Gods' Man

I just finished reading Dr. M. Scott Peck's recent book Glimpses of the Devil: A Psychiatrist's Personal Accounts of Possession, Exorcism, and Redemption. It is one of the most frightening books I have ever read. No, no, no - not because of the exorcisms! Because Dr. Peck is one of the most irrational, unscrupulous, potentially dangerous psychiatrists in the U.S. Thankfully he's retired. I'll have a lot more to say about this book and Dr. Peck on Satanic Panic later.

Anyway, Dr. Peck made a big fuss about the fact that one of his "patients" was very fond of the 1929 graphic novel Gods' Man, by artist Lynd Ward, when she was a youngster. He figures the entire book is a "plug for polytheism". (I think it's about an impoverished artist who is destroyed by serving two gods: Money and Art.) Peck found this sinister and even partially blamed the woman's supposed possession on the book, but when I looked up the novel I was mesmerized by the gorgeous woodcuts. I think Ward was years ahead of his time. I also discovered that this book is dear to many families and to young children - not because it's "evil", but because it is a breathtakingly rendered tale with a timeless story. Peck says it made him sick. Too bad for him.