The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist (7 page)

A
CCORDING TO EXORCISTS
, a variety of factors can contribute to a person becoming possessed.

The first thing to note, say theologians, is that demonic possession cannot occur unless God allows it. It may seem contradictory, but, according to the Church, while God does not wish evil upon any person, he does permit it for some good purpose (similar to temptation). In the case of someone with a very advanced spiritual life, such as a saint, God allows Satan to test that person in the hopes that the physical trials will give their soul sanctifying grace. According to Saint John Chrysostom, “Possessed persons can obtain a twofold benefit from their condition. In the first place they can become more holy and good; secondly, having paid the debt for their sins here on earth, they can present themselves pure before the Lord.”

Demonic possession in and of itself is not evil; it is not considered a sin. In addition, there is apparently no physical or otherwise inherent quality in a person's nature that predisposes him or her to becoming possessed. Demonic possession is not contagious. A person cannot become possessed by sitting in a room or living with someone who is possessed. Generally speaking, say exorcists, one has to either open the door to the Devil, or be a victim of one who has opened the door. These are some ways the Church says a person can do this:

Occult ties:
According to the Church, becoming involved in the occult is a form of idolatry that goes against the first commandment and is a common way to come into contact with the demonic.

In his book
Possessioni diaboliche ed esorcismo
(Demonic Possession and Exorcism), Father Bamonte lists the following occult activities that can potentially open the door to possession: participating in a séance; frequenting a medium or magician (the Church makes no distinction between “white” or “black” magic); using an amulet or talisman, especially if it is received from a magician; transcendental meditation, the use of crystals, and other such New Age practices that stress “out of body” experiences; divination or the practice of automatic writing; practicing satanic rituals, especially signing a “blood pact” with a demon. The Bible is clear (and rather graphic) on the dangers involved in practicing magic and divination: “No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord” (Deuteronomy 18:10-12).

The
Catechism
is also direct in its condemnation of the occult. ‘All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future … All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others—even if this were for the sake of restoring their health—are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion.”

As Father Bamonte explains, however, just participating in a card reading or using a Ouija board does not necessarily risk possession. Yet engaging in this activity repeatedly, he says, could start people down a path that could open them up to possession either through a graver sin, or through their own actions.

One American priest on staff at the NAC related his experience helping a sixteen-year-old unbaptized girl who came to him. While playing with a Ouija board, the girl had contacted a spirit named Nick, who dared her to do things that are dangerous, such as driving her car in a rainstorm without windshield wipers. But things got worse when she awoke one night with an overwhelming sensation of being surrounded by a darkness so thick it was choking the air out of her lungs. With no training in exorcism, the priest said a simple prayer of deliverance and the problem seemed to go away.

A curse:
A curse causes the suffering of others through the intervention of a demon. Curses break up marriages, cause businesses to fail, induce illness, invite possession, and so on. Curses can be carried out in a variety of ways, say exorcists. Most are the result of magic formulas or rituals performed by a warlock or a witch. Sometimes a person is affected directly (by ingesting a cursed object) and sometimes indirectly (by possessing cursed objects).

One Italian exorcist knew a very wealthy person who had tried to sell her house for many years without success. People would come to look at the house, leave enthusiastic and ready to buy but then mysteriously never return to close the deal. The exorcist said many masses, but still the house remained unsold. One day a charismatic nun came to visit and told the exorcist that something was hidden in a wall and that the house would be impossible to sell until the object was removed. The owner of the house then asked her ex-husband, who was an artist, if he had put anything inside a wall. Reluctant at first, he finally admitted that he had placed a painting behind a wall when the house was being built (in order to dedicate it to an evil spirit in the hopes of garnering favors). When the owner destroyed the wall in question, she found that it encased a painting that portrayed a satanic image. A week after the owner burned the painting, the exorcist claims, four different people offered to buy the house.

In all cases, say exorcists, the intent is the most critical part of a curse. The strongest curses (those causing the greatest harm) are those launched with true perfidy—when there is a familial or blood relationship between the victim and aggressor, such as a parent who curses a child.

Some signs that point to a curse, say exorcists, are chronic depression and sickness, infertility breakdowns in the family and marriage, financial difficulty and a family history of suicide or unnatural deaths. Exorcists are quick to point out that experiencing one or more of these conditions does not necessarily mean a person is cursed. Other criteria must be weighed in all cases to determine demonic activity.

The first people to be affected by a curse are often the ones who cast it, say exorcists. A jilted lover who goes to a magician to have a curse put on the girl who spurned him will perhaps fall into a dangerous pattern of returning to the magician for other reasons, such as to obtain a lucky charm to win over a new girlfriend. According to exorcists, this could not only lead to financial ruin, but in extreme cases, also to possession.

To many people, belief in curses might seem far-fetched. However, casting and removing spells are widespread in many native cultures, including some that have embraced Christianity. Haiti, for example, is a predominantly Catholic country, yet voodoo is popular.

Dedication to a demon:
This category deals with people who belong to a satanic cult specifically to harness the power of evil by dedicating themselves or family members to a demon. In the case of a child being dedicated, as with a curse, the victim is blameless. It is said that parents sometimes offer newborn babies (or even fetuses) to Satan in black masses. Father Bamonte is quick to point out, however, that any such “gifts” given in return by the Devil are almost always fleeting and have the effect of “dazzling” people so that they give themselves over completely to the Devil, becoming like slaves.

A life of hardened sin:
As defined by the Church, deciding to commit a sin is a free-will choice to do evil rather than good. According to the
Catechism
, “Sin is before all else an offence against God, a rupture of communion with him.” One sinner who became possessed as a result of his actions was Judas Iscariot, whom the Bible describes as having the Devil enter him. According to theologians, however, sin in and of itself is usually not enough to cause possession. Certain sins (such as worshiping false idols), however, can open the door to demonic possession. Sins can also be an impediment to liberation, say exorcists. It is said that the demon can latch on to a specific sin (such as an unwillingness to forgive), accentuating it until the person is in bondage to that particular sin. Until the person renounces this sin, he will have no chance to break the bondage and become liberated. In these milder possessions, say exorcists, a sincere conversion and a good confession is usually enough to liberate the person.

S
HORTLY AFTER
he had attended one of these lectures, Father Gary spoke with a seminarian originally from the Midwest who'd had a frightening experience before entering the seminary. The two met one afternoon for a
panino
at a busy coffee shop near the Trevi Fountain. Amidst the busy afternoon lunch crowd they found a spot at a counter, and the seminarian told Father Gary his story.

When the seminarian was a teenager, he and his friends had been bored, so they bought a book on spells at the local bookstore and then purchased some ingredients online. First they decided to cast a spell calling forth a particular spirit. Much to their shock, as they read out the incantations (which required that they make a pact with the Devil for maximum efficacy, though they didn't do it), a flame appeared and floated in the middle of the living room before disappearing. During another incident, a huge crow appeared outside his kitchen window, even though there were no crows around the neighborhood. Scared, they performed a different spell that made the crow disappear. According to the seminarian, however, it didn't fly away; it vanished. Realizing that he was in over his head, he'd thrown away the spell book the following day.

The story got Father Gary thinking about what might be waiting for him when he went back to San Jose. He knew from the course that the occult was rampant in Italy and growing. Perhaps even more alarming to Father Gary was that in the suburbs of a major Midwestern city, where kids were relatively wealthy and had a lot of free time, the occult was far more widespread than people realized. Had he missed warning signs in his own parish?

To Father Gary, the most interesting aspect of the lecture on Satanic cults was the list of reasons people became attracted to such a world. While the traditional reasons had been trotted out by Dr. Strano—namely rock music and the lack of a strong family unit— perhaps most intriguing to Father Gary was new media. With the advent of the Internet, not only were more kids coming into contact with exotic groups, but, as one course speaker said, the computer itself—as a tool of empowerment—played a role.

Carlo Climati, who has written several books on Satanism and youth culture, coined the phrase “new culture of isolation” to describe how today's young people, who often feel cut off from family, friends, and society, sometimes treat their computers as “friends,” in a sense replacing the real flesh-and-blood neighbor next door with a keyboard and screen.

Such a concept, whether true or not, made Father Gary wonder about his previous parish. It was clear to him that technology brought huge advances to people's lives, but what effect did this have on a spiritual level? With almost anything one could want only a mouse click away, it wasn't hard to see how using a computer might give a person a sense of omnipotence. Without the proper grounding, would unsuspecting kids be more tempted today than in the past to use these devices to seek occult knowledge, which might in turn open them up to the demonic?

Once he'd been called out by a parishioner who asked that he bless her house after her daughter had a nightmare and saw a shadow on the wall of her windowless room. Of course, he had talked to the girl before performing the blessing, but had he dealt with the situation in the right way? Now he would know to ask if she might have dabbled with anything such as a Ouija board or tried casting spells downloaded from a Web site.

At the same time Father Gary didn't want to make people paranoid or belittle their problems by pointing to a computer or a deck of tarot cards and saying, “Aha!” The key to the problem, he realized, was not the Ouija board or tarot cards per se, but the person's desire to seek knowledge through them. More often than not this pointed to a weak faith life. As one speaker in the course had said, “Where faith decreases, superstition grows.” For Father Gary, that statement rang true.