Athiest views on Christian exorcism

Greetings.

Being the wonderer and searcher that I am. I realized that I never actually knew what (some) athiests think about christian exorcisms. Since science can't exactly explain it, How would an athiest attempt to explain this phenomenon, And what they think 'it' is.

All opinions are welcome.

Easy nuff.

Personally, I feel it is a purely psychological phenomenon, which under normal circumstances could be treated appropriately- but in a heavily faith based environment- is instead converted to faith based event.

Ever hear of anyone stating that if you don't believe in what the exorcism does, it won't work? Belief can be powerful. Not divinely, but physiologically and mentally.

Im an atheist and cant really help you here. The best I can do is suggest that maybe the process of the exorcism has the power of suggestion over those who believe they are being possessed. Like a Placebo, those feeling possesed feel better after they believe an exorcism has worked.

The other thing is I don't believe in Ghosts and deamons, there is no proof to suggest they exist, only word of mouth.

reply to post by Ghost in the Machine


Most scholars would say it is a psychological thing so in general I agree with Cjcord. I recall way back when when I used to be a Christian I was always afraid of becoming possessed. I felt that if my soul showed the slightest weakness I might become the prey of the Devil. When you hear about it in church they make it sound like there is nothing standing between the average sinner and having their bodies inhabited by legions of demonic spirits (sort of like the agents from the matrix ) and since I was never quite satisfied with buying into the whole "You can't be possessed cause Jesus is in your heart already" shtick everyone tried to reassure me with.

That sort of fear is one of things that led to the collapse of my faith (that and I started using logic when looking at religion).

Human beings are already possessed of good and evil, this idea of being out of the control of our bodies is just another devil-made-me-do-it. The mind is very very very powerful as is faith. I definitely think more research should be done on the psychological nature of "possession", we should get some high tech brain scans of someone claiming to be possessed and see what's going on in their head.

I'm not a christian, or anything else I could label but I would like to share something with you concerning exorcism from a first hand experience I had as a teenager. And sorry about the length of this.

Th easiest way is to quote it from the book I wrote but is as yet unpublished....

On a clear summer night in 1976, some of the boys decided to investigate a rumour we had heard concerning an old graveyard near a small suburb on the way to Brisbane City. Here it was said, an angel statue would bleed at midnight from wounds on the neck and wings. These damaged areas were the result of a rampage through the cemetery by drunken youths. We duly arrived prior to midnight and were fortunate to park the car in a position where we could flood the statue with light.

To our true amazement, a warm, dark substance was bleeding from the wounds and I believe that right then we all wished we had gone to the toilet before leaving town. Every night sound stopped, creating an eerie silence just in time for us all to hear church bells toll midnight. This really spooked us, as we knew there were no churches anywhere nearby that could provide these sound effects.

Around this time each of us must have decided to leave post-haste, but this evening was not finished with us yet. As the last peal rang out, we heard a piercing scream from the oldest section of the graveyard. Our friend Mike had screamed and collapsed, by the time we reached him he was growling like some wild thing, and was becoming stronger. It seemed to me that his strength was growing in quantum leaps.

Five of us attempted to lift him to his feet but he kicked and struck out at us, so we dragged him back to the car and unceremoniously dumped him in the floor space between the front and rear seats of the old Holden sedan. Frantically we left the graveyard, pushing the tired six-cylinder engine to it’s limits in an attempt to get Mike to a priest for help. During this journey he became too strong for the people who had been holding him down with their feet. Automatically, my right arm reached over the back of the seat and lightly touched him, making him calmer as soon as he was touched. This action was repeated a number of times as we sped to town. I had no explanations for this when asked, in no way did I intentionally make the move. It was as if my arm had a mind of it’s own, like an autonomous entity attached to my shoulder.

Along that highway is a concrete and steel pedestrian overbridge with each end support jutting out into the verge of the road. We were approaching this when I became aware that our driver was glazing over, literally, his facial features took on an unusual appearance. I also noticed he was steering us toward a high speed collision with the bridge supports on the left side of the road, my side, since I was sitting in the front passenger’s seat.

Once again my arm moved without me directing it, touching his arm with my fingers released him from whatever had taken control. He then looked at me with fear written large across his face, for a fraction of a second while veering back onto the road proper. “I don’t know what just happened, but ‘It’ wants to kill you because you can stop it,” he informed me. I could find no words to respond to him.

The remainder of the trip back to our home town was virtually uneventful after that, but the night was nowhere near an end. We made a bee-line for the first church in town and proceeded to bang on the minister’s door at around one o’clock, until the poor man had to get out of bed to see what all the commotion was about. He listened to our story then slammed the door saying, “Take him away please, I won’t help.” One of the boys spoke out loudly for the minister’s benefit, “That’s great. So what are we supposed to do now,” and as an afterthought he added, “Did you guys see how scared he was?” We continued our quest.

Knocking on the fourth door that morning we all expected the same responses; you might say that a pattern had been established. A kindly face topped with grey hair appeared in the doorway and listened to our well rehearsed tale, he then flung the door wide open and standing to his full height, he commanded, “Bring him in while I prepare.” We could not believe our luck, someone would try to help Mike. Dutifully we dragged our wild-eyed friend out of the car, through the open door and down the hall to the minister’s office. Thinking that we had all done our bit, we turned to leave, until the priest intervened. “You boys wait out at the car,” he ordered, then turning to me he added, “You are to stay.” He then continued saying, “We will do an exorcism for your friend.” Strange feelings and a large dose of fear raged through me as I responded, “Yes Father, I will help.” But I thought, “Why did I say that?” Without getting a reply from myself, I followed his every instruction while the animated creature before us babbled on menacingly, in a language unknown to me.

Over a period of hours this contorted person slowly transformed into my friend Mike, to our relief. Mike had no memory of the events leading up to the point where he was being blessed by the minister, as dawn began filtering through the windows. I was then asked to take him out to the car where I found only the driver had remained, fast asleep behind the steering wheel.

With Mike deposited in the car and now asleep also, I returned to the office to thank this man for helping us. He thanked me for my help, commended my courage and blessed me, then looking deep into my eyes he asked, “Did you know that you had been touched by the hand of God?” What? Why say something like that? And just what did he mean by that? He continued, “You are indeed fortunate to be chosen. Your friend will need further help, you will do what is required without need of me. Go in peace my boy.” That was enough for my brain, it refused to come up with any questions and retired for the night.

I've learned since then that there are things we can be controlled by if we leave an opening for them. And it is possible for a clear-minded individual to heal the problem, no matter what their religious affiliations.

Over the years I learned that the best way of dealing with anything choosing darkness is to Love it unconditionally. Now I know that sounds absolutely crazy, but, they have no response for this approach as they intend to battle with you and thereby drain energy from you. This loving approach causes them to want to leave you immediately, and it begins their own healing process.

Power of suggestion. It's all in their head. That's why there's a plecebo affect that has set in stone proof that it placebos actually do work on people. Half the stuff these days is psychological.

Am glad the OP posted this thread because i was asking myself the same question. OP you should of included the question about ghost footage and hauntings because there is alot of footage on it.

Originally posted by Ghost in the Machine
Since science can't exactly explain it,

Whatever gave you that impression?

doesn't anyone notice how this stuff tends to only happen to catholics?

hollywood always uses the catholic church and priest and crucifix and beads and baubles like it's the only thing in the world that will save you

i have yet to see this kind of thing happen in my end of the world to any one of the christian churches except for the catholic ones. it really is power of suggestion and what you put your faith in.

i had a friend tell me she was temperamental one day and experiencing hotflashes and lashing out at her husband, probably due to pms. so members from his side of the family who were devout catholics were over there throwing holy water at her and chanting rosaries. absolutely ridiculous

in another instance, certain catholics around here won't buy a home without the approval of their priest. the priest refused to give his blessing on a brand new home because the home had odd cutouts in the wall where he said evil spirits could get trapped.

i don't mean to offend the catholics here but some of them are just a little too much

power of suggestion + faith in wrong thing

Originally posted by Tayesin
I'm not a christian, or anything else I could label but I would like to share something with you concerning exorcism from a first hand experience I had as a teenager. And sorry about the length of this.

Th easiest way is to quote it from the book I wrote but is as yet unpublished....

On a clear summer night in 1976, some of the boys decided to investigate a rumour we had heard concerning an old graveyard near a small suburb on the way to Brisbane City. Here it was said, an angel statue would bleed at midnight from wounds on the neck and wings. These damaged areas were the result of a rampage through the cemetery by drunken youths. We duly arrived prior to midnight and were fortunate to park the car in a position where we could flood the statue with light.

To our true amazement, a warm, dark substance was bleeding from the wounds and I believe that right then we all wished we had gone to the toilet before leaving town. Every night sound stopped, creating an eerie silence just in time for us all to hear church bells toll midnight. This really spooked us, as we knew there were no churches anywhere nearby that could provide these sound effects.

Around this time each of us must have decided to leave post-haste, but this evening was not finished with us yet. As the last peal rang out, we heard a piercing scream from the oldest section of the graveyard. Our friend Mike had screamed and collapsed, by the time we reached him he was growling like some wild thing, and was becoming stronger. It seemed to me that his strength was growing in quantum leaps.

Five of us attempted to lift him to his feet but he kicked and struck out at us, so we dragged him back to the car and unceremoniously dumped him in the floor space between the front and rear seats of the old Holden sedan. Frantically we left the graveyard, pushing the tired six-cylinder engine to it’s limits in an attempt to get Mike to a priest for help. During this journey he became too strong for the people who had been holding him down with their feet. Automatically, my right arm reached over the back of the seat and lightly touched him, making him calmer as soon as he was touched. This action was repeated a number of times as we sped to town. I had no explanations for this when asked, in no way did I intentionally make the move. It was as if my arm had a mind of it’s own, like an autonomous entity attached to my shoulder.

Along that highway is a concrete and steel pedestrian overbridge with each end support jutting out into the verge of the road. We were approaching this when I became aware that our driver was glazing over, literally, his facial features took on an unusual appearance. I also noticed he was steering us toward a high speed collision with the bridge supports on the left side of the road, my side, since I was sitting in the front passenger’s seat.

Once again my arm moved without me directing it, touching his arm with my fingers released him from whatever had taken control. He then looked at me with fear written large across his face, for a fraction of a second while veering back onto the road proper. “I don’t know what just happened, but ‘It’ wants to kill you because you can stop it,” he informed me. I could find no words to respond to him.

The remainder of the trip back to our home town was virtually uneventful after that, but the night was nowhere near an end. We made a bee-line for the first church in town and proceeded to bang on the minister’s door at around one o’clock, until the poor man had to get out of bed to see what all the commotion was about. He listened to our story then slammed the door saying, “Take him away please, I won’t help.” One of the boys spoke out loudly for the minister’s benefit, “That’s great. So what are we supposed to do now,” and as an afterthought he added, “Did you guys see how scared he was?” We continued our quest.

Knocking on the fourth door that morning we all expected the same responses; you might say that a pattern had been established. A kindly face topped with grey hair appeared in the doorway and listened to our well rehearsed tale, he then flung the door wide open and standing to his full height, he commanded, “Bring him in while I prepare.” We could not believe our luck, someone would try to help Mike. Dutifully we dragged our wild-eyed friend out of the car, through the open door and down the hall to the minister’s office. Thinking that we had all done our bit, we turned to leave, until the priest intervened. “You boys wait out at the car,” he ordered, then turning to me he added, “You are to stay.” He then continued saying, “We will do an exorcism for your friend.” Strange feelings and a large dose of fear raged through me as I responded, “Yes Father, I will help.” But I thought, “Why did I say that?” Without getting a reply from myself, I followed his every instruction while the animated creature before us babbled on menacingly, in a language unknown to me.

Over a period of hours this contorted person slowly transformed into my friend Mike, to our relief. Mike had no memory of the events leading up to the point where he was being blessed by the minister, as dawn began filtering through the windows. I was then asked to take him out to the car where I found only the driver had remained, fast asleep behind the steering wheel.

With Mike deposited in the car and now asleep also, I returned to the office to thank this man for helping us. He thanked me for my help, commended my courage and blessed me, then looking deep into my eyes he asked, “Did you know that you had been touched by the hand of God?” What? Why say something like that? And just what did he mean by that? He continued, “You are indeed fortunate to be chosen. Your friend will need further help, you will do what is required without need of me. Go in peace my boy.” That was enough for my brain, it refused to come up with any questions and retired for the night.

I've learned since then that there are things we can be controlled by if we leave an opening for them. And it is possible for a clear-minded individual to heal the problem, no matter what their religious affiliations.

Over the years I learned that the best way of dealing with anything choosing darkness is to Love it unconditionally. Now I know that sounds absolutely crazy, but, they have no response for this approach as they intend to battle with you and thereby drain energy from you. This loving approach causes them to want to leave you immediately, and it begins their own healing process.

Nice piece of fiction.

It's all in the head.

doesn't anyone notice how this stuff tends to only happen to catholics?

power of suggestion + faith in wrong thing

LMAO. Who says it occurs only in Catholic communities? Have you checked? I'm sure you haven't. Just off the top of my head I can think of possessions by animal spirits in African communities.

Perhaps we need a thread on the blindness of skeptics...

In any case, to respond to the OP, possession is synonymous with psychological complexes. We used to call it demons, now we call it obsessions / compulsions.

These "complexes" can manifest physically and break the "laws" of physics, because the laws of physics only work within their own limited context.

Stigmata and the Ouija board are another couple of examples of the breaking of laws.

FYI I am neither an atheist nor a "christian" (at least in the limited extreme American definition of the word), but I have an open mind and I do not deny evidence that runs counter to my bias.

I'd like to offer a unique perspective. I am a mental health professional. I hold degrees in theology and psychology. I also hold post grad degrees. I was raised catholic. I've been a protestant. I've gone through a bout of atheism and now subscribe to a more agnostic viewpoint. I've done consults on people who were "in need" of an excorcism. I've been to missions in Africa and been party to a few catholic excorcisms. I've also seen "deliverance" and I have seen protestant and jewish versions of excorcisms. I've also seen native american and african tribal versions of the rite.

I will say I 100% believe that people can be possesed or subjegated by a spirit or demon. The Catholic Church requires a psychological and medical examination before an excorcism is even considered by the Bishop. In Africa, Kenya where I was, there are no such requirements. I've seen things which were not faked nor can they be explained by natural phenomenon. Levitation. Pressing her back up against a 12 foot wall then sliding up and maintaining a position halfway up the wall for 5 minutes. SO I believe. Even though I may not subscribe to the Catholic Church's religous doctorine anymore.

Most methods of Excorcism have a lot of commonality. The oppressed believeing that it will help them is probably the biggest part of it. Repitition and putting the opressed into a near trancelike state in order to offer them suggestions is an element which is effective and often not realized by the excorcist.

The biggest difference between catholicism and other religions manner of excorcism is that the priest assumes the role of christ in the excorcism. The excorcist is the Vicar of Christ in the Excorcism whereas the excorcist in every other sect is simply a mediator. Sometimes a priest will entreat a stubborn Evil Spirit to enter himself, in a veiled attempt, to draw the evil spirit out. Then, hoping to expel the Evil Spirit out of himself, he becomes the sacrifice, or the perfect mediator. In a very real sense, he behaves as Christ. He then attempts to expel the spirit from himself.

The other major difference is the Catholics have learned from experience. Which is why the psyce consult and medical examination must take place. It's also why the priest can't make the determination himself and must get permission from the Bishop. Checks and balances. These protestant excorcist seem to have put in an express line even going so far as to excorcise folks over the internet and tv. It's a joke. But if the people have a minor mental ailment their belief in the acts ability to help them gives it some merit.

But in those legitimate cases, you want a Catholic Excorcist. The rite they use has scientiffic merit as well as spiritual merit. It's highly refined and they exhaust rational explanations before moving on to possesion. In my opinion these express lane protestant excorcisms need to stop. Aome of these churches do 500 per week. Do you really think one man could cast out 500 demons in a week? Besides they've even started excorcising demons that cause homosexuality. They have a credibility issuee in my eyes.

Originally posted by iamnot
doesn't anyone notice how this stuff tends to only happen to catholics?

hollywood always uses the catholic church and priest and crucifix and beads and baubles like it's the only thing in the world that will save you

i have yet to see this kind of thing happen in my end of the world to any one of the christian churches except for the catholic ones. it really is power of suggestion and what you put your faith in.

i had a friend tell me she was temperamental one day and experiencing hotflashes and lashing out at her husband, probably due to pms. so members from his side of the family who were devout catholics were over there throwing holy water at her and chanting rosaries. absolutely ridiculous

in another instance, certain catholics around here won't buy a home without the approval of their priest. the priest refused to give his blessing on a brand new home because the home had odd cutouts in the wall where he said evil spirits could get trapped.

i don't mean to offend the catholics here but some of them are just a little too much

power of suggestion + faith in wrong thing

Just for reference you are quite wrong. Did you know there are about 18,000 noncatholic excorcisms to every 1 catholic excorcism? Did you know that there are more than 100 churches(protestant) in the US that individually do more excorcisms in a year than the entire catholic faith does? If you think it's all bunk how do you know that it's the power of suggestion you put your faith in? Have you ever seen a catholic or a protestant excorcism in it's entirety? No. So how can you make claims about the rite if you haven't seen it?

As far as the catholics splashing your friends wife with holy water and praying for her, well I think it says more about the mental instability of your friends family than the catholic religion.

As far as the house thing, again you said "certain catholics". It sounds like the people have a mental illnessas opposed to a problem with the religion. As far as the Catholic Church goes, a priest isn't allowed to refuse to bless a home that a member of the catholic church owns or rents. THere are also so problems with your story. A priest wouldn't bless the home before thay bought it because they aren't the property owner. And catholics typically wouldn't have a priest come bless the home before they bought it. It happends after the fact. So it sounds like you have some errant information and you know some mentally unbalanced folks.

It also sounds like you have some sort of prejudice against catholics. You generalize them pretty heavily and seem to have a largely negative viewpoint of people who worship that faith.

What they want is attention..... just like every single famous religious person ever.

Writhing around on the floor, getting smacked in the head, and confessesing you love jesus more than anyone else is a good way to get your 15 minutes of fame.

A couple of months back I was looking for videos of what some claim are demonic possesion, but I never actually found anything. Does anyone have any good videos or knwo where to snag some?

reply to post by jonnyc55


Yes, I did consider including footage of actual exorcisms. But decided against due to its graphic nature.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by Ghost in the Machine
Since science can't exactly explain it,

Whatever gave you that impression?

Prove me otherwise.

reply to post by watcher73

Hi Watcher,
Not fiction, actual experience I wrote about in my own recapitulation of the events and people who have helped me to my current understanding.

My friend Mike was at the time speaking in an unknown language to me. It was not drivel he was making up, it had individual sounds to each word and no rythm as would be expeccted from one making it up.

And, he was far stronger than he could have been in a normal situation.

And, he did not look like the person we all knew as Mike, his face was different.

You may wish to consider this as a work of fiction, but I can say it was never written as such.

reply to post by DrJay1975

Thank you for your very interesting post.

Could be some kind of mental dysfunction. Science hasnt really made much progress in solving this mystery.

reply to post by The Light Bringer


ITS PEOPLE LYING!!!!! For christs sake how dense do you have to be to not see that as atleast an option? Science has explained the HELL out of it. Its morons being morons in frount of other morons. Yay! Now they can go to heaven with us after shaking on the ground for attention!