Will Storr vs. The Supernatural: One Man's Search for the Truth About Ghosts

by Will Storr

  ‘Maybe … she wanted me to go to church more?’

  ‘OK, thank you. Would she think we were, I can’t think of the right word, like, devil-worshippers?’

  ‘She might have found all this a bit strange.’

  Jacquie nods firmly. ‘Right, yes. Thank you. This is what I’m being told. Right, there’s farming.’

  ‘Farming?’

  ‘Cats,’ says Jacquie.

  ‘No.’

  ‘And trains. Something to do with trains. A signal box.’

  ‘I’ll have to check that out … ’

  ‘Why do I have three sons, please?’

  ‘She had two sons.’

  Jacquie frowns to herself and concentrates. We watch her in silence. All of us except Tony, who’s still staring sadly at a space in the middle of the floor. The group’s leader, I notice, keeps shooting the senior Spiritualist concerned glances.

  Jacquie looks at me again. ‘I’ve just asked if everything I’m getting is correct,’ she says, ‘and even though it’s scattery, she’s told me definitely three sons.’

  I sit up and forward. ‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘You’re right. She had a baby boy called Richard who died.’

  ‘And the number three,’ she says, ‘that’s important to you.’

  ‘Well, someone told me … when the number three crops up I should be really careful.’

  ‘What about when you fell off your bike and cut your chin?’

  ‘No, that hasn’t happened … ’ I say.

  ‘And your nose was broke.’

  ‘No … ’

  ‘What you cannot take will come around,’ she says.

  ‘Oh.’

  There’s a quiet pause as I let that sink in. And then, Jacquie’s off again.

  ‘She don’t like Christmas.’

  ‘Didn’t she?’

  ‘She was quite abrupt. She doesn’t like you slouching. She was a very strong-willed person. She didn’t take any nonsense.’

  ‘Yes, yes … ’

  ‘Did you not get to say some things that you wanted to say?’

  ‘Well, no … ’

  ‘She knows what you wanted to say. She says you can’t carry the guilt for that. She’s telling me she’s fine. To be honest, I think it’s right that she went when she did because a lot of things were slowing her down.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘She’d just had a prang in her car. They were thinking of taking her driving licence off her.’

  ‘And it was a good way for her to go. She was fine with it.’

  My gran’s greatest fear was that the creeping rot of age would take her mind, her dignity and then her home. But as it was, she died, as independent and as sharp as she’d ever been, in her favourite chair in her living room, with a freshly made cup of tea by her side. She just closed her eyes and her microtubules emptied. She was ninety-two years old. Everybody agreed, just as Jacquie has said, that it was a good way for her to go. Perfect, in fact.

  ‘That’s absolutely right,’ I say.

  Jacquie’s hands slow rapidly. ‘OK, thank you,’ she says. ‘Now you’ve got your proof.’

  I sit back and wait quietly for the hour to be up. And when it is, the older members all turn their attention to Tony.

  ‘Not get anything tonight?’ Jacquie says to him.

  He’s looking at his knees, exhaustedly. ‘I’ve been doing something,’ he says. ‘They’re in crisis up in the spirit world. They’re in a state of great distress. Because of the tsunami. They’re flat out. We usually have fifty guides with us in circle and tonight, we only had eight. So I’ve been sending energy up to them. You can help if you want. Imagine you’re making a balloon in the middle of the floor out of energy, then send it up. Can we all do that for five minutes?’ He looks around the group with wide, pleading eyes. ‘Every little helps.’

  So there we sit, fifteen Spiritualists and me, in a tight circle, in a cold brick building in the corner of a Scunthorpe car park. And, silently and selflessly, we all do our bit for the tsunami victims.

  19

  ‘I talk to the devil every day’

  SO MY JOURNEY has led me here, to the centre of the web, to the teeming heart of the Catholic empire. Somehow, it seems inevitable. I have come to the Vatican, the capital of everything I raged against at school, the centre of what I’ve always thought of as the world’s biggest and most powerful supernatural movement. I’ve spent the morning walking the ancient, grand and immaculate rat-run of streets and domes. I’ve looked up at the old gold ceilings, I’ve hurried past the opulent palaces and I’ve seen the holy treasures they display in this beautiful and sacred citadel, the wealthiest country on the planet, and the one that’s closest to heaven. And now, after everything I’ve seen and read over the months, I don’t know what to think.

  I’ve come to rest in St Peter’s Square, amongst the hawkers and the tourists and the nuns. I check my watch and stand up, as a cold early-winter wind tumbles down through the square and ruffles the coats of a squadron of strutting pigeons. Grey feathers on grey ground under a great grey darkening sky. I zip up my coat and hurry to my appointment with Father Gabriele Amorth at his base, deep in the mix of streets in a southern suburb of Rome.

  Amorth greets me quietly. His face is lined with long years and weariness. He wears a black-buttoned tunic, has large, lobey ears, and is dignified and peaceful and firm. He leads me into the complex of chapels and dark, hushed passages. I’m struck by the tranquil sense that holds this place. It’s as if it exists in a cocoon, a holy bubble of serenity. Then, suddenly, as we walk down one particular corridor, the feeling changes. Amorth takes me to the end of the uneasy hallway, opens an unmarked door and shows me into a cramped and shabby room. I pause and look around. So this is where it happens.

  The paint on the walls is aged with the dirt of years and there’s a deep, black crack that runs upwards through the plaster and spreads out towards the ceiling like the fingers of a skeletal hand. Somebody has pinned up pictures of long-dead Catholic holy men. They gaze out, with sorrowful eyes and thin, dry smiles, into the heavy air that hangs in the room. They see nothing, but they say everything, as they stare straight through the gloomy objects that fill this place – the bed and the chair and the statue of Mary and the handmade wooden box that’s been nailed in the corner at about waist height. It holds the restraints. Tough old rags that used to be white but are now dark with the sweat of the people who have been taken here and tied down.

  ‘They are used for people who are furious,’ says the exorcist. ‘They are used for tying arms and legs. They lie here,’ he says, pointing.

  It’s like an old hospital bed. It’s high, with tubular metal legs, and its head is raised up. The faded blue cloth that covers the mattress is stained in the areas where hundreds of heads and bodies have lain down and struggled against the invading magic as Father Amorth has murmured his ancient Latin prayers over them.

  ‘And here –’ He turns towards a corner table that carries a cluttered huddle of bottles and pots ‘– is the holy water. And here is the blessed oil and here is the blessed salt.’ He takes a step out of the room and opens another old door. I follow him out, then the eighty-year-old cleric stops and turns to look at me. His eyes have taken on a solemn and portentous drawn gaze.

  ‘And this is the bathroom,’ he says.

  ‘Oh right, thanks,’ I say, before following him into an anteroom to sit down.

  I’d all but given up trying to find an exorcist to speak to. First, there was the American pastor who reacted to my simple request so memorably: ‘You are playing with fire.’ Then there was Stan’s local churchman, who panicked on the phone and – I’m sure – was behind the abrupt cancellation of my interview with him. Next I tried the Catholic Church’s press office and they arranged for me to meet a priest in Cardiff. His first words to me were: ‘Me? An exorcist? I’m sorry, I think you’ve been misinformed.’ He went on to tell me it was his firm belief that science held all the answers. I’d been stitched
up, palmed off with a P.R.-conscious progressive. At a loss, I asked my mother for help. I thought if an insider made the approach I might get somewhere. And she tried. But even my fundamentalist Catholic mum was told, in no uncertain terms, that there would be no interview. Some months later I was informed by a senior churchman that there are only two full-strength Catholic exorcists in the country, and their identities are kept strictly secret. Every parish, I was told, does have a priest who can perform various minor ‘deliverance’ blessings and this, I realised, was the position Father Bill must have held.

  Lou Gentile was right. The twenty-first-century Church doesn’t like discussing its demons in public. But before I gave up completely, I decided to fling my hopes to the wind to see how far they’d fly: I took my request right to the top. Father Gabriele Amorth is the Vatican’s chief exorcist. He’s the papal commander-in-chief in the war against the devil. As Amorth’s name is in the public domain, I thought I might have the slimmest chance of a chat. And, to my total astonishment, he agreed to meet me.

  I sit down at a small table in front of Father Amorth and tell him about the science priest that I met in Cardiff. He listens stilly and, when I’ve finished, he lowers his head to look at me.

  ‘It is true,’ he says. ‘Some clergymen do not believe in the devil’s activity. This is because they have never studied exorcism, they have never carried them out. It is a problem. I questioned the Pope about this and I will tell you the answer that he gave me. He told me that if they don’t believe in the devil, they don’t believe in the scriptures. This is Satan’s work. The devil uses all his resources to stay hidden. He tries not to be believed in.’

  Amorth talks about a sceptical priest who attended an exorcism with his arms crossed sulkily and a sarcastic grin smeared across his face. He remained like that, watching, until the possessed child turned to him and said, ‘You say that you do not believe I exist. But you believe in women! And how!’ The womanising priest, horrified, humiliated and thoroughly rumbled, walked backwards out of the door and fled. This is a perfect example of an apparently possessed person displaying knowledge of something they shouldn’t know. And it’s astonishingly common in Amorth’s patients.

  ‘I always pray in Latin,’ he tells me, ‘and even though the possessed person doesn’t understand Latin, they understand the prayer perfectly. Even the young children. And if I make a mistake, they laugh and make fun of me. At that moment, it is the devil who is laughing, not the child. I use Latin because it helps me understand if they are possessed and also because it is the original language used and it is more powerful. The prayers are extremely old. There were made official in 1614 and taken from centuries before, for example, the exorcism of Santa Rosa in the fourth century. Now there are new prayers that have come out, but I don’t like them. They don’t work.’

  I was about to ask Father Amorth how he can tell the difference between a ‘genuinely’ possessed person and someone who is mentally ill. I suppose that a youngster suddenly acquiring a working knowledge of Latin and ancient Catholic rites would certainly trigger suspicion. And I’d also note that the victim is mocking the priest, just like Kathy and the others. When I do ask the question, however, Amorth acknowledges that it’s often difficult to tell the diabolics from the daft.

  ‘It is true,’ he says, ‘it is a problem deciding which person is possessed and which needs a psychiatrist. My first exorcisms were false – I didn’t understand that they had psychiatric problems. It takes a lot of work. But I’ll give you an example. A father thought that one of his sons was possessed by the devil. At the table while they all ate together, the father said, in his mind, “Ave Maria.” It was only in his head, but the son got up very quickly and said, “Enough! Stop it, Father!” This is a phenomenon that cannot come from psychiatric illness. There are also other ways I can tell. They will have an aversion to the sacrament and all things sacred. They will scream, spit, or vomit. They will go into a trance during the exorcism and often become furious. They can become very strong. During one exorcism, I saw a child of eleven held down by four strong men. The child threw the men aside with ease. Often I keep my fingers on the eyes because when the devil is there the eyes go very high or very low and you do not see the colour, just white. Sometimes, strange objects come out of the body. I’ve had cases where they spat out nails, plastic animals, keys, chains. And sometimes they levitate. A twenty-five-or twenty-six-year-old farmer was sat on a chair and held down by eight people. He was very furious. During the exorcism he levitated to the height of two spans of the hand. This happened various times.’

  ‘The levitation you describe,’ I ask. ‘Is it common?’

  ‘It is not common,’ he says. ‘But it does happen. I will give you another example. It was an episode in Africa during an exorcism of a young person in a church. The doors were closed and the only people present were the family and a few other people. During the exorcism, this person began to rise up higher and higher until her head touched the ceiling. This was a very diabolical episode.’

  ‘Have you ever been hurt?’ I ask.

  Father Amorth swallows and looks down at his plump, pink and ringless fingers. ‘Only once,’ he says. ‘The possessed person was on the bed and he moved his leg. It only seemed like a small movement, but it broke my leg.’ He looks up. ‘They have huge strength.’

  The exorcist speaks slowly, without emphasis or passion. It’s as if he’s answering my questions through a sense of duty. He has only the faintest hint of grey hair remaining on the sides of his head. It’s so wispy that it looks as though there is an out-of-focus patch of air or a thin mist above each ear. The smooth, flat shine on the top of his head contrasts with the loose slips of flesh that hang down from his eyes, lips and neck. It looks as if his skin has been poured onto the top of his skull and is dripping down off his face, slowly. Being with Father Amorth and listening to him speak, I feel humbled, fascinated and compelled to believe every word. It’s his steady delivery, the steely serenity of his eyes, the dignity and composure of his black robes and bearing. The steam that’s coming off the exorcist is learned, powerful and gripping, and I suddenly find that I’m feeling at home amongst the crosses and the incense and the prayers. Oh, you will be.

  ‘What I don’t understand about possession is,’ I say, ‘what does Satan get out of it?’

  ‘He wants to show that he is more powerful than God. It is a constant battle. He says that by possessing somebody it shows his power because God doesn’t have the power to send him away.’

  ‘And have you seen the devil?’

  ‘No. I’ve never seen him. I don’t need to. I talk to the devil every day. I have touched the invisible world with my own hand. Besides, the devil is a pure spirit. It’s not a physical form.’

  ‘What do you say to him?

  ‘Always the same things. I ask, “Are you alone or are there other demons? What is your name?”’

  ‘Do the demons have names?’

  ‘There are many names,’ he says. ‘Zebulun, Meridian, Asmodeus … ’

  ‘Have you heard of Hecate?’

  There’s a silence. Amorth looks at me with his sunken, wet eyes. ‘No.’

  In an echo of what happened after my first meeting with Maurice Grosse, a die-hard rational part of me is finding Father Amorth’s testimony too powerful, too extreme. It just can’t be true. But, really, I counter to myself, to call the exorcist’s integrity into question is just a cop-out. Why would he lie? Why would he do it? To suggest that this exceedingly senior churchman has simply invented all these tales of super-human toddlers, Latin-fluent farmhands and floating, furious Africans is just unreasonable. It’s an excuse, isn’t it? Because the Blockage doesn’t want to believe.

  Well, I’ve got some things to say to the Blockage. For a start, what Amorth is telling me is absolutely consistent with what exorcists have reported for centuries. Then there’s the small movement of a possessed person’s leg that led to the fracture of Amorth’s bone. How can that be exp
lained? That’s nobody’s imagination or super-aroused hallucination. That’s a plaster-cast for twelve weeks. And I’m equally intrigued by his claims that the new exorcism prayers don’t work. In 1999 the Vatican updated them and Father Amorth has since called their new version ‘a masterpiece of incompetence’ because he’s found them to be ineffectual. So, my question to the Blockage is this: if the effects of his exorcisms are really all in the minds of the priest and his patients, how come one prayer works and another one doesn’t?

  And Gabriele Amorth is no simple hick. He was born in Modena in 1925 to a family of lawyers and judges. During the war, he joined the Italian resistance. And as soon as Hitler did the decent thing and Amorth was released from his freedom-fighting duties, he became a member of the newly formed Christian Democratic Party. He was the deputy to Giulo Andreotti, who became prime minister seven times over. In short, the priest who’s sat in front of me is no sceptical monsterologist. He’s no trance medium. And almost everything he’s saying is consistent with what Lou Gentile told me all those months ago about demons, exorcism and the many dangers of divination. With that in mind, I decide to fill the priest in on the Enfield case, in particular the fact that the unsettling north London narrative has a Ouija board and an exorcism as its prologue and epilogue. I tell him Janet told me that this was a ‘coincidence’.

  Amorth responds with an almost imperceptible shake of the head. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he says. ‘That was not a coincidence. The Ouija board is dangerous because a person can become possessed by the devil. They call the souls of the dead but the dead souls never come. The dead don’t move. But the demon can come.’

  I tell him about the old, mocking male voice that Janet would speak in, and that it was in possession of surprising facts about the house’s previous occupant, Bill …

  ‘It was the devil,’ says Amorth. ‘It was the devil who made her speak and say these things. It is rare for something like this to happen.’

  … and about the unforgettable subterranean gaze that she suddenly took on and that it was the same as Kathy’s …