The sight would be frightening (even today!) and pretty good proof that a spirit was somehow inside of the girl trying to get out. Assuming there actually WAS a demon that Paul exorcised from the young woman ( let's not provoke the Fundimentalist Christians in this essay), then the writers of this Biblical letter still chose to use the word ‘ventriloquism’ to more concisely describe what the girl looked like as the sprit took control of her and spoke through her.

The use of ventriloquism as entertainment is relatively new - only two or three hundred years young. Somewhere in Europe during the early 1700’s
a ventriloquist constructed some charming little puppet, told a few jokes, and in one or two generations the dark, occult nature of using ventriloquism up and vanished. In the case of the post-1900’s Bible mentioned earlier, we can assume that the word ‘ventriloquism’ dropped in favor of ‘divination’ because of the confusion it was causing any late 19th or early 20th century reader.

If the possessed lady was a ventriloquist, then where was her dummy? Quite definitely, to the Apostles’ Paul and Silas, ventriloquism did not mean the same thing as it would later come to mean to Ed Sullivan or Johnny Carson.

- fin -

This essay is just one of the many that Ronn is writing for his first book entitled " How Your Mental Illness Can Earn You Really Big Bucks." It is copyrighted and reproduction without written permission is strictly forbidden.

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