Another Bright Idea From the Five-Star Party

by Goya

The same Italian government dreamers who brought us the Great Leap Forward in medical education I talked about in my last post – the ones who suggested that the doors of medical school be opened to all comers and that postgraduate education become optional – are running a new idea up the flagpole, this time for teachers. Five Star policy wonks have come up with the idea of offering them Continuing Education classes in a new field: exorcism. Yes, the Five-Star Movement’s Minister of Education is allowing educators to earn points valid for higher pay and promotions by taking 40-hour courses, taught by priest expert in the casting out of demons. Any teacher willing to shell out €400 ($452) can now learn both the theory and the “correct practice” of prayers that might be useful at least, one hopes, to keep a few little devils in their seats.

But why stop at teachers? Doctors would surely be even better students of the White Arts. There’s always been a subset of Italian psychiatrists who boast of being able to tell which patients’ bizarre behavior is from mental illness and which is the handiwork of Satan. Until now they’ve had to hand over the possessed variety to priests for the performance of demon amputation. Perhaps in the future my colleagues and I will be able to graduate from mere diagnosis to treatment while fulfilling our Continuing Medical Education requirements, by learning to chant for ourselves the proper invocations against the cursed dragon and his diabolical legions.

You can already earn Continuing Medical Education credits in Italy by studying contract bridge. A practical class in the treatment of demonic possession wouldn’t be much of a stretch.

By the way, this mishegoss is not special to Italy. According to an in-depth Atlantic article just two months ago, half of Americans believe in demonic possession, and the exorcism business is booming.

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