Fr. Thomas #2 ↵

  Isaiah 53:5 ↵

  Amorth, 21 ↵

  Amorth, 98 ↵

  2 Tim 4:1-5 ↵

  See definition of mortal sin on page 43. Also Ripperger #1 ↵

  Fortea, 68 ↵

  Amorth, 67 ↵

  Amorth, 67 ↵

  Fr. Martins video ↵

  Fr. Martins video ↵

  Mark 16:17 ↵

  Amorth, 109 ↵

  Amorth, 87 ↵

  Ripperger #3 ↵

  Ripperger #4 ↵

  Amorth, 87 ↵

  Fortea, 70 ↵

  Preparation for Death, 322 ↵

  Preparation for Death, 280 ↵

  Previous years of living, of course; not reincarnation. ↵

  Ripperger #10 ↵

  Preparation for Death, 323 ↵

  Fortea, 68 ↵

  Preparation for Death, 358 ↵

  Devout Life, 83 ↵

  Fr. Thomas #2 ↵

  Ripperger #7 ↵

  1 Peter 5:5 ↵

  Lowliness that flows from proper self-knowledge and submission to God’s law. ↵

  Ripperger #1 ↵

  Preparation for Death, 323 ↵

  Also called mental prayer, is simply defined by St. Teresa of Avila: “Nothing else than an intimate friendship, a frequent heart-to-heart with Him by whom we know ourselves to be loved.” ↵

  Ripperger #7 ↵

  Prayer is the lifting up of the mind and heart to God, like faith, which is the supernatural assent of the intellect. ↵

  Fortea, 51 ↵

  Ripperger #7 ↵

  Preparation for Death, 323 ↵

  Ripperger #9 ↵

  Ripperger #1 ↵

  Ripperger #7. He says that prayer can end the obsession, but it only brings the possession to the surface. ↵

  Fr. Thomas #2 ↵

  Amorth, 69 ↵

  Amorth, 22 ↵

  Amorth, 123 ↵

  Ripperger #7 ↵

  Fortea, 25 ↵

  True Devotion, 253 ↵

  Luke 1:46-55 ↵

  True Devotion, 255 ↵

  CCC 1667 ↵

  Fr. Thomas #2 ↵

  Ripperger #4 ↵

  Amorth, 108 ↵

  Fr. Weber video ↵

  Roman Ritual, Sanctamissa.org ↵

  Ripperger #4 ↵

  The modern blessing of salt is much reduced from its traditional form. ↵

  Amorth, 111 ↵

  Should be placed on the food after cooking in order to avoid tossing any blessed salt into the trash. ↵

  Ripperger #7 ↵

  Roman Ritual, EWTN.com ↵

  Ripperger #4 ↵

  Amorth, 67 ↵

  In addition to that, there is a very good and helpful prayer called “Commission of the Care of Soul and Body” in Fr. Ripperger’s Deliverance Prayers for Use by the Laity, that can accompany this additional protection. ↵

  Life of Teresa, 175 ↵

  Life of Teresa, 173 ↵

  Ripperger #4 ↵

  Ripperger #7 ↵

  Indirect binding prayer: “Jesus, I ask You to bind…” ↵

  Traditionally blessed on his feast day with the intention of granting protection against natural disasters, especially the weather, and diabolical infestation of homes. ↵

  Ripperger #4 ↵

  Amorth, 90 ↵

  True Devotion, 117 ↵

  Ripperger #4 ↵

  https://www.treasuresofthechurch.com/healing ↵

  Ripperger #4 ↵

  See Ch. 10, "Binding Prayers," for related content ↵

  AngelicWarfareConfraternity.org ↵

  Preparation for Death, 314 ↵

  Preparation for Death, 319 ↵

  See Ch. 7, "Binding Prayers and Authority," for related content. ↵

  Matthew 16:23 ↵

  A priest-friend who helps with exorcisms told me that they always say prayers against retaliation after they conclude an exorcism. ↵

  Ripperger #4 ↵

  Cf. Luke 11:24f ↵

  Preparation for Death, 313 ↵

  Amorth, 106 ↵

  Fr. Thomas #2 ↵

  Mark 9:29 ↵

  Devout Life, 134 ↵

  Amorth, 24 ↵

  True Spouse of Christ, 140 ↵

  Preparation for Death, 319 ↵

  True Spouse of Christ, 141 ↵

  Ripperger #4 ↵

  Fr. Thomas #2 ↵

  Fr. Thomas #2 ↵

  Ripperger #4 ↵

  Declaration on Masonic Associations, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ↵

  Ripperger #6 ↵

  visit http://www.sensustraditionis.org/Freemasonic.pdf ↵

  Fr. Thomas #3 ↵

  John 19:27 ↵

  Glories of Mary, 117 ↵

  Ibid. 116 ↵

  Ibid. 119 ↵

  Fr. Thomas #2 ↵

  True Devotion, 52 ↵

  Raccolta ↵

  See Ch. 5, "Our Lady, Terror of Demons," for related content ↵

  Ripperger #7 ↵

  Luke 2:35 DR ↵

  Ripperger #9 ↵

  Glories of Mary, 417 ↵

  True Devotion, 165 ↵

  Ibid. 174 ↵

  Ibid. ↵

  Ripperger #7 ↵

  Ripperger #4 ↵

  Preparation for Death, 98. Eliseus is the prophet Elisha. In-text quotation is from 2 Kings 6:16. ↵

  Summa 1, Q. 113, A 6 ↵

  Summa 1, Q. 113, A 6 ↵

  Ripperger #4 ↵

  Amorth, 19 ↵

  St. Thomas held “with some degree of probability” that the child was protected in the womb by the mother’s Guardian Angel. The debate then was over whether the child received an Angel at birth or at Baptism. Now it is commonly held to be given at conception. ↵

  Ripperger #7 ↵

  http://auxiliumchristianorum.org/faq/ ↵

  Carlin, 3 ↵

  Amorth, 83 ↵

  True Devotion, 54 ↵

  Tobit 12:6-10,12-14 ↵

  11

  Chapter Eleven

  Consorting with Evil

  There are many people in the world today who willingly open themselves up to the devil. Some do so in a mocking manner and do not take the devil seriously, while others are truly open to or desire to receive an answer from the diabolical realm. Juvenile curiosities are often infused with a diabolical element. Countless celebrities have openly embraced the assistance of Satan and spirits in their work of attaining and securing fame. Satanist groups now openly profess their beliefs and perform public ritualistic displays of their hatred of the Catholic Faith.

  Exorcists are seeing a rise in diabolical oppression and obsession related to sin, witchcraft, Satanism, and the occult. As mentioned before, exorcists tend to think this is also due to a tremendous increase in the use of pornography and other grave things of that sort. Pornography use is, as Fr. Ripperger puts it, “off the charts.” He relates that exorcists have learned that Satanists have taught pornographers that if they would curse the master copy of the pornographic video, whoever watches a copy may become subject to the same curse. Father told the story of a man who had become possessed through the use of pornography. The demon possessing the man confirmed this detail.[1] The man’s possession followed an obsession with finding every film with this specific woman in it.

  Pornography can create a very strong diabolical obsession and can be a gateway to possession.[2] Fr. Thomas agrees that pornography “can open doorways to the demonic.”[3] The issue of pornography and its potential connection to possession is an issue of universal Church concern. In 2018, for example, an annual exorcism course at the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University discussed to what extent demonic influence exists in the use of pornography.[4]

  Rise in the Occult

  As exorcists across the world attest, curiosity about and recourse to the occult is greatly on the rise. Fr. Thomas states that twenty-five percent of people in Italy in 2005 were involved in the occult. He said those same trends were appearing in the US as well.[5] This Italian statistic stayed the same in 2018, and is still experiencing a “surge in occult activity,” such as recourse to tarot card readers, fortune tellers, and astrologers.[6]

  The spokesman for the International Association of Exorcists, Dr. Cascioli, in 2012, described the increase in diabolical activity as a “pastoral emergency,” adding that the “number of disturbances of extraordinary demonic activity is on the rise.”[7] He repeated this same concern in 2016.[8] Different forms of paganism, witchcraft, idolatry, and the occult are all gateway sins to all levels of diabolical influence, including possession. Fr. Fortea, speaking about the different entry points for demons, says, “As you see, we have many possibilities. It is a very mysterious world. When we exorcists are interviewed, we have a very simple answer: avoid the occult, and that is true.”[9]

  According to a 2008 and 2018 religion survey,[10] the number of witches is significantly rising in the United States. In 1990, there were 8,400 Wiccans, which grew to 340,000 in 2008. It is now, in 2018, between 1 and 1.5 million. This number does not include all forms of witchcraft, as not all witches identify as Wiccan, though this is a significant subset of witches. To demonstrate the significance of this number of Wiccans, there were 1.4 million Presbyterians in 2017. The number of Satanists in the United States is unknown, partly due to the secrecy with which they operate.

  When a person first comes to an exorcist, after determining there is a true spiritual issue, the exorcist begins to inquire into the person’s life, looking for possible doorways for demons. Many of the people who are diabolically disturbed have opened themselves up through the occult, or through a connection with Satanic cults, or through dabbling in something in the category of the New Age.[11] This curiosity is extremely dangerous. As Fr. Amorth says, curiosity leads the youth into the “myriad tentacles of occultism” and eventually to the door of the exorcist.[12] When young people become interested in Ouija boards or spells, those spirits may actually come to you and hang around. While it is rare for possession to happen immediately, Fr. Fortea says that the person will likely experience “a presence in that moment with the people around the table, and sometimes that presence is around a person of the group for a week or two weeks, but nothing more. Fortunately, because God protects, to be possessed is not so easy.”[13]

  The rise of the occult also includes a popular acceptance of witchcraft, spells, and the demonic in society. Popular media, such as music and television and literature, are all opening up to more positive portrayals of these occult categories. This is happening all over the world. Fr. Amorth cautions against participating in these things and, in particular, advises the young to avoid horror films. These films “tend to normalize brutal situations, particularly, where the demon is the protagonist” and “can seriously upset fragile minds and stir others to sadistic emulation.” Though viewing these films does not directly cause spiritual ills, they can indirectly do so by enticing the person who watches them toward the occult.[14]

  In his book, An Exorcist Tells His Story, Fr. Amorth, commenting on the presence of witchcraft, spiritism, and the occult on TV, in music, in books, and in newspapers, says, “When I was invited to speak at a few high schools, I was able personally to verify how great is the influence of these tools of Satan on the young. It is unbelievable how widespread are witchcraft and spiritism, in all their forms, in middle and high school. This evil is everywhere, even in small towns.”[15]

  Though possession is not common in the first instance of dabbling in the occult, serious diabolical influences are more common when the person is also suffering from an emotional or mental instability. Exorcists consistently mention, for example, that victims of abuse are more susceptible to diabolical influence if they approach the occult. Fr. Fortea says, starkly, “A demon is never invoked in vain.” He says that, if the person has an open wound, the demon will latch on. Even if the person is not especially vulnerable to the demonic, the invocation of a demon, through a spell or a curse, will always cause harm, both to the one performing and requesting the spell and, only if God permits it, to the one who is the target of the spell.[16]

  Satanism Comfortable in Public

  The willingness of the world to embrace the demonic is in part aided by the world of fame and drugs. These two powerful escapes from reality are accompanied by testimonies about people’s related involvement with the diabolical. Fr. John Corapi, the once-famous priest who had an amazing conversion story, revealed many evil things that he witnessed during his early life chasing fame and drugs. He witnessed witches cursing shipments of drugs coming in on cargo ships from South America and rock bands dedicating their albums to Satan in the recording studio. Bob Dylan suspiciously stated in an interview that he was still performing late in life because he is keeping up his end of the bargain he made “with the Chief Commander…on this earth and in the world we can’t see.”[17] Beyoncé readily admits in interviews that a spirit animates her when she performs, enabling her to do things that her natural personality does not enable her to do.[18] These are just a few of the many public stories of celebrities willingly involving themselves in spiritism, witchcraft, and Satanism.

  Satanists have also begun openly intruding upon the public space which we all enjoy, demanding to lead prayer at city council meetings, setting up monuments on public property, and holding sacrilegious rituals on city streets. The Pensacola City Council, in 2016, permitted the Satanic Temple of West Florida to lead the prayer invocation at the beginning of their meeting. In the same year, in Arizona, the Satanic Temple in Tucson had been permitted to lead the invocation prayer at the upcoming Phoenix City Council meeting. The City Council then voted, first, to stop the practice of the opening prayer and replace it with a moment of silence, voting again later to permit the prayer, but this time only by a chaplain from the city’s police and fire departments.

  Though still few in number, Steve Hill, an avowed atheist and Satanic temple organizer, ran for a seat in the California state senate in 2016. He received twelve percent of the vote among four Republican and Democratic candidates in his district.

  Satanic groups have sought to receive official recognition of their presence both through the above-mentioned right to lead prayer at city council meetings, and through the right to place their monuments on public property alongside other religious monuments.

  In the summer of 2015, the Satanic Temple in Oklahoma was almost successful at getting a proposed Baphomet statue permitted to be placed outside the state Capitol, alongside the Ten Commandments monument, which had been in place since 2012. The Ten Commandments monument was then destroyed but was later rebuilt. The Oklahoma Supreme Court then ruled that the new Ten Commandments monument must be removed, which led the Satanic Temple to drop their request and to turn their focus to Arkansas, which had a similar Ten Commandments monument at the state Capitol. In the summer of 2018, the Satanic Temple unveiled an 8-foot-tall bronze statue of Baphomet on the back of a truck at the Arkansas Capital building in front of a cheering crowd. As of this writing, they have not been permitted to place this statue on the grounds of the Capital building.

  That same statue had been privately unveiled among Satanists in a warehouse in Detroit in 2015. As was reported by Church Militant, who filmed on location, this event was accompanied by explicit acts of debauchery, perversion, and homosexuality. In order to spare the reader anymore visuals related to this event, please read the article and watch the video at Church Militant for more details, if interested.[19]

  In 2018, the Satanic Temple in Chicago was permitted to place a monument, called the “Snaketivity,” in the Illinois Capitol rotunda, right next to a Nativity scene, a Christmas tree, and a menorah. The Satanic monument is a black box, with the Satanic logo, an arm holding an apple reaching out above it, and a snake wrapping itself around the arm. A red glow at the base of the arm casts a light onto the figure.

  In December 2015, Satanists were given a legal permit to hold a Satanic ritual of desecration against a statue of Our Lady on Christmas Eve in front of Saint Joseph Old Cathedral in Oklahoma City. This event was preceded by a protest of reparation by faithful Catholics from the area. Despite the calls to revoke the permit, the Satanists were permitted to, and did, carry out the sacrilegious event. In addition, Satanic “black masses” have been popping up in California, Oklahoma, and even at Harvard. Some of these events have been thwarted, others have not. One of the events in Oklahoma, in 2014, first involved a lawsuit by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City seeking to secure the return of a stolen consecrated Host, which the Satanists had intended to desecrate in the ceremony. The lawsuit was successful, and the Host was returned, but the “black mass” still took place.

 

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