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1. 00:02 I'm not quite sure why. Probably in my capacity as the devil. People keep asking me what do I think about exorcism. Well, here is what I think about exorcism. I think it's a successful form of psychotherapy intended to treat people who should be diagnosed with psychotic
2. 00:25 disorders and instead are diagnosed with demon possession. I think exorcism is beneficial. I think exorcism is successful. I think it's just another form of psychotherapy, a treatment modality. So does it does that mean that I think or believe that demons exist? Of
3. 00:48 course not. Demons no more exist than for example the ego. No one has captured an ego. No one has spoken to an ego. Present company accepted. No one has ever measured an ego or you know ego is a metaphor. Ego
4. 01:09 is a language element. So is the super ego. So is the id. So is the shadow. So is the unconscious. These are not real things. They are metaphors. They are simileies. They are their allegorories. They are language elements. They're narratives. And the
5. 01:29 same applies to the religious narrative which involves angels and genes and demons and gods. And these are just different languages. But both languages, clinical psychology and religion, describe the same dynamics, internal psychological processes, psychonamics. They describe
6. 01:54 the very same occurrences and turbulences within the human soul or psyche or mind or consciousness or unconscious. All of these, of course, are just literary um devices and artifacts. They're not real. And so things are happening inside us. We are sometimes aware of these
7. 02:20 things and sometimes we're not aware of these things. These are processes that are sometimes inexurable and sometimes stoppable. Sometimes out of control and sometimes the outcome of external circumstances, environments, predicaments, vicissitudes, exigencies
8. 02:37 and so on. But things are happening inside. There's no debate. There's no argument about this because everyone experiences this internal reality. And so religious you religions use one vocabulary. God, angels, demons, exores and so on. Psycho clinical psychology uses another
9. 03:01 vocabulary. And the two vocabularies can different can definitely be mapped onto each other. We could construct a dictionary. For example, demon possession would be translated from religion to clinical psychology as psychotic disorder. Okay? It's a language. These are
10. 03:22 languages. Move on. Nothing to see here. Nothing to write home about. But why do I perceive exorcism as a
11. 03:34 successful treatment modality as a form of psychotherapy that's been exercised for thousands of years perfected and now is very uh efficacious in treating the more extreme forms of psychosis and some types of major depressions and so on. Why? This is the
12. 03:57 topic of today's video. And a propo exorcism and demons between May 22nd and May 25th in Scopia, the beautiful capital of the Republic of North Macedonia. I, Sam Baknim, am going to give a free seminar. Is the free seminar free? You bet. No payment, no entrance fee, nothing. just
13. 04:24 come grab a seat and listen, observe the show. And so, three days, three and a half days actually with me in Scorpio free of charge seminar on evidence-based healing and recovery from narcissistic abuse. If you want to learn more, go to the description and write to me. I'll
14. 04:47 reserve a seat for you and send you additional information back to the demons of this earth and exorcism to the dark side the shadow the part of you that would have been considered in ancient morality and ethics and religion evil. We all tend we
15. 05:09 all have an evil side. We all have a dark side. We all have a shadow side if you wish to use Jung's words this set of complexes and some of us um repress this side. Some of us shunt it out of awareness and out of consciousness. Bottle it up, contain it
16. 05:32 and then ignore it. Pretend that it's not there. And some of us cope with it head on. Try to confront it. Try to reframe it. Try to somehow get rid of it. Be be the case as it may. All of us have this side. All of us represent a living talking morality play
17. 05:55 or our good side is fighting it out with
18. 06:01 our evil side. We human beings are the raification, the personification of a battle between light and darkness, between good and evil. This is not the language of clinical psychology. Of course, this is the language of moral studies, the language of religion, but still it
19. 06:23 doesn't render it less applicable and less valid. This battle definitely is taking place day in and day out in each and every one of us. And sometimes the forces of darkness, psychotic disorders, use any language which makes you feel comfortable, demons, I don't care.
20. 06:44 Sometimes these elements in us take over. Sometimes, especially when the personality is rigid, incapable of adaptation, there is a break or a schism or a fracture, a fragmentation, which allows these forces to emerge through the cracks, if you wish, through
21. 07:11 this, through the chasms. It's like fault lines in an earthquake. They emerge the same way lava emerges from a volcano. Then they take take over. The more rigid the personality, the more mentally ill the person. Mental illness is another word, another phrase to describe rigidity.
22. 07:33 And this rigidity doesn't allow the individual to cope with internal dynamics in an adaptive way to transform himself or herself to somehow mitigate phenomena such as anxiety and depression and phobias and terrors and and so on fantasy. So when the personality is rigid,
23. 08:00 inflexible, it is unable to respond to changing internal circumstances. And this can give rise to a hostile takeover of the person by forces which should have been balanced by other forces within a kaleidoscopic everchanging arrangement. uh meeting of the minds of the meeting
24. 08:24 of self states. This phenomena therefore of what used to be called demon possession, what we call today psychotic illnesses, depressive illnesses, they occur in people who are predisposed to mental illness and mental health disorders, people whose personality is rigid. And
25. 08:47 again, personality is just a language element. There's no such thing. It's not real. It's not more real than demons. It's just the way we organize reality, the way we make sense of it. It's a hermeneutic principle, personality, and it is an organizing principle. And it is
26. 09:05 a language artifact, a language element. And so when there is this rigidity and inability to respond in real time to an incipient imminent attack by the dark side, then you're taken over. You are consumed. You're subsumed by your shadow, by your demons, by whatever you
27. 09:27 want to call it. And it is then that the real battle starts between what used to be called good and evil. Or we could say today between restorative forces, forces that restore and forces that deplete self-destructiveness and self-deeat and the wish to exist and to live in
28. 09:48 happiness and contentment. This battle is ongoing but sometimes one of the sides takes over and it's usually the dark side. It is at this at this point that exorcism comes into the picture. In exorcism, there is an interesting inversion of our western modern perception of
29. 10:12 psychotherapy. Because in exorcism, the therapist is active. The patient is
30. 10:20 passive. In modern western treatment modalities and psychotherapies, it is the therapist who is passive and the patient is active. Where whereas in exorcism, it's the other way around. And when the patient is passive, inert immobilized, deactivated, disabled, a mere observer,
31. 10:42 it is at that point that the patient becomes useless. This passivity, newly acquired passivity within the performance known as exorcism, renders the patient useless to his or her demons, his or her dark side, his or her shadow. And because the patient is no longer
32. 11:04 useful, no longer helpful, no longer able to collude and collaborate with his or her demons, they just go away looking for more cooperative and useful host. It is a utilitarian equation. By altering the patient, by modifying the patient, by rendering the patient a kind of inert
33. 11:29 passive object, the demons don't find the patient of any interest any longer and they depart. Again, to remind you, there are no such things as demons. These are language elements. The idea is that the hyperc kinetic state of the patient, the patient's if you wish
34. 11:52 ADHD, metaphorical ADHD, the patient's inability to settle down, to reach an internal consensus to somehow calm down the patient's um exaggerated, hyperbolic, erratic, stochastic internal psychonamics. The idea is that these give rise to illnesses and disorders and
35. 12:16 disturbances of the mind. And that if we were to reduce this hyperkinis, if we were to render the patient less kinetic, more inert, this would have a calming, beneficial, benevolent effect or impact on the mental illness and the mental disorder. This is of course the idea and
36. 12:39 the ideology behind bey behind antiscychotics. Antiscychotic medications do exactly this. But exorcism has a uh a philosophy that goes beyond passivity and activity. The therapist in exorcism is a performer. Exorcism is performative. It's a theater play that
37. 13:05 involves a script and a narrative. The script and the narrative afford the patient with meaning and hope. And it is the therapist's role, the exorcist role, I'm sorry, in the therapy known as exorcism. It is the exorcist role to introduce the patient to this hope and meaning by
38. 13:29 performing the hope and meaning on stage by giving the hope and meaning. um a kind of embodiment or personification in flesh and blood by an act of transsubstantiation where hope and meaning or ab which are abstract concepts suddenly become part and parcel of the exorisity,
39. 14:00 exoris connection to the beyond, to God, to angels, to you name it. to the to religious sacred texts. So the
40. 14:13 therapist performs in a scripted theater production which involves an an overarching narrative an all-consuming narrative of I will guide you through the valley of the dead through this veil of tears. I will guide you my patient towards hope and meaning. Hope and meaning that I
41. 14:39 personify that I raify that I embody by virtue of my connection to the grander narrative of God. And so exorcism is performative. In western psychotherapy it is the patient who is performative. The patient is involved in a guided reenactment of for example early
42. 15:07 childhood conflicts or distressing situations. Psychotherapy in the west is when the patient visits a clinician. A therapist, a psychologist, social worker visits a clinician and the clinician guides the patient to obtain insights about past situations by reenacting them using
43. 15:34 highly specific, concrete and unique scripts and narratives which are limited limited to the psychotherrapeutic environment and alliance and never emerge, never exit. this framework. So whereas exorcism by implication and by extension is linked to cosmogy to the totality of the
44. 16:00 universe, it's a holistic approach. Psychotherapy in the west is a reductionist approach. This is the problem. let's reenact it in highly specific ritualized ways and then uh we will get to the bottom of this and we will resolve the issue and create a new
45. 16:19 narrative hopefully. So you see that exorcism is the mirror image of western psychotherapy and the patient is no exception. In exorcism the therapist is active, the patient is passive. In western psychotherapy, the therapist is passive. The patient is active. In
46. 16:41 exorcism, it's a performance linked to a much greater narrative, a total narrative actually, a theory of everything. Whereas in psychotherapy, there's an emphasis on the immediacy of the patient, his needs, his problems, his present, and the presence of the
47. 17:00 therapist as a catalyst, a facilitator. It's very it's a very limited approach. We need to reconceive of western psychotherapy because it is not successful. Western psychotherapy is sometimes helpful with healthy people. People who do not need psychotherapy but they need a good
48. 17:22 friend or a good spouse or a good mother or someone neighbor. These people because of today's automization and lon pandemic of loneliness these people resort to psychotherapist needlessly. So psychotherapy is very efficacious and effectual and effective
49. 17:42 with these people because anyhow they are ready for change. Anyhow they're ready for healing, recovery and moving on. However, modern treatment modalities in the west are abysmal failures when it come to mental illness and mental health disorders to the point that there are
50. 17:59 many people who doubt that there is such a thing as mental illness because of the constant failure of the alleged treatments. And so we need to revamp and reconceive and reform western psychotherapy along the lines of exorcism. We need to allow the therapist to play
51. 18:20 an active role today. If you as a psychotherapist give advice to your client, you may lose your license. It is bad practice. You should never give advice. You should never guide. You should never direct the patient. You should never make choices for the
52. 18:37 patient. You should never control the patient. This is all wrong. We should convert the modern therapist into an exorcist. In the sense that we should allow the modern therapist to impose values and beliefs on the therapy to serve as a teacher, a friend, an advisor, a guide,
53. 19:01 a leader and when necessary take control over the situation and the patient if the patient is selfharming or in danger. So we need to convert modern western therapists into exoris. We have a a lot to learn from that discipline and rather than mock it and ridicule it and call it
54. 19:24 superstitious and stupid and so on the typical vanity and httiness and arrogance of modern science and its practitioners. Rather than do this, we would do well to analyze exorcism sessions, the dynamics that develop and the interactions that develop between
55. 19:44 the exorcist and the patient and why exorcism is a lot more successful than any treatment modality almost any treatment modality with the exception maybe of behavioral therapies CBT, DBT and so on and indeed in CBT and DBT the therapist assumes an active role
56. 20:06 actually in human therap in human psychotherapy. So and this is how I see exorcism. I am not I'm not averse to regarding it as a legitimate treatment modality should other treatment modalities fail. I much prefer exorcism to drugs, psychotropics,
57. 20:34 antiscychotics, anti-depressants. I much prefer exorcism to drugs. The impacts at least on the body are much more benevolent than benign. And so we should legitimize exorcism as a branch of clinical psychology and study it in depth. There is a lot to learn from it.