There is much argument in the spiritual press right now among scholars,
as to what an exorcism really is.
Should it be a psychological process?
Is it a spiritual sickness?
Can depressive treatments help?
My old colleague, David Tyndall, was featured in the
newspapers recently.
David, whom I admire greatly for his expertise, has for some years been a well
known
Christian cleric.
He confided in me that although he is a bible scholar, a
talented
grief counsellor and psychologist, has attended over 30 exorcisms in his 17
years in
the church, he had never seen anything which definitely convinced him of the
existence
of the paranormal.
Where you draw the guidelines in these issues is crucial.
And for a man of religion to say he did not believe in the supernatural, when
the
religious word “miracle” means white magic, and the sacraments are themselves a
magical rite, is strange indeed.
The Rev. Christopher Neil-Smith would have queues of people all day long from
all
over the country, for exorcism, and is rumoured by “in sources” to have helped
John
Lennon just prior to, and maybe during, his involvement with Yoko Ono and his
assassination, when he was under close FBI surveillance.
Rev. Neil-Smith saw the paranormal everywhere he looked, those who watched him
work
were amazed at the speed of his skills, and he taught us so much.
Certainly in my prime I was on call for anywhere in the country, and for many
years,
could often do one a week, and in all fairness the amount of times I saw real
phenomena was very rare.
Yet whenever I am interviewed for the media, it is
these
instances that I have to keep recounting.
I reminded David of the Bishop Wall case, now although this has never reached
the
public domain, I know of several of the people involved, and can vouch for its
authenticity.
As I remember it, in 1970 a late night phone call was made by a group of
youngsters, who after a party at a tower block in London’s Stratford area, contacted
the
Catholic Church to say that the group had brought up an intelligence from a game
on
an
ouija board after a party, and that this intelligence had occupied one of these
youngsters, who was showing extreme paranormal abilities.
This sort of story is part of the chaff that is interspersed with the precious
wheat
of knowledge, and in the ordinary way I confess would take little notice of, but coming from
David Tyndall, Fr. Kenneth Green and Bishop Wall himself, I had to listen and
take
notice.
Before an exorcism can take place permission from the Diocesan Bishop must be
granted, and the area exorcist, a man chosen usually for his knowledge or holiness
brought in.
But so serious did the Bishop see the apparent danger to the
youngsters
involved, that he went immediately to the scene phoning both the two experts to
meet
him at the tower block.
So all three: the Bishop, and the two priests, all experts in the field
remember, met up at the flat to give assistance.
Over the years we perhaps all have met people who have benefited in their
research
from ouija boards, and stories of all shades are told of it.
My own opinion is that most of the information is from the unconscious
minds of the
sitters, but horror stories alas, are also very common.
The Bishop, who was an outspoken and fearless man in what he believed, had become
well known when he protested at the torture of German detainees at the Nuremberg
war crimes trials, he also objected to the catholic Church giving last rites and
Catholic
funerals to IRA killers and bombers.
It is actually canon dogma that no one
who
has committed a 'mortal sin' such as a murder can be buried in consecrated
ground, but the Church turns a blind eye when it wants to, as in recent sex
scandals.
Canon Wall’s story told in the greatest detail by the two priests, was that when
he
entered the room in the tower block, the possessed youngster spoke to him in a
deep
metallic gravely voice, and mocked him that he was not a good enough man to
exorcise
him, because he had slept with a woman some 5 years before, and liked a secret
nighttime drop of Scots Whisky.
Apparently when the 2 priests searched the Bishops
face,
they saw his guilt and shame and felt it was true.
The sheer strength of the youngster, made it necessary for the 3 churchmen to
hold
him while the deliverance was attempted, and at times all 3 were off the ground
simultaneously.
Things and objects seemed to just fly round the room, and the Bishop seized the
youth by the lapels and began screaming through the insane laughter the catholic
exorcism rites.
I was told that the Bishop struggled with the beast inside the
youth
into the small hours of the morning, before they could all leave the tower
block.
The Bishop became extremely ill in the days after, and I was told his hair went
white over the next three weeks.
As a rule I will ask permission to discuss these topics but on this occasion for
this article I did not.
My opinion was asked at the time on the ouija board incident.
The church lumps this in with tarot cards and horoscopes, and I still maintain
that
any of these tools in responsible hands do not represent any threat.
So to answer the esteemed David Tyndall, I am sure that there are times when the
causes are just psychological, other causes can be paranormal or even
emotional / physical.
But I would stress to all who would wish to push the boundaries of these
knowledges, that as the master occultist Rollo Ahmed, one of Dennis Wheatley’s top
pupils once
said; “the dangers in the unseen worlds are very real indeed, and never, ever to
be
trifled with.
Good advice for the curious.