Read Online The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist by Matt Baglio - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Matt Baglio
Tags: Religión, General, Biography & Autobiography, Biography, Religious, Christian Theology, Christianity, Angelology & Demonology, Clergy, exorcism, Catholic, Matt, Baglio
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satanic tattoos, self-mutilations, shattered storefronts blocked off by yellow crime-scene tape—that paraded across the screen.
Because the blinds were shut and the lights were turned off, Father Gary didn't bother to take many notes, but instead sat back and tried to digest it all.
In recent years, satanic cults had been on the rise in Italy, and several high-profile satanic murders had grabbed attention in the Italian news. In 2001, three teenage girls stabbed a nun to death in a northern Italian town as a part of a satanic ritual. In the fall of 2005, members of a satanic rock group, the Bestie di Satana (Beasts of Satan) were brought to trial for the brutal murder of one band member and two female friends, one of whom was shot and buried alive. As recently as 2007, a man with amnesia wandered into a police station in a town near Milan covered with small puncture wounds and missing three liters of blood. Later, his blood was found splattered all over the walls of his apartment seventy miles away in the form of satanic writings. Police found upturned crosses and other satanic symbols there even though the man had no recollection of belonging to any cult.
Because millions of people are reportedly involved in the occult around the world and the numbers are on the rise, the exorcism course would explain the ramifications to novice exorcists.
M ODERN SATANISM , say experts, borrows from a number of historical traditions, and its tenets are hard to pin down. There is no unified belief system, as some members of the same group may become involved for more abstract practices while others do so for carnal.
The Gnostics in the mid-second century heavily promoted the notion that Satan was a godlike being with certain powers. Later condemned by the Church as heretics, the Gnostics believed that the material world was too full of evil to have been created by a good God. Therefore, they proposed a dualist system whereby God was distant and unknowable while Satan was the creator of the physical world. Later, in the Middle Ages, the Cathars took up this theory once again, even going so far as to say that the Catholic Church was established by the Devil to mislead people. This emphasis on the material world having been created by Satan wasn't for the purposes of worshiping him, but to more powerfully oppose him. But this view was easily perverted by certain groups who put the Devil on an equal footing with God.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, on the heels of the revolutions in America and France and in the midst of the Enlightenment, Satan's desire to rebel against God was cast as a bid for freedom. The Church, seen by some as being too authoritarian, was accused of repressing man's natural carnal desires. As a result, numerous groups sprang up, including the infamous Hellfire Club led by the rake Sir Francis Dashwood, which, while not necessarily believing in the reality of a personified Satan, still espoused a hedonistic lifestyle involving supposed orgies and other debaucheries done in the Devil's name.
According to Father Bamonte, who also authored a book on the occult, there are two currents of Satanism. In the first, known as “personal,” adepts actually believe that Satan is a physical entity, a god who can be prayed to and who will grant certain privileges, such as money and fame, if offered sacrifices. While in the second, known as “impersonal,” acolytes hold that Satan represents more of a force or energy, a part of the cosmos that can be developed and used to serve them.
In both the “personal” and the “impersonal” currents of Satanism, the power of the individual is exalted above anything else, while the seven capital sins are celebrated. As Father Bamonte says, “The key to understanding them is to know their motto, ‘Do what you want; that is the only law.’” Beyond this basic view, the groups themselves can also be very diverse.
Father Aldo Buonaiuto, a member of the Pope John XXIII
Because the blinds were shut and the lights were turned off, Father Gary didn't bother to take many notes, but instead sat back and tried to digest it all.
In recent years, satanic cults had been on the rise in Italy, and several high-profile satanic murders had grabbed attention in the Italian news. In 2001, three teenage girls stabbed a nun to death in a northern Italian town as a part of a satanic ritual. In the fall of 2005, members of a satanic rock group, the Bestie di Satana (Beasts of Satan) were brought to trial for the brutal murder of one band member and two female friends, one of whom was shot and buried alive. As recently as 2007, a man with amnesia wandered into a police station in a town near Milan covered with small puncture wounds and missing three liters of blood. Later, his blood was found splattered all over the walls of his apartment seventy miles away in the form of satanic writings. Police found upturned crosses and other satanic symbols there even though the man had no recollection of belonging to any cult.
Because millions of people are reportedly involved in the occult around the world and the numbers are on the rise, the exorcism course would explain the ramifications to novice exorcists.
M ODERN SATANISM , say experts, borrows from a number of historical traditions, and its tenets are hard to pin down. There is no unified belief system, as some members of the same group may become involved for more abstract practices while others do so for carnal.
The Gnostics in the mid-second century heavily promoted the notion that Satan was a godlike being with certain powers. Later condemned by the Church as heretics, the Gnostics believed that the material world was too full of evil to have been created by a good God. Therefore, they proposed a dualist system whereby God was distant and unknowable while Satan was the creator of the physical world. Later, in the Middle Ages, the Cathars took up this theory once again, even going so far as to say that the Catholic Church was established by the Devil to mislead people. This emphasis on the material world having been created by Satan wasn't for the purposes of worshiping him, but to more powerfully oppose him. But this view was easily perverted by certain groups who put the Devil on an equal footing with God.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, on the heels of the revolutions in America and France and in the midst of the Enlightenment, Satan's desire to rebel against God was cast as a bid for freedom. The Church, seen by some as being too authoritarian, was accused of repressing man's natural carnal desires. As a result, numerous groups sprang up, including the infamous Hellfire Club led by the rake Sir Francis Dashwood, which, while not necessarily believing in the reality of a personified Satan, still espoused a hedonistic lifestyle involving supposed orgies and other debaucheries done in the Devil's name.
According to Father Bamonte, who also authored a book on the occult, there are two currents of Satanism. In the first, known as “personal,” adepts actually believe that Satan is a physical entity, a god who can be prayed to and who will grant certain privileges, such as money and fame, if offered sacrifices. While in the second, known as “impersonal,” acolytes hold that Satan represents more of a force or energy, a part of the cosmos that can be developed and used to serve them.
In both the “personal” and the “impersonal” currents of Satanism, the power of the individual is exalted above anything else, while the seven capital sins are celebrated. As Father Bamonte says, “The key to understanding them is to know their motto, ‘Do what you want; that is the only law.’” Beyond this basic view, the groups themselves can also be very diverse.
Father Aldo Buonaiuto, a member of the Pope John XXIII
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