The Exorcist Files - A Neuroscientist Talks Deliverance and Demons

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

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Now, I know we've had a lot of informational episodes recently, and some of you have written in saying, hey, we love the new episodes. But can we talk a little bit more about deliverance and exorcism? I mean, it's the Exorcist Files. And we say, but of course. Today we are bringing you the return of Dr. Josh Brown, a professor of neuroscience who shared his incredible testimony in season one. Now, if you haven't heard that interview, go back and listen to in their own words right after this.

It's an incredible story. Dr. Brown today shares some of his experiences with, deliverance elaborates a little more and his peer-reviewed research into miracles. For all the skeptics out there, this is going to be an episode you'll want to listen to. One last quick announcement before we start, Kickstarter. Thank you. Your support has meant the world. It's just going amazing, though.

Please head to kickstarter.tv. There are some really cool rewards available only through the Kickstarter. You can click the link in the show notes or head to ExorcistFiles.tv. There's a week to go and we want to crush all of it. of our stretch goals and have enough to make content for the rest of the year. So, thank you so much and now enjoy this interview with Dr. Josh Brown. Dr. Brown, would you, this is not a time for humility. Would you please state your full name, your credentials, and a little bit of your experience is just like last time. So don't hold back. People need to know all those cool initials so they can

know why they're going to listen to you today. My name is Joshua Brown. I'm a professor of psychological and brain sciences. Former director of the graduate program in neuroscience in Indiana University, I got a PhD from Boston University in cognitive and neural systems. And I do a mix of functional brain imaging, computational neural modeling. I build computational models of brain circuits, kind of like AI, but a little more focused on trying to understand how the brain does it. and I've also had some interesting experiences with deliverance ministry, miraculous healings,

and that all started with an experience I had of being diagnosed with a terminal disease and looking for miracles. And I found a whole lot in the process. So let's start. So obviously, the fans will remember you because you were one of the co-stars of our episode from season one in their own words. So tell us a little bit about, you know, Was that one of the first times you had been pretty public with it? Was there any reaction to it? And then did you also, and no pressure, you can say we can always edit out, whatever. But did you listen to any of the other episodes?

We're curious, like, what does a neuroscientist deliverance minister think about this topic, listening to his own story on NextFiles and some of the other stories that were shared? First of all, it was a pleasure to be on last time. And after I appeared on the episode, I didn't get a whole lot of pushback, honestly. from, there were a few people who said, oh, you're the neuroscientist. I heard on the Exorcist files. Oh, that was you.

Because I had, you know, I had done some guest preaching. And so people kind of recognize me from that. But it was mostly positive. So I was encouraged. I think I did listen to all the other episodes in the first season. And I was really impressed.

I really enjoyed the dramatization, the storytelling. And I enjoyed hearing different. perspectives on on deliverance and how that works. So on the one hand, yes, I'm a scientist, I'm a neuroscientist,

I'm a professor's psychology. So I can look at that and say, well, you know, some of the things maybe they're called demons, maybe there's a, you know, more of a psychological explanation.

But on the other hand, I've seen enough to come to the conclusion that there are demons and, you know, when you see stuff that's just, totally beyond. This is not just some mental illness. If somebody's like levitating, right, that's not just in your head. So, and I really enjoyed the perspective. I think, so I've had a lot of experience with deliverance ministry over the last 20 years. And I know there's

a whole range of, you know, there's other people who minister deliverance or, you know, I mean, I call it deliverance. You can call it exorcism. It's the same thing, essentially, which is to cast out demons. And I know there's some people who really like the drama, you know, shout, you know, shout louder, get it out. I mean, I've seen that done in various places around the world. And the thing I worry about is like if you're shouting, I mean, the person has already experienced enough trauma. They've already had enough difficulty in their lives. And having you and a whole crowd of other people shouting at them, you know, or at the demon ostensibly, but, you know, at them, I worry that can cause more trauma.

So what I'm ministering deliverance, my main concern is to love the person and help them get free and to do that with a minimum of drama because ultimately it's not about having a demon show, it's about getting the person free so that they can experience the abundant life that Jesus provided for them. And I felt that, you know,

I felt Father Martin's heart, He wants to see people get free and figure out how they got in, how the demons got in and close the doors. And so I found there's a lot of similarities in how I end up ministering. And of course, I didn't come up with this myself. You know, I was trained by various people who had much more experience with deliverance ministry than I did. For sure.

Now, one thing I want to get your opinion on, because obviously Father's been very clear that the authority, authority to cast out demons, which again, not in every situation, but as a general rule, authority has been conferred to all of those baptized in Christ and disciples, which I really appreciated. Father and many of these priests will mention, you know, months of sessions. Have you had, in your experience, do you find it's mostly been, you know, one and done or significant breakthrough? And if so, what would you posit might be going on if something takes, you know, multiple sessions, et cetera. And is there any perhaps, you know, neurological effect of

that? As a theory, I've wondered, if someone's engaged in perhaps heinous sins for many years, just like therapy, you wouldn't, you know, Christ could perhaps remove the demon, but perhaps there are scars from walking with that. So any thoughts on kind of the, you know, perhaps different experiences since you've actually done deliverance ministry? Yeah. I think, like within neuroscience, there's this concept of different levels of analysis and this sort of hierarchy of abstraction, at what level are we going to look at this? So people who have epilepsy with seizure generators

in a part of the brain called the temporal lobe will sometimes have experiences of interacting with supernatural beings, of hearing the voice of God. So if I were to put on my doctor-skeptical neuroscientist hat, I would say, well, if someone has an experience, that they are interacting with something demonic, could it be that's an abnormal pattern of electrochemical activity and the temporal lobe related to some kind of temporal lobe epilepsy?

And I think in some ways you can't really rule that out. And so where does that leave me? Sometimes people ask, well, how can you be a scientist and a Christian? From my perspective, I'm 100% scientist, and I'm also 100% Christian. So for me, the question is, if I'm looking at a situation where someone says, well, I think I have a demon, I don't rule out that there's something psychological going on, but I also don't rule out that there's some kind of actual demonic thing going on. And so then the question is, well, how do you sort that out? You know, how do you figure out what's going on?

And for me, the overriding principle is, whether it's science or, you know, demons or whatever, I observe carefully, I think critically, and I try to make sense of what I'm seeing, not ruling out a priori any particular possible explanation. So whether it's deliverance ministry or, you know, miraculous healings, I will observe carefully, think critically, and try to find the most likely account of what's going on. Now you can argue about what's likely. Well, if you don't think that the supernatural is, that there is any supernatural, then no matter how much evidence this seems to weigh in favor of that,

you're probably not going to suppose that maybe there's some supernatural thing. Now, other people have asked, you know, well, how do you even think about what you believe in why you believe something. And in statistics, there's this concept of basian probabilities. And the core idea of basian probabilities is that when you estimate how likely something is, for example, that someone has a demon, you might think about it in terms of, well, what's the probability, what's the percent chance that this person has a demon, for example?

and your estimate of that probability is going to reflect two main factors, according to Bayesian probabilities. One of those is assuming demons are real, what's the probability, given the evidence that you have in front of you and interacting with this person, what's the probability that they have a demon? And the second factor is, what do you think is the probability that demons are real in the first place?

What's the probability that there is ever anywhere, any such thing as a demon in the sense of some supernatural agent? And if you think about it that way, then you can ask yourself, what do I think is the probability that demons could possibly even exist? Because if you say, well, that probability is zero, then no amount of evidence, including perhaps even someone, you know,

levitating and, you know, turning their heads 360s, right in front of you, that maybe still isn't going to convince you because if you say, well, it's a priori not possible, then no amount of evidence can convince you. And I think in a sense, I don't find that a particularly rational perspective,

to be honest, because if you're going to observe something, you should approach it with some kind of framework in mind in terms of how you're going to think critically, but I find it slightly disingenuous to say, well, I'm going to, you know, from the get-go, I'm going to exclude a certain category

of possibilities, no matter the evidence. And I don't find that help. So I don't exclude possibilities, but that doesn't mean I just assume they're true either. And so I think if you allow the possibility that demons exist, then you can then look at an individual and say, okay, you know, what's going on here? Is this a demon or is this a psychological phenomenon?

My understanding of how the Catholic Church approaches this is that generally you will look for any possible psychological explanation, and if it seems like the person needs psychological treatment, you will defer to the psychologists and suggest that they seek medical treatment. And it's only if you encountered phenomena that are so, so sort of strongly suggestive of a demon. Demons are kind of like cockroaches, right? They hide under stuff.

And if they hide, they can go on causing. problems. And so if you have some cockroaches hiding under a rock, you don't just look at that and say, well, you know, I don't see them, so we can move along now. You might just kind of pick the rock up and see if there's some roaches under there. And if you find them, then you might think about applying some treatment to them. So I will tend to, you know, explore a little bit. And now in some cases, it seems like people just need some inner healing. You know, they've got some dramatic memories and, you know, sort of talking and praying through that with them can be really helpful. But there have also been cases where, you know, I remember there's one woman years ago I was praying

with, and she had been suffering all of her life. She had like multiple bouts of mononucleosis. She was, she described how she was in her, it went from the time she was in a crib, she experienced seen demons. And so she had all kinds of chronic illnesses, especially in her gastrointestinal system or stomach. And she, you know, to the point where she thought about suicide when she was 11 and just this ongoing torment. And so she came to us and we started praying with her. And we're just, we're praying for healing because that's what we would do. And as we're praying for healing, I said, so how are you feeling while we're praying? And she said, well, it's weird. I hear this voice in my head, not like an audible voice, but, you know,

it's kind of like an inner voice in my head. And it says, we're still here and we're not leaving. And I was like, so now you'd ask a little bit ago, you know, how does some of these deliverance sessions go? Are they fast? Or does it take multiple sessions? So this is one that took a little bit of time. And so we prayed for healing. And then when we started, you know, she started saying, well, you know, you're praying and it's getting worse, you know. And, you know, they're saying they're still here and they're not leaving. I said, okay, well, let's address, you know, let's address these more directly. And so we started looking for open doors, you know, like was there some kind of traumatic event?

Was there some kind of sin? Was there some kind of, you know, involvement in the occult? And it wasn't clear that there was a lot of sort of obvious open doors. It was just, it seemed like there had been this oppression from when she was just, you know, ever since she can remember when she was in her crib. And so at a certain point, I mean, we prayed for an hour and some and, you know, I'm sort of gently, lovingly, but firmly in the name of Jesus, commanding the afflicting spirits, to leave her. And after like an hour of that, she said, well, there's still, I still hear this voicing.

We're, you know, we're still here. We're not leaving. And so at that point, I said, well, you know, these things have been here like 20-some years. Another week is probably not going to make all that much difference. And that sounds callous to say it like that. But the thing is, if I'm going to, if I'm going to take this on with someone, I'm going to do it on my terms in my time, not on their terms, and not when I'm hired and worn out. And so I said, well, you know, let's just take a few days and we'll pray and fast and we'll get back together. She just decided on her own that she really wanted to get free. She was done with these things.

And so she fasted for like over a week and like just water. And she came back. We got back together a week later. And I said, oh, how's it going? You know, how's your experience been? And she said, well, you know, I've been fasting this whole week because I really want these things out. And she said, you know, they kept telling me that if I would just eat a little something, I feel so much better. And she said, no, I want to get free.

So, and, you know, at a certain point, she said she was trying to tell them to leave her. And then she ended up, like, vomiting little bits as green substance. And so, okay, well, she was fasting. So maybe, you know, her GI system was a little off-kilter. But anyway, she said, you know, the more she tried to tell them to leave, the more, you know, the worse she got. Like, she just felt like, you know, not well. And we got back together and she was describing this. And I said, okay, well, let's pray again.

And so I put my hand on her to start to pray. And within about 30 seconds, she was like, oh, they're, oh, they're leaving. You know, it got real quiet. and I feel so much joy and peace now. And I said, well, that's great. Well, let's pray for your chronic stomach issues. And so we started to pray for that. And she's like, wow, I feel this wild heat in my stomach.

And like, I think it's being healed. And so that all took like less than five minutes from the time we started the session. And we knew her for many years after that. And basically that day was a turning point where all this chronic affliction, it just left. And so after that, she got super excited. She's like, wow, Jesus healed me. You know, he kicked out those demons.

And so she went on to just tell everyone she knew. And, you know, within a year or so later, I watched as she brought her friends to church. And she was just so excited to be free and healthy and not have all these problems. And I reflected on the whole thing. And I thought, okay, well, it seemed like praying for healing was good, but that wasn't necessarily enough because what seemed to make the difference was when I

directly addressed the spirits of infirmity in the name of Jesus and the authority of Jesus and commanded and believe. And at that point, you know, what years of medication and various treatments couldn't do, they could not get her free from the various afflictions and chronic illnesses and chronic stomach conditions, she was able to get free from that and stayed free, you know, over over a course of years. Do you see as a neuroscientist a plausible mechanism just from what we know about the brain where even if you remove some sort of tormenting spirit without knowing where or how they might reside that, you know, say you've been hearing voices and you've had, you know, just really bad trauma, right? Or you've committed trauma or you've committed really bad things and there's trauma.

Is it reasonable to assume that just because the spirit left doesn't mean. mean that you might not have some lasting cognitive issues, the way you would, if anything else had happened, right? Like if a demon was making someone do something bad, is it entirely reasonable? Say, yeah, you know, it might take a while for that person to actually report feeling a whole and free because the brain is built up such a, you know, a neural network reinforcing that experience. Is that out of the question? Yeah. Well, the first thing I would say is that by definition, Every experience that you have, every thought, everything that happens in your life will have some effect on the brain. Everything will in a sense change your brain.

Because when you experience something and you form a memory of, that memory consists of changes in the relative strengths with which some neurons will activate other neurons. So in other words, the fundamental way the brain works is it's made of about 100 billion cells called neurons. And those neurons send signals to each other with an electrochemical process that uses a chemistry. What batteries do, that is to produce voltages from various chemical conditions. When you speak, when you see, when you hear, when you perceive something, that process in the brain is precisely a process of, of neurons receiving signals that represent these things that you're perceiving, and in turn generating these electrochemical signals that signal other neurons, which cause those other neurons to signal yet other neurons.

And furthermore, the memories that you store, that is the lasting memories, consists of, like I said, changes in the strength with which one neuron will send a signal to another neuron. This principle is sort of bedrock for how brains work. And in fact, it was the inspiration for neural networks, sort of computational neural networks, that in turn inspired modern AI. So when you use chat GPT,

you're using a system that's made up of probably several billion miniature neuron-like. Okay, I say neuron-like, they're not exactly neurons, but very much inspired by neurons. So let me use an analogy here. Suppose you have a house, and some rats come in, and they start, you know, shredding, bedding and eating food

and leaving little rat droppings all over the place. And you come home and you find the rats and you set some traps, call an exterminator, and you get rid of them. Well, the rats are gone, but they're still a mess, okay? There's still, you know, shredded bits of bedding and rat droppings and stuff, And so it might take a little while to clean up the rat droppings

and clean up the mess and put things back together. And I find that a useful metaphor for deliverance. So when someone's had a lot of trauma over a number of years and they experienced deliverance ministry, they often know right away like when they're free because they know that the torment has stopped. But nevertheless, there's often some ongoing experience of trauma or just the trauma that.

that came through on that ongoing oppression, and sometimes it takes some time to work through that and heal. And I've seen that, I've seen that in people too. So I think, you know, if there's a deliverance need, the first thing is close the doors, you know, and figure out how to get these things out. And once they're out, then you can explore, okay, how do we go about cleaning up the aftermath

and help you heal in terms of your emotions and your memories to get to the place where you can function more effectively. I think that's great. One, we're obviously profiling extreme cases, and it makes total sense to me that if someone was heavy in the occult for 20 years, that you could do one prayer and deliverance. And that's not to say Christ couldn't deliver them,

but it's the same, it feels like the same argument for why does someone get healed slowly over time from cancer versus a one and done? It's like, you know, it's sort of a fallacy that you get to, that there's an exact way it should go. All we know from Scripture is that, you know, the demon, they said the 72 come back and say, even the demons submit to us,

but they didn't say, even the demons come out in 30 seconds when we pray for them. We have no idea. And we do have at least one recorded incident of the disciples being unable to cast out a demon. So we know there is at least some framework for this. And Father always says, you know, you have multiple variables.

You have the faith of the exorcist, the compliance on the person. One thing I have found very interesting is that a lot of people that father profiles on the show, you would think it's pretty clear, like, I want to get free. But many of them, especially those at the highest levels of interaction with the occult,

it's actually a wrestling match of like, do I want, I want God's freedom, but I don't want God's, you know, sort of regulations and like all that comes with it, right? I really am not ready to trade one master for another. And I think that's a,

Yeah, interesting dynamics. I have a lot of Protestants who say, how can it take 70 sessions? Well, it's like, well, you have to think of it like intense spiritual therapy. We actually profiled in the new season, some generational curses. Tammy Comer shared her testimony of, you know, having five generations back, a person dabbling in the occult cast a spell on her family and the firstborn would have illness and that remain unchecked. I'd be curious as a neuroscientists too, what do we know about, even at a biological level? Trauma can be passed on in gene expression, right? Is there any sort of natural framework that could potentially be involved with generational sins and things like that? Part of me hesitates to say, oh, well, this, you know,

this can all be reduced to some kind of, you know, chemical genetic inheritance. My best guess is that it's much more of a spiritual, spiritually driven effect. You know, like in that case you mentioned. I mean, I found that, you know, that was very interesting. And I've come across things like that too, where it seems like there's this spiritual effect, like a curse that gets passed down. And I think that that seems to happen and that may not be directly attributable to some kind of neural imbalance. Okay, so having said that, there are definitely patterns of inheritance. So sometimes there will be a pattern of certain kinds of illness in the family line, and you can trace that to basically to genetic mutations that will predispose people to

some kind of disease, right? And so at that point, I would say, well, you know, it could be some kind of generational curse, could also be a genetic susceptibility, like alcoholism. for example. Some people have a genetic predisposition to really like alcohol and if they have a drink, they're going to drink more and that's it. Somehow or the other, I apparently don't have genes for that. I'll drink a half glass of wine once every year or two. Find it tastes not particularly good and have no inclination to drink more. But for some people, you know, I have family members who they can't touch it because if they have one sip that they're done. It's over. They're going to be on the floor. And so there are definitely genetic factors that can predispose to that. And I think there's still

a bit of work going on to pin down exactly which mutations and which genes and so on. There are other factors of inheritance called epigenetics. So that is that it's not just the DNA. There are ways in which DNA can be sort of activated or deactivated with what are called epigenetic processes that involve things like DNA methylation. So it's not that you're changing the letters of the genetic code, but you're attaching things to them that will affect how well they do or don't, you know, get transcribed into proteins or, you know, otherwise have effects on gene expression. And so it turns out that when there, that certain kinds of, you know, experiences can cause DNA methylation, which, as I understand it, can to some extent be passed on to the next

generation. So again, not changing the letters of the DNA, as it were, but changing the ways in which they're expressed. And so that can have effects, you know, down through to the offspring. So, you know, what does that mean? I think there are certain things that you might find as sort of effects through the generational lines that you could say, well, there may not be a demon involved or a curse. It may just be some kind of either genetic predisposition or some kind of epigenetic factor. But it also could be a curse, right? It could be some kind of demonic thing apart from some genetic or epigenetic factor. Now, you know, for me to say that as a scientist is a little bit perhaps heretical. And so I'm, I wouldn't say that, you know, I can design an experiment,

with my neuroscience research that will prove that there's, you know, that there's some supernatural effect or curse that's following the family lines, you know, and where we can rule out genetic or epigenetic factors so that we must scientifically conclude that this is, you know, this must be some kind of supernatural effect. I don't think that I could design an experiment that could support a claim like that. Nevertheless, if I find that someone is suffering and they're having these, you know, serious ongoing torments.

And if I just treat it as if maybe there is a demon or some multiple demons involved. And I find that the person dramatically improves in a lasting way, in a way that all kinds of medical treatment and psychotherapy and counseling couldn't help for years. And I mean no disparagement to, you know, medical or, you know, psychological practice. I mean, that's my field after all.

But if I find that someone experiences a great improvement after deliverance ministry in a way that they didn't, you know, otherwise, despite all the treatment, then I'm going to suspect that, you know, at a minimum, that was more effective. And, you know, perhaps it was more effective because it was addressing more directly than nature of what was going on. We know spiritual affliction can cause illness, or at least manifest as illness. And we don't know if that's demons manipulating the the body to look like that or if they're directly affecting those things. Because it could be both, right? We had a father Zadon is a priest and a psychologist. And he said, yeah, it's like, demons can cause mental illness. Right. And so you're like, right, great. Now, you know, it would be nice if it was

clearly one or the other, but there are no rules that they play by when it comes to that. So it's hard. It could be hard to discern. The way I think about it is I think, again, going back to, you know, if you had rats, take up residence in your house, the rats, even if they leave, they may still have made a mess. They may have left droppings around. And so even if the rats are gone, your overall experience of your house is going to be worse because there's mess and rat droppings.

And so I think likewise, suppose for the sake of argument that someone has a demon and that demon is causing torment and affliction and, you know, stress. I mean, we know that, for example, stress can change the, certain hormone levels, especially cortisol, which is a stress response hormone, it can change the way the daily cycles of cortisol works. So normally cortisol levels will fall at night and they will rise. That is the concentration of cortisol and your blood will rise and peak about, I don't know, half hour an hour after you wake up. And so that normal daily cycle is that just part of your daily

rhythm. But people who have a lot of stress, severe stress, depression, well, you can actually measure the ways in which that cortisol fluctuation doesn't happen as much. It doesn't drop as much at night like it does in a normal, healthy person. And so you can find these, you know, endocrine hormonal markers of stress, right? You can measure those. And, you know, you can even, you know, you can even give people specific chemicals that will sort of challenge that response and measure, you know, how does their cortisol respond? And you can relate that then to the level of stress that they're experiencing. So they're definitely biological markers of that sort of thing. And that's just to take one example. But again, you know, suppose that someone has, for the sake of arguments,

suppose that demons are real and someone has a demon and that's causing all kinds of torment, you're going to see biological markers of that. And if you have the right way to measure it, you'll be able to see effects of that. That's not to say that, you know, oh, this is the demon of cortisol or something, right? That's not what I'm saying, right? Any more that I would say,

if I found a rat dropping in my house, I wouldn't say that's the rat itself. It's the evidence that the rat was there. Okay. And so likewise, if you find that there's some kind of stress response, what you can conclude is that there was something traumatic going on that was affecting that a person's ability to flourish and, you know, experience a, you know, happy or, you know, good life. But so, you know, then it's a question, well, what caused that?

But the thing is, if you minister deliverance or, you know, or exorcism and a person experiences a lasting, you know, like suddenly, you know, some freedom and they feel that torment is no longer there, it may still take a while for the body to recover from that. The overarching principle is that I want to do everything I can to love that person and help them experience abundant life. And if that means deliverance, then we'll do that. If that means praying for healing, we'll do that. If that means just sitting and talking through some of the difficult things that went on,

then we'll do that. I do this in the context of a church, and, you know, this is what people, you know, ideally this is what I think Christians would want to do for each other, is just be there and support and however that's helpful. So, and I think, you know, when I discovered deliverance ministry, I thought, wow, this is amazing. I wish I'd known this years ago. Instead of having to spend years trying to, you know, trying to work through stuff, we can do some target deliverance ministry and people get better so much faster. There was a point in time it went, when I realized this, I actually started to cry because I thought of people who I had tried to help and just wasn't able to. And I thought, if I had only known then what I know now, I could help so many more people so much more quickly.

And it deeply affected me. And so now, you know, deliverance is just, it's a tool in the toolbox for helping people experience. Abundant Life. That's fantastic. All right. Gosh, this is so great. Let's get into a few stories and sort of me your experience. You obviously hinted at one, but any notable experiences last year you shared about, you know,

being in line at a conference, I think, for Randy Clark and there was a witch doctor kind of cursing you. But have there been, are there any more perhaps, I hate to use words, were notorious, but are there any particular anecdotes you'd like to talk about that stand out? And has your experience overall in deliverance ministry sort of lined up with what Father shares about everything from manifestation to even the protocol for let me find out like a name can be indicative of how it got in, you know, talking to it, not conversing with giving orders, you know, taking authority, that kind of stuff. So first of all, on some principles about how I

interact, I'm not big into having conversations with them. The only conversation I'm going to have is where I'm telling them in the name of, in the authority of Jesus to get out. I haven't really found it helpful to ask their names and things like that. I know some people do and, you know, they're different people, have kind of different styles. For me, I'd rather spend time talking to the person to find out how they got in, because once we figure that out, we'll close the doors. And I don't really want to get into conversation where, you know, because they could be lying to me. I mean, I'd much rather talk to the person, and I've found that generally to be a useful approach. I think the more dramatic things that I've seen

have been along the lines of miraculous healings rather than deliverance per se. But a few things, like every once in a while in praying for healing, a demon will manifest. And I think, you know, when you look at Jesus's ministry, the healing and the deliverance were kind of inseparable. They just went hand in hand and when Jesus was healing people, you'd be hard-pressed to find a time where he had a big healing meeting and that didn't also involve casting out demons.

They just go together. And, you know, the sort of theologically, the overarching principle is Jesus said, well, the kingdom of heaven is advancing. And that necessarily means that the kingdom of darkness gets pushed back. And so what that looks like is healing and deliverance. There was one time when we were running a healing room sort of as per ministry out of a church we were going to at the time. And we would generally have two or three people coming to receive prayer for healing. And so we'd pray for healing. And at one point, I was praying with someone and one of my other teammates burst into the room and said, Josh, we got a situation.

Can you come over and help us out with this? And I thought, okay, well, this should be interesting. So I went over to one of the other small rooms where someone was being prayed for. And I said, so, you know, tell me what's going on. And they said, well, we were praying for this woman here. And I'll call her Carolina. This was a Latino woman who had come in for prayer ministry and it was complaining of some tormenting thoughts.

And so they said, well, we were praying with her. And she suddenly, it was like she wasn't there anymore. It's like her whole consciousness changed. and so can you, Josh, can you take over this one? Because we're out of our depths here. And I said, all right. So I looked at this woman and she looked at me

and just locked eyes with me. And I don't know how to describe it other than that there was a look of pure hatred in her eyes, in her face. And she kind of, she didn't say anything. She just growled, like, lo, growled under a breast. She just looked at me and growled. And so now I remembered some of the training, right, if this happens,

so this is one of Pablo Batari's teachings. The first step is to establish communication with the person. So if they're manifesting a demon and the person's not there, you have to call the person by name and, you know, get them back to where you can communicate with them. So I said, Carolina, can you hear me? Can you hear me? And it was like, as soon as I said that,

like her face just snapped out of it. And she said, oh, yeah, yeah. And, you know, yeah, okay, yep. And I said, okay, I'm going to lead you in some prayers and you're going to close the door. You're going to renounce. Because the thing is, like, I don't minister deliverance to someone without their full agreement and cooperation

with what we're doing. So I said, well, you know, if you're in agreement with this, then you pray after me. And so I led her in a prayer where she said, I break all agreement with all of these tormenting spirits. I want nothing more to do with you. And so on along those lines.

And I found like this is not a trivial thing because like you mentioned earlier, sometimes people don't want to lose it. And I found this even, for example, with fear. So you might think, you know, if someone's tormented constantly by fear, then, you know, they probably want to be. want to get free of it. But I've asked people, so, you know, do you want to be free of this constant

tormenting fear? And they say, oh yeah. And I say, well, if to do that, you have to be willing to give up the sense of control that you get from like always being braced and ready for whatever bad thing might happen. There's a certain perverse comfort in knowing that you're braced and nothing bad is going to catch you off guard because you're prepared for it. And I said, you know, So I would tell people, like, if you want to be free from that, you have to be willing to give up that sense of being in control. You are going to give that up and you're going to break the agreement with this thing, even with fear, because despite the torment you get from it,

you also gain something, which is a sense of being in control. So you have to be willing to give that up. Are you willing to give that up? And if they say yes, then I'll lead him in a prayer to say, you know, I break the agreement with fear. and at that point I will minister deliverance. And I've also seen this with blind people who say, I say, you know, would you like to be prayed for?

And they say, oh, no, definitely not, you know, because like in one case, if I could see, I'd have to take care of myself and that's scary. Right now everyone takes care of me and I don't have to do anything and I don't want to give that up. And so I said, okay, well, I will respect your wishes. So it's not a trivial thing to ask someone whether they truly want to break the agreement with these things.

Sometimes they don't. And if that's the case, then we'll still pray a blessing on them, but I'm not going to try to. Someone put it this way, Jesus will deliver you from your enemies. He will not necessarily deliver you from your friends. So, anyway, but back to the story. So I said, so Carolina, can you hear me?

Okay, are you willing to break the agreement with these things? And so she was. So I led her through some prayers, and as we started to pray, she slipped out again, and it was like, now this demon's looking at me, and she looks at me and starts growling. And, you know, again, this look of pure hatred in her eyes. And so I again had to call her back to, you know, call her back. Carolina, can you hear me? Okay.

And in the process, I would bind the spirit. So, you know, there's a difference between binding the spirit and casting it out. casting it out as you're telling it to leave. Binding it is you recognize that it may still have some right to be there, some open door, but you are forbidding it from doing anything and interfering with the ongoing ministry. So in that case, I would say in Jesus' name,

I command you to be silent and not interfere with what we're doing. And then I would lead, then I continue to lead, Carolina, in breaking agreements with these things, it turns out that she had some dark stuff in her family history, and she needed to sort of repent on behalf of her whole family for some of these things. And so as we did that, eventually, she, once she had done that, I then said, okay, in the name of Jesus, you have no more right here, I command you to leave her and not return. And the thing is, once the doors are closed, you don't have to shout. They can hear just fine. And it left quietly. And then,

that was, and from that time on, you know, her life was different. She was free. She ended up joining our ministry and helping us pray with people and was, and she was great because she knew exactly what was going on and she wanted to see people get free just like I did. So, so I don't know, that was one story. I'll tell you another. So if you read Pablo Batari's book, Free in Christ, he describes how he learned how to do deliverance ministry. And I remember going to a conference when I was early on in my own deliverance process and listening to him teach and thinking, this is making so much more sense now, like of my own experience. And so Pablo described that when he worked with Carlos Anacondia in Argentina,

Carlos would have these huge stadium crusades and, you know, like 50,000 people. And Carlos at a certain point, you know, he'd preach the gospel, you know, he'd say, all right, you know, you need to, you can find life in Jesus. In Argentina, it was like nine. 90 plus percent of people would six months later after, you know, a conversion experience in one of these meetings, they would be going to churches and, you know, be plugged in. And what Carlos attributed the difference to was doing deliverance ministry

right away on the new converts, right? So you accept Jesus and then immediately we are going to get you free because if we don't, you are going to be still in bondage and you're going to find it incredibly difficult to grow as a Christian. And so we need to get you free right away so that you can grow without all these bondages. And so what Carlos would do is he would at a certain point grab the microphone and announce to the whole stadium,

listen up every demon. Listen to me, Satan. In the name of Jesus, kick you in the nuts. Just like that. Now, I was in a meeting in Brazil some years ago. There was about 5,000 people. And I watched this kind of scenario play out where the speaker said, okay, in the name of Jesus, I'd take authority over every demon in this entire stadium.

Now, what happens is when a preacher does that and when Carlos did that, immediately about two to 300 people would all fall over all at once and start writhing around on the ground and screaming and often clutching their privates as if they'd been kicked in the nuts. and Pablo Batari was ready for this. This was all planned, and they knew this would happen because it always happens. And so Pablo would take a team of several hundred people, and they would look around and find all the people writh around on the floor, and they would, you know, a few people to a person, help them up,

and they would set them up, you know, in chairs. So one person kind of sitting up in a chair and a couple prayer ministers, and the prayer ministers would proceed to talk to them, you know, get them back to consciousness, find out what were the open doors, it was witchcraft or curses or whatever, and then lead them in that process of renouncing that and then finally commanding the demons out.

And so they did this with like a few hundred people a night, just night after night. And so anyway, when I was in Brazil some years ago, I watched this in a group of about 5,000 people. And as soon as I heard Randy, say this, you know, in Jesus name, every demon in this entire stadium, I command you to get out. I looked around and, like, all around me, people started falling over on the floor and writhing around and, like, all at once. And no one told them that this is what, you know,

they were supposed to do. It was like, and so then Randy was like, oh, okay, now what do we do? I was like, I'm thinking, Randy, why did you do that? You know, like, we don't have enough people to deal with this. I looked and Randy said, well, you know, if you're on the preliminary team, maybe you can help us out with this. So I thought, oh, no. So he said, you know, and if you're in the crowd and you feel like some unusual things going on in your body, then just make your way behind the stage and there will be people to help you. So I ran behind the stage and immediately there was a line of like a hundred people long and they're all like shaking and some of them are rolling around on the floor and trying to stand up not very successfully.

And I thought, oh my goodness. And there was like one team at the front of this line of like 100 people, you know, with trying to help them. And I thought, oh, it's not enough. So I ran to the middle of the line and I just pulled a person aside from the middle of the line and said, you know, how can I pray for you? What's going on? And the person said, well, I don't know. you know, I was, you know, and this is very common. They would go to the Sente, the Humbanda, which is like these Brazilian, like, spiritist practices. And this, I found this so often where I would talk to someone and they would say,

oh, yeah, well, you know, I had this horrible thing when I was a kid and we didn't have money to pay a doctor. So my mom took me to the Baidic Santo, which is like a, you know, practitioner of the spiritism. And they would invariably say, yeah, so they did this thing on me. and I felt better and I felt good for a month or two. And then after that, I got this horrible disease and I've been suffering terribly for 20 years now. And so I would start to pray and I would say,

okay, you need to renounce all involvement in that spiritism. In the cumbanda, the condomble, you need to renounce that, break the agreement with it, tell you don't want it, and then in Jesus' name, we'll command it out. And so, anyway, I was praying for this guy and he was renouncing things, and he looked like he was about to vomit. So I was like, in Jesus' name, you will not vomit.

You'll come out quietly. And while this is going on, the whole time, as I'm trying to pray with this guy, there is a woman curled up at my feet in a fetal position, screaming her head off. And so at a certain point, I looked down to her and gently but firmly said, in the name of Jesus, I command you to be silent until I can get to you next. And so this was, you know, this was what. what it was like. But the thing is, if you know, if you're in a situation like that,

there's an evangelist preaching and he starts taking authority over stuff, and especially in areas where there's a lot of just spiritism and witchcraft. And a lot of, you know, people aren't thinking, oh, I think I'm going to go get demonized today. You know, they're just desperate and they're looking for help. And the spiritist practitioners say, well, I can help you and I'm cheaper than the doctor. And so they're like, well, okay. And then they end up tormented. I've seen this all over Latin America. Africa, I mean, this kind of dynamic. I mean, I remember at one point I was in Uganda at a meeting and there was a big open air evangelistic meeting and towards the end of it, we were walking through

the crowd offering to pray with people. And I found a woman and I said, how can I pray for you? And she said, well, you know, I have witchcraft. And I said, okay, well, you know, do you want to be free from that? And she said, yes, I do. And so I said, well, pray after me. And so I started to lead her in a prayer to break the agreement with the witchcraft. And immediately she just fell over and her voice changed and she started screaming. And in this very deep, unnaturally deep voice, she said, don't touch me. And I said, you know, no, you know, come out of her in Jesus' name. And then in the same guttural voice, she said, I kid you not, verbatim, she said,

we are many, like that. And now what do you do in a situation like that? She's like writhing in the dirt and this voice is screaming at me, you know, we are meant. So you know what I said? I don't care how many of you are. All of you just lock your little demon hands together and come out all at once, all of you, come out. And then the voice, still this unnatural voice, became a bit more plaintive. And she said, she's my wife.

And I was like, ew. So I said, no, according to the word of God, she's not your wife. She's the bride of Christ. So your assignment is canceled. And I break that demonic marriage covenant, Jesus' name, now get out. And the next thing, she was sitting in the dirt, sitting up, calm, and she just started softly saying, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.

And it was like it was gone. So, I don't know, I mean, this is, and I've seen a little bit of this in the U.S. It's more common in other countries, I say especially in like developing countries. And I think partly because like, like, it's not that there isn't demonic activity in the U.S. There is, but it's much more hidden. Because the thing is like in developing countries, because there's this dynamic of people are desperate, and so they'll go to the, you know, the shaman, the spiritist, they'll go. because there's no question that these things have power.

The question is, you know, which one can help me and, you know, how can I get help for, you know, a price I can afford. But at the same time, because there's that much more common belief that these things are real and powerful, people are, you know, much more overtly engaged in what's essentially spiritism.

And so I think that when you try to minister deliverance, the demonic stuff is much more in the open. Whereas I think in the U.S. it tends to be more hidden because, you know, I guess that earlier, you have cockroaches and as long as they can hide under a rock, they can just go on doing their cockroach thing and nobody's going to challenge them. But, you know, once you think, oh, okay, there's a demon here, we got you now. You know, we know you're there. Now we're coming after you. At that point, the gloves are off and it can get, you know, you'll have more overt manifestations. Gotcha. Oh, ma'am. All right. I want to respect your time. Let's do a little lightning round here.

You mentioned the mass exorcism right when they come in. It's actually in Catholicism, there's a rite of exorcism. In an early church, it was expected that you had demons. So they actually did an exorcism before you could come in. They just assumed you were out there like quarantine. Like let's just, we got to take care of. You probably pick something up. I mean, it's ancient Rome, right?

You probably got something. Yeah, so let's take care of that. So, you know, so play devil's advocate for me just real quick. If you had to pause it, for those mass like, you know, delivering. things, people, you know, all tipping over, is that what the skeptics? Oh, that's mass hypnosis, you know, group think, et cetera. And then for individual cases, if you had to come up with something, and I love this question, that's not spiritual, like, and posit, what is happening if someone is, you know, having these manifestations, clairvoyance, those kind of things. If you had to steal man

the other side, you know, what's going on in these other cases? Okay, so again, if I put on my Dr. Skeptical Hat, I would say it's possible there could be some hypnosis or suggestion. And it turns out that at least with vision, you can get people to read like a good half line further down the eye chart if you just like give them some suggestion, hypnosis like things. So there are effects like that. For some of the things where people are claiming to experience these supernatural, you know, there's a demon that's talking to me, you know, I'm experiencing this supernatural being. I think the sort of go-to explanation would be,

well, that's temporal lobe epilepsy, and that's causing this, you know, abnormal pattern of activity in the parts of the brain that specifically process social interactions. And so, you know, it stands the reason that, then if that area becomes abnormally active, then you might perceive as if a being is there, even when there isn't anything.

So I think that's, you know, those are kind of the go-to explanations that, you know, if I were to, argue from a materialist perspective that, you know, how can we understand what's going on? Those are the explanations that I would offer. All right. And then let's move towards a positive note here. Miracles are way cooler than demons, even though demons are morbidly fascinating.

Obviously, you have some upcoming book on an upcoming book on this, et cetera. But today, you would contend there is good evidence that miracles, especially in healing, can happen today, even if they're not as frequent as we would like. But you would say the way we would probably all understand a miracle, you've seen evidence for it, and it's something that we could all hold out hope for. Among other things, I direct the Global Medical Research Institute, which has as part of its mission a careful medical, and particular scientific, but particularly medical investigation of claims of miraculous healings.

and we regularly review cases, and we've now published a number of peer-reviewed case reports where we've found someone who says, you know, I was blind, I couldn't eat, I had this genetic disease, and they experienced a dramatic healing through prayer, and we looked at all their medical records before the healing, after the healing,

and the evidence shows that they had a disease, no one ever gets better from that disease. They were prayed for and they dramatically recovered and the medical evidence shows that they recovered from that. And so I think, you know, it sort of begs the question how do you define a miracle, right? I think the Catholic Church has what's called the Lambertini criteria, which basically say that,

you know, for something to be a miracle, there has to be a very clear 100% certain diagnosis. It has to be in this case that no one ever recovers from that. It's not possible. And yet, you know, through some intervention, a miracle happened and in the sense that they are now completely, instantly, and permanently healed from whatever that thing was. And so by that definition, yes, we found a number of cases

that I would contend meet all of those criteria, and thus I would consider miracles of healing. Got it. obviously you shared your own miraculous story of healing. So this is something that touches on you personally. You guys did some studies on people doing actual physical prayer. And I want to make sure the listeners denote that because there's a difference between thinking positive thoughts and some sort of generic tradition and actually

getting in someone's area, putting a hand on them and praying in Jesus' name. And you guys attempted to do what I think is the first research of that kind as far as like proximal, like being close and laying on hand, and people who were legally blind and deaf, and I want to be clear, these are not people missing eyes or missing ears. These are not regenerative physical miracles like we could externally see,

but people that couldn't see in here that were able to, after receiving prayer, a large majority of them, were suddenly able to pass these visual and auditory tests. And so perhaps you could just, you know, sum up again, just a little bit there, and then address some of the skeptics, you might say small sample size, we haven't done anything since then.

And how did that study impact you as a scientist? Yeah, so this was the study that we did in first in Mozambique in 2009. And then I should also add that we replicated the results in Brazil about a year later. So it wasn't just in one locality. It was across several, you know, multiple areas and multiple countries. So at the time, I was looking around and I was seeing all these miracles happen. and I was watching blind people start seeing right in front of me. And that really messed me up.

And I thought, well, you know, I'm a scientist. So where's the careful investigation of this to find out what's really happening? Like, what is, are these people really getting healed? Maybe they thought they were healed. And I think, you know, there's a, there was even a Netflix special, I think, I don't know, year or two ago, someone in the, I think in the UK who was saying, well, you know, this is all trickery. And look here, I can, you know, do a big show.

in front of a crowd of people and make people think that their eyesight was healed and make people think that they were miraculously healed, but it's all just, you know, psychological games. So if you just look at people who are, you know, who say, well, you know, I think I can't see well and now you prayed for me and now I can, well, I mean, there's a lot of things that could be going on.

And, you know, so, I mean, one possibility is holdback effects. and that is that they're purposely underperforming in the initial tests. And then, you know, once you pray for them, then they, you know, then they give it their full effort. So there's also what are called Hawthorne effects. I think there's been some controversy over this. But the basic idea is that if people are doing something by themselves, they'll work at it with a certain amount of effort. But if they know someone's looking over their shoulder, they'll try harder and work harder and maybe do better and maybe even perform a little better. So, you know, these are some of the things you might say, well, could that explain why it seems like people are seeing better or hearing better after prayer?

You could also invoke like hypnosis and suggestion. And in fact, we did, we compared the results that we found that we measured. Because remember, we're measuring this with the same equipment that, you know, that optometrists use, that audiologists use to measure hearing. We're using the same equipment. We were also careful. So it was an outdoor setting. So there was a little background. noise, we also measured that background noise to ensure that it wasn't any quieter when we tested

them afterwards. Because, you know, if you say, well, you can't, you know, the hearing was worse when they were standing next to a jet engine than when they were standing in a quiet room, right? Well, okay, maybe it's not that their hearing got better. It's that they're not, it's not being drowned out by jet engine. So we confirmed that there was no difference in the ambient sound levels, you know, in the before versus after. So these, these are, are some of the things we did to control for what was going on. In terms of other, you know, other possible explanations, I mean, when we looked at hypnosis and suggestion, the effects that we found were many times, many times larger than what you would, what we saw looking at the

published literature on the effects of hypnosis and suggestion on eyesight and hearing. So like, we actually compared them side by side and showed that, well, this brief prayer intervention was, much more effective than what you see with hypnosis or suggestions. So that suggests that it's maybe not just that going on. And part of why we wanted to look at eyesight and hearing is because if you get a good measurement of someone's visual acuity and their hearing, it's a little bit hard to fake being better, right? It's hard.

It's not like you can just say, oh, well, you know, I'm blind, but if I just really try hard and psych myself up, I can see better. Okay. That's not generally how it works. So I think these are some of the, these are some of the objections that people raise. And, you know, what I would say is, you know, I did these measurements myself.

I personally did the, it was called a carjurger protocol to measure people's hearing thresholds. I personally did, you know, administered the eye charts, testing the visual acuity. And I know what I measured. And in a lot of cases, it was dramatic improvements. And, you know, it still begs the question. Well, what, you know, was the back of the eye being healed or was it, you know, exactly which, you know, cells were being healed or what was going on?

And in that study, I can't say, right, because we didn't have the means to measure it at that time. What I can say is that we have looked at cases of blindness healing where we did have the medical records. And we have found dramatic, even, you know, otherwise medically impossible, you know, restorations, not just of the, you know, ability. to see, but where you can actually see that the back of the eye that was all damaged and medically should never be able to recover, did in fact recover. And so I think there is evidence that this isn't just in someone's head. There's actual organic disease that's being actually healed in a way that you can observe with medical imaging tests. So I think there's definitely more going on. And these are, you know, these are questions that we're still actively exploring as part of the

the mission of the global medical research institutes. Let me ask just a tough question, too. When I read this, I was just so, you know, just moved by this. And then I saw you duplicated it in Brazil. But why is this just so out of the ordinary, or is it because it's such a small sample size that I would think that with these results, people would be rushing to fund. Because the studies are not, it's not like it requires lasers and crazy.

I mean, yeah, it's travel. and it's obviously, you know, there's some facilitation that has to happen. But, you know, this is, I would imagine there's way more expensive studies to be done. And so I'm just curious, why have others not deign to undertake study in the same way of this? So first of all, there are some other studies that have been done. So there was a study by Dale Matthews with Francis McNutt about, that came out in 2000, looking at sort of in-person prayer for healing in that case of arthritis. and there was a lot of improvement.

Although the blood markers of inflammation didn't change, people's perception of their self-reported pain and functionality improved dramatically. There's another fellow in Dick Krauthoff in the Netherlands who published a series of 83 cases that they looked into of remarkable healings. And they concluded that a number of them were remarkable, but none of them were completely beyond

any possible medical explanation. And I think if you look at the published scientific literature on this, there's not many papers, but there are a few. And the thing is, so there's one study well over 20 years ago that looked at the effect of prayer for healing on people undergoing heart surgery. And they found that the people who got prayed for, even if they didn't know they were being prayed for, did a whole lot better than the people who weren't prayed for.

And so this was encouraging. And so there was actually then a follow-up study that was done by, that was funded, you know, large-scale study funded by the John Tebelton Foundation that was published in 2006. And they found that the people who were, these are people undergoing heart surgery for which there's a high rate of complications.

So they got two groups of people to pray for the people who were, you know, undergoing heart surgery. And they found that the people who got prayed for and didn't know it didn't really do any better than the people who weren't prayed for. and the people who knew they were being prayed for actually did worse. They had more complications.

And this was kind of a big damper on things. Now, if you look more closely and you ask, well, what's this prayer intervention that they were measuring? The groups that they had doing the praying were groups that one of them will say explicitly as their sort of organizational position that we don't believe in praying for healing to God. We don't believe, you know, God heals. We don't believe there is a God. It's all within you. And like, so it's, it's, I mean, in science, there's this issue called construct validity.

And it's the question of when you do an experiment and you think you're measuring something, are you actually measuring the thing that you think you're measuring? And in this case, it looks to me like this study had, you know, they said, well, we've got people praying for healing, but the people didn't actually believe in praying for healing. So what then are they doing? And likewise with the other group that was doing the praying, it wasn't clear that they believed and that praying for healing was even a good thing or that you should do it. And so I don't know why they spent all this money to do this study, and yet the groups that they

had didn't seem to match what they were actually wanting to study. There's actually review articles, so like the Cochrane Reviews has a sort of a medical review article service that reviews the state of research on various medical conditions. and treatments. And they have an article on the effects of prayer for healing. And they concluded that, well, there's not many studies, and the few studies that exist, you know, not all of them show an encouraging effect,

like this, you know, heart surgery study I mentioned. And so therefore, you know, we don't really think this is a good use of time and effort and money to do more studies of this. My impression is that within the church, the Christian church writ large, there tends to be a bit of skepticism about, you know, science, you know, and this goes back to like, you know, ever since the scopes trial and like creation,

evolution, there's just a little bit of like, well, I don't know about the science thing. And so meanwhile, you have like Buddhists, for example, are really great at doing scientific studies of like meditation and mindfulness. There's tons of studies because I think by and large the Buddhist community values science. And, I mean, I went to the society. for neuroscience meeting years ago, and their keynote speaker was none other than the Dalai Lama. The Buddhists are very engaged in doing scientific research, and they have a lot of papers showing that there are these effects of mindfulness, meditation practices. And I think the Christians,

there's this deep-seated mistrust of science, and because of that, there's this kind of a version to engaging with it. And so because there hasn't been much engagement by the Christian community and studying, you know, their own practices, there's not a lot of published research. And so what that means is someone who looks at it will say, well, there's just not a lot of good research on this and there's not much there. So I'm kind of here trying to fix that, saying, you know, let's study this. And, you know, I'm not interested in being a shill. You know, if there's not an effect, then I'm not going to say there is. But I think we need much more careful research, but I think it ultimately requires a culture ship within the church to understand

the value of science. Because if Christians did do more studies, I think there would be a whole lot more impact. There'd be a whole lot more to talk about. And you could say, well, you know, I think, you know, I think prayer is an effective thing. And here's all these scientific studies. But if you don't have the scientific research to back it up, why should anyone believe you? I mean, if someone makes a scientific claim to me and they don't have evidence to back it up. I'm not necessarily going to believe that. So anyway, I think, you know, the church needs to do a better job, basically. Yeah, that's awesome. All right. Let's finish on a good note. Let's go one. Anything else you want to say before I wrap us up here? Is there anything you missed? First of all, reemphasized that, you know, some of the stuff, deliverance,

miraculous healing seem pretty out there and especially for a scientist. And I think especially, there may be listeners out there who are saying, well, you know, but I'm a scientist or I'm scientifically minded. I'm not just going to swallow this hole. And I would say, I think that's great. You should look at things critically and, you know, try to find out what's true. But in the process, don't dismiss things out of hand, right?

Actually engage them. And that's what I'm trying to do. And that's what I recommend. And also, if you do want more information on medical and scientific investigations of the effects of prayer on healing and medical outcomes, you can look at our website, www.globalmri.org, and we have a whole library of papers that are, I think, useful materials, and a lot of those are free to download. All right, let's leave the listeners with a note of optimism, proper tone to have towards the

deliverance, especially as one who has personally seen miracles, experienced a miracle, and experienced deliverance. basically have kind of run the gamut there. Give people a parting message on proper, your take on attitude and reasons for hope, on which you hope everyone gets out of this. I've seen a lot of people experience dramatic amounts of freedom where medicine, psychotherapy, as much as I appreciate them, just haven't helped. And so I think there's absolutely a place for deliverance ministry. But there is one single overriding principle that, in my view, must guide all deliverance, all exorcism, all such things.

And that principle is love. The most important thing is that if you are ministering to someone, your concern, your primary concern, is to love that person. And part of loving them is helping them get free. But it's not about the demons. It's not about having a show. It's about getting that person free with a minimum of trauma. As far as healing goes, the principle that I've found particularly useful is what Jesus said.

Ask and it'll be given to you. Seek and you'll find. Knock and the door will be open to you. When I was desperate, I said, I will go anywhere. I will do anything. I will pay any price to find a miracle. And I did. I traveled the world.

And I saw all kinds of things that I'm quite sure I would not have seen if I had. And you may not be able to travel, but consider what can you do? because, you know, if you believe what Jesus said, you know, if you believe the Bible, it says you will seek me and you'll find me when you seek me with all your heart. And so I can't promise you a miracle. No one can, but what I can say is that when I pursued it and put everything I could into pursuing it,

I found a whole lot of things that I would not otherwise have found. And would I have been healed if I hadn't? I don't know. I mean, we'll never know. And it's risky. And I think you have to decide, are you willing to take that risk? Because the thing is, if you say, well, I'm just going to get ready to die or whatever, you can't be disappointed, okay?

But if you hope, there's a cost to hope and there's a risk to hope. And you have to be willing to take that risk and pay that cost. And not everyone is, and I think that's okay. But you need to decide that. And if you're willing to pursue it, I think you'll find things. But you have to be willing to take the risk and pay the cost. Oh