Possession and Evil
Posted: 2010.02.03 (03:55)
So I recently watched the Exorcism of Emily Rose and thought I'd bring up the topic of evil and possession just to see how many people believe in the two, my view of this topic is summed up in Toll the Hounds chapter 17
*Warning, this is more than a paragraph long*
" Gather close, and let us speak of nasty little shits. Oh, come now, we are no strangers to the vicious demons in placid disguises, innocent eyes so wide, hidden minds so dark. Does evil exist? Is it a force, some deadly possession that slips into the unwary? Is it a thing separate and thus subject to accusation and blame, distinct from the one it has used? Does it flit from soul to soul, weaving its diabolical scheme in all the unseen places, snarling into knots tremulous fears and appalling opportunity, stark terrors and brutal self-interest?
Or is the dread word nothing more than a quaint and oh so convenient encapsulation of all those traits distinctly lacking moral context, a sweeping generalization embracing all things depraved and breathtakingly cruel, a word to define that peculiar glint in the eye - the voyeur to one's own delivery of horror, of pain and anguish and impossible grief?
Give the demon crimson scales, slashing talons. Tentacles and dripping poison. Three eyes and six slithering tongues. As it crouches there in the soul, its latest abode in an eternal succession of abodes, may every god kneel in prayer.
But really. Evil is nothing but a word, an objectification where no objectification is necessary. Cast aside this notion of some external agency as the source of inconceivable inhumanity-the sad truth is our possession of innate proclivity towards indifference, towards deliberate denial of mercy, towards disengaging all that is moral within us.
But if that's too dire, let's call it evil. And paint it with fire and venom.
There are extremities of behaviour that seem, at the time, perfectly natural, indeed reasonable. They are arrived at suddenly, or so it might seem, but if one looks the progression reveals itself, step by step, and that is a most sad truth."
*Warning, this is more than a paragraph long*
" Gather close, and let us speak of nasty little shits. Oh, come now, we are no strangers to the vicious demons in placid disguises, innocent eyes so wide, hidden minds so dark. Does evil exist? Is it a force, some deadly possession that slips into the unwary? Is it a thing separate and thus subject to accusation and blame, distinct from the one it has used? Does it flit from soul to soul, weaving its diabolical scheme in all the unseen places, snarling into knots tremulous fears and appalling opportunity, stark terrors and brutal self-interest?
Or is the dread word nothing more than a quaint and oh so convenient encapsulation of all those traits distinctly lacking moral context, a sweeping generalization embracing all things depraved and breathtakingly cruel, a word to define that peculiar glint in the eye - the voyeur to one's own delivery of horror, of pain and anguish and impossible grief?
Give the demon crimson scales, slashing talons. Tentacles and dripping poison. Three eyes and six slithering tongues. As it crouches there in the soul, its latest abode in an eternal succession of abodes, may every god kneel in prayer.
But really. Evil is nothing but a word, an objectification where no objectification is necessary. Cast aside this notion of some external agency as the source of inconceivable inhumanity-the sad truth is our possession of innate proclivity towards indifference, towards deliberate denial of mercy, towards disengaging all that is moral within us.
But if that's too dire, let's call it evil. And paint it with fire and venom.
There are extremities of behaviour that seem, at the time, perfectly natural, indeed reasonable. They are arrived at suddenly, or so it might seem, but if one looks the progression reveals itself, step by step, and that is a most sad truth."
