It’s Always Dangerous to Dabble in the Occult
In the excerpts below from an interview published in Religión en Libertad, Canadian Fr. Ghislain Roy addresses the growing influence of the Devil in our world and the tools he uses to infest the faithful: the New Age, Yoga, Reiki, movies, etc. His message is clear: A person can collaborate with the Devil either knowingly or unknowingly, but it is always dangerous to do so.
Question: Fr. Roy, we live in a world where there is much confusion.
How does one discern evil that sometimes presents itself as good? How
does one keep from opening the doors to the Devil?
Fr. Roy: The first thing is to pray, then, to become informed about the world of the occult: Yoga, Reiki, Eastern practices, etc. When we pray we must listen to the Holy Spirit in our hearts. When something is not of God, it torments us inside and, even if it gives us some peace, it is not lasting. Discernment comes from the Word of God, from prayer and from a good spiritual director who is trained, because there are also priests who are confused: they practice Yoga, use energy stones or Bach Flowers and some even believe in reincarnation.
Buddha statues sold in garden stores
Q: Why is the Devil present in New Age practices? And which ones are more dangerous?
Fr. R: Eastern practices are often turned toward divinities and idols. More and more people are invading their homes with statues of Buddha, African masks, idols, Hindu deities. … All these things are turned toward divinities, as in the case of Yoga. There is no Christian Yoga, as just a way to just relax physically. The postures of Yoga are to imitate Hindu deities and ... they open the possibility of an infestation of the occult.
Fr. Jose Maria Verlinde, who was in India for 20 years, said that if you tell a Hindu that you are doing Yoga just to relax – without any religion involved – he will laugh at you, because he knows that the practice of Yoga, through the positions themselves, is the practice of religion. Discernment is needed.
For example, acupuncture is not just about placing needles on special points; you need to check who is placing them. Is that person involved in occult practices? If it is a medium who is practicing acupuncture, he transmits the occult through his fingers. The same thing happens with Reiki, an Eastern practice that uses cosmic energy. Some practitioners become Reiki mediums and manipulate energy as a form of healing. But, behind that energy is the occult, because the way Reiki is practiced opens doors to the Devil. At a conference of exorcists held in Rome in 2013, two people testified that they had been released from the Devil of Reiki.
Q: What are chakras?
Fr. R: The adepts hold that there are seven energy points in the inner body through which prana, the life force, moves. The important thing is not to do Eastern practices that involve them because many involve idols and divinities. A Spanish doctor who had been in Hindu temples allowed himself to be marked with signs by Hindu priests. At one of my retreats he had a mild possession; even though he has had several exorcisms, he is still possessed by the Devil. Behind those stone statues of idols and divinities, the devils hide.
The same happens with the Ouija Board, which is the name of a Devil that it invokes. However, generally people do not know this. A priest had to go and bless a house where the Ouija Board was used, because there were all kinds of diabolical manifestations in it.
Q: What would you say to a person who has a statue of Buddha in his house only as decoration?
Fr. R: Get it out of the house as fast as possible. How can we be Catholics and welcome idols in our homes? Our faith is in Christ Jesus. Although we might see the statue of Buddha as a simple decoration, as soon as we have one of these objects in our possession, we are somehow saying that we believe in it.
Behind every idol a devil hides; if you welcome a statue of Buddha, that object may be infested. The peace of the home is lost, the children sleep restlessly, the couple quarrels or the children no longer feel comfortable in the home because you fill it with idols and divinities.
Q: What about old pieces or objects of animistic origin?
Voodoo masks are not just innocent decor
Fr. R: Take these objects out, put them in a trash bag and get them out
of the house, then, see how the atmosphere changes in the house. When I
was in Montreal at the beginning of the last year, I went to see a
couple that practiced Reiki, had books on it, African masks, etc. We
took all the dubious objects that where there, put them in a bag and
took them out of the house. The couple commented on the difference in
atmosphere in the house, they felt more peace.
We should not let anything like this enter our homes. When St. Paul teaches, he instructs people to cast idols out and everything else that is related to them in order to receive Jesus Christ alone. In Scripture it says that the Creator is a jealous God and if we say that we belong to Jesus, we must keep our house free of idolatry and false divinities.
Q: What influence can the Devil have on music?
Fr. R: In the 1980’s many music groups like KISS, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, etc. dedicated themselves to the Devil. KISS means Knights In Satan’s Service. At that time there was talk of subliminal music: Playing the record backwards you could hear “I love Satan, I surrender to Satan”, etc. That is no longer necessary today. Now the music explicitly calls you to violence, to turn to the Devil, to rebel against your parents and also to commit suicide.
Lady Gaga announces her love for the damned Judas
Another example is Lady Gaga, she came to power and fame in a very short
time. How did this happen? We think she opened herself to the occult.
She recorded a song called “Judas” and in it she invokes the Devil
Judas. The lyrics of the song say that if she had the apostle Judas in
front of her, she would wash his feet and dry them with her hair. One of
my nieces listened to this song and became obsessed with it. It repeats
the words Judas, Judas, Judas. She couldn’t get these words
out of her head. It was necessary to pray specially for Our Lord to
release her from this obsession.
From this we can see that there is a lot of music that is diabolically infested: Young people change their behavior, rebel against their parents, the faith and all values.
Q: What happens with what we see on the television, movies, pornography, etc?
Fr. R: Through the many horror and magic films, TV programs of spiritualism and astrology, devils enter through the eyes of those who view them and bind themselves them interiorly. In pornography exactly the same thing happens: The demons of impurity enter and they stay inside the person who later becomes obsessed with pornography. We have to guard our eyes, be vigilant over what we see.
Q: And what about the Harry Potter films?
Fr. R: I forced myself to watch the Harry Potter films to make a judgment, because of the youth who see them. Harry Potter uses white magic to do good, which is not possible. We cannot use the Devil, who is at the base of occult practices, to do good.
Canada has removed religion from the schools and now offers magic courses like those in Harry Potter. These films have developed the will to practice magic. In one of my parishes, after seeing one of these films, some young people went to a cemetery to try to find a person’s skull: They had heard that reducing it to dust and mixing it with some other thing could give them power. These films aim to promote occultism and encourage the practice of magic. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that no magic is good: white magic is just as bad as black magic.
If people pray, love Jesus Christ and seek good, the Holy Spirit inspires them to move away from anything that is occult. People linked to the occult are tormented, anguished and without peace of soul. If they learned to listen to the Holy Spirit, they would reject such things, but very often what they do is try to rationalize these feelings: “I must be tired, I don’t feel well today.”
Today people throw themselves into the hands of anyone, without questioning who this person is, what he does, how he lives. In view of such lack of prudence, it is not surprising that many people are infested.
Q: How does the Devil act in a person?
Fr. R: The Devil has four main ways of acting:
The yoga poses imitate the Hindu deities and open the door for diabolical action
1. Diabolical possession, where the person is possessed
by the enemy. How does it happen? It can be in various ways: by a curse
or spell; his parents consecrated him to Satan at birth; he gave
himself to Satan; or through non-confessed occult practices, which left
the door open to the Devil.
2. Diabolical vexation: If the person becomes ill for no reason or in a mysterious way unexplained by medicine, it can be a sign of vexation. Another sign is having repeated accidents or when there are things that continuously keep you from getting ahead economically. When these situations repeat themselves, the possibility of vexation exist. In the Holy Scriptures, Job had a diabolical vexation that touched his person, family and goods.
3. Diabolical obsession: The person may be obsessed with impure things, negative thoughts or blasphemies from which he cannot free himself. Here, the Devil acts on the thought because the person has opened doors.
4. Infestation: In houses and other places there are noises, strange manifestations or no peace.
Q: What would you say to people who do not believe in the existence of the Devil?
Fr. R: Those who have difficulty believing in the Devil also find it hard to believe in God. If your faith is true, it leads you to believe what is in the Gospel: Jesus Christ came to save us from the Devil. At our baptism and confirmation we renounce Satan, who is the author of sin and evil. If we do not believe in the existence of the Devil, why did Jesus come to save us?
Q: How can Catholics keep the doors closed?
Fr. R: With prayer, the Rosary, the Holy Eucharist, Eucharistic adoration, the Sacrament of Confession and also by fasting, because there are some devils that are only expelled with fasting.
Q: What would you say to someone who unknowingly opened the doors to the Devil and became infested?
The St. Benedict medal protects from diabolical action
Fr. R: In addition to the above recommendations, use the sacramentals:
salt, holy water and holy oil. Carry the Rosary because it speaks of
the Virgin and the medal of Saint Benedict that has the letters of the
exorcism (Vade retro Satana – Step back Satan).
Sometimes it is also advisable to drink holy water. With these means, when one is on the true road of faith, the person is generally released. It may also be necessary for him to ask for a minor exorcism made by a priest, but not all priests do them, because there are some who do not believe in the existence of the Devil either.
Q: Does you believe that today there is more presence of the Devil and infestation than 50 years ago?
Fr. R: I go to different countries and I realize that more and more, the world is infested because of the global decline of faith. We are in apostasy, we must not forget this. Increasingly, countries and governments are rejecting God and all the religious symbols. Christ only stays where He is received; when people reject Him, He withdraws. And when Christ withdraws, who takes his place?
Fr. Roy: The first thing is to pray, then, to become informed about the world of the occult: Yoga, Reiki, Eastern practices, etc. When we pray we must listen to the Holy Spirit in our hearts. When something is not of God, it torments us inside and, even if it gives us some peace, it is not lasting. Discernment comes from the Word of God, from prayer and from a good spiritual director who is trained, because there are also priests who are confused: they practice Yoga, use energy stones or Bach Flowers and some even believe in reincarnation.
Buddha statues sold in garden stores
Fr. R: Eastern practices are often turned toward divinities and idols. More and more people are invading their homes with statues of Buddha, African masks, idols, Hindu deities. … All these things are turned toward divinities, as in the case of Yoga. There is no Christian Yoga, as just a way to just relax physically. The postures of Yoga are to imitate Hindu deities and ... they open the possibility of an infestation of the occult.
Fr. Jose Maria Verlinde, who was in India for 20 years, said that if you tell a Hindu that you are doing Yoga just to relax – without any religion involved – he will laugh at you, because he knows that the practice of Yoga, through the positions themselves, is the practice of religion. Discernment is needed.
For example, acupuncture is not just about placing needles on special points; you need to check who is placing them. Is that person involved in occult practices? If it is a medium who is practicing acupuncture, he transmits the occult through his fingers. The same thing happens with Reiki, an Eastern practice that uses cosmic energy. Some practitioners become Reiki mediums and manipulate energy as a form of healing. But, behind that energy is the occult, because the way Reiki is practiced opens doors to the Devil. At a conference of exorcists held in Rome in 2013, two people testified that they had been released from the Devil of Reiki.
Q: What are chakras?
Fr. R: The adepts hold that there are seven energy points in the inner body through which prana, the life force, moves. The important thing is not to do Eastern practices that involve them because many involve idols and divinities. A Spanish doctor who had been in Hindu temples allowed himself to be marked with signs by Hindu priests. At one of my retreats he had a mild possession; even though he has had several exorcisms, he is still possessed by the Devil. Behind those stone statues of idols and divinities, the devils hide.
The same happens with the Ouija Board, which is the name of a Devil that it invokes. However, generally people do not know this. A priest had to go and bless a house where the Ouija Board was used, because there were all kinds of diabolical manifestations in it.
Q: What would you say to a person who has a statue of Buddha in his house only as decoration?
Fr. R: Get it out of the house as fast as possible. How can we be Catholics and welcome idols in our homes? Our faith is in Christ Jesus. Although we might see the statue of Buddha as a simple decoration, as soon as we have one of these objects in our possession, we are somehow saying that we believe in it.
Behind every idol a devil hides; if you welcome a statue of Buddha, that object may be infested. The peace of the home is lost, the children sleep restlessly, the couple quarrels or the children no longer feel comfortable in the home because you fill it with idols and divinities.
Q: What about old pieces or objects of animistic origin?
Voodoo masks are not just innocent decor
We should not let anything like this enter our homes. When St. Paul teaches, he instructs people to cast idols out and everything else that is related to them in order to receive Jesus Christ alone. In Scripture it says that the Creator is a jealous God and if we say that we belong to Jesus, we must keep our house free of idolatry and false divinities.
Q: What influence can the Devil have on music?
Fr. R: In the 1980’s many music groups like KISS, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, etc. dedicated themselves to the Devil. KISS means Knights In Satan’s Service. At that time there was talk of subliminal music: Playing the record backwards you could hear “I love Satan, I surrender to Satan”, etc. That is no longer necessary today. Now the music explicitly calls you to violence, to turn to the Devil, to rebel against your parents and also to commit suicide.
Lady Gaga announces her love for the damned Judas
From this we can see that there is a lot of music that is diabolically infested: Young people change their behavior, rebel against their parents, the faith and all values.
Q: What happens with what we see on the television, movies, pornography, etc?
Fr. R: Through the many horror and magic films, TV programs of spiritualism and astrology, devils enter through the eyes of those who view them and bind themselves them interiorly. In pornography exactly the same thing happens: The demons of impurity enter and they stay inside the person who later becomes obsessed with pornography. We have to guard our eyes, be vigilant over what we see.
Q: And what about the Harry Potter films?
Fr. R: I forced myself to watch the Harry Potter films to make a judgment, because of the youth who see them. Harry Potter uses white magic to do good, which is not possible. We cannot use the Devil, who is at the base of occult practices, to do good.
Canada has removed religion from the schools and now offers magic courses like those in Harry Potter. These films have developed the will to practice magic. In one of my parishes, after seeing one of these films, some young people went to a cemetery to try to find a person’s skull: They had heard that reducing it to dust and mixing it with some other thing could give them power. These films aim to promote occultism and encourage the practice of magic. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that no magic is good: white magic is just as bad as black magic.
If people pray, love Jesus Christ and seek good, the Holy Spirit inspires them to move away from anything that is occult. People linked to the occult are tormented, anguished and without peace of soul. If they learned to listen to the Holy Spirit, they would reject such things, but very often what they do is try to rationalize these feelings: “I must be tired, I don’t feel well today.”
Today people throw themselves into the hands of anyone, without questioning who this person is, what he does, how he lives. In view of such lack of prudence, it is not surprising that many people are infested.
Q: How does the Devil act in a person?
Fr. R: The Devil has four main ways of acting:
The yoga poses imitate the Hindu deities and open the door for diabolical action
2. Diabolical vexation: If the person becomes ill for no reason or in a mysterious way unexplained by medicine, it can be a sign of vexation. Another sign is having repeated accidents or when there are things that continuously keep you from getting ahead economically. When these situations repeat themselves, the possibility of vexation exist. In the Holy Scriptures, Job had a diabolical vexation that touched his person, family and goods.
3. Diabolical obsession: The person may be obsessed with impure things, negative thoughts or blasphemies from which he cannot free himself. Here, the Devil acts on the thought because the person has opened doors.
4. Infestation: In houses and other places there are noises, strange manifestations or no peace.
Q: What would you say to people who do not believe in the existence of the Devil?
Fr. R: Those who have difficulty believing in the Devil also find it hard to believe in God. If your faith is true, it leads you to believe what is in the Gospel: Jesus Christ came to save us from the Devil. At our baptism and confirmation we renounce Satan, who is the author of sin and evil. If we do not believe in the existence of the Devil, why did Jesus come to save us?
Q: How can Catholics keep the doors closed?
Fr. R: With prayer, the Rosary, the Holy Eucharist, Eucharistic adoration, the Sacrament of Confession and also by fasting, because there are some devils that are only expelled with fasting.
Q: What would you say to someone who unknowingly opened the doors to the Devil and became infested?
The St. Benedict medal protects from diabolical action
Sometimes it is also advisable to drink holy water. With these means, when one is on the true road of faith, the person is generally released. It may also be necessary for him to ask for a minor exorcism made by a priest, but not all priests do them, because there are some who do not believe in the existence of the Devil either.
Q: Does you believe that today there is more presence of the Devil and infestation than 50 years ago?
Fr. R: I go to different countries and I realize that more and more, the world is infested because of the global decline of faith. We are in apostasy, we must not forget this. Increasingly, countries and governments are rejecting God and all the religious symbols. Christ only stays where He is received; when people reject Him, He withdraws. And when Christ withdraws, who takes his place?