¶1Tell us what you mean by pebbles in the shoe. What were you being introduced to and why was it bothering you? >> Demonic phenomena. And me even saying this right now, go back 2 years, I would have laughed. It would have been ridiculous.
¶2I would have joined the skeptics and be like, "Oh, this is just ridiculous. What are you talking about demonic phenomena?" Like, "Come on. What What prim and proper intellectuals? We don't believe in demons or anything like that, right?" That's what I would have said. And I would have laughed it off.
¶3Would have thought that you guys are just like primitive superstitious morons, basically. >> Yes. >> Um but I have a friend, Cameron Bertuzzi. And he started making videos where he just has on a bunch of different exorcists, people who work in deliverance ministry, people who have like experienced deliverance ministry, and people like that. And Cameron, we were good friends at the time, and Cameron was like, he started sending me some of these videos and he's like, "Joe, come on.
¶4Like, watch it. Like, stop making fun of it. Watch it. Listen to what the exorcists are saying. Hear them out.
¶5Listen to what Dr. Richard Gallagher, on the faculty of Columbian and NYU, a Princeton alum, listen to what he's saying, okay? And give me your explanation. I demand it." That's I mean, that's basically what Cameron told me. In a little bit nicer terms, but um Cameron just kept on pushing me.
¶6He's like, "Explain it, Joe." So, he would say, "Okay, watch this video. And if you don't want to watch the whole thing, just go to this timestamp." And you know, I go to the timestamp, and like the exorcist is basically saying like, "Yeah, so like we started the rite, we did the litany of saints, and then the person started levitating, and then he was there for about 30 minutes." And I was like, "Uh okay." Uh and so, I go back to Cameron and I'm like, "Well, you know, maybe Okay, listen. Maybe the dude was just misperceiving. Okay, the person had it was like kind of like holding themselves up with their arm, and maybe that was being covered by their like dress or something." >> That seems more likely. >> Yeah, well, lying, that's another potential option, but um so, I was like this I gave him this disjunction.
¶7Like, "Okay, maybe it's a combination of like either it's lying or confabulation, or something, or um maybe like some weird kind of trick, or some memory distortion, or confabulation, or something. Um and I was like, "Okay, yeah, and maybe maybe the person was just as I said, my initial thought was like maybe they were just holding themselves up cuz I think like I didn't have any independent evidence of the person lying." Um and then Cameron's like, "Joe, I asked him that 2 minutes later. Go on." And he said he could he he literally put his head down and could see under it. He could see like a foot up. And I was like, "Okay." So, and I was like, "Okay, well, maybe this was a long long time ago and the person just forgot or something, um or maybe yeah, some kind of fact confabulation." He's like, "Joe, at the beginning of the interview he said that this was a week ago." And I was like, "Okay, um maybe he's lying." Uh so, then you know, even there, I'm like I'm shifting in my seat.
¶8Notice what I'm doing. I basically have just divined from the armchair this person that I don't know, who I've never met, and whom I have no independent evidence of lying, is a liar. And I'm accusing him of lying because, well, I just have these other like arguments or something. So, like I can like divine from the armchair these like empirical facts about the world even though I have no independent evidence for them. And so, I was just like I was I was shifting in my armchair.
¶9And, you know, it didn't it didn't bother me too much at the time. But then Cameron's like, "Okay, Joe, you thought he was a liar? Well, let's look at this other guy, Dr. Richard Gallagher, okay? I've had him on.
¶10And just like you go through what Dr. Richard Gallagher is talking about. He has this Julia case, for instance, that he's even talked about when he was with you. And like the things that he's testifying to are things that are almost impossible to be honestly mistaken about. Like he would just be extensive interactions with this Julia person, and then things would literally just like just be him him and her.
¶11And something would literally just like fly across the room. Or Julia would engage in extensive fluent Latin and Greek even though she didn't know it. And Dr. Richard Gallagher knows that because he studied Latin and Greek at Princeton. Or, you know, like and he would just describe all these different sorts of things.
¶12And I was like, "Okay. So, this guy who has like all the professional credit and reputation that you could want." >> a liar. >> It doesn't Yeah, it doesn't seem like a liar. >> gaining power or money through >> Right. >> it's the opposite.
¶13He seems to >> No, if anything, people were just like, "Yeah, people are thinking that he's a cook." And they're sort of making fun of him or something like that. And you know, he's got like all these uh recommendations in his book Demonic Foes from like higher-ups in like the the uh psychiatric field. He's seen like 30,000 patients and for none of his patients that he's normally seen, for none of them has he ever suspected any diabolical influence. He's a professional at detecting when it's, you know, some kind of psychiatric or mental illness like schizophrenia or, you know, dissociative identity disorder or, you know, various other things like that. He's an expert in that.
¶14And like schizophrenia doesn't make, for instance, like your eyes just like turn completely black instantaneously. Or your eyes turn into like thin green slits instantaneously, which is what like a lot of these exorcists and deliverance ministers are saying. Being a schizophrenic doesn't make you in the room with like a dozen witnesses. Basically, the room would instantaneously change to like freezing cold such that people can see their breath. And then instantaneously change to, for instance, like almost scorching heat, where they're sweating.
¶15Things like that. Uh it doesn't make you be able to levitate. It doesn't make you be able to have things just like fly off the shelf. And we just literally have hundreds, thousands of testimonies to these sorts of things from seemingly honest people in group settings, individually, contemporaneous documentation. And it's like, at some point, am I am I implicating all these people in a massive lie?
¶16Are they all just cosmically confabulating? >> Isn't it weird though that you or I or many people who watch this haven't seen uh things like that to at least to the degree of which we're speaking? >> Well, I'm guessing a lot of our listeners probably have. I mean, I think these things may very well be more widespread than we're giving credit. But, >> They might be.
¶17I don't know if I've I think I would know if a friend had seen someone's eyes turn completely black or levitate, uh I have some people who've told me stories like that, but it you see my point. It doesn't seem that common. We don't seem to have video footage of this stuff taking place. Isn't it just Shouldn't we just conclude that these people were I either Yeah, maybe they're lying. Just That seems more obvious cuz we don't have a direct experience of these uh crazy phenomena, and you couple that with the fact that I imagine most claims to supernatural experiences aren't true.
¶18Even Catholics would acknowledge So, why don't I just say, "Well, they're not >> Well, that >> There's no need to take it that >> is what's going on in my mind. On the one hand, I'm thinking, it seems incredibly difficult to explain away what they're saying. And I mean, actually like there are some cases where, you know, we do have at least putative photographs and things like that that exorcists have talked about and shared and whatnot. And Karen's actually done a video on that with like Monsignor Rosetti or something like that. So, anyway, this is this is actually some like kind of tension in my mind where I'm thinking, "Okay, maybe they're they're all just like cosmically lying and confabulating on like cosmic proportions." That's like one hypothesis.
¶19Another hypothesis is that they're telling the truth. And what they're reporting seems to be things that are very difficult to be honestly mistaken about. Like again, like a group setting where like multiple multiple of them are like testifying to the exact same thing, contemporaneous documentation, etc. >> One of the [snorts] things I love so much is sitting down with my wife in the morning and having a cup of coffee. And for whatever reason, it's important to me that she and I are both drinking coffee.
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¶23>> At this stage, I don't actually believe it. I'm just shifting in my seat. >> Yeah. >> Right? And I don't know how someone could like see seemingly honest people like Dr.
¶24Richard Gallagher, Adam Bly, all these exorcists, and like basically pan-cultural testimony >> money for thousands of years. >> Um to this phenomena and not at least shift in their seat. Especially if they actually listen to the people like Cameron demanded that I do and try to offer some kind of explanation for all of them systematically. If you try to explain it. And again, I could I could at the time.
¶25I didn't actually believe it, right? Once I cuz I came across this. I'm only at the point moment of shifting in my seat. Right? This is a pebble.
¶26It's a pebble in my shoe. It's something that's bothering me. >> Right? >> This is This is a really good point, and I love that Cameron tried to get you to come up with a hypothesis cuz it's easy to be dismissive. It's easy to mock.
¶27But, there's got to be some explanation. >> Yeah. Well, there there's something >> Even if it's lying or whatever. So, you tell me what you think it is based on this. >> Yes.
¶28And you know, you can just divine from the armchair that there's basically this massive conspiracy among all the people in question where they're just like saying like, "Yeah, I was there." And like the words were literally being carved on his like carved on his skin right in front of us without him doing it. He was He had his hands by his side. This is like the Robbie Mannheim Roland Doe case where we have like the contemporaneous taking notes from like the two exorcists at the time. Lots of other cases like, you know, in the uh >> [clears throat] >> in the uh See, again, it's not just deliverance ministers and whatnot. Um in the Latoya Ammons case in like Gary, Indiana or something like a decade ago or something like that.
¶29Um they had like a whole government report about this. And we had like testimony from like um the workers at the hospital where they literally walk in and they see the child with like they have this weird grin on the child's face. And they literally in the government official government report they did for this. We have the testimony from like a nurse or two saying, "Yeah, I saw him walk backwards up the wall." And like literally it's like this is a a government like official government report with like a like a nurse. Like, okay, she's wrong.
¶30Is she going to lie? And so like again, I'm just shifting in my seat. I'm not convinced yet. >> Yeah. >> But again, it's something that's like what do I do?
¶31Okay? I I I don't have any room in my worldview for this sort of thing. It seemed ridiculous, but like all these people, all this testimony, contemporaneous documentation, pan-cultural, etc. And in fact, I could see at least non-silly explanations for why this stuff isn't so prevalent, right? I mean, cuz you have to recognize that demons under the Catholic worldview are agents.
¶32They have goals and intentions. And you I mean, one thing that they presumably don't want us to believe in is Christianity or God, right? So, if they can hide themselves, especially in a world where we're basically all deadened to the supernatural, then they're presumably going to maybe go out of their way to hide themselves. And of course, maybe God in his mercy will allow them to do manifestations so that people can get in localized context so that people can get freed. But basically to to all that they can do, they're going to try to hide.
¶33And they're only going to show their hand if God basically forces them for the sake of liberating a victim. And you know, of course, this is like an extremely intimate setting. These people have dabbled in the occult. They're basically being systematically oppressed by these spiritual forces. You're not going to take a camera into an exorcism session like it's it's extremely intimate.
¶34This is like a mercy. This is like a a ministry of mercy and healing for them. And it's usually it's extremely humiliating and disgusting and gross to the victim. There are all sorts of privacy things. And I think just like God in his providence is also just like orchestrated things such that the evidence is a little bit ambiguous.
¶35And we'll get back to this cuz this is like the divine hiddenness model. It started explaining my evidential situation once I learn about all the other miracles and whatnot. >> Okay. >> So, again, at this stage at this stage let's like recap. >> Just shifting in your chair.
¶36>> Yeah, at this stage I'm starting to lean towards theism. >> Mhm. >> Camen is starting to press me about demonic phenomena. And like by press I I mean like he's messaging me, "Joe, what is your explanation? I have I've gotten like a dozen of these people on who they don't seem like they're lying.
¶37What What's your explanation?" >> If you enjoyed that clip, you are going to love the full interview. Please click it and watch it or else I will tell on you.