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 ?