You probably don’t know this about me, but my cousin was an exorcist. I don’t think he ever actually cast out a demon, but I learned when I was a kid that he did go to Exorcism School at the Vatican where he learned technique and observed a number of demonic possessions and stuff. He later went on to become an Archbishop. Anyway, they really do have exorcism in the Catholic Church. Many Catholics have the rules for how to carry out an exorcism in their homes, in a little black book that has other ceremonial information as well. In the home I grew up in, we kept this book in a large cross, in which there were also sacred candles and holy water and some other materiel. Just in case. The idea was to hang this cross on the wall near the entrance way so if there was a demonic possession or a dead person or an unbaptized baby in the house, and the priest rushed in to perform the appropriate ceremony, they would know right were to find the book and the candles and the holy water and stuff, in case they had left that stuff at home.

By the way, I’m pretty sure the Ocean is all holy water, because you make holy water by touching it to holy water, and lots of Catholics have taken showers after putting holy water on their heads. Some molecules of holy water must have gone down the drain and eventually to the ocean. Other molecules evaporated out of the holy water holder in the church, so the water vapor in the sky is pretty much all holy water by now. But I digress.

There is an interesting story returning zombie like from the dead, because it is several months old, that the Chief Exorcist of the Vatican, Gabriele Amorth, thinks that Yoga is a form of demonic possession.

This is distinctly possible. I remember once noticing that Amanda, who does yoga, had disappeared. I had no idea where she went. I looked around the house a bit and then gave up, figuring she had gone out or something. Then, I went into the bedroom closet to get a garbage bag (we kept them on the shelf in the bedroom closet) and there she was, in the Yoga Warrior Pose. It scared the shit out of me. It turns out that she was in the closet (it is a walk in closet) organizing some stuff when she felt moved to do some Yoga. To me, she looked totally demonically posessed.

Anyway, Father Exorcist Gabriele Amorth has stated that Yoga leads to a belief in Hinduism and that “all eastern religions are based on a false belief in reincarnation,” according to the Huffington Post.

From Newser:

Yoga is the work of the devil, according to a man who claims to have banished evil spirits from 70,000 people….practicing yoga leads to evil “just like the Harry Potter books,” which he believes promote black magic.

“In Harry Potter the devil acts in a crafty and covert manner, under the guise of extraordinary powers, magic spells, and curses,” said Amorth, who was at the film festival to introduce a new American exorcism movie, The Rite, which stars Anthony Hopkins as a Jesuit priest.

I saw The Rite. It reminded me of my cousin.

Anyway, there is something relevant here. The other thing you may not know is that my daughter, Julia, has been out of town for several months. Out of the country, actually. And she left the US just days before the latest Harry Potter movie came out, and has not been able to see it. The good news is that she’s been away long enough that it has now come out on DVD, and I just got a copy of it.

She returns tomorrow. I assume we will be watching the movie tomorrow night while we eat pesto tortellini. Which apparently is unavailable in the Republic of Georgia.

At the University College London, it appears that Muslim students including but not limited to those taking medical training, are walking out on lectures that bring up evolutionary theory or Darwin.

‘They don’t come [to lectures] or they complain about it or they send notes or emails saying they shouldn’t have to learn this stuff.
‘What they object to – and I don’t really understand it, I am not religious – they object to the idea that there is a random process out there which is not directed by God.’

source

Just in case the Daily Mail is not the greatest source in the world, I had a look around to see if anyone else was reporting this. From the Tribune:

In ongoing protests, Muslim students including trainee doctors at Britain’s University College London have walked out of biology lectures on evolution, reports The Daily Mail.

Doh!

OK, then there’s this Australian source. They’re much closer than I am here in Minnesota:

Muslim biology students are boycotting lectures about evolution because they conflict with their creationist beliefs, one of Britain?s leading scientists has revealed.

Steve Jones, emeritus professor of human genetics at University College London, said increasing numbers of his undergraduates were refusing to attend his lectures on evolution and complaining that the subject should not be taught on their course.

“It is a minority of students … but [the problem] is definitely there and it is definitely growing,” said Jones, who teaches introductory genetics to about 300 first-year students, about a fifth of whom are Muslim.

“I had one or two slightly frisky discussions years ago with kids who belonged to fundamentalist Christian churches … now it is Islamic, overwhelmingly.”

That’s from The Australian Higher Education section.

Continuing with that source,

Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist and former Oxford professor, first raised the Muslim boycott of lectures in an interview with the Times Educational Supplement last month.

“Occasionally, my colleagues lecturing in universities lament having undergraduate students walk out of their classes when they talk about evolution — this is almost entirely Muslims,” he said. “I think there’s a very, very pernicious influence that is lasting up to the university years.”

In my view, these students should be given an appropriate grade; What is the English equivalent of an “F”?