Ouija boards and other attempts to contact the dead should be avoided because “angels, demons, spirits, and souls do exist, and they can have an impact on our life,” an exorcist priest warns this Halloween season.
“We too often forget that there is much more to this world than meets the eye,” Fr. Dan Reehil, a priest of the Diocese of Nashville, told Fox News Digital in a Monday report.
Reehil was trained in performing exorcisms by the Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum in Rome in 2018 and was installed that same year as the resident exorcist in Nashville.
According to the Catholic priest, an exorcist “is a priest chosen and installed by a bishop to exercise the office of deliverance ministry. Exorcism is a specific form of prayer that the Church uses against the power of the devil.”
“A major exorcism is performed only for one who is demonstrably possessed by a demon or demons and may only be performed by a priest the bishop has specifically permitted to do so,” said Reehil.
A “minor exorcism” is associated with sacraments and blessings, the priest clarified.
“Demonologists distinguish three levels of demonic incursion,” he explained, listing them as temptation, obsession or oppression, and possession.
Reehil said that while temptation is experienced by everyone, people face obsession “when demons torment people physically, spiritually, mentally or emotionally, or some combination of these.”
Possession occurs when a demon takes “physical possession of a person’s body and make[s] use of its faculties,” said Reehil. “Possession is usually intermittent, almost never an uninterrupted possessing of the person’s body.”
The priest warned that using Ouija boards could result in real-world consequences, such as falling victim to demonic possession.
“Demons lie and impersonate dead people,” said Reehil. “When asking a board for information about a deceased person or a life decision, they are all too happy to embed themselves into your life. Using an Ouija board is inviting a demon into your life, whether the person has that intention or not.”
The Ouija board was first developed in the late 1800s as a parlor game described as “talking boards.”
Modern Ouija boards are produced by toy company Hasbro, which markets the product as a way to communicate with the “spirit world.”
Reehil condemns the use of the board as a game or something to be taken lightly, citing the Bible.
“Ouija boards should not be viewed in the same way as a typical board game,” he said. “Although it is advertised as a game, it is far from it. Rather, it is a form of divination.”
“The very action of using [the Ouija board] has profound spiritual consequences [that are] beyond our control,” he added, claiming that he has personally seen six cases of demonic oppression as a result of Ouija board usage.
“The victims were left with night terrors, suicidal ideation, despair — and one man was impaled with chicken bones in his leg that flew across the kitchen,” he claimed to Fox News.
He continued, “Once the deliverance prayers were prayed, and the participants renounced all participation with the demons, the demonic activity ceased… Whenever we seek to engage demons, we move away from the One True God.”
Reehil urged others to “stay away from all forms of occult practices — and stay close to God.”
