26. Spiritual Direction in the Modern World

Posted by T. T. in April, 2019

From the earliest of times, the so-called ‘Ancients’ had a firm belief in the concept and reality of evil; they seriously feared being attacked by evil, in any of its guises. As a defense, they relied heavily on the ‘good spirit’ to protect themselves from invasion by the ‘evil spirit’. It appears that present generations, at least in the so-called developed nations, no longer believe in evil and thus they have abandoned the notion of good spirits being created in order to balance the power of evil spirits. Now, it seems that the present world is unprotected from an evil attack.

Kenneth Leech (1939-2015), an Anglican priest, theologian, and social activist, wrote a book entitled “Soul Friend”. In it, he emphasized his view that there existed highly established traditions of systematic spiritual direction in both Hindu and early and medieval Christian religions. He stressed the importance of spiritual matters at the present time and in the future.

Although it is perhaps unrealistic to urge present people to have a vivid image of evil (the devil, demon, or Satan), actually, the mental world of present people is being almost fully occupied by some kind of evil spirit. If an evil spirit dwells in a person’s soul, it could manipulate the person’s thoughts, beliefs and actions, such that they become motivated to love only themselves and to be indifferent to others, including future generations. To save this evil-occupied soul, a good spirit must confront the evil spirit.

In our body, our immune system can defend us, very successfully, from attack by many kinds of pathogen, and the immune mechanisms have been scientifically clarified in detail. Unfortunately, scientific understanding of the soul is still undeveloped so that we have to confront any evil spirit which dwells in our soul without the reinforcements of scientific knowledge and power. Now our Planet Earth is in danger from the environmental crisis;  we might regard this as emerging from our soul that has been occupied by an evil spirit. If so, we perhaps may save our Planet by enforcing good spirits together with our soul friends.

Soul Friend by Kenneth Leech was first published in 1977 with a sub-title of A study of Spirituality. The sub-title was changed in a 1980 version to The practice of Christian spirituality. In the revised version of 1994, it was again changed to Spiritual Direction in the Modern World. In the New Revised Edition in 2001, the subtitle remained unchanged. Leech would be satisfied with this prophetic sub-title.