Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jhpb@garage.att.com (Joseph H Buehler) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Satan and demons Message-ID: Date: 4 Apr 91 06:22:59 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 33 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu There's a book floating around in this country about four exorcisms that happened here. I don't want to give any details because the book is quite graphic, and certainly shouldn't be read by young people. Suffice it to say that it's by a NY Times bestseller author. The book starts out with a scene from China in the 1930's or so. The police have been looking for a murderer, and have finally found him holed up in a wharehouse. But the man's parish priest happened to find him first, and is engaged in an exorcism when the police find the warehouse. The man had been killing people and EATING them. He had their bodies all stacked up in the warehouse (no doubt for a midnight snack?). The exorcism failed. The warehouse burned down (for some reason I've forgotten) with the man in it. The last scenes were quite ghastly. Gene Gross gave one sign of possession -- knowledge of sins that only an angel could be aware of. Another one is the knowledge of languages that the person in question has never studied. Possessed people also act strangely near sacred objects. For example, in one of the cases in the book I mentioned above, a possessed woman was visited by her brother. She went off into another room. Meanwhile, he put a crucifix under her bed. She came back, and and sat on the bed. And went into convulsions. Demons are things that I never, Never, NEVER want to have anything to do with. They hate, Hate, HATE *all* human beings. People think that anyone can be reasoned with -- they don't know what a devil is. If you've ever seen the movie "The Exorcist", it's pretty true to life, from what I've read, and from what I remember of the movie.