My encounter goes back some decades, to 1967, when I settled in Bridal Veil Lake with my husband. I went mad the following year.
The neighborhood by the school, Buchner Collegiate, seemed bright and new and full of hope compared to post-war Europe, which both my husband and I experienced as children to some degree. He was from Britain and I from Ukraine, the latter having been hit very badly by the war.
The only blight on Bridal Veil Lake, at least where we had settled, were the dark rumors surrounding the scout house. It was dilapidated and crumbling and had been for years. I paid it and the rumors about it no mind. Still, I didn’t like the building or walking past it on my way to and from our local grocer. It felt like there were eyes watching from the broken windows. Who knew what vagrants may take to such a space?
I began to hear the answers to this question with each passing I did of the scout house.
I paraphrase, but it was along the lines of “There is no one inside there. Go inside. Let this small truth be evidence of our honest intentions.”
The words were always like that and, at first, I thought it was my own mind thinking them as part of a standard internal dialogue. Yet, the voices and their messages about the property remained consistent. I remember a repetition of, “There is no one in there. Go in.”
I ignored the voices for a time, and began taking a more circuitous route to the grocery store. But the voices followed.
“You have never been inside. So you can’t know there is a tattered banner from a boy’s club dangling from the wall, or a water stained photograph under a school desk in the corner. Go in and prove to yourself that we do not come from your imagination.”
I confided in my husband. After some thought and a brief discussion regarding seeing a doctor or a priest, he suggested we go into the scout house together. If the items mentioned by the voices were there, that would tell us which specialist to see first.
We visited the property on a Saturday with our friend and his wife. We were very close and told them everything. They displayed more fascination than fear.
We discovered the remnants of a banner - a group apparently named the Crusaders, hung from the wall. My husband took my hand in consolation, gently offering that this proved nothing. “Your own mind could have guessed something like this would be in here, my dear - heck, I would have, too!”
I was hesitant to agree.
The desk and the photo would be more proof, of course, so we continued to search. There weren’t many places for it to be. The scout house was one large room with a single, non-functioning bathroom and an L-shaped loft running beneath the series of broken windows. Our group searched thoroughly and found nothing resembling a desk. Not until we attempted to leave.
Our friend pulled open the front door to leave, and the handle slipped from his fingers. The door swung open fast, hitting the wall, and there was a clatter in the corner from the impact. My husband picked up a piece of wood that had fallen and held it up for us to see: It was the top portion of a swing-top student’s desk.
“See?” he said, “No photograph. We can rest easy tonight!” He didn’t realize he presented us with the underside of the desktop, where he hadn’t looked. There, half pasted with rain water, were the ruined faces of people looking out of a photograph.
When he realized what we were staring at, my husband swore and smashed the desktop to the floor at his feet, as if it were cursed.
The four of us swiftly filed out of scout house and remained silent, in thought, all the way back to our place. Then we had a round of stiff drinks.
My husband took charge. He was of the mind that this wasn’t possible, and there must be a logical explanation to be found. Around the table we all nodded our heads thoughtfully in agreement.
The voices made their presence known to me then, consuming my brain like a vicious thunderstorm, muting my own thoughts and impulses. “He will accuse you of lying,” they said. “Do not deny it. There is no point, and it does not matter. We have shown you we are separate from you. We-“
I demanded aloud for the voices to reveal themselves. My voice was so shrill and sudden that it shocked even me. My husband and friends tried to engage me with support, but I was focused purely inward.
The voices spoke again and this is approximately what they said:
“We were doctors at the Jepson Hospital. Listen, you have what is called a meningioma, which is a kind of tumor. You’ve had it a long time; it’s been growing slowly and steadily. This tumor is very near to killing you, and must be removed urgently. Go to the doctor immediately and get an x-ray. Demand one. Tell them you’re hearing voices, your vision is weak and your memory vague and inconsistent. Go now.”
I shared with my husband and friends what had been said and convinced them to take me to the hospital. It took a great deal of talk to get the x-ray that revealed the meningioma. An operation followed and when I was more or less recovered and coherent again the voices spoke to me one last time.
Their last message was comforting. “We are pleased that you are well and recovering. We will be leaving you now, but if you ever need anything, reach out to us and ask.” I felt validated, relieved, and safe - like a guardian angel was looking after me.
I thanked them genuinely and they left me. I’m not sure how I knew but I knew. I went home after a few weeks of recovery in-hospital and spent a great deal of time thinking about the voices. My husband remained suspicious of me and them.
He doubted their existence. I was more concerned about their intentions. ‘Why me?’ and the like. And so, I sought out private consultation with our priest.
He seemed to understand very quickly what I was speaking of. After I told him the story, he explained in eerie detail what they were.
He led me with a story about a young slave girl who made a great deal of money for her masters by telling the future. For some reason, the girl began to pester Paul the Apostle day in and day out until he finally got fed up and invoked the name of Christ to remove the unclean spirit within her.
I did not understand but was also not accustomed to questioning my priest. He noticed and clarified. He looked deeply into my eyes and explained that the slave-girl had been possessed by demons.I immediately made the sign of the cross.
He assured me, then, that I was not possessed, but he feared I had had a brush with demonic oppression, which was where many possessions began. The demons arrive with deceptions, he patiently described, offering both entertainment and knowledge to their host. The demons would then appear friendly so that the host would happily let the demons take up real estate in their minds.
I started to panic. “W-why me?”
“The enemy is a predator and predators target the young and the sick.”
“Why heal me?”
The priest shrugged. “They did not heal you. They only gave you knowledge of a condition that you were otherwise unaware of. The tumour was removed before it could cause significant symptoms. It’s more than likely you would have sought treatment without infernal intervention once your symptoms became noticeable to you and those around you.”
I had to think about his choice of words. “Infernal?”
“I’m afraid so. The divine has no need to manipulate us in order to give aid.”
He explained more of the demonic and all of it frightened me. His overall message was simple, however: Do not, under any circumstance, reach out to them. For they were waiting for my next struggle and would be eager to return under the guise of helpful spirits.
“When they speak again, and they will,” he warned, “you must not respond to them. You must come to the church.”
I apologize now for the length of my letter and the digression I write now but feel it’s necessary to let you know my case is not wholly unique. In fact, it is nearly identical to one that occurred in the 1980s. A woman with an unknown tumour was directed by voices claiming to be medical professionals in a previous life.
After reading about her case, it was like rekindling my own. I had managed to forget or suppress the memory of it by changing many things in my life. One of those things was church. I stopped going because seeing the priest reminded me of them. I suppose I wanted to pretend it hadn’t really happened.
But then my husband fell ill, and that’s when I heard them again.
“His illness is more serious and requires more than just medicine,” they said.
“I didn’t reach out for you,” I said over my kitchen sink one night, clutching the countertop edge to stop my shaking.
“Yes,” they said, “you did. You wished for your husband to be well. We heard you.”
I finally followed my priest’s advice but the church was gone. The building had been boarded up and abandoned.
“You did this,” I accused them. Panic took over. I had no church.
I have no church. I tried going to others but every one I try they mock.
“This is no temple,” they say. “No one here can help your husband. You know we can. We’ve done it before.”
My husband is in hospital on his deathbed.
But they promise a miraculous recovery.
If only I let them intervene.
Oh God, what do I do?