Demonic possessions: Local demonologist speaks on spirits, demons and exorcisms

 Katie Boyd was only three years old when she first came into contact with the paranormal; 36 years later, she's still in communication.

As a demonologist, or one who studies demons and evil spirits, Boyd receives hundreds of emails and phone calls a year to investigate paranormal activity. Her interest started with her childhood home in Goffstown, N.H. 

"I grew up in a severely haunted house. It tore my family apart," said Boyd, who can remember seeing full-figured apparitions in her family home as a child. "I went to the local library to try to find out all that I could about this stuff. I started reading everything. I wanted to gain as much knowledge about it that I could so I could help people with their hauntings. I couldn't help my own family because I was too young."

Every Halloween season Boyd is overwhelmed by an increase in people claiming to have paranormal activity within their home or their person - but this year she's gotten to work on a special case, the documentary-style movie Paranormal Activity.

"I was contacted by a local radio station to diagnose the movie," said Boyd, who not only found the psychic and spiritual entity portrayed in the movie to both be inaccurate. "I don't know how they determined it was a demon. To me, that was the work of an evil spirit. A negative spirit can pull you out of bed like that. They can move doors. You'll hear the footsteps - all of that could have been a negative spirit."

In addition to being a source for paranormal movie scripts, Boyd goes out to investigate private and public hauntings and paranormal activity. In Durham, Boyd has investigated personally owned homes as well as the infamous Three Chimney's Inn, where the ghost Hannah is said to reside.

"My group Ghost Quest went to the Three Chimney's a few years ago," said Boyd, who said she had a run-in with Hannah while she was in the poltergeist's original bedroom. "She was very interactive. I lasted 28 minutes in the room. I was radioing my group when I made contact with her but the radios wouldn't work."

Boyd has now been in the paranormal business for 21 years and works alongside Beckah Boyd, a six-generation psychic. When the paranormal activities prove not to be demonic, or inhuman, evil spirits, Beckah acts as the medium, working with ghosts, or the human entities.

"Most of the time it's a haunting," said Boyd, who works out of Manchester. She said that most times clients will exaggerate to get Boyd to their house because they're scared.

"But a true demonic case is rare," Boyd said. "In this day and age a lot of people are having issues and family members who have already crossed over, come to hang out and make sure everyone's OK. Beckah works as the psychic medium and communicates with the trapped spirits."

But when it is a case involving demons, Boyd does anything but take her job lightly.

"If it's a true demonic entity I have the clients leave (the house)," said Boyd, who said she has performed two exorcisms and in her 20-plus year career and encountered seven demonic cases.