MEXICO: PRIESTS ARE TRAINED AS EXORCISTS

MEXICAN EXORCIST PRIEST RECEIVES
20 DAILY CALLS FOR SPIRITUAL HELP

MEXICO (AP) - Father Pedro Mendoza Pantoja, exorcist of the Archdiocese of Mexico City, said today that he receives “from 15 to 20 calls a day” from people looking for help, but many he has sent to the psychologist. In the press conference given at the closing of the Exorcists and Auxiliary Congress 2010 that was held this week in Mexico City, the cleric said that a considerable proportion of those people who come to him, believe they are possessed by the devil due to a “mental obsession” or because “someone had told them.” “So, in those cases, the one who should help them it is a psychologist,” said Mendoza.

This priest, 75, added that he can take out real devils rather than mental ones. “Some say that we’re charlatans, but nobody knows how a person who gets influenced by the devil suffers, you should be in his or her shoes,” he said. To detect that someone is a victim of demonic possession and not just under demonic influence, there must be some symptoms such as understanding of Latin, knowledge of events that happen long-distance or the fact that it is physically impossible to control the patient even with the help of more than ten people.

An interview should be arranged with the affected, and it is a kind of medical history, which includes his life story, the psychological status and even if there is any kind of family history.
Father Pedro Mendoza Pantoja referred to consumerism, overcrowding cities and family breakdown as some of the ills of modern society. “We are acting against Nature herself, and we forget that nature is beginning to set and restore any imbalances that we drive in it,” said Mendoza. The human being acts as if he were God, putting aside the principles of nature", such as the climate change: "These natural disasters and earthquakes in which many people have suffered are the result of human sin."

In Mexico, belief in possession and exorcism predates the arrival of the Spanish. Aztec healers burned herbs and prayed to ward off spirits. Also the Hymns and Rituals of the Atharva-Veda prescribe charms to cure demons of desease's posession. Other people think they are possessed, but they are not. So the best enchantment is the maha-mantra Hare Krishna.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US?

Mistaking the sea for the Yamunā River, He (Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu) jumped into it, hoping to see the water pastimes Krishna enjoyed with Śrīmatī Rādhārānī and the other gopīs. ... a fisherman, thinking that the Lord’s body was a big fish, caught Him in his net and brought Him ashore. Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu was unconscious, and His body had become unusually transformed. As soon as the fisherman touched the Lord’s body, he became mad in ecstatic love of Krishna. His own madness frightened him, however, because he thought that he was being haunted by a ghost. As he was about to seek a ghost charmer, he met Svarūpa Dāmodara Gosvāmī and the other devotees on the beach, who had been looking everywhere for the Lord. ... Since the fisherman was afraid of being haunted by a ghost, Svarūpa Dāmodara gave him a slap and chanted Hare Krishna, which immediately pacified him. Thereafter, when the devotees chanted the Hare Krishna mahā-mantra loudly, Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu came to His external consciousness. Then they brought Him back to His own residence.

Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda :
Śrī Caitanya Caritāmrita - Antya-līlā
“Rescuing the Lord from the Sea”
Purport in Summary Chapter 18