Down a dim corridor...in a tiny, locked room...out of bounds to all but a tormented few, is the cave of spirits...a home for the dead and last hope for the possessed.
Monday, September 19, 2016
Exorcism is making a comeback — and big news — worldwide
Jamie SeidelNews Corp Australia Network
EXORCISM. It’s back. From the courtrooms of South Africa to the cornfields of heartland America, the battle for your soul has taken a decidely physical turn.
THEY’RE BACK
Even the most eminent do not appear immune to the Devil’s advocates.
US Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz — himself a loudly professed Southern Baptist — was confronted earlier this year in New Hampshire by two protesters armed with a wooden cross and a mirror.
Their objective: To free him of a power-hungry evil spirit. The outcome? The self-proclaimed exorcists stated only time would tell.
The medieval-flavoured rite one seemed to have gone the way of trial-by-fire and pre-purchased forgiveness of yet-to-be-committed sins.
Exorcism appeared well and truly dead-and-buried after a public scandal in 1973 when a young German woman, Anneliese Michel, was killed after repeated rituals.
But a turnaround of sorts began in 2004. An official decree from Pope John Paul II instructed every Catholic diocese to appoint an exorcist.
Who would dare disobey?
DEMON HAUNTED WORLD
It’s not just ‘a Catholic thing’. Pentecostal churches have long been enthusiastically adding their high-profile branding to the ceremony. And virtually every flavour of religion — be it ancient Assyrian or Hindu — mentions some form of rite to expel oppositional spirits in its holy texts.
But the Catholic International Association of Exorcist’s upped the ante in 2014: Their annual meeting declared occult activity was on the rise. (For the uninitiated, this includes believing in the power of crystals, t’ai chi and yoga — as well as the more traditional Ouija boards, palm-reading and tarot cards.)
Its head, Italian priest Gabriele Amorth, is something of an ace: He claims to have personally cast out 160,000 demons.
“We have a very secularised society in which, more than in the past, there’s the tendency to open the doors to occultism and esotericism,” said Father Pedro Barrajon, director of the Istituto Sacerdos.
The course is intended to train participants in recognising at-risk members of congregations.
“Demonic influence is favoured by magical practices and the use of fortune tellers, which can have a real influence leading even to possession,” Barrajon said.
Interviewing one Father Cipriano de Meo, whose exorcist credentials dating from 1952, it concedes most cases are, in fact, mental illness. Not possession.
The Catholic Catechism is specific in its application:
“Exorcism is directed at the expulsion of demons or to the liberation from demonic possession through the spiritual authority which Jesus entrusted to his Church,” it reads. “ Illness, especially psychological illness, is a very different matter; treating this is the concern of medical science. Therefore, before an exorcism is performed, it is important to ascertain that one is dealing with the presence of the Evil One, and not an illness.”
The only way to tell the difference, Father de Meo says, is through a personal revelation to the priest — and the reaction of the patient to prayer.
“A possessed person has various general attitudes towards an exorcist, who is seen by the Adversary as an enemy ready to fight him,” he is quoted as saying.
“There’s no lack of frightening facial expressions, threatening words or gestures and other things,” he said, “but especially blasphemies against God and Our Lady.”
DARK AGE GONE MAINSTREAM
The current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, may promote progressive ideas such as climate change, income equality and — under limited circumstances — contraception. But he’s also a big fan of exorcism.
Religion historian David Frankfurter argues devils and demons tend to be thrust into the limelight whenever a community is confronted by fresh outside forces.
In the modern world, it’s an unavoidable condition. Sexual liberation. Equal opportunities. Migration. Open markets.
The winds of change blow fiercely. But are they demon-sourced?
In the hands of a priest, exorcism gives them supernatural relevance in a relentless — and confounding — real world.
THE SWORD OF THE WORD
Despite all this, experts say public interest in possession appears tightly tied to what’s on television. Little wonder, then, that there’s a remake of The Exorcist in the offing.
But is exorcism actually on the rise?
Michael Cuneo, sociologist and author of newly published “American Exorcism,” asserts “Exorcism is more readily available today in the United States than perhaps ever before.”
He goes on to say: “By conservative estimates, there are at least five or six hundred evangelical exorcism ministries in operation (in the US) today, and quite possibly two or three times this many.”
Australia? It’s not telling.
Unlike their overseas counterparts, Australian Catholic diocese have been backwards about coming forward with the exploits of their proactive priests.
The Washington Post By Richard GallagherJuly 1 at 6:00 AM
Richard Gallagher is a board-certified psychiatrist and a professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College. He is at work on a book about demonic possession in the United States.
A psychiatrist discusses the growing phenomenon of demonic possession in the Washington Post
"Ignorance and superstition have often surrounded stories of demonic possession in various cultures, and surely many alleged episodes can be explained by fraud, chicanery or mental pathology. But anthropologists agree thatnearly all cultureshave believed in spirits, and the vast majority of societies (including our own) have recorded dramatic stories of spirit possession. Despite varying interpretations, multiple depictions of the same phenomena in astonishingly consistent ways offer cumulative evidence of their credibility.
As a psychoanalyst, a blanket rejection of the possibility of demonic attacks seems less logical, and often wishful in nature, than a careful appraisal of the facts. As I see it, the evidence for possession is like the evidence for George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware. In both cases, written historical accounts with numerous sound witnesses testify to their accuracy."
"The Vatican does not track global or countrywide exorcism, but in my experience and according to the priests I meet, demand is rising. The United States is home to about 50 “stable” exorcists — those who have been designated by bishops to combat demonic activity on a semi-regular basis — up from just 12 a decade ago." "I am aware of the way many psychiatrists view this sort of work. While the American Psychiatric Association has no official opinion on these affairs, the field (like society at large) is full of unpersuadable skeptics and occasionally doctrinaire materialists who are often oddly vitriolic in their opposition to all things spiritual. My job is to assist people seeking help, not to convince doctors who are not subject to suasion. Yet I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners nowadays who are open to entertaining such hypotheses. Many believe exactly what I do, though they may be reluctant to speak out."
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Exorcism is making a comeback — and big news — worldwide
Jamie SeidelNews Corp Australia Network
EXORCISM. It’s back. From the courtrooms of South Africa to the cornfields of heartland America, the battle for your soul has taken a decidely physical turn.
THEY’RE BACK
Even the most eminent do not appear immune to the Devil’s advocates.
US Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz — himself a loudly professed Southern Baptist — was confronted earlier this year in New Hampshire by two protesters armed with a wooden cross and a mirror.
Their objective: To free him of a power-hungry evil spirit. The outcome? The self-proclaimed exorcists stated only time would tell.
The medieval-flavoured rite one seemed to have gone the way of trial-by-fire and pre-purchased forgiveness of yet-to-be-committed sins.
Exorcism appeared well and truly dead-and-buried after a public scandal in 1973 when a young German woman, Anneliese Michel, was killed after repeated rituals.
But a turnaround of sorts began in 2004. An official decree from Pope John Paul II instructed every Catholic diocese to appoint an exorcist.
Who would dare disobey?
DEMON HAUNTED WORLD
It’s not just ‘a Catholic thing’. Pentecostal churches have long been enthusiastically adding their high-profile branding to the ceremony. And virtually every flavour of religion — be it ancient Assyrian or Hindu — mentions some form of rite to expel oppositional spirits in its holy texts.
But the Catholic International Association of Exorcist’s upped the ante in 2014: Their annual meeting declared occult activity was on the rise. (For the uninitiated, this includes believing in the power of crystals, t’ai chi and yoga — as well as the more traditional Ouija boards, palm-reading and tarot cards.)
Its head, Italian priest Gabriele Amorth, is something of an ace: He claims to have personally cast out 160,000 demons.
“We have a very secularised society in which, more than in the past, there’s the tendency to open the doors to occultism and esotericism,” said Father Pedro Barrajon, director of the Istituto Sacerdos.
The course is intended to train participants in recognising at-risk members of congregations.
“Demonic influence is favoured by magical practices and the use of fortune tellers, which can have a real influence leading even to possession,” Barrajon said.
Interviewing one Father Cipriano de Meo, whose exorcist credentials dating from 1952, it concedes most cases are, in fact, mental illness. Not possession.
The Catholic Catechism is specific in its application:
“Exorcism is directed at the expulsion of demons or to the liberation from demonic possession through the spiritual authority which Jesus entrusted to his Church,” it reads. “ Illness, especially psychological illness, is a very different matter; treating this is the concern of medical science. Therefore, before an exorcism is performed, it is important to ascertain that one is dealing with the presence of the Evil One, and not an illness.”
The only way to tell the difference, Father de Meo says, is through a personal revelation to the priest — and the reaction of the patient to prayer.
“A possessed person has various general attitudes towards an exorcist, who is seen by the Adversary as an enemy ready to fight him,” he is quoted as saying.
“There’s no lack of frightening facial expressions, threatening words or gestures and other things,” he said, “but especially blasphemies against God and Our Lady.”
DARK AGE GONE MAINSTREAM
The current head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, may promote progressive ideas such as climate change, income equality and — under limited circumstances — contraception. But he’s also a big fan of exorcism.
Religion historian David Frankfurter argues devils and demons tend to be thrust into the limelight whenever a community is confronted by fresh outside forces.
In the modern world, it’s an unavoidable condition. Sexual liberation. Equal opportunities. Migration. Open markets.
The winds of change blow fiercely. But are they demon-sourced?
In the hands of a priest, exorcism gives them supernatural relevance in a relentless — and confounding — real world.
THE SWORD OF THE WORD
Despite all this, experts say public interest in possession appears tightly tied to what’s on television. Little wonder, then, that there’s a remake of The Exorcist in the offing.
But is exorcism actually on the rise?
Michael Cuneo, sociologist and author of newly published “American Exorcism,” asserts “Exorcism is more readily available today in the United States than perhaps ever before.”
He goes on to say: “By conservative estimates, there are at least five or six hundred evangelical exorcism ministries in operation (in the US) today, and quite possibly two or three times this many.”
Australia? It’s not telling.
Unlike their overseas counterparts, Australian Catholic diocese have been backwards about coming forward with the exploits of their proactive priests.
This is a podcast called SNAP JUDGEMENTS that was on NPR. This episode is called "OMENS" and deals with a graduate student doing research on PTSD and veteran suicides. She ends up going to a really dark place with the demonic. What do you think?
At Texas State University, I teach an honors course called “Demonology, Possession, and Exorcism.” It’s not a gut course. My students produce research papers on topics that range from the role of sleep paralysis in reports of demonic attacks to contemporary murder cases in which defendants have claimed supernatural forces compelled them to commit crimes.
In fact, talk of demons isn’t unusual in Texas. The first day of class, when we watched a clip of an alleged exorcism at an Austin Starbucks, many of my students said that they’d seen similar scenes in the towns where they’d grown up.
Just an exorcism at a Starbucks in Texas.
In 2014, an exorcism took place outside of a Starbucks in Austin, Texas.
A few students even admitted their parents were nervous that they’d signed up for the class. Maybe these parents worried their kids would become possessed, or that studying possession in the classroom might make demons seem less plausible. (Perhaps it was a mix of both.)
Either way, these parents aren’t a superstitious minority: a poll conducted in 2012 found that 57% of Americans believe in demonic possession. Nonetheless, demons (invisible, malevolent spirits) and exorcism (the techniques used to cast these spirits out of people, objects or places) are often thought of as relics of the past, beliefs and practices that are incompatible with modernity. It’s an assumption based in a sociological theory that dates back to the 19th century called the secularization narrative. Scholars such as Max Weber predicted that over time, science would inevitably supersede belief in “mysterious forces.”
But while the influence of institutionalized churches has waned, few sociologists today would claim that science is eliminating belief in the supernatural. In fact, in the 40 years since the blockbuster film The Exorcist premiered, belief in the demonic remains as popular as ever, with many churches scrambling to adapt.
Exorcism’s golden age
So why has exorcism made a comeback? It may be that belief in the demonic is cyclical.
Historian of religion David Frankfurter notes that conspiracy theories involving evil entities like demons and witches tend to flare up when local religious communities are confronted with outside forces such as globalization and modernity.
Attributing misfortune and social change to hidden evil forces, Frankfurter suggests, is a natural human reaction; the demonic provides a context that can make sense of unfamiliar or complex problems.
While Europeans practiced exorcism during the Middle Ages, the “golden age” of demonic paranoia took place in the early modern period. In the 16th and 17th centuries, thousands were killed in witch hunts and there were spectacular cases of possession, including entire convents of nuns.
Similarly, Catholic exorcists in Mexico held a “magno exorcisto” in May 2015 aimed at purging the entire nation of demons. The mass exorcism was partly motivated by the drug wars that have devastated the country since 2006. But it was also in response to the legalization of abortion in Mexico City in 2007.
During one Mexican exorcism, a demon (speaking through a possessed person) confessed that Mexico had once been a haven for demons. According to the four demons identified in the exorcism, hundreds of years ago, Aztecs had offered them human sacrifices; now, with the legalization of abortion, the sacrifices had resumed.
Divided over demons
In the Baylor Religion Survey, 53% of Catholics said they either agree or strongly agree in the possibility of demonic possession. Twenty-six percent disagreed or strongly disagreed, and the rest were undecided. Progressive Catholics still regard exorcism as an embarrassment, and there are also increasingly vocal atheists and skeptics eager to cite the practice of exorcism as an example of the absurdity of religion. But in countries like Italy and the Philippines, there is active demand for more Catholic exorcists.
