Wikipedia gives the following definition of exorcism:
Exorcism (from Late Latin exorcismus, from Greek ἐξορκισμός, exorkismos - binding by oath) is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed.
All religions are based on one concept: the victory of good over evil. Good is represented by God and his angelic forces, while evil is represented by the Demonic Lords and their minions. The mythology of any of the world's major religions is immersed in the perpetual fight between these two forces. And in all these stories, almost without fail, good must triumph over evil at the end. In the Ramayana, after facing years of hardships and losses, Lord Rama finally manages to defeat Ravana - the "king of demons", to reclaim his wife Sita. In Christianity, Judas betrays Lord Jesus Christ for his own ends.......but the good Lord returns from death to show humanity the 'right path to heaven'. Judas was demonified after that and his gospel was burned. Only recently, one of the last surviving copies of his gospel was found which tells the entire story from his perspective, but the Christians refused to accept the gospel as a true gospel and instead vilified it.
One of the things that we do know about history is that, only the victor writes the pages of history. We do not know anything else about the king of Lanka except from what is written in the Ramayana, which is basically an epic singing praises about the virtues of Lord Rama. Though the book does mention that Ravana was an intellectual and a true devotee of Lord Shiva, most of the population of the Hind came to vilify him. For most of us, he represents the embodiment of evil. He came to be known as the king of demons. But who is to tell the difference between the good side and the bad side in a battle that took place thousands of years ago. There is a small tribe in the the heartlands of Madhya Pradesh that worships Ravana as a deity, for reasons of kinship as well as him being an intellectual. True that Ravana had kidnapped Sita and held her against her will. So, he fancied her. Big deal! A man who kidnaps a woman who satisfy his love or lust cannot be rightfully vilified and portrayed as the personification of all evil. As I understand it, in those primitive days, things like this could not have been this uncommon. And to drive home my point that the victor is always 'right', let us look at more recent events, like during world war 2. During those times, two lines of thought existed. One led by Hitler's Germany and the other carved out by the allies. Each line of thought was 'right' in the country of their origin while the other line of thought was vilified. Hitler's view that Jews were traitors to the German cause and not to be trusted was widely supported by a lot of Germans. The Britons naturally and rightly so vilified that way of thinking(Aryan supremacy) but on the other hand it was all right for them to exploit Asians and Africans because they were 'inferior' to the white skinned powerful imperialists that the Brits were. Double standards? Now who was in the right here? Or were both sides in the the right and also in the wrong in their own way. The end of the war brought Germany's defeat and also Japan's. Anyone who was a Nazi was now demonified to an extent that even their own people came to hate them.
Exorcism (from Late Latin exorcismus, from Greek ἐξορκισμός, exorkismos - binding by oath) is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed.
All religions are based on one concept: the victory of good over evil. Good is represented by God and his angelic forces, while evil is represented by the Demonic Lords and their minions. The mythology of any of the world's major religions is immersed in the perpetual fight between these two forces. And in all these stories, almost without fail, good must triumph over evil at the end. In the Ramayana, after facing years of hardships and losses, Lord Rama finally manages to defeat Ravana - the "king of demons", to reclaim his wife Sita. In Christianity, Judas betrays Lord Jesus Christ for his own ends.......but the good Lord returns from death to show humanity the 'right path to heaven'. Judas was demonified after that and his gospel was burned. Only recently, one of the last surviving copies of his gospel was found which tells the entire story from his perspective, but the Christians refused to accept the gospel as a true gospel and instead vilified it.
One of the things that we do know about history is that, only the victor writes the pages of history. We do not know anything else about the king of Lanka except from what is written in the Ramayana, which is basically an epic singing praises about the virtues of Lord Rama. Though the book does mention that Ravana was an intellectual and a true devotee of Lord Shiva, most of the population of the Hind came to vilify him. For most of us, he represents the embodiment of evil. He came to be known as the king of demons. But who is to tell the difference between the good side and the bad side in a battle that took place thousands of years ago. There is a small tribe in the the heartlands of Madhya Pradesh that worships Ravana as a deity, for reasons of kinship as well as him being an intellectual. True that Ravana had kidnapped Sita and held her against her will. So, he fancied her. Big deal! A man who kidnaps a woman who satisfy his love or lust cannot be rightfully vilified and portrayed as the personification of all evil. As I understand it, in those primitive days, things like this could not have been this uncommon. And to drive home my point that the victor is always 'right', let us look at more recent events, like during world war 2. During those times, two lines of thought existed. One led by Hitler's Germany and the other carved out by the allies. Each line of thought was 'right' in the country of their origin while the other line of thought was vilified. Hitler's view that Jews were traitors to the German cause and not to be trusted was widely supported by a lot of Germans. The Britons naturally and rightly so vilified that way of thinking(Aryan supremacy) but on the other hand it was all right for them to exploit Asians and Africans because they were 'inferior' to the white skinned powerful imperialists that the Brits were. Double standards? Now who was in the right here? Or were both sides in the the right and also in the wrong in their own way. The end of the war brought Germany's defeat and also Japan's. Anyone who was a Nazi was now demonified to an extent that even their own people came to hate them.
The very interesting Chinese concept of yin-yang talks about how polar opposites or seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world, and how they give rise to each other in turn. Many natural dualities—e.g. dark and light, female and male, low and high, cold and hot, water and fire, air and earth— are thought of as manifestations of yin and yang (respectively). In reference to my point, I can say that good and evil are not two separate forces, but two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other. And good and evil actions are also defined by the perceptions in a society. What is considered good and honorable in one society might be considered evil and barbaric in the other. The Japanese samurai believe that their heads must be cut off if they have lost in battle and have hence dissapointed their masters. The yakuza(Japanese mafia) still cut their fingers off if they bring dishonor to their boss in any way. In the west, these acts are considered barbaric but are accepted as norm and expected behavior in Japanese society.
So I must wrap up this article by concluding that there is no good or evil - only a societies perceptions of what is considered a good deed and what is considered an evil deed. I also feel that these perceptions should not be defined by events that happened thousands of years ago and when the only account that we have of these events are probably exaggerated tales. A human being is a complex creature. The yin-yang philosophy talks of a balance that must be maintained between any two opposing forces that make up who we are. This balance is highly important to lead a stress free life. Anyone more interested in reading about this may please google yin-yang, the Taoist philosophies provide for wonderful reading. In any case, these two opposing forces can't be objectively classified as good and evil, according to me. Even Taoist philosophy denounces this idea.
Which brings me back to the starting point. If good and evil can't be objectively classified as two opposing forces, then by my viewpoint, there can be no God and no Devil. Maybe there is an all powerful being watching over us, or maybe there is no one! But that debate is for another day. But the exorcisms? and the 100's of people throughout history who swear by the process? Maybe, our religious orders had managed to brainwash them so much that they actually thought that they were possessed by the Devil himself and the only thing that could save them was an exorcism performed by a holy man - a priest. Our human mind works in complicated ways. It sees what it believes to be real. Have you ever seen a horror movie late at night in a cinema house all alone, and got completely spooked on the long walk home along dark alleyways. An innocent cat shadow might have scared you to death at those times. And here we are talking about individuals who might in the first case not be mentally stable and then on top of that they may have been brainwashed into believing something that may not even exist. And after all, fear of the Devil and his forces is what that make people keep believing in ideologies 1000's of years old. These fears are what modern day religions feed on in order to stay alive. And propagating these fears is the principal aim of those few men who govern these religions. These few decide what is right and wrong, what constitutes good and evil. And those, like me, who refuse to adhere to their edicts may be branded as evil heretics, or more gently as 'lost souls'. But i really don't mind. I refuse to have people tell me right from wrong and I choose to stand by own beliefs.
