I was reading my New Testament in the King James Version and found the passage in Matthew 12 that says that the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost cannot be forgiven in this world nor in the next. Maybe the oblong turn my mind made was due to autism; maybe it was due to physiological changes. Maybe it was a combination of both. What mattered was that my mind began to "play tricks" on me. A part of me wanted to curse the Holy Ghost for some inexplicable reason, like a damnation wish. In my mind a mantra began: "The Holy Ghost is good, the devil is bad, the Holy Ghost is good, the devil is bad." I was saying it as fast as I could to avoid the word "stupid" that haunted my mind like constant pinpricks from Satan. Finally I could not resist and said, "The Holy Ghost is stupid." My stomach sank, and I buried my head in the bed and began to cry. I knew I had damned myself to eternal hell with no hope of salvation.
The mantra was not finished. Eventually I said, "The Holy Ghost is damn" (there is a "sic." there; I did not use the word "damned). The mantra suddenly changed. "Damn fool devil; the Holy Ghost is good." Inevitably, I slipped and said, "Damn fool Holy Ghost," which is blasphemy by any definition.
I would imagine the flames of hell burning my skin, with fiery demons whipping my bare back. I dreaded living the rest of my life in the knowledge that my damnation was sure. I would walk around my parent's mobile home over and over again, crying, trying to find some way to escape my fate, but there was none.
Eventually, as I received more training in college and seminary, I realized that in context the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit was a fixed attitude that the Holy Spirit by which Jesus worked miracles was demonic. In expressing that attitude, the Pharisees showed that they were so hardened they would never repent. Since I regretted what I said every time my mantra periods began (usually in January and February, especially after dark), I had not committed the unpardonable sin.
I was trying to come up with an idea for a second novel, a sequel to my Southern Fiction novel, End of Summer, Mama wanted me to write another sweet Southern fiction novel, but I wanted to write a horror novel. I finally became so weary of her requests to write a sweet novel, I (God forgive me) decided to write a horror novel in which I pulled out all the stops -- on language, sexuality, and demonic attack. Yet I was reading H. P. Lovecraft at the time and wanted to write a novel set in that world. Finally I thought, "What if an Old One masqueraded as a demon as understood by the Christian tradition. The monster plays games for the fun of it, and decides to pretend to be a demon to lead a teenage boy into despair and suicide. The "demon" decides to do this by manipulating the boy into believing he committed the unpardonable sin and was going to Hell. Eventually he hoped to drive the boy to suicide.
After that it was a matter of developing the plot and characters. The result is the novel Unpardonable Sin . It is a novel of Lovecraftean horror with a Christian bent, but it is not "Baptist-safe." There is enough bad language and frank sexuality to make the eyeballs of any Baptist pop out. I was pleasantly surprised that my publisher, Mike Parker of WordCrafts Press in Tullahoma, Tennessee, agreed to publish it.
I am pleased with the novel, which used the above incidents in my childhood to show the main character's torment, guilt, and sense of damnation .This novel, I must warn you, is only for those who want to read edgy horror with frank sexuality. I hope you try it out and feel the horror that I felt in my eleventh year.
