Exorcism (from Greek exorkismos - binding by oath) is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities (the satanics) from a person or an area which they are believed to have possessed. Depending on the spiritual beliefs of the exorcist, this may be done by causing the entity to swear an oath, performing an elaborate ritual, or simply by commanding it to depart in the name of a higher power. The practice is ancient and part of the belief system of many cultures and religions.
Requested and performed exorcisms occurred rarely until the latter half of the 20th century where the public saw a sharp rise due to the media attention exorcisms were getting. There was “a 50% increase in the number of exorcisms performed between the early 1960s and the mid-1970s”.
Christianity
In Catholic Christianity, exorcisms are performed in the name of Jesus Christ. A distinction is made between a formal exorcism, which can only be conducted by a priest during a baptism or with the permission of a Bishop, and "prayers of deliverance" which can be said by anyone.
The Catholic rite for a formal exorcism, called a "Major Exorcism", is given in Section 13 of the Rituale Romanum. The Ritual lists guidelines for conducting an exorcism, and for determining when a formal exorcism is required. Priests are instructed to carefully determine that the nature of the affliction is not actually a psychological or physical illness before proceeding.
In Catholic practice the person performing the exorcism, known as an exorcist, is often a member of the church, or an individual thought to be graced with special powers or skills. The exorcist may use prayers, and religious material, such as set formulas, gestures, symbols, icons, amulets, etc. The exorcist often invokes God, Jesus, a litany of saints, and/or several different angelsand archangels to intervene with the exorcism. It may take several weekly exorcisms over several years to expel a deeply entrenched demon.
In general, possessed persons are not regarded as evil in themselves, nor wholly responsible for their actions. Therefore, practitioners regard exorcism as more of a cure than a punishment. The mainstream rituals usually take this into account, making sure that there is no violence to the possessed, only that they be tied down if deemed necessary for their own protection and that of the practitioner.
Hinduism
Beliefs and practices pertaining to the practice of exorcism are prominently connected with Hindus. Of the four Vedas (holy books of the Hindus), the Atharva Veda is said to contain the secrets related to magic and alchemy. The basic means of exorcism are the mantra and the yajna used in both Vedic and Tantric traditions. Vaishnava traditions also employ a recitation of names of Narasimha and reading scriptures, notably the Bhagavata Purana aloud.
According to Gita Mahatmya of Padma Purana, reading the 3rd, 7th and 9th chapter of Bhagavad Gita and mentally offering the result to departed persons helps them to get released from their ghostly situation. Kirtan, continuous playing of mantras, keeping scriptures and holy pictures of the deities (Shiva, Vishnu, Brahma, Shakti, etc.) (especially of Narasimha) in the house, burning incense offered during a Puja, sprinkling water from holy rivers, and blowing conches used in puja are other effective practices.
The main puranic resource on ghost and death-related information is Garuda Purana.
A complete description of birth and death and also about the human soul are explained in Katō Upanishad, a part of Yajur Veda. A summary of this is also available as a separate scripture called Kāttakaṃ.
Islam
In Islam, exorcism is called ruqya. It is used to repair the damage caused by sihr or black magic. Exorcisms today are part of a wider body of contemporary Islamic alternative medicine called al-Tibb al-Nabawi (Medicine of the Prophet).
Islamic exorcisms consist of the treated person lying down, while a sheikh places a hand on a patient’s head while chanting verses from the Quran. The drinking of holy water may also take place.
Specific verses from the Quran are recited, which glorify God (e.g. The Throne Verse (Arabic: Ayatul Kursi), and invoke God's help. In some cases, the adhan/"ah-zan" (the call for daily prayers) is also read, as this has the effect of repelling non-angelic unseen beings or the jinn.
The Islamic prophet Muhammad taught his followers to read the last three suras from the Quran, Surat al-Ikhlas (The Fidelity), Surat al-Falaq (The Dawn) and Surat al-Nas (Mankind).
Judaism
Josephus reports exorcisms performed by administering poisonous root extracts and others by making sacrifices. The Dead Sea Scrolls mention that exorcisms were done by the Essenebranch of Judaism.
In more recent times, Rabbi Yehuda Fetaya authored the book Minchat Yahuda, which deals extensively with exorcism, his experience with possessed people, and other subjects of Jewish thought. The book is written in Hebrew and was translated into English.
Rabbi Gershon Winkler of New Mexico explains that the procedure for a Jewish exorcism is intended not only to drive away the possessing force, but to help both the possessor and the possessed in an act of healing. The Jewish exorcism ritual is performed by a rabbi who has mastered practical Kabbalah. Also present is a minyan (a group of ten adult males), who gather in a circle around the possessed person. The group recites Psalm 91 three times, and then the rabbi blows a shofar (a ram's horn).
The shofar is blown in a certain way, with various notes and tones, in effect to "shatter the body" so that the possessing force will be shaken loose. After it has been shaken loose, the rabbi begins to communicate with it and ask it questions such as why it is possessing the body of the possessed. The minyan may pray for it and perform a ceremony for it in order to enable it to feel safe, and so that it can leave the person's body.
Eric Sorensen's Hypothesis
The origins of exorcism can be found in the effects of Zoroastrian and ancient Near Eastern beliefs on early Judaism and Christianity. Zoroastrianism’s dualistic beliefs and apocalypticism is a nurturing ground for ideas of exorcisms and possession. “The spirit of Ahura Mazda is said to be with the one who chooses good [Yasna 33.14], and one can assume the same of the evil spirit for those who chose evil. Mary Boyce underscores the importance of possession in Zoroastrian doctrine: ‘The concepts of divinity and of humanly possessed power seem frequently to blend, through the thought of that power proceeding from the divinity, who has himself actually entered into the person.”
Zoroastrianism also introduces a connection between the spirit world and its human host, albeit not in the same manner that characterizes later Jewish and Christian thought. (p. 38) After person choses between good and evil, a “mutually supportive symbiosis, takes place between the individual and the spirit of choice,” according to Eric Sorensen. (p. 38) Identifying a person with his good or evil benefactor converges with the rhetoric used by Jewish sectarians and early Christians to consecrate their fellow believers and demonize their opponents – Sorensen gathers the evidence for this from E.H. Pagels’ The Origin of Satan. (p. 39)
Evidence for quasi-exorcisms in Zoroastrianism lie in the laws of the Vendidad that provide purification rituals for physical contaminations caused by demons. (p. 39) According to James Darmesteter, the Zoroastrian understanding of “impurity or uncleanness may be described as the state of a person or thing that is possessed of a demon; and the object of purification is to expel the demon.”(p. 39) This however, is not considered an exorcism in the manner in which it is thought of today. “The closest analogy to exorcism in the early Zoroastrian literature is a reference to the followers of the Wise Lord (Ahura Mazda) as the “expellers of fury,” where “fury” is thought to be Aeshma, “the only demon mentioned by name in the Gathas, according to Boyce. (p.40)
However, this is still unlike the Christian accounts of demonic possession in which a demon invades the host’s body and must be cast out to restore the body to its natural and healthy state. (p. 40) The difference lies in the nature of choice that is associated with Zoroastrian dualism. A person who allies himself with evil is not necessarily a victim of it from whom malevolent influence must be driven out; instead, he is seen to voluntarily involve himself with evil. (p. 40) The “expulsion” of demons was more an attempt to destroy those who sided themselves with evil than remove evil influence. Yet, such “expulsions,” don’t directly translate to exorcisms. A possible influence is seen in the use of incantations for physical purifications from demons, seen in the Vendidad. (p. 41)
Despite the likely evidence, “the influence of Zoroastrianism upon Hellenism and Judaism has so far been difficult to prove,” according to Sorensen. (p. 43) It is, however, widely noted that there are, “striking affinities between Zoroastrianism and Judaism…the angelologies, demonologies, and the subjugation of evil evident in late canonical and intertestamental writings such as Tobit, Daniel, and Qumran’s Community Rule offer tantalizing suggestions of Zoroastrianism’s influence upon Jewish thought.” (p. 45) “The most explicit evidence of Zoroastrian views on early Judaism is the demon Asmodeus in Tobit (II BCE). The name Asmodeus derives from the Avestan words aēšma daēuua (“Demon of Wrath”).” (p. 45)
There is an increasing emphasis on possession, not in terms of physical ailments, but with ethical decision-making that is seen in early Jewish Pseudepigrapha; in a Sibylline Oracle, the Sibyl dictates that God will “dwell in the maiden.” (p. 62) Ethical decision-making is reminiscent of the choice one has to make in dualistic Zoroastrianism. Sven Hartman sees an example of Zoroastrian’s influence on Judaism’s apocalyptic thought in the figure of the devil, “whom he considers the Jews to have modeled after Angra Mainyu after their exposure to the Achaemenian and Parthian periods of dominance in the Near East.” (p. 45)
Exorcism finds its closest analogies in the Hebrew Bible in two specific passages: “David’s soothing of Saul in 1 Samuel and God’s rebuke of Satan in the book of Zechariah.” (p. 53) In the former passage, an evil spirit plagues, but does not explicitly possess, Saul’s body; David plays a lyre as, “an exorcistic function,” to restore Saul to a well state of being by making the evil spirit depart. (p. 53) In the latter passage, God’s rebuke of Satan contains language similar to what is found in New Testament exorcisms. (p. 54)
Other evidence is found in Tobit, the only apocryphal book in the Septuagint that supplies to the ideas of exorcism. Eric Sorensen’s linguistic research has concluded that in the stories of Moses, Daniel, and Joseph, “four of the six terms used of magical practitioners have their origins in the Mesopotamian cultures of Assyria and Babylonia. Linguistically, then, the Mesopotamian cultic and occult practices influenced how Hellenistic Judaism interpreted magic and illicit conjurations [precursors to exorcism].” (p. 57)
The practice of exorcism and demonology becomes more prominent in language and content in other Jewish intertestamental literature. Particularly in their testaments and apocalypses, the documents from the scrolls from the Judean desert and the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, offer near-contemporary views of possession and exorcism as viewed in the New Testament; this is seen an sign that Near Eastern practices and beliefs came into the same setting from which New Testament writings and other the synoptic sources were to emerge. (p. 59)
In the words of Eric Sorensen, “Although the Hebrew Bible does not offer explicit evidence of exorcism, the Hellenistic period does introduce the semantic groundwork for the demonology that would become standard to the later presentations of exorcism in the New Testament. During this time the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, and most of the apocryphal documents were composed in Greek. Though Near Eastern demonic personalities do not enter into the early Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (Old Greek Version), its derivatives are used to translate various Hebrew terms for spiritual entities. These will come to refer often and exclusively to evil spirits in the New Testament.” (p. 55)
Scientific view
Demonic possession is not a valid psychiatric or medical diagnosis recognized by either the DSM-IV or the ICD-10. Those who profess a belief in demonic possession have sometimes ascribed the symptoms associated with mental illnesses, such as hysteria, mania, psychosis, Tourette's syndrome, epilepsy, schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder, to possession. In cases of dissociative identity disorder in which the alter personality is questioned as to its identity, 29% are reported to identify themselves as demons. Additionally, there is a form ofmonomania called demonomania or demonopathy in which the patient believes that he or she is possessed by one or more demons.
The illusion that exorcism works on people experiencing symptoms of possession is attributed by some to placebo effect and the power of suggestion. Some supposedly possessed persons are actually narcissists or are suffering from low self-esteem and act like a "demon possessed person" in order to gain attention.
Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck researched exorcisms and claimed to have conducted two himself. He concluded that the Christian concept of possession was a genuine phenomenon. He derived diagnostic criteria somewhat different from those used by the Roman Catholic Church. He also claimed to see differences in exorcism procedures and progression. After his experiences, and in an effort to get his research validated, he attempted but failed to get the psychiatric community to add the definition of "Evil" to the DSM-IV.
Although Peck's earlier work was met with widespread popular acceptance, his work on the topics of evil and possession generated significant debate and derision. Much was made of his association with (and admiration for) the controversial Malachi Martin, a Roman Catholic priest and a former Jesuit, despite the fact that Peck consistently called Martin a liar and manipulator. Other criticisms leveled against Peck included claims that he had transgressed the boundaries of professional ethics by attempting to persuade his patients to accept Christianity.