Cy Kellett welcomes Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin to discuss the recent surge of podcasts focused on exorcism and demonology. Jimmy shares insights into the complexities and varying opinions within the exorcist community, emphasizing the need for caution when dealing with creatures who lie.
Transcript:
Caller: There seems to be an explosion of podcasts about, like, demonology and exorcisms and stuff like that going on. And the question I have is a theme revolving around why are these entities so legalistic? Like, what in that realm? And how does that connect to our faith and is that shown anywhere? And, like, just why is that? And I can take a call off air, so appreciate everything you guys do. Thank you.
Jimmy: Okay, so I’m aware of, you know, this kind of set of podcasts and videos and things like that that are being made by exorcists or devoted to exorcism. And I have to say that there are reasons for caution in this area, because one of the things you find when you study exorcism, which I do, is that the Church’s teachings in this area are not as extensive as many people think.
And there’s actually considerable disagreement within the community of exorcists about demons and what leads to possession and how you get them out and what’s needed for that and what’s not needed for that. There are actually a bunch of different theories in the community of exorcists on these questions. I’ve been making a study of note in, okay, what are the different schools of thought and what do they claim and so forth?
I will be reporting on that in the future on Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World. But what I can say for now is the fact that there is such disagreement and diversity among exorcists about demons and what they do, how they do and don’t work, that we need to just be very careful and not assume that what we’re hearing from any one exorcist or any one group of exorcists is the absolute truth.
What we have are a bunch of experience reports. You know, Exorcist A will have certain sets of experiences. Exorcist B will have another set of experiences and so forth. One of the problems with experience reports is in order to draw firm conclusions, you need to do statistical studies and see which experiences are typical and which are outliers. And no one’s doing those studies.
So as a result, we don’t really… the Church has not commissioned a scientific study of possession experiences and arrived at, you know, validated conclusions. It’s all anecdotal, meaning it’s just different people expressing their opinions based on their experiences. That’s one reason that we need to be careful here.
And a second reason that we need to be careful here is demons are liars who lie. They are working for the father of lies. They’ve been liars since the beginning. Consequently, if they think they can mislead Exorcist A by giving him one set of experiences and mislead Exorcist B in a different way by giving him another set of experiences, that’s what they’re going to do.
So you fundamentally can’t trust what they say. That’s another reason for caution in this area. So if you’ve been listening to a particular podcast or a group of exorcists who say demons are highly legalistic, well, I’d say that’s interesting. But A, those are only experiences that you and maybe some others have reported, but that’s not the universal experience.
And B, these guys are trying to deceive you. So don’t necessarily trust them in how legalistic they’re coming off. In fact, if demons were super legalistic, they wouldn’t have fallen in the first place. They’d still be rule-abiding angels up in heaven. They’re lawbreakers by definition.
And so the idea that they’re kind of like Mr. Mxyzptlk in Superman comics where, oh, you trick them into saying their name backwards, they got to go back to hell for 90 days, you know, that’s very unlikely to be true. We’re dealing with liars who are rule breakers. And so if they’re coming across as we’re so super legalistic, we never go where we’re not allowed and we’ll definitely get out if someone tells us to, legally, that’s very unlikely to be true.
That’s something that should be looked at with, I’m not saying rejected, but with a considerable amount of suspicion.
Chris: Cy, Jimmy, if I may, the question that Jimmy just asked. The question, yes, but the answer and the way that Jimmy gave the answer is to me like the perfect example of why Catholic Answers Live is the magnificent program that it is.
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And especially in this world of social media and all kinds of online podcasting and personalities and things of this nature, weeding through all of those sometimes sensational opinions and clickbait, if you will, is a very difficult thing to do. This show absolutely cuts through that.
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Cy: And what I’ve been trying to say earlier this hour, and I will repeat it now as we come to the end of the hour, is what people are paying for when they pay for this, is for us to give the show free to anyone in the world that wants it.
So our job is to produce the absolute best program we can that does all the things Chris just described with people like Jimmy Akin, and then we just give it away free. And that’s what you’re making possible. So will you help us to continue to do that?
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