As a psychiatrist, I diagnose mental illness, and help spot demonic possession (2016)

> But what am I supposed to make of patients who unexpectedly start speaking perfect Latin?

That a person who is a self-styled "witch" and "queen of satan" has a big incentive to learn latin and deny that she ever did. Just a few phrases would probably suffice. BTW how good is your latin that you can judge "perfect one" from "passable"?

> 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

Or, you know, cold reading.

> 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

Yeah, must be true then. Most likely explanation.

> 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.

Convenient, isn't it? On the other hand they don't care that you see them and write your book about them. They are only camera-shy.

> professor of clinical psychiatry

...

I always find it amusing how (outside of those with something like schizophrenia) that demons only attack those who are highly religious. I've yet to see an epidemic of atheists being possessed by demons, which is a bit ironic: you'd think they'd be easy pickings. But somehow not. Hmmm.

This person sounds ridiculous because they use this as the "turning point" sentence for why they were convinced by this queen character, "She could tell some people their secret weaknesses, such as undue pride". When someone is charming, their charisma can convince of you of anything. As a psych professional trained from yale and columbia I would expect more w.r.t training for checking one's own cognitive biases.

The author claims to be rational, but they don’t volunteer any alternative hypotheses to demonic possession that they’ve considered, eg speaking ‘unknown’ languages could be exposure that they had as a child and had since forgot (still pretty remarkable, but less remarkable than paranormal entity), ‘knowing’ facts about strangers could be just a guess and there’s a sort of survivorship bias where only the correct guesses are documented.

Levitation is harder to explain, but also the author does not claim to have witnessed that themselves so the easier explanation is that it’s not an accurate report of whatever occurred.

Having said that, I think it’s important to stay curious about these claims. A close friend and myself experienced a physical phenomenon, and many years later I’m still don’t have any plausible explanation for what it might have been.

The author is in the process of writing a book on demonic possession...I may be a bit of a cynic here, but this may just be.....marketing?

"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."

It's curious how we humans fail to remember that we're not able to generate all explanations just by thinking about them. Getting to explanations requires experiments. But spirits and demons are so vaguely defined that we just can't test their existence empirically.

Hence, in my mind, this should be in the realm of metaphor, not science. Let spirits and demons live in the humanities, so they can continue to inspire art, books, games, and much thought. They're about the internal human experience, not external reality.

It's ridiculous that WP posts such articles even.

This exact career is that of the protagonist in Evil, my wife and I's favorite show. The show is led by a Catholic priest and an atheist psychiatrist (possibly a -gist in the show) tasked with investigating demon possessions.

Highly recommend it. It is written by a married couple, one Catholic and one atheist. It takes the supernatural seriously without getting hokey or dismissive.

In The Manufacture of Madness: A comparative Study of The Inquisition and The Mental Health Movement (1970), Dr. Thomas Szasz reveals how psychiatry is historically related to the Inquisition. In fact, the founding fathers of psychiatry claimed that the people targeted by the Inquisition as being possessed by demons were actually just mentally ill.

I find it rather amusing how people who attended educational institutions teaching the scientific method that were setup by the Church go on to criticize Church views that don't agree with an outlook arising from their education.

Don't they believe that the same officials of the religious institutions which setup the educational institutions they attend were and still are perspicacious enough to judge whether demonic possession is real or not?

Published in 2016

Yep nope. Play crazy games win crazy prizes. Every one of these cases is the church’s fault to begin with for encouraging their followers to believe in superstitious nonsense. Causes psychogenic diseases in your population every time. Keeping a bunch of dead popes on display and other premodern necrophiliac bullshit, what do you expect? Totally irresponsible use of their authority. Thank Christ for the reformation.. at the very least an opportunity to make the same mistakes over again.

Again: if your religion has demons, you might want to check and see if it’s a bit evil actually. And if you hear a catholic try to talk out of the other side of their mouth about how modern and progressive their religion is, don’t forget to nail them to the wall about this one. And the communion of saints. Bunch of gross Pauline bullshit. Actually if you hear a new testament verse and it sounds stupid as hell you can bet it's Paul talking. But hey a roman military/corporate man can win a lot of souls, right?