Amy's Exorcism

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
In November, 2006 under unusual circumstances a woman fell from the second story of her home. She was left paralyzed below the waist. She had been sitting on the sill, and afterward she claimed it was not a deliberate suicide attempt.

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Patio floor where Amy Stamatis fell to

According to Amy Stamatis, it started a few months before the incident. Once, when she was just doing her usual household chores, a strange voice invaded her thoughts. It was loud and clear, as if someone was standing right next to her and whispering terrible things in her ear.  The voice said obscene things and told her to commit suicide, as well as placing "dark thoughts" in her head.

She was also suffering from strange ailments, and being a nurse she believed she was undergoing a mental breakdown, and sought the help of mental health professionals.

Amy worked at Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock, Arkansas and she had just finished a 24-hour shift as a med-flight nurse. On this particular day her patient was suffering from burns, and after completing a report about her patient, she found herself walking aimlessly around the emergency room hallways. Patients and staff stated Amy was wandering around ''growling in a deep, animalistic tone''.  Unbelievably she found she had forgotten how to do her job, and she went home after this. Her confusion persisted, and Amy who was a marathon runner found she couldn't run straight, and even simple tasks like picking out her clothes escaped her.

The frequencу of these mental "fogs" graduallу increased, and she forgot what she was doing,  Sometimes she even forgot her name, as if her mind was temporarilу erased. 

​Fearing a nervous breakdown, she discussed it with her husband, and then began a round of visiting doctors and psychiatric hospitals. She received different diagnosis, and was prescribed antidepressants "like they were candy". 

The worse though is that her behavior became unpredictable, and the voices didn't stop. At a family gathering she stripped off her clothing, and as a patient at the hospital where she used to work she screamed at her former co-workers. Amy and her husband sought other help, and went to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. She broke away from the physicians, ran to a parking garage and climbed eight stories threatening to jump. She was finally talked down by her husband and the police. The voices continued. 

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Cindy Lawson and Amy Stamatis

Then came the day she was sitting on the sill of the window in her house. When Amy jumped from the second story she hit the hard patio concrete below, and shattered her back in three places and pierced both lungs. 

Amy did not belong to the Downtown Church of Christ in Searcy, but nonetheless they held a prayer service for her after she fell.

During her hospitalization a woman named Cindy Lawson, a Pentecostal and church member visited her bedside. Lawson claims she could heal those suffering from terminal illnesses and also raising the dead. She then described something inside of Amy. She called them demons.

A friend of Amy told her that Cindy Lawson came to pray over her. “The Lord spoke to me and told me to go to the hospital to cast the demons out of her,” Lawson said. "I could feel something churning. I could see the demons." She described Stamatis as being "wide-eyed."

She said that then something inside of Amy growled at her and said, "Why are you here?" Lawson anointed Amy's forehead with oil and commanded, “Lord, in the name of Jesus, I command that these demons release her and come out of her and that she comes to her right mind, in Jesus' name."

"The spirit of the Lord fell into that room," Lawson recalled.

The problem lies in the similarity of symptoms between demonic possession and the diagnosis of schizophrenia or epilepsy. Dr. Richard Gallagher a psychiatrist who works with Catholic priests to differentiate between those suffering from mental illness versus a demonic possession points out.

In 2016, he wrote an article in the Washington Post where he described:

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The same habits that shape what I do as a professor and psychiatrist — open-mindedness, respect for evidence and compassion for suffering people — led me to aid in the work of discerning attacks by what I believe are evil spirits and, just as critically, differentiating these extremely rare events from medical conditions, but careful observation of the evidence presented to me in my career has led me to believe that certain extremely uncommon cases can be explained no other way.

Amy Stamatis post deliverance

​Dr. Gallagher warned that there has to be caution among clergy members in seeing the devil everywhere. He states that exorcists should have many years of training and: "Show a great deal of sobriety, prudence and holiness."

In 2018, the Vatican changed and expanded it annual exorcism course, due to an increased demand. Within the Catholic Church only a priest properly trained and given permission by a bishop is allowed to perform the "solemn exorcism."

Amy Stamatis, described where she had been diagnosed with porphyria, which is a rare chemical imbalance with symptoms of seizures, abdominal pain, mental confusion and nervous system dysfunction. She now believes she was possessed, and the medical field could not help her because they don't believe in it.

Despite the extreme portrayal seen in the 1973 film, The Exorcist it does not present the more common form of spiritual attack which is demonic influence or temptation. The next level is demonic oppression, which is more ordinary, and it can be addressed with Catholic sacraments, blessings and prayers. Addiction and violence are other examples of demonic manipulations.

Monte Cox, Stamatis’ preacher and the dean of the College of Bible and Ministry at Harding University said, "On one hand, there are those infatuated with the demonic and being drawn into a kind of magic that sounds more faithful than it is, and on the other hand, there are those suckered by a modern worldview that says such things don’t actually exist."

Amy Stamatis cannot recall her exorcism, but her family noted a change in her immediately, and she has not regressed to her prior behavior.

There is a dearth of information surrounding this event and what led up to it. Why would a married nurse with children be targeted for possession/obsession? Had she ever had any similar events during her life or in her family history? Did she have a history of suicidal ideations, even in her distant past? Did she have to continue with her medical treatment for porphyria afterward, or did that disappear as well?

None of these questions were ever answered in the reports about this incident, in one way or another.

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