When the evil face of the soul appears
Driving the devil from the body of those possessed is no daunting task for the two exorcists Boopathi and Kumaran who operate this ‘Devil Driving’ ritual near Madurai. An agnostic from Germany, who is skeptical about the existence of ghosts and poltergeists, visits Ngammal Temple near Madurai, to find out if this exercise of exorcism is a hoax or mass hypnosis. However, the answer is not clear if the ‘possession’ by a ghost is a sickness or mental aberration.
Alagan- The Head of the Temple
To see the strange culture in India as a foreigner, often feels like being in a different world. Inside the Hindu Temple, it is so colourful and vivid, that you don’t know where to look at first. But the experience that affected me the most, was my visit to the Pandi temple in the east of Madurai. Locals, who blame the strange behavior of a family member on the bad influence of evil spirits, bring him/her there to liberate him from the clutches of evil spirit. In western countries, only a miniscule minority believes in ghosts, so it was very fascinating to see how Indian people feel about this issue.
Before we could enter the Temple, we had to make our way through all the small stands where you can buy materials for the altar. Inside, it is cool and gritty and a lot of people in colourful clothes are carrying baskets with coconuts, bananas, flowers and rum to offer their Lord Pandi. For that, they join the end of a long queue confined by iron railings. Among the crowd, a few women with ruffled hair are shaking their bodies back and forth. Holding their convulsive shackled hands over their head, they are screaming with alert eyes. The noise fills the hall and re-echoes from the walls. I was told that they are predicting the future, but for me it sounded only like a chaotic Tamil mumbling. A group of men carry the carcass of a goat which they beheaded a short time ago across the hall. Its blood drops on the floor and leaves a red stain. Speechless and stricken, we left the scary building and were glad to come into the sunlight again. All we experienced was so alien to my culture that I couldn’t wait to find out more about this subject.
A devotee at the temple
Nagammal Temple
The person who knows all about evil spirits is Boopathi, (29), who works together with his cousin Kumaran, (29), as an exorcist at the Nagammal Temple about 20 km in the North of Madurai. Boopathi’s uncle Alagar, (59), built the temple 10 years ago in the small village of Palamedu, as lord Vishnu appeared in his dream and commanded him to do so. 300 people ask them for help everyday and even celebrities such as the Stunt Master Benjamin, the folk singer and actress Paravai Muniamma and the co-actors of the movie Renigunda visited the holy place.
When I asked him how to find out whether a family member is possessed by ghosts, he tells me that they will get sick and suffer from restless sleep. “They will bite their teeth before sleeping, shout at others and will not be able to take care of themselves”, he explained.
At first, Alagar who sits in a sheltered place in front of the temple, checks the people who are suspected of being possessed by evil spirits, to see if they are in the grip of evil spirits. Hundreds of scraps of clothes have been fixed under the roof which makes the place of prediction look friendly and inviting. Surrounded by worried families, the round man with gray hair lies on the floor. With his poise, he imitates Lord Vishnu, the supreme god of the Hindus. A handful of sand and some shells on the ground help him predict the future. When their suspicions are confirmed, Alagar sends this person inside the temple to meet the exorcists. So far, the possessed person acts quite normal but after the exorcist gave his blessings and throws sacred ashes on the possessed woman in front of the idol of goddess Nagammal, she starts screaming and shaking her body. The entire exorcism exercise we watch is all about possessed women and they all proceed in the same way. With his palm he strikes her head and start talking with a forceful voice. Asking questions like “Where are you from” or “Who are you,” Boopathi stares in the woman’s eyes. The spirit answers and it is only audible to the exorcist’s ears. “Leave her body and never come back,” he says to the spirit. But the woman continues to sit there slumped down looking like a picture of misery. The evil spirit seems not eager to leave her. “Either you leave or I will beat you” he bellows and the whip hanging over his shoulder demonstrates that he is not afraid to do this. Then the whip lashes for the first time on the woman’s back: a rapid intensive strike. The moaning of the woman becomes a loud sob. She blabbers out a few pleading sentences and you can hear the fear in her voice. “That’s the spirit in her”, I was told “it doesn’t want to come out and that’s why it cries”. A few strikes and suddenly the woman becomes quiet and motionless. The exorcism was a success, the ghost is gone.
One of the treated women was possessed for more than 5 years. Her sister told me that she got sick, had fever, wasn’t able to speak coherently and lost a lot of weight. She was not able to treat her with the help of a doctor, so they tried to heal her with exorcism in some other temples earlier, but it didn’t work. “She had three ghosts in her”, Boopathi explains. A lot of people try to get the spirits out in other places before. When it doesn’t help, they come here because we send every ghost fleeing,” he says. Like other families, Nagammal temple was the last hope for her sister to relieve her from the strange behavior which manifested after their mother’s death, she says. According to Kumara Vadivel, these are the people who really get affected by ghosts. “Spirits favour people who experience an unexpected death, mostly suicides, murders or accidents”. The cousins explained to me that only people who are afraid and mentally fragile were vulnerable. The evil spirits belonged to human beings who lived years ago and died. These humans were not satisfied in their life and especially in their sexuality and began searching restlessly for other people’s bodies to enter. That’s why they come back to enjoy life in a foreign body. “To protect yourself, the only thing you can do is to believe in something. No matter what it is, the ghosts won’t affect unafraid believers.” When I asked the exorcists, whether they worry about getting attacked because they are in touch with spirits every day, they tell me that they were protected by their god and that their minds were too strong for strange spirits. “I feel it when I’m getting attacked because the ghost tries to seize my neck. Then my god helps me”, said Boopathi. After forcing the evil spirit to leave the body he chased it away to the place it came from. Relieved about the cure of the formerly possessed woman, the family presents the exorcist a bell as a token of gratitude. It is hung as a symbol of success along with dozens of other bells which decorate the temple.
But this is not the only benefit they get. “Some families spend 5000 or 6000 rupees a day on exorcists”. Dr. R. Vikram, the psychiatrist and director in a local hospital explains, “When one exorcist couldn’t manage to heal the person, the family keeps searching for other specialists on this field. They travel long distances with the hope of finding a temple where the possessed can get healed. If you ask me whether exorcism works or not, I wouldn’t have an answer”, he admits. “It can cure some people but for others it makes the complaint even worse”. This depends on the individual case because every instance of exorcism is caused by a different mental illness. In many parts of India women are not equal and are expected to be decent and obedient. “That’s why mostly women are patients for the exorcists. Some of them try to pretend or persuade themselves that they are possessed to get attention and make their rude behavior acceptable”, the worldly-wise psychiatrist explains. For these kinds of patients, the supernatural treatment helps, not at least because of the placebo-effect but not for these with serious mental sicknesses.
Exorcist Boopathi at work
Highly emotionally disturbed personalities who suffer from mania, depressions or schizophrenia, waste too much time on exorcism. When they realize that this treatment is ineffective, some of them switch to Scientific Psychiatry. “The more time lapsed after the onset of the illness and the starts of the therapy, smaller are the chances of cure”, explains the expert in cross-cultural psychiatry. According to a survey in Chennai, 70 percent of the patients in Psychiatrics, tried an alternative healing method before and came to academic psychiatrists after its failure.
“There are a lot of different healers who promise cure with homoeopathy, ayurveda or exorcism, but you have to figure out which one suits you” he adds.
