Are you interested in angels, demons, spirits, ghosts, monsters? Are you curious about the original and influence upon history and on the present day? If so, sit back, relax, and welcome to Seven Demonology, the podcast that explores all of this and more.
Hello everyone. Welcome back to Southern Demonology, and as always, I'm your host, JJ. I apologize for the lengthy time between the last episode and this one. My day job has become a great deal more complex and involved, and I've needed to devote the majority of my time to it. But we do have a doozy of a topic lined up for today, so I hope that helps make up for some of that absence. There are various holy or significant numbers to Christianity and Catholicism. The number three, for example, is represents the Trinity, the number seven for archangels, and there are numerous other examples.
But if you flip the holy to unholy, then I posit that there is another number of mystery exempting the number six for obvious reasons, and that would be the number two. In fact, both are less are one less than their holy counterparts on purpose to show their inferiority. But back to the number two. For example, when it comes to exorcism, most know of the right of person, where a priest through church approval seeks to expel an invading demon who has taken control of that person.
For more information on that particular topic, please refer to a previous episode of mine entitled Demonic Gateways. However, there is a second rite of exorcism listed in the ritual, and that is possession of place. Demons are by definition pertinatural, i. e. they are bound by time, location, or both. And this is not a recent development worth of thinking. Even going back to first Enoch, we find that the spirits of the Nephilim were trapped on earth as they were a mixture of spirit and flesh.
And due to this limitation, we find that this type of exorcism is not only logical but is also needed. Yet the types of exorcism is not the only place where the number two rears its ugly head. And yes, in case you're wondering, I am trying very, very hard not to devolve into dad joke potty humor. Possession is not the only toolkit in a demon's arsenal. Before I go further, I want to take a minute to express my deep gratitude for all the people in our Discord community.
If you've ever had the misfortune of delving into the comments section of any website, whether it be Reddit or YouTube or any of the millions of others, then all the negativity in the world is right at your fingertips. And the fact that the word doom scrolling has entered into our common parlance. It just gives you an idea of how bad this can be. But our server is filled with honest questions and good people, and it fosters so many positive conversations. If you would like to join and be a part of that, simply go to the website at Southern Demonology.
com and click on the link either at the top of the page or in the community section. Anyway, the reason I brought that up. One of our Discord members had mentioned an older interview with Malachi Martin, the former Jesuit priest who also pinned the book Hostage to the Devil along with many others. And I know that y'all have heard me talk about this book at length before. I tracked that interview down on YouTube and in it he mentioned demonic obsession and my ears immediately perked up as A I've read Martin's hostage to the devil quite a few times, and I was unaware of this term.
Even when going back and searching the digital edition, I noticed that this term is not used in that book, and B, it's a topic in which just in general I am not familiar with. And so I went back and did some research. Now, if someone in our time heard the word obsession, then typically an ad for perfume, or perhaps the psychological state of a former significant other comes to mind. From a psychological perspective, the word of course refers to being negatively fixated upon something or someone. But for the demonic it has a slightly different meaning.
And for that we need to go back to the Latin obsidiare, meaning to besiege. As possession is an attack from within, obsession is an attack from without, from outside, making it the polar opposite. Thus the demonic, even though not attempting to coerce one's free will, is able to make one beyond miserable. Yet we do need to clear up some concepts. Martin lumps all outside attacks under one moniker of obsession. Yet others, such as Father Francisco Belmonte, president of the International Association of Exorcists, further subdivides outside attacks into two categories obsession and oppression.
In this case, obsession is where the demonic forces one to fixate upon the unholy. According to Father Bellamonte, a demon quote is able to communicate obsessive thoughts or images that are at times rationally absurd to the victim's mind, i. e. the imagination and the memory, but which they are not able to ward off. And this is different from psychological neuroses such as OCD. Mental obsession can be insidious in that the beleaguered person can be bombarded with either unholy imagery or the impulse to do bodily harm to oneself or to others.
And though we've all heard of cheap defense cases where the defender claims the devil made me do it, the reality is much more frightening. If a person is truly under demonic possession obsession, excuse me, then there's no escape from the prison of one's mind. To have the same images and thoughts pumped into one's head and memories from an outside force. That's hell on earth.
Whereas obsession is a mental attack, oppression or often called vexation, is quote physical aggressions of demons against a person which may manifest in burns, scratches, bites, beatings, and blows that leaves bruises, swelling, bloody sores or bone fractures. Some have experienced letters, words or symbols appearing as incisions on their skin. These persist for a time and then disappear. Whether or not outside attacks are lumped under the classification of obsession or are broken into two categories obsession and oppression, two things are made clear.
First, these types of attacks are much more common than possession. The second is that they still require the assistance of an exorcist. Further, due to the mental nature of obsession, the rigorous diagnosis of the true source of a particular malady is absolutely critical. Having medical and psychological exams from multiple neutral sources is needed to ensure that the source is one that an exorcist is able to treat.
If an individual in question is suffering from mental issues that arose from more mundane sources such as trauma, then a priest will not be able to help except for offering sympathy and solace in God's love. Now I do want to go back to that interview between Malachi Martin and Art Bell that happened back in the nineties. If you've ever read Martin's Hostage to the Devil or other related accounts of exorcism, then you will walk away sure of one thing. Exorcisms take a huge toll on the exorcist to the point where they could rob a priest of almost everything, up to and including life.
You can almost imagine that the love of life, the love of others is a well of finite resources, and each time an exorcism occurs, then some of that water is scooped out, never to be replaced again. Yet in that interview, Martin claims to have dealt with thousands of cases of obsession and hundreds of possession. Now I have never met Malachi Martin before his death or anyone else who had known him personally. So I can't testify to the veracity of his words. But those numbers, if true, are absolutely shocking, and I mean to the point of being completely unbelievable.
I'm not saying such magnitude is impossible, but it does call into question, if true, just how draining one exorcism can potentially be. And all of this is just one of the many issues when defining or categorizing any knowledge of the spiritual. For it's all experiential in nature and shallow to boot. And by shallow, I mean that the ripples that radiate out from a particular experience are individual in nature. Yes, there are old cases.
But in these modern times they touch one person or five people or ten people, but it really doesn't go beyond that. And unless there is complete video proof or audio proof or something along those lines, there's not much of a way to be able to point to someone and say, here is definitive proof, here is complete evidence. Rather it's just tales that are told from one person to a next. And yes, some of those may be over radio or TV or YouTube channels or whatever you know sorts of mediums that you really want to have.
But the person who is on the receiving end of that experience is still an individual. And this actually calls to mind a few other topics that were discussed in our Discord. You know, if you've read Martin's book, and it it is a phenomenal book, I I'm not trying to detract away from that. The the tales that were told are chilling, to say the least. I mean my god, in college when I first read it as part of a a religious a religion class assignment, I was petrified for months. And I'm a person who watches horror movies like their candy. I mean I still do.
But uh he talks about two concepts in the book. Uh the first one are those who are quote unquote perfectly possessed and in these individuals it's not a case where a demon subverts someone's free will and overtakes their body, but rather the demon is welcomed in, and rather than subverting, it augments the person. And uh the experience of of meeting one of these people is meant to be chilling and off-putting. But he freely admits that there's no way to prove it.
And the second type of thing is you have demonic possession, but you can also have an avatar of a demon who is seeking to essentially wear down a host until its master can infiltrate and actually bring around a possession. And both of these items can't be proven by his own admission that they cannot be proven. And the fact that we have these two suppositions, and I'm not saying that they're not legit, but you have to consider the source. If you're studying something, but the subject matter at hand is meant to deceive, how far can you really take that forward?
Anyway, um I personally am a believer in possession and of exorcism and of demons. And I can't think of a scarier thing than these items. So I I'm not trying to call into question the items that surround this, but I do want to highlight the kind of open mind that someone has to have when examining these particular things. If something strikes you as being odd or not true, you have to be able to examine it and question it. If someone says that something is cannot ever be questioned, then you have to look at the intent of the person who is saying that.
Anyway, these topics have always been fascinating, and to be able to uh before I was only truly aware of of possession itself. But to have two different categories possession and obsession, or if you subdivide that into Obsession and oppression. And in fact, uh Father Bellamonte even posits that there could be a fourth, which is demonic subjugation. You've got a really interesting mix of things that are happening. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this brief introduction into this concept of demonic obsession.
And if you have any questions about this or around the two different types of exorcism that is found in the Roman ritual, then you know feel free to contact me. Um, you know, of course, through our Facebook, which is Southern Demonology, uh, through direct messaging, which is Southern Demonology at gmail.com, or on our Discord server, um, where we have lots of people ask questions, and uh uh it's not just me who answers, but everybody contributes to the discussion, which is great, and even better, privacy is ultimately respected.
Um, you know, I I I do have some friends on there, but I'm not revealing anything about them. I don't reveal anything about myself, I don't expect anyone else to reveal their information. Uh, if someone happens to give something forth, then fantastic, but no one's ever going to compel you to. Um, but anyway, uh we have multiple ways of being able to get a hold of me uh and ask questions, so please feel free to do so.
Um and as always, when talking about the demonic, when talking about things that can have their eyes being drawn to you, I highly recommend saying a prayer, having religious artifacts around anything that can help preserve you. And in that spirit, as usual, we're going to do a quick recitation of the prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel. Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen. To close this episode out, I do have a horror movie recommendation that I would like to make. I was really pleasantly surprised if you happen to have a subscription to Shudder, which they have a large amount of cruft on their service and their website is slow as ever living hell. But they do produce their own movies, which some of them are phenomenal, like the terrifiers.
But the one I want to talk about today is anything for Jackson. It's not that there's a ton of gore, and it's not that it trods uh, you know, completely new ground, but what it does is show a couple, an older couple, who have devoted their entire life to evil for the sake of love. And if you ever play DD, they they kinda just perfectly remind me of the alignment class of lawful evil. Two people that follow the rules but have deterrent and nefarious purposes to achieve their goal.
And that goal is to essentially resurrect their dead grandson, Jackson, by kidnapping a pregnant woman and seeking to replace her child with their grandchild. It's very well done. The characters are extremely believable, the acting is great. Um if you have Shudder, highly recommend it. If not, the free subscription for seven days or however much they do is very good. And also, if you do have Shudder coming up, uh they have announced that the second season of Creep Show is coming out, which is just going to be awesome.
No, I do not uh get paid for endorsing Shudder or any other service because I um don't have that many listeners, but uh anyway, uh I hope you take it as being an honest recommendation. I I really did enjoy the movie. So that is all that I have for this episode. Uh I know it runs maybe five minutes shorter than normal. Um I apologize for that. I'm still trying to get into the groove of everything here, uh, but I hope that you're staying safe, uh, that you're taking all relevant precautions until we can get all get vaccinated and hopefully return to a little bit of normalcy to our daily lives.
But stay safe. And if you need anything, feel free to reach out, and I'll do whatever I can. You can find us on Facebook, uh, on Discord, we have a Patreon community. If you really want some swag with our logo on it, then uh we I do have some hoodies and shirts and a mug. Um so you can find all of that on both the website and on uh the Facebook group. Um, or if you really want to help contribute and support uh support this podcast, then feel free to join our Patreon group and you'll get some nice little bonuses in there as well.
So excuse the advertising, but uh hope you have a great night and we'll talk to you next time.
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