I’m an exorcist… the six signs someone is secretly possessed – and the terrifying case that still haunts my dreams
TERRIFYING demons are something most of us only see in a horror movie, but Ian Lawman even sees them at the supermarket.
As an ordained exorcist, the TV priest has learned how to confront fearsome spirits in the unlikeliest of places – and says he has faced ghouls so malevolent they’ve left him fearing for his life.
He says he’s been physically attacked, witnessed young girls contorting their limbs during exorcisms, and even claims to have seen spirits lurking in everyday places – including during a groceries run.
His viral exorcisms on Discovery+ shows The Yorkshire Exorcist II and Help My House Is Haunted have shocked viewers, but Ian says the truth is even darker than what’s shown on screen.
In one episode, which aired earlier this year, he met with Shaun Williamson, who played Barry Evans on EastEnders, to help cast out a violent spirit from the actor’s home.
Now, in an exclusive interview with The Sun, Ian, 56, reveals the most chilling moments of his career – including the night he saw a young Victorian girl lash out at him and when he says he inadvertently took a spirit back home with him.
“I have experienced beds moving and people who have no clue how to speak Latin speak it fluently,” he says.
“I have felt the tightness around my throat. I’ve stuttered or stammered my words because the entities are trying to prevent me from quoting the Bible.
“I’ve never flown across a room or anything like that – but I certainly feel that pressure where I think if you went with it, you would go back.
“I have been under physical attack and I think most priests or most reverends who do perform exorcisms will have had some form of experience.”
Ian says the spirits and demons he encounters can be so malevolent that it’s left him fearing for his and his family’s life.
He says: “That’s something I fear for myself and fear for my family.
“And I have a rule that whenever I perform an exorcism, I stay away from home overnight just to make sure that I don’t bring anything back with me.
“And that has happened before where I’ve been very confident that I thought I’ve got rid of that entity, and then it appears in that room with me.
“It then becomes a battle between you and this demonic entity, not another priest, not another colleague with you, not the person who’s possessed. Just you and this entity.
“And that is the scariest thing.”
It has got so frightening that Ian says he now sleeps with his Bible and his cross next to him.
He explains: “The problem you’ve got there is these entities have the power to move or remove items, so you have to grab those items very, very quickly.
“Like in Hollywood movies where you’ll see the Bible flying across the room and things like that, it can happen in real life.
“I’m not saying it’s going to catch fire, but it can certainly be moved. So you need to grab that quick and start quoting.”
Supermarket spirits
Ian believes the battle between the physical and the supernatural is all around us. He has encountered spirits and demons in everyday places.
“I was once in the supermarket with my partner, Nicola, and saw this lady. She looked at me but it was almost like her spirit had moved,” he says.
“I could see her physical body still pushing the trolley, but she turned around and looked at me, and her eyes were black.
I have experienced beds moving and people who have no clue how to speak Latin, speak it fluently
Ian Lawman
I have felt the tightness around my throat. I’ve stuttered or stammered my words because the entities are trying to prevent me from quoting the Bible.
“That’s when I knew there was something in there, but obviously, I couldn’t go up to a stranger and put my hand on the shoulder and say, by the way, you got a demon inside you.”
He warns that spirits target those who are vulnerable – whether through trauma, addiction, or mental health struggles.
“It’s a mind game,” he explains. “Negative thoughts bring negative things. And what people don’t realise is that once we perform an exorcism, their journey has only just begun.
“If they’ve been living with an entity for years, convincing them it’s gone is very hard. The aftercare is so important.”
‘Genuinely frightening’
Ian has performed countless exorcisms, but one in particular stands out as one of the most extreme – an encounter with a young woman named Emma during The Yorkshire Exorcist season six.
“She was very sensitive and didn’t understand what was happening to her,” he recalls.
“It was really intense. When I was performing the exorcism, her arms started twisting, and she was acting in a way I had never seen before. She was screaming, and it was genuinely frightening.”
The moment was so shocking that even the show’s producer – who had seen his fair share of supernatural encounters – was visibly shaken.
During the filming of a documentary, Ian came face-to-face with something that still haunts him.
“I saw this little girl, maybe four or five years old, wearing a strange Victorian-style dress with a high collar,” he recalls. “She smiled at me and started walking toward me. I got down on my knees to meet her at her level.
“But then I realised she was dragging her feet across the floor like something out of a horror movie. I called out to her, and as I reached out my hand, she suddenly lashed at my face with these nails – then disappeared.”
What happened next left him shaken to his core.
“I touched my face, and it felt wet – like blood,” he says. “I ran out to the crew, and they were all panicked, saying, ‘What happened? We lost footage, we lost communication with you.’
“I asked them, ‘Did you see it?’ But when they checked my face, there wasn’t a single mark.”
Possession hotspot
One of Ian’s most widely viewed exorcisms happened on an episode of The Yorkshire Exorcist II.
It involved a man named Mark, whose possession may have started in the most unlikeliest places – a hospital.
How to tell someone is possessed
IAN Lawman has given his tell tale signs that a person has been possessed by a demonic entity.
- ‘Dead eyes’ – The first thing I know instantly is by looking into their eyes. They tend to lose that glow. Your eyes are very important because that sparkle will go out. I call it dead eye, and it’s where the eyes are just black. We’ve all met people where we’ve thought there is something not right about that person. When you see a murder on the telly or the news, people say there’s no soul behind them. And that is, that’s what it is. They have no soul.”
- Depression – Any possession is a fine line between depression and anxiety. So take somebody who’s normally fit and well and happy. They will start showing signs of anxiety and depression. Especially those ones that seem to come out of nowhere.
- Loss of appetite – They’ll start not eating properly. They’ll start to lose their appetite. There will be no food at all. They will be totally uninterested.
- Isolation – They will start to get aggressive and push you away. There will be no intimacy and no cuddling because that entity is trying to pull you away from your family. And then you’ll start wanting to isolate yourself, where you’ll want to be on your own, You wouldn’t want to be around people. You’ll just go for walks on your own.
- Darkness – You will start having an obsession with darkness. You’ll start wanting to turn the lights off more.
- Hygiene – There will be a lack of cleanliness. They will not look after themselves properly.
“We believed Mark brought this entity back from the hospital,” Ian says. “Somebody who had a major surgery died on the operating table, and we all know that dark, negative energies can linger in places like that.
“Now, I don’t want to scare people into thinking they’ll get possessed in a hospital – but it can happen.”
Mike had been living with the evil entity for 11 years and had spent up to £8,000 to get rid of it, Ian says.
At the height of Mark’s possession, Ian says he had to push him to fight back against the entity.
“He was screaming, and I needed him to stand up to it,” Ian explains.
“No matter how much prayer I give, if a person is still weak, we can still lose that battle.
“The possessed person has to want to fight. If they don’t, we can’t help them.”
Childhood horrors
From a young age, Ian says he was was no stranger to chilling encounters with the paranormal.
His first brush with the spirit world came at just eight years old, and it was a moment that would haunt him for life.
“I was going to swimming classes with my mum,” he recalls. “The road was closed, and my mum said we would have to use the footpath. I told her I couldn’t because there was a man there.”
His mother was confused – she saw no one. But Ian was adamant.
“He was just stood there,” he says. “He was covered in blood, and his face was distorted. As a child, that was really disturbing. And it was disturbing for my mum to see me that way – I was terrified.”
It was an experience that left its mark, but it wouldn’t be the last time Ian came face-to-face with something unexplainable.
Another encounter took place in his grandparents’ farmhouse, a property that had been in the family for over 300 years.
It was meant to be a peaceful night, but instead, Ian found himself confronted by something beyond comprehension.
People think when we perform an exorcism and get rid of the demonic entity, that’s the end of it. It’s not. We can’t get rid of them. They are powerful and just move on.
Ian Lawman
“My grandma took me to bed, and I remember this lady walking in, sitting at the end of the bed, and stroking my hair,” he says. “I was absolutely petrified. At first, I thought it must have been my grandma.”
The next morning, he went downstairs and thanked her for comforting him. But the response sent shivers down his spine.
“She said, ‘It wasn’t me, love’,” Ian recalls. “I told her what I saw and apparently, it was her sister-in-law – someone who had been into spiritualism in life.”
It was a moment of terrifying clarity for Ian – proof, he says, that whatever he was seeing wasn’t just in his head. And it was just the beginning.
Now Ian believes daily prayer is the best way to ward off evil spirits. He also recommends a little-known trick that helps.
“I visualise that I’m in a room with mirrors but the mirrors are reflecting outwards. So whatever anyone is sending to me negativity-wise is bouncing straight back out.”
