There was a time when people who exhibited abnormalities of behaviour, such as were at variance with the great majority of the general population, were believed to be possessed, or at least obsessed (or infested) by demonic spirits. In those days, the autonomy of the individual was far less respected than is the case nowadays; indeed it was seldom acknowledged as a fact in its own right, and the group as a whole was expected to follow a common route of belief and embrace a uniform tradition of behaviour. Therefore if a person moved sharply away from the common multitude on their own into an unusual channel of belief or action, there was a tendency to attribute this "backsliding" to an arcane influence working from a malicious source and producing strange, possibly evil, effects. These effects might be local to the person or else involve the community as a larger unit. The personal effects tended to isolate the individual, separating them from their peer group, so that they acted independently following their belief systems. These involved their own views of the compelling mysteries of life and immortality.
If their views and the behaviour that accrued from them were apparently beneficial or at least neutral, they were left in peace or even honoured on occasions; the prophetic tradition of the Bible is an arresting case in point. But sometimes the effects seemed to have a malign influence on the person from whom they emanated, or, worse still, on those in their vicinity. This type of contact is usually a directly personal one, but some especially psychically potent people could have a more widespread influence. The essence of such a bad effect is a feeling of malaise with an awareness of a subtle interruption of one's own cognitive and emotional functions. We shall consider this matter in chapter 3.
The psychic influence we all possess and emanate as part of our personality is integral to us as individuals. It is morally neutral; like the body with its odour or the intellect with its pungency and wit, it defines and illuminates our individuality. The word "psychic" conjures up in the imagination various occult, highly undesirable practices and phenomena including dabbling with spirits forbidden in the Scripture. This is, however, essentially the left-hand path into psychic practice, in rather the same way as physical violence hurts the body. "Surely you know that you are God's temple, where the Spirit of God dwells" is the way St Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 3.16, and dishonest behaviour sullies the workings and reputation of the mind. If we were to pursue this comparison, there is also a distinctly negative difference between physical and intellectual activity on the one hand and psychic activity on the other. Psychic power is far more insidious in its action than anything that is purely rational and its results are potentially far more dangerous, unless it is employed under the strict direction of the Holy Spirit. It is for this reason that the Bible repeatedly denounces trafficking in spirits (Leviticus 19.26, 31; 20.6, 27; Deuteronomy 18.10-12; Acts 8.11, 20-2).
My world-view is that of a central creative focus whom I call God, and who is a power of infinite intelligence and initiative to the extent of universal creation whose creatures can choose their own way of life. If they choose selfishly, they cause general havoc and destruction, whereas a choice of general concern blesses the whole community. The story of the Fall in Genesis 3 appears to substantiate this view, while my own experience in life as well as my reading of Scripture seem to confirm this historical perspective and the idea that selfishness leads to accidents. Evil spirits use their God-given free will selfishly and produce general mayhem or simply act out of ignorance. I do not know how, but their presence in all our lives, if left unattended, will engender increasing chaos, both personal and communal. I believe the spiritual realm is structured around God, the Divine Presence. The spiritual forces around God are both good and evil; the good bring creativity together (synthesis) while the evil tend to be separative. The forces are the angels of light and darkness, all of which emanate from God. The former transmit divine light to the creation with faith, hope and love; whereas the latter bring with them feelings of despair, distrust and self-centred concern. All this ensures that we keep alive day by day; our first duty is to keep alive until our immediate family and social tasks have been fulfilled.
The main topics of this book embrace exorcism and deliverance, psychic and spiritual fields of experience, the experience of the unquiet dead, psychic assaults, and demonic infestation including attacks on property and people. Finally, there are measures of deliverance of demonic agents and preventive measures against demonic attack. The psychic aspect of the personality constitutes the inner core that makes us unique to those who know us as people in our own right: as something more than that vast conglomeration of humans that are collectively called "the masses" by sociologists and politicians. If indeed we could be true to ourselves in the vast concourse of living creatures, of whom the human is the greatest in our world, we would set our stamp on God's work and play our full part in the evolution of society. Meister Eckhart remarked that God required our assistance no less than we required his. This work of transforming society under the divine direction is not forced or frenzied; on the contrary, we reveal ourselves best to others when we are relaxed; neither trying to impress anyone else nor putting up any resistance. In this degree of self surrender to the moment at hand, we can let down our defences and enjoy the world. This includes other people with their own psychic emanations and the wider powers that impinge on us from sources beyond this mortal world.
Jesus told his disciples to seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all the necessary things of the world would come to them also. He told them not to worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has trouble enough of its own (Matthew 6.33-4). Such trust in God's providence seems totally impractical, but in fact if we rest in him while working for the coming of the kingdom, our mental and spiritual horizons enlarge out of all previous proportions as we see how small is the space we occupy in the divine plan, and how we are cared for - once we can shift our consciousness beyond the confines of the ego to that of other people also.
And in this greater awareness we automatically divest ourselves of anxiety, in the process establishing our unique identity as finite people who bear the fruit of an immense creative impulse in the light of immortality around ourselves. This light is the Spirit of God especially illuminated and enriched by our own contribution to it.
The psychic aspect of our personality is what we begin to share with other people, in the first instance those with whom we find ourselves to be pleasantly in harmony. This is in fact the basis of friendship, which seems to descend on us like a precious gift of God. A so-called friendship that depends on sharing ideological or mental opinions and views is seldom stable and is liable, when the relationship is put under severe strain, to crack disastrously. There may be a subsequent healing but be that as it may, such a sequence of events shows both parties their lamentable lack of self-knowledge let alone their understanding of anyone else. It is hardly to be wondered at that many marriages sooner or later end in the divorce court. It is a truism that a newly married couple have to work on their marriage if it is to thrive, but in fact even before this there has to be a constant working on oneself.
Likewise, if one has to share accommodation with someone else after having lived alone for a long time, one's eyes ought to be open to various less attractive aspects of oneself (as well as those of the other person). These unattractive personality traits centre on selfishness in its various insidious manifestations, especially that one's own requirements should be met as promptly as possible. As the process of self revelation is assimilated, so one's eye is cast more and more accusingly on one's own inherent self centredness; after much heart-searching and inner humiliation one may increase immeasurably in spiritual strength. This process follows a deeper psychic contact with numerous other people whom one learns to respect and love for what they are as people in their own right. It is in this fashion that psychic expansion occurs on a basically human level.
But as this process continues, so does the power of God reveal itself more and more. This is shown by a great concern and love not only between two people but also among a considerable community with diverse mundane interests. I suspect that this process fertilized the lives of Jesus' earliest disciples as recorded in the opening chapters of the Acts of the Apostles. In this example a charismatic figure, indeed the Godhead in human revelation, brought the apostles together in an amazing communal synthesis: they never surrendered their identity while at the same time growing into a human formation that completely dwarfed their previous stature. In this amazing phenomenon we see psychic union attaining its apogee through the work of the Holy Spirit, so that the humans themselves begin to live, at least for a period, on the spiritual plane.
If we consider the means of human relationship, we begin to share ourselves with other people by bodily union, of which sexual intercourse is simply one form, albeit a very intimate one. It can become an instrument of hatred just as easily as one of affection. If our sharing is more profound we proceed to communicate our thoughts and ideas to other people intellectually also, but here again there is a variable degree of commitment and withdrawal. When we are able to trust ourselves more profoundly, we can give and receive equally fully so that our communication can move beyond physical and mental barriers. At this point we begin to know the other person - and many other matters also - by direct intuition, which has been described by C. G. Jung as communication by means of the unconscious. This, I believe, is how we communicate psychically, and how we are put in contact with sources of the past and future that are outside rational knowledge.
The connecting link between these three ways of human relationship is the fourth, which is the presence of God, the Holy Spirit. While we are open and obedient to this perfectly spiritual influence it is important to understand that we will still have to bear "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune", as Shakespeare puts it in Hamlet 3.3. 59 in the famous soliloquy. Obedience to the good does not exempt us from savage attacks by the evil, and many may be killed in age-old holocausts. But life is something more than temporal satisfaction; it is nothing less than the growth of the person into the stature of the perfect individual as seen most majestically in the person of Christ. Did not Jesus tell his disciples, "In the world you will have suffering. But take heart! I have conquered the world" (John 16.33)? Dame Julian of Norwich was told much the same over thirteen hundred years later: "He did not say you will not have a difficult time, you will never bear severe strain, you will never feel severe discomfort. But he did say you will never be overcome" (Revelation 68). The uncomfortable truth is that we do grow through suffering, but the end of the process is a renewed person able to contribute to the welfare of the whole community in a new way.
Returning once more to the theme that opened this chapter - that people whose belief systems or behaviour patterns were distinctly different from those of the majority of their peers were believed to be subject to the influence of evil, or at least alien entities - the current attitude is that these people are mentally ill and in need of specialized psychiatric help. Psychic influences from afar are no longer a tenable premise except among very unusual practitioners, for nearly all mental disturbance is recognized as being secondary to cerebral disturbance on the one hand and the effects of past experience on the present attitude of the person (producing various adverse emotional states) on the other. This point of view is certainly much more convenient than invoking far less substantial psychical, or paranormal, and spiritual categories of classification. But can they be summarily disregarded without doing injustice to the human personality as a whole and our own experience in particular? In the end we have to make our own judgement, moving between the two polarities of personal prejudice and superstition on the one hand and intellectual assurance with its arrogance on the other. Ultimately experience is our only teacher - we can only judge the skill of a professional teacher by the effect the person has upon our inner intuition of truth (Matthew 7.28-9) - but it must be correlated by being compared with the experience of other people. This point of reference is put into a scientific framework by the collection of data and noting whether they correspond with each other. If a group of people claiming roughly comparable experiences that are quite unusual in quality are nevertheless able to communicate with each other and the remainder of the community, it is reasonable to deduce that they are mentally healthy to the extent of being of special use to the community. If, on the other hand, their experiences, whether misinterpreted or true, lead them to overestimate their own qualities and denigrate those of other people, then they are in a dangerous state of psychic inflation and need urgent deliverance from what is invading them.
If we can begin to perceive the ministry of deliverance in these terms, we are coming to something thoroughly practical and no longer merely couched in medieval superstition. The condition of individual psychic inflation, often combined with a tendency to denigrate the powers of other people, can easily proceed to an "obsessional belief system", in which a considerable number of people may be involved. The obsessional belief system can assume a quasi-physical character, traditionally and loosely called a "ghost", but this can usually be exorcised by a capable minister of deliverance quite easily, once the people involved are appraised of the situation and move beyond addictive fascination to the lower psychic levels of communication. I am incidentally not implying that all obsessional systems are primarily self induced. I have little doubt that many impinge on and invade the person from outside their immediate psychic proximity. But they would produce a far less baneful effect on a psychically healthy, strong person, more able to cope with their own personal problems and those of people who relate closely to them. What I am saying was put far more succinctly and cogently by St Paul to his Ephesian disciples. "Speak the truth to each other, for we belong to one another" (Ephesians 4.25). Thoughts on a similar theme were written by John Donne in his Devotions. Good examples are, "No man is an Island, entire of it self"; "Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee"; "But I do nothing upon my self, and yet I am mine own Executioner."
In our brief life on earth we all have much to learn. I know one thing only; love overcomes all things whereas fear leads to hatred, which is a monstrously destructive emotion, never so dreadful as when it has a religious basis. This fear can easily work through psychic phenomena, and the hatred that is stirred up can set up a terrible chain reaction. Many of the most awful deeds in human history have been brought about by psychical activities devoid of a spiritual basis. But when God is truly in control, his presence is shown by a selfless concern for one's neighbour, who, in the teaching of Jesus, includes everyone (Luke 10.29-37).
A last thought is one of value judgements. The spiritual leads us in our personal quest to the knowledge of God, while the psychical brings us closer together both as people and as living forces in our world. The intellectual helps us to develop our personal gifts and potentialities for our own benefit and that of others also, while the physical gives us a body to use for earthly life moment by moment. It is through the physical body that we live, at least temporarily in our world, where we gain so much experience for our onward trail. Therefore although the spiritual level may be the highest of the four, it is in no way the most important. All that God has given us is equally valuable and important.
I must add a final caveat: this is a description of my way of working, not a blueprint for others to follow, even if it challenges all of my readers to a greater degree of spiritual discipline, whether they are practising a deliverance ministry or not.