The John-Henry Westen Show - August 16, 2023


The Rise Of The Occult: What Exorcists & Former Occultists Want You To Know


Episode Stats

Length

37 minutes

Words per Minute

174.46367

Word Count

6,617

Sentence Count

470

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

18


Summary

In this episode of The John Hunter Weston Show, John talks with author and exorcist, Charles Frani, about his new book, "The Danger of the Occult." They discuss the Catholic Church s relationship with the occult, and what it means to be an exorcist.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Former occultists, almost all of the ones I interviewed, which is a small sample population,
00:00:04.160 but I pulled from a lot of different references of people who were sending these people to me,
00:00:09.100 they gravitated to the traditional Latin mass. They gravitated to the traditional Roman ritual,
00:00:14.100 to all the traditions, ember days, processions, sacramentals. They love it. They want it. They
00:00:19.640 want a rich spiritual life. And that's what the traditional church provides.
00:00:30.000 Hey, my friends, do you ever wonder what's going on in the Vatican? Remember years ago,
00:00:36.700 we had the light show on the Vatican, and there was all sorts of weird occult type images.
00:00:44.220 Remember, too, the Pachamama ceremony? What was all that? First, we were told it was statues just
00:00:49.680 of Mary and Elizabeth, and then we found it later. No, it's Pachamama. And there's some weird kind of
00:00:54.780 occult thing going on. Because remember, they had heads bowed to the ground, adoring this thing,
00:01:01.280 whatever it was. It was processed on a canoe, believe it or not, into St. Peter's Basilica.
00:01:05.840 So all sorts of strange stuff. But then remember when the Pope came to Canada, he was doing that
00:01:10.220 thing with the shaman blowing a bone whistle, and he had his hand on his chest, eyes closed,
00:01:15.200 as did the other cardinals who were there. And then he, the shaman, that is, prayed to the
00:01:20.060 Western grandmother, to open the circle of spirits, to have them come and join there.
00:01:26.500 What is all of this stuff? And why is it in the Catholic Church, or trying to be put into the
00:01:33.200 Catholic Church? We're going to speak with someone today who has just written a book on the occult,
00:01:38.380 and I thought that would be a very good person to ask all of these strange questions.
00:01:42.900 This is the John Hunter Weston Show. Stay tuned.
00:01:48.560 You know that here on LifeSite, we love to tell amazing stories. There are a few so heroic and
00:01:55.720 amazing as the story we're about to tell you that's coming soon. You got to watch this.
00:02:00.940 When I was in seminary, I was reading a book by Henry Nowen. He talked about a nuclear man,
00:02:09.520 you know, and people who grew up in the 1980s were kind of formed by that immediate and constant
00:02:15.580 threat of nuclear annihilation. My generation has grown up, you know, under the specter of priestly
00:02:24.620 sexual abuse. I think that for many of us, that has also been all-encompassing. You know, I mean,
00:02:35.560 I entered the seminary in January of 2004, and it's basically been there for me from in the beginning.
00:02:45.460 One priest's sacrifice for many priestly sins. The story of Father John Hallowell.
00:02:55.620 Coming soon from LifeSite News.
00:03:00.480 Charles Frani, welcome to the program.
00:03:02.600 Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.
00:03:04.800 All right. Let's begin, as we always do, with the sign of the cross.
00:03:07.460 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
00:03:13.260 So, you've just released this book called The Danger of the Occult.
00:03:17.060 Maybe you can tell us, Charles, first of all, what is the occult anyway? And what significance
00:03:24.120 does it have to today?
00:03:26.740 Sure. Yeah, this is the book, The Rise of the Occult, is a sequel to Slaying Dragons. I kind
00:03:32.720 of spin it as Slaying Dragons 2. But so the occult is something that came up in my research
00:03:38.540 for Slaying Dragons, which was a compilation of the teachings of modern exorcists in the context
00:03:42.820 of church teaching and historical teachings on diabolical issues. So the occult is a term that
00:03:48.900 means hidden, secret, concealed, kind of in the shadows. And it's become, it's not necessarily a
00:03:55.120 bad term in itself. It's just a Latin word. But now it's been used, and I use it in my book,
00:04:00.120 to label all of these kind of spiritually fringy, secret, esoteric rituals, new age concepts,
00:04:10.060 kind of do-it-yourself religious movements that are emerging, and are tapping into diabolical
00:04:15.100 powers, or mysterious, fantastic energies that dwell, supposedly dwell, you know, in nature. Like
00:04:21.200 you were talking about in the intro with these indigenous religious rituals, such as sage. Sage
00:04:27.080 smudging is a big thing we can talk about. So the occult is basically seeking hidden powers,
00:04:33.920 powers that dwell in the darkness, that are only accessible through secret rituals, unapproved
00:04:38.340 rituals, often involving sin, sacrifice, unsavory behaviors, and people that you're associating with,
00:04:46.120 and some things that just don't make any sense, just rituals that are contrived by man, obviously,
00:04:51.000 to try to conjure powers to yourself. And the ultimate goal of the occult, all forms, is one of the
00:04:56.020 things I saw, is to become a god. And it's very much a counterfeit of the true faith, which is why
00:05:01.740 its presence among members of the church is extremely alarming. Okay. So basically, considering
00:05:09.680 that there are no powers outside of the god, the angelic powers, and then the demonic powers,
00:05:18.420 there's, other than that, there's just the power of man, we're talking accessing, really, if there's
00:05:23.420 accessing anything this way, it's demonic powers. Is that right?
00:05:27.380 Correct. Correct. Some things, it, it seems just like it's silly. You know, one person,
00:05:32.300 one former, former occultist that I talked to said, being in the occult takes you outside of reason
00:05:36.720 into a realm of fantasy, where you think you're doing all these things, and it's really just a
00:05:41.100 big show. So the demons don't always respond to occultists. Often they do, because by practicing the
00:05:47.040 occult, you're breaking the first commandment. So you're opening yourself up to diabolical,
00:05:50.700 strong, diabolical influence. So some things is just silly. But even if you're seeking to pull
00:05:57.340 energy from the ground or from crystals, you're opening yourself up to a demon hiding himself as
00:06:04.200 this energy, and giving you, presenting himself to you as energy, or as a mysterious thing that came
00:06:09.820 with the energy. So even if it's just silly, it's still very diabolically dangerous.
00:06:14.240 Yes. So a lot of us have heard in the past about Ouija boards, and I think there's a good part of
00:06:21.840 the population that thinks, what does it hurt? It's not, that's not really that bad. It's really
00:06:26.420 nothing. It's a game. It's toys for kids. What is it really?
00:06:31.280 You know, the Ouija board. One thing that I learned about the Ouija board is that a lot of witches,
00:06:36.840 I don't know, probably not all, because there's no uniformity among their doctrine, but a lot of
00:06:41.160 witches won't go near the Ouija board, because they see it as dangerous. It taps into a demon,
00:06:47.300 to a power, to something that's uncontrollable. I actually spoke to a priest, he's a very traditional
00:06:52.140 priest now, who in college knew a guy who had some kind of power over the Ouija board, and people
00:06:59.020 would flock to him in his college. It was a secular college. And whenever he touched it, it would respond
00:07:04.240 the same way every time, like the thing will be moving on its own. So there's, it's a powerful tool.
00:07:10.560 So if you look at it, it's just, you know, cardboard, ink, and plastic on its own. It's
00:07:15.620 nothing. But what it does is it, it, it pushes you, calls you essentially to do something superstitious,
00:07:22.200 to try to summon secret powers, summon the spirit world, tap into the spirit world. And that's when
00:07:28.960 a demon can respond and start to manipulate the item you're holding. For some reason, a Ouija board
00:07:34.180 caught on. It's been around, it's been called a talking board. It's been around since like the late
00:07:38.020 1800s, but was popularized, I think around the 50s or 60s. And now it's everywhere in
00:07:42.920 every like, toy store, it's regarded as a toy. But everybody knows how you play with
00:07:48.080 the toy is dangerous. Well, they don't think it's dangerous, but they know it's a spiritual
00:07:52.260 activity. So it's, it's a prime form of conjuring spirit. So that's in it. The famous movie,
00:07:59.180 The Exorcist, the true story involved a boy who was using a Ouija board, and that's how he got
00:08:04.080 possessed. So it's, it's a real, real dangerous tool.
00:08:08.980 Okay. So what do you make of what's gone on in the church? For the last decade or so, we've
00:08:14.740 seen some very strange things. At first, when they had this light show on the Vatican, it
00:08:22.980 was weird. I don't know if you recall it, but in addition to animals and all sorts of wildlife
00:08:28.620 and whatever, there was these weird images. And a lot of people at the time said that they were
00:08:34.440 occult images. In fact, I had a new age expert on the show who said, no, these are definitely
00:08:40.540 new age images that are being portrayed here on the wall of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.
00:08:47.520 What do you make of that?
00:08:49.680 Yeah, I never, I remember seeing it and the whole thing was just creepy. I think it happened on the
00:08:55.200 solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. It did indeed. Where the church went dark and then was
00:08:59.820 hit by all of these images, creepy images of nature or other like occultic images. I never
00:09:05.600 did the research. I should go back and see about those occultic images. But
00:09:09.740 it, so the answer, I don't have the answer as to why that's happening, because a lot of things going
00:09:17.420 on in the hierarchy now from doctrine to morals to occultic imagery is extremely alarming. But one of the
00:09:23.420 things that the occult is doing that is intrinsic to the occult is it's a facade. It's a, it's a
00:09:29.360 charade. It's a counterfeit. It's intended to deceive. It puts up a front of being pleasant,
00:09:35.160 of being something else, of being ethereal, mystical, seeking your true self, even like
00:09:41.000 emphasizing nature. Wicca is a big one. Of course, they emphasize nature and nature's okay in itself.
00:09:47.000 But if you use it for evil purposes, then it becomes a tool of evil. So when they're mixing
00:09:53.060 in all these strange images, the real red flag should go up because of when they're doing it
00:09:59.120 and what they're doing it on. And then to find occultic images buried in those images should be
00:10:03.200 expected because they're desecrating a sacred temple on a sacred beast. So they're not going to
00:10:11.740 be putting up anything pleasant at that point because that's not how you celebrate our faith.
00:10:18.000 Right. So have you seen much of what's gone on with regard to the Pachamama thing? Can you tell us
00:10:25.320 about that in detail? Was that occultic practice? You know, at first, the way this rolled out was so
00:10:32.680 weird. All sorts of apologists were about, oh no, it's, it's statues of Mary and Elizabeth,
00:10:38.480 which I thought, well, that's really weird. Cause then you have a nude Mary and Elizabeth together,
00:10:44.040 which would have been all sorts of offensive all by itself. Still didn't explain why people in the
00:10:50.440 Vatican gardens, including a priest, by the way, all in the sight of the Pope were bowing down heads
00:10:56.100 to the ground, kneeling, totally prostrate before these two, what appeared to everyone to be idols
00:11:03.620 lying on a blanket, if you will. What did you make of that?
00:11:09.260 Yeah. One of the priests I spoke to, I believe it's in this, this edition, the rise of the occult.
00:11:14.980 He said, seeing a Franciscan in full habit, bowing before a statue is the stuff of nightmares.
00:11:20.460 And he's a very reasonable, grounded, rational, very smart priest. So yeah, I remember everybody
00:11:27.720 trying to explain away this thing, but it's an idol, like just like black and white. This is,
00:11:33.360 this is a carved, disturbing, strange image that resembles an earth deity. And it's being paraded
00:11:39.140 and celebrated in the Vatican. And even that bowl, there was some kind of bowl with some ornate
00:11:44.420 drawings on it, placed on the altar at St. Peter's with a plant growing out of it. And there's some
00:11:48.480 true occult symbolism there and some mystery about what's actually in the bowl. And that doesn't belong
00:11:53.980 on the altar anyway, but in the context, it's even more, you know, what are you doing? But then when
00:11:58.940 the, when the defense tried to come up, they kept doubling down on it. Like, yes, this is Pachamama.
00:12:05.140 And they even printed a Pachamama coin. And then you had, I think Bishop Athanasius Schneider wrote an
00:12:11.820 article, maybe on LifeSite News, I can't remember, collecting statements from South American cardinals
00:12:17.160 and bishops who were just livid about this. Like, yes, this is a demon. This is an earth worshiping thing.
00:12:22.620 This is destroying the people down here. And there's something called Pachamama Day.
00:12:27.340 I think it was in Peru. I can't remember what countries in South America where they offer
00:12:31.860 sacrifices to this deity. And one of the sacrifices that was offered, it made the news
00:12:36.320 quite far and wide of some man who was drugged at one of these festivals honoring Pachamama.
00:12:41.920 And they buried him alive. And thankfully he woke up, unearthed himself and went to the news.
00:12:47.460 And he was bloodied and dirty. And he said, he told people what happened. So Pachamama is a,
00:12:52.680 one of the exorcists I spoke to said, whenever you have a demon of fertility,
00:12:56.520 which is what Pachamama is, you have a demon of death as well that goes with it.
00:13:01.940 And the repercussions are clear. Like my book, Slaying Dragons, came out a week before that senate in 2019.
00:13:10.460 2019. And I didn't, that senate was not even on my radar. The timing was God's timing. But then you
00:13:16.760 had the exorcist come out a couple of weeks after it happened. And you had Cardinal Burke come out.
00:13:20.880 All these cardinals come out and say, this is idolatry. This was bad. This was evil. And the
00:13:25.020 exorcists were saying it essentially offered some kind of sacrifice to a demon and allowed a demon to
00:13:32.640 have more power to work against the church. And of course, a couple of months later, you also had
00:13:37.040 COVID, where all the churches throughout the world shut down. And even holy water,
00:13:42.160 the blessing on which it possesses is supposed to be for healing. Holy water became dangerous.
00:13:47.640 Don't go near holy water and put the COVID thing in it. So the whole thing together shows you this was
00:13:53.480 not just some indigenous statue of Our Lady. Even looking at it, it's disrespectful if that's what
00:13:58.720 it was. But the fruit, you will know the tree by its fruit. And I think the fruit is clear.
00:14:04.480 The reason why this story changed, actually, is because Pope Francis himself was caught on a hot
00:14:09.600 mic saying that it was the Pachamama. So that's how the story changed as it unfolded.
00:14:15.460 Yeah.
00:14:15.900 Yeah. Incredible days. One of the things that then happened later, Pope Francis came to Canada.
00:14:22.060 Canada. And this is 2022. And he was there visiting Canada. And they had an indigenous ceremony led by
00:14:34.880 a shaman. Now, very strange stuff, as I said in the intro. We'll play a little clip of it.
00:14:40.900 I will ask the east direction to open its door. I will ask the southern direction to open its door as
00:14:52.460 well, to have access to that direction. I will ask the western direction to open that door,
00:15:00.620 the grandmother door, honor the northern direction, the direction of grandfathers. I'll open the four
00:15:11.800 directions. I will whistle four times. Before I do that, I'd like for you to put your hands on your
00:15:19.600 heart, each one of you. The heart can be like a talking stick. But that's where the creator put wisdom
00:15:30.880 in humans. And we often need to remind ourselves of this. It's an important gesture to connect
00:15:40.160 ourselves with that wisdom.
00:16:10.160 I ask the western grandmother to give us access to the sacred circle of spirits.
00:16:26.100 You know, as you can see, their hands on their chests, eyes closed at the shaman's bidding. He's,
00:16:32.820 you know, blowing the bone whistle first, then giving this incantation or whatever it is,
00:16:37.400 calling on the western grandmother to open the circle of spirits to come and join them there. So
00:16:42.940 what do we say to this? Is this just, you know, is this just another religion and we're sort of
00:16:50.340 participating in it? Is that okay? Or what in the world is this? Yeah, I think as you were talking,
00:16:57.120 I had a new image in my mind. You know, Vatican II, I think it was Nostra Tate, it confused everybody
00:17:02.300 about how we look at other religions. And then post-Vatican II, that confusion just skyrocketed.
00:17:08.240 Then you had the Assisi Peace thing from JP II in the 80s. I don't know if Benedict did that as well,
00:17:14.120 I can't remember. But it's like you had this error creep in post-Vatican II. And even Paul VI
00:17:20.120 admitted that some preternatural force had come into the church, against the church, post-council.
00:17:26.440 Like I have that in my book, one of his quotes. So this error creeps in, and then it just grows
00:17:32.200 in this age where the faith is diminishing. The belief in the real presence is diminishing.
00:17:38.380 Going to confession is diminishing. Everything's diminishing. The practice of the faith is going
00:17:41.780 down. You have this error, this very dangerous error that has crept in, and people are celebrating
00:17:46.520 it more and more and more and more. So the more you celebrate the error that all the other religions
00:17:51.860 have something to offer, the more you're going to let them speak. You're going to join with them.
00:17:55.740 You're going to mix rituals into the mass, which we see all over the world happening.
00:17:59.420 Indigenous rituals are welcomed, and not everywhere, of course, because that would be
00:18:02.760 just total apostasy. But you have apostasy, and cardinals have called this out. And this is one
00:18:09.060 form of it, because these are false religions, pagan religions. We know that all the deities of these
00:18:14.720 other religions, all the energies they call upon, are demons. It's not the true faith. It's not the true
00:18:19.720 God. It's extremely dangerous. So why they're doing it is the mystery, maybe the mystery
00:18:25.620 of iniquity, why it's happening, is extremely disturbing. It's not okay. And exorcists,
00:18:34.080 you know, despite what Francis and the other cardinals were doing, exorcists are coming out
00:18:37.720 and say, look, sage smudging, which is what that Canadian elder was doing, burning sage,
00:18:42.420 calling upon all these spirits, is getting people possessed, oppressed, afflicted by demons.
00:18:47.960 It's dangerous. I have a story in the second volume of this book coming up where someone
00:18:51.860 had somebody burned sage in their home without their permission, and the home became infested.
00:18:56.920 But because they were practicing their faith well, the demon left with a little bit of show,
00:19:02.400 but the demon left. But you have other Catholic kids in Australia, where they have a lot of Catholics
00:19:06.800 going to aboriginal sage smudging events who are having nightmares, like diabolically inspired
00:19:12.860 nightmares, sleep troubles, depression, that exorcists have had to work with. So this is evil,
00:19:18.920 plain and simple. But what our Lord is allowing, why it's happening in the church right now,
00:19:24.240 what the ultimate goal is, where this is headed, is the big question.
00:19:29.620 Indeed. So what have you seen of this in popular culture right now? And what do you warn people,
00:19:38.080 parents particularly, about when their kids are watching TV or on the internet?
00:19:42.400 Oh, yeah. Don't watch TV. Don't let your kids watch TV at all. It's literally everywhere. So I
00:19:51.900 interviewed 40 people for, I'll just hold up the book so people can get a picture of it. 40 people
00:19:57.520 for this book, 16 former occultists, all kinds of occultists, from New Age to, I didn't interview
00:20:04.300 any former Satanists, but people who were related to former Satanists, a witch who was married to a
00:20:08.840 Satanist. He never converted, but she did. So 16 former occultists, eight exorcists, seven parish
00:20:15.420 priests, six families who have dealt with the occult, either from the parents being in it or the
00:20:19.560 kids going off into it. And then a lot of other people sharing stories of run-ins with the occult.
00:20:25.160 So the internet is one of the big culprits. There was one story where the kid was raised Catholic,
00:20:30.960 good kid, went to college and accumulated some kind of wound. And this is the key. And this is
00:20:36.760 in slaying dragons as well. Exorcists talk about our wounds are things that demons will latch onto
00:20:42.040 and pour salt on, essentially, and pull us away from God, make us despair, make us do more evil
00:20:47.900 things. So she went off to college, accumulated this grave wound, and then flipped. And part of the
00:20:52.700 flip, she went towards mindfulness as a cure, and then deep into witchcraft and all kinds of
00:20:57.880 disgusting things, and is essentially a whole different person now. But she would stay, her mom
00:21:03.700 blame the internet, because most witch covens, I've learned, are virtual. There are some that
00:21:08.880 meet in person, but so much of it is online. You look at which YouTube influencers, and they have
00:21:15.500 200,000, 400,000 very engaged subscribers. You can look at their, I've watched some of those videos
00:21:21.540 just to get some insights. You can look at the comments under those videos. It's very disturbing how
00:21:26.640 active the witch community is, literature. So the phone, this girl I was talking about would stay up all
00:21:32.340 night on her phone, because she shared a room with her sister, they were both home temporarily.
00:21:36.880 And she would see the glow, and she's just like talking to her friends and this witch community.
00:21:41.520 And then if you look at TikTok, TikTok is overrun with witchcraft, like the hashtag witch talk,
00:21:47.920 hashtag witches for BLM, all these different things, got billions of shares or views or however it works
00:21:55.240 on TikTok. You could just call it witch talk, essentially the same thing. If you look at some
00:22:00.580 studies on TikTok, it's so destructive to the youth. And then you infuse it with the occult,
00:22:06.660 it's just an absolute disaster. And then the culture, as far back as, I don't know, the 60s,
00:22:12.100 if not further, has always had this fascination with the occult. And you see it more and more and
00:22:16.400 more happening now. And you have the Harry Potter thing, which can be debated the merits of it.
00:22:21.440 But the point I always make, which I think is objective, which is clearly a problem, is that
00:22:26.920 Harry Potter is a pro-witchcraft novel that was introduced to a post-Christian world where people
00:22:32.720 are craving spirituality, but they're not getting it from the church. So like if I had been introduced
00:22:37.720 to Harry Potter as a kid, it would have been a disaster because I was a nominal Catholic, didn't
00:22:42.160 pray, didn't understand that, was curious about the occult. So the culture, TV, internet, it's set up
00:22:50.060 against our kids. So they really need to be shepherded, guided, pull the plug on the TV, trim the internet
00:22:57.400 as much as you can. It's really a diabolical ploy, kind of a mark of the beast thing that we need the internet
00:23:04.320 so much, or we feel we do so much because it's so tainted. And it's an uphill battle. It's a tremendous
00:23:11.260 cross families and youth have to carry.
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00:24:32.040 And now, back to the program.
00:24:37.220 So, what are your best solutions, best tips for parents, for families, for anyone struggling
00:24:44.520 with this, you know, confronted with it, have it in their past, wondering now, after hearing this,
00:24:49.600 ooh, what do I do? I've used a Ouija board before. What does that mean for me?
00:24:54.140 Yeah, so, one of the things I learned, because I talked to some of the exorcists, and for both books,
00:24:59.460 you know, slaying dragons and now the rise of the occult, is that the emphasis is placed on the power
00:25:03.820 of grace. And grace, so grace can cure all of our wounds, spiritually speaking, even some of our
00:25:11.860 physical wounds. But we need to remove the obstacles. So, there's two things. We need to tap into grace
00:25:17.620 as God has willed for it to flow through the Catholic Church, through the sacraments, and through
00:25:22.040 the sacramentals, through the life of prayer and humility. But we also need to remove the obstacles.
00:25:27.080 So, if we've done, played with Ouija boards, or we're into Wicca or something as a kid,
00:25:32.280 you need to repent for that. You need to take those things to confession, because those are mortal
00:25:36.760 sins. And perhaps you've moved on from it. This is one of the things a former occultist said. He
00:25:40.960 strongly rejected and flipped and became Catholic, rejected the occult and flipped. But a lot of people
00:25:46.340 that he was with just stopped practicing, never rejected the occult. And he said their lives are still
00:25:52.080 ruined, because they've never made a break from the occult. So, we have to think back, like, have I
00:25:57.360 ever gone to a psychic, because I lost my kid, and I was so despairing, and I wanted to talk to him.
00:26:03.140 And then I forgot about it. You know, that was decades ago. I heard that from a priest who was
00:26:07.760 teaching in RCIA, and there were some Catholics there. And the Catholics heard him talking about
00:26:11.280 psychics. They're like, whoa, wait a second. We did that about 10 years ago when our son died.
00:26:14.980 So, they had to go to confession. So, that's the key. Dig up from your past these evil things you've
00:26:21.460 done, remember them, and take them to confession. Then, make sure none of these occultic mindsets are
00:26:27.120 still lingering. A lot of times, we keep with us superstitious ways of thinking. We don't even
00:26:31.440 realize it, because our faith is not deep enough. We don't trust God completely. We trust ourselves more.
00:26:37.980 We trust the material world too much. We're too materialistic. That's one of the curses on,
00:26:42.800 you know, this country, the first world as a whole. So, that's the beginning advice I would give.
00:26:51.140 If you can, Charles, give us an example of that, which you were just talking about.
00:26:54.720 Yeah. So, superstition is, there are different kinds of superstition. One kind of superstition
00:26:59.860 is like a rabbit's foot. It has no power. It's just silly. Another kind of superstition is
00:27:05.380 the corruption of right worship. So, the misuse of holy water, or the misuse of the scapular,
00:27:12.300 that's a big one, that people think, if I keep the scapular on me at all times, I'm going to be
00:27:16.340 fine. I'll go to heaven. But all the while, they sin. So, it's a corruption of what God has revealed,
00:27:21.460 or is seeking something that God has not revealed. But also, occultic ways of thinking is like,
00:27:29.000 if you think, one of the goals of the occult is to deify ourselves. So, if we think, if we think of
00:27:37.220 pride, so pride is kind of an occultic way of thinking. If I think, I can will, I can make
00:27:41.780 something happen. I can make my life better without God's help, which spins over into what's
00:27:46.540 called manifesting. So, manifesting is this extremely widespread practice where it's essentially the
00:27:52.900 deification of the will. You can will things to change in the world. You manifest the change you
00:28:00.520 want to see. And it somehow deals with energy and the universe contriving with you. But there are also
00:28:05.820 certain kinds of corruptions of Christian practice that Protestants get into a lot, Catholics too,
00:28:11.620 where you, they misunderstand what our Lord says. Like, if you had the faith the size of a mustard
00:28:16.140 seed, you could say to this mountain, move. And then they essentially think that they can control
00:28:21.000 God by telling God you want something, believing it enough, then he's going to do it. And you're going
00:28:28.540 to almost mix that with manifesting. Like, my faith is going to cause it separate from God's action.
00:28:35.820 So, an antidote is humility. Everything's about humility. That's why Our Lady is humble and Satan
00:28:42.200 is proud and they clash and Our Lady always wins. Because if we're humbly accepting what God wants to
00:28:47.420 send us, crosses or blessings, then we will avoid control, which feeds into these occultic
00:28:53.340 mentalities that, that are out there.
00:28:56.640 What, in terms of feedback, I wanted to mention, first of all, your book is endorsed by both Bishop
00:29:03.600 Schneider and Bishop Strickland. I can't think of better endorsements for anything in my life. But
00:29:08.540 anyway, I wanted to hear from you what some of the feedback that you've received, what have people
00:29:16.480 appreciated your books for?
00:29:19.860 Yeah, so, both of them. So, I'll just hold up the other one. Since I held up. So, Slaying Dragons and
00:29:27.180 The Rise of the Occult are getting very similar reactions. Of course, the Slaying Dragons has been
00:29:30.860 out for over three years now. It's spread internationally. If you go on Amazon, it has over
00:29:35.820 a thousand, mainly five-star reviews, which is great. It's three Bishop endorsements.
00:29:39.840 But one of the things people are benefiting from these books is, what I've benefited from,
00:29:45.280 especially with Slaying Dragons, is so much essential wisdom is hidden from us. But the
00:29:51.540 exorcists, they're the go-tos. And everybody sees that more and more and more now, if you look. Like,
00:29:56.260 it's not just me. I'm not the only one who sees. The exorcists are the ones to go to, because
00:29:59.780 in their ministry, they are taking the power of the sacraments, all of them, and the sacramentals,
00:30:05.680 and channeling them by counsel and by practice into the lives of the people who are afflicted
00:30:12.300 and against demons. And they see, they see the reaction. So, I like to say exorcists see behind
00:30:17.900 the veil. When they start an exorcism, the demon has to respond to the power of Christ flowing
00:30:23.460 through the exorcist, flowing through the church by the name of Jesus against holy water, stoles,
00:30:28.920 crucifixes, invocation of the saints. And the exorcists see it. And then they go on camera,
00:30:33.580 and they're like, you guys, this is real. This really works. This really helps. So, people are,
00:30:39.860 this is the light bulb moment, I think, for the church, for the church militant. We're finally
00:30:43.860 clued in based on their teachings. They're alerting us. But it's also requiring people to dig,
00:30:49.980 to dig and find these hidden treasures, because the church has allowed so much of this sacred wisdom,
00:30:55.480 sacred teachings, grace to be hidden, to be lost. So, as people uncover it, they're experiencing
00:31:00.980 healing. They're experiencing understanding, power. Like, I experienced the same thing. It's just a
00:31:06.760 transformation of my spiritual life by really practicing spiritual warfare the way the church
00:31:11.640 has always taught it. Now, of course, with the rise of the occult. So, the end of Slaying Dragons
00:31:17.140 mentioned the occult briefly. And then I pick up with that in the second book, Slaying Dragons 2,
00:31:23.800 the rise of the occult. Because it's here, and we can fight it. And one of the things that's great
00:31:28.660 about the book, about the rise of the occult, is that former occultists, almost all of the ones I
00:31:34.260 interviewed, which is a small sample population, but I pulled from a lot of different references
00:31:38.280 of people who were sending these people to me, they gravitated to the traditional Latin mass.
00:31:43.480 They gravitated to the traditional Roman ritual, to all the traditions, ember days, processions,
00:31:48.840 sacramentals. They love it. They want it. They want a rich spiritual life. And that's what the
00:31:54.160 traditional church provides. And that's where the power, and exorcists, like, yes, I agree. Even
00:31:59.200 exorcists that aren't, was one I spoke to who does not do the traditional Latin mass. He goes,
00:32:03.860 I get it. I know exactly why they gravitate to the traditional Latin mass. And he doesn't even offer
00:32:08.640 it himself. So, it's all of this, this power is just kind of latent. It's here. And it's being
00:32:15.360 covered over by this occultic curiosity that's crept into the, crept into the whole world and into
00:32:21.380 the church. So, you have right now this mysterious crushing of the traditional Latin mass, the
00:32:26.760 traditional Roman ritual. So, the same time, so there's this, this war that we are really in, but we
00:32:34.180 do have weapons. Like, I end the book, The Rise of the Occult, on the church is the great liberator,
00:32:39.800 how Catholics can help, and the power of God. Like, those are some of the names of the last chapters
00:32:45.840 of that book, because I see it. I saw it in the lives of these former occultists, just grace really
00:32:51.100 changing them, God reaching them. And we need that too, because we're only one step away. You know,
00:32:56.380 we're, we have a fallen nature. We're sinful. We're only a couple steps away from abandoning Christ
00:33:01.760 ourselves if we're not careful. So, we have to be careful and humble and prudent, and then we will,
00:33:08.040 we will have the peace we're all looking for, and occultists will find it as well through the church.
00:33:12.080 Hello, friends. To celebrate the momentous overturning of Roe v. Wade, we at LifeSite have
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00:33:59.700 Charles, last question for you. A lot of people are now getting more into, I think it's largely
00:34:05.860 because of Father Ripperger's work. But these prayers of deliverance for the laity. What do you
00:34:14.500 make of those? There are some traditional Catholics, I think, particularly, who are kind of wary of that
00:34:20.740 because they've not heard it before. And is this some newfangled thing? Or what is this? What's your
00:34:28.800 take? Yeah, that's a good question. So, that's Father Ripperger's deliverance prayers for use by
00:34:34.740 the laity. And so, first about Father Ripperger, he was the first exorcist I was told about back in 2017
00:34:41.880 when I started this process of spiritual renewal. I was trying to figure out something was missing in
00:34:46.960 my life. I didn't know what it was. They pointed me towards exorcists. So, I watched his videos first,
00:34:51.280 and that really was the spark. But there are a lot of things. There are a lot of things. So, one of the
00:34:55.560 things about this prayer book, I have a copy. I sell it on my website, slagdragonspress.com. When I
00:35:01.020 go to conferences, I have a small batch that I try to sell to. But I've never really explored it to
00:35:07.260 the full book. And I've heard the criticisms, too, the wariness, like, what is this? And a lot of
00:35:12.540 things I've heard about those prayers that I don't understand. So, what I've decided to do is just
00:35:17.860 take the good and ignore the questionable because, you know, there are limitations to my intellect and to
00:35:25.000 my knowledge of history. So, I'm just going to leave those there. They're not dangerous.
00:35:28.480 I'm not going to focus on them. I'm not going to do those prayers. I'm going to do the ones that
00:35:31.500 make sense, like the Litany of the Precious Blood, St. Michael, all the traditional devotions,
00:35:36.900 the breastplate of St. Patrick, and simple binding prayers because those work. Binding prayers have
00:35:42.860 worked for me. I've seen it. They've worked for other people. So, I would, like, if it doesn't make
00:35:47.160 sense to you, if it's not appealing to you or to a Catholic who's listening to this, then just don't
00:35:51.440 go after it. Don't burden yourself. One exorcist said that some people who go after that book and
00:35:58.060 those prayers can get into a little bit of OCD. I'm like, I can see that, you know, like praying
00:36:03.620 about every single thing that might come up and just getting a little bit obsessive instead of
00:36:07.500 relaxing in the power of God's grace. And that's one of the things we need to realize, that God's
00:36:11.460 grace is easy for a devout Catholic to tap into, and it will flow. And he knows what we want before we
00:36:17.460 even ask him. So, we need to rest, rest assured in the power of the church triumphant working
00:36:23.240 through us, the power of the church, grace flowing through the sacraments, and not get too hung up on
00:36:29.740 it, I guess, is what I would say. So, I don't heavily recommend the book and all these prayers,
00:36:34.400 but I understand why they are helpful to people.
00:36:38.120 Excellent. Charles Frowney, thank you for joining us. Tell us, where can we find your books?
00:36:41.660 Yeah. So, my website is slayingdragonspress.com, and you can find all my books. I have five. I have
00:36:49.520 a couple others. So, if you go there, you'll see those, but it's also on Amazon. Slaying Dragons
00:36:53.900 is pretty much everywhere now. It's a pretty widespread in distribution. The Rise of the
00:36:59.900 Occult is on Amazon and on my website mainly right now, because it's only been out since March 25th,
00:37:06.340 but slayingdragonspress.com. Awesome. Charles Frowney, thank you so much for joining us and
00:37:12.980 doing the hard work of digging so that you can warn your fellow Christians, your fellow Catholics,
00:37:18.440 about the reality of spiritual warfare. God bless you. Thank you. God bless you.
00:37:23.060 And God bless all of you. And we'll see you next time.
00:37:36.340 Hi, everyone. This is John Henry Weston. We hope you enjoyed this program. To see more like it,
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