When you come to assess the possibility of a possession, erring on the side of sensible caution is a really good idea—that way you don’t get wiped up the wall unexpectedly, or mistake an illness for a demon and make someone’s paranoia just a little bit more intense.

The first and most important golden rule to keep repeating to yourself over and over is: make sure that what is presenting to you is not just an illness. A possession or infestation has many similar symptoms to an illness, but there also are things that are not similar. If the victim is presenting possession-type symptoms then your assessment must include consultation with a doctor who is also an esotericist.

Many people have asked me if I ask the victim permission to work on them. If the family have asked me in, then that is good enough for me. Do keep in mind that if you ask a victim, there is a really good chance that your answer is coming from the being itself and not the victim. If there is someone out in the community that is doing really bad things and it becomes obvious that it is a possession or infestation, then I will take the being out whether the host likes it or not. My concern is for the people around them. I am not going to stand by and watch a being operate through a human that makes them attack people—I will take the bugger out regardless of what anyone thinks. I only get involved like that though if it is a being that is trying to get the host to kill, rape, etc.

In the end it comes down to personal ethics. Make sure your ethics are about what is spiritually balanced as opposed to the societal ethics which can change like the wind and are often based more upon culture and social engineering rather than what is actually right and wrong—murder and rape are wrong, being odd isn’t.

First contact

The first contact starts the minute you answer the phone when someone has called for help. If it is a demonic possession, then the being is aware of you the minute you speak into the phone, even if you are talking to a family member or friend of the host. Do not underestimate these beings: they are not governed by the host body, that is just like a base for them. That inner awareness of you from first contact also means that anything you say to the family is potentially also information going to the being. You do not want to give the being too much information that it can then use to attack you, or that will warn it of your methods so it can retaliate.

Mercifully, 99% of the time, when you are called out, it is for parasites, ghosts, curses, and false alarms. Probably 70% of calls that you get are false alarms and are more about illness, depression, bad drains (strange house smells), paranoia, over-active imagination, attention-seeking, and puberty (i.e. my son won’t do as he is told, I think he is possessed).

But for your own safety you always have to work from the assumption that until otherwise proven, you could be dealing with a demonic possession. If you approach your preparation (not your host) that way, you are prepared and ready for the worst and hopefully you will find nothing. It is much better to go ready for battle and not have to use it than it is to go not prepared for anything and find that you have a really nasty demonic being in front of you, sharpening its claws, ready for dinner.

So when you first answer the phone call, the minute you speak, you are working. You have to be able to gain as much information as possible while giving out as little information as possible. This is nearly impossible, as most people are frightened by exorcists/the whole idea of possession, and they want to know as much about it and you as possible. I have had people asking me my family history, religious training, schooling, relationship details, everything. You have to be able to not answer a lot of these questions, as they potentially give the being ammunition and a way ‘in’ to you.

That gives you little option but to give them a minimum base background of what they really do need to know and tell them that you cannot tell them anything else until after the work. That doesn’t really make them feel any safer but you do have to protect yourself. They also need to protect their family member so you need to be able to give them basic information that tells them that you know what you are doing, and how you are going to do it, and where you are coming from.

To do this you need to be clear with yourself about what needs to be said. First off, it really helps if you are part of a religious organisation under whose umbrella you can operate. You do need to have a good understanding of religion and have a solid spiritual/magical foundation to operate from anyhow, and some religious or magical lines do carry consecrations that link you to lines of past priests and priestesses that you can draw upon while you are working.

To want to get to this stage of work you must have developed through a spiritual or magical tradition anyhow, so I am assuming most people reading this are adept initiates, and/or religious/spiritual priests or priestesses. The fact that you have a position within a spiritual or magical organisation is a good indication to someone that you have training and experience (and the fact that you blew up your cat in a magical experiment the week before is just a minor detail).

The other strand of information that people will need and want to know is what you are going to do. While you cannot really go into detail with such information, it is valuable to point out that the methods are very ‘hands off,’ calm, quiet, and don’t involve anything painful or scary. Real exorcism is actually quite boring to observe: people don’t usually tend to spit porridge and shout really interesting insults while you are exorcising them.

What will be one very early indication of either a possession or a bad infestation is that when you question the family or victim over the phone they will very quickly become defensive, sometimes hostile, and quite secretive. They will often feel confused as to why they are feeling this way and will sometimes offer an apology. Another manifestation of this is they will find it hard to speak, or get easily confused and forgetful. It is common in these circumstances to hear someone saying ‘I’m not normally this scattered, I don’t know what has come over me.’ Although the family member is not possessed, they can be mildly affected by the being as it tries to control and defend its territory.

With the two bits of information regarding your spiritual/magical training, and the fact that it is very hands off and not melodramatic, that is enough to reassure friends and family of the victim without giving too much information that would jeopardise you in any way. Don’t forget, if it is a true possession, whatever you tell the family is also being heard by the being. (If you weren’t paranoid before, you will be now….)

What is most important for the exorcist is to be able to get as much information as possible to be able to make some pre-contact assessments. You need a basic history of the changes within the host. Ask: What are his religious beliefs? His relationships? Job? What medical assessments have been made? Inquire into his current family situation. Is he on medications? If so, what? What seems to trigger an event or make it worse? When did it start and how long has it been going on? You also need to know what area he lives in and what his living situation is.

The reason you need all this information is that you need to be able to possibly identify why the host was infested, what triggered it and what has strengthened it. You also need to know his spiritual makeup so that you will know if the host is going to be able to work with you or not. People who have a spiritual life tend to fight infestations harder and can be reached through the possession to give them instructions. If they are on medications then it is going to be harder to reach them if there is a possession. A lot of medications, like antidepressants, lower the human’s ability to fight the being, so it digs in deeper and the host has no power to stop it.

After that first conversation, which usually happens over the phone, you must be on guard and prepared. That means that you are working from that point on which will affect where you go, what you do, what you eat, how you sleep, and who you talk to. The longer you do such work, the more you will learn to get a feel for what it is you are probably going to be dealing with, so the intensity of the preparation does ease somewhat. But in the early days of your work, you must be prepared for what could possibly come at you.

After first contact and before the meeting

Once you have made contact with the host or the host’s family, it is a good idea to make sure that there is not too long a gap between the contact and getting to work. Because you have to be ‘on’ all the time after the call, it can get very wearing on the body to keep your guard up for very long—so the quicker you can get to work, the better.

Once you are on notice, it is a bad idea to do any socialising, going out to bars or busy public places that might put a strain on your everyday outer ‘skin.’ You are potentially under pressure, and need to stay clean, quiet, and be able to focus in on preparing yourself. I have ignored that advice myself to my own peril and found myself totally overwhelmed after having a single glass of sherry in a café with friends. My inner defence systems were holding off a being from an upcoming job and the alcohol coupled with public exposure dropped my defences a little and I essentially got my ass bit by the being I was about to work on.

My other silly act (I’m saying other, but there is a long list of stupid acts that have my name on them) was just a couple of hours after a job I did in NY to de-possess someone. I went out with a friend for a bite to eat and forgot how vulnerable I could be after that type of work. A street person who was heavily infested spotted me (when you work, it’s like a flashing light switches on over your head so you become very visible to parasites, etc) and made a beeline straight for me. He crashed into me, knocking my shoulder and one of the heavier beings that he was infested with transferred onto me. I had no defence as I was still weak from the work and I took the impact full on.

I got back to the apartment, got the thing out, and took a ritual cleansing bath. I then went into teaching that evening which was the second silly thing I did that day and nearly killed myself. I took 20 people, mostly beginners, into the underworld, and on the way back up I began to struggle under the burden of so many people who could not carry their own weight. My shoulder that had taken the impact earlier popped out literally—it dislocated under the inner pressure. To this day I have terrible pain and problems with that shoulder because I did not look after myself or the injury properly.

Which is another point to be aware of not only for yourself, but also for the host: inner impacts can cause physical manifestations of the inner injury if they are intense enough.

So the moral of the story is: keep out of public areas when you are doing this work. You are far too visible and vulnerable to be wandering around city streets in the midst of an exorcism. Don’t forget, (ok, I’m nagging now,) the exorcism starts from first contact.

Don’t drink or take any mind altering substances or drugs, make sure you sleep with a lit candle in the room that has been tuned in to whatever stream you are working with and have a demon trap in the room working with you. Don’t connect or get into conversations with vulnerable members of your family or friends (you instantly expose them to danger through you, and it gives the demon information and connections to attack you with).

Basically you have to be clean, simple, tuned in, on guard, and isolated until well after the job is done. It usually takes a couple of days after the work is finished for it all to calm a little, and a couple of weeks to be completely clear. My friends sometimes get pissed off with me for not being chatty or falling out of contact for a few weeks or sometimes months. It is usually either because I am exhausted and laid in bed wondering why the hell I do this, or I am in the midst of dealing with something. Either way it is a lonely, hard, and bloody antisocial activity! I lucked out in that I married someone who is as mad as I am and we work together on this path.

The other preparation is to look after your body: don’t fill it with junk as you are preparing to work. Eat clean and simple foods to support and help your body with the burdens it could possibly face.

If you are going to be dealing with parasites, then most of the above is less intense and less urgent, although still necessary. You will eventually learn to feel the various waves of impact coming towards you and be able to gauge just what threat it is that you are up against.

Inner guardian

It is good to build up a working relationship with an inner guardian when you start doing this work and this can be done by going to the Abyss and calling upon the keeper of the Abyss to connect you with an angelic being that will watch your back as you work. It is good to learn to work in the Abyss and get comfortable with it as it is a vision you will use often. Although there is a version of it in Chapter 1 (the vision of judgement), here is a simple and straightforward version. This version is taking you to find a guardian, but learn the actual method of going to the Abyss and calling the keeper—you will use this journey a lot in your work.

Vision of the Abyss

Light a candle and still yourself. With your eyes closed, see yourself stepping through the flame and into the void, the place of no time, no movement, nothing. Spend a little time there quietening yourself and feeling yourself expand in the nothingness. When you feel still, focus on the intent to go to the Abyss and with that intent step out of the void and find yourself walking across a flat desert. You will see beings in the distance bound up as they sleep and wait. Pass by them as you focus your intent to travel to the Abyss.

In the distance you see a faint glow over the land and as you get closer you come to a large crack in the earth which seems to go down and down forever, and out of which is a faint glow of light—this is the Abyss that flows through all worlds. As you stand on the edge of the Abyss, you become aware of the beings below and above in the Abyss, and of Divinity across the Abyss hidden in the mists that cloak the other side.

Call for the keeper of the Abyss and out of the depths will rise a large being of human shape but monstrous size that stands up within the Abyss and looks down to you. Hold out your hand to him and whatever appears in your hand, you give as a gift. (If it is something that you own in life, burn it or bury it and send its power or energy to this being.)

Ask the keeper to take you to an order of beings that would be willing to work with you as a guardian while you work in service. Tell the keeper the type of work you are doing and the being will hold out his hand. Step onto the hand and the keeper will lift you up to a place higher up the Abyss than the human level to a place where there is an order of angelic beings that would be willing to work with you.

The keeper will place you on a ledge that juts out from a long dark tunnel. Out of that tunnel will come a being that will be willing to work with you. Commune with that being, tell it what you are trying to achieve, and ask it formally if it is willing to work with you. The being may ask you to offer something of service back, or it may not. When you have both come to an agreement, the keeper will lift you both down back to the edge of the Abyss and the two of you walk away from the Abyss and towards the desert.

As you walk along with this being, you notice things ahead of you that you recognise from your life and your home. One thing in particular draws you—it may be a door, a room, a window, a fireplace, or something similar that is in or near your home. You realise as you walk towards it that the being is looking into your mind to see a possible threshold that it can use to access you. You both step through it and you find yourself back in your home where you first started. The being comes back with you and tells you that the threshold you just used will now be an access point for that being to use when you call upon it.

When you are ready, blow out the candle and look at the access point. When you need to work with this being you will light a candle and focus on that access point to call it through. Don’t forget, if the being asked you for service in return, then you must honor that agreement.

Cards

The next step after the first contact is to look at the problem using the modified deck and layout (see Chapter 13). Be aware that when you look after having first contact, you have to shield your readings so that the being does not know that you are looking at it, and also to ensure that you do not inadvertently connect with the being through the reading and pull part of it into your home.

The best way to shield is to work within a sacred or tuned space with a working candle, and using a spiralled cloth to lay the cards out on. Keep an awareness in your mind that there is a possibility of interference and when you ask your questions, ask for a true answer, not an interfered one. Sometimes it can be that simple, just ask the deck and the beings that work with the deck to keep out any intruders from your readings.

When you look using the cards, use all three layouts that are listed (the healing layout is in the appendix): the health reading, the identification reading, and the directional reading.

First you will look at the overall health of the person using a health layout. This layout will also give you plenty of clues as to whether the infestation is actually just an illness, or an infestation, or both. Then you will look at a directional reading to see what elements and powers flow through the being, what inner direction it is coming from, so that you have a better idea of its make up and therefore will know which angelic beings to work with to get rid of it. Then you will look using a larger advice and identification layout that will tell you where in the Abyss it comes from, what order of being it is, and also possibly how it got from its own world to ours.

Once you have looked at those details, then it would be a good idea to do a reading to look at the home and see what the energy is like in the home and if there are any beings in the house itself. For that you would use the directional reading and a tree of life layout.

Once you have got all of your readings done and you have written them down, refer back to them as you work—obscure details often come to life as the work progresses. At the end of the exorcism, burn the readings and notes—these notes will be a potential doorway for the being to get back into our world. Nothing that has information of the being should be kept. I cringed when watching the film dramatising the exorcism of Mary Rose: they used the original tapes from the exorcism as information which enabled certain fragments of being to reach out through the movie. It didn’t matter that most of the movie was fiction—a fragment is all that it takes.

First contact

The first few minutes of contact are very important as that is the time in which the being weighs you up and looks for your weak points, and while the being is doing that, you are doing the same—you need to assess the host, the house, and the family. It is not unheard of for a possession to be invited in by a family member, or for a family member to be the doorway for beings to flow through. So you are basically assessing everyone in the house that is connected to the host.

The minute you walk through the door, you are looking, listening, and smelling. Smells and sounds are very important to demonic beings and some larger parasites, and there are things they cannot tolerate—a possessed person will react violently to certain frequencies and noises. A cheesy but pretty effective way to get a reaction or loosen a being is to play certain types of Tibetan chants. I have an old CD that is a ritual cleansing and invocation that hasn’t been ‘new aged’ with extra ‘Twinkie’ sounds. I found one day, quite by accident, that the sounds on the CD made it very difficult for demonic beings to be around. I started to use it intentionally and it was very effective in clearing spaces, so I started to listen carefully to the tones and to identify at which point the frequencies pissed the invading beings off.

Since then, I have the CD in my tool kit and use it sometimes to clear spaces and to occasionally clear people. I work in vision with the music, reaching through the chants to connect with spirits that work with that music, and I have them guide me to take things out of the host or the building.

Smells are also very important. The human body often reacts to possession by making certain noises and giving off certain smells—rotten eggs/sulphur smell is the most common as the body struggles to expel the intruder. Some hosts develop a musty scent and most heavily infested hosts will have stopped washing and will be a little ripe to say the least.

Sometimes the host will develop little noises that she makes, clicking with her fingers, or tapping repeatedly without realising—she becomes very uncomfortable around total silence.

When you are brought to the host, look around the room where she is, and notice what adjustments has she made for herself: is she bothered by light, heat, cold? Has she surrounded herself with objects, noise, etc. How is she dressing, has her dress code changed? Is she trying to cover her head (like with a hoodie), or cover her hands? Has she started self mutilating? Look at her eyes, skin, hair, her mannerisms and hand movements. Listen to her voice and watch her feet.

What you are looking for are signs that:

1. The body is struggling. Is her face pale or spotty? Does she have rashes? Is her hair dull? Is she constipated? (The body will often go on hold when under attack.)

2. The mind is struggling: does she avoid eye contact? Does she fidget? Is she cutting herself?

3. The personality is struggling: has she changed dress habits? Music tastes? Sleeping patterns?

All of the above can appear with mental health issues that have nothing to do with possession, so do tread carefully and make sure that you are considering all possibilities at every step. It is very useful to have a doctor or psychologist with you at first contact.

If the host is able to communicate, then sit and talk with her. Let her tell you in her own words what is going on. What does she feel is happening to her? When did she feel it begin and how does it feel now?

In the case of a demonic possession, some hosts retain enough of themselves to be able to communicate well, and if the being is a parasite, then communication is easier and less interfered with.

Watch the person’s eyes when you talk to him or her, and listen carefully to any subtext that happens—sometimes the being tries to talk to you through the host without the host realising.

While she is talking to you, put a consecrated stole around her neck and pour her a glass of consecrated water to drink, without telling her what you are doing. Just watch for any reaction or sudden sleepiness/confusion of the host.

If the person is heavily possessed and is unable to communicate rationally, then you need to elicit a reaction from the demon as opposed to the mind of the host—this is one of the factors that can determine if it is a possession or a mental illness.

If you perform obvious actions in front of the person, they may react from a place of mental illness, but if you do something that is hidden from the host, and if it still elicits a reaction, you know that a possession is at least part of the problem.

There are a number of things that you can do, including:

1. A silent ritual of cleansing spoken in your head.

2. A glass of consecrated water for her to drink. (I have never used this method but have been told it works. I am a little wary, though, of things that I have not directly experienced. I have never had to use it, but I may in the future just out of curiosity.)

3. Placing of a consecrated power object near the host.

4. The draping of a consecrated or swirled stole or scarf around the neck of the host.

5. Lighting a candle and silently opening the gateways to death or the Abyss.

6. Putting a small effigy that is empowered with an angelic being or destroying deity near the host.

If the host has a demonic possession, it will cause a reaction. If it is a parasite, it may not react as much, but may react to the effigy. If it is mental illness, as long as the host doesn’t see what you are doing, it should have no reaction at all.

Another way to gain a reaction is for the exorcist to wear consecrated stoles, frankincense oil, a bit of osha root, and a sacred object around her neck. Something within all that lot will probably get a reaction from the host. She might find it smelly or offensive.

At the end of the day though, the most telling way to diagnose an infestation or possession is through listening, watching, and feeling. There is a certain feel and pattern of behaviour to possessions that cannot be explained, but it is a sense that develops over time. Some beings learn not to react to things, but when talking with the host the being eventually can be drawn out and seen. That along with a reading, for me, is usually enough.

Once you are more or less certain you are dealing with a parasite or demonic being, you must get to work pretty quickly. It is best if you can work directly after the assessment so that the being does not have chance to hide or dig deeper. If you are still not sure, then it is best to err on the safe side but also have a doctor or mental health professional with you, and keep in mind the effect on the victim if she is not possessed—it should appear more to her as a blessing and healing. That way you do not traumatise the person by convincing her that she may have demons. Instead she feels a more spiritual connection to what you are doing and will hopefully take it as a spiritual act—the blessing of an ill person.

Assessment of a house

Houses or buildings can also be possessed by demonic beings, parasites, faeries, or ghosts (and many other forms of weird and wonderful beings that we just don’t have names for).

Assessment of a house is a little harder as you cannot question it and you need to be in it for a while to observe any activity. The quickest and easiest way to assess a house is to do a reading using the adjusted deck, and to question the occupants.

Usually house activity will manifest in a variety of ways and the most common is that the house affects the people who live there. They often report changes in mood once they have been in the house for a few hours, nightmares and sleep disturbances, uneasy feelings, etc. If the occupants have any natural inner sight, they will report seeing fleeting shadow-like movements, noises, voices, things moving, strange smells, doors refusing to open, doors or windows opening, lights turning on and off, things falling, and things setting on fire.

The most common intruders in houses are ghosts, faery beings, land spirits, parasites, and thought forms. It is very rare to get demonic possessions in houses but it does happen. They are usually drawn to a house by natural vortexes on the land site or ancient power sites near by. They can also be drawn in by ritual activity if it is not carried out properly and by demonic images or statuary.

Images and statues can also sometimes bring in deities or spirits attached to deities that are out of place or in the wrong culture/land.

To assess a house after you have interviewed the occupants, go around the house and look for any unusual images, statues, tribal artefacts, clothing, weapons, ritual implements, etc. Many house disturbances can be traced to objects that the occupants have brought home with them.

One example is a house I was called out to in the bay area in California. The family had trouble with nightmares, personality changes in all the occupants, odd behaviour in the children, frequent fires, and fleeting shadow-type beings moving around the house.

When I arrived—after talking at length to the owner over the phone—I felt heavy aggression as soon as I walked into the house. The energy of the house was confused, aggressive, and confrontational. When I got upstairs I noticed an extensive collection of African masks, nail fetishes, and statues. As soon as I got close to them a being appeared and threatened me. Being the brave person I was, I hoofed it downstairs and asked them about the collection. (Some of the many African forms of magic are particularly powerful and aggressive, and not something to be messed with.)

I went away from the house and did a series of readings that identified something in the collection that was causing the problem. It also looked as if some of the pieces clashed with each other and it was like a mini tribal war going on in the bedrooms of this house. I suggested that the couple get rid of the artefacts and they refused, saying it had taken them years to build the collection.

I did a clearing on the rest of the house and it made little difference, which didn’t surprise me. So I went back to the house and talked to the beings in the collection. They were very angry and insulted to be where they were, and they felt they were being used in a disrespectful way. They wanted to be where people would interact with them, feed them, and work with them.

Because the couple would not consider doing anything with the collection I gave up and left them to it. A month later I was called again after one of the children had been physically attacked and was becoming very ill. The child was losing weight and the doctors could not find a reason. She would wake up covered in scratches, bruises, and rashes.

I told them again that they needed to get all the ritual and magical images out of their house and to do it properly with respect. In the end they relented and I contacted a friend of mine who was a Nigerian priest. He came and identified the objects, saying that they were indeed ritual objects, curses, and spirit beings. His advice was to send the objects back to the country they had come from. Arrangements were made with people in Africa and the pieces were shipped back to Africa to be housed with someone who could deal with them properly.

The house was ritually cleaned, and the child immediately improved. All the problems stopped and never returned.

This is a very good example and warning to people not to acquire religious or ritual objects that are not from their own culture and use them as ornaments. Ritual objects, deities, and spirit statues are usually powerful living beings that need to be respected and worked with in the culture that they come from. It has become very fashionable to have a profusion of ethnic objects through a house and it often brings a whole host of problems with it.

So when you are assessing a house, look for objects, pictures, statues, etc, that might be carrying something. Sometimes, though, it can be something simple but powerful that has been worked on. That doesn’t tend to happen too much in western culture but it does pop up occasionally. I was once called out to a place where someone was being magically attacked quite badly. I went around the house and couldn’t see anything. So I went in vision around the house and found a very aggressive being in the wardrobe. It was bound into a Barbie doll that the owner had been given upon leaving their home on Haiti. It had been cursed and a being tied into it. I stripped the being out and the doll was then safely burned. Humans can be so nasty sometimes.

So if you don’t find anything by walking around the house, then go around again in vision, just make sure your body is properly protected as you do that.

If the house is affected by a parasite then the symptoms will be simple: either everyone just gets drained from being in the house, or everyone starts arguing once they have been in the house for a few minutes. The affects of a parasite are usually just a manifestation of its eating habits and nothing more. So it will be one type of emotion that everyone gets sucked into as they spend time in the house. There will be no other symptoms as a rule.

As for ghosts—we will deal with ghosts in the chapter on death, as the methods of assessment are different from possessions and infestations.

Summary

Assessments are more or less about being observant, using your common sense, and not getting pulled into dramas. Keep an open and sensible mind, clean yourself off as soon as you have finished assessing, don’t let people get carried away with drama, and always look at the possible practical sensible reasons first—most perceived possessions are usually illness, emotional trauma, drama, bad drains, house subsidence, or drugs.

But always keep a guard up just in case. It is easy to get caught off guard and attacked through complacency. And always make sure you don’t take anything home with you. Clean up, shake off, and double check yourself before you let your guard down.

Happy hunting!