You all remember Annabelle, right? That scary, murderous doll eventually caught, trapped and locked away for posterity by demon-hunting duo Ed and Lorraine Warren. (Or was she?). There are numerous other accounts of the devil and his cohorts inhabiting inanimate objects and bringing them to life in all sorts of evil ways, but this is the 21st century and it would appear the devil is also a dab hand at using our everyday technology for his own dastardly ends. Nothing is safe or immune from his attention. Not even the humble text message. We've seen fictional examples in horror movies of recent years but it couldn't happen in real life, could it?
Well... Take this
strange case in Poland:
In 2014, priest Marian Rajchel
carried out an exorcism on a teenage girl. It failed. Instead of leaving her
soul, he somehow managed to drive the demon into the girl’s mobile phone
whereupon he started to receive threatening text messages from it.
He replied and received the
response, “Shut up, Preacher. You cannot save yourself. Idiot. You pathetic old
preacher.” Even more sinister, one message said, “She will not come out of
hell. She’s mine. Anyone who prays for her will die.”
Father Rajchel was convinced the author of the text messages was the same demon that possessed the girl’s soul and, furthermore, asserted that this was no isolated incident. He believed many such cases like this were going undetected because people didn’t realise they were being used in this way.
He
went on record saying that the young girl was in need of further help to rid
her of the evil inhabiting her. Sadly, the priest died in 2021.
But
Father Rajchel is not alone in his belief that the devil is working through
technology. Back in 2000, in Savannah, Georgia, Reverend Jim Peasboro wrote a book
entitled, The Devil in the Machine; Is
Your Computer Possessed by a Demon? This now appears to be out of print but in an article published in The Journal Record, it would seem that, in his view, any computer built after
1985 has the memory capacity to house a demon. He believed then, ‘one in ten
computers in America now houses some type of evil spirit.” Now, if he is correct, that number must be close to one hundred percent worldwide. Pretty scary stuff - if true. However, he quotes as
evidence for this, many instances of formerly happily married men unable to
stop themselves from visiting pornographic websites and of women drawn into
internet chat rooms where they behaved totally out of character, using foul
language and debasing themselves in a way that would hitherto have been
abhorrent to them. One such woman wept as she told of feeling that whenever she
was using her computer, someone else was controlling her actions. Convenient excuse perhaps?
When
challenged that this is simply the result of the easy availability of so much
unsavoury – and worse – material on the internet, Reverend Peasboro insisted
that he knew for certain demons were at work – because he had come face to face
with them.
He
told a story of inspecting a computer believed to be possessed by an evil
spirit when it began openly ‘talking’ to him. It typed out, “Preacher, you are
a weakling and your God is a damn liar.” It then started to go berserk and
printed out what looked like nonsense. He then consulted an expert in dead
languages who studied it and reported back that the text contained a stream of
obscenities written in a 2,800 year old Mesopotamian dialect.
Of course more recently, we are being warned to be wary of our smart household appliances. They are spying on us, apparently. That air fryer sitting so innocently in a corner of your kitchen awaiting its next batch of fried chicken is actually quietly amassing (and passing on) data on your eating habits and maybe much more.
Are we looking at demons possessing our technology? You decide.
Meanwhile...
‘Fear her now, fear the queen,
As in her stone she reigns supreme'
When Jonathan agrees to accompany his girlfriend, Nadia, on a trip to Landane, he imagines a short relaxing break in the countryside. But he quickly discovers that Nadia isn’t just drawn to the ancient Neolithic stone circle, she is obsessed by the megaliths. One in particular holds a fascination for her. Within hours, her personality begins to change, and it isn’t long before Jonathan starts to fear for her sanity.
Reaching far back into the past and up to the present day, those same stones have demonstrated powers beyond reason and, as Jonathan’s girlfriend becomes increasingly distant from reality, some of the ghosts of the past begin to reappear.
Now it isn’t only Nadia who is in danger.
Available from:
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Images:
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Flame Tree Press
