This episode contains discussions of mental illness, mistreatment of the mentally ill, colonialism, Christian theology, and suicide. If these aren't topics you want to hear about, this may be a good episode to skip. The information in this episode is for interest purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider regarding a medical or mental health condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you hear on a podcast. Reliance on any information provided in this episode is solely at your own risk. If you think you're having a medical emergency, call your doctor or local emergency number immediately.
Humans are fascinated by gore and violence, but even more so, the mysterious and unsolved. Interest in these disturbing and unpleasant subjects is called morbid curiosity, and it has gripped millions of people throughout the ages. I am one of those people. My name is Hallie, and this is the morbid curiosity podcast.
Spirit Possession has gained a lot of focus over the years from both religion and science. In fact, multiple branches of both have done copious research on the subject. The public find it interesting, mysterious, captivating, and fear-inducing. I admit the concept is scary to me, mostly thanks to its representation in the media, and yes, I did see the exorcist way too young.
I plan to cover exorcism with the whole creepy community, so I thought the patrons could have a little more info about possession, the condition that exorcism is supposed to treat. When considered as a cross-cultural phenomenon, the condition is referred to as Spirit Possession. Spirit Possession seems to be a near-universal cultural phenomenon, from small-scale traditional societies to larger-scale societies with institutionalized forms of religion. Most spirit possession beliefs stem from religion, although some are based in folklore.
Religion itself generally includes belief in supernatural entities, who have special powers that can influence human lives for good or ill. It may also include belief in other worlds or planes of existence in which these entities exist and where human souls go after death. Sometimes, these places can be visited during life if certain rights are performed. Fundamental to religion are attempts to interact with the gods or spirits.
These attempts usually involve rituals, which are usually performed by a religious leader or practitioner. For the most part, in Western religions, everyone can communicate with the main religious entity. But in others, a practitioner must act as an intermediary between people and the supernatural. Those who can communicate with these supernatural entities and visit their planes of existence are usually revered, but sometimes they're looked on with suspicion.
Generally, during this process, the practitioner leaves their physical body behind in some way, using their essence, soul, or energy, to communicate with the supernatural world. There are two main states that a practitioner enters to do this, trance and possession. Trans is a temporary absence of a practitioner's soul as it communes with the supernatural. Trans is generally induced and controlled by the practitioner, and they can end the experience whenever they choose.
Possession is when the practitioner's soul is eclipsed by a supernatural entity, which then inhabits their physical body and stays as long as it wants. Usually, possession occurs against the will or without the knowledge of the individual, but not always. There's a spectrum of possession states, and cultural context is required to understand what possession means to each culture. So, while spirit possession is universal, it's also culturally unique.
Cultural bias is a large hurdle in the interpretation of possession, especially non-Western forms, as it's usually Westerners who are studying it while non-Westerners experience it. A lot of the early research was done by colonizers, which severely colors the interpretations and conclusions drawn from these early studies. There's also a lot of generalization that occurs when concepts are only half understood by the observer. The study of spirit possession is uncomfortable for scientists.
The phenomena is often considered outside the bounds of scientific discourse. Still, spirit possession and trance incite curiosity and debate across many academic areas and subject fields, all coming to different conclusions based on their respective disciplines. These competing perspectives keep the subject as mysterious as ever. I'm now going to give a quick overview of several types of possession.
There are numerous examples of spirit possession among the hundreds of varying cultures in Africa. In Ethiopia, possession is a common belief among the Garanghe people and the Sidama people. Among the Garanghe, people of both sexes may be possessed by different spirits, but men may become chronically possessed by our ray spirits and require healing by a saguara or traditional healer. This won't get rid of the spirit, but it will help the man develop a relationship with it and feed it periodically.
In Sidama's spirit possession, women are mainly possessed by spirits that demand luxury goods. Men can also be affected, and possessed individuals can become healers thanks to their connections. A similar type of possession occurs among the Digo people of Kenya, where shaitani spirits possess people and demand luxury goods in order to leave the victim. In Mozambique, belief in spirit possession only appeared after the Mozambique in Civil War.
Spirits called Gamba are said to be the souls of dead soldiers and usually possess women. Many African diaspora religions, which developed among enslaved African peoples in the Americas from traditional African beliefs mixing with Christian and Islamic beliefs, include possessing spirits that are not necessarily evil but seek to rebuke misconduct in the living. One of the more well-known traditions is Haitian voodoo, where spirits called loa can possess voodoo practitioners for purposes of prophecy and healing. Hoodoo traditions have regional variations across the US, but most include possession by the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit, deceased family members, saints and biblical figures.
Certain sects of Taoism, Korean shamanism, Shinto, some Japanese new religious movements, and other East Asian religions feature spirit possession. In China, casting out of spirits was a normal part of some Taoist priests' jobs until the Communist takeover in the 1950s. In Bali, the animist tradition of the island includes a practice called Sanjianna, where voluntary possession trans-states are induced for specific purposes. Hyungs, or helpful spirits, are allowed to temporarily inhabit the bodies of participants to cleanse people and places of evil influences and restore spiritual balance.
Some of the more well-known examples of spirit possession among Westerners are found in institutionalized religions. Islamic traditions include creatures such as jin, which are creatures of fire and air, shayatin, which are evil devils, and ifrit or angry ghosts. These creatures are sometimes held responsible for spirit possession. The concept of jin possession isn't in the Quran, but it is widespread among most Muslim communities and accepted by most Islamic scholars.
In Judaism, despite magic being forbidden in the Hebrew Bible, it was practiced widely between 516 BCE and 70 CE, a period known as the Second Temple Period. Magic continued to be practiced after the destruction of the temple during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE to about the 5th century CE. In the 16th century, Jewish mystic Isaac Luria wrote of the transmigration or reincarnation of souls that seek perfection. His disciples ran with this, creating the concept of the dibok, a soul that inhabits a victim in order to complete its task or atone for sin.
Dibok could be harmless or evil. The Baal Shem, a Jewish practitioner of practical kabbalah, could expel a harmful dibok through exorcism. The version of possession that we're most familiar with in Western countries is demonic possession after the Christian, specifically Catholic tradition. This is the version that has featured heavily in popular horror television, movies, video games and books.
In this variation, a demon or sometimes Satan themselves possesses the individual with malevolent intent. This usually occurs due to a person's immoral actions, which lead to an increased susceptibility to demonic influence. We'll go into more detail on this version of possession in a moment. In the ancient world, both physical and mental illness were generally believed to be caused by supernatural beings.
Helplessness in the face of disease and human disaster helped perpetuate this belief. Supernatural beings were also thought to be responsible for artistic inspiration and intelligence. Basically, when people acted not like themselves, it was assumed that they were under the influence or possessed by supernatural beings. Many of these ancient beliefs survived into the medieval era, especially in Europe.
Instead of a multitude of supernatural beings interacting with humans, the medieval Christian church proposed a dual system. Malicious influence, which caused disease and insanity, came from Satan and demons, while helpful influence, which caused religious visions, revelations and miracles, came from God and angels. The church offered both an explanation for misfortune and a way to prevent it. In this way, the supernatural remained an aspect of daily life.
In 1597, King James of England wrote a dissertation entitled Demonology, which included a study of the methods demons use to bother humans, including possessions. This document set out the Christian beliefs surrounding possession for hundreds of years to come. We'll get into the details in a moment. Fun fact, this dissertation was published several years prior to the King James authorized version of the Bible.
There were many epidemics of possession in European history, which often sparked rather violent responses, such as the Inquisition in Spain, the witch hunts in Central Europe, and the Puritan witch burnings of colonial New England. The 17th and 18th century in Europe is known as the Age of Enlightenment. Pre-scientists, known as natural philosophers, sought natural explanations for mysterious events. Possession was a mix of irrational behaviors, and natural philosophers suggested that the behaviors might be due to a disease, not demonic influence.
Physicians, not religious leaders, began investigating the condition. As time went on, treatment of people displaying these behaviors moved away from burning or punishing to treatment by physicians and confinement in asylums, which was seen as more humane. In the late 17th century, privately run asylums for the insane began to proliferate. The observation that possession occurred more frequently in women led these behaviors to be included under the umbrella of hysteria, which we already discussed in a previous episode.
Also during the Enlightenment, colonialism was in full swing. Because most European countries were interacting with many indigenous cultures during their conquests, the study of anthropology developed, which documented observations about indigenous peoples and non-Western societies, including instances of possession. Because possession was considered an abnormal medical condition by Westerners, anthropologists assumed that indigenous shamans and medicine men who sought possession in their rituals must be mentally ill. Also, as Westerners believed progress meant increasing rationality, a society engaged in such irrational behavior was considered primitive.
This led to the eradication of many cultural practices in attempts to quote, civilize and quote, indigenous peoples. In the US and later in most Western countries, a social religious movement called spiritualism began in the 1850s. Spiritualists had two beliefs that contact with spirits was possible and that spirits were more advanced than humans. Spiritualists believed in communication with the spirits of dead people and that spirit mediums enabled this communication.
With this movement, reports of possession rapidly rose in Western countries. The movement slowed down in the 1920s, possibly due to the end of World War I and the rise of technology. Also during the early 20th century, colonialism faded and anthropology grew more self-aware of its own bias. Psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, psychiatry and psychology all developed through the desire to understand the human mind.
Some fields were more scientifically minded than others. Documentation and study of possession bloomed in psychiatry, psychology, anthropology and religious studies. The sheer volume of evidence in the form of descriptions and reports of possession throughout history and geography left scientific researchers unable to dismiss it outright, but many cases remain unexplainable to this day. Anthropologists and religious historians have done the most detailed research on possession phenomena.
Both fields agree that studies of possession phenomena require cultural context as religion, cultural ideas of identity, agency and the soul are key features in what defines possession to a society. Anthropologists consider possession a form of altered state of consciousness or ASC. In psychology, psychiatry and neurology, ASC is characterized by dissociation from social environments, loss of muscle control, acting in a manner markedly different from normal and amnesia or loss of memory during this time. Anthropologists define two forms of possession, ritual and peripheral.
Ritual possession occurs in ceremonial contexts, is short-term and is socially acceptable. This version of possession is more like trance in that it's controlled by the ritual and usually helpful in nature. It's generally induced through fasting, dancing, singing, meditation, sleep deprivation, strangling, physical mutilation or hallucinogenic plants and substances. Usually it's done with an audience as the possessing spirit wants to address or heal a larger group.
In contrast, peripheral possession is seen as malevolent, abnormal and non-consensual. It's generally a long-term state in which the individual believes they are unwillingly tormented and taken over by intruding spirits. While both forms of possession are thought of as reactions to stress, ritual possession operates as a socially sanctioned psychological defense mechanism, which can strengthen the community, while peripheral possession constitutes a pathological reaction to individual conflict. Demonic and satanic possession have been described and categorized by the Catholic Church since the Middle Ages.
According to the new Catholic Encyclopedia, what is termed extraordinary or demonic activity takes six different forms. Infestation, which affects houses, objects or animals, external physical pain, oppression in which the individual is tormented by Satan or demons through misfortune in business, material possessions, family and health. Obsession, which includes sudden attacks of irrationally obsessive thoughts, suicidal ideation and nightmares. Possession in which the demonic entity takes over a person's physical body without their consent.
And lastly, voluntarily submitting to possession is called subjection. Protestant literature on demonic interference via King James suggests that there are only four forms. Spectra, which is haunting and troubling houses or solitary places. Obsession, where demons follow and outwardly torment an individual in order to weaken them with disease.
Possession, in which demons enter an individual's body, causing fits and shouting of blasphemies. And finally, fairy, where an individual voluntarily submits to consort with, serve and draw dark powers such as prophecy from demons. Possession behaviors haven't changed much since the early accounts of spirit possession. These include exaggerated or uncontrollable bodily movements, a sudden change in personality and voice changes.
For example, a female speaking in a deep male voice. Christian possession manifestations also include superhuman strength, language changes, such as speaking a language one can't possibly know or speaking in tongues, which is also called glausolalia, knowledge that the victim cannot know, such as secrets of those around them, contorted facial expressions, shouting in blasphemous rage, aversion to holy symbols, names, relics or places, and sometimes grotesque, disturbing or sexually explicit actions and words. If you're like me, these behaviors immediately bring to mind several mental health and medical conditions. We are not alone in this thought that in the past, when these medical conditions were unknown and untreatable, they were mistaken for spirit possession.
The varied symptoms of possession have some similarities with mental illnesses, such as psychosis, catatonia, mania, teretz syndrome, epilepsy, schizophrenia, and dissociative identity disorder. It's not uncommon to ascribe the experience of sleep paralysis to demonic possession, although it's not a physical or mental illness. The DSM-5, or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which was published in 2013, states that when a possession slash trans phenomenon causes dysfunction and or distress and is not part of a culturally accepted practice, it should be considered a disorder. The DSM-5 recognizes that many non-Christian traditions consider spiritual possession an important liturgical event and cultural practice.
It also states that it's important to differentiate between the cultural practice of spirit possession from pathological conditions that include the belief that their disorder is due to spirits. In recent clinical psychiatry, trans and possession disorders are generally classed as a type of dissociative disorder. Dissociative disorders are mental health conditions that involve feelings of being detached from reality, being outside of your own body, or experiencing memory loss. The word dissociation means to be disconnected from others from the world around you or from yourself.
Some examples are dissociative identity disorder, which used to be known as multiple personality disorder. Depersonalization slash derealization disorder, where you feel detached from your emotions and body or the world around you, and dissociative amnesia, where you can't remember details about your own life. Dissociative disorders typically develop after short-term or long-term trauma. On the surface, dissociative identity disorder seems to cover the main symptom of possession.
A new personality or alter seems to take over the body, and when the original personality returns, they have no memory of the incident. Parts of DID could be interpreted as demonic obsession as well, such as hearing voices, and because of the amnesia that occurs, finding mysterious injuries and seemingly appearing in random places when the original personality returns. In the 1990s, thanks to the Titanic Panic, a lot of research was done to assert that DID was an explanation for spirit possession. The DSM-5 states that in cases of DID, in which the altered personality is asked to identify themselves, 29% identify as demons.
This makes researching the relationship between DID and possession even more complicated. The surge in DID research spawned a lot of popular literature and media, especially in the horror genre. I could do a whole episode about DID and why horror stories involving it are detrimental to those who have it, but that's for another episode. Another condition that has been proposed as an explanation for spirit possession is schizophrenia.
Symptoms that match up include hearing voices, seeing things that aren't there, predicting catastrophes, delusions of grandeur. For example, I know all, strange bodily movements or responses, and a lack of emotion. Despite copious research, the exact causes of schizophrenia are still unknown today. For a long time, the seizures and other symptoms of epilepsy were thought to be due to supernatural influence.
The word epilepsy originates from an ancient Greek word meaning to seize, possess, or afflict. It's been referred to as the sacred disease as well due to the belief that it was caused by the gods. Symptoms that might have been mistaken for possession include staring into space, jerking or twitching movements, repetitive movements, loss or altered states of consciousness, fainting, seizures, hallucinations, and amnesia after the incident. However, there is no replacement of one personality for another, which is supposedly the main manifestation of possession.
Tourette syndrome has been theorized to explain that the shouting of blasphemies and strange bodily movements suffered by a supposedly possessed person. Tourette syndrome is a nervous system condition which causes people to have uncontrollable ticks, or sudden twitches, movements or sounds, usually repeatedly. Uncontrollable movements include twitching, shrugging, or hitting oneself or others, and making obscene gestures. Vocal ticks include shouting, repeating words, grunting, swearing, and making animal noises.
Ticks range from simple, temporary ticks that last a few weeks or months to many complex ticks that last much longer. Psychosis is a symptom of mental illness, but it can also occur due to health conditions, medications, drug use, and traumatic or stressful situations. During a psychotic episode, there may be a loss of contact with reality, paranoia, illogical thinking, self-isolation, feelings that don't feel like your own, hallucinations, delusions, impulsive behavior, emotional disruptions, catatonia, and unpredictability. A brief psychotic disorder is sometimes called brief reactive psychosis and can occur during periods of extreme personal stress.
Someone experiencing brief reactive psychosis generally recovers in a few days to a few weeks depending on the source of the stress. Personally, I feel like psychosis can explain many cases of possession. As it occurs for several reasons, it can appear seemingly out of nowhere, and it seems to cover many of the behaviors of possession. Still, it doesn't cover them all.
In anthropological studies, spirit possession has been described as occurring more frequently among marginal, subordinate, and underprivileged people. Because of this, it's often regarded as a response to intra-psychic tension, that is, conflict between the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious mind. Difficulties with relatives, a lack of support in difficult circumstances, and sudden socio-economic change, all of which can be traumatic. Many of the conditions we just discussed have some association with trauma, so it's possible the presentation of spirit possession could be linked with trauma as well.
However, we should be aware of our cultural bias in terms of defining events as potentially traumatizing in other cultures. Even within a culture, events that one person can cope with may be traumatizing to another. Dissociative disorders, especially DID, are definitely associated with trauma. These conditions also most closely emulate spirit possession phenomena when it comes to descriptions of the experience given by the victims of possession.
As I mentioned before, psychiatrists and psychologists believe these disorders are the best explanation. In psychology, there is a discussion surrounding the relationship between the conscious self and the physical body. We generally experience ourselves as a core of consciousness that controls the vehicle of the body from somewhere inside the head, the ghost in the machine, so to speak. Our ownership of our bodies and minds is frequently compromised, unbidden and sometimes surprising images, memories, mental events and impulses occur every day, seemingly from nowhere.
Our bodies experience things we can't explain, such as random pains, itching, and aches. Then there are our dreams, where we may act as ourselves, someone in a play created by someone else, or as a third-person view of someone else. An even deeper philosophical discussion is also underlying all of this research, a discussion about identity, and how, over time, we have moved away from the idea of a single uniform self, and towards the idea that all identities are fragmented. This then begs the question of why possession doesn't happen more often.
And then there's the adjacent discussion of reality, and what is real. Again, many philosophers suggest reality is negotiable and questionable. Psychologists and psychiatrists are assuming these hallucinations and delusions are all in the mind, after all. They cannot prove that they aren't real, but they can stop them with medication and surgery, suggesting that they aren't real.
This reminds me of something Morpheus said in the Matrix. Quote, what is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste, and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.
End quote. As you can see, the scientific study of possession, identity, and psychological reactions to stress is fraught with difficulties. There is reluctance to examine internal, intangible, and inaccessible mental states, especially ones that are not easily investigated using the scientific method. Still, we cannot write off the people who believe they have experienced possession.
It was real to them. So what do we do with all the reports of spirit possession? Will it ever be explainable by Western psychiatry and scientific medical thinking? Can human beings experience such unusual and extreme things due to defects in their own bodies and minds?
Or is it something else, something intangible that causes it? Should psychology leave room for spiritual therapies, or is it better to maintain boundaries between science and spiritualism? We are left with a tantalizing mystery. We don't have any evidence of spirits or demons, but we also can't explain the exact cause of possession phenomena.
We can't find an explanation for how it works. There is no way to know, for sure. Which is why possession sparks our morbid curiosity. Thank you to everyone who has already done so.
Because of you, the listeners. Our creepy community is growing strong. The MCP has joined a straight up strange podcast network which hosts true crime, paranormal, history, science, folklore, and other enigmatic podcasts. Nothing is off limits when you enter the world of straight up strange.
The MCP is also part of the Belfry Podcast Network, a haven for golf culture featuring podcasts, blogs, and videos all catering to the darker side of life. If you'd like to support the MCP, you can give one-time donations on our website. Also on our website are links to all our social media, a list of episodes, and our mailing address. We also have an Amazon Wishlist at bit.ly slash morbidwishlist.
That's EIT.ly slash morbidwishlist. Any purchases from this list are greatly appreciated. We are eternally grateful for your support. My name is Halle, and until next time, thanks for listening.