Books
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The 1949 St. Louis exorcism is one of the most documented and debated cases of possession in American history. It is the case that inspired The Exorcist, but most of what people think they know comes from film, not from the actual accounts. When you go back to Father Bishop’s diary and read what was…
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Crazy will always be one of my favorite books I’ve written. First of all, how it was written is different than anything else I have ever done. In 2006, I was personally asked to come to an old truck stop restaurant on Old Route 66. The Tri County Truck Stop in Villa Ridge, Missouri. They…
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“He turns; I can see his frontal torso in the light. It’s covered in blood. Is he looking at me? The room begins to spin. The sound of his desperation matches the tempo of his hands scrubbing his body. The room keeps spinning and spinning. I still feel his eyes on me. I can’t breathe.…
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I heard a quote once that described a haunted house as one that had gone insane. That made a strange kind of sense to me. The idea that a house could harbor something hidden inside it, a kind of internal system that carries something through its walls and floors like a disease. That is what…
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Twenty five years ago I stepped into a haunted house. Back then it was just my home. My family and I were living there and trying to figure out what was happening around us. Those were frightening months. Anyone who has lived through something like that knows how it gets into your head. Even when…
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Every once in a while I stop and look at two books sitting on my shelf. The Uninvited and The Architecture of Shadows. They were written many years apart, but in a strange way they belong to the same story. The Uninvited was the beginning of everything for me. It tells the story of what…
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When I wrote The Uninvited about the Screaming House, I wanted to reach the people who might be living through something similar. I wanted them to know they were not alone. I have been doing this work for a long time. But I have never gathered what I have learned into one place before. For…
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This book isn’t built around one house, one road, or one case. It’s the result of more than twenty-five years of doing this work. Being invited into people’s lives. Standing in difficult places. Trying to understand what was happening without rushing past it.
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I want to tell you about this because it’s important to me. Architecture of Shadows came out of the last twenty-five years of my life. Not in an academic way, but in a lived one. Walking into places people don’t like to talk about. Sitting with people while they shared experiences they had carried quietly…
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Why do I write is a question I get from time to time. Most people assume it is for money. It is not. Writing has never been a good way to make money anyway, and I already have what I need in this life. I am grateful for that. I am not chasing more. Some…
Steven LaChance Blog 