* * *

Mental disorders caused by demonic influence

Mental disorders can also appear as a result of the action of evil spirits on a person. In the Holy Scriptures, evil spirits are depicted entering people and leaving them (Matt. 4:24; Mk. 1:23; Lk. 4:35, etc.). A particularly remarkable example is the Lord's healing of a Gadarene demoniac man. This unfortunate man dragged out his life not in human dwellings, but in sepulchral caves; he beat against a stone with foam on his lips, emitted screams. They tried to bind him, but he, like ropes, tore the fetters. What kind of disease is it?

Unbelievers will say: a falling disease, a nervous disorder. But of the Gadarene possessed man it cannot be said that he was only nervously upset; this is evident from the following: the demons expelled from the unfortunate asked Christ for permission to enter the herd of pigs. The Saviour gave permission, and now the flock threw itself from the steep slope into the sea (Matt. 8:2832). Who drowned the pigs? Not the demoniac who sat at the feet of the Lord, but a legion of demons cast out of him.

As a result of possession by an evil spirit, the soul becomes unnatural, it languishes and suffers. In the Holy Scriptures, the possessed are directly and clearly distinguished from people possessed by mental and physical illnesses. The latter, as indicated, develop from a disorder of the mental powers, imagination, reason, etc.

When one begins to think about some of the psychopathological manifestations observed in patients, one involuntarily thinks about the spiritual essence of their occurrence. I do not claim that the psychic disturbances described below are solely the result of the soul's possession by evil spirits, but, I repeat, spiritual causes seem to be present.

I will give descriptions of individual symptoms and syndromes used in practice to describe the mental state of patients.

Delusions of possession – the patient has been possessed by an animal, an insect, a mythological or invented by the patient himself, a living creature that constantly (less often – periodically) stays in the body and makes him make movements, actions contrary to the patient's wishes, directs his thoughts and feelings.

Automatisms are the emergence of feelings, movements, thoughts, images, representations, and other things beyond the will and desire of the patient.

Persecutory delusions are a group of delusional ideas characterized by the patient's delusional belief in external influence and with the aim of causing him moral or physical harm.