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Demons and Demonic Possessions.

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Red Flag: Proof by Verbosity
Reason: Dr. Gallagher speaks as though he is thoroughly intelligent on the subject of possessions, however it sounds like he simply ignored the scientific possibility of Emily Rose just being Epileptic. No, she HAD to be possessed by a demon.
Flaw: He ignored the fact that Emily was already diagnosed with Epilepsy and took a woman at her word that she was taken by the devil.

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Dr. Richard Gallagher is an Ivy League-educated, board-certified psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University and New York Medical College. He was part of the team that tried to help the woman.

Fighting Satan's minions wasn't part of Gallagher's career plan while he was studying medicine at Yale. He knew about biblical accounts of demonic possession but thought they were an ancient culture's attempt to grapple with mental disorders like epilepsy. He proudly calls himself a "man of science."

Yet today, Gallagher has become something else: the go-to guy for a sprawling network of exorcists in the United States. He says demonic possession is real. He's seen the evidence: victims suddenly speaking perfect Latin; sacred objects flying off shelves; people displaying "hidden knowledge" or secrets about people that they could not have possibly have known.

"There was one woman who was like 90 pounds soaking wet. She threw a Lutheran deacon who was about 200 pounds across the room," he says. "That's not psychiatry. That's beyond psychiatry."

Gallagher calls himself a "consultant" on demonic possessions. For the past 25 years, he has helped clergy distinguish between mental illness and what he calls "the real thing." He estimates that he's seen more cases of possession than any other physician in the world.

"Whenever I need help, I call on him," says the Rev. Gary Thomas, one of the most famous exorcists in the United States. The movie "The Rite" was based on Thomas' work.

"He's so respected in the field," Thomas says. "He's not like most therapists, who are either atheists or agnostics."

Gallagher is a big man -- 6-foot-5 -- who once played semipro basketball in Europe. He has a gruff, no-nonsense demeanor. When he talks about possession, it sounds as if he's describing the growth of algae; his tone is dry, clinical, matter-of-fact.

Possession, he says, is rare -- but real.

"I spend more time convincing people that they're not possessed than they are," he wrote in an essay for The Washington Post.

Some critics, though, say Gallagher has become possessed by his own delusions. They say all he's witnessed are cheap parlor tricks by people who might need therapy but certainly not exorcism. And, they argue, there's no empirical evidence that proves possession is real.

Still, one of the biggest mysteries about Gallagher's work isn't what he's seen. It's how he's evolved.

How does a "man of science" get pulled into the world of demonic possession?

His short answer: He met a queen of Satan.

A 'creepy' encounter with evil

She was a middle-age woman who wore flowing dark clothes and black eye shadow. She could be charming and engaging. She was also part of a satanic cult.

She called herself the queen of the cult, but Gallagher would refer to her as "Julia," the pseudonym he gave her.

The woman had approached her local priest, convinced she was being attacked by a demon. The priest referred her to an exorcist, who reached out to Gallagher for a mental health evaluation.

Why, though, would a devil worshipper want to be free of the devil?

"She was conflicted," Gallagher says. "There was a part of her that wanted to be relieved of the possession."

She ended up relieving Gallagher of his doubts. It was one of the first cases he took, and it changed him. Gallagher helped assemble an exorcism team that met Julia in the chapel of a house.

Objects would fly off shelves around her. She somehow knew personal details about Gallagher's life: how his mother had died of ovarian cancer; the fact that two cats in his house went berserk fighting each other the night before one of her sessions.

Julia found a way to reach him even when she wasn't with him, he says.

He was talking on the phone with Julia's priest one night, he says, when both men heard one of the demonic voices that came from Julia during her trances -- even though she was nowhere near a phone and thousands of miles away.

He says he was never afraid.

"It's creepy," he says. "But I believe I'm on the winning side."

How a scientist believes in demons

He also insists that he's on the side of science.

He says he's a stickler for the scientific method, that it teaches people to follow the facts wherever they may lead.

Growing up in a large Irish Catholic family in Long Island, he didn't think much about stories of possession. But when he kept seeing cases like Julia's as a professional, he says, his views had to evolve.

"I don't believe in this stuff because I'm Catholic," he says. "I try to follow the evidence."

Being Catholic, though, may help.

Gallagher grew up in a home where faith was taken seriously. His younger brother, Mark, says Gallagher was an academic prodigy with a photographic memory who wanted to use his faith to help people.

"We had a sensational childhood," Mark Gallagher says. "My mother and father were great about always helping neighbors or relatives out." Their mother was a homemaker, and their father was a lawyer who'd fought in World War II. "My father used to walk us proudly into church. He taught us to give back."

Gallagher's two ways of giving back -- helping the mentally ill as well as the possessed -- may seem at odds. But not necessarily for those in the Catholic Church.

Contemporary Catholicism doesn't see faith and science as contradictory. Its leaders insist that possession, miracles and angels exist. But global warming is real, so is evolution, and miracles must be documented with scientific rigor.

One of Gallagher's favorite sources of inspiration is Pope John Paul II's encyclical "Fides et Ratio" ("On Faith and Reason"). The Pope writes that "there can never be a true divergence between faith and reason, since the same God who reveals the mysteries and bestows the gift of faith has also placed in the human spirit the light of reason."

The church's emphasis on faith and reason can even been seen in the birth of its exorcism ritual.

The Rite of Exorcism was first published in 1614 by Pope Paul V to quell a trend of laypeople and priests hastily performing exorcisms on people they presumed were possessed, such as victims of the bubonic plague, says the Rev. Mike Driscoll, author of "Demons, Deliverance, Discernment: Separating Fact from Fiction about the Spirit World."

"A line (in the rite) said that the exorcist should be careful to distinguish between demon possession and melancholy, which was a catchall for mental illness," Driscoll says. "The church knew back then that there were mental problems. It said the exorcist should not have anything to do with medicine. Leave that to the doctors."

Doctors, perhaps, like Gallagher.

Gallagher says the concept of possession by spirit isn't limited to Catholicism. Muslim, Jewish and other Christian traditions regard possession by spirits -- holy or benign -- as possible.

"This is not quite as esoteric as some people make it out to be," Gallagher says. "I know quite a few psychiatrists and mental health professionals who believe in this stuff."

Dr. Mark Albanese is among them. A friend of Gallagher's, Albanese studied medicine at Cornell and has been practicing psychiatry for decades. In a letter to the New Oxford Review, a Catholic magazine, he defended Gallagher's belief in possession.

He also says there is a growing belief among health professionals that a patient's spiritual dimension should be accounted for in treatment, whether their provider agrees with those beliefs or not. Some psychiatrists have even talked of adding a "trance and possession disorder" diagnosis to the DSM, the premier diagnostic manual of disorders used by mental health professionals in the US.

There's still so much about the human mind that psychiatrists don't know, Albanese says. Doctors used to be widely skeptical of people who claimed to suffer from multiple personalities, but now it's a legitimate disorder (dissociative identity disorder). Many are still dumbfounded by the power of placebos, a harmless pill or medical procedure that produces healing in some cases.

"There's a certain openness to experiences that are happening that are beyond what we can explain by MRI scans, neurobiology or even psychological theories," Albanese says.

Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, a psychiatrist who specializes in schizophrenia, arrived at a similar conclusion after he had an unnerving experience with a patient.

Lieberman was asked to examine the videotape of an exorcism that he subsequently dismissed as unconvincing.

Then he met a woman who, he said, "freaked me out."

Lieberman, director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, says he and a family therapist were asked to examine a young woman who some thought was possessed. He and his colleague tried to treat the woman for several months but gave up because they had no success.

Something happened during the treatment, though, that he still can't explain. After sessions with the woman, he says, he'd go home in the evenings, and the lights in his house would go off by themselves, photographs and artwork would fall or slide off shelves, and he'd experience a piercing headache.

When he mentioned to this to his colleague one day, her response stunned him: She'd been having the exact same experiences.

"I had to sort of admit that I didn't really know what was going on," Lieberman says. "Because of the bizarre things that occurred, I wouldn't say that (demonic possession) is impossible or categorically rule it out ... although I have very limited empirical evidence to verify its existence."

The tragic case of the real 'Emily Rose'

If you want to know why so many scientists and doctors like Lieberman are cautious about legitimizing demonic possession, consider one name: Anneliese Michel.

Michel was a victim in one of the most notorious cases of contemporary exorcism. If you have the stomach for it, go online and listen to audiotapes and watch videos of her exorcisms. The images and sounds will burn themselves into your brain. It sounds like somebody dropped a microphone into hell.

Michel was a German Catholic woman who died of starvation in 1976 after 67 exorcisms over a period of nine months. She was diagnosed with epilepsy but believed she was possessed. So did her devout Roman Catholic parents. She reportedly displayed some of the classic signs of possession: abnormal strength, aversion to sacred objects, speaking different languages.

But authorities later determined that it was Michel's parents and two priests who were responsible for her death. German authorities put them on trial for murder, and they were found guilty of negligent homicide. The 2005 film "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" was based on Michel's ordeal and the subsequent trial.

One of the leading skeptics of exorcism -- and one of Gallagher's chief critics -- is Steven Novella, a neurologist and professor at Yale School of Medicine.

He wrote a lengthy blog post dissecting Gallagher's experience with Julia, the satanic priestess. It could be read as a takedown of exorcisms everywhere.

He says Julia probably performed a "cold reading" on Gallagher. It's an old trick of fortune tellers and mediums in which they use vague, probing statements to make canny guesses about someone. (Fortune teller: "I see a recent tragedy in your family." Client: "You mean my sister who got hurt in a car accident? How did you know?")

Or take the case of a person speaking an unfamiliar language like Latin during a possession.

"A patient might memorize Latin phrases to throw out during one of their possessions," Novella wrote. "Were they having a conversation in Latin? Did they understand Latin spoken to them? Or did they just speak Latin?"

Novella says it's noteworthy that no one has filmed any paranormal event such as levitation or sacred objects flying across the room during an exorcism. He's seen exorcism tapes posted online and in documentaries and says they're not scary.

"They're boring," he says. "Nothing exciting happens. The most you get is some really bad play-acting by the person who is being exorcised."

In an interview, Novella went further and criticized any therapist who believes his patient's delusions.

"The worst thing you can do to a patient who is delusional is to confirm their delusions," says Novella, who founded the New England Skeptical Society.

"The primary goal of therapy is to reorient them to reality. Telling a patient who is struggling that maybe they're possessed by a demon is the worst thing you can do. It's only distracting them from addressing what the real problem is."

Driscoll, the Catholic priest who wrote a book about possession, is not a skeptic like Novella. Still, he says, it's not unusual for people on drugs or during psychotic episodes to display abnormal strength.

"I have seen it take four grown guys to hold one small woman down," says Driscoll, a chaplain at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Ottawa, Illinois. "When a person has no fear and is not in their right mind and they don't care about hurting themselves or hurting others, you can see heartbreaking things."

That doesn't mean he thinks possession isn't real. He says the New Testament is full of accounts of Jesus confronting demons.

"Do I still believe it happens? Yes, I do," he says. "It happened then. I don't know why it would be totally eradicated now."

Gallagher agrees and has answers for skeptics like Novella.

He says demons won't submit to lab studies or allow themselves to be easily recorded by video equipment. They want to sow doubt, not confirm their existence, he says. Nor will the church compromise the privacy of a person suffering from possession just to provide film to skeptics.

Gallagher says he sees his work with the possessed as an extension of his responsibilities as a doctor.

In a passage from a book he is working on about demonic possession in America, he says that it is the duty of a physician to help people in great distress "without concern whether they have debatable or controversial conditions."

Gallagher isn't the first psychiatrist to feel such duty. Dr. M. Scott Peck, the late author of "The Road Less Traveled," conducted two exorcisms himself -- something Gallagher considers unwise and dangerous for any psychiatrist.

"I didn't go volunteering for this," he says. "I went into this because different people over the last few decades realized that I was open to this sort of thing. The referrals are almost invariably from priests. It's not like someone is walking into my office and I say, 'You must be possessed.' "

What happened to Satan's queen

He may not have asked to join the "hidden" world of exorcism, but he is an integral part of that community today. He's been featured in stories and documentaries about exorcism and is on the governing board of the Rome-based International Association of Exorcists.

"It's deepened my faith," he says of the exorcisms he's witnessed. "It didn't radically change it, but it validated my faith."

He says he's received thanks from many people he's helped over the years. Some wept, grateful to him for not dismissing them as delusional. As for letting a journalist talk to any of these people, Gallagher says he zealously guards their privacy.

Julia, though, gave him permission to tell her story. But it didn't have a happy ending.

He and a team of exorcists continued to see her, but eventually, she called a halt to the sessions. She was too ambivalent. She relished some of the abilities she displayed during her trances. She was "playing both sides."

"Exorcism is not some kind of magical incantation," Gallagher says. "Normally, a person has to make their own sincere spiritual efforts, too."

About a year after she dropped out, Gallagher says, he heard Julia's voice on the phone again. This time, she had called to tell him she was dying of cancer.

Gallagher says he offered to try to help her with a team of priests while she was still physically able, but her response was terse:

"Well, I'll give it some thought."

He says he never heard from her again.

Inevitably, there will be others. His phone will ring. A priest will tell him a story. A team of clergy and nuns will be summoned. And the man of science will enter the hidden world of exorcism again.

The critics, the souls that aren't saved, the creepy encounters -- they don't seem to deter him.

"Truly informed exorcists don't tend to get discouraged," he says, "because they know it is our Lord who delivers the person, not themselves."

Is Gallagher doing God's work, or does he need deliverance from his own delusions?

Perhaps only God -- and Satan -- knows for sure.

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a man of science confronts demonic possession - cnn

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Dr. Richard Gallagher is an Ivy League-educated, board-certified psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University and New York Medical College. He was part of the team that tried to help the woman. Fighting Satan's minions wasn't part of Gallagher's career plan while he was studying medicine at Yale.

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Red Flag: Perception and observation.
Reason: This tv show is based off of the eye witness events of what happened to Regan in the exorcist and now her daughter. Nothing in this show is evidence based. As stated, everybody can remember memories the way they want to.
Flaw: Lack of real evidence. All based on one eye witness event.

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Casey's Demon Attacks Father Tomas And Father Marcus | Season 1 Ep. 5 | THE EXORCIST

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Red Flag: Appeal to Authority.
Reason: Zak Bagans, the author of this novel, is well known for his show Ghost Adventures. He writes about his experience with Demon Possessions and Demonic presences during his show. People tend to believe Zak specifically because he is well known, acts like he knows everything about demonic possessions and because he says its real. Not many people question it.
Flaw: There is no actual firm evidence that Zak can provide us. It is simply that he says it so it must be true. On his show you only see the parts he wants you to see.

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Red Flag: unexplained
Reason: We really don't know what could have happened in these cases. Some sought out doctors and nothing came of it until the exorcism. This could simply be because they had convinced themselves that is what they needed.
Flaw: These incidents are unable to be explained.

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5 Extremely Creepy Cases Of Demonic Possession

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Subscribe for a new video every week! ►► http://goo.gl/lYWszy Check out the NEW Top5s website! ►► http://www.Top5s.co.uk ____________________________________________________________________________________________________ From the real inspiration behind the Exorcist movie, to the terrifying story of Anneliese Michel who was said to be possessed by 6 demons, Cain, Nero, Judas Iscariot, Valentin Fleischmann, Adolf Hitler and Lucifer here are 5 of the scariest cases of Demonic Possession ever documented.

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Red Flag: Patternicity
Reason: The story behind this picture is a woman got a sonogram taken and swore she saw a image of a demon in her stomach near her baby. She was terrified to have the child, worried something had taken over her baby. The reason this is patternicity is because clearly there is not a demon in her stomach. She saw a pattern of the fluid around her baby and her brain turned it into something its not.
Flaw: Assumptions. She is assuming there is a demon in her stomach with her baby.

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Red Flag: Perception and observation or Confirmation Bias.
Reason: Danielle wasn't actually able to remember the events that occurred and it turns out that she didn't even get medically treated before she got an exorcism. She assumed that because she played with the Ouija board that she must be possessed. She wanted to believe that's what it was so that's what it became without looking at the facts.
Flaw: Lack of evidence supporting this and the fact Danielle doesn't remember anything happening.

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Stories of people being possessed by demons have been told since ancient times. To free these innocent souls held captive by evil forces, an exorcism is often the only option. All of the world's major faiths have some form of ritual for doing so, although the practice of exorcism by mainstream denominations is rare today.

This story takes place in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 2011. It is based on the first-hand account of a young Canadian woman named Danielle, whose interest in the occult led her on a journey from devout Christian to self-described Satanist.

Ultimately, Danielle was possessed by not one but three demons, and only an exorcism could save her.

Innocent Beginnings

Danielle had been raised to have strong religious beliefs and she was an active member of a large evangelical church in Winnipeg. A curious teen, Danielle had begun to question her church's warnings about the occult, and she began experimenting with a Ouija board and exploring demonology. Before long, she began describing herself as a Satanist and told friends she was attempting to summon demons.

In early April, Danielle tried again. Using her Ouija board, she attempted to contact her guardian demon. Placing her hands on the planchette (a heart-shaped plank on casters used to communicate with spirits via the Ouija board), Danielle made contact with something not of this world.

"Is there anyone else in this room with me who wishes to speak with me?" she called out.

The planchette moved under its own power to the corner of the board marked "yes."

"Are you good or bad?" she asked next.

The planchette moved again, slowly spelling out "b-a-d."

Danielle paused before asking her next question. "Okay, will you do anything to harm me or anyone?"

For a moment, nothing happened, and then the planchette moved again, spelling out "m-a-y-b-e.

Danielle quickly replied.

"Alright then, how many spirits are here?"

As she watched the board, the planchette stopped at the number three and then slowly spelled out three names: Belial, Malphas, Legion.

Unnerved, the teen decided to quit. She put the Ouija board away, shut off the lights, and turned to leave the room when she heard a strange sound. Hissing. It was coming from nowhere and from everywhere... and it was getting louder.

Possession

Frightened, Danielle left the room, the hissing sound following her. Just then, the doorbell rang, and the sound stopped. Outside stood Danielle's best friend from church, Kaitlyn. Danielle pulled her inside and told her about what had just happened - the Ouija board, the demons, the hissing, everything.

The teens knew they needed help, so they headed out into the pouring rain and drove the youth ministry at their church. During the drive, Danielle's head was throbbing and she kept seeing orange auras. Was it a migraine headache, or something more ominous? As they approached the church, time seemed to stand still and she blacked out.

When she regained consciousness, she found herself in the church, her friend praying beside her. Danielle began choking, her body wracked by the spasms.

"It felt like something was trying to come out of me," she later said. "My choking was so bad I couldn't hear anything or anyone."

Church members helped move her to a secluded part of the church where she could have some privacy. As they did, Danielle felt a sudden rush of energy surge through her body. The orange auras reappeared and time again seemed to grind to a halt. Choking, she struggled in vain to speak for what seemed like an eternity. And then, suddenly, she found her voice.

"Get out of me!" she screamed. And then Danielle blacked out again.

Exorcism

Danielle didn't know how long she had been unconscious. When she came to, Kaitlyn told her that had experienced a demon evocation and that the evil being was gone. As Danielle collected herself, the church's youth minister began reading aloud from the Bible.

The orange auras returned a third time and Danielle says she can't remember what happened next.

"My friend had voice recorded the session, but when I listened I couldn't hear the John, the exorcist, talking," Danielle said. "All I could hear on the recording was my voice and a hissing." Later, a friend of Danielle's had the recording transcribed, a portion of which is as follows:

John: Tell me, demon, what is your name?

Danielle: I am 28!

John: In the name of the holy son Jesus Christ, tell me your name!

Danielle: Ano 28!

John: In the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to tell me your name!

Danielle: I am Belial! One of the Four Crowns and chief of 80 legions of spirits!

John: (inaudible)

Danielle: I will not leave! This girl has repented the worthless and vile son!

John: (inaudible)

Danielle: If you can shut up with this religious sh- for one minute, I'll let her go!

John: No, Belial, you have no right to be in this girl, and Jesus Christ, son of God commands you to leave!

Danielle: "Get out of me!"

And suddenly, the room grew still and quiet. After a few moments, Danielle's friend turned off the recording.

The Aftermath

Within seconds, Danielle stopped choking and her breathing soon returned to normal.Through tears, she hugged her friend Kaitlyn, who assured her all was well. But was it? The Ouija board told Danielle that she had been possessed by three demons. Only Belial had spoken during the exorcism, and there was no indication that he had been driven out. It was only a matter of time before he and the other demons would manifest themselves.

Over the next several days, Danielle underwent three more exorcisms to cast out the remaining demons and to ensure she was no longer in the grip of evil forces. During each of them, the teen experienced the same auras, loss of memory, and bouts of screaming. Malphas eventually was driven out, but Legion and Belial may still lurk within Danielle's soul. Despite three grueling exorcisms, the nightmare hadn't ended.

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True Story of Being Possessed by Three Demons

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Stories of people being possessed by demons have been told since ancient times. To free these innocent souls held captive by evil forces, an exorcism is often the only option. All of the world's major faiths have some form of ritual for doing so, although the practice of exorcism by mainstream denominations is rare today.

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Red Flag: Appeal to Authority or Confirmation Bias.
Reason: This is the tv show Supernatural where demonic possession is a regular occurrence in the show. Since then, many searches for pentagrams and exorcisms have gone up. Supernatural explains that this sort of thing really does happen and there is no other explanation. In the show, lots of people possessed end up dying.
Flaw: This is a tv show. There is a lack of evidence and research.

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Sammy goes demonic, possessed by Meg and tortures Dean. Hope you enjoy the watch :) Btw, this clip is from Season 2 Born under a bad sign for those curious

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Red Flag: Confirmation Bias and Proof by Verbosity
Reason: Throughout the article, you will see that there is a lot of stuff about religion and a ton of information that should be relevant but isn't. It is mainly distracting from the fact that there were all logical reasons for what these people went through, but the easiest way to explain it is to say its a demon.

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n February 2001, a 53-year-old Oklahoma woman who had no history of mental illness, drug or alcohol abuse, or domestic strife, began working a Ouija board with her daughter and two granddaughters. Later that night, claiming to be possessed by a spirit from the Ouija board that told her to kill, the woman stabbed to death her son-in-law, who was sleeping in another room, and attempted to kill other members of her family. Police later apprehended the woman, who was hiding in a wooded area, and commented how unbelievable it was that she could have allowed a Ouija board to "consume her life."

International newspapers carried an account in March 2001 describing how demands for exorcisms were soaring in Brazil due to the fact that demonic possession was on the rise. A priest was quoted as saying that he believed the number of evil spirits among the populace could only mean that the Apocalypse would soon be manifesting.

In April 2001, Croatian newspapers reported that the Roman Catholic clergy were desperately looking for exorcists to deal with the large numbers of men and women who gave evidence of being possessed by Satan.

In June 2001, a new Gallup poll of adult Americans indicated that 41 percent believe that people can be possessed by the devil or his minions.

The majority of healthcare professionals discount possession by spirits as superstitious nonsense and believe such claims to be primitive responses to a variety of mental illnesses, and there are few contemporary clergymen who will acknowledge the existence of demons and the possibility of demonic or spirit possession. However, Dr. Morton Kelsey, an Episcopal priest and a noted Notre Dame professor of theology, has this to say to those who protest that demon possession is a superstitious throwback to the Middle Ages: "Most people in the modern world consider themselves too sophisticated and too intelligent to be concerned with demons. But in thirty years of study, I have seen the effect of demons upon humans."

Kelsey maintains that demons are real and can invade the minds of humans. Demons are not the figment of the imagination, but are negative, destructive spiritual forces that seek to destroy the possessed host body and everyone with whom that person comes into contact. The most severe cases of possession can trigger suicide, Kelsey said, because the demon is trying to destroy people any way it can.

Among those traits which the Roman Catholic Church might find indicative of possession, rather than mental illness, are exhibition of superhuman strength; knowledge of languages outside of a person's education or training; demonstration of hidden insights into a person's private life or past indiscretions; and aversion to all things spiritual-holy water, the mass, a crucifix, or the name of Jesus.

While the skeptical might argue that LeBar is a priest, an exorcist, and that his theological training has conditioned him to believe in demons, they may wish to take into serious consideration the comments of Dr. Ralph Allison, senior psychiatrist at the California state prison in San Luis Obispo: "My conclusion after 30 years of observing over one thousand disturbed patients is that some of them act in a bizarre fashion due to possession by spirits. The spirit may be that of a human being who died. Or it may be a spirit entity that has never been a human being and sometimes identifies itself as a demon, an agent of evil."

Dr. Wilson Van Dusen, a university professor who has served as chief psychologist at Mendocino State Hospital, is another health care professional who has stated his opinion that many patients in mental hospitals are possessed by demons.

"I am totally convinced that there are entities that can possess our minds and our bodies," Van Dusen said. "I have even been able to speak directly to demons. I have heard their own guttural, other-world voices."

And all too often, some researchers say, those hellish guttural voices have commanded their possessed hosts to kill, to offer human sacrifice to Satan.

In a recent report released by the American Psychological Evaluation Corporation, Dr. Andrew Blankley, a sociologist, issued statements about the rise in contemporary sacrificial cults, warning that society at large might expect a "serious menace" to come. According to Blankley, human sacrifice constitutes an alarming trend in new religious cults: "Desperate people are seeking dramatic revelation and simplistic answers to complex social problems. They are attracted to fringe groups who provide the ritualistic irrationality that they crave. In the last ten years, fringe rituals often include the sacrifice of a human being."

Dr. Al Carlisle of the Utah State Prison System has estimated that between 40,000 and 60,000 humans are killed through ritual homicides in the United States every year. In the Las Vegas area alone, Carlisle asserts, as many as 600 people may die in demon-inspired ceremonies each year.

Based on a synthesis of the studies of certain clergy and psychical researchers, following is a pattern profile of what may occur when someone has become the unwilling host of an uninvited spirit presence and become possessed:

The possessed may begin to hear voices directing him/her to do antisocial or perverse acts that he/she had never before considered. He/she will claim to see the image of a spirit or demonic presence. In the weeks and months that follow, he/she may fall into states of blacked-out consciousness, times of which he/she later has absolutely no memory. On occasions, he/she will fall into a trance-like state. The possessed will be observed walking and speaking differently, and acting in a strange, irrational manner. He/she will begin doing things that he/she has never done before. In the worst of cases, the possessing spirit or demon will consume the victim's life. It may reach to a climax where the possessed commits murder, suicide, or some violent antisocial act.

Healthcare professionals will point out that many of the above "symptoms" of possession may also indicate the onset of stress, depression, and certain mental illnesses.

Dr. Adam Crabtree, a psychotherapist in Toronto, has stated his view that the spirits of the deceased can possess their living relatives. Crabtree, who is a former priest and Benedictine monk, said that entities from beyond the grave usually seek a living person's mind and body because they have unfinished business on Earth. Crabtree has encountered such cases when emotionally disturbed patients came to him complaining that they seemed to feel a "presence" in them that was different from their usual mental awareness. Crabtree discovered that these people were adopting traits and characteristics that were not their own. They complained of hearing voices that told them what to do, and they saw mental images of dead relatives who were dictating their actions.

While more conventional psychotherapists might provide a different diagnosis from Crabtree's, in his opinion because the spirits were related to the living person and were emotionally tied to them, their physical relationship made possession easier to accomplish. The reasons for such possession vary. According to Crabtree's research, sometimes the dead simply do not realize that they have changed planes of existence and wish to maintain their relationship with their relatives. In other cases, the spirits want to take care of unfinished business and have no compunction about using their living relatives to attain their goals.

Dr. C. Fred Dickason, chairman of the Theology Department at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, relates a number of cases of demonic possession through ancestral lines in his book Demon Possession and the Christian (1987). In one case, a Chicago-area pastor consulted Dickason to receive his advice concerning his father, who had been invaded by demonic spirits because his mother (the pastor's grandmother) had been heavily involved in occult practices. The entities had begun to enter the pastor's young daughter, but alert to possession, he prayed with his wife that the spirits be dismissed from her.

Dickason is of the firm opinion that demons, who are nonmaterial entities that may exist for thousands of years, feel that they have the right to enter any man or woman- regardless of how innocent he or she may be- whose ancestors were involved in occult and demonic activities.

Delving Deeper

Crim, Keith, ed. The Perennial Dictionary of World Religions. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989.

Harpur, Patrick. Daimonic Reality. London: Penguin Group, 1994.

Karpel, Craig. The Rite of Exorcism: The Complete Text. New York: Berkley, 1975.

Kinnaman, Gary. Angels Dark and Light. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Servant Publications, 1994.

Mack, Carol K., and Dinah Mack. A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits. New York: Owl Book, Henry Holt, 1999.

Montgomery, John Warwick. Powers and Principalities. Minneapolis: Dimension Books, 1975.

Van Dusen, Wilson. The Presence of Other Worlds: The Findings of Emanuel Swedenborg. New York: Harper & Row, 1974.

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n February 2001, a 53-year-old Oklahoma woman who had no history of mental illness, drug or alcohol abuse, or domestic strife, began working a Ouija board with her daughter and two granddaughters.

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Red Flag: Agenticity.
Reason:  I believe the red flag suitable for this image is Agenticity. People naturally and willingly believe this is how the world is and how the world works. Demons and Angels (Satan and God) fighting beliefs in our world.
Flaw: Lack of evidence pointing to the reality of demons.