About this item
The world's leading psychiatric authority on demonic possession delves into the hidden world of exorcisms and his own transformation from cynic to believer over the course of his twenty-five-year career.Successful New York psychiatrist Richard Gallagher was skeptical yet intrigued when a hard-nosed, no-nonsense Catholic priest asked him to examine a woman for a possible exorcism. Meeting her, Gallagher was astonished. The woman's behavior defied logic. In an instant, she could pinpoint a person's secret weaknesses. She knew how individuals she'd never known had died, including Gallagher's own mother, who passed away after a lengthy battle with ovarian cancer. She spoke fluently in multiple languages, including Latin - but only when she was in a trance.
About the Author
A board-certified psychiatrist and highly experienced clinician and teacher, Richard Gallagher, M.D. is a professor of psychiatry at NY Medical College and a psychoanalyst on the faculty of Columbia University. He earned a bachelor's degree at Princeton University in Classics, Phi beta Kappa, winning the class Stinnecke Scholarship Award in Latin and Greek. After teaching and playing basketball in France, he came back to the U.S. for medical school and eventually trained as a resident in psychiatry at Yale University. He is the longest-standing member of the International Association of Exorcists since the early 1990's, serving for a time as a scientific adviser on its governing board. He has devoted many years to distinguishing the rare cases of overt demonic attacks from the much more common conditions of medical and psychiatric disorders. In this capacity Dr. Gallagher has undoubtedly seen more cases of possession - many quite harrowing - than any other physician in the world. He lives in Westchester, N.Y., after serving for many years as the county's psychiatric emergency and crisis director.
