Former bishop of Monmouth recounts tales of exorcisms and poltergeists

Dominic Walker, who served as Bishop of Reading from 1997-2002 and more recently of Monmouth from 2003-13, is a leading exorcist within the Anglican Church and has dealt with thousands of paranormal cases.

Until this year, Bishop Walker served as co-chairman of the Christian Deliverance Study Group, which consists of clergy and psychiatrists who help train clergy members to deal with the paranormal.

“I’ve always been interested in the paranormal topic and with people who show unusual symptoms,” said the bishop.

“In fact, my postgraduate work was in the psychology of religion and religion and mental health.”

The 69-year-old, who studied at Kings College and Heythrop College, London, said poltergeist activity is one of many paranormal activities that he’s dealt with.

“Firstly, the paranormal is that what is alongside the norm,” said Bishop Walker. “It’s when events happen when we have no psychological or scientific explanation.

“One of those groups is a poltergeist which means a noisy ghost.

“However we don’t believe it’s a ghost but is a psychic energy produced by someone which causes things to move about.”

He said that after dealing with many poltergeist cases, he found that it tends to involve a person under “great stress” who has decided to “internalise” problems.

“We’ve had so much experience in dealing with these cases that we begin to notice a pattern,” he said.

“The poltergeist is often attached to a young person. And usually we’ll find someone in the family, who it’s attached to, is under great stress.

“The person also seems to internalise their problems and not let them out. Then you end up with this build up of energy.

“It also tends to start the same way, such as hearing footsteps, bells ringing, curtains blowing in the wind when there’s no wind and then objects appear in places where they were not put. Then interference with electricity. And in extreme cases you will see things flying around.”

The former bishop admitted that one poltergeist case in particular was “quite scary” because he witnessed objects flying around.

“ I dealt with one case where one family moved house to get away from the poltergeist but of course it started all over again because the poltergeist was attached to a person,” said Bishop Walker.

“I saw a jar of coffee come flying out of the kitchen and things had tumbled over. Then a pot plant just fell over. There was no clear explanation and the people involved were very upset. It was quite scary.

“We later discovered that there was a youngster going through a difficult time and needed to talk. Then once the person spoke of the trauma and it was resolved it all died down.”

He added: “Poltergeist activity is not a case for an exorcism.”

Despite a 40-year involvement in training clergy in the paranormal, he said that an exorcism is “very rarely” carried out and added there are strict rules for carrying one out.

He said: “There are five rules that the Church of England has, one is that it can only be carried out by someone authorised by the bishop, that it’s done with collaboration with medicine, that there’s minimum publicity, it must be done in context of prayer and sacrament and there must be adequate after care.

“An exorcism is very rarely carried out and we need a psychiatric opinion before carrying one out.

“It’s carried out when you believe that a person has been taken over by something. So the person is not oppressed but possessed. Then the question is what is the person possessed by – is it a part of their own personality that they’ve repressed or by something that has invaded them from the outside.

“Normally it means the person has been involved in the occult or something like that.”

He added: “It’s not a bit of Christian magic but the action of God carried out through prayer.”

The former bishop warned that an exorcism is “always a last resort”.

“It is always a last resort,” he said. “The key to it is getting psychiatric opinion to ensure you’re not dealing with a psychiatric illness.

“I have seen people who have not responded to psychiatric treatment or other therapy. But after an exorcism have made an instant recovery - I’ve seen this in two cases. But those cases are very rare.”

“An exorcism involves a process where by you look at the person’s life then try and bring them into a relationship with God. It does tend to involve them making a confession and anointing with holy oil.

“It’s nothing like Hollywood but you do tell the evil – if there is evil – in the name of God to leave. Then there’s after care.”

And he added that there are two forms of exorcisms.

“We have minor exorcisms and major exorcisms,” Bishop Walker said.

“Each time you say the Lord’s Prayer you are praying to God ‘to deliver us from evil’ so that is a minor exorcism.

“But a major exorcism is where you address what you believe is possessing the person and command it to leave.”

The trained exorcist said that ghosts were another paranormal activity, but added that 95 per cent of “sightings” were likely to be psychological projections.

“Ninety-five per cent of ghosts are probably psychological projections from someone who’s seeing out there what they can’t deal with inside.

“For instance, roughly one in six see the ghost of their deceased loved one. They may see that person, or smell their pipe or see them sat on a chair. But that’s part of the longing.”

However, the former bishop added that in one case he had witnessed a ghost, who was wanting to make contact.

He said: “Sometimes you have a ghost who’s trying to make contact. We think that’s because they’re unrested soul.

“Now if you have that we celebrate a Requiem Mass and pray for the soul of that person and command them to God.

“One case that I was involved in was with a family who moved into a new house and the woman saw a woman ghost in the house. The woman asked what the ghost was doing there and with that the ghost vanished.

“The ghost had been described by the present occupants and the previous occupants of the house. And it was later discovered that the woman ghost had actually committed suicide in the house.”

Bishop Walker said the next stage involved the holding of a requiem mass inside the house.

“We held a Requiem Mass where the lady had committed suicide,” he said.

“I turned round there was an extra person there.

“I did think am I psychologically projecting it. But when I went to give Communion she wasn’t there anymore.”

He added: “People are fascinated by the paranormal.

“However there’s an old saying: ‘You don’t catch a demon like you catch a cold.’”

If you feel you’re brave enough, here’s a few spooky trips that you can make this Hallowe’en:

The Skirrid Mountain Inn, Abergavenny, is where spooky goings-on are regularly reported at the Monmouthshire pub, where 180 hangings have taken place.

It has been an inn since 1110 but is most famous for its use as Judge Jeffreys courtroom until 1640 in the wake of the Monmouth Rebellion.

Newport’s Tredegar House is also said to be haunted. The King’s Room at the house is said to have been used by Evan Viscount Tredegar in the 1930s, until his death in 1949. It is claimed the viscount dabbled in black magic, assisted by an occultist friend, Aleister Crowley, who was a frequent visitor to the house.

There have also been reports of mysterious bells ringing and parades of nuns marching through the courtyard of the Brewhouse.