Emotional Illness


Below are excerpts from Wanda Pratnicka's book
"Possessed by Ghosts - Exorcisms in 21st Century" 

It can happen that a normally functioning person may suddenly, from one hour to the next, stop knowing who they are, what they're saying, what they're doing; they see visions, they hear voices, they get a kind of an emotional illness. They can sense that they're being touched, forced to do things, they feel compulsions. They may notice scratches or wounds on their bodies and not know where they've come from. They may be aware of the moment the injury occurred, see the blood flowing, and feel pain even though they are far from any sharp objects. A person who till then had been active, sociable, cheerful may suddenly become closed in on themselves, it may be hard to make contact with them, they themselves may start to have suicidal thoughts. Or vice versa: a calm person may become aggressive, ready to destroy everything in one moment, sometimes even to kill someone. Their eyes emanate hatred even towards those they'd loved till now. A refined person may suddenly become vulgar, swearing at people for no reason - in a streetcar, a shop, a church or the street. They may smell some scent everywhere, anything from a pleasant one to a terrible odor. Or vice versa, people around them may smell an unpleasant stench coming from the person, even though that person may wash constantly.

These symptoms don't, of course, appear simultaneously in one person, though even that can happen. These phenomena can be barely perceptible to the afflicted person, but very obvious to those around him, or vice versa. They may be annoying, interfering considerably in a person's normal behavior, and can even stop them functioning normally, but may be completely imperceptible to those around them. A person like that, when he's with other people, may see or hear something very clearly which no-one else can, even though subjectively these signals are of a very powerful intensity. Doctors have classified this kind of behavior or state as a manifestation of schizophrenia or some other mental or emotional illness. I however say that this is a kind of emotional illness. This kind of person is universally regarded as insane. When these symptoms grow more intensive or cause a threat to society's safety, these people are locked up in psychiatric hospitals. These symptoms, and many others I've not mentioned, are a clear sign of the presence of ghosts within a person. I call it emotional illness originating from ghosts emotions.

Every psychiatric illness presents symptoms similar to the ones I've mentioned above. It occurred to me that since there is a similarity then maybe its cause is also the same. The cases of psychiatric illness I've come into contact with have confirmed my conviction that that really is so. I have collected several thousands of them and they are all very similar to each other. My many years' experience have taught me that every mental or emotional illness arises when the afflicted person allows themselves to be not only possessed, but surrender their body and their mind in their totality to the ghost, yielding themselves to its will and expressing the ghosts emotions - therefore emotional illness. Every case is, of course, different. In some cases, a person is himself for a moment, then somebody completely different, and then himself again. The moments when he is "somebody else" are not noticed by the client, nor indeed remembered. The human mind can be compared to the activity of a computer. The information when the ghost is present within the sick person is written onto the hard disc of the ghost, not the sick person. It's a bit like the sick person giving himself a vacation from being himself. During that time it's the ghost that directs his body and mind. That's where the memory gaps in the sick person come from.

Other times the sick person is someone completely different constantly, and only very rarely themselves. This happens when the body and the mind are surrendered to the will of many different ghosts. In extreme cases a person's spirit may be ejected from its own body by ghosts and be forced to exist outside it. Such cases are not at all rare. They depend on the level of a person's possession. There may be hundreds of ghosts possessing just one person. In the Bible they were called "legion" (Luke 8,30).(...)

To make the splitting of personality and many other mental or emotional illnesses more comprehensible, I will draw a comparison of the body with that of a ship at sea. A mentally well person is like a captain on his ship. He steers it competently, avoiding the dangers it comes across. He steers confidently because even in the greatest storm nothing can threaten him since he is in the care of God. A captain like that won't allow unauthorized passengers come aboard his ship. He will always know where the ship is and what its course is.

But there are other kinds of captain. They rarely stand on the bridge and steer, allowing the ship to drift aimlessly in the ocean, usually because they're afraid. They also allow unasked passengers to come aboard and do whatever they like. A person suffering from schizophrenia is just that kind of ship filled with passenger-ghosts, without a captain on the bridge. The captain, as the owner of the ship, can be present on it throughout the trip but the passengers, or the ghosts, won't let him near the wheel. When some passenger grabs hold of the wheel he will ignore the presence of the captain and steer the ship in his own way. Sometimes, the captain won't grab the wheel even when there is no-one steering. In extreme cases the captain may be thrown overboard (in other words out of his own body). The passenger-ghosts, seeing the bridge free, will steer the ship in their own way but even they, after a while, will abandon this pastime for various reasons. Sometimes, the passengers know nothing about the presence of the captain, or the other passengers, on the ship. The captain may also not apprehend the presence of passengers on the deck. Every one of them considers the ship to be their own property and behaves in accordance with that belief. Sometimes all the passengers want to steer the ship at the same time and they fight amongst themselves for power. That's when attacks of mental or emotional illness are exacerbated in the owner's body-ship. When there is no volunteer among the passengers to steer the ship and the captain resolves to stand on the bridge at last then we may notice a momentary improvement in the sick person's condition. His self-awareness returns and he may be released from hospital. He is not well, though. The ghosts are still there inside him, and have only taken a vacation from steering his body.

If such a person knew the reason for their problems they would most probably fight. But they do nothing about it because they think that they're in a situation over which they haven't the slightest influence. Sometimes it seems to them that they really have gone mad. They are in great error. This is the best possible moment for the person, ill till now, to resolve to stand at the wheel as the captain of their ship. But somebody would have to appraise them of it, repeat it to them more than once until they acknowledged it. Then the sick person could regain control of their own life.(...)

The cause of mental or emotional illness is not so much being possessed by too many ghosts or ghosts that are too powerful, but the fact that the sick person, not knowing what's happening to them, becomes very frightened and gives up without a fight. I know of a case where a person was possessed by hundreds of ghosts and he continued to function normally, whereas with another person just one ghost can enter and he won't be able to deal with it or with himself.

I dare to suggest that the chief cause of mental or emotional illnesses is the client's, and their family's, ignorance of the fact that their bodies and minds have been taken over by ghosts. If the knowledge of that were widespread, then people would respond to it quite differently and more appropriately. Even if they didn't know how to lead the ghost away they would avoid it like they avoid an annoying fly. When a ghost visits someone who is unaware of these matters then that person becomes frightened not just of the ghost but of everything around him or her. Being frightened that person surrenders their body to the ghost without any resistance. From that moment they start to feel differently than before and, unable to understand the cause of it, they start to get even more frightened. Thus they attract to themselves more ghosts on the principle that "we attract the things that we fear most". Soon, they are afraid of everything, even of fear itself. What frightens them more than anything, however, is that what they're experiencing may be a figment of their imagination. The result is that they reach the conclusion that they have gone mad. And they do go mad, on the principle that "reality is what I believe it is". A person whom ghosts are trying to possess can be helped just by believing what he says. Do you hear voices? You're right, you didn't imagine it. You have the right to hear the voices of ghosts. You see something? You didn't go mad, I personally don't see it but you have the right to see, you must be more of a medium etc.(...)