So I was watching some exorcism YouTube vids yesterday and was wondering if there have been any Mormon bishops or SP's or MP's etc that claimed to have done one themselves.

I think they are bogus, but these people I watched were very convincing. Kinds freaked me out actually.

My father tells the story of casting out an evil spirit from a local woman when he was bishop. That shit scared me to death when I was young. Now I just wonder what kind of psychological counseling and/or meds could the woman have benefited from.

A religion "prof" at BYU told the story in class of he and two other priesthood holders casting an evil spirit out of a man, and when they approached him to place their hands on his head, one of his companions was thrown high up against the wall and crumpled to the floor.

I never saw any exorcisms of any sorts on my mission, except for when the local evangelicals tried to save us from satan. That's a post for another day.

Ohhhh. Can't wait to read that post!

Holy shit @GQ Cannonball, the guy who your byu prof and other p-holders were trying to cast out the devil was my dad. He was "struggling" with homosexual urges and had been fasting for days or something and had asked for a priesthood blessing and has said for years that one of the guys had been attacked by Satan and thrown against the wall. My dad uses this as proof that Satan like homosexuality and that Satan has it out for him personally (there are soooo many stories like this from my dad, who made our family look weird even by tbm standards).

It's just really weird that you'd mention this story and that mo leaders/teachers propagate such silly tales. My dad is just a sad, strange old man (he's 74) who is deeply set in denial (I'm convinced he's bi-sexual or gay) and will defend himself savagely for the strange ideas he and his church concoct in order to better suite their archaic and bizzare ways of thinking.

Also, some fun facts: my dad thinks he's responsible for the mo church to allow blacks to have the priesthood; he thought himself to be an angel named "Raphael" in the pre-mortal existence; he made his 8 children perform music for 11-13 years with him in order to spread his version of the gospel (which would give old Joe and Briggy a run for their money).

I didn't want to rant about my daddy issues, but that experience "happened" when he was a young man in circa 1950-60's Utah and the propaganda learned about stifling oneself has harmed him and his family since immeasurably. Fuck Satan, I'm more scared of bishops hiding in my closet (get it?) than being knocked up against the wall by some unseen force because I thought I was gay.

don't forget to offer to shake hands with the otherworldly visitor before you try to intone the eviction incantation—'cuz it might be an Angel of the Lard dropping off some more gold plates to you or something.

reported while he was on a vacation with his wife and 6 children, that while in the hotel the bed began to shake "wildly", scaring the children. He used raised his arm to the square to chase the devil out of the Las Angelos motel room they were in. Apparently it worked because the bed stopped shaking. I asked him (being his humble counselor), "Do you think it was merely a tremor, Bishop?". He replied, "oh no, it was the devil - a demonic presence." Okey dokey.

A Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed, and one of his kids dropped a quarter in the slot...:
http://www.retrothing.com/2007/06/magic_fingers_v.html

http://www.magicfingers.com/

8^D

I am convinced Joseph Smith had to have the devil's earthly power to be able to con and abuse so many people. His church men would share wives polyandyrously with him.

I highly urge anyone to see the new Anthony Hopkins film, "THE RITE". It's based on a book by the same name. The book on exorcism and demonic posession is even scarier than the movie.
http://www.amazon.com/Rite-Making-Modern-Exorcist/dp/0385522703

To my Post-Catholic eyes, it seemed a little self-serving and unconvincing. I suppose there was a time I would have ate it up. but now...

When my moms house was haunted she didnt call the mormons. She called the Catholics. Didnt work though. How do I know its haunted? Personal experiences. My nephew had conversations with his dead father when he was a toddler. Pretty much everyone in my family has had some sort of experience in that house. Without telling my wife anything about it to keep suggeation out of it. She had 2 different experiences.

Pretty sure the ghost inside the house is the father of my sister's kids. The one lots of people have seen in the backyard sounds like a Shadow Person. Really interesting its on the Rez so there are dogs everywhere all day long. They are never in the backyard at night.

I once had my dad give me a priesthood blessing when I thought there was an evil spirit in my room. I was about seventeen. I now think that I was having a panic attack since I had those a lot at the time. My dad was totally pissed I woke him up and begrudgingly gave me the blessing.

I once asked what the church did about possession (since Jesus dealt with it in the Bible and clearly there were evil spirits haunting the corners of my mind LOL) and I was told it was basically like a priesthood blessing.

In the late 70's, President Cheney of the Toledo OH Stake was, as the story went, said to have been pressed down onto his bed in the middle of the night as a warning from an evil spirit to quit the work of the gospel. He wasn't possessed, just warned.

In our mission (I presume others too), you had to get certified, then recertified from time to time.
To get your certificate, you had to master so many discussions, memorize so many scriptures etc...
One of things was you had to perform a certain number of priesthood ordinances. There was a list like baptisms, ordinations, blessing the sacrament...But I'll be damned if Exorcism wasn't on that list too. I'm certain it was.
Anybody else remember a similar list.

but there have been countless troubled individuals with emotional, psychological or mental problems. And there are even more emotionally, psychologically or mentally disturbed individuals who are quick to blame it on Satan or his magical, mystical demons.

The impression I have is they are authorized very infrequently in the Catholic Church. I don't know of any priests lately who have done one. But I do know the movie the Exorcist was based on a true story - true in the sense that a child was subjected to the rite at Georgetown University. The real kid was a boy rather than a girl as the movie portrayed, and I saw on some documentary the rite wasn't successful at Georgetown so they took the kid to another Jesuit university hospital in St. Louis where supposedly it worked. The impression I have is the Catholics try to be scientific about it, eliminating other possible causes first, but unless you're on the investigation team, who knows?

FWIW
When I was growing up in Saint Louis our family physician Dr. Bowdren's brother was the Jesuit priest who did the exorcism. The exerocism took place on the campus of Saint Louis University which is a Jesuit college. When his brother died, it was in his obituary. Although not talked about much it was open secret in the Saint Louis Diocese. When I was growing up I used to deliver papers and part of my route was SLU; I always remembered the Jesuits who were there were very kind.
Apparently William Peter Blatty was doing research at Georgetown and heard about the story from the local Jesuits and thought it would make a good story.
A true exerocism is an extremley rare thing. There are enormous rules about first determining if it is possession or mental illness.
Then they have to get permission from the bishop to perform the rite. It is undertaken with extreme care because if it is mental illness; the rite may only reenforce the illness.

You might find this article interesting; it's about a Bay Area priest who was the inspiration for "The Rite." I highly doubt that demon possession is real, but it does at least appear that this priest only performs an exorcism as a last resort after doctors, psychologists, etc. have examined a "possessed" person and ruled out other causes:

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_17198060?nclick_check=1

My father once told me that one of our female ancestors was possessed and had to undergo a Mormon exorcism. He said her body arched up on the bed so that only her heels and the crown of her head touched the mattress. It took six strong priesthood holders to restrain her. I think it was probably epilepsy since I have been diagnosed with mild epilepsy myself. Though I did have a grand mal attack in junior high. That was rather unpleasant.

Interesting that you pointed that out, it may have been an epileptic episode. I was wondering if that may be an explanation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opisthotonus

I believe that it was also observed in the "possessed" accusers at Salem.

Thanks for the wikipedia link Anon for this.

I remember at least three or four stories about missionaries claiming they had cast out an evil spirit during a priesthood blessing. One was in the presence of sister missionaries who were very, very frightened and IMPRESSED.

That whole arm-to-the-square thing can make an ordinary Elder Clark Kent look like Superman...to any women inclined to believe in that stuff.

My father works for CES, and went on his mission to the Caribbean, where he says he saw a lot of crazy things.

I acted out as a child due to rather intense emotional abuse from my mother, among other things...and so when my father got a MA in Psychology, he "diagnosed" me with MPD (something that has since been verified as false). Between the age of 10 and 15, I had multiple times when I did something wrong, and he felt impressed to "cast the evil spirits out of me". Nothing spectacular, but some very intense screaming, crying, and emotional, psychological, and religious torture for a child that age.

I am not on speaking terms with my family at this time....in case you're wondering.

That's messed up. So sorry.

I think it is fake. I have been working on Monson since he got in,............with no results.....WTF

So, you see, there would be no point in trying to do an exorcism ON Monson. It would be like trying to cast an evil spirit out of an evil spirit. You're still left with an evil spirit.

Actually, I performed what you might call an exorcism when I had been on my mission for only two weeks. The church did not provide any preparation for this "ordinance," nor did I ask to have this experience. It was very scary, but everything turned out okay in the end.

After my mission, this experience became something of a "faith-promoting" story that I used to strengthen my testimony. Now that I've left the church, I cannot deny that the experience was real, but my interpretation is now totally different.

I heard about many accounts of missionaries whose apartments were haunted by evil spirits, and that they or the mission president would have to come over and cast them out.

Those stories terrified me as a child, absolutely scared me to death. I always slept with the lights on, and had awful fears related to the devil and demons, etc.

Maybe those things happened in the mission field, maybe they didn't, but I heard stuff like that all the time, and it creeps me out to this day.