Deliver Us from Evil (18 page)

All of this could have a supernatural explanation, so Joe and I went to check it out. It was a beautiful autumn evening when we arrived at the condo and rang the bell, with no idea what might await us on the other side of the door. No one answered. Joe was puzzled and told me he'd confirmed the appointment earlier that day. He pressed the buzzer again, and after several long rings, the door finally opened to reveal a man wearing a tattered terry-cloth bathrobe. Joe and I looked at each other, knowing something was definitely off. We introduced ourselves and asked if he was Stuart Butterman, figuring we must have the wrong apartment. “Yes,” he said, sounding a bit annoyed when we said we'd wait outside until he was properly dressed.

Five minutes later we were finally ushered into an exquisitely decorated living room. Not a thing was out of place, except Stuart, who was oddly dressed and repeated the same story he'd told on the phone, much less believably this time. With a wild flourish of his hands, he added that he had angelic powers and could communicate with spirits. “Is there anyone dead you'd like to speak to?” he asked. I glanced at Joe and could see his bullshit detector was on red alert. Although neither of us is psychic, I knew what my partner was thinking:
This guy isn't just eccentric—he's a nut job!

“No, thank you,” Joe replied politely. I cautioned Mr. Butterman that if he really was in touch with the dead, he should give it up immediately as this practice is extremely dangerous. He gave a demented laugh, and we left.

*   *   *

Now I was about to walk through the door of a new case. As always, I felt an indescribable mix of excitement and apprehension as I parked outside Tony's home.
What would go on inside?
I tried not to think of the possibilities, because I like to start an investigation with an open mind. As I got out of my car, I felt a little jolt at the back of my head. Thinking it might be a bug, I felt to see if anything was in my hair. Finding nothing, I didn't give it a second thought and continued up the walk. Once I got inside, I felt it again, a subtle poke. Tucking what had just happened away, I introduced myself and set up my video camera, anxious to get on with the interview, since I was due at my police job by midnight.

Tony looked just like his voice: small and so delicately built that a strong breeze might blow him away. He was in his twenties, with a full head of brown hair and a neatly trimmed goatee. His large brown eyes were soft and soulful, just what you'd expect for a blues musician. Although he didn't appear to be rich, I got the impression that this young pianist wasn't hurting for money. He was neatly dressed in a flannel shirt, slim-fitting black jeans, and well-worn black sneakers. From the nervous way he plucked at his clothes and what he'd told me so far, I sensed he was in deep trouble. I also felt he was a good-hearted, honest person, and liked him right away.

He lived in a basement apartment in his mother's house. Though small, it was a perfect bachelor pad. The place was very neat and clean with starkly modern furniture I suspected had been selected more for the elegance of its design than for comfort. Several framed posters of jazz and blues musicians hung on the walls.

After offering me a cup of freshly brewed coffee, Tony explained that his difficulties had begun, quite innocently, when he was a high school senior. “I had a girlfriend who said she was at a party where they'd played a most interesting game. ‘So what was it?' I asked, and she went to her room and got a Ouija board. I'd never seen one before, and thought it was a toy. We played, and that thing in the middle just zoomed around on its own accord.”

My face darkened at this.
There ought to be a law against these evil, occult “toys”!
Keeping my feelings in check, I told Tony that the object he was describing was called a planchette.

“Nothing exciting happened,” he continued. “We asked it questions and it gave us the answers, but they weren't very interesting or dramatic.”

A few days later he learned that his girlfriend's father was seriously ill. Tony was very close with this man and, being such a sensitive person, got extremely upset. Like many teenagers, he began to wonder about life and death.

A woman he met a few days later claimed she had the answer, and started to tell him about Christian Science. He brushed her off at first but later read the literature she gave him. Christian Scientists believe that Jesus came to save us not just from sin but also from illness and death. According to this religion, the methods Christ and His disciples used to heal the sick and raise the dead can be used in modern times, so followers of this faith shouldn't go to a doctor but to a Christian Science practitioner to regain health or to solve any personal or financial problems they might have.

That resonated with Tony, now that his girlfriend's father was so ill. He tried to will the old man back to health, but when that didn't work—and the father died—he was bitterly disappointed and turned away from Christian Science.

But Tony was still spiritually hungry, and wanted more than ever to know what the world was all about. He felt that something was missing from his own existence and was thus captivated when he saw an ad in a magazine proclaiming “Learn the Mysteries of Life!” This was precisely his goal, so he sent money to the address in the ad and received “initiation” instructions from the Rosicrucians, also known as the Ancient and Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (Latin for “rose cross”). Headquartered in California, this group promises to unlock secret wisdom from the ages, banish fears and frustration, enrich the human spirit, and open the door to self-mastery. They claim to accomplish this by revealing the workings of mysterious natural laws through which an initiate can turn wishes and daydreams into reality. If that's not grandiose enough, they also tout their teachings as the path to improve memory, increase health, influence other people, learn the truth about reincarnation, decipher ancient symbols, and ultimately obtain cosmic consciousness.

The training course Tony received advised studying “first-degree” Rosicrucian doctrine for six weeks, then initiating himself into the order with a secret rite. He was told to darken a room, surround himself with lighted candles, and stare into a mirror. As instructed, he then traced a five-inch cross on the glass while intoning “Hail Holy Cross.” This was followed by precisely three minutes of meditation. The use of a looking glass for mystical rituals is known as “crystalmancy,” or “magic mirror” divination, and has a long history. St. Augustine wrote of witches who wrote prophecies on mirrors in human blood, and ancient Roman oracles used reflective surfaces in a rite called “speculum” to forecast the victors in upcoming battles. Magic mirrors have also been used for sorcery—and are now sold over the Internet.

By dabbling in the occult, Tony was attempting to fill a void—and soon enough, his gnawing, adolescent hunger
was
filled, by a demon. He didn't think he had anything to fear, though. “I felt it was safe to play around with these things, because at the church I went to, they told us the Devil doesn't exist.”

After completing the initiation ritual, he sat down to his calculus homework—and was overcome by bizarre sensations: “I suddenly felt like I'd been injected with a drug. When I looked at the sheet of paper I'd been writing on, it wasn't a sheet of paper anymore. It seemed like I was looking
through
it and seeing the infinite makeup of that piece of paper and all of creation. I remember thinking ‘Where am I?' But it seemed so ridiculous. Was I going crazy? I knew I
wasn't
crazy: I was a good student, getting good grades. I was involved in music, making recordings, and should be happy, since I was doing everything that pleased me.”

I didn't doubt that Tony was telling me the truth, but I saw that he was a troubled person who had gone down some dark roads in his quest for answers. He had more to say about that experience in his room. “My mind was bombarded with questions, but they weren't my
own
questions.”

What were they? Tugging at his clothing more anxiously than ever, he said, “They were questions like ‘How is it that matter exists? How is it that
anything
exists?'” He said he considered these legitimate questions, but only if they actually came from his own intellect. “But these questions were alien and frightening. I even questioned the existence of God. I felt I was being programmed like a computer, by whom or what I didn't know.”

Tony's words were setting off alarm bells. Maybe this man really didn't know, but I did. I saw a strong correlation with a case Father Malachi Martin had written about in
Hostage to the Devil.
This man, called Carl V. in the book, was a psychologist who opened himself up to possession by delving into parapsychology to learn about the true origins of Christianity. The parallel between the two cases was the method the evil spirit used to attack. Like Tony, Carl V. was engaged in his studies when his consciousness changed in a single moment. He lost all physical sense of his surroundings: He was no longer
looking
at them but somehow
participating
in them. As he described it, he
knew
every object he saw in its entirety, just as Tony
knew
the “infinite makeup” of a sheet of paper.

The difference was in the two men's desires. While Tony longed to know the mysteries of life, Carl V. wanted to know the mysteries of Christianity. The psychologist's experiences, however, were more profound than the young musician's, because Carl V. had uncanny psychic abilities, bestowed on him not by God but by the Devil. Both men, however, had the distinct feeling of losing “self.” Their total being was swallowed up by a diabolical force. While neither gave up complete control at this point, by involving themselves in the occult, they unwittingly invited demonic possession.

After the homework episode, the “hellish” period of Tony's life began. For several years afterward, as he attended college and then launched a career as a musician, he could function fairly normally, but he kept having bouts where he couldn't think straight and felt alienated from himself.

A friend suggested he try transcendental meditation (TM), which is not a religion. The instructors say it can be practiced by people of any faith, including clergy. TM in itself isn't evil, but it can have very negative side effects, as Tony's story illustrates. Its devotees say that this form of meditation releases stress and purifies the mind, body, and emotions of the person who does it. This phrasing bothers me, because it sounds like a deliberate attempt to exclude any reference to the human soul. In speaking of “natural law,” TM also ignores God and focuses solely on the “self.” For someone who is already troubled and vulnerable, like the young pianist, opening up his mind this way can admit supernatural forces that seek only to destroy. Instead, I urge anyone interested in meditation to focus solely on thoughts of God, who will grant inner peace and relieve stress.

Tony was very impressed with TM. After trying it for a few months, he had another extraordinary experience: “My consciousness was again transformed, but in completely the opposite way as before. It was a very positive turnaround, and the terrible feelings of the past years melted away in a single moment. I was filled with peace and joy.” This set off alarm bells for me: I could see that, at this point, he was being drawn in even further.

Since he was a Catholic, Tony asked two priests about TM, and both gave their approval. I was extremely disturbed by this: Priests are in the service of God, and should have been directing his spiritual life toward prayer and the holy sacraments, not nonreligious meditation. After Tony's so-called uplifting experience, and with these priests' OK, he signed up for an advanced course in TM, which led him further down the path to possession.

This course, as Tony explained it, was called the Sidhi. Sidhi are a group of mantras (focus words) that one intones during a long meditation. Each of these mantras was associated with different powers. Tony decided to concentrate on the one for levitation. Nothing remarkable happened for several weeks, then he felt electric energy and lightness enter his spine. “At times I would feel the energy go into my shoulders and rise into my head. I would be sitting in the lotus position and lift right off the floor. I would go higher and higher without doing anything; and the energy kept getting stronger and stronger.”

I questioned Tony further about this because I've seen practitioners of TM attempting to levitate. It looks pretty comical, watching these people bouncing up and down on the floor. But Tony assured me he did nothing to lift himself up—it just happened.

Although he believed he'd opened the doors of perception, he discovered darkness on the other side. “What came along with the energy was a babbling of words from my mouth, words I didn't understand. This disturbed me terribly, so I spoke with both the TM instructor and a priest. I got similar explanations, sort of.”

His teacher said energy rises from the base of the spine and opens the chakra points—the body's power sources—which gives rise to levitating, sometimes called “yogic flying.” Yogic flying is a wonderful thing, the instructor added, showing that Tony had risen to a higher plane of consciousness, both mentally and physically. “I thought
Great, but why am I babbling words I can't understand?
The teacher said it was just stress coming out in ‘articulated words.'”

The priest took a different view and suggested that Tony was “speaking in tongues.” To back up his theory, he cited a number of Biblical references, none of which advocated incoherent, meaningless babble. (In some religions, such as Pentacostalism and charismatic Catholicism, participants speak in tongues, but only as part of their prayers.) The holy man's words made Tony believe he was having an important spiritual experience.
Although I hate to criticize a priest, I felt this one just didn't have a clue. It made me sick to think that Tony had been led further astray by this misguided interpretation of his behavior.