American parapsychologist Douglas Scott Rogo, who in 1990 was mysteriously murdered by an unknown person right in his home, distinguished two types of poltergeist, classic (teenage) and demonic.
The first is usually associated with adolescents and is characterized by the movement of objects in the presence of a certain person. Without this person, he does not manifest himself in any way. The second type can be associated with people of any age, but more often with adults. This type manifests itself in the most outlandish way: teleportation of objects, levitation of the human body, strange voice messages. Many physical phenomena in such a poltergeist go beyond physical laws.
According to Douglas Scott Rogo, the demonic type of poltergeist may not be at all associated with any person, but exist on its own. Also, much can be observed in the second type of poltergeist in the phenomenon of a person's possession by demons. Are these phenomena related and two sides of the same coin?
According to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, the researcher explains, demonic entities are capable of making themselves known by two syndromes: "invasion" and obsession. Intrusion should be understood as those phenomena that are observed in cases of ghosts, restless houses and poltergeists: unexplained sounds, smells, noises and movements of any objects. Obsession is expressed in the fact that the possessed convulses, shouts obscenities. These two syndromes sometimes appear simultaneously.
The belief that demons or devils can inhabit the souls and bodies of people is widespread almost throughout the entire globe. Even in the most diverse cultures, the symptoms of this syndrome are strikingly similar, for example, in the United States and in China: the same symptoms of demonic malaise syndrome - the feeling of the influence of some devilish external force, shouting out blasphemies, the manifestation of supernatural forces.
Even the rituals of exorcism, or the casting out of the devil, used by the Catholic Church and in Taoist practice, are remarkably similar. The practice of casting out demons is widespread among those professing Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other religions. And in the canonical texts of Indo-Tibetan medicine, you can find a detailed description of the ritual of "gdon" -therapy, that is, methods of treating the wrong, harmful behavior of the spirits of nature, capable of settling in a person. Among these methods are rituals (shamans' ritual), prayers, ritual chanting, passes.
The Orthodox priest Fr. Eugene said that the rites of exorcism have been known since the time of the New Testament; it describes how, for example, Christ heals the demoniac in Gadarene. Later, in the 16th century, the rite of healing the possessed was laid down in the missal of the Kiev Metropolitan Peter Mohyla, who became the compiler and founder of the rite of chanting the possessed. In Catholicism, the ritual of exorcism is used, that is, the expulsion of devils, devils, demons, demons and other equally filthy characters, united by the common concept of "evil spirits".
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In cases of demonic possession, and in cases of poltergeist, both the possessed and the host often display the same supernatural abilities, for example, the ability to recognize something that cannot be recognized by all known methods, or the ability to move objects without touching them.
Here is how the Roman Catholic doctrine describes the symptoms of true possession:
- the possessed speak languages unknown to them or understand languages that they have never learned;
- they predict the future or show the ability to telepathy and clairvoyance;
- they show incredible physical strength or abilities that are not typical of their age;
- they can demonstrate any of the most vicious manifestations attributed to demonic entities (this includes some of the poltergeist manifestations).
As in many old cases, in modern manifestations of obsession, it is often also possible to meet with poltergeist symptoms, for example, in the case of 1928 with a 44-year-old obsessive from Iowa, USA. She suffered from symptoms of demonic possession from the age of fourteen, when she began to experience an overwhelming aversion to objects of religious worship. Added to this was aversion to all consecrated objects.
Soon she began to hear caustic voices making fun of her. Psychiatric research showed that the girl was normal. She could understand foreign languages, distinguish between consecrated food and non-consecrated food, and confessed that the devil himself spoke through her. So she suffered until the age of 44, when she was ordered to undergo a ritual of exorcism in the church of Father Steiger.
The ritual was performed by Father Theophilus himself, an exorcist. As soon as he uttered the first words of the formula for casting out the demon, the possessed one was instantly torn from the hands of the guard who held her. Her body flew through the air and literally stuck to the wall high above the door! Fear seized those present. Only Father Theophilus remained in place. He ordered to remove it from the wall. But this was done with great difficulty, despite the fact that she had nothing to hold on to on the smooth wall.
When it was removed, the ritual was resumed. And immediately in the church some noises, howls and voices began to be heard. They were clearly not coming from the demon's mouth, literally terrorizing the nuns. The whole body of the possessed suddenly began to swell incredibly (just like Esther Cox during the outbreak of poltergeist in Amherst, USA, in 1878).
But this was only the beginning of the manifestation of demonic forces, which began to be observed in the house of Steiger's father, and in the houses of some other participants in the ritual.
In the house of Steiger's father, incomprehensible knocks began, which turned into loud bangs. And one day he almost died, having undergone some incomprehensible invasion of consciousness during a trip in a car.
However, the rituals of driving the devil out of the possessed went on as usual. Twenty-three days later, the obsession was lifted. True, later the obsession returned to her again, but without much difficulty it was eliminated by another exorcist.
The connection between obsession and poltergeist is found in those rare cases when the poltergeist carrier begins to show symptoms of obsession. A typical case of this kind occurred in 1949 in Georgetown, USA.
A thirteen-year-old boy became the carrier, and then the victim, first of the "invasion" and then of the obsession. It all started with playing a seance. Soon, knocking and scratching began, which continued at night. Loudly crackled around the icon depicting Christ. After ten days the sounds stopped, but three days later they resumed in the boy's room in the form of squeaks and footsteps on the floor. The family thought it was making itself felt in the spirit of their recently deceased relative.
Later, the manifestations became more expressive. Disappeared, later appearing in the strangest places, clothes. A chair with a boy sitting in it was turning over. In his presence, all sorts of objects soared into the air and "floated" around the room. Yes, and at school he had no peace - objects were thrown from their place and there. The boy was asked from school, his parents had to hire a private teacher. Doctors and psychologists who examined him did not find any pathology.
Soon a new symptom began to appear: several times he rose into the air directly from the bed on which he lay, sometimes with a mattress, and “floated” in the air. It was the same in the hospital, where they put him, hoping to be cured.
Concerned parents invited priests, and they diagnosed obsession. The boy was shaken by convulsions, he jumped on the bed and again fell on it like a doll controlled by threads. And sometimes it flew over the bed and remained in the air without any support. After six weeks, the seizures subsided.
After that, the boy became, as it were, a different person. His boyish voice became low, hoarse, threatening, obscenities sounded constantly. Painful scratches formed on the skin of the abdomen. The Lutheran priests who entered the house were thrown to the floor by an invisible force.
The boy's parents turned to the Catholic Church, where they began a ten-week exorcism ritual conducted by two Catholic priests. During the first sessions, a 40-kilogram boy jumped out of bed with extraordinary agility, threw the attendants and with terrible force beat the exorcist on the arm.
The boy's body was incredibly swollen, the movements of his head resembled the movements of the head of a snake, his spitting with phenomenal accuracy fell into the eyes of the clergy. The air in the room where he lay became almost icy. Eventually he began to speak Latin.
One of the witnesses mentions such an observation: one night the boy escaped from the hands of the attendants who were holding him tightly and flew over the exorcist, who was standing at some distance from the boy's bed with a ritual book in his hands. The exorcist thought that the boy was attacked by himself. But the boy needed a ritual book. And when she found himself in his hands, he did not tear, but in some strange way destroyed it. The book instantly turned into a confetti cloud!
Eventually, the obsession passed as the exorcism continued. The boy was returned to his normal state, but he did not remember anything about what he had endured. The former possessed converted to the Catholic faith and lived a normal life, completely forgetting that he once broke the bones of two ministers and almost killed his mother.
But the ritual of exorcism does not always end so "happily". For example, according to the newspaper "Sun", in one of the small towns of Italy, during an exorcism in 1991, the priest Guntano Villiotta was killed. He was asked to exorcise the devil from a fifteen-year-old girl, whose mother and grandmother suspected her of intercourse with evil spirits.
G. Villiotta, as it should be, asked Bishop Franco Stesa for permission to conduct a session of exorcism. But he was refused because of his insufficient experience in this dangerous business. The lack of sanction did not stop the priest. He decided to carry out the ritual at all costs and entered the house of the unfortunate girl with a cross and a Bible. The exorcism session lasted two hours.
When the girl's mother entered the room where the seance was taking place, she found there a priest tortured with inhuman, extraordinary cruelty and strength. "His body was literally torn to pieces!" - declared the bishop. Immediately after the incident, the girl from whom the demon was expelled admitted: “I heard during the session how some incomprehensible voice uttered the same phrase:“My name is the Devourer!”. The girl remembers in what agony the priest died, but does not know how it happened.
But this case is an example of a kind of "pure" obsession. Let's return to cases where the symptoms of obsession and poltergeist are mixed. The history of the phenomenon of obsession contains a number of such examples.
In 1776, in France, several people were convulsing at the same time, being "under the influence of the devil." Their bodies swelled. In their presence furniture moved by itself, voices of people in animals were heard.
In 1850 and also in France, one of the women suffered from convulsions and seizures. She was thrown to the floor by an invisible force. Foam came out of her mouth, and under the influence of the "devil" she shouted out all sorts of obscenities. Some inexplicable knocks were constantly heard near her, her body floated up into the air by itself. She spoke languages unknown to her.
And also in France, two brothers of seven and nine years old between 1864 and 1869 suffered from obsession. They convulsed, revolved around themselves at fantastic speeds, shouted obscenities and showed disgust for all objects of religious worship. Suddenly, they began to speak in languages unknown to them and predict the future. Things and objects levitated in their presence.
We will not multiply examples, we only note that similar cases are known for the 20th century. They show that the manifestations of both possession and poltergeist coincide in some cases. But, on the other hand, there are clear differences between "teenage" and demonic poltergeists. However, there are some similarities between them, for example, object movements, strange noises and knocks. But demonic poltergeists manifest phenomena that are very rare and atypical for "teenagers".
For example, so far in none of the "teenage" poltergeists it has been noticed that the host suddenly speaks in an unknown language. And the levitation of the human body is very rarely manifested in "teenage" poltergeists. For demonic poltergeists, skin punctures, dangerous "attacks" on the victim are more typical. Not only are they destructive, they can be deadly and last for years. "Teenage" poltergeists usually do not live long.
Fortunately, demonic poltergeists are much less common than teenage ones.
Author: Igor Vinokurov from the book "Don't look them in the eyes"
