I was sitting on the sofa in my flat feeling utterly hemmed in by Satan — a devil in the flat below me and a devil in the other flat in the building. The devil in my father, the devil in the housing association, the devil in the neighbourhood. The only thing that was enabling me to cope with life was getting drunk every day.

I began to experience episodes of an experience that was truly terrifying. It’s hard to describe. For several seconds at a time, an overwhelmingly dark spiritual force wo...