Before an exorcist begins the tenuous task of convincing large obnoxious demons to ‘move it along,’ it’s a really good idea that he knows what it is he is dealing with, where it has come from, and where it needs to go. We have covered the tools and helpers needed to conduct an exorcism, so now comes the first juicy bit…what is it that you are taking out?

The juiciest of all are the demons, so we will start there as I was always a dessert first child. As I have said before in this book, demons are not evil, they can just seem that way to us when they cross into our realm. What they are is conditional which is what makes them so dangerous, unpredictable, and appealing when they come into our lives.

Demons

There are many types of demons and the closer to our realm they are, the closer to our consciousness they are, which makes it easier for them to attach to us. There are many 17th century theoretical texts about demon names and their descriptions, and those texts have very little relevance to today’s current situation. Contrary to popular belief, knowing a demon’s name alone does not give you power over it, knowing its behaviour pattern, its wants and needs and where it came from (and therefore where it needs to go back to) is far more useful.

Most demons (when inhabiting humans) tend not to stick themselves to ceilings, spit fire, or talk in ancient languages— only the ones who live in Hollywood do that (when they are not stood on street corners selling star maps). They operate through the human, using the human’s memory, thought pattern, and latent abilities.

Because they work ‘through’ the human as opposed to ‘in’ the human, normally suppressed emotions, behaviours, and even medical conditions will come to the fore. This is what makes a possession assessment so difficult: the symptoms of possession and of certain medical conditions are very similar, with only subtle differences. This is why it is a very good idea for an exorcist to have a solid understanding of the basic mechanisms of the human body: you must be able to recognise the signals that the body puts out when it is in distress and be able to understand what those signals are saying.

A demonic being will use the memories and emotions of a host to drive the host into a behaviour that feeds it. So if it is a demonic being that feeds off negative emotion, then the body will be driven into situations where negative emotions can express themselves. All normal conditioning that would filter a person’s wish to act on an emotion is removed, so that when a victim feels hate, for example, he or she will act upon it. This is also a symptom of certain mental illnesses, which is why an exorcist has to first ensure the victim undergoes medical assessment.

If you have a possession where the being is playing through more subtle manipulative emotive patterns, then chances are it is a parasite rather than a demonic being. Demonic beings that are closer to humanity tend to operate more on the spectacular side of emotions so that they can get a good whack of energy and then express their function, like destruction, death, or torture on a grand scale.

So a demonic possession is more likely to become involved in mass murder, destruction of a group, place, or structure, or major societal/cultural interference. Deeper demonic beings are seen very rarely but when they do emerge they are huge, they work through major power structures or land/weather patterns and tend to cause massive change in our cultures.

A parasite on the other hand is usually happy to make do with unstable emotions, weird sexual acts, drugs, more personalised violent acts, etc.

Type of demonic beings

The most common type of demonic being that we see in our realm tend to be ones that are fairly close to us from an inner evolutionary point of view, and if you are working in the Abyss, they are relatively close to our ‘section’ of the Abyss. (For more detailed information on the Abyss see Appendix 1 ‘Notes on the Abyss.’)

These types of beings have very similar wants and needs to humans, and some of them were once human, just as some angels were once human. So when you are dealing with these types of beings, you have to keep in mind that the being will think in a way very similar to humanity—you will have to be careful not to get drawn into playing psychological chess when dealing with this type of being.

Their ability to follow a human line of thought and to be able to mimic certain cultural characteristics makes them very difficult to isolate away from the human when you are assessing the host. You have to carry out your assessment on other manifestations of the possession, and ignore the verbal and non-verbal communications. This level of being is very difficult to spot and can often appear to be a mental illness. There are ways to draw the being out which will make it far more obvious that it is not an illness, but it would be wise to always have a doctor present when dealing with this level of being.

The further down the Abyss and therefore further away from humanity the demonic beings are, the bigger and more dangerous they become. These beings tend not to inhabit single people (although sadly it can happen), but tend to work through larger collections of humans. Their agenda tends to be something that will feed them longer term, and about establishing themselves as a living force in the surface world. These beings are very dangerous, not just to individuals, but to groups and societies in general. It is not something you would tackle alone as an exorcist, but something that a focussed group would work on over a generation. The trick is to not get drawn into the agenda for good or bad—stay neutral and get a job done. The other thing I have found with some of these larger demonic beings that flow through a structure is that they are often doing an important job: aiding in the breaking down of a structure that is decaying. This is what I think the natural function of a demonic being is: to assist in an end to something corrupt.

Every being in existence has a purpose and beings only become problems when they are in the wrong place. It is also a matter of overview: if a demonic being is aiding and accelerating an unhealthy situation to facilitate its demise, then that being is doing a service. But if you are a part of that situation and you don’t want it to end, then the demonic being becomes an adversary as far as you are concerned—it’s all a matter of perspective.

Between the two extremes there are loads of variants that present in the outside world and men have spent generations writing heavy tomes on the names and attributes of the many thousands of demons that populate the Abyss. Really useful…. When a demon is charging at you out of a victim at the speed of light, speaking its name is going to do…what exactly? Stop it in its tracks so that it can shake hands and practice good manners?

One of the first practical lessons I learned as an exorcist was that these beings really don’t give a damn if you know its name. That name is nothing to do with it—the name is a construct of humanity used to identify it. Yes, you can use the name to call it, but why the hell would you want to call it, anyhow? The whole theory that knowing the name of a demon gives you control over it is total bullcrap—and can become very dangerous bullcrap.

Hence all the confused Catholic exorcists out there who were trained to find the name of the being, and that knowledge not giving them the power to remove the being, only to engage it further and wind it up. There are a large percentage of demonic texts that were written from theory, and relying on that sort of a source in a life-or-death situation is just plain silly.

I know there is a whole body of thought that uses demonic names to call them out of the Abyss so that people can get used to banishing them—not a very bright idea. What the demons failed to tell the very bright person who thought that one up is that if you use a name, it narrows the field of action down to the attributes of that name. But the being is so much more than that, and when you banish that name, you are only sending off part of the being. When you call it by name, all of it will come by choice. When you banish by name, only the named part is affected, so it doesn’t really work. That is why they are so happy to be summoned by hapless trainee wizards in their goth clothing—they get to be invited out to tea.

And when you summon such a being out to tea, by inviting it, you disengage a whole host of intertwined protections, guardians, and safety nets—it plays straight into their hands. When a human invites a demon, it releases the protective net that stops the demon rising out of the Abyss. And when you try to banish them using their name, you only banish a part of them—the rest gets to hang out and parasite off the closest victims.

This, then, illustrates the wisdom about trusting the inner worlds to do their jobs and you do yours—the complex beautiful weave that is our universe has many layers that work together in perfect imbalance. Our problems come when we interfere with that weave and then try to over-control the mop up. There are lots of checks and balances in operation, far too many to understand, but they do work and the trick is to figure out what you don’t need to do.

So in all, the general types of demonic beings that tend to express in our world are:

1. Smaller human-connected ones that are trying to live a life on the ‘surface’ and live by means of feeding their conditionality usually through extremism of personality.

2. Medium-sized demonic beings that express in a single or small amount of humans through the build up and then execution of an act that will generate bigger amounts of power, such as mass murder, suicides, sex deaths, or other violent acts.

3. Large, deep, and ancient demonic beings that express through society, government, land mass, or large groups of people, and basically drive the lemmings over the cliff. They will manoeuvre a large amount of people to behave in an extreme way that will end in war, murder, or suicides. They are sometimes intent on creating an environment that will suitable for them to live in the human world indefinitely.

As far as all the listings of demons names and attributes go, they are interesting and sometimes mildly useful, but to put it in context the variety of demons is about the same as the variety of humans. So having the names and characteristics of a few humans is hardly going to give you a handle on how to deal with any human in any given situation. Also don’t forget that those texts all speak from a Judaeo-Christian standpoint—most demons are not religious.

Where do demons come from?

This is an interesting question that opens many other questions for me. Were demonic beings around before humanity? Or are they a part of the family of beings that are the braid that is humanity in its various waves? I have no idea and that path is a long complex and difficult one to walk down if one wants to work on the inner to find an answer. I don’t have time to do that, I’m too busy peeling beings off stoned teens and out of buildings.

For us in today’s world I would say that the demonic beings that are in our world have been pulled, coaxed, and invited out of their world by a variety of human acts and that activity is accelerating. It might also be that there is a natural order in place and we are in a time of decay which is facilitating more beings to ‘leak’ through into our world.

Most of the time when people summon demonic beings, they fail miserably and are content to have witnessed a whiff of smoke or a haze which they are convinced is a ‘sign’ of demonic presence (it can be a sign of presence, but it can be a presence of any being of moderate power). But occasionally someone who is a natural talent will summon up a nasty and then have no idea how to get rid of them. In that circumstance the being usually inhabits one or more of the humans present and is thankful for a chance to play out in the yummy human world.

The need to know where they came from is only important when it becomes obvious that they did not get through to our world by natural means. If humans have aided them in breaking through, then humans have to put them back, in which case you need to know where to put them.

The other very sad door opener that is bringing more pissed off demons into our world is the fairly recent aggressive attempts by certain American evangelical Christian groups to cleanse the Abyss (which they see as Hell) through prayer, trance, visions, and ritual. It is rather rude to stomp into someone else’s house and tell them that you don’t like them or their furnishings, and then trying to evict them from their own home. It does tend to piss beings off when you do that. The direct result of this work is that doorways into certain realms of the Abyss are being opened and the traffic is two-way. If humans create a door into the Abyss, then it will be used and can only be shut and dismantled by humans.

My theory as to why their invasion of the Abyss is so effective in creating doorways is that the roots of the people doing this work are in Africa, and latent ancestral beings and knowledge comes to the fore during such work. Their methods of working look very similar on the outside to tribal ceremonies from the west coast of Africa. And that magic, however it expresses itself, is powerful and dangerous. So it doesn’t matter what you call it, or what faces or deities you put to it—the method works, the ancestral skills kick in, but it doesn’t have a suitable vessel to hold it. The Christian religion is not built for such work. So the old tribal methods of going into the otherworlds work, but the structural protections do not kick in as it is not in context.

Energy created from magic and religion are the two biggest door openers for such beings and they will search out the nearest host who will then be ‘encouraged’ to open the door wider either through more religious/magical actions, or through actions that create large energy boosts which the demon then uses to open the door wider himself. Mass murder is one of those energy-boosting actions.

And taking down the host in such situations is not enough. The being will merely walk along to the next available and compatible human to take up residence. The human hosts that do all the spitting and talking voices are the ones that are holding the demon at bay to an extent, and their inner immune system is fighting its action. The really heavily possessed ones just go about quietly doing what the demon wants.

The variety of realms and depths that these beings can come from are seemingly endless, but for our consciousness we can narrow it down to sections within the Abyss, which are essentially the back doors to those worlds. So if you have a demon in hand, or trapped, then taking it down the Abyss until you reach its recognisable section is the safest way to deal with them.

Once you have established which part of the Abyss they are from, then if you are brave (otherwise known as immensely naive, stupid, and insane) and want to be of real service, then you can go back to that area with suitable disguise and armour, and look in depth at that realm and learn what it is about. That way, you will have a very deep and useful knowledge about the demon’s own world, which in turn can be useful when having to deal with a long term dangerous stream of demonic consciousness invading our world. You can also use that information to stop the traffic into our world for a very long time.

Symptoms of the various forms of demonic possession

I will go further in depth on this issue in the chapter on host assessments but here is a brief rundown on how these beings tend to manifest in humanity. Please bear in mind that a lot of the signs and symptoms listed can also indicate a mental health problem and you need to be very aware of that fact. In the chapter on assessment we will look at the various ways of distinguishing mental health from possession. One further complication is that sometimes one can trigger the other off so that you have a dual situation to handle.

It would be wise, as part of the learning process in the world of the exorcist, to familiarise yourself with the various presentations of mental illness.

The smaller demonic beings present in humans and animals first by way of mental, emotional, and personality changes, and then later physical changes as the body struggles to hold two beings in one space. The first symptom is usually withdrawal from friends and family, hearing voices, mood changes, and obsessions. Deeply religious or spiritual experiences often happen at this point as the being tries to operate the host’s brain and the demon inadvertently exposes the host to lines of power/consciousness that the host would not normally have access to. Sometimes clever demons will project the story that the host is ‘filled with the Holy Spirit’ or any religious or spiritual equivalent in order to dismantle any defence systems the mind throws up.

The being will become very clear with its voice to the host and will begin to direct how the host eats, sleeps, who the host talks to, etc. The being also has a very definite effect on what music the host listens to. Sound is very important in the inner worlds, and each being responds in different ways to certain pitches and sounds. The demonic being will steer the host away from music or sounds that will make its possession harder to hang on to. The host will begin to gravitate to music that has harsher aggressive sounds that bolster as opposed to weaken the possession. His or her whole personality changes, often beyond recognition, and he or she often displays previously unknown skills.

At this point you can see the similarity in certain mental illnesses and also in some parasite infestations. If the possession is allowed to take a hold the mind of the host will begin to struggle against the being—sometimes that will display as aggression and attack. Just as a cat will bat its paw at a piece of hot chicken that has burned it, so the host becomes aggressive in an unconscious way to try to push out the demon. The demon will often use this and aim it outwards at other people. Someone who does not have a great deal of strength, or who is an empathic type of personality will quietly absorb the being, withdraw, and enter into a relationship with it.

After a short while, maybe a week or two, the body will start to react to the invasion. It will initially show through the digestive system (seeing as the emotive route didn’t work), their digestion and appetite will change dramatically and their taste for certain types of food will change. Certain minerals burn up very quickly in the system. (I do not know why this is, only that it seems to nearly always happen. My theory is that the being needs the energy of certain substances to continue inhabiting the body.) So the host will become anaemic quickly, will often display a positive chvostiks sign (go look it up) and begin to suffer from low blood sugar. From these signs it becomes apparent that the being is affecting the metabolic function as it tries to operate the body’s energy system. Sometimes they become very spotty as the skin which is the body’s biggest organ, is the safest most externalised route for toxic dumping.

The body stance also begins to change and certain tremors, fits, muscle cramps and contortions happen as the body struggles against the intrusion. The facial features will often slightly distort and for exorcists with inner sight, at this point you will be able to see the being looking out of their eyes. These are all the most extreme symptoms, but most people do not get them—the possession can often go unnoticed by all but the closest relatives/friends. Often it is a subtle but dangerous shift in thinking and reasoning, and a loss of normal balanced emotions.

One of the most spectacular indications that all these symptoms are possession rather than illness is that after a basic removal, or a shutting of the being down without the host realising, all the symptoms immediately stop. It’s stunning—within hours they return to being normal people. If it is mental or physical illness, such magical actions would have no affect at all. One must make sure though, if using binding or shutting methods to diagnose, that the host does not realise what you are doing—that way you do not get a placebo affect.

If left unchecked, the possession can last for years as the demonic being enjoys being in the human world. The person will often become labelled as mentally ill with violent tendencies, and the being will affect and influence all the people around the host. The intention of the being is to have power in the human world, one way or another. It will try to express that power through relationships, workplace, religion, and will become obsessive in having followers. They are dangerous but usually in a manipulative way: they are paranoid, controlling, aggressive, and addictive. They express their need for power through sex, substances, illness, violence, and occasionally deaths.

With the medium-sized demons all the above happens but most often the human fights hard against the invasion, the very soul recognises the danger of the being and will often fight hard to stop it. There are many sad tales about desperate people walking into hospitals, police stations, and mental wards to warn people that they are going to kill. They are trying to warn humanity against the being that is within them and what it is going to do. Most of the time they are brushed off or medicated, and the medication lowers the host’s ability to fend off the being, so that it digs in deeper. Not long after the cry for help the mass murder usually happens, and they kill themselves, which gives the being a large boost of energy so that it can move on. Sometimes possessed people have killed themselves in the belief that it will also kill the demon, which it doesn’t.

These types of demonic beings express themselves either through individuals or small groups, or sometimes even places. They want death, sex, violence, fear, drugs, anything that expresses raw powerful emotion. The more the merrier as far as they are concerned and they will often get the host to build up to a large event. Murdering more than one person at a time that will elicit the most outpourings of emotions, which often means children. The stronger the land that the host lives upon, the more powerful the urge to kill will become as the power spots magnify the influence of the being.

The very large demonic beings usually express themselves through groups, organisations, and families. They work for the long term, slowly building a structure that will enable them to manipulate large amounts of people to behave in a way that they want. To see how they operate, just look back through history, particularly the last hundred years to see what I mean. They will often begin with one person who is very psychic, and therefore a good doorway, and build from there. These large beings are hive beings, so they infect many people, but they are the same being. It was this type of consciousness that Dion Fortune was fighting during the Second World War. She burned out her body protecting England from a large hive consciousness that the Germans were working with.

Parasites

These beings are often mistaken for demons, but do not have the same danger level that demonic consciousness has. They can have a similar impact on a human as a demonic possession, but they are easier to deal with and remove. They tend to be less intelligent but fairly crafty, and are just looking for food. They do not get into the major social-cultural consciousness thing that demonic beings do, but they tend to go hand in hand with major demonic influences.

So, for example, when you have a demonic consciousness operating through someone or a group, parasites are often in there right with them to feed off the ride and benefit from the energy bursts. This has to be taken into account when you are pulling a demon out—there will most likely be a whole host of large and small parasites hanging on in there that need removing.

Parasites, unlike demons, are very common indeed, and pervade all parts of the human world and consciousness. Some have a symbiotic relationship with their host, in which case you have to think very carefully before you remove them. Some pass down the generations in families, some infect areas and affect all who live there, some hang out around certain activities, and some are attracted by certain illnesses. The list is endless.

But an exorcist who is used to looking closely at people will learn to spot one easily so that a good assessment can be done. The inner parasites are like Candida: you have to cut off the food source and point of entry to ensure that they do not get back in. The host usually also needs some educating so that they learn the symptoms of early infection, and the behaviour patterns that attract them. I always view parasites as an inner illness rather than a possession. It is like having a bacteria or fungus in your body—they not only affect your health but also how you think and act, just as an outer illness can.

Just as there are endless types of humans, there are endless types of parasites, and they are far too many to list and discuss all of them. But there are a small amount of ‘types’ that are the most common in our society and these are the ones you are most likely to come up against.

Emotional parasites: These feed off strong emotions and will encourage the host to get into conflicts and dramas. It will ‘ride’ the host so that a lot of energy is released that it can feed from. When there is a long term infestation, the host, if younger, tends to not develop emotionally as he is not given the opportunity to learn from experience—the parasite will work to keep the host unstable so that it can feed. If the host is using any form of chemical depressant or relaxant then the being will be able to dig in deeper as such drugs lower the inner defence systems.

Sexual parasites: These beings tend to be attracted to sexual acts and feed off the excitement and then the release of energy at orgasm. They will work through the imagination of the host making the imagination more vivid, but like a drug, the host will adjust quickly and the being encourages the host to look for more and more powerful images or acts to think of or do. When such beings are taken out of a host, the host may lose their sex drive for a while as things rebalance themselves. The imagination is a major doorway into and out of the other worlds and it should be guarded carefully.

Violent parasites: These parasites encourage violent behaviour and feed off conflict. They can be strong enough to urge a person to kill but more often it encourages fighting, aggression, destruction of property, and violent, fragmented thinking.

Healer parasites: These are the creepiest…. They work through healers so that when the healer puts hands upon the patient, the being plugs in and drains off the patients’ deeper energy. They then send in a backwash of ‘feel good’ to ensure they come back. But the healing doesn’t usually work (as the healer is blocked by the parasite) and within a couple of hours the victim becomes drained and exhausted.

Most parasite symptoms can mimic unbalanced human behaviour so one cannot assume whenever he sees such symptoms that it is only the parasite. Sometimes it is just the human who has such parasitical behaviour; sometimes that behaviour in an individual will encourage a parasite to move in.

The difference is that when treated, the host changes behaviour almost immediately but will still be vulnerable for a while and will need to be watched closely. Parasites are very common and seem to be a part of the natural order of life, just as fungus infections and viruses are.

In a positive way they help us to adjust our behaviour and also to develop an immune system to keep them out. Whenever it is possible with a parasite infection, if the host tries to starve it out themselves and learns to see the infestation signs, they will build immunity to it very quickly.

Many people, however, are driven by their wants and needs, and that egocentricity is an open door for these beings. The discipline not to be driven by urges is the first barrier that keeps these beings out.

There is a whole industry that has sprung up in the new age world: plastic shamanism, and it focuses mainly on taking out parasites but it approaches it in a very psychological way and absolves the patient from his or her own responsibility as far as inner cleanliness is concerned.

As with demonic beings, a sensitive exorcist will be able to see well-entrenched parasites within the host and sometimes even non-sensitive workers will feel drained and ‘invaded’ around a parasited person. If the victim has been infested for a while, then he will start to look slightly ill and grimy as his body becomes drained slowly of life force. It is not as severe as a demonic possession, but it does eventually become quite noticeable.

The key times in people’s lives that they can become vulnerable to these beings is puberty, sexual awakening, surgery, accidents, certain illnesses (particularly ones that affect the brain, i.e., meningitis), menopause, extreme emotional incidents, and near death.

One type of parasite that has to be carefully thought about before taking action is the type of parasite that targets elderly people or those who have terminal illness. As the spirit weakens its hold on the body, parasites ease their way in and set up shop. They live in the host, feeding off the food, emotions, and generally enjoying living in a body. They will operate to keep the body alive so that they can get as much time as they can. Sometimes, aggressive ones will try to ease out the spirit of the human and completely take over. Although they do try this quite a bit, it is very rare for one to be successful.

What tends to happen is an ill, dying, or very old sick person will seem to drag on without being able to let go into death. Sometimes this is just emotional or spiritual fear, or a wish to stay alive at all costs, and it should not be assumed that it is a parasite all the time. But sometimes one does get in and will prolong the suffering of the host so that it can feed.

In those circumstances, taking the being out will often kill the host in that, without the being keeping her alive, her body finally lets go. In a coma patient, which is a very common condition that attracts parasites, she will often die within 48 hours of the parasite removal, even if she has been in a coma for a long time.

If you are taking the responsibility for taking out a parasite then you must also take on the responsibility of doing the death vision for the patient (see the chapter on death) either silently while you hold her hand, or out loud to her if she is open to that.

Ghosts and hauntings

Most of the time, when people think they are haunted, they are not. True hauntings are pretty rare, but they do happen. The sources of hauntings can get complicated and it is important to quickly ascertain what types of haunting you are dealing with.

The most common hauntings are echoes that are stored within a land space or a building. Some major events that output a lot of energy seem to lock ‘recordings’ of a person or people in to a building, and certain conditions trigger a replaying of that event. A very well-known one is Roman soldiers marching through the basement of a private school in York. Many people over the years, including police, have witnessed lines of soldiers marching through the basement and vanishing into the walls. They were not aware of the modern-day people watching them—it is simply a recording that plays over when the conditions are right. Those types of recordings tend to peak and then vanish when the building is torn down or remodelled. They are harmless and usually no interaction happens between witness and ‘ghost.’

Another type of common haunting happens when a person who has died does not move on but his self-structure or personality is taken over by a parasite that steps into the image of the person and uses the image of the personality to create situations that will feed it. These situations are dealt with as parasites and not as dead persons. The easiest way to tell if it is a parasite or not is by its actions: if it is doing things that fall into parasite activity, i.e., getting into dreams, manipulating people, creating fear, aggression, etc, then chances are it is a parasite that has found a fragmented personality. Sometimes you get a mix, where the original ghost is still there but is driven by the parasite. These types of hauntings can become dangerous and have to be handled very carefully

In such a combination, the parasite will give the ghost strength and skills that it shouldn’t have, particularly if the ghost is of a person who died violently, was involved in violence of some sort, or was mentally ill in a dangerous way. These are difficult to get rid of and have to be approached from a variety of ways all at once, so they are not a one-person job. The updated film of the Amityville haunting made in 2005 was rather free with the original story, and they really beefed up the ‘haunting.’ Certain elements of the film reflected how this particular mix of parasite/ghost hauntings can play with the minds and bodies of people. It was a fairly good portrayal of how an extreme haunting of this type can present.

A real haunting that is just a dead human usually works through the dreams and thoughts of the victims, while also affecting the environment. They tend not to be too spectacular as far as ‘happenings’ go, but are more destructive for the victims because of the psychological damage these hauntings can cause. It is as if the person tries to latch into the victims’ head. They can also attack the victim, or follow her around the house, often in an attempt to communicate.

Most real hauntings are about communication attempts, or clinging onto lives, power, money, relationships, etc. They will try to stop the living from moving on, or they want witness to their pain or suffering. With such hauntings, banishments, etc, are a complete waste of time as they slowly tend to creep back. The ghost has to be approached from a visionary point of view, usually by the living going in vision into death and talking to them on their own ‘turf.’ Once the person has been escorted through death, they do not come back and everything tends to settle down.

In some countries that have a raw land power that has not been deadened by thousands of years of civilisation, there are pockets of land power that create doors for beings to flow into our world and when they meet humanity it can sometimes be a total disaster. Some American hauntings, like the famous Tennessee Bell Witch for example, are not a haunting at all. These incidents are beings, akin to faery beings, that are often hostile to humanity and dislike the intrusion of civilisation—they become aggressive and will fight for their land. In such a situation I would suggest that the people just move—it cannot be resolved easily if at all and these types of hauntings are truly dangerous and have been known to kill people.

Such clashes with these beings can occasionally be negotiated, but in reality, the house is on their land or burial grounds and they want it back. Those sites are often very powerful and hold burials that can date back a couple of thousand years or more as the native people will have recognised such an entrance to the underworld. Sometimes the attacking being is a guardian and is just doing their job. They will watch the humans, learn their ‘language’ or mode of appearance and communication, and then mirror it back to the victims.

This presents as a haunting by a ghost, but is anything but. I have tried quite a few times to work on clearing such ‘hauntings’ and have failed miserably each time while also getting my butt kicked well and hard. I learned to communicate to an extent with such beings, but they are often very ancient, very hostile, and very powerful. They are immune to bargaining, have no sense of humour and love to play ball with your brain. If you come up against such a haunting, I would suggest you back out quietly while telling the people to sell up.

Finally there are poltergeists, of which I know nothing at all, and have no idea how to get rid of them. My theory is that they are faery-type beings with a warped sense of humour and really good aim. I have been whacked over the head a couple of time by these little bastards and they only stopped when I lost it and adopted my ‘teaching obnoxious children’ voice. They resumed breaking windows and throwing stones as soon as I left. Obviously the faery realm has bratty children, just as the human realm does.

The more you do the work of an exorcist, the more beings and situations you will come across that you have never seen, read about, or experienced before. The variety is endless, tiring, and bloody annoying sometimes. Just when you think you have got it sussed, you come across something that knocks you on your ass and you have no idea what the hell it is or how to get rid of it.

When you come across something new, take notes, and observe before you get to work. Learn as much as you can about it so that others can benefit from your black eye and frazzled brain. The more you can watch and listen to a being in action, the more you will learn about it and be able to know how to get rid of it and where it has come from. If you cannot figure out what it is and where it has come from, you can always ask it. I have done that a couple of times and got straight useful answers which surprised the shit out of me. Old rule: if you don’t know—ask!!