Fr. Chad Ripperger on Demons
Mary crushes the head of Satan in the Immaculate Conception by
Peter Paul Rubens. Public domain link
Why should we learn about demons?
I chuckled the other day, remembering something I used to loudly pronounce to everyone in earshot as a kid. It was my career plan. First, attaining Eagle Scout. Then, an astronaut. Then, an astrophysicist. And then, around age 40, a demonologist.
Yep. Ha ha...
I was always interested in the idea of demons. Of course, they were interesting when I played with my toys...I always had a bad guy to fight against! And the bad guy could often easily escape thanks to his supernatural powers, thus allowing me to create a chapter 2, 3, 4. When he finally bit the dust it would be dramatic and amazing. I was a big fan of the Star Wars Darth Vader plot line, where it turns out that the great enemy is really something quite different. My death scenes were "apocalyptic," in the sense that there were always revelations that changed the perspective on many things. Ah, those were fun days...
It's also kind of funny, looking at my intended career path, that the "war" between science and religion had no influence on me. I was happy to toss in this bizarre turn to demonology after a study of the heavens. And in fact, my life has been like that, even though my grades in math quickly tanked any chance at real numeracy. I've never seen technology as "proof" that the spirit world doesn't exist. I've just seen it as something we like to do, and a very interesting thing at that.
My idea of what a demonologist was, was something like an exorcist by night, scholar by day. He studied demons in order to better defeat them, which is the only valid reason. I'm not so far away from my ideas as a kid...I actually do fight demons. But these are internal struggles. I remain fascinated. But there is one image in my mind that I continually return to. It is something that happened to me.
It is Mary, thrusting her cold blue and electric white spear into the torso of a blackened demon that emerged from me, while I held it down, as she asked me to.
And it is the change in my life after this.
In the days before this powerful meditation, I'd been watching myself. I'd begun to gain separation between what "I" thought, and the thoughts of another, who seemed to be me, but whose outlook was darker, even predatory. It had to do with how I looked at women and girls.
I discovered pornography at age 11. My dad had a huge cache of it. I'd visit his place, he'd go out for a bike ride, and I'd just look at these disturbing pictures from Denmark. It made me feel strange, almost drunk, I would say now. I was ingesting poison, and I can say now how much it stunted my life. How many relationships could have been pure, strong and good, but were instead superficial?
For this knowledge had that effect. It disconnected me from others. Not just women, the objects of growing lust, but also from men. Because I couldn't look people in the eye for very long without those images coming up and bringing uncomfortable associations.
Today I aspire to purity. But what a long and unnecessary road it has been...
This encounter with the Holy Mother took place about 5 years ago. I'd begun to meditate, to forgive and to learn many things. I started to see how much energy I'd expended in useless lusting. All that ever did was poison things. I began to see this lusting consciousness as something like a bug crawling under my skin. I observed it in mounting horror. How can I get away from it?
I had seen Jesus and Mary. He had looked into me with eyes of love and sadness. It is the memory of that moment that compels me to live now, and to try and communicate something of what I know. To this point, mostly, I just annoy my friends, I'm sorry to say. But to finish the story! Before the ultimate battle with the demon, I awoke in the night feeling some darkness skittering inside me. And then, hideously, as I moved the covers, a large roach skittered across my legs!
Oh, hell no.
I felt surrounded by darkness. By ancient beings, ever rotting, ever breathing rot, with their useless and repetitive viewpoints that only saw humans as meat puppets who should be continually desecrated and made to participate in that desecration. I was filled with disgust. I turned on all the lights, threw the bedding into the hamper for washing, then sat to breathe, to meditate, and to implore Mary and Jesus for help.
They came. Though Mary was the active one. She approached it as a good woman dealing with some difficult task in her kitchen would. With a blend of practicality, grace and determination. I was a wreck. Emotional, disgusted, angry, ashamed to have harbored such a "bug." I was seeing it fully. It had grown fat in me, on the stuff of my life.
It was, in fact, real.
But so was I.
And there was growing joy that I was not "it." That I was something else. Something which Mary would work with, and on whom Jesus would look with compassion.
People will say that psychology explains all of this.
That perhaps, I had executed a "therapy" on myself, all of this prompted by the emotions on seeing the bug in my bed. They'll say "of course none of this is really extraordinary."
They are right, in a way. It is not extraordinary that humans have friends and enemies beyond knowledge and number. Why wouldn't this be so? We know our minds. That they are enormous. We know that we filter out vast amounts of information in order to keep things simple. If we saw too much, we couldn't act.
I allowed myself to see too much. Because something needed to change. Something was wrong. At the borders of my world, there were guardians. In fact, the master guardian, Jesus Christ. And the Holy Mother, who has knowledge of purity, of cleanliness. I needed her, and she helped me in a way no doctor on the planet ever could. By which I mean becoming free of this parasite was more important than life or death. Because it would have stalked me beyond death. Perhaps it already stalked me before birth, I don't know.
I am not forever immune. I have sinned in the years since. But I learn from each occasion. She could not have helped me if I didn't want it. If I didn't want purity. To be pure is to be simple. And to be simple enrages the egoistic pride-self. So lust can find it's way through that crack in the door. The ego approves of complexity. Something as simple as looking at a sculpture with an erotic sensibility is enough to create a small divot in the personality into which dirt may accumulate. That "dirt" then swirls in the imagination, affecting the view of new things that come before you.
It goes on from there, slowly. The forces that play around us are not in a great hurry. They know that appetites grow when fed. So long as the human feeds occasionally, he will feed again. These forces, lets call them demons now, may then operate on a level which tries to increase those discomforts that cause the human to crave pleasure.
It all goes on like that. Not forever. This process will terminate. But it is not in my hands to know that. It is in my hands to keep my house clean. To do what is right rather than what I want to do. To want, in fact, only my further instruction, sitting at the feet of my Lord.
Why should we learn about these beings? Well, they have touched us. We have entered into contracts with them and given them more of our life energy than we ever should have. What other subject is there which simultaneously touches the individual quietly thinking in a room, and the greatest struggle of any age between the forces of good and evil? How is that for relevance?
Notes on "Demonology Function and Psychology"
In March 2023, Fr. Chad Ripperger gave a talk at the Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church in Chapin, South Carolina. Here it is on YouTube:
This talk and others make a variety of very interesting points which I'll take down.
The angelic way of knowing (at ~5 min)
Humans learn from specific examples, and gradually build up the understanding of an abstraction. Then they can use the abstraction to predict future specific events or manifestations. But angels work the other way. They live, rather, in this plane of abstraction, understanding ideals perfectly, and the relationships between them. They move from this "top down" understanding towards particulars. Because of their perfect (supernatural) understanding in the plane of ideals, this appears to us as absolutely astonishing intellect. They don't know the future, aside from the broad plan, but they can predict it very well just based on the mechanisms of the ideals, the devices, the organs, or whatever means is available on the earth plane to carry out that ideal. Demons, as fallen angels, have all of these capabilities. Fr. Ripperger is conveying some information from Thomas Aquinas here.
They know their nature, unlike us. Think what a great disadvantage we are at in any combat with such beings just from this alone! We muddle our way towards the Father, often by accident. Mostly, we live in a "disenchanted" world that doesn't believe there is a Father anymore anyway. So there are few pointers into the right view of things for most of us. Scientific materialism has dulled our curiosity about it, too, having provided a pat answer that the moist bag of chemicals with your brain at the top was cobbled together by random processes, and will collapse in a heap later leaving you none the wiser about anything until the blackness enfolds you. Having come to believe that, people hide from any mention of death which leaves them unable to philosophize with vigor. Sure, you'll be encouraged to feel "wonder" over the planets, the brain and psychology, the insects, whatever. But the natural instinct to leap into questions about origins and destinations will be primly discouraged with a frown. I've seen it over and over...you "cross a line," and offend your host because you made them think about endings and they are displeased.
Returning to the angels, they all received the beautific vision, and in the next psychological moment, they made their choice to serve it or deny it. And so in the second instant of their life they remained as God intended or were damned.
Angelic personalities are highly distinct. It is as if they are cut diamonds. That lack of uncertainty that must come from perfect knowledge...why wouldn't it permeate all their doings? So their intentions are clear. In fact they are their assigned tasks. When they reject their assigned task, they commit a "perfect act of self hatred." Having committed this act, there are things that naturally unfold from it. In our own lives, we go downhill when we don't respect ourselves. We easily disrespect others and tear at good relations. We'll do what is bad for us and call it good. Imagine the horror of a supernatural being with a highly abstract intellect in the grips of self-hatred, while also being oriented towards you as part of their creation!
The sacrifice of the beautific vision (~12 min)
Recall that angels received the beautific vision of their creator. Fr. Ripperger states that demons remember this moment of intense joy, though it is painful for them to behold because of their subsequent choice. He states that they were shown the vision, then were shown where they belong in the vision. That is, what their role is and task. But in order to enter their tasks they had to let go of that total beautific vision and accept a smaller one.
The good angels did accept this. They sacrificed the beautific vision and entered into service. The demons did not want to let go. They wanted, in fact, to claim it for their own. They chose it over their task. Now...the beautific vision was not "real," it only pointed to something real. Something in which the angels would share completely when all tasks are complete. It was implanted in their imagination by God to teach them (and, sadly, to cleave them).
In choosing the vision over the task, the demons chose a figment of their imagination...a will-o-the-wisp, in the end. This was irrational. It goes against angelic nature to make a choice incompatible with reason. And so, despite that nature's fundamentally rational mode of action, at base in the demonic is an essential insanity. A cracked and self-hating foundation.
They know they failed. And yet they go on.
Task inversion (~13 minutes)
The higher ranks of angels were created to aid God, and the lower ranks to aid us. In light of the psychological picture Fr. Ripperger built up, it becomes clear that demonic beings will invert their orientation towards tasks. Rather than help us, they will harry us.
For example, the demon Loki. His assigned task was to lead people towards religious vocation. But now, in the inverted hierarchy he serves, his task is to foster desire for worldliness. Here we can see the "elegant demon" hiding in the Vatican.
Lucifer's function was on the intellectual level. He's said that his assigned task was to enlighten the mind of Our Lady towards greater sacrificial life. Lucifer has told Fr. Ripperger that he knew he was second best after seeing the interior of the mind of Mary. (I wonder "when" was this? Was this Mary as Eve, or later, after she repaired her sins and became Mary?)
Fr. Ripperger spoke to Lucifer about the title "Perfect Mirror of Justice" given to Mary, which implies that to see her perfectly is also to see God. So, Lucifer saw God in her, and desired to be God through the mirror of her mind.
One of his assigned tasks was music, and this is why music is becoming repetitive and hateful. It was also to inspire us to sacrifice more than we do. According to Saint Thomas, the totality of the spiritual life is in sacrificing our will to His will.
I shudder to remember my talks with Satanists on the CDT last summer. They were very keen to say that they believed in neither God nor Satan, but that they took inspiration from the vision of "complete freedom" provided by the satanic ideal -- by loving freedom more than a humble, ordered existence within a framework of which one cannot claim to be the author. There are many of these people, and they are young and fresh-faced. It is sad for me to see...I think that I was like them. Now I know the errors of that road, and I don't want anyone to walk into disillusionment and pain and the "less than" found at the end of it. But we are all free.
Returning to Lucifer, he was astounded at Mary's psychology, in that she never once counted the personal cost of her many sacrifices. That is the acme of perfection. None of us will achieve this. Lucifer was also bothered by the perpetuity of her sacrifice. She gave herself entirely to God.
Lucifer's job was to make her even more sacrificial. This personally offended him, and he spat on God to mark his refusal.
Perfect will versus accreted will
When angels make a decision, they are all in. They are digital where we are analog. We move towards a fixed will by gradually built-up inclination. However, demons act with malice because right from the outside, their minds are made up and fixed. So should they wish to destroy and degrade humanity (and they do), you can expect that events under their influence attain that malicious quality. There will be a twist in every thrust of the knife.
Our will only becomes "fixed" at death, into good or evil, according to Fr. Ripperger. But angels have a fixed will at all times.
The demons are unredeemable. There was a heresy that imagined they could be fixed, and all the beings of hell as well. They cannot be fixed, for they are already "fixed." A way to bring a demon down is to remind them of this truth: that the source of their power over us, their fixity, is also what means that they are forever damned. They don't like that!
Demons and their powers (22 minutes)
The demon that possesses an individual is based on the inversion of his task. Demons of impurity: Beelzebub, Baal, Asmodeus. The latter is involved in male homosexuality. They are assigned to people based on their weaknesses, which are as varied as people are.
Again, concept first, specific examples second in angelic mind. Since human beings exist in the physical world, we are ourselves a concept at a higher level, and can be fully understood by angelic/demonic consciousness very quickly (and so manipulated easily). From a super-complex state, with the knowledge of the nature of causes, divination can be applied.
Demons do know that their time is growing short. This has the effect of increasing their level of activity. You might feel that you see this in the world.
One way Fr. Ripperger and colleagues know that demonic possession is involved rather than (as it usually is) merely a psychological condition, is that the demonic makes fine theological distinctions in their words and actions that are extremely subtle, yet, to a theologian, very important.
Demons only have intellect and will. They don't have emotions or a body. I'm reminded here of the idea that humans "store" emotions in their body for more gradual processing. Demons are neither gifted by nor afflicted by that capability.
Demons know all particulars about you. They are limited in their ability to affect us by God. But they can watch our patterns of behavior, and can guess our vices and virtues. They can also determine where you are aided by grace, and adjust accordingly.
They know the precise strategy to use to take you out based on all of this awesome knowledge. Why haven't they destroyed us all then? They are on a tight leash. Each particular permission they have is finely controlled by God. This is perplexing. Why would God be involved in such loathsome contractual dealings?
Hmm. Well, for the moment, I'm simply happy that He is involved because of the many limits it imposes on demonic activity!
Demons are amazingly consistent in their behavior for 3 reasons:
- They have a nature that doesn't change
- They are fixed in their nature by their sin.
- They are regulated tightly by God.
Why? Answering the question above, God allows what He allows when it will improve our spirits. "Some of the holiest people I know are possessed, or were possessed."
There are 9 levels of depth in prayer, and most people only get to levels 1 or 2. Fr. Ripperger describes a woman who reached level 4 just as her possession broke. Also, a woman who never violated a vow of chastity in 14 years. The demon Beelzebub was strangely enough, the instrument of her sanctification.
In my own small way, with my story above, I have to admit that it was better for me that I was in some contract with a demon in order that I better understood the reality of them, and much more important, the reality of the Holy Mother. In being saved from that contract, the gratitude I feel at being lifted up, so undeserving, must be good for me. At least, I imagine myself as knowing about none of that and wonder what good would I try to do? (I am not suggesting I do any good, but I want to, and I try to).
The exorcist can recognize different demons by their distinct personalities.
There are three sources of temptation: the world, the flesh and the devil. The devils can act on the world and the flesh to tempt us. They aren't the cause of every form of temptation. The principle mechanism they use is to introduce temptation that is well-chosen to our psychology.
Extreme anger is the domain of Isis. Why is that so? Because of the nature of his fall: he refused to accept the mercy Christ granted to men. Therefore, he is the incarnation of the inversion of that mercy. ("even worse than Satan in a certain sense," said Fr. Ripperger, shaking his head).
As you indulge in a particular vice, you are building a compatibility with one or another of these demons.
Eradicate your vices! Build virtue! Then you remove the handles by which the demons may grip you.
Are demons becoming more powerful? (32 minutes)
No, they are not. Rather, we are becoming more susceptible, both in number and depth. More individuals have more and deeper vices. And this is the door.
Demons are in a hierarchy according to their intellects, and their wills are proportionate to those intellects. Therefore the most powerful demons are also the most intelligent ones.
They are extremely hierarchical, never arguing with a "higher" demon, though, perhaps, they chafe under his rule over them and have their own negative thoughts about their position.
Another important point with them is that they can never disobey God. They can disobey the exorcist or any human, to some degree. But the more your commands are aligned with and channeling only God and not yourself, the more they must bend to the command. They know and finely follow the exact lines of delineation of power.
This explains why they went after Eve and not Adam. It was Adam who told her not to eat the fruit, and not God. It was easier to get her to step out from under the authority of Adam (her rightful master) than it would have been to get her to step out from the authority of God. And if they succeed at that, she is doubly in danger because she stepped out of two levels of authority: that of Adam, and that of God.
It seems a bit like a circuit diagram...it is fascinating, profound and sad. Why can't we learn these diagrams in elementary school? They would do us much good...
Anyway, after the Fall, Eve's life was quite sad because when she was in right relation with Adam, her husband, he cared for her and listened to her. Therefore, being in wrong relation meant that those good qualities of right relation were reversed: Adam didn't listen to her, he didn't care for her.
The "curse of Eve"
Fr. Ripperger doesn't go into this in depth, but it is an important concept. The Curse of Eve is her desire to control her husband. We see this all the time! In Genesis, it says "your desire shall be for your husband," but it should actually be translated "your desire shall be to control your husband."
Every woman must conquer this desire in herself. If she can do it, she can master any virtue, and becomes an amazing being. If not, she'll be wretched.
So...this is why women should be under the authority of their husband. It is rightly ordered. If she does it, she becomes more holy than her husband ("and can boss him around in heaven for eternity," he jokes, though with justification. Lots of laughter).
The demons know the structure of the Fall, and use the curse of Eve easily.
Why is Satan a "murderer from the beginning?" Fr. Ripperger said this is very interesting once you understand it. I would like to know...
Demons love the opportunity to lie, and the more sinful people become, the more demons can influence them. The activity is increasing partly because they know there will be a cut off point.
There was a high-level prelate in the church of which even a demon says the man is too depraved. Okay, that is scary.
God is offended
Mortal sins are offending God constantly. God will allow demons in in the face of constant, unrepentant mortal sin. When you commit a mortal sin, you step out from the authority of God, and thus by default, fall under the authority of Satan. It doesn't matter if you think it is a sin or not, the demons and God know it as sin. Again, picture the circuit diagram. You are part of a system which you do not yet understand.
An objective effect of mortal sin is the involvement of demons in your life.
Structures of attack (~45 minutes)
Demons have access to your imagination and your emotions.
Humans come into contact with reality through 5 senses, mediated through the brain. The sense impression comes in, and loads into the imagination in the form of an image (the image could be the image of a smell, or a sound, like music, too, even though primarily we think of it as a visual thing).
The cogitative power connects memory and imagination, backfilling whatever image is in the imagination with details from memory. Fr. Ripperger uses Alzheimer's disease as an example to provide a proof of this function by its absence -- the imagination is filled with the image of a person, but because the link with memory is broken, the victim sits and awaits the necessary information to recognize that the image is his wife of many years.
This power can also make an assessment of whether the image is good or bad based on memory. It is offering a value perspective on the image, and this prompts an emotional response.
So to review:
- Sense organ provides data.
- Data is loaded into the imagination (an image forms).
- The cogitative power visits memory, providing extra detail to the image, but also a value judgment should there be sufficiently like data for one.
- The emotions leap into response on receiving the value judgment.
Example: the new wife fosters good emotions, but after 10 years of marriage, bad emotions. However, the woman didn't necessarily change. It is the contents of memory in the husband and the value judgment he passes on the image that marshal negative emotions into action in him.
Demons can apply the emotion they choose to an image in the imagination.
And this next point is so important: Because they wish to maximize the effectiveness this capability has on you, they really try to get you to FOLLOW your emotions.
They do this on the level of culture, too. The 1960s made it explicit: "it's all about how you feel, man!"
For 50 straight years, they've been habituating us to follow our emotions. It is encoded that we are "heartless" if we refuse to follow our emotions in favor of our rational sense.
It is disordered to follow emotions before rationality. If we do so, they can manipulate us much more easily.
Certainly, this is why this culture is seemingly becoming disordered and demonic.
Gay marriage is a good example of this. The activity goes against nature, but by applying it to marriage our emotions are tweaked and the rational sense is overruled.
Hmm. As an aside, I suspect that the possibilities for control are actually greater when the emotion recommends a view 180 degrees opposed to the rational sense. It seems that must have a "stunning" effect on the psyche. The term gaslighting comes to mind. The demonic (remember, acting with malice) must seek to stun the human psyche with hammer blows of emotion contrary to rationality, and they are aided by a culture that disapproves when rationality is chosen over emotion.
My God, what a perfect storm...
Strong emotions cause "contraction." The stronger the emotion, the more contact with reality is lost. For example, if you get really angry, you might forget that you are standing and yelling in a public place. You've been "contracted" by the emotion. You focus on the internal experience and forget the outer.
The more we are divorced from reality, the more we follow our emotions, the worse things get for us. Finally this destroys reason completely.
The rationality has become occluded.
Gender surgery is an example of the gaslighting that disconnects people from reality. Of course, become all this occurs on the level of society, too, any remaining people who still follow their rational sense will have a harder time in that society. They'll be "cancelled," for example. They'll be shamed and called "hurtful."
But that is already the silver lining to this dark cloud. The more the environment becomes poisoned, the more God can provide grace, and the more holy we can become.
What to do?
Always stay in a state of grace. Commit no mortal sin (no offense against God). Go to mass. Make sure your marriage is correct. Pray on a regular basis.
The Angelus Prayer (~54 minutes)
Fr. Ripperger and his assistant noticed the amazing power of the Angelus Prayer to reduce the power of demons. It should be prayed at 6 am, noon and 6 pm. In the old days, the Angelus bells rang at dawn, midday and dusk.
The prayer is about Mary, the holy Mother of God.
Why is Mary so central a counterweight to the demons? Is it that it was the purity of her heart that caused Lucifer to spit on God?
Self-liberation from possession has occurred with this prayer.
Exorcists are starting to notice that most liberations today revolve around two doctrines: either the incarnations or the passion.
They also noticed that the common element in people who were diabolically oppressed was a fundamental weakness in prayer life. Prayer life needs to be sacrificial. Not just when you feel like it. Rising regularly at six to make the prayer day after day causes the diabolical to vacate Most gracious Virgin Mary, thou who wouldst crush the head of the serpent, protect us from the vengeance of the evil one.the premises. Protection comes from consistent, daily self-denial.
The exorcists pray 3 to 4 hours a day. They fast on one meal a day 6 days a week. This provides immunity.
The Auxilium Christianorum (~58 minutes)
... Most gracious Virgin Mary, thou who wouldst crush the head of the serpent, protect us from the vengeance of the evil one. ...
They even have an "app" for this prayer, neat! (link).
The prayer is multiplied by the 400k people saying it every day.
BTW, I particularly like the Friday prayer, called Litany of Humility:
... From the desire of being esteemed, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being loved, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being extolled, deliver me, Jesus. From the desire of being honored, deliver me, Jesus. ...
Looking at my own psychology, those desires are very present. I need to do this prayer STAT. (It goes on, of being consulted, approved, humiliated, despised, forgotten, ridiculed...)
Fr. Ripperger says that this prayer is hated by demons.
Imprecation to know the faith
You have to know the catholic faith, you have to have a prayer life. Every possessed individual has some failure in understanding of the catholic doctrine. Most don't even understand the basics.
As bishops and priests get weirder and weirder, it is necessary to counter their incoherency with your own knowledge of the faith.
Demons attack marriage. Attaching judgments to images via the process described above. Part of the curse of Eve is believing your husband is dumb. And husbands think wives talk constantly.
(BTW, women get 10 times the amount of pleasure in their brain as men do from talking.)
The talking that women do is actually a perfection, it is simply immoderated. Women's desire to and pleasure in speaking is a gift for children, who won't learn without their loving (and constant!) voices.
So, demons will even use our perfections against us.
He relates a story of vivid dreams during a multi-week exorcism. The dreams were given to him by the demon he was fighting, and consisted of the viewpoint of the demon within the body as the "victim" of Fr. Ripperger's prayers and invocation of holy forces. The demon was very annoyed that the priest would do all this, and simply walk away like "nothing happened." (I guess it made the demon feel small and unimportant).
Not just mass. Using the sacramentals. Using the scapulars and holy water, etc. Do that and you'll be safe. You'll always be tempted until death. But you won't become diabolically influenced.
Authority structure
Families who have not lost a child, and each child in the family continues the catholic faith have a unique attribute: they all exercise self-denial on a regular basis. No children are lost to the faith if they do this.
So the daily morning prayers without fail are important.
Finally. Stay under the authority structure of the church. Follow the traditional catholic understanding of the family structure. The father has to be the leader of the household.
It's not about power. Many wives are holier than their husbands. It is "demon talk" to talk about power (for example, the wife earns more therefore she should be the leader. In fact, recently a wife in my community gloated that she had a great inheritance and her older husband did not. So she felt free to continue an affair, and not to hide it from him due to the power over him she had. This is clearly demonic.).
"The feminist movement is the curse of Eve on steroids." Best quote of the day!
If she stays under the authority structure, the husband will care for her, love her, listen to her. If she steps out, all of those will be reversed.
Q and A
What is "beating up a demon"?
"Beating up a demon" - this means making the demon say prayers or reverencing relics. They have to follow those authority structures. Remember, they are beings deeply aware of hierarchy. It really hurts them to admit their relative position. It touches their central wound, their central insanity.
How will our intellect and will work after we die?
It will be different, more like angelic knowledge (recall this top-down, moving from abstract to concrete mode of thought).
Do demons know what we're thinking?
Well, God could reveal it to them (very rare). They watch our patterns. The way we react to things, etc.
They can also read our body. For example, the temperature around the eyes increase when you lie.
If you tell them, they know.
And this last one is very clever: if they put a thought into your imagination and you don't resist it, they know that you are thinking along those lines.
How to raise children and tell them about this without making them feel a demon is behind everything?
Spiritual warfare is important, but it is not the primary focus. The primary focus should be worshiping God. One of the main ways we are protected from demons is by ignoring them. Should a negative thought arise, well, perhaps it was inserted into the imagination by a demon. So what? Move on past it, don't follow it.
This is a specialist topic, certainly interesting. But it seems that the metaphors of safe handling of electricity and hygiene in a commercial kitchen apply. Once these are in place and operate by habit, the mind should be occupied with veneration of the Father.
How accurate were the Screwtape Letters?
Fairly accurate. "Kinda shallow."
At this point I'll stop taking notes. Consult the video for more Q & A.