Hostage To The Devil Read online

  Some of the most common disposing factors have been with us for a long time, while others are of more recent vintage. Some are in the nature of “instruments” outside the individual—the Ouija Board, for example, and the Spiritual Seance. Others are in the nature of “attitudes,” whether taught or self-learned, that are interiorized by the person—Transcendental Meditation and the Enneagram Method are two of the most prominent in this category.

  In the context of Possession, all disposing factors produce within a person a condition of those two faculties of soul—mind and will—that is most aptly described as an aspiring vacuum. Vacuum, because there is created an absence of clearly defined and humanly acceptable concepts for the mind. Aspiring, because there is a corresponding absence of clearly defined and humanly acceptable goals for the will.

  In the case of the Ouija Board, or that of the Seance or TM or the Enneagram Method, the participants must dispose themselves precisely with a view to being opened up; to becoming desirous and accepting of whatever happens along.

  The very term, Ouija, for example, is a display of this opening up for the term is composed of the French and German words—Oui and Ja—for Yes. The attitude of the participant in Ouija is literally “Yes, yes.” The mind is to be made receptive to whatever suggestions or concepts are presented. If participants also dispose their wills to accept those concepts and act on them, then the predisposing circuit is complete. The aspiring vacuum is operative and is powerful enough to flood the mind with appropriate concepts that can make a l>id for the will's assent.

  Often enough, the mind and the will are opened up in precisely I his fashion in view of Possession.

  Among the vast array of disposing factors likely to lead to Possession, the Enneagram Method is nowadays far and away the most common and pernicious. Given the general state of religion, it is not surprising that the Method's popularity is enormously enhanced by its having been enthusiastically adopted and propagated by Catholic theologians and teachers from the major religious Orders-Jesuit, Dominican, and Franciscan—and by some of the official organs used by the bishops of the United States and Canada charged with teaching religious doctrine to young and adult Catholics.

  Moreover, because the Enneagram Method is currently presented as an authorized teaching of the North American Forum on the Catechumenate—the body that supplies to the parishes and dioceses of the United States and Canada precisely those materials intended to bring communities and individuals to maturity of faith—the Method penetrates the full fabric of religious belief and participation, literally from cradle to grave.

  So effective has the Enneagram Method become in strangling genuine Catholic faith, that it is now considered by some as the most lethal threat to date in the campaign being waged to liquidate orthodox Catholic belief among the faithful.

  True to its name—enneagram means “nine points,” or “marks”—the Enneagram is a nine-pointed mandala-type figure within a circle. The mandala character of the Enneagram is meant to represent the lotus and, as described by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, is “a symbol depicting the endeavor to reunite the self.”

  The Enneagram came to the West from a now dead Asianic spiritual master, George Ivanovich Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff claimed in turn that it originated with the Sufi Masters of Islam. It reached the United States via “spiritual teachers” in Chile, Bolivia, and Peru and in the early 1970s was first broadcast here from the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, and Loyola University in Chicago. There is now abundant literature on the subject.

  According to Enneagram teaching, there are exactly nine types of human personality, each of which is represented by one of the nine points of the Enneagram figure. Each human being is inalterably confined to one, and only one, of those personality types. But within his or her type, each person is infinitely self-perfectible.

  Two characteristics of the Enneagram Method comprise moral teachings that are irreconcilable with the basic moral teachings of Catholics in particular and Christians in general.

  The basic presumption presented to the mind by the Enneagram Method is that each individual is self-perfectible, morally speaking, within that individual's personality type.

  This presumption is in reality a late revival of an ancient heresy known as Pelagianism. It is at odds with the basic Christian teaching that we absolutely depend on the action of divine grace for all moral perfection. Of ourselves, we are helpless. Not only are we not infinitely self-perfectible; we will never of ourselves even escape the grip of our sinful nature. Only supernatural grace enables us to do that. And that grace is simply gratuitous on God's part.

  The teaching of the Enneagram Method cuts both God and his grace out of the loop. In fact, there is no longer any loop at all. The individual is cut off from effective knowledge of his or her dependence on God and his supernatural grace for ultimate perfection. He or she is confined to an inalterable personality type, which has been laid out by Enneagram Masters.

  The second faulty moral characteristic of the Enneagram Method completes the damage caused by the first. Having fatalistically accepted one's own category, the participant is dependent for perfection on the Enneagramatic exercises suitable for one's personality type. In other words, the soul of the Enneagram disciple is opened out and made docile, with the goal of receiving the promised self-knowledge congruent with his or her type. The soul becomes an apt and classic receptor—an aspiring vacuum—ready for the approach of an intending Possessor.

  In such a setting, the intending Possessor may come as what St. Paul described with dramatic precision as an Angel of Light. But the danger is all the more insidious for that. For in such a situation, the condition commonly called “perfect Possession” may be the result.

  As the term implies, a victim of perfect Possession is absolutely controlled by evil and gives no outward indication, no hint whatsoever, of the demonic residing within. He or she will not cringe, as others who are Possessed will, at the sight of such religious symbols as a crucifix or a Rosary. The perfectly Possessed will not bridle at the touch of Holy Water, nor hesitate to discuss religious topics with equanimity.

  If convicted of crimes against the law, such a victim will frequently acknowledge “guilt,” and even the moral “badness” of the acts committed. More often than not, such a person will petition that his physical life be forfeited; that he be executed for his crimes. Thus, in his own way, he voices the insistent Satanist preference for death over life, and the fixated desire to join the Prince in his kingdom.

  Because there is no will left to call the victim's own—and because some part of the victim's will is necessary for any hope of successful Exorcism—remedy is unlikely to succeed even in the event the Possession should somehow be uncovered and verified as the problem.

  In a very real sense, all of us—the Possessed, the professionals who must so frequently deal with them; the parents who fear for their children; everyone who lives in a society degraded by happenings that were only recently unimaginable to us—all are in the same boat.

  Even such a sober-sided and rationally minded publication as The New York Times sees fit from time to time to print the most somber laments and predictions. Take, for example, the March 15, 1992, article by Robert Stone in which he says flatly that “our nation signifies the virtual apotheosis of the interested self.” And in which he goes on to point out that “human nature rejects [self interest] as an end, requiring something higher and finer.” Then, speaking pointedly of the younger generations among us, Stone raises a bleak warning: “If we cannot furnish them with a cause beyond the realization of their individual desires, all [of America's] past successes may be rendered meaningless.”

  That is but one warning parents all across this land might well see fit to tack on the door of every recalcitrant bishop, every unbelieving churchman.

  They might justifiably tack on those doors as well a reminder of St. Paul's admonition to the sorcerer Elymas. On the pretext of instructing Sergius Paulus, “a prudent ma
n,” Elymas attempted instead to corrupt him. Never one to suffer such duplicity or to mince words, always prepared to bare his own soul, Paul, we are told, “filled with the Holy Ghost,” rounded against the pretender. “Oh, full of all guile and of all deceit”—Paul said that day—“son of the devil, enemy of all justice, you do not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord.”

  Yet, surely the most important reminder to our churchmen is also the simplest and the most direct. A reminder of the admonition of Christ himself to his Apostles as they were beset in their little boat by the fury of a storm on Lake Gennesaret: “How is it that you have no faith?”

  Of the five Exorcees whose cases are recounted in Hostage to the Devil, none was perfectly Possessed. Hence, they were all apt subjects for the Rite of Exorcism. Their fortunes and lives have varied considerably since their individual Exorcisms. None fell back into Possession.

  Marianne K. took training as a dental technician, married, and lived for nearly seventeen years. She died of cancer in the early 1980s.

  Jonathan Yves is retired from the active priesthood. He entered the field of computers for a time, but has since abandoned that work and now lives with relatives. He never married.

  Richard O. led a very active life as a counselor and therapist for a number of years in the United States before he migrated to Europe, where he died at the end of the last decade.

  Jamsie Z. pursued his career in radio and is now semi-retired as the president of a company he founded.

  Carl V. tested his religious vocation in more than one monastery before he decided to live almost as a hermit in a remote part of the United States. More than the other four Excorcees described in Hostage to the Devil, Carl attained what more than one of his acquaintances readily call holiness. In the last two or three years of his life, he was graced with a special insight into the spiritual anguish of men and women who sought him out for counsel. Many of them speak of the radiance in his look and the power he had to bring peace to troubled minds.

  Of the Exorcists who presented themselves as hostages to Satan for the liberation of his victims, Father Peter, Father David M., and Father Gerald are dead. Father Mark A. is living in a home for retired priests. Father Hartney F. may be the only one to reach the age of one hundred. Still living and retired to a nursing home, Father Hartney is afflicted with severe arthritis and is able to say Mass only with intense difficulty.

  All five of these Exorcists trained several other men and included in their instruction the wisdom and the selflessness needed for anyone who would voluntarily give himself as hostage in order to liberate another from the bondage of Possession.

  The epitaph on the tombstone of the gentle Father Gerald is testimony to the vocation of all these men, and it is witness to the source of their strength. For that epitaph is from the mouth of the loving Lord in whose glory Gerald now rests: “Greater love than this no man hath, than that a man lay down his life for his friend.”

  Malachi Martin,

  New York, April 1992

  How are you fallen from Heaven,

  Lucifer! Son of the Dawn!

  Cut down to the ground!

  And once you dominated the peoples!

  Didn't you say to yourself:

  I will be as high as Heaven!

  I will be more exalted than the stars of God!

  I will, indeed, be the supreme leader!

  In the privileged places!

  I will be higher than the Skies!

  I will be the same as the Most High God!

  But you shall be brought down to Hell, to the bottom of its pit. And all who see you, will despise you. . .

  —Isaiah 14:12-19

  . . . “Lord! In your name, even evil spirits are under our control!”

  And He said to them: “I saw Satan falling like lightning from Heaven.

  You know: I gave you power. . . over all the strength of Satan. . .

  Nevertheless, don't take pride in the fact that spirits are subject to your control, but, rather, because you belong to God. . .

  The Father has given Me all power. . .”

  —Luke 10:17-22

  Michael Strong

  When the search party reached the disused grain store known locally as Puh-Chi (One Window), the bombing of Nanking was at its height. The night sky was bright with incandescent flares and filled with explosions. Japanese incendiaries were wreaking havoc on Nanking's wooden buildings. It was December 11, 1937, about 10:00 P.M. The Yangtze delta all the way down to the sea was in Japanese hands. From Shanghai on the coast to within two miles of Nanking was a devastated area on which death had settled like a permanent atmosphere. Nanking was next on the invaders' list. And defenseless. December 13 was to be its death date.

  For one week the police of a southern Nanking city precinct had been looking for Thomas Wu. The charge: murder of at least five women and two men in the most horrible circumstances: Thomas Wu, the story was, had lolled his victims and eaten their bodies. At the end of one week's fruitless searching, Father Michael Strong, the missionary parish priest of the district, who had baptized Thomas Wu, sent word unexpectedly that he had found the wanted man in the barnlike Puh-Chi. But the police captain did not understand the message Father Michael had sent him: “I am conducting an exorcism. Please give me some time.”[1]

  The main door of Puh-Chi was ajar when the police chief arrived. A small knot of men and women stood watching. They could see Father Michael standing in the middle of the floor. Over in one corner there was another figure, a young, naked man, suddenly ravished by an unnatural look of great age, a long knife in his hands. On the shelves around the inner walls of the storehouse lay rows and rows of naked corpses in various stages of mutilation and putrefaction.

  “YOU!!” the naked man was screaming as the police captain elbowed his way to the door, “YOU want to know MY name!” The words “you” and “my” hit the captain like two clenched fists across the ears. He saw the priest visibly wilt and stagger backward. But, even so, it was the voice that made the captain wonder. He had known Thomas Wu. Never had he heard him speak with such a voice.

  “In the name of Jesus,” Michael began weakly, “you are commanded. . .”

  “Get outta here! Get the hell outta here, you filthy old eunuch!”

  “You will release Thomas Wu, evil spirit, and. . .”

  “I'm taking him with me, pigmy,” came the voice from Thomas Wu. “I'm taking him. And no power anywhere, anywhere, you hear, can stop us. We are as strong as death. No one stronger! And he wants to come! You hear? He wants to!”

  “Tell me your name. . .”

  The priest was interrupted by a sudden roaring. No one there could say later how the fire started. An incendiary? A spark carried by the wind from burning Nanking? It was like a sudden, noisy ambush sprung by a silent signal. In a flash the fire had jumped up, a living red weed running around the sides of the storehouse, along the curved roof, and across the wooden floor by the walls.

  The police captain was already inside, and he gripped Father Michael by the arm, pulling him outside.

  The voice of Wu pursued them over the noise: “It's all one. Fool! We're all the same. Always were. Always.”

  Michael and the captain were outside by then and turned around to listen.

  “There's only one of us. One. . .”

  The rest of the sentence was drowned in a sudden outburst of flaming timbers.

  Now, the glass rectangle of the single window was darkening over with smoke and grime. In a few minutes it would be impossible to see anything. Michael lurched over and peered in. Against the window he could see Thomas' face plastered for an instant of fixed, grinning agony a horrible picture, a Bosch nightmare come alive.

  Long, quickly lashing tongues of flame were licking at Thomas' temples, neck, and hair. Through the hissing and crackling of the fire, Michael could hear Thomas laughing, but very dimly, almost lost to I lie ear. Between the flames he could see the shelves with their gray-white load of corpses. Som
e were melting. Some were burning. Eyes oozing out of sockets like broken eggs. Hair burning in little tufts. First, fingers and toes and noses and ears, then whole limbs and torsos melting and blackening. And the smell. God! That smell!

  Then the fixity of Thomas' grin broke; his face seemed to be replaced by another face with a similar grin. At the top speed of a kaleidoscope, a long succession of faces came and went, one flickering after the other. All grinning. All with “Cain's thumbprint on the chin,” as Michael described the mark that haunted him for the rest of his life. Every pair of lips was rounded into the grinning shape of Thomas' last word: “one!” Faces and expressions Michael never had known. Some he imagined he knew. Some he knew he imagined. Some he had seen in history books, in paintings, in churches, in newspapers, in nightmares. Japanese, Chinese, Burmese, Korean, British, Slavic. Old, young, bearded, clean-shaven. Black, white, yellow. Male, female. Faster. Faster. All grinning with the same grin. More and more and more. Michael felt himself hurtling down an unending lane of faces, decades and centuries and millennia ticking by him, until the speed slowed finally, and the last grinning face appeared, wreathed in hate, its chin just one big thumbprint.

  Now the window was completely black Michael could see nothing. “Cain. . .” he began to say weakly to himself. But a stablike realization stopped the word in his throat, just as if someone had hissed into his inner ear: “Wrong again, fool! Cain's father. I. The cosmic Father of Lies and the cosmic Lord of Death. From the beginning of the beginning. I. . . I. . . I. . . I. . . I. . .”

  Michael felt a sharp pain in his chest. A strong hand was around his heart stifling its movement, and an unbearable weight lay on his chest, bending him over. He heard the blood thumping in his head and then loud, roaring winds. A dazzling flash of light burst across his eyes. He slumped to the ground.