RedHanded - ShortHand: Exorcisms Around the World

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

Vanquishing demons lingering in a tainted soul might sound like a very Christian idea – but exorcisms are prevalent in almost every culture across the globe. From ancient China to modern Islam, there are hundreds of ways to free someone from the grips of an evil spirit. This week Hannah and Suruthi run down a few of the most interesting – and discuss why, before modern medicine, possession seemed like such a likely explanation.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

So, listeners, when you think of the word exorcism, what do you, what do you think about? What do you think about, Surruti Barla? Well, I would say that thanks to the myriad of Hollywood exorcism movies that we have all consumed forever and eternity, we're all thinking the same thing. Yes, you're right. We're thinking of a Catholic priest man, holding up a cross and yelling the same exact thing that they yell in every single example. is a movie. And then we're like, ah! That's what we're thinking. Yes. And most people are thinking that.

Specifically, they're thinking about the 1971 film The Exorcist. So, yeah, you're probably got Reagan in your head because she lives there. She does. But there's quite a lot more two exorcisms than that. According to theologian Stephen Oakley, exorcism is a prayer or ritual that is meant to remove the influence of demonic evil power. over a person. A christening, for example, is an exorcism. No way. It is. Well, there you go. So think about that the next time you get invited to one of those.

You strip a little bit of water on the baby's head. Yeah. I saw a video the other day on Instagram where it was just like his baby getting baptized and just knocks the book out of the priest's hand and it just falls in the water and it was like a really fucking old book or some shit. I don't know. I was laughing too hard to pay attention. That baby's possessed. Yeah, well, yeah, that's why they cry. It's the demons coming out. And that's why they can't go to heaven if they're not baptized. Original sin.

Full of sins, yeah. Classic. Disgusting babies. Ew, gross. Don't touch an unbaptized baby. It's such a sinner. Exorcisms are, they're everywhere there in basically every culture throughout history. So this week, as part of our classic October Halloween spooktacular, we thought it would be fun.

to do a whistle-stop tour of exorcisms throughout history and around the world. Because, as you will soon see, there's a lot more to exorcisms than shouting the power of Christ compels you at a teenager, doing the nasty with the crucifix. In pretty much every culture, from shamanism to Judaism, there exists a concept of spiritual possession and the need to get those spirits out. How exactly one would go about doing that varies from place to place. And this is the shorthand. Now before we discuss the various demon removal services that have been offered throughout

history, we need to discuss the why. Why is it that pretty much as far back as we know, people have felt that they or someone they know is possessed? In the most simple terms, it falls into two categories. People who are unwell and people who are doing things which are perceived to be unnatural or evil. The understanding of physical and mental health at the time, and we're talking about the past O-time was pretty basic. And we've talked before about how one of the earliest known medical

procedures was of course Trapanning. And this is essentially creating a little hole in the back of someone's head to let out the evil spirits. There is evidence of this procedure as far back as 6,500 BCE. In fact, in one single burial site in France, 40 out of 120 skulls had evidence of Drapanning. Eight thousand years ago, we as a species had no idea of the complexity of the human mind. Take Tourette syndrome. Today, our understanding of it means that there are a whole host of ways for people to manage or control their ticks. Back then, however, we explained what we didn't understand with spirituality. And that's especially easy if you already believe in the existence of foul demonic creatures, meaning it's not a massive jump to believe.

that if someone isn't in control of their actions, they are in fact possessed by some kind of evil spirit. And so that brings us to the next logical conclusion. Get the spirit out of there. The same goes for our other category, people doing things that are perceived to be unnatural or evil. Obviously there are some things, murder, rape, pedophilia, etc., that have always and will always be seen as evil.

And we still struggle to understand why people commit these heinous acts now with all of the wonders of modern psychoanalysis. So back in the dark ages, they really didn't have a clue. In fact, how many cases have we covered from the last century in which people want to believe that the acts of a murderer or sex offender were not the actions of that individual, but the acts of an evil spirit or the devil himself, loat. Yeah, and this isn't exactly related.

But I have fallen down a big Victorian, Victorian-themed rabbit hole recently. And one of the things that was really interesting about the Victorians were the first people, at least in Britain, to start taking mugshots, right, of criminals. And you would think that you're taking mug shots so that if that person ever goes on to do something else, you're like, aha, it's this guy. We've seen him before. Here's a picture of when he committed that crime, X, Y, Z.

No, no, no. It was because they thought that they could decipher based on people's appearances, like the size of their nose, how far apart their eyes were, the size of the shape of their ears, how criminal they were. So mugshots were actually invented to decipher how criminal or evil a person was not to keep a record of the evil-doers that are out and about, which I thought was really interesting. That is interesting. So perhaps it's not that difficult to understand when spirituality was our only way of understanding the world,

that it would have made sense. If someone did something so inhuman you couldn't wrap your head around it, then they just must have been possessed. And also, it kind of like absolves the person. Mm-hmm. Sadly, this does apply to some things that we very much can wrap our heads around nowadays, like being gay or a woman with an opinion, or just being a bit different. But the same still applies.

What people didn't understand, they explained with spirituality. Now, you might expect that our whistle-stop tour of exorcisms would start somewhere obvious, something organized and Western perhaps. But, as we've already said, the idea of being possessed by evil spirits goes back a lot further than that. And the only real place that we can start this episode is with shamanism. Shamanism is a bit of a catch-all term, and if you haven't listened to our fantastic series filthy ritual yet, which features shamanism very heavily at the core of it. What the hell are you doing?

Go listen to it immediately. But if you have, let's get back to this. So shamanism, like I said, is a bit of a catch-all term that refers to any set of the same. beliefs that involve a religious leader or guide communicating with spirits or entering a spirit world. It's normally associated with long-standing indigenous religious beliefs about spirits, nature, and being one with the universe. And mostly, shamanism refers to religious practices that haven't changed a whole lot in tens of thousands of years. So because of this, the term shamanism encompasses a wide variety of different belief systems around the world, from Inuitz to Native American

culture to Korean shamanism and even modern day China. The idea that a religious guide can communicate with some kind of spirit realm is absolutely everywhere. And the idea that someone can communicate with spirits is clearly an essential part of the concept of an exorcism and also religion. So, shamanic exorcisms are considered to be some of the earliest forms of the practice of exorcism itself. And of course, the exact rituals used by different cultures to rid a body of evil spirits

varies enormously. However, one of the most interesting that we found was a Taoist ritual in China. Taoism is a set of religious beliefs and customs centered around Chinese folklore and living in harmony with the Tao.

I think there's a book that's like The Tao of Winnie the Pooh or something like that. Ha! I'm sure there is. Let's have a look. The Tao of... The Tao of Pooh, as in Winnie the Pooh, not fecal matter. Apparently, the Tao of Pooh is a 1982 book written by Benjamin Hoff,

and the book is intended as an introduction to the Eastern belief system of Taoism for Westerners. It allegorically employs the fictional characters of A.A. Mills, Winnie the Pooh stories to explain the basic principles of philosophical Taoism. There you go, Taoism for dummies. There you go. And we're going to do a little bit of Taoism for dummies and Winnie the Pooh right now. The Tao is a spiritual manifestation of the order of the universe. And obviously one of the least harmonious things you can do when it comes to the natural order of the universe is go and get yourself possessed, you idiot.

And according to Taoism, there are two ways you can find yourself with a possession problem. Firstly, you might disturb a ghost. And that's a worry because according to our reading, possession can happen regardless of intent. In other words, you could just be minding your own business and stumble upon a ghost who decides he doesn't like you and then seeks revenge and then you get possessed by Willie the Pooh. Bad news. But according to Taoism, you can also become possessed if you piss someone off who has access to black magic. Now again, this is a little worrying as it seems quite out of your control. Like it's, you know, the things like, oh, take the heather from the woman standing on the street because otherwise she'll put a hex on you.

a la fucking drag me to hell yeah no exactly or that lady when the queen died and I was down on embankment for some reason and this lady came up to me with this little flower and tinfoil and she was like 50p or something and I was like I haven't got any change like no and she was like oh go on it's for the queen I was like no it's not it's for you she put a curse on you yeah well probably we're just waiting for Hannah's life to go full samurai me and then we'll know so yes obviously

that kind of encounter can be very much out of your control. One minute, you've parked in someone's favourite space perhaps, and the next, you're under the spell of a mischievous demon. Or a demonic goat, again, a la drag me to hell. But if you're in the area, and you do happen to trip over a ghost or upset a local black magician, what are you to do? Well, China is very, very large, with lots of religious sects. So, according to what you might do there,

it can vary. But a good start is finding yourself a fashi, which is a Chinese ritual specialist and Taoist priest. Other Chinese folkloric priests are also available. And this said priest will then conduct a ritual in compliance with the specific religious guidelines that apply to their specific sect. These rituals can vary massively from sect to sect as you can imagine, but they will normally include Fulu, which are symbols and incantations, along with a healthy amount of chanting. The most exciting ritual that we could find was the one practiced by the Taoise, another kind of Taoist priest. The Taoisee put on face paint and perform large simulated battles with the demon or spirit said to be causing all the havoc. They then strike

themselves with their own weapons to prove their invincibility and drive away evil entities with the sheer terror of their strength and power. On the other side of the East China Sea, exorcisms are also popular in Japan. In fact, in September 2012, Sachi Co Ito became the 10th woman to be executed by the Japanese state since the fall of the Japanese monarchy. This woman was put to death after a series of exorcisms gone wrong. She was arrested, tried and eventually found guilty after she and some of her loyal followers beat members of her religious cult to death in order to exercise them of evil. These ritualistic beatings had begun as a method of exercising demons and evil spirits.

Ito had encouraged her followers to beat the shit out of each other in spiritual ceremonies. She's not the first person to do that. No. Who was that woman that did all the rebirthing? That was traumatic. Yeah. I can't remember. I can't remember.

Clearly, things got a little bit out of hand for Ito and her followers because six decomposing bodies were found in her house by police. Uh-oh. Ito told her followers that she was a messenger from God, but it didn't work. The police didn't believe her and eventually she was sentenced to death for the six people who died. After almost two decades of unsuccessful appeals, she was hanged on September the 17th, 2012. Moving a little further west now, spiritual possession in exorcisms also exist in Islam. Although it has to be said that there is some debate as to whether there is any scripted, support for Islamic exorcisms. That is whether or not they are actually mentioned within the Quran.

Technically, no, they're not because in the New Testament, which is obviously not in the Quran, there are many references to Jesus casting out demons. Oh, the U.G? Mm-hmm. They don't call them exorcisms, though. So it probably isn't in the Quran. It might be in the, what's the other one? Yeah. No, obviously we're not Muslim scholars. So we can't really make a judgment either way. And like we said, it's a bit of a contentious issue. However, what we can say is the concept of gin or evil spirits is a large component of the Islamic faith.

And that most Islamic sects believe in Jin to some degree. There is a bit more debate about whether or not a Jin can actually possess a person or whether it can just sort of influence your actions. But either way, the tale as old as time continues. If people think you can get influenced by an evil spirit, there's normally a way of shaking that influence off. Therefore, Islamic exorcisms are very much a thing. In fact, there is a very high-profile Muslim exorcist right here in the UK.

This is amazing. There's an article. Written by someone called Aliza Kaurari. and it is called ginfluences. That's it. That's my hacker name. Ginfluencer. So it's called Jimluencers, colon, inside the world of internet exorcisms. And this article is all about Islamic faith healer Abu Tar,

who performs exorcisms right here in sunny old Britain, which he films and then uploads to his Facebook page, which is called the Rukya Services. Tarr is what is known as a Reiki, a spiritual healer, who uses verses and teaching from the Quran to ward off evil spirits. His Facebook page, which is still very much active, is full of videos answering questions from his loyal followers, and he offers advice on anything from relationship problems to physical illness.

The more tame videos feature things like him going to a follower's garden and digging up lentils, which he says have been causing all sorts of problems for them. They cause all sorts of problems for me. I immediately shit myself if I eat a single lentil. Too much fibre I can't take it However there are more exciting videos

That feature him exercising evil spirits from within people In these videos which you can go off and find yourself Because you're a grown-up Shota with his hands on his followers' foreheads And reciting verses from the Quran And the response from the person being exercised varies from quiet whimpers of I'm scared to wild writhing and speaking in tongues

Wow Can we retire the phrase speaking in tongues It's just making noise. It's not a language, is it? Really. I mean, I never believed it was. And so all this brings us on to our final point in our deep dive into exorcisms today.

The Real World Impact. Obviously, we hate to yuck anyone's yum and we're certainly not here to pull apart anyone's spiritual beliefs. But if there's one thing that Abu Tar's videos make clear, it's some of the people that he is exercising. are incredibly unwell.

And there is some serious worry, even within religious circles, about the effects of exorcisms on those receiving them. A think tank run by the Church of England in 2017 focused on Christian exorcisms in the UK and described them as a well-meaning initiative with the potential for serious harm. Which just sounds like anti-Catholic propaganda to me.

Or maybe not, because led in large part by the rise of Pentecostal and West African churches springing up in the UK, This think tank found that exorcisms have been on the rise recently. And it also found that a lot of people who were receiving exorcisms had been diagnosed with serious mental health issues. And even more worryingly, a large portion of them had come off their medication in the belief that the exorcism had cured them.

That's not great news, and the long-term impact of something like that could be absolutely devastating to a person and those around them. And our research showed another worrying trend. In the vast majority of exorcisms we found, the emphasis and blame for being possessed rested on the person's suffering. And this seems to be especially true in Christian exorcisms. We found one quote in The Guardian by Bishop Thomas Paprock at a conference for Catholic priests and bishops.

And this is what he said. You have to invite a demon in. Demons are always looking for broken or non-existent relationships between human beings. I'll give you an example. 80% of the people who come see me have been sexually abused by a family member or other person. Sexual abuse is a doorway for a demon. It doesn't mean that they will be possessed. It does mean that they are vulnerable.

So perhaps the issue isn't necessarily the exorcism itself. You know, everyone has rituals, every religion has rituals. But what do exorcisms mean for the people receiving them? Writer Roy Mack pointed out that there are very few, if any, symptom of the people, of possession that can't be explained by modern psychoanalysis. Schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome, DID, epilepsy, and even just straight-up psychosis, all offer a far more reasonable explanation for the symptoms of possession than the invasive presence of a spirit or demon.

And all of those conditions vary widely in how they can be treated or managed. In fact, the only thing that they really share is that being exercised is pretty much the worst thing you could do. It's hard to imagine that Tourette's would improve under high stress or that schizophrenia Frini would be helped by assuring someone that the voices in their head really came from the devil. I knew someone in Korea he'd been exercised because he had Tourette's. Wow. Yeah.

He didn't know he had it. And then my friend of mine has it. And he was just sort of like watching him. He was like, bro, you've got Tourette's. And he was like, oh yeah, like my mom used to send me to these like... So it's not ghosts in my head. Exorcisms, yeah, literally. However, we should also say that everything we just said is a very biomedical and Western way of looking at things.

In his book Crazy Like Us, the Globalization of the American Psychey, Ethan Waters, recorded that someone with schizophrenia in Pakistan is more likely to endure hallucinations of ghosts, whereas someone in the UK is more likely to hear a persecuting voice. Similarly, in the United States, where celebrity, wealth and power are held above all else, people with schizophrenia are more likely to think they're all-powerful or fabulously famous. That doesn't happen in places like South Asian villages where delusions of grandeur are rare. So even if you put someone's faith aside, there are other reasons that people, suffer delusions that could look like possession.

Equally, from a blame perspective in inverted comments, we told you earlier that Christian rhetoric is usually that the person who is possessed has invited a demon in. Whereas in Islam, a gin, is something that could happen to anyone. It's not something you invite, it's no one's fault, it could happen to literally anyone at any time.

So we do have to take culture into consideration, but as I always say, cultural relativism can only take you so far. Suppose we said at the start of this episode, Belief in spiritual possession and exorcisms goes as far back as you can see into human history. And they provided a very real and very reasonable explanation for the symptoms, when all we had to explain the world was spirituality. But things have moved on and our understanding the world has changed.

But are exorcisms still prevalent in almost every culture in human history? Yes. All you have to do is set foot out of the West and exorcisms are like a normal part of life. I was never allowed to go to any, but like if you go to temples in India, like they just do mass, on mass exorcisms of people who are clearly just mentally unwell who need help. And it will just be like a priest screaming and shouting and throwing like holy powder at them and holy water and whatnot. Like that is very common practice still. So yeah, again, I think the point being made is just like we have this perception of exorcisms, which in the West is probably highly, highly uncommon these days. But in the rest of the world, everyone's still fucking going for it.

It's actually on the rise in the West. Interesting. Which our listeners will know because they've already listened to the Father of More episode. Have they? I've moved things around. Yes, they have. Yes. So there you go. There you go. That is exorcisms around the world.

Exorcisms around the world. And Winnie the Pooh, just as a bonus. Exactly. Ain't no one stopping any of that anytime soon. Do you know that in Russia they have Soviet Winnie the Pooh? and he is exactly the same and piglets are exactly the same but they just love communism ah well there you go

that's a good message to spread also do you remember ages ago I think it was under the duve we talked about like in Korea they do those funeral fake funerals for people so that they can learn to appreciate their lives more and in Korea the versions they do

are very like you know they're very like theatrical you have a little coffin you climb inside You sit in your coffin and then you sort of simulate being dead. Maybe it was a Japanese. It was somebody and simulate being dead. And then basically a bunch of people come to your funeral and like mourn you and you see your mom and dad cry and then you feel like, oh, maybe I should try a bit harder in my life. The Russians do something very similar.

But theirs is they just chuck you in a bag and actually bury you alive. Oh my God. And then they dig you up sometime later. I know. And their one's like dressed up nicely like they're going to their feet. They're just like, I just watched a video of it and it's just like people in their sweats getting buried in a bag. Jesus Christ. And then dug up and this woman is just like, that was horrendous.

And one guy was like, I do feel like I should, you know, maybe take up knitting. So there you go. The exorcisms around the world and the Russians. We'll see you next time. Happy Halloween.