Playing With Fire: Catholics and the Occult

Just out in time for Halloween is a movie called 'Ouiji' after the infamous 'parlor game'.  Without giving too much away (and there is usually very little to give away in these tedious thrillers) the gist seems to be that playing with ouiji can bring bad things.  So, AMC theaters are giving ouiji boards to the first 'lucky' 100 customers.  I understand they might give out chain saws after the next installment of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  I wonder if these lucky customers know what a contagion they are bringing into their homes.

Many lump ouiji boards with other things that labeled as harmless fun.  You know, a little scary fun that no one believes is real.  Tarot cards, palm readers, mediums, astrology (not to be confused with astronomy..the study of space), and such are seen as diversions.  The Scriptures forbid them.  I know, I know...the killjoy Bible bans it.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church also condemns this in paragraph 2117:  All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one’s service and have a supernatural power over others—even if this were for the sake of restoring their health—are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another’s credulity.  The occult seeks to harness spiritual powers in order to manipulate them to an end for the individual.  Sometimes that end is seen as noble, such as talking with a departed loved one.  Sometimes it is for purposes of taking revenge and so on.  Either way it is playing with fire in which the handler gets burned.

Evil is real. We see that day in and day out in our news.  Spiritual entities are real.  Both good and bad.  Both angels and demons.  They are real.  That which is evil is not simply going to present itself as such.  Want to contact Aunt Matilda who died years ago to see how she's doing?  Maybe mom or dad, a child, grandparents is the desire to be contacted.  We do it more often than not because we miss them and our hearts ache that absence.Maybe our problem is we are confused about our futures and want to see what is ahead.  The problem is that when we use such means as the occult to do this, we invite things into our lives that we might not have otherwise let in.  The demonic is always looking for a welcome entrance.  If it has to fool us into believing we are with a dearly departed..so be it.  It is not as if deceit isn't part of their game.

Now, some might be thinking this all a bit of hyperbole.  It is just a little harmless fun.  Isn't that how all addiction in our lives begins?  A little harmless fun. In study and study and story after story of documented exorcisms, so many began with a 'little harmless fun' that quickly spun out of control.  Inviting these things into your home is dangerous.  There is no such thing as a christian medium...that is like saying there is such a thing as a christian professional liar, christian ax murderer, or a christian thief...each are engaged in a behavior expressly forbidden by God.  God doesn't do this because He has anything against fun, but because like a loving parent, He wants us to stay away from that which means us harm.  To engage in such things as listed above is to push away the hands of God and invite in true evil.  To engage in the occult is forbidden because it is a breaking of the 1st Commandment.  We are to turn to God with our concerns, our aches, and our loneliness.  Why?  Because He means what is good for us.

I do not watch horror films and such because I make a point to rejoice in truth and beauty.  As followers of Christ our time is better spent rejoicing in beauty and truth  as opposed to entertaining ourselves with ugliness and deceit.  As one who has seen the aftermath of what happens when evil is invited into a life, it is with no shortness of urgency, I plead with you if you should have engaged in these things, please seek confession, remove the items from your house, destroy them, and never replace them again.  They will oppress you.  You were not created to be oppressed by evil, but to walk freely as a child of God.  Ouiji boards and such are not parlor games, they are contagions which will bring things in that you would never actually want.  Do not allow sorrow your sorrow or angst lead you to allow in charlatans and the demonic.  Turn rather to God to fill those empty parts and you'll have nothing to fear.