GETTING EVIL SPIRITS OUT OF THE BODIES OF VICTIMS IS A DANGEROUS MYTH
The wise know that evil persons are not cartoon villains or monsters. Evil is dull and banal and childish. The Nazis said they were disobeying orders. This does not fit the portrayal of evil given by Jesus Christ or the exorcists. If there are demons they are laughing at how they have helped real evil thrive while the religious concentrate on a horror film type of evil that is not real. Horror film evil in a religious context hardwires hate into the impressionable.
If an evil spirit takes up home in the body of a human being, religion proposes exorcism, eviction, as a way of getting it out. We will see that belief in possession and exorcism is blasphemous and irrational. It as good as asks you to think that though you can tell if x has a demon you would have to be open to the idea of undetected possessions as well. You may get the crazy noisy demons out of the person but what if there are undetected ones still there? What if they are glad to be rid of the noisy ones so they can engage in whatever manipulative behaviour they wish?
If exorcisms can evict demons they are no help to the person who wants a sign from God to tell him what the true religion is or that God is. They are really insults to God. If miracles are signs as religion says, then exorcisms would be the only possible way it seems to be sure that there is a good miracle power like God. But even the most convincing exorcism fails miserably so exorcisms show that miracles are not signs from Heaven.
The Gospels are full of possessed people and Jesus says that nearly everybody has a demon to some degree. He said that Satan is destroying his kingdom if Satan puts demons out meaning Satan who he said was the prince of this world has no kingdom unless he possesses. This is what a demon might say in order to spread fear. Fear is the root of all evil so if demons can increase fear they have won even if that fear makes people act like good people. If the demons are so powerful then anybody who is evil should be destroyed or harshly punished for they are giving the demons the manpower they need in their secret schemes. Even if Jesus did not succeed in causing a lot of trouble by his doctrine it is clear that if there was a supernatural power helping him it was determined to make trouble. He was supported by the Devil. Belief in demons is the most evil thing that religion has ever propagated and the suffering it has caused has been immeasurable and yet miracles boost this evil. Shun them.
When the Jews suggested that Jesus’ exorcisms were just tricks of the Devil, Jesus said they were not for Satan could not cast out Satan and destroy his own kingdom. This tells us that the Devil cannot have a kingdom without possessing people. It is implied then that most people must be demon-possessed for Jesus described the devil as the prince of the world and the devil even offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world as if he owned them. This suggests that when he tempts all he must possess all. They can blame the Devil and not themselves then for their sins. Jesus used fear and terror to derange people and manipulate them so that they hardly knew what was real. Moreover, Jesus knew the Devil could cast out demons under certain circumstances for he would only be sending them to somebody else anyway. Jesus lied. Whoever is not against the Devil is for him. Not once did any gospel verify that anybody Jesus was cured of a Devil stayed cured forever. Jesus said a demon will come back if a man is not holy enough which is a good excuse for a fake exorcist who fails so he must have needed the excuse. Jesus was a false prophet and when one of them does exorcisms is enough to prove that he is using the Devil to do them if the Devil exists. Jesus even went as far as to say that anybody suspecting that the Devil was doing his miracles would never be saved so he was going to make sure that people would be afraid to think about his miracles. He was the one that said the Devil is very crafty.
Jesus said that unclean spirits like to come back to the man they left behind because they can find nobody else to take over (Matthew 12). As if there were no sinners in the world! Jesus was denying that to sin was to serve the Devil and to give him consent that you will let him do as he pleases with you! Moreover, he said that if demons come back to a man it is because he had himself swept and tidied for them - that is, that he wanted them back. Just before that he had been accused of casting out demons by the Devil’s magic, which implies that his teaching was an attempt to convince people that his failed and seeming exorcisms really had worked. No alleged victim of possession acts possessed all the time and Jesus was trying to tell people that if a person went quiet when he was around that it was because he put the demon out. He was capitalising on that. When there were few people in those days who were not dramatically possessed and hardly anybody these days it indicates that either that that generation was worse than ours – not true though espoused by Turton (page 367, The Truth of Christianity) – or more likely that Jesus sent the demons into the people in the first place in order to make it seem that he could put them out.
Jesus supported and encouraged religious gullibility in relation to miracle and apparition claims. The gospels say he cured people who showed the symptoms of possession. Today we would say that the person was not necessarily possessed but may have suffered manic depression or schizophrenia. The Jews said that he was casting out devils by the Devil’s power. He did this in an age where nobody could really show if the possessed were really possessed. He was no better than a prophet who forecasts things that will happen in a billion years time for he can't get caught out.
The Church says that if you don’t believe in people who testified to miracle exorcisms you can’t believe in any human testimony so if you reject the testimony of exorcism miracles you are committing a great sin and are opposing the message of God. Clearly it cannot be wicked to disbelieve for any other reason. But the condemnation is too harsh. The Church itself rejects most miracle testimonies or just pays no heed to them which amounts to rejection. Seeing exorcism as a miracle and a reality encourages hatred and harshness.
Many children have been beaten to death by Christians trying to hammer the Devil and his cronies out of them. This makes sense if demons possess because the demon will be hurt by attacks on the body for the demon takes over most of the brain faculties. The doctrine of exorcism is the cause of these deaths. It is an inexcusable evil.
It is better for exorcism not to be believed in at all than for it to result in the loss of life. This is not condemning a doctrine just because it is abused. It is saying a belief should not be held if it does things like that when the belief could be lived without.
The doctrine of exorcism is accepted by the Church and part of it irrevocable teaching and part of being a Catholic. Reject it for it is merely a door to fanaticism and insanity and leave the Church. Walk or you share in the evil deeds albeit indirectly of the Church.
The exorcism rite while acknowledging that the demon in a person might not be Satan but some other evil spirit, still has the following prayer.
"I adjure you, ancient serpent, by the judge of the living and the dead, by your Creator, by the Creator of the whole universe, by Him who has the power to consign you to hell, to depart forthwith in fear, along with your savage minions, from this servant of God, N., who seeks refuge in the fold of the Church. I adjure you again, + (on the brow) not by my weakness but by the might of the Holy Spirit, to depart from this servant of God, N. , whom almighty God has made in His image." This tells the person that it is the fearsome Satan himself who is possessing her or him along with another demon or so. No psychiatrist who believes in demon possession - and you could count those on one hand - agrees with suggesting to a person that Satan the worst of the devils is in them. No unbelieving psychiatrist believes in doing that either. It very serious to suggest such a distressing thing to a patient. Those who believe the Catholic Church is Satan's camouflaged bride could argue that the exorcism only addresses stupid demons who possess people and puts the wily and charming Satan in their place! They would see the prayer as putting Satan in.
Fr Gabriel Amorth has been caught out lying that Pope Francis exorcised a Mexican man. He boasts he exorcised 160,000 demons. The man is an obvious charlatan. What would he have to say to those experts on exorcism who assert that only demons who believe in Roman Catholicism can be annoyed by Catholic prayers and holy water? Demons that are not Catholic laugh at the antics.
You would need to actually be the possessed person to have the best chance of knowing if you are possessed. What right has the Church to be so sure that you are and then to put you through the fearful and painful experience of exorcism? You need evidence and proof - the victim is entitled to be treated as a result of evidence and proof. The bigger the claim the more evidence you need to justify the claim. For example, you need huge evidence to justify your assertion that aliens took you for a trip on a spaceship. You would not need as good of evidence if you say you went on a bus trip.
Some think that exorcism might help through the placebo effect. But that means that it is what the allegedly possessed thinks of exorcism that helps not the exorcism. Plus the placebo takes too long to work. No exorcism is instant. So what is happening until it starts to work? A no-cebo? The placebo is immoral for it is based on convincing the person that their delusion of being possessed is real and the person is left open to fearing attacks by "demons" in the future. It is the priest having too much control over your programming. It would be too manipulative to be tolerated. The placebo effect involves somebody wittingly or unwittingly manipulating you. It should be used by medics as a last resort. It will go wrong if the person starts to realise he was fooled by a placebo. To use a placebo to make a person who is seriously mentally ill or physically ill think they are getting better is simply evil. It is tolerable in matters that are not too serious. If you can induce the symptoms of demonic possession in yourself and reverse them by thinking you got rid of the demon, is that really a good thing? Your placebo power is dangerous for it could induce an even worse "possession". The placebo makes you too powerful.
The Catholic church priesthood is a con for it gives treatment for our evil inclinations that does not work. That is worse than any pretended healer. The long term damage is terrible. The fruit is war and lies. They are the malefactors not the evil forces and demons they allegedly disperse with their rites and prayers.
The Church warns that exorcism can be dangerous for the exorcist. Catholic priests are not exorcists at all in the eyes of Jesus who promised in Luke 10:19: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” Catholic exorcism is just black magic disguised as an act of Jesus.
Jesus said in Matthew 7:21-23, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
Jesus warned severely against blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as in saying Satan is casting out demons not the Holy Spirit. It is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit to say he takes his time getting a demon out or to present somebody who was going to stop feeling possessed anyway as a success. If it is blasphemy to say it is Satan doing the works of the Spirit it is also blasphemy to help the devil by faking the works of the Spirit. It is a worse blasphemy for craftier.
The Book of Acts speaks of Jewish exorcists trying to get a demon out and the possessed man attacked them and they barely escaped with their lives. They used the name of Jesus. The story does not explicitly mention magic. It is assumed their attempt to exorcise was no good for they were treating the name of Jesus like a talisman. See Acts 19. "Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded." The story intends us to think that the sons of Sceva could not evict demons with their prayer to Jesus which is why their exorcism backfired and they got beaten up. The message is clear - they were not authorised to cast demons out. In those pre-scientific days, there was no way to tell if a person really was possessed. So do not assume that the problem was that they were in danger of exorcising people who were not possessed but mentally-ill. The problem was they were not authorised.
They must have seemed to have had some success when they were doing it so long. That fits the pattern of fake exorcists who think they get some success for the person is not really possessed in the first place.
Exorcism cannot be shown to be really successful or permanent. The exorcist does not really know what they are dealing with. Jesus said that casting out demons is not a sign that God approves of you. So what is the point? It is just pure superstition. What if Jesus is the real demon laughing his head off at us? What if you take a demon out in Jesus' name to put the Jesus demon in? One guess is as good as another.
http://whatstheharm.net/exorcisms.html