Beware the Night

by Ralph Sarchie

  Also confusing the issue is the possibility that the person isn’t possessed but mentally ill. Some forms of insanity can mimic signs of possession, since schizophrenia causes bizarre ideas and hallucinations; paranoia creates delusions of being persecuted, possibly by imagined evil spirits; and dissociative disorders can provoke sudden, drastic changes in consciousness or multiple personalities that are not demonic. What guides me in making the determination is both divine revelation, which I receive through prayer, and observing how well the person functions in daily life. When someone is possessed, the demon doesn’t control the person twenty-four hours a day, so he or she will behave normally most of the time, always knowing that something isn’t quite right, as Tony did, when he felt an alien presence “reprogramming” his mind.

  I could tell the musician still didn’t really understand the true cause of his problem. “Are you willing to undergo an exorcism?” I asked. He immediately said yes.

  The interview was now over, so I put my videocamera away and prepared to leave. Offhandedly, Tony remarked, “I don’t see things like everyone else does.” Although it was getting late, and I was due at work soon, I encouraged him to elaborate. Rather mysteriously, he added, “I see things as if I have a veil over my eyes.” I had no idea what this meant, but stored it away. Every investigation, I learn something new.

  When I reviewed the videotape the next day, I noticed something I hadn’t seen with my own eyes. On two separate places on the tape, I saw “spirit energy,” the same perfectly round, transparent balls I’ve seen on photos taken in homes infested with satanic spirits. Spirit energy looks very different from artifacts created by light sources, which are generally octagonal in shape. The balls of spirit energy were actually moving across the screen with such pronounced speed that I stopped the tape to look at them again.

  I also showed the video to Brother Andrew, not telling him anything about the case so he could make an unbiased psychic assessment. He too remarked on the spirit energy, then added, “There’s something very curious about this man. He’s possessed by a demon, but I notice something else too. I can’t really see his face. It’s hidden under some kind of veil.”

  * * *

  Three of the Warrens’ investigators came to Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel to help with the exorcism. Although I’d seen this church many times before, my spirit was still refreshed by the beauty of this wonderful old chapel, with its brilliant stained-glass windows and colorful religious statues. Built in the nineteenth century by Methodists, it was subsequently purchased by the late Father Francis Fenton, who founded the Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement (another name for traditionalist Catholicism). Bishop Robert McKenna, an ordained Dominican priest and exorcist, was put in charge of the chapel in 1972, and has officiated there ever since, conducting traditional Latin masses and sacraments.

  These assistants were all very experienced, devout men I’d worked with many times before. Ed and Lorraine’s nephew, John, has been in the Work most of his life. Although he’s in his forties, he has a boyish face, with a goatee similar to Tony’s. Despite his thick glasses, his eyes are extremely alert and blaze with intelligence. You get the feeling that very little escapes his keen gaze. And he’s certainly not a man it’s easy to keep a secret from!

  Scott is a six-foot-tall martial arts champion with long blond hair. He’s the most fearless person I’ve ever met—ask him to charge into a demonically infested basement and he’d do it without a second’s hesitation. Hell, he’d do it if the Devil himself were waiting there, that’s how brave he is. But despite being such a dedicated warrior, he’s extremely polite. He always treats Ed and Lorraine with the utmost respect, invariably addressing them as “Mr. and Mrs. Warren.” He’s happy to call me “Ralph,” though, and has been a frequent guest at my home.

  The final member of our group was Joe Z. Like me, he’s a cop. He works in a quiet Connecticut town. A very muscular, brown-haired man in his late thirties, he’s a fun person to be around. He has a wicked sense of humor and can keep you laughing all night long. A lot of people think the Work is always deadly serious, but we do laugh and joke around at times on investigations, if we feel this would help put the affected person or family at ease. Although a Protestant, Joe Z. is perfectly comfortable coming to a Catholic church to help the bishop with exorcisms, and has often done so.

  While we waited for Bishop McKenna, I talked to Tony Petri. I couldn’t help but like this man and sympathize with what he was going through. But I was very careful about what I said to him, since I didn’t want to put any ideas in his head about what might happen. I needed him to see for himself that it was an evil spirit—and not his own intellect—that was causing his problem. This understanding was essential to him being freed of the demon, since he had to reject it out of his own free will.

  Tony was quiet and reserved as I explained that for his safety and ours, we would be putting him in restraints. He nodded that this was okay with him. I then told him we’d be videotaping his exorcism, but the film would never be shown in public. It was for documentary purposes and to help train future investigators. He said that he understood and wanted to proceed.

  Sitting next to Tony, waiting for his exorcism to begin, I felt very small and insignificant in comparison to what was about to take place—the clash of two powers mighty beyond all comprehension, one driven by relentless hatred and evil, the other by boundless love and goodness. It was awesome to be even a foot soldier in this eternal war between the ultimate adversaries, and although I was anxious, I put my faith in God, confident that He’d get us through.

  * * *

  Each exorcism is different, I’ve found. I thought about Father Martin’s extensive studies of the subject. According to his research, each year some 800 to 1,300 major exorcisms—and several thousand minor ones—are performed around the world. After interviewing many priests who have conducted these rituals, he concluded there are usually six distinct phases, which he termed presence, pretense, breakpoint, voice, clash, and expulsion. Not all of the twenty-one exorcisms I’ve participated in followed this pattern. When I discussed this with Joe, he told me that Father Martin said sometimes these stages come all at once, since the demonic aren’t bound by anything except God. Just as some satanic spirits can skip one or more of the three stages of demonic activity—infestation, oppression, and possession—stages can be passed over during an exorcism.

  In any genuine case of possession, the demonic presence is unmistakable during an exorcism. Everyone in the room can feel the evil spirit because it is so horribly different from anything human. In fact, it is the opposite of humanity. You can’t see it, but your whole body responds to it with revulsion. I’ve found that you’ll experience the satanic presence to different degrees, depending on the demon’s power. At times the presence will retreat or come in spurts. It may be as subtle, as Father Martin says, as “a hiss in the brain,” but once you feel it, you can never forget it.

  Bishop McKenna told me it’s been the same for him. “In every case I’ve had, there’s always been a definite sign of a demonic presence, but sometimes it’s so low-key that the Devil hardly makes himself audible or never speaks through the possessed at all. He may show himself by controlling people’s bodies, so they growl or thrash, or obsess and torment them mentally rather than physically. Other times the change in the person when the Devil takes over is so violent and dramatic it’s like a dual personality: You reel from it and fear for your life.”

  Only the most powerful religious belief, like that of the bishop, can get a priest through such an exorcism, because trying to cast out a demon without faith would be like committing slow suicide. Even then the exorcist must keep his mind on God at all times and be aware of his own weaknesses, since that’s where the demonic will attack him. He should not shy away or stray from questioning the infernal force but must ask only what is truly pertinent. He also must remember that the evil spirit will lie and tell the truth only under duress, when compelled to do so by th
e name of Jesus Christ.

  The exorcist must perform the ritual with great authority and with great contempt. As soon as he sees that the demon is being tormented by his prayers, he must double the attack. We are dealing with a being that would, if God permitted, destroy humanity because of its extreme hatred. The Roman Ritual instructs that there must be no quarter offered here, no mercy given to the once-beautiful and perfect creature God created as one of His original angels—a spirit that, like us, was given free will but chose the path of sin and eternal damnation. These foul fiends show no pity on the children of God and must be given no mercy in return.

  Once the demon is forced forward—and it must be forced, since it won’t come out on its own—the stage of pretense begins. This is the most confusing stage of exorcism, since the demon will try to hide behind the personality of the exorcee. Using the person’s own voice, it will make the possessed person act naturally, exhibiting no sign of what it is actually up to. This is an attempt to make the exorcist unsure or doubtful that possession is the problem. During this stage, the person may just sit quietly, doing nothing out of the ordinary. Only experience lets the exorcist penetrate these mind games and manipulations.

  This stage, I’ve found, only occurs when the person doesn’t exhibit any of the signs of demonic presence that sometimes take place at the start of an exorcism: uncontrollable shaking, jerky or unnatural body movements, evidence of extreme pain, or a look of complete and utter hatred that everyone involved in the Work has seen. As a cop, I’ve gotten plenty of murderous glares from people I’ve arrested, and knew they wouldn’t hesitate to blow me away if they got the chance. Chilling as these glares have been, they pale in comparison to the malevolent look only a demon can provoke, which takes loathing to a new level—the depths of Hell. Yet the demons who manifest themselves so early and vividly are also the ones who give up the fight the fastest: They’re the low-level forces: “the brutes,” which have limited powers of resistance, don’t speak during exorcisms, except perhaps in growls or gibberish, and are usually quick to flee from the power of the Cross.

  Pretense, if it occurs, must be shattered as quickly as possible, because as long as the demon conceals itself, the exorcism can proceed no further. The exorcist must compel and adjure the satanic power, in the name of Our Savior, to reveal its name. The demon will resist this because once it answers, the charade is over. If it says anything, the evil spirit is losing ground. It is only a small victory in the battle, but a victory nonetheless. In some cases the spirit may stretch the pretense out for hours, trying to stir up doubt and lull everyone into a sense of false security. I have seen exorcisms go from quiet to extreme violence in seconds flat, so I know how hazardous it is to lose concentration.

  It’s not pretense that’s dangerous but what follows. While the demon is trying to fool us into thinking it’s not there at all, it avoids drama. This stage boils down to a battle of wits between the exorcist and the concealed demon. It’s only after the exorcist forces an end to this hide-and-seek game that we reach the next stage, breakpoint. This is the stage where the fiend lets loose, sometimes leaping out of hiding and launching an all-out attack.

  No one who participates in an exorcism is spared, but the exorcist bears the brunt of the assault. I look on his job as similar to mine when I’m collaring a criminal. The bad guy knows he’s headed for jail—that’s the reality—but when you tell him to put his hands behind his back, you have to be prepared for anything. He may stand there obligingly and let you put the cuffs on, or he may fight you with everything he’s got. Demonic spirits are criminals of the most sadistic kind: They invade someone’s house or, worse still, body. Their terrorism is an offense against humanity and God, so exorcism is the spiritual equivalent of an arrest. The trouble is, you can’t grab a demon, throw him down, and punch the daylights out of him if he resists: It is only by the use of prayers, fasting, relics, holy water, and most important of all, the grace of God that a demonic spirit is cast out, to, it is hoped, the ultimate prison, Hell.

  When breakpoint is reached, anyone in the church is fair game. Assistants often can be the targets, simply because they’re there and determined to free the possessed from the craven creature that has taken him over; and because the demonic hate everybody, even you! An analogy I like to use is this: What’s the best way to attack someone you hate? The answer is as simple as it is cruel: by attacking his children. Not only do satanic spirits do this literally, by picking on kids in demonic-infested homes, but they also do this figuratively, by attacking humanity—God’s children.

  One form of suffering evil spirits often inflict on assistants is the mental attack. We all have memories, some good and some bad. Don’t think for a minute that the demonic will hesitate to torture you by taking your most joyful recollections and perverting them into something horrible. And as for awful memories you’ve stuffed in the back of your mind and almost forgotten, they’ll come crashing back during an exorcism, with the volume of emotion turned up until it’s unbearable. Think for a second of the very worst thing that’s ever happened to you; then imagine being bludgeoned with this scene over and over, with each detail as vivid as if you were experiencing it all over again, maybe in agonizingly slow motion, like a nightmare where you know something horrible is going to happen but are powerless to prevent it.

  You can also be attacked in other ways. One of the most humiliating is having very personal sins you’ve committed—and never confessed—be blurted out by the demon for all to hear. Demons, however, have no way of knowing about wicked acts you’ve confessed and been absolved of, since God has forgiven them. Such sins are invisible to the forces of Hell, because they’re no longer attached to your soul. There can be spiritual assaults, a form of torment that’s usually reserved for the exorcist, since doubting his faith or questioning God while performing the Roman Ritual actually can be fatal.

  Another sign of breakpoint is a change in the exorcee’s voice. At times the demon will speak in the person’s own voice, and at others, in a harsh, guttural, or unnaturally deep voice, making a woman, for example, speak in the voice of a man. Some demons even fluctuate between different voices, all the better to cause fear and confusion. Even in these instances, you can tell when the evil force is talking because it can’t help but reveal it is not the exorcee. A satanic spirit may talk of the possessed in the third person and say, “I [or we] took him because he was so good” or “I [or we] cursed her.” You get the sense that the satanic spirit thinks of the person as its property and of a human body as a mere container for its evil. The symbolism is obvious: “Back off, priest—this person is mine [or ours]!”

  Father Martin describes a stage he calls voice as a frequent, singularly disturbing offshoot of breakpoint: An unnatural babble begins. “The first syllables seem to be of some word pronounced slowly and thickly—somewhat like a tape recording played at subnormal speed,” he explains. “You are just straining to pick up the word and a cold layer of fear has gripped you—you know the sound is alien. But your concentration is shattered and frustrated by an immediate gauntlet of echoes, of tiny, prickly voices echoing each syllable, screaming it, whispering it, laughing it, sneering it, groaning it, following it. They all hit your ear.”

  I myself have never yet heard the voice, but according to Father Martin it is agonizing to endure. The exorcist must get himself under firm control and command the voice to be silent. His role is to get as much useful information from the demon as possible while demanding that distractions be stopped. Bishop McKenna says that the voice hasn’t been a problem in his exorcisms: “Blessedly, I have been spared such molestation or visions of this kind myself. I am in no way psychic, completely lack any sixth sense, and consider myself the opposite of clairvoyant. I focus entirely on the standard, traditional ritual of the Catholic Church for exorcism and ignore any gibberish I might hear from the possessed.”

  Next in Father Martin’s stages is clash, a battle of wills that concerns only the exorcist and the d
emon. Even the possessed person is excluded from this fearsome struggle, where the hellish force tries to engulf and overpower the priest, who, in turn, calls on God to banish and defeat this agent of the Devil. Propelling the exorcist on is his knowledge that he has already won the earlier battles, by forcing the spirit to come forth, give up its pretense, respond to questions, and abandon its techniques of distraction. Now it only remains for the diabolical presence to make its final surrender, in the aptly named stage of expulsion.

  Departure would be too mild a term for this stage. As in every preceding stage, the demon must be forced, compelled, commanded, and driven to obey God’s will, as expressed through the exorcist. In real life, the last act of this diabolical drama is almost an anticlimax: The exorcee will tell us that the evil presence is now gone. Some people’s relief and gratitude is so profound that they break down and cry. Others have no memory of their possession and may even be puzzled as to why they’re in the church or who we are. Since these reactions also could be a demonic ploy—a new form of pretense—the exorcist will continue to use prayers, relics, and holy water to make sure the demon truly has been expelled.

  While a satanic spirit may give an indication that it’s leaving, the only one I’ve seen during a solemn exorcism comes in the form of extreme violence suddenly stopping. I never ask for a sign that the Devil is gone during exorcisms of houses, but sometimes I’ve gotten one anyway. The sign is usually a loud bang from an empty part of the house. It’s one of the ways the demonic let you know they’re gone—for now.

  * * *

  I felt very nervous when Bishop McKenna put a crucifix in Tony’s hand at the start of the ritual—he’d never done this at any previous exorcism. The figure of Christ on the cross is the symbol of our salvation, but in the hands of the possessed it can become a weapon. In the real-life case later fictionalized in The Exorcist, a priest was maimed for life during the exorcism of a child (who was a boy, not a girl as in the film version). During the Roman Ritual, the exorcee yanked a spring out of the mattress he was lying on and used it to slash the exorcist’s arm open to the bone. The priest was horribly scarred and never regained use of the limb.