The Dark Sacrament (43 page)

Father Ignatius moistened a thumb and went to Erin first. He paused and frowned.

“I saw him looking past me,” she says. “He was looking the same way Quentin did that day when I was helping him with his jumper. I had the distinct impression that Father Ignatius might be seeing something in the room behind me. But he never let on. I'm sure he didn't want to frighten Quentin. Or me, for that matter.”

It was growing dark when the last room in the house was purified to the satisfaction of the priest. If Erin expected a dramatic change in her home, she was disappointed. She could not help feeling that, far from helping, the Mass and the blessings had made matters worse. There was an eerie sense of foreboding about the place. Quentin must have felt it too; not in a long time had she seen him so morose.

Father Ignatius took her aside. He seemed to sense what she was feeling.

“You mustn't think that everything will be as right as rain now,” he said. “These things take time. But be assured that from now on, those things that were afflicting you will lessen considerably. In time, they'll disappear altogether.”

“Remember what you said in the monastery, Father: that you thought it might be Father Lyons.”

“Yes, and I'm still of that opinion. That's why, when I get back to the monastery, I intend to storm heaven for the release of his soul.”

Erin would not know how many long hours of prayer lay behind that statement, and Father Ignatius, being a humble man, did not confide this to her.

“Don't forget, now,” he said, as his taxicab arrived, “that prayer can work wonders. Pray for him, Erin. He needs your forgiveness and he needs the grace of God.”

“He was right about everything,” she recalls. “When he left, there wasn't really what you'd call a great change in the atmosphere. But every day it would get better. I just knew everything would be all right. I had complete faith in Father Ignatius's power, and over the days he was proved right.

“The coldness, the foul smell, the crying—it all started to lessen. We had no more blackouts, no messing around with the electricity. Two weeks later we were totally free of all that, and our lives were back to normal.”

 

Father Ignatius McCarthy believes that Erin's case is a classic example of generational evil. He believes that, at some point in the family's past, an unholy thing entered the O'Gribben line and persisted down the generations, tainting and corrupting all those born into that benighted house. It was Erin's great misfortune to unwittingly marry into such an ill-starred family.

The foul smell and the coldness had coincided with the onset of her pregnancy. The house had not known a child's presence for many years, and the prospect of a child in the house again—in a place that had been the focus of so much incest in the past—was perhaps a cause for “celebration” in the darkest realms imaginable. The old house had been the seat of repeated generational perversion. The fact that all the O'Gribben siblings of the present generation acquiesced in and perpetuated that perversion meant that evil was allowed to flourish.

But, we wonder, is it not so that innocent little children have no choice in the matter?

Initially no, the priest concedes. But, by the age of seven, if not before, a child knows the difference between right and wrong. Fur
thermore, when a child is coerced by his abuser to keep silent about the abuse or deny it, he is being asked to lie, and the wickedness of the deed is thereby compounded. It is imperative that the child tell somebody about the abuse: his mother, a teacher, a neighbor, a grown-up he can trust.

“It would appear that in this unfortunate case, the mother—Martha—had chosen to accept the lie as well,” Father Ignatius says. “I'm sure that in the beginning she was as appalled as any sane person could be, but then at some point she decided, for the sake of security and family ‘unity,' to keep quiet about it.”

“The Father of Lies!” he exclaims, uncharacteristically raising his voice. “It is no accident how he came to be called such. The Devil seeks to oppose truth at every turn and is no respecter of innocence. It is what he seeks endlessly to corrupt. Children are a prime target. The sexual abuse of children: can there be a more evil or effective way to poison humanity and destroy lives? The abused child grows up full of hate, not only for his abuser but for himself as well. In other words, he has allowed evil to enter him, and so perpetuates the whole dreadful cycle again. Ed O'Gribben is a good example.”

The priest's analysis of the O'Gribbens is hard to fault. But what of Erin? When she finally freed herself of that degenerate family, how is it that the evil pursued her and her son?

“Father Lyons died very suddenly,” the priest says. “He'd no opportunity to repent and to mend his wicked ways. So he was still very much earthbound and attached to his earthly lusts. His soul could not be at rest, so he followed the little boy Quentin. That was all he knew. By persecuting the innocent he knew he could find some relief. Oh, he needed a great deal of prayer, a great deal.”

We are curious about the Mass, and especially if he saw anything when anointing Erin and her boy. He sidesteps the issue.

“Such things are dreadful,” he says. “Whenever I hear of black shapes or shadows and suchlike invading a home, I'm on the alert at once, because it can only mean one thing: evil spirits are at work. I don't know what Erin or young Quentin saw before that day, but
when such things make themselves visible it's a very bad sign. Let's say that, after offering the Mass, I had a clearer idea of the kind of danger Father Lyons was in.”

We wonder if the Kerry priest is at rest now.

“I expect he is,” Father Ignatius McCarthy says wistfully, then adds: “Yes, we should always pray for the dead, especially when we believe that their immortal souls may be in danger. But even when we're convinced that a man has died in the state of grace, we should still remember him in our prayers. Every little helps.”

The bell for compline tolls and he gets up to go. There are important duties to attend to.

“Yes, every little helps,” he says again, “and we should always pray for the dead.”

As this holy and humble man takes his leave, we understand that he is going to the chapel to do just that.

In all likelihood the rites of exorcism are as old as civilization itself—and perhaps predate the first human settlements.

The earliest recorded instance is in Sanskrit, contained in one of the thousands of vedas, or teachings, that are fundamental to Hinduism. This is the Atharvaveda, a collection of some six thousand verses written down by the sage Atharvan, at some time between 1,500 and 2,200 years before the birth of Christ. It is possible that the words were not those of Atharvan, but that he was the chief celebrant of these ceremonies. He was said to be the son of Lord Brahma, the chief Hindu god. The Atharvaveda is the oldest Indic text alluding to healing, and is part of a much earlier tradition, which was transmitted orally for several centuries before being written down.

From the vedas one learns that two classes of priests were custodians of the “sacred fire.” Of the two, the followers of Atharvan were largely the soothsayers of this fire-cult and performed propitiatory
rites, while another class—the Angiras—were tasked with sorcery and exorcism. No details of those exorcisms have come down to us; we have only the assurance that “evil spirits” were expelled, thereby protecting the community from harm.

We do, however, have examples of the words used. The rituals—or “charms”—were employed for all manner of purposes, from encouraging the growth of hair to curing leprosy. One such charm was used by the exorcist to drive out the classes of demon known as Rakshas and Pisâkas:

• 1. Do ye well offer within the fire this oblation with ghee, that destroys the phantom! Do thou, o Agni, burn from afar against the Rakshas, [but] our houses thou shalt not consume!
  
• 2. R
  UDRA HAS BROKEN YOUR NECKS, YE
  P
  ISÂKAS: MAY HE ALSO BREAK YOUR RIBS, YE PHANTOMS!
  T
  HE PLANT WHOSE POWER IS EVERYWHERE HAS UNITED YOU WITH
  Y
  AMA [DEATH].
  
• 3. Exempt from danger, o Mitra and Varuna, may we here be; drive back with your flames the Atrin [devouring demons]! Neither helper nor support do they find; smiting one another, they go to death.
  

In neighboring Tibet, in later centuries, arcane rites were carried out in the chapel of Mahakala—literally, “the protector”—at Samye, the oldest monastery in the country. The chapel was kept locked for most of the year and only the chosen were allowed to enter. What occurred there at night was a mystery, but it was said that the monks would battle demons within its precincts. Most nights, screams could be heard emanating from within the walls, even though the place was uninhabited. Once a year, the chapel's guardian would ceremoniously replace a crescent-shaped chopper and wooden chopping board, which had—very mysteriously—become worn from use.

Even today, the chopper or cleaver is still essential to Buddhist ceremony. It has the symbolic use of slicing through ignorance or super
stition—rather as Alexander the Great cut through the Gordian knot. In many ways, the chopper serves the same purpose as the
dorje
or the
phurba,
both being ritual daggers. It is employed in rituals of exorcism by priests and shamans. Many Buddhist exorcists also rely on a wooden staff embedded with metal rings. When the staff is shaken, the rings create a great cacophony designed to frighten away evil entities.

But Buddhist exorcism relies also to a great extent on humor. An evil spirit is quite simply laughed at, held up to ridicule and so made to depart in shame. This is achieved by friends or relatives of the afflicted person dressing up as demons, donning hideous masks, and acting out the demonic affliction.

Down the centuries, the mask has been a feature of both Chinese and Japanese cultures, the latter greatly influenced by Buddhism. For thousands of years, the Japanese have held processions and ceremonies during which fearsome masks were worn, each type of mask representing a certain class of demon. Such ritual was, and is, a prime example of imitative magic: by aping the demon, a human being can appease it.

MESOPOTAMIA AND THE HOLY LAND

In the Middle East, the Babylonians of Mesopotamia were the principal practitioners of exorcism. During the period 1900–500
BC
, magic was practiced by a priestly sect called the Asipu. Their activities ran the gamut from hypnosis to magic, and included the casting out of troublesome spirits.

Christian demonology had its basis here, but it was another people, the Assyrians, who gave definition to belief in the preternatural. There was the “official” religion of the priests, which coexisted comfortably with the demotic faith, the more primitive religion of the people. This “underground” religion was the forerunner of European sorcery and magic. It was also the template for Satan: the Assyrians believed in a principal demon, or devil, who ruled over a vast hierarchy of lesser evil entities.

At about the same time in nearby Israel and Judea, another Semitic race of people, the Israelites, gave rise to prophets who had the ability to perform miracles, prefiguring the coming of Jesus. Angels and devils were everywhere. We learn from the Book of Tobit of an incident involving an entity named Azarias. He instructs Tobias in the roasting of a huge fish for the purpose of exorcism:

But it is to the Talmud we must look for prime examples of Jewish exorcism. Noteworthy among the scourges of demons was Simon ben Yochai, a second-century rabbi “learned in miracles,” who is reputed to have performed feats of exorcism. One such involved banishing a female demon.

According to one source, Rabbi Simon was vexed that God had sent five angels to Hagar of Egypt, Abraham's maidservant, and not a single one to him. He saw his chance to summon an angel of his own when the king issued a decree that contravened Jewish religious practices. Simon set off to the palace to have it abrogated.

On the way, he encountered a female spirit, or angel, who was perched atop the mast of a ship. She informed him that she had been sent so that he might perform a miracle. She would enter the stomach of the king's daughter, who would scream out in her agony: “Bring me Rabbi Simon!” The rabbi would then whisper in the daughter's ear, causing the spirit to leave.

All went according to plan. The girl was possessed by the spirit and duly requested that Rabbi Simon exorcise her. He whispered as instructed and the spirit departed, shattering every glass vessel in the palace at her parting. So impressed was the king that he at once tore up his decree.

It is a curious tale and in all likelihood apocryphal. Yet it seems to show an ambivalent attitude toward spirits in ancient Palestine. There is confusion as to what constitutes an angel. At no time is Rabbi Simon's angel considered to be evil; she is, after all, sent by God. She arranges her own demonic infestation so that Simon must exorcise her and thus impress the king. Such symbiosis between the divine and the preternatural has echoes in Christian theology: for instance, God's plan must of necessity include Satan to bring about the “Fall,” which in turn is reversed by Christ, who was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, thereby completing the circle.

There are many more allusions in the Talmud, the Torah, and the Old Testament to demons and how to combat them, yet it is not until the writing of the New Testament that exorcism is treated in any great detail. Scripture makes it clear that with the coming of Christ, Satan's days as ruler of the earth are numbered. Matthew also points out that Jesus could differentiate between the mentally ill and the demoniac.

“MY NAME IS LEGION”

The Jews had long been accustomed to prophets and magi in possession of ancient wisdom and the power to expel evil entities, but this new miracle worker seemed to them to have infinitely more power than those who had gone before him. News of truly remarkable supernatural feats began to filter back to the Pharisees. Mark (5:1–20) gives an elaborate account of the notorious incident of the “Gadarene swine” and the demon who told Jesus that his name was “Legion.” Luke (8:26–33) offers a slightly more succinct version.

There was the celebrated episode involving the woman whom the church fathers in a later century would—erroneously—brand a harlot: “And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils” (Luke 8:2).

Wherever he went, Jesus performed the twin rituals of healing the sick and casting out demons. The two ministries seemed almost to go hand in hand: “And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits” (Luke 7:21).

Scripture leaves us in no doubt that Jesus wished his disciples to continue the work of exorcism. Mark relates how the Lord trained the twelve apostles: “And he called unto him the twelve, and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits” (Mark 6:7). Further on: “And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them” (Mark 6:13).

In the Acts, we learn that the apostles carried on a successful ministry after Jesus had left them. Paul's work is the best documented.

As we have seen, neither Jesus nor the apostles were enacting truly exceptional rituals in the eyes of the people—or their priests. Exorcism was an accepted therapeutic practice in the ancient world, from India to Mesopotamia, to Palestine, to Greece and Rome.

The ancients believed that all maladies were caused by wicked spirits invading the body; it followed that the removal of the spirits would effect a cure. Thus, medicine and ancient folk wisdom recognized exorcism not necessarily as a magic operation but as a matter of therapy, a cure for sickness both spiritual and physical.

By the middle of the third century, the Christian Church had established the formal office of exorcist as a minor order. The office is mentioned in a letter written to the bishop of Antioch by Pope Cornelius in
AD
253, which coincidentally was the year of the pontiff 's death; it is believed that he died in exile, having been banished to the port city of Cittavecchio by the Roman emperor Decius.

The exile was complaining about the man who had taken his place as head of the Church, Novatian, the “antipope”: “He knew that there were in this Church forty-six priests, seven deacons, seven subdeacons, forty-two acolytes, and fifty-two exorcists, lectors, and porters.”

It is worth remembering that at the time—when Christianity had been little more than two centuries in existence—there could not have been over 30,000 believers in Rome. To have more than a score of exorcists serving this one community seems excessive.

ST. PATRICK AND OTHER EXORCISTS

The year was
AD
441. Attila the Hun was galloping into the Balkans with his brother Bleda at his side, to capture the city that would become Belgrade. The Saxon Revolt had left towns and cities throughout Britain aflame, their pro-Roman citizens fleeing before the German invasion. On a tall, conical mountain overlooking Clew Bay in Connacht, St. Patrick was deep in prayer.

He had spent forty days and forty nights on the bleak summit. It was known to the Celts of Ireland as Eagle Mountain, the home of the pagan deity Lugh. In time it would become Croagh Patrick.

The future patron saint was engaged in his second mission to convert this heathen nation to Christianity. He had succeeded well; already half the tribes had come over to the foreign God of Palestine, turning their backs on the ancient divinities of their forefathers. Patrick needed but one more small push to evangelize the Irish, and it was to this end that he had chosen the high mountain for his forty days of prayer and penance. Like Moses in the Sinai desert, he believed that the peak of a great mountain would bring him closer to God.

But Patrick was about to do battle with terrible entities ranged against him. The dark pagan gods were not about to yield this green land without a fight. They converged on the mountain and attempted to thwart Patrick in his mission.

First, they used temptation, as they had done with St. Anthony on his mountaintop in the Egyptian desert. A procession of voluptuous Celtic women appeared, dancing nude about the holy man, offering him their bodies and all the carnal delights he had vowed to forgo. He remained steadfast in his prayers.

Next, they tried belligerence. They gathered about the mountain as vast flocks of black birds: ravens, rooks, and crows. So many were they in number that they dimmed the light of the sun. They came, too, as dragons and, lastly, as snakes—if the oral tradition is to be believed. To no purpose. Patrick fought the snakes and won. He banished them, driving them into a cavern in the mountain known as Lugh na Deamhain, or “Hollow of the Demons.”

In our enlightened times, we know with certainty that snakes were never actually native to Ireland. At the close of the last Ice Age—about ten thousand years ago—the northeast of the country was still joined to Scotland by a land bridge, and Britain to continental Europe by the great plain that would become the North Sea. The slow migration of wildlife from the south was beginning. Some two thousand years later, three species of snake had settled in England—but, by that time, the land bridge between Scotland and Ireland was no more. The reptiles would remain unknown in the island.

So what was it that St. Patrick drove from Ireland in
AD
441? Some commentators suggest that the snake represented the old gods that Patrick's new religion supplanted. They advance the argument that the snake was commonly associated with Satan—
an Diabhal
—and that the Celtic gods were somewhat demonic in character.