Here’s a creepy video for you, courtesy of the new Fox television series THE EXORCIST (based on the movies of the same name, naturally). The video, though, is supposed to be (and looks) genuine. A minister was out to save the soul of a killer, one Aljar Swartz, by casting out the demons inside of him, the ones making him do bad things. Oftentimes in the movies and in folklore, Lycanthropy has been blamed on demonic possession, so why not serial murder?
It’s fascinating stuff. In South Africa, exorcists get plenty of work, it seems. (Note: These guys, according to the video, are Methodists. Now I’ve known plenty of Methodists, and they aren’t much known for performing exorcisms—or, as they refer to it in the video, “deliverance ministry”—so it must be an African thang.) One of them, Rev. Begbie, argued for a consideration of “diminished capacity” for the teenage murderer, on the grounds that demons were motivating Swartz, who murdered a fellow teen and tried to sell parts of his body to witchdoctors. While the killer may in fact be possessed—I couldn’t say—I find this argument worrisome. ANY killer can blame his crimes on demons, after all. If the devil made ‘em do it, they don’t really have to take any personal responsibility for their crimes, do they?