What is the difference between demons and spirits

A massive dictionary, manual, and guide on demonology, demons, and evil spirits. This Catholic demonology dictionary also includes descriptions of the occult, witchcraft, and sorcery.

The legend of the werewolf is as old as man himself. From Ed and Lorraine Warren, the world's most famous demonologists, comes perhaps their most incredible and horrifying case: the true story of William Ramsey, whose bizarre seizures terrified the English town of Southend-on-Sea.

Believing Ramsey to be a victim of demonic possession, the Warrens arranged for the rite of exorcism to be performed. It is possible for someone to come under demonic attacks and oppression as a result of an unholy agreement, covenant, soul-tie, or relationship. Demons and evil spirits have many names and characteristics that have come down to us through the traditions of the church, the writing of the saints, and the Bible. In addition, these dark spirits have characteristics and activities that are well-known and documented.

This book explains it all! A must-listen. This work has been previously reviewed and granted the Imprimatur by Rev. Curtiss, former Bishop of the Diocese of Helena, Montana.

This is a very eye opening, informative book. That is if your seeking to broaden your knowledge of the spiritual realm. Regardless of your nomination. RR This is a well grounded and informative book. The author addresses this heavy subject in a biblical and well grounded way.

I needed a better understanding, without all the fantasy hype that is often attached to such a subject. I thank the author for presenting this material in a very responsible and safe way. The narrator was bland. Thing that aggravated me the most was that no where in the title does it state that the topic is purely expressed through a Catholic point of view.

A majority of the book only quotes scripture and the scripture is loosely tied to the differemt subjects of the chapters. I really appreciated the broad perspective that the author gives. Refreshing that he admits that some phenomenon are not explainable. I could barely listen to this,what a crock of crap,that's some time and money I'll never see again,what a waste.

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Add payment method. Switch payment method. We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method. Also, an understanding of possession as a neuro-cultural phenomenon can provide a framework for seeing the New Testament exorcism stories in a different light. For these reasons it is necessary to ask, What does it mean to be possessed by a demon or spirit?

Possession states amongst the people of the world. Spirits that engage in possession include a wide range of spirit types and characters. They might be spirits of the living or the dead or greater or lesser gods; they might be the souls or ghosts of people who have passed away, including both ancestors and unrelated persons, and they might be from inside or outside the society.

Some are supernatural entities that have never been human beings. These spirits may be conceived as benevolent or malevolent such as angels or demons see Bourguignon ; Giles It is hard to find an explanation for or elaboration of what spirits or demons are in any particular tradition such as the Christian tradition or the New Testament. They just are there. They are, in the words of Leistle, 'not conceptually well defined but rich in cultural atmosphere' Leistle In many if not most instances of possession in the ethnographic record, possession takes the form of a spirit or entity entering a person's body and replacing the agency that is, the mind, soul or spirit of the host, thereby causing a change in identity see Cohen This kind of possession is based on the human capacity for dissociation:.

Dissociation is a psychological mechanism, producing an alteration of consciousness, so that there appears to be a discontinuity of identity, accompanied by alterations in self presentation and appearance, in sensations such as analgesia, in memory and more.

Dissociation is seen in normal individuals as well as in pathological cases We know it to be a universal human capacity that, like other such capacities, is culturally modulated. Bourguignon b It should be noted that this kind of possession contains a spectrum of possession concepts from fusion the spirit becomes part of the medium to oscillation where spirit and medium vie for control and displacement where the own self is overshadowed.

Displacement, where one agent replaces another and animates the borrowed body, is by far the most pervasive model of possession in the ethnographic record see Cohen et al. An intuitive person-body dualism and the capacity to employ concepts that represent the autonomy of a person's identity are some of the cognitive mechanisms that constrain this kind of possession see Cohen In ethnographic contexts the term possession is, however, often used to describe misfortune in general or a variety of illness conditions in particular see e.

Giles Lewis shows that possession is used in many cultures to explain minor maladies, even something as trivial as constipation, whilst there is no indication of trance or dissociation see Lewis ; see Winkelman Here possession is a label for something else, namely, misfortune and illness which could have a different cause from dissociation.

To make sense of the possession spectrum, anthropologists suggested numerous categories of possession beliefs or experiences see Leistle The first results from negative changes in physical health, whilst the second is characterised by an alteration in the state of consciousness and behaviour see Bourguignon a By focusing on the 'basic causal structures' that characterise them, Cohen distinguishes between 'pathogenic possession' and 'executive possession' Cohen respectively.

Pathogenic possession, she suggests, is based on the idea that the spirit 'is primarily and most basically represented as a contaminating substance or essence material or immaterial ' Cohen entering the body. Therefore, she argues, it makes use of the very same cognitive mechanisms about contamination that are universally to human beings.

Research shows that contaminants such as poisons, germs and irritants evoke a strong fear and response of disgust or revulsion in children from a very young age. It makes sense to think that actual illness conditions can easily be described as possession along the lines of these cognitive structures. All of these distinctions contain some valuable insights that help to categorise possession in terms of possible causal features.

What they all illustrate is that the term possession is used to describe a wide range of distinct human phenomena. On the one hand it is used for an identifiable condition of spirit possession, and on the other hand as a label for illness or misfortune in general. Many more distinctions in the ethnographic record can be noted. For example, during a large part of the history of the Christian church, a clear distinction was made between diabolic and divine possession: the Holy Spirit could penetrate the heart itself, whilst demonic agencies could only penetrate the body see Sluhovsky During the Renaissance Christians believed that holy men could not be entered or possessed by the devil; they could only be besieged.

In some contemporary charismatic groups a similar distinction is made: born-again Christians might be tempted or harassed, but cannot be possessed by an evil spirit see Csordas From all of this it should be obvious that one size does not fit all instances of possession. Despite the fact that people use the same term for different forms of possession, the neuro-cultural mechanisms and social processes of these forms are completely different.

Misfortune or illness labelled possession is not the same as possession experienced as an instance of dissociation. It will become clear that the term possession is probably not the best one to use for the phenomena at hand.

However, before the use of the term is discussed, it is necessary to explore one more interpretive tradition, namely the Western psychiatric tradition. The Western psychiatric paradigm: Dissociative syndromes or disorders. There is a long tradition in Western medicine of categorising demon or spirit possession under the dissociative syndromes described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM.

Note that, according to this biomedical framework, spirit or demon possession is probably limited to cases of possession trance or executive possession , since possession without trance would not be brought to the attention of psychiatrists in normal circumstances. The term dissociation or dissociation disorder has always referred to a variety of phenomena. On this continuum, dissociative experiences can be seen as.

For our present purposes, three features of the phenomena in this paradigm are significant. The first is that dissociative disorders are closely linked to trauma. In fact, linking dissociative phenomena to trauma dates back to the work of Freud and others of his era. During the s a connection between childhood abuse and dissociative phenomena was made, whilst today it is seen as a built-in defence mechanism against traumatic experiences and all forms of stress.

Dissociation allows individuals to protect themselves from traumatic events that they can either not escape from or have been exposed to - thus either present trauma or previously unprocessed trauma. Secondly, in psychiatry the discipline that introduced the term dissociation it is 'almost invariably joined with disorder that is mental illness' Klass In its manifestation it does not conform to what it means in this context to be an individual, coherent self in control of life.

The third feature is that this paradigm treats dissociative disorders as discreet 'states' instead of complex performances that result from attentional, cognitive and social processes. Dissociation is seen as a something, a particular discreet state or entity.

Consequently, it can be linked to a specific causal factor, and, as seen above, in most cases the causal factor is trauma. It is something you have, not something you become or do.

Without denying the reality of dissociative disorders, it is now widely acknowledged that dissociative phenomena cover a much wider spectrum than only pathological experiences.

The perspective in medical anthropology and cross-cultural psychiatry which assumes that psychosomatic or psychiatric conditions apply universal, has over and over been singled out by cultural relativists for its medicocentrism see e. Lambek What is becoming clear is that dissociation as disorder is neither the only nor any longer the dominant view in this paradigm see Bourguignon Dissociative Identity Disorder DID and possession are similar but not identical - they are two different manifestations of the same human capacity of dissociation see Winkelman Or, as Bourguignon illustrates with two case histories of child abuse and the use of dissociation as a defence mechanism, 'the cultural theory and resulting therapeutic response remain radically different' which means that 'there is only analogy, not substantial identity of phenomena' Bourguignon It has to be noted that even from within this paradigm serious questions are being raised about pathologising possession.

For example, a group of South African psychiatrists confronted with possession experiences in a local setting concludes:. We consider dissociation as pivotal in the process of normal construction of an individual sense of self and of communal identity in the face of conflicting sets of information from various contexts Dissociation may therefore be an appropriate tool that maintains a balanced, coherent self-in-society.

Let me summarise this point: the term dissociation was coined in the psychiatric tradition to describe a disorder or set of disorders often associated with trauma. Despite remaining a category in the DSM, there is a growing awareness that pathological cases of dissociation are a subcategory of the human neurobiological and neuropsychological capacity of dissociation.

Thus, not all dissociation is pathological. Secondly, more and more psychiatrists are aware of the danger of pathologising a phenomenon that has a positive function in many cultural settings. DID as defined by the DSM and as found in psychiatric settings is not the same as most ethnographic instances of possession.

For these reasons it does not make sense to take the DSM category as yardstick to understand, describe or analyse spirit or demon possession instances in most other cultural settings, including in New Testament texts. All of this does not mean that pathological cases of spirit possession, which are characterised by dysfunctional alterations of identity and other distressing symptoms, do not occur see Cardena In cultural contexts that place a high premium on a unified, autonomous and integrated self, dissociation is primarily limited to conditions caused by trauma or stress.

The neuro-cultural phenomenology of possession. The dominant feature of the anthropological study of possession is to see dissociation in its function to articulate certain self-states see Csordas ff.

As Krippner points out, dissociative phenomena are present at many times and in many places and refer to a wide range of experiences.

Klass expresses the growing conviction in the following way: '[Tjhe dissociative disorders studied and treated by psychopathologists are illness variants of a normal that is, a nondisorder capacity of humans to dissociate, by either external or internal suggestion' Klass The spectrum of HDP shows that we are dealing with an exceptional human capacity which finds expression as controlled or uncontrolled awareness or dissociation which can be either life-potentiating or life-depotentiating, can be adaptive or maladaptive, and emerge involuntary or can be sought after.

Klass explains this process by distinguishing between the individual and the person. Dissociation is a consequence of the emergence of culture and the development of personhood. Personhood is unique to humans, since both humans and animals possess individuality, but only humans possess personhood. Being a member of a society 'transforms a human individual into a human person' Klass Person is the 'position occupied by a human being in a social structure, the complex formed by all his [her] social relations with others' Klass Personhood can take on different identities, as is evident in dissociative disorders as well as something like hypnosis.

Based on this argument, Klass answers the question 'What is really happening with spirit possession? Well, there is apparently an identity present during what we have come to call 'possession,' and it is as 'real' as any other identity, including yours and mine, for they too are cultural constructs. In DID, the identity constructs are idiosyncratic to the individual and reflects mental illness; in PDI, they are patterned and accessible, usually, to other members of the society.

In other words, when someone culturally in agreement with cultural practices patterns his or her identity by means of dissociation, it can be seen as an active, even if unconscious, process of engaging with society. The anthropologist Bernhard Leistle explains the mechanisms of this process by pointing out that, phenomenologically speaking, HDP possession is grounded in the capacity of being a self, because to be a self paradoxically requires the possibility of also being an other; the self exists by virtue of a relation 'to something that is not us' Leistle Constitution of the self and constitution of the other are two aspects of one and the same process - self and other depend on one another see Leistle He argues that possession can be seen as the transformation of what is experienced as alien that which threatens the existing order into an other.

In his words:. Illness, pain, suffering and affliction are all instances of phenomena that represent the intrusion of the alien into experience see Leistle Such instances of alienness are spoken of and spoken about when they are transformed into the language of otherness within the symbolic universe or cultural order of the self.

When threatened by the alien, the self protects itself by means of possession: 'In becoming possessed, the self finds itself besieged by alienness; it cannot find a meaningful response to the demands storming in on it, and it deteriorates' Leistle Spirits as 'pre-objects' Leistle allow the self to reconnect with the cultural world that has become inaccessible in the face of the alien threat. Seen in this way, Leistle suggests, spirit possession is taken as a cultural technique that transforms the alien into an other in a process that removes the threat and protects the self.

In this sense possession is a positive cultural tool used in the service of maintaining order. Spirit possession is thus an experience where the self claims to be the spirit, and a phenomenological approach allows us to understand the essential structures of such experiences:.

On one hand, it allows us to take seriously the claim of the people believing in and practising spirit possession that it exists and that it works. On the other hand, it does not force us to take the logic and rhetoric of possession literally, as it presents itself When addressing spirit possession from this perspective we are able to appreciate it as a cultural technique of the self.

We are able to acknowledge that it 'makes sense' to have a sociocultural institution of the type 'possession' because we understand cultural existence as necessarily incomplete and partial, therefore related to and challenged by the Alien. Possession as institution is a socially accepted way to respond to that challenge in a patterned and organized, culturally meaningful manner.

Leistle According to the above argument, possession 'is a mode of being, rather than something one simply has' Lambek Possession as a dissociative phenomenon can be seen as an alternative way of being a human self or constructing an identity.

In different ways Klass and Leistle provide us with language and arguments to take seriously the claim by experients of being possessed whilst understanding the neuro-cultural technologies that are employed in the process of making and remaking their selves.

However horrific some of these reminiscences, and however riven the political sympathies within the locale, one simple fact confronts us: witnesses wanted to think about these dead men together.

Such intricately intermingled responses make sense, for the exorcism of a dead person necessarily is a different emotional operation than the exorcism of a demon. The exorcism of a ghost is an inherently social operation, in a way that the exorcism of an evil supernatural spirit is not. The untimely death of such a person not only snapped his own tenuous life thread, it ruptured the web of social bonds that connected him to others.

Thus, the shades of the local tyrants might be exorcized on a symbolic, collective level as well as on the more literal level of the afflicted person. Thus, the bodies of the possessed were, in some ways, symbolically aligned to Hell itself, the location where the wicked dead and demons dwell together. This detail alerts us to an interesting fact about cultural change and stability over time: the model of possession upheld in this region was not a survival of an ancient belief system without any change or evolution at all.

On the contrary, local tradition clearly was syncretic and accumulative, with new teachings effectively being grafted onto a rootstock of older ideas. The system at work here accepted the universalizing Christian epistemology of demons as possessors, yet still maintained an older tradition of ghostly possession that invoked local memories and community knowledge systems. The two were not seen in dichotomous terms, but as mutually sustaining, complementary notions that literally shared space within the possessed body.

The role of images likewise seems relevant, for contemporary representations of the human spirit leaving the human body at death, and of demons leaving the human body during an exorcism, were structurally identical in this time period. Medieval people visualized both kinds of spirits as exiting through the mouth. Analysing such works relationally, he suggests, carries our reading of iconography beyond what is explicitly formulated by the works themselves.

In this light, the relational comparison of images suggests that human spirits or ghosts, on the one hand, and unclean spirits or demons, on the other, operate upon the body in a similar fashion. Either kind of spirit can be embodied in a human form and animate it, and both leave through the mouth when forcibly ejected from this corporeal dwelling place.

The Miracles of John Gualbert is a fifteenth-century compilation of healings attributed to a monk who had died in and was canonized two decades later, in Caciola The afflicted therefore made the pilgrimage to his shrine in large numbers.

Accounts of possessions in this source are detailed, based upon first-hand interviews with the possessed and their family members. In several cases the invading spirit explicitly identifies itself as a dead person, providing his name and the details of his life and death. Rather uniquely, the text chronicles a series of spontaneous public disputations about the nature of possessing spirits, conducted between learned monks and clerics, on the one hand, and a crowd of local laity viewing the exorcisms on the other.

As with the cases of Philippucia, Salimbena and Zola, here too the often possessed named their indwelling spirits, and local crowds would accept this identification without hesitation and begin sharing narratives and memories of the person. However, in the Miracles of John Gualbert we find a blockage to this process of storytelling and collective catharsis: a local priest, and Raggiolo himself, dispute these identifications, ridicule them, and attempt to persuade the local crowd — in the face of stiff resistance — of the demonic character of the possessing spirits instead.

In some instances, this difference of opinion engendered lengthy arguments that are reproduced in the text, thus presenting us with an excellent example of different levels of culture, popular and elite, in emergent debate over the meanings of contemporary events. These sections of the text are rich and rewarding to explore. In this case, such counter-narratives are not subtexts, but explicit elements of the source: as such, they are peculiarly revelatory of the attitudes of non-intellectual segments of society.

Though Raggiolo shaped and crafted the document to foreground his own favoured interpretations of these events, he nevertheless included detailed expositions of the alternative interpretations of the crowd. Another woman came to us from the town of Pontenano … and the demon that had invaded her averred as many of them are accustomed to do that it was the shade of a certain Ligurian named Beltramo.

It ought to be pointed out that this is an impudent lie that must be restrained by the authority of Holy Mother Church, so that the average common man might perceive that such a thing is scarcely possible and thus be instructed in true religion.

Nothing tells us where it goes: either it flies through the air purging itself; or it dwells in an earthly place that is deserted and uncultivated, or else not deserted; or it goes to a place that is inaccessible to us, which we call Purgatory. But to believe that a dead soul should go back into a human body again we consider, and hereby declare, to be a wicked thing [ nefas ].

Moreover, it has never been read among any people that two souls of the same type and nature might occupy the same body, and have various experiences together. I was able to cite other pronouncements, at times from the holy gospels at times from other divine Scriptures, as proofs.

However, lest it should seem that I am presenting a sermon rather than a history, it is enough to know that devils are proven liars on this matter. Though in truth, if they request anything useful for souls of the dead — either offices, or Gregorian masses, or alms — once it is asked for then, God willing, we do it.

Now I return to my story. Raggiolo He then goes on to present some intriguing arguments against the belief in possession by the dead. His thoughts include flatly appealing to the authority of the Church; arguing from Scripture to the effect that the dead leave the places of the living; the fact that demons are proven liars; and a physiological argument that two human souls cannot coexist within a single body and share its sensory experiences.

Yet even as Raggiolo denies that shades of the dead might act as possessors, his actions — willingness to provide masses for a dead man when a spirit requests them — belie his words. His willingness to accede to this request surely would have signalled to the crowd that Beltramo the dead Ligurian might, indeed, have been the culprit. As we shall see, this is not the last Raggiolo was to hear of Beltramo. Here, the exorcism of another woman claiming to be possessed by one of the evil dead — a thug who had been knifed over a gambling dispute — leads, again, to a spontaneous public debate on the nature of possessing spirits.

The priest in charge of the exorcism hotly contests the notion that the indwelling spirit is the shade of a dead gambler, but the crowd is unimpressed and demurs:. The demon that had invaded her asserted that it was the soul of a certain man named Mazzanto, who was murdered with a dagger by a certain scoundrel over a game of dice.

Everyone who was witnessing this pressed forward to affirm that it was true. However the priest argued with them, bringing forth … many opinions of men outstanding in virtue and learning, through which he demonstrated that when the souls of men first leave their bodies they go to the place they have merited. That is, they find a sweet place; or they find a harsh land for purging or else for eternal torment.

They do not find another body to enter. As for those others [i. It is typical of rustic people that the less they understand of what is being said, the more they wonder, and it is only with the greatest difficulty that they can be turned away from any idea that already has caught their ears.

This exchange was held as probative evidence that the spirit must truly be the dead man himself. These shades clung to life and to their former communities, therefore seeking a new body to inhabit and utilize. In all the stories examined thus far, it is always the recent, known dead who were identified as the culprits.

Their former neighbours needed first to understand who the spirit was, and why he was so loath to accept his own death. They therefore wanted to know the names and death details of the shade, which could speak through the body of the possessed person. Collective recognition of the life-story and death details of the shade re-established its connections with the community: there was a broad social interest in temporary communion with the deceased.

Finally, in cases where a request was made for masses on behalf of the dead person, the community could experience a true catharsis while taking positive steps to alleviate the post-mortem condition of the deceased — and in the process, facilitate the process of forgetting the dead.

Interaction with these shades, however outcast and violent they may have been in life, became an opportunity for generosity and reconciliation after death. The latter appears to have been a particularly stubborn ghost: this time he possessed a man who we eventually learn was a relative of the woman whom he formerly had inhabited. There thus appears to be an element of mimicry involved here, as two different people related to the same family each enact similar scenarios of possession.

It portrays Beltramo as a wicked criminal, and as someone with a great deal of unfinished business from his brief life. Exorcizing Beltramo thus not only involved the personal recognition and commemoration we have so often seen in the foregoing pages but also a complicated set of rectifying activities in order to set his affairs in order for him posthumously:. After the demon, in the guise of [Beltramo], had battled both the cross and prayers for a long time, it was afflicted with bitter torments.

For if the latter are led by their usual perversity, they would prefer to do anything rather than make things right.