Ruckman became so involved in Zen Buddhism in Japan that it consumed much of his time and thought. Concerning this time, he says, "I lived like the devil."7 He talked Buddhism with the Japanese, studied Zen, yoga, and meditated until he attained a state of samadhi (nirvana). His soul flew out of his body and floated around the room.8 This out-of-body experience was interpreted by him as enlightenment. However, after his soul flew out of his body and floated around the room, Ruckman sank deeper into immorality. Thoughts of suicide constantly filled his mind.9 Ruckman himself now states that he had let in demons during the passive state of samadhi (nirvana), when his soul flew out of his body.10
Coming back from Japan, Ruckman wanted to stay in the Army. But since he had gone AWOL in Hawaii, he didn't re-enlist. Instead, he returned to the United States. Here is his own description of himself at this time, "I came back uneasled(sic), uneasy, unsettled, full of demons, intense, emotional, disturbed, philosophical, brooding, frustrated." 11 Describing the method by which he became demonized, Ruckman says:
I'd sit at night crosslegged with the Japanese around the stove. I want to talk music. They'd say, don’t talk music, Lieutenant. Talk Buddha. And I'd talk Buddha. I was ahead of some of them. I studied Zen. I studied the Sutras, studied yoga; sat cross- legged, concentrated on the object until all was blank. One night in the hotel room I had the experience of nirvana, which the Zen call samadhi, the dislocation of the spirit from the body, temporarily. When that happened I thought I'd attained what I was looking for. I had found the enlightenment. I had found the answer. It was an unforgettable experience. And yet, looking at my moral life following that experience, and my desire at times to commit suicide, I realize I had produced a passive state, which was an entrance for spirits. And the spirits that entered are not the spirits described in the Bible in speaking of the Holy Ghost and the Lord Jesus Christ.12
Thus, Ruckman plainly tells us that demons came into him, spirits that were "not the spirits described in the Bible in speaking of the Holy Ghost and the Lord Jesus Christ." He came back from the war "full of demons." During this period, Ruckman got fired from a job he held at a Pensacola, Florida radio station. He was drinking heavily. He got his wife a job in a dance band. He himself was a disc jockey in the daytime and played drums at night. Ruckman got so depressed that he got a gun to kill himself.13
It was at this point, on the verge of suicide, that Ruckman began to hear a series of voices. He himself interprets the voices as being the voice of God, for the most part. He thinks that he learned to distinguish the voice of God from the voice of demons through yoga. Concerning this experience,
Ruckman said:
I guess if you were as stupid and as superstitious as a psychiatrist, you might say I was hearing voices. But you don't pull that one on me, because in yoga and samadhi and nirvana you get rid of the voices before you contact. And you get to the place where you can discern the subconscious voice from the subliminal level coming through.14
After stealing the Bible, reading it briefly and tossing aside, Ruckman went to see a Catholic priest and began studying to join the Catholic church.
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4
Getting drunk again, Ruckman heard a voice, which he thought, was the voice of God when he got back to his room. The voice said, "If you don't get saved tonight you're going to Hell." Ruckman interprets this as the voice of God, but he did not get saved that night. He is not in Hell. Therefore, the voice lied to him. I think that most Bible-believing Christians will agree that the voice, which spoke to him on this occasion, as well as the other occasions, was demonic. At the end of hearing this series of voices Ruckman says that he felt that he was losing his mind.15
