A few nights  after  the remarkable psychic treasure hunt, I
          had a nightmare in which I sat before a large, ornate mirror
          looking at my  reflection  in  the glass. The image suddenly
          changed into a  dark  simulacrum of myself. It sat there, an
          evil grin on  its  face, mocking me. And from its left hand,
          there came forth a giant vampire bat.

          And then suddenly  there  was  loud  banging  on the bedroom
          door. I sat  up  in  bed, trembling. The banging ceased. I'd
          better take a  look,  I  thought. I went to the door, put my
          hand on the  knob  and  hesitantly  opened  it. The hall was
          empty. Nothing was  anywhere in sight. I closed the door and
          leaned back against  it.  I  tried to convince myself it had
          all been a  dream,  and  not a supernatural manifestation. I
          knew it wasn't.   Next  morning  my  father told me that he,
          too, had had  a  nightmare  in  which  he  stood  outside my
          bedroom door listening to my screams that a ghost was in the
          room with me.  This  was  the only indication my father ever
          gave of being  aware  of the dark presence that had returned
          to haunt me.

          That weekend as  Ralph  and I sat discussing the unexplained
          happenings, he walked  over  to  the television and held out
          his hand to  indicate  the  spot where he had first seen the
          little girl. "There's  some  kind  of energy field here," he
          stated flatly. "The air is different."

          I went and stood beside him. I began to move my hand around,
          and became aware  of  this  energy  field too. We eventually
          discovered the field  was  actually  in  the form of a large
          sphere that went through the floor. On impulse, we went down
          to the garage beneath the apartment block and were surprised
          to find that the "energy sphere" came through the ceiling of
          the garage from  the  apartment  above. By now of course, we
          had become very  intrigued  as  to  what  all this meant. We
          decided to stand  in  the  energy  field  to  see what would
          happen.

          "Can you feel it?" I asked.

          The air around us was heating up.

          "What could it be?" asked Ralph.

          "I don't know. It's most unusual."

          The heat gradually subsided as we moved away from the energy
          field. A quick  search of the apartment brought another four
          mystery zones to  light.  An  idea came to me. I grabbed pen
          and paper, and  drew  a rough plan of the apartment. Marking
          the location of  the five energy zones with an 'x', I traced
          a line from one 'x' to another. A five-pointed star began to
          take shape on  the  paper.  The  pentagram. Occult symbol of
          power and protection.   An  unseen  malevolent presence. The
          spirit of a  little  girl.  Psychic  attacks.  And  now, the
          invisible pentagram. The  mystery  was becoming increasingly
          more bizarre and  I  felt that if I were ever to unravel the
          mystery  only  one   avenue  of  investigation  remained.  A
          controlled attempt to  contact  the  little  girl by psychic
          means - a  seance.  At  this time, I was attending a psychic
          development class run  by  a young woman called Joan. I told
          her about the  little  girl  whose ghost I had seen, and she
          suggested that perhaps the class could visit my apartment as
          a kind of  field  trip.  None of the others in the class had
          ever experienced much  in  the way of the occult, and so the
          visit was arranged  for  the  following  weekend.   Everyone
          arrived on the  appointed  day full of expectancy as to what
          might happen, unaware that they were about to be caught in a
          web of mystery.  Joan  was  the first to arrive and, to pass
          the time until the others arrived, began browsing through my
          collection of occult  books.  Minutes  passed.  Suddenly she
          backed away from  the  bookcase with a horrified look on her
          face.

          "You should burn  these,"  she  said,  indicating  a certain
          number of books.

          "What's wrong with them?"

          "They're dangerous."

          By this time Ralph had arrived, and was just as perplexed as
          I by Joan's  actions.  The  books she thought dangerous were
          ones that contained a few spells and rituals. Ralph tried to
          point out to  her  that  the  books were quite harmless just
          sitting there on the shelf. A dictionary could be considered
          dangerous also because  it  contained  many  words.  It only
          became dangerous when someone rearranged the words to form a
          spell  or curse.  Same  with  the  books,  the  spells  were
          harmless until someone  started  to  read them out loud with
          the intention of using them on someone. But she would not be
          convinced.

          At  about 10:45  a.m.,  we  positioned  an  armchair  facing
          towards the hallway,  where  all  this first started. Joan's
          father sat back  in  the chair and closed his eyes. The rest
          of us went  and stood in the five known energy fields spread
          throughout the apartment.  Quite suddenly, everyone began to
          speak at once.  They  were  experiencing  the  same  hot air
          phenomenon that Ralph and I had experienced all those months
          earlier.

          "I'm starting to get giddy," yelled one of the people in the
          energy fields. "It's  like  I'm  rocking back and forth from
          one foot to another."

          "What do we do?!" cried another.

          The whole group was now in a state bordering on sheer panic.
          I'm no psychic,  but  I could sense that things were getting
          out of hand.  Joan  told  everyone  to get out of the energy
          fields immediately. We  filed  back into the living room and
          waited for her  to offer some sort of explanation as to what
          was happening. I  asked  her what was causing the phenomenon
          and she replied  that  the  spirit  force  at  work  in  the
          apartment  was  getting   hostile  and  attempting  to  take
          possession of us.   Although  you can't see it, your body is
          surrounded by a  multi-colored cloud-like light. The psychic
          fraternity has always  called this energy field the aura. It
          is the aura, not the soul which can be possessed by external
          spirit beings. Possessing  entities draw off energy from the
          aura; leaving the  hapless  victim  mentally  and physically
          exhausted, driving them  to  commit evil deeds and generally
          act  and  behave  in  a  repulsive  and  nauseating  manner,
          resembling the creations  of  imaginative horror film script
          writers.  If  you   suspect   that  a  dangerous  entity  is
          attempting to possess  you, you should know how to deal with
          it. This is  only  common sense. Ascertaining whether or not
          you are under  the  influence  of  some  evil  force  is not
          difficult; the effects  of possession manifest themselves in
          the manner described,  and by inexplicable depressive moods.
          One way of  definitely  ascertaining  whether or not you are
          the  victim  of   a   possessing  entity  is  to  consult  a
          clairvoyant,  though  I   would  caution  the  reader  about
          approaching them as  many of the so-called "gifted psychics"
          provide  absolutely  no  genuine  service  at  all.  Once  a
          possessing entity has  attached itself to a person's aura it
          can only be  driven  out  by  persistent  application  of an
          occult cleansing ritual.