PURE EVIL

 This is the page where I will deal with the images which, in my opinion, evoke the feeling of purest evil. I have experienced this feeling in only a few places.
  • The Exorcist is without a doubt the scariest movie ever made! I have read that the actual sound of pigs being slaughtered was mixed into the sound to increase the sense of visceral horror. The newly re-released version adds some additional effects, most notably, the "spider walk." "Gliding spiderlike, close behind Sharon, her body arched backward in a bow with her head almost touching her feet, was Regan, her tongue flicking quickly in and out of her mouth while she hissed sibilantly like a serpent."
  • The Omen IV. In the scene from The Omen IV depicted on this page, a man is standing in front of a church, gazing at a Nativity scene where a choral group is singing Christmas carols. Suddenly, the images in the Nativity scene turn hideously ugly. The Christ child looks like a burned corpse. The chorus is transformed into a group of gothed-out zombies. One of the members produces a crucifix which he very deliberately turns upside down as shown here. Instead of a carol, the chorus chants something satanic. The effect is chilling but an image can't convey the extent. I've done the best I can.
  • Michelle Remembers is a book about a woman who supposedly remembers a year of satanic ritual abuse she received as a child. The story has since been debunked but even as fiction, the impact of it is powerful. This story is credited with the dubious distinction of kicking off the entire "satanic panic." An example of the sort of thing that went on in Michelle Remembers is her encounter with a "lady from Vancouver" who was "possessed." "She was just trying to make friends when she first came. Like one minute she's talking to me like I'm a nice little kid, and the next minute she's this ugly thing. She just turned her head around and looked back at me and changed her face. It was the same face I saw in the car that night. It's eyes looked like they go way back and stick way out at the same time. Everything about it's unclean. It's nostrils are much bigger than they should be, and it has an ugly mouth. She has this long tongue that can go way out, like a snake's tongue. She's saying really disgusting things but they're all in a different language. She drools a lot and her head starts to go all funny and spins around." When I first read this book back in the 80's, I thought it must be true because nobody could make up such an intense story. (The example is just a small sample of it.) But an investigation proved otherwise. Is there any truth to allegations of "satanic ritual abuse?" Just when we thought it was safe to dismiss them, hard, physical evidence of the McMartin allegations turns up as discussed in The Dark Tunnels of McMartins. Dr. Roland C. Summit believes in a middle ground between blanket denials of abuse and knee jerk acceptance of such allegations. See also Archaeological Investigations of the McMartin Preschool Site, Manhattan Beach, California. A rebuttal to these claims is found at IPT Journal — The Missing Tunnel.
  • Hostage to the Devil is a book about several actual exorcisms. The author, Malachi Martin, is very intelligent and possesses compelling literary skills. He is also a Catholic with some pretty conservative views which makes reading him interesting and challenging since I am neither of these things. I reproduce several of his stories as an example.

    so what is evil?

     These examples raise the question of what is evil. It is a lot easier to give examples of it than to define it. Extrapolating a definition from these examples and, even more, from the feeling that caused me to choose these examples, I would define evil as that which is deliberately calculated to cause despair. That would cover the exact quality in each of my cases that makes them as horrible as they are. In The Exorcist, the book, Father Merrin says, "I think the demon's target is not the possessed; it is us ... the observers ... every person in this house. And I think - I think humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial; as ultimately vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy. And there lies the heart of it, perhaps: in unworthiness. For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it finally is a matter of love; of accepting the possibility that God could love us. ..." And from Michelle Remembers, "Now she saw a nice-looking man, a good man who had made a mistake or come to a the end of his rope. He was wearing a baggy sweater and he was shuffling along a street, oblivious to the autumn leaves and the glowing street lamps. The man went to a telephone booth on the corner, and dialed a number. The telephone rang and rang, but no one answered. He tried another number, and another. No answer there either. He leaned his head against the glass side of the booth for a moment, and then he walked away into the night. He had given up. It was too late."

    Many of my examples depict things that are flagrantly unnatural (the spider walk, the snake woman), sudden reversals of mood (the evil chorus, the snake woman), willful acts of malice (the chorus member inverting the crucifix). The very universe, life, itself, suddenly makes no sense. If the universe, itself, turns crazy, turns against us and against life, what wholeness and integration do we have left? We lose our sense of harmony with the universe, our sense that perfection and beauty are the true order of reality. We become disconnected from it and, in turn, disconnected within ourselves.

    A final characteristic of evil is the death of the soul which is the death of love. What is left when someone turns against hir very love, whatever that love had been directed to? To turn against one's love is to turn against one's own Self. It is soul-suicide. We all know in our hearts what we love and that it is sacred. Evil isn't a particular act. That's too easy. Evil can be different for everyone. What makes it evil is the relationship of the act with the soul of the actor. It is, after all, in the heart and soul that good and evil reside.

    Jump Back into the Black Hole