This man, we’ll call him Joe, was a medical doctor. He had gone to Haiti to help in the relief work there after their big earthquake.  While there, he decided he wanted to experience voodoo.  His translator told him that he knew of a voodoo shaman who could answer his questions.  He asked his translator to come with him and eventually, after his medical service was completed, he took some time off and went in search of this voodoo shaman.

The shaman told Joe that he would give him an initiation into voodoo.  He said that then Joe would have great power.  While it was not Joe’s original intent to receive any kind of initiation, the offer felt compelling.  When their first meeting was over, the shaman gave Joe a set of instructions to complete, material to gather for the ceremony and so on.  Then the shaman told Joe that if he had any doubts, he should knock on the statue of a certain saint that was outside of the shaman’s house and Joe would receive the answer to a question in his dreams that night.

Joe knocked on the saint, and that night he dreamt of an angel who answered the very question he asked silently when he knocked on the saint statue.

The next day Joe gathered the materials that the shaman requested, as well as the shaman’s fee.  He brought them to the man’s house. Now, understand, this house was not in a great part of town.  It was down several back alleys and through a side door…that kind of thing.

The ceremony itself had many aspects to it and is not fit to describe here.  Two things worth mentioning: at the end of the ceremony the shaman gave Joe several items to scatter around Haiti.  The shaman also gave Joe a few items to leave at the airport on his way out.  And he gave Joe some other things to take home.

After all of this was over, Joe returned home.  But things had changed…a lot.

First, Joe found that women were incredibly attracted to him.  Way beyond his normal experience; they were not just attracted but they were also quite aggressive in pursuing him.  Joe is an attractive man for sure, but this was way almost surreal.

Second, when Joe got home, he found that he was weirdly almost instantly a celebrity.  He was always a good doctor – no question of that.  But now thanks to his service in Haiti he was literally known throughout his hospital and throughout the region.  People knew who he was and sought him out.

Other weird stuff happened too…in not such a good way.  A patient died on his watch at the hospital.  Then, without warning, a second patient died.  His medical license was suspended and he was put under review.

At this point he decided enough was enough and he burned everything he was given by the voodoo shaman.  The deaths were incredibly distressing to Joe.  But even the so-called “good stuff”, the women and the fame, just felt weird.  Wrong.  Something was wrong.

The next day after burning that stuff, he started to get weird phone calls.  The caller would ring him and then hang up when he answered.   It was happening at all hours of the day and night.  Constant harassment.

This thing was not finished.

So, Joe found us.  And we went to work.

In this case, after some evaluation, we were able to do all of the work at a distance.  Since Joe was with us in person, the first thing we did was to cut away all of the energetic attachments between him and the shaman.  Then we went after the shaman himself, eliminating his power to affect Joe again and also eliminating his ability to do this work to anyone else ever again.  In essence, what this voodoo shaman had done was to summon demons to Joe.  His whole power was based on evil.  He had not “initiated” Joe into voodoo, he had attached cords of evil from Joe to his pet demons and was feeding Joe’s life force, his suffering, to them.

We got rid of the demons, got rid of the cords, and made sure the shaman was not able to do this work again.

Joe’s life is now back to normal.  After the medical investigation completed, the hospital’s conclusion was that the first death could not have been prevented while the second was a mystery but not Joe’s fault.  Joe’s license was returned to him.

Joe is putting his experience to good, helping others who are suffering spiritual distress to find help as well as continuing to help those who are in medical distress.

So here’s to Joe: a good man, doing good work who had a challenging experience but who is now using that experience to bring even more good to the world.

Ms. H was a devout muslim. She prayed almost constantly. She truly loved God and strove to follow His teachings. She was constantly thanking Him and praising Him. All of this – and yet for over 15 years of her life she had been possessed.

Now, this woman was truly possessed. Not like some negative energy in her house or something disturbing hanging around her and feeding her negative thoughts or feelings. No. This was full possession. Something inside of Ms. H would take over, her eyes would go wild, her body would start moving, jerking, flailing. She could throw three grown men off of her.  She would growl, swear, and in those moments of possession could tell you things about yourself that she had no way of knowing.

Typically people at this stage of possession are not very self-aware. Ms. H was different.  Despite 15 years of unrelenting torment, she stayed incredibly strong and incredibly devoted to God. (This is probably the only thing that saved her.)  She would fight the demon inside her every time it came to the fore. When she had a moment of peace, she would plot new ways to rid herself of the affliction. She insisted on maintaining as normal a life as possible despite her “episodes”.

And yet, she had this curse.  When the demon took control, she would feel intense terror.  Her body would be wracked with pain.  Few could stand to stay with her. And despite over a decade of searching, no solution presented itself.

Ms. H tried visiting many, many imams. There are specific prayers in the Koran that demons cannot stand to hear. She listened to them, despite the intense pain they caused her.  She went to receive exorcism in Bahrain regularly, and routinely had imams come to her house to try to help her.  She described to me afterwards how one saintly man came to her house and did prayers of exorcism from 8 am to 9 pm every day for THREE MONTHS with no break, no help, and no team. Every day for over 12 hours this saint fought the demons inside Ms. H. And it was a fight, for the demon would take control and fight back with all of its spiritual power, leaving Ms. H wrung out and exhausted when the priest would leave at the end of the day.

After years and years of trying to receive healing via Muslim priests, Ms. H started working with priests of other faiths.  Nothing worked. She tried working with psychics. That did not work.  She tried working with anyone would claim to help.  Nothing worked. Sage? Tried it.  Holy water? Tried it. Prayers from this or that holy text? Tried it.

Fifteen years. I mean – can you imagine it? Ms. H is someone’s daughter, someone’s sister – it could be someone you love.

Obviously she also tried psychology. She also tried seeing medical doctors in Bahrain as well as in the USA and Europe. Nothing worked.

Having heard this story from her (when she could speak coherently) and her friends, I was not optimistic about being able to help her. I told her frankly that we would do our best but we made no promises.

We saw her in Europe.  In total, we spent probably 18-20 hours working with her.  We had a team of 3 people working directly with Ms. H during her exorcism and during the healing work afterwards.  After we were finished, she spent a week in Europe nearby to us just in case.  She had no episodes, no bad feelings, no fear, no terror. Nothing. Just really, really big smiles and giddy feelings of relief. Previously, she had never gone more than 48 hours without an episode.

Now four months later, Ms. H sent me this note on Facebook recently:

This past summer, we got a phone call from a new client who felt that his mother was not resting in peace.

Now, just to set the scene, here’s a bit of background.  This was a gentleman who we had met about two months earlier at a conference.  Well into his third career, he had immigrated to the USA from England many decades ago.  This gentleman had a long career in high tech. He was extremely intuitive…he just “knew” things.  And one of those things was that his mother was not at rest.  He just felt that…but never knew how to resolve it.  Until he called us.

Although he had moved to the United States many years ago, the mother remained in England with this gentleman’s other siblings.  She was buried in a very picturesque small town cemetery.  As we talked to him, we got as much information as possible including the specific location of the cemetery and details of his mother’s life.  We took copious notes on everything he could tell us.

To start with, we did an investigation.  For someone to feel that their loved one is not at rest is not uncommon and almost always turns out to be true.  Nevertheless, we always approach every situation with an open mind.  Maybe they are just concerned.  If we can figure out that the loved one is at peace and shed some light as to why the client feels uncomfortable without needing to take any further action for them, how wonderful is that?  So we always approach every situation with an open mind and hope for the best.

In this case, though, the gentleman who called us was right.  Very right.  During the course of our investigation we found that the energy in the cemetery his mother was laid to rest in was bad.  Horrible.  Really bad.  There were feelings of acute pain, acute and immediate pain, sharp pain.  The feeling came from many souls, not just one.  The whole cemetery was infested with either many demons or one very powerful demon.  Not a single soul laid there was actually at rest.

One of the things that often amazes clients who hire us to do investigations is the amount of detail we are able to bring back.  In this case, we were able to tell the client where his mother was, what she was feeling, what was in the cemetery, how long it would take to clear it and even more personal information about his mother.  We proposed that it would take a day to clear the cemetery; he agreed to fly us out there.

When we got to the location, it was a beautiful day.  The sky was blue; there were just a few clouds in the sky.  It was summer and the grass was an incredible emerald green.  A rare perfect day in England.  The church that the cemetery was built around was majestic.  Perhaps a few hundred years old, it was all stone and beautiful stained glass.  There was no church service going on at the time, and no priest was present, but there were a few other people milling about walking through the cemetery visiting loved ones.

Funny thing – no birds chirping.  And no animals about.  The place looked idyllic to the outside eye.  But to the inner senses, it felt almost sinister.  There was an air of danger and foreboding.  It was subtle – very subtle – but definitely present.  No one stayed long at that cemetery.  We could understand why.

One of the things that amazes people when working with us is how subtle we are.  Most people who have seen movies expect us to come with a huge drama fest, shouting imprecations and prayers, having titanic struggle with forces unseen and all manner of other Hollywood theatrics.  We have trained long and hard to be able to do our work very, very subtly.  Yes, there are things we must do.  But most people would never know we are doing anything.  We can get in to most places, take down a demon or several demons, and leave again without anyone hardly even being suspicious.  That skill was fortunate to have on this trip in a public place with other members of the public milling about.  Our client, the gentleman, was particularly grateful for this skill as his family still lived in the community and were well known.

There were three major trouble spots in this cemetery so the work took us the best part of a day.  At each of the spots we worked there were unmistakable signs.  At the first spot, one of our team members got ill almost immediately.  Two decapitated birds greeted us at one location.  (I am not making this up!)  The third and most challenging area had a large statue of Jesus…whose facial expression was locked in a rictus of pain and anguish and whose eyes bored hatred looking over the entire cemetery.

Once we were done with the final location an amazing serenity descended on the whole area.  The sun went from feeling pale and wan to glowing and supportive.  There was a feeling of a pause, almost of time stopping for a moment to acknowledge the end of an era.  The peace was literally palpable.  The statue’s facial expression completely changed.

We brought the client to visit his mother’s grave site where he had a beautiful reunion with her soul and a healing release as he felt her love and thanks.  Then we escorted his mother’s soul across to the light and on to her next journey.

Sometimes, “rest in peace” takes a little help.  We are here to help.

When most people first hear someone talk about ghosts or demons as a real phenomenon, I know that many are tempted to scoff and go “Nah”. That is the stuff of movies and stories, right? Not the stuff of real life.

Gradually, though, we may begin to wonder. “Could it be…?” “Nah!” Our wonder softens our skepticism a little bit. Our wondering opens up the possibility. “What if….” What if ghosts were real? What if demons were real? What would that mean? We think about it. We wonder about it. We have moved forward from total disbelief into the world of possibility.

From wondering (from the possibility of) to knowing (the certainty of) is quite a journey. Depending on the topic, it may be a very long journey indeed. In fact, it may take a lifetime. But regardless of how long it takes, that journey requires one very special key ingredient. This key ingredient is like a rocket booster. It lifts us up out of skepticism and wondering, and gradually helps us climb the great mountain towards the pinnacle of certainty. The mountain is likely to be steep, with many dangerous passes, and many places that challenge us. There will almost certainly be times when we climb quite high, but then fall down low again, only to have to climb all over again. This is the path spiritual evolution; the path of moving from skepticism to certainty. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a rocket booster on this path?

It sure would.

And that rocket booster? It exists. It exists, and it is more potent than anything you could imagine.

That rocket booster, that magical elixir of spiritual evolution…it is called faith.

You see, faith is what helps us to bridge the gap between wondering and knowing. With faith, we can climb any mountain, move any boulder, shoulder any burden. Fight any demon. Bring any ghost to the Light. With faith, we can accomplish feats that no mere mortal could accomplish on their own. Starting with moving from skepticism to knowing.

Let’s break tradition, shall we?

The elephant in the lobby of this hotel is this: a good portion of the world thinks we’re crack-heads.  They think we’re nuts.  Crazy.  Wacko.  Bazoingo.  (That’s Bazoingo<tm> to you, mister!)

Seriously – a good portion of the world, at least in North America and parts of Europe – thinks the notion that unseen forces affect us on a regular basis, sometimes for the worse, and that specific words, phrases, gestures, rituals, spiritual powers can actually do something about it…well, they think that’s just bazoingo<tm>.  Seriously.

So what are we going to do about it?

Now, to be sure, they are only a part of the world population.  In fact, I would err on the side of arguing that the larger part of the world’s people actually do believe in unseen forces.  Call it energy, spirit, ghosts, demons, angels, jinn, elementals – whatever you call it, I would argue that much of the world believes at some level that there is an unseen world and it does affect us.

But still – there is that group of people, a not insubstantial group of people, who think we are certified wackos.

You see, the thing is – it’s awfully hard to prove the invisible to someone who stubbornly insists on sticking only to the five physical senses.  It’s not impossible, but it’s no mean feat.  And yet were those people to actually have a direct experience of the supernatural, they would quickly change perspectives.  They would go from belief (or lack thereof, in this case) to knowing.  And knowing – direct, personal knowing – cannot be disputed.

So while there’s this body of people who think we’re nutso, I’m not going to let it bother me.  I have had direct personal experience.  I know this stuff is real.  Some day, they too may have some personal experience.  When the shock hits and they are looking for help, we’ll be there.  In the meantime, there are countless people who are suffering, who are scared, who are curious and want to learn more.  There are countless people who do believe this work is real, that the unseen world exists…and we are here to serve them.

We are here to serve you.

So, dear elephant, enjoy your stay in the lobby of our hotel.  We’re happy to have you here for as long as you need to stay.  But don’t think we’re ignoring you just because we are keeping busy.  We know you’re there.  We just prefer to spend our energy serving those in need.

All of this focus on the Catholic Church and its quest to increase the number of practicing exorcists begs a question: is Catholic exorcism the only exorcism out there?

In the West, certainly the public knows best about exorcism via the Catholic church.  Whether you believe demons exist or not, whether you believe evil is a real force on the planet or a human concept, most people in West know that the Catholic Church does exorcism.  If nothing else, everyone who saw the movie The Exorcist and its spate of follow-ups and remakes know that exorcists come from the Catholic Church.

So if you are someone who is looking an exorcist or deliverance or help with spiritual attack – is the Catholic Church the only go-to spot?

Not at all.

Every single culture, every single society, throughout history has a concept of God, and a concept of good and evil.  Every single culture!  And, in turn, all have had a knowing within their society of how to deter evil.

By “every single culture”, we’re not just talking global.  Even in the West, there are countless groups besides Catholics with the knowledge and practice of eliminating spiritual attack.  Catholic exorcism is one such.  Other Christian denominations also have a tradition of exorcism which is often called by the term “deliverance”.  The Jewish traditions have a much less talked about tradition of exorcism.  Muslims do exorcism work.  Native Americans did a lot of “exorcism”, eliminating evil and stopping spiritual attack, via their many practices.

And that’s just in the West.

In the East, Buddhists have an exorcism tradition, Japanese native religion known as Shinto has an exorcism tradition, Tibet had a native religion that existed before Tibetan Buddhism known as Bon that had exorcism in it, and of course the Hindu also has lots of information about spirits and their priests had many ways of countering spiritual attack.

Now, out of all of these, Hollywood has chosen to publicize Catholic exorcism and so that is the way most people in the west know to eliminate spiritual attack.  But there are many, many forms or ways to clear negative energy.  None of them have gone bad or disappeared just because they are not so well known.  In fact, all of the traditions I mentioned earlier still to this day carry their tradition of countering negative energy.

Catholic exorcism is getting a lot of press these days – but if you are looking for help with spiritual attack, know that there are many places you can turn to for help.

The bottom line scoop is this: demand for exorcists is growing – big time – and the Catholic Church cannot keep up.

Today in America there are literally only a small handful of Catholic priests who are trained to perform the rite of exorcism and authorized to do so by their Bishop.  This even though the rite of exorcism is one of the main rites of the Church and has been for centuries.

Consider some numbers: there are about 300 million people in the USA.  About 22% of those, or roughly 66 million people, are Catholic.  Let’s assume, just for arguments’ sake, that a Catholic priest will only tend to the needs of a professed Catholic.  (This may or may not be true.)  To tend to the needs of their faithful in times of crisis of spiritual attack, the Catholic Church has…roughly FIVE trained exorcists.  Let’s see, that’s 13 million people per exorcist.  Ya think they are a little overwhelmed?!

The existence of evil, the power of Satan, and of his troops (demons), is a central tenet of the Catholic faith.  Catholics affirm this truth every time they worship.  And yet for many decades the Church played down exorcism, almost seeming to be ashamed of it or embarrassed by it.  Now a revival of interest has occurred and so the church is looking to boost its ranks of exorcists.

This revival of exorcism in the Catholic Church fascinates me.  Everyone in the West, including the Church, went through a period of scientism in the last century or so.  (Scientism is a belief that absolutely anything can be explained by science, and whatever cannot be explained by science must be a fake or a fraud.)  In the last 10 years or so, though, many people have begun to consider the possibility that there may be more “out there” than what science can currently explain.  Authors and the popular press have re-introduced the notion that God exists, and Hollywood has helped us to remember that evil also exists. Also, our society has become much more global.  We know of the traditions of many peoples, and we know that many have traditions of exorcism.  People who are suffering from spiritual attack now know that they are not alone, they know that help is out there, and they go looking.

In a way, then, the Church is responding to society accepting exorcism as real.  Exorcism is no longer something to hide from or to dismiss as a relic of ancient times.  At the same time, demand for help with spiritual attack has exploded, and the Church is naturally trying to grow their ranks of people who can do this work.

In my view, all of this is good.  We need the world to understand that good and evil do exist.  We need the world to acknowledge that evil is real, that spiritual attack is real, and that there are people who are trained to counter it.  Why?  Because people are suffering, and they shouldn’t suffer in silence or be shunned.  They should be helped and cared for.  And that requires an acknowledgement – by society as a whole – that these things exist and are real.

So – for what it’s worth – I say “good on’ya” Catholic Church for recognizing the need and for sticking by your traditions in seeking to boost your ranks of exorcists.  The world needs your work and the world needs your voice in helping people understand that this is real.

A client, pregnant and ready to deliver, elected to have a water birth.  Her friend offered the use of her house.  Client moves in to the house for several days in order to be ready for the birth.  Symptoms start to occur and birth time is too close to find an alternate venue.  Help is needed.  (There is hope!)

Symptoms

• Client feels uneasy in the new home.
• Feels like home is watching her, or that there is a perpetual presence.  She often feels like she wants someone with her for protection – even though the thought is “irrational”.  (Why that happens is explained here.)
• Client wakes up at 3 am feeling unbelievably angry and stays that way for about five hours.  No rational explanation why.
• Client, who typically has a good relationship with her husband, gets into an enormous argument with him.
• These symptoms only started when the client moved in to the temporary home.  None of these symptoms existed before then.

All of this happens at a time when everyone is being very careful not to disturb or negatively affect the child about to be born.  The situation is causing enormous stress…on the family and on the as-yet unborn child.

Our Involvement

We surveyed the temporary home as well as the neighbourhood.  We found problems (i.e. a demonic infestation) in two of the homes next door.  (Which possibly was just one situation spread across two properties.)  We were able to clear the situations very discretely at a distance without involving the neighbours.  There was also a ghost that had set up shop in the client’s temporary home and had been there for quite a while.  We helped that spirit move on.  Finally, we set up substantial layers of protection around the temporary home to keep the family and baby-to-be safe during the birthing process.

Results

A very beautiful, healthy baby and a happy, healthy mom.

Yep, I’ve had those days and weeks too.

The Stretched Face

The other day, a client showed up looking like The Mummy.  Seriously.  Face stretched tight, it looked like her skin was made of parchment or something.  I knew this person from a long time ago and knew that this was not their normal state.  Something was up.

In talking to the client, she revealed that she had been unnaturally exhausted for the past several weeks.  With some more conversation and careful questioning she admitted that her exhaustion was starting to really affect her life.  She chalked it up to working extra hard lately on a new business venture.

I wasn’t so sure.

So we did an exorcism.  Some exorcisms are long and others are very quick.  This was the quick variety.  It took less than an hour.

Results

There was indeed a small demon there sucking away at her life force.  It was nice and quiet – no big phenomena, no drama, no movie theater-worthy theatrics – just sitting there quietly sucking the life force out of this person.  It was making her tired, exhausted, and ineffective at work.  She was having conflict with her children and her spouse.  Her life was being slowly drained dry.

Later that day, I looked at her face again.  Perfectly normal, youthful, vibrant.  No signs of The Mummy.  Actually, it was an amazing transformation in just a few hours.

Our Recommendations

That new business venture involved spiritual healing work.  The quality of the work was very high but the client was not doing enough to keep her own energy clean in between sessions.  Inevitably, coming in contact with enough people who had negative energy around them took its toll and a demon (probably from one of her own clients) got a hold of her.

Going forward, we recommended to the client some simple tools to keep her energy clean.  A sacred bath with some holy water mixed into the bath water would work wonders for her and still allow her to pursue her new business.  We also discussed a variety of uses for holy salt to help her, some of which are discussed in our e-book on ghosts.

Lessons Learned

1) There doesn’t have to be a lot of drama and movie theatrics for there to be possession.

2) Removal of negative energy doesn’t have to take a long time.  Sure, sometimes exorcism lasts hours or even days.  But it often can be quick, simple, and painless.

3) Clues to negative energy can be pretty subtle.  Don’t ignore that voice in the back of your head that tells you something is wrong.  It usually is.

4) Simple tools work.  This was a small situation.  Solutions to situations like this don’t need to cost a million dollars or take a ton of time.  Simple tools, used regularly, work wonders.

A young woman from Portland, Oregon, USA, contacted us to see if we could come investigate her home.  Her young daughter of about 7 insisted that she kept seeing people (ghosts) move through the house.  Normally, the mom (we’ll call her Donna) would have just chalked it up to a child being imaginative.  But some of the beings kept popping up, and many of them scared her daughter quite badly.  One in particular, a shadowy man, would show up at the top of their stairs on many nights and frighten the girl so badly that she would refuse to go upstairs to bed.

Donna told us that she decided to connect with us when she realized that she also felt uncomfortable – nervous, scared – in the house on the same nights that her daughter claimed to see the shadowy man.

Donna had had several other “psychics” visit the house, but none had created any lasting change.  They had tried different things, smudging, holy water, prayer…but the shadow man just kept coming back.  Donna was not quite at her wits’ end, but she knew she was close.

Our Involvement

After some time in discussion and consultation with Donna by telephone, we agreed to visit her home.  On site, we found two things: lots of ghost activity, and (completely separately) the infestation of a demon.  This was the shadow man, who indeed had claimed Donna’s home and in particular her daughter as his to torment.  We sent the demon packing and busted up his power base in the home.

As for the ghosts, we gave Donna some tools she could use to keep them away.  Donna’s house was quite old and was in a neighbourhood of older homes.  The ghosts were confused more than anything.  We taught Donna how to work with them and how to stay safe in her home. (All material that is in our e-book, by the way.)

We also spent time playing with her daughter, and helping her to understand that the shadowy man was gone, and the others she could deal with…even at 7 years old.

Results

The shadow man never returned.  Donna’s daughter stopped having fits of terror and had no further problems going upstairs to bed.  The “feeling” around Donna’s home also shifted radically, going from “old and foreboding” to “old, neat character home, cozy and comfortable”.  Donna sent us this a few months later:

“Richard,

On behalf of my family, students & clients, I would like to thank you
for the work that you have done in my home and at our Healing Center.
It has made a vast difference in the quality of our lives, our
teaching and healing work. What a blessing you are!”