I have the book. I started reading it and then I couldn't take it anymore. Do you have any other book in mind about exorcisms to read?
Ditto to putting it down.. I tried for about 5 months several times but had to
finally quit altogether. It's just too intense, not for me. When you read
something that makes your Rosary meditations all revert back to some sinister
moral crime like murder or devil worship, it's time to stop reading it and
anything like it.
I got the same effect from trying to read the Screwtape Letters. So no, those
things are not for me.
Malachi Martin might be a talented story teller, but his style tends to sink a
cold, sharp knife into my soul and it isn't something I appreciate.
I would recommend
Preparation for Death by St. Alphonsus de Liguori,
Doctor of the Church. That has some scary stories in it, with appropriate
commentary.
Also,
Purgatory (as explained by the lives and legends of the saints) by Fr.
F.X.Schouppe, S.J., is a great book. It's over 100 years old. It has some
pretty amazing stories.
Padre Pio lived a life of dealing with demonic possession and personal battles
with the devil, but he was equipped to handle it. I have seen several books
about him, but all the most interesting stories are those that people retell
having known the persons involved personally. It seems nobody has been
able to publish a really accurate and powerful book about him, for the books
all tend to leave out the most edifying parts of his life and miracles. Very odd.
For example, Fr. Pfeiffer tells of a woman from Britain who was born without
pupils in her eyes, and she went to Padre Pio, who restored her sight. But he
did not give her pupils. So then she went home and learned to drive a car,
and got her license, and reads books, and cries, and still has no pupils. I
have never seen this story in any of the books about our Stigmatist Saint
Priest. I would expect that the publishers all said -- "Naaaah. This one's too
much. We would be ridiculed." The fear of ridicule is very powerful.
There is one movie that is far and away the best about him, and you can
view it online now. The director was given one opportunity to screen it in
the USA, on one day, and I was there to see it. I was with my family, and
I had heard about the screening from a flyer at St. Peter's Church on
Broadway in L.A., for there is an Italian community there, and at Saint
Joseph's Table that year a stack of flyers was setting on a table, provided
by a parishioner who was an Italian Film Club member, and he knew the
"Miracle Man" director, Carlo Carlei. It's funny, speaking of the fear of
ridicule, his name is reminiscent of Galileo Galilei, isn't it? But I digress...
There is an exorcism scene in this movie that will literally curl your fingernails.
We had to wait about 20 minutes longer than the showtime start, outside
the theater. The crowd was getting restless, and people started to pound
their fists on the heavy wooden doors. I got the feeling I was in the middle
ages or something. Some of the people were dressed in what would seem
to be costumes, with extreme makeup and hair stuff going on. "But this
is Hollywood, you know," I kept telling myself...
At long last, the doors opened, quietly, like a ghost castle, and we went in to
take our seats. The theater was a bit more than half full. The movie projectors
would not run at first, which gave the director about a half hour to talk to us, the
audience. Mr. Carlei said that during the filming of the movie, he had numerous
equipment failures and odd things go wrong, such that it took a lot longer to film
than it should have. He had had a lot of moviemaking experience before that
and had never encountered anything like this.
And he said that this was the present situation as well, for these fine and
wonderful projectors that are in excellent repair, and have never broken down
for any other movies in this theater, are now somehow not working, and the
very capable technicians who are inspecting and testing them say that there
is nothing they can find that is out of order, for all essential system components
are functional and check out to be in working order. But the systems as a
whole do not turn on. And yes, there is power to the systems, and all the
indicator lights are on, as though the projectors should run, but they don't.
In all cases, he had found that only by invoking the aid of Padre Pio had he
been able to continue with the filming. And so, he asked everyone present to
pause for a moment of silence and to ask in our hearts for Padre Pio to help
make the movie projectors work again, after which time, the two projectors
began to work again. It was as if they rose again from the dead...
Many of the people in the audience were not Catholic, but I have to wonder:
how many of them
converted that afternoon?
When we left the theater, there was a heckling crowd outside, many of whom
were dressed up in Goth costumes with orange and green hair, or black and
cloudy makeup, and girls with black fingernails, all accusing us of interfering
with their time slot to see the next screening of some other nonsense movie
that the theater was rented to show that day. We had to walk through the
mulling mob of hateful onlookers as though we were on the Way of the Cross
or something. Very surreal.
In case you hadn't guessed, I recommend the film. It is best to see it
the first time in the Italian version, with English sub-titles. If you prefer to
have the English version, see that second, and you will then want to see the
Italian version again, for the third time.
The sound effects and the
authenticity of the voices are most compelling in the Italian version. Even
though it was a movie made for TV, I would say it ranks among the finest
movies ever made. It's even better than "The Ten Commandments" with
Charlton Heston, by Cecil B. DeMille.
Topic: Hostage To The Devil (Read 1378 times)