Demonic Forces: A Psychiatrist's Perspective on Possession
This podcast episode delves into the intricate relationship between mental health and spiritual phenomena, particularly the existence of evil spirits. We engage in a profound dialogue with Dr. Richard Gallagher, a prominent psychiatrist, who challenges the prevailing materialistic paradigm in mental health. Our discussion illuminates the rising interest in religious experiences, especially within the context of the Catholic Church, as many individuals seek spiritual explanations for their struggles. Furthermore, we explore the necessity of distinguishing between psychological disorders and genuine spiritual crises, emphasizing the critical need for spiritual assistance in certain cases. Join us as we navigate these complex themes, striving to broaden our understanding of the interplay between the psychological and the spiritual realms.
The discussion navigates the intricate relationship between mental health and spiritual phenomena, particularly focusing on the existence of evil spirits as perceived by various cultures and religions. Speaker A, a psychiatrist with a profound academic background, articulates the significance of recognizing that certain psychological afflictions may transcend conventional psychiatric definitions, potentially stemming from spiritual or demonic influences. This perspective challenges the prevalent materialistic view held by many in the mental health community, suggesting that a broader understanding of human experience is necessary to adequately address the complexities of mental health issues. The conversation highlights the historical context of belief in evil spirits, noting that such beliefs have persisted across cultures and epochs, indicating a universal human recognition of the non-material dimensions of existence.
Takeaways:
- The podcast explores the intersection of mental health and spiritual phenomena, emphasizing the need for careful discernment.
- Many mental health professionals worldwide acknowledge the existence of evil spirits, despite skepticism in mainstream science.
- The discussion highlights the growing interest in religious experiences amidst a surge of conversions to Catholicism in the United States.
- It is argued that some psychological issues may extend beyond materialistic explanations, requiring spiritual intervention.
- The importance of distinguishing between psychiatric conditions and genuine spiritual problems is underscored throughout the conversation.
- The dialogue reflects on historical beliefs in evil spirits, illustrating that this phenomenon transcends modern skepticism.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Demonic Force
- Columbia University
- New York Medical College
- Catholic Church
- Paranormal Daily News
Transcript
I say number one.
Speaker A:You know, there are many mental health professionals around the world who believe in evil spirits.
Speaker A:You know, I mean, is it a majority?
Speaker B:Probably not, but it's, you know, it's a significant number.
Speaker C:Welcome to the Deadly Departed podcast, where the veil between the living and the dead is just a whisper away.
Speaker C:I'm Jock, and along with my colleagues in Paranormal Daily News, we will be your guides through the shadowy realms of the paranormal and the unexplained.
Speaker C:In each episode, we will dive into the eerie and the enigmatic with the help of today's leading experts in parapsychology, science and the supernatural.
Speaker C:Prepare to uncover the secrets that lurk in the dark and explore the mysteries that defy explanation.
Speaker C:Let's embark on this journey now.
Speaker C:Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker C:This is Jock here.
Speaker C:This is Deadly Departed.
Speaker C:Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to you are going to see a good friend of mine here, Dr. Richard Gallagher, who if you have been following us for a long time, you will recognize Richard from one of my other podcasts, other podcasts, other episodes.
Speaker C:Actually, I'm delighted to have him back.
Speaker C:And I think we're going to jump into a great conversation that actually Richard and I talk about every time we have a good chat about mental health, possessions, obsessions, spiritual crisis, or effectively even religious crisis, which is really important in today's day and age.
Speaker C:Now, if you've been following the news, you'll notice that the Catholic Church has been growing in the U.S. there's been a massive surgeons of people converting and going back to Catholicism and actually converting to Catholicism.
Speaker C:And of course, that brings with it a lot of potential misunderstandings around religious experience, mystical experiences, and the potential of mental health that may borderline into something that goes way beyond maybe psychiatry or psychology.
Speaker C:And that's what we're here to talk about today.
Speaker C:Richard, welcome back to the show.
Speaker C:I'm really glad to have you back.
Speaker B:Thank you, Jack.
Speaker B:It's nice to see you and nice to be back on the show.
Speaker C:Now let's.
Speaker C:Obviously you've.
Speaker C:For anybody who's watching, this is a great book, one of my favorite books, Demonic Force.
Speaker C:Go and read it.
Speaker C:We'll talk about that.
Speaker C:But let's talk a little bit about your work carrying on from what we did in another episode, your experience in mental health as a psychiatrist and how you really challenged the materialism, the materialistic aspect or the science going beyond the science to recognize that there are spiritual problems that go beyond mental health.
Speaker B:Well, a little bit, you know, the background to the question.
Speaker B:So I am a professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College.
Speaker B:I'm also a psychoanalyst at Columbia, and I also teach at a Catholic seminary.
Speaker B:I teach this whole subject of demonology, really.
Speaker B:So on the one hand, you know, I am a Catholic, and on the other hand, you know, I am.
Speaker B:I am a mainstream psychiatrist.
Speaker B:So I accept a lot of the findings of science.
Speaker A:I'm not in any way anti science.
Speaker A:We do have to recognize, though, that.
Speaker B:Some aspects of the scientific paradigm can exclude the non material.
Speaker B:Yeah, you know, I'm obviously not a materialist, but again, that doesn't.
Speaker B:That doesn't put me so far out of the mainstream.
Speaker B:You know, there are many Christian, you know, Jewish, even Muslim psychiatrists.
Speaker B:You know, I know many of these individuals who, you know, practice their faith and also are pretty accepted mainstream psychiatrists.
Speaker B:So, you know, the question becomes how you put it together.
Speaker B:You know, how you understand that, you know, mankind is body and soul, and sometimes you have to address the brain and, you know, disturbances of the brain, and other times people's problems are, you know, go beyond even normal psychological issues to the spiritual.
Speaker B:I think the cases you're referring to are cases I never volunteered to see.
Speaker B:You know, I was asked to evaluate some people with what you and I, I'm sure, would regard as, you know, beyond the naturalistic, beyond the materialistic, that they have overt spiritual problems.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Now, you know, since they're problems, in my case, we're primarily talking about demonic attacks.
Speaker B:And yes, it is true that a fair amount of psychiatrists may be skeptical of that.
Speaker B:We're all aware of, say, psychotic individuals who only imagine or are delusional that they're being attacked by evil spirits.
Speaker B:But then there are the, you know, dramatic cases, many of which I have consulted upon over the years.
Speaker B:And these, these are cases of people who say we'll go into a possessed state or will be overtly attacked by an evil spirit.
Speaker B:And of course, that requires, you know, sometimes it requires some psychological help too, but, you know, at heart it requires something beyond psychiatry.
Speaker B:It requires.
Speaker B:Requires spiritual assistance.
Speaker C:If you are enjoying this episode of Deadly Departed, then please share it with your colleagues or share it with your friends.
Speaker C:And if you've got any ideas on anyone that you would like us to invite onto the podcast for an interview, then please let us know.
Speaker C:Once again, thank you for joining us today, and please remember and subscribe.
Speaker C:God bless.
Speaker C:David Luke obviously did a lot of work in bringing in recognition, if you like, into the DSM 5, where there has to be.
Speaker C:There's some form of maybe a little bit of an understanding of a spiritual problem.
Speaker C:It doesn't obviously mention demonic.
Speaker C:It just said, obviously a spiritual or religious problem.
Speaker C:But do you think that there needs to be more work in our field to perhaps even expand on what the DSM 5 says?
Speaker C:Because there is obviously cases that go beyond the realm of psychiatry or psychology and science because of anomalous phenomena that's perhaps experienced in potential cases.
Speaker C:And do you think that if there is more of a change or more research done into it, that we could perhaps open the field even more and maybe get it accepted as a religious problem and to recognize spiritual intelligences, demons as being realistically a problem in the mental health field?
Speaker B:Well, I have a different.
Speaker A:I have a different perspective.
Speaker A:I think the DSM system.
Speaker B:Works as.
Speaker A:Far as it goes.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:You know, and I don't necessarily want, you know, the medical or the psychiatric community.
Speaker B:To dabble, to cross over into, you know, different philosophical viewpoints.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker A:In other words, I think we have to keep those fields somewhat separate.
Speaker B:I mean, you know, in my book.
Speaker A:Demonic Foes, as you know, I do a careful distinction between spiritual conditions and psychiatric conditions.
Speaker A:Now, psychiatric conditions in themselves, we use something called the biopsychosocial model.
Speaker A:In other words, we recognize that there are things beyond.
Speaker A:Beyond that can be just studied biologically.
Speaker A:We have to bring in psychology in some ways, we even have to bring in social.
Speaker A:Social factors.
Speaker A:But for psychiatry to get overly involved, Jock in.
Speaker A:I'll use the word pontificating, you know, you know, attempting to explain, using.
Speaker A:Using, you know, mainstream scientific categories.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker A:Demonic, I think, opens a can of worms.
Speaker A:You know, so, you know, you know, what, what.
Speaker A:What religious or spiritual viewpoint do you accept?
Speaker A:You know, because there's such a diversity even within, you know, the spiritual community about some of these phenomena that I think it's better, you know, you keep things separate.
Speaker A:You know, what I say in my book is that it's important to make careful distinctions.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker B:Got my allergies today.
Speaker B:It's important to make proper distinctions between overt spiritual attacks.
Speaker B:And again, what I'm primarily talking about there is.
Speaker B:As attacks I'm talking about.
Speaker B:It implies evil spirits.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Between overt interference and attacks by evil spirits and, you know, otherwise, you know, psychiatric conditions.
Speaker B:I think that distinction is so important that I'd be leery of, you know, say, the American Psychiatric association, which.
Speaker B:Which writes the dsm, getting overly mixed up in it because it would just.
Speaker B:It would.
Speaker B:It would open so many controversies that I think.
Speaker B:I think they.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:They have to stay a little neutral on that subject.
Speaker B:You know, trust me, trust me.
Speaker B:I know many psychiatrists around the world who believe exactly the way I do.
Speaker B:You know, they probably don't have, you know, as much experience as I've had because, you know, I've probably seen more of these cases.
Speaker B:I get calls from all over the world and I've seen more of these cases.
Speaker B:I'm also a member of an international association, a Catholic association, as a scientific advisor.
Speaker B:So, you know, I've seen a tremendous amount of these cases.
Speaker B:My former academic chairman who, who is a Catholic, he's retired now, but you know, he wrote that I've seen more of these cases than anybody, any doctor in the world and probably in history.
Speaker B:So I have this evidence base that allows me to speak out about it with confidence and all that.
Speaker B:But I don't mean to imply that, you know, there, there are plenty of Christian and Catholic psychiatrists who essentially, you know, believe what I do.
Speaker B:And you know, we all kind of have to use our own wits to differentiate those two conditions.
Speaker B:I don't, I don't particularly think it's a good idea to have anything official from, from the American Psychiatric association attempting to tease that out because you got to remember, I'm very committed to, to the scientific method.
Speaker C:Yes, you are.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:And that's what I love about your work actually is you are but the very much empirical.
Speaker B:But the scientific method can only take you so far.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker B:You know, then you have to realize that there are, you know, non material realities that are impossible to, you know, adjudicate by, by what we now know as the modern scientific method.
Speaker B:You can't do experiments, you know, when you're dealing with evil spirits.
Speaker C:No, absolutely no.
Speaker C:But I think what's important though for people to recognize out there as well is that when we're looking at science, some of the phenomena that is experienced, anomalous phenomena, goes beyond scientific understanding.
Speaker C:And you make that very clear.
Speaker C:In demonic force, you make that clear.
Speaker C:And the cases that we've discussed, and even the work in the past with other cases, there's clearly phenomena that goes beyond the realms of scientific understanding.
Speaker C:And that to me is a massive move forward, a massive sign.
Speaker C:And for someone like yourself to come out with the history and the professionalism and the skills that you have to effectively kind of change the paradigm within the science, within science, because of your approach to.
Speaker C:Surely begs the question that we should be looking at it more of a serious issue.
Speaker C:Obviously there's cases that grow that are developing all the time and it involves, and also I Want to also make it clear that when we talk about this, Richard, as well, yes, we're from a Catholicism point of view, because we both understand that.
Speaker C:But there are strategies, there are histories within all faiths, within the Muslim faith, within Buddhism.
Speaker C:And so it's not just strictly down to Christianity that demons exist.
Speaker C:They're named, and they're understood as different concepts in various fields.
Speaker C:But I think the parallel is that experiences, lived experience and anomalous phenomena that goes beyond science should make us think and question more.
Speaker B:Well, thank you for the compliment.
Speaker B:And I don't disagree with the way you're framing it.
Speaker B:It's just that the way the word science is used in the modern world is not necessarily, you know, here I'm going to put my former classicist hat on from Princeton.
Speaker B:You know, the word science really means knowledge.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And, you know, I believe that what I write about, Jock, is genuine knowledge.
Speaker B:It's just that it doesn't fit the paradigm, if you will, of being able to do scientific experiments.
Speaker B:In other words, you know, when you're dealing with, you know, even human beings, but especially when you're dealing with evil spirits, you're dealing with creatures that want to confuse people and want to hide people.
Speaker B:They're not going to be able to be subject for experimentation in a modern scientific sense.
Speaker B:They also, you know, are perfectly capable of interfering with the study of them.
Speaker A:For instance, you know, I've had people.
Speaker B:Who come to me and say, Dr.
Speaker A:Gallagher, you know, you write about, you.
Speaker B:Know, anomalous phenomena like levitation, like people speaking foreign languages.
Speaker B:Why don't you videotape it?
Speaker B:You know?
Speaker B:Now, the Catholic Church, you know, I've dealt with a lot of different religions, but the Catholic Church is, you know, where I've had the most experience.
Speaker B:And they regard, number one as videotaping exorcisms, for instance, as a violation of privacy.
Speaker B:But what I've also noticed, Jock, is that people who try to capture these things on videotape, often the videotape is interfered with.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:So they'll say, well, Dr. Gallagher, I tried to videotape it.
Speaker B:I had it on videotape.
Speaker B:But then the videotape disappeared.
Speaker B:So, strange as it may sound, you know, we're not dealing with creatures who can interfere with our study of them, number one.
Speaker B:So they make it difficult because, you know, on the one hand, they kind of want to attack and display themselves to certain people, but to other people, they are very happy that people are skeptical.
Speaker B:So it's a very hard thing to study.
Speaker B:And as I say, to People, they're not like Hollywood actors that are eager to perform for the camera.
Speaker B:They're just not going to do that.
Speaker C:It's interesting.
Speaker C:I think people need to realize, and I tend to utilize this term spiritual intelligences or nefarious intelligences, as I've used, in terms as well as demonic, because they're a lot more intelligent than we are.
Speaker C:And I've had this argument with many people where they say, well, you know, you can go in and prayers and cleanse or do this, or we can't.
Speaker C:You know, why can't you catch them on video?
Speaker C:Well, the millions of years, the thousands, I mean, not even time.
Speaker C:The intelligence is beyond what we can even imagine.
Speaker C:So the reality is, whatever we try to do to circumnavigate in our own field of understanding, they're always going to be able to go beyond what we could even understand, which is why we need spiritual intervention, which is why we need holy intervention into these.
Speaker C:And I find.
Speaker C:And I know that you've found this many times, no matter what religion you are or what experiences you have, it always does tend to come back to the Catholic Church, because many other religions will approach the Catholic Church for health help because they've had the most experience through the years.
Speaker A:Well, I don't want to be, you know, overly chauvinistic about it.
Speaker C:Obviously, I get it.
Speaker A:Obviously, I'm.
Speaker A:I'm not only a Catholic, but I'm a faculty member at a. Yeah.
Speaker A:Catholic seminary.
Speaker A:So I'm a very Catholic guy.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And it is true that a lot of times when the worst cases come along, they wind up.
Speaker A:And, you know, I've seen this happen even from people in other religions.
Speaker A:For instance, you know, I had a very intelligent Hindu woman who was actually a physician, and she eventually had to turn to the Catholic Church to get the help that she needed.
Speaker A:You know, in terms of, you know, getting back to the question of, you know, evidence and how much you can videotape and all that, you know, those are tricky issues.
Speaker A:But I don't want to minimize the other side of the coin.
Speaker A:You know, when people say to me, as a psychiatrist, well, Dr. Gallagher, how does it feel to be out of the mainstream?
Speaker A:I say, what mainstream are you talking about?
Speaker A:I say, number one, you know, there are many mental health professionals around the world who believe in evil spirits.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, is it a majority?
Speaker B:Probably not, but it's, you know, it's a significant number.
Speaker A:But, you know, if you talk about.
Speaker B:The beliefs of your average population, for instance, most Americans do believe in Evil spirits?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Most people around the world believe in evil spirits.
Speaker B:Maybe not in, you know.
Speaker A:You know.
Speaker B:More skeptical areas of the world, like, like Western Europe and stuff, but the vast majority of people in the world believe in evil spirits.
Speaker B:And here's where I'll put in my, put on my professor hat.
Speaker B:You know, having studied the classics throughout history, almost everybody has believed in evil spirits.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:So, you know, in the Greco Roman world, you know, which was pagan, and they believed in the gods and the goddesses, they, they knew that some spirits were dangerous and could attack them.
Speaker B:In fact, one of the reasons Christianity spread in the Roman Empire is because what they found is that the Christian missionaries, following the authorization ultimately from Jesus to the apostles, that the, the Christian priest and exorcist had much more power, successful power over evil spirits than their own pagan priests.
Speaker B:Sort of like the story of Elijah in the Bible, if people know it where, you know, he, he won a victory over, you know, 500 pagan priests, you know, so, you know, I always have to emphasize that I don't feel like I'm out of the mainstream.
Speaker B:I feel like, you know, modern, modern materialists are the ones historically who are out of the mainstream because that is not the way most people in history and even most people in America, you know, still think about the non material world, you know.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I also think that there's, there's a lack of, I mean, obviously the history goes by ancient.
Speaker C:I've read a lot about ancient Samaria.
Speaker C:The belief in demons, the belief in evil spirits and the.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It really was ubiquitous.
Speaker C:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:And this is what people don't understand in Samaria.
Speaker B:You know, Samaria was one of the earliest writing forms and they had, they left evidence that they believed in evil spirits.
Speaker B:But, you know, so did the Babylonians, so did the Assyrians, so did the Greek world.
Speaker B:You know, we talk about the Greek world as being very rationalistic and you had great philosophers like Aristotle and Plato, but, you know, they were also spiritual people.
Speaker B:They not only believed in the divine, but they also believed in malignant spirits.
Speaker C:If you are enjoying this episode of Deadly Departed, then please share it with your colleagues or share it with your friends.
Speaker C:And if you've got any ideas on anyone that you would like us to invite onto the podcast for an interview, then please let us know.
Speaker C:Once again, thank you for joining us today and please remember and subscribe.
Speaker C:God bless.
Speaker C:Why do you think, Richard, that so many people neglect to accept the reality of evil spurs?
Speaker C:So even in my field, and I'm not talking about mediumship, but even in my academic research and parapsychology, and I've had this argument a few times where they're like, there's so many explanations for anomalous phenomena.
Speaker C:Yes, there is.
Speaker C:But if you haven't experienced something like you've experienced and witnessed anomalous phenomena, I have as well.
Speaker C:And so my conviction in knowing, I don't want to, and I use the term knowing rather than believing that there are evil spirits, that it seems that the only way that you would accept it is if you experience it.
Speaker C:And nobody really wants to experience anything like it because it scars you for life.
Speaker C:But there's enough evidence throughout history that there is something else that's nefarious that's out there.
Speaker C:And I always say to people, look, we only know evil because good exists.
Speaker C:We only know hot because cold exists, and we only know light because dark exists.
Speaker C:So why get to the point of denying the potential that evil is out there?
Speaker C:And I know, I've read a lot of papers in psychiatry and even in psychology and transpersonal psychology where they try to label evil as just some kind of mental construct that really isn't evil in a sense, but yet we know that it exists.
Speaker C:What is truly evil?
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, you know, some of it is kind of human common sense.
Speaker A:You know, when we look at somebody like, you know, Putin and Stalin and Hitler, you know, I mean, I think the common sense view is that there was something very, you know, evil being propagated by those people.
Speaker A:Now, can you prove that?
Speaker A:I mean, you can't prove it like 2 and 2 equals 4.
Speaker B:But I think it's a.
Speaker A:Such a common human commonsensical intuition that, you know, you just have to say, if you don't believe in it, you know, does.
Speaker A:I can't help you.
Speaker A:You know, but you're right, too, that for anomalous experiences, I mean, you know, I know.
Speaker A:I mean, I wrote a whole book about it.
Speaker A:I know that those experiences exist.
Speaker A:Now, do you have to experience it yourself to truly believe in it?
Speaker A:Well, I mean, I hope not, because, you know, that's why.
Speaker A:That's why I and other people, you know, write books.
Speaker A:And it's, It's.
Speaker A:It's not as if the.
Speaker A:The evidence for this stuff is out there.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's just more sort of, you know, what we call in medicine anecdotal evidence.
Speaker A:You know, it's people telling their stories.
Speaker A:And there are thousands and thousands of people throughout history who have reported this stuff.
Speaker A:So at what point do you say, you know, there's Not.
Speaker A:There's not enough evidence.
Speaker A:You know, when people ask me, you know, well, how come there's not more evidence?
Speaker A:I say, there's plenty of evidence.
Speaker A:And they say.
Speaker A:I say, I'm not the one.
Speaker A:I mean, yes, I reported my evidence.
Speaker A:That's why I wrote.
Speaker A:That's a big part of why I wrote the book.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:But I say it's really up to God how much evidence he gives us.
Speaker A:You know, I mean, you know, could he overwhelm us with, you know, allowing demonic spirits to, you know, propagate their evil?
Speaker A:Could he.
Speaker A:Could he, you know, perform, you know, much more miracles?
Speaker A:Well, of course he could, but, you know, he gives a certain amount of evidence.
Speaker A:It sounds a little, you know, a little arrogant almost, but, you know, I always quote, you know, the great Christian Catholic apologist as well as genius mathematician, Pascal.
Speaker A:And he said, there is enough evidence to convince the true seeker.
Speaker A:And he said, there are enough shadows to confuse those people who don't really want to believe.
Speaker A:Again, it sounds a little judgmental.
Speaker A:I'm not a judgmental person.
Speaker A:You can't be a good psychiatrist and be overly judgmental.
Speaker A:But I think he was right that, you know, it really depends on how people process the evidence, because, you know, the evidence is out there.
Speaker A:I mean, there have been a number of, you know, very wonderful writers, Christian and otherwise.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Who have written about demonic possession throughout history.
Speaker A:There was a German professor around the turn of.
Speaker A: Early on in the: Speaker A:There's a friend of mine who's a wonderfully prolific biblical scholar.
Speaker A:His name is Craig Keener.
Speaker A:He's not only wrote a book on a magisterial, modern book on miracles, but he also talks about.
Speaker A:And I think he's working now on a book of literally hundreds and hundreds of cases of demonic attacks.
Speaker A:I mean, these books are available.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker A:For people to read.
Speaker A:You know, you don't.
Speaker A:You know, Craig Keener and this German guy named Osterreich.
Speaker A:You know, you don't.
Speaker A:You don't have to take.
Speaker A:I say, you don't have to take Dr. Gallagher's word for it.
Speaker A:You know, every.
Speaker A:Every couple of years, I go to Rome and we have this meeting, and there's 500 exorcists at the meeting.
Speaker B:And, you know, they all have stories like my own.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:You don't have to believe me, you know.
Speaker A:You know, just.
Speaker A:Any of those people you could talk to.
Speaker A:Number One, and number two, they've written books themselves.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:I'm going to get a little specifically Christian on you for a moment.
Speaker B:I compare it to the following.
Speaker B:You know, when St. Paul, you know, who had a experience of Jesus himself.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:When he went to Corinth, which was.
Speaker B:A little bit like, you know, going, going to a modern materialistic city, you know, he said, you know, you don't have to believe me.
Speaker B:He said if Jesus didn't arise from the dead, he said, I'm a fool, you know, because, you know, I'm.
Speaker B:I mean, many of these early Christians, they not only testified to their faith and Jesus's miracles and resurrection, but they got killed for it.
Speaker B:You know, I mean, you know, St. Paul himself was beheaded.
Speaker B:I mean, you know, the guy was not going to be beheaded if he, if he was lying about his stories.
Speaker B:And what he said is to the Corinthians, he said, you know, Jesus appeared in the flesh.
Speaker B:I mean, this wasn't some kind of, you know, hallucination or vision.
Speaker B:Jesus appeared.
Speaker B:Yeah, in the flesh.
Speaker B:People could eat with him, you know, people could touch him.
Speaker B:He said he appeared to 500 people.
Speaker B:And he said, jock, you know, many of those people are still alive.
Speaker B:You can go talk to them.
Speaker B:So, you know, the idea that there isn't much evidence for both miracles and demonic phenomena is a very short sighted view and it's really more a judgment of people.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm not saying, you know, there are plenty of people, again, I'm not judging people.
Speaker B:There are plenty of people who have never really been presented with the massive evidence.
Speaker B:I mean, again, that's part of the reason I wrote my book, to give people an idea that he is a professor of psychiatry who knows these people are not, you know, psychotic or, you know, imaginative or delusional.
Speaker B:And yet there's all this evidence.
Speaker B:You know, I write about cases in the book book of a woman who Levitated.
Speaker B:I write about cases in the book of people go into a trance and they're speaking foreign languages or as you see in your field of spiritualism, people who know things that they would never know otherwise.
Speaker B:I mean, some kind of non material entities are obviously in evidence.
Speaker B:And that to me seems unassailable.
Speaker B:I mean, if you don't believe that, you don't really understand the field, you don't understand the evidence that's out there.
Speaker C:It's interesting because I have one of my favorite.
Speaker C:The father of psychology, or people would argue is father of the psychology of William James.
Speaker C:And I love William James and the way he looks at things and I can't remember word for word, but you go back to one of his quotes where he talks about the very fact that the position of demons is not spoken about is terrible and it will rear its head again because he actually recognized that.
Speaker C:I mean, from his understanding way beyond looking at any archetypes from Carl Jung or anything, he understood it as a potential real, subjective and objective issue.
Speaker C:And I think you need to look back.
Speaker C:Even if you look, you go beyond any religion.
Speaker C:You even look back at some of these scholars and parapsychology that believed it and would see it.
Speaker C:And so William James is a perfect example.
Speaker C:The other thing that I do want to kind of challenge maybe the Catholic Church on.
Speaker C:And I think this not challenge, but there's another.
Speaker C:I'm not going to mention the book, but there's another book that I've studied and read in years past.
Speaker C:And one of the things that I recognized is that the power of discernment seems to be lacking even in even I think in the Catholic Church, in Christianity, because there's a danger that you tend to see the demonic everywhere.
Speaker C:I mean, there's books that I've read that have been written by religious scholars where it was getting to the point that this particular individual would be seeing a demon in a burger or in a demon.
Speaker C:And you know, so this is why I really love.
Speaker C:And anybody who hasn't read red demonic force really should because there is a lot of empiricism and there's empirical evidence, there's anomalous phenomena that's explained from a scientific perspective.
Speaker C:But we also need to keep that education going because there is the problem that people think that possessed.
Speaker C:They're not.
Speaker C:And religious pastors, priests tend to also get to the point where they see demons everywhere.
Speaker C:I think Gabriel Amorth was one of the as much I loved all his work and everything did I think he tend to see demons everywhere he went.
Speaker C:And maybe there's.
Speaker C:Maybe there's a bit more discernment that's needed there.
Speaker A:Well, you know, I actually think, Jock, you're talking more about Christian fundamentalists and Catholics.
Speaker A:I mean, you know, I know many Catholic priests.
Speaker A:In fact, I knew Father Amorth while he was alive.
Speaker A:And you know, he.
Speaker A:I mean, most of these priests, they're pretty educated guys.
Speaker A:You know, they're not jumping, by and large, you know, there are a few exceptions, but they're not jumping to seeing demons everywhere.
Speaker A:There are.
Speaker A:There are Christian fundamentalists who, you know, you got to remember Catholic priests do this as a ministry.
Speaker A:They don't make money off of it.
Speaker A:Once you get people who start to charge for their services, I tell people you should stay away from them.
Speaker A:Like.
Speaker A:Like the plague, you know.
Speaker A:You know, C.S.
Speaker A:lewis, who was, you know, a very, very educated and knowledgeable Christian, including about the demonic.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:I mean, he had.
Speaker A:He had the classic passage that.
Speaker A:I think it was from the Screwtape letters.
Speaker A:He had a classic passage which I quote in my book, which is that the demons are very happy when people don't believe in them.
Speaker A:Yeah, but they were also.
Speaker A:They were also happy when people get overly preoccupied and, as you put it, see the.
Speaker A:See the devil everywhere or get it, or get immersed in, you know, trying to communicate with the devil.
Speaker A:He said we have to avoid both extremes.
Speaker A:And, you know, Lewis was not a Catholic, but a lot of his beliefs were very, very close, absolutely, to what the Catholic Church teaches.
Speaker A:And I think his.
Speaker C:I think he was ahead of his time, Richard, actually, because I love that book, and if anybody hasn't read it, really, and you want to understand demonology, definitely the Screwtape letters, there's a lot of wisdom and there's a lot of knowledge in there, and I think he was way ahead of his time.
Speaker A:Well, you know, it's a paradoxical truth that on the one hand, I mean, demons do show their colors at times.
Speaker A:In other words, you know, the cases I write about, the.
Speaker A:The possessions, the severe oppressions, even what we call the infestations, those are the main categories of overt demonic attack.
Speaker A:But it's interesting at the same time, they sometimes do that to, you know, to punish people, to sadistically, you know, torture people, etc.
Speaker A:At other times, they want to remain hidden.
Speaker A:And it's almost like they have a strategy.
Speaker A:You pointed out how.
Speaker A:How very intelligent they are.
Speaker A:They are, because, you know, what we Catholics believe is they're fallen angels.
Speaker A:And angels also are, you know, very high intelligence.
Speaker A:And it's.
Speaker A:It's interesting if you think about it, because it's also confusing to people at times.
Speaker A:They manifest themselves.
Speaker A:And obviously, you know, if you're attacked by an evil spirit, you tend to know it.
Speaker C:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:Even though there are people who are delusional about it.
Speaker A:But on the other hand, especially in the modern Western world, which is one of the few areas of the world in world history where people are skeptical of evil spirits and they think, oh, all these people are just, you know, psychotic and stuff.
Speaker A:I mean, yes, it's true that, you know, psychotic people can only imagine from their hallucinations that they're being attacked by spirits.
Speaker A:But, you know, that's precisely why, you know, doctors like myself get involved in helping to discern these cases.
Speaker A:But it's interesting at the same time.
Speaker B:That, you know, you and I have experienced so many anomalous experiences that we have no doubt that these things exist.
Speaker B:And I have no doubt that evil spirits exist.
Speaker A:On the other hand, to a lot.
Speaker B:Of other people in our modern society, they actually try to hide themselves.
Speaker B:It's a tricky balance.
Speaker C:You know, it's funny because I also, many people have come to me and they'll say, you know, I saw this on a TV show or I saw this on a paranormal show.
Speaker C:And they're talking about dealing with demons and fighting them.
Speaker C:And I'm like, look, that's not real.
Speaker C:Because the reality is if something seriously, if it was really diabolical one, you'd be scared for life.
Speaker C:Never ever forget it.
Speaker C:It would constantly be in your mind and you would be taken.
Speaker C:And it, it's not being like that is not going to come out on a TV show and show itself.
Speaker C:And you've got to realize that this is all show.
Speaker C:And when some, when, when someone is really subjugated or an individual is subjugated by an evil presence, there is so much intelligences behind it.
Speaker C:They're not just going to go come out and show themselves.
Speaker C:And it takes a long time to identify and deal with these things and to discern it because.
Speaker C:And that's, I think, where it's really important to educate the public on whatever their belief systems is, is what you really need to understand and the potential that is out there and not sensationalize it because I think it's.
Speaker C:Demons are sensationalized and I probably Hollywood hasn't done us any favors.
Speaker A:Well, what Hollywood gets wrong mostly is that yes, they sensationalize it and you know, that's to be expected.
Speaker A:It's an entertainment media.
Speaker A:But what they also get wrong is they tend to think of exorcism, Jock, as a magical ceremony.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:As if you bring in the witch doctor, the witch doctor says, does the mumbo jumbo and the problem goes away.
Speaker B:Exorcism has to be understood and it's.
Speaker A:Understood by its best practitioners as a pastoral ministry.
Speaker A:In other words.
Speaker B:Something has happened.
Speaker B:Again, I'm not judging the people who get possessed, but something has happened that has brought this on the person.
Speaker B:They've often turned to the occult, turn to even things like Satanism, which is rare but exists.
Speaker B:They've turned to something very evil in their life.
Speaker B:I've had a Number of gangsters who.
Speaker A:I've interviewed who, you know, turn to.
Speaker B:Some of these dark, you know, cults to get success.
Speaker B:And for a while they get success until, you know, until, you know, they.
Speaker A:Get caught or the police or even.
Speaker B:The demonic world turns on them, and.
Speaker A:Then.
Speaker B:They have to reform their lives.
Speaker B:It's not just, you know, get an exorcism and the problem's gone.
Speaker B:If they're genuinely possessed, they have to turn to God and reform their lives.
Speaker B:That is part and parcel of the process of dealing with a possession.
Speaker B:And that's what Hollywood often gets wrong, because it acts like it's a, you know, just a magic ceremony.
Speaker C:It does, like the battle of good and evil, and there's a whole crescendo where.
Speaker C:And then they don't realize that it continues.
Speaker C:It continues and it continues, and you need to.
Speaker C:You need to work.
Speaker C:It's interesting that you bring up, though, because what a lot of people might not recognize.
Speaker C:I can't remember where I studied this, but it is in papers Hitler did actually take part in.
Speaker C:He had an organization.
Speaker C:I can't remember the name of it, but he had an organization where they took part in Sea on Seas.
Speaker C:And they were looking at controlling and harnessing the power of the.
Speaker C:Of the demonic to win World War II.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, you know, it's like there are very few things in history that are not controversial.
Speaker B:And I have met a few people who challenged the idea that Hitler was an expert cultist.
Speaker B:But I. I think you're right, Jacques.
Speaker B:I think there is some evidence.
Speaker C:There is.
Speaker B:That he.
Speaker B:That he turned to dark powers, which would also explain, you know, why he not only had become an evil person, but had, you know, propagated such enormous.
Speaker A:You know, evil on the human race and especially on, you know, marginal communities, you know, on the Holocaust and, you know, not just.
Speaker A:Not just on millions of Jews, but on, you know, Catholic priests and people who are defective.
Speaker A:You know, I mean, you know, the.
Speaker A:The evil almost cries out for some kind of explanation that he had.
Speaker A:He had.
Speaker B:And I believe you're right, that he had turned to some kind of dark spirits.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah, he did.
Speaker C:I can't remember.
Speaker C:I mean, I'll.
Speaker C:Anybody who's listening, I will try and get back into my archives and find it and see if it gets it, because it is very interesting.
Speaker C:History is very interesting if you understand or you're studying in any academic way the occult and historical aspects of the cult.
Speaker C:And I do think where I might have got it was when I was researching it in the Kabbalistic life, because there was a.
Speaker C:And I, again, I don't remember, but there was a Jewish individual during World War II that he did not kill because of the knowledge and the information or the potential insights that this person had.
Speaker C:And this is where the information came from that he was heavily involved not only in the cult, but in satanic ritual and to control demonic for his own.
Speaker C:His own purposes.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:And I'm sure he's not the last.
Speaker C:I mean, dare I say, I, you know, potential other leaders are influenced by evil spirits.
Speaker C:I'm absolutely positive with that, for sure.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:At the same time, you know, at the same time, you have to heed your own warning that you don't want.
Speaker B:To blame everything on evil spirits.
Speaker C:No, exactly.
Speaker A:People are capable of evil on their own.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, I mean, you know, several.
Speaker B:Categories of people in the book I say, can often be confused as if they're possessed.
Speaker A:You know, one of them is, you.
Speaker B:Know, psychotic individuals, schizophrenics who, you know.
Speaker A:Hallucinate these, you know, voices from evil spirits or aliens or whatever.
Speaker A:But, you know, some of the other people are people who, you know, are very suggestible and histrionic, but also people.
Speaker B:With severe personality disorders, for instance, sociopaths.
Speaker A:You know, now clearly they're evil, but.
Speaker B:You know, have they.
Speaker B:Have they actually turned to occultism?
Speaker A:I mean, some have, but I think people are perfectly capable of evil on their own.
Speaker A:So, you know, this is, this is again, why one has to be careful and draw these proper distinctions between people with emotional and character problems.
Speaker A:You know, I mean, we're all subject to temptations and people can, you know.
Speaker B:That doesn't mean somebody is possessed.
Speaker A:You know, if they, if they do, if they do some, you know, evil.
Speaker B:In their lives, you know, you have to make that distinction.
Speaker C:I think it's important for us to make a distinction as well of, of influence.
Speaker C:You know, not everybody is possessed.
Speaker C:Is possessed by a demon, but doesn't mean they can't be influenced.
Speaker C:Personally, I think, or I know that murderers out there are people that have carried heinous acts against humanity and against innocent individuals.
Speaker C:There's been some cases in the past few years that we know.
Speaker C:I won't mention because I don't want to bring any to it, but I'm absolutely positive that there has been demoniacal influence in those lives.
Speaker C:It doesn't necessarily have to be a possession, but influence is just as bad influence.
Speaker C:And if you're, if you're spiritually weak willed, there's a potential that you can come under influence and under oppression by these intelligences.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:What you're often talking here about is, you know, is again, you know, the categories of truly massive demonic attack tend to be oppression, possession and infestation.
Speaker A:But, you know, we're all subject to demonic temptation.
Speaker A:And then, you know, I mean, I. I would venture to say that, you know, serious thinkers and theologians in this area, there is a debate about how much comes from our weak human nature and how much comes from, you know, demonic suggestion.
Speaker A:I don't think anybody, you know, has all the answers in that.
Speaker A:In that category.
Speaker A:I think.
Speaker A:I think the great Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas, you know, said something like, you know, 10% of human evil is strongly suggested by evil spirits and 90% is just because of our weak or fallen nature.
Speaker A:You know, that was one estimate by, you know, a very knowledgeable Christian thinker.
Speaker A:But I don't think anybody knows for sure.
Speaker C:No, absolutely, Richard.
Speaker C:Obviously, Demonic Force is a brilliant book and is very kind of academically oriented as well.
Speaker C:I love that.
Speaker C:But is there.
Speaker C:Are you working on maybe anything new that you might be bringing out as a follow up to this?
Speaker A:I do a lot of writing.
Speaker A:You know, I've written.
Speaker A:In fact, I had sent you Jacques, an article we published with a woman theologian who was a critic of Hans von Baltasar.
Speaker A:And, you know, you reviewed it and I mentioned you in the article having an educated opinion that this particular modern, what I regard as a pseudo mystic was, you know, was fooled and deceived by spirits.
Speaker A:So I write a lot of technical works about that, a lot of articles.
Speaker A:I am slowly working on a sequel to Demonic Foes.
Speaker C:Brilliant.
Speaker A:It really is about putting the category of demonic phenomena in a broader context and writing about not only that, but the paranormal in general and also the supernatural.
Speaker A:You know, as a doctor writing about miracles and, you know, miracles are very analogous experience to demonic phenomena in the sense that, you know, it's hard to pin them down and study it scientifically in a modern sense, but that these.
Speaker A:These are genuinely real phenomena that can be discussed in an intelligent way.
Speaker A:And, you know, just as demonic phenomena exists, there have been many, many miracles throughout history.
Speaker A:As I said, there's a.
Speaker A:There's a friendly theologian of mine, Craig Keener, who wrote a very magisterial book on miracles.
Speaker A:And, you know, it's just.
Speaker A:You read that book, it's called Miracles, and you read that book and you.
Speaker C:I'll get that.
Speaker B:Yeah, you.
Speaker A:You read that book and you say, my God, you know, there is so much more evidence for this than I ever thought so.
Speaker A:You know, as a doctor, you know, I have been interested in that and I talk to people who've experienced miracles in their lives.
Speaker A:And so I thought I would write a broader book on, you know, both the supernatural and the.
Speaker A:What we call the preternatural things that go beyond, you know, natural explanations.
Speaker C:I love that.
Speaker C:I can't wait to that till you do that.
Speaker C:That comes out.
Speaker B:You're gonna have to wait a while.
Speaker A:Because this, you know, I'm a busy guy and I know you are.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm still a very active psychiatrist and teacher.
Speaker A:Yeah, you are.
Speaker A:I teach at three different institutions, so I have to scrounge to find the time to write this, this book.
Speaker A:But eventually, eventually I'll get it to you and you'll be one of the first to get a signed copy.
Speaker A:Okay, excellent.
Speaker C:I can't wait to do that.
Speaker C:I can't wait to read that.
Speaker C:As always, Richard, I love chatting with you and your work.
Speaker C:And essentially nobody knows this.
Speaker C:It's actually one of the reasons that I went down an academic path was because of Richard Gallagher.
Speaker C:Because of Dr. Gallagher, who at one point told me I was getting closer, getting too old, that I better get a move on if I was going to head toward an academic career.
Speaker C:And so I did.
Speaker C:I took his advice and I encourage that because.
Speaker C:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:You're an intelligent guy.
Speaker A:Now, I'm not going to hide the fact, Jock, that you and I don't agree on everything.
Speaker C:No, we don't.
Speaker C:And that's the beauty.
Speaker C:We can.
Speaker C:We can discuss and we can meet each other.
Speaker A:You, you, you know, you are a.
Speaker A:Someone who does believe in evil spirits.
Speaker A:We have that in common.
Speaker A:And that's a.
Speaker A:That's a big part of, you know, why I think your work can be productive.
Speaker A:And as you study it academically, hopefully you'll, you know, you'll.
Speaker B:You'll put down absolutely.
Speaker C:I think, you know, since me writing Deadly Departed and you supporting my work in Deadly Departed.
Speaker C:I know, I know.
Speaker C:Look back at it, Red.
Speaker C:And I'm like, oh, my God, there has to be a part two.
Speaker C:It has to be more academically sound, and it has to be broader.
Speaker C:I think that's what's given me the interest to go even deeper into widely.
Speaker C:And I think it's important as well to educate the public from an academic point of view, because for me, empirical evidence is everything in everything that we do.
Speaker C:And if we can strive towards getting that evidence and even if we can bring in.
Speaker C:I'm passionate about bringing in science and spirituality.
Speaker C:In some way that we can find, we can create a bridge between both and that we can begin to maybe even get some lived experience with empirical evidence, some patterns of evidence that might help us to break boundaries and actually maybe even look at categorizing things differently.
Speaker A:Well, you see, I see that as a perennial need.
Speaker A:And again, it's not as if you got to remember, you know, Pope John.
Speaker B:Paul II wrote an encyclical called Fides.
Speaker A:Ad Ratio, which is faith and reason.
Speaker A:And you know, certainly many Christians and other religions too, you know, feel there is no contradiction between faith and reason.
Speaker A:You know, this idea that, you know, we should take it all on faith and not use the brain that God gave us.
Speaker A:And you know, the Catholic tradition, of course, is very, very committed to the idea that both faith and reason are important.
Speaker A:So that's not a new idea.
Speaker C:Yeah, no, it's not.
Speaker B:What I think you're saying is in today's world.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:These fields have sometimes been bifurcated.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that it is important that, you know, you know, thinkers who are knowledgeable about both fields, you know, bring to the public the idea that, you know, you can study this stuff rationally, even, even stuff of a non materialist nature.
Speaker C:Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker C:Richard, thank you for being my guest again on Deadly Departed.
Speaker C:Always a riveting conversation, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker C:Let me just show you one more time.
Speaker C:If you haven't read Demonic Force, I do recommend you get it.
Speaker C:It is brilliant.
Speaker C:One of my favorite books because it does have a very scientific grounding in there.
Speaker C:And it's a book you don't have to believe in everything, but it's a book that's going to make you think.
Speaker C:And if it makes you think, it might make you want to research and you might come to your own conclusions in life.
Speaker C:And whatever you do, as always, if you've got any questions, please reach back out to us@deadlydeparter.com or Paranormal Daily News.
Speaker C:Remember also that we are launching our new peer reviewed journal where we will be distilling the academic and making the academic available to everyone out there to help understand this and more anomalous phenomena.
Speaker C:And hopefully, if I can convince Richard, Richard may join us on maybe a religious experience, editorial side of things.
Speaker C:But as always, Richard, it's fantastic chatting with you as we often do and I can't wait to have you back on.
Speaker C:We go into this more and I can't wait till you do a new book.
Speaker C:The next episode, if you like, of Demonic Foes.
Speaker C:Thank you for being here.
Speaker A:Demonic Foes is easily available, and it's still.
Speaker A:It's still selling pretty well.
Speaker A:So I don't want to write a competing book quite yet.
Speaker A:But, you know, I'm not a materialistic person, but I know you're not.
Speaker A:I do think that it's a valuable contribution to the field.
Speaker C:Oh, it is.
Speaker C:100%.
Speaker C:It is.
Speaker C:I recommend it to lots of different people.
Speaker C:It's on our site.
Speaker C:Go back and listen to the first episode that Richard and I did as well.
Speaker C:It's fantastic.
Speaker C:And it's also on Audible.
Speaker C:I think we've got it.
Speaker C:I think I got it on Audible as well.
Speaker A:The Audible version is great.
Speaker C:The Audible version is fantastic.
Speaker A:When Harper Collins proposed an Audible, you know, I didn't like the voices they sent me, so I asked this guy whom I know, who's a Shakespearean actor.
Speaker A:He did a marvelous job.
Speaker A:So if you like.
Speaker A:If you like an Audible version, it is great.
Speaker C:I've got it on Audible.
Speaker C:I got it on Kindle, I've got it on Hardback.
Speaker C:So I've got it.
Speaker A:Thanks for the mention and the compliment, Jacques.
Speaker A:It's always a pleasure talking to you, Andrew.
Speaker C:God bless, Richard.
Speaker C:I shall speak to you very soon, my friend.
Speaker C:God bless.
Speaker C:If you have enjoyed this episode, then we would love you to review us on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, or any other podcast.
Speaker A:App.
Speaker C:Reviews mean a lot to us and they help us to reach more people.
Speaker C:If you've got any questions, then also reach out to us.
Speaker C:Thank you and God bless.
Speaker A:It.
