There's a Crack in Your Armor Perry Stone

like manner possessed by the goddess; so that in a short time every party had three or four of the possessed. These poor, infatuated men continued to leap and shake the whole night. 2 There are other religions in which cutting the flesh is a part of a ritual to commemorate an event or to gain attention of the particular god of their religion. Each year tens of thousands of a particular branch among the Shiite Muslims in Iraq recall the death of the seventh-century martyr Imam Hussein with a march that takes place in the city of Karbala, Iraq. There the multitude of Shiites flagellate themselves on their foreheads with swords or beat their backs with chains until blood drips down their faces and is splattered on their white shrouds. Shiites believe Hussein to be the true heir of Islam’s founder, Muhammad. However, his rise to fame led to a battle in AD 680 in Karbala, where he and seventy followers were slain by the opposing Sunni Muslims. The prophets of Baal were cutting themselves because their god (which did not exist except in their minds) was ignoring their cries for intervention. Among some of the ancient tribes the idea was that blood attracted the power of the gods, releasing supernatural energy and authority upon the worshipper. As the Baal “dance team” began preforming, they drew blood from their flesh but no attention from their god. Physical cutting is self-abuse and self-injury. Each year one in five females and one in seven males engage in some form of s elf-injury. 3 A high percent of those engaged in self-injury activities have themselves experienced some form of sexual