Demonic Possession

[Incocknito]

Is this shit for real? (Rhetorical)

It seems to me that Demonic Possession is just a psychological disorder. People imagine they are possessed. It can be due to "life events" or perhaps chemical imbalances or other associated disorders (Multiple Personality, etc).

Thing is I was watching a programme last night supposedly showing a "real" Demonic Possession.

What I found funny was that:

The "Priest" said that the woman would need "a second and maybe a third exorcism."

Now maybe I've misunderstood but isn't the whole point of an exorcism that the entity is removed on the first try. If nothing is removed then nothing has really excised / exorcised.

So basically I think its bollocks. Does anyone here actually think Demonic Possession has a supernatural component? Anyone have any views on exorcism?

I'm reminded of a similar story I heard of:

An African (American) man was admitted to hospital afraid he was going to die. The doctors did every possible test and there was nothing physically wrong with him.

But day by day he was visibly deteriorating. One of the doctors had grown up in a country mansion where they had a black woman servant. That woman servant was a believer and practitioner of Voodoo.

Since the man thought he had been cursed, the doctors arranged a Voodoo ceremony in order to remove the curse from the man.

After that, he became well. Not because Voodoo is real but because you can make yourself ill by thinking you are ill and you can physically manifest symptoms.

Likewise, if you believe you are better or in this case if you believe the curse has been removed you can make yourself well again.

Which is interesting in itself but it is not supernatural. Its a part of the human condition.

 

[nudeyorker]

Do I believe in Demonic Possession? No! I have always felt that it was a fundamental christian way of explaining insanity. I read the book The Exorcist when it was released and was suspended between the shadow and the act as the author intended. I still can't eat split pea soup as a result of the movie.

 

[B_Hickboy]

Now comes the part where believers and non-believers choose up sides and wage ad hominem attacks against each other. opcorn:

 

[ManlyBanisters]

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

 

[Incocknito]

Do I believe in Demonic Possession? No! I have always felt that it was a fundamental christian way of explaining insanity. I read the book The Exorcist when it was released and was suspended between the shadow and the act as the author intended. I still can't eat split pea soup as a result of the movie.

It's not that they're necessarily insane. The woman referred to in my first post (the one who was exorcised) said that when she was 15 she looked in the mirror one night and "her eyes went black and she didn't know whose reflection it was in the mirror".

She says the next thing she remembered was being admitted to a psychiatric unit.

Which suggests she had some sort of body image issue or other completely natural (as existing on Earth) borne condition.

A lot of murders and rapists claim to be possessed by demons and things. I think in that context its just a poor attempt at an insanity defence.

But in the context of the average person being overtaken by spirits...it just doesn't happen. People can become psychotic and have mental "illnesses" but that is not equal to Demonic Possession.

It's interesting how powerful the mind is and how these things can be created though. Oh and what I forgot to mention was the organiser of the Exorcism actually said.

"This is holy water. Evil hates the stuff."

To me that just cheapened the whole thing and I couldn't take it seriously. It was obviously just adults playing children's games.

 

[Enid]

My neurologist told me The Exorcist was based on a real life case of Tourette Syndrome treated at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

 

[nudeyorker]

My neurologist told me The Exorcist was based on a real life case of Tourette Syndrome treated at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Now that makes sense... I doubt it would have been a best selling novel and blockbuster movie with the Tourettes spin.

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

Perhaps the Tourette's was treated as a symptom of demonic possession.
I wonder if Georgetown U. would have allowed some experimental work based on that assumption, if more usual approaches had failed.

Edit: Well, here, in a Wikipedia article, more is said.
Apparently author William Blatty heard about an exorcism while a student at Georgetown U. in 1950.
The exorcism supposedly was performed by a priest in Mount Rainier, Maryland, over six weeks ... suggesting that exorcisms are not one-shot deals.
But the Wikipedia article mentions a piece written by a journalist in 1999 who disputed many details suggested in the book.
The exorcism, according to the journalist, was actually in Cottage City, Maryland, and there were "...no strange foreign languages (other than mimicked Latin), no changes in tone of voice, no prodigious strength, no excessive vomiting or urinating..."

The journalist came to believe, rightly or wrongly, that the young boy at the center of the story had never been demonically possessed.

 

[dreamer20]

An African American man...afraid he was going to die...thought he had been cursed,...doctors arranged a Voodoo ceremony in order to remove the curse from the man. After that, he became well...

Is this shit for real? ...I think its bollocks. Does anyone here actually think Demonic Possession has a supernatural component? Anyone have any views on exorcism?

33

In the ancient world the mind of the primitive man conceived an invisible world of spirits. The idea of a legion of good spirits presided over by a good or beneficent god; and, on the other hand, of a legion of demons or evil spirits presided over by an evil god or chieftain, is a notion that existed in a great many races and countries at approximately the same time.

Inevitably it followed from the concept of a heaven populated by angels, closely associated with the sun and light, that there should be created in the mind of the primitive man the concept of an abode of evil, peopled by demons, closely associated with darkness and death. In those days the earth was thought to be flat and the abode of evil was conceived to be under or inside the earth. It was given the name of hell, and presided over by Satan, Lucifer, the Serpent or the Devil, as the deity was variously referred to. In pagan faiths this presiding deity was Dis, Hades, Python, Ahriman, Triglav, et al. The devil of Christianity was just a substitute of the gods of evil of the ancient Greek, Egyptian, Persian, and Hebrew religions.

According to scripture Satan was one of God's angels in heaven originally. Revelation 12 v 7-9 tells of the quarrel with God that led to the banishment of Satan and his horde of fallen angels from heaven. These exiles set up and reigned over the rival and independent organization of hell. The aim of Satan (aka as the Devil) was to tempt mankind, by all manner of crafty promises, into wickedness and sin.

Part of the belief in the existence of the devil and the acknowledgment of his power, was the belief that he could be pressed into the service of mankind by means of various magical procedures known to sorcerers and those whose lives were dedicated to his service. There was also the hypothesis that the Devil and his demons caused most illnesses. The cases where maladies were God's punishment for sin were relatively few in comparison to those resulting from demonic possession.

 

[MASSIVEPKGO_CHUCK]

opcorn: uttahere:

 

[D_Portelay Porquesword]

Now comes the part where believers and non-believers choose up sides and wage ad hominem attacks against each other. opcorn:

I'll bring the beverages.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. < Thank you, I was about to post that quote.

No war here or personalization if people choose not to believe in such things.
My dad was a minister for many years, I have seen unexplainable things. Nothing as easily defined as insanity: levitation, contortion (with no bones broken or bruises) and more.

I know what I have seen and I also know to leave well enough alone and not dabble or fool with such things.

IMHO it exists and is VERY real.

 

[naughty]

I think people are going to look at things from their frame of reference. I went to a conference on cultural medicine a while ago and a doctor talked about how she deals with mental illness in certain immigrant communities. For instance, what under western medicine might be seen as Psychotic Schizophrenia might be seen a possession of the snake god in certain African religions. WHo is to tell them that they are not possessed? I happen to think that both are possible and probable.

 

[luka82]

I think there is a devil....
She lives in England.....and she has a pierced pussy!!!!:wink:

 

[conclave27]

Well for one "possession" by a foreign entity is possible... whether you call it a spirit, ghost, loa, etc. Now yes I will say that modern terminology can explain 98% of possessions as some sort of mental illness or deficiency. Psychology proves that forms of hypnotism, mental program, and mass hysteria "are forms of possession".

Yet if we are speaking about possession by something else. I would say yes. If you are one who accepts the probability that there is an existence after death or that there is a spirit world... then yes possession is real. Like one poster stated, if you are Christian Protestant or Catholic technically you are protected from possession by faith and/or the sacrament of Baptism. Also some religions or beliefs actually wants possession to happen, such as Voodoo in which they commune with the Loa, or spiritualist who speak with the dead during a seance, or even seers and diviners of various sects.

From my experience I have only seen one invoked possession, and that was at a Taoist temple who had a visiting seer who communed with one of the Eight Immortals. Whether or not she actually possessed I do not know, but there was a definite change of posture and voice. She did seem to know intimate details of various individuals, but then again the skeptic in me says that perhaps someone told her ahead of time.

I am all for continuing this topic as it is rather interesting.

 

[Gillette]

Do body thetans count as demons?

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

Do body thetans count as demons?

As an OT-6, I'd say No.

 

[Gillette]

As an OT-6, I'd say No.

:wink:

 

[D_Gunther Snotpole]

:wink:

I knew you would understand.

 

[798686]

I have always felt that it was a fundamental christian way of explaining insanity.

I'd tend to agree. I think it's often a way of explaining hard to understand conditions or behaviours.

I'm not saying there isn't anything supernatural like that, and as OY says, I wouldn't particularly want to get involved in it, but I haven't seen any evidence myself - and there usually seem to be simpler, more common sense explanations.

 

[TaigaStar]

I'll admit to not having read *every* post in response to the OP. I do see a lot of people saying that demonic possession is bogus; I respect your beliefs on that. I, however, do believe that there are evil entities in this world, whatever you want to call them, and that it's really some scary shit if you believe in it. However, there are a few things for the naysayers that you may appreciate from your standpoint:

1- The movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose addresses the validity of exorcism (and possession in general), and they have a psychologist character speak and discuss that is possession is a mental disorder, then the psychosomatic process of an exorcism provides a type of closure for the "victim." (The "real story" the movie was based on is that a girl in Germany died during an exorcism, which was actually an undiagnosed case of CP, also referenced as one possibility of Emily's condition in the film).

2- By and large, most Christian communities don't do exorcisms (more or less, they seem to not be concerned with external demonic possession), and people who describe what they believe to be possessions are generally referred to the Catholic Church.

3- The Catholic Church is very rigid with the idea of exorcism. There aren't many priests trained in the process, and they're not dispatched unless the investigations into the matter can't be scientifically explained

4- The Exorcist was mentioned before. Like Emily Rose, the story is based on "true events." There was a documentary about it, and the victim, after three days of exorcism, eventually sat up and started speaking in a completely different voice than "normal" or "possessed," and then fell back to the bed, cleansed. Whether real or not (it's not relevant to my point), it goes back to the idea of psychological closure to something.

As you can tell from above, I can only provide things from a Roman Catholic viewpoint. I hope it provides some insight on the subject (i tried to keep it as objective as I possibly could). And to clarify: I believe in possession (scares me shitless), but I also believe that it doesn't happen as often as people claim. In fact, I doubt the Church believe it's a common occurrence or else there'd be basic exorcism training for every priest that's ordained.