Is Your Doll Haunted?

The quick answer is: “Probably not.” The long answer is: “It’s complicated.”

Stories of haunted dolls fill our imaginations from the murderous Chucky to Twilight Zone’s Talky Tina. They also fill our real lives. Robert the Doll lives in Key West, Florida and Okiku resides in Hokkaido, Japan. Perhaps the infamous real haunted doll is Annabelle, a 1960s Raggedy Ann doll that has since become a Hollywood star in the Conjuring franchise.

Our obsession with haunted dolls is a long and twisted road through religion and the human psyche - a journey we won’t take here. But I will share what I believe as an animist and a doll lover.

Dolls retain energy, as does everything, from their interactions with us. And we can sense that lingering energy. This notion combined and our psychological attachement to human-looking things creates a true living quality in dolls. They draw us in, attracting some and repulsing others all at the same time.

The more dolls are treasured and played with, the more energy they will have and the more they will trigger feelings of nostalgia and attachement, or repulsion as it were.

Does this make them haunted? Not in the killer clown sense. They are simply alive through the many years of stored energy swirling about them.

Can they become a knife-wielding murders with grins to match? Not likely but a doll can become a portal to the spirit world, as anything can, making it what most would call “haunted.” As a portal, a doll can allow a single spirit or many, access to our world. This phenomenon is not as common as the internet would have you believe.

Even more uncommon are dolls that walk about town with butcher knives. Just because your doll has become a portal, doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll suddenly find yourself inside the plot of a horror flick. Spirits can be problematic, of course, but not always, and certainly not in the ways that would send you spiraling down into the pits of hell. Movies are fun, but they are still movies.

While the energy you are sensing may be a true spirit, it also just may be a warm energy imprint left behind by a little girl who shared her dreams with it years before. Trust your instincts or ask a professional.

If you are interested in more information on haunted dolls, I recommend the following books :

Dollcraft by Patti Negri
A Cursed Collection of Haunted Dolls by Fiona Dodwell.

Interested in doll culture in Japan? I wrote this article in 2021. “Japanese Temples Are Holding Funerals for Unwanted Dolls” (Religion Unplugged, 2021).

Note to Conference Organizers and Editors: I offer lectures on the topic. Contact me to schedule.