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Post by assisi on Apr 22, 2018 20:31:54 GMT
William Friedkin, director of THE EXORCIST (and other films, some pretty ropey) makes a documentary about Fr Gabriele Amorth (just before the exorcist's 'death) featuring actual exorcism footage. I read Fr. Amorth's book recently - An Exorcist explains the Demonic. Well worth a read for anyone interested in such things. One fascinating insight of his: Satanists say their black masses at midnight or later because people are asleep and so less prayers are being said. Further corroboration of the efficacy of prayer! Since learning that, anytime I'm suffering a bought of insomnia, I'll say a rosary before falling back to sleep. I recently read the book too and found it interesting. It had the potential to be made more dramatic but it was kept on an even keel. The mention of Pope JP2 apparently caused major discomfort for demons during exorcism because, among other things, he ruined their plans (presumably Russia and Communism). And Our Lady appears to be the strongest weapon against them when she is invoked in prayer. Interestingly Fr Amorth states that the devil cannot read our minds but he can observe what we do and say, and will know our weaknesses. The devil hates sacred images and blessed objects. We should avoid all types of occultism such as fortune tellers, séances and spiritism and to avoid magic spells that people will use to punish an enemy or to get someone to fall in love with them. All are potential openings that can allow the devil to act upon others. Thankfully the majority of exorcisms don’t involve demons that have full possession of a subject’s body. Most exorcisms tackle what Fr Amorth terms as diabolical vexation, obsession and infestation. These three types of diabolical action may be less serious than possession but can have significant effects on their victims. It's worth knowing that the author believes that satanists and the demons themselves adhere to 3 principles. You can do what you wish (ignoring all God’s laws); You obey no-one; You are the god of yourself.
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Post by Account Deleted on Apr 23, 2018 22:09:49 GMT
Yes, a very good summation of the book assisi.
One other thing that struck me was Fr. Amorth's take on the final judgement. He believes that we will each appear before Jesus and that it will not be the Lord, but ourselves, who review our lives, both the good and bad we have done, in full truth and open honesty and we will go where the complete vision of our life, and the resulting revealed spiritual state of our soul, will bring us. He calls it a "solemn moment of self-truth, a tremendous and definitive moment." The final criterion of judgement being the love we have shown for God and neighbour.
I infer from it that we will not be condemned unfairly, without a full and complete understanding of it on our part. This approach to final justice seems to me totally compatible a God who is love. Though quite a sobering thought, at the same time.
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Exorcism
Apr 24, 2018 14:28:14 GMT
via mobile
Post by annie on Apr 24, 2018 14:28:14 GMT
Yes, a very good summation of the book assisi. One other thing that struck me was Fr. Amorth's take on the final judgement. He believes that we will each appear before Jesus and that it will not be the Lord, but ourselves, who review our lives, both the good and bad we have done, in full truth and open honesty and we will go where the complete vision of our life, and the resulting revealed spiritual state of our soul, will bring us. He calls it a "solemn moment of self-truth, a tremendous and definitive moment." The final criterion of judgement being the love we have shown for God and neighbour. I infer from it that we will not be condemned unfairly, without a full and complete understanding of it on our part. This approach to final justice seems to me totally compatible a God who is love. Though quite a sobering thought, at the same time. I can confirm that in a near death experience, where I was convinced I had already died and was being judged on my past life, I saw how my selfishness and lack of care for anyone but myself was so wrong and was the cause of much pain to every one who came in contact with me. I was so sorry to have wasted my one life in this way and wished I had another chance. What would you do differently? - was the question shot back at me. Love - I answered. Who? - the query was in an incredulous tone. My mother, for a start, I replied. Strange that I should have said this because I had disrespected her all my life. Next thing I knew, I was alive and awake and my mother had been praying for me. My sister, a nurse, examined my chart from the foot of my hospital bed and said " they almost lost you, you know". I did know because I had seen the doctor working on me while the nurse had said /there is no point, she's gone" but he said "I'll just keep working on her for a little while longer". This was over 50 years ago. The hospital was the Rotunda. I was aware that God was pure love and that I was sorely lacking in that area. I didn't see my interrogator, perhaps it was my conscience or my guardian angel or the devil or St Peter, but it seems that God had the casting vote since I got a chance to avoid Hell at that time and was returned to this life with the certain knowledge that we pass this way but once.
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Post by assisi on Apr 24, 2018 16:33:05 GMT
Yes, a very good summation of the book assisi. One other thing that struck me was Fr. Amorth's take on the final judgement. He believes that we will each appear before Jesus and that it will not be the Lord, but ourselves, who review our lives, both the good and bad we have done, in full truth and open honesty and we will go where the complete vision of our life, and the resulting revealed spiritual state of our soul, will bring us. He calls it a "solemn moment of self-truth, a tremendous and definitive moment." The final criterion of judgement being the love we have shown for God and neighbour. I infer from it that we will not be condemned unfairly, without a full and complete understanding of it on our part. This approach to final justice seems to me totally compatible a God who is love. Though quite a sobering thought, at the same time. I can confirm that in a near death experience, where I was convinced I had already died and was being judged on my past life, I saw how my selfishness and lack of care for anyone but myself was so wrong and was the cause of much pain to every one who came in contact with me. I was so sorry to have wasted my one life in this way and wished I had another chance. What would you do differently? - was the question shot back at me. Love - I answered. Who? - the query was in an incredulous tone. My mother, for a start, I replied. Strange that I should have said this because I had disrespected her all my life. Next thing I knew, I was alive and awake and my mother had been praying for me. My sister, a nurse, examined my chart from the foot of my hospital bed and said " they almost lost you, you know". I did know because I had seen the doctor working on me while the nurse had said /there is no point, she's gone" but he said "I'll just keep working on her for a little while longer". This was over 50 years ago. The hospital was the Rotunda. I was aware that God was pure love and that I was sorely lacking in that area. I didn't see my interrogator, perhaps it was my conscience or my guardian angel or the devil or St Peter, but it seems that God had the casting vote since I got a chance to avoid Hell at that time and was returned to this life with the certain knowledge that we pass this way but once. A great story Annie, and, in a way, I would loved to have had a similar experience early in my life even if it happened in the midst of a traumatic event. As eirwatcher points out, Fr Amorth's take of the final judgement being a 'moment of self truth' will be absolutely cringeworthy for the vast majority of us as the effects of our words and actions will be played out before us. 'Cringeworthy' as a word probably doesn't come near to describing how we will feel. But I feel that if we haven't turned our back on God and we have tried our best then there is great hope for us.
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Exorcism
Apr 24, 2018 18:14:10 GMT
via mobile
Post by annie on Apr 24, 2018 18:14:10 GMT
Assisi mentioned earlier It's worth knowing that the author believes that satanists and the demons themselves adhere to 3 principles. You can do what you wish (ignoring all God’s laws); You obey no-one; You are the god of yourself. Read more: irishcatholics.proboards.com/thread/403/exorcism?page=9#ixzz5Dc8x7NG4These poor souls will have a rude awakening - 'cringeworthy' is putting it mildly. "I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not put strange gods before Me" is the first commandment. Laws remain valid even when broken. If I fall and cut myself, the law of gravity is confirmed not broken... I am the broken one. It is the same with God's laws. Many are led astray by toying with New Age philosophies which have little new to offer and can beguile one away from Christ.
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Post by hibernicus on May 4, 2018 21:39:22 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 4, 2018 21:55:46 GMT
Rod Dreher discusses a variety of strange phenomena, including a friend whose wife appears to be possessed and is undergoing a series of exorcisms, and the widespread presence of dark occult themes in popular culture (including a new version of the SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH TV series, which replaces the bright poppy child's idea of a teenager original with a much darker look, incidentally specifying that the witches derive their powers from Satan). The discussion covers a wide range of views, including warnings about the spiritual and psychological dangers of becoming obsessed with this subject. www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/nathan-story-occult-sabrina/
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Post by hibernicus on Oct 4, 2018 22:01:04 GMT
William Friedkin, director of THE EXORCIST (and other films, some pretty ropey) makes a documentary about Fr Gabriele Amorth (just before the exorcist's 'death) featuring actual exorcism footage. I read Fr. Amorth's book recently - An Exorcist explains the Demonic. Well worth a read for anyone interested in such things. One fascinating insight of his: Satanists say their black masses at midnight or later because people are asleep and so less prayers are being said. Further corroboration of the efficacy of prayer! Since learning that, anytime I'm suffering a bought of insomnia, I'll say a rosary before falling back to sleep. Going over this again, one problem with Fr Amorth's claim strikes me. Since the earth is round, people in the Western Hemisphere are praying while we're asleep, and vice versa: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeC6M_RD3oE
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Post by Account Deleted on Oct 5, 2018 6:17:09 GMT
Going over this again, one problem with Fr Amorth's claim strikes me. Since the earth is round, people in the Western Hemisphere are praying while we're asleep, and vice versa: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeC6M_RD3oEIt raises an interesting question that I've not considered before - what way are the world's Catholics distributed between East and West hemispheres? I'd surmise a large proportion of global Catholics do in fact share a significant portion of the day/night: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_by_countryThe unbroken size of the Pacific ocean alone at 30% of the globe (and hence the current continental positions) would seem to be responsible for tipping it that way too. Things that make you go hmm..
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Post by maolsheachlann on Oct 5, 2018 9:26:56 GMT
I read Fr. Amorth's book recently - An Exorcist explains the Demonic. Well worth a read for anyone interested in such things. One fascinating insight of his: Satanists say their black masses at midnight or later because people are asleep and so less prayers are being said. Further corroboration of the efficacy of prayer! Since learning that, anytime I'm suffering a bought of insomnia, I'll say a rosary before falling back to sleep. Going over this again, one problem with Fr Amorth's claim strikes me. Since the earth is round, people in the Western Hemisphere are praying while we're asleep, and vice versa: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeC6M_RD3oEMaybe it's a localised thing.
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Post by Young Ireland on Oct 5, 2018 19:50:13 GMT
Going over this again, one problem with Fr Amorth's claim strikes me. Since the earth is round, people in the Western Hemisphere are praying while we're asleep, and vice versa: www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeC6M_RD3oEMaybe it's a localised thing. Given that people are generally awake across two thirds of the Earth's surface, assuming eight hours sleep, I doubt that there exists a time where there is absolutely no one praying, particularly when you consider that monasteries sing one of their hours during the night.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 12, 2019 21:38:50 GMT
Rod Dreher offers some reflections on the demonic element in some forms of heavy metal culture. One of his comboxers discusses how adolescent angst can be channelled into a form of world-denying gnosticism, which is really frightening because I recognise some elements of it in wider popular culture: EXTRACT Again, one can easily perceive precisely why and how an alienated and bigoted young man might be drawn to this sort of aesthetic form: its antisocial trappings and expressive violence give form to his alienation, give it a grounding, however thin and spurious. It is also easy to perceive analogies with the cultural manifestations of the alt-right: the endlessly self-referential and transgressive memes and so forth, which are every bit as postmodern as anything on the left, pure functions of the complete breakdown of all of the chains and regimes of signification, either reveling in the endless free play of the signifiers, or, more likely, seeking in good Deleuzian fashion to push the contradictions multiplied by this breakdown to their limit – the breakdown of the societal order itself. In fine, there are ares of Venn overlap, homologies, between postmodernism, to which most liberals and the non-Marxist Left adhere, the alt-Right, and the deep theological core of black metal, whence the obsession of all of these groupings with various modalities of transgression, inclusive, most especially, of those integral to identity politics. See, that fleeting mention of SSM in the earlier Danielsson interview was telling. This, though, is the mere political surface of things, the surface that Danielsson rejects in the latter interview. The pure shock value of the overt transgression is not the thing in itself, not the end sought. However, that fleeting mention of SSM is also telling in a deeper sense, one that arises out of the theological Satanism to which Watain are committed. That theological Satanism is one expression of a stream of occultism that would not exist but for the transmission of gnosticism to the West, its preservation under a variety of forms, its amalgamation with other forms of occult and esoteric thought, such as Kabbalah, and its repeated use, as speculative material, inspiration, and aspiration, by countless intellectual figures, be they philosophers, poets, visual artists, musicians, literary auteurs. The vision of theological Satanism and gnosticism are one and the same: man is a being caught in-between, born of the stars, immortal and divine, yet imprisoned in this vale of flesh by a malevolent deity, subjected to norms, laws, and rites intended to bind him to that deity, and to perpetuate this vale of flesh as a thing good in itself, thus prolonging his interment in flesh and the effective denial of his divinity. The whole telos of transgression, for the theological satanist, is to ritually – sacramentally – enact contempt for, and rejection of, the fundamental norms and structures of this physical plane of existence, for those norms and structures, those laws, presuppose this (for them wicked and unjust) world as good, and perpetuate it; whereas the point is to hasten its demise, individually, collectively, and ultimately, cosmically, releasing the divine sparks now imprisoned, that they might shine as they once did, in aeons past, like the Morning Star, as manifestations of pure will. The most direct articulation of this theology is found, not on a Watain album, but on a Dark Fortress album, but, as this is already long, I’m dubious that anyone earnestly desires an exegesis of that record. What is salient, though, is simply this: there exists a large area of Venn overlap where a) the exoteric, surface-level will-to-transgression of black metal meets those of other social expressions and formations, be they liberal, right-wing, postmodernist, or whatever; and b) a deeper, esoteric level of Venn overlap where gnosticism-as-theological-Satanism meets singulatarians, sweet-mystery-of-life liberals, identity politics (right or left), and yes, those unutterably stupid right-wingers who valorize the spiritual capitalism of the Market God, blessed be his price signals. Truly, assiduous workers of the lusts of their father, the Morning Star. (FTR: I’m not an occultist. I’m Orthodox.) END OF EXTRACT If anyone has ever read Newman's novel CALLISTA the character of Juba seems more and more prophetic www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/black-metal-black-churches/
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 7, 2020 22:34:48 GMT
A recent issue of the CATHOLIC VOICE has an interesting article about the original exorcism on which the film THE EXORCIST is based. The article, however, has a very odd detail which makes me think the writer is putting a particular spin (which I suspect derives from TFP) on the events described. According to the story the demon was only finally expelled when adjured in the name of DOMINUS and forced to repeat it. This is not strange in itself; God is Lord of All and the devils' sin centres on their refusal to acknowledge Him as such. The writer, however, seems to give this a broader application by declaring that one of the heresies propagated by the devils is equalitarianism - the belief that we are all equal - and that God's triumph is expressed in the recognition of lordship/superiority. This IMHO is problematic - it depends who is being recognised as equal/superior. Surely Newman's remark that a dirty, illiterate and not entirely honest Neapolitan orangewoman who has and practises faith may be better off spiritually than a fine gentleman eaten up by self-sufficiency should be borne in mind? Are we to say that those of our ancestors who wanted an Irish republic rather than the British monarchy were rebels against God thereby? "Not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" will enter into the kingdom of heaven."
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 8, 2020 22:17:05 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 13, 2021 21:23:42 GMT
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