Our Family Trouble

Our Family Trouble

A Discussion of "Our Family Trouble", the Bell Witch Also Known as Kate

The story of the Bell Witch known to the people of Robertson County, Tennessee as Kate was not a witch. She gave testimony of herself as being a spirit. She claimed the ability to be able to be anywhere on earth, in Heaven, or in Hell as she chose. The testimony of Richard Williams Bell makes certain that she at least was able to go anywhere on earth that she chose. The appearance of the Bell Witch and her entrance into the lives of the people in Robertson County, Tennessee should not have been allowed in the first place. The message taken from the story is not to have anything at all to do with spirits. The title of the story is "Our Family Trouble" and judging by the events recorded, that is an understatement. The family unwittingly gave her the right to pierce the veil and gain entrance into their lives and then increase her influence in their lives by their cooperation. The process was gradual, having taken several years to take place to which she was able to fully manifest. It became obvious that the Bell Witch was there for a specific reason. The head of the house was the father who ended up being murdered at her hand according to the account of his son. Almost anything at all out of the ordinary was attributed to the Bell Witch and if someone had poisoned John Bell it did not occur to them that anyone besides the Bell Witch had done it. Before this, the witch had harassed him unmercifully. According to the son he did not have a blemish or moral stain upon his conduct as far as the family or the community was concerned. That may have been true in large measure but we all know that none of us are perfect. There is no concrete proof that he sinned in the least as far as we know, yet we do know that no spirit or demon of any kind has a right to behave as the Bell Witch did without the cooperation of people. If God had given the right to it in the case of a seemingly blameless man or woman as in the case of Job, then that would be explanation enough. One of the reasons that Jesus came was to put an end to that sort of thing. Jesus gained the victory over Satan and the powers, principalities, dominions, rulers of this dark world system and spiritual wickedness in high places. It appears that it is unlikely that entrance into the lives of the Bell family would have occurred as a grant by God unless there was a legal right to do so on the part of the Bell Witch.

If there was some unconfessed sin on the part of John Bell, it is not part of this record. The overwhelming conclusion is that someone must have done something. There were things that happened that could have a psychiatric explanation. Betsy Bell apparently had panic attacks and anxiety disorder. Although they had a great effect upon her their cause could have been from stress due to things going on within the family or due to harassment by the Bell Witch, having nothing to do with anything supernatural other than the presence of the witch. Here is the author's description:

Sister was now subjected to fainting spells, followed by prostration, characterized by shortness of breath and smothering sensations, panting as it were for life, and becoming entirely exhausted and lifeless, losing her breath for nearly a minute between gasps, and was rendered unconscious. She would revive and then relapse, and it appeared that her suffering was prolonged by the greater exertions used for her restoration. These spells lasted from thirty to forty minutes, and passed off suddenly, leaving her perfectly restored after a few minutes in which she recovered from the exhaustion. There is no positive evidence that these spells were produced by the witch.¹

The Bell Witch displayed a thorough knowledge of the Bible and was obviously the best theologian the town will ever see until the return of Jesus. She took on the role of a minister, preaching sermons, singing, and leading services in the Bell Family household. To say that the Bell Witch saw the big picture would be an understatement. She knew the Bible as well as anyone there and seemed to know it by heart, displaying total recall. Her solicitude and gentleness was part of the interaction among those that she came in contact with. She openly and purposely let everyone know that she had knowledge of anything that anyone did. She would go to the place the family migrated from and report the news there. She exposed every foible and sin of anyone whom she chose. The response was that people reformed themselves and were careful in the smallest and greatest matters, not to transgress any law, spiritual or otherwise. However it is striking that she did not find any fault to report about John Bell that was memorable. That could be one indication that he was given a chance to confess whatever he may have done that gained her dislike. The only person that the Bell Witch was consistently good to and that did not receive any trouble at all was his wife, Lucy Bell. In fact, the Bell Witch was genuinely interested in her welfare and doted on her. Even when Lucy tried to trick her, the Bell Witch not only did not retaliate as would be expected, the Bell Witch let her know that for the sake of Lucy she withheld her wrath and did not kill Anzy. We know that the Bell Witch was superior in intelligence and was purposeful in everything that she did. I do not think that her purposeful behavior over the span of many years was capricious or betrayed any lapse of attention on her part.

The Bell Witch "suddenly" changed her attitude and behaviors. At a certain point she stopped any kind of solicitous behavior toward people in reference to religion. It appears that Plan A having produced no results, Plan B was put into effect. Throughout the time that she was with the people of the community, revival and other religious activities did not seem to deviate markedly from the previous norm although a great deal of personal reformation was observed. This lends weight to the idea that John Bell may have been the object of her efforts to elicit some change of mind on his part.

The conceptual model that allows intercourse of any kind between people and spirits is based on a matter of legal right gained to do so. The basis by which a spirit or demon may have influence is that found in the Law of Moses and then the revelation of Jesus to us during the First Advent. The Law makes it clear that the Children of Israel were not to have anything to do with spirits or practice things such as necromancy or witchcraft. That was in recognition of the fact that people in fact did do these things on a regular basis. Were it not possible and were it not a practice, there would not have been need of the admonition in the first place. If having contact with spirits of any kind were healthful and beneficial to people it is easily assumed that there would have been no need to make it part of the Law to avoid such contact. The Bible records the revelation of God to us and those things which lead to eternal life with Him. Conversely the Bible also records the things which will keep us from being with Him for eternity. We think in terms of the place in Creation that we find ourselves and it is one in which the basic elements are time, space, and matter. Put another way there are three-dimensions plus time that comprise all that we observe. The experts tell us that time itself is a physical attribute and claim it is a fourth dimension. The Bell Witch was able to transcend the dimensions of this part of Creation and travel between the physical universe and the place called the invisible or spirit realm. Science has been able to attract adherents to it as if it were a religion and for over a century attracted enough attention to imply that everything can be explained within the bounds of measurable phenomenon. If it cannot be measured, then it does not exist is the conclusion. When scientists first approached the question of the beginnings of the universe while discounting God they concluded that there was nothing before the universe came into existence. Matter of some kind suddenly appeared and everything physical came into being at once. This proved philosophically untenable so they decided that a piece of energy exploded and everything came from that traveling outward creating the universe as it expanded. There were three dimensions and time was a function of measuring some aspect of the universe. In the case of people on earth, time is measured based on the travel of the earth around the sun. Science disallowed any God.

In the early 1800's the people on the Bell farm lived in an age where the scientists and clergy of their day had discounted God and any phenomenon such as the Bell Witch being possible. The Age of Reason, the Enlightenment, and modern thought at that time was pretty much not different than the common understanding of today as regards spirits. The people who ventured to find out the nature of the Bell Witch and explain her resorted to accusing the family of some sort of trick for monetary gain. The author records the fact that none was sought by the family and people that came to the farm were not asked for money and those who offered money were refused. Strikingly a rational reason based in an unknown and undiscovered scientific reason was sought for the most part. None was discovered based on rational scientific reasons. There were those who came to the farm expecting to use some sort of witchcraft or sorcery to flush out the reason for the presence of the Bell Witch. The Bell Witch exposed them as inept and foolish. Over time the Bell Witch was identified as a being with intelligence and abilities that no one was able to match. Stories and a kind of folklore sprang up with the telling of the encounters at the farm or in the surrounding community that as can be expected were exaggerated to some extent. Opinion was colored by what everyone experienced. The moral agency by which the Bell Witch gained admittance to the common affairs of everyday life of these people was not explained by witchcraft, sorcery, philosophy, or science.

If the answer lies in the province of moral agency, then the Bible would provide the answer. The Bible does not detail how people can allow the entrance of spirits to the everyday life of an individual or community of people so that a clear example of such and such kind of phenomenon can be looked up that would easily describe the situation with the Bell Witch. There is enough information that does tell us though. The Bell Witch proved more intelligent than any of the people that have ever inhabited the earth that we know of. Strange appearances and sounds had been seen and heard for a year or two by family members before the author knew anything about it. The unexplained phenomenon were noted and then ignored to the extent that no one was put on guard enough to make an issue of it and look for some solution. That is not unusual and most people would do the same. After a year or two the amount of attention gained by the Bell Witch escalated. Noises were made for a time that sounded like rats gnawing on the bedpost and everyone in the house looked for rats to explain the scratching sounds. The Bell Witch got their attention and aroused the curiosity of everyone as to the cause for the sound. With no discernable explanation based on everyday reality the family did not give any hint as to it being from natural or supernatural causes as far as the author could tell. After sufficient time, physical contact was made by the Bell Witch. Then the Bell Witch revealed herself to them by at first acting as though she could barely communicate generating the interest sufficient to have them readily eager to talk to her and find an answer to relieve the stress of not knowing what was causing such trouble. The author says the father of the family had everyone in the family remain quiet and let no one in the community know of what was going on in hopes that the Bell Witch would simply go away. For two to three years then the Bell Witch gradually made herself known while church attendance and family religious services were performed on a regular basis. The thrust of the services were apparently centered about morality and conduct between people according to the Bible. It appears that nothing in the study of the Bible, the preaching, revivals, or talk of the Bible revealed any hint of an explanation as to the phenomenon at the Bell farm to the family. It was apprehended easily enough that the Bell Witch was not from this realm and the appellation of "Witch" is an interesting one, usually reserved for a person. For whatever reason the appellation of spirit or demon was not what she was known as and she was treated as a member of the community.

People have noted that Satan relies on people denying that he exists and others paying too much attention to him to be able to get away with gaining undue influence in the lives of people. Misapprehending who he is also provides entrance into the lives of people that is not appropriate. The Bell Witch appears to have been a demon and is recognized as such by some. Whether the being is a spirit, demon, or Satan they are not allowed entrance and influence into our lives except by God's permissive will and at that legal entrance and influence with God being the One who sets the standards. Again, the Bible must provide the answer as to why the Bell Witch was able to gain entrance and influence into and over the lives of the Bell family and then the community. The answer lies within the following verse from Deuteronomy.

¹⁰There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, ¹¹Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. ¹²For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee.

Deuteronomy 18:10-12

Taking the appropriate phrases from verse 10 and verse 11 the answer in part is:

There shall not be found among you a consulter with familiar spirits.

Instead of observing the value of this admonition a wizard was consulted at one point in the attempt to get rid of the Bell Witch. He was sent packing along with others who came along. This does not seem to be a case of demon possession, although the case can be made that the parties involved were oppressed based on the evidence . The New Testament provides the answer of how to get rid of a demon. If the Bell Witch was a spirit of a human who had died, the same model would be likely effective.

The Bell Witch gained enough attention that she became a familiar spirit to the members of the family. Instead of objecting in a way that asserted the authority Jesus to reject her presence, just about everything else was tried . The author goes to great lengths to explain that no sin was present among anyone in the family. The verses that reveal we all have some sin in our lives was lost on the author and apparently everyone else. The father and the mother of a family have spiritual authority, responsibility, and accountability as regards the children. It appears that the father endured harassment from the Bell Witch and for whatever reasons did not take steps to banish her from the presence of the family. The question has been raised as to whether the father did something so great in violating God's law as to give legal right to the Bell Witch to gain entrance and influence over the family and then the community. The idea of witches and the supernatural were understood by many in those days as in ours to be outmoded superstitions and old wives tales and something that could not happen to have any reality in their advanced age of reason. The contemporaries of John Wesley thought he was cracked because he admitted that the Bible teaches about spirits and demons and acknowledged their continued existence to his day and that they could be a problem. The Church of England was pretty glad to be rid of him and he evangelized a great deal of the United States. He was to be called a Methodist after leaving the Church of England behind him. Even the reputation of the Methodists to deliver fiery sermons and call people to repent did not reveal a universal understanding of the unseen world or at least not too many took it seriously enough that the sermons in the community where the Bells lived had sufficient understanding to do anything at all about the Bell Witch. The neighbors that were intimidated or feared contact with the Bell Witch moved away without any hint that they could do anything about her.

Jonathan Edwards delivered a sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, at Enfield, Connecticut July 8, 1741 which in turn began a great spiritual revival. Although the United States was pioneered by Christians and the founding of the country was on the heels of the great revival known as the Great Awakening, progress and exploration consumed much of the life of the country soon after. In fact, the American Transcendentalists gained the attention of the religious and not so religious. Immanuel Kant was very influential and indirectly may be credited with transforming the Christianity of the 19th century to a nebulous and idealistic philosophy based on observation and nature in an idealistic context. The people of the early 19th century began to reject orthodoxy and the need for an orthodox creed or doctrine. The Enlightenment maintained that Christianity was accidental and the result of historical events independent of God and divorced from God. The transcendentalism of Kant found willing devotees to his ideas and he was not alone in redefining Christianity on something other than it being the result of the direct revelation of God to man. Brown notes that orthodox Christianity flourished in the United States due to sweeping revivals rather than the neologians who replaced many of the theologians in seminaries. The romantic idealism of Schleiermacher was so influential that Protestants no longer were to use the word "heresy".² It is interesting that the idealism, transcendentalism, and romantic idealism from religious thinkers not only gave legitimacy to heresy, but had an impact on politics and the 20th century. Schleiermacher and others from the romantic "school" of idealistic rationalism had more to do with Nazis gaining power over the German people than Hitler in some sense. Hitler would not have been possible without their influence on religion. In short, the assumption that the Bells were orthodox Christians may have been true insofar as orthodoxy was taught. The fact that the Bell Witch did not seem a spiritual problem that could be dealt with and was more of a nuisance or curiosity than anything is some barometer of the amount taught of the whole counsel of God according to the Bible. However, the Bell Witch soon proved to be more than a nuisance to the John Bell.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a younger contemporary of the Bells, having been born in 1803. He decided that he could not serve the Communion at the church he was pastoring and resigned. He went to England and met Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Carlyle, and William Wordsworth in a quest for something different than Christianity. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Margaret Fuller were influential in establishing the idea that there is an ideal spiritual reality that is knowable through intuition. It likely stemmed from a reaction to the sanitized empiricism and rational influence of science that rendered much of Christianity void of any connection to the spiritual side of life. The rugged individualism, libertarianism, and ideas of civil disobedience written about by Henry David Thoreau as well as the utopianism of George Ripley entered the American scene precisely due to the fact that much of Christianity among the thinkers of the day was seen as second rate to reason, of which science supplies the same place in the minds of many today. No doubt the general position of the preachers was that the Bible is the revelation of God and much time was properly spent on how people should live in accordance with the teachings of the Bible. Much of the message of the whole counsel of God was given away to the people who looked to reason rather than God and to other philosophies to explain "spirituality". Some looked to eastern religions and mysticism to replace the void caused by the absence of teaching the whole counsel of God in the Bible.

Although we may tend to look at the days of the time when the Bells lived on their farm in Tennessee as ones in which there was only the pure Gospel was taught and taught more strictly than now, the truth is that ideas, concepts, philosophies, and religions had as much influence on gaining attention there as might be found anywhere today. The romanticized version of settlers as only knowing what someone told them from the Bible and not influence from anything other than the Bible having an effect is erroneous. Today the caricature of those in the early 1800s is about all that comes to mind if that. A New Yorker gave a series of lectures from 1837 to 1838 that put the sense of the transformation of all acceptable thought into a secular, transcendental, or humanistic tradition with parts of the Bible still having some merit. The author notes that by 1828 the influence of the Bell Witch was soon passing into history and the little family was nearly broken up. The need of Biblical counsel must have been absent as the author and others did not seem to think that the Bible held the answer to anything of substance that might have gotten rid of the spirit.

Although there were many others who noticed the reliance on man and his doctrines instead of God, Charles Finney is a good example of someone who promoted orthodoxy. In his XXII lecture, The Necessity of Divine Influence, the reader sees that the world the Bells lived in was a bit more complex as well as Christianity having been watered down to more of an extent than we might guess. He said:

"The doctrine of the necessity of Divine Influence, to enlighten and sanctify the minds of men, is very abundantly taught in the Bible, and is generally maintained, as a matter of opinion at least, in all orthodox churches. But, as a matter of fact, there seems to be very little available knowledge of the gospel among mankind; so little that it exerts comparatively little influence."

From the main points of his lecture the subject matter reveals the fact that the preachers and people in the community where the Bell farm was likely did not think to consult the Bible expecting to come up with an answer to the somewhat unwelcome Bell Witch. The main points he covered were:

Inquire how far the reason of man, unaided by Divine illumination, is capable of understanding the things of religion.

Show wherein the reason of man is defective, in regard to the capacity of gaining any available knowledge of the gospel.

That the spirit of God alone can supply the illumination that is needed.

That every one may have the influence of the Spirit, according to his necessities.

The reasons why any individual fails to receive this divine aid to the extent of his necessities.

That men are responsible for the light which they might have, as well as for that which they actually enjoy.³

The text cited for his lecture was:

Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment; of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself, but whatever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come.

— John 16:7-13.

That the lecture and the messages that Finney spread as far west as Ohio was news is a testament to how little attention was paid to the Bible. The fact that God rejected Israel and had her carried away into captivity because they rejected full knowledge of Him is telling. It seems unlikely that any of us would be visited by a spirit, or if so it seems ridiculous that we might even be aware of it, but it did happen in the lives of the Bell family. It is singular that ignoring the parts of the Bible that we find offensive, or remaining unaware of the whole counsel of God might actually be serious is lost on many of us. In this age of specialization it seems that some of us think we might pick out "love" and major on that as sufficient to lead lives of obedience. Taking the time to treat the Bible as a serious part of family life with the children being taught at home and learning the whole counsel of God seems an unattainable or an unnecessary pursuit, although the Bible clearly teaches otherwise. The Bell family participated in church and there were family functions specifically designed to keep the Lord Jesus uppermost in their minds. It hardly seems possible that any evil might have gained entrance into their lives based on observable behavior. A definitive and absolute answer escaped the author and it is not necessary to moralize and second guess, especially in light of the fact that the family was devoted to the Lord to an extent modern Christians might admire. Was a genuine personal relationship with Jesus lacking in their lives? Was it that they had a form of religion and they denied or were ignorant of the substance of Christianity? I do not think it is possible to settle on an answer for them. Hopefully you and I can arrive at a reassessment of how we stand with the Lord on a continuing basis and seek Him first and be continually reconciled to Him. The Bell Witch gained entrance into the lives of those in Robertson County by their permission. They eagerly sought to find the reason for the mysterious noises and other poltergeist activity. They saw no particular danger in consulting the spirit and freely gave the spirit status as a familiar spirit.

By the time had come that the record was set straight as much as possible concerning the events written down by Richard Williams Bell, the United States was caught up in spiritualism as the latter half of the 19th century came to a close. The denial of the efficacy of the Bible to explain that which has to do with spiritual matters left explanations to whoever was brave enough to endure ridicule. As noted above even the contemporaries of the Bells looked upon past times as the "age of witchcraft". Anyone thought to be a little strange had trouble in store for them as they were easy marks of the accusation of being a witch. No doubt some practiced witchcraft as has been the case in all ages. However, superstition and folkways blended in with daily life of those who were professing Christians and there were standing death penalties for someone convicted of the charge of being a witch. Joan of Arc was accused of being a witch and was burned at the stake by her enemies who stood against a fleet of lawyers to judge her in light of Biblical passages and the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. It has been estimated that as many as 60,000 people were executed as witches in the past 2,000 years with the height of zeal for doing this having been attained and then a past practice before the Bell family came to Robertson County, Tennessee. Christian missionaries confronting this practice have sought to convert practicing shamans and "witches" in cultures as diverse as mankind is upon the earth. The Salem Witch Trials resulted in about 20 deaths by execution in Salem, Massachusetts well before the time of the Bell family residing on their farm in Tennessee. Ironically, it is thought that the "witches" executed in Salem may have been innocent victims who were in fact, not witches. In any case it appears that witches or strange people who may be different for reasons of mental health were left alone by the law by the time the Bell family experienced their encounter with a spirit. The denial of any ability to contact the dead or have commerce with the dark side helped to legitimize spiritualism in the United States. Today, any belief in the Bible seems a threat to Neo-pagans on the lookout for persecution and a return to the "burning times." Christians see the admonition of Paul as definitive in how to deal with any spiritual darkness as recorded in his letter to the Ephesians.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Ephesians 6:12

¹Richard Williams Bell, Our Family Trouble, The Story of the Bell Witch as Detailed by Richard Williams Bell

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