The Exorcist Files - Season 2 Q&A with Father Martins

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

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So I know we can't believe it, but we are halfway through season two's dramatic episodes. But fear not, there's plenty of bonus content. All those episodes we talked about on Kickstarter, we're working on those. so don't worry, time flies when you're delivering people, right? Our production team hasn't really had any time off, and so we're giving them a rare week's vacation to go and focus on something besides exorcism. So we will have another dramatic case file for you next week.

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If you haven't gotten yours yet, fear not. As you will see on the Kickstarter page, it says September for rosaries. Also, for those who ordered Father's book, your copy will arrive in November. Speaking of which, if you'd like to get a copy of Father's book, you can pre-order it now by clicking the link in the show notes or going to Exorcistfiles.tv. Thank you for your patience. Pray for our intern. He is working very hard, shipping dozens and dozens of these every day. We are making great progress, but we will get those items to you as soon as possible. So that's it. On to the show. Okay. We knew we'd get a lot of questions for this episode, but season two's opener, Dynasty of Death deals with a really controversial subject, generational curses. I know Father, we probably have a lot to talk about. this, but we've gotten a few questions around, does the exorcism right in a Catholic baptism

break any generational or family curses that are placed on bloodlines? Any thoughts on this? The exorcism right in the Catholic Church that precedes baptism is an exorcism. It's an exorcism of the person of the devil and his demons. It's not a prayer against generational curses. Does it break curses? Possibly, but I don't know. Nobody would know. It certainly, absolutely, does not break all of them because I obviously experienced people. Many exorcists have, many pastors, ministers have experienced people with generational curses that have survived baptism and have survived the Catholic right of exorcism that precedes baptism. So that in and of itself is not at the be all and end all eliminator of generational curses. So how do you know if they're there or not?

Well, by patterns, by encountering the curse itself, by encountering the patterns. And look, we're always operating from a position of ignorance in the sense that the only thing we have to go on is to see a pattern of regularity and start testing that pattern. Look, generational curses are a controversial thing to some. I don't know a single exorcist in the world. for whom it would be controversial. But for some reason, people, very, very bright people, some clergy, some academics, theologians think that the whole notion of a generational curse is an absurdity that allegedly scripture atones for it, accounts for it, that a man is only punished for

his own sins and so on and so forth. And this is true in terms of the moral nature of his soul, right? I'm not held responsible if my father killed a man. I'm not responsible for that murder. However, every sin is a covenant with evil. And some of those covenants are so deep and so visceral that the demon gains a jurisdiction into the family line, into the bloodline of the family. And now it exercises the jurisdiction there. And all of us exercise.

I mean, you don't have to be an exorcist for. for very long to see that kind of thing, where patterns reveal themselves. And, you know, what might be a pattern? Well, I remember encountering a family, for example, where great-grandfather, he was an alcoholic. His son, granddad, was an alcoholic. Dad was an alcoholic. His son is 14 years old, has his first beer, and doesn't stop at one, he finishes the six-pack. So obviously, something is there.

that is making this really attractive to the kid and where the kid can't stop himself. So where does it come from? Well, okay. A biologist, he might say, well, there's a genetic predisposition towards alcoholism. And so he's acting on that. Okay, fair enough. I don't disagree with that. A psychologist, psychiatrist, whatever, might say, well, look, this is a learned behavior.

And he learned that drinking alcohol, this is the acceptable thing. This is the thing to do. this is what we do and so he's just following that pattern okay fine i i don't dispute that at all but my question then is is why is that genetic or psychological predisposition there to begin with and this is where it now gets interesting because demons can form those things can i'm not saying must i'm not saying all psychological or genetic predispositions are the work of demons they're not. But they can be. And so what we did in this case, so I'm talking about a very specific family with whom I dealt. And we, we just, I prayed. I led them through prayers against the spirit of

alcoholism. And guess what? It was done. I mean, in times of stress, there would still be a kind of craving to turn to the drink in some of the members, which was dealt with through like an A.A. membership. But it was so much less than what it was. It was so much less. So what revealed itself is the pattern. And I don't know where that pattern came in, but I didn't need to know. I just took the pattern to the Lord. I took the eldest family member that was available to me. Is it, look, if this is a generational curse, then you are subject to it. And your children and their children are going to be subject to it. So I just need you to repeat after me in the name of Jesus, I break and sever this generational curse of alcoholism. Wherever the wound is, Lord, I ask you to pour out your grace

there, wherever it is. And wherever it is in my lineage going all the way back to my first parents, Adam and Eve, I don't know where the wounds are, Lord, but I don't need to know. You know. And I ask you to go there now and minister to us. So I'm giving this person these words and then I lead him into claim statements. I claim the freedom of being a son of God. I claim the tranquility of being at peace in my spirit and my soul and not relying on a substance in order to break tension or to relieve anxiety or to fulfill some role that some demon wants me to fulfill.

I break all of that. Boom. It was done. It was done. Now, look, generational curses. all of us are the inheritors of one of them, at least one of them. And that is original sin.

That's a generational curse. You didn't sin, I didn't sin. We never actually committed the original sin. But guess what? Adam and Eve did, our first parents. And their sin is visited upon all of us, the effects of that sin. Now, Christ has already mitigated some of that.

Case in point. until the moment Christ rose from the dead, until that instance when he did so, every single soul in history upon his or her death descended to hell. Because that's where every single soul went following the sin of Adam and Eve. So the wicked and the righteous both ended up in the same place. The wicked were there forever, but the righteous were there until. the Messiah would come and set them free. If and only if the Messiah came, would they be set free? And Christ did.

On Good Friday, 2,000 years ago, he died on the cross and like every other human was subject to what happened after death. He descended into hell, right? He descended. But, as Paul says, because death had no power over him, he conquered it. So he became the Trojan horse that hell swallowed. And then all of a sudden it realized, oh my gosh, what have I done? The one who is vanquishing me, I've brought into my own very being.

And so he unleashed his righteousness in hell and rescued the souls of the righteous. And so there, hell is now empty of those who were holy, who died in friendship with God, but who had the penalty of original sins still upon them. So he removed that. So we still have original sin to which we are subject, but the part of original sin to which we were subject following our death is gone for those who are holy, for those who are righteous. We also have elsewhere in Scripture examples of generational sin. For example, David sinned with Bathsheba. He saw her bathing on a rooftop, was filled with lust for her, took her, took advantage of her.

he was the king and got her pregnant. And in order to cover up his sin, he killed Uriah, her husband. And so what was the punishment there? It says that the Lord struck the baby and took the baby's life. The sin was David's, but the life taken was the babies. You also have, at another point, well, David took a census, which was forbidden. And then the Lord offered him three punishments. pick A, B, or C.

And David complained and lamented and said, look, the sin was mine. It was not my peoples. So all three of the options that you've given me consist of punishments that are going to be visited, not upon me, upon my people. But they're not the ones at fault. I'm the one at fault. And that didn't matter in the least. So David lamented that, that his sin brought about a generational curse. and his people were punished for the sake of it.

So generational curses exist. It would be wrong to say that they don't exist in Scripture. I've heard others to say, well, Christ eliminated all of those that they're not visited upon. Well, this is false. I mean, find something, find a piece of revelation, either in scripture or tradition, that establishes that, that proves that, because you're not going to find any. But then if they truly don't exist, then what we do as exorcists in leading. people out of them that makes no sense at all. But what we do does in fact make sense. We do see successful results in things that we identify as original sins. So I think this is an area

where there's controversy, but the controversy is coming from people who have no experience in this. And so they're approaching a subject, not having any concrete experience of the reality, but they're being armchair theologians and they really just don't know anything about the subject matter. Now, Father, I think so one, I think you characterized it well, which is that the debate is not over whether curses can be passed down. Because I think that's pretty well established. The question, though, is that in the New Testament dynamic of Christ, did he come to abolish the consequences for that? And I think that clearly we look around and we see that that did not happen. And it's probably worth mentioning that when you get baptized as a Christian, could we even say that it even makes sense for God not to remove everything at once?

Because there's this idea that if you get baptized, that suddenly life is just easy-peasy at that. That's actually nowhere in scripture is that taught. And so while healings, of course, can happen and that baptism is extraordinarily powerful, that's the beginning of the Christian journey. And in fact, right, is the baptism for many, especially in early church, is actually the beginning of a journey. towards a really hard time, right? I mean, could you also not argue that once you get baptized, you get a target on your back in a sense in the fact that now Satan has more incentive to go after you. And so we should not be surprised that, you know, problems persist beyond our baptism. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And God, in so doing, in keeping generational curses as a thing

and not eliminating them. In his wisdom, he's decided to do that because he's going to use them to bring forth greater good and to see his glory and see his triumph. And I'll tell you this, in those families who had those generational curses removed and they saw the power of God at play, my God, the fear of God went in them big time

and an awareness of God's almighty power. And if they had never been subject to those generational curses, they would not have experienced or seen that power of Almighty. mighty God, that personal love that he showed towards them. And also, Father, just a general note that there's something scripture is absolutely clear about. And then there's other things where, to be fair to those who are having a tough time with this dynamic, scripture is a bit ambiguous at times. We find seemingly contradictory verses that might question whether or not, you know, we clearly find verses that sin is

repaid, its consequences on generation. And then you have, you know, the occasional verse in like in Ezekiel where he says, look, I'm actually not going to hold it against you. But generally speaking, if your experience contradicts sort of theology that might be ambiguous, hey, at some point, experience and reality has to trump some ideas that you may have. Yeah, this is the first rule of any intellectual inquiry. If your theory does not fit the facts, throw out the theory, not the facts. I think it's also probably just worth mentioning again on this, that so pervasive was this idea, that ancestral sin was a dynamic, right?

That even in the New Testament, we find contemporaries of Jesus asking him when someone was sick, who sinned that this person should be sick? And Jesus has the astounding statement that actually in some cases no one did. It was actually, she's just sick because I'm going to show off the kingdom of God here, which is a whole other interesting dynamic. But doesn't that illustrate that at that time that Jesus was ministering? it was very well understood that your decisions and sinful behavior could influence the sick and have consequences to those today or those at that day.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, in scripture is nuanced and meanings are multifaceted. And, you know, we look at a passage and we give an interpretation. Like there are passages that look contradictory with regard to generational sins. But Deuteronomy chapter 5 is pretty clear. I will visit the sins of the parents upon their children and their children's children to the third and fourth generation. Well, there you are. God gives a promise that he's going to do that. If later on, he says, okay, I'm not going to do that.

Well, it appears that God is schizophrenic or changed his mind, which is impossible for God. right because that the changing of his mind implies imperfection it means that he thought better of something at one point rather than another and so that implies that that god is not all perfect and so hey if god is not all perfect then in that moment he ceases to be god right so meanings are multifaceted and we have to get to the precise meaning in the context in which it is given. And then, you know, what guides us? Well, the New Testament stands on the shoulders of the old. You know, Christ came to fulfill what was promised in Jewish Revelation. So the first meaning that we have to take away from Scripture and even sacred tradition, right, that the two

fonts of Revelation, how would the Jews understand? this. We'll have to look at that first because Christ was a Jew that was incarnate in a Jewish society to fulfill the Jewish scriptures. He spoke about Jewish themes and he did so in a Jewish manner. So at a certain point, we've got to begin with what did Judaism say and what does Judaism understand about this passage? That has to be a starting point. And granted, there's more added now because of Christian revelation, because of the incarnation, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

But the base has to be, has to, the first mode of understanding revelation has to be, how did the Jews understand it? Father, though, as we kind of wrap up, I do want to leave the listeners with an upbeat note. So one, the case of Joseph and number four,

that is extraordinary, right? That is far the exception. an exceptional case documented to teach a particular facet of spiritual warfare, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it is. I mean, look, we always operate out of a position of ignorance, and we look for patterns. And when patterns show themselves, now, this demon here, to his own detriment, was not very creative.

And he just, he kept repeating his own nature, which was that of number four. and kept asserting that. So his own dysfunctionality is what revealed him. And if it weren't for that, then we may have never discovered him. And Joseph wouldn't have been able to be saved. So, you know, look, we identify patterns. And when patterns are there where they ought not to be there,

you know, in other words, one would expect to find a lot more randomness or not a regularity like we saw, in the case of Joseph, when we see that, then we begin testing for that. And all of a sudden, boom, you start uttering some prayers against it and a demon comes forth because he wants to now protect his real estate because he's about to lose it. So folks, I think we just, we really want to stress here that that episode, far from wanting to scare or make people have anxiety about this, is just consider it an arrow that can be buried in the quiver, right? That if something is going on and nothing seems to be working, and it's just something you want to look into.

And this is something we see, you know, in familial patterns too. I mean, we mentioned this in the show, but we see epigenetic situations where extreme trauma, genetic expression can be passed, you know, certain genes can change their expression as a result of trauma down family lines. And so there is an element that we see the consequences of this in our own biology. And so maybe keep an open mind that it's possible. And of course, as some theologians have talked about, too, there are practical effects, too, right? If someone's great-grandparent was heavily involved in the occult, in fact, we have a case coming up about this, right?

Where someone's grandmother was a practicing witchcraft, her daughter practiced witchcraft. And there's almost a practical line of that too, right? Where people are maybe stuck in a situation, right, father? Absolutely. Those practices often leave residue. and even once, even after a person has died, that residue can remain in the family line. Because all sin, all evil that is committed is a covenant with evil. And we don't get to control those covenants.

We don't get to control the terms. And sometimes we can enter into a covenant. In other words, sometimes we commit a sin and that sin has way more effect. way more value added than just the fact that, well, you incur guilt on your soul. It has effects now that wash over into your family line. And you've given a jurisdiction to demons in your family line. 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. Exodus 90. The Exodus 90 challenge begins this year on, January 20th. But this isn't just a 90-day program. Exodus 90 is a spirituality for modern men that is built on three ancient pillars, prayer, self-sacrifice, and fraternity. We all long for something more. We long to be the men God created us to be, sons of a loving father. It's time to turn away from our idols. It's time to break free from the pharaohs that hold us in bondage. If you're ready to make a fresh start and embark on a journey to uncommon freedom in Jesus Christ,

then download the Exodus 90 app today. This is your chance to break free, refocus, and rediscover who God is calling you to be in the new year. It starts January 20th. So go to Exodus 90.com slash X-Files to learn more about Exodus 90. That's Exodus 90.com slash X-Files to join tens of thousands of men from all over the world for Exodus 90. Again, it begins Monday, January 20th. God bless you. All right, Father, let's leave generational curses behind here and get to, oh, man, we had so many questions about poor Dylan in episode three predatory,

which let me start a file that when you submitted to the production team did not end well. Why was it important to include an episode, you know, most of our episodes include ending on a hopeful note? Why did you feel it was necessary to include a really dark story that does not, there's some justice in it, but there's not necessarily the resolution we're all looking for? Because exorcism is not for the faint of heart. right and you know i'm here to talk about reality not about make believe and it is very possible that people choose in the end to follow the wrong master and that's exactly what dylan did and in fact look in my informal statistics for exorcism but they are corroborated by my colleagues

other exorcist priests of the total number of people people that come to us, and these are of genuine cases where the demonic is at play, six out of ten of them will walk away. They will refuse the terms that we give them. They will not reform their lives or they'll come to us, you know, and we're wasting our energies because they're not willing to reform their lives, or they're not willing to have a relationship with Jesus, or they're not willing to give back the demonic gift they received from the devil, But they want to be free of the pain, but they don't want to give their lives to Christ. Or they don't, maybe they do, but they just don't want to break away from the relationship

with the devil either, which is the same as not wanting to give your life to Christ. So look, reality is reality. Six out of ten end up with bad endings, at least insofar as their relationship with me is concerned, for all I know. Now, I hope and pray that from now, until the end of their lives, whenever that is, that there is a change. But this is the accuracy. Like, this is the reality that many people walk away.

And they just, they either don't take it seriously enough or they're just enthralled by the demonic gift they're getting. In Dylan's case, he was getting sex. And it was not just the fact that he's getting sex that he enjoys having multiple partners a day, every day, so to speak. But the very sexual faculty that he possesses has been manipulated. What a sexual climax is for him is not like what it is for the average person. There's a manipulation there that heightens his drive. He seeks it out because he's getting a release, a break, a high, whatever you want to call it, that is off the charts.

And so he keeps seeking that. this is the thing that he's living for now. And I come along saying, hey, you've got to give that up. And then he starts weighing things. Well, look, a rhino head demon came and charged at me. He hurt me pretty good. But well, maybe that was a one-time fluke. Yeah, he's been appearing to me for years.

But let's see if that was just a one-time fluke, if that was a break in the fabric of the force within the universe. And maybe I'll never have that again. And I can still go have my fun with whatever women I want. And that's the reality that happened there. So how can there be a happy ending when there's that attitude? And it's also, right, Father, a commentary on how, you know, we should remember that sin is enticing, right? Like, it's naturally tough.

Like, Christ, the temptation in the wilderness wasn't tough because sin sucks, like, at first, right? There is. There's an allure to it that we probably need to appreciate. And it's probably similar to an addiction, right, Father? I mean, we see that people who are in the throes of drug addiction and the debasement they will endure to get their high, right? Is there a comparison that can be drawn there? Oh, it is.

It's very addictive. That's the nature of sin. That's the nature of a demonic gift. He makes you dependent on it. He's not going to give you a stupid broken keychain that you have no use for. He's going to give you something that's powerfully attractive in order to establish a very deep and visceral relationship with him. You sort of turned Dylan over at one point and said, fine.

You know what? Similar to how Paul speaks to. the church in the New Testament or certain individuals when he says, hey, you know what, enough's enough. I'm turning you over to Satan. Was it coincidence for you that all his accusers started coming forward? Did you feel like you had inadvertently sort of invoked a chastisement? Walk us through what potentially you think might have happened. Obviously, we can't know for sure, but it was awfully coincidental having all the accusers come forward right after your meeting with him and him refusing help. Yeah. You know, I thought that myself, was that a direct action of the Holy Spirit

following that prayer that I did, or I'm going to call it a holy curse because it was given for the sake of medicinal purposes. It was given for the sake of wanting him to convert and repent. I wanted him convert and repent in the moment, which it didn't happen. I wanted him to do so even if it wasn't in the moment. But basically, the demons through their attack, I'm praying that he feels it much more acutely than what he had. And this is for his own good so that he would come to the Lord. So like you said, Ryan, we will never know. But good things started to happen immediately after that quote unquote holy curse was made. And so his relationship with that school ended immediately, he was expelled, as he should be.

And also, I think it's important to know when Paul talks about turning people over to Satan, right, he says for a while, and it is done out of a love, right? Paul has such a deep and abiding love, and parents discipline their children. And, you know, I've heard a lot of, as I've gotten to know, a lot of theologians and priests working on this show, there does seem to be a consensus, right, Father, that the enemy, as awful as he is, et cetera, is a sort of, utility, a disciplinary tool that God seems to use. And it is very difficult to comprehend at times, right? Do you think Satan knows that he's actually supporting God's mission? Because people get to such

a low breaking point and then they turn around. And some of these people that we've talked to on the show, when they're liberated, they become passionate followers. And you got to wonder if the enemy's going, man, it would have been better if I just left him alone. Right. Exactly. And, But, you know, that's taking a very logical view at it. And demons are very greatly skilled in logic. But they have the nature of demons, which means they are filled with their own rage, their own addictions, their own dysfunction. And that operates according to its own dang logic. And it is impossible for us to penetrate.

So evil at the end of the day, evil is unintelligible. There is no ability. There's no means. There's no method to understand it. It is evil is the most irrational thing in the universe. Except bad grammar, right, Father? Well, bad grammar is evil. So we class them all together. Father, we get a lot of questions about why the demons don't have a gender, but we use male pronouns with them. Is that because they manifest as a male gender? Or of sorts or is it perception? What's going on there? Well, they appear as males in terms of their gender and scripture. So that's just a repetition of that. Right? So the Lord, when he defines the devil, he calls him, he says the devil was a liar from the beginning. When he lies, he is only acting in

character because, and the Lord repeats again, he is a liar and father of lies. Right. So, so there you have two instances of male pronouns being applied, two instances of the male gender being applied to Satan and his angels. All right. There you go. We had some questions about Father Lampert, who's a colleague and fellow exorcist. He has said that he has commanded a demon to recite the Helmerie, but admittedly it was weak. And I didn't hear the full clip of this. So we had a listener say that they were trying to draw a comparison because obviously you use the Hell Mary as more of a litmus test in episode two of season two when you were trying to discern what entity had manifested itself. So you could just, again, walk us through again why you chose the Hell Mary and then

the different dynamics that might be a play between compelling a demon to say something versus freely offering to say it. Right. So, okay, in the context in which I used it, what I said was that in the course of an exorcism, the demon appeared to be gone. He appeared to be gone. And I had the victim now. So let's say his name is Billy. So I'm talking to Billy, but I don't know that it's really Billy. And oftentimes the demon will pretend to be gone so that you end the session and, you know, you go on your happy way.

But guess what? Billy is still suppressed and he's in there. He's inside there somewhere. And who's actually walking out of your office there is the demon. So my diagnostic in those moments is to say, okay, Billy, recite the Hail Mary so that I know that the demon's actually gone. The next thing I heard was F you. So now in the case of Father Lampert in that clip, if I recall, what he's doing is he's compelling the demon to say the Hail Mary. I was inviting. He is compelling. So there are two different context being used here.

So he's using the power of Christ to punish a demon to do something he absolutely doesn't want. That's not what I was doing. I was inviting. Hey, Billy. So then I know it's you. Let's hear the Hail Mary. So I'm giving the demon the choice, so to speak. Even though I think I'm talking to Billy, I don't know that I am. So I'm giving whoever I'm talking to the choice. And bang, he's exercised his choice. So there are two different contexts that are being used here with two different results as a consequence. Got it. Father, one last question, because I know we got a bolt here, but just from a Protestant listener who loves the show, they wrote in and said, in most recent episode with Father Zeta, you know, Maria called out to God to help her and the demons, you know, seemed to mock her. Then later, she called out to St. Michael

in the midst of her suicide attempt and got healed, or should say, got rescued, as it's implied. And they said, as a Protestant, they're finding it hard to understand. They recognize that a cry to St. Michael intervention is also a cry to God as well in some way. But is there any thoughts on someone who's having a tough time understanding? Because maybe the question they're getting at is, is that prescriptive? Should we, you know, ask for angelic help more than applying to God? Or is this just to, hey, don't look into it.

God, just just focus on the miracle. Who can say? Well, look, St. Paul uses the analogy. over and over and over again, that we, meaning the saints, right? So when he's talking to Christians, he's presuming that you are saints. He's presuming that you are in the state of grace, to use Catholic lingo. You're free of mortal sin. In other words, the effects of your baptism are active and operative in you in every way, to the max.

Right? So if you were to die in this instance, boom, you enter into the pearly gates. So what he says over and over again is that we are members of the body of Christ, body parts. We are limbs on the body of Christ. That's what the saints are. So if St. Michael, who is a saint, is a limb on the body of Christ, to go to him is not going not to Christ. You're going to Christ through a member of his body. So you arrive at the same point.

So, no, the argument would be, well, I don't need to do that. I can just go to Christ the head. Christ the head himself may want you to go through that means. Why? Well, because God is proud of his children. He's a proud parent. And like any proud parent, he gets joy out of attention being given to his children. And so that's the very thing he wants.

He doesn't want you to ignore his children. Imagine how you would feel if you had a friend who, who was your friend but couldn't stand your children and ignored them. When you had your children around, there is zero attention paid, but they're your children. How do you feel about your children? How do you think your friend should feel about your children? So here's some simple relational dynamics. I think we can, I think we're all mature enough to fill in the blanks for that.

Okay. All right. Well, this is great. Nice job, father. Folks, thank you so much. We'll be back with another case file. We hope you have enjoyed season two. It's been a real joy to bring it to you.

And we will see you for another dramatic episode in a week. So thanks for listening, folks. God bless you all. Stay demon free.