Question: Does this happen often?

Sri Chinmoy: I have known and seen about ten or eleven cases. Not that I have dealt with them, but I have seen the kinds of things that happen. Most of the time occultists deal with these things. In India there are some people who are not occultists at all, but they know something of the vital world and they deal with the evil forces in a very crude way. Their crude way is very bad. They start striking the victim violently. When I was six or seven years old, I had a neighbour who became a victim. A village exorcist came and began striking him mercilessly with a piece of wood. The man cried and screamed, but the exorcist said, “It is by striking him that I am actually exorcising the evil spirit.” Now the exorcist was successful, as they often are, but that was a very crude way.