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Demonic Foes: My Twenty-Five Years as a Psychiatrist Investigating Possessions, Diabolic Attacks, and the Paranormal - Paperback | Diverse Reads

Demonic Foes: My Twenty-Five Years as a Psychiatrist Investigating Possessions, Diabolic Attacks, and the Paranormal

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The world’s leading psychiatric authority on demonic possession delves into the hidden world of exorcisms and his own transformation from cynic to believer over the course of his twenty-five-year career.

Successful New York psychiatrist Richard Gallagher was skeptical yet intrigued when a hard-nosed, no-nonsense Catholic priest asked him to examine a woman for a possible exorcism. Meeting her, Gallagher was astonished. The woman’s behavior defied logic. In an instant, she could pinpoint a person’s secret weaknesses. She knew how individuals she’d never known had died, including Gallagher’s own mother, who passed away after a lengthy battle with ovarian cancer. She spoke fluently in multiple languages, including Latin—but only when she was in a trance.

This was not psychosis, Gallagher concluded. It was, in his scientific estimation, what could only be describe as paranormal ability. The woman wasn’t mentally disturbed—she was possessed. This remarkable case was the first of many that Gallagher would encounter. Sought after today by leaders of all faiths—ministers, priests, rabbis and imams, Gallagher has spent a quarter-century studying demonic activity and exorcisms throughout history and has witnessed more cases than any other psychiatrist in the world today.

In this eerie and enthralling book, Gallagher chronicles his most famous cases for the first time, including:

  • A professional who claimed her spiritualist mother had “assigned” her a spirit who “turned on her.”
  • A petite woman—”90 pounds soaking wet”—who threw a 200-pound Lutheran deacon across the room to the horror of onlookers in a church hall;
  • And “Julia,” the so-called Satanic queen and self-described witch, who exhibited “the most harrowing” case, a “once-in-a-century” possession.

Going beyond horror movies and novels, Demonic Foes takes you deep into this hidden world, sharing in full details of these true-life tales of demonic possession.

ISBN-13: 9780062876485

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Publication Date: 10-04-2022

Pages: 272

Product Dimensions: 5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)

Richard Gallagher, MD, a board-certified psychiatrist, is a professor of psychiatry at New York Medical and a psychoanalyst on the faculty of Columbia University. He graduated from Princeton University, Phi Beta Kappa in classics, and trained as a resident in psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine. The world’s foremost scientific expert on the subject of diabolic attacks, he has been an active member of the International Association of Exorcists since the 1990s. He lives in Westchester, New York.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Introduction 1

Part 1 From Skeptic to Observer

Chapter 1 Initial Journey 19

The Interested Student

Chapter 2 A Priest Comes Calling 29

Observing External Oppressions

Chapter 3 Julia, the Satanic Queen 43

Her Possession and Her Remarkable Abilities

Part 2 Investigator and Diagnostician

Chapter 4 Troubles of the Spirit 73

Diagnosing the Spectrum of Possessions

Chapter 5 Diagnosing the Variety of Oppressions 91

Chapter 6 Troubles of the Mind 103

False Cases and Other Medical Tasks

Chapter 7 Catherine-Mother, Housewife, and Possessed 131

Her Series of Exorcisms and What the Rituals Are Really Like

Chapter 8 The Serious Investigator 151

Chapter 9 The History of Beliefs in Evil Spirits, the Emergence of the Idea of the Paranormal, and Infestations 159

Chapter 10 Alice 189

A Case of a Successful Exorcism and a Further Word About Causes and Solutions

Part 3 Consultant and Scholar

The Advocacy and Cautions of a Physician

Chapter 11 Barbara and the Wider Satanic Panic 201

True vs. False. Memories

Chapter 12 Final Controversies 231

The Abuse of Exorcisms and a Final Note to Critics, Searchers, and the Media About the Scientific Status of Possessions and the So-Called Paranormal

Epilogue: The Reality Behind These Phenomena 241

Why Demons Attack

Acknowledgments 249

Notes 251