Magic and possession, backwards from Christ
17.03.2023
The term "occultism" comes from the Latin word "occultus" and includes the idea of hidden, secret things. This applies to actions that seem to be based on human power, which, however, goes beyond the senses.
Why does the occult attract people?
Man is by nature religious and needs to worship something or someone greater than himself and relate his life to it. If he has lost faith in God or felt lost in consumerist materialism, then he looks for another way. Apart from Christ, who is the only way to God (cf. Jn 14:6), man will not find happiness. However, he often takes a deceptive path that takes on the appearance of being religious and knowledgeable.
Occultism is associated with mystery that excites human curiosity. Many people have become involved in the occult, beginning their interest with seemingly innocent practices, such as reading horoscopes. The more curiosity increases, the more a person becomes involved and enters groups with the same interests in the "magic mystery". Magic also gives a sense of arcane power over others. The initiate thinks he is "somebody", unlike the ignorant general around him who has neither secret knowledge nor occult abilities. Consequently, modern neo-paganism - because this is what the practice of magic boils down to - convinces man that he himself is divine and has divine power.
The cases of many people who have practiced magic or bio-energy therapy in their lives show how dangerous consequences these practices lead to. Jacques Verlinde, a Frenchman who sought his spiritual path in Eastern religions, found out about it. He has achieved many supernatural abilities. However, they turned out to be the work of evil spirits. Thanks to prayers and exorcism, Jacques Verlinde began his return to Christ. Today, as a priest, he evangelizes and warns all those who see nothing wrong with magical practices.
Exorcist testimonies ,
i.e. priests delegated by the Church to free people from the rule of evil spirits, prove how great Satan's influence is when a man opens access to his life, his psyche and soul through occult practices. In one of the interviews, Fr. Marian Polak, a monk who has been helping people possessed and enslaved by various evil spirits for many years, notices that even reading satanic books, and especially participating in spiritualistic séances (invoking ghosts), creates a gap in a person through which Satan can enter and enslave him.
Gabriele Amorth, exorcist of the Diocese of Rome and president of the International Association of Exorcists, gives several reasons for possession. Among them is the desire to charm another person. It is about the intention to harm someone by appealing to the power of the evil spirit. This is done e.g. by cursing someone, casting a spell, sorcery, spell.
In many countries of South America or tribal African religions, these practices are very popular and, unfortunately, effective. Also in Christian countries, often unconsciously, curses are used against another person, which is a form of curse. We often curse: "Let lightning strike you", "Go to hell". Even some parents say about their children, "From hell." These are forms of summoning, albeit unconsciously, evil spirits to harm another. If the "victim" is not in a state of grace, often these curses allow Satan to work effectively.
Hence, Jesus commands that even towards enemies and adversaries, not to use the curse: “But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27-28) [1] . In a similar vein, St. Paul: “Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse” (Romans 12:14). Cursing someone always turns against the one who curses. Just as blessing others benefits the person who is blessing. St. Writing about this, Peter points out: “Do not repay evil for evil, or reviling for reviling. On the contrary, bless! For to this you were called, that you may inherit a blessing” (1 Peter 3:9).
Participation in various types of spiritistic séances, such as invoking spirits, can also contribute to possession. It is also about turning to various types of sorcerers, card readers, etc. Fr. Gabriele Amorth in her book Confessions of an Exorcist provides a common pattern of operation. A person falling into a chronic disease notices that all attempts at conventional medicine are ineffective. He goes to various types of bioenergotherapists or fortune-tellers who are to diagnose what charm is responsible for this disease. At the same time, they offer, usually for a fee, the disenchantment or removal of bad currents, energy or vibrations. They do this using what they call "white magic". However, the distinction between black (damaging) and white (removing) magic is illusory. There is no white, black, gray or colored magic; there is one magic, always associated with the action of an evil spirit that will start to claim its own.
Condemnation of magic
Throughout the Old and New Testaments we find strong condemnations of magic and the occult. Sacred Scripture even provided for the death penalty for witchcraft (cf. Ex 18:9-12; 22:17). Saul, who consulted the fairies and not the Lord, died (cf. 1 Chronicles 10:13-14). The Book of Leviticus expressly forbids turning to spirit-casters and soothsayers (cf. Leviticus 19:31). Idols are demons (cf. Dt 32:17; Ps 106:34-37).
Knowing what magic really is and what it leads to, the Bible warns against this type of practice. And if God forbids or encourages something, He always does it out of concern for the true good and happiness of man. “When you enter the land which the Lord your God is giving you, do not learn to commit the same abominations as those nations. There will be no one among you who (...) practices divination, sorcery, prophecies and sorcery; no one who practiced incantations, asked ghosts and ghosts, spoke to the dead. For everyone who does this is detestable to the Lord. . . . You will be fully faithful to the Lord your God. For those nations that you will dispossess have listened to soothsayers and callers of the dead. But the Lord your God will not let you do it” (Deuteronomy 18:9-14).
In the Book of Leviticus we find similar words: "You shall not turn to spirit-casters or soothsayers. You shall not consult them, lest you be defiled by them" (Lev 19:31). Note that even turning to soothsayers makes a person guilty before God by becoming unclean! A little further on we read: "Also against everyone who turns to spirits or soothsayers to play the harlot with them, I will set my face and cut him off from among his people" (Lev 20:6).
However, God respects man's free will. In the book of Deuteronomy quoted above, we read that God sets before us life and death, blessing and curse, and invites us: Choose life that you may live. However, what a man chooses is up to him. May they be wise, blessed choices!
The New Testament also clearly shows the attitude of the Lord Jesus to demons, which he always cast out of the possessed. St. Paul emphatically writes that it is forbidden to sit at the table of the Lord and the table of demons at the same time (cf. 1 Cor 10:21). In the Book of Revelation, sorcerers and sorcerers are condemned with harsh words - divination is compared to idolatry, fornication, abomination and impurity (cf. Leviticus 19:31; 20:6-7; Dt 18:10-12; Gal 5:19-20; Revelation 9:21; 18:23; 21:8; 22:15). The Acts of the Apostles gives an example of a slave woman who brought a large income to her masters by divination. However, when St. Paul had cast the demon out of her, she couldn't say anything. Thus, we see from whose inspiration the divination prophecies are made (cf. Acts 16:16ff.). In a word, occultism in all its manifestations is abominable in the sight of God.
The Catholic Church, to whom Christ entrusted the deposit of faith, invariably resembles the revealed doctrine, unequivocally condemning divination and sorcery. In the new Catechism of the Catholic Church On the occasion of discussing the first commandment of the Decalogue: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Ex 20:3), we read the following remarks: "All forms of divination are to be rejected: appeals to Satan or demons, summoning the dead or other practices supposedly intended to reveal the future (cf. Dt 18:10; Jer 29:8). Using horoscopes, astrology, palmistry, explaining prophecies and divination, clairvoyance phenomena, using the media are a manifestation of the desire to control time, history and finally people, and at the same time the desire to win over hidden powers. These practices are contrary to the reverence and respect coupled with loving fear that belong only to God” (CCC 2116).
“Any practice of magic or sorcery by which one seeks to acquire mysterious powers, to use them, and to gain supernatural power over one's neighbor, even for the sake of health, is gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when they are accompanied by the intention of harming another human being or resorting to the intervention of demons. It is also reprehensible to wear amulets.
Spiritism often involves divinatory or magical practices. That is why the Church admonishes the faithful to beware of them. Recourse to so-called traditional medical practices does not justify challenging evil forces or exploiting the credulity of another” (CCC 2117).
As noted by Dariusz Pietrek, the coordinator of the Silesian Information Center about Sects, those who practice divination, even if only for fun, are similar to a small snowball thrown on a mountainside, which gets bigger and bigger as it rolls down. Such a person also goes deeper and deeper into magical teachings.
The prescription for those who have become involved in magic in any way is to give it all to Jesus in confession. and letting Him make life good, beautiful and holy.
Demonic inspiration
All divination and fortune-telling is therefore strongly condemned in the Bible and the teaching of the Church. It is appropriate to ask the question: why are these seemingly harmless practices so strongly condemned?
In answering this question, it is important to realize that there is, in fact, an intelligence behind any form of preaching. From the pages of the Bible we know that it is not God or angels. So who? There is only one answer: a demon! Let's think for a moment. Can a piece of a colored piece of paper, cardboard, or possibly plastic - a card - tell us something about the future? Planets and stars are, after all, dead mixtures of rocks and gases, they have no mind, will, etc. Can pieces of glass or crystal in the case of spheres tell something? NO! These are all just props, mediating objects between a man (the soothsayer) and an intelligent evil spirit who gives hints and prophecies precisely through them.
It was already written by St. Thomas Aquinas: “All divination uses some advice and satanic power to know future events. Sometimes soothsayers explicitly invoke this help, and sometimes demons secretly influence the knowledge of things to come.
Knowing this, it is not surprising that those who engage in such practices are enslaved and possessed (although these effects are not visible to them on a daily basis). Therefore, caring for a truly happy future of man, God forbids these practices.
Do you know that…
Seemingly innocent magical practices can lead to enslavement and possession by an evil spirit?
Andrzej Wronka