More demons around
It’s hard to tell if the BBC is being sarcastic or not. Maybe the answer is that it’s being both. Sarcastic for the non-crazy and solemn for the barking. It’s rather irresponsible to be so opaque (at best).
Why do exorcists and their clients think that demonic possession is on the
increase? Exorcists point to an alleged increase in interest in the occult,
together with risky behaviour such as practising yoga, reading horoscopes, and an increase in new age forms of spiritualism. One Anglican bishop has said that clues to the presence of an evil spirit include “repeated choice of black, for example in clothing or colour of car”.
Because………..?
The American Association of Exorcists runs a correspondence course, and one evangelical pastor based in Britain runs his own distance learning course using the internet. Most exorcists agree however, that there is no substitute for hands on mentoring with an experienced practitioner.
Because……….what? The hands-on mentoring with an experienced practitioner actually makes the demons go away? Or because they can charge more for it.
Who knows. Meanwhile, be afraid.
Around here, that would be ultra-conservative Catholics. But I guess an Anglican bishop might consider them evil spirits.
I happen to be listening to the audiobook of Janet Reitman’s Inside Scientology. This was the genius of L. Ron Hubbard. If you can convince people that all of their psychologically negative experience can be attributed to something that you can get rid of, they will offer you anything. Exorcism is just an older form of auditing.
Looks like the Black Bumper Mennonites are in big trouble along with those ultra-conservative Catholics.
Oh noes, not the Mennonites! I have Mennonite ancestry, not all that far back.
Okay this was news in Singapore today. a gang of teenage boys- buddhist taoists- used ‘demonic posessesion’ as an excuse to to sexually assault girls.
http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20110806-293128.html
‘Posession’ by gods, goddesses as well as demons and dead spirits is a very widely held and active belief here, especially among taoists and hindus. I have witnessed many people pretending to go into trances . A good number of the hindu types are women and they are usually possessed by the kali- type goddesses and it is very amusing to see the personality change. A usually pious , meek woman is suddenly loudly abusing her social superiors or demanding a smoke or swigging down the alcohol (transgressive behaviour for a hindu woman but perfectly fine for Her Divine Mother).
The taoist mediums who get taken over by kindred deities – very often male – caper and swagger around and besides being very good entertainment value, also give out useful gambling tips. i confess to a sneaking fondness for the such possessions as you can very accurately guess just who is going to be possessed and the interplay between the spectators and the trancee has plenty of comedic value.
The darker side of this is the abuse – almost always sexual- that happens behind closed doors away from the public spectacle. There is always the periodic case in the papers of the medium molesting or raping a woman while pretending to exorcise or cleanse her. The majority of people here actively believe in the power of evil spells and and demonic possession and whatnot. Amulets are a serious business here.
Yeek. Thanks, mirax.
The funny thing is that you dont have to go bug-eyed and start start spewing blasphemies like the characters in Hollywood movies for your family to start worrying about you and carting you off to the nearest medium to be set right. Um, you just have to insist on choosing a certain course at uni that your dad doesnt approve of or start going out with a girl your mother dislikes… See how it works?
Black was the color of choice for puritans and other protestant branches of Christianity for what, 4, 5 centuries or more. So, when and why did the demons possessing them decide that moving over to Mennonites, Goths, muslim and southern Italian elderly women was in order?
There is no nicer way to say it. People who peddle excorcism are dipshits.
Oh I just remembered this; a bunch of teenage boys had a suicide pact and a couple of them actually died two years ago as some kind of grand gesture to save the world from demons. One of the boys was a medium.
http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20090908-166461.html
Taoists , buddhists and hindus are as weird a bunch as all theists. I tend to be less harsh on them as they dont proselytise and are less likely to get all political with their religion, but they def have their quota of crazy.
I think you have nailed it.
Yikes, mirax, that’s sad.
t have always wondered why black clothes are ‘slimming’.
Now I know that it is due to black clothes being a small ‘deal with the devil!
I need to negotiate a better deal because it doesn’t work well enough for me…
It is very, very dull in the CofE these days, so this is probably cunning PR to make the Vicar more interesting. Perhaps they’ll set up a mobile exorcism tent in the entrance to the Steiner school?
I point to demons and I point to quinoa. That’s all.
Time for a history lesson “Dutch Review of Church History”
Black among clergy of many Christian denominations is so ubiquitous that it’s pretty obvious the bishop is trying to start some sectarian shit.
Interest in the occult has actually gone into the decline since the 70’s-when OUIJA boards were the rage- (I would hardly consider t.v. shows like GHOSTHUNTERS or MEDIUM occult),and yet back in those days the vatican was trying to downplay the whole excorcism and demon possession thingy as it was causing the church embarrasment in the wake of newly enacted child protection laws and umm…growing awareness of child abuse.