A Devil's Plot: How to Infest a Structure and Take the People

Note: While the ideas in this piece are my own, the style I'm utilizing is borrowed from C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters.

Outline: Step 1, Take advantage of external circumstances.

Seraphi: Incubus, come here.
Incubus: ehh... what is now Seraphi?
Seraphi: You have a new assignment, you need to work to destroy the church and bring all their souls to me, including the soul of the church.
Incubus: But Seraphi, that's hard, I don't like this idea. Can't I just take one soul and make it extra pure and dark, and dead for you?
Seraphi: No, no, no, it's the right time, you destroy the whole structure of the earthly church from within, (of course we can never actually deal with the eschatological church, but that's a battle for Satan to deal with.)
Incubus: Why is this the right time?
Seraphi: Because there's a sex abuse crisis going on in the church, and we can attack the souls of people in the church, and then that will corrupt the people outside the church, and at the same time we can attack the people outside the church with different demons as well.
Incubus: And you want me to attack the structure right?
Seraphi: Yep, attacking the structure, and the hierarchs of the structure is something you can do very well, plus since sex is part (not all, but of course she won't know that until she sees the situation) of the problem, it's perfectly appropriate that an Incubus attacks. (hehehe)
Incubus: Alright then, off I go, to deal with an attack on a structure at the right time.



Step 2, Make religious structure overvalue one thing and ignore the greater part of the common good.

Incubus: Seraphi!!! What are you thinking giving me this assignment? This problem has nothing to do with sex at all. All the people are complaining about power and stuff in the structure, and the priests that are having sex and doing stuff like this to children don't care about the sex either. They are getting away with the situation because they can. How am I supposed to make this worse? :(
Seraphi: Incubus, you're so impatient!! Don't you see that sex is the key to making this worse, even though the problem is not sex in itself.
Incubus: How do I make this worse? I mean look at the people, they already hate the Church and are having avid protests against teaching and authority.
Seraphi: You realize how insignificant of a problem this is in the long run don't you. (Especially because the Almighty has weird ways of engaging salvation, for as much as the Church talks about the Almighty being the only way, the Almighty has certainly taken a lot of souls in unexpected ways.) The real problem is when the structure and faith itself emanates evil and counteracts its own work. People disagreeing with the hierarchy really is a non-issue for me. Some of these people are more dangerous as they heal the brokenness of others and make the Almighty, church, and religion a safehaven. What really causes brokenness is if we can cause a hyper-reaction to something in culture, in this case the sex abuse crisis. (Of course the situation is really more complicated than just this simple hyper-reaction, but she can't really know that yet, she has to let experience hit her in the face. More importantly, the range of factors for any issue is infinite, but the souls of the people fighting really aren't important and for the most part aren't that dark to where I can allure them into darkness. The hierarchs, The hierarchs are more important right now.
Incubus: So basically, you want sex to be the hyper-reaction.
Seraphi: Hehehe, yes, yes, if sex is the hyper-reaction in the Church it will cause more issues of power (especially since we can convince the hierarchs to ignore the mystical connection in sexual practice that binds people together. Yes, people can screw up sex and hurt each other, but this bonding thing even outside of "marriage" connects people and communities, and then the Almighty comes and I can't deal with it all. That stupid line, "Where two or three are gathered, there am I in their midst (Mt)" sadly that's true even in sexual practice. The Almighty comes and connects people together with an opening of hearts. That's the key to a complete takeover of souls is to make people not connect with each other in any real way... Hooking up only does so much to corrupt the participants invovled because there's still that desire for real connectivity, and it only corrupts for so long too.)
Incubus: Seraphi, are you in your own head again?
Seraphi: Shut up Incubus, I'm plotting. But yes, use sex as a means to cause a hyper-reaction and work to build a message of faith that destroys community building. If we can do that, we're well on our way to capturing many people and making them wallow in our darkness.
Incubus: But how do I do that?
Seraphi: Make something about sex the perceived.... ah ha, yes connect all forms of sexual practice (in and out of marriage) connected to abortion in some way. If you can do that you demonize connectivity and this "unitive" end of marriage. Demonizing connectivity on a physical level will destroy it on deeper levels too. We can use this to disconnect the people and harm the common good.
Incubus: Seraphi has all the best ideas! :) Hehehehe We'll win
Seraphi: (ehh your enthusiasm is sickening, especially because satan hasn't found a way to deal with the eschatological church, all we can really deal with is the problems of the earthly church, and we've been doing this since the beginning of time. hmm...)





Step 3, Distract people with a non-issue, yet have authority abuse their power to shove something down a person's throat harming the common good more

Incubus: Seraphi!!! Argh! It was working so well. I got the hierarchs to care only about sexual practice and spreading that faith, connect everything in sexual teaching to not having an abortion, bringing this practice to the younger people, which harmed their vulnerability and relationships which was a fun effect, but now they're all bitching and complaining about Mass and translations, and abuses of authority. Waaaa!!! :'(
Seraphi: Incubus, you're insolent and you never stop. Don't you see how good this situation is for our purposes?
Incubus: Does Seraphi have another idea? :)
Seraphi: Of course I do, but step 1 of this idea is you have to prevent people from binding together against this new Mass translation.
Incubus: So, basically make them feel like there's nothing they can do and they're alone?
Seraphi: haha, you're actually learning, good work. But we can do a lot more with this plan. We can use this translation to make people believe all of their relationships will be like this one. In other words, if we can promote an irresponsible use of authority and overblow this problem, then we can extrapolate and cause people to lose hope in all their relationships.
Incubus: But isn't an irrresponsible use of authority something people actually should care about because bad leadership harms the common good. People seem to have this natural instinct to fight against bad leadership when possible.
Seraphi: Yes, but we can make people think all of their relationships are tyranny, including their relationship with the Almighty, simply based on how the hierarchs are acting. If the hierarchs shove something down people's throats (like a bad Mass translation, and yes this is God awful but we might as well use it for chaos), then people see this as symbolic of all of their relationships, because they are supposed to trust the clergy in their opinion. Since we've seen with the sex abuse crisis and now this Mass translation that they can't we're making the people lost in themselves. As long as we prevent the lights from speaking and building bridges, then our plan will be successful.
Incubus: You come up with all the best ideas Seraphi :).
Seraphi: (Hehehee, this is working perfectly. I'm so glad I thought of all these ideas, granted I've just borrowed them from the history of demons in different crises, like the Reformation for example, but so much of religious, salvation, and demonic history stems from power and sex. The worst part is, I still have yet to really deal with sex as a major demonic component. The hierarchs are the only real thing I've come up with to deal with this component because their talking against sex and touch and deep relationships leaves people alone and prevents the "where two or three are gathered")
Incubus: You're always stuck in your head Seraphi, you need to spend more time with me, and we can be wicked and spread misery together, isn't that what being together is all about for us demons. Spreading mischief and mayhem and creating a bad sense of adventure.




Step 4, Keep up the issues of sexuality and the new Mass translation as issues which cause people to look away from the common good, instead of at it. Subtle but important.

Seraphi: Incubus, I see you've come back, how's things on the surface.
Incubus: Seraphi, we have a problem, there are people starting to look toward the common good and build community and responding to our plan to make the hierarchs care only about sex and authority.
Seraphi: The Almighty! Of course the Almighty figured out what I was doing. (I guess this is part of that stupid eschatological Church thing with Jesus and the Spirit and whatnot.) Alright, for now we have to keep these issues of sexuality and the new Mass translation as signs of isolation up in certain sectors. We need to influence the hierarchs voices to be louder, more annoying, and more about dividing the community between lay and cleric. The more division the better, this will buy us more time.
Incubus: okay, so more time, but how do we get people to look away from the common good, these lights seem to be doing a good job of awakening people to the common good.
Seraphi: We have to discourage the lights by isolating them more, make them seem like pariahs, and invoke more demonic presence on them. If you can do that, the crowds will think they are crazy, and then we can attack the isolated people. But for you, first things first, we have to keep attacking the hierarchs and create a stronger defensive reaction. Pro-life = anti-abortion was a very effective mentality and we need to keep attacking here. We can overlook some of the younger people now, we have a few years before they see what's going on (stupid postmodern Europeans being so open to God and making sense. Caring and sharing and gift, argh!!! All these things strengthen relationships and open people to others, and these young people get this so well and) Incubus what is it?
Incubus: Seraphi, we have to attack now, there's more stronger light coming our way and we're in danger.
Seraphi: We both have to escape the base and get to the surface and become wolves in sheep's clothing.
Incubus: What do you mean?
Seraphi: We have to look exactly like the structure to continue our infiltration. Hurry before the lights radiate us as well as our base, make your armies invisible and prepare for the next stage of stealth attack. (All this time, we fought so hard to prevent relationship buildling. All the sex, all the authority, all the anti-abortion campaigning, it was all to prevent people from coming together so that we could take them from a place of despair. All I wanted was despair and death so people might have a chance to come here, we have to ignore the stupid Almighty and forgiveness and that kind of thing, but we had a chance to take out everything, argh!!!!!))

Aristocrates

Movie Review: Invictus

Greetings,

I normally don't do movie reviews, because I normally don't watch many movies, but this movie warranted a review because it has characteristics which need to be highlighted. This work of art takes a good look at a historical event and brings the subjects to life, which in my own opinion, is the most important part of studying history, as the events themselves are influenced by real people.

Graphics: The art is the first thing one should talk about in discussing this movie. The viewer sees a lot of things in this movie in South Africa, from Nelson Mandela's mansion to the poorer areas of South Africa. The camera views at times can be awkward especially during the Rugby scenes, but all in all, what you see in the movie overtakes the bad camera angles at times. (P.S. I don't know a lot about graphics and how to make things look good so more comments on good editing would be helpful.)

Characters: This is the strength of this movie. Nelson Mandela (played by Morgan Freeman) comes alive on screen; you see his strengths and also points where one would realize that Mandela could be a hard person with whom to get along. One sees this in how his secretary and his daughter react to his sometimes hard and aggressive tendencies in speech and in leading South Africa. Matt Damon's character has a wonderful transformation from a frustrated leader to one who gains inspiration upon encountering Mandela. His reaction is typical of many people who encounter Mandela, he brings out a tough challenge to the person wants the best for his country, and each individual. In doing so, people have a warm respect for him, though few are personally close to Mandela. The people in this movie interact believably and very well with each other sharing tension, trust, joy, and many other feelings. These interactions make this movie a piece of art which is to be cherished.

Story: This movie is based on a true story of a South African rugby team who plays in the 1995 World Cup of Rugby, which was hosted by South Africa. The story tracks how Nelson Mandela worked with a rugby team to unite South Africa after its struggles with apartheid. Other readers will have more expertise than myself on the history of South Africa but from my limited understanding, apartheid was racism in South Africa between white and black South Africans. The whites were a vast minority in South Africa but used oppressive government power to oppress the blacks. (I apologize for not knowing a more politically correct term in advance.) This story tells of a struggle for forgiveness, reconciliation, and a true building of community based around a common purpose, being the country of South Africa.

Ethical lessons: Of course, one did not think they were getting a blog entry which was completely about a movie right... Hehehee, so ethical ideas which come from this movie. First, it is a good examination about racist leanings, even if not always expressed in the most explicit manners. This challenge is notable in the relationship between the white and black security guards for Mandela in the beginning of the movie. Even though both sides do not make an explicit "I don't like you, or trust you." there are plenty of snarky side comments and glances which suggest internal tension and distrust. Mandela also talks about the reality of these fears when he addresses the National Sports Council about how one needs to have respect for the white South Africans and let them have something, namely the rugby team, colors, and logo, which they love. This leads to the second challenge of the movie, which is building real community. Oftentimes, in society (both secular and religious), people like to sort themselves out with those who think uniform to their own thoughts and actions. (The Big Sort is a book which was mentioned by Dr. Richard Gaillardetz in a speech given at the St. Cloud Newman Center on this topic, further side note, Richard Gaillardetz is really accomplished in the field of ecclesiology, if anyone has an interest in reading on the meaning of Church, he is a good author to find.) South African community; however, as portrayed in this movie, does not work in this manner. This kind of community embraces difference around a common purpose, and appreciates the beauty in that difference. The different celebrations by each group in response to good things happening in the tournament or in the country are portrayed well in the movie. In the stadium, amongst the people and security guards, there is racial intermingling, which for South Africa just getting through apartheid would have been a big deal. Community in difference is an important lesson as it applies to everyone with whom we sort ourselves. Do we see the unique gifts in each person, and work to draw them out? Or, do we want to build people like ourselves? One type of community is healthy and lifegiving, the other seeks power and possession of other people.
Every good piece of art should challenge being in some way, and this piece does that by causing introspection looking at an external event. Though difficult, the reflection for our own lives can change our behavior, and in response being itself. Because when love is allowed to flourish and grow, people are affected by that love, and seek to follow that example themselves, or it touches them in some special way. The people that really love you, for being yourself, those are the ones you'll always remember. In this movie, we learn that we have to be that for others around us because everyone deserves to have that influential person who loves her. Mandela exhibits this beautifully both in his compliments to his co-workers and also his desire to remember the name of everyone on the rugby team.

All in all, this is a great piece of art which I highly recommend people go and see. And maybe I should write a movie review more often, this is actually a fun genre of writing.

Aristocrates