Located on Poland's Baltic coast, Hel is a well-loved tourist destination. However, certain groups of Christian conservatives have expressed their disapproval of the number on a bus that leads to a location whose name resembles the word "hell" in English. In response, the final numeral was changed to 9.

According to a local news portal, the bus line had operated under the number 666 since 2006, initially as a local joke. But it gained popularity among riders from both Poland and abroad. Many people simply rode the bus to be able to say that they had taken the 666 bus to Hel. Read more

But there is so much more to learn about the tricks of Satan and his devils than what is shown on the television.

Father Gabriele Amorth's new book, An Exorcist Explains the Demonic explains how Satan actually works, and what his limitations are.

Here are five facts from Father Amorth's book about the reality of demonic activity.

1. Demons cannot read your thoughts
Demons may be spirits but they are incapable of reading minds. Rather, they rely on observing behaviors to gain insight into our thoughts and weaknesses.

This actually hearkens to what C.S. Lewis wrote in The Screwtape Letters: "Oh Wormwood, you fool!"

The Holy Spirit can chase away these evil spirits, but only works within the confines of free will, so we have to be open to letting Him chase away the demons.

2. Exorcism is a sacramental
Sacramentals dispose us to receiving the grace of the sacraments, so it's easy to see how exorcism fits into this- literally getting rid of evil that has taken over a person's life and opening that person again to the grace of God.

Only an exorcist can perform an exorcism, though, and each diocese has one priest exorcist.

Interestingly, the Orthodox Church has many exorcists, as it has been peacefully reintroduced into Holy Orders, which has not been done in the Roman Church.

3. Haunted houses are actually a thing
They are called diabolical infestations and it's demonic disturbances that act on houses, places, objects, or animals, rather than on people.

4. There are different levels of "possession"
Generally, when we think of demonic possession, we think of the full-on, head spinning, cuss word slinging, possibly vomiting possessions we see in the media.

But this is only the most serious form of extraordinary action the devil takes and, to become possessed, a person must completely open himself to Satan and allow the evil one in.

When possessed, Satan can make a person do and say as he wishes and the person has no control.

Of note here, the devil cannot possess someone's soul, only their body- unless the person consents to possession of the soul. Continue reading

Sources

• EpicPew article by Theresa Williams, writer, homemaker, friend and sister, wife, and mother of two children.
• Image: Catholic News Agency

Historical records say the nun, who claimed to be possessed by Satan, was found with the letter on the floor of her cell.

Her face was covered in ink, and she holding the note written in an incomprehensible mix of symbols and letters. Read more

The monument design is for a black cube with Satanic symbols and an offering bowl. Read more

La Croix journalists, Marie Malzac and Gauthier Vaillant, discuss these notions with Fr Jean-Pascal Duloisy, exorcist for the dioceses of the Île-de-France region (Greater Paris) and Olivier Abel, philosopher, professor at the Protestant Institute of Theology in Montpellier, France.

"For Catholics, evil is not an idea"

Fr Jean-Pascal Duloisy:
I welcome Pope Francis' courage for daring to say that killing in the name of God is the mark of a perverted mind, in other words a mind that has lost the meaning of life. It is consequently satanic. Every human life is a gift of God. Attacking life is attacking God, and therefore satanic.

We have never really paid attention to what Pope Francis has said on these questions. We forget that at the very beginning of his papacy, he stated: "When we do not confess Jesus Christ, we are confessing the ordinary existence of the devil." No pope has ever spoken of the devil the way he has.

"Satan, devil, etc." belong to a lexicon we are no longer accustomed to hearing, because human beings tend to forget where evil comes from. Humankind is not the source of evil. Human beings who commit evil acts are victims, puppets who have been duped. Fr Hamel was lucid and clairvoyant when he designated his aggressor saying "Go away, Satan": the youths who killed him and who also died that day were driven by something more powerful than themselves.

They did not know what they were doing, for if they had known, I am convinced they would never have done it: human beings seek the good. Let us remember the words of Christ on the cross: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do." Evil for its own sake or absurd violence is the mark of the devil. Continue reading

Sources

• Marie Malzac and Gauthier Vaillant, writing in Global Pulse
• Image: Wikipedia

My mother explained that Satan sneaked into the garden without God knowing. That answer didn't satisfy. I told Mum I thought God was supposed to know everything.

A sharp slap finished the dialogue but questions remained. In the Garden of Eden story the snake was Satan, a downright villain. It brought sin into the world and got Adam and Eve kicked out. God put a curse on the snake: "On your belly you shall go and dust shall you eat all the days of your life."

So the snake was a baddie, but then in Exodus the snake became a symbol of healing for the Israelites; and in the gospels, Jesus compared himself with a snake. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up." What was that all about?

In my teens I grew out of the notion that every word in the Bible had been dictated by God, but I was still puzzled about the negative Garden of Eden story.

Decades later, a kindly rabbi solved the mystery. Genesis was not the first book written. Really? Yes, really. The creation story plus Adam and Eve were a collection of oral traditions from various sources, written down at the time of the Babylonian exile.

The Babylonian exile! That explained a lot.

I looked at the subtext of what we call "The Fall." The Jews had lost their promised land. The Babylonians had destroyed their temple, and all the educated people from Jerusalem had been taken into captivity. They had literally been expelled from their "Garden of Eden." And because in Judaism, every bit of misfortune was thought to come from sin, those poor people believed they had done something terrible to displease God.

So where does the serpent fit in? The serpent was venerated in Babylon as the symbol of wisdom and healing, and there were two large gold serpents on the doors of the Babylonian temple. To displaced Jews, those gold serpents must have appeared as loathsome as the swastika in World War Two.

Can you imagine this situation as background to the writing of the Adam and Eve story?

Fresh understanding cleared a childhood view of a vengeful and punishing God. I was convinced we were not a "fallen" people at all but a cherished people on the way up, our growth nurtured by a God of unconditional love. I still believe that.

The final touch came from another rabbi at the Batmitzvah of a young girl. He talked about every soul being pure, a spark of God that came into incarnation to grow. The expulsion from " the Garden of Eden" he said, was our human birth.

Then he added, "But when we leave the garden, God comes with us."

Yes! Yes! Isn't that also our truth?

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

At the urging of a local prayer group, a priest took to a helicopter to perform a minor exorcism over the entire town, according Italian papers.

"If Satan exists, he has taken control of Castellammare di Stabia," the group said in a statement. "There was nothing left but to try the exorcist." Continue reading

He has bushy white eyebrows, a severe side part and eyes the colour of a cloudy day. He offers me a biscuit with my tea.

We are seated in a small, chilly room next to his Sydney suburban church, by a table covered in books on yoga and t'ai chi, and prayers sledging Satan as the bringer of death, root of all evil, accursed dragon, seducer of man and father of lies.

"We have a little chapel a few suburbs away we can use for exorcisms," the exorcist says, touching the tips of his fingers together as if in prayer.

"I have holy water. I have a crucifix. I have a Bible.

"And I go through a variety of prayers, some to the Almighty himself, some to Satan or the satanic entity, demanding the demons leave.

"By the time you do all that, the best part of an hour has gone by."

So you have talked to the Devil, I say.

"Yes," he says. "But I have never heard a reply."

The exorcist is my entry point into the dark world of demon- chasing.

It's where I'll meet an office assistant who was delivered of 43 devils and a young man who screams and spews into a bin while being freed of foul spirits.

Some exorcists say they've never been busier combating modern-day evils; one recently met a 20-something who claimed to have sold his soul to Satan for fame.

Pope Francis's fixation with expunging the Devil - whom he believes is a real person - has helped raise the prominence of the practice.

Last June, the Vatican formally recognised the International Association of Exorcists, a group of 250 priests in 30 countries co-founded by Italian priest Gabriele Amorth, who claims to have personally rid the world of 160,000 demons. Continue reading

Sources

• The Sydney Morning Herald
• Image: wikiHow

Kostrzewa says the Danish toy company had taken a lurch to the dark side with its series of Monster Fighters and Zombie mini-figures, and that they "were about darkness and the world of death"

The New Zealand study by Christopher Barneck of University of Canterbury has found the number of happy faces on Legos is decreasing, and more angry faces are taking their place.

Barneck studied all the 6000 Lego figures including Harry Potter and pirate-themed toys, and says they are increasingly angry and based on conflict - with potentially harmful effects on children's play and development.

Kostrzewa's attack on Lego is not the first time he has accused toys of harbouring evil. Hello Kitty and My Little Pony have also come under his scrutiny, with the latter being described as a "carrier of death".

Source

• The Telegraph
• Image: ComicAlliance.com
  

In an interview with the Telegraph, Fr Gabreile Amorth, who for four years held the position of the Vatican's chief exorcist, and who has cleansed hundreds of people of evil spirits, said Yoga is Satanic and JK Rowling's Harry Potter books are no less dangerous.

Amorth says the problem with Yoga is it leads to worship of Hinduism and "all eastern religions are based on a false belief in reincarnation", and Harry Potter books, that on the face of it seem innocuous, but actually encourage children to believe in black magic and wizardry.

"In Harry Potter the Devil acts in a crafty and covert manner, under the guise of extraordinary powers, magic spells and curses," Amorth said.

"Satan is always hidden and what he most wants is for us not to believe in his existence. He studies every one of us and our tendencies towards good and evil, and then he offers temptations."

Amorth says science is incapable of explaining evil, and not worth a jot.

"The scientist simply explores what God has already created."

Giorgio Furlan, the founder of the Yoga Academy of Rome labelled the claims as "outrageous", and said yoga had nothing to do with religion, "least of all Satanism."

"Whoever says that shows that they know absolutely nothing about yoga," he said.

Father Amorth has also claimed that the sex abuse scandals which have engulfed the Catholic Church in the US, Ireland, Germany and other countries was proof that the Anti-Christ is waging a war against the Holy See.

Source

• The Telegraph
• The Sun
• Image: Landover Baptist Church

Pope Benedict was recently rebuked in the liberal American newspaper, the National Catholic Reporter, for his apparent belief in the power of Satan. Richard W. Kropf was incredulous that "someone as theologically sophisticated as Pope Benedict would resort to blaming the Devil for the Church's present problems". He was "puzzled to say the least" because of the Pope's allusion to the "enemy" in his speech that concluded the Year for Priests.

Pope Benedict had said that the "new radiance of the priesthood", which he saw emerging from the Year for Priests, would not be pleasing to the "enemy" who "would rather have preferred to see it disappear, so that God would ultimately be driven out of the world. And so it happened that, in this very year of joy for the priesthood, the sins of priests came to light - particularly the abuse of the little ones …"

Actually, Mr Kropf was not puzzled at all. He had a ready explanation of the Pope's lapse into theological unsophistication. In blaming the Devil for the disclosure of the apparent epidemic of child sexual abuse by priests, Benedict XVI was displaying much the same refusal to accept responsibility that Mr Kropf finds among his male (but not female, apparently) clients in an Alcoholics Anonymous rehab centre.

Read the complete article in The Tablet