The Dark Sacrament (48 page)

Authors: David Kiely

T
HE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS:
Carl Gustav Jung (1875â1961) 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

D
EAD 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 BaalzebÃ»b. It is also cognate with the Philistine god Ba'al, who may or may not have been a malevolent entity.

D
EALING 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.

H
OLY 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 morningâ¦a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations” (Exodus 30:7â8). The New Testament also mentions it, for instance, in Revelation 8:3â4: “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

S
ANSKRIT:
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.

B
OOK 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.

P
OPE
C
ORNELIUS:
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.

E
AGLE
M
OUNTAIN:
The god Lugh, father of CÃºchulainn, 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 LÃ¡mhfada, 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.

M
OSES IN THE
S
INAI:
“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 MÃ»sa (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.

The temple site was excavated in 1904 by Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie. Mount Serabit (SerabÃ®t el-KhÃ¢dim) lies some twenty miles east of the Gulf of Suez and nearly one hundred miles from the border with Israel.

S
T.
A
NTHONY ON HIS MOUNTAINTOP:
Sometimes known as St. Anthony the Great, he was born in upper Egypt in
AD
251 to wealthy parents, became a hermit, and wandered in a mountainous desert region some sixty miles west of Alexandria. His hagiographer, Athanasius, recorded that Anthony was subjected to a bewildering gamut of dreams, hallucinations, and temptations. These last have had an enduring influence on Christendom, becoming the inspiration of several painters, from Hieronymus Bosch to Dali.

In 1874 the French philosopher Gustave Flaubert published his masterpiece
The Temptation of St. Anthony.
It is a drama that features a bewildering cast of players, from ancient kings to the Devil, all of whom try to tempt the hermit away from the spiritual path. The dream aspect of the work influenced the young Sigmund Freud.

Flaubert's translator, Lafcadio Hearn, summarized the more lascivious temptations: “His thoughts wanderâ¦he dreams of Amonaria, his sister's playmateâ¦. He beholds the orgies, the luxuries, the abominationsâ¦and the Queen of Sheba descends to tempt the Saint with the deadliest of all temptations. Her beauty is enhanced by oriental splendor of adornment; her converse is a song of witchcraft.”

L
UGH NA
D
EAMHAIN:
It is unfortunate that the name of the Celtic deity Lugh is so close to the old Irish word
lug,
which means “hollow” or “valley.” The word has survived unaltered in other Irish place names that have undergone a crude anglicization, e.g., Lugnaquilla or Lug na Coille, “The Wooded
Hollow.” The addition of the aspirative
h
may well have been an attempt by the early Church to demonize Lugh. Interestingly, his name is also a cognate of the Latin
luceo,
“to be bright,” from which the name Lucifer, or “Shining One,” is derived. Lugh was the Celtic solar god, the bringer of light and, as such, an important heathen deity. It would have been natural for the early churchmen, in their efforts to supplant the “false” gods, to identify him with an evil entity.

A
N
D
IABHAL:
The Devil has a fascinating etymology. Linguists trace the word's origin to the Sanskrit
deva,
meaning “god” or “giver of light.” (Intriguingly, it is also close to
diva,
the leading light of the opera.) Via the Greek verb
diabalein,
meaning “to oppose,” the word entered Latin as
diabolus,
Italian as
diabolo,
French as
diable,
and English as
diabolic
. German and Dutch rendered the consonantal sounds as
Teufel
and
duivel,
the latter becoming “devil” upon reaching Britain. It is possibly no more than coincidence that the Irish version,
diabhal,
contains within it
dia,
“god.” This is derived from the Latin
deus
and has another root entirely. The word
god
seems to be largely a late European innovation. It appears in German, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish as, respectively
Gott, god, gud,
and
gud
. There have been attempts to trace the root back to the Sanskrit
hu,
“to invoke.” It seems a weak argument. That root has indeed come down to us, though in a different context: the “hue” of “hue and cry.”

F
IRST
I
RISH WITCH TRIAL:
One would expect that Ireland, given its reputation as the “natural” home of all things paranormal, had more than its fair share of witches and sorcerers. Not so, according to St. John D. Seymour, who, in 1913, published
Witchcraft and Demonology in Ireland,
an exhaustive work that examined the phenomena from 1324 to 1808. He concluded that witchcraft was far less prevalent there than in England and Scotland and offered a curious explanation. He noted that fairy lore was largely confined to the “Celtic” section of the community, whereas the “English” in Irelandâthe descendants of the Anglo-Norman colonistsâwere more likely to practice witchcraft. In short, witchcraft and sorcery were principally Protestant phenomena. He wrote:

In England after the Reformation we seldom find members of the Roman Catholic Church taking any prominent part in witch cases, and this is equally true of Ireland from the same date. Witchcraft seems to have been confined in the Protestant party, as far as we can judge from the material at our disposal, while it is probable that the existence of the penal laws (active or quiescent) would deter the Roman Catholics from coming into any prominence in a matter which would be likely to attract public attention to itself in such a marked degree.

M
ADE THE SIGN OF THE CROSS:
The symbolism of this minor ritual has a colorful history. Obviously, it represents the cross upon which Christ was crucified, which came to symbolize the Christian Church. It is used by Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, and the Orthodox Churches.

Reverend Kenneth W. Collins notes a curious interpretation of the Western style. He believes that the movement from left to right represents Jesus's descent into hell, or Hades (the left side), and his ascension into heaven (the right side). This is consistent with the tradition that holds that all matters demonic, including black magic and Satanism, belong to the “left-hand path.”

The sign of the cross was not exclusively Christian. In the ancient world, Indian Buddhists as well as members of Hindu sects used it when anointing the forehead.

A
RCHBISHOP
J
AMES
U
SSHER:
Also written Usher (1581â1656). He was born in Dublin and was Anglican archbishop of Armagh from 1625 to 1656. His scholarship was legendary, as was his fervent anti-Catholicism, despite his mother being Catholic. He is best remembered for having dated the Creation, a date still recognized by many Christians as being the true one. Ussher was able to narrow it down not only to the year but to the very time of day: dusk on October 22, 4004
BC.

H
OLY
F
ATHER'S INTERVENTION:
Pope John Paul
II
, during a 1987 visit to the Temple of Saint Michael in Perugia, Italy, spoke of “the battle against the Devil, which is the principal task of St. Michael the Archangel.” He reminded the faithful that it is “still being fought today, because the Devil is still alive and active in the world.” He spoke of evil in the modern world and its causes. “The disorders that plague our society,” he declared, “man's inconsistency and damaged state, are not only the results of original sin, but also the result of Satan's pervasive and dark action.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would not have been possible without the contributions made by a great many people, on two sides of the Atlantic Ocean.

On the Irish side, our thanks go to Fergal Tobin of Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, who encouraged us to undertake the project; to Reverend W. H. Lendrum and Father Ignatius McCarthy, who provided their spiritual guidance and generosity; to many other religious, who gave of their time and wisdom; to the men and women who related their experiences out of the goodness of their hearts.

On the American side, our thanks go to the publishers: Roger Freet, our editor, who recognized the importance of the book, and whose enthusiasm infected and inspired so many; including Kris Ashley, whose dedication to quality never flagged; Terri Leonard and Lisa Zuniga, our production team at HarperOne, whose professionalism proved invaluable when preparing the work for printing; and, finally, Beck Stvan and Kris Tobiassen, whose cover design and page layout truly brought our work to life.

â
DAVID M. KIELY AND CHRISTINA MCKENNA

SEARCHABLE TERMS

Aberglaube

Acts of the Apostles

alcohol abuse

astral travel and

Amantini, Candido

American Revolution

Amityville Horror The
(film)

Amorth, Dom Gabriele

Anderson, Reverend Peter

angels

Angican Church, exorcism

Anima Christi

anorexia

Anthony, St., antianxiety medications

antidepressants

apocalyptic visions

art

Ashwood, John

Assyrians

astral travel

astrology

Atharvan

Atharvaveda

Attila the Hun

Augustinians

Australia

Babylonians

Balbriggan

banshee, myth of

baptism, Batcheldor, Kenneth J.

Baudelaire, Charles, “The Generous Gambler,”

Beast, The

Belfast

Benedict, St. Berkowitz, Sam

bestiaries

Bible

Other books

The Alpha's Captive by Jarrett, A. J.

All In by Marta Brown

The Cavalier in the Yellow Doublet by Arturo Perez-Reverte

Wolfsbane by William W. Johnstone

Vengeance by Kate Brian

Galahad at Blandings by P.G. Wodehouse

Why I Read: The Serious Pleasure of Books by Wendy Lesser

The Talented by Steve Delaney

Total Control by David Baldacci

Seven Veils of Seth by Ibrahim Al-Koni