In exorcism, it’s a point of debate: Can demons read your thoughts?
The question arose most recently in reviewing the report on a new book, for now only in French, called I Was Possessed (we’ll get it as soon as it’s available in English).
Said the gentleman once taken over by evil spirits, Michael Chiron — who had worked with mentally disabled — “They also told me things about my life and childhood, things I totally forgot. They had a full access to my brain and memory.”
In an interview with a Catholic newspaper, the National Catholic Register, Chiron, in the diocese of Loir-et-Cher, said, “For instance, they would ask me to hold a card deck, and they would always guess which card I was about to pick. Then, after about ten days, it became worse. The real nightmare began. They began making me stick out my tongue, and there was nothing I could do. The first time they did it, it lasted more than 30 minutes. And I felt tingling sensations in my head, just like thousands of ants trying to bite me. They really tormented me. One day, while I was eating, my palate started bleeding. I couldn’t eat, it was so painful, and I couldn’t eat anything tough. For about a week, I couldn’t eat anything but soft food.”
How could they guess the card without reading his thoughts?
And then there is this: “The fact that I didn’t commit suicide during this nightmare was the fruit of my own will, as the demons wanted me to do so at some point. But my body was prisoner during the whole possession. My thought was somewhat free, but they had access to my thoughts and tried to manipulate them. They also tried to make me leave my own body … but they failed. They couldn’t do what they wanted with me. They couldn’t possess my soul. Obviously, some limits were put to them, but I didn’t know where such a protection was coming from. I understood later, after my conversion, that it was the Virgin Mary and my mother, who died years before this demonic attack.”
We have seen many indications of this elsewhere: cases in which the demonic responded not to words or gestures but to simple cerebration; countless times when a negative thought was followed by the infusion (as if in response) of a demonic one: instances by which just thinking about something attracted forces of darkness.
Are not demons spirits? And are not thoughts — coming from the mind, which is in the realm of the soul and spirit — in this ethereal territory? How can it be, one might ask — if occultists are working through forces of darkness, and if they can perform telepathy (“read’ thoughts) — that demons, which are behind the occult, would not be able to do so? If alleged psychics can “pick up” the thoughts of others (which was the case with many saints), can not demons? Is it not all in the realm of spirit? If angels on high can know our thoughts, cannot fallen ones?
Many are the cases of haunted places where entities seem to respond precisely to what a person is thinking, in a way that goes beyond what could be procured through simple observation of a person, knowing a human’s proclivities, or deciphering body language (the explanation of those who claim demons don’t know what you are thinking).
Silent prayer operates in the realm of the spirit — causes spiritual reactions — often in a way that evokes, disrupts, and (hopefully) chases away darkness.
During exorcisms, there are instances in which the possessed person antagonizes the priest, picking what — at least it seems — he is thinking or praying or worried about.
But we’ll leave it up for debate. More to come. Stay tuned.
The focus should be on the positive. Pray aloud. Pray silently. Just pray.
Spoken or not, it is powerful against what may be around us.
[resources: spiritual warfare books]
[The strongest manifestations we have ever seen are another new book, The Devil in the City of Angels]
[Footnote from Adam Blai, exorcism expert and theological adviser (peritus) in the Diocese of Pittsburgh: “What I have seen in exorcisms is that the demons sometimes answer questions wondered in the mind during exorcisms. In the mind of an assistant, not the possessed. It isn’t done with drama or to scare, it is off-handed like it isn’t important. My thought is the following. If we are a spirit with a body, we think something and as a totally secondary action we make noises in the air. The demon is a spirit without a body. How do they normally communicate with each other? Not with sound vibrations. So we perhaps send out a similar spiritual signal (we are not angels, or fallen angels, so it is perhaps different than theirs) commensurate with speaking. If one were mute could not one pray in the mind? Does God not hear that prayer because we made no sound? For some reason people get very upset by the idea that demons can hear our surface thoughts. Given that they likely watch us from cradle to grave, I don’t understand the concern. “]
