 Can we humbly pray and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God cast into health nations and all the evil spirits who are all about the world seeking the room of souls? Our Lady of Sara pray for us. Pray for us. Hey friends, you're watching behind the scenes divine intimacy radio and we praying the Archangel Michael prayer for a very specific reason today. Those definitely I pray it every day. We pray spiritual warfare prayers every day exalium christianorm every day for the laity because for a long time now we've been involved in deliverance ministry one time direct support to exorcists and today we're talking about somebody who knows way more than we do we do Adam Bly so hang out with us for a minute before we start the show we're going to tell you about a few things going on and we'll jump into his book the exorcism files which I think is fascinating and all people are always fascinated by this kind of thing uh I think I'm just going to tell him about one thing that's coming up you want to you want to check out so step now stephanie and I have a divine intimacy and marriage retreat shrine of the most blessed sacrament in handsville alabama february 10th and 12th even if we're lousy speakers you ought to sign up for this we're not lousy speakers or retreat leaders but you ought to sign up anyway because the shrine of the most blessed sacrament in handsville is absolutely amazing but Stephanie and I just got off a marriage retreat that we led in what was that yeah we we led the same retreat in virginia white posts virginia and had a full house at the retreat house it was the lord showed up in a big way it was awesome in a big big way and people were overjoyed yeah so um i'm really excited about this particular part of our ministry just as um the other part of our mystery serving priests I just think it's really powerful people need their marriages heal they need to understand how to navigate all the forces that are coming against them yeah which are all or what are we what we're going to be talking about today really yeah that attack our marriages in particular because the enemy hates a holy marriage and so huge fruit so do yourself a favor do your marriage a favor men this is a great way to um really up the inventory points as yeah i'm just going to say we're heading into christmas yeah and guy you guys know out there you know who have huge point deficits you know whose warehouse is empty with marital points and you if you want to solve it join a pilgrimage or uh or come to this marriage tree buy it for your wife you will be the hero of the universe we do have limited seats at this marriage retreat so you don't want to miss out because it will sell out yeah we'll end up with a waiting list we always do yeah um so don't miss out on this i mean it's one and done you can get the tickets for it print it off roll it up put a ribbon around it put it under the tree you are done for christmas and valentine's day because this will be uh such a huge blessing and i also tell you guys and then we'll go to the show we'll jump to the show with with adam uh we do not ask men men we do not ask men to act like women in these retreats a lot of these retreats are designed in such a way that makes men feel stupid and stupid and wow i'm having word problems you really really are stupid and silly uh spiritualdirection.com forward slash events yeah uh to sign up all right let's go and jump into the show new market set go this is dana sefney berke welcome to divine intimacy radio your radio haven of rest your hermitage of the heart your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to draw on the wisdom of the saints on the amazing power of the church today we're talking about to liberate souls no matter how bound they are god can liberate liberate them and in fact the enemy is no match for the blessed mother little jewish girl very holy one of course who doesn't wear shoes who does she how do you know that i don't know but i really love that about her it it denotes her littleness okay you know all right so she comes in she stands on right you know the serpent in bare feet right that's true she just vanquishes him so and then when she shows up at exorcisms all all goes pretty well so one of you over right i want you introduce our guest okay adam blei is a paratist that means he's an expert on religious demonology and exorcism for the diocese of pittsburgh he is an auxiliary member of the international association of exorcism rome a private association of the christian faithful recognized by the vatican he has helped in forming priests in the ministry of exorcism for over 15 years both nationally and internationally in recent years he has written two books that treat on the topic of exorcism and deliverance the exorcism files which we're talking about the demonic possession yeah which we're going to be talking about today and hauntings possessions and exorcisms 2017 he has also written the catholic guide to miracles 2021 he has a master's degree in adult clinical psychology he is the fine he is in the final year of canon law studies and works full-time in the tribunal of the diocese of pittsburgh welcome adam to the show all right thank you it's great to have you with us of course uh this is of of interest to folks um quite a significant interest in i think the we did a back-end analysis of our most popular posts on spiritualdirection.com we have a couple hundred thousand subscribers and the most popular post which i think you will not be surprised but it or you may be surprised but is what is it called what was it called producer man it was how to make a pact with the devil it wasn't the post it was the search so the highest search right the highest search was how do you make a pact with the devil and it ended up bringing them to us to us which was very cool you know because we have a post i think that is something like should you make a pact with the devil right which of course is it answers in a negative but obviously in our time the interest in all of this is up both among the faithful and among those who are deluded are from what i hear from exorcists that we work with the cases are up the difficulty is up is that the same you're saying in your in your world for exorcism and helping people get free um yes i do think so um the difficulty really i think has always been the same because it's just about free will choices and the extent to which the person has a conversion and is trusting and seeking jesus yeah so if that's happening the devil the demons don't have any particular increased power or making the case difficult it's all about the person in their relationship with god that's the central controlling factor yeah but i will say that the number of cases in recent years does seem to be increasing um and i have some thoughts about why but but yes for sure the number is increasing i'd love to hear your thoughts about why i think that we're a christian nation kind of in the reverse of of kind of in reverse so in the history of the church you typically see a lot of activity with exorcism when christianity first enters a culture for the first 50 or 100 years and then things settle down because basically a lot of the free room the demons had to operate is pushed back you know the kingdom of darkness is pushed back and we're kind of a missionary country in reverse now and so as people become less religious there's more people that are checking no religion you know on the census etc etc and i think most importantly that we're no longer passing down the spiritual traditions to keep people knowledgeable enough to stay safe um yeah we're we're not only and and now what's happened then is we've gone beyond that we stopped passing on the warnings we stopped passing on um our culture now we're actually celebrating the things that we used to warn against and so not not in the catholic church not in the christian churches but in the popular culture witchcraft is now celebrated as a good satanism is pushing to be celebrated as a good in the form of atheistic humanism um black magic and magic is seen as a viable route to success and power you know the myth of the illuminati and the entertainment industry whatever occult stuff is going on there the actual illuminati kind of disappeared back in the either the late 1700s or early 1800s but doesn't matter the myth of you can make it in the entertainment industry by black magic is causing people to do the search you just talked about how do i sell my soul you know where's my shortcut to success and power so yeah for all for all these reasons um yeah we're just we're seeing a lot of people that are playing with this stuff they think it's good and harmless yeah i would even make an extension of what you're talking about it's not just that we're not passing on down the warnings is that the family has broken down in such a way that the spiritual covering is no longer there the spiritual covering that provides protection to um to families to children is is falling apart because if if dad doesn't go to mass if he won't get up and go or mom doesn't want to go to mass you know and the children are therefore not protected and it leaves them wide open to all kinds of demonic influence and attack um and then they go off to school to a secular school who then works actively against the family unit it's just a setup for disaster so it really speaks to the importance of the sacramental covering and protection that the a holy family provides especially with the father as the spiritual lead of the home and the mother supporting that in her marriage to him and then the education of the children so it's really central to what's going on so so we're with adam bligh the author of the exorcism files two stories of demonic possession given all of this adam um uh you've given your life to this work you know what what what got into you to do that was it like us it was like us we we were by accident i don't know how you entered into all of this and and why are you doing it well it started in brain research in graduate school so i'd seen that the brain is capable of producing false experiences that to the person are completely real and i'm not talking about mental illness i'm talking about healthy normal people under hypnosis can be caused to hallucinate to them it is a hundred percent real that led me to wonder whether any of the odd experiences people were starting to talk about as a paranormal tv craze was starting whether any of that was actually real or if it was all just misunderstanding and hoaxes and so i started looking into it bumped into specialist clergy that were working with some of these families with these troubled people and doors started opening and um i then was you know met father james labar who was kind of that kind of de facto had exorcist for the country and his generation he's passed on now and some other people connected with the international association of exorcists got invited to come over and learn learn more from father amore than the the old guys in rome that had 40 50 years under their belt and um for some reason god wanted me involved in terms of training and teaching we started conferences as early as 2006 for exorcists and um i thought i'd be done once we got enough exorcists trained up contributed to that but jesus seems to want me to keep going because as long as the bishops ask you know i'll keep going but yeah essentially found an incredible suffering and it clearly was not medical or psychological you know it's rare but it's real and um yeah so i'm just trying to follow what god wants me to do you know you said you said you you you attested to the fact that it's not medical or psychological and you're someone who has you know the the educational background to make that kind of assessment and i think it's important in our time because i think it's people uh don't want to believe it and so they can blow it off and and minimize it i i know market or market and i know folks who um uh you know who say it's overly uh sensationalized or talked about i i don't find that i find most people just don't want to believe it i mean we we have exposure to a lot of catholics and if they're not devout committed to the magisterium it just they want to run anytime you mentioned this yeah they don't want to talk about it so i want to ask you a question about your book um why what why this specific book now i mean you've written on this before what is your goal in um in doing the hard work of writing the exorcism files and what do you hope to accomplish to help people to accomplish with it well you know i asked exorcist friends what should i write next if anything and the most common answer i got was case studies okay now i i've gone back and forth about writing a book like this for years because there's a great danger both in it becoming a sensational topic there's a danger in causing fear in people and there's a big danger of causing fascination people thinking oh i can go out and do this myself you know because i've read about it and so i'm trying to tread a line where i'm sharing enough to have a cautionary tail that gets the message across without so much that it just becomes gross and horrible to read which if i had included everything it's so revolting that no publisher would publish it and you wouldn't want to read it yeah um you know people always say what's the most horrible thing you've seen and the answer is you don't want to know the right right um and so this book is meant to not just wag a finger and say don't play with the occult it's meant to say well let me tell you about a bunch of people that did and here's what happened and of course changing names and locations and you know um their sex in some cases male to female ages you know obscuring who the actual people are to protect their privacy but i think i think the stories are hopefully useful because as humans we don't respond well to somebody just saying don't do this or do that right versus if if i say well let me tell you about somebody who did that right then we're naturally curious and we want to hear that story yeah well said so we're about to go to break but when we get back i'd like to hear how people end up getting into trouble you know how does how does that happen so we'll be right back yep so it's 1242 so we'll just do another 1240 45 okay uh new market said go this is danna stephanie Burke welcome back to divine intimacy radio your radio haven of rest we're talking to adam blei he's an expert on the topic of exorcism he's been forming exorcists for years and those who seek to help people to get free by the grace and sacrifice of jesus on the cross for us god be praised we can all be free the book latest book he's written is the exorcism vials true stories of demonic possession uh ewtn religious catalog can probably get that book to you cool thing that happens when you buy books from them one is if you send them money for a book they'll actually send you the book that's great to you you support their very important work we're so grateful for ewtn to infiltrate the the airwaves of every diocese in the united states are almost anyway but uh before the break stephanie you asked him a question why don't you reiterate that and we'll jump back in how do people get themselves into trouble well um the short answer is by violating the first commandment and so when when we say getting into trouble we really mean extraordinary demonic problems the ordinary is temptation we all deal with that it's kind of like saying there's bacteria on your skin and everywhere it just has always been there it's not fun to think about but the demons tempt us that's normal and that's okay god allows it so that we have a spiritual struggle and we get stronger spiritually when we say trouble in this context we mean demonic infestation demonic oppression and demonic possession and you get into that kind of trouble by entering into a relationship with the demon or your parents entering into that relationship when you're before the age of reason which is seven so how do you do that it's often through an act of the will that is um physically played out verbally played out this can take the form now i'm not saying you're going to become possessed if you play with the Ouija board once but people that have played with it habitually and it's become an obsessive thing they enter into a subservient relationship with whatever spirit is responding through the board that's one example witchcraft and black magic of any kind is another example because you're appealing to spirits to do you favors and when you take a favor you owe and so you're giving over more and more control of your life to these spirits over time and they don't come as demons in the beginning if they did we've run away we've run into a church they come as your fairy godmother they come as your guardian angel they come as your totem animal whatever is going to make you drop your guard and so people get in trouble primarily through black magic through cutting deals with spirits and that's a violation of the first commandment because you're not putting god first you're telling god i don't trust you i'm going to get what i want from this spirit on my terms and so you're breaking your friendship with god and starting a friendship with the deceptive spirit and and when you talk about they owe the person who uses the spirit what what happens is there a typical i don't know scenario wherein they come to get their pay i imagine it's just when the person doesn't seem quite as useful to them anymore or whatever yeah so typically what happens is it's a slow encroaching control of more and more of the person's life it starts with i don't want you to do this or that and it's usually things connected with prayer going to church anything connected with god i want that crucifix out of the house i don't like that you know don't go to mass anymore it'll start with limiting the person's behavior it will then move on to not only i'm going to tell you what you're not going to do i'm going to start telling you what you're going to do and if you don't obey me i'm going to punish you and so it's this abusive relationship the demon either says i'm going to punish you if you don't do what i say or it starts hurting you and it says if you do what i say i'll hurt you less and so eventually the goal is to wear the person down to where they either give in to suicide or possession and it's it's incredibly common the demons constantly saying kill yourself come with us it'll be better we won't treat you badly that type of thing i've heard it probably a thousand times so adam i think an important question is is the is it always blatantly as voice or or can it be insinuations movements oh yeah inspirations at the beginning especially so it starts it's again it's an encroaching relationship so it starts with some medium of communication that could be a pendulum it could be divining rods it could be the Ouija board it could be going to your psychic if they're if they're truly a witch involved with the demon and not just a cold reader which most psychists most psychists are just con artists but some are connected with the spirit it starts with a medium through which the communication happens then eventually the spirit says give me permission and i'll just talk into your mind and we don't need this medium of communication anymore this intermediary step can be removed and at that point the the dominion of the person kind of jumps to the next level okay fascinating well in terms of this book and for those who may have discovered this conversation in the middle we're talking with adam blei author of the exorcism files true stories of demonic possession um what is it you know was there a case that surprised you i don't know it seemed it's a funny question just coming from our own experience i think because what demons do and say is can be quite shocking i guess after you hear it for a while it's not anymore i don't know but is there a case that you wrote about here that's more surprise caught you by caught you off guard and and and really maybe taught you a lot or just really got you praying more or affected you to greater holiness which often these things do yeah i would say probably the the culmination of the book is a case from a couple years ago where it was the actual satan involved i'd met him once years ago in the southwest briefly and then this was a case where he rarely will fight for the person himself so usually the last demon to be cast out is some um no name out of the old testament one of the canaanite quote unquote gods you know spirits that were worshiped as gods in some cultures basically a high level guy but not satan himself and and this was a case where he was um he thought it was so important that he actually fought for the case himself and it wasn't so much that it was satan and there's good reasons why i'm sure it was everybody wants to armchair quarterback that and say well i don't think it was him um and that's fine but uh it was very clear in that case the interesting thing was that hell saw this case in certain cases as of strategic value that there it was a glimpse into the bigger orchestrations of hell in the world that in terms of this person's spiritual gifts in the ministry that they were called to by god hell was trying to squelch that ministry because it was going to have a broader impact on his kingdom as a whole so these a lot of these cases are not just about i want to destroy this one individual person the world may never hear about but it's about strategically deploying resources to try to squelch gifts and movements of god in the world if they can manage to do it now of course the devil can't squelch god but he can get a human to make an act of the will that lets him into their life in a way that interferes with them living out what they're called to and so that's the only place he can be active but this this case it did bring me to more prayer and deeper prayer a lot of rosaries in between sessions to try to plead to marry in heaven to to help this person get through the week or the days between sessions it was really more days or a day um because it was so frequent so that was a powerful case in the sense it was a glimpse into the bigger war and did they get free yeah god be praise god be praise yeah let me let me ask you this adam because i think and i've heard this that from another exorcist and so maybe you can speak into it that the battle really is not between you know us and the enemy that the battle is really between the enemy and god and that the enemy goes after us because we're so beloved because we're we're made in his image and he knows that he can though he can't hurt god directly that he can cause great suffering if he can go after um his beloved children just what what do you have in that area yeah um you know some people think that it's very likely it's about god's choice to enter into creation in the form of a man and to enter not as an immortal spirit appearing before people but as a mortal man so that would be number one theory about why they hate us so much number two would be that it was through the yes of a woman the yes of Mary who agreed to be the vessel through which god would enter because god doesn't do anything against our will um and that's probably why they they fear Mary so much because she was you know you just go to the book of revelation she's the one that steps on the neck of the serpent right but i i've also noticed very clearly over the years that yes it's all about god but they really hate us i think because we can make it back to god and they can't mm their their choice is permanent not because god's a meanie and he won't let them repent but because their minds are different they made a choice with full knowledge to the end of time of the consequences because they had infused knowledge as an angel to understand completely what they were choosing so they can never say i didn't understand now i want to take it back wow that's very powerful so we we have a couple of minutes left and i i don't want us to leave without asking you know really what is the remedy for these problems you know for what we're seeing in our society in individuals in in this huge um increase of of demonic issues what's the remedy adam i think the remedy is to carry on the wave of interest this topic brings good education so that the next generation coming up understands how all this works and what to avoid because they're being told that these dangers are harmless and fun and and empowering and if we don't pass on that knowledge which we have a we have a shot because there's a natural instinct because of the gut level people know this is real which is why they're interested um things like this conversation you know the work the work you guys are doing we need to just keep putting that signal out there and then god through the holy spirit will get that signal to the to the people and hopefully inspire and then a good response yeah wow that i'm moved by that in a big way so i'm grateful for all your work folks you can find out more about adam blei the author of the exorcism vials true stories of demonic possession at religious demonology dot com that's religious demonology dot com and for all you faithful catholics out there uh if you don't daily pray for guys like adam for exorcists for priests for the lady involved in uh deliverance ministry please our ministry please begin doing that yeah please we do need your prayers it's quite it's quite a challenge to do this kind of work god always provides but your prayers are necessary and thank god for your good work adam and thanks for being with us today yes stay close to our lady until next time may the god of peace make you perfect in holiness may he preserve you whole and entire spirit soul and body irreproachable at the coming of our lord jesus christ amen amen thanks again adam it's good to get to know you a little bit and for all your good