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On the evil in human hearts. Given the dynamics of narcissism and laziness, I suspect most people don't need Satan to recruit them to evil. They're quite capable of recruiting themselves.

I honestly do not know how powerful Satan is. You know, the Devil's greatest strength is to make people not believe in it. But in an exorcism, the Devil does make itself manifest so that people can and do take it seriously. It's a big mistake for the Devil ever to get involved in exorcism. And it does so only because of its own arrogance and pride.

In many ways I think we've got things exactly wrong. The predominant view in our culture is that this is a naturally good world that has somehow become contaminated by evil.

It's much more likely, I think, that this is a naturally evil world which has somehow mysteriously been contaminated by goodness. And that the good bugs are growing and that indeed Satan is being defeated.

You know, we look at young children, and we rejoice in their smooth skin and spontaneity, but they're also all born liars, cheats, thieves, and manipulators. And it's hardly remarkable that many of them grow up to be adult liars, cheats, thieves, and manipulators. What's much more difficult to explain is why some of them grow up to be honest, God-fearing people. Saint Paul talked about "the mystery of iniquity," and this is all very mysterious stuff. Evil is a great mystery. But it pales, as far as I'm concerned, before the mystery of goodness, which is the even greater mystery.

Yes, I've come very firmly to believe in the Devil, but what its power is I don't know. And I don't think we'll begin to know until this stuff is researched scientifically. It is my great cry that this should happen. But it's not going to happen until there's a revolution within both science and religion. I've tried for years to get established an Institute for the Scientific Study of Deliverance. Deliverance ranging all the way from healing prayer to full-scale exorcism. And I've gotten absolutely nowhere.

We must also begin to look scientifically at evil in groups. Evil is a large power, particularly in institutions. And Paul said that Satan was the ruler of this world through principalities and powers. I think that his vision of the world was rather painful and unpleasant, but it seems the way we function.

Malachi Martin was a controversial figure, and you relied on him an awful lot. Yet you repeatedly talk about him lying to you. How did you know when to trust him and when not to? Was it intuition?

I think it was. In that first case, I was flying on some kind of an intuitive level and thank God for the Holy Spirit. I was really blessed. But my experience with Malachi was that when it came to what really counted, he was invariably truthful and correct. I must have gotten his advice on that case 30 different times. And he batted a thousand. He wasn't wrong once. He didn't miss. And although he lied to manipulate me into doing the exorcism, my expectations were utterly unrealistic. And he was, in fact, extremely supportive and loving during it.

That doesn't excuse all of the things he did in his earlier life. One of the books I read, of course was Robert Blair Kaiser's Clerical Error. About a third of it is about Malachi. He was a colorful guy.

A friend of mine read your book on golf, and I read your book on exorcism. The books are very different in their spiritual tone. In Glimpses of the Devil, you rely on orthodox Christian teaching. But my friend said that the golf book felt almost New Agey to him.

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January (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49