Welcome to our semi-regular feature – Ask the Rev – where leading paranormal expert and ordained priest (in the Church of Jesus the Latter Day Naturist) Reverend Leonard Fanny addresses our readers’ supernatural personal problems. This time the Rev’s expertise is required to deal with the case of the ‘Holy Grope’.
Dear Reverend,
I am contacting yourself as I am in desperate need of an expert witness in my forthcoming court case. While this might seem to fall outside of your normal function as an adviser on problems of the occult or paranormal kind – and I stand accused of sexual assault – what might be termed the ‘supernatural’ has a direct bearing upon my case. The accusations stem from my activities as what might be termed a ‘faith healer’ – I have a long established ability to heal people of even the most serious illnesses by the laying on of my hands to the afflicted area. I believe that this ability is less divinely inspired than it is the result the alien abduction I suffered as an adolescent – after being returned to earth having been stripped naked and painfully probed in every orifice by humanoid aliens, I could feel an unearthly power coursing through my own body. By channelling this energy into others, I found that I could heal their afflictions.
I feel that I must emphasise that I am not one of those charlatans who hold ‘meetings’, where the sick are invited to be healed in exchange for a ‘donation’ – I heal people ‘on the street’ and solicit no fees, (although if a grateful recipient of my gift chooses to reward me monetarily, I wouldn’t offend them by refusing). I can see peoples’ ‘aura’ – where it turns black is an indication of where their illness lies and where, subsequently, I lay my hands. On many occasions there people are not even aware that they are already sick, my intervention ensuring that they don’t develop visible symptoms. It is from such a case that these charges stem – some months ago, while walking through Woking town centre on a Saturday night, I saw a young woman coming out of a bar, her aura perfect save for the black mark over her chest. I immediately sensed that she was developing a potentially serious respiratory disease, so naturally moved in to lay my healing hands on the area in question. Next thing I knew, she was screaming and slapping me in the face, before kneeing me in the groin. When the police attended the scene, she claimed that I had jumped out on alleyway and pulled her top open, before attempting to roughly grope her breasts with both hands, violently tweaking her nipples. Now, I won’t deny that I had to remove some of her clothing – direct skin-to-skin contact is essential for the healing energy to flow and the nipples are well known to be prime ‘energy valves’ through which the healing power can flow – but I reject the accusation of ‘groping’. I merely laid my hands gently on her chest – there was no ‘roughness’ about it.
After her story appeared in the local newspaper, several other people came forward to the police, claiming that I had similarly assaulted them! These included a girl with an undiagnosed proctological problem who claimed that I slapped her arse as she bent over and an overweight woman with knee problems who alleged that I had groped her thighs while sitting nest to her on a bus. The prosecution case against me claims that doctors have sworn that none of my accusers had any medical problems. Well, obviously! My healing hands had already cured them! My solicitor is advising me to plead guilty on grounds of insanity, but I feel that with expert testimony on the reality of curative powers such as mine, I can sway a jury in my favour. As I feel sure that a religious man of your experience must have encountered similar cases of honest healers like myself being unjustly persecuted, I am hoping that you can testify on my behalf.
G. Roper,
Woking
The Rev Replies: I’m afraid that here at the Church of Jesus the Latter Day Naturist we take a tough line on so-called ‘faith healers’ after we fell foul some chap who claimed that he could cure an entire congregation in one go by ‘emanating his energies’ to them. So, we allowed him to address a gathering of some of our more elderly adherents one Sunday – next thing we knew, the blighter was up in the pulpit, pants and trousers around his ankles, ‘taking Captain Picard to warp speed’ and showering the congregation of old codgers with his ejaculations. While there was no denying that some of them got a temporary relief from their pain thanks to the thrill they experienced, there was no evidence that his jism had any healing powers. In fact, one of the congregation suffered a heart attack.
I’m well aware of various pagan beliefs that energy can flow in and out of various sexual organs and that masturbation might be seen as a form of spiritual worship, or even that ejaculating over a naked woman might be seen as a form of symbolic sacrifice. Such ideas, however, have no place in the Christian faith. Not even our branch which worships the perfection of god’s greatest creation: the human body. We believe in the purity and innocence of nudity, as practiced by Adam and Eve before the fall. Moreover, while it is true that there are examples in the Testaments of spiritual healing being carried out, even by Jesus himself, there is no record of the Son of God trying to cure Mary Magdalene of her venereal disease or even driving out her demons by jacking off over her. Similarly, there are no laying on of hands on breasts, buttocks or other erogenous zones in pursuit of healing on record in the Bible. With regard to your own situation, I think that you should bear in mind that case of the Walsall verger caught buggering choirboys in the vestry: the court rejected completely his claim that, having doused his member with Holy water, he was merely exorcising them of homosexual demons after having caught them wanking each other off behind the altar. I strongly suggest you heed your legal counsel’s advice.
The Rev will be back soon to give more advice on your paranormal problems. So, if your sex life is a hump in the night or you find yourself nocturnally plagued by the attentions of a spectral groper, drop us a line.
(The Rev is also available for weddings, christenings and exorcisms, the latter only on Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons).
