The Case Against Satan Read Online Free

to stay here. You don’t have to keep things from me.”
    A bit surprised by her directness, Gregory only said, “Fine, fine,” then turned again to the girl’s father. “Well, Mr. Garth, Father Halloran only told me that Susan was very—disturbed—and had these seizures every so often, and that he recommended she see a doctor.”
    â€œA psychiatrist,” amplified Susan.
    â€œWell, yes.”
    â€œAnd that’s all he told you?” asked Garth.
    â€œThat’s all. Did you take her to a psychiatrist?”
    Susan said, “No.”
    â€œOh, she wanted to go,” said Garth, “but—well, in the first place, Father, those guys cost an awful lot of money. I just don’t make that kind of money.” He frowned. “And in the second place—”
    â€œDad,” said Susan.
    â€œIn the second place, my daughter is not
crazy
. Why, there’s never been anything like that in my family. Or in her mother’s either, rest her soul. So how could she all of a sudden be crazy? Now, those fits of hers—that’s something else again. I thought maybe it might be this epilepsy? I had an uncle, on my mother’s side, my mother’s brother he was,
he
used to take fits like that. Epileptic fits. So I figured, well, could be it turned up again in Susie. So we went to a doctor—not a headshrinker, a regular doctor, went to two of ’em in fact—and they both examined her, put her through some kind of electro something or other—”
    â€œElectroencephalograph,” said the girl, quietly.
    â€œYeah. And nothing.”
    â€œNothing?” asked Gregory.
    â€œThat’s right. She’s not an epileptic. Two different doctors said so.”
    â€œI see. And did they say anything else?”
    â€œNo, that was about all.”
    â€œThey said,” Susan insisted, “that I should see a psychiatrist.”
    Gregory had an idea. “Mr. Garth,” he said, “I realize the economic factor can be an obstacle . . . I mean, money doesn’t grow on trees and, as you say, psychiatrists do run pretty high. But what if that part of it were taken care of? You see, I have a very good friend—a brother-in-law, in fact—who is also a very good psychiatrist, and—”
    â€œNo,” Garth said flatly, “nothing doing.”
    â€œBut I’m sure I could persuade him to take the case for next to nothing.”
    â€œThe money is only part of it. Don’t you see, Father? Howcan I send my own daughter to a—to a nut doctor, someone who treats loonies? She’s not crazy!”
    â€œIt’s not a question of her being crazy. A psychiatrist can—”
    But it was a sore point with Garth. His lips and eyes went tightly closed and he shook his head vehemently. “No. No. I know what they do in their offices, these head doctors. They drag everything out of you. They get you to talking and talking—about everything. They don’t have any sense of what’s decent or proper or . . . They just want you to talk about every nasty, filthy thing that ever passed through your mind. I sure wouldn’t allow a girl her age to go through something like that. I just won’t buy it. I don’t believe in it. And I’m surprised you do, Father. Isn’t the Church against all that stuff?”
    â€œNo,” Gregory said simply. “The Church doesn’t endorse it all, I must admit, but—”
    â€œThere, you see?”
    â€œâ€”but it does
not
dismiss or condemn it.” Gregory wanted to tell him about Father Devlin of Chicago, a Catholic priest who was also a practising analyst; he wanted to say that the Church does not make snap judgments, that it sifts and examines evidence for years, sometimes for centuries, before it accepts or rejects a thing; he wanted to tell Garth it took the Church four hundred years to recognize Joan of Arc as a