Exorcists Gather in Poland

[beth]

Deep Thought?

Well, you may at least have to take a deep breath or 3 to wrap your mind around this one.
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Exorcists meet in Poland, tackle vampires




Vampires, the devil's deceit and mental illness are among the hot topics for some 300 exorcists who flocked to Poland this week from as far away as Africa and India for a week-long congress.

Held at Poland's Roman Catholic Jasna Gora monastery, home to the venerated Black Madonna icon, this year's congress "examines the current fashion for vampirism in Europe and the world-over, schizophrenia and other mental disorders as well as the devil's deceit during exorcism," according to the monastery's radio station.

Also attending are "priests and lay people who work with exorcists or who are themselves practitioners in cases which do not involve possession but rather other forms of harassment by evil spirits," Polish exorcist, Father Andrzej Grefkowicz was quoted as saying.

Hailing from India, world-renowned exorcist Father Rufus Pereira as well as chief exorcist of the Archdiocese of Vienna Larry Hogan are among the participants, the radio reported. The unusual meeting is held once every two years.

The Jasna Gora monastery's venerated Black Madonna icon is believed by many Poles to work miracles.

Legend has it that it was painted by the apostle Saint Luke on a table top from the home of the Holy Family, according to the Jasna Gora website. Records suggest the icon arrived in Poland during the 14th century.

With around 90 percent of the population declaring themselves Roman Catholic, Poland remains one of Europe's most devout countries.

news.yahoo.com/exorcists-meet-poland-tackle-vampires-165222317.html

[maggie]

Vampires are the in thing at the moment so Poland and its exorcists are right on trend.

[alanseago]

Drinking blood and eating flesh are integral rituals of Christian worship. Vampires simply bypass the main dealer.

[Jessiealan]

Then you think it could be a public relations move by the clergy? In that case, wouldn't they have to make light of their stated beliefs?

I am not sure that is very likely. What is ridiculous to us could still be serious to them.

[Erasmus]

I know somebody who's been haunted. Interesting that it would not go until a Protestant minister turned up with all the ritual gear. I don't know what these things are and I'm not even sure that they are all the same sort of thing but they certainly exist and I suspect that a general climate of belief makes it easier for them. The problem is that about 500 years ago, science decided that the metaphysical was out of its remit, so we are left with mediaeval language and approaches to deal with them.

I think the next 20 or 30 years will give a scientific insight because modern science often approaches the same view of physical phenomena as interpretation of a metaphysical reality as traditional metaphysics always has. The USSR made more practical headway in research because phenomena without a scientific explanation were an ideological embarrassment.

[biglin]

Jul 16, 2011 14:37:00 GMT -5 alanseago said:

Drinking blood and eating flesh are integral rituals of Christian worship. Vampires simply bypass the main dealer.

Not Christian worship, Alan; Catholic worship.

As a Protestant I certainly don't believe in the Real Presence.

It's a symbolic ritual commemorating the death and resurrection of Our Lord.

(Yet another reason why I don't look on Catholicism as having much to do with Christianity!)

[beth]

Dunno, Lin. Christianity is defined as the belief in Jesus as Christ or following the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus.

I think it's pretty clear RCC is Christian ... if you know anything about the church at all.

[Erasmus]

There's nothing that I know of in the Roman church that is not in more traditional older ones except the Pope's position and Charlemagne's addition to the creed, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, not from the Father alone. But it's quite possible that the Holy Spirit always was a mistranslation that never was intended to mean a third divine personage. The history of European Christianity is much like African, of what little that backward savages could make of it. At the same time, there is quite enough in the Coptic and Armenian churches to put me off traditional Christianity.

[fretslider]

Jul 16, 2011 17:10:49 GMT -5 @biglin said:

Jul 16, 2011 14:37:00 GMT -5 alanseago said:

Drinking blood and eating flesh are integral rituals of Christian worship. Vampires simply bypass the main dealer.

Not Christian worship, Alan; Catholic worship.

As a Protestant I certainly don't believe in the Real Presence.

It's a symbolic ritual commemorating the death and resurrection of Our Lord.

(Yet another reason why I don't look on Catholicism as having much to do with Christianity!)

I had to read this post twice - just to be sure....

Fact: The Catholic Church was founded by our old friend Yeshua in the 1st century AD in Palestine during Roman occupation. The New Testament records Yeshua's activities and teaching in Palestine during said occupation, his appointment of the twelve Apostles and his instructions to them to continue his work.

As a protestant you should be aware that Protestantism formed from the split with Roman Catholicism during the Reformation in the 16th century. The names Martin Luther and John Calvin should ring a bell.

Cannibalism is a rather disgusting way of symbolising anything, let alone one's irrational belief in a deity.

I think it's fair to say you missed out on Sunday school. If not, you've been well and truly indoctrinated by protestant bigots.

[mouse]

Jul 17, 2011 5:03:42 GMT -5 fretslider said:

Jul 16, 2011 17:10:49 GMT -5 @biglin said:

Not Christian worship, Alan; Catholic worship.

As a Protestant I certainly don't believe in the Real Presence.

It's a symbolic ritual commemorating the death and resurrection of Our Lord.

(Yet another reason why I don't look on Catholicism as having much to do with Christianity!)

I had to read this post twice - just to be sure....

Fact: The Catholic Church was founded by our old friend Yeshua in the 1st century AD in Palestine during Roman occupation. The New Testament records Yeshua's activities and teaching in Palestine during said occupation, his appointment of the twelve Apostles and his instructions to them to continue his work.

:)the teachings of christ and the early church were nothing like the roman church ...with all its man!! made silly rules and regulations..popes and priests..arch bishs etc..

[Erasmus]

We do not have a clue what the early teachings of any Jesus really were. It has all been rewritten and corrected retrospectively to fit the opinion of conclaves centuries later. In my opinion there are at least two distinct Christian traditions.

One follows a Jewish reformer (or more than one composited) closely connected to religious terrorism of the day whose successors were traced in Jerusalem until shortly before Christianity became legal. From what is known of them, they most likely escaped the pressure of Imperial Orthodoxy like the Mandeans and can be picked up later as the Medina Christians who joined Mohammed against Mecca when the Jews refused.

The other builds this legendary figure into a myth parallelling the Mystery Religions of antiquity, in the manner that King Arthur was built as an ideal on some folk hero, who again may not have even existed. Certainly he did not exist in any way as portrayed by the literature.

A third Jesus appears to have been constructed by taking this myth of the human condition literally and then having to introduce a distortion of the Jewish understanding of Original Sin in order to justify it.

The majority of gospels fall into the category of Wisdom Literature very common in Buddhism, of Sayings of the Master where it is mot particularly important whether any Master ever actually said them or not because the true Master is the inner mystical experience. The gospels selected as canonical are exceptions in that they make a half-hearted attempt at a background setting and Luke at least at a credible origin, even if full of literary touches balancing Jesus against John with some poetic declamation by Mary and Zecharias that neither Luke not anybody else was around to hear. Matthew attempts a quite incredible nativity, either on the basis that everybody has heard of Herod the Great and nobody of his disastrous successor Herod of Judea, or that that was Matthew's own position.

All the gospels date from the specific period following the Jewish Uprising, which appears to have coincided with the murder of St.James and Nero's blaming the Great Fire of Rome on Christian terrorism. As the result of that was a scattering of Jews, particularly from Galilee throughout the Empire and elevation of the generals who suppressed it to become Emperors, a lot of people had to think again that Big Al could not have made it clearer that he was not on the side of armed insurrection. Neither were most Jews.

With the first generation dying off around the same time, Jews and Christians separating out from them had to do a lot of thinking about just what this Kingdom of God (usually a synonym for Kingdom of Israel) was supposed to mean, since it had dramatically failed to arrive in their lifetime as promised and put their greatest enemies in charge. There was a strong possibility that with Nero's death, the Roman Empire would collapse as two more useless emperors succeeded for a few months before Vespasian put the whole thing on a sounder basis than military loyalty to the half-mad Julio-Claudian clan.

Against that background, sayings that might well have been intended literally have to be interpreted symbolically. There is already a quite different strand often at odds with the Jerusalem leadership running through St. Paul who never sees fit to mention any historical Jesus at all, despite being an active opponent, presumably with enough spies or his own interest, to listen to the man. for Paul, Jesus is nothing, The Christ is everything as a form of spiritual enlightenment quite familiar to the Pagan Mysteries and very likely with Jewish equivalents that Paul could see benefited from merger. Paganism did not have a fully developed concept of a God beyond the gods yet, although they were aware of such a concept. Paul provided it from more abstract Jewish ideas with The Christ as intermediary experience as best as can be expected in the material world.

Whatever else Paul did, he was far too influential to purge but was extensively re-written and a whole series of Pastorals added later in his name. Not that retrospectively writing what a character should have said was considered unusual at the time. All we know from the Dead Sea literature closest to Christianity (particularly Revelation) in wording and looking forward to the End Times is that it is just as close to similar Samaritan and Parsee literature and (quoting Moondog) looks forward to the Peace of one who has crushed all opposition.