EWTN On Location - 2016-01-02 - Exorcism In The Modern Church And How To Keep The Doors To The Demon

[Music] EWTN goes on location to Raleigh North Carolina for the 13th annual ignited by truth Catholic Conference today Adam Bligh explains exorcism in the modern church and how to keep the doors closed all right so the first thing that's important whenever anybody talks in any setting any you know any setting really but certainly in a professional setting and then even more so in a strange situation like this where a layperson is talking about exorcism which is odd you should want to know what those qualifications are now of course this has been vetted by the organization and by this diocese with my diocese in Pittsburgh but I'm going to share a little bit with you because it's a reasonable question so this started for me a little over 10 years ago as I was doing brainwave research at Penn State on changes in consciousness and how the brain moves information and through that I had seen and we all had that you could induce false experiences in people basically through hypnosis with people that are hypnotizable and by the way don't do hypnosis it's really not a good thing to mess with you can have people see things that aren't there and not see things that are there all types of experiences like that and so I knew as a clinician about mental illness and I'd also seen in the lab that the brain is capable of producing hallucinations in totally normal healthy people and this raised an interesting question because at the time the paranormal craze was just starting the TV show Ghost Hunters had just started airing on TV and there was a beginning of the sixth Alan explosion where there's thousands upon thousands of groups of young people running around mimicking what's on television and trying to talk to spirits and I was curious about whether any of these complaints were real or just an artifact of the brain okay so I became an adviser to a group that was interested in this back in those early days because I was working at Penn State while I was working on my degree through that I got called to the Pittsburgh diocese to do psych evals on a family and that family was a house case that they had been working on for a number of years demonic infestation the reason I can talk about that is bob has since put out a book about the case because he wanted to share the story with the world okay so through that I met specialist clergy Jesus Christ opened a number of extraordinary doors over the next 10 years I was directly mentored which is the only real way to learn this you cannot learn this by reading books we purposely leave a lot of the details out of the public domain because it would cause too much fear and misunderstanding you have to be mentored by other exorcists I'm a layperson not a priest I don't do exorcisms that's against the rules but I'm a shrink with a knack for this and I've been at so many that I now help train priests in this area and coach them through the process just because I've been at so many you know I've gotten a feel for it okay not the greatest thing to have by the way but there it is so I guess the first question is why are we wasting time on this medieval idea that demons are actually real and that's kind of where our culture to an extent is certainly in the secular world and part of our culture that's where we're at but even within the church for the last 300 years to some extent there's been a generation that was taught that these ideas were we're kind of an old way of looking at the world and we're more enlightened now now we understand mental illness and epilepsy so maybe you know maybe this shouldn't be talked about anymore so there's a couple good reasons I think as Catholics or anybody that believes the Bible that you would want to believe in this so there's seven major gospel accounts of exorcisms where possession is differentiated from medical illness okay so Jesus did this he wanted it recorded he explicitly said a number of times you've seen me cast these out by command you need to reflect on that that the finger of God is present with you this was evidence that he was giving these were miracles that part of the miracles that he was doing and then he explicitly commanded his followers to go out and do the same thing in his name so we have an explicit mandate the church does to continue this work he also mandated heal the sick and raise the dead okay now the Catechism of the Catholic Church for those of us that are Catholic is very clear that this is real we have 2000 years or more of experience of every major world religion and culture that says this is real now within the Catholic faith we understand that we have the benefit of the full revelation through Jesus Christ in the gospel but every other religion in the world has encountered the same creatures they have a lesser understanding of it they call it different things they have different labels for it Buddhists call them animal spirits there are Buddhist exorcists Muslim called them gin or Shaytan and there are Muslim exorcists the Jewish faith calls them Dybbuk and there are Jewish rabbi exorcists there are Native American exorcists there are Hindu exorcists every culture and religion in the world has encountered the same troublesome deceptive spirits that con their way into people's lives and try to destroy them we have the benefit through Jesus Christ of a direct fuller understanding of them and that's borne out that's not just saying like oh we've got it right and you've got it wrong I'm not saying that it's very common around the world that other methods and other religions work up to a point people acting in in love and charity as best they can God responds up to a point in very serious cases they generally do come to Catholics it's very common here in the states with the Protestants not putting down Protestants or picking on people it's just a fact up to a point the Protestant methods of deliverance work full-blown serious possession people come to the Catholics partly because we have a book we formalized it we've systematically learned over the last 2000 years and improved our methods a number of popes have been very explicit about this and said this is real and every diocese should have an exorcist all right including very recently Frances and then one very whoa-whoa-whoa okay one very interesting thing and I think it's reproduced in your booklet there because it is so important the USCCB are you at united states bishops conference I think it was about five weeks ago at this point published 29 questions and answers on exorcism and possession on their website for the public and in it it makes it very clear that every diocese should have an exorcist reinforcing what the Pope's have said all right and that everybody who comes to the church asking for help will be assisted not saying that everybody that says they're possessed is possessed they need to be evaluated but if they are the church will help them Catholics non-catholic Christians and non Christian believers which means basically anybody who's suffering and says please help me Mother Church will respond so this is an interesting time to be alive in the church's history for 300 years or so this ministry has almost disappeared and is now coming back and it's coming back in a big way you might ask why the reason is we're seeing a lot more cases that are real and the bishops are responding to what they're seeing this market increase in cases has been over the last five to ten years why might that be this is just my my own observation I think we're a missionary country in Reverse in the history of the church there tends to be a flurry of exorcisms for the first 50 years as Christianity moves into cultures where the demons have had free reign to be deceptive and pretend to be gods and to pretend to be all the games that they play and then it settles down and I think what's happening now is to some extent in Western civilization the wave is rolling back and so the demons have more free rein to be active not being doom and gloom about it it's just our place in history so it's part of our job now to respond to that I think or at least it seems that's the direction the bishops are giving us okay and those of us in the Exorcist community again I'm not an exorcist but I'm part of the community you know we agree that's what we're seeing so the real basics I know most of you know this so go over quickly but some people may not and that is what is a demon some people think demons are our you know bad people that became demons when they died that type of thing I guess I shouldn't turn ok so you know we don't know exactly why they fell but the basically what happened was beginning of creation before God set the physical creation in motion created these spheres spiritual beings probably in nine choirs and before they received the beatific vision before they saw the face of God which because at that point you wouldn't be able to rebel if you experienced God directly how could Satan have rebelled so we know they didn't receive the beatific vision they were given free will just like us okay and they were given the choice here's the plan laid out from beginning to end here's the job you guys are going to do are you willing to do your job and he gave them free will and let him choose we know that Satan and by the way I kind of think the Lucifer thing isn't actually his name it probably is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the king of Babylon it only appears once in scripture and it's argued whether that's Satan of reference to Satan or the king of Babylon the reason I say that is because I've never heard the demons refer to him as Lucifer he's always Satan and when we've dealt with him directly he calls himself Satan he doesn't call himself Lucifer but you know doesn't really matter too much so he basically said I won't serve Michael said hey that's not very cool and God said okay you're done and he was cast down to hell right hmm no no this is this is just a common cultural myth because most of us have been catechized through Hollywood okay so read read revelations where the war in heaven is described in in some detail and it clearly says Michael cast Satan down to earth to roam here till the end of time st. Paul says he's roaming around earth like a lion seeking who he can devour and the temptations come from the demons so we know they're here this isn't some big scary shock you know the demons are on the earth they've been here your whole life they're producing with the temptations that we all deal with that's natural it's allowed and we'll get to the limits of that are put on demons mark so there's spirits they're not physical they're not even a little bit physical but they can affect physical things so they can seem to be physical okay they can create a lot of illusions in a person that has a relationship with them and they can move physical things but that's because they're taking a faculty that they were given for their original created ministerial purpose whatever God designed them for and we know from Thomas that each one has an individual it's it's it's own individual species that was designed to do a particular task and some exorcists will ask the question to demons what were you originally created for this kind of borders on per curiosity so it's probably not a good area to go into and interrogating a demon but many of them will say what they were originally created for they have a faculty or an ability linked to whatever their original job was now that they're fallen they still have that faculty and if they had some faculty related to physicality that's probably why that demon can move things and do physical things they basically have different parlor tricks that they can do demon to demon and they seem to be limited to a particular speciality just like Thomas would have predicted okay the issue of being irredeemable is important theologically to understand no pity for demons not that we wish the MIL it's not our place to judge them we haven't been judged and elevated yet but they're irredeemable why when we're young we do a lot of dumb things right and we get older and we say I was young and dumb you know I I don't know what I was thinking but now I'm older and I've left that behind and I'm sorry god please forgive me a fallen angel can never say that because their mind isn't limited like ours they saw to the end of time the consequences of their choice so the choice is permanent not only do they not want to be redeemed and go back on their choice because their mind was completely made in clarity to the end of time but they can't because they can't say I'm sorry I didn't know I didn't get it they did get it they got it completely okay and there have been people that didn't understand the psychology of angels much or the two mystic theology behind him and have proposed two demons at exorcisms why don't you repent maybe Jesus will take you back and they always say the same thing no that's impossible and in the famous booklet begone Satan that the church published back in the 30s when somebody proposed that - I believe it was actually Satan in that case you can look it up on ewtn s website basically that same proposition was given by somebody who was a bystander I believe it was a bystander and Satan's response was are you a competent theologian literally so he didn't even didn't even respond to the question and he basically dismissed the question as you don't know what you're even asking okay so they're irredeemable they're creatures of God that are on a leash the devil is not running free doing whatever he wants you don't go walking down the street and fall over and you're possessed okay it doesn't work that way he's on a leash and Jesus has the leash generally all he's allowed to do is tempt us which is what we would call his normal activity that's his job he's supposed to tempt us to provide the test of life between good and evil self and other okay loving God or loving yourself destroying others for your own benefit etc etc just like in the book of Job okay he runs around accusing tempting that's his job it's when we open the door to him and we through our free will ask for a deeper relationship with them that extraordinary activity starts to happen like the things you've all probably heard about infestations oppression and possession it's through our freewill opening the door to that relationship that it goes from the extraordinary where the leashes helped height to letting the leash slip a little bit because God honors our free will God doesn't force himself on us he lets us have that corrective emotional experience now some of you are saying what about Padre Pio and yes there are exceptions with God's permission with certain Saints as part of their purification in their learning process about the spiritual world that God allowed a certain amount of affliction and in a couple cases a few years of possession even but that was in a particular Saints journey for a particular reason that we probably don't we don't know enough about what was going on for them to understand it okay but in our lives I know a lot of you are Saints probably the whole room but I'm not so basically unless we open the door to it you know we don't need to quote-unquote worry about it too much this is not to create anxiety for you this is to empower you okay they're totally and completely evil no matter what game they're playing in the beginning they're a con artists they'll pretend to be your spirit guide your dead grandmother your guardian angel a fairy from the forest a totem animal whatever will scratch your back that you like whatever you're weak to they will play that role because if the devil came out of the closet and went I'm a monster or play with me you would run out of the room and run into a church he's not stupid he's going to come and pretend to be something that disarms you that entices you one of the biggest games that he plays with the paranormal investigating craze with females is pretending to be a little girl who's sick and is looking for a mommy now why is that it's very clever children are less threatening than adults females are generally less threatening than males okay so little girls are the least threatening they do it with women because it activates your maternal instinct of all oh you poor thing and you wanna you want to emotionally reach out and care for them and there's six and now oh they're very pitiful it's a very disarming game this has been done many many times okay this creature no matter what it's pretending to be is completely evil and anything that wants to play 20 questions with you and have a conversation is not of God if it's from God if it's an angel if it's a message from God you say what is the scriptural test for a spirit do you confess anybody no do you confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh for the redemption of sin of mankind right okay so if a spirit were to show up and you said okay I'm awake I'm not off my meds this is really happening somebody else sees it too so it's actually there you say do you confess that Jesus Christ came in the flesh for the redemption of sin if it says yes you say fine what's the message it should deliver the message and disappear anything that wants to play twenty questions and form a relationship and deep in a relationship is deceiving you because it's forbidden strictly in the Bible with the word abhorrent which is used very rarely in Scripture that God finds it abhorrent when we turn to other spirits and mediums and necromancy and divination and that he'll cut you off from his people and turn his face away from you why well what does it mean when you turn to a spirit for information or comfort about the afterlife and Uncle Fred who's passed on for instance you're violating the first commandment thou shall not put other spirits before me you're turning to some other spirit than God and you're implicitly saying to God look I don't trust you you're not taking care of me here I'm sad I'm suffering I'm going to turn to this other spirit and get some information about the afterlife or what's going on with my dead relative because I don't trust you that's what you're really saying but you don't realize you're saying that you're violating the first commandment and you're talking to some spirit that's happy to pretend to be Uncle Fred and all the demons are connected and they watch us our whole lives because they're here they've been here long before we were here so of course they know how to pretend to be Uncle Fred and say they know where you know you guys built the bird house in the backyard together and you put the little pink bird inside and nobody else knew that but Uncle Fred and it must be him all right they know all that because they were watching so these creatures no matter what game they're playing and I'm packing a lot of information in here for you so I'm sorry I'm going fast but they're completely evil all right they're not your friend they only want to destroy us and ultimately for us to commit suicide because the best win for them is when we commit suicide that their game is not to kill us that's not a win we just go to our judgment and suicides not a guaranteed end nation the church now understands that we're not in a right mind when we commit suicide so the culpability is lower but the devil still goes for it every time all the possess people tells the same thing from the very beginning when it was oppression they were telling me kill yourself kill yourself that's always his game so do we have to be afraid of all this not really no we don't the spiritual world is very legalistic if you take nothing else from this talk learn that the spiritual world is legalistic the demons are bound by rules if you learn the rules that they are bound to operate under God's rules you're greatly empowered the devil is not free to do whatever he wants if you understand the various rules that I'm packing into this hopefully you'll be empowered once you understand that it's legalistic and unless we give rights to the demons or form relationships with them they're not allowed to harm us beyond that normal activity of temptation okay then what are these rules well the biggest one going on in the culture today 2015 year we're living in is a paranormal craze as I said many many people are turning to this turning to other spirits and God for comfort or information violates the first commandment okay this has led to myriad cases all right 1 1 out of 4 - 1 out of 5 of all the cases we deal with that I've been connected with come out of paranormal investigating that's demonic infestations oppression xinpu sessions is very serious and Hollywood of course doesn't tell you that on TV nor do they tell you that most of those TV celebrities and I know them all personally because they call me for advice or help every six months to 12 months have very serious repercussions for what they're doing but of course they're not going to say that on TV because they're staking their lives and careers on this there they're stuck to a certain point and not willing to make those choices avoid forming relationships with anything that's not from God a little typo there for you that's good that's good everybody awake alright obviously very professional here the biggest thing is to participate sincerely in the sacramental life confession has undone myriad cases from ever developing into oppression or possession exorcism is a sacrament all a sacrament has guaranteed grace a guaranteed response from God when it's done properly confession which is powerfully happening in the back of the room terrifies and drives hell into a frenzy far more than any exorcism if you read about the curé of ARs and how the devil had said if there was what 12 is it father 12 priests like this in the world my kingdom would fall confession is extremely powerful because what does it do it undoes the rights that you have given through sin to a certain level of relationship you haven't explicitly said I want to have unusual connection with this spirit but through sin through serious sin you've given in to temptation the temptation gets stronger and it can get deeper and so you're cutting off that relationship before it even gets rolling it hasn't taken on an unusual form yet of like a Ouija board or a pendulum or talking in your head but it's forming a relationship and you cut it off sacramentally by the way at exorcisms the devil is not allowed to bring up sins that have been covered over with the sacrament of confession and removed and absolved some people say he can't even remember them they're wiped from his memory but we have seen him try to bring up a sin that's been confessed and all the priest has to do is say that's been confessed it's off the table the demon immediately shuts its mouth and moves on to the next thing they know the sacrament of confession is binding under God's rules if you're not taking advantage of confession you need to because it's not just with this scary stuff but you don't realize the effect of sin and not receiving that absolution and taking your soul back to the state it was at your baptism is an incredibly powerful thing that when we go periods of time without taking advantage of it it's very foolish because you may be slipping into a relationship just starting - without realizing it and through that confession in that absolution you feel that lift and that freedom and then you may look at some part of your life and say why am I doing this and you'll see that something's been undone pray out of love gratitude and service to God sincerely pray sincerely if you pray just with words and I know you're you guys are almost certainly you know beyond that very basic level of a prayer life I'm not saying mine is much better but if you just pray reciting words and again we get some feedback from the exorcisms where we you know how these demons in the room they will literally say the prayers with you and wag their finger while you say it you can whisper the same prayer with sincerity of heart whisper it in their ear and they'll shriek in pain two minutes later prayer is not about the words prayer is about configuring your inner self and that grace flowing through you through that sincere prayer so seek a sincere deep prayer life explore that find books on it read the Saints ask God to help you with that because that's going to affect and drive away the things that are trying to encroach on your life which is a natural part of life I'm not trying to scare you but powerful prayer that sincere is a great great weapon confession mass sincere prayer next so if those are the rules what are some ways that they're broken next spirit communication psycho motor signals divination psychics mediumship black magic and paranormal investigating or the big ones going on in our culture today psychomotor signals are like a person may ask part of their body to move well he just went back one so a person might like as part of their body to move if it's yes or no and they're you're giving legal rights to a spirit to manipulate part of your body so you've given dominion over automatic writing you've given rights to your arm and I've seen somebody do they were doing a Ouija board so they gave rights to their arms to the spirit and they were sitting having a having a whatever a nicety afterwards and thinking about this and of course I tried to warn them that people don't listen to me because I'm just a weirdo and they were sitting out on the stoop and you know reflecting on this scary Ouija board session and they had a glass and the glass started making a figure eight on the ground on its own on the sidewalk and said I'm not doing that and I'm like okay I know what's going on and a few minutes later said oh I need to go in and go to the bathroom and they're gone for like 15 minutes and I go in and find them and they're sitting up in a room and they have a pad of paper and they're looking at me but their hands writing really fast and I asked him if I could see it and it said you're mine you're mine I'll be with you forever you said you'd be my friend you're mine you're mine you're mine it was about a year later but when the person got to the place in their life where they could ask for prayer but by then it was talking in their head and it was starting to affect their whole life so you're giving dominion over to a spirit to operate part of your body you're giving rights away to part of your body when you're engaging in these practices psychics again it's making a person an idol and turning to them instead of God mediumship or channeling spirits through you do I have to explain why that's a bad idea okay hopefully not black magic obviously and what I mean by that is generally asking demons for favors and it's veiled and whatever thing it's veiled in but the bottom line is you're asking demons for favors bottom line is by the way demons have great disdain for people involved in witchcraft and Satanism when they get into the exorcism with us they mock those people the person they're possessing it's almost like when you're involved in this for long enough it's almost like you stand by the water cooler and you talk to Fred for a minute and go back to your desk you'll have moments like that in the midst of this where the demons like do you believe this person actually believed what I told them and they'll call them a bunch of expletives and deride them and mock them and then go back into you know whatever show they're putting on for us seriously I'm not kidding they have great disdain for people that fall for their games wiggling your fingers and saying some syllables doesn't do anything what you're doing is you're showing obedience to some book or something some spirit inspired you to and through obedience you're inviting relationship so that demon may play along to puff up your pride but that's all that's going on you're not actually controlling anything okay next trying to keep moving here unfortunately a lot of people that are older and alone widowed or widowers demons will come and pretend to be the dead spouse and the person in their grief and loss will invite that presence and interact with it this can also lead to possession the devil is not shy about playing on any human weakness the maternal instinct loss in our life he'll pretend to be anything that will get us to fall to him okay so accepting offers for companionship power assistance intimacy next Hardin sin some people we talked about the normal activity and how sin can get deeper and we've all probably experienced that I know I have if I don't try to act on something and address it that sin can get deeper it gets worse the behavior gets worse the fixation on it gets worse again it comes back to confession okay next and then straight up rejecting God okay which is something at the more serious end of things you guys hopefully will never be connected with but there is real Satanism not the like kids wearing black at the mall reading books from Barnes and Noble but the people raised in it just like we're raised in Catholicism there are people raised in this from birth systematically abused tortured and demonized in the womb and then after and there's a very ugly end of all of this stuff where we try to help those people come out of the wreckage that that comes out of those lifestyles when they asked for help we don't push ourselves on anybody but these people do come to the church sometimes when they're old and they're getting ready to die in the devil turns on them they've served him for 60 years they thought he was their friend he lent them power lent them money success whatever it was but when they're about to die he always turns on them it seems he can't help himself he's like okay I'm done with you so now I know I'm going to have some fun with you before you die and then they come to the church and say bail me out if we've opened these doors to relationship where do they lead next deeper sin and confusion sure next short-term gain until they have enough right so you can't say no this is very important demons again are con artists they will pretend that you are in power they will pretend you're in control they will pretend to obey you they'll pretend to be whatever you want until you're in so deep and the claws are in so deep and you don't realize it that when you go to pull out and say no they have you so they're only going to start hurting a person or causing real mayhem when they know they have enough legal rights that you can't back out on your own it's very much like like a like a mafia movie alright you take a loan from the wrong person you know what's wrong but now you're in debt and now you can't get out similar things spiritually infestation again is when they've gained the rights to have extraordinary activity in a place could be any place just like we have a church and we asked for grace and we give it over to God and we give honor to God and we consecrate that church to God the people on the evil side through their free will the person says I have authority over this building and I give it to the devil and so now the demons say we have rights to be active in this place okay so there's places where infestations happen that basically means if you go into that place you will experience some of those effects depending on how vulnerable you are and what level of relationship you are in with them people go in there that already have a relationship it's really bad for them we go in it usually goes flatlining quiet because they want nothing to do with the priest they're like Oh nobody's here nope no demons no nope you can just move along we're not doing anything okay so it's very different depending on where you're at here in your spiritual relationship demonic oppression or sometimes written obsession translation issue from obsessive the bottom line is this is when they formed a relationship with an individual and they're now going to start wearing this person down this is basically torture in various ways sleep deprivation is almost always part of the program because sleep deprivation any of you have had serious pain issue at some time in your life and not being able to sleep I know I have my shoulder was injured okay I know some of you have if you've ever been sleep deprived where you can't sleep it's awful okay and these things will torment a person that's part of it but I mean you know scratching biting throwing downstairs horrible odors in the house black shadows voices calling that sound like your husband or your wife when they're not home etc etc you think you're going crazy this is all the typical demonic oppression of a person posesión what does that mean does that mean the demons in your body no the demons of spirit it's not a physical thing it's not really in your body possession is when a demon has the rights to take over your lower faculties what our lower faculties lower faculties are the body and the emotions the intellect the will cannot be touched because your free will is a gift from God through which you exercise choice throughout life you can always repent and say I want help we have fully possessed people that have fully given in to the devil at some point and they come to the church and say I want help now the demon may choke them off and the act of saying that they may collapse when they get to the threat of the church they may not be able to speak to father about it because the demon stopped them but they've expressed their will God always allows the will to be active so possession is the rights to take over those things use the body as their own affect the emotions but the will is always there so a demon can be quote-unquote in a person without being able to possess them give you a quick example we don't have time for many war stories but a real case a very pious wonderful young lady from Peru in South America was basically raised mostly by her grandmother who was a village witch did tarot card readings herbal stuff all kinds of spiritual services for for the area taught her tarot cards on her on her knee from the time she was very little she never did them once in her life but because this is what you know grandma's teaching me she picked it up from watching never did it 26 years into her life she's a college here in the states and her friends are playing with tarot cards in a dorm room and they're got their little book and they're trying to figure out how to do it and laughing and you know it's a college thing and she says well you know I I could probably show you how to do that a little better I mean I know a lot about it you know I don't need the little book and she made the mistake of reading the tarot cards that night she went from zero to full possession now when we were dealing with the demon the first thing the demon started saying was stupid witch stupid witch stupid witch stupid witch stupid witch and it was ranting about her grandmother and we said what are you talking about and it said that old woman put me in this pious girl and I had a sitting here for 26 years I couldn't put a finger on her for 26 years and I had to listen to her praying and being nice to people and he was just complaining and complaining about the grandmother she's getting help she actually called me just like a week ago to give me an update it's been a few years since I talked with her so these are just some of the examples of the way go with possession so if we've gotten into trouble how do we get out of trouble let's say we've tripped up we watch the TV shows we played around with paranormal investigating and now something's in the house and it won't go away or I was a teenager and angry and I got a book on witchcraft from the mall and I did a spell and it actually seemed to do something but now something's whispering in my room when I try to go to sleep whatever it might be how do we get out of it next for everything up to possession all right so full-blown possession requires solemn exorcism it's a whole different thing but everything up to that infestation you know obsessing about a sin even oppression where you're being attacked but you're not being taken over it is usually renunciation the sacramental life and prayer blessings of course as part of that now those are all the normal actions of the church you notice renunciation is the most important exorcism is a two-part process break the rites and get rid of the demon you're not really getting rid of it by the way you're removing it from its extraordinary activity because they're always going to be around but renunciation is very important once you've identified that you've said yes or done something that was against the rules that opened and started a relationship you close that door unless you do that all the prayer in the world isn't going to stop it because God doesn't force himself on us when we've chosen evil we always have free will we're allowed to choose evil so you need to learn what the rules are and close those doors the sacramental life particularly confession is the most powerful remedy to extraordinary demonic problems because it removes rights now removing rights is part of it getting it away from you is the other part now for everything up to possession the mass and a sincere prayer life is enough to drive them away I'm not saying you go to Mass once after confession and it should instantly stop I'm saying that the healthy Catholic sacramental life is like a hammer on an anvil just driving them away driving them away driving them away and depending on how deep you've gotten that should remedy it when sincerely engaged in a lot of people run around saying I needed exorcism I need an exorcism these horrible crazy things are happening you must do an exorcism for me and we try to explain gently the church's rules are clear based on thousands of years of experience solemn exorcism is only when this is going on you need to sincerely engage in your spiritual life in the sacraments people don't want to hear that they want to hear bring the magic wand wave it over me make my problems go away so I can go back to living the way I want that's really what they're saying and we say you have to change your life and repent and that's work luckily we can pray that they have the grace to do that work in some cases up to possession deliverance prayer is also needed what's deliverance prayer really briefly deliverance prayer is oh god please help this situation it's an indirect request to God to do something that's called deprecatory prayer technical term it's a request I'm not directly engaging in a conflict with a demon in predatory prayer is in the name of Jesus Christ get out it's not a direct it's not a request it's a direct interaction so now there's a conflict and by engaging in a direct conflict you have consented to the pushback because you've thrown the glove down and said of the demon let's go and this is why the church separates solemn exorcism from everything up to exorcism because when a demon has full rights to possess a body it requires a direct adoration from the priest to dislodge it does that make sense now generally in the deliverance prayer world in the charismatic world there's I think debate about how far to go basically here's my stance on it based on experience and seeing real cases that came out of things praying for somebody is a powerful thing and unless they're fully possessed and even when they're possessed ill pray for them overstepping your bounds and saying in the name of Jesus get out and taking the role of direct in predatory adoration is probably dangerous because you're telling the spirit I want to struggle with you spiritually I'm commanding you to get out in the name of Jesus Christ even though I'm not a priest I don't have the bishops permission therefore I don't have the weight of the church's prayer behind me it's just me and my faith I'm telling you to get out in the name of Jesus Christ you are consenting to a struggle you're consenting to a conflict to a certain extent I'm not saying it's going to blow up and be a problem every time but understand what you're doing okay the church is generally reserved in Prak Ettore language and this is explored a little more fully in a few places Cardinal then Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a letter about this in 1986 to the whole world to be promulgated all over the world saying laypeople aren't supposed to be talking to demons trying to think how it's probably that it's pointing towards me yeah it's pointing towards me a little bit okay so that's my advice the other advice is in this mate is not popular with everybody I've seen a lot of problems come out of touching somebody and praying against whatever problem they have why when a priest touches somebody their hands are consecrated there's a reason that priests lay hands on things and bless them with consecrated hands when a lay person lays hands and physically touches and starts praying against something particularly in predatory language and the name of Jesus get out of them stop bothering them get away from them whatever it is you have consented to a struggle with whatever spiritual baggage that person has now we have a real full-blown possession it's going on 15 years now in this country from a person who prayed over somebody else who had a demonic problem use the leonine minor exorcism that includes in prac Ettore language begone Satan this type of thing and touch them while they did it they felt it rush into them and they've been possessed ever since I'm not saying that's going to happen every time but if you stumble across somebody who's possessed and you don't know they're possessed and you touch and pray against it you said I challenge you and you're giving the contact which is it's very important and you know we don't have time to explore this but God has created our bodies and physicality that touch is a very important thing so my advice to you is pray for people don't be drawn into the idea that no no I need to touch them and lay hands on them and I need to command it to get out because this is actually pride I need to be the special person that when I touch people the demons flee and run away you see how the devil can draw you into pride with that praying for somebody is submission to God Jesus you're in charge okay Jesus please help this situation you're the only one that has the ability to resolve this ultimately anyway even if something happens is I'm praying and touching somebody it's Jesus Christ doing it he mandated us to do these things yes mandated the church to do them should be the priest doing it so I know that's not popular but that's my advice pray for people sincerely with your heart don't be touching people that you don't know what's going on there because you could be getting into a tussle with more than you bargained for and it's safer just to pray for possession and exorcist priests usually needs to use the exorcism Rite and basically with full-blown possession solemn exorcism is a fixed right it was just revised for the first time since 1614 the English translation went over to Rome it should be done by this summer and it's a fixed right that you sit and read the book and do what it says read the book make the sign of the Cross read this part put your hand on and read this part put the stole on them etc etc it's a fixed ritual okay almost always that's required to dislodge the demon there have been cases where people are fully possessed in Saints have just come up and prayed in general you know to God and the person's been freed st. Francis delivered a whole city of Assisi of demons just by praying right I'm sure there's been holy people that make a gesture in the demons flee but usually it requires a solemn exorcism right of the church basic steps of freedom understand what was done by you or someone else to give them rights we don't have time to get into it but parents can give rights you can baptize a child right does that baby choose to be baptized did they consent to the baptism no they're a baby they don't even know what's going on but God honors your authority as a parent to do that an action happens same thing on the evil side there are parents that are involved in evil that use that same authority and they give an affliction to that child and exercise that authority the other way it's a whole other topic and it generally only affects multi-generational Satanism and black magic but I just want you to understand that parents have tremendous authority over their children understand what was done by you or someone else renounce it and confess it for your part and if it was an ancestor and I don't I don't know much about the whole family healing the family tree thing that's going around I don't know much about it I'm not judging it one way or the other but in my experience I can tell you that it's as simple as sitting with a priest and informally saying Jesus I don't know what could have been done or not done by an ancestor but anything that was done I reject it I only want you in my life please break any rights that any ancestor may have promised to the devil to my generation of the family or any afterwards it's as simple as that and I've seen that be effective in very serious cases renounce and confess those through various forms of prayer ask Jesus to remove the problem now that those rights have been removed grow from the experience and conform your life closer to God to Jesus Christ grow from that experience take that experience and let it propel you and focus on God don't look back and think about the horrible thing that happened and talk about it all this is not the area of spirituality to build your spiritual life on don't become fixated on all this stuff if you have a bad experience you burn your hand on the stove learn from it don't stick your hand on the stove anymore and focus on all the wonderful things in life and God paranormal investigating is breaking the first commandment think I've gone over that a couple times it's important because it's a big trend in our culture anything that wants to have dialogue or deepen a relationship with a focus on it is not God it's not from God okay if Jesus Christ himself is coming to you go to your bishops office and make sure that you're not having a mental health problem but that's very rare okay and if you're a saint at that point and God's giving you that grace that's kind of an exception that's an asterisks on the chart okay but anything that's coming to you and saying like no spend time with me every night we're going to talk and I'll give you advice and and I'm going to do favors for you and give you a good job interview and everything else that's not God that's a deceptive spirit demons are not your friend or servants they don't care about magic and they mock the humans that serve them they only pretend to be subservient to magic and all these tricks to lure people in deeper till they can't get out Jesus is real and he's alive and only allows and limits these negative experiences as learning experiences when just when people just can't keep their hand out of the cookie jar so in the end all this is allowed to glorify God right in the Gospels that glorified Jesus and it provided evidence to the Jews and the people that saw him doing exorcisms that the finger of God was amongst them and it glorified him and it helped those people hopefully they had a corrective experience they were delivered and that propels them hopefully forward in their spiritual life just a few points because a lot of people have families some family points raising children what are the issues with drugs and alcohol well they do weaken the will they make us more likely to make bad choices I think we all know that a side note on this that you should be aware of a lot of the cartels in Mexico and other places that and South America basically a lot in some of them are made here of course a lot of these cartels are involved in demon ultry a worship of demons their various cult Santa Muerte is one of the ones that you've probably seen in the media at some point which is basically a skeletal version of our lady that people worship as a saint of death that protects them from getting killed in criminal activity there are many other cartel based cults that are even darker than that one and there's some really ugly stuff that happens in that that they don't talk about in the news stories about it a lot of these people that are manufacturing the hard drugs are putting those demons and cursing quote-unquote cursing it's a loaded word we would bless something they asked the demons to go into that physical matter and then sell those drugs as a way to get brownie points with Satan because those demons are attached to those drugs they're spirits but they're attached to them and through freewill when we take them in to us we've consented to the beginning of a relationship with them and so that those cartels get brownie points with the demons they serve this is a this is a hint about why grace was probably so important over time you would never consume something until you prayed over at first because you don't know where it's been or what's been done to it spiritually okay so drugs and alcohol can be a very serious issue what about paranormal investigating I think we've beaten that to death how do I keep my family safe again the sacramental life and learn the rules and then just avoid the problems okay what can I do if there's trouble I think we've covered that up to full possession sacramental life renunciation is key realize what rules been broken reflect on it see if you can sincerely repent then repent and then move on what is my authority as a parent this is important to realize - you have tremendous authority as a parent to bless your children but also to curse your children of course you guys aren't going to do that but understand that the multi-generational people that serve evil we're on the good side and the Catholic families you're raised in this there's people that exercise that authority the other way just like I can choose sin and I'm allowed to choose that God doesn't force himself on me other people that have authority over me could have chosen that so it never hurts to just say Lord I reject anything any ancestor did don't get hung up on it don't be fearful about it but if anything's there close those doors as a side note Mary is almost always the figure that comes and ends the case when the person's finally completely delivered even people that are not Christian and have no idea home areas now everybody everybody's seen an image of Mary somewhere but people that don't really know the story at all that are not Christian that have been exorcised and certainly the Christians and Catholics say this too they say when it finally ended and by the way the average is two years of weekly sessions can be 10 or more this is a brutal long process exorcism it's not like in the movies they invariably say this beautiful woman came in the room they described one of the typical images of Mary she came up and she said it's over and like that they were gone so Mary plays a direct visceral role in the ending of just about every possession case Mediatrix of all graces okay and in Revelations the woman that steps on the neck of the serpent okay power of family connections I've just just as a side note the prayer for children for a possessed parent when an innocent child prays for their parent is incredibly powerful so our ability to love and bless and pray for each other that we're biologically connected to that God has created this relationship is very powerful [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: EWTN

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Keywords: EOL, EOL02147

Id: JKnGdr9WMqs

Length: 54min 30sec (3270 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2017