A WORLD OF WONDER
This is the second part of a fascinating adventure – a quest to penetrate the veil, to step into another dimension, to learn what is happening in the world of spirits.
Our quest is in two sections, the first dealing with the kingdom of light, and the second (this book) with the kingdom of darkness. You will find familiar things here; you may also find things that startle and amaze you. Unless you are already full of knowledge, I am sure the following pages will enrich your understanding of the place occupied by angels and demons in God's world. Even well-informed students may find themselves encountering here some new ideas, some new ways of looking at the realm of both good and evil spirits.
You will find no stories about angels or demons, except those that come out of the Bible. I have refrained from building doctrine either on my own experiences or those of others. The books I have read about angels and demons abound in such stories, but I find many of them unconvincing.
The devil and demons entice some writers to present as normal and necessary quite sensational behaviour and quite speculative notions. I am certain many of those conjectures are spurious, and much of the erratic behaviour reported by some authors is merely psychic. I have grave doubts even about some of the things I have observed in my own ministry of exorcism, let alone what I have seen in the ministry of others. So I resolved in these lessons to avoid personal testimony, and to stick to scripture.
I regret having had more discernible contact over the years with demons than with angels - yet I am confident the holy angels have been constantly and effectively active in my life, and I hope what I have written will show this, along with the honour and gratitude I feel toward them.
Writing these lessons has reinforced my belief that it is unwise to desire too much knowledge about either angels or demons. We should be content with what scripture tells us. To yearn for more is perilous, and may lead to deep deception. These lessons will serve you well if they do no more (nor any less) than sufficiently expose you to the world of angels to enhance your confidence in God, and to the world of demons to ensure your personal mastery over the devil and all his works. For the rest, Henry David Thoreau's admonition may serve us all well -
- Most people with whom I talk, men and women even of some originality and genius, have their scheme of the universe all cut and dried - very dry, I assure you, to hear, dry enough to burn, dry-rotted and powder-post, methinks - which they set up between you and them in the shortest intercourse; an ancient and tottering frame with all its boards blown off ... The wisest man preaches no doctrines; he has no scheme; he sees no rafter, not even a cobweb against the heavens. It is a clear sky ... (Yet your) scheme must be the framework of the universe; all other schemes will soon be ruins. The perfect God in his revelation of himself has never got to the length of one such proposition as you, his prophets, state. C ... Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you; but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce you mad.
Thoreau was a little cavalier in his dismissal of all dogma. It is foolish to reckon that no certainty about anything is possible. But he was true enough in rejecting those mad prophets who are certain about everything! Some honest ignorance will do us no harm. Moses had a good balance -
- "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children for ever" (De 29:29)
Let God keep secret what he pleases; let us be content with what he reveals