We've recently began working with a new client for our group. They're the proto-typical modern family and just generally all-around nice people. Rick is a CAD draftsman and his live-in girlfriend, Jerri, works for a bank. The couple recently bought a house together. They have no children together as of yet, but Jackie has an adorable 6 year old daughter from a previous marriage named Lisa that stays with them for two weeks at a time. While we were working with the family Lisa was staying with Rick and Jerri.
The house they recently bought was a foreclosure and was no doubt part of the cascade of foreclosures sweeping the country recently. It's 10-20 years old and only had one previous owner, another family. To our knowledge nobody had died in the house and there was no abnormal spiritual activity in the house prior to the clients moving in.
The house itself needed a lot of work and the family has been putting a lot of energy into remodeling such as pulling up carpet and putting down wooden flooring, repainting, etc. Rick was initially very uneasy about the house and confessed at one point that his instinct told him not to buy it, but it was such a good deal financially they bought it anyway. Luckily for them one of our team members, a medium who just started working with the group and a previous client, was living on the same cul-de-sac as them. Literally two houses down.
My wife and I spend a lot of time over there with Tony and his wife, Kim, both discussing and working on cases and just generally hanging out as friends in our down-time. Rick and Jackie were new to the neighborhood and decided to come over and visit as we were all hanging out in Tony's garage one evening having a few beers and socializing. During the course of conversation Kim and Tony relayed the story with their house, which I discuss in the section titled "The Soul Collector". This prompted Rick and Jackie to share some of their experiences thus far in the new house which mainly included an intense feeling of being watched and that they were not alone. At one point it bothered Rick so much so as he was working in the garage that he just left the property and came back later to finish up what he was working on.
Tony and I both confirmed that we had felt a presence in the house from the street, but that it didn't seem to be anything to be concerned about. As we continued the discussion I naturally began to tune in on the spirit in the house and began to describe them as both male with one being in his 30's or 40's and wearing a red plaid shirt or coat and old faded and worn jeans. He struck me as a bit of a no-nonsense kind of small town guy, maybe a bit gruff but generally harmless. The other spirit looked to be in his 20's. I didn't get much of a visual picture of him other than he was wearing predominantly blue, possibly blue plaid. The two spirits LOOKED as though they could have been related, but I got more of a feeling that they were friends and not related. The younger one struck me as a bit of a trouble-maker, kind of a "rebel without a clue" mentality.
I tried to focus a bit and maybe pick up a name if possible and was relaying what I was picking up to the Rick and Jackie when I felt a presence standing behind me and slightly to my right. It was the younger spirit and I got a mental image and sensation of him reaching out and slapping me in the back of the head and saying, "my name is Brian" with a tone to suggest that I should have known his name all along because "everybody knows my name." I laughed a bit to myself. I always like seeing spirits with a little personality. I relayed the name to the group and Tony spoke up saying he had picked up on a spirit named Brian nosing around too and wasn't sure who it was.
Rick and Jackie seemed like they weren't quite sure how to take all of this information. It was a lot to throw at someone all at once so we gave them the standard speech about claiming their spiritual authority in the house and while it was entirely possible to live peacefully with the spirits they should make every effort to declare the fact they they now own the house and the spirits could stay but needed to play by some ground rules if they were going to stay such as not messing with the family members when they're sleeping, etc.. We eventually worked the conversation over to the top of beer, something Tony and I can both talk about for hours since we're avid home brewers, so as not to overwhelm our new friends on the subject of the paranormal.
Over the course of the coming days and weeks both Tony and myself talked with Rick and Jerry off and on. They indicated that they were still having a sensation of being watched and that their garage door opener had been opening and closing on it's own. They also reported that other doors would open and close on their own. They even went so far as to put a jug of windshield washer fluid in front of a door to see if it would still open. They came home and the door to their garage was indeed open and the jug has been pushed out of the way. We generally re-iterated the advice about setting boundaries with the spirits and generally trying to peacefully co-exist while at the same time maintaining a firm stance that they now owned the house and they were in charge of it.
Apparently, Brian and his buddy didn't particularly care for them or what they were doing with the house. A few weeks after our initial meeting with the clients they contacted us again saying that they were having trouble sleeping in the house to the point that Jackie mentioned she was contemplating taking her pillow and blanket and sleeping in the car at one point. Rick also reported seeing what he described as a beam of light moving in his house from room to room. It stopped at his bedroom as if looking in and then went on it's way. At that point both the clients and our group decided it was probably time to look further into what was going on in their house so we decided to do a walk-through of the house and give them our feedback.
At that point we firmly established that these spirits, though Tony and I both perceived them as human, were generally up to no good and needed to leave this family in peace. We began to council Rick and Jackie on how to push the spirits out and claim the house as their spiritual refuge, thereby re-asserting their authority over the property / space which would keep any unwanted "guests" at bay. Ultimately we left the decision up to the client as to whether they were going to do that and when and told them that we would be happy to coach them through the process if they decided to go that route.
Two or three days passed and we got word from the clients that they had enough of not being able to sleep and feeling uneasy in their home and they were ready to be done with this whole business. We packed up the little recording gear we use during investigations, a sage stick and headed over to coach the clients through a smudging / house blessing.
Jackie had taken her daughter out of the house for a few hours. Our group has a fairly strict policy of not confronting spirits in the presence of children when at all possible for safety reasons. Things can get violent in a hurry if the spirit becomes resistant. So, the blessing was up to Rick with Tony and myself as coach.
We had Rick read over a standard article titled Smudging and Ritual Incense Use I have all clients in this situation read over. It introduces them to the concepts of visualization during the ritual and making themselves a clear and perfect channel for God's light and the importance of visualizing the smoke as the light of God touching, blessing and sanctifying everything.
We opened up with the Prayer to St. Michael and I stepped back with Tony to read the situation as Rick proceeded throughout the house blessing and cleansing the corner of each room, one at a time. He was nervous at first but with a little coaching he found his connection to the light and you could feel the positive energy emanating from him as he went from room to room. We made sure to hit every corner of every room, including the garage and all the closets. Tony and I could feel not only the positive well of energy coming forth from Rick but we could also feel the spirits of the two ghosts moving further and further away from Rick trying to keep their distance.
As Rick finished out the first floor the spirits were above us on the 2nd floor and had a decidedly nervous energy that can only be described as rats scurrying from a sinking ship. As Rick cleansed the hallway with the smoke from the sage stick and his own prayers calling out to God to bless and protect his house and drive out the spirits Tony and I both sensed them pressing toward the back of the send floor trying to get as much space as possible between them and Rick. He finished a utility room and bedroom on the first floor and suddenly I realized I couldn't feel the spirits in the house anymore. They were gone.
We coached Rick through smudging and blessing the attic (always a key place to hit because spirits can easily lay claim to it since it gets so little traffic from residents) and remaining bedrooms and to seal the house in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and by the Blood of the Lamb.
We were done for the night. Rick had very successfully reclaimed the house, but we cautioned him that while he had pushed the spirits out for now the ordeal was likely not over and to expect to have to cleanse and bless the house a few more times before the spirits couldn't enter anymore. The first house blessing usually gives the clients a reprieve for a few days, but as soon as they let their guard down most spirits will try to push back in. We cautioned Rick and Jerry to be optimistic because they had scored major victory but the war wasn't over.
They slept well that night. The house was peaceful and quiet, but the next morning Tony's wife, Kim saw both spirits standing on Rick's front lawn looking at the house as if trying to figure out how to get back in.
The following night the noises returned and Rick reported that he had been touched that night as he was trying to sleep. In the morning we got messages from both Rick and Jerry telling us that their "guests" were back. We re-iterated the need to continue blessing the house to push them out and to claim their spiritual authority over the property, but decided it was best to wait until the following Sunday when Jerry's daughter went to stay with her dad for two weeks. That would be the perfect time to get down and dirty with the spirits just in case they decided to get violent.
I suspected that their daughter, Lisa, had done this under the influence of the spirit, but I didn't want to alarm the family so I kept that to myself. Of their own accord Rick decided to write my name and number down on a similar sheet of paper and leave it laying around the house to see what happened.
Not 3 hours later the family was in the living room when Rick and Jerry both witnessed Lisa stand up and walk over to their kitchen counter island and reach out with a pencil and start scratching on the piece of paper. It should be noted that Lisa had payed no previous attention to the paper and in fact it was above what you would consider her normal light of sight to even see it. She had to stand on her tip-toes to scribble on it, with almost no chance of seeing exactly what she was drawing.
Rick and Jerry tried talking to her but Lisa was completely unresponsive as if she couldn't even hear them speaking to her which was abnormal behavior for Lisa. Rick finally reached out and held her hands still and prayed over her for a few minutes. When he stopped Lisa dropped the pencil and went back into the living room without missing a beat. My name and number had been scratched out just as Tony and Kim's had been. Apparently we made an impression on the spirit and they clearly didn't want our continued involvement in the case.
I was due over at the house anyway to pick Rick up and get some supplies for the next round of house blessing. They showed me both sheets of paper and said they had talked to Lisa about what happened. She remembered doing it but wasn't sure why she did it. When asked what the figures were on the bottom of the first sheet she said it was two people with electricity going between them. Unknown to her, Tony had pushed the spirits out of the house by sheer force of will on a previous visit and had pushed the same spirit out of his own house when it came to pay him a visit. This could easily be imagined as two people with electricity between them. Or, perhaps she was depicting Rick pushing the spirits out of the house with a blessing. Given the fact that she had scratched Tony's name and number out on the same sheet of paper I'm inclined to believe the figure on the left that most closely resembles a person is Tony.
We decided to set up the next blessing for the following day after Lisa was due to leave the house. We got the supplies needed, a powdered mixture of Myrrh, Frankensense and Copal since my local supply shop was out of the sage sticks I prefer and finalized plans with the family for the following evening.
That night Tony and I arrived and discussed our initial feelings about the house. We felt the presence of one of the spirits back in the house, but very very faintly as if he was trying to behave himself and knew what was about to happen. It was the spirit that identified itself to me a Brian in Tony's garage. The older spirit was gone, nowhere within my range.
We talked Rick and Jerry through the process of the blessing. Rick had already been through it once before, but Jerry hadn't. I stressed the importance of visualizing a connection to God and visualizing yourself becoming a clear and perfect channel for his light and his will. That is the key to making the ritual powerful, being able to see what's happening on a spiritual level clearly and believe in it through to your core.
Tony and I sat back and let the couple start, beginning with the prayer to St. Michael again as last time. About 10 seconds into it the hair on both mine and Tony's arms stood on end and it felt like the room filled with static electricity as a wave of bright light welled up around Rick. He had made himself a clear and perfect channel to divinity. As he continued on with clearing the first room my inner sight registered what could only be described as wave after wave of bright near blinding light wash out of him filling the room and spilling through the walls of the house. Even though it wasn't light that I was seeing with my physical eyes it was so bright I couldn't help by squint and I reflexively turned away and gave myself a moment to adjust to the new brightness level.
Tony and I looked at each other with wide eyes as if to say, "holy crap, I think he's got it!" I had seen this before, but not to this level of intensity. Even when I do the ritual myself it's not as intense as what I was seeing there. Rick began to expand on the blessings calling for the doors and windows to become sealed. As he did each door, window and wall of the room my inner sight would become blocked. I couldn't see past the blessings he was putting in place. As he finished the first room and moved on to the next I stood in it marveling at the intensity of the warding / seals he had put in place. As he continued I could literally see and feel each room close up.
At one point as Rick neared finishing the first floor he called out for God to reach out and send help, to send his army and angels. About 5-10 seconds later it felt like a great hole had ripped itself in the sky and what I can only describe as a swarm of winged beings, glowing brightly, circled far over the house. There was a multitude, beyond my ability to count. As they slowly descended into the house it seemed as if the very walls bulged with their presence. The quiet psychic background filled with a constant chorus of voices all speaking to one another. It suddenly felt like there were 300 people in the room with us all talking, but not in an unpleasant way, just letting us know they were here.
The presence of the spirit that identified itself as Brian was gone from the house. The moment the choir of voices (what I can only describe as angels) entered the house Brian was summarily and un-ceremoniously ejected from the upstairs not unlike a champaign cork shooting out of a bottle. A few minutes later we heard and felt a pounding on the wall of the house and got a distinct impression it was Brian trying to get back in but was completely and utterly unable due to the new spirits occupying the house. My mind wandered for a moment to the lyrics of Closing Time by Semisonic, "You don't have to go home but you can't stay here."
Rick and Jerry were well on their way through finishing up the blessing upstairs. Tony and I stayed downstairs since they had the situation well in hand. I called to him at one point to reach over and put his hand on a wall and channel the light through the wall and then the next and the next, pushing the light throughout the whole house so as to leave no place for an unwanted spirit to hide. As he did that and worked himself up again chanting, "holy, holy, holy, thou art holy" for a brief moment I could see the wall in front of me ripple as if coming alive with divine energy.
They finished up the blessing shortly thereafter and Tony and I sat down with them to give them our feedback. Keep in mind that they were focused on doing the ritual and weren't as sensitive to the spiritual world as a Tony and I had become so they really had no idea how effective what they were doing was. As we relayed everything we had felt and saw during their blessing Rick began to cry in thanks that his prayers had been answered.
However, Tony got a distinct message to warn them that they would likely see and experience more even more activity than they had the night before, but of a completely different nature. Tony and I went back to our homes, but I got a text message later that evening that the house was crawling with activity and Rick had even felt something brush his foot. I explained again that we were given the message that there would be a lot of activity, but that it was essentially the help he had requested. I got the distinct impression that the spirits were going about the business of repairing the house on a spiritual level and officially making it Rick and Jerry's home.
The next morning I spoke to them again and both reported sleeping peacefully, and Rick was even touched by one of the spirits in the house in what he felt seemed more like a healing "laying on of hands" and was entirely peaceful and non-threatening.
James S. -
And I took the one less traveled by
And that has made all the difference
And that has made all the difference
1 comment:
That. Is some weird stuff.
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