Demand for exorcisms grows in U.S.

Two leading exorcists in the U.S. said that keeping up with the demand for exorcisms was difficult even though the number of official exorcists had quadrupled in the past 10 years.

Fr. Gary Thomas and Fr. Vincent Lampert have been exorcists for the past 10 years. The two priests believed that the demand for exorcists was affected by the growing spiritual void in America, the failure of the mental healthcare system and the decline of the Church's authority.

Lampert said that the demand does not come from the Church but from the people.

"We're gaining all sorts of knowledge," he told Telegraph, "but there's still that emptiness within us that is being filled with addictive behavior such as drugs and pornography."

Thomas, whose training was documented in the book "The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist," said that he tried to answer all the requests and queries that were directed at him. He performed about 60 exorcisms in the past 10 years. He also performed exorcisms outside the U.S., most of which were in India and Africa.

"I am a full-time pastor and this is a very intense ministry. Almost every free night that I have is taken up with exorcisms," he said.

Thomas, the official exorcist of the Diocese of San Jose in California, said that he has seen people who were quite normal outside the church but started to manifest sickness when they entered a church or participated in sacred activities.

Lampert, who served in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, stated that about half of the requests for exorcisms came from non-Catholics. He was once featured in the TV show "Paranormal Witness" in which he shared that "evil is a reality and there are consequences when people open up a doorway to evil into their lives."

He said that the most common occult activity that invited evil is the use of the Ouija board. The two priests believed that occult activities were on the rise in the U.S.

Thomas, who mostly performed exorcisms on Catholics, said that the situation was more complicated when the person who sought help was a non-Christian.

"If they have no Christian grounding to invoke Jesus to deliver them, we can do more harm than good," he said.

Thomas, added that the rite was mostly in Latin because it was the most hated language of demons but they also responded to other languages such as Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.

There was a growing demand for exorcists in Italy as well. Valter Cascioli, scientific consultant to the International Association of Exorcists, also noted that the increasing interest in the occult is causing psychological and spiritual problems.

"The lack of exorcists is a real emergency," Cascioli said.