Before moving forward, it should be noted that not every exorcism is performed due to demonic “possession.” Full-blown possession is the rarest of cases involving demonic influence; there are actually four stages, ranging from the least severe, for which perhaps only a simple blessing and prayer of cleansing may be needed, to the most extreme case (possession), for which a performance of the Rituale Romanum may be necessary. Infestation is demonic activity in a particular location such as a “haunted house” and would generally be associated with a prayer of deliverance. Oppression is when an individual is actually being physically attacked by something demonic. Some have had scratches appear on their skin, some have been shoved down stairs, and others have reported that they were forced out of bed. Obsession is when the demonic force is at work on the individual’s mind, causing them to think and imagine awful and terrifying things that often cause the person to believe they are going insane. I cannot help but recall a patient I worked with at a psychiatric hospital, a very kind and good-natured young man, who would cry because of the thoughts of terrible evil that were going through his mind. They would come upon him like attacks, and he was so sad that he was “going crazy” (this is not to imply that this individual was experiencing some kind of demonic attack, but simply to say that this really does happen to people outside of their wanting it to and it can be a very, very distressing affliction and very difficult to cure).
Lastly, there is full-blown possession, in which the demonic entity can exhibit control over the individual’s thoughts, behaviors, and actions, causing him or her to say and do what the demon wants; it can also result in paranormal manifestation, such as speaking in unknown languages, having knowledge of secret things, and vomiting up objects that were never ingested. Possession occurs during moments of crisis; the demon does not, however, take up residence inside the individual. A demon is a spirit and, subsequently, comes and goes as it pleases, but can directly control the actions of the individual when it pleases.
The goal of the devil and his demons is to destroy God’s creation, and God’s greatest creation is man. Both Sid Roth and Clive Calver cited Hitler as a prime example of evil at work in the world, and one could certainly speculate (and many have) that Hitler was under demonic influence. His actions resulted in such great loss of life that if the devil’s goal is the destruction of God’s creation, then WWII was his greatest victory. But such massive displays of evil should not overshadow the suffering of a lone individual. We disregard the nature of evil when we rationalize suffering and turn it into statistics, as Jeffrey Burton Russell points out in The Devil.
Numbers only disguise reality. Six million Jews exterminated by the Nazis become an abstraction. It is the suffering of one Jew that you understand, and your powers to extrapolate beyond that are limited. That is why Milton’s Satan can seem so proud: the evil he personifies is disguised by abstraction. Ivan’s one tortured child alone in the darkness reveals the true nature of the spurious glory of Satan, a glory that we feel only if we allow our minds, borne aloft by abstract considerations, to forget the suffering of the individual.27
Evil is experienced on an individual basis—the suffering of one is the suffering of many. “The Jew in the gas chamber; the heretic at the stake; the lonely old man mugged in the city street; the woman raped; that one of these, just one, should suffer is intolerable. That one should suffer imposes the absolute obligation of trying to understand and so grapple with the problem with evil.”28
That evil exists is undeniable. While the Second Vatican Council changed the official Catholic position, the actual practice of Catholicism remains very similar to the church before the Vatican II. The Catholic religion does appear to believe that there is an ultimate force of evil known as the devil who is at work in the world. The exorcist is the representative of the Catholic Church whose job it is to understand and grapple with that devil. Exorcism may sound archaic, but it is alive and working today. “Nowhere is the shortage of exorcists seen as more serious than in the United States, where skepticism about the practice abounds. There are fewer than a dozen official exorcists at U.S. dioceses, and it is a topic that most American priests seem to avoid.”29
In 2005, in response to the numerous and growing reports of possession and requests for exorcism, the Vatican, for the first time, sanctioned a year-long course in exorcism at the Regina Apostolorum and ordered that every bishop appoint an official exorcist. This may sound odd, but until 2005 there was no training whatsoever for exorcists. Not only was there no training, exorcism was, and still is, looked upon by some priests as a silly and archaic ritual that is not fit or appropriate for the modern world. Despite the church’s belief in true evil and its personification in the devil and his demons, exorcism and exorcists were still very much out of the ordinary and out of the loop.
Father Gabriele Amorth is the Vatican’s official head exorcist and founder of the International Association of Exorcists. He laments that exorcists were not consulted when the rites of exorcism were officially changed under the Vatican II’s new measures.
As the various parts of the Roman Rite were gradually being reviewed in keeping with the requests of the Second Vatican Council, we exorcists waited for Title XII to come up, the Rite of Exorcism. But it was evidently not considered a thing of relevance because years passed and nothing happened. Then suddenly, on June 4, 1999, the ad interim Rite appeared to be tried out. It was a real surprise to us that we had not been consulted beforehand even though we had our requests all prepared well in advance of the revision of the Rite.30
Not only were the exorcists not allowed their input into the changing of the official rite, their work is rarely recognized by the church. A convention of exorcists held in Rome under Father Amorth was denied reception by the pope. “Here were 150 exorcists from the five continents, all priests appointed by their bishops in conformity with the norms of Canon Law which state that these priests must be prayerful, knowledgeable and of good reputation, the cream of the clergy, in short … here they were asking to take part in a public Papal Audience and being thrown out.”31 Amorth states that exorcists are “barely tolerated” by their bishops and feels that the modern church has fallen under the fraud of the devil, who has a large portion of the church convinced that he does not exist.
We have a clergy and an Episcopate who no longer believe in the Devil, in exorcism, in the exceptional evil the Devil can instill, or even in the power that Jesus bestowed to cast out demons. For three centuries the Latin Church—in contrast to the Orthodox Church or the various Protestant professions—has almost totally abandoned the ministry of exorcism. So because they no longer perform exorcisms, or study them, and never having seen them, the clergy no longer believe in them. And they no longer believe in the Devil.32
However, Father Bailey, for his part, believes in the devil, his demons, and the ability to cast them out. “I am not an exorcist at this point, but my bishop has given me permission to give deliverance over people. Say there is an oppression or obsession or a presence attached to someone, I can do a deliverance. There is also exorcism over place. But I don’t use the ‘E’ word very much because when people hear the word ‘exorcism’ they think of The Exorcist, so I kindly use ‘deliverance over place,’ if there is some kind of infestation in a house.” Father Bailey has even enjoyed a bit of fame and screen time on television. As a fan of the show Paranormal State on A&E, Father Bailey noted that the head of the program, Ryan Buell, had posted a blog lamenting that he didn’t have any clergy willing to work with him. Father Bailey reached out, and Ryan asked him to assist during a cleansing they were doing on the East Coast. He also performed deliverance on a home in Enfield, Connecticut, with the Connecticut Paranormal Investigators for the program The Haunted on Animal Planet. However, he confirms that he has never had any training and that most priests actively avoid the topic of exorcism and the paranormal. “We’ve never been trained; seminaries don’t teach it. There may have been [training] years ago, but right now …
we touched on it in my seminary a little bit … we are told there is evil, there is a devil, and there are demons, but as far as dealing with it using our Priesthood, no—there’s nothing like that.” Another issue is that many priests have a fear of confronting something unknown and demonic. “It’s not for everybody, even priests; but if it’s something that you’re meant to do, it won’t scare you. I have absolutely no fear of it.”
Exorcism and dealings with the demonic and paranormal are a form of ministry in the Catholic Church. The ultimate goal is not to defeat Satan, because only God is capable of that; rather, it is to show the glory of God to the individual who has been affected, who has been touched by evil. “An exorcism is tantamount to a miracle—an extraordinary intervention of God,” stated Father Gabriele Nanni, “it is not that we poor men are so powerful to be able to banish the devil. It’s that God gives us the power.”33 Father Bailey has created his own ministry, known as the Paranormal Warriors of Saint Michael, to work with the issues of the demonic and paranormal. He has constructed a website and is reaching out to other clergymen. “What I’m trying to do now is establish a national clergy network of priests and ministers who would be willing to work in the area of the demonic and be of help to paranormal groups who encounter that.”
Father Bailey thinks that demonic activity in the world is on the rise, mostly due to people’s inability to recognize or accept its workings. “There’s such a vacuum; people not practicing their faith, people getting into different types of occultism, even fooling around with it. I know in Africa and other places the instances are rising so much that there are more instances where exorcists are needed … I think Pope Benedict has really talked about that.” Father Bailey hopes to one day go to the Vatican to participate in the schooling to become an exorcist.
“I think that it’s a natural thing, to have an interest in something otherworldly. Before, it was not something people talked about, but now it’s something that is out there. I think that because there is that vacuum, people are looking for answers, for life after death, and the paranormal is a way for them to find answers.” Father Bailey is not averse to dabbling in paranormal things. He regularly visits Salem, Massachusetts, around Halloween and also indicates that there is a difference between the demonic and ghosts—a stark difference between the Catholic view and the Protestant view. “We would believe that there are souls there. As far as ghosts, we don’t have a clear-cut theology on that, but if you look at the scriptures, there was a belief in ghosts in the time of Jesus. When he was walking on water or when they saw him [after crucifixion], they think he’s a ghost, and Jesus never says that they are wrong to think that. He says ‘touch my hand, know that a ghost does not have flesh and blood.’ He says that; he doesn’t say that there are no ghosts. So from that we can infer.” Father Bailey points out that there are different kinds of spirits or ghosts, as well as “damned souls”—those who have died and been damned to hell and have not yet gone on to their “reward,” and for some reason are allowed to roam. “I think that ghost hunting is one thing, but I’d like to give the message to paranormal groups that you have to go into it realizing that if you’re doing it for years you’re probably going to run into something negative … at that point you should seek out some help.”
Deuteronomy warns against the use of mediums, spiritists, and occultists, so I questioned Father Bailey as to how he could justify use of mediums when performing an investigation or deliverance. “The way I read it in the Old Testament is the Witch of Endor, who conjures up Samuel, who was dead. There’s a big difference. The Witch of Endor conjured up something that wasn’t there; when paranormal investigators go in or even myself, we’re not conjuring anyone up at all, we are trying to establish communication with something that is already there. The Witch of Endor was a medium and a cultist … I’m 100 percent against Ouija boards and séances, because it’s calling something up that is not there … it’s different to bring something up, because there is danger. We’re dealing with something that is already there, and we’re not doing it for kicks, we’re doing it to try to help.”
The Catholic Church, despite its official theology, seems divided on the subject of the paranormal, the occult, and practices such as exorcism. The church must maintain a belief in evil and in Satan, in his ability to work in the world, and also in a spiritual world that occasionally crosses over to our own. The church is confronted with one aspect of the paranormal or another on a daily basis; the spiritual realm, after all, is its bread and butter. However, it is also confronted with a modern world in which psychology, science, and technology have replaced many previously held belief systems that used the spiritual world to dictate the physics of existence. Priests are, by no means, uneducated in the sciences; they are extensively educated and have specialties such as law and psychology. They are not blind believers in archaic rituals but have a theology, a belief, and dogma, which shape their everyday practice. The Catholic Church is as divided on the subject as the public is; and oftentimes, those in the church who pursue the paranormal are relegated to the edges of acceptance, just as in the public setting. They are tolerated, but perhaps not taken seriously. The Vatican II’s influence has been monumental on the church and on the world; it was the Catholic Church’s attempt to reconcile its theology with science and technology. This has left little room for ancient rituals such as exorcism and scholars of demonology and the paranormal. While they remain liminal figures in the Catholic Church, the exorcists do exist, and lately, they have been working more and more. Despite a church that is divided on the subject, more and more people are battling inner demons and seeking out God; ancient belief systems are at work in the modern world, like ghosts that haunt a Gothic castle.
WHAT DOES THE PARANORMAL MEAN FOR RELIGION?
It’s no real surprise that church attendance has dropped off over the past few decades; however, belief in a spiritual world has not. More people are open to the idea of a spiritual world but have no tradition by which to practice it. As indicated before, 92 percent of Americans believe in some form of God, but only 40 percent regularly practice any type of faith. This leaves open the possibility for the influence of New Age ideas, occultism, and interest in the paranormal. As Father Bailey said, people are looking for answers; and even as early as 1950, Erich Fromm wrote that,
If the churches were the representatives not only of the words but of the spirit of the Ten Commandments or of the Golden Rule, they could be potent forces blocking the regression to idol worship. But since this is an exception rather than the rule, the question must be asked, not from an antireligious point of view but out of concern for man’s soul: Can we trust religion to be the representative of religious needs, or must we not separate these needs from organized, traditional religion in order to prevent the collapse of our moral structure?34
Few in the clergy would argue the fact that the moral structure of the United States has collapsed; on the contrary, the United States is often seen as Satan’s playground. Fromm sees this as a failure of organized religion, which has repeatedly sold its soul to secular politics and dogmatic delusions. Has the modernization of the Christian faith caused people to be drawn away to the New Age and the occult? Have the seeker-sensitive churches lost their hold on the supernatural fascination of man and allowed people to seek that supernatural elsewhere? Looking at it from the paranormal viewpoint, the answer is an emphatic “yes.”
For Pacific Coast Native American tribes, the sighting of the Sasquatch was a warning to return to their traditional values or face destruction of the society. Likewise, the paranormal today is a call to the religious to return to their traditional beliefs, values, and practices or face fading into obscurity or indifference. The world has witnessed a new explosion of belief in the supernatural and paranormal, and as people look for answers, they are not looking to the church. However, it is the Christian church and its belief system that has created and fueled these beliefs. In essence, the world of the paranormal revolves around
the spiritual world that religion has dominated for past centuries. As the public interest in the supernatural grows, the church is urged to respond in kind with the supernatural. Preachers and priests are confronted with the paranormal every day, and many do not have answers, so they turn to the world of science to try to answer spiritual questions. The traditionalists, however, see this as a fallacy. The rise in the number of people claiming possession and requesting exorcists has forced the Catholic Church to reengage an ancient practice that was all but dead to its clergy; Messianic Ministries uses the supernatural to show Jews the way to a Christian God; and community preachers are called upon to cleanse homes of evil presences and confront witchcraft in suburban neighborhoods. All of it beckons to the church. All of it shows that something along the way has been lost that needs to be regained. The paranormal pushes the church away from the scientific rationalization of the twentieth century and back to its original roots and values. Because there is no scientific explanation for these phenomena and because the questions people ask are spiritual rather than rational, the church must turn its gaze backward to its older rites and traditions.
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