I wondered if I might not be in the grip of demons, if they were not making me suffer for their own purposes, or simply for their enjoyment.

I wondered if I might not be in the grip of demons, if they were not making me suffer for their own purposes, or simply for their enjoyment.

Every Christmas now for years, I have found myself wondering about the point of the celebration. As the holiday has become more ecumenical and secular, it has lost much of the magic that I remember so fondly from childhood.

I've always been interested in definitions, because in the Bible, the Ten Commandments are there but there's no real clear definition of what sin is, in a fundamental sense - how we can use the words to evaluate our lives as we go along: Am I doing something that is ethically good? Am I being worthwhile in my life at this moment?

Increasingly I felt as if I were entering a struggle that might even be more than life and death. It might be a struggle for my soul, my essence, or whatever part of me might have reference to the eternal. There are worse things than death, I suspected... so far the word demon had never been spoken among the scientists and doctors who were working with me...Alone at night I worried about the legendary cunning of demons ...At the very least I was going stark, raving mad.

I've got lots of books sitting here that have never been published because nobody could make any marketing sense of them.

I felt an absolutely indescribable sense of menace. It was hell on earth to be there [in the presence of the entities], and yet I couldn't move, couldn't cry out, couldn't get away. I'd lay as still as death, suffering inner agonies. Whatever was there seemed so monstrously ugly, so filthy and dark and sinister. Of course they were demons. They had to be. And they were here and I couldn't get away.