Tea at Trianon: Chilling

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Chilling

Inside a demon house. To quote:

Adam Blai has a Master’s of Science Degree in Clinical Psychology and is a former skeptic turned expert demonologist and advisor to the Roman Catholic Church; performing and training priests in exorcism.

In a sit down interview with FOX 8′s Suzanne Stratford, he candidly answers questions about ghosts, demons and exorcism; all of which he says is very real.

Is demon possession a Catholic or global phenomena?

“Pretty much all of the major religious systems in the world have seen this problem; spirits that can speak languages that the person doesn’t even know; where a spirit animates a body that knows secret information about the people in the room that only they know about their lives,” said Adam.

“You meet the same demons over and over, performing exorcisms in different cities and they’re like ‘oh yea you again,’ and you get used to it, but in the process of getting used to it, there’s a lot of nightmarish stuff you have to go through,” said Adam.

Adam says many people involved with exorcism have been physically harmed or institutionalized. Why?

“Because the forces we oppose and antagonize will take revenge on those close to us if they can’t take revenge on us. I had a very close relative thrown down the stairs in their home so violently they didn’t touch the stairs. They were in the air spinning and landed and broke their neck.”

What are your thoughts on the increased interest in demonology?

“People who want to get involved in this, it’s usually out of naive curiosity or glamorizing it, but this is not a career. There’s no money in this. This is all voluntary work. This all has to be done as an act of charity and for love other people,” said Adam.

“There must be some calling. But the great danger in that, is that anything that leads to pride, like, ‘oh I’m special,’ or ‘oh look I helped cast out this demon,’ or ‘met this thing from the Old Testament,’ or ‘met Judas Iscariot or Satan,’ or whatever and you can get puffed up by that, and think that’s exciting, but the moment you allow yourself to go there, the next case you’re going to get smacked back down really hard. One thing they’re really good at is providing corrective experiences,” said Adam.

Some ghost hunters have suggested that they feed off human energy. Is that true?
“They don’t need human energy. That’s egoist thinking. They do enjoy conflict, pain, chaos and breaking families apart. They relish all of that. They enjoy that. They just find it pleasurable. They’re very sadistic creatures,” said Adam.

Why does the Catholic church believe demons infest homes?

“Hell is interested in gaining any ground that it can and that ground might be people, in the case of possessions, might be property, it might be buildings, it might be rights to a family line. Whatever they can get people who have authority to give them rights to, they’ll go after.” (Read more.)