Buddhist Exorcism

Maha Kola mask

In an American poll, Gallup and Newport (1991) identified that one-forth of the of those asked believed in ghosts and one-tenth had seen or been in the presence of a ghost. Whilst having no place in the world as it is understood by Western psychiatry, belief in ghosts and demons as possible causes of psychosis is probably culturally and historically universal.

Ghosts and demons are widely considered to cause mental illness within folk Buddhist traditions and examples can be found in many Buddhist countries, including Thailand, Taiwan, Cambodia, Nepal, Burma, Japan and Sri Lanka.

Some say that the idea of possession by ghosts and demons forms no part of Buddhist doctrine. But there examples of possession and exorcism from the earliest Buddhist scriptures onwards.

The ‘Sutra on the Merits of the Fundamental Vows of the Seven Buddhas of Lapis Lazuli Radiance, the Masters of Healing’ (Yao-shih liu-li-kuang ch’i-fo pen-yuan kung-te ching), mentions those: “…who are constantly haunted and disordered by yaksas [demons] and various evil spirits who snatch away their vital spirits and subject them to various sufferings…”

The ‘Sutra Spoken by the Buddha on the Contemplation of the Two Bodhisattvas, King of Healing and Supreme Healer’ (Fo-shuo kuan Yao-wang Yao-shang erh-p’u-sa ching) mentions various types of ghosts and demons which can feed on a persons vitality and harm them.

The ‘Maniratna (‘wishing-jewel’) Book’ (Fo-shuo Mo-ni lo-t’an ching) is a Chinese Buddhist text exclusively dedicated to the detection and identification of demons, and the Gyu-zhi, the most famous and fundamental work in Tibetan Buddhist medical literature, identifies a variety of separate ‘demons’ (gdon) linked with distinct mental health problems.

The Bhesajjamanjusa (‘The Casket of Medicine’), is a medical treatise of sixty chapters written in Pali by a Buddhist monk in Sri Lanka during the thirteenth century (around 1267). It was also perhaps the most widely used medical text in Cambodia up to recent times. Chapter 57 of the treatise, not yet translated into English, is on the ‘treatment of diseases caused by beings such as yakkhas [demons], accompanied by amnesia and insanity’.

Many Western Buddhists have reinterpreted ghosts as ‘psychological’ rather than ‘genuine entities’, yet Tibetan lamas refuse to relate to ghosts only as psychological phenomena in this Western sense and in East Asia, ghosts can be accepted as both psychologically produced and materially present. Zen Buddhist teacher, Rev Master Jiyu-Kennett, stated that it is important to know that ghosts, whilst very scary if not understood, are completely harmless if properly handled. She suggested that ghosts should be recognized in terms of karmic ‘jangles’ or ‘vibrations’.

In this video clip below, you can see a traditional Sri Lankan Sanni dance, wherein the dancers dramatize a particular illness (in this case pissu  ‘temporary insanity’ or psychosis). From what can be seen in the clip, the pissu demon (Sanniya) is caught and ordered to depart from the body and mind of the patient (āturayā) by the order of Vessavana who is presiding over the righteousness with the power of Buddhist doctrine.

Vessavana is one of the four guardian kings who preside over the four quarters in the celestial regions. Vessavana is king of the Northern quarter. He is familiar with the Buddha as can be seen in the Ātānātiya Sutta.

The Ātānātiya Sutta is recited with great fervour at the conclusion of Paritta (protection) ceremonies. The Ātānātiya Sutta is recited particularly in times of illness, in order to ward off evil spirits including Abutha, Butha and Pissu, who according to Sri Lankan tradition, are all demons related to psychosis. 
 

Rufus May, a clinical psychologist at Bradford University in the UK, has pointed out that: ‘…for many people their voices are spiritual entities… we are working alongside traditional spiritual healers to create healing workshops that will help people deal with negative spirits. To insist on medicalizing this experience is now being recognized as culturally oppressive and colonial’.

Tamasin Knight is a public health doctor from England who is interested in power issues in the mental health system and alternatives to the medical model. In arguing for alternative ways of working with delusions (fixed and strongly held beliefs that no-one else shares), she acknowledged concerns that accepting a person’s unusual beliefs and reality could “make them worse”. But in response, she says there is a difference between accepting an individual’s reality and trying to help them deal with it, and accepting a person’s experiences but frightening them even more: 

‘Suppose someone’s reality is that ghosts are trying to attack them. Accepting this, trying to understand how it must make the person feel and looking for practical strategies to cope with the situation e.g. looking at books about defending oneself against ghosts would be beneficial. On the other hand, accepting the individual’s reality but then telling them frightening information such as stories of people killed by ghosts would clearly not be helpful’.

Whatever we think about ghosts and demons, it is worth considering a few things:

Firstly, if thinking about psychosis in this way (that it is to do with ghosts or demons) makes it more scary or hard to deal with, then ghosts and demons are most likely not the problem. Dealing with psychosis can be hard enough without adding a whole imagined extra problem of ghosts and demons!!

Secondly, if you do already think that ghosts and demons are the problem, you can be sure that, as Jiyu-Kennett stated – these things are completely harmless if properly handled.

Thirdly, even if you don’t believe in demons or ghosts at all, some of the ways of dealing with this stuff might still be helpful in giving you confidence that you are not a victim of whatever it is you are experiencing.  

Finally, don’t let any of this stuff get in the way of making good use of psychiatrists and mental health teams – we can and should make use of whatever help is available to us, people will always have different ways of explaining things and please just take this information if it helps you find additional ways of coping with things. Take what is useful and this definitely includes the advice of friends family and psychiatrists and mental health teams where we are lucky enough to have them!