A Story of Exorcism

Father Gabriele Amorth is the chief exorcist of Rome.  He has a very uncommon job in the church and a very uncommon gift.  He is a real person.  His stories are not fictional nor are they derived from the imagination of Holywood or a writer.  He has performed hundreds of exorcisms and he has also written a book called An Exorcist Tells His Tale.  Unless you have been raised Catholic, which I have been, this is a difficult book to read, because Father Gabriel is a Catholic Priest above all else and his writing is deeply religious.    However, if you want to learn about real cases of demon possession, he is one of the few experts in the world.

I have read several bloggers lately comment that possession is often confused with mental illness and that people of science would never accept possession as real.  One of the most interesting things reading about Father Gabriel does is negate this belief.  He describes many of the cases  he has worked with in his book and in almost all of them the people he exorcises go the doctors and psychologists and psychiatrists first.  They go through years of medication and electroshock therapy and none of it helps, but after the exorcism their torment ends.   The psychiatrists and psychologists in many cases have given up. 

One of the Father Gabriel's most interesting cases is the case of a man called G.M.  G.M describes being heavily involved with two women who practiced the dark arts.   Following these relationships,  he began to have symptoms which were physical at first.  He was tired and weak and sick all of the time.  He had chronic headaches.  He also suffered from severe depression and thought of suicide. He was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Rome and he found no help there.  He sought help at medical hospitals as he was also running a constant fever and for a while none would even admit or treat him as they could find nothing wrong with him.  Finally,  he was admitted and discharged and again no on could find anything wrong with him.  He was overtaken by vomiting fits and shortly after this the demon was able to take his body. During these periods, G.M. describes himself as being in hell.   During one of his rare lucid moments,  he finally sought the help of his parents.  G.M. still believed he was probably suffering from a fugue state or other psychiatric condition.  He thought that he probably had schizophrenia and epilepsy as he had also started having seizures.   He had studied psychology in college and he was not a man to believe in demons first.  

Finally, G.M. talked to a Friar about his problems.  The Friar told him that someone had cast a spell on him and that had caused his symptoms.  G.M. was astounded.  One of his witchy ex's had cursed him when he dumped her.  Of course,  he hadn't thought anything of it, what rational person would?  But the Friar knew this without him even really knowing it himself and the Friar sent him to Father Gabriele. After a simple exorcism,  Father Gabriele was quickly able to drive the demon out and G.M. has never had any of the many symptoms that tormented hims since that day.

There are many stories like this in the good Father's book, but this is the only story written by the possessed.  It is difficult to read at times, because it is so terrifying, but in the end finding the Father set him free.

Drag me to Hell and The Demon Dybbuk

Dybukk by Elly Simmons

Drag me to Hell is one of my favorite horror movies.  It hearkens back to the good old days when Sam Raimi made films that masterfully blended horror with subtle humor to make camp classics that are so good I watch them annually.  Evil Dead and Army of Darkness will always be two of my favorite films.  Like these to films,  Drag me to Hell is a movie I can watch again and again. In this movie,  an angry old gypsy lady curses the lovely blond heroin by calling a dybbuk to drag her to hell.   However, the dybbuk the evil gypsy lady sets onto the lovely blond heroin is not really a dybbuk.  She calls the demom a dybbuk, but  a dybbuk is nothing like the demon of death and destruction seen in this film, but in many ways, it is just as terrifying.

In truth a dybbuk more closely resembles the demon from The Exorcist.  Dybbuk comes from the Hebrew word meaning "cleaving" or "clinging".  It is a creature from Jewish folklore that is a wandering, evil spirit that enters into a person's body and clings to it.  It possesses its victim and torments them from the inside.   It was believed that the Dybbuk could not enter the body of a good person and could only possess a sinner.  Some believed that a dybbuk was the soul of a person who had not been buried properly and became a demon.   The Kabbalah contains instructions fro exorcising a dybbuk and these types of exorcisms are still performed today.  When the dybbuk has been driven from the body of the possessed, it leaves the body via the pinkie toe and leaves a small mark as evidence of its visit.
 

A Simple Southern Recipe for Exorcising Haunted Houses

I learned an easy Southern recipe for performing an exorcism on a haunted house today.  A few of the nurses I know gave me this wonderful glimpse into Southern culture and a way that they say always works to clear a house of dark spirits.

One of the nurses I know  learned this after her grandfather passed away.  Apparently, her grandfather  was a cranky old man who yelled a lot and called people names.  He was not the type of spirit you would want lingering in your house.  When he was alive, he used to demand people get him things.  When he was sick, he always yelled for his water.  After he passed on, his spirit kept barking orders and he was especially noisy about the water.

Her grandmother knew just what to do about the problem.  She used an old Southern remedy.  She called several of her lady friends over and they did a prayer service in the house and when they were done they used red nail polish to mark every door frame in the house with a small cross.  This ritual was originally done in the owner's blood, but her grandmother didn't want blood all over her house and she figured nail polish would do just as well.  It did work just as well and no one heard from grandpa's ghost again.

My friend was lucky she learned this old remedy, because she needed it again later on.  She bought a house that she later learned had been built on the site of another house.  The first house had been burnt down and taken a few souls to their untimely death with it.  The developers had built a new house on top of the ashes of the old house.  My friend's house was a problem because of this.  One door in particular opened on it's own and no matter how many times it was locked or latched it always popped back open.  My friend used the same ritual her grandmother had used when she was a child and the door never opened again.