The Black Death and Dancing Mania. A large-scale possession phenomenon?

[Alice]

Wow! I can't even watch more than a few minutes of that!

Who in their right mind would want to belong to something like that?

Well, around 100 million people at least... as far as 'right mind' concern, they've got Christian's Right mind programming, that's for sure :( Here are some quotes from sott articles, which answers your question:

Wagner, who took over Haggard's Colorado Springs center when the latter was forced to resign in disgrace, claims that there are as many New Apostolic Reformation churches in the US as Southern Baptist churches. The movement worldwide is estimated as high as 100 million people. And yet its impact is completely under the radar of most researchers outside of those in the movement itself.

All evidence suggests Palin was carefully selected by the leadership of the Bush-Cheney-McCain Republican party to galvanize the Party's activist Evangelical base, something McCain had been unable to do.

Some theological and political background to the Joel's Army or Third Wave movement as it is also known, is instructive. It teaches a radical fundamentalist creed that its adherents must actively engage in politics, to become what they term, 'soldiers in God's Army.'

The Joel's Army movement focuses on recruiting young people to sessions of writhing on the floor in uncontrollable ecstasy, calling it a sign of the 'Holy Spirit.' Children as young as five speak of having 'gotten saved.' The movement is extremely authoritarian according to those conservative Christian churches who have studied and openly oppose the sect as heretical. It teaches a dogma that echoes the infamous Manichean line of George Bush following the shock of September 11, 2001: 'There are two kinds of people in the World: Those who love Jesus, and those who don't.'

and then this part really blows one's mind:

'Todd Bentley has a long night ahead of him, resurrecting the dead, healing the blind, and exploding cancerous tumors. Since April 3, the 32-year-old, heavily tattooed, body-pierced, shaved-head Canadian preacher has been leading a continuous "supernatural healing revival" in central Florida. To contain the 10,000-plus crowds flocking from around the globe, Bentley has rented baseball stadiums, arenas and airport hangars at a cost of up to $15,000 a day. Many in attendance are church pastors themselves who believe Bentley to be a prophet and don't bat an eye when he tells them he's seen King David and spoken with the Apostle Paul in heaven...Tattooed across his sternum are military dog tags that read "Joel's Army." They're evidence of Bentley's generalship in a rapidly growing apocalyptic movement that's gone largely unnoticed by watchdogs of the theocratic right. According to Bentley and a handful of other "hyper-charismatic" preachers advancing the same agenda, Joel's Army is prophesied to become an Armageddon-ready military force of young people with a divine mandate to physically impose Christian "dominion" on non-believers.'

another great article explains why and how:

Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School, told us that when we were his age, he was then close to 80, we would all be fighting the "Christian fascists."

The warning, given to me 25 years ago, came at the moment Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global, Christian empire.

It was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of those who expounded it. But Adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. Their ideological inheritors had found a mask for fascism in the pages of the Bible.

and this part especially :

He saw in the Christian Right, long before we did, disturbing similarities with the German Christian Church and the Nazi Party, similarities that he said would, in the event of prolonged social instability or a national crisis, see American fascists, under the guise of religion, rise to dismantle the open society.

He despaired of liberals, who he said, as in Nazi Germany, mouthed silly platitudes about dialogue and inclusiveness that made them ineffectual and impotent. Liberals, he said, did not understand the power and allure of evil nor the cold reality of how the world worked.

This last chapter had a strong effect on me, for some reason, although I've read about it before.
Fanatics count on people's reasoning 'This is all just too crazy, it could never spread outside of brainwashed
follower's circles.' That's the point where one has to remind her/himself of Nazism.
It happened before. It's already happening again :/

links:
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/165955-The-Christian-Right-and-the-Rise-of-American-Fascism
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/165864-The-Most-Dangerous-Cult-in-the-World-Sarah-Palin-s-links-to-the-Christian-Right
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/165954-Feeling-the-hate-with-the-National-Religious-Broadcasters

 

[Miss Isness]

Speaking of which, I've decided to put Amazing Grace back on the web just so people can have a sort of "insider's" view of this kind of nonsense AFTER the insider is out.

Oh, that's great! I look forward to reading it. Thank you! :D

P.S. Could someone kindly tell me how to correctly insert the name of the person being quoted?

 

[vinny]

P.S. Could someone kindly tell me how to correctly insert the name of the person being quoted?

two alternative ways:

1. instead of clicking 'reply' to add a post, click 'quote' on an existing post and you get all the quote-stuff added automatically to your post, including a link and everything.

or...

2. do this at the beginning of the quote:

*open-square-bracket* quote=MaryPoppins *close-square-bracket*

 

[Miss Isness]

P.S. Could someone kindly tell me how to correctly insert the name of the person being quoted?

two alternative ways:

1. instead of clicking 'reply' to add a post, click 'quote' on an existing post and you get all the quote-stuff added automatically to your post, including a link and everything.

or...

2. do this at the beginning of the quote:

*open-square-bracket* quote=MaryPoppins *close-square-bracket*

Thanks. I love having more than one option! ;)

 

[Jacques]

P.S. Could someone kindly tell me how to correctly insert the name of the person being quoted?

two alternative ways:

1. instead of clicking 'reply' to add a post, click 'quote' on an existing post and you get all the quote-stuff added automatically to your post, including a link and everything.

or...

2. do this at the beginning of the quote:

*open-square-bracket* quote=MaryPoppins *close-square-bracket*

3. Use the quote icon ( second row and the one before the last one:

) and add the name after that

For more info:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?action=help;page=post#quote

And to see the BBC code for additional info (you will see the quote icon)

http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?action=help;page=post#bbcref

 

[dantem]

I was just reading that passage on Keel's 'Eight Tower':

1400s was a very interesting century [...]The weird dancing disease followed, with thousands of people dancing in the
streets of the Mediterranean cities until they fell dead from exhaustion.

I was thinking about it as a sort of 'reaction to an evil environment'. As the ancient dances have been called 'techno spiritual', so maybe the body of these peoples was activated instictively, as trying to find a 'balance' for the environment?

That could be a wild speculation though..