 Well done Jordan. Hey friends this is Dan and Stephanie Burke you're watching behind-the-scenes divine intimacy radio in a minute we're gonna be talking about demons now what it while titling the shows would you title the show Jordan the spiritual warfare in modern times okay thank you for the reminder so in a few minutes we'll be talking about to super Paul McCusker about about spiritual warfare in modern times before we do that I want to tell you about a webinar we have coming up jump into the deep preparing for lint it's tomorrow tomorrow two days from now February 1st February 2nd okay and Dan Burke oh I'm doing that webinar nice I didn't know that Claire Dwyer is gonna be there as well she's gonna be the co-host and we're gonna be talking about how to have a completely different spiritual bit of per spiritual progress this year in particular through lent and we have a special announcement that you're not gonna want to miss because it's pretty exciting for us and for you and for the blessings you'll receive through it so February 2nd you can find that out spiritualdirections.com events and I think we're full up on the next two programages so so how about the yeah divine intimacy radio retreat I mean that I mean in marriage if they want to sign up they still can there's a few seats yeah yeah yeah just a few because we are almost full yeah it's the biggest one we've ever had shrine of the most blessed sacraments worth going even if you don't listen to us just to go see no it's an awesome retreat listen to our prior commercials about it okay why don't we start this show on your mark it said go this is Dan and Stephanie Burke welcome to divine intimacy radio your radio haven of brass your hermitage of the heart your monastery of the mine where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw on the wisdom of the saints to help us to navigate this difficult life and today we have a very good friend he's in our top five right well he has you know that he had the distinct role of actually reading at our wedding he did write that's right he did read at our wedding you know so not everybody gets to read at our wedding that was the only two people read it yeah okay so we're really happy to have Paul McCusker with us yeah he is a writer a dramatist wait no that's wrong it's it's he is a prolific writer so Paul McCusker is a prolific writer and a dramatist he's best known for his work on the long-running children's audio program adventures in Odyssey the award-winning radio theater productions for the Augustine Institute they are amazing you got to check those out yeah they're phenomenal and focus on the family and a variety of novels a long variety of novels a long list of variety of novels written for all ages including into the catacombs last things the adventures of Nick and Sam and the virtue chronicles and he's a dear friend yeah welcome Paul it's good to be with you always a pleasure it's just sitting here and listening to your bio reminds me Paul and I both became Catholic while working for a one of the most influential Protestant organizations of its time focus on the family yeah I don't know what that says about them but that's interesting it is interesting I well I think it made a good bit of people in the organization uncomfortable some didn't care but some did yeah it was interesting when I became Catholic I think the question I got to be honest was first first I think the reaction was I think they felt as long as it doesn't get in interfere with your work that's good right then the other was all that's just Paul doing his high church bells and smells thing because I was Anglican yeah and then the final thing was I actually my immediate boss when I told him just said so do you love Jesus and I said well more than ever and he said okay that's all we need to know mm-hmm and that was kind of it for me it was a little more difficult not much but these the the statement of faith of books on the family was actually anti-Catholic it was written by evangelicals for financial accountability or something like that right and it they were Calvinist meaning anti-Catholic and so I'm going I went and met with the Bishop Bishop shared in God rest his soul and walked through the statement to figure out if I could sign it or I could still agree to it and and and so I then I met with with Ron Wilson who was at that time head of human resources and I said I'm gonna read for you the statement of faith and I'm gonna tell you what I'm agreeing to and he said okay so then we just get moving and I didn't actually have to sign it I'd been on and off staff and I think during that period I had come back on staff and they never made me sign it but since then by the way there's been an interesting debate going on because a couple of Catholics worked there and and noticed especially this first point on the on the statement of faith and said they could not sign it yeah and then the organization had to go through and decide and I think they decided to either ignore it but they wouldn't change the offending so yeah but you know that's that's the way things are well good well let's talk about our subject today so I will say that I think the work you did on the annotated screw tape letters is is extremely helpful and good in fact I use the book for my it's required reading for my spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits course it to give them a holy imagination but let's lay the ground for work for folks who maybe aren't familiar with CS Lewis and what what is this screw tape letters thing and why is it so powerful and important well I think well CS Lewis is about as close as you can get to I think a Protestant saint they're only a couple of them but he he was a scholar in mid 20th century had a long journey to the faith because he was primarily agnostic in fact as a young man I was tickled by the fact that he resented God for not existing and classic atheists ultimately in this long journey was you know not one of those immediate conversions he he came to Christ and then he took on and his his writing duties more so than anything he had a passion for apologetics and he began to write if not overt material about about the faith and defending the faith but certainly imaginative things he did the space trilogy he did tons and tons of writing the great divorce which a lot of people read and love and which almost advocates a view of purgatory which does yeah and and of course he's best known for the Chronicles of Narnia and but mixed in within all of that he had he was he was bored during church one day and during the homily he got this idea about an exchange of letters between a demon and a subordinate demon and how demons do what they do to wreck our lives to wreck our spirituality to completely thwart our journey to heaven and that seed of an idea kind of grew into what then became a series of letters for one of the English newspapers it was a church of England newspaper called The Guardian and he be for 32 33 weeks he just did every week these letters from screw tape the senior demon to his nephew Wormwood and and through each one he was exploring all the different facets of essentially temptation and what he would have said is a world turned upside down because the whole thing is from the point of view of the demon and so that means it's not necessarily accurate but it's only accurate because it's give gives us an inside look at the workings of demons in fact what I'd like to do in the course that I'm going to do is is tie a lot of what he's talking about into with your the devil in the castle because what you write about there ties into a lot of the things that screw tape is talking about in all the different ways he tempts us and a lot of us through psychological games so that's what the book does and it's it's become a classic because it's so very insightful so what we're talking about then is that you're going to be doing a course at the Avalon Institute utilizing your writing of our or your annotated annotated version of the screw tape lever level but hello it's it's early I guess it's screw tape letters yeah and then utilizing Dan's book devil in the castle so draw the parallels because Lewis doesn't I mean Lewis was not Catholic I know he read the Saints but the degree to which he integrated their works into into his writings is very loose very rarely direct I know you can sense the influence but I know for example I went digging into some of his letters and he quotes sister Teresa the saint Teresa of Avalon and a couple of places but but by no means that I get the sense that he had really jumped deep into her writings and then understand her you know what's fascinating about Lewis and screw tape is so you know Stephanie and I have been in many many exorcisms full right exorcisms and then of course ongoing deliverance ministry which Stephanie is head of for the Apostle via community and what's what's striking about Lewis is without having that kind of experience how accurate he is in the way and the way in depicting the way demons behave because we we get to see it in a sense firsthand and then when you're in deliverance world your sensitivities are heightened and you you know you can be in a you can be in a an exorcism and hear a demon you know say a lie over and over and then be out in the world and hear you know a friend or a student or somebody say the exact same lie in the exact same way and you have this heightened sensitivity to all of the demonic activity going on which rarely people get a glimpse into so I think what's invaluable about his work is that he helps us to develop what I would call a holy imagination that helps us to to understand the the doctrinal truth in a deeper conceptual way does that make sense it does and you're and you're right I think through Narnia through a lot of his writings holy imagination we underestimate that I think is very often we think of stories we think of inspirational things as secondary or somewhere down the list of things we ought to engage in and with him he brings it to the forefront and I think you're absolutely right in terms of how he does that yeah the the the power of holy imagination is as you say way underrated the in our high calling program we have about a hundred guys that we're doing priestly formation for and preparing them for seminary we actually take them through Lord of the Rings Dr. Andrew Sealy is the one who's teaching that and the reason we're doing it is to elicit a deeper kind of visceral connection to what it means to be a hero what it means to be courageous what it means to be valiant and exhibit virtues even to total self-sacrifice which of course is is is perfectly exemplified in Jesus but also the priesthood you know for a priest to be to be holy so it's I think it's underrated and it's unfortunate but it's for those who who allow themselves to and you know imbibe if you will I don't know if that's the right word to drink of it to internalize it it it it's it has a similar effect we just let a pilgrimage to Israel this summer it has a similar effect to pilgrimages to Israel where instead of these vague conceptions of where Jesus walked and where he went to Jericho and when he was in Jerusalem when he's in the instead of these vague conception suddenly now everything goes 3d we're actually in the place we're experiencing it so it's it's almost like the power of meditation Ignatian meditation of scripture in the sense that it brings it all alive so when we get back from the break we'll continue to talk to Paul McCusker who'll be teaching a course at the Aval Institute on spiritual warfare in modern times CS Lewis and the screw tape letters it it's it starts Thursday March 9th so go to avala-institute.org and check that out avala-institute.org and we'll be right back okay you ready for the next one all right Mark said go this is Dan Stephanie Burke welcome back to divine intimacy radio we're here with a really incredibly gifted writer content creator audio dramas multiple books and we're just so blessed to have him just as a friend a good friend but also teaching for us at the Aval Institute as I mentioned before the break he'll be teaching a course coming up here pretty quickly so you can go out on spiritual warfare in modern times head out to avala-institute.org and even if you hear this broadcast some ways down the line and it's sort of out of sync with when the course is available you can always become a member of the Avala Army which is a monthly support of our work and then you'll be able to find Paul's course in there but it's always more fun live so if you can do that check it out avala-institute.org Stephanie you had a question I do I do and so I'm gonna get personal here Paul because I can so given that the screw tape letters and I think most people that have listened to it especially if they are able to listen to the dramatized version that you made that was incredible I mean just off the chart off the charts best thing ever yeah if you want the screw tape letters to come alive so given that when you listen to them you being you know universal you I know that most people listen to it and go wow that's just so true oh my gosh I've experienced that oh that's how he works in me or oh I've seen that in you know ex-person or whatever you start to understand that really this feels like an inspired work given all that I want to know how has working with this teaching with it getting so deep into this material affected your faith journey well I think the short answer is it makes it all the more real I mean I don't know that there was ever a point where I doubted the existence of demons and their work the subtleties and nuance is of the of what they do I think is what comes through in screw tape letters and that impacts me because the mind games the kinds of things the rationalizations that I might be inclined to do that can lead me into sin or lead me into sometimes it's just distraction and and then you guys touch on this but distracting is a big part of it it's it's not always the overt sin it's not always the overt thing in fact screw tape says at one point you know what why why lead them into something like that when you can actually take them in another direction they're not expecting but like my way of distraction during prayer by way of distraction just from doing the right thing at the moment then that we're supposed to do the right thing and and I think I found that I'm more aware of not the overt ways but the subtle ways that demons work and tempt and distract us from what we're supposed to be thinking about what we're supposed to be doing and Lewis had the same problem by the way Lewis Lewis considered the screw tape letters probably the most unpleasant thing he's ever he ever had to write really that's fascinating and he said so it was I think he used the quote it was all thirst grit dust in itch because and he said it was hard because he he had to really dive deep into his own spiritual life in order to to kind of dig out these these nuggets of truth and during this period he it impacted him so much that he wound up going to a Catholic spiritual director fascinating and began to meet with one regularly and I think did almost for most of the rest of his life but it was true he knew his need and he knew that he was beyond his own powers to to deal with these things that he was writing about and and and I think it's impacted me much the same way if ever you think you need have a need for a spiritual director you need help yeah confessional wherever you can get that something like this will highlight it because of all the games Satanism and his minions are playing with us absolutely so given that he went to a Catholic spiritual director do you think he would have become Catholic I mean what kept him from going over that last step I think his background I agree with Joseph Pierce who did a book about this and his conclusion was that ultimately in the space of time that we have with Lewis up until 1963 in his letters you see a lot of his Ulster Irish Protestant background coming up in fact I'll give you an example when I was trying to find references in his letters about St. Teresa he quotes her at one point but then there's another point where I stumbled on to another section where where a Catholic publisher had picked up one of his books pilgrims regress and it fallen out of print with this first publisher and the sheet and Ward decided to publish it and he was having a real problem with this papest publisher publishing his book but he sort of shrugged and said well at least it's out there you know that sort of thing and all the way through there was a point in one letter where he had met with his the Catholic spiritual director who I guess had pushed him a little bit across a line whatever that line was that he just couldn't go in terms of his personal devotions and he doesn't specify what that is but whatever it was you you you get the impression it was a very Catholic spiritual thing to do and he actually said and I told him I would not do it and if he insisted on it then I would no longer see him so there was this line that Lewis kind of brushed up against like you see him touch on it in mere Christianity and other works and then he backs off so I don't know if he had stayed in some argue he would I'm not convinced that he ever would yeah I mean the anti-Catholic sentiment in the culture he grew up in was very very strong but as but what is fascinating I think he's a he's a man who was saved by truth and had a passion for truth wherever it led him and so he seemed that that always seemed to lead him brushing up as you would say against Catholicism I think the great divorce is one of the more powerful ways of understanding purgatory from a guy who didn't have that in his theological dictionary well in our and it's so funny because I mean a high church Anglicanism is apart from being out of communion with Rome it was very Catholic and Lewis was fascinating because you know he would I think inevitably if you're going to pursue the deeper spiritualities you're going to come up against yeah and I think that's what constantly happened to him to to whatever agree he realized it or not yeah yeah so I see on the list of projects that you're working on that there's one that's very close to my heart that I have a deep devotion to and that's uh Joan of Arc so can you talk to us a little bit about this new audio drama that you're working on uh yeah I we've been wanting to do this for a long time and because of COVID we just couldn't get back to England because we record our actors in England and and so our production shut down but finally I had the opportunity to go in dig into her life create a drama around her which really does tell pretty much her story at least from the point when she goes to meet the Dauphin the prince of of France and all the way through to the end no spoilers here but um uh and as usual when I work on these st traumas I learn an awful lot I mean I come in with just that superficial novel that everybody knows and then when I start digging in to figure her out as a character you know yeah trying to think through how do I present her and I have to go in pretty deep uh it tells me a lot about her she was she was amazing and through the whole thing I kept going back she is younger than my daughter isn't it crazy daughter is now 21 but as I was working on this you're talking about a 17 18 year doing these amazing things the the thing that's fascinating to me is that Mark Twain's opus which most people don't know was about uh Joan of Arc how much of his work do you use how do you find it credible in your receipt research well I think he researched his research was very good I actually referenced a dozen different books so I used his I looked at other novels just to see what they did I went back I mean her her trial was one of the most doc it was the I think the most documented trial of its time you had transcripts galore of every question every answer and you can piece together her life from a lot of and they had two trials one was the original one and then 20 years later so after her death then they reopened it because she had officially declared a witch and there were enough people advocating that the the Vatican then reopened the whole thing and said well we're going to do this all over again and then they came to the opposite conclusion which was she was not and it was all a lot of politics around her but she was not canonized until 1920 I think it was so I I know folks are listening and thinking that paul is a very interesting human and uh they would be right he is very interesting he's got a lot of obscure knowledge and even helpful knowledge and I I think that uh if you want to dig into some of the best insight into spiritual warfare and actually gain a kind of instinct that Stephanie and I have from direct work in ecstasy and deliverance so that you can better combat better see the movements of the enemy in your own in your own life I think there let me just there's three resources we've all we've mentioned them all here today but one is paul's course at the avalanche institute spiritual warfare in modern times avalanche institute.org you can become a member also of the avalanche army which you can get recordings but I'd recommend the live course the second is paul mentioned the use of my most recent book devil in the castle which is subtitled spiritual war saint therese of avalanche spiritual warfare in the progress of the soul and then the third is spirit is spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits of course the book the annotated screw tape letters is is is a no-brainer but spiritual warfare and discernment of spirits you can find those books at ewtn's religious catalog the last two anyway uh and or through spiritualdirection.com we have a shop button there and you can find the books there but either way I strongly recommend paul is a is a good man he's a fascinating teacher and the students love his course and it will help you really to better understand how the enemy works and how you can grow and how you can combat his works in your own life and then help others to do the same so head out to avalanche institute.org sign up for that course or for the avalanche army so that you can have access to a recording at some point later paul it's been really good to see your face and to talk with you and we're grateful that you're teaching for us at the avalanche institute and with that we've got to hit the road one last thing paul mccusker.com paul mccusker.com paul mccusker.com Stephanie take us out okay 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.