Close Encounter With a Demon? A True Story

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The following account is a completely true story.  Enjoy.

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A while back, after learning quite a bit about the logic and mechanisms of spiritual warfare, I took a vacation with my family in which we rented a house.  Given what I know, I had several spiritual "radars" up as we approached the time of the vacation and, especially, when we entered the house itself. 

Before moving our things in, we all went in and looked at the house.  It was a pretty typical beach house, as one would expect.  That being said, in this world, we take no chances.

So, I had my fancy phone with all of its annoying modern capabilities and, on a positive note, was able to look up the deliverance prayers which Msgr. Rossetti's website provides for the laity.  The prayer of interest at the moment was "Deliverance and Blessing of a Bedroom," used when a person finds himself staying in new location for a night.

We gathered in the main area and went through the prayers, twice walking through the whole house sprinkling it with holy water.  We then removed a small painting from the wall and hung a Crucifix in its place.  After that, with great confidence in Our Lord's activity and protection, we brought our stuff in and sat down on the couch to plan the rest of the first day and think about the week.

As we sat on the couch, my wife was looking through the visitor log/journal where people left notes about their visit.  At some place in the book, she realized that the previous owners of the house (it had just recently been sold to new owners) were two women.  

 

Hmm...  Well, of course, that could be sisters, friends, or ... homosexuals.

As good logical people, we did not conclude anything from just that, but, when we also saw an LGBT flag sticker in the same book, we began to realize it was most likely the case that the house was just previously owned by a homosexual pair.

So, there's a ping on my spiritual radar.

Of course, even if that had not been the case, the sins of previous inhabitants was always on the mind.  Coupled with the awareness that the house had been possessed (pun intended) by a pair who embraced a sin that cries to Heaven for vengeance, we were very happy that we had arrived spiritually prepared.

Slightly uncomfortable with that reality, we left it all in Our Lord's hands and went about our day.

The First Night

That first night, I was suddenly awoken by a firm tap on my right foot as it lay at the very bottom of the bed, slightly over the edge, while I slept.  It woke me immediately and I could feel the pressure of the tap as it lingered on my foot, as if some kid had just run past the bed and hit it.  I could not discern fingers or a palm or any feature of a hand, but it was unmistakably a tap and, again, sufficient to wake me immediately.

 

As I sat there and thought about it, I knew clearly that I had not been dreaming about such an incident, there were no small children in the room, and I had clearly felt something touch me.  From what I knew about the diabolical, I realized that there was the possibility that it could be a demonic presence, though it could also be explained by something else.  I did not feel any oppression or sense of terror from the presence of a demon nor any sort of sleep paralysis.  I did, however, process the fact that I have never, in my forty years of living, ever experienced a sensation like that.

 

So, I registered all the details in my memory and fell asleep again.

 

Later That Night

 

Early in the morning, maybe around 2am or so, I was again awoken from sleep, this time by the sound of a door slamming.  Upon reflecting at that moment, I realized that I had been dreaming and that the door was indeed slammed within my dream.  However, I also realized that the slamming of the door in the dream both 1) woke me up and 2) was ringing in my ears upon waking, as if I had actually heard a door slamming in the house itself.

I listened for a few minutes and did not hear anything else that would correspond to a door slamming, such as a kid walking, another door slamming, any outside noises from cars or neighbors, or any other odd sounds.  It was calm and quiet.

However, this was the second sign of potential preternatural activity in the house and, combined with the LGBT history of the house, I began to get a little suspicious.  

 

NB:  I am not a person who sees the devil everywhere, in case you are wondering.  I know to look for signs according to the principles of the Church and her exorcists, as laid out in my book.  So, my analysis at this point ended with simple suspicion, not at all with any fear or conclusions one way or another.

The Second Night

After a normal day at the beach, without anything odd occurring during the day, we settled in for the night again.  I had not told my wife about the two odd occurrences on the first night.  There was no need to jump to conclusions nor to put anything into her mind to make her worry...yet.

That night, I was again awoken, but this time by something much more disturbing, or so it seemed.  The sound itself was disturbing, and the immediate image in my mind which sought to explain the sound was even more disturbing.  As I write this account, the sound and mental image are both so clear that it brings back the sense of fright that hit me that night, again around 2 am or so.

What I heard was the sound of something metal, something heavy, an object of some sort, being dragged across the floor with halting steps.  It was dragging as if limping, taking one step and then dragging a bum leg behind it.  The floor involved was the main room of the house, positioned between the master and the guest rooms, between the parents and the children.  The "thing" that was dragging itself across the room entered my mind in a manner that matched the description that I had heard of the manifestation of a demon in someone's house.  The demon appeared as a half-bodied person, with no lower torso.  I have heard other similar stories of demons appearing in this misshapen human form.

So, in my mind, at 2am, with this terrible sound, I saw a half-bodied spirit, of either a demon or a damned soul, without a lower torso, dragging itself across the floor, as if it were carrying chains at its waist, to increase the ghoulishness of the experience.

It lasted for about ten or twenty seconds and then faded away, resolving, by its final sounds, any fear that it had entered the children's rooms.  However, I was not without fear, and I woke my wife and asked, somewhat frantically, "Did you hear that?"  "I did not hear anything," she said, "I think you were dreaming."  However, I knew I was not dreaming.  This time, unlike the last incident, the sound woke me from sleep and then persisted for ten to twenty seconds.  I was not dreaming!

As a result of my wife stating that she did not hear what I found to be a loud and terrifying and disturbing noise, I began to conclude that this must indeed have been some sort of diabolical manifestation - and that we have a spiritual problem to resolve in this house.

It All Made Sense

It was not that far of a stretch to connect these things together and conclude that the house was diabolically infested.

- Homosexuality is a grave sin and a door to diabolical activity.

- Other sins may have also been committed in this house in the past.

- This was now the third inexplicable incident that I had personally witnessed.

- While, yes, we said prayers of protection, that does not mean that Our Lord would then block all activity of the devil.  By those prayers, He might simply limit their activity, or cause their manifestation to serve only to teach me something valuable while permitting them to cause no real harm.

My Response

Restricted by what should be an understandable fear, I did not go into the main room to see what was happening.  Nor did I sleep.  I sat in the bed and observed sights and sounds as I prayed constantly for Our Lord's protection.  I noted that I did not feel any sense of oppression or sleep paralysis or the presence of an evil entity.  This was something new for me - the presence, in the home, of an evil spirit, in what appeared to be a classic form of infestation - at least so far.

I immediately got my phone out and went back to the prayer we said upon our first arrival.  I did not get up and go through the house with the holy water this time, but I did sprinkle the room where we slept.  I then picked up my Rosary and prayed the Sorrowful Mysteries, falling asleep during the Crucifixion.

For the rest of that night, there were no disturbances.

The Answer in the Morning?

Upon waking, and realizing that nothing more had occurred, and that the sun was up and the house was filled with sufficient light to scatter the fears of the night, I decided to carefully, yet calmly, walk out into the main room of the house.  When I did, I did not see anything out of sorts.  I saw the floor where I had imagined the half-bodied spirit dragging itself, but there was nothing out of order.  Looking at the whole room, I then found what may have been the answer.

On one wall hung a large painting above a couch.  It hung on the wall by a traditional wire on the back, which was hooked onto two separate nails in the wall, one to the right and one to the left on the back of the frame.

The painting was, at that moment, hanging by only one nail, having come off the wall from the other nail.  As I looked further, I could see marks on the wall indicating that the frame had swung back and forth and scraped the wall as it did so.  Upon seeing this, my mind concluded that this would be an explanation for the noise I heard in the night, resolving the concern that there was a diabolical cause.

However, my next thought was:  why did it come off of the wall?  There was no reason for it to do so, especially at 2 am when the whole house was still.  The nail, when I inspected it, did seem a bit short, which could have lent itself to releasing the weight of the frame and allowing it to slide off.  But, I thought, if it comes loose this easily, then the owners must have been told by now of previous incidents, or the frame would have likely fallen off, by now, from both nails, and not just one, damaging the frame and alerting the owners in the process.

As a result, I was left quite perplexed as to the real cause of these odd occurrences.  There were no additional signs to corroborate the claim that it was a demon.  All incidents ceased after this point for the remainder of the visit.

In The End

When in doubt, assume a natural cause.  

 

That is the advice of the Church, and it is always prudent to follow.  After this last incident, nothing else happened and, while my radar still remained up, I moved on and did not notice anything else out of the ordinary.

While the painting seemed to give an answer to the problem, what about the foot tapping?  What about the door slamming?  What about the cessation of all things after repeating the deliverance prayer and saying a devout Rosary?

 

Final Thoughts

 

Was the house infested with a demon?  

- I don't know.

 

Did the repetition of the prayer, and the devout recitation of the Rosary, block further diabolical activity?  

- Maybe.

 

Did the demon cause the painting to fall in a manner that would resemble a natural cause in order to hide its presence and activity just enough to leave me confused?  

- Perhaps.

 

Is there sufficient evidence to conclude that there might have been a demon?  

- I would say so.

 

Is there sufficient evidence to conclude that there truly was a demon in the house?  

- No.

And, most importantly, would I have been left completely thrown off and clueless and, perhaps, a bit freaked out, if I did not know anything about spiritual warfare and the activity of the diabolical?  

- Most certainly.

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