Thanks. This thread was just getting overtly silly.

Edited because he is gone.

Edited.

Demons don't go after the weak - aka atheist who don't believe in anything.. why? because they don't need to, they already lack in faith.
who they DO go after, are the ones that are strong enough - such as the case of Anneliese Michel, who grew up in a very religious catholic family..
this stuff really happens - especially in high religious countries like Philippines..

if you don't believe in God - demons don't bother with you because they don't care..
if your faith is stronger than the average - demons will come and test you..

that's my two cents. it only makes sense..

thoughts?

Wow. What a plus for being a atheist or agnostic. I am apparently invisble to demons. I think the more logical answer would be they don't exist at all and mental illness explains them.

I agree .

I feel if one experiences possession it would rather make you turn to god>not away ? Oh I see is this why god let's them loose ?? LOL

God is a sly devil, isn't he ??

I love this kind of threads. They attrac the real religious nuts in the forum likes flies to the honey....MUAJAJAJAJAJAJA.

I lol'd.
Also quoted for truth.

**double posted**

Look what my son got my hubby for Christmas . This is for when I have bad PMS symptoms.

Ok, so i dunno if anyone visits this thread but I've been reading it and i agree with some of you, and disagree with one of you (beckysmom and eric are cool) Anyways, mental illness and demonic posession are two really hot topics. Especially since Bill Freidkin (willim friedkin) came out with The Exorcist, which caused a huge uproar and made everybody think that they are posessed, much like what happened during old old times. If you lived back then, and you had depression or schizophrenia, priests would come out and perform exorcisms, that was the medicine back then since everyone lived in fear and thought about the devil when something bad happened. (Someone here said something like this, but about fears) Anyways, now a days doctors can diagnose what is wrong with someone which is a good thing. The bad thing is that medicine is becomming too popular, and there are new mental illnesses coming out that don't make sense. I do a bit of religion study on my spare time because The Exorcist. This doesn't mean im committed to anything, but i study more than christianity and catholicism.

So now onto Annelise Michel. It's scary, the audio clips on youtube are haunting, but was she possessed? I don't think so... Now before you religous people attack me, I'll tell you why i don't think she was possessed. First off, when she was a kid, her mom told Annelise to "atone for the sins of illegitimacy through fervent devotion" when she was a kid, so she had to practically torture herself for peoples wrong doings. In my opinion, that's a lot of stress for a little kid, and she had to continue it, and she got disturbed by it. Anybody would. She had grand mal epilepsy which compounds other possible mental and psychological disorders, and that caused her to have hallucinations of demonic faces and voices. The whole drinking of the urine, hitting her head on the wall, eating insects, not eating real food is the cause of those mental disorders.

I have heard the audio clips on youtube and all i heard was "AARRHGGHH AARRRGGGHGH NEIN NEIN AARRRGGGHHH" that doesn't tell me she's possessed, that tells me she could lower her voice and yell and curse because she THINKS she's possessed. I saw the pictures and it's disturbing as well, but there were no welts on her face or any distortions. The black eyes can be from not eating, and only consuming insects and drinking urine and eating coal. Also there were no objects flying around, or falling down which may sound childish, but a evidence that a possesion is taking place. Now this cant be a reliable souce but if a person is being possessed, moving objects is definatly a source. OH OH and superhuman strength. Demons are strong, so if they possess someone, then that person has the strength of the possessor. Oh, and the spirits that possesed Annelise? Satan (ofcourse, why wouldn't she include the devil himself??), Judas Iscariot, Nero, Cain, Hitler, and Fleischmann. Why would satan allow regular spirits to join in on the possesion?

There is a story about an exorcism in 1928 on some book of haunted mysteries and events about a girl named anne who's dad asked the devil to posses her. Ofcourse the devil will say "Hell yeah dude, i'll be controlling that sh** soon" so him and a demon possessed her. The demon's name was Beezlebub and spoke with the exorcising priest in german, latin and english. Now anne's last name wasn't revealed so i dont know if this story is true. What made it interesting is that Beezlebub (supposedly a demon) possessed her, not some spirit of some bad person that died.

The origins of Satan is still a mystery. Some say that Lucifer (meaning light bearer) and Satan (meaning adversary) are two different entities. Some say that Satan is the one true god, and got screwed after the war of the gods in which Jehova (god) took satan's place. Some say there is no Satan. Some "demons" were believed to be gods. And athiests believe in none of this stuff. Also there are witches and covens and wiccans and all practice with spirits and black magic, so why doesn't the devil take advantage of them?

So case in point, Annelise was not possessed, there were no evidence other than dementia, schizophrenia, and abuse as a child (suffering for people's sins) hallucinations of demons and audio hallucinations of demons.

So there is evidence of dementia, schizophrenia, and abuse as a child ehh?

Dementia and Schizophrenia does not occur in children, thankfully, however the abuse she took as a child and into her teens caused the mental illnesses that she gained. If only her mom didn't wear a black veil for her wedding and wasn't extremely religious in a bad way, Annelise would have still been alive today.

That is not true.

Your right ,it is not true .read link


http://digg.com/health/Boy_2_suffers_from_...n_s_Alzheimer_s



fullywired

sorry, mis-post

Let me just say to start off that I'm new to the forum, so no one rails on me for that. Secondly, I've actually been following this thread for quite a while (late last year) and felt compelled (for better or worse) to say some things.

Firstly, I will say that Becky's Mom has a point in that the thread is in the spirituality vs. scepticism area. QuickTime, You should be open to others opinions. I myself am a devout Christian, and one of the first things I learned in my Christian walk was tolerance. People's opinions are based on personal perception and should have no effect on your own personal belief system. That being said, I do have some other thoughts.

Eric, my mother too was schizophrenic. From 1991 to present she's been on many different various medications (depakote, serequel, fluox, clonazepim, and many others I can no longer remember) much of them to know effect. Some made her very sleepy, others somewhat more docile. But for the most part, the medicines were not effective. She still remained largely in a world of her own design, and in recent years has rarely had anything coherent or sensible to say. I remember growing up and being mostly afraid of her due to her instability. But also loving her because she was my mother, ya know, she gave me life. It was an odd mixture to live with. I can honestly say with some certainty that the doctors did her absolutely no good. However, I have seen many doctors save many lives. The problem is, do you give the doctors the credit, or simply say it was God's will. Sadly, this is a question I can not answer, nor do I believe there's a person alive who can. Is my mother possessed? It is a possibility. She hates anything remotely Christian. She's attacked me to keep me from going to church, removed all my crosses, and burned several of my bibles. Medication honestly did nothing for her.

Eric> I commend you for your strength, growing up with a schizophrenic parent is hard, and it seems you've remained very well adjusted. I would like to talk with you further as I believe we may have some things in common and I think you are an intelligent person.

Becky's Mom> I respect your beliefs, and defend your God given right to have them. I would like to offer you some food for thought if I may? This universe, like it or not, is built on certain principles. Light opposes darkness, north opposes south, fire opposes water, and whether you choose to believe it or not, Satan opposes God. He's talked about in the bible, he's mentioned through the entirety of Revelation (taking a third of the stars with him) he was certainly in the Garden of Eden, he definitely tempted Jesus. I could go on, but I think that should suffice. Being a theology major, I am well aware of the arguments that Satan mentioned in the bible is actually a metaphor for "enemy" as well as "grave" "death" and several other things. This comes out of translation problems from the original pages. However, there are several instances where Satan was mentioned in those original pages as a definitive personified entity with NO translation problems. It translates EXACTLY like it reads. An evil spirit that opposes God. SPIRIT!

Satan's greatest trick was convincing man that he didn't exist. Sadly, that trick appears to have worked on you.

Quicktime> I applaud your efforts in defending your beliefs. However, you are misguided. In all my years as a Pastor, I've never gotten any where beating people in the head with a bible. Doesn't work that way, sorry. You've forgotten THE MOST IMPORTANT task laid out for us as Christians. We must live the difference God made in our lives. The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is "Christians", who acknowledge things with their lips, and then deny it by their lifestyle. I agree that mental illness problems are getting worse. I will also agree that doctors and pharmacies are too prescription happy and think anything can be cured by a hefty dose of chemicals that they never bother to explain to the people they're giving them too. Are the doctors responsible for the increase in mental illness? IMO I don't think so. Environmental factors, increases in chemicals in our food, water and air, a general degradation of society and its people.....these things are more likely to contribute to the rise. While their efforts may be misguided....Doctors are still trying to make an effort. The first oath they take is to do no harm.

Was Anneliese possessed? I honestly believe so. Was she a saint? Absolutely not. The criteria and definition of a saint do not fit this case. What happened to her was unfortunate, and I think many can and should take a lesson from it. God did allow this to happen for a reason.

________________________________________________________________________________
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"Remember....if you stand in front of a mirror in a dark room and spin around chanting my name......you'll look really really stupid.
~Quothe the Ravyn "Forevermore"

For the first 22 years of her life, Anneliese Michel was an unremarkable young woman--a teacher in training and part of a devout Roman Catholic family in Germany. She ... happened to be an epileptic, and prone to the seizures that often accompany that condition. Somehow, though, her parents convinced themselves that Satan had gotten hold of her soul. They called two local priests, who spent 10 months trying to exorcise the young woman's demons. To avoid interfering with the exorcism, the parents even halted her treatment for epilepsy. Michel finally died, in 1975, at the age of 23, withered and weakened to just 31 kilos from being denied food and water during the exorcism.

SOURCE: newsweek.com


When Anneliese Michel died at the age of 23 in Klingenberg, West Germany, in the summer of 1976, she was little more than a skeleton, weighing a mere 68 Ibs. Yet shortly before she died, her parents said, Anneliese performed an astonishing 500 deep knee-bends in one day. The source of her power, her parents believed, was nothing less than the devil himself. Anneliese's release from evil spirits came only with death, after she starved herself during a nightmarish ten-month series of Roman Catholic exorcism rituals. Two weeks ago, a court in Aschaffenburg found two priests and Anneliese's parents, wealthy Mill Owner Josef Michel, 60, and his wife Anna, 57, guilty of negligent homicide in her death. The four, who last week appealed their convictions, drew six-month suspended prison sentences.

SOURCE: time.com

I'm glad you posted that NG. Poor Anneliese Michel lived in the home of extremely zealous Christian parents. Read her entire history. Believe me, you will quickly see why this poor girl suffered so. Her mother should have been imprisoned IMO!

Had Anneliese been a deeply religious person prior to 'being possessed'?

Yes. Anneliese and her three sisters were raised in a strict Catholic family. Her father Josef had considered training as a priest and three of her aunts were nuns.

Four years before Anneliese was born, her mother gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Martha. As a result, her mother suffered great shame and was forced to wear a black veil on her wedding day. When Anneliese was a child, her mother encouraged her to atone for the sins of illegitimacy through fervent devotion. When Anneliese's sister Martha died at the age of eight during an operation to remove a kidney tumor, this likely only increased Anneliese's desire to do penance for her mother (telegraph.co.uk).

As she grew older, Anneliese continued to suffer for the sins of others. When she was a teenager, Anneliese slept on a bare stone floor to atone for the sins of wayward priests and drug addicts, who could be observed sleeping on the hard ground at the local train station (washingtonpost.com). In college at West Germany's University of Würzburg, she hung pictures of saints on her dorm room walls, kept a holy-water font near the door, and regularly prayed the Rosary (time-proxy.yaga.com). As stated earlier, even close to her death she spoke of dying to atone for the sins of the wayward youth and renegade priests.

AM's story
http://www.chasingthefrog.com/reelfaces/emilyrose.php

Kindly,

Sean