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Possession

jambo372

Graduate Poster
J
Joined
Aug 26, 2004
Messages
1,200
Has anyone ever heard this story :

A teenaged boy named Robbie Manhelm was experimenting along with his aunt ( a medium ) with a ouija board . Shortly afterwards robbie's aunt died . He continued using the ouija board to try to communicate with his deceased aunt . Gradually weird things started to happen . Scratching noises would occur in the house at first & he just began acting generally weird & out of character . Then he began to scream & swear . He developed strange psychokinetic abilities & poltergeist activity would occur around him . Marks would appear on his skin which spelled out the words spite & hell . His doctors couldn't explain what was going on . He was taken to a minister who told his parents to take him to a catholic exorcist . Strange phenomena occured in the priest's office when Robbie entered , the telephone began moving about violently on it's own . Eventually an exorcism was done & Robbie was back to normal in about 3 months .

This story was william Peter Blatty's inspiration for the novel & film " THE EXORCIST " . There was also a film made about it called " POSSESSED " .

This is a true story .
 
Jambo- The way it works at this board is that you don't just post a story like this. You post evidence to back it up. Proof.
Failing which you may expect to be ignored or scoffed at.

Such evidence would include links to actual investigation of the incidents; Police reports if any, details like whether the people involved had psychiatric histories, any inconsistencies or gaps in the data, alternate explanations. (11 year olds have been known to confabulate- especially if it gets them attention).

If Mr. Mannhelm could prove any of this stuff, he would be a very wealthy fellow. As will you if you can come up with proof.

Be aware that when you simply state an improbable tale like this, then follow it with a flat , unquestioning acceptance of it's veracity, you lose credibility with most people here. This will make it even less likely that they will take you seriously next time.
 
But surely if the dead can communicate with the living, then they would do so via a Parker Brothers parlor game? Any other method would be rediculous! Although, if they were in to irony, then they might communicate using the game Life...

:D
 
jambo372,

Do you actually beleive all of these posts that you put up here? You seem to beleive in everything that goes bump in the night. Everything from PK, to talking to the dead to preminitions, ectoplasm materializations, and now posession? I know it is of no use to you since you want and need to beleive in all this tomfoolery, but you might look here for some answers to this exorsism crap.
http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/exorcist.html

As for historical accuracy, Cuneo characterizes Blatty’s work as a massive structure of fantasy resting on a flimsy foundation of a priest’s diary account of the Mount Rainier case. The Exorcist story gets less and less impressive the farther away it gets from the film that made it famous. As is often the case, sensationalism, hyperbole, and myths replace fact and reality when it comes to making a good story.
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I am really suprised you didn't buy that bridge offered to you in another thread, or at least make an offer.

JPK
 
This is a true story


A boy named Duke Flywater lived with his Aunt.She died,he began talking to machines(two in particular)and joined the airforce to fight the soldiers who had killed her,along with his sister.He eventually found out his Dad(whom he'd never known)was the Commander of these soldiers,although he had breathing difficulties.

The story was the inspiration for George Lucas's Star Wars.
Its not a true story!;)
 
Soapy Sam
What good would police reports be ?

A ) It had nothing at all to do with the police
B ) Even if it did - police can be very easily fooled - You just have to look at the state of the justice system - innocent people are jailed all too often whilst murderers & rapists lurk all over the place , ie stopping people just for taking cannabis when people like Huntley run riot . Police are also well known for hiring psychics as investigators - ( now I do believe in lots of psychics ) , but why would a skeptic like yourself want information from people who place faith in psychics to help solve crimes ?

Secondly , psychiatric history has nothing to do with it at all . Medical & psychiatric explanations were ruled out - the exorcism was a last resort . Another example , Nina Kulagina , probably the most powerful psychokinetic in modern history had a history of nervous breakdown - she still defied every skeptic she crossed . I also know a medium who had a nervous breakdown .

Thirdly about the money - I don't see how I could become rich if I proved the Mannhelm story to be true - it had nothing to do with me . It would be easy enough to explain why he didn't get rich - you wouldn't blab to everyone about being possessed by demons and requiring an exorcism . He probably wouldn't even want to remember what happened - it would have been horrifying - talking about it might bring it all back to him . If you're suggesting he takes the $ 1,000,000 challenge - it all happened about 60 years ago - long before the challenge was introduced & even if there was a challenge - they would have been too busy trying to exorcise demons rather than worry about stuff like that .
 
Jambo ,

In your post you are assuming allot that is not said in that article.

What good would police reports be ?
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The child was obviously in danger. Whether from himself or possibly others. The police would be able to recognize if a crime had been committed. Such as munchhousen by proxy. It wouldn't be the first time a child was harmed to get attention for the parents. I'm not saying that this is what happened. I think the only crime committed was neglecting a child in trouble in favor of entertaining the parents superstitions.

Secondly , psychiatric history has nothing to do with it at all . Medical & psychiatric explanations were ruled out - the exorcism was a last resort .
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Really? I don't see anything in the article that states that medical or psychiatric help was ever tried. Plus, a case such as that would be all over the papers if doctors and psychiatrists couldn’t find an explanation. I've yet to see an article like that.

I find it much more likely that the family refused to accept a medical explanation because it conflicted with the religious explanation they had already come to. I would expect years of searching for a cure before a rational person would conclude that it was occult.

If we are to believe the article, they jump to blaming things on the occult pretty easily:
Soon after, she died. A few nights after her death, the family started to notice strange sounds, first a dripping, and then a scratching sound under the floorboards.
The family was convinced that it was the dead aunt attempting to contact them. They spoke to her, and asked for a sign. A wave of pressure was sent into the members of the family and then into the floor.
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dripping and scratching noises? Must be a my dead Aunt! What kind of rational is that? As for the last line. Has anyone heard of a breeze, or does it always have to be ghosts?

you wouldn't blab to everyone about being possessed by demons and requiring an exorcism . He probably wouldn't even want to remember what happened - it would have been horrifying - talking about it might bring it all back to him .
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True, it's a good thing he kept his mouth shut. Otherwise there would be books, and movies, and urban legends told at Halloween, and ... wait, how are we talking this when they kept it so hush hush?

Lastly, Jambo, you seem to skipped over the first sentence altogether,
There is a story that usually gets mentioned around Halloween in St. Louis. Like many tales, it is blown up and out of proportion, and the details are shaky at best.
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Well, I'm convinced. How could this be anything but a true story?
 
Jambo said-
"A ) It had nothing at all to do with the police
B ) Even if it did - police can be very easily fooled "

Agreed, agreed. I mentioned police reports simply as one type of evidence, not to imply they would have the whole truth.
They do tend to have reasonably precise times, records of events and witnesses, statements of people at the time. Often after the event, stories change- not through lying but through misremembering or one person convincing another of his version.

Any objective record , written down at the time, is useful in getting to the truth of an often confused situation.

The point is that anyone can tell a good yarn. He might have a source for it, or he might make it up. So long as we all know it's a yarn, that's fine, so long as it's a good yarn. But if we expect to convince people that an unlikely yarn is true , we must muster all supporting evidence and be able to counter criticism of it with reasoned responses.
Ask yourself honestly- did you do that?
 
Keep in mind he starts off his article saying his evidence is shakey. How many similar articles do you think exist that neglect to mention the lack supporting evidence?
 
Operaider
If his parents were abusing him - it would still have nothing to do with the police - it would be the social that would deal with that stuff . secondly how could a medical condition be responsible for the telekinesis & words on his back ? Some of the details were EXAGERRATED not completely made up . I don't think a hoax would become so famous without anything to back it up . You can't demand an exorcism - Exorcists only give exorcisms to people when rational explanations have been dismissed because giving an exorcism to someone who is mentally ill as opposed to possessed can make matters worse by increasing the trauma .
 
CSICOP has a piece on this that just came out the other week. It can be found here. Here's just a taste:

Investigative journalist Mark Opsasnick investigated the case and concluded that the Mount Rainier story, as popularly held (and which Blatty used as a basis for the novel), could not be true. For one thing, the family that occupied the home at the time the alleged possession took place did not have a boy there, demon-possessed or otherwise: the occupants were childless. Long-time neighbors denied that anything horrific or supernatural had ever occurred there. There was, however, an actual exorcism done (not in Mount Rainier but in Garden City, Maryland), though virtually all of the gory and sensational details were embellished or made up. Simple spitting became Technicolor, projectile vomiting; (normal) shaking of a bed became thunderous quaking and levitation; the boy’s low growl became a gravelly, Satanic voice. And so on. Those interested in the full details can find them in articles by Opsasnick. One is “The Haunted Boy,” published in Fortean Times, Number 123, page 34; another is in Strange Magazine, 1998, Number 20. The piece is also available online at www.strangemag.com.
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I don't think a hoax would become so famous without anything to back it up .
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Thus:
There is an alien craft in Arizona.
We didn't land on the moon.
An alien autopsy has been carried out and shown by Fox.
Crop circles are created by aliens (perhaps they are instructions from the aliens on how to use the crashed alien ship to reach the moon...)
Mermaid bodies have been found.
Bigfoot walks around free. The Loch Ness Monster swims around free.
Santa is real.

Jambo, just because a hoax is famous does not mean it has a SINGLE SHRED of proof.

You seem to think you are talking to your friends in the pub and we are all going to go "Ooh, spooky" when you tell a story.
But without proof most of the people here are going to consider your stories as just that - stories. No more real than if you told us about a boy who could do magic and went to a wizard school called Hogwarts.

People who like these stories and want to believe in them sort of try to ignore the lack of evidence. But to be taken seriously, this is what is required.
 
Nicely put, Ashles. A lot of people seem to think that just because numerous other people believe something, that automatically makes it right. I would add to your exellent list, that if group mentality served as truth, then those people killed in Salem must have really been witches.

People can be wrong, whether alone or in groups. Something doesn't gain credibility on numbers alone. The burdon of proof still applies.
 
Well, I think the evidence here is overwhelming....

See picture of Robbie Manhelm's possession below:
David%20Mandell.jpg
 
I think the saddest thing here is that when I started reading this thread, I thought jambo372 was being farcical.

Ah well...
 
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