1861 – The Banishment of Evil – A Victorian Exorcism and, disposal
The small crowd of troubled villagers gathered, nervously, huddled together in the thin, cold, crisp morning air, waiting for their trusted priest to appear.
Then, they saw him, slowly approaching the copse that formed a border between the village green and the church.
After weeks of pleading, Rev. Andrews had seen sense and listened to their alarming tales – accounts of a malevolent spirit said to dwell among the trees at the front of the church, by the old village pond, children played and livestock drank. It had to be banished and, Rev. Andrews alone, vested with God’s authority, was the only one who possessed the power to act.
It was 1861, Rev. William Nestfield Andrews had served as Priest at St Marys for eight years – much beloved and, credited with numerous improvements and restorations to the ancient church. It was natural that the villagers turned to him for guidance.
There was noticeable a stillness in the early morning air, as Andrews made the sign of the cross and sprinkled holy water while advancing to the darkened grove. Beads of sweat began to form on his brow.
Silence.
Clutching his crucifix he began to recite the Litany of the Saints. A faint breeze stirred amongst the trees, drifting past the gathered crowd like a whisper. This did not go unnoticed by the Priest.
Raising his voice, he pronounced in Latin: “Adjuro te, spiritus nequissime” – I adjure you, you most unclean spirit, in a firm tone.
The wind rose.
He repeated his command. The villagers, cautiously, drew back.
Steadying himself, Rev. Andrews reached into his robe and produced a glass bottle. With both force and urgency, he demanded the spirit enter it.
The wind intensified, threatening his balance on the uneven ground. Undeterred, he pressed on, invoking sacred authority again and again – until he felt it, a sudden weight, a pressure, a presence.
Wasting no time, Andrews instinctively corked the bottle. A crack of thunder echoed around the green, scattering the villagers. Rain began to fall.
It was over.
Collecting himself, Rev. Andrews turned to the villagers and addressed them, announcing the spirit had been contained. Without further ceremony, he cast the sealed bottle into the village pond where – some say, it still lies to this present day.
Or does it?
2025 AD – The present day
With many of our cases we find we never really close them and file them away – new historical sources are invariably uncovered, sometimes after many, many years, fresh visits are made and, new psychic impressions are received.
And so it was for this little church and the immediate area surrounding it, deep in the Suffolk countryside.
Up to now, we’ve steered clear of naming the church, out of deference to the researcher who has been visiting the location for almost three decades now.
However, over the years, the site has become well known within the East Anglian paranormal community and beyond, combined with the nearby town of Sudbury continually encroaching on the fringes of the church itself, this mask of continued secrecy appears futile.
So for the first time, we’re comfortable in referring to the area by name, as the former village of Chilton, near Sudbury, Suffolk.
To re-cap, as we’ve discussed in a previous article, I (Mark) first became familiar with the location in 2003 when I first moved to the area from my native Wales and, made several visits over three years.
For Laura, who briefly visited the church there four years later, in 2007, the site was probably a bit of a non-entity and easily forgotten. So, by time we decided to undertake a ‘blind’ remote viewing experiment one evening, focused on St Marys Church and its’ churchyard, she did not recognise the photographs provided or even realise the subject matter of the experiment.
During the exercise, Laura appeared to develop a deep connection with the church and the surrounding area, with most of the information revealed to Laura being verified by subsequent research.
However, some of the information received hinted at much, much darker events, which, at this point, can only be guessed at.
Over the years at followed, we made a couple of visits, supplemented by additional field reports from Jason, who has kindly followed up on some of the information we’ve uncovered during his regular visits to Chilton.
It could be worth referring to the full details of Laura’s remote viewing exercise and subsequent evaluation of the information she was given at https://paranormalreason.com/remote-viewing-exercise-26th-july-2016/ .
A subsequent site visit from Jason, who was following up information from Laura relating to the existence of a symbol scratched onto the reverse of a memorial, was able to validate there was indeed a symbol etched there. You can watch a video of Jason’s discovery Here
Remote Viewing Exercise – Aftermath
Although the church only represented an hours’ drive for us, we had little interest in delving into the location any further. We had visits to other locations much closer to home outstanding and, we were finding these, along with other cases and researches we were working on, were taking up most of our spare time.
However, this didn’t prevent us from visiting in 2021, as we were passing close by and, towards the end of last year, in 2024, when we just thought, why not?
Laura did pick up some impressions during these visits but, they were scant, nowhere near what she’d received in the remote viewing experiment. We just noted what we’d experienced and left it at that.
The tide of change.
During a break in research following Christmas 2024, I decided to once again organise my book collection, as it had got a bit jumbled over time.
Moving methodically through the shelves, my eyes fell upon a book, “Chilton – the first three thousand years”, authored by David Burnett and published by the Sudbury Museum Trust in 2015.
Burnett, a former Chairman of the Sudbury Society, is a well respected local historian and his book generated a lot of interest at the time, resulting in many talks and presentations (1). Over the last ten years his work has become the definitive history of Chilton in the modern age.
I’d purchased the book a couple of years after the remote viewing experiment, but had never opened, let alone read, due to us having little further interest in the location, as previously mentioned.
However, having watched a paranormal video focused upon St Mary’s a couple of weeks earlier, this piqued my interest so, I abandoned my silly idea of a little spring clean (I honestly don’t know what I was thinking of…) and sat down with a cup of coffee to finally read the book.
The book, as suggested by way of its’ title, covered the wider area of Chilton, its origins, development and notable events, but also sampled snippets of the history of St Marys and, neighbouring Chilton Hall, another building of interest following Laura’s remote viewing experiment.
The Devil is in the detail.
Whist reading the book, I came across a very familiar image, that of one of the very few surviving medieval glass remnants in the church, that of a little blue Devil, attacking St Michael (2), which you can still see in situ, in the private Crane Chapel attached to the Church today.
The glass is generally agreed to date from the 15th Century and academics believe it was created by the famous workshops of the Norwich School of Glassmakers. It was also created, from the specific instructions and design of Robert Crane, the Lord of the Manor at the time, who commissioned the work.
The ‘created from the specific instructions and design of Robert Crane’ element, as I undertook further research, made perfect sense. As far as I could establish, it was the only surviving blue Devil I could find that was not in the setting of a ‘Doom Window’ (a stained glass depiction of the Last Judgement). I also noted the other surviving blue devils were mainly found in the west end of a church or, above the chancel arch, which again, in the Chilton example, it was not. It was truly a unique surviving example.
Few people appear to be aware of the Devils’ appearance in the glass at Chilton, but this should not come as a complete surprise, as it is tucked up high, out of the way, in the north window of the chapel.
But, even fewer people are aware that the Devil has a second, concealed face, located on the elbow joint of its’ left arm.
A theological or moral message – a position of duality
Multiple faced figures in medieval art are not uncommon, particularly in manuscripts but even for sculptures and obviously painted works, where demonic figures are given additional, discrete, hidden faces.
However, for the medium of stained glass, is almost unheard of, as far as I’ve been able to establish – the Chilton example being the only one I could find from the UK.
Casting my net even further, nor could I find any find any examples listed in mainland Europe either. For sure, demonic figures were a relatively common feature in France and Germany in Medieval stained glass, but no examples documented of ones with hidden faces.
To all intents and purposes, unless someone can advise otherwise, the Chilton blue Devil, with its’ hidden second face, is possibly unique. No other example, in the medium of Stained Glass, is known.
At the time of writing this article I’m continuing my enquiries, in particular with the British Society of Master Glass Painters and, the York University Stained Glass Studies Group and will hopefully comment further on the uniqueness, or otherwise, of the Chilton Medieval blue Devil at some point in the future.
As the Chilton Devil originated from the Norwich School of Glassmakers, I made them my initial focus.
The Norwich School of Glassmakers
The Norwich School was active from the mid 14th Century, right up to the English Reformation in the early 16th Century, a medieval community based in Norwich, who’s work in particular centred around the production of stained glass windows.
The workshops were renowned for their distinctive style, which differentiated them from other glass making areas of that time, such as at the famous centre at York, which even today are still referred to as ‘Norwich’ ears, eyes and hair within the academic community.
With their well documented use of imaginative iconography and, with Robert Crane directly involved in the design of the window, it can be successfully argued the second, hidden, face was intentional, as so with the unusual placement of the window in which it was housed.
The question for me was, what did its’ appearance in the stained glass window intend to convey. A specific theological message or, something of occult significance?
What first springs to mind is the theological theme of duality, along with the broader medieval themes of disorder, deception and, hidden sin, which were found widely in manuscripts of that era.
However, if so, why didn’t Crane simply follow the tradition of imposing this message within his papers, as most of the educated and enlightened folk of Europe were doing during his lifetime?
The fact that, in the terms of actual stained glass parallels, there are no other documented examples of a demonic hidden face embedded in a limb, let alone a blue Devil, possibly indicated a deeper, occult reason for its’ inclusion. But what exactly?
At this stage, it was clearly something that would most definitely require further research, possibly a deeper dive into the archive of Crane papers that still existed.
A sudden and unexpected revelation
As I continued to study the image of the blue Devil in the stained glass, it dawned upon me that its’ facial features were very, very similar to that of an anomaly, a ‘blue face’ that’s come to be referred to as ‘Old Bluey’, which had appeared in a photograph taken back in 2002 by Jason, some 23 years ago.
What was more curious about the photograph was the circumstances surrounding it being taken.
The image which captured the anomaly was taken by Jason as one of a series of photographs, whilst conducting an investigation at the site. A couple of days later, a complete stranger contacted Jason privately and, unexpectedly, via the ‘Ghosts of Sudbury’ Yahoo Groups Page, which existed back then.
The lady claimed to be a medium, from the Deep South of the United States of America. In the message she described St Mary’s to a tee.
What made this more remarkable was at this point, Jason had put nothing online about Chilton. She went onto to tell Jason ‘… there is something there (St Marys) that waits for you, it will appear as a BLUE image…..’
This information naturally caused Jason to carefully re-examine the photographs he’d taken a couple of days previously, whereupon he subsequently discovered ‘Old Bluey’, in one of the images.
What it was, as with everyone else who had examined the anomaly, Jason didn’t have a clue. However, perhaps more remarkable than the capture itself was the nature in which he discovered it.
This provided much food for thought for all who heard Jason’s account of the background to the photograph and, the nature of its ‘discovery’.
Opening Pandora’s Box.
Flicking my computer on, I retrieved the photograph Jason had taken. It was unmistakeable, at least to both Laura and myself, that upon close examination, the facial features of both were too similar to easily dismiss.
Over the weeks that passed, my thoughts kept returning ‘Old Bluey’ then, it suddenly struck me. Whilst I possessed no software that would allow me to undertake a facial structural comparison between ‘Old Bluey’, and the blue Devil depicted the surviving fragments of stained glass, AI had now advanced enough to perform this function, to make it worthwhile considering as a research tool.
Having worked with AI for over two years, in an attempt to understand its’ potential and, to evaluate what assistance it could be for deep research relating to history and, the paranormal, I soon arrived at a strong and direct prompt to make a structural analysis of the respective faces of ‘Old Bluey’ and, the blue Devil from the stained glass.
In particular, I asked for an analysis of:
1. The visual structure and layout; Faces / objects (if present);
2. Colour distribution and textures; and
3. Overall perceptual similarity.
The objective was to return a percentage estimate, along with a summary explanation of what the score reflected.
Using ChatGPT-4o, after a couple of minutes, the following comparison overview was returned:
Feature
Eyes – Both images show large, widely spaced eyes roughly level with each other. There is a suggestion of a similar positioning in the second, blurrier image.
Nose – The nose on the stained glass figure is small and rounded. The second image has a central blur where a nose would be, in the same relative location.
Mouth – The mouth is visible and curved in both cases – the stained glass version more defined, the second image fainter but consistent in positioning.
Head shape – Both have a rounded, almost animalistic or bulbous head, wider at the top and tapering slightly. The similarity is notable.
Ears/Horns – The stained glass image shows ear- or horn-like projections. The second image appears to have faint upper protrusions consistent with this feature.
Likeness Score (Facial Structure Only)
Estimated similarity: 73%
Notes:
- The second image is significantly blurred and lower in detail, which introduces uncertainty into the equation.
- Nonetheless, core structural features align remarkably well, particularly the eyes, nose, mouth positioning, and the general head shape.
The scale used for the analysis was:
0-30% – Basic shape with little spatial conformity (classic pareidolia);
30-50% – Face-like, but low feature alignment (upper range of plausible random chance);
50-65% – Borderline: not obviously accidental, but could still be coincidental;
65-80% – High likelihood of structured correspondence; and
80-100% – Deliberate similarity, stylisation, or direct reference.
Needless to say, this was not the result we expected, so I spent the next 30 minutes or so interrogating ChatGPT to attempt to get an understanding of what this meant in real terms and, how it arrived at the scale it used to calculate this score.
I was able to establish that, at the time of undertaking the analysis, there appeared to be no universally accepted ‘pareidolia percentage’ threshold used by Academia. What had been used here had been constructed within AI learning, the key influences being Cognitive Psychology, Computer Vision, AI Facial Similarity and, Pareidolia in Machine Learning.
This meant, whilst it was NOT a definitive benchmark, it could be understood as a research support tool. Well, for the moment at least, at least until something more suitable was developed.
However, reflecting upon this, it was clear that regardless of there being no agreed benchmark, for the moment at least, we could not ignore that the comparison was undertaken using rigorous methodology, with no inherent bias.
Therefore I could accept it as confirming it wasn’t ‘just us’, there was a definite similarity between the two images that exceeded the boundaries of pareidolia.
But what did this mean in real terms?
To exclude any intervention of human bias from ourselves, I shall leave it to the AI engine to explain what it took from this analysis:
“… a 73% similarity score—especially when derived from spatial feature alignment—suggests that too many elements correspond too precisely to be easily explained by random pattern recognition alone. It crosses from “possible coincidence” into “possible connection.
The realistic ceiling for pareidolia to be considered plausible tends to fall below ~50–60% similarity when measured against a structured reference.
Above 65%, and especially in the 70%+ range, there is usually reason to suspect intentional mimicry, archetypal symbolism, or a shared visual source – not random chance.”
So, from all this, I took it was reasonable for us to conclude ‘Old Bluey’ was intentional, by what, we do not know, in line with what Jason was told by the psychic over two decades ago.
Furthermore, this begs the question did, at 21:51hrs, on 6th October 2002, Jason Duke take a photograph of one of the very few, if any exist, of validated paranormal phenomena?
I think this is a question that requires serious discussion.
For those that require more details of the analysis, you will find full details of the report Here
Further Secrets Revealed – a lost pond, an exorcism, a sacred avenue and, a circle of protection or, exclusion?
Returning to David Burnetts’ excellent book, I next came across a completely unexpected account of an exorcism, which had taken place at the northern boundary of the Church grounds, back in the mid 19th Century.
The rabbit hole was taking us ever deeper……..
The evil spirit must be exorcised
Although such an event only warranted a few paragraphs in the book, thankfully the author at least thought it notable enough to include in his history of the village (3).
In 1861, the Rev. William Nestfield Andrews was petitioned by the villagers to exorcise an evil spirit that had taken up residence near the pond, next to the Church.
We are told the evil spirit had plagued the villagers for some time and, in time honoured tradition, they understandably wanted rid.
Fortunately, whilst I’ve uncovered no details of the spirits’ foul deeds, the concerns of the villagers were suffice enough to convince Rev. Andrews to perform an exorcism to remove it.
Rev. Andrews conducted the exorcism and, either by cunning or by direction, managed to get the evil spirit into a bottle, which he promptly sealed with a cork and, threw it into the church pond.
And, there the story ends.
Does the evil spirit still reside in the corked bottle, trapped for all eternity or, did it manage to escape and still resides in the vicinity, perhaps responsible for the alleged paranormal phenomena still experienced at the church, even today?
This event obviously warranted further attention.
But where is the pond?
The biggest problem I needed to solve was the awkward issue of there, these days at least, being no pond next to St Marys. And, nowhere in the book or maps could I find any mention, either before or after the documented exorcism, of a church pond.
Time for a different approach I thought.
Were we successful in locating the pond where the exorcism took place in 1861? Did we realise the huge rabbit hole we’d unearth just by searching for it?
In the next article, we reveal what we uncovered. And, what that forgotten pond may still be hiding, along with what we believe could be a circle of protection, created in the landscape and, what could be a sacred avenue offering passage alongside it.
Laura and Mark
Our other articles in the series:
Remote Viewing of Redundant Church (St Marys, Chilton) Suffolk Click Here
Validation visit to St Marys, Chilton, Suffolk Click Here
Analysis of photographic anomaly captured at Chilton, Suffolk (Click Here)
We find the lost pond and uncover landscape mysteries at Chilton Click Here
References:
(1) – Chilton, A journey Through Time – a Talk by David Burnett (Little Waldingfield History Society https://littlewaldingfieldhistorysociety.wordpress.com/2017/02/17/chilton-a-journey-through-time-a-talk-by-david-burnett/)
(2) – Chilton – the first three thousand years – David Burnett – p.58. (Pub. 2015)
(3) – Chilton – the first three thousand years – David Burnett – p.86. (Pub. 2015)
Further Reading:
- The Norwich School of Glass Painting in the Fifteenth Century – Christopher Woodforde (Pub. 1950)
- Investigations in Medieval Stained Glass (eds. Kurmann-Schwartc, Brigitte and, Elizabeth Pastan) – David King (Pub. 2019)
- The Journal of the British Society of Master Glass Painters (2019 Medievalism Special Issue)
