Wednesday 19 December 2012

"HORSE SHIT" SAID THIS MATTER-OF- FACT VOICE IN MY HEAD







“Horse Shit”

said this matter-of-fact voice in my mind



Yes, “Horse shit”.  Not ‘bullshit’ as you might begin to think as I continue to write, and to write about ‘spiritual intrusion’ into my mind and body.  Or as I continue to assert that this is the source of the voices in my head.  Nor when I write about physical/spiritual presences within or around me.

I thought for a moment as I considered the suggestion – yes, yes, yes - suggestion - and realising that it would work, I sent voiceless thanks to this anonymous source, and set about preparing to put it into practice.



In the more than thirty years that have elapsed since I began to hear voices and experience physical presence in my body and mind, I have never ceased from saying and writing that what I experience is of spiritual origin.  This has been the core of the book that I have written, and, from the fact that I have had much feedback acknowledging this truth, it is obvious that many individuals agree.



    So, this is the scene, and this the problem.  I am standing in my garden, and these are two ponies belonging to my neighbour who rents this field of mine.  As ever, they give witness to the truth that ‘the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence’.

And there lies the trouble – they lean against the fence, and in time they weaken it.  Therefore, how to deter them, since barbed wire does not…  They do not like tainted grass, and so from time to time, I spray a strip with some noxious liquid – which puts them off, but for only a short while.  ‘So’, I pondered, “what can I use that lasts for some time and doesn’t cost money?”

       And then, as from nowhere, came the succinct answer – “Horse shit.”

Horses will not graze on grass that has been fouled by their own droppings, and so, without delay, I collected a shovelful of dung, and put it in a bucket that I next filled with water.  This, then, formed the basis for the spray that I applied copiously along a metre wide strip beside the fence – and voila – the grass remained ungrazed.  Result!  Problem solved!  “Give me a high-five!!”

So…  How do you give a high-five to a spiritual presence?  I know it sounds daft, but this is the reality of spiritual presence.  There is no ‘religion’.  There is no ‘thee” and “thou”.  Yet there is actual presence !

But how can I be so certain?

To get the full story you will have to read my book, which I wrote in an endeavour to inform and convince people.  Normally I am a very private person and do not lightly expose my inner thoughts or emotions, but so determined am I that others should read and know, I was, and still am, prepared to write and reveal every intimate detail of a very traumatic period in my life.  If you can read nothing else that I write, read my Chapter 6.

In this Chapter, you will find out how, completely ‘innocently’, and following an interest in dowsing, I allowed myself to be drawn into this strange sequence of events.  You will learn just how it transpired that on one bright morning, and sitting in meditative silence…  “a presence that I could not see moved from the space in front of me into me.  Immediately my mind was charged with another ‘voice’ or provoker of thoughts…  I began to ‘hear voices’.”

In other words – before there was a ‘voice’, there was physical presence.

As the story unfolds, you will learn of several, albeit anonymous, physical/spiritual presences.  “Then, by a sequence of happenings that are too complex to relate, the spirit of a young (twenty-ish) woman was introduced into my ‘coterie’.  Her physical presence in me was most noticeable in ways which can only be experienced and not described.  It was particularly apparent when any music was being played.  I normally respond to dance rhythms with movement, having always enjoyed dancing.  Now the ‘feeling’ of the movement became subtly different - feminine and sensuous.

Little by little, I was being accustomed to what some might find difficult to accept, namely the actuality of spiritual-physical contact.  Thus, when I adopted my usual late-evening stance, leaning against the rail of my Rayburn cooker in the normal bum-warming posture and musing before going to bed, it seemed to come as no surprise when my head was moved by external influence: gently, from side to side, back and forth, easing tension out of my neck.
 
Each evening, the interventions became more positive and, ultimately, I stood away from the cooker.  ‘Hands’ pressed on my shoulders and I was ‘eased’ into a back-bend posture, where I was held for as long as I could tolerate it.  When I stood up, I was eased into a forward bend as far as, and for as long as I was able to bend.  Subsequently every evening I went through this routine, being bent further and held longer as time went on.  My thigh and abdominal muscles became rock hard, my breathing improved, and, coupled with the dietary advice that I had been given and followed, I became as fit and healthily slim as I had been for a long time.

Again and again, I have to emphasise that I accepted all that was happening as being entirely benevolent, and I was a willing participant.

       The culmination of this ‘body tuning’ came one evening and without preliminaries.  My body began to be manipulated as if by two skilled chiropractors.  I was then fifty-five and my frame had acquired its share of the residue of past accidents and strains - playing rugby; being mined at sea while serving in the Royal Navy; riding horses - plus all of the rest that can be classed as fair wear and tear.  Over the course of that evening and the one that followed, every one of the affected areas was worked on with consummate skill.  I was stretched and manipulated as must be someone on the rack, but while it was happening, in the words of the Scottish Bard, William McGonnagle, “He felt no pain”.  Somehow, my pain centre was inhibited, although there were body reactions which seemed to indicate that a natural response was taking place - towards the end of the second session I felt as if I was going to faint, while at the same time my feet were performing a little ‘drumming’ dance.

       Yes, I felt no pain while it was happening, but as soon as it stopped my whole body screamed in agony.  I climbed the stairs literally on my hands and knees, and had to take an analgesic to be able to sleep.  On the morning of the third day, I was carrying a bale of hay to the stable adjoining my house when I had to put it down.  It was large and was bearing against a knee that for some time had troubled me intermittently by filling with fluid.  Still very much aware of the two previous evenings, I looked up and said in my mind, “You have forgotten my knee”.  That night I woke in bed to find the knee being worked on ‘ethereally’, and, happily, it has never bothered me again in all the intervening years.

       Life carried on in the same general vein for some little time, though it could not be said that it continued ‘as normal’!  There was an episode of automatic writing that recorded nothing of importance, and the presence of the young woman became almost tangible, to the extent that I found myself reaching for a hand when about to cross the street…”

Then, in a bleak, cold, wet December, as Christmas approached, my life went ‘pear shaped’; fell apart…  What had been interesting, acceptable – welcoming, even, - now became tormenting, threatening, dominating… overwhelming… malign…

I’m sorry.  I am just not going down that path again with even the most cursory description.  I have put all of the distress and misery into the account that is in my book.  It is a very full account of events that were completely life changing.  I learned much then, and have never ceased learning, for I have never been free of all of the intrusions into my mind and body.

Looking back, and even employing all of the powers of 20/20 visual hindsight, there is so much that is inexplicable.  There are so many puzzles: there is so much that is totally an enigma.  I still cannot, even with the added experiences of the intervening thirty years, I still cannot explain to myself, let alone anyone else, exactly how I, as the intelligent, rational, logical and scientifically minded person that I perceive myself to be, how I came to let myself be completely dominated.  Yes dominated.  Yes, terrorised.  True, I was living alone and had lost a point of reference, but that does not excuse the situation in which I found myself.

And yet…  yes!  Yes, there has also been the very positive life enhancing experience and learning.  For, in full measure, I encountered the absolutely, diametrically opposite extreme of the whole malign voice hearing, physical presence phenomenon.  Again, while, in the book, I have written as fully as I have been able, nevertheless, within that account you will find large gaps, for some of the encounters were so deep, emotional and intense, that even now, after thirty years, I still can only look at them ‘sideways, with half an eye’.

In my own life and in my own way, I have been re-living history.  In my own person, I have encountered the same reality as that encountered by every human society that has ever left a record.  Every one has reached the same understanding, namely, that there exists a spiritual state of being that parallels our own: that there exists essentially a ‘mirror’ of our own society with spiritual beings of every persuasion from the highly intelligent, highly motivated, to the malicious, ignorant, depraved, and, ultimately; the personification of evil.  Inevitably, in the past, the knowledge has led to religious belief and society.  By contrast, I have been at great pains to avoid any religious connotation, so determined am I to try to reach individuals of all religions or none.

As my story advances within the book, you will find how my own religious beliefs inspired some of my actions or informed my decisions, but other than mentioning them as I describe my motives, I retain them as personal to me, and they form no part of my theme in what I am  writing here.  In fact, as my life took on a new ‘stability’ and direction, much of my interaction with the ‘benign’ has been involved with the ‘every-day’, the practical, the mundane.  Look, this is part of my kitchen.  It is here that much of the dramatic ‘action’ took place. But it is now completely and totally different from what it was then; everything has changed.



Apart from the surround of the oven, I have put in place every piece of wood, every tile – even the glass in the far window and the copper hood.  Gone is the Rayburn cooker with all of the memories of the dramatic events that happened beside it.  In its place, the gas hobs, which I set low, in expectation of visitors in wheelchairs.  The house is built in the local traditional manner of large stones, cobbles, boulders of the local granite, and with walls that are two feet thick.  This part is the oldest and dates from pre-1700, and its age is reflected in the fact that there is hardly a true vertical or horizontal, or a corner that meets at right-angles.

       So this is what faced me at the outset as I began my changes and improvements.  The previous owners had done much to improve this fairly basic home, and I was following on with my own developments.  I had almost no DIY experience, and only the bare minimum of handy tools, but as my plans formed and I began to acquire good tools, I discovered something else.  Something that is so vital to what I am trying to tell you, yet is something that I find difficult to put into words.  It was the ambience of hope and encouragement that surrounded me, which put ‘wind in my sails’.  Just as I had come to recognise the mental stagnation and negativity that came from the malign intrusions, so did I find this opposite – this wonderful feeling of collaboration.  Not in words, for they were unnecessary, for as I met seemingly insurmountable problems posed by the fabric of the house, so, virtually subliminally, there came into my mind the essence of the solution.  And with it the belief that I could achieve a good result, to the extent that I began to realise that within reason, one could achieve almost any goal in life.

Just one example.  At the far end of the kitchen, just below the window there is a narrow unit.  It links the one on the left with the sink which is just out of sight on the right.  I had had difficulty in conceiving the design and equal difficulty in its fabrication, and went to bed, completely dissatisfied, but with a shrug and a ‘that will just about do’.  I awoke to one of those days that I had come to recognise – everything felt right, the clear mind was there – and the encouragement.  Yes, the encouragement.  Completely wordless, but – well, just imagine yourself as a parent and your child is about to set off, it could be to take an exam; have an interview or audition.  You wouldn’t bombard it with words or fussing, but would surround it with unspoken love and encouragement.  Just imagine that…

       Needless to say, I dismantled the efforts of last evening, and with great pleasure built the unit that you can see, and which is completely functional.  And this is one of the great secrets of helping those you love or are caring for – of helping them to achieve their own recovery.  I frequently use the analogy of the three-legged race; of how you have to be a partner, giving support, encouragement and hope.  Yes, that especially.  With the recognition that one is dealing with spiritual involvement, there will come much knowledge and understanding, all of which has relevance to other mental disorders and conditions.

       But with this knowledge and understanding, it is probable that you will come to realise, as I do, namely that strong anti-psychotic drugs have no place here.  While, in the first instance, they may help an individual to cope with the initial trauma at the onset of ‘schizophrenia’, they do so by suppressing the mental activity in such a way that the malign intrusions cannot function.  But then, neither can the positive; the benign.  Their ability to access the mind and senses will be frustrated.  And their frustration will be doubly profound as they, as we do, witness the deterioration of a sensitive mind into that of a near zombie.  Which is the fate that many seek to avoid and is the reason why some have sought and then found a work such as my book.

       Without exception, the individuals who have communicated with me, whether as carer or voice-hearer, have done so because they have searched the Internet for alternatives to the much feared ‘psychiatry’ and anti-psychotic drugs – and the stigma that goes with a diagnosis of ‘schizophrenia’.  Again, without exception, they have been generous with their thanks and expressions of relief at knowing that there are alternative routes to follow.  Throughout the book, I give many examples of the working of the benign and the malign in my life.  I list numerous ‘ploys’ that are used by the malign as they attempt to undermine, suppress and destroy.  I contrast these with the many examples of the working of the ‘benign’, which I try to translate into actual ‘working practices’ that any may follow. 

I have endeavoured to share my knowledge and experience as widely and freely as I have found possible, and I have written to try to inform, exhort and encourage – 160,000 words in my book alone, plus a variety of articles, essays and poems, many of which are currently on my Blog.  The book itself is part autobiography, part D.I.Y. Manual, and is aimed at voice hearers and their carers, and at the professionals in the care of the mentally disturbed.

Undoubtedly, there will be many who will have difficulty in coming to terms with the whole ‘spiritual’ thing.  To many, ‘spiritual’ and the reality of actual intelligent, freely acting ‘entities’, and of ‘beings’ that can have real interaction with us as individuals, are all concepts that will be coloured by their own personal history and existing beliefs.  In my writing, I describe the complete reality of my experiences, a reality that has me sitting at my computer and trying to write in a manner that will convince you also.  And I am writing about results; about the practical, not the means by which the   results are achieved.  How can I possibly know?  Always, I am the pragmatic one – if it works, and works with a desirable outcome, well, use it.  Which brings me back to my opening event – to advice that was offered very succinctly – basic advice that actually works.

Look… in all of my adult life, from age nineteen until my final retirement from employment, my work involved highly complex electronic devices whose working I understood fully.  Yet I sit at this computer and I haven’t a clue.  It does remarkable things using methods that I shall never understand, but it does them, and that is all that matters to me now.  There is so much in life that the majority can’t understand, but their lives go on.  In like manner, there are natural processes taking place of which we are so unaware, and yet are so wonderful in themselves.  Only last night I watched a documentary about an ants’ nest in the Arizona Desert.  I watched in awe at the workings of this colony that was totally underground, and marvelled at the organisation of thousands of little lives – and I was left wondering and speculating about all of the many, many unseen activities that are happening, and about which we know little or nothing – until someone shows or tells us.  

       I have put so much of myself into the ‘showing and the telling’ about hearing voices, spiritual intrusion, and the reality of the spiritual/human interface, and the computer has been my companion in the process of doing so.  I am fortunate in where I sit to write, in that I have outlook into fields and trees, and I have watched the seasons and the weather change many times as I have done my ‘telling’.

But, bear in mind, I am now eighty-seven, and some time, ere long, I’m afraid that you will have to go it alone…



In the meantime, as the horses now behave themselves, I can sit and relax and say, comfortably, – Job Done

 






Friday 12 October 2012

YOU MUST LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE WHO HEAR VOICES


YOU MUST LISTEN
TO
THE PEOPLE WHO HEAR VOICES

SAYS

ROY VINCENT

I sat at my keyboard and groaned.  (I was preparing to write my first ever contribution to a newsletter or magazine).  “Please write a piece for the newsletter”, she had said.  No problem with that, in fact I enjoy writing with a purpose.  Then she added - “No more than two-thousand words, please”.  That produced the groan!  I have a Welshman’s love of language, of communication, and to be so constrained amounts to a form of torture.  The torture is even greater when I want so passionately to say what I want to say, and when I want to say it about communication itself. 

But it is of no ordinary communication that I want to tell you.  It is not written, not spoken, not signed with anyone’s hands.  Yet it can get to the very core of a person’s mind and body.  It is intrusive; irresistible; at times dominating; at times obscene; sometimes persuasive; sometimes commanding; sometimes terrorizing; on occasions condemnatory; on others, overweening.  It is a communication that need not be verbal; it can be effected pictorially; by the creation of a bodily ambience, or by concepts of smells and tastes.

        The communication of which I write is that experienced by so-called ‘voice hearers’.  I, myself, have been experiencing ‘voices’ and other intrusions for thirty-two years.  I know the exact moment and exactly what I was doing when everything began.  Yes, thirty-two years - which, I would say, enables me to speak from experience.  I deliberately choose the word ‘intrusions’, for that is undoubtedly what they are.  Not products of a sick or diseased mind, for I am not, nor ever have been ill from this cause; not the product of an aberrant brain nor a chemical imbalance therein.  Because I knew the moment and method of origin of these experiences, I have no doubt that they originate from an intelligence other than mine and ‘being’ other than me.  I have no doubt, no doubt whatsoever, that they derive from what I would call a spiritual source.

        But, and this is what is not often experienced or acknowledged, by the same route, and in the same manner and using the same methods, the converse effects of these same intrusions can be engineered.  Yes, spiritual goodness can and does enter by these same channels.  Throughout the whole of recorded history to this very day, there are or have been priests, prelates, popes, ayatollahs and archimandrites, rabbis, mullahs, muftis and mahatmas, lamas, shamans, medicine men and women and a whole assortment of religious or spiritual functionaries.  Without exception, they have proclaimed the existence of a spiritual state of being and the existence and potential intrusion of spiritual good and evil.  And again, without exception, they have declared the effectiveness of the religion or philosophy which each espouses, in promoting good, avoiding evil and determining the ultimate destination after death of practitioners and adherents.

Yet, how often, in reality, do these truths, this knowledge, translate into real life and find their way into the treatment accorded to those who experience voice and other intrusions?  If the voices encourage you to be, do, good, why then, they must be divine, angelic.  But if the voices are threatening, obscene, encourage you towards evil acts, why, “I’m sorry old chap, but you are deluded, hallucinating”, and we all know what follows that conclusion.

        From the beginning, I have experienced both ends of this spectrum of intrusive good and evil.  Initially I went through very traumatic events, and I have never been free from undermining presences.  Yet, withal, I have been helped, supported, and encouraged to participate in a life which has been so different from what I had known before.  A life aimed totally for the benefit of other people, both in what I do and in the way in which I use my house.  But I am not anonymous.  My name you know.  Yes, I originate in Wales but have lived here in Cumbria for over sixty years.  I am 87, a retired professional engineer, and spent all my working life at Sellafield and Calder Hall nuclear plants, the greater part in the field of measurement.  It might therefore be said that I am familiar with the esoteric, for that was the nature of the science that we used, and with the occult, for the chemical plants and reactors which my instruments monitored were hidden and sealed.  Now, in my new life, I could not be more open in what I do, and in expressing my beliefs and knowledge and experiences - indeed, I have written of them so fully that they have succeeded in becoming a book.

        In particular, I have recorded a number of the various ‘ploys’ used by intrusive spirits as they aim at domination.  Let me quote three of them:

        (1) They can intrude physically and mentally into one’s every moment, delighting in creating emotions or exploiting potentially emotional situations, until one realises that attempts are made to create laughter or tears where one is not in the least stirred up in either direction sufficiently to laugh or cry.  Similarly, if the situation arose, they could create anger and supply the words to go with it in a ready flow.  They intrude into one’s every thought and action, including the most intimate.
        One just longs for an empty space in one’s mind where one can think one’s own thoughts, enjoy one’s own emotions and reminiscences without these intrusions.  One develops the most intense hatred of them.  One of the results of this barrage is that one resents any intrusion or contact, thus rendering suspect those which might originate from a desirable spiritual source - they simulate these as well, so as to create animosity in one’s mind to potential or existing spiritual helpers.

        (2) The moment of waking, or the time of gradually emerging awareness after sleep is most crucial, for one is then at one’s most vulnerable.  One’s first thoughts at these times are ‘answered’ - indeed, it might seem that one is already in a conversation.  It is exceedingly difficult to avoid responding, and a dialogue can ensue from which it is hard to break free.  There can be a feeling created on waking, a sense of being with very gentle spiritual people, warm, welcoming and caring.  It is so easy to slip into this ambience, particularly if the rest of one’s life is bleak or fraught.

        But, as one is starting to feel ‘cosy’ and cared for, they start to imply that there are one or two, oh-so-teeny, defects that need correcting before one can be truly accepted and enjoy this ambience and ultimately be accepted into it after death.  Gradually the emphasis shifts becoming more needling and ultimately threatening.  One’s defects become grossly magnified, one’s sense of unworthiness exaggerated, and all the earlier warmth totally disappears.

        Sometimes an intrusion can be of such a cold, inhuman presence that one can feel oneself to be totally devoid of humanity, of love, of caring.  One could become either very ill or very evil.

It is virtually impossible for anyone in this state to convey to another the sense of threat or terror that can be experienced at these times.  This inability to communicate can so increase a person’s sense of loneliness, of total isolation, that they can easily try to seek oblivion in drink or drugs or suicide - indeed, it is quite possible that in their mind they will be actively encouraged down some desperate or diabolical route.

        (3) It is all too easy to dwell upon the presence of the voice intrusions.  Far more insidious, and possibly ever present, is the mute physical ‘overlap’.  Try to imagine a not quite exact ‘fit’, so that in every movement or reaction there is just the little bit of anticipation or lag; of speeding up when it is inappropriate; of not being quite in phase on a turn; of causing forward movement when there are obstacles to be negotiated, whether by deliberate intent or lack of ‘skill’ it is impossible to say.

When the presence is continuous, or frequently in and out, it can become positively loathsome and one longs to be rid of it.  If you have a copy of One Thousand and One Nights, read the story of the Old Man of the Sea.  Sinbad, shipwrecked and alone as usual, stumbles across an old man who asks for help to cross a stream.  Sinbad, in his kindness, takes the old man on his back, and then when the stream is crossed finds himself in a stranglehold, beaten about the head, made to go this way and that, by day and night, at the old man’s whim, be-skittered and be-pissed all down his back and generally befouled.  It is only ultimately by making some wine from wild grapes and getting the man drunk that Sinbad is finally freed, and one can sense the ultimate release as he crushes the man’s skull with a boulder.

There have been many times when I have wished for that boulder!

It is possible from one’s own reactions to these presences to understand how it is that individuals will harm themselves in an effort to get at or get rid of this gross intrusion that is only reachable within their own body.     

I have recorded at least thirty more ploys, some with subdivisions or sub-plots, but alas, I am almost at my two-thousand word limit, and still with so much more to say!  Hence, the book**, and it amazes me still that I have strung together over 160,000 words in telling the full story and giving what advice that I can.
  
**Listening to the silences in a world of hearing voices – www.royvincent.org

Monday 3 September 2012

LIVING WITH INNER VOICES AND PHYSICAL PRESENCE



LIVING
WITH
INNER VOICES
AND
PHYSICAL
PRESENCES

BY

ROY VINCENT




For more than thirty years, I have experienced voices and physical intrusions or presences in my body and mind.  Continuously - and still continuing.  And even though it means that I continue to experience all of the ‘symptoms’ that would have me classified as ‘schizophrenic’, I am not, nor ever have been ill from any of these causes.

I have tried – Oh Lord!  How I have tried!  – I have tried to tell anyone who would listen or read that what I experience is of spiritual origin.  Of that, I am certain.  How could I be otherwise?  It is not arrogance that makes me say so.  How could I not be certain?  How could anyone not be certain if they had shared my experiences of the last thirty-plus years?  And if anyone wants to know the basis for this certainty; if they want to share my experiences, they can know and share by reading the book that I have written.  Called Listening to the Silences, in a world of hearing voices  it contains a full account of what led up to the moment when “A presence that I could not see moved from the space in front of me… In my mind began conversation as between two separate people… I began to hear voices.”

Even more so have I tried to describe, to explain what it is like to hear voices; to experience the feeling of ‘an other’ inside my body and brain, sharing my inner space to such a degree that I feel revolted as if I had some great parasite within; a parasite that is trying to control my emotions such that I might feel laughter or tears when I have no need to laugh or cry; trying to propel me in this direction or that or to this action or that.  I search constantly for analogies; I stretch existing analogies to ridiculous limits in a perpetual campaign to try to achieve understanding, because it is only the individuals who hear voices, who experience physical presence and who experience the dominating influences – it is only they who know what it is like to hear voices, to experience physical presence and the dominating influences.

       I repeatit is only the individuals who hear voices, who experience physical presence and who experience the dominating influences – it is only they who know what it is like to hear voices, experience physical presence and the dominating influences.


        Left to themselves, such individuals would not use such words as ‘illusion’, ‘delusion’, and ‘auditory hallucination’.  These are words that have been imposed on them from the moment they may have said tentatively to a G.P., something such as, “I hear voices.”  I remember an occasion when I began to try to tell a particular G.P. about my experiences, to be met with a response that came back faster than one of Pavlov’s dogs salivating – “Delusions.”

I use the comparison with Pavlov’s dogs and their conditioned responses deliberately, for somewhere within the teaching of many Medical Schools there must be a degree of Pavlovian indoctrination.  Take my late friend ‘Harry’ – a G.P. who sometimes came to stay.  I had to say to Harry only one word, and he was off!  The word?  Acupuncture.  Immediately I said it, I would be assailed with a diatribe about the dangers that could come from the needles, in which ‘hepatitis’ figured largely – along with much invective about the complete ineffectiveness of this ‘quack’ so-called ‘treatment.  ‘Quack’ appeared frequently when he expressed his opinion about various complementary or alternative therapies.  The fact that he had come to stay with me to get help from me in my rôle as a natural healer restrained him not.  Even as he received benefit from me, I was nevertheless lumped in with the rest!

Now Harry had never explored ‘acupuncture’ in its reality.  I had, and had obtained considerable benefit in my efforts to maintain my health at a high level.  So I knew that the needles used came out individually from sealed packets and were discarded, or, in the case of one practitioner, the needles had been sterilised in an autoclave at the nearby hospital.  If, alternatively, I had mentioned to Harry something such as ‘homeopathy’, I have no doubt my ear would have been bent with much derisive language, well peppered with ‘double-blind trials with placebos’.  And so on, with any ‘complementary’ or ‘alternative’ therapy that I might mention – instant derision that was not open to reason or fact.

If you are reading this, never having had contact with individuals who are troubled by internal voices, there is a strong possibility that words such as ‘psychosis’, ‘psychotic’, ‘paranoid psychotic’ – even ‘violent paranoid schizophrenic’ will have come to the forefront of your mind.  Why?  Because you also, like my friend Harry, have been programmed into this ‘instant opinion mode’ – in your case, by the Media of course.  Or, if you listen to such as Jasper Carrott, ‘nutter’ might easily appear with the rest of the derisive, pejorative words, and be accepted with loud guffaws.

More than half a lifetime ago, when I was thirty-seven (I am now eighty-six) I was made very ill following a medical misdiagnosis and most inappropriate medication.  I developed a severe clinical depression.  I have all of my clinical notes covering this time, and, with difficulty, studied them in order to write the first part of my book.  Apart from the personal anguish of recalling those desperate times, what came back to my memory was the difficulty – almost impossibility – of describing to a psychiatrist exactly what was going on ‘inside’ me – in my mind - in my thoughts – or physically within me, even.

Much greater was the seeming impossibility of reasonable communication with someone from another culture.  Twice I was in the partial care of registrars from India, and apart from the fact that colloquial conversation and understanding were virtual non-starters, one of them seemed to be working within a vastly different doctor/patient relationship from that to which I had become used.  (Some years later, I had a brief correspondence with a mother in Mumbai who was desperately concerned about the fate of her son and his deterioration from the drugs that he was prescribed.  In response to what I wrote about the spiritual intervention, she wrote, “Undoubtedly many have gone to ashrams and got better, but here in Mumbai – what can we do?  And anyway, the doctors terrify you!”)

On another occasion, I was sent for a second opinion to a University Department where it seemed that Freud ruled O.K..  All of the interviewing could have been fitted in a text-book by Freud, and he might have written the subsequent opinion that was received by my Consultant.  Looking back it feels as if I had fallen into the clutches of some  great Freudian Psychiatric Procrastus – he of the iron bed that you were made to fit by stretching or chopping – and where, willy-nilly, my head would be made to fit the Freudian mould – or else!

If one has a ‘normal’ illness, there are many everyday words that even the most inarticulate persons have at their disposal – hot, cold, pain, sleep, bowel movements, vomit and so on.  If one is making tentative attempts to get help in understanding and then describing the seemingly indescribable, where is the vocabulary?  Where are the most basic words that may be used to describe the situations such as I shall illustrate?  Where are the words that one can find to describe the seemingly indescribable – the invisible, inaudible and intangible?

Why not join me in a little rôle playing?  Throughout the time that I have been experiencing these phenomena, I have recorded what I call ‘ploys’ – stratagems that may be used by intruding ‘entities’ to influence one’s thoughts, senses and behaviour: and I have described many of the ways in which an individual may first ‘acquire’ these intruders.  But first – there is always a ‘but’ – you must understand that I have written and recorded knowing with an unshakeable certainty that I was dealing with intrusive ‘spirits’, ‘entities’, beings’.  Not only that, but while I concentrate on the ‘malign’ intrusions, because these are the ones that may enter and attempt to undermine and dominate the sensitive mind and person, I have to emphasise – again with unshakeable certainty – that there exist the infinitely opposite: infinitely opposite ‘entities’ whose sole purpose in their interaction is to give support and create harmony.

Why not become ‘Ruth’ for a short while?  ‘Ruth’, mid-thirties, has heard voices and experienced physical presence within herself for a number of years.  About two years ago, she was invaded by a strong dominating presence that declared itself to be ‘God’.  So here you are, emotionally alone and unable to shut out this persistent, analytical, dominating presence that goes on and on; scrutinising your every thought and action; deriding your futile attempts to escape from this ‘Divine’ analysis; telling you that you are the lowest of the low, no better than shit; unfit to live and continue polluting the Earth with your vile presence; an Earth that would be so much cleaner without you.

“SO GO!”  “There’s that bus, that lorry.  Go on – JUMP!”  But you quail at the sight of the thundering wheels and step back.  But ‘GOD’ is still there.  “RIGHT – there’s the river – you are on the bridge – NOW JUMP!”

Would you jump?  
Could you, standing alone and, subject to such threats, resist? 

Ruth jumped.

Fortunately, you survive the jump and swim to the steep tidal muddy bank.  You struggle and crawl up it, losing your shoes and all of your lower clothes.  And almost out of your mind, covered in mud from head to toe and naked from the waist down, you struggle to reach the door of someone living nearby whom you know, to be taken in and cared for.

Would you agree with your – i.e. Ruth’s – psychiatrist that you have a chemical imbalance in your brain?

There is an opinion that hearing voices is similar to having a ruminative, reflective ‘conversation’ in one’s mind.  Having reached your friend’s house, been taken in, bathed and looked after, would you be eager to talk about the interesting ruminative conversation that you had just had?

But how is it possible that your mind could have been taken over and you become dominated by this ‘thing’ that calls itself ‘God’?  After all, you are not ill – mentally or otherwise.  
Here you are – you are no longer Ruth, but yourself.  You are in prime health and eager to join your friends as you all go to hear the great evangelical preacher – the one and only Billy Graham, or another and similarly well known spiritual orator.  Maybe you are seeking the ‘God’ experience?  Many people did at the time of the so-called ‘charismatic movements’.  Groups got together – some individuals ‘speaking in tongues’; others full of deep fervour - and much more.  So, the much-vaunted ‘evangelist’ has come to town, together with the whole of his entourage.

The atmosphere, the build-up, the electrically charged environment.  The early ‘warm-up’ speakers are full of zeal; the choir sings ecstatically, while all around arms are raised Heaven-ward in adoration.

  And then, the ‘charismatic one’.  

What can I say?  You will have seen on TV much that is similar.  And then he begins to call individuals by name, and you begin to tremble in hope or fear that your name will be called.  And it is – and eager hands usher you down to join the others at the front, where you stand as the ‘evangelist’ moves along the line – speaking to this one, touching that one – and he touches you lightly on the chest.  But a light touch is not what you experience.  A firm and completely irresistible pressure is there, forcing you back into the receptive arms of the stewards, who lay you carefully on the ground.  You have been ‘Slain by the Spirit’!

And you feel ‘chosen’.  And it does not seem at all surprising that you feel all around or within you, some sort of ‘presence’; nor that you appear to be spoken to in your mind?  And the voice and presence continue – become part of your life – yet it seems so natural, to have such warm companions who appear to generate around you an ambience of spirituality.

“Companions”?  Yes.  Plural?  Yes.  It has been hinted, gradually, that you may be invited to be part of a spiritual fraternity – obviously at a very junior level; a neophyte, no less.  You will be assessed in the friendliest sort of way, but the ‘higher’ spirits will have to be assured that you are at a satisfactory level of spiritual ‘cleanliness’ to be able to work with them now, and then join them as a team when the time has come for you to ‘pass on’.

And so begins a process that I can only show in the most brief summary, during which you might find yourself engaged in a rigorous prayer life – even getting up in the middle of the night to ‘join’ in prayer.  You will be encouraged to ‘assess’ your friends one by one, and faults will be found, and you will be urged to discard the friends.  You might be urged to adopt an abstemious life-style and diet.  You will be encouraged to delve into your past life and expose past defects, peccadilloes, events that even now bring a feeling of shame.  It may be suggested that someone, already dead, may want to come to you and apologise for past wrongs – which then has you trawling your memory and ‘accepting’ the apology, or conversely re-igniting the anger and hurt
Your mind is being ‘trawled’ skilfully in such a way that everything is revealed – or, surprisingly, appears to be known already.  Gradually the ‘catechism’ becomes critical, almost condemnatory; some of your ‘hidden’ shameful acts are played back to you…

No matter what you do, you are always being watched, analysed, commented upon.

It is extremely difficult to find analogies that would enable someone to imagine themselves in such a situation.  The nearest that I can find that will give some inkling derives from the time shortly after I had moved into my present house in 1971.  It was the first dwelling that was actually ‘mine’ and not rented.  It has four acres of land and the potential use as a small-holding.  It is beautifully situated and living here can bring on a state of deep relaxation.  

In this relaxed state, I met and married a widow who had two teenage children, all with a common interest in horses and smallholding life.  It seemed ideal and I saw no problems.  However, K. was ahead of me.  She and her late husband, an architect, had already developed some run-down property.  Mine was not in any way run down, but K. soon had ideas for ‘development’.  I had been about to begin to develop my DIY skills; K’s were already ahead of mine.  I began to experience the ‘critical watching’ – “I wouldn’t have done it that way.”  “The person who taught me…”

The Mother and children were already a unit with established instant inter-communication.  I would be observed, reported on and discussed during their journeys together to and from school.  Thing were decided by this ‘committee’ during the drive.  Even casual remarks were seized on a reported back by the children… 

Have you had enough?  I soon did, and although it took me a total of three years, the day actually arrived when I could go around, savouring the space, my space; touching things; reclaiming my domain…

Surprisingly, this is exactly how I felt and behaved at the time when I realised that, almost completely, I had regained control of my own mind, in spite of the ploys and stratagems of the intruding entities.

And you?  How will you hold on to your mind, your ‘space’ while under this constant surveillance, dominance and ‘running commentary’ from your unseen and erstwhile spiritual ‘friends’?  How will you react to the presence that even though it is not there, is still there?  You will find that you are listening, constantly listening – listening to the voices when they are there, and listening to the silence when they are not – waiting for them to return at any moment.

Listening.  Constantly listening.  You are not hearing voices; you are listening to them.  And the constant listening is the greatest undermining influence in the whole of this sorry process.  And remember, within the midst of all that is going on there is one factor, a most important factor, which is never considered in all of the commentaries and analyses.  You are still a mammal.  Yes, the body that you inhabit is that of a mammal, and it retains all of the self-protection systems that have brought it through aeons of evolution.  And it retains them absolutely intact and functioning.

Hearing is part of our early warning system – probably one of the prime elements, for it is the one that would be most important after dark.  If, in our wild state, we heard an unusual or threatening sound, normally we would shift into ‘listening’ mode.  And our breathing would become shallow – might almost cease as we concentrated.  But more than that, for additionally we suspend a number of vital body functions.  Usually described simply as ‘flight/fight’ responses, there is a complex interaction that we do well to study if we are to understand the ways in which the constant listener is undermined – physically as well as mentally.

        In my book, I try to be specific about the variety of inner responses that may take place.  For example, there is a complex tensing of the genitals, and the bladder and anal sphincters.  These together have a close response into the base of the throat; while the sacrum and coccyx – our residual tail – react in such a way that would depress and clamp down the tail – if we still had one.  At the same time, arms, shoulders, buttocks and legs are preparing for the action for which the ‘listening’ is preparing us.  Except that there is no flight/fight situation.  The listening goes on and on, and the various tensions and resultant inner reactions also go on and on.

        One of the prime objectives of the complex inner readjustments is the diversion of blood away from unnecessary functions into those that will be fully committed to the life-saving responses implied by ‘flight/fight’.  Thus the ‘locking’ of the throat will result in diminution of the blood supply to the brain, with what consequences to the permanent ‘listener’ one can only guess.  The tensions within the genitals may cause functional problems such as impotence, lack of sensitivity and frigidity; those in the sphincters may be the cause of such unwelcome by-products as haemorrhoids, or a dysfunctional prostate.  Permanent stresses within muscles and joints may be the source of constant pain, of no known cause.

If you, the permanent listener, develop any of these physical problems, you may be absolutely sure that the constant malign presences will claim that they have created them.  If you are in pain, they will claim to be the source of the pain, and that is punishment for your moral back-sliding.  If you are a man, and impotence becomes your lot – they will deride you for it and add further anxiety to that already resulting from the condition…         

I could go on, and on – but in doing so, I would be re-writing my book.  Yes, I have actually been there.  Not in the manner that I have just described, which shows a route on which anyone might find themselves.  My ‘journey’ into this sort of hell also began ‘innocently’ as I followed up an interest in dowsing or divining using a pendulum, and if this is the only part of my story that you want to read, you will find it told in Chapter 6. 

 But if that is all that you read, you will be robbing yourself.  

The remainder of the book from Chapter 6 onward shows how my life developed in the light of this knowledge; these experiences.  And it is written – as is the whole book – to try to bring greater understanding of the whole ‘voice hearing’ experience.  And not only will you be robbing yourself, but also those for whom the knowledge is intended – the inarticulate ones whose life really can be come a hell as they cope with all that the ‘intrusions’ can inflict upon them, and the hell that their journey into ‘psychiatry’ may make of their lives as they become suppressed, zombified by modern anti-psychotic drugs.

I have already described how I have identified a number of ‘ploys’ used by intruding entities, whom I always refer to as they – there being no certainty as to whether there is one or more of them.  As well as appearing in context in my narrative, they are grouped together in Chapter 16 of the book on the Internet.  As an example, here are two that are relevant to what I have just written.

19    Sometimes very vivid dreams are followed on waking by a deliberately fragmented ‘conversation’, often with the suggestion that one’s mind is being taken over at a deeper level.  If one is gullible, one can be convinced that one is losing one’s mind, or that it is part of a process by which one will become integrated into the ‘spirit mind’.

20    The moment of waking, or the time of gradually emerging awareness after sleep is most crucial, for one is then at one’s most vulnerable.  One’s first thoughts at these times are ‘answered’; indeed, it might seem that one is already in a conversation.  It is exceedingly difficult to avoid responding, and a dialogue can ensue from which it is hard to break free.  There can be a feeling created on waking, a sense of being with very gentle spiritual people, warm, welcoming and caring.  It is so easy to slip into this ambience, particularly if the rest of one’s life is bleak or fraught.

        But, as one is starting to feel ‘cosy’ and cared for, they start to imply that there are one or two, oh-so-teeny, defects that need correcting before one can be truly accepted and enjoy this ambience and ultimately be accepted into it after death.  Gradually the emphasis shifts becoming more needling and ultimately threatening.  One’s defects become grossly magnified, one’s sense of unworthiness exaggerated, and all the earlier warmth totally disappears.

        Sometimes an intrusion can be of such a cold, inhuman presence that one can feel oneself to be totally devoid of humanity, of love, of caring.  One could become either very ill or very evil. It is virtually impossible for anyone in this state to convey to another the sense of threat or terror that can be experienced at these times.  This inability to communicate can so increase a person’s sense of loneliness, of total isolation, that they can easily try to seek oblivion in drink or drugs or suicide - indeed, it is quite possible that in their mind they will be actively encouraged down some desperate or diabolical route.

 Moving on - you may have been invited out by some new-found friends – clubbing or whatever – and you find that almost everyone is looking for some sort of ‘high’, and never before having used any sort of drug, you find yourself smoking a ‘joint’.  Only you know the extent of your strange experiences.  You don’t know if they are good or bad.  You don’t know if it is normal to feel as if ‘someone’ has moved into your body and mind – is this part of the ‘trip’?  You feel withdrawn – alienated almost.  Your ‘friends’ ignore you and move on, and you are left to wander off home alone – or not alone?

It is very unlikely that you will ever have had cause to read about the shamans of other cultures – many ethnic groups world-wide have had shamans or similar ‘medicine’ men and women in their midst.  Almost all, it seems, used cannabis, peyote, ‘mushrooms’ or other hypnotics in the process that prepared them for the entry of their ‘familiar spirit’, and many also used incessant drumming for the same purpose.  Undoubtedly, all would have been trained from their early years in the use of the ‘substance’ and the ways of coping with the ‘other’ within themselves.
And you?  You have had no training or preparation; no foreknowledge of the possibility of being ‘entered’ – and only you will know how the story unfolds from now on…

I have found yet another rôle for you!  You are now Sara-Jane; you are in your early forties and are in a plane high above the Med.  You are returning from an absolutely blissful holiday in the Greek Islands, and to where you will return in a year’s time to marry Tom, your partner, who is beside you, lightly dozing.  Your mind is so full – the holiday just ended – already planning what you will wear next year.  Not a negative thought in your mind; nothing but happiness.

Then suddenly, all of the other people on the plane are talking about you, criticising you, condemning you, pulling you to pieces – your clothes; your morals – on and on.  As you cower in your seat, Tom wakes and you pour out the reasons for your distress – “They’re all talking about me!  They’re all talking about me!”  Tom stands up and looks around, and persuades you to do the same.  Not a single person shows any interest in you.

Somehow, you manage to keep things together while you land and travel home, where the dam bursts and the malign voices continue their castigation.  You have time off work, ostensibly with stress, and you struggle to cope.  Only with the strong support and care from Tom and your twin sister do you manage to avoid being ‘sectioned’.  Yet you have determination that this ‘thing’ is not going to beat you, and you struggle with the minimum of drug intake and try to find the real explanation of what has happened to you.

You scour the Internet, looking for articles, books – anything that might help.  You find one, a book, that seems to draw you, and you read it avidly, non-stop.  And at last, you have an explanation that seems to fit your own incredible experiences.  “I must write to this man and tell him”, you say to Tom.  And you do…
And here alongside me as I write is the letter from Sara-Jane, and she begins: “I want to say thanks for writing on the Internet about your experiences.  I found it to be the only true version of what I feel happened to myself last year.  I had been looking for books to read on the subject but I found nothing useful until I came across your account…”

She and Tom came to stay with me, and we were able to reach an even greater understanding of her experiences.  The year elapsed – and produced on my computer two wedding photographs of very happy people – Sara-Jane, looking absolutely exquisite, alongside a beaming Tom; and the second, with twin sister, equally looking radiant.

Sara-Jane can count herself fortunate, in that her experiences appear to have had a beginning and an end – or if not an actual ‘end’, but a finite analysis that shows that control is made possible by ‘awareness’ and knowledge.

Not so the ‘closet’ voice hearer such as Joyce, for whom the agony went on and on throughout almost the whole of her adult life.      
  
I first came to be acquainted with Joyce in her rôle as local Librarian, and this is how I saw her for a number of years until, following her retirement, our paths crossed in a different setting, and we began to learn more about each other.  In time, she learned of the account of my experiences that I was writing, and which eventually became my book.  It was then that her own remarkable story began to unfold, and while retaining her anonymity, she wrote it in its entirety for me to use in any manner that would inform and help anyone who suffers from the plague of inner voices and presences similar that which had been her lot for many years.  I reproduce it in its entirety as ‘J’s Story’ in Chapter 16 of my book on the Internet, and in my Blog in the post headed “SANE: HEARING VOICES”.

It would be difficult for me to fit you into Joyce’s life history – it covers a period too long for rôle playing.  She grew up in a quiet and caring family in rural Gloucestershire – an imaginative child having experiences of a spiritual nature that suffused her life with happiness.  Successful at school, she entered University to work towards her ultimate goal of Librarianship.  She writes:
  
        “At age nineteen, while studying at University, under great pressure trying to get accustomed to living alone in ‘digs’ – although I had a very kind landlady; never free of persistent catarrh causing dull headaches; anxious about keeping ahead of work commitments; having very little leisure time and depressed by the failure of two developing, but platonic friendships, I said to myself one day in utter despair “There is no meaning in anything.  It’s all just words, words, words”.

  At that moment something in my head just snapped, causing complete chaos inside.  I could hear voices uttering unspeakable blasphemies.  Whenever I lay down to sleep at night, shapes, colours, people’s faces churned round and round endlessly.  For the first three nights after my breakdown, I cannot remember sleeping at all.  This went on ceaselessly; day and night; utter torment; complete hell.  At this point I must state categorically that the ‘still small voice’ heard in that garden in Oxford, was totally different from these demonic ones.

        Outwardly, although it may seem hard to believe, I seemed normal, if somewhat withdrawn.  I could still talk to people; do my work, although with considerable difficulty in concentration.  I could shop, eat, do chores, cycle to lectures.  My mother, whom I only saw occasionally in those days, since I was living away from home, remarked during one visit that I seemed “hag ridden”.  How apt that phrase was!  I did not tell her or anyone, except by letter to the University psychiatrist describing what had happened, but never received an answer.  However, I think the psychiatrist must have asked one of my Tutors to keep an eye on me, because she started inviting me to her home and taking me to the cinema.

        I was like a zombie, my mind that had one time been so clear, now darkened.  I remember staring at myself in the mirror, my body feeling dead, but yet something in me still aware of all that was happening.  At no time did I contemplate suicide, but I desperately searched my memory for something that would alleviate the horror of my inner turmoil.  I remembered having been given a palm cross one Palm Sunday, when I was only seven or eight.  The recollection of that lovely day, the joy of that time, surrounded by loving people, the sun shining brilliantly outside the church, was calming and consoling.  For years, during every waking moment, I tried to keep the thought and picture of that cross in my inner vision.  I read the bible voraciously, copied whole chapters into a notebook, kept a crucifix under my pillow.  I also tried to visualise in the inner darkness, the colour and shape of the ‘inner’ sun, moon, and stars that were once so natural to see.

        After leaving University, doing a year’s practical library work and obtaining my Diploma in Librarianship, I started full time work.  I met and married a very considerate and loving husband.  We had no family.  The ‘voices’ did not abate even during the period of our marriage, but although he knew that I was suffering from some mental struggle, he did not know the details.  He was vegetarian, just not liking meat from boyhood.  He never tried to convert me, but gradually I became vegetarian myself, for several reasons, and have never wanted to revert to meat eating.  He died in 1982.

        I have had several good, satisfying jobs in libraries; made very many friends; have all sorts of hobbies – walking, reading, listening to music, embroidery, knitting, attending evening classes and study tours abroad.  I do voluntary committee and community work since taking early retirement; do gardening and have a pet cat.
       
        Through being a vegetarian, I was led to a guesthouse in Glastonbury, which turned out also to be a spiritual centre.  I had remained through all the years a staunch Christian, attending church, if not really regularly, at least at all the main festivals, but this was something, at Ramala as it is called, which began at long last to draw me out of the darkness.  The Christ light is worshipped there as living reality.  Their teaching and associated art work reawakened my visions.  I don’t mean by that that I experienced them as I had done in childhood, but I knew that they were being expressed through the work of Ramala.  It led me on to an even more wonderful realisation, connected with the former glory, which has restored life, light hope, joy.”

        At the outset, I wrote of my unshakeable and absolute certainty – certainty that there exist the infinitely opposite of the malign, destroying ‘presences’.

Infinitely opposite - the benign ‘entities’

whose sole purpose in their presence and interaction is to give support and create harmony   In doing so, I am entering another area where the choice of language and metaphor is as difficult as finding the language and analogies required to describe the malign intruders.  Almost every word or simile has already become embedded in the language of religion.

  Deliberately, at every stage and in every piece of my writing, I have been at great pains to dissociate myself with any and all religions, for I have tried to reach individuals of all religions or none.  I have described my own spiritual progress as it has impacted on my narrative, but in every other respect, I retain an inner privacy.  Throughout my book, and in context you will find many concrete examples of how I have experienced support and practical help – and yes, love, from the world of the ‘benign.

If ‘religion’ and all that the word implies – if religion is to have any impact on the lives of the individuals such as those that I write about, it is most likely to have its influence through the lives and beliefs of those who, professionally or privately, seek to understand and care for those who are in need of support and caring.  As I found when in the depths of a seemingly intractable depression, one can be spiritually ‘dead’.  Help, if it is to come at all, has to come from others, although compassion and understanding are not the sole prerogative of the ‘religions’.  But an understanding of the existence and rôle of the spiritual in the care of the mentally disturbed is at the disposal of all.

        How does the ‘spiritual’ reach the lives of the many whose minds have been invaded as the result, for example, of having been ‘abused’, possibly from childhood?  A Psychiatrist, the late Dr. Kenneth McAll, believed that he had found an answer in an understanding that ‘abuse’ in its various forms came down through successive generations.  Based on experiences gained when working in China, and during internment by the Japanese during World War 2, he became convinced that many mental problems resulted from the attachment of disturbed or malign spirits, and that in many instances these were ‘family’ attachments.  

        Through the Family Tree Ministry, which has been closed since his death, he showed how, by analysing the family tree, it might be possible to decide at which level of ancestry the original disturbance began.  Dr McAll’s book Healing the Family Tree describes how those who practised this Ministry, used prayer to attempt to persuade the sources of the disturbances and attachments to allow themselves to be led onward in a  spiritual sense.

        Even though my Librarian friend, Joyce, had had her own inner religious convictions, it seems that on her own, in her lonely furrow, she may not have sought help actively or specifically, whereas her support and eventual release came through the intervention and support of others who were firm in their religious practice and in its practical application in the care of others.

Many individuals instantly are put off by the very word, ‘spiritual’, because, immediately, it suggests ‘religion’ – and many are put of by religion.  From the outset, I have tried to separate the two, and yet to show that knowledge and understanding of the existence of the spiritual world that is ‘parallel’ to ours, will reveal the pathways that will lead to the wiser treatment of voice-hearers, and hopefully to the realisation that prescribed drugs will never actually cure ‘schizophrenia’.  

At best, drugs will suppress an individual’s mind to such an extent that intrusive entities can no longer exert influence.  And hopefully will come the further realisation that when the drug intake ceases, the mind will gradually clear, and the opening may yet exist for the intrusions to return – i.e. ‘the patient has a relapse’, and may be treated with even stronger anti-psychotic drugs – which can have side-effects that may be far worse than many a ‘conventional’ illness.
  
In the final pages of my book, I tried to summarise what I saw as the great need for simple understanding of the world of the voice hearer, and the realisation that comprehending the meaning of ‘spiritual’ in its widest sense would shed light into the darkness surrounding many other intractable mental health problems.  This is what I wrote:

“Satellite television has brought to me a fascinating window on a wider world and the opportunities to observe and try to understand, people from a vast range of cultures - people whom one saw previously, if one saw them at all, as ‘performers’ in documentaries or devised programmes, and subject to the presentation and interpretation of the programmes’ compilers.  Now I can watch them completely untainted by the intervening ‘editor interpreter’.  I watch them in their own dramas, chat shows, news bulletins and a variety of presentations and versions of ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’  

I look at faces and expressions, moods and reactions, but ‘look’ and ‘watch’ are the two operative words, for apart from sensing the general mood of the piece I have not the slightest idea of what is being said.  When I watch Chinese television there are subtitles – but they also are in Chinese.  I would dearly like to know what Dunia and the people whom she interviews on Abu Dhabi television are discussing, because it appears to be serious and intelligent, but apart from words that sound vaguely like ‘Iraq’ and ‘Arabia’, there is nothing to guide me.  Worse still is a news bulletin when the person being interviewed is speaking English, but is then being talked over and the screen has rolling subtitles all in Arabic.

                The world and outlook of those who are locked into their inner voices is something like this.

  They have their own transmission received inside their head that no one else can hear or comprehend, while, viewed on the screen of life that is going on outside them, they see people, faces expressions, actions, moods and reactions, and try to interpret something that is far off.  Something that is almost unreachable from within a mind and body that are often numbed by the drugs that are meant to make life more bearable (but which often are there solely to ‘contain’ them).  A world with which they find it increasingly difficult to communicate, to such an extent that attempts to do so may be abandoned altogether, especially when the inner world can appear warm and friendly.

                Is it easiest simply to abandon them to their inner world and the companions that frequent it?  An inner world that can be welcoming, friendly, comforting – an inner world that suddenly can spawn terror and threat; create immeasurable anxiety; propose devilish and obscene compacts – compacts that if accepted can bring down an even heavier rain of threat and castigation from the unseen tormentors.  One can go on and on in seemingly endless speculation, and offer insights and advice that may or may not have relevance to an individual – if indeed one knew that the torment was actually there behind the closed door that a life and the face fronting it have become.

                It would be difficult to forget the time when my stable was being re-roofed.  Right to the fore of the action were the two Geordies – Big Derek and Brian.  They came and worked - and worked hard - for ‘readies’, and stayed until about one o’clock when they went off to the King’s Head for a liquid lunch, and then possibly an afternoon fishing off the beach.  

        One morning they came and they were immensely subdued, in fact, for such a big man, it was odd that Derek seemed close to tears.  “Clarry’s topped his self,” said Brian eventually.  Work was pointless, and they went off to the King’s Head for more appropriate solace.  Clarry – or Clarence to give him his Sunday name – had farmed with brother Ronnie, until they had given up the farm.  But farmers never retire, and one met them here and there, as they helped out on other farms - hedging, dykeing, dry-stone walling, hay-timing - or working in people’s gardens.

                Clarry had retired to a cottage beside the main road and I saw him frequently as he worked around a friend’s premises.  This particular morning his daughter had come downstairs, to a fire newly laid in the grate, a cup of tea part drunk and still warm, a sandwich half eaten, and, puzzled, had gone outside to find Clarry hanging.  And no one knew why!  It was over ten years ago, and I don’t think anyone knows to this day.  There in his inner world something had thrown a switch – but he had not been ill that anyone knew about – certainly not mentally.  What was it that Clarry couldn’t talk to anyone about – confide - consult?

                I thought of him in happier times, as for instance, when the local Shepherds’ Meet and a meet of the Black Combe hunt had coincided, and the Brown Cow had been open all day – and Clarry hadn’t wasted a minute.  There he was, well into the evening, a huge turkey drumstick in his hand, beating time to the choruses of the hunting songs, and swaying perilously to and fro, and the picture of him swaying gently at the end of a rope is one that even now I find unbearable.

                I have difficulty revisiting the time when I desperately wanted to die and escape from all that plagued my mind and from the situation that I couldn’t understand but from which I frantically wanted to flee.

                          I wasn’t then hearing voices, but had seemingly insurmountable problems.  Why didn’t I just do it?  As I wrote earlier in my book, it had to appear to be an accident, and I couldn’t devise one that I thought would be convincing.  Relevant to my thoughts about Clarry – I couldn’t talk to anyone, because I couldn’t put my inner agony into words.  I vaguely remember once saying to the Consultant as I attempted to broach the subject, something such as “I wish I had a terminal illness” – thinking that that would be a way out that would not create problems for anyone.  “I suppose you want cancer” he said – and said it with a sneer; nothing else will describe his tone.  I never tried to speak to anyone about it ever again, and I have only recalled the painful times for the purpose of writing to you to help you to understand the torment in the unseen world behind the façade of a face, and a life that is seemingly being ‘lived’ successfully.

‘Writing to you’ – I began to write, it seems, such a long time ago.  Some has come easy; some with the pain of unhappiness and disaster revisited.  I hope that it has been worthwhile in that it may help someone.  I began with the words of the diminutive Brazilian bishop, Dom Helder Camera, from which I get the title of my book, and cannot think of any that are more appropriate with which to end.


Don’t get annoyed
If the people coming to see you,
If the people wanting to talk to you
Can’t manage to express
The uproar raging inside them.

Much more important
Than listening to the words
Is imagining the agonies,
Fathoming the mystery,
Listening to the silences.




*“Listening to the silences” – www.royvincent.org

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