If you’re interested in the topic of exorcism, the documentary, “The Devil and Father Amorth,” is worth your time.
It’s a professionally made documentary primarily due to the thoroughness of the director. He interviews a broad sample of observers (and participants) around the exorcisms. And, despite his expertise, the director removes all effects and technical obstacles from his subject rather than add layers of them as he did in “The Exorcist.”
If you’ve watched the clip, you’ve heard the voice of one of the possessed women (Christina) at 1 minute, 12 seconds into the above trailer.
I consistently hear three voices every time the one being exorcised cries out. If this is, somehow, faked by the director, it discredits the documentary. However, I don’t suspect there was any sound editing of the ladies voice. To satisfy my own curiosity of the makeup of these “voices,” I captured many of them from the documentary, and you can see their spectral frequency prints, below.
Dissociative Trance Disorder?
When the director interviews a room full of five doctors of various expertise, he’s quickly referred to what the doctors say is “a recognized diagnosis, worldwide”: Dissociative Trance Disorder.1 From the abstract of that paper:
Although dissociative trance disorders, especially possession disorder, are probably more common than is usually though, precise clinical data are lacking. Ten persons undergoing exorcisms for devil trance possession state were studied with the Dissociative Disorders Diagnostic Schedule and the Rorschach test. These persons had many traits in common with dissociative identity disorder patients. They were overwhelmed by paranormal experiences. Despite claiming possession by a demon, most of them managed to maintain normal social functioning.
You can read the full paper, online.
Bishop Barron Isn’t Ready
Robert Barron, a Catholic bishop in Los Angeles, says he wouldn’t speak to the devil like Father Amorth because he’s not at that spiritual level:
Speaking to the devil like Father Amorth? I would never dare do that. I’m not there, spiritually, I think it’s a very dangerous thing…it’s dangerous ground. You have to be really, really, Holy. . . I’m not ready for that; I’d be afraid.
Jeffrey B. Russell’s Says it Best
One of the most insightful comments in the documentary is by Jeffrey Burton Russell, author of “The Prince of Darkness.” Jeffrey says that possession is merely the seizure of your body.
The way they take over your soul is by tempting you to sin. That’s how they get you because you’re using your free will to do evil.
Spectral Frequency Displays
As a musician, I have a good ear for sounds and the ability to distinguish between them.
For example, you know that feeling you get when you’re watching a movie and can’t quite place the voice? I rarely experience that since the person behind the voice is evident to me (If I know who they are in real life.)
To make a more objective visual image, however, I used the Spectral Frequency Display in Adobe Audition to show the “print” of the voices in this documentary.
For reference: human speaking voices for men range from ~85 – 180hz and for women, 165 – 255 Hz. Frequencies above this are usually attributed to harmonics, room echo, or non-vocal-cord sounds produced by the throat. All of those elements are present in the voice prints, below.
The vertical axis is frequency, and the horizontal axis is time. The brightness represents the loudness of the sound source in that frequency range. The bright yellow areas are the primary sound, the orange and purple are harmonics, echo, or non-vocal-cord sounds. The black areas are silent.
Here’s the director’s voice asking a question:
Here’s Christina answering the Director’s question:
Father Amorth praying:
Father Amorth makes a guttural sound during prayer:
Family praying together:
Christina’s first “possessed” voice:
A six-second segment of Christina’s possessed voice:
When looking at the prints of Christina’s voice during the possession, it becomes apparent why it gives the impression of either three or four voices. Two frequencies are pronounced enough to be heard separately at 1k and below. Two more are at 2k-4k. Her first print is also extraordinary in that it emits harmonics >16khz. No other voice in the documentary does that.
But look at the print when Father Amorth makes a guttural sound during prayer. Strong harmonics appear three or four times just below 3k Hz. This is an important comparison because Father and Christina are in the same room at the same time.
For an additional comparison, I’ve recorded two isolated voice tracks of Janis Joplin. The recordings attempt to isolate only Janis’ voice to be as similar as possible to the Father Amorth and Christina.
Janis Joplin, Clip #1:
Janis Joplin, Clip #2:
- ”Dissociative Trance Disorder: Clinical and Rorschach Findings in Ten Persons Reporting Demon Possession and Treated by Exorcism” by Stefano Ferracuti, Roberta Sacco, and Renato Lazzari, Dept. Of Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine, University of Rome “La Sapienza.” Journal of Personality Assessment, 1996, 66(3), 525-539, Copyright 1996, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. ↩
