In retrospect it is difficult to understand the popularity of Brian Flemming’s “documentary” film, The God who wasn’t There (2005), on atheistic websites that advertise themselves as bastions of education and rationality. Curious about all the hoopla, I finally buckled down and subjected myself to this viciously self-serving little diatribe.
The viewer might intuit that trouble lies ahead when the film asserts that for thousands of years “the sun revolved around the earth” – meaning, of course, that this erroneous idea was held to be true through the ages. No sooner does the film refute this terracentric fallacy than it asks, “If Christianity was wrong about that, could it be wrong about other things?” Missing here, obviously, is the simple fact that terracentrism was a cosmology held by most ancient people, from astronomers, astrologers, philosophers, to merchants and sailors and emperors and, finally, priest-kings, prophets and other kinds of religionists. To select Christianity out of all of these candidates – and moreover, to ignore Christianity’s resiliency in admitting its incorrect involvement in pre-scientific mistaken identity – is symptomatic of Flemming’s entire approach and indeed the totality of his dysfunctional film.
Flemming soon repeats his folly. Introducing us to various “faces of Christianity” – the literally smiling faces of believers – the director-narrator darkly warns that there is another face of Christianity. The screen immediately cuts to the visage of mass-murderer Charles Manson, whose only involvement with Christianity that I am aware of was that he – and some of his “Family” – sometimes thought of him as “Jesus”. Frankly, this egregiously nasty and wildly phoney association tempted me to stop watching then and there. But, because the film was advertised as containing interviews with serious scholars, I pressed on, to my chagrin.
Flemming’s main thesis is 1) that Jesus never existed and 2) that Flemming was screwed by Christianity. The film’s tone clearly suggests that point 2) is motivating point 1). Fleming has a chip on his shoulder and an axe to grind, and this personally negative tone falls across the film like a leprous shadow.
Regarding point 1), the film does present some scholarly reasons for thinking that perhaps there was no Jesus of history, that the original Jesus was a cosmic savior-hero whose exploits were only later condensed and reduced to the confines of a single historical human being and his historical life. The theory is intriguing. For instance, it goes some distance in explaining how, early on in the Christian story, so many different images of Jesus and so many varying christologies sprang into existence – and why the figure of Jesus has been reified into almost as many “fits” as there are scholars doing the research. From a certain perspective – the “mythicist” view – it looks as if a mythological being was being brought down to earth and gradually, inconsistently, clothed with human and semi-human attributes.
While this theory is worthy enough, my personal view at this time is based on the scholarly consensus that seven of Paul’s letters are “authentic” – that is, they have their major source in Paul’s own writing (at least his writing as taken down by scribes). In Paul’s letter (epistle) to the Galatians and scattered elsewhere through these authentic texts are Paul’s references to his personal acquaintance with Jesus’ own closest disciples, including James and Peter (Simon, Kephas). Now, unless these disciples completely imagined or invented their Master, it is clear that Paul was in contact with people who 1) knew that Jesus existed and 2) knew him personally. The fact that Paul frequently mentions the Judean disciples in semi-contemptuous terms (unlike them, Paul has a special revelation “not received from men”; the Judeans are mad circumcisers, etc.) leads most scholars, via “the criterion of embarrassment”, to accept the disciples’ historicity, and therefore by implication, Jesus’ own historical reality. And this is where I place myself: the historical, pre-Easter Jesus was a Jewish mystic, parabolic teacher, and revitalization movement founder; the post-Easter Jesus was the risen, living, angelic, exalted/glorified Christ-Spirit, but still portrayed in primarily Jewish terms. So, yes, for me, the pre-Easter Jesus was historical. But he doesn’t need to be, and if research should sway the consensus in the mythicist direction, I will need to re-evaluate my position.
As mentioned, this is where the film is best. Its clips of biblical scholar and H.P. Lovecraft afficianado Robert M. Price are informative and help to make a case for a mythicist, non-historical view of Christ. But most of the other interview material is peripheral at best and misleading at worst. The material featuring prominent atheists Sam Harris and Richard Carrier is moderately interesting but is utterly useless in making Flemming’s case for the mythical Christ. Rather, it only serves to unmask the director’s anti-religion agenda, as if to associate mythicism with a necessarily anti-religious and atheistic point of view. On the contrary – as Price himself has said many times – mythicism properly understood is a powerfully spiritual means of understanding world and self. Price has even cited myth-proponent Carl G. Jung’s famous reply to the question of his belief in God, “No, I don’t believe; I know”, as evidence of the psychological value of experiencing one’s own “mystical, gnostic, inner” deity. But all such positives are ignored or mocked by Flemming’s shallow debunkery.
At the end of the film, Flemming abandons all show of objectivity, going back to his former conservative-Christian school to “interview” one of its chiefs, who requests that the taping be stopped. The problem seems to be that Flemming set up the interview under false pretenses, that the questions he formerly indicated would be asked were very different from the ones he actually does ask during the interview. His interviewee finally walks off-screen, to Flemming’s impotent, whining protests. One’s sympathy falls toward the apparently victimized school head rather than to the corrosive Flemming.
As a final blow on behalf of Flemming’s self-justification, he finds that the school’s chapel is unlocked, a fortuitous opportunity for him to tiptoe in and make snide remarks about his endarkened, pre-atheistic student years. In his last image of himself, the chapel interior in the background, Flemming triumphantly proclaims that he has committed that famous Gospel “sin against the Holy Spirit” – and is proud of it. Finally, the true motivation of this film emerges: its director is hurt and petulant. And because of this, although he mis-states that he went searching for Jesus (but paradoxically only ended up finding Robert Price, Sam Harris, Richard Carrier and other mere atheistic mortals), the film fatally suffers. Aside from the few segments previously mentioned, this film is not worth watching. It is a shame that it gets so much free publicity on sites whose operators should – and unfortunately, in most cases, probably do – know better.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring (2003), directed by Ki-Duk Kim. South Korea.
This beautifully photographed and exquisitely paced film tells the story of a young monk, raised from childhood by an older monk/priest, in a floating shrine on a mountain lake. The film relates the wisdom of the elder monk and the follies of his young disciple, who has an affair with and impregnates a woman, leaves the shrine and who, like the New Testament’s Prodigal Son, finally returns full of world-sin. His old Master tries to rehabilitate his young charge. By the film’s end, we are to understand that the young monk has finally achieved inner peace, if not Enlightenment. Unfortunately, the film’s ending - spoilers ahead – does not support any sense of lasting merit for the protagonist’s attainments.
We are introduced to the young monk as a child, one of whose major amusements is tormenting various small animals that he encounters in a waterfall-fed stone basin. In this pond, the child finds a fish, a frog, and a snake, to whom he ties stones fastened with string. The little boy giggles as he watches the creatures wriggle off and struggle with their burdens. However, while this is taking place, his Master, like a tutelary spirit, is watching the boy from a short distance. When the boy returns to the floating shrine and falls asleep for the night, the elder monk ties a heavy stone to the child’s back. The next morning, the old monk directs the boy, carrying his heavy load, back to the waterfall pond. There the boy seeks out the three animals he has wounded. The fish and the snake are dead; he finds the frog and unties the string and the stone, setting the frog free. He has begun to understand, through the imposed discipline of carrying his own stone, the suffering he has inflicted on the innocent.
The film continues, depicting the young monk’s trials and his difficult period of readjustment after returning to the shrine. At one point he is presented with a little boy – his own son, whom he must raise, as he was raised, in the floating shrine. Toward the end of the film, the young monk ties a heavy rock to himself and drags a statue of what appears to be Kwan-Yin (female Buddha of compassion) to the top of a high hill that overlooks the lake and the shrine. By taking on this discipline – imposed on him from without when a child - as an adult, the monk affirms the value of compassionate understanding, as well as his Master’s truth of vision. One might think that the film would end here on a triumphal note of a soul rescued from egoic attachment to this illusionary samsaric world. But no: the film continues on for a few minutes, a time frame in which its affirmative message is questioned, if not overturned.
The whole thrust of the film is that the young monk learns that just as he has placed senseless, tormenting burdens on animals, so too he has placed burdens on other sentient beings, including himself.
His solitary pulling the stone up the mountain carrying Kwan-Yin reiterates the stone-pulling discipline that the old monk imposed on the monk as a child. This time, it shows his own adult, mature, ultimate agreement with his Master’s principle that it is wrong to torment beings, and it symbolizes his acknowledgement of guilt. But in the film’s final minutes, the young monk’s own little boy is shown exhibiting exactly the same cruelty that his father had committed as a child so many years before. This is sickening to watch, and even worse to reflect upon.
This is what makes the film’s message unclear and the film itself a “downer”. Our young monk has spent a lifetime trying to learn compassion and the disavowal of power. Then, his own son hastens to duplicate his father’s worst behaviors. Only this time, when the son misbehaves, unlike the case of his father (who had the old monk as mentor), the little boy does not even have the advantage of his Dad following him around to monitor and correct his misbehavior.
Thus the ending scenario is even worse than its original presentation: our young monk had a guiding mentor who knew of, and corrected, his bad behavior. But, as filmed, it is clear that now the young monk’s son has no one watching out for him. This is unmistakably the meaning: had he chosen, in filming the little boy’s father-duplicating misadventures with innocent animals, the director could – as with the earlier scenario where the old monk monitors the young monk – easily have planted our young monk in the near background, the father checking up on his son. This explicit absence of adult-and/or Enlightened watchfulness and supervision in this second, final and significant scenario is glaring and can only be intentional. The director is clearly depicting the unfolding of samsara in the little boy’s life, but this time, without even a glimmer of future redemption. The viewer is unaccountably left with a feeling of “what’s the use?”
Among other things, Buddhism concerns itself with transcending the attachments and cruelties of egoic life. Spring’s final message, on the contrary, almost seems a capitulation to ego, attachment, and cruelty as eternal givens just barely, if at all, subject to human mitigation. It states that our condition of evil and ignorance – samsara – lives on, despite the hard lessons and best efforts of our young monk; despite the self-mastery of someone who has understood samsara’s illusional nature and is now raising his own little boy as a monk. Some might find this statement to simply be a pragmatic depiction of samsara’s prevalence. However, that interpretation does not make much sense in view of all that has gone before it in terms of suffering, guilt, struggle, seeking and attainment.
It is essential to realize – which the film fails to do – that the core Buddhist message is also that samsara can be depotentiated. Instead of expressing the hopeful Buddhist message that cruelty and self-power can be transcended, Spring’s climax practically rubs our nose in samsara, saying in essence: “See? Samsaric ignorance repeats itself in all generations.” At this point we may justifiably ask: So? We sat through this long movie just to hear that cliched bit of common knowledge? Then why the huge build up of expectation and hopefulness, of struggle and inner peace sought/inner peace found?
In many reviews and on many websites Spring is advertised as some kind of classic Buddhist film, but I feel that this is not the case at all. Buddha said, “I teach suffering… AND the END of suffering.” This film mostly portrays the first half of Buddha’s dictum, leaving the human condition in a perpetual state of suffering, ignorance, and cruelty, while virtually ignoring the liberating second half which concerns liberation. Buddha taught that the Dharma was for all, and was the single Law that mitigates samsara. But Spring seems to severely limit the universal thrust of Buddha’s intent by the way in which it depicts the “next generation” – in the person of the young monk’s child – as continuing on in an almost genetic line of cruelty.
“Narrow is the Way” seems to be Kim’s message – a way much narrower than the Buddha ever implied. If director Kim wants us to think that all will be well because after all the little boy is our young monk’s son and is being raised as a monk, he needs to think again. Our young monk himself was raised in a holy manner and still threw his life to the winds, even with Master-mentoring. But Spring’s final moments quite deliberately show the young monk’s child alone in the grotto, without a hint of fatherly-Masterly supervision… a dark unfolding with an even darker implication. And that is what makes this movie a downer.
The Exorcist, both the novel and the film, have been subject to various misconceptions, some of which this post attempts to correct.
Father Merrin’s archeological dig disturbed the ancient sleep of the demon Pazuzu, who went on to seek vengeance on Merrin via the demonic possession of Regan Macneil.
This is wrong for several reasons. First, Pazuzu is not a demon at all, but rather an ancient Neo-Assyrian deity. His functions are to bring pestilence and to control the southwest wind. His most famous act was to vanquish the evil goddess, Lamashtu, who was considered to be the cause of miscarriage and childhood illness. Hence the Iraqi museum curator’s comment on seeing Merrin handling the Pazuzu amulet he has uncovered from the dig, “Evil against evil.” Neither author Blatty nor director Friedkin suggest that Pazuzu is a demon or is any way involved in the MacNeil possession.
Second, the Pazuzu amulet and later the large Pazuzu statue, figure in the Prologue as projection carriers for Merrin’s mounting sense of dread. Merrin’s unconscious mind seizes on these ancient pagan symbols, which begin to trigger premonitions and feelings of dread within the old priest. They are the stimuli, not the causes, of his apprehensions. The Iraq dig becomes for Merrin an omen, a foreshadowing that he must soon “face an ancient enemy”. This enemy is not Pazuzu, but a nameless demon that Merrin confronted and defeated in Africa some twelve years previously. Nowhere in the novel or the film is the demon named. Certainly if Merrin thought the demon was Pazuzu, he would have called it by that name. Instead, Merrin c0nsistently refers minimally, curtly, to the possessing entity merely as “the demon”.
Film director Burke Dennings was molesting Regan MacNeil.
This is wrong because Blatty goes out of his way to depict Dennings’ murder as despicable and inexplicable, and to portray Dennings as a genuine friend of the MacNeil household. In point of fact Blatty describes Dennings as a kind and thoughtful person, except when inebriated. Moreover, even when inebriated, Blatty describes Dennings as a loud, insulting, obnoxious drunk, not a child molester. In one scene Blatty has the film-wrap dinner party hostesses remove (a briefly unsupervised) Dennings from the premises (i.e., before he would have time to sneak up to Regan’s room for nefarious purposes). But perhaps the most telling argument against the Dennings molestation theory is Regan’s own attitude. Her only objection to Dennings is that her mother might marry him and therefore further displace Regan’s father, Howard MacNeil. Even so, Regan tells her mother Chris that “Mr. Dennings” is welcome to attend her birthday celebration. Obviously, Burke Dennings is no molester. The Exorcist’s only molester is the demon itself.
The pale “demonic” face-flashes seen in Father Damien Karras’s dream and during the exorcism represent Pazuzu.
This is incorrect because Pazuzu, as mentioned above, is not a demon and is not possessing Regan MacNeil. The demonic face is that of actress Eileen Dietz, who was a body/stunt double for Linda Blair (who played Regan). Therefore it would be preferable to call the “flash face” instead “the Dietz Face,” in order to avoid the confusion of calling it “Pazuzu” or “Captain Howdy”. Moreover it must be noted that the Dietz Face in no way resembles the Pazuzu amulet and statue.
The Dietz Face represents Captain Howdy.
This is wrong, at least in terms of the film’s original release. “Captain Howdy” is the name that Regan calls the demon during its initial introductory phase. It is unknown if the name is Regan’s own title or if the demon has so introduced himself. In any case, it is unlikely that the face could represent Howdy, because Karras dreams of the same face, which shows up later in the exorcism. We have no idea what Captain Howdy looks like (if indeed he even has human features). Director Friedkin never visually takes us inside Regan’s mind. We only know that a demonic face – the Dietz Face – appears to Karras in a dream and then later on in the exorcism. Again, this applies to the film’s original release.
However, in The Version You’ve Never Seen (TVYNS), Friedkin does enter Regan’s mind just once, during her initial medical examination, during which her eyes widen and she “sees” the Dietz Face. This establishes that the demon manifests internally at least once to Regan, and at least once to Karras, and it is wearing its Dietz Face.
Even so, there is no reason to think that the Dietz Face is Captain Howdy, since – again – the same face also appears in Karras’s dream. There is no reason that Karras should be seeing the face of Regan’s “imaginary” (demonic) playmate – he has not yet even met Regan or heard her Howdy fantasies; moreover: obviously, Karras is a sophisticated adult, and the demon would likely appear to the priest in a much different form than it appears to the child Regan.
Perhaps the Dietz Face is the demon’s archetypal linkage or interface with the human psyche, or perhaps this is how the human psyche reacts to the demon’s presence. And in any case – as already mentioned - the Dietz Face bears no resemblance whatsoever to Pazuzu, a fact which further strengthens the claim that the demon and the ancient deity are two entirely separate individuals.
Lieutenant William Kinderman (Lee J. Cobb) finds fragments of a clay Pazuzu sculpture at the base of the Hitchcock Steps outside of the MacNeil house. How did the Pazuzu amulet get from Iraq to Georgetown?
This is incorrect. What Kinderman finds at the base of the steps leading to “M” Street are simply Regan’s innocent clay sculptures; they are not heads, amulets, or any other representation of Pazuzu. Presumably these were knocked off her window sill when Dennings was defenestrated. The film does not make clear, but the novel does, that Kinderman takes a sample of the sculptures for analysis, which reveals that the same clay was used to desecrate a Marian statue in a nearby Catholic Church (Regan, possessed, or semi-possessed, was carrying out this “satanic” abuse of holy objects).
How does Karras’s mother die in the hospital when the script has her dying at home?
Mary Karras does not die in the hospital. Rather, Karras comes to visit her and to tell her that he is getting her out of the hospital. It is only after a stay of unknown time at home that Mary sickens again, this time fatally. This is what Father Joseph Dyer refers to at Chris’s dinner party in saying that Mary had been dead for several days before it was discovered that she had passed away.
How does the Saint Joseph medal get from the “Pazuzu hole” in Iraq to Damien Karras’s neck?
It doesn’t. These are two separate medals. Assumptively, the first has been reverently placed in the “Pazuzu hole” by some Christian in order to ward off evil influences of what, to that Christian’s (or Christians’) mind, was an unholy pagan shrine. The second is simply a medal worn by Karras, a Catholic priest, and as such is unremarkable. It’s there to provide resonance with the Prologue’s medal. On a purely symbolic level, once the Iraq medal is removed from the hole, Merrin discovers the Pazuzu head and begins to experience a feeling of growing evil; once the possessed Regan rips away Karras’s medal, the demon manifests “full force” and Karras pulls the demon into himself. This obviously signifies the removal of a symbol of holy protection, followed by the appearance of unholy presences.
The demon killed Merrin, which means that the demon won.
This is erroneous because the demon did not kill Merrin, and the demon considered Merrin’s dying a cheat and a defeat for itself (the demon). Merrin simply died of heart failure. The demon had no influence on Merrin’s death (despite the ludicrous assertions of Exorcist II: the Heretic). Moreover, the demon wanted to kill Regan in Merrin’s presence and in spite of Merrin’s best efforts. That Merrin died before the demon could defeat him (the demon rages that Merrin “would have lost”) galls the demon mercilessly – i.e, Merrin’s dying before the demon could kill Regan is a huge defeat for the demon, not for Merrin.
Karras lost because he was possessed and killed himself.
This is wrong because Karras deliberately invited the demon to possess him. Possession by invitation is not the same thing as (for example, in Regan’s case) possession by sheer victimization. Karras wanted to fight the demon himself, and the demon 0bliged.
That Karras won the fight is obvious because when first possessed, Karras’s features take on the demonic “look” that has haunted Regan throughout her own possession. In this possessed state, Karras advances on Regan – who is now no longer possessed. Friedkin shoots this scene with Regan framed between Karras’ would-be strangler’s hands. Then the shot moves to Karras’s face, as he shouts – in his normal, non-possessed voice – “NO”.
Immediately, the demonic scourge vanishes from Karras’s face, and while Regan is still unpossessed, Karras leaps through the window, taking the demon with him. When Karras impacts at the foot of the steps, it is clear that both he and Regan are now free of the demon.
To underscore this fact, Friedkin shows us Karras making “a good act of contrition” to Dyer, and also shows Regan, once more herself, crying and talking to her mother in her normal voice (this is witnessed by Kinderman as well – as if to cement the objective reality of Regan’s liberation).
Therefore it is clear that Karras won over the demon. In a valid sense, what has happened is “demonicide,” not suicide. Karras has taken on the demon, freed Regan, saved her life… at the cost of his own. To Karras goes the accolade of a self-sacrificial, even Christlike, death. The demon has lost. Human love, and in the novel especially, divine love, have won. Any doubts about this issue can be removed by Blatty’s own repeated statements that the demon did not win, and he does not want readers and audiences thinking that the demon won.
I’ll try to address other misconceptions about this film as they come to me, but for now I believe the major questions have been dealt with.
Filed under: Christianity, film, religion | Tags: christianity film religion
Unfortunately, the gorgeous trailer, with its lovely photography and lyrical musical score, is the best thing about this documentary: the actual film doesn’t meet the hype.
As advertised, the Dalai Lama is “featured,” but not in any interview or direct communication with the filmmakers. Instead, a clip is shown from one of his speeches encouraging religious tolerance. And the other interviews – except for a brief clip of Gnosticism specialist Elaine Pagels (whose extended interview in the Bonus section is worth watching) – are not very informative – and they suffer from being strangely inconclusive, if not off-the-wall. The filmmakers do get lucky enough to procure an interview with “the Pope of Hinduism,” which, however, is a complete disappointment which only serves to confirm the already established rumor that “Jesus studied here.”
The trailer bills the film as Edward Martin’s religious journey from fundamentalism to a wider, more tolerant spirituality. But it only gives mere glimpsess of Martin’s ex-faith community, e.g., his fundamentalist pastor and a Bible teacher, and these folks don’t really go after him. They only say what Martin has already told us in the trailer, that since Jesus’ “gap” or “missing” years are not filled in by the Bible, according to biblically literalist principles, we don’t need to know about them – and even if we did find out that Jesus went to India, that wouldn’t change anything the New Testament says about him.
From what he actually reveals of his fundamentalist roots, we have no reason to think that Martin underwent an especially tortuous struggle, even though he says that his faith journey cost him friends from his prior spiritual community. The sense conveyed is mostly that they are sad he went his own way, and they really don’t understand him.
Concerning its central subject matter, the film tells us nothing substantially new about the Notovich document (whose author claims to have read an ancient document proving that Jesus studied in the Himalayas), or about Jesus’ purported Kashmiri tomb (other than that it has been remodeled by Muslim “militants” who supposedly moved its tenant to a basement beneath the remodeled tomb).
James Deardorff, retired professor of atmospherics from Oregon State University and UFO researcher, only gets a few seconds to describe how Jesus might have survived the crucifixion and travelled to India, but then gets swallowed up in the film’s somewhat loopy narrative.
Nor does the film cogently address the two “Jesus in India” rumors: the first, that Jesus at the age of twelve went to India to study Hinduism and Buddhism, and then returned to Judea with a mission; the second, that after surviving the crucifixion, Jesus returned to India, taught the Lost Tribes of Israel there, and died at the age of 112. Instead, the film dances around both rumors without strongly distinguishing them or analysing each for its respective historical plausibility.
Worse yet, the DVD quality is less than desirable, especially when viewed via computer. When viewed full-screen most location footage is grainy and mottled, with distracting ghosting as occurs for instance with pictures over-sharpened in Photoshop. This problem seems less noticeable in the non-location post-or-preproduction segments. It is certainly not evident in most of the Bonus material (the filmmakers’ appearances on lecture circuits and talk shows). This leads me to believe that something must have been sub-par with the location video equipment. (Nor is the Bonus material free of glitches. Out of the four Bonus features that I watched, three were compressed so that the image was squashed and laterally flattened.) A knowledgable friend has informed me that the film was shot on a consumer camera which accounts for its poor imaging when viewed via computer. Apparently it looks tolerable if viewed with a TV DVD player.
All told, not a very good effort and not a very good product. If you can get it (http://www.jesus-in-india-the-movie.com/) or elsewhere (hopefully cheaply), and it might make a trivial, “conversation piece” kind of addition to your video libary. And there is, as I mentioned, that fairly good interview with Pagels. Otherwise, however, I really can’t recommend it.
Filed under: Christianity, film, religion | Tags: christianity religion film
Physician and playwright Jonathan Miller has produced a BBC program titled Atheism: a Rough History of Disbelief. This program has the pluses and the minuses one might expect from life-long atheist Miller.
On the plus side:
Miller’s honesty in praising the beauty and the rich imaginative appeal of religious imagery; his feeling that his perspective would be the poorer without such imagery.
Miller’s detailed treatment of Thomas Paine’s story and his influence in the origins of America.
Miller’s pinpointing of the French writer Holbach as the first modern atheist, and how his “strong” atheism differed from the disbelief of Hobbes and Hume.
On the minus side:
Miller’s treatment of rationalism as an unmitigated good. He praises Thomas Paine’s promotion that commoners take rationalism to heart and do their own thinking, rather than taking the socially correct choice of submitting to external authority. As a rationalist, Miller is not interested in people developing their non-rational (not their irrational) functions. From a holistic perspective, one would think that the balanced psyche ought to investigate both rational as well as mystical alternatives – both without superstitious regard for authority’s tyranny.
Miller’s repeated citing of the cliche, “Fear is the mother of religion.” Surely this is only a partial truth. Most religions begin in the mystical experience of their respective founders. Jesus’ spirituality begins in his mystical oneness with his “Father in heaven” and his subsequent vision of the Kingdom of God. The Buddha’s spirituality begins in his meditative union with the states of Bodhi and Nirvana. In the proverbial mists of forgotten eons, the shamanic experience of soul-journeying and identification with theriomorphic spirits was the oldest form of spirituality, and “shamanic enlightenment” was the original form of that much-used and abused phrase. If Miller wants to dismiss such experiential knowledge of God as expressions of “temporal lobe transients” or other neurological etiologies, he is welcome to do so, but first he must acknowledge the experiential elements that form the core of every religion.
Miller too easily takes the reductionist path in boiling religion down to a primal , primitive fear and ignorance of the world. It is perhaps for this reason that Miller begins his religious critique with the all-too stereotypical example of the 9/11 attacks. Fear based religion and its consequential hatred are disproportianately blamed for the horrors of that bright September day.
I say “disproportionately” because it can be argued with equal probity and force that “Islamic” terrorism is really inspired by Western – particularly American – imperialism in the Middle East. Granted, radical Islam does provide a practical means of acting out the often quite just feelings of hatred toward a corrupt and corrupting nation-state whose fanatical support for Israeli terrorist policies makes it both a puzzle and a laughing stock to the more sensible nations of the world. But in any case, Islam’s revolt against the West is as much political and cultural as it is religious.
Miller also errs in thinking that radical Islam wants to topple America, simply because it is viewed by such Islamists as a corrupt secular, “infidel” state. Miller leaves out of the equation the fact that America’s religiosity – inasmuch as it is not radical Islam – is itself “infidel”, and therefore begs for the purifying blade of Islam’s sword.
Miller’s critique also suffers from a disporportionately negative view of religion. In this regard, the phrase, “Who would Jesus bomb?” is much more than pithy aphorism. It becomes a serious evaluation of the integral vision of inclusive, unconditional compassion at the core of every religion.
Miller seems unaware of the dire statistic that, in America, the greatest support for the Bush Administration’s pre-emptive attack on Iraq came from white male evangelicals, who in this particular case at least failed to live Jesus’ ethic of compassion. He also ignores the grass-roots Christian protest movements which rallied against the war, and which now and in the past have rallied for civil rights and a host of other social justice issues. Miller uncritically – and unfairly - permits white male evangelicals to speak for Christianity at large. He also ignores the fact that for its first three centuries, Christianity was resolutely pacificistic, refusing to support Imperial wars and to serve as combatants in Imperial armies. Moreover, Miller disregards the Christian teaching of the “just war” whose essence states that it is never – never – permissible to start a war – a principle that is in complete opposition to the actions of the Bush administration.
Miller mistakenly identifies religion with the Abrahamic faiths. He makes no mention of Buddhism, Taoism, or Hinduism. Worse, he makes no mention of the radical mystical – and often pacifistic – movements within Western traditions, such as the Sufis in Islam; and as a corollary, he makes no mention of individual mystics such as Meister Eckhart and the pacifist icon Francis of Assisi. It is difficult to say whether Miller is here painting with too wide or too narrow a brush. It is as if Miller thinks that by refuting or denigrating the organized Abrahamic faiths, he has therefore done away with religion as a whole.
A similar principle applies to Miller’s treatment of God, whom he uncritially identifies with a creating sky-father. He thinks that if the creating sky father can be done away with, God is done away with, since -obviously! – the Creator is God.
In one sense, one can hardly blame Miller for the narrowness of his God-definition. After all, the Abrahamic – and some non-Abrahamic (though, again, Miller ignores them) faiths do posit God to be a creator who is functionally equivalent to a cosmic father. However, Miller claims to be examining God and religion.
The narrowness of his definitions falls far short of portraying this wide, even stellar, field. It completely ignores definitions – even within the Abrahamic faiths – of “the God Beyond God”, the Godhead, God as Isness, Pure Being, the Ground of Being, No Thing Ness, Non-Existence, the “eye” which sees the soul, and the “eye” by which the soul is seen… etc. Should the Abrahamic faiths one day lose their “God as Creator” definition, they would still have a myriad of other definitions left intact. But all this escapes Miller’s parochial and rather myopic vision.
The same holds, somewhat less so, for Miller’s view of the soul. He spends little time with this profound and centuries-old controversy, other than to say that he is a materialist, and to valorize materialist philosophers. He does not even deign to consider the very interesting question that if matter is everything, how is it that matter, through the thinkers in many religious and philosophical systems, questions its own materiality. Saying that “we are the brain, and sometimes the brain makes mistakes” is a trivially inappropriate reply to this really large question.
Along these lines, Miller makes huge assumptions, for instance, that belief in ghosts and the afterlife is somehow odd, strange, and/or weird. But the briefest historical view tells us that, if anything, it is reductionistic materialism that is the odd man out, since, relatively speaking, it is the alien newcomer in the consciousness of the West. The ghost report – as opposed to the venerable ghost story – not only continues unabated in today’s materialistic, scientifically-imbued societies. It continues to be experienced as a deeply disturbing, uncanny intrusion from elsewhere. It does not conform to Miller’s wish that the ghostly merely be a result of a fear of death that therefore implicitly serves as a comforting clue that we survive bodily disentigration. As long as the ghostly terrifies and baffles, it cannot be invoked as a comforting palliative to universal death anxiety.
Moreover, Miller’s attitude is unscientific. Ghost reports and the possibility of psychic survival of biological death – like most things under the sun – are potentially investigatable and discussable scientifically. Miller seems unaware of, or at least inexcusably uninterested in, the field of parapsychology. He does not mention it, even if only to refute it. He also does not mention even the reductionistic research into paranormal claims, for instance, the theory that NDE’s (Near Death Experiences) might be a toxic, dying brain’s last-ditch efforts to maintain bodily and psychic integrity, or that certain ghostly manifestations might be due to little-investigated electrical events, or the nervous system’s reaction to certain plasma-type phenomena (per Deveraux and Persinger).
As with the soul, Miller treats paranormality with a suspicious lack of curiosity, although the present writer does recall another program in which Miller attempted to dismiss the OBE (Out Of Body Experience). He said that the experience – though probably unreal – must in any case be thought of as physical, since the percipient claims to (for example) rise “above ” his/her body, therefore retaining a spatial orientation and kinetic capability. But discounting an arbitrary a priori materialism, there is no good reason to think that the perceiving consciousness itself is a space-time object expelled from its body in the same manner, say, as a belch. Again, these are questions that a truly rigorous skeptic would pursue much more thoroughly than does Miller.
Miller also defines faith and belief much too narrowly. He is unaware that, prior to the Sixteenth century in the West, faith was belief, but that belief did not mean intellectual assent to a set of credal statements and ecclesiastical doctrines. Rather, “belief” was much closer to the “beliefen” from which it was derived and which it connoted, namely, “beloved”. To believe in God was to belove God – another nuance that escapes Miller. Moreover, Christianity delineates seven or eight differing types of faith, only one of which is the (modern) sense of faith as “belief in” – a facet of religion of which Miller seems ignorant.
Finally, Miller spends a significant amount of time discussing and interviewing people about the purportedly strange case of religionists spending an inordinate amount of time trying to eradicate a social type which they say really doesn’t exist, namely The Atheist. But Miller completely ignores the plain fact that cavorts under his nose: the strange case of atheists who spend an inordinate amount of time trying to eradicate a religious entity they say really doesn’t exist, namely God.
To conclude, Jonathan Miller’s atheism is too myopic to be taken seriously. Although he rightly gains points by refuting the probity and the existence of a creating sky father, he has by no means discredited the idea of God, the mystery of the soul, or the field of religion – a field much more vast than his miniature lens can measure.
Filed under: Christianity, film, horror, literature, religion, The Exorcist | Tags: christianity religion film horror literature The Exorcist
[Note: This is a long post. But please bear with me. I think it is necessary to step up and defend Exorcist author Blatty's depiction of character Burke Dennings against a scurrilous and completely unjustified indictment.]
A current theory states that The Exorcist’s demonic possession of Regan MacNeil is a metaphor for child molestation. Theorists suggest that Regan was being molested by her mother’s film director, Burke Dennings. This idea is sheer unsupported speculation; moreover, it contradicts author William Peter Blatty’s own text and intent. It is to be found in neither the Blatty novel nor in the Blatty-Friedkin film.
“Reading out” of a text material that really exists in the text is called exegesis. “Reading into” a text material that does not exist in the text is called eisegesis. Eisegesis is the projection of inappropriate, “foreign” themes onto a narrative. Exorcist molestation theorists are guilty of eisegesis, and a very sloppy one at that.
Blatty’s own depiction of demonic possession is not metaphoric. It is not symbolic. It is not allegorical, analogical, or poetic. It does not point away from itself toward some other layer, genre, theme, or metaliterary realm. Demonic possession in The Exorcist is its primary catalyst for, and explainer of, the behavior, reactions, decisions, and actions of those who witness it.
In short: Regan’s possession “advertises” only itself, and it is Blatty’s clear intent to depict it as a real, authentic, genuine intrusion into the normal world of a malevolent, discarnate, nonhuman, nonmaterial and “ancient” entity. It contains not a hint of human intervention, whether sexual abuse or other.
The Exorcist’s only “child molester” is the demon itself.
Burke Dennings is never enlisted by author Blatty as a potential cause of Regan’s possession. Rather, some such catalysts are suggested: Regan’s isolation and loneliness; her playing with a Ouija board; her father’s absence; her reaction to the onset of early adolescence. In not one of Blatty’s suggested causes is a direct, abusive human element presented.
It could be argued (using sociological principles not greatly widespread when Blatty wrote the novel) that the author should have included a possible molestation scenario as catalyst. However, this idea is a retrojection of current concerns into a decade when such considerations had not yet become “public domain” and common literary themes. So if there is any flaw here, it is not Blatty, it is the times in which he was writing. In any case the essential point here is, of course, that Blatty did not use the molestation theme.
Therefore, Burke Dennings is no more a molester than is any other Exorcist character (one wonders why the domestic Karl is not equally put foward for this role, since the novel shows him in constant proximity to Regan, and emphasises his great physical strength and darkly mysterious taciturnity).
On the contrary, Blatty describes Burke Dennings as a reliable friend of the MacNeils – a man, who when sober, is kind and gentle. (And when Denning is not sober, he does not transform into a child molester; he simply becomes an obnoxious, verbally-not-physically abusive drunk.) An example of this is that, on Regan’s birthday at the movie set, Dennings has the crew rewarm the lights in order to film Regan cutting her cake.
Throughout the first part of the novel, Regan sees very little of Dennings, since he is usually busy directing and going off on drunks; and when he is at the MacNeil home, he is there to see Chris, not Regan. In fact, other than the dinner party scene (and of course the fatal window push incident) Blatty never puts Regan and Burke together in the same room – not in Regan’s room, in Chris’s study, or in the basement where Regan does her artwork.
Regan’s only objection to “Mr. Dennings” is not that he is molesting her, but that he will supplant her father Howard if Chris marries Burke. Blatty’s narrative strongly implies that this is not even Regan’s own idea, but a whispered doubt supplied to her unconscious by the demon. Even so, Regan does not fear or resent Dennings. In fact, in the context of this scene, she says that Mr. Dennings can come along with her and Chris for her birthday celebration. Clearly, in her own subjective world, separate from demonic rumor-mongering, Regan is comfortable in Burke Dennings’ company.
Regarding the famous dinner party scene, Blatty shows Regan going to bed early after a short introduction to the guests. (One of the guests, a psychic, senses that something is wrong with Regan, but immediately attributes it to Regan’s Ouija-board usage, not to molestation.)
Burke Dennings is at this party, but except for Regan’s brief appearance (in which Burke and Regan have no interaction whatsoever), he is completely separated from her as he moves through the crowd insulting all and sundry as he goes. Ultimately he calls Karl “a Nazi”, whereupon Chris sends Burke to “sleep it off” in her study. And… Dennings does just that – he does not unobtrusively (extremely difficult in a crowded house party) make his way upstairs to molest Regan. He flops down in the study and Chris immediately sends Regan’s tutor Sharon into the study – to watch over Burke until he awakens (and to make sure that he leaves without disturbing any more guests.)
At this point, Regan is a troubled child, but she is not yet fully possessed. She manifests her disturbance(s) through several strange behaviors, chief among them the acquiring of an imaginary playmate.
As a concretization of Regan’s disturbance - according to the molestation theory – this invisible playmate ought to bear some direct relation to Burke Dennings. But in reality it does no such thing. Instead, the playmate is called “Captain Howdy” – an “in your face,” obvious reference to missing Dad, Howard MacNiel. There is no molester here, no drooling Dennings or creeping Karl: only the distillation of a lonely child’s abandonment anxiety. (Later it will be shown that the demon is using the “Howdy” identity to manipulate the child’s vulnerability. But suffice it to say that Burke Dennings in Blatty’s narrative is nowhere near the center of Regan’s disturbance.)
Again: The Exorcist’s only “child molester” is the demon itself.
Denning’s lack of criminality or evil intent in the narrative as Blatty wrote it leaves only one baffling question – the primary question the molestation theorists cling to – unanswered: What was Dennings doing in Regan’s room when she broke his neck, turned his head “completely around, facing backward,” and pushed him out her window?
Blatty does not let us know the answer. We can only guess. But from what has preceded, it is clear that, regardless of the reason Dennings went up to Regan’s room, that reason cannot include molestation. We can only theorize that he went upstairs to check on the daughter of his good friend Chris; or that Regan, undergoing a new demonic attack, cried out and Dennings rushed up to assist her; or that the demon, acting through Regan, deliberately lured Dennings upstairs to his death.
One might suspect, rather, that Dennings died because Blatty’s story called for just this death at just this point in the narrative. Dennings’ death is the causal nexus of much of the subsequent story. Removing Dennings and his death from the narrative would completely depotentiate and unravel The Exorcist’s entire narrative.
Perhaps Dennings died because he “had” to die for authorial purposes and narrational soundness. After making that decision, Blatty only had to devise a way for Regan/the demon to kill Dennings privately, when only she and Dennings were in the house together, with no other potential witnesses.
And that is the most plausible reason for Dennings being alone with Regan in the house and in Regan’s room. Plot device, not molestation, placed these two characters together at the same time and in the same place.
The Exorcist’s only “child molester” remains the demon itself.
Filed under: film, horror, religion, The Exorcist | Tags: The Exorcist christianity religion film horror
One scarcely knows where to begin in evalutaing John Boorman’s sequel to The Exorcist. Suffice it to say that his film is laughable, incompetent, and insulting to viewers of intelligence and good taste. Some salient points among too many to be fully listed are:
1) Boorman is on public record as despising the original Exorcist film based on William Peter Blatty’s novel and screenplay and directed by William Friedkin.
2) Boorman seems to have aggressively manifested this contempt via his ludicrously idiosyncratic perspective on, and direction of, Heretic.
3) Boorman took Blatty’s tenderly conceived and thoughtfully developed characters and subjected them to Boorman’s own hack revisions.
4) For example: Delicate, vulnerable Sharon Spencer becomes Boorman’s mean-spirited, deeply dysfunctional Sharon The Witch Lady. He dresses her in a Witch Costume when she escorts Fr. Lamont (Richard Burton) to the MacNeil house. Then he incinerates her at the end of the film. That’s what we do to Witches (if we are Primitives or inept Film Directors).
One beloved Exorcist character down, three to go…
5) The Boorman version eliminates Chris MacNeil (mother of possession victim Regan, played in the original film by Ellen Burstyn), replacing her with brain-addled neuro-shaman Dr. Tuskin (Louise Fletcher), whose Rube Goldbergesque brain machine understandably elicited pained guffaws from intelligent theater viewers. (The leadwires springing from the helmet are particularly inept. Check out the ones used by Quatermass incarnation Andrew Keir in Five Million Years to Earth for a respectable and believably “futuristic” headset.)
6) Boorman/screenwriters violate the dignity of Blatty’s character, Fr. Lankester Merrin. In the Blatty book and the Blatty-Friedkin film, Merrin is a towering intellect resisting the sin of pride, as well as being a world-renowned archaeologist and an experienced exorcist-theologian.
In Heretic, however, Merrin has become a spooky question mark, who may or may not believe in ESP, may or may not approve of Teilhard de Chardin’s evolutionary theories, and may or may not continue to exist posthumously in some virtual paramental-spiritual realm. No longer an exorcist-paleontologist, Heretic’s Merrin is now a loopy promoter of Boorman’s parapsychological speculations, having discarded his original role of presenting Blatty’s interesting theological ideas. Not only this, but, in a scene worthy of Woody Allen, Boorman’s Fool-Merrin gets his heart literally ripped out by a surrogate Linda Blair, who…
7) … refused to immerse herself completely into her reprised role and declined demon-make-up, forcing the studio to rely on hiring a not-believable body double for the flashback possession scenes.
Not that this matters a whole lot, since Heretic violates Regan’s character as viciously and arbitrarily as it does all the others.
Not only is Regan MacNeil no longer an unfortunate victim of a previous possession: Boorman transforms her into a shamanic evil-fighter, The Good Grasshopper (perhaps even the Best Little Bug in the World) – albeit with a Terrible Dark Side (ever so sensitively symbolized by draping her in a flimsy negligee) with whom Burton/Lamont bed-grapples, to his credit, without gaining an erection.
(Also, in an extremelypointless subplot, it turns out that Regan has become a sensationally inept tap dancer.)
8) Heretic literalizes the demonic, insisting on a literal Pazuzu (the demonic symbol in The Exorcist: a Middle Eastern g0d turned demon for novelistic purposes).
9) Merrin confronts Pazuzu, an ordeal referenced in the original novel and film as supposedly taking months to complete, but in Heretic taking only long enough for Merrin to rope-jockey the possessed lad Kokumo up a cliff to an Ethiopian rock church.
Merrin’s chief struggle in Friedkin’s Exorcist was to subdue the demon who was, to say the least, extremely uncooperative. But not in Heretic: No sooner does Pazuzu possess Kokumo than he immediatly – seemingly even with some pride – gives away his identity to Merrin (hint!): “I …am …PAZUZUUUU…!!”
A prime point of exorcism is to force or to trick the demon into giving away its identity, since according to ancient tradition, to gain the Enemy’s name is to gain power over him. Heretic’s Pazuzu simply wimps out and hands Merrin this coveted morsel on a platter.
8) “Ecumenical Edwards,” played by Ned Beatty, who is obviously introduced as comic relief from all the surrounding incredible suspense and horror, is about as funny as Richard Burton’s excessive sweat. “This is the traditional route of the plague!” Edwards warns Burton, who by now must be wondering if the plague consists of locusts or of a leprous script.
9) Gratuitous female breasts – ah, yes – the breasts! Sharon’s are visible (through a moist robe)… as are those of the black girl who is offered to Lamont, as are those of the clothed-but-still-showcased and under-aged Linda Blair. Apparently the idea here was to make the film more engaging for the teenage mentalities who presumably would be its chief marketing base.
10) Burton obviously hates the role and the movie. Maybe he was also bright enough to despise Boorman. His unconvincing and hysterically lethargic performance is a huge drag on a movie that is already leaden. In fact, it sinks the film from the first frame. Perhaps this constitutes Dick’s Revenge.
11) The Friedkin film communicates Catholicism accurately and humanely. Heretic makes a joke of the whole thing, including a colossally inaccurate description of Teilhard’s philosophy and an embarrassingly trite depiction of internal Church politics and clergy.
12) Veteran film composer Ennio Morricone’s score, to borrow a demonic line from Blatty’s novel, “sucks to the roots… to the bristles”. Morricone and Burton may have gotten together and commiserated – over multiple bottles of Chivas Regal – about the bum deal in which they were mired. Morricone’s contempt for the material is obvious from the ear-killing music he wrote for Heretic.
From the first note, Morricone’s score screams at the audience, This Flick Is A Terrible Joke and I Am Parodying it Musically Every Chance I Get! His faux-African “sound” is a truly grating listen. Morricone’s past career is triumphant, having grandly achieved an African “sound” in the Brando film Burn/Qaemada, so it’s proven he can do great African-surrogate music. His apparent sonic trashing of Heretic could of course be seen as fair play, based on Boorman’s own trashing of the franchise. How sad that Morricone’s sweet-melancholy Regan’s Theme (an exception among the other poorly scored tracks) turned out to be so lovely – it is completely too poignant, sophisticated and sensitive for this mucoid glob of a film.
This list could be expanded, at the price of monotony. At least there is solace in knowing that Exorcist II: The Heretic has been “honored” by inclusion in The Golden Turkey Awards. Fortunately, Blatty came out with his own sequel to The Exorcist, namely, the novel Legion. A revised version of the novel was released by Morgan Creek studios under the title, Exorcist III: Legion, with Blatty directing and providing the screenplay. Happily, Exorcist afficianados have this little gem to covet, and to make up for Boorman’s misconceived freak show.
Filed under: Christianity, christology, film, religion, spirituality | Tags: christianity christology film religion spirituality
The main problem with Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ is simply that it has no “passion.” It doesn’t explain why Jesus died, or its own assumption that he “had to” die, nor does it explore the factors that led him to the ignominious gibbet.
In this failure, the film deletes any presentation of Jesus’ own passion:
his passion that the hungry be filled, the poor sheltered, orphans and widows cared for, the Torah interpreted intensely but “internally” and mercifully as well;
his passion for the Kingdom of God’s arrival here and now, his passion for offering a means of living centered in Spirit rather than in culture, his passion for social justice, his condemnation of oppressive domination systems;
his role as a transformative sage, a charismatic mediator, a social prophet, a renewal movement founder, and his function as a Jewish mystic in the stream of Jewish mysticism…
…and everything else he was – or at least everything that the Christian Testament says he was – all great themes that the film’s narrow focus sadly ignores.
Gibson’s brief glimpses from Jesus’ pre-Passion life (the last supper, the sermon on the mount) only serve to confuse the many issues necessarily raised by the film’s silence on his pre-crucifixion career.
In fact, Gibson’s tale, which mainly concerns Jesus’ arrest and execution, distorts and falsifies the whole Christian “sense” of his life.
Unfortunately for mainstream Christians and general audiences alike, its strongest appeal is only to Christian fundamentalists who don’t follow Christianity so much as they do (sometimes unconsciously) “Crossianity;” and who rather insanely think that Jesus “came”… “to earth”… “to die.” Surely this film is for them, and them only. The truly great “Life of Christ” has yet to be filmed, and Gibson’s gore fest is not even in the running.
I was never an enthusiast for ocean wading, but after viewing Steven Spielberg’s Jaws I was definitely phobic - chiefly, but not solely, about sharks. One summer I was vacationing in Gearhart, Oregon, which was having an “El Nino” wave of unseasonably warm water. The normally chilly Pacific was abnormally tepid – like a lagoon under a tropical summer sky – very unusual for the northern Oregon coast, even in summer. Strangely frequent shark sightings, even of Great Whites, were being reported.
In his short story The Lake, Ray Bradbury writes how water is like a magician who cuts you in half – the solid upper half above the waterline, and the wavey, less solid lower half. I, however, was not to experience that illusion, because the surf that day was such that, coming to just above my knees, it did not allow my submerged portions visibility. I waded out far enough that the land receded from peripheral vision, so that all I could see was ocean. Visually, I may as well have been all adrift upon this summer sea, and the thought came to me that there was nothing – literally no land – between me and Hawaii.
Then my thoughts turned to the volume and opaqueness of the water I was standing in. Almost anything could be beneath that water, and I would be unable to see it. Old debris… a submerged log, perhaps, that would bump or trip me on the next surge of waves… don’t sharks bump their prey before attacking? What other living creature, naturally equipped with aquatic vision and kinetic skills that I did not have, might be in the water with me – its presence totally undetectable, until it touched me… or a fin broke the surface…?
The water was warm, the day perfect, but I was done. Slowly I turned my back to the indifferent sea, onto which I had projected fears – fears that were mostly the inheritance of one finely-crafted film…
Filed under: Christianity, film, religion, spirituality | Tags: christianity film religion spirituality
Not all Christians – or “religious people” in general – fear the devil or the occult. Many enlightened mainstream Christians view the devil as a metaphor, and the occult as mere superstition.
The types of religious people who do fear the devil and the occult are usually found among fundamentalists who seem not to really take seriously the efficacy of Jesus’ redemptive ministry. Jesus is reported to have said, “Fear not, I have overcome the world.” But most fundamentalists don’t seem to take Jesus at his word.
Instead they fear “the world,” dancing, dating, gambling, secular education, evolution, women’s rights, television, mass media, the Internet, movies, alcohol use. They see Satan lurking in nearly every nook and cranny of ordinary existence. Worse yet – unlike the relatively enlightened approach of the Catholic Church – they see “evidence” of demonic possession in such trivial things such as nervous tics and habits, swearing, anger, normal sexual attraction and interaction. Not for them are the exacting “signs of possession” so well documented, for example, in The Exorcist novel and film. After all, if Satan is manifest in nail-biting, there is no need to go to elaborate ends to establish his – or any other- supernatural interventions. Paradoxically, due to this seeming universality, the devil and his minions become as common and mundane as migraines or toothache.
And why not? These are the people who so often claim a supernatural action in answer to prayer, regardless of the reply’s (or the request’s) triviality or venality. Church need a new sprinkler system? Pray. Get the sprinklers? Then thank God for this “blessing.” But if a prayer goes unanswered or if the opposite of the prayer’s intention comes about, what happens to “blessing”? God of course cannot be cursed. Perhaps it has become a question of God’s granting the devil permission – for reasons unknown – to thwart prayer. This serves to make God’s will extremely obscure while at the same time magnifying Satan’s presence and power. It is not surprising that a miasma of fear floats over this theological bog.
Their paranoia only serves to drive fundamentalists deeper into their fear and into the “safety” of their respective congregations. Morevover, it inflates their sense of “Election” and “righteousness”, while intensifiying their condemnation of others – especially fellow Christians whom they deem to be insufficiently “biblical”. They force themselves to live by moral, social and religious strictures as stringent and as “works”-based as the things they vilify in the Catholic Church or in “pharisaic/legalistic” Judaism.
Fundamentalists battle not against the devil, but rather against their own “Shadow” – their own unacknowledged evils – projected onto a mythical fallen angel, and onto other human beings.
