Legion

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, God is one.  Amen

As we approach Hallowe’en, let us remind ourselves that the western Orthodox Church ordered the celebration of All Hallows, All Saints, on 1st November with its Eve Vigil on 31st October to replace the pagan festival of Samhain, a feast in which the pre-Christian Celts banished the encroaching darkness of evil spirits with lit fires and noisy celebrations.  It is timely, therefore, that today’s Gospel should celebrate Christ’s exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac.  However, before we look afresh at this incident, we need to take some time in the first part of this sermon to address the whole issue of spirits, both evil and good, in the history of humankind and in the stance of modern secular psychiatry.

Sadly, many of us in the post Enlightenment west lack the tools to understand demonic possession and how to deal with it.  Usually the atheistic view prevails in which all reference to spirit entities, benign or malicious, is held to be pre-modern nonsense … these spirits being explained away as artefacts of abnormal dysfunctional psychologies.  Modern psychiatry largely operates on this basis.  However, belief in spirit possession persists strongly, even in Western secular cultures, as can readily be seen in our bookshops and cinemas, albeit these populist versions are often driven by sensationalism rather than truth. 

Such beliefs in the spirit world and the possibility of practical and pastoral remedies for spirit possession have been present across all cultures and religions for thousands of years. The accumulated wisdom to be found there should not all be written off as mumbo-jumbo and the quackery of charlatans. I do not, for example, see how Our Lord’s exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac can be truly understood on its own terms without having some familiarity with this tried and tested wisdom.

Unfortunately, because modern psychiatry refuses to acknowledge the spirit world there has been little or no scientific study (outside, of course, of anthropology) of how these cultures have navigated the landscape of the soul, its opportunities and pitfalls, the light and the dark.  Certainly, Christ, being the Wisdom and Power of God had no problems navigating this landscape of the soul.  Listen to this from the Gospel of St Matthew:

43 When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none. 44 Then he says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first. So shall it also be with this wicked generation.” (Matthew 12:43-45)

Notice how our Lord Jesus Christ sees the reality of possession as a problem for society as well as for the individual person.  Nations and their cultures (“this wicked generation”) also need to be exorcised as well as individuals.  See how fascism continues to rear its ugly head from within the darker corners of the West’s collective psyche. The toxic myth of the collective hideous strength, (to use a phrase of C.S. Lewis), the “will to power” (from Nietzsche), has indeed its own spirits, its own “principalities and powers” – again, and to quote St Paul: -

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:12)

To write all of this off in terms of self-enclosed abnormal psychological traits without carefully examining the evidence of spirit possession and how this might impinge on the human psyche is arguably unscientific because it is based on a dogma: “there are no spirits” rather than what the scientific method itself requires which is, observation and experiment.  “Experiment” in this case involves the selective use of therapies that actually work rather than, as so often happens, following the path of medicating people into oblivion.  This is especially the case for those abnormal psychologies – and this is important - that are NOT a result of neurochemical imbalances which, of course, often require medication as part of a treatment program.  So, do not think that what I am presenting here is an alternative to medication; I am saying that when medication is due because of a neurochemical imbalance, it is essential.  When, however, the malady is susceptible of listening and talking, we go down that route, the so-called psychotherapeutic route.

A key candidate for spirit possession or influence might, in SOME cases (but not all) be what used to be called: “Multiple Personality Disorder” – now medically known as “Dissociative Identity Disorder,” (which I shall henceforth refer to as DID).  This is where there are many personalities taking differing roles within the person, the sufferer.  These alternative personalities, switching in and out, have their own narratives, their own histories, their own attitudes, even sometimes their own genders. I am choosing this disorder because it most clearly relates to the Gerasene Demoniac who was healed by Christ.  He named himself “Legion” because, simply put, there were, we might say, ‘many-in-him’.  The legion was, of course, the largest unit of Roman soldiers.  Not only, however, for this reason do I choose Dissociative Identity Disorder, but because psychiatry itself agrees that the cure of this disorder (or at least its management) involves talking and listening therapies, listening of behalf of the counsellor. 

Firstly, we need to emphasise that the horrors associated with demonic possession are precisely that - horrors invented by Hollywood to sell films, such as “The Omen”, “The Exorcist”, “Rosemary’s Baby” and all that nonsense..  These have little or no bearing on the actual reality of demonic possession and its cure.  Sadly, if vulnerable persons with genuine mental health issues believe this Hollywood nonsense for themselves, all too easily hysterical imitation of or fascination with these horrors can compound and make worse the underlying problems.  Priests and pastors must be alert to the dangers here, and not unwittingly and ignorantly collude with these unhelpful memes about possession in our society.  The sufferer must be gently encouraged to identify and lay aside these false characterisations of their suffering, if indeed if they are present. 

So, let us now take stock.  We have taken, necessarily, a long time here to set forth the scene.  Let us now take a look, with new eyes perhaps, at how Our Lord cured the Gerasene demoniac.

As the account opens, we learn that Jesus had already “commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man” (v. 28) which explains that when the demoniac speaks it is not his authentic self or persona that speaks but the collective personalities of the demons (plural). The man is not himself rational enough to recognise who Jesus is … but the demons do!  Note that in response to the initial exorcism of Jesus the demons implore Christ in response to Christ’s initial exorcism: “do not torment me” which indicates that his initial command to depart was painful.  Our Lord, however, has not finished with the process of the exorcism; something else, something crucially important has to happen and this involves dialogue with the man himself (not the demons).  “What is your name?” Christ asks the man himself, not the demons.  Have you ever asked yourself why Jesus asked this question?  Why did he not, so to speak, ‘just get on with it’ and complete the exorcism?  By asking the man his name He was encouraging him to identify his problem, and so he did.  Jesus knew the answer already of course, Legion, many-in-him, which is indeed characteristic of the dissociation of identity, of personal disintegration, of darkness and of death … often due to some sustained and intense childhood trauma.  This was the response, “Legion,” that was necessary for him to bring his suffering to Christ. 

Let us now recall that DID or Multiple Personality Disorder as it once was called, is invariably not a neuro-chemical condition; it is a result, almost exclusively, of severe, sustained childhood trauma. The afflicted young person does not have the ability to process these terrible sufferings, and so, instead, different personalities are created to give the child some sort of internal distance from them.  So, although DID is a disorder, it is an adaptive disorder and in this it has some similarities with PTSDPost Traumatic Stress Syndrome. 

Returning to the Gospel, Our Lord now shifts his listening back to the demons who redouble their plea not to let this torture of theirs end for them in the Abyss.  (Now, the “Abyss” in Jewish thought at the time was not only the place where the dead await judgement, but also where hostile spirits were incarcerated).  Interestingly, Jesus appears to spare them the Abyss (for now at least) but allows them to enter the pigs – remember, unclean animals for unclean spirits – the pigs, which, of course, then stampede over the cliff and perish.

 

What we learn here is that exorcism is a process, not an instantaneous act as many falsely suppose.  It involves the interrogation of the authentic self, what DID professionals call the “host” personality, and a dialogue with the Legion, the fragmentary personalities over which Christ takes control, with the spirits now bonded to His word in obedience, for none can disobey the Word of God in the end.  I think this means that when professionals deal with these mental pathologies they could well learn from this ancient Divine Wisdom - which some of them seem so to despise and ridicule, perhaps because some of them do not understand its significance.  It is not only the shamans of old that sought to heal people by enlisting the help of good spirits in disciplining disorderly ones.  Christ, in His Wisdom and Power, fulfils this healing most perfectly, as only God can. True and lasting healing can only come from Him who is the Light, Christ, that overcomes our darkness.

Writing of the healing of this man who had a legion of demons, St Cyril of Alexandria reflected that God permitted these demons to come into this poor man so that, and I quote, “we may learn by … example how the demons treat us and may avoid the desire of being subject to them. The suffering of one [educates] many,” concluded St Cyril.

Finally, I want to mention a vitally important matter referred to at the beginning of my sermon when I quoted from the Gospel of St Matthew concerning the seven returning demons who worsen the condition of a man formerly and incompletely exorcised.  When we see the healed Gerasene demoniac finally in today’s Gospel, he is described as: “sitting at Jesus’ feet, clothed and in his right mind” (v. 35b).  Here now was a man full of the Holy Spirit, sane and attentive to the words of Christ, sitting attentively at His feet.  Before, he had been bitterly fragmented mentally, but now he is whole, the fullness of God the Word, the Logos, and the Holy Spirit filling him – no room at all for any returning disordered spirit.  This is a reminder for us that having been exorcised and cleansed in Holy Baptism we must thereafter always seek likewise to be fed by the Logos in Word and Sacrament and to be filled indeed with the Holy Spirit.  In this lies not only our own healing but also through us the healing of countless others and even of the Cosmos itself.  Let not those contrary spirits return! Amen.

 

And so we ascribe as is justly due, all might, majesty, dominion, power and praise to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, always now and ever and unto the ages of ages, Amen.

Archpriest Gregory Hallam

25th October 2020