By, Shannon McCabe, President of H.P.I. International

Please Also See: 20 QUESTIONS WITH Shannon McCabe of H.P.I. Paranormal

This past month has been a whirlwind for me. I am just not sure what I believe in anymore, Christ, Science, Demons. Everything has hit me like a ton of bricks and I just need to figure it all out step by step, and in my own methodical, OCD way of doing things.

Let me begin with a call I got in January 08’. I was sitting in my flower shop and I got this call on my cell from a woman in Sacramento. She told me about the haunting she was having in her home and that I should come and check it out. As with most cases I do a ½ hour to an hour interview with them to determine if the case is bogus or there is some sort of mental instability there. In this case, I felt like everything was status quo and that I could comfortably move forward with an investigation.

But, before we went on this so- called demon case, I wanted to be fully prepared. I called up Paul Dale Roberts or PDR, as I like to call him, and told him that I wanted to go to church. “To church?” he said. Yes, church. I knew that Paul’s brother had just passed away, and so I was on a double mission, to take Paul to church to pray for his brother and to get my holy water blessed. Paul is a very strong Catholic, so I thought it would do him good in this tough time.

I am not a Christian, I am not an Atheist, I am not a Mormon, although I am baptized as such…Maybe I am Agnostic? I don’t know? I just believe a little too much in Dinosaurs to believe in all that the Bible has to say. I guess I am an evolutionist now, or at least I am this week. Now, don’t get me wrong, the Bible has some very good elements to it such as, “Thou shall not kill”, and “Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife”. These are excellent words to live by. I actually try to live my life by the 10 Commandments because it’s a great tool to make sure you are a good human being. And I really do believe that Jesus Christ was a pretty righteous dude. He was a great man, who really cared deeply about his people, and I love that about him. Also, church is a good thing for some people, in fact, my husband told me of a guy he works with who goes to church just for the camaraderie. Makes sense.

So before I met up with PDR, I needed to go and get us some Christian supplies. I jumped in the “Ectoplasmobile” or “Ecto 1” and headed down to the Catholic store. It was absolutely pouring down rain, and Noah himself would have been challenged. What was really challenging to me, was the fact that I had to get out in this rain in my plaid schoolgirl skirt and platform mary janes. Well, I made it inside the store to find it was a warm and inviting place with everything you’d expect from a Catholic store. Crucifixes adorned the walls, pictures of the Virgin Mary, rosary beads in every color of the rainbow, holy water bottles, Catholic school girl clothing. I was tempted to start shopping for skirts but I remembered by main objective, exorcisms. I gathered all my items and meandered my way to the register. A handsome fellow rang me up and I was on my way to meet PDR at church.

When I arrived in downtown Sacramento, I told Paul to meet me in front of the Sacramento Convention Center and that I’d have my flashers on so he wouldn’t miss me. You see, PDR can be a knucklehead sometimes, so I like to be very obvious with him. (You know I love ya Paul!) Anyway, PDR found me in the pouring rain and we caravanned down to the closest Catholic church that we knew of. It was a big beautiful stone church with giant red doors. Simply magnificent for a Catholic church, except that when we got to the locked doors, we found out it was Presbyterian. This would not due; a closed church was not what we were after. We needed holy water, a priest to bless our relics and maybe some long overdue prayer time. So Paul and I jumped back into our cars and headed south. I knew of another church in the area and was praying that it was a Catholic one.

My prayers were answered as I pulled up to 1817 12th street, St. Elizabeth’s Catholic Church. It was a beautiful white building with amazing stained glass windows. From what I understand, Catholics don’t scrimp on their churches, they have a lot of money, and it shows. As Paul and I stood in front of the church, I felt like this was going to be an adventure. I love the gothicness of churches and this one had that feeling. We walked up the tall staircase that led to the front doors and inside. WOW, it was beautiful! I was utterly amazed and thought it looked like how I’d imagined heaven. The walls & ceiling were painted sky blue with clouds, and Jesus himself, was on the cross in front of me. It was quite a moving experience. I now see why some people go to church; it gives you an uplifting feeling.

Paul and I were standing around looking like we didn’t know what to do, then a kind gentleman stepped up to us and told us “to make ourselves at home”. And told me “feel free to take pictures” when he saw my camera. I wasn’t sure if it would be disrespectful to take pictures in the house of God, and I was relieved to find that it wasn’t. We went and sat in the pews and Paul said a silent prayer about his brother, then it was off to fill up our holy water bottles.

The holy water vessels were right near the front door, Paul kneeled down, said another prayer then dipped the rosary in the water to bless it. We filled up our holy water bottles and we were on our way, on our way to the demon case…

It was a Friday night and Paul Dale Roberts, HPI’s ghostwriter/ demonologist showed up at my house with his “Ghosttracker” all gassed up and ready for action. We also met up Chris Grissom, lead investigator for HPI. The night was off to a spooky start as it was dark, cold and very stormy. Donna Reynolds, sensitive/ investigator for HPI was already at the client’s residence sitting there by the fire, and having a nice chat, when we arrived. They seemed to be quite jovial and happy to greet us.

The home was like stepping into Grandma’s house. There were lots of Christian relics lying around and a warm fire roaring. We sat and listened as Paul interviewed her. Her stories were out of this world and happened to be a little more in-depth than the ones I had previously heard on the phone. She explained to us that she was being haunted by a demon. We asked her to describe the phenomena.
Here is what she said:
That she was raped by a demon
That she feels the demon is after her mentally challenged son
That she feels like the demon has followed her from her last residence
That she traveled out of state to have a church exorcise her and it did not work




After the interview we did our normal investigation through her house. She was very insistent that we do a blessing on her home to rid it of the “demon”. We explained to her that this was not our protocol, as we like to see what we are dealing with before we can expel it. After we explained all of this she still wanted the exorcism. So Paul and I went around her home and blessed it with a Christian prayer, sea salt, holy water, sage etc…

When the blessing was complete, Paul performed a “Hedge of Protection” prayer around her, in hopes that she would now feel comfortable in her own space. This was not the case. She exclaimed, “It’s still here, it’s around me. I am going to call in the Greeks.” Huh?

I guess we can chalk this one up to a failed attempt. Or was it?

I have gone over countless hours of audio and video from the home and found nothing, zip, nada. So it makes me wonder, was this a case that was made up for attention? Does the homeowner really believe this is happening to her? Is it really happening to her, and we just didn’t catch anything? I guess only the homeowner knows for sure.

The next day, HPI had another interesting case at a woman named Angel’s house. Angel lives in the outskirts of Sacramento and has 3 small children. She told me that her young 4 year old daughter has been experiencing a haunting and that she is very scared for her. These are the types of cases that I jump on right away. Anytime there are children involved I feel that it’s important to get to the bottom of it right away. I would never want a small child to fear going into their own room or not being able to go into the bathroom because “a man is in there”.

Well come to find out, it was not just a man but an entire family that this child was seeing. She told me that the man’s name was Carlos and that he has a wife, a son and a daughter. She explained them as “spirits”. It made me wonder if mom had been watching too many ghost hunting shows and the little tyke was picking up on the terms. This wasn’t the case.

We performed a very thorough investigation and did actually get a couple of EVP’s. Another strange thing happened to one of the voice recorders. On voice recorders there is usually a red or green light that comes on when the device is recording. The one we were using had some fluctuations in the light; it was blinking on and off whenever we asked a question. We had actually never seen a recorder do this, so we did all we could to debunk it and couldn’t. Low and behold that was the timeframe that we got the EVP. We also had a pretty decent dowsing rod session with Holly. She asked the entity(s) if they were there to harm the family and we got a distinct NO. This made Angel, the homeowner feel more at ease, which is why we do these cases to begin with.

Paul also performed a prayer for the family and blessed the house. They haven’t had any problems since. I guess we can chalk this one up to a success. Well maybe.

As I said earlier, this past month has been a whirlwind. I have been bombarded with cases of demons, cases with children, and even some mental instability cases. It’s been a strange ride, so I decided to have PDR do a class on Demonology. I feel that it is important for up and coming paranormal investigators to learn about all aspects of the paranormal. We hold monthly classes in Sacramento for all our HPI newbie’s. So, Paul did his class at our normal HPI meeting spot and it was a great success. He has been studying Demonology for over 20 years. The class and I learned so much about demons and that there is a ton of gray area when discussing them. I am not even sure I believe in demons, that’s how gray it is.

I do not suggest that anyone perform exorcisms or home cleansings unless you are qualified. You never know what could happen, so be careful folks.

So as I said, I am just not sure what I believe anymore. But, I have a sinking suspicion that I will in the next upcoming months. Only time will tell… But the weird part about all this is that when I got into my car yesterday morning, there was a book on my passenger seat entitled “The New Evidence 1 & 2, That Demands a Verdict” By Josh McDowell. The book is about teaching Christians to not listen to the media & science and to listen to the bible. How this book got in my car, I have NO idea? But, I think I’ll give it a read.


Shannon McCabe
President, H.P.I. International
www.HPIparanormal.net
1-888-709-4HPI (for comments on this story, or if you have a haunting you’d like us to check out)