The sheet of paper is covered in black ink. Crabbed, spidery words and diagrams cover one side of the A4 paper in a disturbing pattern that vaguely resembles a crooked cobweb. Around the edges of the paper are two rows of Arabic-looking script and in the centre of the paper, and the web, an eye.
The sheet of paper was taped to the underside of a bed in an unremarkable hotel room. It could have been there for months, it was only discovered when a guest was searching under the bed for their dropped keys.
Possibilities
1 The paper is a dreamcaster, a component of a powerful ritual. A dreamcaster allows a sorcerer to influence the dreams of another person – and in really skilled hands allows the sorcerer, over a number of nights, to place detailed subliminal instructions into the victim.
The dreamcaster itself must be tailored to its victim and, if deciphered, includes clues as to the dreams and instructions it will induce. It must be placed underneath wherever the victim is sleeping, which suggests that whoever put the dreamcaster in place knew who was going to be in the room.
2 The words and diagrams are the work of a disturbed child. The child was staying in the hotel with her parents some weeks ago, and in the process created many, many artworks and taped them over the walls and furniture. Housekeeping cleared the rest of the art – but missed this one last piece.
3 The paper under the bed is an inshō-shi, an ancient Japanese device used to identify victims of possession. When the inshō-shi spends a few hours within close proximity to someone who is possessed, it reacts to possessor’s psychic emissions. By recovering the paper and examining how it has reacted, the exorcists can (by referring to their comprehensive archives) determine exactly what has possessed the victim and how to deal with it.
In this case, the inshō-shi was placed by Vatican exorcists. The hotel is funded directly by the Vatican and as a matter of course inshō-shi are placed beneath each of the beds and are inspected each morning by the housekeeping team. Any inshō-shi that looks as if it has been affected is reported immediately to the hotel management who then contact the Vatican.
A guest who finds a inshō-shi showing a reaction is most likely possessed themselves (but may not realise it). As the Vatican exorcists are very experienced and very thorough, it is unlikely that the entity possessing the guest will recognise the inshō-shi – and the first they learn of it is when the exorcists come knocking.
© Steve Hatherley
The sheet of paper was taped to the underside of a bed in an unremarkable hotel room. It could have been there for months, it was only discovered when a guest was searching under the bed for their dropped keys.
Possibilities
1 The paper is a dreamcaster, a component of a powerful ritual. A dreamcaster allows a sorcerer to influence the dreams of another person – and in really skilled hands allows the sorcerer, over a number of nights, to place detailed subliminal instructions into the victim.
The dreamcaster itself must be tailored to its victim and, if deciphered, includes clues as to the dreams and instructions it will induce. It must be placed underneath wherever the victim is sleeping, which suggests that whoever put the dreamcaster in place knew who was going to be in the room.
2 The words and diagrams are the work of a disturbed child. The child was staying in the hotel with her parents some weeks ago, and in the process created many, many artworks and taped them over the walls and furniture. Housekeeping cleared the rest of the art – but missed this one last piece.
3 The paper under the bed is an inshō-shi, an ancient Japanese device used to identify victims of possession. When the inshō-shi spends a few hours within close proximity to someone who is possessed, it reacts to possessor’s psychic emissions. By recovering the paper and examining how it has reacted, the exorcists can (by referring to their comprehensive archives) determine exactly what has possessed the victim and how to deal with it.
In this case, the inshō-shi was placed by Vatican exorcists. The hotel is funded directly by the Vatican and as a matter of course inshō-shi are placed beneath each of the beds and are inspected each morning by the housekeeping team. Any inshō-shi that looks as if it has been affected is reported immediately to the hotel management who then contact the Vatican.
A guest who finds a inshō-shi showing a reaction is most likely possessed themselves (but may not realise it). As the Vatican exorcists are very experienced and very thorough, it is unlikely that the entity possessing the guest will recognise the inshō-shi – and the first they learn of it is when the exorcists come knocking.
© Steve Hatherley
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