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· Year: ????
· Host: Peter Stacker
· With: Dr. David Bear, M.D.; Carol Beckwith, photographer; William Peter Blatty, author; Rev. Frank Bober; Dr. Barry Beyerstein, psychologist; Rev, Francis Cleary, S.J., theologian; Dr. Andrew Delbanco; Dr. Edith Fiore, psychologist; Angela Fisher, photographer; Rev. Walter Halloran, S.J.; Dr. Henry Kelly, professor of English; Dr. Rev. Charles Kraft, theologian; Rev. James LeBar, exorcism consultant; Dr. Jeffrey Younggren, psychologist
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Part of the The Unexplained series.
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Amazon.com
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This hour-long episode (with commercials) of the A&E series The Unexplained features pieces on exorcisms famous, quasi-scientific, and even exotic.
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Mt. Rainier, MD; St. Louis, MO
3210 Bunker Hill Road in Mt. Rainier, Maryland, now a playground, was once the site of a house that saw an exorcism upon which the film The Exorcist was based. In 1949, a thirteen year-old boy with a history of communing with spirits apparently became possessed by spirits. Noises were heard from the walls, furniture moved by itself, and scrapes and welts (in the shapes of words) appeared on the boy's flesh. The boy--or what was in him--foiled the first exorcism by breaking loose of his bonds and tearing a priest's arm open with a bedspring. A second, very complicated, exorcism, was performed every night for months in St. Louis. Finally, the priests and the boy freed the boy from the power that held him. Others, however, disagree with the idea that the boy was ever possessed, citing other causes such as suggestion, temporal lobe epilepsy, and mental distress caused by possible incest.
Pasadena, CA
Ellyn Kearney, a woman with a severe muscle disease and a very troubled history of sexual abuse and drug use becomes a born-again Christian, then undergoes demonic attacks. With the help of a service known as "deilverance," the Pentacostal form of exorcism, performed by Rev. Charles Kraft, the woman was freed of the demons troubling her. Psychologists believe the phenomena, including the perception that her bed was moving, were all inside her head.
Cupertino, CA
Margaret Swift received a minor operation in 1982 and soon thereafter had painful symptoms that were not associated with the operation and for which no medical explanation could be found, despite batteries of medical tests. Her symptoms were relieved after a controversial hypnotism--controversial because it was performed by a psychologist who believed the illness was caused by demons, not mental dysfunction--was performed on her.
Southwestern Africa
When a man is killed by a lion, his spirit sends lion spirits to possess his three wives, in order to bring them into the afterlife. The Himba rites of exorcism were invoked by a healer, who freed the women by taking the spirit into herself. The healer returned to her home, then underwent a second ritual that freed her from the spirits. A flash of light was seen leaving the healer at the exact moment she claimed the spirits left. This unexplained light was caught on photographs.
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