Deliverance

Clergy are usually the people who marry you, bless your newborn and bury your relatives. Jason Bray is an Anglican vicar who also works as a deliverance minister, the person families call when something in the home seems wrong. The requests he receives range from a long-dead relative who keeps appearing on the landing, to objects that move around on their own, to a fear that a family member has been taken over by something malign.

The book explores oppression and possession, along with ghosts, poltergeists and other paranormal experiences, and explains how such situations can be handled. Bray is the first Anglican deliverance minister to publish a book on this ministry for general readers. Each account is drawn from a real case, and he approaches them like an investigator working through clues to find what lies beneath.

Not every case is supernatural. Some stem from mental illness, some from an energy or memory that has attached itself to a place or property, and some turn out to be fraud. Bray comes across as warm, sympathetic and funny, and his ministry is driven by a wish to serve his community and support families in distress.