Why have I been trained as a demonologist after 36 years in ministry?

Good question, but no direct answer!

As I was born into a Catholic family, I heard about the devil at a very young age, but it was more about right or wrong. I learned about the devil in my primary classes from third grade to sixth grade in our Catechism class.

In the ministry training course, we learn about the devil in

• Demon​ Cultural Ontology: A supernatural being: a spirit, a divine force, a semi-divine being, an evil spirit, or a malevolent force.
• Satan​ Devil, Systematic Theology
• ​Devil/Demon, Supernatural Being: The adversary of God.
• Satan​ Devil, Cultural Ontology, An Evil Supernatural Being, Preaching Theme, Supernatural Being, The adversary of God.
• Concept
• Literature

As all my training was aimed mainly at being a Chaplain, we did not learn much about the devil in Divinity courses.

WHY?

Following the Council of Vatican II and as governments became increasingly secular, religion was removed from schools, hospitals, and other institutions. Most people of the generation after mine became atheists; also, we noticed an increase in people toward spiritism and occultism, with sentences like “spiritual but not religious?

Roman Catholic parishes claim not to have enough exorcist priests; we are living in a funny world.

1966

In 1966, 14-year-old Eric Michel would be 15 at the end of that year. As mentioned, I entered the paranormal world with an essay that met the grade-height requirement set by our teacher, Mr. Cormier, on a topic of our choice. I chose UFOs.

Taking notes from a UFO bulletin, the Ufologist of Ottawa, my father, lay down on our buffet.

UFOs were one of many topics in my dad’s library…

In his collection of books, we could find:

• Sorciers d’aujourd’hui Éditions de Crémille, Genève, 1970 height books
• All paranormal books collection J’ai lu, Belline, 1977
• Mystère de la mort Presses Universitaires, France, 1943
• Cours pratique de graphologie, Henri Dangles, Paris, 1937
• Missals and other Catholic books
• And the most intriguing and wanted-to-know books for a teenager, the Grand Albert and the Petit Albert

Of course, I wasn’t allowed to read them, but when you’re a young, curious boy.