kids these days

In John Cassian's book The Conferences he documents interviews with dozens of monks and hermits in the desert, making notes about their perspectives on spiritual practice. Written in the late 4th century. (!!)

In Chapter 23 one monk comments that things aren't like they used to be. In the old days only the hardest, toughest mystics could survive the attacks of the Devil in the desert solitude. Those that lived in small communities would take turns praying at night, so that they were always on guard. Supernatural attacks were "experienced so frequently, and so visibly." It seems now, he says, that either the Devil has been beaten back by all the generations of prayer in this area, or perhaps more likely, we are so lazy now that the Devil doesn't bother attacking with as much effort. We see monks so lax and sluggish in their character that the elders have to coax them along with extra food and water and extra sleep, lest they get discouraged and wander off to worldly life again...

Reminds me of Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen.

There are various free versions of it here. It's interesting, as much as a "tour" of another time as for the spiritual/practice advice. www.ccel.org/ccel/cassian/conferences.html

One of my qigong teachers claims to have access to spirits. She said that a Tibetan nun tought her to put a round disk made of tinfoil over her C7 vertebrae to prevent attacks by dark spirits. She tried it. At the end of each day, the foil had distress and puncture marks. Some looked like black burn marks. She tried to recreate the damage to the tinfoil a number of different ways to debunk the notion of psychic attack. She ended up becoming a believer. She had a piece of jewelry custom made to cover that spot.