All those who practice any form of the occult do so in breach of the First Commandment. They break the bonds of life and love that unite them with God, and give themselves over to terrible enslavement by the powers of evil.
An insidious temptation
Many people succumb to illusive temptations, seeking happiness not in God, but in the occult. Instead of coming to Christ with their problems, they consult fortunetellers, clairvoyants, seers, touch healers, and sorcerers. They study astrology, place their trust in the horoscope, practice superstitions, and “consult the stars” whenever faced with an important decision. When their health fails, they seek out all manner of occult healers who are instruments of the evil spirits. There are also those who, in their pursuit of a career, money, power, and success, give their lives to the devil so as to enjoy perverse sexual pleasures, gain power over others, and amass wealth.
Those who put their trust in occult powers automatically reject God and His Gospel. Such an attitude leads to enslavement by Satan. In our secularized, paganized societies where the churches are empty and where moral laxity, divorce, abortion, euthanasia, dishonesty, and corruption triumph, the occult enjoys enormous popularity. This is what happens. People rejecting God drift as a matter of course toward belief in the occult, various sects, superstitions, eastern cults, idolatry, and Satanism.
History indicates a close link between National Socialism and Marxism with demonology. The founders of Communism, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin, engaged in the occult and were totally subject to Satan’s rule. In their occult practices, Hitler and his associates also demonstrated links with Satan.
Occultism, which is the religion of Satan, leads to total enslavement by the powers of darkness. The history of the Chosen People and that of humanity in general tells us that whenever people turn away from the true God, they always end up giving themselves over to the most primitive forms of idolatry. Indeed, we can state it as a fundamental law: every fall in authentic religious practice is accompanied by a corresponding rise in superstitious belief and the practice of various forms of the occult.
Occultism is connected with the belief in spiritual forces or energies, by means of which a person seeks to discover the future, restore his health, achieve good fortune and success, or gain extraordinary powers so as to control or manipulate others. To achieve this, the person undergoes a process of initiation and engages in various occult practices such as spells, exercises, meditation, etc. Those who practice the occult can achieve a wide range of powers including reading thoughts, foreseeing the future, influencing and manipulating others, materializing objects, and communicating (supposedly) with the dead, when in reality it is with evil spirits who mimic the souls of the dead. Often these people are not aware that in this way they are opening themselves up to the insidious actions of evil spirits, over which they no longer have control. Simply put, they place themselves at the service of the powers of evil.
Thus, all those who freely engage in various forms of magic, Satanism, astrology, spiritism, fortunetelling, or who join the Masonic lodge, sin against the First Commandment, since they reject God’s love and place themselves under the control of the powers of darkness. Likewise they sin who resort to Hindu or Tibetan practices, who turn to ancient myths and symbols so as to unlock their secret powers by letting themselves be guided by the Evil One. This is a grave sin of disobedience to the Holy Spirit and rejection of the guidance of one’s Guardian Angel.
Those who resort to the pendulum, tarot cards, who consult psychics, sorcerers, and healers, or who say that they are acting through a spirit-medium, betray thus their lack of faith in the love of God and surrender themselves to the action of unclean spirits.
Occult practices condemned
Holy Scripture condemns occult practices as sins that exclude souls from the Kingdom of God (Ga 5: 20; Rev 9: 21; 22: 15). In the Book of Deuteronomy we read: “You shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD; and because of these abominable practices the LORD your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God. For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you so to do” (Dt 18: 9-14; see also Lev 19: 31; 20: 6, 27).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks unequivocally on the subject of the occult: “All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone (2116).
“All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others—even if this were for the sake of restoring their health—are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another’s credulity (2117).
“God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility” (2115).
Culpable ignorance
Culpable ignorance of the fundamental truths of Christianity, i.e. religious illiteracy, is a grave fault and the cause of a great many of life’s tragedies. Cult leaders, psychics, sorcerers, astrologists, and touch healers exploit this ignorance. Every day they dupe people on a massive scale, cheating them of great sums of money. They promise them easy ways of achieving happiness, success in life, speedy riddance of troubles and health problems. Their services are often advertized on radio and TV programs, in the press, on the Internet, in books and pamphlets. These people offer their “unfailing” help in affairs of the heart, in economic and health matters. They assure their clients of their ability to heal diseases, foretell the future, and provide salutary counsel for all the problems that humanity is heir to. They give out amulets, talismans, happiness pills, love incense, etc.—all this for an appropriately high fee and a guarantee of success.
The more our societies sink into religious illiteracy and authentic faith in Christ weakens, the more people are prone to believe in the efficacy of healing ointments, fortunetellers and sorcerers, and make use of them. Some fortunetellers and psychics, mask their perverse activities by making use of holy cards and crucifixes and weaving the Lord’s Prayer into their magic rituals. Their occult practices are a flat denial of religion and belief in God. In engaging in the various forms of the occult (fortunetelling, reading thoughts, influencing others, controlling natural forces, practicing eastern cults and meditations, yoga, communing with the dead), they are convinced they can use these mysterious forces for their own ends. Often they are not aware that it is they who are being controlled and enslaved by these very forces.
A person who prays and puts his trust in God wants to discern His plans and order himself to them. The practitioner of magic, on the other hand, wants to decide for himself what is good or ill for him. He uses mysterious spiritual forces to plan his future for himself, thereby setting himself in God’s place and sinning gravely against the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Ex 20: 3). Sorcerers, witches, psychics, astrologists, touch healers and the like surrender themselves to the control of demonic forces, which use them for their own ends.
Only God will give us true happiness. People of weak faith—or those who have lost it—easily succumb to the promptings of the Evil One, who says to us: “To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it shall all be yours” (Lk 4: 6-7). That is why so many people seek happiness, help, and solutions to their problems from tarot card readers, touch healers, clairvoyants, astrologists, fortunetellers, and sorcerers. In so doing they surrender themselves to the influence of demonic forces. Through amulets, talismans, rituals, formulas and gestures, they seek power, control over reality, happiness, protection against failure or illness, and maximum personal profit.
An insidious snare
There are also people who practice water divination (dousing) or bioenergy therapy in good faith and do not realize the great danger they place themselves in—or those they wish to help. The touch therapist opens himself up to the action of occult energy and transmits it to the person he is healing. In this way, often unwittingly, he exposes both his client and himself to the action of evil forces.
Father Jacques Verlinde, a leading expert grappling with this problem, states: “I could cite here all kinds of instances in which people healed by a touch healer go on to experience prolonged and disturbing symptoms of a different kind. Often these conditions are far more complex than those with which they came for healing in the first place; all too often, these people find themselves at the end of their strength (…). They suffer from chronic headaches, insomnia, psychic, and even spiritual, disorders. In this state, they come to the priest, and if he is knowledgeable in these matters, he will conduct an anamnesis (a recalling of events). In my experience, one almost always discovers in these inexplicable cases either that the person has engaged in the occult, in which case everything is clear, or that he has more or less regularly undergone various kinds of unconventional therapy such as contact with psychics, people with clairvoyant powers, etc. What to do then? You simply have to pray and ask for the person’s deliverance. This does not necessarily mean that the person is possessed. Not at all! But there may exist untoward ties between the person healing you and yourself. Through the conduit of these ties we experience negative influences. In that case, we need to ask in prayer that God may sever all these attachments connecting you with earlier occult practices.”
At first contact, “professional” psychics, sorcerers, and healers of all stripes will typically be very kind to their client. They conduct themselves like true benefactors and friends, presenting themselves as the one capable of resolving every problem. They manipulate people and make them dependant on their practices. In giving their clients a talisman (or other such object), they tell them that he must be “charged” for a while with energy. Needless to say, each such “charging” session comes with its own monetary charge. Thus they wheedle great sums of money out of naïve persons. To deceive their clients, some practitioners grace their offices with rosaries, holy statues, images of Padre Pio or pictures of the Pope. Not infrequently, they resort to private detectives to find out as much as possible about their clients and thus impress them later with their knowledge with a view to extorting more money from them.
According to one converted Italian psychic, his talismans underwent special rituals. Their cost varied according to the number of curses and blasphemies (directed at the Blessed Mother) uttered over them. Such articles are particularly dangerous to those who wear them and also to their families, since they become a sign of the presence and action of evil powers. Exorcists assure us that people wearing talismans and amulets are given to anxiety attacks, depression, tormenting by evil spirits and even outright demonic possession.
Effective protection
Through occult practice, Satan mimics the economy of salvation. He does so in order to lead people to eternal damnation. Only Jesus Christ is our Savior. To be saved, those concerned need to decisively renounce every occult practice (pendulums, horoscopes, amulets, fortunetelling, contact with touch healers, yoga, eastern meditation, etc.—and even the press and books that deal with the subject), make a sacramental confession of their sins, cling in faith to Christ present in the Eucharist, and acknowledge Him as their one Lord and Savior. Then Jesus will come to them with all His love, tenderness, kindness, and boundless mercy. He will heal all their wounds and free them from enslavement to sin and the unclean spirits. Jesus is our one Lord and God. He created us for Himself, and apart from Him, who lives and acts in the community of the Church, we will find neither happiness, nor love, nor eternal life.
In his book Intergenerational Healing, Father Robert DeGrandis writes about a doctor’s daughter who suffered from great pains in the throat. Her father treated her with various drugs, but to no avail. It turned out that the woman wore a gold horn-shaped talisman around her neck to ward off evil spirits. Her prayer group asked her to get rid of the amulet. Upon doing so, and after praying, she found that her throat was completely healed. Every object coming into contact with the occult (including astrological symbols, pagan figurines, amulets, tarot cards, books, films, talismans, images, emblems, Satanic hard core rock recordings)—all these things need to be destroyed at once, since they give presence to demonic powers, which infect and enslave us and lead to all manner of tragedies in life.
We also need to be aware that some families are burdened by demonic curses that were called down generations ago. The Holy Spirit will reveal their existence through prayer, and it is only by His power that they will be destroyed. We can remove these curses by surrendering our family and ourselves to Christ as His exclusive possession and by saying the following prayer: “In the name of Jesus Christ, by the power of His Most Precious Blood, I remove this curse from my family.”
Those who wish to free themselves from enslavement to Satan and break with all forms of occult practice, should pray as follows: “Lord Jesus Christ, through the intercession of Your Immaculate Mother Mary, I entrust to You my body and soul, all that I am and all that I own. You, Jesus, are the one Lord of my life and so with all my heart I express sorrow for my involvement in occult practice. (Mention here the particular practices, e.g. partaking in spiritist séances, using the services of psychics, sorcerers, clairvoyants, touch healers, resorting to pendulums, tarot cards, horoscopes, reading the future, palm reading, practicing yoga, wearing talismans, Atlantis rings, etc.) Only You, Lord, are my God, my one love, and the hope of my life. I renounce all the occult practices, by which I freely surrendered myself to the power of Satan. I renounce you, Satan, and command you, in the name of Jesus Christ, to cease your actions in my life. Amen.”
Those who own pendulums, amulets, talismans, Atlantis rings, books or any other articles connected with the occult, need to destroy them at once and be rid of them. The most effective protection against the influence of evil spirits is to remain in state of sanctifying grace. Therefore, they need to profit as often as possible from the sacrament of penance, receive Jesus in the Eucharist with a pure heart, and lead a profound life of prayer. We invite those who have had contact with the occult, and experienced first-hand the actions of the Evil One, to send their testimonies to LOA so that by publishing them we may unmask the insidious actions of the diabolic powers that lurk in the various forms of the occult.