December 4th 2013
Subject Major World Religions
Demons and Demonic Possessions
Various religions all over the world acknowledge the fact that spirits do exist and can be roaming around us at anytime; there are even people who state that they can actually see or communicate with these spirits known as mediums. The spirit is said to be what connects the body and the soul, at one time belonging to a physical body .They could be simply lost walking the earth or inflicting torture onto others. This is known as an evil spirit, according to Breanna Lowery’s article on evil spirits Do you know the difference between an evil spirit and a demon? “Evil spirits are “entities that had a physical body at some point, though they were most likely not the nicest person”. These evil spirits goal is to make you suffer any way they can, and fill your life with fear. Most evil spirits if found in a home can be diminished with proper cleansing or a blessing of the house. Many people assume paranormal activity is due to a spirit that is roaming in their home, or always confusing them with demons. But what is a demon and is goal the same as an evil spirit? Since spirits have once had a physical body, where does that leave demons? Have they also belonged to a body? And is it possible for them to actually inhabit the body of a living person as many people say.
According to Lowery’s article, “demons have never had a physical body, they are descended from hell itself. Demons can be commonly known as manipulators who can perceive themselves as whatever they want in order to get a person’s trust”. As put in the Farlex dictionary a demon is “an evil supernatural being, the devil”, which comes to show that the sole purpose of a demon is to inflict pain onto others. Just as Lowery affirmed, “their sole mission is to seek and destroy, unlike evil spirits a demon can actually kill you, and they are very powerful force to be reckoned with”.
There are a hand-full of religions that claim humans can be in fact possessed by demonic spirits, the Bible for example,it recounts six instances of Jesus casting out demons, as shown in Benjamin Radford’s article Exorcisms: Fact and Fiction about Demonic Possession. Demons are commonly known to eventually possess an individual. When a person is possessed by a demon, it means that they have the demon within them, causing them to lose control of their own body. The person cannot act on their own; the demon is now in control. “The church states that demons can interfere in one of two ways with their victims 1. They can cause an obsession, in which the demon fills the mind of its victim with evil thoughts. 2. They can resort to actual possession in which the demon physically takes over the human body” says author and exorcist Fr. Amorth. Not only can a demon take over a person but it can also become part of an item, a structural attachment, through that item it can channel its energy.
As most people know, the one way a person can be liberated form a demon is through an exorcism performed by a certified exorcist, though most of the time they are also priest. The priests who perform these exorcisms have great knowledge of God and contain an enormous amount of faith in him. In agreement with John Hooper’s article Vatican lays down new regulations The Vatican first issued guidelines on exorcism in 1614, then revised them in 199.This ritual, it can be easily explained as a battle between good and evil. The objective of this is to basically send the demon inhabiting the body back to hell, “back where it came from” Hooper tells. In the case of a structural attachment, the item itself would have to have an exorcism performed by the exorcist as well. Obviously before the priest can actually go through with the procedure the Catholic Church conducts a very thorough examination of those who claim to be possessed, since in some situations the person is truly sick with an illness that must be treated by a medical doctor. There