Local Psychologist A Former Skeptic, Now Trains Priests In Exorcisms

By Andy Sheehan

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — So, exorcism might seem like fiction. But did you know that the Vatican has actually encouraged every Catholic diocese to have a trained exorcist on staff?

A local psychologist is an expert who is traveling around the world to train those priests.

Once he was a skeptic, but he tells KDKA’s Andy Sheehan, after assisting in nearly 100 exorcisms, his experiences have made him a believer.

For the past 10 years Adam Blai has been on the front line.

“Basically, it’s a war between heaven and hell,” says Blai. “That’s been going on since Creation started, and it’s a war over us for the most part.”

Fighting over the bodies and souls of the possessed.

“Their mouth isn’t moving and the sound coming out of them is beyond what a human can produce,” Blai says.

A force that’s taken over.

“I’ve also seen bones dislocate spontaneously, and pop out when something animated the body and put the body into a different shape,” he says.

Blai says he’s needed to summon angels and saints to battle what he calls “the kingdom of darkness.”

Sheehan: “So, it’s a war.”

Blai: “Oh yeah, we’ve seen the demon and possessed call out to its brothers and doors blow off and there’s nothing there, but something has entered the room. That happens all the time.”

Exorcism traces its roots to the New Testament Gospels where Jesus frees the possessed, but even Blai himself was initially skeptical.

“Your mind rebels against really believing that this is really real, even after you’ve seen some things,” he says. “But eventually, the evidence piles up, and the pile becomes so large that you really have to accept it.”

A trained psychologist at Penn state, Blai has studied the most violent criminals, but even in serial killers and rapists, he found at least some humanity – not so with the possessed.

“When you interact with somebody possessed by a demon, their heart is so completely and totally black and devoid of any hesitation or compassion that you know in your heart that they would tear you apart and be smiling the entire time,” Blai said.

Blai: “Holy water is something that’s used in every case.”

Sheehan: “Now, if you sprayed the possessed with holy water, would it burn? That’s something we see in the movies. There will be some reaction.”

Blai: “Oh yeah, they have a violet reactions. It looks as though they’ve been scourged with a whip.”
“It really changes you, and to see a full-blown case like they would make movies about — though Hollywood always exaggerates things a little bit – it really kind of straightens out your spiritually life,” Blai said. “And you have to think very hard about what you’re going to do with that knowledge.”

Link:

• Local Psychologist A Former Skeptic, Now Trains Priests In Exorcisms

Strike the Shepherd! Behind the Campaign to Smear the Pope

From Fr. Gordon J. MacRae at These Stone Walls:

...WHY SMEAR TACTICS WORK

A little over three years ago, I wrote an article for Catalyst, the Catholic League Journal, entitled “Due Process for Accused Priests.” The article was in part about a phenomenon called “Availability Bias” and how it influences justice when Catholic priests are falsely accused. The concept has crept into all aspects of the media, not just in the reporting of news, but in marketing and advertising as well. The science behind it was formulated and dissected by psychologist, Daniel Kahneman with amazing results.

In 2002 the Catholic priesthood sex abuse scandal was the focus of The Boston Globe Spotlight Team which then spread the “pedophile priest” scare and sound bite to virtually every diocese in the United States. Also in 2002, and ironically, Daniel Kahneman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on “Availability Bias.” It was described in a 2007 lead editorial in The Wall Street Journal (“The Science of Gore’s Nobel,” Dec. 5, 2007) as “the human propensity to judge the validity of a proposition by how easily it comes to mind.”

Kahneman’s research examined how marketing and the media have exploited human suggestibility through “Availability Bias” which he analyzed using two studied phenomena. The first he called “Availability Cascade,” described as “the way a proposition can become irresistible simply by the media repeating it.”

The best example is the smear, “Hitler’s Pope” which comes almost immediately to mind for many at the mere mention of the name of Pope Pius XII. As described in my post referenced above, the smear was widely believed, and still is despite massive evidence to the contrary, simply because the media has repeated it for decades. Its origin is not in the news media, however, but in the propaganda of a repressive Totalitarian regime. The news media was just its all-too-willing microphone.

Daniel Kahneman’s second studied phenomenon in support of “Availability Bias” was what he called “Informational Cascade,” described as “the propensity of humans to abandon or replace their beliefs in favor of the crowd’s beliefs.” I used a famous example in my Holy Week post, “Pope Francis, the Pride of Mockery, and the Mockery of Pride.” One of the criminals crucified with Jesus adopted the mockery of Jesus from the very crowd that had placed that man on his cross. The ability of a crowd to modify our views and beliefs and positions is powerful. Pontius Pilate himself modified his stance about the innocence of Jesus simply through the force of a mob chanting, “Crucify him!”

For “Informational Cascade” to work – for beliefs to be abandoned or replaced in favor of the crowd’s beliefs – one ingredient is necessary: a crowd, shaken or stirred, or at least the appearance of one. Some readers may have noticed a campaign of vile comments about Pope Francis posted at some websites and blogs that are popular among traditional Catholics. Many of the comments were an effort to sow suspicion and discouragement. Naturally, tradition-minded Catholics hold out hopes for how any new pope will address their concerns. I share those hopes.

But when the Vatican announced that Pope Francis would offer the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper in a Rome juvenile prison instead of in Saint Peter’s Basilica or the Basilica of St. John Lateran, it stirred concern about the Pope’s sensitivities toward tradition. When the news media captured Pope Francis washing the feet of 12 prisoners – including two women, one of whom was Muslim – that concern for tradition took on a sort of frenzy.

Was he making a statement about his views toward Islam? Was he making a statement about the ordination of women? After all, the Apostles were all men, and Jesus washed their feet – and theirs alone – at the Last Supper. Theologically – and this is a perspective supported by the Church’s tradition – the washing of the feet is not a statement about the recipients of the action of Jesus, but about Jesus himself, and the humility he wished to convey in the model for spiritual leadership it implied. The identity of the recipients is immaterial. As the Vicar of Christ, Pope Francis was well within theological tradition to make this statement of Christ-like humility. There is no evidence for believing it was anything else.

MANIPULATING THE MOB

Intermixed with the crowd’s already stirred concern, however, was some carefully choreographed mob manipulation. As Pope Francis washed the feet of twelve young offenders, some critics posted vile comments accusing the Holy Father of “grooming” behaviors suggestive of dark and nefarious agendas right before the world’s eyes.

I am not at all concerned for the many comments posted about the emotion regarding tradition that Pope Francis has stirred. These concerns are natural, and I believe they should be raised and will have answers that are clearer to us all in time. However, when tradition-minded blogs also post vile comments attacking without just cause the character and morals of the Holy Father, a line of justice and decency has been crossed, and those blogs and bloggers have diminished themselves and their credibility. You would never see such comments on These Stone Walls. Never! It is because we take very seriously the responsibility for justice and truth that are essential parts of the stewardship of a Catholic blog... (continued)

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Link:

• Strike the Shepherd! Behind the Campaign to Smear the Pope

Related:

• Fr. Gordon MacRae: Federal Court to Hear Oral Arguments in Habeas Corpus Appeal

Minnesota Supreme Court Rejects ‘Repressed Memory’ Junk Science Against Priest

Nice try, Jeff: Minnesota's Church-suing attorney Anderson loses with junk science

By TheMediaReport.com

Last Wednesday, the Minnesota Supreme Court flatly rejected the psychological theory of "repressed
memory" as bogus. The Court declared that scientific studies that have tried to prove the bogus theory have "lacked foundational reliability."

Church-suing lawyers and accusers of abuse have attempted to use "repressed memory" as a way to circumvent statutes of limitations in order to file big-money lawsuits against the Catholic Church.

According to proponents of the discredited belief, some people completely forget instances of extreme trauma or abuse. Then, years or decades later, an event or thought – often directed by a convincing therapist – causes one to suddenly "remember" having been abused or traumatized.

In the case in Minnesota, an accuser – represented by high-profile, Church-suing attorney Jeff Anderson – tried to claim that his case of abuse against a Catholic priest should not be limited by the state's statute of limitations because he was simply unable to remember being abused because he "repressed" the memory of it happening. Fortunately, the Minnesota courts didn't buy it.

The theory of "repressed memory" is bizarre, indeed. The world's leading experts in memory have roundly debunked the wild theory.

• Dr. Richard J. McNally, Professor and Director of Clinical Training, Department of Psychology, Harvard University: "The notion that traumatic events can be repressed and later recovered is the most pernicious bit of folklore ever to infect psychology and psychiatry. It has provided the theoretical basis for 'recovered memory therapy' – the worst catastrophe to befall the mental health field since the lobotomy era."
• Dr. James McGaugh, University of California, Irvine: "I go on science, not fads. And there's absolutely no proof that it can happen. Zero. None. Niente. Nada. All my research says that strong emotional experiences leave emotionally strong memories. Being sexually molested would certainly qualify."
• Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Irvine: "You can't be raped for 10 years and not remember it. Yet, according to the repression aficionados, anything's possible."
• Dr. Paul McHugh, Chairman of the Psychiatry Department, Johns Hopkins University: "If penis envy made us look dumb, this will make us look totally gullible."

Yet one would hardly know from the media coverage over the past several years that "repressed memory" has been completely debunked and discredited. Journalists are reluctant to inform readers of any facts which would detract from the sensationalism of charges of sex abuse in the Catholic Church. When reporting on "repressed memory" cases against Catholic priests, journalists almost universally neglect to convey that the theory is scientific nonsense.

Once again, when the facts do not fit the accepted media narrative, the facts are ignored. Kudos to the Minnesota Supreme Court, however, for telling the story that the media will not.

Link:

• Minnesota Supreme Court Rejects ‘Repressed Memory’ Junk Science Against Priest, Media Yawns