Post by Joanna on May 3, 2014 2:54:49 GMT -5
Chilling: Inside a Demon House
PITTSBURGH, Penn. – It’s called “The Demon of Brownsville Road,” and a Pittsburgh family claims this creature terrorized them for years, until exorcists forced it to leave. The events that transpired inside the historic house are now the subject of a new book, The Demon of Brownsville Road: A Pittsburgh Family’s Battle with Evil in Their Home by Bob Cranmer and Erica Manfred.
Bob Cranmer, a former Allegheny County commissioner, claims the family published their nightmarish story to hopefully help other families avoid doing battle with a demon.
From “bleeding walls” to “broken metal crosses,” the family claims they experienced a hellish situation. According to Adam Blai, possessions can get worse than that.
Blai has a master’s degree in clinical psychology and is an expert demonologist and advisor to the Roman Catholic Church; performing and training priests in exorcism. He was also a skeptic until he entered the house on Brownsville Road.
In a sit-down interview with FOX 8's Suzanne Stratford, Blai candidly answers questions about ghosts, demons and exorcism, all of which he says are very real.
Is demon possession a Catholic or global phenomena?
“Pretty much all of the major religious systems in the world have seen this problem; spirits that can speak languages that the person doesn’t even know; where a spirit animates a body that knows secret information about the people in the room that only they know about their lives,” said Adam.
“You meet the same demons over and over, performing exorcisms in different cities and they’re like ‘oh yea you again,’ and you get used to it, but in the process of getting used to it, there’s a lot of nightmarish stuff you have to go through,” said Adam.
Adam says many people involved with exorcism have been physically harmed or institutionalized. Why?
“Because the forces we oppose and antagonize will take revenge on those close to us if they can’t take revenge on us. I had a very close relative thrown down the stairs in their home so violently they didn’t touch the stairs. They were in the air spinning and landed and broke their neck.”
What are your thoughts on the increased interest in demonology?
“People who want to get involved in this, it’s usually out of naive curiosity or glamorizing it, but this is not a career. There’s no money in this. This is all voluntary work. This all has to be done as an act of charity and for love other people,” said Adam.
“There must be some calling. But the great danger in that, is that anything that leads to pride, like, ‘oh I’m special,’ or ‘oh look I helped cast out this demon,’ or ‘met this thing from the Old Testament,’ or ‘met Judas Iscariot or Satan,’ or whatever and you can get puffed up by that, and think that’s exciting, but the moment you allow yourself to go there, the next case you’re going to get smacked back down really hard. One thing they’re really good at is providing corrective experiences,” said Adam.
Some ghost hunters have suggested that they feed off human energy. Is that true?
“They don’t need human energy. That’s egoist thinking. They do enjoy conflict, pain, chaos and breaking families apart. They relish all of that. They enjoy that. They just find it pleasurable. They’re very sadistic creatures,” said Adam.
Why does the Catholic church believe demons infest homes?
“Hell is interested in gaining any ground that it can and that ground might be people, in the case of possessions, might be property, it might be buildings, it might be rights to a family line. Whatever they can get people who have authority to give them rights to, they’ll go after.”
How would that work?
“Their power or activity is defined by the amount of permission we’ve given to them to be active. So for instance, if a person does a black mass in their living room, somebody on the other hand might play around with EVP, or spirit boards, divination of some kind.
And when it comes to things you need your hands to do like diving rods, or board games or pendulums, you’re implicitly telling the spirit I give you permission to enter my body and move it. And it’s not going to be an angel or human spirit. And that’s why we see problems with these things,” said Adam.
What about reported possessions of children like the recent case in Gary, Indiana where people including police claimed to see a child walk up the walls?
“If they hadn’t done anything to invite these things into their lives, and they were prayerful people, it’s very possible that the previous generation, or generations back invited the demons into the family line. This is how we can sometimes see cases of possession with children. Where the child hasn’t done anything and they can’t because they’re not culpable for their choices yet,” said Adam.
What’s your advice for home-buyers or renters?
“Usually when we talk to people that moved into a house with a preexisting problem they will usually say at their gut level their instinct told them, there’s something wrong here. And in this work, dealing with spiritual problems, you learn pretty quickly that strong intuition – not subtle- but a strong one that comes is probably a person’s Guardian Angel or Holy Spirit in them giving you that little nudge,” said Adam.
“Also you know histories of very bad, violent activity, I would definitely have the house cleansed in whatever way your religion provides or at least a house blessing.”
People claim to see ghosts. You say there are demons. Is there a difference?
“There’s certainly a difference between ghosts and demons. The way we understand ghosts from the Catholic perspective is that these are souls in purgatory and that just means no one dies perfect. We have to be purified before we can reunite with God.
So the dead souls in purgatory seem to be allowed to come to the living and request prayers, but the hallmark of a soul in purgatory is that it’s not destructive, and it’s not terrifying. The other one is clearly destructive,” said Adam.
Do you have any final thoughts or message for people?
“After about 10 years of being involved in this, the most important thing I’d want to pass along is that Gods mercy and intervention is always available to them. You can always come back to God. God is always yearning and waiting for people to come back.”
Source: Suzanne Stratford, WJW News, April 28, 2014.