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A GP persuaded a patient to give up her anti-depression medication before taking her to his church to be exorcised, the General Medical Council was told.
Dr Thomas O’Brien was working as a locum when he took the woman to a Pentecostal church for a four-hour “testimony” where the exorcism allegedly took place.
Dr O’Brien has now been given conditions on his registration for 18 months after it was ruled that his professional and private boundaries became “blurred” and that he imposed his religious beliefs on the woman.
The GMC was told that he saw the patient, who has not been named, in Staffordshire. She had been prescribed antidepressant, antihypertensive and analgesic medication, but the woman claimed that she stopped taking the medication after Dr O’Brien told her “there is another way”.
She said he gave her lifts to a Pentecostal church in Stoke-on-Trent where she was advised that “God is her surgeon and God will heal her”.
The patient also claimed that Dr O’Brien sent her books about the church, which he ran with another person, and pamphlets including “An Occult Checklist”.
The woman said she was even subjected to a four-hour “testimony” where an exorcism was performed on January 19.
She claimed that Dr O’Brien specifically told her not to tell her psychiatrist about the meetings – because they “do the devil’s work” – and told her “she would be cursed” if she told the GMC.
The patient ignored this advice and told her psychiatrist, who then rang a confidential helpline to report her allegations.
They were then reported to the GMC’s interim orders panel, who found that there “may be impairment of Dr O’Brien’s fitness to practise which poses a real risk to members of the public”. Read more
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– The Catholic Church has established an exorcist hotline in Milan, its biggest diocese, to cope with demand. Monsignor Angelo Mascheroni, the diocese’s chief exorcist since 1995, said the curia had also appointed twice as many exorcists to cope with a doubling in the number of requests for help over 15 years.
“We get many requests for names, addresses and phone numbers; that’s why we’ve set up a switchboard in the curia from Monday to Friday from 2.30pm to 5pm,” he told the chiesadimilano website.
“People in need can call and will be able to find a priest in the same area who doesn’t have to travel too far.” And to that end, the number of demon-busting priests on call has increased from six to 12.
The Monsignor said he knew of one exorcist who had been seeing up to 120 people a day. “But with so little time per client he was only able to offer a quick blessing. That’s not enough,” he said. ”There should be two to four appointments a day, no more, otherwise it’s too much.”
It’s not clear why the number of suspected possessions has risen so sharply. But Monsignor Mascheroni said that part of the increase might be explained by the rising numbers of parents having difficulty controlling disobedient teenagers. Read more
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Religion, the legal scam, preying on the sick and vulnerable. Sad
UK health and social workers and those in the criminal justice system are increasingly having to understand belief in spiritual possession among ethnic minorities, with new research highlighting a particular issue with some sections of the British Asian community blaming mental health problems on the supernatural.
This Halloween, no one is safe from Honey Boo Boo’s demonic fury. Will an exorcism save this lovable tyke, or will the redneck spirits drag her to hell
You call it religion, I call it insane madness with a dash of criminality …
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Exorcism, a religious ritual to evict evil spirits out of a person’s body, who is believed possessed by those spirits, is practised around the world, with the nitty-gritty of the practice varying from religion to religion.
One such practice is prevalent in Colombia and a priest following it claims to have performed more than 35,000 exorcism rituals in the past 25 years, according to a Reuters report.
Meet the real life exorcist, Hermes Cifuentes, known as Brother Hermes in Colombia, who follows a bizarre way of exorcism but claims the ritual has helped those people who claim they have been possessed by evil spirits.
Brother Hermes first covers the ritual seeker’s body in black mud and makes him or her lie on the ground, surrounded by fire, lime, greens and multiple crosses, arranged in a circle. The body itself lies to form the shape of a crucifix. Green and red ribbons are tied to the crosses and the seeker is made to hold a cross and an egg in his hand.
Hermes follows certain rituals from both inside and outside the circle. At one point, he sees into the eyes of the seeker calling out the evil and at another, he keeps his foot on the person’s chest, as a part of cleansing of the spirit.
The belief in exorcism prevails across all religions but practised extensively at some places. The ritual does not hold any scientific significance, but may link to a person’s psychological state, including mental illness like schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder, also known as Dissociative identity disorder (DID), especially when the person himself believes he has been possessed.
In a study about DID, done on ten persons undergoing exorcisms for devil trance possession state, many common traits were found. Read more + crazy pic
WTF Poland.. turning into morons; You need education not exorcism, exorcism is a fancy word over mental illness
– 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. Read more
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Religion in progress AKA Insane madness;
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BUKIT MERTAJAM (Aug 6, 2012): A three-year-old girl was apparently smothered to death by eight people during an exorcism ritual here on Sunday night.
The toddler, identified only as Choy, died after being pinned down by her parents, relatives and the family maid with their bodies during a ritual ostensibly to chase away evil spirits in the family.
The child was already dead when police, responding to a distress call received from the child’s uncle, stormed into the master-bedroom on the upper floor of the family house in Taman Bukit Minyak here at about 10pm.
Central Seberang Perai district police chief ACP Azman Abd Lah said the police team found the family members covered underneath a blanket and in the dark.
“At that time, they were performing the ritual by pinning down the little girl with their bodies,” he told reporters here today.
Azman said the policemen quickly pulled out the victim who was trapped underneath the relatives.
The child’s body was still warm but she was already dead, believed from asphyxia.
Police then detained all eight suspects, aged between 16 and 67, including the victim’s parents, her grandmother, uncle and aunt, two cousins and the maid. Read more
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Council chiefs need education
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Council chiefs have been criticised for considering sending a boy in their care for exorcism.
The boy, whose family were from Africa, had been taken into care by Islington council in north London.
His mother, who no longer had responsibility for her child, asked for him to be sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo for “deliverance”.
The boy’s family claimed this was necessary because they believed he was possessed by “kindoki” or evil spirits.
Islington social services officials then paid more than £4,000 for an expert to travel to Africa to investigate.
The expert, Richard Hoskins, an academic specialising in African religions, was alarmed by what he saw on the visit, and advised the council that the boy should not be exorcised. Read more
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No need to travel, exorcism is pure insane madness + scam, anyone not realizing that has brain problems…
Here is what the child escaped
Look, religion in progress… once we were like this.. our ancestors; In the year 2012.. we should all know better, know that gods are man-made tools for control/scam
– A pupil at Nhlupho Primary School in Kezi District, was allegedly killed by goblins despite an exorcism ceremony that was held recently.
The Grade Seven pupil died under mysterious circumstances where a recent goblin exorcism ceremony resulted in the village head committing suicide.
The death, which occurred on Wednesday, has divided villagers with some saying the goblins that were allegedly removed from village head Moffat Ncube’s home were responsible for the death.
Eighty-one-year-old Ncube allegedly committed suicide on May 19after goblin hunters said he was responsible for supernatural creatures that were reportedly sexually abusing teachers at Nhlupho Primary and Secondary schools.
A villager who asked not to be named said the girl fell ill on Sunday last week, saying something was eating into her left thigh, and died on Wednesday.
“She was perfectly healthy and only had a boil on her right leg. However, on Sunday she started screaming saying something was burrowing into her left thigh and causing unbearable pain. We think it is those goblins because no one could see anything,” said the villager.
A teacher at Nhlupho said villagers believed that the goblins were now feeding on human flesh because their owner was no longer around to give them food.
Another villager said the goblins issue was causing people in the village to distrust each other. Read more
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Like, your(most) religion(s) was invented by even more primitive/ignorant people…
Religion = Fancy word for madness
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A court in Brussels opened on Monday the trial of six people charged in connection with the 2004 murder of a young Muslim woman in a deadly act of exorcism, a practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person believed to be possessed.
The woman was reportedly deceived into believing that she could not have children because she was possessed and that she had to undergo a practice of exorcism.
But the woman apparently could not stand the severe punishment the exorcism allegedly entails to scourge the demon out of the body, and she lost her life.
The detainees in the case include two self-appointed exorcists, the victim’s husband and three female members of a radical Muslim group, will be standing trial for three weeks and facing charges of “torture leading to death.” If they are convicted, they face up to 30 years in prison.
Hours after Latifa Hachmi, 23, died in the evening of Aug. 5, 2004, her husband, Mourad Mazouj, made an emergency call reporting that his wife was feeling ill and stuck in the bathroom.
But the hypothesis of a natural death was quickly dismissed, as her body was found covered with bruises and her lungs filled with water.
Her husband later admitted to investigators that his wife was subjected month-long sessions of exorcism to evict from her body the demons that “prevented her from becoming pregnant.”
The practice was conducted in the couple’s apartment in Brussels by Abdelkrim Aznagui, a Moroccan self-proclaimed “Sheik” and his “disciple,” Xavier Meert, a Belgian native who converted to Islam. They were reportedly assisted by the woman’s husband and three Muslim “sisters” of the victim.
During this period, the young woman had swallowed dozens of liters of “holy” water, according to Belgian media reports. She was fed two spoons of yogurt every day and always had earphones playing verses from the Quran.
In order to evict the demons, the exorcists reportedly put their fingers down the woman’s throat, forced her into bathing in hot water and beat her with a stick.
“The husband and Latifa herself asked Xavier Meert for the exorcism sessions,” the husband’s lawyer, Peter Chomé said. “He may have misjudged her health condition, but it has nothing to do with torture,” he added.
Latifa’s family asked the court to consider the practice that led to the death of their daughter as an act of torture.
“They made Latifa believe that she could not have children because the devil was inside her. That’s why they started the exorcism rituals, but exorcism is not recognized in the Islamic faith,” the victim’s brother said. Source
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P.S. The brother is not telling the truth when he says no exorcism in islam
