Rev Jason Bray: Wrexham vicar rids people's homes of ghosts

Reverend Jason Bray, the Vicar of St Giles' Parish Church, has an unusual sideline of work through the church - as a specially ordained minister who can help people who feel they may be haunted, cursed or possessed.

Rev Bray has now written a book - Deliverance - on his time as a deliverance minister.

It all started several years ago when he moved into a new house.

Rev Bray says the house was cold when they moved in but never seemed to get any warmer, and was particularly cold around the cot of his baby boy, Tom.

"I returned home from a residential course and my wife, Laura, said it was icy in his [Tom's] bedroom - it was like walking into one of those walking freezers," he told ITV's Good Morning show.

"So I had to bring him into bed with me. A couple of nights later I was stood at the bathroom door and there was someone standing on the other side of the door.

"He was about my size and wearing a wooden mask and was glaring straight at me.

"I knew instinctively that he was a priest and there was quite a lot of hostility there. When I opened the door there was nobody there."

At that point Rev Bray went to the local vicar who came round to the house with a bottle of holy water and a prayer book to bless the house.

Rev Bray said: "He said some prayers around the house then we all gathered in the living room together and said the Lord's Prayer.

"At that point there was this instant change - this house that had been cold and dark was suddenly warm and light."

Rev Bray knew at that point that he wanted to learn more about it and started training to be a deliverance minister.

"The training focuses hugely on psychiatry," he said.

"If you are going to be dealing with people in a quite distressed state, you need to know what you are going to have to deal with.

"It’s not actually that much training on the paranormal, it’s expected that you’ve done a bit of research on that yourself."

Reverend Jason Bray.

Rev Bray says that the book is about "myth-busting as much as ghost-busting".

"A lot of people ask you to exorcise demons, but to do that you have to be absolutely sure what you are dealing with is demonic," he said.

"To show how rare that is, I’ve never had to perform an exorcism in my more than 20 years as a deliverance minister.

"It’s why we call ourselves deliverance ministers rather than exorcists."

Nevertheless, Rev Bray admits he has walked into places that "feel really creepy".

"There was one house we went to that was very much like mine had been," he said.

"It should have been light, bright and beautiful and it was a glorious sunny day, but it was damp, dark and dingy - it was horrible.

"As we said the Lord's Prayer I felt my back arch backwards, like someone was twisting me.

"When we got to the end of the Lord's Prayer my colleague and the homeowner said 'wow' - I opened my eyes and it felt about five degrees warmer and it looked as if all the lights had been turned on."

Reverend Jason Bray.

Amazingly, Rev Bray is insured by the Church if he is sued by people whose house has been devalued because of an act of deliverance conducted at a local property.

Rev Bray says that objects moving without being touched comes from a build of energy produced by people alive and present.

"Poltergeist activity is actually triggered by the people in the house themselves," he said.

"The book details the story of the shattered vase - where there was great tension between a mother and son.

"The son had stood there and took all his mum's stress and then a vase shattered. She called me in and we blessed the house but we said we don't think it's paranormal activity, we think we need to help your relationship with your teenage son."

Rev Bray has faced the ghost of a young man who kept appearing naked in his grieving boyfriend’s shower, and a woman haunted by a swarm of ghostly rats crawling under her duvet at night.

But taking his trusty bag containing holy water, salt, candles and a crucifix, as well as vessels to celebrate Holy Communion - Rev Bray is ready for anything.

Deliverance by Jason Bray is out now.