The Union Screaming House: The Haunting Continues...Long After the Doors Are Shut

The great paranormal investigator Lorraine Warren gave Helen (the house's current owner) and I (the house's former owner) a piece of advice right after the doors to the Union Screaming House were closed to us. She said, "It is far from over."

I remember when she said this; I didn't understand what she was trying to say to us. Of course we were no longer subjected to the house and the horrors that happened within its walls. How could it possibly continue for us, now that we had closed the doors?

What I did not understand at that particular moment was that a violent haunting is somewhat like an earthquake. The initial haunting is horrible and horrendous and turns your life completely upside down. Everything you ever knew to be true—along with any sense of security—is absolutely diminished to rubble. However, the aftershocks are often more dangerous and damaging than the initial earthquake itself. Just because the doors to a particular house close does not mean the damage ceases. There are many roads and many choices that lead you to be one of the haunted.

What does the word haunting actually mean? According to Miriam-Webster Online Dictionary, the word as an adjective means:

a : lingering in the consciousness : not readily forgotten
b : having a disquieting effect : DISTURBING

A haunting is something that lives and grows within the consciousness of an individual, which has a disturbing and disquieting effect upon them. The initial haunting may indeed be a thing in substance, but that thing plants within the human psyche something that grows and changes the individual and the world around them. Lorraine Warren was precisely right: the initial haunting is just the beginning. She understood the seeds of the aftershocks had been planted and had just begun to grow. When you look at my two books, it is easy to distinguish the two from each other. The Uninvited was the initial earthquake— the word "haunting" as a noun— and Blessed Are The Wicked is made up of the aftershocks, the disquieting and disturbing effects of our initial experience—the word "haunting" in its adjective form. In this case, the disturbing effects of the initial haunting happened to myself and those I love; those effects were far reaching and even deadly in form and action.

But how do you kill something planted within your psyche and development that is continually growing and hurting you? I think back to those first days when my children were locked in a bedroom and I could not get through the door to them. I could hear my daughter screaming for me to help her from behind the closed door, which for some reason would not open even as I slammed my body against it. As a parent, an event like this has a haunting and never-ending effect upon them. My inability to save my child at that one single moment has had lingering effects upon the person I am today and how I relate to the world around me. In my mind, I am waiting for that door to slam at any moment separating me from the ones I love again. Whether or not it makes sense, the mind is always waiting for that moment when the unseen will once again happen. It is this type of instability and negativity that feeds the paranormal haunting and allows it to continue without relief. A parent is supposed to be able to care for their children and keep them safe. The haunting begins to play upon those negative feelings, and as the negativity continues it is able not only continue but to morph and grow.

It is impossible for the haunting to be over unless a person heals those feelings that were planted by an entity for the sole purpose of its survival. In many ways, the haunting itself becomes a parasite, feeding upon the negative emotions that it caused in the beginning. That is why it is so easy for a negative entity to step in when the family is experiencing some type of turmoil or dysfunction. As a matter of fact, in the majority of severe and negative paranormal cases you will find some type of familial dysfunction occurring before the actual haunting assault. It may even seem that the negative entity attracts these scenarios to it—this has been one of the most common factors between each of the most well-known cases.

In an unprecedented step, the Roman Catholic Church, in a 156-page report, classified the Union Screaming House Haunting as a demonic infestation, oppression, obsession, and possession. I have always found the Church's use of the word "infestation" interesting because, in fact, a haunting infests around and upon a person or group of people and then spiders outward—infecting all with which it comes in contact.

Blessed Are the Wicked begins right where The Uninvited left off. The book spans decades, explaining how the haunting was able to take hold of my family and how, once it had its hold, it was almost impossible to relieve its grasp. It details the events that happened to those who came in contact with the haunting, and how—in some cases—it became deadly.

Blessed Are the Wicked was a very difficult book for me to write. In order to understand the haunting, I had to share events and things in my life that were very difficult to share. My hopes in sharing these things is that once you finish reading Blessed Are the Wicked you will understand how a haunting works, the damage it can do to a family, and how drastic was the move I had to take in order to release its hold upon myself and those I love.

I was initially not going to write the book—until Marie Pittman, an eighty-year-old psychic from Shreveport, Louisiana, took me by the hand and explained to me this book was not only necessary for myself but also for those who read the first book to have a fuller understanding of the events that took place that led to the haunting, and the events that preceded the closing of that initial door. The proverbial earthquake was only the beginning. Where do you go and how do you begin to pick up the pieces after the fallout? Everything within my life had been destroyed, and I found myself now standing within the wake of my recovery, waiting for the next aftershock to hit. It was very apparent to me that this was going to be very different than any other type of recovery through which a person could go. The paranormal storm was still looming on the horizon, and I could still feel its darkness pressing on my soul. It could be so easy to be seduced back into that darkness. All it would take was a single thought or the right action on my part, and I would find myself right back where I had fought so hard to battle my way home. It would be so easy to find myself lost once more. Lost is something I never wanted to feel again. Being lost is a situation no one wants to find themselves in.

On April 5, 2013, Ms. Pittman passed on to the other side. She never had the opportunity to read Blessed Are the Wicked. Without her motivation, I would have never written this book. Never before has a haunting been examined and shared in such a total and personal way.

"Sometimes things are supposed to be hard, Steven," she would often say to me, when I had turned off the computer and walked away from the book because things seemed just too personal or painful. Thank you, Marie Pittman from Shreveport, Louisiana. You taught me to stop and smell the roses. You knew this book needed to be written before I even understood why. Thank you for your encouragement to, "Get that book done, Steven." I will always carry you within my heart, and call upon your voice of wisdom, whenever I need it to guide me throughout the rest of my life. I love you and will forever miss you.