Demonic possession is a very old and much talked about subject. Before the advances of medicine and psychiatry, all mental illness was blamed on the demons ‘possessing God’s innocents’. However, there were some very interesting cases – The Nuns at Lourdes for example – not really explainable unless you start bringing in dubious ideas like mass hallucinations and major mental trauma. Another case is the true story of the boy who started behaving strangely after his grandmother died – he did play on the ouija board mind you – which formed the basis of the Exorcist story line. The boy’s story can be found in Possession by Thomas Allen. I remember reading (although I can’t remember which book), that during the middle ages, the Demons walked amongst us, before deciding that we couldn’t really be trusted and moved to a higher dimension (much like the dragons).
Possession has been a major and ‘living’ part of all religions since the dawn of time. The Shamans sought possession by the spirit of the eagle and jaguar. Voodoo priests still regularly offer themselves up for possession today. Minor possessions occur in tv programs such as Most Haunted. Possession is feared amongst some religions such as Christianity and Islam (who fear the Djinn).
It should be noted that nothing horrendous tends to happen until you get Christianity involved. Its always the ‘innocent children of God’ who get possessed. The Church seems to catalyze these things. Even though Islam fear the Djinn, they do respect them and pay them courtesy. Not exactly true of the Christians, who despise virtually every other religion and non believer, and condem all other deities as false gods. Any wonder sometimes that these other deities might get miffed ? Back to possession. It is interesting to note that the Church has a list of things to certify possession. Unfortunately, nearly all but one of them also occur on the list of things that may happen to someone who ‘has the Holy Spirit brough down upon them’. Speaking in tongues, performing ‘magic’ and miracles, displaying abnormal abilities. In fact, the only discerning factor they have is ‘aversion to holy relics and men of the cloth’. So, in other words, you can display all the major recognised factors of possession, but unless you do something dirty with a crucifix or utter things to the priest along the lines of ‘your mother cooks socks in hell’ then according to the rule book, you could be possessed by a Christianity approved spirit !
So, the Christians have claimed the rights either way you look at it and argue, the Christians have it covered. Mind you, if it wasn’t for the Demons having a sense of humour and not obviously getting too annoyed with us, we wouldn’t have any of the entertaining films such as The Exorcist, The Rite and the new one just released The Devil Inside.
Thinking things logically – would Demons, (aka deities before Christianity) spend all that time, inside a single persons body ‘until it rots’ ? Don’t you think they might have something else better to do ? Another thing perhaps twisted by Christianity ?
Awesome post!
I wanted to hit on the fact that possession plays a very different role in other religions too, such as Voodoo and some of the Eastern teachings, but I was worried about skewing off the topic too far and getting wrapped up into the details of the other practices. You did a good job of it though, being able to sum it up nicely but still keep it short. On the subject though, I find it very interesting that in most of those “other” religions, possession is almost always a vehicle towards greatness. The Demon or spirit is actually aiding the person to achieve or accomplish something impossible or incredible. African shamans pick up red hot coals and put them in their mouths, chewing them up. Things of that nature.
It is only when Christianity gets involved, that things take the sinister turn. And when you look at it, a lot of their certifications towards possession are also symptoms of mental illness, and as you even pointed out, during the height of Christian power almost every ailment or malady was attributed to Satan and the Demons or witchcraft. This is of course after the obliteration of the ancient medicines provided by the Sumerians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and other ancient civilizations that were unfortunate enough to be within marching distance of “Bethlehem”.
Oh, right, sorry. Back to possession.
I don’t know if you would have seen it, but over here in the States we recently had an odd occurrence where several girls and even a teacher at the same school all developed the same kind of ticks. Doctors today were puzzling over why it was going on and what was causing it, so I’m sure if anything even close to this happened in those times, there would be some serious talk of possession. I shudder to think of the fate an epileptic would have met back in those days. In my opinion, a lot of these cases are “cases of Demonic possession” simply because Demonic possession is an acceptable source of blame. This is along the same lines of “Satan tempted me to cheat on my wife today”, and NOT “I was really tempted to cheat on my wife today because we don’t get along anymore, haven’t had sex in two years, and I was really attracted to the other person”. I wonder which of those is more likely? LOL 😀
Anyway, again, awesome post!
Thanks for the thumbs up ! I am always pleased when someone enjoys reading my babble 🙂
We have a Christian group in work with us. Sometimes I go along just to ask some questions. They were all talking about the Holy Ghost and miracles etc, and how speaking in tongues is a sign that the holy ghost is upon someone. So I said “So if I fell to the ground and started babbling nonsense in some foreign language, you lot would jump up and down in praise and happiness for I have the holy ghost down upon me ?”. Their answer, “Probably not. We would either send you to the nearest psycriatric unit or call in the nearest exorcist, not that we like Catholics, but we don’t actually do exorcisms.”
I left it at that. Not a clue…… Still, they inherit will the Earth – and with the state its currently in, they are welcome to it !! 🙂
LOL! Well said sir! Well said indeed!