Fr. Carl Vogl - Begone Satan: A Soul Stirring Account of Diabolical Possession in Iowa

Begone
Satan!

A True Account of an
Exorcism in Earling,
Iowa in 1928

Father Carl Vogl

Originally published in English by Rev. Celestine Kapsner, O.S.B.

All rights reserved. Brief selections may be quoted or copied for non-profit use without permission, provided full credit is given, and brief selections may be quoted in a review. Otherwise, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

Cover design by Lauren A. Rupar.

Cover image: Fontaine Saint-Michel, Paris, France.

ISBN: 978-0-89555-098-9

TAN Books
Charlotte, North Carolina
www.TANBooks.com

2010

CONTENTS

F OREWORD

In regard to Begone Satan , some persons have asked the question: "Why publish a story of this kind in our age and civilization?" One could answer this by replying that our age and civilization needs to learn anew a lesson that was vainly laughed to scorn in past generations.

During His sojourn here on earth Christ cast out devils at various times. The powers of Christ were transmitted to the Apostles and their successors; and the Church's ordinary rite of ordination to the Priesthood includes the order of exorcist, in which Christ's power to cast out devils is transmitted. The Church, moreover, has a special rite for such exorcisms, and throughout the ages she has witnessed the effective use of it. Her long experience also explains her extreme caution, her extensive investigation of a case, before permitting any exorcism.

For a time it was fashionable to scoff at demoniacal possession as part and parcel of an outmoded superstition of bygone ages of ignorancelike the attitude of a lifetime ago in regard to the miracles of Lourdes. But facts are stubborn, also against the scoffing of so-called enlightened criticism. Stubborn facts cannot be denied even when they baffle all natural explanation. The absurd thing about such a position is that the critics "just know" that supernatural or preternatural phenomena simply "cannot be."

We have become much more sober in our day. And it is a healthy sign that the man of education no longer scoffs so readily at that which he cannot explain. So much has been gained for perennial common sense.

To a great extent the essential matters of Christian faith are beyond the field of natural knowledge. However, any viewpoint that is flatly contradicted by true natural knowledge cannot be a matter of Christian faith. In regard to sin and the kingdom of Satan, Christian faith teaches Christ's conquest of Satan and Satan's dominion by His death and Resurrection. Now this conquest is shared by individual souls in the Sacrament of Baptism, the rite of which contains several solemn exorcisms as well as renunciation of Satan and his pomps. In the light of this Christian faith, it is not at all surprising that Satan should be regaining something of his hold on men in our day. For we have in several past centuries witnessed the increased abandonment by men of the Church of Christ, and among non-Catholic denominations the increased abandonment of the Sacrament of Baptism. What is this but a great surrender to the powers of evil?

For a succinct statement of the Catholic position on possession by the devil, the reader is referred to the Catholic Encyclopedia article "Possession, Demoniacal."

Virgil Michel, O.S.B., Ph.D.

LETTER FROM A DOCTOR

Dr. John Dunden, Physician and Surgeon
1228 E. Brady St., Milwaukee, Wis.

Rev. Celestine Kapsner, O.S.B.

St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, Minn.

Dear Father Kapsner:

We wish to endorse your pamphlet "Vade Satana" as a potent aid to faith in the value of sacramentals, relics of the saints, and prayer. No more vivid picture has been presented to us of the losing battle against the "camp of Christ." Nothing has made our insistent floundering from the "camp of Christ" to the "camp of the devil" appear so absurd. The memory it has instilled of the hatred of Satan and the eternal misery of his permanent army, evokes a continuous inventory of one's life, savoring of the minuteness of the final judgment. That it will save many souls we have no doubt. That some will borrow fruitless fright is also possible, but for them one must say that if the picture is terrible the real thing must be worse. Agony is the lot of all at least once.

Satan has seemed too unreal. It would be a pity if this pamphlet were to be suppressed because some weak souls have been made to sense him more vividly than the author intends.

We were granted an interview with the exorcist, Father Theophilus, after reading your account of the diabolical possession. We treasure the experience as an intimate glimpse into the life of a pious priest very gifted in a specialty which should command the patronage of the medical profession, rather than to be allotted to the realm of superstition or necromancy. We anxiously await his complete report of the Earling case.

Yours very truly,

J. D. Dundon. M.D.

BEGONE SATAN!

A Sensational Expulsion of the Devil
Which occurred in Iowa in 1928.

Nineteen hundred years ago, Christ, the Son of God, came upon this earth. He gained the victory over Satan, the Prince of this World, and founded His own Kingdom, the Church. He vested His Church with the same powers that He had received from the Father. "As the Father sent Me, so I send you."

When preparing her candidates for the ministry, Holy Mother Church hands these powers over to them that they may continue the mission of Christ's Kingdom on earth. Preparatory to Holy Priesthood the candidate receives the so-called minor and major orders. Among the minor orders is one called the Order of Exorcist. When the Bishop confers this Order he pronounces the following significant words: You receive the power to place your hand upon those possessed and through the imposition of your hands, the grace of the Holy Ghost and the words of exorcism you shall drive evil spirits out of the bodies of those so possessed .

The Solemn and powerful meaning attached to this ceremony, not conferred in any of the other orders, can be gleaned from the words: Receive and impress upon your mind that you receive the right to place your hand upon those possessed .

Later on the Bishop invites the faithful to join him in asking that he who is to receive this Order may be an effective agent in expelling the evil spirit from those possessed . He continues to pray that the candidate may become an approved physician of the Church through the gift of healing conferred upon her by the Almighty Himself.

The Church bases her action on the example of Christ Himself, Who frequently drove out evil spirits and endowed His disciples with full authority to do likewise. The superficial faith of our age regards such an Order as superfluous. The reality of Hell, devils, and cases of possession have been denied as myths of the dark ages. Even if Christ and the Apostles repeatedly emphasized the powers of the evil spirit, these are looked upon as purely superstitious. That Satan has succeeded in making man so indifferent regarding his actions of misleading men is one of his greatest and most advantageous accomplishments. People rarely listen to anything of a supernatural nature.

Actual happenings of the supernatural order in our times are all the more striking therefore and cannot so readily be dismissed by a mere shrug of the shouldersfacts such as the numerous and indisputable miracles at Lourdes, the extraordinary visions, stigmata, abstention from food, and gift of languages of Theresa Neumann, the life of the Cure of Ars who was recently proclaimed a saint of the Church, to whom for 35 years the sight of Hell was constantly and really an ordinary experience. No less worthy of note are the facts in the cases of possession occurring in our times: the case of a possessed boy in Wemding, Suabia, Bavaria, 1891; the case in St. Michael's Mission in Africa in 1906 of two girls possessed; the noted case of the Chinese woman Lautien in Honan, China, in 1926 and 1929, which was under the direction of Father Peter Heier, S.V.D., of Hague, N. D., now a Missioner in China, and several cases in Rockford, Ill., since 1940.