Liber Christo Method: A Field Manual for Spiritual Combat

By Dan Schneider

Since the creation of man, the devil has sought the ruin of souls. The Liber Christo Method is a tactical field manual for those interested in not only learning more about spiritual combat but also engaging and winning the spiritual battles of this present day.
As a professor of theology, a former US Army attack helicopter pilot, combat veteran, and a member of Fr. Chad Ripperger’s exorcism tea, Dr. Dan Schneider offers practical spiritual steps to conquer that ancient enemy and obtain lasting spiritual freedom. Here you will learn spiritual “guerrilla warfare” tactics based on real experience in modern spiritual combat.
Just as David used five smooth stones to defeat Goliath, this manual places “five smooth stones” into your ammo pouch: (1) Renunciation of Evil Influences; (2) Repentance, Metanoia, and Forgiveness; (3) Examination of Conscience; (4) Learning Power and Authority; and (5) Prayer, Weapons, and Tactics.
Whether you are engaged in close combat with the devil or find yourself in need of more “firepower” in your spiritual life, take heart and put into practice the lessons contained in this manual. More than theory or quotes from saints or the Catechism, this manual equips you with the weapons necessary to defeat the ancient enemy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TAN Books
• Release date: Jun 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9781505130577

Book preview

Chapter One

Renunciation of Evil Influences

[David] played with lions as though they were young goats, and with bears, like lambs of the flock.

—SIRACH 47:3

In this section, we discuss the occult and other areas where the demon Goliath operates. As Catholics, we believe that each person will get his body back in a glorified form in heaven, while the damned also suffer bodily torment in hell. Thus, the nature of curses—whether freemasonic or other forms of witchcraft—always involves bodily rituals. For this reason, we will explain in some detail how curses work, what makes a person vulnerable to them, and how to get out from beneath their effects. To be clear, our base armor which protects us against curses and other wiles of the devil are the sacraments. The demon attacks the sacramental construct, and we will explain how the sacraments work for our protection against evil.

A soldier must conform his body, his will, and his intellect to the task of soldiering. The tasks of a spiritual soldier are no different. Many who are afflicted by evil spirits think they need the right prayer or the most anointed exorcist to drive out the demon so that they can experience normalcy again. That is, they seek a quick fix that focuses on the cessation of pain and a return of a better quality of life rather than holiness and union with God. Not only is this mindset unrealistic, but also it often prolongs affliction to the extent that true metanoia is delayed. In fact, most who seek help from spiritual affliction have never learned to pray or have never applied any spiritual rigor on themselves because of the short-term pain it causes.

For this reason, we propose a medical model which is designed to address the spiritual and psychological wounds that linger from your past so as to begin the healing process (see appendix A for an overview). Anyone who has undergone physical therapy knows that a muscle must be loaded and given resistance, sometimes even pushed to its limit, so as to gain the strength needed to heal itself. While leaving a wounded muscle alone may avoid temporary pain, it will eventually atrophy and require more and more pain management. The right use of therapy, although painful at first, will eventually remove pain and restore mobility. In many cases, a disciplined regimen of physical therapy will eliminate the need for pain medicine or even surgery. Most people further the problem by living in a perpetual state of spiritual pain management through the self-medication of drugs and alcohol, worldly distractions, illicit sex, and other such things. Quite frankly, you may be that person who is guarding and self- medicating a deep wound in such a way—and the demon who is feeding off it is quite content. In military parlance, you are the walking wounded, but it is time to get back in the fight.

Inside the Wire: Ordinary and

Extraordinary Diabolic Activity

Knowing your enemy is part of soldiering. Rogers would routinely send out patrols with the purpose of scouting their enemies’ forts or frontiers for discoveries to learn their size, movements, habits, and activities. To prevent the enemy from doing the same, Rogers told his men, When you camp, half the party stays awake while the other half sleeps. Modern rangers add to that by setting up a defensive perimeter of claymore mines strung together by interconnecting detonating wires. They call this perimeter the wire, and the mine itself is stamped with the reminder: Front Towards Enemy. If an enemy breaches the defense, he is inside the wire.

Traditionally, diabolic activity is distinguished between ordinary and extraordinary.²² Temptation—physical or psychological—is part of the ordinary (common to all) way the devil operates.²³ According to Father Amorth, The devil’s mission in the world is to seduce souls, to lead each man and woman on the wayward paths of sin; and the principal path of this tragic mission is the path of temptation.²⁴ Fr. Francesco Bamonte, president of the International Association of Exorcists, describes temptation as when the enemy attempts to seduce us with sense realities, acting on our senses (sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste). This seduction, he says, also includes our memory, imagination, and intellect.²⁵ That is, the demon traffics in the senses and seeks to manipulate how we appropriate the external world into our higher, internal faculties. His goal, according to Father Bamonte, is to arouse the consent of our free will to do evil in hopes of stimulating and further reinforce our dependence upon him.²⁶ That is, the ordinary activity of the evil one is to use the sensory data presented to us to habituate us in sinfulness in thought, word, and deed.

God will never allow you to be tempted beyond what you can endure, however, and when you conquer various temptations, you grow in virtue, self-mastery, and mastery over the enemy. Temptation is, as Father Ripperger writes, a school of humility because it reveals the deficiencies in our formation and causes us to distrust ourselves because of our weaknesses.²⁷ He notes also that by fighting demons and vanquishing them, the demons become weaker, not only in the lives of the individual who fights them but in the lives of others as well. Thus, he states, people have to understand that it is not unfair for God to allow this because He is actually giving them something greater.²⁸ The demon becomes an instrument of both our sanctification and education. Saint Bonaventure gives four reasons why God allows demons to influence a person: to reveal God’s glory, to punish sin, to rebuke a sinner, or to educate a person.²⁹ That is, God allows all demonic activity (whether ordinary or extraordinary) for a greater good.

Although the demon may probe your perimeter through various temptations, therefore, when you resist temptation, you keep the enemy outside the wire. When given the opportunity, however, the demon will slip past the claymore mines, get inside the wire, and exert himself beyond ordinary temptation. Extraordinary diabolic activity, according to Father Ripperger, is that which goes above and beyond what is normal or the ordinary diabolic influence, which all men must endure.³⁰ Father Bamonte describes it as the devil’s intervention on matter.³¹ Father Amorth lists six ways of extraordinary diabolic activity: physical pain, demonic possession, diabolical oppression, diabolic obsession, diabolic infestation, and diabolic subjugation.³² Notably, Father Bamonte emphasizes that extraordinary diabolic activity is the result of original sin and can often be due to one’s own culpability to include sins of:

•superstition and occult practices, such as participation in (or even being present at) sessions with psychics or fortune tellers;

•use of amulets and talisman; recourse to mediums, sorcerers, witches, tarot card readers, or having attempted any of these on your own;

•the practice of certain meditation techniques like transcendental meditation, Reiki, opening oneself to chakras or other New Age practices;

•submitting oneself to spiritual cleansing, being present at voodoo, Macumba or other rituals; and

•membership in secret societies or satanic groups. ³³

He explains further that one can be vulnerable to demonic influence particularly when combined with alienating vices such as alcohol abuse, drugs, sexual perversion, and blasphemy. Such activities, he says, weaken the individual and open him up to the devil’s extraordinary activity.³⁴ The motives for participation in witchcraft, says Father Amorth, are wealth, power, vice, and more.³⁵

While the enemy probes your wire through temptations, he can use other tactics, such as curses, to gain quicker access. As Father Bamonte notes, the demon can exploit such vulnerabilities (alienating vices) through the actions of someone else who has performed occult rites and curses against him. That is, certain behaviors alienate you from God’s friendship and protection, which can make you vulnerable to curses and the effects of the occult activity of others.

Here we present the devil’s extraordinary and intensifying activity inside the wire of a person’s interiority along a threefold scale of oppression-obsession-possession. These are defined as:³⁶

Oppression—a form of extraordinary diabolic influence in which a demon attacks one’s externals; first stage in the progression toward classic possession and often experienced as a heaviness, malaise, melancholy, or depression. As the influence of the diabolical increases during this phase, the individual begins to lose focus, especially on vocational obligations.

Obsession—Spiritual obsession can be seen in marked neurotic and abnormal mental symptoms due to the persevering efforts of an evil spirit to gain mastery over him; the second stage in the progression toward classic possession where one is besieged psychologically—that is, intellectually and emotionally—by demons. There will be psychological as well as physical indicators of the diabolical presence. It is during this phase that the demon begins to move in (increased and persistent activity in the interiority of a person). A psychological obsession is recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges, or images that are experienced as intrusive and unwanted.

Possession—the phenomenon in which the devil invades the body of a living person and moves the faculties and organs as if he were manipulating a body of his own. Three types of possession are as follows:

Classic: usually a gradual progression through the stages of oppression and obsession.

Partial: usually through a pact made in exchange for a favor with a demon such that the demon is present to that activity and when the person seeks God, demonic affliction arises; sometimes can be ethnic/cultural related.

Transient: where rights are given by someone else, usually familial such as in Freemasonry or other witchcraft, and the demon becomes present when the rights are challenged; akin to peanut allergy such that the effects arise situationally. The demonic claim will (as a rule) spike when the activity associated with the possession/curse is performed.

The Praenotanda of the Solemn Rite lists three primary signs indicative of possession: speaking/understanding languages unknown to the person, or other occult knowledge (making known distant or hidden events, knowledge of things beyond one’s state in life); and display of power, superhuman strength (or strength beyond one’s age or condition, to include shape-shifting); other indications include aversions to the sacred (i.e., a vehement aversion to God, the Holy Name of Jesus, the Blessed Virgin Mary or the saints, blessed objects, sacred ritual, sacred images, etc.).³⁷

A manifestation is when a demon shows himself, normally in some physical manner. Spiritual attacks can also cause interior afflictions, such as darkness, despair, and sorrow.³⁸ Father Bamonte cites Fr. Antonio Royo Marín in describing the experience of affliction as profound and unsurmountable repugnance for his duty or an intense desire to do what is prohibited, proposing to the mind all sorts of illicit and indecent fantasies which continue regardless of one’s efforts to reject … a sense of anger, doubt, anguish, desperation, rebellion and antipathy … disproportionate affective impulses which do not correspond to one’s personality.³⁹

The following activities create a breach in your perimeter, thus opening the way for demonic affliction. In addition, many of these mock the sacraments or the various sacramentals that seek to bring grace to the soul:

Affliction—physical and/or mental distress experienced by a human; may have differing and multiple causes ranging from purely psychological to purely spiritual; generally, there is a combination of causation and augmentation where the demon fills the void.

Astrology—a pseudo-science which professes to judge the alleged occult influence of the stars upon human affairs.

Clinging Spirit—an evil spirit that has become attached to an individual, normally sticking to him from the outside without actual possessing or obsessing the individual.

Curse—also called a hex; the intention of harming another through diabolic intervention; using black magic to bring misfortune or even death to the victim; a malediction or spell usually spoken, a counterfeit or inverse of a blessing which is made present or causes affliction to the extent one’s relationship with God is impaired, e.g., the individual must have a spiritual vulnerability to suffer the effects of a curse. Unforgiveness is the greatest vulnerability to curses.

Divination—the act of foretelling the future or discovering the unknown through the aid of evil spirits. This is a species of superstition and always a grave sin against the virtue of religion.

Dolor—a form of extraordinary diabolic influence which consists of demons acting physically on the flesh of the person in such a way as to cause pain and even, at times, bruising and lacerations.

Incantation—the use of ceremony and formula of words spoken or chanted to produce a magical effect; this is often done in witchcraft to conscript a demon.

Incubus/Succubus—demons who have sex with women and men.

Infestation—extraordinary diabolical activity on a location, which may be as various as a house, pet, vehicle, object of art, etc.; usually indicative of a malefice or curse.

Malefice—the use of magical arts upon persons or objects with the intention of causing harm (sometimes even to do some good, although by evil means) to another or to his temporal goods by the intervention of a demon.

Necromancy—a form of spiritualism which attempts to get into communication with the spirits of the dead by invocation.

Pact—a signed document promising one’s soul to the devil; a pseudo-contract made with the devil or demon.

Portal—inversion of the Catholic Church in which rituals are done in order to open up a channel or avenue by which demons can affect the surrounding areas. The demon who is placed to ensure the security of a portal is called a portron.

Snare—diabolical activity by which external circumstances or individuals are used to entrap a person spiritually or in the order of nature.

Vex/Vexation—a ritual curse or spell done to cause harm to another person; to trouble, afflict, harass, or distress physically or psychologically.

Witchcraft—a form of black magic practiced seeking the help of the devil and evil spirits; includes casting spells, sorcery, enchantment, etc.

These and other such activities create an Open Door, which is something that disposes an individual to a particular diabolic influence, caused either by oneself, another, or the pure permissible will of God. Other definitions relevant to the discussion, which help secure our spiritual perimeter, include the following:

Blessing—statement and/or action invoking divine favor upon a person, place or object; flows from one’s relationship with God; it can be priestly, spousal, and lay.

"Chapter 3"—slang reference to Title 12, Chapter 3 Rituale Romanum, also known as the Leonine Prayer against Satan and his fallen angels. Pope Leo XIII incorporated this prayer into the solemn rite of exorcism, which had previously contained Chapter 1 (Praenotanda), Chapter 2 (Solemn Exorcism), and now by inclusion, Chapter 3, the above-mentioned prayer. By recent proclamation from the Congregation for the Divine Faith, this prayer is now regulated and only available to priests for public use with episcopal permission.

Deliverance—the liberation of a person from diabolic influence and affliction; a form of minor exorcism which is counter distinguished from liberation, which is often associated with the person no longer being under diabolic possession.

Deprecatory Form—a petitioning of the Lord for a desired effect. In the deprecatory form, one asks the Lord, Our Lady, the angels, or a saint to be the agent of God’s truth in an ultimately open way to the need for God’s justice or the need for reconciliation.

Exorcism—the expelling of demons and freeing a demoniac from the influence of demons through the spiritual authority which Jesus entrusted to the Church; the expelling of evil spirits in cases of possession and obsession according to the right prescribed in the Roman ritual, and presently performed by a priest with the permission of his bishop; classified as major (with use of the solemn rights of the Church) or minor (deliverance prayers, prayer of minor exorcism using various rites and not requiring permission of the local Ordinary).⁴⁰

Healing—the reordering of the faculties that have been damaged by sin; reconciliation with God the Father through the sacraments.

Imprecatory Form—the direct commanding of the demon of an incorporeal being, a fallen angelic presence. It is the commanding of that creature by another creature, but it must follow the natural law. Use of the imprecatory form is relegated to one who has not only the power but the authority to command it, such as the husband/father over his wife and children.

Liberation—the removal of the impediments to reconciliation with God the Father through the sacraments. Liberation comes about through: (1) the strengthening of the free will in a person, (2) an increased sanctification in a soul, and (3) re-ordering of life.

Obex—from the Latin meaning barrier or wall, a hindrance, impediment, or obstacle which blocks the flow of grace to the soul; can be spiritual, moral, or psychological.

LESSON ONE: IDENTIFYING

EVIL INFLUENCES

The inner logic of a thirty-day prayer prescription is based on our experience that the demon responds to the imposition of order as much as to the prayer itself.⁴¹ As a result, the thirty-day prescription may cause memories of past injuries to the surface, causing some acute, but telling, pain. Later, we will discuss how the demon has access to (and can even block) the memory, but for now, we will focus on how the demon enters through sin and lingers in the spiritual wounds of the mind and soul.

According to Saint John Henry Newman, To live is to change, and to change often is to become more perfect. Suffering is also part of living and often marks points of change, for better or for worse, in a person’s life. Many people have suffered interior trauma which, when negatively interiorized, can prevent positive change and growth toward spiritual perfection. At one level, trauma is a deeply subjective and volitional response to evil (whether physical, psychological, or spiritual). When a person lacks sufficient virtue to process the event in a healthy way, negative patterns of thought and behavior can be formed (which can present a vulnerability for a demon to exploit). At other times, someone can suffer trauma, or the effects of trauma, without any volitional involvement. Children, for example, do not have full use of reason (or even have no use of reason in some cases) and can still experience the effects of trauma. The question for them is not that they suffered trauma when young but how they will process it once they have the use of reason. If either of these describe you, a good mental health professional can help you along this

Reviews for Liber Christo Method

[blessesdover20122013 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is and excellent book. I would read it again.