Guidance

If you need help now

Call your own parish priest and ask to speak with him. If you are in danger or in crisis, contact emergency services or a crisis line first — a medical and psychological evaluation always comes before any judgment about spiritual affliction.

Do not attempt exorcism prayers on yourself or another person. Lay-led “deliverance” outside the Church’s structure can deepen the problem. Begin with your own pastor. Solemn exorcism is celebrated only by a priest with his bishop’s permission.

• You have kept to the ordinary means — Confession, the Eucharist, daily prayer — and the disturbance continues or worsens.
• You cannot bear sacred objects, prayer, Holy Water, or the name of Jesus.
• Things in your home frighten others, not only you.
• You suspect a family member or child is afflicted.
• You were involved in the occult — divination, séances, curses, Freemasonry, New Age practice — and something changed afterward.
• You are being pulled toward despair, self-harm, or blasphemy in a way that does not feel like your own mind.