Beware the Night (30 page)

God hadn’t forgotten me, though. One Sunday I actually felt like going to mass, for the first time since the separation. I don’t know why I was drawn to church on this particular day, but it’s a good thing I was, because the priest seemed to have picked his Gospel reading with me in mind, choosing the text from Matthew 19:4–6: “Have you not read that at the beginning, the Creator made them male and female and declared, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall be as one’? Thus they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore let no man separate what God has joined.”

From that moment on, I decided that I would do everything in my power to stay married, if that was at all possible. Without my wife and our daughters, I was alone and adrift. Well, it was very hard—and it took a lot of work on both our parts to make ourselves better people—but Jen and I finally patched things up. After eight agonizing months, our separation was over. To celebrate our new life together, we moved to a new apartment and Jen decorated it just the way she wanted it, with angels all over the place. Every room, including the bathroom, is covered with angels. Now when I come home, I feel like I’m in Heaven, in more ways than one.

Chapter Twelve

Real-Life Ghost Stories

I
N ONE INVESTIGATION
, my two lives collided. First, as a cop, I was called in on a case that had some occult aspects. Knowing of my interest in the supernatural, the lieutenant I was working under at the time, who is a great guy and one of the few practicing Buddhists on the New York City police force, consulted me about a bizarre incident that had happened on the previous night’s late tour. Two Hispanic males had been arrested for unlawful imprisonment, menacing, and assault. While these crimes aren’t exactly unheard of in the slums I patrol, the male victim, who was also Hispanic, reported being subjected to an extremely odd ordeal.

According to the “vic,” the two perps had set up shop in a condemned building, where they repaired and sold used refrigerators, washing machines, and other appliances. This man said he’d innocently gone there to buy a washing machine, but for reasons he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—explain, these guys grabbed him, tied him to a chair, and threatened him with a shotgun. They told him that they had a bloodcurdling plan in mind: First, they were going to wash and purify his feet, and then they would cut his heart out! Scared out of his mind, the vic managed to break free and ran for his life.

The story got even stranger. After summoning police and leading them to the perps, the man suddenly clammed up and refused to give any further details of his kidnapping. When I spoke to the victim, he seemed like a decent man, but I had to wonder if he really was an entirely innocent bystander who was just looking to save a few bucks on doing his laundry. I strongly suspected that he knew these guys and could have told us a lot more about why they’d chosen him as a potential human sacrifice.

When I questioned the two perps in their cell, they weren’t talking either—but they were obviously terrified of something. Noticing they were both wearing rosary beads, I had a hunch that Santeria or a related form of black magic was involved. Since everybody, even the victim, refused to answer any further questions, we got a warrant so I could search the perps’ residence. It was the most horrible place I’ve ever been—not because of any preternatural happenings, but because it was filthy beyond belief, splattered with urine, and strewn with rotting garbage. The stench in this condemned building was enough to knock you cold, but I poked through everything and came up with one object linked to sorcery: a rather beat-up ritual sword, apparently the weapon the kidnappers meant to use to carry out their gory threats.

When I returned to the station house to voucher the evidence, an assistant district attorney (ADA) was there to oversee the case, as procedure requires when a serious crime has been committed. After the lieutenant introduced me as an expert on the occult, the ADA took me to the side. I had a feeling I knew what was coming—and I was right. “Do you know anything about ghosts?” she asked. “I think my aunt’s house is haunted!” I handed her my card, then some intuition told me to give her a second card to keep for herself. Why I did this, I don’t know, but it turned out lucky that I did.

A lot of my cases start in a similar way—and the question I have to answer is,
Haunted by what?
Most people think that all supernatural beings are the same, but there are actually three very different types.
Human spirits
are the ghosts of departed people, while
nature spirits,
also called “elementals,” are spirits of air, streams, trees, or other living organisms. Joe and I have never run across an elemental in one of our cases, but if we do, we’re covered, since my partner’s modifications to the Pope Leo XIII prayer command
all
spirits “not in worship to the Trinity” to depart, including nature spirits. Very little is known about these beings. So-called “white witches,” usually Wiccans, call upon elementals to help them cast spells, while “black witches” summon diabolical powers for their magic.

Inhuman spirits
never walked this Earth in human form. Inhuman spirits can be pure evil (the demonic) or pure virtue (angels), while ghosts come in every flavor in between, depending on the moral character of the person during life. To further confuse matters, satanic powers may pose as ghosts, to prey on their unsuspecting victims’ sympathy; or the human spirits of wicked people may draw the demonic to the place they haunt, following the Law of Attraction: “Like attracts like.”

Although the demonic’s motive for invading our world is obvious—to destroy humanity—you may be wondering: What’s the reason for ghosts? An earthbound human spirit is a tragedy: It shouldn’t be here. Ghosts have many reasons for lingering among us, however. Some only make one appearance before moving on. This is called a
crisis apparition
and can occur when a living person is lamenting the loss of a friend or relative. To console the mourner, the deceased may manifest himself to show that he or she is not suffering but has found happiness in the next plane. Grieving too long or intensely is unhealthy and can even be somewhat dangerous, since the negative energy could draw a demonic spirit and serve as an invitation to infestation.

To calm and protect those left behind, the departed may come to them in a dream or vision, bearing a message of peace to start them on the road to recovery. In some cases, the spirit may not take on the physical shape of the deceased but leave some other reminder, such as the scent of his or her favorite cologne. The problem is that the demonic also can do this. Many times, during diabolical activity, people will see what appears to be the ghost of a loved one. However, there is usually something subtly, or sometimes flagrantly, wrong with the manifestation, since evil forces can’t perfectly reproduce what God has made.

However, in some cases, a human spirit may have an abnormal appearance. The other day, I responded to a homicide where the victim’s ex-husband had stabbed her repeatedly in the face, neck, and chest until the woman was almost decapitated. I don’t know if this woman’s spirit moved on or not. But if her ghost remained earthbound, it might manifest itself with a gash on the throat. So if we heard about a spirit appearing in this condition and knew that a person had been murdered in this manner, we’d suspect that it was a ghost. But it’s also possible that such a horrible crime might draw a demon to the scene. To determine what type of spirit was present, we’d take a close look at the phenomena that were taking place.

In one of my cases, which was referred to me through the Archdiocese of New York, a Bronxville woman told her priest that she’d seen a ghost in her apartment shortly after her next-door neighbor died during heart transplant surgery. The specter was only marginally human in appearance: She described it as a semitransparent black shape with only two similarities to her deceased neighbor. Like him, it stood about six feet tall and had broad shoulders, but its head had no face. “I got the sense it was sad and waiting for somebody,” she said. “I am the most unbelieving person on the face of this Earth, but when I saw this ghost, I got a good feeling from it: that it was there to look over my life, and was protective.” Once the spirit was gone, she was engulfed by a sudden dread—and prayed it wouldn’t return.

Her eighty-year-old mother, who lived with her, never considered the spirit benevolent. “I was watching TV and all of a sudden there was movement on the stairway. I saw a tall black figure, swaying slightly. After about half a minute, I got up and walked toward the figure, which suddenly vanished. I got goosebumps, a terrible chill, and an uneasy feeling. I am scared to death to be alone in this place.”

Interestingly, both women said the specter had appeared near a crucifix they had hanging on the stairway wall. The daughter added that one other strange thing happened after the spectral visits began. Although they had paid their landlord extra to use a top grade of paint when their apartment was redone, the pure white tint they’d chosen mysteriously turned to a dirty brown a week after it was applied.

The thing on the stairs may have been trying to pass itself off as a ghost, but it certainly wasn’t doing a very good job of it. While it had temporarily fooled the daughter, the mother wasn’t taken in. The peculiar phenomenon of the paint as well as the decidedly inhuman appearance of the creature were all the telltale signs I needed to recognize it as a demon. Joe and I exorcised the house. No sooner had I finished the Pope Leo XIII prayer than the case literally ended with a bang. After a thunderous clap from a vacant room on the second floor, the so-called ghost was gone for good.

Human spirits use electromagnetic energy to manifest themselves. They can draw this energy from any living creature, including trees and plants, but need a lot of it before they can show themselves. Some of us, such as psychics or highly intuitive people, have greater amounts of this energy and so are more likely to see, hear, or sense spirits than the rest of us are. Clairvoyants also may detect the presence of ghosts or demons by “reading” the residues of spirit energy these beings leave behind in small, enclosed areas like hallways or small bedrooms.

Supernatural entities can harness the power of nature as well. Horror movies always use a stormy night as the backdrop for spirit manifestations. Hollywood does this for the frightening effect thunder and lightning have on the audience, but there’s also reality to this: Spirits are more likely to be seen during stormy, misty, or rainy weather, when the clouds overhead are crackling with electromagnetic energy. When rain and lightning are all around you, you may see a bluish-white ball of “spirit energy.”

If the conditions are right, or if you give off enough psychic energy yourself, this ball may grow in size and intensity until you are able to make out a distinct person. Another way a spirit can manifest is by diverting power from a person’s aura, the spiritual energy that surrounds all of us. While demonic spirits are drawn to a dull and broken aura, indicating a state of sin, ghosts can take energy from
any
human aura. Both kinds of spirits also can use heat in the room as an energy source, which is why you’ll feel a psychic chill during a manifestation. The spirit has sucked the warmth out of the room. At times a spirit that’s invisible to the human eye can be captured by a camera—I’ve taken several such pictures myself and seen balls of light on videotapes I’ve made during investigations.

While it’s terrifying to see a ghost—if it really
is
a ghost—most human spirits don’t intend to cause fear. Instead, they usually wander Earth because they have some unfinished business here. Maybe the person died tragically and can’t rest in peace: He was murdered, died young in a car crash, committed suicide, or suffered greatly during a long, lingering illness. Or she may not realize that she’s dead. Picture a young mother, on her way home from work to her small children, who is suddenly killed in a freak accident. Her spirit continues on home but is bewildered when her family no longer interacts with her. So she tries to get their attention—and ends up scaring the wits out of the survivors.

Because this ghost refuses to leave her family, she remains earthbound, even after the kids grow up and leave the house. Years pass and new tenants move in, but the mother’s sorrowful spirit stays on, because, as I’ve said, there’s no time frame in the spirit world. She hovers unhappily in the background, wondering where her physical body is and when she’ll finally get home to the life she lost. That’s why I say a ghost is a tragedy. I cringe when I meet people who are experiencing ghost-related phenomena and feel that’s perfectly fine. They’ll say the spirit is doing no harm, causing no negative phenomena, or is even helpful to them, so they have no intention of helping it move on. Or they’ll even argue that it has a right to stay.

That ghost may be friendly, but it’s definitely not happy being stuck between two planes of existence. It’s caught in a void that has no time and no pleasure. The spirit is denied the opportunity to be reunited with all the loved ones who have passed on before that person did and with those who die afterward. And most of all, that spirit won’t get the chance to atone for the sins of the past and be reunited with
God.
The best thing you can do for these lost, suffering souls is have a mass said for them, or pray that they will find their way beyond pain and confusion to the Lord.

Although most ghosts are more unhappy than harmful, there are also evil human spirits. Some people are just plain mean in life and remain the same way in death. These angry or hostile forces have an excellent reason for refusing to move to the next plane: They don’t want to face the prospect of going to Hell or, at the very least, having a long stay in Purgatory, a hellish place you don’t hear much about these days. It is here, according to Catholic and some Protestant churches, that souls ultimately destined for Heaven are either purified of minor sins the person never repented of during life or subjected to a period of punishment for mortal sins. If I get a case involving a wicked ghost, my prescription is the same as for a good ghost: prayer, which can shorten the time a soul must spend atoning for sins or lessen its suffering in Purgatory.