That's beyond psychiatry. Gallagher calls himself a "consultant" on demonic possessions. For the past 25 years, he has helped clergy distinguish between mental illness and what he calls "the real thing.
Gary Thomas, one of the most famous exorcists in the United States. The movie "The Rite" was based on Thomas' work. Gallagher is a big man -- 6-foot-5 -- who once played semipro basketball in Europe. He has a gruff, no-nonsense demeanor. When he talks about possession, it sounds as if he's describing the growth of algae; his tone is dry, clinical, matter-of-fact. Possession, he says, is rare -- but real.
Some critics, though, say Gallagher has become possessed by his own delusions. They say all he's witnessed are cheap parlor tricks by people who might need therapy but certainly not exorcism.
And, they argue, there's no empirical evidence that proves possession is real. Still, one of the biggest mysteries about Gallagher's work isn't what he's seen. It's how he's evolved. How does a "man of science" get pulled into the world of demonic possession? His short answer: He met a queen of Satan. A 'creepy' encounter with evil. She was a middle-age woman who wore flowing dark clothes and black eye shadow.
She could be charming and engaging. She was also part of a satanic cult. She called herself the queen of the cult, but Gallagher would refer to her as "Julia," the pseudonym he gave her. The woman had approached her local priest, convinced she was being attacked by a demon. The priest referred her to an exorcist, who reached out to Gallagher for a mental health evaluation.
Why, though, would a devil worshipper want to be free of the devil? She ended up relieving Gallagher of his doubts. It was one of the first cases he took, and it changed him. Gallagher helped assemble an exorcism team that met Julia in the chapel of a house.
Objects would fly off shelves around her. She somehow knew personal details about Gallagher's life: how his mother had died of ovarian cancer; the fact that two cats in his house went berserk fighting each other the night before one of her sessions. Julia found a way to reach him even when she wasn't with him, he says. He was talking on the phone with Julia's priest one night, he says, when both men heard one of the demonic voices that came from Julia during her trances -- even though she was nowhere near a phone and thousands of miles away.
He says he was never afraid. How a scientist believes in demons. He also insists that he's on the side of science. He says he's a stickler for the scientific method, that it teaches people to follow the facts wherever they may lead. Growing up in a large Irish Catholic family in Long Island, he didn't think much about stories of possession. But when he kept seeing cases like Julia's as a professional, he says, his views had to evolve. Some priests say those who dabble in the occult are opening doorways to the demonic.
Being Catholic, though, may help. Gallagher grew up in a home where faith was taken seriously. His younger brother, Mark, says Gallagher was an academic prodigy with a photographic memory who wanted to use his faith to help people. He taught us to give back. Gallagher's two ways of giving back -- helping the mentally ill as well as the possessed -- may seem at odds. But not necessarily for those in the Catholic Church.
Contemporary Catholicism doesn't see faith and science as contradictory. Its leaders insist that possession, miracles and angels exist. Before that first case — and his relationship with exorcists and the demonic world — he says he was unaware of the intricacies of possession and oppression. Dr Gallagher says demons exhibit extraordinary powers such as personal knowledge and near clairvoyance.
On one occasion, a demon told him how his mother had died — ovarian cancer. It wasn't just me. On another occasion, a demon told him exactly what a priest was wearing though the clergyman was nowhere near Dr Gallagher and the possessed person speaking. In a different case, Gallagher was also personally addressed. We have updated our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
If you continue to use our site, you agree to the updated Policies. But now she was drained and weary of her surroundings.
The night after she left the hospital, Louisa locked the door to her apartment, secured the window with a wooden bar, and went to bed. It seemed close: She could feel the hot exhales on the back of her right ear and her neck. How is this possible? Her grandmother, who was both an American Indian and a devout Catholic, had warned her about them.
If Louisa ever encountered evil spirits, her grandmother had told her, she should do her best to ignore them, because they feed on attention. Louisa tried, but the breathing continued, a heavy, rhythmic rasp. Then, after a minute or so, she felt a hand brush against her collarbone.
At that sensation, which to this day she cannot account for, Louisa leapt out of her sleeping bag and ran to turn on the light. She swears that as soon as she flipped the switch, she heard a pack of stray dogs break out in wild yelps. By dawn Louisa had cleared out, walking several miles to the U. Embassy in Kathmandu. She took the next flight back to Orlando. Louisa had yet another incident in , just after giving birth to her second child, a daughter.
This episode was more like the first—she woke up abruptly, only to find her body locked in place—but with the added shock of what seemed to be visual hallucinations, including one of a giant spider crawling into her bedroom. Louisa was so jolted that she barely ate or slept for three days.
So Louisa turned to the internet. Sleep paralysis seemed like a promising explanation. Hovering near full consciousness, the person can experience paralysis and hallucinations. She started to wonder whether something was pursuing her. Amid consuming fear, she waded into some darker internet waters: elaborate descriptions and YouTube testimonials of people who claimed that a demon or some other evil entity had dragged them down to hell.
When she told him that she had used a Ouija board after her grandfather had passed away a couple of years earlier, he told her to get rid of it, along with anything else that could be construed as occult: tarot cards, amulets, pagan symbols, even healing crystals and birthstones. Any of these things, he told her, could serve as a doorway for a demon. It may surprise some Catholics to learn just how literally the modern Church interprets Satan and his army of demons.
While many people today understand the devil as a metaphor for sin, temptation, and unresolvable evil in the world, the pope consistently repudiates such allegorical readings.
In sermons, interviews, and occasionally in tweets, Pope Francis has declared that Satan—whom he has referred to as Beelzebub, the Seducer, and the Great Dragon—is a literal being devoted to deceiving and debasing humans. Exorcisms also occur in some Protestant and nondenominational Churches, but the Catholic Church has the most formal, rigorous, and long-standing tradition.
The Church sees the influence that demons and their leader, the devil, can have on human beings as existing on a spectrum. Demonic oppression—in which a demon pressures a person to accept evil—lies on one end. In a crucial step, the person requesting an exorcism must undergo a psychiatric evaluation with a mental-health professional. The vast majority of cases end there, as many of the individuals claiming possession are found to be suffering from psychiatric issues such as schizophrenia or a dissociative disorder, or to have recently gone off psychotropic medication.
For some, being told they do not suffer from demonic possession can be a letdown. Father Vincent Lampert, the exorcist from Indianapolis, remembered a young man who came to him seeking an exorcism but was told he was experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia.
At this point he may begin looking for what the Church considers the classic signs of demonic possession: facility in a language the person has never learned; physical strength beyond his or her age or condition; access to secret knowledge; and a vehement aversion to God and sacred objects, including crucifixes and holy water.
Check out the full table of contents and find your next story to read. Only a very small number of exorcism requests make it through the discernment process. The Catholic exorcists I interviewed—each with more than a decade of experience in the role—had worked on only a handful of cases deemed to be true possession. The ritual begins with the exorcist, who is typically assisted by several people, sprinkling holy water on the possessed person.
The exorcist makes the sign of the cross and kneels to recite the Litany of the Saints, followed by several readings of scripture. He then addresses the demon or demons, establishing the ground rules they must abide by: to reveal themselves when called, give their names when asked to identify themselves, and leave when dismissed.
Because the exorcist is working with the full authority of God and Jesus Christ, Catholic doctrine stipulates, the demons have no choice but to obey. For those few people the Church believes are truly possessed, a half-dozen or more exorcisms may be carried out before the priest is confident that the demons have been fully expelled. According to Catholic doctrine, in order to take possession of a person in the first place, demons rely on doorways—what the priest in Orlando warned Louisa about.
These can include things like habitual sin and family curses—in which an act of violence or iniquity committed by one generation manifests itself in subsequent generations. But the priests I spoke with kept coming back, over and over, to two particular doorways. Nearly every Catholic exorcist I spoke with cited a history of abuse—in particular, sexual abuse—as a major doorway for demons.
Thomas said that as many as 80 percent of the people who come to him seeking an exorcism are sexual-abuse survivors. But from a secular standpoint, the link to sexual abuse helps explain why someone might become convinced that he or she is being menaced by something sinister and overpowering.
To the extent that exorcisms "work," it is due to the power of suggestion and psychology: If you believe you're possessed and that an exorcism will cure you , then it just might.
The word exorcism derives from the Greek word for oath, "exousia. Lewis explains in his book "Satanism Today: An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore, and Popular Culture," "To exorcise thus means something along the lines of placing the possessing spirit under oath — invoking a higher authority to compel the spirit — rather than an actual 'casting out.
The Vatican first issued official guidelines on exorcism in , and revised them in According to the U. Conference of Catholic Bishops, signs of demonic possession include superhuman strength, aversion to holy water, and the ability to speak in unknown languages. Other potential signs of demonic possession include spitting, cursing, and "excessive masturbation.
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