taking all of this into consideration, we can easily

see where the entities who plagued the Bell family

were summoned, bound and commanded by some

“higher power” with an agenda all its own. Who, or

“what,” was the sorcerer or sorceress responsible for

these poltergeists, demons, and Spirits who

terrorized the family of John Bell and wreaked havoc

throughout the western end of Robertson County

during the early Nineteenth Century? The author

feels that the sorcerer or sorceress was itself a Spirit.