This has always bothered me. If instead of, or in addition to, going out and telling the son who’s feelings were hurt to go inside and be happy the father had (also) told the prodigal son to go out and speak to his brother, would the two brothers have been reconciled?

I think, yes.

Finished this book a few days ago. It was pretty interesting. A good read, especially for anyone who “doesn’t believe in evil”.

He explores varying levels of evil, from people who are “on their way” to becoming evil, individuals who are themselves evil, married people who are together evil, to group evil. All of the stories in the book are based upon real patients the author had in his clinic throughout his life. This makes the book all the more fascinating, since it is true.

He postulates that the mother of evil is narcissism (pride) and laziness. Evil people refuse to believe there is anything wrong with themselves, and they also do not truly “see” other people as even being real people. The entire world revolves around them, and they have no real category of another persons feelings/wants/needs as even being valid. It also explores why it is that often you will find evil people as avid church-goers and even preachers. Evil people have no true love for anyone else, and as they are so narcissistic they don’t really even understand the concept of love.

It begins with an obsessive compulsive man who attempts to make a “pact with the devil” to rid himself of his compulsions. This man was on his way to becoming “evil”, as he was willing to cause the death of his son to rid himself of his own flaws.

It moves on to children whose parents are evil. One whose parents gave him the very gun his brother used to commit suicide as a Christmas present. These parents do not see their children (or even eachother) as being people, and have no real love or care for them.

It then explores a grown child whose parents are evil who are on their way to becoming evil themselves. They are enveloped in their own reality, and use others to fill empty holes in their life, but have no real care for them, they are simply disposable tools to fill their needs.

Then it explores the case of a woman who is evil, but seeks therapy. She was so imersed in her own world that she remade the entire world in her image in her mind. It became quickly apparent that the only reason she came to therapy week after week was in an attempt to seduce Dr. Peck (which she never succeeded at).

Finally it explores group evil in the Vietnam war and America in general. This was a point in which I had to grit my teeth a few times, since this guy is a liberal, and I am conservative. We disagreed on a few points, but as it was only one rather short chapter, it did not “ruin” the book, and he actually did have some valid points.

All in all, this book wasn’t as dramatically engaging as “Glimpses of the Devil” was, but it is still a fascinating read. I found his first book “The Road Less Traveled” at half price books for $1 today, and am looking forward to reading it. I think it focuses more on being good than examining evil…

Just finished “Glimpses of the Devil” over the weekend. It is about a Christian Pyschiatrist who at the beginning is 95% sure the Devil does not exist, but by the end succeeds in performing not one, but two exorcisms, of what he believed to be satan itself.

Do I believe what he wrote? I believe that he did not lie in anything that he said, whether he is right or wrong, I believe him to be truthful. However, I’m not sure I believe him to be completely ‘correct’ about all of it either, as no human can ever be 100% correct about anything as complex as this.

Do I believe he performed two exorcisms in which the subject was indeed possessed? You betcha. However, I’m not sure I believe them to have been possessed by THE devil. It seemed to me they were possessed rather by lesser demons (albeit, very powerful ones).

******************SPOILERS (kind of)*******************
There are two cases in this book. The first is a successful, somewhat well executed exorcism of a young girl who was possessed by 5 demons (the last of which being a demon who claimed to be ‘jesus’ whom Peck identifies as ‘the ati-christ’ as well as simultaneously being ‘satan’).

The second was an exorcism full of mistakes, which ultimately was too much for Peck, and while it does succeed, it only lasts for 21 days, after which the girl is repossessed, and eventually dies. Oops. He regrets ever having attempted this one.
******************END SPOILERS**********************

It’s very well written and engaging.

It always amazes me when people will believe in God, possibly even believe in angels, but absolutely refuse to believe in the devil. I have no clue how they can justify that. Many people who do not believe in the devil simply say he is a metaphor for evil, and evil tendencies for humans. They justify Jesus’ supposed “exorcisms” as simply healing some sort of mental illness (like epilepsy). But how could the healing of a mental illness be the cause of an entire herd of swine killing themselves? What, did Jesus “cast the mental illness out of the men and into the swine, which then caused them to kill themselves by drowning themselves”? That doesn’t even really make sense. If that were the case, why hadn’t the men drowned themselves? And if it were cast out of the one and into the other, then it was indeed something and not just a glitch in their neuro-pathways. So now you are just accepting “mental illnesses” as being some sort of spirit all on it’s own rather than a glitch, and you are in essence believing in demons and just calling them something else.

It is also very clear that you can’t just be walking down the street and “OH NO!” Out jumps a demon and, “oh crap I’m possessed”. It takes a long time of cooperating with the demonic to result in possession. Your body is a shell, and your soul as residing in that shell (with room to spare). Cooperating with the demonic is slowly opening little holes in the shell through which they can come into the shell, and slowly over very very long periods of time and cooperation on your part utterly replace you in that shell (eventually leaving nothing of you in it at all).

Another interesting point is that the exorcist really doesn’t do a whole lot towards exercising the demon. Rather, what the exorcist does is to bring the possessed to the place where they are able to choose to cast the demon out of themselves. In the end no matter what the exorcist does, the demon will never leave unless the person decides to stop cooperating with and to reject the demon.

On an interesting aside, part of the Orthodox rite of baptism is an exorcism. You, along with the church, reject satan (or if you are an infant, the church just does it for you). This is not to say that that is the purpose of the baptism, just that it is a result of the baptism. If you were possessed, but for some reason willingly sought baptism and took an active cognizant role in your baptism, your demon would be expelled as a result of that, since no demon could live in you while you were indwelt by the Holy Spirit which is what baptism is all about.

Man is God cool… He’s like, ‘Hey guys, want me to live inside you? Yeah, I know I’m like GOD and all, but I just love you THAT MUCH that I want to be a part of you, while still allowing you to have full control and free will over yourself.’ Essentially our bodies are a car and God asks to get in the passenger seat. But if we are smart, we’ll let him hold the map and guide us. Because what truly bad thing could happen while God was co-piloting (Even if we may have to drive through hell and back to get where we are going)? Sorry, I know this is a very overly simplistic metaphor, but it was too fun to resist making…

I guess the whole point is that there is a passenger seat next to your soul, and if you don’t fill it with God, something else might just hop on in if you let it…