The Black Arts
How Satan Trips Us Up
It’s gotta be the wee lad in me, but I am fascinated with heroism.
Whether it’s legends like Brave Horatius; martyrs similar to Bl. Miquel Pró; soldiers who persist despite personal injury (Canada’s Léo “Unstoppable” Majors); politicians and leaders like Winston Churchill and George Washington; even nations like WWII England … historical or fiction, I love it all. I am fascinated with what motivates them and how they choose to encounter the storm.1
My years in the Sales Industry was rife with stories like these.
Nearly every sales conference I attended, from local luncheons hosted by Canada’s Advocis to multinational ones like the prestigious Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), we were consuming a steady diet of heroism in the face of massive adversity.
The irony for me was that the more I consumed these stories, the less interested I became in sales and the more my passion for evangelization and preaching grew.
There are countless lessons from history’s Annals of Heroism for the Christian who refuses to be placated by the mediocre Christianity that seems to pass as today’s “Mainstream Catholicism” in the Western world.
SOG
Case in point, the United State’s Studies and Observations Group--affectionately known as: “SOG.”
Founded 60 years ago by the United States’ Military Assistance Command during the Vietnam war, SOG’s aim was to “conduct more effective special operations against North Vietnam” and the Communist Party of China’s attempt to rule Southeast Asia. Although officially dissembled in 1972, “SOG 'blazed a trail' for current Army and joint special operations task forces in the war against transnational terrorism” (source).
I first stumbled on this elite unit through my favourite podcaster, Jack Carr (a Navy SEAL Veteran and best-selling author), when he interviewed independent journalist Annie Jacobson. They spoke about a number of things, but one person they spoke about was the recently deceased, Billy Waugh (b.1929 to d. 2023).
Deemed the Godfather of the Green Berets, Billy Waugh is a SOG Veteran and the man responsible for finding both Carlos the Jackal and Osama Bin Ladin.2 After learning about Billy Waugh, I found John Plaster’s book on SOG (see footnote number 3).
The Black Arts
“The key to a successful black propaganda campaign was to develop a general theme upon which to hang all sorts of individual operations. As in any kind of deception … it was fastest, easiest, and most effective to reinforce what the enemy already believes or suspects rather than try to convince him of something entirely new.”3
“The Black Arts” refers to the US Government’s attempt to develop networks of resistance within N.Vietnam by way of a “PSYWAR” (Psychological Warfare). They accomplished this by communicating highly classified and carefully executed lies and deception. This communication was only effective by “blacking out” swaths of reports from the SOG men on the ground, by keeping the information under very strict rules of classification.
Before you and I end up on an endless rabbit trail along the annuls of clandestine warfare, I want to focus on one thing: Psychological Warfare is only effective when it plays on “what the enemy already believes or suspects” (see above quote).
Principalities and Powers
“For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12-20).
Satan is at war with you, and he will play with your wounded nature to defeat you. To subdue his enemy (that’s you), he will attempt to reinforce the lies that you already believe or suspect, no matter how long it takes him.
You and I need to know that he will also seek our complacency, and not rest solely on our eternal souls. He knows that if he can quench the Burning Bush within your Baptized Soul, he will also disrupt the potential of your peers to be fully aware of the empowerment given them by the Living God. Saints make Saints, and if he can prevent us from being a Saint then … well, I guess that means that we won’t exactly be in the business of Saint making then!
Strengthen Your Supply Lines
Think of it from the perspective of Supply Lines.
If I want to lay siege to an enemy’s stronghold, I will disrupt their supply lines. I will poison their water source, capture their food reserves, steal their financial resources, and make their allies unreliable, all with the goal in mind of utter annihilation.
Make your supply lines impenetrable: surrender your heart to Jesus and celebrate the Sacraments as often as possible.
The key phrase here is, surrender your heart to Jesus. It is entirely plausible to celebrate the Sacraments as often as possible and yet, tragically, never surrender your heart to Jesus.
By celebrating the Sacraments as often as possible, you’ll probably still get to heaven but imagine how much more of an impact your soul could have had if you would have surrendered your heart completely to Jesus. Arguably, this is one of the primary concerns of Purgatory: that it remains a place of total surrender to the heart of the living God.
For me, I am not satisfied with simply “getting into heaven” … I want to take as many souls with me as possible and, once I’ve gotten into heaven, I don’t want to stop drawing more and more and more souls into heaven. This is only possible, if I make my supply lines impenetrable. This includes purging the lies that enable Satan’s Dark Arts to manipulate me into mediocrity and possibly even eternal death.
It’s not enough to confess my sins in Confession, but to acknowledge the motivating circumstance and desire that led me to choosing these sins. Ask the Lord of Light to illuminate your eyes and see these desires, the pleasure, that I seek when I choose my sin (i.e. “why is this a temptation? What am I looking for?”). Let this become an integral part of your Examination of Conscience.
Only when we do this can we be expunged of the souvenirs of Hell that disrupt our supply lines.
“If we insist on keeping Hell (or even earth), we shall not see Heaven; if we accept accept Heaven, we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell” (CS Lewis).4
Acknowledge these souvenirs, then ask the Lord of Consolation to heal and to satisfy your heart.
The Divine Physician Longs to Restore You
Our Catechism reminds us that our distractions in prayer show us what our attachments are. The same is true here: our temptations show us where our supply lines are weakest. These temptations don’t necessarily lead us to sin, but to mediocrity and despair: both of which will stunt your growth in the Spirit and make you not as effective for the Kingdom of God.
A personal example. I’ve written about this before, but I feel like a total screw-up 99% of the time. Psychology calls this struggle, “Imposter Syndrome,” and many people struggle with it. When Satan pokes me, he’s hitting me at this “Imposter” bruise and I immediately become as limp as a wounded puppy. The mediocrity in my life? Sure, some if it is related to laziness, but a good portion of it has to do with this massive bruise on my psyche.
Perhaps your bruise is something else, we’ve all got these bruises or wounds, but whatever it is we need to ask God to reveal this thing we struggle with. Then, we gotta attempt (with every fibre of our being) an act of wilful surrender to the healing heart of Jesus. You can do this with prayer, or chatting with a trusted friend, or perhaps through counselling … whatever it is, we need to go through this healing process.
We are not victims but victors, because of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus! He has opened the Floodgates of Mercy, Healing, and Strength through the person of the Holy Spirit.
Ask for it. Ask the Lord of all Love and Healing to restore your soul. He will mend your wounds, care for your bruises, and empower you with his Holy Spirit. The Divine Physician longs to restore you and to strengthen your supply lines, let him in and give him permission to get to work.
Here’s a great line for you: “The Devil whispered to the warrior: ‘You cannot withstand the storm’; the warrior whispered back, ‘I am the storm’” (source unknown).
Here’s a link to this book, Hunting the Jackal: A Special Forces and CIA Soldier’s Fifty Years on the Frontlines of the War on Terrorism: https://www.amazon.com/Hunting-Jackal-Soldiers-Frontlines-Terrorism/dp/0060564105
Ret. Maj. John Plaster, SOG: The Secret Wars of America’s Commandos in Vietnam (New York, New York: New American Library, 1997), p. 125.
Lewis, CS, The Great Divorce (New York, New York: HarperCollins, 2001), viii.