The night of the original possession was the most traumatic night of our lives. I still have nightmares about it. It was something that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. One hellish night scarred the members of our family in ways that couldn’t possibly be fully understood by anyone other than someone who had gone through an actual possession themselves. But in particular, it decimated the life of Brittany.
She had never liked school and made average to slightly below-average grades before the possession. But afterward, academics were a drudgingly overwhelming uphill climb. She couldn’t get her mind off what had happened to her long enough to give mathematics or history much consideration. Depression was her constant companion, no matter whom she was with or where she went. Britt developed a chip on her shoulder and was prone to getting into frequent fights at school. Her grades plummeted.
Brittany had also never had any kind of emotional problem before the possession. She was the life of the party in most situations and was gifted with an incredible personality and sense of humor. But after the possession, her depression took her to the depths of hell and left her once perky self-confidence in shambles. She has been under the care of four different psychiatrists since the age of fifteen and in and out of psychiatric hospitals (always for brief stays) on five or six occasions. As a teenager, she became a cutter as a way of using physical pain to overpower her emotional pain. Even after her marriage, she needed so much attention that she repeatedly cheated on her husband, causing that chance at happiness to dissolve after five years. How many of Britt’s emotional problems were caused by the possession, and how many would have surfaced anyway? Your guess is as good as mine.
However, we finally found a top-notch psychiatrist who diagnosed her emotional problems (the depression, the bipolar tendencies) as the result of the possession. Dr. Beth Baxter has adjusted Britt’s medication accordingly, and she’s doing better now than she has in years.
Between her finally getting a psychiatrist who admits that the possession really happened and Renee’s cleansing of the condo, things are finally starting to look promising for the first time in many years.
But what really was it? What caused the possession? I wish I had definitive answers, but I can only guess. I choose to call the example that plagued our family a demon because it possessed Brittany’s body, and because that has been the phrase used to describe evil, disembodied entities possessing humans since before the time of Jesus Christ. Was it a fallen angel? Possibly. I do believe such beings exist, but I do not know without a shadow of doubt if that is what took over her body. I only know for sure that something did.
Scientists are learning more and more every day about the building blocks of the universe. Newtonian physics is being rapidly superseded by quantum physics. Newton’s simple gravity-controlled apple is now thought to be a complicated combination of spinning subatomic protons and electrons. Indeed, the physical apple may very well not visually exist unless it is observed. Sounds crazy, but the enormous, underground Hadron Collider in Europe is proving that visual interaction with material objects is required for them to exist in a physical format. Scientists also believe this is the beginning of proof that the physical world is not what we think it is, and that other dimensions do indeed exist and can be proven mathematically. Shakespeare said in Hamlet that “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Maybe the Bard was onto something from both a spiritual standpoint and a scientific one.
I personally believe that science will soon hold answers to religious and metaphysical questions—things that have been explained for thousands of years as arguable mysticism may one day be proven scientifically. One day not so far in the future, magic may prove to be a set of scientific principles we simply don’t, at this time, understand.
How does that relate to the demonic entities that possess human beings from time to time? I believe that demons (be they fallen angels, elemental nature spirits, or interdimensional travelers) will someday be proven to be scientifically measurable entities, enabling us to learn to banish them in a more effective and permanent way.
Renee believes that real demonic possessions are quite rare. However, that doesn’t reflect my personal experiences with evil demonic entities, and that’s all I have to go on. Whatever they are, they are evil, they are disruptive, and they are not supposed to be here.
Brittany was ultimately scarred by the possession that radically changed the course of her life back in 2001. Her teen years can’t be given back to her, and I’ll always feel that all this was essentially my fault. I am the one, after all, who introduced her to the Ouija board.
My only defense is that my own introduction to the Ouija board did not include proper protection techniques from evil entities beforehand and safe closure afterward. I saw the Ouija board as a positive thing, just as my early mentor, Eileen, did. I don’t think it ever occurred to Eileen or her mother, Pearl, that such protection was even necessary. Pearl had used the board as a tool to communicate with the spirit of Patience Worth; Patience used it as a tool to write her novels and poems. There were no demons, no evil spirits.
Effects on My Own Spiritual Journey
If only one soul who is being plagued by a demonic entity reads this and is helped in some way by it, then it was worth the time and effort it took me to write this book. If another family can use the information I gathered to lessen their pain in some way, then it was worth it.
At the time of Brittany’s possession, I had strayed from any real relationship with God. It took a journey through pure hell—watching a demon steal the joy from my daughter’s life and almost destroy her sanity—to rediscover my faith. Few people can claim to have talked to a demon, but I am a member of that exclusive and unenviable club. I’ll never forget that day in the car with Brittany on a two-lane road with water on both sides and nowhere to pull over. Her eyes turned black as she began channeling a demon. I was so scared I put my vocal cords on automatic pilot and let God do the talking. Instinctively, I called upon the only power I knew who could save us. God, the source of all life in the universe, told me the right things to say. The demon left my daughter that night because I guaranteed that if it would return to God, it would find love, reconciliation, final forgiveness, and ultimate salvation—rather than the eternal damnation it expected. The forgiveness I described to the demon resonated just as soundly with me.
Sadly I had to see the evil a demon could do and the emotional carnage it could cause before I could truly reach out to the creative source of the universe.
Our ordeal with demonic entities has been horrifying at times and enraging at times, but ultimately enlightening. It took a terrifying experience with a demon and the near loss of my daughter’s soul to help me find God, but I pray that you’re not as stubborn or as hardheaded as I was. God bless and keep you in your journey through life.