Exorcism?

[Leonardo17]

It’s more subtle than that.
 
Yes I happen to agree with most of the things you people say. I was talking about the reality as “energy” about what we call the Devil. So when the author (who was a psychiatrist) says that “he looked Satan in the eyes” during one of the two exorcism events that he witnessed, I kind of understand his point because he explains it in a detailed manner in the book as a whole.

You clearly don't.  Scott Peck was a psychiatrist but he was also a christian nut who believed in a literal devil..not an air quote devil.  
 

In a nutshell: We all have our demons to fight in this world. Right? So when we talk about our personal demons the one fact is that these are not here not to negatively influence you. It’s there to destroy you and take a few other people with you if it can. Think of (rather grown up people issues) like addictions, bad habits, other spiritual problems and life issues that tend to stick around until you are able to resolve them and get to the next stage of your spiritual development.

Scott Peck believed that a foreign intelligence, the devil of christian mythology, literally possessed people.  
 

   So “personal Evil” is that kind of phenomenon. You can’t measure it. You can do scientific experiments on it but if you happen to be a life coach or a psychotherapist you tend to be aware of these “forces” and work with them every day of your professional life.
 
    I didn’t say anything new to anyone until this point.
 
    But the author here indicates that something happened in the two exorcism rituals that he had witnessed first-hand. And that those two guys would have probably died without these ceremonies (and he is saying this as a psychiatrist). So I was a little shocked and wanted to open the debate here

The air quotes again, lol.  We don't need to air quote this stuff because we don't need to use it as a euphemism for something else.  Personal evil is just that.  It's not a force or an energy or a foreign spirit.  Peck shows how completely he jumped the shark in his superstitious christianism by positing that a magical ritual with no actual effects was necessary to anyone's survival.  A debate about the efficacy of magic over medicine is pointless.  You're impressed because a nut couches his belief in faith healing in his professional credentials but having professional credentials has never been a barrier to believing silly shit.  Particularly that silly shit which was already a part of your culture before your first day at school.  You are impressed by it not because of those professional credentials but because it validates the mythology that you yourself cling to - if you squint just right and ignore the fact that Peck having made a strong christian commitment -in his own words- would tell you that you're a nut and a devil worshipper yourself.  

We have debates about evil and morality in general from time to time on the boards but at no point in a discussion about possession or exorcism or boogeymen are we talking about moral failures or their various causes.

“You clearly don't.  Scott Peck was a psychiatrist but he was also a christian nut who believed in a literal devil..not an air quote devil.”
 
- I don’t know if he was a Christian. I think he has a more Jungian type of approach on these matters + He is clearly a spiritual person (who believes in higher realities, spiritual growth and all that)
 
“Scott Peck believed that a foreign intelligence, the devil of christian mythology, literally possessed people.”
 
- Not really. You can check this “People of the lie” or the Wikipedia page of the Author. What he is attempting is to create a scientific approach to the study of Evil. Which today (40 years later) is defined by psychologists as “severe personality disorders like narcissism and/or sociopathy”. So I don’t know about where to draw the line but Narcissistic people and / or sociopaths are evil people. We don’t need to believe in the Gospels to say that. But what a narcissistic partner does to his wife or her husband is pure and simple evil. Which is different from some other psychiatric conditions in which the harm that is done by the individual to himself or others occurs because of a malfunctioning brain or lack of balance in the neurochemical situation of that person. (at least that’s the current theory). Some people do things “willingly”, sometimes groups of people commit atrocities (like the My Lai Massacre for instance). And Scott Peck is one of the pioneers who is studying the issue as something that occurs “willingly” without basing Evil on some sort of causality or anything like that.
 
/And yes. Religions have been talking about this for millennia. So this is a Christian theory of some sort.
 
Final Part:
 
   Well, you may be right. My approach on this subject is mostly based on local theology + we don’t like to focus on these subjects too much. 1) Because of the issues you are talking about. 2) Because even those who truly believe in exorcism are saying that’s it’s a very rare phenomenon. 3) Because we are supposed to focus on the positive (Good thoughts, good deeds, constructive action and all that )
 
   Still if you happen to be interested in these issues this and other books of Scott Peck are very interesting