Videos Of Demon Possession

Cameron Bertuzzi recently interviewed Richard Gallagher, a psychiatrist who's worked on a lot of what he believes to be cases of demonic possession or something closely related (e.g., demonic oppression). The issue of video footage was brought up by somebody in the audience. Go here to watch the relevant segment. Gallagher says that he's seen some videos, but that they're "generally" not "unequivocal" in terms of their evidential value. I haven't done much research on videos of alleged demon possession, but I've seen some, and none of the ones I've seen have the sort of evidential significance that I'd expect to change the mind of the typical critic. However, I'm more familiar with video footage of some other types of paranormal phenomena. See the cases discussed in a post I wrote a few years ago, which includes links to where the videos can be viewed for free online.

I want to expand on some of the other comments Gallagher made. I'll begin with something he said in the context of video footage, then move on to something else.

All hell breaks loose

1. A putative evidence for reincarnation are cases of individuals who have corroborated memories of a past life. I haven't examined any case-studies to verify that claim, but suppose we grant the phenomenon for the sake of argument. Christians often default to demonic possession as the explanation. Suppose we consider that first. Here's one objection:

He accentuates the fact (if it is a fact) that cases of reincarnation involve personal continuity whereas cases possession involve personal discontinuity. 

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/03/possession-reincarnation.html

A problem with Almeder's objection is the basis on which he makes those classifications. It seems to be circular. Do the phenomena themselves provide evidence for that distinction, or is he applying his classifications a priori to the phenomena, where he simply assumes the continuity/discontinuity distinction? How does he know possession is inconsistent with less continuity?

There are, however, other objections to the demonic explanation. Offhand, there's no reason to assume a correlation between a particular demon and a particular decedent whose memories a living person shares. Why would a demon have such intimate knowledge of the decedent? The demon might have such knowledge if both the decedent and the living person who shares those memories are possessed by the same demon, but we'd need evidence that's the case.

2. A more direct explanation for why some people have memories of dead people (assuming, ex hypothesi, that's the case) is that the souls of damned (i.e. human souls) sometimes take possession of the living. 

Some Christians object because they don't think the damned are allowed to contact the living. But there's no theological reason to deny that possibility. The church age is a mixed up time. The saints and the damned aren't separated in this life. The realm of light makes incursions into the realm of darkness while the realm of darkness makes incursions into the realm of  light–like a lighthouse at night. 

The ability of damned souls to contact the living doesn't mean hell has a back door, if we're using "hell" in the technical sense of the final state of the damned. An absolute separation between the two groups only takes place at the day of judgment, not the moment of death.

Can a Christian be demon-possessed?

1. If you're a freewill theist, then that commits you to the proposition that a Christian can be demon-possessed. And that's because a freewill theism believes a Christian can lose his salvation. If, a fortiori, a Christian can lose his salvation, then he can be demonically possessed. It's an argument from the greater to the lesser. If loss of salvation is possible, that's a greater case than possession. If something is possible in the greater case, then that includes the possibility of lesser cases.

Isn't subjection to demons a less radical condition than reversion to an unsaved condition? For a Christian to be possessed would be a horrific degree of subjection, yet lack or loss of salvation isn't a matter of degree but having nothing to counterbalance possession. If a believer can be possessed, that generates enormous tension between two opposing forces, but in the case of lack or loss of salvation, there is no tension because there's nothing on the other side (the Holy Spirit) to counteract the evil. 

Indeed, to be unsaved makes unbelievers liable to demonic possession. Conversion is sometimes an exorcism which liberates unbelievers from possession. So a reversal in your spiritual status, by losing you salvation, would render you vulnerable to the possession all over again. 

Now a freewill theist might object by saying that's not a case of  believer being possessed, but a former believer. But that takes us back to the a fortiori argument. 

2. So the upshot is that I think we have a clearcut answer to the question where freewill theism is concern. The answer is less clear in the case of Calvinism due to ambiguities in the concept of possession, including degrees of sin. Christians are sinners. What degree of sin is compatible with being a sinner? That's one of those sorites paradox questions. 

Crooked spirits

Steve recently posted an article from Craig Keener. The entire article deserves to be read, but I thought the following sections might be worth highlighting:

Ancient Christians accepted the reality of spirits besides God but believed that, in any confrontation, their God would readily overcome all other spirits not submitted to him. In the second century, the Christian movement often spread through exorcisms; it was considered common knowledge that Christians could cast out demons (Barrett–Lennard, 1994, pp. 228–229; Lampe, 1965, pp. 215–217; MacMullen, 1984, pp. 27–28, 40–41, 60–61; Martin, 1988, pp. 49–50, 58–59; Sears, 1988, pp. 103–104; Young, 1988, pp. 107–108).

Tertullian (c. 155–c. 225) even challenged the church’s persecutors to bring demonized people to Christian court hearings; the demon will always submit, he insisted, or if not, the court should feel free to execute the Christian as a fake (Apology 23.4–6)! Tertullian lists prominent pagans whom Christians had cured from evil spirits (Tertullian Ad Scapulam 4, in Kelsey, 1973, pp. 136–137). In the fourth century, exorcisms and miracles are the most frequently listed reason for conversion to Christianity (MacMullen, 1984, pp. 61–62). Augustine reports affidavits attesting effective exorcisms (City of God 22.8; Confessions 9.7.16; Herum, 2009, pp. 63–65).

Still, a divide in cultural assumptions remains (see Acolatse, 2018; Mchami, 2001, p. 17). For example, residents of the Peruvian jungle, exposed for the first time to the Gospel of Mark, dismissed their Western translator’s rejection of real demons, noting that it comported with their local reality (Escobar, 2002, p. 86).

[...]

Many early Presbyterian missionaries to Korea had learned in seminary that spirits were not real, but most came to believe otherwise in the context of ministry alongside indigenous believers (Kim, 2011, pp. 270–273). My own experiences in Africa and those of my family (my wife is Congolese) have forced me to grapple with some hostile spiritual realities to which I would rather not have been exposed (Keener, 2011, pp. 852–856).

[...]

David Van Gelder, then a professor of pastoral counseling at Erskine Theological Seminary, rejects most claims of possession (1987, p. 160), but encountered a case that he could explain no other way. When a young man involved with the occult began “snarling like an animal,” nails attaching a crucifix to the wall melted, dropping the hot crucifix to the floor. A minister invited the young man to declare, “Jesus Christ, son of God,” but when he began to repeat this, the young man’s voice and facial expressions suddenly changed. “You fools,” he retorted, “he can’t say that.” Finally the group decided that he required exorcism, and calling on Jesus, managed to cast the spirit out (Van Gelder, 1987, pp. 151–154). Van Gelder observes that all the mental health professionals present agreed that the youth was not suffering from psychosis or other normal diagnoses (p. 158).

[...]

Another psychiatrist, R. Kenneth McAll, offers many examples. He observes that only 4 percent of the cases he has treated have required exorcism, but mentions that about 280 of his cases did require exorcism. Consistent with Crooks’ expectations, most of these involved the patients' or their familys' occult practices, such as ouija boards, witchcraft, horoscopes, etc. (1975, p. 296) He notes one case where a mother’s successful deliverance from spirits proved simultaneous, unknown to them, of her son’s instant healing from schizophrenia in a hospital 400 miles away, and the healing from tuberculosis of that son’s wife (1975, pp. 296–297). Other cases include:

1. A patient instantly freed from schizophrenia through an exorcism that removed an occult group’s curse.

2. The complete healing through an exorcism of a violent person in a padded cell who had previously not spoken for two years.

3. The instant healing of another person in a padded cell, when others far away and without her knowledge prayed for her; her aunt, a mental patient in another country, was cured simultaneously.

4. A six-year-old needed three adults to restrain him, but he was healed when his father repudiated Spiritualism.

[...]

Power encounters appear in early twentieth-century indigenous African Christian prophetic movements (Hanciles, 2004, p. 170; Koschorke, Ludwig, and Delgado, 2007, pp. 223–224). They continue today where indigenous Christian preachers confront traditional religions (Itioka, 2002; Khai, 2003, pp. 143–144; Lees and Fiddes, 1997, p. 25; Yung, 2002). Many converts from traditional African religions have burned fetishes and abandoned witchcraft practices due to power encounters (Burgess, 2008, p. 151; Mayrargue, 2001, p. 286; Merz, 2008, p. 203). By addressing pereived local needs, power encounters have expanded Christian movements in, e.g., Haiti (Johnson, 1970, pp. 54–58), Nigeria (Burgess, 2008, p. 153, before subsequent abuses in exorcism ministries), South Asia (Daniel, 1978, pp. 158–159; Pothen, 1990, pp. 305–308), the Philippines (Cole, 2003, p. 264; Ma, 2000), and Indonesia (Wiyono, 2001, pp. 278–279, 282; York, 2003, pp. 250–251).

Such displays of spiritual power have proved sufficiently compelling that even a number of shamans who previously claimed contact with spirits have switched allegiances to follow Christ, whom they decide is more powerful (Alexander, 2009, pp. 89, 110; De Wet, 1981, pp. 84–85, 91n2; Green, 2001, p. 108; Khai, 2005, p. 269; Pothen, 1990, p. 189). Thus, for example, a prominent Indonesian shaman had allegedly murdered a thousand people through curses (others also attesting her success); but she claims that she abandoned witchcraft to follow Jesus after experiencing a vision of him (Knapstad, 2005, pp. 83–85; cf. p. 89).

Crooked Spirits and Spiritual Identity Theft

http://www.craigkeener.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Crooked-Spirits-from-Journal-of-Mind-and-Behavior-39-4-2018-complete.pdf

The Bible and mythology

According to the Bible, human beings can be possessed by disembodied evil spirits. And while the Bible is a bit sketchy on the next part, the backstory seems to be that demonic evil spirits are the losers in a primeval civil war in heaven. Now if that's not mythological, what is? Certainly it seems that way to progressive theologians and atheists. These are the superstitious talltales of Bronze Age goatherds. 

But here's the catch: there's lots of direct empirical evidence that some human beings are possessed by evil spirits. Not just the stuff of ancient books or medieval monks. 

And if that's the case, then purely as a matter of logical elimination, there are only so many explanations. Either the evil spirits always existed or else they came into existence. Either they were always evil or else they became evil. 

So we could turn the exclamation around: if that's not mythological, where does that leave the rest of Scripture? 

Can Christians be possessed by demons?

A tentative foray into the question:

1. One argument for why Christians can't be possessed is there's no example in the Bible of a demon possessed Christian. Of course, that's an argument from silence at best.

2. To my knowledge, the main argument that Christians can't be possessed is based on the fact that Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and as those who have the Holy Spirit abiding in them, Christians can't have an unclean spirit like a demonic spirit abiding in them at the same time. Hence, the argument goes, Christians can't be possessed. Supporting verses like 2 Cor 6:15-16, 1 Jn 2:13, 1 Jn 4:4 are cited.

3. However, empirically speaking, I've heard of credible cases about Christians who have been possessed. For example, the evangelical Lutheran pastor-scholar and exorcist Robert Bennett has talked about such cases in various interviews. I don't see any good reason to doubt Bennett at this time, but to be fair one could question the legitimacy of the evidence.

4. That said, assuming the evidence is reliable and credible, if it's true Christians can't be possessed, then the only alternative is that these weren't bona fide Christians in the first place. Yet if a person has a credible profession of faith, has lived a godly life committed to Christ, and so on, then why doubt they were a bona fide Christian in the first place?

Also, if it's possible for Christians to be possessed, but possessed Christians are treated like non-Christians, then that might do a disservice to these Christians. It might make them question their salvation. It might make them despair. Like fighting a two front war: on the one hand possessed by a demon, but on the other hand their profession called into question by fellow Christians as if their faith isn't genuine.

5. What about the argument itself that Christians can't be possessed because Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit?

Bennett brings up the point that even as Christians we have a sinful nature. We're still warring against the flesh though the Spirit dwells in us. As such, it's possible for two contrary "natures" (there's got to be a better word or term for this) to co-exist in the same person. Bennett seems to believe this is analogous to an unclean spirit like an evil spirit dwelling in the same person as the Holy Spirit.

However, I don't know if that's necessarily the case. Maybe, maybe not, for it seems to me our sinful nature is still part of our person, unlike an evil spirit which would be a completely separate entity or being.

6. Let's step away from persons. Consider a haunted house. Can a Christian live in a house that's haunted? I don't see why not. If so, then wouldn't the house have the presence of God as well as the presence of an evil spirit within its confines? Of course this is another argument from analogy and it assumes that people are like places or houses. Maybe that's not the case.

7. I suppose all this goes to the question of what it means for the Spirit to dwell in the Christian. What exactly is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?

I don't see how the Holy Spirit can be physically present in a person, for the Holy Spirit is not physical. Likewise neither is an evil spirit. So it seems to me we can rule out a purely physical sense of dwelling. I think that's fairly obvious.

This doesn't mean a spirit can't interact with material objects including human beings. Hence a relevant question may be the question of how a non-physical spirit interacts with a physical human being.

Is being indwelled by the Spirit synonymous with regeneration? Union with Christ? Is it something else or something more?

The spirit realm

I have a few quibbles with some of what Jon Topping says, but this is a generally helpful presentation:

https://www.facebook.com/p2c.students/videos/2404980893052016/

Dreams And Trances At Enfield

The hardest Enfield tapes to listen to are the ones that feature the Hodgson children in altered states of consciousness, primarily in November of 1977. The states are often referred to as dreams and trances, so I've titled my post according to that convention, but we can't say much beyond the fact that some altered state of consciousness was involved. In a discussion with Hans Bender, Guy Playfair commented on Janet Hodgson's condition in the closing days of November:

We found the girl screaming, yelling, lying on the floor. She was underneath the table, trying to kick it over…The mother was absolutely desperate, you know. She didn't know what to do. And Luiz [Gasparetto, a Brazilian medium] spent about half an hour with her [Janet], and she immediately became quiet. I have all this on the tape. He talked to her very quietly in Portuguese, and she went to sleep. She went to sleep at 7 o'clock in the evening and she woke up the next morning only at 9 o'clock. That's fourteen hours of sleep. And she never had another hysterical fit. She just had one bad dream, and, after that, there was no more….The mother told me that she doesn't mind the tables falling over, but these hysterical attacks were absolutely too much, you know. She was really very, very distressed. And, I must say, that I was, too. It's one of the most horrible things I've ever seen, because they would go on for three, four hours. They would go on until 3 o'clock in the morning. And she would even wake up in a conversion. She was completely out for four days…Twice we called a doctor, emergency doctor, who gave her an injection of Valium…An interesting detail was that half an hour after she was given an injection of Valium, she was thrown out of bed, right across the room….the two girls would dream together….And we would open their eyes, and we would shine the torches [flashlights], and the pupil [wouldn't] contract. And we would also tickle under the arms, and they were completely asleep. And they would talk to each other….Again, we have it on tape. (tape 39B in Playfair's collection, 0:41)

The demon-puppet objection

https://trinities.org/blog/some-additional-thoughts-about-my-demon-puppet-objection/

i) It's hard to make sense of Dale's analogy. Unless you're a physicalist, a body without a soul is a corpse. If a demon takes possession of a fresh corpse, then it's merely piloting a human body. The combination isn't a human being. But from the standpoint of a Cartesian dualist, a body without a soul isn't a human being anyway, whether or not the body happens to be co-opted by a demon. So the demon part of the analogy is superfluous. 

ii) At best the analogy would only apply to Apollinarian Christology. On that view, one could indeed say the Son is merely piloting a human body. The combination isn't a human nature. But so what? W. L. Craig excepted, most Christians reject Apollinarian Christology. 

iii) Of course, the Incarnation isn't supposed to be reducible to a human nature. That's a necessary but insufficient condition. The combination isn't supposed to be just a human nature, but a union of two natures. 

iv) So Dale then has to stipulate that the demon deactivates the soul. Okay, it's his thought-experiment, so he can tweak it however he pleases. If the soul is deactivated, then the demon is merely piloting a body. The combination isn't functionally human. But a body with a deactivated soul wouldn't be a human being anyway. Demonic possession doesn't add anything in that respect. 

v) More to the point, the Incarnation doesn't deactivate the soul. In the Incarnation, the soul is fully functional. A union of the Son with an intact soul and body. 

So his thought-experiment is hopelessly confused. Rather than illustrating the Incarnation, his thought-experiment illustrates Dale's intellectual impediments as a philosopher. He's just not up to the challenge. 

Bell, Book, and Candle updated

Patrick Chan and I have updated the bibliography for this post:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/02/bell-book-candle.html

In addition, he fixed the dead links on the old post.

Anglican exorcism

https://drfrancisyoung.com/2018/06/29/publication-of-a-history-of-anglican-exorcism/

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/721178

http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~jporter/spiritualism/Stafford%20demonic%20possession.pdf

Toward a Reformed demonology

http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2019/03/a-reformed-demonology.php

Lutheran exorcism

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2018/11/the-lutheran-approach-to-exorcism/

The Fakers

1. I recently read The Fakers: Exploding the Myths of the Supernatural (Fleming Revell 1980), by Dan Korem and Paul Meier. 

It's similar to secular debunking books except that it was written by two Christians. At the time, Korem was a magician while Meier is a big name in Christian counseling. It has a foreword by Josh McDowell.  

I used to own one or more books by Meier. (I may still have them in a box somewhere.) I was bothered by his cookie-cutter approach. As I recall, he has a classification system adapted from depth psychology, and he pigeonholes people according to that formulaic taxonomy. He also has a rather mechanical view abnormal psychology, like there's a recipe book. 

In this book, Meier frequently appeals to his extensive professional experience with patients ("thousands of patients"). However, the book was published in 1980. I assume the manuscript was submitted for publication no later than 1979. Meier graduated from Duke University in 1975. So wasn't his professional experience pretty limited at the time of writing?

I'm also somewhat dubious about his coauthor. More recently, Korem produced this profiling system:

https://medium.com/@dvsdv_55178/new-releases-the-art-of-profiling-reading-people-right-the-first-time-by-dan-korem-237828f06949

That looks really flaky to me. It raises the specter of one charlatan denouncing other charlatans. 

2. One aim of the book is to debunk popular candidates for the paranormal like dowsing, the pendulum, Ouija board, automatic writing, table tilting/rapping, firewalking, psychic surgery, necromancy, and fortune-telling (e.g. psychics, cartomancy). 

i) I'm happy to stipulate that some of this is flimflam. If I were making a case for the paranormal, I wouldn't cite some of those as evidence.

ii) However, the authors fail to distinguish between necromancy and apparitions of the dead. There's a difference between initiating contact with the dead and the dead initiating contact. I think there's credible evidence for grief apparitions and crisis apparitions. That doesn't involve a medium.

iii) I think the authors miss the point about the Ouija board. The question at issue isn't so much if that's a way to discover the future but whether people who play with Ouija boards sometimes open a door to the dark side which they can't close. 

iv) Although fortune-telling in the pop culture is bunk, that doesn't mean there's no evidence for precognition. 

v) Psychic surgery might well be a good candidate for sleight of hand. However, I find the studies of Sidney Greenfield on occult healing intriguing, so I don't rule it out tout court:

https://www.concordia.ca/content/dam/artsci/research/polanyi/docs/conference-2014-papers/Greenfield%20Sydney%20Montreal%202014.pdf

3. One of their targets is the Lutheran exorcist Kurt Koch. The allegation is that Koch was hoodwinked because he's unfamiliar with how magicians fool viewers. I think there's some validity to that criticism. If someone like Koch had training as a magician, he'd be better equipped to spot the tricks of the trade. Some candidates for the paranormal may well be legerdemain. 

However, the authors only interact with a handful of Koch's voluminous case studies. That's hardly representative. Moreover, Koch is by no means the only source of information on the paranormal and the occult, although he was a very prominent figure at the time of writing. 

4. The authors lean on the work of debunkers like Milbourne Christopher. However, he was a member of CSICOP, founded by Paul Kurtz. That's an organization of militant atheists committed to naturalism. They rule out the paranormal and supernatural a priori because they think the physical universe is all there is, and that's a closed system. Another example is D. H. Rawcliffe. 

This doesn't mean secular debunkers can't expose charlatans. It's a target rich environment. 

5. The authors are skittish on demonic possession. They affirm it in principle, but are dismissive in practice. However, I've read psychiatrists who refer some of their patients to exorcists, after ruling out natural causes. Meier's experience isn't representative. 

6. A basic problem with the book is a double standard, where they accept biblical reports without question, but default to naturalistic explanations for extrabiblical reports about similar phenomena. When it comes to extrabiblical reports, they explain that away by appeal to coincidence, chicanery, the law of large numbers, psychosomatic illness. But that's an artificial dichotomy which smacks of special pleading. It's the same way secular debunkers automatically discount all healing miracles, answered prayers, premonitory dreams, &c.

In the case of Meier, no one is disputing that some people experience hallucinations. Those are easy to call. The real test are hard cases which resist or defy naturalistic explanations. 

Psychiatry encounters possession

From a Catholic perspective, but still useful if you filter that out:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/01/as-a-psychiatrist-i-diagnose-mental-illness-and-sometimes-demonic-possession/

Lutheran exorcist

There are lots of quack exorcists. This guy seems more reputable: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m_3K6MVoII

http://www.drroberthbennettphd.com/About.html

"Schizotypals"

I continue my romp through Richard Carrier's diatribe On the Historicity of Jesus (Sheffield 2014). In chap. 4, he makes the following claims:

Christianity began as a charismatic cult in which many of its leaders and members displayed evidence of schizotypal personalities. They naturally and regularly hallucinated (seeing visions and hearing voices), often believed their dreams were divine communications, achieved trance states, practiced glossolalia, and were (or so we're told) highly suscepti­ble to psychosomatic illnesses (like 'possession' and hysterical blindness, muteness and paralysis).159 These phenomena have been extensively docu­mented in modern charismatic cults within numerous religious traditions, and their underlying sociology, anthropology and psychology are reason­ ably well understood (in addition to what follows, see also Element 29).

For example, we know the first Christians regularly practiced glosso­lalia. Acts 2 mythologizes this phenomenon, depicting the first Christians 'speaking in tongues' in the middle of Jerusalem as if this actually meant miraculously speaking foreign languages fluently that they were never taught, when in fact we know 'speaking in tongues' actually meant (as it does now) babbling in random syllables, which no one could really under­ stand except special interpreters who were 'inspired' by the holy spirit to miraculously understand and translate for their congregation. We know this because Paul tells us so (in 1 Corinthians 14; in fact the phenomenon is addressed throughout 1 Corinthians 12-14). Thus Acts has taken this real phenomenon and exaggerated it into a legendary power. But we know from Paul it operated differently. And in fact, the phenomenon Paul describes is known across the world, in countless cultures and religious traditions, and has been extensively studied.160 When we see in antiquity a phenomenon we've documented scientifically as commonly occurring in various cultures, it's far more likely to be the same phenomenon than something entirely new yet coincidentally identical. We must therefore conclude the first Christians had some social and anthropological similarities to other cults that practice glossolalia.

Acts represents this as a recurring practice in the church: Acts 10.46; 19.6 (confirmed in Mk 16.17); and in 1 Cor. 14.18, Paul himself says he spoke in tongues more than anyone, and throughout that chapter makes clear it was so commonly happening to others in his churches that he had to set up rules to govern it. And as for glossolalia, so for the other phenomena Paul reports as regularly practiced by the first Christians. The most important of which for our purposes was hallucination (visual and auditory). Humans are actu­ally biologically predisposed to hallucinate. The neurophysiology of hallu­cination is built-in and thus must have evolved for some useful function (or as a side-effect of something else that did).

Normals can hallucinate when exposed to triggers. The most common of which is sleep paralysis (where normals hallucinate at the threshold between being asleep and awake); but the most familiar are pharmaceuticals (many drugs induce hallucination, including several that were not only available in antiquity but known in antiquity), while the most culturally transmitted are trance behaviors.163 Extreme fatigue, heat, illness, fasting, grief and sleep or sensory deprivation ('incubation') can all induce halluci­nation in normals. And by the time of Christianity, cultural practices had long developed to intentionally trigger hallucination, including fasting and sensory or sleep deprivation, but more typically rhythmic prayer or chant­ing or the use of music or dance to induce an ecstatic state (Paul alludes to singing and prayer as likely trance-inducing behaviors in his congregations in 1 Cor. 14.12-15; see also Acts 16.25; Eph. 5.19; and Col. 3.16; which might suggest also dance, as in other cultures whirling or spinning are known triggers). Fasting (i.e., starving) is also attested within the church.

Accordingly, in antiquity, where schizotypals would routinely be regarded as prophets and holy men (and not seen as insane, as they are in modern cultures), we can expect schizotypals will actually gravitate into religious cults that socially integrate them or even grant them influence and status. The availability of niches of strong social support for schizotypals would explain why in antiquity there were few reported cases of psychosis (and why hallucination was not regarded as a major index of insanity except when wholly crippling or conjoined with fever), and why miracles and visions (not just Christian and Jewish, but pagan as well) were so frequently reported and widely believed to be genuine. Obviously schizotypals would prefer the company of people who take them seriously. 

And yet even non-schizotypals can become regular trance hallucinators within cults and cultures that encourage and develop their capacities in this regard. Even in hostile cultures (like our own), normals find themselves hallucinating with remarkable frequency, particularly within the context of religious assumptions and expectations (Christians hallucinate Christ; Buddhists hallucinate Buddha), and psychological priming (UFO enthusi­asts hallucinate encounters with aliens; the bereaved hallucinate encoun­ters with the recently deceased).

Many members of a cult will claim to have seen or heard things, when in fact they didn't, and pretend to go along, because (a) they want to belong (and this is the only way to fulfill their desire to fit in), or they need the benefits the community provides (such as food, shelter, love, companionship), or (for reasons of dysphoria or dissonance outside the cult) they want to believe its claims are true because they are ultimately comforting (such as giving their lives hope or meaning that they did not previously have), or they want the power and influence that being a revered spiritual leader affords them (if they can be adequately convincing and also effective at winning support). These psychological motivations can be quite powerful, and have certainly been documented to compel people to engage in conforming behavior in other contexts, so it can surely happen in this context as well. These members will pick up all the social cues and simply agree with everyone, to both fit in and convince themselves. which if sustained can even alter their memory so that they honestly believe they saw or heard things they didn't (or else they will delusionally refuse to acknowledge, even to themselves, that they didn't).

We should expect this same social phenomenon in the orig­inal church, which is why only apostles 'saw the Lord', as that is what it was to be an apostle: to be one whom the Lord chose to reveal himself (1 Cor. 9.1; 15.5-8; Gal. 1.11-12; note how Gal. 1.8 indicates that revelations from lesser divinities couldn't make one an apostle). This also explains why their number was limited. The Lord might still communicate to lower ranking members through intermediaries (angels and benevolent spirits), but you dare not claim to have 'seen the Lord'...

All of this provides considerable background support to what sev­eral scholars have already argued: that the origin of Christianity can be attributed to hallucinations (actual or pretended) of the risen Jesus. The prior probability of this conclusion is already extremely high, given the background evidence just surveyed; and the consequent probabilities strongly favor it as well, given the evidence we can find in the NT.181 Chris­tian fundamentalists are really the only ones who do not accept this as basically an established fact by now. 

Thus, in Acts 2, we see the entire church hallucinating floating tongues of fire and then babbling in tongues in a mass ecstatic trance. In Acts 7, in the middle of the Sanhedrin court, Stephen hallucinates Jesus floating up in the sky, but no one else there sees it. In Acts 9, Paul hallucinates a booming voice and a beaming light from heaven (and suffers hysterical blindness as a result); and Ananias hallucinates an entire conversation with God. In Acts 10, Cornelius hallucinates a conversation with an angel, and Peter falls into a trance and hallucinates an entire cosmic dinner scene in the sky. In Acts 16, Paul hallucinates a revelation of a man who tells him where to travel (this story probably drawing in one way or another on Paul's own mention of receiving such a revelation in Gal. 2.2). In Acts 27, Paul hallucinates a conversation with an angel. Many Christians receive spirit communications ('prophesy'), as indicated in Acts 19.6 and 21.9-10-and Acts 2.17, which quotes Joel 2.28-31 as being fulfilled in the church: 'I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams'.

Paul confirms this general picture firsthand. In Gal. 1.11-12, Paul says he learned the gospel only from a hallucinated encounter with Jesus (a 'rev­elation') whom he experienced 'within' himself (Gal. 1.16). He confirms this in Rom. 16.25-26, where Paul says, 'My gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ is according to a revelation'. 183 The other apostles received their information from revelations as well. 'Unto us', Paul says (meaning the apostles), 'God revealed [the secrets of the gospel] through the Spirit' (1 Cor. 2.10). And in 1 Cor. 15.1-8 Paul says, 'the gospel I preached' (which in Galatians and Romans he confirms came only by revelation) is the same gospel Peter and the others preached (this is the whole gist of Galatians 1 and 2: see discussion in Chapter 11), who also experienced special iso­lated visions of the Christ just like Paul's, which again was the qualifying requirement to be an apostle ( 1 Cor. 9.1: 'Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?'). 

In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul says he and others have many glorious 'visions and revelations of the Lord', and among these he includes hallucinated trips to heaven where the hallucinator hears and sees strange things, much like the entire book of Revelation, which is a veritable acid trip, an extended hallucination of the bizarrest kind, an example of the kind of thing going on all the time in the early churches (even despite the fact that that particular example is probably wholly fabricated). Paul then goes on to relate in that same chapter a whole two-way conversation he had with God, demonstrat­ing that he not only heard voices but conversed with them; he also says he experiences an 'abundance of revelations' (2 Cor. 12.7). And in 1 Cor. 14.6, Paul says 'what use am I to you, unless I speak to you by way of a revelation, or knowledge [gnosis, meaning spiritual knowledge], or prophesying, or teaching?' 

Similarly, the fact that Christians regarded as inspired scripture such books as Daniel, which depict authoritative information coming from God through both visions and dreams, entails that Christians believed authori­tative information came from God through visions and dreams (otherwise they would not deem such books as honest or reliable, much less scripture). They could therefore see their own visions and dreams as communications from God, too. Thus, even if books such as Revelation are fabricated, as symbolic discourses on the times, they still represent themselves as genuine hallucinatory experiences. 

Jesus and the psychiatrists

My approach to the NT is usually that of a scholar, but in the area of exorcisms it is likely that my personal background will color any conclusions reached. Before going into academic Biblical studies, I studied medicine for four years. My main interest was in psychiatry which resulted in the neglect of other areas, so I never completed my training. My thinking has therefore been shaped by modern psychiatric theory and practice. However, certain experiences I had while I was a medical student, and subsequently when I was a Baptist minister, have also shaped my thinking in a completely different way.

Most psychiatrists do not accept the reality of demons or exorcism. They would regard the exorcisms of Jesus as old-world descriptions of psychiatric problems…A psychiatrist could therefore feel fairly satisfied that the Gospel accounts of demonization can be dealt with in terms of modern psychiatry or medicine.

However, I have personally been persuaded away from this viewpoint by a series of events which occurred while I was studying psychiatry, and during my time in pastoral work…I went once to interview a patient but found that he was asleep. He was lying on his bed, facing the wall, and he did not turn round or respond when I walked in. I sat in his room for a while thinking that he might wake up, and after a while I thought I might pray for him. I started to pray silently for him but I was immediately interrupted because he sat bolt upright, looked at me fiercely and said in a voice which was not characteristic of him: "Leave him alone–he belongs to us". 

Startled, I wasn't sure how to respond, so we just sat and stared at each other for a while. Then I remembered my fundamentalist past and decided to pray silently against what appeared to be an evil spirit. I prayed silently because I was aware that an hysterical disorder could mimic demon possessed…I can't remember exactly what I prayed but probably rebuked the spirit in the name of Jesus. Immediately [as/after] I did so, I got a very hostile outburst along the same lines, but much more abusive. I realized then that I was in very deep waters and continued to pray, though silently. 

An onlooker would have seen a kind of one-sided conversation. I prayed silently and the person retorted very loudly and emphatically. Eventually (I can't remember what was said or what I prayed) the person cried out with a scream and collapsed on his bed. He woke up a little later, unaware of what had happened. I was still trying to act the role of a medic, so I did not tell him anything about what had happened. His behavior after waking was quite striking in its normality. He no longer heard any of the oppressive voices which had been making him feel cut off and depressed, and his suicidal urges had gone. 

This incident made me question every assumption I had made about Gospel exorcisms. Unfortunately for the person involved, this was only the beginning, and as time went on there were many more spirits which had to be dealt with…The story has a happy ending in that this person is no longer troubled by such problems, and has remained so for several years. 

When I was dealing with strange personalities which spoke out of this person I was always careful to speak silently, even if the person appeared to be asleep…These voices answered specific silent questions such as What is your name?, When did you come? This gradually convinced me that I was not dealing with with a purely psychiatric disorder. David Instone Brewer, "Jesus and the Psychiatrists," A. Lane, ed., The Unseen World (Baker 1996), 133-34,140-41.

What's striking about this account is the veridical element. It defies a naturalistic explanation inasmuch as the patient couldn't physically hear what Brewer was thinking. To react to the specific content of silent prayer is telepathic. In fact, initially, the patient wasn't even in a position to be naturally aware of Brewer's presence in the room–much less be able to read his mind. 

Apparently, Brewer is someone from fundamentalist background who rejected his religious upbringing in light of secular science, then, due to firsthand experience as a med student, became convinced that his religious upbringing was right after all. 

Pandemonium

Here's a striking account of possession and deliverance:

On the last evening of the Rhineland Keswick Convention three of us set out, at about 10:15 p.m. for a walk through a small wood which led to a village on the other side. Nathan, one of the party, started to tell the story of his life, and when we came to a clearing in the wood Thomas suggested that we should sit down for awhile. Nathan continued to relate his story. On joining the Royal Air Force he had missed the influence of home, and fell into bad company, unable to resist temptation. As Nathan finished his story there was silence. I sat with my eyes closed, wondering how I, as one of the convention leaders, could help the young fellow. What happened next was over in a very short space of time. Breaking through the silence, and crashing through the darkness with tremendous power came my voice, “In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ depart.” Immediately Nathan let out a half shout, and fell towards me. He said afterwards, “At those words I saw a black form appear from somewhere at my feet and vanish into the wood, and, at the same time, something indescribable left me.” 

I felt an urgency for prayer, and if Nathan did not pray, something would happen to him. It was at this point an event occurred so dreadful that since I have prayed that it should never happen again. It seemed as if horrifying pandemonium had been let loose; as if all the powers of hell were concentrated in that spot in the wood. I saw numbers of black shapes, blacker than the night, moving about and seeking to come between myself and Nathan, whom I was gripping hard...Quite independently, Nathan told of how he had seen seven black forms emerge from the trees in the wood, and how he felt some power pushing him forward out of my grip. P. Wiebe, “Deliverance and Exorcism in Philosophical Perspective” in Exorcism and Deliverance: Multidisciplinary Studies, edited by William K Kay and Robin Parry, 175-77. London: Paternoster, 2011.

What's interesting about this report is the veridical element. While we might dismiss the description of shadowy demons as a subjective impression, we have two witnesses who saw the same thing: the Anglican priest who reported the incident, and the demoniac who was exorcised. Of course, this still depends on the credibility of the witness. But that's a consideration for eyewitness testimony in general. I have no antecedent reason to believe the Anglican priest was a liar or self-deluded. And in any case, there's a tipping-point where, even if we don't find any particular report compelling, there's a cumulative effect when we read enough accounts by prima facie credible witnesses.