Have you ever been afraid?

I’ve never had nightmares. I’ve never been afraid. It has to be grace. And I’m not being overly pietistic. It has to be grace, because I’m not afraid.

In the first century there were so many pseudo exorcists, and we have the same phenomenon today. How has the church distinguished itself in the approach to exorcism ?

We have an authoritative ritual, that to me is really what most distinguishes Roman Catholicism and our approach to the demonic from every other, whether he or she be a freelance exorcist or someone who’s directly connected to some ecclesial body. The Orthodox also have an authoritative ritual. What distinguishes Roman Catholicism from the Orthodox in so far as the practice of exorcism, is that in their tradition, every priest is deputized to be an exorcist. In our tradition, the bishop is the chief exorcist of the diocese by right of his ordination, and he can deputize someone like me to do that, or he can deputize someone else on the spot and say, this is an ad hoc case. I need you to go and deal with it. But I would say that would be the point of demarcation that would be the easiest one to differentiate, would be the fact that we have the authoritative ritual that goes back to 1614.

The Catholic Church first published the Rites Of Exorcism in 1614 and the latest version of this fascinating ritual was revised in 1999.

Do you work with healthcare professionals?

I have a prayer team that’s separate from the professionals. The prayer team are with me at every exorcism and every major deliverance. And they’re there to help in the discernment in what we’re observing, and how we’re praying, and what’s going on during the actual formal exorcism, or if it’s a deliverance which is not a formal exorcism. The medical doctor, clinical psychologist and psychiatrist are not present for any of those rituals or prayer experiences. However, they’re part of the discernment that will lead up to what is the approach that we need to take. So, when someone calls me, and I agree to see them, we usually meet in the parlor here just for the initial conversation and meeting, etc., after some initial prayer, I will say, “What’s brought you here today?”

And I’ll have them tell me what the event or pattern of events has been to cause them to seek an exorcist. I’ll say, “When did that experience or set of experiences first begin?” Because, I always assume (and I tell them this up front) a. they’re telling me what’s real for them, and I’m not there to deny it or debunk it. My role is to get to the root cause of what they’re suffering from. I underline “suffering,” because that’s true for almost every single person who comes to me whether they have mental health issues, supernatural issues, or both. They’re suffering. And so, my role is to get to the root cause of the suffering.

In the course of the listening always listening for doorways. I will follow up with a whole variety and battery of questions in terms of tell me what it was like growing up in your home? Tell me about your religious background if you have one, whether it’s Catholic or otherwise, because I don’t see just Catholics. Tell me about any history of involvement in the occult? Ouija boards, Tarot cards, séances, palm readings, mediums, white magic, black magic, spells, meditation, whatever. Any history of addictions — drugs, alcohol, food, gambling, pornography? Any history of sexual abuse? Eighty percent of the people who come to me are sexual abuse victims. And then, tell me about the history of your family. Have you associated with people who are involved in, have ever been involved in the occult, or the satanic? Sometimes their responses will cause me to ask other kinds of questions.

Because I’m always listening for doorways — openings where might a demon or a spirit have somehow entered into and attached possibly to their body or their life. One of the ways in which we test that out, I always do some deliverance prayer with them on the first session, and then based on listening for the doorways, sometimes it’s really clear. Sometimes people have done all kinds of dangerous stuff. Sometimes people will start manifesting in the parlour. I’ve had that happen a few times.

St. Adalbert exorcism in bronze doors from around 1175 at Gniezno Cathedral.

So, depending on what happens might depend on the degree to which I might send them to our clinical psychologist for an evaluation. If I don’t hear any doorways, more likely than not, I will send them to the therapist. It’s to get them into a regimen, to kind of build them up. It’s like when someone goes to their physician and their resistance is low, and you might give them antibiotics, or you might put them on a vitamin regimen, so if they’re Catholic and really aren’t connected to the church, I’ll say, “You need to get back in a rhythm of faith life and a spiritual life.” So, regular Eucharists weekly. Monthly confession. Daily prayer. “Let’s try and start doing that for the next couple two, three, four weeks, and then come see me in a month.”

Now, if there’s manifestations, I will call the therapist and I’ll say, “I’m gonna send someone to you and this is what I observed.” It’s really to get an affirmation either way, but when I’m seeing some of the signs myself, I’m not going to go launching into an exorcism. An exorcism is the very last thing an exorcist does. But I would certainly create a schedule where we would do deliverance prayer on a regular basis and see, between that and the Sacraments, if that is enough to be able to free the person from the demonic.

Can you explain the different terms you use to describe someone who is demonized?

A demonic obsession is usually where there’s psychotic experiences of hearing voices, seeing demons, maybe going through periods of what we call disassociation, to a one degree or another.

Oppression usually refers to a kind of depression where the person has a hard time functioning but still can function, in either case oppression, obsession, at a level where they can hold a job, raise a family, drive a car and basically do what you and I do, but with difficulty.

Possession is where demons take full control, usually with people who are fully possessed, they can’t function. They can’t take care of themselves, they can’t drive a car. They’re not really competent. So, a full possession is relatively rare.

Are there gateway sins to demon possession?

I think anyone who dabbles in paganism and idolatry, the occult stuff, I think that’s a gateway. The occult does not equate to the demonic. The occult is a doorway to the demonic. So, the person who plays the Ouija board one time and they’re 15 years old, is a demon going to come? I doubt it. But if that person gets very good at playing the Ouija board and they’re still doing it two or three years later, and they’re doing it with any kind of frequency, I’d say the chances of an invitation go up much higher.

Boy communicating with ghosts through spiritual board.

It’d the same thing with people who dabble in the occult and be sexual abuse victims, that’s like putting a bowl of blood outside your back door and waiting for the raccoons to show up. Because demons are always looking for people with broken relationships or no relationships… When people come in and they bring (sexual abuse) up, the first thing I say to them is, “Have you gone to therapy? Have you gotten some healing for this?” Because unless you close that door, it does make you more vulnerable.

The Catholic Church in America has been seemingly reticent about saying too much about exorcism, why?

I think on the one hand bishops in general are very afraid. I think the sexual abuse scandal, I mean, that was a major, major torpedo hit, if you want to use that metaphor of a ship as the church. We took a monster, monster hit, and… there continued to be a lot of aftershocks. And the aftershocks come really in the form of additional scandals… So, every time one of these things happen, as we’re getting off the mat and one more of these things occur, it just only makes the hierarchy, I think, hunker down that much more.

So, when you bring up the notion of the demonic, it’s like, “Oh, we don’t know what to do with that.” I mean in general there’s very few bishops who even know very much about the ministry of exorcism… this stuff is not even taught in the seminaries. Not that everybody needs to be a trained exorcist, but there needs to be some kind of formation around the issues that we’re discussing

So, you’ve got bishops who are afraid in general. That’s why a lot of bishops haven’t appointed exorcists. They’re afraid. There’s one diocese in the USA I won’t name. That bishop will not even allow his priest to simply pray deliverance prayers over people out of fear of litigation. Which I think is simply off the charts personally. There’s bishops who don’t just flat out believe because they told us so, and I kind of scolded him and said, “How can you get up and preach, how can you even do a baptism, and you ask the people, ‘Do you reject Satan,’ and you don’t believe this yourself!” I said, “This is fraudulent.”

If there is such a need, would you consider doing this full time?

I get lots of calls. I mean, I could do this full time. My own mentor told me, “You do not want to do this full time. You won’t survive.” Another priest, whom I have great respect for, he said to me the same thing. He says, “You’ll burn out.” He says, “You need to be a marathon runner, not a sprinter. You’ll burn out.”

So that’s why I’m not doing it full time. Because I know they’re right, but I couldn’t do this all the time. There’s a lot of people who are sick mentally and have nowhere to go. They’ve been down the therapy road often times and it doesn’t work. They’ve been to a variety of people, no results. So, they turn to the church, not necessarily because they are possessed, or because they have a demonic issue, but because they don’t know what they have. When people call me and say, “Father, I need an exorcist,” my pat answer back is, “I don’t do exorcisms demand.” It’s the last thing you do, because if you don’t know what the hell you’re doing, and you exorcise someone who doesn’t need it, you can really need it, you can really do major, major psychological damage.

Even in the foreword of the ritual it’s very clear: the exorcist has to be very deliberate, you need to consult experts in the field, and you must be convinced that that’s the appropriate approach to take and that everything else has failed. So that’s why they’re rare. Even though at one point a few months ago, I was exorcising five different people because they all had demonic issues.

Thank you for your time Fr. Gary.

You’re welcome.

The exorcism documentary featuring Fr. Gary Thomas can be viewed at battlingdarkness.com

Prior to 1973, Satan seemed all but dead and gone, the casualty of a modernist mindset. But with Linda Blair’s disturbing performance in The Exorcist, Satan returned with a vengeance and since then films about demonic possession have fascinated viewers worldwide. However, was the visage of Satan that returned Biblical or distorted? And how have these images influenced society’s view of the demonic and spiritual warfare? In this thought provoking documentary, these questions are examined with objectivity and insight from psychologists, modern-day exorcists and leading voices in Christianity.