Personal Case File: “The Rattled Priest and a Death at Church” In late 1993 after the torment of living in our previous house with the haunted bathtub, we relocated to a nice house a few roads away. It was well furnished and a beautiful house compared to the previous one. My bedroom was at the back of the house. It had built-in mahogany wardrobes and a nice little desk. My room was dark as it over looked the garden which was a steep incline consisting of three concrete levels and then a large lawn at the top. The whole garden was enclosed by large trees and bushes. My main memory was of all the bordering fuchsias on each level. I loved their smell as I enjoyed the peacefulness of the outside. The peace was to be short lived. A series of events stated to build up that became more than unsettling for us as a family. One evening we were sat watching TV when all of a sudden everything on the mantelpiece began flying off and smashing around the room. The movement of the chaos went from right to left almost as if a cat was racing across it and kicking off everything in its way. Things weren’t just falling to the floor, they were being thrown several metres. In addition to the more standard haunting and poltergeist activity there was also several accidents and changes in behaviour within the family and our pet dog. The first accident was when my mother was cooking us some burgers in the frying pan. I was stood there talking with her when one of the burgers leapt out of the pan and hit me straight in the forehead causing me a rather horrible burn which luckily eventual healed. Our family dog became aggressive and one day was spooked by something outside and went running straight through the glass plane slicing his leg open. He luckily survived the experience. The whole house felt dark and oppressive and the family began to feel the weight of this negative energy. Out of desperation my mother called in our local priest to perform a blessing to which he kindly agreed. On his arrival he approached the house slowly up the driveway. On hearing his knock at the door, my mother graciously greeted him. As he attempted to cross the threshold he stopped in his step. He aggressively started scratching at his throat and kept saying that it was burning. This ordeal wasn’t to last for too long. As he tried to take a final step inside, we all stood and witnessed as the metal Crucifix around his neck bend in half and then snap to the ground. Needless to say he soon departed and was not to return. Several weeks later we attended a church service, I had already walked away from my religion by this time but went to support my mother as she wanted to connect with the local congregation. Once I was sat and ready for the service, my attention was drawn to an elderly lady sat about four pews in front of me on the left. For the whole service I couldn’t stop looking at her. As the sermon was coming to an end, the woman in question fell off her pew and into the centre aisle not only dead but extremely rigid. I had the impression she had been dead for quite some time and for some reason had gone unnoticed. As I looked up at the rafters I saw several bats flying around. This memory has stayed with me for life and I haven’t returned to church since. To try and put an end to this madness myself I decided to have a rummage around in the loft. It wasn’t long until I came across what I believed I was looking for. There was a small object wrapped in a piece of white linen cloth. As I unwrapped the object I discovered an old wooden relic that seemed to be from a church, its purpose I am not certain of. It did have some engravings on it which included a name and a date, unfortunately I have forgotten these details. Believing I had found the source of the evil within the house I removed it as far from the house as I could before destroying it. This seemed to have worked and the house began to feel more harmonious again. We moved a year later.