Exorcism - all in the mind?

[Deleted]

The author of this article in Saturday's Independent Magazine claims to have witnessed 20 exorcisms carried out by an American Roman Catholic priest.

"I met an American priest called Father Gary Thomas, who had been sent to Rome at the behest of his bishop. I got to know him and ended up watching about 20 exorcisms he did. They were bizarre on many levels.

The theory goes that demons possess people, affecting them – as one person described it – as if from the end of a pipe. The exorcist's prayer stimulates the demons, forcing them through the pipe, as it were, and they take over the body. The demons try to get the exorcist to stop saying the prayer, often by causing dramatic behaviour. For example, because the demons can't look at the priest, the person's eyes roll up and become white or they close tight.

One case involved a nun. I wasn't in the room but I heard the voices through the door. It sounded like a dog trying to talk. Her voice had a quality to it that was definitely not human. She cursed the exorcist, laughing at him and telling him he had no power. Father Gary said this woman became unrecognisable. She flopped around on the floor like a fish and started smacking her head into a wall. For him, the suffering proved the behaviour was not faked.

Father Gary also saw a small woman of about 26, whose convulsions were so strong she bent the legs of a metal chair and on another occasion broke a wooden chair. In another case, I watched a woman who started belching really loudly, like a big guy in the pub. She started to vomit and spat something up. Another woman levitated, but probably the most powerful experience for Father Gary was a woman who was being held down and looked at him with open eyes, which is rare. He said he felt an evil presence trying to stare deep inside him.

The ritual lasts half an hour. When it ends, the demon detaches itself and goes back to being a spirit. It's a repeat process – the ritual diminishes the ability of the power of the demon until it can be said to have been cast out completely. Exorcism is not always violent. There are famous cases, perhaps most notoriously that of Anneliese Michel, a German who died as a result of exorcism, but another thing that surprised me was that the ritual is often very mild. And those who react strongly often come with other people. I saw one woman who was very violent but came with her parents and husband, who could restrain her. Usually, though, it's enough for the exorcist to place his hand on top of the person's head and say the prayer. There's no shouting or screaming – just a sense of calm.

Father Gary is currently seeing a scientist in order to exorcise him. The scientist doesn't believe in possession – so he's angry about what's happening to him. Many people assume exorcism involves only the very devout being brainwashed by priests. That goes on but I'm certain other cases go beyond our understanding.

Whether or not demons exist, I've talked to enough non-believing sceptics and doctors who admit something real is happening. That isn't to say I would recommend it. "


link to full article

[Liberator]

I have a strong suspicion that exorcism works better than psycho-therapy. You quote the question of whether the possessing entity is something outside of the mind or some part of it, but in Jungian terms it makes no effective difference. The personality is conceived of, and views itself, as a certain set of behaviours. They may be very contradictory. I have my suspicions that schizophrenia occurs in people who can't handle those contradictions, that under attack or in the heat of sex they would react blindly as they never would under conscious deliberate control.

It is said that Schizophrenia is not multiple personality as much as lack of personality (a condition that in other respects, mystical religion like Zen seeks to achieve). Whereas the normal person may feel furious or devoted, but filters that through their understanding of what they are dealing with, there is a central organising Freudian Ego to control it all (unfortunately Ego in religious writings means something almost opposite to Freud, closer to aspects of his Id), the schizophrenic lacks this central Administrator.

It has a direct computer equivalent between the kind of modern system where several programs can run at once but some central Kernel has ultimate control over all of them, and earlier systems like MSDOS where once you start something, it takes control replacing MSDOS.

Whether you treat that controlling subpersonality as en external intruder or something generated internal to the mind itself does not make much difference in dealing with it. Generally, a sub-personality that takes over is one that the main operating system cannot abide to accept and so rejects, and so cannot control. It is bloody worse than useless in my opinion to try and rationalise to the subject that This is part of you and you must accept it. The whole reason that it has become pathological is that they can't accept it as part of their character. As far as they are concerned it is an alien intruder even if the origin is a part of their mind that they won't accept.

It seems to me that treating it as an intruder to be fought off and then when there is certainty of control over it, to feel the confidence to accept it 'tamed', finally to accept that this is actually part of you too, is a way to go in keeping with the way 'sufferers' themselves feel. In fact I've had similar things on hypnotic self-development tapes saying to split yourself and treat the subconscious mind as a programmable instinctive machine to do what is told to much like a traditional magician addressing a 'spirit'.

It is never entirely clear when Jung spoke of Archetypes and Collective Unconscious whether he meant things we all share from common origin or something in its own right that we all tap in to - do we all have the same files on our drive or are we all accessing one over the Net? If the opsys is sophisticated enough, we can never know. Therefore it actually makes no real difference which way we treat it. So treat the way 'we' find most amenable - as an alien essence not under our control that after banishing and controlling, we might accept as having its uses, and then after that might accept as either assimilated into our self or as having always been part of Us but we could not accept or handle it.

[Deleted]

Certainly, I once knew a man who thought he was possessed by demons who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He was in close contact with the church and I think exorcism was spoken of.


Do you think that the priests who carry out this work believe in demon-possession themselves? There is a bit of me that is bemused by the idea of modern educated clergy practising this kind of mumbo-jumbo. On the other hand I am equally disturbed at the thought they are just playing along.

[drewsmom595]

I think there are quite a few priests who believe in the power of exorcism. I, on the other hand, believe it's a bunch of psychological hooey. But for those who believe they are possessed, I can see where it can have some sort of placebo effect on them.

The Exorcist movie is still perhaps the scariest movie of all times to me. It would be even scarier if demon possession was a real possibility, which I don't believe it is.

[fretslider]

Beliefs are not always rational, particularly religious ones.

"The issue of spiritual belief within the African community was highlighted once more when Sita Kisanga and her brother Sebastian Pinto were found guilty at the Old Bailey of aiding and abetting the physical abuse of an eight-year-old girl. The girl’s aunt, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was convicted of child cruelty. The court heard that the child, who was brought to Britain from Angola by her aunt after her parents died, had been beaten, cut and had chilli peppers rubbed in her eyes to ‘beat the devil out of her’."

Its all mumbo jumbo.

[Deleted]

May 23, 2009 10:45:29 GMT fretslider said:

Beliefs are not always rational, particularly religious ones.

"The issue of spiritual belief within the African community was highlighted once more when Sita Kisanga and her brother Sebastian Pinto were found guilty at the Old Bailey of aiding and abetting the physical abuse of an eight-year-old girl. The girl’s aunt, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was convicted of child cruelty. The court heard that the child, who was brought to Britain from Angola by her aunt after her parents died, had been beaten, cut and had chilli peppers rubbed in her eyes to ‘beat the devil out of her’."

Its all mumbo jumbo.

I remember that awful story, fretslider. In Africa, witchcraft still looms large and has got tangled up with Christianity in some churches. But of course similar tactics were used on epileptics in Britain in the middle ages so we can't really feel superior.

[Liberator]

May 23, 2009 10:38:36 GMT drewsmom595 said:

I think there are quite a few priests who believe in the power of exorcism. I, on the other hand, believe it's a bunch of psychological hooey. But for those who believe they are possessed, I can see where it can have some sort of placebo effect on them.

The Exorcist movie is still perhaps the scariest movie of all times to me. It would be even scarier if demon possession was a real possibility, which I don't believe it is.

I agree with what you say. If you read mine as I intended it (based on experience with a thyroid schizophrenic that nearly landed me in jail when I applied it to a paranoid-schizophrenic) I was saying that ultimately the difference is more one of nomenclature.

Physical sciences deny a distinction that I think can exist, that what is perceived may not be all that is - so there is no way to perceive anything moving faster than light (because it needs light to perceive it!), therefore nothing can move faster than light. Not quite the same thing.

An interference into normal mental functioning may be a part of the mind that runs without central control - schizophrenia is not so much multiple personalities as lack of one Controlling Personality to reduce them all to subject moods that don't take over unless drunk or drugged. That kind of interference may be seen as a sub-personality (mood) getting control or as some general common influence from outside. In practical terms it doesn't matter and it doesn't even matter if the model of the mind is of a radio receiver with all manner of angelic and demonic stations clamouring for attention. What matters is only to recognise that the 'sufferor' sees these as outside of what they conceive of as their 'self'. Whether that is in Freudian terms of 'repression' or Jungian of group consciousness or shamanic as alien spirits makes no difference except as to the 'language' to address the problem in.

If you believe in Spirit Possession, then rejecting that belief as a prerequisite is not likely to help treatment. If you believe in Jungian contact with a collective subconscious that we all inherit, or in mystic terms, is out there that we all tap into, you can again oppose this thing you do not want as not you

Think of Cancer. Most diseases can be put down to some alien organism that your body rejects. Cancer may be caused by alien influences, but it differs from other diseases because it is your own cells playing their own game.

I see these psychological problems as similar to cancer. They may be literally part of you, but they need to be opposed and fought as aliens to get rid of them, just as most psychological problems respond best to rejection, like rejecting cancer, not accepting the alternative that it's a bit of me gone wrong. It might be possible to work that way, but if so, only to such mind-over-body experts who probably would never allow themselves to get cancer in the first place!

[fretslider]

May 23, 2009 14:01:25 GMT @skylark said:

May 23, 2009 10:45:29 GMT fretslider said:

Beliefs are not always rational, particularly religious ones.

"The issue of spiritual belief within the African community was highlighted once more when Sita Kisanga and her brother Sebastian Pinto were found guilty at the Old Bailey of aiding and abetting the physical abuse of an eight-year-old girl. The girl’s aunt, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was convicted of child cruelty. The court heard that the child, who was brought to Britain from Angola by her aunt after her parents died, had been beaten, cut and had chilli peppers rubbed in her eyes to ‘beat the devil out of her’."

Its all mumbo jumbo.

I remember that awful story, fretslider. In Africa, witchcraft still looms large and has got tangled up with Christianity in some churches. But of course similar tactics were used on epileptics in Britain in the middle ages so we can't really feel superior.

The thing with religion skylark is that it is irrational and therefore anything that is irrational goes. Ying and yang, good and evil. Religions are, make no mistake, locked in competition. On the one-hand we have the Church of England, sandal wearing Sunday fete material, often with cakes. And on the other we have militant Islamism and it seems to have little trouble in finding recruits all queueing up to die for Allah around the world.

As an atheist, it really pisses me off that these superstitious loons are fighting and killing over their particular take on a myth, and that's all it is, a myth.

[Liberator]

Prove that religion is 'irrational'. Maybe your understanding of it is just too ignorant, like Creationists showing how 'irrational evolution is. What do you mean by 'religion'? There are many religions and many variations on them. Your take sounds just primitive like theirs. You define the thing as little as you understand it and then whine how wrong it is in your view. Maybe your view is no more than your fantasy of what you want to see there without understanding what it actually says?

What do you feel about astrology? How much have you studied astrology? Do you know better from no study than those who have studied it? Isaac Newton and Johannes Kepler would not agree.