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Demonic possession is a form of spiritual possession; specifically, one or more demons are said to enter a living or dead human or animal body or an object with the intention of using it for a purpose, normally evil but sometimes instead as a punishment or test. This term is more commonly applied to possession of living persons. It is said by several spiritual belief systems that a demonic possession can be "cured" by an exorcism that enables the exorcist to expel the demon or demons from the possessed subject or object.
Many religions contain some concept of demons and demon possession, but the details vary considerably. Many mainstream Christian churches, particularly in western society, reject the concept entirely, instead supporting the mainstream scientific position that supposed demon possessions are in fact a symptom of mental illness. Churches that accept demonic possession still may agree that many apparent cases may actually stem from natural causes.
Demonic possession in history
As far back as we know, according to ancient inscriptions, Sumerians, Akkadians and Chaldeans, who shared some religious beliefs, described several procedures to protect people against demonic possession. There are also written cuneiform tablets about exorcisms to expel demons from humans once they had invaded their bodies. The priests who practised exorcisms in these nations were called Ashipy and Mashmashu. Nevertheless there are no descriptions of specific punishments against possessed persons as it happened later many times in Christian societies. Shamanic cultures also believe in demon possession and shamans (witch doctors) perform exorcisms too; in these cultures often diseases are attributed to the presence of an evil spirit or demon in the body of the patient. In the Bible, the Old Testament mentions Satan, but no allusion to demonic possession is made. In 1 Samuel 16-19 Saul is tormented by an "evil spirit" from God. The New Testament mentions several opportunities in which Jesus drove out demons from diseased persons, believed to be these entities responsible for those illnesses. Since that moment on, demon possession became a plague among Christians; exorcisms and executions were performed on persons allegedly possessed; many mentally ill people were accused of being demon-possessed and killed. The Malleus Maleficarum speaks about some exorcisms that can be done in different cases. In Christianity, animals were also believed to be able of being possessed; during the Middle Ages, hundreds of cats, goats, and other animals were slain because of the idea that they were either an incarnation of a demon or possessed by one.
Demonic possession in Christianity
"Oppression" is a more accurate translation of the term used in Christian scripture. Possession, like other mistranslations, has gained a life of its own. This is possibly due to the nature of the word as well as the many movies depicting weird and lengthly deliverance rituals. Biblical deliverance takes place in seconds or perhaps a minute at most. This is the type one will find throughout the world in churches and ministries of nearly every denomination today.
The concept of demon possession in Christianity was similar to that of Jewish belief. In the New Testament Jesus is reported to have encountered people who were possessed and to have driven the "evil spirits" out of these demoniacs. In the 4th century, St. Hillary asserted that demons entered the bodies of humans to use them as if they were theirs, and also proposed that the same could happen with animals, expelling a demon from his camel to prove his theory. In the 5th century, Gregory the Great (later Pope Gregory I) wrote about a nun that was possessed by a demon that penetrated her body via a lettuce she had eaten.
Later, in the Middle Ages, a list of symptoms required to confirm demonic possession was carefully prepared:
- The ability to curse/blaspheme in languages unknown to the person.
- The ability to find secret things, read the mind, and divine future happenings.
- The ability to make physical efforts abnormal for that person.
- The act of spitting or vomiting every object the demons would have made the person swallow.
- Fear and/or hatred of holy objects.
- The inability to say the word "Christ".
Normally, only one of these symptoms was enough to determine possession. It was said by people of that time that possessed persons had an ugly and terrible aspect, wrathful eyes, bluish lips, foam coming off their mouth; their body was almost permanently shaking, when they spoke their tongue came abnormally out, their speech consisted mainly in curses and blasphemies, and they were able to imitate animal sounds as well as to speak with human-like voices with a strange sound and a different pitch of theirs. According to Catholic theologians demon possession is involuntary and allowed by God to test a person (for more details about God's tests on persons see Job). Involuntary possession, according to these theologians, cannot be negated because this would imply the negation of the cases mentioned in the New Testament (12, some of them repeated in more than one Gospel) and, by extension, the veracity of it. Voluntary possession can be also mentioned, favored by drugs, alcohol and/or frantic dances, like those of certain ancient cults (i.e. the Bacchanals), still practiced in some Shamanic societies, and alleged to be also practiced by witches during their Sabbaths. Another form of voluntary possession is that in which a person offers his/her body to be possessed by a demon to serve as a medium among him/her and the other attendants to the reunion.
Demonic possession in the Bible
The following is a list of all possible cases of demonic possession and Jesus' ability to expel demons mentioned in the New Testament; some of the cases are not clearly demonic (for example a man who is blind), and so it is a matter of opinion whether they count as demonic or not:
- : Demon-possessed persons are healed by Jesus (also ).
- Many will drive out demons in Jesus' name (also ; ; ; ).
- Jesus heals many demon-possessed ones (also ; ).
- Jesus sends a herd of demons from two men into a herd of pigs (also ; , both referring to only one man).
- : Jesus makes a dumb man speak, the Pharisees say it is by the power of Beelzebub (also ).
- The Twelve Apostles given the authority to drive out evil spirits (also ; ; ; ; ).
- It was said that John the Baptist had a demon (also ).
- : Jesus heals a possessed blind and dumb man (also ; ; ).
- : Jesus tells an allegory of nasty spirits coming back home, that is to the human body where they have lived before (also ).
- : Jesus expels a demon from the body of the daughter of a Canaanite woman (also ).
- : Jesus heals a lunatic by driving out a demon from him (also ; ).
- : Jesus expels a nasty spirit from a man (also ).
- Jesus had driven seven demons out of Mary Magdalene (also ).
- : Many people are cleansed from evil spirits by Jesus.
- : Jesus expels a spirit of disease from the body of a woman on the Sabbath.
- Jesus will continue to cast out demons even though Herod Antipas wants to kill him.
- A crowd of Jews that wants to kill Jesus says he is demon-possessed.
- The Jews say Jesus is a Samaritan and demon-possessed.
- Many Jews say Jesus is raving mad and demon-possessed, others say he is not.
- : Paul and Silas imprisoned for driving a future-telling spirit out of a slave girl.
- Handkerchiefs and aprons touched by Paul cured illness and drove out evil spirits.
- The Whore of Babylon is a home for demons, evil spirits and unclean birds.
Acts of the Apostles contains a number of references to possession by the Holy Spirit (, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ) which is believed to be a good thing in contrast to demonic possession.
Demonic possession in medicine
Demonic possession is not a valid psychiatric or medical diagnosis recognized by either the DSM-IV or the ICD-10, and indeed, there is no scientific basis for such a belief. Those who profess a belief in demonic possession have sometimes ascribed the symptoms associated with mental illnesses such as hysteria, mania, psychosis, or dissociative identity disorder to possession. There is, however, a mental disease called demonomania or demonopathy. This is a monomania in which the patient believes that he or she is possessed by one or more demons.
From another point of view, those who accuse others of being demon-possessed have to be mentioned too. In cases like those of the witches of Salem, Massachusetts or the nuns who accused father Urbain Grandier, we are facing a collective hysteria, involving more than one person "contagiously" convinced of that "truth". In particular cases (sometimes a small number of persons, i.e. some members of a family or a small group of friends, but generally one person) the accusation of demon possession is caused because of the diseases above-mentioned or the phenomenon of collective hysteria. Another case that is necessary to mention is that of simulation; simulation is generally considered a psychological alteration of the human behaviour rather than a psychiatric disease, but there are in Medicine cases of simulators mentally ill that act by compulsion. It was common the case of children and teenagers accusing people of having bewitched them and feigning to be demon-possessed, and later apologising for that; unfortunately, due to the processes carried out by the religious tribunals, generally those innocents had already lost their lives, and that was the cause of many of those apologies: the feeling of being guilty, or remorse. There were several cases of simulation in England, most of them between 1533 and 1697, until accusations made by children were prohibited in 1718; there were cases of simulation in France and America too; it is thought that the collective hysteria that generated the accusation against Urbain Grandier was started by a case of simulation. It rests to say that a person easy to influence can be convinced by third parts of being demon-possessed. Hysteria is the first step to all other diseases previously mentioned, and it is more common in women than in men, thus the number of "demon-possessed" people and accusers was higher in women than in men; so it was the number of people killed by those accusations too.
Medicine can explain some aspects of the "symptoms" shown by those persons allegedly possessed; it is known that "supernatural strength" is common in some cases of insanity (maniacs, energumens, etc.).
The theme of demon possession has been by far better exploited by cinema than literature. Maybe the most known work on the subject is the 1973 film The Exorcist, based on the book of the same name, which portrays a typical mediaeval case of demonic possession in which the victim shows all required characteristics to confirm the status of possessed. This was later satirised in 1990 by Repossessed. End of Days (1999) shows another form of demonic possession suggested by Hilarius.
See also
External links
- Demonic possession of Elizabeth Knapp: Cotton Mather's widely-cited report on the demonic possession of Elizabeth Knapp of Massachusetts (1701)
- Catholic Encyclopedia "Demonical Possession"
"Demonic possession"