"How Could Anyone Think This Is Satanic?"

A friend's response, funny on several levels, to photos of mine like these of Thaipusam comes to mind reading Rod Dreher's very unfunny post — If Haitian vodou isn't demon worship, what is?

An atheist friend's response to my photos of the Indian-Malaysian festival (banned in India) was as unfunny as Mr. Dreher's; "Religion makes people stupid," he said. But I had been a few feet away from people unflinchingly receiving skewers through the cheeks of tongues (and sometimes their cheeks and tongues) and hooks in their backs and, and, at the time, in my last years as a liberal Protestant, saw nothing stupid nor satanic about it. Should I have? The devotees were all in some altered state to varying degrees, most intensely serene but some somewhat violent, like the shouting Chinese-Malaysian auntie participating in the Hindu ritual, but, at the time, I never thought them possessed by demons. Should I have? While I had some admiration for their faith, I had no desire to join in. I know I should not have.