What are demons and what can they do to me?

All right. Hello. Am I supposed to say hi back? Here I've got

Christopher Carr. Chris, do you want to introduce yourself just a bit? I'm so excited to host you today.

Right. Dr. Christopher Carr, I am an assistant professor of Religious Studies at Misericordia University, which is in northeastern

Pennsylvania, about ten miles outside Dallas, Pennsylvania, which is near Wilkes -Barre.

Nobody knows about Dallas, Pennsylvania. I got my training at Marquette University.

Before that, I taught at Caldwell College, which is in North Jersey, and I'm basically a jack -of -all -trades on the systematic side.

You know, there are lots of different sub -disciplines in theology, with biblical studies, historical theology, morals, and systematics, which is studying doctrine and how it all interrelates with other doctrines.

So that tends to be my area, and I dabble in a little history, too. That's interesting.

I wasn't really aware of what systematics were, but it's good to know you kind of understand how they all interact together. They'd better, but since we can't all be experts in everything, you know, a lot of those other fields require languages.

Now, in theory, mine would require some French and German, because of all the theologians that France and Germany produced.

Though I do know people who know a lot of Polish, because Pope John Paul II. If you are in historical theology, you'll need a lot of Latin, and obviously, for biblical theology, either

Greek or Hebrew. So you don't speak, you can't read the Aramaic texts?

I might be able to recognize that it is Aramaic, but that might be as far as I'm able to go. And I assure you, my

French and German are purely cosmetic. Same. Well, I'm really excited to talk with you today.

Do you mind just like briefing a little bit about your angelic studies? I know we'll get into it a little bit, but really that's the reason

I wanted to talk with you about the subject today, which is gonna focus around demons, but you have a specialty in this that makes you really particular as a guest, that I'm really excited to kind of glean that expertise from.

All right. Well, I am NOT the most expert of experts, but I over the course of my studies,

I've had occasion to meet exorcists, and you know,

I gather information from them anecdotally about the sorts of things that they've had to, you know, people they've had to work on, and experiences that they've had.

Sorry to interrupt, but how do you casually meet an exorcist? Well, first of all, you start by walking around in theological circles, and that way you meet a lot of clergy, and then odds are you're gonna bump into one who's done deliverance ministry of some kind.

Now, it's a little, I don't know if it means you got to get lucky, but by and large the rule is if you are in deliverance ministry, which

I am NOT by the way, you don't advertise the fact that you're in deliverance ministry, because if the word gets out, then people who really are devotees of Satan and the bad guys, they can then know who to target, and there is such a thing as retaliation, and you don't want to be part of that.

Oh my gosh. And it's also important for the privacy of the individual who's suffering.

I mean, if everybody knows that, you know, Fr. Joe out there is the diocesan exorcist, and you see him arrive unexpectedly at your neighbor's house, you know, that'll start people talking, and when people talk, it mushrooms, you know, and all sorts of things.

So in order to protect the privacy of the person involved and to protect the exorcist and anybody who happens to be on his team, it's important to keep this under the radar.

Is this like a regardless of confidentiality and people keeping it secret, are you saying that, you know, that's pretty common for people to kind of go into the deliverance ministry?

Or is it pretty intense and kind of hard on the body? It's actually very common to be interested in it.

Okay. But just because you're interested in it does not mean you have the right mindset to do it.

Because a lot of our interest in purely spiritual matters is what

I might call prurient interest. You know, it's interest for the paranormalcy of it all.

It's, you know, it's exciting. It's supernatural. It's why we go watch scary movies. But, you know, the people who are needing deliverance ministry are really people who are, in fact, suffering.

And you don't go there for the manifestations. You don't go there in order to experience something.

In fact, you may or you may not. The point is to relieve the individual of an attachment that really is messing up their life, sometimes in very serious ways.

So you have to get the mindset of just like, all right, I'm not here to see or experience something out of the ordinary.

You have a much more important purpose in getting involved in this stuff. And I would say that people who just have the prurient interests either find out what deliverance ministry entails in terms of the training and the sorts of work that's involved, so they become disinterested in that, or they're weeded out.

I mean, some people want to get the training just to learn more, I suppose. But people who are in a position to train other people are a little bit more sober about it.

I imagine it's a pretty intense training to be kind of handling manifestation.

Yeah. Now, happily, since I don't do deliverance ministry, I've been immune from such things.

I know people who are in it, and they have reported things. But when they report things, it's kind of a matter of fact.

You know, the temperature dropped in the room. Okay, even though it's 80 degrees outside or something. You know, it's just,

I guess when it happens, it just happens. But the important thing is it for just happen once and then not be the result of you somehow becoming attached, which then requires some deliverance on your own part.

So you're in these circles, you run into people that are within the deliverance ministry. Do these conversations really kind of show up?

I'm trying to say, like, is this happening in the back rooms of people that are suffering from attachments? Or do you feel like these people that are within the deliverance ministry kind of walk around in the world today, and they see these attachments in common place, you know, much more frequently?

Like, I know this is not at all related, but like a medium. You know, you walk into a grocery store, and you're like, whoa, is it the same way for somebody within that ministry?

Alright, there's a lot of things there. First of all, people in deliverance ministry generally will not talk about it unless it's with somebody they can trust.

I mean, again, if they talk about deliverance ministry, they're basically outing themselves. So they need to make sure it stays within a tight circle of,

I don't want to say trained professionals, but you know, people who are serious about the work.

Most people, I imagine, who are in deliverance ministry, now I just want to broaden this out a bit now.

Bear in mind, we're talking from within a Catholic context here. The exorcist has to be a priest.

The exorcist has to be a priest that's not only trained, but has received license to be the exorcist from the bishop.

If the priest doesn't receive license from the bishop to perform the rite of exorcism, there's only so much a priest can do.

Now, priests can do way more than laity can. So there are minor exorcisms built into the old rite of baptism, let's say.

You know, and a priest can do that. Any priest can go to your house and bless the house and clear it out of any infestations.

So that's all common practice. The important thing is that the bishop has the authority to then deputize a priest to do the rite of exorcism, and without that authority the rite won't be effective, and the priest is acting out of bounds, which means he can be targeted.

Now, there are lots of other things I could go off there, but I just want to say something about deliverance ministry now in the

Catholic Church. While it is true that only a priest can conduct exorcisms and say command prayers generally, lay persons are involved, and they generally form part of a team that the exorcist uses when a case, we're talking about a person who claims to be suffering some sort of affliction.

You know, the polite term is to call them a case. And the lay persons can provide some basic spiritual direction for such an individual so that the priest isn't spread too thin.

Because remember, an exorcist is a pastor somewhere, and you know how it is, especially in my diocese.

You don't know this because I'm Pennsylvania, and you are totally not. You know, we've got 110 -something parishes, we've got 90 -something priests, and within 10 years we're going to be down to 60 -something priests.

So, already the priests are spread way too thin to be pastor of one church or maybe a combination of churches, and then having to go and do deliverance ministry on top of that.

So, in order for the priest to not go absolutely crazy or get burnt out, lay persons can assist.

And what the lay persons would generally do is provide first -level kinds of triage to get the person who's claiming to have some sort of spiritual affliction to start...

I mean, obviously this person, the prayer team individuals, will be in connection with the exorcist.

They will not be acting independently. But there are some basic things you can do, because demonic affliction works on a continuum.

So, if a lay person has been designated by the exorcist to interview a potential case, then that lay person can, you know, do a conducting interview, ask some questions, you know, background exposure to seances.

Is it a family member or is it any lay person? It would have to be a specific lay person within the diocese that has also received some sort of deliverance ministry training.

And the lay person would then advise this individual, this case, that yes, they will be in contact with the exorcist about, you know, who they are and the information that they gather.

But the lay person would then also say, all right, look, you need to attend Mass every

Sunday. You probably have to go to confession, if not every week, at least every month. And there are steps that you can follow.

And then that person has to do whatever that protocol is for 30 days and then report back.

And then they can determine how to proceed from there. And finally, I would say, while there are lay persons who are on deliverance teams who are just schmucks like me, and I'm not on a team,

I'm just a schmuck without being on a team. There actually are people with certain gifts where they can sort of discern whether there is a certain kind of spirit or discern how a particular bad spirit may have come into a person's life.

You know, they can be kind of sensitive that way. Obviously, not everybody has that sort of gift.

And I think if a person is aware that they do, then they would actually have to go through some discernment process to make sure that their gift isn't being used against them.

And then, of course, they'd have to continue to lead a holy life so that the gift can actually still be a benefit to other people.

So, yeah, just being on a deliverance team doesn't give you like, you know, psychic powers or something and you walk around the grocery store and you see demons attached to some person walking around down the aisle.

That's not a thing. At least it's not for me. So, maybe. So, I think

I may have covered everything that you had in your broad question. Anything I leave out? Blanketed question.

Could you give an example of someone's gifts being used against them? Well, maybe that was a bit strong.

But if a person has a kind of gift that makes them, as I say, a little bit more sensitive to spiritual realities, bad spirits always pose as good spirits.

You know, that's how they suck people in. Bad spirits always pose as good spirits. That's pretty much always their entryway.

Yeah. I mean, on occasion, it won't be so nice.

But, I mean, that's the way temptation works. And when you say nice, you mean like non -threatening? You mean like quiet?

Or is it like it's posing as an angel? Yeah, it's usually posing either as an angel.

Now, we're talking about demon now. Demon posing as an angel, which is not difficult for a demon to do because technically they are angels.

They're just fallen angels. They could pose as the soul of a dead person you want to contact.

So if you're using a Ouija board or going to a seance or something. The basic rule of thumb is that's not the way you communicate with spirits, which is restricted to prayer.

So if you do have such a gift, it's likely the demon would just try to fool you.

In order, I mean, we're going to get into this in a bit. And so I'm happy to jump into kind of the first section of this podcast because this is great.

But why they're fooling you, you know, I just kind of want to stick with that and what their intention is kind of going from there.

But I'm going to put a pin in that. We can come back to the intentions of demons and what they want and why they want that.

But what I really want to jump into now is the verse of the Bible. And today I really want to understand in my version of the

Bible, his name is Mob. Maybe in King James, it's Legion. But essentially in the

Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, when Jesus is getting off a boat in Capernaum, he comes upon a madman in a cemetery who is convulsing.

He's foaming at the mouth. He's just kind of known as the guy wandering around in the cemetery. No chains can hold him down.

The kind of the town's just like letting him be. As far as the scripture, I'll read Luke 8, 26 to 39.

Please go ahead. But can you tell me which translation you're using? I use the message because it is so.

Oh, the message. Oh, God. OK. All right.

You can edit this part out if you want to. But I want to say something about the fine Eugene Peterson of now happy memory, because I do believe he passed away two or three years ago.

This is. Oh, yeah. You're going to love this. It is a kind of a paraphrase of the

Bible. And he takes. I would say inordinate liberties with the actual text.

Because most any other version or translation of the Bible you will use, there is a certain level of conscientiousness with trying to stick with something that's more or less word for word from the original

Greek or Hebrew. And so I think this would actually be a very important sidebar. Let us you.

So you've got your message there right in front of you there. Right. I wasn't going to read. I was going to read from whatever

Google popped up, but we can keep going with this message. I think I actually I think you should, since I have a little bit of an axe to grind on the message.

Let me see. So go ahead and open up your screen there. I've got my book. Yes. All right.

I think if you go to the Lord's Prayer in Matthew, which is Matthew five or six.

Six. Starting at verse seven. So Matthew six.

Starting verse seven, I think. Yep. Just go ahead and read it through the end of the prayer.

I'm already seeing. This mistake of mine. Well, you know what, though, this is in a way not a mistake because here at our university's campus ministry and they put out little

Lenten reflection booklets, they use the message. And I think the idea is that, oh, you know, if they read something that's actually a word for word translation from the original

Hebrew, that's they're not going to be into that, you know. I don't know. This is literally why

I'm here today, because I'm not into it. And it's all right for certain your private devotions.

So, again, I am not here to throw Eugene Peterson under the bus, at least in his entirety.

But if you want, if you want to conduct a Bible study, as opposed to prayerful reading a word for something closer to a word for word translation,

I think is really important because with Eugene Peterson, you're going to have a bunch of English words that you can't match to the

Greek literally at all. That's really good, because I feel like I am doing, you know, that's probably why

I'm doing Bible mindful devotions, kind of how you put it. And the message version of the

Bible, great, very edible, very understood. I get it. But the reason we're here today on this podcast is really what is the exact translation?

Because there's a reason they used exactly those words and the message isn't getting us there. So this is perfect for our first podcast.

I'm so glad we're talking about this. All right. Well, tell you what, shall I just go ahead and read mine first, and then you can share what the message says to your faithful audience out there.

Are we still talking about Matthew 6? Yeah. Yeah. Why don't we read the

Lord's Prayer in your version, and then we'll read it in my version to show the differences. Okay. Now, I have a paragraph that begins at verse 7, so I'll start there.

And I'll do 7 through 14. Okay. All right. That's what Jesus is saying here. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly

Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your

Father forgive your trespasses. Says the same verse, 7 to 14.

The world is full of so -called prayer warriors who are prayer ignorant. They are full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God.

Don't fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need.

With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply, like this. Our Father in heaven, reveal who you are.

Set the world right. Do what's best. As above, so below. Keep us alive with three square meals.

Oh, boy. Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others. Keep us safe from ourselves and the devil.

You're in charge. You can do anything you want. You're a blazing beauty.

Yes, yes, yes. Oh. Yes, yes, yes.

Okay. Well, on that note, let's read Luke 8 in your version. There's literally no way to get to the actual

Greek from that particular version of it. And I'll just say this because I know this is a sidebar.

The three square meals, that is probably the most egregious thing he did in the

Lord's Prayer. Because the daily bread, and even that version, the way we usually translate it in English, kind of hides what the

Greek word is, which is epiousion. And ousion is the Greek word for nature, and epi is a prefix, which means kind of above that.

So it's, yeah, daily bread, but it's really supernatural bread. Whoa. Did you say that again?

Yeah. So ousia in Greek means nature, like the substance, the wetness of a thing.

And epi means kind of above or over. So like episkopos is another

Greek word. So skopos, site, epi, over.

So when we get episkopos from that word, which is where we get bishop, episkopal, so that is an individual who has oversight, in terms of authority, over the

Christian community. So here, this word is epiousion, which has more of a sense of supernatural, over nature.

And for a Catholic like myself, that is pointing directly to the Eucharist. Now, even the word daily doesn't really do it justice, but you're not going to get three square meals a day and get you to epiousion.

At least daily bread, at least you can find, oh, what is the actual word for daily? Because one word is trying to match one word.

So there's a lot that gets lost, I'm afraid, in Mr. Peterson's version of things.

Wow, you're such a good guest. I'm so glad you're here. Well, we shall see now.

So that's why it's like mob. He's calling it mob. It's always legion. I don't even know what the Greek word is. I have to look that up.

All right, so where are we, Luke, then? Okay, so, yeah, there's, why don't we actually do

Luke 8, 26 to 39? And I have the NIV version here, but...

That's good. All right, we'll go with that one then. So Luke 8, 26 to 39, the verses, so they're talking about Jesus and his disciples.

They sailed from the region of Gerensetsis, which is across the lake from Galilee. When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon -possessed man from the town.

For a long time, this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but lived in the tombs. And when he saw

Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, What do you want from me, Jesus, son of the

Most High God? I beg you, don't torture me. For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the man.

Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot to be kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

Jesus asked him, What is your name? So at this point, Jesus is holding the demon, like he's separated the demon from the man at this point?

I think what's probably happened there is that the demon has manifested in this man.

So it's not like the demon is standing outside him as a separate shapeless form.

Usually if you are communicating with a demon through a possessed person, the possessed person is the go -between.

And the person, basically the demon is speaking using the body of the possessed person.

Okay, so Jesus asked him, What is your name? And the person, but the demon in the person, said,

Legion, he replied, because many demons had gone into him, and they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the abyss.

When they say abyss, because it's capitalized, it's a proper noun, they mean hell? Mm -hmm, yes.

Okay, so why wouldn't they want to go back to hell? Isn't that their home? It's terrible.

It's even terrible for them. That's why they don't want to go back. I mean, oh yeah, it's awful.

So why would a demon be unhappy in hell? Well, first of all, all relationships in hell are based on power, raw exercise of power.

Even if demons would cooperate with each other, as apparently they sort of have been, if they're all sort of stuff, you know, they have jurisdiction over this guy's body, they really don't really get along, because it's still sort of a coercive cooperation.

So hell is a place where all those relationships based on power are experienced in a raw form.

And I expect that these demons were somewhat lower on the totem pole, which means they're going there to suffer at the hands of the demons who are mightier than they are.

So it can't be pleasant, number one, for that. Second, I would imagine that hell is a place where even the demons are much more cognizant of their separation from God, their hatred of God, their despair at not being able to perform the functions that God made them for.

It's, you know, they suffer too. And hell is where they, you know, if they're possessing somebody, they have a certain kind of respite,

I guess you could say, while they are somewhat not still in hell.

But once they're in hell in a sort of a complete sense, yeah, they can't alleviate their suffering anymore.

So I'm leaving hell to come on earth. They can't just hang out on earth.

They have to come and possess somebody. And that is kind of like their refuge from being in hell. Oh, they can, they can attach themselves to places and animals.

I mean, there have been cases where, again, this is reported cases, nothing

I have seen. I'm just, I'm just reporting stuff here. Do you have people with first -hand accounts?

That's right. That's right. Or from, you know, books that you can easily purchase. Right. I mean,

Father Gabriel Amorth, about whom the movie was recently made. Yeah.

He's got... The Pope's Exorcist. Yeah. Yeah. Though I don't know. I heard that wasn't quite as good as the other

Exorcist movie that came out. I can't, I can't even watch the trailer. It was so scary.

Yeah. What is it? Conversations with a... I forget what it was. Anyway, it didn't have big name stars,

I don't think. That one I heard from reliable sources was much more authentic.

Which one? The non -Gabriel Amorth one. So the one that doesn't feature...

I can't even think of these actors' names. Not Mel Gibson. The guy from Gladiator. Yeah.

Russell Crowe? Was it Russell Crowe? Russell Crowe. There it is. So you're saying that one's better, the Russell Crowe one? No, no. The other one.

Oh, okay. Good to know. But the books that Father Amorth has written,

An Exorcist Tells a Story, Exorcist Tells More Stories, he's got at least one or two others.

He sprinkles those books with anecdotes from his ministry.

And I believe one of them was, yeah, there was a dog in somebody's house, and I can't remember if the demon had been attached to the building first, but somehow it was in the dog, and the dog was basically suicidal.

It was just running out into the street. And so the family tried to prevent the dog from doing that, but eventually the dog succeeded.

And the demon's not going out there to kill the animal necessarily.

Hard to say, I suppose. But that was the only way the animal, I guess, could cope.

And we'll see that a little bit later in this book. The animals, that's how they react to demons. Yep. So a couple follow -up questions you might laugh at.

One, not so funny, is that the only reaction a dog or an animal or a pig would have to a demon possessing them?

Do you think there's ever a chance that maybe, let's say, a demon -possessed horse, I'm just making up an example, a demon -possessed horse now has malintentions to hurt the riders?

Or do you think that horse is going to always just physically want to end this possession because it's so insufferable, it's so horrible?

Or do you think the demon can really control the intention of the animal? I'm way out in left field on this one.

Okay. All right. With respect to demonic influence on animals. All right.

So a father, a moth, or another exorcist from whom I'm drawing that account, that's legit, that's legit.

And you're right, it does comport with what we have here with the herd of swine. Okay, so if we're talking about demonic affliction on animals, some animals are actually more sensitive to spirits than we are.

So if there is like a haunted house, right, which usually means that there is some spirit there that shouldn't be there, the animal will, you know, if it's a cat, arch its back and run out of the room, or the dog might slink away in fear, and we're just like, what's going on?

You know, I don't see anything. Some of those animals are a little bit, for whatever reason, are able to sort of pick up on other presences in the room, and if they can tell it's giving them the heebie -jeebies, they will get out of there.

So an animal can just, for self -preservation's sake, leave the room. There is also, however, a case that I remember reading in a book written by a psychiatrist who was skeptical about demonic possession, but then over the course of his professional work encountered more than one occasion where normal means of therapy and medicines just did not help the person at all, and then, you know, required spiritual intervention.

Now, this psychiatrist was somebody who then became a little bit more interested in deliverance ministry and began to know his local exorcist, and this is important for an exorcist to have access to these medical professionals, because a lot of behavior that people might exhibit from demonic affliction really does have a natural cause.

So, demonic affliction can result in hallucinations, can result in insomnia, can result in other maladies, which normally would accompany depression, or manic depression, or psychosis, or something.

So, it's important to have medical professionals around, because the first thing you want to do before, you know, conducting spiritual relief on somebody is to give them an opportunity for natural solutions first, and that seems to be the way to go.

Determine whether or not this is naturally caused and naturally treatable, and if it isn't, then you go ahead and impose upon the time people who are in deliverance ministry.

But if somebody is possessed, like you've got doctors in there, you know, kind of eliminating other sources, does that put the doctor, then, in risk?

Does that put them at risk? Oh, I don't know. Not necessarily. Okay. You know, if the doctor is doing his due diligence as a professional to try to ascertain whether or not this person can be treated by the normal medical procedures that are available, that seems to be all right.

The demon would more so just be like, I'm going to let this doctor kind of take his temperature, but I'm not going to now, this doctor hasn't opened his soul up for me to kind of jump into.

Yeah, because the demon, you know, knows it's kind of futile. However, this is why I brought up the story.

In this particular psychiatrist's book, and I'll have to look it up and tell you what this is maybe after we're done, because I don't have it off the top of my head.

He was asked by his exorcist friend to interview a young lady, and he agreed to do it.

And the appointment was supposed to be the following morning, and the psychiatrist has two cats. And the cats are great buddies.

You know, I don't think they're siblings, but they're getting along great. And the night prior to that interview, they had an all out, you know, drawn blood fight between them.

And they had to separate them and put them in different rooms. And it was just like, what is wrong with these cats?

They're just going psychotic on us. Well, the next morning, all right. Cats are probably still in their separate rooms.

The doorbell rings, and the psychiatrist goes down, and there's the priest with this young lady. And the first thing the young lady says is, how do you like those cats last night?

Who is this lady? She was somebody who was kind of a witch. What? What's going on?

This is crazy. She did something on her own to just kind of mess with the psychiatrist's cats.

And the cats aren't possessed or anything, but they were under some sort of influence, which was temporary and it never happened again.

And the psychiatrist chewed her out. It's like, don't mess with my cats. So you're saying the psychiatrist was the one afflicted with addiction?

No, the psychiatrist's cats was. So why did the psychiatrist invite a priest and a witch?

Well, because the young lady who had, you know, willingly undertaken the role of a witch, for some reason approached the psychiatrist because she was suffering in some way.

I'm sorry, approached the priest because she was suffering in some way. And the priest's like, you know, let's just make sure we rule out other things first.

And so she agreed to see the psychiatrist because you can't you can't pink slip somebody, you know, for no particular reason.

You have to agree to go see a medical professional. That's kind of the rules. So she agreed.

And so, you know, she she must have known who she was going to see and decided to mess with his pets.

So a woman felt as if she was being afflicted. She went to a priest to say, I think there's a demon in me. And he's like,

OK, but first let's rule out medical. So let's go to a doctor. And before even meeting the doctor, she's like casting spells on his pets.

That seems to be the case. Yes. To the best of my recollection. Yes. That is terrifying.

Well, yes. Now, could the psychiatrist have done anything?

You know, I don't think he would have had the foresight to realize that this sort of thing would be a possibility. And obviously, guys, it's a super, super rare.

Right. Right. Fine. It's great. OK. If they're crazy, they're probably just regular old crazy.

It's cool. You know, because cats, animals, pets, dogs, they all have their personalities, so to speak.

So just because they have a personality that you don't happen to like. Anyway.

Interesting one. So that's a very interesting story. I'm going to pivot. And I had a follow up question. And then we'll finish the verse.

And then we'll get into the modern day. The verse. What happened to that? Go on. So one thing just to wrap this up is

I am not in this world. I watch scary movies and then I ask questions. That's basically where I'm at in my understanding.

So I just watch a scary movie. And this is very relevant. It's called Talk to Me. And I think that if anybody watches that movie, they should understand the spiritual warfare of that type of movie.

I don't I recommend it because it's a good scary movie. I don't recommend it from a open your soul to the devil type way because I feel like there is some sort of infiltration in that way.

That's just my personal opinion. But in that movie, they're saying, oh, if you essentially are possessed by this by a demon in the movie that they're allowing in consensually and you die, then the demons got you.

They got your soul. I feel like that's almost common in scary movies. But I'm curious if that's actually based on anything real.

If you are possessed, the demon's goal is for you to die, to kill yourself. I'm referencing the animals.

Is the demon trying to make you kill yourself so they can claim your soul or claim your body or whatever it might be?

Is that the MO of that demon? Okay. Okay. First of all, let's get clear about what possession is.

It is spiritual permission for a demon to control your body. All right.

That's all it is. It is not possible for a spirit to control your soul.

So just just know that with respect to possession, no, no demon, no other spirit, no more angel.

Only God has sort of access to your soul. As it were, no angel fallen or otherwise can read your mind unless you invite them to read your mind.

There is a certain integrity that everybody's spiritual soul has, which is inviolable.

Now, it is true that there have been accounts of people being tempted to kill themselves.

And this would not be your standard suicidal ideation from depression or some other psychiatric disorder.

Though sometimes those things can accompany the disorder.

That's that's why it's because it's never either or. Well, either either you're possessed or you're you have a psychiatric issue.

Often, I guess I want to say often is a better word. Often those two things can be intertwined. That you really do have something that's medically treatable and you have something that needs to be spiritually treated to.

There's one that's what it is. Huh? Would you say that maybe like chicken and the egg?

Does the demon come first and then cause the depression? You know, it could go either way.

If you expose yourself, let's say, to a black mass, which is really bad.

What's a black mass? We'll come back to that. If you participate in a black mass or a seance or something like this, then yes.

And you do so willingly, you can get an attachment that's going to cause you emotional problems, relationship problems, finance problems, all sorts of bad stuff.

Okay. Now, on the other hand, most of us, because of our fallen world and because of the woundedness of our families, we're all hurt.

And demons can use our hurts as a way to get us to sin.

And if we don't continue to try to cultivate our spiritual lives, then maybe the constant repetition of succumbing to temptation could lead to something a bit more serious.

So it could go either way. The hurts that we have can be used as leverage against us, or we do something spiritually kind of stupid, and then we begin to suffer cognitively as a result of this stupid decision we made.

So, yeah, it could go either way. Black mass is just like a ritual?

I guess I'm just like a blanketed turn of a black mass. It's like a Ouija board, a seance, or is a black mass the worst thing and a

Ouija board's the lightest thing? How are you rating your podcast here? This is like PG, PG -13.

Oh, well, I think the conversation of this will really determine it. We're kind of just shooting in the dark here.

Well, then, if you need to put a little beep sound in this, okay, you go ahead and do that. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right. So in my diocese, the Diocese of Scranton, we have kind of an exorcist emeritus.

He is somebody who is in his 90s. He has had reports that he is bilocated.

I remember him talking about cases that he's worked on. He's kind of a -

Like transported. Huh? When you say - Bilocated means to actually be in one spot and to be seen in another spot at the same time.

Okay. And usually that's reserved for saints, people on their way to sainthood. This guy,

I wouldn't doubt it. I've had occasion to be a chauffeur to drive him from his elderly residence up to a parish for mass.

So it could be that my passenger seat's going to be a third -class relic one day, so I'm pretty excited about that. Now, maybe second -class.

I can't remember how that works. I give you second -class. Anyway, where was I going with this now?

Oh, the Black Mass. So when I was actually driving him that day to the Mass, the regular

Mass, he was talking a little bit about, yeah, in this town we're driving through, a year or so ago, there was a

Black Mass. And I was like, what? So for a Black Mass, remember that demons and the devil himself cannot create anything on his own.

All they can do is mimic or destroy something that God has made.

In order for there to be a Black Mass, you have to have the Blessed Sacrament.

And you can either get the Blessed Sacrament. What's the Blessed Sacrament? The Eucharist. In order to do something demonic, you need a

Eucharist present? Well, for the Black Mass. Okay. Yeah. Which is why

Satanists kind of know where the

Eucharist is to be found. Now, Satan hates all Christians. All right?

Hates them all. But he'll treat different Christians differently. So the only tabernacles a

Satanist will want to break into is a Catholic tabernacle. Either—now, of course,

I'm a Catholic myself. I would say it's because they know that that's the body of Christ in there. And that by their own admission,

Protestant churches don't claim to have the body of Christ in any substantive way. It's just either a symbol or something.

Satanists don't want symbols. And so the only— Don't want symbols.

I feel like their whole thing is symbols. They've got pentagons. They've got— Oh, yeah. They have symbols. Yes, there is certainly symbolism, undoubtedly.

You can have the sacrament and symbols. But, you know, the general rule of thumb in the

Reformed Christian tradition is that, well, obviously there's a wide variety of positions on the

Eucharist. But generally speaking, from a Lutheran trajectory, yes, it is the body of Christ.

But what you do at liturgy is not in any way a representation of the sacrifice. If you are from the

Calvinist position, you will say that Christ's power is present in the Eucharist, but not

Christ himself. Nor is the liturgy in any way a representation of the sacrifice. And then there is the

Zwinglian approach. Which nobody knows over at Zwingli, but he's basically—he's the one responsible for saying what you do on Sundays is clearly just a symbol.

We're just— Taking communion. —doing it because Christ commanded us to do it. Are you referring to taking communion? Hmm? When you say what you do on Sundays, you're referring to taking communion?

Or the—what you do with the bread and wine, just, you know, the blessings over it prior to receiving communion.

So, regrettably, because of the divisions in Christianity, there are a number of different tracks. And every church kind of has their own spin on one of those four possibilities.

All right, so did that make sense up to this point? This, again, is— I'm following. All right, cool. So a

Satanist wants just what the Catholics have. They jealous. All right. So what happens is either a

Satanist has to break into a church and violate the tabernacle and take the blessed sacrament out.

They pose as a faithful person. And when they receive communion in the hand, they simply walk out with it, which is why

I'm not a big fan of receiving communion on the hand. Because the leaf you put on somebody's tongue, it's, you know, almost assured that it's going to be consumed like it should be.

Or you have to get an apostate priest to consecrate the host.

So— Consecrate the bread or consecrate the person taking? Oh, no, no. When we talk about consecration with respect to the blessed sacrament, we're talking about consecrating the bread and wine so it becomes the body and blood of Christ.

Only a priest can do that. And if you have somebody who's been validly ordained a priest, and then that guy, for some reason, becomes a minion of Satan, his priestly powers remain with him.

And so he can, in fact, validly but illicitly, consecrate bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ.

But he does so to advance his own damnation more than anything else. So, at Mass, the

Mass has a marriage -like structure to it. Christ is the bridegroom.

All of us are brides, including me. So you think about the relationship between a man and a woman in kind of a more, you know, mundane sense.

It is the man who gives of himself and the life principle that's within him. And it's sort of feminine to receive that, and in receiving, becomes fruitful.

So there is, in fact, a supernatural analogy that happens at every Mass, where Christ, the bridegroom, gives of his life, which is himself, which then every

Christian receives. So every Christian is a bride of Christ. That's why the church as a whole is talked about as the bride of Christ.

So sweet. Isn't that? So a man's spiritual life is a lot different than a woman's spiritual life.

Because there's a certain symmetry, you might say, between the way you're actually created physically and the way you relate to Christ spiritually.

But in order for me to be the man Christ called me to be, at a privileged moment, I have to be feminine in a certain way in order to receive the graces

I need to be masculine. Confusing. It's the...

I'm sorry to throw this all at you one time. So what happens then at the Black Mass, Satan cannot do anything really like that.

All he can do is mock it. So here's this 90 -year -old guy sitting next to me in the car saying that there was this woman that he had to, you know, had a case with this woman, who made herself the primary subject of the

Black Mass. Which basically means she had to be a virgin. She had to be on the altar of the

Black Mass without clothes. And then the

Eucharist, somehow obtained, had to be stuck inside her and not her mouth.

And since that was meant to be a complete mockery of the marital structure of the

Mass, quite naturally, anybody who's there, the officiant of the

Mass, and obviously the poor young woman who agreed to be the receiving end, they got problems.

The woman and the person who ordained it had problems, as in they became...

Obviously, whoever the minister or the celebrant was of the Black Mass, he's already a committed

Satanist. Now, whether or not he's fully possessed, that... Maybe, maybe not, who knows.

But I'm sure he's got some sort of level of demonic influence in his life. Maybe, you know, short of possession.

But the poor young woman, you know, I don't know if she knew what she was getting into.

Maybe she was, you know, sort of being groomed. And she was just at a low level of dabbling in the worship of the occult or Satan or whatever.

And when she agreed to be the centerpiece of a Black Mass, then her spiritual health deteriorated rapidly.

So this saintly man telling you this story, did he have an ending for it?

Or how he, you know, worked with her? Well, I... Like yourself, I kind of like...

I just had to stop and digest the information right there. I mean, I hope it turned out well.

He's the sort of person that probably is quite good at his job, I would imagine. But, you know, just because you're at a point where you need the right of exorcism, because you really do have demonic affliction that counts as possession, you may need more than one.

You know, it's not a one and done affair. There are demons that are so strong in people. You know, because there's a hierarchy among the demons, just as they are among the angels.

It takes, you know, some low -level ones can be kicked out right away. Sometimes even a low -level one can't be kicked out right away because somehow the person isn't entirely open to God's grace and still has an attachment to this entity.

And some are just really, really powerful. And it takes several over the course of many years.

And maybe, you know, it's just going to be a lifelong project. But going back to what originally talked about, if you are possessed, that's no certain thing that you're going to be damned.

Because what saves you is grace in the soul. So you can be possessed, which is demonic attachment in your body, and still have supernatural grace in your soul.

So, yes, a possessed person can be saved. Amen. Now, obviously, you improve your chances, if you're able to clean yourself out, you know, in your body too.

And any motivation that, you know, a demon could tempt a person to kill themselves just for the sake of causing that person harm, even though that person is likely to be saved.

But especially under psychiatric duress, everybody knows that under psychiatric duress, your responsibility for any actions you do are diminished to the point of maybe even being erased altogether.

What do you mean by that? So when you sin, and you sin knowing full well what you're doing is wrong, and you're going to throw yourself into it anyway, that is way more serious than a sin that you commit out of force of habit.

Because your will has been weakened through repetition to gravitate towards that particular kind of behavior.

So people who are not considered to be fully responsible for their actions are not going to be held fully accountable for them.

Let me give you a really mundane example. One day I was on my bike. Now, this is a pedal bicycle.

I'm not cool enough for the motorized kind. And I was in a town, and I wanted to go through the business section to kind of look at the stores.

And so I was kind of, you know, it was busy. People were parking on the side of the streets and all this. And there's a cop standing over there on the corner.

So he waves me over. And I was like, okay. And he said, you know, you're not allowed to bike on these streets where the businesses are.

And I was like, really? I mean, I didn't see any sign. I mean, there were signs elsewhere, I guess. So he said, yeah, well, yeah, it's a town ordinance.

So if you would just get off your bike, walk up to the corner, and then there was kind of a main road that kind of bypasses the shopping area.

And I can just get on my bike and pedal away. So he knew out of my ignorance that I wasn't deliberately breaking the town statute.

So he just let me go. Because it wasn't really my fault. I didn't know. Ignorance can excuse guilt in certain respects.

So the same with sin. I mean, some people don't have their consciences formed correctly. They don't know what they're doing is wrong.

Or they are compelled to do something that is wrong because of hurt, damage, temptation, habit, psychosis.

You know, we don't blame people for killing somebody in a psychotic rage. We lock them up, of course.

But, you know, we do that for their own safety and hopefully for their health, not because we consider them to be a flat -out, fully cognizant murderer.

So, yeah. If you don't...

Gosh, now I've got off track. Why am I making this distinction again? What's going on? Cognizant of your soul being saved despite...

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So, yes. So if somebody is suicidal and they're suicidal because they're being literally tempted to do it,

God in his mercy knows that that person's will is not fully engaged in the sin of throwing your life away.

God knows. God can see into your soul. He can see into your mind. He can see into your heart. He's the only spirit that can do that because, you know, being omniscient and infinitely powerful.

So that's why God is the just judge. He knows how much of it is compulsion and is not in your control and how much of it is in your control.

So the more it's in your control, the more responsibility you bear, the less it's in control. So if somebody is tempted as a combination, let's say, of spiritual temptation and mental illness to commit suicide,

I think there is adequate reason to say that God's not going to let that soul be separated from God forever because they were sort of compelled to do so.

And, you know, it could well be that demons just get their jollies at seeing human beings kill themselves, which

I assume they do. But I don't think it's a sure thing, therefore, that if a demon compels somebody to kill themselves, that that person is lost forever.

Only God's the only one who's going to do any judging. It's not that a demon can steal our souls against our will.

We have to let him help him steal it. We need to cognizantly give it to them.

Or cooperate somehow, yeah. Yeah. Okay. That really answered my question.

Thank you. I'm just going to finish the verse. I mean, we're kind of answering all my questions as we move along. So this is fantastic.

Just to catch us up, we talked about he didn't want to go back to the abyss. The demon didn't want to go back home because home wasn't fun.

So I'll just continue with verse 32. A large herd of pigs were feeding there on the hillside.

The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission. So again, Jesus has to give them permission.

When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

So very on point with the pigs not being able to handle the spirits. Is that what you're assuming here, that it was just too much for them?

Well, the only consciousness we have any direct experience of is our own.

I don't know what it's like to be an animal. It could well be that that's the poor kind instinct, when the animal soul detects some other entity inside its body and says, okay,

I guess my bacon's not worth saving, and that's the end of it, so to speak. That's a simple answer. I like that.

Okay. And the rest of the verse is essentially the witnesses getting freaked out what they just saw happen.

Yes. Now, I'm going to add something. This is actually an important verse, and I'm sure looking at it here,

I got my revised standard version Catholic edition here, which Catholic edition just means it has more books than the

Old Testament. So this bit about he was supposed to be in fetters.

What does the mind say here? Let's see. Which verse are you leading? Hold on a second.

I'm trying to find it. Yeah, this would be verse 29.

I have a large thing here. It's in parentheses. Many times the demon or demons had seized him, kept under guard, bound with chains and fetters, but he broke the bonds.

One of the classic signs of demonic possession is superhuman strength. Classic.

So that, yeah, this guy being put in chains and then he breaks them. Yep. That's a thing as a classic symptom that this person really does have a spirit controlling his body.

Levitation would also be included in that. There is sort of reverse of the strength where, and this would be

Father Amorth, I know this specifically, and this might be from his first book, where there's this teenage boy sitting on the top of the stairwell in his apartment building on the landing there just sort of blocking people's way.

And this was an individual who was a case of Father Amorth and he was just being belligerent.

So the kid was possessed. So, you know, two big strong Italian police officers go to lift him up and they can't.

And he's like 14 years old. But two guys can't lift a 14 -year -old boy. Couldn't budge him.

And so when Father Amorth got there, because the parents kind of knew that something was up, he basically got the kid to stand up and go back into his apartment.

Crazy. That's why you should appreciate the ordinariness of your life.

Well, hi David. If you can be prevented from having to experience any of this stuff, that in itself should be a reason to praise

God. Absolutely. And I think it is crazy that this is real.

This is not just something that happened back in the day with Jesus that you're giving firsthand accounts that are of 2023 or within the last 10 years or 20 years.

You know, this is very real. And so we should be aware of the dangers out there as much as we're aware of the diseases out there.

And I think that understanding what the cure is and understanding that these are the facts. I mean, I hope that people that listen to this understand that this is a danger and they take it seriously and then they make decisions that help protect them from this.

And I'm not telling them what they should do, but it should be aligned with, you know, a loving God that is the only protector of this.

And prevention, in this case, is the best medicine. So having a good prayer life, and this would be true for any

Christian, what I'm saying is kind of universal, making sure you do pray, if you do

Bible study, that's great. Make sure you attend your church services. And of course, avoid sin.

That would be kind of important, I should think. And if you have any hurts that are causing you to sin, go talk to somebody because that'll help, you know, indirectly.

Through the therapy, we'll have a spiritual benefit. Speaking as a Catholic now, receive the sacraments.

You know, make sure you receive the Eucharist every week. Make sure you go to confession regularly. You know, priest is in there, he's there to help.

And Catholic preaching is, it's Christ is actually forgiving your sins through the instrumentality of the priest. And as this exorcist

Amoritas would say, and he's sort of famous for this particular quote, so you can look it up on the internet and find out this guy's name.

One confession is worth 100 exorcisms. It's quite a quote.

Because what happens with confession, Christ's grace gets in your soul and cleans it.

All the demon can do is have jurisdiction over your body. And if your soul is clean, you know, the likelihood of you being afflicted in any way is minuscule.

Yeah. I'm not Catholic, but I am Christian and I was raised Russian Orthodox. So I have been to a confession once or twice.

That's right. Yeah, you have to put on sacraments. That's right. So, you know, I think that it's important to really equip yourself without being overwhelmed and without leaving this podcast, being in fear of your life and going out into any haunted houses or near any crazy dogs in the middle of the street.

I think it's just important to know that like God's love is out there and it's accessible. And to, you know, maybe this be another reason to maybe step closer to him, but just be aware of, you know, the risks of not.

Yeah, I mean, I have probably at least a million more questions,

Christopher. I'm not going to lie. I just want to thank you for your time today. I would love to continue the conversation and other routes.

But is there any things you want to add just in the end to maybe promote some of your work?

I just want to give you an opportunity to plug if you have any books you want people to read, you can say them or any recommendations on books you were speaking about.

You know, what are the names of them? Well, you may have to look those up. I'll be glad to do that for offline or offline after we're done talking.

And then you can you can add that later. Honestly, I'm not that kind of scholar. I have to constantly teach for huge classes of undergraduates every semester.

My scholarship is limited to it, limited to a few articles here and there. I am not deforesting vast tracts of land with all my publications.

I assure you, so I'm a blue collar scholar when it comes to this sort of thing.

I learn from the other people who somehow do have the time to write books. Well, thank you so much.

I can't wait to have you back if you'll let me. And so I can really prop your mind when it comes to angels on a lighter note, because I know that you've done extensive research there.