In 2003 I was visiting my best friend's house with two other mates. I'm female, my best friend (Mick) is male and the two others (Kim and Mel) are female as well.
My friends are/were Pagan (Mel has since stopped practicing) and I, at the time, was 'on the fence' in regards to my faith.
Mick's house had always had an eerie feeling and none of us could quite explain it. This was the first time that all of us had gathered in his house at the same time, only a few months after the sudden death of a much loved and very psychic member of our group, Bec.
I should point out, before I get into this story, that none of us had been drinking or ingesting mind-altering substances. We were completely sober, aware and alert.
We were gathered around the dining room table when we were all overcome with a sense of something approaching the house. Without words, we spread out around the house and began doing what we knew would protect it/us, including the burning of particular incense and visualization of shields. Before we could finish, however, we were overwhelmed - bombarded, rather - by flashing images of spirits scampering around the house. (Remember, we were all at different points in the house.)
Some of the spirits I saw were human, whilst others were so peculiar and otherworldly that I can't identify them. I was more shocked than frightened, but wanted to remain in control, as I have heard what happens when people in the presence of spirits let down their guards.

The four of us regrouped in the lounge room, in a panic, and discussed what to do as the spirits encircled us. Mick saw one of them heading towards his bedroom, down a corridor at the furthest point of the house, and felt compelled to go after it. I had my back to him at this point, watching what was happening in the room, when Kim cried out that something was wrong with Mick. We ran to the corridor and saw him frozen at the doorway, his entire body quivering and his face tightened. He was fighting against something inside him, and we couldn't communicate with him as he was non- responsive. He slumped to the ground and Kim tried to touch him, but she quickly pulled away and told us to get back into the lounge room. Mel and I returned to the room and were left to deal with these entities ourselves.
I think the only thing that stopped me from being harmed in any way that night was a technique I call 'blasting'. I didn't pick it up from any book, but it was a visualization technique that involved conjuring a blast of energy that would both shield me and make the spirits rebound off me, thus rendering them unable to get close to me.
It's hard to describe...OK, think of a pinball machine. The silver ball in play ricochets off springs that send them careening in another direction. If the ball represents the spirit, the spring represents my shield.
Anyway, this seemed to do the trick and protect me while I talked Mel through what was happening. She was very frightened, and we sat together for around five minutes before we heard shouting coming from Mick's room and ran to see what was going on. Mick was curled up in a corner, whimpering, and Kim explained that in the time that we were in the lounge room, a spirit was trying to possess Mick. He'd somehow fought it off, but he was weak and she had the feeling it was going to try again. We picked him up and led him into the lounge room, sitting him on the couch and trying to calm him down as he sobbed. Within a minute, the crying stopped, and he was silent for a moment before he started breathing heavily. We instinctively stepped back, and it's a good thing that we did because suddenly he wasn't himself anymore. He glared at us with pure hate and anger, and the guttural groan of "DEATH!" that came out of him was nothing that we'd heard before. He didn't lash out at us - he just glared and groaned. Kim studied him, closed her eyes and told us that the spirit inside Mick was a man from an old village who had been hung by cruel children because of a disability. In response, Mick leapt up and galloped down the hall with astonishing speed. He was on his hands and knees, with his left leg dragging behind him.

I have a memory blank here.
I don't remember how we got Mick back and escorted him to the lounge again, but my next memory is sitting with him, cradling him and patting his arm which was sitting on my shoulder. I heard a sound not unlike fingernails scratching a blackboard, which nobody else heard, and his hand began tightening around my shoulder. I jumped up and backed away as he was taken again. This time it only lasted a minute, because we three women conversed with the enraged villager. He left voluntarily, which seemed odd to us as we imaged any spirit angry enough to possess a living person would not be leaving in a hurry.

Once we had Mick back, the spirits were still swirling around us; we counted as best we could, considering they were moving so quickly, and we estimate that there were at least thirty of them in the room at any given time. "Why are they doing this?" I wondered aloud. "Why us, and why now?" Mel snapped us out of our thoughts by murmuring, "Bec's here". I couldn't see her anywhere so I asked Mel if she could tell us more. "She's trying to help us." My reaction was to jokingly sing, "Here she comes to save the day!" I've been known to respond to fear with humour, as inappropriate as it is. Perhaps it's a reaction to lessen or disguise the intensity of my own fear. I don't know. Anyway, Mick piped in with, "We have to leave. But not yet. We'll know when." So we could only sit, shield and observe for around ten minutes. Then I had a sudden image in my head of a door swinging open, signaling an opportunity for us to leave. I turned to the front door, which was a few yards away, and at the same time Mick shouted, "Now!" We scrambled out the door and leapt into Mick's car within seconds (it's a good thing Mick leaves his car unlocked when he's at his parents' property - they live in the bush), and once were safely inside Mick said, "Bec held them off long enough for us to get out. She's still in there." Mel asked if we should go back for her, and I replied, "No, it's too dangerous. She's dead, she's in their world. She'll know what to do. We just need to go. Now." We started the car and tore down the road. It takes ten minutes from Mick's family's property to reach town, so we headed there without a clue of what to do next. We ended up at a park, the same park where another friend's mother had died a month earlier. We all asked what we were doing there. "I don't know," Mick replied, resting his head against the steering wheel. "I just drove here. I wasn't thinking." Kim and Mel began screaming in the back seat, pointing at the windows and shouting, "What the hell is that?" It takes a LOT for Kim to get scared, as she has dealt with ghosts before, so I knew that whatever she was screaming at must have been very bad. I swiveled around from the front passenger seat to get a look and saw hand prints smudging along the windows, one appearing after another. Mick immediately stepped on the accelerator and drove as fast as he could, not caring about the speed limit. We drove aimlessly through the streets of our town, hypothesizing about what we'd just experienced. I had a feeling that it wasn't over yet - we needed to do something in order to make it stop.

As we drove, Mel said, "Kirri, you're blocking." I asked her what she meant, and she continued, "Bec's trying to help you, and you're not letting her in." I replied, "As you said, i'm blocking. Nothing's getting in." It wasn't that I didn't trust Bec to help, but once I opened the door to one spirit, anything else could possibly enter. It was too risky. I felt compelled to go to my family's house. We're no strangers to spirits, our family - several experts have deduced that our house is like a thoroughfare, where numerous souls are floating in and out within the space of a day. Very few stick around. I have never felt threatened in my own home...The spirits we attract tend to be harmless, or playful at worst. I knew that at least I would be safe there. As if she knew was I was thinking, Kim announced that we need to go there - something is there that I need to collect before leaving again. She added, "You'll be safe there", concurring with what I already knew.

I entered my house as my friends waited in the car, briefly explaining to Mum what was happening. She was concerned but remained calm, rifling through her drawers to find anything that could protect us. She offered religious jewelry etc., but I explained that i'd been shielding myself all night, thus I didn't need further protection. As I said this, my eyes fell on a set of shelves in the corner and I walked over for a closer look. I was drawn to a moldy ten- cent coin sitting on the shelf, and when I asked Mum about it she said off-handedly, "Oh, that's just something your brother picked up at the river. It must've been in the water for a while, by the looks of things." I put the coin in my pocket, along with a few stones and some random objects, and returned to the car. I showed my friends what i'd picked up and as soon as I presented the coin, I had a flash of the river where we'd been just minutes earlier (before Kim and Mel began freaking out and we had to leave quickly). I instructed Mick to drive towards the river, and once we got there, told him to head to the bridge. A series of images appeared, once after the other: a motorcycle, mould and a helmet. Before I knew it, the words were tumbling out of my mouth: "A guy on a motorcycle died. He and the bike went into the river. This coin belongs to him." We pulled over on the bridge and I tossed the coin into the water. We drove off again, in the direction of Mick's family's property, and there was a unanimous calmness. Somehow, with that one gesture, everything had stopped. This was confirmed when we stepped back into the house and we no longer saw or sensed anything. It had all vanished.

We stayed for a little while, exchanging ideas over what had just happened, and Kim suggested that perhaps we were being tested. I took photos of the house a few weeks later and sent them to a friend, a trusted psychic and clairvoyant, for analysis. She showed me the results and I saw things in those photos that I had only ever seen in books. Some of these things were also bombarding us in the house that night. I've been to the house several times since that night. After the incident, Mick had his house cleansed and protected, and since then nothing else has occurred. I can stay with him when he goes to visit his family, and there is absolutely nothing coming after us. A few weeks ago, I asked Mick about the coin and the river, expressing my frustration that I couldn't figure out the significance of the coin. He replied, "Simple. Paying the ferryman."

Actually, if anyone has thoughts or ideas about anything that occurred that night, i'd love to hear them.