I'm reading (amongst the multiple other books) a book titled "The Exorcist's Handbook" (Golem Media, 3rd edition, 2010, ISBN 978-1-937002-43-5, Amazon), by Josephine McCarthy, who is also responsible for this website. The book is, in effect, about working with and "removing" non-human beings that are causing problems for humans and other sentient beings; refreshingly, it doesn't take a simplistic neochristian / Hollywood attitude to this, and non-human beings are not seen as "evil" but as out-of-place, and the "exorcism" is about returning such beings to where they came from for their good, as much as the good of the human(s) they were infecting.
The book does talk about more insidious influences as well, but keeps a healthy and non-judgemental perspective. For instance:
"These beings are very dangerous, not just to individuals, but to groups and societies in general. It is not something you would tackle alone as an exorcist, but something that a focussed group would work on over a generation. The trick is to not get drawn into the agenda for good or bad—stay neutral and get a job done. The other thing I have found with some of these larger demonic beings that flow through a structure is that they are often doing an important job: aiding in the breaking down of a structure that is decaying. This is what I think the natural function of a demonic being is: to assist in an end to something corrupt."
When I was learning how to do spirit rescue, back in the 80s, my teacher told us of a situation he had come across where some people were convinced their house was haunted by an "evil" entity that was doing things like pulling out chairs when they went to sit down: it turned out the problems were caused by a small boy who had "found he was invisible" (died) and was having the sort of immature "fun" such children sometimes engage in - i.e., pulling out chairs when people are about to sit in them, not realising they could cause an injury.
The humour in Ms McCarthy's book is pretty good, too.
I haven't read the sections on techniques yet, but will possibly do a review of the book at some stage after I have completed the book. I may not try any of the techniques, as I consider the biggest problems on the planet are - or are associated with - humans - who can be quite evil in their way. In fact, the author gives an insight into Dion Fortune's work against Germany in World War Two, the work which inspired my PWRs (e.g., here) and "magickal battle of the world" series (e.g., here) that I found quite interesting.
I would like to reflect on why so many Germans could allow themselves to be part of such evil.
There are a fair few reasons (setting aside the matter of the possessions / obsessions - which did happen), but the physical world issue I wish to focus on is the loss of perspective that can happen when people swear oaths.
In the case of Germany in the 1930s, my understanding is that army officers swore an oath of loyalty directly to the psychopath at the head of that nation - not to the nation, or its people, or even the government. As a result, many felt that they could not go against hitler without impugning their own honour - notwithstanding that their honour was utterly shredded and destroyed by being part of an aggressive war, standing by and allowing human rights abuses to occur - or even committing those, and allowing the nation they were supposed to be serving be destroyed.
Some of those who turned against hitler did so not because it was right, but because they were belatedly concerned with what was happening to Germany. I have a suspicion that von Claus von Stauffenberg, who was behind the "July plot" that wound up doing the allies an enormous amount of good by further reducing the confidence of higher German military officers to operate independently of hitler, and saw many capable military officers killed (including Rommel) as part of the retaliations which saw nearly 5,000 people killed, was more concerned about Germany than right or wrong.
I may be wrong about that - and others involved with that plot had been against hitler from the 30s.
(As a side note, one of the strange things to come out of that terrible, terrible war was an incident where, just before the end of the war, an American and a German army unit combined together to protect hostages - including von Stauffenberg's widow - against an SS unit which wanted to slaughter the lot.)
The simple minded, unthinking and uncritical loyalty to an oath is a problem in many other situations as well - a wide range of criminal activities, excessively blind loyalty in friends / colleagues, people who get into "anything goes" businesses, and sometimes people in abusive relationships who won't leave because of their marriage vows.
On that last example, the survivor/victims I'm referring to know they're being harmed - and they know the other person has broken their side of the vows, but they don't want to drag themselves down to the level of their abuser by also breaking their vows.
It is a loss of perspective - or common sense, if you prefer - that I can understand and relate to. I consider there is a need for those seeking to help such people to be respectful of that person's values around their vows, and find a way to be released from those vows that the person, not their abuser nor their helper, finds acceptable.
If not, that "helper" is being like the child abusers in religious orders who, in addition to the emotional and physical harm, are also committing spiritual harm. (On that, I read an opinion piece a few week ago that counsellors need to become comfortable with religion. I'll see if I can find it and add here.)
I'd like to end with another example of loss of perspective in the business world that I saw a few years ago.
What happened was that a fairly high up employee in another nation paid a bribe to win a job, which eventually led to temporary sanctions by one international organisation against that company. I don't know the details, but I could easily see someone who either wanted the praise that goes with winning a big project (no-one gets praised for being ethical and passing up on a job) or maybe was responding to internal pressure to "perform better" so they considered the act was worth any price - and quite possibly they didn't think they would be found out, or that it wouldn't matter because of a local cultural acceptance of bribes.
In that case, the ethical breach could be attributed to a lack of loyalty to a higher concept - the sort of lack which could be addressed by an oath to a suitable, ethical organisation /concept.
So the three situations I have written about are:
- the problems caused by lack of an appropriate perspective;
- the problems caused by loyalty to an inappropriate oath or vow (including loss of perspective); and
- the problems caused by the lack of an appropriate oath or vow (including lack of perspective).
Just a few thoughts to consider as we watch the predictable nightmare unfolding in Afghanistan.
