All language subtitles for The UnXplained Special Presentation s02e06 Primal Fears

Buried alive in total darkness with no
way to escape.

Invisible forces with demonic intent
that control your mind and body.

And ordinary objects with supernatural
powers that leave a trail of death

and destruction.

Fear to universal emotion, human
emotion.

It is often essential to our very
survival.

Our biological drive to stay safe is
designed to help protect us from danger,

both real and imagined.

We might be startled or even amused at
times by loud noises, dark places, or

confined spaces.

But what happens when the stuff of
nightmares is not a dream, but instead a

terrifying reality?

That is what we'll try and find out.

All over the world, various cultures
practice a period of mourning between

time of a person's death and when
they're finally laid to rest.

This is the time to pay respects, to
process one's loss.

And in some cases, to quell the fear
that the dearly departed might still be

alive and prematurely placed six feet
under.

The fear of being buried alive. It was a
fairly common fear up until 20th

century. Medical practices meant fewer
people were in fact buried alive.

It was most common in 18th and 19th
century Europe and America.

Mostly due to the medical practices and
the burial practices at the time. This

was when medical diagnoses could get
things wrong.

And people were, in fact, buried alive.
And stories of that became

sensationalized. And therefore the panic
would spread.

In the 19th century, the great fear of
being buried alive was partly because

this was the age of cholera.

Cholera causes severe diarrhea, which
can deplete all the electrolytes in your

body, and in extreme cases can induce a
coma.

So sometimes people appear dead, and
they're actually in this sort of

state, and they can come out of it. But
if you bury them, then you've buried

them alive, and that is a terrible
death.

Historically, the thought of being
trapped in a wooden box beneath

pounds of dirt with no possibility of
escape was so widespread that this fear

was actually given a name.

It's called taphophobia.

Taphophobia is the idea of simply just
the fear of being buried alive.

Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote about
premature burial, was...

terrified of being buried alive.

Frederick Chopin, the composer, wanted
to be stabbed in the heart and bled out

to make sure that he was dead when
doctors believed that he was.

And even George Washington was so afraid
of being buried alive that he had

written in his will that his body had to
remain in bed for three days after they

thought he was dead to make sure that he
didn't come back.

It was estimated by the 1890s that some
2 % of people being

buried were buried alive.

Now, this is a gross exaggeration, no
doubt, but it was believed at the time,

enough so that organizations like the
London Association for the Prevention of

Premature Burial was founded in 1896.

Then they lobbied Parliament for greater
diligence on the part of doctors to

make sure that doctors were verifying
death.

Despite doctors' best efforts, it was
simply difficult at the time to

whether a person was alive or dead.

And so in order to ease people's minds,
authorities in Europe were forced to

take drastic measures.

Vienna, Austria.

Within this storied city lies the Vienna
Central Cemetery, the second largest

cemetery in the entire world.

In the heart of the cemetery stands a
small building that today houses a

But in the 19th century, it was referred
to as a lichen house.

The lichen house was a kind of mortuary
where corpses were kept for a

period, typically about three days, and
watched over by attendants to make sure

that a person was truly dead and
wouldn't be buried alive in a state of

catalepsy.

Those who worked at the Leichenhaus, the
undertakers mainly, could ensure that

people are not being buried alive.

They had several measures. They could
use, for example, a heart -step knife.

And there was basically a treatment that
you could order by doctors. And then

one doctor had the possibility, the
option, and the privilege to step the

into your heart to make sure that you're
not going to be buried alive.

In modern times, it may sound a little
disturbing to hear that doctors once

stabbed their patients in order to
determine whether they were alive or

But the truth is, the hysteria about
being buried alive was so prevalent that

entire industry sprang up to help calm
such fears by producing bizarre

contraptions that were known as safety
coffins.

If you were afraid of being buried
alive, the solution was the safety

And this began very simply with a bell
tied to a string that went down under

earth into the coffin. And if you were
buried alive and you woke up in a

you could pull that string, the bell
would ring, and hopefully somebody would

hear it and come dig you out.

And this tradition is where we get the
expression, saved by the bell.

If you had more money, safety coffins
could get more elaborate. They could add

air tubes.

They could add windows so you would have
some lights inside the coffin.

And there were even cases of people
buried with a key in their pocket so

could unlock the casket from the inside
if this happened.

There were loads of patents taken out
for these safety coffins, and they would

include devices like little flags that
could be raised.

Sometimes safety coffins included food
or water. They would have breathing

tubes. They might even include
periscopes.

One of the best -known ones really
belonged to a doctor named Timothy Clark

Vermont. He came up with his own safety
coffin device.

He had a set of stone stairs installed
next to his grave that could be opened

by a concrete block that was sitting
beside it. That way, anyone could get

to rescue him if he needed to be
rescued.

But the real kicker to the whole thing
was that he had a glass window installed

directly over his face, set into the
stone.

However, he died in 1893, and the
doctors did not make a mistake. He

dead.

Safety coffins may seem like a quaint
fad from a bygone era that has no

relevance in our world today.

But believe it or not, there have been
some recent cases in which people appear

to have been mistakenly buried alive.

Being buried alive is very, very rare,
at least in our own time, but it does

still occasionally happen.

As recently as 2018, there was a case in
Brazil where a woman woke up in her

grave and is thought to have survived
for 11 days there.

Being buried alive doesn't happen nearly
as often as it used to, but if you

think about it, waking up in a coffin
would be probably one of the most

terrifying things that could ever happen
to you.

The very idea that a small mistake due
to negligence or misdiagnosis Could

one to be buried alive?

Is a terrifying thought.

But it's often what we can't see that
instills fear the most.

Like in the case of an ancient predator
who still lurks beneath the ocean's

surface with a frightening history of
hunting for human flesh.

Beach Haven, New Jersey, July 1st, 1960.

25 -year -old Charles Van Sant is
swimming in the brisk Atlantic waters

coast of this resort community when he's
suddenly attacked by a massive shark.

Lifeguards pull Van Sant from the water
and see that his left thigh has been

stripped of its flesh by a massive set
of razor -sharp jaws.

The story is that they had to almost
wrestle him away from the shark. They

pulled him ashore with the shark
following him still.

His father, who was a doctor, operated
on him or tried to save his life, but he

died of a flesh wound to a bite on his
thigh, actually, and lots of blood.

The gory death of Charles Van Zandt was
the first recorded fatal shark attack in

U .S. history.

And then, on July 6th, A mere five days
after Van Sant was killed,

there was another attack along the
Jersey Shore.

Charles Bruder, who's a 27 -year -old
Swiss native who was in the Army, went

a swim and 1 ,200 feet out in the middle
of the day was attacked and bitten by

what appeared to be about an eight or
nine foot great white shark.

It severed his legs and a part of his
torso.

By the time the lifeguards got out
there,

There was hardly anything to lift into
the boat.

This second deadly attack was widely
reported in newspapers across the

and set off a nationwide panic.

Many people believed it was no longer
safe to swim in the ocean off the coast

New Jersey.

And several beaches were closed by the
authorities.

The public reaction was hysterical.
There were calls all the way up to

Wilson.

Woodrow Wilson had a cabinet meeting and
talked to the early men who founded the

Coast Guard about eradicating all the
sharks on the East Coast.

Bounties were given by towns and cities,
and anybody that could kill any shark

could get $100.

You had fishermen going out catching and
killing sharks, and it wasn't just in

New Jersey. It was all up and down the
eastern seaboard.

and even infiltrated into the coastal
states, Texas, Louisiana, and

as far as the Pacific coast of North
America.

Less than one week after Charles Bruder
was killed, on July 12th, three more

people were attacked by what many
witnesses claimed was an eight - or nine

shark.

Curiously, all five of these incidents
took place along a 50 -mile stretch off

the coast of New Jersey.

Because of their proximity and the
similarities between eyewitness

many began to wonder whether the
horrific attacks could have been the

single killer shark.

The New Jersey attacks are so strange
because sharks don't kill people with

kind of regularity and nobody witnesses
it with any kind of regularity when it

happens. But the concept of a rogue
shark that kills or injures one person.

then that gets a taste for human flesh
and goes after another like a serial

killer. The Jersey Shore may be the best
evidence we have that that's ever

happened. On July 14, 1916, two weeks
after the first fatal attack, a

taxidermist named Michael Schlaeser
caught a 7 1⁄2 -foot, 325 -pound great

shark off the northern end of the Jersey
Shore.

After cutting open its stomach,
authorities found what appeared to be

digested human remains.

There are many who believe that this
great white shark was responsible for

five attacks that took place, four of
which were fatal.

Fatal shark attacks on humans are seldom
predatory for feeding.

So what was going on that would cause a
series of five attacks over a...

11 -day period, what was behind all of
this?

People panicked.

No one wanted to go in the ocean.

So its effect on individuals, citizens,
was enormous.

And it was something that, to this day,
still has an effect on us.

The 1916 Jersey Shore attacks helped to
popularize the notion of sharks as

deadly man -eaters.

More than 50 years later, the killings
inspired the 1974 novel Jaws by Peter

Benchley, which became the basis of the
blockbuster film made by Steven

Spielberg that terrorized generations of
beachgoers.

But despite their bad reputation, the
truth is that sharks rarely kill humans.

According to statistics gathered by the
International Shark Attack File, on

average,

There are only five fatal shark attacks
worldwide per year.

So why does the belief persist that some
sharks are a serious threat to humans?

Sharks, unsurprisingly, have terrified
people forever because sharks

live an enormous amount of their life
out of sight, unlike...

terrestrial species that we can see.

Sharks live underwater, and the only
time that we really interact with sharks

when they come to the surface, and that
tends to be in antagonistic

circumstances with people.

Traditional island cultures have had
multiple deities that have shark

appearance, and that comes from an
inherent fear that we are at risk of

They have this power of life or death
over us.

Sharks are apex predators.

The idea that sharks can be celebrated
in their culture might seem a bit odd.

After all, they do kill people.

But there's a couple things to consider.
One is that they are recognized as apex

predators, and this is something that
people often aspire to. Also, the idea

that these are apex predators, and you'd
better understand them.

Over the years, sharks, especially white
sharks, have been portrayed as killers.

Unfortunately, people are killed from
time to time.

It has been postulated that white sharks
hunting have similarities into the

tactics utilized by serial killers.

Serial killers use what is referred to
as an anchor point, which is where they

will sit and watch and pick their
victim.

White sharks do the same thing.

White sharks like to hunt stealth, where
the intended victim can't see them.

A lot of people often look at sharks and
think that there's nothing going on.

But great whites are intelligent
animals. We've watched great whites

fields. And you'll find the older great
whites will pick out specific

individuals, usually young ones.

It's very methodical. So it is 100 %
possible that some sharks

like the taste of people.

Are there certain sharks that
specifically and methodically hunt

Some marine biologists have suggested
it's possible.

But if this theory is true, then what's
even more disturbing is that a killer

shark may keep stalking people for a
very long, long time.

Great white can live to be 80 plus years
old. There's some accounts of specimens

being over 100.

They study their subject just like a
serial killer. They learn from their

mistakes just like a serial killer.

That's terrifying.

Coming face to face with a predator like
a great white shark would be terrifying

to say the least.

Just imagining an encounter with a
dangerous creature can trigger our

fear of being overtaken by something
much stronger than us.

Like in the case of a powerful presence.

They can possess the human soul.

Bavaria, West Germany, 1973.

Annalise Michel, a 20 -year -old student
at the University of Würzburg, claims

that she's hearing disembodied voices
and seeing visions of

the devil.

Before long, her family comes to believe
that Annalise suffers from a condition

that defies understanding.

Demonic possession.

Annalise Mikkel was indeed tormented by
a possessing something.

She spoke in a horrendously growly
voice.

Her eyes seemed to go black.

And she had a great aversion to holy
statues, which are a great many in the

house, because they were very high as
Catholics.

And she was taken to a doctor who said
she might be epileptic.

And she was taken to a psychiatrist.

Nothing changed in her life. In fact,
she was getting worse and worse.

Her family believed from the beginning
she was possessed.

The Catholic Church accepted that
framework and engaged in the exorcism.

Ultimately, Anneliese McKell died of
starvation and dehydration over the

of numerous exorcisms.

This was a case where that belief
directly led to her death.

What we cannot say for certain is what
was really...

going on. I can't say that she for sure
was not possessed or for sure was.

The story of Annalise Miquel is perhaps
the best known case of an alleged

demonic possession.

But what happened to her?

Was she actually possessed by demons?

And if so, how does one identify when a
person's mind and body have been taken

over by Satan?

During the course of my career, I've
witnessed a number of cases of

in my life, but I definitely started as
a skeptic. I certainly never thought I

would see anything sort of paranormal or
diabolic.

A priest, who I guess knew I was
Catholic, I don't exactly know how he

name, but he came to my office when I
was at Cornell Medical College.

And he said, Dr. Gallagher, I'd like you
to evaluate someone

for me who I think has a demonic attack.

And I said, well, with all due respect,
Father, you know, I'm an academic

psychiatrist and I'm pretty skeptical of
those sort of things. And I remember

what he said to me. He said, you're the
perfect man for the job because we want

somebody who's skeptical.

Of course, in the years since, you know,
25 plus years, I've seen so much that

I'm not a skeptic anymore.

There are very strict criteria which
clearly have to be present

to distinguish the case from a
psychiatric or a medical disorder.

You have to see something that is
inexplicable in terms of purely

science.

Things that could not possibly manifest
in somebody who doesn't have a diabolic

attack.

The first case sent to me was a woman
who claimed that she would be lying in

bed and she would be pummeled by
invisible forces.

She and her husband were convinced.

that she was attacked by demons.

So we did a number of medical tests on
her because she had bruises all over her

body.

And at the end of my evaluation, since
she was a very sane, lovely woman,

I said to the priest, look, this doesn't
seem like a medical or psychiatric

case. It doesn't seem possible.

Mysterious bruises.

inflicted by invisible forces.

While that may sound like something out
of a Hollywood horror movie, the truth

is that the counts of possession have
been recorded for thousands of years.

Any scholar can tell you cases of
demonic possession go all the way back

Bible, when Jesus had to cast the demon
out of a man into a herd of swine, who

then ran off of a cliff and into the
water. Very famous story in the Bible.

And stories of demonic possession,
they're not confined to Christianity.

The idea of possession is inherently
tied to the idea of Satan and demons,

it's an attempt by Satan to take over
your personality, to ultimately control

you.

Satan's end game, according to the
Bible, is to draw as many people away

Christ as possible. So his end game is
to get as many people to move from God

him. So his ultimate role is as a
tempter.

The film The Exorcist is believed to
have really brought attention to the

of possession, but it's not that those
ideas started with The Exorcist. Those

ideas spread with The Exorcist.

The Exorcist was actually based on a
real case.

It was a 12 -year -old boy who was
possessed, not a girl.

How did he get possessed?

Using a Ouija board for months.

Start doing something occult. That
creates an inner vulnerability to evil.

You're using magic that does not come
from the Lord. You might not know this,

but you're actually invoking the powers
of Satan, whether you believe it or not.

Most people who are possessed, in a
sense, they've invited it in, wittingly

unwittingly.

Possession is the most dramatic attack
of a demon upon a human being.

And in a way, spiritual warfare should
be a concern of everybody.

that we're all sort of in a battle in
our own souls between goodness and evil.

It's frightening to think that a person
can be controlled by an evil entity.

And while it's difficult to determine if
possession is a spiritual or a

psychological phenomenon, and perhaps
even more terrifying,

It's the biological aberration that can
turn the deceased into the walking dead.

Lestera, Haiti, 1980.

In this small village, Angelina Narcisse
was going about her day when she was

approached by a man claiming to be her
brother,

Clairvius. It may sound like a
heartwarming tale of reunion, but there

one problem.

Clairvius Narcisse had been dead and
buried for nearly 20 years.

Clairvius was a Haitian man born in
1922.

In the year 1962, he went to a hospital.

His symptoms had been a severe fever,
fatigue, and he'd been coughing up

His heart stopped, and he stopped
breathing, and was declared dead and

Twenty years later, a man claiming to be
Clairvius showed up at his village and

approached his family.

In many respects, his story did check
out. He bared a physical

resemblance to the deceased. He went by
a nickname that was only known to him

and his sister when they were very
little kids.

And so he was able to relate certain
details of...

his former life that seemed to add up.

But if Clairvius Narcisse died and was
buried, then how on earth was he alive

and able to track down his sister almost
20 years later?

Well, according to Clairvius, the reason
he was not lying dead in his grave was

that a voodoo priest had transformed him
into a zombie.

In Haiti, a zombie is an individual
who's had their soul stolen by sorcery,

causing them to be sort of flung into a
perpetual place of purgatory through

this incredible transition of death,
rebirth, and return to the living,

induced by the folk poison known as a
poud zombie.

It was a plethora of ingredients,
including various plants and the toxin

fish. It selectively blocks sodium
channels and nerves, bringing on

until the moment of death.

And yet critically, if you get through
that, you have nothing to worry about.

This fascinating poison had made people
appear to be dead.

In Haitian folklore specifically, the
zombie is not a villain but a victim.

In these cases...

people are turned into zombies and
forced to work on sugar cane plantations

Haiti, and also in the Caribbean, but
primarily Haiti.

And this has been a legend going back
many, many years, centuries, in some

cases, certainly since the slave trade.

And it was all considered to be just
sort of a legend until 1980, when

Narcisse emerged.

He told the story, it made huge news, as
you can imagine, because this was a

first. personal account of somebody who
was a former zombie, right? So this is

wild. This is crazy.

According to Clairvius, he had been
paralyzed by a voodoo priest.

This was a result of being drugged, and
this paste mixture that he

was forced to consume kept him in this
death -like toper.

Narcisse is buried, and...

The priest then dug him up from his
grave and enslaved him on a sugar cane

plantation for 20 years.

From the Haitian point of view, the fate
of a zombie is said to become an

indentured servant.

And losing your soul, losing your
identity, your personal autonomy,

make this a fate worse than death.

The story of Clairvius Narcissus being
buried and then revived as an undead

zombie made headlines around the world.

Numerous experts investigated the case
in hopes of shedding light on what

exactly took place.

The first question on everyone's mind
was whether Clairvius had only appeared

be dead because he was drugged, or if
there was some truth to the idea that he

actually died.

and then was revived by the power of
voodoo.

What made the case of Narcisse unique
was one single thing. He had been

pronounced dead in an American -directed
philanthropic institution, the

Schweitzer Hospital.

And his family members had witnessed the
death and authenticated it at the time.

So all these lines of evidence led
scientists to go public in the 1980s,

saying they felt they had found the
first medically verifiable instance of

zombification.

The doctors who had initially declared
Narcisse dead were no longer at the

hospital 20 years later when he
returned.

However, many doctors looked into his
case and did tests and proved that it

in fact him.

why the premature diagnosis and why he
was buried prematurely is unknown.

And where he was for 20 years is
unknown.

But there are photos of him sitting on
his own gravestone.

There are many theories as to what
caused Clairvius Narcisse to be declared

and then seemingly brought back to life.

Ultimately, what happened to him remains
a mystery.

But many Haitians are convinced.

the Clavius did, in fact, rise from the
grave.

And for some, his story is a reminder
that the distinction between the living

and the dead may not be as clear -cut as
we commonly think.

When we imagine zombies in the 21st
century, we tend to imagine the dead

from the grave to prey upon the living.
That is not the case in Haitian voodoo

practices.

Zombification in voodoo was not
something that was done to the dead. It

something that was done to the living.

It was turning the living into a fugue
-like state, a death -like state.

But they were not reanimated corpses.

Narcisse never doubted that he'd become
a zombie.

In Haiti, a zombie is a complete pariah
who walks the edge between life and

death and will do so for the rest of
their existence.

And so this idea that a person could be
brought back to life

fills all of us with mystery and
trepidation and dread.

The prospect that any of us could become
a reanimated husk of our former selves

is a haunting image.

But just how one joins the ranks of the
walking dead is debatable.

Is it a biological response?

A psychological phenomenon?

Or could there really be something to
the power of a deadly curse?

Cincinnati, Ohio.

Just outside the city, on a normal
suburban street, in an ordinary

is the home of Greg and Dana Newkirk.

From the outside, their home is not much
different from any other house on the

block. Get some fork action going on.
But inside, it contains something

quite extraordinary.

Because there is a room in the basement
that is filled with a collection of

strange objects sent by people from all
over the world that are believed to be

cursed.

Greg and I lead normal lives, and we go
about our life the same way that

everyone else does.

We just happened to be caretakers for
very strange objects.

The way that we got started collecting
cursed objects was complete accident.

It wasn't something that we had set out
to do.

Never would have imagined myself doing
this.

We were just interested in general
weirdness.

My wife and I investigate all manner of
high strangeness, and we were both very

interested in the idea of cursed
objects.

We slowly gained a reputation as being
particularly good people for this.

And so anytime anyone had a problem with
an artifact, they would come to us and

say, I don't know what to do with this.
This thing is affecting my life.

Will you just take it off my hands? It'd
be easier to just give it to you and

let you deal with it.

So we built up this collection of very
bizarre things.

Visitors to the Newkirk's home are given
ample warning.

that the basement is filled with objects
that are cursed.

We have a lot of haunted robes. But
curiously, every day, the new curts

requests from people who are eager to
view their cursed collection.

You'd think with cursed objects you'd
want to avoid them, but there is a draw

them.

When an object is said to be cursed,
another word you could use is special.

It's special. If this chair is cursed,
it's different from every other chair in

the world.

And that makes it unique, that makes it
interesting, and that draws our

attention every single time. And the
fact that that specialness is that it

people, that appeals to a certain
macabre streak that we all have as human

beings.

People think of cursed objects as being
kind of fun and spooky.

But working with them, it feels a lot
less about that and a lot more about

kind of heavy responsibility to keep
some of these objects with us under lock

and key and maybe out of the wrong hand
and maybe in a place that's safer not

only for everyone else but for them.

The Newkirk's collection includes
several objects that are considered to

the power to inflict harm on anyone who
comes near them.

This is the cursed deer skull.

We drove down to Nashville to pick up
from a woman who saw this in an antique

store and took it back to her office,
and almost immediately her employees

started getting sick. One of her
employees was hit by a car, and then the

that this was hanging on actually fell
down and took half of the building with

it.

There are certain objects specifically
in our museum that... Without people

knowing why they feel the way that they
feel, they will definitely have heart

palpitations, anxiety.

We've had people almost faint. We've had
people throw up. We've had people dry

heave.

People have very visceral physical
reactions to being around some of the

objects.

Among the accursed objects in the new
Kirk's collection is a deadly ring that

claimed to kill anyone who wears it.

A Bible used during a failed exorcism.

And a doll that is believed to spread
illness wherever it goes.

But of all the cursed objects the
Newkirks have come across, there is one

is so harrowing, they refuse to keep it
in their collection.

It is an unsettling wooden effigy known
as the Chrome.

The Chrome really is the definition of
kind of a cursed object.

It is a carved statue of a woman.

Someone at some point in time took this
object and attached the noose and the

nails.

It was given to us by some hikers who
found it in the Catskills off the beaten

path in a cave.

They took it home and initially started
to experience really frightening things.

Their animals were behaving strangely.
They were finding wet footprints on the

ground, and they didn't know what to do.

Someone who we had worked with
previously put them in contact with us,

having some communication with them,
they sent the crone to us.

People who would get near the crone,
they would be just overwhelmed with

anxiety.

This guy came all the way from Canada to
come and see the crone.

He begged us to take it out of the box,
almost immediately.

His eyes roll up in the back of his
head, and he starts to bleed from his

And he has a violent seizure, and he has
to be taken out by the paramedics.

And that's when Dana and I looked at
each other, and we said, we have to do

something about this.

The Catskill Mountains, October 2018.

After a string of frightening incidents,
Greg and Dana Newkirk are convinced

that a strange object in their
possession known as the crone is cursed.

So they've traveled to this remote
region of upstate New York to free

of the evil object.

The crone is one of the objects that
does fall into that very small category

objects that we didn't feel like we
could handle.

It got to a point where the crone was
just too dangerous for even us to take

care of.

And what we wanted to do was bring her
back to the Catskills, which is where

she's from.

To remove the crone's curse, the
Newkirch plan was to return to the area

it was originally found by two hikers
many years before, at which point they

would remove the nails embedded in the
crone.

in a cleansing ritual.

We wanted to bring her back, and every
time a nail was pulled out, the

was that we were pulling that curse out
of the object.

We hiked into the woods for miles, and I
set up a circle.

The idea of setting up a circle was
basically just to create an energetic

for containing this ritual.

The whole time we were doing this, we
were hearing footsteps and strange

that weren't animals around our circle.

But we couldn't see anything.

We were absolutely terrified. But we
start performing the ritual. I pull the

nails out.

Soon as that happens, we feel this
almost electric pop in the air.

When we were done, every coyote on the
mountain just started howling.

And the ritual was finished, and what we
were looking at was just a block of

wood. And we just kind of knew that we
had done what we went there to do.

Scholars of religion have long known the
power of ritual, that when a group of

people get together and engage in the
same set of actions, believing that

there's a supernatural origin behind
them, that brings people together.

And so special movements that you need
to go through, special sayings or songs

that you need to do.

It's incredibly powerful phenomena that
can help rid of the devil or whatever

other force has cursed us.

Is it possible that ritually cleansing
the crown removed its curse?

Perhaps.

But of course, it all depends on.

Whether you believe curses are real in
the first place.

Whether you believe in cursed objects or
don't believe in cursed objects, they

can still have a power over you.

What that power is, to what extent that
is, how it kind of comes out,

who knows?

But they're still powerful objects, no
matter how you look at it.

For people who don't believe in curses,
what I would say is, Keep believing

they're not real.

That's the best defense you have against
a curse.

To not feed it.

So, what do you think?

Is there good reason we should take heed
of our primal fears?

And follow intuition when our heart
starts to race and we tremble and

turn to dread and impending danger?

There are good reasons for our body and
mind to protect us from obvious risks.

But exactly why we've become frightened
of dark entities, unseen evil and unholy

objects, may be better left unexplained.