Midwinter of the Spirit

‘What?’

‘That’s what this is about – the soul police? You think I’m…’

What? An anachronism? A joke? Though Jane was basically spiritual, she just didn’t believe the Church of England was. Bad enough to have your own mother walking around in a dogcollar, never mind the holy water and the black bag now. Was that it?

That was probably too simple. Nothing about Jane was ever really simple.

A man striding up the street towards All Saints glanced through the window, blinked, paused, strode on. Oh God, not him, not now. Merrily turned away from the window, stared across the table at Jane.

The kid pushed back her tumbling hair. ‘OK, look…’

Yes? Merrily leaned forward. A crack, an opening? Yes…

Jane said, ‘I’m uncomfortable about what you’re doing, Merrily.’

‘I see.’

Jesus. Merrily? A major development. Now we are sixteen, time to dump this Mum nonsense. We are two grown women, equals.

This needed some thinking about.

‘I don’t think you do see,’ Jane said.

‘So tell me.’

‘They’re dragging you in, aren’t they?’

‘Who?’

‘The Church. It’s all political.’

‘Of course it is.’

‘All those fat, smug C-of-E gits, they’re worried about losing their power and their influence, so they’re appointing cool bishops: smooth, glossy people like Michael Hunter… Mick Hunter, for God’s sake.’

‘Bishops are still appointed by Downing Street.’

‘Yeah, well, exactly. Old mate of Tony Blair’s. I can just see them swapping chords for ancient Led Zeppelin riffs. Like, Mick’s superficially cool and different, but he’s really Establishment underneath.’

‘Phew,’ said Merrily theatrically. ‘Thank God, my daughter has finally become a revolutionary. I thought it was never going to happen.’

Jane glared at her.

‘You really don’t understand, do you?’

‘Sure. You think I’m a glossy, superficial bimbo who’s—’

‘More like a trainee storm-trooper, actually.’

‘What?’

‘Look…’ Jane’s eyes flashed. ‘It seemed really interesting at first when you said you were going to do this Deliverance training. I’m thinking, yeah, this is what it’s all about: the Church actually investigating the supernatural nitty-gritty instead of just spouting all this Bible crap. And this course and everything, it all seemed really mysterious. So, like… Wednesday night, I go back to the vicarage to feed Ethel. I think maybe I should check the answering machine, see if there’s anything urgent. So I go into your office and I find… hang on…’

From a pocket of her jeans, Jane dragged a compacted square of printed paper which she opened out on the tabletop.

‘And suddenly I saw what it was all really about.’

Merrily pulled towards her a Deliverance Study Group pamphlet heralding a forthcoming seminar entitled:

NEW AGE… OLD ENEMY.

She’d forgotten about it. It had come in a package from the DSG the morning she left for the Brecon Beacons.

‘I haven’t read it, flower.’

‘I bet.’

‘But, sure, I can guess what it’s about.’

She picked up the leaflet.

Meditation-groups, sweat-lodges, healing-circles… it may all seem innocuous, but so-called New Age pursuits are often the marijuana which leads to the heroin of hard-core Satanism. Introducing the discussion, Canon Stephen Rigbey will examine the allure of alternative spirituality and suggest ways of discouraging harmful experimentation.

Merrily said steadily, ‘You happen to notice the key word in this?’

‘Don’t try and talk all around it.’

‘It’s “discussion” – meaning debate.’

‘It’s bloody spiritual fascism,’ said Jane.

‘Oh, Jane, listen—’

‘You listen, for once. The New Age is about… it’s about millions of people saying: I want to know more… I want an inner life… I want to commune with nature and the cosmos and things, find out about what we’re really doing here and who’s running the show, and like what part I can play in the Great Scheme of Things. Right?’

‘Pretty much like Christianity, in fact.’ Merrily lit a cigarette.

‘No, that’s bollocks.’ Jane shook her head furiously. ‘The Church is like: Oh, you don’t have to know anything; you just come along every Sunday and sing some crappy Victorian hymns and stuff and you’ll go to heaven.’

‘Jane, we’ve had this argument before. You just want to reduce it to—’

‘And anybody steps out of line, it’s: Oh, you’re evil, you’re a heretic, you’re an occultist and we’re gonna like burn you or something! Which was how you got the old witch-hunts, because the Church has always been on this kind of paternalistic power trip and doesn’t want people to search for the truth. Like it used to be science and Darwinism and stuff they were worried about, now it’s the New Age because that’s like real practical spirituality. And it’s come at a time when the Church is really feeble and pathetic, and the bishops and everybody are shit scared of it all going down the pan, so now we get this big Deliverance initiative, which is really just about… about suppression.’ Jane sat back in her chair with a bump.

‘Wow,’ Merrily said.

‘Don’t.’

‘What?’

‘You’re gonna say something patronizing. Don’t.’ Jane snatched back the leaflet and folded it up again. Evidence obviously. ‘I bet you were mega-flattered when Mick offered you the job, weren’t you? I bet it never entered your head that they want people like you because you’re quite young and attractive and everything, and like—’

‘It did, actually.’

‘Like you’re not going to come over as some crucifix-waving loony, what?’

‘It did occur to me.’ Merrily cupped both hands around her cigarette; she wasn’t sure if they allowed smoking in here. ‘Of course it did. It’s still occurring to me. Not your let’s-stamp-out-the-New-Age stuff, because I can’t quite believe that. But, yeah, I think he does want me for reasons other than that I’m obviously interested in… phenomena, whatever. Which is one reason I haven’t yet said yes to the job.’

Jane blinked once and they sat and stared at one another. Merrily thought about all the other questions that were occurring to her. And what Huw Owen had said to them all as they gathered outside the chapel in the last minutes of the course.

Maybe you should analyse your motives. Are you doing this out of a desire to help people cope with psychic distress? Or is it in a spirit of, shall we say, personal enquiry? Think how much deeper your faith would