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HOSTAGE TO THE DEVIL.

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A Masterpiece of Spiritual Insight by a Masterful Writer and Priest, October 27, 2005
Reviewer: Rick (Beijing, China) - See all my reviews


First, a confession: I am on the verge of becoming a member of that nearly lost legion--the reborn Roman Catholic. Second, a minor revelation: this book brought me back to the Faith. Rather than scare the reader into submission to the Will of God, Father Martin stirs one's dormant and perhaps deeply buried awareness of what is altogether pure and holy and ultimately victorious in the seemingly eternal struggle between Good and Evil. In an age of jaded youth media culture, comedians and pundits who relish in their cynicism, and unabated Hollywood hedonism, it is a breath of fresh air after the rain to read and ponder on Martin's accounts of personal travail and utter spiritual anguish.

This is not an "easy read;" it requires concentration and an appreciation for intricate prose style. In five lengthy and detailed case studies, written in stirring narrative style, the author carefully chronicles the slow descent of otherwise unusually clever, sensitive, and gifted people into the pit of demonic possession. Father Martin does not sensationalize, nor does he intend to appeal to the reader's emotions. Nor does he harangue or cajole or attempt to make us feel guilty. Instead, his very sure hand and deft writing leads us to realize that whether we wish to confront it or not, evil and its dark kingdom of demons thrives in this soiled earthly domain, guised and cunning but here nonetheless.

Some have attempted since the untimely death of the author to dismiss him as a fraud or, worse yet, one possessed himself. He has been variously branded an adulterer and hypocrite by his detractors and depicted as something of a pariah in his own Church. Martin, however, despite any human frailities, led the truly elusive Examined Life. He intimately understood the workings of the Church and its leadership in the Vatican, and was for some time a participant in some of its most important proceedings. Moreover, the author was granted permission to leave the Jesuits
by the then Pope and to pursue a more worldly path of literary exploration which led him to the conservative side of his Faith. This conversion, as it were, put him at variance with the popular surge toward greater secularism in the Church following the Second Vatican Council. And the discerning reader of those negative reviews posted here would do well to read the eulogy by Father Fiore, a longtime friend, and to consider Martin's book within the period in which it was originally published.

When the mainstream media plunged into a pseudo-psychological exploration of exorcism following the box office success of the screen adaptation of Blatty's novel, "The Exorcist," Martin attempted to set the record straight--or at least very sober. The resulting work, this book, enabled the actual records (including taped recordings and extensive interviews) to come to the fore, albeit in flourishes of paraphrase, the handiwork of a master storyteller in the best sense of that word.

Yes, Father Martin ascends the pulpit from time to time in this book but not during the course of the retelling of the events of those who became possessed. He reserves personal commentary for the introductory and concluding chapters, where his prose is at its most eloquent and impassioned.

If you read this book with an open mind and heart, regardless of whether you are Christian or, more narrowly, Catholic, you will at least discover why so many parishioners wholeheartedly believe that we are literally in a fight for our lives or, more accurately, our souls.

In his lifetime, Father Martin was hounded by celebrity-seekers, including women who attempted to frame him; he was also an object of ridicule within the extremely liberal fringe of the Jesuits, about whom he had written a scathing indictment. And he was scorned in much of the leftist British press, inclined to take an anti-Irish, and hence anti-Catholic, stance in its reportage on the author, including a would-be obituary in The Guardian. Beware, too, those who claim that reading this book is a sinful indulgence and a twisted tinkering with the satanic. Far from it: "Hostage to the Devil" is spiritually fulfilling and uplifting. The hostage the devil seeks is not the perfectly possessed or those vulnerable to his tricks and deceits but the very priests who, like Martin, risk life and limb and sometimes faith to wrestle with him.

Never have I read such a compelling account of spiritual odyssey and perhaps you will feel the same. Buy it to own and read and reread and contemplate in all the precious years ahead.

Informative and entertaining though this book is, and other reviews cover the formalities, it may hit you on a more personal level than you are prepared for. It did me, take the anecdotal evidence or leave it.

To cut a long story short, there is a chance that, by reading this book, new light will be shed on aspects of your life that you maybe rather wasn't shed.

You might, as I did, cement a realisation of just how close you have come to the dark one, or something operating in his name, and in doing so, bring to the immediate fore elements that you'd rather not get too acquainted with.

This book, just paper and print though it is, could act as a trigger to strange happenings that will revolve around very personal (and usually undesirable) aspects of your life and your self.

It will not "create" anything new in your life, only make you aware that certain influences already present might actually be something more than you feared and act as a catalyst to escalate certain processes.

Yes, you might be getting "tested" by dark forces and not be entirely aware of it until you read this book and relate the experiences and processes described. Not a nice revelation to have, though perhaps, necessary? The subtlety, complexity, disturbing "realness" and almost boundless reach of Lucifer into your very life and person will make itself known to you in stark and obvious shades of bright light to an extent that is hard to digest. So don't read this book if you doubt you are ready for such things.

Doorbells ringing with nobody there, phonecalls from peoples' phones with nobody at the other end, jung's so-called synchronicity principle in abundance, night-time experiences that are SO scary and beyond belief that you immediately doubt whether they actually happened, memories that suddenly "make sense" when paralleled with the demonic influences described in this book, and then the fact my dad started reading it and the same things happened to him.

Only the truth. Read it, say your prayers; but if you want comfortable ignorance and peace of mind you might want to stay away from this one. On the flipside, if you consider yourself on a spiritual path, it might be necessary to cram a bit of Sun Tzu "Know thy Enemy" in and be aware of precisely what it is that the enemy will bring to the table in trying to win your chips.

Father (Dr.) Malachi Martin's staggering examination of evil--HOSTAGE TO THE DEVIL--merits serious, grave, and immediate attention by the mental health establishment, religious institutions, and for that matter, any person who values spiritual growth, psychological health, salvation, or recognizes the supreme worth of a single, individual soul.

Fr. Martin's work--based on the very hellacious experiences of five Exorcists and their demonically-possessed victims--affirms as truth his own encounters with the demonic, as well as those of modern-day health professionals such as the imminent Psychiatrist, Dr. M. Scott Peck (who dedicated an entire chapter to this subject in his ground-breaking, best seller THE PEOPLE OF THE LIE).

HOSTAGE TO THE DEVIL paints a vicious, vivid picture of the unmitigated existential dislocation that possession wreaks, in the lives of its victims, as it intensifies in stages--manifesting an attendant array of bizarre, preternatural phenomena that leaves no one in the vicinity of the afflicted unaffected--and completes its dark process of spiritual disintegration in the nefarious nadir of "Perfect Possession."

The book also delineates the ever-widening circle of despair and confusion that often encompasses those who must suffer by association with, or close proximity to the demonized, as they come to exhibit increased fluctuation of mood, change of personality, and loss of humanness, in their progressive "take over" by evil spirit.

On a macro level, Martin's work sucessfully confirms, sustains, and supplements--with depth of empirical factuality and verifiable accuracy--the universal, timeless, veracity of the Bible's accounts of the Devil and his fallen angels, as personal, intelligent, evil beings bent on man's destruction. It also explores the many twisted forms and faces that their moral, religious, and aesthetic perversions of truth manifest as the lie, and are used to co-opt men into joining them in their continuous rebellion against the Creator.

On a micro level, HOSTAGE TO THE DEVIL demonstrates the weaknesses and vulnerabilities within us all--as innate components of our imperfect, carnal, human nature--and how the predatory demons utilize these deficiencies to captilize on the frailties of the flesh, and gain our attention through fascination of the senses. Once they have our attention, they can attempt to fixate our thoughts on the glittering prize of a sinful pleasure.

By willfully acting on these thoughts we committ sin. The more we sin, the easier it becomes and the harder it is to do good. Eventually we no longer recognize sin as the transgression it is, or are rendered too lazy or incapable of resisting its allures. The distinction between good and evil blurs until finally, we conclude that evil does not exist because we cannot see it. Actually it is we who become spiritually blind to its reality. We may then concur that we are under no obligation to resist the temptation to sin because their is no such thing: "it's all in the mind."

In essence, we are disarmed against the "wickedness and snares of the Devil," and he may gain a toehold...then, perchance, a foothold on our souls. The will to resist evil falls away as a reality because the reality of evil is thought not to exist. But so does the terra firma of our faith, our moral high ground, and eventually, reality itself slips into the abyss...till we haven't a leg to stand on. This is the fertile soil in which evil takes root. Possession is its fruit!

Martin demonstrates how the process of possession varies considerably, depending on one's unique personal, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual disposition and/or pre-dispositions, and how the demonic focuses its dark energies on a person's better, positive, personal qualities (gifts as we Christians say) as one of its strategems to approach someone from the good or "light" side and catch him/her unaware. Hence, the demonic often comes as what St. Paul terms "...an Angel of Light."

What should be a fully human, healthy and continuous willingness to grow spiritually through virtue and consistent acts of selflessness (known as the "Syndrome of Growth" or Biophilous Personality) is replaced by an evil, alien, anti/unhuman (St. Ignatius calls the Devil "the enemy of human nature") and dynamic, downward transcendence into the utter willfulness of a self-centered-self, and the ensuing moral vacuity of unbridled selfishness (known as the "Syndrome of Decay" or Necrophilous Personality, as Erich Fromm termed it).

Such complete, interior desolation is truly a living replication of the Devil's very own suffering caused by his self-imposed exile from truth. It is also a reflection of this once-brightest angel, in his original sin of rebellion --through pride--against the One, True, Living, God. It is professed with his dark and pensive plaint, whose cold cosmic throes of spiritual death unfold--like shockwaves from a stone thrown in a lake reverberate--through the the boundless expanse of the universe, in words of hate: "I will not serve!" One cannot serve (love) one's fellow man or God without accepting his will; hence, the prayer, "Thy will (not my will) be done."

In the final analysis, the success of HOSTAGE TO THE DEVIL lies in the hope it offers mankind: that in our brief sojourn here on earth, it is in faith, through Christ, that we are able to freely explore the wide-open airy vistas of our own inner-spirit, and through Grace that we can ultimately transcend time and space--to apprehend the totality of Truth in eternity--and finally, experience the expansive mysteries of God's loving being, forever, face-to-face!

The choice is yours, mine, ours: good or evil; God or the Devil...

Many thanks to the late Father Malachi Martin for the courage to write HOSTAGE TO THE DEVIL.

Hostage to the Devil makes the world's worst bedtime reading. When you read fiction by a horror master like Stephen King, you can turn out the lights and reassure yourself it's just a work of imagination. You will experience no such relief in reading Malachi Martin's in depth portrayal of real exorcisms. What I read in Hostage to the Devil, left me wide awake long after I set the book down.

The stories are not sensationalized, but rather display an interesting combination of story-telling, reportage, and scholarship that make them impossible to dismiss. Although I am not a Catholic, I finished the book believing I'd been exposed to dangerous, but edifying truths about the nature of evil.

If you are truly interested in the phenomena of possession and exorcism and are not easily disturbed, then Hostage to the Devil will be well worth your time.

I picked this book up because Scott Peck recommended it in his book, "People of the Lie." Martin describes the stories after having extensively interviewed everyone involved, even those who have been out of the victims' lives for years. The result is a book of unusual insight, scope, and drama. It paints a frightening picture of the seduction, subtlety, and danger of evil spirits. I have no background in possession. Haven't ever even seen "The Exorcist," but this book has provided me with a new awareness of the force of evil in the world and respect and thankfulness for those who fight it. As Peck said, I am left with more questions than answers. But the book is worth being read by anyone with interest and an open mind. The basic point seems to be that evil will use anything, our minds, egos, intellect, and even our desire for connection with God to get a foothold inside us. Beware of anything that asks you to deny the God of Love and Compassion. Judgment, denial of our dependence on a benevolent God, individualism, atheism, hatred, and most disturbingly, Satanism, are all expressions of evil in the world. Beware of intellectualism that denies the soul. Most importantly, deny a sense of a spirit or voice that asks you to invite it in, "marry" it, or surrender. The power and protection in these situations seems to be Jesus. I'm not a practicing Christian, myself, but this book has made me take a hard look at my spiritual path over the last eighteen years. Finally, never take on evil or a possessed person yourself. It will destroy you. Seek out a Catholic exorcist who will use the power of God and Jesus to banish the spirit. Another reason to read this book is the beautiful prose. Martin's writing reaches a level few authors even aspire to attain. His eloquent prose touches and inspires.

The credibility of the author which is well respected for his research and education makes this book all the more interesting. The book did nothing short of frighten me for weeks after reading it. It is outstanding in defining not only the how, but the why of demonic possesion. The fact that a medical doctor must be present at all exorcisms (official policy of the church) should lend some credibility to the doubt. Very interesting point brought out by the book was that there are some things which science and medicine simply can not define and perhaps may never be able to. I highly recommend this book, it is well written and very informative...also very scary. I am 44 yrs old and thought I was beyond the "scare" stage of my life, this book proved that wrong!

John S.

"Hostage to the Devil" offers 5 (and part of a 6th) in-depth accounts of exorcisms. Both the victims and the priests (all these exorcisms were performed by Roman Catholic priests) performing the exorcisms are examined in pretty good detail. It was much more real than any horror film or scary book you have ever read - because it was all real. The accounts are gripping and the narrative will propel you to the finish. After the 5 stories, the author offers insights into exorcism and theological underpinnings of it. Very interesting stuff.

Word of warning: This book is not for everyone. There are detailed accounts of satanic rituals and experiences - only for a mature, well-grounded audience with a stomach for it. I fancy myself a pretty tough fellow, but there were things in this book that made me cringe/flinch and almost vomit. So be forewarned.

I have no idea whether the stories in this book were true. In addition to the fact that aliases were used for all the cases described, Malachi Martin has been described as a flat-out liar by some people. Also, as far as I know, no tapes of these exorcisms were ever made public and even if they were, nothing demonstrably supernatural occurred that would convince a skeptic. You can't record "feelings" of the presence of Evil, and the muttering of a few Hebrew words by a possessed subject doesn't prove anything. Still, the book rings true.

If you believe in the Christian God who wishes all men to be saved, you also have to believe in a Satan whose raison d'etre is to destroy souls. Obviously he can't just possess whomever he wants. There has to be a choice by the human being, in fact a series of choices, in the same way that one chooses for God. What I found convincing and authentic in these cases was the theory that the ideas and images we put into our heads are not neutral and do contribute to our tendency to accept the blandishments of Evil. Even Plato wrote how men are very careful to avoid ingesting something that may have even a drop of poison in it, but freely allow every idea, whether good or bad, access into one's mind. Don't poisonous ideas have as harmful effect on the mind and spirit as poisonous substances have on the body? In such a way, were most of the subjects of this book gradually possessed. One subject succumbed through her prideful intellectual navel-gazing, another through encroaching ideas of secular materialism, another through his New Age adventures in "higher planes of consciousness", and so on. Anything that serves to diminish the Spirit of God serves to open one up to other kinds of spirits.

Disturbingly enough though, like more than a few of the other amazon reviewers here, that was the effect this book had on me. You would think that tales of demonic defeat would be edifying and inspiring, but I have never felt so spiritually oppressed as when I read this book. I've seen horror movies about exorcism and read nonfiction books on the subject, but none have made me feel so weakened and besieged. Perhaps the explanation is that this book makes one_aware_of the enemy's constant attacks and the massive import of one's thoughts and actions. Maybe it was just the power of suggestion. In any case, this book leaves you with some ineffable feeling or consciousness, and I'm not sure whether it's a good one or not. Without intending to make this book more attractive by this warning, I'd only recommend it to mature adults of solid faith, perhaps only to priests and exorcists.

I first came across Malachi Martin's "Hostage to the Devil" at the annual book sale at Milton H. Latter Memorial Library on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, Louisiana. I am a Catholic from birth and I have always taken a deep interest in my faith, even in those areas that are considered "old fashioned" or no longer believable. But after reading Martin's book I started saying my prayers much more fervently because he presents the presence of evil as an everyday occurrence in our world. I grew up with the idea that diabolic posession was as shown in the movie "The Exorcist" - namely that the possessed sprout boils on their faces and their heads turn 360 degrees while they fly through the air and spit green pea soup. But through Martin's research I learned that, although unusual effects and occurrences are possible, many cases of partial or complete posession manifest themselves more through the appearance of spiritual confusion, malice, and outright evil deeds. The signs of possession are more in the spirit than in the flesh.
The book is a sober and thought provoking. He avoids sensationalism even when describing events which would seem strange and unusual. But most importantly, Martin gives us clear evidence that evil is not gone, that Satan is not dead- but that he lives now, calling himself, as described by the possessed, the Claimant, the Leader, the Daring One, the Prince, and the Angel of Light. And that he hunts human spirits weak in faith to bind them to his will, and that such a person can be freed only by a great effort of skilled prayer and understanding by a qualified priest of the Catholic Church who retain the powers given to the Apostles to cast out evil spirits in the Holy Name of Jesus the Christ. In each case described in the book, the demons yield, though after a battle, to the power of the Holy Name which they can rarely say, more often calling Him- That Person.
The mechanism and evidence of posession are laid out clearly. "Hostage to the Devil" is necessary reading for all who understand that evil lives in the world and must be fought by faith and goodness.

Dylan Pellow (pellow@supernews.com) The book HOSTAGE TO THE DEVIL, by Malachi Martin, is certainly one of the most profound, moving, and spiritually awakening books I have ever had the privelage to read. Martin gives us a personal analysis of five cases of persons possessed by the Devil, which we are forced to believe occured without exception because of the masterful way in which the facts and opinions of the author are presented. They are frighteningly real and left me reading for more time than I had. I couldn't wait to pick up the book once I had put it down, if only out of fear of sleeping. Throughout the book, we are given an accute awareness of a priest, Micheal Strong, and his authored devotion to his order and Church and his selflessness to humanity at the greatest expense. The imagery and structure the author uses to illustrate the priest is so profound, it left me crying at the end of the book for the priest, and even Malachi Martin's devotion. Malachi Martin gives us frightening information through intense and selfless research and authorship. Praise for him and his book, and the fact that he gives us a spiritual awakening and an oppurtunity to renew our faith in the Church, priesthood, and the Almighty. This book is certainly worthy of prize, and is a wonderful addition to Martin's already scholarly, and moving library of books