Take it Outside

Holy Watermelon

To wrap up Spooktober we are talking about exorcisms! Exorcisms are not exclusively Catholic or Christian but can be found in religious traditions around the globe. Exorcisms have been taking place for centuries. Are these demonic possessions real? Or is there something deeper taking place?

Trigger Warning: We take a look at a few cases of people using claims of possession to abuse people.

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Preston Meyer 00:12

it's Saturday night

Katie Dooley 00:17

because the night lost an entire day of my life

00:23

Hi Katie. Hi, Preston.

Preston Meyer 00:27

Man, it's spooky time the

Katie Dooley 00:29

spookiest of the spooky just in time for Halloween, right for Halloween.

Preston Meyer 00:36

The spooky season. We've got about a week left of it. And this is our last spooky season episode. For now, on the whole podcast.

Katie Dooley 00:50

I was gonna say it's actually an exorcism. I like how you brought our intro. Thanks. I didn't know I didn't know what I was gonna do after that. Yeah, so today we're talking about exorcisms or demonic possession and getting rid of it. Mm hmm. We have we put a trigger warning in our notes. Some of these get a little gross suddenly feel gross. And there's some abuse stuff later on which I'll remind another trigger warning right before then. But yeah, just keep that in mind. As we dive into spooky, spooky things, kooky, spooky,

Preston Meyer 01:29

spooky, scary skeletons.

Katie Dooley 01:33

So what the heck even is exorcism?

Preston Meyer 01:35

Oh, man, it's, it's kind of a big heavy thing. Broadly speaking, an exorcism is the act of removing demons or gins, or malevolent spirits or spiritual entities from a person, or sometimes a place, a group of people a amalgam body. Well, we'll see some weird examples of that. I'm excited.

Katie Dooley 02:03

So being in the western country, we mostly hear about exorcisms from a Christian and a predominantly Catholic perspective. But it is an ancient practice that can be found all over the world. And across basically every religion, we have examples from most major religions. Yeah, it's

Preston Meyer 02:26

almost universal, I guess. Seems to be connected to this ancient primal fear that we have in us that there's something that we need to get rid of. It's an odd thing to observe in our species.

Katie Dooley 02:40

It is. And then part of me wonders how that feeling, links to sin. But that's a different episode. Yes. There's always something inherently wrong with us. Right.

Preston Meyer 02:53

So the interesting thing about exorcism is that the word actually means to administer an oath to exercise something is to make somebody bound in an obligation. And the word actually isn't connected to exhortation. Like I initially suspected it was when I went looking for the definition, even though that would have made sense as you're exhorting the demon to say, I'm gone. But no, it's more of actually causing this unpleasant entity to enter into an agreement to willingly leave, which is kind of interesting.

Katie Dooley 03:37

It really, yeah, it really is. It's, you know, we see it about like casting out but you're right. It's really like more of a bargaining than a termination of a lease. Right. I found a quote in the Atlantic, from the Atlantic news website, on the frequency of exorcisms. And so that's one pastor by the name of Thomas This is a quote it says most of the exorcist I interviewed said they believe that demonic possession was becoming more common, which we'll talk about in a minute. And they say that a resurgence in magic, divination, witchcraft, and attempts to communicate with the dead as a primary cause. According to Catholic teaching, engaging with the occult involves accessing parts of the spiritual realm realm that may be inhabited by demonic forces. Those practices become the engine that allows the demons to come in. And I want to bring this up early in the episode because we just finished our occult episode and before that we did wicker and I, wicker in actually both of them, I just don't really know how there's any opportunity for the demons to come in. Wicked doesn't deal with demons at all. The occult, if you get into seances, that might be a bit of a gray area but alchemy doesn't deal with them. Once at all, no, not so much. I just thought it was interesting. I guess the misinformation,

Preston Meyer 05:06

a lot of fundamentalist Christians, and actually a lot of non fundamentalist Christians as well, I suppose, really are connected to this idea that if you're into any of these dark religions that these Christians are happy to label as such, you have either made a decision to deviate from Christianity, or have been tricked by the devil into this awful tradition. It's kind of a weird position to hold.

Katie Dooley 05:38

Well, again, it's a weird position to me, when, you know, we just talked about the occult being astrology and, and oh community, and

Preston Meyer 05:47

there's, there's so much to

Katie Dooley 05:50

those are the ones that stopped because again, they'll have to do anything to do with spirits or demons or anything at all. And then Wicca again has to have the god and the Goddess. And that's kind of the extent of their belief in supernatural and some Wiccans don't even believe in that. Right. So anyway, I just thought it was an interesting little tidbit for this.

Preston Meyer 06:15

Yeah, it's an interesting quotation. Christians generally believe that there is an ultimate good, and that it's personified in God and Jesus. And so necessarily the reciprocal must exist in the form of demons, the devil, and all evil. It's relatively easy to spot in the Bible. And it gets built on a lot more with theological thought of last few 1000 years, for sure. And there's this idea that a person who has been possessed is not considered to be evil, they are a victim. They're basically meant to be treated as though they have an illness that needs to be cured rather than this person who needs to be destroyed. Which so far sounds like a healthy ish perspective.

Katie Dooley 07:09

I mean, they're all healthy ish perspective, but we'll get into that ish part later. So in it's a little exorcisms look a little different from denomination to denomination. And again, we mostly see it from a Catholic perspective. If you you know, watch the exorcist. Or watch The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Exorcism movies are they're all predominantly Catholic exorcism. So in Catholicism, exorcist are a special specialty group of trained priests seals. That joke like Navy SEALs, or, like, I hope that it didn't translate it. Oh,

07:55

it did. I just hear just

Preston Meyer 07:58

even when people talk about Navy SEALs, I think of uniformed seals weird animals that should not be trusted with military duties. Because

Katie Dooley 08:07

some of them,

08:08

right? Yeah. That was ages ago. Yeah.

Katie Dooley 08:14

special group of ordained priests. So not every priest in the Catholic Church can perform exorcisms there's like an annual course to train exercises.

Preston Meyer 08:24

Yeah, it seems that since we have more and more need for exorcisms, they just have opened it up a lot more that, hey, more priests need this training.

Katie Dooley 08:37

But again, your local parish priests might not actually be.

Preston Meyer 08:40

And we'll talk about one of those a little later on too.

Katie Dooley 08:46

So again, in the Catholic tradition, we'll talk about other Christian traditions and then other traditions. Predominantly, the purchasing Michael is believed to be the strongest pair against the devil. And that's the use to help damn spot

Preston Meyer 09:03

right Michael is powerful. But so is the devil apparently. Yeah, Orthodox Christians believe that objects in addition to people can become possessed. And unlike the Catholic tradition, all Orthodox priests are trained to perform exorcisms because the need if even objects can be possessed, that need is going to be a little bit more frequent.

Katie Dooley 09:28

Yes, I also I this is just me off the top of my head. I don't know how big the Orthodox Jewish tradition is compared to the Catholic tradition.

Preston Meyer 09:39

Right circulation wise it is smaller. Yeah. So

Katie Dooley 09:41

if you have fewer priests because you have fewer congregants, and there's a higher need to make sure your priests are trained.

Preston Meyer 09:53

Ah, yeah, most Christian denominations performing exorcisms are required to get physical Want psychological evaluations done before going forward with an exorcism? Which seems like a pretty good idea healthy,

Katie Dooley 10:07

again, which we'll talk about. But it's

Preston Meyer 10:11

important to make sure that you're not dealing with totally separate underlying conditions. Rather than, you know, ignore something that's easy to fix with pharmacology or medical attention. Yes.

Katie Dooley 10:24

Because whether you believe in possession or not, I imagine an exorcism is quite traumatizing to go through.

Preston Meyer 10:31

In every situation that I have found. There is a fight. Right? So sometimes it's a light fight. But there's some sort of fight. Yeah.

Katie Dooley 10:41

A stronger prayer. Yeah. So just another note, to reiterate, is that in the last several centuries, many Christians have been blaming possessions on the increase of witchcraft. And so I actually searched possession rates for Wiccans to see if we can have ever reported possession by a demon and I couldn't find anything. So yeah,

Preston Meyer 11:08

yeah, to believe that you are possessed does require a pre existing belief that it is possible.

Katie Dooley 11:15

Yes, we get into sort of the atheist perspective. And the skepticism around exorcisms that's absolutely something that will come up is that this doesn't happen to people who don't believe in demons.

Preston Meyer 11:27

Or maybe they just don't recognize it, maybe. Okay. But to believe that you've been possessed by a demon, you have to believe that it's possible. That's how belief works.

Katie Dooley 11:39

Please see our previous episode on belief.

Preston Meyer 11:43

Yep. All right, King James, the same guy who authorized the English translation of the Bible for the Church of England back in 1611. Ish, was responsible for a book called demonology, which outlined relationship between demons and witches to help Christians cleanse their communities and ultimately, whose goal was to cleanse the nation, which definitely didn't go so beautifully.

Katie Dooley 12:10

Yeah.

Preston Meyer 12:13

King James was an interesting fellow say,

Katie Dooley 12:17

like randomly killing off your citizens doesn't feel like a good economic choice.

Preston Meyer 12:20

But it wasn't just about economics. He he was the defender of the faith and he absolutely needed to ensure the salvation of his nation. He was a lot more concerned about that than economics. Oh, good. Oh, good. Reminds me of some more people that we've seen more recently.

Katie Dooley 12:41

So interestingly, enough, exorcism is in all sorts of religions. So exorcism and Islam I actually found super interesting. Mostly when we get into gin.

Preston Meyer 12:57

Yeah, so exorcism, they're called as I am, or Rukia basically means healing. And there's nothing in the Quran about exorcism. But there are mentions of it in the Hadith. And there is a record that Muhammad drove out an evil spirit from a young boy. So it is part of that religious tradition. And Jinns are pretty nifty.

Katie Dooley 13:22

Yes, the jinn are spirits, so it's a big umbrella term. So Jin are not necessarily evil. There's a whole bunch of other terms I'm gonna run through, but I got really excited about gin, and spirits. And then I thought about Aladdin and the term Genie, which is absolutely where we get that's where the word comes from. I just say and my little our own personal Preston weird moment, and got really excited about making that connection. So if you want to picture a gin picture, good old Robin Williams, because Jen are described in the Quran as being made of smokeless and scorching fire.

Preston Meyer 14:00

It's pretty awesome. So it's a little bit weird that we have this blue almost entirely smoky Robin Williams.

Katie Dooley 14:09

Yes. He's very wispy. Yeah.

Preston Meyer 14:13

Not not the most true to source material, Genie, but definitely a lot of fun.

14:20

is I think what we're missing is fair. Yeah. Yeah. The tail instead of legs a lot of the time. So the blue Yeah.

Preston Meyer 14:30

Disney's color scheme at the time was definitely red and green or evil, blue and purple or friendly. I hate Yeah.

Katie Dooley 14:36

And then turns into red Genie later. So can happen starting up that way. Jana is derived from the root Arabic word Jen, which conveys the idea of concealing or failing. So again, that kind of wispy,

14:52

serious figure. Yes. So then

Katie Dooley 14:55

there are a whole bunch of other Arabic terms. You have shaytan we To our satanic beings, you have Marine is the demon boot is an evil spirit of for Risa is an angel. So that falls under the chin umbrella as well.

Preston Meyer 15:10

Yeah. And so when it comes to dealing with an exorcism, a sheikh places his hands on the head of the possessed person, and recites verses from the Quran, and hopefully this is going to be enough to get rid of these spirits that are traditionally very obedient to Allah. Which is kind of a perk.

Katie Dooley 15:32

Yeah, that's good. I mean, they as they shouldn't be full of great No, right?

Preston Meyer 15:37

In the, in the Christian tradition, they don't tend to be terribly obedient. No, they they really put up a fight. And we see a little bit of difference here between religious traditions.

Katie Dooley 15:48

So just wanted to clarify because we didn't actually talk about what a shake was in Islam episode, so a Sheikh is just the head of a household or some sort of leader. So you can be a community leader, you can be the head of your family household. Yeah,

Preston Meyer 16:05

those are kind of the two big ones. You could be the leader of a mosque. Yep.

Katie Dooley 16:09

So we do talk about a moms and their leaders of prayer. So if you're getting it down into the semantics, you're only in a mom when you are leading prayer. So the second you're done leading prayer, you are no longer an imam is how I read the definition. I

Preston Meyer 16:23

feel like there's a little bit of variety there. I'm wondering, like you could

Katie Dooley 16:27

probably a job title for a lot of people. So yes, you can be both a shake and a mom. And so yeah, just needs to be a head of a household, or other group or other group to help cast out these Jin.

Preston Meyer 16:44

Judaism also deals with this sort of issue. Demons are pretty often called do book, which is a shorter form of Dubuque Marula raw, which means clinging evil spirit. And so when we cut it down to just do book as is often done, it's basically just calling them cling on. Which I love. There's actually a lot of sweet little Jewish Easter Eggs in Star Trek. Oh, yeah. Interesting. And, yeah, some good fun there. The book are believed to be the lost souls of the dead, rather than any other sort of spiritual being. They're said to take bodies to accomplish some sort of task. So if they're going to perform a possession, they are hoping to accomplish something and then they will just leave on their own. Unless, of course, an exorcist gets there first.

Katie Dooley 17:46

Which I guess, depending on what they want to accomplish might be a good thing, especially if they want to accomplish murder.

Preston Meyer 17:51

That would be a good reason to call an exorcist before that gets

Katie Dooley 17:54

accomplished any unfinished business on Earth, right?

Preston Meyer 17:59

And it's not usually like, oh, well, I gotta find my taxes.

Katie Dooley 18:03

No, if I died, I'd leave that for my right my estate.

Preston Meyer 18:07

That's not a thing I enjoyed doing in my life. It's not the way I'm gonna spend my death. A Jewish exorcist is usually a rabbi trained in Kabbalist rituals, and they operate with the assistance of ideally 10 men in a circle around the person who is possessed. And the exorcist must purify himself according to Jewish ritual practices. And what I thought was interesting, because words, that's my thing. The group of men that help out the rabbi is called a minion. Which sounds an awful lot like the word minion in English. But of course, we can't have an army of little yellow dudes.

Katie Dooley 18:51

Oh, spirits.

Preston Meyer 18:53

Just shouting Banana, banana. So the word minion means count or number or quorum, so nothing terribly fancy there. But they will have many minions. Maybe I like the word. I'm happy. I found it.

Katie Dooley 19:14

I'm happy that you're happy, right?

Preston Meyer 19:19

So sometimes smoking out the demon is necessary. Sometimes that means wood smoke or sulfur. With the end goal, of course being able to learn the name of the demon and have a conversation with it.

Katie Dooley 19:33

Do you know how they know if a exorcism has been successful? How do they do? So you can find the body there's a part of your body where the Spirit will leave from. So it is often a bloody toenail or a fingernail and spirit will just pull you out of there. There are some reports of more gruesome exit wounds. That that's how you know the demons gone.

Preston Meyer 19:59

A few Like when you say the most common exit wound is evidenced by a bloody toenail. I feel like somebody probably kicked something real hard where they're putting up this fight. Oh, probably.

Katie Dooley 20:12

Which makes the gruesome ones more gruesome.

Preston Meyer 20:15

Right?

Katie Dooley 20:15

That's so we're tired, but like, well, messy. Shannon hole wounds and wounds. Yeah, I'll just leave it at that. Do you imagine a little demon shooting out of your penis?

Preston Meyer 20:29

That's not what I'm imagining what I'm imagining is abuse that's being written off as an exit wound.

Katie Dooley 20:35

Oh, well, yeah,

20:36

that's a real prime. I mean, I'm

Katie Dooley 20:37

an atheist. I don't believe in this. So yeah, probably. But just imagine a little genie.

Preston Meyer 20:44

Yeah, it's funnier. It is funnier. It's a lot funnier.

Katie Dooley 20:49

make light of a horrible situation. Yeah. We'll make a graphic for that.

Preston Meyer 20:59

Aladdin rubbing his lamp.

Katie Dooley 21:03

Wow. This is why there's a trigger warning. Just because we're gross. Oh, dear. So we've never talked about Taoism on the podcast yet?

Preston Meyer 21:17

Not really. We

Katie Dooley 21:18

have exorcisms too. Yeah. So Taoism is is a Chinese folk religion. It's kind of parallels with Shintoism.

Preston Meyer 21:26

It has a lot in common with Hinduism. But there's, I feel like there's more to it. In some ways,

Katie Dooley 21:32

I would agree. But it is sort of the indigenous religion of China. Yeah. So actually very similar to Judaism. It is mostly concerned about ghosts of the dead taking over bodies of the living.

Preston Meyer 21:47

Yeah, sometimes the person has said to use magic to deliberately put a spirit into somebody. And of course, this accusation is made against the witches by Christians and stuff, too. So it's, again, not terribly foreign to the things we've talked about before. The

Katie Dooley 22:02

process of exorcism is also quite similar to what we've seen before. So it's the ritual spells casting that with written symbols, as well as chanting

22:16

pretty basic stuff. Yeah.

Preston Meyer 22:17

All right. In Hinduism, demons are called a Soros. And they can be pretty nasty, as I guess they get to be in most traditions, I suppose. But praying to Hanuman gets you the best results for exorcism having apparently it's after centuries 1000s of years even. They just figured, oh, this one aspect of the all God. This one aspect is really good at doing this job.

Katie Dooley 22:50

I mean, it's kind of like the part of St. Peter, how many first did they try it? I know that this one was the most effective right? Planning man is your guy for that?

Preston Meyer 23:00

And hidden do medical tradition that the IRA VEDA that we've talked about before, includes a buta Vidya, which specifically deals with helping possessing demons just chill out? Relax? Yeah. And then of course, once they're chilled out, you can read a lot easier to get them out. Right? Yeah, just oh, I guess yeah, I've been hurting this person by

Katie Dooley 23:26

I feel like this is the most peaceful exorcism of all of them.

Preston Meyer 23:31

So far, based on the details that we've picked out here, and maybe cherry picking a little bit? Yeah.

Katie Dooley 23:38

I mean, also, just the information available, kind of goes in the order we've talked about. There's a whole bunch on Christian exorcisms. Yeah. And then for Buddhism, they don't actually really deal with malicious demons. But Buddhist monks can be called upon to dispel negative

Preston Meyer 23:57

energy, which is kind of as close as we get to an exorcism there. Yeah.

Katie Dooley 24:03

So what about me, Preston? Let's make this about me. Sure. I'm kidding. What if you believe in this so what is actually happening here if you don't believe that demons are real?

Preston Meyer 24:17

Well, if you don't believe demons are real, you're certainly not going to believe that you're experiencing a possession. That's doesn't even make sense,

Katie Dooley 24:27

right? So demonic possession is not recognized as a mental illness, right? But symptoms of possession can be similar to hysteria, mania, psychosis, Tourette's, epilepsy, schizophrenia, or dissociative identity disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder. You can also have something called mono mania, which is kind of like hypochondria, so if you truly believe you're possessed by a demon You will start to manifest the symptoms of demon possession. So we know that my human mind is super powerful. We've barely scratched the surface on brain science. And we know that, even from our belief episode, perception is reality. So if you think you're possessed by a demon, you're possessed by a demon.

Preston Meyer 25:22

Right? We talked about this in our voodoo episode, that if you are made into a zombie, you are made to believe that you are made into a zombie. There's so much social pressure that and and your own belief system that you've internalized that if you believe that somebody has turned you into a zombie, there's no reason not to behave the way you've been taught that zombies exist. It's it's a weird feedback loop in culture.

Katie Dooley 25:50

Because it's like, yeah, I can understand how your brain again, if you think you're possessed, therefore you are possessed. But that doesn't mean demons exist, either. You know what I mean? It's tricky. Yeah, right. Historically, possessions have become, there's been an uptick recently in possessions. But historically, possessions have become less common as medical understanding has improved. We know what schizophrenia is, we know what Bipolar disorder is, we know what dissociative identity disorder is. But as the rare possessions do hit the news and made their way into popular culture possessions. In North America increased a whole bunch right around the time the excuses came out in the 60s and 70s. And this is also when we see a big influx of even New Age or alternative religion as well. Yeah.

Preston Meyer 26:43

Yeah, kind of hit in that. counterculture sweet spot. Which is just weird. Though, everything about our culture got real weird for a little while.

Katie Dooley 26:53

I wonder if possessions also increased sort of as like the death throes of Christianity. You know what I mean? Not that the Christianity's gone anywhere, but like, there was a sort of idealism of the 50s and the two and a half kids and a dog and a white picket fence and everyone went to church and it was I wonder if the possession was like a like a death throes where it's like, no, look, it is real. And because you're now doing yoga and smoking peyote, look what's happening, you know what I mean?

Preston Meyer 27:26

I think I follow you. I don't know if that's the case or not, but it'd be interesting to look further into I

Katie Dooley 27:32

am absolutely just spitballing one thing I did look into for my own welfare is are there any claims or cases of atheists being possessed by a demon and a confinement

Preston Meyer 27:50

but I guess asking the wrong people about those cases I

Katie Dooley 27:54

found that really offensive believe is that atheists are inherently possessed by a demon because they do not believe in God that was when I read

Preston Meyer 28:03

it's a really weird position to try and force on people and

Katie Dooley 28:07

then the other one I guess it's kind of similar as that your body is a vessel and if it's not filled with Jesus it is filled with Satan so moderately

28:22

that's that's not okay.

Katie Dooley 28:24

Okay, thank you. What's your Christian take on it?

Preston Meyer 28:29

My Christian take I don't believe that there is any empty vessel that's walking around

Katie Dooley 28:36

like empty you're filled with Jesus are filled with Saint but there's so

Preston Meyer 28:41

many other options like your own spirit, your own life,

Katie Dooley 28:45

you don't have those. Right? This you don't have those. You've

Preston Meyer 28:50

got electricity and blood coursing through your body that help manipulate your identity as you experience life. So there's something and that's just the stuff that's easy to prove.

Katie Dooley 29:07

So this is from that same Atlantic article, and this is Pastor Thomas again, and okay, trigger warning, trigger warning time. Nearly this is quote, nearly every Catholic exorcist I spoke with cited a history of abuse particular in particular sexual abuse as a major doorway for demons. Thomas said that as many as 80% of the people who come to him seeking in excess exorcism or sexual abuse survivors, according to these priests, sexual abuse is so traumatic, true that it creates a soul wound and makes a person more vulnerable to demons. So I have some problems with this. What

Preston Meyer 29:47

What problems do you have? Well, this

Katie Dooley 29:48

is your sassy comment that you should probably read aloud.

Preston Meyer 29:54

So, this idea that sexual abuse is tightly connected to this Experience of possession immediately brought to mind the idea that maybe that's why we see so many Catholics suffering from possessions. Shady because we have a embarrassingly large statistic number of priests who are having a real hard time keeping their vows of chastity and sexual. What's the word I'm looking for? Don't do kids

Katie Dooley 30:27

don't care what the chastity is long there's consent. Do not adult children. Right? So my thing is, I don't think it creates a soul wound. I think being sexually abused is trauma, and you're probably having a trauma response that people are then saying is possession. Well,

Preston Meyer 30:50

if your soul is your psyche, then that is a soul round. But it's not necessarily a wound through which something else enters. It's a wound in itself. At the very least, yeah. And, yeah, that's a problem. So in some parts of Europe, and necessarily following that the European diaspora, demonic possessions have been connected to hysteria, which is, if you know a lot about your medical history, a made up disorder that was treated most effectively with sexual abuse. So if these treatments failed, then you obviously had a demon was the perspective they had, or you

Katie Dooley 31:34

had been sexually abused, right.

Preston Meyer 31:38

It's such a disaster. And we've we've come a long way in our medical understanding, and that's great.

Katie Dooley 31:44

Yes, also creepy, and really weird on this same vein is that possessions are more common in women and marginalized groups. And spirits, this is something read spirits are more likely to be male than female. So I had two concerns, to comment on. One, it's kind of weird to me that we're gendering our demons.

Preston Meyer 32:09

I think an awful lot of religions are, if they're interested in spirits do recognize a difference of some kind, between male and female, whether they're the departed dead, who had a gender in life that is more easy to discern, or if there's something else about them that feels familiar to what we see in life.

Katie Dooley 32:32

And then number two, what does this say about gender roles? And how we treat marginalized groups in society?

Preston Meyer 32:39

You mean most people that heard other people are male? Know, not that there aren't women who are abusive, but we hear an awful lot more about male abusers. Yeah, this

Katie Dooley 32:54

sounds to me, like possession and trauma go hand in hand.

Preston Meyer 33:01

There, they definitely seem to be connected.

Katie Dooley 33:04

Alright, so the DSM five in this is, if you I recently learned about the DSM five, it's the go to manual for identifying mental health disorders. It's a mental health dictionary, if you will. It does list dissociative trance disorder as a mental health condition, which is defined as a single or episodic alteration in the state of consciousness characterized by the replacement of customary sense of personal identity by a new identity. This is attributed to the influences of a spirit power deity or the person.

Preston Meyer 33:41

So exorcisms are not exorcisms possessions are in the medical dictionary. As far as people self diagnosing, and then oh, no, no, this is actually what's happening.

Katie Dooley 33:56

Yes, that's helpful. Yeah. I mean, it's just a more specific type of mono mania. Sure, yeah. Or even potentially, very specific type of dissociative identity disorder. I gotcha. So anyway, so that is interesting.

34:13

Yes.

Katie Dooley 34:17

It is a medical condition, I guess. So. I guess the conclusion that we're not we're not done yet. But that positions are real. Sure, mark that.

Preston Meyer 34:28

I wanted to look at a few specific examples of possessions and exorcisms throughout history, mostly just the last 100 or so years. There's there's some gooders that I think are fun to look at. So the first one I pulled up is from 1906 in South Africa, a 16 year old orphan girl named Clara germana seal, confessed to her priest that she was possessed after having made a pact with the devil. Cool. Write something good out of it. One would hope. I don't think she did, though. Nuns reported that she could mysteriously speak a wide variety of languages that they could recognize, but not explain. Like one of them was Polish. There's not a lot of Polish in South Africa in 1906. But theoretically, I mean, maybe this deal with the devil. She really wanted to talk to this one person. She couldn't maybe

Katie Dooley 35:25

be a hyper polyglot. So she could say she's a hyper polyglot, maybe.

Preston Meyer 35:31

She was also reportedly able to describe the sins of strangers. And she had incredible strength. So describing sins of strangers, pretty easy guests say, Father of the parish touches himself. You know what, probably

Katie Dooley 35:48

everyone masturbation, you're probably

Preston Meyer 35:51

you're gonna be right most of the time. She's also said to occasionally float about five feet above the ground. So no small amount. They're kind of a big deal. No, yeah. And also sometimes turn into a snake. So what? That's

Katie Dooley 36:18

why are there no photos of this?

Preston Meyer 36:21

It's 1906. There were photos in 1906. South Africa was a pretty relatively speaking poor country at this time, so there would have been cameras around but probably not lots. But

Katie Dooley 36:33

wouldn't you want to I find a camera and go find a snake girl.

Preston Meyer 36:39

Yeah, for sure. So anyway, after she'd confessed this to a priest, there was an exorcism that lasted two days for this girl. And after trying to choke out the priests, Clara was declared healed. She lived for only six more years dying of heart failure at the age of 22. So whatever she got from the devil, it wasn't a long term prize. No, that's too bad.

Katie Dooley 37:07

919 49 America, probably one of the most famous exorcisms of all time. Anonymous 14 year old boy now typically referred to as Roland dough was the inspiration.

Preston Meyer 37:24

Was this priest also a baker?

Katie Dooley 37:26

Literally? I'm watching shits Creek and I laugh about rollin shit all the time. Right? Rolando? Use me now typically referred to as Rolando was the inspiration for PDR blade. He's famous novel, The Exorcist Of course. Interestingly, interestingly enough, one of the attending priests father, Walter H. Halloran refused to go on record saying whether the boy was truly possessed. Many of the details aligned closely with what you have seen in the movie or read in the book, flying objects shaking bed guttural noises, an aversion to anything holy, etc.

Preston Meyer 38:07

Yeah. So the little bit of looking at a did into this particular exorcism. The the record that the priests did offer is almost exactly what made it into this book. But the forensic evidence and other non clerical witnesses were like, Nah, man, that's all crap. Right? That's not how it went down. Yeah.

Katie Dooley 38:31

And then, in subsequent interviews, he wouldn't say, yeah, if the boy was actually possessed, so which is really weird, especially because that's you like your job, right?

Preston Meyer 38:44

Oh, well. Alright, little more recently 1974 sounds while right. A fella named Michael Taylor started spending a bunch of time with the leader of their prayer fellowship, Marie Robinson. It wasn't long before Mike's wife called them out in a crowded prayer meeting. Yeah, exactly. He was she was pretty stressed out about their relationship. And Mike freaked out and started shouting gibberish and attacking Marie, for which he was forgiven the next day, thankfully, I guess. But Mike's behavior only got worse. And the local vicar was called to perform an exorcism. The Anglican priest teamed up with a Methodist elder to get the job done. They decided that Mike had dozens of demons in him. And in an all night ritual, they cast out a whole bunch individually, one after the other instead of you know, a mass exorcism to get rid of the scores of demons and I'm kind of a weird choice, but whatever. That's what they did.

Katie Dooley 39:44

I mean, they're really really tough demons, Preston probably.

Preston Meyer 39:47

I mean, that's only you can

Katie Dooley 39:49

cheat on his wife.

Preston Meyer 39:52

Everybody, in the record that I found, refuse to say that he was actually sleeping with Marie but There was definitely some doubt anyway, they're casting out demons one by one. And unfortunately they got tired before they could be bothered to cast out the demons of insanity and murder. So they let them go home to his wife so that they could you know, sleep it off and get some rest feel better and then start again the next day. And Michael Taylor went home strangled and disfigured his wife and their poodle out their poodle Yeah. Before he was found naked and covered in blood just chilling out on the street.

Katie Dooley 40:36

I wouldn't want to be that cop right you know, it'd be just like a guy covered naked with his wiener hanging out covered in blood i i know i drive by or another beat cop

Preston Meyer 40:53

Yeah, that's that's the scary uncomfortable situation. So unfortunately, Mike was acquitted based on grounds of insanity because they didn't dispel the demon of insanity so he got off on an insanity plea where

Katie Dooley 41:08

were the priests and be like, maybe we shouldn't let them off or maybe they were like let him off because it's just insanity demon will take care of

Preston Meyer 41:16

you know, the murder demons still there too. So problems. He only spent four years in hospital, which I mean, only four years is a long time in hospital, but also apparently not long enough. He has since been convicted for indecent conduct with a minor so

Katie Dooley 41:35

they didn't dispelled a kitty diddling demon either.

Preston Meyer 41:39

Right. Problems, lots of oversight. I mean, there's some things you wish you should have started with.

Katie Dooley 41:45

Murdering kitty diddling for sure should have been the first to go, right because like a harmless insane person. It's just pitiable, right?

Preston Meyer 41:55

Yeah, good old Michael Taylor. He's his story is a little bit more complex than this a little bit more interesting if you want to look them up later.

Katie Dooley 42:02

All right, Panama in 2020. Recent stuff very recent. A few villagers ran to a hospital for help after escaping an exorcism ritual that ended up with the death of a woman and five of her young children, as well as a teenage girl that lived next to them. The escapees told the authorities that their captors intended to kill them if they didn't give up their demons and repent their sins. This is not a voluntary exorcism of

Preston Meyer 42:33

theirs. It's such a short list of voluntary exorcism. Well,

Katie Dooley 42:37

I guess that depends on who you think you're talking to the person or not because, yeah, little Linda Blair knew something was wrong with her. Sure. I don't think she wanted to be exercised if she could have avoided it. Right. But this is sounds basically like kidnapping or human trafficking and then some weird, yeah,

Preston Meyer 42:57

now you're gonna obey me or be killed? Yeah. Kind of messed up. Yeah, you're messed up. All right, just this year 2021, Washington, DC. Reverend David Fulton, a Catholic priest serving a couple of parishes in rural Nebraska decided that he needed to participate in the terrorist attack on the US Capitol that happened January 6 of this year. He told reporters on the scene that day that he had performed an exorcism on the Capitol because a demon had taken hold of Congress. Was

Katie Dooley 43:28

it a demon or just a bunch of hillbillies?

Preston Meyer 43:34

Some people have a hard time telling the difference problem. It is a problem. The Archdiocese of Omaha has since rebuked him, because he has not in fact attended the annual training of how to be an exorcist didn't know what he's doing.

Katie Dooley 43:51

Did he know about the parents for St. Michael? No, probably not.

Preston Meyer 43:58

He hasn't received the training. And he showed up in his work clothes, which was called a misuse of His ministry that misrepresented the church of Rome. filed and did his exorcism succeed. Only gonna say probably not.

Katie Dooley 44:16

Was there anything? Do you have an exercise? Well,

Preston Meyer 44:20

the demon that broadly controls the whole of Congress, or even a majority of it just doesn't make any sense

Katie Dooley 44:30

theologically was possessed. Maybe physical building.

Preston Meyer 44:33

I mean, demons can exist in spaces, I guess, depending on your theology. Who knows what his real goal was.

Katie Dooley 44:40

We have one more story is from Bobby Jindal, who is the governor of Louisiana from 2008 to 2016. I just want to point out that this is not slander. He's told this story himself. Yeah. So I don't know why because it makes him look like a horrible person. So the famously homophobic and xenophobic and Jindal was baptized Catholic while attending Brown University. And he quickly showed a dangerous level of zeal. Gentle notice that his friend Susan was acting differently, usually exhibiting a cell in a mood. He decided to get his friends from the Campus Crusade for Christ. We already have a problem with that. To help out with an exorcism, like a bunch of 18 year old boys were like, Let's exercise a girl. This is already problem, right? Oh, God, it gets worse. They restrained her. I remember a bunch of colleges boys, Bibles and crosses in her face, offended by her screaming profanities, and her efforts to escape. So it turns out Preston Suzanne was tired and solid and acting differently. Because she was going through cancer treatments as a university. I mean, cancer, should he anyway. But to be that young and going to university and going to cancer treatments, that would suck, you'd be tired. And and it turns out Jindal is just a day. No kidding.

46:09

Yeah. So

Katie Dooley 46:13

yeah.

Preston Meyer 46:15

Yeah. I mean, if you see the way he behaved as governor, I mean, it. It fits.

Katie Dooley 46:23

I mean, I wouldn't be his friend anymore. No,

Preston Meyer 46:28

yeah. I wouldn't be his friend either.

Katie Dooley 46:34

So yeah, that one's really yucky. Actually, that's assault.

Preston Meyer 46:37

Yeah, it really is. Trigger warning. Yeah.

Katie Dooley 46:42

Those trigger warning on that link, that's assault.

Preston Meyer 46:46

So there just seem to be a few different kinds of possessions. You can have somebody who is sick and actually needs medical attention, but instead gets mistreated, like we just talked about. Or you could have somebody who is unpopular and becomes the victim of abusive rituals, like the Panama one, right? Just messed up. Our sometimes you can have somebody who is acting out for attention and ends up getting what they want, and maybe a little bit more like Clara. Actually, we think Roland Doe

Katie Dooley 47:15

was one of those as well, I

Preston Meyer 47:17

think you're probably right. The weird thing is that these claims of having some undesired lifeforce in the body are medically reasonable. If something is inside your brain that makes it hard to live the way you would normally do. That could be a brain tumor. It could be a fever, viral, bacterial, who knows whatever. There's all kinds of illnesses that are things in your body that shouldn't be there. And if you believe that living things have spirits, then there is an extra spirit in your body. But we also have an awful lot of gut bacteria, that is also that same sort of issue. But benign, is it sentient? Probably not. But these things can affect people's lives. And definitely see a doctor.

48:14

Always get a second opinion. Yeah, for sure. Always. Yeah.

Katie Dooley 48:19

And I would sort of piggyback off that and say, like, we know so much more about mental illness. And that belief in your brain are super, super powerful. So absolutely. Like if you think you can be possessed by demons and you think you're possessed by a demon, then yeah, you're absolutely, I'd say you're manifesting that. But if you believe that it's true, I believe that while you're not wrong. Ray, like I couldn't convince you otherwise, that it's all in your head. So,

Preston Meyer 48:54

right. It's all tricky stuff. And the, the interesting thing is that anciently like going back 3000 years, all of your medically literate people for like, 99% of the time were your religious leaders, your priests and whatnot. But today, there are very few religious leaders that are medically literate.

Katie Dooley 49:20

There's very little overlap. Yeah. And

Preston Meyer 49:23

so, see a medical doctor. And if your problems can't be solved,

49:32

I don't know how to help that.

Preston Meyer 49:36

I've been, I've been asked to perform one exorcism ever. And before she asked us to perform an exorcism for her, she did say, Hey, I also have schizophrenia. And so I kind of talked her out of that and we did not perform when exorcism

Katie Dooley 49:54

realized it wouldn't work on schizophrenia. Right? Good. But you know, it does work on schizophrenia medication I

Preston Meyer 50:06

see a doctor see that's the thesis of this whole thing so doctor

Katie Dooley 50:09

and generally don't be afraid of demons but do enjoy the exorcist this week or something kooky spooky.

Preston Meyer 50:20

Yeah, enjoy the spooky season. Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of the podcast.

50:26

You know what else? What's that

Katie Dooley 50:28

our listeners can enjoy? What? They can enjoy our Discord. Absolutely they can enjoy our social media. Yeah, they can enjoy our Patreon Oh, and we have merch we have merch they can enjoy our merch. So while you're watching The Exorcist, go online and do all that to help support the podcast. Please be with you. By the late Middle Ages is doomed to fail.