Paranormal State, seeing the demonic in a box of Cracker Jacks

I think the West Virginia State Penitentiary investigation revealed a lot about Ryan. In fact, this season has shown me that Ryan is not the seasoned investigator that he thinks he is. In reality, he’s not even an investigator.

Ryan likes to scare people with his lack of understanding about symbolism. If you’ve been watching for any length of time you know how Ryan reacts whenever someone mentions Ouija boards, or there’s even a slight hint of the occult such as pentagrams. But what he fails to realize and explain is that these symbols and objects on their own are completely meaningless. And in fact, up until recently, the inverted pentagram was completely harmless.

The Ouija is simply a board with letters. Simply owning one doesn’t open any more portals into the demonic realm than owning Monopoly makes you a millionaire. It’s a toy, nothing more. Stop assigning all sorts of negative connotations to it. Further, if the Ouija is supposed to allow you to contact spirits why don’t you use it? Aren’t you and all the other investigators doing the exact same thing – trying to contact the spirits – when you stand there yelling at them demanding they make their presence known? A Ouija by another name?

Ryan has also gone completely over the edge when it comes to the demonic and especially the pentagram. Not only is he trying to inject ideas of the demonic into every episode, but as we saw in "Darkness Falls" all he has to do is see a pentagram and he starts to operate under his dark, emo, goth cloud.

First and foremost the pentagram, even upside down, has been used for decades without ever having any connotations to the demonic. Perhaps Ryan is familiar with the Masons/Freemasons? Perhaps you’ve seen their symbol of the pentagram? Been to an old cemetery? You’ll certainly see the symbol on grave markers. You calling these guys Satanists?

Organizations who have based their structure on the Masons also use the same set of symbols. Unless you are a naïve conspiracy theorist, I think you need to drop this juvenile association that just because you see a pentagram, evil is afoot. Keep in mind, before Hitler perverted the use of the swastika it was used as a sacred symbol by the Hindu’s. Same thing with the pentagram.

Considering the West Virginia State Penitentiary was more than likely built by the masons it really shouldn’t come as a shocker that a pentagram would make it’s way into the architecture. And even if it wasn’t built by the Masons I’m sure they had an influence somewhere along the way. But this pentagram is in a guard tower, as a window decoration, in plain sight. Hardly demonic. Once again, on it’s own, it’s meaningless and could just as easily be taken as the Masons leaving a symbol of their work behind. The fact that he jumped to so many unfounded conclusions proves to me that he is trying to create fear and hysteria with his investigations and has no actual intentions of debunking anything. But as we’ve seen, debunking doesn’t bring in the big ratings.

Ryan is on a witch hunt, both literally and figuratively. He’s seeing the demonic everywhere now. He has no want to explain these events or to even document them. He just wants to find one glimmer of the demonic and run with it regardless of what the evidence, or that thereof, supports. And from what I’m seeing, his actual understanding of what is and isn’t demonic is rather inaccurate. It doesn’t matter if you’re right, you just need to be scary!

I guess we should just start calling Ryan, Abigail.

Paranormal State – Darkness Falls
History of the pentagram

Other Articles of Interest:

• Paranormal State – Darkness Falls – S04E08
• Ghost Adventures – Albion Normal School – S15E09
• Paranormal State – The Lurking Man – S05E09
• What a difference a year makes … It’s time to say goodbye
• Paranormal State – They Only Come Out at Night – S05E02
• Paranormal State – Season 2
• Ghost Adventures – Samaritan Cult House – S14E03
• Paranormal State – Shadow Caster – S04E09
• Paranormal State comes to an end …
• Do you believe in the Ouija?