EWTN on Location - 2019-10-26 - Allure and Truth About Wicca and Witchcraft (The)

[Music] Adam Bligh okay can you hear me is this working you can hear me okay sort of let me come up a little bit is that better okay well let's see really briefly my background is originally in mental health I have a master's in adult clinical psychology mostly spent my time in mental health working in forensic settings in state prisons I've been working for the Diocese of Pittsburgh at the Chancery full-time since 2014 I've been assisting in demonic cases in the United States for about 15 years I've been a member an auxilary member of the International Association of Exorcist out of Rome which is a Vatican recognized private Association of the faithful for over 10 years now since 2008 I helped train exorcists across the country I'm a layperson not a priest but for whatever reason and if you can figure it out let me know I'd love to know but I'm in this role of training priests and exorcism so I've been at hundreds and hundreds of solemn exorcisms at this point and helped train at national conferences both in Tulsa and I'm gonna be starting to train at the Pope Leo Institute where a friend of Mines the president of that so what I wanted to talk about today a little bit is Wicca and witchcraft Wicca is becoming a increasingly popular religion in our country and it is an efficient officially recognized religion by the United States government yeah and the numbers are dramatically increasing and there's a number of other indications surrounding that so I think it's useful because there's a lot of misinformation about where Wicca came from a lot of lies that are told about it that it's the world's most ancient nature religion or you know various various stories but we're gonna take a look at where it actually comes from and then we're gonna talk a little bit about some of the things that we see in the exorcism world where we end up dealing with the fallout in the train wreck that comes out of witchcraft and black magic because black magic is the root of most possession cases so the story really starts with Margaret Murray now this woman was an Egyptologist and an academic study study or of folklore she was 1863 to 1963 she essentially this is this is where it all started so she had a period in her life where she couldn't do the work that she wanted to do in Egyptology so she was limited to or academic reading as opposed to fieldwork she got interested in the witch trials that came out of the early modern era of the church and you know you've heard a lot of stories about that in references to it we're in Europe and then in the United States which was very early in the United States a number of women and men were tried for witchcraft some a limited number were actually executed and that was by civil authorities because the church has no penalty of execution so she basically poured over a lot of this material she came to the conclusion that there was a pre-christian religion that was indicated by the testimony given by the people and the witch trials which by the way was given under torture and duress and the threat of additional torture so it's very questionable testimony to begin with she concluded that there was there was this faith that predated Christianity that these people were engaging in that it wasn't actually witchcraft in the Christian sense of being a bad thing but it was some type of indigenous religion that worshipped a Horned God and that was because so many of the people that reported engaging in witchcraft reported going to Sabbath's or meetings out in nature and worshiping a male figure that was wearing a horned how now at the time this was very new this was really the first time in them in the modern period that anybody talked about witchcraft it really outside of the folk witchcraft that everybody knew of and we continue to know of all over the world the kind of folk religion and folk superstitions this was the first time it was academically talked about so the Encyclopedia Britannica ran an article on her theory and then they continued to run it for 40 years now back then there was no internet and there was very limited access to libraries so the encyclopedia was really had a huge impact on people's understanding of the world and they took what was in the encyclopedia as very authoritative as anybody who's a little bit older remember how every family had an encyclopedia in their home okay so this used to be the norm basically before everybody had a cellphone everybody had the encyclopedia at home so you can imagine how having this article on witchcraft that said that there was this pre-christian religion for 40 years 40 editions of it would have had an impact on our social understanding and the idea of witchcraft was really established in this way now the difficult thing is she was quickly discredited this theory was quickly discredited in the academic community that she had made huge leaps in her postulating of this religion based on scant evidence and it not only was discredited by all of her peers at the time or basically all but a few there's always somebody who likes a pet theory anybody's substantial anybody authoritative discredited this eventually Britannica stopped running the story and to this day if you go to Encyclopedia Britannica's website and type in her name you'll see the story of her theory in that it's been discredited so just to be clear this is where it started and the academic theory was not sound but what did she describe in terms of what this pre-christian religion was was about what were some of the some of the traits of it well it essentially was 12 witches 12 females and one devil figure that they would worship in their ceremonies each witch within the organization would be specialized in a different type of magic sometimes cursing sometimes causing sickness or death in people or livestock the raising of storms the seduction of people etc now there was also within her theory which is that would do healing and things that were pro-social that would have been you know something people wanted that seemed to be good like healing of diseases they also specialized in divination and bringing about prosperity divination as you just heard in the previous talk is a huge problem and we'll get to it to why that is spoiler alert first commandment but we'll get to that in a little bit so it's important also to note here again that the object of worship in her theory this isn't real this is her theory was a male figure wearing this horned helmet basically some type of Horned God within this theory that she had there was four types of sacrifice blood sacrifice new members would write their name and blood in kind of a contract and a commitment to participate in this religion there would be the blood sacrifice of animals the killing of animals which was common in the ancient world there would be the sacrifice of human children which we know from the Old Testament was common in a number of cultures in the ancient world and there would also be the burning of the man playing the role of this male figure the one that would wear the horns would eventually in the cycle of the year at some point be burned to death now again this is just her theory this isn't a real thing but this is what ran in the encyclopedia for 40 years and it formed a lot of what our presuppositions are about what witchcraft is because it was just taken his truth now there's a lot more to it I'm just giving you some of the highlights how did they worship in this religion she thought that they came together at Sabbat at a meeting in the woods they would worship and pay homage to this God they would renew their vows of obedience they would then recount all of the magic all the spells and curses that they had done since their last meeting because they would get kind of credit for that they would get encouragement for that that was a good thing and then they would do their ceremonies and then things would kind of wind down so then came this figure and some of you if you've looked into Wicca have heard of this guy so Gerald Gardner a really kind of interesting fellow he was a British wealthy man who lived in various colonies of the British Empire to a large extent he lived in part of Portugal he became really fascinated with indigenous religions and particularly with the trance States that people would go into in some of these religions if you've seen videos of Santeria and some of the other cults that have a lot of trance in them you would have seen what he saw back in those days and that's really excited him so he eventually retired when he got older came back to England and he he was seeking people that were had similar interests in the area he was in there was a group of Freemasons and we don't have time to unpack all of that but basically Freemasonry is bad the church has always said it's the greatest enemy of the church the Pope's have said he can't be a freemason and spoiler alert you still can't be a freemason that's that's the CliffsNotes so these these local Freemasons which were all men were really into a number of strange cults and strange kind of rituals and behaviors and things like that so through them he met the new Forrest coven which was basically a group of nudists that were practicing kind of pseudo what they thought would have been pagan religions but they were really doing a lot of Freemasonry stuff and combining it with stuff that they made up that they thought would have been kind of basically indigenous or druid and by the way we don't know anything about the druids really outside of some documents from the roman emperors who basically said they sacrifice humans and they wear white but that's about all we know about them so anybody know who this creepy guy is yeah real charmer so basically and I'm sorry for looking down but I've got this big screen here and it's reminding me of what my slide is because I can't see behind me okay so he thought Gerald Gardner thought okay these guys here running around in the woods naked at the bonfire must be that religion that Margaret talked about and wow I found this surviving descendant of her religion she was right and he said okay so we need to preserve this but I want to be in charge so he starts his own coven that's kind of like that but what he does is he takes stuff from Aleister Crowley who's the darkest and most vicious occultist of the 19th century that he was friends with and Aleister Crowley won a gerald gardner to inherit his religion when he died the thing leymah and be the new head of it that's how tight these two guys were so Gerald takes Aleister Crowley's really nasty black occult religion which also involves child sacrifice and he advocated child sacrifice was the best source of magical power so this is a really nasty guy he takes the the worst of Aleister Crowley kind of takes the nudist colony and then he takes some of the stuff that he had seen when he was growing up the trances and the other stuff and he kind of combines all this together and he calls it witchcraft he didn't call it Wicca so Gardner called his system modern witchcraft he said the people that participate in it are Wiccans he never said the religion is Wicca it eventually evolved into people misunderstanding and calling it Wicca but it was always meant to be witchcraft at least according to Gardner so gardener also primarily focused on the male aspect of things again there was females there was males it was more mixed but the central figure was a male figure wearing a horned helmet that represented a horned god of some kind now there was a female High Priestess also so of course guess what no surprise Jared gets to be the high priest right he's in charge and he finds women that he likes that he wants to have as his girlfriend and he makes them the High Priestess now a number of women went through and got tired of Gerald in his antics and left but basically they kind of played second fiddle he was maintained the male aspect that you worshiped was the main focus of his religion now there was a lot of other stuff in there a lot of basically summoning demons and black magic and cutting deals with spirits and all the stuff that Aleister Crowley was really into which is go etic magic is one thing of it which is supposedly Solomon's stuff from the building of the temple King Solomon from the Bible it's not true but Aleister Crowley said this is how Solomon some of the demons that built the temple for him crazy stuff now to give you a sense of that this is a this is not a fixed system so it's an amalgam of basically a made-up thing that Margaret did that wasn't based at all in fact it was just based in her fantasy of what this religion might have been and then you take Aleister Crowley's wacky stuff which is probably demonically inspired and you mash it together with a penchant for a nudist colony and then you say each person each Wiccan who's running around in the woods doing all this stuff keeps their own Book of Shadows which is their own book of magic and then as they develop their personal magic they write it and change it and expand it and so each person has their own version of witchcraft so there is no central book there is no central teaching everybody kind of goes off on their own to a certain extent but based on Gerald's system so one of the women that got tired of Gerald in his antics was Doreen and Doreen basically said you know I'm tired of playing second fiddle to you I'm gonna go off and do my own thing so she split off from Gerald and she started her own coven of witches and this was also in England all this stuff basically started in England Crowley was in England Gerald was Doreen was she was the first one that made it more feminine centered so there was still a Horned God involved but she focused more on the female on the feminine because she wanted to be the main the main player in the drama so Jerrod's called the father of Wicca she's called the mother of modern witchcraft now a little bit later some people started trying to link and kind of build a case for this being the world's most ancient religion this is the most true religion this is the the primal worship of the earth and one of the main arguments for this was they would find these statues of exaggerated females in Neolithic archaeological dig sites and this is obviously an exaggerated female with an emphasis on fertility and these are found all over Europe and Asia so this was basically a common thing in the Stone Age now we don't know anything more than that because it's not like there's books it's not like there's writing on rocks we don't know what these things were meant to symbolize but people said basically borrowing a page from Margaret well this must be part of this ancient religion that that you know and this means that the earth goddess was the true center of this ancient religion before this Horned God got involved and again yet more fantasy of things with no evidence so Aleister Crowley that really creepy guy he wanted to keep his stuff secret and Gerald said no we've got to tell the world about it we've got to publish it we've got to give interviews on the BBC we've got to get this out there because um and I'm gonna die soon and I want my legacy to be spread everywhere so him and Hollister split over that and Jarrell basically started publishing most of what he did in a number of books and again remember Margaret's stuff had ran for 40 years and so people took the the background theory of witchcraft pretty seriously and he was saying we'll look at her she discovered all this stuff and there's a saint religion and everybody validated it and Britannica ran the story and I have found a living extension of that and I'm gonna tell you all about it and so there was this false Authority that was created this air of authority about all of this stuff so he started publishing books and even it's this interview on the BBC and this had a huge impact it ran in a number of countries around the world and this is the first people had heard of living modern witches it was still something people knew what a witch was but it was like oh yeah that's kind of a Bible thing or it's a Middle Ages thing and that doesn't exist in the modern world and here was this guy with this kooky hair saying like yeah absolutely we've run around in the woods naked it's great and you know you all should join me okay just as a side note the issue of druids and some people like to say that that Wicca is kind of founded on the druids which is kind of this exotic you know word that we hear about we know next to nothing about the druids again except what a few Roman emperors wrote in some documents after encountering them all we know is that they were involved in divination human sacrifice there was some type of priesthood and we also knew the odd detail that once a year they would sacrifice a person in this wicker man has anybody seen the movie The Wicker Man either the old version in the 60s or the modern one not many people it's not a very good movie it's basically this poor guy goes to this island or this isolated area and these nutty people put him up in this wicker man and trap him in there and then burn it they set it on fire so we knew from the stuff from the Romans that the Druids did this and in the 60s and 70s when Gardner stuff in his books suddenly were out people got interested in all these ancient religions that we just had hints about and they also wondered maybe maybe this faith is an extension of the Druids so again within the academic world all of this stuff got shot down very quickly as based on sand already because Margaret stuff had long ago been discounted and Gardner stuff was this amalgam of just craziness with with a bunch of extra stuff added into it that really wasn't based on any evidence so he's combining occultism Freemasonry and he then published these how-to books and called it witchcraft okay now the bottom right one there is just for fun but I believe that's the woman that played the witch in The Wizard of Oz so what's going on with Wicca now well it's been recognized as official religion of the by the US government in 1986 the Pew Research people found that 1 to 1.5 million Wiccans or we're in the United States as of 2008 this is an estimate because not everybody reports and it's in its statistical you don't sample literally everybody now there was a news story that floated around because their numbers apparently exceeded the Protestant denomination so some people like Rick is accelerating quickly the US census in 2008 more conservatively put them at about 340 mm but what's I think particularly telling or possibly particularly telling and we're going to know at the next census the next census is going to be very important for this in 2008 there was 326 books on Wicca published in the United States in 2016 there was 1512 so there's a dramatic increase in the interest in the production of material around this so why might this be going on of course we all naturally crave spirituality and spiritual experiences we have a natural yearning for God that's built into us and for the most part we're becoming a less religious Society and we're becoming less Christian but we still have a yearning for spiritual experiences and Wicca claims to offer power which is not true but it offers power over your life in the world around you so Wicca essentially says you can do these spells and whatnot and stop the things that are hurting you in the world and get the things that you want in the world your will can be pushed on to the world and you can have control in your life this is the promise of magic in general it has the illusion of being an ancient religion which we just went over I think in reasonable detail and by the way all this can be researched I'm not just a nutty guy who's down on Wicca and I you know only picked some of the things though research sister yourself it's all available to you this is the history of it and even the people that Chronicle the history of witchcraft within witchcraft will say the same things I just covered this is this is all common knowledge but it seems ancient because most people don't know that backstory most people attracted to witchcraft are generally teenagers because that's when we feel the most out of control in life and we're trying to individuate from our parents and our family which is a natural part of growing up but that individuation in that sense of lack of control in adolescence makes witchcraft really attractive to some people particularly people that have been hurt or they feel neglected because witchcraft offers them a sense of power when they feel power less or feel like the world has hurt them and that's why Satanism and witchcraft is attractive to people that have been wounded so again it seems to be mysterious and ancient but it's not it's basically made up by a number of the first woman that started it was more of an academic she probably wasn't nearly as nutty as gardener and Aleister Crowley was a complete nut so there's a lot of nuttiness in it and by now there's basic basically a million versions of this different flavors and versions for every personality and so you can no longer as you couldn't say in gardeners day there is no one Wicca there is no one witchcraft there's no one book like we have a Bible so let's talk briefly about some of the moving into what might be behind some of this on the spiritual now for most people what we just covered is a social phenomenon they're not necessarily in the beginning really sincerely interested in demons or the Christian theology of them or thinking that they're genuinely real they find out usually in their journey in that stuff eventually but in the beginning they're not but let's talk about we're gonna step now into the perspective of the world of exorcism that I live in where basically I study canon law which my diocese has been in Canon Law School and I go to exorcisms that's like my life and from our perspective what do we see we see a lot of our cases are witches or Satanists because the level of relationship required for you to free will consent to that relationship to get possessed is at the level of black magic in most cases it's either you doing it or your parent doing it to you just like you can baptize a baby because you have authority over them sadly there's parents that do the opposite okay so from our perspective in our world it is real but we'll explain why the demons couldn't care less about what the particular religion is but what are these creatures really briefly I know you already know this their fallen angels they're not bad people they're spirits but they can't affect physical things they have no body no physicality but they can affect physical things they're irredeemable they're never going to say they're sorry to God they're never going to repent or can they because when they chose to rebel it was with full awareness to the end of time of the consequence of their choice who in here has looked back on their life and said I was young and dumb and I did bad things and maybe now you're better right hopefully I'm still working on the better part the difference between you and an angel is your mind is limited you grow and experience and get wiser with time and hopefully become a better person and stop being so selfish an Angel's mind doesn't change over time they saw with clarity to the end of time their their choice and they're never gonna rethink it and say to God I was young and dumb I needed the money I'm sorry okay so they're irredeemable don't ever let them play that game of woe is me I'm a poor demon and God so mean to me they don't want to repent I'll give you a really quick side story to illustrate this anybody read the booklet begone Satan that the church published back in the 30s it's on EWTN website like one person okay good we got one we got one exorcism fan in the room so the church published this this pamphlet you can go read it later but probably don't at one point the the Capuchin that was doing the exorcism Satan was appearing in the room making an image of himself you know and and being the big boogeyman and the priest was really tired and this is in the internal hand type version of the document it's not the version for the public there there's we have the internal one also but the interesting story is and I know I'm eating up some seconds here but it's kind of kind of funny kind of the priest is really tired one day and says look Satan with all this nonsense and all this drama and all this wear and tear on everybody why don't you just repent why do we all have to go through this you're going through a lot of suffering we're going through suffering why don't you just repent what you know God is merciful and literally in quotes in his hand typed ancient paper from the 30s in quotes they put what Satan said back he said are you a competent theologian dead serious so he does trash talk us but it's in a very urbane way it's a lower demons that are a little more foul-mouthed so anyway one take-home message to remember as a side thing on this talk is demons are not running free doing whatever they want they're all on a leash and God has a leash they can only do as much as God gives them permission to do it's just like in the book of Job they have to go to the throne and say I should be able to possess so and so because they invited me and they did X Y & Z and they can only go as far as God gives them leave to go so you don't need to be afraid that you're gonna be walking down the street you get knocked over and you're possessed just because it doesn't happen so they're creatures on a leash they're limited they're incredibly limited they're only scary and quote-unquote powerful when you've entered into a relationship with them all right we we stay out of that relationship and we go to exorcisms every week for years and everybody's fine so you know and of course by the way God doesn't create evil evil is a byproduct of the gift of free will God loves us he loves the angels he gave the Angels freewill he gave us free will but true free will and the freedom to act on it allows for evil so in a sense evil as a necessary byproduct of the love of God that gives us true free will because if he didn't let us sin and turn away from him in a sense we'd be robots it wouldn't really be freewill same with the angels and I hear the question in your mind then why can't some of the Angels fall now anybody know cuz they already made the decision yeah they made a decision to obey God but why wouldn't they stop obeying God why wouldn't they say you know what I'm gonna go downstairs for a while and see what that's like what did Jesus say about the the children when they were shooing the children away from him and he said don't don't push the children away from me they're angels are before my father in heaven so what did that mean Wow okay so they're angels their guardian angels are also simultaneously before my father in heaven so that means they've received the beatific vision so back at creation when God made everything and made the angels he didn't he withheld to beatific vision so that they could exercise their free will because if he had shown himself fully to them would it have really been a free choice how can you say no and disobey God if you see God face to face and so his beatific vision was withheld the Angels that obeyed the two thirds that obeyed read revelations for that a third of the Angels star swept from the sky are now in the presence of God and the beatific vision that's why they're not going to fall okay a few tidbits from the world of exorcism demons mock and denigrate people that think black black magic controls them they think this is hilarious the people think that they can draw a circle on the floor and with all their fingers and say some mumbo-jumbo and that the demons suddenly is going to obey them as a powerful witch or magician they think that's hilarious they don't serve people they only pretend to in the beginning to draw the person in deeper until they're in so deep they can't get out on their own they only respond to God or those God is using the priests appointed by the bishop are really the only ones that they're going to obey if if a baptized Christian is in the room demon won't obey couldn't care less if a priest comes in the room that doesn't have the permission from the bishop they don't have that apostolic authority lent to them by the bishop we've seen this a dozen times or more the first thing when that priest just walks in the room and enters the demon will turn and say what do you think you're gonna do you don't have any authority over me I'm not listening to you and they won't he can go out and call the bishop on the cell phone hey bishop we got a live one can I have permission to do the exorcism okay Bob no problem great walks back in the room demon knows didn't overhear the conversation demon knows priest says sit in the chair and shut up until I tell you otherwise walks over sits down and waits okay that's literally the difference between the two situations apostolic authority is required and once you have that if you understand how to use it they obey because at that point you're properly being used by God's church and you have that authority that Jesus gave the church which he gave in the fullness to the Apostles did I mention that they mock people that have fallen to them through black magic they'll say things quite literally like the the exorcism will just start and you're in that moment of like at the watercooler at work and like before you go back to work on your TPS reports who knows the office and the demons they're getting his cup of water and they'll literally say things to us because they've long since given up putting on the theatrical show for us because they know we don't care and we already have seen it a dozen times so they'll be like do you believe this one fell for it too I can't believe this this one and they'll they'll use derogatory language for them they mock them and and think it's just really pathetic that people fell for the black magic line so what's at the root of all that of the real problem with black magic why is black magic a big deal why does black magic lead to most of the possession cases because it's a violation of the first commandment so you put God first you trust God in all things by turning to a spirit other than God and cutting a deal for power to get what you want to harm your enemy to get the new car to get the girl to get rich to play guitar whatever it is that you're doing and we've seen cases along all these lines even the guitar one you're telling God I don't trust you you're taking too long I want what I want now on my terms and I'm going to turn to this other spirit to get it so you're breaking your friendship with God and you're turning to another spirit to get what you want on your time table that's why black magic is a big deal you've entered mortal sin by violating the first commandment and you've started a relationship with the demon okay so what are the some of the ways the demons are drawing people into these violations of the first commandment the modern spiritualist movement which is researched with a revival of the spiritualist movement and what what does that mean that just means that after world wars a lot of people are bereaved and have lost their sons and husbands and a lot of people are desperate to have some confirmation that there's an afterlife that their son or husband can hear that you love them one last time etc etc and there's a whole host of people willing to exploit that to make money so the spiritualist movement was really big after World War one then after World War two and then it died out after about a decade and this is basically ghost hunting in the days when the tables would wrap and make noises as opposed to the digital it's now come back of course with ghost hunting shows and now everybody thinks it's perfectly safe and fine to go in grandma's attic and pull out a digital recorder and try to record the sound of so-and-so who supposedly died in the house we you heard in the last talk about how serious necromancy is calling up the dead to talk to them again because you're telling God I don't trust you and what are you doing when you talk to a spirit one of three things you're seeking comfort information or power that's really what it all boils down to I'm scared of my own death and what's gonna happen is there an afterlife I'm sad that somebody died and I want to communicate with them and have some solace that they're okay somehow someway or I'm seeking power I want a cool experience I can tell people about I want to charge people money for this I want to get on TV - and you're cutting got off and you're asking this other spirit to provide B's for you you're saying I don't trust your catechism god I don't trust your Bible I don't trust prayer I want my answers right now and who are the people that do that often the wounded again with the wounds the people that have lost somebody and they're sad and they're bereaved and their heart hurts and they want some comfort so they're vulnerable and the demon comes when we're vulnerable and wounded okay of course pornography is a huge issue we don't have time to get into but it's it's going to be an increasing issue as each generation grows up being exposed to it before puberty and and basically throwing their whole psychosocial psychosexual development off so we talked about the history of Wicca and we kind of showed that it's basically a made-up series of wiggling your fingers and saying things and to think you're gonna get what you want the demons couldn't care less about that but if you're breaking the first commandment they'll step in and play the role sure I'll be your guardian angel sure I'll be your grandmother should all be the Horn god of the green forest or whatever you want to call me and by the way in the exorcism is when we deal with them when they've come in through black magic they'll often go by the name that they were called under within the black magic they'll say well I have a proper name but I was called under the name Lucifer so that's what I answer to in this case and they will answer to it and eventually be cast out by that name so the way the relationship is formed is very important in these interactions yoga I agree is a huge is a huge deal if you want to learn more about the depths of the goal of yoga go youtube kundalini yoga with a k' and you will see that the real goal of yoga in its original context is to awaken the Kundalini spirit which is a serpent at the base of your spine that over time with enough yogic practice will rise up your spine until it reaches your crown chakra at which point the evidence of this great spiritual awakening is called a Kriya which is what involuntary twitches and body motions with animal-like localizations that are out of your control I'm not kidding you can go YouTube this and see videos of it both people that it's out of their control people in India where they think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and I'm not picking on India necessarily I'm picking on this religion that seems to be kind of strange to me Reiki big deal seen a number of cases that came out of Reiki again first commandment issue God isn't the one that heals it's me with my special gift and my special power it's idolatry I become the spiritual healing force in the room as opposed to God particularly when there's physical touch involved at the higher levels of Reiki by the way there's three levels they tell the Westerners about there's five in Japan the fourth and fifth much more explicitly acknowledge that there's a familiar spirit that is present that is providing all of these things and then facilitating all the magic black magic effects that happen at the fourth and fifth level including astral project but they don't tell you that when you go to your weekend seminar and pay your 300 bucks to be a Reiki Master new-age of course is the Garden of Eden it's essentially you can be God and then all the other cults that are going on we've got a lot of sense of where I take coming in from from South America they deal a lot with folk magic down there and of course we have witchcraft which is becoming really popular in the way of Satanism which is becoming at least socially noticed it may not be popular it's a harder sell probably than witchcraft but they're certainly getting a lot of media time youth books as you saw last time what's the problem with those it's warming you up to the topic it's making it seem palatable it's making it seem reasonable and cool and fun and exciting maybe not a big deal when you 10 but when you're 20 and you're in the dorms and somebody's playing with the Ouija board you're more likely to engage in it because you've been familiarized to it it's become normalized to you it's softening you up to go down that road later by the way fun fact on the fascination with vampires in our culture if you actually read Bram Stoker's Dracula which most people don't Bram Stoker's Dracula the reason he's a vampire is because he's possessed it's a very Catholic book and it explains that his family was involved in black magic and every eleventh generation of the family as payment for their black magic powers would be possessed by Satan but they leave that out of the movies now they're sparkly sexy creatures okay so at the core of all this and you're in your thinking and reflecting on witchcraft and its resurgence today in black magic in general one of the take homes is the difference between magical thinking and religious thinking magical thinking if I find the right items words and rituals my will to be forced on the people in the world I seek to be a God in my own world and it's my will be done that is the magicians approach I'm seeking to get control religious thinking says that I'm a creature of God who tries to live in obedience to God's will I pray and ask but I accept God's will be done it's not my will be done its thy will be done this is the core difference between magical approach in a religious approach or at least a Christian religious approach how do we get out of trouble when we get into trouble with these things everything up up - possession renunciation which is confession good sincere confession what you did to get into trouble to enter into these relationships to violate the first commandment is super important without that you can't be freed because you have to break the relationship that you've entered into the sacramental life if you're Catholic you have a wealth available to you in the sacraments confession in the mass that's going to cure most of the situations regular prayer blessings sacramentals not exorcism in some cases up to possession you also need deliverance prayer but don't flip it on its head like the Protestants do and say deliverance prayer comes first and the church activity comes second yep five minutes the foundation for a Catholic is the sacramental Grace's on that you can build additional prayer and blessings and deliverance prayer and by the way really quick what's deliverance prayer versus exorcism deliverance prayer is oh god please help my dad I make a request to God and God does whatever he wants all right that's deprecatory prayer intercessory prayer great do that for anybody at any time do it for the world continuously what's exorcism in the name of Jesus get out it's not a request to God and it's God doing it it's now me slapping the demon in the face and saying get out this is why the church reserves exorcism and exorcistic prayers which are imprecatory prayers to the context of a solemn exorcism where somebody has apostolic authority behind them because it's a very dangerous situation because you've slapped a demon on the face and said let's go and you want the weight of the church and that apostolic Authority behind you otherwise when it pushes back because you've consented to the fight you can end up in trouble so the church wisely over the centuries limited that ministry does that make sense okay well there's there's gonna be one or two questions maybe three but in reality they'll be like three hours worth so what we're gonna do because we're in the last few seconds of our time you're gonna let me divest the microphone you're gonna let me get to my table because if we don't want to clog the room up and if you have questions just please come up there I'm not trying to sell you anything but that way we can we can answer questions and not and not tie things up here and I will try to stay as long as I can there's also additional information that religious demonology com which is a website that I've had for the public for many years it's just informational it's not scary released I don't think it's scary and by the way I can't directly consult on your case or your situation here I can't really give you advice because you're a subject of a different Bishop and if I stick my nose into this situation and give you advice and then later you're working with the priest and well this guy from Pittsburgh came and he told me different and he said to do this and I don't have the authority to be giving direction in your case so I can answer general questions but I can't I can't really get directly involved unless this bishop asks and my bishop approves that's the that's the way the church is organized by diocese so thank you very much and thank you for having me back god bless you [Applause] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 52,194

Rating: 4.7945948 out of 5

Keywords: eol, ytsync-en, eol02273

Id: FCf7JJ4w0dc

Length: 48min 8sec (2888 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 26 2019