Diagnosing the Devil. A Case Study on a Protocol Between an Exorcist and a Psychiatrist in Italy

Abstract

According to a positivist perspective, the relationship between religion and science has always been considered mutually exclusive and irreconcilable. This perspective has been deeply debated and reshaped in the last decades, and the example of the link between religion and medicine illustrates how the issues of healthcare, healing, and treatments are examined in these two domains. The ongoing negotiation process highlights the overlapping of medical and religious narratives in different spheres where scientific explanations of illness and healing coexist with faith-based discourses and practices. In this chapter we will present a case study of a Catholic exorcist who uses a ‘protocol’ in diagnosing and fighting the Devil: according to this protocol, he requires his patients to consult a psychiatrist in order to evaluate whether the declared presence of the Devil should be treated as a mental/psychological disease or as a possession by Satan. With obvious differences in the two systems of reasoning and explanation of causes, and in the treatments and consequences for patients asking for assistance, both exorcist and psychiatrist go through procedures which legitimize and reinforce each other. Analysis of in-depth interviews with the exorcist and the psychiatrist, and of a 200,000 word document written by the exorcist, containing the outcomes of the patients’ visits to the psychiatrist, will show how medical and religious narratives and treatments can reinforce each other, reexamining the understanding of the secular–religious divide.