The question of true evil is one that arises, unfortunately, almost daily in the news media as we hear of horrifying crimes committed by human hands that seem beyond the capability and understanding of the public. It is precisely this lack of understanding that has led to belief in a supernatural evil entity, and this evidence is something that the church has to face. That evil exists is not debatable; however, what is debatable is whether or not that evil has a root cause in a spiritual entity. Carl Jung wrote, “Evil is terribly real for each and every individual. If you regard the principle of evil as a reality you can just as well call it the devil.”16 And in the novel The Brothers Karamazov, it is written, “I think that if the Devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.”17 It is this image of man, the reflection of man, in these horrifying acts of evil that lends itself to the belief in a pure force of evil. When humanity is confronted with the horrific acts that history has recorded, whether through a political movement such as the Nazis or through an individual such as Jeffrey Dahmer, there is an inherent disconnect between the way that the modern, well-adjusted person visualizes humanity and the ghastly image that is being reflected in that mirror. So a reason is found, whether empirically real or psychologically real (as in Jung’s statement), and that reason is called the devil. The devil accounts for that gruesome image that glares at us from the mirror where there should be an image of civility, love, and respect. Evil, whether personified in Satan or not, is still an act of man against man. The mission of Satan is to destroy and cause chaos and death … and so far, so good. It is the difficulty that the average person has in trying to reconcile the nature of man with the incredibly cruel things that are witnessed on a daily basis that causes the suspicion of some greater force at work. Of all the possible explanations for evil—sociological, genetic, behavioral—none of them seem to account for the degree of evil that is witnessed. “Yet there is no convincing evidence that any somatically rooted instinct is the cause of spontaneous destructive aggression in man. Even if such evidence existed, it would not explain the human violence and evil that go well beyond the bounds of defense of life or territory. Nor would it explain the range of different forms that evil takes in different circumstances.”18
“When you have stood as I stood in a church in Rwanda where 22,000 bodies are buried outside, and you’ve encountered a 17-year-old kid who is jamming an AK-47 up your left nostril, you look into his eyes and you know. When you’ve watched what the machetes have done when they’ve hacked their way through families … I don’t believe it’s just distorted human nature. The obscenity is the degree.” Similar to Sid Roth, Calver points to the likes of Hitler as evidence of Satan’s work on earth, and he extends that belief to apartheid, social injustice, and poverty. “I believe there is a personal force of evil and that because it is personal, it’s more than just this vague, nebulous concept or force.”
That evil is not just found in psych wards and third world countries. It comes home to roost. Most religious leaders will tell you that it is nearly impossible to deal in the spiritual realm without having to face the negative side of this realm, as people in their congregations will sometimes find themselves faced with negative forces that seem otherworldly and outside their direct influence. Calver related how a family at the church felt that there was a negative presence in their home, something that had not previously been there. Clive offered to come to the home to see if he could sense anything (the Bible talks of the ability for followers of God to have spiritual discernment); however, after a routine walk through the house and the basement, Clive could not sense anything out of the ordinary. “They were solid, stable members. I was amazed that they thought there was anything at all … It’s very rare that you get something evil attached to an inanimate object. Have I seen it? Yes. I’ve seen it in a prayer cup from India which infected a home … one or two things like that.” As a brand-new pastor at Walnut Hill and with a very public and credentialed background, Clive felt some pressure to find something to exorcise from the home. But he could find nothing. “I’m feeling total, dead loss. There’s nothing in this place at all, so why on earth did they think there was. My young protégé was looking very disenchanted and disillusioned, so I asked if we could go outside … I had to do something—I had to look intelligent. I got three quarters of the way around the house, and it kind of hit me like a brick wall … the neighbor’s house where the owner had hung himself four months earlier. There is a presence of evil that can permeate people or even an inanimate object when it’s really coming from personal distress.”
Calver’s experience on the world stage gives him a unique perspective concerning American views on the spiritual world and the occult. Coming from Great Britain, which was, in his words, built upon a tradition of witchcraft, and then migrating to the northeastern United States, which, he claims, is also a hotbed of Wiccan activity, gives him an unparalleled outsider view of the United States. “I think it’s important to distinguish between the paranormal and the occult. I think the rest of the world looks [at the United States] with an incredulity at such things like ‘was God an astronaut,’ but it also looks with incredulity at the materialist image here that sees everything in terms of the material and doesn’t recognize that there can be factors that go beyond that.” Calver recalls a time in the United Kingdom when he was actually called into a psychiatric hospital. “They had a patient, who, I think by this time, they believed was enmeshed in the demonic, and they asked me to come in to pray. I respected the fact that they respected the fact that the church had a role, and also that the church wasn’t saying that there was no place for these guys [psychiatrists and doctors] because as for me, I’ll pray for someone and then send them to the doctor.”
It is precisely this level of interaction between the spiritual and the scientific that has been gaining ground in Europe as the churches begin to interact more with doctors, particularly psychologists and psychiatrists, and vice versa, when no appropriate answer can be found. In his book The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist, journalist Matt Baglia follows an American priest to the Vatican to become trained as an exorcist. While this may sound archaic, exorcism has recently been moving to the forefront of religious thought and experience. Baglia describes a place where people regularly line up for exorcism and blessing, “For thirty-six years, the Passionist priest Father Candido Amantini performed exorcisms there until he died in 1992 … It was rumored that he saw around sixty people every day, and while not everybody needed an exorcism, he tried to at least give them a simple blessing or even just a reassuring pat on the back.”19 The practice continues to this day, with Father Amantini having been replaced by Father Tommaso. But the spiritual now interacts much more with the scientific, each trying to maintain a mutual respect. “Numerous mental illnesses can also be mistaken for demonic possession. For this reason, exorcists should insist on a full psychiatric evaluation before proceeding … Typically, though, an exorcist will have a team of individuals (a psychiatrist, psychologist, and perhaps a neurologist) whom he trusts to help him with discernment.”20
Of course the difficulty in such an interaction comes from the deep-seated skepticisms of the scientific world and the overzealous religious believers. One side is often hard-pressed to meet the other halfway. There are, however, psychiatrists, even in the United States, who do acknowledge the possibility of possession and will work with the church. Some psychotherapists and psycho-dramatists will also employ “exorcisms” as part of a role-playing method with their patients in order to give a name to the affliction and force the patient to battle through it (it should be noted that these are not supernatural acts, but merely role-playing).
The ultimate goal for both doctor and pastor is to alleviate suffering. Doctors can and do alleviate physical suffering; but sometimes an individual’s suffering is something that is not physical, and it may not be psychological or even emotional. It may be something else—something spiritual—and in t
his case, sometimes the best help comes from those who work within the spiritual realm; pastors and priests and evangelists who seek to heal something that cannot be stitched or set. Their operations are far more difficult, confusing, and intimate than any bodily surgery.
FATHER BOB BAILEY: ST. MARIA GORRETTI
The Catholic Church is the granddaddy of modern religions that have any basis in the paranormal, particularly when it comes to witchcraft, exorcism, demonology, ghosts, devils, Halloween, and the magical-religious experience. Spawned of ancient Judaism, and the father of Protestantism, it is one of the most mystical of the major belief systems. The priest acts as the gatekeeper to the divine; there are blessings and rituals designed to turn wine to blood and bread to flesh, there is holy water, corpses of saints that never decompose, and magical symbolism from rosaries and crucifixes to pictures and precious medals containing the remains of saints. The follower of the Catholic faith is immersed in a world of spiritual dogma and mysticism. In its long history, Catholicism’s belief in the spiritual world of demons and witches has resulted in some of the darkest times in human history: the witchcraft trials both in Europe and America, the Inquisition, and numerous cruel acts performed in the name of the church and the magical-religious belief system it proclaims. Certainly, there have been few belief systems more powerful and influential in the history of the world than that of the Catholic doctrine.
This is not to deride the church as being evil; but the past examples are commonly acknowledged instances in which a magical-religious belief system, coupled with a lack of scientific or technical knowledge, has led to the very evil that the church was trying to defeat. In essence, a belief system could quickly turn dangerous without the intercession of science. As man has progressed, so has the church. However, science and the average person on the street no longer believe in witches on brooms, pacts with the devil, curses, and cultic coven meetings in the forest by firelight (or do they?). The modern church has also largely disregarded demonic possession and exorcism. Modern achievements in the fields of medicine and science now allow for diagnosing and treating mental illness, so that much of what would have been interpreted as demonic possession is now known to be the result of psychiatric problems. The practice of exorcism has come to be seen as archaic and silly. Additionally, there have been some highly publicized cases of exorcism that resulted in the death of the person who was supposedly possessed; cases such as that of Anneliese Michel in 1976, in which the court determined that Anneliese was starved to death over the course of the year-long exorcism. The bishop who had originally approved the exorcism had to recant and admit that Anneliese was not possessed. Hence, the church, in acknowledgement of their flawed history in this respect, has changed in recent years and has dispelled some of the magical-religious thinking.
As stated earlier, the Protestant Reformation was probably the biggest step toward rationalization and modernization of religion in its history; however, the Second Vatican Council, held in 1962, resulted in a virtual crisis of Catholicism, as many priests and worshippers refused to accept the changes to the Mass and the sacraments. The goal of the Vatican II was to bring the church into the modern era and make it more accessible to modern man. Changes such as the Mass no longer being said in Latin made the services more “seeker-sensitive,” to use Sid Roth’s terminology. However, there were some deeper, more intimate changes, including changes to the exorcism prayers known as the Rituale Romanum, and a redefinition of evil and hell. On June 19, 2002, the Los Angeles Times reported John Paul II’s redefinition of hell, which was really the result of the Vatican II’s changes. John Paul II stated that hell should not be seen as a fiery underworld, but rather as a state in which individuals “freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy.” Logic dictates that if hell is only a moral state of mind, then evil itself is merely a behavioral condition and Satan a myth. “This denial of hell and the devil is no more evident than ever before when viewed in conjunction with the latest change in the rite of exorcism decreed by the Vatican.”21 There exist entire churches and groups of believers that ceased to follow the official Catholic Church following the Vatican II; they continue to practice the Mass, sacraments, and rituals as they had been practiced for centuries as they wait for the church to come back around to its traditions. “It has been, however, during the past 40 years that the Catholic Church has undergone some of the most radical and revolutionary changes in her history: changes that have left members of the church confused, frustrated and bewildered. Observing the devastating effects of these changes, many Catholics have asked themselves, ‘What has happened to the Catholic Church?’ The spiritual crisis of our day, the appalling decline of morals and universal loss of faith can be directly traced back to the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). This council, better known as Vatican II, directly attacked the heart of the Catholic faith—her immutable doctrines, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Seven Sacraments.”22
Father Bob Bailey is the head of St. Maria Gorretti in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Ordained in 1993, Father Bob has never known life outside of the Vatican II reformations; and while many of the reformations of that council have dismissed much of the magical-religious aspects of old Catholicism, Father Bailey’s personal interest drove him toward the paranormal. He is a modern clergyman living in a modern world of technology and science. He has a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and his own website. He emails, texts, and chats on his cell phone; today’s priest may not be the archaic, disconnected, lonely friar lost in his religion as some may speculate. Bailey is quite at home in this modern world and has found a balance between the modern world and his Catholic life. But part of that modernization involves a disconnection between today’s priests and the priests of centuries before, particularly when it comes to dealing with the paranormal, the demonic, and exorcism.
The modern Catholic Church, Father Bailey states, does believe in the devil and demons. “We believe in personified evil, namely in fallen angels (demons) and the chief of them, which is Lucifer or the Devil. We clearly teach that there is personified evil … There is evil that exists in the world but we also believe in a personified evil. Exorcism is a part of our faith, but it is rare. There are different forms of demonic influence, the most severe being demonic possession.”
Despite demonic possession being a rarity, the requests for exorcisms in the past two decades have skyrocketed. In 2000, Pat Burnell authored an article for the National Catholic Register in which the exorcist of the Archdiocese of New York, James LeBar, stated that he had seen a “large explosion” of cases in New York since 1990. “Ten years ago I had no cases and now I have 300.”23 And Tracy Wilkinson of the Los Angeles Times wrote in 2005, “In Italy, the number of official exorcists has soared over the past 20 years to between 300 and 400, church officials say. But they are not enough to handle the avalanche of requests for help from hundreds of tormented people who believe they are possessed. In the United States, the shortage is even more acute. The largest number of cases, however, is coming from Europe and Africa.”24 This may not be due to the devil being more active in these areas; rather, it may be cultural in nature. In Italy, for instance, the vast majority of people are devout Catholics, which would predispose them to belief in exorcism as a means of addressing a mysterious ailment (such as mental illness). It leaves open a big chance for misdiagnoses based on religious beliefs. Priests here are routinely instructed to consult psychiatrists before exorcising someone. In Africa, however, the issues may be related more to traditional African belief systems, which involve a number of spirits, both good and bad, that are able to possess individuals. That, coupled with belief, past and present, in witch doctors and other forms of mystical experience, which the Christian faith deems occult, could contribute to more cases of possession being reported. The other contributing factor is that these societies accept the existence of a spiritual world, whereas parts of Europe and the United States are far more materialistic and scientific in
their beliefs and are less likely to believe that something is the result of spiritual intervention or demonic possession. That being said, there are still cases of demonic possession that come to the church from around the world.
One of the major contributing factors to the church shying away from exorcism has been the rather new understanding of mental illness. In ancient times a variety of different mental afflictions were treated as demonic possession. The understanding of mental illness, however, has cast the idea of demonic possession into a whole new light. These days we are more able than ever before to diagnose and treat these disorders, so demonic possession has largely been cast aside as an archaic, ignorant, and medieval definition of mental illness. However, there are psychiatrists and doctors who believe in the phenomenon of demonic possession and have reached those conclusions by working directly with those believed by the church to be possessed. Scott Peck, psychiatrist and author of the best-seller The Road Less Traveled, worked with former Catholic priest Malachi Martin in examining cases of possession. His last book before his death in 2005 was entitled Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist’s Personal Accounts of Possession, Exorcism, and Redemption, in which he argues that demonic possession is a reality above and beyond the scope of psychiatry. Richard E. Gallagher, a graduate of Yale University School of Medicine, serves on the faculty of Columbia University Psychoanalytic Institute and is a privately practicing psychiatrist in Hawthorne, New York. In 2008, Gallagher released an article entitled “Among the Many Counterfeits: A Case of Demonic Possession,” in which he claims to have personally witnessed the possession of a woman named “Julia” who had previously experimented with Satanism. “Sometimes objects around her would fly off the shelves, the rare phenomenon of psychokinesis known to para-psychologists. Julia was also in possession of knowledge of facts and occurrences beyond any possibility of natural acquisition. She commonly reported information about the relatives, household composition, family deaths and illnesses, etc., of the members of our team.”25 Gallagher also reported that Julia was able to tell the difference between holy water and tap water, had a hatred for and used vile language toward the clergy that were present, had the ability to speak in foreign languages previously unknown to her, and in one instance she levitated six inches in the air for approximately 30 minutes. “Julia at first had gone into a quiet trance like state. After the prayers and invocations of the Roman Ritual had been going on for a while, however, multiple voices and sounds came out of her. One set consisted of loud growls and animal-like noises, which seemed to the group impossible for any human to mimic. At one point the voices spoke in foreign languages, including recognizable Latin and Spanish.”26 This exorcism was conducted in the United States, not in Italy or Africa. Gallagher goes on to discuss the different kinds of mental illness that often mimic possession and points out the intricate differences that can be looked for in order to determine actual demonic possession. He states that possession is an extremely rare event.
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