At the sight of the cross, the possessed begin to convulse. Their appearance becomes terrifying.
Is it true that people are possessed by demons? Most scientists answer this question in the negative, explaining the obsession with a person's mental disorder. Meanwhile, numerous witnesses tell about such features of the behavior of the possessed, which cannot be called anything other than supernatural …
Anneliese Michelle is known all over the world. The story of her obsession formed the basis of the movie "Six Demons Emily Rose"
Mary spewed tobacco leaves and bird feathers
One of the most convincing cases of this mysterious phenomenon is the story of Mary Hope from Mid-Waet (USA), witnessed by many people, including doctors. Mary, while still a teenager, began to hear a strange inner voice that made her blaspheme when she attended church. The doctors recognized the girl as mentally ill and tried to treat her, but nothing helped her. With age, the manifestations of evil spirits that had taken over Mary increased, and in 1928, when she turned 40, she reluctantly, but nevertheless, agreed to undergo the procedure of exorcism (exorcism) in a Franciscan monastery in Iowa. The ceremony was performed under the direction of Father Theophilus Reisinger, a 60-year-old priest, and Father Joseph Stager.
Shards of evil
Promotional video:
In the early days of the ritual, Mary was practically insane. The unclean spirit completely possessed her body. As the newspapers of those years wrote, "… Mary Hope's mouth spewed blasphemy, and in her body there was such devilish strength that eight strong men could not keep her." In addition, the unfortunate woman did not stop vomiting, although she had not eaten for several days. Mary vomited inexplicable things, such as tobacco leaves, bird feathers … By the end of the second week, the persistence of the priests bore fruit: the voices of demons were heard from the belly of the woman in a swoon. One called himself Baalzebub; another introduced himself as Mina and said that he was female in earthly life and was cursed for having killed his four children; the third demon, Judas, admitted that he wanted to push Mary to commit suicide.
Baalzebub predicted an accident with Father Stager next Friday. Indeed, on Friday the following week, Steiger drove to an ailing parishioner and had an accident while crossing a bridge. He escaped with minor bruises, but the fulfillment of the prediction caused fear in his soul. The next day, during the ritual, the voice of Baalzebub was again heard, mocking Stager's fear.
The ritual lasted for the third month when the crisis finally hit. Mary suddenly escaped from the hands of the people holding her and flew up to the ceiling. Father Reisinger and Father Steiger did not stop reading prayers, and after a few seconds the woman fell on the bed, freed from the invisible tormentors. She opened her eyes and smiled faintly. “Thank you Jesus,” were the first words of her own in many days.
Are psychiatrists right?
Many psychiatrists attribute this human condition to completely natural reasons. For example, people suffering from a severe form of schizophrenia or hysteria quite often behave as if they are playing at someone else: they utter other people's speeches, recall events from someone else's life, imagining that they are.
But doctors do not want to hear about many
striking and mysterious manifestations of obsession that do not fit into any scientific concept. So, unlike patients with mental disorders, whose seizures usually last a few minutes, demon-possessed can suffer without interruption for several days or even weeks. And what about such manifestations of the phenomenon as insensitivity to pain, superhuman strength, changes in voice and many functions of the body, possession of levitation (jumping to the ceiling and hovering in the air), the ability to predict, the emergence of various poltergeists, especially during the ceremony of exorcism?
Drinker Imp
A typical case of obsession, repeatedly described in the literature and considered already classic, occurred in the middle of the 19th century in Russia, in the village of Novovasilievsk, Berdyansk district, Taurida province. The local lady had a girl named Dunya who was possessed by an evil spirit. Dunya was thin, weak and very sickly, but by nature she was kind and meek. After the otherworldly essence entered her, a rough male voice began to sound from her stomach. Its invisible owner loved to chat with others. His accent was Mordovian, while Dunya spoke pure Russian. He called himself Svirid Stepanovich and demanded that Dunya, who until then had not touched alcohol, give him vodka and feed him with what he liked. But Dunya was distinguished by her honesty, did not take anything without asking and constantly refused him. Then Svirid Stepanovich became ferocious,Dunya fell, writhing in convulsions, screaming, groaning, and sometimes she began to roll on the floor and smash everything around her, while easily bending the cast-iron grips, a poker, breaking thick logs. Those present were scared: “What are you, Dunya? What's the matter? “I’m not Dunya, I’m Svirid Stepanovich,” roared from her belly. Only after a glass of vodka did the spirit calm down. Dunya could drink a whole jug of alcohol and remain completely sober, but Svirid Stepanovich's tongue began to twist. Dunya could drink a whole jug of alcohol and remain completely sober, but Svirid Stepanovich's tongue began to twist. Dunya could drink a whole jug of alcohol and remain completely sober, but Svirid Stepanovich's tongue began to twist.
Once the master asked the spirit: "Who are you, Svirid Stepanovich?" He replied: “I am from the Mordovians, I went to Kiev to pray, on the way I quarreled with my travel companion and killed him. And then he repented and committed suicide - he hanged himself on a pine tree. After death I had to wander; I was not accepted into any society of spirits, and so one benefactor put me in Dunya, and she offends me, does not give me vodka, does not feed me with what I like - she is ashamed to take. I'll ask her now! " - and Dounia's screams and tossing began again.
After some time, after finding out from Svirid Stepanovich where he was from and who his relatives were, they sent a letter to Mordovia with a request. It turned out that such a person really lived there, was known as a bum and a drunkard, but at the same time he was devout, went on pilgrimage to monasteries. Everything corresponded to what Svirid Stepanovich said about himself. Dunya, who had lived all her life in Novovasilievsk, of course, could not know anything about him.
Sometimes through her mouth the spirit made divinations. Once he announced to the lady: “Today your brother died, who lives in Novogolka, which is not far from Alexandropol beyond the Caucasus. He was ill for three weeks. During a trip to Tiflis, I caught a cold, and today they wrote you a letter about his death, which you will receive in two weeks. Indeed, two weeks later the lady received a letter in which she was informed about the death of her brother, about how, while traveling to Tiflis, he caught a cold, fell ill and died. From whom Svirid Stepanovich has such information, he did not say, only once admitted that one person had forbidden him, but he did not explain who exactly.
Nobody was involved in the expulsion of this spirit. In the end, he said that he was tired of sitting in Dun, she was too kind and meek, and he himself suggested a way to free the girl. I had to pour holy water on it and read a prayer. And so they did. The spirit left Dunya and never returned.
This story seems to confirm the opinion of the American medium and psychologist Carl Wickland, who believed that spirits are rarely evil. “Accidentally being captured by the aura of a living person, they become embarrassed and unwittingly cause the latter to have various mental abnormalities, ranging from dementia and multiple personality disorder to suicidal mania, immorality and cruelty,” he writes in his book “Thirty Years Among the Dead” (1924) … However, he agrees that the acceptance by the spiritual essence of a person of a “fragment” of someone else's soul (which, in his opinion, the spirit is) is always bad.
They growled and hit the walls
Another highly publicized case of demonic infestation occurred in Brazil. Like the cases with Mary Hope and Dunya, he argues that explanations for such incidents of mental illness of a person are far from always consistent.
On October 21, 1986, 16-year-old Lucia, who was studying at a Catholic school in Curitiba, a town 50 miles south of São Paulo, suddenly attacked her girlfriends. Her strength seemed incredible, in front of everyone she tore the iron rod from the bed, growled and groaned like a wild beast, and seemed to fight off invisible creatures. The girl was locked in a room, but with every hour her behavior became worse, and gradually she began to show all signs of obsession. The holy water in the glass, when it was handed to Lucia, suddenly seethed, and the wooden cross brought to her into the room suddenly caught fire. Then, according to eyewitnesses, Lucia began to take off into the air and even hovered under the ceiling several times.
The expulsion of the evil spirit began on October 23 at the local church. His father Erasmus accompanied him, his father Manuel helped him. As with Mary, unimaginable things were happening to Lucia. They were witnessed by a huge crowd of curious people who filled the church and its surroundings. The unbearable stench reigning at the ceremony, roaring from time to time and blows that shook the walls of the church confirmed the demonic presence. The ceremony lasted with short breaks all night, and at the first rays of dawn the priests said a prayer of thanks: the demons who had possessed the girl were expelled.
"Secrets of the 20th century", November 2010