By
Andy Sheehan
PITTSBURGH (
KDKA) — So, exorcism might seem like fiction. But did you
know that the Vatican has actually encouraged every Catholic diocese to
have a trained exorcist on staff?
A local psychologist is an expert who is traveling around the world to train those priests.
Once he was a skeptic, but he tells KDKA’s Andy Sheehan, after
assisting in nearly 100 exorcisms, his experiences have made him a
believer.
For the past 10 years Adam Blai has been on the front line.
“Basically, it’s a war between heaven and hell,” says Blai. “That’s
been going on since Creation started, and it’s a war over us for the
most part.”
Fighting over the bodies and souls of the possessed.
“Their mouth isn’t moving and the sound coming out of them is beyond what a human can produce,” Blai says.
A force that’s taken over.
“I’ve also seen bones dislocate spontaneously, and pop out when
something animated the body and put the body into a different shape,” he
says.
Blai says he’s needed to summon angels and saints to battle what he calls “the kingdom of darkness.”
Sheehan: “So, it’s a war.”
Blai: “Oh yeah, we’ve seen the demon and possessed
call out to its brothers and doors blow off and there’s nothing there,
but something has entered the room. That happens all the time.”
Exorcism traces its roots to the New Testament Gospels where Jesus
frees the possessed, but even Blai himself was initially skeptical.
“Your mind rebels against really believing that this is really real,
even after you’ve seen some things,” he says. “But eventually, the
evidence piles up, and the pile becomes so large that you really have to
accept it.”
A trained psychologist at Penn state, Blai has studied the most
violent criminals, but even in serial killers and rapists, he found at
least some humanity – not so with the possessed.
“When you interact with somebody possessed by a demon, their heart is
so completely and totally black and devoid of any hesitation or
compassion that you know in your heart that they would tear you apart
and be smiling the entire time,” Blai said.
Blai: “Holy water is something that’s used in every case.”
Sheehan: “Now, if you sprayed the possessed with
holy water, would it burn? That’s something we see in the movies. There
will be some reaction.”
Blai: “Oh yeah, they have a violet reactions. It looks as though they’ve been scourged with a whip.”
“It really changes you, and to see a full-blown case like they would
make movies about — though Hollywood always exaggerates things a little
bit – it really kind of straightens out your spiritually life,” Blai
said. “And you have to think very hard about what you’re going to do
with that knowledge.”
Link:
