Interestingly it is usually kids (teenagers) who are behind ghost prankings, like the boy who inspired the movie "The Exorcist". It was non other than two teenage girls, Fox sisters, who launched modern Spiritualism back in the 19th century and they did it by doing trickery of poltergeist-like disturbances. They began their shenanigans to their mother, who was very easily frightened and who did not suspect her daughters of being capable of a trick. The schoolgirls threw slippers at a disliked brother-in-law, shook the dinner table, and produced noises by bumping the floor with an apple on a string and by knocking on the bedstead. They later admitted it were all just their tricks, but they nevertheless became very popular mediums.
The Fox sisters were followed in 1854 by the Davenport brothers who started with tricks around family's kitchen table which launched and maintained their careers as two of the world's best-known Spiritualistic mediums. One of the brothers later in life admitted to Harry Houdini that it was all trickery and they had been caught in deceptions many times.
These were not isolated examples, so you can imagine a teenage boy in 1949 doing tricks on his grandmother only to revive exorcism mania in 20th century, possibly even satanic panic.
The Fox sisters were followed in 1854 by the Davenport brothers who started with tricks around family's kitchen table which launched and maintained their careers as two of the world's best-known Spiritualistic mediums. One of the brothers later in life admitted to Harry Houdini that it was all trickery and they had been caught in deceptions many times.
These were not isolated examples, so you can imagine a teenage boy in 1949 doing tricks on his grandmother only to revive exorcism mania in 20th century, possibly even satanic panic.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
