Dedicated to the systematic debunking of Christianity, from modern Christian activities and evangelism to the problematic and contradicting Bible, via rationalism and evidence-based counterarguments.
John W. Loftus
David Madison
When I first read the NT, all those stories about casting out demons sounded very familiar to me. The above story is one I personally witnessed, but I heard a number of others of the same kind, not necessarily in my own little village but in the surrounding mountains.
Wow, I don't think I remember that particular story. How awful.
I told this story here a couple of years ago. Having been to Morocco, you already know people (at least country people and uneducated people) take it for granted that spirits/demons/jinns are everywhere around us.
I witnessed this with my own eyes around 1963 or 1964. My father's cousin went crazy. He simply lost his mind, shouting obscenities at everyone, laughing loudly by himself, etc., though he was one of the sweetest and most harmless people anyone had ever known before. I loved him very much myself. To the people of the village, the explanation was very simple: he was possessed by a jinn, not just some random jinn who appeared out of nowhere, but a certain jinn who dwelt in a certain pond about a mile outside the village. Everyone "knew" this jinn lived there and not to disturb him at certain hours. Some even gave him a name, though no one would dare pronounce it for fear of summoning him in. My relative had been seen grazing his sheep near the pond, so he must have done something to disturb the jinn.
The question was how to get this jinn to leave his body. Our village was too small and did not have an exorcist, so they sent for one from a nearby village. The man arrived on his mule and went into my father's cousin's house with determination on his face.
We children were not allowed in, but we climbed up to the windows and could see and hear everything. My poor relative must have been afflicted by some physical problem, because he had become emaciated and weak. Still, the exorcist had two strong young guys each hold him by the arm to pin him down in his bed, which was too easy for them, and he started to talk to the "jinn" inside the "possessed" man:
"Are you going to come out, yes or no? You know you cannot resist the power of God and his Prophet, in whose names I am talking to you right now! Just come out and go away."
And my relative's voice would come out slightly altered, as if the jinn were talking through his mouth:
"He knew that was my pond, didn't he? He knew I don't like you people washing yourselves or watering your animals in it at certain times, didn't he? So why did he do it? It's his fault. I like it here just fine. I'm staying right here."
After a few minutes of this kind of exchange, the exorcist finally decided to use "his power." With the help of a couple more young guys, he held my relative's hand, stretched out his fingers, and pushed his own thumbnail between the fingernails and skin of my relative, a simple, clear form of torture. My relative hollered in pain and cried, "I'll come out! I'll come out! Stop! Stop!" But as soon as they let go of his hand, he'd laugh and say he was not coming out. So they gave him the same treatment again but harder and longer, until "he" finally surrendered and said he was leaving for real and for good.
The poor man went a few days or weeks afterward looking exhausted and as someone who had lost all willpower and interest in anything. People thought he was just recovering, but he got worse and worse physically until he died not long after, and I assume of whatever sickness had caused his mental problems in the first place.
It was not too many years later that this kind of thing disappeared for good (I hope), and people started going to doctors and psychiatrists instead. But if I had not been to school, I would have believed my father's cousin was genuinely possessed by a demon. Did I not see and hear him myself being exorcised?
Of course, I might have asked myself why this jinn did not speak in his own voice. Why did he have to speak through my relative's vocal cords? Why did the "torture" not hurt him directly instead of hurting the man he "inhabited"?
Could it be that my relative had subconsciously assumed the role of the jinn and said what he already knew people expected him to say?
Of course he did !