Temperance

Discovery Notes

Salem, Massachusetts — circa 1876

Warning Issued

If you keep Temperance, do not ask her what she sees.

She recognizes demons - not ghosts or spirits. Not the dead.

Temperance is said to know when something in a room is not what it appears to be. If she suddenly turns toward an empty doorway, do not move her. If her eyes seem darker than they were before, do not look behind you. And if she begins staring at a person she has never seen before, believe her.

Never place Temperance, under any circumstances, beside another doll that makes you uncomfortable.

Once a month, light a candle beside her and say:

“Temperance, tell me what I cannot see.”

Then wait. If she remains still, you are safe.

If she turns her head—

leave the room.

🕯️ Report Your Encounter.

Last Known Account

Temperance was once the possession of a young woman named Eliza Blackwell, the daughter of a lawyer who represented several families in Salem. Eliza was considered peculiar from childhood. She would stare at strangers and refuse to speak to them, which was hard, as there were lots of strangers coming in and out of her father's house.

She would cry whenever certain visitors entered the house. And on more than one occasion, she warned her father that someone standing in his office was “wearing a man's face.” Her father dismissed it as an overactive imagination until the night Reverend Hale came to dinner.

According to the family diary, Temperance was sitting on a shelf in the dining room when the Reverend entered and took his spot at the table for dinner. Eliza looked at the doll. Then she looked at the Reverend. nShe began screaming, but not at him. At the doll.

Temperance's painted eyes had turned toward the Reverend. The following morning, the Reverend was found dead in his church. There were no wounds. No signs of illness. But the family diary contains one final entry:

“Temperance knew before we did.”

After Eliza's death, Temperance disappeared. Some thought she was burined with Eliza and for nearly fifty years, there were no records of her.

Then, in 1924, she surfaced in the estate of a Boston collector who specialized in objects associated with the occult. The collector reportedly kept Temperance locked inside a glass cabinet. And while he claimed she was nothing more than an old doll, his daughter disagreed.

She said Temperance would stare at certain visitors, who would invariably leave the house and later find themselves shaken, confused, or violently ill. Her eyes turned red, staring too long at the unseen things behind them.  Finally it was determined that Temperance appears to see demons.

Some believe she was created by a group of women who spent centuries identifying demonic entities hiding among the living. Others believe Temperance was once a human girl whose soul became trapped inside the doll after she discovered something she was never meant to see.

There is one final theory. Temperance was not made to recognize demons. A demon taught her how. And whatever that demon was...Temperance has been looking for it ever since.