Search Results for: health

Exorcism and the Catholic Church

Although there are several types of exorcism, the one most commonly imagined in popular culture is the solemn or “major” exorcism, a ritual to rid a possessed person of the demon or demons that inhabit their body—not merely a prayer for spiritual healing. Solemn exorcisms can be performed only by Catholic priests, and only then with the express permission of a bishop. Exorcism is not one of the seven Catholic sacraments, but the ritual is sacramental, meaning that the rite’s success is not dependent on the formulaic approach common to Catholic sacraments, but rather the exorcist’s faith and the authorization of a bishop.

In light of the Vatican’s concerns over heightened demonic activity around the world and the apparently urgent need for more exorcist-priests, training courses have been offered to equip the next generation of exorcists with the spiritual knowledge they need to expel demons from their non-consensual hosts. More than 170 priests and laypersons alike gathered in Rome for the most recent course, which was held at the Sacerdos Institute, an organization of priests affiliated with the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, an educational institute of the Catholic Church. The course, which costs around $330, covers numerous topics, including the theological, liturgical, and canonical aspects of exorcism, as well as its anthropological history, its potential place within the criminal justice system, plus medical and neurological issues surrounding demonic possession.

—Dan Shewan, writing for Pacific Standard about the business of exorcism. The casting out of demons has also become a lucrative cottage industry outside of the Catholic Church, with dozens of self-styled exorcists plying their trade across America, as detailed in Shewan’s piece.

Read the story

A Halloween Weekend Reading List

Photo: Allen

Boo! Read these stories about the scariest weekend of the year while getting over your candy hangovers.

1. “I Was a Halloween Costume Model.” (Freddie Campion, GQ October 2015)

Looking to make a little extra money, our anonymous hero answered a Craigslist ad.

2. “The Husband Stitch.” (Carmen Maria Machado, Granta, October 2014)

A sexy, spooky take on the tale of the woman with a ribbon around her neck. Read more…

Freedom From Fries

Longreads Pick

How fast food is evolving to satiate the appetites of consumers searching for healthy options.

Source: The New Yorker
Published: Oct 26, 2015
Length: 26 minutes (6,630 words)

Kay Redfield Jamison, William Styron and the True Stories of Mental Illness

Kay Redfield Jamison
Kay Redfield Jamison. Photo by hocolobrary, Flickr

Journalist Mary Pilon is a former reporter for The New York Times and Wall Street Journal and the author of 2015’s The Monopolists, the best-selling book about the origins of the board game Monopoly . She’s just announced her next book, The Kevin Show (Bloomsbury, publish date TBD), about a manic depressive Olympic sailor who believes he is the star of ‘The Kevin Show’—hearing and speaking to the voice of the Director, who tells him what to do in the ongoing TV movie of his life. Given her latest project, we’ve asked her to share some of her early book research and recommendations on mental health. Read more…

Hell—Nothing Less—And Without End: Six Days in Warsaw

German soldier setting fire to a building in Warsaw, September 1944. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Miron Białoszewski | A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising | New York Review Books | translated from the Polish by Madeline G. Levine | October 2015 | 37 minutes (10,141 words)

Below is an excerpt from A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising, by Miron Białoszewski, as recommended by Longreads contributing editor Dana Snitzky. Originally published in Poland in 1970, in this new edition translator Madeline G. Levine has updated her 1977 English translation, and passages that were unpublishable in Communist Poland have been restored. Read more…

The Honest, Creative Cuisine of Iceland

Photo: anroir

I’m no foodie. When I think “culinary haven,” Iceland doesn’t come to mind. Ethereal landscapes, yes; revolutionary cuisine, no. But I’m wrong. Nicholas Gill reports at Roads and Kingdoms:

Everywhere I went there was a person or a small group redefining what Icelandic food and ingredients can be. Many are alone. Trying to break free from the inside. Tiny isolated islands of change, surrounded by mountains and snow. They are Iceland, literally and figuratively.

Among the talented chefs Gill meets is Eyjólfur Fridgeirsson, a Zen Buddhist using a red alga called dulse in new ways, paying homage to the plant’s role in Iceland’s history:

[Dulse] became essential to the health and wellbeing for the people who lived in the inhospitable landscape. During the worst of times, it saved entire families from starvation…Dulse is sold fresh, pickled, or as salt, where it is dried on rocks in the same way the Vikings once did. He dries sugar kelp and makes a soy sauce from other seaweeds. Spices and teas are made from Angelica and arctic moss. There are jams and juices made from blueberries and a rub made of crowberries to put on lamb.

Fridgeirsson sees endless possibilities of what can be done with the plant life in Iceland. “The secret is just here,” he says with a shrug. “Being careful and putting my mind to it. As a good Buddhist, just putting loving care in what I’m doing.”

Read the story

Relearning How to Talk in the Age of Smartphone Addiction

Photo: Peter Urban

Jessica Gross | Longreads | October 2015 | 17 minutes (4,263 words)

 

Sherry Turkle, a professor of the social studies of science and technology at MIT, has studied our relationship with technology for decades. While some of her earlier works highlighted the ways in which technology could help us construct self-identities, her more recent writing warns that we are overinvesting in our devices and underinvesting in ourselves and each other.

In Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, published in 2011, Turkle explored the implications of replacing real intimacy with digital connection. Her new book, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, continues that thread. Turkle uses Thoreau’s three chairs—one for solitude, two for friendship, and three for society—as a framework, describing how our devices disrupt conversation and healthy development at every stage. When we turn to our phones constantly, we deny ourselves the capacity for solitude and identity development. This, in turn, blunts our ability to form healthy relationships. And vice versa: when we text instead of talk, or look at our devices instead of each other, we diminish our abilities to relate to other people as well as ourselves. Turkle ends the book with a discussion of what it means that we have begun to relate to machines as sentient beings when, in fact, they have no feelings, no experiences, no empathy, no idea what it means to be human.

Turkle—a psychoanalytically trained psychologist who founded and directs the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self—is no Luddite. But she argues for moderation, and for a deep look at how over-invested we’ve become in new technology. She is also optimistic that we are at just the right moment for this rceexamination, and for a return to conversation, reflection, and real intimacy. Turkle and I began our phone conversation by hailing that old thing, the landline.

Hi, this is Jessica Gross, calling from Longreads. Is this Sherry Turkle?

Yes, it is. I’ve been looking forward to hearing from you. But let me have you call back on a landline. I think the fidelity would be better and it’d just be easier. [Ring, ring.] Here I am. I love this old technology. I’m at a seaside cabin with this 1950 phone that works perfectly. [Laughter]

I got my own landline recently and it’s been really delightful.

I mean, there’s this thing where calls never get dropped, where you can hear in perfect fidelity! [Laughter] And it goes on even if the Wi-Fi is down! Read more…

Eulogizing America’s Old School Watering Holes

Keeping a place that serves drinks open is a difficult task no matter where you do it. As the bartender at my current favorite local bar, Sharlene’s on Flatbush in Brooklyn, told me, “You need to get at least half a million to open a bar in New York anymore. You need investors and shit,” before launching into the laundry list of organizations trying to shut you down, from churches that he said he’s seen petition to get new bars from getting a liquor license, to the health department and other local officials with power to wield. I learned this at my first real neighborhood spot as an almost-adult, which was also my first introduction to just how hard it is for bar owners to stay open. I never learned the place’s name because it didn’t have a sign on the door, and Googling “Logan Square bar closed 2000” doesn’t help much. What I do remember was there were maybe seven bottles of liquor on display, they served Budweiser, Bud Light and Old Style, and Heineken was the most expensive thing on the menu.

Jason Diamond writing in The Awl about the continued disappearance and transformation of America’s salt of the earth neighborhood bars, and the idea of the so-called “dive bar.” (Full disclosure: Diamond references an essay I wrote about Los Angeles’ storied King Eddy Saloon.)

Read the story

Atomic Summer: An Essay by Joni Tevis

Operation Teapot, the Met Shot
Operation Teapot, the Met Shot, a tower burst weapons effects test April 15, 1955 at the Nevada Test Site. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Joni Tevis | The World Is On Fire: Scrap, Treasure, and Songs of Apocalypse  | Milkweed Editions | May 2015 | 28 minutes (7,494 words)

 

Below is Joni Tevis’s essay “Damn Cold in February: Buddy Holly, View-Master, and the A-Bomb,” from her book The World Is On Fire, as recommended by Longreads contributing editor Dana Snitzky. This essay originally appeared in The Diagram. Read more…

Advocating for the Bisexual Community: A Reading List

On September 21, Eliel Cruz tweeted, “If you’re an LGBT journalist and you don’t produce even one piece of content for #BiWeek you’re not an LGBT journalist.” Cruz’s words hit me in the chest. I am: a) a journalist who covers feminist & LGBTQ issues, and b) a journalist who interrogates her own orientation and gender identity regularly.

Bisexual Awareness Week (Sept. 21-28) and Bi Visibility Day (Sept. 23) provide solidarity and support for the bisexual community. I was embarrassed I didn’t know about these holidays until this year. Founded in 1999, Bi Week serves as a catalyst for discourse about biphobia and monosexism, bi erasure, mental and physical healthcare, public policy and more.

All week, I’ve watched my favorite websites and my Twitter feed fill with stories, advice and encouragement. Now, it’s my turn to contribute. I’ve collected some of my favorite pieces about bisexuality–personal essays, queer theory, history, and interviews.

1. “More People are Identifying as Bisexual–And That’s Great!” (Emily Zak, Bitch, September 2015)

Spoiler: This interview blew my mind. Bitch sits down with Shiri Eisner, the bisexual, genderqueer author of Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution. Eisner isn’t satisfied with merely overcoming stereotypes–she wants more for her community. Read more…