Dear Fr. Fortea, what do demons do with their time?
In the world of demons, like that of people, some do one thing and others do different things. Demons, of course, cannot build houses, grow food, construct machines, nor do any of the things human beings spend so much time on. Most of the time, demons occupy themselves with going deeper into the world of knowledge, in having relationships among themselves, and in tempting people.
The intellectual world is such a vast world that the demons occupy themselves in it completely like us. In a university, for example, there can be hundreds of professors with each one specializing in some branch of knowledge. Hundreds of professors and deans work hours daily in a university and all this work and activity produces just one thing: knowledge. The same thing happens in the world of the angelic spirits.
Relationships among pure spirits may not seem important, but the demons have real, complex social relationships. These relationships are not based merely on knowledge but also on the pleasure of communicating with one another and helping each other tempt humans.
To learn more about spiritual warfare and demonology, Catholic Spiritual Direction recommends Fr. Fortea’s excellent book Interview With An Exorcist – An Insider’s Look at the Devil, Demonic Possession, and the Path to Deliverance.
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Art for this post “What do Demons do with Their Time?”: Detail of Padre José Antonio Fortea 2017, photographed by Elgatoconbotaselgatoconbotas, 5 May 2017 own work, CCA-SA 4.0 International, Wikimedia Commons. Cover of “Interview with an Exorcist” used with permission, all rights reserved.
