The Dark Sacrament (44 page)

But this is to ignore the fact that far and away the majority of Celtic deities were quite benign when compared to, say, the blood-thirsty gods of ancient Rome. Most Celtic gods were worshiped as protectors of home and hearth, and bringers of health, wealth, and happiness. Crom Dubh, a fertility god, was regarded as a friend, a force to call upon in one's hour of need. Lugh was among the most benign of all. When Patrick ascended the mountain sacred to that di
vinity, Lughnassadh (“Lugh's Feast”), observed on the first day of August, was approaching. It was a time of celebration, a harvest feast.

There is, however, a consensus among church scholars that Patrick did drive out something of importance that day on Eagle Mountain, and the evidence seems to point to evil spirits. This was only the first skirmish of his long war against the powers of evil. Patrick was Ireland's first Christian exorcist, and his legacy has endured for over fifteen hundred years.

IRELAND AFTER PATRICK

Patrick and the saints who came after him were always going to have a difficult struggle against the Celtic spirit world. This “otherworld” was never far beneath the surface in pre-Christian Ireland. The gods were everywhere, not only in the forests, where they might take the forms of living creatures, but in the home as well. Communication with the otherworld was therefore relatively easy.

Even the Irish board games seem to have had a dual nature, further facilitating communion with the dark side. The games of Branfad and Brandubh were associated with the raven or crow, a bird sacred to the warrior goddess Morrigan. More sinister, however, was the board game known as Fidchell. It could be played in much the same way as chess or checkers, but its original and more important function was to communicate with noncorporeal entities. It was therefore a forerunner of the Ouija board.

The task of the early Christian missionaries was to supplant the indigenous beliefs with a monotheistic religion, whose very setting—the Holy Land—would have seemed impossibly alien to the people. For this reason, they found it expedient to graft Christianity onto an existing credo rather than try to entirely eradicate the old beliefs. And so it was that pagan sites became associated with saints, whether real or imagined. The first churches and monasteries even incorporated pagan symbols and art. The Celtic belief system endured far into the first centuries of Christianity, in
particular the notion that human consciousness occupied a position between two worlds: the material and the spiritual. At any time, the spiritual might intrude; it could also be summoned at will, demons and all.

The Patrick mythology would have us believe that Christianity triumphed in heathen Ireland without a struggle beyond the saint's skirmishes with court sorcerers. In fact, for close to two hundred years there was a battle for hegemony, engaged in fiercely by both sides. The pagan demons were not prepared to go quietly.

There were heroes in those days. Or so the surviving manuscripts would suggest. One such demon battler was St. Fursey. The year of his birth is not recorded, but we do know that he died in France circa
AD
650.

Born the son of Fintan, a prince of south Munster, he received his baptism in a monastery on the island of Inisquin in the west of Ireland. He eventually joined the community there, going on to found his own monastery on the lake shore.

On a journey to his father's princedom in Munster, Fursey was stricken with a serious illness, which laid him low and put him into a coma. While in this state, he received the first of the extraordinary visions that would characterize his ministry. Fursey saw angels who battled demons for possession of his soul. Good triumphed, but not before the saint had a vision of the fires of hell. On his return to consciousness, his fellow monks observed that he had developed actual burn marks over much of his body—scars that remained with him for the rest of his days.

The saint set out on a mission through Ireland, exorcising demons wherever he found them. He was to preach and exorcise in Wales and East Anglia before settling in northern France in 648. He became bishop of Lagny, near Paris. On his death, his body lay unburied for thirty days and was visited by thousands of pilgrims, many of whom claimed that the corpse showed no decay. A litany attributed to him is in the Trinity College Dublin collection of manuscripts.

Yet, for all the old saints Ireland is said to have produced, and for all their wondrous deeds, there is but meager evidence that they physically engaged, much less overcame, the forces of evil. For historical evidence of exorcism in Ireland we must turn our attention to later centuries. In doing so, we must also briefly examine the traditional alliance between the Devil and witchcraft.

WITCHCRAFT AND EXORCISM

Practitioners of Wicca, or witchcraft, are adamant that their religion is a benign one, that it is no more than a nature religion. Its gods are those of the earth, sea, sky, and forest. They argue that, of all the thousands of adherents in Ireland and other parts of the world, the percentage who use their powers for evil is negligible—no more, they contend, than the percentage of Christians who subvert the message of Jesus for improper ends.

This is unquestionably true. Yet for centuries witches were pursued mercilessly for no better reason than suspicion of diabolic collusion. This was due in part to witches' devotion to the so-called horned god of the forest, a deity who unfortunately bore more than a passing resemblance to the Devil of Christendom. There was more. Witches were said to worship Satan himself during their infamous sabbats, gatherings at which the Devil was sometimes present in person. He was known to “brand” a new recruit with a mark concealed on a part of the body not usually visible.

There is no doubt that witches, or “wise women,” played an important role in ancient societies. Where medical doctors were scarce, they provided cures for a variety of common ailments. In many parts of the developing world they still do.

But in doing so, such women were exposing themselves to danger. By openly demonstrating their powers, they were leaving themselves vulnerable to accusations of maleficence in the event an inexplicable malady suddenly beset the community. If God had not poisoned the wells, sickened the livestock, or sent pestilence, then
surely the Adversary was responsible. At such times, the local witch, known for her occult arts, became an easy target. In a patriarchal society it was deemed inappropriate that a woman should wield as much influence as did the witch.

THE IRISH WITCHES

The witch trials that raged throughout Europe from about the fourteenth century on were somewhat more subdued in Ireland and England. In fact, only in the late sixteenth century did English law make it an offense to practice witchcraft. In Scotland it was otherwise.

Scottish witches bore the brunt of much of the frenzy. There was wholesale torture, hanging, and burning alive, though not on the same, almost industrial, scale as was witnessed in France and Germany. It is difficult to see in hindsight what the Devil had to do with all this, but as time went on and the madness grew, wild accusations came to be leveled, chief among which was that of a witch having made a pact with Satan. How else but through diabolic abetment could a mere woman exercise power?

The first Irish witch trial took place in 1324: that of Dame Alice Kyteler of Kilkenny, a member of a prominent Anglo-Norman family. It was rumored that she had already dispatched three husbands by poison when, at the urging of the bishop of Ossory, she and her band of reputed sorcerers were arrested. The litany of accusations was lengthy and imaginative. Dame Alice and her cohorts were, it was alleged, guilty of every vice from denying Christ to seeking “by their sorcery advice and responses from demons.”

They had, it was reported, sacrificed animals to the Devil; they had wrought spells using mixtures containing “certain horrible worms, various unspecified herbs, dead men's nails, the hair, brains, and shreds of the cerements of boys who had been buried unbaptized, with other abominations, all of which they cooked, with various incantations, over a fire of oak-logs in a vessel made out of the skull of a decapitated thief.” Most damning of all, Dame Alice had her very own “familiar” spirit:

But Dame Alice escaped punishment; she was well connected. In her stead, her accomplices were pursued and punished. One such victim, Petronilla of Meath, was repeatedly flogged and tortured into confessing her guilt. Her “crimes” included acting as a medium between Alice and a number of demons. At the behest of the bishop, Petronilla was burned alive in Kilkenny on November 3, 1324. This is the first recorded witch burning in Ireland.

THE WITCH OF YOUGHAL

From that time on, the country produced a small number of witch trials, noteworthy among which was that of Florence Newton, the “Witch of Youghal,” in County Cork. She was accused in 1661 of casting a spell on a servant girl and causing the death of a boy. Apparently she felt no pain when, during her “examination,” an awl was plunged several times into her hand. When called to testify, a witness reported that Florence, like Dame Alice, had demonic “familiars resorting to her in sundry shapes.”

A curious aspect of the testimony concerned the Lord's Prayer. It seems that Florence was incapable of reciting it. When asked to do so, “she excused herself by the decay of Memory through old Age.”

The fate of the Youghal Witch is not known. It is likely that she was put to death; she was, after all, accused of murder. In total, there are nine recorded witchcraft trials in seventeenth-century Ireland, only two of which resulted in the death of the accused. Later centuries would see even fewer trials.

Similarly, reports of exorcism in Ireland are concentrated in the seventeenth century. A notable case involved what was believed to be a fragment of the True Cross. The relic was preserved in the suitably named Holy Cross Abbey, near Thurles, and attracted a constant stream of pilgrims, for it was reputed to possess miraculous powers of healing. In 1609 a woman named Anastasia Sobechan, a native of County Kilkenny, came to the abbey and told the monks that she was the victim of magic spells.

The abbot, Reverend Bernard Foulow, had someone fetch a belt that had touched the relic of the True Cross, and placed it about Anastasia's waist. As soon as the belt touched her, she began to vomit up pieces of cloth, wood, sheep's wool, and a variety of other foreign objects. This evacuation continued for a month, and there was no doubt in the abbot's mind that the power of the cross had exorcised the evil.

A PRESBYTERIAN EXORCIST

Reverend Robert Blair, a Presbyterian minister, enjoyed a reputation as an exorcist from the time of his arrival in 1623 in the coastal town of Bangor, County Down. Blair recounts one instance where a wealthy parishioner, a Scot, called at his door and requested that they speak in the church. He was trembling. He told the minister that the Devil had appeared to him on a number of occasions, the first time offering him a purse of silver. The Scotsman made the sign of the cross, causing the Devil to vanish at once.

But Satan returned again and again, urging him “to kill and slay” at random. The parishioner refused and fled to Ireland. After the confession to Reverend Blair, the Devil appeared again. He admonished the Scot for seeking the minister's help and promised him that, unless he murdered soon, the Devil would kill him on Halloween.

The night arrived. The Scot went in desperation to the minister, and Blair agreed to hold a vigil with him. They prayed together in the church the night long. The Devil failed to show, and the Scot,
in gratitude, devoted the rest of his life to prayer, temperance, and good works.

It was not an exorcism in the fullest sense, but it enhanced Reverend Blair's reputation in the district. Soon after, he encountered many cases of religious hysteria. He described parishioners who suffered bouts of weeping and convulsions. He knew who was behind it: it was, he said, demons “playing the ape, and counterfeiting the works of the Lord.”

At worship one particular Sunday, a member of the congregation went berserk. The woman, “one of my charge, being a dull and ignorant person, made a noise and stretching of her body. Incontinent I was assisted to rebuke that lying spirit that disturbed the worship of God, charging the same not to disturb the congregation; and through God's mercy we met with no more of that work.”

News of the exorcism reached Archbishop James Ussher, the man responsible for dating Creation to the year 4004
BC
. At his next meeting with the minister, he congratulated Blair on a job well done.

These incidents, which Reverend Blair recorded in his autobiography, suggest that exorcism was still a haphazard affair until recent times, and could be carried out at a priest's own discretion without prior consultation with his bishop.

This was to change in 1641. In that year, the solemn rite of exorcism, the Rituale Romanum, or Roman Rite, became standardized in the Catholic Church. It would remain unchanged for over three centuries. In 1971, following the Second Vatican Council, Pope John XXIII overhauled the minor rites of ordination, which included exorcism. Then, in 1999, the Vatican again revised the ritual, shortening it and translating the Latin words into the vernacular.

ROME'S EXORCIST SPEAKS OUT

Those decisions were not well received. Father Gabriele Amorth, Rome's chief exorcist and author of
An Exorcist Tells His Story,
publicly expressed his disdain for the new rite and the Vatican Curia
that implemented the changes. “They approved a new ritual which, for the exorcist, is a disaster,” he said. “I continue to use the Rituale Romanum, which is still valid. If it were not, I would have to resign.”