Please see post number 53. Thank-you.
NO, I do not believe that Jerry Loughner was possessed, but I do believe that Jerry was LOVE-obsessed with Gabby Giffords and her recent marriage to a NASA astronaut finally made this delusional paranoid schizophrenic realize that she had NO interest in him, never had.
I haven't ever read anything about the history of mental illness, but I presume that early attempts to cure severe mental illness would have involved Shamanic ceremonies to exorcise the afflicted from "evil spirits."
Even today in Africa, adults are murdering children whom they accuse of "witchcraft" -- so this overlap of psychosis and Pure Evil continues into the modern age. Unfortunately primal fears based upon ancient pagan beliefs are difficult to dislodge from humanity.