A Catholic priest famous for exorcising demons has revealed a chilling encounter which he says was proof the devil is real and had targeted him as a young man.
Father Carlos Martins, a Catholic priest born in Canada, has performed exorcisms around the world and now describes signs of the devil’s work, including incidents of psychological manipulation more terrifying than physical proof of demons.
On his podcast, The Exorcist Files, Martins said: ‘Even the stuff that he did to his victims didn’t faze me as horrific as it was. What was much more fearsome than the physical phenomena that you see in the room, what you see, what you hear, what you feel in the room, is the mind of the devil, the evil he’s capable of, the mind games he will play.’
Martins recounted his own eerie experiences with demonic spirits, which he said began before he ever joined the priesthood, during a time in his life when he was an atheist.
The exorcist did not say when or where he first encountered the demon, but claimed he was repeatedly harassed by it and that the entity called itself ‘Confusion.’
‘Normally, a demon hides its name, and if you wear them down enough and he concedes to give you a name, 99 times out of 100 it’s not his real name. He gives you something fake,’ Martins said.
However, the priest noted that this same demon continued to appear throughout his life, including while he watched his first exorcism as a seminarian.
That was where Father Martins realized this demon was the same one which had been harassing him for years, noting that the chilling conversation with Confusion made it clear that the devil actively watches you your entire life, seeking out weaknesses to exploit.
Father Carlos Martins (Pictured) said that he was an atheist as a young man before converting to Christianity.
Martins said he learned before being fully ordained as a priest that demons commonly refer to past events because ‘the devil has spent your whole life perceiving you, watching you, taking notes.’
‘Devils will refer to different parts of my life, and to events that only I would know, events that had no witnesses there, just as a way to tell me, “I know you, and we’ve been watching you,”‘ he continued.
Martins said that the devil watches people because he needs to know what makes them tick.
‘It’s so he knows how to present a really tantalizing temptation to you. So if it’s redheads, you like, he’s got the perfect redhead. If it’s money, if it’s power, if it’s an opportunity, he will offer those.’
The priest said exorcisms have taught him that the devil and demonic spirits concoct a plan that maximizes the temptation for those they try to seduce.
As Martins watched his first exorcism – the religious ceremony where trained priests try to force an evil spirit or demon out of a person, object or place believed to be possessed or haunted – the demon which had been following him returned and said: ‘You were supposed to be one of us.’
The exorcist explained that this encounter with Confusion gave him an eerie sense that the demon somehow knew him.
‘He would stop all of a sudden and just say, “I’m beginning to dislike you less and less.” It throws you off. He hopes that his very identity, the identity expressed in his name, he’s able to cause confusion.’
The ordained priest said his experience with demonic possession taught him that the devil seeks out weaknesses in people in order to tempt them (Stock Image)
Martins added that there was ‘a strange familiarity’ surrounding their encounters and noted how demons often know specific details about people’s lives that others would normally miss.
‘In that moment, there was just an awareness. I remember looking up and stepping aside. Everything made sense. I myself was harassed by this demon during my atheism.’
Martins had been an atheist as a young man, but converted to Christianity in the mid 1990s and eventually heard the call to the priesthood years later. He was ordained as a priest in 2009.
After finding religion, the priest said it became clear to him that ‘the truth of reality was contained within the Christian understanding of the cosmos.’
‘It just became obvious that the devil is real, and when I encountered the devil for the first time, none of that was a surprise.’
Martins said that in his earliest exorcisms, he would see chairs and even people levitating and believed it was another attempt by the devil to intimidate humanity and, in particular, young and inexperienced priests.
‘Why would you see levitation earlier in your career as an exorcist than later? Well, because the devil is doing that to try to intimidate you, to try to get you to walk away, and to think, “This is just just too crazy. This is too weird. It’s too scary.”‘
According to the exorcist, the devil targets young priests because its ‘energy level is not infinite,’ especially while possessing a human body.
However, the priest said that through the sheer volume of experience he has had conducting exorcisms, he has built up an immunity to the fear the devil tries to inflict on people who have never seen supernatural abilities before.
‘If you walk into a room and you know, for the first time, and there’s a chair levitating, it’s going to make the hair on the back of your head stand up,’ Martins said.
‘What about the 18th time you see that? What about the 89th time you see it? You’re going to care less and less and less each time? If I have somebody new in the room during an exorcism, then I can expect to see stuff like that, because now he’s got a fresh audience now.’
