Are We in Desperate Need of More Exorcists?
Best-selling author Rod Dreher argues that the West has become “disenchanted.” Disenchantment leads to the view that humans have become closed to the idea that the universe contains the supernatural, the non-material. Dreher argues that Christianity is in crises as people leave the Church because it has become dry and lifeless. But they are not leaving faith for atheism.
Instead, after failing to find what they are looking for, they continue to search for the divine or an ideological version of it. Many have found a world, a new reality, which is more mysterious, exciting, and connected. Some have found the world that they are seeking in occultism and Satanic practices. Others have found their religion in ideology that has led to pro-Iranian protesters in Philadelphia cheering for the deaths of more and more US soldiers so that they can return to the United States in caskets.
As Helen Andrews shows, we live in a world in which elites have promised us more freedom and abundance but have delivered disaster. As Americans and Europeans teeter between ideology and the divine, between the occult and the flight from truth, Satanism is on the march. Proof of this can be found in two startling headlines: (1) first in the announcement that billionaire Peter Thiel is offering a series of secret lectures on the rise of the Antichrist, and (2) second in the news that top exorcists ask Pope Leo to increase the number and training of specialized priests, owing to the startling rise in Satanism and the occult.
Should Christians find Thiel’s lectures or the rise in demand for exorcists abnormal? No. After all, Mark’s gospel records the following encounter: “And [Jesus] asked him, What is thy name? And he answered saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.” (Mark 5:9). Meanwhile, George Barna reports that new research shows that even committed Christians struggle with understanding Bible basics. Biblical illiteracy means that even committed Christians are groping and stumbling in the dark without a clue.
As a consequence, more and more believers and unbelievers are asking themselves whether we are entering the end times without having the slightest understanding of eschatology or the truth. Truth has become increasingly obscured because we live in an age in which ideological preferences overshadow it. This reality is best illustrated by the apparent failure of a Berlin youth center to report a rape that was caught on tape, because reporting the “Muslim boys” involved to the police would further stigmatize them. This move reflects an elite Western view embodied in the German establishment’s somewhat “secret plan to avoid truth.”
Against Western efforts to diminish the truth, many Westerners are struggling to ascertain what is real. This is a fundamental challenge to churches everywhere. Against this backdrop, Catholic priests recognize both the surge in occult and Satanic practices and the urgent need for more and more trained exorcists. Hence, the top exorcists in the Catholic Church have gone up to Pope Leo XIV with a single plea: reinforce their numbers.
But one need not be a Catholic to recognize the rising demand for exorcists. Rod Dreher—who is not Catholic—explains. In his book Living in Wonder, he brings together cultural anthropology, neuroscience, and the history of the ancient Church to show you — no matter your religious affiliation — how to reconnect with the natural world and the Great Tradition of Christianity so that you can relate to it with greater depth and connection.
Issuing forth from Dreher’s analysis, it is possible to appreciate “stories of miracles, rumors of angels, and outbreaks of awe to offer hope, as well as a guide for discerning and defending the truth in a confusing and spiritually dark culture, full of contemporary spiritual deceptions and tempting counterfeit spiritualities.”
The world is not what we think it is. It is far more interesting, mysterious, exciting, connected, and adventurous. The world cannot be reduced to ideology, nor should we accept the shrunken world-view fashioned by elites. Instead, Christians should seek to live in a world that has regained its sense of wonder and awaken their sense of God's presence. Such a world offers an antidote to the life many of us are living.
This “world of wonder” raises two ever-present possibilities. First, that, in addition to a return to the spiritual disciplines and prayer, we may at times need our own personal exorcist. Second, whether one is a proponent or opponent of the ideas promulgated by the Blurry Creatures podcast, it seems increasingly likely that the world needs more exorcists.