Yesterday I received an email from the BME inviting me to a conference on the subject of ‘Spirit Possession and Mental Health’. Intrigued, I had a good look at the conference details:

Screen shot of BME health website showing conference details for March's Spirit Possession conference: click for full site

Particularly of note, I thought was ‘Examining the ‘critical themes and debates on spirit possession [...] using a range of illustrative case study, clinical practice [...] and research [...]‘. Others who I’ve talked to about this have seen this in the context of a respect for various faiths’ belief in possession, but I see it as legitimising what is essentially a superstitious and dangerous belief. What debates are there? What case studies could possibly prove someone is suffering from spirit possession? The PDF (click pic above for link) talks of spirit possession in Judaism, Egypt and India. What research? The research around this area is particularly what puzzles and bewilders me.

Aghast, I tweeted the link, along with some interesting 140ch snippets and found a few people who were as stunned by me by the apparent credulity of the conference description.

Conspicuous by its absence is any discussion of the harm done by belief in spirit or demonic possession and the natural treatment for this misunderstanding of mental illness: exorcism.

I’ve also noted the assertion from the introduction that spirit possession is listed in the DSM IV and ICD-10 – something Wikipedia refutes (as of 27th January, when I checked this article). I checked myself to the best of my ability and found this:

ICD-10

Screenshot from the ICD-10

DSM-IV

DSM IV Research Criteria for dissociative trance disorder: click for Google Books result

Not exactly what the BME is asserting. Someone’s belief that they are possessed is not the same as actual possession.

I’ve decided not to go through each of the aims: that’s  already been done in painstaking detail by Stuart Sorenson (otherwise known as TheCareGuy, a trainer in mental health and/or social care related topics, here. What I’d like to look at is the harm done by belief in mental illness provoked by spirit and demonic possession.

How common is a belief in spirit/demonic possession?

The Bible

Let’s go back to biblical times, if we may. The idea of demonic/or spirit possession is perhaps best described in Mark 5:1-20 (also found in Matthew 8:28-14 and Luke 8:26-39). Emphasis is mine.

When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones. 

For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you impure spirit!”

When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people what had happened to the demon-possessed man [...]

It’s notable that a quote that I’ve omitted from these verses “my name is Legion, for we are many” (Latin: Legio mihi nomen est, quia multi sumusis) is used in literature, film, comics and books; perhaps most notably in the film The Exorcist. It’s so popular, it warrants its own Wikipedia page.

Medical establishments

The Christian Medical Fellowship, ‘formed in 1949 [with] over 4000 UK doctors and 1000 UK medical students as members’ also has something to say on the subject of demonic and/or spirit possession. Again, emphasis is mine.

In the lay mind, some accounts of demonisation[...] do present a very convincing example of ‘madness’ . However, I believe that there is a danger that we look for demonisation amongst those who are psychiatrically ill for a variety of reasons which do not have a basis in their similarity with the description of demon possession as found in the Gospels. Psychiatric patients, especially those who are psychotic, behave, speak and think in ways that we find difficult to understand. We therefore struggle to find an explanation for their experiences, and if science does not have convincing answers, then we look elsewhere. 

As Christians in psychiatry, then, we have an important responsibility. We need to be informed of the findings and limits of psychiatric research, so that we can offer rational scientific explanations and treatments for psychiatric illness, where these exist. We need to bring healing to, and show love and care for, patients with stigmarising [sic] mental illnesses, just as Jesus showed compassion for those who were stigmatised by physical illness (eg Mt 8:1-4). However, we also need to recognise that not all human problems will be explicable by medical science. The New Testament tells us that Jesus has commissioned us to ‘ drive out demons’ (Mk 16:17), and we must be ready to respond to this commission if and when we are called to do so.

Psychiatry, then, is not the only domain within which we need to be aware of demonic influence [...]. Furthermore, we cannot expect to make a simple differential diagnosis according to certain signs or symptoms of demonisation. However, this does not exclude the need to consider other possible links between demonic activity and mental illness.

[...] if people can become depressed because they are bereaved, or because of physical illness, why should they not also become depressed because of demonic interference in their lives? 

[Psychiatrists] need to ensure that they do not neglect the spiritual dimension of life. However, I am not convinced that psychiatric clinics are particularly full of unrecognised demonic influence. Neither is the recognition of demonisation a question of medical differential diagnosis, although a psychiatric assessment may sometimes assist the non-medical minister to avoid attributing a primary psychological disturbance to demonic activity. 

I suppose it’s a small mercy to note that the last paragraph shows some semblance of common sense and states that the UK’s clinics are perhaps not full up with poor, possessed souls!

What’s the harm?

Well, I won’t replicate the efforts of Tim Farley’s whatstheharm.net which details the worldwide deaths of  over 1,000 victims of this belief, but I will detail those of the 6 known UK victims of exorcism:

Kousar Bashir, 1991, 20 years old. Died after enduring systematic beatings during a horrific eight-day ritual after her father, Mr Bashir, paid two holy men £200 to rid an “evil spirit” people believed had taken over her body. He later killed himself in 2005.

CHEUNG KIU HO, 1993, 48 years old, murdered by her brother. A post mortem showed fractures to most of her ribs, a lacerated liver and multiple internal injuries. Mr Chi, who said he had been trying to stamp out evil spirits that had possessed his sister, was jailed for five years. 

Mary Odegbami, 1994, 26 years old. Murdered by her fiance who believed she was possessed by the devil because she didn’t want to marry him. He locked her in a room, starved her and beat her for 14 days. She eventually died.

Sylvester Orieso, 1997, 5 years old. His mother strangled him in an attempt to drive out demons. She kept his body in her home for days believing he would be healed. 

Farida Patel, 1993, 26 years old. She believed herself possessed by djinns. Her family called a Syrian woman to conduct an exorcism. She was beaten for hours, fracturing nine ribs.

As for the idea of belief in demonic/spirit possession in the general population, that’s pretty unclear. I did have one person reply to my tweets saying they’d seen someone under the spell of a witch doctor. Sadly, a similar belief, one of witchcraft, has already claimed the life of at least one known victim, only two years ago:

Kristy Bamu suffered because of his family's beliefs

Let’s hope that the conference organisers are wrong and that ‘the extent to which it is recognised and / or discussed in clinical practice is [NOT] less than we would expect, even in UK cities where there resides a diverse population.’ As mentioned above, the specific cases that are alluded to in the PDF for the conference seem to be in Egypt and India.

I hope we don’t need this conference.

I also hope we’re not going to see a resurgence in completely medieval beliefs.