Being at a loss, and having no treatment which would help, they concealed and sheltered themselves behind superstition, and called the disease sacred, in order that their utter ignorance might not be manifest … They used purifications and incantations … These observations they impose because of the divine origin of the disease … so that, should the patient recover, the reputation for cleverness may be theirs; but should he die, they have a sure fund of excuses, with the defense that they are not at all to blame, but the gods.”
Epilepsy was one of the first diseases, as stated by Hippocrates the father of medicine, to be analyzed as not a spiritual sacred disease but has a rational medical explanation to such symptoms. Before the area of medicine, people turned to spiritual reasons to understand the natural forces of the universe. Tribal leaders and educated healers were viewed as wise and praised as spiritual leaders in use of herbs and chants for curing aliments seen as punishments by a hire power. …show more content…
“What is specific to possession is that the person enters into a trance and it is another spirit that moves that body.”
Father Jose Antonio Fortea is a trained exorcist from the Vatican, with expert knowledge on demonology and spirituality. His explanation on demon possession is an accurate description on what happens to the body to cause someone to get possessed. Though possession in on itself is only an explanation to what proceeds, which is the bodily functions and movements during an exorcism that equal that of symptoms experienced during an epileptic seizure.
Where 's the confusion between epilepsy and Demonic possession? “Epileptic seizures can interfere with your heart rhythm and breathing. During a seizure, misfires from the brain can tell your muscles to contract and relax. A seizure may cause muscles to jerk uncontrollably. When muscles surrounding your vocal cords seize up, it pushes out air. It sounds like a cry or a scream.” Widespread belief and reported accounts on possession suggest similar symptoms in demon possession as in that of epilepsy. Though the state of mind is also effected. Ann Pietrangelo describes two types of epilepsies, along with information on the