CANBERRA - PARLIAMENT HOUSE GETS A MASS EXORCISM

Very, very, very strange things were afoot in Australia's capital city this weekend. Allow us to set the scene... A few weeks ago, we saw photos of a blood stained pillar on the top of a hill overlooking Parliament House and heard associated rumours of satanic rituals and animal sacrifices being performed by members of what is apparently a large Wiccan population there. It turns out that national Christian organisation, Catch the Fire Ministries, heard about it also and took this as further evidence to support their belief that Satan is at work in and around our policy-determining hub. In order to combat this evil, they organised a mass "prayer offensive" at the site with the triple-barreled intention of 1. reversing any spells cast by the witches, 2. hopefully changing politicians minds about things they disagree with such as abortion and gay people and 3. sending out good vibes to ensure a bushfire-victim free summer. Really, what on earth could go wrong?

This is Pastor Danny Nalliah. He's the self-proclaimed leader of the Catch the Fire Ministries. He led the three hour prayer session through his little megaphone and the 200 followers who turned up thought he was pretty great. For three hours he prayed, led sing-alongs and intermittently spoke in tongues. Hearing 200 people speak in tongues together sounds kind of amazing to be honest - something like a room full of hallucinating Indians. Danny used to be in a rock band before Jesus found him and set him on the right path. Pheeeww!

 

This is the blood stained alter that sparked all the hoo ha. Now, I haven't seen too many blood stained alters in my time but I'd bet my life on the fact that this wasn't blood. Besides, it had been raining all week in Canberra and even with my rudimentary understanding of chemistry and biology I'm pretty sure that blood would wash off. Anyhoo, semantics.

Here are the Christians, with an assortment of banners, lost in the moment.

 

Oh yeah, the atheists turned up to throw a spanner in the works. That's the leader of their party on the right.

Here he is throwing some horns while screaming at all the tranced out Christians about why he believes God doesn't exist.

A whole lot of gays and lesbians turned up, along with members of the Australian Sex Party, to voice their disapproval too. Over the day there was some healthy (and some not so healthy) debate and the verdict from the perspective of the Christians seemed to be that Jesus loved them but disagreed entirely with their choice of lifestyle. It was basically the impossible argument. The gay contingent responded to this with statement t-shirts and generally anti-social behaviour. They did seem to be having way more fun than than the Christians though and had a sausage sizzle going while they sang "I am, you are, we are Australian" really loudly. Later in the day this turned into Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back" and people hooning in a circle in a couple of convertibles, waving rainbow flags out the roof and playing really loud dance music. I don't think they liked being ignored by the Christians.

Nude gay guy made it his mission to stand right in the middle of the prayers and they made it their mission to ignore him.

Members of the atheist party with signs that they could really have tried harder with. They say, from left to right: "ANU League of Extra-ordinary Atheists", "There's Probably No God so Stop Worrying and Enjoy Life" and "Reality is Awesome". Catchy stuff.

This is Danny Nalliah's main wing man about to drink a thimble of red cordial which represents the blood of Christ. A few times throughout the day, Danny Nalliah would move locations with the intention of having all the Catch the Fire people follow. For some reason, each time this happened, no one followed their esteemed leader. It seemed like a relatively easy and logical thing — to follow the guy with the megaphone — to me but it just wasn't happening for some reason, which was pretty funny. Each time, Danny would frustratedly tell this guy to go and get them to follow. Wingman had a pretty rad Jesus t-shirt on. Here's the back of it.

By far the most under-represented group of the day were the witches. There were a smattering of people dressed in black crushed velvet who identified themselves as being into witchcraft and white magic but they all seemed to think that the notion of satanic sacrifices happening atop Mt Ainslie was ludicrous. Although I guess it's not necessarily the kind of thing one readily admits to. Anyway, this girls' friends had slept in and made a last minute decision not to turn up.

Here are some more witches.

And the most deceptive witch of them all.

I thought this lady might have been with the Christians and accidentally mixed up the sign of Satan with a sign that means 'I love God'. Turns out she was in fact on Satan's side. I guess the purple Docs should have been a give away.

The climax of the day involved everyone getting really lost in the moment. There was a harp player, a guy on the bongos and another man on the guitar who played along as everyone sang or garbled in tongues (which actually sounded really cool — almost like an un-hip and unplugged Animal Collective) while a group of gay people stood in the middle of them chanting "Jesus loves Us" over and over. At five, the prayer session petered out and everyone headed home. Whether the day had any effect beyond making gays and Christians hate each other more than they already did will obviously be impossible to determine until bushfire season or the next election.

BRIONY WRIGHT

 

 

Comments

[karl von wangstein]

you little beauties.

[tree]

wow, canberra isn't boring after all!

[randy]

I'd tap that naked gay guy.

[David]

Loved the article Brybry

[Andy Woo]

Great article.

[Ady]

Some dude smashes a bottle of tomato ketchup on a picnic and a day later it's a rave! Hilarious. How bored are people in Canberra!

[JC]

Why is the Christian Wing man wearing a jewish prayer shawl? Back to front no less! (the collar bit is supposed to be on the inside....) If thats not satanic, I'm not sure what is..

[nr]

fuck i remember drinking goon on that blood stained pole.

[Alex Holmes]

Erm...
I'm actually the President of ANU League of Extraordinary Atheists, and I am not the guy you mention!

This is me : http://www.facebook.com/alex.strife14?ref=profile
This is him: http://www.facebook.com/necrophagist333?ref=ts

Though he is a rather good friend of mine, we are not one and the same. ^_^

We tried our best with the posters dude :P

[Steve Samara]

I am the guy that is wearing the awesome Slayer shirt. I am not an atheist. I am a Satanist. Alex and I are quite good friends, and have a mutual allegiance in the battle against fundamentalist Christianity. Thank you for reporting this, the photos are excellent. It was a rather good day in my opinion.

If anyone wants to email me for more information, feel free to drop me a line - vobiscumchoronzon@gmail.com .

Have a great week ;)

[Pugilist]

Satanists rock

[alex]

Fuck Australians are ugly. I say that as one.

[hejuzz]

if you believe in satan you have to believe in god right?
so does that make them just as delusional as christian god people?

[John]

Strangely what all the atheists and other`s who where making the sign of the devil don`t know is that it is in fact on old english sign to ward of the devil and so really it is the christians who should be doing it.

[Cleanse ProX]

I love your blog! I think that you will help a lot of people going through similar experiences by sharing your story!

[Chthonic Bandia]

The sign of the horns goes back even further than Christianity. It is actually an old European Pagan sign of fertility honoring the Horned God, Dionysos. While Dionysos was definitely the more "free-spirited" god than the rest of the group, definitely not Satanic and not even a hint of Christinaity. Dionysos was considered to be the "Horned God," the consort of the Great Goddess, and also a God of the Vine (alcohol) and sexuality/fertility, with a big emphasis on festival and procreation/growth/fertility.

[Sammy O'Ryan]

Wow! Mt Anslie of all places! Thanks for covering this story- I'd imagine Canberra media would probably want to steer away from such an event- imagine Witches, Satanists,homosexuals & radical Christians living here in the Nations Capital!!

Great read.

[Ross]

It is incredible that this event did not erupt into violence.
Way to not be like America/Britain/Other places where white people with too much money and spare time live.
The part of me that is sick of protests/rallies/groups of fucktards getting together and fighting over all the stupid bullshit they believe is glad that no one got hurt - or that no cops showed up and just maced and arrested everyone.
The part of me that thinks self-righteous/bigoted/any outspoken Christians have escaped an honest and proper beatdown from The Gays/Atheists/Witches/etc. for far too long wishes that that naked dude would have gone in swinging.

All I'm saying is, turn their other cheek for them next time and see what happens.

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