What's The Point Anyway?
It seems like much of the Western world is lost. The interesting trend over the last few years is that more and more people are working that out.
More people have worked out that endless materialism and chasing things that never actually satisfy us aint it.
So what’s the point of it all, anyway?
What's The Point Anyway?
What's The Point Anyway - What is Demonic Possession with Kirsten Barton, Stephen Long & Mike Miano.
Is there such thing as demons, and is demonic possession real? A former addict, satanist and gang member all give their diverse perspectives on a difficult topic!
In this engaging roundtable discussion, Luke McInnes brings together three friends and past guests to explore the complex topic of demonic possession. Stephen Long, Mike Miano and Kirsten Barton all share their unique perspectives, ranging from traditional Christian views to psychological interpretations and cultural experiences. The conversation delves into the nature of demons, the spiritual realm, and personal experiences with possession, while also examining biblical accounts and their implications. The group emphasizes the importance of open dialogue and understanding diverse viewpoints, ultimately highlighting the need for a balanced approach to spirituality and knowledge.
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hit start recording just so we're like on but then I'll officially like start it but yeah we're just doing our little brief introductions Kirsten and chatting about the conservative rites and Jordan Peterson and so forth which is yeah I was just saying what Stephen was saying is how like so many like you know traditional like right-wing Christians have embraced Jordan Peterson and whereas what he's saying 15 years ago was a message that is not appealing to the right wing. And I was saying, think Mike agrees with me that I think right wing conservatism is absolute mess. Yeah. And they'll love us doing this podcast, won't they? So thanks to all three of you for being so willing. I actually think the whole topic of demons is like a fascinating topic. I don't necessarily know exactly where I sit on it. I see all different views on it. I think the three of you are gonna bring a different perspective. So obviously the format I've said to you, it's not a debate. And I think you all know that and you're all the right personality types as well. like, I think it would just be cool for like the three of us to chat for an hour about our various different views on demonic possession. it won't follow. I don't have a agenda because I don't want to steer it in any particular way. think it will just go where it goes. So I'll just, and I'll hit, I've hit record, but I'll start the episode from shortly. What I'll do is I'll just give a, an intro, you know, like an introduction to the show. And then I'm just going to ask the first topic, like the first question really, just to get each of you to sort of give your position on what, what are demons? and what does it mean to be possessed by demons. think that'll let people just understand sort of at a high level what your position is. And then we'll just talk through the various points that it goes. So good. good. Perfect. Well, welcome back to What's the Point Anyway. Today's a really interesting episode and a different one. What I've done is I've brought back three of my favorite past guests from the show. We've got Kirsten Barton, Mike Miano and Stephen Long. And what we're going to do is we're going to talk through the topic of demonic possession, which is, you know, the idea of demons is something that's Christian, it's non-Christian, everyone has a view on it, whether demons are real, whether demons are not. There's, you know, completely different views within Christianity, what it is, there's views from outside. So what we're gonna do is just the four of us are gonna have like a round table open discussion on the topic of demonic possession. So thanks all for coming. Thank you. Thank you. having us. What I'll do to start is I'm just going to go around and Kirsten we can start with you. When we say demonic possession, do you want to tell me what you think it, what do you think demons are and what does it mean to be possessed by demons? In my view, I personally believe that the Bible teaches that demons are disembodied spirits, unclean spirits that can take possession over a person. And I think that looks like different things throughout the Old and New Testament. So you believe they are real spiritual entities? Yeah. And what about you, Mike? I would take possibly the opposite spectrum where I would view, think the world has every religion known to man has grappled with supernatural, has grappled with why evil exists, why we're seeing certain manifestations of what we would define as wickedness in our midst. And those have been qualified as demons. I think when we look at the ancient Near East and we consider how the religion of the Bible, we'll call it that for now, how that went about explaining what wickedness was in the midst of the people. The Hebrews seem to have a specific way of allowing the language of the day, for example, the way that other cults, if you will, would have understood demons. They would use the word demon, but they were really more so natural based. So it would seem as though demon is in scripture always attached to idols. When you see idols in the land, you find this manifestation of demons, which can be all sorts of different responses. It could be people cutting themselves in graveyards, for example, worshiping the dead. It could be people being out of their minds and doing things that would seem natural to anyone around us out of their mind. So I take a more natural perspective, if you will, that when we see certain things that are, we might call it possessed or captivating someone, that this is actually attached to idolatry that needs to be removed. great. And Stephen, you're, I mean, you wrote the article, which was on your sub stack. I think the title of it was possession and reading that actually triggered me to sort of do this episode. And you, I mean, grew up, people have listened to your episode when I grew up in a Christian church, but no longer consider yourself to be Christian. So you're going to come at it from a different angle. What do you think the answer is? So I think that demon possession is a real experience phenomenologically. That it is that the experience of spirit possession is a real experience that people have and have had cross-culturally through history. That doesn't mean that it's pointing to a true reality. So it's real, but it might not be true. And I tend to take a much more kind of psychological, cultural approach to this topic. And I think that spirit possession, and that, by the way, includes both positive and negative spirits. you know, so I'm not just concerned with demon possession and the concept of demons. I'm also... interested in positive spirits, in possession by the Holy Spirit, for example, in Pentecostal settings. That is a form of spirit possession. There are different types of spirit possession. it's this experience, it is a real experience that is just reported across culture, through history, of an autonomous being or an autonomous thing taking control of you. and directing you in some way. And that experience itself is real. Now what it is, what it actually is, what is true about it, that's a different question, right? And I tend to, I am agnostic. I consider myself radically, epistemically open. I'm open to all kinds of wiggity bullshit in the universe. know, the universe is a weird place. However, I tend towards a more psychological explanation for this kind of stuff. But it seems to be a thing that humans experience. And that's really fascinating to me. So I'll leave it there. Great. Yeah. I think what, I mean, part of this topic that I think is a really interesting thread to pull on is the fact that demons and this sort of experience is threaded throughout all of history. You know, it exists in the Bible speaks about it. Ancient religions speak about it. Modern religions speak about it. Even like, I mean, atheists will deny it, but say that there is something, they'll just say that there's no supernatural reality to it. What do you all think is, if I say like the spirit world or spiritual, what does that mean? What does that word mean? Because I think we all agree the spirit is a real, these are all three of us even though or four of us have different answers, but we would all say this that the spiritual is real, but what does that mean? What is spiritual? Go for it. Go. Do it, Mike. absolutely. I'll jump right in and Stephen, wanted to appreciate your response Kirsten and Stephen, yours as well. Stephen had said something that stood out to me about it being a real experience. And I just wanted to mention that in my naturalist understanding of demonology, if you will, I have not gotten into the habit, and I thank God for this, I have not gotten into the habit of denying people their experiences. So I have recognized that there's a place where I have to open up my understanding and be willing to say there's more to it than meets the eye. And I think that's fitting for this topic. So I thank you for acknowledging that and saying, you know, it is a real experience. And I never want to deny someone what they're calling a real experience, whether it's psychological, whether it's some other explanation that I might not have. I want to be appreciative of that. Now, in regards to what is the spirit realm, what is the spirit I think scripture, well scripture creates a contrast of carnal and natural versus spiritual. So spiritual would seem as though it's elevated above or it's outside of what is natural or carnal. In Romans 8 we read that the carnal mind is hostile toward God. So therefore I have come to understand that the spirit would be that which submits to God. Again in this idea, spirit would simply be a term used to explain thought outside of man. Now again, we do know there's false spirit, right, or bad spirits that we see in scripture as well. So those do seem to come from outside of man. However, in regards to the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit would be that which God has blessed man with. And that in the Christian understanding is how man is seated in heavenly places is put in a realm that is beyond this natural way of thinking, which will also foster my understanding of Satan. Maybe we'll leave that for another time. But again, I see the two contrasts of carnal and natural and spiritual all throughout scripture. Yeah. So the spiritual is like the real thing. It's the way we experience the world around us, but it's not like it can't be touched and felt, even though you can see the side effects of it. Yeah. So where do you see it, Kirsten? So I always think of that scripture when Elisha had his servant in the Old Testament, it was either in first or second Kings, and he asked the Lord that he would open his servant's eyes and he said something along the lines of there be more that are for us than against us and he saw like horses and stuff like that and to me I understand There's like a lot of metaphoric things in the Bible, but I would take that literally. I think there's like a spiritual realm that we can't see because we don't have eyes to see it. Yeah. And then what about you, Steven? Yeah, so this the the word spirit is one that is tricky for me, it's complicated. Currently from my non-theistic point of view, I tend to think of spirit as the spirit of the matter, the most essential part of wisdom being human or whatnot. When we speak of the spirit, we can speak of a deeper truth, a universal truth. And I think that when I say I'm spiritual, that's normally what I'm getting at is, so it isn't necessarily supernatural for me. think spiritual and supernatural, can overlap, but they are not necessarily the same thing. I also think of of spirit as reason, know, the ancient Greeks and Romans, philosophers, they often discussed reason, the mind, consciousness, thought as a form of spirit. And I think that's maybe a helpful way of thinking of spirit, of that kind of internal, phenomenal realm. But then there's spirit. the spiritual as the supernatural. And that is the part that I struggle with. I am naturally very skeptical. don't necessarily, I don't believe in the supernatural. But I'm, I'm open to it. And I would very much like for it to be true because I would absolutely love that. But I, but along those lines, there is a way to think about the supernatural as what's called the the mundi imaginalis, which is a term from Jungianism, from Jungian psychotherapy. And the mundi imaginalis is kind of, it's the imaginal realm. And it's the place we enter imaginatively where we interact with beings that seem autonomous. So for example, and I wrote an article about this, about this concept of the mundi imaginalis. When a, when, A woman came through my line at work and she told me I had the most wonderful dream. I saw Jesus. And she was in tears. It was beautiful. And she had this very real encounter with Jesus. Okay, that's the moon de imaginalis. When someone, when my pagan friends go up into the mountains and have vision quests or whatever and interact with spirits, that's the moon de imaginalis. It is the interactive internal imaginative space where we interact with beings that feel autonomous Now we have always experienced that human beings have always had that I Think that again that is a real experience and we can call that spiritual we can call that experience spiritual And someone can call that real even if they take a literalist supernatural approach that there is a literal supernatural realm or they can take my approach which is that I'm I lean towards it not being literally supernatural but it is real. Yeah. How do we, how do we explain in all of our various worldviews, how do we explain the uniformity of these experiences? Like, I mean, for 2000 years, you have Christians who give testimony to the power of the Holy Spirit that's worked in their lives. But then you'll read, you know, read from like the book of Kings, which, you know, what's up for 1000, 2000 years before Christ and there's supernatural spiritual experiences there that sound exactly like supernatural experiences today from people following other sort of more pagan religions. Another example is like, you know, which is fairly popular at the moment, things like psychedelics. People will have psychedelics and they'll all experience really similar things. How does that, if these demons or entities are existing, in our minds, how is it so uniform over such a long period of time in different cultures? That's that is a good question, right? It kind of leans in on. So are these cultures playing some form of ancient telephone where they're all kind of leaning on each other and learning these ideas? Or is there something there that all cultures, all people are sort of groping for in darkness? And, you know, I do tend to lean toward the latter. I believe that that what we're seeing in this world is multiple different ways and perspectives. You know, I do believe Stephen said something there about, know, according to it currently his non-theistic view, right? And then he even mentioned another part of me, I'm a quoting people type of guy, I always take notes. I treat others how I want to be treated. So, you know, and then he mentioned it being a helpful way. And I think that's the key is that what we're saying, each of us here tonight, is we're finding the way that we're dealing with and examining the wickedness that we've seen in our world, in our lives. And I think we've seen that throughout ancient cultures. again and again and again, where you look in the book of Acts, for example, Acts chapter 17, when Paul is preaching there at Mars Hill, he's speaking to these people as if they know they have a glimmer, to lean in on what Christen had said there. They see something, but they just don't have the eyes to see it. so again, I think that is the key, is that these are veiled, the spiritual world, if you will, whether it's supernatural or if it's spiritual in another sense. I definitely appreciated the contrast there in that regard. Either way, the spiritual world does seem to be this reality in our world that everyone has sort of tried to find a way to define and lean in on and offer up ideas. So that's why I think we see that uniformity of thought throughout the world, throughout time. Right. And what about you Kirsten? Imagine your view probably has a clearer explanation on it given that you would see them as entities. I believe that there are spiritual beings, like I said, in a realm that I believe there's a realm all around us that we can't see because I mean, God is spirit. So, you know, he's made of, I don't want to, I don't want to degrade him by any means, but he's a spirit. He's, you know, a disembodied spirit, right? We can't comprehend that, but I mean, I can't touch base on that, but I believe that there's, like I said, a supernatural realm that we can't see. And I believe different cultures try to tap into that supernatural realm like, you know, Alistair Crowley, he did things like that. And other a lot of other people. I've tried to do it. Yeah, we just get curious. We know that there's something there. We just don't know what. Yeah. So what do you guys think? I'm sure you, you're all familiar. Are you guys all familiar with the book of Enoch? marginally very yeah So Enoch, I might just read a little section of this. Because I think this influences a lot of, I mean, Enoch sort of outside of the canon of scripture. Some Christians follow it, some say it's, you know, demonic and shouldn't be read at all. A lot of new age people are quite into the book of Enoch, but there's I think it's chapter, it's in Roman numerals, so. chapter VI, what's that, six or seven. It says, six, and it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied, that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another, come, let us choose our wives from among the children of men and beget us children. And Semyaza, who was their leader, said unto them, I fear you will not, indeed agree to do this deed and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin and they all answered him and said let us all swear an oath and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing they swear they all together and bound themselves by mutual implications upon it and they were all in 200 who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon and called it Mount Herman because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual Implications upon it and these are the names their leaders and so forth and basically what Enoch says and Michael Heiser who you guys everyone's a lot of people are fairly familiar with he Really leans into this worldview is that ultimately this is talking about this pact that happens in the ancient days where the demons or the fallen angels made an agreement with each other to come and essentially just debase mankind. And then I think in the next chapter, it goes on to talk about all the different ways in which they would do that. And it would be through various forms of sorcery and alluring people with different views. I don't really see, I'll be honest, I think Enoch is just an interesting story. don't take it as authoritative. I don't think that's a real event that happened. There's Christians that will yell and scream and say that's in the book of Genesis though. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. But it isn't just in Enoch. is the Nephilim are in the book of Genesis. Mike, do you want to answer that? Because you're, know, Nephilim, Genesis chapter six is ties in absolutely with this chapter and Michael Heiser has written books and books about Genesis six and the book of Enoch. Yeah, I'll jump in there. You know, obviously as you were reading that portion from Enoch, I was like, is he reading Genesis? You know, we do see that in Genesis 6. And I tend to take a sort of contrarian position in what is popular that the sons of Adam had intermingled with the... I'm sorry, the daughters of Adam had intermingled with the sons of the gods. So I don't see that. And I see the sons of the gods simply being the pagan cults that were around the daughters of Adam at that time. I do believe Enoch can be used and abused. I think it's good reading. I kind of take a similar position you do that it's good reading. unfortunately, it's very similar to the Book of Revelation. And, you know, when we lean in on the Book of Revelation, some folks are still trying to figure out who the two witnesses of, you know, Revelation chapter 10 are. So I say that because there's details within writings that we we have said are very clear, Revelation being a writing that's intended to make things clear. The Book of Enoch, I'm not even too sure as to what the purpose of that writing was. So that being said, and it doesn't make anything clear as I've perused some of the book and it tends to look very much like the Book of Revelation. So that causes me to pause. So what I will say is in regards to the Nephilim and the fallen ones, the giants, if you will, when Israel went into the the land, the people that were there appeared as giants to them. I don't know that this requires us to refer to them as giant people, but rather the people around Israel just tended to seem big. I believe that when we lean in on Genesis 5, we find some textual issues, for example, the Nephilim are in the land and they're there and they're there before and after the story of Genesis. the story of Noah. we need to kind of consider maybe the fallen ones are not necessarily some giant beings, but rather are just another race of people that appear large. How do you say it, Kirsten? actually take Mike's view on this. As far as Apocrypha goes, I've had a little bit of history with it recently. I got really excited about the Book of Jasher because like Rick Welch and Rick Carter they got into it they got me into it and I started reading it and I saw a couple contradictions to the Word of God in the Book of Jasher. It seemed like Jasher was kind of filling in blanks to where things were vague in different parts, kind of like what this is doing, what Enoch is doing. And so I'm not even sure if that's like the real Book of Jasher or the real Book of Enoch, because Enoch is quoted in Jude, Jasher is quoted in Joshua and I think Kings, but I just find... contradictions and so I try to stay away from Apocrypha but as far as the Genesis 6-4 thing I take it as human beings I don't take it as angelic beings or anything like that. Yeah, right. I'm the same as you, Kirsten. I if we look at things like Jasher and Enoch, yes, they're referenced in the Bible, but we don't know what version of the books are referenced. We don't know if the book that they were reading 4,000 years ago looks anything like the copy of the book of Enoch that we've got now. I think the trap is... They're very appealing because they fill in gaps for us on parts that we're not given the information on. And yeah, that's great if they're the right filling in of the gaps, but if not, they can lead us down a path and make things make a lot of sense to us when actually we're not given that information. So what do you, what do you think is the origin story of these? You do cast and think that they're real spiritual beings with sort of free will and a plan. What do you think is their origin and what are they trying to do? I can't answer that but I just believe that there are stories in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, and God, in the law, he wanted us to, not us, but the children of Israel, to keep away from that stuff for a reason. You know, like necromancy and sorcery and witchcraft and all that stuff. And I believe that he wanted us to stay away from it for a reason. I understand Mike's view where he gets idolatry. I definitely believe in some instances in the Word of God it is talking about idolatry, but I don't believe all places. But I do not know I can't I have no explanation as an origin. I have to plead Deuteronomy 29 29 on that one. So are you guys happy to talk maybe about some personal experiences? Because I know Kirsten, you will say that you've experienced demonic possession. Stephen, you've spoken about experiencing demonic possession, but don't put it down to supernatural. I know Kirsten, you mentioned Alastair Crowley before and Stephen, you referenced him in your article as well. there's all these stories of history of people being sort of possessed and channeling other beings that sort of work through them. If, you know, can you talk about the times in your life and what this experience actually feels like? when probably like it was over 10 years ago. I was really into that kind of stuff. I wasn't like a Satanist or whatever. I don't know what you call them. I wasn't, I was just like really curious. I think a lot of people are, and I was really into that kind of stuff. And I had a boyfriend at the time. He knew how to do like seances and he was into like the Necronomicon and you know, things like that. And we had like a seance, whatever you would call it, in his friend's attic. And nothing happened that I knew of, but I just had a lot of, I would say, mental health issues after, you know, after that. But I can't say that that has anything to do with it, but I did try to tap into that world and I just warn anybody against it because God warns us not. to mess with that world for a reason and a purpose. And what about you, Steven? Maybe you can, I don't know if you want to touch on, I'm not sure if the other guys know, but obviously you grew up in a Christian household with an exorcist father. So you've, you've definitely experienced, you know, the casting out of demons, whatever that, whatever that is. Yeah, you know, I grew up in an environment where it was just part of the landscape. My father still is a Protestant exorcist, does what's called deliverance ministry, and then also does exorcism. According to his worldview, this kind of like different tiers of badness. There's deliverance deals with oppression, demonic oppression. And then an exorcism is when you deal with a possession. And possession is when a demon takes full possession. It's like the demon has infiltrated or demons has infiltrated every nook and cranny of your mind. It's a full possession. So I grew up just in that world. And I would come home from school in high school or middle school and my dad would be at the dinner and he would say, I was doing a deliverance on someone and they punched me. And that was my workday. And so that was just my normal life. And then I was present for a lot of these and there were some very terrifying incidents of frothing at the mouth of guttural animal noises, screams, wailing, extraordinary strength. Now, I didn't see anything that I would call supernatural. I didn't see anything break the laws of physics. But I did see stuff that was disturbing, especially for a young person to witness. And so that's my background. And I've had a big interest in the phenomenological experience of the supernatural ever since. I'm just fascinated by it. It is a universal experience. All human beings have, well, not all human beings, but all cultures have it, I think. Personally, the experience of, and then I also went through demon possession, or went through demon deliverance. When I was in high school and college, I am gay. And so I went through a lot of deliverance ministry for homosexuality. It obviously didn't work. I'm still extremely gay. Here I am, still very gay. But I did, and then also for depression, for all the stuff that I deal with. And... And so I went through multiple experiences of having demons cast out of me. there was a, what was so interesting about that is that there was a physiological response, right? Your body, you buy, if you believe, your body never underestimate the power of belief. And when we believe, When I believe something, I physically experience it. But now I think of demon possession in a metaphorical sense because I live with bipolar too. And I write a lot about this on my sub stack. A good portion of my sub stack is just a kind of chronicling of the experience of bipolar. And... The experience of not just the lows, the depression, but also the highs, not the mania, but the hypo, I get hypomania, which means below mania. It's super intense, but it isn't the full blown scary ruin your life levels that bipolar one gets. And both of those experiences are the only thing that I can compare it to is a sort of possession. It is a sort of... is a sort of spirit possession where it's like you have no control over your mental landscape anymore. And it's like this other thing or things come and take control. And that is the experience, both of the mania, which includes hyper creativity, where it feels like you're just channel, you know, as, a professional writer, you're, I will go through hypomania and it's like my brain is just composing entire paragraphs on its own. Like just, just naturally, and I have to run to the laptop or run to my phone or to pen and paper to write it down because in hypomania, my brain is just like automatically generating this stuff and it feels like a possession, right? It's like possession of the muses. But then there's also the compulsive sexuality of bipolar and that, and that's when I quoted Crowley in that article of hypersexuality, which is a common manifestation of mania and hypomania, which is another form that also feels like possession. so, know, I'm, lately I've been connecting with the concept of possession as a literary motif. to explain, to try to describe what severe mental illness is like. And I think that it captures the otherworldly horror of it. know, from the inside, it's like from the outside we can say, that person has schizophrenia or that person has bipolar type two with psychotic features, which is what I've been diagnosed with. We can say that and it's all very clinical and it's all very exact and then we can get into the neurology of it and be like, well, you know, happened, you know, it's a circadian rhythm disorder and then this happens in the brain and this region of the brain lights up and so on and so forth. But it's all very clinical, but what that misses is the internal phenomenological experience of it, which is pure unadulterated nightmare fuel. that it can only be described as hell. I mean, you look at like ancient medieval paintings by Hieronymus Bosch and it's like that. And so I often wonder if we are continually coming up with these stories, coming up with these stories of the demonic, with these stories of demons and monsters and ghosts and the supernatural. in part, I'm not saying this is the only reason, but in part just to try to capture these internal experiences of suffering or elation, as the case may be. So yeah, that's how I'm thinking about possession and that's what I've been writing about quite a bit. Great. So I think what you've described there, to me makes a lot of sense. A lot of the New Testament passages we read about the casting out of demons and the experience of these people that are quote unquote possessed actually makes sense to me if we say that that is what they're experiencing. Now I've had this discussion before and people will yell at me, yes, but what about the story of the pigs? And it's a famous sort of New Testament. story. I might just read it for the listeners sake. So it's from Matthew 8 verse 28. at a distance from them. And demons begged him saying, if you're going to cast us out, send us into the herd of pigs. And he said to them, And they came out and went into the pigs and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters. So, you know, if we say, if we say that I did that, this demonic possession can be like this bipolar, experience that you've described. That might make sense for a lot of the New Testament, but that seems to be a bit different. And Kirsten, you and I have spoken about it. Mike, what do you think's going on in that passage? If I may share just a written response to that, just to kind of outline some thoughts there. And I have to borrow from a man named James Brayshaw. Some of you might be familiar with his writings. He makes a great poem in regard. He says, the tale of the demon sent into the swine can be explained by knowing one or two simple facts about the meanings of the word Satan and devil and the culture of the speaker. In Aramaic, in the Hebraic culture, when one converts from one faith to another, He or she often does something to destroy that which was known or associated with his or her previous faith stand. Aramaic Bible translator George Lamza teaches about this Eastern practice as he's had experience through the Aramaic culture. It is so today in the East, when people are converted to a different faith, they discontinue the practice considered unclean by the new faith. A Christian cannot become a Mohammedan and be admitted into fellowship unless he sells or kills his swine, and repudiates all customs and practices that the Muhammadan faith declares unclean. In the Book of Acts, we see the destruction of thousands of dollars of magic books by converts who believe there is a need to demonstrate a clean break from their previous religion. With that in mind, one possible way to view the story of the lunatics in the cemetery, which again, remember, they're in a cemetery, they're extremely strong, they're not letting people Well, they're being violent. We don't know that they're extremely strong. They're being violent. And that was something that you saw within pagan cults. Hanging out in cemeteries was something you saw within pagan cults. And also not willing to let people go by. That is something we see with Sodom and Gomorrah. Most folks want to focus in on sexuality when it comes to Sodom and Gomorrah. But another interesting known fact about them was that they did not like visitors. They did not like passerbyers. They wanted to do everything they can to deter you. from visiting their towns, unlike the Hebrew religion where it taught to be kind to the stranger, to welcome the stranger. So again, notice that about these men in this cemetery that are violent and not wanting you to pass by. So now back to the point I was making, with that in mind, that is a way that we can view these lunatics in the cemetery. It's possible that we are shown men who previously were unable to receive healing for their mental illness from the local exorcists. When Jesus shares the words of life with them and they choose to follow his way, they then became converts to the faith of Jesus. As Jesus is not into controlling the human will, he then allows these men to go and attack the herd of swine, of the swine grazing in the distance. These men would have been very passionate Middle Eastern individuals. And when they received such a great gift from Jesus, they wanted to show their intention to live a changed lifestyle. They then begged Jesus if they could go and attack the swine. And the problem would be that we also know with English language, the way our Bible has been translated, I know some folks get caught up on, well, it says entered, and we can go there if we need to. However, there's just a lot of mistranslating of terms and maybe a misunderstanding of the way those terms are used, especially when it has to do with spirits or things entering in to someone. And what do you think Kirsten? just think that it means what it says. Just something to note that, I mean, it is a part of the story. I wonder from Mike's view at what point does it change into a metaphor? But how did the man or the men, I know there's different versions of it, how did they know that? Jesus was the son of God. How did they recognize him? Just by looking at him. They could have seen him before, but it seems like there's something else going in there, like, you know, Peter said, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus said, flesh and blood has not revealed this unto you, but my Father in heaven. So I just think obviously they recognized him. have you come to torment us before the time? I feel like there's something going on underneath than just natural men speaking to me. You know, I would just disagree. I tend to think that when we read our New Testament, we get in five chapters into Matthew and we think the story just began. But we have to remember, Jesus grew up. There's 30 years going on in between the period of let's say Matthew chapter one and what we read in Matthew chapter eight. So there's a whole lot of time for the message of Jesus to have captivated many people. You know, I love the film series, The Chosen, right? Where they show just how everybody. or I might even bring up, I saw a good Christmas movie recently where even the animals were affected by the message of Jesus when he was born into the world. We know the wise men journeyed from afar to come and that was at Jesus's birth. So imagine 30 years later, that message has gone all throughout the region, especially into these pagan regions like the Gatorines. Steven, what do you think? So I'm actually kind of stuck on something that Luke said just in passing to frame this whole discussion, which is the story of the possession of the swine is, of the demoniac and the swine, that's different. That, you know, maybe for many of the spirit possession stories in the gospels, mental health could explain it. But this is one that it can't explain. that if we take that story at face value as it is written. And what that reminded me of is that's actually kind of true in life, in the world broadly, where there's always that 1 % of stories of extraordinary things that... You know, when I hear them, like, I just have, I have no fucking clue what happened there. That's wild. I don't know. Sorry. I try not to, I try not to swear publicly on your Christian show. But I think that that's what you said, Luke, about that story is actually kind of just a parable for life, which is that most events of the supernatural that we tell, You know, and we all hear these stories, a friend of a friend of a friend, 10 years ago, or your grandmother 50 years ago, or your sister back when she was a missionary in Uganda, or whatever the case may be. We all know these stories of a poltergeist, of a demon possession, of someone levitating, of a ghost, most, I would say in my experience, vast vast vast majority of them we know what happened. It's a misunderstanding it's a confabulation or it's a psychological phenomena. For example, a very surprisingly large number of functional people have psychos have what's called what's a basically a temporary psychosis normal not schizophrenic no mental health problems. They were there going through life. psychotic episode lasts an hour and then it's done. This is a very common experience. It is something like 16%. I would have to go back into the research and look at it, but it's a surprisingly large number. It's like 16%. Okay, 16%. That's big enough to account for a lot of the tales of the supernatural that we have. There will always be that fringe of people who have extraordinary experiences and most of it in my opinion, have naturalistic explanations or psychological explanations. However, there's always that 1 % where you listen to it. And the answer, in my view, the best answer is, I don't know. I don't know what happened there. And that's OK. A mystery is a mystery. And we can let something be a mystery. And so that's what, just at its face value, that's my response. to a lot of wild stuff in the Bible is, I don't know. Yeah, that's pretty wild. That's amazing, I don't know. Yeah. Kirsten, did you want to chat? know in some of our conversations, you wanted to bring up the witches of Endor. And I think it's a really important topic for this whole, it's a really important story for this whole topic because it flows into a lot of things. The story of, soul with the witches of Endor, like it's in Christian faith and others, you know, even, you know, was reading sort of in prep for this that, you King James who obviously translated the, the English Bible into the King James version. He, he wrote a book on demonology as well. and then he lived around the same period that Shakespeare came along and Macbeth with the weird sisters is based on the witches of Endor too. So it, this idea of sort of, mediums and calling on spirit beings. has, you know, goes to a lot of places. What's your view on it? Or what's your view on that story and how would you push us to challenge our views there? So the Witch of Endor for the audience, it's in First Samuel, I have it written somewhere. Yeah, First Samuel 28, eight, and it's about King Saul and he's about to go into battle and the Philistines are surrounding him and he's getting nervous and he's trying to contact God through various means and God is not communicating back with him because he's cut off essentially. and God tore the kingdom of Israel from him and gave it to David. And so he's in desperation trying to contact God and so he has one last ditch effort and he goes to this witch and he says bring up Samuel for me the prophet because that's who anointed him king of Israel and that was his prophet that was how he connected with God a lot was through Samuel and she brought up Samuel somehow A lot of people, lot of, I've heard several Christians say that they don't believe that that was really Samuel or whatever, but he prophesied that he said, tomorrow you're gonna be with me, you're gonna die. And that happened. And so the prophecy that Samuel gave him came true. However you wanna take that, I take that at face value. And so I believe there was something at work going on there. I don't know what. Hmm. Interesting. Cause then, yeah, we, mean, we read a lot about these spirits with through the period of sort of Samuel and first and second Kings and then soul, soul is also, you know, he's tormented by a, you know, what it's called, what is it? I think it's called a wicked spirit and yeah. And David plays the harp to him. There, I was just going to add there's also the sorcerer, Emmaus, Emmaus, I'm not getting the name right, but in the book of Acts, the sorcerer that the apostles come against and Simon, yes, Simon, thank you. And yeah, so there, the Bible is full of these stories of of sorcerers and witches who can channel or connect with the dead and demonic reality. And I think that's super fascinating. Yeah. I mean, the Bible speaks at length about sorcerers and sorcery going on. and so the Bible says they're doing it and there seems to be evidence of them having powers. I mean, you could talk about, you know, the story of Moses, you know, up against the Egyptians, whatever may be going on there, the Egyptian magicians, and then all pagan religions and other religions and worldviews all throughout history talk of being able to channel spirits as well. it's like all angles are saying there's something happening. Yeah, sorry, go on, go on, Kristen. to ask Mike if he... Mike, do you... So you don't believe in any kind of spirit at all? Like a spiritual realm, angels, demons? You know, I don't know that I'm comfortable saying I don't believe in a spiritual realm. I do believe in a spiritual realm. It's just defining it in a supernatural way is what becomes uncomfortable for me. That's where I do appreciate what Stephen had mentioned earlier that they're not necessarily the same. They might overlap. You know, for me in the vein of this conversation, you know, and if I might just mention as I'm reading through first Samuel 28, you know, that is an interesting account. Obviously the first thing but my mind goes to, as most of you know, I'm an audience relevance type of guy, is I wonder, why was this written down for us? What is going on? Who wrote that actually? Obviously it wasn't Samuel. So then who wrote that account for us? What is he getting at? What is the point of including that in this prophetic book, this historical book of Samuel? did Samuel actually tell Saul anything that he didn't know? Or is that sort of like confirmation of, you you seek idols, you seek sorcerers, you die? Well, there you go. You fail. Your purposes will fail. That seems to be what is going on from a natural standpoint. He consulted a medium and consulted mediums and wicked things will happen, you bad things will happen, right? And you will die. And I'm imagining that's all that would happen to Saul. now, for me, in the vein of these conversations, especially regarding demons, I have a lot of friends that will come to me and tell me stories and you know, since I've been a Christian, like some of you know my story here, you know, I've had a lot of folks come to me with these different ideas, namely because people know I study and I'm to hear you out and I want to kind of grapple with what you're saying. Unfortunately, what I notice about demons is it always deflects from what we could or should be talking about regarding the things of Jesus. And for me, that's where I say, okay, well, you know, for example, if Luke had brought someone in here with a problem into our room and he said, you know, this person is demon possessed. Let's help him. What would we go about doing? Would we go about obsessing as to what kind of demon this is? What kind of being this is? Would we find solutions? Would we do what we can to bring this person to their right mind? I mean, again, I do believe in the power of prayer and I do believe in that aspect of spirituality that we should be praying and trusting that the work of God, the spirit of God can move beyond our natural means. However, what I would do if we brought somebody in this room with problems is I would listen to them. I would talk to them. I would do the very natural things that I do in my life and I would help try to help them come to their right mind. We read about that with the prodigal son. He found himself, ironically enough, feeding the pigs as we talked about earlier. And then he came to his right mind. So in my heart in ministry and when I get into these demon conversations, I just feel like they're distractions. from how we could be helping people come to their right mind regarding spirituality. And I did wanna say tonight, I appreciate the way this was outlined and I appreciate the different voices here because in the Hebraic religion, the Jews, they had a variety of thought. They even had Sadducees who didn't believe in spirit things. So we have to be willing to accept that. I love, Stephen had mentioned, that's okay. I say that all the time. I tell people there's difference of opinions and perspectives and that's okay. And then in Christianity, it's the same thing. We've had, you know, there's, well, actually, if I may, leading up to the first century, you had Hellenism crept into the Jewish community. So that sort of fostered all these other ideas. The Essenes freaked out so much that they fled out to the wilderness. And, you know, they couldn't accept some of these Hellenistic thoughts, Greek thoughts that were pervading the Jewish worldview. However, they never said that these people weren't Jews. So, you know, I think that's important for us to always back up and think about. In Christianity, the same thing for 2000 years, we've had nothing but division, you know, and a bunch of folks that can't get over, you know, keeping the simple things simple and allowing the other things to be. You know what, Kirsten, you have a different position than I. I love you as my sister in Christ. I love your zeal to learn the word of God. Steven, you have a different position than I. I appreciate your testimony. I've learned a lot from you. I think you've pushed me to study to want to be of my right mind. So my point tonight is that When it comes to the demons and things like that, it's important to talk about these things. However, I all too often feel as though many people want to be captivated by the idea of demons rather than actually understanding them and maybe dispelling them, if you will. Yeah, great points. Awesome. Hey, Stephen, I'd love to get your perspective because you can, you obviously come at this from a different position from us. And I think as both of the guys know, and as we discussed on our episode, you spent a period of time in the satanic temple, I think as a minister, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, I was a minister and I oversaw the, ordination program and oversaw the body of ministers. Yeah. So what does someone, and I know you're no longer in that and you, you know, you described it in the same way you describe your sort of Christian worldview that it's your post that you agree with some of it, you disagree with some. What does someone that is in, you know, deep in a religion that an average Christian would say is the absolute antithesis of Christianity. And you know, a lot would say is, know, they're worshipping demons. What does the average person that's in the satanic temple think about demons? Are they calling on real spiritual beings? So the Satanic Temple, so first, know, I'm not a spokesperson for the temple and I never was, but just speaking from my own experience, goodness, it's complicated. So TST takes an explicitly non-supernaturalist approach. However, they still engage in ritual and ceremony. So they still conduct black masses. They have what's called destruction rituals and unbaptisms are the three primary kind of group rituals within the Satanic temple. And then individuals often have private ritualistic practices. They take what I would call a Leveian approach to ritual, Anton LeVay being the founder of the Church of Satan, very important, the Satanic Temple Church of Satan, two different organizations, very often fight with each other. We don't want to get into that. Satanists fight each other just as much as the Christians do, you will be happy to know. But Anton LeVay talked about how he would... objectively enter into the subjective space of the ritual chamber. And the ritual chamber being this place where someone could imaginatively and ritualistically experience catharsis. And so my position when I was in the temple, and actually this is still my position, is that something like demon possession and then exorcism is a cathartic ritual. It's a ritual of catharsis. that does powerful stuff to the mind, powerful stuff to the body. And it's an unfolding of a story. It's an unfolding of a kind of liturgy. It's an unfolding of a script or a mythology. And then when you get to the end of it, you are actually a different person. You have actually undergone transformation. And so a lot of people in TST are strictly materialist. Now, I'm not a materialist. I used to be, but I'm not anymore. Now I'm just agnostic. But a lot of people in TST are somewhere on the hard materialist, meaning material stuff is all there is, to agnostic spectrum. That's the space where they live. Okay, so that said, the broader satanic world is a bit more complicated. Church of Satan generally aligns with TST as far as I understand it on the supernatural, except it's a bit fuzzy. mean, Anton LeVay seemed to literally believe in magic with the CK, and so it's a bit unclear. from Kra- yeah, and so, you know, Kirsten mentioned Crowley earlier. Crowley is a big part of this whole lineage, even the non-theistic. and non-supernatural forms of Satanism. He's a big influence on all of that. So most Satanists that you encounter in the wild are rationalist. So there are three types of Satanists. And this this typology. Jesper Peterson, who's a religious studies person. He came up with this three type typology of Satanism, which is rational, esoteric, and adolescent. or react, he used the term reactionary or adolescent. can't remember which, but reactionary slash adolescent, that is, you know, the metal bands. That is the teenager being rebellious and reactionary. and it's a phase, right? Or it's a manifestation of that rebellious impulse. And so a lot of metal bands fall into that category. It's about shock. It's about trolling. Okay. But then there is the rationalists. And the rationalist Satanism is the most common. If you encounter a Satanist in the wild, they will likely be a rationalist meaning They don't believe in God or Satan as literal beings. These are metaphors. Now there is a minority of Satanists who are the third category, which is esoteric. And esoteric Satanists believe in the supernatural realm. They are theistic Satanists. But even then, they tend to not take a Christian or biblical view of Satan, like the Temple of Set, which was a schism off of a church of Satan, they believe that Satan is actually the Egyptian God-set, The very non- Yes, Michael Aquino, he's the one who led that schism, that's right. And so still, even then, it's not really a biblical Christian Protestant or Catholic understanding of Satan. Now, that said, there is a subtype, of all these subsets, there is a subset of a subset of a subset of people who are into very fucked up stuff. Right, there is a subset of Satanists who are theistic, who are into really fucked up shit, and they believe in the literal Satan, as Christians understand it. They do not represent the whole of Satanism. They definitely don't represent the two major churches, which is Church of Satan and the Satanic Temple. So yeah, it's a complex picture, because they're maybe at this point hundreds of satanic organizations. So what would, what would Crowley, I mean, if we had Alastair Crowley sitting here as a fifth member of this call, which should be interesting in itself, how would he answer this question? head. Honestly, yeah, go on, go on. I was going to say I read something about him one time where he actually created a spell to bind God and I just That's not, that doesn't surprise me. So go on, go on Luke. Yeah. Yeah, like he clearly believed in a very real spiritual realm with and as you say Kirsten that he could, you know, he had the view that he could defeat God. I mean, the guy ended up, think, a heroin addict committing suicide. So it did, it didn't work out that well for him. What did, what did, what, how would he answer this question? Did he, who did he think he was communicating with? So I'm not a Crowley scholar. I've read some of his stuff. A weird man in a bus who lives in a bus gave me Crowley's Doctrine of High Magic, think, or I think it's just called Magic. So it's sitting back there behind me on the bookshelf. Creepy man on a bus gave it to me. Most of what I know about Aleister Crowley comes from my lens as a Satanist, or came from my lens as a Satanist. he definitely felt that he was channeling pagan beings, if I understand correctly, his religion and its... it's, I'm pulling a blank right now, what it was actually called. Hold on, this is what Google exists for. Crowley religion, Thelema. So he founded the religion of Thelema and then he was also a big influence in the occult group, the Order of the Golden Dawn. He really seemed to have like a pagan view of the world and the book of the law, if I remember correctly, which I think is the core book in the Thulema. Yeah, the Thulema central text is the book of the law. Yeah, I will just read what this says right here, which Crowley claimed was dictated to him by a divine being named Iwas. Okay, so he felt like he was dealing with supernatural entities that would not, I think, be recognized as Christian, traditionally Christian in any sense. It was a He was in that early 1900s, late 1800s, supernaturalist stew of England, where all of these crazy new religious movements were coming out. Theosophy had been around. Occultism was exploding. Spiritualism was exploding with all the... with all the mediums and psychics and so on. And so it was just, it was kind of this fertile, crazy ground for supernatural, for new religions, for new religious movements. And that's due to a lot of things. The decline of the church, the rise of materialism, the rise of the industrial world, which caused people to search for new things. Also the Great War going on, World War I. And so, I don't think Crowley would, I don't think Crowley could be said to be channeling or contacting anything that would be recognized as Christian. At least in his view. Yeah, fair enough. Did any of you guys have any thoughts on that? Or any, guess, end beyond that, if not any other closing thoughts that you wanted to bring to the table? I'd like to say something in regards to Mike's view if that's okay. And I appreciate Stephen and Mike and Luke. I appreciate everybody and I just want to say I love having these conversations because I think it's important to have these conversations. Maybe not, it doesn't have to be on Daemons, but just to talk. And so I appreciate everyone's view and discussion. So I've been recently You know, I'm just like you, Mike, I believe in fulfilled eschatology. I'm a corporate body. I'm, you know, getting into covenant creation a little bit, things like that. But I've seen recently within the past year, you know, I listened to Derek Lambert's interview, his testimony, how he deconverted. then recently I came across, I was actually listening to your, I'm doing your study, the contextual study of the Hope of Israel right now. I'm like on part 32, but I found Alan Bondar. think you gave him as a resource. Listen to him and he I found out that he de-converted and he's full-blown atheist. And then recently I just read a book from she was a full preterist and now she's an atheist and I read her de-conversion story and I found that I found that at least Derek and at least the woman that I'm thinking of, I read part of her article of why she'd be converted and it seems like some people just get like super addicted to knowledge and they just want to keep learning more and they want to go outside Christianity. And I think I've noticed, it seems like, you know, I posted something on one of the Preterist groups. Why do some Preterists go atheist? And it was in regard, because I just keep seeing it pop up. Because for me, fulfilled eschatology bolsters my faith. So I'm questioning how do these people that have this proof, how do they fall away? And it seems like they follow all this other information like Derek, got, it seemed like caught up in Israel only and a pseudepigrapha and apocrypha and all that stuff. And I just think, I just. think we should be careful. I the girl that I was listening to or her deconversion story, she was talking about how she believed just like we believe Mike and now she was saying something about Jesus being Satan and the whole Bible being a metaphor and Jesus, you know, it's just like crazy stuff. I just, I don't know, I want to, I guess, warn people not to go astray and I feel like it's to talk about demons and stuff like that but and I feel like they are in scripture for me my view it's in scripture for a purpose and I don't think we should mess with that stuff but I think Mike's right that we should focus on the Lord focus on the kingdom what can we do for Christ and in that sense as Christians I don't know about you Stephen I'm sorry I wasn't trying to like exclude you but but we love you too you Love you too. I think it's a good point too. think, and I mean, Steven, you've raised it and you're not Christian, but, we don't, we don't know everything. I think the desire to know every single thing in the world more than more often than not kills people. The things we'll never understand and we need to be comfortable with that. Amen. Amen. Yes, Kirsten, I very much appreciate your thoughts. I appreciate everyone in this room here. I very much appreciate the platform loop that you've put together here in the way that we're just sharing. And I agree, we need to have conversations about these things. You know, even as we were talking tonight and, you know, I will say, Kirsten, will lament the realities that you were just sharing there. I know those people, some of those people, I know all the people you mentioned. I believe even the woman. I believe I know them very personally. I've had food with them. I've, you know, fellowshiped with them. There is a know-it-all tendency that we need to constantly be fighting against. I think that has to do with the carnal mind and the wickedness within us is we want to kind of have everything figured out. The Hebraic understandings, at least as I look at scripture, and if you notice, I constantly take us back to that. And there's something I want to end on with that part. the Hebraic understanding I take as the script, when I look at Hebraic lens of scripture, they had a lot more of the unknown than the known. They were okay with that and comfortable with the unknown. And that kind of brings me to my ending point tonight. As we talked about Alistair Crowley, Crowley might say the name wrong, pardon me. However, and even Anton LeVay and a lot of these names that I'm familiar with, I haven't spent a whole lot of time studying them, but I did read the Satanic Bible. in my journey and I'm somewhat familiar with these things. I often remind myself that most of these people are from the West, that they've been influenced by Western ideas, that Western spirituality, if you will, and I don't even know what that is, to be quite frank, because most of Western spirituality has been affected by Eastern spirituality. unless we're talking about the Native Americans or something to that effect. even there, now that opens up a whole other Pandora box of Western spirituality. and how that mingles with Eastern. So, you know, I just say that because for me, going back to the source is important. So when I hear about these understandings of religion that have developed over time, I say, they affected by, are they building on top of other ancient spiritual ideas? And, know, just very briefly, I'll share in my journey to come to faith. That's what I did. I kind of wanted to wander back. I wanted to know what is the Akkadian language and how did it become defined? You know, how do we... How can we learn about these things? And if you're familiar with my journey, it was actually wandering in on stuff like that, just wanting to know like, where did man begin? Or what was the first language and weird things like that that actually led me to Christ. So, you know, was just wanting to learn more and absorb more, but at the same time, always being willing, as I wrote here in my notes, in this conversation, I endeavor to be delicate and not be a know-it-all, because I think that leads us closer to the truth than being, you know, not so delicate, like those exorcists that maybe all of us know, Stephen, you know them better than we. And again, I have some relatives in my family that had apparently done exorcist work early on, and I want to appreciate their mind and heart, all the while maybe disagreeing with the manners in which they did things, and unfortunately, the know-it-all spirit that's even alive and well within that camp. So thank you all for the discussion this evening. Amen. Thanks, Mark. Well, it's been an awesome chat and thank you all for being so open, so cordial. I think I'm going to have to spend a few days to think of a title for this. don't know. It's like, what do you, Mike is at an ex gang, ex gang member cursed and you had your battles, yeah, with meth addiction and Steven, a post satanist homosexual. There's good. I mean, there's gotta be something in that title, but I love the fact that the four of us have been able to get together, disagree on things, but show love to each other and actually enjoy the conversation and learn a little bit from each other. I think the world can learn a bit from that, hopefully. We have colorful backgrounds. hahahaha Luke, really need to at least clip a video of my cat behind me in frame trying to break into the bag of cat food that he's been like for the past 20 minutes, he's been desperately trying to get into and making lots of noise. So I hope the noise hasn't come through or... Okay, that's good. That's good. times. So there's a good explanation for it. it was a daemon, did you Stephen? I did not think it was a demon. mean, cats are demons. I have six cats and being in a house with six cats is like living in a haunted house. Like they rummage through cupboards, they slam doors, they do all kinds yeah. I basically live with demons. Awesome. Thank you so much guys. It's been great chat great chatting and everyone have a good night See you guys Good night,