"Paranormal Planet"

     If you keep your eyes and mind open, you will find that the paranormal, the miraculous, the simply inexplicable not only happen, but are not even uncommon. If you haven't had an experience which defies the paradigm of modern science, which appears to violate the laws of nature that we know, then you know somebody who has. Four years ago I published a book entitled, Apparitions: tulpas, ghosts, fairies, and even stranger things, which goes further than simple ghost stories, but explores a parallel world of non-material beings which is only occasionally perceptible to us. Now I have produced a companion volume entitled simply, Paranormal Planet in which I seek to document and explore more than a dozen aspects of the paranormal which do not involve apparitions

Bless This House

     Put yourself in these shoes: you are just about to be ordained, your wife is expecting your first child, and you have been assigned to your first parish as a curate, or assistant priest. And the house the church provides for you is haunted!

The Unholy Alliance

      "If this is 'all in the mind', then all I can say is the mind is a very fertile field." That was a comment made to me by a missionary in Papua New Guinea about some of the bizarre effects of sorcery and folk religions he had noticed in his work. Well, the mind is a very fertile field, and outside the western world it often manifests in strange culture bound syndromes. Koro, for example, is a mental disorder which causes Chinese and Southeast Asian men to imagine that their penises are retracting into their bodies. Malays run amok. In much of the Muslim world women find themselves possessed by what they call zar spirits, but the syndrome in not necessarily seen as pathological, because many of them make quite a bit of money out of it, just like spiritualists over here. Just the same, one wonders how far the 'fertile field' theory can be stretched before we wonder whether something alien has sprouted there.

The English Werewolf

     "These days" I've heard it frequently said, "we would see demon possession as a form of mental illness." Well, of course we would! If we are not prepared to accept the reality of possession, then we must call it something else. But what does it mean? A lot of mental illnesses are well established, with recognized symptoms and criteria, causes, and treatment. But when the only symptom of the illness is the very condition under consideration, then "mental illness" is simply a label masquerading as an explanation, a way of saying, "We don't know the cause, but it is assumed to be internal," while "demon possession" means, "We don't know the cause, but it is assumed to be external."
     I could write a long dissertation on the sorts of mental aberrations which might be interpreted as possession by demons. Let me just say, I consider it a false dichotomy. After all, except in cartoons, when we talk about being tempted by the Devil, we don't think of one of the little imps sitting on our shoulder, whispering in our ear. The influence of the forces of evil, like the forces of good, are far more subtle. Likewise, we should abolish the idea of some semi-sensual being somehow inhabiting a body. Ultimately, possession implies the taking over of a person by an evil personality, whether it comes from the dark side of the mind, or the dark side of the spiritual world, or both.
     Is this all a rationalisation - an attempt to retain the concept while emptying it of substance? Then let us examine the case of Bill Ramsey, the English werewolf. Now is the appropriate time, because the latest film, The Conjuring is based on the files of Ed and Lorraine Warren, and this is another of their cases.

An Unusual Cure for a Transsexual

     Transsexualism, said Jan (originally James) Morris in her 1974 memoir, Conundrum "is not a sexual mode or preference. It is not an act of sex at all. It is a passionate, lifelong, ineradicable conviction, and no true trans-sexual has ever been disabused of it."
     Not many psychiatrists would dispute this, least of all the last statement. Although some hope is held out for children suffering from gender identity disorder, no effective treatment has been found, or even proposed, for adult sufferers. Ironically, the option of a sex-change operation has effectively sidetracked any research into a possible cure.
     All this makes the case of "John" even more remarkable.

When the Devil Talks in Tongues

I will answer for myself, and say at once that in 28 years as a minister, I have performed one Major Exorcism of a person and three of places, although I have been asked time beyond count to "do an exorcism" as though it were a matter of conjuring or catching mice.

     That was a statement by a British exorcist whom the ex-scientist, Terry White refers to only as the Reverend Mr A., and he probably speaks for most clergy in the mainstream churches who are involved in exorcism. However, he did admit that, in the first year of his ministry, he had an experience which shattered his cynicism about the supernatural, and something he probably would not have believed had it been reported by somebody else.