User talk:Kristenowens354

Reading Journal
(Note: Pretty much all of my reading journal is me going back on 5/6 to make it up.)

2/12
This week, we were thinking about which page that we wanted to work on. At first, I was going to do something on the "Justice" page, since I felt that it was a bit off. After that, since in another class we covered demonic possession, I looked it up. I felt that was really messed up, and I knew that I wanted to work on that.

2/19
Google: Demonic Possession and Psychology I felt that psychology part of the article was lacking, so I stated to look up things about that. I found an article called, "The Devil Inside: Psychotherapy, Exorcism and Demonic Possession." Here they talked about exorcism are done in the modern times. For example, The Catholic Church uses a team of psychologist to help them tell the difference between a demonic possession and a mental illness.

2/26
A question was brought up, and that was how demonic possession relate to the class. So my brother found some stuff about witchcraft in Africa. Many children are left out in the streets to die, because they are thought to be witches. On Wikipedia, there was a different article about witchcraft, and I wouldn't be able tease the two apart with this. So I gave up on the idea.

3/5
In class, we went over our proposals. Since I wasn't sure about what I was going to do, I offered the previous two ideas. But there weren't good, then the idea of doing demonic possession in Tibet. I thought that would help the article to have a more of world view.

3/12
Went to AnthroSource and searched "Demonic Possession AND Tibet." This was the only reading that I found here.

Arrow and Mirror Reading
In Tibet, there is a person that is a Nechung Oracle. This person is possessed by a god. Ter Ellingson wrote and videotaped about one Oracle. This Oracle was possessed by the god Pehar. While the Oracle was possessed by this god, he shot an arrow into a crowd. Then the crowd would rush forward to try to get hit by this arrow. The Oracle wanted to be filmed, because he wanted to know what happens when he is possessed, since he has no recollections of the events. Even though most of the Oracles are males, there can be a few females, and they are chosen when they are the ages between 13-25.

Ellingson, T. (1998), Arrow and Mirror: Interactive Consciousness, Ethnography, and the Tibetan State Oracle's Trance. Anthropology and Humanism, 23: 51–76. doi: 10.1525/ahu.1998.23.1.51

3/26
Academic Search Premier: Demonic Possession AND Tibet I found a case study.

Psychiatry in Tibetan Buddhism: Madness and Its Cure Seen Through the Lens of Religious and National History
This was about a girl who had a tough relationship with her father, and then he passed away. She was having trouble sleeping, so she went to her Buddhist healer. He determined that she was being possessed by her father. So, he gave some sleeping pills and told her to give away money in his name to appease him. She got better over time.

Plakun, E.M. (2008). Psychiatry in Tibetan Buddhism: Madness and Its Cure Seen Through the Lens of Religious and National History. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, 36(3), 415-430.

4/2
My brother bought up the idea that I need change my search to Demonic Possession AND China due the political nature of the region. I still didn't find anything useful.

4/9
Since my draft seemed to be more about spirit possession and there is an article about that. So I needed something that could make it more definitive that there is a belief in demonic possession. Google: Demonic Possession and Tibet

Tibetan Buddhist Psychology and Psychotherapy
Here Tibetan Buddhist label may label any mental delusions as a demon, and they are treated a lot like western psychology.

(2015, May 7). Tibetan Buddhist Psychology and Psychotherapy. http://www.tibetanmedicine-edu.org/index.php/psychology-and-psychotherapy/34-tibetan-buddhist-psychology-and-psychotherapy

4/16
Google: Demonic Possession and Buddhism

Demons and the Demonic in Buddhism
This article covered demons and how they came to be demons in Buddhism from all different types of Buddhism.

Sutherland, G.H. (2015, May 7). Demon and the Demonic in Buddhism. http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195393521/obo-9780195393521-0171.xml

4/23
I just worked on my final edit. I took out the Shaman religious view since it didn't really fit with demonic possession. I pulled the two web articles that I found to link with the case study to show that it is demonic possession.

Proposal
I plan on making a new section to the Demonic Possession page. I will be focusing on Tibetan ideas about demonic possession. I will talk about how sometimes they meditate and this will aloud the demon to come into their bodies, and possess them. These demons are seen as either good or evil, depending on the demon, and I will talk about how that is possible. The reason that I want to do this is because demonic possession is across cultures and religion. Demonic possession in Tibet is something that I know some stuff about, and I what to know more about it.

Reference: Plakun, E.M. (2008). Psychiatry in Tibetan Buddhism: Madness and Its Cure Seen Through the Lens of Religious and National History. Journal Of The American Academy Of Psychoanalysis. 36(3), 415-430

Search Terms: Demonic Possession AND Tibet

Rough Draft
Demonic Possession

I will be adding a new part after Christianity

There are two types of religious views in Tibet that has a form of demonic possession in it. One of them is the Shaman view of Tibet. They have a person called the "Oracle," and this person is possessed by a god. They have a ceremony, where the oracle will become possessed. It is a process where the crowd will play drum beats and chant, while the oracles's assistants will place protective headgear on the oracle. Then the god that possessed the oracle will interact with the crowd in usually a violet manner like shooting an arrow into the crowd and killing someone. Then the god will just leave the body of the oracle after it is done with interacting with crowd.

Then there is the Buddhist view in Tibet. A person can be possessed by the deceased. The Buddhist healer will take their pulse, and urine, and will use that to help determine if they are possessed or not. If they are, then the healer will form a treatment for the person with medications and/or actions to appease the deceased that possessing the person.

Buddhist
In Buddhism, a demon can either be a soul suffering in the hell realm, or alternatively, it could be a delusion.

People will go to their local Buddhist healer for treatment. The healer will then take their pulse and urine while offering counsel - the aim being to divine the origins of the patient's suffering. In the case possession they may use medications, like sleeping pills, to take care of the symptoms. They will also prescribe actions to appease the demon, like giving away food and clothing in its name. Afterward, the demon will depart to a different realm.

Good Job
I was a little confused reading this sentence “In the case of being possessed, they may use medications, like sleeping pills, and actions to appease the deceased, like giving way food and clothing in the name of the deceased.” Are these the way they are cured? The only other thing would be to cite more of your sources. Overall, great job!!!(:Aguilarv (talk) 22:49, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Welcome!
Welcome to Wikipedia, and thanks for offering to help with the article on demonic possession for your student assignment. I'm very impressed with the articles you and your classmates have chosen!

As you can see by the yellow and orange cleanup tags at the top of the article, at least one other editor is concerned about the article's tone. That editor wasn't specific, but I feel the article relies too much on lists rather than paragraphs, uses direct quotations that are too long and should be summarized instead, and describes the phenomenon of demonic possession from an "in-universe" perspective (i.e. the point of view that demons are real) when it should be written from a religion-neutral point of view. All of these run contrary to the tone a reader expects from an encyclopedia.

At least one other editor is also concerned about the narrowness of the article's point of view. The article seems focused on the point of view of Western religion, and on events occurring in Western nations. Wikipedia is read worldwide, and we'd like the articles to be relevant to everyone!

So, as you expand the article with new material, try not to make the same mistakes. Do your best to maintain a global perspective and religion-neutral point of view. And, when possible, keep your text concise and paragraphed, rather than being a bullet-point list or quotation dump.

See also the article's talk page for other concerns editors have had about the article in the past. Happy editing! Matt Fitzpatrick (talk) 07:59, 2 March 2015 (UTC)