Beware the Night (18 page)

My face darkened at this.
There ought to be a law against these evil, occult “toys”!
Keeping my feelings in check, I told Tony that the object he was describing was called a planchette.

“Nothing exciting happened,” he continued. “We asked it questions and it gave us the answers, but they weren’t very interesting or dramatic.”

A few days later he learned that his girlfriend’s father was seriously ill. Tony was very close with this man and, being such a sensitive person, got extremely upset. Like many teenagers, he began to wonder about life and death.

A woman he met a few days later claimed she had the answer, and started to tell him about Christian Science. He brushed her off at first but later read the literature she gave him. Christian Scientists believe that Jesus came to save us not just from sin but also from illness and death. According to this religion, the methods Christ and His disciples used to heal the sick and raise the dead can be used in modern times, so followers of this faith shouldn’t go to a doctor but to a Christian Science practitioner to regain health or to solve any personal or financial problems they might have.

That resonated with Tony, now that his girlfriend’s father was so ill. He tried to will the old man back to health, but when that didn’t work—and the father died—he was bitterly disappointed and turned away from Christian Science.

But Tony was still spiritually hungry, and wanted more than ever to know what the world was all about. He felt that something was missing from his own existence and was thus captivated when he saw an ad in a magazine proclaiming “Learn the Mysteries of Life!” This was precisely his goal, so he sent money to the address in the ad and received “initiation” instructions from the Rosicrucians, also known as the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (Latin for “rose cross”). Headquartered in California, this group promises to unlock secret wisdom from the ages, banish fears and frustration, enrich the human spirit, and open the door to self-mastery. They claim to accomplish this by revealing the workings of mysterious natural laws through which an initiate can turn wishes and daydreams into reality. If that’s not grandiose enough, they also tout their teachings as the path to improve memory, increase health, influence other people, learn the truth about reincarnation, decipher ancient symbols, and ultimately obtain cosmic consciousness.

The training course Tony received advised studying “first-degree” Rosicrucian doctrine for six weeks, then initiating himself into the order with a secret rite. He was told to darken a room, surround himself with lighted candles, and stare into a mirror. As instructed, he then traced a five-inch cross on the glass while intoning “Hail Holy Cross.” This was followed by precisely three minutes of meditation. The use of a looking glass for mystical rituals is known as “crystalmancy,” or “magic mirror” divination, and has a long history. St. Augustine wrote of witches who wrote prophecies on mirrors in human blood, and ancient Roman oracles used reflective surfaces in a rite called “speculum” to forecast the victors in upcoming battles. Magic mirrors have also been used for sorcery—and are now sold over the Internet.

By dabbling in the occult, Tony was attempting to fill a void—and soon enough, his gnawing, adolescent hunger
was
filled, by a demon. He didn’t think he had anything to fear, though. “I felt it was safe to play around with these things, because at the church I went to, they told us the Devil doesn’t exist.”

After completing the initiation ritual, he sat down to his calculus homework—and was overcome by bizarre sensations: “I suddenly felt like I’d been injected with a drug. When I looked at the sheet of paper I’d been writing on, it wasn’t a sheet of paper anymore. It seemed like I was looking
through
it and seeing the infinite makeup of that piece of paper and all of creation. I remember thinking ‘Where am I?’ But it seemed so ridiculous. Was I going crazy? I knew I
wasn’t
crazy: I was a good student, getting good grades. I was involved in music, making recordings, and should be happy, since I was doing everything that pleased me.”

I didn’t doubt that Tony was telling me the truth, but I saw that he was a troubled person who had gone down some dark roads in his quest for answers. He had more to say about that experience in his room. “My mind was bombarded with questions, but they weren’t my
own
questions.”

What were they? Tugging at his clothing more anxiously than ever, he said, “They were questions like ‘How is it that matter exists? How is it that
anything
exists?’” He said he considered these legitimate questions, but only if they actually came from his own intellect. “But these questions were alien and frightening. I even questioned the existence of God. I felt I was being programmed like a computer, by whom or what I didn’t know.”

Tony’s words were setting off alarm bells. Maybe this man really didn’t know, but I did. I saw a strong correlation with a case Father Malachi Martin had written about in
Hostage to the Devil.
This man, called Carl V. in the book, was a psychologist who opened himself up to possession by delving into parapsychology to learn about the true origins of Christianity. The parallel between the two cases was the method the evil spirit used to attack. Like Tony, Carl V. was engaged in his studies when his consciousness changed in a single moment. He lost all physical sense of his surroundings: He was no longer
looking
at them but somehow
participating
in them. As he described it, he
knew
every object he saw in its entirety, just as Tony
knew
the “infinite makeup” of a sheet of paper.

The difference was in the two men’s desires. While Tony longed to know the mysteries of life, Carl V. wanted to know the mysteries of Christianity. The psychologist’s experiences, however, were more profound than the young musician’s, because Carl V. had uncanny psychic abilities, bestowed on him not by God but by the Devil. Both men, however, had the distinct feeling of losing “self.” Their total being was swallowed up by a diabolical force. While neither gave up complete control at this point, by involving themselves in the occult, they unwittingly invited demonic possession.

After the homework episode, the “hellish” period of Tony’s life began. For several years afterward, as he attended college and then launched a career as a musician, he could function fairly normally, but he kept having bouts where he couldn’t think straight and felt alienated from himself.

A friend suggested he try transcendental meditation (TM), which is not a religion. The instructors say it can be practiced by people of any faith, including clergy. TM in itself isn’t evil, but it can have very negative side effects, as Tony’s story illustrates. Its devotees say that this form of meditation releases stress and purifies the mind, body, and emotions of the person who does it. This phrasing bothers me, because it sounds like a deliberate attempt to exclude any reference to the human soul. In speaking of “natural law,” TM also ignores God and focuses solely on the “self.” For someone who is already troubled and vulnerable, like the young pianist, opening up his mind this way can admit supernatural forces that seek only to destroy. Instead, I urge anyone interested in meditation to focus solely on thoughts of God, who will grant inner peace and relieve stress.

Tony was very impressed with TM. After trying it for a few months, he had another extraordinary experience: “My consciousness was again transformed, but in completely the opposite way as before. It was a very positive turnaround, and the terrible feelings of the past years melted away in a single moment. I was filled with peace and joy.” This set off alarm bells for me: I could see that, at this point, he was being drawn in even further.

Since he was a Catholic, Tony asked two priests about TM, and both gave their approval. I was extremely disturbed by this: Priests are in the service of God, and should have been directing his spiritual life toward prayer and the holy sacraments, not nonreligious meditation. After Tony’s so-called uplifting experience, and with these priests’ OK, he signed up for an advanced course in TM, which led him further down the path to possession.

This course, as Tony explained it, was called the Sidhi. Sidhi are a group of mantras (focus words) that one intones during a long meditation. Each of these mantras was associated with different powers. Tony decided to concentrate on the one for levitation. Nothing remarkable happened for several weeks, then he felt electric energy and lightness enter his spine. “At times I would feel the energy go into my shoulders and rise into my head. I would be sitting in the lotus position and lift right off the floor. I would go higher and higher without doing anything; and the energy kept getting stronger and stronger.”

I questioned Tony further about this because I’ve seen practitioners of TM attempting to levitate. It looks pretty comical, watching these people bouncing up and down on the floor. But Tony assured me he did nothing to lift himself up—it just happened.

Although he believed he’d opened the doors of perception, he discovered darkness on the other side. “What came along with the energy was a babbling of words from my mouth, words I didn’t understand. This disturbed me terribly, so I spoke with both the TM instructor and a priest. I got similar explanations, sort of.”

His teacher said energy rises from the base of the spine and opens the chakra points—the body’s power sources—which gives rise to levitating, sometimes called “yogic flying.” Yogic flying is a wonderful thing, the instructor added, showing that Tony had risen to a higher plane of consciousness, both mentally and physically. “I thought
Great, but why am I babbling words I can’t understand?
The teacher said it was just stress coming out in ‘articulated words.’”

The priest took a different view and suggested that Tony was “speaking in tongues.” To back up his theory, he cited a number of Biblical references, none of which advocated incoherent, meaningless babble. (In some religions, such as Pentacostalism and charismatic Catholicism, participants speak in tongues, but only as part of their prayers.) The holy man’s words made Tony believe he was having an important spiritual experience.
Although I hate to criticize a priest, I felt this one just didn’t have a clue. It made me sick to think that Tony had been led further astray by this misguided interpretation of his behavior.

Despite the young man’s increasingly strange state of mind, his career was taking off. Just as he was about to perform in his first concert, he fell under the influence of yet another friend with off-the-wall spiritual notions. This man, an antiques dealer with an interest in the occult, gave the pianist a rock he claimed had great power—and would assure Tony’s success in the music world. Called a “yoni stone,” it was shaped like an egg, with the outline of an eye in green. I’d never seen anything like it, but it was hard to imagine that nature came up with something like this. The friend told Tony that if he kept it in his room and looked at it once a day, his fondest wish would come true.

I’ve dealt with many weird things in the Work, but “yoni stones” weren’t among them, so I asked Brother Andrew, if he was familiar with them. He explained that they were of Tibetan origin and used in fertility rites. I was confused by this, since Tony’s troubles had nothing to do with what this rock was meant for. When I researched further, I discovered, to my amusement, that “yoni” refers to female genitalia! So much for Tony’s occult buddy. I guess he had had rocks in his head, since he certainly didn’t know his stones.

A short time later Tony was hit with the same terrifying feelings he’d had in high school, except that they were much more intense. His mind was overwhelmed with turmoil, as the alien thoughts he’d hoped he’d banished for good with TM came back in full force. “I had the sense my soul was being plucked out of me,” he whispered in a quivering voice.

I asked if he always turned to the occult for answers. He admitted he did, but swore he was now willing to do anything it took to get the help he so desperately desired from God. That was the first step I needed him to take. During the interview, I was struck by the eerie atmosphere in his home—and I’m not talking about the yoni stone. I detected a peculiar aura around Tony’s head: a ring of yellow studded with ominous black dots.

Putting that thought aside, I explained to him that he’d been taken over by a demon so thoroughly that he could no longer distinguish between his own consciousness and that of the evil spirit. He’d made the first move to getting rid of it, by reaching out to God, but the infernal force had been there for so long and had such a grip on him that expelling it would be difficult indeed. Tony meekly agreed with everything I said, but I could tell he was so confused and desperate that he probably would have agreed that the moon was made of green cheese if that’s what it took to get my help.

Despite all the painful and peculiar events he’d been subjected to, he still didn’t grasp that he truly was possessed. Yet everything he said was further proof: A few minutes later he mentioned a dreadful experience he’d recently had during a Catholic healing mass. His head began turning violently from side to side and against his will he shouted out “Nayacota”—a nonsense word—in the middle of the service. “I knew I was saying ‘no,’” he explained, “because something in me was provoked.”

Hoping to bring him some relief from his suffering, I also tried praying over the young musician. As I’d feared, however, the evil spirit was again provoked. The previously calm, soft-spoken man became increasingly agitated, flailing from the holy words as if they were burning his skin. His mouth developed an anguished tic, and he let out a blood-curdling shriek of pain when I held up a cross. I quickly finished the prayer with an emphatic “Amen,” knowing I was likely to be attacked if I enraged the demon any further.

Tony immediately quieted down and listened intently as I once again explained that he was possessed by a demonic spirit. He didn’t know much about demons and the Devil—and didn’t really believe in that stuff. “Are you sure?” he asked.