The Kingdom of Hell

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Welcome to episode 70. And let me start off by saying that I cannot believe how far the podcast has come in this year alone. In March, I decided to switch to weekly releases and see just how much further I could get it to grow. And since then Well, now this is the 30th episode. Nearly doubling what it took me four years to create otherwise. And as of today, Sunday, October 2nd, the podcast has over 22,000 downloads since March. So let me give a very soft, albeit enthusiastic woot. Another bit of good news.

For those who have not heard, Japan has decided to open its doors to the world once again come October 11th. Which means that I am currently exploring when I can actively go and see my family there. Another hooray! And yes, I'm also planning out a trip back to Tennessee to see my mom in case any of y'all are wondering, and you know who you are.

And since good things should come in threes, we have finally hit spooky season, the best month of the year, and we are starting things off right with a two-part interview with Father Michael Birdsong, a practicing exorcist who has performed over 30 exorcisms since undertaking that role. Further, this interview is actually fulfilling the podcast name. Not only are we talking about demonology, but Father Birdsong is also from Georgia. One final thing. Though those episodes will be a little shorter in runtime, I hope you enjoy it. In fact, I'm going to call it Southern Demonology Bites. Get it?

Demons Bite. And they're also in bite size. Yeah, I probably didn't need to expound upon that, but hey, I'm a dad. What do you expect? Look forward to the first one dropping Friday, October 7th at 2 p.m. Eastern. With all that said, sit back, relax, and enjoy the first part of this interview, which I've entitled The Kingdom of Hell. Hello all. You may remember a few episodes back, I had interviewed a person from our Discord, Josh B93, who had gone through a pretty harrowing tell of trying to help a family member with their house.

Well, this time around, I am very happy to tell you all that I have his father, Father Birdsong. And the father is because he is a priest. And I really wanted to plunge into his areas of expertise and knowledge because he has quite a bit of field experience, and it's actually something that we've never been able to explore. Like we've had a lot of conversations about demonic presence, about demonic theory, things that have been written about by variously individuals, but I have never really had the chance to go through and talk to someone who has actually practiced all of this.

And so, Father Birdsong, thank you so much for agreeing to join us today. Yes, sir. It's my pleasure to be with you, JJ. Before we even begin, and I like to be a little bit cautious whenever we're talking about the adversary. Would you mind just leading a short prayer just for everyone?

Absolutely. I'll be honored to. Well, Father, we thank you today that you love us and that your grace is available for all. And Father, I just pray that during this conversation that I ask that you would guard us, protect us from the evil one. And Lord, even those that are listening, that what is being said would not affect them or or instill fear in any way. And I just pray that the presence of the Holy Spirit would be with us and upon us in Jesus' name. Amen.

I mean, I mean she liked. Alrighty. Thank you for that beautiful prayer. With that, can you introduce yourself?

Well, yes, I am uh uh Father uh Michael Birdsong, and I'm uh pastor of St. Michael and All Angels, Charismatic Episcopal Church in Thomaston, Georgia, and I have been here since uh 1993.

Been here quite a long time. I would say so. How did you find yourself just to clarify, what positions do you occupy within the church?

I am the priest slash rector or pastor of our parish in Thomaston, Georgia. I am submitted under uh Christ the King in Shartsburg, Georgia, where Bishop David Epps is my bishop and my authority.

Gotcha. And you also serve as an exorcist, am I correct?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

This kind of happened just out of the blue several years ago because I had some experience and uh my bishop asked me to take care of a few situations and over the past I'm gonna say ten years, I've been called on quite a few times to deal with demonic presences in homes or upon possessed people. And it's not fun, but it's quite interesting.

I would say that's probably the understatement of the century. Yes, sir.

So how exactly did you find yourself along this path? I know you said it was more by happenstance, but you had mentioned some personal experiences.

What kind of experiences, my very first experience uh with the demonic realm or the supernatural realm was in I want to say maybe 1991. I was a seminary student and I was in Belize, Central America, before Belize turned into a tourist attraction. I was actually in the jungle areas and we were at a small village and uh we were ministering to the people and during the service I'll say this woman who later we found out was actually a village witch doctor looked and she was running around on all fours on hands and knees like a dog and foaming at the mouth and came right up to me and JJ.

I just have to say at that point I was scared to death. I didn't know what was going on. I mean I mean it blew me away. And uh at that point I said, Well, I guess the scriptures are really real. So after that I just dived into the spiritual warfare things and started to admire the sacredness and the authority of the holy scriptures and to realize that it is true. And what a lot of people don't realize, JJ, is the things that we see on TV sometimes. That stuff is real. It is very real. And when you see it, you will you will become a believer.

If you have any doubt that God is real, when you see something like this, you're gonna become a believer real quick. My goodness. One of my second experiences was I was still a seminary student and uh a family member of mine, she was married to a sailor, and they were stationed in Turkey and things went south, and she started dabbling in witchcraft, and she moved back to the States and was with my grandmother. And I got home from my class that day and she met me at the door all black-eyed, and her face was just disfigured, kind of. And she was smoking a cigarette and was burning her face.

And she looked at me dead in my eyes and said, And I said, Well, not today. So anyway, to make a long story short, I went back to my professor who was been my mentor and friend for over 32 years. And that was my although it was my second experience, but it was my very first experience in helping in an exorcism. You could actually see the presence of about seven demons coming out of her. But the the most amazing thing, JJ, and it is and it just shows the grace of God is that the burn marks on her face that she self-inflicted, they healed right before my eyes. Really? Uh yes, sir.

And so it was it was at that point to where I was like, okay, you know, the scripture, the man says, Lord, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief.

Yes, sir.

I became a believer that day. And that's when everything got serious with me, that I'm heading in the right direction and heading into this area of spiritual warfare to help others.

So something you just said really kind of sparked a question. You had mentioned that her face was disfigured in some way. Well, how exactly would you describe that?

I would describe it as a a distortion of her face would take effect. Mm-hmm. But most of all in the eyes, if you if you ever come against a figure of darkness, you can always see it in their eyes. They can become black or uh reddish black looking. And you know the old saying that the eyes are the windows to the soul, you know what I'm talking about? Well, that's very true, especially in the spiritual realm.

Do you often run across that? Because I know that have you ever read uh Father Malachi Martin's book, Hostage to the Devil?

Yes, uh actually Josh has got me reading it now. So I'm uh I'm I'm a I'm a beginner on that book.

Well There is a part where it's mentioned kind of the thumbprint of the devil. Oh, yeah. A person's face is distorted in some fashion. Is that a very frequent thing, or is it just something that is going to happen if someone is underneath demonic influence?

I would not well, you know, there's there's different degrees of demonic possession on a person, but when it gets very serious, when they get to the beyond the oppressed stage and start beginning into the possessed stage, the demonic presence will it'll make itself known and it'll start integrating itself into actual the physical being of that person. And so what they're trying to do is take the creation of God of that human being and distort it into their presence, if that makes sense to you. It does. Okay.

The best way I can explain it is if you're looking at a person like that, their face will become fuzzy. It'll be fuzzy like a like you're having a bad TV reception. You know, it'll distort and wave. You can actually see it.

Oh gosh. I'm just picturing that in my mind right now, and nothing about that is a good experience.

No, no, it is not. And and what what hurts me so much, JJ, is the failure of the church teaching things like that today. Because we don't want to offend anyone, you know. We want to make our life in the kingdom all rainbows and unicorns, right? And we never face and we never face anything bad, but yet we're failing people and watching people fall away by not teaching them about spiritual warfare.

I would completely agree with you. Now, I am a Catholic. I was converted uh from being a Southern Baptist from way back in the day.

Wow.

And I can tell you that there are certain dioceses that are doing what they're supposed to do. They're at le they at least have an exorcist on staff. And there are others that completely reject the entire notion and will have nothing to do with it. And you even, you know, had some popes in which have said that, oh yeah, the devil is more of a uh a spiritual concept, more so than an actual one. And yeah, I I hear that stuff and it just shakes me to my core.

Well, it's funny that you say that because I I recently read a story back in February of 22 this year, there was a study done and you would be surprised, but 37% of pastors, whether they be Roman Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, so on and so forth, 37% of all pastors don't believe in hell or the devil.

I just don't understand how. I I don't either.

Yeah.

I know that you've said that you've been heavily involved in this, but have you seen kind of an uptick in activity over the years or has stayed has it stayed kind of relatively the same?

Well, if we if we look at it scripturally, in the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon mentions that there's nothing new under the sun. Mm-hmm. And that is a very true statement. And the same battles that were faced then, we're facing now, I would not say that there's an uptake in it, but what I will say this is is because of the I hate to put it this way, JJ, but the downfall of our nation. Things are more things are coming more blatant and in your face to where the demonic presence used to like to hide where it won't be found out. Now we live in a society where everything goes.

So it's more in your face every day. And I mean all all all we have to do is look around. We can if we if we start paying attention to the things around us, we can see people wearing the wicker stones around their necks or vials of oil. Or I mean, my God, JJ, they sell Ouija boards that toys are us in Walmart. That is true. Yes, there is a sense of uptake, I would say, but it's but mostly it's more blatant and in your face and unashamed. That's what I'm looking for.

Yep, that makes sense to me. So you had mentioned a few different kinds of categories, and I've always heard them as you know, demonic oppression, obsession, and possession. Do you kind of follow the same categories? Do you have different ones? And what really kind of defines those different categories to you?

Well, the categories that you just mentioned is very true, but there's one last one that I will hit on. Sure. Most of the time in in the beginning, a person will face what's called oppression, just like you said. And that is when the person will they'll either start having like severe mood changes, if you know what I mean, they'll start feeling uh senses of depression and anxiety.

And uh, but if they keep going forward and opening the doors to that, then you hit the what you said the possession stage where the where they have allowed and opened the door completely for that demonic presence to take over their life. And then that's when you start seeing the severe outbreaks and the they're afraid of holy objects or the or the sacraments especially, and I know you understand that.

But then if it keeps going and they totally yield their self to it, you get to what's called integration, or or another word for that is called a perfect possession, and that's where the person and the entity actually become one. Even the scriptures would call that where Saint Paul talks about people coming over to a reprobate mind, where they have just totally turned their back on God openly and blatantly and in rebellion, and they have become one with that presence. And I would say 90% of the time when that happens, there that that's to a point of no return.

Definitely. I know that Father Martin has written about perfect possession, has spoken about it, and we even had three episodes from one person who had encountered three different people that he thought may have been perfectly possessed. Have you ever encountered one of these individuals?

I have never encountered one of the quote unquote personal. Perfectly possessed persons. Most of the time, well, I well, I won't say most of the time, but every time that I've ever been called in, they were at a point of return. But if a person don't want to return, hey, there's nothing we can do.

True. Now, I'm gonna ask you this, and it may be kind of a simplistic question, and I apologize if that's the case. So a person has free will, and they have to consent either verbally or mentally. But how does, in your experience, how does a demon actually get around that invalid barrier of free will?

They get around the area of free will when the person gives up their free will. Okay. And and I mean that's a very simple answer, but you have to think about that. If a person starts to dabble, we'll say, let's just say Wicca or starts playing around with Ouija boards and things like that, they open a door. And when they open that door, that is the beginning of them giving up their free will. And what happens is they dive deeper and deeper and deeper until they give their will to that specific demon.

And when they give that will up, they find themselves as, well, they find themselves as as Lucifer, the fallen one, who was once a light bearer, you know. He gave up his archangel status in heaven. He was the beloved, remember? Yep. And he gave it up. And so the same thing happens with a person. When they when they go beyond a certain point, they're saying, Okay, you know, we we pray that our father, right? Not my will, but your will be done. Well, the same thing is on the flip side. If we give that free will up, we're saying, Okay, the demonic realm, not my will, but your will.

And so we have we have given permission, so to speak, for that presence to take over our mind, our will, and our emotions, or our soul. You know, the soul is the mind, the will, and the motions, right? And so we have given up our free will and given that entity the right to take over.

Gotcha. Thank you for that. That was a beautiful answer.

I hope I'm making sense.

In fact, liking it back to Lucifer himself, that was I think that was an extremely apt analogy, and I really like that.

Well, if you look at the story, I mean, one can't help but feel sorry for Lucifer. I mean, he was the beloved, remember? He was the light bearer. And actually, the scriptures, if you read it correctly, when it's spoken in Isaiah and even Jesus himself, you know, he speaks of it. How great you have fallen, oh morning star. That's just not a statement, that's a that's a heartfelt emotion. You have fallen, Lucifer. You who were beloved, you have failed, and all because of pride.

Yeah, in fact, that brings up an interesting point. Whenever you have either biblical or extra-biblical writings where a prophet comes is either speaking about or is speaking to the demonic, right, it's always with sadness and pity in their voice, right?

Absolutely hate. Absolutely. I mean, I love the book of Enoch.

I do too.

I mean, the way he the way he explains the fallen angels, I'm like, I mean, like, wow, I mean, this dude really feels sorry for them. And uh, especially in the apocryphal writings, people don't want to get into those things, but they they they fail to realize that it is part of the book. The early church fathers just didn't deem it canon because it was rhetorical.

Since you brought up Enoch, this is my operating theory, and I want to see if if you agree or disagree. To me, one of the ways in which Enoch could never be canonical is in the sense that you know you had the watchers come down, they propagated with the daughters of man, right? They taught them, you know, secret knowledge, and then the Nephilim were born, and then they decided to fornicate and eat whatever they can get their hands on, and then the archangels came down, sent the deluge. Correct. But it didn't solve any of the problems.

Like the Nephilim were still there, they were just now, because they were the most horrid amalgamation of flesh and spirit, their spirit is now just roaming about in the atmosphere, waiting to cause havoc whenever they possibly can.

Correct.

So I I've always had an issue with that. Well, I think I always love to get your take. I that's what I'm saying.

You know, I I learned a long time ago to agree to disagree with anything, but I like your take on that, and but the way the way I look at it is Christ Himself speaks of the God of this world, right? And we know that the God of this world is Lucifer or Satan. You know, we have God the Father, the creator of heaven and earth, but then Christ speaks, you are your father, you are of your father, the devil, the God of this world. When he's when he is speaking to the the terrible Pharisee people, you know.

And and and so the God of this world, the scripture tells us that Lucifer brought what one third of heaven with him. So they that's their job. We all read this scripture, we've probably heard it a million times, but we we tend to overlook the true meaning of it, especially when St. Paul reminds us that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, right? Right. We all stop right there a lot of times, but we forget the part where he speaks of rulers, principalities, and powers. You see, all three of those are different things.

Just just like there's an order in heaven, there is an order of the dark side. Whenever I say the dark side, it reminds me of Star Wars, the dark side of the forest, you know. But you have you have the ruler, right? Which is Satan. Then you have the powers, and the powers are the higher order of of the demonic angels that say it's like over a region. Then you have the principalities that are sent from these powers as a governor or something like that over a specific city or county or state. You know, you have to look at it that way. But see, they are fallen and they have assignments.

So, yes, they are roaming the earth to to bring havoc on the creation of God. And that's what it really all boils down to is the demonic people, or excuse me, the demonic presence, or the demons, so to speak, are just obeying Lucifer to bring havoc on God's creation.

Now, you we've been talking about the demonic things. I have in a lot of the books that I have read, you will normally find themselves call themselves the kingdom. Yes. Have you ran across that or have you heard of any other types of monikers that they like to assign themselves?

Well, just like you said, they like to call themselves the kingdom. And if you look at it, that's what Christ refers to his bride, you know. We are of the kingdom of God. Okay. Well, just as Lucifer said, he said, I will exalt myself, right? And that's what that's when he fell like lightning to earth. He has set up his kingdom. So they refer to themselves as the kingdom just as just as we refer to ourselves as the kingdom of God. Gotcha. Okay. And you know, that's why that's why Christ Himself uh reminds us in the Gospels that the enemy knows that a kingdom divided would not stand.

See, the the the kingdom of Lucifer understands order, it understands authority. And if that authority can be broken, that's when we find ourselves in a mess.

Absolutely. That's a beautiful way of putting it. So I know that you've kind of gone over a little bit in your previous answer, but what would you say is the purpose of the demonic?

The purpose of the demonic is is to destroy God's creation. Period.

Yeah, I've I've kind of always said that their purpose is not just it is to destroy, but it is also to corrupt and to make filthy.

I always say this too, uh if the enemy can't destroy he'll try to divide. If he can't divide, he will try to distract. And that's the purpose. I mean it's it's real easy to say that his job is is to destroy the kingdom, but it goes deeper than that. I mean and and we can talk about ways that he could destroy, distract, and divide all day long. It's main purpose is to bring a mockery and disgrace the creation of God.

That was very eloquently put I I love that, especially the divide and distract part. I have never ever like considered that part of it before. So I like that one. In talking about the sailor's wife, you had mentioned that seven demons erupted. Yes. Is that usually the case? I'm just gonna go back to well, I think what most people are familiar with, which are movies, and then which you'll find it's always one demon that is doing the possessing. Correct. Have you seen different do they normally operate as a as a group? Do you find multiples within a single individual?

How does that how does that work according to your experience?

Well, according to my experience, most of the time, except for that one time, it was a single demonic entity.

Okay.

But from what the person dealt with, I'm trying not to destroy confession and confidentiality.

Oh no, absolutely.

But let's just put it this way Do you remember the story where the demonic person was running through the graveyards and bringing havoc upon himself and beating himself and just going crazy? Yes, sir. And then Christ came and said, Who are you? And the entity in it said, We are legion because of what? We are many.

We are many.

And so, yes, it is possible for someone to be possessed by many depending on what they open themselves up to. Let's just put it in hypothetically speaking, okay? Sure. Let's just say someone can be tormented with Now I understand there's real mental illness out there, don't get me wrong. And I'm sorry, but you cannot cast out mental illness. We need to make that straight right now. But uh there's also a demonic presence that will drive people crazy.

And then people may suffer with lust in their lives, or suffer with this, or get into all kinds of different things, and they what what they find themselves doing is opening up several doors, so to speak, and and willfully inviting the Legion into them, if that makes sense to you.

It does. In fact, that leads me to one other question. In fact, let me linking that back to Legion. Yes, completely understand that makes total sense. A lot of the cases that you have alluded to so far have been from people opening doors. And if you've ever heard any other episodes that I've done, you know that I'm strictly against opening those types of doors in any shape or form.

Oh, oh, by the way, just to just to going down a little rabbit hole very quickly, I love I love your podcast, man. Oh I love them. I love them. Yeah. And especially when you are speaking of your childhood, and and although you may not have ever dealt with possession, so to speak, you've dealt with a lot of dark presences in your life. Oh, I would completely agree with that. And those those stories are awesome to me. But anyway, I'm sorry. I went down a rabbit hole. No, no, no.

Trust me, this entire conversation is meant to be as many as many rabbit holes that we can go down, the better off we are. Oh, great. All right, all right. A lot of the things that you've alluded to have been from people opening doors, but have you run into other cases where they haven't opened a door, or at least it wasn't obvious what kind of door they were like actively trying to push open?

It's funny that you mentioned that because I uh I addressed that in the class this morning.

Yeah, can you just say what class you're talking about? Because I I I wish I was there.

Oh, yeah. I I am uh teaching a class on the nature of the demonic. And the purpose of that is to bring back to the church the war in the heavenlies that we're facing every day. I mean, people don't realize that we're facing a serious battle for the soul of man. I believe that God has assigned that task to me to bring that back to the church once more to warn the people, to be that watchman on the wall, so to speak, and say, hey, we got a problem.

Have you actually encountered people that have been attacked without inviting that within their lives?

But like I said, that this morning when I was teaching that class, I had to remind people that we can ever so innocently open a door for the demonic and not even realize that that's what we're doing. Do you have any examples of that? So I I would love to hear your thoughts on that. Well, sure. I used an example from the scripture this morning. We all know King Saul, right, in the Old Testament. He was the anointed king of Israel, right? And God told him to go and utterly destroy this kingdom, every man, every woman, every ox, every ass, everything, right? But he didn't do it.

And he goes on to say, and he blames it on the people. Well, the people wanted to make sacrifices. That seems ever so innocently, right? I mean, hey, if they they wanted they wanted to sacrifice these things unto you. That's well, that's see, that's not what God said. God said, destroy it. And even in our own lives, we can ever so innocently open ourselves up to the things of the demonic. Let's let's just say someone wants to go see a palm reader, right? Right.

Someone may do that out of total ignorance because they don't know better, but they're it they're ever so innocently and ignorantly opening themselves up to a false prophet or the demonic entity. And we all do that, we all do things ever so innocently and not really understand what we're doing. And it can all all stem back to the garden, right? Did God really say that you would die if you partake of this tree? Surely God won't kill you. So what happened? Eve and Adam partook of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

And the same thing that we're facing now that they faced then seemed ever so innocently. Now look what we have. It's kind of like telling your child, don't cross the road. Well, my ball went across the road, so I needed to go get my ball, right? That seems innocent. That's not what mom and daddy said. True. I I like how you phrase that.

That is a very lofty goal that you have just stated, to bring back the importance of spiritual warfare. Yes, sir. Have you ever thought about taking this class, which I know that you teach in person, and doing a few things online with it, so that you can kind of get a a broader reach?

Well, actually Josh is of course you know Josh. He has been on me to do things like that, and I just haven't I've just been dragging my feet. But I but I do need to do that. I really do.

Well, if I can ever help in any way in that form, just let me know. Oh, I I will do that. I would love to be able to hear this class, honestly.

And I've actually written a book, by the way. Oh, really? Yes, sir. I I wrote a book called Becoming the House of Prayer. The purpose of that book, Becoming a House of Prayer, was to remind us of where we came from and how important a loving covenantal relationship with God is all about. So I would I would highly recommend anyone to read that book first for your own life before you even think about dabbling in demonology.

Where can people find that book? Is it on Amazon?

Yes, it's on Amazon. Just type in uh Becoming a House of Prayer by Father Michael Birdsong. I can also email you a link for it. Or there is Josh could just create me a website for that book, www.becoming a house of prayer.com.

Oh, beautiful. I'll have that linked not only in the show notes, but I will also add this to our website, southerndemonology.com under friends of the show, and uh I'll have that link uh right there for you.

But the the reason why, JJ, that I brought that up is most of us in the in the Christian world, quote unquote, several years ago, and I'm sure you'll remember this, you know, you know, back in the eighties we had a demon for everything, right? Oh yeah, there's a lot of panic panic going on. Yeah, yeah. You know, and then came the teaching of the believers' authority. Right? Well, that just teaches you enough to get your tail handed to you by a demonic presence.

But the biggest thing about the book is it takes us back to the beginning because the scripture reminds us and it asks us in the Psalms, who may ascend unto God's holy mountain or God's holy hill? Those with clean hands and a pure heart. And the purpose of that book is to take us back to those roots to become effective in the kingdom.

Gotcha. Over your many years of being in the field, how many exorcisms have you performed?

Oh Lord.

Thirty maybe? Oh my gosh.

How do you Some of them can be very scary too? Especially when they exercise this supernatural strength. I remember one not too long ago that Josh helped me with. It was a little twelve-year-old boy. And Josh had to physically hold him down because this boy was wanting to whoop my tail.

Yeah, I remember him telling that story and that supernatural strength that that boy exhibited. What other types of I would typically classify that as to quote the movie, gross displays of power. Yes. Do you often run across those types of gross displays of power or are they few and far between?

In very severe cases you will run into that. I remember another time I was at the church and this uh this Native American woman walked in with her staff. As soon as I looked at her, I said, Oh my god, she's possessed. She tried to hit me with her staff. Really? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And I just I just reached up and caught it and just gently, very gently, just pushed it down and looked into her eyes and said, You're not gonna hit me. I immediately at that point started reciting the prayer of St. Michael and she did not like that. I mean she did not like that one bit.

But she left free and actually thanked me and said, I came here for help. Although she came there from for help, JJ, but when she walked into the holy place, that's when it affected her the most.

I yeah, I could not imagine how a person who is possessed could even muster up the will in order to walk into a church.

Well see, that all goes back to the from the opp oppressed days to the possession, and then from the possession what we talked about earlier to the perfect possession. There's still that time, there's still that opening to where that free will still exist. And that's why she said I came here for help. Because she knew she was being affected. And so that's that's why she was able to walk in. But notice soon as she walked through the door and she saw what you and I would call the sacramentums, the holy objects, that's when it affected her.

That's when that demonic presence started resisting within her, and that's why she lashed out at me. Wow.

Thank you for listening to Southern Demonology. Find us online at Southern Demonology.com where you can find all of our social and podcasting links. Also, if you have a moment, please feel free to rate this podcast and leave any encouraging feedbacks that you may have. As always, I am JJ and it has been a pleasure getting to talk to you today.