It is believed that the devil, dwelling in a person, puts his seal on him, marks the prey. And therefore, first of all, it is important to be able to recognize the obsession, so as not to confuse the possessed with a patient with a mental illness, such as schizophrenia
It is most easy to notice in a person signs of demoniacal possession during a church service:
- “an epileptic” is afraid of the church, at services he feels bad and often faints or, on the contrary, shouts out curses and curses;
- sprinkling with holy water, touching the cross, inhaling incense can cause him physical torment;
- the ringing of a church bell makes him frown and suffer from a headache;
- the possessed person is physically
incapable of receiving any of the Christian sacraments. If he comes to the sacrament, he can easily push away the hand of the priest, offering him wine and bread.
However, obsession can also manifest outside the temple. According to Christian beliefs, the following are also the signs of demoniacal possession:
- the statement of the person himself that he is possessed by the devil (demon) or he is tormented by demons;
- Rampage, when a previously calm person becomes unusually hot-tempered, irritable and even aggressive;
- blasphemy, curses and curses against the church, saints;
- calling oneself by another name, talking from another person (on behalf of the entity with whom the person is possessed);
- a sudden manifestation of the ability to speak languages unknown to man (the phenomenon of xenoglossia);
- the emergence of paranormal abilities and unnatural knowledge;
- shameless behavior;
- physical changes during a seizure (the possessed often loses coordination of movements, falls, convulses, often he has tremendous strength);
- a change in appearance during an attack (the possessed person takes a wild, terrible look) and the personality itself (an angry, rushing at everyone and foul-mouthed person can be quite good-natured and calm when the seizure passes).
“It is very difficult for an inexperienced person, it is almost impossible to distinguish real obsession from mental illnesses, for example, hysteria, since attacks of these illnesses are often very similar to attacks of demonic possession,” writes Fr. Konstantin Parkhomenko. - The patient can bend unnaturally, convulse, torment himself, howl, scream, often he has such physical strength that several people cannot cope with him.
… In the Gospel itself, cases of sickness and possession are often intertwined, therefore sometimes it is said about the healing of the possessed by Christ, sometimes about casting out demons; so, for example, in a passage about a boy raging “on the new moon,” it is said: “and the demon came out of him; and the boy was healed at the same hour."
People who are passive, dependent, vulnerable, open, or impressionable are more likely to have seizures. They often lack self-esteem, are overly sensitive and easily yield to external influences. The aura of such people is usually weak, they do not have a clear certainty about themselves.
There are times when groups of people are possessed, which can be observed in the actions of the crowd; and even the population of entire countries, as was the case in Germany during the reign of the Nazis.
The official spider does not recognize the possibility of demons or the devil entering a person. In psychology, there is a special term - kakodemonomania, denoting a mental disorder associated with the delusion of evil spirits in the patient. Kakodemon is an evil spirit, as opposed to a neutral spirit (demon) and a good spirit (agathodemon).
In 1923, psychologist and psychiatrist Sigmund Freud called kakodeomania neurosis, in which a person creates demons for himself. Demons, in his opinion, are the result of suppression of desires. One of the famous obsessions that Freud wrote about was the successful 17th century Bavarian painter Christoph Heizmann. In August 1677, Heizmann was taken to the police: in desperation, he prayed to be taken to the nearest church of the Virgin Mary. l nine years before that day, the artist allegedly signed an agreement with Satan, taking blood from the palm of his right hand. The contract was about to expire, and now Christophe was afraid that the Devil would come for him.
The police believed him and took him to the temple. After three days of incantations, the repentant Heizmann saw the Virgin Mary causing the Devil to be torn apart, a contract that read: “Christoph Heizmann. I sell myself to Satan to be his son in the flesh and give him body and soul for the ninth year."
Freud explained that in the man's upset, the frightening image of his recently deceased father manifested itself, who, according to Heizmann, wanted to rape and castrate him. From Freud's point of view, the cause of Christoph's illness lay in the failure to resolve the Oedipus complex.
The main thing that can be opposed to the position of disbelief in demoniacal possession is the experience of people engaged in exorcism (lecture), and they all testify that, although rarely, they are found among mentally ill people in whom it is the personal being - the devil - that dwells. This fact, by the way, is also confirmed by psychiatrists, who, by the nature of their work, often communicate with mentally ill people.
“If a psychiatrist is not hostile to religion, but objectively assesses the clinical situation of his wards, he may notice that some of the patients with strange irrational aggression refer to everything religious: reading the Holy Scriptures over them, prayers, sprinkling them with holy water,” he writes about … Konstantin Parkhomenko. - Such patients growl, bite, huddle under the bed, avoid all that is holy. After touching the shrine, these patients calm down for a while.
The author is personally acquainted with a certified physician, a woman who has been working in a city psychiatric hospital for over 25 years. (…) This doctor faced a mysterious phenomenon: some patients did not need medicine. They came to their senses after touching the shrine, after reading prayers over them."
Practice shows that such patients can distinguish holy water from ordinary; in the priest, dressed in secular clothes, they distinguish the minister of the church, etc.
Similar experiments were carried out in the first half of the 20th century by the famous Russian psychiatrist, doctor of medical sciences, professor Nikolai Vasilievich Krainsky, at first a skeptic and positivist, later - a believer. On this topic he even published a book called "Corruption, whoopers and demoniacs as phenomena of Russian folk life." Here is an excerpt from that work:
“Klikusha unmistakably distinguished holy water from simple water, no matter how hidden we gave it. Every time a glass of holy water was brought to her, she fell into a seizure, often before she tasted it. The code was fresh, Epiphany (the study was carried out in mid-January). Both samples were poured into identical glasses in another room, and I brought ready-made samples to her. After many times repeated experiments gave the same positive result, I mixed both samples of water together, simple and holy, and sawed them equally into both glasses. Then the hitchhiker began to react to both tests with seizures. Not once was she mistaken in this recognition of holy water."
As already mentioned, in order to deliver the possessed from mental and physical torment, the ministers of the Church conduct a lecture - a special prayer service, during which the priest, who has the blessing of the bishop and spiritual strength for this, reads incantatory prayers to drive out demons from a person. Previously, such rituals were performed by a priest individually on a person who is clearly possessed by an evil spirit. Mass reports have appeared only recently, as a violation of the order of this rite accepted in the Church.
Today, in churches where "strong priests", as the parishioners call them, one can see several dozen people at the same time who have come to see an "exorcism session" just in case ("What if a demon has possessed me too?"). This is a waste of time. An account is needed only with obvious symptoms of demonic possession.
In order to be inaccessible to the action of evil forces, one must remember and implement the words of the modern Athonite elder Paisius the Holy Mountain, who said: “When sin has been in a person's soul for a long time, then the devil acquires more rights to it. And then, in order for him to leave, we need to destroy the old house and build a new one."
