Kmareka readers know that I’ve disclosed being part of a Catholic Charismatic group that performed exorcisms in the 1970’s. Clearly, in my case, it didn’t take. But while I came through that craziness with invaluable life experience in the power of groupthink, others might suffer great emotional harm, or even be driven into psychosis.

There was one man who joined our group who was hearing voices telling him to do bad things. He really needed a psychiatrist and medication, but he got a Greyhound ticket to an out-of-state Teen Challenge instead. He soon returned to Providence, probably hitchhiked back. If he eventually found redemption, it was surely through the ER at RIH, or the mercies of the ACI. Our secular safety net, then, and still now, is full of holes but reality-based.

‘By their fruits ye shall know them’ Jesus said. The context of that verse is the unreliability of flashy religious performers, including exorcists. I have so much admiration for the many people who are motivated by faith to extraordinary acts of goodness that I can’t and won’t mock anyone’s religion. Also, I’m not God and don’t presume to tell anyone what to do with their soul, except to be true to their own inner light.

Still, I fear the power of the non-rational, when it is used to fire up a group that aims to impose that power on the rest of us. This post from Alternet on Cindy Jacobs, a gay demon exorcist who has friends and influences people in the Republican Party is not ‘news of the weird’. It’s quite frightening to me. As a teenager I witnessed gay men kneeling in the center of a group of moaning, tongues-speaking zealots working up an emotional high and crash. I suspect that in those cases the exorcisms didn’t take either.

A wise witch, Margot Adler, once said that the challenge of our time is to balance the mystical and the rational. A life without the mystical would not only be empty for most of us, but impossible for most of us. Carl Sagan, scientist and atheist, followed a dream that we would one day find evidence of intelligent life on other planets. That is arguably a faith. I think we are hard-wired for that, to use a cliche.

I’m not even opposed to exorcism in all situations. My motto as a nurse is ‘whatever works’. If such a practice brings comfort and improves someone’s mental health then I’m happy for them.

I’m just saying– don’t discount the power of the non-rational, especially when ritual is used to motivate a group. Once you have seen it, you recognize it. You feel the cone of power going up, whether at a church service, a political rally, even a small gathering of friends in an inspired moment.

Pagans and some Christians will recognize that I am using terms from Wicca, which is one ingredient in the mix of agnostic paganism that I practice in the shelter of the Unitarian Church. I think another ingredient I did not recognize, because a fish doesn’t see the water she swims in, is my Americanism.

We have a proud tradition in Rhode Island, the tradition of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson. The principle of freedom of religion. My certainty of being right does not give me the right to impose my beliefs on others, or to disparage their statements of conscience.

American missionaries are using very aggressive tactics in Central America, where spiritual need is not met by a distant and autocratic Catholic Church, especially after the quenching of Liberation Theology.

What sort of items were on the “burn list” ?

“…the kinds of material things that might be bringing honor to the spirits of darkness: pictures, statues, Catholic saints, Books of Mormon, pictures of former lovers, pornographic material, fetishes, drugs, Ouija boards, zodiac charms, good luck symbols, crystals for healing, amulets, talismans, tarot cards, witch dolls, voodoo items, love potions, books of magic, totem poles, certain pieces of jewelry, objects of Freemasonry, horoscopes, gargoyles, native art, foreign souvenirs, and what have you.”

Resistencia’s believers, Wagner goes on to describe, brought from their homes enough of the allegedly evil items to fill a 55 gallon drum, which Jacobs and her fellow evangelists poured gasoline onto and then set on fire.

Those of us who have danced around a flaming cauldron will admit the power of such a ritual to affect emotions.

For all you readers who have spent their lives with sensible people who don’t do these kind of things– I beg of you– don’t accept any religious or charismatic group unexamined. Don’t give them a free pass, they will abuse it. ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’ Watch what they do, hold them accountable for their actions no matter what they say. Most religious groups do more good than harm, and some do a great deal of good.

But religious who want to be politicians, and politicians who use religion, are a threat to our most precious freedom.