At the bottom of this page is a link to a 'self-help' page.

  Before you read the article below, I need to make the position of the Community quite clear on this subject.

  While we are naturally cautious when approached by someone who claims to be possessed or to have evil presences inhabiting their house, we take each case on its own merits. At no time do we automatically assume, as some Churches do, that the person is in need of psychiatric help. To assume such would be to deny the words of Jesus Himself: Mark 16:17  "And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons;..." Jesus isn't talking about psychiatric illnesses here.

  On the other hand, we do not automatically assume, as some other Churches do, that if a person has so much as a simple cold, then that person must obviously be possessed by twenty different demons!

I've known a case where an emotionally vulnerable person was preyed upon by a group of so-called Christians who managed to convince her that she was evil, that she was possessed by the very Devil himself. Fortunately, a well trained counsellor was able to help that poor girl without any intervention needed by a psychiatrist or by an exorcist.

  We keep an open mind and, after careful investigation, apply the course of action that seems most appropriate.. whether that be a simple house blessing (often all that is needed), to a full Eucharist for the departed (often very effective when the problem seems to be coming from someone in the Family Tree) or a suggestion that perhaps a consultation with our doctor might help.

  I must also point out that at no time do we take any action whatsoever without the fully informed permission of the person concerned.

 Deliverance Ministry Explained

from The Tablet, United Kingdom:

"Do ghosts really exist?"

Annabel Miller

Many people say they have "seen a ghost" or "felt a presence". Yet few can explain the experience in the context of their Christian beliefs. An assistant editor of The Tablet met priests appointed to deal with ghosts and spirits.

In the 1960s a priest friend of mine was staying at a Franciscan friary in Anglesey. The house had once been owned by a family who had dispossessed an old friary nearby. "The place was soaked in associations of a negative kind", he told me. "There were numerous sightings of friars along the dark drive which led to the house. Once, in my room which was attached to a concealed stairwell, I woke up to see on my desk a beautiful ornate Spanish crucifix spinning. Over in the corner where the stairwell was I saw someone apparently coming out of the wall."

  This was just one of a series of similar experiences which this friar has had in various places where he has lived. In the house where he now lives he has heard knockings and scratchings on his door, and a voice calling his name. I know him to be a devout man with no obvious neuroses, who is respected as a theologian and teacher. When I asked him what sense he makes of these experiences, he replied: "When these things first began to happen I was naturally afraid, because I associated them with evil. But since that time I have come to think of them in more naturalistic terms. It seems to me that if we can communicate across space, in ways which would have seemed impossible in the past, it seems not improbable that there might be such a thing as communication across time. Could it be that echoes of very strong emotion, or of events with huge significance, are left in places? That this is not harmful, but quite natural?"

  He added: "I tend to think there is no such thing as the unquiet soul seeking rest. I don’t think these are real people, but just echoes of former presences." He sees no reason to believe, however, that the dead cannot, on occasion, appear after death in order to communicate in a positive and useful way with those they have left behind.

  Hearing other people whom I know well talk about "ghostly" experiences, which they often understand in quite different ways, it struck me that the whole area of "ghosts" and spirits is uncharted by the modern Church, and something of a taboo. Every diocese does, however, have an appointed exorcist. Their names are kept private and they are reluctant to talk about their ministry. There is no national organisation for priests involved in this ministry, and they are largely left to define their role for themselves.

  To find out more about the Church’s official response to the supernatural, I visited Fr Sean Conaty, a Catholic priest who is involved in the "deliverance ministry"; that is, helping people who feel they are being troubled by ghosts, poltergeists or even evil spirits. He first took up this ministry when working in Chile, and is now based at St Cuthbert’s, Chester-le-Street, near Durham.

  "I am contacted by people in the diocese about a wide range of happenings", he told me. "Sometimes they are just seeing mere shadows, maybe from a bus passing. There are also harmless presences which open doors and knock, or people who see faces of those who have lived in that place before." Fr Conaty, who is involved in the Charismatic Renewal Movement, said it would be facile to try to explain where these presences come from. "We cannot explain away the transcendent very easily", he declared. "I normally say some prayers and the presence disappears. It also seems that souls who appear to be wandering have been put to rest."

  In deliverance ministry there is a line to be drawn between simple prayers for wandering souls and exorcism. Fr Conaty told me that he would carry out an "informal exorcism" if he felt that evil was at work in a particular place as a result of someone dabbling in the occult. In such cases, he said, "you can find things going on which are highly dangerous. Huge objects can be moved from room to room."

  In the Catholic Church, formal exorcisms are reserved for cases in which individuals are deemed to be possessed. The bishop’s permission must be sought before the rite is carried out, and its form is not made public. Fr Conaty did not tell me what the rite consisted of. Had he ever performed such an exorcism, I asked? "Yes, some", he replied. But only when a person had "put their will under the control of the Evil One".

  How could he tell the difference between people who are possessed and those who are mentally ill? "Doctors ask me to make this kind of decision", he told me. "If a doctor says a person is mentally disturbed, I tend not to touch the case. I need a clean bill of health first. If the doctor tells me the person’s problem is purely spiritual then I will deal with it; otherwise, I could be making things worse."

  For the support of clergy who specialise in the deliverance ministry, Canon Michael Perry of Durham Cathedral set up an ecumenical group which meets every few months. I recently travelled to Durham to listen in on the group, expecting Canon Perry to be an other-worldly figure, given his fascination with psychic phenomena. But he turned out to be a jolly, family man, with a row of Fawlty Towers videos and a healthy mixture of scepticism and open-mindedness regarding ghosts. He advised group members always to look for a physical or psychological explanation for reported phenomena before deciding that some kind of deliverance ministry, be it a prayer or an exorcism, was needed.

  Canon Perry argued that even poltergeists – forces which move small objects around – could have a natural explanation as they are almost always found in houses where people are suffering mental strain or where there is an adolescent girl. Canon Perry believed that the mental forces could cause the physical effect of moving objects. But he is not sure. "The more I know, the more I do not know", he told me.

  He is opposed to spiritualism; that is, attempts to contact the dead. "It makes a religion of psychic phenomena and cannot be properly critical", he argued. He added that if people try to make contact with dead relatives this can interfere with the natural process of grieving and prevent the bereaved from letting go of the person who has died.

  Unlike Catholics, Anglicans are not barred from spiritualist practices. One of those at the meeting was Canon Charles Fryer, who had been appointed to co-ordinate the deliverance ministry for the Church of Ireland. He was the only person at the meeting who said they had had a psychic experience themselves. A gentle, elderly man, he told me how he discovered that he could do "automatic writing"; that is, receive messages from his late father through writing on a pad.

  The Revd Tom Willis, an Anglican priest from Beverley in Yorkshire, is in constant touch with people who claim to have seen ghosts. "The phenomena fall into five types", he said. "There are apparitions, physical hauntings of a place, poltergeists, evil presences and phenomena resulting from dabbling with the occult – ouija boards, tarot cards, astrology and so on.

  "I think some phenomena are strange, physical things we have not explained yet. Some are psychological or due to human mind-forces; some people do seem to be able to look at objects and they will move. Sometimes it does seem that both psychological and spiritual forces are at work – then you can experience evil or the restless dead trying to communicate unfinished business. Sometimes you get good phenomena – people with new babies often report waking up to see dead grandparents peering into the cot. . .".

  It is tempting to assume that, in cases like the latter, the apparitions are the products of mere wishful thinking. But Mr Willis is not so sceptical. "I think we have not thought enough about the communion of saints, of our relationship with the good dead", he told me. "Jesus said, ‘You shall rise on the last day’. I think there is a time of waiting where even the good dead have a time of growth waiting for the day of judgement."

  Not everyone at the meeting was as willing to believe that ghosts exist. One psychiatrist said he believed that all such phenomena were imagined. The danger of jumping to the conclusion that ghosts or spirits are at work was made clear to me. One Anglican priest told me of a child who had been discovered to be bearing bite marks. Another priest, who was in touch with the family, believed that their dog was possessed and was biting the baby. In his view, the situation had demanded a spiritual remedy. Later it was discovered that the mother’s boyfriend was abusing the child.

  The dangers of assuming that the devil is at work when people are simply sick or emotionally upset were explained to me by Fr David Maskell, the diocesan exorcist for Arundel and Brighton. He is appalled by cases in which people who were mentally ill have been told they were possessed by evil forces. "I feel that certain groups to which Catholics go for prayer and healing are auto-suggestive", he told me. "I heard of one girl who was told she was possessed when she simply had reactive depression. This must be denounced."

  Fr Maskell, whose parish is at Englefield Green, Surrey, added that some people almost "pride themselves" on saying they have been possessed. It could also be a way of avoiding responsibility. Fr Maskell is a firm believer that salvation can be achieved through the sacraments of the Church, and that Satan can be defined as a "stumbling block". Allegations that people’s souls have been taken over by an alien power were "on the verge of cuckoo-land", he said.

  With views like these, it seemed odd that Fr Maskell should have been given the job of diocesan exorcist. But perhaps it is healthier for an exorcist to err on the side of scepticism than to see devils in every corner. Nor does Fr Maskell believe in ghosts. Quoting the detective novelist Reginald Hill, he said that all ghosts could be explained by one or more of three things: "Bad ventilation, bad food or a bad conscience". "In the New Testament the command ‘Do not be afraid’ occurs some 365 times", he pointed out. "Real evil is what we do to one another."

  So there seems to be little consensus among Catholic clergy as to whether ghosts exist, and if they do, what they consist of. Nor is there one view about satanic possession.

In the New Testament there are demons aplenty, though there are various modern interpretations of what those demons were.   Some commentators see them as incidents of devilish possession, while others regard them as cases of what we would now call mental illness.

  Given the impossibility of knowing what is really going on when people report supernatural experiences, I can see why the Church declines to provide neat explanations. And given how difficult it is to know whether a person is "possessed" I also understand why the Church is so cautious and discreet about exorcism. It seems all this is one area which will have to remain a mystery – but it need not be a frightening one. The idea that God is loving and all-powerful and that we therefore have nothing to fear is at the centre of Christian belief. As Fr Alban McCoy, who teaches philosophy at Allen Hall seminary, argued, "There are not two equal warring principles. God is the sole creator of all things, and is present in everything he creates. And if something exists, it exists in dependence on, and by permission of, God. So in so far as anything exists, even the devil, it is in some sense good."

  He went on to quote from St Paul’s letter to the Romans: "Neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nothing already in existence and nothing still to come, nor any power, nor the heights nor the depths, nor any created thing whatever, will be able to come between us and the love of God."

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