Sister of Darkness

by R. H. Stavis

  Regina Carpinelli is the founder and president of Stan Lee’s Los Angeles Comic Con, which is one of the largest comic cons in America and one of the biggest annual pop culture gatherings in Los Angeles. I’ve been a guest at this amazing event since 2011, and Regina and I have become dear friends. Early on in our working relationship, I revealed to her what I do, and it got her thinking. I’ll let her tell you the rest in her own words.

  REGINA

  When Rachel told me what she did on the side, I thought, Okay, that’s fun. In this business, you meet all types, so I just didn’t think much of it.

  At the time, though, I was going through some really difficult problems. I had way too many people around me who were abusive, and I was self-medicating. I’d become depressed, sometimes even suicidal, and my life felt like a big, huge burden. Finally, I spoke to Rachel about it. She responded, “I can help. Let’s do an exorcism.”

  I believe in spirituality, but, honestly, I can’t tell you who out there is crazy and who’s not. It’s not something I ever really put my mind to. But at that point, I was up for anything, so I said yes.

  Rachel told me to fast the day before my exorcism, so I did as I was told. When I went over to her house, she asked me to lie down on a bed and close my eyes. Over the course of the next hour, she did her thing. She burned incense, said words I couldn’t really understand, and waved her hands around. As she was doing all of this, I began feeling the weirdest sensations; it was like something was being pulled out of me. I just lay there and let whatever was happening happen, and then, finally, Rachel commanded that an entity come out.

  Immediately, I jumped out of the bed I’d been lying on and ran to the bathroom, sick as a dog.

  Bear in mind, I hadn’t eaten anything for a full twenty-four hours. There was absolutely nothing in my stomach. But when I looked down into the toilet, I saw the strangest thing: lying there at the bottom of the bowl were two black jellyfish.

  Now, I’m a practical person. I also believe in science. If I were going to vomit after a day of not eating, what would come out of me would be bile. There was no bile down there; all I saw were two dark, translucent blobs with little tentacles coming out of them.

  I couldn’t explain it then, and I still can’t, but all I can say is that I felt immediately better.

  I went back to Rachel’s Spirit Room a year later for a tune-up and to face some childhood trauma I’d been holding in, and I followed the same routine as the year before. I fasted for a full day. I lay on a bed. Rachel did her thing. And, sure enough, at the end of all of it, I had to jump up and vomit.

  This time, I saw what looked like little pieces of wood in the bottom of the toilet bowl. You know when you put down ground cover, but it’s not mulch, it’s wood chips or small sticks? That’s what was down there.

  But just like a year before, I immediately felt better, and I kept feeling that way. I was emotionally lighter and happier. I always used to hold tension in my back, and now I don’t. I didn’t clear the toxic people out of my life right away, but within a year, I did. Seeing Rachel was more helpful than therapy and gave me a different kind of empowerment. When unhealthy friends or family try to wedge themselves into my life now, I know how to block them out, and I do it. Now I have great relationships.

  I like having windows in my Spirit Room because it helps to have some sort of ventilation. Fresh air in, bad feelings out. I also need to have air-conditioning because it gets very hot during an exorcism. Even at night, the room will heat up an extra ten degrees at a minimum. Now, I don’t have a scientific explanation for this, but it must be because of the amount of energy flowing around the room. It’s a fucking cauldron within minutes. Like I said, I have a fireplace to create a mood, but during many exorcisms, it gets so hot I can’t ignite it.

  You have to have great light during an exorcism as well. This is not because I need it to be bright to work. It comes down to energy. You know the energy of a room when you see it, and good lighting always helps. If it’s a bright, cheerful space, I’m immediately drawn to it, and entities are immediately repelled. The only time this doesn’t matter is when I have an exorcism at night; then the light needs to be extremely low, and I typically work through candlelight or the glow of a fire, which bring in cleansing energy and higher being energy.

  As I’ve said before, I don’t allow anyone else but the client into my Spirit Room. This is even the case with children, so unfortunately, sometimes I have to cajole them—and reassure their parents—that they’ll be safe all alone with me. It’s simply too dangerous to have another individual in the room during an exorcism for two reasons. The first is that a person will be spiritually opened up if they’re too close to what I’m doing. Their body and soul will be in a sort of limbo, and if they don’t go through a full exorcism, they’ll walk out of the room energetically vulnerable and become a magnet for entities.

  Think of it this way: Imagine you fall asleep, and at the very deepest part of your sleep cycle, someone or something jolts you awake. Chances are you’re going to feel terrible for at least a few minutes. Those five, ten, or twenty minutes are not the time to drive a car, operate heavy machinery, or make any rational decisions. You need to go through the process of clearing out the mind fog that leaves you feeling half-asleep, half-awake.

  The second reason is that if there’s another person in the room during an exorcism, my client may not feel comfortable answering my questions about why they’ve come to me. Everyone who sees me has secrets—and most reveal them—and I spend a lot of time uncovering and then talking about what’s plaguing them before I do my work. You wouldn’t bring your husband to therapy with you, would you? Especially if your husband is one of the reasons you decided to see a therapist in the first place? Not in a million years.

  When someone is comfortable and situated in the room, I acknowledge what a big step they’ve made.

  “Being here today is huge,” I say. “So many things in your life had to align for you to come to me.” Then I usually look right in their eyes, deadly serious. “For next hour or so, you’re at a crossroads. I’m going to take out everything that’s been in you up to this point.”

  Then I ask my clients why they’ve come to me. They usually start to unpack all the problems they’ve been having lately, and I follow their every word. But here’s the funny part: I never actually listen to them. I may nod my head and smile while they speak, but in reality I’ve totally tuned them out.

  Please don’t hate me for this. It’s not that I don’t care about my clients; it’s just that they’re not the best judges of what’s actually happening within their lives. I get a lot of “my ex-wife is doing this or that,” but the anger a client feels is just a symptom of a greater spiritual problem. Feelings aren’t facts, and emotions can be a part of ego, so the messy angst surrounding someone’s domestic situation (or lack thereof) isn’t reality.

  My clients don’t know this truth, so that’s why I look to their Spirit Guides, Master Teachers, ancestors, or the deceased relatives who’ve visited me before their exorcism for answers.

  CHAPTER 8

  Higher Beings

  Spirit Guides, Master Teachers, Ancestors, and More

  Many people have asked what drives me during an exorcism. Am I powerless, entirely under the sway of Source? Am I some otherworldly creature, like an angel? Or do I work completely through intuition?

  “Intuition” and Source are the same in my understanding. People often don’t believe this, but I know this to be the case because Spirit’s communicated it to me directly. It’s led me to that understanding. When you hear a voice in your head telling you to make one choice over another, you may think this stems from your own thoughts or “intuition.” Maybe you don’t trust this voice because you don’t trust yourself, but you should. Know that Spirit speaks to people in this way. We’re all divine on some level, constantly working with Spirit.

  When you open yourself up to Spirit’s guidance, you’ll be amazed at all th
at it can provide. In my case, Source has given me access to a wealth of Higher Beings, including Spirit Guides, Master Teachers, ancestors, gods and goddesses, and more—all of whom are invaluable in my work as an exorcist.

  You may be thinking: Now wait a second, Rachel. I know you see entities. And you mentioned a while ago you saw dead people, too. But there are others? Yes, many others in fact. When I perform an exorcism, I don’t do so alone. I call in any number of Higher Beings, who come to me directly from Source. They don’t just provide me guidance, either; they’re with each and every one of you, available to assist you at any point you might need.

  I know this sounds outlandish, but it’s totally logical. If you’re walking around with entities attached to you, sucking away your strength, it would follow that you’d also have something positive going with you through life too, right? Absolutely. I call these beautiful beings “High Vibrational Entities,” and they include religious figures like Jesus, Muhammad, and the Archangel Michael, gods and goddesses who you might have thought were just the stuff of mythology (they’re not), Spirit Guides who may or may not have a name, and even your long-dead ancestors.

  I’m not the only person who makes her living in the spiritual space to use the term Higher Beings; throughout recent history shamans, New Age gurus, theologians, and more have referred to Master Teachers, Spirit Guides, and others I use in my taxonomy. And, of course, the notion of High Vibrational Entities has existed since ancient times. But I believe that the way I describe, experience, and use them is mine and mine alone.

  Before I describe each of these Higher Beings in detail, let me finish explaining how they—through Spirit—give me a window into a client’s heart, mind, and soul even before I ask them to lie down in my Spirit Room. As I’ve mentioned, I’m often visited by a High Vibrational Entity or two in the weeks or months before I first meet a client. When that person does come to me, I either see those same Higher Beings or other Spirit Guides, who appear and then speak right over my client, whispering in my mind the real trauma that’s caused the attachment that’s necessitated an exorcism. Her parents died when she was a child, they’ll say, channeling Spirit. Or they’ll go into deep detail, explaining how being raised by a busy aunt and uncle, who already had multiple children of their own, left my client feeling neglected. Spirit Guides have a desire to reveal the root of a problem; after all, sometimes you have to tear down and rebuild the foundations of a structure in order to make it stronger.

  Oftentimes the messages I receive are so powerful that I’ll interrupt a client while they’re talking about their difficulty with love, their inability to keep a job, or whatever else is eating at them. I used to be hesitant about doing this because I didn’t want to upset a client while they were so vulnerable, but after years and years of knowing that Spirit Guides are far more clued in than my clients, I’ve gotten pretty ballsy.

  “Stop,” I’ll say. “You’re not here because you hate your boss. Let’s cut to the chase. Your issues started decades ago. Here’s what’s really happening.”

  Nine times out of ten, people appreciate my candor, even if it’s not what they expected or if they’re shocked. In fact, I find that being 100 percent bullshit-free really breaks down barriers. My clients know immediately that I mean business. More than that, they understand right away that I’m in touch with them on a deeper level than they ever believed possible.

  My clients exist on many layers of consciousness. There are some who are almost completely self-aware and won’t argue with me when I tell them what their Spirit Guides have revealed to me. Others look at me confused or even in shock. They’re what I call the “slow pots to boil.” They’re less in touch with their feelings for sure, and more unconscious, and they may take a while to warm up to what I’ve revealed to them. Their exorcism will likely take a little longer and be harder, too. Yet, afterward, when they’re feeling happier and lighter, they almost always agree that I was right in what I said. I’ve had incredibly famous celebrities sit down in my Spirit Room and deny backward and forward that they’re having relationship troubles. But after their exorcism, they’ll admit, “You know, I’m actually about to file for divorce.”

  I already knew this, of course, because their Spirit Guides told me.

  I once performed an exorcism on a very famous musician. I can’t name him, but I can tell you that he has millions and millions of fans, is an entrepreneur, and demonstrates a tremendous amount of compassion for the planet. I’ll call him Mr. Big Heart. Mr. Big Heart had heard about me through a friend, and he’d decided he might have an entity because he’d become so disinterested in music. What had once been his passion had become a burden. He assumed his creative impulses were being stifled by something larger, so he called me up.

  When he came for his exorcism, we didn’t talk much about music. Using information I’d received from Spirit, I began to ask Mr. Big Heart about his relationships, and he was candid. He said he worried—just as lots of uberfamous individuals do—that people wanted to be close to him because he had so much money and power.

  “I don’t want to be taken advantage of,” he said. “People assume I’m bulletproof because of who I am and what I’m capable of doing—not to mention what I’ve done—but I’m not. I’ve been lied to, stolen from, cheated on, accused of horrible things, and sued for almost everything. I just wish I could know that my friendships are genuine.”

  “I imagine that’s hard,” I responded.

  “It’s awful. I want people in my life, but it’s tough to be close to anyone. I’ve been famous for so long, but I feel like no one knows me because I’m terrified to open myself up. Making a real connection has been so frightening for me, for years.”

  I heard what Mr. Big Heart was saying, but I wasn’t listening to all the details. I was paying more attention to his Spirit Guides, who had started speaking to me.

  There’s a woman who really, truly loves him, they said. They’ve been close for a long time, and she’s genuine. Then they revealed specific details about her that would allow my client to recognize her.

  I found the source of his trauma, which was rooted in childhood suffering, and exorcised the Wraith that had attached to him. Then I told him about his lady friend, and he smiled.

  “That’s good to know,” he said. “I’ve been so lonely.”

  I don’t know whether he’ll pursue a relationship with her, but at least he has some comfort in understanding he has a true friend in the world.

  SPIRIT GUIDES

  Let’s get a little more specific about Spirit Guides. They are the lowest-level Higher Beings. It’s not that they aren’t spiritually powerful; they just don’t watch over the world at large in the way that other Higher Beings do. Their work is specific to individuals. They’re always with you, just following you or floating nearby. They’ve been assigned to you by Spirit, and they’re at your disposal for whenever you need them. I always joke that they must have the worst jobs in the world, latched on to people who don’t recognize they’re there and never listen to the messages they’re sending. But, trust me, they’re there, and they know everything about your past and your present. They essentially represent Spirit, so any guidance they’ll offer is pure Source energy. They’re working in your best interests at all times.

  Spirit Guides look more like regular people than some of the other Higher Beings such as Master Teachers, gods, and goddesses. They have a glow to them, like angels, and very soft, gentle facial features. I like to think of them as “light beings”—unadulterated, good energy whose power is always more spiritual than physical.

  I’m deeply in tune with my own Spirit Guides, but I don’t differentiate them. In fact, I see them as one unit. I never ask their names or even identify them individually, but I suppose if I did, they might give themselves a name they think I’d like. After all, they’re there to help me.

  During an exorcism, though, I tend to leave my Spirit Guides alone, turning only to those of my clients. That’s because I
need a window into their lives, not my own. I mostly use my Spirit Guides when I’m performing what I call a ritual, which is any kind of spiritual practice I do while I am alone: burning incense, handling my crystals, or bringing in the energies of fire, water, earth, and air by lighting candles or ringing chimes. I do this on days when I think I need a spiritual boost, which isn’t every day because I like to be respectful of my Guides. We have a working relationship, so I’m mindful not to bombard them with questions all day long because no one—not even spiritual beings—has endless patience. When I bring them in, I also thank them and offer gifts like food, wine, and coins. At this point in my life, I don’t need my Spirit Guides for hard-hitting answers or bare-knuckle guidance; I’ve honed my connection to Source so much that I can go straight to there, not requiring a go-between.

  MASTER TEACHERS

  Master Teachers are higher up the food chain than Spirit Guides. They inhabit their own space, and you can access them if you need them, but they don’t necessarily follow you. They’re a bit more powerful than Spirit Guides, so their guidance tends to be more profound. I have no idea how or why they exist in a higher place than Spirit Guides, but since my frequency is so much lower than theirs, perhaps it’s not my place to ask. Some shit I’m just never going to know.

  I’ve been familiar with two of my Master Teachers since I was a teenager, but I didn’t really acknowledge them until my early thirties. Even when I was hiding from them, I always felt comfortable with them, and part of me understood that they served a purpose. Deep down, I knew they were with me for good. They still appear to me anytime I need them, and they do so quickly. In fact, they’re the Higher Beings I feel more of a kinship with than any other.