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Date Posted: 23:43:21 07/02/04 Fri
Author: Eladio
Subject: exorcism

exorcism

Source:http://skepdic.com/exorcism.html

If ignorance is bliss, demon chasers must be in nirvana.

An exorcism is a religious rite for driving Satan or evil spirits out of a possessed person, place or thing. In ancient times, many cultures had such rites. Today, the Roman Catholic Church still believes in diabolic possession and its priests still practice what is called "real exorcism," a 27-page ritual involving the use of holy water, incantations and various prayers, incense, relics or Christian symbols such as the cross, to drive out evil spirits. The Catholic Church has at least ten official exorcists in America today (Cuneo). The Archbishop of Calcutta, Henry Sebastian D'Souza, says he ordered a priest to perform an exorcism on Mother Teresa shortly before she died in 1997 because he thought she was being attacked by the devil.

Most Protestant sects also believe in satanic possession and exorcism. Michael Cuneo, a sociologist at Fordham University, claims "By conservative estimates, there are at least five or six hundred evangelical exorcism ministries in operation today, and quite possibly two or three times this many." Reverend Brian Connor, of South Carolina, says "dealing with animate evil is the single most overlooked component of the biblical mandate."* Connor was featured on NBC's "Dateline" program on exorcism (November 13, 2001). He and several friends spent an entire day trying to talk the demons out of the body of a 50-something man with a history of depression and aimlessness. The exorcists held Bibles, which they read from occasionally, and crosses. They huddled around their subject for hours, chanting prayers and ordering the demons to leave. The subject occasionally howled like an animal and grimaced at his benefactors. It was all great drama and eventually cathartic enough for the subject to vomit a little. Connor declared that he was spitting out Satan and that all the demons had left. A follow-up done two months later, however, found that the group had to repeat the exercise six more times. Now they were sure the demons were gone and the subject was sure he was fine and a new man.

Michael Cuneo watched a film of the exorcism and concluded that the group was suggesting to their subject how he should respond and that he saw no evidence of either demonic possession or of demons being exorcized. A psychiatrist was shown the same film and he announced that he couldn't evaluate what he observed as a psychiatrist but as a "believer" he thought that there might be something real going on involving demonic possession. When asked what he based his belief on, he replied tersely: faith. This man was a member of the American Psychiatric Association's Committee on Religion and Psychiatry.

As a layman, I found the behavior of the exorcists at least as interesting as that of the subject. Believing in demons is one thing; believing you have the ability to call up a supernatural being with infinite power and perfection who will cause demons to move on at your behest, seems certifiable. The whole coven of exorcists and exorcized are deluded. The former clearly felt great pride at their achievement and shared in a glorious victory over Satan. The latter was coddled and cuddled, hugged and loved, and eventually praised and rewarded with the good feelings of caring people when he released Satan and said "Jesus is Lord." There doesn't seem to be anything deeply complicated about what happened. The group convinced the subject he was possessed. They cued him as to how to behave and they rewarded him and themselves when he let the demon go. Communal reinforcement and self-deception will go a long way towards explaining how the group came to believe they could exorcize demons. The exorcists clearly enjoy their work and get great satisfaction out of "helping" people in this powerful way. I am sure that many evangelicals who saw the program are wondering where they can sign up to be exorcist's helpers.

traditional exorcisms

Exorcisms can be done on inanimate objects or places as well as on people. These need not be "real exorcisms" but can be "simple exorcisms" (usually thought of as baptizing the infant or "blessing" the house or place). Satan is everywhere, it seems, but the specialist in real exorcism is only needed when The Evil One starts acting up.

Most, if not all, cases of alleged demonic possession of humans probably involve either people with brain disorders ranging from epilepsy to schizophrenia and Tourette's syndrome, or people whose brains are more or less healthy but who are unfortunate enough to be sucked into playing a social role with very unpleasant consequences. In any case, the behaviors of the possessed resemble very closely the behaviors of those with electrochemical, neurochemical or other physical or emotional disorders.

A secularized version of exorcism is practiced by some therapists who specialize in unveiling and ridding their patients of "entities" which, the therapists believe, are the cause of the patient's troubles. Entity release therapists engage in this work even though there is about as much evidence for the "entities" as there is for the devils exorcised by Catholic priests and Protestant evangelicals. Many people, however, are very resistant to the idea that demonic possession is a myth, especially since they have seen or read fictional works such as The Exorcist or the Amityville Horror. They can't imagine how anyone could make such stuff up; yet, it would seem to take much more imagination to give credence to such tales.

Many people fear possession by demons, but the exorcists themselves can cause great damage.

Exorcism has caused a number of real-world tragedies over the years, including several deaths.

Pentecostal ministers in San Francisco pummeled a woman to death in 1995, as they tried to drive out her demons.

In 1997, a Korean Christian woman was stomped to death in Glendale, Calif., and in the Bronx section of New York City, a 5-year-old girl died after being forced to swallow a mixture containing ammonia and vinegar and having her mouth taped shut.

In 1998, a 17-year-old girl in Sayville, N.Y., was suffocated by her mother with a plastic bag, in an effort to destroy a demon inside her.*

In 2001, a 37-year old woman, Joanna Lee, was strangled to death in an exorcism by a Korean church minister working in New Zealand. The minister, Luke Lee, was found guilty of manslaughter.

An MSNBC program on exorcists, featuring evangelicals Tom Brown and Bob Larson, warned viewers not to try this at home because they might end up being arrested for botched exorcisms such as those mentioned above. The evangelicals' game is to bring groups of troubled people together and look for demons that are causing the trouble so they can exorcize them. Brown and Larson have never killed anyone, as far as we know, but whether they help or harm people was not possible to discern from the program, since the "reporters" did no background checks or follow-ups on the people exorcised.

The exorcists only prop is a Bible, which is held in one hand while they talk down the devil in very dramatic episodes worthy of Jerry Springer or Jenny Jones. The "possessed" could have been mentally ill, actors, mentally ill actors, drug addicts, mentally ill drug addicts, or they may have been possessed, as the exorcists claimed. All the participants shown being exorcized seem to have seen the movie "The Exorcist" or one of the sequels. They all fell into the role of husky voiced Satan speaking from the depths, who was featured in the film. The similarities in speech and behavior among the "possessed" has led some psychologists such as Nicholas Spanos to conclude that both "exorcist" and "possessed" are engaged in learned role-playing.

What was disappointing about the MSNBC program was that no effort was made to get anyone's opinion as to what was going on except for the opinion of the televangelists and their subjects. Wouldn't a serious journalist get a third opinion? Why should we take the word of interested parties like Brown and Larson that their subjects really were possessed and that they really released Satan from all these bodies? These evangelical exorcists might be self-deceived and be guilty of confirmation bias. Even if their intentions are good,they are most probably deluded and certainly causing harm to those they exorcize who should be under psychiatric care.

See related entries on ghosts, haunted houses, hypnosis, mesmerism and satan.

further reading

* A Kinder, Gentler Satan by D. Trull
* Esophagus Exorcism!
* "Woman Admits Guilt in Exorcism Death"
* Spirits, Witches, & Science: Why The Rise Of Science Encouraged Belief In The Supernatural In 17th-Century England by Richard Olson
* The Haunted Boy: the Facts Behind the Story that Inspired "The Exorcist" by Mark Opsasnick
* More on the background to "The Exorcist"

Cuneo, Michael W. American Exorcism: Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty (Doubleday, 2001).

Gold, Mark S. The Good News About Depression : Cures and Treatments in the New Age of Psychiatry (New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1995). This book does not deal with exorcism but it has a great deal of material on physical disorders whose symptoms mimic mental illness, as well as material on symptoms of brain disorders including schizophrenia and hypermania, as well as depression. Many of these physical illnesses have been, and still are, mistaken for demonic possession by the ignorant and superstitious.

Singer, Margaret Thaler and Janja Lalich. Crazy Therapies (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Inc., 1996). Review.

Spanos, Nicholas P. Multiple Identities and False Memories: A Sociocognitive Perspective (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1996).

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