Devil's powers

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I’ve been reading up a bit on exorcism lately and a few questions arose.

Firstly, what are the devil’s powers? For instance, can we say that Satan was responsible for the Katrina Hurricane or that Southeast Asian Tsunami? From a spiritual standpoint, God gives us rain to water our crops so that everything can benefit. Can we say therefore that the devil caused drought? Does Satan have any influence over the physical realm?

My frist intincts would be to have said that Satan can’t do those things, and that he only has spiritual, mystical strength, but the physical world is God’s, but after reading what exorcists have said, I’m not so sure anymore. Priests who have performed exorcisms, and who are reputable, have said that they’ve given exorcisms to victims who actually would be able to spit out odd things like nails and batteries. They didn’t take in those objects, and there hasn’t been any internal damage from them, so it appears that those things somehow formulate in their mouths right before they spit it out.

But I might be wrong. I’m not very bright with these theological, mystical issues, so any insight would really help me out.

My second question, can Satan read our thoughts? Can he use those thoughts to interfere with our goals?

Things I’ve read on this conflict. I read of one supposed Marian apparition (which I don’t know if it was approved or not) where Mary said that we shouldn’t write down or say out loud our intentions, because Satan would see them and try to ruin them; so instead, keep those thoughts mental because Satan can’t get inside your head.

But then again, it appears that Satan can put suggestions into your mind, tempting you to disobey God. So if Satan can put thoughts in, he might be able to read the thoughts that we already have in there.

For anyone who’d like to respond to this, could you also cite some specific examples of things that saints and popes have said? It’s not easy for me to find info on this, particularly since people generally dislike talking about these things in an intellectual forum. And of course, even then, I don’t want to obsess about demonology. I think it’s a severe flaw when people do that. We shouldn’t mourn in being annoyed by evil; we should rejoice in the goodness of God, and that using God’s positives would end in us overcoming Satan’s negatives. We have God, so screw Satan.😃
 
Wow-- great topic. I like you, am waiting for some knowledgable people to answer.

I’m interested in your findings in your exorcism searches.
What was it that motivated you to research?

Personally, I’ve told a few people who are close to me, that it is in times of the absense of God, or in times where Satan seems to relevant, that my faith is strongest. Some people want to grow up to be a firefighter, some a Dr… for me, I use to grow up wanting to fight Satan. I didn’t follow in any priestly footsteps, instead I’m just a regular guy, working in a regular job, but I still know that my faith is at its best when I feel that Satan is near. Part of me feels that my faith is a responce – like a protective bubble against Satan. Unfortuneatly, my faith has had swings of high times and low times (probably like other people) but it was at a low time, when science was dominating my life … and without going into it, the scientific side of me found comfort that through seeing acts/evidience of Satan, that I believed stronger in God.

Anyways-- I’m totally interested in your findings.
If you don’t mind, or have the time, I’d love to know a few major things that you learned-- your post was a an interesting read for me.

Take care!
 
Thanks for responding. It’s weird that no one else has responded to this, isn’t it?

Some of what I learnt so far (which is really limited, because I don’t really focus on these topics):

I read in Saint Teresa of Avila’s writings that the devil would come and torment here while she’d write, and she’d just sprinkle some holy water to shoo him away. But, another book I read called The Vatican’s Exorcists quoted an exorcist who said that sprinkling does help, but it doesn’t totally do the job, and the devil would just laugh at you for it.

People who are possessed have the ability to speak languages that they can’t know. There’s a similar thing going on in the US Pentecostal movement, where they supposedly can “speak in tongues,” drawing from the Bible:
  • Genesis talks about men who got together to build the Tower of Babel that was meant to reach heaven, but God struck it down. The people were dispersed and God confused their talking, making them speak in different languages, so they can’t ever get back together to plan such a stupid thing. (Can you believe these people were actually our ancestors!? I don’t mind descending from apes, but to be related to these weirdos who wanted to build a tower so they can get to heaven and be like gods?)
  • The Book of Acts talks about the Apostles after the Pentecost. After the Holy Spirit descended on them, they went out and preached to people from far-away lands who had different languages.
Pentecostals say that they can speak in tongues just like in the Bible, but they’re overlooking something really basic – speaking in tongues is not a gift from God. It was God’s punishment in Babel. In fact, the true gift from God was the ability to not have language barriers, to understand all languages, like what happened with the Apostles.

Those Pentecostals can’t understand each other when they do that; they can’t even understand themselves when they supposedly do this. It’s really silly to think this is a spiritual gift and to draw it from the Bible when the Bible says the complete opposite.

Anyway, in cases where possessed people speak in tongues, they’re actual languages. If the priest would speak to them in Latin, they would answer back in Latin, even though they never learnt the language; it isn’t like the Pentecostals where speaking in tongues is the equivalent of singing the Macarena.

Exorcists say that the devil hates Latin. I found this curious. Latin is a sacred language for us, but it isn’t as if it’s inherently sacred. For the first few centuries of the Church, Latin wasn’t even the holy language for us – Greek was. Catholics of the East, who are in Full Communion with us and are subject to the Pope, don’t have Latin as a sacred language, but have Greek, Aramaic, Coptic, or whatever else it might be.

So, Latin was an adaptation; it was something that the Roman Catholic Church made sacred. It wasn’t sacred in and of itself, but it was sacred because we chose it to be sacred.

It only shows us that the Church is truly so powerful that what it does indeed binds and loosens in the mystical world. Satan is afraid of Latin only because it’s what we made sacred. It’s so remarkable and it goes to show us the Church’s true power over evil.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but Father Gabriele Amorth (a guy who might just be the world’s expert on exorcism) said last year that Hitler and Stalin did such evil things because they were possessed by the devil. True, he did say that; but the media reported on it very poorly. It ended up giving the impression that our Exorcisms are silly superstitions, and if the foremost expert on it can “blame it on the devil,” then the whole system is flawed.

But, I don’t agree with that judgement that Westerners tend to make against Father Amorth and our whole Church. First of all, if anyone knows about these things, it’s Father Amorth. It isn’t as if he’s giving excuses for Stalin and Hitler. But if they were truly possessed, surely an expert in the field would know it. He’s seen almost everything that happens with exorcisms, and he knows how to judge scientific, medical and psychological problems versus true exorcisms. He’s a veritable expert, and he knows what he’s talking about.

(Continued on next post)
 
(Continued from previous post, since it limited the amount of characters I can have)

Americans are so quick to dismiss these things, brushing it off as superstitious weird stuff; yet exorcisms are weighed scientifically, and those people do things that just aren’t possible. Like, how many people do we know that can actually spit across a room with total accuracy? How many people can correctly speak languages that they never learnt? There’s a whole field of study here that’s done by responsible scholars; people need to have some trust there in these people who are experts.

Second of all, exorcists say that dabbling in the occult would open a door for Satan to enter the practitioners’ lives. It’s actually dangerous to play with Ouija boards because Satan can attack you through it. Hitler was known to practise in the occult. It’s a documented historical fact. Nazism had a whole occult mystical system. Hitler took part in it and it could have gotten the devil to enter his messed-up mind.

People would look at that case and automatically think anti-semitism, believing that the Vatican hates Jewish people and that Father Amorth’s statements just prove it. This really annoys me, because a sober view of it would demonstrate that this just isn’t the case. Father Amorth wasn’t making up excuses for Stalin and Hitler; though they may have been possessed, they still also held their mental faculties, and they are still guilty of the crimes they committed. No one is excusing them for the Holocaust and pogroms. Furthermore, Vatican relations with the Jewish people have never been better. Our pope was forced to be in the Hitler Youth, but he detested what they did and deserted it – something that was punishable by death. Does that sound like an anti-Semitic man? He visited a German synagogue. Jewish leaders are smart and pay attention to the facts, and so when he was elected, they knew that he wasn’t anti-Semitic in the slightest, and they congratulated his election. There’s so much bias out there, so many really stupid preconceptions against us – would it kill those people to learn the facts?

Do you happen to get the Discovery Channel? There’s a show there you might want to check out. It’s called A Haunting. It’s a sort of documentary-style show where they dramatise hauntings and possessions. In almost all the episodes I’ve seen so far, the Catholic Church had to formally designate exorcisms to happen. That only happens after medical and psychological evaluation, so it shows that we can trust the programmes are reporting truthfully and scientifically.

They did a really freaky one called A Haunting in Connecticut where demons bothered a family. I taped it and it’s pretty good. Don’t watch it late at night though.

Other things I learnt, demons are afraid when they sense that the Eucharist is in the room, or if there’s a relic of a saint, and things like that. They can actually feel the presence even if it’s just in someone’s pocket. Interestingly, exorcists also reported that since John Paul II died, demons were terrified when the priests would pray for his help in fighting the possessors.

By the way, John Paul II is also said to have performed at least three known exorcisms, though the last one didn’t fully work, and the demon later mocked it saying “Even the Pope couldn’t defeat me.” But, this isn’t really as damning as the demons would like to make it seem. In reality, people who undergo exorcisms usually need to have sessions with their priests for years. I’ve read of cases that took a dozen or more years of weekly exorcism rites.

I’d love to discuss it with you more, but I just left you a private message since it might be better if we talked that way instead. I’m a little afraid of cluttering the message boards with my rantings. It tends to happen when I’m on a coffee-fueled discussion, the psycho that I am.😃
 
The Book of Job talks about satan’s powers. He evidently has the power to send tornadoes and natural disaster, as well as diseases upon Job.

Paul talks about speaking in tongues in 1 Cor 14, and it is in unknown tongues, not the type of tongues at Pentecost, where everyone understood each other. Why? Because he also talks about the need for interpreting the unknown tongue.

The devil sees what we do, but I don’t think he can read our thoughts, unless we speak them out loud.

A good resource on this is the Spiritual Warfare book, “Dear Heatemup”, from Amazon.com.

amazon.com/Dear-Heatemup-Spiritual-Warfare-Century/dp/1419649124/ref=sr_1_1/104-3739007-6595922?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180920405&sr=8-1
 
The problem is that alot of people don’t acknowledge the Devil exists and this is precisely what he wants. There is a very very good website called spiritual warfare that you can read some exerpts on 4 different posessions of documented cases, it also explains why these people got possessed and one of them may have been and education lesson for the Catholic Church. There is also a story about a women that prayed for her deceased friend who came to her and told her she has been forced to tell her about why she is in hell.
God Bless
 
julie_s said:
There is a very very good website called spiritual warfare that you can read some exerpts on 4 different posessions of documented cases, it also explains why these people got possessed and one of them may have been and education lesson for the Catholic Church. There is also a story about a women that prayed for her deceased friend who came to her and told her she has been forced to tell her about why she is in hell.
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Can you post a link, please? I’d like to see that.
 
It’s possible the devil could read your mind but only if God permitted it. Yes the devil is powerful and has many resources to use against the kingdom of God but ultimately he is confined to God’s permissive will. To reiterate, the devil is only allowed to do what God permits him. Despite Satan’s strong intent to violate God’s will and wreck havoc on God’s people, he is still being used by God to test the mettle of God’s saints and sanctify them through his temptations. Therefore, what Satan intends as evil can, by God’s grace, be turned on it’s head for good. For instance, temptation which is used by Satan to lure people into sin can be used by God to strengthen those who resist it. 🙂 Paradoxically, despite Satan’s opposite intent to do evil, he is mysteriously being used by God to fulfill His purposes and providence.
 
There’s a good book I read years ago, but the former Jesuit and the late(RIP), Malachi Martin, “Hostage to the Devil.”

Mother Angelica had the exorcist priest(don’t recall his name) of the Arch Diocese of New York on, and a caller asked the priest about this book and the author. The priest said if was accurate and that he himself, consulted with Malachi Martin on exorcism, in his years in the ministry.

Its about demonic possession and exorcism, specifically, five actual Church documented cases, of demonic possession and exorcism.

Anyway, the in the book, Martin does a good job explaining the process of demonic possession. Demonic possession is a process where the demon works to over take the “will,” of the person. Our free will is one of God’s greatest gifts, and just as we surrender our will to God, the demon desires that we surrender our will to him. In all five cases, one which included a priest, the process took months and even years.

Another interesting aspect, is that the exorcist priest, usually has to fight the same demon, throughout his career.

Anyway, you can get the book in public library, and I would recommend not reading it before bed-time. 🙂

Jim
 
I’ve read “Hostage to the Devil”. It’s a powerfully written book that I’d highly recommend.
 
You mention The Book of Job talks about satan’s powers. “He evidently has the power to send tornadoes and natural disaster, as well as diseases upon Job” (end of quote).
What you didn’t mention was that satan didn’t send these the way you mention. Satan told God that he had put a fence around Job, and that that was the reason why satan couldn’t touch him. Satan told God to give him permission to tempt him, take away from him what God had blessed him with and in a dismal way. After satan did it’s best GOD told satan to look at what God had allowed it to do. Then God gave back to Job 100 times what he had. So, what power does satin have?

Secondly.
I think we should remember that satan has NO power that God does not allow. This is GOD’s garden and in it are the good fruits and the bad. the same as the garden in our homes.
In this world we fight against principalities of darkness and we can only win the fight when we accept Jesus Christ the son of God and accept the Holy spirit as our helper. In doing that we are told to read Ephthesians 6: 14-20, putting this on each day. We should also read (with the heart changing) 1Corinth13 and after reading it the first time change the words to “God is” and then read it again with “I am” then read James 3: 5 and accept that this is the very reason why Jesus tells us that we are made to God’s likeness, not satans so the more we ask forgiveness and forgive others the greater power in Jesus Christ we have over satan.

Point three.
speaking in toungs. There are many reasons for speaking in toungs. I would believe that you have no knowledge of, and /or don’t speak in this beautiful toung. A person can speak in toungs after having asked, and God giving the gift, a gift from God. The person versed in speaking in toungs may have the gift only to speak prophetically, or in praising God, or others to edify those of other races who might be in the congregation and can only understand to a limited amount, or again to ward off satan, and again to deliver some person in a healing setting.

I have heard my wife who was not a good singer ( actually terrible) in the shower singinf and the voice was that of an angel I have heard my children singing like angels to God. I get called to people who need healing and I at times pray in toungs that satan cannot understand. I and many others in Mass sopeak in toungs and end up in tears when God tells them some little thing about His love for them. When a person bursts into song intoungs they may not know what they are singing but it is the spirit of God in that person giving praise to God that has taken over it is the most beautiful thing tohear. To hear many people start to sing in toungs and all of a sudden it sounds like a choir of Angels singint there is nothing better than to be in amongst it. Test it, tell some you know who sings or speaks in toungs about what I have told you, be there and hear for your self.
Don’t put down God’s gifts that you may have no knowledge about they may be the toe or the piece of hair on the head or the arm of the body but they are still a part of the body of man made to God’s likeness. God loves them all.
God bless
littleone
 
littleone said:
Point three.
speaking in toungs. There are many reasons for speaking in toungs. I would believe that you have no knowledge of, and /or don’t speak in this beautiful toung. A person can speak in toungs after having asked, and God giving the gift, a gift from God. The person versed in speaking in toungs may have the gift only to speak prophetically, or in praising God, or others to edify those of other races who might be in the congregation and can only understand to a limited amount, or again to ward off satan, and again to deliver some person in a healing setting.
(…)
Don’t put down God’s gifts that you may have no knowledge about they may be the toe or the piece of hair on the head or the arm of the body but they are still a part of the body of man made to God’s likeness. God loves them all.
God bless
littleone
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Hi, I think you misunderstood what I meant when I wrote about the speaking in tongues. I was referring to people from the Pentecostal groups who “speak in tongues” just with mushed-up syllables that don’t make sense. As I pointed out in my post, it’s different from the speaking in tongues we have in the Bible. Rather, the Pentecostals who do that can’t understand each other or even understand themselves when they “speak in tongues.” They just speak nonsensical gibberish and claim it’s a gift from God. That’s what I meant, and I do think I was crystal clear about that in my earlier post.
 
JesuXPIPassio said:
Hi, I think you misunderstood what I meant when I wrote about the speaking in tongues. I was referring to people from the Pentecostal groups who “speak in tongues” just with mushed-up syllables that don’t make sense. As I pointed out in my post, it’s different from the speaking in tongues we have in the Bible. Rather, the Pentecostals who do that can’t understand each other or even understand themselves when they “speak in tongues.” They just speak nonsensical gibberish and claim it’s a gift from God. That’s what I meant, and I do think I was crystal clear about that in my earlier post.
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Yes I understand what you are saying. It does sound like gibberish and it does sound nonsensical. But it is not do you not remember that Paul wrote that “I would rather say one word that others can understand than to say many that no one can understand”.
The reason why is because the person speaking nonsensicaly, is speaking to the spirit of God. Only the spirit understands, usually not even the person speaking can understand. BUT it is not nonsence.
There comes a time when in a persons prayer life when (if they have fallen in love with Jesus and the Holy Spirit) that they need more and the more is more than ever, speaking in toungs. Where the spirit of God in that person takes over and out comes a language that lifts the roof, so as to speak. The person feels so light and come manny tears for what ever reason the spirit gives to cry.

God bless
littleone
 
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