Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Met,
Speaker 2: my name is Noelah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Paul. Mission control decands, most importantly, you are you,
Speaker 3: You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
Speaker 3: don't want you to know. Demonic possession. It's a hot
Speaker 3: button issue for many people, skeptics and true believers alike,
Speaker 3: and many of us listening along today have perhaps experienced
Speaker 3: some things they cannot explain. In tonight's interview set, we
Speaker 3: are returning to stories of possession and directly stories of exorcism. Now,
Speaker 3: before we dive into our conversation, we want to air
Speaker 3: the following disclaimer. This does include discussion of faith, and
Speaker 3: we do not interrogate people's faith. As we always say,
Speaker 3: your spiritual beliefs remain your own. But fellow conspiracy realist
Speaker 3: Matt Noll and I just recently heard perhaps the best
Speaker 3: investigation of exorcisms that we have ever heard in the
Speaker 3: world of podcasting, and so we wanted to ask the
Speaker 3: creator himself about this show. Please join us in welcoming
Speaker 3: Ryan Bethay to the show. Thank you for coming on
Speaker 3: the show right.
Speaker 4: Thank you for having me, y'all. It's exciting to be here. Ryan.
Speaker 2: You do a lot in your world. We have here
Speaker 2: some writings about your the various things you do. You're
Speaker 2: a producer, you're a writer, you're an entrepreneur, so you
Speaker 2: do all kinds of different things. Can you just describe
Speaker 2: to us your previous work before creating The Exorcist Files.
Speaker 4: I like that, punt to me. That's good. That was good. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I as I'm a self proclaimed entrepreneur, producer,
Speaker 4: and writer, whether someone else calls me that. Although you
Speaker 4: just called me a creator as well, so I might
Speaker 4: might adopt that. But yeah, I've been in film and
Speaker 4: TV for a long time. Pod that is actually my
Speaker 4: first podcast of this type. And if you the funny
Speaker 4: thing about this entire journey is that if you had
Speaker 4: asked me ten years ago would you end up investigating exorcism?
Speaker 4: I would have accused you of being possessed. This is
Speaker 4: not something I planned that too. But I'm just I'm
Speaker 4: I am a marketer by trade. I love sales and marketing,
Speaker 4: and I love just helping people find the ability to
Speaker 4: tell their story. That's fundamental what we do. The irony
Speaker 4: of this whole thing is, despite how dark of a
Speaker 4: podcast this is, I actually make most of my income
Speaker 4: making comedy videos for brands, So there is a nice
Speaker 4: little you know, by day versus by night. So I
Speaker 4: do have a Bruce Wayne sort of Batman thing going
Speaker 4: on here. If Batman was like more upbeat.
Speaker 3: Right right, classic emo superhero Batman.
Speaker 4: That's right, yeah, yeah, the billion minus.
Speaker 3: Well for now, so we've we've also been looking at
Speaker 3: some of the some of the previous work you mentioned,
Speaker 3: watch what your kids watch, Scary fans, you know, the
Speaker 3: Dinner Disaster, which is on YouTube please check it out.
Speaker 3: And a lovely, lovely conversation series you have with celebrities
Speaker 3: in around a campfire. And you're right, ten years ago,
Speaker 3: from at least what we understand, it would have it
Speaker 3: would have seemed odd that you would create one of
Speaker 3: the best deep dive examinations into Catholic exorcism on the planet,
Speaker 3: and you have. Could you tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about the origin of the Exorcist files, Your initial inspiration like,
Speaker 3: did you have a personal upbringing in Catholicism? Did you
Speaker 3: have a standing fascination with saints?
Speaker 4: So what makes this interesting is that I did not
Speaker 4: grow up Catholic, and I'm actually not a practicing Catholic,
Speaker 4: which I also do think lends a certain objectivity to
Speaker 4: it that makes I think shows up in it, and
Speaker 4: I do have to give a shout out. Obviously, this
Speaker 4: podcast was made possible by two other people as well,
Speaker 4: the notorious Father Martin's whose case files we actually share
Speaker 4: in our illustrious editor, sound designer, mixer, co producer. He
Speaker 4: basically did all the incredible sound design and also all
Speaker 4: the research and just did such a phenomenal job. Chandler,
Speaker 4: who you all know, and it was such an awesome
Speaker 4: some collaboration. But I did not grow up particularly religious,
Speaker 4: and the way I got into this whole thing is
Speaker 4: actually probably more interesting than the podcast itself. So I
Speaker 4: actually originally was fascinated with the concept of miracles. I've
Speaker 4: always been interested in these accounts of miraculous things that
Speaker 4: have no explanation, like when the doctor's like you had
Speaker 4: a tumor, and then the imaging shows that a week later,
Speaker 4: after some prayer session, there is no more tumor. And
Speaker 4: I've heard of these stories from very credible people, and
Speaker 4: I'd seen some of the medical imaging myself, very rare.
Speaker 4: But what I actually discovered was, as I was researching this,
Speaker 4: the Catholic Church has a process for which for the
Speaker 4: canonization of saints, and to be a saints, you have
Speaker 4: to have these miracles associated with you, and there's an
Speaker 4: extraordinarily rigorous process that goes into determining whether or not
Speaker 4: a bona fide physical theological miracle. So it can't just
Speaker 4: be accidentally got a physical miracle. It's actually got to
Speaker 4: be tied to intercession or prayer with that particular would
Speaker 4: be saint. And so got I managed to have a
Speaker 4: meet someone who was very connected at the Vatican, flew
Speaker 4: out there and with another producer friend of mine, and
Speaker 4: basically that's what we were waiting around hotel room. We
Speaker 4: never knew. It was sort of like a CIA meeting.
Speaker 4: You don't know when you're going to be called in,
Speaker 4: when you'll go. We were escorted into this room and
Speaker 4: this priest basically said, you know, I don't think you're
Speaker 4: going to be able to do this miracle show because
Speaker 4: the medical records are very hard to get. I said, well,
Speaker 4: that's unfortunate, considering how far I just flew out to Rome.
Speaker 4: Maybe a call would have sufficed. But he goes, but
Speaker 4: would you be interested in speaking with someone who is
Speaker 4: one of our top exorcists and experts on spiritual warfare?
Speaker 4: And I went, yes, that sounds great. So he gave
Speaker 4: me Father Martin's and I called Father Martins. And you know,
Speaker 4: it's interesting. I didn't know this until about three months ago.
Speaker 4: I assumed we hit it off right away. He has
Speaker 4: shared now multiple times in panels that he thought I
Speaker 4: was lying and had stolen his number from somewhere and
Speaker 4: was trying to get to him so I could get
Speaker 4: his case files. So I called him. He said, where'd
Speaker 4: you get this number? Because obviously exorcists are, you know,
Speaker 4: usually hard to get a hold of. Understandably, you know,
Speaker 4: they get a lot in down calls. So he then
Speaker 4: he called up the Holy See and asked this priest
Speaker 4: and said, did you give out my numbers? Like yeah,
Speaker 4: I really like this kid. I like his vision for
Speaker 4: what he wants to do. Hear him out, and so
Speaker 4: Father called back and he goes, I don't know what
Speaker 4: you did, or how much money you bribed or whatever.
Speaker 4: He's like, but man, you got something. He's like, they're
Speaker 4: asking me to take you seriously. And so I said,
Speaker 4: you want to do a show about exorcism? He's like, no,
Speaker 4: I went help father. Do you think Ouiji boards are dangerous? Absolutely?
Speaker 4: Do you think the occult is a reality? I do.
Speaker 4: Do you think that satanic abuse and dark forces are
Speaker 4: at work in the world today? I do? Then why
Speaker 4: don't you tell that story? Let me help you tell
Speaker 4: that story, and let the listener decide. And he goes,
Speaker 4: all right, I'll give you some thought. And it took
Speaker 4: a lot more convincing. I'm condensing it for our listening enjoyment.
Speaker 4: But it took quite a few sessions with me to
Speaker 4: get him to relents. But finally he said, all right,
Speaker 4: And I'm so grateful for how it turned out. We
Speaker 4: just couldn't have asked for a better team. My heart
Speaker 4: was a great partner. And yeah, you've heard it. It
Speaker 4: is the weirdest stuff. And of course, the first time
Speaker 4: you meet an exorcist, you immediately ask him what is
Speaker 4: the strangest thing you've ever seen? And he shared a
Speaker 4: few things, and I said, I think we can work
Speaker 4: with this. So that's how it started.
Speaker 2: Wow, can we talk about some baseline stuff when it
Speaker 2: comes to exorcisms, the state of or at least the
Speaker 2: way Father Martin's views the functionality of things like heaven
Speaker 2: and Hell and Earth and all of that. When the
Speaker 2: second case that you cover, Father Martin's talks about hell,
Speaker 2: like where Hell is or what hell is? The nature
Speaker 2: of hell? Can you tell us a little bit about
Speaker 2: how he views it.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So one of the interesting things too about the podcast,
Speaker 4: right is so it is told from a Catholic priest
Speaker 4: vantage point, but we do try to take great pains
Speaker 4: to present a contrarian, Agnostic, and even the Protestant side,
Speaker 4: because while Protestants and Catholics will definitely converge on a
Speaker 4: lot of theology, they do diverge in some significant areas.
Speaker 4: So we really wanted to create something that was like
Speaker 4: open to a lot of folks. So in particular for
Speaker 4: Father just to oversimplify is that Hell is an absolute reality,
Speaker 4: that God is very real, and that the world is
Speaker 4: He once said this to me, and I thought it
Speaker 4: was very well put. Was that the world is charged
Speaker 4: with far more spiritual activity than you could ever understand.
Speaker 4: He also takes great pains to say that for Christians,
Speaker 4: they need not fear the enemy, you need not look
Speaker 4: at it as being something behind every bush. And actually
Speaker 4: he really does agree with C. S. Lewis's famous quote
Speaker 4: about the two great mistakes that we make when it
Speaker 4: comes to spiritual warfare. One to see it in everything
Speaker 4: and to give it too much attention, or the alternative,
Speaker 4: which is to ignore it completely at our own peril.
Speaker 4: So he very much kind of falls in that with
Speaker 4: that line, which is, you do not need to when
Speaker 4: you get in your car be afraid that you're going
Speaker 4: to be encountering demonic forces unless you live in Los
Speaker 4: Angeles or Atlanta. And the traffic, of course.
Speaker 3: Is particularly to the home down ground, you know.
Speaker 4: But I mean, there's some tough traffic that you have
Speaker 4: to deal with, right, But so it is a real thing.
Speaker 4: And one thing to factor in two is the cases
Speaker 4: that we profile. He deals with some of the most
Speaker 4: extreme cases that by the time they reach him, they
Speaker 4: are particularly serious. And so this is not your you know,
Speaker 4: sort of average run of the mill someone who may
Speaker 4: or may not think they might have some sort of
Speaker 4: ghost traps or spiritual issues. So it is very real
Speaker 4: for him. He thinks it is definitely on the rise.
Speaker 4: I actually I got him to weigh in on this
Speaker 4: prior to this episode. He's actually in Hong Kong right
Speaker 4: now on a trip, and he said that he fundamentally
Speaker 4: believes it is true the exorcisms are on the rise,
Speaker 4: that demonic activity is on the rise, and he believes
Speaker 4: that is because of a moving away from traditional religion,
Speaker 4: and so he in his worldview that leads to a
Speaker 4: increase in sort of that activity. And there's just a
Speaker 4: fascination with the occults. You're seeing this in a lot
Speaker 4: of places.
Speaker 2: The one thing in that episode that really struck me
Speaker 2: is ryan how you compare Instead of thinking about Hell
Speaker 2: as a physical place that is, you know, somewhere below us,
Speaker 2: or you know, somewhere some physical place somewhere, you liken
Speaker 2: it to the matrix where the devil and demons in
Speaker 2: the same way that God has access to the entirety
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 5: Right, Like.
Speaker 2: The way an agent infiltrates a person who is in
Speaker 2: the matrix is similar to the way a demon can
Speaker 2: infiltrate a you know, human being on earth, because it's
Speaker 2: not as though they are in a physical place in hell,
Speaker 2: they're existing almost as an overlay of the reality that
Speaker 2: we encounter. That was fascinating to me.
Speaker 4: Oh, the matrix is really interesting. So I again, I
Speaker 4: don't think this is probably intentional, and I'm sure there's
Speaker 4: some shortcomings for the comparison, but I love the matrix
Speaker 4: as a metaphor for the Christian worldview because the idea
Speaker 4: is that, you know, without following God and without sort
Speaker 4: of stepping into what we are fundamentally designed to be,
Speaker 4: that we're all sort of asleep and we're sort of
Speaker 4: you know, bought off by worldly pleasures, just the ordinary,
Speaker 4: just you know, passing time, and that if you are
Speaker 4: plugged into that, and if you and so in sense,
Speaker 4: in essence, and I think Father would agree with this,
Speaker 4: if you do not have the Holy spirits, as by
Speaker 4: Catholic and Protestant theology, then the enemy has much more
Speaker 4: free will and can move in and out. And so
Speaker 4: essentially you're still hardwired into this matrix. But the moment
Speaker 4: you're liberated, the moment that that Holy Spirit imbues a person,
Speaker 4: they're severed. And now agents can still cause problems, as
Speaker 4: we see when you're because if we're dealing in their
Speaker 4: dimension or if they come into ours, but they can't
Speaker 4: hijack you in the same way, which I found which
Speaker 4: was really interesting. And I just also love the idea
Speaker 4: of you know, someone saying, you know, do you want
Speaker 4: to know what the reality of the world actually is? Something?
Speaker 4: Is there something actually wrong? And you know it deep
Speaker 4: down inside? And it is really cool and I think
Speaker 4: I want to make sure too. One thing that comes
Speaker 4: up on this is that so much of demonology and
Speaker 4: hell and all stuff, a lot of this is conjecture.
Speaker 4: I mean, they're educated guesses. There's wonderful intellectual tradition and theology,
Speaker 4: and there's a lot of stuff that I deeply agree with,
Speaker 4: but a lot of this is guessing.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: It's funny. We get a lot of emails from saying,
Speaker 4: you know what about this and isn't it true this?
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I have not been there, thankfully, I've
Speaker 4: not visited Hell, do never want to go, and so
Speaker 4: I cannot speak and I've not talked to the tourism board,
Speaker 4: so I cannot speak with any authority on what it is.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Specific, Yeah, that's that's the that's that's something I think
Speaker 3: that's key. There's a there are a couple of there
Speaker 3: are a couple of large misconceptions that the global public
Speaker 3: has about the Catholic the Catholic practice of exorcism, right,
Speaker 3: or the Catholic philosophy of possession as well as you
Speaker 3: know something that the show readily acknowledges other culture's concepts
Speaker 3: of possession and exorcism. What would you say are some
Speaker 3: of in Father Carlos Martin's view, what would you say
Speaker 3: are some of the common public misconceptions about how an
Speaker 3: exorcism actually works?
Speaker 4: Yeah, totally. And so the biggest one is the way
Speaker 4: Hollywood portrays exorcism as this equivalency battle. It's basically a
Speaker 4: shouting match of who can can the priest get out
Speaker 4: just the right amount of really verbose Latin and just
Speaker 4: the right amounts and shout it down before a plate
Speaker 4: flies off the wall and hits him in the head.
Speaker 4: And it's this like battle of two sort of equal
Speaker 4: but opposing forces. And so he will tell you that, no,
Speaker 4: I mean one based on the theology, that's not the
Speaker 4: case at all. The demons have already lost, right, And
Speaker 4: their whole job in this point is to just try
Speaker 4: and wreck things, try to make your life tough and
Speaker 4: remain as long as they can. They know they're losing.
Speaker 4: It's like a caged animal that's been cornered, right, and
Speaker 4: all they can do is last shout. So stuff happens,
Speaker 4: and he will tell you that the phenomena witnessed in
Speaker 4: the Exorcism, minus the head spinning. He's very clear. The
Speaker 4: head spinning he's never seen. He also thinks that would
Speaker 4: sever the spinal cord.
Speaker 3: And the exercises the Exorcist the film, Yes, the exors
Speaker 3: is the film based on the alf.
Speaker 4: Yes, So he says, the crab walking, spitting levitation. That
Speaker 4: was my first question I had to ask him, is
Speaker 4: have you seen this? He goes absolutely. I went, okay,
Speaker 4: we have the makings of a show here, but no.
Speaker 4: So the biggest thing is it is not a just
Speaker 4: sort of like Dragon ball Z battle right where you're
Speaker 4: just like throwing opposing forces at each other. So he's
Speaker 4: walking in there and he's issuing commands. He's not talking
Speaker 4: to it, he's not engaging in conversation. He issues orders
Speaker 4: and commands based on the priestly authority that he has.
Speaker 4: And the suspense and the drama of an exorcism is
Speaker 4: the psychological battle to actually identify the wounding or doorways
Speaker 4: or gateways that this thing got in. And so a
Speaker 4: great example might be.
Speaker 3: Oh, to remove the jurisdictions.
Speaker 4: Right, to remove the jurisdiction. So everything he would say this,
Speaker 4: and you know from my research too, this is I
Speaker 4: would back this up, is that it's all demons are
Speaker 4: highly legalistic. Everything is about permissions and order. Right do
Speaker 4: they have permission to be there? And it is about
Speaker 4: and that's where to exercise and remove those rights. That
Speaker 4: is what is happening. So he's essentially saying, no, you
Speaker 4: don't have that right. The demon will shout out and
Speaker 4: say I can be here because of this, And he'll say,
Speaker 4: all right, person, do you repent of this? You can
Speaker 4: you get rid of this object? Right? Do you confess
Speaker 4: that whatever it is? Then it's removed? And he says
Speaker 4: no more, Now you don't have that right anymore. And
Speaker 4: then by that order, then eventually the demons have to leave.
Speaker 4: So that's where I think the biggest misconception is. And
Speaker 4: I get it because it makes for a great movie,
Speaker 4: but it's just not accurate. Also, the big one, if
Speaker 4: you really want to get Father fired up, a priest
Speaker 4: would never ever ever ask a demon take me instead,
Speaker 4: Like that's the big issue with that film. He's like,
Speaker 4: it's just because there's that's a surrender, it would not happen.
Speaker 4: He's in charge when he walks in, there's still nerves,
Speaker 4: right because the person has to participate. He can't do
Speaker 4: it on someone who's not a willing participant, who doesn't
Speaker 4: want to be liberated. So there's some drama there, but overall, yeah,
Speaker 4: those are the probably the big two.
Speaker 3: We're going to pause here for a word from our sponsor,
Speaker 3: and then we'll dive deeper into the exorcist files. And
Speaker 3: we've returned, let's dive back in to quickly play devil's advocate,
Speaker 3: which never seemed like a more loaded term than in
Speaker 3: this particular conversation. Is there a part of this, this
Speaker 3: exorcism activity that is akin to therapy in some way,
Speaker 3: because it would seem to me that there are examples
Speaker 3: that maybe could be seen as potential demonic possession that
Speaker 3: are actually just a serious mental illness, and perhaps even
Speaker 3: you know, in a church sanctioned situation like this, there
Speaker 3: might be examples where there are both of these things
Speaker 3: at play.
Speaker 4: That is a great question, and honestly, the main thing
Speaker 4: that fascinated me with this. So I came to this
Speaker 4: because I do have a spiritual a worldview, and another
Speaker 4: way to put is like I don't subscribe to a
Speaker 4: wholly naturalistic worldview. I also don't think most people do either.
Speaker 4: I think, if we're really honest with ourselves, everyone accepts
Speaker 4: truth that they can't verify in a lab Like we
Speaker 4: love each other, We believe in rights and you know,
Speaker 4: values that are not conferred by nature. We all agree
Speaker 4: in consciousness and thoughts, but we can't we can't prove
Speaker 4: a lot of this stuff. And so I do come
Speaker 4: into this very open and the idea and also the
Speaker 4: big thing for me too that I think has to
Speaker 4: be stated is that you know, and we we document
Speaker 4: this in our research, but it seems like every culture
Speaker 4: throughout all of history has some sort of reality and
Speaker 4: paradigm and prescription for how to deal with demonic spirits
Speaker 4: and evil forces. Like it's just been a reality for
Speaker 4: so many and it still is in a lot a
Speaker 4: large part of the world. There's a lot of spots
Speaker 4: where it's very real. The witch doctors and and you know,
Speaker 4: kind of the practice of the occult is is still
Speaker 4: very real. So I come into this too, wondering, well
Speaker 4: is this mental illness? And father will say this, and
Speaker 4: also one of the contributors to our show, doctor Richard Gallagher,
Speaker 4: brilliant brilliant psychiatrists Yale trained teaches at Columbia. They both
Speaker 4: said that most cases are in fact just mental illness. Right.
Speaker 4: It is very difficult to get an exorcism in the
Speaker 4: church for good reason. One, it's usually not spiritual. Mental
Speaker 4: illness is a real thing. And thankfully the church, and
Speaker 4: I'm talking about the not just the capture, but there's
Speaker 4: been a broad acceptance of psychology and mental health and
Speaker 4: therapy is a wonderful tool to help people. And so yes,
Speaker 4: there are many cases where it probably could be explained.
Speaker 4: And sure, you go back in history. I'm sure the
Speaker 4: first time or before they had a real paradigm for
Speaker 4: Turette syndrome. I got to imagine people just thought like,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, like that person you know has that.
Speaker 4: But here's where it really kind of breaks your box. Right,
Speaker 4: So this is a question I've had to ask myself.
Speaker 4: Let's grant let's let's let's grant from them. Let's play
Speaker 4: a little Morpheus here. Let's say there was an immaterial,
Speaker 4: timeless meaning outside of time, like ethereal embodiment of evil
Speaker 4: that was like this personification of evil that had a legion,
Speaker 4: no pun intended of helpers set to dismantle and completely
Speaker 4: disrupt this like unfolding plan that God had for his children.
Speaker 4: And the second they're discovered or the second a person
Speaker 4: comes into contact and says, oh my gosh, this thing
Speaker 4: is real, it immediately validates the existence of the supreme Being.
Speaker 4: Would you make yourself known or would you hide? Would
Speaker 4: you obfuscate? Would you completely make people think that this
Speaker 4: is complete? HOOI? This is like all of this is
Speaker 4: just psychology, psychological in your head. So if you think
Speaker 4: about it, and if the theology is true, if Satan
Speaker 4: and his minions are real and there is an intelligence there,
Speaker 4: it makes to me absolute logical sense that if it
Speaker 4: were real, they would try and hide behind this. And
Speaker 4: what we've seen in some of these cases is that
Speaker 4: the two are not mutually exclusive. One could very much
Speaker 4: suffer from epileptic seizures, one could suffer from schizophrenia and
Speaker 4: have multiple personality order and also be afflicted spiritually as well,
Speaker 4: and a demon might choose to capitalize on both those,
Speaker 4: so I'm with you. I come into this inordonally skeptical
Speaker 4: and assume, and that's why I appreciate that the church
Speaker 4: makes it difficult to get one. They have three classic
Speaker 4: signs that you guys have talked about in previous episodes
Speaker 4: that have to be there because the other ones, you know,
Speaker 4: just being averse to religious objects. You can fake that stuff,
Speaker 4: you know. And if you listen to the show too,
Speaker 4: you will find that Father has these little fascinating diagnostic
Speaker 4: tests that he uses, like flicking holy water on their
Speaker 4: back when they're not looking reading fakely.
Speaker 2: Can we talk?
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course, let's talk.
Speaker 2: About the holy water. In the second case is Jeremy
Speaker 2: the Firefighter. And as we're going through and learning about
Speaker 2: this case, as a listener, I'm thinking, Oh, this dude
Speaker 2: is just going on drug benders because he's not talking
Speaker 2: to his wife for like days at a time, waking
Speaker 2: up in different places like, Oh, this dude's just on drugs. Totally.
Speaker 2: That's what's happening in my head. Right until we get
Speaker 2: to the moment where he's sat in Father Martin's office
Speaker 2: or wherever they are, and Father Martin's is showing him
Speaker 2: like books. I think kind of distracting him as almost
Speaker 2: like as an illusionist, and then walks around behind him
Speaker 2: with holy water, flicks it on Jeremy's back while Jeremy's
Speaker 2: not looking, and at least according to Father Martin's, this
Speaker 2: guy has a like could you describe the reaction?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, so he basically is. And he'll do this
Speaker 4: with a lot of you know, victims that have come
Speaker 4: in or people seeking help. And yeah, so he will
Speaker 4: distract by you know, moving books, et cetera. You know,
Speaker 4: saying he's very busy, et cetera. Yeah, tell me what's
Speaker 4: going on. So what's going on? Right, And then he
Speaker 4: walks around and he just drops this water that he blessed.
Speaker 4: Yet he keeps holy water on his shelf, which you know,
Speaker 4: as an extorist, I would keep holy water close to
Speaker 4: me as well. And Jeremy just i mean flies out
Speaker 4: of his chair. According to Father, he just lets out
Speaker 4: this shriek and just like profanity. And you know, I'm
Speaker 4: sure Father in that moment is like interesting because there's
Speaker 4: no way he get to discern. The other thing he'll
Speaker 4: do is he will read fake Latin, like he'll translate
Speaker 4: an ESPN article into Latin and then he'll see if
Speaker 4: he gets a reaction. If he starts getting a reaction
Speaker 4: to a reading of the you know, nationals or the
Speaker 4: Brave season stats in Latin, you'll go probably not genuine possession.
Speaker 4: But if they then he'll switch, he'll stop, and he'll
Speaker 4: start going into an actual prayer. And then if the
Speaker 4: person just like tenses up, et cetera, he goes it's like, oh,
Speaker 4: we've got a live one here. So I again, if
Speaker 4: we're gonna if we're gonna poke holes in the show, right,
Speaker 4: this is we are taking a priest stories according to him,
Speaker 4: and we're just recounting them. I was not in the room.
Speaker 4: I have not seen these personally, and I think that
Speaker 4: needs to be absolutely stated. This stuff we've not I've
Speaker 4: not seen footage of this. The best we can do
Speaker 4: is take his stories and then also go around and
Speaker 4: talk to other people. And I think for me what
Speaker 4: ultimately lend so much credence to this And as y'all
Speaker 4: have probably heard in the show, there's a lot of
Speaker 4: other experts that have weighed in and these are again
Speaker 4: you can disagree, you can say maybe you got it wrong,
Speaker 4: and maybe they did, but these are sharp people. These
Speaker 4: are smart, credible people who are not under any pharmological
Speaker 4: assistance that I'm aware.
Speaker 3: Of, diplomatic and sincere, Ryan, I'm really glad that you
Speaker 3: brought up some things. There are a couple of things
Speaker 3: I want to go back to, But before we do that,
Speaker 3: let's go with the present. Let's talk a little bit,
Speaker 3: not just about the intersection between faith, science and objectivity.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about the team that has made this show possible.
Speaker 3: You and Father Carlos Martin's are working with the course
Speaker 3: our palful disclosure channel. We know them well. Your team
Speaker 3: members also that you mentioned a bit include scientific advisor
Speaker 3: doctor Richard Gallagher and Professor Joshua Brown. These guys are big,
Speaker 3: big deals in their field. Now what what would you
Speaker 3: say they play in this series?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 3: How how do you interact with them? Knowing that the
Speaker 3: audience itself may be listening without being practicing Catholics, right,
Speaker 3: maybe being very skeptical and not believing in Catholicism whatsoever?
Speaker 3: How how did they help you, guys bridge this bridge
Speaker 3: this purported chasm between the scientific and the divine.
Speaker 4: For sure, I mean, obviously, to make the show stronger,
Speaker 4: we wanted to talk to other people and there's actually
Speaker 4: a few contributors, and all of them played a special role.
Speaker 4: The main thing is is they would, you know, with
Speaker 4: doctor Gallagher in particular, and I encourage everyone to read
Speaker 4: his book, Demonic Foes. If you're fascinated with this topic
Speaker 4: and you want a really good beach read for people
Speaker 4: to walk by and see you reading, that's a good one.
Speaker 4: But you know, so one you take folks like doctor
Speaker 4: Brown and doctor Gallagher. So doctor Gallagher, he is a
Speaker 4: very eminent psychiatrist. I mean he studied classics and graduated
Speaker 4: Phi beta cap. I think is the I'll mix. I'm
Speaker 4: not at that levels where I can't even pronounce the
Speaker 4: Greek superlatives that associate with his name, but he and
Speaker 4: actually I was just rereading some of his book this
Speaker 4: morning as I was prepping for this, right because he
Speaker 4: came into this extraordinarily skeptical, and it was only after
Speaker 4: witnessing some phenomena where patients started speaking languages that there's
Speaker 4: no I mean, you don't just pick up Aramaic, you know,
Speaker 4: you know, and there's I don't know, Rosetta stone Aramic
Speaker 4: that I'm aware of, you know. He started and then
Speaker 4: he would just find credible people and you go this,
Speaker 4: something strange is happening. And he actually has one story
Speaker 4: that he shares, which if we have time toime might
Speaker 4: come back because it's a gnarly one. But I also
Speaker 4: want you to support him and get his book because
Speaker 4: it's a it's crazy. And when I so, I interviewed him,
Speaker 4: and he was phenomenal being able to say, look, this
Speaker 4: is what he's like, I know mental illness, right. He's like, look,
Speaker 4: most of these patients are not spiritually possessed. That is
Speaker 4: not the case. But he's like, but as a psychiatrist
Speaker 4: of practicing for decades, I can look at someone and
Speaker 4: I know the difference between schizophrenia right and delusions and
Speaker 4: someone who has bruises appearing on their body out of nowhere,
Speaker 4: who is exhibiting incredible strength and speaking Russian all of
Speaker 4: a sudden when they're not Russian and have no exploit
Speaker 4: He's like, I know the difference, right, and I've seen
Speaker 4: that phenomena, And so I think having someone of that
Speaker 4: academic caliber just say look, you know and again you
Speaker 4: can disagree, all of this is totally So much of
Speaker 4: this is I get so crazy to hear. But then
Speaker 4: you take someone like doctor Josh Brown, who shared a
Speaker 4: testimony right now his case. He actually has medical imaging
Speaker 4: to back it up. It's not a true or it's
Speaker 4: not a traditional case in the sense of possession. But
Speaker 4: here's a guy who's not Catholic who basically experienced had
Speaker 4: a brain tumor and a miracle. Right, yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 4: so he basically was an Again, I encourage everyone listened
Speaker 4: to episode six where he shares his testimony. He was
Speaker 4: essentially though one morning his wife had a dream that
Speaker 4: there was a name afflicting him some sort of and
Speaker 4: she wasn't sure if it was an entity or whatever
Speaker 4: says this name, asked him does this mean anything? And
Speaker 4: pray and he just erupts and starts having a seizure.
Speaker 4: And again, you could look at this and go wow,
Speaker 4: this so he ended up having a brain tumor. He
Speaker 4: got dive exprained to me, and you could go wow,
Speaker 4: a brain tumor totally can correspond with epileptic seizures and
Speaker 4: result in this sort of symptoms. But the fact that
Speaker 4: it happened at that exact moment with that name, right,
Speaker 4: and then not until he went through a prayer session
Speaker 4: months later, and then the things and then he got delivered,
Speaker 4: and it started shrinking and shrinking, until eventually some scar
Speaker 4: tissue just remains and it's not there anymore. His is
Speaker 4: a great case. I love it so much because there's
Speaker 4: always plausible deniability. It totally potentially could be explained in
Speaker 4: the natural. But then you just run, you run the odds,
Speaker 4: and you go, what are the odds they got prayed
Speaker 4: for that that name was said, and then all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, this thing that was told was not going
Speaker 4: to get better, just got small and small and then
Speaker 4: eventually vanished. And so you end up in a situation
Speaker 4: will you collect enough of these stories and you go,
Speaker 4: something's happening. On a final note on the contributors, we
Speaker 4: had a woman who is the wife of a very
Speaker 4: well known pastor share a story of chronic illness for
Speaker 4: twenty years, and it wasn't until a relative of hers
Speaker 4: went to a fortune teller and the fortune teller said,
Speaker 4: you have a curse on your family, and she went,
Speaker 4: what a curse? She goes, Yeah, you have a curse
Speaker 4: on your family and it's afflicting the firstborn female in
Speaker 4: each of your generations. And she goes, goes back, starts
Speaker 4: looking back through their family history, and it's I mean,
Speaker 4: she goes Ryan, it's one by one, just cancer, early death,
Speaker 4: debilitating illness. And then they finally go and they see
Speaker 4: an exorcist or a deliverance minister as we're more known
Speaker 4: in the Protestant world, does a session instantly healed and
Speaker 4: could feel everything leave. And she'll look, you know I
Speaker 4: and say, and now she's been healed since and so
Speaker 4: I know her. I know this person. She's wonderful, like
Speaker 4: this is not I mean, she had accepted the illness.
Speaker 4: So on one hand, I just say, look, question for sure,
Speaker 4: come into this, you decide, be skeptical, and then just
Speaker 4: rejoice with the fact that, regardless of whether you agree with
Speaker 4: the means and the method, a lot of these people
Speaker 4: are now happy and healthy and no longer afflicted by
Speaker 4: whatever was causing the problem. So the contributors just really,
Speaker 4: I think, lend a nice credence to it, you know,
Speaker 4: just to add a little extra dimension than just father,
Speaker 4: you know, other smart people saying yeah, what he saw
Speaker 4: that happen, Well.
Speaker 5: That certainly has the feel of the type of biblical
Speaker 5: curse that any of us that grew up going to
Speaker 5: Sunday School would be aware of the idea of the
Speaker 5: firstborn or you know, things like that nature and really
Speaker 5: does kind of fit that format like a like a glove.
Speaker 2: We're also aware of what type of self fulfilling prophecy
Speaker 2: a curse can be, right, So, like the psychology of
Speaker 2: that is so intense and can be so intense. It's
Speaker 2: fascinating because you can see I love I love the
Speaker 2: Exorcist Files because it really does allow you, me again,
Speaker 2: as a listener, I'm just speaking for myself here, a
Speaker 2: space to really go back and think for yourself about
Speaker 2: stuff like even your preconceived notions, the things that you
Speaker 2: go into the show feeling or thinking, you know, you
Speaker 2: can really explore them in there because you guys allow
Speaker 2: for that space, which is really cool. I'm loving it.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you. It's and I think you know, and
Speaker 4: the team did a good job because everyone on the
Speaker 4: team disagrees with someone else on the team about some
Speaker 4: of their theology. So I really love the sort of
Speaker 4: trifecta because not like you know, Father and I don't
Speaker 4: grant everything knows Father does not agree with everything I
Speaker 4: agree with. But you know, we really wanted this to
Speaker 4: not be just proselytizing on was say, look, you know,
Speaker 4: there's a real and honestly, Father considers it a win
Speaker 4: if you don't touch the Ouiji board after it, or
Speaker 4: you don't touch the you know, if you decide not
Speaker 4: to go visit the shaman or the you know, witsch doctor,
Speaker 4: he considers that a net win, even if you don't
Speaker 4: agree with Catholicism. He just wants you to say, look,
Speaker 4: this is the reality, and this is what I've seen,
Speaker 4: and these are his experiences. And I think, obviously you
Speaker 4: all do such a great job on this show. I mean,
Speaker 4: you live in you live in the blurriness, you live
Speaker 4: in the I mean, there's a lot of stuff that
Speaker 4: can't be explained, and I just want people to keep
Speaker 4: an open mind that, like I mean, is an existence
Speaker 4: just gnarly. I mean honestly, when I started doing the show, and.
Speaker 3: Sondra would say existence is itself, but.
Speaker 4: No, it is. Yeah, it's just gnarly. But when you
Speaker 4: think about like the fact that like we all exist
Speaker 4: on this perfectly sized rock, like the a distance from
Speaker 4: the perfectly sized star and like, and then you get
Speaker 4: into quantum and you go, I mean it just it
Speaker 4: really starts blowing your mind and That's where I started going.
Speaker 4: If someone's like, dude, you're insane, Like this is nuts,
Speaker 4: there are no such thing as demons, and I go like,
Speaker 4: you might be right, but how about this, Sure we can't.
Speaker 4: There are so many things about the universe right now
Speaker 4: that like, and you get into quantity there and then
Speaker 4: you really start and you're like, oh my gosh, like,
Speaker 4: is it really that far fetched that there could be
Speaker 4: something else going on that like that we just don't
Speaker 4: have an explanatory framework for I mean, tell me, it's
Speaker 4: not possible.
Speaker 3: Seen through a specific cultural framework, No, Like, this is how,
Speaker 3: this is how we encounter stuff. The more the more
Speaker 3: that human civilization learns about the nature of reality at
Speaker 3: the very macro and very micro levels, the more it
Speaker 3: seems that this kind of Goldilocks middle this just so planet,
Speaker 3: with this just so gravity and this just so mixing chemicals,
Speaker 3: the more extraordinary. It seems like, Uh, one thing, that
Speaker 3: one thing that I believe we all love about the
Speaker 3: Exorcist Files is this very even handed, this very even
Speaker 3: handed exploration of this man's experience, of the father's experience,
Speaker 3: and Ryan one thing that you guys do so very
Speaker 3: well is humanize this right a lot of people will
Speaker 3: get turned off, maybe because of their personal prejudices, when
Speaker 3: they enter into a conversation or an exploration about something
Speaker 3: considered supernatural and hearing someone recount their stories as an expert,
Speaker 3: that might not reach everybody in the crowd. One thing
Speaker 3: that you guys do very very well is humanize it
Speaker 3: through recreations. And let's talk a little bit about this,
Speaker 3: because there is for anyone who somehow hasn't listened yet.
Speaker 3: The Exorcist Files includes you and father Carlos Martin's speaking
Speaker 3: in depth about specific cases of possession and exorcism, and
Speaker 3: those cases are depicted through recreation. Could you tell us
Speaker 3: a little bit about the choice to do that and
Speaker 3: how you and father negotiated those depictions.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, so it's you know so originally so when we
Speaker 4: had this and I first you know, optioned these cases,
Speaker 4: the dream was film and TV. We wanted to start that.
Speaker 4: And then this tiny little thing, this pandemic thing happened,
Speaker 4: if you all remember this, but the country we kind
Speaker 4: of shut down, and that really put the kabash on doing,
Speaker 4: you know, anything with film and TV. So we were
Speaker 4: because we had shopped this around and we were excited
Speaker 4: and having cool converse. I mean it's exorcism, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean no, it's O Paint. Were like, wait, you're
Speaker 4: working with who and I'm like yeah, and it's an
Speaker 4: And so I actually had kind of reached a point
Speaker 4: and this is part of the cool story. I had
Speaker 4: shopped it around and we had gotten a lot of interest,
Speaker 4: and then when pandemic hit, we were just like it
Speaker 4: was clear. I just no one knew it was going
Speaker 4: to happen, and it was a scary time and I
Speaker 4: was like, I don't know what's going to happen here, right,
Speaker 4: And true story, I had a friend and this is
Speaker 4: why I totally believe power of prayer. I will stand
Speaker 4: here and just say I've seen this. Like I had
Speaker 4: a friend say call me up and say, hey, I
Speaker 4: was praying for you and I just wanted you to
Speaker 4: know that I feel like God told me to connect
Speaker 4: you with someone. And I was like, okay, well I'm
Speaker 4: you know, it depends on who it is, but I'm
Speaker 4: usually pretty open to you know, sure I'll meet a
Speaker 4: friend right And she's like yeah, and I just think
Speaker 4: it's someone you should meet. And so I was like, great,
Speaker 4: So I connected this person. We have a nice chat
Speaker 4: just about like life in general, and we're all just
Speaker 4: mutual friends. And she happens to work at this little
Speaker 4: fringe podcast network called iHeart and if you all have
Speaker 4: heard of this, but a very small, very you know,
Speaker 4: boutique boutique podcasting network. And she goes, you know what
Speaker 4: you have? You considered this as a podcast? And I
Speaker 4: was like, I mean, yeah, no, not immediately, but ultimately
Speaker 4: she's like, I think this would be a great podcast,
Speaker 4: and she's like, let me connect you with some folks
Speaker 4: over there. So I went to work and just put
Speaker 4: together a little pitch and I decided I loved I
Speaker 4: loved old time radio as a kid. My parents would
Speaker 4: put me in the back of a Forerunner and we
Speaker 4: drive her out at night and just the old like
Speaker 4: sheet Metal for Thunder, you know, just like footsteps, you know,
Speaker 4: really on the nose dialogue because you have to tell
Speaker 4: where people are, like hey, you know mc bravo, Oh
Speaker 4: that's right, or like Ben, what are you doing over
Speaker 4: by the water cooler? And I loved those and it
Speaker 4: was so fun and so spooky, and so I was like,
Speaker 4: I want to do this like recreates old time radio drama.
Speaker 4: And then so we pitched it right away. They were
Speaker 4: interested and it was awesome, and so iHeart was an
Speaker 4: amazing partner. And then they assigned us this like you know,
Speaker 4: of course, insanely brilliant engineer, editor, everything, include everything, right,
Speaker 4: who goes, why don't we do this in three D
Speaker 4: bin aral? So the aforementioned Darth Mays said, I think
Speaker 4: we can do this in three D by and rural audio.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, that sounds really cool. I don't know
Speaker 4: if I can say binaral and he's like, yeah, it'll
Speaker 4: surround sound and I'm like, that's awesome. I did some
Speaker 4: research and I was like, oh, well, I mean it's
Speaker 4: I don't know one who has really done it that way.
Speaker 4: And he goes, no, no, We're going to do it
Speaker 4: live like found footage. And I thought that's awesome. Let's
Speaker 4: get out there, and so he picked out this three
Speaker 4: D MIC. It was also insanely difficult. If you really
Speaker 4: want to have a fun stories, ask about the number
Speaker 4: of leaf blowers that demonically appeared out of nowhere right
Speaker 4: when we started. So we went out and have actors.
Speaker 4: These are actual actors recording, moving around creating these sets,
Speaker 4: and one of my favorite stories is we're filming episode one,
Speaker 4: which not to spoil anything, but one of the women,
Speaker 4: as she becomes possessed, starts screaming profanity. And it was
Speaker 4: ten pm at night and we're in Burbank and she's
Speaker 4: running out the door as her husband flees. And so
Speaker 4: we have several takes going or I mean ten pm
Speaker 4: at night and going now life without death, like screaming
Speaker 4: at the top of her lungs in the neighborhood. And
Speaker 4: I'm just just just white and just terrified. I'm like,
Speaker 4: this is so bad. And Shannon's like, that was good.
Speaker 4: Let's get another take.
Speaker 2: You're recreating demonic possessions with one.
Speaker 4: Of these, yeah, show the show the ears, no.
Speaker 2: The ears, But like, I'm just I'm imagining how creepy
Speaker 2: that is that you're like playing characters getting possessed and
Speaker 2: being in the state of possessed with actual looking ears
Speaker 2: as the thing listening. There's something demonic about that.
Speaker 3: There's something symbolic at least. Yeah, how did how did
Speaker 3: Father Martin's or how does Father Martin's feel about these recreations.
Speaker 3: I gotta admit, right, I'm a bit surprised when I'm
Speaker 3: listening seen through what I'm talking with you and Chandler.
Speaker 3: I'm a bit surprised, uh that Father Martin's had nice
Speaker 3: things to say about the accuracy of the film, the
Speaker 3: accuracy the Exorcist. So what did uh what what did
Speaker 3: he think of these recreations?
Speaker 4: Well, remember, he had niceness to say, albeit one massive
Speaker 4: like ruining plot problem.
Speaker 3: No, the no no inviting the demon Father carous Is.
Speaker 4: No priests would ever do that. So so he gets
Speaker 4: very It's fun to watch the things that get Father
Speaker 4: riled up, you know, and that's one of them. And
Speaker 4: bad Scotch. But I mean, hey, if you've spent all
Speaker 4: day casting out an ancient serpent, I mean you need
Speaker 4: to decompress. I think you know he deserves.
Speaker 5: It, but should be a Scotch commercial, right then?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, welcome back to discerning the spirits with Father Martin's.
Speaker 4: You know, so, Brent, you heard it here first.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, So he he speaks, he speaks in
Speaker 3: a very approachable way. And Father Martin's here is he's
Speaker 3: not really talking down to people at all, which I
Speaker 3: think we all appreciate. Uh, He's he's not condescending, he's
Speaker 3: not overbearing. He's a person who's been through a great
Speaker 3: deal of things, and he's talking quite honestly about them.
Speaker 3: So I think one of the big questions that a
Speaker 3: lot of people hearing the Exorcist files are going to
Speaker 3: have is did he did he approve of these of
Speaker 3: these actors depicting this story or these stories.
Speaker 4: It took a long time to build trust, enough of
Speaker 4: I mean, because he knew the big risk he was taking.
Speaker 4: He was forever seating his anonymity, and his life has
Speaker 4: fundamentally changed. I mean, his phone is ringing off the hook.
Speaker 4: He has had people, I mean, and my inbox are
Speaker 4: to say. The inbox for the show is filled with
Speaker 4: emails with attachments which I will not open, people saying
Speaker 4: do you think this is cursed? Do you think this
Speaker 4: is possessed? I checked my norton anavirus and it doesn't
Speaker 4: include a provision for spiritual protection over my email.
Speaker 3: But the questions about relics our relics.
Speaker 4: But no, it took a lot of There was a
Speaker 4: lot of trepidation at first, and I was nervous too.
Speaker 4: And one thing Chandler did a great job doing is
Speaker 4: because he has such a wonderful ear for that, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, I knew a lot of the actors. A
Speaker 4: lot of them were friends of mine. It's very cool,
Speaker 4: also very disturbing to see your friends. We had one
Speaker 4: actor who plays the murder demon in episode five, which
Speaker 4: I think is probably the best episode of the They're
Speaker 4: all great, but he ends up. I remember we were,
Speaker 4: you know, holding the mic in front of him, and
Speaker 4: he was the demon playing murder and he creaked his
Speaker 4: neck to the right and you could hear on the
Speaker 4: audio recording the snapping of his vertebrae like in the
Speaker 4: like a chiropractic adjustment, and Chandler I looked at him,
Speaker 4: that's all like that guy, he just nailed it. And
Speaker 4: he was like, you came to play. So it was
Speaker 4: cool to see your friends do that. Father didn't actually
Speaker 4: have a chance to listen, I mean, because that wasn't
Speaker 4: his role. He just had to trust us. And once
Speaker 4: he heard the first episode and he was like, whoa,
Speaker 4: this is really cool because we were all nervous. I
Speaker 4: was excited, and I will admit too, I had a
Speaker 4: crisis of faith. We had a few reviews coming early
Speaker 4: on that said recreates are silly, I don't want to
Speaker 4: do this right. And then it's funny. It's such a
Speaker 4: good lesson not to judge anything too quickly, and then
Speaker 4: days later, just hundreds pouring in saying this is amazing.
Speaker 4: And now we've got thousands of reviews saying, you know what,
Speaker 4: I didn't think recreates would work well, but it actually
Speaker 4: does lend an authenticity to it that is really cool
Speaker 4: and so so grateful we end up sticking with it,
Speaker 4: and Father he actually he loves that, and it's fun
Speaker 4: to see him as he gets more involved in the
Speaker 4: process too, the inner filmmakers coming out the recording like
Speaker 4: could we try with this? Can we try with this?
Speaker 4: And you know, it's it's really fun. So it's been
Speaker 4: it's become increasingly more collaborative with him and and it's
Speaker 4: just just a blast.
Speaker 5: Well that's the thing though, I mean, recreations sort of
Speaker 5: have a bad rap because they're so often used ham
Speaker 5: fistedly and they sort of are associated oftentimes with sort
Speaker 5: of hacky material. So it's really all and how you
Speaker 5: use it. It can be as great or as you know,
Speaker 5: poor as you as you make it, and you guys
Speaker 5: absolutely knocked out of the park.
Speaker 4: It's funny when you see some of the runnings, like
Speaker 4: there's a scene where a guy is running away from
Speaker 4: a witch and he's carrying the mic and sprinting like
Speaker 4: eighty yard sprints at a time, yelling, And so I
Speaker 4: would love to show people one day, just like all
Speaker 4: the behind the scenes of like what you heard and
Speaker 4: what's actually happening in the moment, and you're like, this
Speaker 4: is just this is so trippy to like see all
Speaker 4: this stuff. And there's so many talented actors. We had
Speaker 4: over forty five actors involved in the process. Who you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, this was a very This wasn't the most
Speaker 4: expensive production, and so we were so grateful for the
Speaker 4: people that came in to do it and the locations
Speaker 4: that were donated. So it was really it was really
Speaker 4: cool to get out there, and it's also fun for
Speaker 4: people to explain to that. We had one gal who
Speaker 4: was just out of college and she was telling us
Speaker 4: how she was explaining to her mom and dad the
Speaker 4: first big break she got in her acting and her
Speaker 4: parents like, what are you doing? So I'm a possessed girl,
Speaker 4: And we're like, great, that's that's that's on, that's on,
Speaker 4: that's on point. That's good for you. You know.
Speaker 5: All right, let's take a quick pause, hear a word
Speaker 5: from our sponsor, and then come back with more from
Speaker 5: Ryan Bethey.
Speaker 2: And we've returned with Ryan Bethay talking about the Exorcist Files.
Speaker 3: Also also speaking of behind the scenes, Ryan, I would
Speaker 3: I would pause it to you that The Exorcist Files
Speaker 3: is kind of the first ever behind the scenes of
Speaker 3: exorcisms and possession in Catholicism. Right in this meeting. I'm
Speaker 3: thinking in particular of some of the bonus episodes that
Speaker 3: have come out, which we found extraordinarily fascinating. I'm thinking
Speaker 3: in particular of Exorcist addenda, which dives deep into the
Speaker 3: ideas of relics, the idea of how a saint can
Speaker 3: be beatified and canonized, demonic hierarchies, which is a special
Speaker 3: interest to us for some unrelated matters, and the and
Speaker 3: the uh.
Speaker 2: The well, moving on.
Speaker 3: So f Father Martin's is an Father Martin's, aside from
Speaker 3: being an active working exorcist, also is intensely involved in
Speaker 3: the world of reliquaries and relics. Is that correct?
Speaker 4: That is correct. He is affectionately and quasi and appropriately
Speaker 4: referred to as the real guy. But he does have
Speaker 4: and I don't even know what you'd call it. It's
Speaker 4: not a collection, but it's a has a. He has
Speaker 4: in his on his person some very cool relics and
Speaker 4: does these tours where people come to adore them, I
Speaker 4: think is the correct terminology, and to reflect on their meaning,
Speaker 4: et cetera. And he's said that he's witnessed and heard
Speaker 4: lots of crazy testimonies of cool things happening on the
Speaker 4: relic side. What was interesting is, obviously we feature that
Speaker 4: in one of the episodes where he brings out the
Speaker 4: relic or a friend of his he had shipped a
Speaker 4: relic to that was intimately tied apparently to this demon's past.
Speaker 4: This demon had been responsible for the murder of a
Speaker 4: saint in the patent and hundreds of years ago, and
Speaker 4: he just happened to have a relic from that saint.
Speaker 4: And so we brought that exorcist on who was in
Speaker 4: the room that day, and said, can you describe what
Speaker 4: happened when that relic was put on the demon? And
Speaker 4: he said, Ryan, it was the most horrifying shrieking, like
Speaker 4: this thing hell broke loose. And it's funny because obviously
Speaker 4: relics so from a product, and I come at this
Speaker 4: from a Protestant angle and not from a Catholic angle.
Speaker 4: Like relics are not talked about. They're not something that
Speaker 4: is at all discussed in Protestant circles. I will say, though,
Speaker 4: to be fair to follow on Catholic side, like it
Speaker 4: is mentioned in Acts, they say Paul's the Apostle, Paul's
Speaker 4: garments pieces and shreds of the garment were sent out
Speaker 4: and they healed people, and they drove out demons, and
Speaker 4: so that tradition continues in the Catholic Church. And he
Speaker 4: has some fascinating objects that are purported to contain some power.
Speaker 4: And you know what, it's funny. We've researched and I've
Speaker 4: heard from several people friends of mine, unrelated to the show,
Speaker 4: who have had experiences where they got an object or
Speaker 4: a sort of token at some market in a different
Speaker 4: country and started experiencing some problems afterwards. So it really
Speaker 4: doesn't I know, it's a little different, but it doesn't
Speaker 4: surprise me that we It seems like a lot of
Speaker 4: people accept the idea of like cursed objects. So the
Speaker 4: idea of an object that confers or is imbued with
Speaker 4: some holy uh you know, power and has been you know,
Speaker 4: and is tied to you know, God shouldn't actually be
Speaker 4: that big of a surprise, right, So it is. It's
Speaker 4: fascinating stuff.
Speaker 5: And I mean there are certainly massively famous, you know,
Speaker 5: artifacts of this nature or relics that you know, appear
Speaker 5: in pop culture, like the Arc of the Covenant and
Speaker 5: you know, the Shroud of Turn and things like that.
Speaker 5: So I mean it's interesting to see functional kind of
Speaker 5: discussions of these things outside of some sort of like
Speaker 5: cartoonified you know, Marvel version of these things.
Speaker 4: And the Dial of Destiny, I want to be clear,
Speaker 4: is not a relic.
Speaker 3: So it's based on the anti Catherra mechanism, which at
Speaker 3: best would be a relic of secularism.
Speaker 4: That's right, That's right. I just wanted to.
Speaker 3: Also also, I do want to give a big shout
Speaker 3: out this is this is such a dumb shout out, right,
Speaker 3: I do want to say. I believe it was the
Speaker 3: first bonus episode Exorcist adenda where we have one of
Speaker 3: my favorite puns, which is let's turn in the page
Speaker 3: in a shroud of turin reference. So this is also
Speaker 3: a hashtag no pun left behind show in some parts.
Speaker 3: And that's that's another thing I think is very human
Speaker 3: about it, and it's not stuffy, and it's not looking down,
Speaker 3: it's not it's not attempting to invalidate people's personal experiences.
Speaker 3: There's there's another fascinating bonus episode which is just a
Speaker 3: Q and A. It's like a listener mail episode with
Speaker 3: you and and father Martin's talking to the audience. Now,
Speaker 3: you said you guys already were at a what does
Speaker 3: Reddit call it an rip and box state? With all
Speaker 3: the correspondence you've received, what kind of questions have listeners
Speaker 3: been asking you?
Speaker 5: All?
Speaker 4: Oh? Man, great one. So the number one question we get,
Speaker 4: or early on we got, is what's a podcast? Where
Speaker 4: can I watch this? Which was really interesting, so we
Speaker 4: had to actually explain I was actually shocked because you think,
Speaker 4: like podcasts are pretty pretty ubiquitous by now, there's a
Speaker 4: lot of folks who don't do podcasts or they don't
Speaker 4: even know where you'd get one. So that was interesting.
Speaker 4: The second question this, and I'd say these two account
Speaker 4: for seventy percent of all questions that come in, is
Speaker 4: will I get possessed listening to your show? I mean
Speaker 4: there was a huge amount of yeah, oh yeah, huge
Speaker 4: amount of fear, to the point where if you go
Speaker 4: on our website, we actually have a disclaimer under the
Speaker 4: Q and a no listening to this show. I mean
Speaker 4: one father Martins would not intentionally put you in harm's way,
Speaker 4: so you know, give him some credit, but to no.
Speaker 4: And then also again going back to the what if, right, like,
Speaker 4: what a brilliant strategy if there was an enemy like this,
Speaker 4: right and he scared you into the point where you
Speaker 4: couldn't even learn about it without endangering yourself, Like that
Speaker 4: would just be brilliant. So I found that really interesting,
Speaker 4: and so we often would have to respond and saying, look,
Speaker 4: if this is real, if the spiritual, if the Christian
Speaker 4: world dow is true, and you are a Christian, I
Speaker 4: gotta bounce it. You're already under attack, Like, don't worry
Speaker 4: about it, this is this is not the and there's
Speaker 4: worse stuff you're listening to properly, you know. So I
Speaker 4: think that's those are the tw big two. And then
Speaker 4: we get a lot of really specific questions about can
Speaker 4: you interpret this dream for me? Can demons read our thoughts?
Speaker 4: I got that question so many times because sometimes it's,
Speaker 4: you know, it's it's hard to extrapolate exactly what you know,
Speaker 4: what I really appreciate about Father is he does a
Speaker 4: good job of saying this is what is official doctrine,
Speaker 4: this is what's my experience, right, And one of the
Speaker 4: beautiful things I have to say this because obviously I
Speaker 4: think a huge portion of the audience is probably is Catholic.
Speaker 4: But there's some significant theological differences between Protestants and Catholics,
Speaker 4: And to the point where I even had some Protestants
Speaker 4: asked like, hey, how are you comfortable propagating his actual views?
Speaker 4: And I have to say it wasn't a mean spirited question,
Speaker 4: just still sort of like hey, generally, because you know,
Speaker 4: there's some differences. And I was like, well, Father and
Speaker 4: I really together decided one, obviously, these are his stories,
Speaker 4: so these are his experiences. Decide what you will. But two,
Speaker 4: let's stress the commonality. And here's the commonality from both
Speaker 4: those worldviews, which is like, hey, you don't need to
Speaker 4: be afraid of this stuff if you're doing the right things.
Speaker 4: And two, you don't have to get a Catholic exorcism,
Speaker 4: which I really appreciated. You know, granted he believes that
Speaker 4: is by far the most effective right, and a major
Speaker 4: exorcism is not to be undertaken by anyone but a priest.
Speaker 4: But you know, I really appreciated the dialogue about hey,
Speaker 4: like you know, because people will write in and say,
Speaker 4: you know, well, can I went to this pastor or
Speaker 4: this this denomination?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 4: Is this so okay? Am? I Probably I still possessed
Speaker 4: because I didn't get a Catholic one. And Father was
Speaker 4: really good about saying, look, you know, if you are
Speaker 4: baptized in Christ and you genuinely believe right, all believers
Speaker 4: have the authority, according to the Christian tradition, to cast
Speaker 4: out demons. That being said, he believes his experience the
Speaker 4: right of exorcism, the Catholic version in theology is the
Speaker 4: correct one, and then he would and good conscience recommend
Speaker 4: them there. But I think there's a cool tension where
Speaker 4: you can listen to it. And I love getting emails
Speaker 4: from Protestants and even atheists. We actually had a Satanist
Speaker 4: right in then say you guys did a great job
Speaker 4: of capturing this is exactly how we operate. And I went, thanks,
Speaker 4: how'd you get my email? Again?
Speaker 3: A deistic Satanist? That's somewhat rare. Okay, nice, Well, let's
Speaker 3: talk about really quickly guys the first exorcism.
Speaker 2: I think you were in the show. You guys talk
Speaker 2: about the first recorded exorcisms, and like how far the
Speaker 2: tradition goes back? How long ago the rights were created?
Speaker 2: We go back to like sixteen fourteen, we go back further.
Speaker 2: Father Martins talks about how the right of exorcism that's
Speaker 2: used today was created five hundred years ago, and it's
Speaker 2: been modified over that time. But if you take it
Speaker 2: all the way back, you can go to the New
Speaker 2: Testament to Mark and read Mark five where Jesus exercises
Speaker 2: a demon where he takes a a legion of demons,
Speaker 2: around two thousand of them at least according to Mark,
Speaker 2: pulls them out of a man, puts them into pigs
Speaker 2: in a field, like literally two thousand pigs, and then
Speaker 2: those pigs run down and drown themselves. Like that's that's nuts.
Speaker 2: I just have to say it. I can't believe that it's.
Speaker 4: A rough day for that farmer too. No one talks
Speaker 4: about that guy who owned all the pigs.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of food.
Speaker 4: He lost all that stuff there. Yeah, you know it's interesting.
Speaker 4: Father will observe that a lot of the I think
Speaker 4: I could be wrong on this too. But I think
Speaker 4: a vast majority of the story stories about the demonic
Speaker 4: in the New Testament, which to your point, Matt, like,
Speaker 4: it's the most talked about, slash and not talked about
Speaker 4: thing in the New Testament. Like there's prayer, there's you know,
Speaker 4: there's angels, there's I mean, you got all sorts of
Speaker 4: stuff in there, but the miracles everywhere. But Jesus does
Speaker 4: you know, a few exorcisms, and it's understood that this
Speaker 4: is a reality, and the disciples at one point come
Speaker 4: back because he gives them the power and they to
Speaker 4: cast out demons and they come back and they're like, Jesus,
Speaker 4: you won't believe it. This works, right, And He's like,
Speaker 4: I know, guys, but don't be excited about that. That's
Speaker 4: not the most important thing. Be excited about the fact
Speaker 4: that you're saved, you know. But it was. But most
Speaker 4: of the stories actually take place near water, which was
Speaker 4: an interesting observation, and so Father has postulated there could
Speaker 4: be some connection between the demonic and water, which you know,
Speaker 4: keid even Strap extrapolate further there's water and baptism, and
Speaker 4: is there some inverse relationship, you know, One of the
Speaker 4: theories that Actually, I don't think it was faught. It
Speaker 4: may have been fought. Someone put out this theory that
Speaker 4: the wire, salt, and water in some of these like
Speaker 4: elements are these like materials used in exorcism. And one
Speaker 4: of the theories that got thrown out was that these represent
Speaker 4: original jurisdictions that Satan and his demons had dominion over,
Speaker 4: and so using it against them is like God's sort
Speaker 4: of justice against them, like, oh, you were you were
Speaker 4: in charge of the salt of the earth, and you
Speaker 4: were to oversee water, you know, and and now you
Speaker 4: forfeited that jurisdiction, and so I will use it against
Speaker 4: you as a constant reminder of the rebellion. So I
Speaker 4: can't prove that, but it's kind of epic.
Speaker 3: It's fascinating. Back to the idea of lawful evil, alignment
Speaker 3: of jurisdictions, right, the the idea of Satan as an
Speaker 3: ubiquitous entity, non corporeal, dwelling at every moment in time,
Speaker 3: right and only allowed in when when cer invitations are made.
Speaker 3: We're alluding to some things, folks. If you want to
Speaker 3: hear the full exploration, tune in to the Exorcist files.
Speaker 3: It's available now. A lot of the episodes we're talking
Speaker 3: about that we barely touched on, including some deep dive
Speaker 3: bonus episodes for which we're all grateful, Ryan, What if
Speaker 3: we're being as general as possible here, it's clear that
Speaker 3: this is for anybody interested in the concept of exorcism,
Speaker 3: not just people of the Catholic faith. What do you
Speaker 3: hope the audience can take away from experiencing the Exorcist files.
Speaker 4: I'm going to answer that, but I'm going to make
Speaker 4: you a deal for signing some legal or sixty here
Speaker 4: because I want to ask you guys too, if I
Speaker 4: can put you guys on the spot to what you
Speaker 4: all think about some of this, because I've been monopolizing
Speaker 4: this for a lot, but I so one, you know,
Speaker 4: this isn't the primal thing, but one I help people
Speaker 4: at the core, at least they're entertained. I love making
Speaker 4: things that help people be entertained. But more importantly, and
Speaker 4: far more importantly, is that I want to raise awareness
Speaker 4: of the idea that spiritual warfare could be far more
Speaker 4: real than people realize. And regardless of your theology, your worldview,
Speaker 4: your outlook, and again I'm biased, right, I'm not a naturalist.
Speaker 4: I think there is abundant evidence, and I've just and again,
Speaker 4: we're all shaped by our experiences, right, I've had Prior
Speaker 4: to doing the show, I had several friends in college
Speaker 4: share a story with demonic encounters. The three guys who
Speaker 4: don't know each other, but they're all just friends from
Speaker 4: college who have almost the identical experience. Long ago. I
Speaker 4: was like, I think there's just there's stuff that's going on,
Speaker 4: There's stuff that can't be explained, and I want people
Speaker 4: to open their minds and say, just for a moment,
Speaker 4: consider this, right, and if it is real, how would
Speaker 4: that change some of the decisions we make in general?
Speaker 4: And so I hope people can at least walk away.
Speaker 4: Also clarifying some of the misconceptions about it. A lot
Speaker 4: of I know, there's a lot of wounding, and a
Speaker 4: lot of people think it's just a wait, you know,
Speaker 4: it's a you know, I think when people think of
Speaker 4: this sometimes they think of just like you know, inquisition
Speaker 4: and which trials and just like people being burned at
Speaker 4: this you know that there's there's, of course, throughout history,
Speaker 4: a lot of mania, and I'm sure a lot of
Speaker 4: people were throughout history were very much falsely accused of
Speaker 4: this right, but I'd love people to know that there's
Speaker 4: also if you really dig in and find out the reality,
Speaker 4: at least from our priest's perspective, is that a lot
Speaker 4: of people get healthy. And this is another tool, like
Speaker 4: doctor Gallagher says too, is like as a medical practitioner,
Speaker 4: I am obligated to bring forward any methodology that could
Speaker 4: be therapeutic for my patients. And if this happens to
Speaker 4: be one, so be it. And at least let's be open.
Speaker 4: Let's be open to it. And so I want people
Speaker 4: to just just again have the conversation and say, could
Speaker 4: there be a spiritual reality that I'm not aware of?
Speaker 4: Because I do I do accept truths that I don't
Speaker 4: have physical, laboratory verified evidence for. And if what would
Speaker 4: what would be the implications of that? So on that note,
Speaker 4: I would love to know you'all have listened to obviously
Speaker 4: some of this. Thank you appreciate it. You were you
Speaker 4: were the four extra downloads we got yesterday. I really
Speaker 4: appreciate that. But I'm curious, like, you know, where do
Speaker 4: you all live with this as far as like would
Speaker 4: you listen to it? Do you just is it sort
Speaker 4: of a blurry tension of, like, you know, because you
Speaker 4: guys cover all sorts of crazy topics and this this
Speaker 4: could probably be lumped in with UFOs and everything, like
Speaker 4: you know, what do you you know, do you think
Speaker 4: there's evidence that there's something else going on?
Speaker 5: It's tough. I mean, like you said, we we sort
Speaker 5: of are doing and a lot of this type of
Speaker 5: thing on a regular basis, like day in and day out.
Speaker 5: So it's hard not to walk away with the sense
Speaker 5: that there is something deeper, you know, than we can see,
Speaker 5: and then we can you know, figure out and actually
Speaker 5: fully experience, you know, to the point of you know,
Speaker 5: scientific evidence or to be based in some sort of
Speaker 5: provable thing. And I think if you discount these types
Speaker 5: of ideas, then you're sort of living only a partially
Speaker 5: rich life, you know, whether these be negative phenomenon or
Speaker 5: positive phenomenon, spiritual, demonic, you know, forces beyond our galaxy,
Speaker 5: forces beyond this kind of mortal coil. It's a long
Speaker 5: winded way of saying, you know, as like a non
Speaker 5: monotheistic person myself, I absolutely am with you in having
Speaker 5: a spiritual belief. I don't know what to call it though,
Speaker 5: and I certainly think that some of the things that
Speaker 5: you describe in your show really do cause one to
Speaker 5: take pause and give a little more thought and credence
Speaker 5: to these kinds of things beyond just a psychological phenomenon,
Speaker 5: you know. So, yes, I do think there's something. I
Speaker 5: don't know what it is, though, but I remain open
Speaker 5: to it.
Speaker 4: I love it diplomatic, the erudite, well thought out, and
Speaker 4: that was great. It was good.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll just I'll just give you an experience from
Speaker 2: today when I was listening to one of the episodes.
Speaker 5: One of the.
Speaker 2: Characters, I think, his brother brings home ouija board set
Speaker 2: and they're like teasing their little brothers, a little kid,
Speaker 2: and they're teasing him about and they get him to
Speaker 2: use it, and almost immediately the little brother's like, Noah,
Speaker 2: I don't I'm not going to do this anymore. Goes upstairs,
Speaker 2: is like going to bed, and according to the story,
Speaker 2: he gets visited by some darkened figure that is so
Speaker 2: dark it makes the darkness look light. I think that's
Speaker 2: how it's described in the episode that I listened to.
Speaker 2: And this thing apparently has a cat's head. It's like
Speaker 2: a man with a cat head. So then I opened
Speaker 2: up the lesser key of Solomon to check out some
Speaker 2: of the demons and how they're described in there. And
Speaker 2: Bail is described in that thing as having sometimes appearing
Speaker 2: with a cat head. And as I'm going through, I'm
Speaker 2: like reading about that and then comparing it, and it's
Speaker 2: just I think for me personally, the show is making
Speaker 2: me want to explore it further, not even knowing truly
Speaker 2: what I you know, believe about it, but it's certainly
Speaker 2: fascinating because it makes connections to other materials that are
Speaker 2: out there and that are available.
Speaker 4: That's you know, that story. That story bothers me actually
Speaker 4: is that it seems like the kid doesn't like he
Speaker 4: did the right thing he left. You know, now obviously
Speaker 4: he still makes a deal right, and so that's the
Speaker 4: and that's the thing, like we can say that doesn't
Speaker 4: seem fair, but again, if God is who the Bible
Speaker 4: says he is, then you know he ultimately will be
Speaker 4: found fair. But it's it's such a that story does
Speaker 4: bother me a little bit. But again he makes the pact.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's another crazy thing. So that you describe
Speaker 4: it the shadow that is there but not there, that
Speaker 4: is darker than darkness. So when I had mentioned the
Speaker 4: several people that I told you about in college. That
Speaker 4: was something that really stuck out to me because and
Speaker 4: again they just dismissed it as like, man, you know,
Speaker 4: too much to drink that night or whatever. Right, but
Speaker 4: like one of them actually said that he was reading
Speaker 4: a book, the Teachings of Don Juan and Had which
Speaker 4: you know that definitely is probably the you know, if
Speaker 4: you're going to point to a book, that could be
Speaker 4: maybe the beginning. And he said he, uh, he was awake,
Speaker 4: he was sleeping at night, and this is a common
Speaker 4: common experience that people write in about so and again
Speaker 4: this also, uh, you know, could be tied to some
Speaker 4: physiological response humans have. I know that in our sleep
Speaker 4: we often are you know, can have this sensation of
Speaker 4: you know, suffocating, you know, with apnea or sleep paralysis whatever.
Speaker 4: He described waking up and this shadow being in a
Speaker 4: corner of his room, the room being freezing, and it
Speaker 4: coming over and hovering over him and jumping on top
Speaker 4: of him and saying submit, like pushing him down.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: We document that story or a storyline that in the
Speaker 4: Excess files. I have two friends who have that exact
Speaker 4: same experience, and a third with just a slight derivation
Speaker 4: of it, And that's the kind of stuff that makes
Speaker 4: me go, okay, is there something in the human psyche
Speaker 4: that goes to that that manifests that kind of like
Speaker 4: when they say pee I was joking earlier, but you
Speaker 4: know when Chandler would make the joke that he sees
Speaker 4: the shadow people after going being awake for two days, like,
Speaker 4: maybe that's rooted in something, right, Maybe there's something going
Speaker 4: on there. But again, you hear these stories and you go, Okay,
Speaker 4: how come it's always the story of like jumping on
Speaker 4: the chest and saying submit, and you're just like, that's creepy.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't know what's going on there, So
Speaker 4: I'm that's kind of the stuff that I walk away
Speaker 4: going when you hear stories the father tells that line
Speaker 4: up with stuff you heard years before, you go. That's
Speaker 4: one of the reasons I find him particularly credible.
Speaker 3: Ryan, would you be open to us inviting our fellow
Speaker 3: conspiracy realist to write to the Exorcist Files with their
Speaker 3: own experiences.
Speaker 4: Absolutely welcome to write. We do have so many emails
Speaker 4: that are coming in right now, but please like just
Speaker 4: be patient with us, because it does there's a lot
Speaker 4: of attachments come in and I got to clean out
Speaker 4: the inboxes. So yes, if anyone wants to write in
Speaker 4: and share, we do try to read as many as
Speaker 4: we can. We obviously can't get back to everybody, especially
Speaker 4: in a timely manner, but please Actresses Files a Gmail.
Speaker 4: You can follow us on Instagram for the latest updates
Speaker 4: on the very tantalizing season two. You think you've heard
Speaker 4: some crazy stories already, Season two gonna blow your mind.
Speaker 4: So just when you thought it was safe to go
Speaker 4: back in the room.
Speaker 3: Right throw away your wija boards. And also if you
Speaker 3: if for those of us who would like to learn
Speaker 3: more about your work outside of the Exorcist Files, I'm
Speaker 3: thinking of stuff like Assembly seventy two. Where where can
Speaker 3: they find you directly?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So, one, you can follow me on the gram.
Speaker 4: I'm the bethet. It's not as pretentious as it sounds.
Speaker 4: It's just the and then my last name. And then
Speaker 4: you can follow us obviously on Exorcist Files at Instagram
Speaker 4: as well. And then yeah, you can also reach me
Speaker 4: at Ryanbathay dot com if you want to ask questions
Speaker 4: or I love connecting with folks and happy to help
Speaker 4: with anyone's within reason obviously we can't. It's funny father
Speaker 4: has gotten such a big increase in house call requests
Speaker 4: and he just can't do it anymore. So it's kind
Speaker 4: of Ghostbusters, you know, with the ad ran on so
Speaker 4: on there. But yes, no, definitely, And then please actually
Speaker 4: go to Exorcistfiles dot tv sign up for our email list.
Speaker 4: We have some really exciting updates coming about season two,
Speaker 4: So please go to Exorcist Files dot tv. And then
Speaker 4: you can engage with the team on social media as well.
Speaker 4: We'd love to hear from you. We so appreciate it.
Speaker 4: The show's doing great. Grateful to iHeartRadio. They really helped
Speaker 4: make something special. Chandler crushed it. And grateful for y'all
Speaker 4: having me on this. You know, I would have made
Speaker 4: a great access how much I talk, I could have
Speaker 4: just the dem want to be like, please, if you
Speaker 4: just be quiet, I will leave.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for your time. Man, We're not
Speaker 3: casting you out. We got to keep this one right.
Speaker 3: What do you think, Matt Nole?
Speaker 5: So oh, we say.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 3: You know, at the at the end of that, I
Speaker 3: feel like we all still have a lot of questions.
Speaker 3: What do you think?
Speaker 5: Yeah, nothing wrong with questions. I think they're important there,
Speaker 5: which makes us human, one of the one of the
Speaker 5: things that is uh. I thoroughly enjoyed that conversation and
Speaker 5: appreciated Ryan's commitment to spirituality and to you know, keep
Speaker 5: that kind of top of mind for him and his perspective,
Speaker 5: but also his willingness to you know, go elsewhere, go
Speaker 5: wherever the conversation and the thoughts might lead, and the questions.
Speaker 3: And such respect and objectivity right exploring such a personal,
Speaker 3: large thing, and in the case of possession of exorcism,
Speaker 3: something that is often woefully mischaracterized in fiction. And I
Speaker 3: say that as a big fan of basically every exorcism
Speaker 3: horror movie on the planet.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know, guys, I came away from this
Speaker 2: really wanting to somehow, some way get access to Father
Speaker 2: Martin's I guess, his files, because yes, he's He's apparently
Speaker 2: got a whole transcript of the actual case that they
Speaker 2: called it, the Roland Doe case, the one that the
Speaker 2: Exorcist book was based on, and with the actual you know,
Speaker 2: person's name, with the full details of what happened. God,
Speaker 2: I would love to read that and other like transcripts
Speaker 2: or recordings of actual exorcisms.
Speaker 4: God, I want to see that.
Speaker 3: I was asking. I was asking Ryan also off air,
Speaker 3: what the off off the books conversations with Martin's had been,
Speaker 3: like you know, in the creation of the show, because
Speaker 3: this guy is one of the world's foremost experts on exorcism.
Speaker 3: We hope that you found this conversation as fascinating as
Speaker 3: we have. And like we said earlier in the conversation,
Speaker 3: please do check out the Exorcis files. We're not blowing smoke.
Speaker 3: That is a very well done show. It tick the
Speaker 3: boxes for me, you guys.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and once again big ups to our buddy Chandler Mays.
Speaker 5: Excellent work on the production side and research side and
Speaker 5: all the things side of this show from him as well.
Speaker 3: And if you are possessed of something that you want
Speaker 3: to tell us, you can exercise your right to contact
Speaker 3: us at any number of platforms across the Internet hashtag
Speaker 3: no pun Left Behind.
Speaker 5: Indeed, you can find it at the handle Conspiracy Stuff
Speaker 5: on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram
Speaker 5: and TikTok.
Speaker 2: Use your voice call what eight three three st d
Speaker 2: WYTK leave a voicemail. You've got three minutes, give yourself
Speaker 2: a nickname and let us know if we can use
Speaker 2: your message on the air. It's that simple. If you
Speaker 2: don't want to do that stuff, why not instead send
Speaker 2: us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.