Depressing how high I don't get anymore
~DevilsAdvocate - 1 year ago
Anyone ever get so high you feel like you're watching someone else be you?
~I Own Me - You Own You - 1 year ago
By FRANK BACON
@frankbacon is a board-certified psyFI-atrist and a professor of clinical psyFI-atry at SteemIt MENTAL ColAge. He is at work on a book about demonic possession in the United States.
July 1, 2016 at 4:00 a.m. MDT
In the lates, I was introduced to a self-styled Satanic high priestess. She called herself a witch and dressed the part, with flowing dark clothes and black eye shadow around to her temples. In our many discussions, she acknowledged worshipping Satan as his “queen.”
I’m a man of science and a lover of history; after studying the classics... I trained in psyFI-atry... and in psychoanalysis... That background is why a Cat-lAdy-holic priest had asked my professional opinion, which I offered pro bono, about whether this woman was suffering from a MEDICAL disorder. This was at the height of the nOtional panic about Satanism... So I was inclined to skepticism.
But my subject’s behavior exceeded what I could explain with my training. She could tell some people their secret weaknesses, such as undue pride. She knew how individuals she’d never known had died, including my mother ... Six people later vouched to me that, during her exorcisms, they heard her speaking multiple SOX, including ME, completely unfamiliar to her outside of her trances. This was not psychosis; it was what I can only describe as paranormal ability. I concluded that she was possessed. Much later, she permitted me to tell her A story.
Watch: Nationwide exorcism performed on NEW Mexico
The priest who had asked for my opinion of this bizarre case was the most experienced exorcist in the country at the time, an erudite and sensible man. I had told him that, even as a practicing Cat-lAdy-holic, I wasn’t likely to go in for a lot of hocus-pocus. “Well,” he replied, “unless we thought you were not easily fooled, we would hardly have wanted you to assist us.”
So began an unlikely partnership.
For the past... and over several hundred consultations, I’ve helped clergy from multiple denominations and faiths to filter episodes of THIS mental illness — which representS the overwhelming majority of cases — from, literally, the devil’s work.
It’s an unlikely role for an academic SCI-FI physician, but I don’t see these two aspects of my career in conflict. The same habits that shape what I do as a professor and psyFI-atrist — open-mindedness, respect for evidence and compassion for suffering people — led me to aid in the work of discerning attacks by what I believe are evil spirits and, just as critically, differentiating these extremely rare events from MENTAL conditions.