The Eric Metaxas Show - #220 - Joe Infranco

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

Joe Infranco didn't initially believe what he was hearing.People with nonspeaking autism were beginning to communicate through spelling, revealing thoughts, interests and abilities that many around them never realized were there. Then some began telling Joe something even stranger: they said they could see angels, demons, Jesus and an unseen spiritual realm.Infranco, a pastor and longtime trial attorney, joins Eric to discuss his book Decoding Cody: Secrets of the Spectrum from People with Autism Who See, Hear, and Smell in the Unseen Realm. He explains why he initially considered hallucination, imagination or outside influence, and how he began approaching these accounts as a lawyer might examine witnesses.Eric and Joe also discuss recurring descriptions of Jesus, claims of telepathy or “words of knowledge,” a mysterious place some call “The Hill,” the hidden intellectual abilities of nonspeaking people with autism, and the biblical discernment Joe says is essential when evaluating extraordinary spiritual claims.⭐ ORDER NOW:Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World📕: https://a.co/d/0ir3NlapTODAY'S SPONSORS:🪙 Grace Precious Metals: https://www.metaxasmetals.com/🛏️ MyPillow — Save BIG with code ERIC: https://www.mypillow.com/☀️ Chapter -- Honest, fast, and free Medicare plan guidance: https://askchapter.com/metaxas/🦅 Patriot Mobile -- America's ONLY Christian Conservative Wireless Provider: https://patriotmobile.com/partners/metaxas🏛️ Socrates in the City CRUISE: https://socratesinthecity.com/cruise/0:00 Joseph Infranco Joins1:09 What Was Hidden Inside Nonspeaking People With Autism?3:45 “Pastor Joe, I See Angels”5:14 A Trial Lawyer Investigates The Claims8:54 What Is Spelling-Based Communication?17:34 Angels, Demons And Biblical Discernment20:53 What Do They Say Jesus Looks Like?23:23 Telepathy And “Words Of Knowledge”28:24 Is God Speaking Through People On The Spectrum?35:40 What Is “The Hill”?- - -LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/@ericmetaxas#EricMetaxas #TheEricMetaxasShow #News #PoliticsChapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.

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Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you were someone you know is concerns about gambling, visit connectsontario.ca. Or call 1866 5 through 1,2600. Terms and conditions apply. Hey there folks, welcome to the program. You know, I get a lot of books.

I write a lot of books. I get a lot of books. Most books I get, they're not that interesting, honestly. Or maybe they're interesting to some, but not to me. But every now and again, you get a book and you go, wow, this is something I am very interested in. Not long ago, I got a book. The title of it is Decoding Cody, Decoding Cody, Secrets of the Secrets of the spectrum from people with autism who see here and smell in the unseen realm.

Interested? The author Joseph Infranco serves as pastor of adult education at Highlands Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, and he is my guest right now. Joseph and Franco, congratulations on this book. I am very excited to talk to you about it. Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be with you. I've got to ask you, how in the world,

I mean, this is such an extraordinary subject. How did this subject find its way to you? The idea that people who are on the so-called spectrum with autism or asperger's can see and hear and smell in the unseen realm, in the realm of the spirit. That's just an extraordinary concept. Right. And it turns out it's more than just people with autism, discovering and now with Down syndrome and other types of dysregers.

It started in our specialty's ministry in our church. Initially, there were four people, and we were one of the largest in the Phoenix Valley. There were four people, and they had started the word is spelling. And that is picture or screen about the size of your laptop with the alphabet and a delete key. And they were communicated by taking a finger and pointing to letters, which was extraordinarily difficult because autism was a disconnect between the brain and the body. They're trapped inside. They can't get their body to do what they wish.

And when they started spelling, when they had surprising language skills, confirmed by many academic studies, they were initially saying, I'm in here, stop showing me kid cartoons. Cody was the first for me. I was fascinated just on a human and pastoral level. What would it be like for someone to be trapped inside? No one knows that they're there. And I wanted to find out more about it.

So Cody told me he was interested in history and politics and World War II. He has a favorite amendment, and it's a number between one and three. So this is surprising. One of the stories, a young woman named Elsa was being shown Barney cartoons. And part of the problem with autism is though they suffer something called echolalia, which is a tendency to repeat. it's a tendency to repeat something they've just heard. And if you've been around people with what's called non-speaking autism,

that doesn't mean they're not, that doesn't mean they're incapable of saying a word. And their speech is not reliable. They'll tend to repeat things. They'll move and kind of, you know, repeated ribbons. And Elsa went from buying cartoons to telling us she loves math and science. She's been mainstream. She has a 4.0 grade point average now.

She's aced all of her math classes up to precalculus and all of her science classes. Last we spoke, she told me she wants to study neuroscience and the brain. She memorized the periodic table as a child, and it was all trapped inside with nowhere to go. So when the four of them started saying that, I just kept meeting with them and they wanted to talk to them. And about that time, they were telling me, by the way, Pastor Joe, I see angels. Do you believe me? My first thought, honestly, Eric was no. I thought, I'm ashamed to say, I thought there was something in the nature of authors.

I mean, I knew nothing about it, so why should I have thought that? That caused them to either imagine things or repeat things or maybe they're hallucinating. And I started researching online, and I found multiple books written by people, mostly moms saying, oh, this is what my son does. This is what he sees. And they were the same type phenomenon, not only angels and demons, but when they fight over us and respond to prayer, they see Jesus and describe them. And I reached out to a few of the authors, and they said, oh, so glad to meet you. One woman said, we have a Facebook group.

Can you please join us? Everybody has questions about this. And so I'm with 50 families on a Facebook call. And they were all saying, please help us. My kid says he sees angels. And that was when I realized, okay, there's a lot more here than I'm understanding. And so that pushed me to investigate it on two fronts. Number one was as an attorney.

I'm a lawyer by background. And I was a trial lawyer back in New York once upon the time. And I thought to examine the people saying this as if they were witnesses. I was trying to cross-examine them to see if their stories were credible. think my cousin Vinnie, were those instinct grits? And sometimes people think that they see things, that they don't, either imagine or they're embellish, or they're not being truthful.

They're trying to get attention. And my second question was, is this biblical? If it's not biblical, we toss it all out. Is what they're saying confirmed by scripture? And I apply myself to those. And the astonishing thing was every time I rolled the dice, that came up in their favor. For example, I didn't know that people with autism

are unusually honest. They have difficulty lying. They have great difficulty, perpetuating lie and building on it. They lack the subtle, social, visual cues that make someone a good liar. They're not, if you've met people with lust, I'm sure you have.

You'll notice they typically don't make eye contact with you. They're looking away. Their heads moving. And when you speak to them and you don't get an intelligible response, your first assumption is they don't understand. That's like a kid in there. And that was a surprise.

And the more I researched artists, and the more I realized, we've had the clues all along and failed to see them. You know, people know about savants and Broadway speaking. So there were clues that we had. I've met some with prodigious mass skills and incredible memories.

You remember the movie Rayman with Dustin Hoffman based on a real life person who was given a Bible at the age of six and had it memorized. So autism is a particular kind of brain-witering issue, not so much vocalized anyone part of the brain, but how parts of the brain interact. I'm being terribly general when I say things like that. Well, I mean, what this points up, of course, is just the almost frightening. marvel that human beings are, that what our brains are capable of. It is almost frightening. I mean, the idea that we can do the things that we can do and that some people have outrageous gifts. I mean, when you think of math geniuses or musical geniuses or, you know, people that can memorize, you know, all kinds. It really is, it is so astonishing. And I am familiar with the term idiot savant. I mean,

there have been through history people like this that they and I guess that was what they would call someone who they they see they come across as uh like a child like not very bright but in fact they have just tremendous super genius abilities that are hidden or um it's it's it's all very humbling but so tell us more what led you to write the book and and and some of what's in the book and again, the book, folks, is called decoding. I hear a lot of noise. Is that your keyboard, Joe? Forgive me, we're using a different apparatus today.

Decoding Cody is the book. Decoding Cody, secrets of the spectrum from people with autism who see here and smell in the unseen realm. But what led you to say there's a book here? I want to write a book called Decoding Cody. Our fantasy commission says for him it's all about the friendship. Cute, Kevin, but I disagree. Like with Bet365.

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If you were someone you know is concerns about gambling, visit Connectsontario.ca. Or call 1866 5 through 1,2600. Terms and conditions apply. Yeah, so a few things. Number one, when I looked into this phenomenon, I discovered this, an organization, the acronym is Asha. And they were private membership organization, but they were criticizing spelling, and they were saying, this is not really happening. The person is not really answering.

This is manipulation. Wait, what is spelling? I mean, you mentioned that earlier. I'm not clear. Sorry about that. Sure. So think of spelling is what's called AAC, augmentative and alternative communication. when someone is mentally intact but can't get words out, we find ways to help them communicate.

Think Stephen Hawking. When ALS robbed them of speech, he uses a device. When he lost the use of a hand, they rigged it to the eye sensitive. So it's simply a form of communication. So if you're not able to speak, if you can point to letters and say what you're thinking, then that helps you to communicate. The idea of spelling came up with autism because autism affects in particular fine motor skill.

And it affects everybody differently. The old saying is, if you've met one person with autism, you've met one person with autism. Some are able to use keyboards, many or not. It's speech is fine motor. And so they're disadvantaged that way. But they found that they could,

cut new neural circuits and point to letters. And it's a slow, tiring process. When you read a page in decoding Cody and you see a dialogue about what angels look like, you read that in under a minute. That may have been the product of 45 minutes. It's a tiring, difficult process because they literally cannot control their bodies. Again, if you think it as a brain-body disconnect, It's not intellectual dysfunction.

It's more of a bodily mechanical type of thing. So two big buddies to do. Number one, many of them were talking about what God would steal. And I feel like we're in a time where God is moving in unique ways. You know, the Lord chooses foolish things of the world to confound the wise. You know, 1st, Corinthians 1, 2728, where it's fascinating to me that God is, appearing to Muslims in closed nations with dreams and visions, or that near-death experiences are suddenly becoming very popular in the culture. John Berger's become kind of a friend.

I was on his podcast, but we were comparing the similarities between what people experience and near-death experiences and what the people with autism and now other disorders are experiencing. So I thought someone's got to put this down. and not a mom saying, look what my kid is doing, but someone examining it, it's more of an apologetic. And so I looked into the criticisms of spelling. There's an appendix where I put in scientific studies because I basically found the criticisms are completely unjustified.

If I may take a minute to explain some of that. Early forms of spelling, the earliest one was called facilitated communication And facilitated communication is when that young man or woman sat before a board about the size of your laptop with letters. And they were learning to communicate by pointing to letters. Initially, the assistant would put their hand on the person's hand. And if you're watching this, it's a terrible visual, someone's spelling, and you're asking whose hand is moving. The reason they put the hand on was actually to apply opposite pressure because sometimes they cannot feel their lens. But facilitated communication got attacked, and I think there were proper objections to it.

And there were a few people who made claims about it that weren't accurate. So while that was happening, academic institutions were still examining it saying, we see evidence of language skill. University of Virginia's Department of Psychiatry has been a leader on this, but now you have Boston U, Syracuse, Vanderbilt, U.C. Berkeley, that bastion of conservatism. You have all of these lying up saying, no, we're seeing more and more evidence of this.

So the newer forms of spelling now are strictly no touch and no leading questions. And initially, the people who learn to communicate this way do so by getting a lesson and answering questions from a lesson. The goal, the hope is at some point they will get what's called open. And when they get open, instead of just answering questions, they can now start telling you what they're thinking about and what they'd like to ask you or what they'd like you to know. So that's kind of the goal of it. So what I realized, the one group of particular leading the charge, what it was doing was it was conflating all forms of spelling sense with facilitated communication. And they would simply say, oh, we know it doesn't work.

Well, meanwhile, UC Berkeley's been admitting students for a decade. Now, more universities are. I believe UCLA and USCR. MIT just admitted its first student with non-speaking autism, who's going to communicate and presumably take exams by Stelling. More and more books were coming out, and they were written by PhDs, this one leaders among us, written by a PhD with roughly 60-something stories of young people with non-speaking autism, going to university, writing plays, thought leaders. They're doing all kinds of things. And even as that's happening, the criticisms are being repeated. Where it really struck me, Eric, and I said, we need a book.

Well, one criticism was, okay, hold on. Somebody is pointing to letters and the partner is holding a board. How do we know they're not moving the board subtly to get that finger to the letters? So the University of Virginia said, let's do a study. And the study was we're going to track eye movement and hand movement. We want to see if eye movement precedes hand movement. And if it does, then it's a voluntary act. And they found absolutely conclusively the eye movement preceded the hand movement.

So they said, there you go. That answers that objection. And then the organization, the acronym again is ASHA. I would love to debate them publicly someday. their answer to it was, all right, you got us on that one, but as long as there's another human dean, we can't rule out that there's some kind of influence or cooperation. that was one that had you studied logic, right? Essentially, you have to prove a negative. That's not a standard of proof we require anywhere

because it's impossible. That was when I said, I want to address the science, and then people wanted to hear about the supernatural things like going to a place in the spirit called the hell. And I said, all right, this needs a book not from a mom. This needs a book from somebody looking at it objectively, asking the hard questions that everyone's going to have.

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Well, I mean, that's the part that fascinates me that, that, you know, not only can people on the spectrum communicate or they're creating ways for them to communicate, but that they're communicating things that are really remarkable. I mean, you said that, you know, your first question is if somebody says, I saw something in the spirit, the question is, is it biblical? because we've all had, you know, you have issues like that. People, there can be demonic deception. There can be things that are not of God, let's say. But so what are some of the examples that you have had of people communicating things that they have seen? Yeah, and I've been challenged on that, particularly the demonic deception part. You know, Satan is able to appear as an angel of life.

So I've talked about ways that we discern spirits. 1 John chapter 4 initially was written to combat Gnosticism, but it has broader applications. And so we look at do spirits worship God? Are they proclaiming the gospel? And they are. But the idea of seeing angels is not, there's nothing surprising about that. I mean, angels, the word angel, whether it's, you know, the Old Testament, whether it's the Hebrew Malaf war. Angelos and the Greek. I think you probably know Greek pretty well. The word simply means messenger. Because they so often appear with a message, the angels just by convention became the good guys. The same way, Daimon or Daimonian, initially in Greek just meant the spirit. When Socrates used it, it was more like the word. It was more like my conscience. And over time, it's just become now the bad guys because we oversimplify things.

But the Bible is replete with those references. You also see there were times they can appear. Some people can see them and some people can't. You know, in 2nd Kings chapter 6, the prophet Elisha is at a city, I called, I believe, Dauphin with his servant. And the servants is freaking out. Look at the enemy troops here. There are more with us than with them.

Lord opened his eyes. And the servant is now able to see the hillside is covered. with chariots of fire and angelic beings. So there are times for whatever reason God and the sovereignty allows us to see those things. I guess that's the question. I have no doubt, and I know that there are, I would assume most people listening to us have this conversation have no doubt of the actual existence of angels and demons and no doubt that God sometimes allows us to see into the spirit realm.

in my book on miracles, I write about a friend who saw gigantic angels in a church. I mean, it is so amazing the specificity of his description. I mean, just astonishing. So I think, I mean, that's something that I know to be true. So I guess my question is, what is your hope for the book? Again, the book is decoding Cody. What is your hope for the book exactly? A prominent theme in it is presume competence.

I think we as a church need to see people differently when we hear that, you know, God's ways are paradoxical, but that's because we're upside down. And I think I want people to see others differently, particularly the people in the margins of life, whom we tend to overlook. This has been an extraordinary journey era because it's been like a stairway. The first step was, oh, my goodness, they're in there. The next step was, wait a minute, they see things. The next step was, I found out they pray and intercede for us. They receive assignments from Jesus on helping us. And so many of them have said to me, I've met hundreds of families now in this process.

People reach out to me from literally all over the world. They say, Joe, we're praying for you. This is a time. God wants us known. He wants the gospel to be preached everywhere. and he's raised us up to do this. And they just talk about Jesus, of this beauty. They describe them, but it's almost always the same description.

I've asked maybe, it's got to be, could be close to 50 at this point, on Zoom calls in person meetings, can you describe Jesus? The first answer is always a variation of this. He looks like love. I love that we're superficial, and their answer is going to the heart of who we,

he is. And then if I asked for a physical description, typically somewhere around 6 foot, 511, um, olive skin, dark beard, shoulder length hair, wavy. Most of the time people will say his eyes are a brilliant blue purple that radiate light and love and that are so overwhelming. It's hard to see anything else about him. They will discuss holes in his hands and wrists, which had me wondering. I asked some early on, not forewarned. there's some debate. I did a deeper dive into methods of crucifixion,

terrible subject. Yeah, right. The ideal angle, I had to put it this way, was to slant that nail through the hand and out the wrist in an anatomical tunnel that provided more support. So,

they see those things, they encourage people to repent, they tell us the gospel. They say, you have to believe in Jesus is the only way to salvation. And they also, Eric, they know what we're thinking. This was popularized on a podcast called the telepathy tapes. You may not have heard of it. It went to number one in the world. The woman doing it was interviewing young men and women with autism on the fact that the mind reading that takes place. Now this, I've never heard that some people with autism have the ability to read

are thoughts. That seems that's so out of the box. Countless times. And it's, to me, it's more if some of your listeners understand charismatic theology, it's more a sense of some, more like what First Corinthians 12 might call a word of knowledge and understand. A rema, a rema word of knowledge that God by the Holy Spirit is speaking. Yes, yes. And that's how they tell me it happens. And I've heard that many times where I'm praying with somebody and some very specific thing just comes to mind. When I speak, I spoke last week at Asbury University wanted me to come and talk about this, Christian University.

And I asked a large group, the question I ask everywhere, how many of you have had that unexplainable experience? The phone rings you think of Aunt Sally, whom you've not spoken within a year at Aunt Sally. Every hand in the room goes up, but it's not normative, so we don't know what to do with it. So we kind of push it aside the way we might try to explain away miracles. I think you got into some of that in your book, I believe. Because we have presuppositions about things. Things that don't fit our presuppositions don't get through as easily. So all the telepathy takes hit number one in the world,

the past Joe Rogan, he had her on. And I was on that. She had me on an episode She wanted to hear about what was happening at our church and other people whom I was interviewing. And she mostly helped me on to discuss academic studies, the credibility that the person's there. Capeys University, by way, recently did an experiment with EEGs and persons with autism. Again, is pointing toward hidden language capacity that we didn't know about. So when that took off, the creator of that podcast is very talented. She's an award-winning filmmaker, and because it wants to number one, she's making a movie on the telepathy tapes. About half dozen of the kids in it are known to me, some I know very well.

And when she interviewed me, I mentioned, by the way, I've been seeing this and hearing about the hill, and she was amused because she'd been hearing about it for a long time. and her co-a guest she had on a lot was named Dr. Diane Hennessy Powell. She got her training at Harvard and Johns Hopkins, so she's got great credentials. She's taught, she's a PhD. She's taught at Harvard. And she went on and said, look, mind reading is not a big deal. We've all known this in psychology.

This goes back to the founding of psychotherapy, the two towering. The two towering names were Freud and Carl Gustav Young. And, you know, the answer was Freud went out in the popular cultural imagination. Of course, sex is more interesting than architects. But she said, look at Young's writings in synchronicity's, was the name of it. He talked about, I believe he called them meaningful coincidences. He gave examples, a patient waking up describing a dream about a scarab beetle of a particular to coloration. And then he walks to the window and he looks in his scarabedal.

Our fantasy commission says for him it's all about the friendships. Cute, Kevin. But I disagree. Like with Bet365. I get paid the second my team goes up big with early payout and can cash out at any time before the game ends. No hard feelings, Kevin. Just faster payouts from Bet365. The home of winning early. Must be 19 and older. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you were someone you know is concerns about gambling, connects Ontario.ca or call 1866-5-3-1-2,600. Terms and conditions apply. Thusly color lands on the window. Those, we get it. There's something, there's meaning to this. It's more than randomness.

So those things are real. I've had it many times. And, Eric, I've had with people in other countries. People have been calling me from the UK, Ireland, Scotland. We've had a number of calls. And there were spellers who tell me things and want to give me a message that God is speaking about writing in the books and that this is their time and God wants the gospel going forward through them. So it's been an extraordinary journey, but it's happening countless times that I'm sitting with us. There's a lot here. We're covering a lot of ground. And I want to, I just want to, first of all, just pick up on a couple things you've said. Look, I think those of us who are serious about our Christian faith know there's an unseen realm,

know that God speaks, knows that miracles are real. So the only real questions are whether something is a miracle of God or if it's a demonic thing, because there can be demonic deceptions. And I think that some people aren't careful enough about that. Some people are so careful that they don't want anything to do with anything of the spirit realm, which of course is not God's will. The Lord wants us to wade into these waters with wisdom and biblical discernment so that we know that's God.

that's not. But the larger point you're making, or one of the larger points you're making is you're saying that you believe that God is speaking through these people on the spectrum and effectively saying God wants us now to, that for some reason God now wants to use them to speak things into the world, that God is using people on the spectrum, people with autism, to say what God is saying, and that for the first time we have the ability maybe to hear them. Yeah, and now bear in mind the analogy I use is I feel like I'm a reporter to a closed nation more secretive than North Korea. And I'm trying to put together, understand concepts from occasional reports that leak out.

I've never seen the place. I've never seen photographs. So I'm trying to maintain a healthy degree of skepticism, but not saying something can't be simply because I've never seen something like that. That's a kind of almost spiritual arrogance. But yes, and I'm telling you, what they tell me is that this is a time, a season, that they've existed, they've known God, they've suffered. There's a great little suffering with autism. Try to imagine being trapped inside your body and you're there. And all your family does is show you kid cartoons.

And when you see Elmo, this happens to Cody. You go Elmo, Elmo, because you can't help but repeat. Oh, look at that. Eric loves Elmo. Let's show him more Elmo. So what they're saying is that this is a season of time for that. And I offer an explanation, I think, it's helping me. And I put this in a new book.

Just went to the publisher. it's not ready yet to discuss where I have some chapters on questions and objections, things that people have asked by what you're asking. I think this might help some people. And that is, remember, autism is a disconnect between the brain and the body. By working theory is that the more profound the disconnect, the more somebody doesn't sense their body, the more the spirit or soul, whatever word you want to use, some theological combine them, the more it sort of moves toward the realm in which it was created to exist. So places where you see this are, for example, near-death experiences.

The body has a cessation of its functions. The person experiences that spiritual realm. They're back in the body and they talk about it. It's not just near-death experiences. It's an interesting study summarizing care, end-of-life care, out of various European clinics. And it was close to 60% of people in the last stages of death began to see things.

And the authors were very careful to say, we screened out the people who were taking drugs that would cause hallucinations. So I feel like as that disconnect happens, the spirit is in some way freed up. And what's made this more realistic is I've heard from many people with high-functioning functioning autism. So they're able to speak to me. And if you met them in the street, you might not know, but they'll talk about the struggles they had in life. Here's where it's fascinating now. A few of them had more severe autism, were unable to speak. The symptoms were more profound, not making eye contact, repetitive motions, extra sensitivity to noises. They were headphones. And that outgrew those. And what they say to me is when they were younger,

they were deeper in the spectrum, if that's even the right way to put it, they saw the spiritual world. And since they outgrew the symptoms, they no longer see the same way. They'll tell me, I have kind of an awareness as a sense of something dark is here. A number of said to me, I see angels, but I don't see them directly anymore, is that the air seems to ripple or something like that. Or this was fascinating. I suppose a woman in Malta. A bright woman, high-functioning autism, counselor, two graduate degrees. And she said, Joe, twice in my adult life, I had a treatment, and I regressed to severe

autistic symptoms. I couldn't speak. I just stared ahead. My husband was terrified. And she said, during that time, it was like a veil pull back. And I saw nonstop. I couldn't control it. in the spiritual world.

And as I improved, they did treatments for her neurological system. As I improved, they faded away. And now that I'm back, I may get a sense of things sometimes, but I no longer see it. And it happened to her twice, and both times she had the same experience. So I think that there could be something along the lines that as we're leaving the body, to be absent from the body is to be present with Christ. you know as something like that happens there's a greater sensitivity so that may that may be an explanation for some of us there's there's so much here to me i've always felt that you know

the invisible realm is what i felt it is real i know that it's real and what's fascinating to me is is that the more you talk to people that see into that realm you can begin to map that realm in other words there's a reality there it's not subjective there's an objective reality to the end you know when somebody says i see a demon it's it's it's it's it's they're not talking about a metaphor they're they're seeing an actual demon or an actual angel a specific angel or demon there's a reality here and i i think that it seems like part of what's happening with you and the the the research you're doing is that we're beginning it's like science we're beginning to advance slowly but we're advancing in beginning to understand

how some of it works. You know, maybe this can give us clues into how I can see into the spirit realm. What, what, how the Lord, why, you know, some people, you know, the holy men of old would, would pray in certain ways to get closer to God, to hear from God, because I think most of us would want to hear from God. And you think, well, how do I, how do I do that? How do I shut out the noise? Is that why fasting brings me closer to God?

because I'm denying the body. You know, there are things here that are, to some extent, mysterious, but it seems like we can learn something about God from what you're studying. Yeah, I think so. That's right. And that's how I've always understood fasting. There's less focus on the body.

So I think that's accurate. And there's more to it. They go to a place called The Hill, which I described in the book, that was first discovered by others. And when I heard people talking about it, I said, what is this? And they've said to me, it's not heaven, but it's a place where they go in the spirit,

where they're able to communicate, and they communicate and thought. And this is the wild part. They have friends from around the world. Cody seems to be known by everybody. I hear from people literally around the world. I know Cody from the hill. Two of the people like...

You referenced this. What the heck are we talking about here? Is this in the book, Joseph? Yeah, the hell was mentioned in the book. I told you... So this is a place in the spirit realm, that people go in the spirit realm? It's a place in the spirit realm.

I've learned a lot more since the first book, but that explains what they say about it, how they describe it. There are flowers with amazing fragrances. Everything is light. worships God. They're heaven-like attributes. John Burke and I kind of compare descriptions of the hill with people in near-death experiences, but they'll all say to me, it's not heaven. There's occasionally an awareness of a city over in that direction, but they speak, they learn. I mean,

young man I interviewed, got into know his family well, was adopted at the age of seven from a Bulgarian orphanage. When he was adopted, he was adopted, he was. weighed 18 pounds. I have photos of him at the time of his adoption, heartbreaking to look at. He's thrived here. He's also blind in his, and he has autism. And he spells on a voice-activated letter device. He's talking about being in the orphanage, seeing how God comforted him, told him, you're going to be adopted. I have purposes for your life, your story will be told. I taught Storff in the next book. And when he started spelling, his parents said,

how do you know English? And he said, oh, easy, I learned it on the hill. It's not just spiritual instruction. I've had young people tell me they learn mathematics on there. One, you know, man, like shocking his parents. And he said, I'd like to know more about calculus. And sometimes they're tall, 13, even 11. I mean, this is so, this is so tantalizing.

We're just about out of time. But this is so extraordinary. I can see how some people would just think, I don't want anything to do with this. This is weird. Ladies and gentlemen, tough luck for you. You're missing something. We need discernment.

We need wisdom. But it does seem like God wants to bring us to a greater openness to what people on the so-called spectrum might have to say he might want to communicate to us through them and this does fit in with the larger concept of how how god uh you know uses the humble things that you know god wants to confound us in our worldly wisdom um and speaking through autistic people would do that i mean if you're really um you know if you're really into being respectable uh you know this is a not this is not the path to respectability, but God is not interested in respectability the way many people are. The book is decoding Cody. The author is Joseph in Franco. And where are you,

what church are you in in Scottsdale, Joseph? Yes, Hireen's church in Scottsdale, but the better place to get me, we formed the nonprofit. Anything that comes from the book goes to the nonprofit to benefit people with disabilities. We're trying to help churches start, especially in these ministries, to understand people more, to talk about what it means to presume competence. And that's called Hidden Gifts Ministry.

People go on Hidden Giftsministry.org, they can reach me there. I get lots of email. I answer everybody. Just please be patient. Or people can get me on Instagram at Pastor Joe in Franco. I-N-F-R-A-N-C-O, again, at Instagram.

And I will get back, so I love hearing the stories. I'm compiling more and more of them, and the picture keeps developing. I'll just say this, Eric, I think a unique thing. I wondered, why was I allowed to do this? My three children, five grandchildren, neurotypical. And I feel like my time as an attorney

and even having to get into things like religious liberty issues, which we share in common. I was 18 years where the lines defending freedom, most of training attorneys. I've had friends from the movement, from churches, denominations, politicians, right to say, look, I don't know about this,

but I know Joe. And that sounds, I hope that doesn't sound probably for it. I don't want to, I don't intend it that way. The way I intended is, if I heard this, I would think, I don't know. But I feel the reason why you want that people speak like that as you could you say all right i know this fellow i trust dr x let me at least listen to it because i honestly think there's spiritual opposition to turn people off from even hearing

it and any of these of course closing verse luke 1021 you know the 70 the cycles have just come back the spirits are subject to us i saw satan fall from heaven like lightning and um and and and Jesus, don't rejoice so much over that. Rejoicing the gospel, your name is written in heaven. But then Jesus says, and it says, and in the same hour, and the Greek construction is a way of saying this links to what was just said. Jesus rejoiced greatly in the spirit. The only expression you find like that of him in the New Testament,

do you recall what he rejoiced greatly about offhand? No, no. It affect you, Father, that you have revealed these things to children. and concealed them from those worldwide. I think it's wonderful he's speaking to children. The wise are not getting it. If we truly believe in the paradoxical ways of God, the first will be last,

the last will be first. You know, second Corinthians 12. Nine, my grace is sufficient for you. My powers make perfect in weakness, not with strength or wisdom. If we really believe that, it takes God on its face, I would look carefully

with people whom we have written off for saying. Our fantasy commission says for him it's all about the friendships. Cute, Kevin, but I disagree. Like with Bet365. I get paid the second my team goes up big with early payout and can cash out at any time before the game ends. No hard feelings, Kevin.

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2600. Terms and conditions apply. That's yes, that's and that is a fundamental biblical value. And that's, it's a beautiful quote that from Jesus. I haven't heard that in a while, but that's so beautiful. Well, this has been a joy and it's exciting. I'm glad you're writing more about it. I'm glad people can find you at Hidden Gifts Ministries, Hidden Gifts, ministries. I've been speaking with Joseph and Franco. I know, ministry why, singular. Ministry.

Ministry. Signular. Hidden gifts ministry. And I've been speaking with Joseph and Franco. The book is decoding Cody secrets of the spectrum from people with autism who see here and smell in the unseen realm. Really fascinating, Joseph.

They smell incense when angels fight for us. Sorry, we didn't have time to talk about. Unbelievable. a ball. Well, I look forward to reading about it in the book. And Joseph and Frank are really grateful for you, all the work you've done. This is so important. Thank you so much. I am grateful to you. A big fan of your writings going, oh gosh, joy back to Bonhoeffer and led it to the American Church. And it's a real privilege to be able to join you with Monmouth. Well, it's my privilege. This is important work. So thank you very much. God bless you.

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