This is from part of the article. Where the head guy goes thru his list of "demons" and gets this crowd whipped up into a massive frenzy:


At first, the whole scene was pure comedy. Fortenberry was standing up at the front of the chapel, reading off a list, and the room was loudly chirping crickets back at him.

"In the name of Jesus, I cast out the demon of incest! In the name of Jesus, I cast out the demon of sexual abuse! In the name of Jesus. . . ."

After a few minutes, there was a little twittering here and there. Nothing serious. I was beginning to think the Deliverance was going to be a bust.

But then it started. Wails and cries from the audience. To my left, a young black man started writhing around in his seat. In front of me and to my right, another young black man with Coke-bottle glasses and a shock of nerdly jheri curl — a dead ringer for a young Wayne Williams — started wailing and clutching his head.

"In the name of Jesus," continued Fortenberry, "I cast out the demon of astrology!"

Coughing and spitting noises. Behind me, a bald white man started to wheeze and gurgle, like he was about to puke. Fortenberry, still reading from his list, pointed at the man. On cue, a pair of life coaches raced over to him and began to minister. One dabbed his forehead with oil and fiercely clutched his cranium; the other held a paper bag in front of his mouth.

"In the name of Jesus Christ," said Fortenberry, more loudly now, "I cast out the demon of lust!"

And the man began power-puking into his paper baggie. I couldn't see if any actual vomitus came out, but he made real hurling and retching noises.

Now the women began to pipe in. On the women's side of the chapel the noises began, and it is not hard to explain what these noises sounded like. If you've ever watched The Houston 560 or any other gangbang porn movie, that's what it sounded like, only the sounds were far more intense.

It was not difficult to figure out where the energy was coming from on that side of the room. Some of the husbands glanced nervously over in the direction of their wives.

"In the name of Jesus Christ, I cast out the demon of cancer!" said Fortenberry.

"Oooh! Unnh! Unnnnnh!" wailed a woman in the front row.

"Bleeech!" puked the bald man behind me.

Within about a minute after that, the whole chapel erupted in pandemonium. About half the men and three-fourths of the women were writhing around and either play-puking or screaming. Not wanting to be a bad sport, I raised my hand for one of the life coaches to see.

"Need . . . a . . . bag," I said as he came over.

He handed me a bag.

"In the name of Jesus, I cast out the demon of handwriting analysis!" shouted Fortenberry.


Now, I don't know bout u, but I've never really, truly been afraid of the lady that does handwriting analysis at the local fair. I never knew she was so evil.

Here's the article, if you need a good laugh:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/20278737/jesus_made_me_puke/


>>A part of the article one part of me found surprising, but another didn't, is that author said he that there was a segment during the retreat where the leader of the retreat stands up on stage and get's the crowd all excited about the dangers of the devil (gambling, pornography, tv, computers, that sort of thing). The leader went on for what seemed like eternity.
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>>Matt said he did almost have to slap himself to bring himself back to reality. As even he got wrapped up in it.
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>A big attention getter for every fire-and-brimstone preacher from Savonarola through the Mathers and on to Billy Sunday was to describe in *vivid* detail the kind of sin that could get you in trouble and then luridly dwell on the punishments of hell for the sinners.
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>Before hardcore porn and slasher movies people got their frisson where they could <bg>
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>>>>I read an article in Rolling Stone a couple weeks ago, that I think you'd find a hoot. Matt Talabi (sp?) infiltrated hagee's sect. He spent about 3 weeks with them. The article focused on a weekend retreat he went on with them at the end of the 3 weeks.
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>>>>The article does a good job of describing the psychological tactics these groups use. And how a week minded person could get sucked in.
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>>>>But at the same time there's some very laughable parts. During the retreat the crowd is broken up into smaller groups where the leader of the group has everyone go around and describe something your parents did to you went you were little that is the root cause of why your screwed up. And how the only way to fix your life is to accept jesus.
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>>>>Matt found himself being really put on the spot, and he searched his mind for a while to come up with something for the group. He described to them all how his father was an alchoholic circus clown. And he used to chase the children around with his big clown shoes, whipping them with the shoes. And how traumatized he became of big clown shoes.
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>>>That's beautiful. There is an Etrade commercial, with the baby buying stock, and he says when he made money he rented a clown - "I underestimated the creepiness". My grand daughter since about the age of 4 has declared herself creeped out by "clowns, mimes and angels".
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>>>Religious sects of any kind are always a source of wonderment to me. Maybe it comes from being raised as a Methodist, migrating to a sort of Masonic Unitarianism and then going to live with the Moslems and the Buddhists. When I lived in SF the Jim Jones People's Temple thing happened (the source of the expression "drink the Kool Aid", as you know) Didn't seem much crazier than EST, Scientology, or Fundamentalist anything but demonstrated pretty dramatically what happens when one gives up one's spiritual responsibility to gurus or dogmas.