The Criterion for Religions — Page 27
27 him to the status of God! Thus, Atonement failed to benefit even the person of Jesus himself. Pride and vanity, which are the root cause of all evil, seem to have fallen to the lot of Jesus, for after arrogating Many people have learnt, on the basis of personal investigation, that this is how epileptics are wont to experience the presence of the devils. They de- scribe their experiences in exactly the same manner, and say that Satan took them to such and such places and showed them such and such wonders. I recall that about thirty-four years ago, I saw Satan in a dream standing somewhere looking dark and ugly. At first he turned his attention towards me, but I slapped him on the face and said, 'Be off, Satan! I have nothing to do with you. ' He then went off with another person whom he persuaded to accompany him. Now this was a person I knew. I then woke up and, on the same day, or sometime later, the person I had seen in the dream and whom Satan had taken along with him became afflicted with epilepsy. This con- vinced me that the companionship of Satan is to be interpreted as a sign of suffering from epilepsy. Thus it is indeed an extremely delicate point and a very clear and reasonable conclusion that Jesus did, in fact, suffer from epilepsy. That is why he used to see such dreams. The fact that the Jews accused him of performing such tasks with the help of Beelzebub supports this opinion and is quite convincing, for Beelzebub is another name for Satan. The Jewish imputation also seems correct and plausible for the added reason that, although those who are possessed by Satan and whom Satan begins to love may not rid themselves of their own epilepsy, they are able to cure others of it. Since Satan loves them and doesn't wish to part with them, he fulfils their wishes and for their sake rids others of satanic diseases. Invariably such 'witch-doctors' are addicted to alcohol and other unclean concoctions and are alcoholics and gluttons of the first order. Sometime ago there used to be a man who suffered from fainting fits, and it is said that he had the ability to exorcise evil spirits out of others. Thus, this episode of Jesus accompanying Satan is a positive proof of epilepsy. We have many other supporting reasons, which need not be elaborated at this point. We trust that Christian scholars who already support our viewpoint will not disagree with the present argument. However, such of the unin- formed priests as choose to disagree, have to prove that the episode of Jesus accompanying Satan was one that took place in a state of full conscious-