Episode Details

Exorcism comes from the Greek exorkismos — "binding by oath." It's a legal act, not a medical one, and it's older than any institution that codified it. This episode traces possession belief from the 63 documented dybbuk cases in Jewish tradition through medieval Europe, where possession was the only available concept for psychoses and epilepsy, to the modern bureaucratic machinery of screening procedures and bishop's permissions. Seven major traditions have codified rites — Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Latter-day Saints, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism — and Sikhism explicitly rejects the whole framework. Along the way: the Earling, Iowa case of 1928, the Roland Doe case that inspired The Exorcist, and the criminal convictions that followed Anneliese Michel's death in 1976. Episode #639377 — open it directly at myweirdprompts.com/639377