The Dark Sacrament

by David Kiely

  THE UNQUIET SPIRIT OF CHILD SARAH

  EVIDENCE OF “PSYCHOKINETIC” ENERGY: It is also known as telekinetic energy. The most celebrated pioneer in the field of parapsychology and related research was Joseph Banks Rhine (1895–1980). In 1966, he and a number of colleagues, including J. Gaither Pratt and Charles E. Stuart, published the definitive work on PK: Extra-sensory Perception After Sixty Years: A Critical Appraisal of the Research in Extra-Sensory Perception. This was based on results first published in 1940.

  Recent research into the PK phenomenon itself—as purportedly demonstrated by groups of people who lift heavy objects with the power of the mind alone—was led by British psychologist Kenneth J. Batcheldor, who believes that “unconscious muscular action” is the basis for telekinesis, which relies to a great extent on the faith of the participants. He holds that fear is the key: that it is the fear of the power itself that inhibits the successful application of PK.

  LITTLE LUCY AND THE PHANTOM FAMILY

  “RESIDUAL” OR “MENTAL IMPRINT” HAUNTING: Peter Underwood, Britain’s foremost researcher into the paranormal and author of The Autobiography of a Ghost-Hunter (1983), broadly categorizes ghosts thus:

  1. Elemental (or primitive or racial-memory) manifestations. They are mainly seen in rural areas and in particular sites. They are rare and appear to be malevolent.

  2. Poltergeists, which include death-bed visions and manifestations triggered by crises or traumas.

  3. Traditional or historical ghosts. They usually dress in period clothing and follow old floor plans of houses and other buildings, thereby appearing to “walk” several inches above the floor. They neither speak nor interact with the observer. Often it is found that they are the ghosts of those who suffered trauma during their lifetimes.

  4. Mental imprints. They are some kind of imprint upon the atmosphere and resemble holographic images. Often they must be viewed from a specific angle and at a given time. The manifestation they produce never alters, as though a film sequence is being played back over and over.

  5. Time distortion and cyclic ghosts. They seem to be replays of past events, often the reenactment of famous battles.

  6. Ghosts of the living, which may be part of the phenomenon known as bilocation, or the result of clairvoyance and telepathy. Observers claim that the apparition is all but indistinguishable from the real person.

  All the ghosts seen by Lucy Gillespie seem to fall into more than one of these categories, in particular the third and fourth.

  THE PIT BENEATH THE HEARTHSTONE

  THE MYTH OF THE BANSHEE: It is difficult to say whether the belief was common to all Celtic peoples or if it was brought to other parts of Great Britain by visitors from Ireland. Certainly the Scottish variant bears more than a passing resemblance to her Irish counterpart, as does the Gwrach-y-rhybin, the Welsh equivalent. According to legend, this “night-hag” has much in common with the banshee, attaching herself to ancient families, in other words, nobility. She is ugly, with long black hair and garments. In some versions of the legend she has black wings, too, and often flies low over the landscape. When lamenting an imminent death, she imitates the voice of the soon-to-be-bereaved. For instance, she will cry something like, “Oh, my poor husband!” if a woman is to be widowed.

  The banshee and her Celtic cousins may be a throwback to pagan worship of the Dark Goddess or Crone, who was an aspect of the Goddess, the others being the Maiden and the Mother.

  LAY BENEATH THE HEARTHSTONE: There can be no underestimating the importance of the hearth and hearthstone in rural Irish life in past centuries, and still today in certain outlying communities. There were plantations in the sixteenth century, and wholesale confiscation of lands in Munster and Ulster in the mid-seventeenth century. The “rebel” chieftains and their tribes were driven “to the fern.” Those evictions left an indelible hurt on the Irish psyche, and led to an exaggerated importance being placed on the home hearth. There is even a notable Irish maxim that says, Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán fhéin: “There’s no hearth like your own hearth.”

  It should be remembered, too, that those dispossessed by foreign planters were of families who had occupied the same land for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

  The poet Lauchlan MacLean Watt (1867–1957) summarized the Irish obsession with the hearthstone:

  A man who loves his own hearthstone, and all it stands for, always carries into every conflict a principle of more sacred steadfastness than the homeless, nameless, characterless and hopeless outcast who has no anchorage for his soul…. When I was young we learned at our fireside the native names of our towns, rivers, clan and family names—our genealogy, the story of our people and the ideals which ought to be ours.

  In ancient times, the hearthstone was bound up with a variety of rituals. One example was the chieftain’s practice of burying one or two of his enemies under the hearthstone of a new dwelling or fort. This was believed to bring luck.

  A less gruesome use was found for the stone by a mother-to-be. To avoid having her child stolen by the fairies and a so-called changeling substituted, she would crush a new potato on the hearthstone.

  MR. GANT AND THE NEIGHBOR FROM HELL

  THERE’S NO GOD HERE: This is strikingly similar to the utterance of the demented nun in the case entitled “The Temptation of Father Fintan.” In one, the site of the manifestation was Lourdes; in the other, Luxor, ancient Thebes of the Egyptians. Both are or were sacred sites. The two instances seem to give the lie to the common supposition that such sacred places are out of bounds to demonic influences.

  THE SMURL FAMILY IN PENNSYLVANIA: The case is the subject of The Haunted: One Family’s Nightmare by Robert Curran (1988). It details the extraordinary manifestations that terrorized the Smurls—infestations that could be banished only after four exorcisms. Ed and Lorraine Warren—who collaborated in the writing of the book—conducted the most extensive investigations into the phenomena and were themselves apparently the target of demonic attack. Ed Warren has the distinction of being the world’s only lay demonologist trained by the Vatican.

  MY NAME IS LEGION: Some believe that the notorious New York serial killer who called himself Son of Sam was demonically possessed. Sam Berkowitz, who embarked on a horrific murder spree in the 1970s, was asked his name when arrested. He replied: “My name is Legion, for we are many,” the precise words contained in Mark’s Gospel (5:9). It remains a puzzle as to why Berkowitz, an orthodox Jew, should have quoted the New Testament, a collection of books normally read only by Christians. As with the demoniac of Scripture, cemeteries held a curious fascination for Berkowitz; he liked to spend time among the tombstones, especially those of the women he murdered.

  Interestingly, Peter Sutcliffe, England’s “Yorkshire Ripper,” also worked in a cemetery. He claimed it was while he was digging a grave there that a voice spoke to him from the grave of a Polish man. The voice told him that his mission in life was to rid the streets of prostitutes. Between 1975 and 1981, Sutcliffe attacked twenty women, not all of whom were prostitutes. Only seven survived his savage assaults.

  Sutcliffe underwent several exorcisms conducted by a Catholic priest while awaiting trial in Armley jail, Leeds.

  ST. BENEDICT MEDAL: The saint was born in Nursia, near Rome, ca. 480, and went on to found the monastic order that bears his name. This particular medal features a cross with the letters CSPB, signifying Crux Sancti Patris Benedicti, the cross of Father Benedict. The cross was a favorite Benedictine emblem. Inscribed also are the initial letters of a Latin prayer, which translates as “May the holy cross be my light. May the dragon never be my guide.” Just why this saint came to be associated with exorcism is not clear. Many miracles were attributed to him, some of Christlike proportions, such as enabling a follower to walk on water. Such miracles would have identified Benedict in the minds of the faithful as one possessing power over Satan.

  THE HESSIAN WHO RETURNED TO HAUNT

  THE SPIRIT OF A HESSIAN: The notoriety of
the Hessians may be unearned. They were, it is true, mercenary soldiers, although not in the same sense by which we understand mercenaries today. They were a private army recruited in the main by Count Frederick II of Hesse-Kassel, a principality in northern Hesse, Germany. They owed allegiance to their aristocratic masters but were not well paid; in fact, many drew only the cost of food and lodgings in return for their fighting skills.

  They first made their appearance on the international stage during the American War of Independence, when some thirty thousand of them fought on the side of King George III, who was monarch to a great many of them. The Hessians distinguished themselves in a number of engagements.

  In Ireland, the position was somewhat different. Coming, as it did, two decades after the War of Independence, the Rising of 1798 was fought by a different body of Hessians. Many accounts from that time depict an undisciplined and savage band of mercenaries, many of whom were drawn from prisons or were impressed into service, and whose conduct led to their being held in loathing by the Irish people. Whereas the name of Hessian carries with it few negative connotations in American history, in Ireland it is reviled.

  THE WOMAN WHO LEFT HER BODY AT WILL

  TUESDAY LOBSANG RAMPA: Cyril Henry Hoskins (1911–81) made a spectacular literary debut in 1956 with The Third Eye: The Autobiography of a Tibetan Lama, in which he claimed to be a Buddhist master. Millions of copies were sold around the world. The writer was actually a plumber’s son from Devon, a fact uncovered by a private detective hired by a group of academics who grew more than a little suspicious of “Dr.” Rampa’s teaching, and by extension his bona fides. By way of explanation, Hoskins revealed that the real Lobsang Rampa had taken over his body as a means of continuing his teaching. Hoskins went on to publish many more books, sustained by a gullible public. Eventually, however, mounting allegations of fraud forced him to flee to Canada, where he died in obscurity.

  CLAIRVOYANCE, REMOTE VIEWING: The two terms are cognate, though the latter has come to be associated with, among others, the U.S. military, which sought to develop this “gift” in groups of volunteers. The research went by different titles, beginning in the 1970s as a response to reports of Soviet investigation into so-called “PsyOps”; the final phase was Project Star Gate, which was abandoned in 1999. Although more than $20 million was spent, it is not known if any success was achieved, and skeptics cast doubt on the claims made by the participants. Clairvoyance should not be confused with astral projection, which appears to be an altogether different phenomenon, related to the near-death experience reported by many.

  MEMBERS OF THE GOLDEN DAWN: This was the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a magical society founded along Rosicrucian lines in London in 1887 by three Freemasons. Aside from W. B. Yeats, its membership included the notorious Aleister Crowley. Several of its rituals were based on ancient documents translated by S. L. MacGregor Mathers, one of the founders, including the fearsome Goetia, the Lesser Key of Solomon the King and The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage. The Golden Dawn drew on the philosophies of ancient Egypt and Greece, combined with threads of gnosticism and the Jewish Qabalah. It inspired many of the magical lodges found throughout the world today.

  DAVID KORESH AND JIM JONES: James Warren Jones (1931–78) set the precedent for the charismatic cult leader who induces mass suicide in his followers. Jones was born in Indiana to a father who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and from an early age seemed determined to make reparations. On becoming a minister, he actively sought to embrace black America and promote racial equality. He founded the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis, but in 1977 moved it to Guyana, South America, when he was accused of tax evasion. Most of his one thousand followers joined him, where they established a commune in the jungle.

  Jones was becoming increasingly delusional, claiming to be an incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Buddha, and others, and to be capable of performing miracles. He ruled his “people” with an iron fist, demanding total obedience. When U.S. authorities moved to arrest him, his men fatally ambushed the party, including a senator. Jones then induced his remaining 914 disciples—including 276 children—to commit suicide by consuming a soft drink laced with cyanide.

  David Koresh (1959–93) was born Vernon Wayne Howell in Houston, Texas. He never knew his father and was sexually abused by his stepfather. He went to California to become a rock guitarist but failed. He returned to Texas and joined a breakaway sect of Seventh-Day Adventists calling itself the Branch Davidians. Soon after, Koresh proclaimed himself leader. There were growing reports of brainwashing and child abuse at the Davidian ranch near Waco, as well as accusations that Koresh demanded sex from any female member he chose. In 1993, the FBI raided the farm. The fifty-one-day siege resulted in the deaths of four agents and seventy-six sect members, including Koresh. It was found that several adults had killed their own children before shooting themselves.

  THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS: Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961) was born and spent most of his life in Switzerland. As a pioneering psychiatrist, he collaborated with Sigmund Freud for many years until they had a notorious falling-out after WWI, owing to Freud’s fixation on sexuality as the root of numerous psychological problems. Jung became immersed in spirituality and the symbolism of dreams. He developed many theories on the subconscious mind, including the notion of the collective unconscious (which he later referred to as the objective psyche) and the archetypes: symbols common to all human beings and arising in that part of the psyche “shared” by all.

  The New England Transcendentalists, a group of writers led by Ralph Waldo Emerson, perceived a similarity between Jung’s collective unconscious and the concept of the oversoul. They believed that both ideas referred to a force pervading the universe upon which all individual human souls may draw, thus enabling one to communicate with God. It transcends the individual soul or consciousness.

  DEVILRY ON THE DINGLE PENINSULA

  DEAD BLACK FLIES: Flies seem to figure in an inordinate number of hauntings that have unpleasant overtones. In this regard it is intriguing to note that the archdemon Beelzebub is sometimes known as Lord of the Flies. Indeed, this appears to be a Hebrew-Aramaic translation of the name itself, in earlier texts rendered as Baalzebûb. It is also cognate with the Philistine god Ba’al, who may or may not have been a malevolent entity.

  DEALING WITH THE PRETERNATURAL: It is often thought that the terms preternatural and supernatural are interchangeable. In fact, supernatural should be used only in reference to God and that which is of God. A preternatural entity, such as an evil spirit, is considered to be superior in power to a human being but inferior to the divine.

  HOLY WATER AND INCENSE: The use of incense predates Christianity by many centuries, if not millennia. There are countless references to it in the Old Testament, for example: “And Aaron shall burn thereon sweet incense every morning…a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations” (Exodus 30:7–8). The New Testament also mentions it, for instance, in Revelation 8:3–4: “And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.” However, there is no record of its Christian use until the fifth century. The symbolism of incensation is threefold: the burning zeal of the faithful, the fragrance of virtue, and the ascent of prayer on high. The cloud it produces may also symbolize the incorporeal nature of the divine.

  APPENDIX 1: EXORCISM AND HISTORY

  SANSKRIT: One of the oldest Indo-European languages, written Sanskrit is some 3,500 years old. Today it occupies a position similar to that of Latin in the Christian Churches, being the liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. There have been recent attempts to revive it as a vernacular.

  BOOK OF TOBIT: From 6:8. Protestantism regards this biblical book as apocryphal.
In older Catholic Bibles it is known as the Book of Tobias, Tobias being the son of Tobit, a Jew who was exiled in Nineveh, Mesopotamia.

  POPE CORNELIUS: The emperor Caius Messius Quintus Decius reigned in Rome from AD 249 until his death in 251. This was a time of great persecution of Christians, enthusiastically continued by his successor, Caius Gallus, who, it seems, died in the same year as the exiled pontiff. Although Cornelius was declared a martyr, there is no evidence that he suffered a violent death. Novatian, the theologian who took his place in 251, thereby creating a schism, was also exiled and was said to have died a martyr.

  EAGLE MOUNTAIN: The god Lugh, father of Cúchulainn, had his place in all the Celtic pantheons. The Welsh knew him as Llew Llaw Gyffes, “Lew of the Versatile Arm.” To the Gauls he was Lugos. In ancient Ireland he was known as Lugh Lámhfada, or “Lugh of the Long Arm.” He was a solar deity possessed of many skills, including medicine and brewing. He was also a shape-shifter, his favored animal being a raven, sometimes an eagle. This last might account for the old name of Croagh Patrick.

  MOSES IN THE SINAI: “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb” (Exodus 3:1). The biblical Horeb, where Moses communed with God, was renamed Mount Sinai by Greek Orthodox monks in the fourth century AD. There is some confusion today when identifying it; Gebel Mûsa (Moses’s Mountain) is taken to be the original Horeb, although the nearby (and smaller) Mount Serabit seems a better contender, being the site of an ancient Egyptian temple to Hathor.