The Christian faith teaches that demons can possess people and you need exorcists to cast them out with prayer and fasting. Jesus claimed to be an exorcist.
The gospels say he engaged in the practice a lot. A lot of these activities would have been away from the public eye. They select a few accounts. They hope we don't find out that exorcists of the time were getting girls on their own and telling them they could expel demons through the vagina. This was a cover for sexual abuse.
No exorcist, Jesus included, tries to remove a demon's power. They just want to get it out as if the next victim does not matter. Catholicism claims to be able to use Jesus' authority to get demons out but the fact that many exorcisms do not work and it may take years show this is nonsense. Jesus allegedly just had to give one word and the person was free.
There is a claim that a demon cannot really take over you but just parts of your body. Any exorcist asserting that is setting up a smokescreen. The Church certainly acts as if the person or body is taken over. For example, it uses holy water on the victim's body to see how the demon reacts.
If it were true that the demon merely affects the body or parts of it but does not own anything it would not react to the holy water. It simply moves its presence to some part of the body that is not going to be splashed. If it does react then it is faking which raises the question of why it wants people to think the Catholic Church really has power over evil spirits? The victim if she has any intelligence will realise that and that could be dangerous on the psychological level.
Today, Christianity sees body and soul as being unified. This is a rejection of the notion that the soul is just like something living in the house of the body that just floats off to Heaven after the body dies. The resurrection is about restoring the whole person.
If your body and soul are one then how can a demon get in? The demon is a part of the person and the exorcism is an attempted murder. If a demon needs a body to be a person then getting it out is murder.
The book, The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist, Matt Baglio, Pocket Books, London, 2010, is fascinating. It has been approved by Father Professor Basil Cole and Father Jose Antonio Fortea. It has been hailed by the latter as one of the best books on the subject of exorcism and possession ever written.
Page 67 states that exorcism is a formal ceremony to release a person from demonic control and says deliverance is simply an informal prayer that anybody can say to deliver people from demonic possession or influence.
Rubbish. Exorcism is using prayer to eject demons - rite or no rite.
Page 67 observes that in the early days of Christianity, there were no official exorcists appointed and any believer could attempt to cast out demons.
Jesus' actions led to such irresponsibility.
Page 68 cites the testimony of exorcist Fr Gramolazzo that if a priest conducts an exorcism without the permission of the bishop or when the bishop has forbidden it, the exorcism will only partly work for Jesus' name that is used has great power. He cites a case where a demon said to the exorcists that they were outside their dioceses and didn't have permission and so they were wasting their time.
Demons would not tell a priest what steps to take to remove them.
If Jesus lets illicit exorcism partly work then why not let it fully work?
And Jesus' name is spoken of as a magic charm!
Page 70 speaks of the disapproval of the International Association of Exorcists for priests who do not follow the official Ritual fully. Pages 70 and 71 say that the exorcist should use the word blessing instead of exorcism, speak of removing negativity rather than removing demons and read the Ritual in Latin. This is in case the person is not possessed but mad. The priest does not wish to put ideas in the sick person's mind that will make him or her worse. The Church reasons that if there is a demon present he will understand the Latin anyway.
It is lunacy to think that demons all learn Latin.
The possessed person will know that it is an exorcism taking place. They couldn't be that stupid.
If demons mask their presence, they are not going to give themselves away by speaking in Latin.
Page 71 quotes exorcist Father Bamonte saying that a demon will always hide his presence and even let the victim pray and go to Mass. So the exorcist has to use the ritual again and again until the demon weakens so much that it stops hiding and manifests its presence. The demon will then resort to the tactic of making the victim think there is no demon but it is a mental illness. Or it will physically prevent the victim going to an exorcist as much as it can.
Demons getting weak the more the ritual takes place implies that the ritual is magic and occult. And manifesting is a strange kind of weakening!
Demons letting victims go to Mass where Jesus Christ is supposedly physically present is absurd. What if he chose to cast it out during Mass?
Page 72 speaks of Father Nanni who said that a demon will set up at least one of five traps.
One is to refuse to react to the exorcist so that he might think there is no demon involved.
Two is to pretend he has gone and the exorcism has worked when he hasn't.
Three the demon will fake signs of mental illness to make it look like the victim is not possessed but merely sick.
Four the demon will tell the exorcist to try a spell to remove its presence.
Five the demon will let the victim receive the Eucharist to make it look like he has gone. The latter is interesting. It shows that the horror films where demons are scared off by crosses is a lie. The Eucharist is regarded as the body and blood of Jesus - the most sacred thing on earth - so if it can't get rid of a demon what can?
A demon would not tolerate the victim receiving this sacred source of help from God to be a holy good person unless the Eucharist itself is a hoax or spiritually suspect.
Demons would be more powerful if they hide. And nobody can ever prove an exorcism has worked for demons hide a lot. To say the demon makes the person act mentally ill is to ignore the fact that they might just be sick and not possessed. And a demon residing in a body which has just received the Eucharistic body of Christ is just insanity. No demon would let the person receive.
Page 74 says the demon will try anything to get the exorcist to stop praying and will even resort to trying to seduce him if it is a woman it is possessing.
This contradicts claims that demons pretend they are gone by letting their victims consume the Eucharist.
On page 83 we meet Fr Candido who can diagnose possession by looking at a victim's photo.
Kook, psychic. This contradicts the claim of the Church that it only lets a priest exorcise if science can't explain the problems indicating that the person is possessed. That is bad enough but to indicate that if an illness can't be explained it means possession is taking a leap of faith that may hurt the victim terribly.
Page 92 to 97 gives some accounts of possessed people being cured by exorcism. There was no drama during the exorcism at all just a bit of yawning and coughing and nothing to really indicate that a demon was there. A woman was healed of headaches that wouldn't respond to medical treatment.
Thanks for the candour! This shows how ridiculous the Church is.
Page 99 speaks of exorcist Father Gary's worry about discernment. He was afraid of indicating to a very mentally-ill person that they were possessed and thus fixing them in that thought and making them more mentally ill. Page 102 says that possession may be suspected if the person is unwilling to go to Mass or to pray to Jesus or Mary. Page 103 requires that before an exorcism is done a full psychiatric evaluation must be carried out. Real possession is marked by demons that have a deep knowledge of theology (page 104). Page 105 says exorcists can bless victims with water that is not holy water. If a real demon is there it will know if the water is blessed or not. If it is it will feel the pain of burning. Father Bamonte states that victims of possession rarely think they are possessed and usually have several different diagnoses from different doctors (page 105).
There are many exorcism accounts where the demon hardly mentions theology. And a demon must become the body rather than simply control it if it feels it is being burnt by holy water. The demon could control the body up to a point in which case sprinkling the body will not harm the demon. It will not feel the pain of burning. If the water touching the body hurts the demon then clearly the demon is the victim. The demon and alleged victim are one and the same person. It is the person the water is intended to hurt.
Burning the demon with holy water is just evil. It's cruelty. The holy water test involves lying. Catholic exorcism is heretical if one compares it the exorcisms performed by Jesus. It is an attempt to use evil to cast out evil. Jesus said that if Satan casts out Satan his kingdom cannot stand. He said that those who accused him of using the Devil to put demons out were committing an eternal sin that would never be forgiven for it blasphemes the Holy Spirit. How much more is Catholic exorcism blasphemy against the Spirit! Catholic exorcisms match the idea that the Catholic Church is really an occultist organisation and not a form of Christianity and is Antichrist and a counterfeit of Satan.
It is ridiculous to suggest that the demon necessarily will know if the water is blessed. Some exorcists would surely argue that God would know and it is on that basis that real holy water will torment the demon and fake holy water will not. But water is recycled all the time by nature. Tap water then will contain holy water that perhaps evaporated. The holy water test is utter superstition.
If holy water had such power, priests would never become possessed. Their bodies are blessed when they are ordained and they are blessed forever. The priest body is a holier thing than holy water. If holy water could burn a demon, then a demon would not be able to endure the pain of possessing a priest or looking at a priest or speaking to a priest.
Possessed people are reported to be able to go into Church. Catholic Churches are blessed like holy water is blessed. This would be impossible if holy things like holy water could avert and torment demons.
Catholic exorcisms are clearly irresponsible and nonsensical. They are acts of abuse. It is hardly surprising that the Church dresses evil up as good. Despite teaching that nobody has the right to be asked to take a vow when they don't clearly know the implications, the Church inflicts the vow on babies to obey and believe the Church at baptism. This is abuse and is unfair.
The Church uses the holy water to help diagnose possession and it also says the demon must do things such as speak in languages unknown to the victim. No demon is going to indicate its presence like that. And if it is going to use a foreign language, it will look for one that the exorcists will not understand. Then they will not know if the demon is speaking in unknown languages or not.
A religion of nonsense has no business attempting to diagnose a person as requiring exorcism. It is worse than a totally incompetent psychotherapist or psychiatrist.
Mark 9 has an account of Jesus casting out a demon that was making a child fall and foam at the mouth and grind his teeth. This is clearly epilepsy not demonic possession. It is clear that to believe in the Bible you have to deny that epilepsy exists and say it is really possession. It is a sin to be careful about diagnosing. It is laughable to suggest that the calling the name of a Jesus who taught such nonsense can put demons out.
Legal proceedings must be taken against Christians who perform exorcism.
Page 107 says that a real demon will respond if the exorcist prays for the victim. It say the exorcist should not use the whole Ritual as a diagnostic tool to determine if a demon is present.
Why would a demon respond to the prayer of an exorcist? What about the ordinary people and priests who are praying? How can anybody know whose prayer a demon is reacting to?
Page 107 says that if the victims problems don't vanish despite all the blessings and prayers made for them their problems are natural. If there is a quick healing response that it is a sign that their problems were caused by demons.
This is nonsense. It is a wilful lie. Natural illnesses including mental or psychological can disappear quickly. This page contradicts the claim by exorcists that they do not use exorcism or prayers as a diagnostic tool.
Page 120 states that the Ritual forbids the exorcist to speak to the demon except to ask him his name. Page 149 explains that the exorcists must not ask a demon any questions because he will lie and he should not be given the honour of being your source of information.
Demons will not lie all the time. If they did, you would know that if a demon says something is true, then it is false. If there is information A, information B and information C and you don't know which one is right or true. If you ask the demon about A and it says it is true you will know that it must be false. That means you have only B and C to consider. If you ask about one of them you will know then which one of them is true.
You could get the truth by a process of questioning the demon and
Page 122 states that a possessed nun Sister Janica couldn't confess her sins for the demon prevented her. He was weakened by exorcism and then she made her confession.
Even if she had a demon you can't prove or show that it was the reason she wouldn't confess.
Page 132 - 133 describes her pain during an exorcism and the priest touched her neck with a crucifix to torment her. Janica nearly smashed her head against a wall.
Exorcism is barbaric religious fanaticism.
Page 137 describes the testimony of exorcists that demons can make crabs and needless and other unpleasant things materialise in the mouth of the victim.
Contradicts the view of the book that demons can't do real miracles.
Page 154 states that exorcisms will often give relief but don't always lead to liberation.
Contradicts where it says that if exorcisms fail then the person is not demonically possessed.
Page 178 has exorcist Father Amorth saying that he used the Ritual and prayed the name of Jesus to exorcise Hindu and Muslim victims of possession and it was successful. He told them to live good lives. He did not tell them to convert to Catholicism.
This is religious indifferentism: it teaches that you believe what you want but live a caring life. The priest was not a true Catholic. If he had been, he would have told them to check out the Catholic faith and think about whether or not they should convert. This exorcism is an example of the Devil doing fake exorcisms to promote the religion of religious indifference.
Page 179 says that when the exorcism is working the demon fights very hard and abuses the victim terribly. Page 180 describes some of the signs when a demon is about to depart. It may sing a hymn or make the victim vomit some cursed object.
Exorcism and its practitioners are cruel.
Satan told exorcist, Father Gabriel Amorth that he fears Mary more than Jesus for it means he suffers the humiliation of a creature defeating him rather than God. If the king defeats you you would expect that but what if a person of no dignity or standing defeats you? “And, once I also asked Satan, ‘but why are you more scared when I invoke Our Lady than when I invoke Jesus Christ?’ He answered me, ‘Because I am more humiliated to be defeated by a human creature than being defeated by him.”
Satan is encouraging Amorth to believe that Mary really does defeat. If she uses Jesus's power then it is really Jesus who defeats but Satan is clear that it is her! These ideas are totally pagan. Amorth if he is working with demons is being fooled by them.
The Sceptical Occultist, Terry White, Century, London, 1994 chapter 9 speaks of a Hong Kong hospital where people thought they were possessed by gods and animal spirits and so on. The religious culture one came from pre-disposed the kind of possession they thought they were experiencing. For example, Christians thought damned spirits of evil were possessing them. Buddhist-Taoist people thought it was spirits their religion taught them to believe in. They did not think it was evil spirits. The Catholic faith is responsible then for all the harm done by people who believe themselves to be possessed by spirits of pure evil who are eternally damned in Hell. It programs them to do evil things. If you believe you have an evil blaspheming murdering spirit in you, you may blaspheme and murder.
Today we are more sceptical about possession which is reports of possession are uncommon. In the past, mental illness was thought to be possession. The incarceration, beatings and even murders of the victims to get the demons out must be firmly and squarely placed at the feet of Jesus Christ and the priesthood.
Why is it that taking a few points from the book shows us the danger of faith in exorcism and possession. That shows just how fanatical the doctrine is.
Catholic lore has demons possessing persons just to shock bystanders. This nonsense comes dangerously close to telling victims that they need to avoid having an audience or a case where a scene may be made. In such cases, as ugly as it looks, it is said there is no evidence that the victim is even aware of what is happening. Even as they are made to bang their heads on the wall or burn themselves there is no evidence that the person is actually suffering. Some claim as the episode ends that there is not even a mark on them. The demon can imitate the person. If the demon is now in control that would include the pain receptors of the brain. Yet priests lie that exorcism is about stopping the abuse of the victim. It would be if they could give a clear evidence supported diagnosis but they cannot. They subject the person to something serious when they have nothing conclusive to go by.
A demon can supposedly directly suppress the will of the host and/or use threats in order to be the real decision maker. So a demon can consent to the exorcism on the basis that an exorcism will do nothing unless the victim gives free clear and informed consent.
Resisting an exorcism or objecting to it being done to you, may be understood as coming from the entity within you rather than you. No wonder many are forced to the exorcist and forced to consent to the ceremony. Consent is an issue for the community wants rid of the supposed spiritual malady in their midst.
So refusal will not be accepted. But for genuine consent to happen you need to be willing to support the person's yes and well as their no. Exorcists do not care about the consent at all.