Word: deviling
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...controlled epileptic frenzy. Gangfight scuzz. What's not so simple and brutal are the words. She is a poet and her rock and roll is all based on her poetry. A cultural groupie, it is clear that she has swallowed a lot of influences to have borne the devil child of her work. An article in Rolling Stone about her revealed a whole cast of romantics populating her attic...
THERE IS a decidedly medieval cast to Martin's mind that undermines the credibility of Hostage to the Devil. His claims are hurt by not divulging the names of the possessed or offering to release the tape recordings. And he has an unreasoning prejudice against psychology and liberal reform in the Catholic Church. The little humor found in this book centers around psychiatrists who meddle in exorcisms. A New York psychiatrist advises a college professor who is plagued by a spirit that his problem is religious guilt and that he should "lay some broads." "That 'll do the trick...
...times he evokes nothing more than memories of William P. Blatty's lurid prose or of bad National Enquirer exposes; alternately, without warning, Martin produces rather alarming dialogues between exorcist and spirit that touch at the heart of modern evil. This is the strength of Hostage to the Devil; it offers an insight into the evil not only of Buchenwald and My Lai but also into the more personal evil of everyday life. Whether you believe in possession and the devil or not, Martin presents a chilling look at people stripped of their humanity...
While Hostage to the Devil is not convincing, or satisfying about the nature of possession, Martin does sound a currently pervasive message, a call for a return to certain Christian doctrines. There has been an increased interest in the supernatural among organized churches. The Anglicans have published a new exorcism ritual. Pope Paul VI announced in November 1972 that one of the greatest needs of the Catholic Church "is defense from that evil which is called the devil." After reading Hostage to the Devil, Harvey Cox of the Harvard Divinity School wrote: "It did make me realize that...
...credit, Martin has captured the sense of confusion about moral choices that pervades twentieth century societies. He suggests a reason for it: "Confusion is a prime weapon of evil." But from that premise he asks us to take a dubious leap of faith with him and accept the Devil as the force wielding that weapon. It is a view that will encounter great hostility from psychologists and social historians; still, Hostage to the Devil, for all its flaws, advances an old theory about an old problem in a new and challenging...