Exorcism

PHOENIX GUV SIGNS HISTORIC TAX-CUT PACKAGE Gov. Fife Symington signed what he called the largest tax cut in Arizona history into law yesterday, less than an hour after it was passed by the House and Senate. The package totals more than $400 million, including a $200 million reduction in personal income taxes this year, a promise of $200 million in property-tax relief for next year and a $31 million cut in personal property taxes paid by businesses. "This will create tremendous prosperity in the future," the Republican said as he signed the bills.

Spouse beating and sexual abuse are not part of the teachings of a fundamentalist Lumberton Township church, the pastor testified yesterday in the murder trial of a Bordentown Township woman. Margaret Ann Myers, 23, is accused of killing her husband, James Myers, 21, on Nov. 24, 1984, during an argument in the couple's Chesterfield Township home. The defendant in the Burlington County Superior Court trial maintains that her husband repeatedly abused her sexually and physically and claimed the conduct was part of his religion.

DOG STAR'S DEATH COMES TO LITE As you may have heard, Spuds Mackenzie, sunglasses-sportin' party dog and Bud Lite pitch-pooch, is dead. The passing of the party-hearty hound had been rumored for months, but Wednesday, a spokesman for Anheuser-Busch confirmed that 9-year-old Spuds died in May after a bout with kidney disease. It wasn't the first time that the dog's dutiful devotees learned the truth after the fact. After his debut in a 1987 TV ad broadcast during the Super Bowl, it was revealed that the bad-boy bull terrier wasn't a boy at all. Spuds' given name was Honey Tree Evil Eye. She answered to "Evie.

Better watch out. There are demons, and they are apt to be more active this time of year, particularly on All Hallows Eve, better known as Halloween. And, yes, Satan is a real being abroad in the world. This is the view of the Rev. George Mather, pastor of Faith Lutheran Church in West Brandywine, and is based, he says, on reality as well as theology. Pastor Mather, 53, spends most of his working life leading worship services and tending to the needs and concerns of his church and congregation.

The Rev. Win Worley, the 400-pound pastor of Hegewisch Baptist Church, is apologetic. Here he had five out-of-state visitors for the regular Thursday- night exorcism, and hardly any demons showed up. "Quiet night," says Mr. Worley, author of Battling the Host of Hell and five other books. "Sometimes it's wall-to-wall bodies around here. " Sometimes the floor and pews of the church are thick with tortured congregants, writhing and flailing and shrieking as if possessed - which, Mr. Worley points out, they are. "If you come to Hegewisch, you'll hear demons speak out," he says.

On Friday night, neighborhoods were filled with devils and ghouls roving under the watchful eye of parents. For most people, the sight was worth a chuckle and a few pieces of trick-or-treat candy. For others, though, such devilry and revelry are no laughing matter, but a dangerous flirtation with forces of evil. "Halloween is the devil's day," says Peggy Scrimali, head of Bethel Christian Academy in Blackwood, N.J., a nursery school and kindergarten where Halloween was not observed.

The visiting author said she would like very much to read a certain favorable review of her book that had not reached her through the usual channels. Would her luncheon companion be kind enough to send her a copy? She borrowed a pen and a scrap of paper and wrote out her address: Kathleen Tynan 20 Thurloe Square London S.W. 7 The man looked at it. Bemused, he said, "Thurloe Square? Really?" "The very same," she said. "I still live there. It's not so haunted anymore.

By John J. Rooney Eugene O'Neill, generally hailed as America's greatest playwright, thought he had destroyed every copy of Exorcism , one of his early, controversial plays, but the work was rediscovered and recently published in the New Yorker. The one-act play draws on O'Neill's attempted suicide at the age of 24 and his subsequent experience of rebirth: He felt that while failing to destroy his physical self, he had exorcised the devils that had been tormenting him over his failures and guilt.

LOS ANGELES - After two weeks on top with "The Expendables," Lionsgate looks to make it three in a row as their horror film "The Last Exorcism" debuts this weekend. Poised to earn more than $15 million this weekend, it will finally take a possessed young girl to scare the devil out of Sylvester Stallone's tough guys and knock them out of their first-place position. The ensemble cast of Sony's "Takers" also promises to do some damage, with Paul Walker, Chris Brown, Matt Dillon and company looking to heist close to $15 million in revenue and, as if we didn't have enough already, add even more testosterone to the theatrical marketplace.

There seem to be as many kinds of memoirs as there are writers. Some record great deeds, others set the record straight or record a soul-saving epiphany. For Alison Bechdel, who will talk about her new graphic memoir, Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama, Thursday night at the Central Library of the Free Library of Philadelphia, the memoir is a form of exorcism. A stunning, psychologically astute, and sophisticated masterwork, Bechdel's sophomore effort details her fraught relationship with her mother, Helen, a sometime actor, artist, and English teacher whose artistic ambitions were thwarted by a life of domesticity.