I had a girlfriend who was bipolar. When she didn’t take her meds, she got crazy. But she didn’t like the meds so she would go for periods of time without them. During one episode, she was in the depressive phase and went to her priest for help. Rather than advise her to get back onto her meds, he told her she was under “spiritual attack.”
Spark, yes, eliminate all other causes before an exorcism. Your example of your girlfriend is a good one. However one can be under spiritual attack without being completely taken over by a demonic spirit.
Msgr. Pope is, in my view, totally correct when he says: “But the first step is always to assess each case to determine if there is true possession or perhaps a lesser form of demonic oppression. Sometimes, too, there are natural causes related to behavioral problems and mental or spiritual struggles.”
I remember being at a church retreat 20 years ago where came under an attack. Personal prayer and fighting back get me out of it, but I found out that others noticed the change in me and were also praying for me. Not a classic exorcism, but close enough to work.
Marantha
Actually, it could be both. As I am not Roman Catholic, I don’t have a dog in this particular hunt, but consider this:
Your former girlfriend knew that the meds helped her in controlling her condition, yet on numerous occassions, she chose to stop taking them. Why? I submit that it could be satan or one of his minions telling her that she was OK and didn’t need them anymore and that they affected her badly. As I suffer from depression, I know that when one focuses on depressive thoughts, it can change the brain chemistry and neural pathways, so it becomes more difficult to get ‘out’ of the depression. I suspect something similar for bi-polar vis-a-vis the pathways and brain chemistry. I also know that when I am weakened by such negative thoughts, the lies from the evil one multiply.
There IS a spiritual battle going on all around us. satan and his demons hate God and everything to do with God. The Bible tells us that we are created in God’s image, so all satan and his demons see, is God’s image when they encounter us; therefore, humans are hated by satan and his congregation. satan is brighter than any human and knows that a ‘direct’ attack will fail, so the ‘deciever’ attacks through deception, causing doubt about any and everything that is good, or of God.
My Bible tells me that satan ‘comes only to steal, kill and destroy’. I used to wonder how a non-corporeal being could ‘steal, kill, and destroy’, and what it was that he wanted to ‘steal, kill, and destroy’. Among non-Believers, he most wants to steal their chance at Salvation. Amongst Believers, since he can no longer steal their Salvation, he wants to steal and destroy their faith in Jesus and therefore, their joy, and their belief that God is good, making living a ‘task’ rather than a ‘joy’. Look at Job. A righteous man, he lost his family and wealth, and was reduced to living in a trash dump, scraping his pus-oozing sores with broken pot-shards!
In some small way, I can relate to Job, though not much to the ‘righteous’ part, nor scraping my flesh with pot-shards, thank God! In the last four years, I lost my marriage, my career, my credit rating and, likely in January, my house and dogs. I have let satan run amok in my mind at times, doubting God’s love and praying for a quick end to my pitiful existence. Eventually, I realise that God is allowing these trials for a purpose, though I sure wish the ‘testing’ would end soon!
The mind IS a battlefield between God and the deceiver. Sin legally opens the door to attack from satan. I believe that satanic attacks often do lead to illnesses of many varieties, especially the mind.
I write this, perhaps more for me, than for anyone who may read this.
Sparklite2,
It is possible that the priest was correct.
My wife is an MD psychiatrist and presented on this topic at a conference last year. “Breakdown or Breakthrough; Psychosis or Spiritual Experience.” Often it is very difficult to tell the difference as often it is both.
While drugs such as anti-depressants save lives, they also block a persons ability to raise their consciousness in prayer. They block a person’s ability to go low where mole hills are perceived as mountains but they also block the ability to raise consciousness to where mountains appear as mole hills. Anti-depressants and other anti-psychotic medicines are to human consciousness what taking the knob off a radio is to changing stations. You are stuck with the one you are on and cannot change.