LISTENING TO THE SILENCES

My
Only Enemy

The problem of trying to describe the indescribable in terms of the effect of spiritual intrusion is matched equally by the difficulties inherent in trying to answer the question - 'who' are the intruders, and where and how do they originate? Frankly, if I could answer that question with complete certainty, I would be the very first to do so since the question was first posed, since humanity had its first philosophical thought. Many individuals, organisations and theologies believe that they have answers, and, from within the answers, a perceived core of similarity emerges. All presuppose the survival after death of the 'soul' or 'spirit'. The quality of life and the manner of dying are credited with having an effect upon the 'destination' of the released spirit. Death in accident, trauma, suicide and battle are alleged to create a so-called 'earthbound' spirit. Such are believed to stay close to the location of their dying and to be unable to realise that they are, in fact, dead. Some, it is said, attach themselves to living people and become, in effect, an inadvertent intruder, still hopelessly lost.

Those who die at home or in hospital may, by the very nature of their previous life, be strongly attached to individuals, places or to particular activities, and may, in death, seek an appropriate place or person. Alternatively, the very act of dying may leave them so isolated that they attach to the nearest living person, whether adult or newborn infant. In time those in the latter two groups may realise that they are able to utilise the mind and faculties of their 'host', and that they can create thoughts, desires and emotions. It is quite uncanny and a revealing commentary on the generality of humans, that just as a new method of communication is invented, so it is swamped by individuals or groups intent upon perverting it. The invention of photography and cinema soon were followed by the pornographic picture and 'blue' movie. Printing gave an open channel for erotica. Citizens' Band radio was swamped rapidly by the intrusive obscenity and worse, while the Internet - yes the Internet.

The Internet provides an ideal analogy of the spiritual link into the human mind. As I have become more confident and fluent in my ability to access the Internet and e-mail, so much more comes to light than I had anticipated. With e-mail comes 'spam'. Many will have experienced having their mail in-box flooded with these unwanted intrusions. In my case, it appears that the Server that I use has had its lists of subscribers entered and circulated widely, (assuming that the Server itself has not sold the information). Now, every time that I open my in-box, I find that there are several entries from totally undesirable and definitely unwanted sources. Do I want to enlarge my penis? Almost daily there are offers of products guaranteed to accomplish this. Do I want to see college girls masturbating, or having lesbian encounters? Just enter. Do I want to get in touch with bored housewives, all apparently ravening for sex? Sign in for contacts. Do I want to watch live action of farm girls copulating with animals? Why, enter in. There is no area of indecency and depravity that is not available. And this is just on e-mail spam.

So it is, by analogy, the way in which the human mind that has been opened and somehow entered is flooded with 'spam' by the spiritual equivalent of the human providers of obscenity and pornography. If the offers by e-mail of access to what are euphemistically called 'pre-teens' are taken up, will this be the route that some follow towards the land of the paedophile? Temptation is strewn before the curious and vulnerable. Some, it is true, will have made an active search for web sites that offer access to their personal predilections. Others will be drawn in having been titillated by the images sent with the spam. Whatever the trigger, the die will be cast when the signing -in page has been completed with its all-important credit card information.

Major religions affirm that the 'stain of sin' is always present on the spiritual image of a person, and cannot even be washed away by confession and penance. Only time and one's ultimate death will reveal whether or not this is true. For the seeker after pornography and paedophilia, there is no going back once the 'Enter' button has been clicked. Indelibly there for the Cyber police to discover is the evidence of web sites accessed and paid for. The 'stain of web sin' cannot be washed away! Whereas it was always supposed to be GOD who saw all and meted out justice, now it is the Cyber police and the courts.

With the creation of the Internet, a new dominion of access into, and torment of the vulnerable mind was created and immediately colonised by the fomenters of spiritual evil. The solitary persons, believing that they are having surreptitious access to hitherto undreamed of images and contacts, were nevertheless subjected to an enveloping ambience of guilt and titillation - the one source urging in the mind that the site should be opened, and the other heaping on an atmosphere of disquiet verging on shame and self-disgust. When, with the sudden revelation that all was not secret between the persons and the web site, and that high profile prosecutions were in train, one can imagine the panic at the thought of discovery, and simultaneously, the driving condemnation coming from the spiritual tormentors, taunting at the shame that was about to arrive. Certainly a number have been known to have committed suicide.

How many computers were abandoned or how many hard drives were changed, we shall never know, but still the stain of Cyber sin remained in credit card and phone details, and who knows what torment from unknown spiritual sources. Many, I am sure, were the excuses or reasons given for having had access to images of the young. The most blatant seems to have been 'for study purposes', or 'research for my new book'. The rest I'll leave to your imagination, though to come back to the human world and leaving briefly the Cyber spiritual, I suddenly recalled from the back of my memory an example of how the study of pornographic images changed the life progress of one student.

It is some time since I read A Narrow Street by Elliot Paul. Set in Paris in the 1930's, Paul relates an episode where a young habitué of the Street, a student, had virtually abandoned his work in mathematics and spent much time at 'Le Pannier Fleuri' - the local brothel. There he became absorbed in studying the volumes of photographs kept to titillate and stimulate the clients. In time the student became so enthralled at the numbers of permutations and combinations of men, women and animals engaged in copulation that he was inspired to return to his mathematic studies! Perhaps this might be a flavour of the 'reasons' given for 'studying' sites portraying paedophilia!