In the early years of my work, I was employed as a full-time psychological services specialist in the Pennsylvania prison system, but I would sometimes be called to different dioceses to help with cases on the weekends. This time, I was told that a couple had become involved in paranormal investigating and gotten into trouble. I was asked to assess the situation.
I arrived at about eight in the evening to a city row house in a decent neighborhood. It was a cool fall evening, and the block was quiet. I grabbed my case with my prayer book, crucifix, holy water, blessed salt, and relics. The husband came to the door, looking a bit pale and stressed. He welcomed me, then apologized, saying that his wife had run upstairs a few minutes before I had arrived and wouldn’t come down. As we started talking in the kitchen about the troubles his wife was having, I noticed her staring at me from behind the doorframe. She suddenly interrupted us in a flat tone, “He wants to know what’s in the case.” I said that if he’s a spirit, then he already knows what’s in the case. She replied, “He’s afraid of what’s in the case.”
The husband got her to come into the kitchen and to sit down. She seemed pretty uncomfortable getting closer to me, but she complied. Her face was strangely blank, and she looked like she had been losing sleep. They explained that they had gotten interested in ghost hunting about six months ago and had joined a paranormal group. They had recently gone on a ghost hunt in a house where a pedophile had hung himself. The wife had stood where he died and invited him to talk to her while consciously trying to open herself completely in order to detect anything. She felt something rush into her, and that’s when her problems started.
The wife lost the ability to express emotion in her face, and she felt like her internal experience of emotions was blunted. She lost interest in her hobbies and developed a sexual fixation on a sixteen-year-old boy in their paranormal group. All of this was alien to her personality, and it distressed her. She opened up to her husband, and he had noticed himself that her personality had dramatically changed. He took her to their doctor, and she underwent various tests, but no explanation could be found.
Then she said, “He knew when you were coming, about five minutes before you pulled up. He said we had to leave the house and run.” I asked if she heard this voice talking to her since the ghost hunt, where she had tried to commune with the spirit. She said she did and that she could not control the voice or make it stop. I asked about their spiritual and religious background, as well as her medical and psychological history. I offered to pray to ask God to free her from this thing, and they enthusiastically agreed. I called in to my contact at the diocese and briefed them on the case, and they approved my prayer.
I simply prayed the Litany of the Saints, as I always did for spiritual problems. About half-way through the Litany, the wife let out a sudden cry and threw her arms around her husband. She was sobbing loudly and clutching him tightly. She said over and over that she was sorry, and she kissed his cheek and hugged him while he sobbed as well. I asked her if she still heard the voice, and she said no. Her expressions returned and she seemed clear in her thinking and speech. I finished the Litany to be sure, then packed up. I strongly advised them to stop ghost hunting, get rid of the equipment, and delete all the images, videos, and audio recordings they had collected—and they actually started bagging it all up into a garbage bag while I was preparing to leave. As far as I know, they had no further problems of that nature.
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This article is adapted from a chapter in The Exorcism Files by Adam Blai which is available from Sophia Institute Press.
Art for this post: Cover and featured image used with permission.
