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If you've listened to the other episodes in our demonology series that Chris and the Wandering Road podcast and I have put together, namely 101, 102, 201, 301, etc., then you know we have outlined the basics of the various stages that comprise the progression of possession, namely obsession or the mental attacks of the infernal, oppression, or when that escalates into the physical and possession, or when the victim gives permission for the evil spirit to invade their life. However, there is a fourth stage, and that is perfect possession.
Father Malachi Martin, former Jesserit priest and author of Hostage to the Devil, the Possession and Exorcism of Five Contemporary Americans, outlines the progression of possession as such. First, the actual entry point, the point at which evil spirit enters an individual in a decision, however tenuous, is made by the victim to allow that entry. Then, a stage of erroneous judgments by the possessed in vital moments as a direct result of the allowed presence of the possessing spirit and apparently in preparation for the next stage.
Third, a voluntary yielding of control by the possessed person to a force or presence he clearly feels as alien to himself, and as a result of which the possessed loses control of his will, and so of his decisions and his actions. Once the third stage is secure, extended control proceeds and may potentially reach the point of completion, perfect possession. That last stage has yet to be covered in the demonology series for more than a few reasons, but in this episode, that is exactly what we are going to do. Be forewarned.
Some of the ideas presented herein are theoretical, dangerous, and highly disturbing. Welcome to season six, episode four of the Southern Demonology Podcast. As always, I am your friendly neighborhood, Ancient Demonologist, JJ. And today, we are covering the most advanced topic in this series yet: Demonology 501, Perfect Possession. If you like what you hear and want to see or listen to more, then please rate, subscribe, and recommend this podcast to a friend, no matter what platform you happen to be listening or watching it on.
Father Martin's book is highly important, not just for the case studies it presents, but also for its theological basis for what demonic possession is and how it fits into the worldview of Catholicism. However, Martin clearly states that, quote, this study makes no attempt to answer the ultimate puzzle of possession, why this person rather than that person becomes the object of diabolic attack, which can end in partial or perfect possession. End quote. A fact that I have commented on more than a few times. The concepts embedded herein are terrifying to me.
I have been familiar with talk about the devil and his workings as I grew up on a steady diet of hellfire and brimstone sermons, told from the mountaintop in my local Baptist uh church. But this book gave the infernal more definition and thus made it much more real. To the point where even I, who have suffered from night terrors my entire life, had the worst nightmares of my life for about six months or so. Hostage to the devil also spoke about a concept that highly puzzled me then and has continued to elude me now, that of perfect possession. Martin defines it in this way.
He or she will not cringe, as others who are possessed will, at the sight of such religious symbols as a crucifix or a rosary. The perfectly possessed will not bridle at the touch of holy water, nor hesitate to discuss religious topics with equanimity. If convicted of crimes against the law, such a victim will frequently acknowledge guilt and even the moral badness of such acts committed. More often than not, such a person will petition that his physical life be forfeited, that he be executed for his crimes.
Thus, in his own way, he voices the insistent Satanist preference for death over life and the fixated desire to join the prince in his kingdom. Because there is no will left to call the victim's own, and because some part of the victim's will is necessary for any hope of successful exorcism, remedy is unlikely to succeed, even in the event the possession would somehow be uncovered and verified as the problem. If you've ever seen the movie Nefarious, then that's exactly what plays out there.
In previous episodes, I have alluded to the fact that I was unaware of whether perfect possession was an evolution of regular possession or if it presented an alternative path. And I'd like to clarify my thinking on that. Perfect possession could be an alternate and elevated form of possession. Yet if that is true, then they both share one commonality. As Martin states, quote, at every new step and during every moment of possession, the consent of the victim is necessary, or possession cannot be successful. The consent may be verbal, but always involve choice of action.
Once initial consent has been given, its withdrawal becomes more and more difficult as time goes on. But whatever the pain or threat, it is wielded to retain the consent of the possessed or the continuing presence and power of the preternatural spirit. In other words, because of the free will that humanity has been given, then that will must be minimized so that the infernal can achieve its goal. In cases of normal possession, and I say that with irony, as nothing about possession is normal. The possessed is essentially tricked into giving up their free will.
Yet that control the spirit gains is not without boundaries. The individual will rebel, especially if confronted with the reality of what their existence has become. But what if that battle never happened in the first place? What if the person entered into possession willingly without a fight? If that occurred, then we are no longer talking about a singular entity, but rather a complete symbiosis of the human and the evil spirit. However, the other possibility is that perfect possession is the ultimate form of possession, the final stage in the progression of the infernal illness.
And this seems to be the thought process that Father Martin believed. He writes, if extended control continues unabated, if total consent is achieved, then total or perfect possession is achieved. Father Mark is certain he has met more than one such case, but only by chance, for no exorcism could be requested for such a person, and even if attempted, without at least the partial will of the possessed, it probably could not succeed. End quote. And oh boy, did I get drunk on a few occasions. However, at least for me, I intensely disliked the sensation.
I am the kind of person who has 15 layers of filters between my brain and the outside world, as I am always evaluating what I should do or say before actually doing or saying it. And for the first time, all of those filters were just gone. And rather than feeling free, I was just horrified. I kept telling myself two things when I found myself in those situations. First, I'd feel better in an hour. Just one hour, hang in there. And second, as I viewed what I was doing to be a very selfish act, I repeat to myself, I truly am a member of Thomas Hobbes Leviathan Social Contract Theory.
That's for all of you political science nerds out there. I give that little example of myself to illustrate a point. I hated losing a part of myself, namely the filter. But imagine losing yourself. Or that is what possession is. Those who are possessed report large blank spots in their memory, lasting days or even months at a time. Imagine not being in control of your own body, of your own consciousness. And if that isn't horrifying enough, let's say that perfect possession is the final form of possession. If that's the case, then the you who is has now vanished from this world.
You have been utterly swallowed up and devoured by the infernal kingdom. You are no more. And what's worse is that you agreed to that. You gave your consent to be devoured by the maw of the demonic. Now, which of these two paths is right? The natural progression of possession or the alternate form? I don't know. Both could be accurate, as they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. Those who are possessed may slip into perfect possession if not exercised. And there may be those that skip possession altogether by willingly entering into a partnership with the demonic.
Unfortunately, hostage to the devil doesn't give us the answer. The problem is that Martin only has a few references to perfect possession in his book, and one would have a very difficult time trying to put together a concrete set of rules or even a basic functioning of perfect possession based upon the scant number of entries. And trust me, I've tried. And that is largely because perfect possession is very difficult to spot.
As Martin himself states, quote, as is clear from some of the cases reported in this book, and from many other known possessed people, can and do, at least for a time, function reasonably efficiently as human beings in their jobs and in society in general. Actually, the more perfect the possession, the less likely any disturbance in one's functioning on the level of human being. Day Beatham, who Father Mark seemed to uncover as one perfectly possessed, was the model of coal efficiency.
In fact, the lack of concrete answers is one of the major motivating factors as to why I hadn't broached this topic yet. Well, that and the lack of time to do some analysis. But there is scant information out there, and what does exist tend to lead to circular references back to hostage to the devil. But between my desire to document what I've learned and the increase in questions that I've been receiving on various social platforms, and remember, you too can contact me either through southerndemonology.
com or on a variety of social platforms, all linked on the website, I thought at times that, and I do have some additional information that was not available to Martin at the time of writing his book. Based on the three-part interview that I had with Victor of Trailer Trash Terrors, of his three different run-ins with what he and I, for the record, believe were the perfectly possessed. I believe that although the perfectly possessed may be able to blend in with society, there will be definite signs that things are amiss.
First, there are those who are able to identify these beings as not quite right. Father Mark and Hostage to the Devil had this ability, and Victor does as well. Does that come down to simply being observant, having familiarity with people, or something else? Of that, I can't speculate, unfortunately. Further, normal rules of society do seem to break down around these individuals. One commonality that all three stories that Victor related involved just that of either hospital regulations or human law itself simply being skirted or ignored when these things came into play.
And this goes far beyond simply blending into the crowd. Have you ever heard the adage, if you want to sneak into a concert or event, simply bring a ladder with you? After all, no one will question what you're doing, especially if you look like you belong there and look like you know what you're doing. If it was a matter of just blending in, then that adage would get to the heart of the matter. But this seems to exceed that just in terms of how etiquette or even normal behavior operates in their presence. And it's not just Victor's interviews that back up that observation.
I have been a part of a few different consultations in which the individuals I spoke with reported similar breakdowns in normalcy. I can't go into further detail as I can't abuse the confidence and privacy of those involved, but I walked away from each one of those meetings, took to my core, and genuinely afraid for both the person involved and for myself, for possibly attracting the attention. Of the kingdom. Did that fear stop me? No, but I'd be lying if I say it didn't give me a real pause on an existential level.
No matter if the perfect possession is the result of a forged bond or a forced agreement, both share one common factor. Quote, for Christianity, the source of all humanness and all individuals, past, present, and future is Jesus of Nazareth. All forms of possession, from the partial to the perfect, are clearly seen as an attack simultaneously on the source of humanness, Jesus, and on the humanness of the individual man or woman. The process of possession in any individual consists of an erosion of the humanness Jesus confers.
I've said quite a few times that the infernal hate humanity and desire nothing more than to see us corrupted and putrefied. If our humanity is indeed a gift of Christ, then possession is truly another attempt to spit in the face of God. It carries forth the echoes of Zoroastrianism or Ahriman, sitting in the dark eternal, gnarled up to Ahura Mazda, I will turn your creatures against you and make them hate you. With that said though, I wonder if there is another dimension to the act of possession. Now, bear in mind that this is pure conjecture on my part.
So please take it with a generous heaping of salt, as it's dependent upon pudriphal works, which are not canon anywhere except for the Ethiopic Orthodox Church. With that said, if this is true, it instills real fear into my heart. Remember back to the writings of 1 Enoch. As a brief recap, the angels of God were sent down to watch over the generations of man. And upon seeing the daughters of men, the angels bound themselves with a curse to go down and take wives amongst them.
The offspring of spirit and human were the Nephilim, giants that had an insatiable lust for killing, eating, and fornicating with anything on which they could get their hands, or other body part. That, combined with the secret knowledge that the watchers passed to humanity, is what resulted in the deluge. Nephilim were a huge problem in 1st Enoch because they intermixed two things that should have never been spirit and flesh. And as a result, these things never truly died.
After they were led into battle against one another by an archangel, and their bodies perished in the war, their spirits were then released into the atmosphere to forever plague humanity. I've said before that this poses a huge theological problem for First Enoch, as it essentially means that the deluge didn't solve anything. But you can refer back to my episode on that to get the full picture. I'll have the link in the show notes. Now, let me reiterate that this is just conjecture.
Hell, even saying it makes me sound like one of those nutjobs on the modern version of Coast to Coast AM who attribute everything to Nephilim, which I assure you I absolutely am not. But if the melding of spirit and flesh is as horrific as first Enoch portrays it, then isn't that what perfect possession is? The putrefication and abasement of the human creature may only be step one. Maybe step two would be this spirit and flesh melding as yet another affront to God and the divine.
But this melding could explain why Father Martin states that the perfectly possessed can touch holy water and discuss religion. This unholy amalgamation could use the flesh as a shield for the spirit. Yet the question remains, what is the ultimate goal of perfect possession? As Martin points out in the third interview from Victor Collaborates, these entities were not inclined to keep their new form. They will gladly offer up their human lives in the pursuit of death. Again, we are dealing with the evil spirit who is playing a game we never knew the rules to, so all we can do is guess.
I have never directly experienced the gaze of insect nihility, as Victor poetically phrased it. And may God preserve all of us from that. As always, stay safe out there. Thank you for listening to Southern Demonology. Find us online at Southern Demonology.com, which offers links to all of our social media and episodes. Southern Demonology is solely owned, produced, and edited by myself, and the intro and outro music are composed by me as well. If you have a moment, please rate, like, and share this podcast, as it is the best way to help support my work.
As always, I am JJ, and it has been a pleasure to speak to you today.