Great Uncle Fred? My family and I were in the park and it was warm and sunny and then suddenly the sun went behind a cloud and a cold wind started and everything was different and it felt as if it was on purpose. This got me thinking about a question for you. It is this - does the devil exist? (Sarah, Winter 2007/8)

Sarah, I do not know the answer to your question. I have my suspicions but I feel that I should not share them with you but should let you form some suspicions, or convictions, of your own. However, I have come across people who you would certainly think were possessed by the devil if you knew no different. I can think of one in particular... Imagine a person, a friend of yours. You have managed to meet up with him after a lot of effort on your part. He arrives for the meeting, thin and pale and yellow, but recognisably the friend you remember. He is pleased to see you but he seems distracted as if there is something on his mind. When you get him speaking about old times, there are moments when he seems like his former self. But he keeps looking at his watch and over his shoulder at the door, the way-out. Your other friend is due in half an hour, the best friend from before of both of you. It’s going to be great, the three of you, after all this time. No, no, he says, he’d love to, he really would, but - and he looks at his watch again - he has to go, he must, he’d love to stay but there’s something... What? you ask, a little bit angry. It’s just, he says, he’s got an appointment, he has to... Bye! And he rushes off. He is a heroin addict. There is nothing more important to him than his next smoke of heroin. He is who he always was but now he has another master to serve. His presence is required, absolutely required, two or three times a day at the altar of his controller who, in this case, takes the form of a whiteish powder which must be placed on tin-foil, heated up and the smoke inhaled as the liquified substance slides gently along the metal surface. To get hold of the powder, many risks must be taken and much money spent, for it is illegal to possess it. This illegality was one of the reasons why this friend first smoked the stuff - it was exciting to be bad - but he soon found that if he didn’t have it, he felt utterly wretched. He had to have it, to feel normal - to feel normal. Within a few months it dominated his life. Unless he stops soon, it will kill him. And then the devil possessing him will have to find another poor body to inhabit. Pity the drug addict. Avoid his fate. So, that is someone who acts just like they are possessed by the devil. Perhaps they are. What they certainly are is addicted to something and perhaps the devil does not exist. But would one guess that there is an active force of evil at work in the land against which good people must fight? Yes, well, one might.

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