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
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
