In those days it was also common, when the congregation was small,
for the people to gather in a circle around the altar during Mass.
On this particular night, that is what we did.
I just happen to have a picture of Barbara Cartmill
because someone used this picture of her for the cover of a book.
This is a picture of Barbara taken shortly before all this happened.
As the Mass proceeded, Barbara, who was one of the people gathered around the altar, was found to be writhing on the floor, clearly in some kind of distress. One clue as to what the matter might be was when Father Arens said in a loud and stern voice, “In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to begone!” (When I was in Sunday school, Sister had told us that was what you should say if you came across a devil.)
Naturally we all started praying, asking God to drive the unclean spirit away. Rick Rose went over to look at Barbara, and then he was writhing on the floor, too.
About this time we heard a horrid, mocking, triumphant laugh, “Ahahahahahahaha!” that could only be described as demonic. It came from Barbara’s mouth, but Barbara obviously didn’t say it.
We continued praying and singing hymns for about twenty minutes or so, and finally Barbara and Rick stopped writhing on the floor and became normal again.
A week or so later, over coffee, I asked Barbara what it had been like. She said, “I was saying, “Beat him up, God! Kick him! Stomp on him!”
About a year later, in a Bible class, we were on a passage about how Our Lord drove a devil out of someone, and the teacher told us, “Of course, instances like this that were described as diabolic possession, were actually epileptic seizures, but people at the time thought they were caused by evil spirits.” I happened to be sitting across a table from Barbara at the time. I looked at her. She looked at me, and smiled just a little bit, but we didn’t say anything.
A great many people stopped coming to the prayer meeting after that. I guess they found this experience scary or something, but I think most of us that remained figured it was good training for similar situations we might find ourselves in later.