So I need help debunking something based on my own irrational fears.
I read an interview with Eric Bana regarding the movie Deliver Us From Evil, in which he played real life detective cum self styled demonic exorcist Ralph Sarchie.
Bana stated he was a sceptic until he saw footage from one of Sarchies exorcisms in which a man in a straight jacket had a wound appear on his forehead on camera and his drool turned to blood.
What do you guys think? I tried looking up Sarchie and amongst other things he's hosted a typically bad paranormal investigation TV show ala Ghost Adventures and - red flag alert - he often worked with Ed and Lorraine Warren and John Zaffis.
For some reason this is bothering me.
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I can relate to you, Confusion. I was a very devout Catholic since birth until my later teens. When I was 7 or 8, I saw the movie, The Exorcist and it really scarred me. I thought all that stuff was real, "based on a true story" stuff. It haunted me for years. I mean, nightmares and irrational fears that it could happen to me. I was in youth group and the priest who ran the group told us stories about possission that he personally witnessed. Oddly enough, it was his stories that sowed the seeds of doubt in my mind. They just didn't jibe with the world I was coming to understand better. They sounded like something out of a book, like fiction. I started to question why God would allow something like posession to take place. The only answer I ever got was that it was the person who invited it by sinning, doubting, etc. That answer was just too self-serving and didn't mesh with the idea of God the Catholic Church tries to sell.
Now, I am a . . . well, I wouldn't go so far as to say hardcore atheist, but I am definitely a non-believer in supernatural stuff that has an effect on the real world. I came to that just by doing a lot of reading, discussing and thinking.
It's like other people have said: My view is that people telling us stuff like that always have an agenda, whether it's to sell a movie, keep us good little Christians so we keep going to Church, etc. Ralph Sarchie may or may not be a true believer, but he has definitely found a niche that works for him. He has an incentive to embellish his stories. He has an incentive to create footage that supports his professed beliefs and career. Whether he means to or not, he profits on the gullibility of people who believe in this stuff. Blood from the mouth? Bite your toungue when you are having a meltdown. Cut on the face? That can happen any number of ways. AND: did it even happen in the way "the footage" makes it look like?
Finally, the real world we all live in simply doesn't work that way. Mental illness is a thing. We understand it a lot better now than we did before. A rational person goes to rational explanations that jibe with the real world. Mental illness explains the behavior manifested in possessions.
I recently watched "The Devil and Father Amorth," which was directed by William Friedkin -the same guy who did The Exorcist. It documents a real exorcism performed by the titual Father Amorth, an Italian priest. It's not a great documentary film; however, it really shines a light on what is really going on: the intersection of mental illness with devout belief. The woman being exorcised is an Italian woman, devout Catholic. She is obviously mentally ill. But she doesn't seek medical help, she calls for the priest. This is the 9th (!) exorcism she has gone through. The ritual itself is pretty dull. There's lots of prayer and a little hysteria from the lady. She makes a lot of guttural sounds, screams blasphemy at the priest and says some stuff, in a weird deep voice, that sounds a little like Linda Blair did (well, Mercedes McCambridge provided the devil voice in The Exorcist), she convulses and has to be held down. That's it. To me, it really revealed the utter banality of possession and exorcism and how it's all a matter of misplaced faith in religion instead of science and pantomiming what has been seen in movies like The Exorcist.
Not the usual vague and pompous "Based on actual events" or some other vague pile of .. apples 