Mercy Ministries Exorcism books leaked

Live News reports

EXCLUSIVE: Mercy Ministries exorcism books leaked

Handbooks allegedly used to perform exorcisms on sick girls at the controversial Mercy Ministries residences in Sydney and on the Sunshine Coast have been leaked to LIVENEWS.com.au.

Mercy Ministries, which is bankrolled by the Pentecostal Hillsong Church, has previously denied performing exorcisms on residents.

The documents, obtained clandestinely by a girl who “escaped” the group’s clutches, shows counsellors how to rid ‘demons’ from girls struggling with anorexia, depression and drug addiction.

Mercy Ministries’ activities hit the headlines in March this year when former residents claimed they were subjected to exorcisms, were cut off from friends and family and had to sign over their Centrelink payments to the group.

Some of the young women say they had little or no access to the promised psychologists and other mental health professionals but were instead counselled by bible studies students whose solution to all problems was prayer.

Earlier this year the then head of Mercy Ministries, Peter Irvine, said exorcisms were not practised at the residences. Mercy Ministries has been forced to shut their Sunshine Coast residence.

“There’s no exorcism, no driving out of spirits it’s not how the program works,” he told Today Tonight’s Marguerite McKinnon earlier this year.

But the handbooks tell a different story and corroborate accounts given to LIVENEWS.com.au by former residents of Mercy Ministries.

In the handbook, under a section entitled ‘Identifying Additional Demons’ those practising the exorcism are advised to ask the demon’s name, but not for any more details.

“They sometimes talk: they may threaten the person or you. They have been know to say, ‘I am going to kill you,’ and other unsavoury phrases. Command them to be quiet in the Name of Jesus,” the book advises.

Later, the book, Restoring The Foundations, published by an American Christian group, warns those exorcising demons to be firm.

“The minister’s attitude is one of commanding,” it reads.

“He needs to be firm and prepared to press in. He does not need to be loud. (Demons are not deaf.) The ministers’ commanding attitude resembles that of a person speaking to a little “yappy” dog commanding him to go home and stop barking.

“We also want the ministry receiver to set his will to resist and then command the particular demon or grouping of demons to leave him, in Jesus’ name. This is repeated until the demons are gone.”

Later in the book, those performing the exorcism are given more complex techniques in a subheading called ‘What to do With Obstinate Demons’.

Later a list of ‘Scriptures that Demons Hate’ is provided.

“But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you,” is one such passage singled out.

The emergence of the exorcism handbook lends weight to other claims made by girls who went through the Mercy Ministries program.

Megan Smith (not her real name), who spoke to LIVENEWS.com.au earlier this year, said her panic attacks only got worse.

“I was self-harming,” she said.

“I was cutting my arm with anything I could get my hands on – scratching with anything from my nails to paper clips.

“I never really had a problem with self-harm beforehand. When you tell them about self-harming they said I was trying to get attention and I was taking their valuable time away from girls with real problems.”

Finally, she was subjected to an exorcism.

“The counsellor gave me a list of different demons – demon of anger, demon of unforgiveness, demon of pride, there were lots of them and I was told to go away and circle the demons I had in me or around me,” said Smith.

“I was really scared… they cast demons out of me, one by one, and they became quite excited and animated during the process, and spoke in tongues.

“It was the counsellors and myself and they put their hands on me and started praying one by one for each of the demons that were on the list to be cast out of me.

“After each demon was cast out I had to say ‘I confirm the demon of X has been cast out of me in the name of Jesus and is unwelcome to return.'

“The whole time I was there, all I heard was that I'm demonic.

“Even after the exorcism, when I had the next anxiety attack, I was told that they had already cast the demons out, so therefore I was obviously either faking it, or I had chosen to let the demons come back, in which case I was not serious about getting better.

“They kept telling us that the world can't help us, professionals with all their 'worldly qualifications' can't help us, only Mercy could because only they have God's power.

“So when I was kicked out for being 'demonic, unable to be helped, not worth a place at Mercy’ and because I had taken too long to pray to become a Christian... it left me worse than I had ever been before in my life.

“They told me I would never get better now because I had blown my chance. I started cutting my arms and wrists more than ever, with their voices echoing in my mind as I did it.”

Suicidal and self-harming after being removed from the program, which she now thought was her only hope, she went to see a “proper psychologist to prepare me to go back to Mercy to help me fit in better.”

“The psychologist had never heard of them but told me to stay away from them… that person helped me more in the 40 minute session – really listening to me and understanding me.”

Mercy Ministries earlier this year "There's no exorcism - that's not how the program works"

The Handbook. Leaked photocopies of the Mercy Ministries guide

Mercy Ministries using Youtube to censor abuse reports

Deconverts reports on Mercy Ministries:

Earlier tonight I received a comment on one of our earlier articles readers which covers the abuse of women in the Hillsong-supported “Mercy Ministries” programme that one of the videos we linked to has been removed from YouTube in an apparant attempt to censor the voice of abused women, unhappy with their treatment at Mercy Ministries, via a false claim under the DMCA. The reason for the removal appears to be as a result of a malicious copyright “Take Down” claim by “Mercy Ministries International” as an attempt to censor the voices of some of the women who were psychologically damaged by their programme. This “programme” claims to help desperate women with drug addiction, mental illness and eating disorders. The truth is that women end up far more troubled, and far worse off than when they started. Ruth Pollard of the Sydney Morning Herald reports, “Instead of the promised psychiatric treatment and support, they were placed in the care of Bible studies students, most of them under 30 and some with psychological problems of their own”.

The video that we linked to contained a radio interview in which several women talk openly and candidly about their experiences at Mercy Ministries. And judging by the severe abuse they claim to have received, and the number of women speaking out, they are not alone. Needless to say, Mercy Ministries International do not appear to have gone on record to address these complaints. Instead they used a “Take Down” notice mechanism on content which does not contain their intellectual property (it was all discussion of the programme, by participants of the programme), therefore the only logical conclusion is that they are attempting to censor the free speech of these women. The “Take Down”, or Digital Millennium Copyright Notice is the legal framework which allows any artist or author to remove, in this case, video and audio content from YouTube by claiming (in this case, very, very illegally) that they are the owners of the content and did not give their permission. This act allows sites such as YouTube to operate without legal claims against them that they are encouraging copyright violations since content producers (such as TV companies) can easily remove copied content.

What is to stop anyone from filing “Take Down” notices against any video they don’t like?

There are severe legal penalties if you fraudulently file a DMCA “Take Down” notice against content which is later shown to have not violated your copyright. For instance for reporting, entertainment (satire) or other fair use cannot be taken down without breaching the DMCA. Using the DMCA in this way might get the videos taken off in the short term, but you open yourself under penalty of perjury to both damages and potentially both civil and criminal charges. Mercy Ministries International, following in the footsteps of Kent Hovind (Dr. Dino of Creation Science Evangelism) seem to think it’s ok to lie for Jesus and disabuse others of their rights to free speech. And most importantly, the free speech of those who need it the most. How about desperate, single women struggling with mental illness?

Anyway, here’s a link to a few more videos on YouTube covering this issue. If you feel strongly about the rights of others, the voice of the weak and abused or even for that matter your own rights, speak up now and get the message out about how Mercy Ministries International are using strong arm tactics to maliciously and illegally issue take down notices on content which although does not hold them in good light, is not theirs and they have no legal right to censor.



What’s all this about DMCA “Penalty of Perjury”?
How might criminal and civil action be taken against Mercy Ministries?

Fundamentalist Christians using the DMCA “Take Down” notices to censor content on the Internet (and especially YouTube) has been seen before. Most notably from the evangelical creationist, “Venomfangx” who maliciously and with risk of criminal and civil charges under penalty of perjury decided it was worth the risk in order to have any criticism of him and his values censored from the internet. Not only is this a major problem for freedom of expression, but it highlights exactly what type of organisation Mercy Ministries is. They are an organisation who clearly have no qualms about filing illegal take down notices on YouTube videos in which their activities and the harm they have caused to vulnerable women is exposed. As if we needed more evidence, Hillsong’s Mercy Ministries clearly have no morals. (Or perhaps they get their morality from the bible? You tell me.)


Abuse at Mercy Ministries (Part 1/7)
An interview with a Christian girl with bipolar disorder who suffered further at Mercy Ministries



Want to hear more? Search for it
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Mercy Survivors (a site set up to help women get over Mercy Ministries)


“They prayed to cast Satan from my body”