WARNING: SOME STORIES MAY CONTAIN DISTURBING SCENES
THE HAND OF GOD
I believe in God. As an ex-priest I would, of course. But whilst the existence of God is, to me, a certainty, I suppose the reason I'm an ex-priest concerns what kind of certainty God's existence is.
What an incredible question that would be to answer - to know the mind of God. But for most of us we either ignore the question or take the literal truth of the Bible, that most bloody of books.
So what kind of existence IS God's? Is he a reality as identified in the Bible? Or rather, is he a thought? But a thought so powerful, so omnipotent, and placed so absolutely in people's minds, that he becomes a reality through their actions?
It had been a long time since I had asked the question when Michael Jones came to see me. He sat before my desk a troubled soul. I had known him for many years, and had been inspired by his belief in God. That he had, eventually, lost his faith had been evident a long time ago. It was I, indeed, who had tried to restore it following his Mission in Africa. But the things he had seen - the corpses, the violence, the hell on Earth - had convinced him there was no room for a God's Creation in our world.
Michael Jones had affected me, then. For I suppose his case had been the first step to my fall from the Church. For if God could cause such disillusion in so believing a soul, there was little hope for the rest of us.
'So why have you come to see me?' I asked as he sat there.
It was natural enough for me to think he had come close to evil and needed my assistance; to wash it away; maybe rejuvenate his love of God. So you can imagine my shock when he told me he had found God once more but wanted to be free of It.
'To be free? Of the love of God?'
'It isn't love,' he rasped, 'not for me. It's a curse.'
I shook my head in disbelief. 'Oh, Michael, how far you have gone to think God as cruel.'
'More than that,' he said. 'pure evil.'
I sat back behind my desk. 'Tell me about it,' I said, knowing he had to be wrong.
So he filled in the gaps of his life since the last time I had known him. I learnt of his crimes, his moral decline, his sexual perversions. They say that a reformed man becomes the exact opposite of what he was. And in Michael Jones, his fall from faith had caused a fall from moral humanity as he attempted to create his own hell on Earth, and enjoy it.
But this sort of life can never be fulfilling. It is not just Christianity that says this, but all religions. Man is never fulfilled without the spiritual. And the lives of those who are fully material - fully immoral - show the truth of it by their own self-destruction.
'But I was saved from total destruction,' said Michael Jones as he approached the end of his narrative.
'You were?'
'I had realised how deep into evil I had descended, and that there was no hope for me.' He paused, a mask of the greatest pain covering his face. 'So I knew I had to destroy myself. I took an overdose.'
'But you're still here,' I said.
'Yes. I am. And in my journey to near-death God came to me once more and I found the strength to fight for my life. It was a terrific experience, facing death and suddenly realising you don't want to die. Rather, with God's help, I wanted to repair the damage.'
'And with God's help, you won.'
'Oh yes,' said Michael Jones, 'but at a cost.'
At that, he held up his hand. Took off the tight glove that covered it. Revealed the deep, bleeding wound on his palm.
I sat back in shock. 'The Stigmata,' I said. 'The blood of Christ.'
Michael Jones had been honoured. Or at least, that is one way of taking it. Others would say Michael Jones had descended to such hysteria that the bleeding of his palm was psychological in nature. It is what I said about God at the beginning. Michael's burden was a reality, but from which certainty? That of a real God, or an omnipotent thought?
'It's a curse, my friend. A curse. And I want to be rid of it. Help me to be rid of it please!’
To fight the mark of Christ, or to ease a troubled mind? That was my dilemma. Yet, if the former, I could not be successful; but if the latter, then maybe I would know the reality of God.
I had been practising hypnosis of late and was becoming quite good, knowing what a powerful tool it could be for my work with evil. Hence, for several sessions Michael Jones returned for me to attempt to suggest away the wound. It was the fourth attempt when I was successful. Even through his trance the relief showed, and as I watched, the wound began to disappear.
Michael Jones thanked me from the bottom of his heart, but I found I could not shake his hand. I was too troubled for that, my understanding of what form of certainty God took still evading me. I could not shake his hand. And when he had gone, I sat on my chair, the pain of the experience filling my body. And as I held up my palm, I saw that the Stigmata was upon me.
© Anthony North, March 2002
THE EXORCISM
The nature of evil never ceases to fascinate. Perhaps that is why it is so great; why, whenever it appears, we are drawn to it; why we need to court it: why we need to try to understand and conquer it? But so often we misunderstand evil for something else? Or am I simply fooling myself?
Perhaps that is another facet of evil; its ability to hide itself behind a veneer of confusion. Or maybe it is that confusion that IS evil? But clearly, when Clive Cousins came into my office and sat in front of the desk, HE had a clear idea of what evil was. 'You've got to help us,' he said, his face drawn, a look of terror in his eyes, 'we can't go on any longer. We need help.'
'We', it turned out, was his family. His wife and three children.
'And what is the problem that is upsetting you so much?' I asked.
He began his story: 'We moved into the new house about three months ago. The first couple of weeks were fine. But then it started.'
'What started?' I interrupted.
'The knockings. In the middle of the night, we would be woken up by these knockings. I'd search all around the house, but I'd find nothing. Then they'd stop and I'd go back to bed. And then they'd start up again ... '
Ah! I thought to myself. A poltergeist. They were being troubled by a poltergeist. Whatever that was.
He continued:
'After a week or so, it got worse. The knockings would be accompanied by laughing; a weird, hysterical laughter which seemed to come from nowhere. But at the same time it was everywhere. And it spooked us terribly. We were no longer getting any sleep, see. We couldn't. Even when everything was quiet, we couldn't sleep, as if we were waiting for it to start.'
After the first month, he told me, it got worse:
'We'd already noticed how things seemed to be moved in the mornings, as if some unseen hand had been messing about in the middle of the night. But now, things would just fly across the room - ornaments, that sort of thing. And they seemed to be intelligently controlled, because they were aimed at us.'
I won't bore you with the rest of the narrative. It was a typical poltergeist, building up to new horrors all the time; and in this instance, Clive Cousins had come to me for help when the dark shadow began to appear, skulking in corners; and even when it didn’t appear, the whole family felt watched.
Over the next three days I went to the Cousins' house regularly, even spending a night, alone, downstairs whilst the family attempted to rest. During that night, nothing happened, and throughout my other visits I witnessed none of the phenomena they spoke of.
This is often the problem with poltergeists. They become shy when an outsider is in the house, making many researchers believe that the whole thing is made up - a figment of the imagination. But I didn't feel this, for I had noticed the high degree of tension and stress in the household. And I knew that such tension could easily cause the family to somehow manifest these phenomena themselves.
Most of my attention was directed towards Clive Cousins' thirteen year old daughter, Jessica, for I was well aware of the theory that it was usually a pubescent girl who was the centre of the chaos. Whether that was due to an unknown early sexual energy within the child, or sheer naughtiness, I wasn't sure. But I knew well that there were cases when a mischievous girl would begin by banging the central heating pipes to get attention. And from there, fear did the rest.
On the fourth day of my investigation, I DID hear the knockings, and realised they were coming from upstairs. Immediately I went upstairs and into Jessica's bedroom. And sure enough, there she was in the corner, crouched down, banging the pipes.
I sat on the bed. Said: 'Jessica, why are you doing this?'
She turned her manic, haunted eyes to me and said: 'Because I want to.'
'But you're frightening your family.'
'Maybe I want to. Maybe I hate them and want to kill them.' The mania grew in her eyes. 'Yes, maybe I'll kill them. And maybe I'll kill you.'
'You've got to stop it, Jessica,' I said. 'It's gone on long enough. Will you stop it?'
'If I must,' she said.
'You must.'
I left the room, then. Explained, briefly, what the problem had been. And although they didn't have any more trouble after I had confronted Jessica, there was one more shock for both them and me. The first hint came with Clive's troubled expression. Then came the words: 'But we've sent Jessica away to stay with an aunt.'
© Anthony North, March 2002