AI Devil Worshippers?

There are lots of reasons to hate AI. As a writer, it really bothers me that large language models were trained on content for which their creators received no credit or royalties of any kind. AI could have been built ethically, but it wasn't. An ethical version of exactly what we see today could have been built with (A) opt-in for writers and/or artists submitting content and (B) royalty payments to those writers/artists based on the percentage of their work AI compositions include. There are no technical barriers to creating that sort of system, but AI companies decided that they would rather just steal from creators.

I recently came across a reason for hating AI, though, that never occurred to me. Apparently the Roman Catholic Church is running an "exorcism training course" that teaches, among other things, that AI can be used for "devil worship."

Father Luis Ramirez Almanza is running an exorcism training course in Rome in May, and he’s giving it a very 2026 theme. He wants clergy and faith leaders thinking about artificial intelligence as a tool that can be used in spiritual warfare. It’s not limited to Catholic clergy, either. Reporting says he’s inviting rabbis, imams, and evangelical pastors to attend, basically pitching a rare interfaith training built around a shared enemy.

The first weird thing about this is that "devil worship" - that is, the theistic worship of a literal devil - is incredibly rare. It is a practice that is disavowed by even the vast majority of people who identify as Satanists, such as members of The Satanic Temple and Church of Satan. Outside those two groups there are barely any Satanists in the world, so the theistic practitioners are a tiny minority. Christians sometimes try to give Satanists numbers by defining all non-Christians as "devil worshippers," but with the inclusion of rabbis, and imams in this course it sounds like that's not what the Catholics are up to here.

As a point, I received a comment over on BlueSky in reponse to a recent post that I was wrong about the Church of Satan not practicing magick because Anton LaVey wrote books on it. It is true that LaVey himself knew a lot about magick and likely practiced at least some of it, but I was talking about the organization today. If you look at this article on their current website, you can see that they are hostile towards both literal "devil worship" and anything transcendental or supernatural. I also have heard a story from years ago of a Thelemite kicked out of The Satanic Temple for openly practicing magick, so their current beliefs apparently fall along the same lines.

Taylor Swift Summoning Demons?

I have criticized various exorcists over the years here on Augoeides for their weird ideas about magick and especially demons. I do understand that if you have gone through years of training to expel possessing spirits, that's going to be your hammer and everything is going to look like a nail. But still, people sometimes get the idea that exorcists work with spirits so they must know what they're talking about, when that's not true at all. Exorcists are trained in one specific magical ritual that has a single specific function, and that knowledge is not very applicable to regular life - or even magick in general.

Spirit possession is weird and rare, with a sample size so small that it's hard to see why it happens when it does. But exorcists think they know - it's celebrating Halloween, or dressing in black, or doing yoga stretches or just generally not being a devout traditional Christian. Or in this particular case, it's popular music. According to exorcist Father Dan Reehil, Taylor Swift concerts should be avoided because the pop star is summoning demons on her latest tour.

Reehil says those who practice witchcraft "harness energy or they try to harness energy, and they look at the Earth with the elements of water, fire, Earth, and sky. They believe that they can harness this energy in some ways to do good and in some ways to do evil."

So far so good. Magick does use the powers of the elements, also planets and signs, as a technology to influence the world, and it can be used to help or to harm depending on the intent of the practitioner

"The problem with the concert is that whether Taylor knew she was trying to imitate witches or in fact was doing some kind of a cult ceremony during the show is sort of irrelevant to the demons," Father Reehil continues.

"She is an incredibly talented and influential artist. And so the demons will take deep note of what she's doing and how she's doing it and who she's influencing. So when they imitate these rituals with these orbs and these black capes, that looks like something you'd find in the woods.

"Even if her intent was not to practice any witchcraft or do any of the incantations, she is probably attracting a lot of demons to her concerts.

But then all this is completely nuts. Conjuring demons involves specific procedures and specific implements, and those implements usually need to be consecrated for that purpose. It also involves the intent of the magician. While it is true that some practitioners go overboard with this and insist intent is all that matters, it is nonetheless the case that a magical operation won't work without it. You can't just mechnically imitate a few pieces of a magical ritual and expect anything to happen.

Exorcise Your Cat!

No, not exercise, exorcise. Today's article can't help but remind me of Bill Murray in Ghostbusters 2 pushing his no-budget paranormal TV show. "Next week on World of the Psychic, hairless pets. Weird." The joke, of course, being that there's nothing paranormal or psychic or ghostly or demonic or whatever about having an unusual-looking pet.

Now that joke would be even funnier if there weren't clueless people out there taking it way too seriously. The article concerns a cat named Pixel who is a Cornish Rex. Cornish Rexes are a breed with far less hair than regular house cats, and they're fairly rare so a lot of people aren't that familiar with them. Pixel's owner, Alyson Kalhagen, recently posted some photos of the cat online and got some pretty bizarre responses.

One such message was from an exorcist who told Kalhagen that a demon was using her pet as a 'puppet' and instructing her to keep Pixel caged and pray 'over and over' in front of him to get the demon out. 'I had a message from this person telling me that they were an 'exorcist' and Pixel had been 'taken over by a demon that was controlling his face'.

'I think he was trying to tell me that's why my cat is making all of these crazy faces,' Kalhagen said. 'In that photo he's got kind of a blank stare with his weird little grin on his face - like maybe the lights were on or no one was at home, or whoever was at home wasn't up to any good.

'All the time people say 'this is the creepiest cat I've ever seen', 'my sleep paralysis demon has come to life' and if they saw him in the middle of the night they'd have a heart attack and it would scare them to death.

'People say all the time that he's a 'demon cat' who 'must be possessed' and that the devil's taken control of him. It's kind of a recurring theme. I think it's pretty funny because I usually just say 'imagine coming face to face when you're trying to scoop the litter box'.'

Aggressive Satanism?

I suppose, if you really think about it, the opposite of "palatable occultism" might be "aggressive Satanism" - you know, if a significant portion of this alleged "Satanism" really had anything to do with actual occultism.

Here's the background. Father Francois Dermine, a longtime Roman Catholic exorcist, claimed in an article published in Crux that society is in grave danger due to the rise of what he calls "aggressive Satanism." The problem is that most of what he's railing against is only "Satanism" according to the literal definition put forth by conservative Roman Catholicism - that is, pretty much anything that's not Roman Catholicism.

Roman Catholic exorcists are some of the last practitioners of anything resembling ceremonial magick to be found among mainstream Christians, so to some extent I try to avoid making fun of them. On the other hand, they also say some pretty dumb things, like arguing that anybody who takes a yoga class incurs a significant risk of demonic possession. I can't say I've ever come across anybody who legitimately got possessed by these supposed yoga demons, so I think that argument is ridiculous.

Now it's not completely silly to point out that aggression and violence are major problems in society and are dangerous. But if you look around, it's not like being a Christian means you're any less likely to engage in them. Sure, it should, if you really are trying to follow the tenets of the religion. But the very existence of massive "Prosperity Gospel" churches should dispel any notion that all Christians pay attention to what Jesus actually taught.

“There are many groups of satanism,” Dermine said, noting that internet exposure has also increased, and references to the demonic are increasingly prevalent in videogames and school games such as the “Charlie Charlie challenge,” in which players cross two pencils on a grid with sectors marking ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and ask a supernatural being, “Charlie,” to answer the questions they ask.

Exorcism Summit Open to Non-Catholics

Sadly, though, you still have to be Christian.

In a move that I imagine can only be positive for non-Catholic reverse-conjurers everywhere, the Roman Catholic Church has opened up its annual exorcism summit to exorcists belonging to other Christian denominations. By exploring techniques from other strands of their tradition, they hope to improve their methods and develop "best practices." You know, like a great big Agile team or something.

With a rise in reported demonic possessions and devil worship in the era of social media, the Roman Catholic Church opened its doors to non-Catholics for the first time during its annual exorcism training conference.

This article is from Fox News, so I want to interrogate some of its implied assumptions a bit. Is there really a "rise in reported demonic possessions and devil worship in the era of social media?" Members of groups like The Satanic Temple are atheists, and while there are theistic Satanists their numbers are much lower. "Lifestyle witchcraft" is not "devil worship" either - nor is it really even magick or witchcraft as I think of it, just a fashion trend.

I do realize that conservative Catholics think anybody who isn't a Catholic, and certainly anyone who isn't Christian, is basically a devil worshipper or might as well be one. But to be clear, I'm a Thelemite and I don't "worship the devil." I actually don't really "worship" anything. I work with deities and spirits as a peer, not a supplicant. And I have to say, in the occult community I don't think literal "devil worship" is much of a thing for the most part.

Also - has there actually been an increase in "reported demonic possessions?" I scour the Internet for anything that looks like a real case of possession so I can cover it here on the blog, and I can't say that I've seen any increase in reports over the course of at least the last decade and probably longer. It was rare before, and it remains rare now.

Bob Larson Uses Koetting's FX Guy

Since there doesn't appear to be a civil war going on outside my door, today I'm going to spend some time making fun of Bob Larson. Remember him? He's the evangelical exorcist known for creating the Teen Exorcist Squad and conducting exorcisms via Skype. Back in the 1980's and early 1990's, Larson's show was broadcast here in Minnesota and he was one of the loudest voices denouncing "Satanic Ritual Abuse," a moral panic that revolved around made-up practices of made-up Satanists who never did anything that made much sense to us real practicing occultists.

In the Bob Larson universe, just about anything fun has to do with demons. Dungeons & Dragons? Demons. Rock music? Demons. Making fun of Bob Larson? Demons. So I guess that makes Augoeides pretty darn infernal right now. I'll be sure to inform the angels and other celestial spirits that I work with on a regular basis. And anything that had to do with demons got you possessed, because that's how it works. After all, there's no such thing as mental illness. It's all caused by demons, and fortunately Larson is an exorcist so he has the cure - you know, for a reasonable donation to his ministry.

At any rate, what I find so laughable about the above video is not the video itself, but the ridiculous low-budget special effects that go along with it. Remember E. A. Koetting's video where he's out in the desert and you see low budget CGI lightning and colored filters that are supposed to be "magick?" Well, here Larson is doing the same darn thing. I have no idea if Brenda, the woman in the video, has mental health issues or is just playing along. But she's not possessed by a demon. Have you ever watched video of ATR rituals where people are actually possessed by spirits? Let's just say they don't walk around acting all normal and we'll leave it at that. They also don't turn the room red or "burn" with bad CGI flames.

At some point I'm considering doing some of my own magick videos, and I'm left wondering if I have to do this too to "keep up with the Joneses," or at least keep up with the Larsons and Koettings. Even though I have mad skills with Microsoft Paint, I would have to track down something similar for videos. You know, something that would let me add a possum head to a picture of Bigfoot in real time, not just in the one photo. I'm kind of hoping that's not the case, though, because let's face it - these effects are cheesy as hell.

Mental Illness Versus Spirit Possession

In some of my previous posts, I've pointed out that the Roman Catholic Church has strict guidelines for performing exorcisms. Before a paranormal cause can even be considered, all normal causes such as mental illness must be ruled out. So how do they do they do that, since priests are not necessarily experts on mental health? That question was answered by this recent article from the Washington Post. It turns out the answer is fairly prosaic - they work with psychiatrists.

What's not so prosaic, though, is that the author of the article, psychiatrist Richard Gallagher, has seen a handful of cases that defy explanation and seem to point to some sort of paranormal agency. On that basis, he concludes that possession is a rare phenomenon, but it does exist. He probably would be the person to ask, too. In more than twenty years working with the church, he has probably reviewed more potential cases than almost anyone else.

For the past two-and-a-half decades and over several hundred consultations, I’ve helped clergy from multiple denominations and faiths to filter episodes of mental illness — which represent the overwhelming majority of cases — from, literally, the devil’s work. It’s an unlikely role for an academic physician, but I don’t see these two aspects of my career in conflict. The same habits that shape what I do as a professor and psychiatrist — open-mindedness, respect for evidence and compassion for suffering people — led me to aid in the work of discerning attacks by what I believe are evil spirits and, just as critically, differentiating these extremely rare events from medical conditions.

Is it possible to be a sophisticated psychiatrist and believe that evil spirits are, however seldom, assailing humans? Most of my scientific colleagues and friends say no, because of their frequent contact with patients who are deluded about demons, their general skepticism of the supernatural, and their commitment to employ only standard, peer-reviewed treatments that do not potentially mislead (a definite risk) or harm vulnerable patients. But careful observation of the evidence presented to me in my career has led me to believe that certain extremely uncommon cases can be explained no other way.

For the most part I agree with Gallagher based on my own experiences, though I do think that the church's theology is overly simplistic. Every spirit in the universe is not either a "demon" in league with Satan or an "angel" in league with God. The real world is far less Manichean than that. In my experience there are as many classes of spirits as there are people - though I expect the sort of spirit that would take over a person's body without their consent and not give it up probably could reasonably described as "evil," or at the very least, harmful and dangerous.

Ted Cruz Exorcized

Back in February, Ted Cruz was accosted by a man who claimed that the Texas senator was possessed by a demon and needed an exorcism. Then, just last week, former Speaker of the House John Boehner described Cruz as "Lucifer in the flesh." Boehner was (most likely) speaking metaphorically, but Satanists still condemned his remarks, claiming that comparing Cruz to Lucifer was insulting to Lucifer.

Whether or not Cruz really needed that exorcism, last night in Indiana he was exorcized from the race for the Republican presidential nomination. After a big loss to Donald Trump, who still seems to be totally-not-hexed, the Texas senator suspended his campaign for the nomination. Barring something completely unexpected, Cruz' exit from the race means that Trump will be the Republican nominee.

Now just in case the Texas senator does find himself in need of an actual exorcism, last week a reporter from The Washington Post contacted practicing exorcist and Teen Exorcist Squad leader Bob Larson to find out how he would go about doing it.

"I would treat him no differently than I would treat anyone else," Larson said. (He intimated that he'd dealt with political leaders — including some I'd be familiar with — but he declined to name names.)

When presented with someone who friends or family think may be possessed, Larson first ensures that the person has seen a therapist or doctor — tried, in other words, to eliminate all potential medical and psychological causes for the person's behavior.

If all of that has occurred, he then tries to figure out why the person might have been possessed. "People don't just become possessed because they have a bad hair day," he said. "They become possessed because something evil has happened either transgenerationally or in their life." The next round of questions centers on what type of evil acts the possessed person has committed or have had committed to them, and how the person had dealt with those issues, if at all.

Next? "Once you know there was the right of an evil spirit to enter," Larson said, "then the question is whether they are the true host of a spirit or just somehow tormented. And to do that, you demand to speak to the spirit and call the spirit forth. And it either comes or it doesn't."

What really surprised me about Cruz' performance in the Republican primaries is that, to my knowledge, he was the first openly Christian Reconstructionist candidate to seek public office, and he was rejected by a substantial percentage of evangelical Christians. Many of them went for Trump, a Presbyterian who for the most part is not even running as a religious conservative.

Maybe it's just because Cruz is so darn unlikeable and clearly uncomfortable acting like a normal human being, but it could also imply that even the "evangelical" block of Christianity is not nearly as politically monolithic as some of their public statements make them sound. It seems that there are quite a few of them out there who are perfectly happy to reject Theocracy as a form of government, even if such a government would mean rule by their religion.

Exorcising Ted Cruz

I normally try to keep Augoeides as politically neutral as I can and only touch on electoral politics when something appropriate for the blog surfaces, like Jeb Bush palling around with vampires or the New York witches who tried to hex Donald Trump (which, by the way, at this point seems to have failed spectacularly).

But here's something you don't see every day on the campaign trail. During a speech in New Hampshire, which holds its presidential primary today, two men in the audience attempted to perform an exorcism on Republican candidate Ted Cruz.

According to The Dallas Morning News, Cruz had just finished his stump speech when the men began shouting at the candidate. “Ted Cruz look in the mirror and let the evil spirit depart!” one man exclaimed. “He’s possessed by a demon!”

As the crowd booed, Cruz suggested that the “very confused fellow” was part of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ campaign. “He’s possessed by a demon!” the man yelled. “The demon has to leave. That’s why the body is so disgusting to look at!”

A second man holding a mirror urged Cruz to look at himself so “the evil can confront itself.” “Evil body! Evil spirit. Look yourself in the mirror!” the man said.

Given the crowded Republican primary, odds are that this stunt was probably some sort of joke or bid for publicity. It is very weird, though, that political agitators would choose this particular method to get their point across, and I don't see why someone from the Sanders campaign would bother, since Sanders is not running against Cruz in the Republican primary. On the other hand, Cruz won the Iowa Republican Caucus just last week, which puts him in the sights of every other Republican candidate hoping to unseat him.

Whoever was behind the attempted exorcism, I think that it has to be a first. I certainly don't remember hearing of anyone trying to exorcise a political candidate on the campaign trail, and I think if it had happened before I would have heard about it.

Not Something You See Every Day

These folks are definitely not the Teen Exorcist Squad. But police were surprised when they were called to a public park on a disturbance and found a Texas couple performing what appeared to be an exorcism on a third woman, who was being held on the ground while the couple demanded that Satan depart from her.

“They start getting louder and louder and louder, she was on the ground and they were standing over her with hands on her and screaming Satan I demand that you depart and it went on and on and on, but it was very bizarre!” said one bystander who noticed the religious ritual being performed in public at Memorial Gardens Park.

Police who arrived at the scene said their hands were tied because exorcisms are not against the law and no one was injured. According to witnesses, the three people were sitting on a park bench speaking before the exorcism commenced. One woman, who reads her Bible in the park, said the three got right into it with few formalities beforehand, disrupting her from her daily ritual.

This would probably qualify as assault or something similar if the woman being exorcised decided to press charges, but it sounds like she declined to do so - which makes it totally legal. Just totally weird, at least the way a lot of evangelicals do it. Instead of an actual ritual, there's a lot of yelling at Satan kind of like what you would see in a horror film.

There's no word on whether the exorcism worked, and the names of the participants have not been released so there's no way to follow up. I just hope that the woman got what she was looking for from the experience.

Exorcising Mexico

I've posted here before about Pope Francis' support for the practice of exorcism, which has been on the rise during his tenure. But what do you do if you have to perform an exorcism on an entire country? It's not like you can just tie it to a bed and dump holy water on it. As it turns out, such a rite does exist, but it's rarely performed. It's called “Exorcismo Magno” and it involves exorcists from all over the country coming together and working in concert. About a month ago, this special rite of exorcism was performed in Mexico.

The event was not made known to the general public beforehand. According to Archbishop Cabrero, the reserved character of the May 20 ceremony was intended to avoid any misguided interpretations of the ritual. But how can an entire country become infested by demons to the point that it’s necessary to resort to an Exorcismo Magno?

“To the extent sin increases more and more in a country, to that extent it becomes easier for the demons to tempt (people),” Fr. Fortea told CNA.The Spanish exorcist warned that “to the extent there is more witchcraft and Satanism going on in a country, to that extent there will be more extraordinary manifestations of those powers of darkness.”

Fr. Fortea said that “the exorcism performed in San Luís Potosí is the first ever carried out in Mexico in which the exorcists came from different parts of the country and gathered together to exorcise the powers of darkness, not from a person, but from the whole country.”

“This rite of exorcism, beautiful and liturgical, had never before taken place in any part of the world. Although it had taken place in a private manner as when Saint Francis (exorcised) the Italian city of Arezzo,” he stated.

The exorcism was prompted by recent rising levels of violence associated with Mexico's drug cartels, which seems as good a reason as any to perform a magical ritual. However, I think it's very unlikely that said violence is the result of "witchcraft" or "Satanism." I suppose from the church's perspective, the veneration of Santa Muerte, long associated with the Mexican drug trade, is the same thing - even though from an informed occult perspective it of course is not. The drug trade has always been violent, but it has gotten significantly worse since the Mexican government launched its own "war on drugs" in 2006.

Just as in the United States, all this escalation does is make the drug trade becomes more dangerous and therefore more profitable, and widespread Mexican poverty means that fewer legal economic opportunities are available. I've read in a couple of places now that one of the most damaging blows struck against the cartels in recent years has been the legalization of marijuana in several US states, because legalization makes the criminal trade less profitable.

Perhaps the Mexican government should take a hint.

Not That Kind of Chiropractor

Maybe it's just me, but in my experience chiropractors do things like spinal adjustments. I have yet to meet one who performed exorcisms, but apparently that's because I don't live in Iowa. A chiropractor there recently lost his license for performing exorcisms on patients and treating them in exchange for sex. I suppose it's good work if you can get it. Lately it seems like everyone is getting in on the exorcism game, from the Roman Catholic Church declaring war on sexy vampires and Bob Larsen's Teen Exorcist Squad keeping busy.

An Iowa chiropractor is out of business after authorities busted him for performing exorcisms and treating patients in exchange for sex.

Charles Manuel surrendered his license but could apply to get it back in 10 years as part of a settlement reached with the Iowa Board of Chiropractors reached in March.

The board had accused the southern Iowa-based chiropractor of "unethical conduct…engaging in practice harmful or detrimental to the public," and "practicing outside the scope of the profession" in the settlement obtained on April 15 by The Des Moines Register.

Yeah, that sounds about right. I have no idea what chiropractic and exorcism have to do with each other, which brings to mind two distinct possibilities. Either Manuel is a fraud and charged people for performing some sort of ritual he knew was bogus, or he believed in what he was doing but decided that it was easy enough that it required little training.

Actually, a lot of the training that exorcists get in the Roman Catholic Church, for example, has nothing to do with the ritual itself, but rather has to do with discerning an actual spirit attack from mental illness or a myriad of other problems that can be addressed by more conventional means. That's because like any other spiritual technology, an exorcism doesn't address physical issues. And, since spirit attacks are relatively rare, most of the time they aren't the cause of the subject's problems.

It's possible that I'm being a little unfair here, since I know nothing about Manuel other than this news story. Maybe he's a totally amazing exorcist who also happens to know how to do adjustments. But the whole "treating patients for sex" thing doesn't fill me with confidence in his abilities.

Pope Warned of Sexy Vampires

Pope Francis has gotten some good press for being a relatively progressive pope, or at least more progressive than his reactionary predecessor. His statements on poverty and injustice are quite welcome as a foil to the "Green Gospel" preached by many American evangelicals, even if his positions on other issues such as sexuality have barely budged compared to those of previous popes.

One oddity about the allegedly progressive Francis is that he has offered more support than his predecessors to the practice of exorcism. As a magician I believe that magical and spiritual attacks can be real and that they can be resolved by ritual means, but the problem is that many of the church's exorcists seem trapped in some sort of backwards urban fantasy universe. And naturally, said universe is teeming with sexy vampires.

“There are those who try to turn people into vampires and make them drink other people’s blood, or encourage them to have special sexual relations to obtain special powers,” said Professor Giuseppe Ferrari, head of The Group on Research and Socio-Religious Information, an Italian occult watchdog, at a conference in Rome last week. “These groups are attracted by the so-called beautiful young vampires that we’ve seen so much of in recent years.”

Ferrari is not some fringe exorcist (ha ha) — he is actually backed by the Vatican and the Pope himself, who has insisted that dioceses have one trained exorcist on campus to deal with any urgent possessions. Father Cesare Truqui, a Swiss exorcist and protégé of Father Gabriele Amorth (the Vatican’s longtime chief exorcist) who also spoke at the conference, told The Independent that exorcism training is super important but overlooked: “It’s like training to be a journalist without knowing how to do an interview.” Amorth’s main concerns were sex abuse scandals, the fantasy genre and yoga.

Is it just me, or is one of those things not like the others? Yoga is harmless. The fantasy genre is harmless. And the recent sex abuse scandals that have rocked the church are an abject nightmare, especially for the victims. It seems to me that Amorth would do a lot better to quit wasting time hating on stretching and elves, and instead devote his efforts towards resolving this infinitely more serious problem.

But I suppose in the end what's really going on is public relations. I doubt that anyone thinks yoga or fantasy novels are on par with child molestation, even among deluded exorcists who dream of being Buffy or something. I think it's probably an attempt to draw attention away from the latter. If the media is focused on how dumb it is that the church hates yoga, that's less time they're spending on abuse victims.

Cracking Down on "Irregular Exorcisms"

The practice of exorcism is on the rise. In May, the Roman Catholic Church held a conference to train 250 new exorcists. According to organizers, more exorcists are needed because of the rise of atheism and secular humanism, which by some poorly articulated and utterly implausible mechanism leads to more people dabbling with the occult. But more exorcists means more exorcisms, and that brings its own set of problems.

Cardinal Giuseppe Betori, the Archbishop of Florence, recently delivered a missive to the priests of Tuscany reminding them of the strict procedures that exorcists are required to follow. According to church policy, before an exorcism can be performed the subject must pass a complex series of tests designed to exclude mental illness or any other mundane explanation for their symptoms. Apparently, some priests in the region have been disregarding this rule.

Around 15 official exorcisms have been conducted in Tuscany in recent years, according to the local press. However, dozens more have been performed without the say-so of church authorities, and the number of cases is increasing, prompting Cardinal Betori and the regional Bishops Conference to write to priests reminding them of their obligations.

The missive included the 20-year-old pastoral guidelines on dealing with demons and black magic, entitled “Regarding magic and demonology”, and called on priests to pay heed to the section headed “Exorcisms and healing prayers… pastoral rules and recommendations”.

A diocesan source quoted by La Nazione newspaper said: “Some priests, with the best intentions, are making themselves available to listen to these people and sometimes perform exorcisms on them in a way that is not permitted, not regular and not co-ordinated.”

Italy’s brutal and lingering recession has been blamed for a rise in mental health problems, which, the report says, might be confused with possession by some people.

Adherence to these protocols should be very important to representatives of the church, since they constitute the main difference between Roman Catholic exorcists and fly-by-night "demon busters" like the Teen Exorcist Squad who will, for example, happily conduct exorcisms over Skype at the drop of a hat - and, of course, for a "suggested donation."

I personally work with spirits and don't consider exorcism nonsense - it's one of the last remnants of real ceremonial magick left in the Christian tradition, and the practice of exorcism has a history that predates the Christian religion. However, genuine unwanted spiritual possession is rare, and mental illness is far more common. Hopefully exorcists will heed this missive and save their methods for those who really require them.

Fear the Yoga Demons!

So it looks like the whole "yoga is demonic" trope is still alive and well. Here's an article about a Catholic woman named Priscilla who was supposedly possessed by demons at her yoga class. The story is so outlandish that I first thought it was some sort of parody, but after looking over the rest of the web site I'm not so sure. I suppose there's a fine line between satire and true religious fanaticism.

At any rate, according to "well-known deliverance minister" Stella Davis, Priscilla's story began when she was going through a divorce. A friend suggested she try a yoga class to deal with the stress and her fate was sealed. The class was completely secular with no religious references, and she prayed to Jesus and Mary to keep her safe. Still, her faith offered no protection and she was quickly possessed, which caused her life to completely fall apart. Davis reports arranging a "deliverance" for Priscilla, which quickly turned into a scene straight out of The Exorcist.

Suddenly, a sound emerged from Priscilla’s mouth, like the hiss of a snake.

“You can’t have her, she’s mine!” the voice shouted. “I took her. You gave her two deformed children,” it said in reference to Priscilla’s children, both of whom have special needs. “I got in through yoga,” the demon announced, then continued his diatribe. “You cannot take her from me. She’s mine. You’ll never get rid of me and even if you do, I’ll get back in.”

It went on to announce: “I took her family away from her. I took her job away from her when she was about to get it back. I put the anxiety in her . . . I’m in control now . . .You will never make me leave. I’ll get to her through her kids. . . ” Davis silenced the spirit in the name of Jesus Christ in a calm but firm voice and in a way that led Parker to believe she had done this a thousand times before.

In fact, she had. In the course of her 35 year-old ministry, Davis has had to deliver many people from spirits who infested them through the practice of yoga. “I find it in women, young and older, and also in priests and nuns,” she said. “The reason they come to me is because they can’t find any peace – they have anxiety – they become very angry – and they have to be delivered of these spirits.”

This was the case with Priscilla, who ended up being delivered of more than 17 different spirits that afternoon. And it all began in what seemed like an innocent exercise class.

Priest Plagued by Texting Demon

Can demons use cell phones? Apparently so, according to a priest who claims an infernal entity sent him harassing text messages following what at first seemed to be a successful exorcism of a young girl.

Father Marian Rajchel from Jaroslaw, in south-eastern Poland, apparently said the evil spirit was irked that the priest had got the better of him so started a harassment campaign by phone.

‘Shut up, preacher. You cannot save yourself. Idiot. You pathetic old preacher’ was one of the messages he received. Another text said: ‘She will not come out of this hell. She’s mine. Anyone who prays for her will die.’

Father Rajchel told local media demons were comfortable with ‘modern technology’ but also admitted the messages were probably sent through a human host.

It surprises me that an actual demon would bother with something as stupid as sending insulting text messages. Can't they throw stuff around rooms, or worse? Even if the demon's power were limited to sending text messages, it seems to me that it could, say, proposition kids on the Internet claiming to be said priest until the authorities showed up and arrested him. That would be a much more effective use of such a demonic power than hurling playground insults.

Here's my guess. The girl wasn't really possessed and her parents were abusive fundamentalists. The priest put her through the whole ordeal of an exorcism at their request, and she claimed to be "cured" just to get rid of him and end the whole thing. Then, she was still upset about it, so she found an anonymous texting service and sent the messages herself to get back at him. It wouldn't be paranormal, but it would serve him right.

Ouija Board Possession?

Does anybody here remember the film Witchboard? It was a horror movie from the 1980's about a woman who is possessed by a spirit she contacts using a Ouija board. The film has plenty of cheesy moments, such as when the board spins across the screen as one of the characters shoots at it (!), but in fact it was reasonably well-done given the subject matter. I'm not the only person who thinks so, either; the movie has some good reviews on imdb and overall rates a 5.7, which is actually decent for a genre in which most films come in at 3's and 4's.

Now one of the things the movie gets totally right is that earthbound spirits like to lie. The spirit the woman initially contacts claims to be that of a little boy, but is in fact that of a psychopathic murderer. What it gets fairly wrong, though, is that the board itself has no magical power, so you're not going to accomplish anything by burning or, say, shooting it. The problem with using a Ouija board is the same as what Aleister Crowley observed with regard to spiritualists - rather than following any sort of formal magical procedure, the operator opens him or herself up to whatever happens to be out there. Most of the time nothing will happen, but if her or she has a measure of psychic talent it's possible to contact something hostile or dangerous.

That brings us to today's story. Three American friends visiting Mexico were playing around with a Ouija board, and one of them was apparently "possessed" by a spirit. The video purports to show this, but honestly what it looks like to me is that she's doing her best to growl like Linda Blair in The Exorcist and then laughing when she can't keep a straight face. There might be some sort of spirit influence there, but it looks like much of it is probably play-acting. For one thing, it's way too similar to how it looks in the movies as opposed to real life.

Roman Catholic Church Seeks Exorcists

It sounds like the Roman Catholic Church wants to get in on more of the exorcism action. At a recent conference in Rome, 250 more priests were trained in the ancient art of casting out the devil. It only makes sense that the denomination that preserved the Rite of Exorcism from antiquity would never leave it to the likes of the Teen Exorcist Squad, who make doing battle with the forces of evil look a little too much like a day at the mall. But the reasoning of the conference organizers leaves something to be desired. Apparently, they believe that some substantial portion of non-religious people practice magick.

The conference, “Exorcism and Prayers of Liberation”, has also attracted psychiatrists, sociologists, doctors and criminologists in what the Church called a “multi-disciplinary” approach to exorcisms.

Giuseppe Ferrari, from GRIS, a Catholic research group that organised the conference, said there was an ever growing need for priests to be trained to perform exorcisms because of the increasing number of lay people tempted to dabble in black magic, paganism and the occult.

“We live in a disenchanted society, a secularised world that thought it was being emancipated, but where religion is being thrown out, the window is being opened to superstition and irrationality,” said Mr Ferrari.

The abandonment of religion “inevitably leads people to ask questions about the existence of evil and its origins”, he told Adnkronos, an Italian news agency. About 250 priests were trained as exorcists in Italy, but many more were needed, the conference organisers claimed.

All this shows me is that Ferrari doesn't know any actual secular atheists. What's so silly about his statements is that hardly any of the atheists I know even believe in the paranormal, let alone practice occultism, and most occultists I know are religious in some fashion. Often they're Thelemites or Pagans of some sort (and to be fair, Paganism does get a mention up there), but a few of them are even Christian. It's hard to see how Ferrari could have missed that if he spends any time on the Internet. The most vocal atheists are so smug about how rational and free of superstition they are that they would never cast a spell to save their lives - or for that matter have anything to do with an exorcist.

Exorcism Online

Here's the latest innovation in exorcism from Teen Exorcist Squad leader Reverend Bob Larson - exorcism via Skype. Never one to pass up an opportunity to take on a demon in exchange for donations to his ministry, Larson takes advantage of the video chat application to perform exorcisms all over the world without those pesky travel expenses. There's no word yet on whether he performs all of the online exorcisms himself, or if he passes some of them off to members of his squad.

The idea of using Skype came from a Scottsdale reverend Bob Larson who claims that thanks to Skype he can take a crack at demons all over the world. So far he claims to have banished 20,000 demons to his nether regions, unless we heard him wrong. We guess that some of those demons would have been doubling up, as demons sometimes share bodies to avoid paying council tax.

Larson said that exorcism is the process of expelling an evil spirit from an individual who has become somehow invaded and demonised by that being, and sending it back to hell and freeing the person. It is not clear how it would work over Skype. While you don't have to worry about flying beds, it is really tricky to spray holy water in anything's face over the net. Your video can also be disturbed by puke splatter.

Despite the tongue-in-cheek commentary, the article does raise a valid point. Magick performed remotely is always going be less effective than magick performed in person, simply because the link to the target is not as strong. Back in the early days of the Internet a number of chaos magicians tried to do group rituals over chat, and the ones that I followed back then proved pretty ineffective - though I'll grant there may be somebody who figured out how to make it work and then never released their findings. It's also the reason that astral initiations may do something, but not nearly as much as real temple initiations done in the physical presence of officers.

My guess is that Larson is falling back on the classic scripture that in Jesus' name all things are possible, the usual Christian explanation for why they expect poorly constructed spiritual technology to function. There's always the possibility that he has come up with a novel method that will prove effective, but given his history and background I highly doubt it.

An Indiana Exorcism

In a story that seems to come straight out of a horror film, a family from Indiana claims to have been terrorized by demons that required several exorcisms performed by Father Mike Maginot, pictured above, to finally remove. What's remarkable about this case is that it has been massively documented by law enforcement and Child Services since 2011, and as such, the article outlines the entire series of events from beginning to end. Read the whole thing; it's a fascinating account.

Gary police Capt. Charles Austin said it was the strangest story he had ever heard.

Austin, a 36-year veteran of the Gary Police Department, said he initially thought Indianapolis resident Latoya Ammons and her family concocted an elaborate tale as a way to make money. But after several visits to their home and interviews with witnesses, Austin said simply, "I am a believer."

Not everyone involved with the family was inclined to believe its incredible story. And many readers will find Ammons' supernatural claims impossible to accept. But, whatever the cause of the creepy occurrences that befell the family — whether they were seized by a systematic delusion or demonic possession — it led to one of the most unusual cases ever handled by the Department of Child Services.

Many of the events are detailed in nearly 800 pages of official records obtained by The Indianapolis Star and recounted in more than a dozen interviews with police, DCS personnel, psychologists, family members and a Catholic priest.