Students witness real-life paranormal activity at 'ghost hunter' lecture

10/27/09 - Lorraine Warren, the nation's original ghost hunter, presented various case studies of supernatural sightings last night at the University of Rhode Island's Edwards Auditorium.Before his passing, Warren and her husband Ed Warren, one of the seven demonologists in the world, dealt with more than 3,000 supernatural cases.

According to the Director of the New England Society of Paranormal Research, Tony Spera, spirits exist in human, inhuman and demonic forms.

"People with difficulties in life tend to stick around as spirits," Warren said.

Warren gave the example of Dorothy Walpole, known to many as the "brown lady," sister to England's first prime minister. While there is much mystery surrounding her death, one particular speculation is that she was slowly starved to death by her husband more than 300 years ago. Walpole is rumored to be seen haunting England's Raynham Hall, Houghton Hall and Sandringham house. Although apparition sightings of Lady Walpole are documented dating back to the mid-1800s, the first photograph of her was captured in 1936.

This type of appearance of apparitions on film is known as psychic photography. Warren said that these photographs occur when an individual spirit makes some sort of connection to a human individual. Children around the age of puberty commonly attract spirits, according to Warren.

She advised any photographers to shoot three to four times in each location in order to capture any unnatural energy in an area. She also said not do this activity with a large or noisy group of people.

Although it is exciting to search and possibly see forms of energy on film, both Warren and Spera warn of its dangers.

"When people go into graveyards and do conjuring to attract spirits, all they are doing is attracting negative spirits," Warren said.

If a spirit is good and chooses to make its presence known, it will do so in a dream, according to Spera. He strongly urges students to stop using the popular slumber party game, known as a Ouiji board. A Ouji board is usually a piece of paper or cardboard with numbers and letters written on it and is used to try to communicate with the supernatural world. According to Spera, these boards are actually portals that allow potentially harmful spirits to cross into our realm.

"There are human spirits, inhuman spirits and demonic spirits," Spera said. "You may be conjuring spirits that are posing as your dead mother, but in fact, may not have ever walked the earth."

Once a door, or portal to the spirit world has been opened, it is not uncommon for harmful spirits to follow a person back to their home.

In Michael Lasalandra and Mark Merenda's book, Satan's Harvest, Ed Warren said that there are four stages of demonic activity. Encroachment, the entrance of a demonic spirit into the human realm, is the first stage. Next comes infestation, when a negative entity "haunts" a person's living quarters, followed by oppression, when the spirit tries to control the emotions and actions of members of the household. The fourth stage is death.

Spera said as long as you picture yourself surrounded in white light, your spirit and your aura will be protected from demonic forces.

Although the idea of wrapping an invisible light around ourselves may ease some minds, sometimes demonic spirits are just too strong, Spera said.

In the 1980s, Warren and her husband worked on one of the most baffling and terrifying cases New England has ever experienced. For Maurice Theriault, a tomato farmer from Warren, Massachusetts, the supernatural was very real.

Theriault was possessed by a demonic spirit and required an exorcism. Theriault was a man who had a very disturbing childhood at the hands of an abusive father.

Upon their investigation of the case, the Warrens and Spera noticed that Theriault would randomly bleed from his eyes and mouth and noticed religious cross-symbols cut into his back and chest. Theriault also possessed superhuman strength, which Warren attributed to the demon that possessed him.

Warren and Spera recalled watching Theriault easily lift up the front of his 1973 Chevy pickup truck long enough for his son to change the tires. They also took pictures of him lifting a concrete statue that weighed over 300 pounds with relative ease.

When the demon re-possessed him during the exorcism, Theriault, a man with a third grade education, spoke fluent Latin to the priest conducting the ceremony. Although demonic forces are usually vanquished with the performance of an exorcism, Theriault was an unfortunate case.

"It turned out all in vain and it was a very, very sad ending," Warren said.

Theriault, who had lost his parents at a relatively young age, only spiraled into more trouble as the demon continued to posses him. Ironically, he ended his life in the same horrid, brutal manner as his father ended his own.

Ten years prior to Theriault's suicide, his father had shot his mother in the head before taking his own life. In November of 1992, Theriault chased his wife in the street and shot her in the arm. Theriault then dragged her into their home where he shot himself in the head in front of her.

Warren has dealt with many horrific and gruesome cases involving murder victims and spirits who are not able to move on and are caught in between realms.

"In homes where bad things happen, such as violence, alcoholism and drugs, this is where bad things occur," Warren said.

The stories and evidence of the supernatural left audience members in utter belief and horror.

"I didn't realize that anyone could be possessed and that it's not just an issue for people who are religious," freshman Rashel Shneyder said. "I thought [supernatural existence] happened a long time ago. I didn't know that supernatural stuff is still in existence.