Anglican priest Jason Bray, Dean of Llandaff Cathedral, has shed light on his work as a “deliverance minister”, explaining the Church of England’s approach to hauntings and alleged possessions
An Anglican priest has opened up about his role as a “deliverance minister”, the Church of England’s answer to a ghostbuster. Far from the dramatic scenes seen in horror films, the Dean of Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff, Jason Bray, said his work involves calmly investigating reports of haunted homes, poltergeist activity, and even alleged possessions.
“When people hear about my job, they assume I burst into people’s houses like the exorcist from the film,” Bray admitted. “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”
“It’s not dramatic.” Bray presented himself as being a “gas engineer, but for paranormal activity”. In a recent feature portrait about his unusual profession, the priest debunked misconceptions about how the Anglican Church deals with the supernatural.
Every diocese in England and Wales has a team dedicated to investigating reports of paranormal activity, with the Church handling around a dozen cases a year in each area, Bray explained. The priest’s own experiences with unexplained phenomena reportedly convinced him of the reality of hauntings.
“In my diocese, we deal with about a dozen incidents a year,” Bray explained for The Telegraph. “Despite what people often think, it’s no worse on Halloween.”
Bray’s first brush with the paranormal came 27 years ago in his South Wales home, where unexplained cold spots and a menacing presence convinced him the house was haunted. After a vicar performed prayers and sprinkled holy water, the unsettling atmosphere lifted, leaving Bray convinced that something unexplainable had been banished.
“I had been spooked enough by the incident to be convinced it might have been,” Bray admitted. After responding to several reports of paranormal activity in his parish, Jason Bray trained as a Church of England exorcist and now investigates alleged hauntings in homes, offices, and shops.
He said: “Occasionally people see things – for want of a better word, ghosts – and I am asked to investigate. Sometimes that’s someone who was in their life and keeps reappearing, or sometimes it’s what I call a ‘place memory’ of something that happened historically.”
The priest explained: “For example, the spectre of Roman soldiers marching through a house in York. In another case I dealt with, a family would walk over a ‘person’ at the bottom of the staircase who’d fallen and broken his neck.
“People would just step over him, which was a bit weird, but he wasn’t trying to communicate with them – occasionally he would just appear, lying there. Sometimes, however, this can be very scary.”
Bray recalled: “I had one case where someone kept seeing a deceased relative appear in a jump scare on the other side of the curtain when they were showering. For some reason, poltergeist activity – physical disturbances or movements – seems more often than not to involve shoes being thrown across a room.
“I have no idea why. I believe it really happens, but also that it’s a phenomenon caused by the person, rather than any sort of ghost.
“It can also be part of a stress reaction: when someone has been in significant pain or is suffering from a serious illness, almost like static electricity has built up. The person is not aware of their part in it.”
The ghost hunter explained that most people seeking help either feel oppressed by something unexplained or believe they are possessed. However, true cases of possession are extremely rare and often overlap with mental health issues, Bray noted.
“While I’m open to the idea that there are cases like this, I believe they’re exceedingly rare,” the priest said. He continued: “There is quite a lot of overlap with mental health conditions, including schizophrenia, which is why we work closely with medical professionals.”
Genuine possession is marked by preternatural strength, secret knowledge, or the ability to speak unknown languages, Bray shared. Only in such rare cases does he perform a formal exorcism with a special prayer.
Most situations, however, are resolved by blessing the home and offering reassurance, often resulting in a noticeable change in atmosphere and a sense of relief for those affected, according to the priest. He said: “I’m not in the business of trying to explain the unexplainable, but I have seen enough to be open to the idea that places really can be haunted.
“My job is to pray, and always to reassure people. It’s not like a scientific experiment where you can control the variables; you just have to deal with situations as you find them.
“I have come across buildings that have changed dramatically once the ‘exorcism’ is complete: you could feel the temperature rising, like someone was turning the lights up. It was just astonishing.
“In other cases, it’s more of a psychological effect – people feel reassured and freed from whatever it was that was haunting them. There is a lot of evil in our world, but I fully believe that good will triumph eventually.”
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