Book: The Dark Sacrament

It's about possession. Or demonic oppression in some cases. Heck, there's even one in there where it wasn't a demon at all, but a little ghost. The book has ten cases of the dark and wiggy from Ireland. If you're interested in that sort of thing then it's a good read. Provided that you're not one of those people who reads about this sort of thing and then flips out when your house goes squeak. If you are then you won't be reading this sort of stuff anyway, will you? :)

One of the things that struck me (again) upon reading these stories was the correlation of abuse to later possession. I'd say a good 3/4's of the stories where there was actual malevolent entities involved had some form of parental abuse being perpetuated on the person who later grew to have encounters with the dark side. It's like the evil done by a human being leaves a mark - psychic wounds, if you will. We know and accept that these things leave psychological wounds, so why not spiritual ones?

They can leave the person vulnerable, like a physical weakness can leave you vulnerable to further injury or infection.

I do have to quibble a little bit though. In one story the man who was later to be attacked by someone who was possessed encountered a man while touring in Egypt. This man was drinking at dinner and went nuts, screaming obscenities, etc. And one of the waiters who is assumed to be a Muslim by the person who wrote this tale down says that it's the alcohol - that it's not good to drink so much. And the writer just sort of poopooh's this notion as his 'Islamic sensibilities' being offended. Um, hello? Wherever he may have gotten the idea, I think he was right. This guy, even from the two paragraphs devoted to the encounter clearly had a problem. Hell, the next morning at breakfast they note that he was 'nursing some sort of cocktail'. When the first thing you do in the morning is fix yourself a drink? You've got a problem. No need to imagine outside demonic influences there. You've got your 'demon' right there in your hand. But whatever. It's also true that alcohol and drugs leave a person open to suggestion and invasion by outside controlling influences, which is reason enough not to drink excessively and to avoid drugs if you needed more reasons than just common sense.

Whatever. I enjoyed the book and that's all that matters!

My next book is 'Living Islam Out Loud: American Muslim Women Speak' which I'm pretty sure I've read before. But that's what I pulled out of the hat, so that's what I'm reading. :)