Saturday, October 27, 2007

This dark world

Exorcism Trial

Priests' account of the "prayer" session
-- By Selena Lum & Carolyn Quek

Father Jacob Ong said Madam Amutha's son, Jairaj Jeyabal, 28, had approached him while he was at the Pastoral Centre asking if he was a priest.

He wanted a priest to pray over his mother, who was possessed by the spirit of a dead soldier and behaving suicidally.

They had just come from a restaurant where she acted hysterically and caused a commotion. So they brought her to the church.

In the church, Madam Valli was creeping on the floor, slithering like a snake. Her daughter, Subashini Jeyabel, 22, and "brother" Resham Singh, 37, were standing by. When Resham said "Soldier, stand up" and "soldier march", she would obey before getting down on the floor again.
Fr Ong got hold of Fr Simon Tan to help pray over her. Both priests picked up their prayer books and holy water.

When they next saw her, she was already in the Pastoral Centre. She had "marched" in, according to others.

When Fr Tan sprinkled holy water round the room, she started behaving wildly and shouting incoherently. She was pinned down by her daughter and Resham for 15 minutes.
As she was behaving aggressively, Fr Ong asked other church-goers who were attending a farewell party on the grounds for help. Five men and two women responded.

The family was told to wait outside while the prayer session took place. They moved in and out of the room anyway and could see through a glass window what was happening inside.
Some people did restrain her, holding her hands and legs. But it was done to prevent her from hurting herself.

She had even tried strangling herself twice.
The two priests read or sang words of prayer. Outside the room, other Catholics had gathered to pray.

When she asked to use the toilet, two women and her daughter accompanied her.
The priests were nowhere near the toilet. They were in the room clearing up and shifting furniture back in place.

On her return, Madam Amutha turned abusive, levelling vulgar words and threatening to sue everyone. She also scolded her family members for bringing her to church.

Neither she nor her family members had objected to any part of proceedings at any time. Nor did they ask for the police or an ambulance.

Fr Tan suggested that the family return home. They did, but not before thanking him for his help.


I drank Adrian Lim's blood: Madam Valli's medical case notes

She was an alcoholic, took drugs and had been suffering from a whole host of psychiatric problems since 1989.

But Madam Amutha Valli, 50, kept mum about her medical history, and had even implored her past doctors not to reveal the truth, the High Court was told on Wednesday, at the start of the hearing into the exorcism rites she had alleged were forced on her by priests of Novena Church three years ago.

In their opening statements, defence lawyers for the two priests and seven other defendants who are being sued by Madam Valli, presented hospital records of National University Hospital, Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Institute of Mental Health where she had been receiving treatment for her mental disorders.

Senior Counsel Jimmy Yim from Drew & Napier, who is defending Father Jacob Ong, with Mr Darrell Low, told the court that Madam Valli was found to be in a "dissociative state" as far back as December 1986.

Dissociative trance disorder, to a lay person, clergyman or priest, is a state akin to possession.
Madam Valli was diagnosed as suffering from "hysterical dissociative neurosis" in January 1987, according to her medicals records kept by NUH, which treated her from 1986 to 1989.

The NUH case notes also detailed her history of entering into trances, including one where she had glided on the floor like a snake.

Excerpts of the case notes were presented in court on Wednesday:

One of them, dated Dec 26, 1986, states: "glides on floor, hissing like a snake last 1-3 minutes slumps onto ground and regain normal consciousness. unable to recall events during trance."
Another, dated Jan 6, 1987, said she went to see the notorious medium Adrian Lim sometime in 1984 to get a cure for her trances.

Lim, 41, his wife Tan Mui Choo, 28, and mistress Hoe Kah Hong, 27, murdered two schoolchildren, aged nine and 10, in early 1981. All three were hanged in 1988.

Excerpts of the case notes said she saw Lim twice and drank his blood and went into a trance together with him. She added that Lim gave her shock treatment by electrocution.

She stopped seeing after she found out about the murders he had committed from newspaper reports. She felt "guilty and embarrassed," she told the NUH doctors.

A Jan 21, 1987 case note gave a glimpse into her personal history.

The excerpts read: "started going into trances for religious purposes at age 12. Trances at religious ceremonies at home - encouraged by mother, family and neighbour. Becomes incarnation of snake god and predicts and foretells fortune, past, present."

The court also heard that she told her doctor at Flame Tree Clinic on Oct 21, 2005, which she had asked for a medical report on her mental state, not to mention any of her family problems, alcoholism and depression.

Her doctor, apparently told her that suppression of information would not be right as it would be "a great omission of the truth".

On Nov 10, 2006, Madam Valli, in a sworn statement, insisted that the only psychiatric condition which she had suffered from was stress and alcohol dependency and she had been hospitalised at the IMH. Yet, in IHM's case notes dated Oct 30, 2006, she called an IMH doctor and told him that she "never had treatment at NUH before."

Madam Valli was also seen by psychhiatrists, Prof Ong Thiew Chai of Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Dr Angelina Chan of Changi General Hospital in on Sept 3 and April 15, 2005 respectively, but their medical reports of her condition make no mention her psychiatric history prior to the Aug 10, 2004 incident at Novena Church.

It was later revealed that she did not bring her past history in NUH to their attention.
"It is submitted that all these omissions of past medical/psychiatric history deprived both Prof Ong and Dr Chan from arriving at a true and complete evaluation of the plaintiff's actual psychiatric condition," said Mr Yim. - The Straits Times

http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Courts%2Band%2BCrime/STIStory_170033.html?vgnmr=1

Ephesians 6:12 "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."

The combat is not against human enemies, nor against our own corrupt nature only; we have to do with an enemy who has a thousand ways of beguiling unstable souls. The devils assault us in the things that belong to our souls, and labour to deface the heavenly image in our hearts. We must resolve by God's grace, not to yield to Satan. James 4:7 "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you."

1 John 4:1-4 "Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world. You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. "

verses and commentaries taken from biblegateway.com