Exorcise the Devil

The Malleus Maleficarum Series

The Malleus Maleficarum by Kramer and Sprenger, 1489, Excerpts

There are still some means by which these devils may be driven away, five ways by which girls or men can be delivered: first, by Sacramental Confession; second, by the Sacred Sign of the Cross, or by the recital of the Angelic Salutation; third, by the use of exorcisms; fourth, by moving to another place; and fifth, by means of excommunication prudently employed by holy men.

In the exorcism of one who is bewitched; he should first have made a good confession, and if possible he is to hold a lighted candle, and receive the Holy Communion; and instead of putting on a chrisom, he is to remain bound naked to a Holy Candle of the length of Christ's body or of the Cross. And then may be said the following:

“I exorcise thee, Peter, or thee, Barbara, being weak but reborn in Holy Baptism, by the living God, by the true God, by God Who redeemed thee with His Precious Blood, that thou mayest be exorcised, that all the illusions and wickedness of the devil's deceits may depart and flee from thee together with every unclean spirit, adjured by Him Who will come to judge both the quick and the dead, and who will purge the earth with fire. Amen.”

And let the exorcist continually sprinkle him with Holy Water. And note that this method is recommended, not because it must be rigidly observed, or that other exorcisms are not of greater efficacy, but that there should be some regular system of exorcism and adjuration. And this sort of exorcism may be continued at least three times a week, that so through many intercessions the grace of health may be obtained.

When the exorcist is not ordained to the Order of Exorcist, then he may proceed with prayers

But if anyone asks what is the difference between the aspersion of Holy Water and exorcism, since both are ordained against the plagues of the devil, the answer is supplied by S. Thomas, who says: The devil attacks us from without and from within. Therefore Holy Water is ordained against his attacks from without; but exorcism against those from within.

But in exorcising a bewitched person both methods are to be used, because he is tormented both within and without.

Exorcists are back – and people are getting hurt

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/06/exorcists-catholic-evangelical-church-child-abuse-new-inquisition?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

March 2018

The Vatican has just set up a new exorcism training course, following an alleged increase in demonic possession. According to the Sicilian priest and exorcist Benigno Palilla, speaking on Vatican Radio, there are half a million cases reported in Italy yearly, and demand for assistance has tripled. To claim that such a large number of Italians have been inadvertently contaminated by Satan, like some paranormal STD, is a significant aspersion on a nation of 60 million people. Palilla lays the blame on people who visit fortune-tellers and tarot-readers. These practices “open the door to the devil and to possession”.

Exorcist Convention: Priests Learn How to Fight the Devil

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/exorcist-convention-priests-learn-fight-devil/story?id=12146069

14 Nov 2010

More than 100 Catholic bishops and priests gathered in Baltimore this weekend for a two-day conference on exorcism, organized by a bishop who said he wants U.S. dioceses to be prepared.

Chief exorcist says Devil is in Vatican

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/7416458/Chief-exorcist-says-Devil-is-in-Vatican.html

11 Mar 2010

"The Devil resides in the Vatican and you can see the consequences," said Father Amorth, 85, who has been the Holy See's chief exorcist for 25 years. The recent revelations of "violence and paedophilia" committed by Catholic priests against children in their care was also the work of the Devil, said Father Amorth, who is the president of the Association of Exorcists, has previously claimed that both Hitler and Stalin were possessed by the Devil. He also condemned the Harry Potter books, saying they were dangerous because they dabbled in the occult and failed to draw a clear distinction between "the Satanic art" of black magic and benevolent white magic.

President of Honor of the Association of Exorcists.

Creel Commission and War Public Relations

Public Opinion Series

Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann, 1921, Excerpts 

Mr. Creel assembled machinery which included a Division of News that issued more than 6000 releases, had to enlist 75,000 Four Minute Men who delivered at least 750,000 speeches to an aggregate of over 300,000,000 people. Boy scouts delivered annotated copies of President Wilson’s addresses to the householders of America. Periodicals were sent to 600,000 teachers. 200,000 lantern slides were furnished for illustrated lectures. 1,500 different designs were turned out for posters, window cards, newspaper advertisements, cartoons, seals, and buttons. The chambers of commerce, the churches, fraternal societies, schools, were used as channels of distribution. This was the largest and the most intensive effort to carry quickly a fairly uniform set of ideas to all the people of a nation.

  

Media Control by Noam Chomsky, 2002, Excerpts 

Woodrow Wilson was elected President in 1916 on the platform “Peace Without Victory.” That was right in the middle of the World War I. The population was extremely pacifistic and saw no reason to become involved in a European war. The Wilson administration was actually committed to war and had to do something about it. They established a government propaganda commission, called the Creel Commission, which succeeded, within six months, in turning a pacifist population into a hysterical, war-mongering population which wanted to destroy everything German, tear the Germans limb from limb, go to war and save the world. There was a good deal of fabrication of atrocities by the Huns, such as Belgian babies with their arms torn off.

             

Father of Spin by Larry Tye, 1998 

The selling of America on the Persian Gulf War was a public relations triumph. Its leading man, Saddam Hussein, was cast as pure villain complete with menacing leer and malevolent mustache. It had Iraqi soldiers snatching infants from hospital incubators and leaving them on the floor to die while Iraqi helicopters hovered over Kuwait City and Iraqi tanks rolled down the streets. One detail was left out of that version of the war, however: the fact that it was crafted by one of America’s biggest public relations firm, Hill and Knowlton, in a campaign bought and paid for by rich Kuwaitis who were Saddam’s archenemies. Hill and Knowlton’s war against Iraq was hardly a PR first.

Forty years earlier Bernays had designed an almost identical campaign in Guatemala, one where Guatemala’s socialist leader Jacobo Arbenz Guzman was demonized much like Hussein and where the U.S. public was made to believe it was fighting against tyranny. That was a major achievement, and it led to a further achievement. After WWII, the same techniques were used whip up a hysterical Red Scare, as it was called, which succeeded pretty much in destroying unions and eliminating such dangerous problems as freedom of press and freedom of political thought. There was strong support from the media and from the business establishment.

Pentagon and Bogus News

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0DE6DC143DF936A35751C1A9659C8B63

05 Dec 2003

Early last year Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld disbanded the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence after it became known that the office was considering plans to provide false news items to unwitting foreign journalists to influence policymakers and public sentiment abroad. But a couple of months ago, the Pentagon quietly awarded a $300,000 contract to SAIC, a major defense consultant, to study how the Defense Department could design an ''effective strategic influence'' campaign to combat global terror, according to an internal Pentagon document.

US closes 'disinformation' unit

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1843201.stm

26 Feb 2002

The US is closing down an information unit of the defense department which was set up to project a favorable view of US military activity abroad and influence public opinion. The move follows reports in the media that the controversial Office of Strategic Information might start planting false stories among foreign journalists and spreading disinformation. The office was created following the 11 September attacks on America as part of efforts to combat international terrorism.

Pentagon plans propaganda war

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1830500.stm

20 Feb 2002

The Pentagon is toying with the idea of black propaganda. As part of George Bush's war on terrorism, the military is thinking of planting propaganda and misleading stories in the international media. A new department has been set up inside the Pentagon with the Orwellian title of the Office of Strategic Influence. It is well funded, is being run by a general and its aim is to influence public opinion abroad.

The most controversial suggestion is the covert planting of disinformation in foreign media, a process known as black propaganda. All this has sparked off a fierce debate within the Pentagon. The options range from "the blackest of black programs to the whitest of white," one official told the New York Times. Some generals are worried that even a suggestion of disinformation would undermine the Pentagon's credibility and America's attempts to portray herself as the beacon of liberty and democratic values.

Joan of Arc in the News

Joan of Arc

French far right attack choice of mixed-race girl for Joan of Arc role

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/23/french-far-right-targets-mixed-race-teen-playing-joan-of-arc?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

23 Feb 2018

A French state prosecutor has opened an inquiry into incitement to racial hatred after the selection of a mixed-race teenager to play the folk heroine Joan of Arc in annual festivities in Orléans was met with racist abuse from far-right users of social media. The announcement was met with a stream of posts on Twitter and far-right websites, branding her selection an exercise in “diversity propaganda” and an attempt to rewrite history. “Joan of Arc was white,” read one Twitter post. “We are white and proud of being white, don’t change our history.” Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake in 1431, is a heroine for many in France but is particularly venerated by the far right as a symbol of national resistance.

Marine Le Pen: From far-right fringe to presidential contender

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-20/marine-le-pen-leader-of-frances-national-front/8457580

20 Apr 2017

In France, the National Front has gone from fringe party status, condemned as bigoted and racist, to having the presidential palace in its sights. The woman who has led them there is Marine Le Pen. The 48-year-old has consistently been one of the top two candidates in opinion polls as French voters head into the first round of voting this Sunday. "Marine Le Pen is our Joan of Arc. She's the one who is going to save France, bring France back up, give hope to French people."

Marine Le Pen hails patriotism as the policy of the future

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38705176?intlink_from_url=http://www.bbc.com/news/topics/f671cc6e-8cdd-4351-90d1-fcc3bae18534/france-presidential-election-2017&link_location=live-reporting-story

21 Jan 2017

French National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen has told a meeting of right-wing politicians in Germany that patriotism is the policy of the future. The presidential candidate predicted that voters in France, Germany and the Netherlands would follow their US and UK counterparts to reject the arguments of the political establishment. She said that 2017 would be the "year of the awakening" for European people.

French parties battle for Joan of Arc's legacy

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32263505

11 Apr 2015

A new museum chronicling the life and legacy of Joan of Arc has opened in Rouen, France. The 15th century teenager was burned as a heretic after helping repulse the English army at Orleans, making her a national heroine. Now political parties from the far-right to the ruling Socialists are battling to claim her legacy.

National Front in patriotic fervor

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-eu-27240756

01 May 2014

Every year on May Day the far right in France marches to the statue of Jeanne d'Arc (Joan of Arc) on the right bank in Paris, to lay a wreath. The Maid of Orleans is the adopted symbol of French nationalism - though right now there's another they have taken to their hearts. She's the National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen. In the spirit of Jeanne d'Arc the backdrop for the traditional May Day speech was a picture of a woman dressed in a suit of armor. "No to Brussels, Yes to France" read the slogan.

French elections: Battle over 1 May

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17908809

01 May 2012

French labor historian Stephane Sirot explains that more recent attempts to appropriate the day include the far-right National Front's decision, from 1988, to hold an annual 1 May rally. The idea was to make the day a nationalistic display of patriotism by linking it to the powerful figure of Joan of Arc.

Manufacturing Consent

Public Opinion Series

Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann, 1921, Excerpts

The manufacture of consent is not a new art. It is a very old one which was supposed to have died out with the appearance of democracy. But it has not died out. It has, in fact, improved enormously in technique, because it is now based on analysis rather than of rule of thumb. The processes by which public opinions arise and the opportunities for manipulation are open to anyone who understands the process.

To most of the big topics of news, the facts are not simple, and not at all obvious. News and truth are not the same thing, and must be clearly distinguished. The function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to set them into relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act.

The picture which the publicity man makes for the reporter is the one he wishes the public to see. He is censor and propagandist, responsible to the whole truth only as it accords with his employers’ own interests. The development of the publicity man is a clear sign that the facts of modern life do not spontaneously take a shape. They are given shape by somebody. Thus the ostensible leader often finds that the real leader is a powerful newspaper proprietor.

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, 2016, Excerpts 

Osip Ivanovich had actually mastered the English language right down to the past perfect progressive as early as 1939. But American movies still deserved their careful consideration, he argued, not simply as windows into Western culture, but as unprecedented mechanisms of class repression. For with cinema, the Yanks had apparently discovered how to placate the entire working class at the cost of a nickel a week. “Just look at their Depression,” he said. “From beginning to end it lasted ten years. An entire decade in which the Proletariat was left to fend for itself, scrounging in alleys and begging at chapel doors. If ever there had been a time for the American worker to cast off the yoke, surely that was it. But did they join their brothers-in-arms? Did they shoulder their axes and splinter the doors of the mansions? Not even for an afternoon. Instead, they shuffled to the nearest movie house, where the latest fantasy was dangled before them like a pocket watch at the end of a chain. Yes, Alexander, it behooves us to study this phenomenon with the utmost diligence and care.”

And the westerns? They were the most devious propaganda of all: fables in which evil is represented by collectives who rustle and rob; while virtue is a lone individual who risks his life to defend the sanctity of someone else’s private property. In sum? “Hollywood is the single most dangerous force in the history of class struggle.”

Blinded Elites

Imperial Hubris Series

Imperial Hubris by Michael Scheuer, 2004, Excerpts

Because of the pervasive imperial hubris that dominates the minds of our political, academic, social, media, and military elites, America is able and content to believe the Islamic world fails to understand the benign intent of U.S. foreign policy and its implementation. When U.S. leaders speak blithely and ad nauseum of building a democracy like our own in Afghanistan or Iraq or Burma or Russia or Liberia or Saudi Arabia, saying that it can be done speedily and on the cheap, they betray ignorance of foreign lands, cultures, and histories as well as the creeds and ambitions of other peoples.

It is comforting to American elites still refusing to see that U.S. government actions in the Islamic world are causing Muslims to attack the United States. And because our elites are so full of themselves, they think America is invulnerable; cannot imagine the rest of the world does not want to be like us; and believe an American empire in the twenty-first century not only is our destiny, but our duty to mankind, especially to the unwashed, unlettered, undemocratic, unwhite, unshaved, and antifeminist Muslim masses. Arrogance because the elites cannot believe a polyglot bunch of Arabs wearing robes, sporting scraggily beards, and squatting around campfires in Afghan deserts and mountains could pose a mortal threat to the United States.

Thoughts on Religious Extremism

Mormon Series

Bertrand Russell

“One is often told that it a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world.”

Philip Jenkins, Mystics and Messiahs

“Extreme and bizarre religious ideas are so commonplace in American history that it is difficult to speak of them as fringe at all. To speak of a fringe implies a mainstream, but in terms of numbers, perhaps the largest component of the religious spectrum in contemporary America remains what it has been since colonial times: a fundamentalist evangelicalism with powerful millenarian strands.

The doomsday theme has never been far from the center of American religious thought. The nation has always had believers who responded to this threat by a determination to flee from the wrath to come, to separate themselves from the City of Destruction, even if that meant putting themselves at odds with the law and with their communities or families. We can throughout American history find select and separatist groups who looked to a prophetic individual claiming divine revelation, in a setting that repudiated conventional assumptions about property, family life, and sexuality. They were marginal groups, peculiar people, people set apart from the world, the Shakers and the Ephrata community, the communes of Oneida and Amana, the followers of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.” 

Opium Series

This series explores opium and its history. Opium is a commodity of notoriety and tremendous value. Wars have been fought over this lucrative commodity, the infamous Opium Wars in China. The fighting in Afghanistan is currently being waged in the province of Helmand, the world’s most productive region of opium. Apparently, it’s still worth fighting over.

Opium: A Portrait of the Heavenly Demon by Barbara Hodgson, 1999, Excerpts

Opium: potent and evocative, it is a word with the power to intoxicate both speaker and listener, a word that implies languor, mystery and a sort of sinister beauty. Nothing seems to capture the sensuousness of this word better than the image of the dreamy smoker adrift in his illicit paradise. To consume opium regularly, in any form, is to risk forging an almost unbreakable and deadly bond. Opium is one of the most addictive and debilitating substances on earth, the opium addict has been called slave, fiend and ghost.

Seeds of Terror by Gretchen Peters, 2009, Excerpts

Opium makes up between 30 and 50 percent of Afghanistan’s GDP. It’s essential to recognize the economic miracle the drug traffickers have achieved. From one of the world’s most remote and backward regions, where the transport network and infrastructure is almost completely shattered, they have managed to integrate an agricultural product into the global economy. From importing precursor chemicals to giving loans to thousands of small farmers to providing security for shipments as they move across the border, this is an organizational feat of the highest order. And it’s all about making money. Although the Taliban commanders are deep in the opium trade, they are not the masterminds. This is being run by businessmen.

The Opium Plant

Medicinal Opium

Heroin, Morphine and Opium

Opium Early History

Jesus Opium – Prelude to the Opium Wars

Indian Farmers - Opium Debt

British Empire and the Opium Trade

Mandarins’ Message to the Opium Merchants

Opium Smugglers

Opium Wars – Plundering China

Golden Triangle

French Monopolize Vietnam Opium Trade

1960s Thailand Heroin Trade

1960s Burma Heroin Trade

1960s Acetic Anhydride: Opium to Heroin

Opium and Afghanistan

Soviet-Afghan War: 1979-1989

Opium and the Soviet-Afghan War: 1979-1989

Opium, Pakistan, and the Soviet-Afghan War: 1979-1989

Opium Lords Emerge during Soviet-Afghan War

Post Soviet-Afghan War

Post Soviet-Afghan War: U.S. Aid Cut Off

Mujahideen Consolidate Power

Origins of the Taliban

Pakistan and the Taliban

Osama bin Laden and Opium

Victor Bout: Merchant of Death

Opium Poppy Ban of 2000: Inside Trader Con

Post 9/11 Afghan War

Afghan Opium Government Installed

Juma Khan’s Opium Network

Helmand Province: World’s Leading Opium Producer

Opium in Literature and Film

Opium in the News

San Francisco, Clarion Alley

A Darkness Visible: Afghanistan

Short film by Media Storm, from the Soviet invasion and the mujahideen resistance to the Taliban and the American occupation, examines thirty years of Afghan history.

How Collecting Opium Antiques Turned Me Into an Opium Addict

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/journey-into-the-opium-underworld/

24 Sep 2012

Great selection historical photographs and story of Steve Martin’s, no relation to the actor, journey from opium paraphernalia collector to opium user.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, 2003 Exceprts

He brought what I asked for – a steel spoon, distilled water, disposable syringes, heroin, and a carton of cigarettes – and he set the items out on the little dresser. I cooked up a taste of heroin. The dose sat in the syringe for almost an hour. I picked it up and put the needle against a fat, strong, healthy vein in my arm. The damnation drug, the drug that had driven me to commit stupid, violent crimes; that had put me in prison; that had cost me my family, and lost my loved ones. The everything-and-nothing drug: it takes everything, and gives you nothing in return. But the nothing that it gives you, the unfeeling emptiness it gives you, is sometimes all and everything you want.

I pushed the needle into the vein, pulled back the rose of blood that confirmed the clean puncture of the vein, and pressed the plunger all the way to the stop. Before I could pull the needle from my arm, it made my mind like the Sahara. Warm, dry, shining, and featureless, the dunes of the drug smothered all thought, and buried the forgotten civilization of my mind. The warmth filled my body, killing off the thousand little aches, twinges, and discomforts we endure and ignore in every sober day. There was no pain, there was nothing.

Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh, 2016, Excerpt 

Then Mr. Chan said, ‘We’re almost ready now, Mr. Reid. When I roast the opium again it will catch fire. The smoke will last for one or two seconds. You must be prepared – you must blow out your breath, emptying your chest so you can draw in all the smoke. When the opium begins to burn I will put it on the dragon’s eye’ – he pointed to the tiny hole in the pipe’s octagonal cup – ‘and you must draw hard.’

Zachary had already emptied the air from his chest: when the flaming pellet was placed on the ‘dragon’s eye’ he inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the smoke. Its consistency was almost that of a liquid, dense, oily and intensely perfumed; it poured into his body like a flood, coursing through his veins and swamping his head.

As he leant back against the cushions Zachary suddenly became aware of his pulse – except that it wasn’t beating only in his wrist or his neck. It was as if his whole body were pulsating; the drumming of his heart was so powerful that he could feel his blood surging into his capillaries. The sensation was so strong that he looked down at his forearm and saw that his skin had changed color. It was flushed and red, as if every pore had been awoken and irradiated. 

He looked up at the ceiling and suddenly it was as if his eyes had become more sensitive, his gaze more powerful. He could see minute cracks in the wood; his hearing too seemed to have become more acute and the lapping of water was loud in his ears. He closed his eyes, luxuriating in the feeling of weightlessness, allowing the smoke to carry him away, as if on a tide.