The Exorcist Files - The Book of Enoch, Demonic Temptation and The Sin of the Occult

Episode Date: November 20, 2025

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Welcome back to The Exorcist Files. Just a quick announcement to say that next week, things are going to get really dramatic. And no, that's not because you'll be having Thanksgiving dinner with your in-laws or family, but rather because the dramatic episodes will be returning. Now, if you're a vault member, you will get the case a day before everyone else. So if you haven't connected to Supercast and you're a vault subscriber, make sure you do that. But seriously, thank you, vault subscribers. Your support means we get to keep making these dramatic episodes.

Please click the link in the show notes if you want to support the show in the ministry or go to exorcistfiles.supercast.com. And with that, let's head to an amazing Q&A with our favorite Padre, Father Martins. Welcome back to The Exorcist Files. I am your co-host you love second most. And here with me is the Padre with the heavenly cadre that we love most. Father Carlos Martins joining us. Why don't we get to some questions the fans have asked. course, we like to deliver them in many ways, deliver results and deliver them from evil spirits.

So, all right, Father, here's a question about temptation and impure thoughts. I find this very interesting. It says, for most people, the question is, are impure thoughts symptomatic of our broken hardware, or are they actual tempting thoughts placed into our minds? I know this is speculation, but what do you think is happening when someone has impure thoughts, and I imagine and they could be, we'll say any type of sinful thoughts, and then maybe to add, and if it occurs, perhaps, when attempting to engage in any sort of religious activity, if we want to nuance it even more.

So humans are physically very complex organisms. And to even add to that complexity, we're also spiritual. And so both our physicality and our spiritual components have systems, or powers within them. And any one of them can be injured and be malfunctioning. And that could be the cause of, say, a temptation. For example, in terms of one's physicality, your body can be producing too little of a chemical or too much.

And that can have big consequences. That can affect things like libido, sexual drive, and just the ability to be tempted towards some sin or other. And your spirit itself, if you're in a state of sin, for example, well, you already are not functioning well, right? Because you're not in the kingdom of God. So you don't have grace. And grace is the only thing that will keep you from sin. So it's just a given that if you're in a state of sin, you're going to sin more.

That's just the way that it works. And the devil is going to do everything he can to make sure that that happens, that that comes about. but even beyond our physical and spiritual components, like as they are within you, as they are within me, the particular configuration, I mean within you and my particular configuration and Bill's particular configuration and Sally's and so forth, there is a residue of the fall of Adam within all of us that is constantly making itself felt. And traditionally the name for that is concupiscence or the inclination to sin.

It was easy for Adam and Eve not to sin because they were in a state of grace, like a pre-fallen grace. It was easy for them not to sin. They didn't have a divided nature like you and I do. Our natures are at war with one another. Paul talks about this. You know, the good I will, I don't do, the evil I will not. That is the thing I do.

And look how often sins of the flesh are men. mentioned within the New Testament as being our enemy, as warring against the body. So there isn't a strained answer for that, but the struggle is real. One of my favorite stories of Pope John the 23rd is somebody asked him once, you know, Your Holiness, when does the temptation of the flesh end? And he said it will end about half an hour after you're buried in the ground. So it's an exaggeration, of course, but he's making a point. be with your whole life long. All right. I guess good news and bad news. Also, Father, because the church is

teaching, right, is that the Holy Spirit obviously can place thoughts into our mind. And does the church teach that guardian angels can also suggest things to our mind? Is that accurate? Sure. If God wills it, for sure. Like any agent of God, the angels, the saints, or even, gosh, even your own mother, even a coworker of yours. If God wills it, then any one of those persons can have access to your mind in a miraculous way. So God will delegate his own very power to whomever he wishes. Got it. But when it comes to actual evil thoughts, et cetera, I'm sure we need to make a distinction between someone who is, you know, demonized versus not, or do we, father? Is there a, is the church teaching that demons obviously can't read our thoughts, but can they intrude?

Sure, they can intrude, yeah. They can make forages within their implant thoughts. They can't read thoughts, but they can plant a thought. They're very good at that. And they do do that. So baptized Christians can have thoughts. So it's not just people who are demonized. It's anyone, even people in Christ, the church teaches that demons could plant seeds of tempting God. Sure. Yeah, that's what a temptation is. There's a demonic planting at some level. I mean, a temptation doesn't have. have to come from the devil. But when they come from the devil, that's what they are. They're implantations. Got it. We've often distinguished the difference between someone who's baptized and not baptized and getting baptized, conferring upon it this status as a family member and actually changing the spiritual DNA. Are there any thoughts to think about, you know, a baptized person? Because I would think that at some level, maybe that would cut off the enemy's ability to insert, or is it merely

that when one is baptized, the enemy loses sort of the free reign. Is there a distinction? to be made there? His power is curbed. To the extent of how much it is curbed, we don't know. We don't know. But when you're in the state of grace, you have God within you. He's not just around you. He's within you. And so that means something. So what is it, you know, what is the effect within a concrete moment of a temptation? Well, I don't know, but there is an effect. It'll have the effect that God desires. And then maybe another good example, when Christ is tempted in the wilderness, right? The devil is actually, like, directly tempting him.

But in their ostensibly in that conversation, the reason it was so taxing is that his words and actions, in this case, they were probably overt, were causing tempting thoughts in Christ, right? Or he was assaulting Christ's mind. Is that the way to interpret that? Yeah, he was trying to separate Christ from his father. So he did that through food. He did that through glory. And he did that through, hey, look, why don't we just call it quits? I'll give you everything you came to purchase, to own.

I'll give you all of humanity. I just want you. And this had a visceral effect on Christ. He was non-functional after that. Angels had to come and minister to him because he hit the wall. Now, there's nothing sinful in this, right? the devil just went at our Lord with everything he had. But he went after his human nature, not the divine.

It's impossible for the divine nature to be tempted. It's impossible for God as God to be tempted. But for God as human to be tempted, it's possible because he has subjected himself to the limitations of being a human. And so those limitations, now, in you. and me, we have broken natures, but our Lord didn't. And there was no seam between his divinity and humanity. But the devil there was trying to cut a seam where no seam was present. And he didn't succeed, but it was so visceral that the God man hit the wall, so to speak,

and needed angels to come and minister to him. It was a real temptation in every sense of the word. That's probably good for us to remember that it's not sinful to be tempted, right, Father? That is like to feel the weight and the stress and to have to fight that fight. That is not, it's giving into it. That's the problem. It's giving into it. That's the problem.

And so, you know, for that matter, if you know you're going to be tempted in a situation, well, then don't do it. Right. If you know, for example, that being alone with your boyfriend or being alone with your girlfriend is going to mean that you're going to end up sinning sexually. Well, the sin doesn't begin when you start touching one another. The sin begins further back when you make the decision to be alone because you know you can't trust one another when you're alone. So the decision to be in a private place together, that's when the sin of lust begins. That's when you're already guilty. So you can't be going and, you know, like 49 times out of 50 times that you've been alone together, you end up in bed together.

and you're not married. You cannot say that it's a surprise at the 51st time that the sin happens again, right? Like, the sin has begun when you make the decision to disregard the precariousness and the weakness of your virtue and resolve. Father, we have gotten a lot of questions. In fact, I think this is the third time that this question has been addressed over the several years. I would love to see if we could get an answer from you on the Book of Enver. We've had many questions come in. Could you comment on it? What is it? Why do you think we're seeing such renewed interest in it? Is it maybe the UFOs and all the weird stuff and our zeitgeist? And is it true? It's mentioned in scripture. So the book of Enoch, it's an old book. There's debate about when it was written, but it certainly predated the New Testament. It was never officially included in the canon of the Bible. And therefore, no one, no Christian church, with the exception of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, among the Orthodox churches, only the Ethiopians consider it

divinely inspired. All the other churches, none of them considered it divinely inspired, although you may have a particular figure here or there that did. So why did the early church not consider it divinely inspired and therefore excluded it from the canon of scripture? So first of all, its authorship and authenticity are disputed. So early leaders questioned the books claim to be authored by Enoch and that he did so before the flood because its composition and inconsistencies within it are incompatible with that. There's also theological inconsistencies. Some of the books' content, particularly the stories of the angels,

impregnating the women, the description of the giants. it contradicts other parts of the scriptures. For example, Jesus says in Matthew 22 that angels don't marry. And just looking at it through the lens of physics, how do you have a being that is a pure spirit that an angel is? Angels have no material component. How in heaven's name could they have pregnant a woman if they are unable to produce sperm? There's a fantastical and mythological content to it.

So it's elaborate description of the angels, demons, and the end times, including the size of the beings, the size of the giants, were perceived as too mystical and inconsistent with the rest of biblical teachings, right? Like, that doesn't appear anywhere else. There was a lack of widespread acceptance, right? So one of the conditions, one of the criteria for a book to be accepted in the canon of the scripture was it had to be used universally. within the Sunday liturgy. So it had to be read as the Word of God within the scriptures. And that was, in the church's mind, the presence of the Holy Spirit, prodding and pushing the church in its charism of truth.

And the fact that this didn't occur, boom, it's dead in the water. The Holy Spirit is not pushing this work. The Holy Spirit has not laid his finger upon the Book of Enoch. And so many other books were excluded, and even quote unquote, gospels were excluded from the New Testament Hina based on these criteria. And then there are others besides, right? There's a lack of apostolic origin, at least in terms of, quote unquote, gospels. Now, the book of Enoch wouldn't have an apostolic origin because it was written long before the New Testament, how much long before we don't know, but it predated the apostles presumably. So it's not, it's not a,

obvious to anyone that the apostolic origin part would apply. In other words, it wouldn't be included in one of the New Testament books. If anything, it would have included in the Old Testament, but no one regarded it as divinely inspired. The book also didn't align with even how the Jews used scriptural books. The Jews themselves didn't regard it as scriptural. So, you know, in the New Testament stands on the shoulders of the old. So, you know, what we have here is just an ancient literary work that was important and was read and was disseminated and St. Peter in one of his epistles mentions it and Jude in his epistle mentions it. So this had an authority, but it didn't have divinely inspired authority. Kind of like today,

we can quote Shakespeare and we can quote a line from the play of Macbeth. And in doing so, in citing an example, a part of the play, all we're doing is just acknowledging the cultural presence of the play within the modern mind. 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.

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to join tens of thousands of men from all over the world for Exodus 90. Again, it begins Monday, January 20th. God bless you. It has had a great big impact, and so it need mean nothing more than that. But we repeat lines from Macbeth to be or not to be. And they have left a lasting, lingering impact on our culture. but referencing them doesn't mean that Shakespeare has any authority other than a simple playwright, period, and that the plays he wrote have left a lasting cultural impact on society.

Okay. I don't know as Peter said it as something about it too? I didn't realize that. Second Peter, the theme of God's judgment on fallen angels is referenced in one Enoch, for if God did not spare the angels when they sin, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment. So he doesn't mention the book, but it's been thought that Peter may have pulled that, or at least he had something written in Enoch in mind.

Okay, so, Father, would it be fair to say that, well, obviously, the book of Enoch is not scripture, it is akin to perhaps a great literary work that people of that time period and subsequent generations would have looked on fondly to help illustrate points that are made in actual scripture. Yeah, and that it had a profound place in the cultural milieu of pre-New Testament times, and even New Testament times, for that matter. And it left an imprint on the consciousness of people, and that imprint was so strong that the themes within the book of Enoch, people began describing things according to those themes. It doesn't mean it's divinely inspired, but it is a, a book of profound cultural significance that impacted the way people interpreted spirituality.

And do you think that's why it was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls? I think that's exactly why, right? So look, you know, John Milton wrote Paradise Lost. It's a marvelous work. It's a work of just a highly talented literary person with such a profound grasp of the English language and with a deep, rich, Christian understanding. You know, in referencing it, I'm not implying that John Milton was a prophet or was divinely inspired the way he put some religious themes that are inherent within us. Like there are certain things that we read when we read about the judgment on the angels

that like Peter does in 2nd Peter chapter 2. For God did not spare the angels when they sin, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment. he doesn't say that the Lord told me this. Peter doesn't in this part. He doesn't say, I remember the Lord saying this. He's just saying it. Now, the Lord could have put that on his consciousness when Peter wrote this, boom. Peter could have gotten this from the book of Enoch, because there's similar stuff said in there. But it resonated with him as true. And he puts it down. And guess what? It is true because the stamp of the Holy Spirit was put on those words

and therefore was included in the canon of the scriptures. So we have instincts within us, including spiritual instincts that no one teaches us certain things, but we behave a certain way. So you go watch a werewolf movie. You might be frightened, scared. You watch a vampire movie. You might be frightened scared. But when Hollywood wants to terrify somebody, it creates. It's a demon movie. Why? It reaches more of that primordial instinct within the human being. And that instinct can be talked about, written about. Poetry can be written about it. And it just resonates. And I think that's what you're seeing when Peter references that and when Jude does as well. It would be false to take these references of Enoch, assuming that Peters is a reference. Jude, there's no question it is a reference. It would be a great. gratuitous and erroneous conjecture to say that they're giving credits that the book of Enoch is divinely inspired. There's no way you can draw that from the matter in hand. But they're pointing to a work that had a profound significance and it affected them and it helped them interpret reality in a certain

way. And their interpretation of reality in a certain way has made it into scripture and has been ratified by the Holy Spirit. All right, Father, this is a question. I'll admit I have always been fascinated by this too, but there's probably a simple answer. When we talk about the Christian church and all of us becoming saints, this listener writes in and asks, why is Michael the archangel called a saint? But angels and humans are fundamentally different. And is it possible that they all become saints? Or is Michael the same type of saint that we hope to become through our lives and in heaven ultimately? So the word saint simply means holy. When we say St. Michael, we're merely saying holy Michael. And the word holy means set apart. When we say St. Francis of Assisi,

we're saying Holy Francis of Assisi. So in that sense, it's univocal across all of them, even though they are different types of beings. One's a human, one's angelic. So the process of their sanctification was different for each one. It's different for an angel than it is for a human. but the title is the same because they being set apart, that notion is the same. Simple answer. Sorry, listener. If you were looking for a more extended answer to that, that is the answer. Holy.

All right, here's an interesting one. I can relate to this as someone who worked in marketing for a long time. Father, I'm in sales. Sometimes I have trouble reconciling my job, which is to convince people to buy something that they may in fact not need. Of course, it's not up to me to decide. what they need and what they value. I actually do value our product and service, but there's a reason sales people have a reputation. Is there such a thing as redemptive sales? Can I think about it differently?

And since I know we talk about spiritual warfare a lot in this show, I wanted to include this question because it does talk about our vocation and honesty and truth telling. And that obviously is important for our holiness and our walk. So Father, any thoughts on this? Yeah. So obviously holiness, honesty, truth telling, like that has to be part of everything we do. Right. So we can't lie. But even more than that, we can't manipulate somebody that we know, for example, is vulnerable. Obviously, if somebody is in sales, like it's your job to sell a product. And you're selling the product. It helps you.

It's the way that you feed yourself. You feed your family. So there's nothing immoral or inappropriate about that. But there is a way in which you can pressure somebody or you can manipulate somebody. And I don't have an example at hand. for that, but I'm just, I know people, women who have had car problems or maybe not even a problem, but just a maintenance issue. They go in and get an oil change. And all of a sudden they're told they need this and that replaced in their car and this is a really dangerous thing. Well, they don't

know any better. And they come back and they've been manipulated by that garage because there was nothing wrong with those parts of the car. Those parts of the car had been changed within three months. So it was a complete fabrication. So in this case, there's a dishonesty. But there's also just a straight manipulation of people. So it may not be an outright lie, but it's a taking advantage of somebody. So one of my good friends, I knew him from a parish where I attended church before seminary, one day he decided he needed more money for drinking.

And he had been a terrible alcoholic and eventually sobered up and lived just a wonderful saintly life, but he decided the only way that I can get extra money is to sell the car, and I'll buy a cheaper car, and I'll keep the difference. So he went to his wife and just pointed out all of the things that are wrong with the car, and we've got to sell it now because we'll never get this amount of money for it. So she didn't have a basis to contradict what he was saying. He was, quote, unquote, the expert on that. Now, she didn't realize that she was being manipulated, which was the equivalent of being

lie to. He didn't straight lie to her, but there was a motive of manipulation at heart of it. So, of course, we can't do things like that. So in sales, what I would say is, like, if you really think that this person is going to be harmed by your sale. And by harmed, I mean, the product is something that in no way can they use it and they cannot afford it, then I think for you to push the sale we're into the realm of immorality there. You're manipulating somebody who may not have the wherewithal, the muscle, the apparatus to reject what you're offering. And rejecting it is what they should do.

But most of the time, we never face those situations. I do remember one time there was an individual who he had a horrific debt, horrific debt. And he had contacted me for advice on how to cancel a purchase he made. So he owed many thousands of dollars on all of his credit cards. He had a terrible mortgage that he was paying for. He had a car payment. He was not surviving. And then all of a sudden, there's a sale, a church is having a sale on some religious books and they were all half off.

And it was just an amazing sale. So he bought $350 worth to give away to people because he couldn't pass up the opportunity. Well, he needed to buy those like he needed a hole in the head. and to give them as gifts to boot. So he did think better of it. He asked for advice, what should I do? And he tried to cancel the sale. But by that point, they had already shipped.

So he was stuck with it. Now, if I knew, let's say I was the pastor of that church, and I knew that this individual had the problems that he did. And obviously, there are problems. He cannot live within his means. There's something wrong with him. There's a virtue missing. There's an impulsivity.

They're present. There's some neurosis present. But whatever you want to call it, whatever the issue is, he's just not able to govern himself the way that he ought to. And so knowing that, I wouldn't have sold them those books. I'd be like, Jack, this is really not something you need. It is a good sale, but this is not a good sale for you. And you would be way better off taking that $350 and paying down the money that you owe. That would be the just thing to do.

So it's possible to be a Christian and in marketing, Father. It's possible to be a Christian and in marketing, yeah. Okay, good to know, asking for a friend. All right. Well, we are just getting all the interesting doorways here. We did have someone ask about the Catholic Church's position on cosmetic surgery. Is it inherently sinful? Does it depend on the use case?

And I'm assuming because all these come in on our spiritual warfare tagging, theoretically, if it is sinful, could cosmetic surgery or alterations be a gateway to evil? And I'll add to this. It doesn't say this on here, but I know many people have written in about tattoos as well. And, you know, changing their body maybe is a broader topic. We could add to that. Good question. So there's layers of complexity here. So what does the church say about cosmetic surgery? Well, it has no official position. But we can use the principles of morality and good sense and rationality and draw a position that would be consistent with Catholic teaching and that would be a Christian position. So is cosmetic surgery inherently sinful? Well, it certainly can be. You know, what is the need for the tummy tuck and for the faith lift? Well, to feel good about myself. Most people will say that.

To look more beautiful, I'll feel better. I'll feel better about myself. I'll look more attractive. I'll feel more attractive and so forth. And really, at the end of the day, what does that get you? Why is that a necessary thing to have? what's the difference between that and some gadget that you don't need that you buy? What's the difference between doing that and spending money on something else that you don't need?

Because, you know, the saints have said that the money that we misspend is money we steal from the poor. So that being said, do I want to say that any cosmetic surgery such as a tummy tuck or a facelift is sinful? any and every. No, but I think you're getting dangerously close to that. And I will say this. I think we've all met people that have had cosmetic surgery in their face. And I'll tell you this, very few people have told me they have, but I've met many, many people where it's obvious they have. And it is obvious just by looking at them that they did that. In other words, it's not well done. like their hope to be attractive, they didn't end up attractive. And I find that more often than not.

Never have I met somebody who has said that he or she, and it's usually a she, has had cosmetic surgery, and they came out more attractive than what they were before. I just want to say that. So in the end, is there something else? Could those funds be used in a virtual? way that will bring about your beauty in eternity more so than a temporary beauty, because all of us are going to end up as the food of worms in the ground. And the worms are not going to care at all

that you had any cosmetic surgery. In fact, they may even be disappointed if there's less of you that goes in the ground when there was, because they'll have less to eat. But I think out of that, there's enough for people to be able to gauge it and discern a path forward about whether to get such a surgery or not. Yeah, it's super interesting too because you think about, you know, there's a lot of branches of this tree. There's nothing inherently wrong, right, with wanting to have a great physique and be healthy and feel confident and also functional, right? It's interesting that you can train well for living long and prospering and healthy, and that might confer aesthetic benefits, and that's not inherently wrong. But if it causes you to become less of a character and

worship yourself, then it becomes wrong. Also, I thought of an interesting use case, where, where you mentioned depending on the inspiration for why you're doing it, you know, say a husband or a wife is doing something to please their partner because the partner wants that, and it's just for them, then theoretically that could be considered okay, right, Father? Yeah, certainly, and there's some value to that,

and that would mitigate an accusation of vanity. It's a way to make oneself beautiful for one's partner. But again, the question for me is beauty really the result? And more often than not, in my experience, beauty is not the outcome. Yep. And Father, can you just dispel the rumors once and for all? I know a lot of rumors circulating about your biceps. Those are natural, right, Father? They're totally real. It's from long hours of training in the gym each and every day. And your Bible's heavier than mine, right? So that leads to us. There's more books in it, right?

That's right. It's got more books. And I lift way more chalices than you guys do, too. That's right. Actually, and you probably have. have good, I imagine your shoulder strength, right? Because you lift the chalice very high, right? So it's good rotator cuff strength. Okay. All right, moving along here. This is interesting one. So, Father, throughout history, there have been many counts of biolocation and levitation among the saints. Are those things that we just accept, or is there any room for skepticism there? When reading about the accounts of saints, and I know we've covered Padre Pio and his was claimed to be unable to bilocate, are we allowed to have doubt about those things? Some of these claims seem absolutely

fantastic. Are these official church teachings or are these just accounts of the saints? Okay, look, God is capable of the absolutely fantastic. So you have to qualify skepticism with that. So everything about God is absolutely fantastic. The reason why he chose to create is a fantastic reason. God didn't need to create. And he needs nothing outside of himself, but yet he did so. So that's an absolutely fantastic decision he made. The fact that he endowed creation, human creation, with immortal souls and with the possibility of choosing evil, well, that's an absolutely fantastic thing. The redemptive plan is absolutely fantastic, right? So God is all about the absolutely fantastic business. Nevertheless,

the church obligates no one to believe any particular story. about something a saint did. Unless that story is contained in scripture, right, unless it's part of revelation in and of itself. But you don't have to believe any particular thing about, for instance, of Assisi or St. Padre Pio or that kind of thing. However, I just will caution, though, that when you look at the sheer number of stories of Padre Pio,

there are many people in the world who knew him personally that are still alive. I know some of them. And I know people who experienced him as being present in their home. This is a part of Italy close to Rome. And it was impossible for him to be there because at the time he was in house arrest. And he was there that day and celebrated a private mass and said Giovanni Rotundo, which was hundreds of miles, hundreds of kilometers away. But yet they saw him.

They interacted with him. They had a conversation with him. And these are rational people. These are normal human beings. So what happened in that account? Well, he gave them a spiritual message, gave them reassurance that something that they were fearing somebody's illness, someone's disease, was not going to be fatal, that God was going to heal. Guess what?

The next day, that individual woke up and was symptom-free. So God is about the fantastic. You know, there's another Francis, St. Joseph Cupertino, who's known as the because he would hear something spiritual like a hymn, a church bell ringing, and it would send him off to an ecstasy. And during the ecstasy, he would levitate. He would be up in the air, and sometimes he'd be three stories into the air. And look, his own Franciscan order was embarrassed by this. And it was only at the calling of his religious superior that he was descend back down onto the ground. But he didn't even realize that he was floating.

He was in an ecstasy, so he was somewhere else. But at the word of his religious superior, his body would come back down onto the ground, and he would come to and be back in his senses. So his religious order put him into a de facto prison. I've been inside his prison. This is in Assisi at the Franciscan house there. They made a room for him towards the back so that pilgrims wouldn't be able to see him. because St. Joseph Copertino became more popular than even Francis.

Now, he lived centuries after Francis, but he was a son who became more popular than the father. And that was an embarrassing thing for the Franciscans. And so all of a sudden, they made it so that he's forbidden to interact with the public. And his room faced the valley, which is at the back of the monastery, so people wouldn't be able to see him. He had his own altar in there where he celebrated Mass. I saw his bed. When I saw his bed, I thought it was a kneeler. And then I saw the kneeler, which looked like something that you would put a three-year-old on to kneel.

So the man was a tiny, tiny man. And the turning point of his life, where he went from being seen as weird to being appreciated, is his religious superior had one of the same. one of the rope belts that Franciscans tie their robes with. He happened to have Joseph's with him. And he was called in to do an exorcism. And so he put that, he wrapped that sinkure around the victim. And the demon said, the owner of that belt is the holiest man on this planet.

And that was when the tide turned. So yes, there are fantastic stories about. many saints. And you don't have to believe a single one of them, but I would caution you from having a dogmatic skepticism because that also is an excess and it has really no place in the life of a Christian. Okay. And Father, just for the record, you're not bi-locating right now, right? Not that I know of. I could charge way more money if I could bi-locate. All right. Last question here. Father, if mortal sin is predicated, on intent and knowledge of knowing something is wrong. Why are things like tarot cards or people

going to psychics as a parlor trick dangerous? Is it just because it's a sin in general and does the intent matter? I know we've talked a little bit about this in the show, but I'm going to guess the nature of the question is we've talked about how greages the sin is of doing this stuff that's banned in the Levitical law, but many people are probably not doing it with any intent or knowledge that it's wrong and they are viewing it as sort of recreation. So why is it still wrong? Because it's opening a doorway, a porthole to evil. It's opening a door and to the spiritual realm and giving an open invitation to whatever is on the other side of that door to come and have a relationship with you. So you may not know that it's wrong.

And look, we've had stories on the show where little kids had no idea what they were doing was spiritually wrong. We know, for example, in the original story, The Exorcist, that the aunt comes over and teaches little Robbie. his real name was Rob, was Robbie. In the movie, he became a girl and was played by Linda Blair, but Robbie was taught to play the Ouija board by his aunt. And he had no idea. Like, she was a spiritualist. She liked to dabble with spirits.

And he had no idea. He was just doing what this adult in his life, he's seven years old, was telling him to do. And he did it. Well, guess what? He got burned nonetheless. And it's no different than you putting your hand on the hot burner of the stove the first time that you did it in your life and you learned really quickly,

boy, I can't do that because I'm going to hurt myself. And it's no different in the spiritual realm. Now, the question was, if mortal sin is predicated on intent and knowledge, is there a mortal sin? Well, in the case of Robbie, no, I would say there was no mortal sin because he didn't know. I mean, there's no indication that he knew that playing with the Ouija board was going to subject him to possession. but he got possessed nonetheless. He got possessed apart from having any obvious mortal sin.

And that we have to be aware of. You can get possessed through mortal sin, but you don't have to have mortal sin to be possessed. Yeah, and I think maybe just to do the listeners' question a little more just too. I obviously the reason tarot cards, astrology, numerology, all this stuff is wrong is because you're essentially communicating with your actions that you're, you don't want to follow God's plan, right? That you want to have another God that will give you what you want when you want it.

So you are violating the first commandment, right? Doing something spiritually stupid, being subjected to a curse, or inheriting it through like a generational curse is sufficient. Oh, yeah. Well, I guess that's what I'm asking is for someone who's like, hey, you know, they get drugged to a game. It's like a Ouija board and they're not trying to use it for a cold. They're actually not only do they not know it's wrong,

They're not actually trying to get knowledge, right? They're like, oh, this is just stupid entertainment and have zero belief that it even works. And so in those cases, it's still wrong, right? And I'm just curious why it's wrong is it seems like the first command violation is predicated on, you know, you are trying to get knowledge that you're not supposed to have. Yes, but in the case of Robbie, he didn't know he was violating the First Commandment. And even though you may not know that it's wrong, you're opening a porthole to evil. you're putting your hand on a red hot burner in the spiritual realm. And there are consequences for that.

So there's two parts here. There's two parts. There's the objective guilt that then remains on the soul from a sinful action. And that may not apply. In the case of Robbie, it didn't apply. There was no guilt. There's no sinful act, objectively speaking, that he did. There was a wrong act, an evil act.

from which there can be no guilt because he didn't know that it was wrong. But nevertheless, the danger is there. The contamination is there because what was done was something that inherently invited evil into a personal relationship with him. So I think that's where the confusion lies. There's two parts of it. There's the guilt and there's the poison. You can put your hand in the poison without incurring guilt.

but you can also put your hand in the poison, knowing full wrong that it's poison and thereby incur guilt, but one doesn't follow from the other. All right. Well, that is all the time we have for today. Folks, thank you for writing in your questions. We get so many good ones. We try to pick the ones we think are going to be the most interesting. And we really appreciate your support of the show. So thank you so much for listening. And Father, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom.

And hopefully you'll be able to do some questions again soon. Yep, you got it. All right, thank you, everyone. Stay demon free.