In 1999, the Vatican revised its views on the rite of exorcism and the determination of the need for it. How to understand whether an evil spirit has really entered a person's body or is he simply suffering from a mental illness?
For many centuries, exorcism, that is, the rite of expelling a spirit that has taken over a human body, was considered an important mission of the Catholic Church.
A mention of this rite can even be found in the Bible - in several episodes, Jesus Christ expels demons from the bodies of different people. Later, the apostles were also engaged in this, and then the clergy of the Catholic Church.
And so, in 1999, the Vatican finally began to discuss the main provisions on this matter. For the first time on such actions since 1614, the Catholic clergy decided to discuss this topic. "In what cases is it necessary to carry out this ceremony?" - the main question asked by the priests.
Previously, it was easy enough to imitate obsession, and a person could fool loved ones, acquaintances and priests, although he did not suffer at all from a demon, or even was completely healthy. Aggression, foul language, self-mutilation, as well as openly displaying hatred of religious objects were automatically considered signs of real obsession.
In order not to write as demoniacs everyone who shudders at the sight of the crucifixion, the priests have become more careful and are trying to do everything possible to determine for sure where the sick and where the possessed are.
For example, they began to consult with professional psychiatrists, and now the "patient" is monitored by doctors for a long time before the priests make their diagnosis. The signs on which a priest is able to draw the line between obsession and illness are difficult to imitate.
One of the ways to determine if some extraneous "entity" lives in his body is to talk to the patient in a language unknown to him. This method has been proposed quite recently. If a person answers quickly, then he is clearly possessed by a demon. Also, often possessed people demonstrate amazing physical strength that they did not have before.
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The priests say that such people can know in detail information that, except from the demon, they could not receive. Thus, these methods are quite effective in distinguishing pseudo-content from the real thing itself.
The Vatican does not exclude that these methods are not the ultimate truth. That all this can also be imitated and faked. The Catholic Church calls first to exclude all possible mental illness, and only then to assert that a person is really under the influence of evil spirits.
The Catholic Church also believes that people who are convinced of their own obsession should not undergo the rite of exorcism. Representatives of both churches and medicine are working together to draw a clear line between mental illness and obsession. Indeed, just in the case when a person sincerely believes in his obsession, it is most difficult to separate one from the other.
Much of the teaching on exorcism has remained unchanged over time. The Church considers it important to remember: not the mind is possessed by a demon, but only the body. While the body is under the control of demons, the mind is in a "suspended" state.
It is worth mentioning that the description of the behavior of a person under the influence of a demon, which the Catholic Church gives, is strikingly different from the descriptions by doctors of the symptoms of mental illness.