Explaining what the word "obsession" means, Russian experts note that this is the subordination of a person's mind to some thought, to a passionate desire. Studies in the 70s of the 20th century showed that 74% of people are obsessed in one way or another. But what it is - an obsession, and what to do, has been described differently by religious figures for centuries.
In religion
In Christianity, it was believed that a possessed person obeys the spirit, the demon, the devil. And they associated the meaning of the word "obsession" with the infliction of evil due to the introduction into the human body of a certain supernatural being that controls it from a distance.
In urban legends
Echoes of such beliefs are preserved in urban legends. In them signs, symptoms of possession were similar. They were associated with the belief in the transmigration of the souls of the dead, animals into inanimate objects.
In psychiatry
Scientific explanation of what it is - an obsession, gave psychiatry. In it, this is the name of a group of states in which a person feels that his will and mind are subordinate to some external force. Differentpatients, various phenomena can act as this force - an alternative personality, "spirits", and so on. This is a form of psychosis or delusion.
Symptoms
The main symptom of a person's obsession is the loss of a sense of their identity. The patient ceases to be aware of the surrounding reality. His behavior is changing. Signs of possession include a limited set of movements, loss of body control, seizures, body temperature disturbances, changes in voice tone, and so on. Diagnosis of the disease in this case is difficult: a fairly wide range of diseases are accompanied by similar manifestations.
Types of Possession
Unknowing people may mistake schizophrenia for obsession. Schizophrenics are characterized by hallucinations. When a person shows signs of being possessed, they feel that an evil entity is nearby, they suffer from strange ideas, and so on.
In epileptic seizures, people may display incoherent verbal flow. And after them, a person may feel that he received some spiritual experience, remember his visions.
Uncontrolled speech in patients with Tourette's syndrome is often considered a sign of possession. Such patients give out streams of speech, accompanied by sudden movements. Often there is a case when a person issues obscene language without controlling it. And such a manifestation is included in the concept of possession in many people.
Patients with bipolar disorder often suffer from sudden mood swings. They can become aggressive misanthropes. If the patient hasmultiple personality, he can unconsciously change it from one to another.
The symptoms of hysteria fall under the religious definition of possession. This is a neurosis, in which disorders of an affective, vegetative nature are observed. And such a person seeks to attract the attention of others by all available means.
Possession state
To better understand what it is - an obsession, it is worth imagining an experience in which a person perceives his gestures, voice, as belonging to someone else. As a rule, we are talking about their manifestations with negative characteristics. There is a sense of intrusion or outside control. These outside forces tend to be malevolent, hostile, and disturbing. Sometimes they talk about the demon inside. Doctors often meet with pronounced voices in the patient's head.
The mechanism of this unusual and difficult to explain phenomenon is associated with the separation of some part of the "I" and its suppression in the subconscious. Types of obsession differ from each other in varying degrees. Possession states are the result of painful traumatic life experiences, most commonly childhood abuse, and are considered a creative form of handling difficult situations.
People experiencing this type of crisis have a distinct sense that their soul and body have been taken over and controlled by beings or energies that differ in their individual personal characteristics. They perceive the "invaders" as a hostile and subversive element that has come to them from outside. Seemsthem that a being without a body, a demonic entity or an evil person who captured them with the help of black magic is operating in them.
In understanding the definition of obsession, one must take into account that it is characterized by serious manifestations of both an antisocial and criminal nature: aggression, depression, sexual promiscuity, excessive use of alcohol and drugs. Only after the beginning of psychotherapy does the obsession of the face begin to fade away.
During the experience of seizures, the patient may suddenly begin to jump in convulsions, show a semblance of a devilish face, roll his eyes to give his face a wild expression. Hands and body twitch in strange positions, the voice completely changes, it sounds like it is from another world.
Strikingly, this may resemble the experience of "exorcism" in the Christian church or the rites of exorcism in various native cultures. The seizure often resolves only after violent vomiting, vigorous physical activity, or even a temporary loss of control. These states can also be healing, transformative, sometimes leading to a deep spiritual transformation of the face. This is characteristic of epileptics.
Sometimes a possessed person thinks a lot about the presence of alien beings and resists them with all his might. Such a situation arises quite spontaneously in everyday life - in the form described. Then, as a rule, strong fears accompany it, and the patient feels despair: relatives, friends and often even doctors tend to reject him.
On the behavior of the possessedpeople react with a strange mixture of fear and moral condemnation. Often such people were called mediators of evil forces, they refused to make any contact with them.
The disgusting archetype is a transpersonal entity, it is a negative mirror image of the divine. Often it seems that we are talking about a paranormal phenomenon. The patient can be helped by a person who cannot be intimidated by the unusual nature of this condition, who will be able to maintain the full consciousness of the patient in order to dispel his feeling of negative energy. This is how healing happens.
Possession: devil or mental disorder?
The fact that this is an obsession has been argued by scientists and supporters of a religious view of the problem for a century. The story of the most famous obsessed in history - Anna-Lisa is indicative. She was born in a Bavarian village in 1952. Her whole family was a believer, the girl was brought up in Catholic traditions.
It was a tradition in her large family that one of the family members would definitely work in the spiritual realm. The young girl was really close to faith in God. Prayers and church attendance were her number one priority, and there must have been good reasons for missing out on those activities. Anna-Liza was a very successful girl at the local gymnasium, and her teachers remember her as a modest and intelligent girl. Already during her studies at the gymnasium, she wanted to become a teacher. Continuing education at the Faculty of Education for this girl has become key. She was destined to shed light on the world that this is a possession. And also open a new milestone instudy of this phenomenon.
Beginning of illness
To understand that this is an obsession, it makes sense to consider how such an ailment develops using a classic example - the documented story of Anna-Lisa. Already during her studies at the gymnasium, her first problems began to appear. At first, the girl developed mood swings, aggression, or depression. It took quite a long time for parents and teachers to start doing this, because she never had conflicts in the team. She was a rather quiet girl, whom no one paid much attention to. However, it has never been proven that she was the target of bullying or humiliation by classmates or anyone else that could affect her psychological problems.
More serious interest in her state of he alth appears only after she overcame her first epileptic seizure. Prior to this, the girl complained of frequent headaches, was disgusted with food, suffered from insomnia, but there were more terrible symptoms. She heard strange sounds and voices that no one else heard, complained that she began to see unfamiliar faces in her dreams and in reality. Hallucinations interfered with her, very often she complained of disgusting smells that no one felt. Anna-Lisa said that she was surrounded by dark forces that frightened him so that sometimes she could not even catch her breath.
Research results
Neurological, psychological and psychiatric manifestations disappeared after overcoming the firstepileptic seizure. Along with it, several other he alth problems appeared at the same time, so she was subjected to tests and treatment. Long-term treatment did not give any results. The doctors were unable to explain the change in her he alth, but since the seizure was epileptic, the doctors prescribed her a remedy for the disease.
In the end, she managed to successfully complete her studies at the Faculty of Education. In the first year at the university, the epileptic seizure recurred. The attack was even stronger than the first time. Her he alth deteriorated significantly, inflammation of the pleura and lungs began. Anna-Lisa therefore had to postpone her teaching duties, and the girl did not yet know that she would not return to the university.
Tests showed no serious problems. Anna-Lisa was diagnosed with an epileptic disorder. During attacks, the patient with this disease falls and experiences clouding of consciousness, the attack is accompanied by severe spasms and tension of the nervous system, his limbs may tremble, twitch in an unnatural way. After the patient remains disoriented.
It was these symptoms that Anna-Lisa had in her seizures, so the doctors chose this diagnosis. Mysterious was only that outside of the attacks there were no signs (both physiological and psychological) of epilepsy. As already mentioned, her examination showed no symptoms of the disease, and in fact the girl was he althy. The doctors shrugged their shoulders as to the nature of her condition. Soon, wandering from doctor to doctor became fatal for her psyche. She fell intoeven greater depression, there was a deterioration in her attitude towards professionals, even relatives. Her condition deteriorated rapidly. During the visions, she began to observe demons. They followed her.
Doctors at first believed that these visions were caused by hallucinations, but after other studies, no pathological personality disorders were identified. The visions began to be seen as her fantasies. Psychology considers our imagination in the process of personality development as something useful, but sometimes it can lead to a separation from reality, and the patient can consider the pictures created in the imagination to be so real that they will replace reality for him. Probably, this also manifested itself in Anna-Lisa. In 1972, the next attack took place, but medical examinations showed no abnormalities.
The Path to Healing
The girl began to look for the path to healing in faith. Depression and aggression showed no signs of improvement. Anna-Lisa complained that she continued to feel as if someone else was looking at her. She saw things and ghosts that no one noticed. She began to pray, and became more and more convinced that help could only come through the spiritual life. Her family believed that this was indeed the only possible way. During a religious pilgrimage in Italy, the girl refused to look at the image of Christ. The priest Ernst Alt began to take an interest in her, figuring out that it was an obsession. He began to pray with her. Exorcists were also interested in her, figuring out that it was an obsession.
Soon girlrefused food and liquids, her depression worsened, her aggressiveness grew. The voices told her that she was corrupted, cursed, and would eventually burn in hell. Parents began to go to all church institutions in which demons were cast out, and their story reached the Vatican. In 1975, the rite of exorcism according to the Roman canon was performed. Anna-Lisa refused food and liquids, during the ritual she refused a glass of water, but after a while she drank her own urine from a container.
More and more uncontrollable fits of rage appeared in her as she attacked people around her and objects that came to her hand. There were manifestations of hyperactivity when she began to be thrown into the air and rush to the ground. The reaction to the exorcism ritual was of varying degrees of intensity and strength. Several times the girl spoke in strange voices and in foreign languages that she had no opportunity to learn. Exorcists counted 6 demons in it. They called them Cain, Judas, Nero, Lucifer, Hitler, there was also an unknown demon.
For the period from 1975 to 1976. over 60 sessions have been held. Some required up to four hours, at least two rituals were performed during the week. Anna-Liza voluntarily stopped all other types of treatment, the doctors could not convince her of the need for medical therapy. Her parents supported her, and so the possessed gave herself only into the hands of exorcists. During the sessions, she cursed Christ and all the saints. Her physical conditionit got worse, but the exorcists continued. During the ritual, the exorcist noticed that Anna-Lisa reacts most of all to holy water, howls and suffers, tries to bite everyone around. They were able to improve her condition by October 1975. Then the visions changed to positive, until finally they stopped altogether.
Nevertheless, the girl increasingly said that she could not be helped. She said that she must die to atone for the sins of all the young. Henceforth, she refused the doctor, food and any attempts at treatment. During the visit of the priest on June 30, 1976, she whispered, asking for the remission of sins, which the holy father granted her. The next day, July 1, 1976, she exhaled for the last time.
Her story has become popular, she is considered a model of tales of obsession. All of it is documented. More than one film has been made based on the story of Anna-Lisa, most people consider the concept of obsession on it.
