Does exorcism work?

It has equal evidence for its efficacy as any other isolated failed attempt to cast out anything, including the Christian ones. How do you know the attempt failed? How do you know it wasn't successful but also fatal? It is as unfounded as it is non-existent. I was implicating that by being exposed to a Buddhist exorcism story that I had provided the link for, that you have heard of a Buddhist exorcist.To have read it your way, I would have to also be implicating me and the victim as being exorcists as well.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

The Biblical record is a historical record. I believe famed historian Josephus regarded it as such.The rest of your word salad doesn't warrant a response.

Oh come now buzz the next thing you are going to say that christianity is the only religion who had a magic boy that died then came back to life.Buddha battled daemons and cast them out of himselfMuslims cast out daemons using the Koran.Pagans as in wiccans have that little symbol you know the pentagram it is used for protection against daemons. And they do have casting out daemons rituals.The Hindus have exorcisms too the basic casting out rituals are preformed using the mantra and the yanja.Casting out and protecting form evils is kind of the brand mark of every religion, as are miracles and any other bullshit they cane make you believe.

The crux of the matter is going to be how you would decide who qualified for your study, i.e., who was possessed. As designed, the study you propose requires all subjects to be possessed.The Roman Catholic church describes the requirements for the diagnosis of demonic possession in The Roman Ritual Other sects and religions have similar diagnostic criteria. In the past many religions believed that any form of disease was demonic possession. This has been superceded by advances in understanding medicine and pathology.A second difficulty is going to be how you decide on the efficacy of your exorcism. Both groups would have to be held in exactly the same environment. For example, it's recommended that the victim be restrained during the exorcism and an exorcism can supposedly take weeks, even months. Any heroin addict restrained for weeks will have gone through "cold turkey" and the addiction will be broken. So, in theory, both groups would show 100% effectiveness of treatment.The difference may be seen in the number who return to heroin from each group, but how do you determine what caused that? I'd suggest that going through cold turkey while someone yells passages from the Roman Ritual about demons would be enough to mentally scar even the toughest mind, demon or no demon.Your case study would be better if you used something other that an addiction to mind-bending drugs, multiple sclerosis, cancer or HIV for example, but you'd be hard-pushed to find anyone that would perform an exorcism on anyone with a disease for which the pathology is understood. None of these conditions would fulfill the diagnostic criteria for demonic possession, unless you plan to consider all disease and illness as evidence of possession.Having said all that, does demonic possession even exist?

As there is no evidence for demons or possessions, I would have to say no.

In my original message I asked a question followed by a statement that included the phrase, "not that I'm aware of."If the above examples are correct, what are your sources to these examples? The OP of this topic specified Christianity exclusively, likely because it's the prominent purveyor of exorcism.Over the decades I've been in churches which had visiting missionaries from various pagan lands. Some of these have shared acclaimed cases of successful exorcisms from what they considered demons. One in particular was back in the 1950s pr 60s when a missionary from New Guinea on furlough from his first tour of duty pioneered a mission to a tribe who had never been ministered to. In the village there was a prominent witch woman who dominated the tribe. The missionary knew that if he was to have any success in evangelizing these people, he'd have to deal with this woman. He fasted and prayed for three days, after which he approached the woman at an assembled ritual of the villagers. He rebuked the woman in the name of Jesus after which she fell dead in the presence of all.After inquiring about the woman among the villagers, it was determined that the woman had lived longer than a human being was suppose to live. Thus he concluded that it was a possessed demon that had kept the woman alive beyond a normal life span.
According to the missionary, after this encounter there was a great Christian revival/awakening and the whole village became Christian.IMO, one of the evidences of the success of Christianity in pagan lands like New Guinea is the fact that subsequent to Christian missions in the nation, things like cannibalism have become pretty much non-existent. In many pagan nations it is the evangelical missionaries from the West who have improved the living standards of once pagan nations. It has not been missionaries from RC, Buddist, Hindu or Muslim nations who have done anything to improve the lives of these people.Haite is an example of where all the RCCs have done is mixed their version of Christianity with voodoo. We know how that nation has fared under this arrangement.Perhaps DA's exclusive referral to Christianity as exorcists is because, by and large, acclaimed benefits of exorcism has pertained to Christianity.That so many like Son Of Sam, aka David Berkowitz have been so greatly changed for the better is a good indication that the good Holy Spirit of Jehovah is a real multi-present entity that enters into humans who receive him, driving out/exorcising the evil spirits at the time of the Biblically acclaimed conversion experience, i.e. born or the Jehovah's spirit.

I think you will find it is because he is taking his meds.

So the woman was old in tribal standards that would be 60 right ? So the priest or should i say strange withe man with magic powers in tribal understanding was screaming at a 60 year old shaman woman till she got a hart attack. Then bent the event in saying the good lord Jesus saved them from a daemon. Because shrinking heads of your enemies is so fare worse then burning them on a pyre if they dont convert, and i know christians dont do that anymore they came out of the dark ages those tribes dint get out of the stonage yet. To bad some die during the exorcisms right, but afterall the torture and pain they go trough when the right is prefformed they go to a better place right its not like murder or anything like that. 6 months for torture and murder its good to be a priest and doing gods work right better then putting her on meds and potentially give her a normal life.

So everything Josephus thought and wrote about is historical fact? He thought the apostles, their miracles, and the New Testament were part of the historical record?

Well you would have if you'd taken five seconds to Google on Muslim exorcism.

And if you regard Josephus as historical, you may be interested in his account of non-Christians carrying out exorcisms with the aid of a mandrake root:

People throughout history have used ritual to expel evil spirits. The belief that illness and madness are caused by witches, spirits or demons was once nearly universal. Many of us have outgrown those primitive beliefs.I think you already have some other examples of exorcism traditions in other religions. Here are some more:

quote:

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Buddhists take a different line. Said Mr Shen Shi'an, chief editor of the Web and library departments at the Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery: "Buddhist exorcism does not aim to kill, trap, hurt, or chase away harmful unseen beings."

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The prayer and meditation is carried out for the purpose of persuading the spirit to leave the body.

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"Buddhist exorcism aims for win-win situations for the involved human and spirit - who are seen as two parties negatively affected by grudges that require peaceful negotiation," he said.

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Taoists, meanwhile, mainly use chanting, prayer and physical movements to fight the evil spirit.

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Master Tan Kok Hian, vice-president of the Taoist Federation (Singapore), said: "We believe that there is good and there is evil, and the evil spirits will usually run away when they are faced with good."

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And laughter will persuade soot spirits to leave.

I stand corrected on my notion that there isn't a lot of exorcism activity among other cultures, due the input regarding other examples. The OP specifies Christian practitioners in the study proposed. Here in the US that would be where most of the practice would take place.It appears that many of the other cultures, primarily the pagan ones involve a lot of physical activity; some involving harmful measures. I remember now of examples in the Bible where pagans would cause their children to go through fire. I believe the Aztecs also threw women into fiery furnaces to appease a god. That is not the same as casting out evil spirits though.It seems that most pagan activity did not involve casting out of humans as much as chasing off evil spirits and entities from a village etc.

Your reason for coming to this conclusion is?