Correlation, causation or curse?

December 1, 2020 12:04 PM

In 2017, a 29 year-old woman in Mexico City was given an MRI while undergoing an exorcism. Then things got weird: 8 out of 13 participants (61.53%) [in the research] had accidents and sudden events that put their lives in danger. [pdf paper] via Tom Whitwell's annual list
posted by gottabefunky (46 comments total)

given an MRI while undergoing an exorcism

g̵i̴v̷e̸n̴ ̶a̵n̷ ̵M̷R̵I̴ ̶w̷h̸i̶l̷e̶ ̴u̵n̴d̷e̴r
g̴o̸i̶n̴g̴ ̴a̴n̵ ̴̴̴̴̴̴̴̴e̶x̷o̵r̵c̸i̸s̴
m̸

ĝ̴̟i̵̗͕͂v̴̩̽ͅe̶̛̞͇̓n̶̗̑̇ ̷̙͝a̶̮̒n̴̙̾̄ ̵̢̝̾M̴̝̖̏͌Ř̷̝̔͜
Ĭ̴̥̎ ̸̯͛ẅ̷̪̏h̵͔͗ì̴̪͍̇ļ̵̹̅é̵̠́ ̷̜̻̿u̶̼̼̓n̷͖͈̂̽
d̷̤͖̏̇ě̵̟͍r̶͚̟̽g̵͚͗ö̴̡͕͆į̷̭͂n̸̗̂͝ǵ̶͇̗̊ ̵͕͈̊à̷̩̹
ņ̴̃̈ ̵̬̾e̶̦̽x̸̫͝͠ö̸̢̥́͘r̸̳͐͋c̷̥̠͋̒i̴̳̺̎s̵͓͈̔̀m̵̻̿
posted by thatwhichfalls at 12:08 PM on December 1, 2020 [17 favorites]

All these worlds are yours except Europa Maria.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 12:19 PM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

In a survey of 16 participants of this project, 100% have higher fear organized crime in Mexico than of a Demon.

This is both fascinating and very sad. I hope the patients in question have found some sort of peace now.
posted by fight or flight at 12:20 PM on December 1, 2020

I prefer the reverse exorcism myself.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:22 PM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

...SCP-5977 is a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner retrieved from Hospital General de █████ in ███ █████, Mexico. All attempts to decommission the scanner have been unsuccessful to date....
posted by saturday_morning at 12:26 PM on December 1, 2020 [70 favorites]

Not a lot of peer review going on at the open access journal I see
posted by ook at 12:26 PM on December 1, 2020 [16 favorites]

It seems people really are motivated to win the Ig Nobel these days! But will these increasingly professional attempts ruin the fun?
posted by pulposus at 12:34 PM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

Gotta love this line: The relevance of this project is the description of central nervous centers with imaging while a female is possessed.
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:45 PM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

The Demon expelled was Alito (8 hours for each exorcism) and the demon that persists is Estencaster.

{Egon Spengler voice} : Well, that's your problem right there. Estencaster is a mean sonofagun. A total class XII multi-dimensional asshole if you ask me. You definitely need to up the toroidal plasma booster before applying the Gozerian repellent field.
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:58 PM on December 1, 2020 [20 favorites]

The Demon expelled was Alito

Weird way to learn of Samuel’s extracurriculars.
posted by bixfrankonis at 1:02 PM on December 1, 2020 [58 favorites]

I know I've told the story before about having once worked in television, and how right before quitting the company I was part of a two-person research team trying to come up with a detailed proposal for a show about "the history of exorcism." We had pretty much no guidance and were getting bad management, so our research kind of went all over the place and ultimately fell apart and the thing never happened.

But this meant that he and I were paid to basically do a deep dive into research rabbit holes about exorcism and possession, the religious implications of each, an interreligious comparison of how different denominations and faiths regarded them, the historic and psychological and social impact of the threat of possession over the years, the harm done to those misdiagnosed as "possessed," and the like. We also had a fascinating conversation with someone who discussed biofeedback studies being done on Tibetan Buddhist Monks as a possible avenue for harnessing the power of biofeedback on treating other issues; he suggested this as a way to explain "the power of the mind" to manifest the symptoms of possession (the upshot of his argument was that maybe someone who believed they were possessed that strongly would trigger a biofeedback loop that would manifest some of the more difficult-to-explain symptoms).

My research buddy and I were skeptics (his last name legitimately and hilariously was "Mulder", and we made a great many X-Files jokes while we were at work). And we did find copious evidence that most of the cases of "possession" throughout history could be explained away by more mundane causes. But - not all. We also had a conversation with Father William O'Malley, during which he explained that while the Catholic Church did do exorcisms, they push you to make sure it's not some other more mundane problem first - and exorcism is only a last resort, and there are some pretty extreme conditions a case has to meet before the church will step in - like, the ability to speak a language the person would have had no way of knowing, the ability to know things the person wouldn't have any way of knowing, super-extreme strength (like a five-year-old throwing a sumo wrestler across a room level of strength) or the ability to levitate.

We were still skeptics. But we had to admit that we didn't have any other explanation for those symptoms. In the end, Mulder and I - amongst ourselves - decided that there was some kind of as-yet-unresearched mental illness we nicknamed "Psychosis X", for which the act of going through a traditional exorcism somehow alleviates it. I think we were clinging to the idea of "biofeedback and the subconscious getting jacked up by someone believing they were possessed really hard".

It's not a perfect theory by any means; it's one devised by two overworked twenty-something TV research assistants. But it has allowed me to continue to believe for the past 30-odd years that meh, I don't think that the devil is REALLY real.... But, tellingly, it does incorporate some of the brain studies that it seems people are starting to do here.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:05 PM on December 1, 2020 [67 favorites]

The Demon expelled was Alito

Weird way to learn of Samuel’s extracurriculars.

Take that back! You take him back right now!
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:28 PM on December 1, 2020 [7 favorites]

Placebo would be a pretty cool name for a demon
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 1:52 PM on December 1, 2020 [16 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos... coming to Netflix soon? I'll pre-order barrels of popcorn, if so.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 1:54 PM on December 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

his last name legitimately and hilariously was "Mulder", and we made a great many X-Files jokes while we were at work

posted by EmpressScullypygos
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:11 PM on December 1, 2020 [19 favorites]

Placebo would be a pretty cool name for a demon

Full name: Placebo Dominus.
posted by jamjam at 2:15 PM on December 1, 2020 [6 favorites]

EmpressCallipygos, I wrote my senior seminar thesis for my religious studies BA on exorcism. Did you read Cuneo?
posted by Fukiyama at 2:17 PM on December 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

100% have higher fear organized crime in Mexico than of a Demon

Even the member of a secret Catholic order (Opus Dei?) feared Mexican gangsters much more than a demon.

This research is getting away with a lot, including testing something entirely other than what is printed on the label, I think.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 2:21 PM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

I honestly don't remember what books we read for that TV show; this was in 1997, and a lot of the research was done online. (It also got scrapped because our boss had this sort of hard-hitting, scare-people-into-believing-it's-real concept in mind and we just weren't able to support it.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:22 PM on December 1, 2020

It came out later, so no. If anyone is interested, American Exorcism is a good read. Great intro into exorcism and how it is perceived and used in various Christian denominations in the US.
posted by Fukiyama at 2:42 PM on December 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

WHO ARE YOU? JEZEBEL IS THAT YOU AGAIN!?

/boblarson
posted by Scattercat at 2:49 PM on December 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

{Egon Spengler voice}

Excuse me, but this would be said by Ray or Peter.


We were still skeptics. But we had to admit that we didn't have any other explanation for those symptoms.

This is sort of the Netflix show "Evil", which is slightly scarier and way less crappy than "The Haunting of" Netflix shows. I'm only halfway through the first season, but it really has you guessing if exorcism is real or psychosis (within the world of the show).
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:54 PM on December 1, 2020 [6 favorites]

27 of 51 (66%) deliberately sought treatment, 22 of 51 (66%) performed exorcism and 6 of 51 (33%) had recurrence.

What alternate plane of reality is this math from?
posted by heatherlogan at 2:59 PM on December 1, 2020 [24 favorites]

In the world of ceremonial magic(k), there are two basic rituals - Invocation and Evocation. Invocation involves ceremonially creating an image of something external to yourself that you wish to bring into yourself. Evocation involves creating an image of something already within you that you want to get rid of, by casting it into the world outside yourself and then banishing it. Exorcism is basically the same thing. You can interpret these rituals as just psychology, so an exorcism could be an effective way for someone to identify some problem in themselves, and then actively try to cast it out. But we assume that the person is actively involved in the process and not just floating above their bed, spewing vomit and obscenities, while a priestly person sprinkles them with holy water.
posted by njohnson23 at 3:24 PM on December 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

What the exorcism team failed to grasp was that the large static magnetic field and pulsed RF of the fMRI would dramatically increase the power available to the demon.
posted by jamjam at 3:42 PM on December 1, 2020 [22 favorites]

I'm going to guess that the cutoff of 8 days before and 49 days after the event were not determined ahead of time.

If you extend the range of computer glitches before the event that are counted as "unusual phenomena," I'll bet you could find that all 16 people experienced events. I certainly have, and I didn't even know about the exorcism until today.
posted by eotvos at 3:47 PM on December 1, 2020 [4 favorites]

per .pdf, during procedure, patient had "aversion to sacred words and objects" and articulated words that could not be heard "due to noise of MRI." presumably that noise would interfere with audibility inside machine of words spoken outside machine just as they are reported to interfered with audibility outside machine of words spoken inside machine. my question: is it even an exorcism if the possessed party cannot hear the exhortations of the cleric performing the exorcism?
posted by 20 year lurk at 3:47 PM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

coincidence.
posted by senor biggles at 3:54 PM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

presumably that noise would interfere with audibility inside machine of words spoken outside machine just as they are reported to interfered with audibility outside machine of words spoken inside machine

When I've had MRIs they gave me headphones (special MRI-safe ones, of course) and could speak to me through those (also play music).
posted by thefoxgod at 3:58 PM on December 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

for 20 year lurk, headphones. You wear protective ear gear, and they can put sound in it.
posted by nat at 3:58 PM on December 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

oh good. i was worried it would be something implausibly supernatural.
posted by 20 year lurk at 4:15 PM on December 1, 2020 [8 favorites]

The_Vegetables, I was going to mention Evil too. Just starting Ep 8 right now. I don’t think it’s better than the Netflix shows, per se, but I do think it aims a little lower and hits the target more often. (It also gave me an actual bad dream, which is super-uncommon for me.) For those seeking more MetaXorcism content, I found out about the show via a recent post on the green.

I have not read enough of the research to know, but if this is legitimately the first paper treating the experiences of medical professionals in this context, it seems like a useful starting place. Pity about the gaps people have pointed out upthread, but presumably that may provide some direction for future study.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:31 PM on December 1, 2020

Ugh. Reading that first article is reading a description of medical abuse by the authors on the subject of the "case study." She was subjected to an unnecessary medical procedure, apparently for research purposes, but there is no ethics statement or indication that there was approval or supervision by an ethics board. The resulting paper is a morass of pseudo-neuroscience gobbledygook, and it seems pretty clear the authors didn't know what they were doing with the data. They literally "analyze" the data in terms of what color their software package uses to render statistics across the brain. This is clearly a woman in great distress and she deserves better than these charlatans exploiting her.

I'm sorry to be negative, but I find this really disgusting, not funny. I hope the poor woman is able to get some competent care, and these abusive charlatans are struck off and never allowed near a person in psychiatric distress again.
posted by biogeo at 4:51 PM on December 1, 2020 [37 favorites]

The spelling and grammar errors lead me to believe Trump staff may have authored the linked paper.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 6:51 PM on December 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

my question: is it even an exorcism if the possessed party cannot hear the exhortations of the cleric performing the exorcism?

In an exorcism, you are speaking to the demon, not the possessed.

Yeah, the demon can hear you.
posted by Silvery Fish at 6:52 PM on December 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

I mean, no, it can't.
posted by biogeo at 7:04 PM on December 1, 2020 [11 favorites]

Reading that first article is reading a description of medical abuse by the authors on the subject of the "case study."

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if anyone else here has ever actually seen an exorcism in person, but the one I witnessed was the single most disturbing thing I've ever seen. It was straight up abuse and one of my biggest regrets in life is that I didn't do anything to stop it. I was only a teenager at the time, but it still haunts me.
posted by Gygesringtone at 7:20 PM on December 1, 2020 [23 favorites]

@biggeo, I skimmed the paper as well and it sounds like there was no interpretation of the data whatsoever. Is this even real?
posted by wuwei at 8:00 PM on December 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

My partner's renegade Evangelical church, founded by her father and his deluded male friends, ambushed and exorcised her when she was a teenager still living at home.

It was an absolute betrayal of trust and an all around terrible experience, but it did help to forge an amazing and very formidable human being.
posted by jamjam at 8:36 PM on December 1, 2020 [6 favorites]

Gygesringtone, what you experienced is common for young people who are unwillingly forced to witness abuse. It's not your fault that it happened and it's not your fault you couldn't stop it. The feeling of complicity is part of the lie that the abuser wants to create. And yes, "exorcism" absolutely is abuse.
posted by biogeo at 8:47 PM on December 1, 2020 [16 favorites]

wuwei, it seems likely to me that it is, but of course I can't be sure without further evidence. This looks like one of those for-profit open-access "journals" that will publish anything for a fee, without any actual peer review. It's a scam all around; the journal is in it for the money, and the authors are in it for the veneer of credibility from being published in a "journal" that looks vaguely official to people without experience. Anyone here could probably write a vaguely sciencey-looking article and have it published there within a week. There are unfortunately a lot of these scam journal outfits around.

I suspect this is "real" (in that the authors really did carry out the exorcism and the unnecessary MRI) because unfortunately there are people out there, some of them doctors, who are committed to the idea that demonic possession is real, for whatever reason, and believe they can use science to somehow prove it. I'm sure that this was the motivation behind this stunt. I do not know whether these people genuinely believe in their own nonsense and I don't really care. The practice of exorcism is abusive and inexcusable. And to try to exploit whatever respect the public still has for science to claim it has any form of legitimacy is also inexcusable, and further erodes public trust in science. And finally to exploit the trust a patient places in their doctors to commit such an act of abuse is completely unconscionable.

Frankly this is disgusting and infuriating at pretty much every level.
posted by biogeo at 9:06 PM on December 1, 2020 [8 favorites]

Wow, it gets worse. I did a little searching, and this paper is cited alongside a bunch of other stuff that looks like bullshit in a Continuing Medical Education session offered by Kaiser Permanente of South San Francisco that happened just a few weeks ago. The session's "learning objectives" include the bullet point:

Review possibility of addressing psychosis with religious and spiritual content while understanding the role that exorcism (place and person) might play in the treatment of these cases.

So medical providers who are so inclined are now able to satisfy their professional requirement to stay current with best medical practices by spending their time learning about this bullshit instead of real medicine. And as far as I can tell it doesn't seem to be within the context of ethics training where the point might be to discuss all the ways this is unethical. Wow. Can any physicians comment on whether this is a violation of Kaiser Permanente's duty to do due diligence when offering CME credits? Or is this crap considered acceptable?
posted by biogeo at 9:27 PM on December 1, 2020 [10 favorites]

wedge a crucifix in the scanner.
posted by clavdivs at 9:51 PM on December 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

James Randi's barely been gone 6 weeks and here we go again.
posted by fairmettle at 10:21 PM on December 1, 2020 [11 favorites]

I have no idea how these people got their crucifixes wedged into their scanners, or why.
posted by unicorn chaser at 7:00 AM on December 2, 2020 [9 favorites]

Also if I'm reading this correctly: The patient's father was an alcoholic who abused her mother and "who has an aggressive behavior towards [the patient]." Her father belonged to a "secret order" which she also joined as a teenager. "This experience {presumably being in the secret order} unleashed night terrors when she was a child, and isolated and aggressive behavior when she was a teenager." So this guy is by all means non-supernaturally abusive to her; and if you believe in the supernatural stuff, he's also somewhat responsible for her possession. It's difficult to follow the grammar here, yet he seems to be a participant in this process, with the role of "support exorcism".

Aside from the appropriateness of medical intevention or support of this process at all, I can't believe that someone who had the best interests of this woman at heart would HAVE HER ABUSIVE DAD AS A PART OF IT.
posted by Hypatia at 11:58 AM on December 2, 2020 [9 favorites]