Are you interested in angels, demons, ghosts, spirits, and monsters? Are you curious about their origins, influence, and how to protect against the unknown? If so, then welcome to Southern Demonology, the podcast that explores all of this and more.
Hello and welcome back to the inaugural episode of season 5 of the Southern Demonology Podcast. As always, I am your host, JJ. I do have some wonderful surprises in store for this particular season. In fact, I was going to start off this one with one of the most disturbing events that have happened to me in at least the last 24 years or so. But I realized I needed some extra time to document all of this correctly. So I have moved up in the schedule this shared conversation that Chris from the Wandering Road podcast. If you have never checked them out before, I highly recommend it.
Chris and I, since meeting last year, have become extremely tight friends, and the work that him and Dean do over at TWR is amazing. But this conversation that Chris and I had, which will be jointly published on both of our podcasts, and I moved it up for a few reasons. First, it is a longer conversation, and I thought that would hopefully be a nice gift for those who listen to me regularly. Second, it serves as a decent introduction not only to my own podcast, but to the study of demonology as a whole.
And as I've been away for the last month and a half crazily working, I thought that this might be a good way to slowly acclimate everyone back into my usual list of topics and thought processes on this matter. I have had a series of guest appearances on other podcast shows in that intervening time, and I will have a sampling of them down below in the show notes if you would like to check that out. But without further ado, let's go ahead and get into the main topic for today with Chris from the Wandering Road Podcast, which I call Demonology 101.
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Wandering Road Podcast. I'm your host, Chris, and for today's show, I'm joined by my good friend JJ from Southern Demonology. And for today, we're going to be having a general discussion about demonology. We're going to tackle ancient demonology, potential dangers, maybe some divination tools sprinkled in here and there. But other than that, we're going to have a general overall discussion. But I want to do a preface. These are our opinions. So I want to make that loud and clear from the beginning. We are not telling people what to do.
We are not giving anyone any type of advice. So please do not take it as such. Use your best judgment when you delve into these things because they are dangerous. But other than that, I hope you enjoy today's discussion. How are you doing tonight, JJ?
I am doing fine. Though I don't know why you started off the show with an obvious lie. We're friends. What do you mean? No, we are very good friends. I agree that way. I will say that yes, although these are opinions, they are highly educated and informed opinions. So, yes, in a legal sense, this is not official quote unquote advice. It is tried and true, at least from my perspective, opinions on these matters. And so take that as far as you want.
Yeah, I I completely agree with you. I agree with that sentiment. But let's dive right into it, man. So we hear the term demonology a lot in the paranormal space. Uh a lot of podcasters and people that go ghost hunting and whatnot like to use the term a lot. And some of them may not truly know the meaning. So why don't you give us a quick definition or explanation of what demonology actually entails from your perspective?
Sure. Just like anyone who would be familiar with uh Latin roots, demonology is at base the study of demons, meaning that we attempt to categorize as much information and knowledge around the phenomena as we possibly can. And this is especially difficult to do as unless you possess some hypersense about the world around us and you can label that to be whatever you want it to be, doing so is extremely difficult. And so just right off the bat, I will say that if you are going off and searching for books about demology and you start pulling up grimwards from the Middle Ages, red flag number one.
If you go off and pick up some modern book in which starts going off and listing, oh, this demon has these characteristics and is able to do this and appears in these times, red flag number two. I would say that the vast so when it comes to the Middle Ages, a lot of this crap was just made up while sell. And when it comes to these modern books, can't say it's made up, but I question exactly where they get their information. And I would challenge anyone to prove anything to me on that front.
And then there's the second definition, which is looking at the past and attempting to clarify the concepts and beliefs that surround these entities that are labeled as demons. And that is the category that I fit myself into. I'm what I tokenly refer to as an ancient demonologist. I look at text, I look at biblical histories, and I attempt to clarify and make the connections thereof.
So in your research, piggybacking off of just of what you just said, looking at biblical texts and ancient text, are there certain things that when you do when you do your research and when you did your research that kind of stuck out to you that like, huh, this might be something demonic?
Well, I would say the first thing that is surprising to anyone who especially looks at the Hebrew Bible is Hebrew Bible does not have a word for demon. And that's probably gonna come to a big surprise to the vast majority of people that are listening to this. The the closest that you can come is the word Shair, which literally refers to like a pan-like or fawn-like goat entity or goat demon. But otherwise, there is not a general reference term for demon that is used. Does that mean that there are no references to the demonic in the Hebrew Bible? I would not say that. There are quite a few.
If you take Psalm 91, for example, it lists the four major terrors. Terror that flieth, you know, by uh the you know, that walks at noon, blah blah blah. All of those are references to the demonic, which makes sense because Second Temple Judaism, which is this very odd time period that's highly anachronistic, which actually still is the source of a lot of our concepts in modern times of what demonology and angelogy truly represent, originally presented. So that would be the first thing that I would say.
So you have to, these are references that a lot of people at the time would have fully grasped and understand that, oh, this is what you're talking about, the arrow that flieth by day. Oh, that is obviously a reference to Lilit or Lilith, as we would say now. But these are things in which a casual peruser of the Bible would read and not understand. And this is one of the reasons why I stand very strongly behind the opinion that in Protestantism there's this idea that oh, anybody can pick up a Bible and read it and understand it fully. No, that is not the case.
Because it a a lot of it depends upon the translation that you're reading, but there is a very specific set of knowledge that you need to have in order to even begin to pierce through the words and try to get to the meaning. Some of that is understanding the sits and leavens or the the situation at hand, and it's just understanding the historical perspective in which these texts were written in. Another part of it is knowing the timelines in which the that produced these texts.
And uh there's a lot of other factors, but just in general, reading something that was written in another language and then translated into English. I always had professors that refer to that as kissing through the veil. You get the idea of what a kiss truly is, you most certainly do not get full contact with the lips. And so there is something that is missing in that exchange.
That's an interesting way of putting it. I've never heard that term before, kissing through the veil. That's a good one. So essentially the notion is like when you read a translated text, you're not really getting the full grasping of it because of mistranslations and whatnot.
True. Well, it's not even not only just mistranslations, there are words that have no equivalent in English, and so you're having to grasp at the proper way of how the original authors were writing, and then it's up to the translator to figure out the best way to convey that to the listening audio, I mean to the reading audience. And you can find copious examples of this within modern works. For example, if you're reading a manga or if you are watching an anime, and if you know the Japanese and then you're reading what's on screen, vastly different affairs.
And sometimes that is justified because they are the translator is attempting to convey what would actually be said in English as opposed to the native Japanese, and other times you're like, what drugs was this translator on? Because there is no way those two are equivalent, or there'd be a much better way of saying that, even in English, that is still truer to what would be said in native Japanese as opposed to whatever was actually being done. And there's a lot of offenses in terms of that regard. That's why I am always a more literal translator.
I try to stay as close as I can to the source language while still getting the idea of cross of what it would be in English, but that's a very fine line, and you don't know who these translators are, and so you don't know where they fall on that spectrum. They may be completely unhinged from reality, and they're like, Oh, well, that sounds kind of right, or heck, at worse, they're using Google Translate, and they're like, Oh, yeah, that's perfect right there. And yeah, it never works out well.
So that's that's interesting because that's always one of my big fears about reading an ancient text, whether it be a historical text, because I'm a huge classics junkie, and also reading like any religious text, obviously translated a thousand times over, that you'll always I want to say at one point in time or another, you'll probably run into a translator that has to interject themselves at one point or another, because they don't like the way a specific person is portrayed or a specific event or a specific word. So it it makes me it makes me wonder.
And that's why I prefer translations that show the homework, and that way you, as the reader, can come to a more educated decision. For example, this is why I like the RSV and the NRSV when it comes to translations of the Bible. I know that this was done by a very scholarly group of in of academics, they were based out of Yale, they have copious amounts of notes, uh footnotes, so that you can see exactly what's going on. Because when you come across a passage that could be troublesome, and I don't mean from a modern read, I'm talking about just troublesome to theology in general.
If you don't have that context, then you would nine times out of ten, you may not even understand that fact. You come across Genesis 6, and you've heard it usually so many times that you just kind of blow past it. But this uh I mean, that one chapter has resulted in more books of the pseudopigrapha and more mid-rashes and more theological discussions than almost anything else when you take it out of context. And if you're just someone who's reading the Bible, you'd be like, Okay, sons of God. No, no, no, it goes so much deeper than that. What in the world are you talking about?
And this is the kind of stuff in which I'm talking about, but moreover, within the Hebrew Bible in particular, you have over a hundred hoxagamina, words that are used one time, and you can look at other similar Semitic languages to get what the roots of those words mean, and then you can try to crop try to cross-apply it back into Hebrew, so we have an idea of what they mean, but yet they're only used one time, and so we don't have a true sense of what that word truly meant in context, or there are simply pieces of knowledge that we have lost over the years when it comes to the scapegoat, Azazel being sent off into the desert.
It's Azazel.
I'm kidding.
We don't know what that refers to. Is the goat Azazel? Is Azazel a demon? Is it there's a lot of huge ambiguity in that particular statement. Yeah. Uh without that kind of knowledge to it, that's either going to fly completely over your head, or it's not going to be called out for you to care about if you don't know. Meanwhile, I'll get off my soapbox on that particular topic.
No, it's all good, man. I like I like to hear you talk about that stuff because you're actually educated in it. So it it enlightens enlightens me a lot. But one thing I wanted to say was say you have like an ancient text and it gets translated over and over and over, and it's like an ancient text about demons or something like that. And it turns out like midway down the line, like a thousand years ago, the person doing the translation was such an asshole, and like he hated all of these like quote unquote demons or spirits and just turned them all into these like heinous fucking creatures.
And now in today's like modern world, like they all get a bad rap, but like in the past, they were all super chill. Because anytime you mention the goat, I think a pan and like Pan was just like was just a Seder. And now it's like morphed into this, they use it as an image of the devil, uh the Baphamet, and it's just been twisted into this creature of darkness. When if you go into Greek mythology, Satyrs were just horny bastards chasing nymphs around. Like they weren't like like they just get such a bad rap. So, like huge erections, yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were the original phanders.
That they were, that they were. But continuing on the topic of the ancient world, ancient demonology specifically. I know you've taught we've talked on offline, yes, we we talked besides. Being on a podcast, people. You mentioned about correct me if I'm wrong, but is it Ethiopia where they do some sort of exorcism where they trap demons into squirrels or something like that? I feel like I'm butchering this dude.
Oh no. So yeah, they absolutely do. It's not exorcisms though. The Ethiopic Orthodox Church, they are highly unique amongst not only Orthodox, other Orthodox religions, but just Christianity in general. Because A, they have the largest corpus of holy canon that exists. Because unlike every other place, they believe that all books of the pseudopigrapha are also holy scripture. So this includes First Enoch, Jubilees, Ascension of Isaiah, Tales of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the list just keeps going on and on and on.
In addition to like you know, the Catholics, they believe in the Apocrypha plus the Bible. Protestants only believe in the standard books of the Bible. And then the Ethiopic Orthodox Church takes that to an entirely new level. More than that, though, the church also kind of has this native belief that in addition to Christ being the Messiah, he was also the greatest magician that ever walked the earth. And there is a very rich magical tradition within the church. And there are these priests, a very specific group of priests that are called Dibtura.
And when Christ said, I give authority of you know over demons to you, they take that literally. And so they have a ritual in which they slaughter a goat, they skin it, they then use a couple of eggs and a bottle of wine, and they trap a demon, a wandering demon. They embed its spirit into the scroll using religious iconography, and usually that's the seal of Solomon, plus red and black text, which has been directly inherited from Zoroastrianism as magical writings. And then that traps the demon into the scroll, and therefore the demon powers God's will.
And these scrolls are written for a variety of purposes. The vast majority of them are protection scrolls, especially for pregnant women, and they protect against all manners of creatures, whether it be Barya and Legawan, which are the two serpents that surround the earth, constantly swallowing each other's tail, otherwise in Greek referred to as Ouroboros, to Shoteli, which are a race of baby-killing demons. The other purpose is that it is a scroll that is carried or buried with the person that is called the Lephophitic, which is the Banlet of Righteousness.
And it is a book which, kind of like Catholics with their scapulas, functions to teach the pe it's essentially it's a group of eight magical spells that is meant to get people through the narrow gate of heaven. And it's a fascinating book. I've long loved it.
Yeah, that that's fascinating. So from my perspective, it's interesting to see how over time demons and demonology is addressed. Because correct me if I'm wrong, in antiquity is very much so, like, okay, this is what we do when we encounter this type of stuff. And now I want to segue into our time period.
And all the this is probably gonna piss some people off, but I I don't know what other way to say it, but new wave or new age of demonology and tackling these types of things in in the sense that if you go online and you go Google like demonologists or something like that, I'm sure you'll get a plethora of just average people that are just thinking they're going about the trade, but I'm at a loss for words because I'm trying I'm trying to keep it in the sense Let me step in for a second.
Yeah, go ahead. It's very trendy in the paranormal world to call yourself a demonologist when 90% of them that I have ever ran across wouldn't be able to tell a demon from a random bump in the night. That's the best way I can charitably characterize.
Yeah, I I mean that's a good way of putting it. And you and I are on TikTok, and you come across these pages that you share with me, and vice versa. And we came across this one page where I think you know where I'm going with this, where this person claims to use demon magic. Like they summon demons.
Yeah, I remember I almost blocked that out of my brain.
That's fascinating to me. The concept that you think you're strong enough to summon something from the perternatural world and can control it and can make a deal with it that'll just benefit you.
Oh, even worse. So this woman who claims to have practiced both angel magic and demon magic for I think it was a decade, she said or something like that. Yeah, I think so. She claimed that, oh, most people that try to summon demons or utilize them think that everything involves a deal, that you have to sacrifice a portion of yourself. However, I don't think of it like that. I just think of these things as archetypes in which I'm able to just to wish something, and I don't serve at their pleasure, they serve at my pleasure.
And I'm like, wow, I really don't want to be there when you learn the error of your ways, because I cannot. So you're dealing with something that is infinitely more powerful than yourself, and then you're just saying, oh yeah, I can make them do whatever I want because they're just here to serve me. No, they are not, they may give that impression for a little bit, but that's just so that they can worm their way into your lives, and after that, you're screwed.
Yeah, they always want something, whether it's your soul, your body, something. Or or to just straight up harm you. Like it there is nothing that there's nothing good that will come about that. I I want to put it that way.
Not at all. In fact, I think kind of a a perfect example of this is in Father Malachi Martin's book Hostage to the Devil, one of the stories is of an avatar demon, which do I know if those things exist? No, I do not. Um first time I'd ever heard of such a thing, but it was essentially the herald of a much more powerful entity that was sent to this person in order to pave the way for the greater power.
And this thing was essentially trying to ingratiate itself to the man in the in the story, and eventually, when it wasn't getting anywhere, it just began to resort to irritating the ever-living hell out of this person to the point where the guy had to be exercised to be taken care of. But it's just an example. I mean, there are so many ways of everything going horribly for an individual. And whether you're talking about from the Catholic perspective or even the Islamic perspective with Jinn, rarely, I mean, with Jinn, of course, you you have both can be good, but they more than likely are not.
See, with Jinn, I I view them differently. Because when I for one of my classes, like we had to read the Torah, we had to read the the Bible, and we had to read the Quran. And when you read the Quran, it it says that jinn were you had angels made of light, you had man made of the earth, like dirt and mud and whatnot, and then you had the jinn that was made of fire. And to me, jinn are not really demons. They well, according to Islam too, they're not really demons, they're just a creation like humans.
So, yeah, yeah, that is absolutely true. However, jinn are the closest things to demons that you find in Islam. I'll put it that way. So I think that you can make the case that they are when they are evil, I would say that they can be just as evil as anything that you find in Christianity. No, that's a great clarifying point.
Yeah, but yeah, that that does make sense. Like if you listeners, if you ever get a chance and look up the different types of djinn that are out there, some of them can get really, really terrifying.
Oh, in fact, so just an example of the non-terrifying aspect. Uh, recently, well, a couple of months ago, before the year turned over, I had a meeting with a former coworker, and we were always friends, but it was good to be able to catch up again.
And he is he's a Muslim, and we began talking about some djinn, and he was telling me the story that one of his friends had gone through that supposedly the guy's grandfather had married a djinn, and ever since then, the rest of his progeny, the rest of his line, had been protected by this djinn, and that is not terribly uncommon kind of story, especially when you come to like Turkish Islam, you find a lot of more kind of magical and mystical practices involved.
Uh, in fact, if you ever if you do still happen to have a Netflix account, not that I urge for that, there was a series of movies there called Dabe, and it was all about Jinn and the more terrifying aspects of gin. And uh, the first one was really good, second one's actually not that bad either. I think there are six of them total, but yeah, and they I've seen all six of them, yeah, and they are kind of typical Turkish Islamic depictions of the more terrifying aspects of the djinn.
Dude, was it the first one when they like came back home to their mansion and they found that statue made of that grotesque looking statue thing made of like it looked like it was made of body parts or something like that? You remember that? It was so gross.
But yeah, I mean, actually, I really like the first two movies in that series. Another really great one that kind of depicts the terror that a gin can depict is Shadow Over the Grave or Oh god, I forget the exact name, but it's set in 1970s, Iran or Iraq during the the war, and the husband goes off, and it's only the wife and and her two children, and they become terrorized by a ginn in the process and their apartment building.
Is it during revolutionary Iran where the lady has to hide like her like exercise tapes and stuff?
Like she had to like actually it depends because like at home she doesn't wear the full hijab or anything like that, right?
Yes, yes, that's the one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was phenomenal.
It was real quick. If you I know I've sent you a couple of videos on on TikTok, but the creator on TikTok called Ibrahim Ka, he has like this like massive 80 video playlist called True Horrifying Stories, and probably 85% of them are about gym possession and encounters submitted by his followers.
And one of the stories was from I think this girl in living in, I don't know if she was living in Pakistan or she might have been visiting Pakistan and like had this dream of this lady named Aisha that came to her and said that I'm a djinn and I've been dedicated to your family, like I was part of your family, and I'll forever protect your bloodline as long as I live. So it's really interesting that you brought that up. And it reminded me of that story that he posted saying that that was that was a real thing that people actually experience. Hmm. If I find it, I'll send it to you.
Yeah, because honestly, I may have gotten that confused with my other conversation with my friend. Take it as the exact same thing. It sounds a little too familiar for comfort, I'll put it that way.
It might have been the same thing, or it might have been like a real experience. So I think we could dive into the ranty portion of it with the dangers of it. We could see, I've never I'm not a fing demonologist, so I don't know the process of what the hell these people do.
Like they just go around and like yelling at things, or like I don't I have seen a few different types of approaches. I have seen people that claim to be mediums and they're able to detect whether what they're dealing with is a demon or not. I've seen people that have used helper spirits to help them achieve the same results, whether that be a familiar or an animal spirit, or whether you believe in that stuff or not. I have met one person that kind of falls into that helper spirit kind of category who I actually believe, because he's a very genuine person, but I don't know that for sure.
And then there are others that just claim to be very sensitive. Now, I will say that there are some definit, some basic definitions that a person can use to try to determine if something is demonic or not. Are there major reactions to religious artifacts? Big tip that you're probably dealing with the demonic.
Gotcha.
For people that use Sage, for example, to ProFootball is back, and so are the predictions.
Try to cleanse a house of negative energy. Whatever the f that means. Does that have any effect or not? If it doesn't, you're probably dealing with something orders of magnitude more powerful than an attached or unattached entity in the house. But again, these are just guidelines, and everything is bloody different. But regardless, if you are do happen to be dealing with a demon, then there's a couple of guide rules that you absolutely have to follow. You don't engage with the gosh damn thing, you don't provoke it, you don't challenge it.
You definitely don't challenge it, you don't listen to it, and you do everything that you essentially, at least if you come from the Catholic perspective, the only real thing that you can do is do a exorcism of locale. And that has to be done by a priest, a priest that has the full authority of the church behind him in order to perform that. That I had a conversation with Father Bertzong, who is an exorcist who lives in Georgia, who is a member of a charismatic offshoot of Catholicism. And it was a really fascinating conversation.
I listened to them twice. That's how much I enjoyed them.
I do recall in that episode you shared a story of I am happy to serve as an example of what not to do. And when I was a much, much younger man, I am way too old now.
Dude, you don't look a day over 25. Come on now.
Yeah, the uh remind me were to send you the money to pay you for that comment.
You can ven mummy.
I am in my late 40s, and I feel every single one of those days, I am telling you. But anyway, when I was in God, probably 20s, I don't think I could have been yeah, late 20s, maybe 30 at the outset. I had gone to a holiday party at a friend's house who claimed to have been living in a haunted location. And like an idiot, I went around and began reciting the rite of exorcist. Of place or look out. And that is absolutely abjectly stupid for a few different reasons.
First, anyone can go out and pick up the Roman ritual, which is the I'm going to say guidebook that is used by the Catholic Church when it comes to exorcism either of person or of place. However, the Roman ritual isn't going to do a lay person any bit of good. Because first, it is a it's a guidebook. It's not a complete thing. It's not some magical ritual that you just put out into the ether, and suddenly that's going to make just everything go away on its own.
It is a base framework that a priest can use in conjunction with his years of spiritual and pastoral training in order to attempt to resolve a situation. But it's not something that can be used just in toto or as it is, right? Second of all, you have to have the authority of the church. And third, I exposed myself to danger, and I exposed the people around me to danger. So it was abjectly stupid on quite a few different levels. I was blessed that nothing bad happened on either front, but I will say that as podcasters who deal with this topic on the regular, that is already dangerous enough.
Just talking about these things. You know, I have had a couple of cases of strange medical situations that have erupted, one of which actually happened over the holidays before I got to publish this particular episode in question, where I mysteriously tore the cornea of my one good eye. And I have a deathly fear of going blind and have been have had that ever since I was a kid. And suddenly I couldn't see for a week, week and a half. Is that coincidence? It could be. Yeah, we have a prime example of needing Saint Michael, and that is in the case that originally inspired the Exorcist.
Was it the exorcism of Roland Doe? I can't remember what his name is. I know he came out, his name was exposed.
Don't remember what his name was, but when this exorcism was taking place at, I think it was at St. Xavier College, it had been going on for six weeks, couple of months, and they were getting nowhere. And this case was also highly unusual because it was actually the demon, because you have to get the demon to name itself in order to properly identify it so that you can get it cast out. It identified itself as Satan, which is highly, highly unusual. But they were getting nowhere at all until the priests received a vision of Saint Michael as they were praying in the chapel.
And that's where they knew they had reached the breakwaters, and something was actually going to be able to happen. And it happened that night. An exorcism is not an exciting prospect, it is not something that you do for fun, it is an act of loving sacrifice on the part of the priest. You're dealing with things that are so much greater than yourself. No part of that is going to be a pleasant experience. And you have a lot of these Yahoos that are running around thinking that, oh, they can do this themselves.
They have no preparation, they have no exit plan, as Father Bertzon likes to point out, they have no way of cleansing themselves, and they just go in and just think, oh yeah, I can do this. And even more egregious are those exact people that claim that oh I do it by my own authority. Why the fuck would that have any effect? It wouldn't. You are a lone individual. There is no power that you have in this situation, and it doesn't matter how many mystical woo-woo books that you read that you think gives you a tiny sliver of information because it's not going to help.
And I'll tell you the reason why I so highly distrust any of these dictionaries of witchcraft or whatever else that come out, it's the fact that if you start writing a book on demons, it means that you have conversed with these things, which why in the world would you ever trust anything that one of these things ever would have to say? And two, how can I try how can I trust that you're not perfectly possessed yourself at this point? That you haven't entered into a deal to gain this type of knowledge. Everything about it just stinks to high heaven.
You're either doing so for money, or you're doing so to mislead or to gain greater greater credit for yourself than what you deserve. Or you're a failed academic that goes on coast to coast AM trying to make a name for yourself. And I would say that the author of Evil Archaeology falls into that exact category. This woman, oh God, I I did an entire episode that just ripped this book to shreds because it is the worst thing that I have read in a very, very long time. Anyway, I will stop my rant now. I apologize.
No, no, no. I in I enjoy listening to those rants because I mean what you're saying is not wrong. And one thing I wanted to bring up is in my episode 50, when I talked to Trev all the way from Ireland, he recounted that his family was deeply Catholic. And he grew up Catholic, and you know, church was a very big thing, and his parents made friends with, like he said in the episode, he like a collection of like nuns and priests. And there was a priest, I can't recall the name, I think it might have been McCulloch, that was an exorcist, I think, in either Kenya or Zimbabwe.
And Trev said he was young at the time, so he may have been in his adolescence when he came to visit, and he talked to the father and asked, like, what do you think this is? And Trev said that he expected the answer, you know, your usual answer. That, you know, this is of d these are Satan, like this is of Satan, these are demons, yada yada, yada. And it was interesting that the guy said, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. And this is an ordained Catholic priest, and or like an appointed exorcist that he he he himself said he didn't know.
And one key thing that Trev mentioned is that the man was 45 years old, but he looked like he was 80. This doing this took so much out of him. And I think it was also Father Martin that said that anytime you engage in like an exorcism or anything involving that to get rid of demons, you a part of yourself, you're giving up a part of yourself.
Oh, absolutely. In fact, in hostage to the devil, which oddly enough, it has the tagline of the possession and exorcism of five contemporary Americans, but it that the book actually has six different tales because the sixth comes into play in both the prologue and the epilogue, and it tells about a priest who encounters a spirit and then later exercises it again after it escaped in the beginning, and his joy for the priest's joy for life had been stripped. This can happen. I mean, it's not only physical danger that a priest exposes himself to. Yep.
That's the least of your worries because you can have your joy of life sucked away at a moment, and that's why I say that this is a loving act of sacrifice, it is not something to be entered into lightly because you will have something taken away from you. Now, Father Martin, he was actually asked, you know, if you say that you have performed a ludicrous amount of exorcisms, why are you able to do so many when others have done two or three and it robs them of this joy? And he was just like, Maybe I'm blessed. I I don't know. I've always been a little suspicious of that answer.
I don't know what the answer is. I'm not even going to hazard the guess to it. And you also just you have to be on the lookout for charlatans that are in this for some sort of either fame or financial gain. And I think the clearest example of this falls in the lap of Adam Lorraine Warren.
You beat me to it. I added that topic while you were talking earlier.
If you have ever had the displeasure of reading the book The Demonologist, it is the biggest load of shit that I have ever read next to evil archaeology. In the first part, in just the introduction, and that's as far as I got before throwing the book away. Ed is saying, Oh, there's these demonic spirits that were ripping down the hallway. And if any of that crap actually happened, it would make worldwide sensational news. But yet it didn't. He wrote it in the book where you can't the burden of proof is nowhere to be found. Oh, gee, I wonder why that is.
I want to give them the benefit of the doubt because they did kind of further and at least to a small extent legitimize the idea of the study of the paranormal, or at least launch it into the limelight. But after that limelight had been achieved and they had financial estate suddenly on the line, I think shit just ran off the rails.
But yeah, I agree with you about the Warrens. There were a few cases that I looked into, like the real cases, in which they urged people to go to the public. And it's like, well, you just made matters fucking worse for these people. I think it was the oh geez, it might have been the haunting in Connecticut situation where the people lived in a home that was converted from a funeral home, and their son had cancer, and he claimed that he was seeing spirits and there was a dark spirit like attacking him and making him do all of this crazy shit.
And the Warrens got involved and urged them to go to the public, you know, go to the media, you know, get the word out on this. Why? I don't know, because that just made things ten times worse. Because it can either go two ways. The media believes you, which 99% of the time they probably won't, and they just label you as a bunch of fucking crazy morons. And to make matters even worse, what they don't show you in the films is that there was a person, another tenant, living on another part of the house.
And they said they never encountered anything, they never heard anything, they never encountered anything. So that's like when I started looking into it, and I'm glad you brought up the Warrens because I actually wanted to talk about them. Is that it just kills the credibility of them? And in my heart of hearts, I want to believe everything that they say because I'm like a sucker for this stuff, you know? Oh, I am too.
As a kid, I remember being told stories by my mom about Amnivale, and then watching the original movies and just being fascinated by the topic. I was like, oh my gosh. And then growing up and learning more about it and realizing, oh well, they got in over their head on their mortgage, and hey, this was a great way to try to get out of it. You just start learning more and more about the case, and you're like, something doesn't quite pass the smell test, and that unfortunately is the boat in which almost everything they were involved in wound up. Something just smells fishy.
Yeah. Were they dealing with actual cases? I have no doubt that in certain situations, they were really like dealing with some fucked up shit. Like really, really strong entities. I've always wanted to visit their haunted museum, but I'm too much of a little bitch to go to places like that. Because I shared this story when I first came onto your show, I don't know what you want to call it, like a demonically infested home or something was there. And you pointed out that like, dude, this sounds like either it was oppression or obsession.
And like I think that's another danger that people will expose them to when they go down this path of wanting to be a demonologist, dude. Like you are really exposing yourself, and it's coming from a person, and I always say this that if there is someone that can scientifically explain to me what the hell I experienced, and say, hey dude, like this is what it is, you're fine. Up until until then, you don't want to deal with something like that. And I dealt with something like that for about close to a decade.
You don't want to hear the growls, you don't want to hear the footsteps, you don't want to hear the three knocks, you don't want to hear the calling of your name. These are all potential things that could happen to you if you go into a place and and say, I'm gonna be a freaking investigator and I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, and you're doing it by yourself. Like, if you have genuine intentions to help people, that's great. But if you think you can just do this because you believe in yourself, like, dude, you're not fucking Goku.
You're you're not a Super Saiyan, you're not trained by Whis. You don't have Ultra Instinct, you don't have angelic powers, you're not gonna be able to tackle something in a fucking martial arts tournament. That's not how this shit works. To me, it doesn't have to make itself known immediately. There can be little bits and bobs here and there, little instances of shit going wrong for you that could be attributed to that. Now, people can say that's just bad luck.
But if you start seeing a correlation that, hey, I've started fucking with this shit, and then after that point, things started going wrong. I think that's your telltale sign to probably go and get some help and understand that hey, maybe this not be if this is probably not for me. I'm probably not supposed to be in the front lines. I probably shouldn't be going around looking for haunted objects or creating my own haunted museum or anything that's of that sort. But like I said, hey, if you like doing that stuff, whatever, that's fine. You know, you you're allowed to do that.
But I I just to me, like, you know, I I've come across so many interesting people doing this podcast, and you hear a lot of different stories, some From my really good friends. I just recently, like a few episodes ago, it might have been episode 44 or 43. I had a great conversation with the folks from Saw Paranormal, Alex and Shane, and Alex, a psychic medium, and I believed her because as soon as we finished the show, the first thing that she said, she's like, What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go cleanse myself. We had an interesting conversation about demons and the paranormal.
It's like important for me to do that. So someone that like takes those steps to me are legitimate. I'll I'll end my rant.
Go ahead. The first time that I had a conversation with Father Bertzong, and he told me that before he walks into a potential exorcism, he takes part of the sacraments of the church, including the act of confession, and then after the fact, he does the same thing to cleanse himself. I'm like, okay, I'm dealing with someone who actually knows what's going on. And I would say that's probably my last point, and that is don't go opening doors. And this can take any variety of forms. Don't go bloody messing with Ouija boards.
I did an entire episode about that, how that is a really, really bloody bad idea.
Another topic I had listed that you kind of just segued into, which is brilliant.
So I interviewed a lady who goes by the moniker, the demon folklorist. And we had a good conversation. I think the way that she phrased it's probably the best I've heard. And that is not every doorway is going to have a demon behind it. But the more that you open, the greater the chances is that this is your unlucky day. And I would entirely agree with that.
Don't go messing around with idiotic fad-like magical rituals like the Three Kings game or hide and seek by yourself or stupid crap like that, or the black candle ritual, things in which actively invite horrible, horrible things into your life. Why? Because you're bored? Because you you know you want to get the crap scared out of you? Well, all it takes is for that to happen, and you're gonna be wishing that, oh my god, it really should not. I should not have ever done this.
Because death is just one possibility, but having everything that you hold sacred, taken from you, and yet still being alive, that is a real bloody distinct possibility. And I say this stuff not to scare people, it is simply to inform. Whenever you are dealing with the unknown, you do not know what you will be getting yourself into. And I know that dealing with the paranormal is exciting, it is sexy, as the Japanese would say is you know, walko walko, it's you know, very exciting. But it's also rife with dangers, it is stuff that can severely screw with your life.
Even just having a podcast that talks about the enemy has caused me more troubles than I can count. If I had to do it again, yes, I would, because I have made some phenomenal connections through it, some really phenomenal friends. Chris is a prime example of that, and plus, I think that I am providing an educational service that isn't really found in so many other places. I think that in our Discord we have built a really nice, friendly community that's only have ever had two people banned from it, and I'm very quick to make sure that everything is fine.
You know, we only have a few rules and everyone's respectful. But but I knew what those risks were when I was getting into it, and I did not kid myself that oh, you can't even just talk about these things and get away scot-free. There's always going to be a price.
Yeah, I I completely agree. And I, you know, creating this podcast, like for me, it wasn't more so to do like an episode like we're doing now of like, you know, warning people that of the dangers you could potentially encounter. My whole motivation, well, it started off taking on like controversial subjects, but it quickly morphed into I kind of experienced something, and you know, people around me didn't believe me, you know, you get called crazy, you get labeled all of this type of crap, right?
And for me, it was for a platform, an open platform, for people to come on and be like, hey, this is a safe space to talk about, you know, what you experience with the paranormal. And I'm glad that it's kind of morphing into like what Southern Demonology did as well and is still doing, which is informing, trying to be informative while keeping it interesting at the same time. Exactly.
Yeah, and I would say that you can still trust what I'm putting out there because yes, while I do have a Patreon group, which is extremely small, I make zero money off from my podcast, even though it's been around since 2017. I'm not chasing clout. I mean, I love it when audiograms or videos happen to go big at some point, but I'm not doing this for shock value. I'm not pushing out large academic information and the you know, the hopes of making a name for myself.
And I most certainly am not doing this to hear my own voice because I hate the sound of my own voice, which is ironic considering the amount of time that I spend editing every episode and I'm forced to hear it over and over again, God help my soul. I think that might be my punishment enough for doing this podcast. But if I had a financial gain in all of this and I was making hundreds and thousands of dollars, then that would be one thing, but I am absolutely not. I am a poor man who is just doing this for the love of the topic and the academic interest that I have in it.
So Yep. And I echo the same sentiment, man. It it's just fun to do, and it's just fun to talk about. And like we said in the beginning, folks, if you made it this far, you're awesome, and we love you. But it's just a conversation. And from JJ's perspective, it comes from a well-rounded and highly educated individual on this topic. So and it's just our opinions.
And Chris, from a very lived set of experiences that cannot be discounted.
Yeah. As much as I ask and I want them to be, I always say, and I'll reiterate it again, if someone can debunk it, please. I'd rather it be debunked than it be real. Because retrospectively, like if you think back to it, it's like, holy crap, I actually lived with something like that, and it's not fun.
You know, and I think this is one of the things that really kind of separate us from all of the random conspiracy theorist yahoos that you find on TikTok or YouTube or anyone else. We don't subscribe to every idea that is out there. We don't hop on the latest trend, start talking about the door in the mountainside that's in Ohio, or the giants that happen to live on top of a mountain that was saw in Canada, or any of these other or you know, going over of ancient archaeology or you know, aliens cause all this shit. No, no, no. I am still firmly in the camp.
And I think, Chris, you share the same, but you can educate me if I'm wrong. That extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Right.
Anyway.
Yeah. I'm a flat earther. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I would kill you. But JJ, this has been a fun show.
Yes, I we've had this really appreciate it.
Yeah, we had this conversation plan for like almost two months now. So glad we could finally get it on the books and get this recorded. Amen. For those of you listening, this will be released on both platforms. So on The Wandering Road and on Southern Demonology. So for my listeners, JJ, where can the people find you?
They can find me on southerndemonology.com. I have all of the links to all of my various platforms, whether that be Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Discord, Patreon, all the rest of it, even Podchaser. But yeah, you can find links to episodes, but I'm also on every podcasting platform that there is, whichever one you choose to use to get your podcast episodes while you're there. And you can also email me directly through the website or at southerndemonology at gmail.com. And for people that came from my podcast to yours, where can people find you, Chris?
Oh, absolutely. If you want to reach us, if you would like to be a guest on the show or you would want to share your stories with us, you can reach us via email at twroadpodcast at gmail.com. We highly encourage people to come on because we love hearing stories and people sharing their experiences. No matter how far-fetched it may sound, we always have an open mind over here and we're willing to talk to anybody. We're also on Instagram at TWRoad Podcast. You can find us on TikTok at TWR Podcast.
And we also just started up a Facebook page, which you could go ahead and give us a follow if you search on Facebook the Wandering Road Podcast and give us a like on there. And you can always interact with us via messenger on there as well. Cool.
Thank you for listening to Southern Demonology. Find us online at Southern Demonology.com, which offers links to all of our social media and episodes. Southern Demonology is solely owned, produced, and edited by myself, and the intro and outro music are composed by me as well. If you have a moment, please rate, like, and share this podcast, as it is the best way to help support my work. As always, I am JJ, and it has been a pleasure to speak to you today.