I recently attended a lecture given by a Vatican trained exorcist where he explained the different ways that evil spirits can cause havoc. One of his claims was that a person possessed by a demon is not in any way in control of their own faculties, whether they be mental or physical. The demon has complete control.
So my question is this (I wish I would have asked it during the Q + A portion of the lecture): legally speaking, if the possessed person commits a crime, who is on the hook?
Would the attending exorcist(s) be called in as witnesses for the defense?
Wouldn’t this also put the judge and/or jury members who are of the Catholic faith in a bit of a bind, since ruling against the accused would explicitly be a challenge to their own belief system? I imagine it as akin to Kris Kringle being put on trial.
There was a murder trial in 1981 where the accused wanted to argue that he was not guilty because he was possessed. The judge didn’t allow it. Edit: Yeah, that.
This was actually one of Penn Gillette’s (of “Penn Gilette and/or Teller” fame) arguments for how many so-called christians are really atheists. To paraphrase ‘If we really believed the bible, then “the devil made me do it” would be a legitimate defense.’ Interesting and NICE* guy.
*seriously. He’s almost like a real-life Ned Flanders (albeit with a shit-ton more pragmatism and tolerance.)
Those Christians sure are demanding about proof. They have ‘unquestioned faith’ that god, the devil, and heaven and hell all exist. What’s so hard about believing that a person who committed an evil act was possessed by the devil they claim to believe in?
Believing in demons and believing a particular person was possessed by a demon are two different things. The Biblical examples of demon possession all involve someone who is permanently possessed unless an exorcism is given. And their behaviors are all very obviously not in their control, making something like an insanity plea more beneficial than trying to prove that they were demon possessed.
Hell, some theories are that those said to be “demon possessed” were just mentally ill or possibly drug addicts. There’s even a concept of “ritual magic,” which is like a placebo effect for religious rituals. It’s posited as what “works” with faith healings. Speak with authority and appeal to their underlying belief systems, and you may convince those who think they are demon possessed (due to illnesses such as schizophrenia) that they have been freed.
But that’s a digression. My point is that it’s possible to believe in demons and possessions but be highly skeptical of anyone who asserts they have been demonically possessed. And, as for the legal concept, the insanity plea is basically sufficient for how the Bible describes demonic possession.
It is also NOT an all-or-nothing sort of proposition in the demon-believing populations I’m familiar with.
My childhood churches believed in that all-out “Jane isn’t home, Belial is here now”
style of possession, but they also believed in partial possession (where the demon is in residence, but only asserts itself in particular situations or at intervals) and also in demonic “influence” on behavior where the possessing presence isn’t internal to the person, but associated/linked to something in their local environment, and therefore not exercising as strong of a demonic control over that person, except when they’re geographically close or are spiritually weakened.
All of those things are expected to be considered in the spiritual “court,” and LOTS of bad shit is excused and hand-waved away because various levels of “demonic influence” can easily take the blame instead of the person.