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
repeat – 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, 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.
Paperback - ISBN
9781847477590
Blog - www.roycvincent.blogspot.com
