One in every 10 Catholics in the United States has either witnessed or been part of an exorcism. It's not just an American trend — exorcisms are experiencing a revival the world over, particularly in Catholic traditions. A priest in Queensland, Australia disclosed the he currently performs an exorcism at least once every two weeks. The number of trained exorcists has doubled over the past five years in Poland. In Italy, around 400 Catholic exorcisms have taken place over the past two decades, and that's not even counting the people requesting church assistance who did not receive help. According to Father James LeBar, exorcist for the Archdiocese of New York, "Ten years ago I had no cases and now I have three hundred." As recently as last December, Pope Benedict XVI organized "exorcist squads" to tackle the rise of Satanism and demonic possession. The rise of demonic possession has apparently soared over the past 20 years and even more so in recent years. What's behind this dramatic rise in the number of performed exorcisms?

According to Father Thomas Williams, Dean of Theology at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome, "There may be two reasons. One is that there's an increased interest in the occult, even in Satanism. Where I live in Italy, Satanic worship is actually on the rise. And this is true for a lot of places in Europe. And the second reason I think is because people are less careful. Honestly, they maybe pray less. They play around with things they shouldn't play with, and then they get into trouble... Anyone can be possessed, but I think you really have to open yourself up to it. You have to be un-careful. And I think the spiritual demons, or bad angels, do exist, and I think it's an extreme thing, but it happens sometimes." Williams also admits that "...many things that in the past that were considered demonic possession or demonic influence were really just diseases or psychological problems." Some of these include Tourette Syndrome, schizophrenia and epilepsy.