Hostage to the Devil

by Malachi Martin

  “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 differs 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 1930s: 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.”

  “And those who don’t belong to you—”

  “The Latter.” It comes as a snarl, but also, Hearty feels, with a certain note of craven fear. That fear impresses Hearty. Again he is distracted, and again he pays the price.

  “You too, cock-lover! Priest! You too will be afraid when you get what’s coming to you.” The door of Hearty’s mind is giving way. That force is battering at him. He falters a moment, then regains concentration in an immense effort. He goes on questioning.

  “The astral travels of Carl? Did you engineer that?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you get him into such delusion?”

  “Once spirit is confused with psyche, we can let anybody see, hear, touch, taste, know, desire the impossible. He was ours. He is ours. He is of the Kingdom.”

  Carl is not moving, but his entire body lies once again in the crushed position. The pathos of his captivity makes Hearty wince. He prays quietly, “Jesus, give him strength.” Then he tries to continue his interrogation, but the voice interrupts, this time screaming in unbelievable despair.

  “We will not be expelled. We have our home in him. He belongs to us.” Hearty waits as the scream dies away in gurgles. Carl’s own throat is visibly moving.

  “Are you the maker of the Non Self aura?”

  No.”

  “How did you use the Non Self aura in Carl’s case?”

  “The aura is there for all who can perceive it. Only humans have learned to unsee it. If they saw it continually, they would die.”

  “How did you use it?”

  “We didn’t.”

  Hearty now flings concise questions, most of which need only a yes or no as answer. His aim is to expose the evil spirit, to make it tell its own deceptions.

  “Did Carl see it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you make it clear for him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “He wanted it so!”

  “Did he ask you?”

  “We offered.”

  “Did he know who you were?”

  “He knew.”

  “Clearly?”

  “Clear enough.”

  “Did he bilocate?”

  “No.”

  “What happened?”

  “We gave him knowledge of distant places as if he was there.”

  “Had he a double, a psychic double?”

  “We gave him one.”

  “How?”

  “Gave him the knowledge a double would have.”

  “When did you start at Carl?”

  “In his youth.”

  “Did you give him his early vision?”

  “No.”

  “Did you interfere with it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “He wanted us to do so.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We know.”

  “By what sign?”

  “We know.”

  “What did he do that let you know?”

  “We know.”

  “In the name of Jesus, I command you: Tell me how you knew.”

  There is a long pause of about two minutes. Hearty waits patiently, all the while looking at Carl, keeping his mind on the question.

  Then the trap comes for him.

  “There is no word for it.”

  “Is there a thought for it?”

  “Yes.” Hearty, his concentration failing momentarily, caught up in his interrogation, does not see the trap opening in front of him. He asks simply:

  “What is that thought?”

  And immediately he and the assistants notice the change in Carl. The crushed and lifeless look is instantaneously gone. His body relaxes beneath the hands of the assistants. He draws in a long, deep breath and stretches himself like a man coming pleasantly out of a deep sleep. His eyes start to open. He moves his head gently from side to side. The color is back in his cheeks, his lips are smiling, and his eyes are quizzical with good humor.

  It all happens so unexpectedly that everyone is taken by surprise. The assistants who have been holding him in grim determination and fear up to this moment now feel embarrassed. Carl is not even offended. He seems to be amused but tolerant.

  “Hey, guys, can I sit up? It’s okay. It’s okay.”

  The voice is Carl’s. His behavior is normal.

  Hearty is the only one who realizes what has happened. But too late! He is trapped. He is getting the “thought.” Before he feels the full force of that invasion in his mind, he sees the four assistants on their feet looking at him for some explanation or instruction. Carl has sat up on the couch, one leg thrown easily over the side. He also is looking at Hearty. All five wear the same quizzical expression: they seem to be surprised at Hearty’s behavior.

  The assistant priest also has turned around to look at Hearty. He, too, has a questioning look. The look is an appeal to Hearty, but Hearty is helpless at that moment.

  His chief feeling is one of horror: horror at what he sees happening, horror at his own imprisonment in his mind. The “thought” is now clear to him in a way he never dreamed: he sees it concretely in his four assistants and in Carl. They are completely at ease, their only emotion is wonder that Hearty is not at ease. He wants to scream at them, to shout: “Watch out! Watch out! They have played on your desire for normal behavior. They are making it all normal for you.” But he cannot open his mouth or produce a sound.

  As his helplessness grows, he sees more and more clearly what is happening. No one wants to believe in evil, really, above all, not in an evil being, an evil spirit. Everyone wants to abolish the idea. To admit the existence of evil means a responsibility, and no one wants that responsibility. That is the opening through which Tortoise crawls, stilling all suspicions, making everything seem normal and natural. This is the “thought,” the unwariness of the ordinary human being which amounts to a disinclination to believe in evil. And, if you do not believe in evil, how can you believe in or ever know what good is?

  Inside in his mind, this realization begins to inflate like a rubber balloon, widening and swelling in its intensity, increasing his helplessness side by side with his new understanding.

  Now all looking at him are smiling, Carl included. All they see is Hearty’s long, bony face, his lips split in what they take as a grimace of embarrassment. And the more effort he makes, the more he seems to grimace.

  Hearty’s torture is at its peak, and his endurance almost ended, when the assistant priest notices one thing: Hearty is pressing the crucifix to the side
of his head. The younger priest stops: something must be wrong. Something must be wrong. Otherwise, Hearty is striking a comic pose using the crucifix, and Hearty would never do that during an exorcism or at any other time. What can be wrong?

  Then, turning to the others, the assistant priest says: “Something’s wrong with Hearty. Look!”

  It is Carl who answers, evenly and in apparent good humor. “Look yourself, Father. He’s trying to crucify himself. A bald-headed Christ with spectacles.” And he bursts into a peal of laughter.

  The effect is like a gunshot. Everyone suddenly stops. An eerie note has been struck. Five heads turn around and five pairs of eyes stare at Carl incredulously.

  The assistant priest takes over. “In the name of the Church and of Jesus who founded it…”

  But he is interrupted. Carl begins to protest, apparently in good humor still. “Father, look!”

  “Hold him down!” the priest orders the four assistants. Then to Carl: “In the name of Jesus, I command you to desist.”

  This delay is all Hearty needs. The pressure relents; the “thought” deflates inside his mind. He is free again. He almost lost, but he has learned two things. He knows the ruse of normalcy that this spirit has used to work in Carl for his acceptance, step by step, year by year. He knows the “thought.” And, second, he knows for certain now that Carl’s psychic powers, and his own, will be used as a weapon against him at the slightest opening. His careful preparation may at least be some defense.

  Carl is lying down again, wide awake, under the control of the assistants once more, his eyes narrowed to slits, his face a sheet of white anger.

  As Hearty gazes at Carl, his mind races back: somewhere he has touched a raw nerve. Somehow he has almost found the central weakness of the spirit that calls itself Tortoise. He has to pursue this line. His next question is peremptory.

  “Where were you leading Carl?”

  “To knowledge of the universe.” The words come out from between Carl’s tightly clenched teeth.

  “What knowledge?”

  There is no answer at first. Then slowly and grudgingly the words come. “The knowledge that humans are just a part of the universe.”