Okay, I don't know how many of you know about this program, but it's been airing over here in Australia for awhile now. It was called John Safran Vs. God, and it was bloody funny. Mr Safran went to the KKK at one point and tried to join up after telling the Grand Dragon he was a Jew. He got a Muslem cleric to put a fatwa on Rove, an "entertainer" over here who isn't very tallented. He went door knocking in Saltlake City, promoting atheism.
Through the entire series he's been pretty solid in his stance, looking for hard evidence as to why a religion should be taken seriously, and when people claimed to be able to perform amazing religious acts, he'd ask them to prove it.
So when the last episode aired, I was kind of completely fucking <a href=http://www6.sbs.com.au/johnsafranvsgod/ ... sturbed</a>.
To cut things short, what happened was that this Bob Larson person started performing an exorcism on Mr Safran, and Safran went stark raving bonkers. He was yelling out that Papa Gede was his lord, trying to bite the exorcist, and basically acting like a demon.
This wouldn't disturb me at all if I didn't know that John Safran wasn't putting it on. I associate with a lot of people who've traveled in the same circles as Mr Safran, and although I've never personally met the guy (often missing out by moments) I've been assured that he's clear headed, and probably completely incapable of pulling off a stunt of that magnitude. I'm pretty damn sure this was legit.
Thoughts?
John Safran Vs. The Exorcist
Just to add some fuel to the fire, when he was doing <i>Race Around the World</i> he had a voodoo curse put on his ex-girlfriend.
Let's see what else I can find.
Edit: OK, he did a bunch of voodoo stuff during this show as well. That would explain where that came from better.
Let's see what else I can find.
Edit: OK, he did a bunch of voodoo stuff during this show as well. That would explain where that came from better.
Last edited by crone on Mon Oct 25, 2004 1:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
Terror, like charity, begins at home.
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Wounded Ronin
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From an ABC interview:
Rachael Kohn: Now John, I don’t know how to broach this but your last episode is a tour de force, the Devil gets his comeuppance, he meets his Nemesis, in Bob Larson the exorcist. Did you plan that right from the beginning?
John Safran: Not really. I spoke to Bob Larson on the phone and he did seem quite charismatic on the phone, and quite open to things like because I was just feeling out the waters like are we even allowed to film you, being an exorcist, and then Oh, he seems to be fine us filming him doing exorcisms, and I go Yes, what about if like I had any issues, anything that I needed to exorcise out of me, and he’s like Yeah, why not, and stuff, so like this sounds good, but I didn’t really think about it much more.
And then when we arrived on the first day and we met Bob Larson, because he’s just so charismatic and just every time he opens his mouth he says something either ridiculously offensive or unintentionally so funny and stuff. So we’re going This guy’s very good talent, and it’s like he’s pretty much one of those one-in-a-million people you kind of hear about and then we started thinking Well if he’s going to exorcise me, and he’s willing to do that, why don’t I just tell him about all the things I’ve done over the course of the series, and see what he has to say about that and then he can exorcise me of all the spirits I’ve picked up.
But he believed that, he believed, 'John, you’ve gone to Haiti in a voodoo temple; John you’ve gone to India, and hung out with Hanuman the Monkey God; and you’ve been in Mozambique, and you’ve been in a chicken blood ritual, so John, you basically, you’ve left yourself open to demonic possession'. And then he proceeds one by one to get rid of all the demons out of me that I’ve picked up during the show.
Rachael Kohn: You looked under a lot of stress.
John Safran: Yes, well I don’t know, I kind of forget what kind of happened, there’s two readings of that episode, one is Oh it’s like when they hypnotise people on the Footy Show and the footy players are going around clucking like chickens, so that’s like one reading of it, and then the other reading of it is I guess something happened.
Rachael Kohn: Do you think something happened?
John Safran: Well definitely like when I look back at it, I don’t remember a lot of it, and also anyone who knows me, indeed anyone who watches the show can just look at my face, and there’s just all this stuff that just doesn’t go on in any other stories, in like every other story you can see me being a bit more like conscious or pulling, you know, there’s some subtle expression on my face where you kind of know I’m being a bit whacky, and this one it’s like I just can’t act that well, basically is what I’m getting at, there’s no way I can act that well. So who knows?
Terror, like charity, begins at home.