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Richard Gallagher - Demonic Foes · Vox Novus with Victor Fuhrman

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Vox Novus, the new Voice, Vox Novus, the new Dimension, Vox
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Novus thought and movement leaders who will share from their experience and offer tools to
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help us navigate our rapidly changing world. My name is Victor Fermont. Welcome
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to vax Novus, the New Voice. Successful New York psychiatrist Richard Gallagher was
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skeptical yet intrigued when a hard nosed, no nonsense Catholic priest asked him to
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examine a woman for a possible exorcism. Meeting her, Gallagher was astonished.
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The woman's behavior defied logic. This was not psychosis, Gallagher concluded, it
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was, in his scientific estimation, what could only be described as a paranormal
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ability. The woman wasn't mentally disturbed, she was possessed. This remarkable case
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was the first of many that Gallagher would encounter, sought after today by leaders
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of all faiths, ministers, priests, rabbis, andy moms. Gallagher has
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spent a quarter century studying demonic activity and exorcisms throughout history, and has witnessed
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more cases than any other psychiatrist in the world. Today, he joins me
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this week on bax Novis to share his book Demonic foes my twenty five years
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as a psychiatrist investigating possessions, diabolic attacks and the paranormal. Please join me
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in welcoming to bax Novis doctor Richard Gallagher. Welcome, doctor Gallagher. Well,
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thank you Victim for the introductions. Doctor Gallager. Please share with us
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your formative years and your understanding of matters of faith and spirit. Well,
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I was actually born in New York City, near Columbia University, where I
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remained interestingly on their faculty these days. And I was brought up a Catholic.
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I went to a Jesuit high school, and I went to Princeton where
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I studied classics. I had a scholarship in Latin and Greek, and interestingly,
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you know, as I became very familiar with world history and ancient history,
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you know, I became very impressed how often the whole world essentially,
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you know, believed in evil spirits. So, without any intention of necessarily
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getting involved in the field, I did get intrigued about the phenomena, and
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I eventually I went to medical school and then did my psychiatric training at Yale,
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and then must of my surprise, when I was beginning to be an
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academic psychiatrist. This priest, who turned out to be a very prominent exorcist,
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came to my office one day, a little rumpled looking, and he
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said, doctor Gallagher, you know, I'd like you to consult on a
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case I think is demonic. And you know, I had been through what
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you may remember, Victor as what they called the Satanic panic in the eighties
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and stuff eighties and nineties, where people were seeing Satanists everywhere, and you
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know, I was very familiar with that as a as a clinical psychiatrist,
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which I still am, and so I said to him, well, father,
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I'm a little skeptical of some of that stuff. And he said that.
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He said with a chuckle, Well, then you're the perfect man for
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the job, because he wanted someone who you know, was not overly jelists
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about demonic cases and the rest. So that just happened naturally. He's thought
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it, sending me more and more cases, including a very flamboyant, rare
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Satanist who was dramatically possessed. I was later invited to join what's known as
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the International Association of Exiscists. Again I'm not an exiscist, but as a
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scientific advisor. And then I was asked eventually to write articles and write a
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book. The book is called Demonic Foes. I recount my twenty five years
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of experience with this. Again, keeping in mind you know, I'm a
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mainstream physician or certified. I believe in science. I'm not in any way
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opposed to science. But I've just seen so many of these cases over the
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years, probably more than any physician in the history, and that I felt
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a and was encouraged to put down my findings in a book. Prior to
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this calling, what was your first exposure to anything that might be labeled paranormal
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and how did you react to it? Well, again, growing up,
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it's not like I had any experience with that sort of thing. I between
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college and medical school. Interestingly, my brother reported an experience we were both
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we were both playing basketball in France. I was also a teacher in a
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French high school, and he claimed that he had gone to a local witch
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and that his longstanding warts on his hand had disappeared due to her supposed magical
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incantations. And I told him I was quite skeptical, but sure enough,
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his warts, which he had had for years, disappeared, and he inasably
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attributed it to this to this witch. I'm certainly not in favor of witches,
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and I think people should stay away from him from them. But on
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the other hand, you know, it alerted me that there were some of
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these strange forces that probably were trying to fool us and act like they were
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helping us. Obviously, you read William Peter Blattie's book The Exorcisting, you
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saw the film version of the story. What was your take on this?
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Well, if you think about it, you know, it concerned several interesting
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characters, including the priest who dies at the end, the character of Reagan,
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who was based on a real life case. There were a lot of
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details that were changed, obviously, but it was based on a real life
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case of a boy from Maryland. So you can imagine as I was,
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you know, starting to think of psychiatry as a young man. You know,
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I was in true by the priest who was the assistant exorcist, who
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you know, was also a psychiatrist and came into this a little skeptical and
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then investigated it and this sort of quickly became a believer. So yeah,
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I mean, it not only intrigued me that it had such a great cultural
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impact, but you know, it probably. It probably influenced me in later
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in my professional career to at least be open to this stuff. Prior to
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the experience that you started to allude to, before that opened your interest in
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possession and exorcism, how did you view possession and exorcism? Well, I
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was you know, I was brought up Catholic, so you know, I
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was familiar with the Gospels. I never doubted God, but like a lot
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of college students, you know, I asked a lot of questions about my
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faith. I would say that I was certainly skeptical of the idea that I
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was going to encounter a number of Satanists who are rare, or a number
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of possessions. And I just happened to be in the position victor of hearing
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from people literally from all over the world. So that, you know,
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I've now become convinced, based on my experience that not only are the historical
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reports of these cases very accurate, and in fact, over the centuries,
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the evidence is fairly massive. But in addition, even in modern times,
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these cases still exist. As as as Bladdie himself knew, of course,
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although he didn't have you know, he really didn't have that much experience with
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other cases. In your work and research, did you determine how far back
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the first exorcisms may have taken place, well, as long as there's been
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recorded history. I mean even in some area where historical records began, there
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was belief in evil spirits, and so there were you know, a priestly
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cast who would try to get rid of people who were felt attacked by evil
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spirits. I say evil spirits because you know, there's a lot of different
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beliefs throughout history. You know, some evil spirits being dead souls or ancestors,
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or gods and goddesses. It really wasn't until later Jewish and Christian thinkers
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that people became aware that these will fallen angels who had rebelled against God.
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But there's always been some sort of exorcists in every era of history, impresumably
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in prehistory, and almost all religions, by the way, you know,
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have exisists of their own. Now a lot of times, I would say,
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you know, non Christian religions or associated with a fair amount of superstition
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and misconceptions about what they're dealing with. But there have been exists, whether
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they call themselves that or not, in pretty much all religions. I've come
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across them myself, and we'll touch upon me a little bit later in the
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interview. So you went to Yale, a prestigious Yale Medical school. You
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got your MD and took up psychiatry. And there's a thing called the DSM,
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the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Did that include anything about
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what we're talking about. Well, it doesn't included a possession as a formal
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category. It includes it as a belief that some people might have, and
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then it's sort of a theoretical about it. It's not exactly open to spiritual
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phenomena in that sense. And I understand that, you know, I mean
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certain things can be studied by science and certain things. You know a lot
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of times we use the pseudoscientific term in modern times of the paranormal. This
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stuff really can't be um, you know, pinned down by experience, by
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experiments. The evidence for that, which is not unscientific. The evidence for
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that is really historical. And just as you know, we believe a lot
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of things, like George Washington was the first president. The evidence then depends
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on how sensible and credible is the evidence. But that's that's that's the type
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of knowledge too, and that's really what we're talking about here. Please share
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with us the event that opened your mind on this subject and to the possibility
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that these of were real. Well, the first case that the priest sent
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me to evaluate was a woman who was reporting she and her husband they had
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come like two thousand miles to see me in this priest and she claimed that
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she was literally being beaten up by a spirit. She had bruises all over
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her body. So we did a number of tests on her. We wanted
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to make sure she didn't have any kind of blood clotting disorder anything like that,
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and eventually I had to tell the priest that I thought that this said
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some kind of spiritual or technically what we would call preternatural or diabolic causation,
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that at least it didn't have any typical medical or psychiatric explanation. And he
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said to me, doctor Gallagher, you know that's what that's what That's what
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we believed. But you know, we wanted to get a doctor's opinion because
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we believe this is not a possession but an oppression, which is a you
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know, less serious to mine attack in a possession. So I began to
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be hcome familiar with the different categories. I saw a tremendous amount of cases
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because this priest and his colleague, who wasn't even more prominent exorcist in America
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at the time in the Catholic Church there were very few, you know,
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showed me cases and put me in touch with people all over the all over
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the country, and eventually I was invited. I'm now the longest standing American
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member as a non exorcists but advisor to the International Association of Exorcists. And
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back when this started, did you scare any of this with your colleagues and
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if so, what was their reaction? Well over the years, I really
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haven't gotten into many debates about this thing with colleagues. There are. I
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mean, I'm by no means Victor the only psychiatrist who believes this stuff.
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I mean, I know I know psychiatrists because I go to these international meetings
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from all over the world who believe as I do. And even in America,
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for instance, the former head of the American Psychiatric Association, a fine
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doctor named doctor English who was also a Catholic. I mean, he supported
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my work and he was my chairman at my medical college at the time.
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So it's not like I felt you out of the mainstream or anything. In
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terms of you know, other psychiatrists, yes, I mean we all see
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people who are psychotic, or have dissociative identity disorder, or are very suggestible.
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And you know, it's precisely my job and perhaps the main reason I
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wrote the book to alert people, including people in this field, that they
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have to be careful to rule out medical and psychiatric illnesses. But when people
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say, doctor Galla, has it feel to be out of the mainstream,
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I say, well, first of all, I've never felt particularly discriminated against
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because of this. In other words, we live in a pluralistic country which
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is fairly the tolerant of religious differences, and we of course have freedom or
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religion in this country. But I sometimes say to people, what mainstream are
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you're talking about? You know, if you're talking about the country, a
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majority of Americans still believe in evil spirits. If you talk about the world,
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there's no question. Even in you know, countries like Japan, where
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my book was translated, they believe in evil spirits too, obviously with a
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different theoretical perspective. And then throughout world history, the vast majority of human
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beings have always believed in evil spirits, so of some sort. So,
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you know, I say to people, well, I don't really feel out
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of the mainstream. Using the criteria, I would say, given the majority
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opinion throughout world history, maybe if you're a skeptical you're out of the mainstream.
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We've seen reports and read books about those who are possessed demonstrating feats of
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remarkable strength, use and fluidity of languages unknown to them, and other manifestations.
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What are some that you've encountered and is there any scientific explanation for this?
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Well, again, you have to be careful how you use the word
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scientific. You know, science comes from a Latin word. The Greek equivalent
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was epistamy, which means which is the root of epistemology. I mean there
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is knowledge, and the word science originally meant knowledge. So I do think
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that we know that these phenomena exists. In fact, the historical evidence is
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mass. Just because it can't be subject to an experiment or something like that
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doesn't mean it's untrue. Well, these diagnoses are these discernments, which in
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the Catholic faith are formally made by an exorcist, but often require some help
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from a physician like myself. All these phenomena exists, and what you have
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to see in order to diagnose what we call an extraordinary attack of evil spirit,
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which includes, you know, both possessions and the more common oppressions,
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which sometimes can be harder to figure out, you have to see unequivocal evidence
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of a foreign entity. And that foreign entity, you know, sometimes will
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speak showing tremendous hatred towards religion, towards church, towards God, but it
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will also often exhibit these other remarkable signs which are beyond the powers of natural
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human ability. That's why we call the demonic preternatural, which means beyond natural,
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and that includes things like tremendous strength. I talked to a woman who
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had thrown her Lutheran deacon clear across the room. This was a two hundred
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pound guy. She was about eighty pounds, soaking wet. I've seen I've
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heard people speak all kinds of foreign languages, often to Catholic priest. They'll
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they'll they'll speak in Latin, and you know, since I studied Latin and
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I know what they're saying. I went to an exorcism where the demon had
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put the person into a trance and was speaking, and this person spoke a
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fluent Slavic language. We didn't know what it was until the priest after the
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exorcism said to us, oh, by the way she was speaking to me,
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because my family is from Bulgaria and she was speaking Bulgarian. Just as
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commonly you get these possessed individuals who have what in Latin is called later meaning
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they have hidden knowledge or a cult knowledge of things. So, for instance,
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I dealt with this flamboyant satanist and she knew all kinds of things,
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like about how my mother had died, how other people had died. She
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could even see people at a distance. So she once said to me,
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well, in my third eye, which is a cult language for you know,
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seeing in some special diabolic way, she said, I can see the
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exorcist. And she described him to a t what he was doing. He
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was doing something unusual that day, and she described how he was dressed and
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all that. And I telephoned the exorcist, who had become a good friend
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of mine, and I said, you know, what are you doing today?
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And he said something like, well, who wants to know? And
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I said, just humor me for a while he described exactly what this Satanist
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woman had discerned. It's a again using a pseudoscientific term. It's what the
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parapsychologists call remote viewing. It. It's sort of like a type of clairvoyance.
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And you know, at the end of our conversation, the priest said
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to me, that woman, that woman is something else, isn't she absolutely
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personally? What was the most remarkable of these that you may have witnessed,
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Well, the most remarkable case I saw was precisely that woman. She was
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a very committed Satanist. She was part of a cult. And again I'm
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very careful to always say that there has been subcultural exaggerate ration and hysteria about
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Satanists too. You know, you can't get you can't think that they're hiding
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under every rock or found on every corner. But this woman was the real
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deal. She had a extremely dramatic possession. I spoke to about eight people
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after one of her exiscisms. She had levitated for half an hour. She
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was speaking all kinds of foreign languages. The room suddenly went cold and went
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hot. These were very credible people, I myself was aware of, you
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know, the strange stuff that would surround her because the night before I met
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her, I never met her before. The priest wanted me to meet her,
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and the night before I met her, two cats in our house just
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went berserk. You know, My wife and I were in bed and we
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could not understand why these relatively well behaved cats all of a sudden we're fighting
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and cloying each other like prize fighters. That we had to separate them,
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and you know, we figured why. There must be some cause. The
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very next morning, the priest introduces me to this woman that I called Julia,
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and I describe very well in the book. It's not a real name
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and all identities are hidden, but every fact in my book Demonic Foes is
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literally true. She looks at me and she says, with a smirk,
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the first time she ever met me. She says, well, doctor Gallagher,
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how did you like the cats last night? And that had happened too
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earlier psychologist as well, so I you know, I knew I was dealing
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with the real deal. That that was a pretty eye opener. My guest
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is doctor Richard Gallagher. His book Demonic Foes, my twenty five years as
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a psychiatrist investigating possessions diabolic Attacks and the Parweranormal. Doctor Gallagher, please tell
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our listeners where they can get your book. Well, it's pretty easily available.
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People tell me it's at a lot of the bigger bookstores. Obviously it
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was published by HarperCollins. You can always get it onto HarperCollins website. In
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addition, it's what most people do is it's very very easily available on Amazon.
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And I understand there may be a movie in the offering. Yes,
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you may have heard of Jason Blum. He's kind of a big what they
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call mocker in Hollywood, very prominent producer. He's done a lot of horror
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movies as well as some other very fine movies. And he and I were
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in contact. He said to me, doctor Gallagher, this is the essentially
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the most interesting intellectual property using Hollywood language that he's ever seen. So,
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you know, I agreed to have him make a movie. It's going to
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be directed by a very prominent Hollywood director and screenwriter, Tom McCarthy. So
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I'm pleased with how the development is going. Looking forward to it. My
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guest is doctor Gallagher. His book Demonic Foes. Will be back with more
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after these words on the Home Times Radio network the cutting edge of conscious radio
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hometimes Radio IOMFM. Home Times Magazine is one of the leading online content providers
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scale. Home Times co creating a more conscious lifestyle. Back on Box novis
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my guest this week doctor Richard Gallagher. His book Demonic Foes My twenty five
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years as a psychiatrist investigating possessions, diabolic attacks and the paranormal. Doctor Gallagher,
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what would you say was the most remarkable that you ever personally witnessed the
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most remarkable possession? Well, again, we had been talking Victor about this
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Satanist woman, rare Satanist woman who I think there were so many remarkable stories
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about her. I include her very prominently in the book. I think I
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think I could give you a number of anecdotes that would probably demonstrate you know
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why I thought this was the most dramatic. There was one time I was
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sitting in the car with the exorcist who had introduced me to this field,
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and all of a sudden she and again I called her by a pseudonym,
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Julia. She had. She was sitting in the back of the chair,
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and all of a sudden, in very foul language, her voice changed,
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using her vocal cords, obviously, but she had gone into a trance,
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and this demonic voice came out of her saying, you know, leave her
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alone, you epping monkey priest. And you know, they tend to think
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of us as sort of these evolved the beasts, and far inferior to them.
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That was pretty dramatic. Another time, when the priest was attempting to
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get me to come to one of her exists. I've been to about two
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hundred existisms in my life. But you know, as a busy academic and
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family person, I have to turn down a lot too, just as an
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observer. And you know, while I was talking to the priest on the
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phone in over the phone line this was a land one came that same voice.
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You know, you'll be sorry, leave leave her alone, you you
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know, effing priest, et cetera, et cetera. UM, and that
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was that was pretty shocking. UM. I realized that you know, she
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could even kind of invade my home. Um, it's the only time in
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my life I'm a reasonably calm person. It was the only time in my
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life I've heard I'm sure you've heard the phrase. The hairs on the back
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of your neck went up. Well literally when I heard that voice, the
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hairs on the back of my neck went up. And I said to the
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priest, you know you heard that, right, And he said, of
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course, in a in a incredibly dramatic possession of a Satanist like this,
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Um, all these kind of strange things can happen. It was remarkable too,
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because not only was she a Satanist who told me about her cult,
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but you know, she seemed to trust and respect my opinion. She knew
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she was possessed, as did the priest. I wasn't needing to convince anybody.
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On the other hand, you know, I was there to talk about
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her ambivalence about getting help. And at the same time she said to me,
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you know, doctor Gallagher, you have my permission as long as you
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don't identify, you know, anybody that I'm associated with, family members included,
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you can you know, talk and write about my case. That's one
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of the reasons I've highlighted her too, because she gave me explicit permission.
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Is there another interesting or challenging case you'd care to share with us? Really,
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you have a few hours. This is why I wrote the book Another
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case by contrast, and I say by contrast Victor, because the tragedy of
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this woman, who I called the Satanic Queen because she herself regarded herself as
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the queen of her cult. She had done some grizzly things which I wouldn't
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get into, but she eventually became afraid that the cult was going to harm
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her for trying to get help. She often told me she trusted Satan more
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than she trusted God, who she didn't understand of faustian bargain. If they
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were ever once, whouldn't wart And so she didn't. She dropped out,
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and she eventually died without being delivered. And the reason is because she wanted
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to have her cake and eat it too. Whereas I always emphasized the people
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cuticism is not magic, you know, ultimately it's the prayers of the church
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for our Lord's assistance number one and number two, the person themselves has to
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work at it. They have to renounce their sins. You can't. You
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can't remain a Satanist and expect to be delivered of a possession. By contrast,
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for instance, there was a gangster that I met um and he had
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become you know, prominent in his in his gang, Hispanic American guy.
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He had also turned to Satan. One of these sort of devilish Mexican cults
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sent the worth and he, uh, he got possessed. After after a
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lot of success, which he attributed to his Satan worship, he got caught
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by the police. He got sent to prison, and the clergy person in
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the prison diagnosed him as possessed and started a series of existisms. By the
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time he got out of prison, he was still somewhat possessed. Sometimes these
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things take a long time, and he came to one of the dioceses.
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Catholic Church organizes these things by dioceses, and the exists there had me talk
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to him. But he was by that point very very committed to returning to
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the church. He had been baptized as and as a kid, as had
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as had the Satanist woman by the way, and so he really worked at
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it, and he was eventually delivered. So it just shows the contrast between,
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you know, two different cases. You have to, you know the
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old phrase God helps those who helped themselves. You have to have to renounce
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your past misdeeds and you actually have to turn to our Lord yourself. What
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do you think, based on your research and your work with these people,
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is the attraction to Satanism? Well, you know, people throughout history,
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and I would include a lot of pagan cultures, which the Hebrew Bible,
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the Tanak was very aware that people who turned to the pagan gods in a
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sense, we're doing something demonic. But these these cultures, including their human
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sacrifices, which was not unusual in the pagan world, you know, as
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evidenced by the Aztecs and the Carthaginians and the Phoenicians for instance. These people
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think they get something out of it, and otherwise they're not. It can
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sound foolish, and in one sense, it is foolish to engage with evils
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spirits as you understand that, whether you understand them as you know, fallen
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angels or pagan gods or whatever. Certainly, as Saint Paul thought, and
33:14
just like this Satanist woman I talked about, she liked having her powers and
33:19
she somehow felt after death that Satan would reward her this sort of thing.
33:24
So these are not, you know, totally irrational people. You know,
33:30
we obviously think they're mistaken, and like the fault story, we think it's
33:36
a foolish bargain to get involved with this. But especially in their rebellion against
33:44
you know, traditional morality, you know, whether that's sexual or otherwise,
33:51
they feel that they lead a more liberated life and they feel that they get
33:57
something out of there on a Satanic practice. In many ways, they're unwittingly
34:04
becoming slaves to sin and evil, but you know they're too short sighted to
34:12
see that clearly. In addition to possession, as you had mentioned earlier,
34:16
there is also oppression. What are the similarities and differences between these. There's
34:23
a lot of terminology. You know, some people call oppression vexation and stuff
34:30
because it's it's harder to diagnose. It's can consist of attacks on the senses.
34:40
For instance, in the Gospel, you know, the possessed individual who
34:45
was mute and deaf. I've seen those cases too, where people where people
34:52
get deaf or or have certain communications that they regard as credible hum and at
35:06
the same time, they also can be physically attacked in different ways choked,
35:12
scratched, uh, pummeled as in the first example I gave. So there's
35:17
a wide variety of oppressions. People use different language. They are they are
35:22
a more attenuated form of attack. In other words, possession is where the
35:28
demon at times, uh, you know, they seem to come and go,
35:32
but presumably they're there. Um, they really can control the will of
35:39
the individual. Um. In oppression, they're they're more or less attacking the
35:46
individual without necessary gaining control over the person's will. Some of the same things
35:52
that lead to possession lead to these more limited types of oppression. People may,
36:00
you know, have turned to evil, and people may have gotten involved
36:06
in occultism a serious degree, you know, going to witch doctors or things
36:13
like that, getting involved in highly superstitious activity like trying to channel spirits and
36:21
that sort of thing. So they've they've kind of opened a door, as
36:24
it's often said. So it's a kind of again attenuated possession, but not
36:32
as serious. From your work and experience, how would you define demons?
36:39
Well, I equivocally I think that they're fallen angels who have rebuild against God.
36:45
I mean a's the traditional Christian theological teaching, as you know. But
36:51
I think I have validation for that because I've attended enough exorcisms, victor Or
36:57
that these demons almost always well, they pretty much always lie, but especially
37:07
early on, they generally pretend to be someone else. So in the Jewish
37:13
tradition, for instance, they were often described as dipics, you know,
37:17
dead souls who are harassing people, so they present themselves a dead soul,
37:23
sometimes prominent dead souls, like they may say, you know, they're Hitler
37:28
or their Judas Iscariot or something like that. Other times they have presented in
37:34
even in modern times, I've had a couple of possessed individuals who you know,
37:42
claim to be possessed by by Zeus or some other god like Aphrodite.
37:49
And again it sounds crazy, but you know, they have reason to believe
37:53
that, because the demons who are attacking them are precisely pretending to be those
37:59
entities. It reminds me of the old story of the Delphic Oracle. You
38:05
know, the Delphic oracle was a young peasant woman who would go into a
38:09
trance and out of her mouth would come supposedly the voice of Apollo giving these
38:17
nomic or very dramatic readings and such that people all over the Roman world,
38:27
the Greco Roman world, would would go to consult her. She was possessed,
38:32
and that was a kind of temporary possession, voluntary, And there are
38:37
these different types of possessions as voluntary involuntary. Mostly we encounter people who want
38:44
to help who have it involuntarily. But for instance, the MS thirteen gang
38:50
tends to try to summon spirits, obviously very condemned in the Hebrew Bible,
38:55
and they allow themselves to be taken over by an evil for a while.
39:00
But the point I was making was that despite the fact that they pretend and
39:08
lie that they are all these other kind of entities, Interestingly, in successful
39:14
exitcisms, pretty much invariably they are they are forced again, not by the
39:24
priests, not by the minister, but they are forced by our Lord himself
39:29
to reveal who they really are. And it's not that, not so much
39:34
that that's magical in itself, but what is happening is that they are being
39:38
compelled to tell the truth, which they are reluctant to do because they're exposing
39:45
their identity. And when they expose their identity, They invariably have to acknowledge
39:52
that they're an evil spirit. So you know, that's why I believe that
39:58
they are evil spirits who are forced and angels, because that's what they themselves
40:01
admit. The demons ever asked to repent, ask for forgiveness and healing.
40:08
No, and that's that's why they are estranged from God. You know,
40:12
if they could do that, or if they wanted to do that, they
40:15
wouldn't be where they are. They have chosen to rebelve from God. Now
40:20
again, you and I and a lot of people would say, what a
40:22
foolish choice. And you know, I think some of them think it's was
40:28
a choice that they regret, But they don't regret because they feel that they
40:37
should submit to God's will. And they just regret because they know they're in
40:43
an unhappy place, you know, whatever the society is like, which I
40:49
don't think anybody knows for sure, but it's not a happy place. But
40:52
they've chosen that. And you know, another traditional Christian teaching in this area
40:58
is that people have free will. Nobody has to attempt to follow God's will
41:07
if they don't want to. God doesn't force himself on people and so these
41:10
people have sort of chosen their own fate. My guest is doctor Richard Gallagher,
41:16
his book Demonic Foes, My twenty five years as a Psychiatrist, investigating
41:22
possessions, diabolic attacks and the power normal. We'll be back with more after
41:27
these words from the Own Times radio network. Humanity Healing International is a small
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working tirelessly to bring help to communities with little or no oh. Our projects
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are not broad mandates, nor are they overnight solutions, but they bring the
41:49
reassurance then no one is alone and that someone cares to learn more. Please
41:53
visit Humanity Healing dot org. Humanity Healing is where your heart is. HI.
42:00
This is Belmar. I can find humor in almost anything, but one
42:02
thing I never laugh about. It is cruelty to animals. If you don't
42:06
get the joke either, right, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals five
42:09
on one Front Street in Norfolk, Virginia two three five one back on box
42:24
Novis. My guest this week is doctor Richard Gallagher. We're talking about his
42:29
book Demonic Foes, My twenty five years as a Psychiatrist, investigating possessions,
42:35
diabolic attacks, and the paranormal. Doctor Gallagher, what other forms of paranormal
42:42
experiences have you encountered and investigated and what would you share with us about them?
42:46
You know, in my title, I say that I've investigated the paranormal.
42:51
You know, I originally wanted as a title to say the so called
42:54
paranormal, because the term paranormal is a modern term. In my opinion,
43:00
it's a pseudoscientific term because it doesn't really explain anything, you know, It's
43:05
just sort of this grab bad category of odd things that materialistic science can't explain.
43:12
Now, there are certainly cognitive misperceptions that make people believe in the paranormal.
43:19
There are Charlatan's and hooksters, and sometimes it just misunderstanding about certain phenomena
43:24
that we don't understand well scientifically yet. But it's essentially an anti scientific idea
43:31
that arose in the modern time to describe phenomena that past errors of history put
43:39
in the realm of good or bad spirits. So I and for instance,
43:45
the leaders of the International Association of Exocists, of which I'm not the longest
43:52
American member, we all believe that it's the paranormas a pseudoscientific term, and
43:58
that all genuine as opposed to simply mistaken phenomena, can be interpreted as either
44:06
supernatural. I mean, there are people who are spiritually favored, not by
44:14
themselves, by the way, but simply by by God's gift to have certain
44:21
powers beyond the natural. And pretty much all the rest of the stuff which
44:25
is often scary or frightening, you know, like sort of infestations of ghosts
44:31
and that sort of thing, almost all that stuff is actually dive out.
44:42
And you know, I'm very convinced of that because I've seen many, many
44:46
people who who are channels of spirits, people who have consulted witch doctors or
44:57
fortune tellers, and you know, they often get in trouble. I had
45:00
a woman who came to me and she had been to a fortune teller who
45:05
said, and here is the reality of the paranormal. She said, you
45:09
know, the fortune teller knew all about my history, and you know how
45:15
I would go to go to Central Park with my uncle and we had a
45:21
great time, and she even knew his name. And I said, so,
45:25
so you know what's the problem. She said, Well, the fortune
45:30
teller also told me that I'm never going to get married. This was a
45:35
young woman, she happened to be a physician. She was, you know,
45:37
in her late twenties, and she was devastated by that comment. Uh.
45:44
And you know, basically what I said to her victor was, you
45:46
don't have to believe that. And you know, I told him my view
45:50
that you know, these fortune tellers, they think they're gifted, but you
45:54
know, often they're getting fed information by a nefarious source. And I said,
46:02
the other thing you have to be realized is that evil spirits acting through
46:08
occult practitioners, will often fool them in various ways with all kinds of weird
46:15
ideas. But they also will claim to predict the future, and that evil
46:21
spirits do not know the future. They're very knowledgeable. They may be able
46:25
to make good predictions about the future, but they don't know the future,
46:30
nor do angels, by the way, and human beings certainly don't. The
46:34
only person who knows the future, I believe is God. So yeah,
46:42
there's a tremendous variety of things that have been reported to me. I've never
46:47
really experienced anything paranormal myself, but you know, I've witnessed these possessions and
46:53
oppressions very directly, and obviously I'm witnessing something paranormal in other people. The
47:02
classic paranormal stuff is often the people of houses that are affected by demonic forces,
47:09
and that that's a real phenomena too. You might say, that's the
47:14
third category infestations of the extraordinary attacks of demons, aside from possessions and oppressions.
47:22
So they're dealing with real phenomena. But to act like, you know,
47:31
it's some kind of material phenomena that we don't understand yet is in my
47:38
view, hopelessly naive. People know very well that either this stuff comes from
47:44
God or it comes from demonic sources. Interesting. The Satanist woman that I
47:50
talked about at the beginning, she claimed to have all these psychic powers which
47:57
she had. She could see people at a distance, she knew all kinds
48:00
to facts about you know, my life and the life of pretty much everyone
48:04
she came in contact with, and it was all fed to her, she
48:07
said, by Satan. So she said to me once she goes you know
48:12
these people, these you know, paranormal people, mediums and all that,
48:17
they think they're gifted. And she said, they're not gifted. You know,
48:22
nobody is born gifted, and she areself acknowledged that people either get gifts
48:30
from God or from in her case, she felt from Satan. I've always
48:37
taken that to heart, because I think she was quite astute to recognize that
48:42
there aren't these gifted people. You either get her from a divine source or
48:46
you get her from a demonic source. Many think of exorcism as something within
48:52
the confines of the Catholic Church, but as you share, this is found
48:55
in many faiths. Please tell us a little about the practice and the various
49:00
Protestant denominations Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, others. It's a complicated subject.
49:07
I'm a great lover of history, and again I have a chapter about this
49:09
in the book Victor. It's hard to summarize it briefly, but I would
49:15
say, first of all, there are many good Protestant you know, ministers.
49:22
I usually am more comfortable when clergy does it, who have some successes
49:28
with these kind of cases. But of course they're they're believing just as I
49:31
do. That ultimately it's by the power of God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
49:39
During the time, during more ancient times, including around the time of
49:45
Jesus. Many Jews writers and thinkers. It's even reflected in the Talmud,
49:57
and certainly the Pharisees at the time of Jesus believed in evil spirits and accused
50:02
Jesus of being in league with evil spirits. Some of the what they call
50:08
the inter Testament or literature, or the literature between the end of the Tanach,
50:14
the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament also reflected very sophisticated beliefs about demons
50:22
being fallen angels. So Josephus himself, the Jewish historian, writes about Jewish
50:29
exorcists, and it's quite clear that even though Jesus amazed people with his power,
50:37
you know that the Jewish inhabitants. Of course he was Jewish himself.
50:44
The Jewish inhabitants at that time definitely believed in exorcism. I've talked to people
50:50
in other religions too, Hinduism, Islam, I guess would be prominent,
50:57
and even in the pagan cultures of East Asia they will often have different sort
51:04
of priestly figures who are in the case of the Muslims and moms who definitely,
51:14
you know, can achieve some positive results if they're you know, if
51:16
there is a good person, I don't think it's a I don't think it's
51:24
completely unimportant. However, that you know, when when Hollywood does these movies,
51:31
they often you know, take it as as the original existence, as
51:37
focusing on the powers of the Catholic existence. Catholic exists tend to have what
51:44
you might call a lot of quality control. In other words, they're very
51:46
selective. Who they choose has to be a person who's knowledgeable and sensible and
51:54
very holy. Uh. They have to go through a training period that's rigorous.
52:01
They certainly need to make sure that they have proper discernment themselves as well
52:08
as you know, the humility to turn to doctors, say when it's necessary
52:14
to make a difficult diagnosis. So they tend I think this can sound chauvinistic
52:23
for me to say as a Catholic, but they tend to have I think
52:27
the most success, especially with the more dramatic cases. If someone genuinely thinks
52:34
that they are a family member may be dealing with possession or oppression, what
52:38
would you recommend they do if they try to find a local clergy person who
52:45
is knowledgeable about this, you know, whatever their religion. I mean,
52:50
certainly a Catholic priest, little known sometimes even by themselves, they are supposed
52:58
to deal with cases even outside the Catholic religion if someone comes to them from
53:02
for help. And again the exorcism ministry, which has to be approved by
53:07
a formal process through the bishop, it tends to be organized, so people
53:20
could could approach the local diocese or probably more frequently people will you know,
53:27
try to first talk to someone in their own church, clergy person they respect,
53:38
and of course, you know, in many cases they have to make
53:42
sure that they have ruled out medical illness, so they may well need to
53:47
go to a physician. I mean. The trouble is, you know,
53:52
some physicians are very open to these ideas and some aren't. What would you
53:55
like readers to take away from Demonic Foes? Well, I really wrote it
54:01
for two purposes. I wrote it to educate people who have direct involvement in
54:07
this field. But I also wrote it for the educated book to understand better
54:14
this convoluted subject. Certainly as a you know, as a full professor of
54:20
psychiatry at a couple of medical schools, you know, I'm also very aware
54:28
that you know, people have to accept that many people with medical or psychiatric
54:36
illnesses in the past, sometimes people with epilepsy, for instance, that are
54:40
better diagnosed nowadays, but often in modern times, people with different psychiatric disorders,
54:46
who will loucinate, who may have multiple personality now called associative identity disorder,
54:55
or who are extremely suggestible or manipulated by people into leaving they have demonic
55:00
attacks. You know, the majority of those people do not, and so
55:07
sometimes, you know, the most sensible first step might be just to get
55:10
a doctor's opinion. I think people have to be very rigorous about this stuff.
55:15
I mean, they have to be scientific. I'm a scientist, you
55:20
know, I believe in the Big Bang and all that, and I'm not
55:23
a fundamentalist in that sense. And the other aim of the book is to,
55:29
you know, present it as a scientifically credible subject. My guest is
55:34
doctor Richard Gallagher, his book Demonic Foes my twenty five years as a psychiatrist
55:39
investigating possessions, diabolic attacks, and the paranormal. Doctor Gallagher, one more
55:45
time, please tell our listeners where they can get your book. It's a
55:47
book that you know, you can get at most bookstores from Harpercollin's website itself
55:54
the easiest way, as people do for many books these days, just to
56:00
get it on Amazon, where apparently it's selling quite well. Doctor Gelerga,
56:06
thank you so much for joining us and sharing this fascinating story. You're welcome,
56:10
Victor, thank you for a thoughtful interview, and thank you for joining
56:14
us on Box Novis. I'm Victor the Voice Furman. Have a wonderful week.