The Roman Catholic Church has opened up its annual exorcism conference to clerics of all major Christian faiths for the first time.
The week-long £350 course was set up to tackle a worldwide rise in demonic possessions and devil worship.
About 250 members of the Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Greek Orthodox and Pentecostal churches descended on the Vatican for the Exorcism and the Prayer
of Liberation.
During the unprecedented gathering they shared tips on fighting evil spirits.
In March, Pope Francis told priests to call in an exorcist if they became aware of possession (Pic: Getty)
The dark art of performing exorcisms may seem like something that happens only in films, but the Catholic Church insists that the influence of Satan is growing all the time.
It blames an increase of non-believers in society, loss of faith in God and the easy access provided by the internet to black magic and the occult.
Giuseppe Ferrari, a professor of theology and organiser of the course, said: “Young people are increasingly attracted to black magic, Satanism, vampirism and sorcery.”
In March, Pope Francis said that if priests become aware of a possible possession they “should not hesitate” to call an exorcist in.
The Argentinian pontiff previously announced that Lucifer is not a metaphor but a real person armed with dark powers.
Pedro Barrajon, a Spanish priest and professor of theology, said: “The idea is to help each other, to establish best practices if you will.
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“The Catholic Church is most associated with exorcisms because of films like The Exorcist and The Rite, but we are not the only church that performs them.
“Expelling the devil goes back to the earliest origins of the Christian Church.”
Just as in horror movies, victims speak in strange tongues and sometimes vomit objects such as nails and shards of glass, they claim.
The Church admits most people who say they are possessed are actually suffering from psychological illnesses and should seek help from medics.
But they claim there is a minority that really are in the devil’s clutches.

This Francis is hallucillating very fast. He is scared. He should see a Born Again Medics quickly or else he would attack Jesus Christ if He comes now.
He seems to have forgotten that there are Magics and Miracles and they are both Electric and Elctrons spirited.