Exorcist Father Vincent Lampert | PBD Podcast | Ep. 179
FaceTime or Ask Patrick any questions on https://minnect.com/
PBD Podcast Episode 179. In this episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by Father Vincent Lampert and Adam Sosnick.
Join the channel to get exclusive access to perks: https://bit.ly/3Q9rSQL
Download the podcasts on all your favorite platforms https://bit.ly/3sFAW4N
Get Father Vince's book "Exorcism: The Battle Against Satan and His Demons": https://amzn.to/3T8DxAG
Text: PODCAST to 310.340.1132 to get added to the distribution list
Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
0:00 - Start
14:14 - Father Lampert reveals the wildest exorcism he has ever performed
22:04 - The four elements that can prove a person is possessed
32:32 - Was it easier to control the population 2000 years ago or today?
41:36 - How do you know if you are 'demonized'?
52:48 - Was Anneliese Michel controlled by the devil?
1:00:06 - Did Anneliese Michel struggle with mental issues?
1:09:13 - Is it only the catholic church that is performing exorcisms?
1:14:18 - Can an MRI tell if you are 'possessed'?
1:22:17 - Are Influencers less likely to be possessed by demons?
1:31:04 - Are certain people possessed by demons? Or just mentally ill?
1:45:36 - Has the catholic church ruined its reputation?
Yeah, why would you bet on Goliath when we got Bet David?
Valuetainment, giving value is contagious.
We're entrepreneurs, we get no value to haters.
How they run, homie?
Look what I become.
I'm the one.
But that is, though.
So folks, first of all, if you're joining us on today's podcast, I got to say I applaud you.
I respect you.
I salute you.
You are part of the community that likes watching movies such as Stigmata, maybe Exorcist, maybe The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
You're one of those folks who likes scary movies because I want to prepare you for today's podcast.
It's slightly different.
We're not talking about current events today, specifically tied to politics or sports or business or anything.
We are only talking about the topic of exorcism.
And the reason why we chose to do this interview today, and I'll let you know who we have in-house who is a fully qualified exorcist who's been doing this since 2005.
In 2005, when there were only 12 individuals that did this in the Catholic Church, and today it's at 125, more than 10x in 17 years.
If you guys are looking for a new profession, this profession is growing rapidly.
But it's going to be a different kind of a podcast because we're actually going to listen to a few different clips.
We're going to listen to a few audio clips, maybe a video clip of the real Annalise Michelle or Michael, however you want to pronounce it, on the six different voices that she would make, sounds that she would make, one of them being Nero, Fleischman, Hitler, Lucifer, Judas, and I want to say there's a Kane is the other one that also she made.
And, you know, he's going to give us our feedback.
In this room, just so you know, we have a few people that don't believe this is real.
We'll take a different angle with it to see if he's going to be convincing or not.
He seems like a real convincing man.
My dad and I yesterday were up late.
He asked me, so who do you have on the podcast tomorrow?
I said, I have an exorcist on the podcast tomorrow.
He starts laughing.
I said, no, I'm actually that serious.
He says, what did I tell you about that movie?
I said, dad, I totally understand, but I really am having somebody who's an exorcist.
He says, a real life?
I said, a real life.
So my dad, when he first, when my movie came out, a friend of mine, Fernando Lasso said, Exorcist is out at Chinese theater.
So they brought it back in LA.
It was like 2000, I think the year was.
I had just gotten out of the military and I'm working at Valley Total Fitness.
He says, we got to go watch it.
So we go to watch it and we're in his card that he has.
He says, but there's one thing we have to do.
I have a tape that I brought from Ecuador where folks who, you know, they were, they would listen to the voice and read the Bible backwards.
We have to listen to this audio to put us in the right setting before we watch this movie.
So he puts this tape in.
No joke.
It's me, Fernando, and Mauricio.
We're listening to this audio tape.
It's like, love it.
Like stuff like this.
I said, turn the shit off.
You do that very well.
And then I'm sitting there.
I'm still doing too well.
And I'm sitting, I'm like, so then we go watch the movie and we're inside.
Everybody's freaking out in the movie theater.
There's a scene.
The place is full.
I pick up my cup and I just shake it like this because there's to see if there's any drink left in it.
It makes a sound.
Everybody jumps up.
We come out.
I said, listen, we're not going home tonight.
We went to my sister's place.
We sit up to three o'clock in the morning talking about the movie.
And my dad has his own stories.
And everybody has their own exorcist story the first time they watch it.
Anyways, your dad is going to be watching this podcast.
I have no idea what I want to do.
This may be the first ever podcast my dad doesn't consume.
Dad, if you watch this, I am so proud of your bravery because I know how you feel about the movie Jangir, because in Farsi, they call it Exorcist Jane.
So anyway, he's very wise man.
Very wise man.
Very well-read Christian man.
Very Christian.
Who believes in God and evil?
Does he believe in this kind of stuff?
Well, he is more leaning towards believing.
He is more towards, he does believe it exists.
That's why it makes him a little bit uncomfortable.
So, look, you know, we're going to go through this.
So let me kind of give you an idea who our guest is once again today.
It's Father Vincent Lampert, who has been doing this again since 2005, where there was only 12 of them.
He has been on vice.
He's been on so many different shows.
He has done interviews.
They've spoken to him about this.
And you have to keep this in mind, guys.
It's not like, you know, for some folks, like, it's a bunch of, this is not real, all this stuff.
This is not a teleevangelist that goes on TV like a Benny Henn or, you know, a prosperity pastor that's doing this.
And if you give me a million dollars to get my private jet, I'm going to be able to get the demons out of you.
This is not that model.
So this is a man that, you know, we even pulled up the average salary of a priest, a part of the Catholic Church who makes $35,000 to $50,000.
You may be at 52,000, but the numbers are $35,000 to $50,000.
We pull up the numbers.
We're looking it up.
So to see the credibility behind it.
But once again, with that intro to set everybody up, if you're going to watch this, you can't tell us you're afraid or upset afterwards.
I just prefaced everything we're going to go through today.
So having said that, Father Vincent Lampert, thank you so much for taking the time and being a guest on the podcast.
Yes, I'm happy to be here.
So very open-ended question.
You know, it's a simple question, but maybe a complicated one for us when we kind of look at you from our perspective.
You know, some of us wake up, we say we want to be an astronaut.
You know, we want to be a doctor.
We want to be engineers to make our parents proud.
I want to be a basketball player.
I want to be a baseball player.
I want to be a hedge fund manager.
Who wakes up saying, one day I want to do exorcisms?
Like, how does that come about?
I think I woke up one day and said I wanted to be a priest.
But then in the Catholic tradition, it's the bishop of every diocese who is the exorcist.
Because when Jesus sent the 12 out, he gave them authority over every unclean spirit.
And then a bishop of a diocese can't appoint one or more of his priests to do this ministry in his name.
So when I was appointed in 2005, I jokingly tell people I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Because you mentioned earlier there were only 12 exorcists in the United States back in 2005.
The Archdiocese of Indianapolis, where I am a priest, was a diocese that always maintained having an exorcist.
So even when the practice fell out in many dioceses across the world, Indianapolis decided to always have a priest in this position.
And then ironically, the priest who was the exorcist, he was the pastor of the grade school where I attended.
And he passed away in 2005.
And then all the priests, we began kind of trying to stay under the radar so that the bishop would not appoint us to be the exorcist.
But I happened to have a meeting with the bishop one day, and he said, I'm appointing you to be the exorcist.
I don't really know what I'm asking you to do, but I'm going to send you to Rome and you can learn what the ministry is really all about.
So when he says that to you, were you like, oh my gosh, what an incredible moment in my career?
You know, I'm going to get, this is so awesome.
Maybe you're going and bragging to your friends.
Guys, check this out.
I just got a promotion.
Or was it more like, why are you choosing me?
What was your feeling when you got that call?
I think it was the line of Jesus at the crucifixion.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
And really didn't know why the bishop was selecting me.
But the church does say that the priest should be known for his holiness and piety.
He should have some years of priesthood behind him.
So a newly ordained priest should not have the ministry.
It should be a priest who is pretty comfortable in his priestly identity.
By the way, which churches practice exorcism?
Is it just the Catholic Church or do other religions also practice exorcism?
Exorcism can be found in just about every faith tradition, whether Christian or non-Christian, the belief in the reality of evil, probably the Catholic Church because it's a liturgical rite for us, so we have a prescribed way of doing it.
So it's probably that most people have the concept that Catholics primarily do this.
But I always say that the Catholic Church doesn't have a monopoly on the practice, but perhaps what the church does is more widely known by many people.
But it's more Catholics.
Like I'm pulling it up right now, and it says Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheran churches, Church of Latter-day Saints, you know, but majority of them is Catholic Church, right?
If you were to think about exorcisms.
Am I wrong?
I may be wrong on this.
No, I think you're right because, you know, I currently get about 70 people contacting me every week from literally all over the world.
And about half of them are Catholic and the other half are either other Christian faith traditions or other world religions or no faith background whatsoever.
So I think people have the mentality that if you're dealing with the demonic, the Catholic Church as a ministry of charity would help anybody who finds themselves in this situation.
When you get these calls, what do these calls sound like?
I've heard just about everything you can imagine, people, that you know.
Give us from the basic one to the ones where this person needs help.
We have to talk to this person.
There's a lot of people who believe that maybe somebody put a curse on them.
One of the primary things I try to do is if it's truly something demonic, then what was the entry point for the demonic into this person's life?
The average person doesn't really have to worry about extraordinary demonic activity.
If one is living their life the way that they should, they're pretty much safeguarded.
But if somebody does something that could open up an entry point to the demonic in their life, they can begin experiencing all kinds of problems.
So I try to determine what was that entry point.
What did somebody do or what did somebody try to do to them that brought about the demonic activity in their life?
When you say entry point, do you mean physical entry point?
Like, how does a demon enter someone's body or do you mean more esoterically?
How do you mean?
How they initially made the connection with the demonics.
Like, did somebody dabble in magic and witchcraft and those types of things?
Okay.
And then so the demonic would look for an opportunity to literally connect with that individual in order to try to destroy their life.
And then physically, how does the demon enter the body?
Like through their mouth, through their face, through their body, through their heart, through their soul?
How does it actually happen?
Not through their soul, because the soul always remains free.
Whenever it's a question of demonic possession, it's always physical in nature.
So the devil would take control of a person's body, treating that body as if it were its own.
So using the person's mouth to speak, their ears to hear, their eyes to see.
And anytime a demon possesses somebody, one should always make the distinction between that person as an individual and now the identity of the demon that is now acting through that person's body.
I was going to say one could get kind of heady in the topic.
St. Thomas Aquinas would always say that it isn't literally that a demon is inside of somebody.
It's that the demon is controlling that person.
Yeah, Adam, most of the time you'll find in the Christian faiths, I'm a born-again Christian, non-denominational, so you understand the perspective of what I share here today.
It's referred to as ground taken and ground canceled.
And so what ground has been given in the spiritual life of the person that that demon uses as the foothold for spiritualization and demonization?
I kind of draw the line, as many Christian faiths do, as you know, about the, you know, the oppression versus occupation line.
And so we see it as demonization and heavy oppression using that ground that that person has, you know, consequentially, you know, opened themselves up to.
And that ground has to be.
Was that a statement or a question?
I'm curious.
No, that was a statement to Adam because he asked a question, does it enter through your mouth or anything like this?
And I also provided a sidebar so that Father understands my perspective.
I got you.
Perfect.
So by the way, if you're listening to this, I'm curious.
Do you believe in this or do you not believe in this?
Just comment below.
I'm just curious to know where the audience is at.
If you say, Pat, I do believe in this, give it a thumbs up.
If you don't believe in it, put a thumbs down.
Tyler, so we do a poll.
Is that possible?
Put a poll.
Let's get that out.
I'm actually curious.
So let's continue with this part.
So when you do go to school, because you wrote a book about this, I think there's a book about it, right?
So the book, his name is called Exorcism, the Battle Against Satan and His Demons, is a book that you wrote.
And in the book, you talk about a few different things, how the church selects and trains priests for the ministry of exorcism, where and how the devil operates in the world, and what scripture had to say about it.
Why is it vital for Catholics to live in a vibrant life of faith?
What do you believe?
What do you do if?
What to do if you suspect the presence of demonic in your life or in others?
And to fend off spiritual attack and build a stronger relationship with God.
Okay.
So let's talk about you.
So when the priest you spoke to said, I want to appoint you to do this and we have to send you back to Rome to go get trained and come back.
What did the training entail?
And how long was it?
So I stayed in Rome for three months in the early part of 2006.
Really, the church says the best way to learn it is through the apprenticeship model, to find a more seasoned exorcist and then to work under him.
It's easy to pick up books and learn what the church believes and teaches about the reality of evil.
But the church wants its exorcists to have kind of literally on-the-ground training.
It's kind of like a doctor who has to do kind of an intern before one is sent out and begins doing it on their own.
So the internship, when I was in Rome, I was able to connect with a Franciscan priest who had been an exorcist for 25 years.
And then he permitted me to sit in on 40 exorcisms that he performed during the time that I was there.
And then that allowed me to learn firsthand the ministry of the church for those who were up against the forces of evil and were seeking help.
What was the most extreme one you witnessed out of the 40?
Because of course you get that question all the time.
There are a few that stand out.
You know, obviously the very first one, I'm talking with an elderly lady and her husband, and she's explaining to me why she believes that she's possessed.
And I'm just, the three of us are in the room and we're having a conversation, and I'm watching Father Carmenet, the priest who trained me, and he walks into the room and he puts a roll of paper towels on the table and he walks back out and he comes back in and ties a plastic grocery bag onto the wall radiator.
He walks back out again and he comes in and this time he has a purple stole, which is a piece of purple cloth that a priest will drape around his neck as a sign of his priestly office.
He has the right of exorcism in his hand and he immediately takes holy water and he blesses this little elderly lady.
As soon as the drops of water hit her, the demon manifested.
Her eyes rolled in the back of her head.
She began foaming at the mouth, growling and snarling and throwing out all kinds of blasphemies.
Such as, you know, she was insulting God.
She was insulting me and Father Carmen and just about anyone.
Basically doing anything as a way to disrupt this particular prayer of the church.
And then you said, so you've seen many.
So that was the first one you saw.
Was there anything that was more extreme than her?
Absolutely.
The one that really stands out the most was during an exorcism when the demon manifested and the person's body began to levitate.
You saw somebody's body levitation?
I saw a person levitate during an exorcism.
How much was the levitation?
The person rose about a foot out of the chair they were in because I'm looking at this in disbelief.
And Father Carmen is praying the right of the church, the prayers, and he's glancing over and looking, and he looks back at his book.
He looks back at the person.
He looks back at his book.
Then he takes his hand, puts it on the head of the person, and pushes them back down into the chair without ever pausing for even one moment in the prayer.
Was any of that caught on camera?
The church does not videotape.
Oftentimes.
How convenient, Father.
But let me ask this question.
But the reason the church does that is to protect the identity of the individual.
So obviously at this point, you know, Adam believes in this stuff a lot.
I am very skeptical.
Just to put it out there.
I'd like to see what the audience has.
But the mixture of who we have today is perfect.
I think it's healthy to be skeptical.
So, you know, if I go to a David Copperfield show and I kind of see, you know, the works he's doing, I look up, I see the strings.
I'm like, that's pretty cool how they're doing it.
But in this setting, when that happened, how many people were in the room when you saw this?
It was me, another priest, Father Carmen, the individual, and a family member that was with him.
So five of you.
So it's not, so here's the part.
Let's play, let's play a skeptic, but let's also play why would he say this?
So when you look at him, he doesn't look like some, like I watch his interviews.
You know, there is what is, like yesterday, the biggest thing was, what's the motive?
Like when I watch Bob Larson, I'm not going to lie, I don't know how you feel about Bob Larson.
You look like you have some opinions on Bob Larson or no?
We all do.
Okay, so I'd be curious to get your feedback on Bob Larson.
Bob Larson is who, exactly?
He's a famous exorcist.
Do you know who Bob Larson?
With the daughters?
Is that a good idea?
Yeah, yeah.
Bob Larson is the guy with the daughters.
This is Bob Larson.
So a guy like him is why nobody would believe in exorcism, okay?
Yeah.
Because this is the part where it's the flamboyant, the showmanship, the, you know, all this stuff.
I have a hard time.
What's your opinion on Bob Larson before I even go further?
Well, rather than being critical of someone else, I would tend to want to be more positive about what I believe exorcism is because we talked about skepticism.
An exorcist is trained to be a skeptic.
I should be the very last person in the room to believe that somebody is truly dealing with extraordinary demonic activity.
Every other possible explanation needs to be exhausted.
And that's the approach the Catholic Church takes.
That's why even in the United States, we have a protocol that we follow.
And step number one of the protocol is for the person to have a psychiatric evaluation.
Step two is to have a physical examination because the church wants experts in the mental health field and in the medical sciences to weigh in on what is happening or what this person believes is happening in their life.
I will say because I am publicly known as an exorcist, I receive the high volume of people who reach out to me, but the majority of the people who reach out to me have already self-diagnosed.
And any exorcist will tell you that when somebody has self-diagnosed, 99% of the time, it's not something demonic.
99% of the time it's not something that's more like DID or it's something else that absolutely is.
Okay.
When someone's self-diagnoses, meaning they think that they are possessed by a demon, 99% of the time it's not accurate.
Correct.
Okay.
So they're calling me and saying, I'm possessed and I need an exorcism.
And my response would be, no, you're not.
We may get to that point, but we have to look at...
What is actually wrong with them at that point?
They're schizophrenic, they're bipolar, they're on drugs, they're depression.
It could be all of those, and that's why it has to be investigated because I would be the first one to say the church would do greater harm to someone if she labels that person as being possessed, and that label prevents the person from getting the true help that they need.
So there may be other people that are exorcist that may be too quick to believe that somebody is possessed.
But again, I think that would do greater harm if it prevents them from going and getting help from the psychiatrist or their family doctor.
Because the overriding goal should be to get help for the person who is suffering, whether that be due to spiritual, physical, or mental problems that they're having in their life.
I don't want to hover over this.
I think Tom wants to say something.
Then I want to go back to the levitating in Bob Larson.
Go ahead.
Do you also conduct a spiritual inventory?
Like take them to Galatians and go through the list of things.
So you're satisfied that there's a psychiatric evaluation, which is prudent, a physical evaluation, looking for signs of drug use and other things that are very obvious in the physical realm, you know.
And then do you take them to a spiritual inventory?
Yes.
So there is, that's step three of the protocol.
There is an intake questionnaire that, you know, the Vatican has a course on exorcism every year.
And a part of that, they help put together an intake questionnaire trying to determine if this truly is something demonic, then what opened the doorway for that into the person's life.
And then it's not only been identifying, it's also about helping the person resume their spiritual life or to start a spiritual life for the first time.
So it's not just a matter of casting demons out.
God has to be invited in.
And I would say that in the role of an exorcist, the primary focus is not really on what the devil is doing in the person's life, but what God wants to do in that person's life.
And there are four different types of things that the church looks for that would validate that perhaps this truly is something demonic.
Number one would be the ability to speak and understand languages otherwise unknown to the individual, having superhuman strength beyond the normal capacity of the individual, having elevated perception, knowledge about things that the person should not otherwise know.
And then four, probably the one that most people are familiar with, an aversion to anything of a sacred nature, such as having scripture read in front of them, being blessed with holy water, being shown a crucifix, the things that people probably are familiar with simply by watching movies and whatnot on exorcism.
So the four things was superpower, a language that they should not speak, access to information that they normally shouldn't have.
And then the fourth one is what the priest does or them, like how they respond to holy water.
Aversion to anything spiritual.
In the Christian church, and are you familiar with Dr. Carl Payne?
No, I'm not.
No.
Carl Payne wrote a wonderful book on spiritual warfare from non-denominational Christian perspectives.
So it doesn't contain anything like from the Presbyteria or the Southern Baptist Convention.
It's just non-denominational Bible interpretation.
And one of the things he pointed out was that something as simple as reading 1 John 4 and saying, you know, every is how you recognize the Spirit of God.
You know, every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come into flesh is from God.
spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus Christ is not.
And people have a strong resistance to that, those particular verses that are that are calling on that with the power.
And, you know, when helping people with demonization, it's exactly as you say.
But you can avoid the sensational reaction of them by setting ground rules and asking for the covering of the Holy Spirit.
Tom, have you ever witnessed this before?
I've not witnessed this before, but I've talked to three people that Carl.
Have you ever had anybody in your life where, but this goes to all of the title, this goes to you and to you.
Have you guys ever seen anybody in your life where you said this person may be possessed?
Yeah, absolutely.
You've had somebody.
Yes, absolutely.
And you witnessed it like you knew this person or was it a person that person knew?
It was my friend's mom.
And I witnessed her in a, and she was not drugged.
She was in hospice, but she was not being given morphine or anything of the sort.
So she was unmedicated.
Have you witnessed anybody?
Yeah, and it just turns out that they were on bath salts.
Okay, how about yourself?
No, no.
You never have.
Okay.
So I have witnessed a close relative that would say, I put a curse on that person.
Okay.
I put a curse on that person and watch what's going to happen to that person.
And I've seen a person behavior act in a weird way.
But my opinion on that is a completely different thing, which we'll get into here in a minute.
I want to go back to this.
So people like Bob Larson are who pushes me away from believing any of this stuff is real, and they're using it to monetize and sensationalize and get eyeballs.
People like you don't do that to me because there is no motive for you to do this.
Why would you do this?
I don't sit there and say your motivation is that.
Why do you say there's no motive, though?
For him?
Right.
For him, I don't.
So, okay, let's go through the motives of life.
What are the main motives of life or why somebody would deceive you?
Why somebody would deceive you?
Money is number one.
What else?
What's another motive?
Status.
Status.
Somebody to have sex with you, right?
To kind of like impress you where you're like, hey, oh my gosh.
And then boom, take advantage of you.
Okay, what else is it?
What else is a motive?
Recognition.
Recognition, fine.
But that's still, okay, what else would it be?
What else would it be?
So what else would the motive be here?
That's the part.
Something bigger than themselves, i.e. the Catholic Church.
I mean, you got a lot to answer to if you're if you're going to answer to the church.
I'm not saying anything about the father, but you know, there's a hierarchy up there.
That part I understand.
That part I understand.
And we'll get to that here in a minute, but let's go back to it.
So when you saw this person levitate a foot, and there's only five of you in the room, what's your initial reaction?
What's your first reaction?
Disbelief.
Disbelief.
That was my initial reaction, but then I quickly focused on what the priest who was training me was doing because he wasn't focused on the theatrics of the demonic, if you will.
He was staying focused on the prayer of the church, which is why he was able to simply reach over, put his hand on the head of the person, put him back, push him back down into the chair.
Why would he push them down?
If someone's going to levitate, I'd like to see how high they go up.
Why clip the angel's wings, so to speak?
Let's see how high they can go up.
You're up a foot?
Yeah, but let's stay serious here.
But I'm being actually very serious.
Super loud, though.
If someone is full-on levitating, let them levitate.
Yeah, I mean, so, okay.
But the reason I think that he did not let him do that, because that allows the demonic to be in charge of the prayer that's taking place.
And again, the focus should always be on what God is doing because the demonic obviously would want to disrupt the prayer because it wants to maintain its connection or hold on the life of this individual.
Right.
And what the priest is doing, invoking the power and the authority of God.
And that's the other important thing to make, to point out.
I don't have any special powers and abilities.
If people are relying on me, we're all in trouble.
But if people are relying on the power and the authority that Christ has given to the church, that's the proper mentality to have.
So it's not about me and any power that I have.
Even the priest who trained me told me, he says, if you're ever doing an exorcism and even for a brief moment, think, wow, look at what I'm doing.
He said, you've just walked on unholy ground.
Exactly.
That's the story of the seven sons of Skiva.
The seven sons of Skiva were going out and they were doing minor illness healings, correct?
By invoking the name of Jesus Christ until they came up to a truly oppressed person.
And the person says, Jesus I know, and says, and Paul, I've heard of, but who are you?
Remember that?
And the individual beat these people individually.
And Paul pointed out, he said, look, you know, these people were not authentic.
This is a sham.
It's like Benny Hinn, a faith healer with a toupee.
Explain.
That's kind of like what Bob Larson seems like to be.
So here's where I go with this.
You know the saying.
The second is the quote by Charles Baudelier.
I don't know how to pronounce the guy's last name.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
Okay.
Then Ken.
Unusual suspects.
Yeah, exactly.
Ken Amy says, the second greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he is a good guy.
Okay.
And then I read a book called, Tom, put your phone aside because it's picking up some of the static.
So the other thing that the, what do you call it?
A quote I read in a book called, what's the book's name?
The Outwitting the Devil.
I don't know if you've ever read the book, Outwitting the Devil.
It's a form of screw tape letters by C.S. Lewis.
It's some kind of a book like that.
And in this book, it says, you know, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing you that he existed.
Okay.
So when you when you hear, and you know what the difference is, obviously the difference between, so the argument on one side is what?
He doesn't exist.
Dude, just go do whatever you want to do.
Just live your life and be free and have, you know, that whole thing to have fun.
Who cares?
You only got one life, you know.
What is that one acronym?
YOLO.
Hey, you only live once and go do whatever you want to do.
It's okay.
Great.
But in a way, the other quote says, live as if, you know, the greatest trick he ever pulled is to convince you that he exists.
He doesn't exist.
It's just a pigment of your imagination.
It's in your thoughts.
It's your imagination.
When you hear those two arguments, what do you say to that?
Well, it sounds like the devil wants to be the one that dictates everything.
And then I think there's too much focus on the devil.
There's too much focus on the devil?
Absolutely.
Do you think one has to, if one believes in God, do they automatically have to believe there's a devil?
There's a song that I'm thinking of.
What is it?
Blood, sweat, and tears, 1969.
I swear there ain't no heaven, but I pray there ain't no hell.
Is that oftentimes people won't believe in God, but then there's that fear of kind of the unknown, and the demonic can be that fear of the unknown.
And that's where the devil can try to get into people's heads and whatnot.
Is there an official stance from the Catholic Church regarding the devil?
Yes, so the church would say that evil is personified.
So evil is not just humanity's inhumane treatment of one another.
It's not just something of our making, but that evil is personified in what we call the devil and his demons.
So who is the devil?
Who are his demons?
The book of Revelation speaks about the fall of the angels where Lucifer rebelled against God and then one-third of the angels fell and were cast down to the earth.
So evil is personified.
And then what would be the goal of the devil and these demons is to get humanity to make the same choice that they made, which would be the complete rejection of God.
Can I push back a little bit and just challenge and let's just have some fun with this?
And this is purely the skeptic side where, you know, one would be skeptic and saying, you know, what they say to this.
When I was an atheist and I was going through meeting with everybody, I'd meet with Scientologists, I'd meet with priests, I'd meet with pastors, I wanted to meet the person that says, this guy knows everything about the Bible.
I wanted to meet those types of people and I would go through my arguments.
And now, you know, many of my arguments were amateurish arguments.
And, you know, we've heard these arguments.
There's a manual with a bunch of different arguments.
So it's not like there's an argument that no one's ever seen before.
So a case for Christ, case for church, case for this, case for that, you know, mere Christianity.
Go through all the books that is out there, right?
Okay, fine.
But, you know, this is not even a spiritual argument.
This is just a question.
So is it fair to say that people were more naive 2,000 years ago than today?
Naive in what person?
Naive in a way that it was easier to control the populace 2,000 years ago versus today.
You think it's easier to control the populace today or 2,000 years ago?
Probably today.
Really?
You think that?
You think today versus 2,000 years ago?
Why do you think?
Because I think we're more connected and everybody seems to have a platform on which they can put out their belief or their thoughts.
2,000 years ago, we didn't have all the technology where everybody could have their own little podcast or show where they could put their thoughts out there.
It was a pretty limited way that a message could be put out.
Sure.
So doesn't that make it easier to get more of the populace to believe one message 2,000 years ago than today?
Possibly, right?
Possibly.
Possibly.
Okay.
So where today, you know, you see the church attendance down.
You see, you know tithing is down.
You see all this data that's coming out, right?
You go to churches, you're like, okay, they're having a hard time with their argument and messaging.
Some churches are grown.
LDS church is grown.
There's some, you know, sancts, you know, that are grown.
But for the most part, you'll hear a lot of people say church attendance is down.
You'll see that data all over the place.
I'm not the one that's talking about this.
But going back to it, like I look at my kids, when Melva, who is Mexican, our nanny, she's a Catholic.
And I remember watching her the way she would make the kids eat food at night.
And I would watch her and she would say, Tico, you better eat this food because coyotes are coming.
Coyotes are coming.
And she would look outside the window.
Coyotes are outside.
And my son would eat the food.
Oh my gosh, coyotes are coming.
So I'm sitting there like, what the hell is coyote?
At this point, the only thing I can link coyote to is, it sounds like coyote.
But there's no way in the world she's saying the coyotes are going to come and eat my 60s.
I said, Jen, what is coyote?
Is coyote what I think it is?
She says, yeah, it's coyotes.
Okay.
I said, so this woman has been telling these kids coyotes are coming a few thousand times.
One day these kids are going to be 38 years old and they're going to be afraid to go back outside in the backyard because they're afraid there's coyotes there.
Because when they were kids, somebody told them coyotes are coming, right?
So now this, somebody may say, come on, Patrick, what a ludicrous argument you're making here.
But I think there's a way to control the populace through fear.
And the way to do that is to convince them that there is such thing as the devil, that he can control you and he can harm you and he can do all these things to you.
And then you see people getting scared.
And it's so much easier through imagination to control them back then.
Maybe not as much today.
Maybe it's still effective.
I don't know.
Now, again, this is the argument I would make years ago.
And there was always a different rebuttal to it.
But I'm curious to know what you say to this when you hear maybe we have to convince the populace there is the devil and then let their imagination convince them that they are possessed.
And sometimes our imagination can take us to some wild places and do some wild things and some crazy things and things that don't exist.
What do you say to that?
I would say that, you know, the church's stance on the devil isn't meant to scare people.
I mean, the church proposes, but it doesn't impose.
I think to me, it's not about having people live in fear.
The focus should be on people living in love, which is basic premise, you know, of the New Testament.
God is love.
And how do people experience that notion of God?
See, I would say that you talk about declining, you know, church attendance, the number of people who believe in God is in decline.
For me, it's because people don't have a proper understanding of who God is.
You know, if you were to ask people, who is God?
What is God?
What response would you get?
Creator, they would go to, go ahead.
But I think for the most part, people would come up with a concept of God that's based on fear, the hellfire and brimstone.
So I do think a lot of people today, and this is only my opinion, where people have a distorted image of God.
And to me, the ministry of exorcism really is trying to help people have a better understanding of who or what God is.
So really, the focus is not on the devil, and people might be surprised with that response, but it's really about helping people understand who God is and what God wants to do in their life.
And God speaks for himself.
I mean, you look into scripture, and he says, your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
Resist him, standing firm in your faith.
And if you read the New Testament, just an average reading of the New Testament, you don't have to go to seminary, anything like this, you will find that Jesus himself and the 12 and the church as we know it, which was the diaspora that occurred after the stoning of Stevens in the dynamite chapters 8, 9, and Acts 8, 9, and 10 of how the Christian church spread to Galatia, Corinth, Ephesus, and all these places,
and later the rest of the world.
They were constantly encountering the spirit of darkness.
They were constantly encountering Satan.
They were very aware of his tricks, very aware of his schemes, and it was very, very prevalent.
So when you read that, just objectively, again, you don't have to go to seminary, you see the loving God that gave his life for us, Jesus Christ, and then sent the Holy Spirit to be our helper.
And then you also see the spirits of darkness.
And it's very, very clear.
So I don't think there's a manipulation that's really necessary if a reasonably minded person just reads scripture and God speaks for himself.
Is there a question?
Was that a comment?
No, it was a comment supporting kind of, you know, how would you manipulate the population 2,000 years ago or now?
And I say God speaks for himself in scripture pretty clear.
And I'm a Christian, so I get that.
My thing is sometimes there are people like a Bob Larson or others that will use that fear as a way to control a congregation.
And we've seen that.
I've seen that happen many, many times.
And I think the question for me is, who are they promoting?
Are they promoting God or are they promoting themselves?
Who do you think they're promoting?
I think oftentimes they're promoting themselves.
The great line in the New Testament, for anybody that's a Christian and takes their faith seriously and wants to be a minister, the focus is, in reference, it says, I must decrease and he must increase.
So the focus is always on God and what God wants to do.
And I think when the focus comes on the individual too much is when the person has crossed that fine line.
In that regard, Bob Larson, I've seen some videos of him that he's not a household name to me, but these guys like Benny Hinn or Kenneth Copeland or what's his name?
Ted Haggard.
Something like, when I see these people, Something in me in my stomach just is like, this is not legit.
I don't know what it is.
Call me a skeptic.
I see these people coming on stage.
And it's just like, yeah, just BS.
I'm not going to curse in front of a priest, but I could go deeper than B.S.
So these types of people, these televangelists, do you think this gives the church a bad name?
I think it does.
I mean, I've had people reach out to me before and they say, I'm possessed.
How much will you charge?
You know, the church doesn't charge anyone for the ministry of exorcism.
It's believed to be a ministry of charity.
It's at the core of what the church is really all about, why the church exists.
I had a gentleman one time who reached out to me from the state of Virginia and he was convinced that he was possessed.
And I talked with him and I was able to connect him with a mental health expert in his area.
But he was still convinced, even though he was told, this is not demonic.
You are suffering from a mental health issue.
So he called me back and said, I found a professional exorcist who told him that he was possessed by five demons and he was going to charge him $1,500 each to cast them out.
Now, that's really sad because here's a guy that obviously is broken on many different levels.
And now someone's going to take advantage of him just for their own financial gain.
And then that's the part where he gains credibility because there is no money for this.
Correct.
So do you understand what I'm saying when I say motive?
There's not a money for this.
So, okay, 99% of them who call you, they don't need you, right?
Mental, go see a therapist, go do see a doctor, et cetera, et cetera.
Okay.
The 1% that does is the four signs you look for, but you haven't seen it yet, right?
Because the four signs of unbelievable strength, speaking a different language, and all this, you haven't experienced that.
What is the 1% that tells you, Karen, we got to meet with this person because this sounds like something's really going on?
What are some of the things you notice with the 1%?
Because the 1%, the initial things that I would tell them when they first reach out to me is do the normal aspects of a faith life.
You don't have to do anything extraordinary.
But, you know, are you going to church?
Are you worshiping God, whatever faith tradition you have?
You know, the church isn't trying to proselytize anyone through the ministry of exorcism.
If somebody is rooted in some faith tradition, the first thing I would tell them, have you gone and spoken to your pastor?
Have you spoken to your rabbi?
Have you spoken to your imam?
So if you have a faith background, have you gone and explored that with whatever faith leader that you have?
Because again, I think a lot of people today, and this has been my experience, they're looking for a quick fix.
They simply believe they're dealing with the demonic.
They believe I have a bag of tricks.
I can make their problems go away, but they don't have any skin in the game.
But ultimately, people need to realize that the best defense is to live out one's faith.
It doesn't mean one has to become some holy roller or whatever.
It's somebody who believes that God has a place in their life, that God has a role to play.
Okay.
So the time where the person levitated, and you saw that, okay.
How many sessions did it take for this person to go back to being normal?
Oh, nothing ever happened.
What was the results with that individual?
Father Carmen would meet with people.
Sometimes people that were dealing with the demonic, it was one session and they were free.
Other times it may have taken multiple sessions.
And sometimes people will then ask the question, why is it more than once?
Jesus commanded the demons to leave.
They did so immediately.
And at least in my experience, it has to do with the strength of the demonic possession that's taking place.
And if somebody has really been forthright in telling me everything about their situation, sometimes people are embarrassed.
It would be like going to your doctor and not telling your doctor everything.
Without that information, the doctor can't give you the right help that you need.
So I always say, I'm not there to judge somebody on why they may have opened up an entry point to the demonic in their life, but I need to understand it so I can know how to help them close that doorway.
But again, it's not just a matter of casting the demon out.
God has to be invited in.
Luke's Gospel in chapter 11, it talks about how once the demon has been cast out, it goes and wanders through the arid wasteland, and then coming back and finding the house swept clean, it goes and brings seven other demons worse than itself, and they take up residence in the person.
Being swept clean, meaning it was cast out, but God wasn't invited in.
And I do see a lot of people today who believe they're dealing with the demonic, who want the demonic to go away, but they want nothing to do with God.
But what they fail to realize that in an exorcism, Jesus is not a bystander.
He's the main actor.
So if they're not inviting Christ into their life at that moment, if they're a Christian, then obviously things aren't going to play out very well.
Do you think there's more demonic activity today or we just are more aware of it?
I would say, and this has been my experience over the last 17 years, it's not that the devil has upped his game, but that more people today seem to be willing to play the devil's game.
What's the devil's game?
To get people to reject God.
An inch from Christ is victory.
That's his game.
So just non-believers.
Correct.
Specifically in Christ.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of people.
You know, you look at a lot of satanic groups.
Some of them, they're various levels.
I think some that are on the superficial level don't really worship Satan, but their goal would be to remove God from the conversation.
You see that played out where maybe some government groups get together and they have some type of opening prayer, and then satanic groups will want the right to come in and be able to offer some prayer as well.
And I would say it isn't that they want to offer a prayer.
They simply want prayer to be eliminated as a part of that gathering.
Is Jesus the only cure for someone who's possessed?
I would say ultimately it would be with God.
So again, you look at other faith traditions and yeah, again, I would go back to what I said earlier.
The Catholic Church doesn't have a monopoly because ultimately it is what God is doing.
But I've seen like a million videos of someone who's possessed by the devil, demons, what have you, and it's always a cross that they put on their forehead.
I never see, you know, Star of David or a crescent moon or, you know, a Buddhist figure, a Hindu figure.
So it seems to be, I know you said they don't have a monopoly, but, you know.
It's probably more prevalent, at least from a Christian perspective.
You know, why is a crucifix used?
You know, so Jesus at the beginning of his public ministry, you know, he's baptized and then he's driven out into the desert by the Spirit where he's tempted by the devil.
The devil's not successful.
Then we're told the devil leaves him for a time.
When does the devil return?
It's in the Garden of Gethsemane when the devil enters into Judas, who then betrays Christ, which leads to the crucifixion.
As Jesus is being crucified, the devil believes that he has won.
But the moment of his perceived victory actually becomes the moment of his defeat, which is why a crucifix is used.
So it's not, you know, the crucifix that has the power.
It's what it's pointing towards, our redemption in Christ.
It's the same way with like holy water.
People tell me all the time, well, you know, I went and got the exorcism kit.
You know, I got the water, I got the oil.
The water points to our baptism into Christ, by which we have become a new creation.
If somebody's just using water for the sake of water, that's not going to do them any good.
It always has to point to something greater.
Got it.
When I was young, I used to believe in vampires.
And then, you know, all those movies, kind of that kind of stuff.
And how do you defeat a vampire?
Holy water, sunlight, garlic, or you behead the vampire or a crucifix.
Or a wooden stick.
Okay, that too.
So, and then I realized, yeah.
Wait, wait, it's got the oak.
Probably not.
Vampires probably don't exist.
I don't want to, you know, let the cat out the bag, but they're probably not really here.
It's sort of, you know, folklore, what have you.
But it seems that's, there's a, is there a metaphor there with a lot of people like also the Salem witch trials, right?
People thought that these women were possessed by black magic and they were burned at the stake.
So there's, it's, there's sort of hysteria.
Hysteria can take over.
There's no doubt.
Well, Pat asked you a question 2,000 years ago.
Was it easier to convince people versus today?
I wholeheartedly believe that it was much easier back in the day, right?
Today, you can have a million different opinions.
You've kind of figured out maybe you can kind of live in an echo chamber or a siphon, depending on who you're listening to.
But back in the day, there was one book called the Bible that everyone kind of had to listen to, depending on where you were in the world or the Quran or the Old Testament, what have you, and people kind of fell into place.
So I don't know.
I just, again, skeptical.
And I'm looking for answers here.
And then it just seems this is very common in the Catholic faith.
I'm Jewish.
I've never seen anyone who's Jewish possessed by the devil.
So you talk about this all the time that words have power, words have power.
If you keep telling yourself you're a loser, you're nothing.
You'll never amount to nothing.
Guess what happens?
You're probably never going to amount to nothing.
So if you keep seeing things like the devil possessed you, the devil, blah, blah, you kind of fall into that trap.
That's kind of where I'm at with this.
Tell me I'm crazy.
Tell me I'm wrong.
Tell me I'm an idiot.
I had a friend.
His name is Saul.
Okay.
And he lived in Silmar.
And Saul was a great fighter.
Him and his brother were fighters, boxers.
They were insane.
They would knock people out in the heart.
And they knew how to fight.
Like, I'm talking MMA fighting.
But I would go to his place and he would say, you won't even believe.
I said, do you believe in the devil?
I said, what does the devil look like?
And he told me, so tell me exactly what I said.
I've met him before.
I said, you met the devil before.
He says, I have.
So I said, so tell me what was it like?
He says, one day, the devil was pulling me from my leg out of the house.
And my brother was pulling me back in the house.
And the devil was trying to pull me in.
We were going back and forth.
I was able to pull him in and the devil got away.
So I heard his story and I'm like, do you really believe this?
He says, yes.
I'm like, how do you believe this?
How do you not believe this?
So we're going back, having this friendly debate.
But to me, you know, if I were to say some denominations are way more creative on how they sell the devil to their congregation and the credibility of it.
And it really, really gets some folks to go in.
Because, okay, so imagine if you're, we're about to play some tapes here of Annalise Michel.
Okay.
If you're in your house by yourself and you're watching this podcast at 11 o'clock, you live in a one-bedroom apartment and you hear some noise from outside or a light and you're watching this.
Where do you think your imagination is going to go?
If you're a regular human being, you're going to say, you know, like, yeah, okay, it's not a big deal.
Let me tell you, if you're a regular human being, but one time, have I told your story what happened when the next-door neighbors at a hotel were making a lot of noise?
Of course, and you put the but I haven't talked about it on the podcast.
I don't know.
You have.
We can tell the story.
I'm not going to say it.
But the point is very, but very important.
The point is, people's imagination really goes to a different place.
Well, especially when it's dark outside.
Especially when you're outside.
You can play those videos.
Okay, so when it's light outside, yeah, I'm good.
Dark midnight, you're going to probably get a little scared.
You know how you said there's some is it caught on tape?
There's five videos I watched last night of exorcisms that was caught on tape.
One of them was at a Catholic church where they were recording it through the doorknob.
I don't know if you've seen this one or not.
Okay, then there was a couple other ones I saw, but the last one was a case of a guy that the camera's on his face.
His eyes roll back.
And this is an older clip.
And a guy's skin splits.
Okay.
Now, I'm not kidding with you.
This is caught on tape.
And I'll send it to you right now if I find it to go to.
I'll find it.
I'll send it to you while we're looking at this one here.
You know, what can you tell us about this case that we're not aware of?
What do we know outside of what the public knows that this inspired to be the movie, The Exorcism of Emily Rose?
What can you tell the audience about this case of Annalise Michel?
Well, are people familiar with the case?
Assume they're not.
Assume none of us are.
So the premise is, so this is a lady in Germany who was determined to be possessed.
She was working with a priest, and then she never did receive complete deliverance from the demonic oppression.
And then she eventually died.
At 23 years old, she died.
And first, she started experiencing this at 16 years old.
And she would go to six different voices she would make, right?
It's Nero, Cain, Judas, Hitler, Fleischmann.
I'm missing one.
Lucifer.
And each voice sounds different.
And then eventually, I mean, you look at it right now.
I want you to watch this.
I'm going to get your reaction on this.
This is right here, Anneliese Michel, who, if you listen to her voice, sounds like a regular voice speaking in German.
If you want to play so the audience can hear it, very normal.
Okay, very normal.
yeah go right there so this is this is hitler This is Hitler.
I hope you're not watching this late at night.
If you are, here's Kane, very disturbing.
Okay, go to the next one.
This is Nero.
Go to that one.
This is Fleischman This is who?
This is Chess.
Last one is who?
Go to it.
It's a loose one. Okay, you can pause it at this point.
I said it's going to be disturbing.
I got to leave.
But you know what, though?
Here's the part.
So, first of all, I feel bad for this girl.
She passed away 23 years old.
Okay, you're talking about somebody, the mother, that's the mother standing right next to her.
I mean, they made a movie about this.
This turned into a story that people watched.
And, you know, even if you try, like yesterday, Vinny, who's outside, who doesn't like, Vinny got a shout out on this.
But Vinny, I said, try making this sound naturally.
Like, if you really try to yourself make this sound naturally, go try to do it.
How does somebody do it naturally, right?
Okay.
You may say, I know certain people that could do it.
But this is a little strange, Adam.
You can make a crazy voice.
Like, there's people who they can do, ah, but the part's not that hard to do.
The part he says, the part he says, where it's those four signs, unbelievable out of nowhere power that comes in.
Okay, like, you know, somebody on PCP.
I don't know if you've seen somebody on PCP.
Yeah, they can lift the car up.
They can lift the kids.
So that's that part.
The other part is language spoken that you don't speak.
And then third one is saying information and things that you shouldn't know.
Those two, maybe not the first one, but those two, it's a little.
So when you see that, have you ever personally witnessed somebody like that?
Oh, yeah, I've seen all those things.
All the time?
You're being serious.
You've seen that.
Day in the life.
Well, and because of the number of people that contact me, that it would be, yeah, an ordinary part.
I mean, I've known other exorcists who say they've never dealt with a case of possession in the years that they've been an exorcist.
But some of us are publicly known and some choose to remain anonymous.
And those who are publicly known, we do receive a higher volume of people who reach out to us.
What's the key to success of the ones that are successful and someone has deliverance and can go live a life where they've replaced it with this belief in Christ and now they're able to live free?
What's the key to this success when you've gone through your filters that you've described?
What's that key?
Is there a key?
Is there something common to the people that now live free?
I think there is.
First of all, I would say that oftentimes people that suffer are suffering alone.
They're in isolation.
So bringing them back into a sense of community, helping people reconnect with family and friends.
Another, probably the biggest one is helping people connect with God in their life.
Because again, it's not just a matter of casting the evil out.
I've said that before.
I can't say it enough.
It's about helping people develop an authentic relationship with God.
You know, it makes me think of the story of the Gerrasian demoniac in chapter five of Mark's gospel that, you know, the man who's possessed by Legion, he's living in the tombs.
You know, shackles won't even hold him.
There's the superhuman strength.
He's possessed by Legion.
Jesus casts the demons out.
They go into the swine.
The demons show their true character.
They destroy the swine.
They race over the hillside.
They drown in the lake.
Most people, when they're reading that biblical account, will stop reading at that point.
But I would suggest the most important thing happens next.
The man who's now free wants to follow Jesus, and Jesus says no.
Now, how often in the Bible does Jesus tell somebody not to follow him?
What does Jesus say to him?
No, go home to your family.
So Jesus takes someone who was living amongst the dead in the tombs and places him back amongst the living with his family.
So again, creating healthy relationships is one of the ways that evil can be defeated.
Oh, and in that story, you know, Christ also invented devil Tam.
So Annalise Michelle had 67 exorcisms, 67.
And she, my understanding was she was a devout Catholic before she became possessed, if you will.
Went to church every Sunday, prayed all the time.
I believe her knees broke or suffered serious injury because she was praying so often.
She had epilepsy.
She had a seizure when she was 16 and went into psychosis.
So my question to you would be: now, there's a very key point in there where I think, I believe, I've heard you say that people will start to speak Latin, like classic Latin, that nobody today speaks.
She doesn't, at least not on camera.
Perhaps it was, she did it, just wasn't recorded.
How much of this could actually just be attributed to her psychosis or schizophrenia or epilepsy or what have you?
Like my problem is, I do believe, but I'm a skeptic, but like people equate this to aliens.
And you could almost make the case that aliens have more traction than demonic possession, especially today.
So like what obviously it's just a belief, but like, why is this real?
Why is this just not epilepsy or schizophrenia?
A couple comments I was going to make.
You know, the church has clear teaching on the reality that evil is personified, but a lot of the things that we witness, there isn't any clear teaching on that.
So like, is she possessed by Nero?
Is she possessed by Judas?
That would raise the question, can the souls of the damned possess people?
And so was that really Judas?
Was that really Nero or where Hitler or whatever?
Or were they demons who were mimicking those personalities as a way to feed into the audience, if you will?
Because again, the goal of any demon would be to sow confusion, to really just make things really hard to understand and comprehend.
And watching this, that's exactly what would happen.
I want to go back to the what's the motivation here.
I'm 0% questioning your motivation.
However, I am questioning the motivation of the Catholic Church.
Not sure if you've heard the news, Catholic Church hasn't exactly have a great reputation these days.
The movie Spotlight, all that stuff.
I'm not talking about the kids and all.
We won't go there.
But I mean, if we do, whatever.
But not exactly the best reputation these days.
But you're talking about motivation and incentives.
Maybe, you know, if the church kind of promotes demons, if there's no demons, maybe there's no devil.
And if there's no devil, maybe there's no God.
So maybe going down that path, it behooves the church to sort of incentivize that there are in fact demons and to go down the path of, well, the demons, the God, the devil and all that.
So I guess my question is from, you asked about motivation.
What incentivizes, I'm not saying that it's you, but there seems to be an incentive for the church to promote these demons or these exorcisms because, you know, how else would you go towards the path of God, you know, good and bad type of thing if there's no devil?
I would say, you know, it isn't that the church is promoting exorcism.
The church is promoting God.
I mean, I don't go out and randomly say to people on the street, hey, I think you're possessed.
You need an exorcism.
So it isn't that I'm going out and telling people they need an exorcism.
It's people that are coming to the church.
And then out of a ministry of charity, the church will look into what they believe to be the case and then to weigh in on that.
Now, ultimately, because the majority of people, as I mentioned, have already self-diagnosed, if I tell somebody that I don't believe that they're possessed, guess what?
They're going to find somebody out there who's going to agree with them.
People will continue to shop around until they get what they want.
You said that you just wanted to become a priest, right?
That was your motivation.
But that's at the core of Christianity is, you know, what did Jesus do in his life?
You read biblical accounts.
And I would suggest that Jesus came to destroy the devil.
That's like the work of the church today.
My question is, Pat said, why would you want to become an exorcist?
You're like, well, I didn't really want to become an exorcist.
I wanted to become a priest.
And then you got a phone call one day, I assume, by the church, and they're like, you're up, buddy.
We're going to need an exorcist in Indiana, and you're the guy.
And I assume you're not going to say no to that.
No, because as a priest, when you ordain, you promise obedience to your bishop.
Exactly.
That's my point.
So they're going to say, hey, time for you to become the exorcist.
You say, all right, I promise obedience, so that's my new job.
So you're not going to say no.
So like, that's your job now.
So now it's your job as an exorcist to go do exorcism.
So back to my initial point, it's sort of like the church is pushing this upon having that role, it's really up to me to determine how to live that out.
It's not that the bishop's calling me every day and saying, hey, I expected you to do 10 exorcisms today.
It really is, even when I got the appointment, it's really up to me to determine how to live out that role.
I mean, I could choose to remain anonymous.
The bishop who appointed me, he even encouraged me to help educate people what the church believes and teaches to use it as an educative role, if you will.
But again, there are some exorcists.
You can just kind of stay off in the shadows and nobody will even know who you are or what you do.
But the church is aware you're out there doing podcasts and putting this out there.
Sure.
But again, but it's a way to help educate people.
And, you know, people can agree with me.
They can disagree with me.
They can agree with the church or disagree.
But my goal is simply to present, take advantage of opportunities, present what the church believes.
What people do with that is up to them.
I'm not offended or I don't get upset or angry.
It's just a matter of saying, this is what the church believes.
I throw it out there.
What people do with it ultimately is up to them.
So Tom, I want your involvement in this one when I say this.
Help me out if I'm missing something here because I know you have a lot of expertise in this as well.
So here's how I view some of this.
And Father, I'd want to get your commentary on this too.
You know, when you meet a kid like Donald Trump Jr., he's an incredible troll, very good at what he does.
He learned from his father.
His father is one of the best trolls we've had the last hundred years.
He knows how to get under people's skins and he's natural at it, right?
So there's a part of that teaching that gets passed down to, you know, him.
Joseph Kennedy, the way he was, you know, a lot of his habits also got passed down to John F. Kennedy, okay?
Very similar.
Both were very good with women and words and all this stuff.
So genetics, a part gets passed down.
Okay.
You know, Steve Kerr played under Michael Jordan, was played under Phil Jackson, coached under Greg Popovich, and he played for San Antonio.
So not only coached, and also a lot of his teaching goes through, you know, Golden State Warriors, and you see, okay, actors who were coached under same, you know, acting coach and Aaron Spicer or whatever style you want to put in there, or you got directors who worked under somebody else, or you got generals who have a certain way of attacking.
Lineage, pedigree, okay.
So to me is each religion, go to each religion.
Like Bill Maher's biggest criticism of Muslim is what?
You can't tell me that Christians have this many extremists like Muslims do.
We can't just set this aside.
We have to talk about this.
So he has been afflicted and it becomes this massive uproar of debates.
Sam Harris, they're all debating.
So you can't say, I don't get a lot of extremists that come out of Catholicism when it comes down to, you know, going and maybe bombing a building.
You don't hear that coming out from the criticism is different from Catholicism than it is from that.
Look, okay, Muslim is that.
Christianity has its own set of criticism.
Jews, you'll hear a lot of times, oh, look, Jews are very good with their money.
I wonder why.
What are they teaching?
Maybe they spend a little bit more time teaching finances, money, discipline, you know, certain things that they do.
Okay, so Mormons, they have a lot of kids.
Why do they have a lot of kids?
Mormons, if you're a Mormon, the one thing that you get with them, forget about the Gordon B. Hinckley, forget about the criticism of God makers or whatever you want to.
I'm not talking about the criticism, but you'll be able to say, hey, if there's one thing about the Mormon church, they all do business together.
They all back each other up.
They're all together.
So, okay, let's go to the more and more you go here, you know, rituals.
I don't think any religion has more rituals.
Well, maybe some do, but Catholicism, there's a lot of rituals.
It's filled with rituals, and rituals builds a culture.
Ritual unites.
Ritual is a, we trust rituals.
We feel safe when you go into a church and, you know, there's a certain element to it where you feel safe about it.
But to have 90% of exorcisms being done by Catholic church, you know, a part of it gets me to think about the following.
Here's what it gets me to think about.
Kids will generally want to impress their parents.
And they will either impress their parents or they'll go against their parents because of resentment.
Father left, mother left, mom did something.
So I'm either going to be like my dad or I'm going to be anything but like my dad.
But typically that part is natural, right?
So for me, if a congregation, you're constantly talking about the devil, the devil, the devil, the devil.
Let's just say if you do, I'm not saying you do or not.
But if you do, then some people want to act it out and some people want to believe it and then some people want to internalize it.
And some people start, their imagination takes over.
It's like, let me tell you what I'm going through and I'm possessed and I'm going through this.
Maybe because they've witnessed it, they're seeing it.
They're constantly being talked about.
So the imagination takes over in a form of wanting to get attention.
Now, I don't look at Annalise Michelle and say, why would anybody want to get this kind of attention, hurt themselves the way they do?
But what do you say to someone who's listening and saying, why are a lot of these things happening specifically in the Catholic Church and not necessarily some other churches?
Well, I would go back to what I said earlier that half the people that I talk to are not Catholic.
So it isn't that it's just happening in the Catholic Church.
I think it's happening in a broad base of society.
But the Catholic Church seems to be where the majority of people go when they believe they're up against the demonic.
But I wouldn't say that everybody who's dealing with the demonic is Catholic.
Because even as a priest, I've been a priest now for 31 years.
I mean, I don't preach on the devil all the time.
My focus would be preaching on God and trying to focus on the importance of goodness and love.
Those are the things.
Tom, you've been part of the church for a long time as well, right?
How many times did you see people coming in to a non-denominational church about a parent needing an exorcism or they're going through, you know, they're possessed or they're going through it.
How many of those stories have you heard?
I've heard quite a few, but at the front of the pulpit, unfortunately, to answer your question directly, in most American Christian churches, I think they've done a very poor job of not focusing on it, but even touching on it, because many of them don't want to be seen as sensationalist or weird.
Whereas the Catholic Church has done, I think, a very good job of basically saying, hey, we're training our priests in this.
We have people that are called.
We're calling people out through their traditions and their standards, the bishop calling you out.
I don't mean calling you out like in the modern day we say it, but calling you into a particular ministry of service.
In the Christian church, what happens is people usually come to the church privately, and it's not really spoken from the pulpit.
And those are the two points that I would make.
Unfortunately, a Christian church does not speak from the pulpit about personal oppression and deliverance very much at all, whereas a Catholic church does.
But I know of, and we could talk to a pastor that we both know, people do come to the church office, my son, myself, and they come privately because the American Christians also don't want to be weird or stigmatized, but there's a good amount of it that comes to it privately.
I will say, too, that prior to 1972, every priest, when he was ordained, one of the minor orders he received was the order of exorcist.
So I went to the seminary in Chicago up in Mundelein, Illinois, and I still remember on the stairs of the sanctuary leading up to the altar, they would have the orders of priesthood leading up to priesthood, and one of them was exorcist.
But after 1972, the church removed that minor order because they really wanted to give the ministry of exorcism to people who were well-trained, not just any priest who would then believe that anybody's coming to him.
So I would say that the church has actually kind of tried to clamp down by only having certain priests specialize in the area of exorcism, whereas prior to 1972, it was commonplace for every priest to receive the minor order of exorcist.
You're saying that then it became sensationalized, and so the church wanted to make sure that there was effectiveness and purity to it.
Correct.
I saw an argument.
I saw an argument made about this to say the following.
So when did MRIs become a thing?
When was the first MRI ever conducted?
Tyler, can you pull that up?
When was the first MRI conducted?
Okay.
1977.
It's the first time we did an MRI.
So that's not a long time ago.
It's July 3rd, 1977.
So up until 1977, we don't fully know what the brain is doing, right?
Up until 1977.
So a lot of it, if somebody's doing exorcisms, it's just maybe a guessing game because we don't know.
1977, we come out with the magnetic resonance imaging.
So I just did an MRI last week.
I just went through an MRI two weeks ago for my hand.
Broken, two ligaments, fractured.
My six-year-old daughter broke my thumb.
Something she's going to brag about for the rest of her life.
I've broken a couple bones in my life.
One of them was broken by a six-year-old.
She's so proud of it.
She laughs every time I say it.
So you go get an MRI done in the brain.
And then you see the two sides of it, right?
You got the structural MRI.
You got the definitional MRI.
One of them is more the structure.
The other one's the activity.
When they did the MRI, when they looked at some folks that had, you know, they thought they were being possessed, on one end, you have the two sides of the brain, okay?
The hippocampus and the amygdala, right?
One of the sides, it was a reduction of 19.2%, and the other one was a 31.6% reduction in the region of the brain that gets extremely creative and emotional, right?
And then the argument that this doctor was making, the fact that now that we have the MRI, we are realizing that the brain can really do a number on you when it goes on its own.
Specifically, the side that's the amygdala side, that's more the creative, the activity.
You can kind of see what's going on with it.
So this is what I mean by education, technology, advancement.
A lot of this is taking the credibility out to say, all these years we thought there was really people being possessed, but we're at a point right now that when somebody's going through that, rather than going and seeing an exorcist, maybe they got to go get an MRI done of their brain to see what the activity they're noticing.
Then the doctor can say, yeah, this person's going through this.
Here's what their challenge they're having.
What are your thoughts when you hear a doctor making an argument to say the MRI now validates that, you know, there's no such thing as being possessed and needing an exorcist?
What would you say to that?
I go back again from a faith perspective.
In the New Testament, when Jesus sent his disciples out, he gave them authority over unclean spirits, but he also gave them power to cure those who were sick.
So Jesus himself made a distinction between ailments that were due to demonic causes and ones that were just purely physical in nature.
And I think that continues today.
So, yeah, there are some that are certainly due to physical maladies, but I still believe that there are some that are due to demonic causes.
But again, that would be going and doing that investigation, trying to determine how that came about.
So when you said before they come to see you, they got to go see the doctor, they got to have this, they got to have that, is a part of it and MRI, is a part of it to go see the brain activity that's taking place or no?
Whatever the expert would recommend.
Yeah, like, and by the way, when you guys go through the exorcism, do you ever communicate directly with a doctor of the patient or the individual?
Or have you ever had a direct communication with a doctor or no?
I will seek that always, but not all these other professionals would be willing to accept that maybe there are spiritual causes, so they may not be willing to speak with me.
Or they may not be willing to speak with you.
Got it.
Yeah, I would be curious to hear a debate between a person who does exorcists like yourself and a person who has experienced doing this with samples and examples they have to bring MRIs and say, here's a person that we thought was possessed, but this is the challenge that they were having.
And here's how we were able to help this person out through XYZ.
Look, I'm in a place where it's very, very close relatives that I've witnessed going through stuff like this.
And it was as strange as it could be where you sit there and you watch this and you say, okay, now I've seen the trend of how to get attention for this.
And, you know, you know how sometimes like when somebody is not getting love from somebody, what's their way of getting love from the other person?
You know, some dark places that people will go to to get love from somebody and get attention.
You know, I want to kill myself, okay?
Yep.
I don't know if you've ever gotten a call from somebody saying, I'm committing suicide.
I'm going to kill myself.
You ever gone through that?
I've dealt with some of that.
Okay, so I know you've dealt.
I'm not asking specifics, but we've all, everybody in their families has some strange stories, right, with different people.
And, you know, it's almost if the parents or the individuals in that person's life gives it too much attention, they want to do it more because it hurts you.
It's like, oh my gosh, please don't commit suicide.
Like they almost, it's a, look, we're here for you.
We love you.
There's more, you know, there's more things that we need to do.
But I've seen the other side where sometimes people also use some of these things to get attention because it's a form of love.
Maybe they didn't have love growing up.
There's a lot of strange ways people are raised.
A lot of messed up families in the world.
We're very, very good at hiding our dirt and our families from people.
But we got some real messed up lives that people have been raised in.
And sometimes we say, even with that, I'm going to go do something big with my life and I'm going to win.
And sometimes we use that as a way of, this is why I'm not winning.
But I'm not convinced either side is 100% right.
I will say, as you were talking, I was thinking about a man who was referred to me.
He had already been diagnosed as being schizophrenic.
So he already had a psychiatrist he was working with.
He had a caseworker.
But then the priest in his parish asked if I would meet with him.
And I did.
And, you know, I went through my intake questionnaire and all these things and determined it was not demonic.
This truly was something of a mental health issue.
Now, I didn't want to just tell him that and send him on his way.
His psychiatrist and caseworker were willing to meet with me.
So me, the gentleman, and then these other two folks we met.
And so I said to him, you know, we'll call him Joe.
Joe, you're not possessed.
And the psychiatrist says to him, Joe, father says you're not possessed.
What is your response?
And I was really intrigued by his response because what he said was this.
He said, I'm disappointed.
He said to the psychiatrist, you can tell me that I'm schizophrenic, but you can't tell me why.
He goes, if it's the devil, I have my why.
So I think there's a lot of people when they're trying to sort out what they're dealing with, they may turn to the demonic.
But again, I go back to my role as an exorcist.
I need to have moral certitude, believing beyond a doubt that this truly is something demonic in nature.
And as a priest, I would never use the right of exorcism as a diagnostic tool.
Or if I thought somebody really wasn't possessed, I wouldn't just pray with them just to kind of feed into whatever they believe.
Because ultimately, I believe that would cause greater harm.
So I have to tell people what I believe to be the situation.
And then what they do that, what they do with it is up to them.
And again, it goes back to the fact that in today's world, you can find anybody to agree with what you believe.
And if I tell somebody that's schizophrenic, they've been diagnosed that they're not possessed, they're going to go out and find somebody else who's going to validate that they are possessed and take advantage of them.
Let me ask you a strange question.
Have we ever had anybody that's been famous, slightly famous, that was ever possessed that needed an exorcist?
Exorcism was done on them.
I can't think of anyone that's publicly known.
Why?
Let me explain what I mean by like a basketball player, baseball player, an actor, a politician, a military leader, anybody that was somebody of influence.
Why haven't they ever, why, if the devil is doing what he's doing, why isn't he going and possessing those guys from preventing them from, maybe there's a, you know, maybe there's somebody that can make a, why is he going after people that we don't know?
Regular folk.
Can I follow up on that real quick?
I actually want to hear that answer and then you can follow up.
Well, what you hear from these famous people is they've sold their soul to the devil.
Yeah.
That's how they got famous.
So to your point, yeah, I'd like to hear his response.
Yeah, because again, I think it would be that somebody would have to come public, first of all.
They would have to want to share their story.
There could be the stigma that people will think that they're not in their right mind, and then maybe they're going to lose their whatever position of power or prestige that they have.
So they may not be willing to step forward.
Goes back to the question again.
So why does the average Joe get possessed, but somebody that's more prominent doesn't?
And the key would be whether or not somebody is truly seeking help.
That's the key thing.
Whether or not somebody's famous, whether or not they're not famous.
Again, I don't go out and search for people that I believe to be.
But if the spirit gets a hold of you, do you have any control?
So even if you're famous and powerful, if the spirit gets a hold of you, you mean to tell me you're more powerful than the spirit?
Nope.
You know what I'm saying?
It depends on the degree that one's dealing with the demonic.
Because something of the person always remains free.
That's why even somebody that's possessed could ask for help.
It's not total.
There is something that's called perfect possession where somebody takes their free will and they unite their free will completely with the demonic.
So there never would be any manifestations.
And the fact that there are manifestations would indicate that there's still an internal battle.
There's still a struggle that's taking place.
But it could be that somebody is possessed, but because they've resigned their free will to the will of the devil, there is no manifestation.
There's no battle to take place.
Yeah, but if the devil is so strong, why does he have a hard time getting a hold of other people that are influencers?
And by the way, to say that maybe we don't know about it, when you're famous, we know all your business.
The people that get criticism is fame.
Some people want to go, I'd love to go out there and become successful like that guy or this guy or that guy.
And I'd love to be a basketball player and get all the fame.
I'd love to be a Hollywood star.
But the moment you go there, all your business is everyone's business.
Hey, this person's brother did this.
Patrick Mahomes' brother went through this.
Tom Brady's going through this in his issue.
That's why he took a break.
That person's going through this.
I mean, because even when you can't talk by yourself, somebody's going to leak something.
I told a friend of mine one time, I said, I said, when you and I talk about my personal life, do you tell your wife?
He said, it's my wife.
I'm married to her.
I said, you can't tell my business to your wife.
Why?
Because even if you tell your wife, what if you and your wife get a divorce one day?
What's her loyalty to my secrets of my life that I shared with you and the struggles that I have?
There is no loyalty.
So that has to stay between you and I.
He said, that totally makes sense.
And it finally made sense.
I'm like, okay, great.
So even if you're famous, sometimes your biggest fear is, who do I confide in?
But eventually you're going to confide in somebody and that person's going to leak it.
This is why they'll say, such and such has agreed to a three-year contract extension.
This person has just gone, so I don't know why people who are more, because if let's just say you have to think about the devil, right?
If you are the devil, you go take somebody that's got influence over what?
One person or nobody?
Why would you do that?
Then you're a small thinker.
So if we are saying the devil is as power, which by the way, I do believe, I do believe if you wrestle with them, you better have somebody backing you up.
I do believe that.
But my interpretation is a different interpretation.
My interpretation is an exorcism interpretation.
My interpretation is for him to convince you, you know, for people sometimes to believe that they don't need help.
They don't need faith.
They don't need a higher power to back them up.
I believe for what I want to do in my life, I need faith.
I need backing for somebody to back me up.
I want favor.
I want favor at the highest level because I do think there's going to be challenges.
I do think there's going to be people that are going to get in the way.
And I do believe sometimes maybe if there is a devil, he uses people to get in the way of you doing something big.
But it's not the devil of, you know, things like this.
Because if the devil is really doing this, he should target players and influencers to get them to drop.
Because if they drop, then he wins at a higher level.
Yeah.
And it could be that people are dealing with a demonic.
They're just not aware of it.
Because ultimately, the devil doesn't want to be in the spotlight.
He prefers to work in the shadows, if you will.
But you're a bully if you're going after helpless people.
Like, what outcome do you have of going after Annalise Michelle?
Like, what did you do with that?
Like, let's play the game and go in the devil's conference room with 12 other masters and advisors sitting there.
Okay, let's go after Annalise Michelle.
What's your outcome?
What a weak, you know how much weakness you're shown if you're going after a helpless 16-year-old kid?
What do you think you did?
You didn't do anything special.
Well, then, see, then that's a great point.
Then the devil is showing his true character.
So the devil believes he's doing something that's advancing his agenda, his kingdom.
But ultimately, all that ends up doing is advancing the kingdom of God.
Then maybe we shouldn't be afraid of the guy.
No one should ever be afraid of the devil.
Because the point then becomes, he's not as strong as you think he is.
It's through your imagination that if you let your imagination let loose, that's where he destroys you.
Because he makes you believe there's a thousand people around the corner that God has backed that will fight you.
He's by himself.
Okay?
If that's the argument, because I think sometimes the imagination gets people to.
And the demonic plays on a person's memory and imagination.
Right.
The devil's trying to get into your head.
And I think in the role of an exorcism, the goal is to get the devil out of your head and to get God into your head.
Because, you know, the devil, there's nothing to fear.
You know, a lot of people will watch the videos of Annalise Michelle, and, you know, they're going to be terrified by all of that.
But again, they shouldn't be.
Maybe this is a simple question.
So you said earlier you came on the podcast and you speak to people to educate and to show people and to help people learn.
So I guess the simple question for me is why not just film one?
I understand that you do it for the privacy of the person being exorcised, but why not blur out their face?
Or why not like, does that destroy the faith element of it?
I don't know if it would destroy the faith element.
I think skeptics would still be there.
You know, if there's a video or something, is someone going to say, well, you can tell it was altered here.
You're going to get a thousand people analyzing it from every angle.
But I don't even think that if there was one recorded, that people are going to say, well, beyond a doubt, I believe now.
Because people are going to say that, again, in today's world, anything can be manipulated.
And I certainly don't think it would be, you know, everybody would now be a believer, but I think it would do something to help your cause.
I certainly think it would put some weight behind your cause.
Because I think there was an exorcism done on, it wasn't a Catholic exorcism, but it was done in St. Louis several years ago.
There was an archbishop of some church who did one, and it was being televised on television.
So it was on television.
It was there.
But has that really changed the debate, even though one was supposedly videotaped then?
Even Father Gabriel Amorth, the former chief exorcist in Rome, there's some question on whether or not he permitted an exorcism that he performed before he passed away in 2016 to be recorded.
And there's a recording out there of it.
It seems like it was done on a cell phone.
The quality is not very good.
But there are some people that say that even he had permitted one to be recorded.
But there have been exorcisms that have been recorded.
Like there's been, there's a famous one that I sent you, Tyler, on ABC News where they recorded the exorcist.
It has millions of views.
This is like 10 years ago.
This lady called Becky.
You ever seen this video?
Okay.
Yeah, this is it right here.
I don't know if you want to fast forward and you see this lady.
Yeah, there she is.
And she's actually happens in an exorcism.
I'll go on her guy.
Stop it!
I would do things.
Her name.
She was possessed by demons.
She firmly believes.
Yeah, so she firmly believes.
Now, it turns out she was severely abused as a child, that she had major drug issues.
She's had a rough life.
She was a prostitute.
And she was a member of a cult.
How convenient.
So you add all that up.
And next thing you know, she's possessed by demons.
And so it's, this is, I guess, to the point that we're kind of making is like 99% of people that think they're possessed by demons.
Turns out it's not the case, that they have major, major, major issues going on with their body.
Something like this doesn't exactly help the cause to believe that there are demons.
It just sort of proves the point that, no, there's just some messed up people out there.
And I know what they're dealing with.
Do the presence of all those things negate that perhaps it was a spiritual issue?
Or that's what I'm saying.
It negates it for you.
Well, I mean, tough life, abused, drugs.
I agree.
Prostitute and a member of a cult.
I agree.
Yeah, that's not exactly the great resume that you're going to believe that person.
I would look in there and say, okay, maybe this was sensationalized, right?
Maybe she wasn't.
But on the other hand, you say, could it be that the drugs, the abuse, and the other things, and then the cult is what gave the ground or the foothold to demonic activity.
I don't know the answer to it.
And by the way, it sure sounds fishy.
It does.
So I'm with you on that, on perception.
But it's also those are avenues that could open up a place where this person could have legitimately had.
Have you seen things like this?
I've seen things like that.
But again, early life and some traumas and other things that led to ultimately a stronghold or a farmer.
Yeah, I'm thinking of a person that I was interviewing who believed that she was possessed.
And she had shared with me that growing up in Mexico at the age of seven, her father began to rape her.
So her father raped her from the time she was seven until she was 12.
And then when she turned 12, her father, she said, turned his attention to her younger sister.
Oh, boy.
So she said she was broken, blamed God for allowing this to happen.
In her tradition, she turned to correnderos and brujas, you know, witch doctors and witches who said they could help put the pieces of her life back together.
But that example of abuse led her down the pathway into the world of the occult.
So she's telling me this story, and she's with a friend of hers.
There's me and there's another priest.
And then she's looked at me and she's crying uncontrollably.
And she looks at me and says, will you help me?
And I say to her, Jesus is the one who can help you.
And when I said that, her eyeballs turned green.
Her pupils became slanted like a serpent.
And this voice comes out of her mouth and says, who's he?
He has no power over us.
So was she possessed by a demon, you believe?
So then again, I had her go through steps to see a psychiatrist and whatnot.
And then I did make the decision to pray with her.
And when I made the decision to pray with her, so we are in a chapel, we're praying, and as soon as I begin praying, there's the demon manifests again.
There's the green eyeballs, and the demon looks at me and says, you can't get rid of us.
We've been here for too long and you're just not strong enough.
Yeah, but you're talking about a person who was raped by her father.
Okay?
I mean, if you want to talk about a messed up person, how messed up can you get then that?
And not only that, then he's about to take on the younger sister after you're 12.
So I don't know.
I'm not a doctor or anything like that.
But if you want a prescription for someone who's going to have a messed up life, boom, there you go.
But how do you describe what I witnessed then?
The witnesses are different.
These are two different arguments.
I hear you.
But it's not like she was just a normal girl and had a nice life and just, you know, every happy, go-lucky girl.
And then all of a sudden the devil pops up.
We're talking about some of the most disgusting acts a human can do to another human is what happened to her.
And I hear these stories all the time.
That's why I don't just run into the room, you know, with my right of exorcism book and say, here I'm to save the day.
To me, there's no such thing as an emergency exorcism.
When those things are done is when problems really unfold.
Arriving at doing an exorcism should be at the end, not at the beginning.
So like what we just witnessed, did somebody just walk in and say, hey, I need this exorcism.
I have people that tell me all the time, I need to come and have an exorcism today.
But to me, I would begin by understanding where the person has been, knowing their history.
Were they traumatized?
Had they been working with the counselor?
I even tell people, it isn't just a one-angle approach.
Perhaps you do need to have some deepened spirituality, but that doesn't mean you need an exorcism.
Maybe you need to reconnect with the church.
Maybe you need to find God in your life.
But then you also need to be seeing the counselor.
Have you talked to your doctor?
It should be a multifaceted approach.
It's not just one approach.
And Pat, what's your skepticism level at this point?
Has it decreased?
Has it increased?
Is it exactly the same?
Where are you at right now?
I think Father Lampert is a good man who's doing good service and good for his church and society.
And I don't see anything where I see, you know, here's a give us this much money.
We'll do this for you.
That's the stuff that's the Bob Larson stuff.
And he does it live and he walks around with his cross and he says, oh, no, I feel the spirit.
Get out!
And he does, like, it's just, that stuff to me is a...
And Benny Hinn.
Benny Hinn and, you know, all these other things.
No.
But my problem is the people that believe these people.
Like, you go to the Benny Hinn's church and there's thousands upon thousands of people.
But it is a form of a safety net to believe and say, this is why my life is this.
This is why it's a very comfortable place to lean towards that.
But in regards to what you're saying with, you know, the story of the girl, 12-year-old possessed daughter, dad, and then the eyes turn green.
I mean, if you're saying you witnessed that, you winnest and he says, you said Jesus is, who is he?
And she says that who is he?
And when was this one when you witnessed this one?
This is a recent one?
Within the last couple years.
This is within the last couple years.
Yes.
Wow.
Yeah, I mean, who else was in the room outside of you with that one?
There was another priest and then a friend of the lady.
So there were four of us.
Has the friend of the lady ever spoken about it or no?
She has with the priest of the church.
Anytime I work with somebody, then ultimately I would put them under the care of their, if they're Catholic, their priest in their church.
Somebody is not Catholic, the first thing I would want to do is actually have a conversation with their religious leader.
You know, who's the pastor of your church?
And then we just have a conversation.
Because again, I'm not there to promote any agenda that I have.
Obviously, if somebody is reaching out to me, there's a brokenness there.
Now, is it spiritual?
Is it mental?
Is it physical?
I don't know at that point.
But I want all of us to try to work together just to figure out what is going on, just to show some level of compassion or charity towards this person who obviously is hurting.
I respect your objectivity with that gentleman who you said, after the appropriate evaluations, you said, sir, you're schizophrenic.
And he says, you know, he was disappointed in that because if you had said you're possessed, maybe he has now found a binary yes-no answer.
Instead, he's got to work with medical science and psychiatric science on this amorphous cloud that's schizophrenia that's so hard to work with.
So now that's harder to take.
And so it's easier to say, gosh, why can't I just be a simple answer?
And that might be the difference between today and 2,000 years ago is that 2,000 years ago and people might have accepted an answer, whether it was valid or not, who knows?
But today, people will keep searching until they find the answer that they want.
And they're going to find it from somebody who's going to tell them what they want to hear.
I wonder how many people have been told with a certainty by a pastor or a priest or somebody that they're possessed.
And because that person was seen as a person of a lot of influence and power in their lives, that they bought into that.
You know, like I would love to do a test.
Here's a test.
I would love to, and obviously we can't do this case study because nobody would sign up for this.
But if we were to take 10 kids, okay, and they go to two different schools, okay, and one school of thought, we would never do this test.
But I wonder what the results for this would be.
One school says devil exists and most of you guys are most likely possessed and says that to them over and over and over again in that school that they're going to.
Fast forward 10 years later, 20 years later to see what kind of life they live.
Then the other thing is to go to a different school and the leader at that place says, you're protected by God.
You guys are meant to do something big with your life.
God's going to use you to do something very special with your life.
You're protected.
Everything's going to be all right.
Work on yourself.
Work on improving yourself.
Contribute to society.
Lead, control your imagination.
Fast forward 20 years later.
I wonder what the consequences of those 10 kids on each side is going to be.
Okay.
One side, how many of them are actually going to believe they're a waste to society and maybe they're possessed and maybe they're, and then the other says, like, no, I'm supposed to do something big with my life because God's got my back.
I'm destined.
I'm supposed to, how that's going to turn out.
Now, somebody may, you know, trash that argument and say, what the hell are you talking about?
All I'm saying is, I believe there's a lot of power when people of influence, their words have more power from the pulpit when they say things and someone's standing in the audience and a parent said, that's the priest.
That's the pastor.
I think sometimes people use that power too much and they hurt people and they hurt them permanently for a long time.
And it messes their mouth.
And that upsets me a lot, a lot.
Because I've seen this myself.
So for me, if I know there's power in imagination, if I know there's power in positive words, it's more about trying to get that encouragement for people to believe, you know, you have control of your life.
You can do something with your life rather than like, look at where America's at right now.
What is America's biggest deal right now?
And this has got nothing to do with what you're doing, but a part of it does, is America is convinced that rich people are bad people.
They're fully convinced that rich people are bad people.
They're convinced.
When you say, we got to tax the billionaires, do you know how many billionaires we have in America?
770.
720 billionaires in America.
Do you know what their total net worth is?
$4.7 trillion.
If you tax them 100%, that wouldn't even be anything close to how much money they printed the last two years.
$6 trillion.
And you want to tax the billionaires?
But because they say it so many times from the pulpit, people believe the problem in America is billionaires.
So what if people from the pulpit said, the problem is, you and I got to do something with our lives.
If you can walk, talk, speak, you speak a language, you understand people, you feel, you have a healthy sense, you have the ability to learn and improve, you can change your life for the better.
But that's not the messaging today.
The messaging is victim, So for me, whatever the final product comes out of a denomination or a church or a religion is a byproduct of the leadership at the top.
And that's where my challenge is with the accountability.
I don't know if I answered any question or not.
I just, that's my biggest challenge.
And I think, you know, going back to even Adam touched on the Catholic Church, his sins have been in the news for the last decade, you know, whether it's pedophilia, whatever.
So for me to even go public on these things, I know that I'm throwing my name out there to constantly be criticized or to be judged.
I mean, I had someone come up to me before in a restaurant and they said, well, Father, I have to tell you that every time I see a priest, I see a pedophile.
So again, there is that notion that when you go public about something that an issue that people may not necessarily agree on, they'll try to attack you from a different angle.
But I'm not afraid of any of that.
I'd be the first one to tell you the church needs to be accountable for her own sinfulness.
See, that's a message that I think people can respect rather than running and hiding and sweeping things under the rug.
You're saying, hey, listen, let me get out there and state my case.
And I'm not trying to say that, well, now that the church talks about exorcism, this is how we're going to re-exert our influence and control that we've lost because of clergy sex abuse.
No.
I think ultimately, even in the midst of abuse and whatever, the church still has to be authentic to what she's really all about, and that's promoting the gospel, the message of love, promoting God.
And, you know, there would be some people that might even suggest when you look at the sinfulness of the church, is it the way that the devil is trying to destroy something from within?
So whether you look at church leadership and how things are handled and all of that, is that a way to undermine the authority of the church?
Have any of these priests that have been accused or even found guilty of pedophilia said that it was the devil that possessed them at that time?
No, but I remember even Pope Benedict even commenting when he was in office that there were many people that were ordained priests that never should have been ordained priest, that somehow they were somehow they were able to get in.
It's like a cancer that destroys from within.
But ultimately, we can't lament anything.
We have to say, this is our reality now, and then how do we face it?
And then facing our own flaws, how do we come out even stronger as a result of that?
The greater danger would be just simply to run away in the face of criticism.
I think we have to face our criticism.
We have to stand there, and we have to take it.
Whatever ugliness or mud that people want to sling, we have to take that.
What can the church do to reverse this negative outlook on the church that's been in the spotlight for the last few decades?
I think the church has to be even more public in the old Latin phrase, mea culpa, mea culpa.
It's admitting guilt, not coming up with excuses or whatever.
It's simply saying, I own this.
I own this ugliness.
Yeah, but is that good enough?
I think it's a first step.
Because we can never go back.
We can't undo anything that's been done, but we can own it.
And then ultimately, all we can do is move forward.
And then hopefully the experience of that ugliness causes the church to have a different outlook or view on the world and its mission.
Because that's even when it comes to anything to deal with the demonic.
How do we take what the devil is doing and to turn it around and make something good come from it?
Because we can't live in the past.
We can't change the past.
Ultimately, all we can do is learn from it and then move forward.
It's said that the authenticity of any apology will be manifest in tomorrow's behavior.
So if you apologize today, then hopefully we see the church and the servants of the church and priests of the church over time tomorrow.
We see the service that we had all hoped it was all about.
Best thing I ever heard was the following, and we'll wrap up on this.
The best thing I ever heard from a pastor, you know, when I was like, well, what about this?
And what about that?
And what about this person?
And what about that church?
And look at what they're doing.
And I said, listen, if your relationship with God's going to be horizontal, you're going to fail.
If it's vertical, you'll be fine.
He won't let you down, but people will let you down.
People are always going to let others down because we're people.
No one walks on water.
We make mistakes.
Now, that's a royal mistake by the church.
It's a royal mistake.
But, you know, if you're going to lean on a church to do 100% of things right, you will fail.
My biggest challenge is when you have that kind of influence, don't use it to impose so much fear to the point where you're immobilizing people.
Inject more hope, inject more faith, inject more, you know, you and I can do special things with our lives and make a positive impact.
And that father of the two girls, I think that person is the one that needs to be held accountable at the highest level.
That person needs to go to jail.
You need to tell everybody in jail, here's what he did to his two daughters.
What do you guys want to do to this guy?
He's going to get put off.
He won't last a week, by the way.
So, anyways, look, folks, if you're listening to this, appreciate your patience with us every once in a while.
I have certain topics that I go into that some of you guys may say, what was this all about?
We were not expecting this today.
But it came out of nowhere.
The part of me starting this podcast wasn't because we want to make money.
This podcast costs us money.
This podcast doesn't break even.
We lose money on this podcast, but we do it because we, I myself am interested in some topics as a person as I'm growing and living my life.
I want to learn about certain unanswered questions.
And I think today was a very qualified guest that was gracious enough to take the answers, the questions, the pushback, the questions Tom asked or I ask or Tyler ask or Adam ask.
And you were very gracious about it.
And that says a lot about you as an individual and how you represent the church.
This was a very good experience having you here.
And I personally appreciate you coming out.
I do want to recommend everybody, if you are watching this and if you learn anything from it, if your thoughts change, opinions change, you know, good or worse, comment below.
I'm actually curious to know what some of you guys thought about this at the end of it, after listening to the whole thing.
And if you do want to go a little further, you may want to go order his book.
If we can put the link in the chat box, if we can put it in the description, if we can put it everywhere, Tyler, Exorcism, The Battle Against Satan and His Demons to Order, where in this book he answers the questions of how the church selects and trains priests for ministry of exorcism, where and how the devil operates in the world, why is it vital for Catholics to live in a vibrant life of faith?
What to do if you suspect the presence of demonic in your life, and how to fend off spiritual attack and build a stronger relationship with God.
Thank you so much for coming out.
This was wonderful.
Appreciate you.
Gang, I'm not doing a podcast this week.
I know you are, our guys are doing podcasts this week.
We're not doing anything until next week, but we will be back next week for podcasts both days next week.
I don't think we're.
Are we back next Thursday?
Yeah, we'll be back next week for podcasts.
We have Funny How Day at 1, Adam, Thursday, and Friday this week.
Jedediah's got Father Lamper tomorrow at 1.
So a lot going on this week.
Jedediah with Father Lamper.
It'll be great.
By the way, did we get some results on that poll, Tyler?
It was 70-30.
70-believe?
Yeah, 70-believe.
I think we had 1,800 people respond.
It was 70-30.
Wow.
So there you go, Father.
You've got a lot of people in the audience that want to hear more.
