This blog will give you the creeps: On Christians and the paranormal

It's 7 a.m. and Wayne will be leaving for work shortly--- so excited. His alarm is going off as I type this. w00t! He's going to Emerald Isle today, I think, though, and that's right in Hannah's path if Yahoo news is right this morning, so I'm going to be praying for him. I imagine by the time Hannah hits Fayetteville it will just be a bad storm, but over in the Outer Banks it is still scheduled to be a hurricane. So.... I'm praying for discernment from his boss! He will be staying in a hotel, sharing a room with one other guy, and eating out every day, so I'm sure he will be happy to have a delicious, home cooked meal when he gets home and to spend some time with the kids, etc.



WHAT FOLLOWS SHOULD NOT BE ATTEMPTED WITHOUT THE ASSISTANCE OF SOMEONE WHO IS ALSO EXPERIENCED IN THIS FIELD. THESE THINGS ARE SERIOUS, AND CAUSE SERIOUS PROBLEMS, TO INCLUDE SICKNESS AND EVEN DEATH. THE SPIRIT REALM IS NOT AN AMUSEMENT PARK. IT IS, HOWEVER, UNDER THE LORDSHIP OF JESUS CHRIST.

I'm getting some answers to prayer this week that have been a LONG time coming. You guys are going to have to go with me to some wierd places in this blog with me, so consider that a warning. I do think, though, that if you stick it out, you might learn a few things or at the very least, have some questions of your own.

Most of you know that I've been involved with deliverance ministry for most of my eleven years away from the Catholic Church. I got involved because I had some very personal encounters with demons, and deliverance from that opression and its effects was so mindboggling for me that I felt, truly, that God was calling me to help other people going through the same thing. It was evidenced for my pastors through my spiritual giftings, namely deliverance gifts and discernment gifts.

Likewise, He continually placed me in the path of experienced people who were able to train me to deal with every type of spiritual warfare, culminating in training to be a counselor at Manna's very theophostic "Freedom Weekend," a deliverance seminar held semi-annually at Manna Church. Wayne also co-led a cell group on demonology and deliverance, having had his own similar experiences.

My experiences with the paranormal did not begin with what I would have then described as a demonic encounter, but rather with a ghostly encounter-- I have, over the years, witnessed several "hauntings" and lived in several "haunted" sites. The very first time that I saw a ghost I saw a full-bodied apparition, the mother lode of ghost sightings, and not just ONE, but two! Similarly, my brother has shared the experiences and has, like me, found that he had more of the same elsewhere and apart from our family...even while on tour in Afghanistan. It seems that once God allows you to "see" what's out there, you will always see it.

I can't say with certainty that I will ever experience a paranormal happening again, but I can certainly say that if one should arise I would not be in the least shocked or surprised-- after all, I KNOW in a tangible way that the spirit world exists, whereas many of you have not had similar experiences and have to take it on faith. Those of us who have experienced the paranormal can, however, say that we "know" it is real in the same way we can say that we have tasted food or felt water. It's a reality.

When I was a teenager, these ghost experiences I had previously had led me to try to search for "something" that resembled God in the spirit world... since I knew it existed I assumed He would be found there. I practiced wicca, like so many teenagers, because I knew the spirits were there. I looked for God among them.

Later on, as a Christian, I dealt with a great deal of what turned out to be demonic torment of a nature I wont get too detailed about. Suffice to say that my involvement (relationship) with the ghosts I had seen and my further calling out to spirits unknown through the Occult had left me riddled with demonic fingerprints-- quite honestly, only by God's mercy am I left untroubled. Before I go any further I should clarify for any Wiccan readers I might have: yes, I am fully aware that "Ghosts" and "Spirits" are, in your mind, two different entities. I'm going to explain later why for me, they are not.

Nevertheless, most of it surfaced during my pregnancy with Annika-Marie, at which point I was given the tools I really needed to deal with the problem. Actually, that's only partly true. I was given the REST of the tools, but I also was ready to get serious with God, and my WILL, for the first time in my real life, made the decision to be ENTIRELY for God, withholding nothing of myself. There was no where for evil to hide in me at that time because I was willing to face and deal with my sin at face value, something I had only "sort of" done before.

In the protestant world, there is much talk and debate about whether a demon can indwell a believer. The general consensus among most people with the spiritual gifts of deliverance and discernment is that believers can be opressed by demons but not possessed., based on the idea that the Holy Spirit cannot indwell a person filled with an evil spirit, and vice versa.

I was in the army with a girl who, late at night, would awaken in her bunk screaming from nightmares. On one haunting night that will forever stay with me, she secretly shared with me what had been tormenting her for so long. For as long as she could remember, she had been experiencing these night problems. She was also a believer, and knowing that I was also a strong beleiver, she came to me for prayer. She lifted up her shirt and demonstrated to me what had her so worried-- there were visible bite marks on her belly, her thighs, and her chest. They would appear just as she was waking up, bruise, and then disappear slowly over the course of an hour or two. I spent many nights observing her, praying over her, and learning how to deal with what she was going through. Her case really bothered me, because it went against everything I had been taught about demons: she seemed to me to be obviously posesssed, and yet-- -she was a strong believer!

Cases like Emily Rose (the real woman's name was Annalise) also bothered me. She, too, was a strong believer. If believers couldn't be possessed, then what the heck was going on with these people? I found no answers, even from experienced deliverance ministers.

In the protestant world, it is also a commonly held belief that ghosts are actually demons. All of them, "kind" and "helpful" or not, are demons. How do we know? Because they are dead, and dead people are either in heaven, or hell, and have no communication with us, right? Therefore, any "ghost" is, in actuality a demon attempting to lure you into occult practices including communicating with the dead. Therefore, in protestant circles, "hauntings" are considered demonic, period. No questions asked. That's how I've dealt with every paranormal case I've encountered since discovering that Jesus cast out demons.... by following the steps I'd always been taught once demonic oppression has been documented:

Make sure the person has confessed all their sins and is willing to get help and renounce evil, Find out the demons' name, Cast it out in the authority of Christ and command it never to return again, etc. I've seen this done, had this done to me, and I've done it myself countless times, with varying degrees of results-- everything from the most graphic of displays of obvious paranormal activity to absolutely no reaction to a simple cough and/or wheeze. Every case is different, but protestant beleivers worldwide are pretty universal about how to deal with demons.

I hadn't heard or seen much about ghost hauntings since becoming a Christian because, quite frankly, I felt that they were demonic and therefore didn't want to invite any problems by getting involved. Occasionally, Wayne and I heard of or talked to someone who was involved in an interesting case, and then we would check it out, but for the most part, ghosts left me confused and frustrated as I wasn't sure how they fit into my worldview and just basically left me.... uneasy.

The extent of our deliverance ministry has and always will be, I imagine, getting a referral for a person in need of deliverance, interviewing them and gathering evidence to see what the Holy Spirit might show us is going on in the person's life, and taking some action to assist the person, whether it be providing information or going as far as to remove the demon ourselves. I've even done this over the internet countless times.


One of our biggest problems upon returning to the RCC was the idea that the church only allows priests (And experienced priests, at that) to provide exorcisms. This didn't sit right with us because we have seen first hand that ALL believers are capable and able to cast out demons. My priest's response to the question was to say that "All people can, but that doesn't mean that all people SHOULD." Aha! He was onto something. There is danger in dealing with demons that even the unexperienced understand on some level. In her wisdom, the Church asks for people who are able to deal with these things with experience and demonstrable giftings of the Holy Spirit, and not just "Joe Catholic."

What's really awesome is that the Church recognizes the laity's gifts and callings in the area of deliverance and uses us to help them investigate and document incidents, all the while recognizing that in many of these situations we need the expertise and especially the authority of a seasoned priest to do these things. In fact, in the RCC, lay persons are not even to read the rite of exorcism and are discouraged from saying the deliverance prayers without prior permission because of the possibility of angering/arousing an inhuman spirit.

As a person with a lot of experience in deliverance ministry, I was feeling very "left out" of using my gifts within the Church and was grateful to find that there was definitely a place for them here...and grateful to find that, like in everything else, my theology has deepened so much in going from Protestant to Catholic because I now have further answers to my "questions" in this field, particularly with regards to the situation around ghosts and hauntings.

Which brings me to the paranormal field.... You guys know that Wayne and I love watching GHI on our date night because we are fascinated with the paranormal. We enjoy figuring out what's "Really" (spiritually) going on under the surface of their investigations and especially enjoy praying for the safety and salvation of our favorite ghost hunters. Through the TAPS team and GHI we recently discovered that -- as we had suspected-- a recent paranormal experience we both had on the battleship USS NC was, most likely, an encounter with a spirit as they were able to record some evidence of paranormal phenomena onboard. Interesting stuff...and definitely creepy.

Paranormal researchers find that they encounter two types of hauntings: Residual (in which the ghost does NOT interact with the investigators and/or continues "doing it's thing" regardless of who is present) and Interactive, or Intelligent, in which the spirit attempts communication. They divide these into positive and negative entites (helpful and violent/ dark) and divide the "bad" entities into two categories: HUMAN spirits, and INHUMAN (or "not-of-human-origin") spirits... in other words, demons. Researchers often also come into contact with nature/animal spirits as well as "angelic" spirits. As a protestant, I was never really sure what to make of all of this other than they were ALL demons.

Certain Catholic saints have a documented history of having had encounters with dead believers, specifically for the purpose of asking for prayer. Aside from saints, who reside in heaven and are interceding for us, it is not uncommon for Catholics to encounter HUMAN spirits who need prayer to get out of purgatory. The existence of the state of purgatory explains many residual hauntings, in which we are allowed a glimpse of the spirit world by which we are to pray with fervor for the purification to end and their time in heaven to begin. Occasionally, God has allowed some human spirits to specifically engage in interaction with a living human being in order to ASK for prayer. These have been documented as well. But the boundary between the living and the living-in-Christ-but-dead-to-the-world folks must be respected. This is God's law.

Some spirits, however, do not initiate conversation or dialogue but respond to living humans who attempt to make conversation. In other words, paranormal investigators such as the TAPS team, going in and doing EVP sessions (or even unlike TAPS, doing seances, using Ouija boards, etc) are people who are initiating conversation with whatever spirits might be out there. THIS IS WHAT WE SHOULD NOT, as CHRISTIANS, EVER DO. I cannot stress enough the importance of not doing so, because your options, if you are dealing with an intelligent, interactive haunt, are two fold: NOT souls in heaven, NOT souls in purgatory, but souls in hell and/or inhuman spirits, also known as demons.

The "animal" spirits and "angelic" spirits being encountered are documented, by the RCC, as being demonic in nature as well.

In other words, when you encounter something paranormal, your chances of it being demonic are far greater than we tend to think as non-Christian humans... but slightly less than I tended to think as a protestant. There is the off (and viable) chance that we are being allowed to encounter a spirit in order to pray for its rest.

This understanding helps me, when watching GHI or following investigations over at Triangle Paranormal or Eastern Paranormal's website, to discern what is really "spiritually" happening in the paranormal situation being documented.

More importantly, it helps me to make sense of my own experiences, of Wayne's experiences, of the things we have seen and been a part of together since being married, and of the exact nature of them as we discover what God is really doing. It also brings us one step closer to understanding what the heck God is doing with us. This is another apostolate that we have already been doing for years and that can carry over to the Catholic Church with fresh perspective and a deeper theology. Now, when I am helping people who deal with paranormal issues, whether we are talking about ghosts or talking about visible demonic manifestations, I am more equipped to grasp what the Holy Spirit would have me do to solve the problem and begin the healing process than I ever have been. And of course, having discussed these things lately with people in authority who actually deal with these things from a Catholic perspective, I'm incredibly grateful to know that being better equipped means being more responsible and better able to handle whatever comes by way--- this stuff can get very scary very quickly, and it's important to remember that ultimately, Jesus is in control so long as we cling to Him and trust Him.

My thoughts constantly return to Donna LaCroix, a TaPS Investigator, telling the (obviously) demonic "dark" presence in the chapel she was working in in Romania when she began to feel threatened: "You cannot harm us. I have my rosary in my hand. You do not have permission to harm us."

I have no idea what her spiritual state is, but it is obvious to me, in that moment, that she recognizes that completely outside of Science, there are some things that only Jesus can and should be handling.

Anyways, I share all this with you guys fully knowing that some of you will think it's all baloney, some of you will be appalled that I'm even talking about this stuff, and some of you will be SO glad to finally have answers to your questions. I encourage those of you who have, yourself, dealt with paranormal events in some way to speak with your priests or with lay catholic demonologists or myself or Wayne about them, because it's important to understand these things so that we will not make bad decisions out of fear or naivete. And I encourage all of you to dwell on the Light of Christ, which is the source of all goodness and truth.

As Wayne and I continue this spiritual journey, we look forward (especially me because Wayne really deals with this stuff begrudgingly and out of necessity whereas I am more "interested" in these types of events) to working with and getting to know others who have been handed experiences in the paranormal field and particularly those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in helping other people to make sense of what is happening around them, because like them, we know that it can be absolutely terrifying.

There is truly peace in Christ.

Lux æterna luceat eis, Domine, cum sanctis tuis in æternum, quia pius es. Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis.

(May everlasting light shine upon them, O Lord, with your saints forever, for you are faithful. Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and may everlasting light shine upon them)



more information: www.religiousdemonology.com