Princeton and Yale Psychiatrist on Demonic Possession

[Philip]

He says it's real and cites cases: https://www.yahoo.com/news/apos-demonic ... 31844.html

Fascinating article!

[claysmithr]

Yes, we should know it's real from the bible. This reminds me of some things.

1) The whole reptilian conspiracy theory... I think these are actually demons, they take the form of reptiles and "The Greys"

2) The movie the matrix.. about humanity enslaved to hyper intelligent machines. Replace machines with demons and we are a bit closer to the reality.

3) The "paranormal abilities" actually come from Satan. The demons have the ability to watch us and spiritually deliver information to others via familiar spirits, giving the possessed person the ability to see what the demons see. They must be able to deliver information directly to the spirit somehow, not sure how that works.

[Stu]

Unfortunately they mostly reference Catholic exorcism which is about as worthless as a normal bottle of shelf bought water.
Only the name of Jesus can remove demons, not the hocus pocus man-made stuff the Catholic church has come up with.

[Philip]

Stu: Unfortunately they mostly reference Catholic exorcism which is about as worthless as a normal bottle of shelf bought water. Only the name of Jesus can remove demons, not the hocus pocus man-made stuff the Catholic church has come up with.

I totally agree, Stu! They've morphed one truth (that the demonic exists) with the untruth that a bunch of ritual, mumbo-jumbo is effective upon the demonic. Of COURSE, the demonic wants people to believe in the power of ritual - or anything else that encourages us to depend upon solving or preventing demonic attacks, except the power of Jesus. So the demonic can feign being tortured by such ritual, followed by going quiet. Note that in these cases involving the rituals of exorcism, ONE time wasn't enough to cure - does that match up with Scripture?

Also, when asked by the disciples why they couldn't cast our a certain demon in Matthew 17:19, Jesus explained, in verse 20, their problem was a lack of faith - not that their RITUAL approaches weren't adequate. Also note, that the controversial verse 21 is missing in the ESV and only as a footnote in others, because it does not appear in much older manuscripts, it is suspect - it reads: "However, this kind does not come out except by prayer and fasting." Which would appear to contradict Jesus' assertion that a lack of faith was the issue - and NOT as the apparently much-later-added verse 21 suggests, that they were insufficient in their spiritual practices - which would be an emphasis on what THEY should do to prepare, as opposed to greater faith in the name and power of Jesus to make this possible.

[PaulSacramento]

The catholic church keeps detailed records of exorcisms and has a specific process of dealing with them, so it makes sense that they would be the ones referenced in the article.

[Stu]

The catholic church keeps detailed records of exorcisms and has a specific process of dealing with them, so it makes sense that they would be the ones referenced in the article.

Yes but many of the processes they use are man-made, not Biblical. So it would have no effect on demons.
They even state in the article that it didn't work for the one girl.

[PaulSacramento]

The catholic church keeps detailed records of exorcisms and has a specific process of dealing with them, so it makes sense that they would be the ones referenced in the article.

Yes but many of the processes they use are man-made, not Biblical. So it would have no effect on demons.
They even state in the article that it didn't work for the one girl.

There is only one process that is biblical and that is prayer to Jesus.
The bible doesn't go into much detail about dealing with possession and exorcism, any detail really.
What the Church has is the traditions handed down to it over the ages.

[Stu]

Interesting video on exorcists from a former exorcist. It about 20min long, watch the whole thing.