The Michael Knowles Show - ＂A Brick Came Out Of His Mouth＂ Michael & The Exorcist Files

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00:00:30.000 We'll have exorcism cases where all of a sudden in the midst of the praying there's some heaving

00:00:38.160 going on, heaving, and people will vomit the strangest things. Pins, nails, screws, bricks,

00:00:46.560 like a whole brick appears to emerge out of somebody's mouth. It's a real brick. It's a real

00:00:51.360 brick. Did this happen to an exorcist you know or is this to me? How do you make sense of this then?

00:00:55.920 I think most people's conception of exorcism is wrong.

00:01:01.460 And if we correct it, then a lot of other questions are answered as well.

00:01:15.940 Everybody loves talking about demons.

00:01:18.880 but not everybody likes following what those ideas mean to their logical conclusion and especially

00:01:27.740 at this time of the year we should all be very very clear about what we're talking about because

00:01:33.540 there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of in our philosophy horatio i'm so pleased to be

00:01:39.460 joined by the hosts of the exorcist files that would be ryan bethea and father carlos martins

00:01:46.580 Father Martins. Ryan, thank you for being here. Before we get into demons, obsession, possession,

00:01:54.480 whether we talk about the occult too much, whether we talk about it too little, whether we talk about

00:01:59.240 God enough, the return to faith, the massive conversions and baptisms we've seen over the

00:02:05.720 last two years, I want to talk about Halloween. A major debate among Christians. Is this our

00:02:15.120 holiday, All Hallows' Eve, before All Saints' Day, is Halloween a Christian holiday? Should parents 0.98

00:02:21.540 let their kids participate in Halloween? Or is Halloween of the devil and you need to knock it

00:02:26.920 off and at most eat a Twix alone in your room? Oh, a Twix? One of the greatest candy bars. Okay,

00:02:33.300 we'll discuss that. Father, what are your thoughts on it? Well, look, so there's no question Halloween

00:02:38.420 began as a reaction to Christianity. So its very name is a repudiation of All Saints Day. All 0.73

00:02:45.760 Hallows' Eve is the root of Halloween. So the word hallowed means holy. Our Father who art in

00:02:53.440 heaven, hallowed be thy name. May your name be made holy. So it was a reaction as, it was a way

00:03:02.080 to have the day before All Saints Day as a day where evil and the macabre were celebrated,

00:03:10.580 to bring a disrepute onto All Saints Day because the Christian notion, the Catholic notion of

00:03:17.860 there being an honoring of the saints was to be repudiated. Today, though, it has a different

00:03:23.940 meaning, right? It's become a cultural phenomenon, and it doesn't have the same meaning it had at

00:03:28.740 its origin. So if, you know, I have no children of my own, but if I did, would I permit them to

00:03:35.120 participate in Halloween? Yes, provided two conditions are followed. Whatever they dress up

00:03:41.460 as cannot celebrate evil or the macabre, right? It can't celebrate gore. If they want to dress up

00:03:49.020 as royalty, lumberjacks, sports athletes, something special, no problem. And they can go out and get

00:03:55.600 their candy and so on and so forth. The second condition is All Saints Day, the day after

00:04:02.700 Halloween, they have to celebrate with at least as much fanfare, right? There has to be that

00:04:09.540 celebration. So under those two conditions, sure, you know, that's fine. And, you know, look,

00:04:15.240 in Christianity, our Lord himself reappropriated pagan sites for the Christian age, Caesarea

00:04:24.340 Philippi, where the cave of Benias was. So this is where he appointed Peter as the head of his

00:04:31.720 college of apostles. This is where he stated, I'm going to found a church. So that place was a

00:04:39.500 horrific place. So it was a place where bestiality was practiced, where you had the pagan rituals 0.97

00:04:46.920 that were just unmentionable. You wouldn't mention them on polite television.

00:04:53.700 And so this is the place where the Lord took Peter

00:04:55.680 right to the devil's doorstep, rang the doorbell.

00:05:00.280 And although he's speaking to Peter,

00:05:02.820 he's speaking just as loudly to Satan.

00:05:05.300 Like, your time is done.

00:05:07.180 And I'm gonna not only defeat your kingdom, 1.00

00:05:09.780 I'm gonna do it through a church

00:05:11.120 and this guy's gonna be the head of it.

00:05:13.580 And the attack the church is gonna give against you,

00:05:16.680 you will not survive it.

00:05:18.780 So often we think when he says

00:05:21.820 the gates of hell will not prevail. We have this image of hell doing the attacking and the gates

00:05:27.040 of the church are going to withstand. That's not what the Lord says. The church is the one that is

00:05:31.900 going to be doing the attacking. So he completely reappropriated that place. If you go there today,

00:05:37.000 it's a holy site. It's a site revered and treasured by the Christians. And where are the

00:05:41.580 pagan rituals now? They're non-existent. In Rome. They're in New York, San Francisco, Chicago.

00:05:48.020 But far away, they went and found some other corner, far away.

00:05:51.360 In Rome, you have the Pantheon, which was a temple dedicated to all the gods,

00:05:57.480 in other words, in the words of St. Paul, to all the demons.

00:06:00.700 And you have that now reappropriated, and it's one of the most glorious churches in Rome.

00:06:07.100 So what did they do?

00:06:08.460 They did an exorcism of the place, they brought in relics,

00:06:12.260 and they turned this pagan temple into a glorious church.

00:06:15.520 So you can reappropriate a custom or a place or a tradition that has gone awry, that started

00:06:24.000 worshiping, glorifying the wrong spiritual entity, and you can appropriate it for them.

00:06:30.300 Well, this is kind of the broader point that I want to get into with you guys,

00:06:34.180 is how to think about my relationship to the spiritual world. Not just all the good stuff,

00:06:41.900 ultimately God, but some of the dangers and pitfalls and temptations there too.

00:06:46.520 Because on the one hand, I'm a baptized Christian. I don't have any fear of some stupid demon. I don't 1.00

00:06:53.580 want to hide in fear of them. On the other hand, just as I don't go seeking out cockroaches in my

00:07:02.200 house, so too, I don't want to go seeking out the attention of these malign spiritual entities. 0.95

00:07:07.620 So when it comes to something like Halloween, I think, okay, well, it starts as All Hallows' 0.99

00:07:11.260 Eve. We have Christmas Eve before Christmas. We have All Hallows Eve before All Saints Day,

00:07:16.200 but then it accretes this kind of malign, macabre, dark aesthetic to it. Okay, so I can either go as

00:07:27.540 a zombie, goblin, witch for Halloween. I probably shouldn't do that. I can go as Paul O'Neill,

00:07:32.760 which I did many years as a kid, and that's pretty good. One of the great heroes of the 1990s,

00:07:38.020 okay, but it doesn't have any spiritual quality. Or I can go as a saint. You sometimes have

00:07:42.160 Christian families and they'll say, okay, you can dress up for Halloween, but you're going to go

00:07:45.200 to St. Peter or St. Francis or something like that. Okay, that's very nice too.

00:07:49.560 What should be a Christian's posture? The fact that your show is really popular,

00:07:55.580 the fact that the interviews that I've had with exorcists and people who have dealt in the occult

00:07:59.760 and come out of it, the fact that that's all really, really popular,

00:08:02.800 what does that tell us about our posture toward spiritual reality and specifically the demonic

00:08:10.420 well actually since we're talking about halloween i'd be remiss if i didn't share we have a very

00:08:15.140 strong connection with halloween because basically the first time i filmed father martin's

00:08:19.580 in los angeles was on halloween we didn't plan it that way it just happened to be the one day

00:08:25.100 he was available so the first time i actually met him in person you know and i don't know it's my

00:08:29.300 first exorcist you know and hopefully the last one i ever need to meet and so he rolls up and uh

00:08:34.260 he's got the kit got the bag you know the only missing was the tubular bells right yeah yeah

00:08:38.640 and so he walked dark and raining at midnight yeah no actually it was sunny and sherman oaks

00:08:43.440 um and so we went to a friend's house and he actually is funny because he didn't tell his

00:08:47.420 wife what we were filming and she goes oh there's a little filming there right and then she walks in

00:08:51.540 and there's a crew a little bit of a crew and there's an exorcist there and he filmed a fantastic

00:08:56.140 promo. I was like, oh, he earned the name that day. You know, obviously sometimes you get names

00:09:00.820 changed in the Catholic tradition, but he became one take Carlos. One take Carlos. He was fire that

00:09:06.480 day. It was fantastic. Now we finished up. And of course, after a good day, you know, we all know

00:09:10.880 how demanding this job is to be on camera. Right. And so you're hungry afterwards. Yeah. And we're

00:09:15.380 like, it's Halloween. Where can we go? So I was like, well, let's take him down to Hollywood. I

00:09:19.220 don't know why, but I think we found a last minute reservation at a kind of bougie sushi

00:09:23.000 restaurant. He loves good sushi, as do I. And I said, we don't have time. We have to make a

00:09:27.060 reservation. So he stayed, of course, in his priestly attire. We head to a sushi restaurant.

00:09:31.800 We get up to the top floor. And this is like right down in downtown Hollywood. It's bumping.

00:09:35.880 There are costumes that are not Paul O'Neill and saints all over the place. We go up. And to be

00:09:41.120 fair, I will say they did a great job decorating. The glass case where they have the fish had like

00:09:45.640 gummy worms and like a hamlet skull. And it was tasteful Halloween. But then there was also like

00:09:52.020 some darker stuff everywhere.

00:09:53.920 I mean, the whole place.

00:09:54.620 And all the servers were dressed up in costume.

00:09:57.120 And so we are sat at our table,

00:09:59.740 father in his outfit,

00:10:01.040 me dressed up.

00:10:02.160 My costume is, you know, Protestant producer.

00:10:04.220 We sit down and our server approaches

00:10:06.060 with the name tag that says Lucy

00:10:07.520 and it is the devil.

00:10:10.280 So tail, horns, red, the whole thing.

00:10:13.900 And she goes,

00:10:15.300 wow, I love your costume.

00:10:17.900 It looks so real.

00:10:19.900 And father goes,

00:10:20.820 oh, hello, Lucy.

00:10:22.020 I see we meet again, you know. You might have said, too, like, why don't we keep work at work

00:10:25.820 or something? And she's like, wow, that's so cool. It looks so real. And I thought, yeah,

00:10:29.860 what are the odds of that, right? Lucy, you don't understand that in God's providence,

00:10:34.260 you are a very significant symbol right now, but all nature is but art unknown to thee.

00:10:40.680 So, all right, you meet the devil in Hollywood, as have many people.

00:10:45.020 But, you know, that kind of underscores the point then. So you're in Hollywood. You get these people

00:10:50.500 making jokes, playing around, dressing up like the devil. There is a truly satanic place in

00:10:55.260 West Hollywood, which is this very infamous gay bar. And I don't point out that it's satanic 1.00

00:11:01.920 just because of the activities. It's called the Abbey. This is one of the most famous places in

00:11:06.580 West Hollywood is probably the gayest neighborhood in the entire United States. And the whole place 1.00

00:11:12.300 is done up to be a mockery of an abbey, of a Christian abbey. You say, well, what is it with 1.00

00:11:19.700 this obsession with sin mocking the church, having to, I don't know, to take on the aesthetics and

00:11:30.540 the adornments of the church? Why? And getting back to my earlier question, what is the proper

00:11:36.320 orientation of a Christian toward these things? You don't want to be too scared of the demons.

00:11:40.820 You don't want to be too relaxed and allow some temptation to enter in. How do we approach it?

00:11:47.100 Yeah. You know, people ask us, they ask me all the time, Father, do you really take on the devil?

00:11:54.160 Yes. Aren't you afraid? And my answer is no. I've never been afraid of the devil. I'm afraid of God.

00:12:03.240 I'm afraid of offending him. I'm afraid of falling outside of grace with him.

00:12:08.680 But I'm not afraid of the devil. I respect the devil, but I don't fear him. So what's the

00:12:14.020 difference? Well, the analogy that I use, it's an analogy, I begin the book with this, is, you know,

00:12:21.680 inside your house, you have at least one knife that is sharp enough that if you're not careful

00:12:26.440 with it, you're going to cut yourself. So you respect the knife. But when you go to bed at night,

00:12:32.680 you don't stay up worrying about that knife. And if you did, you and I, we'd be in agreement that

00:12:38.040 there's something wrong with your mental health. So you respect the knife because if you don't

00:12:43.520 respect it, it can cause damage. But you don't spend your life worrying about it. And so it's

00:12:48.960 the same with the devil. When the exorcism is done, the only thing I care about is, okay, well,

00:12:54.520 let's get to the Mexican restaurant, myself and the team. And that's where we let our hair down.

00:12:59.740 That's where we debrief what happened. And the exorcism has been left in that room.

00:13:06.260 So we don't think about the devil. Well, we may talk about the K. Hey, what did you see? What did 0.99

00:13:10.540 you feel? Because they may have an insight that I missed, and vice versa. This is where we have

00:13:16.920 the dialogue, because in the room, you can't. The dialogue is between the priest and the demon.

00:13:22.240 So they may slip me a note. If they get something in prayer, I may get a note, but we can't have a

00:13:28.320 dialogue. We can't have a conversation there. But at the restaurant, we do. So there, we assemble

00:13:34.540 the attack plan for the next session. Well, Father, you have a good point, too. You brought

00:13:38.800 this up on the show many times about, you know, the mockery, Satan mocking God has begun from the

00:13:43.480 very beginning in the gospel accounts. I think you used the example of coming off the mountain

00:13:47.080 of the transfiguration and the demonic encounter that happens immediately after that, right?

00:13:52.240 Yeah. So the devil organized his own transfiguration there. So, you know, at the top

00:13:58.940 of the mountain, the Lord gets an affirmation from his father, right? The same affirmation

00:14:04.660 that happened at the baptism. And what happened after that? He's empowered with his divinity in

00:14:12.060 such a way that now he begins his public ministry. He goes into the desert and it says the Spirit

00:14:17.960 drove him into the desert to be tempted by that. The Spirit kicked the Lord out as if God the

00:14:25.980 father is saying to Satan, here's my boy, take your best shot at him. And so the devil, God knows

00:14:35.660 where he was when that happened, but he was going to make sure he was going to get involved when

00:14:40.600 this came around a second time. So now you've got the two prophets of the Messiah, Moses and Elijah,

00:14:46.620 speaking to the Lord. We have no idea what they say. Although there was a ministry there given

00:14:52.100 to the apostles. They were able to see the Lord transfigured and all that. The greater thing is

00:14:57.420 the Lord is receiving his instructions from the prophets of the Messiah, his prophets, saying,

00:15:04.020 this is what the Father wants of you. So he receives this affirmation from them and from

00:15:09.800 the voice of the Father. He goes down the mountain and the devil is there waiting and with a speed

00:15:14.500 that is absolutely incredible, sets up his own mockery of what happened up the mountain.

00:15:20.600 so here's the obnoxious father with the possessed boy and he goes around and he's got exorcists

00:15:26.500 there right the scribes are there well what are they doing there these are exorcists for hire

00:15:31.340 and so they they had made the boy manifest so he's reacting he's foaming at the mouth he's flopping

00:15:37.660 around and so in in what happened during that time is then the father would pass a hat around

00:15:42.980 look at my boy look at look at look at our bad lot you know look look at i went to this guy and

00:15:49.280 he wasn't able to get rid of the devil. I went to the weird, the Spanish lady on the corner, 1.00

00:15:52.480 she wasn't able to get, I went to the apostles of this guy, Jesus, and they weren't able to get rid 1.00

00:15:56.360 of him. Have pity on us and put something in the hat. That's what's going on. And the devil

00:16:00.620 is putting in relief to Jesus. This is what your father is, right? This is what's going to happen

00:16:10.300 to you. He's exploiting you just like this father is exploiting his son. He doesn't love you. He's

00:16:16.600 not going to offer me. And the proof of this, look how raw Jesus is in the midst of that.

00:16:23.320 These arrows are hitting home. There's nothing sinful about this. The Lord didn't sin,

00:16:28.300 but you can be an incarnate God. So be God and man at the same time and be annoyed and be irritated.

00:16:36.400 And so here's this obnoxious father who's got his set routine and the devil is speaking to him

00:16:43.840 through all of this. Really? Oh, your father wants you to die for the world's sin. Okay. To whom is

00:16:49.860 the debt owed? Oh, to your father. Why doesn't he just waive the debt? Why doesn't he pay the debt

00:16:56.160 himself? Why does he need you to do it? So all of this is hitting home, right? And, you know,

00:17:02.920 the father comes up and says, you know, hey, can you do something to help us?

00:17:07.600 and Jesus's response is so raw can I do something how long do I have to put up with you 0.96

00:17:15.440 this faithless generation yeah right so imagine your pastor right imagine you had

00:17:20.900 a demonically afflicted child you know God forbid but but say you did you go up to your pastor

00:17:25.840 and you say can you do something to help this child can I do something how long do I have to

00:17:32.420 put up with your faith. I'm God. Oh, you guys still don't get it? Which he says to Philip,

00:17:38.720 too. How long have you been with me? You still don't get it? Like, I'm God, you know?

00:17:43.620 Yeah. So the other thing in the scene is Jesus doesn't want others to define himself.

00:17:52.880 He wants to define himself. And so he's coming down the mountain. And so there's this crowd

00:17:58.040 gathered because on a Tuesday afternoon, you know, having an exorcism at the base of a mountain,

00:18:02.640 well, that's great entertainment in those days. And here comes down the mountain,

00:18:06.140 the heavyweight champion of exorcism. And it says they were filled with excitement because

00:18:12.320 when they saw him, because, oh my gosh, right? Like we paid for a cheap ticket and now the

00:18:17.640 heavyweight champion is appearing. And he doesn't like this. And at the end, it even says,

00:18:24.220 When he saw that a crowd was gathering, he dispatched the devil and left.

00:18:30.020 So there's a lot of rawness there.

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00:19:41.060 You know, when I was returning to the church, I was an atheist for about 10 years.

00:19:45.520 And when I was reverting, I was reading the Gospels.

00:19:49.200 I guess not for the first time, but it was the first time I did it really seriously and

00:19:53.480 in a disciplined way. And I was pretty convinced at this point that Christ is who he says he is,

00:19:59.860 but the line that really persuaded me perhaps the most that he is God is that line, which he

00:20:07.080 repeats in the gospels, which is how much longer do I have to be with you people? Because if I were

00:20:11.980 God and man, that's exactly what I would think too. It's like, how much longer? I just want to

00:20:18.760 go back up and be with my father, but I am here to save all of you, and you still don't get it,

00:20:25.100 and you still screw up almost every single step of the way. But the spectacle point then returns

00:20:31.580 me to this same question, which is, okay, we're in this moment of 38% year-over-year increased

00:20:37.260 baptisms in France, in the United States, and elsewhere. Okay, wow, that's great. We're in this

00:20:42.660 time of the decline of religion leveling out, maybe even ticking back up again. That's really

00:20:48.060 great. This is the first time we've ever seen anything like this in my lifetime. And we're in

00:20:52.900 an age where people really, really want to hear about demons. One of the biggest interviews I

00:20:58.460 ever did was with our friend, Father Dan Rehill. And we received a lot of notes about this. I think

00:21:04.920 Father Rehill may have received a lot of clients because of this, because people had these problems

00:21:09.040 of demonic temptation and obsession and possession, the distinction of which perhaps we'll get to a

00:21:14.140 a little later. But then whenever something's really working, whenever something seems to be

00:21:19.880 going really well, I always have to think about the other side. I say, is there some

00:21:23.300 downside to people thinking too much about exorcisms and the demonic? Is there a danger

00:21:30.000 there as well? And so it brings me back to that original question, which is, what should our

00:21:35.000 posture be toward the manifest works of the devil all around us? Yeah. I mean, it's interesting

00:21:42.200 because like we read in scripture,

00:21:44.780 we are never to fear the devil,

00:21:46.140 but to be aware of it, right?

00:21:47.680 And so there is a balance.

00:21:48.840 And we obviously all know the C.S. Lewis quote,

00:21:50.720 there are two errors that man fall into, right?

00:21:52.480 To pay too much attention, too little.

00:21:54.820 I do think, we are sensitive to this on the show.

00:21:57.240 We try not to scare, you know,

00:21:59.360 the show is a blend of dramatizations,

00:22:00.940 which can be scary.

00:22:02.160 But even that, it's interesting

00:22:03.080 because we've had,

00:22:03.960 Father got a letter from, was it a 90-year-old woman

00:22:05.760 who said, you know, this is not that scary.

00:22:08.280 Like, it's totally fine.

00:22:09.800 And then others have said like,

00:22:11.360 no, we have like, there's prominent people who say, I can't, this is, this is so triggering to

00:22:15.700 me, et cetera. So there's a relative line, but we blend a lot of humor and teaching, but we do get

00:22:19.700 lots of emails from people who hear these things. And this is the part I just like to be really

00:22:23.760 sensitive of, because there are people going through, you know, when you're going through

00:22:27.020 suffering and tribulation, all you want to do is understand, right? The human nature is like,

00:22:31.180 you want to find the formula, you want to find the prayer, you want to find, and it's interesting

00:22:35.060 too, even in just different traditions of Christians that reach out, like what they're

00:22:39.040 like, tell me, what prayer do I have to say?

00:22:40.300 Is there a book?

00:22:41.220 Is there an action I have to take?

00:22:42.520 And you just want,

00:22:43.240 and there are people who are suffering.

00:22:45.720 And on one hand,

00:22:46.380 we've had people who were suffering for a long time

00:22:48.460 and told by their clergy in various denominations,

00:22:52.360 like, it's just a mental health issue you have.

00:22:54.960 Like, you're just hallucinating this, right?

00:22:56.840 And that doesn't help.

00:22:58.640 And it could also be one of the,

00:22:59.940 it could also be both.

00:23:01.120 And then you have others who've written in,

00:23:02.520 and they got healed,

00:23:04.300 and they reach out to us and they say,

00:23:06.360 thank you for believing me, right?

00:23:08.260 Thank you.

00:23:09.040 Our Ouija board story that we put out,

00:23:11.100 the number of emails I get for people

00:23:12.000 who have had an actual encounter with Ouija board,

00:23:13.940 people say, why do you believe this stuff?

00:23:15.140 And it's like, yeah, thank goodness.

00:23:16.680 I've never seen that firsthand with me, nor do I want to.

00:23:19.400 But the amount of people say, look, this is,

00:23:21.700 I have seen this.

00:23:22.380 I'm so glad I had bad things happen to me when they did.

00:23:24.780 The other side, though, is people listen and go,

00:23:26.980 oh, that's it.

00:23:27.940 I have all these financial problems now

00:23:29.460 because it's a demon, right?

00:23:31.240 And can you pray over me?

00:23:32.400 And then the other downside of this,

00:23:33.800 and Father Rejo wrestled with this,

00:23:35.260 is how many people have to say,

00:23:36.800 I need Father Martins to talk to me one-on-one

00:23:39.320 and do my blessing, my prayer, et cetera.

00:23:42.020 And it's a shame because on one hand,

00:23:44.240 we're so grateful and honored,

00:23:45.800 but we also want people,

00:23:46.760 we send 99% of emails like,

00:23:49.000 please talk to your local clergy, et cetera.

00:23:52.260 So the point of the posture,

00:23:53.540 the downside is if we focus too much on it,

00:23:56.280 they will think that there's something

00:23:57.560 that they have to only get prayer from Father Martins,

00:23:59.780 or they might think they have a problem

00:24:01.080 that's actually spiritual when it could be fixed.

00:24:02.900 Like there are people that Father has talked to

00:24:04.680 that are like, you're making bad decisions.

00:24:06.480 That's why life is in shambles, not because it's spiritual.

00:24:09.260 Yeah, and it's also not your job to exorcise every single person in the world.

00:24:15.180 Like, you actually have an office and an authority from the church

00:24:18.000 over a particular group of people,

00:24:20.020 and it would not be possible for you to exorcise every single person in the world.

00:24:23.820 So there's that difficulty, and this probably relates to exorcism itself.

00:24:29.820 But on this point, there can be a lot of good that is done

00:24:33.840 when people are aware that the devil exists.

00:24:36.320 In my reversion, one of the big signs

00:24:39.020 that pointed me back to faith

00:24:40.760 was realizing that sin is real and evil is real

00:24:43.460 and the devil is real.

00:24:44.480 Because if those things are real,

00:24:45.960 then God must be real.

00:24:47.580 And so it actually was very helpful to me.

00:24:50.300 But I wanna be aware of the devil

00:24:54.260 so that I can avoid him,

00:24:57.180 do my best to cooperate with God's grace

00:24:59.460 to kind of stunt his plans and impede him.

00:25:02.900 But that's about it.

00:25:03.840 I don't want to deal with the devil. I don't want to meet him. I don't want to talk to him. I don't

00:25:07.440 want anything to do with him. Whereas, it's difficult not to get a little bit curious. And

00:25:13.240 I wonder, as you're performing exorcisms, as your fellow exorcists are, do you ever get a little

00:25:18.460 curious when the demons start talking? They're pretty intelligent in a certain sense, and they've

00:25:25.240 been around a long time, and that would seem to me a real temptation when you're encountering them.

00:25:30.020 You know, I really don't have that experience. I'm a convert from atheism myself, so I know what it's like to not believe, what it's like to not have hope. And so once I receive that, I just don't want anything else.

00:25:45.540 So I never converse with the devil.

00:25:49.300 I issue commands, period.

00:25:52.500 So beyond commands, where I'm telling him to do something,

00:25:56.120 something he doesn't want to do, the dialogue is non-existent.

00:25:59.680 So he may ask a question, he may offer something.

00:26:02.740 I don't answer the question.

00:26:04.340 If he offers some tantalizing thing, be silent in the name of Jesus.

00:26:08.480 And if he maintains it, if he keeps it up,

00:26:11.980 then I'll ask a saint or the mother of God 0.97

00:26:14.880 or the Lord to slap him. 0.96

00:26:16.780 And every time he does this, increase his pain.

00:26:20.280 So that you're issuing a correction

00:26:22.600 because nothing that he offers is life-giving.

00:26:26.040 Nothing that he offers is the treasure

00:26:27.880 that he hopes you regard it as.

00:26:31.000 It's just, you're in the middle of danger

00:26:34.360 if you're willing to accept a gift

00:26:37.320 from the king of the mafia, right?

00:26:40.300 You're in danger.

00:26:41.500 that this is not, don't extend your hand out to receive it

00:26:44.600 because it's going to burn through your hand.

00:26:46.540 How does one go from an atheist to not just a believer?

00:26:50.140 I know how you do that.

00:26:51.700 How do you go from an atheist to a Catholic priest

00:26:54.700 and an exorcist?

00:26:55.720 Gosh, you tell me and we'll both know.

00:26:57.920 I just, I was ordained and I was just assigned

00:27:01.600 to a church in Texas where the exorcists

00:27:05.680 for the diocese were all stationed there.

00:27:08.540 But hold on, you're skipping over the first part.

00:27:10.480 the atheist to you end up in seminary you believe it you end up in church it's a sweet story yeah

00:27:17.280 so what happened is so so you know i was i was an undergraduate and i you know i didn't believe but

00:27:24.880 i i didn't believe as a result of an intellectual conclusion of the way things are of the way i saw

00:27:31.200 reality if if if an all-knowing all-good all-loving god exists why is there so much evil in the world

00:27:36.360 why are there so many different religions, each contradicting the next? And frankly,

00:27:40.460 why does God hide himself? Why do we have to take his existence on faith? So given these states of

00:27:45.540 affairs, I thought, well, it's just not possible for theism to be true. And yet, I wasn't happy

00:27:52.660 with that conclusion, because if God doesn't exist, then the moment you die, it lights out.

00:28:00.220 In fact, you won't even know that you died, because there won't be a you to be aware of it.

00:28:03.720 so okay what's the implication of that 100 years after my death such that everyone else who knew

00:28:10.120 me is also dead i might as well have never have existed now these are not happy conclusions right

00:28:15.680 right like we're wired and i was honest enough to see that we're hardwired to want to live forever

00:28:20.880 to want like a an infinite amount of happiness and to have hope for the future and so at the

00:28:27.480 same time you know you know as i'm experiencing this and wrestling with this over a number of

00:28:31.620 years, I met a small group of students and a couple of professors, maybe eight individuals

00:28:38.300 in total, that wore their faith and wore it with an absolute peace and tranquility that came

00:28:45.460 through. And it was powerfully attractive, the peace that they had. And the anecdote that I'd

00:28:51.920 like to share is I was having coffee with one of these students at a coffee shop on campus,

00:28:57.660 and we were seated at one of the, you know, typical round tables in a coffee shop.

00:29:03.140 And we parked, we would both park our cars in the lot near that coffee shop

00:29:08.120 because it had the cheapest parking on campus.

00:29:11.000 A guy came in and informed the guy with whom I was speaking,

00:29:17.220 your car is wrapped around somebody's oak tree on the front lawn.

00:29:20.640 Somebody must have stolen it out of the parking lot.

00:29:23.000 So he had parked there at about 8 a.m.

00:29:25.280 We're having coffee at 11.

00:29:27.660 And he's informed his car is wrapped around an oak tree. 1.00

00:29:30.660 Your car is garbage. 0.98

00:29:33.640 And so he turns and he faces me again. 0.99

00:29:36.680 And he says, well, I guess it just wasn't God's will for me to have a car right now.

00:29:42.280 And he could still enjoy the cup of coffee.

00:29:45.500 And that, like we talked for at least a half an hour after.

00:29:49.920 I can't remember a word of that conversation.

00:29:53.380 But I can remember like it was yesterday.

00:29:56.100 his reaction like he couldn't give a rat's rump that his car didn't exist anymore you know so so

00:30:05.420 the this guy is living in the world but the world is not living in him so nobody was like this so

00:30:13.200 it was powerfully attractive the way that these people lived so one of them eventually invited me

00:30:18.500 on a eucharistic adoration retreat and i had no idea what that was and you know i i heard retreat

00:30:24.380 and I understood vacation.

00:30:26.680 I thought, all right, I'll bring the beer.

00:30:28.600 I was the only one that had a car in that group.

00:30:31.240 Obviously, your friend no longer had a car.

00:30:33.460 He no longer had a car.

00:30:34.400 So on that retreat, once I discovered what adoration was,

00:30:40.380 like we're kneeling in front of, you know,

00:30:42.480 in the Catholic context with a piece of bread

00:30:45.020 that looks like a cracker. 0.95

00:30:48.300 And we're going to worship this appearance 0.51

00:30:52.400 of a cracker as God. 0.76

00:30:54.380 and I just couldn't parse that, and I plotted my escape. What can I do to get out of this

00:31:01.800 experience? But the witness of these folks was so great, I could not bring myself to lie to them

00:31:09.940 and say, hey, I'm feeling sick. I can't be here. I just couldn't do it, and so I did the most

00:31:16.640 honest act I had ever done in my life. I got down on my knees in front of what looked to me like a

00:31:23.780 cracker. And I had the equivalent feeling one would have kneeling in front of a tree and talking

00:31:28.540 to it. And I said, God, I don't know if you exist or don't. I don't believe you do. And I feel like

00:31:33.700 a complete idiot for doing this. But if you do, please reveal yourself to me. And if you do, 0.75

00:31:41.380 if you can give me the faith I see in them, I'll give you my life. And so that shift went by,

00:31:47.180 that hour-long shift. And then six hours later, I had another shift. And then at 3 a.m., my third

00:31:52.720 shift began. And I went into that chapel as an atheist and I came out as a believer. And what

00:31:58.980 happened? God just revealed himself to me. There was nothing sensual about it. So I didn't see

00:32:07.620 anything weird. I didn't hear anything weird about my God in heaven. I knew I was in front of almighty

00:32:12.380 God. And every intellectual difficulty I had, I had a discreet answer for it such that I could

00:32:19.160 write it out. And this is, and it resolved every difficulty I had. But more than that, I knew I was

00:32:25.820 created in love. I knew God had a plan for me. I knew that he was preparing everything for this

00:32:31.000 moment. And it was planned. So it was absolutely life-changing.

00:32:38.980 Yeah, I was just revisiting the other day St. Thomas Aquinas' observation that it's better

00:32:44.800 to love God than to know God. You know, it's good to know that God exists. It's good to know

00:32:50.100 things about God. That's all very good. But the point is to love God. And St. Paul obviously

00:32:54.920 writes about this a lot. And I do wonder, I love theology and parsing the doctors of the church

00:33:02.780 and scholastics and all that. I think it's really good and edifying, and I encourage people to do

00:33:06.560 it. But too much study sometimes can lead you to forget that God is here right now. You know,

00:33:13.860 He's right here all around us, and he's constantly imminent and intimately involved in every single

00:33:21.900 minute detail of the entire cosmos. And so, we remove ourselves a little bit too much.

00:33:28.120 And if we knew that God were everywhere and really present in the Eucharist, body, blood,

00:33:34.640 soul, and divinity, we would probably behave a little differently. And then I think about the

00:33:38.560 flip side of it, apropos of the exorcist conversation, which is people talk about these

00:33:44.360 exorcist interviews, shows. They talk about it like it's Netflix. They talk about it like it's

00:33:51.700 a horror movie or something. And it's, oh, isn't that really interesting? And oh, a chair flew up

00:33:55.220 to the sky. And oh, that's strange. You think, okay, yeah, yeah, it is interesting. But if you

00:34:01.120 knew that there were like a wild beast in the room right now whose every desire is to devour you,

00:34:07.940 and he will do so in the subtlest of ways

00:34:10.120 because he's much more intelligent than you are

00:34:11.780 and he's been around for a very, very long time.

00:34:15.280 Wouldn't you act a little differently?

00:34:16.940 Wouldn't you be a little less cavalier

00:34:18.460 about the whole thing?

00:34:19.560 Wouldn't, you know, I don't know.

00:34:21.920 Wouldn't that sober you up a little bit?

00:34:24.340 Oh, yeah.

00:34:25.360 It's interesting.

00:34:25.940 I think in scripture,

00:34:27.340 because one thing that comes out,

00:34:28.720 you know, and we'll get into possession,

00:34:30.180 obsession and all the sessions.

00:34:32.040 And it's one of those things that

00:34:33.800 there is this macabre fascination with it.

00:34:35.700 But again, going back to scripture, we have just enough, right?

00:34:41.040 Like Jesus, we have one, Jesus spends like a third of his ministry casting out demons.

00:34:45.260 So we know that's a big deal. 0.60

00:34:46.400 You cannot hold fast to the teachings of Jesus Christ and be a Christian and deny the existence

00:34:51.420 of a spiritual war.

00:34:52.880 And the fact that he chose to demonstrate, I mean, there are multiple people that were

00:34:56.900 set free solely, it says, to show that God is real and he came.

00:35:01.540 Interesting, I was with a Jewish friend of mine.

00:35:03.980 And he was talking about Jesus when he does his first exorcism in the temple.

00:35:08.500 And they said, oh, is this related to David and the Davidic line of all the exorcism that had happened there?

00:35:14.080 And the fact that Jesus could cast these things out, that was an enormous part of his ministry.

00:35:18.940 So he, one of the main validators of Jesus Christ is his exorcism.

00:35:22.160 And then as we progress through the gospels and then into the epistles, right?

00:35:26.080 We have explicit statements that we don't battle just against flesh and blood.

00:35:30.020 That we have powers and principalities, right?

00:35:31.660 and that we are to be aware of this.

00:35:36.320 And, but then Jesus, you know,

00:35:37.980 we only have one word, we've demonized.

00:35:39.320 We don't have all these different terms in there.

00:35:40.940 And I find it very interesting, you know,

00:35:42.780 that I think, you know, to ask,

00:35:44.020 to go back to your question, like, what's the posture?

00:35:46.140 It's like, just aware enough.

00:35:47.880 There's way more descriptions of fighting against greed,

00:35:51.700 against sexual morality.

00:35:53.100 I mean, there's a lot of things that Paul warns about.

00:35:55.000 And, but there are important passages on just like,

00:35:57.060 hey, we have an enemy, we have an adversary.

00:35:59.000 It is aware.

00:35:59.540 And so I find, I think scripture offers us a really instructive ratio of just like,

00:36:04.880 hey, this is very real.

00:36:05.760 And Jesus casts demons out.

00:36:07.620 And one of the hardest things for me, and this might be interesting because one of the

00:36:11.520 challenging things for me, especially from a Protestant background, is you read these

00:36:14.860 accounts in the scriptures and Jesus goes, come out. 0.54

00:36:18.000 And it just comes out.

00:36:19.280 Then you talk to Father Rehill, you talk to Father Martins, every father that's been on

00:36:22.020 the show and they're like, oh, one and done, you got lucky.

00:36:24.840 Yeah.

00:36:25.320 Right?

00:36:25.560 These things take forever.

00:36:26.540 And you go, okay, that is super interesting.

00:36:28.400 So there is, you know, obviously we have a little bit in scripture, and then from there it progresses.

00:36:33.000 But, yeah, I hope people don't, like, get too obsessed with this.

00:36:36.580 But you point out, we have a deep, like, human curiosity, a morbid curiosity.

00:36:41.160 It's the same reason we slow down and watch a car wreck, you know, and it drives us nuts.

00:36:44.760 Well, I was even thinking of the first scene of Hamlet, which is about the, actually, Hamlet, which is about demons, potentially, ghosts, potentially.

00:36:53.280 it is in fact about this conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism because Hamlet

00:36:58.140 returns from the University of Wittenberg, which is where Luther taught. And the first question of

00:37:03.240 Hamlet is, did he really see a ghost? There's this thing that shows up and he says, I'm the ghost of

00:37:08.380 your father. And I was killed by your uncle who took my throne and you need to avenge me. And

00:37:15.240 Hamlet says, well, is this really the ghost of my dad? I don't know what it is. And it pertains to

00:37:19.600 the Catholic-Protestant divide because the Protestants would say, it's not a ghost. There

00:37:23.400 are no ghosts. It's a demon. And the Catholics would say, no, there can be ghosts. It might be

00:37:27.480 a demon, but it could be a ghost. And so what is it? And the funny thing is, even when you find

00:37:31.820 out that what the ghost said was true, Claudius really did kill King Hamlet, you still don't know

00:37:36.900 whether or not he was a ghost or a demon. Because one, holy spirits don't usually say,

00:37:43.120 avenge me. You know, vengeance belongs to the Lord. But two, Hamlet, believing what the ghost

00:37:48.880 said, it did lead to his own death and the destruction of his kingdom and all this stuff.

00:37:52.100 So you still really don't know. You still have this mysterious spirit and we don't really know

00:37:58.000 how to discern what he really is. So one, I guess, how do we discern that in our own lives

00:38:07.200 when perhaps we do have a numinous experience? We see a ghost or an angel or a demon or something

00:38:13.100 anything like that. How do we discern what's really going on here? And how does that pertain

00:38:18.540 to our vocation, what we're actually called to? And then three, why does it take so long to cast

00:38:25.780 out these demons? To your question. Results may vary. I have a shirt that says same day

00:38:31.960 deliverance and it drives Father Rehilden bonkers. He's like, you're promising it's not going to be

00:38:37.400 that fast, right? Then I remind him one of his first exorcisms, the same day deliverance, right?

00:38:42.380 but he's like, all right.

00:38:42.820 Beginner's luck.

00:38:43.800 Beginner's great.

00:38:44.080 Yeah, there's a signing bonus.

00:38:46.020 It's your rookie preseason match, you know?

00:38:48.580 I think most people's conception of exorcism is wrong.

00:38:53.820 And if we correct it,

00:38:55.680 then a lot of other questions are answered as well.

00:38:58.840 So the job of the exorcist is not to cast out the devil.

00:39:03.060 The job of the exorcist is to find out why is he there?

00:39:06.940 What rights has he obtained?

00:39:08.620 and then it's his job to help the victim rescind those rights because if the devil has a right to

00:39:15.800 be somewhere i don't have the right to kick him out and and that notion so we have this notion

00:39:20.880 the job of the priest hammers prayers from some sort of catholic magic red book over the head of

00:39:29.040 the demon and uh so the demon then is is overpowered that is absolutely not what you shout

00:39:35.140 them very loudly too. And you shout them and that is not what happens. So if he has a right

00:39:42.000 to be where he is, I don't have the right to kick him out. My job is to pray to weaken him

00:39:50.300 to such an extent that I have access to the victim. And is it that you don't have the right

00:39:55.420 to kick him out because the patient has free will? So if the patient wants to invite the devil in,

00:40:01.620 you actually have no right to kick him out god himself respects our free will and 99.99999% of

00:40:08.140 the time that invitation is is a is an invitation that the victim himself herself never knew he or

00:40:15.420 she was extending to the devil right so some type of sin some type of some type of relationship was

00:40:21.900 formed so that relationship has to be not just ended but replaced with something else there's

00:40:29.520 no neutrality in this realm, right? So if you want the devil out, you kick him out, but you've got to

00:40:34.960 do an infilling there with God, with the Holy Spirit. So demons live in wounds. Wounds have

00:40:43.660 two sources, trauma and sin. So trauma. A car, two kids are playing catch. Timmy and Joey are

00:40:51.580 playing catch on the street. A car slams into Joey, knocks his head right off his body, right?

00:40:57.280 Timmy sees this. His world is completely different. He threw the ball that Joey missed

00:41:03.080 and caused the accident, right? And can you imagine the other circumstances that may apply?

00:41:09.620 He knocked on the door that morning. He invited him out to play and he didn't want to. No, I should

00:41:13.820 stay home and do homework. And then started teasing him, belittling him, coaxed him to come

00:41:19.500 out so so this trauma you know this this this event has changed his theological view of all

00:41:28.340 of reality no no matter what if he had an explicit theological view he had a view of reality and

00:41:34.180 that's now altered all right the world's not a safe place it's not a good place it's it's a place

00:41:39.380 where horrendous evil can happen a horrendously bad thing can happen and no one can stop it and

00:41:44.760 no one can undo it. The demons are going to exacerbate those wounds to form, to take him

00:41:52.120 into bondage. So what trauma does, why is trauma dangerous? Because it has the power to distort

00:41:59.120 our view of reality so that we're no longer connected to the true. And if you're connected

00:42:03.940 with lies, that's the breeding ground for demons. The other wound is sin. So, you know, personal

00:42:10.320 sin, inherited sin, or like a generational sin. So the moral implication of a sin, the guilt,

00:42:22.760 that's not passed down. But the effects of a sin can be. And I mean, we, at the heart of our faith

00:42:28.360 is the belief that we've inherited original sin from our first father, Adam.

00:42:33.220 Right? So you didn't do, you didn't bite into the fruit in the garden, neither did I,

00:42:37.540 But we inherited those effects. So generational sin in the sense of a curse that is passed

00:42:43.860 can be passed down. You have families where there's repeated patterns of dysfunction that

00:42:51.480 are just uncanny. No male lives past 56 years of age. No marriage ends. People never die happily

00:42:59.140 married. There's an abandonment of at least one of the spouses. So there's chronic adultery and

00:43:06.760 that kind of thing. And then the third type is what I call transferred sin. Curses, hexes, spells.

00:43:14.200 Evil that is willed upon another and has an actual effect. And now people can say, well,

00:43:19.900 that's all in your head. That doesn't exist. It absolutely exists. Every single culture

00:43:24.520 has a notion of cursing. The evil eye. I was just thinking about this the other day.

00:43:30.520 As a good Italian, we have a lot of cultural Catholicism, but the other thing is you sometimes

00:43:37.460 see the Southern Italians wear that little horn, the little malocchio symbol. But all these cultures

00:43:43.400 have this idea of the evil eye, this guardo where you're willing some evil upon them. In fact, 0.99

00:43:52.160 Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae takes up the evil eye, and he seems to give some credence

00:43:57.320 to it. His argument is that with this fervent energy, the eye, which is touching physical

00:44:05.460 reality, can change it in limited ways such that, in Thomas Aquinas' words, particularly

00:44:13.440 mean little old ladies can curse tender, vulnerable children. This is like written in

00:44:18.580 probably the greatest compendium of theology ever written. And so you think, well, all right,

00:44:22.820 man, if the evil eye is good enough for Thomas Aquinas, it's good enough for me.

00:44:26.840 Those latter two issues are ones that I'm particularly curious about because you say,

00:44:33.700 okay, yeah, there's trauma and you get these bad families of either drunks or adulterers or

00:44:37.980 whatever, many of whom run politics. But then you got personal sin. I get that. If I commit

00:44:44.340 even one mortal sin, I'm inviting the devil in. I totally understand that. But then generational

00:44:50.560 curses and especially like actual witchcraft, like hexes and things like that, that I think

00:44:57.820 modern people have much more trouble dealing with because they say, why should the sins of the

00:45:01.300 father be visited upon the son? So every sin is a covenant with evil, but some covenants are so

00:45:08.080 strong, so visceral that they remain. They become a doorway whereby there's a jurisdiction where

00:45:14.400 demons now have a ministry that is allowed to them, that has been open to them within a family

00:45:21.520 line. And that just exists, right? Look, I had a case, I talk about this case in my book. So someone,

00:45:30.080 so in the book, I made her to be a male. She's now comfortable with the situation being

00:45:35.240 spoken of. But it was a female. And so she had, she called me one day, hysterical. She lived in 1.00

00:45:44.640 the same city in which I was living at the time. So her sister had just attempted suicide.

00:45:50.640 And she had two brothers who had committed suicide. Her father had committed suicide.

00:45:55.620 Two men married two other sisters. None of them had been suicidal until the marriage.

00:46:01.220 so one had already attempted suicide three times since marrying her sister the other one

00:46:07.480 hadn't attempted but had now disclosed hey I feel suicidal and I've never had this before

00:46:14.000 he had been married to her for a year her son teenage son was suicidal so she was the only one

00:46:21.760 in the family that that was not and you know she had lost so many family members and you know she

00:46:27.960 wanted this ended uh so it's it appeared so in in this cycle of persons dad was the first one

00:46:34.380 but who knows dad dad never talked about his his own family his own parents grandparents did to

00:46:41.060 to an extent that that there was some kind of um footing some kind of understanding going on here

00:46:47.000 uh so all we had to go by was this and you know for her uh so i just said look uh

00:46:53.660 we don't know where this so how do you know it's a generational curse every suicide and every

00:47:01.240 suicide attempt always happened on a thursday always that's not normal that's it there's too

00:47:10.320 much patterning there uh so i just said to her look we're we're gonna invite the lord here right

00:47:15.420 now i just prayed with her it took all of 15 20 minutes there's no formula for this everybody

00:47:20.360 wants a formula nobody would want a formula more than me but there just isn't so you just say look

00:47:26.280 we're going to invite the lord now into your family and you're going to speak with authority

00:47:31.260 on behalf of your family you're as a member of your family you are connected with them and every

00:47:37.220 family member has an authority you have children you have authority over your children your children

00:47:41.600 also have an authority over you if they come to you crying bleeding and and and they say dad do

00:47:46.500 something, what happens? You get to work doing something. There's an awful lot of authority.

00:47:52.380 That little guy just exercised over his dad. That's not nothing. A child has a dignity of a

00:47:59.780 child, and that brings authority. And so for her, I just told her, let's invite the Lord into every

00:48:06.720 wound. So I just gave her the words. I said, repeat after me. In the name of Jesus, I invite

00:48:10.140 you, Lord, into my life, into my family line. And I don't know where all the wounds are,

00:48:15.220 but you know where they are. I don't need to know where they are. You put your finger on each of

00:48:20.300 the wounds. And I forgive everyone who contributed to these wounds, whether a member of my family or

00:48:26.280 not, whatever the source, we never did find out the source, but we didn't need to. It was done

00:48:32.020 right there. It was done. Every remaining member of the family who is still alive, all the suicidal

00:48:38.560 ideation, gone. And I, it's been now 13 years. And so I'll call the people with whom I worked

00:48:46.160 periodically just to touch, but you know, how's it going? Last time I called her was a year ago

00:48:51.560 and she said, Father, everything ended on that day. It was done. It was Christ. It wasn't me.

00:48:57.900 I just led her into begging the Lord, come into each place, come into each wound, 0.96

00:49:05.060 put your finger in each one, just end this. And the Lord said, yep, I can do that.

00:49:11.280 So I love the story. I'm glad it had a happy ending. I also love your description of it,

00:49:18.220 which is people are asking why it is this way. It just is. It's just how reality works. I mean,

00:49:24.400 some people, when they have trouble, maybe they can accept God as existing intellectually,

00:49:28.540 but they have trouble believing that he's a man named Jesus. And they have trouble believing that

00:49:32.860 he had apostles and successors to the apostles and a church. And like they were in this place

00:49:38.260 and then they were in this place. And they say, why does it have to be so particular? Like the

00:49:42.300 scandal of particularity. And the answer is, well, it just is. I don't know, why does two plus three

00:49:48.120 have to equal five? It just does. I'm just telling you what it is. And you can persevere in some

00:49:54.000 alternative belief, but it's not going to work out for you. And it's not really up to you because

00:49:57.700 you weren't there when God created the heavens and the earth. And you weren't there when everyone

00:50:01.640 was singing for joy. So that makes a lot of sense to me. The part that people are going to struggle

00:50:07.700 with now even more is, hold on, like witches are real. Hold on, people can put hexes on you and

00:50:13.560 stuff. Like are we, is Harry Potter a documentary? Is that, how is that real? Well, look, God made

00:50:23.120 the universe a moral universe. And that means it's possible to choose good and it's possible

00:50:29.120 choose evil. And there are implications for each. And, you know, the first person, the first

00:50:36.220 individual to utter a curse in scripture was God himself. He cursed the serpent. He cursed the

00:50:42.540 earth. He cursed Eve. He cursed Adam. Now, his curses are not an act of evil. They're medicinal.

00:50:52.060 You're off. You're on the wrong path. So he curses them to get them on the right path.

00:50:58.060 and you see that in the curses you know like so Eve is cursed with pains and childbirth but now

00:51:03.420 motherhood is going to be her glory one day she she's going to give birth like one of her daughters

00:51:08.940 is going to be the mother of God who's going to give birth to God incarnate right so there's a

00:51:13.440 glory in that cursing Adam is cursed to perform labor he's got to work now whereas before he was

00:51:20.300 taken care of now he's got to be the guy to take care of things but labor is now going to be the

00:51:25.700 means of his salvation. And one day, one of his sons is going to be God in the flesh and is going

00:51:31.200 to work for the salvation of mankind. So the Lord cursed the fig tree. And so Paul cursed

00:51:39.560 the people who, individuals who went off the beaten path and yet still called themselves

00:51:48.220 Christians and who were poisoning the body of Christ. So cursing in and of itself 0.83

00:51:54.820 is meant to be a holy medicinal disposition, a holy and medicinal action, but it can be

00:52:04.740 misappropriated. So the knife itself is neutral. The hand that grips the knife, now it determines

00:52:11.200 the intent of the action behind the knife, and those have implications. So it is possible. So

00:52:16.860 why does God allow witches in his world? Because he allows witches in his world. Because evil has 0.83

00:52:21.560 an effect. And listen, folks, we are far away from heaven. This is not heaven. And so these kinds of

00:52:29.540 things, these kinds of experiences, like the experience of evil, it keeps us connected with

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00:53:37.760 You know, it's so funny.

00:53:39.540 Recently, for the American 250th celebration, I was in Washington, D.C.,

00:53:44.200 and I swung by the state fair. They did a big state fair on the National Mall.

00:53:48.160 And the people putting it on asked if I would swing by, give a talk, whatever. So I ended up

00:53:52.400 playing this little game that I had called the Yes or No Game, which is a series we have. You

00:53:55.880 can order the card game. And we go up there, we bring up people from the audience. And one of the

00:54:01.440 prompts, we had to figure out what we each thought about this, was something about witches. The

00:54:07.760 Salem witch trials didn't go far enough, or some kind of joke like that. And anyway, this little

00:54:12.700 nine or 10 year old girl comes up and her answer to it was, oh yeah, that didn't go far enough 0.96

00:54:18.700 because witches really exist. You know, out of the mouth of babes. And it was this kind of funny 1.00

00:54:22.920 answer. We were joking around. The press went crazy over this. They completely misreported it.

00:54:29.460 They, I mean, just lied about the whole interaction. They said, I lectured a little

00:54:33.440 girl on witches, which in fact, she was lecturing me and she was right. So I was glad that she was 1.00

00:54:38.220 lecturing me. But they were really, it's really riled them up talking about witches, how crazy,

00:54:46.780 how silly, how ridiculous, to the point that they were lying about even this basic interaction. 0.97

00:54:51.500 And in retrospect, I kind of think, you know, even if we had been kind of joking about witchcraft 0.98

00:54:55.480 on the stage in this game, your reaction is making me double down in my belief that this

00:55:01.720 sort of thing really is real. And so people are going to be watching this right now. They say,

00:55:06.480 I was with these guys. I was with the padre while he was talking about God existing and even the

00:55:11.180 devil, but hold on a second now. This sounds like some medieval folklore about little, but I don't

00:55:17.060 know, if we live in a universe where you can will good and you can will evil and there's a spiritual

00:55:20.600 battle, I guess witches can exist. Maybe they don't have little pointy hats, but they probably 0.99

00:55:26.120 exist. And a social phenomenon on top of this is there has been a major rise in self-identified

00:55:32.920 witches, the Wicca pseudo-religion or neo-pagan kind of religions. So I don't know. There are a

00:55:39.200 lot of people calling themselves witches. There's a lot of attestation to witchcraft and the occult

00:55:44.480 and hexes and curses throughout history. And the very first curse in the Bible is put on by God.

00:55:51.500 So I don't know. Why is that so weird? Right. It's not weird. Yeah. And in our culture,

00:55:56.500 in Western culture, it's not fashionable to talk about witches, the occult, and curses, and so

00:56:02.980 forth. Go into any other culture in the world, and it's part of daily life, right? So the devil

00:56:09.500 doesn't hide himself there. He has a different ministry he exercises there, because those people,

00:56:14.340 they're just, they're much more immediately connected to spirituality. We don't. Most of

00:56:20.880 our people have no spirituality so why would he change that why would he be overt right it's

00:56:26.740 working uh so so he has a different strategy for for each place you know so so why if he's already

00:56:34.460 winning he shuts up right he he doesn't become overt when you're winning you shut up yeah there's

00:56:43.260 also it's i did a piece on this a few months ago and it was really interesting because i was

00:56:47.440 fascinated with the decline in religion. We are seeing record conversions in baptism in a lot of

00:56:51.740 era, but also in general over the last few decades, we've seen just a collapse of religion.

00:56:58.320 And you wonder what's going on. And yet we see this huge spike in witchcraft, professed interest

00:57:05.000 in the occult, and just fascinating stuff. And they talk about this re-enchantment cycle. And

00:57:09.780 when you lose faith in institutions like governments, when you lose faith in religion,

00:57:12.960 there's a hole like every human being is just wired to worship and be fascinated with something

00:57:19.340 metaphysical beyond itself and to your point earlier we were talking about what's the important

00:57:23.980 posture to have if you do not teach the reality of what this is if you don't talk about evil and

00:57:29.200 the fact that there is a real adversary who is out there and does will evil for you right that

00:57:34.480 hole in that void gets filled with stuff and we are seeing that play out right now all across the

00:57:39.280 board. And I always find, it's really interesting too, because, you know, obviously Father Martin's

00:57:43.780 other ministry too is, you know, he works with a lot of relics, et cetera. And a lot of my

00:57:46.760 Protestant friends are like, come on, really? Like objects that heal people? I was like, well,

00:57:50.480 that's actually in scripture. There are some things, right? But you, but, and I said, what

00:57:53.640 about a cursed object? Like, of course, cursed object, of course, cursed objects are real,

00:57:57.900 right? Absolutely. But no holy, yeah. Right. But then it's like, oh, angels are real. Well,

00:58:01.040 demons, no. Demons, no. There is so much, there's such an interesting dissonance with some of this

00:58:04.960 stuff. And I really do think a lot of it comes down to that we, you know, we want to be comfortable

00:58:10.120 and we want to think like when you hear about tropes, like, oh, Christians can't be possessed,

00:58:13.660 right? That comes up all the time. And we're like, well, what do you mean by possessed, right?

00:58:18.400 Are you, because what you're actually asking is like, you don't, we don't want to believe that,

00:58:21.240 we want to believe that once we're baptized and we're saved, that we are immune from persecution

00:58:26.000 and evil. And we just know that's not the case. And so a lot of this interest and fascination

00:58:30.760 and the occult and witchcraft, et cetera,

00:58:32.440 it's like an age-old thing that we're seeing in

00:58:34.820 is we want to circumvent God.

00:58:36.040 We want to find ways to bless ourselves.

00:58:38.620 And there is real power out there.

00:58:39.960 I have a dear friend who went to a psychic,

00:58:42.460 and we'd get into debates all the time,

00:58:44.320 and she'd go, you don't understand,

00:58:45.640 this person read my mail.

00:58:47.460 Like, new thing.

00:58:48.240 Not the, you have a conflict with someone right now.

00:58:51.220 You have death in your family.

00:58:53.120 How did he know?

00:58:54.700 Exactly.

00:58:55.440 Your birthday happened in the last six months.

00:58:57.020 Yeah.

00:58:57.640 Or you have a birthday within six months of this date, right?

00:59:00.060 Yeah.

00:59:00.920 And she was like, no, they knew things that no one could know.

00:59:04.800 And she's like, why don't you believe?

00:59:05.600 She's like, I do believe you.

00:59:07.260 I believe people are having real encounters with this, right?

00:59:09.980 And that happens.

00:59:11.280 And so that stuff is real.

00:59:12.980 And that's why it's so important that people learn about what is real.

00:59:16.640 Because that, you know, the scripture, my people perish for lack of knowledge.

00:59:19.820 If we don't teach people about this stuff, I want kids, I want people to know that, like, hey, and there's a discussion about what level of degree do we talk about this with different age groups.

00:59:29.440 But, you know, we want people to know there is a real adversary, right?

00:59:33.220 And all this other stuff, there is no white magic.

00:59:36.020 There is no, like, lighthearted stuff.

00:59:37.800 No, this stuff.

00:59:38.240 There's no Dumbledore.

00:59:39.280 Yeah, and when you see this rise in this stuff,

00:59:40.880 it's really interesting, though, to see how people are like, 0.99

00:59:42.320 Christianity, you're insane, dude. 0.98

00:59:43.460 You believe this guy walked on water, right? 0.99

00:59:45.960 But if I say this incantation and put this wax on this thing, et cetera,

00:59:49.560 I can get a new job.

00:59:50.320 It's like, bro, you're totally insane to believe that God loves us.

00:59:53.580 Hold on, I just got to finish polishing my crystals here.

00:59:55.640 Hold on one second.

00:59:56.460 Yeah.

00:59:56.700 Yeah, and you see this a lot.

00:59:58.160 a psychic played a big role in my reversion because the short version of the story,

01:00:03.340 I think I may have mentioned it on air once or twice. I was an actor in my wayward youth,

01:00:09.440 and I was doing like a movie, and there was this gal on the set, and we were chatting. She was

01:00:15.700 Italian, and we ended up talking about Dante. And she said, oh yeah, my grandma likes Dante,

01:00:21.720 whatever. So anyway, bye. Nice to see you. I see her six months later, and I'm reverting to the

01:00:27.260 faith. And she comes up to me at an audition or something. She says, oh, I'm so glad I saw you.

01:00:32.660 I've been meaning to reach out to you. You're not going to believe this. I went to see my psychic.

01:00:38.220 I said, okay. What did I know? I'm listening. So I'm listening. She goes, anyway, I walk in. I've

01:00:42.320 seen this psychic forever. And I walk in and she says, hey, who's Dante? We'd just had this

01:00:47.800 conversation. And it wasn't even like she just looked at the girl and said, well, you're Italian. 0.79

01:00:51.040 You probably know about Dante. She had seen this psychic before and she comes up, who's Dante?

01:00:55.980 And it so freaked me out.

01:00:57.400 I said, give me the number of your psychic.

01:00:58.760 I called the psychic.

01:00:59.960 Didn't get through.

01:01:00.500 I left a message.

01:01:01.060 I said, how did you know about Dante?

01:01:02.300 I need you to tell me how you knew about the Dante thing.

01:01:04.720 I was curious.

01:01:05.740 I mean, I was a little freaked out, but I was also curious.

01:01:08.840 And I'm glad she never called me back because then I never went to see the psychic and that

01:01:12.780 could have led to a world of misery.

01:01:14.360 But it did clue me in.

01:01:15.860 I said, oh, man, if some random lady in Long Island knows that I talked about Dante, then

01:01:22.600 there's a lot more going on that I'm totally aware of.

01:01:25.780 Uh, speaking of friends of mine, uh, you mentioned the relics and, uh, I'm like very

01:01:33.060 relic pilled. I'm very, but that, that, uh, I came to that later. I, I, I shared a lot of the

01:01:37.280 popular modern confusion. What is this? Why are we venerating pieces of dead bodies? And this is

01:01:41.840 like very strange. A friend of mine, wonderful Catholic woman has given me a lot of relics.

01:01:47.200 Uh, I have a lot of first-class relics. I'm very blessed to have them. And then the other day in

01:01:52.640 this very studio. A guest was here. It's not my story to tell, but it was a guy who was here.

01:01:57.140 And I didn't know this guy. I wasn't supposed to meet him. I walk into the makeup room. He says,

01:02:02.600 oh, there you are. Okay. Hey, I was praying and I was told I have to give you this crucifix with

01:02:07.580 five first-class relics in it. And I said, huh? He was like, yeah, I was praying. And anyway,

01:02:13.420 so this is it. And I said, well, you don't have to do that. He said, I don't want to do that.

01:02:17.300 But I was praying and our lady said, I'm supposed to give you these relics. I said, oh, okay. He

01:02:21.140 goes, but you got to pray the rosary every day, like this rosary, not just pray the rosary. You

01:02:24.660 have to pray this rosary. I said, okay, that's interesting. One of the relics was St. Francis

01:02:27.820 of Rome that I'd never heard of her. Next morning, I said, oh, that's good. Thank you. That's very

01:02:32.980 nice. Okay. Next morning, I wake up, got my phone on the table as I'm having breakfast,

01:02:38.380 and I see Bishop Barron posted a quote, picture. It's from St. Francis of Rome. This is now the

01:02:44.920 first and second time I've ever heard of this woman in my entire life, back to back. I say,

01:02:49.180 oh, well, I guess something's happening. I guess there is such a thing as providence.

01:02:52.480 But before we return to the demonic and the witches and all the rest of it,

01:02:58.480 for the people in the audience who think relics are silly, fake, or evil, 0.96

01:03:05.280 why is it that Christians are venerating parts of dead bodies? 0.96

01:03:11.200 Well, Christianity stands on the shoulders of Judaism. And the Jews had a great reverence

01:03:18.840 for the remains of those who are deceased. In the second book of Kings, a man is being buried

01:03:23.740 and inadvertently his corpse touched the bones of the prophet Elisha who had been previously

01:03:31.520 buried in that grave. So you had a grave, you had a shaft with shelves and the dead man came

01:03:38.020 back to life and rose to his feet. You have in the New Testament, you have a woman in a moment 0.95

01:03:45.660 of light, the hemorrhaging woman, realizes all I have to do is touch the hem of Christ's clothing

01:03:50.920 and I'll be healed. She didn't touch Jesus. She touched his clothing and that was enough. And he 0.66

01:03:57.840 said, I felt power flowing out of me. And Mark, that's the Matthew account, Mark's account goes

01:04:04.560 even further and he says, however many people touched his hem, they were all healed. And then

01:04:14.100 you have in Acts 19, Paul the apostle, they laid, they touched him with cloths and handkerchiefs,

01:04:20.020 common everyday cloths, right? So Luke, when he writes that, wants to be very clear. These were

01:04:26.560 not magical cloths. These were handkerchiefs and you blow your nose into them and you're working

01:04:32.840 tables with it. They touched them to Paul and then laid those things on the sick and two things

01:04:38.060 happened. Their diseases left them, and if they had evil spirits, they departed from them.

01:04:44.520 So this is biblical. And so from the beginning, the church would celebrate mass over the tombs

01:04:49.720 of the martyrs. And for two reasons, because it was the holiest place with which to offer

01:04:54.960 the Eucharistic sacrifice to the Lord. It was the holiest gift the church could offer God.

01:05:01.120 And at the same time, it was the greatest honor that God could offer the saint by having the

01:05:07.160 Eucharist celebrated over his or her remains. And so that became standard. So it is customary in

01:05:13.140 every single Catholic and Orthodox church that the Eucharist is celebrated over an altar that

01:05:20.080 contains relics of the saints. And we have an account of this going all the way back to basically

01:05:24.940 the earliest days of the church in the martyrdom of Polycarp. Yeah. After Polycarp is killed.

01:05:30.180 The disciple of John the Apostle. That's right. And John was still alive when Polycarp was 0.84

01:05:35.020 suffered death. And his account is the beginning of feast days. So his followers said every year

01:05:44.840 we would gather at his grave to celebrate that martyrdom and to offer the Eucharist.

01:05:52.100 It's funny because relics, obviously, I think it's Calvin the quip, right? If we added up all

01:05:56.700 the wood of the true cross that we've accumulated, we would have enough to construct Noah's Ark.

01:06:00.360 yeah you know so one just because something can be abused right scripture can be abused right it

01:06:06.260 doesn't mean that we throw it all out um independent of the veneration of the saints

01:06:10.900 because obviously i think the big issue right is in the protestant tradition there's just no

01:06:14.020 concept of conversing with what and it's unfair to call dead people because we we still believe

01:06:19.700 they're alive in heaven yeah and so that you know getting outside of that um one thing that started

01:06:25.540 you know because one obviously working with him and um obviously he's a dear friend of mine now

01:06:29.220 and this is a huge part of his ministry.

01:06:30.820 And he shares with me testimonies

01:06:32.360 of people that just get healed.

01:06:33.500 And of course, the first guy was like,

01:06:34.800 they just touched an object and then they get healed.

01:06:36.840 Like, how does it, is this,

01:06:37.820 do I need to now begin to be like Raiders of the Lost Ark?

01:06:40.320 Do I need to go start accumulating this stuff to heal?

01:06:43.320 And then of course, I'm very leery too,

01:06:45.080 because I don't want to foster an environment

01:06:48.780 where people inadvertently, and I've seen this, right?

01:06:51.620 Have more faith in the object than they do in the system

01:06:54.280 and the person behind all of this.

01:06:56.100 And so, that being said, we know, we have scriptural examples that physical objects can be conduits of God's power.

01:07:03.380 And I also tease, you know, because we have these theology groups, right?

01:07:06.520 And I'm like, bro, you have a giant jersey of, like, LeBron that's like, you know, with lights underneath, et cetera, and it's in a glass case.

01:07:14.440 And I'm like, there's some veneration going on here, you know?

01:07:17.060 Yes, yes.

01:07:17.820 And it's like, why do objects, you know, why do you have a friend who collects really cool vintage guitars?

01:07:21.560 And this belonged to Eddie Van Halen, right?

01:07:22.820 That's at least a second-class relic, right?

01:07:24.800 Yeah.

01:07:24.940 St. Eddie, play for us, right?

01:07:27.540 I mean, the central fact of the Christian faith

01:07:30.100 is something called the incarnation.

01:07:32.440 So, you know, obviously the body is pretty important here.

01:07:34.660 Exactly, but then one day I was reading, you know,

01:07:36.960 since you're doing the Dante flex,

01:07:38.480 I was like, oh, I was reading Confessions.

01:07:39.800 I think it was Confessions of Augustine.

01:07:41.100 It was either that or City of God.

01:07:42.180 But he's very skeptical of relics.

01:07:44.160 And he's like, I don't want this.

01:07:45.400 And he's like, this is not something that should be done.

01:07:47.700 And then they bring, and I believe it's the relics

01:07:49.260 of St. Stephen to the town.

01:07:50.900 And there's a mayor who was born blind.

01:07:52.880 And he watches this happen.

01:07:54.580 And Augustine, it's funny, because that's the Protestant father, right?

01:07:57.000 We all love Augustine.

01:07:57.720 Yeah, right, right.

01:07:58.560 And he said, it changes mind.

01:08:00.580 He's like, I saw people healed, et cetera.

01:08:02.360 And this comes full circle in a weird way.

01:08:04.460 And I was like, oh, that's awesome.

01:08:05.580 All right, well, he's openly skeptical.

01:08:07.060 Then he changes mind.

01:08:08.340 And it's just a little exclamation point, and then he moves on.

01:08:12.640 It's like, not the thing.

01:08:14.020 Well, fast forward, I actually have a cool, I don't call it a miracle,

01:08:18.120 but a really cool answer prayer that happened with a relic.

01:08:19.960 So Father gave me a third-class relic from his Arm of St. Jude tour.

01:08:24.580 or I like to call it the Armed and Dangerous Tour,

01:08:26.840 but he didn't accept that as the name.

01:08:29.020 And it also, it's really cool,

01:08:30.140 it's a great gift to be able to hand out to people, right?

01:08:32.280 Because even my staunchest Protestant friends are like,

01:08:34.680 oh, this is really cool.

01:08:35.580 Like, you gave me a cross that's been touched to this arm.

01:08:37.900 Like, whether it's true or not,

01:08:39.120 this is a beautiful symbology or whatever, they love it.

01:08:42.420 And the other one, too, is actually there's, you know,

01:08:45.220 again, piece of the wood of the true cross.

01:08:47.440 I don't know, whatever.

01:08:48.700 You know what's funny on that point, though,

01:08:49.720 because it's a very famous line.

01:08:50.860 If you added up all the pieces of the true cross,

01:08:53.800 you'd have, you could make Noah's Ark. There was some study done on this in the last half century

01:08:58.540 where they added up, I mean, we do know where basically all of these relics are or how many

01:09:03.920 there have been, you know, and some are in private collections and private homes, but actually not

01:09:09.660 that many over the last 60 years. And anyway, you can kind of add them up and the study concluded

01:09:14.600 the total sum of them is about a third of a cross. So it's actually not, not only is it not more than

01:09:20.780 a cross. It's only a third of a cross. See, well, there you go. And it's funny, too, because that

01:09:24.200 one, there was a season where, and I think it was you or someone else who had, you know, these third

01:09:28.940 class relics that have been touched to wood of the true cross. And so for a while, I would give

01:09:33.100 that to some of my friends and like, well, I don't want to venerate a saint. It's like, good news.

01:09:38.020 The saint behind this relic, I think you're going to be very comfortable praying with. This is the

01:09:42.440 most Protestant relic ever. But I was at a conference and there was this panel going on

01:09:48.900 and the show had come out

01:09:50.800 and it was a big hit

01:09:51.760 but there were these guys on stage

01:09:53.760 and I know none of us

01:09:54.600 have ever had the experience

01:09:55.280 where they were just

01:09:55.940 they were crushing it

01:09:56.920 in a whole other area

01:09:57.700 that I wanted to be involved in

01:09:58.880 and I just was

01:09:59.360 I was feeling covetous

01:10:00.600 like just candidly

01:10:01.400 and I was just like

01:10:01.920 and it was just bothering me

01:10:02.960 and I didn't like

01:10:03.800 the mood I was in

01:10:05.020 and so I just kind of

01:10:06.000 left this session

01:10:07.060 they had announced

01:10:07.900 they were doing this project

01:10:08.680 that I was like

01:10:09.080 oh man

01:10:09.560 because part of being

01:10:10.380 in entertainment

01:10:10.840 is that you know

01:10:12.460 you could be working

01:10:13.000 on something

01:10:13.380 and then someone

01:10:13.940 who's further along

01:10:14.840 just goes one day

01:10:15.520 we're going to do this

01:10:16.440 and you're like great

01:10:17.140 I've just erases

01:10:18.060 all my efforts

01:10:18.740 right? So I went back in my room. We just walked out of the hall, right? And I actually called my

01:10:22.260 pastor and we were just talking and he goes, ma'am, I'm so sorry for him, but you should totally

01:10:25.920 repent right now. And I was like, what? He's like, yeah, I just, dude, you're, you're coveting some

01:10:29.520 stuff. Like be thankful for what God gave you. Got to hit podcast. People are getting saved.

01:10:33.500 Revel in this. Be thankful. And when you see God doing something cool on someone else,

01:10:37.040 get behind it, see what God's doing, right? Great advice. Not fun to hear. And he's like,

01:10:40.860 find a way that you can snap out of it when that happens. Find it, find something. And I looked over

01:10:46.440 and I had my little third-class relic

01:10:48.080 from the tour and stuff.

01:10:49.280 And I was like, you know what?

01:10:50.040 I'm gonna put this in my pocket, right?

01:10:52.720 And I'm just going to, like,

01:10:54.380 every time just inadvertently put my hand in my pocket,

01:10:56.760 I'm just gonna pray, Lord,

01:10:58.200 if I'm feeling this way, whatever it is,

01:10:59.760 if I'm frustrated, if I'm angry, whatever,

01:11:01.380 just here's a physical, tangible thing

01:11:03.540 that I can just, like, say, you know what, Lord?

01:11:05.660 Thank you for what you've given me in my life.

01:11:07.540 Thank you, because we all know gratitude solves,

01:11:09.120 like, almost everything, right?

01:11:10.720 And you know what?

01:11:11.640 Thank you for what you're doing in them

01:11:12.620 because they're not, like, doing anything wrong.

01:11:13.920 They're just, they're crushing it

01:11:15.100 and I'm just like

01:11:15.720 not a fan of it

01:11:16.540 and so I go back in the room

01:11:18.200 and there's still

01:11:18.640 this panel's still going

01:11:19.340 it's wrapping up

01:11:19.980 and I wasn't

01:11:21.260 I was like

01:11:21.500 oh there it is

01:11:22.080 first one

01:11:22.480 alright Lord

01:11:22.920 thank you

01:11:23.720 thank you for what you've given me

01:11:26.780 and forgive me

01:11:27.720 for taking that for granted

01:11:28.740 at that moment

01:11:30.420 one of the guys on stage goes

01:11:32.180 hey

01:11:32.420 is

01:11:33.560 you know

01:11:34.440 we've been talking about

01:11:35.020 film and TV

01:11:36.020 and all this other stuff

01:11:36.600 but we need to talk about podcasting

01:11:37.720 because this is a huge medium

01:11:38.660 and people are consuming hours

01:11:39.480 and there's a show

01:11:40.580 that was made recently

01:11:41.400 called The Exorcist Files

01:11:42.180 and it changed my life 0.99

01:11:42.960 it's the best thing

01:11:44.100 it formed me

01:11:45.080 as a christian like i think he i think he said bluey made me a better father the exorcist files

01:11:50.860 made me a better man and he's like i don't want to honor him i think he's in the back right there

01:11:54.700 right and just like this and i was like oh it works yeah um so then that was a little on the

01:11:59.420 nose wasn't it you know well but wait there's more right so i think this is amazing i tell

01:12:05.440 this story call my pastor he's like see you got a great right um fast forward three years later

01:12:11.780 I'm in Georgia at another conference and I leave to go to the restroom at dinner and come back.

01:12:16.340 I'm just kind of standing in the back. It's one of those like round table dinners and you kind of

01:12:19.680 just like tired of sitting there. So I'm standing in the back. There's a panel up there and they're

01:12:24.600 talking about another project. And I just happened to put my hand in my pocket and I still carry this

01:12:29.080 thing with me. I was like, oh, wow. All right. Well, Lord. And I wasn't even coveting this time.

01:12:32.740 I was just like, Lord, thank you so much. Like, that's an awesome project. Like, I love what

01:12:36.800 they're doing, et cetera. Thank you. And remember what you did three years ago? It's so important

01:12:40.540 to build in reminders of what God has done for you in the past, right? And I was like, Lord,

01:12:43.620 thank you. At that moment, I kid you not. And it was like the moderator goes, you know what? When

01:12:49.320 this project started, I remember because, uh, is Ryan here? Yeah. I remember you guys were praying

01:12:53.660 together and I remember he blessed the project and you guys were praying together. And then so

01:12:57.840 and so, and he goes, actually, yeah. And actually he introduced me to this person. It got embarrassing.

01:13:02.220 A 10 minute conversation erupted about like little things that I was involved with leading to this.

01:13:06.980 And I have nothing to do with this thing. Right. And they go, well, I guess if you need prayer,

01:13:10.540 The man back there would love to pray for you, right?

01:13:12.740 And just thank you.

01:13:13.380 And I got another round of applause.

01:13:14.880 And I went, and I just felt like,

01:13:17.520 you know, whether it was in my spirit or not,

01:13:19.840 it just was like a, I did it once.

01:13:22.140 See, I can do it anytime I want.

01:13:24.220 So just trust that I'm in control.

01:13:26.240 Yeah, this is, when these things happen,

01:13:29.220 because during my reversion,

01:13:31.320 these kinds of things were happening a lot.

01:13:33.120 And it was really noticeable and it's kind of disorienting.

01:13:36.880 And I thought, well, this is,

01:13:39.020 I need to figure out how to make sense of this over time. And eventually, it kind of

01:13:42.880 happened less or less noticeably. And then I went back and I thought, all right, sometimes the Lord

01:13:49.000 whispers to us. Sometimes he needs to shout in our face and shake us and maybe smack us in the

01:13:57.200 head a little bit. And at those moments, we should be very, very grateful because

01:14:01.720 who knows how we could have gone if not for these signs.

01:14:05.040 Well, you're a priest because God spoke to you, right?

01:14:08.240 I mean, you don't tell that.

01:14:09.260 That's a cool story.

01:14:11.220 Yeah, so it was a different retreat from the one from which I converted from atheism.

01:14:17.400 It was seven years later.

01:14:18.920 And, you know, when I did convert, I was ready for God to do whatever.

01:14:24.820 And he was silent about what he wanted me to do.

01:14:27.280 So I just, the time I was an undergrad, then I went to graduate school.

01:14:30.620 And so seven years later, I went on another retreat, and it was Tuesday morning, June the 3rd, 2003, at 1018.

01:14:40.420 I heard God's voice.

01:14:42.580 Carlos, I want you to be a priest.

01:14:44.340 I promise to make you very happy.

01:14:48.700 End of transmission.

01:14:49.900 There we are.

01:14:51.340 Audible, sensual, or just a kind of infusion?

01:14:54.500 So audible in the sense that they were very specific words.

01:15:00.620 but they were not physical in the sense of,

01:15:03.640 they weren't auditory like my voice

01:15:06.700 would be auditory to you right now.

01:15:08.100 It was an inner speaking

01:15:09.940 and it just resonated all through me.

01:15:12.880 And it's just as clear and present now

01:15:17.720 as it was 23 years ago.

01:15:21.840 Wow.

01:15:23.320 So the point of vocation then brings us back

01:15:26.480 to St. Paul, who I was just thinking of a few days ago.

01:15:30.060 and probably yesterday too. You say, you had this big conversion in Eucharistic adoration,

01:15:36.360 and then you say, whatever you want me to do for you, Lord, I'll do, and you don't hear anything.

01:15:42.620 It is kind of curious that Paul has been persecuting Christians. He's on the road to 0.56

01:15:47.160 Damascus, blinding light, sound from the sky. Other people hear it. Paul, why do you persecute me?

01:15:55.640 you know, I'm Jesus and you're persecuting me. Why are you persecuting me? And so he's convicted

01:16:01.600 there on the road to Damascus and he says, all right, well, you know, go on. You'll get more

01:16:10.100 messages, right? You know, go on. I'll give you the rest of the story in a little. He doesn't

01:16:13.220 give it all to him at once. He's blinded. His friend has to help him the rest of the way to

01:16:17.840 Damascus. And then right afterward, Jesus talks to Ananias. So he finds this guy, this like random

01:16:25.060 Christian in Damascus. He says, hey, Ananias, you got to go find this guy, Paul of Tarsus,

01:16:30.620 and you got to go tell him what I want and lay your hands on him and the scales will fall from

01:16:36.660 his eyes. And so then Paul walks up to Damascus and then he's just blind for three days. And then

01:16:41.480 this guy shows up, says, hi, I'm Ananias. Yeah, oh yeah, Jesus talked to you. I know he told me

01:16:46.960 and he talked to me too. And here's what's going to happen. And he puts his hand on him and the

01:16:50.540 scales fall from his eyes. And especially in our modern age where everything's instant and we

01:16:55.040 communicate with people on the other side of the world and instantly, you say, well, 0.99

01:16:59.780 why do you have to bring in Ananias? Like, why did God have to make Paul wait for three days 0.94

01:17:07.380 and stumble the rest of the way to Damascus? And why did he have to involve this other guy

01:17:11.380 that Paul didn't even know? And what, like, he was there. He was talking to him. He taught,

01:17:15.740 you know, it's like there was not a ton of mystery. There is mystery, but there was not

01:17:22.320 much left to the imagination. Like, Jesus is speaking to Paul directly, but he chooses not

01:17:28.140 to tell him the rest of the story for three days, mediated by some other guy. Why?

01:17:33.420 Well, for his own reasons, ultimately. You know, God has the right to be sovereign,

01:17:40.960 and he can do things however he wants. And our job is to just say, yes, sir.

01:17:46.520 You know, we can come up with a reason, and we may even come up with some really good,

01:17:51.540 valid theological reasons that, you know, God likes to work with others. He says he's meek

01:17:55.920 and humble of heart, so he's not a showboater. He, you know, he likes to empower his children.

01:18:01.020 And sure, you know, all of that is true. It's true. But he can also just decide to do whatever

01:18:07.760 he wants. And that's that. Because he's God and you're not. Yeah. It's very frustrating. You don't

01:18:13.580 dare tell God what to do. You don't, you can beg him, you can ask, you know, but in the final

01:18:21.220 analysis, not my will, but yours. And that will is going to be the peace, even if it doesn't feel

01:18:29.660 like to you, like it is. Like, I'll be at peace if I get what I want. No. You're going to experience

01:18:37.380 peace when God gets his will done. When his will is done, you're going to be awash with peace.

01:18:42.040 And a lot of the time, you actually won't have peace if you get what you want. That's one of

01:18:45.240 the other funny things, too. The answer I came up with was, one, you know, believers are part

01:18:50.340 of the mystical body of Christ. And so, you know, we're all kind of in it. We have this privilege

01:18:56.220 of participative, this grace of participating in God's work in the world. And it's an incarnational

01:19:01.880 faith, and it moves through history, and God enters into history. But also, when it comes to

01:19:06.200 vocation, God can't just call Paul once. I suppose he could if he really wanted to, but

01:19:13.480 probably it's a better idea to keep calling Paul. This idea of a vocation is something

01:19:19.000 that is always happening. God is always talking to Paul. He's always speaking to all of us.

01:19:26.020 And if we were just left up to our own devices, if one day God comes to you and says, hey, Ryan,

01:19:31.820 here's what you're going to do for the next 50 years. You're going to do this, then you're going

01:19:35.300 do this. And then I want you to do this. And then you're going to, this is going to happen. Okay.

01:19:38.460 Bye. You probably wouldn't do it. You'd probably like get diverted along the way. You'd put it off

01:19:45.440 a little bit. In other words, you're in this relationship of grace with God to the point that,

01:19:50.960 you know, Paul is taken up to up into heaven and he has this, this mystical experiences. And it's

01:19:56.660 just, isn't what a, what a joy that is for a true vocation. Well, Paul, I just got back from a trip

01:20:03.740 we're making a docuseries on Apostle Paul

01:20:05.640 and it was in Ephesus.

01:20:06.780 And we don't realize how much Paul failed

01:20:09.000 in the beginning too.

01:20:09.980 We always want a profound encounter with God

01:20:11.940 and Paul doesn't have a hit single really

01:20:14.780 until I think it's Corinth.

01:20:16.380 Like, I mean, it takes a minute to get the band going.

01:20:18.980 The other part is because that rest,

01:20:20.060 I always wonder why, I forget Paul was like 36 or 37,

01:20:23.260 but he was older and you go, why then?

01:20:25.880 Like, why called then?

01:20:26.820 Also, we don't know, had Paul heard a little voice?

01:20:29.900 Had he been ignoring it?

01:20:31.380 You know, did Paul finally get to a place

01:20:33.260 because I will say in my own life, I know many others,

01:20:35.640 God usually doesn't start with the parting the clouds

01:20:38.860 and physical maladies.

01:20:41.040 It's usually like, we should do this, we should do this.

01:20:43.820 I mean, you know, who knows why he chose to do that.

01:20:47.380 The other thing is we have a testimony on the show

01:20:49.300 and this one messed me up the most theologically

01:20:53.520 and it wasn't one of his cases.

01:20:55.200 So sorry, the honor goes to a Protestant on that one. 1.00

01:20:57.780 But this woman was sick for like two decades 0.95

01:21:00.480 and had a good friend of ours 1.00

01:21:02.120 and awesome, righteous Christian couple.

01:21:05.020 Like as, I mean, as much as one can discern

01:21:08.160 like character and purity from the external,

01:21:11.220 this is it.

01:21:12.060 This is, I think they're the most amazing couple.

01:21:14.440 And they thought she had MS or Parkinson's

01:21:16.880 and she was just, and she's young, she's in her 30s

01:21:18.580 and speech is slurring, memories going.

01:21:20.780 I mean, the prayer became for like,

01:21:22.760 help me die with dignity

01:21:24.040 so that I'm not a burden to my family.

01:21:26.240 Help me not have paralysis in my face

01:21:27.980 so I'm not like unsamely when company comes over.

01:21:30.480 you know i mean that's the it's like and had gone to the healing conferences had gone to the

01:21:35.180 fad fasted had prayed done everything like i mean all the things aunt goes to a family member i

01:21:41.200 think it was her aunt went to a occultist a medium or something like that and then that for something

01:21:45.560 completely different and it said oh by the way um oh i'm seeing you have a curse on your family

01:21:49.440 like there's a uh you're one of your great grandfathers had an affair with a witch and uh

01:21:54.580 and left uh when he left his wife for the witch and then actually went back to the wife the witch

01:21:59.640 was angry, and the witch retaliated with a curse, and now the firstborn female will have chronic

01:22:03.440 illness or death throughout the family line. This is what the psychic said? This is what the psychic

01:22:07.360 said to the aunt or the family member of this woman. So she calls her up and says, hey, you know,

01:22:12.360 look what I just, I went to the medium, and look what I found out about her family. And they go,

01:22:16.660 that's crazy. But then they go, well, I'm sick, and like, well, let's just take a look at our

01:22:21.080 family line. They go back, and sure enough, firstborn female, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, 0.95

01:22:25.980 similar to what father was talking about that story.

01:22:28.020 And she goes and gets spiritual, gets deliverance.

01:22:31.340 Goes in, gets deliverance, one set, instantly healed.

01:22:35.240 Instantly, physical thing goes away.

01:22:37.120 And I remember asking her going, aren't you mad?

01:22:39.800 Like, I'll be mad for, aren't you mad?

01:22:41.180 It took, I don't know, you've been praying about this

01:22:42.560 for 10 years, right, et cetera.

01:22:44.320 Why did God choose that?

01:22:45.420 Also, why'd the family member go, like, that's wrong.

01:22:49.200 Also, why did the witch play this role, the psychic?

01:22:52.760 Ananias, the witch, why does it,

01:22:54.120 And classic Amazing Response shows,

01:22:56.860 man, I'm just so grateful to be alive and healthy.

01:22:59.100 Yeah, yeah.

01:22:59.540 And that just makes everything better.

01:23:00.520 But I kind of get, like, Ananias is a Christian.

01:23:02.660 Right. 0.98

01:23:03.000 The medium is some witch. 1.00

01:23:04.280 Well, that's God's mercy. 0.99

01:23:04.920 That's got to be God's, I mean, that's God's mercy.

01:23:07.360 But that one is like, why God chooses to.

01:23:09.580 We have so many cases where they're going at it constantly.

01:23:13.180 And obviously, Father, you jump in here.

01:23:14.600 But it's like, they're going to the prayers,

01:23:16.020 they're doing deliverance.

01:23:16.600 And why one day, they've been going at it for months.

01:23:18.640 And then one day, it breaks.

01:23:20.980 And the person is liberated.

01:23:22.260 And the thing I've had to reconcile is, okay,

01:23:24.040 One, he says all the time, Jesus is the exorcist, and he knows the time and the place to extract

01:23:30.280 the most fruit from this thing.

01:23:31.760 So the person could be saying, I want to be free, I want to be free, but God and them

01:23:36.080 know what's going on in there.

01:23:37.300 And if they also, is there an element where like God's like, you know what, I don't actually

01:23:41.400 think you don't, you want my benefits, but you don't want my kingdom right now.

01:23:44.240 So I'm going to let you experience this, right?

01:23:47.040 And people, you know, to the, I was an agnostic too for a long time and was just like this

01:23:52.000 whole, I mean, because the suffering and the stuff that people have gone through, I've now met

01:23:55.080 people who've emerged from cults and satanic abuse and it's stuff you didn't think human

01:24:00.640 beings were capable of inflicting. Like they're supposed to be like a hard code that you just,

01:24:04.680 there are lines you don't cross and these people have experienced them. And you go, God, like,

01:24:08.760 I mean, I had a perfect upbringing and I'm like, how do I preach God's, they're like, yeah, it's

01:24:12.620 easy for you to preach God's sovereignty and goodness, but like, look at all this. And ultimately

01:24:16.600 I just come back to, it's like, man, if you believe what you believe about God, then all

01:24:21.440 this exorcism the fact that we have an enemy all that stuff in some weird way it's for the greater

01:24:27.060 good yeah and it's and it just and it and that messed me up for a long time but you know father

01:24:31.680 always says right satan is god's uh unwitting pawn unwitting pawn he's on a leash yeah and exorcism

01:24:38.580 is a process and god knows what he wants to accomplish of course all of us the victim me

01:24:45.480 the exorcist, any exorcist, we want that liberation to happen yesterday. And we don't

01:24:52.820 have control over that. And God is sovereign. God has his purposes, even if we don't know them.

01:24:58.540 And he has the right to not share his purposes. That's the benefit of being God. And so until you

01:25:05.880 or I become almighty God, well, we have to abide by his rules. Job, that one drives me nuts.

01:25:12.440 Never gets an answer.

01:25:13.260 At least he gets some justice,

01:25:14.220 but he never finds out why he went through his ordeal.

01:25:16.580 We know because we get this little preamble,

01:25:18.380 but Job just goes, oh yeah, I'm sorry.

01:25:20.240 I'm not God.

01:25:21.060 End of story.

01:25:21.720 It is probably my favorite book of the Bible.

01:25:23.760 And it's the one when you finally get the upshot to it.

01:25:27.440 It is the one I cry basically every time I read it.

01:25:31.620 Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?

01:25:33.880 Similar tone to the,

01:25:35.540 how much longer do I have to be with you people?

01:25:37.560 Like, how much longer must I suffer you?

01:25:39.180 Brace yourself.

01:25:40.000 Yeah, yeah.

01:25:40.680 Oh no, surely you know.

01:25:42.500 Surely you know.

01:25:43.620 Yo, no, where were the measurements laid?

01:25:45.240 You know, come on.

01:25:46.180 What was it like?

01:25:47.340 And it's just, yes, we all experience this to some degree,

01:25:54.000 and we all struggle with theodicy and the problem of evil and suffering.

01:25:58.120 Most of us don't even really have a conception of the depths of evil

01:26:02.140 that can exist in time and space, like satanic ritual abuse,

01:26:06.240 which you're referencing.

01:26:07.400 but there's a, I've noticed this kind of strange thing in my own spiritual life,

01:26:13.040 which I should have realized 30 years ago probably. A lot of people despair because they feel like if

01:26:18.820 they have a bad habit or even a bad habit of mind, that they just can't get out of it. That they,

01:26:24.540 you know, they might go for a few weeks or a couple of months, but eventually they're going

01:26:28.460 to fall back into the rut of some habitual sin or some habitual temptation or whatever.

01:26:32.980 and the weird thing I've noticed is I go to confession. I receive absolution.

01:26:39.320 Ego te absolvo. You know, God forgives you of your sins and even if I'm wracked by all of the

01:26:46.940 deadly sins, like I feel it physically, my pride and my gluttony, my lust and my wrath and my this

01:26:52.160 and my that, I leave the confessional and I don't, I actually don't feel that anymore and the thing

01:26:58.360 I noticed is some thought pops into my head. Some pretty girl crosses the street. Some guy

01:27:04.080 cuts me off in traffic. As long as I don't, with an act of the will, entertain those thoughts,

01:27:11.600 I can basically go forever. There is no time limit on falling into sin. I can basically go

01:27:20.620 forever. And then the minute I start to willfully curse out the person in traffic or whatever,

01:27:27.320 or look at the pretty girl on the street or whatever it is. Now I can't get it out of my

01:27:31.240 head. Now I am in this total rut in my mind where I feel much more temptation. And I suppose we can

01:27:38.640 get into temptation, obsession, and possession and all that. But that is basically the point.

01:27:43.720 If you're falling into these sins, mortal sins, it does require an act of the will, right? You

01:27:50.780 are part of that. Yeah. You cannot accidentally come into mortal sin, right? It needs your

01:27:56.920 participation. It needs your consent. So on temptation, obsession, possession, which we've

01:28:03.440 referenced a few times now, everyone thinks of exorcism as Father Martin shows up in the middle

01:28:09.440 of the night with the rain and the dark and the lightning flashing and screaming and heads turning

01:28:14.420 and all that. But that is not, possession is not the main way that the devil messes around with us.

01:28:20.200 so okay we know temptation the person in traffic the lady across the street okay we know possession

01:28:26.720 when you know you start speaking or the demons start speaking in foreign languages and stuff

01:28:31.800 okay what's obsession great question we have a case file this week about this yeah so obsession

01:28:38.440 is also known as partial possession so so it's where the the the mind is compromised at some

01:28:47.000 level. So when you have possession, you are owned. So the devil acts through you mentally and

01:28:54.560 physically as if he were inside you, as if the body were his own. When you have obsession,

01:29:03.360 the body is not compromised, but the mind is. There can be fleeting moments where a part of

01:29:10.760 your body is not in control, but the mind is. So you can have, for example, just a recurring

01:29:20.720 anxiety that is just visceral. You are horrified by a sin you did 10 years ago. And you may have

01:29:29.540 not even thought about it for eight years. And now all of a sudden, the past year, you can't shake

01:29:34.100 it. So we're not talking about a mental condition here. We're not talking about something that is

01:29:38.960 diagnosable by medicine as a pathology, which that needs treatment. We're talking about something

01:29:45.480 completely different. An impending desire, like your own salvation is not had. Like you will never

01:29:51.040 see salvation. Should I marry Sally? Or should I marry Laverne? And it reaches a level,

01:29:59.800 you're non-functional. So you live your entire day with these thoughts. You fall asleep going

01:30:06.280 to these if you sleep at all you wake up in the middle of your sleep thinking about these thoughts

01:30:10.560 so that's that's obsession in its raw form how prevalent is that a lot more than what people

01:30:17.460 realize you know and i think probably some of the biblical uh accounts of of possession probably

01:30:24.480 relate to this uh where where there is so so it's outside the person's character and baseline

01:30:32.940 So there's a behavior now that is absolutely new.

01:30:37.100 It's not them, and yet they can't shake it.

01:30:40.580 Nothing they can do shakes it.

01:30:42.820 No doctor can shake it.

01:30:44.880 So how prevalent is it?

01:30:47.240 It's prevalent.

01:30:48.400 It's out there.

01:30:50.180 What do you do to fix it?

01:30:51.200 I mean, to put it bluntly, is confession enough?

01:30:54.580 Demons live in wounds.

01:30:57.020 Find the wounds.

01:30:58.580 So when somebody comes into my office,

01:31:01.580 when I've been called, when I've been asked to see somebody,

01:31:03.880 when a diocese says, can you undertake this case?

01:31:08.860 I don't go looking for the devil.

01:31:11.640 I have a person in front of me, and my first question is,

01:31:14.880 Jesus, what do you want me to do for this person?

01:31:17.660 What is the immediate need?

01:31:19.420 So I'm looking for that immediate need, the wounds.

01:31:23.680 Just like if I show up at your door,

01:31:27.200 and, you know, I knock at your door

01:31:29.320 and I was just in an accident.

01:31:30.920 My leg is bleeding.

01:31:32.180 The first thing you're going to do

01:31:33.320 is not offer me a drink and a cigar.

01:31:35.380 Well, quickly.

01:31:37.560 And then I'll say,

01:31:38.140 and can I get you a bandage too?

01:31:39.500 Right.

01:31:39.660 But I just want to be hospitable.

01:31:41.540 You're going to treat the immediate problem.

01:31:44.740 And so what I'm doing is I'm looking for,

01:31:47.520 you know, where is this person, Lord, lacking you?

01:31:51.600 So in doing this, you flip the tables

01:31:54.060 because most people think, you know,

01:31:56.600 you go look for the devil and the devil knows this and he's going to be on his best behavior

01:32:01.860 right so he knows he's in the doctor's office or he's in the principal's chair

01:32:06.020 and and and he's being scrutinized so he's going to make it look he wants you you the exorcist to

01:32:12.680 think this person's just nuts this person is or just is beat up by life and just just wounded

01:32:20.220 and so many, like neurotic and so forth. 0.99

01:32:22.960 So send this person away.

01:32:24.280 Well, I don't do that.

01:32:25.960 The person may have nothing spiritual,

01:32:28.440 but will have wounds.

01:32:30.780 So my first job as an exorcist

01:32:33.320 is not to be an exorcist.

01:32:35.020 It's to be a priest.

01:32:37.020 It's to be a pastor of a soul, right?

01:32:39.580 So you go look for those wounds

01:32:41.240 and treat the wounds and sure as hell exists.

01:32:43.560 If the devil is there, he's going to come to you

01:32:45.980 because he is not going to appreciate that.

01:32:48.140 wounds are his habitat and his food source you mess with those he's going to come to you

01:32:53.680 what would you say today is or are the chief causes of the wounds so it may be different

01:33:02.900 times throughout history but you mentioned the example of the trauma you know little johnny

01:33:07.180 sees little timmy get his head blown off by a car that's a trauma it's not a very prevalent

01:33:10.860 what are the biggest causes today so so it's definitely sin right so trauma in and of itself

01:33:18.540 doesn't cause possession but what it does is it causes a distortion a scandal a scandal it changes

01:33:26.380 your view of reality causes you to believe a lie god is not good god doesn't love me i'm a horrible

01:33:31.400 person i deserve eternal misery yeah because i've just brought about joey's desk by throwing a ball

01:33:37.220 maybe even intentionally too high that he would have to go around and get this ball boom a car

01:33:42.340 gets but the two types of sin that are the most demon causing or or or that bring about demonization

01:33:52.480 is dabbling in the occult sexual sin right so so why why for each well when you dabble in the

01:34:00.420 occult what you're doing is imitating the rebellion of satan against god and that rebellion had two

01:34:05.560 aspects. One, there is a doubt of God's goodness. So following God is not going to make me happy.

01:34:12.200 And second, he has put natural limits on you and your power and you're bypassing them. So I can't

01:34:19.240 know the future, but if I go to the fortune teller, I've just bypassed that. So that's the

01:34:25.060 occult end of it. So you are imitating and replicating the sin of Satan. My God, it's

01:34:32.320 usually uh uh it's often very often a one and done experience with people they go dabble into that

01:34:38.620 now you've picked up something because you've handed over rights and even if he doesn't claim

01:34:42.880 the right right away right you can have a home in florida that you never visit but it's still yours

01:34:47.740 yeah 25 years from now you might decide to go and and you know somebody else might be in there hey

01:34:52.400 buddy get out this is mine he can claim those rights anytime he wants uh the second is sexual

01:35:00.020 sin. Why? Well, because the sexual faculty, the sexual appetite is the most powerful appetite 0.80

01:35:08.540 within anybody. People give up food for sex, money for sex. But it is the way in God's plan 0.90

01:35:16.020 whereby we most resemble God. A husband and wife come together in a love so strong,

01:35:22.240 nine months later, they have to give that love a name. So the devil's going to be all over that.

01:35:28.260 The devil's going to try to mar that, exploit that, make it ugly, turn you into perversion.

01:35:34.260 So we're already, we're born, we come upon the scene with a, with broken.

01:35:42.220 So our appetites are out of whack.

01:35:44.260 And he's going to exacerbate that any chance he gets, right? 0.90

01:35:47.320 Just look at how much sexual perversion there is, right?

01:35:53.060 And in the animal kingdom, that's non-existent. 0.97

01:35:55.920 You have to be a human to be perverted.

01:35:57.640 You have to be a human. So the type of perversion that humans engage in has no mirror in the animal

01:36:04.220 kingdom. Animals don't have a dysphoria that they undergo that humans suffer from. So that's a

01:36:14.300 peculiar, particular condition of the human being. But occasionally you'll have these

01:36:20.080 LGBT activists. They'll say, no, there were these gay penguins at the zoo. 0.65

01:36:25.980 And like when you look into it, you realize, well, I don't know, they're not really gay. 0.75

01:36:29.100 They're like holding their flippers together. 0.85

01:36:30.560 And actually, they're kind of taken out of their natural habitat.

01:36:33.480 There's all this weird stuff going on.

01:36:34.840 But yeah, there's no like NXIVM cult of giraffes.

01:36:41.160 There's no Epstein Island of leopards, right? 0.99

01:36:45.780 That's a keen insight.

01:36:47.440 It's never occurred to me. 0.58

01:36:48.340 Yes, you have to be a human to be really perverted.

01:36:53.260 And of course, I think most people, it resonates for most people that sexual sin is the way in.

01:36:57.860 And it's not necessarily the worst kind of sin, but there are plenty of mystics in the history

01:37:02.600 of the church who say sexual sin brings the most souls to hell. Might not be the worst sin,

01:37:07.160 but it might be the most effective way to claim souls for the devil.

01:37:10.660 Right, absolutely. Yeah, so those would be the two by far that we see, the two most common.

01:37:18.520 obviously they're not exclusive. You know, one doesn't exclusively become demonized through

01:37:23.960 those avenues. But then what about specifically on the non-sin part? You know, Johnny seeing

01:37:30.660 Timmy's head blown off. What is it today? I mean, you would say for sexual sin, probably the biggest

01:37:37.300 temptation is online porn. And then related to that, the lax sexual mores, the Cornell weird

01:37:45.620 orgy and hookup culture and all the rest of that. But put the sin aside for a second. 0.86

01:37:51.380 We live in a period of great divorce. We've had divorce laws liberalized. They're still

01:37:56.760 being liberalized. It's so recent that we've liberalized divorce laws that I think it was 0.87

01:38:00.520 2011 or something in New York or later that they finally fully liberalized the divorce laws.

01:38:06.520 So you have generations now of kids, most of whom have divorced parents. Surely that is scandalous.

01:38:12.780 surely all of the weird behaviors that pertain to sex are quite scandalous we live in a time when

01:38:20.440 we look the other way on violent crime or disorder in the streets maybe that could be scandalous

01:38:25.440 are there any traumas that you think are more prevalent now than they were previously

01:38:30.880 we should talk about i mean the big one half our case a third of them involve unforgiveness

01:38:35.280 um you know like things that have so you mentioned divorce all these things that happen to people

01:38:39.840 and that can lead to this is a tough one because right you know if someone does something really

01:38:43.900 wrong to you like you can it's natural to be pissed and angry but we have for you know we've

01:38:49.240 had cases where we had a case in season one where a demon pretended to be a girl's father

01:38:55.580 and visit her and asked her permission to come into her life center and her dad had walked out

01:39:01.380 on her and left her and her mom and she blamed her mother for driving the man away and part of

01:39:07.600 her liberation was forgiving her mother and we've had multiple cases where you know people like are

01:39:14.700 the victim and they still have to forgive their their assailants and so that part and then office

01:39:19.840 and then forgiveness of self we have probably our craziest case coming out this season that

01:39:25.060 you know one of the main doorways that's like for the final boss battle if you will like they're

01:39:29.720 gonna have to get through is some basically being able to forgive oneself for something for things

01:39:34.220 that either happened to them and done

01:39:36.060 because I was blown away

01:39:37.800 and we have some psychologists and therapists

01:39:40.640 who will help us on the show

01:39:41.720 to help try and capture the reality of what's going on

01:39:43.920 and also to be accurate

01:39:45.180 so the psychoses of these people endure.

01:39:48.160 And one that I just was,

01:39:49.560 I know a lot of people know this,

01:39:50.840 I didn't know this

01:39:51.740 and it was very hard to write this and experience this,

01:39:54.960 but the idea that someone who was taken advantage of

01:40:00.600 and sexually abused

01:40:01.860 does now have a new identity that somehow they were culpable and that they were like you know

01:40:07.220 and obviously asking for it or something yeah no i mean in this and again i don't know how prevalent

01:40:11.400 this is but like it was like the fact that like wait because you read this and you go you should

01:40:15.340 be pissed you should be angry like how how dare they do this and part of uh this individual story

01:40:21.440 in the case that we're documenting is that that was like oh well it happened multiple times i'm

01:40:26.260 the common denominator between all these things so at some point it's me right and you think that's

01:40:32.680 just it's so evil and it's so horrible and it's crazy how many cases the person has to struggle

01:40:37.460 to say i forgive so and so for something legitimately evil that happened to them

01:40:42.800 and then and then the self-forgiveness so even even in the case of lena this girl who had her

01:40:49.120 dad walk out so she she had to forgive herself for having a dad that left her and didn't call her

01:40:57.160 she had to forgive herself for being a loser because that's how she defined herself she she

01:41:04.080 had to forgive herself for being a kid who wasn't seen as valuable enough that the dad would stick 0.52

01:41:12.360 around. So she had to release herself from that. So this is a dimension of the Christian faith

01:41:20.000 that people often miss out on. So the Lord's command to forgive is not just for those out

01:41:26.980 there. It's for you. Because after the fall, we can hate ourselves. And we do. And we mess up.

01:41:35.740 and I'm my own enemy.

01:41:38.800 So it can be often easier.

01:41:40.480 Like, so for example,

01:41:41.400 like I worked in,

01:41:43.300 when I first became a priest,

01:41:44.500 I worked a lot with,

01:41:45.300 I did a lot of prison ministry

01:41:47.360 and I worked with a lot of victims

01:41:48.620 of abuse of all sorts.

01:41:51.400 And the phenomena that I saw

01:41:52.980 and it so helped me

01:41:54.040 in my ministry of exorcism

01:41:55.380 was that a victim often hates herself

01:41:58.560 or himself, right?

01:42:00.440 So he or she will come

01:42:03.860 easily enough to forgive the perpetrator of the attack, the abuser, the person who brought great

01:42:12.660 life-defining grief to me. And now, are you willing to forgive yourself for being the target,

01:42:20.640 for having been created sexual, for having been lusted after, for being too short, too tall,

01:42:27.320 too fat, too thin, to help yourself out of this, for being vulnerable, for being limited,

01:42:31.740 for not knowing how to get out of this,

01:42:33.640 for not being the solution to your own problems.

01:42:38.380 And they're usually a sobbing mess by then.

01:42:41.540 So it is the releasing of yourself,

01:42:44.600 of your own sense of inadequacy

01:42:46.180 and your own wrongdoing in your own mind,

01:42:52.020 in your own psyche,

01:42:52.480 if you felt you contributed to the state of affairs.

01:42:56.900 And the Lord gains a lot of real estate

01:43:00.580 when someone can come to that point.

01:43:03.100 And if you don't surrender that to Christ,

01:43:06.340 he won't take it because he can't.

01:43:09.160 He'd be taking stolen goods.

01:43:11.720 It truly has to be surrendered.

01:43:14.220 So the worst, most evil thing that you've ever done

01:43:17.580 or that perception you have of yourself 1.00

01:43:21.060 that you are no good, that you are useless, 1.00

01:43:24.220 that you messed up, that you screwed up. 0.99

01:43:25.760 If you don't surrender that, the Lord can't take it away.

01:43:29.500 But if you do surrender it, my God, forgiveness releases the power of a nuclear bomb in you.

01:43:36.240 Yeah, you see this really in the writing of Paul with this paradoxical quality where

01:43:40.640 he does boast a lot. He says, oh, you guys say that you're children of Abraham? You guys say

01:43:46.680 you're Jews? I'm way more of that than you. And all these other apostles, man, I work way harder

01:43:52.840 than they do. And I've done way more and I've suffered way more. And I'm like the man. Also,

01:43:58.920 I'm not fit to be called an apostle, and I'm the worst of sinners. And everything that I've done

01:44:03.380 is actually just Christ accomplishing things in me, and I don't even really exist. It's actually,

01:44:07.500 it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And that seems like a contradiction or

01:44:12.340 some kind of poetic device, but it does express a profound reality of the Christian life. It's

01:44:17.100 kind of the whole point, right? And so there's no contradiction for Paul when he says that. He's

01:44:21.200 like, yeah, no, I am the man. I'm found in all these churches, and I'm getting shipwrecked and

01:44:25.600 beaten all the time, and I'm the man, and also I'm the worst. Isn't that, he sounds insane when

01:44:34.700 he says it to modern ears, but in fact, that's probably the most sane approach you could have

01:44:39.160 to yourself. Yeah. He made his point very, very clearly with self-glorification checked by

01:44:47.800 self-deprecation. Yeah. Yeah. On the point, this brings up a, this will be my therapy session or

01:44:54.020 my spiritual counseling session, because the point that you brought up on this girl who's

01:44:58.880 some spiritual, some kind of entity said, I'm your father and I want to enter into your life

01:45:03.340 or whatever. I had this very strange thing happen to me. I was trying to discern the spiritual

01:45:09.940 meaning of it. After a family member died, close family member died, I had a dream and I saw this

01:45:16.080 family member wearing all black, walking down a hallway. And I said, oh, so-and-so, are you

01:45:21.760 walk into heaven, and this family member says, no, I'm going to the other place. By the way,

01:45:27.080 you are too. I wake up. I'll get you up in the morning. Yeah, so that's not good.

01:45:33.700 I don't like either part of that. Is that, and then I had to wonder, I mean, dreams can be

01:45:42.200 prophetic. You know, prophecy is less than telling the future. As my friend, Father Rettler points

01:45:47.040 out, a prophet is one who speaks the truth and seems to predict the future in the derivative

01:45:51.580 sense of warning about the consequences of denying the truth. So it's entirely possible

01:45:58.800 that my family member and I will go to hell. God forbid. I hope that isn't true. 0.88

01:46:03.780 It is possible that there's a kind of prophetic quality to that. It's also possible that that was

01:46:09.680 just the devil trying to play with my mind as I was in a period of grief. How am I to discern

01:46:14.700 what that is? Or should I discern it at all? Or should I just got to stick close to God and do

01:46:21.360 what I can do and forget about the dream? Surrender it to God. Ask him to speak into it.

01:46:27.100 If he chooses to, then I would take those words as gold. And if he chooses not to,

01:46:35.280 then you don't give it any more value than you need to. But I don't think it's worth

01:46:45.480 discounting entirely because there's a valuable spiritual lesson in there, right? That the fact

01:46:51.820 that hell does exist, it is possible to go there. And, you know, maybe this dead relative maybe just

01:46:58.880 needs prayers. Maybe there could have been a true aspect of the story, and that is he or she is not

01:47:05.780 in heaven yet, but needs prayer. The enemy could have just gotten in that lesson. No, I'm going to

01:47:10.240 the other place. That could have been a fake part, a counterfeit part of that. So I would

01:47:15.180 surrender it to the Lord, and then you live as if God is sovereign, God has a plan, God is bringing

01:47:22.220 things for the good, provided that I cooperate with that. And you worry about engaging in that

01:47:28.440 cooperation, and you let God sort out the poker chips as they need to be sorted out.

01:47:34.880 We get questions all the time about dreams and the role they play. It's tough because

01:47:39.880 I have a few friends that have had those kind of dreams.

01:47:43.000 Like, we have a friend who had a dream that's like,

01:47:45.320 a man was like, you're going to meet me in the airport

01:47:48.300 and in a Middle Eastern country.

01:47:51.340 And they went on faith.

01:47:53.060 Like, in their 20s, young, by themselves, went, showed up.

01:47:55.800 The same person from the dream met them in the airport.

01:47:58.300 What?

01:47:58.460 Yeah, ministry.

01:47:59.300 No, this happens, not to me, right?

01:48:03.180 And your dream's different, obviously.

01:48:05.040 Yeah, yeah, I hope we don't meet again

01:48:07.460 in those circumstances.

01:48:08.840 Yeah, it's hard too because dreams on one hand,

01:48:11.040 I do think is an interesting, valid way that God speaks.

01:48:14.420 It's a time when we're still and our minds are wandering

01:48:17.420 and he can kind of intervene.

01:48:19.160 But we do have excessive nightmares.

01:48:22.500 Now, obviously in this case, this is just one scary.

01:48:25.800 However, anything to do with eternity, that can be very scary.

01:48:29.120 And we have many people write in and say,

01:48:31.620 has this dream indicative of something demonic going on?

01:48:33.980 And I will say it's tough because obviously people have nightmares.

01:48:37.060 Like, that's our brains working stuff out.

01:48:39.780 We have many cases where one of the main symptoms is excessive nightmares that start happening.

01:48:45.440 In fact, we have one case coming out this year that the main symptom that brought the attention of the church to this individual

01:48:51.980 was the kid was experiencing such crazy dreams.

01:48:55.520 And I'd be curious if you agree with this, but, like, it's generally the degree and the severity, right?

01:48:59.900 We all get nightmares, but when they start having repeated, grotesque, horrific,

01:49:04.660 And this kid was hearing the sounds of, like, flesh ripping.

01:49:07.880 They were having open-eyed visions, too, where, like, they'd see someone in their mirror, etc.

01:49:11.940 And the family was just like, kids have imaginations, and their prefrontal cortex is not fully developed.

01:49:17.000 The line between reality and fantasy is kind of blurred.

01:49:19.840 And they did finally take this kid to a priest, get blessed, and it actually went away for a while.

01:49:26.160 For years.

01:49:26.760 Went away four years.

01:49:27.680 For years.

01:49:28.160 And then it came back with a vengeance.

01:49:30.640 And now, again, there were other doorways itself in this case.

01:49:33.460 but a lot of actually i had a friend um who it's crazy when i first started doing this it's funny

01:49:39.020 all the friends that you think are going to think you're crazy they all go okay someone else leaves

01:49:42.860 the room and you're like okay so here's let me tell you what actually yeah i need to talk to you

01:49:46.220 about this right and he goes my uh my sister brought this little tchotchke from some market

01:49:52.800 in bali or wherever it was right and gave it to my daughter it was like oh it's a cool thing right

01:49:56.420 that night the daughter started having uh a dream where a deceased relative was visiting them

01:50:02.240 right and i was like hey like it's so good to see you can i come back and visit you and like of

01:50:06.060 course i think it appeared as grandma or whatever right i think it was grandma um and then he'll

01:50:11.840 come back and at night would visit and he's like oh what are you doing he's telling me the story

01:50:15.360 he's like yeah like my daughter's like talking to like grandma or some family member at night

01:50:19.860 and he's like what did she say she's like oh she thinks you're great we're hanging out we're talking

01:50:24.340 in dreams and like i think that's weird right but then at one night uh grandma showed her true

01:50:29.880 colors or whatever it was right and described as like a dolphin with like crazy fangs and like a

01:50:34.900 monster that like tried to attack her and she was screaming and he's like well what has changed in

01:50:39.300 the last like couple weeks he's like and just he just looked over and he's like well i see this

01:50:43.740 object right and i was like i think you should get rid of that and he threw the object away

01:50:47.020 and dreams done really completely done again cursed object i don't know etc but like the thing

01:50:54.220 is the nightmare side i'm i put it this way i'm i love the idea of god speaking through dreams

01:50:58.260 seen it happen it does seem more often than not i'm curious if you agree with this that it's

01:51:04.020 more often than not it's the nightmares point towards like demonic rather than god speaking

01:51:10.020 to us more profoundly through dreams right and what you're looking for is is a patterning right

01:51:15.860 consistency so a one-off nightmare or two nights in a row okay no exorcist is going to get up out

01:51:24.340 out of his chair to deal with that because that look this this is life yeah uh but consistency

01:51:31.100 and patterning right but even that object too it's not necessarily that the object was cursed

01:51:36.200 but the maker of the object let's say sure could have evil and that evil is attached to the object

01:51:44.540 because it was his and it can remain and this even scripture says don't even touch the clothing of

01:51:50.020 the wicked oh tell me remember the why you don't accept gifts from people this is one of the first

01:51:54.720 conversations we had he's like i don't accept gifts from strangers right and i'm like and we

01:51:59.540 do get lots of weird gifts bless them many of them innocuous but like the gift where someone gave you

01:52:04.080 some candy um so okay so it wasn't to me uh okay so but it was to someone i know uh know very well

01:52:13.000 uh so he worked at a warehouse with this woman and the woman was crazy about him wanted to have

01:52:18.880 a relationship. He wanted nothing to do with her for whatever reasons. And so one day he's leaving 0.99

01:52:25.960 work and she says, look, I make my own candy. I made you this bag of candy, best candy you've ever

01:52:32.160 had. So he just takes it, puts it on the passenger seat and drives home and forgets about the candy

01:52:39.520 until the next day he gets in his car to go to work. And he sees the bag, oh yeah, there was

01:52:45.660 that candy and so he thought well i'm going to take a piece of candy out he all the candy had

01:52:49.860 turned to hair balls of hair now are we sure that she did not just make him hair candy yeah yeah no

01:52:59.540 he had seen them first she had shown him it was a twix yeah she had shown him and so so what

01:53:07.080 happened well obviously they were cursed and obviously the fact that they turned to hair

01:53:13.280 was a sign that some evil had been done to them. And whatever temporary, and how this works, I mean,

01:53:22.080 you tell me and we'll both know. I have no idea. Why was there a 24-hour time limit on this? I

01:53:28.700 don't know. But sure as heaven exists, he looked at them and said, I'm not putting any of that in

01:53:33.540 my mouth. But we'll have exorcism cases where all of a sudden, in the midst of the praying,

01:53:43.280 And there's some heaving going on, heaving.

01:53:46.480 And people will vomit the strangest things.

01:53:50.220 Pins, nails, screws, bricks.

01:53:53.400 Like a whole brick appears to emerge out of somebody's mouth,

01:53:57.460 which it couldn't even possibly fit down their mouth.

01:54:00.160 So there's an illusion aspect of it somehow at some level

01:54:03.960 where this brick is emerging.

01:54:06.280 And this brick is permanent.

01:54:08.300 Like it stays.

01:54:09.740 It's a real brick.

01:54:10.920 It's a real brick.

01:54:11.640 Did this happen to an exorcist you know?

01:54:13.660 To me.

01:54:14.700 It happened to you.

01:54:15.400 You saw the brick.

01:54:16.040 Yes.

01:54:16.920 And then you have perhaps sometime under the chair that they're sitting in,

01:54:21.580 all of a sudden you're praying, and there's some breakthrough in the prayer.

01:54:26.400 And there's a snake underneath the – no, I've never seen the snake,

01:54:30.240 but I've had colleagues that have.

01:54:31.780 A snake or I've had a worm.

01:54:34.460 All of a sudden there's just a worm writhing underneath the chair.

01:54:37.340 There's no way there was a worm there before.

01:54:39.380 You would have noticed the worm, presumably.

01:54:40.940 Yeah, yeah.

01:54:41.640 Just, we generally don't keep worms in our chapels.

01:54:46.740 It's a best practice.

01:54:49.360 People come in and clean and everything.

01:54:51.540 How do you make sense of this then?

01:54:54.560 You know, we accept physical reality and the laws of physics and all of this.

01:54:59.180 So how does that happen?

01:55:00.360 Like, what's the nuts and bolts of that?

01:55:01.620 Pun unintended.

01:55:02.960 You tell me, and we'll both know.

01:55:04.840 We'll co-author a book.

01:55:05.980 We'll make a lot of money.

01:55:07.800 Because if you can harness that power, you can do a lot.

01:55:10.040 No, so in the midst of this, obviously God is sovereign, is in charge, and he's allowing these things to happen as signs that there's something here that's really wrong.

01:55:23.600 There's some evil here, there's some perversion, there's something here that is badness.

01:55:29.460 Badness is making an appearance.

01:55:31.260 But at the same time, that badness is bleeding off.

01:55:36.500 It's being extracted from the person.

01:55:38.660 So what it tells you is, hey, there's a sign here of something leaving this individual.

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01:56:45.460 Right, it's not just a...

01:56:47.060 I'm fascinated by signs and the emergence of meaning from signs

01:56:51.300 and what the signs signify.

01:56:54.140 So it's not just that the signs point to...

01:56:56.920 You know, all signs point to something.

01:56:58.280 It's not just that they're pointing to the presence of some evil.

01:57:01.720 The mode in which you are seeing the sign itself signifies that evil is leaving the person.

01:57:09.180 Yeah, there's an expelling that's going on, which is great, which is exactly what you want.

01:57:16.300 Why does God do it that way?

01:57:17.980 Why doesn't he just make the evil go away and we see it from its effects?

01:57:20.840 He also does that too, where there is no overt sign, but the effect, and that's the sign.

01:57:27.300 The effect is a freedom.

01:57:29.120 What did you do with the brick?

01:57:31.720 If you don't mind my asking.

01:57:33.160 Throw it in the ocean, throw it in the lake. 0.93

01:57:35.740 Smash it up with a hammer. 0.99

01:57:38.060 Throw it in the trash. 0.99

01:57:40.180 Take it to a vacant field and just scatter it.

01:57:42.960 Like, I don't leave them intact.

01:57:46.140 So I destroy it.

01:57:47.820 I change the form such that what it was before,

01:57:50.300 it is no longer that now.

01:57:51.900 It's just a collection of constituent parts, like sand.

01:57:55.660 You pulverize it until it's sand.

01:57:57.000 Well, I mean, normally I don't do it myself.

01:57:59.900 I just have somebody do it.

01:58:01.220 I just, you know, I give it to somebody.

01:58:03.180 So these artifacts, brick or otherwise,

01:58:06.360 appear multiple times.

01:58:06.940 If they're burnable, we burn them. 1.00

01:58:08.860 Yeah, like that's a great way to get rid of a malefist, 1.00

01:58:11.820 a cursed object. 1.00

01:58:12.420 Sometimes they're, I mean,

01:58:13.540 because this is fascinating too, right?

01:58:14.580 We've had cases where people appear to sprout fangs,

01:58:17.560 and you've talked about like there's an illusory component

01:58:20.180 where the demons, I think you were positing

01:58:23.160 that they manipulate light and will cause you to see things.

01:58:26.400 Now the physical brick thing, that's hard to dispute.

01:58:29.420 That's so mind-boggling.

01:58:30.540 But then other things that you think defy the physical laws of the universe are actually manipulations of light.

01:58:39.080 Yeah.

01:58:39.820 So I had this case.

01:58:44.400 It's one of the chapters of my book.

01:58:45.960 It's a possessed firefighter.

01:58:48.440 And so this poor guy is in his early 30s.

01:58:51.340 He had been possessed since he was seven years old.

01:58:54.800 And what happened is...

01:58:55.720 How did he get possessed at seven years old?

01:58:57.040 Yeah, so his brothers brought home a Ouija board

01:59:02.700 and gathered with their friends around the table.

01:59:05.040 And he's at seven years old.

01:59:06.080 He doesn't know what's going on.

01:59:07.720 But he's just sitting around because, hey, this is what my brothers are doing.

01:59:10.740 And, you know, there's friends over.

01:59:12.480 And, you know, this is some kind of action.

01:59:15.200 So he didn't remember much about that experience other than the fact that it happened,

01:59:20.340 that there was a Ouija board.

01:59:22.360 That night in his room, as he's in bed, the lights are out.

01:59:26.500 he said a figure came into the room that was so black it was so dark that it made the rest of the

01:59:34.520 room seem like it was in broad daylight that's the level of blackness it had the face or the head

01:59:41.040 of a cat and the body of a human and this thing came and and made him an offer said i will make

01:59:50.300 you really really strong stronger than all your friends if you give me and then it named something

01:59:56.400 it said some word that he didn't recognize, right? This is what I want. And so he said, yeah.

02:00:03.200 And so he said, this figure jumped up in the air, did a somersault and went into his body.

02:00:07.480 And from that point forward, this guy was the strongest kid around. He could pummel kids

02:00:15.060 that were years older than him. He always had wanted to be a firefighter. He went into the

02:00:21.080 Firefighter Academy. Broke every athletic record there. Super, super strong man. Became a

02:00:27.040 firefighter. But in the midst of this, he's possessed. So he would lose large gaps of time

02:00:35.000 that he can't account for. So he just loses half a day. It was just morning. Now all of a sudden,

02:00:42.080 it's evening. He has no idea where he's been, what he has done. He's in a different part of the town.

02:00:47.920 One time, he had lost two days.

02:00:51.000 He woke up in a different town.

02:00:53.620 He had his pants on.

02:00:55.740 He had his shoes on, if I recall, but he had no shirt on.

02:00:59.140 His body was cut.

02:01:00.240 His knuckles, so he had punched somebody or something

02:01:03.580 because his knuckles were cut up.

02:01:06.700 He had an extra, I can't remember what it was,

02:01:09.200 something like $2,200 in his pocket.

02:01:11.800 He has no idea what he has done.

02:01:13.600 And so his wife knew this about him.

02:01:17.960 So she was a woman. 0.96

02:01:20.800 They married each other for looks. 0.90

02:01:23.720 She had a conversion.

02:01:26.380 And it happened when she saw his parents convert.

02:01:30.520 They went to a mission that was put on by a priest at their parish.

02:01:35.380 They converted.

02:01:37.120 And they started living a new life, a new identity.

02:01:40.320 She saw that and it drew her in.

02:01:43.600 And so he saw that in his parents and his wife.

02:01:46.300 And he thought, you know, this is what I need for me.

02:01:48.680 Like, I'm not happy.

02:01:49.680 And at a certain point, the magic word that she said to him is like,

02:01:52.740 look, man, we're in our 30s now.

02:01:54.780 It's about time that we grow up.

02:01:56.880 We need to start going to church.

02:01:59.140 It's about time we grow up.

02:02:00.420 And he said, yeah, it is time.

02:02:02.060 So he went to confession on a Saturday morning.

02:02:05.560 It was in the same town.

02:02:06.720 Well, it was a neighboring town from where I was in my church.

02:02:10.660 and when he walked into the confessional he just started manifesting so so there was a voice coming

02:02:16.020 out of him i'm not leaving i'm not leaving i'm not leaving so that priest in the confessional

02:02:20.600 called me up the road up the freeway and said i'm sending over somebody right now his parents are and

02:02:26.880 wife are taking him uh and he's fully possessed he's fully possessed he's so so i see him at my

02:02:33.040 door and i don't know if he's possessed or not all i know is that this priest says he was and he's

02:02:40.080 perfect gentleman there he's a huge hulking man and so so i bring him in into my office and you

02:02:48.220 know i asked him hey what happened today and he articulated it beautifully perfectly uh and i you

02:02:54.080 know why do you when you he articulated what happened in the confession in the confession okay

02:02:57.780 so he was aware of that he was aware of it yeah and and why do you think it happened and then he

02:03:02.820 proceeds to tell me the story that i just told you of when when he was kid and all the all the

02:03:07.060 different ways uh in which living life was was like for him uh and so i'm at a certain point i

02:03:16.700 tell him to keep talking and and i i put down a stacks of books that i keep on the in my shelves

02:03:24.880 in my office and there are books on every single topic some spiritual some completely random like

02:03:30.700 like a sports team yearbook how to drywall your basement etc etc etc so i'm putting these

02:03:36.840 stacks a book down, and I'm controlling his eyesight in doing that. So I know in his mind,

02:03:43.820 in his eyes, like, why is this priest doing this? Like, why is he putting all of this? This is weird.

02:03:48.500 Like, what is he putting down now? So all of this is because I had left a glass of holy water on one

02:03:54.560 of the shelves of the bookcase, and I just put my finger into that holy water, and there was a drop

02:04:00.560 on my fingertip. That's it. So I'm coming back and I, you know, his eye, he's looking at me. So

02:04:06.260 he can't see me. That's the point. He's not looking at me, not looking for me. And as I walk

02:04:12.360 by, I fling that drop of holy water onto his sweater. So on a human level, there's no way

02:04:19.120 he could have perceived what just happened. He wasn't aware and he didn't feel it. He shot up

02:04:25.460 out of that chair lightning fast i mean so i was behind him he he shot up and turned his head back

02:04:34.440 he arched his back in a way that we were face to face although his face was upside down because he

02:04:39.880 was and his teeth seemed to sprout two or three inches like his he had his two canines were and

02:04:47.480 he was hissing like a cat so there was a cat manifestation which made sense because the figure

02:04:53.220 that jumped into him. So here it is. Here it is. 25 years later, this figure is, and I are face to

02:05:00.560 face. And so, you know, so what happened? Well, so I just kept saying to the cat, I don't want

02:05:09.360 to talk to you. I want to talk to him. And so, and I command you to leave. I command you to set

02:05:15.540 aside. You will allow him to come out. And so it went on for a couple of hours because he would

02:05:21.200 make the poor guy go unconscious so that he couldn't answer me. But essentially, it came down

02:05:26.980 to one thing. Say the name Jesus. Say the name Jesus. And that's what I settled on because

02:05:37.960 the renouncing of that offer that he agreed to, it was too much for him to say. The demon was

02:05:47.080 preventing it but eventually look i just want you to say the name jesus just say g and that will

02:05:51.880 account for everything and then finally he was able to say it like jesus jesus and then he just

02:06:03.980 belted out like he belted out with somebody with his physique like it was just it just ripped

02:06:09.320 through that whole place uh and that was his liberation it was a long time coming

02:06:14.820 that was it one and done that was it that was it because the exorcism process had already long

02:06:23.960 begun it began with the witness of his family it began with mom and dad it began with the witness

02:06:29.740 of his wife it began with him seeing the happiness like these people now they belong to a different

02:06:35.540 kingdom and i'm not in that kingdom so so all of that was exorcistic the witness of good faithful

02:06:43.920 people the effect of jesus is exorcistic and plus also like he wasn't happy yeah you know he wasn't

02:06:51.800 in control and he knew it and and uh so so for me i had the easiest job in the world i was just

02:06:59.500 batting cleanup right it was just the final skirmish uh so it had it had nothing to do with

02:07:05.720 me it was jesus had already done 98 of the work and now it was just the final confrontation had

02:07:12.220 to be done. And I just led him to Jesus. And to be clear, Father, too, just because I know this

02:07:18.660 will come up in the comments, you normally don't do same-day appointments like that.

02:07:23.060 No, almost not. I mean, if it were to happen today, he would have come in on a different day

02:07:28.500 because there's no such thing as an emergency exorcism. If the devil is there now, he's going

02:07:34.380 to be there at Tuesday at 9 a.m. Yeah, right. You're not going to miss him.

02:07:38.540 yeah yeah and that avoids a lot of games because some sometimes um because somebody

02:07:46.840 comes to you and says to you i want to be rid of the devil doesn't mean they do

02:07:52.440 it doesn't mean they do and there there's they could be on the devil's payroll and the devil

02:07:58.520 is uncanny at finding a way at the worst time where this person's going to show up at your

02:08:03.400 doorstep and if you concede to that well now all these other plans of your day have been bulldozed

02:08:08.220 good plans. So the will of God is prevented because somebody here now has demanded that,

02:08:14.360 and this person may be on the devil's payroll entirely. So you know what? No, come in Tuesday

02:08:19.340 at nine. That's my next door. No, can't you do any something right now? No, I can't. Well,

02:08:23.280 what are you doing? Well, that's for me to know. Right. You're going to come in Tuesday at night,

02:08:27.120 and guess what? Of those people who do that, 99% of them, you never see them ever again.

02:08:32.780 ever again. Do you think they themselves are aware that they're just messing with you?

02:08:40.900 It's a good question. I don't know. I don't know. I think, you know, those people are really

02:08:48.480 compromised. Is there any goodwill left in them? I don't know. And this is why, like,

02:08:53.620 if somebody comes and is looking for liberation, and they're heavily demonized,

02:08:58.040 uh before i do any confrontation with the devil i want to see an act of goodwill from them

02:09:05.060 all right so so where do you live in town okay so there's that church over there you know our

02:09:09.800 lady of sorrows is not far from there they have eucharistic adoration i want you to go for nine

02:09:14.960 wednesdays in a row and do an hour of adoration i want you to do that for for night i mean this

02:09:21.240 is a person who might be demonized but not fully possessed so there's a lot of freedom yeah all

02:09:25.560 So I want you to do it.

02:09:26.880 Well, so aren't you going to pray before?

02:09:29.280 No, do nine weeks of that.

02:09:31.620 Do nine weeks of that.

02:09:32.860 That's going to be really healing and exorcistic for you.

02:09:35.680 Then come to me.

02:09:37.160 And then I'm checking up.

02:09:39.000 I'm asking from seven to eight o'clock,

02:09:41.200 I'm checking with the priest there.

02:09:42.280 Do you see this individual there?

02:09:44.060 Is this person present?

02:09:45.780 And so they'll come back to me

02:09:47.020 after whatever time at nine weeks.

02:09:49.260 Okay, did you go and do those adorations?

02:09:51.000 No, I couldn't.

02:09:51.740 I was really busy.

02:09:53.040 Wednesdays, I do my shopping.

02:09:54.220 oh okay so this was not really important well it's important but you know i i just i have so

02:10:01.000 many things going there's a sale at macy's that's important too that's uh so so i i think you need

02:10:07.240 to do this again so we're going to start from zero again uh and if wednesday is not a good day how

02:10:12.940 about thursday well thursdays i i go to the club and i i do this i play squash or i yeah it doesn't

02:10:18.900 sound like this is really important to you, but so you know what? Why don't you take a break from

02:10:25.880 our appointments right now? You go sit with God somewhere and do your business with him.

02:10:31.260 Because I have way better things to do than interact with you. I have people that really

02:10:36.440 want help and they're willing to do whatever it takes to be free of the devil. And you're actually

02:10:41.240 wasting my time. You're wasting the help that I can give to somebody who really wants it. So

02:10:46.700 this conversation is now over. Right, right. And people have, you know, look, we've all probably

02:10:52.920 dealt with this ourselves. You say, okay, look, I don't, I'm doing some sin or multiple sins and

02:10:58.900 it's really messing my life up and I know it offends God and it's really, okay, so I go to

02:11:02.640 confession and I receive absolution, which is great. But maybe you still have a little bit of

02:11:08.760 an attachment to that sin, which, you know, at a broader level is all these people who say,

02:11:12.860 I want to be freed from the devil, mostly.

02:11:16.260 You know, I really want to be free of the devil,

02:11:18.280 except for that one thing that I really like.

02:11:20.120 You know, can I keep that one?

02:11:21.780 Can I just keep?

02:11:22.500 And you know what?

02:11:23.740 So that is the most honest thing that can happen,

02:11:27.600 and I welcome that.

02:11:29.040 Right?

02:11:29.480 I still like that sin.

02:11:30.900 Like, let me know.

02:11:32.380 Let me know that it's really visceral for you.

02:11:34.420 Yeah, yeah.

02:11:34.880 Let me know that I don't have a handle on it.

02:11:37.900 That's great for me to know.

02:11:39.240 Like, you're being honest.

02:11:40.660 You're bringing things into the light.

02:11:42.780 Now, Christ can do something with that, right?

02:11:45.180 And this is why we have a Lord.

02:11:47.280 Lord, this is too big for me.

02:11:49.460 I need you to intervene here.

02:11:51.260 And so, you know, as long as you're being honest,

02:11:54.920 I'll be right there with you, pal.

02:11:56.860 Like, I will not leave you alone.

02:11:58.600 I will bend over backwards to try to help you.

02:12:02.000 And repentant, right?

02:12:03.480 And repentant, but-

02:12:04.440 Because we had a case that's got the Dylan story.

02:12:07.040 I mean, because that's-

02:12:07.740 Oh gosh, yeah.

02:12:08.520 Yeah, I mean, and also the thing that blew him out,

02:12:10.080 He said half the people don't get saved

02:12:12.680 or half of them walk away from the exorcism process

02:12:15.220 and choose not to get help.

02:12:16.780 And I was like blown away.

02:12:17.940 Like who wouldn't want that?

02:12:18.780 60%.

02:12:19.220 So that's my statistic and those of my colleagues.

02:12:23.780 Six out of 10 people who are bona fide,

02:12:26.720 bona fide, demonized.

02:12:28.960 They can't be helped because they don't want the help.

02:12:31.940 They're not willing to submit and surrender to Christ.

02:12:36.180 The sin tastes too good.

02:12:37.580 they want the pain gone so the devil has come to to get his money he's come to collect payment

02:12:44.220 and he's making their life miserable and and they're not willing to to leave his clutches

02:12:50.420 they're not willing to trade citizenship in his kingdom for the kingdom of light one of the cases

02:12:55.980 we documented in season two this famous dylan story we got a lot of angry emails because it

02:12:59.920 didn't end well people like wait jesus was to show up and he gets rescued and everyone's happy

02:13:04.300 and it's like great it's like no and this kid basically had this preternatural ability

02:13:09.080 to uh he just called call a demonic charm he could just charm so lots of women seduce he had

02:13:17.120 hundreds and hundreds seconds a good girl raised like who had never had committed a sexual sin in 1.00

02:13:25.740 her life and it wouldn't even be in her radar she they would such females any females but but even 0.99

02:13:32.920 those would find themselves powerless like would everything within them was craving what this guy

02:13:40.440 offered uh and so he had had this was a young man this was a really young man he had had over 400

02:13:48.160 sexual partners and he would go from college to college enroll and just destroy girls and uh and

02:13:55.100 So the devil had come collecting.

02:13:59.320 So what happened is he had from,

02:14:02.460 so he himself had been seduced by an older woman.

02:14:05.980 From that point, he had this going on in him.

02:14:10.960 And every morning or through the night,

02:14:13.640 he would see this figure with a rhino's head

02:14:16.920 and like an Arnold Schwarzenegger body

02:14:18.860 wanting to attack him, but it was tied,

02:14:22.180 it was chained by the neck to a post.

02:14:23.880 and so couldn't get at him.

02:14:26.480 But this one morning, it charged him

02:14:29.320 and it threw him physically against the wall

02:14:31.500 such that his body made an-

02:14:33.300 This is not just a dream.

02:14:34.500 No, no, this is reality.

02:14:36.320 The body leaves an imprint.

02:14:37.200 The president of the college called me.

02:14:39.260 The president of the college called me

02:14:40.880 because he was thrown so hard,

02:14:42.720 his body left an imprint into the wall.

02:14:45.120 So you could have the eight strongest men in the world

02:14:47.280 throwing this guy and it wouldn't produce that.

02:14:50.840 So obviously he was bruised, he was hurt and so forth.

02:14:53.880 Um, you know, and so there's something here preternatural. And so I sit down and talk with

02:14:58.560 him. And so he discloses, uh, you know, all of, all of this stuff, but he doesn't want to be free

02:15:04.360 of it. In fact, he wanted me just get, get the exorcism done with, because he had, his plan was,

02:15:12.520 was to, to, to visit his girlfriend and spend all weekend fornicating with her. 0.89

02:15:17.280 So just hurry up, do your thing. Cause I don't want to be late for my sin.

02:15:20.560 right like there's something charming about that actually which is like do you know what we're

02:15:27.660 doing here are you aware of what you've asked me to do for you well the kid's like broken i mean

02:15:32.320 bruised and you said he was like like you know bandaged up like he had been i mean i mean i also

02:15:36.740 i don't know how he survived this like and i don't know why it apparently he had no bones broken but

02:15:41.700 his side uh you know so so what stopped his body from going through the wall were this the two by

02:15:47.260 four studs right that's what stopped his body from going right through the wall so you can imagine

02:15:52.940 what his body looked like um so for him what he thought is like yeah i just do catholic magic

02:16:01.000 just just give me a good dose a double dose of that magic yeah and if we got time give me a

02:16:06.540 triple dose then then i'm free of i want to be free of this rhino thing i want to be free of

02:16:13.780 personal attack and I can just sin in peace. Like, I mean, just come in and sweep my room

02:16:18.400 so that it's not going to get those unclean spirits around. You sweep the room and then

02:16:22.800 it'll remain clean forever, right? Yep. Yep. Is that how the story goes? That's it. That's it.

02:16:29.040 You know, one, speaking of young people and stories, we always talk about the exorcism

02:16:34.920 of Emily Rose or The Exorcist or whatever, all these exorcism movies. There is now a new exorcism

02:16:40.600 movie. Did either of you see the movie Obsession this year? Yeah, I did. You saw it? Father,

02:16:46.500 you did not? I didn't. I have so little time in my life. You know, I keep work at work.

02:16:52.940 I get it, and it's probably good that you didn't see it, but it actually was oddly a good movie.

02:16:57.900 I saw it because it was such a cultural phenomenon. I felt I had to see it for work,

02:17:01.740 and unlike most movies I see for work, I actually enjoyed it. I thought it was pretty good,

02:17:05.140 but it is a movie about possession not overtly so but um or not sort of self-consciously so but

02:17:12.140 that that is what it's about oh yeah no it's a war it's a i actually made the case and it's funny

02:17:16.620 that movie is very divisive my friend group i because a few of my pastor friends said should

02:17:20.320 we see it and i said okay i told them disclaimers there are a couple scenes that stick with you

02:17:25.720 and and honestly i totally empathize with the debate on horror if you think obsessions wrong

02:17:30.960 like i will not fight it is not for everybody to watch it is so intense however and it one is well

02:17:36.920 done right it's very well done very well done and i was like if you adjusted though a few scenes

02:17:41.580 you know there's some famous scenes that we know we're talking about that you didn't you could

02:17:45.600 probably allude to and you wouldn't have to see but man the whole thing is a giant cautionary tale

02:17:50.860 the main character has every opportunity to do the right thing and instead chickens out and decides

02:17:56.460 to go to the occult right and it starts with ignorance and then turns into i willingly know

02:18:01.800 what i'm doing and and the results are catastrophic and so i think didn't i think bishop baron even

02:18:07.580 did a comment on did he do a review he did it was saying that there's some like some there's

02:18:11.360 morality of this like yeah i think it was him because he did a review it said i think it was

02:18:15.040 him said this is like a stark warning against the occult and obviously this is a movie um but

02:18:20.420 yeah i found it like i mean that resonated a lot when i watched it because we have

02:18:24.320 cases like that and the obsession case that we document is not nearly as visceral or terrible

02:18:29.120 as that but i mean that occult stuff is is is real and weird and it's such a shame because

02:18:33.880 he has every opportunity in that movie to like because he so father since you didn't see the

02:18:38.920 movie the long and short spoiler alert is this guy likes this girl and it's unclear if she likes

02:18:45.280 him you're not you're really not quite sure maybe she does she says why when i have a crush on

02:18:50.020 someone he never knows. But maybe she does, maybe she doesn't. Anyway, he decides to go

02:18:55.440 buy this magical device to put a spell on her to make her like him. And then she likes him too

02:19:02.000 much. So at the anthropological level, there's this very funny commentary on how sometimes

02:19:06.700 you like a girl and then you start dating her and she gets obsessive about you. And it actually

02:19:12.220 changes the relationship and you no longer find her attractive. So that's the anthropological

02:19:16.520 thing. Then there's the spiritual level, which is sin. I forget if it was Henri de Lubac or

02:19:23.760 Balthazar said that sin is essentially trying to escape time. It's trying to gain some sovereignty

02:19:30.860 over time. At an even broader level, trying to appropriate some of God's sovereignty to yourself

02:19:38.900 when that's not due to you. And so in this case, if you like a girl, there's a way to go about it 1.00

02:19:44.480 to try to get her to like you that maintains her freedom.

02:19:47.260 But in this case, he's trying to enslave her

02:19:49.720 and have her be possessed.

02:19:51.160 But then the spirit that possesses her

02:19:53.340 is no longer attractive.

02:19:54.900 And indeed, you know, if you just enslave someone

02:19:59.480 to be your girlfriend, well, you're not,

02:20:02.300 it destroys the whole relationship.

02:20:03.400 Yeah, that's the worst part. 0.99

02:20:04.240 Because at some point, in the beginning, he's ignorant. 0.85

02:20:06.120 He thinks it's a tchotchke, whatever. 0.92

02:20:07.900 He does it kind of as a joke, right?

02:20:09.960 But there comes a point when he goes,

02:20:11.360 I know this is not really her.

02:20:14.100 And he still, and he says, I don't care.

02:20:17.060 And they progress the relationship.

02:20:18.260 And it's just, maybe that's the entrance of the mortal sin.

02:20:21.100 But it's a terrifying, I got a lot of angry people.

02:20:24.420 I thought you said it was okay to watch.

02:20:25.660 I mean, it was my text, we have a WhatsApp group

02:20:27.680 that was very torn on obsession.

02:20:30.200 But man, we did so well, you know,

02:20:32.280 because it hit on something.

02:20:33.260 It did, it did.

02:20:34.100 And our friend, Ali Stuckey, she, I didn't follow this

02:20:38.420 that closely, but she just made this whole commentary

02:20:40.060 about how Christians shouldn't watch horror movies. 1.00

02:20:42.120 And I think she made a pretty good point.

02:20:44.100 Generally, I don't know. I didn't see the whole commentary. But anyway, I liked Obsession.

02:20:48.140 And it clearly resonated with people. I mean, that's, to me, what's most interesting about it.

02:20:53.280 This movie was made for $3. It became a major, major hit. All these unknown actors are now big

02:20:59.760 stars. Why is that resonating with people? Because they're engaging in these kinds of

02:21:06.260 behaviors, and they may be more pronounced today than they were previously. So before I let you

02:21:12.200 both go, I know it's been a while. I didn't even get a second round of cigars, very rudely.

02:21:19.600 It's Halloween time. We're living in a particularly degraded age. There is some good news,

02:21:24.760 which is mass conversions back to the faith. There is a major spike in the occult. There is 0.98

02:21:29.840 a major laxity when it comes to the sins that do tend to ensnare people to the devil especially.

02:21:35.160 so what's the advice for people who are tempted perhaps obsessed probably not possessed but maybe

02:21:43.700 they are uh practically speaking go to church pray to god yeah what do they need to do give

02:21:54.280 your life to jesus christ right give your life to jesus christ get rid of your sin learn how to pray

02:22:02.220 follow his way of life. You do that, you're going to be happy, you're going to be joyful,

02:22:08.720 you're going to be in the grace of God, and you're going to see how that grace changes your life.

02:22:14.300 And you're going to see how much joyful that you are and how much of a magnet you're going to be

02:22:21.700 to people because they're going to see in you, just like I saw in the college kids that I knew,

02:22:26.860 a happiness, a joy, a peace. And you recognize, I don't have that and I want that. And I was

02:22:34.680 fascinated and mesmerized by it. And I just found myself constantly hanging around this group

02:22:39.720 because they were just so different. So you do that, accept the Lord, get rid of your sin,

02:22:46.780 learn how to pray, follow his way of life. And there is a recipe for happiness.

02:22:53.280 But that second part you mentioned there, there are Christians who will say, well, you know,

02:23:00.300 you sin, but we all sin, and it's not that big a deal, you know. I mean, this gets into some of

02:23:04.640 the, some Protestant Catholic disagreement, though it's even an intra-Protestant disagreement too,

02:23:10.200 this notion that, well, once you're saved, you can never forfeit your salvation. So you don't,

02:23:15.140 basically, you don't need to worry that much about sin, but you're saying you got to get rid of your

02:23:19.480 sin yeah those who sin ask them in their greatest moment of honesty are you happy

02:23:25.920 you're going to hear no because you have sinned because you haven't eradicated it and where did

02:23:34.920 you see that kind of living in the life of our lord when he lived oh he didn't sin oh

02:23:39.800 he frequently said go and sin no more right you know uh my friend andrew clavin was speaking to

02:23:46.340 a movie executive once. And I don't even know the guy's name, not that I would reveal it anyway,

02:23:50.620 but a figure that is definitely characteristic of Hollywood and of that industry. And they're

02:23:57.240 in this meeting and he's talking about all sorts of lurid, graphic, bad behavior. Multiple girls

02:24:05.800 and this and that and the other thing. But he's got a picture of his kids right on his desk or

02:24:11.420 behind his desk. So he clearly had a family, leaves the family, divorces. Now he's doing all

02:24:17.960 this kind of crazy stuff. But he's describing it as if it's really fun and terrific and it's the

02:24:23.320 dream. This is like the modern young man's dream. And so anyway, Drew, after he tells the story,

02:24:30.080 he says, huh, was it worth it? And I'm hearing this secondhand, of course, but he instantly goes,

02:24:37.900 oh no not at all not even close yeah not not in any way was it worth it ah okay and it's true

02:24:44.400 really of every sin yeah a lot of promise but no delivery yeah yeah and it can mar everything

02:24:50.840 especially when you you know think back on memories that could have been happy but if you were

02:24:55.500 in a bad state you're sinning and whatever yeah it kind of mars the whole that just kind of

02:25:00.660 dims everything. It's a very basic insight that is not as sensational as depictions of

02:25:08.700 exorcisms in Hollywood, but probably on a day-to-day basis, probably most conducive

02:25:15.540 to happiness and flourishing. Father, Ryan, thank you very much. Wonderful to see you both.

02:25:21.800 Thank you.

02:25:22.340 I have to make a confession and ask for forgiveness. Next time I confess I was

02:25:29.420 underprepared, and I will be more prepared with more cigars for our subsequent conversation.

02:25:33.880 Thank you both for being here. Go watch The Exorcist Files. Make sure you subscribe.

02:25:38.200 Get the book. It's easy to remember the name of it. It's The Exorcist Files by Father Carlos Martins.

02:25:43.740 And also, I'd be remiss not to mention, give your life to Christ and go to church. See you next time.

02:25:59.420 cardio. Well, there's more to it than that, Sean. Like with Bet365, I get paid the second my team

02:26:06.860 goes up big with early payout and can cash out at any time before the game ends. Sean's getting his

02:26:11.680 steps, but I'm getting paid. Bet365, the home of winning early. Must be 19 and older, Ontario only.

02:26:18.640 Please play responsibly. If you or someone you know has concerns about gambling, visit

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The Michael Knowles Show - October 30, 2026

＂A Brick Came Out Of His Mouth＂ Michael & The Exorcist Files

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