Hostage To The Devil

by Неизвестный

  As his investigations progressed over the weeks and months, Hearty was increasingly certain. Carl had to be exorcised. All this while, and right up to the exorcism, Carl was completely docile. He urged Hearty to hurry up. “I haven't much time, Hearty,” he used to say wistfully.

  But Hearty felt he had to be thorough. He had never been involved in an exorcism of a person as psychically gifted as Carl, and he did not know how this unusual element might be used, even against Carl's will, as a serious weapon against them both. He insisted on covering every inch of ground Carl had traveled in parapsychology since his student days. Only in this way would Hearty be at least reasonably well equipped to follow and deal with any vagary through which Carl might pass during the exorcism.

  In addition, Hearty had one profound doubt. For the first time he foresaw the possibility that in an exorcism the exorcee might die or go insane because of the exorcism.

  Hearty was rather sure of a few things: that Carl's claimed perception of the non-thing aura as well as his professed astral-travel trances and his knowledge of former reincarnations were deceptions induced by the evil spirit. And he guessed the only tangible proof that the spirit had been expelled would be the cessation of these effects in Carl.

  Hearty felt that, if he was correct in his basic analyses, then the final and possibly the greatest danger to Carl would lie in his reaction to the sudden exposure of how he had been deceived over and over and had consented to each deception. The bottom would fall out of his life. Could he take the strain? Disillusionment or disappointment as profound as Carl would likely undergo in this exorcism could, as Hearty knew from his studies and experience, render a human being not merely catatonic, but in extreme cases suicidal.

  Right up to the last moment, in spite of the assurance that every precaution and test he could devise showed Carl to be strong and sturdy, Hearty could not rid himself of this idea of extreme danger for Carl. Finally he gave Carl the option to withdraw or to go ahead. He warned him of what he felt to be the risks if he chose to go ahead.

  Carl insisted on going on with the exorcism. “If I live as I am, I will die a real death of soul. If I die under exorcism, I may be saved. If I go insane, perhaps God will take this into account when judging me.”

  The choice of locale for the exorcism was easy. Carl wanted it to take place in his childhood home out beyond Chestnut Hill among the hills of the Piedmont plateau, and in the place where he had had his teenage vision—his father's library-den.

  Hearty, going against the practice of many exorcists known to him, had nothing removed from the place except breakable objects such as desk lamps, vases, ashtrays, light tables, glasses, statuettes, and pictures. He had the carpet taken up. Books and bookshelves he left in place.

  He had a reason for this which was part of his guessing game at this point. He assessed—rightly, as it turned out—that any special difficulty in unmasking the evil spirit in Carl would arise because its possession of Carl was so subtle and so bound up with his psychic forces.

  Carl did possess a power of telekinesis. It was theoretically possible that Carl would use this power to make the exorcism difficult, if not impossible. But Carl, relying on that still-intact part of him with which he had signaled to Hearty before for help, now reassured Hearty that he, Carl, would not use, and could refrain from using, that telekinetic power. Hearty felt, therefore, he could be practically certain that, if there were telekinetic disturbances during the rite, they would be signs of the evil spirit's displeasure. And in that case, he could follow that clue and seek the further discomfiture and final expulsion of the spirit.

  Hearty was ably aided in the exorcism by four men whom he had trained over the years as assistants. They never failed to come to him whenever he was performing an exorcism. One was a doctor; two were businessmen; the fourth was a factory foreman.

  The exorcism of Carl V. lasted for five days. It was very unusual in that its course was largely determined, as Hearty had been certain it would be, by the exceptional psychic gifts Carl possessed. Hearty had to deal with Carl not only as possessed, but as a medium in the psychic sense. Indeed, there were brief silences throughout part of the exorcism when only the looks of Hearty and Carl indicated to the assistants what was going on. At those times, the quick interchange of challenge, threat, command, and insult between Hearty and the evil spirit possessing Carl were telepathic. Hearty's notes serve us well for these verbal blanks.

  A dangerous, complicating problem, in addition, was that Hearty could not always determine whether it was Carl or the possessing spirit that was producing psychic effects. In this case above all others in Hearty's career, all care and alertness had to be maintained. There was no shortcut. As exorcist, Hearty had to get to the core of the possession and make sure that the evil was expelled in its vicious essence.

  Hearty also realized his own danger in such an exorcism. He was moving on a slippery psychic plane, where thought and memory and imagination are peculiarly naked and open to aggression. His friend in Kyoto had shown him that many years ago. He had had occasion to learn it again since.

  Curiously, but briefly, the one great advantage Hearty enjoyed at the beginning of the exorcism was precisely Carl's power as a medium. With Carl disposed to help, Hearty had little difficulty in ferreting the evil spirit out and compelling it to identify itself. Therefore, Confrontation with Tortoise, as it called itself, was achieved quickly. But, by the same measure, the Clash between Hearty and Tortoise was immensely painful.

  Carl's cooperation with Hearty was cut off abruptly when the Confrontation took place between Hearty and Tortoise. Carl became helpless and unhelping. In his struggle alone, the wrenching of Hearty's will and the wound to his mind were acute, sharp beyond words, and irreparable.

  In excerpting the exorcism transcript, therefore, choice has been made of passages concerning the identification of the evil spirit, the unmasking of the deceptions Carl had accepted, and the effect of that unmasking on Hearty and on Carl himself. The transcript contains many more details (omitted here) about Carl's supposed reincarnation in the ancient Roman, Petrus, about early Christian rites, and about Carl's own psychical development from teenage on.

  “Do you feel all right, Carl?” Hearty's voice at the opening of the exorcism is full of feeling. But Carl is perfectly calm.

  “Yes, Father. Don't worry anymore. Let's get going.”

  Carl is lying on the couch in his father's den. Hearty's four assistants are kneeling around the couch. Hearty, flanked by his assistant priest, stands at the foot of the couch. It is 4:30 A.M., the beginning of the first day of the exorcism.

  Hearty takes up the opening words of the rite. His chanting stops after the first three sentences.

  He looks at Carl. He is motionless. Something alarms Hearty.

  “Carl! Carl! Answer me! Don't slip away, Carl! Answer me!”

  Carl stirs and speaks uneasily. “It's hard, Father. It's hard.”

  “Carl, what's happening?”

  “Low g-g-ga-gate. . .” Carl stumbles off into silence.

  “Carl, before you slip into high-gate, tell me. Just before. Do you hear me? Carl! Do you hear me?”

  “Ye-e-e-e-e-e-e-es, Fa-a-a. . .” Carl's voice trails off.

  Hearty continues for a minute or two with his monotone chanting of the exorcism prayers, then the chanting stops. Carl's mouth is opening and shutting. His fists are clenched.

  “High-g-g-g-g-g. . .” Hearty can hardly hear his voice.

  He motions to the assistants to take hold of Carl's legs and arms. Hearty speaks.

  “Spirit of Evil, you are commanded in the name of Jesus: Do not cloud the mind of Carl. Do not enslave his will. There is to be no deception. In the name of Jesus, stop.”

  Hearty looks at Carl: his face relaxes; his fists are unclenched. After a few moments, Carl speaks slowly without opening his eyes.

  “I cannot hold against them. . . him. . . them, Father. I cannot hold much longer. Too habit. . .” His voice break
s.

  “In the name of Jesus. . .” Hearty breaks off. The strain in the faces and arms of the assistants is a warning to him. Carl's body is struggling to rise.

  “Speak, Evil Spirit! Speak and declare yourself,” Hearty commands.

  He sprinkles some holy water and holds up the crucifix. Carl struggles for about a minute or so. There is silence in the room, except for the rustling and heavy breathing of that struggle.

  Finally, all signs of life disappear from Carl's face. Carl's body ceases to move. His lips open. Hearty hears the voice of Carl, but silken, smooth, ingratiating in tone, without any accentuation; it speaks in short broken sentences. It is like a slowly turning record. Clearly Carl is now a medium for the evil spirit.

  “I am the spirit. Of Carl. We are ascending. Into high-gate. And beyond. I am the spirit. Of Carl. We are ascending. Into high-gate. And beyond. I am. . .”

  Hearty decides to break in. “You are not the spirit of Carl. You are the spirit of Satan, the evil spirit who possessed him. In the name of Jesus, cease your deception. Declare yourself. Who are you? What name do you go by? Why do you possess God's creature, Carl? In the name of Jesus, speak. By the authority of Jesus and his Church, I command you. Speak!”

  All present now notice a sudden change in Carl's body. In some way or other, it seems to shrink or diminish in size or bulk. The assistant priest afterward described it “as if his body caved in on itself.” The luster goes out of Carl's black hair, even his curls seem flat. The skin on his face is drawn taut. They see the stretched tendons and veins in his neck clearly. His trunk, arms, and legs look as if a huge, invisible weight rested on them, pressing them down but not flattening them. There is no sound. The silence becomes oppressive.

  Hearty decides to speak again. “Evil Spirit, you are commanded. In the name of Jesus, speak!”

  Silence ensues. Everyone becomes aware of the slightest sound—the breathing of the others, the scuffing of a shoe on the wooden flooring, the sound of someone swallowing hard, the intake of breath in a quick sigh. But Hearty is not discouraged. It is the Tortoise to which Carl was drawn; and the progress of a tortoise is slow but sure. Hearty is fully confident. He waits.

  Then, without warning, a minor bedlam breaks out. Every book on the shelves lining three walls of the den come toppling down pell-mell on the floor, their pages opening, covers flying, book after book toppling off in no order, pages fluttering, onto the floor with dull thuds and tearing sounds. It is as if two pairs of hands attack each shelf simultaneously. The sudden sound unnerves one of the assistants; in sheer surprise and fright he half-screams.

  Hearty has not moved even his eyes. They are on Carl's face. His gamble has paid off. The only thing Hearty does is raise his hand for calm; he knows exactly what is happening. The tortoise is “approaching.”

  There is silence once again. They wait. Carl is still sunk into himself.

  Hearty has almost made up his mind to take up more exorcism prayers when he feels the first internal pressures. He finds it increasingly difficult to keep his eyes on Carl's face. His vision keeps fading as his imagination fills with curious images.

  “Jesus, Lord Jesus,” Hearty prays silently. “Save me. Help me now. I cannot resist this if you leave me to myself. I believe. Lord Jesus, help me.”

  The others know by Hearty's appearance that something is happening to him. His eyes blink open and shut. He sways slightly on his feet. His knuckles show white as he holds the crucifix.

  The assistant priest understands. Hearty has instructed him well; and he, too, has worked frequently with Hearty at exorcisms. He folds his hand over Hearty's around the crucifix. With the other, he makes the sign of the cross on Hearty's forehead, saying out loud: “Lord Jesus, have mercy on your servant.” The four assistants take their cue and repeat the same prayer.

  Slowly Hearty's imagination clears. But pain is now his adversary. His head is racked by a shooting migraine. Every look he gives Carl is full of an ache he never felt before. This crisis passes, but like all attacks in exorcism, it has taken its toll.

  When he speaks again, Hearty's voice has changed from a deep vibrancy to a strained and choking tone. His Welsh lilt has thickened.

  “In the name of the Savior, the Lord Jesus, you will declare yourself, Evil Spirit!”

  They all look at Carl. His head has moved. His mouth opens and they hear a voice that this time in no way resembles Carl's. It is like the thin falsetto produced by a deep-voiced man as a mockery of somebody else. It rings with a note of falsity, but is quite defiant. It irritates and frightens.

  “We will do the bidding of no being but Carl's friend. We will answer to. . .”

  “You will answer in the name of Jesus,” Hearty shoots back vehemently, his voice cracking Under the strain of this effort.

  “Hear, then, our voice, and see if you, a miserable, two-legged piece of slime, can command the Lord of Knowledge, the Unconquered.”

  Before Hearty gets in a reply, Carl's voice changes. Hearty looks quickly at his assistants: “Brace yourselves, boys! This is going to be tough on all of us.”

  Their ears are suddenly filled with sound. As long as they could concentrate on Carl, it seemed to them that the sound was coming from his lips. But now the force and peculiar quality of that sound rapidly distracts them. They cannot bear to look at Carl or at anything else, so violent is that absorption of their attention. Carl starts to thrash around. The assistants barely succeed in holding his arms and legs.

  It is not so much how loud or piercing that sound is. Rather, it is the quality of sound each one hears. For, as they find out by comparing notes later, the sound is tailored to each one's feelings, experience, and character. Each one is treated to a replay of all past pain made more agonizing now than when it had happened. Each feels the pain of every heartbreaking cry, of every lonely tone of voice, of every harsh piece of news he has experienced during his past life. The doctor hears again the dying breath of the first patient he ever lost—a young mother in childbirth crying as she died, “Let me see my son! Let me see my son!” And together with that, his own crying as a child; and the shout of a man who was knocked down and killed in front of his eyes a year before. Another hears the last crying of his own child, who had died of a brain tumor; another, his own betrayal of his employers at a private meeting with a competitor company. And so on for all. That voice is duplicating and reproducing for each one all those now-remembered sounds of pain, regret, guilt, despair, sorrow, disgust, anguish that make up the sum of his life's experience of suffering and human weakness.

  When one listens to the taping of this part in the exorcism, all one hears is an uneven series of groanings and heavy breathing.

  Hearty's experience is different. The voice does not affect his imagination. It seems to twist his mind. He becomes full of a quietly running commentary: whole sentences are scurrying through his mind—“The Lord of Knowledge must be adored. . . With knowledge one can be sure. . . Surety only comes from a clear vision. . . Clear vision comes from clear thought. . . Feelings and beliefs are a travesty. . . The Lord of Knowledge gives possession of the earth. . . The earth is all one, all one being. . .”—until the harangue seems endless. Hearty cannot remember it all. When it finally seems to reach an ending, it is only to start again from the beginning, going faster and faster, as it repeats itself over and over again.

  Hearty can manage no word, verbal or mental, on his own. But instinctively he presses the crucifix to his lips and holds it there. The gesture is seemingly enough. The grip on his mind eases. The logic countdown stops. He is free again.

  “In the name of Jesus, the Savior, you are commanded to declare yourself clearly. Speak, Evil Spirit!”

  Hearty's assistants are recovering. They renew their grip on Carl. Carl himself is still. But his face is lit up with color. He looks alive, well, just like somebody lying down with his eyes closed as he talks calmly. It is not Carl's voice, however. All present hear it, but each one's description of it differ
s from the others. All agree it is calm, almost superior in tone, neither slow nor fast, with just a little suspicion of a laugh or sneer in it. But some of them hear a young person speaking, some a very old man, some a mechanical voice, still others hear that voice as a distant echo. On the tape today, the sex of the speaker is indistinguishable—it could be male or female. To this writer it brought back memories of the tone of voice used by announcers in the music halls of the 19305.—affected, openly artificial, always with a note of laughing ridicule, loaded with suggestive undertones.

  “We come in the name of the Tortoise. Tortoise. Call us Tortoise. We have the eternity of the Lord of Knowledge.”

  Hearty feels thankful: he has gained a point. But almost immediately he regrets that distraction.

  The voice speaks again. “Thankful, eh? Don't you know what we've prepared for you, rooster-lover? Cock-lover?” Hearty concentrates again, restraining his impulse to ask what. The evil spirit may be constrained to Confrontation; but any opening he, the exorcist, affords it can be turned in a flash and fatally to the spirit's advantage. Hearty swings into his main interrogation.

  “Tortoise—”

  “Yes, cock-lover—”

  “You will speak only in answer to the question put you in the name of Jesus.” No rejoinder to that one, but Carl tries to turn over on his face. The assistants hold him firmly. He struggles a little, then is still.

  “Were all Carl's psychic powers due to your intervention, or because he was so gifted by nature?”

  “Both.” At this answer, Hearty concentrates again. Some force is attacking his mentality. His mind is like a barred door with strong hands beating insistently upon its panels.

  “Let us take his reincarnation, his supposed reincarnations. Was this your work?”

  “We, belonging to the Tortoise, existing in his eternity, have all time in front of us as one unceasing moment.”

  “But Carl spoke to people long dead. He knew their thoughts and their surroundings.”

  “The living are surrounded by their dead. Those of the dead who belong to us, they do our bidding. Everyone in the Kingdom does our bidding.”