A
couple of years ago, I received a book from my good friend and paranormal
expert, Rosemary Ellen Guiley. The book in question is called Haunted by the things you love
(Visionary Living, Inc., 2014), and is written by demonologist John Zaffis and
Rosemary Guiley. This book is all about haunted objects, which is an endlessly fascinating subject. I myself have
encountered a haunted doll by the name of Robert, and it was truly a strange
experience. However, the objects described within this volume have much more
violent spirits and disturbing histories attached to them, as we shall soon
see.
In
this book, some of John’s most frightening and disturbing cases are recalled
and examined in great detail, sometimes to the point of morbidity (which just
makes it even more interesting). Some
of them are short, while the others are quite long. John and Rosemary’s
research and their attention to detail are painstakingly thorough, and are
based in the two’s decades of experiences with supernatural forces. It is
simply amazing that they have managed
to survive (mostly) unscathed! Prepare yourself, for within these pages is the
stuff of nightmares.
This
book is divided up into nineteen chapters, with sixteen of them dealing with
John’s investigations, and three of them are on understanding how and why
haunted objects come into existence, dealing with those objects, and on John’s
career and his paranormal museum. In this book, Rosemary and John make it very
clear that literally anything can be
haunted. The book’s chapters deal with nightmarish clown dolls (*shivers*), a very evil possessed idol, an African
deathbed, a mirror inhabited by evil spirits, a century-old magician’s robe, a
malevolent cherub statue, a wooden statue named Mr. Sinister (and rightly so),
a cursed jester doll (this chapter becomes emotional very quickly), an evil
haunted mask, a pair of hideous bookends imbued with a scorned lover’s curse,
an antique violin that plays its own
music, a clay oil lamp with a malicious Djinn attached to it (the Djinn are one
of Rosemary’s specialties), a possessed cadet’s dress jacket, a pig-faced statue
with a demon inside, a bone-inlaid wooden box full of jewelry cursed by a
witch, and a Chinese porcelain figurine with the power to literally shock you and give you a headache for
good measure afterwards. The other three chapters, to reiterate, deal
specifically with how and why these objects become haunted, how to deal with
haunted objects, and a brief chapter on John’s Museum of the Paranormal in New
England, with the former two chapters being my favorite parts of the book. If
you want to know more, pick up a copy of the book.
Overall,
John and Rosemary’s book is very
well-written, free of flaws, and incredibly thorough. Plus, these accounts are truly frightening! It has a very short
bibliography containing books by both authors for further reading and research,
and very brief biographical section about the authors. Personally, I love this book! It is both very
informative and highly entertaining. I owe my sincerest thanks to Rosemary, who
was not only kind enough to send me a copy of this book free of charge, but she
has waited patiently for over two
years for this review! Furthermore, Rosemary is a true friend who has always
been kind to me and has always been willing to answer my seemingly endless
questions to the best of her ability. I extend my sincerest apologies to
Rosemary for making her wait so long. I have been struggling with my life for
almost four years now, with one bad thing happening after another. Anyways,
this book is simply amazing, and
answers a lot of questions that I’d had about haunted objects. Honestly, I
cannot recommend this book more! But allow me to give you some final words of
advice: Do not read this book after
night has fallen. It will give you nightmares, and you will inevitably become
suspicious of everything that you own. You have been warned!
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