Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist’s Personal Accounts of Possession, Exorcism, and Redemption

240 Pages·2005·1.08 MB·English

by  M. Scott Peck

SELECTED TITLES BY M. SCOTT PECK
The Road Less Traveled
People of the Lie
The Different Drum
A World Waiting to Be Born
Meditations from the Road
Further Along the Road Less Traveled
In Search of Stones
Denial of the Soul
The Road Less Traveled and Beyond
FREE PRESS
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Copyright © 2005 by M. Scott Peck
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
FREE PRESS and colophon are trademarks
of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN-10: 0-7432-7654-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-74327654-2
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With the exception of myself, Malachi Martin, and other published writers or public figures, the names,
ages, and locations and other identifying details of all people mentioned in this book have been altered.
Occasionally, the superficialities of certain events have also been altered. These alterations have not,
however, distorted the essence of the experiences recounted or, I believe, significantly compromised
their reality.
Dedicated to Malachi Martin
1921–1999
CONTENTS
Handle with Care
Preface
Introduction: My Mentor, the Leprechaun
Part I: Jersey
CHAPTER 1: DIAGNOSIS
“I feel sorry for them.”
CHAPTER 2: EXORCISM
“We don’t hate Jesus; we just…”
CHAPTER 3: FOLLOW-UP
“You’re wrong. He was too a medical doctor.”
CHAPTER 4: COMMENTARY
Part II: Beccah
CHAPTER 5: DIAGNOSIS
“Does the name Judas mean anything?”
CHAPTER 6: EXORCISM
“I have no reason to join your ranks and be put in the toaster!”
CHAPTER 7: FOLLOW-UP
“I guess it’s always about money, isn’t it?”
Part III: Perspectives
CONCLUSION: WHAT IS POSSESSION?
EPILOGUE
Acknowledgments
HANDLE WITH CARE
Satan is spirit, and spirit is mysterious. Some things can be said about it; most
cannot. Those things that can be said, I have tried to say with clarity, but take
them with a grain of salt. That is how I take them myself. If and when it seems I
am speaking with excessive certainty, I hope you will remember that had I
expressed all of my own reservations, much of the book would have been
unreadable. My only alternative would have been to write nothing at all. But
that, I believe, would have been the greater sin. These things need to be talked
of.
Satan is evil spirit. “Evil” is a dangerous word. Speak it carefully—full of
care. It is not to be used lightly. Try your best to do no harm with it. Be gentle
with yourself as well as others. Yet remember those three famous monkeys
covering their eyes and ears and mouth: See no evil; hear no evil; speak no evil.
I think the wise person who thought them up was trying to tell us they were
stupid little monkeys, monkeys of denial.
The focus of this work has been Satan first, possession second, and only
slightly on evil. Readers interested in the general phenomenon of evil should
read my 1983 book, People of the Lie.
The pope recently directed that every Roman Catholic diocese should have a
diocesan exorcist. People with a serious personal concern about possession in
regard to themselves or others should seek out the exorcist in their diocese. How
well trained or experienced that person might be I have no idea. Regrettably, on
account of my health and retirement, I myself am no longer able to be of any
assistance as a clinician or advisor except to the church. Remember that genuine
possession is a very rare phenomenon. The diagnosis, like that of evil, is not one
to be bandied about.
PREFACE
In large part, this is a book of personal history and, in particular, an account of
two experiences I had during my forties. They constitute, so far as I know, the
first full accounts of possession and exorcism by a modern psychiatrist—which
is to say, a medical scientist.
Still, what I write is not autobiography. Here I am not the subject; the subject
is Satan and I have included only those experiences of mine that relate to that
subject.
To most in our culture the subject of Satan seems esoteric indeed. But then I
am not sure how seriously most take God either, beyond a touch of superficial
piety. The problem is that ours is a materialistic culture. Materialism is a
philosophy or attitude that holds that what you can see and touch and measure is
all you get, and anything else is not worth serious consideration. But both God
and Satan are Spirit. Since spirit cannot be seen, touched, or measured, it is
impossible to obtain hard evidence of its existence and thereby pin it down in
our collection box like a captured butterfly.
The evidence of spirit is, at best, indirect. As one very early Christian
theologian put it, in relation to God, “The most we can hope for is to get a
glimpse of His footprints on the ramparts He has walked.”*
Because Satan’s the lesser of the two spirits, it is even more unusual to
obtain glimpses of Satan’s manifestations. Still, if we pay attention, it is
sometimes possible.
And for some, myself included, the notion of Satan is far from esoteric. In
my book People of the Lie, after quoting a description from Hostage to the Devil
by Malachi Martin in which a priest’s struggle between good and evil was
described in depth, I wrote that the issue of free will is a paradox. On the one
hand, there is no question in my mind that we humans possess free will. Indeed,