Six Exorcisms Free a Woman from Possession

Rosa Ramos

Aldina had a life of luxury and a solid career, but she felt her life was empty. For 10 years, she sought answers and a meaning to life by means of mediums, astrologers and Eastern religious communities, a path that she now realizes opened the door to the Devil. At age 33, she was immersed in a veritable horror movie and was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but only with exorcisms was she cured.

 
Yoga, tarot cards, New Age retreats were means the Devil used to enter Aldina's spirit

Aldina was frightened. On the third time that she went to her yard to carry out a ritual, the mediums began to incorporate spirits. On that day, the men-spirits were dressed as draculas and the women as prostitutes. Everything was different from the first time, when the same mediums appeared dressed in white and the environment was "charming."

At the moment when she tried to leave, with the resolve never to return again, a supernatural force pushed her against a wall. "I flew, I don't know how it happened," she related afterwards.

Aldina never had any real reason to complain about life. She made a good career as a fashion designer and managed design teams in reputed companies. "I went to parties, traveled all over the world, had friends everywhere, went to the best gyms and restaurants. I spent tons of money on clothes and make up," she said. She lived life to the full, in the modern sense of the word. But, at the end of the day, after the parties and fun, she was empty. "I thought I had everything, but in the end I had nothing," she admitted.

For 10 years she tried to "find herself" in all sorts of spiritualities to escape the emptiness. She did Yoga and Reiki and consulted dozens of psychics, astrologers and fortune-tellers.

She went to spiritual centers and retreats. She had been baptized Catholic and called herself a "non-practicing Catholic," but she did not know that the Church forbids these occult practices.

"I had faith and believed in God," she claims. Perhaps for this reason, even amid the search for the meaning of life, she always rejected everything that was openly linked to Satanism. "I never got into black magic because it clashed with my idea of good and faith, but I thought the other 'spiritual' practices were harmless and even considered them supernatural and compatible with my Catholicism. I saw no harm in those things."

At one point, she attended a spiritual center for months, an open air pavilion where, once a week, hundreds of people – including doctors, teachers and nurses – gathered to consult and work with dozens of mediums. These were educated persons from the upper social classes. There, Catholic pictures of Jesus and the saints were intermixed with "strange and superstitious" elements. The classes were free. "Most of the people considered themselves Catholic, like me," recalls Aldina.

Exorcist Fr. Lara warns that Yoga classes can be a first step to opening oneself to the Devil

Over time, she accumulated an eclectic mix of books on her shelves. "Since I like to read and study, I bought everything I could find on the occult and spirituality," she related. She amassed more than 70 works in her home, the majority about philosophies related to the New Age movement, born in the 1960s and based on theology, Eastern metaphysics and spiritualist beliefs. Many of the seers she consulted were charlatans, which was evident to her at the first appointment. Others, however, managed to seduce her: "They touched on key points of my life or described past events that only I knew."

The search for the supernatural grew stronger after her father's death. She wanted to know if he was at peace. One of the seers claimed to speak for him, mimicking his voice and gestures perfectly.

Demonic signs

In August 2010, a few days after her 33^rd birthday and after a course on the New Age, Aldina experienced her first diabolic perturbance: She felt a constant, strong presence. At night, she did not sleep from fear; by day she felt burdened by "an extraordinary weight, as if I were carrying the world on my shoulders." Then, the nightmares began, "so strong, I woke up screaming."

Forms and shadow haunted her nights

On a return from a vacation, she joined a church in Porto, Portugal, and asked God for help. What happened next, Aldina asserts, was "a battle against evil. Demonic manifestations took place almost daily: "I was overcome by a supernatural force; I spoke in tongues; I emitted strong belches; my hair stood up on its ends and my belly swelled to the point I looked very pregnant. I could not bear to look at the Cross of Christ."

These first symptoms were accompanied by constant accidents and problems at work. The nightmares got worse and at night she saw figures in her room. "The first months were terrible," she recalls. At that time, she was doing freelance work and soon could no longer handle the orders. She tried to conceal her condition, alleging she was sick. If she told others what she was experiencing, she was sure that most people would not understand.

Her thoughts turned toward consulting an exorcist, but her family insisted that she go to a psychiatrist, convinced that it was probably a case of schizophrenia. She was not sure this was the problem: "Have you ever seen a person go crazy from one day to the next? This was what was happening to me."

Fr. Duarte Sousa Lara is exorcist for the Diocese of Lamego, Portugal

The psychiatrist prescribed medication, but Aldina said she never took it. Instead, she turned to a priest for help. The first one she went to for help did not understand, even after she had a diabolical reaction in front of him. Another priest told her about an exorcist in Lamego.

At that time, in 2011, Fr. Sousa Lara was receiving persons like Aldina just one day a week without appointments. She made it there and once she was before him, she had a strong diabolical reaction. The case was immediately considered serious: "On that day, several people were needed to hold me down."

Liberation

There were four exorcisms in a row and, after a few months, two more. It took six sessions to convince the Devil to leave. The exorcist prescribed things she had to do at home: Go to church, pray the Rosary and a prayer of deliverance every day and confess at least once a month. "He told me live in the state of grace so that God could act fully," Aldina said. "And that if we cheated, like making poor confessions, it would be more difficult to be cured."

There are cases, as Fr. Sousa Lara relates elsewhere, where the person being exorcised become completely unconscious during the sessions. But Aldina's exorcisms were not like this. "I was conscious," she says, describing the sessions, "but I could not control my movements and what I said." At the end of each session, she always felt the same: "I felt temporarily relieved, but my body was very sore as if I had done strenuous exercise."

A possessed person reacting to the crucifix

To free herself, she had to change her life. She stopped living with her boyfriend, with whom she had shared a house for years. "Otherwise," she explained, "I could not make good confessions since cohabitation before marriage is a sin. I began to want to be obedient and faithful to my baptism promises," she continued, "and today I fully understand why the Church asks this of us."

"God's plans are perfect," she continued, "but unfortunately we, especially the last generations, think that anything goes. There are fewer marriages that last a lifetime because we are a selfish, egoist generation." At first she just struggled to be a practicing Catholic, but now, she said, she is deeply rooted in the Church: "I follow everything intensely."

She came to understand the grace of a Catholic marriage, what it is to be a priest or sister, the role of the Sacraments of the Church in our lives. "It has been a long and wonderful walk. There are evils that can end in good," she noted.

In the end, why was the Devil persecuting her? Aldina is convinced that "many spiritual doors" in her soul were opened during the decade she experimented with seers, spiritualism, divinations, Reiki, Yoga and other Eastern practices. More than three years have passed since the last exorcism and the attacks have not returned. "I received the grace to be rescued," she concluded, "but how many are not saved?"