Paranormal War Part 1

Spiritual warfare was a popular past time in my church growing up, but it never really addressed it in reality. Is humanity stuck in the middle of paranormal war? It appears so. 

Ephesians 6:12  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. [ESV]

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So Chad and Ron met me at the edge of the high school lawn, and the three of us headed to the meeting of sorts. I was invited to go. Um I was going to go alone, but Chad flatly refused me to go to a satanic coven gathering by myself. And to join us. Ron was a good friend of his, both played on the football team, and he had just become a Christian as well. This was the spring of 1990. It was our senior year. This was just after my dad and I's last day of our hunting. And uh that so that chapter uh was over, and this was about to end as well, which was going to put the really the end cap of my decade growing up. Uh literally, in the uh it was the end of the 80s. Uh politically, the beginning of our school year was uh a major shakeup um uh politically and physically, actually. October 1989, uh the mountain we lived on, uh Loma Pireta uh suffered a uh seven uh point something earthquake. Uh it was devastating. And November, just a month later, the Berlin Wall fell. So East Berlin had opened up. Uh the Soviet Union was breaking apart. The Cold War was all but over. So but right now it was the lunch hour. And that's uh it was good because at least it was daylight and we were going to go visit a satanic group at night. I don't think we'd do that, but um and we didn't have to go very far. We met um we met them right next door. They're they just gathered right off the edge of the school uh property, school rounds behind this old single-roomed chapel building. Uh the backyard was uh long neglected, so they had you know years of no idea anything. So it was pretty much hidden in this natural wall of kind of thick brush and uh and trees. So this created a little cave like grove, a little hidden garden, a little hidden satanic garden. It was totally hidden. So and I didn't see it. I mean, I've never noticed it even passing by, so it was pretty interesting. So we crawled in to their space. Uh we were a little late, but this made for a bit of confusion with the group. But Catherine, uh, she's the one who invited me, quickly told this older man who was saying he was in his mid-twenties. Um, and obviously uh he was not um happy to see us and a little intimidated to see these two bogey football players crawling into a space. I mean, as a skinny kid, I don't think I was a problem, but they continued their little meeting, and I had no plan to do anything but observe. But as I witnessed their I don't know, whatever this was, I I couldn't seem to help myself but openly ridicule them all. Honestly, uh I was kind of a bit surprised myself, but I just got into this, I don't know, this goofy, like sarcastic mood all of a sudden. And it just everything just kind of struck me as so stupid, so fake. Like they're role-playing a really bad fantasy movie. I just couldn't resist. And I I don't remember everything I said, but I remember Chad, you know, Ron talking later about it. They stood quietly at the side praying this year. They're terrified as if I did what are you doing or thinking? So they were praying that I wasn't gonna get stabbed or killed. But and I remember interrupting their group. So this is how it's like stupid questions like this. Um things like you know, hey, are uh are we going to sort it like joining an anti-glee club? I mean, what's the membership fees? I mean, what's our motto? Do we have a cheer? I mean, stupid things like that. I don't know. And uh, and after I kind of ran out of material, um, I looked around, kind of look for some inspiration, and then I noticed uh what they had written on all the you know the side of the building. They had all this graffiti and then their satanic, you know, inverted pentagrams and everything. And so I so I stopped. I said, Oh, you know, really, I'm more of a cotton guide myself. Is that okay? He looked at me like it was some clearly retarded, and I so I just kept going on about the fabrics, you know, until the leader had to say something. And I stopped and pointed out that they had written on the wall, I love satin. Cool, I love cotton, but does that keep me from joining? And they all kind of looked at the spelling of sat uh Satan, which is S-A-T-A-N, and then they realized they had spelt satin, S-A-T-I-I-N, and I didn't even know how to spell their God's name. Okay, yeah, they're truly followers of him. I mean, they're real disciples of him. Oh my gosh, that was funny. I'm thinking more. I'm fine. Okay, well, Chad and Ron, they didn't think it was funny, you know. So they're getting me to look like, man, stop pissing them off. What are you doing? You're gonna put us in the middle of this. Finally, they had enough, and then the leader kind of grabbed gathered his little youth group, uh, high school flock, and they kind of secretly whispered something. And then on cue, they all burst out of the bush and began running across the street. I mean, we're literally across the street. The cars had a screech to a halt. It wasn't a fast place, it was a school zone, but they hit a screech to a halt. And this is basically all you would see if you're a driver is just a band of uh uh of misfits by design running into traffic. Um, this was obviously uh I didn't expect this, so I followed in pursuit and ran after them, or actually I ran with them, caught up to them and pretending we were all being chased by something and like a role-playing. Oh my gosh, what's coming after us? Is it a dragon? And I kept asking what these takes and it wasn't I wasn't being overly obnoxious, no. But certainly I was not in the spirit of things. Finally, this girl, it wasn't Catherine, and uh she met me at the bottom of this uh the sidewalk stairs, it kind of led to an upper road, and uh she put her hand on my chest to stop me, then talked to me like I was a special needs student and and tried to be stern and frightening to scare me off. And she just you know, she was dressed in a standard I love satin uniform, you know, of course, ironically in black cotton. I mean, where's your where's your faith? I mean, so what you know, pale makeup, school and crossbones, death jewelry, you know, the usual tire, you know, but uh go to satin meeting type of tire. But so but I turned off my act. I I I got switched off, no humor, just straight pointed uh truth. I mean, I just looked at her and her eyes, and and Ron and and Chad had finally caught up with us, and and I just started telling her exactly what she was doing and how this was all going to end, where these demons were leading her. And I was, I mean, I was like pointedly, absolutely honest. And I was and I remember this because I was speaking, I didn't know what I wanted to say until it was coming out of my mouth. It was kind of like uh I was listening to myself talk. But it I could see that this girl's face uh was kind of going pale, even though she had white makeup. You can see like things were happening, and I moved around her, and I just continued up the stairs and Chad around uh stayed down there. That's when this older dude, that older dude, he yelled at me from the top of the stairs, and then he just raced all the way down to me to get right into my face. And so Chad was actually still downstairs with talking to the girl um about you know Satanism and God and Catherine, she just froze on the stairs at all this. This was unexpected. And so the man got right in my face. He was obviously cussing me out, and and then basically told me right there he was gonna gut me. So he was gonna kill me, and you know, pull out his knife, he's gonna stick it in my stomach and gut me. I so I asked him, This was are you threatening me? And he said, I am promising you. So I said, All right, then I'll have to tell my dad about this because he's a cop, because that's that's a threat, and that's illegal. So I turned around, you know, without any show of intimidation. It's like, well, all right, if you don't want to play, you know, I'll take my ball, I'll go have fun with others. Um, and I walked away. So basically, when Chad and I, Chad, Ron and I um uh walked back, we just we talked at length about this all the way back, and this dude. And so we as we were on the grounds, he didn't come back on, he didn't go on the grounds, but he was on the other side of the street, but he was pacing now back and forth on the sidewalk just off the school grounds. He never left, he just waited. I'm like, oh crap. So I mean, I was uh I was a little bit I was a little bit apprehensive, I'd say. Um I mean I didn't bout the dude, but okay, well, like normal, after last bell, human traffic, you know, everything burst out of the classrooms and kind of flooded the whole area. Uh but instead of living in the main door, I'd I went the back way. I was uh so I was a janitor there, so I have kind of all the nose of where the back doors are and had keys and all that stuff. But so I was like, I'll just go down this back doorway. Usually like some teachers would use it. So but just as I was walking out the this back door, you know, guess who's standing? Right in the middle of the smoking section, right across the exit. Yep, this is the dude. And he was immediately locked into me. Like as soon as I jumped out, his eyes hit me like ah, he just saw me without hesitation, threw the tossed his cigarette to the ground, just made a beeline to me. Not running, just coming. So I'm thinking, oh boy, I was not sure I was ready for this. Ron and uh Chad were not here for me to throw him at. I was on my own. So he got uh closer, and I'm thinking, okay, I'm gonna stand my ground here. I'm looking at his hands. He didn't have a knife in his hand, but so I kind of watched to see well, what was he gonna do? What's he gonna pull it out? But I wasn't ready, but I was ready, or was I so he was about 10 feet away, and then I noticed he looked concerned rather than mad, and he started talking and and he goes, hey man, and he came out just like hey man, just uh please don't tell your dad. No, seriously, that's how he said it. Please don't tell your dad. I can't get arrested right now, and I'm sorry, I'm sorry I said that. I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it. I'm like, what? Wait, what to say that wait back up here a second? It was just pathetic. I said, no, no, go back, do that again. Let's just make this let's play this out better. No, I didn't say that. Um, but anyhow, it was just that pathetic. And he so he looked really deeply troubled, and um I've started feeling bad for the guy, actually. So, but I seized the opportunity. So I just like all right, I re you know, all seriousness. Serious a judge. All right then. I don't want you to ever come around here again. Do you understand? If I see you, I'm calling my dad. I'm calling my dad. I'm calling my dad. And you know what that meant. And he's like, oh, you just see like he's all relieved, just flooded his old demeanor. It's that it it looked like he kind of like, oh finally, shoo. Thank you, he's thinking, thank you. Just like I like I saved his puppy or something, and and he well, he turned on his heels and he hurried off, never saw him again. Um, and after he left, obviously the little coven youth group broke up and the uh uh and that and the church actually cut down all the trees and the brushes, they put a fence around it. Apparently, um they were cotton lovers too and did not have affection towards satin like these young kids do. I thought that was interesting though. I didn't mention anything to the to the church about this, and I'm not sure how they got into it, but it was just happened to be like the same within a couple of days. Like I came back, you know, with the school uh the city bus, and like, hey, the trees are all gone. So, anyhow, uh this event really didn't go unnoticed in the school area because I as I was just focused, laser focused on this guy instantly. Apparently, I'm still within this sea of human traffic here going off. This was all happening in the middle, so people were watching. Um, so I didn't I was oblivious too large. In fact, my my my mind, um, the way I I thought up think about this incident, I don't remember seeing anybody else. I had no attention to what was around me. I don't know if it was a crowd or was just an empty, abandoned school, but I know it was right after class, so it had to be traffic. Uh so anyhow, but this was a um uh I would say it would be like the 80s version of something going viral. We didn't have computers or cell phones or social media or anything like that. So viral was like literally word of mouth. Uh so and so, but I didn't realize that this had gone viral, in fact, until I was uh at class. Um, I don't know if there's a night day or something like that, but I was I remember coming to class, I didn't talk to anybody. This kid, I he had never even said boo to me before, but he pointed to me and said, There he is, Satan killer. And I'm like, Well, you're talking to me, and then he proceeded to tell the class this whole episode, this whole experience. I'm like, how did you know that? I was stunned. Did anybody did you even know or cared? I'm like, I don't so but later Chad came to me and told me this, just told me the same thing. Like it was it went like wildfire, I guess. At least wildfire in whatever wing of this school was. But uh, and he was actually happy. He was happy that finally he got a chance uh you know for a better reputation of himself. So he was he was happy about that. But I put that story up front. Um, but this wasn't the beginning, but uh, but the end of this long ordeal of these uh devil worshiping youth group, um, and the beginning of what I would consider a very dark moment in my life, and and Ron and Chad's as well, the demonic counterattack. Ephesians 6, 12. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. A major perspective in this paranormal war are found in these competing perceptions. And it really encapsulates the pattern seen throughout all history between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness, and especially throughout scripture. Satan seeks to turn people into enemies of one another, while God seeks reconciliation, covenant. Evil wants us to focus on the person in front of us, the flesh and blood of them, to cut them down, to spill their blood. They demand sacrifice of their enemy. God calls us to discern the power operating behind the person and free the person of that. Paul is a perfect example of since he participated in both sides of this conflict before his encounter with Jesus on the road of Damascus. He, a Pharisee, was the persecutor. He imprisoned believers and approved of their death, as was the case with the murder of Stephen. If followers of Jesus the Messiah viewed Paul and merely as flesh of blood, they would have sought vengeance. But they didn't, and neither did God. Instead, God saw a man deceived by spiritual blindness and transformed him into an apostle. This doesn't mean Christians ignore evil or injustice or crime. They don't. No, because they understand the rule and authority of the sword is in the hands of the government for the sole purpose to defend the innocent. They wrestle with rulers and authorities, not fight them, but to remind them of their purpose. The goal is not the destruction of human beings, but the defeat of sin, deception, the powers of darkness that enslave them. So the competing principles can be really summed up in this way. The kingdom of darkness attacks through flesh and blood, but the kingdom of God does not retaliate against flesh and blood. We oppose the evil influencing people while seeking the redemption of the people themselves. Light seeks to expose the sin in the person for the purpose of redemption. Darkness seeks to expose the person to sin for the purpose of damnation. And now, even today, it is blaringly clear who serves the darkness. They seek to harm, to kill, and destroy. There is no peace in them, nor peace through them. But this battle is not new but ancient and constant. We are just born into it. This isn't a human conflict. We are not fighting the evil of our generation, we're just fighting to survive the evil in our generation. The evil of my generation growing up, which was the 80s. Um now, the 80s is is not a subject that can be painted with a broad brush. I mean, today my kids uh and uh students and my own children, they kind of talk about the 80s, but they only kind of see Mackle Jackson, Back to the Future, uh, that movie Back to the Future, Spoofy Hair, Skateboards, you know, the 80s, you know, the music. Um uh but people don't understand that the 80s started out at the peak of what was being called at the time the satanic panic. It was a real thing. So when I talk about my pastors as such being hyper-focused on this, they were not wrong. Everywhere you turn, the music, the movies, the CV shows, not only push just like humanist narrative, the attempt to show that you know what is life without God and how pleasant that is, or whatever. This was a compatible narrative of replacing a personal relationship with God with do what thou wilt. That's a um slogan created originally by Aleister Crowley, uh, who called himself the wickedest man alive. Um, the whole quote actually goes like this uh do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Satanism, uh Wicca occult rose out of that. So that would be like the 50s, 40s, and 50s. That was a long time ago. But this is the 80s, kind of like the end, I think, of course, the 60s and the 70s, and now we're in the 80s, like you can it's like it's all boiled up to this point. So it was only natural during this time that you know parents and churches and many of my elementary teachers uh generally feared that a coordinated satanic conspiracy was afoot. And uh and before you insert mass hysteria into all of this, let me just paint this uh black velvet uh picture for you first. Kiss, the band, was the most popular band calling themselves Knights in Satan's Service, and the fans were kind of calling themselves Kids in Satan's Service, along with them was Black Sabbath, ACDC, you know, you could say Proud Disciples of the Devil. That's that was their stick. Um, and that was only in 1980. That's just the beginning of it. You could set it in 1979, right into 1980. So for the next decade, would um you know, more would jump into this popular antichrist movement. Judas Priest, uh, Iron Maiden, Motorhead, uh, and then uh Ozzie Osborne for Black Sabbath left to go solo. Um, there's you know, followed by Death Leopard, Twisted Sister, Wasp, Metallica, Venom, and let's see what the end, Slayer uh came at the like the close of the 80s. So you can say like Kiss was on one end and Slayer was on the other end. They're kind of like the bookends of my teen years, both proudly pushing this satanic message. So, and many others, I think, were pushed into this by their record labelers. So, since you know that was the trend, that's how they're making money, capitalizing on this antichrist madness. So um but devil worship was promoted to us all as kind of a form of a protest against the machine, against the man, man, you know, against the tyranny of the Adults of that era. This was kind of like a spiritual F you to life itself. Mind you, this did not develop and avoid, nor did I imagine it, but it came with uh long roots uh where each generation youth passed on their anxiety on to the next group who then added their current fear of the day and their perception into their own little anxiety package just in time to pass it on to the next generational youth. And so for me, you know, the foundation of our anxiety that was passed was this anxiety of the 60s, you know, the trauma of the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X, you know, the civil rights riots, you know, the Charles Manson family and these cult murders, you know. Vietnam, uh, by the 70s, you know, this anxiety pack was heavy. And then to add the Pentagon papers on Vietnam, the uh uh the church committee on the CIA, you know, the the CIA's dark secret projects getting exposed and going public, uh, these are only justified, you know, the hatred for the post-Vietnam youth. And uh, you know, the spiritual movement of the 60s by now had gone deep into really two camps. You had the Jesus Revolution on one side, and you had the uh you know the occult, um, both looking to tune in, you know, turn on. How's it going? Turn on, tune in, drop out. It's like the 60s drug culture. But it's kind of like the spiritual mentality, too. So by 1980, those past youth generations now had the controls to steer us into the direction they wanted us to go, which was straight into this satanic panic. Um, not direct, I mean, not you know, on purpose, I'm sure, but this was a real thing. And I think that the satanic panic was more of a subconscious fear rather than the conscious fear, uh, like the Cold War nuclear threat, you know, the Iran hostage crisis, you know, the other gas shortages, and they were all viewed as like real-world problems, while the satanic panic was more of like this unpleasant distraction. It's like one more thing to worry about. But for the youth, I mean, you don't understand nuclear war with Iran, uh, you know, the or actually Russia and or or this Iran, you know, and Iraq, you know, all these geopolitical issues. I mean, what do we know? We barely understand our old family issues. This was way out of our realm of attention. But the satanic panic? Nope. This was hometown reality. And I'm not theorizing about the satanic panic from a distance because this is a personal story. This is not academic. I'm not looking reading articles about this. I'm just telling you my experience during this period of time as a testimony to what I'm talking about in the sense of the spirit normal paranormal and the spirit in this spiritual warfare or just paranormal warfare, however you want to look at it, and I'll explain that later. Um, when our family moved to the Santa Cruz Mountains, Santa Cruz had already been dealing with serial killers and mass murders. Uh, Edmund Kemper, John Lennon, uh no, John Lindley Fraser uh Fraser? John What's his day? John John Fraser, John Lindley Frasier, I think his name. Um, and uh Herbert Molin. So there was serial killers and a mass murderer. Uh, but this really kind of what made Santa Cruz known as the murder capital of the world. So, hey, welcome to town.

unknown 25:44

Run.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

But uh for me, it was shortly after the Gary lawyers murder in 1984. That really kind of defined the era for me. I was just getting old enough, like 13, 14. Gary was a uh um uh lawyer's, I think his lawyers uh was murdered by his friend. And he and he was murdered, and the the quote on the on the article was like, say I love Satan. And he kept telling him to say as he's brutally stabbing this kid and he was his friend, and then of course killed him. And he never said, well, actually, I think he did finally say, but he kept saying, I love my mom, I love my mom. So this really kind of like encapsulates this this fear. My grandparents in the early 80s, they would never leave us alone. You know, you couldn't wander anywhere because of the kidnappings. I mean, that's what they told us. Uh, oh, you can't go alone, kids. No, because you'll be kidnapped and sold into whatever, you know, murdered by Satanists. But they lived in this nice uppity, uppity like area. So, and then add like the Night Stalker. Um, what was his name? Albermirez, uh uh uh Sean Sellers, uh Jeffrey Dahmer, these are popular names. Um uh, but you know, once they were caught, they were known. But the movie, The Lost Boys, chose the town Santa Cruz to film in during the summer of '86 because of its dark reputation. So that's my youth anxiety pack that I had growing up. During this time, uh, even uh while my mom lived in Boulder Creek, Tim, a schoolmate of mine, who lived not too far from her, uh visited me to ask me if I want to go, you know, hey, let's go spy on this group that's doing a seance at this time frame. And uh and yeah, he's seriously, he's like, hey, yeah, I think they meet here, you know, every week or whatever it is, and they do this weird whatever. And so I'm like, what? So yeah, uh we went over that night, and sure enough, they're there, you know, conducting whatever that thing was, a seance of some sort. But yeah, these things were going on all the time, everywhere on every it's it's everywhere. It wasn't just some subculture packed into some you know comic-con type of scenario. No, no, this was generally common. Does that make sense? So when I in fact, uh it reminds me when I was out to Tim, when Tim and I were watching this seance and we were just kind of like, whoa, this is so freaky. The cars they had in here was actually nice cars. These weren't like uh beat-up cars, and that's nothing you'd expect from people going to this you know type of uh event. In fact, they were clean-shaven, they looked like you know, my teachers. They looked like real people, not not like Rob's, you know, uh mom, a friend of mine that grew up uh in the mountains, his mom was a witch. Uh, and she was obsessed with nature, but no, she she was super nice. I mean, um, but clearly she looked the part, if you know what I'm saying. And and that was that's what I was envisioning was going to be coming out of this the seance group. So they didn't appear to me to be someone to be afraid of. That's what I I remember that. I was like, they're okay, they're not gonna kidnap us. I mean, really? They won't, right? So just an odd experience. But so I told this experience to Betty. That's uh my dad worked long hours, um, he and he hired uh Betty um to watch us after school in some weekends. And when I told that to Betty, oh my gosh, she got mad. I mean, like, she stopped what she'd doing. She pulled my brother and I in the living room, said sit down. And she just like got very serious. I told her, I forbid you to ever go anywhere near those groups. I'm like, that was like years ago. That spooked me actually a little more than just the spying on them. Like, oh my gosh, you know, was that taboo thing? My brain's like, you shouldn't really talk about these things. Now I'm like, see, I'm like, I'm never gonna talk about these things. But uh Betty actually uh plays a huge part of my story about the paranormal war because Betty was a witch. And not the nature-loving hippie kind, no, she was uh deep in the dark arts kind, she served the devil, and she wasn't some weirdo, no no, her coven mainly was full of nurses and doctors and professionals, uh, she herself was a nurse. Uh quite the difference than the you know the satanic youth group type that I'll be dealing with you know later in life. And while the picture of Satanism and devil worship is constantly being painted as this subcultural grunge rock, you know, punk rocking people, school crossbones, pot smoking, tatted, you know, you know, kind of this freak show of society types, in reality, obviously there are those, but in reality, uh there were also suits and ties. And while I didn't know Betty was a witch, you know, when knew her, you know, I did witness her conversion some years back. So I hadn't known it was her until actually just night as she was telling us about this. And so because I did witness part of her story, I'm using it as evidence of my overall hypothesis about this paranormal war. About three years before Tim and our venture, you know, uh our church was having a crusade rally. We were part of the charismatic movement in San Jose, California, a very highly charged spiritual movement with tambourines and streamers and uh being slain in the spirit and speaking in tongues and falling over stuff like that. If you're not familiar with this kind of a thing, you know, think of it like Woodstock, but without the drugs. It was well, I it was a I would say it wasn't an empty pursuit of God. It just was highly misguided. I mean, very excitable, very emotional pursuit of God. Um all over the place. I don't know. But it was also in in the spiritual sense, it was really infused in all this was doing battle with the devil. That was kind of like your your core foundation of what we did. Um of course, it makes sense, when light of the era, right? So, and I was kind of too young to kind of understand the social economic pressures, but I I knew we you know we couldn't have much in 1982. Uh inflation spiked about 15%. Unemployment was now like a 9%. And so we had the Iran-Iraq war, and that's kind of driven prices of gas back up because of the fears that we'd have another embargo on our hands or something, and shortage of of uh of gas. So it created this run on the gas station effect. And I remember helping a gas station attendant, you know, check license plates to see whether they were odd or even even because even people got gas on even days, odd people got odd gas on odd days, you know, stuff like that. Anyhow, the frustration was high. People need stability, and and apparently, many turning to God was a way to kind of uh eliminate this added frustration they had been putting on their you know lives through you know immoral living. They wanted to be stable. But whatever the reason, um, these crusades and rallies were heavily attended. Uh the rally Betty was coming to was at our church, was being led by Mario Morillo, and I think his name is yeah, Mario Murillo. And it was about 1982. Uh, I I remember because I was 11. It was by I got to go on the um the camera three, which was upstairs. So we had a live television feed for these events at our church, and so it was huge. For 11-year-old, yeah, I'm on camera. So, but I was out there um doing it, and it's good. This crusade had been going on. It was only supposed to go on like a day or two or something like that, and it was still going on. So how Betty explains it. Uh, Betty was a witch and uh heavily involved with her coven, which again, like I said, it was mainly doctors and nurses. Uh some of the things they would be doing. I'm not sure how the picture she painted for me, but they were involved with with the little things. Like they even had like subcontracts, they were like paid to go do seances at the Winchester Mystery House, which was a kind of a local tourist attraction in Campbell. And uh, and they would do you know uh other things, even at the hospital. Um it was really dark when she talked to me about it. It was kind of like scary. That's kind of I would say that's probably why I have a little bit of phobia over hospitals. I'm not gonna lie. But they also went to these rallies, these Christian rallies, kind of as a counter-spiritual, you know, uh warfare event here. And so she was coming to this one, and uh, and her she was sent there. So she was sent to actually conduct uh curses and and prayers against this rally and against uh Mario. And so uh it was during this um this time and then you know, the last night of this rally, and uh she was she came down for the altar call. And I should back up, I'm sorry. She had been going there for like three days, and so she had mentioned that the first day she was there, she was throwing out the curses and doing all that stuff and all of that. And but she was kind of listening to the to the message. And then when she went home, she was kind of thinking, like, hmm, you know, that kind of makes a lot of sense and stuff. And so then her demons were getting getting upset with her, and so they were kind of having this little argument or battle. By day two, she went back and did it again, but now she was listening, she was paying attention, and then she's had this kind of internal struggle start to happen. We went to her apartment, and these demons were just mad. This she said that they put hit her, they threw her against the wall, they would scream at her, they would tell you, you you will basically you you better not go this route, you know, warning her, just threatening her. And so by you know, the third day, which would have been this Friday, uh, this last day of the rally, she decided, you know what? I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna do this. So she started coming down. Um, and as she's walking towards the during the altar car, her spirits were like, No, you will stop. And she was like forcing herself to get down there while while swearing and spitting and you know, cussing out Mario, and and she's coming up front. And so Mario came off to stage and confronted her. Now, granted, I'm filming this. I'm I mean I'm not filming, I'm I'm videotaped or video, what do you call that? You know, I'm I'm I have it on my camera, I'm watching it. And uh and and Mario comes off to stage stage and uh confronts her and then started rebuking those spirits. Uh and so now as as this was going on, I mean, then she starts she falls down, she just goes down on the ground flat. The director, you know, screams in my ear, hey, get the camera back, pull about on the front. They didn't, you know, they weren't gonna be showing some of these things. These are kind of personal, that wasn't something they wanted to do. So and I agree, I agree. But I got the watches, I had like the perfect bird's eye view of what was going on, so I just kind of watched what was going on. It was freaky. So he was down there uh casting out these spirits in Jesus' name. Um, and and then I see like Betty was, you know, then was off the floor. I mean, she was laying down, but she was legitimately off the floor. You can see it. She was like uh um, like someone was holding her up at their knees. Nobody's holding her, and you can see she's literally uh levitating off the floor, about like a foot or two, like up, and so and uh everybody around her, and maybe me included, I'm watching it like, wow, this is not normal, even for my church. It was it was freaky. No, it was it was really scary, and so I just kind of watched, like, what's going to happen? Um, but yeah, they kept going and and um and you know, then um Betty kind of stayed there. Uh Mario went back on the stage, he kind of told everybody to pray for this woman, and and he kind of closed out the night. Um, and you know, she wasn't levitating now, she was back on the floor. And it was only like a short moment, like she was up and then she got went back down. And Betty stayed there for about an hour as the group kind of prayed for her, and then you know, we wrapped up and and we laughed. Um, but as Betty tells the story, she doesn't remember that part, although she heard about the whole levitation, she heard about that, and she heard me talking about that, going, Oh, cool, you saw it too. Cool, you freaked me out. Um, but what she explained, you know, uh when she came to, she saw the people around her, and uh and immediately she was she could feel she like they're gone, they're gone. So she just kind of laid there, didn't want to move. She's like, oh just like this freedom, like you just gotten healed from a disease, like freedom. Uh so yeah, she just stayed with them as they prayed and didn't want to get up. So after she finally was free from them, they became distant. Uh she never said they were gone. In fact, uh she sensed that they followed her around and uh you know, they they they were constantly trying to get her, you know. Uh they wanted to attack her, or she was just kind of they never wanted her to forget, basically. So she was but she was fearless, fearless of them. And that was good for me. And they're basically they have no hold on me, only Jesus does. I mean, she was that, like, wow. And now I know that that was not a gold star moment for your nanny to tell you you about their demonic possessions and that uh yes, I'm a witch, but again, we were living in the poltergeist house, it was good intel, I'm telling you, and and honestly, Betty was amazingly awesome for us. Uh, she was like the goth version of Mary Poppins. Anyhow, uh back to my point. What Betty had told us proved to me that there were devil worshippers doing what our church was doing, but in the opposite. Well, sort of. While our charismatic spiritual warfare honestly was following Paul's Ephesians theology, we were praying against the cosmic powers of this dark age. You could say, like the demonic, but just the the whole principles. These covens were seeking out individuals. They're casting spells and curses on humans. Um, they were fighting and focusing on the flesh and blood. We never prayed, prayed, or or did anything against witches or Satanists. In fact, we actively sought them out. We want them to be saved. We want them to be freed from that bondage. Um, because we understood our struggle was not against them personally, it was against the their slaves masters, their demons. And so whether this is true or not, let me think this was regardless. Think about that. Whether this is true or not, or it's all in our head, is regardless. It was the perception of our both groups. We acted upon this understanding. And uh, especially in Betty's case, you know, there were real real, real results. Um, that means in the name of Jesus Christ, people, Betty, Betty had been freed from her demonic uh possession up oppression thing. Unless she faked levitating, I gotta get handed to her. Now I acknowledge there are limits to what we can prove, especially since there is no real standard to on what determines proof, especially in this area. While at the same time, 60 to 75 percent of people surveyed claim to have had a form of paranormal experience. That would be about the same amount of people who vote in the United States elections. Um that's about uh a little bit close to how many people are literate in the United States. That's a huge number. We're talking about like 250 million people, and that doesn't mean that the remaining 25%, you know, discounts all of that. No, no, no, no. The fact you know, this was kind of hard to dig up, but I'm pretty confident it's close. Those who are uh who discount paranormal or supernatural altogether is only five percent of the population. And surprisingly to me, among scientists, this only accounts for less than 2% of them, which means 98% of scientists are open to the possibilities of supernatural uh paranormal reality. 98% uh surveyed. So 95% of the population in the United States are open to supernatural and paranormal reality. That is why I'm not going to waste your time, my time, trying to convince some skeptic who uh basically refuses to look at this of evidence. 75% of the population had these experiences? Nope, it was all mass hysteria, honestly. And again, when I hear the word skeptic, mm-mm. Sorry, you know, I like tune out, turn out, check out, whatever. Because it it somehow gives them this mentality that all of oh wow goodness, he's a skeptic. You know, he has his authority. He can fly high into the sky on their little bias balloon. While the 75% of the rest of us who had clear exact uh experience have to feed their complaints. Don't waste your time. Not wasting my time. I'm trying to get somewhere with this. Now, it is vital to remain critical. Careful. Um you know, don't take my word for it. I mean, but use what you've heard or what you what you study or your own experiences to kind of guide your study. You don't make you don't have to make any conclusions. Just let the um work happen. I mean, think of how science works. Uh peer-reviewed, meaning a peer, not like an egotistical skeptic, uh, a peer will go through the same material and a process you went through and publish whether they had a similar result or a null effect. Um, because both are important. Hey, I looked it up, that's not what I got. I got uh now, I'm not making any definitive conclusions um because I think that would be a mistake, but I can look at all the dots of data and experiences of all these people throughout space and time. I can go back to ancient days to today and see what that picture may be showing, uh, just in my own life experiences and those I personally know, like Betty, was physically attacked by something non-material. That was her claim. I have been grabbed, pushed, uh, bedlifted, and dropped, I've gone through similar experiences. So okay. But uh I have um witnessed these entities like she talked about these entities. Okay, I have seen that. Um, she's you know, they have emotionals, anger, hatred, um, you know, threats, idle threats. Same thing happened to me. Okay. So the things that she experienced, I experienced. I therefore use her experience to help me and mine. Like, oh, I see. There's very similarity in these experiences. Therefore, there's something going on. Even if you don't want to define it, you have to admit there's something non-physical, non-quote normal, paranormal, happening. And it's happening in their intelligence. They're not bumping into us in reality, they are a part of our reality, affecting us in reality. So this is um um well anyhow. Still, I I acknowledge that there are limits to that we can, you know, considered proof, but conjecture is not unscientific, it is the scientific process. Based on the data collected, what picture or conjecture emerges and then test a hypothesis? My review confirms Paul's statement in Ephesians 6, 12. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places.