Demonic Foes: My Twenty-Five Years as a Psychiatrist Investigating Possessions, Diabolic Attacks, and the Paranormal

by Richard Gallagher

Book Overview

The world's leading psychiatric authority on demonic possession delves into the hidden world of exorcisms and his own transformation from cynic to believer over the course of his twenty-five-year career.

Successful New York psychiatrist Richard Gallagher was skeptical yet intrigued when a hard-nosed, no-nonsense Catholic priest asked him to examine a woman for a possible exorcism. Meeting her, Gallagher was astonished. The...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0062876481
• ISBN13: 9780062876485
• Release Date: October 2022
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Not for the faint of spirit

I thoroughly enjoyed reading every single moment of this book. I think it’s a well written series of psychological assessments on how possessions, and then exorcisms, have pronounceable patterns of recognition, and when properly addressed, treatment, and hopefully healing. He makes a clear definition of the difference between mental illness, various personality disorders, and the actual phenomenon in which the patient is possessed, and gets treated by an exorcist. He also states in most cases the exorcism event does not happen in one “session”, but over a period of time by a priest. Like any form of traditional therapy, sometimes the exorcisms are conducted over continuous weeks, or even over months. He has well balanced case studies: not every single exorcism is flash and bang, full of Latin prayers, holy water soaked beds, and demons rotating the victims neck in various ‘laws of physics-defying’ degrees. This book is dry as it is his clinical cases; patients, events and assessments. So it’s not for thrills and chills. I do appreciate the fact that he does make people aware of non-traditional events that even current psychology can’t explain. This is a pro-catholic/Christian book with his scientific assessments balancing the scales. This book does not assess other forms of exorcists, nor about Shamanism, new age cleaning/clearing, nor other cultures and their rights of exorcisms (Judaism/Islam/Buddhism/Hinduism). It’s very pro-western in its DSM IV and DSM V psychological assessments as well. Hope this helps. Like I stated in my first sentence: this book was fascinating!!

Not what I was expecting

This book is a pretty dense read. It's not stories of possessions but more a clinical view of the diagnosis of possession.. without any real detail. Honestly disappointed.