Demons Excorcism: Abusive Bat Shittery Or Misunderstood Exhibition Of Self?

[mcdaddy]

Ugh, this reminds me of a conversation my dad and aunt had recently. My aunt is absolutely convinced that people who rape and murder babies and do other such horrible things MUST be possessed by demons. Because she probably just doesn't want to believe that humans might actually be in control of themselves when they do things like that...

 

Then my dad promptly corrected her and said that most of the population isn't actually possessed, but that just by being NEAR a demon they can implant evil thoughts and suggestions into your mind.

 

I think I strained an orbital muscle trying desperately to avoid letting them see me do a extremely dramatic eye-roll.

 

God ordered the murder of babies. Does that mean he's demon possessed?

 

And, if a rape victim is forced to marry her attacker, what do you do if a male is raped by another male?

Things that make you go hmmmmm......

[TrailBlazer]

From an emotional stand point though, is this doing a person harm (ie the woman raped by demons) IF this relieves her symptoms? I often wonder at the psychology behind this, because there is psychology behind this. Acknowledging one's fears (regardless of how irrational) and then confronting them. Some people really just have a "divine" intervention, even if man made, in order to have relief.

I had a conversation with my father along this line a few nights ago. He believes in psychic mediums, I believe in cold reading. But what our debate came down to was whether or not these psychic mediums(legit or fake) did a grieving person any good by "channeling their loved one" and if so, was it was ethical to take someone's money and lie to them if it actually helped them in the long run.

 

Real or not, it's real to someone. A demon is real to a Christian the same way Santa is real to a child. I think lot of spiritual stuff works along the same premise as the placebo effect. As long as the person receiving the treatment has faith in the treatment then the placebo is working, and if it has a positive effect, who cares if it has any real validity??

[SoftIce]

God ordered the murder of babies. Does that mean he's demon possessed?

 

That gets the same reaction from me as the 'which came first: the chicken or the egg' thing. I start hmmm'ing and then my head starts to throb.

[Legion]

[Positivist]

Pos, those are his daughters. If he gets his jollies watching them, then he's uber-sick..

I missed the familial mention. I still think it's sick, and I still think he gets his jollies.

 

Those poor girls.

 

Why must the mantle he passes down to them be one of lunacy?

[blackpudd1n]

From my viewpoint as a person living with a mental health condition, I do believe this practice is harmful.

 

Telling someone that they are possessed by demons opens up a whole can of worms. First of all, they are going to live in fear of a recurrence. They are going to attribute any abnormal behaviour to demon possession, and seek out Snakeskin Salesman, instead of going to their doctor and being properly assessed.

 

In the case where they do actually have a mental illness, they are unlikely to accept their condition, and learn how to manage it effectively, instead turning to religion and excorcisms... which, I can assure you, religion and mental illness do not mix well. Not when your pastor is telling you that you just need to pray, and god will heal you, and all that shit.

 

a lot of people living with mental health conditions struggle to accept their illness. Without acceptance, management does not occur. A lot of people living with mental illnesses would rather believe that they are demon possessed and that an excorcism will cure them, than face the truth- that they have a life-long condition that they most likely will need medication for, that their brain no longer works the same way it used to, and that their life has changed.

 

For the mentally ill, practices like this are not beneficial. All they are being given is false hope, and the longer the condition goes untreated, the worse it will get. Instead they should be helped to accept their condition and realise that while their life has changed, that it can still be good and is what they make it.

[Akheia]

I completely agree with Pudd. From a psych standpoint, this snake oil probably does temporarily alleviate some symptoms of depression or psychosis, but I can't see it being beneficial in the long-term. Nor do I see it permanently fixing any mental conditions--it's a lie, pure and simple, and it feeds off the victim's own sense of entitlement and self-aggrandizement. While in church I never once saw someone get exorcised who then went on to live a perfectly normal life. Usually their "demon of depression" or whatever came right back a week or so later. When one's recovery is based on a sheer and total lie, I don't think it sticks. My Evil Ex, for example, thought he'd been possessed and exorcised on his first trip to a UPC church; however, once it was "cast out" and the honeymoon ended, he was still a lying, abusive, controlling rapist.

 

And yet Christians persist in this pernicious belief, and I see why: If demons are real, then the rest of it follows. An interesting book I have talks about how the witch hunts of the Middle Ages/Renaissance might have been sparked by a desire to see something, ANYTHING, from the spiritual world turn out to be real. If evidence turned up that a being from another plane/world/existence was really, truly inhabiting a human, that'd be something every single atheist on the planet would need to evaluate. It's about the only chance Christians have.

 

Ever since at least the Renaissance we've had this shadow culture, this "low Christianity" in which people know two things about demons: 1) they're much flashier than God and are happy to show off, and 2) when God doesn't seem to be answering, demons "always" do. So I see people like Bob Larsen desperately trying to prove demonic possession because it's at least a little tiny bit of the proof he needs to show that Christianity is real. I think he's trying to prove this shit to himself. Oh, and yes, he is a major major major creeptastic creep in creep-flavored batter. He's weirdly fascinated with possession and sexual things the way that Stephen King is weirdly fascinated with stalkers. I never heard the term "Christian porn" till his "Dead Air" book came out in the early 90s.

 

Confession time: I never knew anybody who said she'd been raped by demons (odd how it's always women saying this, or is it?), but when I saw a show about it on cable my first reaction was "how the fuck do I get one of these things into MY bedroom?" I had no idea women were claiming this at all till I'd been long gone from church, but it really sounds like a plea for attention and a desire to have a community-wide catharsis session. We just don't do that a lot in the modern age--long ago I think we had a lot more of it, but now it's rock concerts, pagan drum circles, wakes, exam-week screams, and the like that let us really let go in a community setting. I think there's a valid human need buried in all that Christian nonsense, but I'm not sure how one would tap it in a healthy setting.

 

Edited to fix book name.