It is by no means uncommon for a person to complain that they are being influenced by someone in close proximity to them. Not infrequently the invading agent seems to reside in the mind, or even the head, of the afflicted person. They beg for it to be removed, and will consult exorcist after exorcist to effect a release from this bondage. But it is obvious that whatever the nature of the focus, it does not appear to be a foreign entity, whether a discarnate human or a truly demonic spirit. It is here that psychiatric knowledge is very helpful, for in fact the unhappy individual is suffering from mental disease. The "differential diagnosis" between entity attack on the one hand and mental disease, usually some type of schizophrenia on the other, can be very difficult, especially because most psychiatrists do not believe in psychic entities. These they would call various types of "complexes" if they belong to psychoanalytic groups, or else manifestations of organic diseases of the brain if even theories that transcended brain function were dismissed as illusory. Since we are all working with material that has not been properly analysed and is therefore subject to our own prejudiced judgement, it is extremely difficult to give definitive rules about the matter of diagnosis and therefore of treatment.
And yet having admitted such extreme agnosticism about the clinical evidence of psychic attacks as opposed to psychiatric or psychopathological manifestations, it is not always so difficult to distinguish between the two clinically. On the whole there is a greater disintegration of the personality where there is severe mental disease than when there is simply demonic infestation. The functions of cognition - namely, knowing, perceiving and conceiving - are interfered with to greater or lesser extent in mental disease, whether organic or psychopathological (some practitioners would see the two as a common whole). By contrast, cognition is better preserved during demonic infestation even if there is severe emotional imbalance and volitional disturbance (an interference with the working of the will). In fact, demonic attacks paralyze the will by virtue of the fear they induce, but in due course the psyche learns to accept the new situation, and then it may grow in the stature of greater health.
There are a number of varieties of schizophrenia, and that most likely to mimic a demonic infestation is the common paranoid type. In this condition, the person believes that they are under constant malign attack from a source deeply implanted within them. It speaks constantly to them, often giving questionable advice and information, and commanding them to perform various actions. Some of these may be deleterious to the person and destructive to other people. Paranoid schizophrenic subjects tend to believe that they are the victims of organized assaults from the dark forces both on the earth and in realms beyond the earth. The cause and mechanism of schizophrenia are still unknown, but a biochemical disturbance of the brain is favoured by many psychiatrists. Nevertheless, the chemical treatment of schizophrenia is not especially successful in many cases, though the voices the sufferers may hear so constantly may be considerably quietened so that there may be a degree of inner peace. At the same time the delusions (false beliefs and impressions) of persecution may also lessen, but there tends to be a residuum of auditory hallucinations (apparent perception of voices not actually present) and sometimes other hallucinations also, and also of paranoid delusions.
The question arises; are schizophrenic subjects more liable to demonic attack than the remainder of the population? My own impression is mildly to the affirmative, since on a number of occasions I have been able to lessen the severity of schizophrenia after deliverance work. But on no occasion have I been able to effect a cure of the mental disease. Practitioners, always unorthodox in my experience, who claim cures of schizophrenia after their deliverance work have always been proved at the very least to be premature in their judgement and at the worst pure charlatans. In this respect it is always important to understand that quite a number of factors are involved in the genesis of mental disease. These include hereditary predisposition; brain damage from such disparate factors as birth trauma, accidents later on in life and malnutrition; various inherited disorders of metabolism that affect the brain as part of the body as a whole; vascular disease affecting the blood supply to the brain; and brain tumours; and no doubt other factors which a specialist in the field of neuropathology would enumerate in a trice. Usually a person is referred by an observant doctor to a minister of deliverance when the symptoms do not tally with those of well-recognized mental disorder. I hope this type of collaboration may come more into its own in future.
Another disease of the brain, but not a mental condition, that may reproduce some of the phenomena of demonic attack is temporal-lobe epilepsy. In right-handed people, it is the right temporal lobe that is affected in the classical syndrome: there is a brief lapse of consciousness followed by an alarming period of spatial and/or temporal dissociation. With spatial dissociation there is a period during which the person does not recognize their usual surroundings and lives in a world of their own imagination (usually decidedly unpleasant), while the temporally dissociated person is oblivious of the present time, living once again in a private world. The attack, like that of epilepsy generally, does not last long, and then there is a very rapid return to customary consciousness, but a residual sleepiness may last for a little while. If the left temporal lobe is affected in a right handed person, there is a more typical epileptic fit with shaking of the right side of the body, biting of the tongue, and a transient lapse of consciousness. In neither of these two types of "partial epilepsy" is there prolonged unconsciousness, foaming at the mouth, or spontaneous evacuation of the bowels or bladder, such as occurs in a classic epileptic fit.
At one time, epilepsy was ascribed to demonic possession. It was also called the "sacred disease" inasmuch as it was held that the sufferer was being acted upon by some holy force from on high. It was at the time of Hippocrates, who lived between 430 and 357 BC, that this view was first queried, and a cerebral origin of the condition accepted. Nevertheless, there is at least one healing miracle of Christ in which a demonic spirit is blamed: a boy with a severe epileptic fit from whom Jesus exorcized an attacking entity (Matthew 17.14-20 with parallel passages in Mark 9.14-29 and Luke 9.37-43). To attribute this miracle to a demonic agent being exorcized would be derided as primitive superstition nowadays, and indeed we know that there is a disturbance of function of part of the brain during a fit. There are a number of effective anticonvulsant drugs that can usually control the epileptic tendency in predisposed subjects; a far more predictable way than any form of spiritual healing, including that employed by Christ himself. However, the drugs simply keep the tendency to fits under control. If they are cut down the fits will almost certainly recur, and therefore anticonvulsant therapy is nearly always a lifelong necessity. When Jesus performed his miracle, were the effects likewise temporary, or did he effect a permanent cure? If the relief was indeed permanent, something more must have been done than merely expelling a demonic spirit; the brain itself must have been healed. It should incidentally be noted that the basic cerebral defect underlying the epileptic state is still not understood. It could well be that a demonic assault could precipitate a fit in a previously predisposed person, a reflection underlining the view that many conditions affecting living animals have a multiple causation.
Severe states of depression have been attributed by the sufferer to demonic attack. The person feels a destructive presence around them which seems to afflict them bodily as well as mentally. Sometimes this attack of depression follows a severe emotional battering. Perhaps a personal relationship has gone wrong and there is a feeling as if a curse has been laid on them. This state can resemble the very serious clinical depression that may precipitate an attempt at suicide in a very disturbed person. On other occasions everything seems to go wrong in a person's life, and they long either for relief or else oblivion. Although it is plausible enough to attribute this situation to the assault of the devil, it is in fact a disease of the brain, like schizophrenia probably due to a biochemical defect, and often greatly relieved by contemporary drug regimes. Indeed, drug therapy has been more successful in the treatment of depression with or without mania than in any other mental disease. This does not, incidentally, mean that every case of depression will automatically have a favourable outcome but simply that there is often hope at the end of the tunnel.
Anxiety states may sometimes be precipitated by fears of demonic attack; the human power of imagination can be very strong. A strong religious faith can sustain the individual through this and other mental disturbances; on the other hand, there are other religious practices that lead to darkness rather than to light. Certainly the metaphysical beliefs of a strongly psychic person play a sometimes decisive role in their mental processes no less than their bodily health.
A final thought on the subject of demonic infestation and evil actions comes in Matthew 10.28: "Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Fear him rather who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." The interpretation of this terrible passage is far-reaching. The only One who can in fact kill the soul (in hell or anywhere else) is God, for under his law the soul is naturally immortal. Thus if one begins to fear that one is close to total destruction of the personality, one's awareness of guilt must be overwhelming. In my opinion this is a very serious result of a poor religious education acting on a disordered mind, for even as noxiously destructive a person as Hitler must have had some strong reason for his racist views. The uncomfortable suspicion remains that the dark, demonic forces can use the holy name as easily as the blessed one in heaven (see Matthew 4.6 for the devil using the very words of Scripture in attempting to entice Jesus into displaying his spiritual charismatic capacity for purely egoistical exhibition). What matters with all charismatic, psychic powers is the use to which they are put. The more ego-centred, the less does the person give lovingly to serve the world with their God-given capacities. The snare attached to all psychic capacities is the self-importance they offer the gifted individual, making them feel a cut above humanity at large. This temptation is held out through their unusual gifts that certainly strengthen the thinker's suspicions that the nature of reality is considerably vaster than the materialist would have the world believe.
The exegesis of this passage is very disturbing, since only God can destroy the soul in hell or anywhere else, and under his law a soul is naturally immortal and incapable of being destroyed. A fear of absolute destruction of the personality which is controlled by the divine grace stresses a total imminence of complete punishment for wrongdoing. It to my mind suggests a pathologically guilt-ridden conscience.
Chapter 9