A few years ago, I read this story from a Protestant concerning his experiences with the devil. He wrote this story on a question and answer forum run by a Catholic brother whose main expertise lay in giving advise concerning spiritual combat with Satan. Very interesting story since it talks about one of the negative influences of rock music and also the power of praying to St. Michael and Our Lady!
----------------------------

QUESTION by Mr. Bartlett

Only a matter of weeks ago, I had a most remarkable encounter with the forces of darkness. I am currently a Calvinist (although I still have not been able to make up my mind entirely on the faith closest to the truth and have obliged myself to maintain an open mind and heart on the issue) and have performed extensive reading on matters of spiritual and especially Christian import. A few weeks ago, I had encountered some information that when one plays "Hotel California" by the Eagles backwards, Satanic messages stream from the speakers. Having the computer equipment capable of performing this, a friend and I attempted to see if this assertion was a hoax or real. Lo and behold, and to this day I cannot fathom its truth, and even though when played forwards the letters would NEVER sound out the statement heard, a demonic squaggily voice proclaimed, "Yea Satan had us form our own religion". To this day, the sound of it rattles my nerves, and it completely had my acquaintance by surprise.
 
That very same day, I was eating lunch in a food court area and I had an encounter with a mentally sick woman. Wondering whether demons were involved (she was speaking to thin air and lecturing absolutely nothing), I decided to pray to God and used a decidedly Catholic prayer (appealing to St. Michael). All of the praying was done in my head unbeknowest to her. Immediately she looked me directly in the eye (I was not looking directly at her before this) and said, "If you do that one more time I will kill you!" This woman was seated about three tables away and didn't attract any attention because she had been saying many things to thin air for a long while. I prayed another prayer and decided to test the intercession of the Virgin Mary and asked her to pray for angels to take out the demon. Upon doing this, IMMEDIATELY upon doing this, the woman looked up and started laughing and saying, "Oh no...NO AHAHA NO!" Then she DIRECTLY looked at me and said to me "Alright that's it I'm going to cut your *#* off." She was motioning in her pocket with what looked like a knife or sharp object pointed at me. At that point I promptly left. Clearly this must be a demon.

I would appreciate the moderator's reflections on this incident as well as what he feels took place.


ANSWER by John-Paul Ignatius

Well, my reaction to your experience is, assuming everything is what it appears to be as you describe it, that it confirms Catholic thought. Demons are real. St. Michael is real and is a warrior against them, and our Blessed Mother, the Queen of Heaven, the woman of Revelation 12, indeed gives fear to the demons since it is through her they will be defeated. Notice the extreme reaction at the invocation of Mary that was stronger than at the invocation of St. Michael.

Your story also confirms the veracity of the Communion of Saints. If we could not offer such prayers, if such prayers had no "affect" (i.e. influence), as Protestants claim, then they would have had no affect (i.e. influence) on this poor demonized woman. She would not have reacted as she did (although seeing a "visible" response from her is not required in order for those prayers to have had an "effect" (i.e. a reaction in her); but there certainly could not have been a response from her unless the prayers did have an affect and effect).

As for the "backmasking" of the record album, such things are done on purpose by recording artists and/or the record producers. It is also possible for the backmasking to happen, I believe, through more direct intervention of the devil- such as inspiring the "artists" to write lyrics that when played backwards would give a message. I also believe it is possible for the devil to backmask directly without the knowledge of the producers and artists or having anything to do with particular words in lyrics that would necessarily be a word when played backwards. This is an electronic process, impression, when the record is made, and thus does not require mechanical manipulation. As a spiritual being, the devil can easily manipulate, I believe, the physics of electricity.

Since Satan is the god of music as it were, that is, he was the choir director in heaven (Ezk. 28:11-15) and is intimately knowledgable of music, and since music is a language for the soul, it stands to reason that one of the greatest attacks we will receive from Satan is through music.

Concerning the Blessed Virgin's power of Satan and the other demons, this is what Monsignor Leon Cristiani wrote in his book Evidence of Satan in the Modern World :

"The Devil fears the Virgin Mary more, not only than men and angels but, in a certain sense, than God himself. It is not that the wrath, the power and the hatred of God are not infinitely greater than those of the Blessed Virgin, since Mary's perfections are limited: it is because, in the first place, Satan, being proud, suffers infinitely more from being overcome and punished by the little, humble servant of God, her humility humiliating him more than the divine power; and secondly, because God has given Mary such great power over devils that, as they have often been obliged to admit, in spite of themselves, through the mouths of possessed persons, they are more afraid of one of her sighs of grief over some poor soul, than of the prayers of the saints, and more daunted by a single threat from her than by all their other torments"

With Lent coming up, I should point out something that many saints have pointed out --

During Lent, the devils work overtime, as it were.

So we must all be prepared -- especially quick recourse to prayer.

In Christ,

Matthew