Reading Now: Demonic Foes

By Richard Gallagher, M. D. Available via Amazon.

It arrived yesterday and I'm already 60 pages into its 247 pages.  A page-turner for sure.  I did, however, refrain from reading any of it in bed last night before drifting off -- for obvious reasons.  Experiences of my own incline me to take very seriously "Unseen Warfare."

 

Dr. Gallagher comes across as a very credible witness.  Rooted as he is in Western canons of rationality and scientific method, he nonetheless appreciates that there are points at which methodological naturalism must give way in the teeth of massive evidence of super- and preter-natural phenomena.

 

This article features an interview with Dr. Gallagher.

 

UPDATE (6/14).  I am now up to p. 82.  It gets better and better. Packed with distinctions essential for clear thinking about this topic. 

Comments

[Ingvar]

Regarding man and man's spirit and the spirit realm, here are some observations.

10 To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits;

1 Corinthians 12:10

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"discerning of spirits" is a gift of the Holy Spirit.

Thus the topic: to discern spirits IS NOT for you to do or attempt on your own.

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28 He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.

Proverbs 25:28

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Neglecting to rule your spirit leaves you unprotected from spiritual attack.
Thus the topic: you ruling your spirit.

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32 He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.

Proverbs 16:32

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To rule your spirit is a greater feat of might than to conquer a city.

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4 A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.

Proverbs 15:4

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Thus the topic: a perverse tongue leaves one unprotected from spiritual attack.
Thus the topic: what is the reverse? How is a breach repaired? How is a breach avoided? Can you receive help from other men?

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[Joe Odegaard]

A book on a parallel track is "The Occult and the Third Reich" by Jean-Michel Angebert. I read a borrowed copy years ago. At the core of the Nazis, the demonic resided.

Here's a link to some reviews:

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1538865.The_Occult_and_the_Third_Reich

[BV]

Thanks, Joe.

Vito,

Do you know anything about the book Joe mentions? Or about any of the other books in this genre? There are several.

Hitler died by his own hand, despite the attempts of others to kill him. That fact points to the possibility of his being under demonic protection, not that the fact by itself is good evidence, let alone proof, that he was under such protection.

The trick here is to avoid gullibility on the one hand, and a dogmatic, a priori, refusal to countenance explanations other than the naturalistic, on the other.

[Vito B. Caiati]

Jean-Michel Angebert and Michel Angebert were the pseudonyms used by Michel Betrand (d. 2017), a French historian who specialized in the naval history of France, especially during the Second World War, on which he wrote a number of books for the general public that he published under his autonym. He also wrote several books on the occult and the Holy Grail, which were issued under these two pseudonyms. Specifically, I know nothing about the book that Joe Odegaard mentions, so I can offer no informed judgement as to its intellectual value, although given the level of Bertrand’s writings in general, popular rather than seriously academic, I would be surprised if the subject is analyzed in a rigorous manner. But then, again, I never read it.

I agree with you, Bill, that in dealing with the subject of the demonic, we must "avoid gullibility on the one hand, and a dogmatic, a priori, refusal to countenance explanations other than the naturalistic, on the other."

[BV]

Thank you for the background, Vito.

[BV]

The Satanic underpinnings of MS-13 is revealed in Tucker Carlson's interview of Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador. Here: https://youtu.be/U5n8R9lq8SI

See in particular 9:55-14:14.

HT: Trudy Vandermolen who writes,

Hi Bill,

Did you see this interview? I was blown away. The new president of El Salvador has turned his country around from being the murder capital of the world to having the lowest murder rate in the Western Hemisphere. But the reason he gives is so unexpected, that Tucker Carlson can’t believe it at first.

Like Naomi Wolf, he credits demonic power to the gangs. But they are gone!

A well-spoken, calm, articulate, smart guy.

Really interesting!

Trudy

[Joe Odegaard]

There is also a clueful mention of Hitler in a book I have here, "The Ultra Secret," written by F.W. Winterbotham, CBE, who helped develop the British code-breaking organizations and machines in WW2. He worked with the RAF intelligence from 1929 on. The quote relevant here starts on page 4:

" By 1933 Nazi euphoria had closed down most of the secret agents I had managed to get hold of in Germany, and Nazi rearmament had begun. I decided to do something about it personally and upset the protocol and tradition of the Head Office of the Secret Service by going to Germany myself.

By 1934 I had obtained personal contact with the Head of State, Hitler, and with Alferd Rosenberg, the official Nationalist Party philosopher and Foreign Affairs expert, (with) Rudolph Hess . . .

From my personal meetings with Hitler I learned about his personal belief that the only hope for an ordered world was that it should be run by three super powers, the British Empire, the Greater Americas and the new Greater German Reich . . . Conversations with him inadvertently also revealed to me that he had some sort of dual personality which he could switch on and off at will. Later, I have no doubt, the unreasonable one took over."

° ° ° °

Joe's comments again . . .

I don't think it strange that demons, who wish to do the most damage that they can, are especially thick in the corridors of power.

And as for proper skepticism, I also note that it is no sure indication of evil that a person can attract large crowds; Martin Luther king delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech in front of 250,000 people in Washington D.C, in August 1963.

[BV]

See my "Naomi Wolf on the Return of the Demons." https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2023/03/naomi-wolf-on-the-return-of-the-demons.html

A lively comment thread ensues.

[john doran]

You know who really won the second world war? the Bolsheviks.

If you want to learn something interesting, and shorn from the stultifyingly incestuous monotony of the "histories" we have all learned at our mothers' knees about the first half of the 20th century, then try David Irving, or A.J.P. Taylor: history documented purely from archival sources, not simply the repetition of statements made by the authors' peers.

demons are real, and they and theirs proliferate, and are always hungrily prowling; but, i believe, they are not always roaring.

based on a sober reading of all of the available evidence,i would be willing to bet that Germany had the least demonic infiltration of all the parties to that miserable period of human history.

[Joe Odegaard]

Well yes, the Bolsheviks. But their victory has faded, and Holy Mother Russia has gone back to her Orthodox Christian roots. China? China is still stuck; China has no big Judeo-Christian history to fall back on. But she is in a mess, economically and demographically. Europe has problems, but she seems to be waking up at the eleventh hour, as evidenced by her very recent elections. God willing, our dear USA will wake up the same.

And now here is a link to some pretty Russian girls singing a rather spiritual song, and another link where they sing an American song, California Dreaming, of all things.

World peace through music! There is no need to be discouraged.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANKjat2bj94

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE7i0aVfUoY

[Ed Farrell]

I fell into this world unawares many years ago while attempting to practice Buddhist meditation. I had approached this more from an academic perspective at first but eventually became curious enough to attempt the practice. Some of the translated original texts I'd read (by Edward Conze and others) warned not to practice meditation without an experienced teacher because it opened you to the demonic world, among other negative things. I disregarded this as the sort of superstition that attaches itself to any religion like a cheap suit. In any case, as an agnostic, I was more interested in meditation as a tool of mental discipline. But after months of solitary practice in which I seemed to be making good progress I encountered an "obstacle" that made me forever swear off the practice. In the midst of my accustomed practice, seated upright on a bed, I lost consciousness--the experience was much the same as you'd experience with the administration of a general anesthetic. When I regained consciousness several hours later I was lying flat on my stomach, my head turned to the left, and unable to move anything except my eyes and my breathing muscles. The room behind me seemed crowded with "people" but I could not see them, and soon I felt the sensation of a wind in the room and the bed felt as if it were bucking in a storm, gently at first then more violently. All this was accompanied by extreme dread and even panic but any attempt to move was completely fruitless. After what seemed like a very long time the feelings and sensations subsided and I was finally able to turn myself over on the bed, but I quickly passed out and didn't wake until the middle of the next afternoon. Unfortunately this wasn't the end of the experience. Over the next several months I often experienced nightmarish "traces" of the experience in the room--hearing conversations in the house without ever finding their source, seeing "people" in my peripheral vision who could never be seen when I directed my vision towards them. And of course the nerve-wracking feeling of going crazy. These experiences slowly faded over several months and never returned with the same intensity, though occasionally they return in nightmares.

What to make of this? I don't know. The secular world can only judge it as pathological, rooted somehow in malfunctioning body chemistry. But within the larger context of human history and human experience communicated via myth this secular view is a distinctly minority view. Of course this doesn't make the majority view correct, but it certainly warrants a serious and sympathetic view that few nowadays are willing to give it. Bronislaw Malinowski's study of the Trobrianders is one such serious view that reveals a people who do virtually nothing without considering the influence of the hidden spiritual world and habitually converse with it. A more recent (and more general study) is Patrick Harpur's "Daimonic Reality" which I am only halfway through but so far highly recommend.

I converted to Christianity many years after my meditation experience. Although the Old and New Testaments often speak of spiritual beings in the form of angels and demons, they do not contain a doctrine of such beings with the same depth and detail as the doctrines of covenant, atonement, and salvation. Instead, we are strictly warned to trust solely in God and avoid any traffic with the spiritual world. Spiritual warfare is a well acknowledged reality however and there are many well-known extra-biblical texts (as well as biblical texts such as Ephesians 6:10-18) that give assistance in fighting the spiritual war, from many texts in the Eastern Orthodox Philokalia to Dom Lorenzo Scupoli's "Unseen Warfare." The exact constitution of the Judeo-Christian spiritual world is speculative however. Texts that purport to describe it in more detail are Jewish Cabbalistic texts, many of the Gnostic scriptures, and some of the various texts of Hermeticism. Such texts have often supported the practice of magic where such formulas and rituals involve converse with or assistance from spiritual beings.

[john doran]

Au contraire: their victory was, and has continued to be, almost absolute.

The Bolsheviks were not Russian, although they murdered millions of them. By which I mean, they did not think of themselves primarily as Russian (and nor should they; and neither should we).

And there isn't any "Judeo-Christian" anything: there is just Christian and Jew, and ne'er the twain shall meet.

Read the Talmud - their principle religious text - if you want to see how Judaism thinks of Christ and Christians.

Or look online: there are tons of videos made and posted by respected rabbis unabashedly describing their religion's attitudes toward non-Jews, but always particularly with regard to Christians.

The first step is always the hardest.

[Vito B. Caiati]

“based on a sober reading of all of the available evidence,i would be willing to bet that Germany had the least demonic infiltration of all the parties to that miserable period of human history.”

I have been reading and making comments here for many years, and during that time, I have come across many that were informed and insightful and some that were much less so, but I recall none as misguided and morally repellant as the one above. I will leave aside here the favorable mention of David Irving, a man who devoted much of his career as an amateur “historian” to absolve Hitler of responsibility for the Holocaust, to deny the deliberate and methodical plan to exterminate the Jews, and to minimize and relativize Nazi war crimes. Rather, let me just place the abhorrent claim of “least demonic infiltration” alongside of the best documented estimates of murders—not deaths in war, but the deliberate, systematic murders—committed by the Nazi regime: approximately 6 million Jewish men, women, and children (approx. 2.7 at the killing centers of Belzec, Chełmno, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau; approx. 1.5 million by mass shootings in Eastern Europe; between .8 and 1 million in ghettos, labor, and concentration camps, and approx. .25 million in transport, antisemitic riots, and individual executions); 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war (mass starvation, mass shootings, disease, executions); approx. 1.8 million Poles (mass executions, hard labor, etc.); over .3 million Romani, approx. .3 million Serbs and .25 million persons with disabilities; along with thousands of political opponents, homosexuals, and others. Of course, we can add to this monstrous record of evil the 15 million combat deaths and 38 million civilian deaths of the Second World War, itself the consequence of intentional Nazi aggression in Eastern Europe. The human misery and horror that is obscured by these bare statistics is very hard to grasp, but we sense enough of its nature to reject any assertion that “Germany had the least demonic infiltration [actual or proposed] of all the parties to that miserable period of human history.”

[Vito B. Caiati]

“And there isn't any "Judeo-Christian" anything: there is just Christian and Jew, and ne'er the twain shall meet.”

Shadows of Marcion!

[Joe Odegaard]

While this pales in comparison with Mr. Farrell's account, when I was in my late 20s in San Luis Obispo, one summer night as my then girlfriend and I were sleeping on the ground in the backyard, under blankets, some dark exterior entity began to rip my soul out of my body, and had gotten it to about 1/3 to 1/2 out, before I could either move or speak. Finally I was able to turn to my girlfriend and say " hold me ! " which she did, and I was back in, and the dark thing went away.

This demonic stuff is quite real. And if I were in a room, and Obama entered, I would leave immediately and go far away.

[BV]

Gentlemen:

If your comment is a response to some other commenter, you need to indicate to whom you are responding. And if the person to whom you are responding has left more than one comment, you need to specify which one. If there are two Toms in a thread, make it clear which one you are addressing. Otherwise I get on the horn to Sammy the Bull, and you may get a visit from his pal Smith, or it may be Wesson.

[Vito B. Caiati]

In your estimation, does a comment that begins with a quotation of the commentator to whom one is responding suffice as an identifier?

[BV]

Ed Farrell,

Thank you for your detailed, albeit horrifying, report. It raises many questions. Here is one. You say that at the time that you began your meditation practice, you were an agnostic, and you suggest that your attitude toward religion was dismissive: You speak of >> the sort of superstition that attaches itself to any religion like a cheap suit. In any case, as an agnostic, I was more interested in meditation as a tool of mental discipline.<<

So my question is: what were you aiming at when you took up meditation? Mind control? Equanimity/ataraxia? The achieving of mental quiet? Those are high values, higher than body control and physical poise, which are high values. For this reason I recommend meditation to everyone as part of a balanced life. This limited goal is achievable without any 'metaphysics' and with little or no danger. To reach even the first level of mysticism proper, "the prayer of quiet," is difficult and rare. But you don't have to get even that far to reap the benefits of daily meditation. I myself am loathe to let even one day go by with at least some time on the black mat -- and this no matter how busy I am.

So I ask you: what were you shooting for? Satori/kensho? Realization of the Self along the lines of Ramana Maharshi? Plotinian flight from the alone to the All-One? When the meditator goes deep, he open himself up to influences that may be from above but also may be from below. So the warnings referenced by Conze are well-taken and standard proto-mystical 'boilerplate.' But the dangers are not in my opinion a good reason to avoid meditation. Crude physical analogy: that would be like avoiding mountaineering from fear of a fall into the abyss.

I begin a session with discursive prayer in which one humbly admits one's weakness over against spiritual adversaries of superior intelligence and power, and calls upon the Lord and such angelic quardians as you may have to protect you. For example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZpkfOMr0Ts

By the way, any protracted and fervent discursive prayer may call down the wrath of demons -- a fact documented by Dr. Gallagher -- but that is no reason to avoid such prayer.

[BV]

Vito asks: >>In your estimation, does a comment that begins with a quotation of the commentator to whom one is responding suffice as an identifier?<<

No. If we scroll up, we come to your 'Marcion' comment. It piqued my interest. But then I wondered, to whom is Vito responding? I just now scrolled through all of the preceding comments, but I still haven't located the quotation . . .

By the way, Vito, it is not just you who sometimes does this. I see that John Doran does it above and plenty of others have done it in other threads.

Of course, these are venial sins compared to the cyberpunks who barge uninvited into a thread to 'take a data dump' with no attempt made to interact with the other contributors to the thread.

And then, when I show them the door, they complain about 'censorship.' They don't understand that, while they have free speech rights, this is private property and I am under no moral or legal obligation to provide them with a platform.

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

My Marcion comment of Friday, June 14 at 6: 56 AM (“Shadows of Marcion”) is in reply to the comment that John Doran made on Thursday June 13 at 8:20 PM, to wit, “And there isn't any "Judeo-Christian" anything: there is just Christian and Jew, and ne'er the twain shall meet.”

My earlier, much longer, comment--that of Friday, June 14 at 3:10 AM, which begins with “I have been reading…”--is also in response to John Doran, in this case to his assertion, made on Thursday, June 13 at 6:39 PM, namely, “based on a sober reading of all of the available evidence, i [sic] would be willing to bet that Germany had the least demonic infiltration of all the parties to that miserable period of human history.”

Sorry for any confusion.

Vito

[john doran]

Vito:

You say:

I have been reading and making comments here for many years, and during that time, I have come across many that were informed and insightful and some that were much less so, but I recall none as misguided and morally repellent as the one above.

I have also been reading here for years upon end; rarely posting, but that is as may be.

I have read your posts, and I enjoy your various insights as to the subject matter of Bill's topics - usually more theological/spiritual/historical in nature, but lovely to read things again that I, myself, have not read in a while.

So. When I suggest that there are historical reports about the second Great War that conflict with the Narrative with which we have been fed with great force; and that it behooves us to investigate those reports and consider their probativity; and that, having done so, some people may arrive at the conclusion that the Narrative is (at least partially) false, how is that "morally repellent"?

You then proceed to post a litany of "facts" that you were taught according to the Narrative, without addressing my concerns that the source of those numbers is mendacious: you might as well just tell me "stop asking questions because they said so!".

Doing so in the face of my original post is simply to assume what is to be proved, namely, "is what we have been (relentlessly) taught about the origins and prosecution of the second world war, true?"

after many years and much research, i say, "no".

i seek the truth in all things. if you believe that my coming to some conclusion that conflicts with yours makes me "morally repellent", then so be it.

show me how i'm wrong.

[Dmitri]

Hi Bill

I'd like to second Vito's comments on john doran's. Citing Irving as an authoritative historian who is a proud Holocaust denier, racist and anti-semite (and AJP Taylor who was a brilliant but an extremely controversial historian, see e.g. here http://www.johndclare.net/RoadtoWWII1_sandiegotaylorthesis.html) and describing Bolsheviks the way he does and his “And there isn't any "Judeo-Christian" anything: there is just Christian and Jew, and ne'er the twain shall meet.” are a strong indication of doran's attitudes towards Nazism, Jews and Holocaust.

I was unpleasantly surprised to see his comments published without any editorial indication of the character of such views. This is nether to argue with your decisions on how to run your blog nor to diminish the importance of the freedom of speech.

[Vito B. Caiati]

Dimitri,

Thank you for your comment, which I fully endorse.

Like you, I was really shocked by John Doran’s comments, and although I not someone who is intolerant of views that dissent from my own, the apologia that he offers for the radical evil of the Nazi regime, including the Holocaust, fall outside the limits of what is rationally or morally acceptable. This business about the “narrative” is a standard rhetorical device of those who, like Irving, seek to deny or minimize the monstrous crimes of these brutes. While there are debates on this or that issue regarding German history in the interwar and war years, no serious historian of whatever ideological tendency, from conservative to Marxists, endorses the opinions offered by John Doran. And I say this as a trained historian, with a doctorate in European history, who has remained abreast of the literature in the field published in three languages for more than fifty years.

As for my Marcion comment, I made it because the remarks of John Doran regarding the relationship of Christianity and Judaism—a highly complex subject that cannot be touched on here—had the distinct flavor of antisemitism (“And there isn't any "Judeo-Christian" anything: there is just Christian and Jew, and ne'er the twain shall meet.”). Just in passing, allow me to observe, however, that to deny the deep spiritual roots of Christianity, including the spiritual life of Jesus, who was circumcised, affirmed the Law, quoted the Prophets, and prayed the Shema, defies belief.

Vito

[john doran]

Dmitri:

I cannot help but note that, in lieu of engaging with my arguments, you choose simply to label me with all of the current bywords of the Regime: racist, anti-semite, and holocaust denier.

This is a blog where people provide carefully reasoned viewpoints, without rancor, no matter where that reasoning leads.

It is always easy to be logical. It is almost impossible to be logical to the bitter end. - Camus

My attitudes to all of the things to which I actually have attitudes, are my business; and unless you can provide me with substantive reasons to change those attitudes, then calling me "racist", or "anti-semite", or "holocaust-denier", or any other name, will achieve nothing, in the main.

A story:

A lifetime ago, I had a graduate course in the philosophy of time. I took a stance that everyone found strange, despite its being based on mathematical logic; it contradicted their basic beliefs.

Not one member of that class ever called me a "Time-ist", or a "Chronologist-denier": we had lively, detailed debate on the topic, and we all parted ways, in good spirits.

I always question all of the things; and like everyone else here, I am in the process of trying to answer those questions.

If Bill's allowing me to question, on this blog, the Received Wisdom (in this instance, with regard to the prosecution of the first two world wars) is sufficient for you to impugn his integrity, then I suggest some introspection.

[BV]

Gentlemen,

I am against groupthink on the Right and on the Left and I am for free speech, although I believe it has limits. I present my position in "Toleration Extremism: Notes on John Stuart Mill" Here: https://williamfvallicella.substack.com/p/toleration-extremism-notes-on-john?s=r

In that piece I write, "The opinion of some Holocaust deniers that no Jews were gassed at Auschwitz is an opinion we can be sure is false."

But I have never read David Irving and I do not know what exactly he maintains. I do know that he is called a 'Holocaust denier' but that could mean different things. So I will put two questions to John Doran. First, does Irving maintain that no Jews were gassed or otherwise murdered at Auschwitz by the Nazis? Second, do you affirm that view?

As for A. J. P Taylor, I have his The Course of German History in my library. Can Vito point me to passages in that book that in his judgment discredit Taylor as a reliable historian? That is not a rhetorical question: I am really asking . I am not an historian, but I read German and I lived in Germany for a year (mid-'70s) and in Austria for six months (early '70s). So I know something about the history of those two countries. You may be interested to hear that the Germans I spoke with who fought in the war did not view Hitler as a moral monster but referred to him as Onkel Adolf (Uncle Adolf).

To Dmitri, I say: I am tolerant of commenters, especially those who have left good comments here in the past. Would you have preferred me to have flagged Doran's comments as unacceptable or to not have allowed them to appear in the first place?

[Ed Farrell]

Bill,

Actually I was dismissive of the idea of demons and evil spirits, not religion in general. The episode I wrote about took place nearly 50 years ago, and at that time I was greatly interested in Buddhism and had far more respect for it than I did for Christianity. The metaphysics of Buddhism seemed remarkably free of such irrational elements as demons, and when such things were experienced they were to be regarded as simply another element of samsara along with all gods and other so-called spiritual beings. That said, enlightenment and nirvana are simply abstractions to mere mortals who have not experienced them--assuming of course, as Buddhism claims, that there are those who HAVE experienced them and have moreover returned to the world to tell the tale and instruct others.

Unfortunately I'm travelling and don't have access to my library so I can't pull out the texts I used to structure my meditation efforts way back when. However they were Chan/Zen techniques aimed at sudden enlightenment. My readings included works translated by Conze, E. B. Cowell, Charles Luk, Dharma Master Hua of San Francisco's Gold Mountain Monastery (one of his disciples taught a year long series of academic courses at UC Davis when I attended), and many others. I can't say I seriously aimed at enlightenment. My aim was simply self mastery, and I was too young and green to have the slightest idea of what might entail, though I did understand in an abstract way that this would include freedom from all desire. But this is a very oxymoronic, koan-like notion: to understand what "not feeling" feels like; to desire to be free from desire. I CAN tell you the practice that got me into trouble; I was attempting through meditation to become free of all sensation as a prerequisite to meditation on pure mental objects. In hindsight, the Buddhist texts I used are obviously intended to be used in conjunction with a master teacher because many of the instructions are figurative and abstract and the devil is in the details. So I was often forced in my solitary practice to improvise. I remember much of this improvisation quite well but I won't describe it. Sorry. I SEEMED to succeed in it but not knowing what not-feeling feels like I was not prepared for the weirdness that ensued and that's when I lost consciousness.

I hope this at least partly answers your question. I'm tapping this out in a hotel room in a spare moment and I can elaborate more later if you like.

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

Nothing in my comments refer to A. J. P. Taylor, whose views on the origins of the Second World War, including his denial that Hitler had any preconceived plan of conquest and that he sought to avoid war, have remained an outlier in historical thinking, and which I firmly reject, but which I do not hold are “rationally and morally” unacceptable, but merely false. Rather, all of my remarks were directed against John Doran’s endorsement of the views of the Holocaust denier and Nazi apologist David Irving and at his own animosity to the Jews. Please remember that the trigger for my reaction was Doran’s morally disgusting and untruthful claim that “based on a sober reading of all of the available evidence, i [sic] would be willing to bet that Germany had the least demonic infiltration of all the parties to that miserable period of human history.” In other words, of the national states of the time, the least evil was that of Nazi Germany. A opinion such as this must be slapped down hard whenever someone utters it, not only because it is untrue and seeks to absolve those guilty of mass murder and genocide of responsibility, but also because its spread poses a threat to human life in our own time, now plagued by a resurgence of vicious antisemitism by islamo-guachisme.

As you correctly argued in 2018 (https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher_stri/free-speech/):
“Consider again an actual or possible Holocaust denier who makes some outrageously false assertion that we know (if we know anything about the past) to be false. Suppose this individual has the means to spread his lies far and wide and suppose that his doing so is likely to incite a horde of radical Islamists to engage in an Islamist equivalent of Kristallnacht. Would it be evil to 'stifle' the individual in question? By no means. Indeed it could be reasonably argued that it is morally imperative that such an individual not be permitted to broadcast his lies.”

Vito

[john doran]

Bill:

I thank you for the extension of your courtesy.

1) Irving maintains that there is not only no good evidence that anyone was gassed at any of the camps, but also that there is substantial evidence against anyone having been systematically executed there.

Ernst Zündel was jailed and tried for "Holocaust Denial", here in the delightfully Bolshevik Canada, years ago. I read the court transcript, as anyone is able to do. The case of the prosecution is absurdly void of any factual evidence. Absurdly. It is shocking; I was shocked, reading it. I regret only that the most shockingly absurd thing to me, then, was not that someone could actually be jailed simply for expressing the opinion that some historical event didn't occur.

2) I simply follow the evidence, so, yes: I believe that the "Holocaust" is a fraud, perpetrated by the very people it was said to have attempted to exterminate. It is the basis of the secular morality of the West: Hitler is the Devil, and the Jews of Auschwitz are your God.

Consider: the government will pay an exorbitant sum of money for a picture of a crucifix - Christ crucified - submerged in urine, and that selfsame government will attempt to jail you, just for saying "No Jews were gassed at Auschwitz".

I have spent my life questioning all of the things that I have thought were important: God, religion, knowledge, time, logic, ethics, science und so weiter; it shames me that I never questioned the history taught by (of all pedagogues) the State, earlier than I did.

[Dmitri]

john doran:
It is Irving I called names, not you. Your writing in the comments, as I already said, strongly indicates your positions on certain questions but allows you to deny and escape the associations it allegedly shows. But Irving is an openly committed and proud Holocaust denier, rabid antisemite and a Nazi apologist. What you said in the comments shows your respect for Irving as a historian, so that allows one to draw logical conclusions about your own attitudes. People who never heard about or read Irving are welcome to browse his Wikipedia entry or just look at titles on his own landing page -- the "funny" prefixes he adds to links to current events articles are a huge tell on their own (https://www.fpp.co.uk/). Comments sections of a blog are not a place for developing serious arguments john doran. I'm afraid you are not looking for arguments or evidence. Just like pro-Hamas "ant-Zionist" mob denies evidence of horrible Hamas crimes against civilians in Israel despite undeniable footage and multiply corroborated evidence in many forms. Comparing your experiences in the philosophy of time course -- a purely abstract subject without much bearing to the real world -- to the discussions about actual tragic historical events is another tell about your mindset. If you really don't see a HUGE difference between these contexts not much can be achieved arguing with you rationally and with evidence.

Bill:
I was quite clear about what I feel about doran's comments. No I am not in favour of suppressing his voice which I find unpleasant, unjust and counter factual.

On AJP Taylor; His famous student, a conservative historian Paul Johnson said in passing, in a review of V.D. Hanson's book for NYT about his teacher:
'My old tutor at Oxford, A. J. P. Taylor, always insisted, "The only lesson of history is that there are no lessons of history." He would have laughed at Hanson's book: "Such learned nonsense!" But Taylor was, characteristically, exaggerating. History has many lessons to teach, provided we don't push the comparisons too far.' https://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/books/review/a-war-like-no-other-where-hubris-came-from.html

An academic book dedicated to AJP Taylor's The Origins of The 2nd WW (http://waypointweichel.weebly.com/uploads/8/6/8/1/86813862/origins_of_the_second_world_war_reconsidered__2nd_edition_.pdf) has this to say in the foreword (p.11):

"These new essays on the origins of the Second World War are designed neither to honor A. J. P Taylor nor to replace him. They undoubtedly testify to his influence. If anyone is to hold the first-mortgage on the subject, we are fortunate that that person should be someone able to write vigorous prose and to stimulate debate – even among those not yet born when the book was written.

But Taylor has claimed that in writing Origins he wished to examine events in
detail, and the details of what happened behind the scenes are available to us
today in a way that was almost unimaginable when it was written. Not
surprisingly, the specialists contributing to this edition, having had the
opportunity to examine these events in great detail, have found much in his book that requires revision or reconsideration. They have found that some of the charges leveled at Taylor twenty-five years ago, especially those of contradiction and overstatement, were justified. They have also found that he made mistakes and overlooked material available to him, that he sometimes guessed wrong or allowed prejudice to blind him."

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

Here is some additional information on Irving for those who are interested.

Restricting the discussion simply to that of Irving as a Holocaust denier who, while claiming to pursue historical truth through rigorous archival research, has, in fact, consciously manipulated and suppressed evidence, while systematically applying double standards in evaluating it, one can find no better or more exhaustive source than the report presented to the High Court of Justice in the case of David Irving v Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt by the eminent British scholar of Nazi Germany Sir Richard J. Evans (David Irving, Hitler and Holocaust Denial; https://www.hdot.org/evans_toc/) I caution those who are interested in the matter that the report, which is convincing in all respects, is exhaustive, highly detailed, and very lengthy, but I also note that it was crucial in the ruling of the High Court (349 pages) that

“Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence; that for the same reasons he has portrayed Hitler in an unwarrantedly favourable light, principally in relation to his attitude towards and responsibility for the treatment of the Jews; that he is an active Holocaust denier; that he is anti-Semitic and racist, and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism... therefore the defence of justification succeeds.”

Vito

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

I guess that now Mr. Doran's beliefs are shamelessly and fully out in the open: "I simply follow the evidence, so, yes: I believe that the 'Holocaust' is a fraud, perpetrated by the very people it was said to have attempted to exterminate. It is the basis of the secular morality of the West: Hitler is the Devil, and the Jews of Auschwitz are your God."

Disgraceful!

Vito

[Dmitri]

Now having seen the June 15, 2024 05:34 AM posting that leaves no room for any charitable doubts, I'm sure that doran (his/her/their nom de guerre of course) is either one of the authors on this lovely website https://www.colchestercollection.com/subjects.html where Holocaust is a subject surrounded by "" or a tinier contributor to their causes. Malcolm Ross, Paul Fromm, Bernard Klatt and the rest of the not yet diseased Canadian supremacists, anti-semites and racists are definitely his/her/their brothers in arms. Canada tolerates such fine people too not just the Bolsheviks.

[EG]

It is an interesting observation that these comments (and those that followed) could be plausibly seen as a kind of variation of “reality TV”; being as absorbing and animating as anything on an episode of say day time Jerry Springer.

I suppose even for the better, or best of us, our human (social-cum-political) nature is inescapable, and we are just as likely to fall into our own errors, vices and get animated by things that upset us, etc. (and even independent of any sober consideration of what’s actually true.)

[Vito B. Caiati]

EG
Your comment breaks Bill's rule that it should be addressed to a specific person or persons, but I think that this oversite was intentional. As it is written, it has the form of an indirect sanctimonious critique, punctuated by a cute remark about “reality TV,” of Dimitri and myself, who in your eyes commit the sin of becoming "animated by things that upset us... even independent of any consideration of what's actually true." Leaving aside the obvious point that one ought to become "animated" in the defense of important historical truths, particularly when someone seeks to deny the truth of the programed murder of millions of human beings by the Nazi regime, any fair-minded reader would admit that we have, in fact, referred in passing (for this is a blog, after all) to actual documents (my link to the exhaustive report of Sir Richard Evans, for example) and to established scholarly opinion on the Holocaust that reveal precisely “what is actually true.” In a time when antisemitism is on the rise throughout the West, we--I think that I can speak Dimitri here--are not impressed by someone who, under the clock of a feigned rationality. is put off by our passionate defense of what is right and true.

[john doran]

Vito:

you say,

Bill,

I guess that now Mr. Doran's beliefs are shamelessly and fully out in the open...

(A) my beliefs are not, and have never been, hidden, certainly not when expressed on a blog, like this one, where the point of my posts is precisely to express my beliefs.

(B) you are right: i am without shame for what i have said here.

But i live in the same shadow of shame as everyone else, for the doing of those acts, the doing of which we rightfully regret.

[Vito B. Caiati]

Doran,

Your deception is obvious to anyone who reads the full thread, in that you begin with the pose of rational respectability (“if you want to learn something interesting, and shorn from the stultifying incestuous monotony of the "histories" we have all learned at our mothers' knees about the first half of the 20th century, then try David Irving, or A.J.P. Taylor: history DOCUMENTED PURELY FROM ARCHIVAL SOURCES, not simply the repetition of statements made by the authors' peers”) before progressively descending into blatant and vulgar antisemitism (first, “And there isn't any "Judeo-Christian" anything: there is just Christian and Jew, and ne'er the twain shall meet”; and then this filth, “so, yes: I believe that the "Holocaust" is a fraud, perpetrated by the very people it was said to have attempted to exterminate. It is the basis of the secular morality of the West: Hitler is the Devil, and the Jews of Auschwitz are your God.”). Your final deception, made after denying Nazi genocide and desecrating the memory of its victims, is the false, self-serving claim “But i live in the same shadow of shame as everyone else.”

[BV]

Vito,

This thread has taken an interesting turn: from demonology to Holocaust denial! Of course I agree with your denial of the denial. Doran's denial may be a case of what I call topical insanity. An otherwise sane person is topically insane if there is a topic about which he loses the ability to think straight and face reality. The example I gave circa 2005 concerned the typical liberal's attitude to guns and 2A rights: they 'go ballistic' (pun intended of course) when the topic comes up and they are moved to say stupid things such as that the only purpose of guns is to kill people. And plenty of other stupid things.

TDS is a second example of topical insanity. Merely mention the man's name and the there often occurs a total shutdown of the liberal interlocutor's critical faculties. Rachel Maddow, for example, who is plainly intelligent and probably not that bad of a person morally speaking, has recently opined that if Trump is elected he will build concentration camps and that there is cell with her name on it. If she really believes that, then she is topically insane.

Wokery is chockfull of topical insanity. If Canada's Trudeau really believes that diversity is our strength then his grip on reality is tenuous indeed at least with respect to this topic. Or the MD's who think that sex can be assigned at birth. Crazy! Admittedly, a lot of this is not topical insanity but *chickenshittery*: these chickenshits (cowards) are going along to get along, mouthing what they know is garbage to enhance their careers, get ahead, etc. Disgusting, but human-all-too-human. General Milley might be a good example of this.

Getting back to Holocaust deniers, they are many of them playing opposite to the Trump = Hitler identity theorists. They oppose the rank absurdity of that 'identity' (speaking somewhat loosely) by hurtling to the other extreme. They rightly oppose the crazy conceit that Hitler is the quintessence of all evil, its personification or 'apotheosis' (so to speak), and so try to downplay or even deny his crimes against humanity.

I too oppose what I just called the 'crazy conceit' but without going to the opposite extreme. It bothers me that Lenin, Stalin, and their henchmen don't enjoy 'equal time.'

Well, these are the wages of polarization. Polarization breeds extremism. For example, some people who rightly understand that women as a group are inferior to men as a group in respect of political judgment, want to exclude them entirely from the political sphere.

[Ed Farrell]

Here are some notes by Romano Guardini on how the demonic may manifest itself in the large political and social arenas of modernity. "Demonic" often has vague reference but this is a Roman Catholic perspective and for Guardini the term "demonic" means "under the control of Satan." The following paragraphs should be read together in sequence but they are snips taken non-sequentially from Guardini's "The End of the Modern World," which incorporates them in a much larger argument. This book is definitely worth a read for those not familiar with it.

Power awaits direction. [...] it becomes part of a cause and effect relationship, not through necessity, but only through intervention of an agent.

This implies something more: when man's spirit is brought to bear upon forces given by nature, an element of free choice enters the relationship. The spirit can direct them to whatever end it wills, and everything depends on whether this end is constructive or destructive, noble or base, good or evil.

In other words, there is no such thing as power that, in and of itself, is valuable or significant. Power receives its character only when someone becomes aware of it, determines its use, and puts it to work. This mean that someone must answer for it. There is no such thing as power that is not answered for. [...] This is true even when the person responsible rejects responsibility.

Indeed, it continues to hold true even when human affairs are so deranged or falsely arranged that those responsible can no longer be named. When this happens, when to the question "Who did this?" neither "I" nor "we," neither a person nor a body of people replies, the exercise of power has apparently become a natural force. Precisely this seems to occur with growing frequency, for in the course of historical development, the bearers or power have become increasingly anonymous. The progressive nationalization of social, economic, technical processes, as well as the materialistic theories of history as necessity, signify the attempt of our time to destroy the character of responsibility, to divorce power from person, and to place its exercise on a level of natural forces. In reality, the essential character of power as personally answerable energy can never be destroyed; it can only be corrupted--corruption which, becoming guilt, works itself out in destruction.

When power is not determined by freedom--that is to say, by the human will--either nothing happens at all, or there arises a hodgepodge of habits, incoherent impulses, and blind herd-instincts: chaos.

A more immediate danger threatens when power is at the disposal of a will that is either morally misguided or morally uncommitted. Or there may be no appealable will at all, no person answerable for power, only an anonymous organization, each department of which transfers its authority to the next, thus leaving each---seemingly---exempt from responsibility. This type of power becomes particularly ominous when, as is true so often these days, respect for the human person, for his dignity and responsibility, for his personal values of freedom and honor, for his initiative and way of life grow visibly feebler.

Then power acquires characteristics which ultimately only Revelation is in a position to interpret: it becomes demonic. Once action is no longer sustained by personal awareness, is no longer morally answerable, a peculiar vacancy appears in the actor. He no longer has the feeling that he, personally, is acting; that since the act originates with him he is responsible for it. He no longer seems master of the act; instead the act seems to pass through him, and he is left feeling like one element in a chain of events. And with others it is the same, so that there remains no real authority to appeal to, since authority presupposes a person whose warrant comes directly from God, to whom he is answerable. Instead, there is a growing sense of there being no one at all who acts, only a dumb, intangible, invisible, indefinable something which derides questioning. Its functions appear to be necessary, so the individual submits to them. Seemingly incomprehensible, it is simply accepted as a mystery (in reality it is only a pseudo-mystery) and as such draws to itself those sentiments, in distorted form, which a man is meant to reserve for his fate, not to say, God.

[Romano Guardino, The End of the Modern World, p. 122-125]

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

I fully agree with your observations about “topical insanity,” and, although I have long realized that neither reason or fact dent the lunatic convictions of someone afflicted with it. Normally, as in my encounters here a few years ago with “Autisticus Spasticus,” who was peddling his much beloved crackpot argument that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist, I quit the discussion. As I wrote at that time, “When someone tells me that he is Napoleon, I know that it is time to take my leave.” I follow the same policy in encountering those with TDS, breaking off all social contact with them. I broke my rule in confronting Doran, although I knew from the first that I was, in fact, speaking to someone with delusional views, since I take the spread of anti-semitism, mainly advanced by the noxious alliance of the Woke Left and Islamists, both here and in Europe, but also by fringe Right racists in both places, as a very serious and growing threat, both to Jews in the West and to the state of Israel. My intention in commenting so extensively was obviously not to cure the afflicted party but to expose the falsehoods and immorality of his views, the spread of which could well result in some variant of the mass killing of the last century.

Vito

[BV]

Ed,

I have read a fair amount of Guardini and I like him. So thanks for the quotations. They raise a lot of difficult questions.

To sum up the first three quotations, Guardini seems to be maintaining that (1)The exercise of power requires an agent; the agent must be a person possessing free will; (3) the exercise of power is not good or bad in and of itself; (4) what makes it good or bad are the intentions of the free agents who exercise the power and take personal responsibility for its exercise; (5) demonic influence enters in large bureaucratic organizations where 'buck passing' is the order of the day and no one person takes responsibility.

Two comments: first, If Guardini is right, then Lord Acton was wrong when he said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I think Guardini is right. Power as such has no tendency to corrupt; it is neutral. People are corrupt or the opposite and it is their individual exercise of power that makes a particular exercise of power either good or bad.

Second, the evil of the Third Reich was not due to no one taking responsibility: via the Fuehrerprinzip, Hitler took full responsibility. The evil came in due to his evil exercise of power primarily and not due to 'buck passing.'

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

You are quite right that Gallagher’s book is “Packed with distinctions essential for clear thinking about this topic.” Specifically, I found his discussion of spiritualism; the paranormal, which he characterizes as “a term that may sound scientific but actually explains nothing; and parapsychology, the scientific standing of which he dismisses, of particular interest. It prompted me to look again at David H. Lund’s Person’s, Souls and Death: A Philosophical Investigation of an Afterlife, and particularly the second part, “Ostensible Evidence of Post-Mortem Existence.” Lund favors the survivalist hypothesis, and, although I have never been convinced of its truth, Gallagher’s approach points in another direction to explain phenomena such as apparitions and communication with the dead, assuming that these exist, seeing them as the work of diabolical forces, seeking to deceive us. His argument makes more sense to me than the survivalist claim. (I have always wanted to read Michael Sudduth’s critique of the empirical evidence for survivalism, but the book is simply too expensive.) What is your impression of Gallagher’s treatment of spiritualism, the “paranormal” as they relate to the demonic?

Vito

[BV]

Vito,

One key distinction that Gallagher takes from the exorcists he associated with is that between oppression and possession. "The essence of a possession is the actual control of the body (never the 'soul' or will) of a person by one or more evil spirits." (80) So in possession proper a demon commandeers a human body, speaking through it and performing physical acts by its means. This is different from a demon's giving to a human person (body and soul) special powers. For example, "Julia" was given the power of "remote knowledge" by demons and she was able by this power to know that Gallagher had two cats and then she used a further power to incite those otherwise peaceful cats to fight viciously with each other. But this has nothing to do with possession proper. When Julia was in a state of possession, SHE was absent and did nothing. But it wasn't a demon who sets the cats against each other, but Julia with the her demonic powers.

So there is really a tripartite distinction in play here: demonic influence, oppression, and possession. The pious woman "Maria" was oppressed by demons who literally beat her up, leaving her with bruised arms. This suggests that demons have the power to bring about effects in the physical world by purely spiritual means.

Gallagher lists three signs (from the old manuals of exorcism) of possession one of which is levitation. (81) But to complicate matters further, saints sometimes levitate and they are not possessed. "In the seventeenth century the Franciscan friar Joseph of Cupertino, who was saintly and obviously not possessed, also levitated." (85) This brings me to your claim,

>>Gallagher’s approach points in another direction to explain phenomena such as apparitions and communication with the dead, assuming that these exist, seeing them as the work of diabolical forces, seeking to deceive us. His argument makes more sense to me than the survivalist claim.<<

Two points to ponder. First, the fact that saints levitate works against your claim and give some support to survivalism. Second, if God and Satan and the lesser demons are all pure spirits, then why would we be pure animals as opposed to animalically embodied spirits? The demons hate us because we too are spiritual beings with a spiritual destiny that is barred to them, namely, theosis, as in Orthodox Christianity (majuscule 'O'). The Romanists don't speak of theosis but of visio beata, but to enjoy the VB requires that we be sprits. It takes one to know One!

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

Thanks for your response.

Your write: “Two points to ponder. First, the fact that saints levitate works against your claim and give some support to survivalism. Second, if God and Satan and the lesser demons are all pure spirits, then why would we be pure animals as opposed to animalically embodied spirits?”

In reading this, I realize that my comment was not clearly stated with regard to the spiritual component of the human person. I did not intend to deny that we are a body/soul composite; rather, I believe that we are. What I question is that “animalically embodied spirits,” once dead and now deprived of their corporal component, have the autonomous power to present themselves as distinct entities and operate in the world of the living. In other words, the souls of the dead, if still in existence, are irrevocably confined to another reality than that of the material world. Given this, apparitions and other manifestations of the dead must have another source. Gallagher suggests that this source is demonic. As to some saints levitating or displaying other preternatural powers, might we not argue that these are manifestations of the powers of God or, say, the angels, rather than of the human soul? This, of course, might make possible the occasional appearance of the dead through benign spiritual forces. The model I have in mind here derives from the granting of healing and other unusual powers to the disciples by Christ, through the world of the Holy Ghost, after the Resurrection (i.e., Peter, body and soul, could then heal but not by the powers of his own spirit). Thus, two contending powers stand behind spiritualist phenomena.

Vito

[Ed Farrell]

Thanks, Bill. I also like Guardini though I have only read the book I quoted from. Your point about Hitler is well taken, but I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that Hitler could not have risen to power without a population ripe for demonic influence. The Guardini quotations I posted do indeed seem to best fit the anonymity of modern bureaucracies. But behind this is the more general destruction of a worldview in which God is real, and in which man has responsibilities to God's order which are alive in his conscience in spite of his rebellion.

Demonism may take hold when man abdicates his responsibility as man. Demons take possession of the faculties of man if he does not answer for them with his conscience. (Guardini, p.84)

The modern world forgot the fact of demons because it had blinded itself by its revolutionary faith in autonomy. The modern world thought that man could simply have power and rest secure in its exercise. (Guardini, p.85)

The larger context of Guardini's analysis of modern man portrays a figure divorced not only from God but from the traditional hierarchical authority that establishes God's economy for the fallen world. I say "authority" but this is not Guardini's word, rather Hannah Arendt's, who describes something quite similar in "Between Past and Future," though in terms that seem more accessible than Guardini's categories. Arendt:

Since authority always demand obedience, it is commonly mistaken taken for some form of power or violence. Yet authority precludes the use of external means of coercion; where force is used, authority itself has failed. Authority, on the other hand, is incompatible with persuasion, which presupposes equality and works through a process of argumentation. Where arguments are used, authority is left in abeyance. Against the egalitarian order of persuasion stands the authoritarian order, which is always hierarchical. If authority is to be defined at all, then, it must be in contradistinction to both coercion by force and persuasion through arguments. (The authoritarian relation between the one who commands and the one who obeys rests neither on common reason nor on the power of the one who commands; what they have in common is the hierarchy itself, whose rightness and legitimacy both recognize, and where both have their predetermined stable place.) (Arendt, Between Past and Future)

These thoughts would take much longer to develop thoroughly than I can do justice to at the moment, but suffice to say that the influence of demons has grown in proportion to the profound disordering of modern societies (which has been partly masked by modern technological progress), which they exploit through the confusion and desperation of common men and the ambitions of uncommon Hitlers.

Yes, this probably raises more questions than answers but I think I'm done for now!

[BV]

Vito,

Thanks for the clarification @2:12:

>>What I question is that “animalically embodied spirits,” once dead and now deprived of their corporal component, have the autonomous power to present themselves as distinct entities and operate in the world of the living. In other words, the souls of the dead, if still in existence, are irrevocably confined to another reality than that of the material world. Given this, apparitions and other manifestations of the dead must have another source. Gallagher suggests that this source is demonic.<<

This sounds very plausible to me, but not being a theologian proper I don't know what the RCC line on this is. It strikes me as consistent with Aquinas, but I don't know whether or not he has ever given his opinion on this very question.

Your other point is also well-taken. From the fact that some saints levitate it does not straightaway follow that they do this using a power they themselves possess or that they developed by a holy life. It could be that this power is on loan from God. Gallagher points out that some have maintained that the levitation of a saint might be the effect of demonic influence!

I tend to think that deep meditation induces paranormal powers in some meditators without divine or demonic influence. During a period in which I engaged in intense meditation I had an experience of pre-cognition: I knew what was about to happen before it happened. And I recall that you reported to me that your sister had an extremely troubling pre-cognitive experience. Whether these experiences were veridical is of course a further question . . .

[EG]

@Vito,

I meant no particular disrespect at all, my comment wasn't even so much about the topic and people as much as the scene created; nevertheless, the delivery failed, made people feel insulted and demeaned and so for that I apologize.

I do not have much to say on demonology and the surrounding discussion, and as for the Holocaust, I am no denier, but I don't need this particular example to give me the plain evidence and truth of Evil and "other powers" that exist, whom are motivated by and feed on the evil and maliciousness of others

So summarizing, I think some examples bring in far more "baggage" that tends to just be too distracting.

In closing, I think we probably give away too much of our own evil and monstrous nature and potential by invoking demons and such. Most times, it is just us, we are the demon(s)/monster(s).

[In re-reading this, it just occurred to me to ask if there is some parasitic about Evil.]

[Hector]

Bill,

In answer to your question addressed to Vito on June 12th, I believe the standard scholarly work on Nazism and occultism is Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's 'The Occult Roots of Nazism'. Goodrick-Clarke, an expert on Western esotericism generally, also wrote 'Black Sun' about post-war Nazi occultism and 'Hitler's Priestess' about Savitri Devi, one of the oddest of the many odd figures on the occult far right - she believed that Hitler was an avatar of Vishnu and wrote devotional poems addressed to him!

I have never (knowingly) had any direct personal experiences of things demonic but reading Hugh Trevor-Roper's 'The Last Days of Hitler' five or so years ago left me with the strong impression that there was no conceivable good naturalistic explanation of the extraordinary evil and irrationality displayed by the top Nazis in the final days of the Reich. There might be such a thing as the banality of evil but there was nothing banal about the hysterical psychopathy and willful destructiveness of Hitler and Goebbels in the bunker - the latter seemed to even relish the destruction of his own nation.

[BV]

Hector,

Thanks for dropping by and for the info. I went to Amazon to look up Occult Roots of Nazism, but the current paperback is said to be a poor production job so I didn't buy it.

Thanks for reminding me of Trevor-Roper. His Last Days of Hitler is in my library. I read it in '83.

If only the Evil Empire got as much scholarly scrutiny as the One Thousand Year Reich!

[Hector]

Bill,

I've sent you a pdf copy of the book via email.

I think it gets *scholarly* scrutiny, it's more the extent to which that scholarship has really made its way to the general public conception of history. Despite the best efforts of scholars to show that Stalinism wasn't an aberration and that Lenin and Trotsky were just as awful as Stalin, there are still a lot of people who haven't learnt (or refuse to learn) this lesson. As for a lot of other ghastly regimes of the Left, such as Mao's China or Pol Pot's Cambodia, they're even less well understood - again, despite much very good scholarship. You are probably aware of the Historikerstreit in the 80s in West Germany that hinged in part on whether Nazi crimes were historically unique, quite a historiographical minefield! And now of course we have a concerted effort by many on the Left to revise US and European colonial histories to skew those histories away from sound interpretation and assessment of the data and towards a heavily propagandistic version in which crimes and atrocities are emphasised at the expense of any positive achievements, often with the absurd claim that most historians have somehow 'overlooked' negative events which have in fact been studied very intensively.

[BV]

Hector,

Let's not forget Bergoglio's hero, Fidel Castro, another fine product of Jesuit education.

It would be interesting to see empirical data on the number of books and articles and film documentaries and other movies about the USSR as compared to the Third Reich from, say, the time when the Venona Decrypts were first available in the West to the present.

Getting back to demonology, the existence of demons, well documented by Gallagher, is data for an argument to the existence of God.

For the drift of such an argument, see my https://williamfvallicella.substack.com/p/the-holocaust-argument-for-gods-existence?utm_source=publication-search

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

A short segment (see 24:40-28:25) of this recent Taylor Marshall podcast contains the thought-provoking account by Dr. Gavin Ashenden, former Anglican bishop and chaplain to the late Queen Elizabeth II and now a convert to orthodox Catholicism, of a demonic attack on him in 2008, at which time he was a liberal Anglican clergyman and Jungian enthusiast. His explanation of the expulsion of the demonic by the Virgin Mary is of particular interest. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbspmY787oU).

[BV]

Vito,

Thanks for that. More grist for the mill. I forge on in Gallagher. I'm up to the case of "Catherine." But why would an all-good God permit women such as "Maria" (a case of oppression you may recall) and Catherine" (a case of possession) to be assaulted by demons? Yes, "Catherine" when very young and naive got in with a coven of witches, but . . .

This why my arguments from evil to God are not rationally coercive.

For the context of my remark, see the very bottom of 143 and the top of 144.

It would be great to sit down with you and discuss all of this face-to-face, and in particular your adventures with the Jungian analyst.

[Vito B. Caiati]

The case of the religious woman "Maria" is puzzling, since she apparently never dabbled in the occult, as the young Catherine. However, I have a close friend, a devout Catholic woman who attends the TLM with me each week, who struggled with what might be described as a demonic infestation for several years--loud knocking in her bedroom during the night for several hours, the discovery of the rosary arranged on her pillow in a straight line, with the crucifix turned upside down, and the sense of a dark presence--just at the time when she had returned to the faith. She rid herself of the infestation by invoking Christ and ordering the demon out of the house, sprinkling holy water in each room. But, as you say, all these stories, as your argument, are worthy of thought and some of belief, but "not rationally compelling."

[BV]

Vito,

Your use of 'however' in your second sentence suggests a contrast with the case of "Maria." Dr. Gallagher, I take it, would press your friend on the exact circumstances of her leaving the faith. (If she returned to it, as you report, then she must have left it, lapsed from it, however you want to put it.) Those circumstances might have involved some behaviors that gave some demonic agents the idea that she was a 'prospect' -- in roughly the sense in which the Hells Angels use that term -- and these demons might have decided to punish her for defeating their expectations.

These speculations of mine may or may not apply to your friend, but they do, I think, outline a possible scenario.

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

Forgive me. I did not mention your interest in Jungian analysis in my last comment. You are right in saying that speaking of one's experience with it is really something suited a face-to-face conversation, since any discussion of the general categories inevitably touches on the personal. If age, my determination not to any longer travel great distances, and my tending of two cats were not in the way, I have long ago gone West and met up with you.

Vito

Vito

[BV]

Vito, et al.,

No doubt you have read C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters.

"There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight." (Preface)

[BV]

Vito,

I just found your 9:10 message. At 4:17 I wrote, "It would be great to sit down with you and discuss all of this face-to-face, and in particular your adventures with the Jungian analyst." What I was doing with that sentence was giving you an opportunity to invite me to your neck of the woods. Your response suggests that you would not be up for that -- which is perfectly understandable. In any case, like you, I am deeply ambivalent about air travel especially given the current state of the country and the world.

[Hector]

Bill,

'It would be interesting to see empirical data on the number of books and articles and film documentaries and other movies about the USSR as compared to the Third Reich'

I wonder whether such data has been precisely gathered. I'd assume part of the reason for the no doubt larger number of Nazi-themed stuff is simply because there's so many films and books about Western troops fighting the Nazis as we were directly involved in armed conflict with them - so you get many more memoirs, novels, screenplays from veterans of the conflict or people who lived through it. But there are plenty of Cold War-era things like spy movies, James Bond etc where the Soviets are often depicted as baddies. For many people in the West the Soviet evil remained more abstract rather than something they had directly witnessed.

As for demonology, evil etc, I am sympathetic to your argument and I'm afraid I have nothing very constructive to add to it! The main challenge of evil to theism for me is the seemingly arbitrary dispersal of evil and suffering. But I do feel that evil is best understood as a deeply disturbing supernatural mystery and if one doesn't perceive it like that, as many secular types do not or can not, its potency is increased by helpless or apathetic responses (as I think C. S. Lewis alludes to in your quotation above).

Bill and Vito,

Is there not a school of thought (I'm not at all knowledgeable about these matters) that it is precisely those who are approaching sanctity who are often likely to be assailed by demonic attacks? Do correct me if I am wrong. But I think I recall that being a theme in the Apophthegmata of the Desert Fathers.

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

Unfortunately, many things have become rather too much, and I have become a creature of small horizons and routine. Age has really caught up with me this last year or so, even after a lifetime of rigorous exercise. I tire very easily; am in bed and rise early, sleeping fitfully on most nights; am plagued by aches and pains; and no longer drive beyond a few miles. Four or five years ago, I was still quite vigorous, even in the gym, lifting weights and running on a treadmill, but because of time and old injuries (knee and back) that has now become impossible. My life is essentially that of a monk, except that I am the only one in residence in this monastery of mine.

Vito

[Ingvar]

I strongly recommend Maurice S. Rawlings' (May 16, 1922 - Jan 5, 2010) book "Beyond the line of death – New clear evidence for the existence of Heaven and Hell" (1987).

Some books are planned out.

Some books are sprung on the author, unawares.

This is a book that God sprung on Rawlings unawares. Careful studies of near death experiences (NDE) totally miss a key aspect of the matter. But it was revealed to Rawlings ('sprung') hence this book. Rawlings is indeed careful, and scholarly, yet had to be placed on the correct path to get started on this NDE subject.

So 'careful', planned, studies of NDEs cannot illuminate for the reader what is going on, leaving them in darkness.

All the best good folks,
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
Monday morning on Hidalgo Avenue, July 1, 2024

At the end of Ecclesiastes we find:
10 The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth.
11 The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.
12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

[Ingvar]

In your one sentence: "Quiet the mind, then listen and wait. Open yourself to intimations and vouchsafings from the Unseen Order. Psalm 46:10: "Be still and know that I am God . . . ." But be aware that the requisite receptivity exposes one to attack from demonic agents whose power exceeds our own. So discernment is needed...."

The Holy Scriptures seem to be a problem.
The Unseen Order includes the demonic world.
Discernment?
You would be going against Satan's orders of demons, if not Satan the dust eater himself.

We cycle at 70 year intervals, born-live-die, but not the demons. Their experience spans thousands of years. Yes we have a bulwark of sorts in our bookly communications, mind to mind, heart to mind. But mind that the demonic experience includes craftiness built on thousands of years experience and that across cultures.

Adam failed at the first.
The archangel Michael told Satan "9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee."

Meditation as described becomes a cage match with Satan, quiet, emptied mind and all, a cage match.

My recommendation: don't enter the cage.

All the best,
Ingvar