Comes a Ghost
London psychiatrist Anthony Hale reported a case of ghost possession in 1994 in the Britd,h Journal of P~ychurtry. The patient was a well-educated and intelligent young man of south Asian Hindu descent. He seemed to have settled into a life of petty crime, and his story emerged during a prison stint. Put simply, he felt that his bad behavior was caused by a ghost.
His family had come to England when he was six; he was Westernized in his appearance and manner. The problems began at age eleven, at a family gathering where an aunt, jealous of his family's success, fed him "cursed rice," which made him susceptible to spirit possession. Subsequently he was at times taken over by the ghost of an old woman, whom he did not recognize, and who made him do malicious things, while his normal "self" could not react.
He could actually see the possession coming: A visible fog came drifting toward him. The fog would settle on his chest, making it hard for him to breathe, and then would enter his body through his nose and mouth, as he retched and wheezed in resistance. Then his entire body, even his voice, was under ghost-control.
These interludes lasted anywhere from half an hour to several days, and he could remember them. He retained awareness of' his surroundings and his emotions (usually fear, anger, and guilt), but everything looked hazy, and he had no control over his bodily actions. The voice of the ghost sometimes commanded him to do things; at other times he could hear this voice commenting to unseeable others. He felt that the ghost could hear him even when he wasn't in its power.
Upon medical examination, the man did not appear to be having panic attacks, nor was he hyperventilating. There were no stresses in his life that precipitated these episodes. He experienced a feeling of warmth, but had no fever. Routine blood testing, physical examination, and urine screening for illicit drugs were negative. CAT scan and electroencephalogram were normal.
The young fellow said that he gained nothing from his sallies into crime: He didn't need money; he derived no excitement. His family were well-to-do professionals, and he knew how hurtful his behavior was to them (although the jealous aunt rather enjoyed it). In desperation, his family sent him to holy places in India where exorcisms were performed, first in the Hindu tradition, then Moslem, and finally Christian, all of' which were unsuccessful.
This would have been a garden-variety "possession" casetagged with a psychiatric diagnosis or two by Western physicians, while taken literally by members of the patient's own culture-except for one thing: The authors of this paper were "disturbed" by a phone call from the prison chaplain who said that he also had seen the ghost. Not only did the chaplain see the ghost, but he watched as a cloud with a face (a face that "alarmingly," according to the authors, fit the description of the old woman that they had obtained from the patient) descended upon the prisoner. Even other prisoners saw it, and found it rather frightening! The chaplain denied any prior knowledge of this apparition.
So the doctors were left with a patient they considered to be suffering from a dissociative state or paranoid schizophrenia, four priests (the three in India plus the chaplain) from three religions who doubted that all this was merely delusional, and a law-enforcement system that knew a malingerer when it saw one.
Ironically, this story has a happy ending, at least for the several months during which the young man was followed up. Exorcisms having failed, he was medicated with a strong antischizophrenic tranquilizer, and his problems ceased.
The young man was not alone in believing that he was being ghost-guided at times. Ghost-inflicted illnesses are part of the subculture in some areas of Hindu India, and are interwoven with Hindu beliefs. Anthropologists Ruth and Stanley Freed traveled to a village in northern India to study this, and found a well-structured belief system that allowed for such maladies. In it, a person's soul at the time of death becomes a ghost, briefly, that may pass on naturally, or wander unnaturally, still a ghost. The more painful or untimely the death has been, the more likely it is to produce a wandering ghost. (Western cultures frequently foster the same beliefs-every trick-or-treater knows that the more horrific the death of a house's inhabitants, the more likely it is to be "haunted.")
Two types of afflictions result: ghost illness, with fever, pain, difficulty breathing, and, occasionally, delirium; and ghost possession, which is pretty much what the educated London man experienced, except that in a typical case, there is no memory of what happens while under the influence. The Freeds substantiated thirty-eight cases, and found men and women to be equally affected, regardless of caste.
One of the more common hauntings occurred when a first wife died unhappily and before her allotted time, returning as a ghost to terrorize ... the second wife. (I know some Western women who might consider this justified, if not plausible.) At any rate, to the villagers, the solution to all these evil enchantments was exorcism, at times combined with conventional medicine, like antibiotics. Whatever works. This is the conclusion that most conventional physicians who treat these patients have come to: There is no one way to successfully deal with those "possessed"; you need a multidisciplinary team.
A check on exorcism in the medical literature, however, turns up a number of fatal, if well-intended, attempts. It's possible that these get written up and published faster than the (less credible) success stories, but the bottom line is: Don't try this at home.
And "the devil made me do it" is still not a valid legal defense.
5ght
Dying Right on Time:
Self-Predicted Death
For many years, I worked at a county-sponsored general medical clinic. The clientele were mostly lower-middle-class/workingclass families, and one day when I came to work I learned that a rather strange thing had happened to one of our patients. He had died over the weekend, which was not in itself unusual, especially as he was eighty years old. But the news of hrnr this happened spread a wave of goosebumps through the employees of our health center.
The Banker's Last Withdrawal
The patient had come to the United States from his native Italy as a young man. From a job as a bank teller, he gradually worked his way up to vice-president and, in due course, ultimately retired. He had raised a family, was an accomplished musician, and spoke several languages. He and his wife often spent time in their Florida home; otherwise they stayed with their son on Long Island, which is how we knew him. The son, who was kind enough to speak with me, was an eyewitness to the event and supplied me with these details.
The plan was for the son to fly down to Florida to pick up his parents so they could all drive back in the parents' car to New York, where they would be staying at the son's home for a while. The car would then become the son's; the father was going buy a new one. The older man's health was not great-he had had a stroke two years earlier that left him unable to play his treasured mandolin -but he was in stable condition, lived independently with his wife, and was mentally clear. On arrival in Florida, the son thought his father didn't look well, and he suggested that they fly back, rather than drive; but the father insisted on driving as originally planned. As they left for the drive north, it was the son's impression that his father, last to leave the apartment, paused at the door as if locking it thoughtfully.
After they arrived in New York, for some reason the older man did not want to shop for new cars, as they had planned. Then, on a Sunday afternoon, ten days into the visit, he sat down in the kitchen and summoned his family. He had his wife prepare him ravioli (his favorite meal), and appeared to eat heartily. He even had wine and dessert. After that, he sent his seven-year-old granddaughter outside to play. Sitting at the table with his wife, his son, and his son's girlfriend, he began apportioning his possessions. The family was somewhere between puzzled and horrified. It was not this former bank executive's nature to be impulsive. There seemed to be no necessity for doing any of this now, as he didn't appear particularly ill. He even insisted on signing the papers on the car, transferring ownership to his son. "Take good care of your mother," he t
old him.
Then he closed his eyes and died, still sitting in his chair at the kitchen table.
The ambulance came within minutes, but on-the-spot cardiopulmonary resuscitation failed, as did attempts at a nearby hospital. The assumption was that this must have been a "massive coronary." but no autopsy was done. He had simply closed his eyes and died.
After the funeral, the son went back to Florida and discovered that his father had transferred the title to his stocks and bonds, and had put all his affairs in order. It was as if he had died deliberately.
I wrote up this interesting case, and my report was published in P,~ychoh;gy Doay in 1983. After the publication appeared, I received a number of' interesting letters, as well as commentaries from friends, co-workers, and patients. Well-arranged deaths are apparently not that rare. I was told of' a doctor's mother-in-law who died peacefully in her sleep after having made all the possible arrangements her demise would require, including selling her house. A letter from a woman in Seattle told of' her father's death: A week before it, he had made sure his wife knew where the safe-deposit box key and all important papers were; he sold his tools and made sure all affairs were in order. Then he died of' a "massive coronary," although there was no mention of'chest pain in the week preceding. In another letter, a fifty-five-year-old woman wrote me her essential life story, which included the loss of a loved one five years earlier which had undercut her very will to live; she also mentioned some unfinished work she still needed to complete. She said it was easier to "let go" than to finish the work, but she would nevertheless wait until all was done, about a year later, "to turn off her life naturally," emphasizing "no suicide." (Unfortunately, I don't know what ultimately happened to her.)
The Spartan Buys a Headstone
A tale similar to the one I reported was published in Life magazine, still in its heyday in 1960 ("The Man Who Died on Time"). This fellow, who was seventy-seven, had emigrated from Greece many years earlier and lived first in New York City, and then in a small Ohio town. He was a big, strong man -"a Spartan," as he referred to himself-and was also a bit of an eccentric. For example, he stopped at green lights and drove through red ones. He never had a wife or children, had no close friends, and his nearest relatives were a sister and a nephew living in Michigan.
He owned a shoeshine parlor, which he closed when he was seventy, after which he became a recluse. A year and a half before his death, he purchased a cemetery plot and proceeded to visit it weekly, as if it were a second home. He would bring gardening tools and make sure the plot was perfectly landscaped, even adding a potted geranium on Memorial Day. He told cemetery workmen (who may have been wondering why someone was visiting his own grave) that he wanted to enjoy the flowers now; he wouldn't be able to see them after he was gone.
Continuing this saga, he purchased a vault and casket from a funeral home, and had the home's undertaker help him write his own obituary; he couldn't understand why the newspaper wouldn't run it until after he died. He bought a headstone along with two Japanese yew trees to be planted on either side, and he discussed their care and feeding with cemetery workers during his regular visits. He ordered flowers for his own funeral.
Then, paradoxically, he went to a local hospital for a checkup (as I said, he was eccentric). Of course, he got a clean bill of health. Shortly afterward, he called his nephew and asked him to bring his wife and three children, as well as the man's sister, down from Michigan for an "important" visit. On their arrival, he showed his nephew three envelopes containing money, one for each of' the nephew's three children. The nephew was sufficiently perplexed to call the hospital where his uncle had just been checked over to confirm the "clean bill" (which they did).
They all went out to eat, and on the way back to the uncle's apartment he had them stop at the cemetery to see the headstone, already inscribed. As the nephew's anxiety and confusion increased, the older man simply became more cheerful. When they returned to his apartment, he handed the nephew his will, made sure he knew which pocket the envelopes for the children were in, and emptied the pantry, packing the goods into boxes for his nephew's wife. Then he gave out some remaining possessions, and when the nephew protested that his uncle needed these things for himself, the old Spartan replied, "No, boy, I don't need anything any more."
Then he fell down dead. The doctor arrived within minutes, and said it must have been a heart attack. Nothing needed to be done. All the arrangements had been made.
The banker and the Spartan told no one of their impending ends; they simply went about their business as if it were a done deal. No autopsies or official medical diagnoses were available. This next case, reported in the British journal &lacet in 1980, concerns a 40-year-old Massachusetts housewife who spent five days in the hospital with an evolving heart attack, under close medical scrutiny.
The Mother and the Prophecy
This mother of five had an elevated cholesterol level, most likely hereditary, for which she was on medication. She began having chest pains but continued her usual activities, including tennis, for three days. Then she sought medical attention and was promptly admitted to a hospital. Although she appeared comfortable at the time, and complained of only mild pain, her electrocardiogram (EKG) showed signs of acute cardiac damage.
The next day, the patient announced to her physicians, her nurses, and her clergyman that she would die three days hence, on May 28, the anniversary of her mother's death. She repeated this prediction to anyone who came by her bedside, over their protestations. During this time, her EKG's reflected the progressive changes of an active heart attack, and blood tests confirmed this. By May 27 she appeared peaceful, detached from the seriousness of her illness. Early the next morning, as she predicted, she died. Her heart simply gave out (rapidly progressive cardiogenic shock, in the vernacular).
This time an autopsy u'as performed, and it confirmed what the pre-mortem tests had shown: an extensive myocardial infarction. The only curious thing was that the coronary arteries -the blood vessels that feed the heart muscle itself-were wide open. Most heart attacks occur because one or more of these vessels becomes occluded. But in a small number of cases, a coronary transpires without any evidence of blockage. Spasm of these arteries, occurring for reasons unknown, can be sufficient to shut them down. Spasms cannot be predicted. How she could have called her death three days in advance, or have had any control over it, is a complete mystery.
"Self-Predicted Fatal Myocardial Infarction in the Absence of Coronary Artery Disease" was how the Lancet piece was entitled, and its author, Dr. Robert Carey, wonders if coronary artery spasm could have been responsible, and if such spasms might be a common feature of unexplained death, particularly under emotional stress.
Stress and Death
The fact that people die suddenly in situations of extreme fear or emotion was addressed in a 1971 paper by psychiatrist George Engel of the University of Rochester. "Sudden and Rapid Death During Psychological Stress-Folklore or Folk Wisdom?" examines the concept of sudden death from emotional shock. While it is virtually common knowledge among physicians and lay people alike that this occurs (almost everyone has an anecdote), Engel tried to examine the phenomenon systematically. He collected, over a six-year period, newspaper accounts of 170 people who succumbed suddenly after an emotional trauma. Suicides were excluded, and most of these deaths occurred within an hour of the reported trauma. News releases were used because of the impossibility of obtaining relevant data on sufficient numbers of people in any other way.
Throughout history, there are many recorded instances of immediate death from fright or emotion. In the Bible, for instance, Ananias falls down dead when Peter tells him "You have not lied to man but to God" (Acts 5). Now Engel could examine this process, through his series of cases reported in newspapers, for the details. He was able to divide these into eight "causes," listed here in decreasing order of frequency:
• Impending danger. This was the single most common cause, and included natural dis
asters, like earthquakes or storms, as well as muggings, fighting fires, and courtroom or police questioning. This group included a three-year-old who died during a severe rainstorm and a four-year-old who expired while having teeth pulled. There were even three casualties recorded during the viewing of particularly gory scenes on TV.
• The collapse or sudden death of a close person. In some of the cases attributed to a sudden loss, heart failure was implicated. In the case of the wife of the owner of the motel where Martin Luther King was assassinated, a brain hemorrhage felled her the same day.
• During a time of acute grieving (within sixteen days). In this category, Engel cited a twenty-seven-year-old army captain who died after leading the ceremonial troops at the funeral of assassinated President John F Kennedy.
• The threat of loss of a close person. Of the sixteen people who experienced the threat of loss, eleven deaths were sudden and dramatic, attributed to heart attacks, although there was no medical confirmation. The other five were reactions to the burden of prolonged illness in a family member, which the author feels is a notuncommon precipitant.
• Following a dangerous event. Instances of demise after the danger has passed may reflect the high levels of adrenalin and related substances still circulating in the bloodstream. In an unrelated study of exercise, looking at why cardiac deaths sometimes occur in an immediate post-exercise period rather than during the exertion itself, it was found that levels of some adrenalins are much higher right after exercise. So one can assume that the same principle applies to the time period directly following a dangerous event.
The Witch in the Waiting Room: A Physician Investigates Paranormal Phenomena in Medicine Page 7
