Halloween, Witches, Demons, and the Occult

by Kathryn Marcellino, OCDS

With Halloween right around the corner, we might ask ourselves if demons and evil spirits are real? The Church gives us an authoritative answer in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CC 414) which says, “Satan or the devil and the other demons are fallen angels who have freely refused to serve God and his plan. Their choice against God is definitive. They try to associate man in their revolt against God.”

If you ever wondered if demons are just an old-fashioned notion that intelligent modern people don’t believe in nowadays, or just a literary convention, you might be interested in reading a couple of somewhat hair-raising books called Interview With an Exorcist: An Insider’s Look at the Devil, Demonic Possession, and the Path to Deliverance by Fr. Jose Antonio Fortea and also An Exorcist Tells His Story by Fr. Gabriele Amorth. These books are very revealing live encounters with demons today by credible sources (i.e. priests who are exorcists) and give a lot of information on how to protect ourselves from evil spirits and what demons can and cannot do.

Since we are in spiritual warfare while here on earth, it makes sense to know more about our spiritual enemies so that we can be better prepared to battle them (without really focusing on them, or being obsessed, or overly-frightened of them or blaming everything on evil spirits.)

For example, did you know that angels and demons cannot read our thoughts unless we direct our attention to them with the idea of communicating with them? Did you know that there are people who are possessed today and what it takes to gain deliverance from evil spirits, curses, etc.? Did you know that there are other forms of demonic oppression besides just possession?

Some dangerous things to avoid include spells, charms, curses, witchcraft, ouija boards, seances and anything having to do with the occult. These kinds of things, some of them innocently done at children’s parties, are not only strictly forbidden by the Catholic faith, but dangerous, in that they open us up to evil spirits, which are real and not just imaginary. Please don’t ever let your children/teens attend parties (especially popular at slumber parties) where there are seances and ouija boards and/or playing with spells and witchcraft. Ask beforehand what will be done at before allowing your children to attend parties. Witchcraft and spells are becoming more popular due to books and movies and somehow we need protect our children from these dangers of without getting them fascinated with them or making them seem interesting to them.

More from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on “Divination and Magic”

2115: God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility.

2116: 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. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

2117: 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. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another’s credulity.”

What is the attraction?

Why do people get attracted to using witchcraft and/or the occult practices? The answer is usually that they are seeking some sort of power, control, or some kind of hidden knowledge of the other world or the future… in other words to have some of the power that generally belongs to God. This is a temptation. The serpent in the Garden of Eden tempted Eve and said, “…you will be like gods…” (Genesis 3:5); however, when doing what the devil said she didn’t become like God, but rather lost all God’s blessings. Reality is that we are creatures and whereas God did give us some power, it is limited and we are dependent on God for all we are and have.

Good angels also truly exist like our guardian angels. St. Michael, the Archangel, and the other good angels battle with Satan and the evil spirits. The name “Michael” means “who is like God” (implying that no one is like God in contrary to Satan’s temptation.) Our guardian angel helps protect us from spiritual and natural dangers.

If you are interested in scary movies and ghosts and goblins and want the real story about demons etc. you might be interested to read first hand accounts and conclusions by the two Catholic priests-exorcists mentioned earlier, as sometimes the truth is even stranger and more scary than fiction.

However if we keep ourselves in God’s grace we really have nothing to fear as the devil cannot coerce us to sin. God does limit the power the devil has over us, and we are not allowed to be tempted more than God gives us the grace to resist. The devil can only do what God allows or we allow him to do. Let’s refuse to cooperate voluntarily with the devil and refuse to open ourselves up to evil spirits by occult practices. There really is a hell and evil spirits, and we don’t want to spend eternity there, so let’s not have anything to do with the occult while here on earth.

If we have been involved in something occult-related, we should go to confession, and if necessary, learn more about how to be delivered from any lingering effects through prayers of deliverance. In the rare instance that possession is suspected, exorcism should only be attempted by someone who is authorized by the Church. (Regular people should not attempt something like this on their own.) Wearing blessed medals, scapulars, holy water, and other sacramentals are also helpful when used with faith in God and not as a superstition.

Halloween in our secular culture is associated with witches, ghosts, evil spirits, demons, etc. but is it really the feast of All Saints Day and this is where the name derives (i.e. All Hallows Eve). Whereas it is good to know the devil exists and evil spirits so we can stay away from them, for the most part we should really keep our focus mainly on God and good things like the Bible tells us to do.

Kathryn is a member of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites and runs a web site with a familiar name – Catholic Spiritual Direction

Introduction to Spiritual Warfare Part III – What is the devil up to?

Q: Dear Father John, I have been working on my prayer life consistently for a few years. During this time I have been on retreats and other similar activities. I have noticed a strange pattern: the conservative groups I have had contact with talk a lot about spiritual warfare, but the less traditionalist groups don’t. Until now, I haven’t paid much attention to the discrepancy. But lately I was wondering if maybe I should look into it – maybe understanding it better will help me grow spiritually?

A: We have looked briefly at the reality of spiritual warfare, not as a distant and dramatic mystical phenomenon, but as the basic dynamism of our everyday life (Part I). And we have identified, again briefly, the three enemies against which we fight these spiritual battles: the world (understood as the sinful patterns of behavior that society in a fallen world tends to normalize), the flesh (the innate tendencies of our fallen nature that draw us towards self-centered decisions and habits), and the devil.

The devil was the first enemy that Jesus mentioned in his parable of the sower. There is something to that. We mustn’t forget that the devil is real, that he and his minions (the other angels that joined his rebellion against God and became demons) are our opponents, “prowling around like a roaring lion looking for (someone) to devour,” as St Peter explained it (1 Peter 5:8).

The devil prowls around in at least three different ways.

Possession

His most dramatic modus operandi is demonic possession. This involves the devil’s inner control of the actions of the human body. It can be permanent or intermittent. The Gospels describe multiple cases of demonic possession. Even in these cases, the victims maintain their free will – the devil can never force us to sin. Usually possession occurs as the result of someone’s dabbling in occult or esoteric spiritual activities, or through a free descent towards progressively more decadent sinful activities. But sometimes a victim can have no culpability at all. The main objective of demonic possession is to terrorize the victim and cause suffering. It is a manifestation of the devil’s hatred for those whom God loves so thoroughly.

Obsession

His second-most dramatic mode of operation is demonic obsession. This involves attempting an external control of a victim’s body or senses. Obsession can at times be violent, leaving bruises and injuries (as in the case of St John Vianney, for example). More often it takes the form of an assault on a person’s powers of sight (disturbing visions), hearing (disturbing sounds), imagination (disturbing images), memory, or emotional equilibrium. The main objective of demonic obsession is to deceive the victim, wear them down spiritually, and induce sin.

Diabolical possession and obsession are real, and I am sure this very brief summary has sparked questions. To get answers, I highly recommend Fr. Gabriel Amorth’s book, An Exorcist Tells His Story. It is also available in audio format. Fr. Amorth was the long-time exorcist in the diocese of Rome. He wrote this book in accessible – not theological – language, precisely for normal Catholics.

Temptation

By far, however, the most common activity of the devil is simply temptation. The devil’s best allies are the other two enemies: our own fallen nature (the flesh), and the fallen world. Many times, those forces are sufficient to lead us into sin. They are especially sufficient when combined with our own self-centered habits, which most of us freely spend so much time perfecting during our childhood and youth.

But as we grow in our friendship with Christ, with the help of his grace, we also grow in virtue. The gifts of the Holy Spirit bolster our humble efforts to be courageous, patient, chaste, generous, wise, joyful, and self-forgetful. As we move towards or along this path of spiritual progress, or as we set out upon it, the devil will sometimes tempt us directly. He does this by intensifying (in our perception) the seductive attractions of the world, or by turbo-boosting the drives and the tug of the flesh.

Sometimes this activity is identifiable by its suddenness, violence, and persistence. But often the devil’s temptations are extremely subtle, barely discernible to our conscious mind. They usually consist in the devil’s putting an idea – a deceptive idea, a half-truth – in front of us. This deceptive, alluring idea is a hook that, if we latch onto it, will either draw us away from God’s will, or draw our attention away from something God is trying to tell us

Rather than giving specific examples of how this happens, I would like to point you to a resource that dramatizes the process with an entertaining and brilliant accuracy, C.S. Lewis’s classic, multi-generational bestseller, The Screwtape Letters. The book compiles thirty letters written from a senior devil to a junior devil about how to engage in the tricky game of tempting humans. And for those of you who do most of your “reading” with headphones on or while you’re driving, I can also recommend a compelling (and, again, entertaining) audio dramatization of that book, recently released by Focus on the Family Radio Theatre and available here (at a discount for our readers – see below!). If you have already read this book, I recommend that you re-read it every few years. Nothing I have found exposes the devil’s tempting tactics more thoroughly or more enjoyably.

Avoiding the Extremes

Whenever we talk or think (or read) about the devil, we have to be careful. It is dangerous for us to forget about him, but it is also dangerous for us to give him too much credit. It is not difficult for Jesus to keep the devil under control. The devil is a created being; God is the Creator. The devil must obey Jesus, and is actually fearful of souls who are in the state of grace. True, he prowls around like a roaring lion, looking to make us fall into his deceits and traps, so that he can devour us. But his activity is circumscribed by God’s wisdom and omnipotence.

We can avoid giving the devil too little or too much attention if we reflect on this number from the Catechism (#395), which sums things up nicely:

The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God’s reign. Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries – of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature- to each man and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence which with strength and gentleness guides human and cosmic history. It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but “we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him.

We still have one more spiritual warfare related topic to cover: how to fight against our enemies. That, God willing, will be our next post.

Yours in Christ, Father John Bartunek, LC

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