Exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger: Possessed Politicians, Inside a Demon\u2019s Mind & Speaking to Satan Himself

Exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger: Possessed Politicians, Inside a Demon\u2019s Mind & Speaking to Satan Himself

Источник: https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-chad-ripperger-040326

[Транскрипт]

Tucker [00:00:04] Father, thank you so much for doing this. Thank you for having me. As a Protestant who grew up in Georgetown in part where the exorcist was filmed, I've been trained from birth to think of exorcism as something kooky that the Latin Church does for weird cultic reasons, not at all mainstream Christianity. And then you go and read the New Testament, and you realize that the first miracle that Jesus performs in the Gospel of Mark is casting out demons, and then he repeats that continuously and commissions the apostles to do the same. Casting out demons is not just this random thing. It is central to the Gospels. That's right, 23%.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:00:41] The Gospels are actually about Christ dealing with demons. So, and this is why when, you know,

Tucker [00:00:47] It's just unbelievable! How did I not know that?

Father Chad Ripperger [00:00:50] Yeah, well, a lot of the Christians will just say, well I believe in God, but I don't necessarily believe in the devil. And you're like, well do you believe in scripture? Well, yeah, well then how can you not believe that this is one of the primary missions of Christ was to save us from them, ultimately.

Tucker [00:01:03] Well, when he sends the disciples, I mean, of course this is your life, this is all so new to me, I'm just shocked by it. When he sends them out, it's like, preach the good news and cast out demons. Yes, that's right. Like, that, that is the mission. That's right! So, I just, before we get into what you've spent the last decades doing, casting out demons, how is it that the modern church, at least in the United States, at least the Protestant churches in the united states, have so de-emphasized this to the point where it's disappeared?

Father Chad Ripperger [00:01:33] I think there's a historical reason behind that. So if you, and it's not just here like in the United States, it's actually in the West in general, the Christian West specifically, and basically it had to do with the advent of psychology. So when psychology came on board, it became in vogue, especially in the 50s and in the 60s, to just think that all these people's problems were just purely psychological. I mean, there are psychological issues. It very much looked like that. But the fact is that, so they just started chalking it up, and that's one of the reasons why in the United States, before the 1960s, the number of dioceses, that is the Catholic diocese that had an exorcist, was fairly high. Every major dioces would have one. But then it started to decline, precisely based upon that thinking. But then over the course of time, they began to realize, well, look, there's certain things we're seeing that are not psychological, and so they can't be explained in that way and people needed the help and so. Now the bishops are coming a little bit more up to speed in that regard.

Tucker [00:02:33] Well, yeah, after, you know, a hundred years of Freud, we still can't identify what schizophrenia is. It does make you realize, at the very least, there are things we don't understand that could very well be supernatural. So, that does make me wonder about the origins of psychology, though. I mean, if the net effect was to eliminate people's belief in something real, which this demonic possession.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:02:58] Well, I think that was only one aspect of it. I think the real goal of a lot of the psychologists, which is in the literature, is that many of them are atheists. They just didn't believe in God, and so they wanted to eliminate any concept of anything supernatural or what we call preternatural, which is that demons are preternational. They're not supernatural. God is the one that's supernatural, but we tend to talk that way, although sometimes people will just say supernatural, thinking about demons in that way too.

Tucker [00:03:22] Can you ex-

Father Chad Ripperger [00:03:23] for the ignorant like me explaining-

Tucker [00:03:24] between preternatural and supernatural.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:03:26] So supernatural is those things which are above anything that is created, and that pertains to God. Whereas praetor natural comes from the Latin word praetora and natura, which means aside from nature. So that would be things that are above what we experience as human beings in this world. But it's not supernatural because it's not God. It's kind of in that in-between state, which is what the demons are. But they're still considered natural in the sense of uh... They have a specific nature to god created them with their created beings and that they've actually have a natural law they have all that they destruction to think in in certain patterns in certain ways so it's kind of a middle tier but it's it's preternatural uh... Super natural would be something like being able to suspend the laws of nature so demons can't cause miracles for example but they can cause things that does his human beings are outside a normal experience and so it looks miraculous but it section on It's something that they can do on their own.

Tucker [00:04:20] So i guess a good news but that distinction is they're not all-powerful no they're

Father Chad Ripperger [00:04:25] In fact, demons are one of the most regulated things in the universe, really. Because, and they're regulated by three things, one, as I mentioned, they're natural law, they're nature, they are structured in a specific way. The second thing is once the demons made their choice, their will became fixed in a specific, this is one of reasons why when you deal with them as an exorcist, they almost seem obsessive-compulsive, even when it goes bad for them, they'll still that the sin that they committed and so they're very uh... Their tendencies towards us to fix by that and then but the main thing is remember the gospels crisis to the apostles before he sent he said all power was given to me and have an earth all that means to demons even know that they can't do anything without christ's permission so in the spiritual warfare landscape we know and this is a as an exercise It actually brings me a lot of confidence because I don't have to worry about If, you know, if it turns into the type of thing where I get shellacked a little bit during a session or whatever the case is, then I know Christ is still controlling and metering how much and what He can and cannot do. And we know this, too, because if you remember, you made the mention of it before when they asked, you now, the demons actually approached Christ to ask to go into the pigs. I was just thinking that exactly on the other side of the lake. Yeah. So they can't even enter into the pig without His permission. And so nothing they do can occur without their permission, and so Christ has complete control. Over the spiritual landscape, the spiritual battle, he has complete control over it. And so they know what they can and can't do. The first time that actually really occurred to me was, I had this one case where this demon, because when they take possession, unless it's a perfect possession, but if it's a partial possession, they take the possession of a part of the body, and from there they can affect the rest of the person.

And so the demon was possessing this woman's lower back, and I commanded him to tell me, why are you possessing that part? He says, I don't know. So I commanded him, why not? Why, what do you mean you don't know? And he said, when I entered, Christ restricted me to this part of the body. And that's when it made me realize, he has control over everything, when they can manifest, how long they can manifests, the kind of manifestation they can actually do, how they can attack the person that's possessed, how they attack us, even in our ordinary temptations and things like that. And in other ways, he regulates all of it, ultimately. And then you begin to realize, too, over the course of time, it's ultimately for our spiritual benefit. The experiences first.

Tucker [00:06:55] Benefit. Yes, I believe that. So what are, if you don't mind, we can just start at the beginning, big picture, what are demons?

Father Chad Ripperger [00:07:09] So, actually, according to Pseudo-Dionysius, and then also Thomas Aquinas, and pretty much the whole theological tradition from that time, from Dionysius on, basically held that in the very beginning when God created, what he did is he created the entire hierarchy of angels instantaneously all at once. And these angels were, all the angels were created. And they, the, the Thomas Aquinas talks about what they call the three instances of the angels. So when they were first created, how they understand things is the opposite of ours. So when we want to know something, we'll actually study a number of different individual things that are like that so we can get a general sense, and then from that we'll abstract a kind of a conceptual understanding of what these things actually are, what their nature actually is. That's because we use our senses to come to know things, right? And this is why, even as human beings, we know that if someone is in contact with their senses, we know there's something wrong with them, right? Whereas the demons, the angels and also the demons are the exact opposite. All their knowledge was infused. So they know exactly what the essence and nature of every created thing that exists. And this was actually a diagnostic that you can use in session, because we get people that try and fake, you know, fake that they're possessed, and you know there are a variety of reasons why they do that. And so we will One of the things is, if you ask them a technical, theological, or philosophical question, if it's a human being, you can see they have to think about it, and then they'll kind of reason their way through it. That's not how demons work.

They'll immediately give you the answer, just immediate. They'll just say, it's X. Because they don't have to, because for them, all their knowledge is infused, both the concepts. But then as...

Tucker [00:08:54] Things occur. Have you ever seen demons answer esoteric questions? Yes.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:09:01] I've actually, there's been cases, I had a case, it's one that I'm actually working on right now, where the demons in this particular case have made theological distinctions that there's no way this person could have ever known those distinctions. And they're, let me give you an example. So he made the distinction between consummatum est infinitum est, which is a Latin phrase. So consummatum is that the that the sacrifice is complete. So in relationship to the sacrifice of Christ, he says, consumatum est, and then he gives up his spirit, right? So it's completed. He's finally completed everything that was necessary in order for our full redemption and our full healing and all of that. But it's not finished yet. The finishing occurs once he's buried, so they have to take him down, our lady embraces him, and they put him in the tomb, right, so that he made that distinction. And I'm going to say this is one of those indicators that you're not going to see those kinds of distinctions being made by a human being who has never studied theology in any sense. And this is not a person who has? No, nothing. I mean, she finished high school and that's about it. So, seriously. Yeah, yeah. And so, and there's other times when they've made distinctions that are just like, in fact, one time. In the Catholic tradition, we actually believe Our Lady was assumed into heaven because she was so pure and so perfect and sinless that God assumed her into heaven. And so... The, it was a feast of that day and I was doing a series of exorcisms and I asked the demon, I said, or it commanded him to tell me, I mentioned the fact that this was a moment of greatest glory and he just looked at me flatly, which demons lie all the time, but you know they're telling the truth, there's ways we can ferret that out too, but they'll just give you a pan, they'll pan, just pan you and just say, no, that's not how that works. And I said what was it then? It was her moment of greatest triumph. She had gone through life without committing sin, and now she's entering into heaven triumphant. I said, was it crowning of heaven, queen of heaven and earth, because we believe that as Catholics? And he says, no, that was her moment of greatest honor. I'm like, okay, that makes sense, because honor is praise or recognition for excellence. And so God was recognizing her excellence in this way. And I saw, so I finally just commented to me, but what was it? He said, standing under the cross in perfect virtue. Later he revealed that he said, other than the actual passion and death of Jesus Christ, he said it was the most glorious event in all of history. The demons said that. The demons.

Tucker [00:11:41] So, I'm assuming that the demon is speaking to the voice of the person he possesses.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:11:47] Uh... Sometimes sometimes a speak to the person's own voice uh... There are the times where they'll assumed the characteristics of uh... Of voice that is proper to their nature and so uh... Promise requires makes the observation that the way they manifest so one of the ways that you know you do with some things demons we call it morphing the person will actually change shapes the continents of the face would change and then i'm in and it takes on the characteristics that are proper to the personality. Have you seen people's faces change? Morphine is about ninety percent of what you see. What are the changes like? It's very subtle, all the way from, just recently I prayed over a rather prominent individual, and when I looked at him after the prayers, it can be something very subtle where it's just, there's a complexion that, in the writers and the authors, they call it the cherry wood look, where they take on this face, where their face turns. Like this cherry wood color that's impossible for us as human beings to have or replicate on a natural level. So cherry wood, cherry wood. It's kind of like this red brown color that you just, you're like, yeah, that's not a natural color. So it'll be everything from something very subtle like that all the way to complete morphing where they change into the shapes of animals. One case, actually, there's been a couple of cases I've had where women, very feminine looking, all of a sudden morph into looking like completely like a man. So you see these are some of those the the more familiar sitting there uh... While you're praying usually is when it actually ends up happening and you look down on the woman you're prying over is now a man looks like a man and it's not just me seeing it because we have a team that's there present at the time uh... For a variety of different reasons it provide different functions but uh... And they'll very often see the same thing so that they're all seeing the same set have you seen people's peoples change yes that's pretty common So a lot of times they'll hyper dilate and turn very black, or another more common thing, I don't see it too often, because certain accesses will see some things much more regularly than others, but a lot times their eyes will roll all the way into the back of their head, so all you see is white, so you'll see those. So those are the kinds of things that you'll actually see. But But the morphing is one of the, we call it one of the preternatural signs that you know someone's possessed. You know they're possessed. How do their voices change? There's two things that they change. A lot of times they'll change in just the tone. They'll start sounding like a man sometimes. Now once in a while the demons will use the person's own vocal voice, and part of the reason they want to do that is because they don't want you to hear what the characteristics of their own voice. And the reason I say that is because of the fact that experienced exorcist, it's like a boxer. You know, when you box, when you get into the ring, you can watch all sorts of videos about this guy's technique. It's not until you get in the ring and box with this guy that you actually get a sense of, okay, this is what this guy is actually like. So the reason the demons don't want to attack you, especially if you're an experienced exorcize, is based on a philosophical principle, which is the cause is always some way in the effect. So any time they attack you, they reveal something about themselves in that process, and then you can use it against them later. So as an experienced physicist, they really don't want to get involved with you, although a lot of times Christ still requires them, but they don't wanna attack you because then once they attack, you know, you can find out what his psychology is, what his patterns of thinking are, etc., when he's attacking you. How do they attack you? One is the oppression, where they attack you from the outside. The other one is that it's not obsession in the proper sense, because obsession is something that's ongoing, but what they'll do is they have the ability to affect our imagination and our emotions. So a lot of times what they do is when they attack the exorcist, they'll put a perspective on an image in your imagination. So for example, a guy, when he's first married, he thinks his wife is wonderful, he gets all this emotional delight because our emotions are moved by what's in our imagination. The perspective specifically. So when he's first married, she's wonderful, she is great, I love my wife, look how beautiful she is, she just brought me a beer, isn't that wonderful, etc. Then after 10 years his perspective on her changes because they've had fights and things of that sort and so when he sees her even though she hasn't changed his perspective of her and so his emotional response changes. Well demons can put that perspective on your imagination so they can actually do that and this is one of the ways that they can actually uh...

Affect relationships in fact the first thing they ever do in a in a marriage is they try and put a perspective uh... On one of his spouses or both his spouses to psychologically divide the people so the the person thinks they see something bad in the other spouse when they there's that's it's actually not there so but anyway that what they'll do is when they attack the exorcist they'll put that perspective on your image in your imagination but that perspective, then. Tells me something about his psychology. So I've written three books, or four books actually, in psychology from the way St. Thomas Aquinas understands it, right? So, and developed it based upon that. It does incorporate a lot of the stuff in modern psychology, but it actually gives a foundation to it based on an authentic anthropology and not just some wacky view that have of human beings. And so, the first time I started to be an exorcist, I just started watching the psychological patterns of demons, because I figured, well, they have a natural law. In other words, each demon has its own natural law that it's inclined to specific things and not to others. So as human beings, we have a nature law because we're inclined toward things like marriage, eating, living in community and society and that type of thing. So we have set of inclinations that God placed in us. Demons have that same thing, except there's a speck. Tailored to their specific nature, because each demon's nature is different. Their species, technically speaking, is different, and so that's why in a session when they manifest, when demon comes to the fore and the other one leaves, the morphing will change to accommodate that and so you immediately know, okay, I'm dealing with this guy rather than that guy. And actually, after you've dealt with the same demon over and over again, you can do a session and just start out on a new case and once he manifests, you're like, you recognize who he is.

Tucker [00:18:10] You'll see the same demon in different people. How many, so this, I have so many questions, I hope you're prepared for a long interview. This brings us back to my initial question before I sidetrack to you with too many other questions, which is, what are they?

Father Chad Ripperger [00:18:27] So they're basically pure spirits. They don't have a body. They can act upon us, who have bodies, and they can act upon physical things, but they don't a body, so they're pure spirits, they only have two faculties, an intellect and a will. They don't have emotions, but the experience emotions in their will. So when they were first created, the entire hierarchy of angels, and there in the billions, because it's, it's actually part of the theological tradition that every human being has their own guardian angel, and that's from the lowest rank, because there's nine of them. Nine choirs, they have the lowest, that's just from one of them, so there's literally billions of these, but they're all created instantaneously at once. And then, according to the theological writers, that meant that they were created into a perfect state of knowing, because as I mentioned before, they just have to think about something, use their will to move their mind to think about something and they immediately exhaust everything that they can possibly know about that thing to the degree of their intelligence. That's why when you ask them questions, as I mentioned before. They never think about it, they just give you the answer. So they, because they don't have to sit and reason it out, they just immediately know it. So that first instance, they were created in an act of knowing, and that meant they knew who God was, who they were, what their nature was, what He was asking of them as an assigned task. Because God, every single angel that was created, it was given, God created him to perform a specific task. And so, for example, Gabriel was basically created. His task was to do the Annunciation to our baby. So, and we see Michael, St. Michael, his originally assigned task is, according to the theological tradition, is that he's actually the guardian angel of the elect. That's why he was originally the guardian angel of Jewish religion, but then once they apostatized, and because they refused accept Christ.

He then became the guardian angel of the elect of the Christian religion. That's also why we read in Scripture in the book of Revelation, St. Michael was given the power by God to cast the demons down from heaven after they fell, because his goal was to protect the elect that were in heaven, and so that was his function. So, they're all given an assigned task. So they know all these things. They also know all about the angels behind us. They also know what Satan, or at the time, Lucifer, is being tempted with, as far as his fault. Because, so they were created in this state, and then they have this act of knowledge, that's their first instance. And then there's a concomitant act of the will of delight. They see how magnificent God's creation is, and how beautiful it is. Then they have to make their choice. Are you going to do what God is asking or not? Now, in that choice, there's something very specific that has to happen. There is some perfection that they see that is above them, that they have to be willing to let go of. Otherwise, they're, in order to perform their task, otherwise they're gonna be damned if they don't, basically. They have to willing to be let go. And basically, even under duress in session, you can compel the demons, they'll admit it, that their... First sin, even though it was usually pride or envy of some sort, because that envy of some perfection that someone had, that they, their first sin was pride or envy, but they failed to sacrifice that thing that they wanted. They literally wanted something that God had not intended for them. And so, and this is why at the core of it, Thomas Aquinas makes an observation he says In the end, there's one thing that God wants from every intelligent creature, and that's sacrificing His will to God, to Him. So then that meant they had to accept their task, which is below this perfection. So they had accept this lower task. But then, so then they made their choice, and because unlike us, you know, Tucker's general rule, human beings are pretty stupid. And so that's why God has mercy on us, right?

Because you're just like, man, this guy's just clueless, right. And so, and because a lot of them, basically that just means that we don't have full knowledge of what we're doing. The demons had absolute, pure knowledge. So when they made their choice, it was unadulterated malice. They knew that God even gave them the grace to accept their task, but they absolutely refused to accept it. The third of the angels it fell, because we know that from the book of Revelation. Where it talks about how the dragon swept a third of the stars down, and that's the the fathers of the church say that that was an indicator that a third the angels fell and became demons as a result of it. So the demons are actually fallen angels whose will is now fixed. So once they make their choice, it's all in. You know, it is not half-hearted. No, it a full choice. They're either going to accept God's will or they're not going to do it. And then the third instance is Right after that, then, if they refuse to accept their task... Then they're damned immediately. So they immediately experience what we call, in the Catholic theology, the pain of loss. They immediately experience, I'm never going to see God. I'm not going to see Him. And that's where our ultimate happiness is, so they know they're going to be miserable.

Plus they have remorse of conscience and all those things, because they're intelligent creatures. But then, of those who are faithful, then they immediately got to see God, and then of course we read from scripture there was a battle that ensues, which is a tools. In heaven, because that's all they have, is intellect and will. They battle through their wills. But then at a certain point, God says, that's enough, and then He sends Saint Michael to cast him down. So it's a long-winded way of saying that basically demons are fallen angels who are now bent on malice and evil.

Tucker [00:24:22] Bentham, malice and evil. I have my own theories about what that looks like. Let me just list a few. Violence, yes. Chaos, division among people, the destruction of beauty. That's correct. Those are the obvious that I notice all around me. Yeah. Are there others?

Father Chad Ripperger [00:24:39] And is that correct? Yeah, I know that that's correct. I mean under the under those you would see You know, sometimes we say the truth the good and the beautiful is what they work against. Yes And truth. I'm sure you obvious. Yeah So they they'll they'll mitigate against that and that's part of that perspective putting those perspectives on you so that you don't judge The reality the situation the truth of what it really is. I means the historic definition of truth is the adequation of intellect to think that my mind conforms to the way the thing is in reality and we know this intuitively if somebody is telling us you know that that you get this wall over here is purple you look at it and it's brown and you're like no it's not. So you know there's something wrong because their mind is in congruity with reality they don't know the truth about that well what they do is they try and change your perspective on the reality of the situation and that's how they caused damage among human beings in relationships and marriage, which is one of the things they're majorly under attacking now a lot of they're doing marriages marriages. So, but basically their goal is to get us to commit sin and basically place ourselves in this point where we're damned as a result of what we do.

Tucker [00:25:52] Are there you said recently we're seeing a lot of attacks on marriages that suggest there are cycles in behavior of demonic in the behavior of him

Father Chad Ripperger [00:26:01] There is in the sense that because the, as I mentioned, the natures of things are infused in them, but also every physical or every individual thing that's happening throughout the universe is infused in their mind as it happens. So if they want to know what's going on in Saturn, they just think of Saturn and boom, they see what's doing on there. It's the same thing with this. If they want know what we're talking about, all they have to do is think about the concept of humanity and look inside of that and see us as individuals of human beings, and then they can see what we're actually talking about. That's how they, that's how their mode of knowing is. This is why they, they can't, they can be in error about things. Even the demons are not erroneous. A lot of times when you can trick them, it's because they're basing their choice or their things on the most likely thing based upon what you said. They're not in error what you've said. They're just in, they may not know what your intention is. Okay. This is, I'm talking about like in session, but anyway the point being is that they basically are, they go through phases where their goal is ultimately to destroy the Christian religion, that's their goal ultimately, because they know deep down that is the religion that Christ established, period. And so, um, and it's so, uh,

Tucker [00:27:13] I mean, I didn't even understand, I still don't understand most of this, but I just, watching the intent of almost everything, well, I'll say the U.S. Government does.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:27:23] It's

Tucker [00:27:23] aimed at Jesus.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:27:25] Or even the mainstream news media. I mean, a lot of times they're just, they're, you know, you can talk about anything about Christ, although that dynamic has changed a little bit more recently, a little bit. But generally, it's Christianity that's under attack. You can be any other religion you want, you can believe anything, do anything you want. But don't, whatever you do, don't be Christian.

Tucker [00:27:43] Especially don't use the J word except as an epithet. Yeah, no I it I came to this backwards just sort of noticing like hmm. I see a pattern here. What is this? Yeah, that's how I got interested in this topic, but So do you think the United States specifically where you live is under greater demonic attack than it has been?

Father Chad Ripperger [00:28:06] Historically, yes, and I usually tell people this particular aspect of it. So under Satan, this has been the common experience of exorcists for centuries, that under Satan there's five demons and they're called by different names like the council, the generals, but their job is to execute the plans of Satan that he wants done in this life. The first one is Baal, who is the spirit of fornication, the spirit of impurity. So, in the United States, when they shot down the anti-fornication laws, and they basically, you know, and then plus you have all the problems with pornography and that type of thing as freedom of expression and all that, once they allowed that, they ceded the territory to Ball. After Ball, and we get this from St. Paul, he says, well, if people give in to lust, then eventually men start sleeping with men and women start sleeping with women, so. The next three, the first one is Asmodeus, which is, he's a demon of impurity, but he's specifically the demon of homosexuality in men. So if you- What's his name? Asmadeus. Asmodius is sometimes how you hear it pronounced as well. So he, so if you, in cases of possession, if you have a guy that has, is possessed and he's had homosexual experience, it's a pretty good bet that Asmadaeus is one of the possessors. Do you call him by name? Yes, at a certain point, in fact, the ritual that the Church has us do tells you to ask the names, and the reason you want the names is because once you know the name of the demon, you can actually know a bit about his history, because these guys are throughout history, right? So, you can actually go and read. There's Asmat Asus is mentioned actually in Scripture. You can also study, like for example, the demon Isis. You could actually study the history of the Isis cult, and you'll actually understand certain aspects of his personality, because he engendered it. One of the ones I had more recently was the demon Loki, who's a demon of mischief. And so, once I got the name out of him, I went and researched Loki, and this demon was a spitting image of the mythology behind this guy. Getting him under control was very difficult. Okay, so all that being-

Tucker [00:30:21] What does it mean, Mr.?

Father Chad Ripperger [00:30:24] He was just constantly trying to create havoc, and he's a bit of a jokester, and he just doesn't want to obey commands. And so it was very difficult to get him to be compliant in relationship to doing what he's supposed to do. And what were the problems?

Tucker [00:30:39] That the person possessed by this demon was experiencing.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:30:42] Uh... Excessive religiosity really yeah what does that mean it means in the sense of doing things it's actually spiritually harmful them under the guise of religion So, like, for example, fasting, fasting excessively, or praying to the point where you're neglecting your duties that you're supposed to be doing, your duties of your state of life, that type of thing. And so, because Christ expects, like you as a father, God expects you, hey, you've got to be taking care of your kids. Well, this is-

Tucker [00:31:11] Well, this is something Jesus lectured the Pharisees about. He said, you're ignoring your parents because—

Father Chad Ripperger [00:31:18] to God. That's right, that's exactly right. It's the same thing. So you can get people, the way we see it a lot is you'll get married women who will spend all their time at church and they're neglecting their family at home, for example. It's uh... It can be in the sense that the demons can begin to foster to temptation you can they can foster that type of thinking that i'm doing a good thing because i have a look at the church again it so when when you're actually know did you the god wants you to be for things you don't think every kids your husband et cetera so as we do is is the demon homosexuality in them in women he's cast out to the impulses leave It's kind of interesting that you asked that question, there was a I actually had a case that had the Noonday Devil mentioned in Psalm 91 as a possessor. And once I found out who he was, I went and I researched in the Fathers, who is this guy? It's very fascinating.

He's actually the demon of the midlife crisis, according to the—this is the fathers of the Church. You know, the guys that were around after the Apostles all the way up to about 800 referred to him as the demon the mid-life crisis. But he's also the demon of Achaedia or spiritual sloth. So once I found out who he was, but then during one of the sessions, after the sessions we'll often talk to the people that are possessed and say, what did you experience? Because a lot of times the demon will communicate to the person what they're experiencing. The exorcist won't see it or hear it, but the person is experiencing what the demon is often going through. And so he said well the Noonday Devil kept crying out to Asmodeus, Asmadeus, Asmadaeus. Now, this is a guy that was married to a beautiful young wife with two children, and I said, do you have homosexual ideation? And he says, yeah, and i don't know where it's coming from. He didn't have the trauma that's normally associated with guys, you know, he didn't have the psychological history, so I did a prayer to sever the connection between the Noon Day Devil and Asmidaeus boom, from that point on he never had the ideation again. Now I'm not suggesting that all homosexuality is diabolic, I'm just saying that, because people can become homosexual through psychological, there's a whole psychology behind it, but the demons can drive those kinds of thoughts. You know, you'll get guys who are normal heterosexual men and all of a sudden they'll just, out of the blue, they'll get a thought about something like that. Well, that's not your thought.

That's usually something that's diabolic. The difficulty we're having in our culture, though, is that we're forming perverts, basically. We keep putting stuff on the news media, and then, you know, like on YouTube and that type of thing, where we're making these associations between this thing and that thing, and over the course of time, people's minds begin formed by that, and so they're becoming perverted in the process, where they automatically presume if a guy's unmarried, he's got to be gay. You know, that kind of a thing. Well, that may or may not necessarily be the case. So we're making those associations. Okay. In women, there's two demons of homosexuality. The first is Lilith, who is of the more passive, feminine kind of homosexual women. These are women that you look at them and you're like, huh, you seem like a pretty decent looking gal, why didn't you just go get a guy? You know, that type of a thing. So these are women, they're not acrimonious, they're very, very passive, more seductive side of things. The other one is Leviathan. And Leviathan is the demon of homosexuality in women of the more aggressive kind. My nickname for them is the women who are heavy on the heels. Yeah, so these are the butchie women that are very, you know, masculine actually. So you'll see that kind of a, that phenomenon actually happen. So then I tell people when they actually allowed gay marriage, they seeded our country to that tier of diabolic influence. And then the last one is there's some debate whether it's Moloch or Balfomet, because the exorcists have different experiences of it. The Balfemet is the primary demon, although Molochi is also a demon of child sacrifice. The Belfemet is a demon for child sacrifice, abortion. So when they allowed abortion in this country, so you have those five generals now basically have a gainsay over our country, and so their influence is extremely powerful. And we know this, just by virtue of the fact, like to try and get rid of abortion is like extracting teeth without novocaine. It's just so brutal, difficult to get done. And that's because the demons empower the people that are keeping it in place because they, the demons, love abortion, basically. It's interesting.

Tucker [00:35:58] That child sacrifice seems to be a feature of most religions, really, around, historically around the world. Like, there's almost no region in the world that we haven't found evidence of human sacrifice, child sacrifice. So, clearly, there is something real there. It's not, like, the Incas, you know, and some Central African tribe didn't kind of come up with this because they were talking to each other on the internet. There's something organic and real about it. What is that? Well, I think it's the tendency of demons towards those specific things. But do the people who participate in child sacrifice, whether it's abortion or voodoo or Muti in Africa or whatever, do they receive power from?

Father Chad Ripperger [00:36:40] Demons some of them do actually but usually in order for them to receive power from it. Usually it's the opposite They become a subject that there's a subjection now that they're under the demons as a result of being gaging that behavior But there are certain people that are intentionally involved in the occult arts that engage in these specific things to empower themselves Yes, for sure very common. Yeah, and it's and it it's it's exploded

Tucker [00:37:04] But does it work in the short term? I mean, does it, so, so the trade is in Haiti, in Africa, here, Santeria, the trade, is I pledge allegiance to a demon and in exchange I receive power wealth.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:37:23] The technical term for that is a pact. You enter into a pact with a demon, right? No, a pact is a form of contract and there's certain, uh, aspects of a contract. And so one of the aspects of the contract is there has to be a guarantee that you can fulfill the terms of the contact. You know, like for example, if you, if, if you enter into contract for some guy to mow your lawn, but he doesn't even own a lawn mower and he's never going to bother buying one, well, then he can't fulfill the terms of contract. The problem with the demons is, is because they're subject completely to Christ and cannot do anything unless He allows it, they can't guarantee they can fulfill the terms of the contract. So, what that basically means is, that because of the disordered act of entering into the patch, you can still become subject to them, but they may or may not be able to deliver on their side of the contracts. So, I've had a case of possession, or more than one, where they entered into a pact with the devil and the devil couldn't give them anything. But the person ended up possessed as a result of entering into that path. And destroyed. Fortunately, these people climbed out of it because they actually sought the help and did what they needed to do in order to become liberated from the diabolic influence, but a lot of people just become destroyed. There are times, however, though, that God will allow the demons to fulfill the terms of the contract.

Now, what most people think is that they think, oh, well, the demon's doing what I'm asking him to do, you know, but what they don't realize is each individual time he does. What they ask, they become more subject to Him, and it becomes harder and harder to get out from underneath that subject. They're accruing debt. Exactly. How'd you get into this? I was minding my own business. I'm an academic, you know, because I was teaching in a seminary at the time, and a case in the Archdiocese of Omaha came up, and they didn't have an exorcist. And naively, I just told the Irish diocese, I said, we'll get one, you know, and just find some precincts. At that time, there were only 13 exorcists in the country, and about five knew what they were doing. So there was very, very few. And so eventually, they ended up asking me to do it because I had written a book in psychology where I had consulted with a number of different exorcist to deal with the interchange between how demons affect us psychologically. Because there are specific patterns that you'll begin to see that are distinguished from something that's just pure mental illness, as opposed to something that's purely diabolic, which is different from the intramix. So you know, if you saw them moving nefarious, that's that interchange between the human and the diabolic psychology that you saw. But anyway, so they asked me to do the case, and so, once I agreed to do it, And it had to do with the fact that when the case was diagnosed, the demon manifested to me the first time, because the pastor I was with asked me to pray over this guy, so I did, and boom, he immediately manifested, the demons did. And that was an indicator that usually when demons will manifest in relationship to a priest, it's an indicator of that that's the priest that's going to liberate, usually. And that's because demons are very tuned to the power structure, and so they know this is the guy that Christ is intended for me to, you know, take their slacking from. So I started being their exorcist, I did that for about two years, and then I was actually moved to take care of a problematic parish to clean it up, but I continued doing exorcisms for the Archdiocese of Omaha and a couple of other diocese actually, again because there was virtually nobody that was available. And then in 2011, a bishop. Slaughtery of Tulsa asked me to found a society of priests that this is exclusively what we do We only do exorcism work. We don't do parish work You know, I do lecture publicly but primarily about this particular area to inform the people about what they can do to keep themselves protected So that's how I kind of got drug into it.

And so I've been doing exorcisms for about 18 years So when you started there were five capable exorcists, you said how many are there now in the US? Well, right now there's probably about 130 to 140 exorcists that are mandated or named by their bishops. But out of that 140, maybe only about 20 to 25, I would feel comfortable sending someone knowing that they're going to get the help they actually need. Because this is, historically in the Catholic Church, this was done by mentorship. So even though I've written a book on diabolic influence, that's the academic side. But you have to sit in on session and see how you actually have to handle these guys because you're basically handling like a piece of nitroglycerin. You can talk to them about, don't do this and don't that, but they actually have see it. And so there was a mentorship. Well, that mentorship collapsed in the 50s, which we talked about before. And so now we're getting that back up off the ground. And so a lot of the guys haven't been under a good mentorship. And that's why there's so few that actually are very proficient at this. Clinical exorcists. Kind of, yeah. Yeah, like practicing.

Tucker [00:42:28] That's right Yeah, it sounds like a potentially dangerous job. Yeah, okay.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:42:38] So, that's a very good observation. The way it works is, so the Church actually has, it's called the pre-notanda or the note, which is basically a series of dos and don'ts, right? But there's also ones, that is also part of the mentorship, too, is to be trained. Look, there's a set of guardrails. If you stay in your lane, and you don't get out of that lane, theologically, by doing something that's theologically daft or it's bad. You're relatively safe. You're not gonna, you're not, nothing grave is gonna happen to you. Now, it doesn't mean that you don't get beat around a little bit. You are stepping into a boxing ring, right? And so the, and that's why they'll, a lot of times they'll afflict you with certain thoughts or they'll do certain things to, like, try and affect your health and things like that. But that's one of the reasons why the Society of Priests that I started, we are uh... In addition to maintain that unity with christ as long as you stay with christ you're safe it's when you try to branch out on your own or you think that that's actually not that is you liberating these people are not christie that's when it take into the woodshed and so we do is is we uh... We pray through for and it deals with all the different kinds of diabolic influence everything from normal temptation to oppression to obsession uh... To keep us to keep as protected so we have a specific set of to create. Protection by keeping us under Christ and keeping that protection in place. So if you do it, if you stay in your lane, you're relatively safe. It doesn't mean that you're, like I said, you are going to get beat around a little bit, but the good news about that is, is it also the first two years of the exorcist is the worst. And the reason being is, because the demons are probably contesting every single area of your weakness, and they know your weaknesses are because they've been watching you your whole life. And so, they'll start picking at certain areas of your moral weaknesses and things of that sort, or even psychological tendencies that may not be necessarily healthy, and they'll pick at those things. And so you have to really shore those up in a hurry, because otherwise you're going to get taken down. I've seen a lot of priests actually that became exorcists initially who didn't get that cleaned up and did get taken down. So you have be very- I believe that. Yeah. So, you have really stay in your lane. You know, do everything you can to eradicate any defect, spiritual, moral or otherwise that you might have.

Tucker [00:45:05] It's very obvious to me that demonic forces go after Christian leadership. Yes. It's one of the reasons so many of them are rotten, I feel sorry for them. And also, leadership in general, like, the U.S. Congress has a much higher incidence of diseased personal lives than the American population, and that's not an accident because they have authority. I mean, that's just what I've noticed.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:45:29] Do you think that's true? Oh, I think that is absolutely true. I mean, as far as the Christian leaders, a lot of times what happens is a lot times they'll start out with good intentions. But then when they get to that position of power, it attracts the demons. Because for demons, because they're cut off from God, they no longer have grace. They don't even know the economy of grace, and by that I mean in a sense they don't even know what helps that God is going to give to different people to get their lives together. They have no access to any of that knowledge. They don't have any of that they don't have um... They hate each other they can't stand each other so they don't even have the common... They hate each other? Yeah, they completely hate each other and so they do yeah and so as a result of that, they can't they have the only reason they get along is because they have a common end which is to take us down right? I mean you're describing people I know Well, I'm getting there, Tucker.

I'm sorry you are. I'm getting there so so the only thing that's left with the demons is because there were created in a hierarchy so how intelligent they are. Have a will that's proportionately intelligent, is strong to that intelligence. And different demons have different degrees of intelligence. So basically what that means is that their will, one demon's will, is stronger than another. So in hell there's only one thing that's left and that's raw power. And so what happens is, but it's also that power is melded with malice and self-servitude and that type of thing. So what happens is that when You see people that go into positions of power that attracts the demons, because they know, if I can get control of this guy, then I can basically use his power that he has to cause all this other damage, or to take other people down. That means there's two, so as I mentioned, a lot of the Christian leaders, they go with the right intentions, but when you're talking about politics or in the civil affairs were powers involved. Sometimes people go in with the right intentions, but then they get corrupted afterwards because the demons start. When you get that high profile, the demons are going to be really spending a lot of time and energy trying to take you down. But the other side of it is, too, is that, and we've seen this even in the Catholic Church, they'll get the wrong types of people into positions of authority. They know this particular person has this defect. They'll give the person the inspiration, you should go into politics.

You should rule. You should be the governor. And so then they'll incline the person to go into that governorship. Knowing that because of this person's uh... Psychological compatibility with them with the demons that they can manipulate this person to cause all sorts of damage

Tucker [00:47:58] Man, have I seen that a lot. I mean, you must watch the news with your jaw open because you know what's happening.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:48:06] I watched the news from a distance because it's almost like being in session. Like, I just saw that this afternoon, you know. Really? Yeah. In fact, that's actually one of the reasons. There's two things that I think you find interesting. I actually did a series on how communism and diabolic psychology are identical. When you strip the veneer away of one being political and the other one being from the spirit world, we pull that veneers away. The patterns of thinking are exactly the same. But

Tucker [00:48:34] Is that true? Yeah, it is. It is. Can you, that's it worth lingering on for a moment, can you describe what you see as similar between the way demons behave and the way that the Bolsheviks behave?

Father Chad Ripperger [00:48:46] Yeah, I mean, well, we see it even happening in our own country in the sense that demons always present a temptation as this pie in the sky great thing that you're going to get and you're gonna get all this pleasure and joy and everything's going to turn out right. This dog's got a niche. There you go. But they'll present it as, you know, this is a great thing, you're going to get this pleasure, you're gonna get this, you gonna get power, you get... But then once they get... And so then you give into the temptation, and then from there they take you down. It's the exact same thing in communism. It's a pie-in-the-sky thing. We're gonna have nirvana, because nobody's gonna have to... There's not gonna be any... Private property, you're never going to have to worry, the government's going to provide everything, everything's going to be peaceful and joyful and it's because of capitalism that there's all these wars. They sell you a bill of goods, they get you to sign off on it, and then from there they take you down. And that's exactly what the communists do. This is one of the reasons why one of patterns in relationship to politicians in this country that are clearly communist. I always watch, I say you can just watch the pattern. They'll out idealistic. But I always tell people, give them a couple years and you're gonna see the malice. Oh, yeah. And that's what you see. Hurting people. Yes, exactly. Because, and they think it's justified to achieve this good thing in the end. But here's another one. And you see that exact pattern of behavior in demons? Yeah, in forms of temptation, when they diabolically obsess people about certain things. You know, obsession is where the demons besiege their imagination, their emotions to such a degree that the person can't really think outside the box. Oh, man. Who hasn't been there?

Yeah, well that's it. And this is one of the reasons why but

Tucker [00:50:30] From that, you can self-liberate just fine. Where you're just totally distracted all the time because you're focused on this one thing. Usually it's lust-related, but not always. Sometimes it's greed-related or...

Father Chad Ripperger [00:50:40] And what though a lot of times the way, you know, it's diabolic is if it's if it from yourself You can use it like okay I got to put that side of that you go on but when it's from the demons you'll kick it out and it comes back You can get out and comes back and you just it's kind of this battle of just trying to keep that thing at bay being angry at people Yes, envy. Yeah another sign of diabolic obsession is it'll switch on and it'll Switch off without any external stimulus. You'll wake up in the morning. Just torque. You're like or something will happen in you just like why am i sad or why my angry at this time to get a person in central and so what it was one of the forms of diabolic uh... When they when they affect people psychologically you see this even with like people getting fired for no reason whatsoever because the team step in is a good get rid of this person but put a perspective that there's something wrong with this person then you go back afterwards after the person's right

Tucker [00:51:28] Like if you have the highest rated show on TV and all of a sudden they fire you one day? Yeah, exactly. No, but that's just it. I should have said that, sorry.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:51:36] Well, yeah, but I mean, but it's proof though that the demons, anybody that is starting to get a little too close to how the demons are functioning in society or in corporation or whatever the case, you start really seeking the truth regardless of the personal cost, the demon's like, we got to get this guy out of here. And then, the technical term for that is a snare. They can put a perspective on a particular individual thinking there's something wrong with this guy, we gotta get rid of him. That is fascinating.

Tucker [00:52:03] I'm sorry, I never should have tied it to myself. This is certainly not about me, but I just.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:52:07] I couldn't resist it. So here's another one in relationship to the politics, but you've probably even seen this even in the news media industry. So one case that I had, it's the only case I've ever had of Satan as the possessor. Those kinds of cases are very, very rare, even historically. And in the only reason i thought he was actually this is this is going to be the guys because he was trying to kill this woman and uh... That he did he was possessing and he was also he had for three straight days i beat this guy ruthlessly in a session and he just lied all the time even when it would go better for me if you just told the truth he would just lie which is what christ said about it he said he was a liar and a murder from the beginning yeah so uh... But anyway at a certain point what came out was in heaven there are nemeses, just as St. Michael fights against the demons, there's nemesis in heaven against the demon. So the demons actually have nemesies, specific holy people in heaven that actually combat them or deal with them. And very often it's because of the fact, like for example, the demon against the Noonday Devil is actually St. Catherine Alexandria because of the fact that she conquered him by conquering that particular aspect of human nature, which is the tendency of just being slothful and lazy, right? Well, in this particular case with Satan is the nemeses with Saint Joan of Arc. The reason it was St. Joan of Arc, as it starts to come out in the case, because you have a series of sessions and stuff starts to be revealed about the dynamics of the case and why Christ allowed it, and why is this particular demon possessing this person at this time and for whatever reason. And what basically came out was that St. Joana of Arc was the nemesis, because she actually showed up during one of the sessions. I don't see her, but the person who is possessed actually saw her appear. And the demon.

Just completely freaked out and starts running straight at me. And when I'm watching him run straight at him, I'm like, he's not coming at me, he is trying to get away from something. She literally ran over the top of me and runs the woman that's possessed, but it was actually the demon, and goes and cowers in the corner. And so I asked the woman, I said, what, after the session was over, I asked what happened, she said, well Joan of Arc appeared. That's how terrified they are of the people in heaven. Well, over the course of time, what came out is that the reason St. Joan of Arc was the nemesis of Satan in this particular case was because of the fact that St. John of Arc is the nemosis to Satan under the aspect of treason through ambition. Yeah. And reason through ambition. And the reason Joan of Arc is the nemesis of him under that aspect is because she was put to death by a bishop who was French, who was siding with the English so that he could get a higher bishopric, he would advance in the church. So he commits treason in order to advance himself. And that's what the ambition part is. That's a description of a vast majority of the politicians in this country.

Tucker [00:55:10] That's amazing.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:55:11] Yeah, you see it.

Tucker [00:55:11] You see it all over the place. So, I just need to ask this before I forget. So, in the famous scene where Jesus casts out the demons called legion from the man wandering the tombs on the other side of the lake. Right. It's in a couple of Gospels, I think. And they say send us into the herd of pigs, the thousand pigs. Right. And the pigs drown themselves, they immediately commit suicide. Yes. Okay, so the two questions I have are, is it a feature? Of this realm that demons possess animals.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:55:45] Yes, they can possess things. The technical term for that is infestation, which is different from possession. But infestations is where they basically can get into houses. I've had to clean up a lot of houses, buildings, that type of thing. Physical places. Yeah, because they like things, they like places, they're possessing them. They can also get into inanimate objects. I knew a guy that actually, there's what they call Fortuna, which they're little figurines. Uh... More they did that they're going to get a version of the catholic statue type of thing i think image and so what they do is they put a curse on these particular things and then from there they can affect people and this priest ended up having a case where he had a whole bunch of those put him in a bag put in his car and as he's driving down the highway she didn't have a chance to burn or destroy them yet these driving down the the road he's just he goes over this bridge and he did they did not pay attention to you know he's underneath a tractor trailer the cars shreds single inch of that car. Except for that where he was sitting. That's crazy. Yeah. Another priest, there was a case where a guy had killed his wife in the backyard. And the priest found that the house was infested. So when he went there, he said, well, let's take a look to see if we can find any remnants of this deed. And he found this shotgun shell. So he gets the house cleaned up, but he didn't have a chance to get rid of the shotgun shell, he said from the time I took possession of that shotgun shell until 48 hours later when I got rid of it. Every single thing in my life went wrong. So they can actually infest things, and then from there they actually influence things. Have you seen it with living animals? Yeah, well, I haven't seen them actually infested the animals to the point where the animals are doing that, but I have heard of other exorcists having that. I have seen them actually afflict animals. There was one case where the land was infested.

And the people who owned the farm on there lost 50 animals in the course of one year. And it was under really odd circumstances. So one day they just came out and stepped out on the porch and they had these Pyrenees. One of the Pyrenee was just standing there. All of a sudden the Pyrenes just starts choking to death. Right and so that is the demerit properties is a while to get the guy out of there but we finally got him out but uh... But then they took it to a vet and said there's no obstruction there's not reason there's a reason is not should be done so they can they can actually do what do you know about uh... Cattle mutilation

Tucker [00:58:16] Anything

Father Chad Ripperger [00:58:19] Some of the cattle mutilation, you know, the stuff that I've actually studied, it's a little bit unclear to me about what the actual motivation is of some of the people that do it, but some of it is actually a cult activity. So clearly. And so, and part of that is it's the, they're still, what they're doing is they're inverting the sacrifice. So all, you're not in the Old Testament, all the sacrifices of the animals were actually just a lead up or a type or a prefigurement to Christ, right? And so what they do is they do these rituals, they're like the inversion of those things in the Old Testament, where they're sacrificing animals and doing specific things in occult activity to empower themselves. So a lot of those, I've heard, I haven't, it's not something I can verify or vouch for 100%, but I've talked to a lot of police officers in areas like that, and they say, yeah, there's a satanic coven over here, there's this, which is get involved in this type of stuff too. And so they'll say that, you know, You'll see those kinds of things where there's a high degree of, or a high number of people involved in the occult.

Tucker [00:59:24] Arts. What about the connection between demonic possession and suicide? I just can't help but notice that the second the demons enter the pigs they kill themselves.

Father Chad Ripperger [00:59:34] Yeah, they have an animus delende, right? They want to destroy everything they get in contact with. In fact, during one session that I actually had with Beelzebub, which is another name for Satan, because to appear under Satan is one thing, but to have him possess something under the aspect of Beelzbub is another matter. To God. And he says, yes, that's why I want to destroy everything. So they have that, they do drive suicide. Now, people can commit suicide on their own. For example, as you probably know, there's certain SSRIs that actually have an 80% suicidal ideation rate, right? So people can commit suicide or have that inclination from that, but the demons also will begin picking at the person. So one of the things that the demons do is they try, from the very beginning of our lives, they'll start tempting us with certain things. When they see us being born, because the knowledge of these things are infused in their mind, they actually know what our DNA is. And so they know, okay, because of this guy's genetic disposition, he's more likely to be inclined to these kinds of sins and not those. So they'll pick at the kid from a very early age, tempting him to do certain things in that area. And their goal is not just to get him to commit sin and offend God, although that's the primary reason, but it's to slowly build a psychological compatibility. Because each time you give in to that, you create a set of habits in you and you create these defects that make you much more easily intertwine with them. And so they're actually building that. And so what happens is a lot of times when you see with suicide, not all cases, because some cases it's entirely natural, right? It's a psychological issue that's brought this about. But we've seen this with people who are possessed a lot times, in fact, every person that I've known as possessed has had is very strong. Sometimes they say, uncontrollable inclinations to suicide. But they know that it displeases God, so they don't.

Tucker [01:01:37] How does a person get possessed by a demon, and then how does he know he's possessed?

Father Chad Ripperger [01:01:44] There's three ways. So the first is you commit some grave sin, like abortion, murder, engaging in the occult arts is one of the principal ways that we see people becoming possessed, selling your soul to the devil, stuff like that. So you do something really bad and then that opens the door. In the Catholic sphere, we call it a mortal sin, something that's really grave that you commit, and those sins can open you up to diabolic influence. Now, the way it works, though, is because Christ has perfect power over the demons. We open the door, but to be able to step across the threshold, Christ has to give them permission. So, most people who do stuff that's bad don't become possessed because of the fact that Christ just doesn't allow it, because it's not gonna be good for the person ultimately. Uh... Even though they've opened up the door so they've done something really bad that's about fifty percent of our caseload is that and you ask but the person yes because we want to know what could be the cause of the entry is if we know how the demon got in a lot of times that's gonna tell us how you're gonna get them out and so we will be very often want to now that specific specific kind of information The other 50%, roughly, is something really disordered or grave has happened to you. So for example, one case that I worked on, the woman was run over by a car, her sister ran her over with a car. About 50% of our caseload are women who have been raped, molested, psychologically or physically abused in a grave fashion. And that disorder is the domain of the diabolic, and so that opens the person up getting possessed.

The woman getting possessed. And people say, well, that doesn't seem fair. Well, that's true in one sense. On the other hand, Christ permits it, and what you find very often is those, especially the women you find this, as they climb their way out, they become some of the most holy people you'll ever meet. Because the amount of virtue they have to obtain to engage in the battle becomes pretty significant. How does a

Tucker [01:03:44] person, I mean, we're not encouraged to think that the torment we experience is the cause of demons. Right. Right. So, how does a person realize, wait, I think I have some alien being in me?

Father Chad Ripperger [01:03:58] It gets to causation. So if your torment is because you've got a bad conscience because of the fact that you've been doing a lot of bad things, well that's probably not necessarily diabolic. So there's natural explanations that can be for it. Sometimes, too, you know, like for example, there's hypothyroidism. People can become depressed as a result of that. So, there can be natural organic causes for that. But the other way that you would know it is if there's no prior causation, but you're just like, you feel afflicted. So we'll get people who have been cursed. And they said, you know, I just set in one day, and I was just depressed from that point on, or I was just angry all the time from that point on. I know someone that happened, prominent person that happened. Yeah, and so you have to look at the causation. Where did this come from? And as I mentioned, if it's diabolic obsession, it will switch on and switch off. As an exorcist, we'll pray over people like that, and you see a very distinctive pattern in this. As you're trying to assess whether this is demonic? Yes, correct, because sometimes it's just psychological, right? We just

Tucker [01:04:57] So you show up, you get the call, I or someone I love I think is possessed, you show up at the house and tell us what you do if you don't mind and how you make that determination.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:05:07] Um, so usually we'll do kind of an initial intake or interview. We actually have a vetting process because the society of priests that I get, we get about, um, uh, it ranges from anywhere. Right now it ranges anywhere from 400 to 800 requests for help a month. And so, um. I always tell people, I got pretty good job security. Yeah. Considering it was this country. Yeah, but usually the way it normally works is what they call the Roman model is is you'll just sit down and you'll talk to the individual and talk. And what you're trying to do is get a sense of what they're experiencing first. But then also the cause, what could have been the cause in relationship to this? Was there a psychological thing that happened to you, you know, were you raped when you were a kid, or did your father abuse you, or what happened? Were you looking for specific things in their past? You could explain it more on a psychological level. But then at a certain point, there's actually a set of prayers that will actually say over the person, and if it's psychological, you won't see much of a change. They might feel a little better when you pray over them, but that's just because of the social interaction and someone's actually listening to their problem, right? Whereas if it's diabolic obsession, all of a sudden, they'll feel this lifting, and they feel like they're symptom-free, and they're like, wow, that was fantastic, I feel. Diabolic obsession is by degree, and so what can happen is if it's really entrenched, that feel of freedom and lightness will only last for like four or five hours at the most, maybe a day at the least, and then it'll set back in. And then you'll pray over them again and then you see this, you kind of get this dolphin pattern. But they have to go, they themselves have to fight their way out, we put them on a prayer regimen and a spiritual regimen to fight the way out and then as you pray over them, it'll slowly lift and then eventually they're free. But you'll see these distinctive patterns, whereas if it's psychological, it just will kind of flatline. And so, that's one of the ways that we can actually know.

Tucker [01:06:53] But the high drama moments that you described at the outset where the person, where the demon is speaking to you through the person sometimes in his voice, sometimes in the demon's voice, how often does that happen?

Father Chad Ripperger [01:07:04] Uh... Will possessions very rare so um... Statistically out of the eight hundred people so the contact is maybe four of them i should have asked you to find

Tucker [01:07:14] What's the distinction between influence and possession?

Father Chad Ripperger [01:07:17] So influence is the broadest cat, it's just a genus of how they, so they can influence by temptation. Oppression is where they attack your externals, like your job situation, things like that. Obsession is where they attack you psychological faculties primarily, and they obsess you. And then possession is where they actually take possession of a specific part of the body. And then from there, they'll drive obsession and oppression.

Tucker [01:07:41] So all of us, from time to time, experience the first suite of Simpsons.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:07:46] To what they call ordinary diabolic temptation.

Tucker [01:07:49] Yeah, and that's why the Lord's Prayer says lead us not into temptation, deliver us from the evil one.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:07:54] Exactly. And then the other forms are what we call Extraordinary Diabolic Influence, or extraordinary in two reasons. One, they're above and beyond what most people experience. But then the part of it is that they are rare. They're rarer, I should say.

Tucker [01:08:05] So possession, how do you know you're confronting one of those unusual cases?

Father Chad Ripperger [01:08:13] Well, there are what we call the primary and secondary signs of possession. The secondary signs are certain psychological patterns, certain patterns we'll see in the person's life of what's happening. They can give us an indicator, but they don't give us certitude. What gives us certitudes is you'll pray over them and then you'll see a praetor natural sign. This is something that a human being is not capable of doing, like morphing, changing shape, as I mentioned before. Or superhuman strength. There was a case out in California a few years back where this eighty year old woman who had to have a walker to get in just to get into the case, the sessions, they had four beefy police officers there during this case and as soon as this demon manifested he just threw them all over the room. So these are types of things or another case that a friend of mine had. As it was a ten-year-old boy, that two police officers there that were 250 pounds each, he lifted them both off the ground at the same time with ease. So these are super human history, yeah. So these, so you'll see those particular kinds of things. So another- Did you get unknown languages, foreign languages ever? Yeah, so that's one of the other ones. So speaking in languages they've never studied. Now, they're, this is, and so a lot of times- You know, psychologists for a while were saying that, oh, well maybe the person's heard the language. Well, I don't know of anybody who can hear a language want to be absolutely fluent in it. Right, and so too, there's languages like the first case of possession ever dealt with. This guy was speaking a form of Phoenician that had been defunct for 3,500 years.

Tucker [01:09:41] Ha, ha, ha!

Father Chad Ripperger [01:09:41] So, he's never had… Affenitian? Yeah. He had been… So, this is… Fluently, by the way. So, we're not talking about… So, so this is not a psychological issue. There's other things, too, so there's speaking in foreign languages. In fact, it's kind of funny. I had this one case where the demon, Christ restricts what languages they can speak with you. Even though they know all the languages, He restricts them. And so, in this particular case, he was restricted to speaking in Latin. So I had to converse with him in Latin. Now my Latin is decent, but once in a while I'll, you know, when you're supposed to use the accusative, I use the dative, grammatically, and he would just, when I would do that, I didn't do it right, he would just ignore me like he just didn't have to put up with this, right? And so then I would correct my language. And who was the person he was occupying? It was actually, it was a woman that was actually possessed. But not a Latin scholar. No, not, she didn't even know Latin. So at the end of it, I commanded the demon to consider the fact that he had actually improved my grammar. He wasn't happy with that one.

So you mock them? It's not mocking them, I just inform them in stuff that makes it painful for them. Because you don't want to mock them because that's degrading. And we don't wanna be involved in the degrading process. It's the same reason why you don't call them names. Even in the ritual there's a listing of names of theirs, but you're not going to call them like, hey stupid do this Because they're not stupid right and the part of that is because they're looking they'll they'll be happy if you do that because of The fact that that means your your speech isn't perfectly modest and so at least in relation to totally right Yeah, and so they get power

Tucker [01:11:27] They get power out of it. I've seen this in the human realm. Yeah, they're inviting you, certain people are clearly under the influence of these things, invite you to lower yourself Yes, and invite you too mock and swear and degrade and like the second you do that They become swollen with power

Father Chad Ripperger [01:11:47] I don't know if it's your experience, but in my experience with demons, they're willing to take a beating to get that out of you. They'll take the mockery, they'll take those that, you know, you're treating them badly if it means they're getting power over you.

Tucker [01:12:00] Yeah, I think they're trying to incite you to become more like them. That's exactly it. That's exact. Boy, I've seen that a lot. And I don't know anything about what you're saying, I just... The parallels to the experience that, like, anyone engaged in our political discourse have has to what you are saying.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:12:16] Crazy. But you know, in talking about that psychological compatibility, we have just a lot of people today that are psychologically compatible with a lot of demons, and that's why we're seeing that behavior. These people are just psychologically compatible. And what can you do?

Tucker [01:12:30] Restate what the qualities are that you see in people that are compatible with with demons. Just like, to remember to avoid these things. What are they?

Father Chad Ripperger [01:12:39] Uh... Was basically people that uh... This is actually some of the secondary signs of possession is people who are have a tendency towards mendacity you know i'm not lying all the time duplicitous there's i've made this comment even publicly about certain politicians you know you can tell that these people are in cahoots with the devil because of the fact that every single thing they do maximizes damage within their capacity to do so you know you get you get around to you know if you get your own people that are like that. Oh, yes. Yeah. Even though they might have a veneer of respectability, they're in a position of authority and they kind of conduct themselves a certain way, everything they do.

Tucker [01:13:15] They don't show any like a normal eye lie. I have lied. I hate lying, but I have done it But when I do it or I think most people when they lie that you know, you kind of twitch a little bit You don't lie. Yeah, it's the people who Registered no concern at all about lying. No, that is a sign. Yes. Do you think?

Father Chad Ripperger [01:13:33] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and that's that psychological compatibility or people that are willing to just sacrifice other people for the sake of them getting even some of the most modest of gains, you know, where they're just there. And so the demons will just I mean, they'll be happy to kill a bunch of bunch of you know unborn children in order to empower themselves in relationship to you know say one particular politician or another they're more than happy to do so. The other third sign of preternatural science, so one is things that are beyond human capacity, which I mentioned, speaking foreign languages, but the other one is occult knowledge. And that's in two forms. So, I mentioned it earlier, we mentioned it a little bit earlier about this woman who is making theological distinctions. You know, the demon was making theological distinctions. This is a form of knowledge that this woman didn't have. The other form of occult knowledge is they can know what's going on in the other room, because as I mentioned, it's all being infused in them as it happens, as it occurs, because that's how they're designed to know things.

That's how God made them to know things. He just infuses them as that happens. So they'll actually know like what you ate for breakfast this morning, or they'll know things about your past history. One of the things that you'll see from time to time is that they actually know your sinful history. And so if you go into a session, and because, you know, we see this from time time if one of our assistants has, you know, that there's some sin that they haven't confessed, you know, then what happens is, is the demon knows that. Because as far as the demon's concerned is, if you don't confess your sins, then basically their attitude is, well then I still have power over you, because you're still under me. It's once you confess your sin, then it's absolved and then boom. And so as a result of that, they know that, and so you'll start the session and all the demons will point out, hey, this guy over here, he did XYZ this morning, and this person didn't even see that guy until session started. So they'll have occult knowledge on those particular kinds of things. And so those are kind of the indicators that like, okay, I'm not dealing with somebody who's, that this isn't a psychological issue, this is natural. Now one of the things that people often ask is, well, what about levitation? Is that a preternatural sign? Yes and no. Because there has been, it's, there has been cases of, like, there was a... There was a saint in the Catholic Church who would actually levitate when he'd said mass. Right? And so, and he was a very saintly man. They even did exorcisms over him. He made the guys possessed and nothing, you know. So, well, the Pharisees accused Jesus of being possessed. Yes, that's right. That's right, and then, but then you can also have levitation occur in an infested building, which is not too common. So people will be in bed and all of a sudden, They feel themselves getting dragged out or pulled up or lifted up off their bed and that type of thing. People have seen that. That's very rare, but as exorcists, we hear about that from time to time. And so, that doesn't necessarily mean the person's possessed. Plus, all the people that are possessed, not everybody levitates when they're possessed. Some do, some don't.

And so levitation is just not that common, but you see it from time to time, and so it's not a necessary sign that the person is possessed. But if you see a bunch of secondary signs, you know, around the person, and you're dealing with them, and then you start praying over them, and then the demon morphs or changes shape and levitates, well, then, you know, okay, that's something that's preternatural.

Tucker [01:17:04] There's a scene in the Gospels in Mark where a man brings his demon-possessed boy who's hurting himself, throwing himself into fires, having seizures, and the apostles are unable to exorcize the demon. And Jesus walks up and kind of scolds them and then does so, and they say, why were you able to do it when we weren't? And He says, because this kind of demon can only be exorcized through prayer and

Father Chad Ripperger [01:17:29] fasting. What does that mean? Well, it means that how you get a demon out of somebody varies. So, Christ said, by my name you'll cast out demons. What he did not say is by my name you will cast out all demons. And the way we know that is precisely this scene in the Gospels, where they were using his name, but it wasn't having the effect, and so they actually have to do prayer and fasting. And basically what that means is, the prayer. Is to petition God enough, intercessory prayer, praying to Him, asking Him to do enough prayers so that the person will actually be liberated. This is one of the reasons why we actually have people praying, like to put assistance during the sessions and outside of sessions, we have people that will do, spend hours praying for the person's liberation so that we get that done. The other part is through fasting. Now the fasting goes back to Saint Paul. Saint Paul says bring your body under subjection, right? So you... You have to fast in order to get your lower faculties under control to some degree. And by doing that, it's a meritorious work which God will actually, and you can offer that so that this person will actually become liberated in the process. The other reason is an exorcist, so I fast six days a week when I'm in session. And the reason for that- But what does that mean? It means having one moderate meal in the evening, that's it. So I have nothing for breakfast, nothing for lunch, and then I have a moderate meal at night. And I do that for six days. And part of that is just to, because. We become, when we get our body under subjection, two things occur. One, demons don't want to get involved with you because if they attack you and try and suggest something to you that's contrary to that subjection you're going to reject it outright. So they're going to get defeated very easily and you're gonna be, and by that you're also developing virtues. You're empowered to be able to kick them out much more easily. When we're weak they can advantage of us. But the other part about it is that, and you've probably noticed this even with yourself, is you start to grow in virtue and you start saying, I've got to get this part of my life straightened out. You become much more sensitive in that area that you've cleaned up. So for example, people who stop using profanity all of a sudden in vulgarities, all of a sudden when they hear it, it jars them, right? Well, it's the same thing in relationship to demons, so as you fast, if the demons attack you, you're much more sensitive to it. And so that disorder. Because you've got it under your body is now rightly ordered and so as a result you quickly detect them and then they don't want to attack you. So in addition to they don't t want to attacked you but also you have a certain amount of protection but also, you can offer that fasting up so that this person is actually liberated. The people that are possessed sometimes will also need to fast given sometimes the nature of the demon that they're dealing with. They need to fast in order to break the possession.

Tucker [01:20:21] You said you've, I think you said, you've cast out Satan himself twice.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:20:29] Satan once, so Satan, Lucifer, and Beelzebub were the same guy, and so, which Christ himself even said it, right, because the Jews accused him of casting out Satan by the power of Beelzbub, right? And he says, how can a house divide it? Yeah, it's casting out satan, so they say, yeah, how could Satan cast out Satan? So he turns it and says, oh, sorry, excuse me, they're casting out by the power of Beelzaub, and he says well how can Satan cast Satan? So he's the fathers, the patristic commentators on the scriptures said that that's an indicator that Satan and Beelzebub were the same guy. And then Lucifer was his original assigned name, because Lucifer comes from luce ferre, which means to bear light. He was supposed to enlighten our minds, and that was his originally assigned task, and he refused to do so. But then after that, so I actually had a case which... At a certain point during one of the sessions, demons will be compelled to say things that you're not even asking them. God tells them, hey, you've got to tell this guy X, Y, and Z. And that's to keep the case moving along. And out of the blue, the demon just blurts out. It was Beelzebub blats out, I'm the mockery of the Holy Spirit. And then he checks out. I can't get him back to the surface. He just wouldn't, regardless of what prayers I did. So I'm thinking to myself, well I know B.L.'s about Ben. And Satan are the same guy. So I started asking, you know, started praying, getting some, you know, give me the grace to see what am I seeing here, right? And we also know that Lucifer, he was originally Lucifer. And then it dawns on me. So as an exorcist, we deal with cases of dissociative identity disorder, which is multiple personality. It looks like possession, but it's actually not possession. Okay. And so it dawned on me, this guy's it was a trifurcated personality. So during the next session, I referred to Beelzebub as the third personality of Satan, and he just lit up. Like, how did you ever figure that out, right? Well, it was grace, obviously. So then I basically beat out of him.

So Beelzbub is the inversion of the Holy Spirit. Lucifer is the version of the second person of the Trinity, because Christ is light from light, right, which we read in St. John's Gospel. And then Satan is the father of lies, who is the inversion of God the Father. So you basically have this unholy trinity. So then I commanded him to tell me, was this trifrecation of your personality the punishment for wanting to be God? And after a little bit of beating he said, yes. And then he basically admitted he suffers the same thing that people who suffer from dissociative identity disorder, he suffers this same problem, he's in constant pain as a result of this petrification. And this actually, so I thought to myself, well, you know, somebody had had to have talked about this historically. I can't be the first guy to kind of stumble across this. Well, lo and behold, there was a case in France in the 1600s where this exact same thing played itself out, and they talked about this. And then the fathers talk about it in bits and pieces. So let's actually know that his personality, he was punished with his trifurcation, his personality. And that would explain why exorcists would experience Beelzebub, Lucifer, and Satan in very different ways.

Tucker [01:23:43] What about this guy invited Satan rather than one of the lesser demons?

Father Chad Ripperger [01:23:49] Uh... With this it wasn't actually guy was actually a woman who became possessed by satan because she was the victim of satanic ritual abuse And so, literally, right off the bat in her life. So, she- How common is that? When I first started doing exorcism work, most of the cases that we would see of that were from satanic ritual abuse in the 80s, which is when it really picked up steam. And then it kind of went on a bit, it kind a plateaued out a little bit, but now we're starting to see a lot of the cases from stuff that's been happening in the last 15 to 20 years. So, um, the... Uh... Probably if you're talking about cases of possession or the cases that well let's just talk about the cases have come to us of the that has satanic ritual abuse it's not that many but it's enough that it it takes up a significant amount of our time to clean these people up as a result of it the uh... And not happened to that woman she was liberated

Tucker [01:24:50] And how did her life turn out, do you think?

Father Chad Ripperger [01:24:55] She's, I think she's a very holy woman. I think she's very good woman and she still has to deal with some diabolical pressure, but I think that she and her husband have really come up to speed in their spiritual lives, so they're doing, I think they're better than I think they think they are doing, but i think she is doing fine.

Tucker [01:25:16] How long does it typically take to save a person from possession?

Father Chad Ripperger [01:25:22] It depends on the degree of the possession, because possession is by degree, that is how deep the possession actually is. If you have something like satanic ritual abuse, it's going to take a while. If it's, generally speaking, whereas sometimes I've actually had cases of possession where things have happened bad, like this one woman, she was molested when she was younger, but she was never complicit, she didn't want it, she always tried to lead a good Christian life, etc. So three sessions, boom, she's was cleaned up. There's cases of children that are possessed those go much more rapidly. There's usually just a few sessions But if you're talking about an adult Usually the average case and this is something which even the exorcists in Rome have made this observation as well The average time table is four to eight years years years

Tucker [01:26:14] Can you exercise a demon from a person against that person's will? No.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:26:19] Because if the person actually wants the demon to be there, God respects their free will, and that empowers the demon remain. So you can't get anywhere.

Tucker [01:26:33] Person's life's like. Ah, they're miserable.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:26:38] Living in hell. Yeah, there was one, I actually had one case where the exorcist that trained me said, hey there's this one woman I can't get to or would you take a look at her? I said, yeah, I'll take a lookout or so. I went in and normally speaking, I would say a series of purses to keep myself protected when I went in and then clean, you know, and protect it on the way out. But I totally forgot to do this. And so I went in, I started talking to her, and she was possessed all right. She was showing signs of preternatural knowledge. I mean, there's the types of knowledge she had. She was like, wow, that's pretty, but she liked it. She didn't want it. So I told her, well, look, I can't really help you in relationship to this. And so, you know, if you want to be, if you wanna cut bait with these guys, I'm willing to help you, but until then I can help you. So I left, came down with the worst case of gout I've ever had. Gout. Gout, I just like... You got a medieval illness, perfect.

Yeah, exactly. So, and everything I did, I even took those tablets that are supposed to help you clean out the ureic acid, nothing, didn't touch it. It's the most painful I've had, it's shocking. So, it dawned on me a week later, you'd think I would have clued in being an exorcist. I wonder if that woman cursed me. So I said a prayer to break the curse, and within an hour it would all clear up. Really? So I called the priest that had sent her to me, and usually he'll pick up the phone. Well, he didn't pick up a phone. Two weeks later, he calls back and says, hey, you know, I would have called you, but I got the worst case of gout I've ever had. And I said, dude, you've been cursed. And I say, let me guess, right toe, big foot, or big toe in the right foot? Yeah, yeah, how'd you know? I said you've been cursed! So he said the prayers, boom, it lifts up. A year later... Another priest says, well, I think she's had a change of heart. I said, okay, well this time I went in and I said some prayers, kept my last St. Michael to protect me, but I also- Did she apologize for cursing you? No. So what happens is, I said prayers to keep myself protected, but also said a prayer which another exorcist taught me, which is extraordinarily effective. Which is, Jesus, if she tries to curse me, I ask you, or if I've been cursed, I asked you to send the curse back from whence it came. But if that's not your holy will, in either case, keep me protected. Now, there's a reason for that is because if the person... This is why high-level witches will not get involved in cursing with people... Cursing people as a general rule because they know they can become subject to the very curse that they put on people. So, um... This, uh... So, I went in, talked to her. Oh, no, she still liked the occult knowledge. You know, she really liked knowing what her husband was up to, you know, that kind of thing. Even though he was not even around her. So I just gave her the same story. So she was getting knowledge that a normal person wouldn't have. That's right. She knew what her, the demons would tell her, this is what your husband's doing, et cetera. And it was accurate, right? And that's how you know it's true, it's actually accurate.

Well, so I left and then about a week later, I called the priest that had, you know, said, I think she's out of change. I said, well, you don't know how she doing? She said, right after you left, she ended up in the hospital and she's still there. Yeah, so the, this is, you know, the cursing is one of those things that the, you know, people can become subject to it. The main thing they have to do is make sure that they're leading an authentic Christian life and not doing anything sinful that would open the door for the demons, so they become subject to the curse. Have you ever seen the

Tucker [01:30:06] A phenomenon where someone is acted on by God, clearly inspired by the Holy Spirit, has a closer connection to God than normal, and then shortly after is attacked hard by demons. Yes. Yes. That's a common reaction?

Father Chad Ripperger [01:30:21] Yes. Okay, so the way demons tend to function is they tend to like to go after easy prey, but because, and this is something that I've learned about them, because Christ has perfect coercive power over them, which we saw in the casting out of the legion, right? And they can't do anything without His permission, but that also means that they are subject to Him, And that means that they are his instruments. And so he can use... The demons as an instrument of our sanctification and purification. So we overcome particular difficulties. So a lot of times God will allow the person who's leading a really good Christian life to come under attack in order to draw them even closer to Him than they actually are, or to purify them, or make them more holy, or help them to overcome a particular defect because the demon's using that against them. So from time to You'll actually see that and so the demons are there is the he uses them and he tells me called conscription hate you gotta go deal with this and they don't really admit i didn't want to be here but i hear him really yeah

Tucker [01:31:32] So the experience is designed to instruct the person.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:31:38] Who's being afflicted by it. That's right. To instruct them to gain knowledge about, okay, this is how this works, but also to basically help them to grow even greater in virtue. I mean, if the demons are kind of like tempting you towards, let's just say lust, they're tempting you toward lust, and you combat that, the degree of your virtue when you come out of it is going to be stronger than if it's just natural human temptation. That's correct. Yeah, and so that's a lot of times why God will allow it so the person becomes even whiler, even more virtuous. Than they would outside that context. The demons actually hate it. Especially when you see in these cases of possession, like as I mentioned, some of these women will become extremely holy. And I'll just mention to the demon, you know, you're becoming this person's instrument of sanctification. They'll admit it's true and they hate it."

Tucker [01:32:25] What are steps that people can take to avoid being influenced by demons or possessed by them?

Father Chad Ripperger [01:32:31] Well the main thing to do is stop sending especially the this more serious stuff you know stop for a kidding stop doing all this stuff looking at pornography because properties were seen the real uptick in obsession and stuff really you you know you see this yeah so that did the number of people becoming diabolically obsessed through pornography and even possessed uh... We've seen a drastic upticks really and uh... Yeah that you know what i was first of what was first a priest of people come to fashion to a priest. So when I was first a priest The guys that would confess pornography, you didn't hear that too often because you had to go buy it. And there was a shame involved. Now that it became ubiquitous on the internet, you can do it in the privacy of your home, the number of men that are confessed is almost, you know, it's pretty high up there. And so what we're seeing is that, but also the fact that a lot of the pornography is cursed to increase its addictive effect. That was one of the things that the Satanist taught the people in the porn industry. Curse the master copy and then from that the copies that are made will influence the people. And so they they do that and then people become so you believe the porn industry is controlled by satanists I don't know if it's controlled by it. My impression is these are just bad dudes, for the most part. I think that they're influenced by them. It doesn't mean that there aren't Satanists that are involved in the porn industry. I suspect there probably are, but I just think that it's, they're the ones who taught them, this is what you do, and this will boost the addictive effect of it. And so there's one exorcist who wasn't me, but there was another exorcists that I know of, who's a good friend of mine. He had a case where the... The guy became possessed and uh... Finally there's a certain stage where the demon gets weak enough you can compel how did you get it and he said probably i believe that and so then the after the session yes guy what's the you know uh... What happened he said he said yeah was for i think he said i would believe it's pornography said i watch this one for our free that they had this one woman on it After that, something snapped or changed. And from that point on, I had to see every piece of pornography she ever made. I was just driven obsessively to find her. So that's one of the ways that they get in. So to answer your question, there's a few things. One is prayer and fasting. You should be praying regularly, anyway, as a Christian. You should be pray. And if you're praying regularly you can pray for your own protection.

That's actually one of reasons I gave you the book Deliverance Prayers for the Laity, Which is right there, but That book actually contains a number of prayers that are drafted. You don't have to use those, you can use your own, but this gives you kind of an outline or a structure to say, okay, this is how this works. So consistent prayer life, a disciplined prayer life. You have to be very disciplined. The second part of it is fasting, which is also true. Stop the sinning. The one thing that we have found, this was something that one of my lay assistants, this was about three years ago, we started noticing a very pattern, because this is what we wish we watched for patterns, because demons act in a very consistent way. And what we started noticing is, the people that the demons attack, whether that's attacking their externals through oppression or through obsession, and even in temptation in some cases, are people that there's some area of their interior life that is undisciplined. You know, they eat too much or they're not you know, when it comes to chocolate, they're a little too indulgent, you know. Instead of just trying to moderate those things.

Not that those things are bad, it's got the contrary, they are good, but they have to be moderated. Or the person just doesn't moderate, like, their irritation or anger in certain circumstances, things like that. So there's some area of their life that's undisciplined. Sometimes it's just they're not praying. You know, you should be praying on a consistent basis every single day. I mean, if you really love God, if really love Him, you're going to want to be with Him, and that occurs through prayer.

Tucker [01:36:23] A lot of people just don't do that. Also, if you understand the world well enough to be terrified by it, comma, which you should be, yes, comma. Yes.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:36:31] You will seek safety in prayer, I think. That's exactly it, yeah. And also the prayer, because you're lifting your mind and heart to God, which is one of the definitions of prayer, is lifting your heart and mind to God. It gets that right order in your own mind, and so it gives you clarity, so that you, you know, when you see the insanity in the world, you can still navigate, and it doesn't affect you as much. But it's that undisciplined, somewhere in their spiritual life, that is, if people are getting attacked, you have to start figuring out, okay, where are you undisciplined? This is what you need to do, get that cleaned up and it'll solve. That is, uh.

Tucker [01:37:04] I think whether you believe in God or not, you can see that that's true. Are you hopeful for the country, since you seem to pay attention to the whole country, not just...

Father Chad Ripperger [01:37:20] Yes and no. If you, by hopeful, you mean in the sense that human beings are going to correct this, you know, right this ship. I think it's beyond human correction at this stage. It's so bad. Especially when you look at the corruption in the higher levels of government and that type of thing. But I am also hopeful that Christ, you know if you look the history of how God deals with human beings, He'll let us be evil only for so long and then He gives us a spanking. So, I think that Christ is going to correct it, probably fairly soon, I mean, who knows when that is, but I think we're getting to the point where we're, you know, especially in a post-Christian era, we're almost as bad as Sodom and Gomorrah. I mean I tell people, look, at Sodom or Gomorra, at least they weren't trying to marry each other, you now? No, it's true. Yeah. And so, I'm, but, so I think where we've gotten to the where, that God is going to punish us, but in a way that a good father corrects his son when he's doing bad things, right?

Tucker [01:38:19] Do you think that the first thing that jumps to mind is through war, nuclear weapons? And I wonder about the role of technology in all of this. So you said when you started, the people with porn problems bought the porn and that's a small number, but thanks to technology, it's abetted, you know, universal porn use. Yes. Yeah. You look at something like AI or nuclear weapons specifically, hard not to think that that was demonically inspired.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:38:48] Uh... Well obviously these are these are natural things which we could discover on our own and whether the demons actually inspired people to start pursuing this i think the real problem is the use of them that's where the real problem so a i i mean i use a i to do research the uh... Although you have to be careful you have even vet that because a lot of it's based on the language model of course is based on what's out there generally. Of course. A lot of times there's garbage. But a lot times it puts you in the ballpark so you can quickly find stuff which is very helpful so it's a very powerful and useful tool it's good thing but we've already seen people using it for evil and uh... And this is one of the reasons why i think that uh... As time goes on uh... It's going to be even become more and more evil the types of evil we're going to see coming from these things are going to be pretty significant, I think.

Tucker [01:39:36] I mean, Sam Altman's already announced that OpenAI will allow anyone to create their own porn. So, but the cycle that you're describing is society falls into decadence and evil, and then it's corrected through punishment. That's right. And you think we're getting pretty close to the punishment stage of the cycle. If God is consistent, which He tends to be.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:39:59] And that's not a terrible thing. No, it's going to be painful. It's like the kid, when he gets spanked, it is painful. But then he realizes, OK, this is not good. I'm not going to do this anymore. And so God wants us to be able to see the effect of the evil. There's a certain sense that that's already happening, in the sense that the more evil we become, the more difficult and afflicted living in this culture is becoming. Yes. So we're already paying the price for our sin to some degree, but we're still on a course where we're not correcting ourselves. I think some people are. Some people are like, this is just evil, I've got to get my eye together, right? But that's not the whole of the culture, but at a certain point God's, I think, going to have to correct it himself. I think that all the time.

Tucker [01:40:47] You know, for every aborted child, there's, you know another homeless fentanyl addict or something. I mean, it's all seriously. So last question, which is about drugs and alcohol and the role that demonic influence plays in addiction.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:41:00] So addiction is actually threefold. The first is there's actually a brain mechanism that causes the addiction, yeah. And then there's the set of habits that revolve around that, and those are also kind of a natural thing that people can actually develop. But then there can be layered on top of that. The demons can actually drive the addiction. So they can, through ordinary temptation, you know, just say, hey, there's there's alcohol again. Let's go drink. Let's do this. Remember all this fun that you actually had when you did this. And so they can actually drive that. The demons also have the ability to block our remembrance of things, to remember things. And so, part of the virtue of prudence is the virtue of memory, remembering the right things at the right time. So, you know, like, you know, last time I drank, I paid the price the next day. Well, they can make you focus on the good thing you got out of this and forget all the pain you went through, right? So they can do that. The other thing is too, is that demons can also, they can, because they can act upon us physically, that is in our brain and that type of thing, they could actually cause a mimicking of addictive experiences. So there was a woman that I actually knew that she would come to me and she didn't have the history or the habit building of an alcoholic, but she had the tendencies for it and she would try, from time to time, she would struggle in that area. So what I did is I started praying over her for any demons of obsession, relationship to addiction, and she said every time I would pray over her, she would go about a week without any addictive feelings whatsoever. Now, I'm not suggesting that everything that's addictive is diabolic. It's quite the contrary. Usually people get involved in the addictions, and then the demons get involved with that. But they can also drive those things in relationship to certain people.

We also see this in relationship to people who are possessed, and it's a very common that sugar is a big addiction that demons drive in people who're possessed. Where they just, they can't stay away from the sugar. I had one case, this was kind of interesting, I had gotten to the point, this woman that was undergoing exorcism for possession was a very virtuous woman, why am I getting this guy out, right? And so at a certain point, during one of the sessions, I commanded to tell him... And she was possessed. Yeah, she was possess. I said, at a point, I said to the demon, I command the demon to tell me, what is it you have on her? And he just looked at me and he said, pop. Meaning soda. Yeah. So, he checked out, I asked her, I say, do you have a problem with soda? And she said, I cannot go a day without rewarding myself with it. She says, I just can't do it. And then once the possessions broke, boom, they don't even have the inclination towards it. So, they can drive those kinds of things.

And again, I'm not suggesting that everybody who has these addictions, because these things are just addicted by nature, and people develop their own. But in possession cases- Prediction, wow, that's sh-

Tucker [01:43:59] I'm not surprised even a little bit. I'm just surprised you said that out loud. That's like, cause it's so clearly true. Yeah. Why do you think it's true? Cause I've just seen it and felt it. And I just know that there's some kind of connection because it causes compulsion. Yes. Exactly. And compulsion is always a sign to me as a total layman, but like, compulsion, really? What's that? The compulsion to harm yourself? There's no evolutionary theory that can.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:44:25] Account for that great right yeah exactly yeah a lot of times a look just to see what our dispositions like i said before dispositions are not to have those areas suggestions you know whether it's to which you're kind of food or whether it should you're gonna think although with men eating a lot a meet i get that you know but uh... But when it comes to the actual but other things that are very addictive like sugars alcohol things like that meat is not caused

Tucker [01:44:47] compulsion. It can't. You can't eat two pounds of beef, you can eat two pounds of chocolate though.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:44:53] Yeah, you can.

Tucker [01:44:54] That's true. And then wait an hour and another two pounds. You can't do that with steak. No, you can't.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:45:02] They uh... They do know that uh... Chocolate actually gives reasons and orphans when you get yet and it's it's even more effective in women apparently for what i've read from the brain studies but with men they say you just show the picture of me in his brain lights up it which is why i tell people look at the guy doesn't like me and there's something wrong

Tucker [01:45:24] totally fair. Father, that was amazing and I appreciate your doing it.

Father Chad Ripperger [01:45:27] Thank you for having me.

Tucker [01:45:28] Thank you very much. 2f:T1043,Dou