I Never Noticed

Before moving into this house, I had many positive experiences with the spiritual world. I had a close friend who died 9 years ago. She died very young and suddenly. Following her death, I received many signs that she was in a better place. I remember talking to her in the weeks after her death, and when I'd ask for a response, I would get one in some way.

It was not until I experienced a negative haunting that I truly understood the reality of the diabolical realm and its ability to infringe on our earthly existence. I lived with my roommate for 4 years. We were an unlikely match for roommates. I was goal-oriented and motivated, while she tended to be lazy and slovenly. She experienced much tragedy in her life, including the loss of both of her parents and growing up in poverty.

One day, I began to experience strange things in my house. I would see balls of light moving around in the upstairs of the home I rented. I would first see them out of the corner of my eye, and then they would dart across the room when I would focus on them. I would see these on a nightly basis for weeks at a time. Being that I was only exposed to positive experiences with the spiritual world prior to this, I was not overly alarmed, but I did wonder why this was occurring so suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere.

The feeling of the house began to shift, and the house suddenly seemed dark on even the sunniest day. I dusted the light bulbs a few times, thinking that perhaps this was the cause of the dimness in the house. This did not make it any brighter. I found myself spending more time out of the house. Friends who I knew for years would stay for no more than an hour at a time. Although they did not volunteer the information, they would later tell me that they just felt uncomfortable but they didn't know why.

On a Monday about three weeks after the strange things started to happen, I started to wake up in the middle of the night from terrible nightmares. I rarely got nightmares prior to this, but I had three nightmares on three consecutive nights. The first night, dreamt of a boy I was dating at the time, and he was laughing at me hysterically and mockingly. I asked him in the dream why he was doing this, and he said that he never really loved me and what a fool I was for believing I could ever be loved. Although the dream does not sound particularly frightening, it was targeting my main vulnerability during that time.

The second night, I dreamt of my friend who had passed away years earlier. In the dream, I was at my old high school and my mother was picking me up. After I jumped into the car, she told me that we had to wait for someone else. I looked out the window of the car and saw my deceased friend walking towards me. She got into the car, and I was ecstatic (in the dream) to see her. I was crying and telling her how happy I was that she was still alive and how much I missed her. She turned around and looked at me, and her eyes turned solid black. She said, "I'm dead, you know I'm dead! I'm never coming back. I'll never come back to see you." The third night, I dreamt that I was being chased by a monster and it was trying to kill me. Each night, I woke up at about 3 am and was too terrified to go back to bed until hours later. It began to affect my job as a counselor. I began to become temperamental with my clients.

Things quieted down for a few days. Then suddenly, it was not only during sleep that I was terrified. I began to see dark forms moving around my bedroom. They would first appear as black speckles and would form into black, grey clouds in my peripheral vision. I began feel cold energy around me as well as the sensation that I was being touched on my head when no one was close by. I was completely terrified, and finally I told a friend of mine about what was happening to me. She suggested that I contact John Zaffis, whom she found on the internet.

I had never felt comfortable sharing personal problems with my roommate, so I did not tell her right away about what I was experiencing in the house. Also, I knew that she did not believe in anything related to the spiritual world, as she had told me that she was a staunch atheist and did not believe that human beings were anything more than a body. I decided to finally tell my roommate about what I was experiencing. I told her one night about everything I was experiencing. I was shocked to find that she laughed and glared at me as I emotionally admitted to the events that had been going on in the house. She finally said, "I have a confession to make. I have been trying to channel the spirit of my father for weeks now. I have been casting spells to invite spirits into this house. That might have something to do with it."

She additionally admitted to practicing the black arts for years. "You were so stupid to never notice." She said this with a piercing glare. I was mostly speechless and angry at myself for not noticing this throughout the years. I quickly realized that what I thought was a mere interest in witchcraft was actually a full blown commitment to the dark side. On that night when I returned upstairs, I saw lights and black forms moving all throughout my room. I was absolutely terrified and felt powerless. I called John Zaffis at that moment. He put me at ease and scheduled to come to the home. He told me about what I could do to protect myself in the meantime. I made protecting myself my main objective from then on.

I noticed that my roommate was rarely at the house after this. She would come back to the house for 10-15 minutes a day and would leave to sleep elsewhere. We did not speak for weeks. I began to feel the sensation that I was being followed everywhere I went. There were many nights when I would be driving home on dark country roads, and I would see out of the corner of my eye a black form on my back seat. At times like this, I would combat my fear with prayer. I had put my Christian faith on the backburner for many years, but I found myself rediscovering it. I prayed the rosary often and waited until John could come by the house.

For a few weeks, I had an unshakeable feeling that I was going to fall down the steep stairs of the house. I was very careful walking down the steps for fear that I would fall. These steps would cause almost certain serious injury. There was one day that I forgot to hold onto the railing, and I fell from the top step all the way down to the bottom. I rolled end over end and hit my head on the wall at the bottom of the steps. A moment after I landed, she walked through the door. She had not been home in almost a week. I was in so much pain, I could not speak, but she only walked by me with a smirk on her face.

When John arrived at the house, what sounded like a heavy bureau being dragged across the floor could be heard from upstairs while no one was upstairs. John suggested, after a few hours investigating, that a blessing be performed on the house and over me. I felt comfortable with this, as I had been at house blessing before.

A few days later, a priest came to the house to bless it and pray over me. Things were quiet during the blessing of the house. After this, the priest began to pray over me. I remember that the room began to appear darker. It was as if I was wearing sunglasses all of a sudden. This was terrifying, and I knew at this point that whatever was in the house was being affected. This feeling lingered until I began to pray with the priest performing the blessing. After doing this, my cloudy vision lifted and the room appeared to be as bright as it should be. After this, the house felt completely different, and my roommate never returned. She left many of her possessions in the house never to retrieve them.

I moved out of that house into an apartment shortly after. I have not had any paranormal experiences in the new apartment. I broke contact with the roommate and have not spoken to her still even today.

My experience showed me that there are definitely two sides to the spiritual world. I had never realized the extent to which people could manipulate the spiritual realm for other's detriment and their benefit. The power of prayer and faith, regardless of religious background, is the most effective way to protect yourself against evil.

Submitted March, 2005