Demonic Possession A Case of Demonic Possession
February 2008By Richard E. Gallagher
http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?print=1&did=0308-gallagher
Richard E. Gallagher, M.D., is a board-certified psychiatrist in private practice in Hawthorne, New York, and Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at New York Medical College. He is also on the faculties of the Columbia University Psychoanalytic Institute and a Roman Catholic seminary. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton University, magna cum laude in Classics, and trained in Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Gallagher is the only American psychiatrist to have been a consistent U.S. delegate to the International Association of Exorcists, and has addressed its plenary session.
Amid widespread confusion and scepticism about the subject, the chief goal of this article is to document a contemporary and clear-cut case of demonic possession. Even those who doubt such a phenomenon exists may find the following example rather persuasive. For clergy, or indeed anyone involved in the spiritual or psychological care of others, it is equally critical, however, to recognize the many and infinitely more common "counterfeits" (i.e., false assignations) of demonic influence or attack as well.
This need for caution and precision is especially important at a time when untrained laymen or, worse, public ministries may unfortunately mislead or even exploit the faithful in this area. One has only to turn on a television to witness obvious abuses -- for instance, tele­vangelists' dunning their audience for cash as they conduct exhibitionist ceremonies before large assemblies of the overly credulous. Sharp distinctions -- long known to traditional theologians, but now often ignored -- need to be drawn.
Possession is only one and not the most common type of demonic attack. Possession is very rare, though not as exceedingly so as many imagine. So-called "oppression," or "infestation," is less rare, though hardly frequent either, and sometimes more difficult to discern accurately (1). For our purposes here, a truly "possessed" individual exhibits so massive and unequivocal an assault that we will use it as the paradigmatic example of a genuine demonic attack. This case will be contrasted not to the many lesser degrees of demonic assault, but rather to the varied kinds of purported demonic involvement -- often-psychotic conditions -- that turn out to have a purely natural explanation (2). These states should be more widely recognized as such by religious practitioners. This need is especially great among the many laymen now in deliverance ministries, a rapidly growing worldwide phenomenon (3).
The Case of a Modern-Day Demoniac
To show, first, that the devil, however rarely, may indeed "attack" by possessing an individual, I present here a detailed summary of a present-day demonic possession. It is truly an obvious example of a genuine attack, at least to an objective observer.
Each case of possession (as well as oppression) is, in one sense, unique. What makes this example especially singular -- but also particularly and powerfully convincing -- is that the woman involved not only exhibited, in a highly dramatic fashion, the classic signs of possession but, having been an avowed and prominent Satanist in her life, also seemed to display "special occult powers" even outside her trance states, not infrequently in a quite open manner to anyone who came in close contact with her.
All the facts presented here are true and verifiable by the multiple and highly credible individuals involved in her care. For reasons of confidentiality, we will identify our subject with a pseudonym (she agreed to have her story published if she were not identified), and little incidental material is included.
"Julia" is a middle-aged, self-supporting Caucasian woman who lives in the U.S. She first approached her local clergy on her own, and was soon referred to an official priest-exorcist (who collaborated on this article) to explore getting help. She herself was quite convinced from the start that she was being "attacked" in some way by a demon or Satan. During the course of her lengthy and thorough evaluation, this writer, a board-certified academic psychiatrist, who was asked to provide a medical and psychiatric opinion, eventually saw her.
Julia revealed a long, disturbing history of involvement with explicitly satanic groups (an obvious, historical antecedent to her then-present condition and to her accompanying "psychic" abilities, as they might be characterized). Though raised a Catholic, she no longer practiced the Faith. But, with considerable ambivalence, she stated she might need the Catholic Rite of Exorcism.
Julia was not the typical type of individual who frequently importunes the Church for help but who is really in need of psychiatric or other medical intervention. She was in no way psychotic; in fact, she was consistently logical, highly intelligent, and even quite engaging at times, despite her obvious turmoil.
Periodically, in our presence, Julia would go into a trance state of a recurring nature. Mentally troubled individuals often "dissociate,"4 but Julia's trances were accompanied by an unusual phenomenon: Out of her mouth would come various threats, taunts, and scatological language, phrases like "Leave her alone, you idiot," "She's ours," "Leave, you imbecile priest," or just "Leave." The tone of this voice differed markedly from Julia's own, and it varied, sometimes sounding guttural and vaguely masculine, at other points high pitched. Most of her comments during these "trances," or at the subsequent exorcisms, displayed a marked contempt for anything religious or sacred.
When Julia came out of these trances, she strongly professed no recollection of these remarks or of having said anything at all. An experienced psychiatrist might well conclude that we were probably, therefore, dealing with a dissociated personality or, more precisely, even Dissociative Identity Disorder (elaborated on later). What quickly made this understandable hypothesis implausible, however, was several other peculiar though obviously related phenomena, but a sampling of which is covered here.
Because of the complexity of this case, we assembled a team to assist. At varying points, this group comprised several qualified mental-health personnel, at least four Catholic priests, a deacon and his wife, two nuns (both nurses, one psychiatric), and several lay volunteers. We made a number of phone calls to arrange gathering together to help Julia. Julia herself was not in on these phone discussions; she was far from the area at the time. Astonishingly, Julia's "other" voice -- again sometimes deep, sometimes high pitched -- would actually interrupt the telephone conversations and somehow come in over the phone line! The voice(s) would espouse the same messages: "Leave her alone," "Leave, you idiots," "Get away from her," "She's ours." Julia, again, said later that she was unaware of any such conversation. And yet this speech was heard distinctly by several of the team on a number of occasions.
As mentioned, even outside her trances, Julia unmistakably displayed "psychic" abilities; put another way, her presence was clearly associated with paranormal events. Sometimes objects around her would fly off the shelves, the rare phenomenon of psychokinesis known to parapsychologists. Julia was also in possession of knowledge of facts and occurrences beyond any possibility of their natural acquisition. She commonly reported information about the relatives, household composition, family deaths and illnesses, etc., of members of our team, without ever having observed or been informed about them. As an example, she knew the personality and precise manner of death (i.e., the exact type of cancer) of a relative of a team member that no one could conceivably have guessed. She once spoke about the strange behaviour of some inexplicably frenzied animals beyond her direct observation: Though residing in another city, she commented, "So those cats really went berserk last night, didn't they?" the morning after two cats in a team member's house uncharacteristically had violently attacked each other at about 2 AM.
As another example, Julia once described not only the actual surroundings (including the décor of his room) but also the exact state of mind (sceptical and dismissive) of a priest peripherally involved, whom she had never met. The facts were subsequently precisely confirmed. Julia could also consistently depict, from afar and with amazing detail, the activity of one of the principal priests involved. She would repeatedly report, from her distant vantage, whether and when he was in pain (he suffered from a recurring illness), often where he was (e.g., walking on a beach), and remarkably, even what he was wearing at the time (e.g., a windbreaker).
Rounding out the picture of this case, finally, were the happenings during the lengthy exorcism rituals, that Julia she requested. There were two series of such sessions separated by a period of time. (Ultimately, due to her hesitations, these efforts were interrupted and may or may not be resumed. Exorcism per se, a worthy and complex topic in itself, is not the focus here. This article looks rather to the reality of the subject of possession and its counterfeits.)
The exorcism began on a warm day in June. Despite the weather, the room where the rite was being conducted grew distinctly cold. Later, however, as the entity in Julia began to spout vitriol and make strange noises, members of the team felt themselves profusely sweating due to a stifling emanation of heat. The participants all said they found the heat unbearable.
Julia at first had gone into a quiet trance-like state. After the prayers and invocations of the Roman Ritual had been going on for a while, however, multiple voices and sounds came out of her. One set consisted of loud growls and animal-like noises, which seemed to the group impossible for any human to mimic. At one point, the voices spoke in foreign languages, including recognizable Latin and Spanish. (Julia herself only speaks English, as she later verified to us.)
The voices were noticeably attacking in nature, and often insolent, blasphemous, and highly scatological. They cursed and insulted the participants in the crudest way. They were frequently threatening -- trying, it appeared, to fight back -- "Leave her alone," "Stop, you harlots" (to the nuns), "You'll be sorry," and the like.
Julia also exhibited enormous strength. Despite the religious sisters and three others holding her down with all their might, they struggled to restrain her. Remarkably, for about 30 minutes, she actually levitated about half a foot in the air (5).
The presumptive target of the exorcism, the entity (or entities) that was possessing Julia, could also distinguish between holy water and regular water. She would scream in pain when the blessed water was sprinkled upon her, but have no reaction to clandestine use of unblessed water. During the ceremonies, she also, as previously, revealed hidden or past events in the lives of the various attendees, including information about deceased relatives completely unknown to her.
While many other details could be added, the above sufficiently convey the general picture. As noted, the exorcisms were seen as helpful, but have not yet resolved the matter of the possession. It should again be noted that Julia herself had no recollection at all of what occurred during the ceremonies.
Summary of the Case
The case of Julia illustrates a number of the classic signs of possession. The venerable Roman Ritual (Ritual Romanum of Pope Paul IV, 1614) lists as strongly suggestive signs, prominent among others, hidden knowledge, the ability to speak an unknown language, and abnormal physical strength. Other elements traditionally associated with possession were evident as well, including, invariably, expressions of hatred of the sacred, blasphemous and vituperative language, the ability to discern (and recoil from) blessed objects, the phenomenon of levitation, and, most importantly, a trance-like state interrupted by the presence of what appears as an independent, intelligent entity (or entities), and the expressed desire of this intelligence not to leave the afflicted.
Many of these individual features, let alone the full constellation of this overall "syndrome," are, to state the obvious, simply inexplicable on psychiatric or medical grounds. From a psychiatric point of view, two major features distinguish this and other such cases from a mental disorder: (A) the clear presence of paranormal phenomena, and (B) an overall pattern of presentation that, while it may overlap with certain psychiatric symptoms, nevertheless constitutes a truly sui generis, distinct group of features. Therefore, we clearly felt, in this instance, that we were indeed dealing with a genuinely possessed individual, albeit one complicated even further by her Satanist history and "psychic" abilities presumed consequent to her cultic involvement and/or her possessed state.
The Medical/Psychiatric Perspective
Several principles of the relevant discernment and diagnosis require emphasis. First, it needs to be acknowledged that medical input (which, given the highly bizarre nature of these cases, for practical purposes in today's world almost invariably entails an appropriate psychiatric consultation), while indispensable, is not without its own risk. Unsurprisingly, physicians, and perhaps even more so psychiatrists as a group, are generally not very open to, or knowledgeable about, the possibility of demonic possession. They have been trained (and rightly so) to be sceptical and to base their diagnoses and interventions on more standard criteria of modern scientific canons of judgment -- e.g., typical symptom clusters, the ability to replicate data, lab results, blind clinical trials, etc.6 These criteria cannot apply to historical singularities, of course. In any case, physicians should not be expected to make discernments in matters of this sort -- it is not their trained task or area of expertise -- and more properly is the professional responsibility (one hopes with due caution, sobriety, and openness to medical consultation) of a suitable and knowledgeable member of the clergy.
What the physician/psychiatrist can properly offer, however, is certainly indispensable in its own right: the professional expertise to determine whether the case in question fits a medically recognizable, exclusionary syndrome. This critical role can save all parties an enormous amount of time and effort. The vast majority of such "cases," which could easily be misconstrued as possible attacks by a demon or the like, indeed turn out to have an obvious psychiatric explanation, or less often a neurological or other medical explanation.
Another important orienting perspective is, unfortunately, often not well understood by many non-medically trained people, lay and clerical alike. Lack of experience in medical pathology can serve as a great source of confusion in certain religious circles. Surprisingly to many people, psychiatrists are in the frequent habit of encountering and diagnosing an assortment of patients who claim to be experiencing demonic or occult attacks in some way or, conversely, who report conversations with God, mystical visions, etc. The typical psychiatrist, or other mental-health practitioner for that matter, commonly meets patients who claim all sorts of contact or special visitations from "God," the "devil," a "spirit," etc. Patients may complain on a regular basis that demons are harassing or berating them; telling them to perform shameful, grandiose, or destructive acts; even touching them (via tactile hallucinations). It is easy, therefore, for such professionals to draw the nearly obvious corollary that all such cases purporting to have a diabolic or occult aspect are simply a reflection of psychiatric pathology or the patient's imagination. Many doctors thus regard all talk of demonic possession as hopelessly ignorant and out of date, "medieval," superstitious, even psychotic per se.
The obvious danger is that such an opinion gets generalized to all cases indiscriminately, even those highly rare ones with manifestly inexplicable or preternatural features as well, such as a possibly genuine demonic possession or oppression. For this reason, the astute student of demonology and official exorcist of Paris from 1924-1962, Joseph de Tonquédec, S.J., wrote back in 1923 that the scepticism of physicians arises from "an unwarranted generalization of what they observe in mental institutions or in private practice" (Introduction à l'étude du merveilleux et du miracle). Sadly, this reflection is probably even truer today, when even fewer doctors have any sound, sophisticated theological knowledge.
While it is unfortunate, though understandable, that such a lack of discernment exists among most (but by no means all) members of the medical profession, the far more common danger is exactly the reverse. Clergy or laymen may be drawn, as noted, to the opposite reasoning and suspect demonic activity when no such conclusion is warranted. Again, de Tonquédec noted this problem early in the last century: "some of the faithful and certain priests" -- I would say more commonly today fundamentalist ministers or laymen in quasi-clerical or other helping roles -- "take the opposite stand and also end in error, because of their ignorance of mental and nervous pathology and their failure to follow the guidelines given by the Church. As a result, they attribute to the devil certain disturbances that are purely natural in origin" (ibid.). By contrast, the Roman Ritual stipulates recourse to medical expertise and the need for prudent caution before ruling out the naturalistic. St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century similarly warned clerics not to jump to a supernatural explanation when a purely natural one sufficed. Much harm can result from misdiagnosis either way.
Psychiatric Counterfeits of Possession
There are some common psychiatric conditions that are apt to mislead the clergy or an overly credulous public in this regard. I pinpoint "psychiatric" even though there are other medical conditions that may potentially confuse laymen. For instance, neurological and in particular seizure disorders of a complex nature come to mind. These disorders may well have prompted many in past eras to suspect wrongly a diabolic etiology. With the growth of medical knowledge and increased public sophistication about medical matters in recent centuries, however, it has become undoubtedly much less common to ascribe these neurological diseases to the actions of the devil. The most commonly confusing disorders, in my professional experience, are almost always psychiatric or quasi-psychiatric in nature.
READ ON AT: http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?print=1&did=0308-gallagher
February 2008By Richard E. Gallagher
http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?print=1&did=0308-gallagher
Richard E. Gallagher, M.D., is a board-certified psychiatrist in private practice in Hawthorne, New York, and Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at New York Medical College. He is also on the faculties of the Columbia University Psychoanalytic Institute and a Roman Catholic seminary. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Princeton University, magna cum laude in Classics, and trained in Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Gallagher is the only American psychiatrist to have been a consistent U.S. delegate to the International Association of Exorcists, and has addressed its plenary session.
Amid widespread confusion and scepticism about the subject, the chief goal of this article is to document a contemporary and clear-cut case of demonic possession. Even those who doubt such a phenomenon exists may find the following example rather persuasive. For clergy, or indeed anyone involved in the spiritual or psychological care of others, it is equally critical, however, to recognize the many and infinitely more common "counterfeits" (i.e., false assignations) of demonic influence or attack as well.
This need for caution and precision is especially important at a time when untrained laymen or, worse, public ministries may unfortunately mislead or even exploit the faithful in this area. One has only to turn on a television to witness obvious abuses -- for instance, tele­vangelists' dunning their audience for cash as they conduct exhibitionist ceremonies before large assemblies of the overly credulous. Sharp distinctions -- long known to traditional theologians, but now often ignored -- need to be drawn.
Possession is only one and not the most common type of demonic attack. Possession is very rare, though not as exceedingly so as many imagine. So-called "oppression," or "infestation," is less rare, though hardly frequent either, and sometimes more difficult to discern accurately (1). For our purposes here, a truly "possessed" individual exhibits so massive and unequivocal an assault that we will use it as the paradigmatic example of a genuine demonic attack. This case will be contrasted not to the many lesser degrees of demonic assault, but rather to the varied kinds of purported demonic involvement -- often-psychotic conditions -- that turn out to have a purely natural explanation (2). These states should be more widely recognized as such by religious practitioners. This need is especially great among the many laymen now in deliverance ministries, a rapidly growing worldwide phenomenon (3).
The Case of a Modern-Day Demoniac
To show, first, that the devil, however rarely, may indeed "attack" by possessing an individual, I present here a detailed summary of a present-day demonic possession. It is truly an obvious example of a genuine attack, at least to an objective observer.
Each case of possession (as well as oppression) is, in one sense, unique. What makes this example especially singular -- but also particularly and powerfully convincing -- is that the woman involved not only exhibited, in a highly dramatic fashion, the classic signs of possession but, having been an avowed and prominent Satanist in her life, also seemed to display "special occult powers" even outside her trance states, not infrequently in a quite open manner to anyone who came in close contact with her.
All the facts presented here are true and verifiable by the multiple and highly credible individuals involved in her care. For reasons of confidentiality, we will identify our subject with a pseudonym (she agreed to have her story published if she were not identified), and little incidental material is included.
"Julia" is a middle-aged, self-supporting Caucasian woman who lives in the U.S. She first approached her local clergy on her own, and was soon referred to an official priest-exorcist (who collaborated on this article) to explore getting help. She herself was quite convinced from the start that she was being "attacked" in some way by a demon or Satan. During the course of her lengthy and thorough evaluation, this writer, a board-certified academic psychiatrist, who was asked to provide a medical and psychiatric opinion, eventually saw her.
Julia revealed a long, disturbing history of involvement with explicitly satanic groups (an obvious, historical antecedent to her then-present condition and to her accompanying "psychic" abilities, as they might be characterized). Though raised a Catholic, she no longer practiced the Faith. But, with considerable ambivalence, she stated she might need the Catholic Rite of Exorcism.
Julia was not the typical type of individual who frequently importunes the Church for help but who is really in need of psychiatric or other medical intervention. She was in no way psychotic; in fact, she was consistently logical, highly intelligent, and even quite engaging at times, despite her obvious turmoil.
Periodically, in our presence, Julia would go into a trance state of a recurring nature. Mentally troubled individuals often "dissociate,"4 but Julia's trances were accompanied by an unusual phenomenon: Out of her mouth would come various threats, taunts, and scatological language, phrases like "Leave her alone, you idiot," "She's ours," "Leave, you imbecile priest," or just "Leave." The tone of this voice differed markedly from Julia's own, and it varied, sometimes sounding guttural and vaguely masculine, at other points high pitched. Most of her comments during these "trances," or at the subsequent exorcisms, displayed a marked contempt for anything religious or sacred.
When Julia came out of these trances, she strongly professed no recollection of these remarks or of having said anything at all. An experienced psychiatrist might well conclude that we were probably, therefore, dealing with a dissociated personality or, more precisely, even Dissociative Identity Disorder (elaborated on later). What quickly made this understandable hypothesis implausible, however, was several other peculiar though obviously related phenomena, but a sampling of which is covered here.
Because of the complexity of this case, we assembled a team to assist. At varying points, this group comprised several qualified mental-health personnel, at least four Catholic priests, a deacon and his wife, two nuns (both nurses, one psychiatric), and several lay volunteers. We made a number of phone calls to arrange gathering together to help Julia. Julia herself was not in on these phone discussions; she was far from the area at the time. Astonishingly, Julia's "other" voice -- again sometimes deep, sometimes high pitched -- would actually interrupt the telephone conversations and somehow come in over the phone line! The voice(s) would espouse the same messages: "Leave her alone," "Leave, you idiots," "Get away from her," "She's ours." Julia, again, said later that she was unaware of any such conversation. And yet this speech was heard distinctly by several of the team on a number of occasions.
As mentioned, even outside her trances, Julia unmistakably displayed "psychic" abilities; put another way, her presence was clearly associated with paranormal events. Sometimes objects around her would fly off the shelves, the rare phenomenon of psychokinesis known to parapsychologists. Julia was also in possession of knowledge of facts and occurrences beyond any possibility of their natural acquisition. She commonly reported information about the relatives, household composition, family deaths and illnesses, etc., of members of our team, without ever having observed or been informed about them. As an example, she knew the personality and precise manner of death (i.e., the exact type of cancer) of a relative of a team member that no one could conceivably have guessed. She once spoke about the strange behaviour of some inexplicably frenzied animals beyond her direct observation: Though residing in another city, she commented, "So those cats really went berserk last night, didn't they?" the morning after two cats in a team member's house uncharacteristically had violently attacked each other at about 2 AM.
As another example, Julia once described not only the actual surroundings (including the décor of his room) but also the exact state of mind (sceptical and dismissive) of a priest peripherally involved, whom she had never met. The facts were subsequently precisely confirmed. Julia could also consistently depict, from afar and with amazing detail, the activity of one of the principal priests involved. She would repeatedly report, from her distant vantage, whether and when he was in pain (he suffered from a recurring illness), often where he was (e.g., walking on a beach), and remarkably, even what he was wearing at the time (e.g., a windbreaker).
Rounding out the picture of this case, finally, were the happenings during the lengthy exorcism rituals, that Julia she requested. There were two series of such sessions separated by a period of time. (Ultimately, due to her hesitations, these efforts were interrupted and may or may not be resumed. Exorcism per se, a worthy and complex topic in itself, is not the focus here. This article looks rather to the reality of the subject of possession and its counterfeits.)
The exorcism began on a warm day in June. Despite the weather, the room where the rite was being conducted grew distinctly cold. Later, however, as the entity in Julia began to spout vitriol and make strange noises, members of the team felt themselves profusely sweating due to a stifling emanation of heat. The participants all said they found the heat unbearable.
Julia at first had gone into a quiet trance-like state. After the prayers and invocations of the Roman Ritual had been going on for a while, however, multiple voices and sounds came out of her. One set consisted of loud growls and animal-like noises, which seemed to the group impossible for any human to mimic. At one point, the voices spoke in foreign languages, including recognizable Latin and Spanish. (Julia herself only speaks English, as she later verified to us.)
The voices were noticeably attacking in nature, and often insolent, blasphemous, and highly scatological. They cursed and insulted the participants in the crudest way. They were frequently threatening -- trying, it appeared, to fight back -- "Leave her alone," "Stop, you harlots" (to the nuns), "You'll be sorry," and the like.
Julia also exhibited enormous strength. Despite the religious sisters and three others holding her down with all their might, they struggled to restrain her. Remarkably, for about 30 minutes, she actually levitated about half a foot in the air (5).
The presumptive target of the exorcism, the entity (or entities) that was possessing Julia, could also distinguish between holy water and regular water. She would scream in pain when the blessed water was sprinkled upon her, but have no reaction to clandestine use of unblessed water. During the ceremonies, she also, as previously, revealed hidden or past events in the lives of the various attendees, including information about deceased relatives completely unknown to her.
While many other details could be added, the above sufficiently convey the general picture. As noted, the exorcisms were seen as helpful, but have not yet resolved the matter of the possession. It should again be noted that Julia herself had no recollection at all of what occurred during the ceremonies.
Summary of the Case
The case of Julia illustrates a number of the classic signs of possession. The venerable Roman Ritual (Ritual Romanum of Pope Paul IV, 1614) lists as strongly suggestive signs, prominent among others, hidden knowledge, the ability to speak an unknown language, and abnormal physical strength. Other elements traditionally associated with possession were evident as well, including, invariably, expressions of hatred of the sacred, blasphemous and vituperative language, the ability to discern (and recoil from) blessed objects, the phenomenon of levitation, and, most importantly, a trance-like state interrupted by the presence of what appears as an independent, intelligent entity (or entities), and the expressed desire of this intelligence not to leave the afflicted.
Many of these individual features, let alone the full constellation of this overall "syndrome," are, to state the obvious, simply inexplicable on psychiatric or medical grounds. From a psychiatric point of view, two major features distinguish this and other such cases from a mental disorder: (A) the clear presence of paranormal phenomena, and (B) an overall pattern of presentation that, while it may overlap with certain psychiatric symptoms, nevertheless constitutes a truly sui generis, distinct group of features. Therefore, we clearly felt, in this instance, that we were indeed dealing with a genuinely possessed individual, albeit one complicated even further by her Satanist history and "psychic" abilities presumed consequent to her cultic involvement and/or her possessed state.
The Medical/Psychiatric Perspective
Several principles of the relevant discernment and diagnosis require emphasis. First, it needs to be acknowledged that medical input (which, given the highly bizarre nature of these cases, for practical purposes in today's world almost invariably entails an appropriate psychiatric consultation), while indispensable, is not without its own risk. Unsurprisingly, physicians, and perhaps even more so psychiatrists as a group, are generally not very open to, or knowledgeable about, the possibility of demonic possession. They have been trained (and rightly so) to be sceptical and to base their diagnoses and interventions on more standard criteria of modern scientific canons of judgment -- e.g., typical symptom clusters, the ability to replicate data, lab results, blind clinical trials, etc.6 These criteria cannot apply to historical singularities, of course. In any case, physicians should not be expected to make discernments in matters of this sort -- it is not their trained task or area of expertise -- and more properly is the professional responsibility (one hopes with due caution, sobriety, and openness to medical consultation) of a suitable and knowledgeable member of the clergy.
What the physician/psychiatrist can properly offer, however, is certainly indispensable in its own right: the professional expertise to determine whether the case in question fits a medically recognizable, exclusionary syndrome. This critical role can save all parties an enormous amount of time and effort. The vast majority of such "cases," which could easily be misconstrued as possible attacks by a demon or the like, indeed turn out to have an obvious psychiatric explanation, or less often a neurological or other medical explanation.
Another important orienting perspective is, unfortunately, often not well understood by many non-medically trained people, lay and clerical alike. Lack of experience in medical pathology can serve as a great source of confusion in certain religious circles. Surprisingly to many people, psychiatrists are in the frequent habit of encountering and diagnosing an assortment of patients who claim to be experiencing demonic or occult attacks in some way or, conversely, who report conversations with God, mystical visions, etc. The typical psychiatrist, or other mental-health practitioner for that matter, commonly meets patients who claim all sorts of contact or special visitations from "God," the "devil," a "spirit," etc. Patients may complain on a regular basis that demons are harassing or berating them; telling them to perform shameful, grandiose, or destructive acts; even touching them (via tactile hallucinations). It is easy, therefore, for such professionals to draw the nearly obvious corollary that all such cases purporting to have a diabolic or occult aspect are simply a reflection of psychiatric pathology or the patient's imagination. Many doctors thus regard all talk of demonic possession as hopelessly ignorant and out of date, "medieval," superstitious, even psychotic per se.
The obvious danger is that such an opinion gets generalized to all cases indiscriminately, even those highly rare ones with manifestly inexplicable or preternatural features as well, such as a possibly genuine demonic possession or oppression. For this reason, the astute student of demonology and official exorcist of Paris from 1924-1962, Joseph de Tonquédec, S.J., wrote back in 1923 that the scepticism of physicians arises from "an unwarranted generalization of what they observe in mental institutions or in private practice" (Introduction à l'étude du merveilleux et du miracle). Sadly, this reflection is probably even truer today, when even fewer doctors have any sound, sophisticated theological knowledge.
While it is unfortunate, though understandable, that such a lack of discernment exists among most (but by no means all) members of the medical profession, the far more common danger is exactly the reverse. Clergy or laymen may be drawn, as noted, to the opposite reasoning and suspect demonic activity when no such conclusion is warranted. Again, de Tonquédec noted this problem early in the last century: "some of the faithful and certain priests" -- I would say more commonly today fundamentalist ministers or laymen in quasi-clerical or other helping roles -- "take the opposite stand and also end in error, because of their ignorance of mental and nervous pathology and their failure to follow the guidelines given by the Church. As a result, they attribute to the devil certain disturbances that are purely natural in origin" (ibid.). By contrast, the Roman Ritual stipulates recourse to medical expertise and the need for prudent caution before ruling out the naturalistic. St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century similarly warned clerics not to jump to a supernatural explanation when a purely natural one sufficed. Much harm can result from misdiagnosis either way.
Psychiatric Counterfeits of Possession
There are some common psychiatric conditions that are apt to mislead the clergy or an overly credulous public in this regard. I pinpoint "psychiatric" even though there are other medical conditions that may potentially confuse laymen. For instance, neurological and in particular seizure disorders of a complex nature come to mind. These disorders may well have prompted many in past eras to suspect wrongly a diabolic etiology. With the growth of medical knowledge and increased public sophistication about medical matters in recent centuries, however, it has become undoubtedly much less common to ascribe these neurological diseases to the actions of the devil. The most commonly confusing disorders, in my professional experience, are almost always psychiatric or quasi-psychiatric in nature.
READ ON AT: http://www.newoxfordreview.org/article.jsp?print=1&did=0308-gallagher
