via Alternet
The following is an excerpt from the new book The Divine Madness of Philip K. Dick by Kyle Arnold (Oxford University Press, 2016):
Just after Christmas in 1981, a scruffy science fiction writer named Philip K. Dick was excited to receive an invitation to visit the studio of the film Blade Runner, which was to be released a few months later. Blade Runner was the first of many major motion pictures based on Dick stories, and the only one filmed during his lifetime. While Dick was an industrious author and had published thirty-three novels, he was a poor man most of his life, and never had mingled with Hollywood glamour before. He’d been asked to visit the film set earlier, but it was far away and Dick, who had a history of near-fatal car accidents he attributed to his own wish to die, had largely given up on driving. An actor friend, Mary Wilson, told him to insist that the studio send a limo to fetch him, and they did so. Dick asked Wilson to accompany him, as he believed she was conversant enough with the film industry to help the anxious author navigate its unfamiliar rituals and personages. Dick was particularly nervous about meeting the director, Ridley Scott, whom he had scathingly criticized as unoriginal in a review of Scott’s previous film, Alien. A mystical contemplative, Dick balked when he heard from Scott that Blade Runnerwould omit the spiritual themes so central to his writing. But despite all this, the two got along unexpectedly well, and photos of the meeting show them goofing off with big smiles. When Scott took Dick into a screening room and showed him the first twenty minutes of the uncompleted dystopian sci-fi film, Dick was spellbound. When the lights went on, he exclaimed that watching the footage was like having a mirror held up to his mind.
What neither Scott nor most audiences of Blade Runner knew was that Dick’s mind really was every bit as far out as what was on the screen, if not more so. Dick had grappled with madness, and self-depreciatingly referred to himself as a “flipped-out freak.” When he saw the Blade Runner footage – which included a scene of a murderous android undergoing a psychological evaluation– he might have been reminded of the time he called the police during a bout of paranoid terror and warned them he was a machine who should be locked up. Dick not only wrote stories about androids, but sometimes was afraid he literally was one. There are many other instances of Dick’s life imitating sci-fi, the most notorious of which was his declaration that in early 1974 he was zapped by a bright pink light that uploaded mystical information into his brain. He believed the source of the light was a benevolent entity he nicknamed “Zebra.” Zebra, so called because it camouflaged itself by assuming the form of everyday objects, revealed Dick’s world was not what it seemed. According to Zebra, time had been frozen in the year 50 a.d. by the machinations of the Roman Empire. The rest of history was an illusion. His mind awakened by the pink light of Zebra, Dick witnessed scenes from ancient Rome superimposed over his neighborhood. He heard a voice in his head uttering cryptic messages and felt guided by an otherworldly entity. He saw streams of red and gold energy reshaping his environment. Many of his visions were chilling, but they were also exhilarating. The stories Dick spent his life conjuring were now real. His identity was transformed. In Dick’s mind, he was no longer just a sci-fi genre writer, but a mystical seer and prophet. Because Dick’s visions of 1974 were most powerful in February and March of that year, he referred to them, collectively, as 2-3-74.They have perplexed Dick fans and scholars ever since.
After 1974, the visions faded, and Dick tried to come to grips with his experience. Although wildly imaginative, Dick was also a chronic doubter. Skeptical of the revelations he received, he considered what he called the “minimum hypothesis”: that it was all nothing but delusion. Dick struggled for years with the question of his own sanity. To be sure, he had a point: 2-3-74 included striking paranoid features. As I hope to show, however, it is best to classify 2-3-74 not as a delusional episode but as a complex psycho-spiritual emergency, an intense psychological breakthrough resembling mental breakdown. The term emergency, here, signifies both a crisis and an emergence of a more profound level of wholeness. If handled well, these powerful events can contribute to personal growth. If miscarried, they can be traumatizing. Dick was not able to resolve his psychospiritual crisis. After Zebra left him, he lapsed into despair and made a brutal suicide attempt. But the experience was so engrossing that Dick was unable to let it go. He couldn’t stop writing about 2-3-74, producing a total of four novels about it: VALIS, The Divine Invasion, Radio Free Albemuth, and the uncompleted Transmigration of Timothy Archer. He also churned out, over the span of eight years, an eight-thousand-page piece of philosophical-religious exposition he called his Exegesis.
Of the numerous interpretations of 2-3-74 that Dick generated during his frenzied exegetical activity, most are dazzling but many spurious. The Exegesis is a remarkable achievement of the imagination. Its pages are crammed with intricate philosophical reasoning, Gnostic mysticism, Jungian psychology, and occultism, all intertwined with autobiography. Each section of the Exegesis offers new theories, new explanations of 2-3-74. Dick proposes that the intelligence behind the pink light may have been God, the KGB, a satellite, aliens, a first-century Christian named Thomas with whom he was in telepathic communication, the CIA, a version of himself from a different dimension, or possibly his deceased twin sister contacting him from the spirit world. Each new theory of 2-3-74 telescopes out into further possible theories, ad infinitum. Dick never settled.
One of the theories Dick entertained about 2-3-74 was that his visions might be symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. Indeed, Dick’s imagination often drifted in a paranoid direction. He asked neighbors to conceal his identity, complaining that the FBI, CIA, or KGB was after him. In 1971 he was admitted to Marin State Psychiatric Hospital for claiming he was being pursued by government agents. Close examination of the context of Dick’s paranoid episodes, however, reveals they are most parsimoniously explained as byproducts of his voracious consumption of speed. Dick began taking prescription amphetamines for asthma as a child and later ingested massive doses to fuel the frenetic pace of his writing. Because of its impact on the dopamine system of the brain, amphetamine abuse often causes paranoia. Previous commentators have conjectured that Dick’s paranoia was the result of drug use, but many have focused on the wrong drug: LSD. Although Dick took LSD occasionally, there is no evidence that he was a heavy user. Rather, it was his excessive use of amphetamines that most likely led to paranoia.
During the zenith of Dick’s amphetamine-fueled paranoia in 1971, his house was mysteriously burglarized. He came home one evening to find his windows smashed, his reinforced file cabinet broken open, and pieces of asbestos littering the floor. The burglary, made legendary by a famous Rolling Stone article, was a baffling event that sparked Dick’s passion for creative theorizing. Dick’s imagination ran wild. Were the burglars CIA operatives, Black Panthers, or political thugs? To date, the burglary remains a mystery. It turns out there is only one plausible explanation for what happened: Dick did it himself.
There were traumatic events later in Dick’s life, including separations from his parents that left him with a lifelong terror of abandonment. Like many traumatized people, he was largely unable to establish secure attachments to others. Dick had stormy relationships that drove him to the brink of suicide. Yet, his history of trauma also contributed to his development as a spiritual contemplative. It is not unusual for traumatic experiences to awaken spiritual insights. To paraphrase Leonard Cohen, cracks are how the light gets in.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Monday, July 4, 2016
The Man Who Balances Rocks
from Huffington Post
Always balance, never symmetry.
That's one way artist John Felicè Ceprano describes his most famous works.
Every spring, John heads out to Remic Rapids in the Ottawa River and balances rocks. When I say "in," I mean "in," as you can see by the pictures.
Every winter, nature dismantles them. And so he starts afresh in the spring. His fans wait in eager anticipation, as the first rocks show up early in the spring.
The 69-year old has been doing this since 1986, when he first discovered the soothing sounds of Remic Rapids along the shore of the Ottawa River, secluded by bushes. The ambient meditative sound and peaceful environment brought him back. The spring runoff receded, exposing a flat and solid limestone riverbed, a perfect platform to create his now-famous sculptures.
When I spoke with John on Father's Day, he told me that he has a natural inclination to seek balance, as he had learned to do through Tai Chi. So, to complement the sound of water and to create a more direct link between himself and nature, he began to first look, then touch, then feel the balance of rocks he found in the vicinity.
In 1989, a Canada Council grant supported the project, as locals began paying attention. Since 2000, the National Capital Commission has sponsored the project, an internationally recognized mark on the Canadian landscape.
Today, the bushes are gone, so that people can appreciate his work. without playing hide-and-seek.
Just a few minute west of downtown Ottawa, this is the coolest tourist attraction that isn't in the brochures. As a result, it's mostly Ottawa residents who appreciate the sculptures. But if you plan to visit Ottawa, take a half hour to come down to Remic Rapids and bathe yourself in both the calming sound of the water and the inspiring site of the balanced rocks.
You'll be greeted at the entrance to the parking area by the rock family. It makes its appearance before the spring run-off reveals the limestone tables by the shore. This is the perfect spot for a picnic, which is why my daughters and I were there on Father's Day in the first place.
Probably the most frequent comment I hear about the rocks goes something like this:
"Wow. How does he get them to balance?"
People are asking the wrong question.
The bigger question is how does he lift those huge rocks, which four of me together would have a hard time lifting, then place them in a gingerly precarious balance? I was explaining to my girls that he must have some kind of hoist to lift the bigger rocks, then lower them into place. Still held up by the hoist, he would be able to put the smaller rocks in place to keep the large rocks in balance, before releasing the rock from its sling.
"No, I lift them myself," he calmly told us not 15 minutes later.
John is a small man, full of muscles. He put me doubly to shame with that correction.
If I was to describe this artist in one word, after speaking with him for at least half an hour, the word would be "philosopher". He reflects on nature, on the growth of the city, on where humanity is headed, on the good in the world and the bad in the world, on the difference between balance and symmetry and on the various perspectives we can take to view everything around us.
If you take a half hour to appreciate the art and the nature of the place, be prepared to take another half hour to chat with the artist if you happen to be so lucky as to meet him.
Always balance, never symmetry.
That's one way artist John Felicè Ceprano describes his most famous works.
Every spring, John heads out to Remic Rapids in the Ottawa River and balances rocks. When I say "in," I mean "in," as you can see by the pictures.
Every winter, nature dismantles them. And so he starts afresh in the spring. His fans wait in eager anticipation, as the first rocks show up early in the spring.
The 69-year old has been doing this since 1986, when he first discovered the soothing sounds of Remic Rapids along the shore of the Ottawa River, secluded by bushes. The ambient meditative sound and peaceful environment brought him back. The spring runoff receded, exposing a flat and solid limestone riverbed, a perfect platform to create his now-famous sculptures.
When I spoke with John on Father's Day, he told me that he has a natural inclination to seek balance, as he had learned to do through Tai Chi. So, to complement the sound of water and to create a more direct link between himself and nature, he began to first look, then touch, then feel the balance of rocks he found in the vicinity.
In 1989, a Canada Council grant supported the project, as locals began paying attention. Since 2000, the National Capital Commission has sponsored the project, an internationally recognized mark on the Canadian landscape.
Today, the bushes are gone, so that people can appreciate his work. without playing hide-and-seek.
Just a few minute west of downtown Ottawa, this is the coolest tourist attraction that isn't in the brochures. As a result, it's mostly Ottawa residents who appreciate the sculptures. But if you plan to visit Ottawa, take a half hour to come down to Remic Rapids and bathe yourself in both the calming sound of the water and the inspiring site of the balanced rocks.
You'll be greeted at the entrance to the parking area by the rock family. It makes its appearance before the spring run-off reveals the limestone tables by the shore. This is the perfect spot for a picnic, which is why my daughters and I were there on Father's Day in the first place.
Probably the most frequent comment I hear about the rocks goes something like this:
"Wow. How does he get them to balance?"
People are asking the wrong question.
The bigger question is how does he lift those huge rocks, which four of me together would have a hard time lifting, then place them in a gingerly precarious balance? I was explaining to my girls that he must have some kind of hoist to lift the bigger rocks, then lower them into place. Still held up by the hoist, he would be able to put the smaller rocks in place to keep the large rocks in balance, before releasing the rock from its sling.
"No, I lift them myself," he calmly told us not 15 minutes later.
John is a small man, full of muscles. He put me doubly to shame with that correction.
If I was to describe this artist in one word, after speaking with him for at least half an hour, the word would be "philosopher". He reflects on nature, on the growth of the city, on where humanity is headed, on the good in the world and the bad in the world, on the difference between balance and symmetry and on the various perspectives we can take to view everything around us.
If you take a half hour to appreciate the art and the nature of the place, be prepared to take another half hour to chat with the artist if you happen to be so lucky as to meet him.
The Taoist Way - Alan Watts
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” - Lao Tzu
F. David Peat: Synchronicity, a bridge between mind and matter
Synchronicities are those mysterious and inexplicable coincidences that occasionally erupt into a life. At times we may feel that those around us are confined to a narrow world of logic and physical law, a world that admits no hint of mystery. This can give rise to a feeling of isolation within an indifferent universe and in an increasing complex society whose members are reduced to ciphers. Synchronicities, by contrast, open a doorway into a very different world: a world that also has resonances with the deep insights that have been revealed by the new sciences.
True synchronicities are more than mere chance occurrences. They are characterized by a sense of meaning and numinousness. They provide a bridge between inner and outer worlds, between our private thoughts and external, objective realities. Within a synchronicity, patterns of external events mirror an inner experience; likewise dreams and fantasies may seem to flood over into the external world. To distinguish synchronicities from mere chance occurrences Carl Jung stressed that they must always involve "meaningful coincidence" that lie beyond any explanation involving causal links and connections. They reveal to us an underlying world of patterns, forms and connections that transcend any division between the mental and the material.
The week in Pari will explore a number of connections between our subjective, internal world and the objective, external. One route will be to reflect on the metaphor of alchemy as a pathway to inner transformation. This will include an exploration of the deep links between art and alchemy. In the field of literature we will meet James Joyce's notion of an epiphany -- that moment when meaning coalesces into the world -- and the poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins also wrote of inscape, the authentic and individual voice within the natural world that speaks to us directly.
An introduction to some key ideas from depth psychology will be given. Archetypes as the structuring principles of the psyche will be compared to notions of an underlying implicate order to reality as discussed by the physicist David Bohm. The therapeutic encounter will be viewed as an alchemical vessel in which "frozen accidents" to the psyche can be melted and transformed by generating psychic heat.
The spiritual dimensions of transformation and transcendence will be discussed with examples from a number of mystics including the Sufi, Ibn bin'Arabi. From the New Sciences we shall explore new notions of chance, connectedness, order out of chaos, the changing nature of matter and the notion that proto-mind may have existed from the beginning of the universe.
The course will also feature a day with Dr. Shantena Sabbadini, author and translator of the new Eranos I Ching. Sabbadini will explore the ancient Chinese notion of the significance of patterns of meaningful chance. He will explain how participants can frame a question to the Book of Changes and "read" the answer given by the I Ching.
See Synchronicity: The Speculum of Inscape and Landscape , Cosmos and Inscape , Divine Contenders: Wolfgang Pauli and the Symmetry of the World
and Wolfgang Pauli: Resurrection of spirit in the world
The course will explore:
Synchronicities, illuminations, epiphanies and the sense of connectedness as events that sum up a life or anticipate the future
The nature of consciousness and its connection to the body
Theories of Mind and Matter
The nature of the Archetypes and other structuring principles of the psyche
Laws of matter and mind. Are they a priori or do they evolve?
The role of the New Physics (chaos theory and quantum theory) and its connection to consciousness
Connections between minds, and between mind and matter
Metaphors of alchemy and the process of individuation
Wolfgang Pauli, his dreams and relationship with Carl Jung. Pauli's vision of the resurrection of spirit within the world of matter
The current state of our world and the need for values and ethics
Shantena Sabbadini, who has recently published a new translation and concordance of the I Ching will also give a workshop on Ancient Chinese views of synchronistic connections and on how to consult and interpret the I Ching.
Synchronicity: The Bridge between Matter and Mind will proceed via lectures and group discussions. Participants will be encouraged to keep a journal. Participants are also encouraged to take advantage of the thermal hot springs below the village.
More info. at http://www.paricenter.com/programs/co...
Grant Morrison: Aliens, Magic, and the Mystery of Reality
"All the comics are sigils. 'Sigil' as a word is out of date. All this magic stuff needs new terminology because it's not what people are being told it is at all." - Grant Morrison
Philip K Dick reflects on his life, literature, and ideas
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." - Phillip K. Dick
Sunday, July 3, 2016
As a psychiatrist, I diagnose mental illness. Also, I help spot demonic possession.
In the late 1980s, I was introduced to a self-styled Satanic high priestess. She called herself a witch and dressed the part, with flowing dark clothes and black eye shadow around to her temples. In our many discussions, she acknowledged worshipping Satan as his “queen.”
I’m a man of science and a lover of history; after studying the classics at Princeton, I trained in psychiatry at Yale and in psychoanalysis at Columbia. That background is why a Catholic priest had asked my professional opinion, which I offered pro bono, about whether this woman was suffering from a mental disorder. This was at the height of the national panic about Satanism. (In a case that helped induce the hysteria, Virginia McMartin and others had recently been charged with alleged Satanic ritual abuse at a Los Angeles preschool; the charges were later dropped.) So I was inclined to skepticism. But my subject’s behavior exceeded what I could explain with my training. She could tell some people their secret weaknesses, such as undue pride. She knew how individuals she’d never known had died, including my mother and her fatal case of ovarian cancer. Six people later vouched to me that, during her exorcisms, they heard her speaking multiple languages, including Latin, completely unfamiliar to her outside of her trances. This was not psychosis; it was what I can only describe as paranormal ability. I concluded that she was possessed. Much later, she permitted me to tell her story.
The priest who had asked for my opinion of this bizarre case was the most experienced exorcist in the country at the time, an erudite and sensible man. I had told him that, even as a practicing Catholic, I wasn’t likely to go in for a lot of hocus-pocus. “Well,” he replied, “unless we thought you were not easily fooled, we would hardly have wanted you to assist us.”
So began an unlikely partnership. For the past two-and-a-half decades and over several hundred consultations, I’ve helped clergy from multiple denominations and faiths to filter episodes of mental illness — which represent the overwhelming majority of cases — from, literally, the devil’s work. It’s an unlikely role for an academic physician, but I don’t see these two aspects of my career in conflict. The same habits that shape what I do as a professor and psychiatrist — open-mindedness, respect for evidence and compassion for suffering people — led me to aid in the work of discerning attacks by what I believe are evil spirits and, just as critically, differentiating these extremely rare events from medical conditions.
Is it possible to be a sophisticated psychiatrist and believe that evil spirits are, however seldom, assailing humans? Most of my scientific colleagues and friends say no, because of their frequent contact with patients who are deluded about demons, their general skepticism of the supernatural, and their commitment to employ only standard, peer-reviewed treatments that do not potentially mislead (a definite risk) or harm vulnerable patients. But careful observation of the evidence presented to me in my career has led me to believe that certain extremely uncommon cases can be explained no other way.
* * * * * * *
The Vatican does not track global or countrywide exorcism, but in my experience and according to the priests I meet, demand is rising. The United States is home to about 50 “stable” exorcists — those who have been designated by bishops to combat demonic activity on a semi-regular basis — up from just 12 a decade ago, according to the Rev. Vincent Lampert, an Indianapolis-based priest-exorcist who is active in the International Association of Exorcists. (He receives about 20 inquiries per week, double the number from when his bishop appointed him in 2005.) The Catholic Church has responded by offering greater resources for clergy members who wish to address the problem. In 2010, for instance, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops organized a meeting in Baltimore for interested clergy. In 2014, Pope Francis formally recognized the IAE, 400 members of which are to convene in Rome this October. Members believe in such strange cases because they are constantly called upon to help. (I served for a time as a scientific adviser on the group’s governing board.)
Unfortunately, not all clergy involved in this complex field are as cautious as the priest who first approached me. In some circles, there is a tendency to become overly preoccupied with putative demonic explanations and to see the devil everywhere. Fundamentalist misdiagnoses and absurd or even dangerous “treatments,” such as beating victims, have sometimes occurred, especially in developing countries. This is perhaps why exorcism has a negative connotation in some quarters. People with psychological problems should receive psychological treatment.
But I believe I’ve seen the real thing. Assaults upon individuals are classified either as “demonic possessions” or as the slightly more common but less intense attacks usually called “oppressions.” A possessed individual may suddenly, in a type of trance, voice statements of astonishing venom and contempt for religion, while understanding and speaking various foreign languages previously unknown to them. The subject might also exhibit enormous strength or even the extraordinarily rare phenomenon of levitation. (I have not witnessed a levitation myself, but half a dozen people I work with vow that they’ve seen it in the course of their exorcisms.) He or she might demonstrate “hidden knowledge” of all sorts of things — like how a stranger’s loved ones died, what secret sins she has committed, even where people are at a given moment. These are skills that cannot be explained except by special psychic or preternatural ability.
I have personally encountered these rationally inexplicable features, along with other paranormal phenomena. My vantage is unusual: As a consulting doctor, I think I have seen more cases of possession than any other physician in the world.
[I’m a transgender Republican. My party has betrayed me.]
Most of the people I evaluate in this role suffer from the more prosaic problems of a medical disorder. Anyone even faintly familiar with mental illnesses knows that individuals who think they are being attacked by malign spirits are generally experiencing nothing of the sort. Practitioners see psychotic patients all the time who claim to see or hear demons; histrionic or highly suggestible individuals, such as those suffering from dissociative identity syndromes; and patients with personality disorders who are prone to misinterpret destructive feelings, in what exorcists sometimes call a “pseudo-possession,” via the defense mechanism of an externalizing projection. But what am I supposed to make of patients who unexpectedly start speaking perfect Latin?
I approach each situation with an initial skepticism. I technically do not make my own “diagnosis” of possession but inform the clergy that the symptoms in question have no conceivable medical cause.
I am aware of the way many psychiatrists view this sort of work. While the American Psychiatric Association has no official opinion on these affairs, the field (like society at large) is full of unpersuadable skeptics and occasionally doctrinaire materialists who are often oddly vitriolic in their opposition to all things spiritual. My job is to assist people seeking help, not to convince doctors who are not subject to suasion. Yet I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners nowadays who are open to entertaining such hypotheses. Many believe exactly what I do, though they may be reluctant to speak out.
* * * * * * *
As a man of reason, I’ve had to rationalize the seemingly irrational. Questions about how a scientifically trained physician can believe “such outdated and unscientific nonsense,” as I’ve been asked, have a simple answer. I honestly weigh the evidence. I have been told simplistically that levitation defies the laws of gravity, and, well, of course it does! We are not dealing here with purely material reality, but with the spiritual realm. One cannot force these creatures to undergo lab studies or submit to scientific manipulation; they will also hardly allow themselves to be easily recorded by video equipment, as skeptics sometimes demand. (The official Catholic Catechism holds that demons are sentient and possess their own wills; as they are fallen angels, they are also craftier than humans. That’s how they sow confusion and seed doubt, after all.) Nor does the church wish to compromise a sufferer’s privacy, any more than doctors want to compromise a patient’s confidentiality.
Ignorance and superstition have often surrounded stories of demonic possession in various cultures, and surely many alleged episodes can be explained by fraud, chicanery or mental pathology. But anthropologists agree that nearly all cultures have believed in spirits, and the vast majority of societies (including our own) have recorded dramatic stories of spirit possession. Despite varying interpretations, multiple depictions of the same phenomena in astonishingly consistent ways offer cumulative evidence of their credibility.
As a psychoanalyst, a blanket rejection of the possibility of demonic attacks seems less logical, and often wishful in nature, than a careful appraisal of the facts. As I see it, the evidence for possession is like the evidence for George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware. In both cases, written historical accounts with numerous sound witnesses testify to their accuracy.
In the end, however, it was not an academic or dogmatic view that propelled me into this line of work. I was asked to consult about people in pain. I have always thought that, if requested to help a tortured person, a physician should not arbitrarily refuse to get involved. Those who dismiss these cases unwittingly prevent patients from receiving the help they desperately require, either by failing to recommend them for psychiatric treatment (which most clearly need) or by not informing their spiritual ministers that something beyond a mental or other illness seems to be the issue. For any person of science or faith, it should be impossible to turn one’s back on a tormented soul.
Richard Gallagher is a board-certified psychiatrist and a professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College. He is at work on a book about demonic possession in the United States.
I’m a man of science and a lover of history; after studying the classics at Princeton, I trained in psychiatry at Yale and in psychoanalysis at Columbia. That background is why a Catholic priest had asked my professional opinion, which I offered pro bono, about whether this woman was suffering from a mental disorder. This was at the height of the national panic about Satanism. (In a case that helped induce the hysteria, Virginia McMartin and others had recently been charged with alleged Satanic ritual abuse at a Los Angeles preschool; the charges were later dropped.) So I was inclined to skepticism. But my subject’s behavior exceeded what I could explain with my training. She could tell some people their secret weaknesses, such as undue pride. She knew how individuals she’d never known had died, including my mother and her fatal case of ovarian cancer. Six people later vouched to me that, during her exorcisms, they heard her speaking multiple languages, including Latin, completely unfamiliar to her outside of her trances. This was not psychosis; it was what I can only describe as paranormal ability. I concluded that she was possessed. Much later, she permitted me to tell her story.
The priest who had asked for my opinion of this bizarre case was the most experienced exorcist in the country at the time, an erudite and sensible man. I had told him that, even as a practicing Catholic, I wasn’t likely to go in for a lot of hocus-pocus. “Well,” he replied, “unless we thought you were not easily fooled, we would hardly have wanted you to assist us.”
So began an unlikely partnership. For the past two-and-a-half decades and over several hundred consultations, I’ve helped clergy from multiple denominations and faiths to filter episodes of mental illness — which represent the overwhelming majority of cases — from, literally, the devil’s work. It’s an unlikely role for an academic physician, but I don’t see these two aspects of my career in conflict. The same habits that shape what I do as a professor and psychiatrist — open-mindedness, respect for evidence and compassion for suffering people — led me to aid in the work of discerning attacks by what I believe are evil spirits and, just as critically, differentiating these extremely rare events from medical conditions.
Is it possible to be a sophisticated psychiatrist and believe that evil spirits are, however seldom, assailing humans? Most of my scientific colleagues and friends say no, because of their frequent contact with patients who are deluded about demons, their general skepticism of the supernatural, and their commitment to employ only standard, peer-reviewed treatments that do not potentially mislead (a definite risk) or harm vulnerable patients. But careful observation of the evidence presented to me in my career has led me to believe that certain extremely uncommon cases can be explained no other way.
* * * * * * *
The Vatican does not track global or countrywide exorcism, but in my experience and according to the priests I meet, demand is rising. The United States is home to about 50 “stable” exorcists — those who have been designated by bishops to combat demonic activity on a semi-regular basis — up from just 12 a decade ago, according to the Rev. Vincent Lampert, an Indianapolis-based priest-exorcist who is active in the International Association of Exorcists. (He receives about 20 inquiries per week, double the number from when his bishop appointed him in 2005.) The Catholic Church has responded by offering greater resources for clergy members who wish to address the problem. In 2010, for instance, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops organized a meeting in Baltimore for interested clergy. In 2014, Pope Francis formally recognized the IAE, 400 members of which are to convene in Rome this October. Members believe in such strange cases because they are constantly called upon to help. (I served for a time as a scientific adviser on the group’s governing board.)
Unfortunately, not all clergy involved in this complex field are as cautious as the priest who first approached me. In some circles, there is a tendency to become overly preoccupied with putative demonic explanations and to see the devil everywhere. Fundamentalist misdiagnoses and absurd or even dangerous “treatments,” such as beating victims, have sometimes occurred, especially in developing countries. This is perhaps why exorcism has a negative connotation in some quarters. People with psychological problems should receive psychological treatment.
But I believe I’ve seen the real thing. Assaults upon individuals are classified either as “demonic possessions” or as the slightly more common but less intense attacks usually called “oppressions.” A possessed individual may suddenly, in a type of trance, voice statements of astonishing venom and contempt for religion, while understanding and speaking various foreign languages previously unknown to them. The subject might also exhibit enormous strength or even the extraordinarily rare phenomenon of levitation. (I have not witnessed a levitation myself, but half a dozen people I work with vow that they’ve seen it in the course of their exorcisms.) He or she might demonstrate “hidden knowledge” of all sorts of things — like how a stranger’s loved ones died, what secret sins she has committed, even where people are at a given moment. These are skills that cannot be explained except by special psychic or preternatural ability.
I have personally encountered these rationally inexplicable features, along with other paranormal phenomena. My vantage is unusual: As a consulting doctor, I think I have seen more cases of possession than any other physician in the world.
[I’m a transgender Republican. My party has betrayed me.]
Most of the people I evaluate in this role suffer from the more prosaic problems of a medical disorder. Anyone even faintly familiar with mental illnesses knows that individuals who think they are being attacked by malign spirits are generally experiencing nothing of the sort. Practitioners see psychotic patients all the time who claim to see or hear demons; histrionic or highly suggestible individuals, such as those suffering from dissociative identity syndromes; and patients with personality disorders who are prone to misinterpret destructive feelings, in what exorcists sometimes call a “pseudo-possession,” via the defense mechanism of an externalizing projection. But what am I supposed to make of patients who unexpectedly start speaking perfect Latin?
I approach each situation with an initial skepticism. I technically do not make my own “diagnosis” of possession but inform the clergy that the symptoms in question have no conceivable medical cause.
I am aware of the way many psychiatrists view this sort of work. While the American Psychiatric Association has no official opinion on these affairs, the field (like society at large) is full of unpersuadable skeptics and occasionally doctrinaire materialists who are often oddly vitriolic in their opposition to all things spiritual. My job is to assist people seeking help, not to convince doctors who are not subject to suasion. Yet I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the number of psychiatrists and other mental health practitioners nowadays who are open to entertaining such hypotheses. Many believe exactly what I do, though they may be reluctant to speak out.
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As a man of reason, I’ve had to rationalize the seemingly irrational. Questions about how a scientifically trained physician can believe “such outdated and unscientific nonsense,” as I’ve been asked, have a simple answer. I honestly weigh the evidence. I have been told simplistically that levitation defies the laws of gravity, and, well, of course it does! We are not dealing here with purely material reality, but with the spiritual realm. One cannot force these creatures to undergo lab studies or submit to scientific manipulation; they will also hardly allow themselves to be easily recorded by video equipment, as skeptics sometimes demand. (The official Catholic Catechism holds that demons are sentient and possess their own wills; as they are fallen angels, they are also craftier than humans. That’s how they sow confusion and seed doubt, after all.) Nor does the church wish to compromise a sufferer’s privacy, any more than doctors want to compromise a patient’s confidentiality.
Ignorance and superstition have often surrounded stories of demonic possession in various cultures, and surely many alleged episodes can be explained by fraud, chicanery or mental pathology. But anthropologists agree that nearly all cultures have believed in spirits, and the vast majority of societies (including our own) have recorded dramatic stories of spirit possession. Despite varying interpretations, multiple depictions of the same phenomena in astonishingly consistent ways offer cumulative evidence of their credibility.
As a psychoanalyst, a blanket rejection of the possibility of demonic attacks seems less logical, and often wishful in nature, than a careful appraisal of the facts. As I see it, the evidence for possession is like the evidence for George Washington’s crossing of the Delaware. In both cases, written historical accounts with numerous sound witnesses testify to their accuracy.
In the end, however, it was not an academic or dogmatic view that propelled me into this line of work. I was asked to consult about people in pain. I have always thought that, if requested to help a tortured person, a physician should not arbitrarily refuse to get involved. Those who dismiss these cases unwittingly prevent patients from receiving the help they desperately require, either by failing to recommend them for psychiatric treatment (which most clearly need) or by not informing their spiritual ministers that something beyond a mental or other illness seems to be the issue. For any person of science or faith, it should be impossible to turn one’s back on a tormented soul.
Richard Gallagher is a board-certified psychiatrist and a professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College. He is at work on a book about demonic possession in the United States.
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