by Matt Baglio
Hoping for more clarity, Father Gary asked Father Daniel how to discern the presence of a curse, and Father Daniel described a scenario involving one: A young couple is engaged but the man's parents are against the match. The in-laws invite the woman over for dinner and give her something to eat, perhaps a piece of cake (sometimes bones are ground up into a powder and baked in the cake, as are bits of dried blood or other substances). Soon after she eats the cake, she begins to feel pain in her stomach or suffer from a severe headache. These “symptoms” always correlate with either seeing her fiancé—for example, going out on a date or planning the wedding— or with going to church (because the agent of the curse is demonic). Armed with such a story, Father Daniel told Father Gary that if the exorcist prays a blessing over the person and she reacts negatively, it is highly likely that she is afflicted.
In the lore of exorcism, perhaps nothing is as infamous (because it is so spectacular) as the victim vomiting strange objects or copious amounts of fluid, sometimes even blood. Most of us remember Linda Blair's projectile vomit in the film The Exorcist, and Father Carmine had a case wherein a woman vomited buckets of sperm. Such action typically signifies a curse; the person has eaten cursed food that he or she needs to eject. Vomiting objects such as finely woven hair or beads, and even blood clots, is a common indication of a curse as well. Or, in the case of a voodoo doll, the victim might vomit up a nail.
Note that exorcists believe these objects don't necessarily come from the person's stomach, but instead materialize in the mouth. In this way, such people are not harmed physically even though they appear to vomit sharp objects such as pieces of glass or needles. According to Father Nanni, spirits can modify the state of matter, even to the point of provoking “materializations.” “A person can vomit an object, but he doesn't have it inside from a material point of view. It is there spiritually, but for the person he feels it inside, a wasp stinging, or a scorpion stinging, the pain of a nail, and then he vomits and the object materializes outside the mouth.”
Other exorcists have seen things that defy explanation, such as pools of mysterious black liquid appearing on the floor, or live animals—including crabs or scorpions—vomited up. Father Carmine once saw a woman vomit a small black toad that was alive. When he went to catch it, it fizzled away into black saliva.
Psychotic patients swallow strange objects and expel them routinely. For this reason, the exorcist has to take these phenomena in context with other manifestations rather than simply depend on vomiting as proof of a possession.
If the curse were carried out indirectly, say exorcists, it often turns out that objects from home, such as pillows, when blessed and torn open, reveal strange objects as well—perhaps pieces of metal or bones wrapped in twine, braided hair. When they find these objects, exorcists usually say another blessing and burn them. Some objects, however, do not burn right away and need to be blessed repeatedly before they finally ignite.
Just as surprising to Father Gary, however, were the times Father Carmine was unable to discern the cause of possession. In one such case involving a devout woman in her early thirties, she was neither a victim of the occult nor a curse. In the end he surmised that her possession must be for the “expiation of sin.”
BEYOND THE DIFFERENT REACTIONS of the victims, Father Gary thought that something about the relationship between the demon and the Ritual itself was peculiar. It seemed as if the demon were somehow “stimulated” by the prayers. When Father Carmine began the prayers, he and the victim entered into their own little world, as if surrounded by a bubble. Then, at the end of each exorcism, Father Carmine would either tap the person's forehead with his finger, or give a little pat, at which point the bubble would burst. Father Daniel would later explain to Father Gary that when Father Carmine tapped people, he was essentially bringing them out of a trance.
Rather than being a continuous thing, demonic possession alternates between periods of calm and “moments of crisis,” when the demon manifests its presence—that is, takes over the person's body and speaks and acts through it. Between crisis moments, however, during periods of calm, it is possible for a victim to carry on as if nothing is out of the ordinary.
Typically, in hearing the word possession, one imagines an evil spirit as dwelling “inside” a person. The Bible says: “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there” (Matthew 12:43-45). While the primary purpose of this verse is to show that once liberated, demons may return, it nonetheless illustrates the popular concept that demons reside inside a person, almost as if the body were a physical home. However, as Thomas Aquinas points out, pure spirits do not occupy space. Therefore when a demon “possesses” a person, he is merely acting on that person. According to Father Nanni, “During a possession the demon is not present; it is connected like a pipe, and so he sends inputs into that person that the person can perceive.” Typically these “inputs” can be a variety of things that the person can experience, such as voices or noises, or even thoughts. “In this way, [the demon] tries to solicit the permission of our free will to evil, with the purpose of causing and reinforcing in us a growing dependence on him.” The goal is always the same: to drive the person to desperation and isolation, to make him a willing “slave” to the demon and sin.
“In the moment of the crisis, however, the demon is not only connected but he comes, he is there; and the prayer of exorcism forces him to be present because it provokes him and forces him to reveal himself,” says Father Nanni. “The majority of people can resolve their crisis state with a prayer of thirty to forty minutes. I say ‘resolve’ but I mean temporarily. When the state of crisis begins, you keep performing the exorcism until the demon gets tired and detaches himself, and so the person comes back.”
During an exorcism the demon suffers and causes suffering. “Every exorcism is like hitting the demon with a bat. He suffers greatly; at the same time he also causes pain and weakness to the person he possesses. He even admits that he is better off in hell than during an exorcism,” relates Father Amorth.
Just how a spiritual being might feel pain by being touched with material sacred objects is somewhat of a mystery. “There is some kind of relationship between the matter and the spirit. When they enter into a human body they are not in one place but all over the body. It is as if they somehow penetrate into the matter and so they also suffer the consequences of it. Saint Augustine talks about spirits as having some kind of matter to them; Saint Paul talks about spirits of the air, and the air is ethereal but it is still matter. However we can't say for sure,” Father Nanni admits.
For the Church, these sacred objects (holy water, blessed oil, a crucifix) possess a kind of “power” because they carry the blessing of the Church. “Of course the object itself has no power; rather the power lies in that of Christ Himself which has been placed upon the particular object,” writes Spanish exorcist Father José Antonio Fortea.
Most exorcists are affected by the intense suffering that they see during their ministries. As Father Amorth wrote, “The strongest and most lasting impression, for a beginner-exorcist, is coming in contact with a world where suffering of the soul—more than of the body—is the norm.”
Father Gary was particularly moved by just how personal this pain could be. Not only did it touch the individuals, but it affected the lives of their family, loved ones, and friends as well.
FROM THE TIME SHE WAS A LITTLE GIRL, Anna, now thirty-five, felt that something was not completely right:
I had problems but I didn't know they were connected. When I was a little girl I heard noises that people around me couldn't hear, like the ticking of a watch. It bothered me a lot, and I used to cry and ask my mom what it was, but she would only tell me that
she couldn't hear anything. So ¡started to think I was going crazy. I could also sense a presence in my room, and so I used to hide myself under the covers. My mom thought I was just “acting out,” but I was very scared.
Around the age of seven or eight, I started to feel a choking sensation when I was lying down in bed and I had to stand up just so that I could breathe. Several times I almost choked to death and my mom had to pull my tongue out. I went to many doctors who told me I was perfectly fine, that all these things were just a kid's fantasies.
When I turned twelve, I became very interested in sex. My interest was very extreme, exaggerated. It was wrong, of course, but back then I didn't know. When I was fourteen I started to have intercourse, also in a very dirty way. For me it was normal, but at the same time I had an immense amount of suffering going on inside. I had very low self-esteem and as a result I began to suffer from anorexia and even thought about committing suicide many times. I felt terrible and became addicted to some drops that were supposed to help me sleep.
Meanwhile on the outside I always looked fine. I always had perfect makeup on, and I was well dressed. When I started working, all my salary went to buying clothes, drinks, going out to the clubs.
When I became addicted to the drops I was sixteen and my mom started to pray for me, but I found that out only later on. As a result, whenever I saw her I felt this intense hatred for her; I mean I really hated her. Now I know why, but back then I didn't know anything. Another thing was that whenever I saw Pope John Paul II on TV, I used to run away or turn the channel immediately. And I never so much as put afoot inside a church, which was strange because even as a little girl I loved to attend mass.
This went on for some time until finally, when I was twenty-eight, a friend told me, “Let's go to Saint John Lateran to get a blessing. “I was bad at the time. I couldn't sleep without the drops. I was anorexic. I was bulimic. I also had this weird sensation of a hand pressing on the small of my back, as if somebody kept his hand on me the whole time. A few days before going for the blessing, I started to say, “No, I'm not going. Why should I go? I'm totally fine; all I need is to meet a guy and then I'll be fine.” Instead my friend made mego.
When I got to the church my head was pounding. I couldn't understand what people were telling me. I didn't have any reactions until I got in front of the priest, and then I burst into tears, sobbing and crying so much that I wasn't able to stop. The priest just let me go on. Afterward, when I went home, I was no longer addicted to the drops—from one day to the next—and the weird sensation of the hand on my back disappeared. Even after this reaction, I didn't change my lifestyle at all until the day that I went to confess my sins. When the priest blessed me, I fell on the floor and started to scream, after which I didn't remember anything. The priest told my girlfriend to take me to Father Tommaso at the Scala Santa. I went and he blessed me and nothing weird happened. Later I met Father Alberto from Saint Anastasia, and he helped me to return to a spiritual path, to praying and belonging to a community of prayer.
When I started praying again, I began to feel a little better on the inside, but outside I got worse and worse. During the night sometimes all of a sudden I could not move, as if something was blocking me. I cried a lot during this time and I said to myself that I must be crazy. I told Father Alberto and he said, “When this happens, start to pray.” It was very hard for me to pray because in those moments I couldn't remember the words of the prayers. At the beginning I remember saying simply, “Help, help, help, Mary, Mary, Mary!” Then I started with the Hail Mary, and gradually those episodes went away.
One day Father Alberto prayed Psalm 90 over me and I began to vomit and feel really bad. As I was doing it I kept thinking, “Why am I vomiting?” I felt like I was choking but I didn't know why. I abo saw a strange vision of some kind of ritual in which people were chanting. Father Alberto told me that maybe I needed an exorcism. I said to myself, “Who me? I'm fine.” I told myself that I was just doing all this so that I could get attention.
About this time I met my husband and things got really bad, especially when we blessed the engagement rings. In that moment I lost consciousness and the demon manifested for the first time and told my husband that if he were to marry me I would kill him.
From that point on, I started to feel really sick. I had problems with my ovaries, problems with my stomach, headaches. The worst thing that ever happened to me physically was that one morning I woke up with one side of my body totally numb. I went to the hospital and they diagnosed me with multiple sclerosis.
I had two major problems: first my arm and then my leg. They were totally numb; I didn't feel them anymore. The doctors were not very optimistic. I would have lost the use of my limbs sooner or later, but instead I followed the treatment of cortisone together with the blessings and in my case the illness froze completely. Slowly it is going away. The doctors want me to continue with the cortisone, but I would prefer not to do it—especially now that I put myself in the hands of the Lord. But I have to say that Father Alberto always tells me to do it because he says that the Lord put science in the hands of man.
Around this time I began seeing Father Francesco [Bamonte], and my husband came with me to the exorcisms. All this time I continued to doubt myself, to doubt that I needed an exorcism. I still thought I was making everything up to get attention. Father Francesco did a little test.
In order to prove that she wasn't imagining everything, Father Bamonte brought in a plastic shopping bag with an object sealed inside. He ordered the demon in the name of Jesus Christ to reveal what the object was. At first the demon resisted, but eventually, as Father Bamonte insisted, the demon correctly identified the object: a pair of gloves that belonged to Padre Pio.
That scared me a little, but I knew then that I wasn't crazy, so I understood and I felt calm. I said to myself, “Okay, now we are going to get rid of him.”
After we got married we went on a pilgrimage for our honeymoon to various churches and holy sites around Italy, traveling to Saint Gemma in Lucca, a person I felt particularly close to since I read about her life. At the time I had been told that I couldn't become pregnant and so I asked for her intercession. As soon as I left Saint Gemma's tomb, I started to feel really bad. I was folded in two with pain in my ovaries and uterus. I was hospitalized and diagnosed with a cyst of five centimeters. When I got to Rome, it had grown to ten centimeters. I was supposed to have surgery but slowly it started to become smaller and smaller on its own, something I abo attribute to the prayers of the community (I was a member of a prayer group then and we always helped each other). I also think that the prayers of my mother helped a lot as well. Anyway, I followed the therapy prescribed by the hospital and two months later I got pregnant, and now I have a wonderful eight-month-old baby.
When I got married I thought I would have been liberated, but it didn't happen. During the exorcisms the demon began to lash out at my husband. I said terrible things to him there, and it happened even at home.
I remember one night I sat down with my husband to have dinner. My husband blessed the food and after that I don't remember what happened. I woke up on the bed with my arms locked in front of me and my husband standing nearby, out of breath, looking slightly shocked. When I asked him what had happened, at first he didn't want to tell me. While he had been blessing the food, the demon had manifested and told him, “Pay attention because now you are going to choke. I know you are scared of me. You pretend you're not, but I know you are.” At one point the demon told my husband, “You make me so mad because I can't touch you! I'm not allowed to touch you.”
Another time, my husband and I were watching a movie on TV one night about Pope John Paul II, and at one point I broke down in tears. My husband tried to console me, saying, “Don't cry, John Paul II is in the sky and he prays for you.” But then I turned on him and started to say bad words because it wasn't me. It was the demon.
Thank God my husband knew how to handle it. He didn't answer;
he started to pray.
Throughout this time I kept having obsessive thoughts. Every time I had to come to see Father Francesco, I had this thought in my mind like “Where are you going? Now you are going to tell the priest a bunch of lies, you are going to look in his eyes and you are going to lie to him,” and in my mind I told him the most terrible things.
I felt this constant heaviness on me. Like a weight. It was a chore to do anything. I couldn't clean, I couldn't wash my baby because it took too much of an effort. I was exhausted. Father Francesco frayed over me and I began to get better. Slowly I felt the weight lifting.
After the exorcisms I feel tired, hut I can see things clearer and the pain goes away. Father Francesco has made me understand that I wasn't crazy. I wouldn't have believed that I was possessed, but the exorcisms have helped me to understand it. I would never have imagined that things like this could happen but now I know. All I can say is that if the Lord created exorcists, there must be a reason for it. Satan exists and works on people without their knowing it. If I hadn't had people praying for me probably I wouldn't be here now.
