It’s Saint Patrick’s day tomorrow, and by sheer coincidence, this week’s book is set in Ireland. I was quite excited when I found a book set in my home country about demonic possession.

I started reading the original edition titled The Dark Sacrament: Exorcism in Modern Ireland, but later editions were titled Dark Sacrament: True Stories of Modern Day Possession and Exorcism. These editions are identical expect for an additional story in the latter, but this story is set in Kerry, so I’m unsure as to why they dropped the reference to Ireland in the subtitle. The whole time I was reading the book, I felt like the authors had written it to appeal to stupid Irish Americans. I had hoped for horrendous blasphemies, but I got a bunch of hooey about fairy forts, Banshees and druids. I can’t imagine any of the Irish people I know taking this nonsense seriously. Don’t get me wrong, there’s lots of stupid, religious Irish people, but this stuff is so daft that only an uneducated American pig could possibly accept it as true.

The introduction makes reference to a protestant Canon meeting a girl in Belfast who became possessed when she was initiated into satanic cult as a child. Bullshit. This supposedly happened in the 70s. If you google Satanism in Belfast in the 1970s, the only relevant information that shows up is about stories spread by British disinformation agents as part of a psy-op against Catholic communities. If I am wrong and any knows anything about Satanic groups that were active in 1970s Belfast, please reach out and let me know!

The cases presented in this book appear as short stories, and after finishing the book, I doubt any have any basis in reality. This entire book must be fiction. It’s too stupid to believe.

1. The first story is about a woman who was neglected and sexually abused as a child. She had attempted suicide twice before the exorcism, and she smelled like piss. The narrative is actually quite scary. Her granny’s ghost visits her house and terrorizes her and her boyfriend. Later, she gets possessed by this ghost and tries to kill herself. The book never really explains why her granny hates her so much. The exorcism was supposedly successful, but the girl hung herself 6 months later, so it seems like she was definitely just a person with severe mental health problems. I liked the story, but it was clearly bullshit.
   
2. A woman is repeatedly night raped by a French spirit named Pierre Dubois. This happens after she plays with a Ouija board. Sounds like a case of sleep paralysis.
   
3. A young teenager finds a Ouija board by a river. Its planchette floats up into the air, and mesmerized, the kid uses it and comes into contact with a spirit named Tyrannus. Then he starts having seizures and tells his ma to fuck off. The kid is exorcised but it doesn’t work. Now he has suicidal thoughts. Load of bollocks.
   
4. A woman buys some smelly wooden balls in a hippy shop that unleash the spirit of a missing child from 200 years ago into her house. The ghost child is mischievous, but after she is dispelled with prayer, she is replaced by an evil spirit that burns the homeowner’s prayers and wrecks their crosses. It turns out the house was built in a fairy ring. This is clearly fictional. Total bullshit.
   
5. A child starts seeing ghosts in her house. No possession involved, just ghosts that rearrange video tapes and play peekaboo.
   
6. A family moves into a house owned by their ancestors but left to other people. They had to buy it back. It turns out their family were trying to protect them from an evil spirit that lives under the hearthstone that has inhabited that home since the time of the druids.
   
7. An old man goes on a cruise after he retires, but when he gets to Egypt he meets a man who is either drunk or possessed. When he gets back to Ireland, the spirit that possessed the drunkard takes possession of the retired man’s next door neighbour. Then the neighbour rapes the old man in front of his family at a barbeque.
   
8. The ghost of a German Hessian mercenary rapes a mother and daughter and their Bosnian employee.
   
9. A girl meets a creepy guy in a bookshop who gives her a book about Tuesdsy Lobsang Rampa, the fake Tibetan monk, and then teaches her how to astrally project and go back in time with LSD. He is evil, and when she gets scared, he sends evil spirits to attack her. Priest exorcises them away. Not true. Horse shit.
   
10. This story is only in later editions of the book. It is the vilest of all. A woman crashes her car into a truck and ends up marrying the truck driver. They have a kid. Turns out that the husband is having a gay affair with his paedophile priest friend. This man was raped by his father and forced to have sex with his siblings. After his dad died, his mom prostituted her own kids out. It turns out this man is raping his own child and letting his priest boyfriend and paedo brothers in on the action. The woman runs away, but the priest dies and haunts her and her child until another Catholic priest gets her to pray for the soul of the child rapist. This story is obviously untrue and deeply perverse, but the fact that it works as a Catholic morality tale is fucked up.

There is a bit on the history of exorcism in Ireland as an afterword, but the above stories make up most of the book.

Honestly, I find it hard to believe that anyone could read this book and take it seriously. This book is trash. I have to say though, when I was looking up the author, I found his youtube channel, and while I didn’t enjoy his book, I did enjoy his singing.

Happy Saint Patrick’s day, you disgusting snakes!