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Based on having read the (mostly) horrific reviews for the new supernatural horror flick "The Devil Inside" (2012), I won't be sprinting to the theatre to see it any time soon. Make that ever. But, despite its reported pure stupidity and total lack of originality or redeeming artistic value, fans are nonetheless flocking to it in droves. What's the fascination? Read More
Evil
"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary. Man alone is quite capable of every wickedness." - Joseph Conrad
"Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them — if you want to." Joseph Conrad was just such a man who kept records. Here's what Wikipedia has to offer us in the way of his insight:
"Conrad's was, indeed, a starkly lucid view of the human condition – a vision similar to that which had been offered in two micro-stories by his ten-years-older Polish compatriot, Bolesław Prus (whose work Conrad admired): "Mold of the Earth" (1884) and "Shades" (1885). Conrad wrote:
Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of to-morrow....
In this world – as I have known it – we are made to suffer without the shadow of a reason, of a cause or of guilt....
There is no morality, no knowledge and no hope; there is only the consciousness of ourselves which drives us about a world that... is always but a vain and floating appearance....
A moment, a twinkling of an eye and nothing remains – but a clot of mud, of cold mud, of dead mud cast into black space, rolling around an extinguished sun. Nothing. Neither thought, nor sound, nor soul. Nothing.
Conrad is the novelist of man in extreme situations. "Those who read me," he wrote in the preface to A Personal Record, "know my conviction that the world, the temporal world, rests on a few very simple ideas; so simple that they must be as old as the hills. It rests, notably, among others, on the idea of Fidelity."
For Conrad fidelity is the barrier man erects against nothingness, against corruption, against the evil that is all about him, insidious, waiting to engulf him, and that in some sense is within him unacknowledged. But what happens when fidelity is submerged, the barrier broken down, and the evil without is acknowledged by the evil within? At his greatest, that is Conrad's theme."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Conrad
Devil
Night sea-journey
Jung used the images of the Nekyia, of 'the night journey on the sea....descend into the belly of the monster (journey to hell)', and of '"Katabasis" (descent into the lower world)'[9] almost interchangeably. His closest followers also saw them as indistinguishable metaphors for 'a descent into the dark, hot depths of the unconscious...a journey to hell and "death"' - emphasising for example that 'the great arc of the night sea journey comprises many lesser rhythms, lesser arcs on the same "primordial pattern"',[10] just like the nekyia.
The post-Jungian James Hillman however made some clear distinctions among them:
The descent of the underworld can be distinguished from the night sea-journey of the hero in many ways… the hero returns from the night sea-journey in better shape for the tasks of life, whereas the nekyia takes the soul into a depth for its own sake so that there is no ‘return.’ The night sea-journey is further marked by building interior heat (tapas), whereas the nekyia goes below that pressured containment, that tempering in the fires of passion, to a zone of utter coldness
The devil image still haunts in our fears of the unconscious and the latent psychosis that supposedly lurks there,
and we still turn to methods of Christianism – moralizing, kind feelings, communal sharing, and childlike naivete – as propitiations against our fear, instead of classical descent into it, the nekyia into imagination… (Only) after his nekyia, Freud, like Aeneas (who carried his father on his back), could finally enter ‘Rome’.
Rene Girard: I See Satan Fall Like Lightning
Throwing the first stone: “mimetic contagion” in action - by John H.
I’m currently reading René Girard’s I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, in which Girard summarises the two key concepts in his thought (see also this previous post):
mimetic desire: the idea that human desire is not innate, but learnt from our neighbour, whom we observe and imitate. This in turn leads to mimetic rivalry, because if I am imitating my neighbour’s desires, then this means we end up desiring the same thing. Girard argues that mimetic rivalry can escalate through a process of “mimetic contagion” until a society is almost torn apart by rivalry, leading to…
the single-victim mechanism: a society torn by mimetic rivalry is brought back into unanimity by identifying a single, arbitrary individual against whom the group unites in an act of violent expulsion, restoring order and calm for the group as a whole.
To illustrate these processes, Girard describes “the horrible miracle of Apollonius of Tyana” as recounted by Philostratus (see first account here). Philostratus describes 2nd century Ephesus as suffering from an epidemic, and the Ephesians turn to the celebrated pagan sage Apollonius for help. Apollonius asserts that an old blind beggar is to blame for the epidemic, and calls on the crowd to stone him. The crowd is reluctant to engage in an act of such shocking brutality, but Apollonius eventually persuades them:
And as soon as some of them began to take shots and hit him with their stones, the beggar who had seemed to blink and be blind, gave them all a sudden glance and showed that his eyes were full of fire. Then the Ephesians recognised that he was a demon, and they stoned him so thoroughly that their stones were heaped into a great cairn around him.
Afterwards, the beggar’s bloody remains are found to be those of a dog the size of a lion. The epidemic immediately ceases, and the grateful Ephesians erect a statue to Heracles over the spot.
As Girard observes, the mythical details put only the thinnest veneer over a story whose underlying (and entirely non-miraculous) reality is only too obvious to us: the transformation of a civilised crowd into a violent mob, who release their rage against an outsider and then convince themselves afterwards that he must have deserved it (“he was a demon!”).
Girard contrasts this story with the account in John’s gospel of the woman taken in adultery. Here we have the reverse situation: an angry crowd who have to be talked out of stoning the woman, rather than a peaceful crowd talked into stoning the beggar. What unites the two stories is “the problem of the first stone“, a problem made explicit in Jesus’ famous statement in John 8:7:
“Whoever is without sin among you, let him cast at her the first stone.”
By placing the words “the first stone” at the end of his statement, Jesus is “prolonging its echo as long as possible, one might say, in the memory of his hearers”. And while “casting the first stone” has become a proverb, there is nothing proverbial in Jesus’ use of it – nor in Apollonius’ parallel (though implicit) understanding of the importance of the “first stone”, as he tries to cajole the Ephesians into stoning the beggar:
And finally the guru succeeds. He obtains what he desires: the first stone. Once it is thrown, Apollonius can take a nap or whatever, for now violence and deceit are bound to triumph.
As Girard continues:
Not purely rhetorical, the first stone is decisive because it is the most difficult to throw. Why is it the most difficult to throw? Because it is the only one without a model.
In contrast, when Jesus responds to the crowd, “the first stone is the last obstacle that prevents the stoning”:
In calling attention to it, in mentioning it expressly, Jesus does all he can to reinforce this obstacle and magnify it. The more those thinking about throwing the first stone perceive the responsibility they would assume in throwing it, the greater the chance that they will let their hands fall and drop the stone.
So in each account we see “mimetic contagion” in action. In Ephesus, once the first stone is thrown:
the second comes fairly fast, thanks to the example of the first; the third comes more quickly still because it has two models rather than one, and so on. As the models multiply, the rhythm of the stoning accelerates.
In contrast, Jesus’ saving the adulterous woman “means that he prevents the violent contagion from getting started”:
Another contagion in the reverse direction is set off, however, a contagion of nonviolence. From the moment the first individual gives up stoning the adulterous woman, he becomes a model who is imitated more and more until finally all the group, guided by Jesus, abandons its plan to stone the woman.
Jesus’ saying about “the first stone” not only saves this woman, but “permits him to point to the true principle not only of ancient stonings but of all crowd phenomena, ancient and modern”: the dynamic of “contagious imitation”, of a mimetic snowballing of violence (or nonviolence).
http://www.confessingevangelical.com/?p=2818
Possession Syndrome
Ever wonder why the "identified patient" subconsciously acts out the conflicts in the family? What possesses them to do so? The devil inside.
"All my heroes were probably the identified patients in their families."
Identified Patient
Identified patient, or "IP", is a term used in a clinical setting to describe the person in a dysfunctional family who has been subconsciously selected to act out the family's inner conflicts in order to keep attention focused on an element that lies outside of the core conflict - who is 'often the split-off carrier of a breakdown in the entire family system...transgenerational'
The term emerged from the work of the Bateson Project on family homeostasis, as a way of identifying a largely unconscious pattern of behavior whereby
'if the painful feelings among the family members increase past a certain point...they may pick on one family member and blame him or her for all the discomfort..."scapegoating"' and thereby creating the IP.
'Satir...saw the identified patient as manifesting an outward sign of the intrapsychic and interpersonal problems within the family system...preserving - while paradoxically revealing - the family's secrets, agendas, and processes'.
Conjoint family therapy stressed accordingly the importance in group therapy that 'the "identified patient", and all the other members of his family attend - his parents and his brothers and sisters, and his uncles and aunts and his grandparents too' - on the grounds that
'it's hard to treat the scapegoat unless the whole family can be persuaded to TAKE BACK THE BAD FEELINGS that he's carrying'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identified_patient
Gotta love the irony! What a paradox!
'more often than not, a person diagnosed as "mentally ill" is the emotional scapegoat for the turmoil in his or her family or associates, and may, in fact, be the "sanest" member of this group...the least disturbed member of the entire group'
“In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.” Nietzsche
Don Quixote
Gordon Lightfoot Don Quixote Lyrics
Through the woodland, through the valley
Comes a horseman wild and free
Tilting at the windmills passing
Who can the brave young horseman be
He is wild but he is mellow
He is strong but he is weak
He is cruel but he is gentle
He is wise but he is meek
Reaching for his saddlebag
He takes a battered book into his hand
Standing like a prophet bold
He shouts across the ocean to the shore
Till he can shout no more
I have come o'er moor and mountain
Like the hawk upon the wing
I was once a shining knight
Who was the guardian of a king
I have searched the whole world over
Looking for a place to sleep
I have seen the strong survive
And I have seen the lean grown weak
See the children of the earth
Who wake to find the table bare
See the gentry in the country
Riding off to take the air
Reaching for his saddlebag
He takes a rusty sword into his hand
Then striking up a knightly pose
He shouts across the ocean to the shore
Till he can shout no more
See the jailor with his key
Who locks away all trace of sin
See the judge upon the bench
Who tries the case as best he can
See the wise and wicked ones
Who feed upon life's sacred fire
See the soldier with his gun
Who must be dead to be admired
See the man who tips the needle
See the man who buys and sells
See the man who puts the collar
On the ones who dare not tell
See the drunkard in the tavern
Stemming gold to make ends meet
See the youth in ghetto black
Condemned to life upon the street
Reaching for his saddlebag
He takes a tarnished cross into his hand
Then standing like a preacher now
He shouts across the ocean to the shore
Then in a blaze of tangled hooves
He gallops off across the dusty plain
In vain to search again
Where no one will hear
Through the woodland, through the valley
Comes a horseman wild and free
Tilting at the windmills passing
Who can the brave young horseman be
He is wild but he is mellow
He is strong but he is weak
He is cruel but he is gentle
He is wise but he is meek
My answers
What is exorcism?
Luke 8:30 "I am Legion, for we are many."
Walt Whitman: "I am Large, I contain multitudes".
How does it heal? Catharsis
Mathew 8:31 The demons begged Jesus, “If you drive us out, send us into the herd of pigs.”
Pandora opened the box (or the jar, whatever it was), which contained, instead of real gifts, just evil and plagues. All of them flew out of Pandora's box and spread into the world: crime, poverty, pain, hunger, sickness, vice. They all looked like small, winged creatures.
Can we learn something valuable about psychotherapy from exorcism?
But the gods, feeling a little sorry for what they were about to do, had put, among the evil creatures, a good one whose task was to heal the wounds of the body and soul. This wonderful creature was Hope. When Pandora's box was opened again, Hope managed to fly away and to go around the world and heal the wounds produced by the plagues. But, as she escaped much later, she is always the last one to arrive. That's why, when people are harassed by problems, the only thing that helps them go ahead is hope.
Are there vital existential or spiritual questions addressed by exorcism--for example, the archetypal riddle of evil--that psychotherapy detrimentally avoids or neglects?
The archetypal riddle of evil solved! Hell is OTHER people.
An artistic representation: Mimetic Contagion
The Green Mile (Choking and Infecting Scene)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG3giIafUqk
Embellishments: Pandora's Box; Vas Tenemos; Introjection; Projection; Scapegoat vs. Sadist; Poetic Justice
The Devil Inside
There is no mystery about possession and exorcism if you ask the right questions. Pioneers in the release of discarnate spirits, including the spirits of the deceased and the demonic, have been reporting such phenomena since the 1920s. Carl Jung released spirits from his own home and wrote about it in his 'Seven Sermons to the Dead'. Physician Dr. Carl Wickland, dentist Dr. William Baldwin and Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Hans Naegeli-Osjord are just a few of the total number of professionals who have encountered spirits attached to the etheric energy fields of their patients. This is a much more common phenomenon that publicly acknowledged. It is about time that the reality of this were to be investigated with scientific rigour rather than so-called 'experts' offering their misguided opinions.
Bravo on this article, and also to Kelly Cash for her literary references
Bravo for taking the phenomena of possession and exorcism seriously. I'd add the phenomenon of having received a curse.
I'm mostly a pretty traditional, conventional psychologist. I do however work with an energy therapist, Dale Petterson, who uses, among other techniques, the Body Code techniques worked out by Nelson Bradley. If you Google Body Code and/or Bradley's name you can access information on the web about this technique an its inventor. I've also written several psychologytoday.com blogposts on Dale's energy techniques.
I mention The Body Code now because Dale and I working together used this technique sucessfully to identify and remove a curse from my client, a woman suffering extreme anxiety and ptsd subsequent to a horrifically botched surgery and painful recuperation.
The curse had been issued by a crazy relative who had entered her recovery room while she was still only semi-conscious. He had cursed her with not being able to recover because she had distanced herself from his extreme fundamentalist religious beliefs. When we removed the curse, she felt her anxiety abate. Her overall emotional recovery also significantly improved.
Hers was a complex case with multiple facets, but removal of the curse was a core element of the treatment.
The good news is that Bradley's Body Code technique involves none of the potentially harmful techniques of exorcism. There's no going to battle with the devil; just fast and effective removal of its power and influence. The whole technique is easily accomplished within one treatment session.
So thank you for writing this article respecting a phenomenon that seems to be quite real even if traditional psychological understandings do not yet understand it.
And thanks to Kelly Cash as well for the fascinating literary references.
You are welcome Susan!
We kicked the devil's ass on that one Sir Dr. D! Ooooooorah! I think I am done with this article!
Paul Cash: Hey!
Paul Cash: Hey! Are you OK? Are you OK?
Kelly Cash: Dr. D is unresponsive.
Paul Cash: Keith! Go call 911 and come back with an AED.
http://bit.ly/znJPj4
Wikipedia term Projective Identification
In extreme cases, the recipient can lose any sense of self - 'to become inhuman, a moving bag of skin, with important symbolic messages rattling about inside' - and may find themselves acting out in 'attempts at self-exorcism; the attempt to rid the self of projections or possession'
Sure, why not?
Some needs are conveyed through literal expressions and other needs are conveyed through metaphoric expressions.
All of this happens on a vast spectrum from conventional to unconventional and varies according to culture, society or other markers which dictate a particular standard. Exorcsism and possession are part of that spectrum.
"All the worlds a stage and the men and women merely players."-W.S
This thrill is fueled by one
This thrill is fueled by one main aspect of the human mind... the ego. The ego that takes over them whenever they feel threatened(really or not), that makes them possessive with their relatives, that makes parents tyrants with their children because they see them as possessions more than future beings that need education...... that makes them do dangerous things to try to overcome their complexes.
People are fascinated by the ego because it is hidden and elusive. It makes them feel powerful and sometimes feeble. Many people feel like it's a ugly monster inside them so they hide their true intentions. The ego is so powerful that it forces people to hide beind masks and demons are the mask that the roman catholic church has put on it.
The roman catholic church has put so much emphasis on demons and the fear of them that they became their own demons in many aspects. Nature abhors vacuum.
May I suggest a short documentary.....
"Madness In The Fast Lane" is a very interesting documentary on Youtube from the BBC, though not about possession. I also enjoy the Malachi Martin interviews on Youtube. Now there is a man who has seen a few things.........
Sir Dr. D!
Where you be? All is well on your side?
Real stories of demon possession
I have been studying people who understand themselves to have been demon possessed through my PHD studies. Some of the work has been published here http://www.drroberthbennettphd.com/Products.html
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