|
||||||||||||
|
|
In 1973, audiences all over the world watched as little Regan MacNeil,
an adorable pre-pubescent girl, became a hideous monster who spewed pea-soup
vomit, rotated her head 360 degrees and spouted vile obscenities to a pair of
priests determined to rid her of the demon that possessed her. The Exorcist
was a worldwide phenomenon that even attracted the attention of the Vatican.
For better or for worse, the entire world became aware of the Catholic ritual
for casting out demons - exorcism - and the phrase "The Devil made me do
it" took on a whole new meaning. The belief in the ability of evil spirits to take over a person's
body has its roots in ancient times when most illness, psychological or otherwise,
was attributed to evil spirits. It only stands to reason that if demons are
causing someone's illness, then the cure for illness is to cast the demons out
- hence, the need for exorcism. Exorcism has a place in many major religions,
as possession by demons is part of their belief system. The Bible contains numerous
passages that describe the exorcisms of demons from the bodies of those whom
they had possessed. The movie The Exorcist emphasized the belief that attempting
to exorcise a demon is a dangerous thing to do. The Catholic Church concurs.
The Rites of Exorcism include preparation for going face to face with a demon
in possession of a human, and most religious scholars agree that facing a demon
without ultimate faith in the power of God over demons is a sure recipe for
disaster for both the exorcist and the possessed. While exorcism has popularly come to mean the casting out
of demons, there is more to the definition than that. The word exorcism is derived
from the Greek word meaning 'to adjure or swear' and the prefix ex meaning 'out
of' - literally, "to swear out of". The act of exorcism is to force
a demon out of a person or animal of which it has taken possession by enforcing
the Word of a higher power. The strength of exorcism lies in the name of the
power being invoked - whether it be God, Jesus, or any other entity whom the
exorcist believes has the power to force a demon to obey. The belief in demon possession, once widespread, has waned
in modern times as science has learned more about the functioning of the human
body. Many of today's well-known illnesses would have been "diagnosed"
as demon possession in earlier times when the world-view was more likely to
accept supernatural explanations. Epilepsy, schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome,
dissociative personality disorders like multiple personality disorder - would
all have been seen as cases of demon possession. No matter how far science has
come in explaining such happenings, however, there are still some aspects of
demonic possession that cannot be explained away as a malfunction of the brain
or an illness. In 1999, Pope John Paul announced the release of the first
major change to the ritual of exorcism since the 1600s. When the Catholic Church
held training for priests in how to perform the new exorcism in January of 2005,
over 100 priests attended. They join over 400 practicing Catholic exorcists
around the world. The ritual itself was largely unchanged, but the new Roman
Ritual includes strong cautions to priests who would exorcise demons to be certain
that they are not dealing with a physical or psychological illness. It urges
consultation with medical professionals before embarking on an exorcism - but
it leaves no doubt that demonic possession is real in the eyes of the Catholic
Church. To be certain, the Church tells priests who would perform exorcisms
to look for signs that they are dealing with a malevolent entity - signs that
can't be explained away by illness or science. It is these aspects that the Catholic Church looks for when
deciding if a reported case of demonic possession is, in reality, an organic
illness with another cause. When an exorcism is requested, the Church generally
consults with medical professionals and experts as well as with its own specialists
to determine if an exorcism is warranted. The signs that they look for include
things that can't be explained away by current knowledge of the human body:
levitation, wounds that appear with no apparent cause, speaking in languages
of which the possessed has no knowledge, knowledge of events and information
that the possessed would have no way of knowing. It isn't only Catholics that believe in exorcism. Many Pentecostal
sects practice 'deliverance', in which a person is 'delivered' from the demons
that possess him or her in much the same way that exorcists cast out devils.
Michael Cuneo, a sociologist at Fordham University and author of American Exorcism:
Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty, estimates that there are at least five
or six hundred evangelical exorcism sects currently practicing in the United
States.
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
