More Unusual Claims From Kimberly Daniels
Kimberly Daniels' claim to have aborted Satan's baby, notable in light of Daniels' antiabortion, pro-life views, comes at the tail end of an anecdote Kim Daniels tells in her book From A Mess To A Miracle, concerning a protracted series of exorcisms Daniels said she had to do to "deliver" a Muslim woman in Africa, from demons. But where does Satan's baby come in? Daniels explains that on page 98 of the book:
"The goal of the enemy is to impregnate its victims with a Cambion--the seed of satan that is planted into an individual as a result of intercourse with these nightmare spirits. Incubus and Succubus spirits drop Cambions into the spiritual womb of the person... In case you missed it, in the last paragraph of that passage Kimberly Daniels makes the strong suggestion that Africans are especially prone to sex with demons, quite an interesting thing for an African-American pastor to suggest. But it fits the pattern, another reason why Kim Daniels might be grateful for slavery, which apparently delivered her from the dark continent where people are prone to copulate with the demonic hordes of the devil. But where did these themes of sex-with-demons come from, really? Well, sex-with-demons narratives were very popular during the middle Medieval period, elicited under torture from subjects, usually women, who had been accused of witchcraft. What really underlay the Medieval witchcraft craze, argues Walter Stephens, author of Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief (link to John Hopkins Press review of the book), was a desperate need to prove the existence of the supernatural realm. As Dale Keiger, reviewing Stephens' book for JHU, writes,
"Stephens read every treatise he could find on witchcraft, as well as accounts of interrogations, theological tracts, and other works (his bibliography lists 154 primary and more than 200 secondary sources). Most of the 86 witchcraft treatises he cites had been written in western Europe in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, and one after another (including the Malleus) contain accounts of sexual intercourse with satanic spirits. Why? Were the authors remorseless misogynists hellbent on portraying women in the worst possible light? Were they lurid, repressed celibates who got off by writing accounts of demon sex? Stephens didn't think so; the texts, in his view, didn't support that reading. Elsewhere in the Malleus he had found a key reference to accused witches under torture as being "expert witnesses to the reality of carnal interaction between humans and demons." These guys are trying to construct proofs that demons exist, he thought. They're trying to convince skeptics. And then he thought, They're trying to convince themselves." A review from the University of Chicago press presents another useful synopsis of the book:
"a number of devout Christians, including trained theologians, displayed an uncanny preoccupation with the topic during the centuries of the "witch craze." Why? To find out, Stephens conducts a detailed investigation of the first and most influential treatises on witchcraft (written between 1430 and 1530), including the infamous Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches). I suspect Kim Daniels' exaggerated demonology themes in her books serve a similar function, and it's sobering to think that such ideas, long considered to have been left behind by the Enlightenment, are now resurfacing--especially given the horrific human toll attributed to the Medieval witch hunting craze. Kim Daniels is an apostle with the International Coalition of Apostles whose apostles are, among other things, amassing a small army of volunteer Jacksonville "prayer walkers" (who also might serve handily as get-out-the-vote volunteers in an election) to march the streets of Jacksonville, Florida, attempting to pray down crime ( a similar effort in Newark, NJ, led by the same apostle, hasn't worked out very well, at least in terms of crime reduction.) As I detailed in my story Kim Daniels Is Not Your Average "gay demon" Exorcist For City Council, Daniels' ICA apostles can these days be found in the company of US senators and Congress members, and even Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates. As I suggested in an October 2010 story, Witchcraft again - Aiona, Hawaii Candidate For Gov., Tied to Witch-Fighting Evangelicals, witch-hunting is a common theme in rhetoric from Kim Daniels fellow ICA apostles, and in Sarah Palin's 'Witchcraft Problem' Is Bigger Than Christine O'Donnell's 'Witchcraft Problem', I covered Palin's personal ties to two apostles in Daniels' movement.
More Unusual Claims From Kimberly Daniels | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 hidden)
More Unusual Claims From Kimberly Daniels | 2 comments (2 topical, 0 hidden)
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