Possession by Download

Welcome to our semi-regular feature – Ask the Rev – where leading paranormal expert and ordained priest (in the Church of Jesus the Latter Day Naturist) Reverend Leonard Fanny addresses our readers’ supernatural personal problems. This time the Rev’s expertise is required to deal with the case of ‘Possession by Download’.

Dear Reverend,

My laptop appears to be possessed by internet pornography. Not in the sense that I spend my time online surfing porn sites, but in that every time I switch it on, I find all manner of pornographic pictures, apparently downloaded from the web, in just about every file imaginable – sometimes even the screen saver has been switched to a lurid picture of two naked lesbians going at it hammer and tongs. It was quite a shock the first time it happened: I opened the lid, switched on and found myself confronted by this hot lesbo action instead of the usual picture of Big Ben. Obviously, I hadn’t downloaded any of these pictures or changed the screen saver – and I’m the only one in the house with a password to access this particular laptop. Indeed, when I checked for recently downloaded files, there was no record of any such downloads. It was as if the pictures had appeared by magic. While this was mildly amusing at first, it soon got far darker, as the phantom internet activity escalated. Suddenly, the internet history of every browser I had installed was full of porn sites. When I checked them, it turned out that they weren’t just regular porn sites with artistically posed pictures of tastefully nude ladies, but all sorts of bondage, black leather and S&M sites. Not to mention the ones featuring women dressed as animals engaging in girl-on-girl action, or the ones with female superheroes getting tied up, stripped and spanked. It was quite an eye-opener, I can tell you.

It was all very confusing. I knew that I hadn’t visited any of those sites or downloaded those pictures. Not only did I not have any memory of doing these things, but they would have required huge amounts internet usage – there were more sites visited and more pictures downloaded that was humanly possible, to be frank – but when I checked my broadband usage, my downloads were perfectly normal! It was all very perplexing. Then, when I was on a Zoom call one day, one of the other participants asked who the weirdo standing behind me was! Obviously, I was on my own in the house, working from home so didn’t know what they meant, but I turned around anyway – but there was nobody there, although the room did suddenly feel very chill. Apparently, the figure looked like a guy in full ‘Gimp’ gear. He was just standing there, behind my chair, not moving. The next day I was working on the laptop when the door bell rang unexpectedly. When I checked the door bell camera I was startled to see what looked like a naked woman standing there! When I rushed to the front door and threw it open, there was nobody there! After that, I started to glimpse a dark figure flitting across the screen whenever I reviewed video footage from the door bell camera. No matter how much I slowed the playback down and zoomed in, I could never see the figure clearly. I started to worry that the ‘infection’ was spreading from my laptop to other tech devices – my fears seemed to be confirmed when I received a voicemail on my mobile from an unknown number that turned out to be just an evil cackle!

So far, I’ve managed to keep the porn that keeps appearing from my wife and family, for fear of what they might think I’ve been doing while working alone at home. But it’s getting more difficult – I daren’t start up the laptop in my family’s presence for dear of an obscene screen saver appearing, for instance. Moreover, the activity is getting worse – in recent days child pornography has started appearing in the ‘pictures’ file and dark web violent porn sites have started popping up in browser internet histories! While they my family might simply think that I’m some kind of sad sex obsessed perv if they were to see the more regular stuff that keeps appearing, they’ll think I’m a morally corrupt slavering sex offender and I’d probably end up in prison. I’m now starting to worry that whatever entity has taken control of my tech might start spreading this stuff around. Already I’ve received an email, apparently sent by myself, warning me that ‘Your time is nearly up’. What if it starts emailing this depraved filth to my contacts, from my account? I can barely sleep any more for fear of what is going to happen next. I’m desperate – what should I do, Rev?

C. Smallpiece
Milton Keynes

The Rev Replies: I’m very much afraid that you’ve become a victim of a modern haunting. Time was that restless spirits would wander the cobwebbed corridors of musty and rambling old houses, moaning and rattling chains. But their habitat has, by and large, vanished, with such old houses pulled down and entire estates of cramped, red brick-built two bedroom houses put up in their place. So today’s ghosts have no choice but to find new venues and methods for their hauntings. Clearly, our modern, well-lit houses with open plan ground floors and no cellars, are simply not suited for the traditional ghostly shenanigans, so they instead inhabit things like computers and televisions, carrying on their mischief there, instead. Even traditional poltergeist activity just isn’t practical anymore – throwing stuff around simply isn’t as effective in today’s houses where you barely have room to swing a cat, let alone chuck a few plates around. So you instead find them playing around with the files on your laptop or making obscene phone calls via your mobile!  You probably inadvertently downloaded it, like a virus.

What this means, in practical terms, is that normal methods of exorcism have become less effective, as the spirits, more often than not, have no connection to the venue of their haunting, making them near impossible to identify. Instead they are now opportunists, floating around looking for likely venues and devices to infest. In your case, for instance, we’d traditionally have assumed that the spirit causing you problems was that of someone who had died on the premises, usually having done something horrendous or having been horribly murdered. From there, we could start finding a way of putting their soul to rest, by addressing its outstanding issues. But you have told me that your house is a new build and that your family are the first residents. Furthermore, nobody died during the construction of the house. So we are left in the dark as to what the spirit’s motivations are, although its manifestation as a ‘Gimp’ and its apparent interest in pornography are highly suggestive of a sex offender, possibly murdered by local residents or who died after a mishap during a bondage session. Consequently, it is unlikely that a regular exorcism of the house could put it to rest.

In a best case scenario, you could simply wait to see if it simply gets bored and moves on of its own accord. But, bearing in mind your fears about its possible next actions, I think that the best you can do is to try and exorcise your tech equipment. While you could do this by sprinkling holy water on it, or praying over it, I feel that a high tech solution is called for. I strongly suggest that you register with the website of the Church of Jesus the Latter Day Naturist and download (for a modest contribution to our church roof fund) our newly developed exorcism software. This will install on your wireless router and protect all connected devices. It acts like an anti-virus program, identifying online supernatural threats trying to access your network and spiritually ‘uninstalling’ them. This software – which is regularly updated – has so far proven effective against 95% of supernatural threats.

The Rev will be back soon to give more advice on your paranormal problems. So, if your sex life is a hump in the night or you find yourself nocturnally plagued by the attentions of a spectral groper, drop us a line.

(The Rev is also available for weddings, christenings and exorcisms, the latter only on Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons).