Demonology

Anthony North: Occasionally, paranormal literature throws up a case so incredible that we either dismiss it as fantasy, or edge towards the idea that demons and possessions are a reality. The facts are just so fantastic, rational inquiry is often forgotten.But are we right to either dismiss or accept? Or is it possible that rational explanations can be placed upon the subject within an overall cultural explanation of phenomena? I opt for this middle ground. Anna Ecklund: Consider the case of Anna Ecklund, born into a religious family from the American Midwest about 1882. Believedto have been abused by her father, at fourteen, she showed signs of possession involving acute sexual fantasies.

A monk from Wisconsin was called in, who exorcised her in 1912, claiming she was possessed by the Devil.Failing, she reverted, being possessed until age forty six. Eventually being taken in once more by monks, she threw a fit and for over three weeks swayed between unconsciousness and erotic behaviour, including copious vomiting, levitating and speaking in strange voices.Eventually her body went rigid and the possession was over.Robbie Mannheim: Robbie Mannheim - the believed influence behind The Exorcist - was similar. Just before an aunt died, she and Robbie tried to contactspirits on a Ouija board. After her death, his behaviour changed, the boy swearing incessantly.Strange disturbances then began in the house, and cuts appeared on his body. His parents called in a priest who said he was possessed. Exorcisms were attempted, but each time Robbie got worse, attacking one priest with a bedspring, resulting in a hundred stitches.On Easter Monday 1949, Robbie woke up and his demon was gone.

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Anthony North: The Devil may seem an archaic symbol of evil, but he is supposed to be alive in the world to this day with his Satanic conspiracies. From the 1960s onwards, one expression of him was the Church of Satan, set up in San Francisco by occultist, Anton La Vey.Said to have perverted many a star, his ceremonies involved a naked woman as an altar and his philosophy was based on unbridled hedonism. The death of Jane Mansfield was even put down, by some, to their rituals. Who is he ? The name, the Devil comes from the Greek ‘diabolos’,meaning slanderer.

A fallen angel, in the 1970s we had his image of evil implanted with the film, The Exorcist. By the 1980s we were more sceptical and he appeared humourously in the Witches of Eastwick. He is first mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls as one of the sons of darkness, but in the Bible he is simply seen as temptation, his home - the future Hell - just a place of sleep.This was no good for frightening superstitious people into obedience, so the image of the Devil became a conspiratorial perversion of the ancient Greek god, Pan, a nature deity. With the Roman poet Virgil devising Purgatory - a place where the dead lingered - and Dante’sMedieval vision of Hell as a place of eternal torment in the Divine Comedy, the Devil was becoming imprinted on our mind.Yet as with the future ‘devil-like’ Pan, our notion of Hell is more akin to the Greek Hades, an underworld for bad Titans such as Sisyphus and Tantalus, the former condemned to roll a rock up a hill forever, the latter never quite reaching the water and food in front of him.

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A school in Madhya Pradesh has called witch doctors to overcome ghosts that allegedly haunt girl students but mysteriously spare the boys. Officials at the Government Higher Secondary School in Duma village in Seoni district are also performing weird rituals throughout the day in a desperate bid to restore sanity.Naturally, studies have taken a backseat at the school.Villagers believe ghosts come to possess the girls once they reach the school, which has been built on an old cremation ground.Surprisingly, only the girl students act oddly, not the boys.Uma Shastri, an elderly priest in the village, said: "Theschool was constructed a few years ago over a piece of land used for cremation.

The girls are being possessed by the spirits of the people cremated here."One such student is Sarita Singh, a 13-year-old who was perfectly normal when she reached the school dressed in uniform and black shoes. She wore her hair in two neat plaits.But on reaching the school compound, she dumped her bag, untied her ribbons, messed up her hair and started swaying her head in circles. Then she started moving her body fitfully.Soon she was joined by four more girls of her age. While dancing, the girls kept on moaning. And they danced till they got exhausted, say villagers.Saduma Gupta, another villager, says: "It all started a week ago. Onegirl suddenly starts dancing and others join. Now it has become a routine affair. But only the girls behave abnormally."On Shastri's advice, the villagers have called in witch doctors to get rid of the so-called ghosts.The Seoni district administration has not reacted yet.

View: Full Article | Source: Hindustan Times

© EyeWitness to History

The seeds of the hysteria that afflicted Salem Village, Massachusetts were sown in January 1692 when a group of young girls began to display bizarre behavior. The tight-knit community was at a loss to explain the convulsive seizures, blasphemous screaming, and trance-like states that afflicted the youngsters. The physicians called in to examine the girls could find no natural cause of the disturbing behavior. If the source of the affliction was not attributable to a physical malady, the community reasoned that it must be the work of Satan. Witches had invaded Salem. In February the village began praying and fasting in order to rid itself of the devil's influence. The girls were pressured to reveal who in the community controlled their behavior. Three women were identified and examined. One, Tituba (a slave), confessed to seeing the devil who appeared to her "sometimes like a hog and sometimes like a great dog." Even more troubling, Tituba confessed that a conspiracy of witches permeated Salem Village.

In March the afflicted girls accused Martha Corey. The three women previously denounced as colluding with the devil were marginal to the community. Martha Corey was different; she was an upstanding member of the Puritan congregation - her revelation as a witch demonstrated that Satan's influence reached to the very core of the community. Events snowballed as the accusatory atmosphere intensified and reached a fever pitch. During the period from March into the fall many were charged, examined, tried and condemned to death. The hangings started in June with the death of Bridget Bishop and continued through September. As winter approached, the hysteria played itself out as criticism of the procedures grew. In October, the colonial governor dissolved the local Court of inquiry. The convictions and condemnations for witchery stopped. Nineteen victims of the witch-hunt had been hanged, one crushed to death under the weight of stones and at least four died in prison awaiting trial...