Friday, May 19, 2006
FINDING AN ANTIDOTE
After discovering Jimmy Akin's enthusiasm for Cthulhu I needed an antidote. Something to restore my faith in the saneness of Catholicism, something that demonstrated that the Church really does know there are evil powers out there that must be left alone. I found the antidote in a book titled The Necromancers by Robert Hugh Benson.
The book is available to be read here, and free for the printing if you want to read it offline. Fr. Benson is best known, I suppose, for Lord of the World, but he has other works to offer, many (all?) of them online. The Necromancers addresses directly the occult world.
A novel, the book was published in 1909. It concerns a young man, living in England who is a recent convert to Catholicism, and who falls in love with a young woman who dies shortly thereafter. The young man is devastated by the loss, and unfortunately happens to meet up with a spiritualist right after the girl's funeral, at a time when his greatest wish is to see the girl one last time. Ripe for the picking, he falls for the schemes of the spiritualist and her friend the medium, attending seances and hoping to be able to speak with his lost love. Eventually a materialization is attempted and accomplished successfully, but things go horribly wrong for the young man.
As the story unfolds, the dangers of dabbling in occultism become obvious. The story ends with an exorcism of sorts that is successful in finally rescuing him from his wayward pursuits.
With this story Fr. Benson lays out Catholic theology on spirit contact in a way that the Church understood it until, perhaps, Vatican II. There is no room for a priest who considers the possibility of aliens being children of God in Fr. Benson's cosmology. There is no room either for dabbling in the kind of myths that Jimmy Akin is prone to if his blog can be believed. The story is an entertaining, easily read, exploration of the deceits of the powers of hell that is as fresh today as it was when Fr. Benson wrote it.
In Chapter III there is a description of an out of body experience that nearly ends in tragedy when the young man was momentarily unable to get past the "watcher" who guarded the threshold through which he needed to pass in order to return to his own body. Finally he cries out to God and is then able to pass. A bit further into the story "The Watcher on the Threshold" is described by a medium this way:
"I'll tell you all we know," he said again quietly. "It's not very
much. Really the phrase I used just now sums it up pretty well. We
who have tried to get beyond this world of sense have become aware of
certain facts of which the world generally knows nothing at all. One
of these facts is that the door between this life and the other is
guarded by a certain being of whom we know really nothing at all,
except that his presence causes the most appalling fear in those who
experience it. He is set there--God only knows why--and his main
business seems to be to restrain, if possible, from re-entering the
body those who have left it. Just occasionally his presence is
perceived by those on this side, but not often. But I have been
present at death-beds where he has been seen--"
"Seen?"
"Oh! yes. Seen by the dying person. It is usually only a glimpse; it
might be said to be a mistake. For myself I believe that that
appalling terror that now and then shows itself, even in people who do
not fear death itself, who are perfectly resigned, who have nothing on
their conscience,--well, personally, I believe the fear comes from a
sight of this--this Personage."
The Watcher is still being mentioned today in occult literature. In fact The Watchers Out of Time is the title of one of August W. Derleth's books in the Cthulhu Mythos series. Derleth was Lovecraft's executor, and continued what Lovecraft had begun, taking it to new levels of evil.
Fr. Benson knew in 1909 what is still true today. He wrote in regard to the medium in the story:
He's the most dangerous of the lot. Just because he's honest."
"Good God!" broke in the other again suddenly. "Do all Catholics believe this rubbish?"
"My dear friend, of course they don't. Not one in a thousand. I wish they did. That's what's the matter. But they laugh at it--laugh at it!"...His voice cracked into shrill falsetto... "Laugh at hell-fire..."
The laughter, it would seem, continues with some young and not so young Catholics who flirt with diabolism and think that it is amusing to do so.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
