The Exorcist Files - Mental Health and The Demonic with Dr. Sean Tobin

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

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Hey everyone. Father Martins here. First and foremost, I want to say thank you to all who have communicated concern for my broken ribs. I'm managing, but I'm still in a lot of pain. Even after two weeks, it feels like day one of my fall. Because I'm on this major tour with the relics of St. Jude, I can't just sit somewhere and heal. I have to keep moving. I have surely felt the effects of your prayers. They are what keep me going. But your prayers are needed now more than ever. Yesterday was the worldwide release of my new book, and I received a phone call from my book agent,

who has worked tirelessly to make my publication a worldwide phenomenon. He's a wonderful man of God who loves Christ with all his heart. He is also a powerful influence in the literary world, representing some of the most widely read Christian authors worldwide. At 3 a.m., he awoke to water gushing us, in his home. A pipe had burst and water was spewing out, and the first floor was already underwater. As he moved downstairs to shut off the water main, he slipped on the tile floor, landing on his hip and hitting his head. The top of his head currently sports an inch and a half

gash, and he has badly bruised. He and I are the team that put this book out. The fact that both of us had falls on the cusp of the book's release, along with the fact that it was at 3 a.m., the inverse of the hour of glory when our Lord died on the cross, that he was awoken, and that it was specifically a manifestation of water, the meaning of which I will speak about in a future episode, all speaks of one thing. The enemy is unhappy at this book's release, and is lashing out at the team that made it happen.

But I want you to be clear about one thing. You are not in any danger if you purchased it. How do I know? Because if you were in any danger, the enemy would not have attacked us. He would have been content with us saying nothing and leaving you to take whatever licks he had planned. It would all be part of his plan. But the fact that he has attacked us reveals his anger at us for getting this book into your hands. He doesn't want you to read it. And for us, his attacks are simply an affirmation of a job well done.

In today's episode, Ryan fills in for me again as interviewing with broken ribs is not a pleasant experience, and I need to save as much energy as possible. He sits down with a new friend of the show, Dr. Sean Tobin, a brilliant clinical psychologist and mental health expert, to talk about the interplay between the mind and the demonic. You're going to love it. I'm a big believer in the importance of therapy, and Dr. Tobin's discussion and insightful teaching will show you why. As a reminder, Advent is coming up. Men, if you can, consider joining Exodus's Advent Challenge. It's an incredible way to go closer to God this season. Go to Exodus 90.com slash X-Files. That's E-X-Files. Enjoy the show and God bless you. Welcome back to The Exorcist Files, the show where we tell demons, they got to go. With me today is a new friend whose last

name sounds awfully apocryphilic, if that's even the proper adjective. Dr. Sean Tobin is in the father's house today. Dr. Tobin, thanks so much for being here. He is a mental health professional and expert. I will let him introduce his copious academic qualifications before we veer off into the world of the metaphysical and the supernatural. Dr. Tobin, thanks for being here today. give us a little bit of your background and why we should listen to you at all. Yeah, well, thank you. It's an honor to be here, obviously, with you. Yeah, I'm honored to call you a friend as well and love what you're doing for the podcast, but even more for the kingdom of the church. I'm a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles, and I have been working for a number of years now with

individuals seeking evaluations in order to get an exorcism. And so in that field, I have been, accompanying people not just in exorcisms, but also just in therapeutic support. And I actually wrote my doctoral dissertation on the topic on exorcism, deliverance, and psychotherapy. So this has been kind of something that the Lord's been bringing up in me for quite a long time now and got a new little social media endeavor myself, big God, little devil, and a book coming out on it, just to really share some of the testimonies and the wisdom and teaching of what the Lord has been doing really through me in my life. So it's been a long time coming. I was actually

introduced to this whole, I guess, genre of deliverance when I was in religious life. So I'd spent a few years in religious life after doing my pre-theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville. And I started to encounter a lot of people in conferences and different settings who would manifest in sometimes really extreme ways. Manifest demons specifically. Yes, manifest demons, especially around a lot of the priests, actually. They have to start swearing and cursing and spitting and different kinds of gestures and everything else. And I originally was atheist for a great number of years.

And so coming into faith, I was always very curious about the supernatural and try to understand, like, what is this really about? And having those experiences in religious life, it kind of put this thought in my mind is like, what is happening in these people? Because we don't typically see that as much as we do in the scriptures in the first century where clearly people were exercised and it doesn't seem like it happens as often nowadays. But from my experiences in religious life, and then especially when I started my practice, it's just become real on such another level. It's been quite a journey. So as far as your academic backgrounds, and so besides the school of Hard Knocks, you have a lot of fancy degrees, and it sounds like you put the deliverance in the PhD part, so that's where you're...

I didn't even know they offered that as a program, but what are your actual degrees? And I asked this because, you know, when we go off in the subject, there's this sort of, I think there's this perception that somehow to believe in some of this implies that you can't have any academic perspective and it's bizarre and it's outside science. And yet we find many mental health professionals, Dr. Richard Gallagher, has been on the show, Dr. Joshua Brown, who's a neuroscientist. We've met quite a few people with advanced. degrees who are all very willing to admit, say, yes, we have experiences and we believe the evidence points towards that. You are a man of a learning. So I want to address that before they say we just had

some just interesting man off the street here. Yeah, there you go. I have a degree, a bachelor's in philosophy and theology from Franciscan University. And then I went on to Divine Mercy University to get a master's in clinical psychology. And then I went on to a Zsa Pacific University to get another master's and then eventually a Psydi. So a psychology doctorate. And kind of on point, a lot of the people that I was studying with have conversations with fellow Christians about that integration between our faith and psychology and the sciences. And I was really curious about these experiences I've had with supernatural phenomenon. And it just didn't seem like it was being addressed in any of the books on Freud that we were

reading or any of the other theorists who really were skeptics, obviously, of the supernatural. And I also found that when I was talking about it and asking questions, a lot of my colleagues were getting really uncomfortable. And it just seemed like this elephant in the room that people didn't really want to talk about. Or at best, they thought that maybe it was just a metaphor because they didn't know how to relate to those things in the past, but it was really just mental illness. And so it definitely was a challenge to dig into it scientifically. But in my dissertation, it really was just my taking it upon myself to do the research to see if there's any kind of precedence in the psychological databases. And I was surprised to find many case studies and even

theoretical studies that look at cases of exorcisms and history of exorcisms. By many psychiatrists, even some anthropologists. And there's a lot of evidence of extracism being a valid intervention in people's lives. I went into even writing a dissertation already having a bit of a bias. Being a Catholic, I really believe that exorcism had a valid place. Even though it seemed like some of the demons Jesus was casting out of people, it looked like they had a psychiatric condition, like epilepsy or, you know, dissociative identity disorder. But clearly he was casting out some spirit. And so I was kind of biased thinking, okay, exorcism has a valid place. Let's back it up with the science. But I actually found that there was a lot of validity, too, to how some of the naturalistic scientists saw exorcism and saw demonic possession.

There's far more going on in the person than just the presence of a demon that's controlling them. There's a significant amount of our brokenness that's also at play in how they're presenting and what they're really operating through. And so it really made me look at everything in a different way. All right, so let me take a step back because we always ask everyone this on the show, two-part of here. So demons are real, right? And then can you share an experience that to the best of your faculties is enough evidence

to say, I think I've experienced this firsthand, and I can say, what is that these things are real? Yeah. Well, some of the clients that I see, I would identify as being somewhat possessed, somewhat. They speak in other languages that they don't know. They have strange bodily contortions that seem humanly impossible. There was one time in particular, though, where I was working with this client, and we were really getting at this point of breakthrough where they were experiencing so much healing, but the demons kept interrupting our dialogue as we're processing this traumatic memory. And I actually got annoyed for a moment. And I told the demons, be quiet and interrupting. I just blurted it out. She looked at me funny and she was like, are you a priest? Are you a priest?

And at that moment, my phone blew up and I was getting all these social media messages from people in different foreign countries asking me, are you a priest? Are you a priest? All at the same time. And I was like, okay, something is going on in this. And I just knew that it was not just a coincidence. So coincidence I like to say is God's way of staying anonymous. But this is more than that, this is something meaningful. To me, that was a big sign that I'm sitting with something across from me. That's beyond just a natural thing.

So turn off those cookies. I always knew that cookies on your browser were demonic. I knew it. There's too many times I've mentioned a jacket and it appears in an ad. I thought this is so strange. So when you say clients, you are a therapist then? Is that the best way to put it? You're walking people through mental health situations. And then in the course of that, because you are Catholic and you will bring in spirituality, at times you have found that there are potentially supernatural forces at work as well. And you try to integrate both into your practice. Is that a fair characterization? Yeah, basically, I'm a psychotherapist or clinical psychologist, counselor therapist, whatever you want to really call it.

And I mean, primarily work with just your general outpatient population. I'm actually part of a Catholic group practice in Los Angeles called the Divine Mercy Clinic, where we have therapists and priests working alongside one another. And really meeting with clients that need a psychiatric or psychological evaluation prior to receiving an exorcism or alongside. it. That's kind of how I started to interact with people in that space, as well as just word of mouth. My wife and I were the directors of the Encounter School of Ministry here in Los Angeles, which is an amazing discipleship program in the Catholic Church. And really through that ministry, I got introduced to a lot of people who, in the deliverance world, that needed someone more to

talk to. And so started to talk to people there. I believe that the brain is a social organ. it's formed in relationships. And ultimately, I believe that we're body, soul, spirit. We're made by God in his image and likeness. And that our relationship with God is very psychological. And the spiritual realm ultimately can play itself out in the battlefield of the mind. And there's just a lot that comes together in this space. And technically, as a psychologist, you know, psyche means soul.

So it's like a soul doctor. And so when you're dealing with souls, I mean, I mean, Satan ultimately is after souls as well. And so we're really in a tug of war sometimes with the same soul. And I just really believe that God is far stronger and I'm just glad I'm on his side. Amen. Father Martin's here. I want to do a quick plug for one of the most powerful tools I've seen for breaking free and growing closer to Christ.

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So just because I know I can see the emails being typed as we speak here. So you're not a priest. You're not an action. As the social media, the answer to that question to all your fans abroad. It was, no, I'm not a priest. I do feel called the Deaconate someday. Got young kids, though, but we'll get there. Okay.

So, yeah, you're a priest in the order of Melchizedek, a Hebrews, but you are not a priest. And so your role would be, if you suspect something is spiritual or demonic, is totally fine for you to pray with them. And I'm assuming, will you also invite a priest or someone, depending on the severity of the case or the willingness of the person to cooperate? will you invite more spiritual authority to come in with you and sort of work in concert on some of these cases? So I actually don't pray for my clients because in my role, it's professional, it's psychotherapy, and I think it can be kind of loaded. When you start to pray for people,

they can start depending on your faith and on your prayers. And sometimes it just brings too much of my own personal stuff into the room. And I really want to create a space, where we can look at what's happening even unconsciously in a person without diluting it. There's a whole different strategy in more of a professional setting as a psychotherapist. But there are times where in the course of helping someone process a traumatic memory, that saints and angels show up as well as demons. And for me, I'm less concerned with really diagnosing whether or not someone is officially possessed or not, I just see a person in front of me who, for whatever reason in God's providence, has been sent to talk to me.

And ultimately, there's someone who's suffering. And I do believe that the enemy is at work quite often because it's like our brokenness is like rotten meat that attracts flies. And the enemy is seeking to take advantage of our brokenness. But I also believe that God sometimes allows the enemy to operate in people's lives so that they might seek help. and it can create an opportunity then for healing. I have this kind of philosophy when I work with people that even when there are overt voices or different kind of manifestations where they might see things either externally or internally, it's not really up to me to say whether or not it's real necessarily.

I'm just working with this person's worldview and the meaning that they're taking from it all. And I like to say that, you know, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. But a roaring lion is a terrible prowler. He reveals where he's hiding. And so whatever the enemy is doing, my goal really is to take advantage of that opportunity that God's allowing so that we can find the areas of influence in a person's life so that we can help them receive that truth that brings freedom. I did hear you, Craig. Are you part of the process of helping evaluate people for whether or not they need a full exorcism? I am.

I work with multiple, well, exorcists really. So I'm kind of the mental health counselor that is supporting them in that process. Well, because LA's got no demons, right? I've been on the 405 at 5 p.m. I see people driving. And I know I'm like, this is warfare. And I'm asking to because, right, I mean, obviously we're always concerned with safety and protocol here. And curious because, you know, we've shared on this show that the cases we profile on the

X-S files are extraordinarily rare. They typically involve people who were intentionally very much pursuing the occult, et cetera. I mean, there are some weird ones, but generally speaking, would you echo what Father Martins has shared that to get an exorcism, right, and to actually meet that standard is really tough? In your time in doing this, it's very rare that you've met someone who would be considered full-on possessed. Well, I guess it's kind of a personal thing of how we use that word. Right. But maybe the most advanced, where they're losing agency completely and what we might consider in the movie. Yeah.

It's a challenge because as a therapist, sometimes you think everyone's messed up and everyone's broken because all day long I'm meeting with broken people and that's my whirl. And I don't always know really the realistic statistics, but I certainly see a lot of people who experience significant demonic oppression, harassment, and possession. I do think it's probably rare to be fully possessed in society as it is today. But even just to comment on something about the important of that covering or apostolic relationship with hierarchy. I worked really closely with Bishop David O'Connell, who was actually murdered a couple years ago. He was actually a very dear friend, had him over to our house all the time, and I worked with people who were coming to

office basically seeking, you know, exorcism. And he wasn't an exorcist, but he was an auxiliary bishop and used more like simple deliverance prayers with people. But he was one that really championed me stepping into this space as well. So as far as prevalence goes, I think pretty rare, although I actually don't see as many people that have gotten overtly involved in the occult. I know there's lots who have, and I do see many with, you know, whether it's Ouija boards or pendulums or different kinds of witchcraft or some aunt that is into that kind of stuff that somehow began to influence them when they're a child and, you know, they're manifesting when they're an adult or something like that. I've actually found a lot of people started

to experience significant demonic manifestations when they were going through a time of a deeper conversion in their faith. And there didn't always seem to be a reason for it. Some might say, like, Trisa Vavlet talks about in the interior castles that as we go deeper into the mansions, there's like reptiles in some of the rooms. I don't know if those are like the demons that are like rearing their heads or something like that, but it can be for a variety of different reasons that people begin to. experience this stuff. But again, I lean on the side of providence that God is allowing it to happen

for some great reason. I know it's always to somehow draw us closer to him and create an opportunity for healing. The reasons can be different for each person. Now, it sounds like from your book, you don't subscribe to it must be one or the other, that one can have significant mental psychosis as well as amplification by demonic auxiliary forces to make it sound as, you know, jargony as possible. But could you walk us through maybe a composite or sort of anonymized case of how a person might present? And then when you start thinking through, because at one level, you could say everything is spiritual. Like, you know, if we're having advanced anger issues, it could be from our circumstances, but also the human condition of woundedness and brokenness and our spiritual depravity as a whole will lead us to act out in a rational way.

So how do you think through that? And then at what point do you start saying, you know, I think more spiritual. intervention might be helpful to lean on and not just sort of our mental health. Or do you say, hey, I come out with both automatically because the two cannot be separated? Yeah. Well, I start with the anthropology. We are body, soul, and spirit. And every part of us is called to be in relationship with God. We're made for communion. And so at all those levels, there's often a disruption in relationship. And so even when it comes to say more spiritual intervention, it's still a relational intervention at some level. So I really just focus on the relationship, but just as an example,

I have noticed there are several people who might be identified as being more borderline personality, and it's a kind of disorder that can form when someone has a, basically, a fence around abandonment. And so they start to dominate in a relationship that either get really close to someone and praise them, and then to make you feel like, oh my gosh, this person loves me so much. So you want to keep them around. But as soon as you start to cross them, they undermine you and they can put a lot of power in their relationship. There's just a lot of codependence that can emerge in that kind of situation.

But ultimately, someone who struggles with borderline personality disorder, they can often develop a kind of sick role where they make themselves to feel really helpless and needing your help. And like, you're the only one that can help them. And I've seen a lot of people who, especially Catholics who are struggling with that, mental illness, when they start getting into the demonic stuff and they start feeling demonic harassment or demons starting to possess them, that that can actually be a way for them to secure a relationship with a exorcist, with a father figure, ultimately. Oftentimes when they've experienced some

significant trauma, either from the abandonment of a father or even different kinds of abuse from men, So it's a way of securing a kind of controlled relationship with a caregiver by being demonically possessed. And so you see both a mental illness as well as the spiritual reality. I actually saw one woman who talked about this early in the book. She came into my office and, I mean, she would manifest as like, you know, snakes. She'd be writhing on the floor. She actually would gain weight supernaturally and lose weight supernaturally. it was pretty bizarre.

I obviously didn't see this part, but that the demons would often try to crash her car. But just in general, she always felt it within her at any moment. But while I was sitting with this person, I just always sense like she was trying to pull me into her story, pull me into her suffering. And you can kind of sense at some level

that there was something going on here that was beyond just a spiritual thing. There was something psychological that was powerful. But would this woman, really, she'd been going to exorcisms every other week for like three years. And she would experience temporary kind of freedom. But then the demons would come back and beat her up and just torment her all night and like punch her and all kinds of other stuff and just torture her really. But in our session, I could just feel that like pull into trying to almost rescue her.

But instead of going there, I really, I just had her sit with her emotion, sit with what the demons were making her feel. And very quickly, she had memory came to mind of when she was abused as a little girl. And it was really the first time that she felt so violated, which was kind of a similar thing as what she was suffering from with the demons. So you could see how, again, the psychology created kind of an openness of experience to something potentially spiritual. Because just almost having imprinted within her this lack of boundaries then, that someone can violate me, that I don't have a defense against this. It really kind of worked in our psyche to create a space for that. I guess to make it quick, all we did was when we acknowledged that place of trauma, and we were sitting with it.

We were doing a kind of EMDR intervention, which is really helping her reprocess that memory. She saw the Lord in the scene, and he was reaching out his hand to her. And she realized at that moment that she couldn't take it. because part of her felt afraid to take his hand to then be disappointed that she wasn't free. And at the same time, there was another part of her that was afraid to take his hand because if she was freed, then she would lose the control she had over people who were then trying to help her. She almost didn't really believe that there would be a reason for them to be in her life. So you can see how this was a really complicated system for her of really just trying to get some

needs met. And we ended up just sitting with that and the Lord ended up just kind of scooping her up and taking her to this kind of scene in heaven, kind of took her out of that memory into this place in heaven where she basically just surrounded her with all these saints and angels. And she was feeling so powerfully loved that the demon that had been present in her completely fled. And the reason why I guess I speak at length about this one story is because it was the first moment that I saw someone who was significantly demonized and was suffering for years with this demon, completely set free in one session just because the Lord was powerfully loving her in a meaningful place. So he was really healing a wound, which then removed any kind of foothold, the enemy might have had to affect her in some kind of spiritual way. And so, you know, obviously these are just your experiences.

And I guess there's a plausible explanation too is that, because you go, she's been experiencing exorcisms and not found relief, but it could be that sovereignly God wanted her to get into therapy and work it out this way to find freedom. And so I think it's probably something we have to remember, right, is that the God knows the outcome he wants. And so it sounds like she got some significant mental health healing, which maybe in a context,

you wouldn't have had the same breakthrough psychologically that would happen in the context of augmenting the healing in therapy. Is that a fair statement? Yeah, I mean, God's providence, again, of how he is to bring the healing into this person's life. Maybe it was to kind of get her foot in the door for therapy. But I would say even when it comes to exorcism, there's obviously spiritual authority over demons, but to the broken parts of a person,

and this is where I was describing how there's more going on than just a spiritual thing, and that this person is experiencing some brokenness and a defense system that the demons are really manipulating ultimately. But it's as she was healed, again, they remove the foothold, where I believe that exorcism has the potential of being so powerful, really, is because it's an experience of Christ. It's an experience of a father who is intervening for a child. And that in itself is powerful in healing.

Files. Let me ask a practical question. Because you mentioned like she'd come in and she'd start crawling on the floor. Does that happen? Like, I guess I'm trying to figure out because you're meeting with these patients by yourself, right? And one of the general guidelines is, you know, if you suspect demons, it's buddy system, right? But I'm assuming these people don't slither into your office. Walk me a little bit through the, because I could hear some listeners going, wait.

Someone starts manifesting a demon like you go, hey, like, can we get, you know, help? Yeah. Well, when I was working at the psychiatric hospital, I remember there was actually several clients who would come up to me and said, I am Satan. And, you know, some of them were Hitler the day before, different kinds of, you know, figures or whatever and very sick in their minds and more of a mental illness thing. There was so many patients that seemed very violent. And so I was kind of around that, right?

But my experience, though, with people who are demonized and possessed, I think about the passage in Mark V when Jesus gets off the boat after the storm that he was sleeping through, right? And they get off the boat and there's the demoniac in the tombs whom the villagers, you know, were trying to bind with chains and he was breaking the chain. It's just like that supernatural strength. And they're just afraid of this guy and trying to keep him in the tunes. And here he is, like, running towards Jesus. I'm sure just the disciples were kind of, like, standing behind Jesus. Like, let's just see how he's going to handle the situation, right? There's no impression you get at all that Jesus was at all afraid of this man.

Like, he knew his authority, but also he knew the limit set on evil by God. He knew the limit, and that God would not permit this man from doing anything to him. him that was not permitted by the father. And I also recognize that when it comes to people who are demonized, demons try to take advantage of our own internal division, our own internal conflict. And I just know that oftentimes when someone's manifesting, there's actually a part of them that's getting provoked by the love they're experiencing even in that setting. The demons are ultimately are trying to keep the person from receiving that which will set them free. And they're trying to almost take up space and take up attention even.

I know that there's a part of this person that's being touched. And ultimately, I know that this person does not want to hurt me. I'm just not afraid of a demon. And I just am really, I just really believe in this person that sometimes I believe that the enemy wants you to engage in a power struggle. with him. He's kind of baiting you into a power struggle. And I'm just not into that. So I just trust that this person does not will me any harm. And I'm just going to sit here and really give them space to help them understand what's going on and that I'm with them. I'm for them. And again, I take that example of Jesus as some inspiration. It's interesting. St. Ephraim, he said that

when Jesus sent that man back to his people who had bound him, he says that he sent him back as a rebuke to that people. Because I think so often we really want to separate people that we don't trust or that we think are dangerous from us and we think someone's sick or someone's possessed and we try to separate them from us. But that is a person then who is even more isolated and alone. And I think they're looking for someone who's willing to just

enter into that space, even if I'm not, you know, intervening by casting out a demon in Jesus name directly and I'm really just holding space for them for healing's sake. I don't know. I've never found a situation where honestly I've been afraid that I was going to be hurt. Even though there's been lots of threats, there's been lots of like, you know, crazy behavior and the demon's clearly saying, I'm going to, you know, murder you and all your family and everyone else and stuff like that. and, you know, whatever. It's like water on the duck's back, you know. So I don't know.

I just know that I'm safe in the Lord, and I'm more focused on the person underneath. All right. So I guess someone starts slithering on the ground in your office. They can come back next week. You just say, we're out of time today. Yeah, exactly. We're coming close to the end of our session here.

I think we made great progress. Are you ever meeting with people? I'm always curious about this. If someone's undergoing exorcism sessions, will the priests often put them simultaneously in therapy at the same time? Are they kind of concurrent roads? Yes, absolutely. Because clearly there's a lot going on in the person, a person who is possessed and going through that process.

There's always something meaningful about the manifestations. There's always something meaningful about this specific influence in their life and connected to our brokenness. Therapy just means healing in Greek. It's the Greek word for healing. It's interesting, though, that Jesus often, his actresses, were called, therapy. They were called healings. He was healing people sometimes of demonic influence. And so I think deliverance and exorcism fits under the umbrella ultimately of healing. And I'm just trying to do one part of, I guess, that entire picture, really helping to folk on someone's psychology

more so. But yeah, oftentimes priests will send them to therapy. Also because ultimately priests sometimes don't have the ability to spend such quality time with a person. and it can be an extensive process, especially when there's a lot of trauma in someone's history. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about how you discern, you know, whether something is demot, because we get that a lot of us. You know, you have a lot of, we want to cultivate this awareness, right, and walk in that realm of, is a real thing. It's a tool, and you have a therapeutic tool to address it if it is that. But on the other hand, obviously, and this is a challenge we run into on the show, is when you document these extreme cases,

you do have people in the back of their minds going, am I, did I, like, is my job tough right now because of my great, great-grandfather's free masonry, right? And how do we like, you know, manage that tension there? So what's Dr. Tobin's sort of high-level, hey, you know, one, are you a Christian? So I guess if you're a Christian, guess what? You all technically already are under attack

in every aspect of your life. So don't worry, you know, and to be attacked is a compliment. Absolutely, because you're God's favorite, right? So you're a big target on your back. Well, you kind of brought up a couple things there. First thing is that when I look at a person, I'm less focused on identifying the degree of any kind of demonic influence, like oppression or whatever. When people come in, they aren't identifying with what's happening to them. And oftentimes they feel like victims to this demonic stuff and they can have like a victim mindset about it.

And of course, because they're overwhelmed and don't know how to become free and they're kind of stuck in that for whatever reason. But I really want to help people break out of a victim mentality to really find that there is freedom in Christ. And ultimately in Christ, they are set apart. I mean, it says in 1st John 518 that those that are born of God, God protects and the evil one can't touch them. So just by our conversion and union with Christ, you know, in deeper and deeper ways, we really are set apart. from anything the enemy might be able to do. So when I see a person come in, I'm less concerned sometimes with trying to figure out why they're oppressed

and more focused on how I can shift them to become the oppressor, even of the enemy's kingdom, because they are our light of the world, and by nature we're called to drive out darkness in our very being, you know, as evangelist to preach the gospel of the kingdom in that way and to really come against the works of the enemy. And so I really am focused, first of all, on this person's belief system, their mindsets.

And as I said, I believe that the person, every part of us is relational. And the relationship with God has incredible psychological impact. Like if you believe that God has abandoned you, that he's just letting all this stuff happen to you, then you're not going to be super safe with God. You're not going to really trust him. And ultimately, if you think that God's mad at you, you're going to probably have a really terrible mood throughout the day. So we can diagnose you with depression, but I think it's a lot more effective sometimes. Talk about this image that you have of God. Let's talk about this relationship

and ultimately where that's coming from, what form that kind of lends in your life to see God that way. And so I focus a lot on helping people work on the relationship with God alongside the expert really support by priests and exorcists. I just found that God, God is just very creative. St. John Cres Austin says that he uses the devil like a surgeon uses a scalpel. Sometimes he has to bring damage to one part to bring about a deeper healing or like a vine dresser using shears to prune us. And so even when the enemy is present, it's one of the avenues into a person's being that God is allowing because he wants to bring about a deeper wholeness and integration of their entire being.

And whether it's then an emotional thing, a physical thing, a spiritual thing, God is just infinitely creative to be able to use anything to create an opportunity for us to be healed. And so in some ways, I'm not really as focused on really identifying whether or not there really is a spirit. If this person believes there's a spirit, well, I'm going to work with that. I'm going to work with what they believe because it has meaning. it has meaning. And even if I have a spiritual gift where I see, and between you and me, sometimes I do, you know, see things in the spirit, quote unquote, and I have a very strong

sense of something in the room, or someone walks in and I immediately start to feel something like some, I smell something like putrid, or I have this incredible, like, suffocating feeling within. I just know there's a presence with this person that I've never met before that's just walking into my office. It's almost like there's a aroma around them of some sort that's coming from some presence in their life. Sometimes I'll be talking to them. I mean, I've met people who, you know, schizophrenic, who hear lots of voices. But sometimes that there's a distinct quality to a voice that you just know is coming from something else. There's just like a distinct evil or weight of presence on the voice that feels spiritual.

almost, and you can kind of sense that. But even when that's the case, I'm still looking at, why does that demon have any kind of influence over this person if they are in Christ? So that's what I'm kind of focused on. So I mentioned it because I hear this, right? And I love all this, right? In our talks, it's always been about magnifying Christ and shining a light on all this stuff and how insignificant these things are relative to Christ. Obviously, though, Paul warns us or admonishes us in Ephesion 6 that, you know, this is a battle. that we are engaged in, et cetera. So how do you sort of reconcile Paul's constant reminders of, like,

gear up for war and prepare for this? And do not be unaware of these schemes with a whole, you know, the sort of dismissive, like, you know, I'm not too worried about those things. I focused on God. And there seems to be attention there. Totally. Well, Paul said to not, he doesn't want to be ignorant of the enemy in his schemes, right? He doesn't want to be ignorant of it because, you know, God's people perish for lack of knowledge.

but he says doing all we can to stand, stand, clothed in the armor of God, right? That our battle really is to stand. He talks about in Timothy that the fight of faith, it's not really against the enemies, it's about laying hold of the life to which we're called. When he talks in Ephesians 6 about, you know, we don't battle against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities, that word battle in the Greek, I think it's the word palae, which really means to wrestle, to struggle with. And so God really has given us a sparring partner because you might say that he creates an opportunity for us not only to win crowns, but also to train us in spiritual discipline.

Because, you know, a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor as the saying goes. A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor. God gives us the enemy sometimes to prove to us who we are to actually grow. Jesus learned obedience by what he suffered. And sometimes it's in our wrestling with the enemy that God can raise us up. Like Paul, he also suffered from Thorn in the flesh, the messenger from Satan, which is a demonic spirit, an angel from Satan, one of Satan's angels. He was struggling with this part of his flesh, clearly, where he was prideful, where he's insecure with weakness. And God allowing that to happen really brought him to a place where he is just poor and broken and crying.

out to the Lord until the Lord transformed the way he saw his weakness, and then he could boast from it. So it served a purpose. It's interesting because Paul talks even in Maxey's the Apostles, but there's one time where it said the Spirit of God wouldn't let him go somewhere, but then elsewhere it says Satan didn't let him go there. So like, which is it? Was it Satan or the Spirit of God? I think the point is that God's using the enemy. All things work for the good for those that love him and call to purposes. You know, all things are made through him and for him, including the enemy. It's made for God's purposes. So I think sometimes we can react to the enemy rather than responding to God. I absolutely believe that the enemy is real and present. I believe bacteria is real and present,

and I'm not ignorant of it, so I wash my hands, right? I pray. I make sure that I check, before all things, guard your heart for the wellspring of life. I guard my heart in the Lord, and I protect that relationship with God because it's the most important thing to me. And I'm not ignorant of how the enemy is trying to weasel his way into the garden to disrupt that relationship. But I also recognize that when it happens, God's creating an opportunity for growth. And so, again, I don't react to the enemy. I respond to what God is doing. And so it kind of sometimes seems like, yeah, like whatever.

I just not impressed by the enemy. I mean, God has totally disarmed him, given us the anti-venom of the Holy Spirit, who is with us, leading us into all truth. There's really nothing we have to fear from our opponent. And yeah, it's kind of my attitude. Yeah, I mean, it's tough too, right? Because obviously 11 of Christ's, you know, apostles get martyred, right? And so there's the whole, you know, and that's the, you know, the joke my Catholic friends say is, you know, come suffer with it or come die with us, right?

So I guess if you can just get past that, I'm already dead. If you can accept mentally that you already have at some level expired, then he'll be okay. Then the parasite can't grab on to anything. Yeah. Yeah. No. And actually, I love that too. And he says, do not fear the one, you know, who can kill the body, but who can kill the soul.

And I was like, you know, I have a good friend and mentor. And he works on the show with us too. And he wears this hat all the time says, says, I'm already dead. It's crazy how freeing it is to just accept that, hey, like the moment you were born, that clock was ticking. Yeah. And just like, what are you going to do? You know, I'm curious.

You mentioned this thing about positional prayer because I want to get into also just sort of the psychosis you see with people today. Yeah. Because it is interesting. We live in a world saturated by content and we have, especially in the Western world, a lot of prosperity. It's interesting. I wonder if the battleground has shifted more into the mind or if we feel more sort of preeminence there because of the kind of how many of our Maslowian basic needs are met now for many. for many of us. So the war is upstairs now. And I'm curious, you talk about this positional prayer and like what you did with that woman, but like can you walk us through like a composite? Like if I were to

come to you and say, hey, I'm dealing with depression and anxiety and pervasive night terrors is a big one we get from a lot of people. How would Dr. Tobin begin that session and then how would we move into positional prayer as a kind of way to kind of work through that? Well, you know, anxiety and depression is a symptom ultimately of a kind of system of belief, a way in which this person is identifying as their role and their worldview. And so I look for context. I try to understand their history when it comes to dreams. And there's a lot of meaning in dreams. And ultimately, I mean, even says in Job 33, I think 14 to 18, how God can terrify us in our dreams to keep our feet from stumbling, that he kind of can warn us about certain things. And I've heard this analogy once that if you remember the story where Gideon,

he overheard the soldiers in an enemy's camp talking about a dream they had of this loaf of bread rolling down the hill and they're like, oh, surely that must be Gideon, because I think they're probably on a keto diet and bread is the enemy. But sometimes I believe that sometimes the enemy, God can almost be showing us the enemy's playbook in a dream. And so dreams can have a lot of meaning as well as obviously psychological. We're processing and consolidating things in our dreams. And so sometimes I actually will just start with a dream where, again, sometimes integrating with EMDR and the other tools, where the dream can serve as a metaphor that ultimately is activating meaningful parts of this person's mind and heart. And it's a way of engaging to get insight into what's happening within

the person and ultimately where it's from. So dreams just so close. So do you think most dreams are significant in the sense, maybe not spiritually, but the idea is if you're dreaming about something, it has activated some part of you. The fact that you dream about something means there's something significant in that you like you were triggered by it, even if it's nonsensical or just random. Or do you like, I guess I know a lot of people make a lot of decisions based on dreams.

And in scripture, we've got a couple examples. Like if God talks twice in a dream and you're going to rule over your friends and brothers, don't tell them. That goes bad. But like, yeah, so how do you start with dreams? Glad to your status.

This is kind of controversial. Sure. And we'll circle back to the positioning prayer thing. So with dreams, I have several clients who dreams are at the forefront of their suffering even, that every single night they have dreams. Sometimes they have dreams of things that end up coming true. In California, there's lots of earthquakes, but significant earthquakes or the timing of earthquakes. I've seen some crazy signs.

When I was in religious life, I lived with this brother from Uganda, and he's an incredible man. Edward Rubimala, he runs this boogeyman. Myro Foundation, amazing guy. He basically started an orphanage in a school in Uganda, one of my favorite people in the whole world. But he never used an alarm clock, but he would wake me up at like two or three in the morning because he had a dream about the other brothers and that something was going to happen. And it was so annoying because I get grumpy and irritable and I didn't want to, you know, wake up and it's ruining my sleep. But I trust it because every single time he got me up to pray with him with his dream, it happened the next day. Now, I'm someone who

never dreamed for so long until I really actually started to pray into it more and learning about rest and other things too. But that really impacted me that dreams are powerful because I think so often we kind of ignore dreams, but clearly dreams are actually one of the promises of Pentecost, your old mental dream dreams. It's not just because they nap a lot. I think it's a sign of maturity is a sign of us having this prophetic, constant relationship with God where even at night he directs our hearts. Now, when it comes to the content of dreams, if it stands out, if it seems significant, if it sticks to your mind as you wake up, I mean, I always encourage people to kind of, you know, document their dreams, keep like a dream journal. And there's times where it can be interesting

to kind of pray into it. We're not just trying to figure it out. It's a conversation starter. In everything that you experience in dreams, it starts a conversation with God. Whether it's something about you, and it's just something you're processing, like the pizza you had the night before, no matter what it is, it can benefit you then to have self-knowledge, or you might discover how God is actually speaking to you through the dream. So no matter what it is, it's a conversation starter. But in some way, because it's happening within you in a very meaningful, projective way sometimes, it's always very deeply personal. so there's always something you can gain from it. So even approaching it from a psychological lens or from a spiritual lens,

trying to interpret what God is trying to say through it, I think there's value. But my only challenge is I'm kind of against saying it's all this or all that. It's purely God speaking all the time or purely the soul processing. Because, you know, if you apply the psychological tools of like Freud and Young to interpret dreams

to the dreams of the Bible, you're not going to get the same interpretation. And so clearly it can't be the right lens all the time. Yeah. So there's just more to that. What's an example? I just have to ask, since you're waking up to pray at three in the morning with your Ugandan brother, and you say it happened exactly, what is something that, because it

would have to be pretty exact to get you to routinely wake up at three in the morning. Oh, yeah. I mean, there would be things like one of the brothers fighting with another brother and him getting to a car and driving off and getting into a car accident. And sure enough, the next morning, right after morning prayer, having our breakfast and you hear in the other room, these two brothers just start fighting. We got to the point where instead of one driving off, driving away angrily and whatever that would have led to, what ended up happening was we sensed that there was breakthrough in their

conversation where they could understand one another, even through that conflict. And to me, I thought that was like the fruit of intercession. So just very specific things, like sometimes even the argument itself had to do with what he had dreamed about. So it happened way too frequently to my liking. My sleep was very interrupted. Why can't you pray in the morning? Why can't you get up and interceded? That's what I said. At 6 a.m. There's still time to stop them, right? Exactly. I know. Yeah, it's happy. The intercessors at night. I wrestle with that with dreams because, you know, you overt examples with Joseph, you know, but then you have others where it's like, and then that verse about your young man shall dream dreams,

Is that only in the final days? Is that the day of the Lord that it's talking about? I hope there's Joel being fulfilled in Pentecost, though, so it's at least starting then. Yeah, so it's interesting. And then also my dog dreams. And so I'm like, all right, so clearly, you know, mental. Yeah, so dog, like, also is just a restorative cycle.

You know, it's how your mind works stuff out. But it would seem a waste. And God doesn't seem to waste up, but it's like you kind of idle for six and a half to seven hours at least and you're like shut down. It would seem an opportune time. to get your attention, especially in a world as like inundated with stimuli as we are, right? Totally.

He's got a captive audience at that point, right? Yeah. Sleep paralysis is a blessing from the Lord, right? In fact, I'm going to make you lay there and I'm going to talk to you by a little force. Your muscles will be paralyzed. Yeah. You can call resting in the spirit. That's right.

I took us away from positional of Paris. You'll bring in some of the dream conversation in there. And so that's a good sort of insight into what might be going on. Yeah, because ultimately my goal is to connect with the person. I'm psychoanalyically trained, and I love looking at people's whole story and making connections and insight and everything else, but I'm against doing archaeology. Like, I don't want to just dig up their past and always be going back to the past and all of those stuff.

I really want to stay with what is relevant and ultimately honoring what God and his providence is allowing to come up because I think God sometimes lets us get triggered even in order to create an opportunity for us to really address something in our life. So I like to stay with what's relevant and what's really connecting with a person. And dreams obviously are very present and meaningful and to be very activating. So it's kind of a segue into sometimes where we need to start to go. Because we could randomly pull up a theme in your life that we need to work on. And you can do some intellectual work on it, but it's not going to be as impactful as something your heart is really in at the time.

So anyways. So positioning prayer, it's kind of a perm that I kind of put together positioning prayer. St. John Fisher said that God can no more withhold his grace from a soul positioned to receive him, then light fail to shine through an open window. So God can no more withhold his grace from a soul position to receive him, then light fail to shine through an open window. And so really what I'm doing is in connecting with that person and helping them, really learn to sit with their emotions and not react to the emotions or the situation that's coming

along to help them become mindful, it really just creates the space where then we can begin to do something about it, where we can look at it with some more objectivity and like in cognitive behavioral therapy, you know, we can really look at some of those beliefs to challenge them and try to understand ultimately behind the emotion what belief is being activated because we feel beliefs. We can't directly manipulate our feelings, but we can really address and confront beliefs. And so it's really just helping us come to a deeper awareness. So what I typically do is I help someone just sit with their experience. If they become emotional sometimes in telling me their story, you know, I've probably told so many people their stories. And oftentimes I've had people that

have been in therapy before, been in therapy for years. And so I don't want them just to keep talking sometimes. If something's coming up and something's touching them, I really want to understand why and what they're connecting within that, because that seems more meaningful than just finishing the story sometimes. And so when we sit with things, especially with some of the pain, what actually happens to in the mind, in the brain, is we're activating that part of the brain with that memory, that meaning is consolidated, stored. As they say, the neurons that fire together, wire together. And so both in our brains and in what's happening, we're priming ourselves then for recall to really help us springboard into those meaningful places where some of this pain can be

rooted. Because I think oftentimes when we're experiencing pain here and now, it's not just about here and now. It's because ultimately, whatever we feel is because of how we're interpreting things. It's our lens. But I often find that people have like bruises on their hearts. Someone could be, you know, poking you in a painful way, but it's not just the poke. It's the bruise that they're touching that's bringing forth all this pain. And that bruise is coming from somewhere before this first poke right now, you know? And so I really want to understand that pain. And so when you sit with it, there was one time there was a woman who actually a religious sister, just as an example,

she was really getting flooded by this other sister who technically was under her, authority, so she was a superior. And the sister would come in and challenge her or question her, and she would start to panic, my client would start to panic to the point where she had to leave her own office and leave this other sister here. You know, we could work on skills to try to figure out how she could stay present in it and dialogue and other stuff. But what I ended up doing instead was having her sit with the experience. Like, what was happening inside when this sister was talking to you. Okay, well, I just felt like this panic. Well, if you didn't leave, what would have happened? Well, I just felt dominated. I felt overpowered. Okay, sit with those emotions. As you sit

with those emotions, what comes to your mind? My mind's going back to that village in Vietnam where I grew up and back in that same hut, that man sexually abused me for seven years. And you could just see that direct correlation, but until you sit with it, sometimes we react too soon to things and we don't give ourselves space to see where it's coming from. And so what positioning prayer really does is it's using a lot of the psychological tools, but then when we're in that place of trauma, and we've really done all we can to empathize to help the parts of the person kind of show compassion and everything else and to accept, it's a simple thing. And this is really, the extent of what I do in really bringing the Lord in a more direct way,

is I just ask the person, when we're there and I'm connected with them, there's like a deep emotional connection in this pain, in this place, and they often feel really strong things like I am dominated. I am disgusting. I am betrayed. I am alone at a deep visceral level. And when we're connected in that, we're activated and that, we're exposed in that, I simply ask them, could we just ask God a couple of questions there?

And so usually I ask something along the lines of like, God, where that feels true, what do you want them to know? And that's it. That's it. And I've just found that when we are so poor in our brokenness, I mean, God always and really only pours himself into spiritual poverty. And, you know, Jesus is just so ready to step into those places where we have no other option but him. And we need him. And I've just seen time and time again how the Lord steps in like that woman I was talking about.

Jesus immediately sprangboard into Jesus walking through the village with her into that hut. I left that part out that he was walking her into the hut. And he was just playing on the ground with her like a little kid. And she felt so loved and safe in this childlike way with Jesus, like a childlikeness that was kind of taken from her in what happened. She had to grow up really quick. But that was almost being restored to her just in his gentleness and his kindness. And when I talk about Jesus being present to someone like this, like, you know, we believe

in contemplation and how God can animate our imagination as a way to really interact with us in a meaningful way. But there's times where Jesus is present. presence is so powerful. It's like they feel it with their whole body, as their whole selves or just the experience of his patience, his tenderness, his kindness, his joy as he's present with them, you know, passing a ball back and forth. It radically can heal a person.

I believe that trauma can so powerfully disintegrate people, disintegrate them. really it's just a counterfeit of the power of God's love to integrate us, to make us whole. And it's really helping people to get to that place where that's where the Lord wants to meet you. Because I really believe that we need to uncover the wound sometimes before we can really be healed there. You know, Jesus need to touch the leper. And so this is just kind of creating that space where then the person can be touched in a meaningful way by the Lord there. I mean, there's times in some secular therapies where you can invite like a safe person into a memory or, you know, you go to a safe place and you're kind of borrowing the positive emotion to outweigh the negative emotion. But, you know, Jesus can be present to a person in a person in a way no one else can.

He's in every moment. And he was there. And he had a different desire for you than to experience that trauma. And ultimately, it's still his truth that will set you free. from whatever impact it still has on you. And all we need to do is be positioned enough to receive it. And really what I'm doing with these tools is helping a person get to that place to receive in faith. And when someone is humble posture asking God to work on them and they're not having that instant moments, et cetera,

do we just go back to Providence again and say, God is revealing, you know, baby small steps as much as you can do at this moment because he knows exactly how the healing is supposed to unfold. Yeah. Well, like I said, I've seen people who, first session, go to like the deepest, darkest secret, get radically healed, and they're like a different person, and they don't need to come back to therapy in the same way, which, you know, isn't good for my job security, thanks Lord. But there's other times where sometimes people have such a distrust of God built up

that they can't go there with him yet. The point is, you know, one of the guys that Jesus healed in the Gospels was the blind man. And it says that he walked with him and he prayed and he said, what do you see? And I said, oh, people look like trees. And then he walked further and he prayed again and then he was fully healed, right? So sometimes it can almost be like this process. But I really do believe that the walking with the man was significant in his healing. That Jesus was honored to be walking with him.

Because back then you would have been seen as cursed. You know, who sin? This man or his parents to be born blind. It was not a sign that he was proud of. We didn't have the same kind of compassion towards people who have disabilities as we do today, you know? So that was part of the healing, I think, for the man. And so with Jesus, this is what I've learned, though, too. Sometimes we're too quick to want God to speak to fix a situation.

We're not sometimes deep enough and really getting connected with what that pain is and where it's from and why we feel that pain. And we can be so quick to try to fix things. But here's the thing. healing, fixing your problem of pain is not really the goal. The goal is relationship with Jesus. And he wants to renew our minds and heal our hearts. And so we're just trying to be faithful to the process and responding to what he's allowing to come up. I like to say pain, there's like an acronym, pay attention inward now.

It draws us to look somewhere. Like if I step on a thorn, it's good that I feel pain because it helps me find where to look and to find out why to then find healing, to seek healing. And so we're really just responding to what God is initiating to bring about healing in your life. It can be a mystery. And if you enjoy mysteries and puzzles, then you should check out Legends of Redwall by the award-winning game studio, Soma Games. They make amazing games of the biblical worldview. Legends of Redwall has been downloaded by over 250,000 people.

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check out Soma Games. Sometimes our hearts, even if we're believers and we trust God intellectually, there can be a part of our heart where we are so terrified of vulnerability and that level of intimacy, even with God, that we can run from it. We can be afraid of it. And so for whatever reason, you know, we're just being faithful to a process. And I think it's so cool when, you know, one session someone's completely set free, even from demonic stuff.

But, you know, I'll be honest, one of my favorite people, persons to work with right now. This woman, she started to manifest after she started to go to a prayer group about six years ago. And she completely locks up and feels like their demons are choking her. And she sees demons like sitting on her chest and trying to crush her. And she's having this terrible torturous experience that just started six years ago. And she's in her 50s. So this kind of came out of nowhere, this great Catholic church lady. but it was, again, a season where she's going deeper in her relationship with God.

And we've done so much work where we've connected some of these manifestations to actually areas of trauma where she was choked by her brother growing up or she was sat on as she was being bullied and spit on. So there's different connections that we've made over time, but sometimes the memories couldn't surface yet until she was secure enough in her relationship with the Lord. So it's been a process to even let those areas come up to their conscious mind to then be healed. But bit by bit, we've seen a lot of growth and transformation, even in the demonic, basically, like, loosening in some way and not having the same kind of influence. But it's been a journey with her. And I'm just honored to be walking with her in it.

Yeah. That's beautiful. Now, I do want to ask you, we get a lot of questions about the order of the prayer, which sacramentals to use. et cetera. One thing I appreciate your book, you talked about how we get to use these kind of things, but that we shouldn't get too fixated on them and that there's a superstitiousness can creep into this. So could you speak a little bit to what you view is kind of a healthy perspective and your own experience with these things? Because I do know people have like have crazy cool stories of St. Benedict medals, right? I wear it. Yeah, absolutely. Got my consecration chain right here

St. St. Louis-Mofford. You're geared up, bro. So you got all the extra gear that Paul forgot to mention. I'm into heavy metal. I got like 10 red medals on. It can be a cliche for psychologists to talk about superstitious religious people, you know, but, you know, in the catechism, it talks about how superstition is when we ascribe something magical to different forms of prayer, basically that the things in themselves have power, rather than being really the faith and what they represent in the mystery that they're bringing us into, that sacramentals are a way of really sanctifying different parts of our life. Like when I hold the rosary, it's like a transitional object. You know, little kids, they hold teddy bears. Little kids hold teddy bears because in some way helps them externally connect

with an aspect of a parent that then they can internalize and begin to more securely carry with them, like a comfort of a parent. When I hold a rosary, I'm holding Mary's hand. And I know psychologically, I need a mother, especially to heal some of my maternal wounds. It just helps to have. have a physical person that I can connect with, like, Our Lady, and don't need to get in all the theology there, but my name's Sean, like John, and I definitely have taken into my heart. But sacramentals really are these tools to help us receive in some way, or integrate, internalize something that technically we've already been given in baptism. We've received the fullness of Christ's life.

The Holy Spirit dwells in his fullness in us. yet these things that are you know we move from concrete to abstract these concrete things help us to connect with this abstract spiritual world Jesus spoken metaphors the use of these sacramentals that helps us connect with these spiritual realities and I do talk about in the book how it's it's not that we have to use them it's that we get to right like I don't have to wear this metal but I get to it's like people wear their in jersey you know and they're proud of that I get to where St. Benedict, man, that guy was badass. I get to wear this. It feels awesome. They retired as metal. It was so good, you know.

There you go. There you go. Yeah. So I just love that. And it helps me to feel so much more connected with that reality that we are surrounded by a cloud of heavenly witnesses, right? And I got my own Moses and Elijah to talk to sometimes on the mountain and in the saints or whatever, you know, in my friendship with the saints. But Sacramento's, yeah, we can approach these things in a superstitious way where it actually can create a form of bondage for some people, where unless I do this, unless I pray this prayer and wear this medal, then I will not be free. Well, then really according to your faith, let it be done. Because you're really binding yourself in that.

Paul actually warns the Galatians who began in the spirit and ended up in works, right, about returning again to a yoke of slavery. and that actually Pope Francis recently said in a general audience that when Satan is driven out by faith, he then can try to reenter through superstition. That when we are superstitious, we are actually in dialogue with the devil. And we never dialogue with the devil. That superstition can kind of inform us. There really is a power to it where there's a fear.

If I don't do this, then something's going to happen. You know, another thing I go into in my book is the power of fear. That fear is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It really causes this behavior that ends up bringing about its own confirmation. And it reinforces itself. It's like a vicious cycle. You mentioned in the context of cursing, I remember, and that's not to negate. Obviously, we know curses are real and they happen.

But if you get afraid of it and believe your curse, then at some point, right, you might run into an issue of, you know, it doesn't matter whether it was spiritual in origin or not, you're getting the effects because you've convinced yourself you're under the yoke of it, right? Right. I like to say that, you know, the word of God is true whether or not it's your experience, right? It's true because it's his word. Proverbs 262, it says, like a darting swallow or a fluttering sparrow, an undeserved

curse does not come to rest, meaning curses really only land on our agreement, on our kind of deserving it in that way. through our agreement. If we believe that something can affect us, well, then we're actually giving it power. Fear gives it power. When the enemy roars like a lion, he wants us to react to that roar. It's an attention grabber. It causes us to move into a fighter flight, self-protective mode. And when he gets us activated in that fear, well, then he's actually separating us from the Lord. And that fear begins to have power. One of the things I talk about in the book and really why I focus in this way in my therapy on belief.

In John's Gospel, there's not a single exorcism in the entire gospel. And instead of combating spiritual forces, Jesus is confronting unbelief in people's hearts. And actually, when he rebukes demons in his exorcisms in the other Gospels, he really calls these spirits of infirmity just a couple of things, deaf and dumb spirits. And those are meaningful, deaf because hearing, leads to faith and dumb because calling on the name of the Lord leads to salvation too. And so they're really operating out of this place of unbelief.

They're trying to keep people in a place of unbelief. But the point isn't really about the enemy. It's about coming to faith. Because to me, you know, the goal in all of this, we talk about deliverance, ministry, and everything, the goal is not just to get people out of Egypt and out of Pharaoh's grasp. because also we recognize that in the story of the Israelites, we have to get Egypt out of us too. The worldly mindsets, the brokenness, the renewal of the mind that we need.

But it doesn't end there. God wants to lead us into the promised land. You know, it says in Colossians that he delivered us from the powers of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son. The goal really is taking out of Egypt to go into this land, into life in Christ, that is the goal. And so fear, unbelief, those are really the things that I focus on. And unfortunately, yeah, we can really reinforce a system of fear, especially when we're

superstitious. All right. I got to land our plane soon, but I want to do two more kind of lightning round, quick ones with you. One, I'm curious about what doorways do you find in your practice? Where are people experiencing the most sort of entry points? is that, you know, Father Martin talks all about unforgiveness, it talks about trauma.

Obviously, it's been a, that's one of those sad things, if you've been a victim of trauma, but, you know, for kind of our times and the people you work with, is there something that jumps out, you know, and stands out that you see a lot of people struggling with? And it might be an encouragement saying, hey, if you're dealing with this, you're not alone, and go seek help and, you know, there's hope for this.

Yeah. Well, I tend to see people in two kind of categories. There's prisoners and there's capital. captives. A prisoner has done something to somehow place themselves in chains. Again, John Krasolson talks about how God also uses the enemy like a jailkeeper or even an executioner. And unforgiveness, Jesus gives that as an example, that if you don't forgive, like the unmerciful servant, he's put into jail. And it's really an example of how the enemy can then have this freedom to operate in our life where there's unforgiveness. And that serves as a person.

purpose to get us to a point where we can then begin to cry out for mercy and really repent. But, you know, I'll even just say on that, like, the devil wants us to blame him. St. Augustine says he's happy when we blame him, just so long as we do not repent from our sins. And so we can never say like the devil made me do it. We always need to be taking responsibility. And, yeah, so being a prisoner is one thing where sometimes we've done something, even like the occult. I've known lots of people myself. When I was an unbeliever, I used a Ouija board.

I wasn't possessed after it. And there's times where people aren't. And so, again, it's in God's providence. If God allows sometimes for people to begin to experience the demonic directly through those things, it's usually because he wants to bring a person into deeper conversion and to move away from those things and to really purify their spiritual life. But then there's also a captive, right? And captives, I really see there's,

two ways that people can become a captive, even to the enemy. One is ignorance. When people do not have a good formation, again, they perish for lack of knowledge. They can be in a culture, an environment growing up, where they learn things about God, like he's harsh and, you know, a certain image of God that ends up creating fear. And honestly, it's like the Pharisees. We can be believers, quote unquote, yet, you know, Jesus confronted them. Your father's not God. Your fathers of the devil, you know, the image that we have of God can be really twisted. And so sometimes it can be the influence of our upbringing or the things that we've learned where we've internalized these limiting beliefs, and that can really bind us. I mean, there's an example of even, like,

in my book of like an elephant, that when an elephant is in some cultures, they use them for agriculture, right? When an elephant is really young, sometimes they will bind it with a chain. And so it learns, like it's going to hurt itself to try to pull away. It's helpless. It's learning helplessness. And so when it's older, even a little rope with a little stake in the ground, it'll stay put because it's internalized this limiting belief, even though it could totally pull it out of the ground. It could carry three tons, you know.

So the power of that limiting belief. But then there's also times in our life where we have experienced traumas at any time of our life, even as adults, where we can be so. discouraged or disappointed where sometimes our framework is just shattered by disasters and different things where we don't have the resilience sometimes to endure through something. And there are times where discouragement can begin to set a limit on our hope. And that can become a form of bondage in itself and create space for the enemy. Sometimes the circumstances of our life begin to dictate to us our reality and we begin to identify with them. And we begin living in this

confined way of life that really we need to be delivered from, to be broken out of. And so again, prisoners and captives, because sometimes people can have this belief that if they're possessed, well, it must be some hidden sin or something they've done. There's like this implicit bias of like some guilt. But oftentimes it's more than that. And that God's letting there be a manifestation to create an opportunity for them to be transformed in a different way to break them out of even a system of relating to. him. And I'm just going to add this one last thing because I know we're going to have to pause here.

I really believe that demonic possession is a spiritual illness. And at some level, it brings us back to our relationship with God. That when a person is manifesting and demons are taking over their faculties and speaking through them, whether or not they're completely dissociating and not conscious or not, the challenge is there's always a part of this person where they can almost perceive themselves under the power of these demons. that are operating through them. That's a reality that in some way needs to be challenged because God is still present in them

and he is in you is greater than the one in the world. But oftentimes people have this perception of God being distant, far. And we really need that image of God to be worked through because at some level, God's allowing the spiritual sickness to challenge how we see him Do we see him as someone who just allows these things to happen, or he punishes us severely with demonic stuff when we fall short? It really challenges how we see God in our theology of suffering and healing.

But when we really learn every single person that came to Jesus for healing was healed. Every single person. Pope Benedict even said when Jesus says to the blind man, I am willing, be healed, that there is embodied God's will to heal. That God's heart is for us. He desires to set us free, ultimately by taking it upon himself, by his stripes were healed, right? That we have to, in every person's life, there's always a spiritual, theological element where they need to really learn that God is for them. To get to the point where we can be like Moses, even as Pharaoh's armies coming at them, even as the enemies got them cornered, you have only be still and watch to see how the Lord God,

fights for you. Like to get to that kind of faith, that's when we're truly free. Amazing. I want to end on an ecumenical note here, because you are the most Protestant-sounding Catholic, and I know I'm the most Catholic-sounding Protestant, but you know, you mentioned being involved that there seems to be a really cool, I may use the term incorrectly here, but there does seem to be some ecumenical unifying movement among the charismatic gifts among Protestants and Catholics. I've just seen, especially in your neck of the woods. You've been involved in some of that for people say, you know what, this is hooey and I don't know about all this tongues and prophecy and dreams and all the other stuff. You know, anything, did you just share your perspective on that?

And then also like any stories of just like, look, I'm just telling you what I've seen. I mean, my conversion, I'll just start with that. I was suicidal, atheist, and desperate, and I decided to pray rosary. I was that desperate. And I did have an image. tried to connect to Jesus, you know, like, I felt connected to trees when I was on drugs back in the day. So I tried to connect to the essence of Jesus, this historical man or whatever. And I saw him on the cross and I was holding on to him and I just felt like letting go, you know.

And I remember him looking down at me and saying, fall and my mother will catch you. And I thought that was kind of weird. But I decided, you know what, I'm just going to go to bed, sleep this off. I might be in a bad mood, probably just grumpy. I'm not going to kill myself right now. I'm just going to go to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night with this language flowing out of me. No idea what it was.

Sounded like gibberish. I was repeating this thing over and over again. And I just knew that it was this gift of tongues. And all I could do finally was just shut my mouth because I was repeating something over and over again. And I was like, oh my gosh, God, is that you? You're real? What was I just saying? And I just heard this voice that spoke so deep.

deeply, so loud, and just said over and over again, praise be the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise be be the Lord Jesus Christ over and over again. And I just melted. I was like a hot mess. You're real. I give you my life. That was like the night where everything changed for me. So I kind of got launched into the spiritual gifts from the beginning. I think there's a lot of controversy around that. I think, you know, Pope Benedict said he invited us to rediscover what it means be baptized by the Holy Spirit. The baptism of Holy Spirit is a unique theological concept, if we call it that, ultimately a transforming experience of that was originally meant to go alongside the sacraments of initiation in the early church. But for whatever reason,

there's like this disconnect sometimes. That is a significant thing to rediscover. And the Catholic charismatic renewal really is all around that. It's this rediscovery of the gift of the baptismal spirit, which I think really started through Pentecostalism. I mean, it's interesting. that in Topeka, Kansas in 1901, in Bethel Bible College, I don't know if you heard the story, but that was a day that Pentecostalism kind of broke out in America in some way, where there was a group gathered at this Bethel Bible College and started praying for the gift of the Holy Spirit and they started speaking in tongues. Well, on that same day, it was the 1st of January, 1901, Pope Leo the 13th was leading the entire church to consecrate the

century to the Holy Spirit. It happened on that same day that it broke out in this little Bible college, which ended up leading to Azusa Street out here in California. Anyways, there's a connection to the spirit. I'm part of this group called Encounter Ministries. And like I said, an amazing, amazing discipleship school that you can read up on. They have this culture of honor and a strong value for Christian unity because I think there's a lot we have to learn from one another. The Catechism even says that the Holy Spirit uses these ecclesial communities outside the explicit confines of the Catholic Church as sources of salvation. Or as Augustine says that where there's Jesus, there's a Catholic church ultimately. And we can get so hung up on identity politics, really,

and categories of where we fit, where we identify. But the Lord sees the heart ultimately. and we're going to be surprised someday, I think, to see who is actually closer to the Lord and not. And it's not that it's arbitrary. You know, there is an order to grace and God wants us to live in a fullness. And ultimately, I think it's a life also of all the sacrament that God has given to us to really consecrate our lives. But he's absolutely present in my Protestant brothers and sisters. And, you know, this is one last point. when I was working at the psychiatric hospital, my faith was really getting rocked.

I was really depressed and discouraged. I felt so powerless in all the tools that I had learned, all the science, I really felt powerless to bring any kind of healing to these people. And they were suffering so intensely, so intensely, like lost in their own minds, stuck in these sterile hospital rooms. And I just remember praying to God, like, why don't you just hear? heal them, you know? I didn't understand much about healing then and never really seen much healing at that point. And my faith was getting so challenged. And then I discovered a man named Randy Clark. And Randy Clark had experienced through like a dry period, this renewal of his own faith and a discovery of God's desire to heal. And he's a simple guy, but he's really pioneered a lot of healing ministry today. And he's very level-head. about it and mature, I think. But he's a non-Catholic, but also very honoring to Catholics. And I think he and actually Dr. Mary Healy, a great Catholic, have co-authored a book on the

spiritual gifts, a great integration of the two. Yeah, I don't know. I'm so passionate about unity. I just really believe that God and his wisdom sometimes hides parts of himself in one another, that we might seek out the other if we're really seeking Christ. And in that process, he brings unity. And even though, you know, as a Catholic, we can have the fullness of the truth. But culturally, realistically, sometimes we're not really living it. Sometimes our fraudulent brothers and sisters have such a deeper understanding of the word, the scriptures. You know, there's a freedom in the spirit sometimes that makes me look so rigid and awkward.

You know, like there's so much more to the life of Christ that there's more. And if we're really after Christ, then we have to kind of be jealous for what others seem to have of him. And again, God and His wisdom allows that, I think, to draw us as one, because then I have to approach my Protestant brother and sister to really ignite my faith even more and sometimes even save my faith sometimes. Because I just need the Lord and he is with you as well. I'm so grateful for Randy Clark and finding his YouTube videos and stuff, and it just saved my faith where I was so, so discouraged, just seeing the witness of what he saw happening. And since then, I saw a man with schizophrenia hearing voices, and I prayed over him. And at first, he felt all this sensation in his body really kind of freaked out by what am I feeling,

the feeling clarity of mind. I don't know what's going on. But then I prayed further into the anxiety of hearing voices. and prayed actually that he might hear the voices of angels and God and redirecting that like anxiety over hearing things. And anyways, this man was completely healed of schizophrenia. And I followed up months later too, never heard a voice again. And he heard them every single day.

So I have seen healing since then. But I would never have entered that world if it weren't for Randy Clark and ultimately encounter ministries to really go after healing in a more bold way. But yeah, God desires healing and it breaks his heart to see us in bondage. I love the ecumenical notes. And to quote our Savior, who are my brothers and sisters? It is those who do the will of God. Amen.

Amen. Well, Dr. Tobin, thank you so much. It has been such an honor to hear all this. And we appreciate your honesty and just wisdom for us. This was great. And we hope you'll come back. And I know we just scratched the surface. And so next time we'll get into,

Freud and his own fallen version of maternal inspirations for his dreams. I love that. We can definitely get into that some other time there. So anyways, in the words of Jesus again, it is better that we should go.