Aldous Huxley (26/7/1894 - 22/11/63) - The Devils of Loudun , an extract

On 18/8/1634 Urbain Grandier, a handsome and successful seducer of women and priest of the parish of Loudun a small French town, was tried, tortured and burnt at the stake. He had been found guilty of being in league with the devil and seducing an entire convent of nuns in what was the most sensational case of mass possession and sexual hysteria in history. Grandier maintained his innocence to the end and four years after his death the nuns were still being subjected to exorcisms to free them from their demonic bondage.was accused and convicted of sorcery,
This event would inspire Aldous Huxley's  book The Devils of Loudun. An historical narrative of supposed demonic possession, religious fanaticism, sexual repression and mass hysteria. Later turned into a  controversial film by Ken Russel The Devils ( 1971). Aldous Huxley's vivid account of this bizarre tale of religious and sexual obsession transforms our understanding of the medieval world.What is seem as liberation is in fact enslavement, fanaticism as seen with its appearance in the human condition has penetrated through all history. With his compelling narrative, Mr Huxley manages to hit the nail on the head. Religion becomes not only the opium of the people, but also becomes the pornographer of the masses.  Strongly recommended, as are most of his books.Relevant when it was written, relevant today, its message still echoing with warning.  Truth and reason still being manipulated by our leaders and so called prophets.
Be careful where you lay your devotions.

  ' At all times, all to many Christians have behaved as though the devil were a First Principle, on the same footing as God. They have paid more attention to evil and the problem of its eradication than to good and the methods by which individual goodness may be deepened, and the sum of goodness increased. The effects which follow too constant and intense a concentration upon evil are always disastrous. Those who crusade, not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but leave it either as it was, or sometimes even perceptibly worse than it was, before the crusade began. By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself.
   Though frequently Manichaean in practice, Christianity was never Manchaean in its dogmas. In this respect it differs from our modern iodolatries of Communism and Nationalism, which are Manichaean not only in action, but also in creed and theory. Today it is everywhere self-evident that we are on the side of Light, they on the side of Darkness. And being on the side of Darkness, they deserve to be punished and must be liquidated ( since our divinity justifies everything) by the most fiendish means at our disposal. By iolatrously worshipping ourselves as Ormuzd, and by regarding the other fellow as Ahriman, the Principle of Evil, we of the twentieth century are doing our best to guarantee the triumph of diabolism in our time.'