The Boy Who Loved Dragons: An Account of Regular and Frequent Interactions with a Guardian Angel[1]

Introduction

This report documents a series of events occurring between 1995 and 2021. It begins with the subject being introduced to his guardian angel and tracks the development of this relationship in the ensuing twenty-five years. Because these events were centered upon the individual relating them, for the most part, they transpired wherever he happened to find himself at the time. These phenomena occurred within [REDACTED], Florida, and in neighboring [REDACTED]. Personally identifiable information has been omitted out of respect for the subject’s privacy.

The subject is a [REDACTED] male of [REDACTED] descent approximately [REDACTED] years of age as of the release date of this report. He self-reported the following information as to the reliability of this account. He does not use illicit drugs or abuse prescription medications. He has never been diagnosed with a mental condition, nor has he been prescribed medication for any. He has not been prescribed any medications to take on a regular basis that might affect his memory or lucidity. He has no substance abuse or dependency concerns. 

Throughout the inquiry, he did not appear to exhibit any serious failings of memory or of his ability to express himself. He was not paid, offered, or promised anything in return for relating this account. He requested his personal information remain confidential.

Witness Report

Growing up, I was Catholic in name alone. I attended a Catholic grade school and received my sacraments. But when I was fifteen years old, something happened that I can only describe as a miracle.

I was a freshman in high school. One of the required courses was on Christian spirituality. On Friday, January 27, 1995, instead of the usual lecture, our teacher conducted a guided meditation. She brought our class to the campus chapel and instructed us to lie down. While we did this, she lit some incense and played a CD of Gregorian chants. She then started us on breathing exercises.

Somewhere into this mediation, I started to feel… 

Different.

It is hard to describe.

I felt as though my body had become much heavier, and at the same time, as though a part of me were floating up and away from myself. I do not recall feeling afraid—I was very much at ease. In my mind’s eye, I saw a transparent cross-section of my body lying on the ground, viewed from the side. An exact copy of my body rose from the one on the floor, as if it were being hoisted up on a lift. Once my body-double had completely separated from the copy of me that remained on the floor, there was an all-encompassing flash of light, and then darkness.

From Someplace To Noplace To Somewhere Else

It was a perfect void. 

There was no light, no sound, no feeling—just pure nothingness everywhere. 

Slowly, I recovered my senses. 

The first thing to return was awareness of how my body was positioned. My arms were at my sides and I was face-down, except there was no surface underneath to hold me up. Then my ears popped. I heard wind rushing past me, and then I felt the wind. I was flying head-first through an infinite emptiness with hardly a guess as to where I was or where I was going.

Far into the distant horizon, a solitary star lit up. It streaked toward me, leaving a brilliant tail in its wake as it scythed through the void. 

Except it was not actually a star.

Once it had gotten close enough that I could see what it was, it looked like a color photograph. It was an aerial daytime shot taken from above a jungle canopy. And while the image swayed on its meandering path toward me, it never seemed to bend. The closer it got, the less it resembled a photo. It started to look like a window, but without frame.

The scene inside the window stretched, taking up my entire field of vision. It had become massive, like a roadway billboard, and I was bulleting straight for it. I made to cover my face with my arms just before smashing into its surface, but at the last minute, the trees in the picture began to sway in the same breeze that propelled me forward. 

There was another flash as I crossed into its threshold. Where before there was nothingness, now there was a flood of stimuli. The warmth of a tropical sun prickled my skin. A strong breeze whipped at my body as I shot through the sky, my clothes billowing like a flag. The wind carried the scent of the ocean from a coast still too far off to see.

I was flying over a jungle, in a sky so perfect that watercolors would fail to do it justice. The trees were thickly knotted, resembling a vibrant green quilt. In places where the trees did not cover the view from above, rivers snaked across the land, some of them ending in mighty waterfalls whose roars met my ears even from so far up.

I began to descend. Below me, several thousand feet ahead, was a forest clearing. At its center was a lake, its water as blue as the coastlines that grace the pages of travel magazines. I banked to one side, circling the lake on my approach to the ground. 

Standing at the shore was a person looking out into the water. I could not see his face because his back was to me. He was about my height, around my age, and had the same color hair and haircut as I did. As I touched down a step behind him, I realized that he had on the uniform of the school I attended. His shirt was the same color as the one I wore.

I blinked, and my perspective changed. Now I stood in the shallows, looking out upon the water. The “me” that had left my school and traversed the dark place had stepped into the “me” standing in the lake. My naked feet were immersed up to the ankles. I was at a loss as to what had become of my sneakers. The water was cold, despite the lakebed’s powder-fine white sand feeling warm between my toes. Aside from the ripples where I stood, the lake was as still as a tabletop, looking like a polished piece of turquoise.

An Extraordinary Visitor; A Unique Introduction

A wind blew up where only moments before the air had been still. The water began to lap at my calves. At the far end of the lake, a miniature sun ignited above the water, glowing whiter than burning phosphorus. I shielded my eyes. What approached was brighter than the sun, so bright that I could not look directly at it. Face covered, I watched it from out of the corner of my eyes.

The light hovered about a man’s height above the surface of the lake. As it advanced, a figure began to emerge from within it. It was a man in erect posture with his arms at his sides. He floated in the air above the water. His toes were pointed downward but never touched the lake’s surface. In the palms of his hands and the tops of his feet were points where the light behind him shone through. He emerged from the light and set foot onto the shallows as though descending the final step of a staircase. 

Once he was ashore, the light vanished, allowing me a better look at him. He wore a white tunic with a golden cord for a belt. This tunic was linen or wool—I cannot remember exactly—but it looked like no modern form of dress. It was styled after something a Mediterranean shepherd might wear while in the field. Then again, it also resembled a priest’s alb from how the sleeves flared at the ends. Its sleeves went down to his wrists; its bottommost hem was above his ankles. It was uniform in texture and unadorned, a simple yet impeccable garment. 

He was barefoot. As he was still in the same posture as when he emerged from the light, I could see he had holes each the size of a quarter in his hands and feet. They were neither raw nor bloody, but it was clear that these were injuries. His hair was long and brown, about shoulder length. He had a short brown beard, forked in the middle. I could not see his face. The top of his head down to his chin was hidden by a corona of light.

Instinctively, I knew that this was Jesus Christ.

This realization turned my knees to jelly. I nearly toppled over but He caught me as I fell and embraced me. Words fall short of describing what I felt while in His arms—supernatural warmth, delight of the heart, resplendent innocence, infinite wonder. It was like being six years old and watching a big-budget New Year’s Eve fireworks display for the first time, except the awe and the joy never wear thin no matter how many times you see it.

His hands still on my shoulders, He stepped back to address me. I was at a loss for what to say. He must have known this, because He spoke first. He said, “I love you. And it is because of My love for you that I want you to meet someone.” 

He gestured for me to turn around. I did, and before me stood someone who had not been there a moment ago.

Here was a beautiful creature. I cannot explain how I knew, though I was certain this was not merely an “it” but a “he.” This creature was not an animal but a person, despite that he looked nothing like what I had, up to then, understood people to look like.

He was a dragon. Somehow I knew this without being told.

Dragons had always fascinated me. I thought I knew dragons better than anybody in my school—a fact I was proud of despite never having shared it with anyone. In those early days of the Internet, I had amassed quite the collection of dragon images. None looked like this one, however.

He stood erect on two legs, about half a foot shorter than me. His scales were brilliant emerald green. They were not the same color but all were complementing shades. From a distance his color appeared uniform. Any differences in tone could only be made out upon a close look. His belly scales were yellow—some vibrant, others pastel like beach sand. His irises were shockingly blue against the whites of his eyes; a frosty blue so brilliant that his eyes seemed to glow as if from internal lights. His tail was supple and ended in a broad spade. 

At his back was a pair of giant wings folded compactly against his body. The membranes between his wing bones were yellow to match his belly. The tops of his wings extended beyond his head and their bottoms went nearly to his feet. Were he to open his wings to their fullest, he would have had a wingspan approximating thirty feet across—the wingspan of a small airplane.

He had claws ending in talons that were long, sharp, and glossy black. They possessed an opposable digit that was not quite a thumb, and yet they were as functional as human hands. These he had folded demurely at his chest. He, like Jesus and I, was barefoot. The digits of his feet were longer than those of his hands, similarly to a lizard’s. They ended in black talons also. Atop his head and at either side of his face were short, scaly frills.

He smiled, revealing a snout full of ivory fangs, pink gums, and a long, pink tongue. The tongue was not forked. None of his teeth were yellowed, or diseased, or missing. He was the picture of health.

Just by appearances, this was a creature built to fight—talons, fangs, a sleek body and wings for soaring. Such things are not given without a purpose, for the same reason Doberman Pinschers and not pugs excel as guard dogs. His gifts were innate to what he was. They served the purpose for which he was created.

Despite his apparent power, I did not fear him. His demeanor put on that he meant no ill will. Quite the opposite—he was not just pleased to meet me but eager, genuinely so, as if he had been told everything there was to know about me beforehand and greatly anticipated the day we would meet in person.

I smiled back, and he blushed, the green of his face scales taking on an orange undertone.

Jesus came alongside us both. He put one hand on my shoulder and His other hand on the dragon’s, saying, “This is your friend, whom I have sent to you. I have instructed him to teach, guide, protect, and console you. Be good to each other.”

The dragon grinned with such delight that pinched his eyes shut. He reached out to me. Jesus nudged me closer to him. I stepped forward and took the dragon in my arms, but he reacted a half-second sooner and snapped his around me first. I almost fell into his embrace. He was surprisingly strong despite being so short in height.

He put his face to my chest as he squeezed. I could feel his smile—a wide, tooth-baring ear-to-ear smile so broad that the sentiment which had evoked it could not have been faked. That smile was directly over my heart. He nuzzled my chest in the manner an excited child might cuddle an oversized teddy bear given to him on his birthday. The frills at the top of his head brushed against my chin. 

His wings opened up and away from him, looking more like storefront awnings than part of his anatomy. The sweep of his wings blew the sand into the air in curlicues. His wings could block out the sun, judging from their size alone. As mighty as those wings were, he brought them down with deliberate tenderness. They closed around me, one overlapping the other, and together with his arms they pressed me to him. 

A feeling shot through me that remains difficult to pin down. To the last pore I was saturated with warmth, with love, with belonging and companionship and camaraderie, elation, safety, trust, and joy. Here was my truest friend, and I knew it, despite having met him only a moment ago.

I was brought to tears. I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t think straight. My knees gave out, but my friend kept me on my feet by his embrace. When I regained myself a moment later I recognized that what I felt was gratitude to a staggering extent, coming on with the suddenness and force of a bomb blast. What I felt was of the perfection of charity to an incalculable degree.

My mind could not comprehend why I felt the way I did, and why so intensely, but my heart knew these truths. The love of God was in this creature, as was God’s love for me, and this love was his reason for being.

I squeezed him tighter still.

The next thing I knew, I was on my back in the school chapel. The meditation had ended. My classmates were already filing out the door. The suddenness with which I had returned here from the lakeside had left me disoriented.

Had what I just experienced been real? Had it all been a particularly vivid dream? There was no time to reflect upon this, as I did not want to be late to my next class. I gathered my things and left. The one thing I could be certain of, however, was that the experience had left me with a feeling of profound joy. It was a happiness unlike any I had felt before. This lightness of spirit lasted a week straight.

A Nighttime Visit; The Starry Hills[2]

On the evening of the day on which we were introduced, I was lying in bed when I heard the dragon speak for the first time. I recognized his voice despite that he had remained silent when we met earlier. He spoke into my mind. His voice was masculine but not imposing; youthful, vibrant, and playful—I could hear the smile in his words. 

As if to confirm this was who I thought it was, I saw him in my mind’s eye. 

I greeted him, thinking out each word of my response. He heard my thoughts as clearly as if I had spoken them aloud, because the answer he gave acknowledged what I had told him. 

We said our prayers together. Afterward, we had a long conversation.

I asked many questions, mostly about him, because I wanted to get to know him better. A few of his responses were coy. He did not give the impression he was intentionally misleading me, though it was apparent there were some things he was not willing to discuss. Still, I pressed him, and when he tired of my insistence he outright said there were some things I was not permitted to know. His tone, though firm, was not impolite. 

Such was his tone of voice when I asked for his name.

He knew my name despite my never having told him. The only name I had for him was “dragon.” Faced with no alternatives, I called him by what he looked like because that was what I believed him to be. He took no offense, although calling him by this name was awkward for me. It felt impersonal, if not rude. Naïvely, I asked if he had a name, and if he did not, whether it would be all right if I gave him one. He shook his head, explaining that if I needed a name for him to go by, that I should call him “[REDACTED].” 

Not satisfied with just his nickname, I wanted to press him further, but an ominous feeling came over me as if to signal that I should refrain. I intuited that asking his name was a bad idea, and so I dropped the matter altogether.

As it was getting late, he suggested I go to sleep. It was a subtle way of ending a conversation that was becoming uncomfortable. The image of him in my mind’s eye changed. No longer did I see him head-on, in the posture of someone engaged in one-on-one conversation. Now, I saw us both. We were not in my room in a house in the suburbs, but somewhere else. It was nighttime. A glowing full moon hung in a sky bedecked with stars. All around and as far as the horizon was an expanse of hills. 

I was on my back, on the grass, in the same posture as when I was in my bed. [REDACTED] was lying on his belly. He was curled up tight with my head propped against his middle. He nuzzled my cheek with the side of his face, then extended a wing to cover me down to my toes. 

Neither of us said anything, but together we looked up at the stars. Having grown up in the city, I had never seen a sky like this. Most nights, I could spot only a handful of stars, and only the brightest ones at that. On this night, the sky was alive with tumbling comets and lights that blazed in every color imaginable. The closest I had come to seeing anything like this was on a rare visit to the Miami Planetarium. Even then, those skies were images projected onto a screen. Above us was a scene of quiet wonder, bedecked in impossible neon blues and pastel yellows.

The nights to come would play out similarly. At bedtime, [REDACTED] and I said our prayers. The prayers we said together were not for his sake but mine, to train me into the habit of nightly prayer. Thereafter, we spent time together, though not always at the starry hills. Some nights, we stayed in my room. He was always eager to talk with me. Our conversations were typically on the day’s events. These meetings happened so frequently, and we talked about such everyday topics, that I cannot remember any one particular conversation. What is more, I figured this was something everyone did but never spoke about, as it felt rather personal, and so it did not occur to me to bring it up with anyone.

When it was particularly quiet and I could focus more keenly, the cadence of our discussions was nearly instantaneous. These lightning-fast discussions were not an everyday occurrence, but they happened every so often. They were exhilarating. I would be halfway done thinking out my sentence to him and already he would be responding. In the middle of his response I would say something else and he would reply. All this occurred before the first sentence could reach its end. 

[REDACTED] always had something to say. Conversations with him—even about the most mundane of topics—were never boring. Keeping pace with him when we conversed like this, however, proved difficult. When I could no longer keep up, I asked him to slow down. He obliged with a mildly embarrassed expression on his face. In the ensuing pause, the backlog of exchanges played itself out. I was the bottleneck, not him. He seemed capable of keeping up, maybe even going faster. It was I who had to take it slow. Otherwise, the inside of my head would sound so much like a crowded room that I might not understand all that was said—including, even, my own thoughts.

The Thought Experiment To Prove 

These Were Not Dreams

Most nights, [REDACTED] visited me in my room. He would remain until I fell asleep. 

Other nights, he and I would go places. Wherever we went, there we would spend the night until I awoke the following morning in my bedroom. 

I experienced these places internally. Travel to these places was near-instantaneous and did not give the impression that we had crossed any intervening space. It felt as though one moment we were somewhere, and the next, we were someplace else.

Arguably, these experiences were dreamlike. While I admit I do not fully understand how I experienced these places, I am certain they could not have been dreams. I was fully awake, aware of my surroundings, and believed myself actually to be where [REDACTED] took me. While at these places I had the use of my senses. I possessed volition. I was lucid. I could move, think, and express myself. While there, I even had knowledge of the fact that I was thinking about the place where [REDACTED] had brought me. 

There were times in which some event in my bedroom pulled me out of these places and returned me to awareness that I was still in my house. Such things as a loud noise, or someone entering the room might interrupt my experience of these places, though not always completely. I also recall times in which I was partially aware of what was happening in both places at once. On one such occurrence, I was in bed with my eyes shut, carrying on a discussion with my wife who lay at my side. At the same time, I was talking with [REDACTED] at the river. I perceived each conversation distinctly and responded to each without any confusion.

In order to prove to myself that these experiences were not dreams, I devised an experiment. The next time [REDACTED] took me somewhere, I resolved to spend the first few minutes thinking to myself.[3] 

There were thoughts which [REDACTED] could hear because I directed them to him. These conversational thoughts were similar to how one might prompt someone else to engage in discussion with him. Then there were internal thoughts, those I kept to myself. Despite the fact that they sometimes were arranged in complete sentences, these thoughts were more like uttering words under one’s breath. No one but me was privy to their contents. The thoughts in this experiment were of the latter variety. 

I put my plan into action at the first opportunity. When we arrived at the starry hills, [REDACTED] asked me how my day went. I kept quiet. Inwardly, I concentrated on reciting the alphabet backward from Z. 

[REDACTED] looked perplexed at my silence. He knew I had heard him. Yet, for reasons unknown to him, I ignored him. He asked again and got no reply. All the while, I was struggling to recall the letter that came before P.

The results of this experiment were immediately enlightening. Not only was I cognizant of where I was and that [REDACTED] was with me, but I was also conscious of my thoughts. I perceived the contents of my thoughts and the fact that I was thinking. I could tell I was thinking from the effort involved. This application of effort could not have been achieved except through volition. Ergo, if I possessed volition, I was conscious, and this was no dream. 

The experiment also revealed more about [REDACTED]. He seemed unaware of the contents of my private thoughts, but the fact that I was thinking had not escaped him.

“Are you ignoring me?” he asked.

“Yes,” I responded. Afterward, I filled him in on the details.

He rolled his eyes, looking more amused than annoyed.

“What will you think of next?” he asked, smiling.

The Rooftops, The River, 

And The Water's Edge

Aside from the starry hills, we tended to frequent three other locations: the rooftops, the river, and water’s edge. Each time we came to these places, it was nighttime, around the hour of night I went to bed that evening.

Any time we went to the rooftops, [REDACTED] would pull me through the ceiling. 

Immediately before leaving, I was aware that I was lying in bed. Then I got the sensation of [REDACTED] taking hold of the collar of my nightshirt from behind and pulling up sharply. This was not painful, though it was slightly jarring. I could feel my body lifted out of bed and into the air. In a blink, I was transported to the roof of wherever I was living at the time, with us in our usual posture.

The slant of the roof made for a surprisingly comfortable place to lie down. The tiles were warm from having taken in a day’s worth of sun. On clear nights, we could see rays coming from nightclub spotlights miles distant. Other times, I picked up on some detail—a broken tree branch set across the roofline, or bird’s nest in the corner. The following morning, upon going outside, I would find these things exactly where I had seen them the night before.

The rooftops are a peculiar destination. As may be the case for other creatures that fly, it is a fitting perch for winged creatures like [REDACTED]. For obvious reasons, the same cannot be said for me, especially considering that I do not like heights. 

My fear of heights was more pronounced when I was younger. Merely looking over the second-story balcony of my primary school was enough to turn my knees to mush. The ground seemed to rush up from below similar to the dolly-zoom effect Alfred Hitchcock used in his films. It gave the impression that I had fallen over the edge without knowing it. Realizing I had not fallen, but might have come close to falling, terrified me. 

Other times, looking down from a height instilled in me an inexplicable and euphorically suicidal desire to hurl myself over the side like a lemming. I never understood whence this alien goading to leap to annihilation originated, but I hated it. It frightened me. It made me cautious of staircases and balconies. 

In light of these fears, never have I had the desire to climb onto the roof of any place where I have lived, though the occasion to do so has cropped up from time to time. Each time, I refused. The last place I would want to be is on a rooftop.

When I was with [REDACTED], however, the rooftops were not frightening. It also helped that we were always a fair distance from the edges. I could never look down from where we lay, only up and horizontally. Like the starry hills, this was a place where the two of us could enjoy each other’s company. No one could trouble us here. We could speak freely about anything.

It is only now, as I reflect upon the rooftops and how strange it is that I should enjoy going there, that I notice a connection to the lyrics of Up on the Roof by The Drifters. The song numbers among my parents’ favorites. When I was growing up, anytime we took a ride in the car, they played a mixtape of songs from their youth, and so I heard it often. The song is melancholic, evoking the weariness of the daily grind. It calls to mind an escape to a quiet retreat in the unlikeliest of places. Despite the roof being located in the middle of the city, and the city being everything that antagonizes the singer/narrator, the roof is beyond the reach of anything that might upset him. There is also the notion of welcome solitude—this is his place, no one else’s—but if he should care to invite someone, “there’s room enough for two.”[4]

The transitions to the other places we frequented were far gentler than when we visited the rooftops, so much so that the change in environs was hardly noticed until after we arrived.

Any time we went to the river, I always found myself floating face up in its waters. [REDACTED] would be there on his back as well, but facing the direction opposite mine. We floated cheek to cheek. While here, he never spoke above a whisper, but when he did speak, I felt the movements of his mouth against my face. 

This is an ancient river, with wide banks and a current so gentle that it does not ripple the surface. If it has any rapids or waterfalls, I have never seen them, and they are too distant to be heard. On either of its banks is a jungle. No breeze can get this far into the wilds from the density of its overgrowth. Crickets chirp from places unseen. Every so often a firefly might dare to cross its expanse, only to double-back and return to the bank it came from.

Nothing crosses the river. Its only known occupants are [REDACTED] and me.

The river is endless. I have seen neither the river’s source nor where it empties into another body of water. It just goes on forever. It is well that it should, because the river is a metaphor. It is not actually place. I have seen rivers in person, but never have I swam in one. This aside, these rivers I have seen are commercial waterways—dirty, noisy, and utilitarian—lacking the quiet and savage (and dangerous) beauty of this place. 

To drive the point further home, never—not once—have I set foot anywhere near a jungle. If they are anything like swamps, with which I am more familiar, I likely would not appreciate staying long, what with the stifling heat, biting insects, poisonous flora and carnivorous fauna. Unlike a swamp, however, the river is not uncomfortable. Despite the cool of the evening, its water is neither too hot nor too cold.

We floated on our backs, eyes on the night sky with the water level to our ears. I never swam here, never so much as paddled one way or another to adjust my position on the river. 

[REDACTED] had warned me not to. 

Having first assured that he would not permit anything bad to happen to me at the river, [REDACTED] cautioned me to lie still, though he never said why. Coming here gave me mixed feelings. The notion of potential danger appealed to my sense of adventure. It also gave rise to fear. I was given to understand that the river is dangerous.

Were there snakes? Piranhas? Alligators?

I never found out.

I would come to learn that the river stands for trust and resignation. My presence in the river so immersed me in those two concepts that I could not help but contemplate them, even if subconsciously, as though by osmosis. Hardly able to move, let alone conduct my own path, I was helpless there. The river would take me where I needed to go. It was up to me to trust [REDACTED] to keep me safe along the way.

The water’s edge is a beach. It is not where I met [REDACTED]. That was the lakeside, to which I have never returned—better said, not yet returned, though the reasons for this elude me.

As always, we would arrive at night. From one side of the beach to the other and as far inland as I could see, there never was anyone else around. Nor were there buildings, only endless dunes. By appearances, the beach was pristine, undiscovered except by us. We always had this place to ourselves.

About five feet from where the waves lapped at the shore there was a dugout. It was nothing more than a tall sand dune with a hole in front of it. That was our spot. The dugout was big enough for us two to lie in, side by side. There was no room for anyone but us, and it was snug as though it had been excavated to our exact dimensions. The dune at our backs was comfortable to prop up against, and it was close enough to the shore that we could dip our toes in the waves as they rolled in. It also provided cover for when the night wind blew cold.

Despite resembling a place for relaxation, the water’s edge is dreadfully ominous. The character of the place expresses the behavior expected of anyone present. Like cathedrals and libraries, a place set aside for quiet must always remain under discipline if silence is to be observed. In the case of cathedrals, the awe they inspire tends to be enough to produce the desired silence. Libraries, on the other hand, enforce the silence with the threat of rebuke and expulsion. 

There is also the sense that certain things just are not done in either. A cathedral represents the majesty of God, to say nothing of the fact of His presence there. If due respect is to be afforded, the customs of the place must be maintained. Likewise, libraries would not be anywhere near as useful if they were not quiet. 

In keeping with the imagery above, the water’s edge is akin to a cathedral library, a place for quiet acquisition of sacred knowledge. The air there is heavy with many unspoken responsibilities. In its own way, it is more intimidating even than the river. 

Like the river, this place is a metaphor. It is not an actual place. Growing up in Florida where the ocean surrounds the state on three sides, I had seen my fair share of beaches, but there is no beach like this one. 

Calling these places metaphors might seem to undercut how real they are, and so an explanation is in order. The manner in which these places exist is separate from the fact of their existence. Fool’s gold may not be actual gold, but it is still a rock that can be held in the hand. Neither the river nor the water’s edge is an actual place on a map, and yet I have memories of having been there.

At the water’s edge, the sand and the ocean are like props on a film set. Their purpose is to suggest scenery. Unlike film props, however, these set pieces do not exist either. Because they are not the material objects they represent, they are not bound by physical dimensions. As a result, they give the illusion that they extend indefinitely to the horizon. If I had cared to walk parallel to the shore, I would not be surprised to find myself back where I started as though I had never left, staring at the footprints I had tracked in the sand when first I set out.

Whenever we went to the water’s edge, [REDACTED] would not permit me to do anything but lie there in silence. This was not easily done. It was difficult to keep from talking with him, especially with him right next to me. He met my attempts at conversation with a talon raised to his lips. I kept at it, and he opened a single eyelid to cast a look in my direction without so much as turning his head. His expression was not angry—it was just a look—but what accompanied it was the gut feeling that it would be best if I kept quiet.

When I prompted him again to speak with me, he turned onto his side. Both his eyes were locked on mine. Now with a stern look on his face, he thumbed in the direction of the water, saying there were things in the pitch-black that could see me despite my inability to see them. 

I craned my head up to look out over the ocean. It was perfectly featureless. There was no way to tell the sky from the water except where the waves broke on land. 

And then two lights came on like white torches above the ocean. These could not be the lights of a faraway ship; they did not roll with the tide but remained steady. And yet they could not be stars from how close to me they seemed. While I could not see what was connected to those lights, I knew that it was big and had far more teeth than it had any right to have. 

Something frightful was out there. It had the mouth of an anglerfish—wide jaws that never closed and that bristled with misshapen fangs—and the empty-eyed stare of a deep sea hatchetfish,[5] except this was no marine creature. It was as big as an ocean liner and hovered in the sky above the waves. All I perceived of it was its teeth, and its dimly glowing eyes, and its menace. No sooner had I become aware of it than it vanished; though it was not gone, only hidden, waiting for me to let my guard down.

I gave a start upon hearing [REDACTED]’s voice.

“Do as I tell you and it will not come near.”

Despite knowing a monster stalked the shore, I did not consider it an immediate threat because [REDACTED] was with me. What most got to me from being at the water’s edge was boredom. I lay there without moving for what felt like hours. Sleep would not come. [REDACTED] did not move from his spot beside me, nor did he speak, but somehow he was keeping me awake without any perceptible effort.

Thoughts ping-ponged at random inside my skull.

Why was I here? Was I being punished? Scary as the monster was, why was [REDACTED] not concerned? And why was [REDACTED] giving me the cold shoulder? Was he still upset over how I had ignored him in the thought experiment? I did not think he had much reason to be angry, as I had ignored him only for a few seconds. I felt that if this was what his silence was about, then he was being terribly unfair.

My mind was going a hundred clicks a minute when suddenly, he spoke.

“Be quiet.”

I was about to ask what he meant, but he raised a talon to his mouth and gestured for silence.

“I can tell you’re thinking,” he went on. “I don’t care to know what you’re thinking about. Just stop.”

Again the monster emerged from the sky. It bared its teeth—each as long as I was tall—and came closer than it had last time before receding into the night.

I paused to steady myself, and then, pointing toward the ocean, said, “That thing is you trying to scare me, isn’t it?”

At this, his eyes snapped open, grew wide, then narrowed at my insolence. He growled. The earth beneath us shuddered like someone had buried a high-powered subwoofer in the sand. More so than the sea monster, that growl terrified me.

“How else are you going to learn?” he said. “You’re stubborn.”

“Learn what?”

With an exasperated sigh, he said, “This.”

Suddenly, I understood what this place was for. Against the metronomic crashing of the waves, I became acutely aware of my thoughts. I identified four types.

Certain thoughts were mine and originated from me, such as when I reflected upon a memory from my past, or performed introspection—thinking about my own thought processes.

Other thoughts were mine but did not originate from me, as when my thoughts gave voice to the concepts originating from [REDACTED]. [REDACTED] did not require language to communicate. This explained how we could carry on our occasional high-speed conversations. What I perceived as his voice was me interpreting the ideas he wished to convey. I, however, needed language in order to express myself and to understand him. Because language depends on a sequential ordering of words, my end of the conversation required time to express.

Still other thoughts were not mine and yet originated with me. This explained how he could take me to the water’s edge, the river, and the starry hills. I possessed an experiential understanding of all the objects found in these places. Those base elements originated from me. However, the particular configurations that made up each of these places did not. [REDACTED] provided these. These places were his thoughts erected with building materials that I lent him, which he then presented back to me in the arrangement of his choosing.

Lastly, there were thoughts that were not mine and did not originate with me. This was inspiration, the experiencing of a “Eureka!” moment. It was the learning equivalent of getting kicked in the head. That is how I began to refer to it. It was not painful or even unpleasant, just sudden, and sometimes disorienting. This last type of thought explained how I came to learn about the other three just then.

These two locations—the river and the water’s edge—are opposites, in a manner of speaking. The test of the river was whether I could let go. The test of the water’s edge was whether I could hold on.

At the river, [REDACTED] showed me the extent I was willing to entrust myself to him. Upon discovering this, I asked him whether I was correct.

“You are a skittish creature,” he chided me with a laugh.

He did not answer my question, but then again, he did not say I was wrong.

What is more, I got the impression he said that quip good-naturedly. To be called a skittish creature by an angel might make it a term of endearment. The lowliest angel is vastly more powerful any human. Humanity’s frailty, by comparison, might instill in an angel sentiments akin to what humans experience when they come across some amusingly clever yet adorably helpless little animal. Regardless, the name stuck. From then onward, he began calling me his skittish creature.

At the water’s edge, [REDACTED] taught me the importance of reflection: how well could I hold on to my thoughts and keep them from straying where they ought not to go? To a practical-minded person, this talent may seem trivial, but it is ever more important given the pervasiveness of modern culture. 

There is a reason advertisements tend to be flashier than the content that surrounds them; a reason for why billboards are so bright, and for why TV and radio ads are set to louder volumes than the scheduled programming. It is because advertisers desire attention. Once they get that attention, they can convey their message. The aim of the message is to sway the audience’s opinion on the topic of that message, with an ultimate goal of influencing the audience’s behavior. In most cases, the behavioral change sought equates to getting the audience to buy a product, but not always. 

[REDACTED]’s insistence on retaining custody of my thoughts taught me several things.

First: everything is an advertisement. I do not mean just product placement. Everything is an inducement to conform one’s manner of thinking, and thereby one’s behavior, to that of the culture in which one finds himself. History has proven this true: consumer cultures breed consumerism; repressive cultures foster totalitarianism. The past also demonstrates that, sometimes, culture pushes iniquity as virtue. It is difficult to spot the lie without being critically aware of the contents of one’s own head. It is all the more so when everyone else swallows those lies whole, because this mob mentality leads to questioning whether one’s beliefs are true in the face of a disagreeing majority.

Second: not all of my thoughts and inspirations originate with me. This laid the groundwork for something I would not discover until much later—the discernment of spirits.

It was not until I was older that I began to appreciate our time at the water’s edge, and what he taught me there. In my younger years, I did not look forward to going. I was a stubborn pupil. Learning was something I did enough of during the daylight hours. The night was supposed to be our time to bond, not time spent contemplating the virtues of lying silently in a ditch. By comparison, I preferred the river to the water’s edge, despite that the river still frightened me each time we went back. I much preferred the rooftops to both, and the starry hills above all, though as time went on we would return to these latter two places less frequently.

Daytime Visits, The Song,

The Name, And Other Interactions

[REDACTED] took pains to show that he was always with me despite that I could not always see him. Now and again he dropped a hint to remind me he was there—subtle cues like a tap on the shoulder or a whispered greeting. Sometimes, he reminded me of his presence simply by bringing this concept to the forefront of my mind.[6] 

While I would be going about my day, a thought might arrive that I knew was from him. It was a bird’s-eye view of wherever I was at the moment, seen from fifty feet above. This tended to happen while I was outdoors. I could see myself and everything within a short radius around me, and it was true to life. It was like seeing the live feed from an aerial drone with one eye while watching where I was headed with the other. Everything in my field of vision matched in real time what I saw in the view from above, except for one important detail: my shadow was never visible. In its place was the shadow of a dragon flying overhead, its wings open to ride the air currents like a kite. It was his way of saying he was keeping watch over me.

Other times, he was not visible, but I knew he was nearby because I could hear him growl. Some explanation is required here.

Growing up, my family kept Doberman Pinschers as pets. We had as many as twelve at once. They are fine dogs—highly intelligent and loyal. I am no dog expert, but anyone who has been around dogs long enough can tell that not all growls are the same. Puppies growl at each other and their owner when play-fighting. Some growls alert to nearby dangers, while others are the dog’s way of saying: “Back off.” In the first case, no one feels threatened. In the second, the dog perceives a threat to itself and its owner. In the third, the dog sees its owner as a threat.

[REDACTED] has never growled in the manner of a creature defending itself from me; though he has growled in play[7] and to warn of dangers. I never got the impression that he felt threatened; rather, he meant to alert me that I was the one in peril, and that he was looking out for me. In response, I would stop what I was doing to reconsider my actions. 

Rarely would the source of the threat present itself overtly. His promptings were occasions for me to change course, no matter how dead-set I was on my actions. Only afterward would a strange curiosity prompt me to ask such things as: “Why didn’t I take usual the shortcut through the back alley that night?” or “I was so looking forward to going to so-and-so’s event; what made me get cold feet at the last minute?”

He has also growled to voice his displeasure if I was about to do something immoral. I did not view these as threats but as warnings, and stern ones at that. The sound was not perceptible to anyone but me. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end each time.

Perhaps it is in keeping with this motif that he has shown both affection and approval in the manner a big dog might—he would sometimes lap at my cheek with his tongue. I do not mean to imply that [REDACTED] has canine or even animal sensibilities. It is entirely clear that his mode of existence is superior to that of any material creature. Nonetheless, the facts of my experiences with him remain what they are, and he chose this mode of interaction, not me. His breath smelled as though he had eaten a bouquet of fresh violets.[8] 

Once—and only once—have I heard him sing. 

I was lying on the couch one night after a particularly rough day at work. Everyone else was upstairs, in bed. I had come down because I needed time alone to think. 

[REDACTED] asked, “Would it make you feel better if I sang for you?”

The question was so out of left field that I barely gave it any consideration. 

“Sure,” I replied.

What came next lasted all of one second, resembling an orchestra stab in suddenness and brevity. It was as though the organist in some Baroque cathedral had pulled all of his instrument’s stops and did a brisk piano slide starting from the bass keys, generating a massive, room-filling blast that I alone could hear. More than just hear the sound, I could feel it, see it. I could see the shape of the sound. It was an exponential curve.

I remembered plotting graphs like these on the TI-83 calculator I used in high school. The graph tracked positive along the X-axis before ramping sharply upward. It sounded like it looked—low notes briefly, accelerating through the curve before tapering into the upper pitches and remaining there for about as long as it had held the bass notes. In the sound were at least four harmonized voices, each distinct and near in pitch, like adjacent pipes on an organ. None of the voices were human, and yet they were not so alien as to be disconcerting; rather, the opposite was true: their foreignness inspired wonder.

My head was filled to bursting without the sound, but more than that—there was meaning in the sound, except that it came on much too quickly for me to parse. I sprang onto my feet as the last of its echoes receded. No one else in the house had heard it, despite that it was loud enough to wake everyone in a city block. 

My hands juddered. I was weeping. Before I was too sure of what was happening, I had dropped to my knees in my living room, crying with my face in my hands. Whatever meaning the sound contained had evaded my intellect but resonated in my heart. It was a sound of beauty and awe. In its passing, I felt like I was going to die from how terrified it left me.

Once I had sufficiently gathered myself, I asked [REDACTED] why he did that. He shrugged and grinned, saying, “I did as you asked, didn’t I?”

The only other time I experienced anything similar was when I heard the music composed from the mantle of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

A brief recap of the story of the Guadalupe apparitions will help to shed light on the topic. In 1531, St. Juan Diego heard otherworldly singing while traversing Tepeyac Hill, in Mexico. While in search of the source of this music, he bore witness to the first of a number of Marian apparitions. The Blessed Virgin instructed him to tell Archbishop Zumárraga of her desire for a church there. 

Diego being an Aztec peasant and Zumárraga a Spanish archbishop, the churchman was skeptical of Diego’s account. Therefore, the Blessed Virgin instructed Diego to gather flowers from Tepeyac into his cloak[9] to prove his story to the archbishop. As it was December, Diego did not anticipate finding flowers in bloom. Still, he did as he was instructed. At the hill’s peak he found Castilian roses, which are not native to Mexico. When Diego showed them to Zumárraga, this fact was not lost on the archbishop, a native of Spain, who judged these events to be miraculous. But that was not all. On the tilma that had contained the flowers, an image of the Blessed Virgin spontaneously appeared, the same that would become known as Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

Dr. Fernando Ojeda and his researchers at the Instituto Superior de Estudios Guadalupanos in Mexico studied the image. After twenty-three years of work, in 2018 Dr. Ojeda discovered that the placement of the objects in the image is patterned after the Fibonacci sequence.[10] This sequence is a mathematical pattern found almost everywhere in creation, but it is not the product of random chance. Among other phenomena, the manner in which rose petals arrange themselves on a bloom can be described using the sequence.

Where there is a Fibonacci sequence, this indicates the presence of the golden mean as well. The golden mean is a ratio of 1.618. Barring the first few numbers of the Fibonacci sequence, any given number in the sequence is 1.618 times its preceding number. This is so because each number in the Fibonacci sequence is the sum of its preceding two numbers.

Putting this all together: where there is a Fibonacci sequence, there is the golden mean. The golden mean indicates a specific pattern. Music is a way of expressing a pattern. Ergo, the golden mean pattern discovered on the Guadalupe image could be expressed as music.

Dr. Ojeda and his team correlated the arrangement of the objects in the image of Guadalupe to the musical notes each expressed. The result is an otherworldly composition of sublime beauty. I stumbled across it by complete happenstance a few months after hearing [REDACTED]’s song.

[12] (image above)

It should come as no surprise that an angel’s song can be so heartfelt. If the graph, the sound, and the sentiment it evoked can be thought of as homologous, then they all are representations of the golden mean, a ratio that, since the days of ancient Greece, has been known to generate pleasing aesthetics. This ratio—fittingly known as the “divine proportion”—is the mathematical distillation of beauty in its simplest form. 

Such knowledge would not be lost on an angel. St. Thomas teaches that, when an angel considers a topic, his intellect instantaneously and completely grasps everything there is to know about the subject.[13] Thus, were an angel to reflect upon beauty, he would know it in all of its forms. Were he then to express the concept of beauty, he could do so far better than any human being could, not only because he understands the topic more fully, but because he is not bound by the same restraints as humanity when communicating. 

To illustrate: it is within an angel’s power to illumine another rational mind. By this is meant that he places conceptual understanding into the recipient’s mind without resorting to language. The concept is delivered whole and complete. It is then up to the recipient to make sense of it. If the recipient is another angelic intellect, this occurs instantly, without error, because they are beings composed solely of spirit. The same cannot be said of human beings, who are composites of spirit and matter. Matter serves as a buffer to the spiritual mode of comprehension. For humanity, understanding a topic requires study, which itself requires time and is subject to error.

Therefore, I am given to understand that [REDACTED]’s song was the conceptualization of beauty distilled to its basest elements and brute-force rammed into my intellect. I had been kicked in the head again, except this time it had been with a steel-toe boot upon which was painted a Renaissance masterpiece. It felt like every text on the subject had been loaded into an earthmover’s bucket and then dropped suddenly onto me along with instructions to make sense of it all or suffocate. Everything about the experience was overawing, not just the subject matter but the very fact of its occurrence.[14]

It was only after years of friendship that I would come to know [REDACTED]’s name. I did not ask him for it. The last time I did, when he told me to stop, he did not have to tell me twice. This time, he revealed it to me without my prompting. 

An angel’s name is not something to be taken lightly. The Bible teaches that their names are things of wonder.[15] Other versions of the Bible render the pertinent verses to express that an angel’s name is “secret”[16] and “beyond understanding.”[17]

Of the multitude of angels God created, we can be certain of the names of just three: Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. Michael’s name translates from Hebrew to: “Who is like unto God?” The name is fitting, considering his role in history. Not only is the name self-referential (“Who is like God? Archangel Michael is like God”), it encapsulates his purpose. When Satan refused to serve God, Michael rebuked him with his own God-given name: Micha’el—Quis ut Deus?[18]—“Who is like unto God?” This, in turn, expresses: “How dare you, Satan, think yourself better than God in defying Him?” Thereupon, Michael cast Satan and the fallen angels out of heaven.

Given what is known about angels, to know an angel’s name is to know his nature. His name is a distillation of everything he is—his function, his purpose, his destiny, and his being. 

What that name stands for, if the meaning is not apparent, is another question altogether. Human languages are inadequate when it comes to condensing everything a person is and will ever do, forever, into a single block of meaning. Assuming it were possible, it is doubtful that the expression of such a name would be intelligible.

[REDACTED] told me his name was: [REDACTED].

I do not know what [REDACTED]’s name means, but I know it must mean something. His name cannot be empty of meaning. This much I understand on a visceral level. In a manner that escapes comprehension, I know there is something to his name that fittingly expresses what he is and what he does.

I even told him so.

“Of course my name suits me,” he remarked, “because God named me.”

Doubts Arise; 

The "Thing"[19] Emerges;

Deliverance Begins

[REDACTED] remained my closely-held secret for twenty-three years. I was thirty-eight when I began sharing the foregoing experiences with my wife. To her credit (and my relief), she took the news surprisingly well. 

More importantly, these talks with her got me into thinking about [REDACTED] in a different way. As long as I had known him, I had taken the circumstances of our relationship at face value. Never before had I probed too deeply about what he was. This was especially true after he had dissuaded me from asking his name years prior. Friends though we were, there were some lines I dared not cross. 

I set out to look for answers. Knowing that angels are ubiquitous in Scripture, I took up reading the Bible cover to cover, beginning with Genesis. This approach did not work. I got as far as Exodus before losing interest.

Changing tack, I picked up a concordance. This is an index of words found in the Bible matched to their corresponding verses. I researched every instance of the word “dragon.” Scripture appeared to cast dragons in a poor light: as odious,[20] voracious,[21] and obstinate[22] creatures[23] that live in desolate places.[24]

Worse still: in the Book of Revelation, Satan is called a dragon.[25] Scripture relates that he is the primordial enemy of man,[26] the old serpent,[27] the murderer from the beginning and the father of lies.[28] Those under his command speak “as a dragon” might, which is to say, they are insidious like him.[29] He can change his appearance to suit his motives.[30] 

I could find only one passage that spoke favorably of dragons. In the Book of Esther, the heroic Moredecai has a dream in which he defeats the villainous Aman. The two do battle in the form of dragons.[31] I need not get into how far I would have to stretch those verses into something that spoke positively of dragons. Suffice it to say that Scripture seemed dead-set against the idea of heroic dragons.

Around this time I was also reading St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae. It was a daunting task. The Summa takes up as much space on a bookshelf as two public phonebooks. It also did not help matters that it was originally written in Latin by a genius thirteenth century polymath, and I had no grounding at all in Latin, theology, or philosophy. The only thing I had going for me was that my copy had been translated into English, but at the turn of the twentieth century, and by editors who preserved the difficult phrasing.[32] 

Still, I stuck with it. It took effort, but not only did it start to make sense, it resonated with me in a way no other text has. Barring Aquinas, I would be hard-pressed to name a more brilliant man who ever lived. Einstein pales in comparison. It is therefore little wonder that he is an esteemed doctor of the Catholic Church. Yet, it was another of his titles that piqued my interest. Aquinas is also known as the Church’s angelic doctor for his work on the nature and function of spirits. On this topic, his masterwork shines, providing a comprehensive discussion into the why’s and how’s of spiritual reality.

Once I was finished with Aquinas, I took up reading St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. Ignatius of Loyola.[33] These Catholic mystics are pillars of spiritual understanding. The work of St. Ignatius was particularly on point with regard to the discernment of spirits.

In essence, the discernment of spirits is a method whereby a person attempts to discover if a spiritual experience comes from God. If it does not come from God, then it is the product of a person’s own mind, or a trick of the devil. Knowing how to properly discern is vital because people are easily fooled. 

Discernment requires skepticism because the devil can disguise himself as an angel of light.[34] Aquinas teaches that demons can manipulate human senses and emotions to cloud one’s judgment. Thus, St. John of the Cross recommends that if something extraordinary should occur, the safest course of action is to ignore it. If the experience was from God, He will work the seer into His plans one way or another. If it was demonic, then the seer should still ignore it, because it is for the better that he have no dealings with demons anyway.

Once I had read enough that I could wrap my arms around the subject of discernment, this newfound knowledge sent me into a death-spiral of doubt.

Could it be possible that my initial encounter with Jesus Christ was a demonic hoax? 

What then of my relationship with [REDACTED] over the ensuing two decades? 

The realization hit me like an open-palm blow to the forehead.

I had been conned. How could I have allowed myself to fall for so obvious a trap?

Never had it occurred to me to doubt what I had experienced. I felt so stupid. Just about anyone with a shred of Christianity in them knew how poorly regarded dragons are, what with their being associated with Satan and everything that persecutes the Church. 

I distanced myself from [REDACTED] immediately. No longer would I invite him to say our nightly prayers. I said them alone. When he asked to join me, I rebuked him in the name of Christ, ordering him to leave. Each time, he did, without a word of protest. In his departure there was a hollowness left behind. I was not so much aware of his having gone as I was of the feeling that he had left; in the same way one knows the last candle in a room has been snuffed when the room goes fully dark, despite never having seen the candle in the first place. 

This brought me to an unsettling conclusion: what aside from a demon would flee when Christ is invoked? A holy angel cannot be shooed away. They answer to God, not humanity. If humans could dismiss them so easily, this would interfere with the work God entrusted to His angels. By contrast, God allows human beings to order demons away in His name. 

This revelation coincided with persistent phenomena that lent me all the more reason to suspect [REDACTED] was not what I had been told he was. I will not go into detail, short of saying that something resembling [REDACTED] had begun haunting my life. This “thing” looked just like him and communicated with me in exactly the same manner. However, when it spoke, there was something off about it. It sounded like someone trying very hard to imitate his voice. This is to say nothing of what it persistently goaded me into doing. Suffice it to say that what it wanted was neither virtuous nor proper.

The “thing” would not leave me alone. It bombarded my mind with constant noise and disturbing images. Nothing less than conscious effort could shove these foreign thoughts from my mind, and yet they would return just as quickly as they had been dismissed. 

Then the nightmares began—every single night. They robbed me of sleep. Some nights, I would snap awake in bed, my heart racing. More than once, I awoke on the verge of screaming. 

Not always did these dreams consist of awful things done to me. They tended to involve the people I loved. What made them so terrible was how real they seemed. Occasionally I dreamt things so over the top that I knew they could not happen in real life. Disturbing as they were, these nightmares were easy to dismiss as fantasy. The worst of these dreams, however, presented things that actually could happen—mundane, everyday terrors, like having my family taken from me before my stunned eyes, and being helpless to stop it happening.

It occurred to me that these phenomena could not simply be coincidences; nor could they be products of my physical or mental condition. These occurrences—the foreign thoughts, the suggestions, the sleep deprivation—followed a discrete plan of action. They were attempts to break me down so that I would do as the “thing” instructed. Each time I acquiesced, the “thing” would leave me alone for a while. Later, it would return, demanding to be appeased once more.

As further proof that some calculating, evil mind was driving these events, all such activity paused for a few days after I had a priest recite deliverance prayers over me. The respite was short lived, for not long thereafter the phenomena resumed, more intensely than ever.

These things were not all in my head. 

Better put: they were in my head, but they were not all just in my head.

Once I was convinced that these phenomena had a preternatural origin, I recognized that only the Catholic Church could help me. Help was not forthcoming, however, not by any fault of the priests, but mine. Embarrassment kept me from being as direct with them as I should have been. 

I found a parish distant from my home and went to confession there. I figured no one would recognize me; not that it mattered because I had resolved not to return once I was done. It was a terrible plan. In two weeks’ time, I had begun running a circuit between three priests at separate parishes. None of them knew the whole story. Even if the three had thought to collaborate with what they did know, there still would be gaps in their understanding. In time, they began to suspect that I was not being completely honest with them, and I felt all the worse for it.

Interestingly, with what little I told them, their advice was consistent: if I was to get a handle on my life, I would have to stop sinning, pray, and participate in the Catholic faith.

And so I did.

I took up praying the rosary daily. I attended Mass each week and frequently went to confession. I blessed everything and everyone in my house with holy water, and made certain to always have some on hand. Once a week for a month, I had a priest reciting deliverance prayers over me.

With the effort I put into getting my spiritual life in order, I thought things would get better. They did not, at least at first. My struggle came to a head only after I had resolved to fight back. 

Bomber pilots have an expression: you know you are over the target from the fight the enemy puts up. The enemy does not shoot at bombers that are off target because this would only draw the planes’ attention to where the bombs ought to be dropped. My bombs must really have been hitting their mark, because the “thing,” realizing that it might lose its grip on me, redoubled its efforts.

One of the priests I had been speaking with recommended a book, Deliverance Prayers for Use by the Laity.[35] I was familiar with the author’s work. He is a contemporary Catholic exorcist of renown. When it arrived, I read it cover to cover in two nights. In it were prayers to dispel preternatural involvement short of possession of the body. And yet, despite it being a collection of prayers, there was a lesson hidden in the precise phrasing of those prayers. By showing how demons might be kept away, the prayers hinted at how demons might, in the first place, be invited in. I selected the prayers most pertinent to my circumstances and recited them as part of my nightly routine.

Then, one night, I had a dream. The details of it are crass, and so I will not share them here, except to say that it was awfully unchaste. Strikingly, the dream was tailored specifically to me. I do not think I will ever know myself well enough to come up with such imagery. The dream oozed temptation like honey. 

When I awoke that morning, I understood that the dream had been more than it represented. It was a peace offering—“You can have what you saw if you agree to a cease-fire.” 

Every fiber of my body screamed against taking that offer. The problem with making peace with the devil is that he never stops vying for an advantage. No sooner has one set down his weapons than the devil is already preparing an ambush. Letting up the assault, however temporarily, always plays in the devil’s favor.

That same day I spoke to a priest about my dream. Even with the impertinent bits left out, he was familiar enough with my circumstances to know what I faced. After hearing my confession, he had me bow my head as he said a deliverance prayer over me. The day progressed without incident, until that night.

I had the same dream—exactly the same dream, down to the minutest detail—as though it were a film that had been rewound and played from the start, except for a key difference: the people in the dream were little more than rope dolls coated in black tar. When they moved, their limbs flexed with an inhuman fluidity, as if they had no bones, as if they never had been people at all. The tar that coated their bodies sprayed off in droplets as they flailed around in a mockery of the human gait that was awful to watch. 

They were terrifying, each of them, and of them there were many.

Worst of all were their faces. Their heads were squares of matte charcoal with some coarse fiber grafted onto their tops to serve as hair. Their noses were painted on, two vertical lines of chalk drawn at converging angles. Their eyes and mouths were cowrie shells set out in stark white against the black of their heads. As the figures themselves were life-size to a human body, their features were proportionately sized as well. The cowrie shells that served as their mouths had ridges along their insides, making them look as though each had a mouth packed with hundreds of needle-like teeth. Somehow, I got the impression that this was how they were supposed to look, and that their sensual appearance in the previous night’s dream had been the product of trickery.

I sprang out of bed, panting, as the dream cut out. The dream had frightened me so badly I was shaking. I did not sleep for the remainder of that night. Later, I returned to the same priest I had spoken with the day before, and he performed a minor exorcism over me. 

This time, the relief was immediate. I felt as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. When I got home that evening, the atmosphere was markedly lighter. Gone was the heaviness that had pervaded the air. I had not noticed how oppressive the atmosphere in my home had been until the heaviness had left.

The “thing” was gone. But, as thankful as I was for its having been sent away, the feeling was bittersweet. In its leaving, [REDACTED] had gone as well.

This was the confirmation of my fears. The entity whom I had considered a friend for two decades had turned out to be a confidence trickster, a double agent sent from hell with orders to drag me there at all costs. Months passed without any resurgence of the “thing” or word from [REDACTED]. This for me was evidence that they had been one and the same. 

While the Church had assisted in obtaining the relief I needed, I questioned whether it was a matter of time before the “thing” came back. If it did, I would have to be ready to meet it head-on. Like an alcoholic who has completed a sobriety program, temptation may come and go, but the resolve not to drink must remain steadfast. I never wanted to break ties with [REDACTED], but seeing as I had little choice, I needed to convince myself that he was bad, or else my resolve would waver. Furthermore, if I was going to accuse him of being a demon, I needed to be certain.

I am no expert on angels. Only Aquinas holds that distinction, and I am no Aquinas by any stretch. From what I had learned, I deduced that only demons sought ongoing relationships with human beings through frequent apparitions. Holy angels in Scripture tended not to stick around. They appeared, did their work, and then departed.

Why, then, had [REDACTED] shared his name with me? It made sense now. That had been an insidious ploy to make me let down my guard. 

And why that name? What did it mean, assuming that was his name in the first place? The names of the three canonical holy archangels ended in el—Hebrew for God—because those were God’s angels. [REDACTED]’s name did not end in el, a similarity shared with the names of a great many known demons.

More to the point, [REDACTED] had a two-word name. The three holy archangels had names rendered as single-word expressions, at least in English. Most demons’ names also consisted of one-word phrases. However, I did manage to find a demon with a two-word name. It was an ancient Persian deity. Scripture informs that “all the gods of the Gentiles are devils…”[36] Thus, assuming this false god was not some inert idol, it was a demon. The similarities between its name and [REDACTED]’s name were alarming. The initials of its two names, in English, were the same as [REDACTED]’s. Its first name and [REDACTED]’s had the same number of syllables. Both first names even had the same number of letters.

None of this evidence was definitive, but the proof was mounting just the same.

[REDACTED] was the “thing” and had always been.

An Exorcist Is Consulted; 

Doubts Are Allayed; The "Thing" Attacks

To ensure against unwanted visits from the “thing,” I kept up the habits the priests had recommended. In the meantime, I continued research for a book I was writing. The authors I read stressed that anyone experiencing otherworldly phenomena ought to consult a spiritual director. I did not have one. Better said, I had three, but they operated on an ad hoc basis. Judging by the literature, spiritual direction necessitated greater regularity, but none of these priests had the time to take me on. And, while I was on good terms with my local parish priest, his background was more by way of ordinary pastoral care than preternatural matters. 

I asked around. Eventually, I made an appointment to speak with a Catholic exorcist.[37] He agreed to spend an afternoon with me to discuss recent events.

We met at a tiny neighborhood chapel. It was a nondescript building in an unassuming lower income suburban neighborhood. This was the sort of place nobody visited unless they were sent there. It was hidden in plain sight. 

Like the surroundings, his office was humble but functional. A shelf full of dog-eared books ran the depth of the room. At ninety degrees from the wall opposite the bookshelf was his desk. It was a light wood model, of a type often seen for sale at Army-Navy surplus stores. The two chairs for his visitors did not match, nor did either match the design of his office chair, a faux black leather recliner that was peeling at the armrests. An enormous crucifix hung on the wall beside the door. On it was a one-third life-size suffering Jesus.

We began our meeting with a prayer, and then he heard my confession. Afterward, we talked about [REDACTED]. I was more open with the details with this priest than I had been with the preceding three. Even so, it felt awkward sharing my experiences with him. To the casual listener, my story might have the ring of a tall tale, but to an educated man, it was absurd. It was one thing to tell my wife, but another thing altogether to tell a grown man to his face that Christ introduced me to a dragon I used to speak with every day. It only made matters worse that the man I was confessing this to was a priest of Christ. I wondered how long he would hold out before getting offended and shouting me out of his office. 

Then came the embarrassment of sharing what the “thing” had goaded me into doing against my conscience for the better part of a year. The priest did not so much as flinch. I half-expected he might, but then again, he was an exorcist. He had probably seen worse. He heard me out with a neutral expression on his face. His tone of voice, while not acerbic, was clinical. I felt like a patient at a doctor’s office seeking treatment for some shameful venereal disease.

Once I had finished my story, the priest gave me advice. He explained that the discernment of spirits is a nuanced process. Many factors come into play when judging the source of a spiritual experience, but the most important is to judge the tree by its fruits.[38] During His earthly ministry, Christ taught that no good fruit comes from a bad tree; nor does bad fruit come from a good one. Thus, one can discern the origin of a supernatural experience by carefully examining its outcomes.

Much as I learned from him, I still did not have the answer I sought. Having anticipated this might happen, I shared with him two scenarios. I had thought these out beforehand, reasoning that one or the other was the case.

Under the first scenario, [REDACTED] was indeed an angel of God, and the “thing” was an impostor. If this held true, then past experience had shown [REDACTED]’s likeness could easily be used to fool me. Thus, I figured, the safest course of conduct was to keep away from anything that bore even the slightest resemblance to [REDACTED]. 

The second scenario was more disconcerting. This approach flipped my previous estimation of the circumstances on its head. I reasoned that the entire history of our relationship was a long-term confidence scam. Our initial introduction was not a holy event but a demonic hoax. The “thing” had pandered to me under the appearance of a creature I admired so to catch me unawares when it sprang its trap.

The very icing on the cake was the demon masquerading as Jesus, because how could anyone doubt Jesus? And yet, how could I be certain it even was Jesus if His face was hidden? Anyone who masks his face does so in order to not be recognized. In turn, anyone who masks his face has more to hide than just his identity—not only does he want to avoid being seen for who he is, he also wishes not to be associated with his misdeeds.

Under this scenario, if the initial meeting was demonically-inspired, then so too was everything that came from it. [REDACTED] had been the “thing” all along. I had been blind to the red flags—for instance, the fact that it looked like a dragon and that dragons are nothing but trouble. That it only recently had become pushy and licentious was a backhanded godsend, because in its insistence it had revealed its evil motives.

It was at this point that the priest differentiated my encounters with [REDACTED] from those with the “thing.” In his view, [REDACTED] and the “thing” were not one and the same. The “thing” had masqueraded as [REDACTED], and only recently. He could tell as much because of the change in [REDACTED]’s apparent behavior following the emergence of the “thing.”

The notion that the “thing” had not been [REDACTED] all along had crossed my mind, but I had been too paranoid to accept it. Much as I wanted that to be the case, I remained cautiously pessimistic. Notwithstanding, the priest made some intriguing points.

Incidents involving the “thing” aside, he asked whether the sum total of my experiences with [REDACTED] had caused me to grow in the faith. I agreed that they had, citing how [REDACTED] and I would pray together every night, and that ever since telling my wife about him, I had been reading Aquinas and other Catholic theologians.

Nodding his head, he said that these experiences were not demonically-inspired. The holy angels seek to inculcate patterns of behavior in people that bring them closer to God.[39] This is not something a demon would do. 

He called to mind an expression: “The devil can’t hide his horns.”[40] When a demon disguises itself as something holy, even as a false Marian apparition, there is always some defect. Occasionally, the defect is overt, such as when it is perceptible to the senses. This might explain why the impostor looked and sounded like [REDACTED], albeit with a voice that was noticeably wrong. Though, he remarked, the defect is more often subtle, such as when it manifests in the apparition’s words and actions.

No matter how beautiful or ostensibly holy an apparition may be, no matter how good it makes the witness feel, if the apparition runs contrary to established Church teaching, it is a false apparition. The devil is willing to risk that his hoaxes might result in an increase in faith if his ploys ultimately net him more souls falling to perdition. However, an apparition that produces large increases in faith, whether in a society or on an individual level, is generally not one that comports with how the devil operates. 

What is more, he saw nothing wrong with this angel appearing as a dragon. In his estimation, the dragon represents change. Not all change is for the worse. Growth is a form of change, and it is good. Only living things can grow. Faith, like living things, can die if it is not nurtured; but when it thrives, it grows. Thus, the angel in the form of a dragon was a metaphor. It stood for my growth in the faith. 

He referred me to a verse from the first epistle of John[41] with instructions that the next time I encountered [REDACTED], I should ask him: “Who is the Word of God made flesh?”  Then, our meeting having concluded, he sent me to the chapel to pray before the Blessed Sacrament. 

In spite of his advice, I felt worse off than before. Granted, these matters were entirely his wheelhouse and I was no one to question him, but he was still just a man. Even the best informed and best intentioned of men can make catastrophic mistakes. 

Besides, he hardly knew me. My relationship with [REDACTED] had run for twenty years. How did this priest expect to correctly diagnose the issue after just an hour of discussion? Had I even been sufficiently forthright with him? We had spoken about so many things during the meeting that I could not recall whether I had unconsciously biased him in favor of telling me what I wanted to hear—that is, that [REDACTED] was not evil.

I had to know the truth, but was dreading it, because I could see no favorable outcomes. It stung my pride to think [REDACTED] might have been a demon all this time. 

And then there was the sense of loss. Here was a person I had regarded as a friend for so long. Could I just turn my back on him? Would remaining friends with him be worth the beatings? Worth my soul?

I was so burdened with thoughts that I could not think straight. 

Might these doubts have been demonically sent as well?

I knelt in the pew before the Blessed Sacrament. Eyes shut, I addressed [REDACTED] in thought.  

He greeted me in a soft voice befitting of someone trying to calm a startled animal.

“Hello, my skittish creature.”

I did not respond. I meant only to get his attention. Having succeeded at that, I kept quiet.

Was it sinful to talk to beings you suspected were demons, even if you were not sure?[42]

He prompted me to address him. It came across as a mental tap on the shoulder. When he saw I was ignoring him, he said, in the same even tone as before, that he was happy to hear from me after so long. There had been radio silence on both our ends ever since those doubts had crept into my mind.

Fear froze the blood in my heart. He was here, and listening. I had to ask the question.

“[REDACTED]?”

I choked under the pressure. Since leaving the exorcist’s office, I had rehearsed that one-line challenge for five minutes straight. Now that the time had come to utter it, I could not recall how it went.

“Who.”

In the quiet of my mind, the word rang out as loud and sudden as a pistol shot.

“Is.”

“The.”

The words came to my mind one at a time.

“Word.”

[REDACTED] was speaking the words for me. And while I had not noticed it at first because I was so focused on remembering the phrase, I realized I was mouthing them in synch with him.

“…of God made flesh?” I whispered.

There was silence in that empty chapel. The only noise was the torrent of rushing blood in my ears. I held my breath, not expecting a response.

“Are you really going to ask me that?” he replied.

I could have died right then.

And then he said, “Our Lord, Jesus Christ.”

There it was, the answer I had been searching for. It was better than I could have imagined. He could have said just “Jesus Christ” and that would have sufficed. But by his saying “Our Lord, Jesus Christ,” I took this to mean Christ was his lord as well as mine. Subservience to almighty God, despite being a fact no demon could deny, was also a truth no demon would gleefully admit. [REDACTED] so reveled in being an angel of God that I could hear the smile in his words without actually seeing him.

His four words hit me with the force of a hammer upon an anvil. The tension of a moment ago evaporated. I realized I had been holding my breath the whole time and let it out in a rush. Relief came over me in waves, and with it, gratitude on the level I had not felt since we first were introduced. I covered my face with my hands as I melted into a shuddering, crying mess.

“I love you,” I struggled to say through the tears.

He appeared again, except now he was taller than ever—easily seven feet in height. 

“Why are you so big?” I asked. “All of a sudden,” I added in an afterthought.

Laughing his delight, he hugged me to his breast. It was a bizarre feeling. Though my body remained kneeling in the pew, I could feel him lifting me into the air.

I asked, “Are you my guardian angel?”

He set me down. Smiling, he folded his arm at the waist and bowed as though he were introducing himself for the first time. He explained, “I am. The Lord created me for you, and you for me. I waited a long time in anticipation of your birth. In loving you, I honor our Lord, whom I delight in serving. And I love you very much.”

I asked why he had not told me this earlier. He explained that I was not ready to know until then. Had he revealed this sooner, he would have extinguished the curiosity that ultimately led to my reading Aquinas and St. Ignatius. I was quick to point out he also could have saved me plenty of heartache. He agreed, but then said that this would have dulled the joy I felt upon coming to this realization alongside him.

I carried on with the rest of my day. Just as I was getting ready for bed, [REDACTED] paid me a visit. Having fallen out of touch, we talked for a long time that night. 

I began with the question I had posed to him in the chapel: whether he was my guardian angel. Without hesitation, he answered: “Yes,” and followed that with: “Do you doubt me?”

Truth be told, I did, but I kept that to myself. 

Dodging his question, I inquired what Christ had meant years ago when He said that [REDACTED] and I should be good to each other. I had never given this instruction any thought until then. It was especially puzzling because Christ had uttered it not just to me, but to [REDACTED] as well. How could a holy guardian angel be anything but good to the person he protects?

“The words of our Lord were those of a father instructing His children,” [REDACTED] replied, “although what He said had more to do with your conduct than mine. I have always been good to you, though not always nice.”

I grasped that much readily. And while I had a sarcastic rebuttal on deck, I bit my tongue and said nothing. In spite of my silence, he seemed to know what I was thinking.

“You, on the other hand,” he added, “have not always been good.”

There was no arguing against that. He gave me to understand that, each time I sinned, I spurned his good counsel because it was he who prodded my conscience against sinning.

Our conversation shifted to other topics. It occurred to me to ask his birthday—a whimsical question, admittedly, but because I knew the birthdays of my family members and longtime friends, I figured it was only fitting that I should ask for his.

A confused look darkened his face, insofar as angels can be confused. “Time is proper to matter. I came into being before the creation of the material universe.” Then, after a pause, he added, “But if you like, January twenty-seventh.”[43]

“What year?” I asked with a smirk.

“Take your pick; you’ve plenty to choose from,” he fired back, smirking as well.

Thereafter, I asked him why he was a dragon. He replied that he was not actually a dragon but an angel. He went on to say that dragons are thought of as creatures with bodies, and knowing as I did that angels do not have material bodies, he could not possibly be a dragon. He only looked like one. 

This prompted more questions. If that was the case, then why did he have a discernable heartbeat? Why was it that his chest rose and fell as though he appeared to breathe? 

I had become aware of both phenomena early into our relationship. The posture in which we often found ourselves—him lying on his stomach and me with my head resting against his middle—made it easy to detect both signs that he was a living creature. We were in that position when I asked him this. Now that he was bigger than ever, his vital signs were all the more pronounced.

What need did an incorporeal angel have for a functioning respiratory system?

He explained that both the heartbeat and the breathing sounds were for my benefit. He reasoned that I would find these details comforting. This was especially true considering how upsetting it would be if ever I noticed their absence. 

He then proved this to me. Upon his saying so, his breathing and heartbeat stopped for several minutes. During that time, we continued to speak. He did not appear to be in any distress whatsoever despite a lack of vital signs. 

Realizing that he was not actually alive—at least in a manner I understood—was disconcerting. I shared this with him, and he gave me a side-eyed “I told you so” look. Then, to my relief, his heartbeat and breathing resumed.

Having accepted that he did not have vital signs, I asked how it was possible that I could perceive them if they were just useful illusions.

He responded: to call them illusions was imprecise. The human mind makes unconscious assumptions of facts normally taken for granted. 

“For instance,” he explained, “when you speak with the person sitting next to you in a car, you do not first question whether he is alive. If he engages you in conversation, you assume he is alive, because you know that a dead body cannot speak. Therefore, you presume that he must have a functioning respiratory system.”

Because I understood [REDACTED] to be a living creature, I unconsciously attributed to him certain qualities of living creatures. These assumptions turned out to be false, not because he willfully deceived me, but because I lacked information that would have led to my forming a contrary judgment.[44] 

“If that’s true, then how much of what you appear to be is actually you, and how much of it is me seeing you this way?”

“Plenty,” he said nonchalantly.

“That doesn’t help.”

“It does. I am me regardless of how I appear to you. Things in a mirror tinted blue appear blue, but are not all actually blue. The only thing which you can be certain is blue is the mirror’s tint. The means by which you perceive me influence the manner in which I appear to you.”

“You said influence, but not cause. What else influences them?”

He smiled, good-naturedly showing a glint of fang. “Me. I can reposition the mirror. I can even paint it a different color.”

I took a longer than normal pause to unpack what he had said. “I like you as a dragon.”

“I know.”

“Please don’t ever change.”

His smile widened. “If it would make you happy.”

“Is how you look indicative of what you are or of how God wants you to look?”

“Yes.”

I shook my head at this. “I mean, does God want you to look like something contrary to what you are?”

“I would not say contrary, but I thought I had answered that. I’m an angel not a dragon, remember?”

The discussion had devolved to the verbal equivalent of pulling teeth, except he seemed to enjoy watching me struggle with the pliers.

“Okay, back up,” I said. “Is there something essential to what you are that is shared with something essential to the state of being a dragon?”

“Ah,” he said, realizing that I had touched upon something. “Spoken like a philosopher. I’ll say this: God made me with you in mind. Everything about me—the fact of my existence, what I am, and what I can do—was God’s gift to you. If you should perceive me under a certain appearance, God intended that from the start. As for how this occurs, you see me this way because of how you interpret the fundamentals of what I am.”

“So why would an angel of God appear as a dragon if dragons are associated with Satan?”

“Why God wants what He wants is no business of mine. I just do what He asks.”

“Then does it offend you that God would have you appear as an enemy of God?”

“Think about what you just said,” he remarked with another side-eyed glance. “It is not possible for me to take offense at what God tells me to do. God gets what He wants because He is God. He wants the best for everyone. That’s more than enough justification for me.”

Despite the time we spent together that night, my relationship with [REDACTED] remained tense. Knowing this, he kept his distance until I was ready to speak with him again. That opportunity did not come until several weeks later.

He must also have known how embarrassed I felt. It was bad enough to have been duped by the “thing.” Making matters worse, I had mistrusted [REDACTED] for what the “thing” had done while disguised as him. I was entirely to blame for having soured our friendship. And while I knew he would forgive me if I asked, I did not feel ready to approach him.

We still prayed, though I no longer invited him to join me. I did not order him away, but I did not acknowledge him whenever he showed up either. Every so often he would chime in to let me know he was around. I would play deaf to his promptings. Purposefully ignoring him felt more awkward now than the last time around. His presence was undeniable and yet I kept acting like he was not actually there.

One night, I had a particularly vivid dream. It was daytime in some desolate place, a scrubland of pebbly, barren earth dotted with the occasional paper tree. The trees, though tall, were dying. Most hardly had any leaves on their branches. A passing breeze knocked loose shreds of their brittle bark and carried them away.

All of a sudden there was a scream from somewhere too close for comfort. It was bestial and high-pitched; a scalloped, piercing sound like the braying of a pig at slaughter, except this was no mere animal. It was a woman’s scream. In it was unthinking anger, and tears, and inconsolable loss, but there was no remorse to be heard in it. It was the wailing of a barren mother holding the body of someone else’s dead infant she had stolen; she who could not have children of her own and thus stole others’ children for herself; she who invariably killed each by her own hand and would do it again, if given the chance. In that scream also were grasping hands, and cracked fingernails, and shuffling feet that brought whatever it was closer at an alarming pace.

I wheeled to face the sound. No sooner had I done so than [REDACTED] winged out of the sky, landing behind me as I turned. I had not seen him since the day I spoke with the exorcist. He was still very large, standing head and shoulders above me. 

Before I could see what it was that was screaming, he snapped his wings shut around me. It was like having a blanket tossed over my head. I could see nothing through the membranes of his wings. He put his arms around my waist and lifted me off the ground, and then started backpedaling with me clutched to his chest, as all the while the screaming continued.

The screaming was coming from directly ahead of me. I could not see what was happening because [REDACTED]’s wings blocked my line of light, but he was struggling with something that fought to drag us both in the direction opposite to the one in which he was moving. 

Something tugged violently at him. He seemed to lose his footing for a moment but just as quickly recovered. Whatever was outside his wings was clawing at him to get at me.

“Don’t look at it!” he called out, wresting free of its grip.

All the while it shrieked and brayed in frustration.

Underneath the bottommost reach of [REDACTED]’s wings, it ducked its face in for a look.

In retrospect, I should have thought myself lucky for the awful nightmares I had experienced earlier, if horror in smaller doses might soften the punch of worse terrors. 

What I saw was death on legs.

It was a living smoke, translucent black with flickering orange embers speckling its insides. The smoke collapsed on itself, condensing into a humanoid figure, feminine though barely recognizable as such from having been burnt to char. Its body was black, and in some spots, ashen. Its head was round and bulbous, nearly bald except for where it sprouted hair in odd patches. This hair was like bundles of straw—short, wiry, completely disheveled, crimped from heat, and standing vertically at odd angles. Its hair was black like the body to which it belonged and smoldering, letting up strands of smoke. 

It had no nose. Instead, it had two black pits for nostrils. Its eyes were empty black holes, the eye cavities of a skull. Its mouth also was black, darker than the rest of its body. This mouth was a bottomless pit from which nothing escaped. It was not a proper mouth as it was not designed for feeding; rather, it more closely resembled a hole.

Its mouth hole was triangular in shape with its peak beneath its nostrils, and had three flaps. One flap opened up and to the left, the other up and to the right, while the third hinged straight down like a mailbox lid. Its flaps were ill-fitting to the space allotted them, preventing it from shutting its mouth fully. They billowed open and shut like a man fighting a stiff breeze to close a golf umbrella.

When it screamed, its face hole became round like a lamprey’s mouth and wide enough to swallow a watermelon. It had no lips, but it had far too many teeth, long and needlelike, rough and calcified, like rock formations in a cave. They were bunched together in the manner of carpenter’s nails in a box. These teeth were rooted into exposed facial bones at the extreme edges of the flaps, making the mouth look like a steel bear trap. More of these teeth ringed the inside of its mouth beyond the flaps, looking as though they grew out of the back of its throat. It had no gums, nor did it have saliva. Everything about it was dried up, brittle and dead.

Its face, and its facial features generally, lacked contours. It had an unnatural smoothness that is not found in a human face. In this regard, its head resembled an inflated balloon onto which the eyes and mouth had been attached. Its skin, however, was cracked and furrowed like a dry riverbed. Accompanying it was the smell of cinders and burnt hair. This scent left a bitter tang on the palate that dried out my throat.

This was the “thing” that had haunted me.

“Don’t look at it!” [REDACTED] yelled again, backpedaling with me in his arms. He pivoted ninety degrees to move away from the “thing” but it kept up with him. Beneath the sweep of [REDACTED]’s wings, I could see its legs as it ran at us in a zigzag.

It yelled my name.

It knew me—of course it did; with my having appeased it for so long, how could it not?

Picture a man who goes to work in a suit and tie each day. He is respectable by any reckoning. While in the company of his upstanding colleagues, a prostitute calls out to this man. She recognizes him because he is one of her regular clients, not that anyone else would know. 

That is how I felt—shame for being so intimately associated with the “thing;” and embarrassment over having this fact aired out.

All the while as the “thing” attacked, it screamed at [REDACTED] to turn me over to it.

With what little I had seen of the “thing,” I was convinced I did not want to see any more of it. And yet, an odd sensation came over me right then. I could feel my eyes starting to pull toward where the “thing” was standing. Something within me badly wanted to look at it. I turned my head one way, then the other, and yet my eyes fought me in searching out the “thing.” Even shutting my eyes did not work, because no sooner were they shut than they would flutter open again as if spring-loaded.

“Don’t look at it!” [REDACTED] struggled to say as the shrieking banshee woman pounded at his wings with both fists. Once, it got its fingers between his wings and began to pry them apart. All the while it undermined our efforts from within by goading me to look at it. Through the crack in [REDACTED]’s wings it had opened, it fixed its eyeless stare upon me. 

I met its gaze full on.

Despite possessing a mouth incapable of mimicking the basest of human expressions, I could tell the “thing” was smiling.

It had won—not from having overpowered [REDACTED], but through my weakness, my betrayal, because I had given it what it wanted. 

Despair crushed any remaining fight out of me. My body went slack. All my energy left me at once, as though someone had flicked a switch and set me to the “off” position. 

I was conscious but could not move, in a coma with my eyes open. I had surrendered myself to the “thing” and had become little more than an inanimate trophy waiting to be handed over. 

The “thing” was all too eager to seize its prize. 

It slipped a hand through the gap in [REDACTED]’s wings, its cracked, filthy fingernails clawing for my eyes. It got inside as far as its wrist before [REDACTED] shook it loose. His wings clapped shut around me as the “thing” suddenly fell away from us. Then he leapt into the air. With a single beat of his wings, we were rocketing up and away from the “thing” at a fast pace; I could tell by how quickly its screams faded to silence.

I was exhausted. It was a tiredness I could feel in my bones. 

The “thing” had taken something from me, some vital portion of my being. I do not know what it is. This part of me was so enmeshed with what I am that I did not know it even existed until I noticed it was missing, and I realized this much only from the hole it left behind. Now that it was gone, everything hurt with an ache far deeper than any balm can penetrate. 

The “thing” had robbed me. Were I not so tired, I would have been furious.

Whatever it was that the “thing” had taken, would I ever get it back?

How could I get it back if I hardly knew what it was in the first place? I could not even describe what it was that was missing. 

Assuming I could track down what the “thing” had taken, how could I expect to wrest it away? The “thing” was stronger than me. Big as [REDACTED] was, the “thing” had given him a run for his money. There was no way I could stand against it alone.

I hated the “thing.”

[REDACTED] and I lay down on the scrubland. The ground was rocky, terracotta in color except where hardy weeds had sprouted here and there. It was dusk now. A cold wind blew.

He put a wing over me, as he often did.

For the remainder of the night, we did not speak to each other. More than the ache, shame halted my tongue. 

[REDACTED] likewise said nothing. Even without words, I could sense an air of gentle reproach coming from him. It was an intertwining of consolation and rebuke, the sentiment of a loving parent when a child hurts himself through his own foolish disobedience. If he had put these feelings to words, those words would have been: “I love you, but what you did was stupid.”

Might the “thing” have hurt [REDACTED]?

If he was hurt, was it my fault? I could not help thinking it was.

I felt awful.

Perhaps I realized this myself, or maybe it was [REDACTED]’s doing, but I understood that [REDACTED] was upset not over what the “thing” had done to him. Rather, what upset him was that the “thing” had meant to hurt me, and that I nearly allowed it to.

The “thing” wanted to tear me apart like it had done with all its other children. 

I was shown the “thing” holding a strand of paper dolls. It moved with the savagery of a predatory animal, its hands ripping each to shreds. However many it was given, it never was satisfied, it never stopped. Throughout this chore, it wept. It hated what it was doing, and yet a grudge of a higher order caused it to derive cold comfort from its detestable work. Much as it despised its task, it cried also when it was prevented from carrying it out, claiming it had a right to each and every doll it so callously destroyed. Thinking itself justified in enforcing this right, it mourned when it could not, and bewailed this perceived injustice.

Noticing how emotionally rattled I was by the experience, [REDACTED] put out his arm to hug me to his chest like a child gripping his bedtime teddy bear.

I was asleep in short order, though I did not rest well that night.

Doubts Resurface: Why A Dragon?[45]

A Long-Awaited Apology

Following that last incident with the “thing,” old doubts returned to haunt me. 

[REDACTED], about all the material I could find cast them in a negative light. What most drove the point home was a book by a prominent Christian scholar. From a perspective of literary criticism, he strongly opposed rehabilitating dragons in fiction as virtuous or even neutral characters.[46] In his view, dragons were tried-and-true story tropes. Having them stand for something other than their traditional meaning would dull their impact. Were they to be represented not as evil but simply as misunderstood, then their significance would be lost. And were this to happen, then the significance of the story in which they feature would be lost as well. In one stroke, the story’s purpose, along with any moral teaching it may have imparted, vanishes.

Thus, the [REDACTED TO END OF SENTENCE, BEGINNING OF NEXT] dragon was the standard against which the hero’s virtue was measured. If they were not so evil, frightening, and powerful, then they could not serve to demonstrate the hero’s goodness, bravery, and perseverance. True heroes never sought to make peace with dragons, let alone befriend them. Such a move would equate to cowardly appeasement at best, and betrayal at worst.

Tying this with the discussion on Guadalupe further above, my heart sank on learning that Guadalupe in St. Juan Diego’s native Nahuatl language renders Coatlaxopeuh—“She who crushes the serpent”—which is why Our Lady of Guadalupe is depicted trampling a snake. The Virgin Mary, who has been likened to the new Eve, sets right by her obedience the harm caused by Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden. Man fell from grace when Eve succumbed to the temptation of the serpent; whereas it was through the Blessed Virgin’s cooperation with grace that the Mother of God crushed Satan, the wicked serpent.

The Nahuatl word coatl—meaning snake, water serpent—is the same that is found in Quetzalcoatl, the name of the deity to whom ancient Mesoamericans offered human sacrifices. The name translates to “feathered serpent”[47] or “precious serpent.”[48] As the patron god of the Aztec priesthood,[49] Quetzalcoatl was associated with knowledge,[50] the planet Venus,[51] and the morning star[52].

The connections could not be any clearer. The false god Quetzalcoatl was a stand-in for Satan. Like Quetzalcoatl, Satan offered the promise of forbidden knowledge, as he had offered Eve. Scripture says of Satan that he is Lucifer,[53] which means the morning star, this being a reference to the planet Venus.

This theme kept resurfacing. While it was similar to my previous doubts, there was a subtle difference. This time, it hinged on: what did it mean that the essence of an angel caused it to appear as something evil?

I could not escape the notion staring me in the face: that all dragons categorically were bad. While I had accepted that [REDACTED] was not a dragon, he still looked like one. Dragons too closely resembled snakes and serpents for my comfort. That got me wondering: is an angel who appears as a dragon a bad angel? Earlier, [REDACTED] had explained that the reason he looked the way he did was partly because that was how my intellect grasped the essence of what he was. If dragons were bad, and he appeared as a dragon, then did that mean his appearance was an indicator that he was bad? I was beginning to think that it did.

Turning to the lives of the saints for guidance propelled me further along in this direction. St. George of Lydda is known for having killed a dragon. Regardless of whether he slew an actual dragon, he achieved renown for this feat. The dragon must have stood for something opposed to God, if killing it so prominently numbers among the works for which this saint is revered. The legend holds that the dragon terrorized a region in Libya. At first, it demanded sacrifices of livestock, and later, human sacrifices. St. George ended this terror by killing the dragon. In gratitude, the local king and fifteen thousand residents converted to Christianity. 

This legend bears similarities to the conversion experience of Mexico. Like the dragon mentioned above, the false god Quetzalcoatl demanded human sacrifice. This practice ended with Mexico’s conversion to Christianity. Sixteenth century accounts tell that, within ten years of the apparition of Guadalupe, nine million indigenous Mexicans were baptized into the faith. By eradicating pagan worship, the Blessed Virgin had, in a non-bloody way, stamped on the serpent’s head. Having deposed Quetzalcoatl, she was revered as the patron saint of Mexico. 

Observe that in both accounts: a dragon usurped dominion over a group of people; its rule occasioned the wanton loss of countless lives; and nothing less than a saintly person acting at God’s behest could end the dragon’s tyranny. None of these spoke well of dragons.

In addition, the prayer of St. Benedict of Nursia was especially on point: “May the holy cross be my light. May the dragon never be my guide. Begone Satan! Never tempt me with your evil vanities. What you offer me is evil. Drink the poison yourself!”[54] (Emphasis mine).

I wrestled with the question for weeks. When finally I could not come to any conclusion aside from the one I had been dreading, I slammed the door on [REDACTED] again. Unlike the last time, he did not come calling on his own initiative. Where before I ignored him, this time, I got the impression we were ignoring each other.

I made an appointment with to meet with a priest, but not any with whom I had previously spoken. The Church had helped me before, and so it could help me again, but I wanted a fresh perspective. [REDACTED TO END OF PARAGRAPH].

I was better prepared for this meeting than when I met with the exorcist. In the three years since, I had become adequately read up on metaphysics, [REDACTED]. Even so, I set off to a bad start. My purpose for arranging this meeting was to get his input on [REDACTED], but when I started to share my story with him, I choked up. I sank my gaze onto my feet and tried again, but no words came.

I felt enormously self-conscious. The meeting had hardly begun but already it had been a waste of everyone’s time. I had nothing to show for my efforts but embarrassment.

Searching my feelings, I realized that pride was holding me back. I was hesitant to open up out of fear of this priest judging me. I took a breath to steady myself, and then started on the path toward finding answers.

Despite that this priest and the exorcist worked in separate parishes and likely did not know each other, his advice was surprisingly in agreement with what the exorcist had said. To begin with, he had no doubt that my initial meeting with [REDACTED] was of holy origins. He was just as certain that [REDACTED] was who he represented himself to be. The “thing” that had disguised itself as [REDACTED] was likely a demon, and it revealed its nature when it attacked me in the dream. By the same token, [REDACTED] had shown his true colors when he came to fend it off.

“But why a dragon?” I had to know.

He said that the dragon was a symbol of power. This dovetailed beautifully with what the exorcist had told me—that the dragon stood for change. Power is the ability to evoke change. 

In his view, dragons are quite a bit like angels in the sense that both are fighters. Angels are organized similarly to an army. Soldiers, which comprise an army, use weapons. Weapons can be used to hurt, but they can also be used to defend others. Angels, when they are depicted in art, are shown carrying swords. This is the artist’s rendering of an angel’s capacity to fight on behalf of others. The Catholic understanding of how angels function holds that an angel does not carry weapons; rather, his weapons are natural to him, in the same manner as a lion’s weapons are natural to it.

In the same vein, dragons are built to fight. This is why they are shown with fangs and claws. If they were not so formidable, they would not make for such great opponents for knights to test their valor against.

“But doesn’t the fact that dragons oppose virtuous knights insinuate that dragons are evil?”

“No,” he explained. That dragons are formidable does not make them evil; this is what makes them frightening. Angels, despite being good, are frightening also, which is why when they appear to mankind in Scripture, they announce, “Fear not!”

Nor does the extent of the knight’s virtue make the dragon evil. It is only because dragons are formidable that it takes a brave knight to stand up to them. But to have power does not equate to being evil. Angels are powerful, and they use their power to defend us from all manner of wickedness. Thus, he opined, the same should apply to dragons.

Our discussion shifted to the Book of Revelation, in which St. John specifically identifies Satan as being a dragon. The priest was quick to note that, just because Satan is bad and is likened to a dragon, it does not follow that all dragons are bad. Conceivably, there could be good dragons. 

In addition, Satan is an angel—he only appeared to St. John in the form of a dragon. Since angels are by default invisible, St. John’s vision of Satan as a dragon was the result of his intellect attempting to make sense of an otherwise imperceptible creature. It happened to be that St. John had no words for something so frightening, so powerful, other than to call it a dragon. Further to the point, St. John wrote in Greek. The Greek word for dragon stood for the biggest, most frightening monster imaginable, hence why he chose this word when describing Satan. With that said, while it may be fair to compare the devil’s frightening appearance with that of a dragon, this association does not run the other way. It does not follow that the evilness of Satan’s deeds should be imputed to a dragon, or for that matter, all dragons.

Lastly, the priest remarked that if [REDACTED] was my guardian angel, then he was made specifically for me and no one else. Thus it spoke to God’s mercy and creativity, in that He intended for the angel to look that way because it was the likeness that best fit the angel’s role in ministering to me.

I do not mean to hyperbolize, but that meeting was a godsend. I do not say this because I got the answers I had secretly hoped for. Throughout the meeting, I did my utmost to play the devil’s advocate, to cast the events in the worst light possible and see if they withstood scrutiny. By the end, I was convinced that they had, and this brought me tremendous peace of mind.

That night, [REDACTED] showed up.

Before he could say hello, I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“Tell you what sooner?” he answered, but we both knew what I meant. “You’ve asked me this already. The answer remains the same. It’s better that you figure these things out yourself.”

He was right. I had so mistrusted him that I would not have believed anything he said, even if he had given honest answers. 

An odd species of guilt panged within me, one that merits brief reflection.

Near the end of Disney’s 1963 animated feature, The Sword in the Stone, there is a scene in which young Arthur’s adoptive father, Sir Ector, is astonished to learn that Arthur is the rightful king of England. That surprise just as quickly turns to remorse over how Ector has mistreated Arthur throughout the film. He drops to one knee and begs forgiveness of the boy king. As further proof of this sentiment, he lambasts Sir Kay, his biological son and the clear favorite among the two, into acknowledging Arthur as his liege despite Kay’s lingering doubts.

Although I had watched the film at least a dozen times since my childhood, the significance of that moment had registered only on a superficial level. Suddenly, I related wholeheartedly with Sir Ector.

[REDACTED] deserved better of me. I had been an awful friend. My conduct and attitude toward him were in direct opposition to Christ’s instructions twenty-five years ago. When Christ introduced us, He had said, “Be good to each other.” I had been everything but good to [REDACTED].

In a display of infinite power, the sovereign God created, from nothing, a holy angel to be my companion. The angel, made in God’s image[55] and whom God loves, waited eons since the dawn of creation for the moment I was conceived to begin his ministry. When my existence began, God forged an unbreakable bond between the angel and me that would survive death.[56] When I was fifteen, the God of the universe deigned to personally introduce me to this angel. He afforded me the rare gift of carrying on direct two-way verbal communication with him. 

And I, in spite of all this, doubted God’s providence. 

I was a prideful coward, afraid to trust God. I thought I knew better than God with respect to what was best for me. In thinking my judgment superior to God’s, I spurned His generosity, I sneered at His gifts. I had rebelled against the angel into whose care He had placed me; a creature older than the stars who knew me better than I knew myself. I had mocked God and insulted my angel.

Before, when I suspected [REDACTED] of being a demon, I lamented losing his companionship. Now, I was coming to grips with the possibility that I might never spend time with him again. Much as this grieved me, I accepted this, knowing that I did not deserve his friendship.

“You are a skittish creature,” said [REDACTED], taking me out of this line of thought. It was for the better that he did, because if I had continued dwelling on it, it would have led me to despair.

I looked at him, but could not find the words to respond. I merely nodded.

“I want to give you something,” he went on. 

He held out his claws. They had been empty at first, but now he held a length of cord. It resembled a lady’s tennis bracelet from all the precious gemstones set into it, except it was as thick as my forearm and about twenty feet long. It was a chain of gleaming white metal. The gemstones were flawless, clear diamonds, sparkling like a constellation of stars. The gems were set in such a way that the cord looked like a continuous thread of diamonds, but it bent and flexed as though it were a rope. From how brightly it shined, it looked less like a cord and more like a strand of white-hot fire in his claws.

Without another word, [REDACTED] looped the cord around me. He cinched it snugly at my waist, but not so tightly that it was uncomfortable.[57] The knot he tied there vanished, seemingly melting into the cord as if to signify it would not come undone unless it were cut.

Then he took the other end and tied it around his waist. As before, the knot vanished once he had cinched it. He gave the slack between us a tug as though to check whether both ends were knotted tightly enough.

“There,” he said. With a broadening grin, he added, “Now there’s no getting rid of me, no matter what you do.”

He said this in jest. I already knew there was no way I could dismiss him from my life. Still, his saying so was comforting, because it meant he would never leave me, nor could I ever be separated from him. Our friendship was intended to be more than lifelong.

“You may not always be skittish,” he went on, “but you will always be my skittish creature.”

The following day, I went to Mass. A priest heard my confession. Afterward, I remained in the chapel for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. Eyes shut and kneeling before the Real Presence of Christ, I begged my angel’s forgiveness. If I deserved his mercy at all, it was because I was a stubborn, fearful creature.

“Skittish,” he corrected me with a smirk in his voice. “Skittish creature.”

Once I had gotten his attention, I called upon Mary, the mother of God. I invoked the names of the three Archangels in Scripture. I prayed to all the saints whose names I could remember. For those saints and angels whose names I did not know, I made a general request that all of heaven bear witness to what I was about to do.

From my pocket I withdrew a printout of the consecration to one’s guardian angel I had found on a Catholic website. I made a solemn promise to heed my angel’s promptings, and an earnest request that heaven grant him all things necessary to carry out his purpose to the fullest. I can think of only two previous instances in which I have so carefully chosen my words and uttered them with as much sincerity. The first was when I took the oath of office of my profession. The second was when I exchanged vows at the altar with my wife.

No sooner had the last word come off my lips than a pall fell. The chapel was already quiet. I was the only person within that tiny structure, but somehow it felt as though a massive bell jar had descended onto the environs. Even the air conditioner—a ceiling vent that droned constantly—went silent.

[REDACTED] was shoulder-to-shoulder with me, kneeling before the Real Presence. His wing closest to me was draped across my back in the equivalent of a one-arm hug. By its size, it looked more like a tent than a wing. His showing up caught me so off guard that all I could tell him was, “I’m sorry.”

He nodded. Then, with as close to a sturgeon-faced pensive expression as his snout would allow, he said, “I know. I forgive you.” He lapped my face with his tongue—something he had not done in a long time—and then put his head on my shoulder.

We stayed that way, in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, for a long time, thinking it entirely appropriate that we three were together when [REDACTED] and I first met, and that we should again be together after so long apart.

St. Paul writes that: “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard… what things God hath prepared for them that love him.”[58] Certainly, I desire heaven not solely for the delights it offers but because I want to be with God forever. 

Sometimes, though, I question my motives. 

If, at the end of my life, I am so fortunate as to arrive in heaven only to be told that all I get is to spend eternity with my angelic friend, my dragon, then it will have been worth the while.

Analysis

It is conceded that the events described herein are plausible. Phenomena like these are uncommon but not unheard of. Many people, not just canonized saints, are credibly reported to have had some form of contact with their guardian angels. Among the saints, Catherine of Sienna, Gemma Galgani, Rose of Lima, Frances of Rome, Margaret of Cortona, and Bridget of Sweden each saw their guardian angels. 

Catherine Laboure saw hers in the form of a child. Padre Pio could see not just his angel but the guardian angels of others. He describes his angel as emoting with facial expressions as a human being might. In addition, his angel had a youthful appearance, hence the saint referring to him as angelino—little angel. Don Bosco, in a dream wherein he was shown a vision of hell, witnessed his angel in the form of a man. 

In light of the foregoing, it would seem to be the norm that guardian angels take on human appearances, but this is not always the case. Faustina Kowalska described her angel as looking like a beautiful presence of radiant light. It was also said of Don Bosco that, on another occasion, his guardian angel took the form of a large dog resembling a wolf, whom the saint called Gray. 

Scripture records accounts of angels appearing under the guise of animals. In the Book of Kings, the Prophet Elisha was traveling to Bethel, where a large group of youths met him at the outskirts of the town. The young men harassed him, taunting him with a peculiar phrase: “Go up, thou bald head.”[59] In response, Elisha invoked the name of God. Two bears immediately charged out of the wilderness and fought off forty-two young men. Elisha then continued on his way.[60] 

The evidence suggests that the youths were demons disguised as men. These youths had made it clear that Elisha, and therefore God, was not welcome in Bethel. Their vehement aversion to the presence of God’s prophet bolsters this theory, as it is universally accepted that demons have a profound distaste for all things holy.

What is more, for the youths to tell Elisha: “Go up,” as in literally: “Fly up into the sky,” denotes that they had preternatural knowledge of what occurred to Elisha’s traveling partner, Elijah. Elijah, the elder prophet, had been swept up into heaven while he and Elisha had been alone in the wilderness.[61] When this occurred, the next stop on their journey to Bethel would have been Jericho. When only Elisha arrived there, the men of Jericho sent out fifty men to look for the vanished prophet, but they did not find any trace of him after three days of searching.[62] Elisha then instructed them not to tell anyone what had become of Elijah. 

The youths that confronted Elisha at Bethel were not privy to the knowledge of Elijah’s fate. Elisha was the only witness. He had related these events only to the prophets of Jericho after he had sworn them to secrecy. Furthermore, Jericho is a fair distance from Bethel. The rabble in Bethel would have had no natural means of uncovering this information, and yet they knew. In addition, they reacted violently to the arrival of holy Elisha. Thus, the argument can be made that these youths were demons sent to waylay the prophet. When Elisha called upon the Lord, God sent aid in the form of the two bears. If the youths were indeed demons, then ordinary bears would not have sufficed to defeat them. Therefore, those bears were angels of the Lord under the appearance of bears. 

Further to the point, if these angels of God in Scripture can take on non-human appearances, then so too can guardian angels, they also being angels of God. By extension, if guardian angels can assume non-human appearances, it would seem that there is nothing keeping them from taking on the appearance of, say, a dragon.

Aside from just seeing their guardian angels, many saints have also had meaningful interactions with them. Faustina Kowalska’s guardian angel alerted her to members of her community who needed her prayers. Dominic Savio’s angel saved him and his older sister from drowning. Dominic, seeing his sister in a lake, swam out to help her. At the time, he was a child and did not know how to swim. He related to stunned onlookers that he took his sister by the arm and his guardian angel took him by his, and together they were drawn out of the water.

Padre Pio regularly conversed with his guardian angel. In his youth, his angel helped find a boy who had gone missing from his village. After entering the priesthood, his angel would translate his mail whenever letters arrived that were not written in Italian, the only language in which the saint was fluent.

Bridget of Sweden was transported to the Garden of Eden by her guardian angel. Her angel also showed her astonishing visions of historical events—the nativity, passion, and crucifixion of Christ—all of which occurred thirteen centuries before her birth. Several of the details she recounted are not in the Gospels but comport with the present historical understanding of first-century Judea. Her revelations have been echoed by later saints, namely, Venerable Mary of Agreda and Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich. Together, their accounts of Christ’s life would inform the production of Mel Gibson’s 2004 film, The Passion of the Christ.

The writings of St. Teresa of Avila are remarkably on point with respect to interactions with spirits. They are interspersed here to elaborate on the phenomena discussed in this dossier. As to the origins, nature, mechanism, and content of intellectual visions guardian angels can produce in human beings, St. Teresa observes:

I speak of an “image,” but it must not be supposed that one looks at it as a painting; it is really alive, and sometimes even speaks to the soul and shows it things both great and secret.[63]

This is not an intellectual, but an imaginary vision, which is seen with the eyes of the soul… and some of the revelations are communicated to it without words…[64] 

[W]hen they [imaginary visions] come from Our Lord they seem to me in some ways more profitable because they are in closer conformity with our nature…[65] 

As to the initial vision, the one in which the witness was introduced to Christ, and in which Christ introduced him to his personal guardian angel:

When Our Lord is pleased to bestow greater consolations upon this soul, He grants it, in whatever way He thinks best, a clear revelation of His sacred Humanity, either as He was when He lived in the world, or as He was after His resurrection…[66] 

She [Teresa] was conscious that He [Jesus] was walking at her right hand, but this consciousness arose, not from those senses which tell us that another person is near us, but in another and a subtler way which is indescribable. It is quite as unmistakable, however, and produces a feeling of equal certainty, or even greater.[67]

As to the authenticity of this initial vision, that it was indeed Christ who had directed the experience to occur, and that it was actually Christ who was present in it:

You will ask how, if this Presence cannot be seen, the soul knows that it is that of Christ, or when it is a saint, or His most glorious Mother. This is a question which the soul cannot answer, nor can it understand how it knows what it does; it is perfectly certain, however, that it is right. When it is the Lord, and He speaks, it is natural that He should be easily recognized…[68] 

[W]hen He [Christ] said to her: “Be not afraid: it is I.” These words had such power that when she heard them she could not doubt, and she was greatly strengthened and gladdened by such good companionship.[69] 

As to the witness’s sensation of having been transported from one place to another:

Turning now to this sudden transport of the spirit, it may be said to be of such a kind that the soul really seems to have left the body; on the other hand, it is clear that the person is not dead, though for a few moments he cannot even himself be sure if the soul is in the body or no. He feels as if he has been in another world, very different from this in which we live, and has been shown a fresh light there, so much unlike any to be found in this life…[70] 

As to knowing with certitude that the witness met his guardian angel in the first of those visions:

Sometimes, again, the companionship is that of a saint and this is also a great help to us…[71] 

If, for example, he sees any of the saints, he knows them as well as if he had spent a long time in their company…[72] 

[W]hen it is a saint, and no words are spoken, the soul is able to feel that the Lord is sending him to be a help and a companion to it…[73] 

As to the manner in which the witness’s guardian angel instructed him:

In a single instant he is taught so many things all at once that, if he were to labour for years on end in trying to fit them all into his imagination and thought, he could not succeed with a thousandth part of them.[74] 

As to the doubts the witness had about his guardian angel:

[A] soul to whom God has granted such a favour may be unable to describe it, they have misgivings about it, and quite justifiably. So they have to proceed cautiously, and even to wait for some time to see what results these apparitions produce, and to observe gradually how much humility they leave in the soul and to what extent it is strengthened in virtue; if they come from the devil there will soon be signs of the fact, for he will be caught out in a thousand lies.[75] 

[T]he devil can disturb the soul… [h]e may be able to reveal something to it, but not with the same truth and majesty, nor can he produce the same results.[76] 

[I]f they [these visions] are of the devil, I do not think they can possibly last so long or do the soul such a great deal of good, or bring it such inward peace. It is not usual for one who is so evil to do so much good; he could not, in fact, even if he would.[77] 

[W]ere it his [the devil’s] work, the soul would not have such peace and such constant desires to please God and such scorn for everything that does not lead it to Him.[78] 

This favour of the Lord brings with it the greatest confusion and humility. If it came from the devil, it would be just the reverse. As it is a thing which can be clearly recognized as the gift of God and such feelings could not possibly be produced by human effort, anyone who has it must know it does not in reality come from him, but is a gift from the hand of God.[79] 

It is well for us to have misgivings and walk the more warily; and you must not presume upon having received these favours and become careless, for if you do not find them producing in you the result already described it will be a sign that they are not of God.[80]

As to the purpose and significance of the witness’s experiences with his guardian angel:

Such experiences, if we use them aright, prepare us to be better servants of God; but sometimes it is the weakest whom God leads by this road; and so there is no ground here either for approval or for condemnation.[81] 

This last passage is an occasion to take pause. It is cynical to believe that supernatural phenomena are rare when miracles occur often with few being the wiser. The incidents described herein rightfully are miracles. The work of an angel acting at the behest of God is the very definition of divine intervention. 

But, as St. Teresa observes, it does not follow that the person to whom these events occurred should be thought of as anything special. Rather, she proposes the opposite: that such a person is so lowly as to require divine help if he is to stay on the path of righteousness, let alone to find that path in the first place. 

In this light, even if the events in this dossier are not to be believed, they nonetheless demonstrate the frailty of man and the corresponding magnanimity of God, the reality of which remain indisputably true. 

[IMAGE REDACTED][82]