In this episode, Father Aaron Williams of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dayton, Ohio joins us to talk about what it means to be a priest in the 21st century, and why we should all be praying to God more often.
00:37:45.160Just before speaking to me, Beal had spoken with Arias, who expressed cautious optimism that we might have to, might have a breakthrough.
00:37:51.820Arias told Beal to tell us that if that happens, the United States gets more credit.
00:37:55.440Arias said the U.S. has played the game exactly right, with the approximate mix of carrot sticks, toughness, and unified message, even-handedness, and above all, good timing.
00:38:01.760Once again, this seems like a very straightforward, boring political email.
00:38:06.620Beal said he was extremely complimentary of the great political instincts shown by Secretary Clinton.
00:38:11.920With fingers crossed, the old rabbit's foot out of the box in the attic, I will be sacrificing a chicken in the backyard to Moloch.
00:38:17.180I think what the response is going to be is, he's saying, we want to get these accords signed, and I'm doing literally every superstitious thing I can to make sure it happens.
00:38:25.260It's just really wild that the superstitious thing he picked was an accurate use of magic to a demon.
00:38:34.080Why do you know how to do magic for a demon?
00:38:38.740The rabbit's foot out of the box inside of the attic is a very specific thing.
00:38:44.800But fingers crossed is a Christian symbol, isn't it?
00:38:48.960Like crossing your fingers is to make a cross with your body?
00:39:06.180I mean, it also is kind of inappropriate for a work email to be like, I'm not going to go out and say I think this is evidence the guy's actually doing it.
00:39:15.960But I would say to somebody who was emailing jokes like that, like, let's be real, I'm not going to go to someone and say, hey, don't put these weird jokes in there.
00:39:25.760But if it was a common thing, I'd be like, it's probably not appropriate for work to be like making jokes like this when we're talking about political accords.
00:39:32.560I would be like, I need to come to your house and see what your chicken situation is, actually, before I, like, keep getting these emails.
00:39:57.140Apparently, like, people have gone there and secretly filmed it, and what they say is it's not explicitly that they're worshipping Moloch.
00:40:05.320They're doing a performance to a Moloch-like deity.
00:40:09.300But it's all just very weird when you find out that powerful, wealthy people go into the middle of the woods and put on robes and do this kind of, like, weird ceremony.
00:40:17.340And the response you get, the first thing that they said was, this isn't true, it's made up, it's fake, it's a conspiracy theory.
00:40:22.840And then once the internet started to become a bit more ubiquitous and everybody had access to the videos and the articles, and we knew they actually were going to the Bohemian Grove and doing these kind of rituals, they said, it's a performance.
00:40:33.460It's like a country club where we do a gag theater show.
00:40:36.840And it's like, yes, that's still very weird because regular Americans don't do those things.
00:40:42.120It's a strange, it is a strange kind of thing to do.
00:40:44.880So one of the things that I have to look for, so I don't live in New Orleans, but I live near New Orleans, and so that sort of culture and sort of Haitian and voodoo culture affects the area I live in.
00:40:55.440But one of the things I have to look for as a priest is when I'm distributing Holy Communion at Mass, right, I have to watch them with my peripheral vision to make sure people are actually receiving the host if they're consuming it.
00:41:06.900Because people will want to steal the Most Blessed Sacrament, right, the host, for use in these acts of worship, sort of demonic activity.
00:41:18.020And it's happened before where I've noticed a man had taken a host and he pocketed it, and so I went after him and got the host from him and consumed it.
00:41:28.840And then afterwards I go in the park behind the church and see this altar he had erected where he intended to do this ritual.
00:41:35.160Just this past year, I don't want to say where to protect the identity, but a priest I know that is involved on campus ministry at a major state university discovered that the pledges in a fraternity were told to steal host from the Catholic church.
00:42:02.740So on Christmas, you know, of all times at the Midnight Mass.
00:42:07.640So I asked ChatGPT about known demons, and in Christian and Jewish demonology you've got Lucifer, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Belial, is that how you pronounce that?
00:42:30.360Yeah, so in the Rite of Exorcism, a lot of these names are listed sometimes because the priest is told to specifically, you know, command that these demons depart if they're present, that kind of thing.
00:42:44.180Sometimes we can say that, you know, perhaps sometimes they're used in a term, like Leviathan could refer to Lucifer, but it also may be a separate entity and that sort of thing.
00:42:53.640I've never—so people use Leviathan to reference Lucifer?
00:42:56.820Demons also are the whole we are legion, we they, they speak in sort of, you know, a way that intermixes all of them as one being in a mockery of God.
00:43:12.800Everything they do is like an inversion, like, that's why so much magic has to do with sex, because sex is supposed to be a part of the sacrament where you selflessly give yourself to another, and when you do that, you're open to creating life together, whereas magic is not—is using another for yourself in a way that benefits only you and is not open to life in any way.
00:43:40.080So that's like—it's always a direct mockery of—
00:44:19.820So I mentioned I'm in Natchez, Mississippi, right?
00:44:21.540So the Natchez Indians, who are nearly extinct right now, it's sad, but the Natchez Indians were an extraordinarily gruesome people.
00:44:31.680And they're one of the only groups in the United States, only Native American groups in the United States that offered human sacrifice.
00:44:38.140And so that in itself, right, to find a culture that's offering human sacrifice, well, we could say there's demonic influence right there.
00:44:44.540They even had the practice of if the chief died, they would kill the chief's entire family so that his family would be with him in the afterlife, right?
00:45:25.340And then they would heat the brass statue and put the children while they were still alive and let them slowly roast in his brass hands.
00:45:32.980And they would scream and they would do rituals.
00:45:34.960The Romans witnessed this, the Jews witnessed this, I think the Samaritans, there were other people who recorded it.
00:45:43.900So this is a common thing that goes on for not just, like, one generation or something, but over the course of hundreds of years in different cultures.
00:45:52.960Well, it's—we got on this topic, right, because we were mentioning abortion.
00:45:56.660Peter Kreeft, who's a Catholic theologian and canon lawyer, he has a quote where he says abortion is the demonic parody of the Eucharist, right?
00:46:36.980What's the difference between these, like, ancient—like, the mythologies and these pagan religions?
00:46:41.400Like, how do you differentiate what's fake and what's actually demonic?
00:46:44.960So Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, actually, very interestingly, C.S. Lewis converted because of pagan myths.
00:46:50.720He was really moved by man's search for God in the pagan myths and thought they were really beautiful and interesting, and he studied them.
00:46:59.820And Tolkien pointed out to him that all the myths point towards one truth, the true myth.
00:47:04.680Christ is a mythology, but it's true, and that's what makes it unique.
00:47:08.540C.S. Lewis converts and becomes one of the greatest Christian theologians of the modern age.
00:47:13.740But, um, so yeah, they—some of these things are just people seeking God and creating religion and trying to understand what we all intuitively know.
00:47:23.760Before we—before the 2010s or whatever, when, like, we started to go down this weird path we're all down,
00:47:30.760normalcy was a thing we all agreed on.
00:48:04.140I thought that's the story, that Odin makes himself known to people, makes himself visible to people.
00:48:08.300And when you mentioned when these pagan people actually have an interaction with God, that's demons.
00:48:12.900So that's where Odin came to mind, because that's the story.
00:48:15.240He comes and makes himself visible and known to be—like, he hides amongst the people.
00:48:20.020In the Etas, he comes and visits people and stuff, for sure, and all the pagan gods visit people.
00:48:26.660That's one of their things is, like, who is a god and who is not.
00:48:30.140But demons are beings that you interact with in order to achieve a material goal in this space-time reality.
00:48:39.220So Odin was what you thought was God, and you just—he's like a story, but he's not like anyone people are trying to get material things from currently.
00:48:51.520Whereas Moloch, for all of time, was like, I am a creature.
00:48:54.760I want you to do X for me, and then you will get Y.
00:48:57.740Whereas Odin was like, I am this almighty sort of father figure, and I have wisdom, and people were interested in that.
00:49:06.440And he's a metaphor for all these other things, you know.
00:49:15.140Because, you know, there's—you mentioned vexation, obsession, possession.
00:49:18.740Typically, my understanding, which is limited, is like someone is—they don't realize they're being influenced by some dark force to do bad things.
00:49:29.320But are there also instances where the demon whispers to you, I will give you this if you do this thing?
00:49:34.860I guess the Faustian deals or whatever?
00:49:41.680So that's a—there's a—I can't remember what saint it is that talks about a man who has sold his soul, and he's being drugged down to hell, and the angels are like, literally just say no.
00:50:14.280I was talking with a handful of people a couple years ago about DMT trips.
00:50:18.480Have you guys ever looked into dimethyltryptamine?
00:50:21.100I have some friends who are burners and stuff, so I'm pretty well versed in their stories.
00:50:25.820And there's this occult view of what powerful people are doing.
00:50:32.440They've been doing—they're calling it extended state DMT trips.
00:50:35.960These experiments have been going on for a few years where they hook people up to an IV and pump small amounts of DMT over a long period of time to create a prolonged DMT trip.
00:50:48.160So the way people describe it—I've never done it.
00:51:27.900And in many instances, they'll offer you knowledge or power in exchange for working with them or abiding by their will and things like this.
00:51:36.980And he was just saying, never accept the deal when you hear the whispers.
00:51:41.300However, there is one of the conspiracy theories is that powerful elites do this intentionally, take these deals and are granted knowledge, like you were saying, things they shouldn't know.
00:51:54.500And they use this to empower themselves and gain control over other people.
00:51:57.260It's interesting when you say that with possession, one of the things you look for is people knowing things they shouldn't.
00:52:02.800And then you have in this other area stories about entities from beyond the veil when you take this drug that will offer you up information you should not know, which will grant you more power in the material world, such as like what stock to buy, what company to invest in, where to find certain things.
00:52:21.060To me, that all sounds very much the same, just described in different ways.
00:52:23.860Yeah, well, there is a culture within the drug market, like the cartel, for instance.
00:52:31.180So there's, I was mentioning this earlier this morning, there's a, within Latin American culture, there's this weird and inappropriate relationship of sort of Christianity and paganism that intertwines.
00:52:43.680And you start to see these sort of, these death cults that enter into it.
00:52:48.420You start to see a lot of sort of paganistic and witchcraft stuff enter into it.
00:52:54.360Well, either way, within the cartel, you hear stories of things like witches cursing loads of drugs with the intention that people become addicted to them and, right?
00:53:06.480And so, and therefore fall further into that, right?
00:53:08.760And then when you're also, when you're under the influence of drugs, you're more, you know, your reason is more affected and so you're more probable to commit sin, right?
00:53:15.820So obviously it benefits the enemy as well.
00:53:18.980But yeah, so you, like I said, you see that within the drug culture.
00:53:22.320I can't talk about this particularly, but...
00:53:23.760I think you should read a little bit, because I'm wondering if, you know, one way I'd describe it is I grew up Catholic, left the church after my family, we switched schools and things like this.
00:53:33.640But I had a general understanding with religious class, we called it, and going to mass.
00:53:43.320I went through, I had communion, I never had confirmation, but when I started reading, so I had this period from probably like 13 till 18 where I was like, I'm an atheist, and that's what people told me.
00:53:57.340And then, I don't know what I would describe myself as now, but I do believe in God, I just don't follow any particular faith structure.
00:54:03.620But when I started reading about quantum physics and theory, that's actually what, part of what made me move back towards believing in God is that what I had learned reading as a kid, that was never accurately explained to me.
00:54:17.620And then reading this science and realizing that there was some connection there, and that people may just be looking at something, but from different angles.
00:54:29.760I won't get into my whole theory and breakdown of all that, because it takes forever, and I've done it several times, but I do believe that God is observable in reality.
00:54:38.040We can see signs of God, I think you probably agree.
00:54:40.920And I've met people who think that's not true, and I think they're just, they need information, information.
00:54:46.340So I'm curious, when I hear about all of this DMT stuff, which is wildly popular, everyone loves it, you know, Joe Rogan talks about, or he used to talk about it all the time, and everybody was like, whoa.
00:54:55.020So, it seems like there's something to it, and I would describe it as, there are signs all around us, such as with science, about unseen forces, like I was describing with the electromagnetic spectrum.
00:55:06.120Forever, humans had no idea it existed, because we can't perceive it, and then one day, somebody was like, hey, this weird thing is happening to this metal when I do something like this.
00:55:15.920There's something interacting with it.
00:55:25.440So it should be patently obvious to any human being that understands these discoveries, we probably haven't discovered everything.
00:55:34.100There are unseen forces that exist all around us.
00:55:37.100So there's something interesting with the DMT stuff that I'm getting to.
00:55:41.040People have all of these stories of experiencing the same thing, the same entities, and shared knowledge, which is one of the reasons why I think people are so interested in dimethyltryptamine.
00:55:50.800Because it makes people feel like there may be real evidence of something beyond that we can't perceive as humans.
00:55:58.100There's a famous story that Vice published a while ago where a man said he did DMT, large dose, blasted off, found himself in this strange reality where he met a purple woman.
00:56:32.280There are so many stories where people who have shared trips, they'll go in separate rooms, they do experiments with this, and they'll take DMT.
00:56:41.060And then these two people will report knowledge that no one shared with each other.
00:56:47.980And so I look at this and I wonder if humans are starting to touch upon these demonic entities.
00:56:54.960They're being able to visualize and describe something that is tangible that I presume the church has known about for millennia.
00:57:05.920But now through DMT, science is actually saying maybe these things actually are real and we can actually document their existence.
00:57:13.900There's an odd – this is like getting into the realm of like kooky quackery outside of religion.
00:57:23.000But there are UFO investigators who have done research into it and they're trying to figure out like, okay, every time someone's abducted, I'm going to interview everyone who's abducted.
00:57:33.460And I'm going to see if there's anyone who's interrupted an abduction experience, if that's ever happened.
00:57:38.740Because abduction experiences, they tend to happen from beginning to end and the creatures who abduct these people and the people who say they have these experiences, they describe them from beginning to end, they're powerless.
00:57:50.780So UFO researchers are like, who has ever interrupted one?
00:57:56.160So he starts to look through it and he finds that there are people who have interrupted these experiences, these abduction experiences, and universally all of them interrupted them by calling upon the name of Jesus.
00:59:01.200But anyway, so they, people universally from different cultures who don't even know see these aliens.
00:59:06.520So it's interesting that they're witnessing aliens.
00:59:08.780And then there's the other people who were like, well, aliens might have something to do with the demonic because apparently the name of Christ is the only thing that interrupts an abduction experience.
00:59:16.320Alex Jones has talked about this, that, and I don't want to put words in his mouth, but he's mentioned interdimensional entities.
00:59:23.460And it's fascinating because a lot of people will actually just say what, we've heard this, and people will chat us all the time saying what people think of as aliens are demons.
00:59:49.980I'm saying they will see an entity and then say that's an alien, even though it's been described for millennia as a demon.
00:59:56.480One thing I find truly fascinating in a much more, like, for those that, you know, don't believe and don't, let's bring it back to Earth for you guys a little bit.
01:00:09.900So this is very popular among the tech elite and, I guess, atheists to a certain degree.
01:00:16.620Not everyone, but there are many that are entertaining the possibility that the universe we exist in was a simulation created by a more advanced civilization.
01:00:24.220The fascinating thing about that is what they're basically saying is that a higher power planned the creation of this universe for which we exist in for a purpose.
01:00:34.580And I'm like, I'm just going to stop you right there.
01:00:35.960But you've basically—you know, I was talking to someone about simulation theory, and I said, I recommend you talk to some theologians, priests, and learned holy men.
01:00:45.080Because when you discuss simulation theory, that's like chapter one of my religion book when I was five years old.
01:00:51.500Yeah, it is silly to be like, God couldn't do it, but Gabe Newell could.
01:00:59.220And so I wonder, you know, just going back to—so what we have here is I looked up common reports of demonic entities with DMT, and it's machine elves.
01:01:09.380I've had people describe them as, like, slinky-like beings.
01:01:14.680I don't know if you guys have heard that.
01:01:57.360And just like with simulation theory, people are scratching the surface of religion 101 in trying to describe what they're seeing.
01:02:04.420I wonder if we would benefit greatly from these hippy-dippy DMT people actually just going and talking to a priest for a little bit and finding that what they're describing may actually already be written down for thousands of years.
01:02:16.400There's knowledge to be found, I think.
01:02:17.980There's the movie that I just assisted with, To the Ritual.
01:02:22.500There's a great line that Al Pacino's character has in it.
01:02:25.260So he plays the exorcist in the movie, and he's arguing with another priest that's struggling to believe that this is real.
01:02:33.120And he says, you know, Father, the enemy's ways may be new to you, but they're ancient.
01:02:39.100He's been doing this for thousands of years.
01:02:42.700So the Church talks about—if you look over human culture, right?
01:02:46.740So one of the things I do in my field is ritual and liturgy.
01:02:49.800So I study a lot of paganistic rituals and that kind of thing.
01:02:52.580And you'll find similarities, right, from culture to culture, similar beliefs, similar religious practices.
01:03:00.760And so the Church says—we call this the vestigia trinitatis.
01:03:03.980There's vestiges of the Trinity all through the culture because ultimately there's only one truth, right?
01:03:08.440And so when people discover truth, they're touching upon the one truth, who's God himself.
01:03:12.220And so when we discover these truths in these cultures, it's because ultimately, right, they're finally touching the truth.
01:03:19.180And so, you know, I would say if you can look over thousands, millions of years of human history and all of a sudden you keep finding the same thing popping up again and again and again and again, there has to be something true behind it.
01:03:32.740And we in the 21st century aren't just totally, you know, oh, this is brand new.
01:03:41.360One of the things that irks me with these, like, ghost hunter shows is that they're completely unserious, and I think that we should be pursuing, when people experience what would be described as supernatural phenomenon, a legitimate scientific exploration of this information.
01:03:58.920Instead, what you get is EMF detectors and, like, microphones to make weird recordings, and that's just some made-up stuff.
01:04:06.000That's not actually the scientific method or process.
01:04:08.260My mother is into ghost hunting, or was, and I went with her.
01:04:13.040I actually have an entire album about it, but we experienced, we had, like, a supernatural experience, but the equipment is insane.
01:04:20.940They just have, like, an Xbox Kinect duct tape to their head, and they're like, I'm doing science right now, and you're like, I don't think you are, though.
01:04:28.920I think you have a very old game system taped to your face, actually, and they have lasers and, like, all kinds of weird stuff.
01:04:36.040And, you know, it's built by who knows who, and the science is shoddy, but some of it, it does seem to, like, do something.
01:04:44.320I think a lot, I was reading once that a lot of this phenomenon we experience can be explained by ultra-low frequency vibration, which creates, like, a sensation within your body.
01:04:54.560You can't hear it or perceive it possible.
01:04:58.120I just find it fascinating that there are so many stories of people experiencing some kind of supernatural phenomenon, and it is dismissed by the mainstream.
01:05:09.300I think people are scared to admit it, but obviously the fact that Ghost Hunter shows exist, the fact that the DMT question is so popular, suggests that regular people do accept there are forces out there that we can't perceive that influence us, either physically or mentally or emotionally.
01:05:27.920But for some reason, on the surface, nobody wants to admit it.
01:06:04.040And, of course, I had, like, tens of thousands of people be like, we're going to kill you over this now and death threats and all the wildest things you can imagine.
01:06:12.140But over the course of time, when I would tell people I was religious, I would expect a lot of pushback from, like, you know, the stranger parts of my religion.
01:06:20.220But those are the parts that people are the most receptive to.
01:06:23.460When I tell people, like, oh, yeah, dude, spiritual warfare, I feel like I'm going through it.
01:06:27.980Like, regular people will be like, should I throw some sage down?
01:06:32.340Like, they think that they're like – people are like, yeah, to be Christian is weird and bad.
01:06:41.140So we live in, like, this very spiritual society that's trying to, like, discern this thing we all intuitively know is true.
01:06:49.460But they've totally thrown off the tradition that got us to where we are in this spiritual world.
01:06:55.740That's, like, what I'm saying with the simulation theory stuff.
01:06:58.500We were having a discussion with someone about this, and I'm just like, you're describing the first thing they taught us in religion class when I was a little kid.
01:07:06.240And these big tech guys think they've discovered something profound to say we're in a simulation.
01:07:11.120And my response is, could you call it a construct instead of a simulation?
01:10:37.280To love someone is to will their good, which isn't necessarily to be nice to them, but we've redefined love as to tolerate and be nice to and accept no matter what.
01:10:49.620I guess we took unconditional love and really ran with it, and we forgot the, you know, we're humans and things are very conditional for us.
01:10:58.560Hobent at the 16th has this great line where he says, there is no love without truth.
01:12:04.340Why is there a culture in the Americas separated by thousands of years and 10 plus 20,000 miles, but they have a very—it's like they're looking at the same thing but describing it differently.
01:12:27.000It's that thing where, like, when you're a kid, you have all these weird experiences, and you get older, and you kind of explain them away.
01:13:18.560It would basically be like if I started a fake Christian church, and a bunch of people showed up, and I was like, all right, so we all don't have sex before marriage anymore, and we're going to pray the Our Father and worship Christ.
01:13:35.320Anyway, give your soul over to Jesus, talk about it, and follow the laws.
01:13:39.300And you're like, well, it doesn't seem very aesthetic if I'm doing it, right?
01:13:43.080If I'm, you know, and so Satanism, you know, do without wilt, shall be the whole of the law, and all these other things, you know?
01:13:50.380And so you think, like, oh, this is just a—this is a goofy, like, I'm just scaring silly Christians who are trying to put the Ten Commandments outside of courthouses, but you're participating in Satanism proper.
01:14:03.240Yeah, I would just be curious, like, the extent of interactions you had with demonic elements.
01:14:07.200Well, within that organization, there are people just doing political things and being aesthetic and whatever.
01:14:12.320But then, of course, there's a bunch of people doing magic and witchcraft, and I did get involved in that for a time where I was, like—I don't know.
01:14:20.480I was reading—I've always been a fan of philosophy and stuff.
01:14:23.500When I was young, I was an edgy atheist.
01:15:52.560So there are people who are inviting demons into their lives, trying to bring them out, trying to just—so there are people who—they're doing magic, and so they're trying to affect their material reality by doing rituals and things.
01:16:09.960And then you go beyond that into people who are mad at God, and then they start to do things in order to hurt God or the people who follow God.
01:16:21.460And then the more you do one, the more it leads into the other, because, again, sin darkens the intellect and makes you angry, which makes you insane, which makes you susceptible to manipulation by demons.
01:16:31.820And the next thing you know, you're a guy who wears a diaper with your girlfriend on the weekends, and you do magic, and you're a huge loser, you know?
01:16:38.960Like, those are the types of people who do this stuff.
01:16:43.460Like, universally, there's no one who does this kind of stuff that's, like, not into the weirdest, grossest thing you've ever heard of, right?
01:16:52.380And so, basically, they do get so into it that then they begin to be obsessed with power, and, yeah, just, like, the idea that, like, I could bring this into the world, or I could summon or interact with this.
01:17:05.840Like, you become obsessed with the power that they make you feel, I suppose, and so people become really into that.
01:17:19.220I want success, you know, all that kind of stuff.
01:17:21.460And as soon as my life began to fall apart, as I received certain things and I experienced some really, really dark things, I was like, oh, I'm out.
01:17:33.000So, this is real, but, you know, there's a price and a cause for everything, so I'm out, very luckily.
01:17:39.420But there are people who get really into it, and then they go even beyond what they're doing for themselves, and now they're trying to do to others.
01:17:48.780So, then you get, like, satanic ritual abuse where people are, like, hurting children or trying to consecrate people to the devil or do things.
01:18:55.560You know, people—this is one of the reasons the church doesn't put exorcisms out for people to kind of sort of look at as spectators, right?
01:19:05.300It's because you can become obsessive, right?
01:19:09.420Maybe you're just looking at this because you're interested, but as you become interested, then all of a sudden you want to see, well, does this work if I do it, right?
01:19:14.020Well, then as you start seeing, well, does this work, then you start to believe this and you start to live this life, right?
01:19:18.600But the same thing's true inadvertently, right, within the church, and that's why I think within a younger culture today, we live in a world where nothing is true, nothing can be accepted as true.
01:19:29.460And so now you start seeing an uptick of people becoming Catholic, for instance, young people becoming Catholic, because they're found in the one place they can believe there's a foundation of truth.
01:19:37.800And not only do they become Catholic, but they become traditionalist Catholic, right?
01:19:41.560Like they're going into that, and so because the way you believe, the way you pray is going to affect what you believe, and so they're going deeper and deeper into that.
01:19:48.320And I think that's a good thing to see.
01:19:49.500I saw a statistic just last week, two different statistics.
01:19:53.060One is that for the first time in 20 years, more people were baptized Catholic than left the church last year.