Finding Francis

My overall feeling milling about the crowds was something I could only compare to, incongruous as it may sound, stories of Woodstock. The idea of teeming thousands sharing a weekend of peace and love without violence or major incident resonated with me. Granted the Papal visit was a family event and there were no apparently intoxicated people dancing around naked. No, I would soon find obscenity elsewhere.

Looking for the Pope in Philadelphia

20150926_100357On this overcast, blustery fall day I made a lone pilgrimage on foot two miles from my South Philly home to Center City for a chance at glimpsing Pope Francis, “the people’s Pope,” in person.  All the way up Broad Street, Army or National Guard soldiers — I’m not sure which — in green fatigues hung out casually in pairs on every other street corner. They’d been there since last night but I’m not sure why as no Papal events are planned this far south and barely a soul was out. The city seems apocalyptically deserted.

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Click to enlarge photos.

Eventually I came to barricades personed by police and military at every intersection to keep out vehicles but as a pedestrian I could pass freely. Finally, just south of City Hall, I reached one of the security entrances to the main event.  The lines were much shorter than I anticipated, and much friendlier.  Soon I was inside the secure zone.

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20150926_101707Although I’m not Catholic and have serious disagreements with the Catholic Church and its checkered history, the Pope is a major historical figure and he’s right here in my town so naturally I wanted to be a part of the event.  Like all these visitors from around the world I was one more gawking pilgrim eager to see “the people’s Pope” in the flesh.

Crossing Love Park I got my first glimpse of one of the Jumbotrons, on which the Pope was just starting Continue reading “Finding Francis”

Yoga Declared Satanic

Beware, yoga practitioners: it might lead to harder things like Hinduism. Father Francesco Bamonte, who heads the Italy-based International Association of Exorcists, warns the world that Yoga invites demonic possession. More in the London Telegraph’s ‘Rise of Exorcists in the Catholic Church’ in which we learn the Vatican is spearheading efforts to train a new generation of devil exterminators.

Pope Francis is rumored to have performed an exorcism during a Mass in St Peter’s Square last May. [Photo via telegraph.co.uk.]

Beware, yoga practitioners:  your sun salutations and downward dogs might lead to harder things . . . like Hinduism.  Father Francesco Bamonte, who heads the Italy-based International Association of Exorcists, warns the world that yoga is a gateway to demonic possession. More in the London Telegraph‘s recent article,  ‘Rise of Exorcists in the Catholic Church‘, in which we learn the Vatican has launched a program to train a global strike force of devil exterminators.

Don’t worry, you can always do Christ-centered stretching from now on to out-maneuver Beelzebub, like the kind offered at Christ Centered Yoga in Norcross, GA or Yahweh Yoga in Chandler, AZ.

I for one am eagerly awaiting Christ-centered Kama Sutra classes.

 

 

Supernatural Skeptics Don’t Know What They’re Missing

“I try contacting the spirit world before live audiences to keep an element of hope simmering on the back burner of my mind.”- playwright and performance artist Jeffrey Stanley

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On Faith

Supernatural Skeptics Don’t Know What They’re Missing
by Jeffrey Stanley

These ghosts are primed and ready to provide a ghoulish Halloween on the 500 block of Summit Ave in Jenkintown.

I like Ouija boards. I’ve used them since I was a teenager.  More recently I’ve messed around with electric spirit boxes, also known as Frank’s boxes after their inventor Frank Sumption.  They’re radio receivers which allow you to listen to and record voices of the dead, also known as EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomena) or Raudive voices, after one of their early discoverers.  Over the past two years I have frequently used Ouija boards and spirit boxes in my performance art, attempting to conjure up the dead as my co-stars before a live audience.  At one of the universities where I teach playwriting and screenwriting part-time I am also the faculty adviser for a student-led paranormal investigation club.  Friends and fans assume I am a true believer but the truth is that I am not.  I am a healthy skeptic.  And that’s depressing for me because it means that on some level I feel certain there’s nothing out there. I try contacting the spirit world before live audiences to keep an element of hope simmering on the back burner of my mind.

Given the many millions of religious folks in the world (surveys tell us time and again that the vast majority of us believe in an afterlife) I am not alone in my desire for proof of a promise made long ago.  I don’t want to be told it by a clergyman or a book or a website. I want to see it.  Because of the world’s overwhelming belief in an afterlife I am always amazed at the number of people who are absolutely petrified of Ouija boards. Shouldn’t we be elated when the pointer, properly called a planchette, moves and spells out things?  Shouldn’t we jump for joy when a spirit box calls out to us?  Instead we flee in terror at the most innocuous of communications.  I’m reminded of my good friend Steve who received a strict Catholic upbringing.  Once as a teenager he played around with a Ouija board and it spelled out his dog’s name: HOBO.  He ran shrieking from the room,

Continue reading “Supernatural Skeptics Don’t Know What They’re Missing”

Boneyards Final Shows This Weekend

Come wake the dead. Jeffrey Staney’s BONEYARDS returns for 2 final shows this Saturday and Sunday 11/2 and 11/3. Meanwhile please enjoy Stanley’s latest religion article in today’s Washington Post about my experiences contacting the dead as performance art over the past few years.

Come wake the dead.  BONEYARDS returns for 2 final shows this Saturday and Sunday 11/2 and 11/3 in Philadelphia.  Times and tickets.

Meanwhile please enjoy my latest article in today’s Washington Post about my theatrical experiments in contacting the dead as performance art over the past two years.  Thank you for your support and patronage, and Happy Halloween.

wapobanner2October 31, 2013

On Faith
Supernatural Skeptics Don’t Know What They’re Missing
by Jeffrey Stanley

I try contacting the spirit world before live audiences to keep an element of hope simmering on the back burner of my mind.

I like Ouija boards. I’ve used them since I was a teenager.  More recently I’ve messed around with electric spirit boxes, also known as Frank’s boxes after their inventor Frank Sumption.  They’re radio receivers which allow you to listen to and record voices of the dead, also known as EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomena) or Raudive voices, after one of their early discoverers.  Over the past two years I have frequently used Ouija boards and spirit boxes in my performance art, attempting to conjure up the dead as my co-stars before a live audience.  At one of the universities where I teach playwriting and screenwriting part-time I am also the faculty adviser for a student-led paranormal investigation club.  Friends and fans assume I am a true believer but the truth is that I am not.  I am a healthy skeptic.  And that’s depressing for me because it means that on some level I feel certain there’s nothing out there. I try contacting the spirit world before live audiences to keep an element of hope simmering on the back burner of my mind. CONT’D>>

And also out today from Drexel University a story about the PIG of which I’m the proud faculty adviser…

drexelnow_overDrexel Paranormal Investigators Haunted by the Unknown
by Alissa Falcone
…It doesn’t hurt that the group’s faculty adviser also has an interest with the undead: By day, Jeffrey Stanley teaches classes in the Westphal College of Media Arts & Design’s Screenwriting and Playwriting Department, but at night he transforms into undead residents of cemeteries from all over the world during “Boneyards,” his performance that imagines supernatural comic monologues.CONT’D at drexel.edu>>

 

THE TALKING DEADS in Philly

Performance dates are 10/17, 10/20, 11/2 and 11/3. Thanks so much for your consideration and for supporting independent theatre in Philly.

Boneyards Reopens 10/17/13

Press Contact: info@shiva3.com

10/14/13 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Philadelphia, PA –A real seance with real ghosts.  But we don’t need to tell you that, you’ve already seen it.  There are lots of Halloween events being promoted right now, especially of the big budget “haunted” house/prison/hayride/forest/valley variety with a cast of dozens of monsters/zombies/vampires/murder victims and we love those and patronize them as much as the next guy and gal every year, but why not consider something different for you or your friends eager to freak themselves out while also being profoundly moved on a spooky October night?

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Jeffrey Stanley performs death ballads “He Stopped Loving Her Today” by George Jones, “Louis Collins” by Mississippi John Hurt and his own original “American Sadhu” in BONEYARDS.

Transcripts and videos from previous shows are online for you and your colleagues’ perusal. We recommend you start here .  You might also want to check out the first EVP recording made in the 118-year-old synagogue that is the show’s location when New York City playwright and Drexel University Performing Arts faculty Jeffrey Stanley held the world’s first ghost auditions.  Stanley, who often writes about religion for the Washington Post, will be discussing seance as performance art in that publication later this month.

Performance dates are 10/17, 10/20, 11/2 and 11/3.  Thanks for your consideration and for supporting independent theatre in Philly.

Thine,
Your friends at Shiva3 ProductionsIMG_2830