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Atheists and Evil Spirit Possesion

They take the form of religious delusions and paranoia in western society, too, depending on the individuals belief system. I've worked multiple clients where their symptoms manifest as religious paranoia and delusions. Generally I agree about the manifestation of symptoms, though. More of the clients I work with have symptoms that manifest as governmental delusions and paranoia.

I remember when I was doing my psych rotation in nursing school, back in around 1983. It was in the county hospital psych ward, and a common report by the patients was that God talked to them through the television. I haven't worked in a psych facility as a professional, and I've wondered if God now speaks through the computer or the I-phone. ;)
 
Well, frankly, the same can be said regarding medical treatment of psychological and mental disorders. We can give medications, and receive feedback regarding whether or not the patient reports an improvement in symptoms, but we can't really objectively measure the data, and prove outcomes.

That may be true, at least currently, for some disorders. With things like depression, for example, we can at least measure levels of different chemicals in the brain and try to correlate improved well being with changes in brain chemistry.
 
No, certainly it doesn't. But, as Visbek mentioned, you can't really explain the reason for it if you can't reliably repeat it and examine the outcomes.

It can be reliably repeated, and has been, all the time.
 
It can be reliably repeated, and has been, all the time.

I'm guessing it's usually among the very religious (either the possessed or the family of the possessed) that it happens? Also, do you have some statistics somewhere that I'm unaware of?
 
I remember when I was doing my psych rotation in nursing school, back in around 1983. It was in the county hospital psych ward, and a common report by the patients was that God talked to them through the television. I haven't worked in a psych facility as a professional, and I've wondered if God now speaks through the computer or the I-phone. ;)

I know that hapens with at least one client I've worked with, but I haven't done much research into how prevalent it is. The TV is more common with my clients, possibly due to the fact that the clients I work with are generally form low income backgrounds and often do not own computers and I-phones. I have noticed that the governmental delusions seem more likely to manifest through the computer and phones, though, for clients that do own them.
 
I'm guessing it's usually among the very religious (either the possessed or the family of the possessed) that it happens? Also, do you have some statistics somewhere that I'm unaware of?

Not exactly something we document, we don't need to.
 
I remember when I was doing my psych rotation in nursing school, back in around 1983. It was in the county hospital psych ward, and a common report by the patients was that God talked to them through the television. I haven't worked in a psych facility as a professional, and I've wondered if God now speaks through the computer or the I-phone. ;)

Yes, He does. ;)

Seriously, though, I think this is very typical. Once you're deep into your conspiracy delusion already, you believe any sentence spoken on TV or radio (or internet) is an allusion that refers to you, a hidden message that someone made the tv speaker say for that you would understand it, but others wouldn't.

For example, I had a female friend back then whom I was very close with, although she had a boyfriend. I think we also crossed a certain line several times I thought I would not approve of, if I was her boyfriend. When I then was delusional, already believed some power was monitoring and observing me, and sending me messages, I switched on tv, and there would be report about a jalousy murder case where a jalous husband had murdered his wife and her lover. I was incapable of believing this was just a coincidence -- I was convinced that *them* (whoever they are) deliberately put that tv report there just the moment I switched on the tv, just to send me a message.

In that state, you're no longer capable believing it's "just a coincidence". It MUST have meaning. That's why the formally logical conclusion that the conspiracy must really be vast and the powers behind it extremely powerful -- because how much money and power do you need to even manipulate news reports on tv?


Oh my, I'm really glad all this is behind me. I can't thank modern medication enough.
 
We sang, preached, and brought bicycles for local area pastors. We also played games of soccer with the kids.

Huh, maybe the guy wanted to curry favor with a group of people that were bringing bicycles?
 
Huh, maybe the guy wanted to curry favor with a group of people that were bringing bicycles?

No, we weren't bringing bicycles to his area, we were only preaching, the village actually took us to his house.
 
No, we weren't bringing bicycles to his area, we were only preaching, the village actually took us to his house.

Perhaps they'd heard about you bringing things to other areas, but you just weren't aware they'd heard.
 
Perhaps they'd heard about you bringing things to other areas, but you just weren't aware they'd heard.

Doubtful, this was hours away from the villages with the bicycles. Why can't you just accept what happened instead of these mundane pointless questions?
 
Doubtful, this was hours away from the villages with the bicycles. Why can't you just accept what happened instead of these mundane pointless questions?

Because I don't think a demonic possession actually happened. It seems more likely that there was some other social/mental reason.
 
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