Interview with Celebrity Exorcist Rachel Stavis

What an excellent day for an interview with celebrity exorcist Rachel Stavis.

As a secular exorcist, Rachel H. Stavis has cleansed thousands of tormented people, from small children and Hollywood moguls to stay-at-home moms and politicians. But for many years, the horror screenwriter and novelist denied her gift. As a little girl, she began to see “monsters” floating around her bedroom or attached to other children. Told it was only her imagination, she learned to ignore the things she saw.

But a series of events in adulthood forced her to acknowledge her unique ability and embrace her power to heal. Since then, Stavis has dedicated her life to helping others cast off the forces feeding off of us. Performing her services pro-bono, she quietly worked in the shadows, until she unknowingly revealed her work to a journalist, who told her story to NPR.

Join us as we talk with Rachel about her upcoming special, ‘Celebrity Exorcism,’ scheduled to be released on Tubi on October 22, 2021.

‘Celebrity Exorcism’ stars Jodie Sweetin (Full House), Shar Jackson (Moesha), and NBA Champion and All-Star Metta World Peace. They come together for a good old-fashioned fright fest.

With the help of acclaimed exorcist Rachel Stavis, this team of brave celebrities enrolls in a paranormal boot camp before facing their most chilling challenge: exorcising an iconic haunted location.

You can tune in to watch Celebrity Exorcism right now absolutely free exclusively on Tubi

Horror Facts: Traditionally, when most people think of an exorcist, the first thing that comes to their mind is a Catholic Priest. They see the scene from the ‘Exorcist’ with Max von Sydow yelling, “The power of Christ compels you!” I’m sure all of our readers want to know how you are able to perform exorcisms despite not being aligned with the church?

Rachel Stavis: I know what people expect. At the end of the day, yes, I’m a woman, and yes, I’m nondenominational, or should I say all denominations. But in the end, I’m the one who gets it done. My ability gets it done. This is what I was put on this earth to do. For me, I can’t speak for anybody else. I can only speak from my perspective. From what I know about how entities work, and I have been doing this for awhile – it’s definitely not my first rodeo – it really works on energy. We walk around with a baseline energy, or baseline frequency, if you will. This is comprised of how we speak to ourselves, what our self talk is, how we talk to other people. Basically, how conscious we are about everything, other people, and the things in this world. For example, if you were to look at it on a scale of 1-10, with one being dead and ten being Buddha, most people are around a four. Whenever we work on ourselves, we start to raise our vibrations; we can start to become better. But, of course, this process takes time. But what really hits us hard is when we experience trauma. This has the opposite effect on us, causing negative things. Things that feed on this negative energy come in and attach themselves to us.

HF: Typically, when a priest performs an exorcism, they claim authority through the name of Christ. I’m curious to know how you’re able to gain dominion over a demon?

RS: It’s not a Christ compulsion. Really, what it is is stepping into your power. When you think about it, when a priest is performing an exorcism, they’re using all of their belief system to push the entity out. When they do this based on Christ, they feel strong, powerful; they’re getting the job done. It’s not different for me at all. I tell people that when they feel something coming in that they think is not a part of themselves, or feels foreign, they need to tell that “shit to fuck off.” It’s the same idea of stepping into one’s power, raising your vibration in that moment and moving yourself into a place where you tell yourself you’re not going to allow this to take control of you.  

HF: How many exorcisms have you performed?

RS: I don’t really keep an official record, but in my ten plus years of doing this, I have performed over thousands of exorcisms. They have not just specifically been of people, but a combination of both people and places, which is what you see me do at the end of the special when I focused primarily on cleansing the location.

HF: How do people come to utilize your services?

RS: People usually find me if they sense that something is going on and that they need my help. With spaces, I get contacted about spaces all the time. Most spaces that are associated with entities are those that tend to have higher foot traffic. These spaces tend to contain entities that are higher up on the chain of hierarchy. They’re looking to feed in mass quantities. These entities usually inhabit places like hotels, or any higher place where there are a lot of people walking through it and massive trauma happened there. One particular space I exorcised was an ex-slaughter house that was being used as a movie set.

HF: Speaking of hotels, during the special Jodie mentions having recently visited the infamous Cecil Hotel, but you caution her about going there, citing that there is something dangerous inside the hotel. Can you tell us if you have any plans for the hotel?

RS: I do have plans for the Cecil Hotel, but unlike the case of the location in this special, I would not take other people with me when I go there; that’s too much for someone to handle. See, with this particular location in the special, I went ahead of time because I wanted to see what was in the space. I wanted to go through to get a sense of who and what was there to determine if it was safe enough to bring other people in.  The Cecil Hotel is not safe for other people.

HF: What’s the difference between an entity and a spirit?

RF: Entities have never been living people. Deceased people (spirits) at most can be annoyances, gregarious, basically all the things they were in life. But they don’t really possess you. Most deceased people are not interested in that. They’re just trying to get people’s attention. They have messages for their loved ones. Sometimes they come across as being scary even when they’re not trying to be. Entities, on the other hand, don’t want to be found. They’re not what you would call “movie style” entities. They don’t want to make a big production of their possession because then someone is going to figure out there is something going on. The longer someone doesn’t realize they got something going on, the longer it can feed.

HF: How does someone become possessed by a demon/entity?

RS: It really depends on where you’re at. The higher the frequency, the less there is for the entity to feed on. It’s very simple, actually, and most people will say that it seems too easy. But let me tell you, spirits are easy; it’s the living that are more complicated. People have a tendency to overcomplicate things. If there’s nothing to feed on, then the entity can’t stick around. It’s looking for something to make worse. There are a variety of different entities in the world that do different things, but all of them have the same goal in that they’re looking for something to manipulate, something that they can feed on. Unfortunately, it’s kind of a double-edged sword. You’re already going through something and now you have to think about this.

HF: What is it like when an entity attaches itself to a person? Is it anything like we see in film?

RS: Most people who have attachments, it’s not like how it is in film. It’s smaller than that, more subtle. In some cases, people don’t necessarily know what’s wrong with them; they just know they feel off. I’ve had people come to me because they feel blocked, they have addictions, can’t conceive. There are a lot of other ways that entities work.

HF: Is there anything you can do to safeguard yourself from an entity attaching itself to you?

RS: I teach people the thirty days connection of spirit. It’s a way to help these people raise their vibration. Once you get to that place, you are able to connect to spirit more easily and also have more conscious awareness of an entity.

HF: Can an entity come back?

RS: It depends. Usually, it’s not the same entity. It might be the same species of entity, but this all depends on how you keep yourself.  

HF: Most people have never had the opportunity to see a demon/entity other than fictionalized accounts on TV or in film. Can you describe what one looks like?

RS: It depends on the entity. There are many different kinds of entities. I do go over all these things in more detail in my book, but what I can tell you is that they don’t look human. Some try to take on more human aspects because they’re trying to convince you that they’re something they’re not. The entities themselves can range anywhere from looking like “blob things” to appearing as large as a building. I have whole chapters in my book of what they look like, so if you are curious to know more, that’s all in there.

HF: What made you want to do this special?

RS: It was an interesting idea because I love to help people find their way back to their spiritual gifts. We’re all born with abilities that we tend to unlearn as we get older. We’re taught it’s not real and you shouldn’t have these abilities. I have always been someone who loves to work with people to bring them back to that space. I want people be able to embrace their spiritual talents, like being able to communicate with spirits. All these great things that I get to experience, that truth be told if other people accepted about themselves, they would be so much happier because they would be able to talk to their deceased love ones and friends.

HF: What was the purpose behind putting these celebrities through a boot camp?                                    

RS: I thought if we were going to be going into these “dark places” with high spiritual energy, they needed to be in tune with that connection because, make no mistake, what we’re doing is dangerous. I wanted to be able to keep them safe while going through this craziness. In the end, they were fantastic and did a wonderful job. I didn’t want them to go into the specific location for their second task. The reason behind this was because it was a very dark space, but I wanted them to know the difference between positive and negative feelings.

HF: So as not to reveal the secret of the undisclosed location, I will refrain from mentioning it by name. What made you decide to choose this specific location? Also, I couldn’t find any mention of recorded deaths that occurred within the location. Can you shed some light on some of the events that occurred within its walls?

RS: People have reported experiencing a lot of things in that particular space that they can’t explain. It’s actually a well-known place of paranormal phenomenon, but nobody has ever been able to figure out why. There’s never been much documented on it, but what is known is that the location passed through a lot of hands, with many reporting that they couldn’t live there. What I did was I went in and actually checked for myself what has happening there. It’s important to remember that places can be haunted, but not every place that’s haunted has an entity present. There has to be a significant reason why that entity is there. What I did by going in was I actually got the opportunity to speak with the spirits in the home and get the undocumented history of the location. Through that process, I was able to learn about the entity inhabiting the home and found that there’s a lot going on inside its walls that nobody ever could have known about. All the information I learned is going to be shared in the special

HF: In the special, Jodie was given what seemed like a difficult task. Was there any risk involved in her entering that specific room?

RS: Yes. We talked about that beforehand. She is kind of a risk taker but, again, that’s why I wanted her to know the difference between what feels right and wrong. Because once you open yourself up to know what feels correct and what feels wrong for you, you make better decisions. You need to be mindful of entering a space that could potentially be spiritually dangerous to you, which that space was.   

HF: In the special, we see you moving into these rooms without any hesitation, when prior to this we see our celebrities too afraid to even step one foot inside these rooms. How are you able to knowingly walk into a place where others are too afraid to go?    

RS: I cannot be afraid. This is my job. I suspended any of my own fears until after I’m done because you have to be in a very specific mind space. Showing fear would allow yourself to become susceptible to the entity’s influence. And besides, nobody wants to see a scared exorcist. 

HF: You mentioned a specific entity as a “collector” that was inhabiting the unidentified location. You mentioned that this particular entity was using the spirits like batteries to power itself. Can you shed some more light on this particular entity?

RS: A “collector” is a type of entity that only holds space in a place where mass trauma occurred. What a “collector” does is it utilizes the souls of the deceased people that don’t want to move on or think that they can’t. The “collector” uses them to scare the living, which is why they are places of high traffic, because what they really want is the energy from something that’s alive, not from someone who’s deceased. 

HF: How specifically does cleansing a home release the spirits?

RS: It actually doesn’t. There’s a lot more work that goes into it. What you have to do is work with the spirits first to let them go on their own. It’s a long process where you have to go through each deceased person who feels trapped, stuck, or traumatized and work with them to let them go, and have a conversation with them to convince them to leave the space so there’s no battery for the entity. From there, you can get to the entity.  

HF: What are these conversations like?

RS: In these conversations, you have to remember that you’re addressing spirits that are deeply traumatized in all aspects. It’s about convincing them that the trauma they have been experiencing over the many, many years they have been in this space is far worse than where they are going. 99% of the time, this works.

HF: Will we have the opportunity to see any of these conversations you had with the deceased spirits?

RS: There was so much going on in terms of getting that exorcism done because, for me – I know it’s also for television – but for me, it’s about the work. Once I start the work, I cannot stop until it’s finished. They kind of had to run around me. I’m sure there’s a lot of things in that special that won’t be shown or can’t’ be shown, so I can’t say for certain what will be in the special.   

HF: What is it like talking to deceased people?

RS: Deceased people don’t shut up. They constantly want attention and also want to tell you things. They always want you to know they’re around. They are trying to give you messages. Sometimes it’s strange because they want to share with you how they died. Other times, they want you to pass on messages for them to their loved ones to know they’re OK.  

HF: What about talking to an entity?

RS: I don’t talk to demons. I literally destroy any trace of them.

HF: What are you working on next?

RS: I currently have a scripted series in development over at FX right now that I’m really excited about. One of my other goals is also to do a series in which I go into the darkest places on earth and cleanse them. When you go to places like we did in this special and cleanse them, it makes such a big shift in the world. All of those spaces are affecting people on a large scale. The more we can heal this trauma, the better off we’ll all be.

We at Horror Facts would like to thank Rachel for taking the time to chat with us and share some insight into her work as an exorcist and her upcoming special.

Remember to check out ‘Celebrity Exorcism’ premiering October 22, 2021 only on Tubi.  

You can check out the trailer for the film below.

You can learn more about Rachel’s story as “Hollywood’s premier exorcist” in her best-selling memoir (“Sister of Darkness,” Harper Collins). It discusses how she became who she is – the person most trusted by rock icons and Academy Award winners to cleanse the darkness that consumes them.

You can also follow Rachel Stavis on Instagram: @rhstavis