The Mind Airs the Soul’s Dirty Laundry (Pt 1)

Pedophilia, PTSD and the Mystery of Iniquity

by JMD Alfano

Recently on Twitter, I made mention of a Podcast I started working on a few years back called ‘UNMXNTAL’ (pron. un-mental), based on lessons learned in the trenches as a Holy Land lay missionary. As hoped, the podcast was developing into a kind of spiritual owner’s manual or practical ‘how-to’ guide designed to help us take back our lives from a world that tricks, represses and dominates us into dangerous submission, with a view to helping us become sane and whole (unmental) again. It was based on my own experiences of sin, comeuppance, repentance, redemption, and transformation: Survival skills and spiritual insights seasoned by spiritual war.

I won’t dip into too much personal detail here. I will say that some prodigals aren’t just healed by the merciful love of God, we’re also invited to witness the operation. And so it was with me: subject, witness, and participant in my own Salvation in a way that I can only describe as miraculous. And lest you think I’m speaking of myself in ways rarefied beyond the grasp of mere mortals, let me nip that assumption right in the bud: every act of Salvation is a miracle in the life of each person saved from the wages of sin for the simple reason that … it’s just not possible otherwise.

By the end of 2017 I had written and recorded 3 episodes of UNMXNTAL, each segment improving, I thought, on the last. I was writing Episode 4 to record when the bottom fell out and my ship (ship = my life) sunk to the ocean floor, so I never recorded it. What was different about my podcast compared to most is that the format wasn’t live or interview oriented. It was all scripted testimony. It was the book I had lived but hadn’t yet written, squeezed into 10 possibly 12 episodes covering what I had learned about the world, the flesh, and the devil, and God’s saving love from inside the crucible — JMD’s Inferno, if you will — and the hinds feet in high places ascent that followed my conversion as I joined God above my former dread hopelessness. All part of a life set free.

UNMXNTAL_Epi 4: The Problem of Sin.

Episode 4 of the podcast was designed to follow the other three episodes in such a way as to shift the material away from personal anecdotes into more foundational stuff. It’s my nature to write more as a composer or ad-hoc domestic chef than structural zealot. I like to mix varying elements of a story, not necessarily in order, to bring about a more interesting end; something less predictable and more powerful, if all goes well. Following a spiritual path is almost always a quest rich in lyrical forays in any case. But all scores need percussion. And I felt it was time to zero in on the target, the central rail-yard hub through which all other connecting trains pass: Sin.

Although self-evident to a degree, it’s worth stating that you can’t really approach a Creationist worldview without bringing up the topic of ‘Sin’ (according to Scripture, Sin — and separation from God — is the chief problem in our lives, hence the need for faith and a Savior).

For sure, Sin is touchy ground; especially today. By its very nature, Sin deeply shapes & influences our human experience, teaching and warning us (on a deeply personal level, despite our own best efforts often to silence that still small voice) that not everything is good for us simply because we want it, or others tell us we should want it, or because it’s fun or shiny or feels awesome in the moment.

Sin, understood generally in Scripture to mean ‘lawlessness’ [1 JN 3:4], tells us some choices are indeed quite bad for ourselves and others, bad enough, in fact, to warrant their own particular badge of cosmic grievance. On the face of it, most of us hate the idea of Sin for the simple reason it implies guilt; it also implies a Creator and a Judge to Whom we owe our sin debt. Sin can lead us to heaven by way of repentance & conversion (the Prodigal Son) or to Hell by way of rejection of God’s free gift of Salvation in Jesus Christ (Judas). For villains and everyday libertines, sin is both the ultimate buzz-kill and the ultimate buzz. Sin is so powerful a weapon in the history of human downfall that the Devil pays it constant homage, selling it as the ultimate expression of personal freedom, while at the same time attempting and largely succeeding to hide its true properties — and himself — from view.

Summarizing: In a world without God (in a world where God is rejected), the problem of Evil and Sin doesn’t diminish or go away; no, they continue to play a central role in determining who we are, what we become, and ultimately where life takes us whether we like it, whether we believe it, and whether we know it or not.

Now, if we look at Sin simplistically, as in the mine-craft graphics version of Sin, we might look down from our simulated sky upon a pixelated space and see a large visible square outlined in white paint and sectioned into four equal-sized boxes, making 5 boxes in total (the fifth box contains the other four inside its borders). I call this the Sin Delta, as in the quantum of intersecting negative spiritual properties from which, I believe, all our trials & tribs gather form, take flight, and eventually come crashing down in flames on top of us. Each of these boxes contains and differentiates the essential categories of Sin as a representation of objective evil acting in/through/and against us.

Let’s look at each of the boxes independently:

Box 1 Our Sins (whether by Commission or Omission, the bad things we do and the good things we don’t do);

Box 2 The Sins of Others (people who hurt, abuse and/or neglect us);

Box 3 Generational or Bloodline Sins (un-uprooted family stuff);

Box 4 Nexus of Evil/Occasions of Sin (the prevailing cultural weather, if you will, of a sinful world at large); and fifthly & finally, the power generator running it all:

Box 5 Original Sin.

Suffice to say, that each and every one of us is a unique confluence of all 5 boxes working interdependently to snarl us in a death-trap of deceit and corruption, having both profound temporal and eternal implications as a consequence. As in all things Biblical, theological insight speaks brilliantly to the topic of Sin (Read St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas; you can choose between a head’s up or deep dive depending upon your interest), but for brevity sake, we’ll avoid most of that for now and stick to chips and pop.

About this next part: I didn’t set out to write about Pedophilia (it’s as upsetting to me as it is you), but did feel challenged to add my own two cents worth from a contemplative angle, as I see a connection between it and PTSD that throws light on the workings of Sin for better understanding in our daily lives. Surprisingly, the subject does have something useful to teach us about the nature of Evil, and how the goodness of God makes provision for healing even here — especially here. I won’t be getting into specifics regarding human or child trafficking (fact: it exists) but I will try and break things down supernaturally to the best of my limited ability and look with you at some of the hidden mechanics involved. My hope is that we may find additional spiritual insight to aid us in our understanding of the world, the flesh and the Devil, and God’s miraculous saving power and availing grace … hopefully, a little of the right ventilation for our time.

Right, so here goes: Pedophilia, in metaphorical terms, is vampiric blood poisoning. It is something inflicted by the forced and forbidden ravishment/rape of a defenseless child. It is the great pus-ing gash in the flawed fabric of human potential that divides the Holy and Sacred from the truly demonic and profane. Once acted on, pedophilia deepens the abuser’s obsession with their prey, devouring the perpetrator’s own diseased soul in the process (how could it not?), while leaving the pedo insatiably hungry for more.

Without a doubt, weaponizing ‘sex’ is about as evil a manifestation of human cause as one may find. Sexual exploitation and the brutalization of children is unspeakable twice: first, for the premeditated and wilful violation of innocence it is, and secondly, by breaching the fundamental burden of obligational trust and protection all adults must bear for all children, it opens a dark portal through which the serum and spell of the curse are passed on (murder in slow-motion, some have called it), marking a sizable percentage of child victims with something to go with the clawing, unseen stain and torment they carry — the infusion of evil and potential seeds of future spread itself.

But nobody begins life as a pedophile.

In my mind, there are three roads that lead to this particular staging area to Hell’s 9th Circle (while betrayal of trust — treachery — is the greatest sin according to Dante, the sexual violation of children is an order of magnitude worse). The first and modern way over the pedophilia cliff is likely the curiosity-run-amok route — aka the Internet — a deformation by degrees scenario that starts at an early age with exposure to online porn tied to living in or possessing some horrendous emotional wound or vacuum that in the absence of love and moral direction can easily lead to increasingly bigger bites of twisted sensory overload online. Remember the Internet didn’t always exist. Back in the day, the only real rabbit holes were … real rabbit holes. But youth today is being directly hijacked at such a young age due to ease of access to superficial porn and its incremental allure (the sicker you are, the sicker you want), and worse things waiting to groom increasingly demonized candidates deeper down the dark web.

The second and more fateful cause of pedophilia is the sexual crime act perpetrated by an older youth or adult against a child.

The third and perhaps most common denominator is sexual abuse suffered by the perpetrator as child victim (the seeds of future spread itself).

But regardless of how one gets there, it always seems to end in the same place: Back at the start of what appears to be an endless cycle of abuse, with the Devil and his jackals frothing over each new flock of innocents.

Adding to what we know and are learning of spiritual transference, I believe it’s important to state here that what is visible to some and strangely obscure to others, which is — that evil crosses over. PTSD proves it (going from life before PTSD to life after PTSD takes a life-changing, often catastrophic, unforgettable event). While science can’t and won’t support this assertion (not everything is science), those of us who pay attention to such things know it to be true. And what makes PTSD such a dangerous part of the Enemy’s arsenal (being essentially an evil embed) is that

(a) as a crippling consequence of a direct encounter with particularly destructive (i.e. traumatizing) sin …

(b) it’s not well enough understood to be identified as a supernatural problem at core (due to enmities between modern medicine and largely disregarded spiritual truths, and because of this those who suffer from PTSD, including sexually abused children, do not heal properly.

Without a doubt, the spread of pedophilia by direct contamination is real. The majority of incarcerated abusers interviewed relate stories of their own sexual abuse as children. They grow up infected with the same vampire blood as their abuser before them, and apart from the right medicine of extraction, the taint alters the victims spiritually and emotionally, interfering directly in normal development (hence the title here, ‘The Mind Airs the Soul’s Dirty Laundry’).

Needless to say, great distortions and injury to the soul and hence the mind accompany sexual violation of the innocent — of the unknowing by the knowing — for totally obvious reasons, of course, and deeper ones as well.

In principle, every act of child rape is a replay of the first sin that tore the veil of separation between good & evil in the Garden of Eden absent one important detail: the victim of sexual assault doesn’t have a choice, as Eve & Adam did. In the continuum of free-will that envelopes our life here in earthly Exile (if Heaven is our eternal destination then this life is a finite frame, a preamble to what follows — or Exile), this particular forbidden fruit circumvents temptation of the subject of child sexual abuse altogether. No, here the child victim is savagely forced to eat the apple of condemnation* by the Devil himself (by proxy). The results of such heinous actions likewise rupture the envelope safeguarding the victim from the outer-darkness, devastating the subject who, post-sexual assault, must now (yet cannot) contend with the interior evil planted there.

And it’s this implantation of evil, this shocking violation of personal sovereignty and sentiency that fits the profile of horrific characteristics associated with PTSD.

/ Note: The apple of condemnation is not meant to imply the victim is to blame for any part of this abomination. No, the victim is wholly innocent; the abuser is always and entirely to blame. The phrase simply means that objective cause produces an equally damning result independent of the victim’s choice altogether. /

What I discuss here is directed toward minor victims of sexual abuse and PTSD sufferers in general; two concentric circles of not the same thing leading to the same result. Perpetrators of pedophilia are perhaps able to benefit from the knowledge also shared here, but the difference between monster and victim is akin to the span of distance separating, well, Heaven from Hell. In truth, most pedos are totally committed to what they do. Their psychology permits unspeakable acts as normal to them, and victims real and digital (though all victims are real) are sought with increasing boldness for the thrill of discovery and conquest, quite often from within a supportive and secret community setting. If trolling, sadistic, Satanic perps were victims themselves at some point, they have shed that skin and sewn themselves inside the dragon’s shroud. There is a point of no return, the Bible says. And many if not most pedos are likely too far gone — their lives given completely over to Evil — to be saved, barring some extraordinary act of God (there is always the possibility of redemption).

Continuing, we can’t help but touch upon the mystery of iniquity and the presence of true Evil in the world.

Let me begin by saying — speaking as a Catholic — that I think it’s easier for most people today to believe in the existence of Evil than in the Divine Creator of All Things. Erosion of family, society, and individuals is sadly endemic to societies that tear themselves apart from God on their way to moral collapse. We see it in the slack-humanism of our age, the reckless behavior and growing pessimism of people driven by lust and desire. But even for those who prefer to wear the atheistic hype of ‘this is all there is’ on their sleeve, there is some room for the notion that the existence of Evil opens the way to the possibility of the inverse argument — then why not Good as well? If so, reaching a point of entry calls for a reading of Genesis (the first book in the Holy Bible), and the amazing things God did ‘In the beginning …’ ex nihilo (Latin for, It came to be out of nothing). But it’s more than that too, for not only did God create the Universe, the planet we call home, and all of us who spend any time here, but he created life with a set of immutable laws that define behavioral dos and don’ts, and the blessings and curses associated with them.

To wit: After creating everything, the Omniscient Unbegotten Architect of Intelligent Design made Adam (‘like Us,’ God said, end of The Book of Genesis Chapter 1); and from Adam’s rib, Eve (Chapter 2). And God invited them to enjoy all that the Garden had to offer (be fruitful and multiply, He said), but for one significant proscription relating to the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

You can have any of it, all of it. Except that one.

‘Eat the fruit of that tree,’ God told them ominously, ‘and you shall surely die.’

Now comes Chapter 3, often called ‘The Fall,’ where God thrusts our first parents headlong into the crucible of our human dilemma — the test of free will — encompassing inclusively and all at once, the promise of Heavenly favor, warning of death and judgment for breaking faith with God through disobedience, the seductive allure of temptation, and punishment as a consequence of Divine justice, all of it clustered together in the original origin-story that puts all of us at its center, the outcome of which — Eve’s decision prompting Adam to eat of the forbidden fruit — we all wrestle with our entire lives.

And as readers of the Biblical text learn, the serpent in the Garden — the tempter who becomes Satan in this world — joined Adam & Eve in their expulsion from Eden, all three having earned Exile from the Garden for betraying God (the rebellious Lucifer had fallen earlier; he fell first (see Isaiah Chapter 14; Ezekiel Chapter 28), now joined by preternatural and penitential ties to twist together throughout space and time in the company of each other.

And yet … God remained present, loving us despite our unfaithfulness, even there.

Our Heavenly Father imprints the essence of each soul created with his Maker’s mark, as we are all made in His image. He provides His human progeny with the external and internal tools necessary to compass our way through the minefields of life in Exile, not just by making the right decisions, but by ultimately following Jesus the Christ over the perilous terrain of life and being into Heaven.

The Devil, leaning an elbow on our free will, as he did in the Garden, stands in-between.

For those of you confused in the matter, the Devil is not the equal of God (God is infinite, without beginning or end, while Lucifer, like us, was created). There is no comparison, but there is an exception. Though little more than a heel scuff on the palace floor of our Father’s throne-room, Satan is still more than a match for our foolish pride when left to our own devices.

The enormity of such mysteries is likely what sent Dante into poetic ecstasy and JRR Tolkien to Mordor. And just as the benevolent goodness, the light at the center of LOTR does more to inform the journey than the surrounding, shrieking darkness does, so God reigns perfectly, waiting to be uncovered despite our unfaithfulness … over all.

End of Part 1

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