He draws the sign of the cross in olive oil on a young woman’s forehead. His lips move in silent prayer. His eyes are closed.
Suddenly his eyes open, and he yells, “Leave this body in the name of Jesus Christ!”
The young woman shudders, seeming to fight off his words. Then, she calms, and her once wild eyes become clear. She is freed from her demons.
She is no longer possessed.
It’s not a scene from a movie. It’s a real-life exorcism performed by a local man.
From a tiny room in his modest Leesburg home, Pastor Chris Ward wages war on evil.
A middle-aged man with white hair and beard, Ward, 53, seems unassuming. But underneath the grandfatherly image lies a man who fights to help those he says are possessed by demons.
His weapons of choice: The Bible and his computer.
The self-proclaimed exorcist says he’s helped thousands rid themselves of evil spirits and demons through the ancient rite that uses prayer and holy water and oils.
The exorcist
Ward’s passion for casting out demons began almost 30 years ago when he returned home from a tour of duty in the Vietnam War.
Ward, like many others, came back from the battlefield to find very little support from his friends and family. Seeking comfort, he turned to drugs and alcohol.
He thought he had his life under control until he decided to go to a prayer meeting with a few of his friends. That night, his life changed forever.
His friends laid hands on him and prayed that he might be released from the demons that made him drink and take drugs. He said he hasn’t taken a drink of alcohol or used any drugs since that meeting more than 20 years ago.
The experience not only changed his life, but his ideas about religion. A lifelong Catholic, he left the religion he was raised with and joined a fundamentalist Christian church in Leesburg.
But it doesn’t end there.
Soon after releasing his own demons, Ward began to see a side of people he’d never seen before.
He says during church, fellow parishioners came to him, speaking in tongues and demonstrating what he calls the characteristics of the possessed. He says he has seen people levitate and lift immovable objects, and that he’s seen demons.
As he speaks, Ward’s eyes light up with excitement and, perhaps, awe of the supernatural.
“It’s like the Lord kept bringing them to me, and I didn’t want it,” he said. “It scared me.”
But the first time he helped a fellow parishioner release his demons more than 20 years ago, he knew he had a mission in life.
To complete that mission, he had to have a church of his own. So, Ward and his wife, Ruth, recently founded the Logos Christian Fellowship Church in Leesburg, and he and other members routinely practice deliverance, or exorcism, rituals to drive off evil spirits.
Ward says he’s performed more than 1,000 successful exorcisms on people from around the world who reach out to him through his Web site and his church.
Mary and Carlos Sarduy turned to the Internet for help with their problems, and they found Ward in Leesburg.
The Wisconsin couple says Ward is helping them to heal their troubled marriage.
“He took the curtain out of our way,” Mary Sarduy said. The word exorcism generally conjures up images of priests dousing victims with holy water and yelling at demons to make a hasty exit.
Though he says they’re similar in many ways, Ward’s exorcisms are not associated with the Roman Catholic Church. He says his brand of demon removal is just Christian.
He doesn’t charge for his services, and has traveled around the world to help those who can’t come to him.
He’ll perform an exorcism just about anywhere, including his small home in a quiet neighborhood.
But he never works alone.
He always takes a group of parishioners, an exorcism team, from his church with him.
Similar to the 1970’s movie “The Exorcist,” Ward says he’s seen possessed people spit, curse and float in the air. “I’ve seen it all,” he said. “The movie is an intense composite.”
Some of Ward’s exorcisms are much simpler than the one done by a Catholic priest for a little girl in the movie.
Sometimes, all that is involved is Ward’s touch.
In one case, he simply gripped a woman’s shoulders tightly in his hands and told her to breathe deeply.
He then commanded the demons to leave the woman in the name of Jesus Christ.
With a loud bark, she coughed out the demons and was pronounced free of evil spirits by the exorcist.
He says people have to make lifestyle changes, including forming a relationship with Jesus, and some aren’t ready to do that.
For example, a young Puerto Rican woman approached him last year and asked him to exorcise demons that caused her to hear voices.
He told the her that she must first change her lifestyle by becoming pure and accepting Jesus into her life. Once she did that, he said he would perform an exorcism if she still had trouble.
“You have to get to the root of the problem,” he said. “We can tell whether it’s working or not.”
Dozens of e-mails pour in every week asking Ward for help, he said. He contacts everyone who reaches out to him, but he doesn’t always offer to exorcise their demons.
“We’ve had people come from all over the world,” he said.
The ritual
Many people tell Ward that they are unaware of any other type of exorcism than the type the Roman Catholic Church employs. He tells them that Catholic church and his church both use the same basic techniques in an exorcism, with one major difference.
In a Catholic exorcism, a priest has the authority to command the evil spirits to leave the body of the possessed. In Ward’s exorcisms, he allows God to remove the offending demons.
Some priests might even try to entice demons to leave their victims and enter the priest’s body.
Ward doesn’t do that. He says it’s too dangerous.
“We do spiritual warfare. It’s a calling,” he said. “It’s not as ritualistic.”
An exorcism is a very intense emotional and physical experience that can last anywhere from eight hours to several years, Ward says.
Father Bob Webster, director of the Department of Liturgy for the Orlando Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church, says Ward’s brand of exorcism can be effective because the key to the ritual is human contact and prayer.
“An exorcism is any kind of prayer that we use for freeing from sin or evil,” Webster said. “We don’t see these things necessary in the light of the movie ‘The Exorcist.’”
The Catholic church reported 25 exorcisms performed in the United States last year, and the church has 15 American priests authorized to perform exorcisms.
Though he has been asked to perform exorcisms in the past, Webster has never been involved with one.
“This particular ritual is to free those who might be manifesting possession or evil in a significant way,” he said. “It really is a very personal moment of healing.” Webster and Ward agree that anyone seeking an exorcism should first be examined by a doctor. Both the Catholic Church and Ward’s church ask people to submit to several mental and physical evaluations before they are exorcised to ensure they are of sound mind and not in need of a doctor’s care. Ward also requires those seeking exorcisms to sign a form releasing him from any liability should anything go wrong. “Exorcism is not a parlor game,” he said. Ward won’t detail specific cases, but when he talks about seeing demons crawl up and down a woman’s legs, he believes what he’s saying.
The exorcism
Demons can manifest themselves in many ways, Ward says. A good example is a case he took on two months ago. The newlywed couple is having trouble with their marriage, and they say Satan is to blame.
Carlos and Mary Sarduy, who married last summer, say they love each other very much but they don’t trust each other.
For months, the pair has argued and fought over whether Mary is faithful or if Carlos is being too demanding. Several times, the conflict has almost ended their marriage.
But neither one wants to give up the love they have for each other. So they’re looking to get at the root of the problem. Traditional marriage counseling won’t do, according to Mary.
She says the son of Satan has infiltrated her husband’s family, and Carlos, 30, suffers from a curse brought on by a family member.
Mary says Carlos’s great-great grandfather dabbled in black magic and awakened an evil demon that wants to destroy her husband’s happiness.
Both say it’s the influence of a demon that makes them mistrust each other and fight all the time.
“It was like a cloud between us,” Mary said.
Together, the couple searched for months for someone who could help them exorcise the demon.
Mary consulted a priest, but she did not find the answer she sought.
Two months ago, Carlos turned to the Internet to find an exorcist and came across Ward’s site.
Carlos learned that pastor could exorcise the couple of the demon.
Mary called Ward the next day, and they talked at length about her troubled relationship with Carlos.
Ward told her that her husband is cursed, and the couple must pray and fast to release the demon.
For more than a month, Carlos and Mary have done that with frequent phone calls to Ward for advice.
Mary says she and Carlos get along better now, but they still need to pray regularly for the demon to be gone.
She says the demon will leave Carlos soon, and then she’ll destroy it through prayer.
“We’re getting a better relationship,” she said. “He’s getting better. I’m just doing what I have to do.”
Ward has never seen the couple in person, but says he doesn’t need to. He says their problem can be handled through their own acts of faith with only some guidance from him.
“Fasting is a direct source of quick and powerful spiritual strength,” he said.
On the Web: www.logoschristian.org