What is a demon?

Vivificat - From Contemplation to Action ^ | 11 January 2012 | TDJ

[Teófilo]

Author: Fr. José Antonio Fortea | Source: Summa Daemoniaca: Tratado de Demonología y Manual de Exorcistas (Spanish Edition)

Brethren, Peace and Good to all of you in Jesus’ Name.

For awhile now I’ve been meaning to share with you a translation of Question #1 of Fr. José Antonio Fortea’s work, Summa Demoniaca. Fr. Fortea’s work is a huge undertaking, a treatise on demonology and exorcism. In it he goes much more in depth into this issue that many other writers I know. I want to share this question with you because I wish to use it as a “jumping board” to other issues I want to discuss with you, such as the nature of evil, war, homicide, sexual abuse, and the like. Yep, I know, “heavy issues” that I can only speak about only if I build first an authoritative foundation and Fr. Fortea’s work - and as you will see later, one by Venerable Fr. John Hardon, S.J. - will provide such a foundation. Let us pray that the Holy Spirit assist us in this endeavor and strengthens us in order to provide answers to a world thirsty for the Truth. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

[Translation note: Fr. Fortea recurs frequently to ellipses, expressions in which the subject of the sentence is not explicitly stated, but it is known and implied in the sentence. This works well in Spanish but in English it adds ambiguity and fog that may lead the reader to misunderstand. I’ve added those subjects in brackets to aid the translation. I’ve also added some questions for meditation and reflection at the end].

What is a Demon?

A demon is a being of a spiritual nature condemned for eternity. He doesn’t have a body, nor does he possess matter of any subtle kind in his being, nor anything like matter at all. His existence is singularly spiritual. Spíritus in Latin means breath. Since they lack a body, demons do not feel the slightest inclination toward any sin committed with a body. Therefore, gluttony and lust are impossible in them. They can tempt men to sin in those matters but demons only understand those sins in a merely intellectual way, since they lack bodily senses. The sins of demons are, therefore, exclusively spiritual.

Demons were not created evil. They were offered a test at the time of their creation, the test they had to undergo prior to acquiring the vision of the Divine Essence. Before this test, they saw God but they didn’t see His Essence. Even the very verb “to see” is an approximation, for the angels’ vision is an intellectual vision.

Since many will find difficult to understand how angels could see or know God without seeing or knowing His Essence, [it could be said in the way of] a comparison that they saw God as a kind of light and heard Him as majestic, holy voice but his Countenance remained hidden from them. All things considered, although they could not penetrate His Essence, they knew that He was Holy, the Holy among Holies.

Before acquiring the beatific vision of His Divine Essence, God tested them. While undergoing the test, some obeyed and some disobeyed. Those whose disobedience became irreversible became demons. They themselves became what they are. No one made them that way.

There were phases in the angelic psychology before they turned into demons. These phases didn’t take place in our material time, but in the aeon. (What’s this aeon will be explained later in this work).

Since they took place in the aeon, these phases would seem to us human beings as having occurred almost instantaneously. However, what to us would seem so brief, to them it was a long time indeed. The transformation phases from angel to demon were as follows: First, they doubted; a doubt that disobeying the Divine Law was better than not. At the moment in which they voluntarily accepted the possibility that disobeying God was an option to consider, they sinned. In the beginning, accepting this doubt constituted a venial sin which little after little evolved toward grave sin. Yet in the beginning, none of them during this first phase were willing to move away from God, not even the devil. That happened later, when what they had chosen with their will began to settle into their intellects, despite the judgment of their own, very same intellects reminding them that such disobedience went against reason. But their wills kept moving away from God and as a consequence, their intellects began accepting as true the evil thing their wills had chosen. Their intellects continued to consolidate their error. The will to disobey continued to consolidate, becoming deeper in its determination; their intellects continued to seek more and more reasons to increasingly justify their stance. This process led them in the end into mortal sin which took place at a concrete moment, [in time, in the aeon] through an act of their will. In other words, each angel reached a moment in which he not only wanted to disobey, but also chose to have an existence outside the Divine Law. It was no longer that their love for God had grown cold, that theirs was not a minor disobedience to something predetermined that was hard for them to grasp, but that in their wills appeared the idea of a destiny apart from the Trinity, an autonomous destiny.

Those who persevered in this thought and decision commenced a process of justification of their decision. They began a process in which they tried to convince themselves that God wasn’t God; that God was but just another spirit. He might have been their Creator, but thought that He had flaws, errors. They started to caress the possibility already present in their intellects: the possibility of an existence apart from God and from his norms. This existence apart from God appeared to them as a freer existence. God’s norms, the obedience owed to Him and to His will, appeared progressively to them as something oppressing, too heavy [a burden]. They began seeing God as a tyrant to be faced-down in a quest to free themselves from Him. In this new phase of estrangement it’s not that they simply sought a destiny apart from God, but that God himself appeared to them as an obstacle in the path to that freedom. They thought that the beauty and felicity of the angelic world could have been greater and freer without an oppressor. Why is there a Spirit above all other spirits? Why is it that His will must be imposed over all others’? We are not children, we are not slaves, they must have thought. God was no longer an element that has been left behind, but was someone who had begun to turn into something evil to them. Thus, they began to hate Him. God’s calls to these angels to return to him were seen in turn as unacceptable intrusions. In this phase, their hatred toward God grew in some more than others.

It may be surprising than an angel may come to hate God. It needs to be understood that to them, God was no longer the Good, but the Obstacle, the Oppressor, the Chain of the Commandments. This hatred was born from the energies of the angelic wills who resisted the calls from God who sought after them as a father. To tell it in terms intelligible to us, their hatred was born as a logical reaction of a will who must cling to its decision of abandoning the father’s house. It’s like saying that someone who wishes to leave his father’s house, does so in the beginning simply because he wants to leave, but then the father calls after him repeatedly and the child ends up saying leave me alone. God called after them because He knew that the longer their wills were estranged from Him, the more they would cling to their estrangement.

Of course, many of the angels who had become estranged at first returned. This is the great struggle in the heavens spoken of in Revelation 12: 7-9:

Then war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The huge dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it.

How is it that angels can fight among themselves? Since they lack a material body, what kind of weapons can be used? An angel is a spirit, therefore the only combat they can engage in is of an intellectual kind. Their war was an intellectual war. The only weapons they could wield were intellectual arguments. God sent grace to each angel to return him to fidelity, or to keep him in it. The [good] angels gave arguments to the rebel ones to compel them to return to obedience. The rebel angels retorted with their reasons to justify their posture and to introduce rebellion among the faithful ones. In this angelic conversation involving thousands of millions of angels there were casualties on each side: there were rebel angels that returned to obedience and there were faithful angels that were convinced or seduced by the evil reasoning [expounded by the rebels].

Their transformation into demons was progressive. With the passage of time - since the aeon is a kind of time - some hated God more, some less. Some became more prideful, others not as much. Each rebel angel began deforming more and more, each one in a set of specific sins. In the same way, but in reverse, the faithful angels became progressively holier. Some angels became holier in one virtue and others holier in another. Each angel focused on one or another aspect of the Divinity. Each angel loved with a measure of love. That’s why within the ranks of the faithful angels there started to be many distinctions, according to the virtues that each angel practiced the most.

Each angel had its own nature given by God, but each angel sanctified himself in a measure proper to the grace God granted to him in a manner corresponding to the angel’s will. Again, this is true for the demons too, but in reverse. Each demon received his nature from God, but each one deformed himself according to his own estranged ways.

That’s why the battle stopped when each one ended up pigeon-holed in his own posture irreversibly. The moment came when only accidental changes registered in each spiritual being. For the demons, the moment came in which each one kept himself firm in his imprudence, jealousy, hatred, envy, pride, egolatry, etc.

The war came to an end. They could have continued arguing, talking, disputing, exhorting each other for thousands of years in human terms, but only accidental changes would have taken place. It was at that moment when the angels were admitted to the Divine Presence while demons were allowed to their estrangement, to their state of moral prostration that each one had elected for himself.

As one can see, it’s not that demons are sent to an enclosed place of fire and torture, instead, they are left as they are, abandoned to their freedom, to their will. They are not taken anywhere since there is no place to take them. [Since they lack material bodies] they occupy no space, therefore there is no place to which to take them. There are neither tools of torture, nor flames that could torment them, nor chains that can tie them. Nor did the faithful angels entered any place. They simply received the grace of the beatific vision. The heaven of the angels, and the demons’ hell, are states. Each angel carries his own heaven within himself no matter where he is. Each demon, wherever he is, carries within his spirit his own hell.

The point of no return is the moment in which an angel sees God’s essence.That’s because after seeing God nothing will change the angel’s mind; after seeing God, the angel will not choose to do anything that would minimally offend Him. The angel’s intellect understood that offending Him would be tantamount to choosing dung over a treasure. [For the angel], sin became impossible after this moment. Before entering heaven the angel understood who God was; he understood what God’s holiness supposed, his omnipotence, wisdom, love...After the angel was admitted to contemplate His Essence, he didn’t only understand it, but he then saw it. That is, the angel sees His holiness, love, wisdom, etc. Once the [angelic] spirit sees [God’s essence] he is filled with such love, such veneration, that he would never, under any condition, would want to separate himself from It. Hence, sin becomes impossible [for the angel].

The demon remains irremediably tied to his choice from the moment God decides not to insist any more. The moment in which God stops sending graces of repentance is that moment, since every grace of repentance can only be overcome by the demon’s reaffirmation of his hatred. There comes a point in which God sees that sending more graces the demon’s way serves only to reinforce the demon in his choice. There comes a point in which the God who is Love turns His back and allows his son to continue on his way, allowing the demon to pursue his life apart [from Him].

From one vantage point we could say that there isn’t a unique moment in which the angel transforms himself into a demon, since we’re dealing with a slow, gradual, evolutionary process. But from another vantage point we could say that there was a precise moment in which the angelic spirit had to choose between rejecting or not his Creator, no matter how long the previous (and succeeding) process had been.

It has been stated before that within this process it is possible to turn back, that’s the war in heaven spoken about in Rev. 12: 7-9. But there’s a point in the war in which the demons drew further and further away. There was no sense to keep insisting. The Creator respected the freedom of each.

The devil is depicted in pictures and sculptures as deformed and that’s an appropriate representation, since he is a deformed angelic spirit. He’s still an angel, it’s only his intellect and will which is deformed and nothing else. In everything else he’s still as angel as he was after being created. In definitive terms, the devil is an angel that has chosen his destiny far from God. He is an angel who wants to live free, without anything holding him down. The interior loneliness in which he will find himself world without end, the jealousy he feels when he understands that the faithful ones enjoy the vision of an Infinite Being, moves him to blame himself for his sin time and time again. He hates himself, he hates God, and he hates those who provided him with reasons to estrange himself from God.

Yet, not all demons suffer in the same way. During the war, some angels became more deformed than others. Those who deformed more, suffer more; those who deformed less, suffer less. Again, we must remember that their deformity lies in their intellect and will.

Their intelligence is deformed, darkened, for the proper reasons with which a given angel justified his departure, his liberation. The will imposed to the intellect its decision and the intellect saw itself impelled to justify that decision. The [angelic] intellect functioned as a justification mechanism, to argue what his will impelled him to accept. As we can see, this process has an extraordinary similarity to the process of debasement seen in human beings. We should not forget that we human beings are enfleshed spirits. If we set aside for a moment the sins proper to the body, the internal psychological process that leads a person to join the mafia, or become a guard in a concentration camp, or a terrorist, is substantially the same process [as with the angels who became demons].

That’s because a man’s sins are sins of his spirit, even when he commits them with his body.

A child has a childhood and so does the angel as soon as he was created, because he lacked experience. Human persons receive temptations from other people, so did the angels from their kind. Men can be led to sin by means of [purely] mental constructs such as the motherland, a family’s honor, and the well-being of a child. An angelic spirit also holds before him great intellectual constructs that, although different from those held by humans, supposes a complex correlation between the angelic world and the human world known to us.

We human beings are also spiritual beings although we are endowed with bodies, and we only have to look deep within us to understand how one can fall into sin, how one can debase oneself. When we do so, it is then when the sin of the angels become easier to understand, when it is not as remote from us as we may think.

Questions for Discussion and Reflection

1. Fr. Fortea stated that there was a point in time in the process of estrangement when God stops granting graces of repentance. Fr. Fortea also stated that there is a “complex correlation” and similarities between the angelic world, and ours. Think about this: do we face a moment ourselves in which God stops granting graces of repentance and leaves us to our choices? What would that moment be?

2. Suppose that a human being dies having committed many venial sins, including intrinsically evil deeds which they committed without having full knowledge of the intrinsic evil of the deed, or which they were forced to commit, or were unable to fully and willingly acquiesce. They don’t deserve hell but they cannot enter the Beatific Vision immediately due to their ignorance and impurity, although they are redeemed by Christ. What would be the state of those souls after their particular judgment? Can they receive grace? If not, who can receive them for them? What would be their final outcome?

3. Remember this: demons are finite, angelic beings who debased and estranged themselves from God. They were created good and in time - a time called the aeon. They are not all-powerful nor can they act outside of God’s permission. They are fixated forever in their hatred of God - and as we shall see, humankind - and therefore abandoned to their ultimate choice forever. They carry hell within them. They have no power over those who are in God’s grace and if they do, it is because God allows it to harness some ultimate good.

In my next post, I will attempt to describe what’s this aeon time, quoting freely from Fr. Fortea’s explanation and comparing it to some philosophical notions of time that I’ve been reading of late in a special edition of Scientific American. I hope - truly truly hope that the discussion would be enlightening.

[thesaleboat]

I love your tagline!

[thesaleboat]

Very well put!

[Claud]

We shouldn’t equate spiritual with “not real”. Of course angels are real. But that doesn’t mean they have bodies. “Real” does not mean “material”.

If something has a body, it is made of matter. It is subject to the laws of matter. It occupies space and time. Now get someone on here who has measured the mass of an angel, has found its wavelength, has put it in a tub of water and have the water displaced, and then we can talk about the bodies of angels.

Incidentally, there was talk in the Middle Ages of the planets being given motion directly by angels. There’s a longstanding idea that angels can *affect* matter in special ways, that I wouldn’t dispute. But the consensus is that they are not material by nature, and until we discover one in the material universe, it’s best to stick to that presumption.

[Claud]

And as far as the end days go, it’s pretty clear that the material universe will be involved in it.

[plain talk]

No he doesn’t. I agree he knows the worldly manifestations of demons in the material world. He knows more than I ever want to know. :-). But he does not know how demons were created and all the details he wrote about.

[Future Snake Eater]

“Real” does not mean “material”.

Nor does "spirit" mean "immaterial".

Now get someone on here who has measured the mass of an angel, has found its wavelength, has put it in a tub of water and have the water displaced, and then we can talk about the bodies of angels.

True, but the author hasn't done any of those tests either.

But the consensus is that they are not material by nature

Consensus is irrelevant. Only facts matter, and we don't have any; certainly not to the level the author supposes.

it’s best to stick to that presumption.

Why? Says who? The presumptions of angels have ranged from Jesus' fellow members of the Bee Gees to fat babies with wings. Others have described them as 14-ft tall, fierce, and intimidating (notice how in the Bible that whenever an angel appears the first thing he says is "Do not be afraid"?).

Human ideas are human ideas, and there's nothing wrong with that, but granting this guy any more credibility than anyone else as he expounds on a topic on which he knows no more than anyone else is unwise.

[tired&retired]

” There’s a longstanding idea that angels can *affect* matter in special ways, that I wouldn’t dispute. But the consensus is that they are not material by nature, and until we discover one in the material universe, it’s best to stick to that presumption.”

They are material, but not materially perceived by the normal human senses. They exist in this same space at a different frequency that is normally not perceivable. Yes, they can affect matter in material ways as their higher frequency of consciousness has a greater influence over matter. This is also how Jesus did his healing.

I demonstrate this by showing how saying a prayer influences the operational frequency of a person and also how it changes their perception of reality. It’s easy to explain, demonstrate and test.

[dartuser]

The soul field spins and thus acts as a centrifuge, causing the earliest memories to be stored on the outer perimeter of the soul, about 15 feet from the physical body.

What instrumentation setup did you use to measure this 15 foot radius?

[guitarplayer1953]

Can someone give a verse that points to demons being fallen angels? The reason I ask is I've been told or taught that demons are the spirit souls of the offspring of the angels that mated with the daughters of man that died during the flood.

[johngrace]

Yes! He goes beyond what should be declared. Conjecture.

What did Sergent Friday say? " just the facts "

Just where did he gets his "facts" !

[zot]

Thank you for your testimony, and may the Lord continue to bless you and your work.
There is great need for exorcism.

[johngrace]

<< 2 Corinthians 4:4 >>

New International Version (©1984)
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
New Living Translation (©2007)
Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. They don’t understand this message about the glory of Christ, who is the exact likeness of God.

English Standard Version (©2001)
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

International Standard Version (©2008)
In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe to keep them from seeing the light of the glorious gospel of the Messiah, who is the image of God.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English (©2010)
Those whose intellects The God of this world has blinded, because they do not believe, lest the light of The Gospel of the glory of The Messiah, who is the image of God, should dawn upon them.

GOD’S WORD® Translation (©1995)
The god of this world has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. As a result, they don’t see the light of the Good News about Christ’s glory. It is Christ who is God’s image.

King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
In whom the god of this age has blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

American King James Version
In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine to them.

American Standard Version
in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them .

Douay-Rheims Bible
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of unbelievers, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine unto them.

Darby Bible Translation
in whom the god of this world has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving, so that the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine forth for them.

English Revised Version
in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them.

Webster’s Bible Translation
In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine to them.

Weymouth New Testament
in whom the god of this present age has blinded their unbelieving minds so as to shut out the sunshine of the Good News of the glory of the Christ, who is the image of God.

World English Bible
in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them.

Young’s Literal Translation
in whom the god of this age did blind the minds of the unbelieving, that there doth not shine forth to them the enlightening of the good news of the glory of the Christ, who is the image of God;

[johngrace]

If they Only took their pride away. Or humbled themselves in real prayer. "A humble and contrite heart he will ignore."

. Matthew 13:22 The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.

John 1:18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

John 12:31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.

Acts 26:18 to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.'

Acts 26:23 that the Christ would suffer and, as the first to rise from the dead, would proclaim light to his own people and to the Gentiles."

2 Corinthians 2:11 in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

2 Corinthians 2:12 Now when I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me,

2 Corinthians 3:14 But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.

2 Corinthians 3:18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

Galatians 1:4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,

Philippians 2:6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

1 Timothy 1:11 that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.

Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

Hebrews 6:4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit,

1 John 2:11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

[rusty schucklefurd]

re: “In Scripture, it is so strange, that the demons (fallen angels) recognize Jesus Christ for who he really is, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Meanwhile the Pharisees, scribes, etc. do NOT recognize Jesus.”

I’m not so sure that the Pharisees didn’t recognize Jesus - but, you’re probably correct. They clearly understood His claims as Messiah - they also clearly understood His claims as the Son of God, and by extension, His claim to equality with God (remember they tried to stone Him for this on a couple of occasions). The demons understood and recognized all this about Jesus, yet were not “saved”. The demons did not repent nor call Him “Lord” either.

It is also true that the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin condemned Jesus to death at the trial because of His claims to be God - they saw this as blasphemy. I think they just didn’t want to see. They chose not to believe.

On the other hand, Nicodemus, though he had doubts, came to Jesus with his doubts. Somewhere along the way Nicodemus believed and accepted Christ as Lord, or at least there is evidence in Scripture that he did. It does remind me of the song lyrics that says “a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest”. The Scribes and Pharisees saw all the evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, was Son of God, but refused to believe.

[ModelBreaker]

“He knows this because he’s an exorcist.”

I don’t mean to sound flippant here. Do the demons talk to him and tell him this stuff? Otherwise, where does he get it? Certainly scripture does not go into nearly this much detail.

[ModelBreaker]

“It’s only when people pass off these speculations that go beyond what is clearly revealed in scripture that I get troubled.”

I agree.

[Teófilo]

How does the author know all this detail?

The Revelation granted to the Church in the forms of the Bible and Tradition.

Regarding Tradition, the Tradition handed down by the Fathers of the Church, and,

The liturgical Tradition handed down in the Rite of Exorcism;

The theological understanding of the angelic nature as understood from Scripture and developed by St. Thomas Aquinas.

The author's vast thesis research for his doctorate in theology;

The author's own experiences during exorcisms.

-Theo

[Teófilo]

There is almost nothing in this treatise that can be supported from the Biblical text.

The Bible simply provides little information on this topic, the author is making it all up, speculating with his own vain imagination.

The Bible is not the sole rule of faith and morals to of the Church, so we're not concerned that all this data is not explicitly contained within the Holy Book.

The sources, which I ennumerated before in a separate post, are worthy of credit, at least for us Catholics - and many Orthodox and Anglo-Catholics. Of course, one needs to be open and receptive to the full spectrum of Revelation God granted to the Church which ceased with the death of the last Apostle and is kept alive in the Church's oral proclamation and in Holy Writ.

-Theo

[Teófilo]

Most earthbound spirits are not demons, but are recruited by demons. I’ve found them embedded or layered, as high as nine deep. They are usually just earthbound spirits that are locked in at a low frequency of consciousness and as a result, fear the light. These entities believe that the the light will kill them. Thus, as long as you radiate love and light, they can’t even come close to you.

Perhaps I should've made clearer that I quoted and translated only Question #1 out of over 100 he answers, including a long case study in which he addresses many of these questions.

Please, don't judge Fr. Fortea from only reading his first, and mostly introductory, essay to these questions.

-Theo