where you sometimes make better progress by walking backwards. Politicians are very aware of this and often say the exact opposite to the truth, and it is a very effective technique. In this example, people who go along with the herd and meekly bow to establishment values by insisting “it’s just coincidence” or “the government’s fault” are called “tough-minded”, while those who champion a revolutionary diagnostic technique are called “soppy”. Fair enough. It’s no worse than insisting that people are being tough when in reality they are so feeble that they pine for “strong leaders”.
Nowadays you follow the herd by denying that demons exist. In religious times, like the Middle Ages, you did it by insisting that demons are evil. In either case it is forbidden to make a pact with them. The following is an extract from The Grimoire of Pope Honorius4, a medieval book on demonic magic, and gives an idea of their approach to the subject.
“I .... conjure thee Spirit ...., by the Living God, by the true God, by the blessed and omnipotent God... etc. etc.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Sacraments and the Eucharist...” etc. etc. for another 6 lines.
I conjure thee into this circle, O accursed Spirit, by thy judgement, thou who hast dared to disobey God. I exorcise thee, Serpent, and I order thee to appear immediately in human form, well shaped in body and soul, and to comply with my commands without deception of whatsoever kind, and without either mental reservation: and this by the great names of God ...” etc. etc. for another 7 lines
I conjure thee, O evil and accursed Serpent, to appear at my wish and pleasure, in this place and before this Circle, immediately, alone and without any companion, without any ill-will, delay, noise, deformity or evasion. I exorcise the by the ineffable names of God ...” etc. etc. ad nauseam...
The whole thing reads very much in the style of a heavy handed legal summons or warrant for arrest, and is a far cry from the tender negotiations I am recommending. The fact is that there are other approaches than the one I recommend, but they are more risky.
In the example given earlier, I suggested that the hero might deny that he has a demon, insist that his failure is the fault of society, and get so worked up about the idea that it leads to a brilliant career as a revolutionary rock singer. Although this looks like a denial of the demonic diagnosis, it actually confirms it, by suggesting that the notion “society is at fault” is itself a demon that has taken him over and used him as a vector for spreading its message into the youth culture.
As an alternative way of working with demons it has definite advantages. Following my prescription he might overcome his resistance to work and end up with a safe job in Dad’s firm. The other way he becomes a folk hero. I know which I would prefer.
The problem is that, the way he did it, he denied the existence of the demon and so became its vehicle. Great benefits could result, but the position is very dangerous because people who succeed because of being driven by a demon are people who have made a career out of addiction and are therefore very vulnerable to the addictive qualities of success itself.
If instead he had realised he had a demon in the form of deep contempt for certain elements in our society, and he had made a more conscious pact with that demon by allowing it to drive him to the top, then he would have a greater chance of handling the situation when he became a teen idol. It is still a risky choice, because the better you control a demon, the less powerful it is. The more you allow it to control you—for example by insisting there is no demon, the more freedom it has to grow.
I associate this division between tough and tender demonic contracts with the right/left division in politics. Consider this: what does a politician do with its criminal or unpopular elements?
The left wing approach is to communicate with them and try to assimilate them back into society: a murderer who genuinely repents and wishes to make amends is not just another honest citizen, he is an honest citizen with extra insight into the mind of the murderer and can therefore make an even bigger contribution to our society.
The right wing approach is to punish them, alienate them in order to make them strong and to use their strength. This is typified by Adolph Hitler’s approach: put your thugs into uniforms and use them to increase your political power. Or by Margaret Thatcher’s approach: the more underdogs become re-classified as criminals, the more the middle classes will be terrified into voting for her government.
The right wing approach is certainly effective, but the trouble is that it depends upon increasing the strength of the demons and you can end up with a demon too strong to handle.
We are talking about two different forms of demonisation. My type of demonisation begins with a recognition that demons exist, and then studies how best to handle them. The other approach is to deny that there is any such thing as a demon, then to give some problem all the supposed characteristics of a demon—evil cunning, base motives, social outcasting etc..
In these terms, the Tory government gained a brief electoral rush in the 1980s by blaming the ills of society on feckless single mothers and the resulting demonisation lead to even more marriage breakdowns and eventually enough single mothers to provide a significant addition to the ranks of opposition voters. The result was that not only were more of these feckless women liberated from their feckless husbands, they were eventually also liberated from Tory governance.
THE BASIC RULE
In conclusion: in this book I am mostly advocating a left-wing, co-operative handling of demons, but I will also keep my sights on the right-wing combatitive approach as I recognise and respect its potency—after all, if the socialist re-assimilation of criminal elements was taken to its logical conclusion there would be nothing worth watching on television any more.
I suspect that the best relationship with demons involves a combination of both approaches, one that must be discovered and developed by the readers themselves.
And that brings us back to the basic rule underlying all approaches to demons: resist the continuous temptation to look for rules and laws; return always to the present situation and empathise.
After reading the last section, many people will habitually form questions such as: “When do you recommend the tough approach, and when is the tender approach better?”
To this I say: consider that baby who has just started exploring the difference between a spoon that falls to the floor every time it is dropped and a mother that usually picks it up immediately but sometimes refuses or waits. Were the baby able to talk, it might well pose questions to me such as: “How often does she pick it up before she starts refusing?” Crude formulaic answers to that question may provide some immediate satisfaction but eventually numb the sensibilities. Better that the baby returns to the reality of the moment (a reality embracing the weather, the emotional atmosphere, the feng shui of the surroundings, the sense of hurry or relaxation, the baby’s own mood and behaviour and the shadows of the recent past) and then asks itself: “how many more spoon droppings would I tolerate if I were her?” It isn’t science, but it does foster wisdom.
To help underline this lesson—a lesson that will be much easier for some people than others—I will now pose a problem as follows. Let us say you have read thus far, considered your situation, located a demon and started to approach it from the tender way, but it turns tough on you. Or vice versa: you get tough with your demon and it goes all tender and reconciliatory on you. The question is this: “Does this disprove my analysis into tough and tender approaches? If not, then what has gone wrong?
While you are considering this problem, I will expand on the distinction I am making.
As
