On Possession
Last week I wrote about the Brookfield trial, a real case from the 80’s where a man pled not guilty by reason of possession. The case drew international attention, not least due to the involvement of the infamous paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, and the subsequent media circus surrounding the investigation. Research for that topic brought up a lot of strange feelings for me (and I won’t rehash the feelings for all my constant readers here). Suffice it to say, as someone who has shed many of my fundamentalist beliefs for the better, topics like this hit home.
I was eight years old when I first saw someone undergo deliverance. It was at a healing prayer meeting at the megachurch I attended with my mother. I remember standing near the front. I think my mom was waiting in line for prayer for her multiple sclerosis. She had been struggling with the disease and its persistent attacks since she was 19 years old, and she had faith that God could heal her.
I was nervous. The music was loud and I was a painfully shy child. I was near her, watching people with their eyes closed in worship, hands open waiting to receive whatever God was willing to give them, a fistful of hair shoved into my mouth. (I was prone to hair chewing when I was anxious.)
A nice looking woman sat in a chair to my right. It has been sitting empty in the front of the church for those who were waiting for prayer. Her hair was graying, pulled up in a loose bun on the tip top of her head. She was dressed nicely in a gray blazer and gray pants. Her legs were crossed. Golden hoop earrings hung almost to her shoulders. She smiled at me. She must have seen that I was unsure. It made me feel better.
Someone approached her. Their mouths moved, the words impossible to make out above the worship music playing. I got distracted, my attention pulled another direction for some amount of time. How long, I have no idea. When I looked back, the woman’s back was arched, her mouth open and snarling. More people had gathered around her to pray. My mother pulled me to the other side of her. They were casting a demon out.
Back to the book.
So what does any of that have to do with A Head Full of Ghosts? Well, on it’s face, the book is a possession story. I didn’t know that going in. Admittedly, it took me a bit to get into it. Paul Tremblay has a way of stringing you along a seemingly calm path, leading you bread crumb by bread crumb into a deep dark cave in the woods, and then turning on the flashlight to let you see the monsters that have been following all along. This story unfolds layer upon layer in just that way.
When 14-year-old Marjorie Berrett starts showing the first signs of acute schizophrenia, her parents are torn about how to help her. Her mother takes her to see a psychiatrist, but her father, an unemployed religious man, takes her to a priest. He believes that his daughter is possessed. When Father Wanderly presents a reality TV deal, the struggling family accepts. The crew will live with the Berretts and film Marjorie’s possession and exorcism. It will help pay the bills after all.
The story is told in flashbacks by 23-year-old Merry Berrett who was eight years old at the time of her sister’s descent into mental illness. An author is interviewing her fifteen years after the tragic private family crisis turned public, preparing to write a book about Marjorie Berrett and the strange case made stranger by the reality show that captured it, The Possession.
Broken up by blog posts written by Karen Brissette, a horror blogger who wants to dissect what really happened during the show’s filming, Tremblay weaves a tale that leaves you questioning reality. In the end, it’s up to the reader to decide what really happened.
It’s much like the real life possession stories you read.
This book had me reeling by the end of it. A critique of reality TV, the church’s handling of mental illness, and the greed displayed when real life crises like the one the Berretts go through are exploited for money. After reading through the different angles on the Warren case, I thought this book would be an appropriate fictional followup.
Paul Tremblay has stated in interviews that he does not believe in demonic possession. He believes the cases where it is suspected are caused by mental illness, something that the Catholic church states they test for before performing an exorcism. In my own religious world, no one needed to sign off on deliverance prayer. I witnessed people close to me undergo deliverance sessions to have demons cast out of them, only to later be diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. (They are thriving now that they are medicated, but it took hell to get them help.)
I lived and believed in the same world that Merry Berrett’s father did. A world of spirits that could inhabit you at will for almost any reason at all. A yoga session, a grandparent who dabbled in the occult, a curse from a witch, heavy metal music, playing Dungeons and Dragons, and so on and so forth. Coming out of that belief system makes me realize how detrimental those beliefs can be, especially for those struggling with mental health.
Tremblay’s book does a wonderful job of bringing that abuse to light, while still scaring the shit out of you. It’s a thriller, a thought provoking and socially critical novel that anyone who questions spiritual matters should read. I’ve thought back to it multiple times while reading through witchcraft cases in Africa and the various cases investigated by the Warrens. A Head Full of Ghosts is one of those beautiful fiction stories that permanently marks you, especially if you’re seriously questioning engrained religious beliefs.
And for all of you not struggling through the muck of a thousand church services, this checks all the horror boxes. What do I mean by that? Well, it was hard to get out of bed in the middle of the night after reading. That’s how you know ;)
This book is excellent. I'm happy you wrote about it. I saw my mother speaking in tongues once at the Assembly of God church on our reservation. It was scary. I was also doubtful even at the time. I believe she was an undiagnosed bipolar person. I'm diagnosed and have been in psychosis a few times. I remember most of tge episodes bu there are others I do now. I wouldn't be surprised to learn I spoke in tongues, but with my secular humanist atheist narrative-obsessed brain chemistry in charge.