The Sean McDowell Show - Are Demons, Ghosts, and Exorcisms Real? (w/ Billy Hallowell)

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

What is the evidence for demons? What would a modern investigation reveal? In this video, I interview author Billy Hallowell regarding his book "Playing with Fire: A Modern Investigation into Demons, Exorcisms, and Ghosts." WATCH: What Do We Know about Demons? 4 Things (https://bit.ly/3i3bW08) READ: What Powers Do Demons Have? (https://bit.ly/3iXe62x) SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHANNEL (https://bit.ly/3fZ9mIw) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Hey, we are glad you are with us today for a show that can only be described as somewhat eerie. We're talking about demons and the supernatural and exorcism and ghosts. What's the evidence that they are real? What does the data show? Does it happen today? Can it be described as mental illness? Well, we're going to start talking about this and I don't know anybody more qualified and

bring an interesting perspective than my friend Billy Halliwell who's written a new book just out called Playing With Fire. And what I like about it is he brings his training in journalism to kind of look at this with a skeptical eye of a journalist. Of course, he's a Christian, so he has some biases. But I think one of the things I love, Billy, is you work really hard in this book to just kind of approach this and say, what is the data show? We're going to jump in and get into that, but thanks for taking the time to come on the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Yeah, well, let's jump in.

Kind of the obvious first question that I ask when anybody writes any book, but especially a book on demons and the occult, is why write on this? Well, I laugh because if you were to tell me two years ago that I was going to do this, I would have said, you're crazy. I'm not going to write this book. I do like to tackle difficult topics. So the first book I wrote was on the end times. And I like to approach topics from, okay, what do you believe? Let's go to all the Christians out there who are highly qualified,

who are theologians, who understand these issues, and let me go and present sort of that overarching Christian view. And so this has been an issue that as a journalist actually has come up repeatedly. I would cover these stories of possession when The Conjuring came out. The Hollywood studios came out and they're like, listen, will you cover this? So we would kind of cover the based on a true story. And then being a lifelong Christian, I was just intrigued by it, obviously. But I also felt like I had never really been to a church that really addressed it. I felt like it's a very under addressed issue within the church.

We talk about it and I can't speak for every church, but the churches I've been to, we speak about evil, but we don't really get into what it really means, how it manifests itself. So long story short, it was a very strange occurrence. The opportunity emerged. It was presented to me, and you know this as an author. You usually have to kind of go through and put together a proposal, and I didn't do any of that. I mean, this was something that came up in a conversation and it was offered to me and I was taken by surprise a little bit by it. And I sat on it for two months and I prayed about it because I'm like, do I want to write this? Like, do I want to do this? You know? And then I did it. I felt like I was supposed to do it.

So I did it. Well, good for you. I think it's a great book. I didn't know what to expect because we've done interviews. I've watched some of your other stuff, but hadn't read your books. And I was really pleasantly surprised just how you aim to be balanced in this and not stretch the evidence beyond what it shows, even though you're Christian and clearly believe in the reality of demons. I think you did a great job of kind of balancing that. By the way, those who are joining us, we'd love to hear where you're from. We have people from Boston coming in, and we often have people from around the world. This channel, very quickly, is brought to you by Biola Apologetics. So if you're new, make sure you hit subscribe because we have some other interviews coming up you are not going to want to miss.

Well, let's jump in and tell me this before we start looking at the evidence for the existence of demons. How, as a journalist, do you uniquely approach this question? Versus me, I'm an apologist versus a theologian. What do you bring in? How do you try to balance in your mind between falling for these exaggerated stories, yet not also ruling them out? You know, I am, like you know, I'm a lifelong Christian, so I believe in these things, right? But for me, it's always about evidence. Where is the evidence that I can go to? And that's sometimes difficult on a topic like this.

But are there cases that have evidence that is hard to dispute, that is on the record, that has something about it that's unique? And sometimes the evidence manifests itself in people being unwilling to talk about their experiences. Now, just because someone's unwilling doesn't mean it's true, but it does give you sort of a lens into seeing, okay, that person, there's a reason why they're hesitant. And so I start approaching things from that perspective. I also want to understand what are the different viewpoints. So one of the first things I do is I try to dive in and look on an issue like this. Okay, you know, what are demons? There's different ideas about that.

How do they manifest themselves today? Not everybody believes they do, even in the Christian world. So understanding the different pieces of it, but really going back to that evidence. And, of course, you start with Scripture, because if I'm going to look at this from a Christian perspective, that's the first place you really want to look. And then I go to those individual stories, the claims over the last hundred years in different people's experiences, and I try to verify as much as I can, okay, is this a story I want to tell? Or, you know, if there's not a lot of evidence, is the person compelling? Is there something about that individual that would connect or resonate with people? So that's sort of the starting point for me. That makes sense. When I typically people

ask me why I believe in demons, one of the things I'll point towards is the scriptures. If the scriptures are true and reliable, this includes the reality of demons. But another piece of evidence, a different way we could start is kind of from the bottom up saying, let's look at some cases of demon possession, demon haunting, and see if there's any good evidence for this. So you approach this as a journalist. Let's look at what's often called Cranmer's claims. What on earth is happening with this story? And are you convinced there's any reason in this case to believe that demons are involved? So this story surrounds a guy named Bob Cranmer. He's out in

Pennsylvania. Now, Bob Cranmer was a county commissioner in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. So this is a guy who was a politician. He was elected to a position. And after he was elected to this position, he comes forward with this story of things that have been going on in his house. Now, I first encountered Bob, I want to say probably 2013, 2014, when I was working at the Blaze. And somebody had tipped me off that this guy had a story. And it was a guy who wasn't just some random guy, it was this politician. And so I sat down with Bob, and he told me, he proceeded to tell me that he was dealing with something called infestation, that his home was basically, I think it's what people would call haunted. In the Christian world, we would say there was an evil presence.

There was almost a possession of the location, right? That's how we sort of describe infestation. Now, not everybody believes in infestation, even those who believe in possession, and we can talk about that after. But inside the home, he had numerous children. He and his wife, it was sort of his dream home. He grew up in that neighborhood, always wanted to live in this house. They move into the house, crazy things start happening, and they start going to try to get help, right? And when I say crazy things, the

children were affected. They were misbehaving in strange ways. The wife was experiencing mental duress. There were all sorts of things things happening it was sort of chaos in the home and then they started having things like mysterious red fluid coming off of the walls they start it just it started manifesting itself and so i'm listening to this story and i was intrigued by it and what do i do i want to know is this true are there facts that i can verify and so sometimes when you don't have things you can look at, what you'll do is you'll start calling the other people who you were told were involved in the case. And I called other people. And what was remarkable to me, some of these people would not be named. They would not go on the record.

Interesting. They verified everything he said. And so that was very intriguing to me. And it's a very complex story. He eventually was able to get rid of this, but it took two years of effort on the part of different churches in the community to sort of heal this home. That's crazy. So basically what's convincing to some people is that he tells a story and others are able to corroborate the same story. How would say a skeptic write some of this off? What would be the common ways people just don't buy it? Well, in the case of this story, I think it's important to tell the other side, which is that former residents, the children of former residents of that home have said, we never had these problems inside the home, right? And so

I cover that in the book. I think it's important. You have to show both sides of it. I don't know how a skeptic would write off numerous people telling you that they've seen, and I get into details in Playing With Fire about the things that people saw in that home, the things that they experienced. They would put The Passion of the Christ on DVD. They would play it on loop in one of the rooms in the home,

and they would come home and the DVD would be like out of the DVD player, right? And the TV would be off. So there were all sorts of things that were seen inside of this home, including a location in the home that was closed off that they felt that this location was sort of the centerpiece of this evil, what was going on in the house. And when they took the wall down, they found toys, strange drawings, things that there was no way could have been placed in there. And people validated those stories. So a skeptic could say, well, Bob made it up. He made it up for money. They could they could come up with all sorts of different options for how these things unfolded. But there were people there who saw and who experienced these things. And so I am very skeptical of everything.

I'm not going to tell people this definitely happened. I think it's a compelling case in which we have to at the least say something was happening that people could not explain by natural means. I think that's a really fair approach, and you take that in plain with fire. Not overstate, but also not dismiss. And I think it's really interesting when I've done research on say near death experiences, about 4% of the population, at least in Germany and arguably in the US have had some kind of near death experience, but they're very reluctant to share their stories because people think they're crazy. So it seems to me that if this is a politician who's public, what would he have to gain by inventing a story like this? I mean, how much does that add?

I don't think he has a lot to gain. He wrote a book about it, and you're always going to have people who say, well, you know, great. Your story could become the next Conjuring movie, right? But there's a lot that goes along with this. To your point, it is really difficult to come forward and say that you had some sort of supernatural experience and yet 45 percent of the country not christians 45 percent of general people in this country believe in ghosts and believe in demons so almost half of the population is admitting they believe in these things and many of those people have had those experiences and they're they're not willing to share them. I can tell you, I encountered numerous

people who were too afraid to share their story with me. I knew their story and I was going to them and I was saying, hey, we'll change your name. We don't even have to put your name in. I will protect your identity. And they still didn't want to share it, right? And it's because of that stigma. It's because, listen, I wrote the book and I know there's people who are going to say, oh, you're crazy for writing it. But I think once you dive into it and you start to read it, I would hope that people can see that there's a fair approach given. But you can't write all these people's stories off as crazy because they're not crazy people. I think you do take a fair approach. And by the way, I see some questions in here about what demons are in biblical view.

We are going to get to that, I promise. I love that you're asking questions. But I want to hear another case first. You have in a book one that just frankly kind of freaked me out. And I got to warn our viewers before you talk about this Indiana case. I was reading this book before I was going to sleep at night and was like, maybe I'm going to read something else. It's just eerie stuff that feels like it comes from a horror film.

But there's some documented evidence for this. So talk about the Indiana case. Yeah, this was the case. Actually, when you were asking that first question, what made you want to do this? One of the big stories in 2013 and 2014 that I had covered when I was at the Blaze was this case in Indiana. And it was a mother, her mother, so a mom, a grandma, and three kids. And they were claiming that, and this actually happened in 2011, but it wasn't until a couple of years later that it made its way into the press. They were claiming that they were experiencing possession. The mother was experiencing possession and it would sort of jump to the

children. And so when officials heard this and doctors for this, they assumed that there was some sort of abuse going on in the home. In fact, she lost custody of the children for a time during this. And there was one day they were at a doctor's office. The doctor was called 911 because the kids were acting erratic. They were acting crazy. They get to the hospital and this is sort of, I'm sort of truncating the story, but they get to the hospital and a CPS childcare worker and a nurse, and this is important, were in the room with the mom, the grandmother, and at least one of the kids. And I can't even believe I'm saying this, and you've read it, so you know. Yeah.

But they claim that this little boy in the midst of this fit walked up the side of the wall and sort of did a flip and landed on his feet. Now, of course, the CPS worker, who actually placed this in an official CPS report, which is in the book and people can read, ran out of the room, went to get the doctor. Of course, the doctor comes in, doesn't believe the story. And the nurse who was in the room has validated this, has gone on the record. And this was such a compelling story. Okay. And that's just one of the elements of what went on that the Indianapolis Star actually wrote a massive story on this. It was

in a mainstream outlet. It went viral. It was all over the world back in 2014. And so my approach to this was to go, I didn't really want to talk with the family. They had been out there. They had talked about it. A couple of years had passed, obviously. I wanted to talk to the sheriff who investigated the case. So I did. I wanted to talk to the priest who investigated the case. So I did. I wanted to talk to the priest who investigated the case. And so I did. And what was remarkable was to sort of hear them explain what they experienced, that they experienced things they couldn't explain throughout this entire case. And so you have real documentation of, again, something going on that people could not explain. And there are so many strange details in the case and in fact the house ended up being bought by a reality TV star they

demolished the house they made a movie about it all sorts of other things went on in this case but the case itself is one of the most compelling now am I saying it's true no but I will say for me looking at that evidence including staff members at the CPS office, who at least one of them left her job after and left the state and moved away. So this had a profound impact on the people who were involved in it. Did some of the stories that you researched for this kind of surprise you and take you back? Like there must have been things you didn't expect to uncover in writing a book like this. Absolutely. I mean, I think there were a few things.

The one consistency that really disturbed me in talking with a few people who had gone through what they believed was a possession, right? I'm not talking about like a spiritual attack, something minor. I'm talking about a full possession was this thought that they had in their mind that they wanted to end their life. And it was something that I don't know why. It was just something about this detail that really stuck with me. And it really freaked me out.

And it wasn't just, oh, you know, maybe I should end my life. It was you need to end your life. You don't matter. End your life. And it drove at least one of these people to attempt to do that and to obsess over that. And that was a weird consistency. And it shouldn't be that strange to me, because when you read the descriptions of Satan in scripture, I mean, this is basically to destroy. I mean, this idea of trying to destroy us, that would make sense. But to hear people describe what it was

like to slowly go through this process of finding themselves in that state really struck me. You know, it is powerful when you look at scripture, Satan is not only a liar, but he's a murderer is what we're told. So, and throws people into the fire and the guy claws himself across the sea of Galilee. So these descriptions do really fit in the way that you're talking about it. So let me ask you this, then we'll get back to the evidence. What does Hollywood get right, at least in terms of a biblical view of, say, demons and Satan and the supernatural? And what does it get wrong? So the interesting thing about Hollywood, and I find this convicting,

and before I answer that, and it's part of the answer, we asked people, we went out and asked church leaders. So this wasn't just pastors, it was youth leaders, it was people in charge of the church, whether they were volunteers or on staff. We asked them a bunch of questions about this. Do you think that demons can impact culture? Over 80% said yes. Do you believe demons can impact individuals' lives? Over 80% said yes. Are your churches talking about this enough? Are your churches talking about this enough? Are your pastors talking about this enough? 78% said no.

Only 17% of these Protestant leaders had some sort of deliverance ministry in their church. So when you ask what Hollywood has right, I guess at a baseline, they're talking about it. They're actually talking about these issues, not the right way all the time, most of the time, not the right way, but they're bringing them up more than some churches are. And so that should actually be terrifying to Christians who care about this issue, because the only framing that some people have is what Hollywood is giving. Now, there are some films that have attempted to really show that struggle over good and evil. When you look at Ephesians 6 and you look at sort of what we know is bubbling beneath the surface, I think Hollywood does a good job sometimes of actually illustrating what that could look like. And some of the films that are based on a true story, of course, they're over the top.

There's pea soup spewing. It's crazy. But that baseline of sort of the good and evil, I think Hollywood does sometimes get right. And, you know, again, if we're not talking about this, right, and I'm not saying obsessing over it, but trying to understand it, and culture has decided to take their own spin on it,

that should give us some pause, I think, as Christians, because I can't think of another issue. And you are the Bible expert here, so I'm going to say this, and correct me if you want. I can't think of another issue that's spoken about so much in Scripture and is talked about so little in comparison to how much it's talked about. That's really interesting. I can't think of one off the top of my head, but you're probably right. Certainly the New Testament more so than the Old Testament when it comes to demons and angels, because we see a little bit more information new in the old. But you're probably right about that. I was struck that you cited in the book that I think it's 2017 that the horror film industry

passed like a billion dollars in profits, and it was increasing. Before COVID, who knows if that'll increase it or change it? But at the same time, our culture is becoming less shaped by the larger Christian narrative. Why do you think that is? Why would there be all these shows and all this discussion and fascination and interest in you writing a book on this? At the same time, the culture is kind of moving away from its commitments, largely speaking, to the Christian story. Yeah, I think that's a great question. And I think there's probably a lot of different answers we could give to that. But my sense is that we all have something built

into us that God put there that we want to understand these things. These are the most basic questions, right? And we're looking at evil around the world. We're looking at new stories that we can't process. We're looking at news stories that we can't process. We don't really understand whether these things are happening more frequently or we're having a lens or a light rather shined on them because of social media and technology. I tend to think we're seeing more of these strange events. There's a real sense that evil exists. And so what are people to do with that? We're intrigued by it. We want to understand it. Why are people going to see

psychics and still buying Ouija boards like crazy? Because there's this deep, I think, thirst to try to connect with the things we don't understand. The danger is when you're pushing God out, you're opening sort of this vacuum, right, for people if they're not hearing the gospel, where they're trying to fill that void with something. And so I think one of the problems with, with Hollywood is that, you know, it can often lead people to have intrigue maybe that they wouldn't have had otherwise when it's not handled well. Um, but it is very fascinating to me that we have this sort of, you know, drift away culturally from God. And yet we have this real almost obsession with the horror film genre, right? And not just film it's TV and it's and you watch a reality show everybody on the reality

show is generally going to see a psychic at some point so you you wonder like I just go what is going on here right and so I think that is at the core of it that's a really good response and by the way those who just join us we're here with Billy Holloway he works with pureix, is a journalist. He's written a fascinating new book called Playing with Fire, which takes really an honest, sober look at what's the evidence for demons, ghosts, and exorcisms. Now, there's other stories we won't get into right now, but one of the pieces of evidence I found fascinating, I first read in one of my favorite books in the historical Jesus, is called The Jesus Legend by Paul Rhodes Eddy and by Greg Boyd. And they were countering this naturalistic worldview and they said across cultures and

a large percentage of cultures, you find this kind of spirit or demon possession. And there's characteristics like somebody just becoming very violent, entering into a state where later they have no memory of it, becoming very, very strong. What really is the evidence for that one? And second, in your mind, how significant is that in terms of making a case for the reality of demons? Yeah, I think it's obviously something that's been studied a lot. And what I think is most fascinating about it is the claim that people can speak languages they don't know. I mean, that to me, because you can talk about, you could say, well, it's just

mental illness. And of course, mental illness exists in every culture. But the reality is almost every single culture since the beginning of human history has had these stories, right, of possession, essentially. And they're told in different ways. There are different, you know, elements of those stories. And we even see that today with the contemporary stories. Not every person who's affected seems to be affected the same way. Now, that would cause a critic to say, well, there's not consistency. Shouldn't this always look the same? Well, no, it shouldn't always look the same. I wouldn't assume it would. Why would we think that? It doesn't always look the same in Scripture when we see the stories. There are different elements, there are different levels to which people are afflicted before Jesus heals them. And so I think for me, when I look at that

evidence, I'm saying to myself, okay, there's clearly something going on here. And you have experts who are mental health experts who will look at these cases and will say, I mean, I've had people tell me, and they're not saying this publicly, but they've told me off the record that they work in this field. And I'm not talking about the medical field. I'm talking about the spiritual field, dealing with these issues, and that they will get a call a couple times a year from mental institutions who will say, we have a case. We need you to keep it off the record. And we don't know how to deal with this. Can you come and look? Wow. And so what is so interesting to me is that there seems to be a whole community of people in the realm of science, including prominent doctors.

I live in New York. I work here in New York City who are looking at this issue and saying there's something here. They may not know what they think it is, but there are some, like Richard Gallagher, who are working, and he's a respected psychiatrist, who are working day in and day out trying to solve these issues, working with the Catholic Church and others. So we have a history there to look at, but to me, the most compelling piece is if somebody's speaking a language they've never learned, and they're doing it in an adequate way where it's understandable, I don't know how well she would explain that. So that one sticks out to me as very fascinating. That is a really fascinating point. Now you mentioned kind of like mental illness and certain professionals and psychiatrists.

I want to come back to the question of whether or not this can be explained by mental illness, and clearly speaking a language can't, so that already challenges it. But tell us a story of M. Scott Peck. And I ask because I read his book, The Road Less Traveled in College, a language can't so that already challenges it but tell us a story of m scott peck and i asked because i read his book the road less traveled in college thoroughly enjoyed it he is a harvard trained professional died in 2005 but as far as i understand he did not believe claim to believe in demons or satan but his last book that he wrote is called Glimpses of the Devil, a psychiatrist's personal account of possession. What on earth convinced a psychiatrist who's used to interpreting what we might call erratic or unexplained behavior by pointing to the brain or some mental illness

that there actually is a spiritual realm of demon-like beings. Yeah. So with M. Scott Peck and others, it's interesting. It's usually this common thread of actually being involved in an exorcism, actually saying, okay, you know what? I'm going to take part. And in his case, there were two cases that he took part in and they convinced him, I mean, that he was actually able to see evil. And so we see this with Dr. Richard Gallagher too. I mean, there are actually able to see evil. And so we see this with Richard with Dr. Richard Gallagher, too I mean, there are plenty of people who have gone through this in the science realm. They're kind of like oh this doesn't exist I don't believe in this. I'm a doctor I believe in science and you're confronted with actually seeing people behave and manifest in ways that you can't explain

Whether that's strength that you can't explain whether whether that's in some cases, and I don't mean to get away from his story, but I think his is pretty cut and dry. He saw two people, two women go through this and it changed his perspective. But in Gallagher's case, he actually, I mean, it's crazy. He was on a phone call with a priest about this woman that he was trying to help. And he claims that a voice came over the phone and communicated with both him and the priest. And they were 2000 miles apart. They were 2000 miles away from each other when this happened. And it was a voice that was threatening them to stay away from her, don't help her. And so you hear, and he's like, I mean, this is somebody who would not make this up,

right? He's a well-respected psychiatrist. So there are so many examples of this. And I think with M. Scott Peck, we see that. We see somebody confronting evil, seeing it for what it is, and having to, and thank goodness people are willing to change their perspective to say, okay, there's something going on here. That's really helpful. By the way, I just got to comment that my mic is much louder than yours. So if you all can make a comment in the comments, if this is better, I'd turn it down. That would be helpful let's talk about one more piece of evidence for kind of the supernatural realm which are our ouija boards and i mean i know i'm probably like a lot of people where i haven't done ouija board i'm in

sixth grade i had a friend start when i was like i'm done let's not do this but i can tell you i have people i know and completely trust that tell me things that had been revealed to them they could not possibly have known that they verified with other people later on. What do you think is the evidence that there's something to Ouija boards that at least points towards kind of the supernatural realm? Yeah, you know, I think one of the problems with something like the Ouija board is that critics will say, yeah, but I've used one and I never had a problem. And the vast majority of people might use a Ouija board and they think they're playing a parlor game. It's nothing harmless. And they may have no problem with it. But there are enough people who have actually had life-changing, life-altering issues after using a Ouija board.

Some of them I know as well. Some of them are not willing to speak about it. And they have had terrifying things happen in their home, in their lives. Now, here's the thing about the Ouija board, okay? It promises to open a door, right, for you to communicate with the dead. I mean, that's the entire premise. You're trying to communicate with the spirit world. I think that's how they word it in their advertisements. And this became a toy. It became something that we think is fun. Like you were saying, friends will pull it out of the

sleepover and everyone's laughing. You're having a good time. Well, some people don't have a very good time after they use it. And so I wanted to go and sort of look at the history of it. Like, what is the history of this thing? Because it's one thing to sort of look at it as this tool that's fun to play with in a board game. but where did it come from? And I had never really thought about that before. And so when I started digging into this sort of mysterious shrouded history, one of the things that stood out to me, and this is sort of a commentary on the media too, I mean, when you go back to the 1800s and you look at what was going on back then, the New York Times, the Associated Press, these outlets would actually often cover different

stories that involved the Ouija board. They would talk about the history of it. They would talk about cases, right? Like let's say somebody committed a murder and they claim the Ouija board told them to do it. That would be included in the news report. If there was a possession of some sort, the Washington Post covered the story that was based, that was the basis of the exorcist in a news story in the 1940s. So my point is the media was once open to these things. Now, critics would say, well, yes, everybody, you know, back then they just weren't as astute. They weren't as smart, they weren't as, you know. But I think it's actually fascinating to look back at a time when people were more in tune with the spiritual to see how they communicated about it. So when it comes to the Ouija board, there is a deep history

to it. It was actually something that was purportedly created by this woman, Helen Peters. She was a medium, and it was created for the exact purpose of what it's used for as a game which was to communicate with the dead and you have a history of people turning to the board and it was called a talking board that was initially what it was called called a talking board until helen allegedly claimed um that the board wanted to be called the Ouija board. So this name apparently came from the board itself, communicating that that's what the name should be. So the long story short of it, there is a very eerie history of this. And the thing that really stuck out to me was this man, William Fold, who he had created. Now, he had inherited the rights to it. The New York Times at the time in 1929, 1927 it was,

when he died, they called him the creator. He wasn't the creator of it, but he owned a factory where he was producing Ouija boards. And he fell off the top of the factory. He was up replacing a flag and he died. He fell off of the Ouija board factory and died. And so I was looking at his obituary, which was in the New York times, and it was describing this incident. And I was just thinking, what a strange, it's just a strange detail. It's a very shrouded and bizarre history,

but I w I wanted to mention one more thing about the board during wartime people who were desperate, right? It sort of preys on the desperation of people. Desperate to connect with their deceased loved ones, they would turn to the board in droves. And so throughout history, when things have gotten difficult, when there's been a war or a tough moment, people will often legitimately turn to it to try to find that solace and that peace by connecting with their dead loved ones.

So it's got that history to it. Didn't Fold say that the board told him to build kind of the house and the chimney in the way they did, which led to his death? Did I get that detail right? So one of the claims is that he believed, and of course, you know, we have things that are documented, right, which is his death that's documented. One of the claims surrounding his life is that he was told by the board to build that very factory that he fell off of. Yes. Wow, which would fit what demons do if there's demons behind something like a Ouija board, not necessarily other spirits.

Doesn't prove it, but kind of fits the larger narrative that's there. Okay. Anything that I missed in terms of evidence you would offer for the reality of demons that I didn't ask you about so far, or is that a pretty good case so far? You know, I think it's a pretty good case so far. I think one of the things that just as you're asking this that comes to mind, and a lot of critics will say this well if this is happening why isn't it so out in the open that everyone can see it and record it on their phones and document it and one of the responses to that that has come from some i've interviewed has been well if you are satan if you are a demon if there's evil why you would want to hide in the shadows you wouldn't want to be out in front and so i find that interesting i think's compelling. I think some would say it's a cop out on this issue. But I had people saying to me, don't write this book. You're giving attention to something you shouldn't be giving attention to. And my thought is the opposite. My thought is we're not talking about this stuff. You don't have to believe this, right? You could think everything that we're talking about here is not true and that this is crazy, but to not have the conversation, especially for Christians, right? When we talk about evidence, especially for

Christians, is a very dangerous thing. We are leaving out a massive part of the gospel. And I would also add, and then I will be quiet and let you ask your next question, that if we don't fully understand, and this was my takeaway here, right, one of them, if we don't fully understand evil and what it is, and the Bible is very clear about this, and I just ignored it, I just always glazed over it, read it, kind of knew Satan's bad, obviously, you know, but if we don't understand that, I think that we lack what we need to a degree to fully understand the good. Like, why do we need Jesus? Why do we think that we lack what we need to a degree to fully understand the good. Like, why do we need Jesus? Why do we need Christ? Why do we need any of that? I mean,

it points us right back to that. So rather than obsess over the dark and the evil, I think we understand it. We see it for what it is. We see the effect it can have over ourselves and culture, but we're pointed back to truth in that process. so if it's true that a lot of people say our culture is dominated by naturalism which explains everything scientifically which i would argue we see in movies like stranger things which seem to have a demonic realm but it's all explained by science then one of the ways to counter this is to show that there is a demonic real realm and you cover the story in your book about the exorcism and how actually the person who first wrote the book

was trying to communicate these stories in a positive way that people would actually believe there's a demonic realm. First off, did I get that right? And second off, what is the story behind the exorcism? Yeah, I mean, you got it right. So Blatty, the author, he actually thought he was writing like a mystery crime book. He didn't think he was writing something terrifying, which, because if people don't realize this, the exorcist, the movie is based on his

book. And so Blatty often spoke about this and said, I didn't even realize I was writing something scary. I thought I had a compelling case of exploring evil, but it was more of a mystery for him. And he was really compelled by this. And what's so interesting about The Exorcist, we talked about the Ammons case, right, out of Indiana. Both of those cases were made public when somebody gave information to a journalist.

And that is so interesting to me. So in the case of The Exorcist, in 1948, there was this little boy, Robbie. Now that's a moniker, we don't know his real name. To this day, Robbie's identity has never been revealed. But Robbie was the basis of that book and of the film. And what happened to him was that he apparently had an aunt, his aunt Tilly, and she was very into the Ouija board and communicating with spirits. And she had sort of gotten him into that. Tilly dies, and all of a sudden they start having crazy things happen inside their home, inside the family home. The bed is shaking.

There's all sorts of things going on. Now, this is according to his family. And they seek help. They seek doctors. They seek anybody they can to help them. And they end up in St. Louis. And they end up seeking help from the Catholic Church. And it's this crazy case of multiple exorcisms over this little boy. And what's different about this case is that there were actually journals kept by the priests who were involved in this. And this was all kept under wraps. But those journals document some of the most horrific and terrifying things you can imagine.

Words appearing on his body and disappearing. One of the priests had his nose broken during these violent fits that this kid would go through. And so this kid was healed. Okay. He was a teenager. He ends up being healed. And the church assumed, the Catholic church assumes this is a close case. Nobody will ever know about it. Well, somebody leaks it to the Washington Post and they write a story about it. And William Blatty, yeah, that's how this came about. William Blatty read the story and he heard about it from a college professor of his and he was captivated by this story of robbie's ordeal and

so he wrote the exorcist based on that and what's so interesting is that years later somebody sent him shared with him that journal that had been under wraps for all those years so he had a chance to read it and it's available people can read excerpts from this journal and the priests over the years. And again, this goes back to when you ask, is somebody's story legitimate? If somebody is hesitant to share it, it does give some credence. And those priests always felt like that story should have never been revealed. And to this day, we don't know who he is. This boy did not want his identity revealed and he'll probably go to the grave without us knowing who he was. Gosh, that is so fascinating. Well, we are here with Billy Halloway looking at

the evidence for demons. And we've been looking at stories today. We've been looking at cross cultural evidence. Let me ask you one more question about this. Then I want to shift to some of the biblical evidence. We've had some great questions in the comment section that you deal with in the book, Playing With Fire. But given all you've researched and all you've seen as a journalist, if you were going to reject this, what route would you take to reject it? Meaning, would you say, we just don't know and there has to be an explanation? Would you say it's mental illness? What approach would you take if you were forced to like debate the other side? Yeah, that's a great question.

I mean, I think the mental illness aspects are interesting, but they only go so far because not when you look at when you look at what could be explained, only so much of it could be explained by mental illness. Having extra strength, having the ability to speak in another language, not responding to certain things that mental illness would respond to, those are things that we would have to explain away. I think I would have to say, if I was going to take the other approach, it would have to be, well, there's not enough evidence overall. In all of these cases, there's not compelling evidence.

That's interesting. That's very similar to, I think, on the resurrection. It's just kind of a naturalistic bias, doesn't meet the standard of evidence, which means this, like many other issues, really comes back to a question of worldview. So let's shift, speaking of worldview, let's shift to some of what the scripture says about demons. And there's two kind of competing narratives, so to speak, about what demons are and where they come from. One is that they're fallen angels. What is that narrative and why, what is the evidence behind it, biblically speaking? Yeah, I mean, this notion that angels, like human beings, has essentially had the ability to choose, right? And so we know

with Satan being a fallen angel, having the ability to say, I'm either going to follow God, I'm not going to follow God, and they make that choice. Now, where that gets a little rickety and interesting, I won't even say rickety, because I think it's fascinating and it actually makes sense

that God would give that right to any spiritual being that he's created, right? If he's giving it to human beings, why would he not give it to angels? One of the debates surrounding that is, well, did angels have one opportunity to make that choice at one point in time, and they made that choice and they either became demons and angels and that was it, or is is that free will something that they continue to have? Could an angel today

become a demon, right? And you can get, we can't answer that. We really don't have the evidence to answer that, but I think it's interesting. And so, you know, biblically, when you look through, when you look through scripture, there's nothing that overtly says it. There are certain interpretations based on Revelation and some other places where people would sort of pull that out. But it does seem to be the most plausible considering what we are to believe about about satan himself okay what about the explanation that michael heiser who i had in the show a few weeks ago has written the book demons become really one of the world leading scholars on angels demons the supernatural unseen realm he favors the position that demons are the spirits from the nehilim back in Genesis chapter 6.

These angels that had sex and got married with human beings that helped bring on the flood. Explain that view to us and then maybe what you think of it. Yeah, I mean this is like when you get very – and everything you just said, every time I explain this, people look at me like I'm crazy. They're like, what? Because I think a lot of Christians have never heard it. And Michael Heiser is phenomenal. I think he does an amazing job of making his case on this. One of the struggles with this theory, we have very little information in the biblical text on the Nephilim, right?

We don't really know a lot about them. And so there are different theories on what they are. They're mentioned twice. They're also mentioned in numbers. And so because we don't know a lot about them, I think the initial reaction that people have to that is, okay, well, I don't know. But we do have another text. It's outside of the Bible, 1 Enoch. And in that text, that's really where a lot of this comes from. Now, this is a text that people might dismiss because they'll say, well, it's not part of the canon, it's outside of the canon, and appealing to it is problematic. But we do have Jude in the Bible actually

referring to it and talking about Moses and all that. So you've got these references to it that are actually in Scripture. And so what we do know based on that, and I want you to jump in and correct me if you don't agree, but what we do know is that at least people were aware of it at the time, Jude was aware of the book, and that with that awareness, there was respect for at least the details that Jude is referring to in Scripture. Not the entire book. There's no evidence that Jude is saying that an entire book is to be believed. But it's in Enoch that we see this description of what you were talking about, which is angels essentially mating with women and creating these Nephilim. Now, the idea is that after the flood, one of the ideas surrounding

this, after the flood, they became disembodied, right? And they were looking to be re-embodied. They were looking to infest people's bodies and to, again, take on a human form. And so that is an alternative theory to the fallen angel one. And what's interesting is that when we actually did polling on this, the vast majority of church leaders are still very much in the fallen angel camp, right? But Heiser and others, they make very compelling arguments. For me, my struggle, I always go back to scripture and I try to say, okay, what does scripture tell me? And if scripture is not telling me enough about something, I pause and I say, I just don't know. My default would be a little,

I'm a little more in the camp of, I think, fallen angels, but I don't think it matters, to be honest with you, what they are, because at the end of the day, what we need to worry about is the description of what they can do and what we see them do in scripture, because that is what is concrete and present. Does that seem fair? Yeah, that seems fair. I wanted you to describe the two different positions and how you view at, and if we don't know for sure, we don't know for sure. I think that's completely fair. So let's make it a question that always comes up and Andrew asked in the comments earlier was whether or not Christians can be possessed by demons. And a distinction that's often made is oppressed versus possessed. So let's start, maybe what is that distinction between the two? And what do

you think the scripture says about it? So that distinction is really interesting. And one of the things I tried to do in the book in Playing With Fire was to really differentiate these different terms because everybody, exorcism, deliverance, you know, possession, oppression—they all have different definitions depending on what theological camp they're in in the Christian realm. And so you really have to try to get down and say, okay, this is what these things mean. Now, possession, in my mind, is full control, that the demonic entity has taken full control of you. You've done something to open a door that has allowed that to happen. And that can manifest itself, as we see in Scripture, in very scary situations. And these are very rare cases. Possession is not something that's

happening. And everybody will tell you this. Anybody I interviewed who either dealt in the Protestant realm or the Catholic realm would say, listen, most of the cases we investigate are not possession. There's another explanation to them. You know, it's very rare, but it does happen. Oppression is very different. Oppression seems to be something that all of us could fall prey to, that a Christian, a non-Christian, anybody. And this is where the demonic entity is not inside of you, but it is around you. It's impacting your life in some way. It could be that you're facing some struggle as a result of it. You may have some thoughts that are very negative. So it's not a full control over the person. It could be a partial control over the person.

And so those seem to be the definitions that the experts I was speaking with were able to sort of give me. And I found that very compelling. So the short answer, can a Christian be possessed? I think that most would say no, but not everybody. Some people think Christians can become possessed. And the bottom line reason would be because if we have the Holy Spirit inside of us, there cannot be a demon that comes in and takes over the realm of where the Holy Spirit is. I think of the story in Mark that's in the other synoptic gospels about Jesus saying you've got to kick out the strong man first. Some would say that's the strong man of the Holy Spirit inside somebody. Yet you made the interesting point I'd never thought of before that at least some Catholics would say it could come inside your body but that's different than it taking over your soul

so is that one way that people would distinguish that yes yeah and I think the other way and so I what you just described is more of where I am I don't personally I think I don't think that a Christian who truly has the Holy Spirit is going to face a full possession. It seems very unlikely. I would say impossible. But if you believe you can lose salvation, and so this is where the conversation gets interesting, right? You get very theological. If you believe you could lose salvation, well, then there's nothing to stop you from saying that you've crowded out the Holy Spirit so much in your life with what you're doing that you could maybe open up that realm, right? You could maybe start to allow that in.

So that would be the other side of saying, okay, maybe this is possible. Not only just demons. You also talk about exorcisms. We won't have time to go into all that, but just kind of quickly on ghosts. Now, as I understand it, a ghost is understood to be somebody who dies and rather than going to face judgment or eternal life stays back in human realm for to write some wrong or maybe to haunt a house or something like that. Uh, what's the evidence for ghosts? Let's start there. Do you think there's good reason to believe that ghosts exist? So no. Um, no. And I've had people challenge me on this. I think

going through and talking to different experts on it, I'm open to being convinced otherwise. I would again go back to scripture. And again, you are the experts here, so I want you to check me. But when I look at scripture, I see some very interesting things happening. I see Saul going to a medium and calling up Samuel, and you have this strange moment. We're not told that that's a haunting. We're not told even, I don't even think we're really told that that's definitely Samuel coming back. It could be an image that God is giving. There's a million things that could be going on there. In fact, the medium, she seemed surprised that she was even able to do it, right? She's like, oh, here he is, right? So there's that.

You have the fascinating moment after Jesus' death where I never noticed this, and I'm ashamed to admit this, where people are coming out of their tombs and going into town. And you're like, wait a minute. It's almost like this zombie-like, but it's not. I think it's obviously showing the overcoming of death that's about to happen. But that doesn't really seem like ghostly to me either. And you have some other examples that are like that, but none of them seem to be a person dying and remaining behind to haunt. And so we don't have a lot of examples of that in scripture. And it seems to me there's a debate about when you die, do you go straight

to heaven? Are you asleep until the end of days? There's different debates about that. But when you talk to experts about this, and these are people who see this every day, they will say that this assumption that you're communicating with a ghost through a Ouija board or that you're communicating with a dead person, that you're actually communicating with a demonic entity that wants you to believe you're communicating with a dead person. And that was compelling to me in going through and just really thinking about this, that that could actually be the case. That's really interesting. So you have evidence that could be interpreted by ghosts, but also could have another possible interpretation.

There's not what you would say unique evidence for ghosts. What about the passage where I believe the apostles that's in Luke say that when Jesus is coming to them, they thought that they saw a ghost. Does that indicate that they believed in ghosts or what does that tell us? Yeah. So there are a lot of different theories about that as well. Is that, I mean, listen, when we get afraid, we'll say, oh my gosh, is it a ghost, right? There's people who talk about hauntings. And is it the same sort of thing? Are they just saying is it maybe they've never seen a ghost a day in their lives, but they're assuming.

But but there's also different historical narratives on what the words they're using are, that it's actually a spirit that they're referring to. Right. Which would not be out of step with what we're talking about, which could be a demonic entity, which is obviously a spirit. And so we can look at that different ways, but I don't know that I would think that that's sort of proof that ghosts exist. It's proof that people believed maybe at the time that they could, and maybe even when we've seen the disciples at other moments not always have the most amazing judgment. So they could have been off in that moment as well. Yeah, that raised a lot of interesting questions. Like we clearly don't think everything the apostles believed was right. It could have just been reporting their instances.

I mean, I don't believe in ghosts, but if something weird happened, I might have a moment where I go, holy cow, did I just see a ghost? Like, does that make me rethink something? So I think there's enough ways to take that passage that the Bible's not teaching a ghost? Like, does that make me rethink something? So I think there's enough ways to take that passage that the Bible is not teaching a ghost as we understand it necessarily exists. And there's alternate explanations. So I think that's, that's well said. Now, when you and I were chatting before, I asked how some of this research kind of affected you and you shared one story in particular, you said that is really just stuck with you. And it was a story of Amy Stamantis. If I said that right, can you share what that story was and why that has really just stuck with you. It was the story of Amy Stamantis,

if I said that right. Can you share what that story was and why that has stuck with you so much? Yeah. When I was researching the book, I was doing a lot of praying just like, God, lead me to the right people. And I thought, let me just do a Google search. Like, has there been anything in media? And this was last October. And so all of a sudden, I'm Googling exorcism. I'm Googling demons. I'm just curious. Has anybody covered it? And I noticed this local affiliate in Arkansas, media outlet, had covered this woman Amy's story.

And she's in a wheelchair, I noticed immediately. And I thought that was interesting. And I start reading it. And I decided to reach out to Amy because I was so compelled by what I was reading. But her story starts completely in the most bizarre way. She's a churchgoer. She's somebody who believes she was a Christian. And so this is interesting going back to what we were talking about before. She at least believed she was.

And she was a nurse, successful, working in a hospital. And one day she just didn't feel right. Something did not feel right in her mind. Her body felt off. And so after her shift, she goes home. She tries to go out in her mind. Her body felt off. And so after her shift, she goes home. She tries to go out for a run. She was a marathon runner and she can't run in a straight line. She goes home to her husband and she's like, I don't know. I feel like I'm losing my mind. I feel like I'm having a nervous breakdown. And within eight days from that moment,

within eight days, she was in an institution, okay, a mental institution. They're trying to figure out what's wrong with her. She's losing her mind. She's not behaving normally, completely erratic. And so she goes to the Mayo Clinic. She goes all over the place trying to get answers and nobody can give her an answer. They don't know what's wrong with her. Is it physical? Is it mental? And so she's on all sorts of medications. They're not helping. And eight months goes by. Okay. So flash forward eight months, she's lost her job. She's on all sorts of medications. They're not helping. And eight months goes by. Okay, so flash forward eight months. She's lost her job. She's not working anymore.

And she's got children and a husband, right? So she's got a family. And she goes up to the second floor of her house. And Amy had this idea in her head. It was that idea I mentioned before. She wanted to end her life. She had never been suicidal before. And she just kept feeling like, how do I do it?

How do I kill myself? I'm a nurse. Let me think of the ways. And so she goes up to the second floor and just picture this. She sits in the windowsill. She's facing the inside of her house. So her back is to the open window. And Amy decides two stories up, not to jump, but to just drop herself out of the window. Okay. That alone, when I was reading it was terrifying to me. People will jump. They will, she didn't, she didn't try to break her fall. She just glided down, hits the cement floor, hits the cement ground and nearly dies. She breaks all of her ribs.

She breaks her back and Amy is now paralyzed. She's paralyzed from the waist down. Now what happens is she goes to the hospital, obviously almost dying, and a woman goes to this prayer event that Amy's church holds for her. And this woman doesn't know Amy at all, but she feels compelled to visit her in the hospital. And this is a woman who's done deliverance, right? She's been involved in this.

And she goes to the hospital and Amy's talking to her basically in this and she goes to the hospital and amy's talking to her basically in another voice giving her indications and the woman says i could see evil and this one is being interviewed in this story too that this outlet did and long story short she prays over her does a deliverance and once amy is cycled off of her medicine this all ends she never has another manifestation she never has another issue so she goes, just basically a prayer over Amy that this woman does. And now Amy is speaking out. And again, there's reluctancy. Her family doesn't love that she's speaking out. At least they didn't in the beginning, but she's got a compelling story. She has never had another issue again

since this happened. So I'm kind of trunccating it but her story really struck me for a lot of reasons she's in a wheelchair for the rest of her life that is powerful these are not just ideas in books or blogs or movies that's a real life person experience this today and living it out shows how much ideas have consequences and makes a case that the demonic realm is is real let me ask you a final question I'm curious about. When I was reading Heiser's book on demons, he says we typically think that satanic kind of influence is exorcisms and hauntings. But when you look at Ephesians chapter 6,

the first defense that we have is truth. So aren't these some, would you agree with this, that these tend to be more the exceptions, but Satan's normal strategy is just to twist truth and deceive people. Do you agree with that? 100%. And at the end of Playing With Fire, I talk about culture. And I think right now we are looking at a very confused, lost, and you know this, I mean, I talk about culture. And I think right now we are looking at a very confused loss. And you know this. I mean, I follow the work that you do, a culture that is looking for answers in all the wrong places. And when I I mean, I'm a trained journalist. I've worked in media for years. I worked around Hollywood for years. And when I look at all the places of learning in this country

and in this world, you've got Hollywood, you've got media, you've got schools and universities and all three of those areas. I mean, think about this. Coincidentally, all three of them have been dominated by a secular materialistic worldview and a worldview that has not only been, and I'm generalizing here, but I think most people know that this is the case, that that has been damaging to young people, to adults. The ideas that are coming from these arenas are terrifying and they're harming us. So if you were Satan and you were really trying to confuse people on a mass level, I believe you would do it through culture. I believe you would do it through the day-to-day,

the slow churning, changing of people's perceptions through all different means. And so I think that is really the battle that we're facing. And so whether it's politics and how anybody who watched the presidential debate probably was like, oh, my goodness, what is going on? Politics is downstream from culture. I mean, we have taken our culture and we've allowed it to become what it is. And so I think that is the rule, right? We are talking about exceptions. And I think we have to be careful how we handle these issues. We need to be aware of them. We need to talk about them. But more importantly, I think we need to understand the impact of not talking about them is actually how we end up in part with the culture that we've

inherited. That's such a good word. Hey, quick question from Karen Fisher. Have you read Gabrielle M. Worth's An Exorcist Tells His Story book? I have not. I have not, but now I want to. All right. Person has since passed. I think what you said about truth is really, really important.

That's our greatest weapon in spiritual warfare, so to speak, is sticking to and living out truth uh i thoroughly enjoyed your book i get to read a ton of books for my blog and for my podcast and for this show and your book playing with fire i thought you know what i'm gonna skim through this just to make sure i understand it get some good questions for my buddy billy and i slowed down i'm like dang it i've got to really spend some time reading this because the stories just drew me in and i appreciate a couple things about number one again you approach it as a journalist so you're christian you believe this stuff is real but it's like you hold back

sometimes don't overstate the case and say look here's why people doubt this they deserve to be heard but ultimately i don't agree and here's why And I think it's just a model approach to how to look at these issues. So for anybody, if you're interested in the issues of demons, exorcism, and just kind of the supernatural realm, again, this book, Playing with Fire by my friend Billy Halliwell is one I would definitely, definitely recommend that you pick up. This channel, if you're enjoying this, give us a thumbs up. And also make sure you hit the subscribe button because we have some interviews coming up. This channel, if you're enjoying this, give us a thumbs up and also make sure you hit the subscribe button because we have some interviews coming up. For example, we're going to be interviewing Craig Blomberg, one of the leading New Testament scholars in the world. He has a new book out called Can We Still Believe in God? We have an interview coming up with Craig Evans. He

has a, I think, 700 or 800 page book. He is one of the leading New Testament scholars and Jesus scholars in the world in two weeks. A book coming out in October called Jesus and the Manuscripts is going to give us one of his early interviews. We have William Dembski coming on in a few weeks to give some kind of reflections back on the intelligent design movement. So lots of cool stuff coming on. Make sure you hit that subscribe button. And if you enjoy this stuff, we have a class in our Biola Apologetics program at Talbot by Kevin Lewis, and he teaches theology. And he's an expert on cults and spends a lot of time walking through demons and a lot of these questions. So we would love to have you join us. If you ever thought of getting a master's in apologetics, come to our apologetics program.

There's information below. Or if you say not quite ready for a master's and you want to go deeper, we have a certificate program where we will kind of guide you through an official training time on your schedule. And there's a significant discount below if that's helpful to you. So thank you for tuning in.

And Billy, again, thanks for coming on, man. Don't disappear. I want to talk to you afterwards, but really appreciate your time. Great, great interview. Thanks so so much thanks for having me appreciate it yeah you betcha we'll see everybody next time