Are possessions and exorcism rates rising or is the media encouraging paranoia?

'Exorcism is directed at the expulsion of demons or to the liberation from demonic possession through the spiritual authority which Jesus entrusted to his Church.'

News of exorcisms, possessed politicians and an increase in spiritual warfare has swept the globe this year - and the word is eating it up.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - With the release of several televised series' and upcoming films focused on the occult, it should come as no surprise to hear that exorcisms gone wrong and more readily available exorcisms exist around the world.

Some believe the media is responsible for creating spiritual paranoia, particularly since the past few decades have seen the release of an ever-increasing number of possession films and TV shows. Others, such as Father Pedro Barrajon, the director of the Istituto Sacerdos, believes the rise in occult practices accounts for the growing number of possessed individuals.

Speaking to ansa, Barrajon stated: "We have a very secularised society in which, more than in the past, there's the tendency to  open the doors to occultism and esotericism. Demonic influence is favoured by magical practices and the use of fortune tellers, which can have a real influence leading even to possession.

"A possessed person has various general attitudes towards an exorcist, who is seen by the Adversary as an enemy ready to fight him. There's no lack of frightening facial expressions, threatening words or gestures and other things but especially blasphemies against God and Our Lady."

Michael Cuneo, who recently spoke on the rise in the reappearance of exorcisms in the Catholic Church, admitted most possession cases are really just individuals with medical, psychological or psychiatric issues.

"The exorcist is the ultimate skeptic," he explained. "The more emphatic someone is that they're possessed, the more I'm probably convinced that they don't have anything."

In Africa, "child witches" continue to be abandoned in the Congo following "failed exorcisms" involving olive oil, the eating and drinking of human blood and flesh and more horrendous acts.

Several men, women and children have been killed by family members attempting to drive out demons. One Cape Town killer went as far as beheading a teenager and selling the remains to a witch-doctor, then later claimed it was demonic possession that forced him to kill the boy.

With an ever-increasing curiosity with the relationship between the physical and the spiritual, the devout and the theists and the growing number of devil-sympathizing shows, expect to hear more and more about demon possessions and a higher demand for exorcisms.

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