Ever feel those unblinking glass eyes tracking you as you tip-toe past Granny’s creepy doll collection? Maybe that faint pitter-patter across the hardwoods after midnight isn’t just the cats. This week on Homespun Haints we sit a spell with doll historian and witch Heather Greene, who lifts the lace curtain on the truth about haunted dolls—and, to nobody’s surprise, Hollywood’s been exaggerating. Let’s hear some reassuringly less spooky stories about inspirited dolls that aren’t evil, today, on Homespun Haints. 

Watch the interview here:

Or hear the audio version right here: 

About Heather Greene

Heather Greene is an award-winning author, journalist, and acquisitions consultant for Llewellyn Worldwide. Her latest book, Lights, Camera, Witchcraft: A Critical History of Witches in American Film and Television, nabbed a 2022 COVR Gold Award and cements her reputation as a premier film historian of the occult. When she isn’t wrangling manuscripts, Heather co-hosts The Witches Movie Coven, a live weekly livestream that goes on the air every Wednesday at 9 p.m. Eastern. Alongside psychic medium—and fellow haunted-doll collector—Patti Negri, Heather and the coven dissect witchy cinema, swap paranormal war stories, and occasionally let their spirited dolls crash the broadcast. (If the steering wheel on set starts spinning by itself, well… Mary’s just getting in a few practice laps.)

If you, like Becky, are local to Atlanta, you can meet Heather in-person at Mystic South, July 2025.

Inspirited Dolls: Haunted, Portals, or loved?

Heather went over some misconceptions that pop culture has about possessed dolls. Even haunted dolls don’t hop off the shelf and roam your basement at night. Heather says they’re more like doorways—little portals that let spirits pop in and out of our realm. Diana conceptualizes it this way: spirits must inhabit dolls so they can have the experience of being spoken to as if they were a living person for the first time in a long time, even if just from children. And yet, Heather’s prized (and notably creepy) 1880s German “Peekaboo” doll illustrates the Japanese sentiment that a century of love can, perhaps, give a doll its own soul.

With a personal brood of 1,500-plus antique toys, Heather has seen it all. She can differentiate between inspirited dolls steeped in decades of human emotion and ensouled dolls that anchor one particular spirit, and she can describe how they’re in a totally different category than evil haunted dolls.

Mary the Doll

Mary lived tucked behind the Xbox for a while, and the Forza Horizon 5 steering wheel would start turning even when the console was powered down. They chalked it up to calibration updates—until the wheel fell silent the very night Mary was moved to a different room.

If that tale revs your engine, cruise over to our haunted doll stories and see why relocating the toy often stirs up fresh mischief. Oh, and destroying a haunted doll? All you’ll do is piss the inhabiting spirit off. Dolls are more like portals than possessed. Ridding your home of the portal (the doll) won’t rid you of the spirit. For help with that, well, Heather recommended Unquiet Voices: The Magical Art of Laying Ghosts for an occult perspective on ghost hunting.

Heather also shares some practical doll restoration precautions. For example, watch for toxic mold in aging plastics; those “cheese-vomit” fumes ain’t harmless. 

If you’re feeling emboldened by Heather’s reassurances in this episode, now’s a good time to check out our other, more scary stories about dolls. Brush up on how to take photos of Robert the Doll without courting a curse. Then dig into Duane Cerny’s trove of haunted antiques to learn what some heirlooms still remember. Lindsay’s personal ghost stories about Barbie dolls will make you think a little differently about the ways ghosts interact with dolls.

Whether you’re a die-hard skeptic or the type who leaves a night-light on for household haints, this episode should reassure you that, while every doll may very well have a spirit inside, the chances of that being an evil spirit are both rare, and somewhat within your control. But those with pediophobia are still at a high chance of having a spooky day.