Exorcism boom in Poland sees magazine launch

Radio Netherlands Worldwide ^ | 11 September 2012

[Alex Murphy]

With exorcism booming in Poland, Roman Catholic priests have joined forces with a publisher to launch what they claim is the world's first monthly magazine focused exclusively on chasing out the devil.

"The rise in the number or exorcists from four to more than 120 over the course of 15 years in Poland is telling," Father Aleksander Posacki, a professor of philosophy, theology and leading demonologist and exorcist told reporters in Warsaw at the Monday launch of the Egzorcysta monthly.

Ironically, he attributed the rise in demonic possessions in what remains one of Europe's most devoutly Catholic nations partly to the switch from atheist communism to free market capitalism in 1989.

"It's indirectly due to changes in the system: capitalism creates more opportunities to do business in the area of occultism. Fortune telling has even been categorised as employment for taxation," Posacki told AFP.

"If people can make money out of it, naturally it grows and its spiritual harm grows too," he said, hastening to add authentic exorcism is absolutely free of charge.

Posacki, who also serves on an international panel of expert Roman Catholic exorcists, highlighted what he termed the "helplessness of various schools of psychology and psychiatry" when confronted with extreme behaviours that conventional therapies fail to cure.

"Possession comes as a result of committing evil. Stealing, killing and other sins," he told reporters, adding that evil spirits are chased out using a guide of ritual prayers approved by Polish-born pope John Paul II in 1999.

"Our hands are full," admitted fellow exorcist and Polish Roman Catholic priest Father Andrzej Grefkowicz, revealing exorcists have a three month waiting list in the capital Warsaw.

Priests performing exorcism also work with psychiatrists in order to avoid mistaking mental illness for possession, he said.

"I've invited psychiatrists to meetings when I've had doubts about a case and often we've both concluded the issue is mental illness, hysteria, not possession," he said.

According to both exorcists, depictions of demonic possession in horror films are largely accurate.

"It manifests itself in the form of screams, shouting, anger, rage -- threats are common," Posacki said.

"Manifestation in the form or levitation is less common, but does occur and we must speak about it -- I've seen it with my own eyes," he added.

With its 62-page first issue including articles titled "New Age -- the spiritual vacuum cleaner" and "Satan is real", the Egzorcysta monthly with a print-run of 15,000 by the Polwen publishers is selling for 10 zloty (2.34 euros, 3.10 dollars) per copy.

[zot]

Thank you for sharing your experience and insights. I appreciate what you are doing and the way you respond to critics.

[tired&retired]

We are entering a period of pure hell. However it will be short lived and the result will be absolutely wonderful. Kind of like birthing pains just prior to the birth of a wonderful loving child.

People need to learn to listen to their bodies rather than fighting with themselves. The body speaks volumes in communicating with one’s own soul. Dis-ease should be addressed when it forms rather than trying to deal with the symptoms later.

All memories are stored in the soul. They are anchored in the physical body, but not stored in the body. When I reach into a person’s soul many feet from their physical body, they often feel my hand within their body. I’m a scientist so all this stuff really freaked me out as I experienced it. It’s what led me to study neuroscience and physics to understand intellectually what I was already experiencing in order to prove my sanity to myself. I do not discount neurobiology, epigenetics, or psychological and medical treatments, I merely explain how they function. Most medical treatments merely block the symptoms in the physical body or the reception of the negative wound in the soul from bridging back through the afferent sensory neurons to the central nervous system.

It’s a shame that Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein did not sit down in a room and talk it out as they were both correct, just looking at the same problem from two different levels of consciousness. The soul is so simple when you look at it from a different level of consciousness. Just as the frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum have different characteristics in their interaction with physical matter as they move from wave characteristics toward particle characteristics, consciousness does the same thing. As consciousness moves to the higher frequencies, thoughts and memories become physical tangible objects. In much the way an MRI reads subtle differences in body tissues, consciousness can read another person’s soul. We truly are entering interesting times. Hang on to your hat and enjoy the ride.