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August 3 - August 4, 2025
A confrontation with Satan is never pleasant and has to do with the evil resulting from sin, but, at the same time, it is not terrorizing, as it is depicted in sensationalist films. If we are in the state of grace, we must always remain serene, knowing that the grace of the Holy Spirit always triumphs in the end.
If we fear the Devil, we have already ceded too much to him. I respect the Devil. I highly respect him. I do not, however, fear him. I fear God alone. I fear offending God; I fear abandoning His grace; I fear sinning
Christianity has always believed in the importance of exorcism. Even during its fiercest persecutions, the young Church was aware that bringing souls into the Kingdom of God is, by its very act, a pillaging of the kingdom of Satan. Pope Cornelius, who reigned from 251 AD until his martyrdom two years later, left a fascinating personnel list. In his “Letter to Fabius,” the bishop of Antioch, Pope Cornelius identifies the Church of Rome as having forty-six priests, seven deacons, seven subdeacons, forty-two acolytes, and fifty-two exorcists.1 The fact that exorcists outnumbered the priests
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Humans are spiritual beings. When someone no longer subscribes to the Christian worldview—or believes in God, for that matter—spiritual instinct still operates. It seeks satisfaction in the myriads of unhealthy pagan and occult avenues flooding Western society.
to put it simply, I don’t practice magic.
I serve God. Only God’s presence in this house and within your heart can evict the evil occupying each. Without His presence replacing that of the demons, I can do nothing because the demons are simply dwelling inside what is theirs.”
The great philosopher Aristotle taught that every virtue is a mean between two extremes. The mean between excessive meekness and rage is righteous anger.
Thus, until the vexation ceases, a person should avoid making significant decisions, such as changing careers, ending friendships or business partnerships, getting engaged to be married, ending one’s marriage, and so on.
The classic signs of possession are: • The ability to speak and understand languages one has never studied. • Knowledge of events that are impossible for the individual to know through natural means. • Displays of superhuman strength (strength beyond one’s natural human abilities).
Most people are surprised to know that even demons respect the name of God. I have never witnessed them trash-talk the Name. I have seen demons claim to be God. I have seen them show disdain for the things God loves. I have seen them ridicule and lie about God. But I have never seen them disrespect His Name. That is a realm where—evidently—even demons will not tread.
To demons, trauma is low-hanging fruit, an easy way to latch onto a person and feed off his injury. While people do not become possessed by trauma directly, trauma makes one prone to dysfunctional choices by causing one to believe a lie. Those choices can then occasion demonization, as the examples of Tim and Linda both demonstrate.
The veneration of holy images is to religion what the treasuring of photographs of deceased relatives is to any family. After family members pass away, photographs are often our closest connection with them. In humans, the heart is unceasingly fed by the eyes.
In its theological understanding of reality, Satanism differs very little from Christianity. What is different are the labels of good and evil. Satanists view the Devil as their benefactor and God as their enemy. They regard the Devil’s rebellion against God as the proper response to his Creator’s limitations.
The New Testament references a post-death state of purification before a soul’s entrance to Heaven when Jesus declares every sin can be forgiven, except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, “either in this age or in the age to come” (Matt. 12:32). While Our Lord assures His followers that God forgives sins in this life, the phrase “in the age to come” implies a kind of forgiveness obtained in a future, post-death age.
Catholic theology has consistently interpreted the source of those tears as the fire of purification that Saint Paul says the saved will endure (1 Cor. 3:11–15). This very fire appears to be what Saint Paul has in mind when he prays that his friend Onesiphorus be raised to eternal life “on that Day,” implying that the already deceased man may not yet be there (2 Tim. 1:16–18).
Why would an exorcist offer mercy to a damned soul since it is Christian dogma that a soul is judged by God immediately upon death and is irrevocably either saved or damned? In other words, why would an exorcist offer a damned soul a cessation to his suffering when there is no possibility for such a cessation?4 I have no theological answer for this question, but as an exorcist, I have a practical one: because it works at making the damned soul go away. Whether he leaves of his own accord (because hearing about Christ’s mercy is too painful) or whether it is his demonic guardian that removes
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Ghosts Who Manifest During Exorcism One last topic worth mentioning is the manifestation of ghosts—distressed souls—during an exorcism. A personality who does not exhibit the characteristics of a demon or a damned soul—anger, violence, belligerence, and other qualities that demons and damned souls exhibit—can occasionally manifest. A ghost will show meekness, humility, sorrow, suffering, and even trepidation. When asked to identify itself, it does so reluctantly, not out of defiance, but because of these very dispositions. The following is a dialogue from one such encounter. While every
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Regarding the second question, when asked why they came at this particular moment, distressed souls often do not know the answer; or they may respond with an answer such as, “I saw light and followed it.” In other words, the exorcist’s prayers and God’s response produce a grace visible to these souls, and they are drawn to it to obtain help.
