Is AI a Portal to the Demonic?

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
A leading Catholic exorcist warns it's not the technology itself which is dangerous, but the use to which it's put to.

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Exorcist warns AI can but used in spiritual warfare

Father Szada, a Catholic priest in Pennsylvania with 14 years experience as an exorcist and 47 years in ministry, said that AI is in the process of being weaponized in ways religious leaders are unprepared to confront.

He'd always favored technology, but now he sees AI developing towards an end that will create "a very serious problem." On the front of spiritual warfare he believes AI will be used by those into the occult, witchcraft and demonology.  

During the 15th International Association of Exorcists (AIE) Conference held in Sacrofano near Rome, September, 2025, an Italian university professor presented "forensic documentation showing that AI systems are already being trained on occult texts and employed in spell-casting by practitioners."

Italian criminologist Beatrice Ugolini warned that algorithms and data-harvesting technologies are being co-opted into modern forms of divination and necromancy, which she described as a "digital mutation of the occult".

An emerging trend are digital symbols being generated online and pushed through AI systems, where they can circulate in perpetuity. Used as curses they would keep working long after the person who created it died.

Father Szada used an exampled of a current legal case he is consulting on. It involves a deceased woman who created AI-generated sigils and attached them to photographs of a family and a lawyer. On the same day, mysteriously they all fell ill, and the lawyer ended up in intensive care.

​Father Szada described where demonic entities can manipulate electronic devices as a way to enter the physical world.

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'Demons love electronics. They play with electronics all the time,' he said, describing cases in which demons blocked blessing prayers stored on his iPad and team members’ phones during house exorcisms.

Father John Szada

He believes digital energy can act as a bridge between the physical and spiritual realms.

There are AI apps which promote communication with deceased friends and relatives. The AI will take a sample of the deceased person's voice and create phone calls and conversations supposedly to ease the grief process. For example a deceased grandparent's voice can be replicated to tell a story to their grandchildren. This is not novelty, it is necromancy.

He warns that demons will take advantage of this type of communication, especially if the person is vulnerable due to the loss of a loved one.

There is also the dangers of chatbots, which have been reported to encourage self harm, suicide and inappropriate behavior especially with children or those with mental health problems.

Szada said, "A demon cannot actually kill a person … but what they do is they harass them to the point that the person … attempts suicide."

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An AI generated image from a simple prompt

Father Szada warns that many bishops believe demonic activity is strictly psychological, or prevent exorcists from being appointed in their diocese.

To compound the problem, many priests are behind the times when it comes to AI and other types of technology, and the power of its influence.

He emphasized that families with a healthy relationship are less vulnerable. The problem arises when parents use electronics as babysitters.

Parents should be directly involved with their children's activities online and monitor, who and what they are exposed to. 

Spiritual life should be reinforced through prayer and sacraments.

​"Why would a child want to have to listen to the voice of their dead when their mother or father could be there to comfort them and help them heal?" he said. "Demons hate us. They will do everything in their power to destroy us."

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