My mom saw the evil in the world and became convinced it was the work of Satan. She began convening with like minded Christians and soon plunged into the spiritual warfare movement. Finding demons and casting them out of people became her top priority and no one escaped scrutiny from her Satan-probing eyes. Soon her counselling sessions ended with the "warfare prayer" and seminars were planned. Speakers, authors, and hundreds of people showed up to listen to Dr. Ed Murphy and other "experts" talk about demons. I was roped into helping out with box lunches and selling books by Mark Bubeck, Neil Anderson, and Warren Weirsbe. I stood with my mom during her private conversations with some of them and got an earful of crazy.
They loved telling each other shocking stories of casting demons out of people and how demons manifested themselves. The more dramatic, the better. Of course nothing was verifiable and I didn't believe a word of it. Satan was blamed for character defects, emotional problems, even a lost job. They strongly advised people to avoid "humanistic" therapy or psychologists because it was Satan's work. These charlatans peddled the same message: buy my books, say the prayers I wrote, and the demons will run away like little girls. Voila! Your life will be perfect. They openly taught the virtue of paranoia and were all kooks as far as I was concerned.
My mom got very vocal about this new calling and word about this new ministry was spreading fast. Some of my Christian friends (the few I had left) would ask bemusedly, "So. How's your mom?" I would just look down while rubbing my forehead. She really went off the rails during those years. Every conversation, every family gathering included Satan and his evil cohorts lurking about. It was mortifying.
The one good thing that came of it was that it was indirectly responsible for my decision to remarry. Jim and I had been dating for a couple years by now and it was a comfortable relationship. I had no idea where it was going and didn't care. I lived from day to day. He knew that my mom was some bigwig Christian but I refused to give any details. One night he was adamant.
"What does your mom do?"
It was time to come clean. "She casts demons out of people"
I laughed, hard. I was impressed and relieved he could handle something like this. It occurred to me that I could marry him and things would be ok. He was a good guy.
Maybe it wasn't the most conventional way of choosing a marriage partner, but after twenty-one years, I think it was spot on.
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