Latest / Sword&Spade / Stop Hunting the Devil and Look in the Mirror w/ Dr. Dan Schneider
Transcript
- Dr. Dan Schneider (00:36.23) Okay. Jason M. Craig (00:59.522) All right. Again. And Doctor Schneider, thanks again for being here. We'll get we'll go ahead and get started. Right, subscribers, friends, listeners, however you're getting this, welcome back to the Sword and Spade podcast. most of you listening, I hope, have been subscribers for Sword and Spade the magazine for a long time, and now we're able to get into the earbuds. but hope you don't stay there. Hope you join us in getting the print materials because it's worth being in real life. As some of you guys might know, Sword and Spade was named, we propose that there are two main tools that a man uses. and and that in a certain way we we hear in scripture mirrored in God's care for us. One is our God is a warrior, and and a defender, and that men naturally obviously are looked to for the defense, that's the sword, and that they also are Men that build, men are builders, and that's the spade, the spading the ground. It was actually inspired, not just the alliteration, but by when Odysseus found his father on Ithaca when he returned home and the whole kingdom was falling apart, he found his father spading a tree. it seems like a good place to get back started with the work of a man. and on our podcast today, I'm excited to maybe help us understand I I'd like to talk about this as both the sword and the spade. because I think most people would interview him in the in the category of the sword and defense and war and battle, because he's written a great book about that. and his name is Dr. Dan Schneider. and if you're not familiar, he wrote the book, The Libra Christo Method, a a field manual for spiritual combat. So Doctor Dan, welcome to the Sword and Spade Podcast. Thanks for making the time. Dr. Dan Schneider (03:07.29) Jason, thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here. Nice to me nice to finally meet ya. Jason M. Craig (03:10.252) Yeah. Yeah, I know we've been trying this for a while, so it's good to be to to be in person. I I just found out, I have some I hope they're not provocative questions. I know a lot of it's easy when you have somebody who's an expert on exorcism these days. it seems you can't have a YouTube video without some sort of smacking a exorcist Dr. Dan Schneider (03:31.634) It's a re it's crazy how much it's exploded just since I've kinda jumped into things after my doctoral work. It's it's it's a popular topic and that that could be good or bad, but at least people are talking about it. Yeah, at least people are talking about it, which is good. Jason M. Craig (03:43.01) Yeah. Well tell me about Jason M. Craig (03:47.085) Yeah, well let's just let's just start there. I I I tend to be I find myself in conversations frequently being on the other side of like guys I think this is getting way too much attention in your spiritual life. And the analogy I use is that I'm glad that there are snipers. I suppose it's a it's an important skill, but it's not the structure. of social life in the social order of our country. Similarly, there's a lot of wisdom that we can get from exorcists, but they're they're not the the ones from which we build our devotional infrastructure. so what since you've come out then and and from your postdoctoral and you're seeing this explode, what what is yeah, how would you describe the fascination of it Especially I guess we would you know, particularly places like like YouTube. It really doesn't seem that the algorithm can find out you're a Catholic without putting some some exorcist stuff in front of you all the time. Dr. Dan Schneider (04:46.31) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's I think it shows it's kind of a evidence of the census fidelium, if you will. People are hungry, they know that the world is becoming wicked. They're trying to put some meaning and substance behind the what's coming out in the news, the Epstein files, you know, the the the all the other wicked stuff that's happening in the world, Abramovich. And and you're seeing there's we're starting to see the devil hide in plain sight, and even and even rub it in our faces in many ways, that that they're present. Like that not like the enemy was never present. Catechism four nine says that that that man's history, all of his human history is one of dour combat with the forces of evil. So we we're in this spiritual combat, we recognize it, and now at first the demon you know the demon has two strategies. One is is to hide in plain sight. But he gets you to either ignore him completely, dismiss it, as this this this academic artic came out from the the Vatican observatory or mono last week, that the devil doesn't exist, basically, is what these scholars concluded. we need to stop focusing on the devil. So he either gets us to try to ignore it as some sort of the devil is just a construct of the evil that's in each one of our hearts, and we just anthropomorphize it into this person, which is completely against Catholic doctrine. The talk the church teaches that the devil is a person, has a personality. It's not it's not just an idea. But the other other emphasis is to is to overfocus on it so much. And the phrase that comes to mind is, if you go looking for the devil, he will find you. And so there's an unholy curiosity about it, as well. And so going back to what you said, that's sp spiritual warfare isn't Jason M. Craig (06:25.464) Hmm. Dr. Dan Schneider (06:33.454) a spirituality per se. It's not like, my spirituality is you know, I have a warrior spirituality. I think our spiritualities are are embedded into the prayer and sacramental life of the church. That's where we need to be, whether that's you know, your sword and spade, I'm a Benedict and oblate, or at Labora, we ground ourselves. The Carmelites yesterday celebrated St. Arleigh of Mount Carmel today, the the the the the martyrs of Campaign. you know and so this Carmelite spirituality, et cetera Jason M. Craig (06:55.051) Mm-hmm. Dr. Dan Schneider (07:02.492) But at the same time, even in the bet in the rule of Saint Benedict, it opens with, this is how you have chosen to militare, to do battle against the sloth of disobedience. And so and so we see that embedded into the Christian life itself is a spiritual combat. If you re in the old ritual, and some bishops still do it in the new ritual, in the old ritual of confirmation, you'll probably recall the the the colli, the colli slap, you know, and this is this is a reminder that you are now a member of the church militant. This is language you don't like to hear in our overly effeminate and feminized in terms of modern feminist infil culture that's even infil infiltrated the church. We don't like to talk about anything masculine masculine and masculinity, but spiritual combat is part of it. you're now a combatant once you are confirmed, you are a combatant. Just like when I was a combatant in Iraq, I I did not have the option to turn and run. A civilian, he can he can take off any time he wants, but a soldier stays to the end and does his task and his duty and obedience. And that's that's the imagery of this the callie slap and confirmation. So it's part of who we are as Christians. We shouldn't dismiss it. We shouldn't focus so much on the devil that we lose sight of Jesus Christ and our and and the things that are blocking us from drawing closer to him. At the same time we do have to be aware that we are in spiritual combat and the enemy is particularly emboldened in our present age. Jason M. Craig (08:24.226) So how does that's a good way to put it. We have to have an awareness of the enemy. We have to, you know, name the thing that's that could cause us harm. So what does it look like? So sword and spade is especially we we deal with a lot of it's men that are leading households, right? So men with with places of authority, men that want to love their family, men that want to protect their family. What does it look like to I think we can know what it looks like to ignore something, right? A lot of us we can ignore we we know what that looks like. What does it look like to get it wrong and sort of becoming fascinated and lose sight of Jesus Christ when we're when we're dealing 'cause when I think of just to when I think of spiritual combat, the first time I heard that word was when I read Dom Scupoli's Spiritual Combat. which was I actually thought that that book was going to be how I do, you know, battle with the demons. And it was page after page after page of you're the problem, you're the problem, is this this deep Dr. Dan Schneider (09:21.522) Look in the mirror, Jason. You're the problem. You want do battle. There's the enemy. Yeah, yeah. Jason M. Craig (09:23.968) Yeah, yeah. Page after page after page. The the enemy is you. The enemy is you. And it was do not trust yourself, trust God. You know, and and work on one virtue at a time. That's actually infraternists. That's what we just work on one virtue at a time. What does it look like for a man to sort of engage in spiritual combat, forget the self you know, examination and the knowledge of Christ and get obsessive? Dr. Dan Schneider (09:45.915) Yeah, I think it's two things. the the the or a couple of Orthodox monks expanded Scopoldi's work of Unseen War of of of spiritual combat and it's called Unseen Warfare. I just did a a paper presentation on it in w f at University of St. Mary's in London on EWTN UK and I focused in on the sense of smell. that was my academic pa my approach was looking at the senses. And this is so you have Nicholas of the Holy Mountain, And Theophan Theophan the Recluse, they expanded Scopoli. Now Scopoli's book is a seminal work. I mean Francis of Sales carried that in his pocket. This is a book that everyone should read. Unseen Warfare brings a little more of the East, a little a little more mysti mystical approach. And one of the things that that Nicodemus adds is, and he cited the book of Joshua, which we just read like two weeks ago in the Office of Readings, that it says that God left Jason M. Craig (10:26.476) Yeah. Dr. Dan Schneider (10:46.14) Five tribes of Philistines into the land of Canaan, he says, so that for two purposes. One to test the fidelity and and the obedience of the Israelites, and two to train them in the art of warfare. So God allows the enemy. So we have to understand that God leaves the enemy. Now now Nicodemus in Unseen Warfare says that the you know, like like you've noticed that the enemy is the guy in the mirror. That's the real enemy, and the five tr the five Enemies to us, our five venoms that we do battle with, the five lords are the senses. And so getting those senses under control and mortifying the senses, this is what this is part of the spade work of the spiritual life is mortifying the sense. And this is part of the sword of the spiritual life, doing battle against our our lower passions and those things which drive us away from God. And so if the demon can get us to focusing on Him. Jason M. Craig (11:38.168) Mm-hmm. Dr. Dan Schneider (11:41.093) And not focusing on removing the obstacles. In the in the Libra Christer manual I put in there though that the demon is tertiary, is third in line when you look at the big battle plan. The first focus needs to be on Jesus Christ. Bottom line, we have to always stay focused on Christ. And and I've told people, my friends and others, if you hear me out there on the internet or whatever and giving talks and all I'm doing is talking about what the devil is doing and not on Jesus Christ, correct me. Give me a fraternal correction. Jason M. Craig (12:07.224) Hmm. Dr. Dan Schneider (12:08.08) We have to stay focused. It's real easy. I could come give you a hundred stories of crazy things that I've seen in session and and that are that are really tintillating and it's like, wow, that's really cool. Tell us more. But we have to always remember that the demon is the instrument of the person's sanctification. He becomes our sanctification. He's where we are tested. We've tested our obedience and our fidelity to our g to the gospel and to our commitments as as as baptized and confirmed Catholics. And so And so we have to stay focused. Number two is what are the obstacles to grace that's keeping me? What's what's keeping grace from flowing in my in my own spiritual life, in my marriage, in my family? And then finally, what is the demon doing? So we focus so much on what one the devil's doing, we lose sight of Christ, and that's where it becomes dangerous. It becomes you could you you start to see him everywhere. And you know, it it's not the case. I've seen when you deal with cases as long as I have, you start to see, okay, not everybody that comes to you. is actually afflicted by demons. Sometimes it's just physical people just get physically sick. Sometimes people have psychological problems and it's not diabolic, even though it has a religiosity to it, a religious tone, that doesn't mean it's necessarily diabolic. And so staying grounded in the faith, staying grounded in hope, and not giving in to an unholy curiosity, which St. Augustine himself says one of the things that draws the demon to you Jason M. Craig (13:09.782) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (13:18.05) Mm-hmm. Dr. Dan Schneider (13:29.166) is an unholy curiosity. That's one of three things. And I get into the other two if you want, but that that's one of the things is unholy curiosity. So we mortify that, realizing that we're doing battle within, battling with our senses, where the enemies, where we engage the world, battling with our lower nature and our desires, mortifying things of the flesh and learning how to do fasting. As Jesus says, this type only comes out through prayer and fasting. And so it's mortified into the body. Many times that that's what's going to bring bring about our liberation or increasing interior freedom. Jason M. Craig (13:58.389) Right. So you're I bring up Augustine, as you're s saying it I'm thinking That's that's the beautiful thing about Augustine's conversion is that he always the the knowledge of God and self-knowledge goes hand in hand. He's he says in his one of his prayers of conversion that you turned me to myself so that I can see the truth of myself, which is you know what Scupolli's central message really is, is it's actually see yourself truly, which we would describe as simply as humility. So but it instead of it, I I I'd like to ask if you could expand because I'm unfamiliar with the or with the monks. That expanded Scuopoli's work. So in the unseen battle, do they because that's the thing about Scupolli's book that I find remarkable is that he doesn't, as far as I can recall, deal with demonic activity at all. It's it's completely the practice of the virtues, the focus on on mistrust of self, trust in God. does do the follow-up is does the unseen combat bring in more Yeah, tell me about the or they just bring more about focusing in on the senses and and Dr. Dan Schneider (15:03.556) A little it has a little more engagement of the senses, like Scopoli says that when you smell a sweet perfume. I was walking by there was graduation at the university and I walked by, there was about four hundred students out there, maybe more, and you could smell all the the the perfume from all these young graduates, undergrad women, you know. And it reminded me of Scopoli and then Unseen Warfare, Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain. Scopoli says, think of the stenches, the stench of death. That accompanied Christ on Calvary. So you mortify it by linking it with a mental prayer to the to using the imagination to place yourself on the tritum of of Christ's suffering, in this case the sense of smell with the smell of death, the putrefication of bodies at Calvary. And then Scopolia, I Nicodemus expands it a little bit and he brings in all of the senses. And so not only do you mortify it, but you you link it into And say, sweet aroma of the Holy Spirit. So he brings it also into the aroma of you of the union of the soul's love of God and the union of God. So the aroma of the Holy Spirit that, like the the woman in the Song of Songs, the lover whose aroma gives forth her fragrance. And so they draw it a little more, draw it a little more theologically. It has a little higher theology of the Holy Spirit. he also bring they also bring and they engage all the senses as well. When you smell something, Nicodemus says, may it remind you and say the words of David. teach me, Lord, my un my my unseen faults, right? So we see the bodily senses and we we sometimes focus so much on our bodily sins, and we should, but there are unseen faults beneath those visible and audial sins. We sin the sin of detraction, the sins, the sins of impurity and other things that we sin with our bodies, gluttony and temperance, these other things. Jason M. Craig (16:51.758) Yeah. Dr. Dan Schneider (17:00.71) But Nicodemus expands and says, Deliver me, Lord, reveal to me, Lord, my unseen faults. And so that's the un the quoting quoting one of the Psalms of David. And so that's part of the un the spiritual combat is part of the those unseen faults that drive it. Because otherwise, you you're old enough to remember the back before video games were on your computer, on your phone, you go went to the mall, you took your kids to the mall, and they had a game called Whack-a-Mole. Remember the Whack-a-Mole? Man, my kids love that because it was just pure aggression. Jason M. Craig (17:15.352) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (17:25.323) Yeah. yeah. Dr. Dan Schneider (17:29.114) A mole comes up and they whack it with the hammer and then it drops. Another one comes up and they whack it over here. If we're if we're not careful, if we don't stay grounded in the interior life and constantly mortify, we're just gonna play whack-a-mole. The demon's gonna drive us from one to the other to the other. You know, so he's gonna drive us from impurity. You know, it's funny, the interesting thing to note is that the demon of impurity is also the demon of fear. And most men know this when you exp when you when they hear that. Jason M. Craig (17:51.566) Mm. Dr. Dan Schneider (17:55.891) And it's oftentimes fear, fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, fear of something, fear of failure, that leads them to relieve that fear through through through the viewing of pornography. But it's the same demon that drives both. And so, but it so you can continue to confess, I keep confessing, the sin of pornography use and masturbation, but you don't go to the unseen fault of fear. And what is beneath that fear? A lack of trust in God. Is there a trauma in your life? Is there something deeper underlying that's driving it? You know? I was I was on Sean Ryan's podcast a couple of times, and we've since struck up a friendship. And he's a great guy, by the way. and he told me something very interesting off off coun off camera. We were talking and and you know, this guy only interviews, he's a Navy SEAL, he only interviews top mostly top-tier guys, saw guys from Vietnam, modern Green Berets. I mean Top-tier operators. and he he's he made the comment and he said, You know, 50% of the men that have come on my show suffered sexual abuse as a child. That's amazing. We're not talking about effeminate men you see over here, like, that makes sense. You're talking about top-tier Navy SEALs and high-level military officers and successful people in in the political realm or whatever. Half of the men were were sexually abused. So that trauma. Jason M. Craig (19:05.176) Hmm. Dr. Dan Schneider (19:22.044) That's deep down, the demon's gonna feed off of that. And so you till you bring that trauma through the senses, he'll use the senses to trigger it, right? So if you were you if you were triggered, I mean, if you were molested as a child by a guy with a Fu Manchu mustache, wore wore polo cologne, had a green baseball cap and drove a white drove a white pickup truck. If that was if you were trauma if you were sexually traumatized or physically abused by this person, a stepfather or whatever. Jason M. Craig (19:25.134) Mm-hmm. Dr. Dan Schneider (19:50.651) All the demons got to do until you deal with that trauma is to put two or three of those combinations of sense, sight, touch, right? And all of that combined, one or two of those sensory stimuli, and you're back in that experience again. And he draws you down to the lower trauma, the lower emotions, and that's when he starts manipulating. And then he comes in with the solution. Hey, look at some pornography. Cheat on your wife. Jason M. Craig (20:15.043) Mm-hmm. Dr. Dan Schneider (20:16.848) Doom scroll for an hour and a half looking at videos on on on Instagram. He finds a solution, a short to shortcut our way out of it, rather than dealing with the trauma. That I think is is a key development that that that we see foundationally from un in unseen warfare that I think is helpful for spiritual combat. Jason M. Craig (20:34.284) Yeah, I think it's interesting. I i it's sad that w well a lot of realms of of of gained expertise can be hard to deal with 'cause they f they can feel novel or or sensational, perhaps even, you know, the our modern greater understanding of exorcisms and and all that. But and I was actually reading your book at the same time I was reading a a book on psychology and it was talking about trauma. And it was a it was I I can't recall the actual book. I'm a b bibliochaotic kind of man. There's just a lot of books laying around. Dr. Dan Schneider (21:03.058) Ha ha ha. Jason M. Craig (21:06.178) But it was it was br it was it was immediately helpful in the form of self-knowledge. So what you just described is actually where people want to go into battle. That's at a lot of times the places they don't want to go is actually I have a a a deep seated wound problem trauma that I'm not examining. And you we can try to go into our spiritual practices, our spiritual lives, even our family. And when we're not dealing with that thing, we are our family's gonna have to deal with it if we're not. You know, and the it they ran for the so the book I was reading was just talking about how I think it was just one of these like parts Dr. Dan Schneider (21:35.034) Or the ramifications of it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (21:42.019) Therapy things. I can't recall the name of it. Anyway, he was saying, you know, look, there was a time when you were a child, that say, for example, your parents were screaming at each other all the time. So you learned in those times to to really shut down and to withdraw so that you kept a certain amount of peace in your childhood. And you know what? yeah, you know what? Don't you don't have to be all icky and weird. That's normal. it's very normal. that's or that's a excuse me, that's a reasonable Dr. Dan Schneider (21:59.997) Defense mechanism, yeah. Jason M. Craig (22:11.982) Sometimes I tell my wife's stories of my child and she goes, Jason, I just want you to that's not normal. I'm like, you know what? I think it is. But you know, you and you learn to like maintain peace, but that okay, later when your family tensions rise, you can't you don't have the the luxury. At that point it's a luxury to be able to shut down and pull within yourself and not deal with your family that you have care and authority over. So it sounds like what you're saying too is that that is also the opportunity where not only are you just b by not facing these realities and and Dr. Dan Schneider (22:16.836) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (22:42.316) whether you want to use the the language of maturing out of them, having them healed, w whatever it is, that the demons also can just sort of triangulate. And I like how you said it and it gets you fearful, and it gets you acting in these impure ways because and through the senses to to the unseen warfare that you that that they're bringing up, Aquinas even talks about that. The the the sins of the senses, especially lust, is actually now it can bring you to hell But the way he describes it is it's actually lower down because it comes so strong so fast. It's such an intense which is why, you know, the saints say just run away. Whereas sins of of against prudence, because they take the will, the intellect, they're on the inside of you, that's engaged. You're you're fully engaged in that. That's when you become truly evil. When you so there's a certain Dr. Dan Schneider (23:24.466) Mm, mm. Jason M. Craig (23:36.011) vice of viciousness that you stumble with with things like lust and sins of of the flesh, but he sort of defends them. He's Yeah, but you you need food, you know, and y in a certain way, man needs sex. So but these other things that you're doing where you work inside of yourself, working out the sin with your will, with your intellect, with everything engaged, that's where the real evil goes in. But you're you're saying that the the demons know in those moments the passion seems to be Where in a moment everything can fall apart and then that man can himself can feel, Well now everything is falling apart. Dr. Dan Schneider (24:08.803) Right. Dr. Dan Schneider (24:12.55) Yeah, because he's gonna pull you down to the lower self, the lower faculties, the lower you know, but it's gonna be through our memories. The battle takes place in the in what Thomas would call the what the intermediate factory fa faculties, the the memory and the emotions. We you know, and because this is where the what he calls the pre-intellection, before it gets to the intellect, these are the things that influence how we think. And so this is where the enemy tries to habituate us and tries to habituate us into sinful behaviors. And oftentimes it's gonna come in through our own experiences. My experiences are different than yours. I my my past, my my memories, they're all different. and even Saint Augustine says that some of the other early church fathers as well, that Satan derives temptation specifically g dialed in for you. We know this. We know this the with the AI works and the algorithms, the algorithms with like the various platforms, you know, Instagram or whatever. There's certain algorithms. You know, my sister's sending me cat, she loves cats, so she sends me cat videos, right? And it starts messing up. So I and I want to be nice and say, ha ha. And next thing you know, I'm getting nothing but cat and kitten videos on my on my, you know. And I only have it for for work purposes and that sort of thing. I just have it to stay informed. And next thing and so I'm sending her back midget wrestling videos, you know, like if wrestling is not true, just to mess with hers. Jason M. Craig (25:27.288) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (25:35.49) Ha ha ha. Dr. Dan Schneider (25:38.321) Next thing you know, I get a cat video. And it's picked up that I'm a veteran. It picked up the fact that somehow I'm associated with helicopters because I was a helicopter pilot. Next thing you know, I've got a cat video of a cat as a door gunner and a helicopter gunship shooting, you know? And so the enemy does that. He does he creates and plays off of our own algorithms, so to speak, and he starts to use those against us. So and he does it through the senses, you know. And so purifying the senses. And purifying the memories is and integrating them. it's it's it's an active job, it's an active work that needs to be done. Scopolia is one hundred percent correct, and it comes starting the base is through mortification. So, you know, and it's and it's a the various senses that we know that the s sense of smell is very associative, right? It I mean, you could smell something and you're you're right there. I can smell jet fuel and and I'm on the flight line in Iraq right now. You know, I could it it just it's an instantaneous thing. I w I was at the Adoration Chapel. That's a good example that I've used. I'm at the Adoration Chapel one afternoon, and there's me and like three old ladies, as it usually is the case, and and all of a sudden I hear air raid sirens going off. And and I hear the sirens going off. And I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa. So in my mind, in an instant, I remember th the several times when this this happened to me, In a war zone and the air rate siren. So my first thought was, okay, all right, I'm gonna take the ladies, I'm gonna put them in the bathroom, tell them to lock the door. I've got a weapon in my truck, I'm gonna run out to the truck, I'm gonna set up, you know, whatever. I had this battle plan already in my head in a matter of seconds. And then I was like, Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, wait a wait a minute. It's 2026. yeah, I don't think I don't think we're being invaded. This isn't red dawn. And so I stopped for a second, and this all happened. Instantly, in an instant I was in warrior mode in Iraq. And then I listened and I could hear chatter in the background and the church ladies vacuuming the church on the other side of the wall. But but through the senses, I was triggered. At a just for an instant, I caught it, I laughed, and I thanked God. Lord, I thank you for the experience that you've given me. And so I turned it into a prayer immediately, and we s the Lord and I chuckled about it together, but and nobody even knew on the outside what was happening, but it happened on the interior. Dr. Dan Schneider (27:58.055) But the demon does that. If you've been traumatized in any way, and we all have suffered various things, he's going to use those memories and distort those and then use those to habituate, manipulate, and change our own algorithms just like they do through AI and social media. That's why it it's dangerous. It's very dangerous for men. Because once you start looking at the AI, it's reading you and it's starting to track, and you are really two or three delayed swipes hovering over one or two images. Jason M. Craig (28:16.43) Mm. Dr. Dan Schneider (28:27.718) You're y it within within five minutes you've got soft core or even hardcore pornography showing up on your phone. That's why you have to have a a a militaristic discipline. And so yeah, my spirituality isn't one of spiritual warfare, but spiritual warfare imbues and protects my spirituality. Jason M. Craig (28:34.83) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (28:45.41) Yeah. No, I this is this is a really good explanation. Actually I'd I'd be interested, I I have next to me well that example you just used of when you hear when something happens in your senses, you you do what needs to be done, you react. You react. And that is what again another thing if Skapoli's big for us in fraternists is that he teaches that you have to train in the virtues. A lot of us we think our faith is just Dr. Dan Schneider (29:10.354) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (29:14.782) one more great aha content thing away, one r retreat away, one experience away, maybe one pre from being better. When it's what Scupoli says is no, you pick one virtue and you dial in on that one at a time. Because you can't even what you were talking about the whack a mole thing, I Dr. Dan Schneider (29:20.804) One prayer meeting away, just let this Jason M. Craig (29:34.615) I've I've started to think about when people and I know it's a good, it's it's a good has a long history and tradition, but the idea of rooting out vice. the problem with rooting something out is it leaves a hole, right? Whereas it's just to be filled with something else. You know, scoop Scupoli, you know, if you dig a radish out of the ground, there's a radish-shaped hole there. Scuopoli's like, no, no, no. You don't you don't root out vice. You practice the opposing virtue. so your your training is what Dr. Dan Schneider (29:46.78) Perfect analogy. Yeah. Dr. Dan Schneider (29:57.186) You kill it. Jason M. Craig (30:00.268) It's the same thing like if you have I have a farm. If you want to get rid of your weeds, you don't dial in the poisons, you outcompete them with good grass. That's the best way to get rid of them. so I don't know if you have some tips. I'm just gonna show we have in fraternists we've we use these it's called the the sword and s daily sword and spade a field guide for spiritual combat. And it is pr s specifically it's two minutes a day where you're looking at we we all together as brothers Dr. Dan Schneider (30:09.276) Beautiful. Yeah, I like that analogy. Jason M. Craig (30:30.22) Are looking at one virtue at a time and they they oppose the seven capital sins, you know, it could it could be generosity, it could be patience, temperance. We look at that one thing, it's very much in the context of the man. It's also very much rooted in sort of an understanding of your temperament. So how because the temperament, like you just said, yeah, how we tend to respond to it to something that we receive in our senses is gonna be based on how those senses are trained and what our temperament is, right? How we tend to respond. so every day you you pick the harder battle, and they're kind of articulated usually based on the temperaments. This and you know, so for example, a man, a very choleric man is not going to be very generous based on the fact that he only trusts himself and he's always going after what he wants. Whereas a sanguine man might be really generous, but he's recklessly so. He just gives away he's not consistent, he's unreliable. So you kind of pick one of those things, and then you Dr. Dan Schneider (31:23.505) Right. Jason M. Craig (31:27.616) Just make an acknowledgement of how that battle went. So forecast the battle, focus on the one virtue at a time, and then how did it actually go? So is that when you say training the senses, is that maybe give us some tips because that's that's what we're doing as fraternist men, we are together, because then you know all right, there's a lot of men we're all training this week in temperance, as as a brotherhood. when you say training the senses, how has that taken shape? Because you everything you just described in that that that scene in the Adoration Chapel is learning how to respond properly by with a habit. Not only was your the habit of that you learned in the military, but your habit of prayer was also how you dealt with the real realization of what was actually happening. It went to prayer without effort, right? Which is when a habit is really there. I didn't think about this, it just happened. Dr. Dan Schneider (32:16.572) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, i it is we have to get beyond the idea that it's it has to be just a gut check. I mean there is a certain amount of of Dr. Dan Schneider (32:29.66) discipline and a thesis you have to have. This is one of the areas that unseen warfare expanded, and that is w they use the word energy in the in the West. Well Sakoli uses it as, you know, we have to put more force and effort. And then and then Nicodemus adds energy, which is more from from St. Paul's use, it is God giving you both the energy and he's giving you the will and the work, we say in Philippians. But literally it's he the God is the one who energizes in you. the will, the desire to do, and the working energy itself. It's it's it's God working through us. And we have to do our part. We have to do our our part and and and if it's not like we just pray a magic prayer. We have to we have to mortify. This is why in the traditional Lat Latin mass calendar there's ember days where you have periods of four three or four days of of fasting and abstinence. If if you're not there yet start with just giving up meat on Fridays. And I can tell you As a guy from Ohio, there's two food groups that are possible. There's meat and there's potatoes. And I'll take any variation of those two groups. So if you give up one of those one day a week, it's not as easy as it sounds. You know, some people, it's no big deal. So it's it was hard for me. This is one of the things I started early on. So doing the bodily things first to train the interior life and then Jason M. Craig (33:36.302) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (33:46.158) Mm-hmm. Dr. Dan Schneider (33:56.199) th th those need to be done. Small mortifications, mortifying your speech, mortifying the your internet usage. Don't spending not not wasting all your your temporal I mean your spiritual goods on temporal things, having a real discipline rule of life, without being rigid. Because if you say if your if your if your struggle is peanut and M's And you're just gonna rigidly fight through it without the one who energizes, creating the energy, which meaning the will and the work, the one energizing me, energizes me to continue. It is Christ in me, right? Not me asking Christ for some special magic powers, but Christ in me working. If you if that's the case, you're gonna end up someday just taking a bath in MMs. You're just gonna crash, you know? So so so that's part of it. And the other half too is through a a mental prayer. The battle takes place in in Jason M. Craig (34:37.078) Ha ha. Dr. Dan Schneider (34:44.966) in pr in the imagination, so learning custody of the imagination. And that that's only gonna come through a discipline, time and prayer, even 15 minutes or 30 minutes a day. So you have to have a basic the first principle is learning. And if you'll see the an underlying inner logic of the inner of the Libra Cristo manual, I start with mental prayer, basic vocal prayer. You're gonna pray this prayer, you're gonna pray this prayer, you're gonna pray this prayer. There's certain time Because the demon responds to that imposition of order as much as to the prayers themselves. So imposing order first. Once you have a prayer life that at least is order to prayer, and you're doing vocal prayer, set prayers, perimeter prayers, daily consecration, rosary, office of readings, etc., then you still then you start to introduce, once you have interior control and some mastery of the imagination, now you're going to go deeper through mental prayer. fifteen minutes or thirty minutes meditating on today's today's mass readings, for example, reading those the mass readings in light of the liturgical calendar, what's going on, slowing the reading down. And so you're starting to slew the mind towards the words and deeds of Christ in the gospels, the words of scripture. And so and then you start to understand how meditative prayer, according to monastic tradition, it's a weapon. You know, and they know this and we've expunged the the the the office. Are are you familiar with the imprecatory psalms? Okay, the imprecatory psalms used to be in the office and they are in the the Benedictine Psalter and and some of the the the monastic, they still kept them because they understand what they mean. And the in the and the Jason M. Craig (36:04.44) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (36:10.626) No. Jason M. Craig (36:21.118) the they're like the yes, I do. So th I I pray the old office, so some of some of them are like, you know, bashing a baby's head on the rock. Yeah. Dr. Dan Schneider (36:25.596) So Dr. Dan Schneider (36:29.264) Yeah, so may the Lord crush my I one of my veteran buddies sent sends me this. I think it's Psalm 4. May the Lord punch my enemies in the mouth. May He break their teeth. And he sends me a picture of a guy who just got punched in the face and his teeth are chipped. But that one on the babies is key. This is the way the monastic fathers see it. May the Lord crush the skulls of may the Lord crush my enemies. May he crush the skulls of the babies of my enemies. Now, David, David was a guy's guy. David was a warrior. Jason M. Craig (36:36.748) Yeah. Dr. Dan Schneider (36:59.41) And God's own words, I place my crown on a warrior. And when it came time to build the temple, we just read this in the Office of Readings last week. God says to David, You have blood on your hands. Your son is going to build this for me, right? So he was a true warrior, but he was also he was an adulterer, idolater, a murderer, but a man after God's own heart. Because if you want to know what a man a man that's been that's that's been rebuilt, look at him. Look at David. We rebuild ourselves. In the sacrament, this is where warriors are rebuilt in the sacrament of confession. This is what a man does. He rebuilds himself. But getting that custody of the intellect, and this is what David says, may he crush the skulls of the babies. If a guy can never has raised his voice, he'll never raise a weapon in defending himself or his family. So so we're human, we're men. But at the same time, what what do the monastic fathers see? Who are our enemies? The vices. Jason M. Craig (37:58.351) Mm-hmm. Dr. Dan Schneider (37:59.901) Who what are they when they're when they're little? They're babies. We crush them, he says, on the rock. Who is the rock? The rock is a is a title of God in the old testament. And and Paul echoes this in First Corinthians ten. And the rock was Christ. So we take we take our thoughts, as Saint Paul says, every thought captive. So when the vices rise up, we start get this early stirrings that the demon's gonna stir up little temptations of lust, of anger, of unholy speech. Right. As they stir up, we crush them. Because once we let them get the full stature, they're going to be big ones and they're going to be a lot harder to beat. Crush them while they're babies on the rock, which is Christ. We run to Christ. And that's how we take every thought captive. So that's part and that's not and it's not a magic trick. It's part of an interior discipline that just comes over time. And it's going to come through doing a a a daily practice of mental practice. Jason M. Craig (38:56.898) Yeah, maybe we should have just a whole podcast titled Crush the Babies, because the it's a vi crush what's vivid, but actually it's I was talking to a man, it's helpful because I was talking to a man the other day, and he said, I've decided I'm not gonna let things bother me anymore. And I'm gonna be patient. And I think about what what you're describing, and I like St. Paul's words, his advice to Timothy when he says, Train in godliness of Dr. Dan Schneider (39:00.988) Yeah. Crush the babies. Jason M. Craig (39:26.796) That is actually it's great to have the desire to have every thought captive. But you know what you can't do? You can't have every that's why I actually like the phrase every thought because then you're dealing with them as they come and you train and you you recognize you get these patterns of thinking, patterns of thought, and that mental prayer things you know, one of the things we do daily in this spiritual combat field guide is that just put in one thought from the saints in your mind because you You need to be fed, you need to turn them over, you need to train in godliness and the doctrine. and if you're not getting down to the babies, like because that's where w we tend, you know, early in our spiritual life, we tend to run to confession with the big sins, right? And we wanna We want to get there first. And I have a a a good priest friend of mine. He says we typically don't recognize the pattern. We start with the biggest one and then we work our way down, like maybe the lesser ones. And at the end we're like, And I think I raised my voice at a toddler or unless you're holier than me and you start with raising your voice at a toddler, but or I maybe I spent too much Dr. Dan Schneider (40:28.144) Yeah, you gotta hide it. You make you have to kinda like hide right? That's what we do. We naturally do it, you know, and we hide them. We're like, you throw out a couple we throw a couple jabs out there, we throw a couple things out there, hope he takes the bait, then we slide in the big one, you know. No, no. You you know y that's our t our t our tendency is to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta do that big one first. Get it out there. Start with humility and the humiliation of what you've done. Without getting in yeah. Jason M. Craig (40:40.203) no, no, no. That's not what I know. He I so I go biggest one first. That's Get it out. Jason M. Craig (40:52.428) Well, his and hi but his his advice was that's a good habit in confession, but what you have to recognize is that it's actually the little things first. It's the intemperance at night, going to bed too late, that extra helping of cake, that that it's the weakening of the will. So we think with our confession, we almost need to think about our lives in our training of going backwards. Those small little things really matter. yeah. Dr. Dan Schneider (41:13.168) Yeah, this is yeah, yeah. Remember George Foreman, the great heavyweight champion? He used to spend three or four rounds just punching the other guy's arms. You would fight Foreman, you'd have black and blue ar arms and shoulders. And he would just do that because he knows that you take enough of those big shots, eventually your arms are going to drop, you know. So it's those little, it's those it's a little thing. Sometimes we the demon gets us so focused on the major one, we lose sight of the setup. Jason M. Craig (41:33.836) Right, right, right. Dr. Dan Schneider (41:43.335) the setup because if you look at it, you know, w a a friend of mine that I used to that I've known since he was a kid, fights in the bare knuckled and a great fighter, good Christian man. He just got KO'd. he's a little too old to keep you know, he's 40 years old. He probably needs to hang it up, but but he just got he just got dropped. And this guy's a great fighter. He's world champion. and and I know what he did after the fight. He went back and he analyzed what happened. This is the first time I've ever been knocked out in my career. Jason M. Craig (41:43.338) Mm-hmm. Dr. Dan Schneider (42:11.888) 40 years of fighting, I've never been knocked out. So so and that's what we do. Again, when I say warriors are being rebuilt in the confessional, also as you talk about doing that confession, that mean that that ex daily examination, you have to pick one. And this is why in the book I use that phrase from modern psychology. If you can name it, you can tame it. Now that mean they apply it to the emotions, but if you can name your okay, your group, you're gonna work on temperance. If you can name it, Jason M. Craig (42:32.001) Mm-hmm. Dr. Dan Schneider (42:38.8) You can tame it. If you're going to say, I'm just going to grow in holiness, I'm just going to be a better person. I'm going to be a Christian man. I don't want to be saint. You got to start with that specific. Jason M. Craig (42:48.086) Yeah. Yeah. And that's I think that's the advice. That it's good to talk to you and hear about it, even from the soldiers' perspective, from from the saints' perspective, because we do. We want we come off the high of a retreat. We just get in we have a great map. Maybe we have a good communion at mass and like everything's gonna change. And with and that's actually not how God teaches us. He does it's not how he intends us to grow. We see that biologically, you're incrementally better. And because in that Incrementality, I don't know if that's a real word. you're actually learning something and growing something and you're maturing, and this is how God wants you to do it. It's like the way a a child is not sinful in being childlike, whereas an adult is sinful in being childish because he wants us to learn this way. And those big moments of of resolutions are good. You want to have the resolution. Dr. Dan Schneider (43:32.145) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (43:41.667) But any man who's been who's who's been in in taking his spiritual life seriously for some years knows how that the daily grind, it seems hard, it can be disc disconcerting, but it's actually the way over time you can look back and go, this is how God is teaching me, if I if I let him. I love the I said I love the if you can name it, or you can tame it. I like, you know, the I have Protestant friends, name it and claim it, brother. Name it and claim it. Dr. Dan Schneider (44:00.249) His that's his p his what's that? Go ahead. Dr. Dan Schneider (44:10.406) Yeah, no, it's it's quite the opposite. Jason M. Craig (44:10.768) where you actually have to identify identify with having the virtue by God's help, by God's grace, and then do the virtue with confidence. That's how you displace vices, not just good intentions. Dr. Dan Schneider (44:22.054) Yeah. Yeah, you work you you're working backwards. You're naming the emotion, the feeling, so you can tame it. But what are you taming? The next thing is what's the defect that's driving it? What is the spiritual defect? What is what is the vice that's driving it? Now you're the emotion triggers it. The emotion is what is the most visible, that whatever that is, that of anger. And we've all experienced you experience anger, then you feel the darkness that comes over you, whatever, or lust or Jason M. Craig (44:26.936) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (44:43.95) Mm. Dr. Dan Schneider (44:51.152) Whatever it is, you get this emotion or fear or or shame or anxiety. If you can name it, you get back now. You're looking at the defects. That's what you guys are doing. You're looking at the defect. And now the next thing that you're taming is you're moving backwards. Now behind the defect is the demon that's driving it. So it begins with the emotion. You focus on the virtue that you need to counteract with, and you're combating the vice that is being driven by the demon. And so That that's constantly dialing it in, constantly tempting us, right? So Jason M. Craig (45:23.48) So you're really so then the back to our first questions, there's really not a focus on the demon at all. There's an awareness of his tactics, and and perhaps even some gratitude for the warfare that God has allowed is what you're saying. But yeah, yeah. And tra and training us to fight. So Dr. Dan Schneider (45:39.738) Like the five tribes he left in Canaan, so to test the fidelity and the obedience. And training us in the art of warfare. Jason M. Craig (45:48.791) Yeah, so it is interesting though, that form of self-knowledge I find hard for men new to the spiritual life to actually recognize the self-awareness and self-knowledge and interior work that it takes. the and whether this is happening in mental prayer, self-knowledge. the the amount of work that that takes to actually get especially in our complicated age of like you said, all the men that were sexually abused, the the disorders of families. I mean, I think of all these converts coming to the church and everyone I'm excited about them too, but I'm like I'm I'm worried for these guys because we're I'm one of them. I mean, I converted in 2006, it's been a while, 20 years, but you don't know when you haven't inherited habits and cultural protection. in the spiritual life, there's so much you don't know about yourself. And you know where it comes out is in your family. So in your work, what do you see, you know, specifically, I'd like to round this out, 'cause this is a great conversation, but round out to how d how does this look? Th this is very much on the individual level, which is where this has to be fought and that's where we have to begin. But what sort of advice do you have for fathers that might be awake awakening to this and they've already got three, four, five, six kids in the house? their their family's starting to get more and more tense. It's harder. They they were dreaming up this beautiful Catholic family and now they're finding themselves like, I don't know if this is all working, you know, the all sorts of thing. Wh where's the first place he needs to start to get serious about spiritual combat in his home? Dr. Dan Schneider (47:22.288) I think I I I think we have to understand that we have to play the long game, that we're gonna slowly, methodically, this is trench warfare, we're gonna slowly, methodically do the things, the task accomplish the tasks that God has given us. It is he that it gives us he is the the the the the the energizer who ener who gives us the energy. And so staying grounded in prayer and and in humility before the Lord and and sometimes in in complete brokenness. Lord I'm failing here, you know. working on all putting aside all the old defects and purifying being as pure as you can on the interiority is is very important. Understanding globally the big picture. people like to talk of Ephesians six and spiritual combat. It's really cool. I don't know if you can see up here, I've got I've got a Roman centurion helmet. I got my I got my Gladius in the corner, there's the Pelum, which is the the spear that they used. Jason M. Craig (48:16.117) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Dr. Dan Schneider (48:22.254) I've got a sample of what their of what their their body armor, chain armor look like. So sometimes if I'm if I'm if I'm close enough, I can I'll bring it and display it and teach that. We love the what does it mean? the what is the art? This is what Paul was picturing in spiritual combat. He was describing the soldiers, the uniform of the Romans that were occupying of his day, where they would be the National Guard, so to speak, that were occupying there and providing the police. But preface to pr as preamble to Jason M. Craig (48:26.606) Wow. Dr. Dan Schneider (48:49.21) spiritual combat and the sword of the spirit and all these other things, a shield of faith, is Paul's discussion about husbands and wives. And we we don't realize that he uses a a very key military term in that discussion. H wives, obey your husbands, right? For this is right unto the Lord. Obey your husbands, all right? Be obedient to your husbands, be subordinate to your husbands. We hear that. And whenever we hear that mass reading, we always you always hear the guys kind of nudge their wives like, see, come on, woman, that's the word of God. You gotta listen. Come on, that's that's preaching the gospel right there. But then Paul goes into, and that word by the way, that word sub ordinatio is the Latin of the Greek upo tasso. The word tasso is where we get the word ordinatio. It means battle arrangement. A battle arrangement. When I was in Iraq it was a tank battle. We didn't have this urban fighting that we had 10 years after we came back, but we had a tank battle. We had Iraqi tanks out here. We our tanks were here. The cavalry where I was with was over here doing our thing and we saw this battle ray. And Upotasso means to be ordered under. And each group had its own ordering in the military. And that's a and that term also means to be ordered under. It's not about merit. It's about being ordered under and under the protection of. And so you're under the protection of it's being ordered in a battle arrangement. And so a wife should be ordered under the husband and in battle arrangement. And the one who has an office of authority as head of household, as every man has, has two obligations to provide and to protect. Pope Benedict gave three homilies on the priesthood and the three offices of priest as teacher, as healer, and as and governing. And under the governance, it's called the Munus Regende, the the gov the ru the office of ruling, he he rem he reminds the church of Jesus' words to Peter on the Sea of Tiberias. Do you love me? Feed my lambs, tend my sheep. And so the ultimate act of love, if we're entrusted with an office, your job, I'm to give in the global picture here, is to provide and to protect. That's it. Provision and protection. And so Dr. Dan Schneider (51:08.026) You are to take your wife, your children, spiritually, you place them behind you, you hold up your shield, you hold up your gladius, and you say, Over my dead body. That's they're under your protection. That's all it is. And then Saint Paul gives us what that looks like. Husbands, allove your wives. And the word he uses is the same word Jesus used to Peter on the Sea of Tiberius, Agape. We hear a lot of sermons about love and love and Yeah you end up with this idea that Jesus is a sugary Jesus. He's super sweet with skinny jeans and he's got a cool tat and smokes a cigar and and and kind of cool hair and is a nice guy. That's not what Jesus is. Jesus is a warrior, as you said. Divine warrior. That word the divine warrior, we see it in Revelation chapter nineteen. Jesus is on the battle horse, the war horse, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, it says. That word is used 285 times in the Old Testament. God is a warrior, the warrior God. Dominus Deus Sabaoth. We participate that in a spiritual way in our providing and our protecting. And how do we do that? Husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church, handing himself over. So death to self. Do you love me more than these? Right? Do you love me more than these? Do you love me more than these things of your past fishing, your, your, your career, your success, your reputation? Do you love me more than these? Then these guys love me. Right? And then how do we do that? And Peter says, Yeah, I love you, but he doesn't use the same word. Love, agape, is sacrificial. It's a a love that dies unto himself. Love knows knows nothing greater than this to give down, to lay down one's life for one's friends. This is the unique Christian love that the world has not known until the time of Jesus Christ. And that's the love that a man shares. Scripture tells us. Jason M. Craig (52:32.002) Mm-hmm. Dr. Dan Schneider (52:57.968) St. Paul says a woman is saved through childbirth so long as she as so long as she she maintains herself in love, right? So she could so a woman naturally in her body, her especially through childbirth, learns to give of herself. For us, we go home the day of our first child's birth, the moment of conception, but especially when the child is born, you see the mother transformed. She can give in a way that it's hard for men to grasp. We have to make a conscious effort to come up with that same depth of sacrificial love. We don't experience it ontologically like a woman does, which is by by God's glorious nature and this beauty of woman. And so we have to recognize the beauty of woman, the vulnerability of woman, and the children that God has entrusted to us and put to death ourselves. And that's how we do real spiritual battle. And we provide and protect. That's it. Jason M. Craig (53:53.677) Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, there's I wrote a book on rites of passage and the anthropology of it and the Catholic lens of it. And there's essentially two reasons. Well, one, boys are are made into men by men. It's just how it works. But there's two reasons that the anthropologists think. And it's one because women naturally mature through their biological reality, through menstruation and childbirth. They naturally learn how to surrender and give themselves to the to something bigger themselves. Dr. Dan Schneider (53:55.952) That's what it comes down to. Dr. Dan Schneider (54:22.694) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (54:23.404) Boys don't get that. And the second reason is a lot of societies are not in a constant state of war. So without war, no one knows how the boys don't learn how to give themselves sacrificially to the larger whole. So that it becomes necessary for maturity that an experience, a rite of passage, is sort of enacted to both one, to be like to to get the the thing the girls get naturally, ontologically, and to get the things that the soldier gets naturally. That without going into that battle, that warfare, your maturity will not. Dr. Dan Schneider (54:54.46) But but just as it's the the maternal instinct is natural to a woman, it's connatural with her nature. She something about her is instinctively maternal. So in us, our masculine identity is instinctive to us. Something in us beckons us to provide and to protect. It's it's part of our nature. It's part of our right. Which goes against our fallen nature. Our fallen nature says. I don't want to suffer. I don't want to, I don't want to, you we militate against suffering. But our nature, our our authenticity, when you look at yourself in the mirror, when you think of who you are, we want to be challenged, we want to succeed, we want to conquer, right? We we want to win battles. And so we have to take that natural instinct and apply it in the supernatural and the spiritual realm. What's the battle? At the end of the day, you know, God's not when when he calls you home and calls me home, he's not gonna say, Jason, man, what a great podcast. Episode 413, you had so and so on there. What a let's talk about that. How many likes and shares did you have? How my goodness, you had all these Patreons and all this other. He's not gonna ask you that. He's gonna say, Hey, let you know, you grew some nice pigs, but let's talk about those children of yours. And he's gonna say to me the same thing. Hey, your doctoral thesis was fantastic. Chapter three was outstanding. Let's go there. Footnote number 74. How many books did you sell with tan? I heard it was a bestseller. He's not gonna, he's not gonna do that. He's gonna say here. Jason M. Craig (56:09.624) Yeah. Dr. Dan Schneider (56:23.268) I entrusted these for you to provide and protect. That's the global picture. And you have what most men meet need, especially working with veterans, veterans and especially guys that are veter guys that come out of law enforcement or whatever and retiring, they need a mission. They need they need mission. And so when a man loses sight of mission, a f a husband and a father, that's when he that's when the enemy steps in and says, I'm gonna turn your yourself into your Jason M. Craig (56:39.822) Mm-hmm. Dr. Dan Schneider (56:52.642) inward into a selfish thing or I'm gonna make you grab pleasures or success or money or other women or all this other these false realities because we've lost sight of the mission and that mission is get holy and get your family to heaven. That's it. Focus on mission. Jason M. Craig (57:06.766) Yeah. Well, I can I can I can affirm you're absolutely right because this this daily spiritual combat that we're engaged in, you know, you're supposed to forecast where's this battle going to show up. And the more you do it, the more you realize it you it hones in on the places that matter most, the relationship with your wife, relationship with your kids. Dr. Dan Schneider, if you haven't got his book, The Libra Cristo Method, it's a it's a it's what it sounds like. It's a field manual. It's it's not one of those thin little tan books that they publish. It's one of the big ones. thank you for being on the Sword and Spade podcast. If people wanted to follow and keep up with you. What should they do? Dr. Dan Schneider (57:40.048) Yeah, I'm getting ready to put a class I'm getting ready to teach a class on basically going over the manual on the the on the l going over the manual and the lessons with the Holy League Institute. I started this institute with Jesse Romero to start training and equipping today's soldiers, spiritual soldiers for spiritual combat. So I'm getting ready to do a course on that. I'll I'll I'll send you over a link. You can put it in the show notes if you're interested. You can contact me through the information page there as well. Jason M. Craig (58:04.418) Sounds great. Well listen, we're gonna have you within the Fraternist Brotherhood. I was just a week in in the mountains of Tennessee with five hundred men, and they are a very serious guy. We fly under the radar. We don't like to we don't we don't have an Instagram page, so you won't find us on your algorithm. But we'll invite you out and I really appreciate you being on the Swords Spade the Sword and Spade Podcast. Thank you for your time. Dr. Dan Schneider (58:11.909) Excellent. Dr. Dan Schneider (58:21.02) I'd be honored. Yep. All right. God bless you. Thank you, brother.