Spiritual Warfare

The armor is not a metaphor for courage. Each piece is named, and each is something you already have access to.

The Church's own reading is the same: the armor is the virtues and the sacraments. The Liber Christo method calls the sacraments the "base armor" and everything else an addition to it. So the order of this page is Saint Paul's order — put the armor on, then be fed, then live it, then study the field, then keep your eyes where they belong.

Every exorcist in this library says the same thing first: confession, then Communion. Exorcism is for the rare case; the sacraments are for everyone, every week.

Reconciliation first

"When it comes to the sacraments and defeating the devil, the number one weapon in our arsenal is the Sacrament of Penance."

Fr. Vincent Lampert, exorcist of Indianapolis · Exorcism, p. 39

"Nothing I do is any good if you haven't gone to confession first."

Fr. John Farao, OFM Conv., exorcist of Monterey · 2021 interview

• Why it works. "When we confess our sins, we place them in the hands of God, and once we have given them over to God, the devil may no longer use them against us" (Lampert). Fr. Ripperger says the same in legal terms: confession breaks whatever claim a demon held through unconfessed sin (John 20:23).
• How often. The Catechism "strongly recommend[s]" confessing even venial sins regularly, because it "helps us form our conscience, fight against evil tendencies" (CCC 1458). Fr. Amorth: "The more a person confesses, the more he is aware of his defects; the less he confesses, the less he sees them."
• What it is not. Confession is not an exorcism and does not need to be. Most of what people bring to an exorcist "can have most of their problems resolved by their parish priest" (Lampert).

The Blessed Sacrament

• "By the same charity that it enkindles in us, the Eucharist preserves us from future mortal sins. The more we share the life of Christ… the more difficult it is to break away from him" (CCC 1395). It also "wipes away venial sins" (CCC 1394).
• Saint Ignatius of Antioch, quoted by Lampert: "When you meet frequently the powers of Satan are confounded, and in the face of your corporate faith his maleficence crumbles."
• Fr. Ripperger reports that liberations in his cases cluster around the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Passion; hence his prayer times at six, noon and six, the hours of the Angelus. Fr. Reehil: the Eucharist is "the source and summit," and the Mass "the greatest thing that happened in the world today."

Baptism, remembered

Every exorcism begins with holy water, "which recalls the Sacrament of Baptism" and says to the devil, in Lampert's words, "this person does not belong to you. They belong to God." At Baptism you — or your godparents for you — renounced Satan. Holy water at the door, the sign of the cross, the Creed on Sunday: these are how a Catholic keeps saying it.

"A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good" (CCC 1803). The demons attack where the virtue is missing; you cannot guard a gap you cannot name.

Where it all hangs

Saint Augustine said the whole story of the world is two loves: love of self to the point of despising God, and love of God to the point of despising self — and the Catechism uses that sentence to define sin (CCC 1850). Saint Thomas says every sin comes from a self-love turned away from God, and that the devil's own sin was wanting his happiness from himself. So the whole armor comes down to one word, obedience, which is the outward shape of where your love points. Lampert puts it for parishioners: "Freedom and obedience to God go hand in hand… when we believe that freedom means we can do whatever we want, then we end up becoming slaves to our own passions and desires."

• Find your gap. Ripperger's test: "Is there any emotion that you have that you don't have perfect control over? If it is, that tells you where your vice is."
• Humility above all. Lampert's mentor in Rome: the moment you think "look at what I'm doing," you have "walked on unholy ground." The demons could not touch Our Lady, Amorth's fellow exorcist was told, because "she is the humblest, and he is the most rebellious."
• Small daily denials. Ripperger: the families he never sees again are the ones where "every single day there's some form of self-denial." Lent is not a season; it is a training method.

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles" (Sun Tzu, The Art of War III.18). Know him well enough to stop being surprised, and no better than that.

What he is

• A creature, and a limited one. "The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature… he cannot prevent the building up of God's reign," and he acts only as "permitted by divine providence" (CCC 395). Lampert: "People should never put God and the devil on the same playing field."
• A liar by nature. "A murderer from the beginning… a liar and the father of lies" (John 8:44). This is why the Church's Rite forbids treating anything a demon says as evidence, and why this page grades any exorcist's story that rests on a demon's words as that exorcist's opinion.
• Intelligent, but not a mind-reader. Saint Thomas: demons know natures by infusion, but not the secrets of the heart. Fr. Farao: the devil reads you "the way your wife does," from your face and your habits, and tempts you where he has learned you are weak.
• Under authority. The demons recognise the Church's authority "perfectly" (Ripperger). Lampert saw a demon mock a priest who came without the bishop's permission: "We recognise the authority of the local bishop as a successor to the Apostles. But you, you are nobody." The bishop is the exorcist; the priest is lent the office.

How he works

Two modes, and the proportion matters. Ordinary activity is temptation, aimed at everyone including Christ; Reehil estimates it at "about 98% of the attacks," and it is the mode that actually damns. Extraordinary activity — infestation, vexation, obsession, possession — is real, rare, and the exorcist's business. The full list, with what each one looks like, is in the kinds of attack below. Lampert's four stages of the ordinary attack, from Fr. Louis Cameli, are worth memorising because you will recognise them: deception (his lie taken as truth), division (from God, from others, from yourself), diversion (busyness and addiction to fill the gap), discouragement (acedia). Then a fork: death, or discipleship.

And now stop

"The devil is far less to be feared in so-called manifestations than in the underground influence he exerts in souls that are not sufficiently instructed."

Jean Lhermitte, quoted by Lampert · Exorcism, p. 76

• Spiritual-warfare prayers are a prescription, not a diet. Lampert: they are "something that we need at a certain point in our lives for a set period of time… I don't think that spiritual warfare prayers need to become a part of anybody's daily prayer routine… the danger might be that people become so fixated… that the focus shifts to the devil rather than on God."
• Never talk to him. Reehil: "We do not speak to the devil… ever. You will never come out as a winner." Eve's first mistake was a conversation.
• Do not see him everywhere. "I don't think it's healthy for us to begin to see the devil everywhere and as the cause of every one of our misfortunes" (Lampert). Most bad days are bad days.
• Do not watch the show. The manifestations — levitation, the voice — "are meant to instill fear and to cause those present to focus on what the demon is doing… rather than… the power of God" (Lampert). His mentor in Rome pushed a levitating body back into its chair without pausing the prayer.

Saint Teresa of Avila, quoted by Lampert: "I don't understand those fears that make us cry, the devil, the devil, when we can say God, God!"

Everything above is defence. This is the point of the defence. Worship is owed to God alone, and the whole war is over who gets it.

• Adoration is the first act of religion. "To adore God is to acknowledge, in respect and absolute submission, the 'nothingness of the creature' who would not exist but for God" (CCC 2097). The devil's temptation in every age is the same offer he made Eve and made Christ: adore something else. Idolatry "remains a constant temptation to faith" (CCC 2113); "all the gods of the Gentiles are devils" (Psalm 95:5).
• Jesus is the main actor. Lampert: "Even in an exorcism, Jesus is not a bystander. He's the main actor." The ministry of exorcism "is about casting the light of Jesus Christ onto people who have fallen into the darkness… the focus is always on what God wants to do and not necessarily on what the devil is trying to do."
• The Father is asked before the demon is addressed. The Rite itself puts the supplication to God before the command to the demon: "God is the one who is the Great Liberator; he is always addressed before the demon" (Lampert). Your own prayer should have the same order.
• The Holy Spirit expels. The exorcist breathes on the face of the afflicted, recalling John 20:22: "Wherever the Holy Spirit is present, an unclean spirit cannot remain." Ask for the Spirit; the rest follows.
• The last petition of the Our Father is this whole page. "In this petition, evil is not an abstraction, but refers to a person, Satan" (CCC 2851); to ask to be delivered from him is to bring "all the distress of the world" before the Father (CCC 2854). You already pray it daily.

A daily rule that every exorcist here would sign

• Morning offering and the sign of the cross; the Our Father said slowly.
• Fifteen minutes of real prayer — "a deep prayer life… the part I think a lot of guys don't get" (Reehil). God speaks slowly; journal and wait.
• Scripture, a few verses, read as the sword it is.
• The rosary, or at least the Angelus at the hours the Church has always marked. Mary's last recorded words are the whole method: "Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye" (John 2:5).
• Sunday Mass without fail; confession monthly, or sooner after grave sin.
• One small act of self-denial, chosen in the morning.
• Examination of conscience and an act of contrition at night; then the Glory Be, which is the point: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

The names below are the working vocabulary of the Church's exorcists, not dogma. Fr. Driscoll notes that the middle categories "are not part of Church teaching; rather, they are acceptable Catholic opinions." But they let you say what is happening, which is the first step in not being afraid of it. Saint Thomas draws the deepest line: attacks from without, answered by holy water and the sacramentals, and attacks from within, answered by exorcism.

Saint Athanasius, in the Life of Saint Anthony (about 360), gives the oldest ladder of escalation, and it still holds: evil thoughts first, then foul pleasures, then terrifying apparitions, then false prophecy and pretended angels, then bodily blows. Almost nobody climbs past the first two rungs — and the first two are answered by confession.

Half the fear people bring to an exorcist is about powers the devil does not have. Lampert: "It amazes me what people believe demons are capable of… Their so-called powers and abilities need to be debunked."

• He cannot touch your soul. "The devil is not able to take possession of the soul of a man, unless the person expressly consents to it, but only his body" (Amorth). "The intellect and free will of the person always remain free" (Lampert). That is why even a possessed person can go to confession and die in grace (Reehil).
• He cannot force your consent. "Demons have no power over us except that which we surrender to them. They can propose but they cannot impose" (Lampert). Temptation is not sin; consent is.
• He cannot read your mind. Saint Thomas: the secrets of the heart are God's alone. Demons infer from your face, your habits, your history; Farao says they read you "the way your wife does." A temptation that seems to know you proves nothing but observation.
• He cannot act without permission. "The devil is still a creature… he can only do that which God permits him to do" (Lampert; CCC 395). The demons themselves, Ripperger reports, complain that they were sent.
• He cannot jump into you. "Possession is not contagious… a demon cannot jump out of one person's body and go freely into another. That makes for a good movie" (Lampert). Praying for someone afflicted, or blessing a house, does not expose you.
• He cannot repent, and he cannot win. "There is no repentance for the angels after their fall" (CCC 393); and "the gates of hell shall not prevail" (Matthew 16:18). The war has a known ending.

Not every dark day is the devil, and not every warm feeling is God. The Church has rules for this, older than any exorcist on this page.

• Three sources of thoughts. Saint Ignatius: a thought comes from yourself, from the good spirit, or from the evil one. Farao teaches prisoners the same test. Ask where it leads before you ask where it came from.
• By their fruits. Saint Athanasius's rule from the desert: the good spirit comes quietly and leaves joy, courage and calm; the evil one brings noise, fear, confusion and dejection, even when the words are pious. Reehil: God speaks slowly, in images, memories, a line of a song, and "good things take time to have."
• Consolation and desolation. Ignatius's rule that every exorcist repeats: in desolation, make no change to what you decided in consolation. Martins: a "vex" prompts bad decisions in dry times, so postpone them. Lewis's Screwtape adds that the trough is often natural undulation, not the devil at all.
• The devil imitates. "Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14). Amorth: he "has his sacramentals," and psychics use crucifixes and images of Our Lady to lure. Anything that draws you away from the sacraments and the Church, however holy it looks, is not from God.
• Persistent sadness is not proof of attack. Depression is an illness, acedia is a vice, obsession is an attack — and they can coexist. Lampert sends every such person to a mental-health professional and a priest. So should you.
• Never take the enemy's word. Whatever a demon "reveals," in a séance, a dream or an exorcism, the Rite forbids treating as truth. "Since the devil is the father of all lies, I find it best not to pay attention to what any demon has to say" (Lampert).

"Those who are with us are more than those who are with them" (2 Kings 6:16). Lampert counts "be not afraid" 365 times in the Bible — once for every day of the year.

"The demonic doesn't have any power over us that we don't give to it, either directly or indirectly" (Lampert). From eighteen years of cases he lists the ways people "play the devil's game." Farao and Ripperger give the same list in their own words.

Ripperger adds the one the others assume: "You can't have an attachment for anything that's created whatsoever" (after Saint John of the Cross). A door is anything you would not hand over to God.

Parents have real spiritual authority. All four exorcists say so, and the Church's own prayers for the laity assume it.

• The father's office is to provide and to protect (Ripperger): provide by becoming holy and praying; protect with prayers of protection over wife and children "on a regular basis," and "never allow your own sin to introduce the demons into your own house." "He's the one who ultimately lets in his household anything that's spiritually good or bad."
• Who may pray over whom. Yourself; a parent over a child; a husband over his wife; a priest over his flock. Beyond that, no: "if we don't have that authority, then that's not something that we should do" (Lampert). Ripperger has seen lay people impose hands and both parties end up afflicted; the Q&A for priests calls it usurpation. Ask a priest.
• Bless the house and keep it blessed: holy water at the doors, exorcised salt, the Saint Benedict medal, a crucifix in every room, the scapular. "Sacramentals are important because they always point us to Christ" (Lampert). They are not charms; they work "through the intercession of the Church" (CCC 1670), which is why the full rite of blessing matters (Reehil).
• Pray over sleeping children (Farao); teach them the prayers before the screens teach them the spells; keep the sacraments regular. Ripperger's goal for parents: a child at majority "with sufficient virtue to assume the essential obligations of life."
• Right order. Ripperger: a husband who is really the head and really loves his wife, and a wife who does not control, "clears up 80 to 90% of the problem," because the first attack on a marriage is on perception: "don't impute bad will to them unless they say, 'Yeah, I got bad will.'"

1. Go to your parish priest first. "If you're sick, what do you do? You go see your family doctor who then may refer you to a specialist" (Lampert). Do not go in saying "I'm possessed"; say something is going on that you cannot explain and you need his guidance.
2. Confession and Communion — now, not after.
3. Doctor and psychologist. The American protocol requires a medical and a psychological assessment before any major exorcism, "and it isn't because the church doesn't believe them" (Lampert). Farao will not work with anyone who abandons their mental-health provider.
4. The priest refers you to the diocesan exorcist if needed. "There is no such thing as an emergency exorcism. It cannot be rushed" (Lampert). The Church makes the determination, not you.
5. Never pay. "The Church does not charge any fee." Anyone who quotes a price per demon is not the Church (Lampert's "professional exorcist" charging $1,500 each).
6. Keep going to the parish. The exorcist sends you back to your pastor for ongoing care, as a specialist sends you back to your family doctor.

They agree on everything above. On a few points of practice they do not, and a page that pretended otherwise would be less useful.

Everything on this page was checked against the texts below. Scripture is the Douay-Rheims (Challoner). Exorcists are cited for practice; doctrine is cited to Scripture, the Catechism and Saint Thomas.

• Holy Scripture, Douay-Rheims: Genesis 3; Psalm 90, 95; Matthew 4, 17; Mark 5, 9; Luke 9, 23; John 2, 8, 20; Ephesians 6; James 4; 1 Peter 5; 1 John 4.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church §§391–395, 1394–1395, 1458, 1670–1673, 1803–1829, 1850, 2096–2097, 2113–2117, 2851–2854.
• Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I qq. 52, 57, 63–64, 109, 114; II-II q. 147.
• Fr. Vincent Lampert, Exorcism: The Battle Against Satan and His Demons (Emmaus Road, 2020); interview, The Tangent, October 2023.
• Fr. Gabriele Amorth, An Exorcist Tells His Story; An Exorcist Explains the Demonic; An Exorcist: More Stories.
• Fr. Chad Ripperger, Deliverance Prayers for Use by the Laity (2016); talks: Sensus Fidelium 2023, Shawn Ryan Show 2026, Conor Gallagher Show 2026.
• Fr. John Farao, OFM Conv., three recorded talks, 2021–2026.
• Fr. Dan Reehil, Holy League men's conference, March 2025.
• Fr. Dan Schneider, The Liber Christo Method; Romero and Schneider, Spiritual Warfare Q&A for Priests and Laity.
• Sun Tzu, The Art of War, III.18.

Related Reading