Paranormal Activity and Mental Disorder
When a small child experiences his first bout of psychosis or starts hearing ‘the voice’, he won’t ever bring it up to his parents, a life that could have been cured and easily saved is lost due to this misrepresentation.
The importance of the right representation can’t be overstated, when movies like Dear Zindagi or Synecdoche, New York come up, it provides a feeling of solidarity, a powerful protest to the regime that chooses to overlook it and blames it on Lucifer.
This representation initiates the conversation, which says you are not alone, that other people like this exist and more importantly there is help out there.
The practice of exorcism is even more overt in India than in any other Western country, for each time a person goes to Menhendipur Balaji temple in Rajasthan, where the sight is nothing less than out of a horror movie, the stringent belief of possession is so strong that even Freud would doubt himself if he were to stand amidst them.
I remember visiting Firoz Shan Kotla Fort last year for its historical ruins but what I came across left me dumbfounded, till then my narrow mind used to think this practice of possession or black magic is restricted to older villages, surely the capital city, India’s symbol of progress would be free of it but the Djinns of the fort and their worshippers told a different story.
