The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist (30 page)

C
HAPTER TEN: CROSSING OVER

125: her name would later be revealed: The woman's identity has been changed to ensure her anonymity.

C
HAPTER ELEVEN: THE FALL

136: “Whenever we are with people”: Joseph Cardinal Bernardin,
Gift of Peace
, p. 47.

143: EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing): A treatment combining known psychotherapies with external stimuli, in which the patient is asked to identify a negative memory and then to focus on that image, while at the same time rapidly moving the eyes back and forth, following the fingers of the therapist. For more on EMDR read Francine Shapiro and Margot Silk Forrest's EMDR:
The Breakthrough “Eye Movement” Therapy for Overcoming Anxiety, Stress, and Trauma
(New York: Basic Books, 1997).

C
HAPTER TWELVE: SUFFERING OF THE SOUL

153: pure spirits do not occupy space: Thomas Aquinas,
Summa Theologia
I, 52, 1.

153: “In this way, [the demon] tries to”: Francesco Bamonte,
Possessioni diaholiche ed esorcismo
, p. 40.

153: “Every exorcism is like hitting the demon”: Gabriele Amorth,
An Exorcist Tells His Story
, p. 97.

154: “Of course the object itself has no power”: Father José Antonio Fortea,
Interview with an Exorcist
, pp. 66-67.

154: “The strongest and most lasting impression”: Gabriele Amorth,
An Exorcist: More Stories
, p. 11.

154: Anna, now thirty-five: Her name has been changed at her request to protect her anonymity.

C
HAPTER THIRTEEN:
A P
ASTORAL APPROACH

163: enters through the person's senses: Other exorcists have observed the unusual connection demons have with the senses of their victim. “It is as if the demon, while possessing the body, feels whatever the body senses at a given moment. Whatever upsets the body also upsets the demon,” José Antonio Fortea,
Interview with an Exorcist
, p.
69.
In this way, however, the demon will also unwittingly reveal his presence, by reacting to the prayers of the exorcism.

164: Hebrew tradition is believed to give: Joshua Trachtenberg,
Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion
, p. 91. For more on names see Gabriele Nanni,
Il dito di Dio e il potere di Sotana: L'esorcismo
, p. 186; and S. Vernon Mc-Casland's
By the Finger of God: Demon Possession and Exorcism in Early Christianity in the Light of Modern Views of Mental Illness
, pp. 96-109.

164: “the number and name of the spirits”: No. 14 in the guidelines of the 1952
Roman Ritual.

168: “I always say that the exorcism is ten percent”: Gabriele Amorth,
An Exorcist Tells His Story
, p. 112.

C
HAPTER FOURTEEN: WINDOWS TO THE SOUL

174: threw herself out the window: Gabriele Amorth,
An Exorcist Tells His
Story
, pp. 83-84.

175: “He need only enter into”: Antonin-Gilbert Sertillanges, Catechism des Incroyants I, 186, from
Who Is the Devil?
by Nicolas Corte,
The Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Catholidsm
, p. 88.

176: “partly so that he may do that”: Pie-Raymond Régamey, O.P.,
What Is an Angel?
Translated from the French by Dom Mark Pontifex, p. 75.

177: “A priest who is afraid”: Gabriele Amorth,
An Exorcist Tells His Story
, p. 194.

177: “If this Lord is powerful”: Saint Teresa of Avila,
The Book of Her Life
, Chapter 25, p. 19, as quoted in Gabriele Amorth,
An Exorcist Tells His Story
, pp. 64-65.

177: “Throughout her life”:
Catechism of the Catholic Church
149, p. 46.

177: “God made [Satan] magnificent”: Fr. José Antonio Fortea,
Interview with an Exorcist
, p. 42.

178: “if she weren't stopping me!”: Many people accuse the Catholic Church of practicing idolatry in its veneration of Mary. The dogma of the Church is quite clear. Mary should be honored for her service to God, but never worshiped. To establish a relationship with Mary, theologians say, is to be better united with Jesus Christ, who chose Mary as a partner to his earthly ministry. Pope Paul VI confirmed this when he said in an address on April 24, 1970, “If we want to call ourselves Christians we must be Marian, that is, we must recognize the essential, vital and providential relationship that unites Our Lady to Jesus, and that opens up a pathway to us that leads to him.”

In one exorcism Father Bamonte recorded the demonic voice saying: “Under the cross, she gathered with her hands the flooding blood [of Christ] and with those hands she prayed to God, she praised and thanked the Father, she forgave and loved the ones who nailed her son [to the cross] and said that she wanted to feel that pain to alleviate the pain of her son but she knew she couldn't and I suffered, I've never suffered that much.” Another time, “We wanted to rejoice [at Christ being crucified] but instead she killed us with her crying; her tears are like fire that kills us.”

180: the woman, Giovanna: This is a pseudonym.

185: called Pseudo-Dionysius: The name Pseudo-Dionysius denotes an unknown theologian who wrote in the late fifth or early sixth century C.E. As a neo-Platonist, Dionysius synthesized elements of Greek philosophy, most notably the teachings of Plotinus and Proclus into a Christian worldview. The breadth of his knowledge suggests that he was a learned man (possibly a student of Proclus) who probably lived in Syria. Dionysius completed four major works,
Divine Names, Celestial Hierarchies, Ecclesiastical Hierarchies, and Mystical Theology.
Though rejected by some within the Church, the writings were later used during the Lateran Council (649) to defend certain tenets of the faith, and in the Middle Ages influenced important Scholastic writers like Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas.

186: “receives the rays of the supreme Deity”: Dionysius the Areopagite,
Celestial Hierarchies
, p. 3

186: “That there are in heaven Thrones”: Pie-Raymond Régamey, O.P.,
What Is an Angel?
Translated from the French by Dom Mark Pontifex, p. 48.

188: an actual Satanic possession: While Satan is the leader of all the fallen angels, it is very rare for him to physically be present in a demonic possession. Most times, explain exorcists, he pulls the strings from afar, sending lesser demons to do his bidding. But occasionally, Satan himself is present. Father Daniel believes he was in this instance because of the length and ferocity of this case.

C
HAPTER FIFTEEN: LIBERATION

192: Silvia, a hollow-eyed woman: Any identifying traits have been changed to protect the victim's anonymity.

194: “Liberation is a gift from God”: Father Matteo La Grua,
Lapreghiera di liberazione
, p. 105.
“Liberazione e un dono di Dio, e Dio pub liberare quando vuole e come vuole, anche senza Vintervento dell'uomo e di intermediari umani.”

194: Not everybody has to be a Catholic: All major religions believe in some form of exorcism. Islam specifies that people can become possessed by jinns, spirits that can be either good or bad. In order to cast out an evil jinn, the exorcist performs an official ceremony in which he reads passages from the Quran to the possessed person. In the Hindu tradition, numerous holy books contain ceremonies for casting out spirits, which is accomplished by reciting names of the Narasimha and reading from the
Bhagavata Purana
(scriptures) aloud. In Judaism, a
dybbuk
is a wandering soul with the ability to attach itself to a living person. Erich Bischoff documents a Jewish possession and exorcism in the Middle Ages: “The spirit was the soul of a drunken Jew, who died without prayer and impenitent. Having wandered for a long time it was permitted to him to enter into a woman as she was in the act of blaspheming, and since that moment the woman (an epileptic-hysteric) suffered terribly. Lurja speaks to the tormenting spirit and treats him as Christian exorcists treat the devil; he reprimands him, makes him tell his story, etc. By means of the ‘Name’ he at length obliges him to come forth by the little toe of the possessed, which the spirit thus handled with his habitual vehemence,” from
Die Kabbalah, Einfiihrung in diejüdische Mystik und Geheimwissenschaft
, Leipzig, 1903, p. 87, as quoted in T. K. Oesterreich,
Possession: Demonical and Other Among Primitive Races in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and Modern Times
, p. 185.

For more on Islamic and Jewish demonology, see T. Witton Davies's
Magic, Divination, and Demonology among the Hebrews and Their Neighbors
, pp. 95-130.

194: “Exorcism can drive a demon”: Father José Antonio Fortea,
Interview with an Exorcist
, p. 70.

195: “Sincere forgiveness, which includes prayer”: Gabriele Amorth,
An Exorcist Tells His Story
, p. 113.

197: In 2003, Beatrice, a forty-six-year-old: All details have been changed to protect the identity of the individual.

200:
which I will continue to do:
Father Bamonte believes that Beatrice's involvement in the occult opened her up to a curse placed on her while she was on vacation. During the exorcisms, her face would contort, with her lips turning black and sometimes curling inward, seeming to disappear.

200: numerous anthropologists have documented: On p. 367 of Etzel Càrdena, Stephen Jay Lynn, and Stanley Krippner,
Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence
(Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2000), Stanley Krippner and Jeanne Achterberg cite a study done by Achterberg in 1985, titled “Imagery and Healing.”

200: life-threatening diseases: In a documented case, a Filipino American woman whose lupus (a chronic autoimmune disease that can be fatal) had not responded to traditional medical treatment went into remission after visiting a Filipino healer, who claimed to have removed a curse put on her by a jealous lover. R. A. Kirkpatrick, “Witchcraft and Lupus Erythematosus,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
245 (1981), as cited in
Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence
, Stanley Krippner and Jeanne Achterberg, p. 359.

Likewise, scores of studies have been done on people reporting cures being effected at the shrine of Lourdes, France: R. Cranston,
The Miracle of Lourdes
(New York: Popular Library), as cited by Stanley Krippner and Jeanne Achterberg in “Anomalous Healing Experiences,” in
Varieties of Anomalous Experience
, p. 363.

201: for many indigenous people “healing” means: Taken from Stanley Krippner and Jeanne Achterberg's “Anomalous Healing Experiences,” in
Varieties of Anomalous Experience
, p. 359.

201: voodoo possession can be considered a kind of psychotherapy or “folk therapy”: Steve Mizrach writes: “It might also allow a person to integrate parts of his personality otherwise jeopardized by narrow social roles—a man's possession by
Erzulie
might allow him ‘to get in touch’ with his ‘feminine side,’ so to speak. A quiet, mousy woman who was told that she had become
Ogoun
might find her ‘inner fierceness’ after the experience.” “Neurophysiological and Psychological Approaches to Spirit Possession in Haiti,”
www.fiu.edu/mizrachs/spiritpos.html
.

201: the “psychologically highly charged atmosphere”: I. M. Lewis,
Ecstatic Religion: A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession
, 3rd ed., p. 47.

202: reattributing is a particularly effective technique: Schwartz and Begley,
The Mind and the Brain
, p. 84, as quoted in
The Spiritual Brain
, Mario Beauregard andDenyse O'Leary, p. 130.

204: the results of his experiments are far from conclusive: E. Rodin, “A neu-robiological model for near-death experiences,” 1989, as quoted by Bruce Greyson, “Near-Death Experiences,” in
Varieties of Anomalous Experience
, pp. 335-36.

204: Even British author … Richard Dawkins, who used the helmet: As seen on the BBC Two
Horizon
program, “God on the Brain,” 2003.

204: “Correlating a brain state with an experience”: Bruce Greyson, “Near-Death Experiences,” in
Varieties of Anomalous Experience
, p. 337.

204: knowing how a television set works: R. Strassman, “Endogenous Ketamine-like Compounds and the NDE: If So, So What?”
Journal of Near-Death Studies
(1997), p. 3 8; as quoted in Bruce Greyson, “Near-Death Experiences,” in
Varieties of Anomalous Experience
, p. 338.

205: John Haught describes a concept: John Haught,
Is Nature Enough? Meaning and Truth in the Age of Science
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

206: “the experience of certain mystical contact”: Beauregard and O'Leary,
The Spiritual Brain
, p. 346.

206: the experiences neurally engaged different regions: Beauregard and O'Leary,
The Spiritual Brain
, pp. 274-76.

206: “Is the ego perceiving something”: From a forthcoming book by Dr. Craig Isaacs,
Revelations and Possession: Distinguishing the Spiritual Experience from the Psychological
, pp. 67-68.

207: depending on the therapist's school of thought: Dr. Isaacs references the theories of John Weir Perry, as documented in
Trials of the Visionary Mind
, (New York: SUNY Press, 1999), in which Perry evaluates five contending approaches to psychosis. Dr. Isaacs summarizes them as “a fear and mistrust of the disorder; viewing brain disorders as primarily causing psychosis; viewing psychosis as a disorganized and unnecessary emotional response to stimuli; a complete negation of existence of an inner life; and finally as a desire for quick fixes which leads to faulty theory.” In Perry's opinion, the first approach usually wins out, and as such, he claims that most theories are designed to “suppress” the behavior rather than to heal it. Isaacs,
Revelations and Possession
, pp. 79-80.

207: This understanding can then be carried: Isaacs,
Revelations and Possession
, p. 114.

207: “Thus, spiritual illness may also be seen”: Isaacs,
Revelations and Possession
, p. 114.