The exorcist

You write that one of the reasons you should have backed off of Beccah's case is that you had a sense that the devil -- Satan -- would be out to get you after your success driving him from Jersey. Do you feel that the devil knows who you are and is out to get you?

I feel that the devil knows who I am. The book is called "Glimpses of the Devil" after an early Christian theologian who was trying to tell people that god is spirit, and that the most we can hope for is to get glimpses of his footprints on the ramparts he has walked. The devil being spirit, although a lesser spirit, is even harder to get glimpses of. You can if you look for them, but there's a great deal we can't begin to know about the devil and we won't know unless this is scientifically investigated.

Does it scare you?

Yes, it scares me. It's very common for people involved with the demonic to think the devil is going to get you in some way. People will say the devil flattened all the tires on my car or this bad thing happened to me. Nothing of that sort has ever happened to me. When I look at the difficult events in my life I do not think they have been demonically caused. They have been caused sometimes by my own goofs and sometimes by the goofs of other people, but they have been natural phenomena.

In the book, Jersey is not a practicing Christian. Beccah, born Jewish, became a devout Episcopalian when she married. You use Christian ritual in both of their exorcisms. Is it possible for a non-Christian to become possessed by Satan?

Anybody can be possessed, though I must emphasize that genuine full-scale possession is a rare phenomenon. But nonetheless it is recorded throughout time, in every culture that I know of. But if there is a diagnosis of possession among the people in Borneo or something, that possession is going to look considerably different than it looks in America. Cases are very much colored by the society in which a patient lives and grows up.

But had you encountered, hypothetically, an American Buddhist possessed by Satan, would you have deployed Christian ritual and symbolism to rid that person of their demonic inhabitant?

I would have employed my Christian words, and begun by saying to the Buddhist, "Are you so-and-so, child of God? In the name of God who created you and Jesus Christ who dies for you ..." I would still use Christian rituals because they're the only ones I'm familiar with. But I expect that an exorcist working the same culture as the patient is more likely to be effective.

I gather from some things you've said about first recognizing evil in Joe McCarthy at age 14 that you may be a left-leaning political thinker. What are your thoughts about the political implications of your work?

Well, most people would say that I am left-leaning, but I have some trouble with left and right and simplistic labels. In some ways I am extremely conservative. But I certainly have considered the nature of group evil and in "People of the Lie" there was an analysis of group evil which did not seem to involve the devil. But we live in a society where the devil plays a great role in our institutions and the way that we are governed.

I think that the group of people around Hitler was probably likely a possessed group. And I have wondered specifically about the Supreme Court in the case of Bush vs. Gore where, astonishingly, I believe that the majority -- five out of nine justices -- were engaged in an evil act. And I wonder how that could happen without Satan hanging around. Specifically, I believe those five justices, each one of them, violated their oath of office. Each one of them failed to uphold the Constitution. They betrayed their own past record of decision-making or at least failed to represent any known tradition of American governance, despite the eloquent opposition of their colleagues. And then they lied about it.

You write about character flaws that become cracks through which the devil can get in. What kinds of people are susceptible to possession?

A great many people in this world have character flaws. Yet very few of them become possessed. The best explanation that I have been able to come up with in the cases of possession I've seen is that they were somewhat holy people to begin with. Satan is on the run, and has the energy to try and put out fires, and so I think Satan goes to where the fires are, where there are people who represent some kind of threat to it.

I do not believe possessed people are evil. I believe they are flirting with it or involved with it. There are a great many evil people -- I estimate 2 percent -- but most people do not need the devil to recruit them to evil. Given the dynamics of laziness and narcissism they are capable of recruiting themselves.

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