Monday Open Comments

Now psychiatry is accepting that there’s something out there beyond this physical world.

‘Demonic possession is real and victims seeking exorcism should not be ignored’: Prominent psychiatrist on the world beyond

It is a phenomenon that is on the rise throughout the world: The number of cases of demonic possession – and demands for priests to carry out exorcisms – is, according to multiple sources, soaring.

Medical science remains sceptical. However, a Princeton-and-Yale-educated mainstream psychiatrist believes demonic possession is indeed very real – and claims that the majority of Americans agree with him.

With 25 years experience in a private psychiatric practice and as a professor at New York Medical College and Columbia University, Dr Richard Gallagher has a rare vantage point to observe human behavior. And then there is the inhuman.
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He is not the only American psychiatrist who evaluates for possession – there are many others who consult on discernment. But Dr Gallagher is one of the few who is willing to talk about it. He has also written a forthcoming book on the subject, being published by Harper Collins, called Demonic Foes, A Psychiatrist Investigates Demonic Possession in the Modern United States.

“There are many other psychiatrists and mental health care professionals who do what I do – perhaps not to the scope that I do – who seem hesitant to speak out,” he explained. “That’s what gives my work some singularity. That I have had so much experience and that I am willing to speak out. I feel an obligation to speak out. I think that I should.”

I will share this story: When I was young, around 11-13 years old or so, one of my older siblings brought home a Ouija board. There was all this talk about how we were actually pushing the planchette around the board and the whole demonic thing was just a hoax. As we took turns putting our hands on the planchette, it would spell out responses to questions. It had a name (which I’ll not share here, but it wasn’t Beelzebub, it said), and it absolutely HATED my eldest brother, whom I’ll call “Joe” for this story.

One afternoon, some of us were in the living room, drapes drawn, asking this “fake entity” questions and being amused at the unexpected answers. Suddenly, it the middle of spelling out an answer, it stopped. “What’s wrong?” someone asked, and the response was “GO TO HELL”. We looked at each other questioningly, and someone asked “Who?” The response “JOE” was spelled out. We looked at each other, then one of us realized that Joe had come down the hall unbeknownst to us, pausing at the doorway.

None of us knew he was there. We were all freaked out.

The board was hastily put away and I never saw it again. I never wanted to see it again. If I wasn’t a believer in the spiritual realm before that day, I certainly was after.

At one time, Dr Gallagher, a board certified psychiatrist with a primary focus on individual psychotherapy and psycho pharmacology, was also doubtful. Although a practicing Catholic, he had never volunteered to evaluate people for possession. But early in his medical career two prominent exorcists, one of whom helped found the International Association of Exorcists, referred cases to him that were so dramatic, he concluded that possession exists. One such flamboyant and dramatic case was that of “Julia”.
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A direct worshipper of Satan and a self-described high priestess of a cult, Julia’s demonic possession was not in question. The core concern for the exorcism team was whether she could leave the cult so that the exorcism would succeed in liberating her from possession.
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Julia revelled in her psychic ability and demonstrated her powers for Dr Gallagher. At 3am one morning, the Gallaghers’ normally placid cats went berserk fighting in the couple’s bedroom and had to be separated. Such behaviour had never happened before and has never happened since. Later that morning, Dr Gallagher was introduced to Julia for the first time. According to the psychiatrist: “The first thing out of her mouth was ‘So Dr Gallagher, how did you like the cats last night?’. I even have a letter from her to a priest that says ‘we raised a little hell in Dr Gallagher’s house last night’.”
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On another occasion, Julia demonstrated her ability at remote viewing. She told Dr Gallagher “we really hate Father ——-”, referring to a priest on the exorcism team. She explained that it was her job to “keep an eye on him” although she lived in a different part of the United States. Whereupon she described the priest at that moment “walking along a beach in his blue windbreaker and khaki pants and he’s saying prayers”. Dr Gallagher promptly called the priest on his mobile phone and confirmed everything that Julia had described. The priest noted that normally he would be in his rectory at that time but on that particular day had decided to say his breviary while walking on the beach.

But discernment is important, and that’s why the field of psychiatry is so crucial to determine who is truly in need of spiritual rescue:

Two of the most popular books published to date on demonic possession are Glimpses of the Devil by Scott Peck and Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin. Both authors are deceased. Dr Gallagher describes his book as “a much broader treatment of the subject of possession”. He goes into the history of the concept, how to discern and which cases cause confusion, and describes people who may think they are possessed but are not.

Such people could be suffering from seizure disorders or other neurological disorders such as temporal lobe epilepsy. People hearing the devil’s voice might be psychotic and having auditory hallucinations. Others suffering from delusions that they are possessed might be bipolar, schizophrenic, or have drug-related conditions.

I’ve read Fr. Amorth’s book on exorcism, and what he described was truly horrifying.

Ignore the Devil at your peril.

And y’all have a great week, y’hear?

EDIT/UPDATE: I just flashed on the “temporal lobe epilepsy” statement. There is some discussion that Mohammed had epilepsy when formulating his “religion”.