Trans: Exorcism By Another Name
Trans: Exorcism By Another Name
Sorry Elliot Page: A "Gendered Soul" is No Different to a "Demon"
Before I regale you with the time I performed an exorcism on a teenage girl, allow me to implore you to think of an era when the majority of people didn't believe something bat-shit crazy.
You can’t.
Travel back to one era, and the earth is flat. Visit another, and the Jews are vermin. Black people are then enslaved to be taken from their families and shipped off to fields of torture around the globe. Contrary to woke belief, these views were all held by people who considered themselves forward-thinking: The Good Guys TM.
Mass Delusion
Mass delusion is at its most potent when it comes to women's mental health. It seems that men - who have long written the textbooks and formed the opinion du jour - struggle to understand their female counterparts. Explanations and mitigations have arisen to fill that void of understanding.
Most notably: WITCH!
Witch hunts lasted hundreds of years, brutally murdering 40,000-60,000 women (and some men). Religion and the economy played a role, but the witch hunts must be seen for what they were: the pathologising of women that men found hard to fathom.
Later, the doctors of the 19th century considered themselves progressive. Gone were the accusations of witchcraft, and in their place stood science: a novel take on the Ancient Greek wandering womb.
That’s right. The Ancient Greeks believed the womb floats around the body. They used pleasant and foul smells to lure it like a magnet back into place. The 19th-century author Charlotte Perkins Gilman famously wrote the brilliant The Yellow Wallpaper about her experience being shunted out to the countryside to heal her feminine hysteria (from the Greek "hystera": uterus).
This is yet another mass delusion around female mental health, along with such madnesses as legal marital rape, no female vote and the casting couch. We knew about the Harvey Weinsteins but the mainstream majority clapped along, believing themselves right-minded, progressive individuals. Women also get swept up in this: many didn’t want the vote.
Exorcism vs Trans
It is unlikely that we are the first generation not to indulge mass delusions. We find them easier to spot outside of the West, so we laugh at the silliness of exorcism. Sure, some of you believe in ghosts and demons - but you won't hear a BBC news anchor describing young women in the grips of adolescent angst as a "person with demons" or "demon-haver" (as we’ve seen with “people with vaginas” and “uterus-havers”).
A few years ago, I investigated exorcist Padre Manuel Acuña in the impoverished suburbs of Buenos Aires. I spent weeks with the priest, who employed his former exorcisee, Paula - who was half his age and suffered from schizophrenia - as his assistant…and bed-mate.
The Padre allowed me to assist in the exorcisms, so I stood by his side, ringing bells that ward off the devil in the ears of screaming patients. I was surprised to find that the exorcisees were all the same demographic: young women.
Girls often endure a challenging adolescence. The biological aspect - hormones, menstruation and sudden growth of protruding body parts - plays a part. As does the cultural side: sudden sexual attention from boys and pervy men.
Many women have told me on the podcast of their once-held desire not to become men but rather halt womanhood. It is understandable that actress Elliot (formerly Ellen) Page felt uneasy with her body, given multiple Hollywood perverts groomed and sexually assaulted her when she was 16.
Control
Taking puberty blockers, changing one's name and defying societal expectations of gender are all ways to regain control. Young men suffer from many of these symptoms, too. I had OCD as a teenager, and later realised that turning lights on and off at 4 am was about my fear of a lack of control.
The Padre’s exorcisee Candela, 17, wanted control. She had had anorexia, bulimia, OCD and 'urges'. These are all symptoms of what we in the West might call adolescent pathologies. As I stood above her with the bells, I noticed her wrists were sliced from years of self-harm.
My brilliant Heretics guest Mia Hughes referred to 'the symptom pool'. We pick the conditions from a particular time and era that suit the symptoms. What was once a sign of witchery or a wandering womb is today demonic possession (if you live in South America) or a gendered soul (The West).
None of this was made apparent to Candela…(cont’d below)
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So convinced was she by the chants of the Padre - her demon slayer - that she put on a deep voice that rang out through the nave: "SHE'S MINE - YOU'LL NEVER HAVE HER!"
After an hour of screaming and writhing, Candela was helped to her feet.
“Do you feel better?” I asked.
"Yes, much better!" she replied immediately.
This was true of all three women whose exorcisms I oversaw.
In years to come, they will remake the exorcist with the central girl manipulated not by a priest but by something truly frightening: an ideologically-captured doctor.
The Argument For The Placebo Effect
If we count out the paranormal, there is something to say for placebo. There is even a valid argument for exorcism in these circumstances - as with Primal Scream and other debunked shouting therapies. They do nothing to cure psychological conditions but might quell them long enough for the patient to slip beyond adolescence before placebo wears off.
The problem is that exorcism is a quick fix that doesn’t address underlying symptoms. The same goes for transitioning: we know from the Cass Report and WPATH Files that ideological doctors have not carried out detailed research into the long-term effects. Since the Padre was no more (or less) diligent than woke doctors, it was incumbent upon me to follow up.
A year later, I visited Candela in her home in the outskirts of Buenos Aires. What I found surprised me…
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