Talk: The Psychology of Possession & Exorcism

Millions of people around the world – including in the UK today – believe that spirits or demons can take over a living person’s body. But neuroscience tells a very different story. So if a demonic possession isn’t real, what’s actually going on?

It turns out that there’s no single answer. Some historical demonic “possessions” were likely undiagnosed conditions like epilepsy or Tourette’s. Others look remarkably like phenomena we recognise today – dissociative identity disorder, hypnosis, speaking in tongues. Then there are the darker cases: possession used as a label against vulnerable people, with devastating results. This talk unpacks the science, the psychology, and the genuinely strange space where belief and the brain collide.

Doors open at 7pm, talk starts at 7:30pm – come down early to grab a good seat!

Speaker Bio:

Chris French is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he founded the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit — dedicated to understanding why humans have paranormal experiences, and what’s really behind them. He’s a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and a Patron of Humanists UK. He’s published more than 200 articles and book chapters, and is a regular contributor to the Guardian and Skeptic magazine.

He frequently appears on radio (Curious Cases, All in the Mind, Uncanny, Today, PM) and television (Newsnight, BBC Breakfast, The Big Questions) casting a sceptical eye over paranormal claims. He has also given talks on a wide range of such topics both nationally (the Royal Institution, New Scientist Live) and internationally (Europe, Australia, Taiwan, USA). His most recent book is The science of weird shit: Why our minds conjure the paranormal, published by MIT Press in 2024.