Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown (31 page)

Then I laid into her, much more than I ever had with a client about what I felt should happen. I told her we’d be back, but only provided she did certain things. I said that her house and her life were a mess, and that we couldn’t help her unless she did something about it. I actually gave her a list of tasks, including cleaning and counseling.

To my surprise she said, “You’re right, Ryan. I do need to do these things.”

It was a tough conversation, but afterward my producer complimented me, saying something like, “Ryan, if you’re ever looking for another career, you’d make a really awesome motivational speaker.”

I also talked to Raymond, telling him what we’d found out about him. “I hope you don’t feel like I betrayed your trust, but I’m afraid this thing might be targeting you.”

He had little response, as usual. He did say he felt the entity was more connected to Teena.

“No,” I said. “Clearly this thing is more attached to you.” I told him if he wanted it gone, he’d need to be more involved. His answer, pretty much, was stony silence.

Before we left, I sat in the car talking to Teena. She asked if there was anything from us she could have while we were gone. I was wearing a St. Benedict medal, so I handed it to her. She seemed so shocked and pleased that I was very moved.

“You need it more than I do,” I said. “So keep it.”

To be honest, as we drove away, I had, maybe not doubts, but certainly concerns about how things would work out. I worried that like “Paranormal Intervention” she would agree at first, and then go back to doing what I thought caused the problems in the first place.

I felt a very strong connection to Teena. She seemed so warm; I felt as if she were a friend I’d known for a very long while and now needed help. As I drove back to PA, I looked upward and prayed to God to please, let this case be a success.

We headed back to Elizabethtown to meet with Lorraine Warren and finish up “The Name.” In the two weeks we were gone, Ray and Teena had minor experiences, but nothing extreme. The name did not come up again.

By the time we were ready to return, though, Father Calder wasn’t returning my phone calls. Chip couldn’t get hold of him either. Finally he texted me saying he was ill and couldn’t make it. He later told me his illness might have been related to the demon.

In his place, I called Keith and Sandra Johnson, the laymen from “School House Haunting.” Keith had come to UNIV-CON a few years running and gave a phenomenal workshop, which was always packed.

When it was time to return, I was apprehensive. Would she make the changes we asked of her? Despite my concerns, in the short time we were gone it looked as if Teena had changed her life radically. When I walked in to her house, my jaw dropped. It was significantly cleaner. I wouldn’t lick the countertop, but it was presentable. She also had a new full-time job, working as a secretary. She’d even reenrolled in college. All that in three weeks. I was stunned.

We had no church sanction in this case, so we originally only planned to do a house blessing, but as we worked, things changed.

We began in the master bedroom, making crosses with holy water on the doors and windows, telling the demon in no uncertain terms that it wasn’t welcome.

Teena seemed to be quickly affected. “I feels like my legs are being tied. My legs are being tied.”

So Keith prayed over her. “We ask for any unholy presence to release its bond on her.”

When we reached Katie’s bedroom, Teena felt the presence again. “It’s with us.”

“Any spirits, be expelled,” Keith said. “Your right to remain in this room is removed.”

During this, my team sat with Raymond. They said he was looking more and more angry, as if he were about to snap someone’s neck. Soon he said he was feeling very off, telling Teena, “My head’s on fire, honey.”

Worried, she called us in. Once I saw Ray, it was easy to understand her concern. His skin was beet red. He was hot to the touch. Keith prayed over him and Ray reacted more and more.

Now it was clear to me that Raymond
was
the center of things.

Technically, as discussed last chapter, without church sanction, there could be no exorcism. There’s been a lot of discussion about that in the church. In Mark 16:17, Jesus says, “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils . . .” This means to many that believers can call on him to cast out demons.

Others have done so, and with success. When someone tries to end a possession this way, without the official go-ahead of the church, be they priest or layperson, it’s called a “deliverance.”

It’s difficult to keep the terms straight, and, in fact, in an episode from a later season, Father Bob, whom we work with regularly now, performs a deliverance that the episode text erroneously calls an exorcism. It was understandable. We work with different editors from time to time and if they see someone trying to get rid of a demon, they naturally figure it’s an exorcism. It was a concern for Father Bob, who worried he might lose his priesthood if he were seen as claiming to perform exorcisms.

So, specifically, when Raymond became so reactive during the blessing, Keith began a deliverance for him. Chip, Keith, and I all put our hands on him and prayed.

“We rebuke any evil spirit . . .”

“I swear to go through with my promise to rid you from this house,” I said.

As we worked, Raymond often stared at me without blinking. I had the powerful sensation that he was on the verge of grabbing me and trying to snap my neck. His anger and attention seemed focused on me, perhaps because I’d told him what we found out about his past.

I didn’t believe he was possessed; things hadn’t gone that far yet. I did believe a demonic presence was influencing him, that perhaps he was experiencing oppression, but not that he was totally under its control.

“Raymond, you need to let this thing go,” I said. “Think of your daughter.”

Suddenly, he began shouting, “Get out of here. Leave my home. Leave my body. Leave my family alone!”

The entire process took about ten or fifteen minutes, but there came a definite moment when it felt like it was over, that whatever had been tormenting him left. It wasn’t gradual. According to Raymond, it suddenly felt like it was gone—bam! Raymond, and the house, became quiet. It seemed we’d succeeded.

Afterward, a more human breakthrough happened. With the deliverance complete, we took a break and I went outside. To get to our van, I had to pass by Raymond, who was having a cigarette. At this point, given how he was staring at me during the deliverance, I had no idea if he was still angry with me or not.

I quickly said, “Hey, Raymond,” and kept walking.

This guy had never talked to me, never approached me, but now he said, “Ryan?”

I stopped and turned to him. “Yeah?”

I don’t have a record of it, but this is how I remember the conversation.

He said, “This thing really was here, wasn’t it?”

“You tell me.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

He began a sort of confession. When I’d first said he was the focus, he was angry, but now, as he thought about it, he admitted to himself that I was right. He said he loved his family, that the one thing he wanted to do, even though he didn’t have a job, even though he had his own problems, was to be able to protect them. He said something like, “But I couldn’t even do that. I was so angry because I couldn’t punch this thing. I felt so weak. So, I tried to make a pact with it. I said it could have me if it spared them. It took me, but continued to harass my family anyway.”

It was a startling admission. I thanked him for opening up. “You have to understand that though your intentions were noble, these things don’t make deals. It will pretend, but it won’t follow through. You gave yourself, but that didn’t give you any power over it.”

“I realize that now.”

“That’s good, Raymond.” As I walked away, snow began to fall.

I held a final interview with Teena at a local diner the next day. The activity had stopped completely that night. Teena seemed relieved, grateful, and full of hope. “I was just going day by day,” she told me. “Now I’m looking forward to the future. You guys helped us to realize that the baby steps led to the giant steps. I thought I was beyond hope, and hope found me.”

At that, we said our good-byes. Every few months or so, she’d call to update me. They did go through a few ups and downs, but for the most part, they were finally starting to lead a normal life.

As a coda to the case, on New Year’s Eve 2007, almost a year later, I was in South Carolina, going to a party thrown by one of my high school friends. I’d just arrived with my brother, Jordan, and Serg when my phone rang. I recognized the CID as Teena’s, so I picked up. It was Raymond. He’d never called before.

“Hey Raymond, is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just wanted to call and talk.”

“Oh.” It was kind of awkward. “So, how are you guys doing?”

“We’re fine.” And there was a pause. “I just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year.”

“Thank you very much. How’s Teena and everything?”

After another pause, he said, “Ryan, you changed our lives. You showed us kindness that we’d never seen before and I wanted you to know that.”

I felt very emotional. I didn’t know what to say, other than “Thank you very much, Raymond.”

It was the best New Year’s I’d had in my entire life.

I began this case worrying this was the big one, that this thing had summoned me to Syracuse. At the same time, in the end, I never confronted or engaged the demon directly. In fact, I refused. Of course, if Keith and Sandra had gotten injured and someone needed to pick up that book and keep reading, I’d have done it in a heartbeat. But I was there to do as they asked, which was to sprinkle holy water and pray. Ultimately, I’m not an exorcist or a demonologist. I’m more like a sentry. I was there to bear witness, bring people together, to assist. In a way, I found my strength by finding my place.

It wouldn’t be the last time I heard the name. During the last episode of season 1.5, “Asylum,” a voice came through using the name again. That freaked me out for a while. It still comes up every now and then, but I don’t react anymore. Chip will say, “It’s claiming to be our old friend.” Now I just roll my eyes.

In the end, I wondered if these two cases were simply a game of manipulation and intimidation. Both were ultimately mild as far as demonic cases go, but I think it may have been a test, as if the entities wanted the cases to seem more dangerous than they were, to see if they could convince me to back down through fear tactics.

Rather than destroy me, these encounters affirmed my faith in myself and as a Catholic. I also realized that the warning I was given two years ago was true: Now that I was known, I’d spend the rest of my life coming across these things. One day I might meet my match, but not today . . .

Chapter 15
Living a Dream

If I die, I hope it’s that way.

After “The Devil in Syracuse,” we’d gone to Nevada for our twelfth episode, “Vegas.” The original order from A&E for
Paranormal State
was for thirteen episodes. That meant, as far as I knew, that our next case could be the last for the show. It’d almost certainly be the season finale, so we all wanted it to be special.

When we first started planning the series, the producers asked if there was any particular paranormal site I’d always wanted to visit. Point Pleasant, West Virginia, immediately came to mind. I’m a huge fan of John Keel’s 1975 book,
The Mothman Prophecies
, and the 2003 film starring Richard Gere, which takes place there. For years, I tried to raise money through PRS for a field trip, but never met with much enthusiasm.

Everyone was excited about wrapping things up after all the work we’d put in, so the producers gave me the opportunity to live out a fantasy and investigate the Mothman. It was a real charge, especially after the recent demonic experiences.

The creature aside, John Keel fascinated me. First and foremost a journalist, he began as a skeptic. His 1957 book,
Jadoo
, exposed mystic frauds in the Middle East and Asia. In the sixties, UFOs were the big unexplained phenomena, and he wanted to do a similar exposé. As he was documenting flying saucer cases in and around West Virginia, the original Mothman sightings occurred, giving him the opportunity to document firsthand an experience that ultimately changed his worldview.

The book was head and shoulders above the usual paranormal writing. No one had come close to that level of detail. There was philosophy, theory, and Keel’s style was literary, engaging, and cinematic. He wasn’t simply writing about events. He was also looking at how people structure and try to explain things they encounter but don’t understand.

In my eyes, it is one of the most definitive books about the paranormal. His work is so inspiring that PRS now gives out an award for paranormal writing and literary excellence, known as the Keel Award.

To give you an idea, the book opens during a storm. A mysterious man in black arrives at a remote home and asks to use the phone. The figure seems “off,” so the residents don’t let him in. The next day they learn the same figure appeared at several other homes. Soon everyone is talking about the strange visitor. Was it an alien? No, it was John Keel. His car had broken down and his efforts to get help accidentally started the very type of story he’d come to study.