- I used to be a rock musician.
- I did write songs alluding to Lucifer/The Devil.
- I had a stage name with the word ‘Lucifer’ in it.
- I did a gig once in which I had the picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus with black tape over His eyes, like the S*x Pistols picture of the Queen.
Why did I do it?
- To gain infamy, and thereby make money.
- Because I was an avid reader of occult books, and had notions of becoming a magician (ha!)
- Because I was a post-Vatican II kid - schooled by Bothers and Nuns, and still ignorant of things like the Brown Scapular and Plenary Indulgences. And reality of Hell, most of all, and the odds of going there.
- Had no notion of what a Latin Mass was like. No idea of the practical mysticism of the Saints of the Church. Barely heard of Padre Pio. Or maybe I was just closed off to it all.
- Thought Lucifer was a charming old rebel; all that Gnostic-Kaballistic-Neo-Pagan b**ls*it.
I then read the works of, and about, a Cypriot Christian-Gnostic mystic, which in turn lead me on books about Orthodox mysticism i.e. Mount Athos, and thence back to Catholicism.
Funnily enough, it was the (unapproved) Malachi Martin book and the Bayside site that recently *really *made me realise how utterly stupid I’d been.
I sometimes wonder what was going through the head of the young man I was. And then I know: Pride, and its sister, Vanity. And Greed.
And the lesson?:
Occultism seems glamourous, until you find out it puts people in the care of psychiatrists, with ‘illnesses’ they can’t cure. You can pick up a ‘tenant’ you can’t evict. Then the horror begins.
For myself, I now have a few notions in my heart I wish were not there. Got off lightly, if what I’ve read about other ‘occult dilletantes’ is true.