Mark 5:2-13
 “And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately
a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him.
3He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain
him any more, even with a chain; 4for he had often
been restrained with shackles and chains, but the
chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke
in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him.
5Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains
he was always howling and bruising himself with
stones. 6When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran
and bowed down before him; 7and he shouted at the
top of his voice, ‘What have you to do with me, Jesus,
Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not
torment me.’
Mark 5:2-13
 8For he had said to him, ‘Come out of the man, you
unclean spirit!’ 9Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your
name?’ He replied, ‘My name is Legion; for we are
many.’ 10He begged him earnestly not to send them out
of the country. 11Now there on the hillside a great herd
of swine was feeding; 12and the unclean spirits begged
him, ‘Send us into the swine; let us enter them.’ 13So he
gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came
out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering
about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into
the lake, and were drowned in the lake.
Spirit Possession and the
Occult: Part I
Ancient Babylonian Spirit
Possession Accounts
 “With a halter as a roving ass thy body I restrain; O evil
Spirit, get thee hence, Depart, O evil Demon! From the
body of the man, the son of his god, O evil Demon,
depart!”
Ancient Babylonian Spirit
Possession Accounts
 “An evil spirit…hath overcome him, [Something]
unnamed hath seized upon him, something impure for
the body hath seized upon him, his hand it hath smitten
and his hand it hath set upon, his foot it hath smitten
and his foot it hath set upon, his head it hath smitten
and his head it hath set upon; upon a pure field for his
fate it hath entered and the evil spirit….Let it not enter
the house….May the evil Spirit that hath seized him
stand aside, May a kindly Spirit, a kindly Guardian be
present.”—R. Campbell Thompson, M.A., The Devils
and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, translated from the
original cuneiform texts, with transliterations,
vocabulary, notes, etc. Vol. I “Evil Spirits” (London:
LUZAC AND CO, 1903), 79, 81, 137.
Ancient Greek Possession
Account
 “I should like to ask you, then, what you think of those
who deliver demoniacs from their terrors and who
publicly conjure phantoms. I need not recall to you the
master of this art, the famous Syrian of Palestine,
everyone already knows this remarkable man who in
the case of people falling down at the sight of the
moon, rolling their eyes back and foaming at the
mouth,….
Ancient Greek Possession
Account
 …calls on them to stand up and sends them back
home whole and free from their infirmity, for which he
charges them how the devil entered into them…
Ancient Greek Possession
Account
 …the patient remains silent, but the devil replies, in
Greek or a barbarian tongue, and says what he is,
whence he comes, and how he has entered into the
man’s body: this is the moment chosen to conjure him
to come forth; if he resist, the Syrian threatens him and
finally drives him out.”—Lucian (born circa 125 C.E.),
The Lover of Lying, 16. Complete works, ed. C.
Jacobitz, Teubner series, in Traugott K. Oesterreich,
Possession and Exorcism Among Primitive Races, In
Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and Modern Times (New
York: Causeway Books, 1974), 10.
Josephus (First Century C.E.)
Writes:
 “God also enabled him to learn the art which expels
demons, which is useful and works cures for men. He
composed charms also by which diseases are
alleviated. And he left behind him forms of exorcisms,
by which people drive away demons so that they never
return; and this method of cure is of very great value
unto this day: for I have seen a certain man of my own
country, whose name was Eleazar, curing people
possessed by demons in the presence of Vespasian
and his sons and captains and the whole of his
soldiers…..
Josephus Continues…
 …The manner of the cure was as follows…And Eleazar,
wishing to persuade and show to the spectators that he had
such a power, used to set a little way off a cup or basin full
of water, and commanded the demon, as he went out of the
man, to overturn it, and so let the spectators know that he
had left the man.”—Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews Book
8, Chapter 2
To be continued…