"...things that go bump in the night"

By Leonard Wibberley

First Published September 18, 1979

1/15/2016

I have been re-reading William Peter Blatty's excellent novel The Exorcist and the experience has awakened in me a powerful interest in diabolic possession which previously submerged in such mundane activities as answering the telephone, putting out the garbage, helping with the groceries and so on.

Blatty wrote a vivid and convincing account of the possession of a girl by an evil spirit — so vivid, in fact, that when you turn out the light after reading the book, and darkness leaps upon you, you begin to listen for little rat noise in the attic or animal sounds around the garden, which has now become, a fearful place.

Darkness has a great deal to do with it. We are all comforted by light; all made a trifle nervous in the dark and in the Bible the legions of Lucifer are called the powers of darkness.

It is a fact of social history that when Edison invented the light bulb superstition was tremendously reduced, thousands of evil spirits fled from the earth and Edison could then be thought of as a powerful exorcist.

In fact, all of science is a form of exorcism — but only of the demons of ignorance. The more we know, the less we attribute to the supernatural.

Should bubonic plague, the Black Death, break out in California, as I fear it is likely to do, we will no longer call it a divine punishment for our sins, for we will know that it is spread by fleas which already infest our ground squirrels and may soon infest our huge population of rats.

Not God, then, but those responsible for the extermination of vermin will be to blame.

Demons then exist beyond the limits of science and, if we knew everything about everything, they might be gone from us forever. There are some who hold that God also exists beyond the limits of science — that the more we know, the more He diminishes.

But this is not really so. The more we know, the more our wonder increases and the more we ask ourselves what vast intelligence created all these marvels.

The “God of the Gaps” diminishes, indeed — the God who performed miracles and wonders. But these were miraculous and wonderful only because of the limited state of our knowledge.

If God is truth, as we have a right to believe, then the increase of knowledge brings us closer to Him. Scientists are then, in this view, theologians and what a pity that this concept was not grasped earlier when the lives of thousands might have been saved.

But back to demons. Are we close to a definition concerning them and do they really exist? We have a partial definition perhaps in stating that they exist beyond the limits of science.

The ritual of exorcism acknowledges this fact. The Roman Catholic Church is one of the few remaining Christian sects which practices exorcism. But this power is never used until the last resources of science have been exhausted.

A person believed to be possessed by an evil spirit has first to prove that this is so. Every device of medicine and of psychiatry must be used to the full and must fail to produce any improvement before the exorcist is summoned.

The exorcist operates only in the realm where science cannot penetrate.

It is sensible then to postulate that if our knowledge on every subject was complete, there would be no demons. Unfortunately, that is never likely to be the case. In many areas of research, the more we know, the more we discover how much we don't know.

Much of our progress really consists in finding uncharted continents of ignorance. And science has not now, nor ever will have, any method of discovering whether we have a soul.

The spiritual world lies beyond the measurements of science and physicists are not noted as a result for taking a short cut home after dark, through a graveyard. Science can exorcise the fake demons, but beyond its confines, the real demons perhaps lurk.

This is all very tedious, you rightly say, and you demand to know whether I myself believe in demons and evil spirits. I can, answer you firmly and state that I certainly do not by day or night — provided the light is on.

But alone in.an empty house in the dark, my skin crawls at unexpected, secretive noises, and I recall what, I learned about the legions of Lucifer and the powers of darkness. All our knowledge, I realize, is surrounded by that darkness.

The air becomes thick and smells of sewage and then I recall a little prayer taught me half a century ago:

From ghoulies and beasties and things that go bump in the dark, God Lord deliver us.

It works just as good as a light bulb.

Leonard wrote a series of murder mysteries about a priest-turned-detective named Father Bredder who both solves crimes and saves souls under the pen name Leonard Holton.

The first book in the series — The Saint Maker (Book 1 in the Father Bredder Series) — is ‪available on Kindle.

DESCRIPTION:

When Father Bredder gets involved with murder--Heaven only knows what will happen next...

In the first book in the series, Father Bredder makes a most ungodly discovery--a woman's decapitated head has been left in a pew in the back of his church.

Named "A Red Badge Novel of Suspense" alongside Agatha Christie, Michael Innes, and Hugh Pentecost, The Father Bredder Mysteries, written by Leonard Wibberley under the pen name Leonard Holton, inspired a television show starring George Kennedy.

“All the reader could ask… adventure, warm humor, and provocative nuggets of wisdom.”—The Los Angeles Times

Also available in 3-book and 11-book boxed sets.

THE FATHER BREDDER MYSTERIES

Book 1: The Saint Maker

Book 2: A Pact with Satan

Book 3: Secret of the Doubting Saint

Book 4: Deliver Us from Wolves

Book 5: Flowers by Request

Book 6: Out of the Depths

Book 7: A Touch of Jonah

Book 8: A Problem in Angels

Book 9: The Mirror of Hell