Psychiatrist Dr. Richard Gallagher has had a decades-long career diagnosing and treating mental illness. But as a Catholic and the longest-standing American member of the International Association of Exorcists, his career has included an unusual request: spotting demonic possession. Gallagher described his entry into the unusual specialty in a 2016 Washington Post op-ed. There he shared how he was introduced to a woman, whom he later refers to as “Julia,” by a priest. Julia claimed to be a high priestess of Satan. Despite being Catholic, Gallagher shared his skepticism with the priest, a prominent exorcist. The priest responded, “Well unless we thought you were not easily fooled, we would hardly have wanted you to assist us.” The woman, however, displayed knowledge and abilities that seemed supernatural, including the ability to speak Latin and knowing about people and places beyond her human knowledge. “…my subject’s behavior exceeded what I could explain with my training. She could tell some people their secret weaknesses, such as undue pride. She knew how individuals she’d never known had died, including my mother and her fatal case of ovarian cancer,” Gallagher wrote in his op-ed.

 At the time of his op-ed, Gallagher noted that the demand for an exorcism was “rising.” In 2020, he wrote a book to expand on his article, entitled Demonic Foes: My Twenty-Five Years as a Psychiatrist Investigating Possessions, Diabolic Attacks, and the Paranormal. With so many years of experience, Gallagher can share some pretty chilling memories. He shared more details about how Julia could describe what people were doing hundreds of miles away. “If one is familiar with occult literature, one realizes that there are occultists, people [who] have turned to dark arts who claim they have a third eye, and that they can see things from a distance, this is an analogous phenomenon. [Julia] had this paranormal ability to do that. And she was very clear where she got that ability,” he wrote. 

Despite his many experiences, he stated things like demonic possession and oppression are still rare and cautioned for discernment. “There are certain personality disorders which are consumed with feelings and thoughts of destructiveness, for instance, borderline personality, but there are even people who are sociopaths, what we would normally call criminals, who deal with very evil and sinful tendencies all the time. I do not regard those people as possessed. Those people may be influenced, as all human beings are, by temptation from evil spirits, but I don’t think we should go around acting like we can cure them with deliverance or that they have some serious possession,” he told The Christian Post. Still, he said demonic possession is, “very real.” 

Christians continue to be fascinated by the subject of demonic possession and exorcism. A Christian film, Nefarious, set to be released on April 14th and based on a book by Steve Deace, deals with a psychiatrist who has to evaluate a death row inmate prior to his execution. The inmate refers to himself as a demon named “Nefarious” and, in a Screwtape Letters style interview, reveals demonic plans to the atheist psychiatrist. In adapting his book into a film, Deace shared that he hopes to “persuade” others about the reality of evil. “Storytelling is the last place left, I think, where persuasion and real persuasion can happen. And that’s why my company invested millions of dollars that I frankly didn’t have to make this movie. Because we think that it’s the last place left where real persuasion can occur. Because just as the Lord died for us when we were dead in our sins, the people that we’re up against that are spreading this evil, he died for them too.”