The Exorcist (Of San Jose)

This Halloween proves to be way more interesting than any trick-or-treating I ever did as a kid. There’s the general increase in New Ageism, which California is unfortunately a breeding ground for. Then there’s the Trump Derangement Syndrome-fueled midterm elections. There’s pedos mailing pipe bombs to their Democrat supporters to sincerely help them out. And there’s still some fallout from the Kavanaugh hearings which went waaay more Rosemary’s Aborted Baby than a sane man would ever have guessed.

Pursuant to the latter, it turns out there’s a Catholic exorcist in San Jose Diocese who isn’t dead from overwork. Here’s Father Gary Thomas of San Jose Diocese.

Gary Thomas on the left and yes, that’s Anthony Hopkins on the right. Picture taken at the 2011 premiere of the movie The Rite, sourced from the second article below.

New York witches aim hex at Supreme Court’s Brett Kavanaugh despite death threats

https://www.yahoo.com/news/york-witches-aim-hex-supreme-courts-brett-kavanaugh-010926105.html

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Melissa Madara was not surprised to receive death threats on Friday as her Brooklyn witchcraft store prepared to host a public hexing of newly confirmed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh this weekend.

I found a picture of Madame Madara. It was taken by a professional studio but Photoshop couldn’t vanish her forearm hair. She was also very fat. Her store’s name is Catland Books. That would have been my very first guess.

The planned casting of an anti-Kavanaugh spell, one of the more striking instances of politically disgruntled Americans turning to the supernatural when frustrated by democracy, has drawn backlash from some Christian groups but support from like-minded witch covens.

I’m glad to see Harry Potter isn’t the only target of the anti-occult Churchians.

As far as supporters go, some are sexual assault survivors still angry that the U.S. Senate confirmed Kavanaugh’s lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court despite accusations that he had sexually assaulted multiple women. …

Democrats hope lingering outrage over Kavanaugh, particularly among women, will translate into election gains for them on Nov. 6. Republicans are likewise trying to seize on anger among conservatives at how they perceive Kavanaugh was mistreated.

Abortion. It was all about abortion. What was the very first thought Democrats had when they considered losing control of the US Supreme Court due to Kavanaugh’s appointment? Roe fricking Wade. I saw a bumper sticker in my own neighborhood, “Protect Abortion, Oppose Kavanaugh”.

Never forgive a woman who gets an abortion. She’s a murderess.

Believers in mysticism on both sides of the political divide are taking matters into their own hands.

Plans for the Catland Books event have sparked “counter hexes” around the country by those seeking to undo the spell that the Brooklyn witches cast against Kavanaugh, Madara said.

Wasted effort. If Kavanaugh is Christian as I recall he’s claimed to be then he’ll be fine. God doesn’t do much for us by mortal standards but if He allowed this kind of spiritual attack then we’d be FUBAR all day long.

Even mainstream clergy was joining the fray. Rev. Gary Thomas of the Diocese of San Jose in California said on Friday that he would include Kavanaugh in his prayers at Saturday mass.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Jessica Resnick-Ault and Cynthia Osterman)

On that note, let’s proceed to a interview of Rev. Thomas by Cosmopolitan Magazine. Not the most promising matchup of subject and media but I really can’t think of a good one outside church doors. It would be best for unbelievers if they never got curious about this sort of thing but alas.

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/movies/a6806289/exorcist-interview-father-gary-thomas/

What It’s Really Like to Be an Exorcist

Father Gary Thomas explains the real-life profession at the center of so many horror movies.

https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/movies/a6806289/exorcist-interview-father-gary-thomas/

Though horror movies have made exorcism seem like the stuff of fiction, there are still people out there who do them for a living. Father Gary Thomas has been performing exorcisms for more than a decade, working out of the Archdiocese of San Jose. His initial exorcism studies at the Vatican inspired The Rite (he was a consultant on the film) and in the years since, he’s handled over 60 cases of demonic activity. Cosmopolitan.com spoke with Thomas to get a crash course on how an exorcism really unfolds, and while he hasn’t seen any spinning heads or projectile vomit, he would like you to seriously reconsider your habit of dabbling in tarot.

How did you come to be an exorcist? That can.t be something you planned on.

I was always a lifelong Catholic and involved in my parish. After college, I just reached a point in my life where I was drawn to the priesthood, and I served in a variety of capacities in my first 22 years as a priest. After that I asked to take a sabbatical, to go to Rome and study spirituality at the Dominican University. Then, before I went, the bishop appointed me exorcist of the diocese. The first priest he had asked declined, so I spoke up and said, .I can do that..

Okay. Not a new believer, not a pedoface and not exactly a volunteer. I wouldn’t be happy about a new convert who was excited to see what’s behind the curtain.

I.m surprised they have a class for this.

The church has always performed exorcisms. People in the church will sometimes say, .We don’t do them anymore,. which is absolutely false. In 2004, Pope John Paul II issued a mandate telling every bishop in the world to select a priest and train him to be an exorcist. That was because of growing occult activity, which has reached epidemic proportions.

A prudent call on JP2’s part. It would be nice if the Protestant world was more on the ball about such matters but the RCC is indisputably the most accomplished and accessible provider of such services in the world.

I did know a Prot exorcist once, a Messianic Jew no less, but he did it as a side thing. No formal training that I knew of, just a strong knowledge of Scripture and friends he could count on.

What kind of occult activity?

All kinds of what I refer to as paganism. People using Ouija boards (which is a conjuring instrument, not a toy), tarot cards, seeking palm readers, seeking mediums, seeking out a witch, performing s?ances, getting involved in meditations like Reiki, using yoga as a form of power whereby you conjure up false gods . those and a variety of other smatterings. It’s no secret that our society is hungering for spirituality. The problem is where people are seeking it. It’s in all the wrong places.

I would add, California’s sanctuary city policies are importing a massive number of mediums and other occultists. Have I ever seen a palm reader who didn’t speak Spanish? Can’t recall one. Most of those Latinos are only socially Catholic.

For many people, Christianity is no longer relevant, so they make up their own morality, their own way of living. Unfortunately, a lot of people are seeking out what we could call divination . artificial forms of trying to discover God. The Israelites in the Old Testament did this and they experienced great calamity as a result of it. The same thing is happening in our culture today.

Nobody who dabbles in this junk is looking for God. They’re looking to rebel against God, ancient Israel being Exhibit “A” of this, or they’re looking for a god they can deal with as an equal. You sacrifice a goat and Vishnu waters your crops, or something. Why Vishnu needed your goat dead is rarely explained.

Although he has a valid point re divination. People want God to show up and do something. I suspect that’s at the heart of people being instinctively sheep, why human instinct is to prop up leaders and follow them instead of laws and other objectives boundaries. Following the leader only works for as long as the leader cares about his followers. Fewer than five seconds, in most cases.

How often do you receive requests for exorcisms? Do you handle them all alone?

Yesterday, I got five phone calls. We get several requests a week, and many more than that from outside our diocese, which we try to redirect back locally. And I don’t do any of these by myself. I have a team of medical experts . a clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, and a medical doctor. Then I have a prayer team, and the prayer team does all the discernments, the intakes. These people are evaluated. You only end up doing a formal exorcism when everything else has failed.

One would imagine the false positive rate on this would be very high. It’s good Father Thomas doesn’t do this alone. That’s a really bad idea; humans are not naturally resistant to such things.

Curious that Thomas doesn’t mention any spiritual sensitivity on his part. I’ve met several Christian priests, Prot and Cat both, whose sensitivity was what led them to this kind of work in the first place. A pure book learner? Well, nothing says it can’t work but one wonders.

If you don’t know what I mean by spiritual sensitivity then be happy in your ignorance. You’re missing no fun at all.

How can you tell if someone’s really possessed?

There are six classic signs. The first is an aversion to the sacred. For example, a Catholic could have incredible difficulty receiving the [Eucharist], to the point where it’s burning as she’s consuming it. Another sign would be speaking in a language that they have no competency in. I’ve had people speaking Korean, in Chinese or Russian or Spanish, who have no understanding of those languages. Another is a person exhibiting inordinate strength. We prayed over a woman on Sunday and we needed to have five people holding her down. Another is the knowledge of hidden things, so the demon would begin eliciting information that the person wouldn’t have any access to. Another is foaming at the mouth, and that’s actually a good sign, because you’re seeing the reaction to the prayer, the casting out. The last thing would be a kind of epileptic reaction involved the distortion of the face . histrionic out-of-control movement in the arms and the legs.

Most of these are straight from Scripture so no surprise.

We see exorcisms in movies all the time. What should people know about the process that Hollywood might not show?

One thing people get wrong is thinking that Satan does not exist. Satan does exist. That’s why Jesus Christ came, and that’s important. I’m not trying to evangelize you, but this is why I give interviews. I give interviews because there are charlatans out there who will say, .I.ll come and cleanse your house,. and some of these people are just flat-out fakes. But some of these people, they have gifting . they do. They’ve just chosen to use it for the dark side.

I think one appealing aspect of the occult is that believing in the devil is much easier than believing in the Savior. Especially these days, when justice and the symbols of heaven (marriage, the old teaching the young, respect for founding traditions, valuing human life) have been corrupted. Find the Big Guy and cut a deal with him, or find someone to save you as a charity case and not because you’re special? Human nature strongly favors the former. There are many people who have rejected Christ for no reason than Christ refuses to treat with us as peers.

Jesus didn’t come just to be a nice guy. His death and resurrection defeated Satan. When I end my talks, I usually say, .Do not be afraid.. I’m not saying I’m some kind of rough and tough guy. I’m not but I’m not afraid. I didn’t know what to expect when I saw those manifestations in Italy but I was not afraid. Satan is not a metaphor. Satan is real. He’d like you to believe he doesn’t exist and that’s his greatest deception. People need to buck up and realize that we’re not the masters of our own destiny. We have to put ourselves at the disposal of God.

What do the Godless think, when they ditch God for their humanist Utopias and see all the degeneracies of paganism flood back like they never left? Women cannot be independent; she will follow either her lover or her provider. Similarly, humans are not spiritual Switzerland. We are spiritual Poland and one side or the other will claim us by war’s end.

No matter how many times the patterns repeat, we never see the pattern. To see it would be to see our place in reality and that is too bitter a pill for the human ego.