Demonic possession: Real or not real?

[Kazimiera]

What do you think?

[Kazimiera]

Movies and books are written about this sort of thing. And people who swear they were or are possessed.

I somehow can't get to terms with demons themselves, or demons (if they exist) having an interest in people. The whole thing sounds a bit too wishy-washy for me.

[Midori]

It's real, but very rare.

Most cases of ''demonic possession'' are just schizophrenic people.

[Kazimiera]

It's real, but very rare.

Most cases of ''demonic possession'' are just schizophrenic people.

I was actually going to say that in the past everything which was a bit "abnormal" was written down to demon possession. Nowadays a lot of it has been proven to be more related to psychiatric illness and less to the devil. But there are still people who swear that this is real.

I'm interested to hear from people who believe this is real.

[Sol Invictus]

Yes, they are. This, of course, depends on your knowledge of these things and how receptive you are to these kinds of Forces. Demons can, and do, influence humans, their actions and mental health. What we have today is mass demonic possession!

[Mans not hot]

Demon possession is very fake in my eyes. I think because people are led to believe they are possessed, they act that way.. That and in many cases, there are medical conditions. Like the Salem Witch Trials? Turns out there was a chemical in the wheat that made them all high and sick, and so they were all seeing things and going mute.. All this led them to believe that there demons present, simply because of religion.. Religion led to the execution of many innocent people in that case, and in many others.

[Midori]

Yes, they are. This, of course, depends on your knowledge of these things and how receptive you are to these kinds of Forces.

This is my thoughts as well. Unfortunately (or luckily?) I'm not particularly sensitive to spirits and other incorporeal beings, so I'm not prone to paranormal encounters.


I think because people are led to believe they are possessed, they act that way..

Who leads them?

All I'm going to say is, consider yourself lucky you haven't been through such thing. Ignorance is a bliss, like they say.

[only1]

Real. I missed the chance to see it myself 7 years ago, but a close friend's honest father was a main witness and talked to the possessed man himself.

[Midori]

Back in my silly years in high school I was convinced I want to become an exorcist

[Quasimodem]

Not real is my best guess to say the least, but of course I can't be absolutely sure of that. Therefore, I'll go with a combination of B and C.

[Kazimiera]

Demon possession is very fake in my eyes. I think because people are led to believe they are possessed, they act that way.. That and in many cases, there are medical conditions. Like the Salem Witch Trials? Turns out there was a chemical in the wheat that made them all high and sick, and so they were all seeing things and going mute.. All this led them to believe that there demons present, simply because of religion.. Religion led to the execution of many innocent people in that case, and in many others.

If I remember correctly, the Salem witch trials were started by a couple teenage girls with an over-active imagination and good acting skills. They started accusing people of being witches and the community took it seriously and the witch hunt started. At the time there was also rivalry between communities and families etc over land ownership, poverty and other issues. It was the perfect climate for something like this to take off.

I do remember the theory about the fungus in the wheat also.

[Osprey]

Its all the power of the mind.
It can conjure up images, more powerful and strange than we can imagine.
There was a story of a guy bending iron through his mind power harnessed by CIA agents.

[Onur]

Are you serious with this question Kazimiera?

Demonic possession is just a medieval fairytale. Anyone who claims such thing is just a poor psychiatric case.

[Lithium]

As a pagan I don't believe in demons. Their history is based on christian beliefs which makes them fake. People think they are posessed so when they attend that "cleansing ceremony" they feel free. If there are real demonic posessions then they surely aren't the "demons" which the church describes, they must be much more ancient.

[Kazimiera]

Are you serious with this question Kazimiera?

Demonic possession is just a medieval fairytale. Anyone who claims such thing is just a poor psychiatric case.

Personally, I think its a fairytale too. But there are a lot of people who do believe that this sort of thing happens.

[only1]

As a pagan I don't believe in demons. Their history is based on christian beliefs which makes them fake. People think they are posessed so when they attend that "cleansing ceremony" they feel free. If there are real demonic posessions then they surely aren't the "demons" which the church describes, they must be much more ancient.

Lies, lies and more lies.

"Demons" are not a christian invention, they are much older. In arabic they are called Jinns and virtually in every culture, from South America to Japan, they have their place. And you know why? Because they are real. I, myself, not belonging to the christian faith, by the grace of the Mercyful, have heard many real stories from real people about them, stories that took place only 50 - 100 years ago, including how people used to avoid walking alone in night from the fear of being harmed or kidnapped, of how they abducted babys from their beds, of how female demons seduced human males, of how sorcerers used to control them and more. I heard it from my parents, I heard it from old people, I heard it from at least two Black africans. All of them were sober and sane enough when they told me that. They are real, but much less common than they used to.

btw idolators (or "pagans") are the number one believers of these creatures, you can ask any african.

[Caismeachd]

I don't think it's real but I'm not sure what motivates the person who acts out that behaviour. Like this woman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anneliese_Michel

I guess hysterics and ignorance leads to it. There are a lot of problems people can have (problems of physical health etc) that can lead to behaviour like that. The woman was an epileptic and her religious family wasn't giving her proper medical treatment so the hysterics built. I think it comes from neglect and not understanding the person so the person acts out in a psychotic way because they are overwhelmed and can't understand what's going wrong with them.

[Siberian Cold Breeze]

May be we should describe demons first
Christianity or other monoteistic religions have problematic approach to nature and they tend to label things "evil" if they are beyond their control .
If spirits or poltergeists do exist ,what makes them necessarily evil?

[Blackout]

I was actually going to say that in the past everything which was a bit "abnormal" was written down to demon possession. Nowadays a lot of it has been proven to be more related to psychiatric illness and less to the devil. But there are still people who swear that this is real.

I'm interested to hear from people who believe this is real.

Most cases of 'possession' are actually people suffering from physical or mental problems (mainly epilepsy). There are some cases however, where indeed people have been possessed. Strange abnormalities can be noticed such as reacting violently to certain and specific 'religious texts'. Extreme behavioural changes, knowledge they previously did not know of (languages and so forth), foreign things coming out of ones body (which may even need to be surgically removed) and many other symptoms. From what I have heard, the person in question may also 'feel' something inside them or on them categorised as a heavy feeling or a pulse. The spirit usually stalks the person it would like to target for a while, and then waits for the right moment to possess the individual (mostly when the person is in a state of extreme anger / fear / pleasure etc). Once inside, the person may feel numerous symptoms that can also be attributed to medical conditions but the person is not actually suffering from them. It is also said physical features can change abnormally fast. The treatments vary, as it may be a case of possession or sihr.

[Blackout]

May be we should describe demons first
Christianity or other monoteistic religions have problematic approach to nature and they tend to label things "evil" if they are beyond their control .
If spirits or poltergeists do exist ,what makes them necessarily evil?

I believe that not all spirits are bad. Many of them are good aswell.

[Blackout]

I don't think it's real but I'm not sure what motivates the person who acts out that behaviour. Like this woman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anneliese_Michel

It's very sad what happened to this girl. Theres not much you can do when someone refuses to eat. Still they should have used liquified food, and forced it into her.

She reminds me of a certain member on this forum! :ohwell:

[Sol Invictus]

The doorways to demonic possession are legion!

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/apparently_if_you_enjoy_any_of_these_activities_th ey_are_doorways_to_d

[Sol Invictus]

Serious mental illness such as that which is labeled schizophrenia was often considered to have a supernatural origin; those with this sort of "disease" were considered to be possessed by demons. Since modern science does not know exactly what causes mental illness, this explanation has at least as much validity, if not more, than the one propounded by the priesthood of Psychiatry/psychology.

http://www.antipsychiatry.org/schizoph.htm

[Kazimiera]

Serious mental illness such as that which is labeled schizophrenia was often considered to have a supernatural origin; those with this sort of "disease" were considered to be possessed by demons. Since modern science does not know exactly what causes mental illness, this explanation has at least as much validity, if not more, than the one propounded by the priesthood of Psychiatry/psychology.

http://www.antipsychiatry.org/schizoph.htm

So you put more validity on religious hocus-pocus than science?

[Talvi]

It would be fun to see who are this people who believe they are possessed. Are they always religious??? Or do any non-religious people ever become possessed?

[Kazimiera]

It would be fun to see who are this people who believe they are possessed. Are they always religious??? Or do any non-religious people ever become possessed?

We're probably possessed and don't know about it. :p

[Sol Invictus]

So you put more validity on religious hocus-pocus than science?

Psychiatry/psychology merely has a grab-bag of theories to explain what causes mental illness. And, of course, there is disageement about these within the the professional pyschiatric community. It is also the case that psychiatrists/psychologists frequently disagree on a diagnosis.

If you understand traditional metaphysics, the role what former professor of philosophy and religion at MIT Huston Smith calls the "animic" or "intermediate plane"--often popularly called the "astral plane--seems to play in role in mental illenss; at least Smith believes this to be the case, as do I...

So-called mental illness is always a behaviour. Diseases are the result of some identifiable physical abnormality. A Lung is diseased and not operating properly. And we can what the problem is though x-rays, pet scans or sonography. All human organs have the same function. If they do not perform their function adequately due to a physical factor, they are said to be diseased.

Behavior is different; it varies. So if one is hearing voices or seeing visions, this is said to indicate a mental illness. In the absence of any physical problem, we assume this is a disease simply because we consider this behavior abnormal. But what if these voices are real? What if the person hearing them has made contact in some way with another realm of existence? Then this is not a "disease" caused by whatever, the person is experiencing a reality which the rest of us cannot see or hear..

[Siberian Cold Breeze]

We're probably possessed and don't know about it. :p

my body is possesed by my soul ..no exorcism needed ..:D

[Osprey]

Fake. 110%.
Its all publicity stunt, attention whoring, mental imbalance or just straight up crazy behaviour.

[Sarmatian]

Those things are real. But to understand the matter one have to know what humans are and how they function.

All I can say to skeptics is you people are very lucky you never encountered such things as they rarely end well these days.

[Kazimiera]

Those things are real. But to understand the matter one have to know what humans are and how they function.

All I can say to skeptics is you people are very lucky you never encountered such things as they rarely end well these days.

I am very interested in this comment. Would you perhaps elaborate?

[arcticwolf]

What is really silly is to dismiss the idea of reality we can not prove with tools and understanding we have right now. That much should be obvious to any one given our history of discovery.

Why would reality restrict itself to this one known to us universe? That's all we know or can perceive and detect, but to be convinced this is it is just plain silly.

[Kazimiera]

What is really silly is to dismiss the idea of reality we can not prove with tools and understanding we have right now. That much should be obvious to any one given our history of discovery.

Why would reality restrict itself to this one known to us universe? That's all we know or can perceive and detect, but to be convinced this is it is just plain silly.

I don't dispute the existence of another realm at all, which I am certain exists. But why would inhabitants of this realm, be they good or evil, be interested in us? What would they achieve or gain by possessing a human being?

[Alenka]

As soon as the demonic possession, or perhaps the supposed demonic possession, causes problems and interrupts life of the subject and/or others in their invironment, I say it's concrete enough for me to consider it real.

So even if it isn't actually work of the demons - the thought of a "possession" as a symptom of a mental ilness is to me not any less scary than the thought of a possession by actual demonic forces.

[arcticwolf]

I don't dispute the existence of another realm at all, which I am certain exists. But why would inhabitants of this realm, be they good or evil, be interested in us? What would they achieve or gain by possessing a human being?

Let's look at it this way, if absolute is singularity and there exists duality ( this realm for example ) there must be shades or grades of reality from the coarse through the fine. In other words to get to the ultimate the being must progress from totally oblivious to reality to fully aware of it.

The only man that ever explained it was the Buddha. According to him there are planes of existence thru which we wonder depending on our understanding of reality. Some far better than this some far worse and everything in between, though all of them impermanent.

As to what why beings from one realm can touch beings in another, that is dependent on the mental development of a being. Those "bad" beings from lower realms so to speak can affect beings in higher realm which are not developed beyond a certain level, and have no power over those who are developed. As to why, because they are as deluded as beings in this realm are. They have the same vices. Karma is extremely complicated. ;)

This is according to Buddha, as he said this can be seen directly if the effort is put forward to understand reality.

The belief that chemical process are responsible for all we experience is blindness to reality. It's easy to see that it is the mind which powers the body not the other way around.

Being a blind materialist is as bad as being a religious fanatic, both are forms of ignorance.:D

[Tabiti]

Always wondered about the essence of demonic possessions. In one side, demons are created by religion. Most of them are just ancient gods, so that's enough for me to exclude possibility of the existence of winged and horned creatures with weird names and bad reputation. There are various types of mental illnesses, however cases of obsession are documented since ages. Psychic disorders, including those with aggressive behaviour also exist since ancient times and far not all cases were paid attention. That makes me think either is possession a certain weird mental disease or something else.

[Sarmatian]

I am very interested in this comment. Would you perhaps elaborate?

How many people you personally know to be capable to deal with such things? I bet none as there are not many around today. As result what happens to people who experiencing such unusual encounters? They either seek help from medical professionals who just lock them in mental institutions or end up following the pressure of the posessing entity and do not really nice things which turn them into serial killers or maniacs.

I knew a girl who hear voices as long as she remember herself. She had no discomfort about it and no trouble but was unfortunate to tell others. As result this normally developed young woman is forced to take some drugs daily in doses 40 times higher than its used for painkilling purposes :picard1: But its quite positive example.

[Sarmatian]

I don't dispute the existence of another realm at all, which I am certain exists. But why would inhabitants of this realm, be they good or evil, be interested in us? What would they achieve or gain by possessing a human being?

The ultimate currency in this world is energy of life and average human in fact is vast reservoir of such energy. Not only humans posses the energy within themselves but they also able to connect to variety of energy sources and channel that energy into surrounding world. We release this energy in form of emotions and other lifeforms can feed on it.

The purpose of emotions is energy exchange with other people and living beings. But if you have no control over your emotions (which is the case for at least 99% of people in the world today) other lifeforms can exploit you to feed themselves. Thats the case for all religions and sects. The secondary purpose of demonic posession is to connect other people to the specific entity to extend feeding base.

[Kazimiera]

The ultimate currency in this world is energy of life and average human in fact is vast reservoir of such energy. Not only humans posses the energy within themselves but they also able to connect to variety of energy sources and channel that energy into surrounding world. We release this energy in form of emotions and other lifeforms can feed on it.

The purpose of emotions is energy exchange with other people and living beings. But if you have no control over your emotions (which is the case for at least 99% of people in the world today) other lifeforms can exploit you to feed themselves. Thats the case for all religions and sects. The secondary purpose of demonic posession is to connect other people to the specific entity to extend feeding base.

Fair statement. But if other life forms can feed off this energy, then that would mean there could be positive possessions too. Like people being possessed by an angel (for want of a better word). Or am I way off the mark here?

[Sarmatian]

Fair statement. But if other life forms can feed off this energy, then that would mean there could be positive possessions too. Like people being possessed by an angel (for want of a better word). Or am I way off the mark here?

In general we are all connected to specific set of entities from very beginning of our llives. Those are our ancestral Gods and it can only be inherited from our parents (which is why black dude following Norse tradition is same nonsense as white guy following Vodo). Such connection is beneficiary for both us and Gods as they give us their guidance and we pay them back with living experiences we going through our lives. But even if we dont pay them its fine as they are self-sufficient entities and can live without us. This is sort of parent-child relationship.

But there are also many other lifeforms and some of them are parasitic by nature. That means they seeking to take our energy or exploit us in other ways without any benefits for us.

To put it simple all entities we can encounter are somewhere in spectre 'relatives-friendly-neutral-hostile-extremely aggressive'. If you are unlucky to get in contact with the last one you're in trouble.

[Osprey]

I think my comment was misunderstood.
What i said was that these things maybe possible. (But in that case, these certainly are not demons, energy flowing in the wrong direction, influencing our bodily function and hormonal balance)
But the reported cases are fake.

[Kazimiera]

In general we are all connected to specific set of entities from very beginning of our llives. Those are our ancestral Gods and it can only be inherited from our parents (which is why black dude following Norse tradition is same nonsense as white guy following Vodo). Such connection is beneficiary for both us and Gods as they give us their guidance and we pay them back with living experiences we going through our lives. But even if we dont pay them its fine as they are self-sufficient entities and can live without us. This is sort of parent-child relationship.

How do you know who your ancestral Gods are?

[Sarmatian]

I posted response but its disappeared :confused:

Anyway...


How do you know who your ancestral Gods are?

To recognize which are Gods and which are Demons you have to learn to 'see' such entities first. Then its obvious. The trick is they can only lie to you if you want (consciously or subconsciously) to be told some bullshit story.

[only1]

"Gods"... lol. These are just filthy demons and there are even humans who can control them. There is only one creator and he created all the demons and all the other creatures we can not see with human eyes.

[Sarmatian]

"Gods"... lol. These are just filthy demons and there are even humans who can control them. There is only one creator and he created all the demons and all the other creatures we can not see with human eyes.

I'm created by one creator, you by another. Deal with it :cool:

[Siberian Cold Breeze]

What is satan in Organised religons.It is the one full of "ego and pride".
If a person seperates himself/herself from others selfishly becomes demonised, it is the peak when we say "human is master of universe" we become evil and we are possesed by satan because we destroy God's order in nature.Nature is design of God .Only creature objects the mortality is human being so we are all possesed by Satan full of ego and pride..destoying the planet.

[Blackout]

I find this video to be quite genuine:

cVhmXAtVyj4

I have also been to abandoned houses, and have regularly walked in forests late at night on my own. I have personally seen the same kind of shadows that are in this video.

I do not believe that is the 'spirit' of the dead woman however. Rather, it is a spirit that has taken the form of this lady. Ghosts live a lot longer than what humans presently do. This is why someone might see something of another era.