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Biblical allusions interpretation
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Possession isn’t something you only see in movies, but it can actually happen in real life. There is science behind possession, it’s just the matter of finding all of the right information. A physician by the name of Richard Mead denied the existence of possession in 1749. He believed that there was no such thing as demonic possession, but that people were just mentally ill. Many people have their own different views on possession. Some people believe it to be true and others think that it could just be a mental illness. The Bible also has some facts about possession as well. Some physicians actually question the Bible and the possessions in it. People opened up Asylums, for the people they claimed to be mentally ill and not possessed.
A man by the name of James McKee worked at Northampton General Lunatic Asylum, wrote a long annual report on his asylum. He said, insanity is attributed to a disorder of the nervous system, and yet it is to be cured not by medicine, but by “moral and religious treatment.”(Journal of the history of ideas Volume 74, Pg. 555) On July 1, 1855 Joseph Souter’s article was in the Journal. It was titled, “Does Any Analogy Exist between Insanity and Demonical Possession?” He claimed that insanity was the result of demonic possession. He believed that people couldn't just get possessed by demonic spirits for no reason, but they had to have some type of mental illness that lead to possession.
Souter also disagreed with the existence of demonic possessions in the Bible. He came to his own conclusion that Satan has a limit of powers in the modern world. He said that Satan doesn’t have that much power to allow demons to possess a human body. Yet they believed Satan was the route of possessions, that he influenc...
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...ays falls back to mental illness. The other reasoning is relating back to the Bible. Believing that Demonic possessions did and still can happen. That Jesus, when he was walking on earth actually healed those who were possessed by evil spirits.
Works Cited
Ossa-Richardson, Anthony. Possession or Insanity? Two Views from the Victorian Lunatic Asylum 74: 553-575. Print.
Strafford, Betty. "The Journal of Spirituality and Paranormal Studies." The Growing Evidence For "Demonic Possession": What Should Psychiatry's Response Be?: 23-40. Print.
William, Monter. "Mattaincourt 1627-31." The Catholic Salem: How the Devil Destroyed A Saint's Parish (Mattaincourt, 1627-31). : , . . Print.
Duffey, John. The Anneliese Michael Exorcism. New York: WIPF and STOCK Publishers, . Print.
Duffey, John. The Anneliese Michael Exorcism. New York: WIPF and STOCK Publishers, . Print.
Before Kirkbride's standardized methods for mental hospitals, those with mental illness suffered crude and inhuman treatment. Beginning in Colonial America society, people suffering from mental illness were referred to as lunatics. Colonists viewed lunatics as being possessed by the devil, and usually were removed from societ...
Levitating beds, loss of memory for long periods of time, loss of bladder control, speaking in tongues, these are all symptoms known to be associated with possession. A possession is having control or owning (Farlex). When a person is possessed they have no control over their feelings or actions a majority of the time. The reason it is called a possession is because, when one is possessed, the spirit or demon has control over that person. The possession and exorcism of Roland Doe is one of the most documented possessions in history. Many still believe the case as fictional, but there is significant evidence of Doe’s possession.
Mental health, what was once considered being possessed was considered the explanation of mental health problems and the solution was to put you in a prison for the rest of your life or to have an exorcism done on you.
I have recently examined my latest patient, on OCtober 23 at 10:45 A.M. The patient has been accused with the murder of the old man. The patient admits to what he has done but his beliefs make him think that he is completely sane and not mad. “The disease had sharpened my senses-not destroyed-not dulled them”(Poe 203).
Mental illness has been around as long as people have been. However, the movement really started in the 19th century during industrialization. The Western countries saw an immense increase in the number and size of insane asylums, during what was known as “the great confinement” or the “asylum era” (Torrey, Stieber, Ezekiel, Wolfe, Sharfstein, Noble, Flynn Criminalizing the Seriously Mentally Ill). Laws were starting to be made to pressure authorities to face the people who were deemed insane by family members and hospital administrators. Because of the overpopulation in the institutions, treatment became more impersonal and had a complex mix of mental and social-economic problems. During this time the term “psychiatry” was identified as the medical specialty for the people who had the job as asylum superintendents. These superintendents assumed managerial roles in asylums for people who were considered “alienated” from society; people with less serious conditions wer...
The term possession is widely accepted as being "influenced or controlled by something (as an evil spirit, a passion, or an idea)". (Merriam-Webster) There have been numerous cases of spiritual possessions that causes harm to peoples. According to the Spiritual Research Foundation, to be possessed by spirits means that "the physical, mental, intellectual or spiritual functioning of a person if affected or altered" by such spirits. In both definitions, there is a common ground that spirits take control of whatever they inhabit. Throughout history, there have been occurrences of spiritual possessions of mostly toys or humans. Due to the media's over exaggeration of these "true stories", our minds are warped into believing that we are paranoid over toys, mainly dolls and humans who act abnormally. These spirits still linger in our world because of their refusal to “crossover” to the otherworld. They are an enigma beyond our capability of controlling. We cannot see them, we can only feel their presence. Popular portrayals of spiritual possessions from media and literature are Chucky from Child’s Play, The Exorcist, Dead Silence, The Conjuring, and the Supernatural series. All of these forms of media share a commonality in which the spirits inflict violence towards people surrounding them. Evil spirits are commonly portrayed through the possession of a suitable vessel. These spirits are wicked and angry beings who try to return from the dead, causing chaos and mayhem. Whether it be possessing non-living objects or a body, we are afraid of these things due to our inability to take control over them. Our lack of control causes us to be vulnerable to threats from possessed objects. The more afraid we are, the stronger the spirit...
Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Pantheon, 1965.
Pseudopatients pretended to have symptoms of mental disorders and admitted to various mental hospitals. Rosenhan assumed that if pseudopatients were discovered to be normal and released from the hospitals, sanity could be distinguished from insanity and terms like “mental illness” and “manic-depressive” would be reliable. Surprisingly, all pseudopatients were admitted to the hospitals. Although the patients in the hospitals were able to “‘detect’ the pseudopatients’ sanity”, clinicians and nurses often attributed those normal behaviors to the labeled insanity (Rosenhan, p. 181). Rosenhan found “physicians are more inclined to call a healthy person sick … than a sick person healthy” (p. 181), and “behaviors that are stimulated by the environment are commonly misattributed to the patient’s disorder” (p. 182). Therefore, Rosenhan concluded the psychiatric diagnosis is not reliable, and “we cannot distinguish insanity from sanity” (p.
The BBC documentary, Mental: A History of the Madhouse, delves into Britain’s mental asylums and explores not only the life of the patients in these asylums, but also explains some of the treatments used on such patients (from the early 1950s to the late 1990s). The attitudes held against mental illness and those afflicted by it during the time were those of good intentions, although the vast majority of treatments and aid being carried out against the patients were anything but “good”. In 1948, mental health began to be included in the NHS (National Health Service) as an actual medical condition, this helped to bring mental disabilities under the umbrella of equality with all other medical conditions; however, asylums not only housed people
According to Schizophrenia.com, schizophrenia can be traced to the old Pharaonic Egypt, as far back as the second millennium before Christ. At one point in history, all people who were considered "abnormal," whether due to mental illn...
The Southern Ohio Lunatic Asylum, a sanatorium in which a melting pot of the state’s criminally insane, daft and demented were housed, was later effectively named the Dayton State Hospital, ultimately named 10 Wilmington Place, which completely “derails” past notions of the previous named building, and has now become a retirement home for the elderly. “It must be remembered that popular thinking at this time had by no means entirely removed from “insanity” its ancient association with demons, spirits sin and similar mythical phenomena. Neither was it generally considered in the category of illness and hence the afflicted were viewed with an admixture of curiosity, shame and guilt” (INSIDE D.S.H 2). The author is conveying that there was a misconception toward the afflicted that they were not only insane but also demonically possessed, hence the obscurity of the patients due to curiosity and shame by the community. In such films as House on Haunted Hill in which certain archaic medical experiments were performed on patients that once were housed there; as a challenge a group of people were offered money to spend the night in a house thought to be haunted by former patients years ago. This movie concept is in accordance with the author’s statement about popular thinking and public views.
where they lose their hold on reality and they believe they are possessed by an evil spirit of a
History shows that signs of mental illness and abnormal behavior have been documented as far back as the early Greeks however, it was not viewed the same as it is today. The mentally ill were previously referred to as mad, insane, lunatics, or maniacs. W.B. Maher and B.A. Maher (1985) note how many of the terms use had roots in old English words that meant emotionally deranged, hurt, unhealthy, or diseased. Although early explanations were not accurate, the characteristics of the mentally ill have remained the same and these characteristics are used to diagnose disorders to date. Cultural norms have always been used to assess and define abnormal behavior. Currently, we have a decent understanding of the correlates and influences of mental illness. Although we do not have complete knowledge, psychopathologists have better resources, technology, and overall research skills than those in ancient times.
Forever has insanity plagued our lives. From the beginning, those who were not what society considered normal were labeled out of their minds. We look back at the old medicine men, and what do we see? Men, who themselves, were insane enough to think of crazy ways to heal our headaches and everything that ailed us, yet we’d hate to be one of them. None of us want to be labeled crazy, out of our minds, or insane. It is the one constant fear in humans, it’s what is hiding under our beds and in our closest, at ages so young we still have night lights. It causes us to scream, hide, and call for someone else to help. Just one person to tell us that we didn’t imagine things and we are not indeed losing our minds. But the truth is the real meaning of insanity is being lost.
...f boundaries between characterizations, identities, the psychological, and the supernatural, is not only ambiguous and incongruous, but unstable, contingent, baseless, mysterious, and haunting.