What does evil look like to a man who must confront it time and time again?
Author’s Note : I’d like to preface this by saying that, when it comes to writing about anything relating to religion, there are nuances that can’t be captured in a single article. Since I’m talking to a Catholic priest/exorcist, and I myself am Roman Catholic, this feature will explore the concept of exorcism—and all its related phenomenon—from the perspective of this faith. Even within the Catholic Church’s long history, the ministry of exorcism once waned (which we’ll get into later). Ultimately, only you can decide what to believe in and agree with. I’m simply hoping this will get people thinking about things they’ve never considered before.
Content Warning: The following article may contain imagery of bodily harm and demonic activity, as well as mention of human sacrifice, that may disturb; reader discretion is advised.
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It’s a cool, overcast afternoon when Father Jose Francisco Syquia, known simply as Father Jocis, approaches me. I’m sitting outside the old grey building he asked to meet me in, tucked within the quiet confines of San Carlos Seminary in Makati. I’m 30 minutes earlier than our scheduled appointment, but so is he, standing ramrod straight as he guides me towards winding stone staircases. He casually remarks about the traffic, before mentioning how busy he’s been with “cases” recently. I know he isn’t referring to the more mundane things priests do, like presiding over masses or baptisms—because Father Jocis is an exorcist.
We continue to descend the steps, crossing through a dimly-lit hallway before taking another flight of stairs and finally reaching the basement where his office is located. Whether it was randomly situated or purposefully chosen, the location feels apt: secure, distant, and unconventional. We step inside a bright room, two assistants jovially greeting us from their desks.
Father Jocis opens another door, revealing a smaller, private workspace with chairs and a couch. He settles a few matters with the pair of women, and I take a seat, soaking in the room’s details. The walls are painted a mild yellow and a large desk takes up the center of the room, a wide bookshelf standing behind it. At first glance, it contains what you’d expect from a priest’s office library: rows of books about Catholicism and a small section filled with images of saints and angels. But a closer look reveals other, more unorthodox titles wedged in between, namely guidebooks on ghosts, demons, witchcraft, and all manner of the occult.
“I have to know the other side,” he explains when I ask about his choice of reading material. “These books are all for information. When people come to me talking about certain things, I have to know what they’re talking about.” Or as the old saying goes, know your enemy—according to the exorcist, the biggest trick the devil plays is making you think he doesn’t exist.
I start my voice recorder, and Father Jocis starts a prayer. His words are uttered in quick succession. It’s difficult to decipher them even in the recording, though I catch a few phrases like “Lord we thank you for bringing us together,” “protect us and drive from this place, and from us, anything that may harass us in any way,” and “May we help save souls.” He ends the invocation and we begin.
The Different Forms Of Demonic Influence
Father Jocis defines exorcism as “the act of using the power of Christ to expel diabolical spirits that have attached to people because of their sins.” We’ve seen instances of demonic possession countless times in pop culture, but there’s more to it than that; these forces that can influence people with varying degrees of severity.
First, there’s demonic oppression, which makes up around 50% (majority) of the cases Father Jocis receives. Here, a demon attacks people from outside the body. “It can cause sicknesses that cannot be diagnosed by doctors or healed by medicine. It can take the form of financial difficulties caused by curses; nightmares or night terrors; and emotional and psychological problems caused by fallen angels. Though it mostly focuses on the five senses, attacking the physical body itself.”
Then there’s demonic obsession, which makes up roughly 30% of the cases the exorcist deals with. “Here the demons attack the mind and emotions. So it’s more of the internal faculties, not the five senses or external body,” he describes. “The demons act on emotions. People under demonic obsession may have obsessive thoughts or voices telling them to hurt themselves or others. They tend to see a lot of apparitions that are diabolical, from my experience in the ministry.”
There’s also what Father Jocis refers to as “infestation,” wherein demons infest objects (ex. amulets like anting-anting or agimat) and places.
Of course, what we’re most familiar with is demonic possession: the most severe form of influence among those mentioned above. Instances of possession take up a slightly smaller portion of Father Jocis’s cases (his estimate is 20%) but they’re by no means uncommon occurrences.
“In possession, a demon takes full control over the body and replaces the consciousness of a person,” the exorcist states. “Therefore, the person is put into a deep trance, a deeper sleep—their consciousness is not cooperative because the demon takes over.” Meanwhile, a person possessed by an evil spirit is formally called a “demoniac” or “energumen” by exorcists.
Individuals are typically more vulnerable to demonic possession when they “leave God’s protection,” in Father Jocis’s words. “There’s a power out there in the spirit world that’s stronger than man. If you choose to leave God and have no relationship with Him, then He respects that; because love doesn’t force. But something else can come and take over. It’s like COVID: if you don’t have the proper protection, it’s just there. It comes into the person’s vicinity, the environment becomes toxic, and you get sick.”
From the exorcist’s experience, occult practices can also be gateways to demonic influence, leaving practitioners open to forces they don’t fully understand. A prime example of this, made mainstream through film and television, is the Ouija board.
“People think that you can commune with souls; but God doesn’t allow that. If a person dies, they are either in heaven, hell, or purgatory. We cannot conjure them in front of us and communicate with them directly,” he expounds. So who exactly responds to these calls, or who waits on the other end of the line? We can fill in the blanks.
The Faces Of Evil
Recall a time you sprayed insecticide in your home: how the fumes pushed roaches out of dark crevices, their bodies moving rapidly in a desperate attempt to flee, writhing until they either died from the exposure or provided an opening for you to kill them yourself. To Father Jocis, demons work in much the same way.
“You have a house with a lot of cockroaches. Now you don’t think that they’re there, or that they’re that many, until you spray [the insecticide], and boom, they all come out,” he explains. “Usually you don’t see these things because the demon, as I mentioned, hides. To see it, you have to draw them out. The only way to draw them out is using the most powerful weapon of the church against demons, which is an exorcism.”
This is why we don’t often witness possessions out in the open. Manifestations typically happen as a last resort—the final attempt to continue seizing hold of a body.
“You’re dealing with an intelligent being; if he wants your soul, he will be very cunning. He will not manifest himself, because if you suddenly see that you’re sick, you would go to the doctor, right? He only manifests in the possessed state when he sees that he’s threatened, or senses that the person he’s possessing wants to re-animate their relationship with God. That’s when he starts to attack. Besides that, he’s always hidden, because that’s the best way he can conquer.”
So what does demonic possession look like during an exorcism? It’s, surprisingly, quite close to what the movies show us.
“You will see levitations. You will see them [the possessed] vomiting small objects. They will have greater natural strength. I’ve seen children throw grown men around the room,” Father Jocis describes. “They possess knowledge they should not have—we call it ‘preternatural knowledge’ — and they use this information to threaten. They can tell your sins in front of other people, they know your background, everything about you.”
Father Jocis has witnessed demons manipulating the human body, contorting it in unbelievable ways; enough to warrant dislocated joints or broken bones, under normal circumstances. In other cases, the possessed can develop wounds that will start to bleed; or things like insects and even horns would come out of their skin, their ears, and other parts of the body. Strangely enough, everything disappears once an exorcism is completed. This may raise eyebrows, but the argument here is that manifestations disappear with the source.
“Once it ends, the devil is not there anymore. The person is back to their normal self, and the demon has no power to do anything to their body anymore,” the exorcist shares. “It all gets healed immediately. The Lord is still in control. The devil can really perform these seemingly sensational signs to make people afraid of him, but the Lord doesn’t allow permanent damage.”
The same kind of protection applies to those performing the exorcism. To put it simply, Father Jocis hasn’t just seen some crazy things: he’s experienced them, too.
“We [him and his assistants] ourselves were harassed violently, physically. We were punched, kicked, scratched, thrown to the floor. Just sometime ago, a lady who was deep into witchcraft kicked me in the groin, and pulled out a chunk of my hair,” he says, my incredulous expression eliciting a huff of laughter from him, despite the grim memory. “She was deep into witchcraft because she was abused and often bullied, so she wanted to take revenge. My other company got kicked in the face twice, some volunteers punched in the eye, and thrown to the floor three times. But we had no injuries after the exorcism, no pains; that was it. That’s how God protects His own.”
This protection from God, what the exorcist refers to as a “state of grace,” is the reason why he can continue doing what he does. That doesn’t mean he’s never felt fear or uncertainty on the job.
“You’re dealing with the unknown. Can the devil kill me? Can the devil possess me? I had very little knowledge of the ministry then [when he was just starting out],” he shares. “But little by little, as time goes on, you start to see the devil as Christ sees him; and Christ was never afraid of the devil. The more you know something, the less you fear it. It’s actually the unknown that you fear, because you don’t know what it can do to you. But once you have knowledge of who the devil is in the eyes of God, you realize he’s actually so afraid of us. He’s just a big bully.”
As for Satan, while other demons tout themselves as the real deal, Father Jocis says he’s never encountered the big bad himself. “Satan is bound in hell until the end of time, before the final coming of Christ. When a possessed person says ‘I’m Satan,’ it’s one of his underlings,” he shares. “Demons have their own specializations. For example, the demon Asmodeus: those under him specialize in violent lust—we call them incubus.” [The plural being “incubi.”]
And what about ghosts? I ask the exorcist, eyeing the spectral-related words that adorn the spines of his books. If spirits can’t leave heaven, purgatory, and hell, or commune with us, then what about hauntings?
“Demons can appear as ghosts, but there are no real ghosts,” he answers. “There are poor souls in purgatory, and they can ask for prayers or to console those they left behind—but they usually only appear in dreams. Now, if there’s an entity harassing or causing fear and problems in a locality, that’s always a demon or diabolical spirit. That’s why when a priest goes there, not simply to bless, but to exorcise the place, everything stops.”
“We first check for any natural causes. If it’s not natural, that means it’s not from God, those are not angels; you’re dealing with the preternatural, that’s the diabolical world,” he adds. “Because angels don’t normally appear: they’re rare, and they don’t make you afraid.”
Conducting An Exorcism
Besides being shielded by a state of grace, Father Jocis also carries an essential toolkit. “Exorcists use The Roman Ritual of Exorcism, a book for cases of full possession. But when we’re dealing with oppression and obsession, we use minor exorcisms or prayers of spiritual liberation. These are lesser forms of prayers to expel the demon, and any priest can use that,” he elaborates. “Deliverance prayers can be used by lay people on themselves and their families.”
Then there are the sacramentals, such as holy water, exorcised salt, exorcised holy oils, and Saint Benedict’s medal [which is often used in the ministry due to its great power over evil].
Prior to the actual exorcism, Father Jocis must conduct a series of interviews and prayers to help him discern the state of each case. “We don’t really know the life of this person, or why they got possessed. That’s why we try to interview the people around them,” he states. As a pre-requisite, there should also be a willingness, on the part of the possessed, to turn a new leaf.
“A person has to do something to change certain areas in their life, in order to make sure that the possession ends,” he explains. “Because if the person doesn’t change his life, the demons will simply return after a few days. Just like with the Sacrament of Confession: even though I give absolution, if you’re not really sorry, the absolution has no effect on your soul.”
In more than a few cases, even those outside the Catholic faith were brought to Father Jocis for an exorcism. “They come to us because they don’t have that ministry to expel,” he shares. “Some of them even become Catholic after that, because they see that our God is really a powerful God.”
The exorcism itself must always be conducted in a sacred place, like a chapel. Father Jocis also needs to ensure there are no bystanders around, both for confidentiality and safety. “When somebody gets possessed, and there’s a lot of people around me, I separate the person—because there could be spirits attached to bystanders that can reinforce the demons of the person getting possessed,” he explains.
The exorcist tries as much as possible to prevent people from recording and sharing manifestations of demonic possession, though in the digital age, this has become increasingly hard. “Usually the possessed get ostracized, and people start to treat them like a leper, from my experience. Some kids who were possessed in schools couldn’t return later on, because their peers were making fun of them,” he recounts.
Latin is the chosen language of the Catholic Church, and therefore the one that Father Jocis uses during his exorcisms. “The demons hate it because they’ve been hearing that since time immemorial,” he says. But the use of Latin—a dead language with no native speakers—also serves as a compelling litmus test.
“If the person understands what I’m saying when I do the commands in Latin, and does what I’m commanding them to do, then I know they’re possessed—because how do they know the language?” the exorcist expounds.
There’s also the thin line between possession and mental illness, a longstanding debate that pits religion against science. Yet this relationship isn’t a dichotomous one, according to Father Jocis, who’s a psychologist himself and works alongside psychiatrists, counselors, and other clinical psychologists to diagnose.
“Demons cannot simply work in a vacuum,” he says. “The devil has to find a vulnerability in the person. The spiritual vulnerability is the most important one, because he has the right to enter the person’s life, since they’re not spiritually protected. But he can also cause damage through any emotional and psychological vulnerability. We use psychologists and psychiatrists to deal with the underlying problem, that vulnerable area where the demons latched onto.”
Like In The Movies
Now we arrive at the entry point: horror films. The pieces that not only define pop culture, but also introduce most of the public to this dark world. I asked Father Jocis how much 1973’s The Exorcist, director William Friedkin’s seminal work, got right. He ticks off almost everything: the protagonist Regan MacNeil (played by Linda Blair) getting possessed by a demon through the Ouija board; the scars and scabs that appear on her face and body later on; the unnerving demonic voice that emanates from her; the strange, bodily contortions—he’s seen it all.
“But I haven’t really seen someone vomiting green goo,” he says with a chuckle. People coughing out small, sharp objects, or an unpleasant and smelly ball of spit, yes—but not the Hollywood gunk. There’s also the film’s chilling end, where (spoilers ahead) the titular exorcist Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller)—unable to stop the powerful demon—offers to be possessed instead, and defenestrates himself as an act of sacrifice, expelling the entity in the process.
“No exorcist has ever died in the ministry, not even through a heart attack,” Father Jocis debunks. “And no exorcist allows the demon to enter into him in order to free the possessed. That doesn’t happen—we don’t allow ourselves to be channels or vessels for a demon.”
Save for those two misrepresentations, The Exorcist holds up—the usual sensationalism aside, there’s a reason why it remains one of the scariest films of all time.
I ask Father Jocis for his own film recommendations, namely movies that show fairly accurate representations of demonic possession, and the film Nefarious (2023) comes to mind. While the movie received mixed reviews from critics, the exorcist comments on the way actor Sean Patrick Flanery portrayed his character: a possessed, convicted serial killer by the name Edward Wayne Brady. Psychiatrist Dr. James Martin (Jordan Belfi) is a staunch skeptic, until he’s faced with Brady’s strange, unexplainable behavior and the chilling paranormal occurrences that follow it.
“It seems they really consulted an exorcist for the movie,” Father Jocis says. “His [Brady’s] movements and the way he talks, the way he looks; he really captured a possessed person.”
2005’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose, while a large-scale production by Sony Pictures, also presents a believable portrayal of demonic possession. After all, the film is loosely based on the real-life possession case of a young German girl, Anneliese Michel, in the 1950s. Voice recordings of her possession were captured in 1975, and are available on YouTube; though fair warning, they’re not for the faint of heart (or something you should be listening to in the dead of night).
“In the film, it’s very clear that the problem is diabolical,” Father Jocis adds. “But they try to balance it, putting in the psychology to make people question what they see. But as an exorcist, you don’t simply diagnose: you discern. That means we go beyond science, because the devil has perfect knowledge of science. He will give you all the signs that it is psychological, so you have to force him to manifest; you cannot simply wait for him to give you the science.”
Becoming An Exorcist
Father Jocis never planned to become a full-time exorcist for the Catholic Church, and I can imagine it’s not a profession anyone would aspire to take on. “I would’ve stopped, if cases stopped coming,” he tells me. “But the Lord started to send me more and more cases, and each was becoming more and more complicated. So I had no choice but to learn about the ministry.”
His superior asked if he could oversee a minor exorcism, the first he ever encountered. It was timely, since he just finished listening to a tape by Father Gabriele Amorth—an Italian priest who served as exorcist for the Diocese of Rome, and one of the founders of the International Association of Exorcists.
“‘Can you be the one to deal with this ministry? We need a consultant in regards to demonology, about demons, about this type of possession,’” Father Jocis shares, re-iterating what his superior told him. “I said ‘Sure, no problem.’ Because he said possession cases are very, very rare. So I believed him then.”
The exorcist gives an amused smile when he recounts this, continuing: “But of course, during that time, there was no training for this ministry in the seminary. So I agreed, and later on, I saw that it’s actually not rare. It’s more common than people think.”
Knowing he’d need to equip himself with more knowledge, Father Jocis sought the permission of Bishops Socrates Villegas and Teodoro Javier Buhain Jr. to take on further studies. “So that was around 2001. There were still no exorcists in the Philippines then. I couldn’t train with anyone here,” Father Jocis elaborates. “I had to go to Rome, learn through research and readings. Even in the United States, there were maybe only five exorcists there. It was very, very hard to find someone to train you.”
Explaining The Unexplainable
Here’s something surprising: while the ministry of exorcism has been around for centuries (a practice done by Jesus Christ himself), it experienced a waning period. This was brought about by the Age of Enlightenment, and its emphasis on scientific, rational thought—which, apparently, also affected the views of the Catholic Church for years.
“With the birth of the sciences, the spiritual world was put in one corner. The diabolical world was seen to be something that was medieval,” Father Jocis explains. “The Church focused less on the spiritual dimension. We no longer needed to look at that dimension precisely because science can give us the tools to understand this phenomena. There was even talk that the devil doesn’t really exist. When science became God, basically, it became the thing that would resolve and understand everything—so the ministry suffered.”
But as those who believe will tell you, there are things not of this world that simply can’t be explained with statistics, tests, charts, and natural phenomena. “Science has no way to touch that world. It can study its manifestations, but it can only make assumptions,” the exorcist adds. “If you want to talk about the spiritual world, you have to use divine revelation, because it’s God who has perfect knowledge of, not only the physical world, but also the spiritual world.”
Exorcism has been making a return, growing steadily by the year—whether that’s good or bad depends on how you view things. Bad, perhaps, because it means there’s increasing, widespread evil that can no longer be ignored or written off as solvable through science; good because there are people who are committed to expelling it.
“There are now many training courses in Rome, the U.S., and here in the Philippines. The important thing is you have the delegation of the bishop—it gives you the faculty,” Father Jocis elaborates. “Therefore, when you command a demon to leave, you’re using the fullness of the priesthood found in the bishop, you’re actually his mouthpiece. That’s why all bishops are exorcists. Pope Francis now requires all bishops to appoint exorcists because of the many cases that are rising.”
The Philippines has actually become the home of Asia’s first exorcism center, the soon-to-rise Saint Michael Center for Spiritual Liberation and Exorcism, located in Makati’s Guadalupe Viejo. Father Jocis helms the project as director of the Archdiocese of Manila Office on Exorcism, grateful to have a spot where he can properly conduct exorcisms and train exorcists without prying eyes or terrified bystanders. For years, he would conduct exorcisms within the chapel of San Carlos Seminary—which, as you can imagine, wasn’t very ideal when he was surrounded by young seminary students, or people conducting retreats and recollections.
“One time, when the possessed shouted, everybody was running out of the building,” he says. “So we wanted a place that was really isolated and solemn, somewhere we could keep confidentiality.”
The Path Forward
I ask Father Jocis about the most important thing he’s learned, after dealing with all manner of the demonic. “The Lord is very merciful,” he states, then in a quieter voice, adds, “A person can make a pact with Satan and do the most grievous sins. Some of these people have even offered human sacrifices to gain power—they’ve killed babies. They’ve become Satan’s instruments. But they can ask for forgiveness from the Lord and expel their demons, as long as they choose to return to Him.”
Despite being privy to the darkest sides of humanity, and getting up close and personal with frightening forces, everything leads back to God—that’s how he continues to do his work. “You shouldn’t look at the exorcist, you should look at Christ. It’s really God’s mercy that expels whatever obstacles man has placed in his path to God. The Devil is simply an obstacle.”
I thank Father Jocis for his time and snap a photo of him seated on his desk. The entire encounter feels, paradoxically, strange and ordinary. He could very well be that uncle at a family reunion; aside from his clerical collar, nothing about him indicates that he deals with forces beyond our comprehension.
The exorcist accompanies me outside of his office, a mug of coffee in hand. “Be careful not to get lost on the way up, there are lots of dark nooks and crannies,” he jokes. We both laugh at the jarring jest, which cuts through the tension trailing our sobering discussion. I climb up winding stairs once more, passing a crowd of young students who cheerfully greet me in a dimly lit hallway, before stepping towards the blinding afternoon light, back to the world I know.
