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Glimpses of the Devil, reviewed by David Neff GLIMPSES OF THE DEVIL by M. Scott Peck Free Press, 288 pp.; $26.00 When psychiatrist and bestselling author Scott Peck published People of the Lie in 1983, I took special notice. His brief account of exorcisms in one chapter was consistent with my observations of two attempts to exorcise demons that plagued a woman I had been counseling. So I was also primed to read Peck's newest book, Glimpses of the Devil, in which he speaks in-depth for the first time about two cases of possession and exorcism. Indeed, he claims this...

Back in the 1970s, when possession and exorcism were the cinematic and fictional flavor of the era -- one that historian Martin Marty appropriately called “the silly season” -- it fell to my lot to conduct a pre-publication review of Malachi Martin’s sensational book Hostage to the Devil. I was allied in this with an internationally celebrated clinical psychologist. Working independently, our conclusion was the same: Martin’s five “cases” were fabrications of an inventive but disturbed mind, lacking all psychological, historical, theological and pastoral credibility. Some time later, I interviewed Malachi Martin on television. A former priest, Martin had left...

LOS ANGELES - Author M. Scott Peck, who wrote the best-seller "The Road Less Traveled" and other novels, has died. He was 69. Peck died Sunday at his home in Connecticut, longtime friend and Los Angeles publicist Michael Levine said. He had suffered from pancreatic and liver duct cancer. Born in New York City, Peck received his bachelor's degree from Harvard College in 1958 and his doctorate from the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in 1963. He served in the U.S. Army between 1963 and 1972. Peck spent more than 10 years in the private practice of psychiatry...

 Here On The Island - by Lewis NapperA Scholarly Critique of the Style, Symbolism and Sociopolitical Relevance of Gilligan's Island  Great works of literature often attempt to confront us with the obvious in such a way as to call the inevitable into question. Some strive to explain through metaphor that which is too complex or too abstract to state literally. Other forms seek only to capture some moment in time so that future generations may experience and learn from what has gone before them.  All of these qualities are ambitiously gathered in Sherwood Schwartz's masterwork, "Gilligan's Island." Through a...