Word: astaroth
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...Children of God, which claims a worldwide membership, is convinced that the comet is an omen of disaster and is directly predicting doomsday ("Forty days," warns the group's leader "Moses David" Berg, and "Nineveh shall be destroyed!"). A different alarm is sounded by the Italian parapsychologist Astaroth, 52 (real name: Claudio Giannantonio), who counsels members of the Rome political and movie set. Astaroth explains that comets disrupt the "psychomagnet-ic equilibrium" of the planetary system. He adds: "Human beings will be drawn to commit acts of violence-not only singly but collectively." In McFarland, Wis., the self-proclaimed...
...other assorted soothsayers crank out their predictions for the year ahead. Few take them very seriously, and judging by the 1970 performance, that is just as well. There were some outstanding goofs. Britain's Astrologer Maurice Woodruff predicted that Ronald Reagan would not be reelected. In Italy, Astaroth foresaw that Leonid Brezhnev would be ousted last spring and later murdered. In the U.S., Sybil Leek, self-styled queen of witches, revealed that in October, Richard Nixon would be caught up in a saucy sex scandal that would raise the nation's eyebrows...
Happily, a few islands rise above the morass of tedium. At the close of the Prologue near the beginning, An Actor strikingly initiates the change from major to minor; the orchestra follows. The hamming of Satan, Lucifer, and Astaroth in the Inferno and in Hell provides a pleasant relief, and the Virgin Mary has a delightful lyric song in Bethlehem in Part II ("My God, my sweet King...
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