Possessed by Ghosts: Exorcisms in the 21st Century

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Tamil women in India are said to experience possession by peye spirits. According to tradition, these spirits overwhelmingly possess new brides, are usually identified as the ghosts of young men who died while romantically or sexually frustrated, and are ritually exorcised. [105]

Possessed by Ghosts : Exorcisms in the 21 Century - Goodreads

O'Connell, M. C. (1982). "Spirit Possession and Role Stress among the Xesibe of Eastern Transkei". Ethnology. 21 (1): 21–37. doi: 10.2307/3773703. JSTOR 3773703. Cuneo, Michael (1999). "Exorcism". Contemporary American Religion. Vol.1. Macmillan Reference USA: Gale eBooks. pp.243–245 . Retrieved 3 December 2019. Thanks Anders – you have put your finger on something that I have been struggling to clarify! The Journal of Religion and Health can perhaps find some useful and productive ways to bring together religion and health, but this article is not an example of that. The epistemic standards for holding religious beliefs and beliefs about the nature and treatment of diseases are different, as you note. This article is perhaps an example of trying to get the scientists involved in a certain aspect of health research to adopt epistemic standards that are appropriate to religious belief, but not to science. So, whilst the fact that some communities believe in demons might be a reason to take that belief seriously as a religious belief, it is not a reason for scientists to take it seriously. To get scientists to take it seriously, we’d have to do the sort of thing that you describe, and then it seems to become something other than a religious belief … In the Roman Ritual, true demonic or Satanic possession has been characterized since the Middle Ages, by the following four typical characteristics: [15] [16] Influenced by the religion of Islam, among the several spirits in Indonesian belief are demons ( setan), composed of fire, prone to anger and passion. They envy humans for their physical body, and try to gain control of it. When they assault a human, they would intrude their mind, trying to displace the human spirit. The human's mind would adapt to the passions of anger, violence, irrationality and greed, the intruding demon is composed of. The demon is believed to alter the person, giving him supernatural attributes, like strength of many men, ability to appear in more than one place, or assume the form of an animal, such as a tiger or a pig, or to kill without touching. Others become lunatics, resembling epilepsy. In extreme cases, the presence of the demon may alter the condition of the body, matching its own spiritual qualities, turning into a raksasha. [108]

Official Catholic doctrine affirms that demonic possession can occur as distinguished from mental illness, [18] but stresses that cases of mental illness should not be misdiagnosed as demonic influence. Catholic exorcisms can occur only under the authority of a bishop and in accordance with strict rules; a simple exorcism also occurs during baptism. [1] Bullard, A. (2022). Spiritual and Mental Health Crisis in Globalizing Senegal: A History of Transcultural Psychiatry. USA: Taylor & Francis.

s Population Affected or Possessed by Ghosts World’s Population Affected or Possessed by Ghosts

Taking advantage of personality defects such as anger, fear, emotional nature etc. They aggravate these personality defects thus adding to our vulnerability. The higher our personality defects, the easier it is for the ghost to possess, thus hastening the entire process of possession. The ghosts are easily able to possess Tama predominant people with personality defects such as weak-mindedness, instability, intense desires and fearfulness. Ghosts play up our personality defects with insidious thoughts further destabilising our world. Whether you're the most logical and grounded person on the planet or a fan of the paranormal, Possessed by Ghosts presents interesting theories. If read with an open mind, it offers up hours of lively or even heated debates. Its tone does become overly dramatic and florid at times and some discussions and arguments sound redundant, but even so, this book presents an interesting point of view about ghosts, possession, exorcisms, death and our very existence. Yes, but the proper study of medical phenomena is RCT. And if we were to regard demons as a possible cause of schizophrenia, why apply the methodology of a different field? And why is ethnography applicable to religious phenomena rather than theology? Both RCT and ethnography are alien to the religious view. Although forbidden in the Hebrew Bible, magic was widely practiced in the late Second Temple Period and well documented in the period following the destruction of the Temple into the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries C.E. [52] [53] Jewish magical papyri were inscriptions on amulets, ostraca and incantation bowls used in Jewish magical practices against shedim and other unclean spirits. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Jewish methods of exorcism were described in the Book of Tobias. [54] [55] Hamer, John; Hamer, Irene (1966). "Spirit Possession and Its Socio-Psychological Implications among the Sidamo of Southwest Ethiopia". Ethnology. 5 (4): 392–408. doi: 10.2307/3772719. JSTOR 3772719.Dein, S. (2013). "Jinn and mental health: Looking at jinn possession in modern psychiatric practice". The Psychiatrist. 37 (9): 290–293. doi: 10.1192/pb.bp.113.042721. S2CID 29032393.

Possessed by Ghosts : Exorcisms in the 21 Century - Goodreads Possessed by Ghosts : Exorcisms in the 21 Century - Goodreads

Tibetan Buddhist Psychology and Psychotherapy". Tibetan Medicine Education center . Retrieved 12 December 2019. Bhūtavidyā, the exorcism of possessing spirits, is traditionally one of the eight limbs of Ayurveda. of the population are in category of ‘mild possession’. This category of possession can easily be understood by the intellect itself. This is due to obvious signs or display of behaviour at a physical, psychological, intellectual and spiritual level. In mild possession, the spiritual strength of the possessing entity and its control on the possessed person is minimal as compared to the other levels. The concept of spirit possession exists in the culture of modern Rajasthan. Some of the spirits allegedly possessing Rajasthanis are seen as good and beneficial, while others are seen as malevolent. The good spirits are said to include murdered royalty, the underworld god Bhaironji, and Muslim saints & fakirs. Bad spirits are believed to include perpetual debtors who die in debt, stillborn infants, deceased widows, and foreign tourists. The supposedly possessed individual is referred to as a ghorala, or "mount". Possession, even if by a benign spirit, is regarded as undesirable, as it is seen to entail loss of self-control, and violent emotional outbursts. [104]Broedel, Hans Peter (2003). The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft. Great Britain: Manchester University Press. pp. 32–33. ISBN 9780719064418. The belief in spirit possession is part of the native culture of the Sidama people of southwest Ethiopia. Anthropologists Irene and John Hamer postulated that it is a form of compensation for being deprived within Sidama society, although they do not draw from I.M. Lewis (see Cultural anthropology section under Scientific views). The majority of the possessed are women whose spirits demand luxury goods to alleviate their condition, but men can be possessed as well. Possessed individuals of both sexes can become healers due to their condition. Hamer and Hamer suggest that this is a form of compensation among deprived men in the deeply competitive society of the Sidama, for if a man cannot gain prestige as an orator, warrior, or farmer, he may still gain prestige as a spirit healer. Women are sometimes accused of faking possession, but men never are. [62] East Africa [ edit ] If there is no effect of exorcism, then it is bad for religious belief (or at least belief in exorcism). If there is a culture-specific effect of exorcism (contrasted with fake exorcism) then this suggests religious relativism. If exorcism using one belief system works even on non-believers but other belief systems doesn’t work it might at first seem we have some evidence for that belief system. Yet most faiths seem very unwilling to do this kind of comparision: perhaps because if one faith happens to be correct, then the majority of people – no matter how sincere – must be wrong about their faith.