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SYSK Selects: How Exorcism Works · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Chuck here for my weekly Stuff you Should
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Speaker 1: Know selects pick and this week I'm going with January
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Speaker 1: six through thousand nine, two thousand nine Exorcism How Exorcism Works.
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Speaker 1: And I'm sort of just tagging this on because in
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Speaker 1: real time, it's right around Halloween, and I remember the
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Speaker 1: Exorcism episode was pretty cool and we talked about the
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Speaker 1: real kind of exorcism. We obviously talked about the movie
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Speaker 1: The Exorcist a little bit, but we try to break
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Speaker 1: it down into what's really going on there with real
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Speaker 1: life exorcism. So enjoy how Exorcism Works. Welcome to Stuff
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Speaker 1: you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
0:52
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. That's Chuck, and
0:55
Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know. We're about to tell
0:57
Speaker 1: you some stuff you should know, aren't we, Chuck? We
0:59
Speaker 1: are you ever intro? Our title like that? I like
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Speaker 1: that it's new. I tried it before. I know that
1:04
Speaker 1: you like it, which institute I had loved it to
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Speaker 1: the late and arouse you. Yeah, moving on, Chuck. Have
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Speaker 1: you ever heard of a guy named Philip Kate Dick. Yes? Absolutely,
1:18
Speaker 1: he's an author. Correct, he wrote Blade Runner. Correct? Well,
1:22
Speaker 1: I do Android's dream of electric cheap right, which was
1:26
Speaker 1: made into Blade Runner exactly. And he wrote a minority
1:28
Speaker 1: report and um a scanner darkly. Some other ones have
1:32
Speaker 1: heard him good stuff. Um. And if you can't tell yet,
1:35
Speaker 1: he was a science fiction writer. Um. But one of
1:40
Speaker 1: the more notable things of Dick's life, one of the
1:42
Speaker 1: more one of the more notable aspects of Dick's life
1:46
Speaker 1: was that, Um, at one point he became possessed by
1:50
Speaker 1: a being, another intelligence. He called it like a super
1:54
Speaker 1: alien or something like that. And uh, it basically took
1:58
Speaker 1: him over and got his life in order. He was
2:02
Speaker 1: a total pill head, loved drink wine, really just kind
2:06
Speaker 1: of chased friends off. He just wasn't a really pleasant
2:09
Speaker 1: soul to be around. And this alien kind of comes
2:13
Speaker 1: in and takes him over, and all of a sudden
2:16
Speaker 1: he's like getting you know, back pay from publishers. He's
2:19
Speaker 1: like writing more. He his office is cleaner. I think
2:23
Speaker 1: he started wearing ties and just all around. Basically, this
2:27
Speaker 1: thing got his life in order. And he wasn't scientology
2:29
Speaker 1: or anything no interesting. As a matter of fact, I
2:32
Speaker 1: think he may have been a critic of scientology. I'm
2:34
Speaker 1: not sure. Um, but he uh, he was possessed. He
2:39
Speaker 1: he believed it till the day he died, that something
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Speaker 1: had taken him over and at the very least was
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Speaker 1: helping him. I've never heard that. Yes, so, um, that
2:47
Speaker 1: kind of I think is a really good segue into exorcism. Right,
2:52
Speaker 1: this is an exorcism that actually benefited somebody. Well, he
2:55
Speaker 1: wasn't exercise, and I don't think he needed to. Sure, sure, now,
3:00
Speaker 1: you know, I think for the most part, when people
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Speaker 1: feel like we're inhabited by something, we feel like it
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Speaker 1: needs to be exercise, right, right, Yeah, the demons running
3:10
Speaker 1: through yet exactly so um, we kind of in in
3:15
Speaker 1: the Western world in the twenty one century, we don't
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Speaker 1: really believe in spirit intrusion much anymore, right, some of
3:22
Speaker 1: us do, some do, true, but for the most part,
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Speaker 1: the average American walking around probably doesn't believe that they're
3:28
Speaker 1: going to ever be, you know, taken over by a
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Speaker 1: demon or something like that, or even an angel probably, um,
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Speaker 1: But this isn't the case for much of the rest
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Speaker 1: of the world. It's very commonly held spirit intrusion can occur.
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Speaker 1: I remember when we were talking about carrying a bride
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Speaker 1: over the threshold. Spirit intrusion. It can be a bad thing,
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Speaker 1: It can cause a disease, illness, and um, it kind
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Speaker 1: of makes you wonder, there's this dividing line that crops up.
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Speaker 1: Is this really just to misunderstanding of a psychological problem
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Speaker 1: or is psychology missing the point when there actually is
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Speaker 1: something going on right at ending? A lot of uh,
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Speaker 1: demonic possessions are really people that are psychologically distressed or
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Speaker 1: sometimes even physically uh. And epilepsy and things like that.
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Speaker 1: A lot of times you're mistaken in parts of the world. Well,
4:22
Speaker 1: with epilepsy in particular, you can you can tell you
4:25
Speaker 1: can throw somebody in an m R I machine and
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Speaker 1: I look at the parts of their brain and see,
4:30
Speaker 1: you know, oh yeah, this person is definitely epileptic. Of
4:32
Speaker 1: course the convulsions often give them away as well. But
4:36
Speaker 1: with you know, UM schizophrenia, say exactly, for many many eons,
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Speaker 1: that was viewed as a spirit intrusion or spirit possession, right,
4:47
Speaker 1: which makes sense. I mean, you know, these people with
4:49
Speaker 1: dissociative personality disorder are UM different people at different times,
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Speaker 1: So you can understand how that would be mistaken as
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Speaker 1: a UM possession. Sure in the past I could, sure,
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Speaker 1: but still today I kind of wonder is it just
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Speaker 1: a clash of world views? You know, maybe so is
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Speaker 1: a psychological disorder just another term for spirit possession when
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Speaker 1: they're really both talking about the same thing and doesn't
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Speaker 1: matter so interesting angle, Thanks buddy. So the point is this,
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Speaker 1: UM psychology has its own methods of exorcism any deepressants
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Speaker 1: UM psychotherapy. Yes, uh e c T. Electro convulsive therapy,
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Speaker 1: which is still used to this day. Did you know that?
5:36
Speaker 1: I didn't. I think we have the method refined a
5:38
Speaker 1: little more than we used to write, but yeah, it's
5:41
Speaker 1: still they still hook people up at the electrodes and
5:44
Speaker 1: juice them. Actually I did know that because it happened
5:47
Speaker 1: on six ft Under and don't tell me, don't tell me.
5:50
Speaker 1: I'm in season three, don't tell it definitely does not
5:53
Speaker 1: happen on six Thank you, thank you for that. Sorry
5:55
Speaker 1: about that. But so we've got this method of dealing
6:46
Speaker 1: with disturbance UM through psychology. We also have it through spirituality,
6:52
Speaker 1: and specifically, the Catholic Church is really really big on exorcism.
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Speaker 1: They're the only church that I know if it really
7:00
Speaker 1: still practices it. And yeah, I was raised Catholic, and
7:04
Speaker 1: and as you get older. Every you know, when you're
7:06
Speaker 1: raised in the Catholic Church, everything seems totally normal. This
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Speaker 1: guy is wearing a robe and chanting and burning frankincense,
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Speaker 1: and everybody else you know is responding with you know,
7:15
Speaker 1: some weird you know, mystical words. The thing is is like,
7:20
Speaker 1: as you get older, it becomes stranger and stranger, because,
7:24
Speaker 1: as any Catholic knows, the older you get, the further
7:27
Speaker 1: you get away from the church. Right, Um, so you
7:29
Speaker 1: get a little more objective, you get an objective view
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Speaker 1: of it. I think it's not necessarily true for all people,
7:34
Speaker 1: but certainly. Uh So, you know, when you look at
7:38
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church objectively or Catholicism, it's deeply rooted in mysticism.
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Speaker 1: And it doesn't strike me as odd at all that
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Speaker 1: the Catholic Church is still very much believes in exorcism,
7:51
Speaker 1: in demonic possession. Yeah, I believe it, which we should
7:55
Speaker 1: probably give an actual definition of demonic possession as the
8:00
Speaker 1: Catholic Church sees it. Uh while possession or exorcism possession,
8:06
Speaker 1: Uh well, I know some of the telltale signs. Yeah,
8:08
Speaker 1: let's hear about um speaking in tongues a lot of times,
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Speaker 1: just considered No, no, pardon no, no, it's not considered
8:17
Speaker 1: part of a demonative. Speaking in tongues is considered a
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Speaker 1: an expression of religious ecstasy. Speaking in foreign languages that
8:24
Speaker 1: one's never encountered or dead languages. Right, that's that's an example.
8:29
Speaker 1: I actually said. I actually said speaking in foreign tongues.
8:32
Speaker 1: I just said it very quietly. The foreign was the foreign?
8:35
Speaker 1: Was it? Silent um? That is true? Uh, knowing things
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Speaker 1: that a person has no way of knowing. Yeah, Like, um,
8:43
Speaker 1: you know what the pope's wearing at any given time.
8:45
Speaker 1: I bet he's wearing a robe and a tall hat.
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Speaker 1: That's what I underneath the robe, if you can call that.
8:51
Speaker 1: I imagine they're going to be like, yeah, I won't
8:53
Speaker 1: go too much physical strength beyond what you normally would have,
8:58
Speaker 1: which we've addressed as well, right in a violent aversion
9:01
Speaker 1: to God, the Virgin Mary or across or other you know,
9:04
Speaker 1: religious images. Yeah, so that's you know pretty much it.
9:07
Speaker 1: If you can fit all these, then you know there's
9:10
Speaker 1: a chance that you are possessed by the devil. As
9:12
Speaker 1: far as the church is concerned. I didn't see in
9:14
Speaker 1: here head spinning around or vomiting p soup or the
9:18
Speaker 1: Spider Crawl. No, and of course Chuck's referring to the
9:22
Speaker 1: classic horror film The Exorcystem, which I watched actually this
9:25
Speaker 1: past Halloween. Not as scary as I remember, but psychologically thrilling.
9:30
Speaker 1: Great and um after researching this, I found that if
9:34
Speaker 1: you take Linda Blair out of the scenes, yes, uh,
9:39
Speaker 1: and you just have the exorcism, the rights of exorcism
9:42
Speaker 1: that are performed by um Max von Sideau and the
9:45
Speaker 1: other guy. Um, it is it's very accurately. Uh, it's
9:50
Speaker 1: it's pretty much the opposite of the website Garfield minus Garfield,
9:54
Speaker 1: where if you take Garfield out it turns out that
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Speaker 1: John is either schizophrenic or a the meat or possessed
10:01
Speaker 1: by the devil possibly full circle. Yeah, so it's UM's
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Speaker 1: it's the it's the opposite of that. It really a
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Speaker 1: Catholic exorcism or right of exorcism is a series of
10:12
Speaker 1: special prayers, and actually it's a combination of fairly familiar prayers.
10:17
Speaker 1: There's a lot of call and response. Um. There's dousing
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Speaker 1: the possessed individual with holy water, using crusifixes and relics,
10:26
Speaker 1: which can be anything anything associated with the saint, including
10:30
Speaker 1: a body part. There's actually the saints. If you were
10:33
Speaker 1: a saint several hundred years ago, you were destined to
10:36
Speaker 1: be chopped up and do as many little pieces as
10:38
Speaker 1: possible and said to churches around the world. Yeah, relics
10:41
Speaker 1: are huge. Interesting. Yeah, well there, you didn't know that either. Well,
10:45
Speaker 1: before this all happens, there's an investigation. I mean, this
10:47
Speaker 1: is when there's a real threat of a possession, you
10:50
Speaker 1: can actually lodge in uh a query to the Catholic
10:54
Speaker 1: Church and they'll send someone out. A lot of times
10:57
Speaker 1: that priest will come with a psychological evaluator just to
11:01
Speaker 1: rule out other things. Sometimes I'll go to a medical doctor,
11:04
Speaker 1: but they actually do a full fledged investigation, and they said,
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Speaker 1: I think one in five thousand turns out to be
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Speaker 1: what they consider to be a real demonic possession or
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Speaker 1: at the very least worth worth using an exorcism for
11:18
Speaker 1: a Yeah, I didn't want you to to get the
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Speaker 1: impression that I think that the Church's approach to exorcism
11:24
Speaker 1: it's hokey in anyway. I think they take a very
11:26
Speaker 1: methodical approach and they rule out everything else that it
11:30
Speaker 1: could possibly be. Um. I think if you decided to
11:33
Speaker 1: perpetrate a fraud. Uh, you know, like you're you're possessed
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Speaker 1: by the devil. You're in for a really long, painful
11:41
Speaker 1: evaluation process where you really have to be committed to
11:45
Speaker 1: the bit to follow it through and finally get to
11:47
Speaker 1: the exorcism. And if you're basing it on movies, you
11:50
Speaker 1: probably be really disappointed. Um. There's this book that this
11:54
Speaker 1: guy wrote. I cannot remember his name or the name
11:56
Speaker 1: of the book, but he was a sociologist to who
12:01
Speaker 1: you know, basically went to exorcisms performed around the country
12:04
Speaker 1: for several years during his research period. And he describes
12:08
Speaker 1: one where a guy named Warren, who is basically depressed,
12:13
Speaker 1: drinks a lot. Really his life is pretty out of sorts, um,
12:17
Speaker 1: and he's come to believe that he's he's possessed by
12:20
Speaker 1: a diabolical presence I think is the the church vernacular
12:24
Speaker 1: for it. Um. And basically the priest just praised for him, um.
12:29
Speaker 1: And you know, there's the Holy water and the crucifix
12:32
Speaker 1: and all that, and Warren just kind of sits there
12:33
Speaker 1: looking a little gloomy the whole time. And then that's
12:36
Speaker 1: about that. And apparently in the book, Warren reported feeling
12:40
Speaker 1: like something had left him, which is good. It's a
12:44
Speaker 1: good thing, is he said, he felt fine, But it
12:47
Speaker 1: was a fairly anticlimactic spinning or anything. I had that
12:51
Speaker 1: book title if people want to read, it's called American
12:53
Speaker 1: Exorcism Expelling Demons in the Land of Plenty by Michael
12:57
Speaker 1: uh c u n eo quin Kuno kunio. Can you
13:01
Speaker 1: let's go with catch cary cary um. So, yeah, they're
13:32
Speaker 1: they're kind of anticlimactic, right, But if if at the
13:36
Speaker 1: end people like Warren feel like that their their life
13:40
Speaker 1: has changed, that, you know, if it's if it's just
13:43
Speaker 1: using their faith to maybe manipulate them, even even if
13:46
Speaker 1: there's no intentional manipulation. But if that's really what's going
13:50
Speaker 1: on in the most objective view, how could how could
13:54
Speaker 1: it hurt? You know? Why? Why don't we just run
13:57
Speaker 1: around performing exorcisms all the time? I have an answer
14:00
Speaker 1: for you, playing on me sort of, because there aren't
14:02
Speaker 1: enough priests relate to go around that are they're capable
14:06
Speaker 1: of doing this? The Catholic Church actually UM appointed ten
14:09
Speaker 1: priest and I think there was already previously one the
14:14
Speaker 1: only guy doing exorcism, So there's now eleven um at
14:17
Speaker 1: that time at least and they have a group called
14:21
Speaker 1: the International Association of Exorcists. Yeah, they meet every year
14:25
Speaker 1: and only newsletter. Do you know what I would do
14:28
Speaker 1: to get my hands on that newsletter? Apparently they shared
14:31
Speaker 1: tricks of the trade tips for one another fcisms. Yeah,
14:34
Speaker 1: I would love to get my hands on that, right,
14:36
Speaker 1: I'd love to sit on one of those meetings. But
14:38
Speaker 1: that's a lot of a lot of fun, it is,
14:40
Speaker 1: you know, the the the that's one reason why you know,
14:44
Speaker 1: we just don't have or the Catholic Church just doesn't
14:46
Speaker 1: have the manpower to go around performing exorcism, right. Um.
14:50
Speaker 1: But also there's there's a couple other problems with exorcism
14:54
Speaker 1: as far as you know controversy generated by them. One
14:57
Speaker 1: is what we've talked about, the the psychology versus religion clash,
15:02
Speaker 1: which has been going on pretty much since medicine came
15:05
Speaker 1: about um and basically labeled everybody else's witches or you know,
15:10
Speaker 1: at the very least um simple or what have you,
15:14
Speaker 1: archaic primitive. And that's one problem. If if we just
15:19
Speaker 1: ran around performing exorcisms, uh, and there were people who
15:23
Speaker 1: had very treatable psychological disorders, you know, would the exorcisms
15:29
Speaker 1: work or would would pharmaceuticals be better or some sort
15:33
Speaker 1: of you know, immersive therapy be better for him? Um,
15:36
Speaker 1: so we could actually do damage, which is why the
15:38
Speaker 1: church I imagine, has psychological evaluations done. And these are
15:43
Speaker 1: done by professionals from my understanding as well, It's not
15:46
Speaker 1: like the priest is like, hey, are you crazy? Right,
15:48
Speaker 1: they get a psychiatrist or psychologist outside of the Catholic Church.
15:53
Speaker 1: The the other problem is the there there are groups
15:58
Speaker 1: that that do x orcisms for profit. Yeah, and this
16:02
Speaker 1: is where it gets a little uh, I don't know, greedy,
16:05
Speaker 1: possibly fake. Maybe there's one. There's one group, um that
16:11
Speaker 1: is well known for their exorcisms. There's a guy named
16:15
Speaker 1: Bob Larson, Bob Larson Ministries. He actually has a show
16:19
Speaker 1: called The Real Exorcist on the Sci Fi channel. UM.
16:22
Speaker 1: That should be your first clicker right there, exactly he Um.
16:26
Speaker 1: He runs the Spiritual Freedom Church as far as I know, UM,
16:30
Speaker 1: and he does exorcisms. I don't know that he actually
16:33
Speaker 1: charges for exorcisms, but I think he's he's really good
16:36
Speaker 1: at um drumming up donations. Well yeah, and he and
16:39
Speaker 1: he does this in front of a crowd, and he
16:41
Speaker 1: charges for tickets. Does he really, Yeah, because apparently you
16:44
Speaker 1: can get a family rate on your tickets to go
16:47
Speaker 1: see these exorcisms. Okay, it gives you a break if
16:49
Speaker 1: you bring the kids along. Well, I was. I was
16:51
Speaker 1: reading on the Spiritual Freedom Church website a testimonial from
16:57
Speaker 1: a girl from named Autumn, from my dear esteemed hometown
17:01
Speaker 1: of Toledo, Ohio. Let's hear it. Apparently the spirit spirit
17:05
Speaker 1: for Spiritual Freedom Church rolled through town and held a
17:08
Speaker 1: mass you know, exorcism or whatever spectacle, and Um, Autumn,
17:13
Speaker 1: it turned out, had been possessed by a several centuries
17:17
Speaker 1: old African woman, uh named Mushita. Now Mushta apparently means
17:24
Speaker 1: horror and whatever ancient African vernacular this that her name
17:29
Speaker 1: comes from. And um, she basically was pretty much into
17:34
Speaker 1: committing acts of hord um in you know, uh, reverence
17:39
Speaker 1: for an African deity. So she became promiscuous. Yes, it
17:44
Speaker 1: was really Mushita, but it was it was Autumn who
17:47
Speaker 1: was running around committing acts of hordem. This is not
17:50
Speaker 1: my word, by the way, I actually didn't realize hordam
17:52
Speaker 1: was a word until this is very afternoon. Is that
17:55
Speaker 1: her right there? That's her she's kind of cute. Yeah. So, um,
18:00
Speaker 1: Autumn goes to see Bob Larson, who exercises the the demons,
18:06
Speaker 1: and apparently you could see a an immediate change in
18:10
Speaker 1: Autumn and she was very grateful. So again we we
18:14
Speaker 1: come to this this fine line. As far as I'm concerned,
18:20
Speaker 1: if Autumn is no longer running around being promiscuous, as
18:23
Speaker 1: you said, she no longer feels like she's out of
18:25
Speaker 1: control with her life, does it matter whether it was
18:29
Speaker 1: an exorcism or antidepressants, whether she paid for this or not.
18:34
Speaker 1: Come to Jesus moment and a seeing of the light.
18:38
Speaker 1: Does it matter? Now, there's all kinds of ways of
18:39
Speaker 1: reaching that moment of clarity. I agree, If you ask me,
18:43
Speaker 1: I agree. So uh, As far as I'm concerned, to
18:46
Speaker 1: each his own, that's our motto. You want to pay, Yeah,
18:49
Speaker 1: it pretty much keeps us out of hot water. So
18:52
Speaker 1: if you want to pay for your exorcism, there's plenty
18:54
Speaker 1: of places you can do it. Just go on to
18:57
Speaker 1: a Google search, and I believe type in exorcist and
19:01
Speaker 1: you will find what you're looking for and good luck.
19:04
Speaker 1: So stick around because we have a new bit here.
19:07
Speaker 1: We like to fill up time as much as possible.
19:09
Speaker 1: We're gonna call it correction time. Right, it's a good title.
19:12
Speaker 1: It's coming up right now. Um, So, Chuck, we have
19:17
Speaker 1: a correction from one of our listeners. Right, this was
19:20
Speaker 1: in from a couple of our podcasts. We mentioned this
19:23
Speaker 1: famous study in Massachusetts. Let's go to a clip of
19:26
Speaker 1: Chuck being wrong. So what they've learned is that there
19:29
Speaker 1: was this big study. I know that you love to study,
19:31
Speaker 1: the Farmington heart study. I love this study. It's enormous,
19:34
Speaker 1: it's sweeping. This is what a study should be like. Right.
19:38
Speaker 1: So that's that's me, and that's my voice. And it
19:40
Speaker 1: is not Farmington's. No, it is actually Framingham, not even
19:44
Speaker 1: there's no Ton involved, there's no farm It is a frame.
19:47
Speaker 1: And this is pointed out by one of our listeners,
19:50
Speaker 1: Glenna Carpenter rhotas in thank you Glenna for pouring that out. Yes,
19:54
Speaker 1: warn yourself a new Ford focus actually pointing it out. Yeah.
19:59
Speaker 1: So if you want to point out something that we've
20:01
Speaker 1: done wrong, or tell us how much you like us
20:04
Speaker 1: or hate us, Yeah, I'm more like us though, you
20:07
Speaker 1: can send an email to Stuff podcast at how Stuff
20:11
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