Demonic possession in the context of "Melancholic"

Melancholia or melancholy (Ancient Greek: μελαγχολία, romanized: melancholía; from μέλαινα χολή, mélaina cholḗ, 'black bile') is a concept found throughout ancient, medieval, and premodern medicine in Europe that describes a condition characterized by markedly depressed mood, bodily complaints, and sometimes hallucinations and delusions. Besides a pathological condition, melancholy could also refer to a mood or temperament and at times it was even used as a description of the human condition in general.

Melancholy (or more precisely the 'black bile', from which melancholy derives its name) was regarded as one of the four temperaments matching the four humours. Until the 18th century, doctors and other scholars classified melancholic conditions as such by their perceived common cause – an excess of a notional fluid known as "black bile", which was commonly linked to the spleen. Hippocrates and other ancient physicians described melancholia as a distinct disease with mental and physical symptoms, including persistent fears and despondencies, poor appetite, abulia, sleeplessness, irritability, and agitation. Later, fixed delusions were added by Galen and other physicians to the list of symptoms. In the Middle Ages, the understanding of melancholia shifted to a religious perspective, with sadness seen as a vice and demonic possession, rather than somatic causes, as a potential cause of the disease.

In some religions, an exorcist (from the Greek „ἐξορκιστής“) is a person who is believed to be able to cast out the devil or performs the ridding of demons or other supernatural beings who are alleged to have possessed a person, or (sometimes) a building or object. An exorcist can be a specially prepared or instructed person including: priest, a nun, a monk, a witch doctor (healer), a shaman, a psychic or a geomancer (Feng shui - Chinese geomancy).

Supernatural horror film is a film genre that combines aspects of supernatural film and horror film. Supernatural occurrences in such films often include ghosts and demons, and many supernatural horror films have elements of religion. Common themes in the genre are the afterlife, the devil, and demonic possession. Not all supernatural horror films focus on religion, and they can have "more vivid and gruesome violence".

The expression minor exorcism can be used in a technical sense or a general sense. The general sense indicates any exorcism which is not a solemn exorcism of a person believed to be possessed, including various forms of deliverance ministry. This article deals only with the technical sense which specifically refers to certain prayers used with persons preparing to become baptised members of the churches which makes use of such rites. These prayers request God's assistance so that the person to be baptised will be kept safe from the power of Satan or protected in a more general way from temptation.

In Christianity, the Sermon on the Plain refers to a set of teachings by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, in 6:20–49. This sermon may be compared to the longer Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew.

Luke 6:12–20a details the events leading to the sermon. In it, Jesus spent the night on a mountain praying to God. Two days later, he gathered his disciples and selected 12 of them, whom he named Apostles. On the way down from the mountain, he stood at "a level place" (ἐπὶ τόπου πεδινοῦ, epi topou pedinou) where a throng of people had gathered. After curing those with "unclean spirits", Jesus began what is now called the Sermon on the Plain.

Alastor (/əˈlæstər, -tɔːr/; Ancient Greek: Ἀλάστωρ, lit. 'avenging spirit') refers to a number of people and concepts in Greek mythology:

• Alastor, an epithet of the Greek God Zeus, according to Hesychius of Alexandria and the Etymologicum Magnum, which described him as the avenger of evil deeds, specifically familial bloodshed. As the personification of a curse, it was also a sidekick of the Erinyes. The name is also used, especially by the tragic writers, to designate any deity or demon who avenges wrongs committed by men. In Euripides' play Electra, Orestes questions an oracle who calls upon him to kill his mother Clytemnestra, and wonders if the oracle was not from Apollo, but some malicious alastor. There was an altar to Zeus Alastor just outside the city walls of Thasos.
  • By the time of the 4th century BC, alastor in Greek had degraded to a generic type of insult, with the approximate meaning of "scoundrel".
• Alastor, a prince of Pylos and son of King Neleus and Chloris, daughter of Amphion. He was the brother of Asterius, Deimachus, Epilaus, Eurybius, Eurymenes, Evagoras, Nestor, Periclymenus, Phrasius, Pylaon, Taurus and Pero. When Heracles took Pylos, he killed Alastor and his brothers, except for Nestor. According to Parthenius of Nicaea, he was to be married to Harpalyce, who, however, was taken from him by her father Clymenus.
• Alastor, a Lycian warrior who was a companion of Sarpedon. He fought in the Trojan War and was slain by the Greek hero Odysseus during the battle.
  • Alastorides is a patronymic form given by Homer to Tros, who was probably a son of the Lycian Alastor mentioned above.
• Alastor, a Pylian soldier who fought under their leader Nestor during the Trojan War. He remembered for having, together with Mecisteus, carried the wounded Teucer off the battlefield as they later did also with Hypsenor.
• Alastor, a black horse belonging to the Greek God Hades. He was one of the four horses drawing Hades's chariot when he rose from the Underworld to bring Persephone down with him. The other three were Orphnaeus, Aethon, and Nycteus.
• Alastor, a vengeful daemon that relentlessly pursues the guilty, punishing their children for the sins of their fathers.
• Alastor, in Christian demonology, came to be considered a kind of possessing entity. He was likened to Nemesis. The name Alastor was also used as a generic term for a class of evil spirits.