Possessions & Exorcisms

Hosted byGeorge Knapp

Possessions & Exorcisms

About the show

In the first half, the Founder of Free Our Family, Bill Scott, recounted an excruciating 18-month period when he and his wife invited a woman who was demon possessed, and the member of an active satanic network, into their home. The events began in October of 1988, when the woman called in to the Christian radio station where Scott worked, speaking in strange voices, and claiming that she was a teenage girl who was going to be sacrificed on Halloween. Later, when Scott met her in person, he found out she was actually a woman in her 30s named Roxanne. She spoke in multiple voices, some male, and one of them a young girl named Lacie.

During the two weeks she stayed at the Scott's home, strange events began to take place. But even after they found her another place to live, the unusual occurrences continued. Doors opened and closed on on their own, as well as lights turning off and on. At one point, he described seeing a black figure in the hallway. He said to it: "In Jesus' name, why do you feel you can be in my home?," and the figure replied in a normal speaking voice, "because I am an invited guest in this home." Subsequent to this, the Scott's discovered that Roxanne had hidden occult items such as a black robe underneath the bed where she had slept, and when they got rid of them, the events decreased. He continued to meet with Roxanne to try and help her, and learned from her former pastor that she was possessed by a demon referred to in the book of Revelation called Abaddon which means "destroyer," and that she had indeed created havoc in many people's lives.

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In the latter half, journalist Matt Baglio discussed his chronicling of an American priest, Father Gary Thomas, who underwent Vatican-sanctioned training to become an exorcist. According to the training, exorcism should be a last resort, and a potentially possessed person should be evaluated for a number of different conditions such as mental illness, before moving ahead (in fact 95% of the cases are rejected, he reported). An exorcist looks for three signs that could indicate possession, Baglio continued-- abnormal strength, the ability to speak or understand unknown languages, and knowledge of hidden things, such as being able to mind read. They also look for "aversion to the sacred," such as the inability to enter a church, pray, or have any connection to the holy.

Baglio interviewed a number of other exorcists, and each of them related spooky and strange experiences associated with their ministry. In an exorcism Father Gary was involved in, he smelled a horrid stench, while at the same moment, the other priest who was there saw the possessed person levitate. In the case of a possessed young nun, who was said to be dedicated to an evil spirit as a child, she was observed bending the metal legs of a chair, he said. Interestingly, Baglio revealed that most people considered possessed must return for repeated exorcisms, in a series of sessions, and that it's rare for someone to be freed from a demon in a single ritual. For more, check out this audio recording Baglio made of an Italian exorcism that took place in 2009.

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