Appendix: Possession, Understanding, and Exorcism

 Notes from the field journal of Sebastian Daark, Investigator of the Mildly Inadvisable.



I. On Possession: When the Room Starts Breathing with You


Possession is not about control. It’s about overlap two beings trying to occupy the same psychological postcode. It begins as a whisper behind your own thoughts, a borrowed impulse, a dream that doesn’t end when you wake.


I’ve seen three major forms:

  • Echo Possession: A memory looping itself through a host (see also: The Laughter in the Attic).

  • Parasitic Possession: The entity feeds on sensation, guilt, or bureaucratic error (see: The Benches of the Damned).

  • Engine Possession: Machinery as host—metal that remembers the soul of its pilot (see: The Black Wing of Holbeach).


The first rule of possession is that something was invited. A word, a thought, a gap in faith it always knocks after the door’s already open.


Field Note: “Evil rarely breaks in. It waits for you to offer tea.”

II. On Understanding: The Anthropology of the Damned


Every haunting is an ecosystem. You can’t fix it until you map it.


Step 1: Interview the Victim. Ask when they stopped being alone in their own head.

Step 2: Interview the Entity. Record everything. Lies have fingerprints.

Step 3: Interview the Room. Geometry will always betray the ghost.


Walls remember. Mirrors gossip. Kitchens judge.


Cross-Reference: See A Paranormal Field Guide for the Slightly Damned, Chapter 1 – “This Cheese Grater Hates You Personally.”

III. On Exorcism: How to Politely Evict the Uninvited


An exorcism is not theatre; it’s negotiation under duress. Latin helps, but authority helps more.


Recommended Kit:

  • Consecrated jam (Mrs Whitby’s Raspberry & Holy Water).

  • A reliable recording device.

  • A working sense of humour.

  • Enough caffeine to outstare the abyss.


Procedure:

  1. Name the entity or at least mispronounce it confidently.

  2. Ridicule it. Demons crumble under mockery.

  3. Introduce contradiction. Recite paradoxes. Ask it to explain modern art.

  4. Bind it with light: Ad lucem reveletur.


If it laughs, you’re making progress.

If it stops, run.


Cross-Reference: The Laughter in the Attic – The Exorcism of Mr Jingles.

IV. On Aftermath: The Static That Stays Behind


After a banishment, the silence isn’t peace it’s residue. You’ll feel it in the walls, in your bones, in the spaces between clocks. Cleanse the air with salt, music, and sarcasm.


Never perform more than three exorcisms a week unless you enjoy humming in your sleep.


Cross-Reference: The Butcher’s Parish  “The Stitching Hour.”

V. Closing Remarks


The aim is not victory; it is containment. The universe leaks. We’re just here with a mop.


Quidquid latet apparebit.

(What is hidden will be revealed preferably before the wallpaper peels.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Possession Gone Wrong

Image
  (Filed under: Field Reports — Category 6: Spirits, Miscommunication, and the Unwise Use of Latin) They called me to Cleethorpes on a Tuesday. They always call on Tuesdays. The message was brief: “Girl speaking in tongues. Priest fainted. Bring biscuits.” I arrived at dusk, which is the exact time you shouldn’t arrive anywhere haunted. The sky looked bruised. The house looked guilty. The priest  Father Cavanaugh  looked like a man who’d just remembered he was an atheist. “She’s in the parlour,” he whispered, crossing himself without conviction. “Whatever’s inside her knows your name.” Splendid. That’s always how you want to start an evening. The girl Elspeth Morrow, age fourteen  sat in a floral armchair that had seen too much. Her eyes rolled white, her lips murmured “Invenit me, invenit me…” (“It found me, it found me.”) A shadow pulsed on the wall behind her — not cast by her, but around her, like the light itself had gone off-script. I se...
Read more

Welcome to the Daark Archive

Image
  If you’re reading this, something’s already gone wrong or worse, it’s gone right . My name is Sebastian Daark . Investigator of the paranormal, the inexplicable, and the aggressively inconvenient. I once hosted a podcast called The Midland Mysteries , a series so alarming it was never broadcast. The servers deny all knowledge. I envy them. This archive is what remains  recovered case notes, field reports, and the occasional apology to physics. You’ll find hauntings that file complaints, benches that eat the patient, and demons with a worrying grasp of local council bylaws. All written down, catalogued, and cross-referenced by a man who really should have stayed in bed. Read carefully. The truth is rarely polite. — S. Daark (Filed: Tuesday, Naturally)
Read more

The Eighth Minute

Image
  (Follow-up to “The Clock That Wouldn’t Strike Twelve”) First, a note of thanks to those of you who wrote in, theorising that the brass key opened anything from a confessional to a dimensional tear in Mrs. Bellweather’s handbag. Charming ideas, all. Only one of you guessed correctly, though I suspect you were joking when you said it. You see, the key didn’t open a door. It opened a minute. Let me explain before your tea goes cold. The Return to Louth I went back two nights later, thermos refilled, self-preservation switched off. The vicar had wisely taken up temporary residence in Skegness. The church was empty save for the clock, which stared down at me like an unsympathetic god. This time I didn’t wait for 11:59. I wound the clock manually a sin against both mechanics and theology and inserted the key into the small aperture behind the pendulum. It fit. Perfectly. When I turned it, the second hand moved backwards. And so did I. The pews brightened. ...
Read more