Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
How would one know if a disorder is d.p. or mental?
Well it appears that possession is mostly common diagnosed in areas which are very highly 'under control' of the Catholic Church.There have been
(and still are) cases of possession & exorcism in the remote village areas of Italy, where people still tie their lives in EXTREMELY closey with the
Church, thus rely on the local Catholic priest as their first port of call for most of their problems.
The worrying side of that is that if a teenager has started acting withdrawn and troublesome, they may get dragged to a Priest to undergo an exorcism.
This happened to a young girl recently, can't remember where exactly, but to cut a long story short, the girl died of a heart attack during the very
protracted and violent process.
The Catholic Church deal with so many cases of possession that they have a 'unit' devoted soley to perfroming exorcisms, though how many of the
cases they deal with ARE possession I really wouldn't like to guess.
As you rightly point out, how is the difference between a possession and an illness diagnosed? Well, in reality, it tends to be more about your
enviroment. If you're living in the centre of New York City and start getting mental problems, you'll go to a Doctor. If you're in some isolated
Catholic village somewhere in the Third World, you'll get taken to a priest.
Then again, a Doctor may diagnose you as mentally ill, but the drugs don't work because you're actually possessed, so you end up in an asylum. I
suppose given that scenario, the he only surefire way you know you've suffered demonic possession rather than mental illness is when you walk out of
an exorcism fully cured and 100% mentally healthy - and remain that way!
