As part of my preparation for a discussion I'll be leading on the topic of The exorcism trend and anti-Satanist paranoia, I've searched Google for stories about exorcism in New York City newspapers. Here is what I found (omitting movie reviews):

( Interviews with exorcist Gary Thomas )

Bill Donohue, president of the mis-named Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights (which, too often, seems to be more interested in imposing conservative Catholic values on the rest of society than in protecting the rights of Catholics as people) likes the movie The Rite, and likes most of the mass media response to it. Donohue says that the ( Read more... )

I recently came across the news story Updated: Vatican steps back from Discovery's 'Exorcist Files' by T.L. Stanley, Los Angeles Times, January 10, 2011, according to which:

"Aside from the priests, experts like Richard Gallagher, a faculty member at Columbia University's Psychoanalytic Institute, will be part of "The Exorcist Files." So will ( Read more... )

In a comment thread on Talk To Action, I got into an interesting discussion about "recovered memories" -- the very idea of which has been the focus of lots of controversy among psychologists and psychotherapists. Is it possible for people to repress, more-or-less completely, their memory of a traumatic event, and then to recover it later? The ( Read more... )

This blog was linked recently from the article Crying Witch: Learning From the O’Donnell “Dabbling” Debacle by Spencer Dew on Religions Dispatches, October 28, 2010.

For those readers who might be looking for my group NYC Satanists, Luciferians, Dark Pagans, and LHP Occultists, which was mentioned in the above article, details are here on Meetup. ( Read more... )

In the Dark Christianity LiveJournal community, in a thread titled They're at it again, begun by roseross, there was a comment by underlankers referring to dominionist Christianity as "de facto Satanism." Naturally, I questioned that.

( Brief recap of conversation )

treph posted a comment here, regarding my use of the term "brat brigade" to describe obnoxious teenage Satanists:
I'd appreciate it if you would respect the "Brat Brigade" a little more. Not all teenagers such as myself are uneducated in Satanism. Sure, you probably have your reasons for not liking teenagers and I do not blame you old curmudgeon ( Read more... )

Christian missionaries, especially of the dominionist/"Transformations" variety, love to claim that the spread of Christianity will dramatically reduce crime. But now a traditional Yoruba leader in Nigeria, Chief Kayode Idowu Esuleke, Baale Esu of Osogbo, is pushing back with similar claims for a return to the traditional Yoruba religion.

( Baale Esu says: To eliminate crime, swear by Ogun, Esu or Sango )

Yesterday a press release was put out by one John Ramirez, author of a book titled Out of the Devil's Caldron: A Journey from Darkness to Light, in which he claims he was "trained to be the third-ranked high priest of a satanic cult (Santeria) in New York City--casting powerful witchcraft spells and controlling entire spiritual regions" -- until, ( Read more... )

In the Mystic Wicks forum I saw a post about The New SRA Revival... by Bryon Morrigan, who also has a website and a blog. On his blog, a post titled Intolerant of the Intolerant contained a very interesting ancient Roman quote about Roman pagan rumor-mongering against Christians, reminiscent of today's "Satanic Ritual Abuse" scare. Among other ( Read more... )