Casting Out Demons: Deliverance, Exorcism and Your Authority in Christ

1. What Authority Did Jesus Have Over Demons?

Jesus had total authority over demons, and he used it with a word. In the synagogue at Capernaum a man with an unclean spirit cried out, and Jesus rebuked it: "Be silent, and come out of him!" The spirit convulsed the man and left, and the crowd was amazed: "He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him" (Mark 1:23-27). No rituals, no bargaining, no long conversation. One command, and the enemy fled.

Jesus then shared that authority. He sent out the seventy-two, and they came back rejoicing: "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!" Jesus answered that he had seen Satan fall like lightning from heaven, gave them authority over all the power of the enemy, and told them to rejoice most of all that their names are written in heaven (Luke 10:17-20). At the end of Mark's Gospel he promises that among the signs accompanying believers, "in my name they will cast out demons" (Mark 16:17), a passage from the longer ending of Mark that the Church receives as inspired Scripture.

Fix this in your mind before you read another line: the devil is a defeated creature. "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8). On the cross Christ "disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame" (Colossians 2:15). The Catechism says Satan's power "is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God's reign" (CCC 395). Stand on that. Fear belongs to the enemy, and you belong to Christ.

2. Can a Christian Cast Out Demons?

Every Christian has authority in Jesus' name to resist the devil in their own life, and the Catholic Church reserves the solemn exorcism of a possessed person to a priest with the bishop's permission. Both truths matter. Hold them together and you will be bold and safe.

Your authority is real. "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7). Peter tells every believer to resist the roaring lion, "firm in your faith" (1 Peter 5:8-9). Paul tells the whole Church to put on the armour of God and stand (Ephesians 6:10-18). At baptism you rejected Satan and all his works; the Church even prays a simple exorcism over every candidate for baptism (CCC 1237). You are no helpless victim.

Authority also has order. The sons of Sceva tried to cast out a demon using the names of Jesus and Paul as a formula. The spirit answered, "Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?" and the man leapt on them and drove them out naked and wounded (Acts 19:13-16). Even the archangel Michael, disputing with the devil, left judgment to God and said only, "The Lord rebuke you" (Jude 9). That is why the Church places the confrontation of possession in the hands of priests sent by the bishop, and why lay Catholics fight with prayer, the sacraments and a holy life. Section 7 explains exactly what you may do.

3. Ordinary and Extraordinary Demonic Activity

Most demonic activity is ordinary: temptation. Extraordinary activity is rare. Catholic exorcists, among them Fr Gabriele Amorth, who served for decades as an exorcist of the Diocese of Rome, commonly describe it in these categories.

• Temptation (ordinary). Every human being faces it, and Jesus himself was tempted in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11). This is the devil's main weapon: lies, discouragement, accusation, the suggestion to sin. It is beaten by prayer, the sacraments, Scripture and a firm will.
• Oppression (sometimes called vexation). Attacks from outside the person: in health, work, relationships or circumstances. Job is the biblical picture (Job 1 to 2). Exorcists stress that most hardship has ordinary causes.
• Obsession. Sudden, violent, intrusive thoughts, often of despair, blasphemy or self-destruction, that the person experiences as coming from outside. Obsessive-compulsive disorder and other conditions produce very similar experiences and must be ruled out by a professional.
• Infestation. Demonic influence attached to places, houses or objects, often after occult practice there.
• Possession. The rarest and gravest case: a demon takes control of a person's body at times, without the person's free consent. This is the only case for which the Church uses the major exorcism.

Our guide to spiritual warfare and the daily battle with the enemy covers the wider fight: who the devil is, how ordinary temptation works, and the everyday weapons of prayer, the sacraments and fasting. This page focuses on deliverance and exorcism.

4. What Are the Signs of Demonic Oppression?

Real signs of extraordinary demonic activity are specific and rare, and no single sign proves anything. The Church's Rite of Exorcism lists the signs tradition has looked for in possession: speaking many words of an unknown language or understanding it, making known distant or hidden things, and showing strength beyond the person's age or condition. It adds a vehement aversion to God, the name of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the saints, the Church and sacred things. The Rite treats these as indications, to be weighed together with everything else, and asks the exorcist to judge the whole picture with great care.

Pastors who deal with oppression look for patterns such as these, especially together:

• a history of occult involvement: Ouija boards, séances, spells, curses, tarot, contacting spirits or dedicating oneself to a spirit;
• reactions to holy things that the person cannot control, such as violent revulsion at holy water, a blessing or the Eucharist;
• disturbances that cluster around a house or object linked to occult practice;
• a sudden, unexplained collapse of the ability to pray, joined to grave sin that has never been confessed.

5. Why a Doctor Comes First

A doctor comes first because the Church herself requires it. The Catechism is direct: "Illness, especially psychological illness, is a very different matter; treating this is the concern of medical science. Therefore, before an exorcism is performed, it is important to ascertain that one is dealing with the presence of the Evil One, and not an illness" (CCC 1673). The Rite of Exorcism directs the exorcist to proceed with great caution and, where needed, to consult experts in medicine and psychiatry. A Catholic exorcist will usually ask for a medical and psychological assessment before he does anything else.

Many conditions produce experiences that feel spiritual: psychosis and schizophrenia (voices, paranoia), bipolar disorder, severe depression, post-traumatic stress, dissociative disorders, epilepsy, especially of the temporal lobe, obsessive-compulsive disorder, sleep paralysis with its vivid sense of a presence in the room, migraine, delirium from infection or medication, and the effects of drugs and alcohol. None of these is a spiritual failure. Christ cares for the mind as much as the body, and treatment is one of the ways he cares for it.

Seeking medical help is an act of faith. Real spiritual oppression, if present, will still be there for the priest to address, and the doctor's report will help him.

6. How Catholic Exorcism Works

A Catholic exorcism is a prayer of the Church, made publicly and with authority in the name of Jesus, that a person or object be protected from the Evil One and freed from his power. The Catechism defines it and sets its limits:

Church law says the same. Canon 1172 of the Code of Canon Law states that no one may legitimately perform exorcisms on the possessed without special and express permission from the local ordinary, and that the bishop is to give this permission only to a priest of piety, knowledge, prudence and integrity of life. Many dioceses appoint one or more priests as diocesan exorcists.

The rite

The Rite of Exorcism was first issued in the Roman Ritual of 1614 and was revised after Vatican II, with the new Latin edition approved in 1998 and published in 1999. It contains litanies, psalms, a Gospel reading, the laying on of hands, the Creed or renewal of baptismal promises, the Our Father, the showing of the cross, and the exorcism prayers themselves: a deprecatory form, which asks God to free the person, and an imperative form, which commands the devil in Christ's name to depart. The Rite asks that it be done discreetly, without publicity or media.

What usually happens

1. The person speaks with a parish priest, who listens and refers to the diocese if needed.
2. The exorcist interviews the person, often more than once, and asks about occult involvement, sin, sacramental life and symptoms.
3. He asks for a medical and psychological assessment.
4. Many people are helped through confession, the Eucharist, prayers of deliverance and a renewed life, without any major exorcism.
5. When the priest is morally certain that a person is possessed, he performs the major exorcism, sometimes over many sessions, while the person keeps going to confession and Mass.

The Church still does this work today. If you need it, ask. Your parish priest is the door.

7. What Lay People May and May Not Do

Lay Catholics may pray for deliverance for themselves and pray to God for others, and they may not use the exorcism formulas or command and interrogate demons over other people. The clearest guidance is the 1985 letter of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to bishops, known by its opening words, Inde ab aliquot annis, and signed by its prefect, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

What the 1985 letter says

• It reminds bishops that canon 1172 reserves exorcism of the possessed to priests with express permission.
• It asks bishops to stop the faithful from using the formula of exorcism against Satan and the apostate angels published under Pope Leo XIII, and still less the full text of that exorcism.
• It asks bishops to stop people without the faculty from leading meetings where deliverance prayers directly address demons and try to learn their identity, even where there seems to be diabolical influence short of possession.
• It adds that none of this should stop the faithful from praying, as Jesus taught, to be delivered from evil, and it encourages pastors to remind the faithful of the sacraments and of the intercession of Mary, the angels and the saints in the spiritual fight.

In practice

• You may renounce Satan and sin in your own life, in Jesus' name, as you did at baptism. Many priests teach that you may rebuke temptation in your own life with the name of Jesus (James 4:7).
• You may pray for others by asking God, Mary, St Michael and the saints to free and protect them.
• You may use holy water, blessed salt, the crucifix, the St Benedict medal and other sacramentals, and pray the short St Michael prayer.
• You may not command, address, name or question demons over another person, lead deliverance sessions, or use the Leo XIII exorcism formula or the Rite of Exorcism.

This order is a mercy. It protects the person suffering, and it protects you from the fate of the sons of Sceva.

8. Pentecostal and Charismatic Deliverance Ministry

Pentecostal and charismatic deliverance ministry is the practice of praying for people to be freed from evil spirits, often by commanding the spirits to leave in Jesus' name, and it is widespread in Pentecostal, charismatic and many evangelical churches. Here is how its practitioners describe it.

Deliverance ministers take Mark 16:17 and Luke 10:19 as a commission for every believer. Many argue that the Greek word usually translated "demon-possessed," daimonizomai, means "demonised" or under a demon's influence, so a Christian can need deliverance in particular areas of life without being owned by a demon. Classical Pentecostal denominations such as the Assemblies of God have taught that a born-again believer cannot be possessed, while many independent ministers teach that believers can be demonised and need deliverance. Influential books include Frank and Ida Mae Hammond's Pigs in the Parlor (1973) and Derek Prince's They Shall Expel Demons (1998). Neil T. Anderson's The Bondage Breaker (1990) teaches a different method, the "Steps to Freedom in Christ," which focuses on repentance, renunciation and truth with no shouting at spirits.

Common practices include laying on of hands, commanding spirits by name ("spirit of fear, go"), breaking "generational curses" and "soul ties," and sometimes mass deliverance services with coughing, screaming or vomiting. The Third Wave and the New Apostolic Reformation added "strategic-level spiritual warfare" against territorial spirits over cities and nations. Our guides to Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement cover the wider traditions.

The Catholic response

Catholics share much of this: repentance, renouncing the occult, forgiving, and prayer in Jesus' name. The Catholic Charismatic Renewal prays for deliverance within the Church's discipline. The Church differs on lay people commanding and interrogating demons over others, on treating every sin or illness as a named spirit, and on spectacle. Catholic practice puts confession and the Eucharist at the centre, and trusts that Christ, present in his sacraments, is stronger than any shout.

9. What Opens the Door to the Demonic?

The occult opens the door most often, followed by serious unrepented sin and deliberate pacts or dedications to spirits. God forbade divination and sorcery outright: "There shall not be found among you anyone who... practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead" (Deuteronomy 18:10-11).

The Catechism is just as firm. All forms of divination are to be rejected, including "consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums" (CCC 2116). All practices of magic or sorcery that try to tame occult powers are "gravely contrary to the virtue of religion," and wearing charms is reprehensible (CCC 2117).

In practice the doorways include Ouija boards, tarot and oracle cards, séances, spell work and "manifestation" rituals aimed at spirits, paid psychics and mediums, curse-removal services, charms bought for protection, and occult games played as a dare. Paul also warns that nursed anger gives "opportunity to the devil" (Ephesians 4:26-27). If you have been involved with a group that claims secret spiritual power and controls its members, read our guide to the warning signs of a cult as well.

The early Christians at Ephesus knew what to do. Those who had practised magic brought their books and burned them publicly, though the books were worth fifty thousand pieces of silver (Acts 19:18-19). Do the same. Today.

10. Deliverance Step by Step: What to Do Today

To seek deliverance as a Catholic, see a doctor, renounce sin and the occult, confess, receive the Eucharist, forgive, clear your home, pray with the Church's sacramentals, and contact your parish. Start now.

1. See a doctor first. Get a medical and mental health assessment, and keep taking any medicine you are prescribed (section 5).
2. Renounce sin and the occult. Name every occult practice you have touched and renounce it out loud. Renew your baptismal promises: "Do you reject Satan? I do. And all his works? I do. And all his empty promises? I do."
3. Go to confession. Confess everything, including the occult involvement. Confession breaks the hold of sin like nothing else. See our guide on how to make a good confession.
4. Receive the Eucharist. Go to Mass, on Sunday without fail and on weekdays when you can. Christ himself comes to you.
5. Forgive. Name the people who hurt you and forgive them before God (Matthew 6:14-15). Unforgiveness is a foothold; give it up.
6. Clear your home. Remove and destroy Ouija boards, tarot cards, spell books, charms, occult statues and anything dedicated to a spirit. Burn or break them, and do not sell or give them away.
7. Pray with the Church's weapons. Pray the St Michael prayer daily, pray the Rosary, use holy water, wear a blessed crucifix or St Benedict medal, and ask a priest to bless your home.
8. Contact your parish. Tell your parish priest the whole story. If he judges it necessary, he will put you in touch with the diocesan exorcist.

Pray like this every morning and night, in calm seasons as well as hard ones. Get Pro for $49 once for audio-guided prayers for protection you can pray along with, plus the study library and the circle, with lifetime access and a 30-day money-back guarantee. One payment, no subscription, nothing more to buy.

11. How to Pray for Someone Else

To pray for someone you believe is oppressed, pray to God for them, get them to a doctor and a priest, and never force anything on them. Love fights on its knees.

• Pray for them daily. Ask Jesus to free them, ask Mary and St Michael to intercede, and pray the Rosary for them.
• Fast. When the disciples failed to free a boy, Jesus said, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer" (Mark 9:29), and some manuscripts add "and fasting." Offer a fast for them.
• Have a Mass offered. Ask your parish to offer a Mass for their freedom and healing.
• Get consent. Pray with someone only if they want it. Never perform deliverance on anyone against their will.
• Bring them to help. Offer to go with them to a doctor and to a priest. Your company may be the most powerful thing you give.
• Leave the commanding to the Church. Do not address or question the demon. Pray to God.

For a child, the rule is absolute: never perform deliverance on a child. Take the child to a doctor first, then to your parish priest. Parents can bless their children, pray over them, and bring them to the sacraments. If you want a circle to keep praying with you for someone you love, join the Pro circle for $49 once, lifetime access, 30-day money-back guarantee.

12. Hard Safety Rules

These rules are absolute. Break any of them and you put a life at risk.

People have died in amateur and abusive exorcisms. In Germany in 1976 Anneliese Michel died of starvation after months of exorcism sessions, and a court convicted her parents and the two priests of negligent homicide. In Milwaukee in 2003 an eight-year-old autistic boy died after a church member lay on him during a deliverance session. In Romania in 2005 a young novice died after being chained to a cross for days in a monastery. Every one of these deaths was preventable.

Walk away from any deliverance ministry that charges money for deliverance or curse removal (Matthew 10:8), that tells you to cut off family or stop treatment, that blames every illness on demons, that answers to no church authority, or that makes a show of people's suffering. Our guides on false prophets and the warning signs of a cult explain the pattern. If someone is in danger, call the police.

13. How to Stay Free

You stay free by filling your life with God. Jesus warned that an unclean spirit, once driven out, may return to find its old house "empty, swept, and put in order," and bring seven worse spirits with it (Matthew 12:43-45). An empty house is an open invitation. A full one is a fortress.

• Go to confession regularly, monthly at least.
• Go to Mass every Sunday, and more often if you can.
• Pray every morning and night, even briefly. The Our Father ends with "deliver us from evil." Mean it each time.
• Read Scripture daily. Jesus answered every temptation in the desert with the word of God (Matthew 4:1-11).
• Stay in Christian community. Isolation helps the enemy.
• Keep away from the occult for good, and keep taking care of your mind and body.

And do not live in fear. Jesus told the seventy-two to rejoice most of all that their names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20). Your joy is your weapon. The devil is a creature, Christ is Lord, and you are his. No one knows the day or the hour (Mark 13:32), so turn to him fully today. For more free help, pray with us now or bring a hard question to our ask tool.