Author Topic: Mental Illness and Demonic Possession (Read 3615 times)

Daegus · « **on:** August 15, 2011, 05:40:21 PM »

You know, given the general faithlessness of the Novus Ordo and the rest of the World, does anyone think that the Devil has a way of tricking people into thinking that demonic possession is actually a mental illness? For example, there are some people who have been reported to be schizophrenic. Schizophrenics suffer from all kinds of hallucinations, which would make them incredibly vulnerable. If the Devil knows that these people have unstable states of mind, what's stopping him from abusing that and taking advantage of the disbelief of the modern world? Perhaps many cases of possession these days are both possession and mental instability! Who knows?

I can't even imagine the countless amount of souls that have been lost because no one would believe that those who were possessed were actually possessed. It's sad to think of..

What do you think? I'm sure that a lot of cases of possession are dismissed as mental illnesses. With the rise of New Ageism (Ouija boards, palm reading, astrology, etc.) and Satanism, I can't imagine that the Devil ISN'T rejoicing at the vast amount of opportunities he has to ruin souls.

Let me know what you think.

Anna1959 · « **Reply #1 on:** August 15, 2011, 06:17:18 PM »

This has always been a subject of great interest to me....in fact it was the issue of demonic posession that first led me to consider becoming Catholic (and which caused me to gravitate toward the Traditional Church, as opposed to the novus ordo.)

I knew a woman years ago who was certified schizophrenic, and it ran in her family. They were (nonreligious) Jєωs, and I actually watched her (gradual) descent into schizophrenia.

She was always a bit eccentric, but not crazy....but then she gradually "turned"....one day, saying she was a Reform Jєω, a few weeks later she was worshipping the ancient Egyptian goddess Nut (appropriate name), and even had a poster of her on her wall. When friends and I asked her who the poster was of, she said, "Can't you tell? Its me!"

She ended up being committed but remained very antiChristian to the end. I think that religions that deny Christ make a person extra susceptible to possession, yet they call it mental illness.

And, the Traditional Church is the only hope for these people, since the bogus ordo movement doesn't seem to even have exorcists anymore, or do they?

Bishop Robert F McKenna (please pray for him, he is very ill right now) is the only exorcist I know of in the Traditional Church. I have always had great respect for priests who were willing to risk their very lives as exorcists. They also must have exemplary lives, because the devil can read minds and knows unconfessed sins.

Raoul76 · « **Reply #2 on:** August 15, 2011, 07:09:29 PM »

Daegus said:

Quote

You know, given the general faithlessness of the Novus Ordo and the rest of the World, does anyone think that the Devil has a way of tricking people into thinking that demonic possession is actually a mental illness?

I have written on this subject fairly extensively, and have experience with it as well, as I'm guessing many of us do ( family members suffering from morbid depressions ).

There is no doubt that there is a connection between the apostasy from God -- and the Church -- and the rise of mental illness. People who try to deny this correlation baffle me no end.

I don't think most depressed people are full-blown possessed. As my priest said, there are three signs of possession: Having knowledge of things you shouldn't, like detailed memories of historical events during which you weren't alive; being able to pick up extremely heavy objects; speaking perfectly in languages you don't know.

I don't think many people become possessed; but there are certainly many people who are channeling the devil. I know that for a fact. I would say about 98 or 99% of rock songs are channeled directly by the demons.

As for the hordes of the mentally ill today, I'm sure some are genuinely mentally ill, but I believe most are simply "devoured" by the devil, as in "He goes around like a roaring lion seeking who he can devour."

How does someone become mentally ill? Would anyone call Judas a "depressive"? The psychological industry tries to take any sort of meaning out of depression -- everyone is supposed to be happy all the time, but no reason is given why, nor is it explained what happiness is, and that it can't be found outside God. Trying to cure someone of depression this way, by giving them well-meaning but empty advice, is like trying to play baseball with a ping-pong paddle. The tools are just not there. It's the same with these drugs, that essentially reduce the mental capacities of people in order to help them cope. But only confession can restore the soul to grace and give peace of mind. There is no question that the psychologist's couch is a Satanic counterfeit of the confessional and that it is deliberately powerless.

Basically what is happening is people today are enormously self-obsessed; they live entirely for themselves; but they don't like themselves, because people are made to love God, not themselves. There is NO peace of mind without God. Either you are on the path to heaven, or hell, it is just that binary. Without God, you can go from "fix" to fix, whether it's sex, drugs, work, conspicuous consumption or what have you, trying to find something to keep you going, but it's all doomed to failure.

Most of the mentally ill, in my opinion, are those who did their own will instead of God's, they were made certain "promises" by the devil, and then when these promises didn't come true, they fell apart. I'm not saying the devil is offering people things in terms of a Faustian bargain. But when people are living for themselves, and in mortal sin, they essentially create a fantasy world for themselves: "If I get this house / husband / wife / car / job THEN I'll be happy." That is what I mean by a promise of the devil. He gets you to chase illusions, and then when it falls apart, certain people can't deal with it. They live in a fantasy world and have no desire for the truth, no desire to see why they're really on this planet.

To put it simply: The devil is fantasy; God is reality. Despair and mental depression, to a large extent, is a result of humanity's rebellion. The "apostasy" of the Great Apostasy is precisely that -- rebellion. The devil himself suffers from the purest form of despair, just as God has the highest degree of happiness. That shows you where "mental illness" is coming from. The devil wants everyone to be miserable just like he is, and to this end, he uses all his power of cunning to tempt people to sin and make them abhorrent to God. In many cases he succeeds in making them abhorrent to themselves, since we are all born with a certain innate sense of right and wrong. Anyone who can't stand to be in their own skin is not going to be mentally well, let's put it that way.

In many cases, what mental illness really is is REAPING WHAT YOU SOW. This happens on a personal level, to those who are crumbling from misery, and it happens on a macro, cosmic, political and spiritual level, during the Minor Chastisement. What does the Apocalpyse say about Mystery Babylon? "Render to her as she also hath rendered to you; and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup wherein she hath mingled, mingle ye double unto her." This theme of debt, of reckoning, of justice keeps coming back again and again in the Bible; Christ died to pay back out debt. Now we live in a country that has created disorder by getting everyone deeply in debt... But all debts must be repaid. Think of it this way. Someone who is miserable but doesn't repent and turn to God, owes a debt to God that cannot be repaid and has to be thrown into hell forever. It is not commensurate with God's justice to let a debtor into heaven. He says this Himself, you will pay me back every last farthing. Even the greatest prophets of the Old Testament couldn't be released from hell until Christ died on the Cross and paid for our sins. Well, unlike with the banks, we are released from our debt by doing simple things like being baptized, confessing, going to communion, etc. This is the gift we've been given due to Christ shedding His innocent blood, which in the eyes of God has infinite value. Doesn't make much sense to expect happiness while rejecting the greatest gift that mankind could have ever been given, does it?

Those who deny God and live in sin create disorder in society; disorder creates more sin and more unhappiness, in an endless vicious circle. Yet the psychs expect those who have essentially destroyed others, who have lived selfishly and used other people like Kleenex, to just "be happy." Not gonna happen. Not without repentance. Sorry for the ramble.

Catholic Samurai · « **Reply #3 on:** August 15, 2011, 07:10:23 PM »

While I do indeed believe that some mental afflictions are God given trials meant for the perfection of the individual, and some others are the result of pride or rejection of God, I am convinced that most mental illnesses along the lines of bipolar-disorder are due to demonic possession or oppression, and that at least half of those who the exorcists concludes to be bi-polar are indeed possessed in a sophisticated manner.

EDIT: I didn't see it until after I posted. Excellent post Raoul!

Adrienne · « **Reply #4 on:** August 15, 2011, 11:18:42 PM »

Quote from: Catholic Samurai

Excellent post Raoul!

--I second that!

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #5 on:** August 16, 2011, 12:33:56 AM »

An unnervingly insightful post Raoul!

Quote from: Raoul76

The devil himself suffers from the purest form of despair, just as God has the highest degree of happiness. That shows you where "mental illness" is coming from. The devil wants everyone to be miserable just like he is, and to this end, he uses all his power of cunning to tempt people to sin and make them abhorrent to God. In many cases he succeeds in making them abhorrent to themselves, since we are all born with a certain innate sense of right and wrong. Anyone who can't stand to be in their own skin is not going to be mentally well, let's put it that way.

This reminds me of how Milton represented Satan in Paradise Lost as ineluctably enmeshed in his autolatrous pride and egocentric despair, both of which mutually exacerbate and intensify each other in a ceaseless and self-perpetuating cycle. His soliloquies reveal a tormented soul that is stricken with infinite yearning but wanting that infinite goodness which alone can satiate it. His paramount woe consists in that he intensely longs to love, and to love in abundance and joy, but his “fierce desire” is forever “unfulfilled with pain of longing pines” (Book IV, 509, 511). He knows that he should and could love goodness and beauty, but his despair, as Satan himself expresses it, “compels me now / To do what else though damn’d I should abhor” (ibid., 391-92). Having commenced the plan to pervert Adam and Eve which he had so wished to consummate, he can only find that “horror and doubt distract / His troubl’d thoughts, and from the bottom stir / The Hell within him” (ibid., 18-20). His hatred “boils in his tumultuous breast / And like a devilish Engine back recoils / Upon himself” (ibid., 14-16), and thus the self-reflexive and cyclic dynamic of his loneliness serves to perpetuate and intensify his torment. This forever entraps him, never allowing him to escape his predicament: “within him Hell / He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell / One step no more than himself can fly / By change of place” (ibid., 20-23; emphasis mine).

Moreover, Satan’s utter desolation and loneliness is dramatically emphasized when he himself recognizes that not only is he inevitably trapped in his misery but that his very identity is now contingent on it: “Me miserable! which way shall I fly / Infinite wrath, and infinite despair? / Which way I fly is Hell, myself am Hell” (ibid., 73-75; emphasis mine). His identity is ever fragmented and lost in an interminable inner chaos, as he seems to indicate when he beholds the beauties of terrestrial creation: “the more I see / Pleasures about me, so much more I feel / Torment within me, as from the hateful siege of contraries” (Book IX, 119-22). His reprobation is assured and merited by his self-absorption, being ever entrapped in that “hateful siege of contraries,” which “Bitter ere long back on itself recoils" (ibid., 172).

The above may also be taken as a portrait of those souls who culpably abandon themselves to acedia, complacent and apathetic despondency, sterile pusillanimity, etc., which naturalist "psychologists" readily dub as an assortment of mental disorders in order to give them over to the pharmaceutical industry and the gibbirish of so-called motivational and self-help "snake-oil salesmen."

The human soul is possessed of such immense profundity and immensity that only the infinite and eternal good can wholly satisfy it, and this good is God.

I think Milton is a great example for how profane poetry (even penned by heretics) can demonstrate startling insights that illustrate the realities found in divine revelation. Essentially, what Milton describes in Satan is the pain of loss wherewith the reprobate are everlastingly punished, for having turned their will away from their last end, God, and perverting it to the service of self.

Just as the life of grace is eternal life begun, so the life of the sinner (which oftentimes is shown as utter failure in attaining to true happiness by seeking finite and material goods that will never satisfy the soul and cause great social and economic disorder at large) is a prelude to eternal damnation.

* Note: there are those who do have neuro-chemical disorders, or have been subjected to severe trauma and abuse (especially if it is emotional or sɛҳuąƖ), and are thus predisposed to mental illnesses. But this also is a consequence of sin: original sin in the case of the former, and the actual sin of the culpable third parties in the case of the latter. Prudence and charity must be observed in dealing with these individuals, because there may be things that the individual in question may not himself understand or fully process either intellectually or emotionally. Sometimes only God alone knows the state of such a soul.

spouse of Jesus · « **Reply #6 on:** August 16, 2011, 07:44:19 AM »

I think temperament and and genetic disposition play a role too.
Also, living an easy life reduces your capacity for suffering and increases your expectations, till you have zero tolerance for suffering and think you are entitled to all comforts. It is why depression rate is higher in modern, developed world.

Quote

* Note: there are those who do have neuro-chemical disorders, or have been subjected to severe trauma and abuse (especially if it is emotional or sɛҳuąƖ), and are thus predisposed to mental illnesses. But this also is a consequence of sin: original sin in the case of the former, and the actual sin of the culpable third parties in the case of the latter. Prudence and charity must be observed in dealing with these individuals, because there may be things that the individual in question may not himself understand or fully process either intellectually or emotionally. Sometimes only God alone knows the state of such a soul.

If it is trauma that causes mental illness, then how is it that children in the old time were given such hard discipline at school and home and yet didn't catch mental illness, while a little harsh word from the teacher gives children anxiety disorder nowadays?

Lybus · « **Reply #7 on:** August 16, 2011, 05:29:32 PM »

I would be very very careful about claiming a demonic possession over the MAJORITY of people with mental illnesses, especially when a mental illness is, in general, a problem that can be solved by natural means. We would look very silly if our cousin, who is prone to fits of rage and we think is completely possessed, was fine in one week if all he needed was lithium (trace mineral) supplements, or if our other cousin who was prone to depression completely got over it after having taken L-tyrosine or folic acid (things the body needs anyway) supplements.

Yes, it is true that the demonic is the ultimate driving force behind mental illness, but only indirectly. For instance, the Black Plague that ravaged Europe was completely motivated by the devil (it shook the faith of the entire Christian world), but it was by natural means that he killed a third of the population. Likewise with mental illnesses. The direct cause for mental illnesses is two-fold; psychological and nutritional. Food has been getting crappier because the food industry is so into genetic engineering and the like. Our crops aren't getting the same nutrients that they used to because it is either removed through the process of getting it onto the shelves, or because our soil has been completely depleted of its nutrients. You'll notice this in many of the fruits and vegetables you buy at the store are pretty tasteless. Ever noticed that kids these days hate vegetables? The reason is because they really aren't that nutritious at all! it's the nutrients that give it the good taste! I bet if you go back a 150 years, you wouldn't find children who hated veggies. Our food is so poor and we eat so much junk food, it is a wonder our bodies can function at all.

Mental illness such as depression occur when the body is not in homeostasis, or equilibrium. The body is a finely tuned machine that is highly connected to the brain, so when the body suffers, the brain suffers, and therefore, the mind. When the body is not given the nutrients it needs, it will be thrown out of homeostasis. For some people, this affects them more than others, and it also depends on each individual's particular diet. So many people suffer from poor diet as the ultimate cause of their illness. Not to mention all the chemical and pharmecutical drugs that we like to put in our bodies these days.

And of course, there is the psychological. I think many of the psychological problems that we have today are because of poor father and mother figures. Just take a look at the celebrities we have today and you'll see what I mean. Lady Gaga anyone? It's also worth mentioning that the 1st and 2nd world wars left A LOT of babies fatherless, so you can imagine how THAT has been passed on to our generations. Our fathers and our mothers probably didn't have perfect fathers and mothers of their own, so it's been passed down to our generation. The music that we listen to doesn't help since it's rather damaging to the nervous system (things like rock, death metal, etc), and of course the stuff we see on the media. Television might also be to blame.

Lybus · « **Reply #8 on:** August 16, 2011, 05:35:26 PM »

Just a quick correction, Anna1959, but the devil CANNOT read minds, it just seems like he can because he's so good at reading people (he's had plenty of years to practice). I draw this from St.Thomas, and it is somewhere in his Summa theologica. I wasn't able to find exactly where, but it is somewhere in there.

Hobbledehoy · « **Reply #9 on:** August 17, 2011, 01:18:32 AM »

Quote from: spouse of Jesus

If it is trauma that causes mental illness, then how is it that children in the old time were given such hard discipline at school and home and yet didn't catch mental illness, while a little harsh word from the teacher gives children anxiety disorder nowadays?

Trauma is not the sole cause of mental disorders, but in many cases it is a situational factor that either bring about emotional disorders or exacerbates pre-existing neuro-chemical or endocrine abnormalities or diseases that would predispose an individual to succuмb to mental illness. The trauma of which I wrote is the severe and extreme sort, not just being chided by an authority figure such as a teacher at the classroom or the father at the home. A well-reared and sensible child would eventually recognize (whether willingly or reluctantly) that he is subject to the absolute primacy that his parents have over him as their child, and the authority that is delegated to the teacher by his parents at the classroom.

The reasons why one harsh word, for example, can nowadays cause anxiety disorders, whether real or perceived, may be the following:

1) the hypersensitivity that is concomitant with the systematic subversion of Christian masculinity by the cultural institutionalization and glorification of such aberration as naturalism, feminism, etc.;

2) as Lybus acutely remarked, the psychological and social disorder that is the result of broken homes, which is in turn the result of an anti-Christian conspiracy against the Catholic household that comprises not only the effeminacy that undermines paternal masculinity and the feminism that threatens maternal femininity, but also an educational system imbued with naturalist and modernist perversions and an anti-culture that has enthroned outright immorality in order to pervert and destroy childhood;

3) many people bereave themselves of the use of right reason because of they are given over to the above-mentioned anti-culture, and they do not cooperate with the actual graces that would have led them to the faith and Holy Mother Church, which can provide the healing grace necessary to rehabilitate the fallen nature of man, further weakened by centuries of complacent and self-serving effeminacy that has further imperiled the physical and spiritual welfare of the human race (that is why we do not have poets like Chaucer or buildings like the Gothic Cathedrals anymore);

4) the pharmaceutical industry and the self-help books and shows have simultaneously desensitized people to the evil of sin and hyper-sensitized them to evils that directly affect the material and physical order without any consideration of the supernatural order to which man is called by grace, in order to have them pay for medication that will do more harm than good and buy into a perverted mentality that seeks to alleviate and satisfy the soul without God and His divine revelation.

There are other reasons for this present day phenomenon, I reckon, but they all point out to what Raoul said: sin as the ultimate cause of all mental and emotional instability and disorder.

Roscoe wrote sometime ago about MK Ultra, and how the only way to rehabilitate an individual that has been victimized by this process is through the Sacraments and holy faith. This is something I have never forgotten because it is very true: what such things as big Pharma and Oprah and the other windbags basically attempt to do is to ape the healing and vivifying beneficent effects that can only come by sanctifying grace. Such a thing is bound to utter failure: no finite good can ever substitute the eternal and infinite Good for Whom the human soul was created, God; especially any apparent good that a bunch of egocentric, naturalistic and atheistic pedants and brainwashed fanatics can offer.

spouse of Jesus · « **Reply #10 on:** August 17, 2011, 01:45:58 AM »

Quote

The trauma of which I wrote is the severe and extreme sort, not just being chided by an authority figure such as a teacher at the classroom or the father at the home.

I agree with your posts, but about the issue of trauma vs. demonic possession vs. genetic causes, let us consider more severe things.
Everybody agrees that sɛҳuąƖ abuse or exposure of young children to adult materials is harmful, to the point that many kids need time and special treatment to be able to cope. Also, a child's consent is not a true consent, especially if they are beaten, threatened or fooled into a relationship. Accordingly those who justify such activities by trying to distinguish between child-marriage and child-rape are mistaken.
50 years age a child of 9 or 10 would be beaten if she refused to consumate a forced marriage (the groom could be as young as 12 or as old as 70). Still she grew up and without needing any medicine or therapy, she acted like any normal adult.
Could you believe that? No trauma or behavioral abnormality was resulted.
Have you ever watched any old japanese soap opera? The hero or heroine undergoes all troubles that could possibly befall a human being :war, poverty, loss of parents as a child etc. etc. and yet s/he sings aloud as s/he works, builds a bright future and never suffers from any abnormal symptoms.
They are for real, people who are like those heroes do exist.

Catholic Samurai · « **Reply #11 on:** August 17, 2011, 11:16:41 AM »

Quote from: spouse of Jesus

Quote
The trauma of which I wrote is the severe and extreme sort, not just being chided by an authority figure such as a teacher at the classroom or the father at the home.

I agree with your posts, but about the issue of trauma vs. demonic possession vs. genetic causes, let us consider more severe things.
Everybody agrees that sɛҳuąƖ abuse or exposure of young children to adult materials is harmful, to the point that many kids need time and special treatment to be able to cope. Also, a child's consent is not a true consent, especially if they are beaten, threatened or fooled into a relationship. Accordingly those who justify such activities by trying to distinguish between child-marriage and child-rape are mistaken.
50 years age a child of 9 or 10 would be beaten if she refused to consumate a forced marriage (the groom could be as young as 12 or as old as 70). Still she grew up and without needing any medicine or therapy, she acted like any normal adult.
Could you believe that? No trauma or behavioral abnormality was resulted.
Have you ever watched any old japanese soap opera? The hero or heroine undergoes all troubles that could possibly befall a human being :war, poverty, loss of parents as a child etc. etc. and yet s/he sings aloud as s/he works, builds a bright future and never suffers from any abnormal symptoms.
They are for real, people who are like those heroes do exist.

As a person grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to induce a mental disorder like schizophrenia through traumatizing torture. A child of 9-12, though still young but having a stronger use of reason than a toddler, has already more or less established some level of identity for themselves that would have to be destroyed first before their mind began restructuring itself. And it's more true for an adult. That doesn't mean that the person wouldn't suffer from post-traumatic-stress, but it is much less likely for a person's personality to split/shatter/fragment/etc. as they get older.