What is the devil's favorite sin? An exorcist responds [CNA]

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http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/images/size340/Gargolas_FlickrToddPageCC_BY_NC_20_240815.jpgMadrid, Spain, Dec 28, 2015 / 04:11 pm (CNA).- Is an exorcist afraid? What is the devil’s favorite sin? These and other questions were tackled in an interview this summer with the Dominican priest, Father Juan José Gallego, an exorcist from the Archdiocese of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain.

It has been nine years since Fr. Gallego was appointed as exorcist. In an August interview conducted by the Spanish daily El Mundo, the priest said that in his experience, pride is the sin the devil likes the most.

“Have you ever been afraid?” the interviewer asked.

“In the beginning I had a lot of fear,” Fr. Gallego replied. “All I had to do was look over my shoulder and I saw demons… the other day I was doing an exorcism, ‘I command you! I order you!’…and the Evil One, with a loud voice fires back at me: ‘Galleeeego, you’re over-doooing it.’ That shook me.”

Nevertheless, he knows that the devil is not more powerful than God. The exorcist recalled that “when they appointed me, a relative told me, ‘Whoa, Juan José, I’m really afraid, because in the movie ‘The Exorcist,’ one person died and the other threw himself through a window. I said to her ‘Don’t forget that the devil is (just a) creature of God.’”

When people are possessed, he added, “they lose consciousness, they speak strange languages, they have inordinate strength, they feel really bad, you see very well-mannered people vomiting and blaspheming.”

“There was a boy whom the demon would set his shirt on fire at night and things like that. He told me what the demons were proposing him to do: If you make a pact with us, you’ll never have to go through any more of what you’re going through now.”

Father Gallego also warned that “New Age” practices like reiki and some yoga can be points of entry for the demons. He also said that addictions are “a type of possession.”

“When people are going through a crisis they suffer more. They can feel hopeless, People feel like they’ve got the devil inside,” he said.

This article was originally published on CNA Aug. 25, 2015.

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He also said that addictions are “a type of possession.”

as a Physician working in the Addiction field the above is not true-but Christ can heal individuals of addiction
 
cmodrmac said:
He also said that addictions are “a type of possession.”

as a Physician working in the Addiction field the above is not true-but Christ can heal individuals of addiction
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I am personally being treated for a heroin addiction, Im with a great doctor and have been taking Suboxone for about a year now, I can honestly say it has saved my life, but Im not sure I agree about addiction NOT being a kind of possession, we just dont know that for sure, of course we have our modern medical communities explanation for addiction in general, we know the ‘biological’ hows and whys, but we do not know demons are not pulling the strings in some manner.
 
Demons tend not to be of the world of flesh and blood, but of the spiritual world, the world of the invisible, and of the mind.
This is the realm that is transformed by psychotropic agents as well.

Scientists like to reduce the arena of drugs to the electro-chemical reactions that take place in the synapse of the central nervous system. While this is valuable, the experience that users have of drugs take place on a spiritual level, in the immeasurable realm that goes by the name of ‘mind’.

Secularization of society brings about the tendency to separate the medical into a box over here, and the spiritual into another little box over there, as if we can separate our own lives into little boxes.

Rather than regard demons as cloven hoofed critters with horns and pitchforks, the exorcist is perhaps offering a more experiential understanding of what the spiritual world looks like.
Likely those who have had experience with the more hallucinogenic of drugs do have an understanding of the dark spiritual forces that enter into their minds and take over their behavior and their thinking while under the influence. No doubt though, heroin addicts are well enough aware of the soul destroying influence of a drug that forges them into the kind of people where nothing or nobody is more important than getting the next fix, that transforms them from kind, sensitive beings, into beings without conscience who value the high more than life itself.

Seeing the demonic dimensions of addiction to psychotropic substances does not deny the role of neurotransmitters and synapses and permanent changes to brain chemistry involved in substance abuse. Seeing the demonic dimensions of drug abuse is actually no different than recognizing that on an experiential level, the gates of hell have been opened into the spiritual lives of many users.
And when it comes to the realm of the spirit, the literal and the metaphoric are the same thing.

That is to say, the experience is real enough.
 
I can believe this. There is a world that I think very few people are really all that cognizant of. Or perhaps, are just not willing to admit it to themselves just how far-reaching that other world can be, on this world. When Fr. Gallego talks of hearing a loud voice talking to him, that one sent a chill up my spine. I have heard a voice talk to me before. And in a very similarly mocking tone. And no, not under any influence of psychotropic drugs. I don’t do drugs, I don’t touch them.

The more I pray, especially the rosary, the more I retreat from this world, the more it seems as though the demonic is trying to put me off from doing so. I’m well aware I may come off as being mentally or psychologically disturbed to some, and especially to the secular world, but it’s hard to really get the reality of the demonic, across, unless one has experienced it themselves. This demonic stuff, is very real. Extremely real.
 
Darryl1958 said:
Demons tend not to be of the world of flesh and blood, but of the spiritual world, the world of the invisible, and of the mind.
This is the realm that is transformed by psychotropic agents as well.

Scientists like to reduce the arena of drugs to the electro-chemical reactions that take place in the synapse of the central nervous system. While this is valuable, the experience that users have of drugs take place on a spiritual level, in the immeasurable realm that goes by the name of ‘mind’.

Secularization of society brings about the tendency to separate the medical into a box over here, and the spiritual into another little box over there, as if we can separate our own lives into little boxes.

Rather than regard demons as cloven hoofed critters with horns and pitchforks, the exorcist is perhaps offering a more experiential understanding of what the spiritual world looks like.
Likely those who have had experience with the more hallucinogenic of drugs do have an understanding of the dark spiritual forces that enter into their minds and take over their behavior and their thinking while under the influence. No doubt though, heroin addicts are well enough aware of the soul destroying influence of a drug that forges them into the kind of people where nothing or nobody is more important than getting the next fix, that transforms them from kind, sensitive beings, into beings without conscience who value the high more than life itself.

Seeing the demonic dimensions of addiction to psychotropic substances does not deny the role of neurotransmitters and synapses and permanent changes to brain chemistry involved in substance abuse. Seeing the demonic dimensions of drug abuse is actually no different than recognizing that on an experiential level, the gates of hell have been opened into the spiritual lives of many users.
And when it comes to the realm of the spirit, the literal and the metaphoric are the same thing.

That is to say, the experience is real enough.
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👍👍 Very well.written

Also let’s all remember that from a religious standpoint, addictions are a type of.idolatry in the sense that the object of your addiction.becomes.your God. Your life revolves around the object of addiction and you replace God by said addiction. In that sense the false God of addiction possess your life and your soul. From that angle addiction is indeed a possession.
 
I just read a chapter from Romano Guardini’s book “The Lord” that talked about the connection between the spiritual and physical worlds, and how we moderns tend to separate the two, to our own detriment. In doing so we handcuff God in his ability to heal in ways that we have no perception of. (or also in ways that are dramatically revealed as well)
I have experiences of the demonic due to certain sins that I will not bore people with. I believe that God allows them out of love for us, to drive us to our knees seeking his mercy. Worked very well for me anyway.

I have a sister who is mentally ill, and she has terrifying episodes that are disturbing to everyone coming in contact with her. Voice changes, etc…
Absolutely terrifying to hear. It causes physical reactions in me personally. Nausea, shaking, extreme discomfort and anxiety.

She is better these days. I have had a deacon pray over me and for her in tongues, and I believe that has opened up a channel of grace for her. I dunno.

St Michael the Archangel, be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
 
Yoga is the Devil’s favorite exercise method!

I hear he is a big fan of Harry Potter as well. 😉
 
We do separate the 2 worlds unnecessarily so. Even those who have had demonic experiences will do so at times, just because we are supposed to live in this world, even though we are not of it. It does not really make sense to us, in our limited human intellect.
 
JimR-OCDS said:
You’re joking, right ? 👍

Jim
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The exorcist in the OP listed yoga as a vehicle for demonic possession. I am quite sure that Ringil was making a criticism of people who make these kinds of points, which would include people who object to Harry Potter with similar lines of reasoning.
 
Darryl1958 said:
The exorcist in the OP listed yoga as a vehicle for demonic possession. I am quite sure that Ringil was making a criticism of people who make these kinds of points, which would include people who object to Harry Potter with similar lines of reasoning.
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He said reiki and some yoga, meaning some but not all and certainly, not Yoga exercise itself

Its probably something outside of mainstream Yoga which most people do.

Jim
 
Nelka said:
Does Satan possess people or does he just hound the modern day saints?
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Occasionally people do become demonically possessed, but its a process and not an instant event.

Demonic possession is when the individual surrenders their will to the demon. Our free will is God’s greatest gift, an the fallen angels hate human beings for having this gift, so they try to take it.

The best book I’ve read on the subject is, “Hostage to the Devil,” by Malachi Martin, which is the Church’s five documented cases of demonic possession in the US.

Malachi Martin was Jesuit Priest and an expert in demonic possession and exorcisms in the Vatican for years.

Jim
 
JimR-OCDS said:
Occasionally people do become demonically possessed, but its a process and not an instant event.

Demonic possession is when the individual surrenders their will to the demon. Our free will is God’s greatest gift, an the fallen angels hate human beings for having this gift, so they try to take it.

The best book I’ve read on the subject is, “Hostage to the Devil,” by Malachi Martin, which is the Church’s five documented cases of demonic possession in the US.

Malachi Martin was Jesuit Priest and an expert in demonic possession and exorcisms in the Vatican for years.

Jim
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That book haunts me. It was good. But one of the scariest books I’ve ever read…
 
Hoosier_Daddy said:
That book haunts me. It was good. But one of the scariest books I’ve ever read…
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Yeah, don’t read it before you go to bed.

I couldn’t even keep it in my house after I read it, because I didn’t want my kids to read it.

However, it is the best education I got on demonic possession and how it happens, than what I’ve ever read.

Jim
 
JimR-OCDS said:
Occasionally people do become demonically possessed, but its a process and not an instant event.

Demonic possession is when the individual surrenders their will to the demon. Our free will is God’s greatest gift, an the fallen angels hate human beings for having this gift, so they try to take it.

The best book I’ve read on the subject is, “Hostage to the Devil,” by Malachi Martin, which is the Church’s five documented cases of demonic possession in the US.

Malachi Martin was Jesuit Priest and an expert in demonic possession and exorcisms in the Vatican for years.

Jim
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I just put that on my Amazon list. Thanks.
 
Phil502 said:
I just put that on my Amazon list. Thanks.
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You can most likely get it from the Public Library too.

Its where got to read it the first time.

Of course if you ask the librarian for “Hostage to the Devil,” she’ll probably give you a concerned look. 😃

Jim
 
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