Hostage to the Devil – Impressions

Malachi Martin – a very interesting character himself – wrote Hostage to the Devil in the 1970s, on the heels of the popularity of the movie The Exorcist. The book covers five exorcisms of contemporary Americans, and attempts to walk the line between truth in reportage and changing the details enough to protect the privacy of those involved. It seems that in most cases, there were at least audio recordings, and it also appears that Martin conducted a large number of interviews with people who were involved with the stories. 

The main body of the book is made up of the stories of these five exorcisms. The “contemporary” Americans were born in the early half of the twentieth century, which makes sense considering that the youngest of those being exorcised was, I believe, in her late 20s or early 30s. The exorcisms seem to have taken place primarily in the 1960s, though I believe some of the dating is purposely a little fuzzy to protect identities. While this would have been very recent to 1976, even though this edition has an updated foreword by Martin from the 1990s, as someone who was born after the book was published, “contemporary” does start to feel a little dated in setting.

What makes the book still interesting, though, is how current it still seems, regardless of the time. It was surprising – but not – that one of the cases involves someone who was transsexual (transgender in today’s parlance) who had gone so far as to have gender reassignment surgery done and live as the opposite sex. Three of them, including a priest, seem to have allowed the demons in through various ways from the pride their had in their intellect. One of these was a college professor, and it’s astounding how Martin is able to get to the heart of the matter in this case – the evil one was not just interested in this man’s soul, but in the influence he had on the next generation of intellectuals; that if “religious experience” could be figured back to brain chemistry or what have you, it makes religion, as such, pointless. 

I had been warned before starting that this is a very, very scary book. It’s raw and sometimes a bit graphic (but only as necessary) but I didn’t find it particularly scary, but I also have followed news and crime stories for many years, and very little actually surprises me any more as far as the absolute cruelty people can show other peoples. That the demons seem to use these same tactics isn’t a surprise either. I’d guess they’re behind much of the evil stuff that shows up on the news, so seeing it here only seems logical. 

One of the things that Martin manages to do is really lay out the incredible effort priests put in to an exorcism, that it not only affects them, but, in his opinion, they offer themselves up as hostages to the devil in order to draw the demons out of the possessed. It is only at the point where the demons come out to attack the priests can they really have any success, and that is only with total reliance on Jesus to protect them and fight the battle. There’s actually a sixth story in the book, the story the book opens and closes with, which deals with a priest who conducted a failed exorcism and the aftermath of that. There’s another story where the exorcism, though successful, surely led to the death of the priest months afterward, and yet another priest who allowed himself to be partially possessed falling into the same intellectual trap as the original person who had been exorcised. (In this case, the person being exorcised was a former student of the priest conducting the exorcism, so it’s actually fairly easy to believe that this could happen.) 

The five cases are as follows:

• Zio’s Friend and the Smiler – Marianne, a 26-year-old woman living in New York, becomes possessed, despite her very normal upbringing in a Catholic family. 
• Father Bones and Mister Natch – A young priest gets carried away in intellectual theological “innovation” and ends up possessed because of it. To make matters worse, this spirit goes on to partially possess the priest who does the exorcism.
• The Virgin and the Girl-Fixer – This was probably the scariest of all the cases and dealt with the man who had had the gender reassignment surgery. 
• Uncle Ponto and the Mushroom-Souper – An interesting case, as the spirits seem to have been after the man who ended up being possessed from practically birth. Although much of the man’s early life had been a living hell, he pulled himself up out of it, only to have his life nearly destroyed by the spirit who wouldn’t leave him.
• The Rooster and the Tortoise – This was the story of the professor whose whole life’s goal became chasing the paranormal. What could possibly go wrong? 

Martin also includes the sections about the failed exorcism, and then short sections that talk about the proper order of God and man and the spiritual world out there. These sections are titled “Good, Evil, and the Modern Mind”, “Human Spirit and Lucifer”, “Human Spirit and Jesus”, and “The Process of Possession”. The first three really remind me of titles to books by Nikolai Berdyaev, and while it’s been a very long time since I’ve read Berdyaev, I know that Martin, like Berdyaev, saw the world not just in the realm of the things that we do see, but understood that there was probably at least as much that remains unseen. In fact, the torture of the priest who failed completing the exorcism seemed to be the inability to tune out completely from the unseen realm. 

All and all, it was a good read, but not one that I’d recommend to everyone. It’s tough to read a book that shines a light on how easily people can be lured into evil.  Nearly fifty years on, Martin’s observations about modern people and the role the evil one has in things “falling apart” are spot on. In his new forward, published in 1992, he notes that since the book was originally published, things were worse due to demonic possession becoming an “entertainment”. However, throughout the book, he reiterates many times that evil spirits can’t possess someone without that person giving permission initially, and that exorcism can’t be successful unless there is some part of the person which is still struggling against evil, no matter how bad the situation seems. The times may change, but there are things that are understood and are timeless. 

At least two of the stories were of non-Catholics being possessed, with another of a man who grew up only with a limited sense of cultural Catholicism. Despite this, when it was recognized that an actual possession had occurred, the priests were still willing to go through with the exorcisms because it’s part of what they do. 

As the very last part of the book, Martin includes the Roman Catholic Rite of Exorcism, complete with instructions for the priest. Although each exorcism is unique, it’s interesting to see the form that this takes. 

I’ve commented a couple times about the book in other places, I’m including one here as well (though I can’t seem to find the quotes from the book that I wanted to use). 

As coincidence would have it, the fifth case examined deals with a professor of parapsychology who seems to have some natural psychic ability. Martin makes the claim that it was the professor’s inability to distinguish this ability from psychic experience that led to him being possessed, since the professor’s assumption seemed to be that if he could have these psychic or paranormal experiences, what he experienced, then, must be true or a gateway to truth.

Reading that last night seemed quite profound, because that does seem to be the case with most people who dabble in alternative or alternate consciousnesses, there doesn’t seem to be a skepticism (…) that what can be experienced can also be some sort of lie…

Back to the book, though. Martin contrasts the professor with the priest who does the exorcism on him; this is also a man who noted that he had some psychic ability at a young age, but he grew up deep in Wales, where, according to Martin, that isn’t necessarily considered so abnormal. The priest wasn’t necessarily afraid of learning more about such abilities – which was why the paths of the priest and the professor crossed in the first place – but he was much more careful about understanding what he could do as an ability not to be exploited merely for the experience.

This got me thinking about the stories of very pious monks in modernity who have demonstrated paranormal psychic abilities. It kind of makes me think that some of this may be something that all (or at least most) of us can do under the right conditions, but that generally, it’s a hard talent to unlock because it requires so much discipline to attain. With that much discipline, it would be much harder for evil spirits to take advantage of someone on that plain because one who had the discipline to attain that state wouldn’t be doing it for the experience. With psychedelics, there’s a kind of “hacking” into that state, but it opens the door to all sorts of evil things because it’s like letting kids play with blowtorches.

Anyway – have any of you read this book? Any other thoughts? Let me know in the comments!

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