Fr. Amorth Contra Wizards and Fortune-Tellers

One cannot speak of magic without speaking of wizards or sorcer­ers, those who are particularly adept at attracting and influencing the misfortunates who turn to them in a state of prostration over a personal matter or for the other superstitious attitudes already mentioned. They receive their clients in a study purposely decked out with small statues of our Lady, the saints, candles, incense, soft light, and everything that serves to create a magical, esoterical atmosphere, so useful in subjugating the naive adventurers.

No one doubts that there are many braggarts, false charismatics, and false wizards in circulation. They may even be the majority. They advertise on television, in magazines, and today, above all, on the Internet. They are swindlers who make money at the expense of the poor simpletons who entrust themselves to them to resolve their problems. The false wizards complete their rites without obtaining any evident result. For example, they give a charm or an amulet (at a high price obviously) in order to protect the client from something, or they hand him a sack filled with dirt taken from a cemetery and flavored with the bones of the dead and menstrual blood — and all without resolving anything. Above all, in order keep a hold on the client, they make him return each month to “recharge” and to pour out more change.

On the other hand, there are true wizards and witches who are often disguised as “seers” who practice occultism, spiritism, and Satanism as a true and proper profession. Perhaps they are a minority, but they are extremely effective. Through their ritu­als and the action of Satan, these people truly obtain what they seek — that is, the misery of their misfortunate victims through sickness, the loss of a job, the breakup of relationships or forced marriages or engagements, the collapse of business affairs, and physical and psychological illnesses. 

The history of cases is infi­nite. 

What is certain is that they turn to the occult forces, seek­ing their services. They are the idolaters and the worshippers of false gods who consistently try to gain some personal advantage. They are apostates because they favor the action of the devil, who, although he has already been defeated by the Resurrection of Christ and its effects in the Church, is still operative in the world, thanks also to their perfidy.

This article is from a chapter in An Exorcist Explains the Demonic. Click image for more information.

The dramatic increase in the number of possessed persons and spiritual disturbances makes me say that the malice and supersti­tion of those who resort to them — including those who, even as a joke, practice forms of occultism, such as séances — has grown in correspondence with the generalized decline of the Faith and the spreading of a culture favoring magic. 

Television series such as Witches and films such as Harry Potter are in my view a devas­tating means of sowing suspicion in the minds of young people (and the not so young) and of cultivating a magical mentality. What is a magical mentality, if not thinking that reality can be modified with the wave of a wand?

Also relevant to the topic is how one becomes a wizard. There is a type of bona fide initiation, along with courses that introduce a person to this “art.” One does not learn in the blink of an eye how to recite formulas, perform rituals, or use instruments of healing or prediction, such as pendulums, palm reading, divining, and fortune-telling cards. I believe that the paths of initiation are very diverse because they involve occult­ists, who do not wish to operate in the light of day. There is also the Book of Commands, a very ancient text of black magic that is accessible to those who are entrusted with the transmission of its very powerful formulas.

Wizards work mostly at night. After appeasing Satan with some “appropriate” rites of adoration, they act on photographs, puppets, or other objects belonging to the one who will be struck; then, through the intervention of the spirits the wizards invoke, the spiritually negative effects ritually propitiated on such ob­jects will be transferred to the person himself.

It is necessary to clarify that all the consequences of the oc­cult — possessions, obsessions, the evil eye, strange powers, and similar things — having been caused by the influence of Satan and activated by wizards, cannot, evidently, be reversed by them. On the contrary, their intervention would only worsen things. At times they boast of being exorcists, but what they claim as powers of liberation from evil spells are nothing but a product of Satan. In the end, one is always worse than before, and with the additional weight of a personal tie to a wizard. It is necessary to distrust a wizard who boasts of such powers. A demon is not chased away with a demon, only with prayer. In these cases it is necessary to resort to a priest, an exorcist, or the prayer groups of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

Finally, I am often asked if wizards can go back to the Faith. Wizards — like exorcists, even if obviously on the completely op­posite side — touch the invisible world with their hands. When a true wizard sells himself to Satan, his reasoning is no longer his own, and normally he does not have the strength to liberate himself. For this reason, I believe that it is difficult to convert back to God. God will seek to redeem him, even to the end, as He does with all His children. 

An exorcist related to me the case of a witch who remained in agony on her deathbed for many hours and who, amid great pains and sufferings, was unable to die. By chance, the exorcist had found himself at the hospital where the witch was languishing and did an exorcism on her, and after a while she expired — reconciled with God, we hope.

https://catholicexchange.com/fr-amorth-contra-wizards-fortune-tellers-and-witchcraft

✠

This article is from a chapter in Fr. Amorth’s An Exorcist Explains the Demonic: The Antics of Satan and His Army of Fallen Angels. It is available through Sophia Institute Press.

By Fr. Gabriele Amorth

A priest of the Congregation of San Paolo, Fr. Gabriele Amorth (1925-2016) was internationally recognized as the world’s greatest exorcist. His mission of expelling the devil through incessant dedication has earned the gratitude of thousands of believers and the esteem of the most important authorities of the Catholic Church. He has written various successful works and has a very popular radio program on Radio Maria in Rome.

Fr. Amorth: The Role of Mary & Angels Against Evil

Kathleen Beckman

Fr. Gabriel Amorth’s important last book and testimony emphasizes the role of Mary and angels in the defeat of evil. As the Church anticipates the celebration of the one hundred year anniversary of the Fatima apparitions, and in light of Mary’s prophecy at Fatima, Father Amorth provides good food for thought.

Excerpt from An Exorcist Explains the Demonic

Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces

“In the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph”: Mary’s prophecy at Fátima reassures us that besides the body-to-body [struggle] with the demon (the exorcism), the earthly anticipation of the eschatological struggle between the Mother of God and the ancient dragon (cf. Rev. 12) also has her attention. Despite rampant sin and despite the man who abandons God, considering him only a useless impediment to his own unrestrained liberty, the tribulations of the Church will have an end. And the finale will be good: God will have the last word on history. For this reason, Mary is always invoked during the exorcism; although, to tell the truth, the old ritual did not include an invocation to her. Adding her to the ceremony is a practice I borrowed from Father Candido, however. It is a necessity, and the current ritual has gotten around this deficiency. During the prayer, the priest repeatedly invokes her intercession and her powerful action. Without her, little is accomplished in the struggle against Satan. It is always God who liberates one from his influence — it is good to keep repeating it—but His ear is especially attuned to the mediation of Mary, the Mother of His Son.

What role does the Virgin have in the liberation of the obsessed? Mary, as the Hail Mary says, is “full of grace.” She is the mediatrix of God’s every grace for all men, particularly for those who suffer much, including those who suffer from spiritual evils. The enmity between Mary and Satan—proclaimed solemnly by God in the first book of Genesis (Gen. 1:3–15) and manifest in the eschatological struggle with the dragon — makes her the number-one enemy of the demon. She will be the one to crush his head at the end of time.

The help of the Virgin, however, goes beyond the exceptional situations of the demoniacs. In man’s every struggle against Satan and sin, it is always she who represents the extraordinary and the irreplaceable. The demon is terrified of her. In order to be very clear, I wish to cite an episode at which I personally assisted many years ago. During an exorcism, Father Candido asked the devil a question: “Why are you more afraid when I invoke Mary than when I implore God Himself?” He responded: “I feel more humiliated being conquered by a simple creature than by God Himself.”

Mary is a creature like us, but, having been elevated to be the Mother of God, she has extraordinary power. Also for this reason I ask the persons who assist me to pray the Rosary. It is the most advisable prayer in that context, prayed individually, not aloud and collectively, as it is often prayed in church before Mass, so as not to disturb the exorcism. I would add that the Rosary, being the prayer most appreciated by our Lady, is an extremely powerful arm against the devil, and I warmly recommend it to anyone suffering from spiritual evils. This prayer has, in fact, a strong power of protection and liberation from evil. One day Sister Lucia, a seer of Fátima, revealed that God has conferred a power so great on the Rosary that there is no evil—personal, family, or social—that cannot be defeated by its recitation with faith.

What, then, can we ask of Mary in the Rosary? There is nothing else to ask of her except for the gift of peace — for the world certainly, but also for ourselves; for the serenity of our heart, so that we may be able to accept our crosses, so that we may know how to recognize the gifts that we receive each day from the good God and thank Him for this. It is also important to pray the Rosary together as a family in order to invoke peace in our homes and in our parochial communities, in workplaces, in nations, and in the world. Wars and the division of souls are unequivocal signs of the presence of the devil, which, not by chance, in Greek means “divider.”

I also recall that on March 25, 1984, St. John Paul II consecrated the world to Mary. It was a very important gesture in an epoch in which communism still represented an explicit threat to Christianity. During an exorcism, I asked an unclean spirit who was persecuting someone why he had so much hatred to- ward John Paul II. He replied: “Because he has ruined our plans.” I imagine that he was referring to the fall of communism. At Fátima, when the Virgin affirmed that her “Immaculate Heart will triumph,” what could it mean if not to trust in the Lord and her maternal help always—particularly before the danger of discouragement that lies in wait for everyone, but, above all, for those suffering from evil spirits, because often waiting for the results can seem interminable. It also means that, with the help of Mary, we must continuously engage ourselves in converting to God, so that we will know how to do His will — that is, to pardon and to love — and so that we may know how to make every event an occasion of sanctification and the realization of God’s plan for us. Mary brings us to Jesus, because initially she allowed the Holy Spirit to touch her intimately, permitting her to generate Jesus in time.

The Help of the Angels 

What role do the angels have? We have already spoken of their choice for or against God in the third chapter. The word angel derives from the Greek angelos and means “messenger of God.” The angels are spiritual creatures, without matter. They are pure forms and have a nature different from that of men, who have a material and spiritual nature together. The angels are subdivided into angelic hierarchies according to the mission that is entrusted to them by God. They cannot reproduce or die: in fact, they have been created directly by God.

At the moment of our birth, Divine Providence assigns each of us a guardian angel, with the specific task of protecting us, assisting us, and interceding for us so that at the end of life we can arrive at our destination, which is paradise.

We have already seen that entire legions of angels have chosen the tragic road of rebellion against God, refusing to obey and to adore Him and, indeed, they tried to substitute themselves for Him. As a consequence of their choice, the devils radically changed their mission: now, in fact, they use their superfine intelligence for the unique objective of destroying men and making them their companions in misfortune. As Revelation tells us, that gigantic war that was fought in the heavens among the angels and the demons has another battle held here on earth: they are in a continuous battle for our lives and our hearts.

From all this, one can affirm that the angels who remained faithful to God have a certain degree of power against ordinary temptations as well as extraordinary spiritual evils. Why? Because they are of the same nature as the devils, and they fight with the same spiritual arms. The angels intercede with God in favor of the one being tempted; for this reason, we exorcists always invoke them during the prayers on the obsessed. Among the angels we give precedence to the three archangels, in particular to St. Michael, the most powerful in the struggle against demons. Incidentally, I am among those who regret that, after Vatican II, the prayer of protection to St. Michael the Archangel, recited after Mass, was eliminated. It seems to me to have created an impoverishment, a void. It is true, however, that one can freely say it privately.

In brief, it is good to invoke the angels often, even apart from their help with extraordinary spiritual evils. I always advise imploring their assistance. Our guardian angels have a special power of intercession with God, which is always the beginning of liberations (from demons). The angels help, they intercede, but they themselves do not have the power to liberate the possessed from the terrible effects of demons.

Mary, Mother of Grace, pray for us. Angels of God, protect us.

http://catholicexchange.com/fr-amorth-role-mary-angels-evil

Editor’s note: An Exorcist Explains the Demonic is available from Sophia Institute Press. 

By Kathleen Beckman

Kathleen Beckman, L.H.S. is President and Co-Founder of the Foundation of Prayer for Priests (www.foundationforpriests.org), a global apostolate of prayer and catechesis for the holiness of priests through spiritual motherhood and fatherhood. An international Catholic evangelist, author, radio host, Ignatian certified retreat director, she assists priests in the Church’s ministry of healing, deliverance and exorcism. She also serves in Pope Leo XIII Institute, Magnificat, and Radio Maria. Often featured on Catholic TV and radio such as EWTN, the Catholic Channel, and Ave Maria, she hosts the weekly program, “Eucharist, Mercy & Saints” which airs internationally on Radio Maria. She and her husband are business owners and have two grown sons. Sophia Institute Press published her two latest books: Praying for Priests: A Mission for the New Evangelization (‘14) and God’s Healing Mercy: Finding Your Path to Forgiveness, Peace & Joy (‘15). Her reversion to the faith in 1991 came through the Eucharist and Mary. In her words, “The Eucharist is the heart of my life”. More at www.kathleenbeckman.com.

Devil wants to confuse children about gender: late chief Rome exorcist

October 7, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — Demonic disturbances that torment individuals, called diabolical obsession, “can lead to confusion about one’s gender,” “particularly in the young,” one of the world’s most famous exorcists wrote in a forthcoming book about Satan’s tactics.

Father Gabriele Amorth, who served as the chief exorcist of Rome, founded the International Association of Exorcists and performed tens of thousands of exorcisms throughout his life, died at 91 last month. In his new book, An Exorcist Explains the Demonic: The Antics of Satan and His Army of Fallen Angels, Amorth wrote that disordered ideas about gender, especially in children, can be a sign of torment from the devil.

Amorth warned that many of the devil’s “ordinary” temptations are passed off as “modern ideas” but really serve to “unhinge the principles of the faith.” These include abortion, same-sex “marriage,” euthanasia, divorce, and cohabitation, Amorth wrote.

“The loss of a sense of sin that characterizes our era helps Satan to act nearly undisturbed and, inducing man to sin, takes man progressively away from the love of God,” Amorth wrote. Suggestions like “everyone does it” applied to grave sins “weaken the consciences of men and women and lead them toward closing their hearts, egoism, lack of forgiveness, and doing everything for money, power, and sex.”

But “everything that seduces and enslaves souls leads to their death, which is Satan’s objective,” Amorth explained. Even though Satan’s promises of money, pleasure, and power seem alluring, they actually come at a terrible price and don’t allow those who choose them any peace, the late exorcist wrote.

The principle of total personal liberty, the promise of no obligation to anyone, and the denial that all truth comes directly from God are “seductive” in appearance but ultimately unfulfilling, especially for young people, Amorth wrote. These notions “delude” people “into thinking that life is a beautiful holiday” where “everything is permitted and where your ‘I’ does not recognize any limits regarding pleasure or enjoyment.” This is all because Satan wishes to lead people away from God, Amorth wrote.

Other ways that Satan infects and attacks the modern culture are certain types of music, which can provoke “violence, suicide, sexual perversion, and acts destruction against the state, the civic order, and the Church of God,” and games like Ouija boards. 

“Today families are among the most targeted by the ordinary action of Satan,” according to Amorth. To counter this, he recommended all married couples pray together and extend the habit of prayer to their children.

Although An Exorcist Explains the Demonic was deeply disturbing, Amorth reminds readers of God’s victory over Satan and the many means of growing in holiness and fighting evil provided by Holy Mother Church in the Sacraments, sacramentals, and prayer. God loves us so much and wants to protect us.

Amorth’s book is a call to authentic love for neighbor and self and a manual that can help everyone embrace God’s protection and recognize Satan’s lies.

An Exorcist Explains the Demonic can be ordered here.

Father Amorth recommends the following prayer:

Prayer for Deliverance (approved for the laity)

My Lord, you are all-powerful, you are God, you are Father.

We beg you through the intercession and help of the archangels Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel

for the deliverance of our brothers and sisters who are enslaved by the evil one.

All saints of heaven, come to our aid.

From anxiety, sadness and obsessions,

We beg you, free us, O Lord.

From hatred, fornication, envy,

We beg you, free us, O Lord. 

From thoughts of jealousy, rage, and death,

We beg you, free us, O Lord. 

From every thought of suicide and abortion,

We beg you, free us, O Lord. 

From every form of sinful sexuality,

We beg you, free us, O Lord. 

From every division in our family and every harmful friendship,

We beg you, free us, O Lord.

From every sort of spell, malefice, witchcraft, and every form of the occult,

We beg you, free us, O Lord.

Lord, you who said, “I leave you peace, my peace I give you,” grant that, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, we may be liberated from every evil spell and enjoy your peace always, in the name of Christ, Our Lord. Amen.