Possessed: Demons of the Mind One day your teenage son becomes convinced that someone is in his head. This person provides a running commentary on your son’s life and every move he makes. Your son can hear this voice as clearly as yours when you stand before him. Your son socially withdraws from you, his friends, and everyone else, and this voice becomes his only companion. When your son does speak to you, it seems disjointed and confused. Then one day reveals that the voice in his head belongs to a demon, and this demon has taken control.
A
lthough this may sound like the first 30 minutes of the latest exorcism movie, psychiatrists would recognize these behaviors as symptoms of schizophrenia, a neurodevelopmental disease that affects approximately 1% of the world’s population. Hallucinations (e.g. hearing voices) and delusions (e.g. believing someone possesses control over a person’s actions) are perhaps most commonly associated with schizophrenia, but the symptoms of schizophrenia are diverse and complex. Other symptoms may be cognitive (e.g. disorganized thinking and speech) or negative (e.g. social withdrawal and depression). No two patients have exactly the same symptom profiles. Most patients first develop symptoms in their late teens or early 20s and battle this disease for their entire lives. The Dark History of Schizophrenia and Mental Illness According to a 2008 survey, 85% of people understand that schizophrenia is an illness with a physical basis, yet throughout history schizophrenia and other forms of mental illness were thought to be the result of demonic possession or witchcraft. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the Catholic Church promoted the view that people who suffered from mental illness should be treated through religious means: confession in the case of witchcraft or exorcism to remove the demon spirit. Perhaps consequently, those who suffered from mental illness were treated with fear and disgust.
12
The first asylums opened in the 14th century and used brutal means to control its mental patients. Patients were often chained to the walls or fastened to their beds. In extreme cases flaming pitch was applied to the patient’s head. Mental patients only began to experience more humane treatment in the 18th and 19th centuries. However, even these “humane” treatments included bloodletting, a prolonged withdrawal of blood that also sedated unruly patients by weakening them. Throughout history the horrors suffered by mental patients have been far more worthy of Hollywood’s horror film genre than the behaviors of the patients themselves. Although schizophrenia patients receive more humane treatment today, the belief that their condition may be the result of demonic possession rather than a brain disorder still resurfaces. Any Google search for “demons and schizophrenia” will yield a variety of spiritual and occult websites claiming to be able to differentiate demonic possession from schizophrenia. In June of this year, the Journal of Religion and Health published an article by the Turkish researcher M Kemal Irmak. According to the author, demons reside in a parallel world, unseen by most humans, but they may also possess and control humans. He also claims that many modern cases of demonic possession have been misdiagnosed as schizophrenia and urges medical doctors to enlist the services of faith healers in such cases.