exorcisms: fact or fiction

Puck78

wendy1976 wrote:

The two things do not have to go hand in hand...I don't believe in god but i do believe in the human spirit and reincarnation.Also think that some spirits do not immediatly reincarnate and sometimes that spirit wonders around.This day in particular the line between the living and the dead is really thin(i cal it samhain others halloween)And because not every person is a friendly one or not every one dies peacefully it can happen that there are not so friendly spirits out there.I do not think anyone can get possesd though....really scared shitles yes but taken over....no.

indeed i was not talking about not believing in god but believing in spirits. I was talking about not believing in god but believing in exorcism made by a priest...

wendy1976

Puck78 wrote:

indeed i was not talking about not believing in god but believing in spirits. I was talking about not believing in god but believing in exorcism made by a priest...

ok i thought you were because you said: (not even saying about people not believing in god but believing in spirits)So i thought you meant that if you don't believe in god it is interesting that you do believe in spirits??
I do think that it is somwhat strange that if one does not believe in god you would think that a priest is able to do exorcism....that does not make sence.Because that priest would act in the name of god!!

breakmarysfall

I guess it depends on which side you are looking at.

There is a great german movie called "Requiem" by Hans- Christian Schmid,
released this year, spring,
that exactly discuss this question.

In the early 70ies there was this girl from Bavaria who thought that she is haunted by demons and asked a priest what to do.
The priest recommended an exorcism and the girl died due to starving and exhausted body state.

It is a true story that was also the origin for the US movie (the exorcism of Emily Rose - released at the same time as the German movie Requiem).

The interesting point in the german movie however is,
that it is shown that the girl suffers from a schizophrenic psychosis.
SHE really thought to hear voices of Demons
that was HER psychosis.
the crime lies in the priest role who picked up the thought and tried to exorcise her and killed her.
p.s. if she would have gone to a psych clinic she probably would still live!


And here comes my two cents:

it is like Darwin against GOD theories.
by now modern people know that those happenings in one's mind are related to a disfunctional thing called psychosis.
It is to explain and with the right medicine you are back to life again.

In earlier times all we knew was that there is the holyness and GOD and all is related to this.
So hearing voices was not assumed as an pysochological sickness but to DEMONS in ones head that only God could take away.

If there was an exorcism fact
it has gone with the information era.

Heineken Helen

chopitdown wrote:

I think that people can be possessed and demonic spirits are around, but i'm not sure that only a priest can cast them out (priest in the catholic sense). I don't know enough about it to go beyond that.

Yep, I agree with that... Something weird happened when I was a kid that has led me to believe this stuff definitely happens. Paranormal stuff happens... I just don't know how or why, and I'm not sure I'm meant to know either. Best just to leave some things be. Thing about a priest is that exorcisms are quite ancient and probable come from paganism or something. And we don't know what people knew then that we don't know now. Priests are trained how to speak to the 'demon' (let's just call it that for simplicity sake) and get rid of it so maybe they do know some stuff (we don't know all the secrets of the vatican). Also there IS a lot of stupidity and a lot of mental illnesses or seizures I'm SURE which were put down to demonic possession.

threecrookedhearts6

i've heard that there has never been a case of possesion in which the 'victim' was not a religious person. sounds just a little psychosomatic to me.

enharmonic

hippiemom wrote:

I think it's all nonsense. I saw "The Exorcist" in junior high and laughed my ass off all the way through it. A couple of my friends were pretty freaked out by it, and I teased them mercilessly. That was made all the more fun by the fact that people thought I bore a striking resemblance to Linda Blair, haha. There were a few weeks there where pretending to be possessed was my main form of entertainment. Yeah, I was a bit of a brat

Linda Blair has glorious fun bags.

Nothingman54

I believe. My grandmother worked at a church for 23 years as a cleaning person and about 13 years ago she was working and the pastor and 5 other men rushed this girl in the church and they did an exorcism and she had 13 demons in her. It took hours to do.

lgt

hippiemom wrote:

I think it's all nonsense. I saw "The Exorcist" in junior high and laughed my ass off all the way through it. A couple of my friends were pretty freaked out by it, and I teased them mercilessly. That was made all the more fun by the fact that people thought I bore a striking resemblance to Linda Blair, haha. There were a few weeks there where pretending to be possessed was my main form of entertainment. Yeah, I was a bit of a brat

LOL!

I remember seeing that too and being slightly freaked out by the whole pantomime demonic possession of the film, so much so that I asked our religion class teacher, a Catholic priest, how could you be possessed by the Devil if you didn't believe in God. hehehe! Apparently you still could.

Anyway, demonic/evil spirits and related exorcisms... nothing that a good session with a psichiatrist or psychotherapist cannot cure!