Those the hell.

All right, Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.

This is doctor David Patrick, carry with Church of the Eternal Logos, and today I am joined by Father John Valadez.

How are you doing today, sir.

I'm well, Thank God, it's good to be here with you.

Well, thank you for joining me.

I truly appreciate you taking the time.

I know how busy you guys are.

I've heard in previous interviews.

You guys do services six days a week except for Monday, right, So yeah, that's right.

So I'm sure you got other things to do today.

So we're going to try to keep today's conversation to about an hour long.

And I got tons of questions that I wanted to ask her.

I thought maybe before we start getting into the weeds of spiritual warfare and demon's contemporary culture.

For anybody who may not be aware of you, I'm sure most of my audience already is with all your interviews and then your relationship to Death to the World magazine, would you mind introducing yourself just in case anybody watching this may not be familiar with your background.

Sure, I'm Father John here, I'm an antioch In priest the antioin arch Diocese in America, serving in California, in a little town called Lompoc.

It's just right on the central coast of California here, and I helped run Death to the World magazine and the Echnicron podcast that's associated with it and things like that.

So great.

So one of the things that I am curious about.

We're going to be diving into a lot of different stuff.

But the topic I was talking with Father john about backstage was he had a really good conversation with Buck Johnson over on Counterflow about spiritual warfare and things like that.

Well that was back in March.

Now we're approaching October first tomorrow, and it feels like every day as a whirlwind in America.

There's so much happening.

It feels like time is moving at a credibly fast speed.

I think it's because of all the information we're taking in through smartphones and everything that it alters and distorts our perception of time.

But what is your perspective on American culture, Western civilization, and the grand picture of spiritual warfare right now?

I mean, it appears obviously there's political aspects to it, cultural aspects, abortion in America, but how are you seeing because I know that your church is exploding as well, all the young men coming.

It seems like the hot topic right now is sort of spiritual warfare and demons and possession, especially in the wake of Charlie Kirk.

Do you you mind kind of sharing some of your thoughts.

I know that was a very broad yeah to be introduced on, but I think it allows us to get into something more specific.

Yeah.

Well, I think the first thing is we've been going through some of Father Sarah from survival course here in the parish, and what he really narrows down to the nugget of where Western civilization has gone wrong is in the schism itself right ten fifty four and things sort of devolving in the West since that time, and that we've inherited these various movements trying to build a new man or a new age and we've to usher in this or that or whatever it may be.

And so we've we've.

We've departed from orthodoxy in the West, and that is the root of our problem, right.

So it's a change from purification and illumination, deification and receiving revelation through an asthetic way of life to this sort of unbalanced intellectual man, you know, and this gives into what you were talking about about how we have so much information this age, and it's just warping our perception of time, reality, everything right.

And so that life of asceticism is really key in order for us to understand the world that we live in now.

Liturgy is very key in understanding what is going on right now and being familiar with the hymns of the church and the lives of the saints, and it's so important to be initiated into the church calendar.

So the church calendar rules our life, you know, it guides our life.

It gives us a focal point and a way to interpret what is going on around us.

You know, we have to be aware of those kinds of things.

And you know, we saw it in twenty twenty for instance, with with with various things that happened around COVID and the supposed coincidences that happened between church calendar and also public life, just inversions of what was going on.

For instance, you know, we had.

During the George Floyd stuff that was you know, kind of characterized by bowing the knee.

We had Penta that same week, which was the kneeling prayers and kinds of things like how do we how do we inter what's going on around us if we don't have the Church to guide us and and kind of have this broader perspective of what is.

Going on spiritually, you know.

Because while the world might have been ignorant of pentecostal and kneeling prayers, the demons are definitely not ignorant of That's what we see happening in the world around us today, these various inversions.

So it's very, very important for us to be in liturgy, to be practicing liturgy in our daily lives, that is, taking taking what we have in the church and working at at home in our own homes and in our own personal lives and in our workplaces and all those kinds of things, and in order for us to stay on a royal and strict path.

Right, what are your what's your perspective on what it seems to be a ramp up on anti Christian sentiments, not just Western civilization, but specifically in America, and in the context of Western civilization, America has always been casted as those are the people that still hold onto their Bible and guns, and you know, their country, right, you talk to European like, you know, we're kind of done with that stuff, you guys are you know, you're about a century late.

But that's kind of the American identity.

But now it feels like that there's kind of a shift in American culture where the anti Christian sentiments are more vocal.

And we saw, unfortunately, a young Orthodox girl who's attending the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minnesota that got shot up by a transhooter, which appeared if you saw some of the writings on the gun, somebody's very schizophrenic, somebody who supposedly didn't know Russian but was drawing cartoons in Russian language of themselves being a demon, of them talking about a sort of demonic possession, it appeared.

What are your thoughts on the sort of contemporary landscape in American culture and what appears to be a shift in sentiments regarding Christianity or even in this being a Protestant maybe mesnic, but Protestant nation in origin.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, I would just say that the American Christian experiment has failed, right, you know, and I think that's I think we're witnessing the fallout of that, you know, I was.

I grew up during you know, the late eighties, nineties and early two thousands, and I guess the early two thousands of late nineties would kind of be like the crash of Christian moralism in America.

You know.

Hm, oh, I think we lost Father John Bother you hear me?

There you go.

It's this fallout that we're experiencing.

Did I did I disappear?

Yeah?

You did?

I think You're sorry?

Yeah?

Yeah that my I live in places like five years behind everything else on my Internet is like not the greatest, which is which is good in other.

Aspects, as we just talked about, and as you're talking about right now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know where I left where I left off, but I think I think we we are experiencing the fallout of a of a failed American experiment and.

A failed.

Like trumping of Christian morality, you know, of just a Christian morale that really crashed in the in the late nineties, and and so I think that's where we're at.

Really, what do you what are your thoughts?

Uh?

I know this is kind of not specifically related to spiritual warfare, but your thoughts on the big headline in the news as of late, which is the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Father Josiah Trinham was on the Tucker Carlson podcast on his YouTube channel in them in his memorial stream, which I thought was incredible that the only religious figure that was on there was an Orthodox priest.

And he had Father John Strickland on his show on like Real American News where they were talking about Orthodoxy, and it's been come out that the last two months of Charlie Kirk's life, he was his wife was Catholic or is Catholic, and he was kind of debating between Orthodoxy and Catholicism and seeing sort of some of the historical and ecclesiological problems with his Protestant Evangelical faith.

What are your thoughts on the cultural significance of that.

I've talked with and I mentioned this to you backstage.

A handful of these were women, There were wives of my buddies, but they feel like there's like this Christian revival after the memorial service of Charlie Kirk.

And from an Orthodox perspective, especially as clergy, what are you how are you viewing as we said this sort of failed American experiment.

Is what is the phenomenon that's occurring and is Charlie Kirk related to this?

Yeah, I mean, it's an absolutely horrendous thing that happened, and it is the conclusion of the way that our culture has been supposedly progressing.

It's the outcome.

However, I think that we have to be a little bit careful as Orthodox as well and looking at what's going on because and this is not to downplay Charlie Kirk at all, because it seems like he was a really was a true seeker of Christ.

He was a person who spoke about Christ boldly.

He's the one who gave courage to a lot of young men and women who had lost their voice at college campuses and these kinds of things.

And so it's not to downplay anything about him.

But in the Church, we do have a specific category for martyrs.

There's only certain people who are martyrs, and the fathers say that the martyrs don't exist outside of the church, right, you know, So we have to be careful in not getting sucked in too deeply to the.

I don't know.

What is going on as far as, like you know, relates to a veneration of a person, you know, But and and what surrounds that sometimes too, because the the other side of it, you know, we have this left side that's anti Christian and their voices getting louder, et cetera.

But on the other side of it, there's also a want to return to moralism and Christian identity and things like this that, on the other hand, can be just as dangerous.

Right.

You know, there's a lot of traditional Orthodox people who talk about ecumenism on the left, you know, the bishops and stuff, kissing the Pope's ring and et cetera, et cetera.

But on the right hand, we also have this, you know, wanting to unite all Christians together to you know, help revive sort of a moralistic type of society under defined by Christian morals and things like that.

And we have to be really careful about this kind of stuff too, because these moralistic plans that happened in the eighties they flopped on their face.

Right, it's Orthodoxy.

That's what we're missing.

Orthodoxy.

We're we're missing authentic spiritual life and the problems that we see around us.

Of course, we know from from history and from the Church's teachings.

They're not going to be solved by political leader on the right or a political leader on the left.

Where we're in a place where we have completely demolished all and dismantled just all aspects of authentic spirituality, and that is the aesthetical life, you know, and and the liturgical life in the church.

So this is the only place that we're going to find answers and the only place that we're going to be able to have any sort of in a spiritual sense, you know.

And with that in that environment, in our cultural context, it seems like in maybe I'm wrong, but I believe that you're sort of in the punk scene in the eighties, you know, the whole Satanic panic and things that went on during that period.

Where now, and maybe I'm wrong, but with the gender ideology, with things going on in culture, and also with Zionism, it feels like spiritual possession is ramping up.

And I've talked about I don't know if you ever saw the movie Nefarious.

Have you ever seen that movie?

No?

So I do recommend we watched it in our men's group at our parish.

But it's actually it's done by these Protestants it's actually Glenn Beck's like Angel films.

I think they did Sound of Freedom, but it's about a man on death row who is possessed by a demon and the psychologist who's coming to interview him to declare that he's mentally fit to be executed, is engaging this man, but he's talking to the demon, and the demon's trying to convince him of what the reality is and he gals on this whole feel about possession.

And that's one of the things I've been trying to talk to young people about, or especially people entering the Orthodox Church, of how how do we even understand what spiritual warfare is and it not being, as you mentioned backstage, this sort of paranormal phenomenon.

We don't look for things moving and poltergeist to identify that spiritual warfare is real or that you're being attacked.

It begins with your passions.

It begins with the mental images the logiz me are that you then are triggering through your body, having a bodily physical response to these temptations, and then you consenting to it, and that process being a continuum that ultimately leads to full on demonic possession where you almost have no human agency anymore, because through your agency you have given you've said yes too many times to the demons.

Could you speak a little bit about how we as Orthodox Christians understand demonic possession and what that process is and it being a real thing.

This isn't you know, This isn't like the movie Fallen where somebody touches you with the with the you know, the demon spirit, and all of a sudden, that person's possessed.

No, this is a willful exchange.

Yeah, yeah, it's a it's it's a granting of permission on the part of an individual.

You know, Spiritual warfare is happening around us all of the time, all of the time.

It's in us all of the time.

The Fathers say that the battlefield is the heart of man right, and like you said, it all begins with the thoughts.

And these thoughts first begin as temptations or whisperings, and they become coupled, as the Fathers say, or we begin to dialogue with them and become actions.

And there's this whole path that the Father's talk about as it gets progressively worse and worse.

When a passion becomes a passion is when we're basically a dick to are possessed.

By that inclination, you know.

And the work of the church is to help to root out those passions, to heal us of the passions so that we can become free.

While the world teaches us that the passions are what defines us and what grants us freedom.

We know in the Church and through human history as well, and even in modern history of course, that the passions leave to really enter in slate, enter enslavement, right, slavery of the heart, and demonic possession is it is something that takes place when a person consents by will over and over again to the passions, but also takes it step forward further in engagement with the devil and the demons, and that is really where the tables can turn right.

And of course we see in the past ten years an explosion and interest in the occult, and that was really that was really exacerbated by Covid itself and Father Seraphim kind of traces is through history too.

Whenever there's a lean to like materialistic science or supposed materialistic science, there's a void that is created and people go the other way into an interest into the occult and paranormal experience and science.

He begins to.

Lean towards that way and even give authority to paranormal experience.

And we see with the UFOs in the past five years or whatever, unleaking of documents and paranormal activity, and now science is, you know, exploring these things, et cetera, et cetera.

The spiritualization of quantum mechanics as a way.

You know, there's there's no bad beings, but but quantum physics now says that we can contact non local intelligence.

Right yeah, yeah, or just the interdimensional theory.

You know that these beings can move through time and space different than we can, and but they're all they're always around us.

You know, they're basically using the terminology that the Fathers use for the demons, but in in kind of a materialistic science type of way, without admitting to God, to without admitting to spiritual warfare and the existence of demons and these kinds of things.

And but anyway, it's this opening of the occult.

You know, it grants permission to the devil, grants to the devil.

And we saw it even with this Charlie Kirk thing.

You know that that.

That story that came out on Jezebel about a writer hiring which is to cast curses on Charlie Kirk, and these kinds of things just days before his assassination, and those sorts of things, and people talking about it now online.

And I mean, of course, what we what we have to remember too, is that that God is more powerful than these things, and the and and the movement towards repentance is is more powerful.

And Saint Payicio Stephen says, you know that that the devil is like a rabbit dog with no teeth, you know.

So how we combat these kinds of things in our life is too is to be prayerful people, to be living the liturgy, to be immersed in the holy scriptures, and to be vigilant, you know, living a life of repentance.

It's you know, there's a there's a story from the life of Saint Porphurios where he's in his hospital room talking to another talk to a manner disciple about the anti Christ and six sixty six and things like that, and Sampasus asks him to come sit on his hospital bed with him, and the bed has no room, and so the guy says, I can't sit down, you know, with you, elder, and and and he and he says, if I get up and move away, will be able to sit down.

He says, well, of course I would be able to sit down.

And he says, simple Fear says, you know, it's the same thing with the Antichrist.

If we have Christ him throned on the heart, the anti Christ can't sit down.

And so this is the work of the people of the last times and in these ages, is to have Christ always enthroned in the heart, so that there isn't room for the devil to sit down.

There isn't room for the Antichrist to sit down.

And so that that is our work, you know.

And he he, you know, it's been quoted over and over from him, you know, to good work and evil be you know, as does some some virt you you know, we forget about enacting virtue, just trying to get away from like the bad things in our life, but not accumulating the good things, you know, in our life that should be in our life.

So right, well, you made you made a point that i'd want to I want to follow up on.

Uh.

You mentioned the sacraments, and I've made the argument before that because Protestantism is not a sacramental faith.

It's more of an ideology, and in that sense, it competes with communism, it competes with capitalism, it competes with you know, these other forms of ideologies to sort of rationally convince somebody that this is your ideology.

But when it comes to spiritual warfare and demonic attacks, because of the lack of sacraments, they are not operating at the same spiritual level that the occult is.

Because part of the occult and what you do in rituals, the same thing with the ritual that the witches did, is that you imbue matter with spiritual properties, and it could be your own will, could be some exchange, could be a conjuration.

But that is why the sacraments of the church are so important, because that is how we commune back with God and he infuses himself in the material world that he's already sanctified.

Could you speak to that line of thought in regards to the presence of I mean America, give me in relationship to the importance of the sacraments.

Why America in the context we are now is so filled with demonic activity?

Could be Hollywood, can be all these different things go ahead.

Yeah, that.

The purpose that man was created for us for liturgy, that's his purpose.

You know.

The Fathers and interpreting Genesis say that we are both physically and spiritual beings, that we exist above the earth, a little lower than the angels, and that the service that man offers, like the definition of his personality, is to take the things of the earth and to sanctify them and bring them to the heavens, and to bring down the heavens upon the earth to bless the earth.

Right, we are this intermediate intercessor between creation and the Lord.

And so in the divine Liturgy, at the peak of the Divine Liturgy, in the Anaphora, we lift up the gifts of thine own right, and we take what is of the earth and make it something that is of the heavens, the body and blood of Christ.

So this is the purpose of man, you know, and liturgy fulfills his ultimate purpose.

But like we had talked about before, there's inversions, and the demons are so happy to oblige those perversions and inversions of what what we are created to be.

And so yeah, yeah, okay, we participant.

Defind.

Thank Father John just cut out again.

He told me that his parish has pretty slow internet.

So bear with us today, guys.

Okay, I cut out again, Yeah you did, You're back.

That's okay, Okay, what did I leave off at.

You're leaving off about You're talking about the liturgy being the work of the people and the te lows of mankind itself, and we were kind of discussing that the Protestant foundation, the experiment that you laid out in America, is allowing for all these inversions of the true faith.

And when you were talking about COVID, the first thing that I thought about was, I remember we all missed Pasca because Pasco was in April in twenty twenty, and it's like, instead of communion with each other in a celebration and joy for the resurrection of Christ, everybody was terrified, in fear, isolated and separated from everyone else.

So it goes to your general point about this sort of inversion with the turgical calendar.

But continue your point about the sacraments and as a sort of antidote to the demonic.

Yeah, you know, see, Maximus says, they is that everything is sanctified, even the trees outside of the church.

So when we see when we cease liturgy.

We see fulfilling our our purpose as human beings, and we do not bless and we're not called down heaven.

And it shouldn't be any surprise to any Orthodox Christian who has a conscience that we're at where we're at today, where things have escalated so much in five years or whatever since since this time of COVID, because we, many of us, were told not to open our churches and not to celebrate liturgy, and not to make processions, and not to anoint people, and not to do whole junction.

I mean, these things are.

Already even rasist.

They were pushing us.

You use, yes, well, so there's a whole assault on the Eucharist, and that that had definitely that opens the gate.

You know, it gives room for the devil.

It gives room for the devil, gives permission to the devil.

And that's an unfortunate thing that happened.

But we have to claim back spiritual ground through an issa and liturgy and by living a sacramental life.

You know, what you said about Protestantism is very true because it is an ideology.

I was at a monastery and a monk was kind of we were dipping candles and it was quiet, and he had a thought that he had been thinking about.

He said, you know, why does the Lord say your faith has made you well?

You know when he heals a few different people in the gospels that your faith has made you well.

And he asked me, like, what do you think about the word faith, Like what does that mean?

You know, why is it the faith that has made you well?

And we got to talking, and another brother was there, and we started talking about how this faith is more akin to being faithful to one's spouse than it is about an ideology.

Right, So in Protestantism, that faith many times is the acceptance of an ideology that I accept to this person as my spouse because they're.

A there was a service, you know.

These other kinds of things, and we miss out on the actual faithfulness, which when one is faithful to their spouse, it means they remember their spouse, it means they love their spouse.

It means when they're away from their spouse, they battle any kind of thought or temptation that would deprive oneself of the memory of their spouse.

All these kinds of things, and it's it's an aesthetical labor, right, it's an acetical labor.

That faithfulness is an ascetical labor, and so the same thing is with our faith in Christ.

It's an ascetical labor.

It is a sacramental labor.

It's not just about accepting an ideology.

It's about really living.

That ideal.

That that I that faithfulness, not ideology, that faithfulness into one's last breath or into the shedding of blood.

You know, well, speaking of ideology, please correct me if I'm wrong, But my understanding as well is that possession can occur through the belief in lies.

Right, so obviously Satan is the father of lies.

But when we're looking at the American landscape right now, and you talked about the radical left or the radical right, that I would say the commonality between both, despite their prescriptions for the world being very different, is that they've adopted a belief or an ideology that sort of trumps all things.

And as you're talking about with Christ, this is not an ideology.

This is a relationship with a person, and so your ideology really plays no role in your relationship with Christ.

But in the information age which we're in, which is sort of the age of Hermes, I would say, or the god of Mercury or something like that, the wisdom deity of the pagan pantheon.

People are just constantly looking for new ideologies and new things to believe in, and I think that's one of the things that makes people more susceptible to demonic possession.

Just like Tyler Robinson with Charlie Kirk, at least what we're told by Cash Mattel and the FBI is he was upset about his comments about transgenders and how you know, just to get into a place where you think that your boyfriend who has a penis is your girlfriend because they're in the process of taking hormones, totally divorced from reality.

It's like there's a there's a filter on their experience of the world, that is, that is, everything is filtered through a demonic ideology.

Yeah, it's a it's a spell.

Yeah, that's what spells are.

Right, Yeah, it's a magic spell.

And these lies are spells.

They really are spells.

And in the real sense of the word, not like a weird Disney you know, witch casting a wand around, but it is it is a spell on the in the real sense of the word, because it does deprive one of and alters one's reality.

Yeah, and you see the response from people who won.

You know, one of the things with Striking was how people celebrated the day of and speaking of like these magic spells, they're their glee, and their comments that because he spoke violence meaning uh, you know, not being supportive of trans or speaking about crime statistics, that that was verbal violence.

And then that four then allows for physical violence, and that again that that inability to parse like reality and the difference between a words.

But if there, as we talked about, are under a magic spell, any any verbal opposition, that really is a threat.

And I think that's what It almost sparks a demonic reaction against something that sort of moves against the spell that many people are under.

And it could be Zionism.

I mean we're seeing that too on the right wing.

Right right, right, yeah, I mean we live in a time where we are defined supposedly, supposed to be defined by our the inner self, right, which is a total twisted reconstruction of the human being.

Right in the in the ancient world, the one was defined by their nation, their tradition, their family.

All of those things have been obliterated in modern culture and kind of replaced with this idea of self that what is on the inside should match what is on the outside.

It's a complete inversion of how our ancestors lived and when when when reality does not eat too.

M hm.

Mm hmm, then.

Sorry, you're right there, yeah, yeah, your your images froz.

If you want, father, you could turn off your camera and it may not cut out just because there's not so much data would be going through your WiFi.

Might be beneficial.

I was saying that when this inner inner self, yeah, if this, if this inner reality doesn't line up with what is actual reality, this inner self is in line up with what is actual reality, you know, the the marching orders or what we have been taught because of various philosophies, is that we have to change what is on the xterior to match what is on the interior, and that that is it's totally an inversion of of kind of a more traditional way of life.

And so we see these attacks, right, we see these attacks that happen, even violence used to to try to uh create a totally different.

Type of culture or mm hmmm mm hmm.

Yes you there, I'm back, father, No, you're you mind turning off your camera.

I think that you won't cut out if it's just audio that I've done that.

Actually I've done that with another priest who had the same exact problem.

There we go.

I think I think from there you should be good because the video data shouldn't go through the WiFi.

That's okay, Okay.

Would you like to finish your thought or there we already moved past lost your thread?

Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know where.

I don't know where we cut off at.

But okay, well I had a follow up question and I'm curious what your thoughts are, and I thought, I think think this is a reference actually to Father Sarah from Rose.

So correct me if I'm wrong.

But the idea is the spiritual conditions that led to Christian persecution during the early Church are going to kind of be inverted towards the end.

Many people, you know, especially Metropolitan Neo photos of Morphu, has been talking about some of the prophecies and in times the Great World War, which appears like it could be popping off any point.

Of course, we're Orthodox, so we don't use, you know, calendars and make grand claims about the end times or anything like that.

But what are your thoughts on the spiritual landscape for a faithful Orthodox Christian in the year twenty twenty five in the Western world in comparison to like the early Church.

You do you see that this is one of the more challenging periods.

Yeah, it is, and I but I would really also emphasize writings like saying nature Brancheatanoff who talks about the end times being a clandestine war against.

The Christian.

And Father Seraphim talking also about how the psychological trials of those in the end times will be equal to our greater than.

The martyrs of old.

Right, So it's something we have to keep in mind too that this clandestine persecution is not creeping into our ideology.

It's not leading us away.

From the church, away from prayer life and those kinds of things.

But you know, I would really say that what we had talked about before with sat Porphyrios and having Christ enthroned on the heart, these are the things that we really have to focus on, because you know, if there's temptations for one to sort of be anxious or get riled up about the end times, it can also be a point of departure from genuine church life.

When we are passionate about something, which means we're anxious about some angry angry about something, then we're easily swept away with the current of the times.

So it's important for us to be on guard like that as well, and just make sure that we're living in the church by calendar, immersed in the lives of the saints and our private prayers and things like that.

You know, there's you know, one isn't going to going to like figure out who the Antichrist is and fight him and all these other kinds of things that one can't fast on a Wednesday and a Friday.

Right, Let's let's.

Start, you know, my father Seraphon was very big on this.

You know, like, let's realize where we are as Western Christians, how deprived we are of a genuine spiritual life, and where our starting point is, which is very low compared to people of the past.

Let's be honest with ourselves, and we need to start at the basics.

If we can't fulfill the basics, then what does.

It really matter?

You know, what does it really matter?

And those those ways.

That is exactly what I've been telling, uh, because I have done streams on on eschatology or for Orthodox but I always talk about the streams, and in the difference I would argue between all the eeschological visions of our elders of the church is it's always a callback to repentance.

And I always tell people who watch those streams that this is not about anxiety, you know, causing any body anxiety.

If you're prone to anxiety, do not watch these things.

These are not necessary for your salvation.

These Yes, it's useful to be able to perceive the signs of the times, which is really with the point of these conversations and the discussions about the escaton.

And certainly things are occurring in the world that are lining up with things that Saint Paisio spoke about in the eighties and nineties.

But if you're prone to anxiety, that is also part of the spiritual warfare.

And I've noticed too that young men are so anxious about spiritual warfare they don't realize that the anxiety they have about it is part of the spiritual warfare.

Yes, absolutely, absolutely, everything should be a callback to repentance.

Everything everything, So I do think, especially in the information age, when you talked about the psychological persecution, that Father Sarah from Rose mentioned it seems like the with our smartphones and our black mirrors and our hands and even you know, computers, just like we're doing now.

Obviously technology is a neutral medium, but it's also a useful medium for people to exert their will through it and in a demonic and negative way.

And so people are so inundated in information.

I think Father Sarah from Rose is totally accurate.

And he wrote that before the Internet, that people are so psychologically persecuted.

And you you know, and I notice it myself.

So I scroll on X and when I see an illegal murdered somebody or another truck driver that you know doesn't have citizenship runs you know, causes it.

It angers me.

I can feel it inside of myself when I when I see Islam, when I see the call to prayer in America, it bothers me at a very visceral level.

And I and that is part of the spiritual warfare, and you can't really get away from it.

You need to be as we as Orthodox critin need to become more conscious of the things that disturb our inner peace.

Yes, yes, absolutely, when when we give into our passions, we become malleable to the devil.

Oh, that's great, that which is even with the people that want to be violent in response for the Charlie Kirk thing, it's like that.

I get the sentiment of revenge and vengeance, but that is not going to move anything forward and where we're trying to go.

But at the same time, when you look at you know, my wife is from Germany, when you look at what's going on in Europe in America, it just feels like it's a powder keg getting ready to explode with physical violence because I don't see you know, somebody, you know, like Germany is not as bad as England, but you look at England or the city of London, how do they get out of that situation?

And I do think it's a demonic spirit that has essentially disenfranchised people from their native lands.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The destruction of the family, the destruction of the country, the destruction of tradition, you know, and it really all stems from the departure from Christianity.

It's it's the end result of of dismantling, you know, the Christian consciousness of a country.

Do you do you if you looking at the American context, what what do you what do you see moving forward, Because at the same time, there's so much optimism with the influx of people into the Orthodox Church.

It's almost a problem.

I've talked with so many priests.

Every priest I've talked to says that their church is growing at a rapid rate, so much so that they don't have enough clergy to actually service everybody.

You know, obviously people that or Orthodox are communing, but the problem is just the logistics of everything.

So there's this irony, this deep irony that's occurring right now, is that Orthodoxy is sort of emerging in the mainstream consciousness of America, in the Western world, I'd say again in Germany, lots of people are becoming Orthodox.

I think Austria is like ten percent Orthodox now.

So you see a response for people that are looking for a spiritual out of the cultural environment they're in, me are finding Orthodoxy is something that does exactly what you're talking about, allows a return back to a historical identity, protection of faith, family, country, all these things are kind of built into it.

And so what are your thoughts on both the things that we talked about, the deleterious and dangerous spiritual state of the West, and at the same time, as Christianity has always thrived under persecution, so many young people are becoming Orthodox right now.

Yeah, because there's the culture has let them down, No, and there's Father Seraphim said there's there's no other escape except for Christ.

And we see the rotten corpses of those who have gone down other alleys paraphrasing him.

So this return, it's optimistic.

It's wonderful to see Orthodoxy in the forefront many different avenues.

But we just have to make sure that true asceticism is being emphasized and repentance is being emphasized, and that the rebellion against the culture doesn't just stop at embracing something that's so counter to it, like the Church and the Fathers, but that that rebellion has to continue to work on the inner man and to begin to weed out and recognize the aspects of culture that influence each and every one of us.

What are you seeing about the young men coming to your parish about the sincerity for the transformation of the inner man?

Are they open to it?

Are you seeing some resistance that that Orthodoxy is a sort of countercultural narrative that they see is appealing kind of like punk rock was in the eighties, But what are you seeing in your pastoral work.

They're open to it, but the they're also very malnourished.

You know, people are very malnourished.

And Father Seraphim talked about this too, and you know, he would have people read David Copperfield and things like this because he felt like people didn't even know how to be humans, So how can I teach them to like ascend mount table or something.

So you know, that rings very true in parish context.

People coming in that, you know, they like they can't can't like make meals for themselves, or or can't wake up to an alarm clock without it being their phone and being on the first thing and the last thing they do before they go to sleep, you know.

And there's things like this that we have to prime a person for the for the ascetical life or a higher life in the church.

First, we have to prime them first before they can you know, before they can even begin to crawl into walk.

There's a lot of milk that has to be fed today in other words, and that that there is a big fervor for conservatis, you know, and that's good in some respects of course, but like I said, it has to go further, it has to go deeper.

You know, it's great to see a revival of the church, but we really want it to be a spiritual revival, not so much.

You know, the numbers are are are great, but they mean nothing if saints are not produced, you know, if if people are not being changed, if if the spiritual life is not being embraced in a traditional way, and those sorts of things.

So that's what I see in in pastoral work, is that there has to be primer, A lot of milk has to be fed, and the the fervor for conservatism or the rebellion against society has to continue into an inner life, you know life.

Well, what about something that I've I've seen in my own parish which I can appreciate on one level is the young men that are coming into the church that are overly zealous, and they tend to be above average IQ.

They've read a lot, they know church history, they know the councils, they know the energy essence distinction.

And then just like the joke I was making, I've literally talked with people that are moving from inquiry to catechumen and they're reading the filial Callia.

They're reading the latter of Divine Ascent and then they're trying to do like a full fast, or they're not even a catechumen yet and they're fasting during Pasca and or the Linton cert.

And I try to guys, you need to slow down, like this is a journey and you need to walk the journey.

You don't just transport from the beginning to the end.

And I've seen, I've known a couple of people that got burnt out because they were just way too hardcore, way too asked.

Yes, yes, absolutely absolutely, that's I think that's a trend everywhere, you know, because you know, we're so self absorbed.

And this really goes into what I'm seeing too, is you know, there's there's a very heightened sense of individualism or.

Just being self absorbed.

And many people when they find the church, you know, I see a lot of inquirers come and they you know, they won't go to coffee hour, they'll go straight home afterwards.

They don't really want to engage in the community community that and these people are the people who get burnt out first.

Because one can do orthodoxy on on on their own, you know, nobody is nobody is self sufficient in the Orthodox Church.

And you know, humanity and in general is relational.

You know, there's it's always relational.

So I see that a lot.

I see that a lot.

This this one for individualism.

And you know, in our culture, we're such a fast food culture, on demand culture, you know, Amazon Prime culture.

It's like, right, we want we like read the Philo Kalia, and we we want in a month to be you know, levitating in prayer when we're at our home, but we can't fast on Wednesday, you know.

Or something I've also seen, and I know we're running out of time.

We got a couple of questions, so I'll cut it off here.

But another thing I've been seeing is I just lost my train of thought.

We were talking about the Philo Kalia and.

Levitating in prayer, not being able to fast, you know, kinds of things.

Anyways, the exact statement I was getting ready to make slips me.

I'm sure it'll come back, but I totally agree with you.

One of the things that I tell the young guys is engage yourself in the community.

I know at my parish we had a handful of guys come.

They were not the you know, the orthobro archetype online.

They were genuinely curious, and then they began to come and but they stayed for fellowship, and they began to build friendships.

And I always tell the young guys, like, that's when you start really participating the Orthodox life.

Is when you're dealing with the old women and the different personalities in the church and maybe yeah, they're not going to be your best friend, but belonging to the community and taking on responsibility where Okay, we're doing our fall festival, we need you to do this, like go and do it.

Participate in the life of the church.

Yes, don't.

Don't leech on your parish, you know.

And it's really easy to be an Orthodox Christian that doesn't engage in a community and some sense, but it's disingenuous.

You know, the people of the church round you out, you know, the old ladies, or the person who has this kind of attitude or you know, whatever it may be, or this person who runs you the wrong way, et cetera, et cetera.

They're all placed there in that parish to teach you how to truly love, to teach you how to crucify yourself, to teach you how to get out of yourself, you know, and it's so incredibly important just to buckle down into the community, to crucify yourself within a community, to give yourself over to the obedience of the priests that is in your area.

You know.

These kinds of things are so incredibly important because Orthodoxy is not a cafeteria.

You don't just get to pick whatever you want and the church doesn't care about your opinions.

That's what's so beautiful about it is that we get out of this dive into selfishness and egoism that has completely crashed society.

Right absolutely.

I want to be respectful of your time.

We had a couple questions, so feel free to use as much time as you would like to respond to these.

One that just came in that I thought was worthy of note was Kenya was asking how does exorcism work and why can everyone not do it and achieve successful results?

M Well, I would say, first of all, when a person has made a catechumen, there are exorcism prayers that are read over them, and it is traditional for those prayers to be read several times throughout their catechisis.

And most importantly, you know, before their baptism, but it's important during their catechism as well to keep away the devil from meddling with people who are making their way into the church.

But you know, there are we talk about the church as a hospital, and there are different wards within a hospital, and some wards treat some things with specialty that others cannot.

You know, you don't go to the maternity maternity ward because you have answer, you know, And kind of in this analogy, there are are surgeons of the church, if you will, and most of them specifically in the in monastic orders and things like that where we see exorcisms happening, where we see demonic possession being cured, and things like that.

You know, there are saints that are known for being sort of the scourge of demons, even having that as their sort of nickname or title, you know.

And so there are these wards within the hospital of the church to help people who are.

Dealing with.

This kind of heightened demonic activity in their life, you know.

And priests who deal with this, and they will deal with it more and more as people come into the church from the occult have to be aware of these things as well.

And you know, I'm not the greatest priest ever.

But I, you know, have a spiritual father to rely on and other spiritual brothers, other priests to rely on to ask them questions, you know, what is their experience with this or that?

Or what should I read of this person's pair?

How much should I be attached to this situation or detached from the situation, you know, things like that, And so it's good for the church to work those things out and to help send people to the right place for the healing that they need.

Right.

I get this question about extorcism a lot from inquirers because of the Hollywood persona that the Catholic Church has exhibited American culture and so they feel like most exorcisms are something that of very dramatic sword and I always remind people, Yeah, we don't sort of ox chrition.

We don't focus on exorcisms, and maybe in the same way that the Catholic Church has, or at least maybe aspects of it has, but we always do an exorcism when you're brought into the church and you literally spit on the devil and having that conversation with young people.

I've noticed and maybe this is it's obviously a case by case but when I was brought in, an older gentleman who was brought in the week before I was, he was ecstatic.

He was on cloud nine.

For months after being brought into the church, I myself struggled mightily the temptations that I thought I had rid myself of two weeks before getting brought in, they just ramp up all of a sudden.

My spiritual father is getting, you know, like temptations for things that he had never dealt with in a very very long time.

And I tell young people that this is a real phenomenon, that the spiritual warfare is real.

That's one of the reasons why you don't want to gas yourself out by going too hardcore in the beginning, because you have to have spiritual stamina.

And this is a this is a marathon, and that your stuff is going to happen when you get brought in.

That's not to scare you.

It's not to push you away from the church.

If anything, is to validate that all this stuff is real, take it slow and just listen and abide by your spiritual father.

Yes, and when one is initiating to the church, they have all the sacraments of the church to help them to fight those things, you know, but there's a temptation to think like baptism is the end, you know, and it's not.

It's just the beginning.

Welcome to the arena, as we say, exactly.

A member of the Logos Academy, Jonathan knuw Be World World Top ten and power and strong strong Man, member of our men's group, our Logos Academy around school says, when my family was turning Orthodox, my children got violently sick on four Sundays in a row, followed by two car batteries, dying icons, knocked off the stands, pans moving in the kitchen, et cetera.

M.

Yeah, some people have these very intense experiences.

Some people don't have these experiences.

You know.

It's sometimes depends on our past and what we're involved in in our past, sometimes not.

You know, it's not straight across the board.

But these definitely just are big temptations that we have to learn to brush aside, sometimes laugh at, because it is the devil trying to use these very feeble things in a broader scope, right, use these feeble things to detract us or dissuade us from pushing forward.

Right paraphrasing a quote by Saint John Crasoso.

It's something to the effect that the devil is like a chained dog.

It can only bite when you get too close.

Yes, And so I try to also remind people that the spiritual warfare is like it's all about the intention of your heart too, and where you're striving towards.

Don't be scared.

And I know this is a whole other can of worms, but toll ones that get brought up a lot by inquirers.

And it's like, guys, do you not focus on these things if you're moving in the right direction, Like, just focus on that for at least three years, Like you really do not need to get involved on the intricacies of you know, Father Seraphim's you know, the soul after death or departure of the soul by Saint Anthony's monastery.

Just just chill out, just relax, be part of the church.

And so, yeah, everybody wants to sort of dive into the deep end, and then when when weird things begin to happen, it freaks them out.

And as you said, sometimes you just got to laugh at it, like realize that there are forces that want to prevent you from your communion with Christ, and it's not something to be scared of because fear itself kind of feeds energetically into them.

So just chill out, like, don't don't be afraid of it.

Yeah, there's that little snippet.

And one of the books that the recordings of father of Saint Paisios' wisdom and things.

You know, there's was volumes of books, and I forget which one it isn't, but there's one where he talks about, you know, I do my visual, the devil does his.

You know, I do my vigil for a while and I rest, and then the devil's you know, banging on my roof and these kinds of things, and I laugh, and I get up and I do my vigil.

You know, that his vigil like whatever about it, you know, but I do mine.

And that's that's what that's what I'm focused on, basically exactly.

Bitter Clinger throws in ninety nine ten bucks.

Thank you so much, Bitter Bitter Clinger.

He says, it is my opinion that information technology is a major avenue by which the demonic enters our homes.

To what extent should Christians unplug from technology?

It's a great question.

There's obvious ways in which the demonic realm enters into homes through technology, through music, through media, especially through pornography.

Yeah, these are huge gateways into the demonic realm, especially the latter, which unfortunately so many young people, not just men of course, are are addicted to are falling into.

And so yeah, we have to be really, really vigilant about what we're using these tools of technology for what we're allowing to pass through them into our homes.

And we should unplug as much as possible.

We really should, I mean, especially since we're so incredibly as a culture addicted to the digital age.

It's good to at least at the very least take time to fast very very frequently from it.

But yeah, to watch over what we are using it for what we are letting in through it, you know, just to be vigilant.

Another question, Han, if seven G throws in two bucks, thank you very much, sir, God bless you and your family, he says.

Along with scriptures, what books do you or slash?

I should read.

The the Holy Scriptures of course, as you mentioned, as this person mentioned, but there are very very good books that help one, especially in the beginning of their Spiritual Life.

There's the Unseen Warfare, say Nico Demus, the Hag, you're right, and helps edited a book, a Western book, but made it very Orthodox.

The Unseen Warfare and the lives of the Saints, especially getting familiar with the lives of the saints and what the Saints went through, are absolutely necessary in rounding out a genuine Orthodox life.

So those are the things that I that would recommend.

Get a cynic saria or a or the or the prologue of Oprid or something like that to read the Life of the Saints every day.

The prologue comes with a homily and reflection and things like that for the day, which is really valuable.

Sink Sario will give you more in depth insight to the lives of the Saints.

But the book Spiritual or the Unseen Warfare, that book gives a good perspective, uh and a manual really for for for the unseen warfare and how to conquer the passions where they come from, how to how to battle the thoughts, all of those kinds of things with which is a great primer.

And these two things, along with the scriptures, will give you the lenses to look at the world around us and to look at yourself and other readings that that you know, uh, you may progress into reading later in the future.

Right uh.

Stevie Ambrose ret throws in five says death to the world.

Thank you so much, Stevie.

Yeah, I love that guy.

He's a good guy.

Stevie.

God bless you, Stevie.

Orthodox boom or Grandma throws in a generous twenty dollars.

Thank you so much.

Alexandria, she says, thank you, Dph and father.

John, thank you, and thank you for your candles too.

Yeah, they have great I got a couple of candles or candles icons.

I do have a candle from Alexandria, but also a couple icons from Union of All Icons dot com.

So go check out Union of All Icons dot com.

And then Christopher Scott throws in five dollars no comment, Thank you very much, Christopher.

And last one here, Father, This was not a super chat, but it was related to the woman earlier who asked about extorcism.

This would be the last one.

I apologize for going over an hour's can okay.

Kenya says, I get anxiety attacks start of panic attacks when I talk about things related to Orthodoxy or I'm nervous.

I'm Protestant, non denominational.

I'm getting physically, I just physically feel bad whenever she talks about Orthodoxy.

You you have any advice on that.

Yeah, the advice would be.

Two.

Really, just pray, you know, to pray, and to maybe find not maybe find an Orthodox prayer book or Orthodox prayers online and begin to read them, and to pray.

This is the best thing.

And a lot of our a lot of our downfalls and you know, other things in life, stress, anxiety happen because we don't pray, and we don't rely on God's will.

And maybe we're afraid of our life to change or something to come up that maybe will push in a direction that we don't want to go against our will.

That we have a problem in accepting sometimes.

The will of God.

But prayer helps, It helps us to rely on his will.

It helps us to depend on him.

It helps us to live more simply, and when the various storms of life come and come around us, that prayer is a bedrock.

You know, it helps us to be stable.

So I would say that, you know, let's not rely too much on our feelings, but let's rely on prayer and on repentance and asking God for his will to be done in our life and to show us how to move forward in our life.

Right well, Father John, thank you so much for being here.

Is there anything you want to promote give you know how people can support your work?

I know your podcast.

Believe you have a Patreon as well, Is that correct?

Yeah, that's the World does have a patreon.

I would just direct people to the Death of the World website and we are releasing our new issue that will be sent out at the end of October, so in about a month or so, so you can pre order that.

It has some teaching surrounding Saint Sophronia of Essex and Saint Siliwon and some writings from other priests and people around the country, around the world.

So take a look at that and grab your copy before we run out of the printing.

Because it tends to happen.

Got your Instagram link, so anybody who wants to father follow Father John, you can follow him on Instagram.

That is in the video description and also a link to Death to the World website, so you guys can stay informed about everything that's going on over there.

So thank you Father John so much for taking the time.

I know, i'd love to do one that I told you I'm usually doing two to three hours, but yeah, yeah, maybe it's the future.

We could do one that's a little bit longer because I feel like we just got started.

But yeah, let's let's definitely do that.

That would be good, you know.

And I gotta got to.

Continue to bless your work and.

And of course I ask forgiveness from anybody if I mentioned anything or said anything that is that is you know, provoking, or that caused any kind of offense or anything like that.

So well, thank you for your wisdom, and thank you for everybody who's supported And I will see you guys in the next one.

Not sure when that is.

My wife and I are moving this Friday, so maybe out of commission here for a few days.

But I'll see guys whenever I do another live stream.

So God bless you all.

Thank you again, Father John.

Of course until next time, God bless