 Hey friends, this is Dan and Stephanie Burke. You're watching Behind the Scenes, Divine Intimacy Radio. Pretty excited today. Have a previous guest back with us, Adam Bly, who's an expert in the realm of religious demonology and exorcism. And he's written a really important, accessible, good book that I think everybody should purchase. But before we jump into the show, the, and by the way, if you are, if you're watching this and you have family members who are into Riki, Yoga, all that sort of stuff, share the broadcast onto your page. And we can deliver the message for you. Because we're about to talk about all these things. Yeah, all these things get ourselves in trouble. I wanted to tell you guys about a couple of opportunities to get holier. One is a Divine Intimacy and Marriage Retreat, February. February 10th through the 12th, I believe, of the dates. It's the, maybe our producer can check on that to make sure. Spiritualdirection.com, events. Events, and you're not going to want to miss it. We have reached our first threshold and we've decided to open up seats and the requests keep coming. Because normally we turn away a bunch and then we end up, you know, we have this long wait list and then we have to try to figure out how to have another event. So we've decided to just keep it open and keep filling seats until we run out of seats in the venue. So it's a beautiful venue, number one. It's the Shrine of Most Blessed Sacrament in Alabama and it's just a beautiful retreat. It is not for, we will not sing kumbaya. We will not ask the men to hold hands and act like sissy, act like women. So it's for men's men and women's women. It's a real retreat if you really, really want to have an impact on your marriage. And we're seeing the fruits of it like crazy. It is so beautiful. It is so amazing. It's rooted in a Catholic mystical tradition which is very unusual and Therese of Abba in particular and what it means to grow in union with God. And one another. And then how that relates to your relationship with your spouse. So you will have never seen anything like it. I can promise you that. Yeah, because it came straight out of prayer. We didn't go to any other marriage retreats to take no. We've actually never been to anybody else's. Well, we went to one at the beginning. We participated with Carol. Yeah, that was a long time ago. That was 100 years ago. Wow. So anyway, don't miss out. Check it out. It's an amazing Christmas gift for your spouse. Oh, yes. If you like low on points inventory, this is the thing. And listen, if you're wondering around, what do I do for my wife? What do I do for my husband? You know, you go sign up, you print that confirmation page out, you roll it up, stick a ribbon around it. You are one and done. And it's so easy for guys. Huge points. All right. Last thing and we'll jump into the show on exorcism and possession. So our pilgrimage for 2023 is filled. Yeah, that one is to Carmelite, Spain. Carmelite, Spain, which, wow, I'm so excited to be going back there again. And we do have a wait list because people do fall off. Yeah, if you want. You know, if you want to take a chance on that, I mean, it doesn't cost you anything. I don't think to be on the wait list. So you might want to do that because we have had people get sick or not be able to go. Yeah, and we only allow for 50 just because we like to get to know people. And it's a real program. It's the last thing I'll say and then we'll jump into the show is 2024 Israel is already starting to fill. Yeah. If you're interested, check that out. Yeah. All right. Let's jump into the show and your markets that go. This is Dan Stephanie Burke. Welcome to divine intimacy radio. Your radio haven of brass. Your hermitage of the heart. Your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw on the wisdom of the saints, the wisdom of the church. And today the wisdom of a man who has a very unusual role in the church and that he gets to hang out with possessed people and exorcists. Is that strange? Okay, so we are happy. That's a strange intro. We are so very happy to welcome back Adam Bly. He is a paratist, which means an expert on religious demonology and exorcism for the diocese of Pittsburgh. He's an auxiliary member of the International Association of Exorcist in Rome. He has been helping to teach priests exorcism for over 15 years, both both nationally and internationally in recent years. Let's see, he has written a number of books that treat on the topic of exorcism and deliverance, including the exorcism files, true stories of demonic possession, which we'll be talking about today, as well as his 2021 book on the Catholic Guide to Miracles. So welcome back, Adam Bly. We're happy to have you. Oh, thank you for having me back. It's good to be here. Yeah, and just for folks, if you want to get the book, as you're listening, exorcism files, EWTN's religious catalog always is a safe place to get any book that you want. Spiritualdirection.com is also there in the shop area. So it's well worth reading. Adam Bly, his name is spelled B-L-A-I. Adam, thanks for being back with us. Today I wanted to focus as a follow-up to our previous show a little more on the practical or what would be the more common entryways into problematic encounters with demons, that sort of thing. And the one I wanted to begin with is your story on Reiki. And if you could tell our listeners a little bit about that, I want to talk about Reiki and Yoga, those two together, because obviously they're making that same story. Sure. So Reiki is a system of supposed energy healing that came out of Japan. And it's kind of proposed in the West and two Westerners as kind of a generic, vaguely prayerful healing process where you kind of wave your hands over the person and intend to heal them and maybe follow whatever instincts or feelings you might be creating in your own mind while that's going on in terms of kind of a false discernment. And then promises that you'll be able to actually heal people. Now, if it were that simple, you might say, well, okay, that's misguided and a little bit odd, which certainly, which is what the USCCB concluded in their paper on their study on Reiki, which people can go Google that later. Just Google USCCB and Reiki. But it gets a little deeper than that. And that is, in order to be initiated as a Reiki master, you have to make an act of the will and asked to be connected to the Reiki spirit. You then have to have a Reiki master do a ceremony over you where they anoint your palms with oil. And this is not, you know, holy oil from the Catholic Church. This is, I don't know what type of oil, but they feel a need to anoint your palms with oil with occult symbols, usually kanji from the Japanese language related to Reiki and draw symbols over your head, lay hands on you, and then impart the Reiki spirit. Now, in the West, they only talk about the first three levels of it, which you can do in one weekend if you pay the money to become a Reiki master. But in Japan, there are higher levels of it that get more occult and sound more similar to witchcraft in terms of the phenomenon such as astral projection. You know, what's the first thing that strikes me about what you just shared, which I had no idea about, is that it sounds like a demonic form of anointing for the priesthood. It's like an upside down. I mean, the mockery of it is just striking. Yeah. And people can go later again and go on YouTube and type in Reiki initiation and they can see various versions of this ceremony going on. It looks very much either like a ordination or kind of a combination of an ordination along with maybe the anointing of the sick or something like that. But yes, many pagan systems look eerily similar to Catholic sacraments. It's just they're kind of an inverted or a corrupted version of them. Yeah, knowing the demonic, they like to mock and replicate in some way as a mockery, which makes perfect sense. So tell us the story of this possession that occurred or this encounter with demons because of Reiki. Yeah. So this was a case where a person had been involved in Reiki for about 20 years. They were doing it a lot. They were teaching it. They were promoting it online. They had a large online community where people shared information and encouragement to each other about this stuff. And while they were promoting it, there was no reason for these spirits to punish them and make them feel distressed because they were basically promoting the cancer to be spread to other people. So, you know, the evil spirits happy with that and has no reason to show its nasty nature. And after after about 20 years of this, I guess they had decided they had gotten enough use out of the car and they were ready to trade it in. And so they turned on the person and started afflicting them in various really unpleasant ways. And they came to the church for prayer, kind of confused about why they were in so much distress. And as we were doing the diagnostic prayers. They were manifesting and it was clear that it was basically a very heavy oppression. It wasn't full blown possession yet. Excuse me, but there was a lot of manifestation and so they did a number of prayer sessions we did a number of renunciations where they would renounce these various practices they pulled down all of their Reiki related material. They told their friends that they were sorry they made a mistake and pleased to stop doing these things. And as they had kind of disconnected from that world and receive prayer things calm down. And actually, part of what was helpful to them was the unbound system, which was an adjunct to the prayers they were getting at the diocese here. So what there's a pattern here that I think I've heard repeated in other situations where the demonic will give the person who's who unknowingly is cooperating with the demonic will give them some sort of benefit for a period. And then you, you said it well, once they're done with them or perceive some, you know, more strategic target or whatever, you know, whatever they the basis of their decisions are, then they just proceed to wreck the person. Yeah, because through those 20 years the person had given over so much to the demon informed in the form of inviting relationship and subservience. And so they knew the Reiki spirit was what was supposedly doing the healing and by the way demons cannot heal. Only God can heal because healing is a creative act. And so what a demon does it either masks the pain, if it has dominion over that person, or it causes an affliction and then withdraws the affliction that it's causing to cause a sham of healing. There is there is no actual healing by them. I think I mentioned to you at our first show that we did that the most popular post on our website historically is how is when people search how to give their soul to the devil. And we have a post of course dissuading people from doing that. This, you know, you can also look at stories of people who had there were there's some kind of a rumor that they had given their soul to the devil and you watch their career rise dramatically and then have absolutely tragic ends to their lives. And what people don't realize is that the enemy is is way more powerful than you are. And when you when you go messing in these these with these kinds of relationships, you think you're going to get some sort of benefit, they will spit you up and chew you, you know, chew you up and spit you out is whenever they desire it whenever it's, you know, advantage. Yeah, whenever it's convenient and they finished up their their benefit from it. And I I I don't know I I tend, you know, the Lord is in all things, you know, his permissive will allows things. And I, I have to think that the enemy is forced to reveal himself, because the Lord's on his way. And for me, that's the way I see it, because otherwise, they would just continue to gather more and more souls for destruction. But at some point, they're forced to show their hand. And once you know where the enemy is, you, you, you have, you can go forward to receive the healing that you need through the church, which the exorcism right never fails. Yeah, as long as you stay in the fight, as long as you stay in the fight and you pursue and you pursue the Lord with all that you are, you know, you're going to get free. So I want to think of it as God's mercy that he allows that demon to be revealed so that that person then has the opportunity to turn back and get out of the situation. So I'd be praised for, you know, when you know where the enemy is, you can take him out thoughts on that. Yeah, so that's exactly true. Exorcism, you can think of it as a last ditch effort that God is making when the person's about to walk off a cliff. And God doesn't want them to stay in that relationship with the demon that's going to ultimately bring true death, you know, meaning spiritual death. And so he forces the demon to show its hand in some cases so that the person wakes up to what they're doing and turns back to God before it's too late. You know, there's mystery in this, and it can be hard for people to wrap their mind around, but the demon needs permission for everything that it does. They can't even lift a finger without permission and it's not that Jesus wants people to be hurt by these creatures. He allows them to tempt us, basically 24 seven, and that's part of life and that's part of the spiritual struggle that makes us stronger. So there's a good fruit that comes from that, especially when we resist temptation, but we also learn when we fall as long as we repent. And this extraordinary activity that the church treats with exorcism is basically a way for God to let the person kind of burn their hand on the stove and realize the stove is hot and dangerous. You shouldn't touch it. And so it's kind of a wake up call for people when God allows this extraordinary stuff because God really doesn't want people to be lost. You know, it's not that he's sadistic and wants people to be hurting. He wants you to realize that you've taken the monster by the hand. You know, you may think it's something friendly, but he wants you to see it for what it is. Right. Yeah, well said. So we've got to go to a break. When we come back, Adam, I want to talk a little bit about yoga. I've had some very interesting experiences with people practice yoga and check out the exorcism vials for our audience. True stories of demonic possession. You can get it at spiritualdirection.com shop and we'll be right back. So we'll just go to open the next one. Resets. Hey friends, before we jump back in, I want to Yeah, I want to let you know about a course that's coming available that one of our favorite professors. His name is Father Ignatius Schweitzer. He's a very holy Dominican priest. And he's teaching St. John of the Cross and our journey into the mystery of God. And I'm looking to see the spiritual for reviews. So he'll he'll explore the writings of John of the Cross, spiritual canticle, dark night, a scent of Mount Carmel living flame of love, just to help us to understand how to draw more deeply to the Lord. So that's avala-institute.org. If you don't know how to spell Avila, it's A as in Apple, V as in Victor, I, L, A as in Apple, dash, institute.org. Check it out. A lot of amazing courses where the school is growing. We have about 600 students a quarter. We teach priest, religious and laity all over the world. And if you want to join this holy horde, is a horde a good thing. This holy group of people. This tribe. Yeah. Go check it out. All right, let's head back into the show on your market set. Go. This is Dan Stephanie Burke. Welcome back to Divine Intimacy Radio. We're with Adam Bly. Really enjoy Adam. I don't know. He seems like he's got a subtle sense of humor, very intelligent and insightful. And the Lord has drawn him into a very strange life, so to speak, of helping people get free of demonic possession, forming priests and helping folks understand how to deal with it. And so he's written a handful of books, all of them worth reading the latest one, Exorcism Files. I've really enjoyed because it's very concise, very practical, not complicated or overly sensational. Just right down to the point. You can find it at spiritualdirection.com, shop or EW10's religious catalog. So I want to shift to yoga. I'll tell you my experience with yoga. So, one, you know, we have a good friend who had to go to an exorcist because of their practice in yoga. So there is absolutely no doubt. And this is not, I don't mean a good friend as in a distant person. I'm calling good friend, but I mean someone close to us, very, very devout and had to, had some real difficulty with, with the spiritual side of yoga. But people really, I think take this very lightly. And they think, oh, it's just stretching, you know. And for me, there are a couple of ways to look at it. One, I see it as like a gateway spirituality of people have heard of gateway drugs where you start using, you know, marijuana and then it's going to lead to, it naturally disposes you to do harder and harder. So it's not everybody, but for certain personality types. To me, yoga feels like a gateway spirituality where if it doesn't get you in the practice. And I mean, even one of the yoga institutes who studies scientifically and quotes the effects of yoga boasts that a huge percentage of people, no matter what their religious background is. When they get involved in yoga and experience the physiological benefits of it, they get interested in non-Christian spirituality. So talk to us a little bit about yoga and the danger, dangers, I guess, particularly Kundalini yoga, which you talk about in your book. Sure. So first off, we need to remember that yoga is part of the Hindu spiritual life. It's part of the religious life for not all Hindus, but, but many, and that these are worship postures for various deities within Hinduism. And normally, depending on which version of Hinduism, there's variations on this, but you essentially assume the worship posture of some quote unquote God. And then you entone that God's name over and over on breath, which some people call a mantra. And you're basically inviting or asking for some communion with or interaction with this, with this supposed God. Now, it also is designed to bring about unusual spiritual experiences. And by unusual, I mean, what they call Kriyas, which in the case of Kundalini yoga is involuntary jerks and movements of the body and animal like vocalizations the person can't control. That's part of it, but there's also internal strange states inability to sleep other things that go on that there's many videos about Kundalini awakening that's with a K. So, in the West, kind of similar to Reiki in the West, it's packaged as just an exercise but with a little bit of Eastern mysticism and mystique about it to maybe make itself better. But the problem is people almost inevitably sooner or later get into the spiritual and energy manipulation side of yoga. You know, they do it for a while, maybe a guest teacher comes in and does a mantra this time or now they have the focus on projecting your energy in some way, and people started basically inevitably going a little bit deeper into it. Now, Kundalini yoga, which is kind of a it's a branch of it, it's not all all yoga, but the goal here and it's very popular and it's increasing in popularity. It's been around since the 70s or the 60s. The goal is to awaken the spirit of a serpent that supposedly resides at the base of the spine and every human being. And by doing the Kundalini exercises you awaken the serpent, and then over time it moves up your spine until it reaches the top of your head, which is considered the crown chakra and their system. And when it reaches there, the sign that you've achieved this great spiritual milestone are those Kriyas that I mentioned. And now you can see a lot of disturbing documentaries on YouTube about Kundalini awakenings including footage from India where more traditional Hindu masters by touch and imparting the spirit caused people to fall on the ground screaming and writhing, barking or growling, contorting various things that are that are regarded as a good sign. So that's kind of the deep end of the pole of yoga. The shallow end of the pole, again, is as you said, Dan, very much a gateway drug. It gives you a vague sense of spirituality, maybe a vague sense of tingly weird well being a little beyond the physical exercise that entices you to go deeper and deeper in the pole. As kind of a footnote to all this, you know, when I joined the International Association of Exorcists, I was, you have to be invited to join. You can't petition to join it. There was a priest there, Father Rufus Peraria. He's passed on now, but he was from Bombay or now Mumbai, India, from a Catholic kind of enclave there. And he had been casting Hindu gods out of people that would strike yoga poses since the 70s. A tremendous experience with this. So he spoke very strongly against yoga because he had had such a deep and wide experience with the demonic spirits that would then strike yoga poses as a display of power or confidence during the exorcisms. Of course, they always lost because they're just demons. But so yes, this is this is a potentially dangerous area, particularly because it's that gateway into getting into energy manipulation and other esoteric practices. You know, as an alternative, thankfully, you don't need I'm not a fan of Christian yoga or Christianized yoga just because it's why, why mess with why get anywhere near that stuff. But there are soul core is a is a Catholic stretching program where you pray the rosary while you're stretching. It's really beautiful. You don't. And they don't do anything related to yoga. They're very specific about making sure that none of the similar poses are used. And I'll tell you what, you, you cannot be a sissy and get through soul core. So if you're thinking it's not going to be tough, it will it will just kick your rear end. Another one is pH or fitness, which is and with soul core is just, I mean, the never even practice yoga, the designers, pH or fitness is another one where it's just, you know, stretching, they teach Catholic meditation, we've actually helped them with their program and evaluated their program, both of them actually. But yeah, I mean, what's fascinating when we ever talk we talk about yoga is we get the most violent or energetic reactions, you know, this show will probably end up with a lot of people in the chat, just, you know, getting very, very upset, which is a great indicator of the of the demonic nature of the thing, because it gives you a kind of false peace which interesting about non Christian, Eastern spirituality and also centering prayers and other one is I've had a person yell at me, I've been practicing, you know, centering prayer for 20 years, and I'm a Catholic, you know, and it's in it, you want to just say, I mean, your heart, it's, I'm being a little funny, but your heart breaks for them because they don't even realize. Do you not see how easily undone you are by just mentioning this look, look, look under the covers of why this is happening to you. Yeah, I've actually watched somebody who practice yoga, just really come apart, just really. I think they had a mental breakdown. Yeah. And it was a terrible thing to watch and I believe that it came through the yoga. Well, and there's even been a clinical studies and psychology from secular psychologists, a book called the Buddha Pill that reviews cases of meditation, non Christian, Eastern meditation, where people end up totally undone and I don't think they, they would entertain the idea of possession. I think we might look at the cases and, and recognize patterns that are beyond what, you know, modern science would accept. Certainly heavy oppressions. Yeah. So the last one I want to run through with you, Adam is the be careful who you sleep with that was a fascinating case. I actually laughed out loud when I read it not. I mean, I'm sad for the person, but I love this line that the demon said, would you get us out of here this person for this woman praise too much I can't remember exactly what what what exactly what they said but tell us about that case. Well, you know the general thing there is human sexuality is something given to us by God that is supposed to be within the sacramental container of marriage. And we know scriptually two people become one when there's a sexual union. And the way I've seen that play out in many, many cases in addition to what's in the book is that once somebody has intercourse particularly with with somebody who's involved in black magic it usually is witchcraft or Wicca if you want to call it Wicca. There's a bridge or a connection formed that later when the relationship ends or goes south. That person then has the ability to have a curse actually affect the person. And this is a real person of course a curse is just asking the demon to go hurt somebody in some way. There's no actual magic in human beings that they can wiggle their fingers and make somebody get a bellyache or something. You have to recruit these spirits and hope that they do you some favor. Well, sexuality is one of the ways that that favor can get some traction. And the demon can actually affect you because you have consented to share spiritually and become one with the person when you have sex with them. And if that person has demonic spirits if they're involved in the occult or witchcraft you have consented to be under the dominion of whatever spirits that person is in relationship with and I've seen this play out many, many times. And yes, sometimes the lower ranked demons we have somebody is particularly pious and is fighting very hard and is very prayerful will complain to the exorcist and say they actually want to be cast out. These are the lower level ones the higher level ones will just still fight to destroy the person with the lower level ones. They experienced so much pain from the person being so devout and praying that they'll actually asked to be cast out. In order to get away from that person. Crazy well we're out of time and I wish we had we had a wish I wish we could just spend hours with you and go over every portion of the book but you have work to do in the tribunal and then all your other good work. We're grateful that you come back with us again Adam and for all the good work you're doing folks check out the exorcism files true stories of demonic possession. And with that, we're out of here. 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 really appreciate you coming back on with us and all your good and important work. It's, it's so very needed and.