Page 39 of Splintered
“What? Tell me! What is going on?”
“Are you familiar with demonic possession?”
His jaw dropped. “You’ve got to befuckingkidding me.”
“Not at all,” Father Mathew said calmly. “There are certain combinations of symptoms that often indicate demonic possession. Evan shows a remarkable number of them. Traugott Konstantin Oesterreich compiled a thesis on possessions across all cultures, all periods of history. Throughout all of mankind and our time on this planet, there have been certain states of possession of the human soul by hostile entities. These possessions have crossed all cultural boundaries. They present with the same symptoms across the world. The same behavior from the possessed, no matter the culture, or the time, or the place. Always, there has only been one treatment that has been successful for these people: the exorcism ritual.”
“What are these supposed symptoms?”
“Evan has lost significant weight—”
“He hasn’t been eating—”
“—he has eaten strange or foul food or waste—”
Ben frowned. The black puke and rot in the toilet. He had no idea what Evan had eaten that made him so sick, or that looked like that when thrown up.
“—he has manifested symbols of Christ in his suffering. He told us he vomited thorns and that you helped him clean us. Many times, sufferers of possession will manifest the stigmata of Christ, or bleed from their head as if they were wearing a crown of thorns. Evan vomited thorns, without cause or reason. This is potentially a symbol of Christ’s suffering coming through the possession.”
Ben had never questioned where those thorns had come from. He hadn’t had time before the next crisis was on them.
“The missing time, the things he does and says that he cannot remember. His self-injuries. His episodes have manifested at night during the demonic hours between midnight and three in the morning. This is the oppositional time to when our Lord Christ was crucified. Three in the morning has always been the Devil’s hour.
“We performed a physical examination of his body while he was sedated. His skin, his mucus membranes inside his mouth, his nose, and his rectum. Everything is inflamed, like his body is fighting off a massive infection. But nothing is in his blood tests that reveals an infection. And most critically, the number one symptom of possession is the invasion of an outside force, an external personality, upon the victim whose sole purpose is the total destruction of the host.”
He grasped for something, anything. His thoughts fled. “Possession? Today? In 2019? This is honestly something a psychiatrist signs off on?” He turned to Dr. Kao, gobsmacked.
“We work together, as I said, to do absolutely everything we can to identify what is the best course of treatment to heal our patients. The very first step we both undertake is to identify if our patient is suffering from any physical or neurological condition. Our medical and professional oaths demand that we assess our patients fully and completely. After comprehensive evaluations, if we cannot identify what is troubling our patient, and if the symptoms strongly reveal the possibility, we can and do look to demonic possession.”
“For centuries, the Church has required all exorcists work with a psychiatrist, or in the past, to work with a mental health specialist of that era in order to eliminate all possibilities of confusing a state of possession with a true mental health disturbance,” Father Mathew said. “There is a famous warning to exorcists which states that most people who are thought to be possessed are in fact in need of a doctor. Not all, mind you. But most. It’s a warning to be extremely careful in your discernment. To take everything in, every sign and symptom, and examine it and then reexamine it. And then to examine the evidence again. That warning was issued in theSynod of Reims, in 1583.”
Ben said nothing.
Father Mathew shared a long look with Dr. Kao. “There is more, Ben. We observed Evan while he was sedated. I have to ask you: have you ever heard Evan speaking in a strange language?”
The gibberish. The nonsense whispers Evan seemed to speak while he was in his delirium stages. Ben never could get through to him while he was muttering that noise. But it hadn’t ever been something he recognized.
“He whispered some stuff, sometimes. I couldn’t tell what it was.”
“Did it sound like this?” Father Mathew pulled out his phone and played a recording. Evan’s voice—but not really, not what he usually sounded like—filled the living room, susurrus and ragged whispers, harsh pants and the same discordant gibberish.
Ben nodded.
“That is Aramaic,” Father Mathew said. “The language of Jesus and the ancient Near East. And that is not Evan’s voice coming out of his mouth, is it?”
He said nothing.
Father Mathew returned his phone to his jacket pocket and withdrew a red leather-bound book. It was small and a ribbon marked a place near the front. He held it up. “This is theRoman Ritual for Exorcism.” Flipping to the marked page, he read, “‘Signs of possession: the ability to speak in a strange voice and language, divining hidden knowledge or having supernatural powers, the invasion of a foreign personality that wants to totally destroy the host.’ You may also remember other aspects of Evan’s onset of possession.
“Possessions begin in stages. First, there is the infestation. The person’s surroundings are attacked. Their home. The house, a person’s surroundings, can breed evil and offer refuge to darkness. This is what people often refer to as a haunting. Have you been hearing noises? Have you noticed odd sights? Feelings that you cannot explain or that seem to appear out of nowhere?”
He couldn’t move, save for the trembles that settled over his body. Ice washed down his spine, a flood that froze him to his seat.
“Other people around them can also be attacked. Invaded. It’s not a second possession, but an influencing. A twisting of the mind, and a poisoning of the soul. The second stage in a possession is the oppression. These are personal attacks by the demonic presence on the victim. In this case, when the attacks began on Evan’s mind and soul. This is the when the invasion of the mind and body begins. It is when the demon is breaking through and overcoming the victim’s will. The demon’s purpose is to terrorize the possessed and their families. To break them and everyone around them. To disrupt their lives in every way, and to confuse. To conquer and divide. The demon invades every corner of the victim’s mind and soul, all refuges for their psyche.
“And after that, we come to possession. This is when the demon’s personality has completely invaded the possessed and seizes control of their body and mind.”
“You said… supernatural powers.” Ben chewed his lip. “Divining hidden knowledge.”
