Demand for exorcisms is up threefold in Italy, so Vatican is holding conference (see: eating feces)

[muriel_volestrangler]

The Vatican hopes to step up its game against demon possessions with a week-long international conference in April to address a threefold increase in demand in Italy alone for the services of exorcists.
...
The assessment is a major finding of a four-day meeting in Sicily that included testimony on sects and Satanism, according to Vatican Radio.

One of the organizers of the Sicily gathering, Friar Beningo Palilla, told Vatican Radio there are some 500,000 cases requiring exorcism in Italy each year.

He blames the increase in recent years on a growing number of people seeking the services of fortune tellers and Tarot readers. Such practices "open the door to the devil and to possession," he said.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/02/23/vatican-host-international-exorcism-conference-meet-growing-demand/367735002/

See also:

POPE FRANCIS COMPARES CONSUMPTION OF FAKE NEWS TO EATING FECES

Pope Francis has condemned media outlets for promoting fake news to discredit public figures, comparing its consumption to “coprophagia,” or eating feces.

In an interview with the Belgian Catholic weekly Tertio, the pontiff said that the spreading of disinformation was “probably the greatest damage that the media can do” and it had a “very great responsibility” not to slander others and fall into “coprophilia,” an obsessive interest with excrement.

“I believe that the media should be very clear, very transparent, and not fall prey—without offence, please—to the sickness of coprophilia, which is always wanting to communicate scandal, to communicate ugly things, even though they may be true,” he said. “And since people have a tendency towards the sickness of coprophagia, it can do great harm.”

http://www.newsweek.com/pope-francis-compares-consumption-fake-news-eating-feces-529550

Not that the Vatican would stoop to slandering its competitors in the bullshit market with "opening the door to possession", oh no.

[Cartoonist]

1. Fortune tellers

I'm smiling at one group of bullshitters giving legitimacy to another group of bullshitters. It's all real, from Tarot cards to the Holy Eucharist. I'm choking on the coprophagia.

[MineralMan]

6. 'You will meet a dark, handsome man and travel to foreign lands soon.'

That's the last fortune the Pope got, before closing the door on such dangerous things.

[Voltaire2]

2. In any other setting a person who claims

Last edited Tue Feb 27, 2018, 10:02 AM - Edit history (1)

that they are, or somebody else is possessed by demons would likely be diagnosed as suffering from a psychotic delusion.

[newcriminal]

3. Unless the symptoms include throwing a 200 pound man across a room while speaking Latin.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/04/health/exorcism-doctor/index.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/01/as-a-psychiatrist-i-diagnose-mental-illness-and-sometimes-demonic-possession/?utm_term=.946fadebf74b

[Voltaire2]

4. Note they both cite the same crank.

I decline to find Gallagher’s testimony credible.

[Cartoonist]

7. Kudos to Gallagher

He's found a way to con the con-men.

[newcriminal]

8. If you're referring to the links, one is his essay, the other is an interview of him.

Given his training and experience, I decline to find your opinion noteworthy, unless of course you can debunk either.

[Pope George Ringo II]

9. He is something of an outlier in that respect.

It's fair to say he clearly does not represent the consensus in the field.

[newcriminal]

10. He is an outlier but how many psychiatrists have attempted differential diagnoses on these phenomena

[Pope George Ringo II]

11. Over a long enough timeline, pretty much all of them

Like many of them, he's got some thoughts on stuff he doesn't have the answer for. His thinking is rejected by the majority of his peers.

[newcriminal]

12. I'll rephrase. How many have studied this empirically?

As opposed to argumentum ad populum.

[Pope George Ringo II]

13. Keep rephrasing

Eventually you'll figure out all you've got is an argument from authority. Who isn't really considered an authority by his peers...

[newcriminal]

14. Prove it.

BTW, an opinion based on a head count is a hell of a lot weaker than one based on direct experience and training.

Since you have neither, I repeat: prove it.

[Pope George Ringo II]

15. What? That your argument from authority lacks credibility?

You shot yourself in the foot without any help from me the instant you made that mistake. I'm not responsible for that, I'm just letting you know where you went wrong.

Seriously, did you think you had a point with trotting out a lone crank like this?

[newcriminal]

16. I see your conversation is quickly degrading.

Let me know a moment before you go to full-blown hissing and namecalling.

You are calling the content of the OP the scribblings of "a lone crank".

I said "Prove it".

For some inexplicable reason you processed that as proving logical fallacy.

Now, hold it together long enough to prove your own questionable point without saying 9 out of 10 dentists use Crest.

[Pope George Ringo II]

17. You went for the argument from authority fallacy and you're going to have to ride it to the end

Before I go hunting for surveys on how many professionals think he's a nut, why don't you produce the peer-reviewed work showing possession is something to be taken seriously? If you're going to start that line you can't shift the burden of proof. You've made a claim that you found a guy with a truly...different...view on these cases. Surely there's some research that backs him up and contradicts the field?

That burden of proof is a heavy thing. I understand why you want to get rid of it. But you made the argument from authority. It's up to you to prove he's an authority, and it's not my job to prove he's a crank until you offer something.

[newcriminal]

18. Ah, backing away from your statement with the hoary "you prove it".

I'm not going into a 20 post subthread with you full of namecalling, trite internet arguments and ad hominems. Either disprove him or not. Don't waste my time with extraneous attacks on the messenger.

Why don't you just produce a reputable and knowledgeable document debunking what he's written. That was your original claim and the only thing from you that interests me now.

My willingness to engage with you is time sensitive.

[Pope George Ringo II]

19. So...the only thing you can do with the burden of proof is foist it on someone else

And then whine when they won't take it.

Goodbye.

[newcriminal]

20. Should you ever again attempt to debunk a claim to me, be ready to back it up.

From your use of "whine", I see the namecalling is about to commence. Do it quietly. I won't be in the subthread to hear it and it may annoy others.

[Pope George Ringo II]

21. I am going to admit it.

This just keeps getting funnier and funnier the more I think about it. As hilarious as, "Srsly, he does srs research into demonic possession" is on the face of it, the depth and breadth of the absurdity involved in actually researching demonic possession is simply staggering.

I break out in fits of the giggles every time I ponder that if one group got exorcisms, what does the non-placebo group get?

Then I crack up pondering the alternative, coming up with a placebo exorcism.

It's like the guy isn't bright enough to grasp why atheists never have to worry about demonic possession or something. It's a vicious circle of comedy.

[newcriminal]

22. I see you had a restless night.

Ointment will take care of it.

As to your ducks, meet a braying ass:

A stupid youtube video is no rebuttal to an article that concludes something you viscerally cannot contemplate.

Just admit it and go to a protected echo chamber instead of a discussion board where things are . . . discussed.

[Pope George Ringo II]

40. Your first exposure to time zones, I take it?

There is nothing particularly noteworthy and unusual about a working adult being up and around when I posted that. Still, it's amusing that when you can't figure out why I'm laughing at you at what you perceive to be early, you invent a fiction to make yourself feel better. It's religion in a nutshell. Congratulations.

Speaking of you inventing fiction, any intention of apologizing for your "empirical research" bit of fiction? Since we're all clear that Gallagher never did any of that and you just invented a piece of bullshit out of thin air? Can you at least summon the integrity to do that? Or are you just going to beg your invisible friend for forgiveness?

Oh, to heck with it. I thought you might be at least entertaining, but you just keep making stuff up because it's easier for you to deal with than reality. In the ignore folder for your lack of integrity it is.

[newcriminal]

41. This is a fine example of an interior dialogue.

Enjoy it.

[marylandblue]

25. It's clear he has not studied it empirically

The minimum in psychiatric research would be have multiple independent qualified observers agree that this is not a known psychiatric disorder. Then he had have to come up some objective criteria for his new proposal- demonic possession disorder- that distinguish it from other disorders. Then he'd have publish his data and other researchers would have to be able reproduce his observation based on his criteria. He hasn't done any of that.

All he's actually done is said " I don't know what it is, so it must be demonic posession. They've done some magic things, but I can't show them to you."

[newcriminal]

27. Not quite.

He has attended to many patients. That is empirical, not theoretical, experience. What he has not yet done is reduced his observations to articles for review in journals.

[marylandblue]

29. Fine then, he has not done a proper empirical study

It's not even about theory vs. practice. Lots of doctors have come up with their own syndromes based on clinical observations, don't even need a theory, but if other doctors can't see the same thing, then it will never be accepted. If he talks to newspapers rather than publish in medical journals, then other doctors aren't even going to look at it, and it will remain a fringe thing without credibility.

[newcriminal]

31. No, but he's gathered empirical evidence.

[marylandblue]

33. Everything is empirical evidence

Science rests on good, validated evidence, not just any evidence. I saw a unicorn once. This is evidence for unicorns. But nobody else saw it, I have pictures, I don't even have hoofprints, so it isn't very good evidence. Plenty of evidence turned out to be wrong or misunderstood on closer examination.

[newcriminal]

35. Butter is empirical evidence of what?

[marylandblue]

38. Of what happens when you churn milk.

[newcriminal]

43. Cheese.

Different hypothesis from the same empirical evidence.

[marylandblue]

45. Cheese is fermented, butter is not

Different process, different endpoint. Good empirical evidence because anyone who follows the cheese process gets cheese, and if you follow the butter process, you get butter.

[newcriminal]

46. Cottage cheese?

[marylandblue]

47. Again, different process gives different results

everytime. If it didn't turn out that way everytime, your cheese factory would suddenly.starting making butter or shit.

[newcriminal]

49. It would require empirical observation first to determin the process.

[marylandblue]

50. The cheese making process is thousands of years old

So we don't know who first observed it, but we do have a lot of good evidence that it works.

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. "they will also hardly allow themselves to be easily recorded by video equipment" - why?

Why 'hardly'? Why should these demons he believes exist be in the least bit camera shy? He thinks they're quite happy to show evidence of their existence to a few witnesses at a time, including, he claims, himself, but he thinks they wouldn't want to be recorded.

This sounds exactly like a man trying to explain why he has no evidence. An excuse for maintaining a faith in his church that tells him demons exist, when he wants to believe that the church wouldn't make things up. And that's the situation when the metaphor of eating the shit he has been peddled ought to spring to his mind.

Now we're in the age of camera phones in the hands of billions, the video evidence should be piling up. But it isn't.

[newcriminal]

28. The rest of the quote already answered your question:

"He says demons won't submit to lab studies or allow themselves to be easily recorded by video equipment. They want to sow doubt, not confirm their existence, he says. Nor will the church compromise the privacy of a person suffering from possession just to provide film to skeptics.

"Gallagher says he sees his work with the possessed as an extension of his responsibilities as a doctor."

Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, a psychiatrist who specializes in schizophrenia, arrived at a similar conclusion after he had an unnerving experience with a patient.

Lieberman was asked to examine the videotape of an exorcism that he subsequently dismissed as unconvincing.

Then he met a woman who, he said, "freaked me out."

Lieberman, director of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, says he and a family therapist were asked to examine a young woman who some thought was possessed. He and his colleague tried to treat the woman for several months but gave up because they had no success.

Something happened during the treatment, though, that he still can't explain. After sessions with the woman, he says, he'd go home in the evenings, and the lights in his house would go off by themselves, photographs and artwork would fall or slide off shelves, and he'd experience a piercing headache.

When he mentioned to this to his colleague one day, her response stunned him: She'd been having the exact same experiences.

"I had to sort of admit that I didn't really know what was going on," Lieberman says. "Because of the bizarre things that occurred, I wouldn't say that (demonic possession) is impossible or categorically rule it out ... although I have very limited empirical evidence to verify its existence."

[marylandblue]

32. So if demons don't like to be filmed

Then it seems you could exorcise them just by filming the person day and night. Has he compared this treatment to standard exorcism to see which works better?

Also, do atheists or Unitarians ever get possessed by demons, or do demons only like to torment Catholics?

[newcriminal]

34. Ask Harry.

http://atheistfoundation.org.au/article/the-devil-unjustly-maligned/

[marylandblue]

36. Very funny. What's your point?

[newcriminal]

37. There is no point in an answer to a pointless question.

[marylandblue]

39. Not a pointless question. It's a scientific question

Exactly what a scientist would ask. In Africa, you can become possessed by a benign spirit that turns you into a shaman. Also the process appears to be different in different parts of Africa. So a scientist would ask, "why don't Catholics ever get possessed by benign spirits? "Why do spirits operate differently in different parts of Africa?" These are real scientific questions, usually asked by anthropologists rather than psychiatrists, though.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/africamystics.wordpress.com/2015/03/13/ancestral-spirits/amp/

[newcriminal]

42. In the interest of science, I'll answer your last question.

do demons only like to torment Catholics?

Only if the Catholic is dancing on a pinhead.

[marylandblue]

48. So I'd say Dr. Gallagher doesn't have very good evidence

of actual demons. But he does have good evidence that Catholics sometimes believe that they are possessed by demons.

[newcriminal]

51. As to what Catholics believe, just read the Catechism, pertinently paragraph 1673.

As to what Dr. Gallagher has experienced, I'd say he has significant observational evidence to suggest there is no natural explanation for what these people are going through.

Of course, anyone can dismiss all of this -without any examination - and say just Catholic bullshit - but I prefer to learn more about this with an open mind. Nothing good comes from a doctrinaire mindset.

[Mariana]

52. How are you planning to learn more about it?

I'm not making fun, I honestly want to know.

[newcriminal]

56. The CNN link states he's writing a book on the subject.

Gallagher says he sees his work with the possessed as an extension of his responsibilities as a doctor.

In a passage from a book he is working on about demonic possession in America, he says that it is the duty of a physician to help people in great distress "without concern whether they have debatable or controversial conditions."

It's not likely to be a scientific book but it will be out there for better or worse. It will be a fixed target that will survive scrutiny or not.

Frankly, I'm uncertain how to examine this scientifically if and when all known and natural diagnoses are eliminated.

[Mariana]

59. First thing is to eliminate all known and natural diagnoses.

Get a bunch of other psychiatrists to examine and test these patients. Make sure the doctors represent a mix of all faiths and of no faith. If a significant number of them independently come to the conclusion that there are no known and natural diagnoses for these individuals, then we'd have a starting point to discuss what the problem could be.

[marylandblue]

54. I have read the information you posted with an open mind

And I still think the entire argument comes down to "I can't explain it, therefore demons." That may be good enough for you, but science doesn't work that way. Science considers all possible explanations starting with the most likely (i.e.is very open minded) then explores each one in a careful manner until it finds the one that best explains all the data without making any unwarranted assumptions. But this is difficult to do without controlled experiments, or at least independent unbiased observers and it does not appear that he has found any independent psychiatrists to confirm that these people are not delusional or that the "unexplained" things don't have better explanations.

While catechisms are good evidence of official doctrines, the more interesting scientific question is whether actual Catholics believe it. Clearly some do, but I suspect there are some who do not, and that this might make for some interesting dinner table conversation in Catholic households.

[newcriminal]

57. I can't say your conclusion is categoricaly wrong.

Personally, I'd like to see some more investigation.

[marylandblue]

58. I always like investigation, I like having my beliefs challenged

[muriel_volestrangler]

44. Which is the typical answer of someone paranoid. He ought to get a colleague to examine him

"They do these things, but it's to make people who see it, like me, seem weird. Doubt is bad. And you wanting some evidence is bad for others. "

I repeat: the Catholic church is feeding its more gullible followers shit, and using it to attack its competitors. The morals of claiming demons possess people are awful.

[Mariana]

24. Gallagher apparently has never visited a martial arts school.

My 90lb kid regularly threw 200lb men across the room. Furthermore, there is video of her doing it. Some of the video has been published on the school's website.

If she had spent a little time memorizing some Latin sentences, she could have done that, too.

[newcriminal]

30. Keep an eye on her neck.

[MineralMan]

5. I'm glad to see the Vatican modernizing.

Now, they've finally reached the 18th century. There's hope now for a new, more rational RCC.

[Ferrets are Cool]

26. Start in the White House

[marylandblue]

55. If a priest can cast out the Russian spy in the White House

Then I am all for it.

[Iggo]

53. Exorcism, people. Exorcism.

They're talking about demonic possession.

Like it's real.

Actual grown-ups.

Jeezus Fuck!