Talk:Exorcism/Archive 1

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Contents

Exorcism related deaths

it should be noted that none of the deaths due to exorcism's listed were performed by Catholic priests. Suppafly 01:11, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Links to ebay

I removed a couple links because they pointed only to pages of items for sale on ebay, they did not point to a source document of any sort.
JesseG 02:25, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

Lacks a skeptical viewpoint

This article seems incomplete as it lacks a clear explanation and relies heavily on obscure citations and futile digressions; overall it lacks a critical skeptical analysis.

The article needn't have a skeptical analysis. This is not an article to force an argument, this is not to enforce a point of view. Skepticism belongs in the article of Skepticism.--NWalterstorf 21:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree, this doesn't need skeptical viewpoints...go to the forum for that. This is to present exorcisms as something that is TRUE, and not something that is debated. Make a "Skeptics of exorcism" page for that haha. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.253.34.210 (talk) 18:07, 14 March 2007 (UTC). --IzzTEK

Not really...The article can, and should, include a section titled "criticisms of exorcism", which certainly should not be a different article as such. Almost everything in Wikipedia has such a section, and this one certainly should. That would incorporate the sceptiks' views. And no, this page is not supposed to show exorcism as TRUE or FALSE, but merely to provide information on the subject. That is what an encyclopeadia does.--198.37.16.160 16:03, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I second the opinion that the article should also include skeptical viewpoints.

Jewish Exorcisms

I find the section on Jewish exorcisms odd... it mentions "Gehenna (a Hebrew term very loosely translated as "hell", literally the valley outside Jeruselem where the city's garbage and dead bodies were burned. The word later came to mean "the valley of dead")" This seems strange to me, for, IIRC, Judaism forbids cremation. Can anyone shed any more light on this? aubrey 19:26, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Link Removed

http://www.trosch.org/chu/exorcism.htm Exorcisms in the Catholic Church

I removed this from the list of external links after perusing trosch.org and discovering it is not an authoritative resource for "rites" of exorcism, as the entry seemed to suggest. It appears that trosch.org is intended as a soapbox for its webmaster's personal interpretation of Catholic doctrine -- in fact, it contains such radical (even from the most conservative Catholic perspective) articles as an outright condemnation of Florida for executing a man who "protected innocent children" by killing an abortion doctor. This hardly seems like an appropriate resource for those who wish to learn Catholic doctrine, dogma, or liturgy, and therefore it seemed inappropriate for an encyclopedia to include it as an external reference.

Molinero 03:37, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

-edited my own word choice Molinero

I checked out your concern...'Gehenna' is a word tracing to Greek, ultimately from Hebrew גי(א)-הינום Gêhinnôm (also Gei ben-Hinnom (Hebrew: גיא בן הינום) meaning the Valley of Hinnom, first mentioned in Joshua 15:8. Originally it referred to a garbage dump in a deep narrow valley right outside the walls of Jerusalem (in modern-day Israel) where fires were kept burning to consume the refuse and keep down the stench. It is also the location where bodies of executed criminals, or individuals denied a proper burial, would be dumped. Today, "Gehenna" is often used as a synonym for Hell. This should explain more about the burning bodies. If you read it you will find that they burned criminals or people that were not properly buryed.

Section Removed

I have removed the following part of this article due to it's obvious biased point of view - this is an encyclopedia, not a religious reference book  ;)

I have maintained the removed portion below to allow other users to edit it in such a way as to remove all POV issues or to allow an editor with a dissenting opinion a chance to return the piece to this article.

--Jim Binford 19:14, 30 July 2005 (UTC)Jimbinford ---

This article will try to demarcate between exorcism (or the knowledge of it) and spirituality.

First, it is very important to define and illustrate how exorcism is carried out in the Muslim world.

The techniques used in different parts of the Muslim world differ. Although there do exist specific 'ilm' or knowledge that is acquired for the purpose of exorcism, many exorcists are in fact wholly unaware of that 'ilm'. They are in contact with some extraordinary beings that, through the agency of the exorcists, extract the evil spirits from ailing patients. It is not known what those beings are. What is sure is that people who are in contact with such beings believe themselves to have achieved the 'Way to God'. This is the point of contention.

This erroneous belief is triggered by the seemingly tremendous power the exorcists feels to have just by being associated with those beings. In fact, once the contact is established, the exorcist can tell everything about anybody, near or far, living or dead. Not only that, the exorcist can even tell what the person sitting next to him is thinking. He can even influence the behaviour and thinking of the individual. For example, once a young boy of 15 escaped from his house to make money far away. The exorcist despatched his 'contacts' to incite fear in the boy's mind such that he found it impossible to remain far away from home any further. By inciting strong feelings in the individual, it is possible to manipulate their behaviour. Such powers are acquired rather quickly by the exorcist, usually within 1 to 3 years. Ordinary people are easily impressed by such a show of power and authority, not excluding the exorcist himself. However, the 'Way to God' is a wholly different affair. This is called mysticism and although mystics have the power to extract evil spirits by a mere glance, they do not make use of their power but very rarely. This is because their purpose is God-realization and not to make of themselves superhumans or centres of attraction and authority among ordinary mortals.

Shouldn't there be a section discussing Skeptical views of Exorcism?

!!! THIS IS A LEXICA NOT SOME PSEUDO-RELIGIOUS SPELLBOOK CRAP! I DEMAND THAT THERE BE CREATED SOME SCEPTICAL VIEWS AT THE TOP: YOUNGSTERS CANNOT CLEARLY SEE THAT THERE EXIST NO SUCH THINGS AS DEMONS OR SPIRITS!

No, you just want to enforce a view point on the article. This isn't an article arguing a certain viewpoint, this is an objective article; adding a skeptical view would be entirely useless. Also, capitalizing every letter, saying "youngsters", mentioning your own PoV, using multiple exclamation points and not even signing your name to your post greatly reduce your credibility.--NWalterstorf 21:43, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Relevance?

I question this subject under Exorcism-related deaths:

"A five-year-old girl in 1997 in the Bronx, New York, died after being administered ammonia, vinegar, and olive oil, and then gagged and bound with duct tape."

How is this exorcism-related? Unless someone can find additional information that show that this death had to do with an exorcism, I believe this should be removed. --Marco Passarani 08:56, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. It sounds more like some Voodoo trial than anything to do with exorcism. 82.23.202.5 18:13, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Multiple Personality Disorder

Is it possible that many cases which are believed to be demonic possesions are actually cases of Multiple Personality Disorder? After all, those with MPD may act like animals that growl or jump between a kind personality and an abusive one, or they may learn something such as an old language like Latin in one language and not know how to speak it in the other language. Pehaps what we have believed to be a spiritual possesion is actually two personalties in one person.

they may learn something such as an old language like Latin in one language and not know how to speak it in the other language - My brain hurts trying to figure out what you mean by that. As for your hypothesis, I believe it is addressed by the mention of mental illness being mistaken for demonic possession in the article yEvb0 02:19, 15 September 2005 (UTC)yEvb0

I'm sorry I wasn't specific (and I didn't sign my comment), but I meant to say people who have MPD can learn extremely difficult skills to master in one personality and not know how to perform it in a different personality. For example, in one of their personalities, the person knows how to speak Latin, but in the other personality, they do not know what Latin is, since the personalities do not share a common memory, and the person doesn't remember "blacking out" and changing personalities. Also, some personalities can be antisocial while others are charismatic, and sometimes the personalities take the form of an animal. This may be why certain exorcism cases have documented that a person is posseses unlearned language knowledge, because their normal personality does not remember learning it, or why the person makes growling noises, because the personality is one of an animal. A good example of this is in the novel "Fight Club", where one personality is a nihilist that knows how to make bombs out of household objects while the other personality is a quiet, depressed white collar worker. While this is not a true example of MPD, it is an incident that occurs in patients that have been diagnosed with multiple personality disorder. --67.184.163.248 02:29, 20 September 2005 (UTC)Ikiroid

I'm familiar with Dissociative Identity Disorder (as it is currently called). I think you said "language" in your comment when you said "personality" (i.e. "learned Latin in one personality (not language)" or "one personality learned Latin"). Sorry for the confusion. In any case, it's probably best not to speculate too much about hypothetical incidents of exorcism possibly resulting from DID, but it might be fair if you wanted to mention DID (or schizophrenia, or others) as an example of a mental illness that could contribute to the perceptioin of a demonic possession. yEvb0 16:49, 23 September 2005 (UTC)yEvb0

Removed copyrighted content

Text copied from http://www.goarch.org/en/ourfaith/articles/article7078.asp was removed and cleared from the edit history. - Evil saltine 19:57, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

Exorcism of places

The article on ghost links to here, but this article appears to concern itself solely with exorcisms of people. Aren't places (e.g. haunted houses) exorcised as well? --Shantavira 16:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes. The one Episcopal Church exorcism I know of was of a house. Mangoe 02:06, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Islam and exorcisms

The section on Islam and exorcisms is long and confusing, but I know nothing about the subject so am leaving it alone. Maybe a seperate page could be made, and just a paragraph summary left on this main page by someone in the know?Maeve 14:35, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

      • I removed the information that was copy-and-pasted on amulets, since it was POV, in violation of copyright, and added two pages but had very little to do with the article. I also re-divided the sections ~JMPowers

recent conversion from Template: bibleref to Template: bibleverse

as a result of the recent template conversion, multiple verse listings no longer work, for example:

Matthew 12:23,28

only returns Matthew 12:23

compare to:

Matthew 12:23,28

I believe i have corrected all of them, if there are any problems you can correct them yourself or connact me on my userpage. Jon513 14:37, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to see a page dealing with how to exorcise houses or places.

Exorcism in ordinary rites

The article needs to address the exorcism built into some baptismal rites. Mangoe 02:14, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

how can this stuff be real?

How can demonic possession be real?If it were the case,then wouldn't the so called "demon(s)" just kill off anyone who stood between it and it's victim?Or better yet,use the possessed person to do all sorts of things rather then let itself be strapped to a bed the whole time. I thought demons had powers.So how can it seem so easy to stop the "demon(s)" wheather it;s on the cases we read or in the movies we saw? This whole thing has probably been their since the whole concept of a supernatural world existed since humans learnt how to talk.

Let me assure you none of this is for real.Emily rose getting exorcised on Halloween.Yes quite dramatic.When she could have been taken to church or hospital and been exorcized during the daylight.And the demons seemed quite powerless to harm anyone beyond Emily rather than move a few glasses and bang a few doors. I think the whole idea of possession and exorcism is just dumb.

And isnt THE P-FILES on top of the page a copyright violation of The X-Files title?74.98.241.189 05:00, 25 November 2006 (UTC)Nadirali


No, the devil does not have authority over death. One of the devils aims is to get people to deny Christ, even if that means denying a demonic force then his work is done in your life. He'll then use you to get others to doubt a spiritual world, or a higher being etc...
Demons have got great powers and it's not easy to stop them at all. A demon will answer to one thing only, the name of Jesus. That does not mean it's a case of simply stating the name of Jesus and poof the demon is gone. This was shown when the disciples could not cast out the demon from the sick boy who then had a fit in front of Jesus. They tried first time nothing happened, so their belief wavered and they gave up rather than getting a deeper belief. (See the post below for my talk subject on this in relation to the wiki text).
Watch this video: http://www.metacafe.com/watch/435147/demons_and_ghosts_i_believed_after_seeing_this
You may simply think that this is video editing and I can't deny that possibility. However, I'm a Christian and after seeing that video, within a minute everything in the house changed. I was in my room and doors started random slamming around the house, I confessed the name of Jesus and commanded the spirit to leave in his name. Instead a force came into my room and stayed there, I was paralysed with fear, if somebody was to ask me what I was afraid of I wouldn't have a clue. But I kid you not I was scared stupid. Just before I watched the video I had invited my friend around, and as soon as the bell rang the fear left, but the presence in the room did not. When he came up to my room, he doesn't know if to believe in this sort of thing yet commented that something felt bad about my room. Again, your choice to believe it or not, but how would I benefit if you believed it or didn't? In retrospect you could argue because I'm a Christian I shouldn't have been afraid at all, and if you were to argue that, I'd fully agree with you...

Please consider the comments section of that video on Metacafe where the special effects used in its production are discussed. Please also note the videos of magical tricks that the same director has put online on this site, earning quite a lot of money from fooling people.

"And the demons seemed quite powerless to harm anyone"
Not at all. They can exert more control in the natural world than they can the spiritual world because we are more focused on natural things than we are spiritual things.
"Let me assure you none of this is for real."
What do you base your assurance on?

82.23.202.5 18:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I watched that video. In my opinion, I thought it was quite obviously faked, with the use of strings to shift objects. The heavy breathing sounds were exactly the same ones that amatuer star wars filmakers will use when attempting to sound like darth vader. feel free to believe in demons if you want, and im not saying that they cannot possibly exist, but that video was extremely dodgy. Oh, and its now been 7 minutes since i watched it, and no presence has entered my room. As to how you would benefit, why bring that up at all unless you had something to hide? Perhaps you are the director, wishing to get more 'views' of your movie. And according to biblical scripture, demons must possess a human body. They cannot move outside of one...i know theres a better term for that but i cant think of what it is.Dezza91 05:26, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone feel that the Discovery Channel's series "A Haunting" deserves to be mentioned? After all, several (sometimes successful) exorcisms are mentioned in the series. As described by the Discovery Channel itself, A Haunting is a series "chronicling the terrifying true stories of the paranormal".WasAPasserBy 01:04, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Certain spirits cast out by fasting and prayer.

I'm assuming that the people who are editing this and so quoting the bible are Christians, or at least believe in the supernatural. So, I'm sorry, but I take issue with this:

"But the efficacy of this delegated power was conditional, as we see from the fact that the Apostles themselves were not always successful in their exorcisms: certain kinds of spirits, as Christ explained, could only be cast out by prayer and fasting (Matthew 17:15,17:20; Mark 9:27-28; Luke 9:40)."

In short terms, if naming the name of Christ is not enough for a demon to be cast out, then what on earth is prayer and fasting going to do? We will never come up against anything that the name of Jesus cannot overcome, no matter what it is. It is made quite clear in the following quote:

14 And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying,
15 Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water.
16 And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.
17 Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me.
18 And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.
19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
21 Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2017:14-21;&version=9;

Jesus replied to the disciples question about their inability to cast out the demon with 'Because of your unbelief'! Not because you didn't pray or fast before you tried to cast him out, but because of your unbelief. What Jesus was talking about in verse 21 is how to get rid of that unbelief, NOT the demon.

To doubt that Jesus' name does not have the power, then you might as well go the whole trip and doubt the divinity and the crucifixion. That's not to say we don't need faith, because we do. But no action we do (prayer, fasting, singing or dancing) can add to the power that is in name of Jesus. 82.23.202.5 18:10, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


Charm of Pibechis

Why isn't there any mention of the charm of Pibechis (Πιβήχεως δόκιμον), from the Greek magical papyri (PGM iv.3007ff)? This is a spell Πρὸς δαιμονιαζομένους, for those possessed by demons, and employs much of the language which would also be used by Christians (ὁρκίζω σε κατὰ τοῦ θεοῦ τῶν Ἑβραίων Ἰησοῦ·; I adjure you by the god of the Hebrews Jesus). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.126.14.229 (talk) 03:38, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

Islam and exorcisms

The Quranic verse from Al-Baqara is wrong. It does not refer to possesion, but to Usury. Sermed 08:56, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Holy Water?

The section on Protestantism has a reference to holy water. AFAIK, no major protestant denomination outside Anglicanism uses holy water of any sort. We might want to preface this accordingly.

I deleted that section because of a lack of a reference, and that it depicted urban legend rather than an actuall rite. if there is a reference, it can be added again, however I havn't ever come across any reference to sprinkeling of holy water to determine the nature of a person.Coffeepusher (talk) 23:50, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I know the Roman Catholic denomination uses holy water regularly in general. Not sure about Anglicans.

Exorcism in Buddhism

What about the concept and practice of exorcism in Buddhism? The Vajrayana school claims to be able to deal with demon possessions...anyone know anything about it? Le Anh-Huy 11:47, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Christian Exorcism

This section is very annoying because of all the external links, Bible verses, etcetera. I know the Bible verses are necessary but could we at least have them in a references section or something?

The reference about Tanacu was wrong. Is prove now that the death of the nun was doctor's opera (a wrong cure - six time the maximum allowed dose of adrenalin). Also was no crucification, and the women was on she's bed, not... on the wall (?!?). The father is not charged with murder, but neglect, and this only to not charge the police and other stuff for abuse. They arested the priest without no evidences, and accuse him on media, who build the case. Now is clear that it was an abuse, but in Romania police never pay for abuse. So thy accuse the priest for other things, just to seems that is guilty for something, no matter what. But this is no exorcism, but coruption.

I deleted the section about baptists, because it lacked any citations and seemed to project an individuals point of view, rather than a policy of the Sothern Baptists. this is the section I deleted

Southern Baptists would disagree with the Roman Catholic rite of exorcism entirely, particularly because of the end of the rite which states: "The priest may repeat the exorcism at his discretion". Southern Baptists suspect rituals and claim that they are unbiblical and claim that the Bible comes to their support...assuming Catholics do not pray to God...that God alone has the power to "exorcise" Satan and He may delegate this power to his children. In the New Testament, it states that if you "resist the devil he will flee from you". (James 4:7) God is considered - as in Catholicism - the only true exorcist and his children merely his obedient tools in which to use. Therefore God has ultimate power and control, which in the Southern Baptist interpretation eliminates the need for multiple attempts of an exorcism.

Coffeepusher (talk) 23:50, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I have actually done reserch on christian exorcisms, and am in the prossess of editing this section with referenced material. I will probably cut a section on Deliverance ministries, because although they fall under the catigory of exorcism, they are a different "demon" all together, and follow a suptily different theologyCoffeepusher (talk) 21:11, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Extensive Edits

It appears that no one is really monitoring this page, since the last edit befor mine was sometime in september 2007. I am going to be doing some extensive edits, and am probably not going to be discussing them beforehand since it would digress into me posting to myself. I will post the reasons for major changes to the format, but all otherwise I will just make edit summary's. this is to say, that if you are interested in this page, just let me know so I don't step on your toes.Coffeepusher (talk) 19:20, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Scientific explanation ?

Is there any attempt at scientific explanation to Exorcism ? apparently from wikipedia and other sources, it seems that Exorcism exist in many cultures and religions, and that it has been practiced for many years. Many religions also have strict rules on when to use exorcism. From this I would like to conclude that Exorcism has been met with some success in narrow circumstances, and while there is not overwhelming statistical evidence there seems to be enough anecdotal evidence of successful exorcisms, to conclude that Exorcism sometimes works. This Raises the Question: does a rare mental defect/disease/disorder exists that will force the subject to act in such a way that it appears as Demonic possession AND where exorcism would aide in recovery or temporary retreat of the disease ? Multiple personality disorder has been suggested, but under what circumstances would Exorcism help ? This is not a critique of Exorcism, I am all for its use when it helps, I do not want to remove the religious aspect of the exorcism which is an important part of healing process of the subject. But I would like to investigate and discuss other explanations for the observed behaviors :-) Jesper Jurcenoks 20:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

There should be a section with a scientific explanation. Use these sources: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1436854 http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/050830_emilyrose.html http://science.howstuffworks.com/exorcism5.htm http://skepdic.com/exorcism.html Azrael Nightwalker (talk) 17:05, 22 December 2007 (UTC)



although I like your contribution, I am a little sceptical of using a "How stuff works" article as a source. Can you find another source with the same information? it seems to me that it is out there somewhere.Coffeepusher (talk) 18:31, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
I've expanded the section and added one more source.

Another sources that could be used: http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro99/web3/Bromwell.html http://www.fortea.us/english/psiquiatria/psiquiatria.htm I will try to expand the article when I'll have some time ;) Azrael Nightwalker (talk) 12:38, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

those give some good information, however they don't fit Wikipedia's criteria for reliable sourcing WP:SOURCE. after examining them they appear to be an undergraduate paper, and a website with...well I can't figure out who is responsable for it. but the paper does have some sourcing, and mabie there is a peer reviewed journal in there that you can use(there should be, I have never writen a paper without good source material somewhere). also, I have access to quite a few databaces (I am currently in college...and hope to never leave) so if you have somthing spacific you are looking for, just let me know and I can see if there are any journals that you can use. Coffeepusher (talk) 07:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
I've found some reliable journals through Google scholar. I've also copied some text from the demonic possession article. Now the scientific explanation section makes more sense. Azrael Nightwalker (talk) 14:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Malachi Martin

an explination to the editors: One resource I have been using is Hostage to the Devil. I understand that it is very contriversial in its presentation of actuall exorcisms, I agree that the accounts are made up and have not used it as such, rather I use it for information on the ritual and history of exorcisms of which he is an expert, and has been recognised for that by many people in the exorcism relm. However I use fr. Gabriele Amorth when I can for that information. it should also be noted that this book has leaked into penicostal exorcism rituals as a great sourcebook, so if it is to be cited for those perposes I see no problems.Coffeepusher 18:35, 1 December 2007 (UTC)