[Magdalen] Exorcism

[Sibyl Smirl]

Thank you, Sally! This one I'm going to keep to study over and over!

I'll add, apropos to the kind of theology that says "A Good God 
_couldn't_ do that!" that "With God all things are possible" and "My 
thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways".  I don't think 
that God uses the same logics as humans do.


On 12/10/15 11:56 PM, Sally Davies wrote:
> It tends to be simplistic and creates other questions, but I just work with
> the traditional explanation of Fall.
>
> If humans can become evil without help, and I think we can, then it follows
> that angels can also give up their created goodness for self-glory and
> self-absorption. Everything else follows logically from there...since
> angels are not subject to time and space as we are, the evil they can
> express is of a different order, but its pattern is the same - denying
> God's Being, and then treating other beings as objects to be used in power
> projects.
>
> So "there was war in heaven" - but emphasis on WAS. They were kicked out
> and Creation divided, at least as far as this earth is concerned. The
> future of these created beings is not envisaged in the Bible as being a
> happy one: that they will live with their own self-created (and
> self-satisfied) misery, no longer being capable of "wondering love". It is
> also likely that some humans will choose to live with them, preferring to
> "rule in Hell" than to "serve in Heaven" (though we don't know and can't
> know who these may be).
>
> In the meantime it's part of our reclaiming of Earth for the Kingdom, to
> bind them and perhaps at times (and with one another's help and in
> submission to one another) to battle them. I do not agree with "deliverance
> ministry" as commonly practised in some fundie churches. It is ill
> informed, often abusive in subtle and blatant ways, and dangerous to
> people's mental health.
>
> I also personally believe there are other things, traces, wrinkles in time,
> however poorly understood, which may creep us out but have nothing to do
> with evil spirits. That funeral service for a long dead child that Clarissa
> mentioned would fall into this category for me. I would say that the humans
> involved are able to feel that previous pain and loss and they needed to
> deal with it in their own timeline. We can feel such things, like sanctity
> in a church, or the traces of violence and agony on a battlefield (Culloden
> for instance is not a place I would readily visit again). There are "thin
> places" of all kinds and I don't think people imagine this.
>
> But regarding such things the Scriptures are largely silent. It's just
> striking to me that in most "ghost stories" the so called spirit simply
> repeats and repeats like those little GIFS on the internet.  Poltergeist
> stories are also interesting - a close friend in Somerset West had one her
> house, and dealt with it in the mannner Clarissa describes - with
> priestly prayer and holy water - end of bangs and crashes and stuff getting
> broken.
>
> This house, where we live now, had a former owner who died from a
> degenerative illness. Her husband is still alive but sold it after her
> death...and yet it has always felt full of love and peace. She loved this
> house so much, but we knew already that before others confirmed it or told
> us their story.
>
> What a mysterious Universe we are inheriting!
>
> Sally D
>
>
>
> On Friday, December 11, 2015, Lesley de Voil <lesleymdv at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I am probably not going to do him justice, but John Hick, philosopher
>> thinks of evil as the complete absence of love. It's human nature to reify
>> this absence  as a thing or a person, but that  is only our way of
>> explaining "it."
>> Regards
>> Lesley de Voil
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: "James Oppenheimer-Crawford" <oppenheimerjw at gmail.com <javascript:;>
>>>
>> Sent: ‎11/‎12/‎2015 12:05
>> To: "Magdalen at herberthouse.org <javascript:;>" <magdalen at herberthouse.org
>> <javascript:;>>
>> Subject: Re: [Magdalen] Exorcism
>>
>> It is not a simple matter, I am sure.  After all, there are a few serious
>> accounts of people who have reports that sound like there must surely be
>> some kind of malevolent presence there.
>>
>> I don't discount those stories, but when I consider the theology of such a
>> thing, it makes me unsure of it all, since it seems incomprehensible that
>> the God I have learned to worship in this faith would ever (could ever)
>> create such terrible things.  Whatever they are, they too are God's
>> creatures, unless someone is suggesting that there are a pantheon of Gods,
>> or which ours is not the only one. I think the Gnostics believed that there
>> are other deities.
>>
>> I am drawn to the conclusion that even if there were more than one God (and
>> I could not imagine how that could be, but I digress), it seems one must be
>> the primary God.  If so, then we still fold back to that question, how
>> could god create malevolent spirits or entities?  The evil one is not
>> consistently portrayed; he just kind of shows up as a literary device at
>> times, and when he does show up, he appears to look and act the part of
>> whatever device is needed at that moment in that particular story. And he
>> doesn't really show up very often in any case.
>>
>> I won't say I even disagree with reports of malevolent spirits, but the
>> theology doesn't seem to show how this can "work" if we believe in a God
>> who is love, justice and mercy. It seems to me that belief in such things
>> might constitute disrespecting God's goodness, if we assume God creates
>> evil entities whose purpose is evil to the core.
>>
>> So, as another literary device once put it, "Is a puzzlement!"
>>
>> James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
>> *“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
>> except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy
>>
>> On Thu, Dec 10, 2015 at 6:44 PM, Clarissa Canning <canplum at gmail.com
>> <javascript:;>> wrote:
>>
>>> I had a conversation about exorcism with a former Canadian Bishop.  He
>> said
>>> it is a ministry one really has to contemplate to do.  He had someone
>> come
>>> asking to do something in a trailer home. The little boy was being
>> bothered
>>> by an uncomfortable spirit.  He said always take a witness. They prayed
>>> thru the home using Holy water & read out a funeral service for a child
>> in
>>> their child's room.  Things went back to normal after this.  (It was told
>>> to them that a child had died in the home under bad circumstances
>>> previously.)
>>>     The other story was an exorcism for a man. He took amother priest as a
>>> witness.  he called out the demons. when they reacted  they felt it and
>> had
>>> to keep praying at times it was stronger like wrestling.  They evil
>> spirits
>>> left. after a few hours.   He said they hoped not to do this ministry too
>>> often it is disconcerting.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Dec 10, 2015 2:24 AM, "James Oppenheimer-Crawford" <
>>> oppenheimerjw at gmail.com <javascript:;>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Well, I have certainly experienced real palpable evil.  Some people are
>>> so
>>>> far gone beyond the act of merely failing to weigh choices correctly
>> that
>>>> one senses almost a visceral dread of the stuff these people come up
>>> with.
>>>> Yes indeed, we are capable of incredible depths of depravity all by
>>>> ourselves.  We don't need help going there, sad to say.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
>>>> *“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not
>> preserved,
>>>> except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 7:57 AM, Sally Davies <sally.davies at gmail.com
>> <javascript:;>>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Me too, Arthur.
>>>>>
>>>>> It's also interesting that in my environment of Africa, few people
>>> inside
>>>>> the churches or even outside them are inclined to question the
>>>>> independent existence of evil and of evil entities. It doesn't sit
>>>>> comfortably with rationality but in this part of the world the
>>>> supernatural
>>>>> and the natural are not separated to the same extent as in the
>>> "rational"
>>>>> West.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't understand it, but there again I don't understand most of
>>> Reality
>>>>> and that's OK.
>>>>>
>>>>> My main problem with all of this is not so much philosophy or
>> theodicy
>>>> but
>>>>> psychology. I'm a devotee and servant of the human brain in all its
>>>>> miraculous strangeness, including its ability to connect with other
>>>> brains
>>>>> in ways that aren't obvious to the five senses or easily explained.
>>>>>
>>>>> It so aggravating when phenomena that are much more elegantly
>> explained
>>>> by
>>>>> recourse to these lesser known psycho-social competencies and
>>>>> vulnerabilities, are ascribed to either God or the Devil.
>>>>>
>>>>> I don't mean to imply that this leaves us with a "Satan of the gaps".
>>> To
>>>> my
>>>>> mind, one of Satan's cleverest tricks is to get us searching for
>>> Hannibal
>>>>> Lector when someone like Donald Trump is a much more worthy
>> candidate.
>>>> He's
>>>>> convinced a lot of people to believe in the "light" he claims to be
>>>> shining
>>>>> on Reality (Truth is completely irrelevant in his campaign) - and
>> they
>>>> will
>>>>> give him the highest power in the land if they have the chance.
>>> Screwtape
>>>>> and his team must be well pleased with him!!
>>>>>
>>>>> Ian: you asked the original question, what do you think of The
>>> Screwtape
>>>>> Letters?
>>>>>
>>>>> Sally D
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wednesday, December 9, 2015, Arthur Laurent <ALaurent at npr.org
>> <javascript:;>>
>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I believe in the devil and other creatures of pure evil, because
>> I've
>>>>> been
>>>>>> in the presence of evil, and was glad when I could walk away. This
>> is
>>>> not
>>>>>> an intellectual belief (none of my spiritual beliefs are
>>> intellectual),
>>>>> but
>>>>>> is based on personal experience.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> James wrote, "...Thinking one can behave their way into heaven is
>> an
>>>>>> insult to the whole idea of salvation," and I agree. There is
>> nothing
>>>> we
>>>>>> can do by ourselves that will get us into heaven. That's why we
>> have
>>>>> Jesus
>>>>>> as our Advocate.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Of course, some of us are going to take a lot more advocacy than
>>>> others.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Arthur
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
>


-- 
Sibyl Smirl
I will take no bull from your house!  Psalms 50:9a
mailto:polycarpa3 at ckt.net