The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist
Page 27
180: the woman, Giovanna: This is a pseudonym.
185: called Pseudo-Dionysius: The name Pseudo-Dionysius denotes an unknown theologian who wrote in the late fifth or early sixth century C.E. As a neo-Platonist, Dionysius synthesized elements of Greek philosophy, most notably the teachings of Plotinus and Proclus into a Christian worldview. The breadth of his knowledge suggests that he was a learned man (possibly a student of Proclus) who probably lived in Syria. Dionysius completed four major works, Divine Names, Celestial Hierarchies, Ecclesiastical Hierarchies, and Mystical Theology. Though rejected by some within the Church, the writings were later used during the Lateran Council (649) to defend certain tenets of the faith, and in the Middle Ages influenced important Scholastic writers like Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas.
186: “receives the rays of the supreme Deity”: Dionysius the Areopagite, Celestial Hierarchies, p. 3
186: “That there are in heaven Thrones”: Pie-Raymond Régamey, O.P., What Is an Angel? Translated from the French by Dom Mark Pontifex, p. 48.
188: an actual Satanic possession: While Satan is the leader of all the fallen angels, it is very rare for him to physically be present in a demonic possession. Most times, explain exorcists, he pulls the strings from afar, sending lesser demons to do his bidding. But occasionally, Satan himself is present. Father Daniel believes he was in this instance because of the length and ferocity of this case.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: LIBERATION
192: Silvia, a hollow-eyed woman: Any identifying traits have been changed to protect the victim's anonymity.
194: “Liberation is a gift from God”: Father Matteo La Grua, Lapreghiera di liberazione, p. 105. “Liberazione e un dono di Dio, e Dio pub liberare quando vuole e come vuole, anche senza Vintervento dell'uomo e di intermediari umani.”
194: Not everybody has to be a Catholic: All major religions believe in some form of exorcism. Islam specifies that people can become possessed by jinns, spirits that can be either good or bad. In order to cast out an evil jinn, the exorcist performs an official ceremony in which he reads passages from the Quran to the possessed person. In the Hindu tradition, numerous holy books contain ceremonies for casting out spirits, which is accomplished by reciting names of the Narasimha and reading from the Bhagavata Purana (scriptures) aloud. In Judaism, a dybbuk is a wandering soul with the ability to attach itself to a living person. Erich Bischoff documents a Jewish possession and exorcism in the Middle Ages: “The spirit was the soul of a drunken Jew, who died without prayer and impenitent. Having wandered for a long time it was permitted to him to enter into a woman as she was in the act of blaspheming, and since that moment the woman (an epileptic-hysteric) suffered terribly. Lurja speaks to the tormenting spirit and treats him as Christian exorcists treat the devil; he reprimands him, makes him tell his story, etc. By means of the ‘Name’ he at length obliges him to come forth by the little toe of the possessed, which the spirit thus handled with his habitual vehemence,” from Die Kabbalah, Einfiihrung in diejüdische Mystik und Geheimwissenschaft, Leipzig, 1903, p. 87, as quoted in T. K. Oesterreich, Possession: Demonical and Other Among Primitive Races in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and Modern Times, p. 185.
For more on Islamic and Jewish demonology, see T. Witton Davies's Magic, Divination, and Demonology among the Hebrews and Their Neighbors, pp. 95-130.
194: “Exorcism can drive a demon”: Father José Antonio Fortea, Interview with an Exorcist, p. 70.
195: “Sincere forgiveness, which includes prayer”: Gabriele Amorth, An Exorcist Tells His Story, p. 113.
197: In 2003, Beatrice, a forty-six-year-old: All details have been changed to protect the identity of the individual.
200: which I will continue to do: Father Bamonte believes that Beatrice's involvement in the occult opened her up to a curse placed on her while she was on vacation. During the exorcisms, her face would contort, with her lips turning black and sometimes curling inward, seeming to disappear.
200: numerous anthropologists have documented: On p. 367 of Etzel Càrdena, Stephen Jay Lynn, and Stanley Krippner, Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2000), Stanley Krippner and Jeanne Achterberg cite a study done by Achterberg in 1985, titled “Imagery and Healing.”
200: life-threatening diseases: In a documented case, a Filipino American woman whose lupus (a chronic autoimmune disease that can be fatal) had not responded to traditional medical treatment went into remission after visiting a Filipino healer, who claimed to have removed a curse put on her by a jealous lover. R. A. Kirkpatrick, “Witchcraft and Lupus Erythematosus,” Journal of the American Medical Association 245 (1981), as cited in Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence, Stanley Krippner and Jeanne Achterberg, p. 359.
Likewise, scores of studies have been done on people reporting cures being effected at the shrine of Lourdes, France: R. Cranston, The Miracle of Lourdes (New York: Popular Library), as cited by Stanley Krippner and Jeanne Achterberg in “Anomalous Healing Experiences,” in Varieties of Anomalous Experience, p. 363.
201: for many indigenous people “healing” means: Taken from Stanley Krippner and Jeanne Achterberg's “Anomalous Healing Experiences,” in Varieties of Anomalous Experience, p. 359.
201: voodoo possession can be considered a kind of psychotherapy or “folk therapy”: Steve Mizrach writes: “It might also allow a person to integrate parts of his personality otherwise jeopardized by narrow social roles—a man's possession by Erzulie might allow him ‘to get in touch’ with his ‘feminine side,’ so to speak. A quiet, mousy woman who was told that she had become Ogoun might find her ‘inner fierceness’ after the experience.” “Neurophysiological and Psychological Approaches to Spirit Possession in Haiti,” www.fiu.edu/mizrachs/spiritpos.html.
201: the “psychologically highly charged atmosphere”: I. M. Lewis, Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession, 3rd ed., p. 47.
202: reattributing is a particularly effective technique: Schwartz and Begley, The Mind and the Brain, p. 84, as quoted in The Spiritual Brain, Mario Beauregard andDenyse O'Leary, p. 130.
204: the results of his experiments are far from conclusive: E. Rodin, “A neu-robiological model for near-death experiences,” 1989, as quoted by Bruce Greyson, “Near-Death Experiences,” in Varieties of Anomalous Experience, pp. 335-36.
204: Even British author … Richard Dawkins, who used the helmet: As seen on the BBC Two Horizon program, “God on the Brain,” 2003.
204: “Correlating a brain state with an experience”: Bruce Greyson, “Near-Death Experiences,” in Varieties of Anomalous Experience, p. 337.
204: knowing how a television set works: R. Strassman, “Endogenous Ketamine-like Compounds and the NDE: If So, So What?” Journal of Near-Death Studies (1997), p. 3 8; as quoted in Bruce Greyson, “Near-Death Experiences,” in Varieties of Anomalous Experience, p. 338.
205: John Haught describes a concept: John Haught, Is Nature Enough? Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
206: “the experience of certain mystical contact”: Beauregard and O'Leary, The Spiritual Brain, p. 346.
206: the experiences neurally engaged different regions: Beauregard and O'Leary, The Spiritual Brain, pp. 274-76.
206: “Is the ego perceiving something”: From a forthcoming book by Dr. Craig Isaacs, Revelations and Possession: Distinguishing the Spiritual Experience from the Psychological, pp. 67-68.
207: depending on the therapist's school of thought: Dr. Isaacs references the theories of John Weir Perry, as documented in Trials of the Visionary Mind, (New York: SUNY Press, 1999), in which Perry evaluates five contending approaches to psychosis. Dr. Isaacs summarizes them as “a fear and mistrust of the disorder; viewing brain disorders as primarily causing psychosis; viewing psychosis as a disorganized and unnecessary emotional response to stimuli; a complete negation of existence of an inner life; and fi
nally as a desire for quick fixes which leads to faulty theory.” In Perry's opinion, the first approach usually wins out, and as such, he claims that most theories are designed to “suppress” the behavior rather than to heal it. Isaacs, Revelations and Possession, pp. 79-80.
207: This understanding can then be carried: Isaacs, Revelations and Possession, p. 114.
207: “Thus, spiritual illness may also be seen”: Isaacs, Revelations and Possession, p. 114.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: ORGANIZING THE MINISTRY
213: fourteen officially appointed exorcists: This number is based on estimates taken as of April 2006.
213: the old titular houses, original house churches: Up until the fourth century, when Christianity was officially recognized, secret Christians worshiped privately. Wealthy Roman citizens often turned their private residences into places of worship. Later these houses became known as “titular churches,” and each took the name of its owner. Paul mentions the Titulus Priscae in his letter to the Romans (Romans 16:3-5).
216: the two agreed to stay in touch: Father Daniel continued his graduate studies in Rome. In 2006 he performed exorcisms for two years at a church in Rome before finally being relocated out of the country in 2008. They met once more in Rome in the fall of 2007 as Father Daniel was preparing to leave for his new post.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE EXORCIST
223: The woman, Stephanie … the man, Chris: Any identifying traits have been changed to protect the couple's anonymity.
225: he was allowed to do it in English: Any translation for the revised rite of exorcism must be officially approved by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. So far the only versions that have been approved are Latin and Italian. It would also fall to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to request that such a translation be undertaken, which hasn't yet happened.
226: one of the unused offices: I have purposely changed die location of the exorcism.
227: rosary beads turned the color of gold: This is one of the miracles that has been associated with Medjugorje, in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
227: run by a group of Charismatic laypeople: The “charismatic renewal” is the name commonly given to Pentecostal-style groups, both Catholic and Protestant, that promote the belief that special “charismatic” gifts, such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, discernment of spirits, and healing, are imparted directly to those believers who are baptized in the Holy Spirit. Chief among these gifts is the power to cast out evil spirits, a power held by all baptized individuals according to early Christians. Adherents practice a watered-down form of exorcism known as “deliverance.” By the 1980s the movement had come to dominate the deliverance scene in America.
For more on the charismatic approach to deliverance see: Francis MacNutt, Deliverance from Evil Spints (Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen Books, 2005); and Michael Scanlan, T.O.R., and Randall Cirner's Deliverance from Evil Spints (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Books, 1980).
In the 1980s the Catholic hierarchy took steps to rein in the practice of deliverance. Most notably, in 1983, Cardinal Leon-Joseph Suenens of Belgium, a charismatic himself, wrote a report entitled Renewal and the Powers of Darkness in which he decried, among other things, the tendency of some charismatics to ascribe a majority of everyday problems to a demon—demon of impulsivity, demon of depression, demon of anxiety, and so on. In 1985, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, at that time headed by Cardinal Ratzinger, issued “Instruction on Prayers for Healing,” reminding bishops and laypeople alike that solemn exorcism should be left to those priests nominated by the bishop.
231: originally from Honduras: I have removed identifying details in these cases to protect the identity of the individuals.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
238: therapists who practice “spirit releasement”: For more on spirit releasement, see William J. Baldwin, D.D.S., Ph.D., Spint Releasement Therapy: A Technique Manual, 1992.
238: to give people some sort of standards: Numerous misguided individuals have turned the concept of casting out demons into murder. Among the most recent, in 1997, a five-year-old girl from the Bronx was killed when she was forced to drink a mixture of ammonia, pepper, olive oil, and vinegar by her mother and grandmother, who then bound and gagged her with duct tape in an attempt, they said, to “poison” the demon out of her. Michael Cooper, “Mother and Grandmother Charged with Fatally Poisoning Girl,” New York Times, May 19, 1997.
Then in November 2007, in a ceremony involving nearly forty people, a woman in New Zealand was drowned during an Anglican exorcism ceremony when a member of her “healing group” held her under water in an attempt to drive out an evil spirit. Simon Winter, “Exorcism Death Shocks Archdeacon,” The New Zealand Herald, November 12, 2007.
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