International Association of Exorcists Reiterates Warning About the Risks of «Family Constellations»
International Association of Exorcists issued a statement warning about the psychotherapy technique Family Constellations. The Association stresses that the method has no scientific proof of effectiveness and raises serious concerns about its content and methodology. It highlights potential psychological and spiritual risks for participants and cautions practitioners and the wider Catholic community. The warning is aimed at preventing misuse and protecting vulnerable individuals from unproven therapeutic practices.
2 months ago
The International Association of Exorcists (IAE) has issued a renewed warning about the “Family Constellations” method, describing it as an unproven therapeutic technique that blends psychodrama with concepts drawn from spiritism, New Age mysticism, and the founder’s missionary experiences in Africa, and urging Catholics to avoid its spiritual and moral dangers. 1
“Family Constellations” was created by German therapist Bert Hellinger (1925‑2019), a former Catholic priest who served as a missionary among Zulu communities in South Africa. His exposure to ancestor‑worship practices, combined with an attraction to Theosophy—a syncretic esoteric doctrine with Masonic links—shaped the method’s development. 1
The approach asks a client to present a personal problem and then selects members of a therapeutic group—often strangers—to physically “represent” family members or ancestors. These “actors” assume postures and respond to questions, allegedly channeling the emotions or “energy” of the people they portray, even if those individuals are deceased. The facilitator guides the scene toward a resolution where each representative occupies a position that feels harmonious within the imagined family system. 1
The IAE stresses that “Family Constellations” has never been demonstrated to be effective by rigorous scientific standards, calling the underlying premise—that present‑day suffering is transmitted through ancestral “energy”—“scientifically absurd.” 1
The association notes strong parallels between the technique’s language of “energy,” “communion of souls,” and the animist or spiritist practices of the Zulu sangoma tradition. It warns that participants may be drawn into a New Age worldview that includes beliefs in reincarnation, transgenerational guilt, and occultic “energy” flows, which the IAE describes as “grave moral and spiritual danger.” 1
According to the IAE, the method’s reliance on persuasion, mental suggestion, and the claim of mystical connections can open individuals to spiritist practices and, ultimately, to the “extraordinary action of the devil,” according to Monsignor Miraglia Zani’s cited exhortation. 1
The IAE advises Catholics to seek help through spiritual direction within the Church or therapies approved by national medical and psychological associations, rather than turning to “Family Constellations.” This guidance aims to keep believers within doctrinally sound and clinically validated care. 1
The summary reflects the statements released by the International Association of Exorcists on 23 July 2026, as reported by ZENIT.
Exorcists caution Catholic clergy against endorsing Family Constellations
The reported caution by exorcists fits a consistent pattern in Catholic teaching: Church authority does not judge only by a popular label (“therapy,” “spiritual practice,” “constellations,” etc.), but by the actual content and method—especially whether a practice involves divination, necromancy (contact with the dead), “medium”-style communication, or techniques that presume a power over invisible realities. Where such elements appear, Catholic doctrine provides clear grounds for avoidance.
That said, none of the sources provided explicitly mention “Family Constellations” by name, so the analysis below applies the Church’s stated principles to the kinds of features that commonly trigger these kinds of warnings.
Catholic guidance on contemporary spiritual currents emphasizes that it is often impossible to treat a practice as “partly okay.” In particular, with New Age-type influences the Church warns that one cannot “isolate some elements” while rejecting others, because the surrounding framework can remain incompatible with Christian faith.
This matters because many “alternative” methods can present themselves as therapeutic or exploratory, while quietly relying on an underlying spiritual worldview (e.g., hidden forces, manipulation of the “invisible,” or relativizing Christian doctrine). St. John Paul II similarly warned that New Age ideas can enter preaching/catechesis and even affect practicing Catholics while remaining incompatible with Christian faith, often by replacing revelation with knowledge/experience from non-Christian sources and by relativizing doctrine.
The Catechism states plainly:
“All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future….”
So the doctrinal issue is not merely “spiritual language,” but methods that function like divination—seeking power over time, the future, or hidden realities—contrary to what is owed to God alone.
The Church’s prior official response (Holy Office) also rejects participation in spiritistic manifestations in all cases, even if they appear “honest or pious,” and even if someone insists they do not want contact with wicked spirits:
“Reply: In negative in all cases.”
And traditional catechesis highlights practical reasons for avoiding mediumship even “out of mere curiosity”: it exposes one to danger of sin, can scandalize others, and encourages the impostors.
The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy warns that in matters touching doctrine, what must be avoided includes:
So if any form of “constellation” practice includes evocation/contact, even indirectly (e.g., treating the deceased as “present” in a way meant to obtain answers), it falls into a category Catholic teaching identifies as incompatible with Christian reverence.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1985) addressed how bishops should respond to facts on the ground involving gatherings for “release” that sometimes are not formally “exorcisms,” but still include invocations and demon-related questioning.
Key points in that letter include:
This explains the pastoral seriousness behind warnings to clergy: endorsement can normalize practices that drift into unauthorized “spiritual” operations—especially when the method claims access to the invisible world.
In a 2025 letter from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith regarding alleged supernatural phenomena, the Dicastery notes that emphasis on angelic mediation can be used to exclude any “mediumistic” or “contact” phenomenon with the deceased, explicitly rejecting evocation techniques and indiscreet curiosity about the afterlife—redirecting relations with the dead to intercessory prayer in the Church’s manner.
Applied as a principle: if a “Family Constellations” session encourages participants to treat the deceased as knowable in a quasi-mediumistic way, that would directly contradict this Catholic approach.
Because the provided sources don’t describe Family Constellations in detail, the application must be conditional. The Catholic case for caution becomes strongest if the practice includes any of the following features:
If the method claims it can access hidden spiritual facts, “reveal” unseen causes, or guide outcomes by methods that resemble divination, it conflicts with the Catechism’s rejection of divination and “other practices falsely supposed to ‘unveil’ the future.”
If any element of the practice involves communication with the dead (or is functionally equivalent to it), the Church’s rejection of spiritism/divination is directly relevant.
Even if a technique appears psychologically oriented, Catholic teaching stresses that where a practice belongs to a broader incompatible spiritual framework, Christians cannot simply “select” the acceptable parts and discard the rest.
In other words, a method can be “packaged” as healing while still leaning on an alternative metaphysics or relativizing doctrine—precisely the scenario Pope John Paul II warned about (New Age ideas infiltrating preaching/catechesis and affecting even practicing Catholics).
The 1985 CDF letter stresses that warning about illicit approaches should not distance the faithful from Christian prayer for deliverance. It recommends recalling the Church’s tradition about the sacraments and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, angels, and saints in the spiritual battle against evil spirits.
And the Catechism frames the positive anchor: God alone is to be honored and feared with the reverence that divinatory practices try to replace with “hidden knowledge.”
Given the Catholic principles available here, the headline “exorcists caution clergy against endorsing Family Constellations” is intelligible in light of Church teaching against divination/necromancy-like methods, spiritistic participation, unauthorized spiritual operations, and syncretistic frameworks—especially where sessions risk normalizing contact with the dead or “unveiling” hidden realities.