January 6, 2009 • 19 mins
Is the idea of possession a misunderstanding of physiological and psychological conditions, or has science failed to account for unknown, legitimate factors? Learn whether exorcism and psychology are mutually exclusive in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh.
That's Chuck, and this is stuff you should know. We're
about to tell you some stuff you should know, aren't
we Chucked? We are? You never intro our title like that.
I like that it's new. I tried it before. I
(00:23):
know that you like it, which is inst I loved
it to the late and browse you. Yeah, moving on, Chuck.
Have you ever heard of a guy named Phillip Kate? Dad? Yes, absolutely,
he's an author. Correct, Yes, he wrote Blade Runner? Correct well,
I do Android's Dream of Electric Cheap right, which was
(00:44):
made into Blade Runner, exactly. And he wrote a Minority
Report and um, a Scanner Darkly some other ones I
have heard of good stuff. Um. And if you can't
tell yet, he was a science fiction writer. Um. But
one of the more notable things of Dick's life with
the more, one of the more notable aspects of Dick's
life was that, um, at one point he became possessed
(01:08):
by a being, another intelligence. He called it like a
super alien or something like that. And uh, it basically
took him over and got his life in order. He
was a total pill head, loved drink wine, really just
kind of chased friends off. He just wasn't a really
pleasant soul to be around. And this alien kind of
(01:31):
comes in and takes him over, and all of a sudden,
he's like getting you know, back pay from publishers. He's
like writing more. He his office is cleaner. I think
he started wearing ties and just all around. Basically, this
thing got his life in order. And he wasn't scientology
or anything no interesting. As a matter of fact, I
think he may have been a critic of scientology. I'm
(01:53):
not sure. Um, but he uh, he was possessed. He
he believed it till the day he died, that something
had taken him over and at the very least was
helping him. I've never heard that. Yes, so um, that
kind of I think is a really good segue into exorcism. Right,
this is an exorcism that actually benefited somebody. Well, he
(02:14):
was an exercise and I don't think he needed to
sure sure now, um, you know, I think for the
most part, when people feel like we're inhabited by something,
we feel like it needs to be exercise, right right, Yeah,
the demons running through yet exactly. So, Um, we kind
of in in the Western world in the twenty one century,
(02:36):
we don't really believe in spirit intrusion much anymore. Right,
some of us do, some do, true, but for the
most part, the average American walking around probably doesn't believe
that they're going to ever be, you know, taken over
by a demon or something like that, or even an
angel probably, um, but this isn't the case for much
of the rest of the world. It's very commonly held
(03:00):
spirit intrusion can occur. I remember when we were talking
about carrying a bride over the threshold. Spirit intrusion. It
can be a bad thing. It can cause disease, illness,
and um. It kind of makes you wonder. There's this
dividing line that crops up. Is this really just a
misunderstanding of a psychological problem or is psychology missing the
(03:23):
point when there actually is something going on right at ending?
You know, a lot of uh, demonic possessions are really
people that are psychologically distressed or sometimes even physically and
epilepsy and things like that a lot of times are
mistaken from parts of the world. Well, with epilepsy in particular,
you can you can tell you can throw somebody in
(03:45):
an m R I machine and I look at the
parts of their brain and see, you know, oh yeah,
this person is definitely epileptic. Of course, the convulsions often
give them away as well. But with you know, UM schizophrenia, say,
for many many eons, that was viewed as a spirit
intrusion or spirit possession, right, which makes sense. I mean,
(04:07):
you know, these people with associative personality disorder are UM
different people at different times, so you can understand how
that would be mistaken as a UM possession in the past,
I could, sure, But still today I kind of wonder
is it just a clash of worldviews? You know? Maybe?
So is is a psychological disorder just another term for
(04:30):
spirit possession when they're really both talking about the same
thing and doesn't matter? So interesting angle, Thanks buddy. So
the point is this, UM psychology has its own methods
of exorcism and in deepressants UM psychotherapy. Yes, uh e
c T. Electro convulsive therapy, which is still used to
(04:52):
this day. Did you know that? I didn't. I think
we have the method refined a little more than we
used to write, but yeah, it's still they still hook
people up at the electrodes and choose them. Actually I
did know that because it happened on six ft under
and don't tell me, don't tell me. I'm in season three,
don't tell me. It definitely does not happen on six
(05:12):
ft Thank you, thank you for that. Sorry about that,
no problem. But um, so we've got this method of
(06:04):
dealing with disturbance, um through psychology. We also have it
through spirituality, and specifically the Catholic Church is really really
big on exorcism. There the only church that I know
of it really still practices it. And yeah, I was
raised Catholic, and and as you get older, every you know,
(06:24):
when you're raised in the Catholic Church, everything seems totally normal.
This guy is wearing a robe and chanting and burning frankincense,
and everybody else you know is responding with you know,
some weird you know, mystical words. Right. The thing is
is like, as you get older, it becomes stranger and
stranger because, as any Catholic knows, the older you get,
(06:45):
the further you get away from the church. Right, Um
so you get a little more objective, you get an
objective view of it. I think that's not necessarily true
for all people, but certainly. Uh so. You know, when
you look at the Catholic Church objectively or Catholicism, it's
deeply rooted in mysticism. And it doesn't strike me as
odd at all that the Catholic Church is still very
(07:07):
much believes in exorcism, in demonic possession. Yeah, I believe it.
Which we should probably give an actual definition of demonic
possession as the Catholic Church sees it. Uh, while possession
or exorcism possession. Uh well, I know some of the
telltale signs. Yeah, let's hear about um. Speaking in tongues
(07:30):
a lot of times is considered no, no, pardon no, no,
it's not considered part of a demonic Speaking in tongues
is considered a an expression of religious ecstasy. Speaking in
foreign languages that one's never encountered, or dead languages. That's
that's an example. I actually said. I actually said speaking
in foreign tongues. I just said it very quietly. The
(07:52):
foreign was the foreign? Was it? Silent um? That is true? Uh?
Knowing things that a person has no way of knowing. Yeah, Like, um,
you know, with the pope's wearing at any given time,
I bet he's wearing a robe and a tall hat.
That's what I underneath the robe, if you can call that.
I imagine they're gonna be like, yeah, I know, too
much physical strength beyond what you normally would have, which
(08:17):
we've addressed as well, right, and a violent aversion to God,
the Virgin Mary or across or other you know religious images. Yeah,
so that's you know, pretty much it. If you can
fit all these, then you know there's a chance that
you are possessed by the devil as far as the
church is concerned. I didn't see in here headspinning around
or vomiting p soup or the spider crawl. No, And
(08:38):
of course Chuck's referring to the classic horror film The
exor System, which I watched actually this past Halloween. Not
as scary as I remember, but psychologically thrilling. Yeah. Great.
And um after researching this, I found that if you
take Linda Blair out of the scenes, yes, uh, and
you just have the exorcism the rights of exorcism that
(09:01):
are performed by um Max von Sideau and the other guy.
Um it is it's very accurate. Uh, it's It's pretty
much the opposite of the website Garfield minus Garfield, where
if you take Garfield out. It turns out that John
is either schizophrenic or addicted to methamphetamine, or possessed by
the devil. Possibly full circle. Yeah, so it's UM's it's
(09:24):
the it's the opposite of that. It really a Catholic
exorcism or right of exorcism is a series of special prayers,
and actually it's a combination of fairly familiar prayers. There's
a lot of call and response. Um. There's dousing the
possessed individual with holy water, using crucifixes and relics, which
(09:45):
can be anything anything associated with the saint, including a
body part. There's actually the saints, if you were a
saint several hundred years ago, you were destined to be
chopped up into as many little pieces as possible, instaid
to churches around the world. Yeah, relic are huge. Interesting. Yeah,
well there, you didn't know that either. Well, before this
all happens, there's an investigation. I mean, this is when
(10:06):
there's a real threat of a possession, you can actually
lodge an uh A query to the Catholic Church and
they'll send someone out. A lot of times that priests
will come with um a psychological evaluator just to rule
out other things. Sometimes I'll go to a medical doctor,
but they actually do a full fledged investigation, and they said,
I think one in five thousand turns out to be
(10:29):
what they consider to be a real demonic possession or
at the very least worth worth using an exorcism, for
worth giving a shot. Yeah, I didn't want you to
to get the impression that I think that the church's
approach to exorcism it's hokey in anyway. I think they
take a very methodical approach they do, and they rule
out everything else that it could possibly be. Um. I
(10:50):
think if you decide to perpetrate a fraud, uh, you know,
like you're you're possessed by the devil, you're in for
a really long, painful evaluation process where you really have
to be committed to the bit to follow it through
and finally get to the exorcism. And if you're basing
it on movies, you'll probably be really disappointed. Um. There's
(11:11):
this book that this guy wrote. I cannot remember his
name or the name of the book, but um, he
was a sociologist who who you know, basically went to
exorcisms performed around the country for several years during his
research period, and he describes one where a guy named
Warren who is basically depressed, drinks a lot. Really his
(11:34):
life is pretty out of sorts um, and he's come
to believe that he's he's possessed by a diabolical presence
I think is the the church vernacular for it um.
And basically the priest just praised for him um. And
you know, there's the Holy water and the crucifix and
all that, and Warren just kind of sits there looking
a little gloomy the whole time. And then that's about that.
(11:56):
And apparently in the book, Warren reported feeling like something
had left him, which is good. It's a good things.
He said, he felt fine, but it was a fairly
anticlimactic spinning or anything. I had that book title. If
people want to read, it's called American Exorcism Expelling Demons
in the Land of Plenty by Michael uh c u
(12:16):
n Eo quin Kuno. Let's go with Cuno catch Cary
cascari um. So yeah, they're they're kind of anticlimactic, right,
(12:53):
But if if at the end people like Warren feel
like that their their life has changed, that you know,
if it's if it's just using their faith to maybe
manipulate them, even even if there's no intentional manipulation. But
if that's really what's going on in the most objective view,
how could how could it hurt? You know? Why why
(13:15):
don't we just run around performing exorcisms all the time?
I have an answer for you, playing on me sort of,
because there aren't enough priests relate to go around that
are they're capable of doing this. The Catholic Church actually
UM appointed ten priest and I think that was already
previously one the only guy doing exorcism, So there's now
eleven UM at that time at least, and they have
(13:38):
a group called the International Association of Exorcists. Yeah, they
meet every year formaly newsletter. Do you know what I
would do to get my hands on that newsletter? Apparently
they shared tricks of the trade, tips for one another franccisms. Yeah,
I would love to get my hands on that, right,
I'd love to sit on one of those meetings. But
that's a lot of a lot of fun, it is,
(13:58):
you know, the the that's one reason why, you know,
we just don't have or the Catholic Church just doesn't
have the manpower to go around performing exorcism, right, um.
But also there's there's a couple other problems with exorcism
as far as you know controversy generated by them. One
is what we've talked about, the the psychology versus religion clash,
(14:21):
which has been going on pretty much since medicine came about,
um and basically labeled everybody else's witches or you know,
at the very least um simple or what have you,
archaic primitive. And that's one problem. If if we just
ran around performing exorcisms, uh, and there were people who
(14:42):
had very treatable psychological disorders, you know, would the exorcism
for work or would would pharmaceuticals be better some sort
of you know, immersive therapy be better for him? Um,
So we could actually do damage, which is why the
church i imagine has a psychle logical evaluations done. And
these are done by professionals from my understanding as well,
(15:04):
It's not like the priest is like, hey, are you crazy? Right,
they get a psychiatrist or psychologist outside of the Catholic Church.
The the other problem is the there there are groups
that that do exorcisms for profit. Yeah, and this is
where it gets a little Uh, I don't know, greedy,
possibly fake. Maybe there's one. There's one group, um that
(15:30):
is well known for their exorcisms. There's a guy named
Bob Larson, Bob Larson Ministries. He actually has a show
called The Real Exorcist on the Sci Fi Channel. Um,
that should be your first clue right there, exactly he Um.
He runs the Spiritual Freedom Church as far as I know, UM,
and he does exorcisms. I don't know that he actually
(15:52):
charges for exorcisms, but I think he's he's really good
at um drumming up donations. Well yeah, and he and
he does this in front of a crowd and charges
for tickets. Does he really? Yeah, because apparently you can
get a family rate on your tickets to go see
these exorcisms. Okay, gives you a break if you bring
the kids along. Well, I was. I was reading on
the Spiritual Freedom Church website a testimonial from a girl
(16:17):
from named Autumn, from my dear esteemed hometown of Toledo, Ohio.
Let's hear it. Apparently the spirit spirit for Spiritual Freedom
Church rolled through town and held a mass you know,
exorcism or whatever spectacle, and Um, Autumn, it turned out,
had been possessed by a several centuries old African woman,
(16:39):
uh named Mushita. Now Mushita apparently means horror and whatever
ancient African vernacular this that her name comes from. And um,
she basically was pretty much into committing acts of hordem
in you know, uh, reverence for an African deity. So
(17:00):
she became promiscuous. Yes, it was really Mushida, but it
was it was Autumn who was running around committing acts
of hord um. This is not my word, by the way,
I actually didn't realize hordam was a word until this
is very afternoon. Is that her right there? That's her.
She's a kind of cute. Yeah. So, um, Autumn goes
to see Bob Larson, who exercises the the demons, and
(17:25):
apparently you could see a an immediate change in Autumn
and she was very grateful. So again we we come
to this this fine line. As far as I'm concerned,
if Autumn is no longer running around being promiscuous, as
you said, she no longer feels like she's out of
control with her life, does it matter whether it was
(17:47):
an exorcism or antidepressants, whether she paid for this or not.
I come to Jesus moment and a seeing of the light.
Does it matter? Now, there's all kinds of ways of
reaching that moment of clarity. I agree, if you ask me,
I agree. So uh, as far as I'm concerned to
each his own sure, that's our motto here. You want
to pay, Yeah, it pretty much keeps us out of
(18:09):
hot water. So if you want to pay for your exorcism,
there's plenty of places you can do it. Just go
on to a Google search, and I believe you type
in exorcists and you will find what you're looking for
and good luck. So stick around because we have a
new bit here. We like to fill up time as
much as possible. We're gonna call it correction time. Right,
(18:30):
it's a good title. It's coming up right now. Um So, Chuck,
we have a correction from one of our listeners. Right,
This was in from a couple of our podcasts. We
mentioned this famous study in Massachusetts. Let's go to a
clip of Chuck being wrong. So what they've learned is
that there was this big study. I now that you
love to study, the Farmington heart study. I love this study.
(18:52):
It's enormous, it's sweeping. This is what a study should
be like right, So that's that's me and that's my voice.
And it is not Armington's. No, it is actually Framingham
not even there's no ton involved, there's no farm. It
is a frame. And this is pointed out by one
of our listeners, Glenna Carpenter Rhodius in thank you Glenna
for pointing that out. Yes, Glen warn yourself a new
(19:13):
Ford focus actually pointing it out. Yeah. So if you
want to point out something that we've done wrong or
tell us how much you like us or hate us. Yeah,
I'm more like us though, Okay, And you can send
an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(19:37):
Is that how stuff works dot com
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh.
That's Chuck, and this is stuff you should know. We're
about to tell you some stuff you should know, aren't
we Chucked? We are? You never intro our title like that.
I like that it's new. I tried it before. I
(00:23):
know that you like it, which is inst I loved
it to the late and browse you. Yeah, moving on, Chuck.
Have you ever heard of a guy named Phillip Kate? Dad? Yes, absolutely,
he's an author. Correct, Yes, he wrote Blade Runner? Correct well,
I do Android's Dream of Electric Cheap right, which was
(00:44):
made into Blade Runner, exactly. And he wrote a Minority
Report and um, a Scanner Darkly some other ones I
have heard of good stuff. Um. And if you can't
tell yet, he was a science fiction writer. Um. But
one of the more notable things of Dick's life with
the more, one of the more notable aspects of Dick's
life was that, um, at one point he became possessed
(01:08):
by a being, another intelligence. He called it like a
super alien or something like that. And uh, it basically
took him over and got his life in order. He
was a total pill head, loved drink wine, really just
kind of chased friends off. He just wasn't a really
pleasant soul to be around. And this alien kind of
(01:31):
comes in and takes him over, and all of a sudden,
he's like getting you know, back pay from publishers. He's
like writing more. He his office is cleaner. I think
he started wearing ties and just all around. Basically, this
thing got his life in order. And he wasn't scientology
or anything no interesting. As a matter of fact, I
think he may have been a critic of scientology. I'm
(01:53):
not sure. Um, but he uh, he was possessed. He
he believed it till the day he died, that something
had taken him over and at the very least was
helping him. I've never heard that. Yes, so um, that
kind of I think is a really good segue into exorcism. Right,
this is an exorcism that actually benefited somebody. Well, he
(02:14):
was an exercise and I don't think he needed to
sure sure now, um, you know, I think for the
most part, when people feel like we're inhabited by something,
we feel like it needs to be exercise, right right, Yeah,
the demons running through yet exactly. So, Um, we kind
of in in the Western world in the twenty one century,
(02:36):
we don't really believe in spirit intrusion much anymore. Right,
some of us do, some do, true, but for the
most part, the average American walking around probably doesn't believe
that they're going to ever be, you know, taken over
by a demon or something like that, or even an
angel probably, um, but this isn't the case for much
of the rest of the world. It's very commonly held
(03:00):
spirit intrusion can occur. I remember when we were talking
about carrying a bride over the threshold. Spirit intrusion. It
can be a bad thing. It can cause disease, illness,
and um. It kind of makes you wonder. There's this
dividing line that crops up. Is this really just a
misunderstanding of a psychological problem or is psychology missing the
(03:23):
point when there actually is something going on right at ending?
You know, a lot of uh, demonic possessions are really
people that are psychologically distressed or sometimes even physically and
epilepsy and things like that a lot of times are
mistaken from parts of the world. Well, with epilepsy in particular,
you can you can tell you can throw somebody in
(03:45):
an m R I machine and I look at the
parts of their brain and see, you know, oh yeah,
this person is definitely epileptic. Of course, the convulsions often
give them away as well. But with you know, UM schizophrenia, say,
for many many eons, that was viewed as a spirit
intrusion or spirit possession, right, which makes sense. I mean,
(04:07):
you know, these people with associative personality disorder are UM
different people at different times, so you can understand how
that would be mistaken as a UM possession in the past,
I could, sure, But still today I kind of wonder
is it just a clash of worldviews? You know? Maybe?
So is is a psychological disorder just another term for
(04:30):
spirit possession when they're really both talking about the same
thing and doesn't matter? So interesting angle, Thanks buddy. So
the point is this, UM psychology has its own methods
of exorcism and in deepressants UM psychotherapy. Yes, uh e
c T. Electro convulsive therapy, which is still used to
(04:52):
this day. Did you know that? I didn't. I think
we have the method refined a little more than we
used to write, but yeah, it's still they still hook
people up at the electrodes and choose them. Actually I
did know that because it happened on six ft under
and don't tell me, don't tell me. I'm in season three,
don't tell me. It definitely does not happen on six
(05:12):
ft Thank you, thank you for that. Sorry about that,
no problem. But um, so we've got this method of
(06:04):
dealing with disturbance, um through psychology. We also have it
through spirituality, and specifically the Catholic Church is really really
big on exorcism. There the only church that I know
of it really still practices it. And yeah, I was
raised Catholic, and and as you get older, every you know,
(06:24):
when you're raised in the Catholic Church, everything seems totally normal.
This guy is wearing a robe and chanting and burning frankincense,
and everybody else you know is responding with you know,
some weird you know, mystical words. Right. The thing is
is like, as you get older, it becomes stranger and
stranger because, as any Catholic knows, the older you get,
(06:45):
the further you get away from the church. Right, Um
so you get a little more objective, you get an
objective view of it. I think that's not necessarily true
for all people, but certainly. Uh so. You know, when
you look at the Catholic Church objectively or Catholicism, it's
deeply rooted in mysticism. And it doesn't strike me as
odd at all that the Catholic Church is still very
(07:07):
much believes in exorcism, in demonic possession. Yeah, I believe it.
Which we should probably give an actual definition of demonic
possession as the Catholic Church sees it. Uh, while possession
or exorcism possession. Uh well, I know some of the
telltale signs. Yeah, let's hear about um. Speaking in tongues
(07:30):
a lot of times is considered no, no, pardon no, no,
it's not considered part of a demonic Speaking in tongues
is considered a an expression of religious ecstasy. Speaking in
foreign languages that one's never encountered, or dead languages. That's
that's an example. I actually said. I actually said speaking
in foreign tongues. I just said it very quietly. The
(07:52):
foreign was the foreign? Was it? Silent um? That is true? Uh?
Knowing things that a person has no way of knowing. Yeah, Like, um,
you know, with the pope's wearing at any given time,
I bet he's wearing a robe and a tall hat.
That's what I underneath the robe, if you can call that.
I imagine they're gonna be like, yeah, I know, too
much physical strength beyond what you normally would have, which
(08:17):
we've addressed as well, right, and a violent aversion to God,
the Virgin Mary or across or other you know religious images. Yeah,
so that's you know, pretty much it. If you can
fit all these, then you know there's a chance that
you are possessed by the devil as far as the
church is concerned. I didn't see in here headspinning around
or vomiting p soup or the spider crawl. No, And
(08:38):
of course Chuck's referring to the classic horror film The
exor System, which I watched actually this past Halloween. Not
as scary as I remember, but psychologically thrilling. Yeah. Great.
And um after researching this, I found that if you
take Linda Blair out of the scenes, yes, uh, and
you just have the exorcism the rights of exorcism that
(09:01):
are performed by um Max von Sideau and the other guy.
Um it is it's very accurate. Uh, it's It's pretty
much the opposite of the website Garfield minus Garfield, where
if you take Garfield out. It turns out that John
is either schizophrenic or addicted to methamphetamine, or possessed by
the devil. Possibly full circle. Yeah, so it's UM's it's
(09:24):
the it's the opposite of that. It really a Catholic
exorcism or right of exorcism is a series of special prayers,
and actually it's a combination of fairly familiar prayers. There's
a lot of call and response. Um. There's dousing the
possessed individual with holy water, using crucifixes and relics, which
(09:45):
can be anything anything associated with the saint, including a
body part. There's actually the saints, if you were a
saint several hundred years ago, you were destined to be
chopped up into as many little pieces as possible, instaid
to churches around the world. Yeah, relic are huge. Interesting. Yeah,
well there, you didn't know that either. Well, before this
all happens, there's an investigation. I mean, this is when
(10:06):
there's a real threat of a possession, you can actually
lodge an uh A query to the Catholic Church and
they'll send someone out. A lot of times that priests
will come with um a psychological evaluator just to rule
out other things. Sometimes I'll go to a medical doctor,
but they actually do a full fledged investigation, and they said,
I think one in five thousand turns out to be
(10:29):
what they consider to be a real demonic possession or
at the very least worth worth using an exorcism, for
worth giving a shot. Yeah, I didn't want you to
to get the impression that I think that the church's
approach to exorcism it's hokey in anyway. I think they
take a very methodical approach they do, and they rule
out everything else that it could possibly be. Um. I
(10:50):
think if you decide to perpetrate a fraud, uh, you know,
like you're you're possessed by the devil, you're in for
a really long, painful evaluation process where you really have
to be committed to the bit to follow it through
and finally get to the exorcism. And if you're basing
it on movies, you'll probably be really disappointed. Um. There's
(11:11):
this book that this guy wrote. I cannot remember his
name or the name of the book, but um, he
was a sociologist who who you know, basically went to
exorcisms performed around the country for several years during his
research period, and he describes one where a guy named
Warren who is basically depressed, drinks a lot. Really his
(11:34):
life is pretty out of sorts um, and he's come
to believe that he's he's possessed by a diabolical presence
I think is the the church vernacular for it um.
And basically the priest just praised for him um. And
you know, there's the Holy water and the crucifix and
all that, and Warren just kind of sits there looking
a little gloomy the whole time. And then that's about that.
(11:56):
And apparently in the book, Warren reported feeling like something
had left him, which is good. It's a good things.
He said, he felt fine, but it was a fairly
anticlimactic spinning or anything. I had that book title. If
people want to read, it's called American Exorcism Expelling Demons
in the Land of Plenty by Michael uh c u
(12:16):
n Eo quin Kuno. Let's go with Cuno catch Cary
cascari um. So yeah, they're they're kind of anticlimactic, right,
(12:53):
But if if at the end people like Warren feel
like that their their life has changed, that you know,
if it's if it's just using their faith to maybe
manipulate them, even even if there's no intentional manipulation. But
if that's really what's going on in the most objective view,
how could how could it hurt? You know? Why why
(13:15):
don't we just run around performing exorcisms all the time?
I have an answer for you, playing on me sort of,
because there aren't enough priests relate to go around that
are they're capable of doing this. The Catholic Church actually
UM appointed ten priest and I think that was already
previously one the only guy doing exorcism, So there's now
eleven UM at that time at least, and they have
(13:38):
a group called the International Association of Exorcists. Yeah, they
meet every year formaly newsletter. Do you know what I
would do to get my hands on that newsletter? Apparently
they shared tricks of the trade, tips for one another franccisms. Yeah,
I would love to get my hands on that, right,
I'd love to sit on one of those meetings. But
that's a lot of a lot of fun, it is,
(13:58):
you know, the the that's one reason why, you know,
we just don't have or the Catholic Church just doesn't
have the manpower to go around performing exorcism, right, um.
But also there's there's a couple other problems with exorcism
as far as you know controversy generated by them. One
is what we've talked about, the the psychology versus religion clash,
(14:21):
which has been going on pretty much since medicine came about,
um and basically labeled everybody else's witches or you know,
at the very least um simple or what have you,
archaic primitive. And that's one problem. If if we just
ran around performing exorcisms, uh, and there were people who
(14:42):
had very treatable psychological disorders, you know, would the exorcism
for work or would would pharmaceuticals be better some sort
of you know, immersive therapy be better for him? Um,
So we could actually do damage, which is why the
church i imagine has a psychle logical evaluations done. And
these are done by professionals from my understanding as well,
(15:04):
It's not like the priest is like, hey, are you crazy? Right,
they get a psychiatrist or psychologist outside of the Catholic Church.
The the other problem is the there there are groups
that that do exorcisms for profit. Yeah, and this is
where it gets a little Uh, I don't know, greedy,
possibly fake. Maybe there's one. There's one group, um that
(15:30):
is well known for their exorcisms. There's a guy named
Bob Larson, Bob Larson Ministries. He actually has a show
called The Real Exorcist on the Sci Fi Channel. Um,
that should be your first clue right there, exactly he Um.
He runs the Spiritual Freedom Church as far as I know, UM,
and he does exorcisms. I don't know that he actually
(15:52):
charges for exorcisms, but I think he's he's really good
at um drumming up donations. Well yeah, and he and
he does this in front of a crowd and charges
for tickets. Does he really? Yeah, because apparently you can
get a family rate on your tickets to go see
these exorcisms. Okay, gives you a break if you bring
the kids along. Well, I was. I was reading on
the Spiritual Freedom Church website a testimonial from a girl
(16:17):
from named Autumn, from my dear esteemed hometown of Toledo, Ohio.
Let's hear it. Apparently the spirit spirit for Spiritual Freedom
Church rolled through town and held a mass you know,
exorcism or whatever spectacle, and Um, Autumn, it turned out,
had been possessed by a several centuries old African woman,
(16:39):
uh named Mushita. Now Mushita apparently means horror and whatever
ancient African vernacular this that her name comes from. And um,
she basically was pretty much into committing acts of hordem
in you know, uh, reverence for an African deity. So
(17:00):
she became promiscuous. Yes, it was really Mushida, but it
was it was Autumn who was running around committing acts
of hord um. This is not my word, by the way,
I actually didn't realize hordam was a word until this
is very afternoon. Is that her right there? That's her.
She's a kind of cute. Yeah. So, um, Autumn goes
to see Bob Larson, who exercises the the demons, and
(17:25):
apparently you could see a an immediate change in Autumn
and she was very grateful. So again we we come
to this this fine line. As far as I'm concerned,
if Autumn is no longer running around being promiscuous, as
you said, she no longer feels like she's out of
control with her life, does it matter whether it was
(17:47):
an exorcism or antidepressants, whether she paid for this or not.
I come to Jesus moment and a seeing of the light.
Does it matter? Now, there's all kinds of ways of
reaching that moment of clarity. I agree, if you ask me,
I agree. So uh, as far as I'm concerned to
each his own sure, that's our motto here. You want
to pay, Yeah, it pretty much keeps us out of
(18:09):
hot water. So if you want to pay for your exorcism,
there's plenty of places you can do it. Just go
on to a Google search, and I believe you type
in exorcists and you will find what you're looking for
and good luck. So stick around because we have a
new bit here. We like to fill up time as
much as possible. We're gonna call it correction time. Right,
(18:30):
it's a good title. It's coming up right now. Um So, Chuck,
we have a correction from one of our listeners. Right,
This was in from a couple of our podcasts. We
mentioned this famous study in Massachusetts. Let's go to a
clip of Chuck being wrong. So what they've learned is
that there was this big study. I now that you
love to study, the Farmington heart study. I love this study.
(18:52):
It's enormous, it's sweeping. This is what a study should
be like right, So that's that's me and that's my voice.
And it is not Armington's. No, it is actually Framingham
not even there's no ton involved, there's no farm. It
is a frame. And this is pointed out by one
of our listeners, Glenna Carpenter Rhodius in thank you Glenna
for pointing that out. Yes, Glen warn yourself a new
(19:13):
Ford focus actually pointing it out. Yeah. So if you
want to point out something that we've done wrong or
tell us how much you like us or hate us. Yeah,
I'm more like us though, Okay, And you can send
an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(19:37):
Is that how stuff works dot com
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