"If you come to Hegewisch, you'll hear demons speak out," he says. "I had one throw me 12 feet across the church."
Another time, he recalls, a demon-ridden congregant charged him from the back of the church, levitating just above the pews. Then the fellow tried to attack: "It was Lou, the karate spirit. Karate is demonic. That's what gives it its power. All the martial arts are demonic. It's that Eastern religion."
Eastern religion. Catholicism. Pornography. Alcoholism. Drug abuse. Psychosis. Pacifism. Anger. Jealousy. Pride. Mike Tyson. Halloween. Disneyland. To hear Mr. Worley and his followers talk, you'd be surprised at all the places demons have insinuated themselves, and all the havoc they
wreak.
Scripture and 18 years' experience have taught Mr. Worley that the root of all nastiness is as close as your upper gastrointestinal tract. There, in and around your rib cage, Satan and his henchmen are hunkered down, ready to do evil.
The trick is getting them out. Several times a year, Hegewisch sponsors a mass deliverance, to which troubled souls from around the world converge to purge their evil spirits. Mr. Worley calls it "Saturday night live."
"That's when it really blows sky high. We call it 'living color and screaming sound.' The yelling, kicking and screaming comes because the demons don't want to give up easily."
Sort of a demonic colonic. But this night's was merely one of the two routine weekly exorcisms, and only a dozen or so congregants had their spirits flushed. First came the regular service, a relaxed and folksy meeting full of impromptu testimony, good-natured chatter, prayer and song. Mr. Worley's officiating was informal and light - even comic.
Then the lights dimmed, and a cadre of volunteers appeared with armloads of paper towels. Deliverers paired off with deliverees and commenced to praying quietly. Within 10 minutes, things began to pop. In the front pew, a used-car salesman was squealing, his face grotesquely contorted. Behind him, Mr. Worley attended to a sheet-metal worker named Phil, who violently thrashed despite being held by the pastor and two other men.
"Move! Move! In Jesus' name, I command you!" said Mr. Worley to Phil's demon.
"He's still in there," Phil scornfully replied.
"Leave this man!"
"No."
"Abedon!" Mr. Worley bellowed. "Is that your name? I bind you to the authority of the third heaven, high above Lucifer!"
This went on for a half-hour. Every 30 seconds or so, one of the handlers
put a paper towel to Phil's mouth, whereupon Phil gagged up phlegm. In time, the whole church resounded with retching. But nobody seemed to mind - not even the young children who wandered happily about.
One 8-year-old with a half-eaten Tootsie Roll Pop approached and put his hand on Phil: "Get out of him in the name of Jesus," the boy said flatly.
Minutes later, Phil was back to normal, talking about how exorcism had changed his life. In his teens and 20s, he said, he'd been tormented by dreams and drawn to pornography. Plus, his back and chest were grossly disfigured with acne.
"My first deliverance," he recalled. "One of the spirits that manifested itself was the spirit of acne. The next day, I was 90 percent cleared up."
Al, a longtime Hegewisch member, nodded in agreement. Before being exorcised, he said, "I had it all: paranoid schizophrenia, manic-depressive, suicidal, homicidal." Now he's leading a normal life selling cars, and totally unsurprised by the number of pilgrims who visit Hegewisch seeking help.
"Like the pastor says, 'When you have the only laundromat in town, you get all the dirty laundry.' "
Mr. Worley just shrugs.
"We're just plodding along," he says, "following the Lord."
