Exorcisms Up 10X Over Decade: We’re Thrilled

Are Catholic exorcisms making a comeback? Demand for exorcisms is surging, with the number of U.S. exorcists growing from ~12-24 to about 150 in recent years — yet priests say they’re still overwhelmed.

In this episode, we dive into recent reports on the rise in exorcism requests, linked to occultism, esotericism, and satanism concerns raised even at the Vatican. Despite our strong anti-Vatican and anti-mysticism stance, we make the case that structured Catholic exorcisms are surprisingly effective — and often superior to modern psychology for certain issues.

We contrast safe, regulated Catholic practices with riskier charismatic/Pentecostal approaches (which have led to tragic outcomes). Plus: the surprising power of ritual, placebo without deception, how big “before-and-after” events rewire self-perception, and why evidence-based rituals like exorcisms can deliver durable mental resets.

We also discuss minor vs. major exorcisms, house blessings, our kids’ convergent “basilisk exorcisms,” and why believing you’ve been “cured” can outperform many clinical interventions.

Timestamps below. If you’ve ever wondered whether dramatic rituals can hack psychology better than therapy — this one’s for you.

Make exorcisms big again? Let us know your thoughts.

Subscribe for more unfiltered conversations on culture, evidence-based living, and techno-Puritanism.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we’re going to be talking about the phenomenon of the surge in exorcisms that have been happening with articles like Demand for Catholic Exorcism Reportedly on the Rise.

So we’ll go over a couple articles that talk about this recent surge in exorcisms, and then we will go over why Exorcisms are, and people know on this show we’re generally seen as having a, and I I think it’s important to cite your bias as a pretty anti-Catholic bias. But Catholic Exorcisms specifically are demonstrably a good thing.

They, they should hold

Simone Collins: on. No, we actually love Catholics. We have a bias against C, the Catholic Church and

Malcolm Collins: Vatican.

Simone Collins: Catholicism.

Malcolm Collins: The V, the Vatican. Yeah. Yes.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: We’re anti Vatican channel. Yes,

Simone Collins: yes.

Malcolm Collins: But, but this is one thing the Vatican does very well.

Simone Collins: Yeah, we, we are weirdly, despite being very anti mysticism as well.

We’re weirdly like, yeah, exorcism’s great. This is,

Malcolm Collins: I think a lot of people would be surprised. I don’t [00:01:00] because they know that we’re very anti Vatican and we’re very anti, we’re anti mysticism. Many people would even call our form of Christianity secular in its nature. So they would be surprised that we would be like, Hey, that thing that, like even Catholics get kind of embarrassed about the whole normalization

Simone Collins: of Yeah, you don’t hear them talk about it a lot.

Malcolm Collins: Exorcisms. And I’m like, no, that’s really good. Like,

Simone Collins: well, because we believe in evidence-based interventions and guess what? Placebo works

Malcolm Collins: well. Yeah. Which is what I’m gonna go into. If you’re like, well, I’ve heard all these horror stories about exorcisms, where people died and where children were abused and none of those were carried out.

By Catholics, they were all carried out by Pentecostals.

Simone Collins: Oh, see, I told you Pentecostals,

Malcolm Collins: that’s

Simone Collins: who you gotta watch out

Malcolm Collins: for. It was charismatic Pentecostals too. They’re they’re bad kind. Yeah,

Simone Collins: they’re, they are witches. Just Pentecostal equals witch. I don’t know what to tell you, Malcolm,

Malcolm Collins: that that episode went live on our private, where we point out that many of the practices in Charismatic Pentecostal [00:02:00] Christianity do not come from Christianity.

But they were actually borrowed from AOC cultist in Theosophists of the 19 witchcraft twenties

Simone Collins: witchcraft.

Malcolm Collins: They, they literally just took witchcraft in, integrated it into Christianity. But I didn’t want to be too spicy with that one. So we, we shelved that episode.

Simone Collins: Yeah. You were like, personally, I, I know why you were willing to go so hard on Catholics and you’re not willing to go hard on Pentecostal Pentecostals.

Malcolm Collins: At least the Protestants. Anyway, anyway, I’ll, I’ll keep going here. I love your, your, it, it’s, it’s actually about voting. So if we were able to run for president, the Pentecostal vote is in a very important vote.

Simone Collins: I don’t know. I feel like the, the Pentecostals are fractured enough because they’re also, they’re much more likely to be following individual charismatic preachers to be like, yeah, all the other Pentecostals are witches. We’re just not. And so they’re all gonna be like, yeah, Pentecostals very tic. My guy actually

Malcolm Collins: vets everything he does.

Simone Collins: No, my guy, yeah, my guy, they’re not [00:03:00] ma his magical spells are only from God, from Jesus, but everyone elses magical spells and there are speaking in tongues that is all satanic.

And it’s, I dunno about that. It’s not with I speak in tongues, it’s just not, it’s fine.

Malcolm Collins: Alright. All right. So, to go into this according to the Baltimore sun, requests for exorcisms are increasing and priests performing the ritual are in greater demand than ever with a number of exorcists in the United States growing from about a dozen, 15 years ago to approximately 150 today.

So

Simone Collins: that is insane to me because I thought they were, this still is very. When I was in college, remember I had that really embarrassing crush on the Catholic, who then became a priest. Yeah. And there were, there were on two occasions. He was like, oh yeah, like, I’m gonna go to an exorcism today. That, I think that happened at least twice.

So I thought they were like way more common if, like, within one college campus.

Malcolm Collins: Did he wanted to like go recreationally watch exercises.

Simone Collins: He was, no, I think he was gonna help the priest, you know, like to be the assistant ex exerciser, I don’t know what the words are here, but like you, I [00:04:00] think he was gonna help the priest.

Exercise the demon. And

Malcolm Collins: I was, was like, but you know, was at the Vatican, so he was like on fast track to he

Simone Collins: well, ‘cause he’s the best. Well no, the last time I saw him was at the Vatican, but I, I think he came back too. Like now he’s in the

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, he was on fast track to like church stuff anyway.

Simone Collins: No, he’s, well, yeah, no, but like he’s, I mean, I would want him ‘cause he, he like really knew his Catholic stuff. But like. I wouldn’t want him at an exorcism, but

Malcolm Collins: he’s actually a great example of how Catholicism can lower, like why they have a lower birth rate than other iterations of Christianity.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Because you would’ve wanted to marry him and likely would’ve converted to his religion and had lots of kids with him, but instead he wanted to become a priest.

Simone Collins: Yeah. For the backstory, just so I, I relive the most embarrassing parts of my life on this podcast ‘cause you also won’t delete my old videos on this channel.

When I was in college, there was this guy in my honors class on the divine comedy that had like a Jew and a, and a and a [00:05:00] pagan, wicked goth girl and me, the like raised Buddhist liberal and then some like Protestants in it. Talking about Dante’s divine comedy, which is of course very Catholic in its inspiration as hate fan fiction.

And. Then he was the one Catholic. So I, I became very I, I’m like, I’m attracted to passion and intelligence and he had a lot of it for Catholicism. So then I got this big crush on him ‘cause he also looked kind of like Matt Damon, not retarded.

Malcolm Collins: Dude,

Simone Collins: like, like real Matt Damon, like good. And so I was like, okay.

Like I, I, I’m like, I have a huge crush on you. And so I would I worked at a cupcake shop at the time. I worked closing shifts. So I would get all these free, very expensive cupcakes at the end of the day, and I’d walk home with these heavy bags until my fingers bled. And I would, he was an RA in his dorm, and I’d be like, oh, well I’m gonna deliver cupcakes for your, the students in your dorm.

And then while there, you know, I’d show up in his room with all the cupcakes and I’d be like, oh, I have this [00:06:00] question. I just, can you explain to me why gays go to hell? And then like, he’d sit down and like, talk to me about like the hardest things about

Malcolm Collins: over and over again. You asked him about Catholic doctrine because he found that that was the one thing that he’d get really nerdy about.

Simone Collins: It would allow me to stay in his room longer. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Oh

God.

Malcolm Collins: And then one day he’s like, Simone, like, like, these, these meetings with you have really moved me and helped me decide my direction in life and I’m gonna join the priesthood. That is the worst.

Simone Collins: This is how good my game is

Malcolm Collins: ever.

Simone Collins: But yeah, no, this is, this is maybe, maybe part of the reason why, it’s not best,

Malcolm Collins: but, but think about this in another context. If he had been in another denomination, he would’ve gotten married to you to keep talking about that stuff. And,

Simone Collins: well, and what’s what’s interesting actually is I don’t know how I came across it. Maybe it was like one of his other assignments or something that I reviewed in the class or something, but maybe it was a poem or an essay about him trying to figure out his vocation in life.

Like should he choose like, the sacrament of becoming a [00:07:00] priest or should he choose like the sacrament of, of having, or maybe that was how he explained it in his letter to me where he told me he was gonna become a priest or something. But like, he, he really, and he’d like, he’d, he broken up with a girlfriend at one point earlier.

Like he, he, I think he was really thinking hard about it in college and then he just, he aired in favor of, instead of choosing to marry, choosing the priesthood. And that’s, yeah, I mean, yeah, if he were in another religion, he could have done both and been amazing at it. And it’s, it is it’s, it’s gonna be a difficult.

Thing, I think for the Catholic church. ‘cause he wasn’t so far as I could tell. I mean, maybe he was gay, right? Like it could be that he just wasn’t really attracted to his girlfriend and was like, do I wanna have sort of a loveless marriage with children? Or do I wanna become a priest? So that, I mean that I, I feel like that was, that’s really where the, the, the Catholic priesthood makes a lot of sense is like, if you’re just really, like, you’re really kind of gritting your teeth about it.

Here’s an out. I think that’s fair. But yeah, I still, I’m [00:08:00] disappointed when I think about all the people who could have amazing kids and be amazing priests, but

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I’m, I’m glad because then I get to marry you. Right. You know.

Simone Collins: No, it’s true. I know. I’m, I’m so, I’m Oh, you and I are so, but, so perfect for each other

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

To continue here.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: No. About us being like really well matched. I’m saying I do. Sometimes I watch the podcast with the volume off and I think how well we get along comes across even better when it’s on silent and you’re like, oh, they, they actually do seem to like each other. Who. Monsignor Steven Rosetti, a Washington DC based priest and licensed psychologist told the son, we’re getting more and more people needing an exorcism.

There are only about 150 exorcists in the country and they are being flooded with requests, including many from desperate people pleading for assistance. We can’t keep up with the demand now, and it’s only going to get worse.

Simone Collins: Surely the, the, the Catholic Church or Vatican has the ability to like ramp up.

Its, its exorcism training programs.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And, and oh, the [00:09:00] church first always. So you’re aware they screen the person to see if it’s a mental illness.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: More than 99% of those claiming possessions are actually experiencing a mental illness That makes sense. And they’re referred to mental health providers by the church.

I think they shouldn’t be so strict about that. And we’ll get into why in just a second. But first what I wanna go into is what happens in these exorcisms,

Simone Collins: okay.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, oh, there’s another fun article here, I guess. ‘

Simone Collins: cause all we know is, is is what we see in the movie The Exorcist, which I guess is not, is it?

Is it

Malcolm Collins: not?

So Pope Leo the 14th host Exorcist at the Vatican se in satanism cases, raises concern for vulnerable believers. So Vatican and Exorcist warns of rising occult threats, urging train clergy to safeguard vulnerable, faithful worldwide.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: In a private audience. On March 13th, the Pope perceived representative, blah, blah, blah, [00:10:00] signaling renewed attention to what the church officials have described as a growing spiritual crisis.

The delegation presented a detailed report highlighting an increase in the numbers linked to occultism, esotericism, and satanism warning that many individuals are suffering serious spiritual consequences. As a result. The private meeting details of which were shared by Ian, EWTN Vatican, centered on the rising demand for trained exorcist and the church’s preparedness to respond.

So. Basically even at this 150 number now, they now feel that we don’t have enough and we need more. And the

Simone Collins: 150 is so few.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But it used to only be two dozen.

Simone Collins: I know, but imagine like three per state in the United States. That’s, that, that is vanishingly unusual.

Malcolm Collins: Well, how many times do you need an exorcism in your life, Simone?

It’s not

Simone Collins: like a psychologist dude. I mean, we

Malcolm Collins: actually fix the problem.

Simone Collins: No, no. Here’s the thing here. No, here’s the thing is that our kids convergently evolved [00:11:00] exorcisms just on their own,

Malcolm Collins: which we’ll talk about their

Simone Collins: own. Yeah. Yeah. And so I, I know that people intuitively want them, and that’s why I’m shocked that they’re not being asked for more.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, what is interesting here is the Catholic church itself here is saying that many of these exorcisms are downstream of people engaging with esoterism. Oh. Which again, goes to what we talk about mysticism is the enemy. And engaging with it puts you in a dangerous position, not just from a theological perspective, but from a secular perspective.

Simone Collins: Right?

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Because it opens you up to believing that your subjective experiences when they are not in concordance with reality, supersede reality. Right. And that can lead to many forms of dangerous and disordered thinking, and therefore it is of utility to purge this from the way you perceive reality.

Yes. But could it lead to disordered mental states, even in a secular context? It could require an exorcism [00:12:00] to Correct. And would an exorcism Correct. And we will get to that in a second, but Yes. Mm-hmm.

Right.

Okay, so, what does an exorcism actually look like in practice? The minor simple exorcism, so this is something I did not know of.

These are common non solemn prayers used to break general demonic influence or oppression. They appear at the rites of baptism for adults and children, and it increased or even length. People in limited forms can use related prayers from the appendix of the original. Ritual book. These are not dramatic rituals, but prayers invoking god’s protection, often involving the sign of the cross holy water or simple indications.

Lay Catholics can pray similar deliverance prayers privately for themselves or others, but not in an official capacity. So they, in types of very devout Catholics, they are doing exorcisms all the time.

Simone Collins: Yeah, [00:13:00] they’re, they’re over the counter exorcisms. So you, you kind of have these layers of, there’s over the counter exorcisms and there’s probably like kind of prescription exorcisms, like at baptisms where like a priest is doing it and then you have like.

Inpatient exorcisms where like the priest is coming your house, like

Malcolm Collins: have exorcisms.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: These exorcisms, if you want to get a feel for what they’re like they remind me of like, you know, you have like a vampire hunter movie or whatever, and like, you know, they walk into a house and they like chant some little thing or they put holy at the door.

They, you know.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: They’re just all parts of their little day have little Yeah. Rituals tied to them that come from books of approved rituals.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I wonder if crossing yourself, remember how in Peru, which is very Catholic, if you were in an Uber or something, at least half the drivers would cross themselves whenever they were at stoplight.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And

Simone Collins: when we took off on planes, people would cross themselves and I’d be like, oh God. Like, before I knew it was a normal thing. I was like, what is wrong with this plane? Does everyone think they’re gonna die? It’s happening.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, [00:14:00] culturally and was in our religion, we take a very anti, anti-real perspective because rituals do waste time, but rituals have many positive psychological effects.

Absolutely. And so. If you are somebody who is biologically predispositioned to get into rituals, we are just not as we pointed out, religions and practices co-evolve with populations that practice them. Although for people who point out that Simone is ex percent Jewish and therefore Jewish, she’s equally Catholic to Jewish.

She has a, a Catholic grandparent too. So, you know,

Simone Collins: my dad was an altar boy. Yeah. He

Malcolm Collins: and you’re much more into rituals than I am.

Simone Collins: I, I am.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, you are. You, you actually do not mind like church music and stuff like that.

Simone Collins: Oh no. I love a good Catholic mass. You kidding me?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I find them intolerable. It’s like a graduation ceremony or a,

Simone Collins: i, oh, I hate graduation ceremonies, but

Malcolm Collins: ceremony or something like that where you’re just like, [00:15:00] oh my God, I don’t wanna.

I’d, I’d rather sit through like actually the Oscars in person.

Simone Collins: Ah. I mean, so one sitting through the o Oscars in person. Wouldn’t that be interesting?

Malcolm Collins: Just, that’s what I mean. At least, at least they’re like attempting to entertain me. No, but I think that people respond to this biologically differently. I, I, I suspect that there’s many people out there. I mean there obviously appear to be they just love mass, right?

Like they think it’s the best and they really well.

Simone Collins: And then there, there are different flavors of mass. Don’t forget that there’s all these different types. And so, you know what kind of mass

Malcolm Collins: types down, collect all your types,

Simone Collins: gotta catchem,

Malcolm Collins: Very, very collect the whole set. But actually Catholic people do seem to have a predilection to collecting things.

It is of course the, the Catholic house where you see all the different Jesus candles and all the different Jesus Jesus candles picture. Like this is a thing for like, especially Hispanic [00:16:00] Catholics. I, from where I grew up in Texas, ‘cause you had a big immigrant population is biblically themed collectibles.

You never saw

Simone Collins: these? No, no.

Malcolm Collins: When we were in Texas, you never saw anyone was like, maybe like we didn’t take many calves, but I would say like a cab driver was like 15 candles, was like different pictures of Jesus on them or the St. Mary or

Simone Collins: that was really common in Peru for like tons of religious paraphernalia hanging from

Malcolm Collins: That’s what I’m talking about, right?

Oh,

Simone Collins: okay. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: That’s,

Simone Collins: that’s like the protection though. Like ambulance

Malcolm Collins: religiously very like the collector approach, but okay. Yeah. Pokemon it all the way. Now this contrast was major exorcisms. So what happens in a major exorcism? All right.

Simone Collins: The inpatient version, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the inpatient ver version. So these are for when somebody is suspected of having a demonic possession, where a demon is believed to be in control of the person’s body or actions.

This is in a sacramental, a sacred [00:17:00] sign, not a sacrament, like a baptism or Eucharist. And it can only be performed by an ordained priest or a bishop who received explicit permission from the local bishop. The DNE or the priest must be pious, knowledgeable and prudent, and of good character per cannon 1, 1, 7 2.

And many diocese now appoint dedicated exorcist and training them often involves apprenticeship or courses through groups like the International Association of Exorcist, recognized by the Vatican, which was the organization that I was just talking about. That’s now meeting and being like, we need more.

Exorcist.

Simone Collins: They have an organization. I, we need to guys ramp up the infrastructure guys. You have the, the capability. I’m disappointed.

Malcolm Collins: What, what they do need and they don’t have right now is special exorcism wear, like Catholics are very good at like, choosing outfits,

Simone Collins: investments. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You

Simone Collins: need, yeah, just like look at the anim watch anime and just like, take from that.

Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

Simone Collins: Have all the affiliated

Malcolm Collins: and [00:18:00] you can get away with it. ‘cause you’re like, I’m a, I’m a professional Vatican exorcist. Like, I, I Oh so hot.

Simone Collins: Oh my God. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Wear some sort of like, big hat saying, you know, like, you have to be armed, you know?

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyone who’s not aware of just the amount of artistry that goes into it like Catholic s it’s, I think it’s an Articles of Interest podcast on Catholic specimens that can really give you greater appreciation of the artistry that goes into these garments.

They are like, if it, it, it is. The true where Ru like High Fas, like now, like brands, like Chanel or whatever, like they’re not, they’re not good anymore. The only place like the last runway on earth is Catholic. SII will rest at that. Go on.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. So signs of a possible possession

Simone Collins: okay.

Malcolm Collins: May include speaking unknown languages, supernatural strengths, aversion to holy things, cross holy water, sacraments, knowledge of hidden things, or a violent reaction to prayer.

The getting, getting [00:19:00] permission like the exorcist, consuls, the bishop for permission. And this can take months to be allowed, right? To go to the next step. Which is interesting because the right itself is pretty like not that big a thing. So the right itself, typically in a church chapel or private safe space, the afflicted person is often accompanied by supportive family or assistance.

They may be gently restrained if there’s a risk to themselves or others. The Exorcist wears a surplus and purple stole. It begins with prayers and preparation. The litany of saints, plasms gospel readings, EG passages about Jesus casting out demons, the Lord’s Prayer, hail, maily, and creed. This would bore the demon right out of me.

If, if, if I was pretending, I’d be like, no, I just have a visceral negative reaction to ritual and boring, like chanting and stuff like that. I’m like, Nope. Inefficient. We need to get to the point. What’s the point?

Simone Collins: Point? Are we talking to Malcolm or are we [00:20:00] talking to the demon right now?

Malcolm Collins: Right. The demon that’s controlling me.

High functioning. Possessed is what I’m right?

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Use of sacraments. Blessed holy water is sprinkled, recalling, baptism. Christ victory. The signal of the cross is made repeatedly. A crucifix is shown or used. The exorcist may lay hands on a person or perform ex deflation, breathing on the face to invoke the Holy Spirit.

Now note here, right? This actually isn’t that different from what happened in the movie The Exorcist, right? Like, a lot of the, I, I mean, it does look creepy, right? To do so. I, I can see why it works for movies. They then do exorcism and prayers, a mix of deregulatory prayers, supplicants, asking God to deliver the person and prepository prayers, direct commands to the demon in Christ’s name, EGI adore you or depart the demon may be asked its name.

The right can last for minutes to hours [00:21:00] and may require multiple sessions. Well, if you’re gonna spend months getting something approved, at least take a few hours. Often may require multiple sessions over days, weeks, or longer reactions, if any. Very widely. Some people show no visible signs. Other have convulsions, vomiting, or verbal outbursts.

Bursts which the church views cautiously. It ends with Thanksgiving, prayers, blessings, and advice for ongoing spiritual life. Frequent confession, Eucharist, prayer and avoiding occult practices. And then they’re, what I love is they have aftercare, like, like they’re doing BDSM or I, I, I go into how much.

Oh no. Like BDSM stuff is, was like,

oh boy. Yeah,

and hey, they, they, they also do like the if you look up the, the tools for like hurting yourself you know, you get them from like the Catholic ification buyers and then the, the BDSM buyers and the tools are often the same tools, like anything they’re using.

The BD SM people also use.

Simone Collins: If it works, it works. You know, it is a [00:22:00]

Malcolm Collins: aftercare. The person is encouraged to live a sacrament and prayerful life follow up session may occur if needed. Exorcists, emphasize that true freedom comes through Christ, not just the ritual. So. I’ll go through different exorcist types here.

So the Eastern Orthodox Church they perform exorcisms, but it’s more integrated into regular priestly ministry. Many priests can perform prayers of exorcism from books like the Great Book of Needs attributed to saints like Basil, the Great and John of Cry film. So basically in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, they have a structure for it.

Like Catholicism, there’s not as many negative outcomes from it. The problem with even particularly charismatic exorcism, although like Lutherans and Gans also per. Do exorcisms call in a form that’s called deliverance ministries, or, or prayers to cast out demons and invoking the name of Jesus anointing in oil, et cetera.

Part of the problem for these groups is they don’t have an official rule book. So many will [00:23:00] go further. Then if they were operating off of some central authority, then it ever would have a, a, a sign to them. As we’ve pointed out with Protestants, their witch hunts were dramatically bloodier than things like the Inquisition because they didn’t have any central authority reigning them in.

Or anyone, you know, in another state being like, Hey, are we acting a little crazy here? Who could say, yeah, you’re, you’ve gone a little crazy this time. You need to, you need to dial it back. You know, they never had to worry about an external authority reviewing what they did. But I wanna quickly go over some specific cases that we know about with these Vatican approved exorcisms how they turned out.

And what you’ll see is. Universally, pretty much positive results from these, like, whatever is happening to these people, this appears to be fixing it and, and durably fixing it, which is something we don’t generally see from like a psychologist visit, which is

Simone Collins: Well, and I, I think what the, the exorcisms that I might have heard about were about hauntings.

And I [00:24:00] just checked to make sure that the Catholic church does officially do house blessings and, and exorcisms for hauntings. And they do. And honestly, I feel like sometimes something just happens or you’d like watch a bad movie or whatever, and you get the creeps in your house. And now like there was a period where you just watch too many Mr.

Ballin videos and everything. Like lock and bolt all the doors. I mean, we still do anyway but like very obsessively and like be very afraid about like your closet doors being, you know, like, oh God. Like do oh, shower curtains being closed in our old apartments and stuff. You’d be like, do never leave the shower curtains closed.

Malcolm Collins: Somebody can hide in there. Yes.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But so like, sometimes you just get freaked out in your own own own house and if you are a, a Catholic and you, you just really start to have problems with your house, it’s great that you could just. Have someone figure the

Malcolm Collins: air, if there’s something psychological you can do to feel safer.

Yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah. And honestly, like I would feel better. It’s like, no, like if it, if it was a ghost, [00:25:00] I have my bases covered. The guy came, he, he spiritually fumigated my house. The ghosties are

Malcolm Collins: gone. Like that’s a huge quality of life improvement. Right. From a secular. Even from a secular. Perfect. Now it’s a secularist.

He’s watching this. Are you not now jealous of the Catholic who can make their ghosts go away?

Simone Collins: I, I honestly, I bet though that there are secular people who have had exorcisms of their house, possibly even from Catholics, just to like, feel okay with it. I mean, I remember, I think even on unsolved mysteries, what’s his face?

Who kept bringing holy water to stuff and going to priests.

Speaker: Shut up. I do. It’s okay. I came prepared. What are you prepared with? Oh, you’re a sea man.

Oh, Ryan,

Speaker 2: what

Speaker: you’ve vowed, dumbed yourself.

Speaker 2: You know, I thought this was gonna be funny, but now I’m actually happy that I have it.

It’s holy water inside here. I got blessed by a church. I assumed it was holy

Speaker: water.

Speaker 2: Like I could be like, Hey Shane, look at over at those bushes, and like a demon sneaking up on me. I’d be like, Hey Shane, look over there in the bushes. Don’t drive demon. F*****g pull it out like that. Ooh,

Speaker: that’s spooky.

Speaker 2: Yeah, right.

Obviously [00:26:00]

Speaker: we didn’t trap all the way down to Texas to observe a simple old bridge. The Goat Man’s Bridge.

Simone Collins: I don’t even know if he was Catholic. But he would bring his holy water with him. He is like, I’m just, I don’t know. So there was that. Yeah, I mean, I, I, I, I just,

Malcolm Collins: one of my favorite YouTube videos is the Jenny Nicholson, where she refused that old ghost hunting show where they had the premise of we are going to bring a ghost hunting show that goes and checks house for ghosts.

And then we’ll have a team that like, looks for what could be causing this other than ghosts, like fault wiring and everything like that. Yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And they always found a very obvious explanation,

Speaker 3: Our host from the beginning goes to the local library or interviews local historians to see if anything spooky or tragic has happened nearby.

Speaker 5: Paranormal investigator Michelle, comes across a story of a little girl who died close to the home.

Speaker 3: And yeah. I used to think it mattered if the ghost had.

Lived in the house or been to the house or been aware of the house’s [00:27:00] existence. It turns out that doesn’t matter. Yeah. You know, fish gonna swim, ghosts gonna haunt.

Malcolm Collins: But the ghost team would always like, end it with like a, and we’ll never know what’s right. And it’s basically just like a guy pointing at the faulty wiring, like,

Simone Collins: fix that right away.

Yeah. It’s so good. So good. Although honestly, like I even non faulty wiring stuff, non-carb monoxide problems like our kids. Just turning to us and being like, well, I saw the ghosts. And we’re like, what? Ghosts darling?

Malcolm Collins: Art didn’t believe in ghosts, I’ll tell you that. Oh

Simone Collins: my gosh. Yeah. And they’re, and you know, they’ll, they’ll like,

Malcolm Collins: they blame ghost,

Simone Collins: ghost

Malcolm Collins: for bad things that they do all the time.

Simone Collins: A ghost is, yeah, they call them ghost is though, ghost,

Malcolm Collins: if something has gone wrong, ghost. I’m like, who put this in your bad Octavian?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Octavian doesn’t do it as much as the other ones. It’s more like Titan. Titan would be like Ghost is,

Simone Collins: ghost is, yeah. Like there kids could be creepy sometimes. And even that would be enough I think, for some people to just get the permanent creeps in their [00:28:00] house because their kids being like,

Malcolm Collins: we know

Simone Collins: that many of the unsolved Myster mystery stories involved children coming to their bedrooms at night and being like, I saw a girl.

And they’re like, what do you mean you saw a girl? And like, then they start freaking out and it just like,

Malcolm Collins: I think we have too many kids for ghosts is the problem, right? Like ghosts only only come to visit kids when they’re alone. Right. When you get like five kids in a room and you don’t, don’t get no ghosts.

Simone Collins: No, not true because our kids. See ghosts all the time. But anyway, you know, I’m just saying yeah, ex I’m glad that there are haunting exorcisms and also I just think they’re super useful.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, did I tell you about this conversation I had with Octavia about the future police? Right. So I was like, like, what, what do you know about God?

And he goes, oh, well God is like the future police. I was like, well, do you believe in him? And he goes, I’ve seen him. Like,

Simone Collins: not only did he see him, he ran up to him and hugged them. They have a problem with like, oh, you see God, you see Jesus come give.

Malcolm Collins: But I always, I always come down after that and I’m like, oh, I don’t know [00:29:00] if I believe that you really saw him.

Like, yeah. They’re

Simone Collins: like, no, dude.

Malcolm Collins: Enhance

Simone Collins: the realization.

Malcolm Collins: And, and he, and so he was telling me when he said this, he goes, but you don’t believe in God, daddy. Because,

Simone Collins: because you, you always doubt his experiences.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I always, I always doubt his future full, his experiences.

Simone Collins: I just can’t,

Malcolm Collins: but I love the Yeah, of course.

I believe him. How I met him.

Simone Collins: What do you do? Give him a hug. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, yes, but also like, that’s really funny.

Malcolm Collins: That is the best. We were, we were having somebody trying to convince us over emails that like, no, believing in like a spiritual, like not real God is so much more real. And I’m like, okay.

Like you can believe that if you want to. But from my perspective, things are either like real or they’re supernatural. And if they’re supernatural that this looks like a category that everything else is supernatural, we generally categorize as dubious. And Octavian just takes it of course. I met him.

What do you [00:30:00] mean? Is he like, one of his friends is gonna be like, I don’t believe in God and he’s gonna like look around and be like,

Simone Collins: you

Malcolm Collins: haven’t, what have you not met him?

Simone Collins: It’s like, have you not seen a mailman? You don’t believe? Yeah. Really? Like where do you think the male comes from? Oh God. Anyway,

Malcolm Collins: To continue here Vinci, Italy, December, 2021, the woman con went to confession at the Church of St.

Mary of Monte Barko with her family was out warning. She began convulsing violently screaming blasphemies and hurling insults at priest in multiple languages, including Latin, which she reportedly didn’t know well. I mean, she went to. Enough Catholic things. She probably knows a few Latin words. She became physically aggressive.

Priest believes this was a sudden demonic possession. After family reports of prior disturbances, four Franciscan friars performed a quote unquote difficult major exorcism rights that lasted for nine hours. It involved prayer, holy water, and the full [00:31:00] Roman ritual. But the thing is, is it went away after they did this.

Like they fit, like this is clearly some form of psych psychiatric episode weren. And so we’re gonna go into why this, this seems to work so well because exorcism’s actually designed. Very well to have the required effect and I personally think it should be widened in its utilization for psychiatric illnesses and not just physicians.

I do not.

Simone Collins: I agree. Yeah. And yeah, and you come to think of it, you’re totally right about that because one of the ways that you can get yourself out of these things is just to believe that you’re okay, like believing,

Malcolm Collins: and we’ll go over the science around just believing you’re okay and how much of an impact it has.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Loyola at. Amman’s family, the demon house, Gary, Indiana, 2011, 2012. After moving into a rental house in 2011, the single mother and three children, ages seven to nine, reported escalating horrors, swarms of black flies in the winter. Shady figures, unexplainable footsteps, scratches appearing on the skin, and a daughter levitating.

A [00:32:00] nine-year-old boy walking backwards up the wall in front of DCS caseworker nurse and police captain. The kids showed superhuman strengths, spoken deep voices, and had knowledge of things they couldn’t know. I mean,

Simone Collins: oh, come on. That’s like our kids all the time. Indie walking around being like.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

They do the same stuff. But

Simone Collins: kids love to speak in demon voices Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And know stuff that I have no idea how they know all the time.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I’m off. How do you know this? Doctors and psychologists first treated it as a mental illness, but officials witnessed enough and the church got involved.

Catholic priest Father Michael Magner perform multiple minor exorcisms in the family and one major one on the house. The final intent session lasted hours. The family ended up moving out though. This, this one did not fix it.

Simone Collins: I mean that house. Yeah. I mean, even just the memories you had there, you would wanna keep, keep living there.

That’s insane. . I’m glad they moved away because that’s freaking terrifying.

Although, I mean, our kids kind of crawl backward of walls too. I come to [00:33:00] think of it. Maybe they just had rambunctious children.

Malcolm Collins: Not enough of them, clearly. Yeah. So, oh, what was I gonna say? By the way, we need to start VC outreach tomorrow. Like have you been building direct outreach with specialized email headers, like subject lines for each person?

Simone Collins: I mean, I already made, I have, I have the personalized info, but yeah, I mean, I can just start that proper tomorrow.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Yeah. So, so, I mean you can use an AI to work on it too, to create specialized, like we’re reaching out to you because I find to be the best header because you’re explaining to them why we’re reaching out.

I’m reaching out because you work in X area or you invest in X and I’m relevant to this, or we went to the same college or something like that.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So when do exorcisms go wrong before we go into the science here? When charismatic Christians do it. So, Fort Worth, Texas, April, 2025. In this one, a 23-year-old Alexander Taylor Dens beat his 58-year-old [00:34:00] mother to death in their home.

Likely was a wooden jewelry box. He was covered in blood holding a Bible and told the police it was an exorcism. He also allegedly said I was doing the witchcraft to kill my mom. This just doesn’t appear to be what? Abs sexism. This appears to be a crazy person. The.

Sent a Snapchat photo of her body to friends to talk about the exorcism. A dog in the home was also killed. So just a random charismatic Christian here for Pierce Florida, the 2025. This was a mother who performed, what she called was an exorcism on her kid. And he died due to suffocation and trauma from the ritual.

And she obviously sent to jail. And there’s been many such cases of this. I don’t wanna go into too many because you know,

Simone Collins: I get triggered and I have problems with this, although the very prominent, god, what was her name? A passenger’s mother. They, they very much like had this oh, Mormons are

Malcolm Collins: not good at ex, they go crazy with [00:35:00] ‘em too, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Demonic possession oriented, a approach to her children’s, like alleged or perceived on her end to be behavioral issues. So yeah, I mean, like them being, you know, duct taped to chairs and forced to do things. She thought she was expelling demons from them. So it just seems like only Catholics can handle this, and I really appreciate that they have like, you need to be certified, you know, you need to be like the designated exorcism person because.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I think that they will be better for most people than seeing a psychologist. So why are exorcisms psychologically, I say this as somebody who is trained as a neuroscientist and a psychologist. Modern psychology has descended into a weird cult. You can watch our videos on it. It is not generally good for people anymore.

It’s, it’s generally gonna do a lot more harm than good for you. And so, it, they’re, they’re basically just like priests of the urban monoculture attempting to induct you and create dependency. And so why

Simone Collins: not in, not in a good way. I, I feel like, you know, going regularly to [00:36:00] confession, maybe getting something exercised, but generally I think devout Catholics thrive, whereas people who see therapists five times a week don’t.

Malcolm Collins: So why, why, why, why, why does Catholicism work? It’s such a blunt instrument. Something like an exorcism, right? It’s because the way that they do it, the constrained start a big ritual that feels like a big ritual. Have people get into your personal space and do a bunch of things which are going to shock and disorient you be in your personal space, yell things at you in another language.

Basically flashing lights, bright, splashing,

Simone Collins: flashy

Malcolm Collins: water on you, you know? And then is

Simone Collins: this just, is this the Catholic church version of bopping?

Malcolm Collins: It’s, it’s, and then it’s over. You know, you can textualize, something changed the thing that changed happened. Now the thing that changed is over and, that is from a psych, like just purely psychological tools, [00:37:00] A great way to reframe how you see yourself in the moment. You can see yourself as having these faults. And then the exorcism has happened. And now you say, and now I am somebody without these faults because this event that represents like a, a, a bridge or doorway event.

Right? Like I was once in this state, I then did ex event and now I’m in this state. Yeah. And I’m totally different when I

Simone Collins: think cured.

Malcolm Collins: Very similar to many baptism rituals, which is why baptism. I was

Simone Collins: just thinking that, yeah, like being born again is, is very much a new way to be like, well now I’m better.

I’m different. I can,

Malcolm Collins: before I was this type of person, then I do big ritual. But I think the exorcism rituals in many ways better than like a generic baptism and it’s closer to what original, or I would say that the way that baptism should work, which is actually being dunked underwater in a river a cold river often that’s [00:38:00] shocking.

That feels like, oh, this is new and different and weird. Right.

Speaker 10: Mothers. Let’s go down. Come on down, let you want go down. Come on mothers. Let’s go down.

Speaker 7: i’ve been redeemed. The preacher done washed away all my sins and transgressions

Malcolm Collins: going to a church and having a little thing on your head that I do not think is going to shock a person in the way a traditional baptism. Would have yeah, to make it very easy to have a before and after tied to this event. But there’s a reason why things like baptism and exorcism are practice to create these interstitial periods that allow you to transition from one of view of, and, and your view of yourself hugely controls big behaviors.

Obviously the study we mentioned a lot, but I’m gonna go through a lot of studies here, is the Vietnam War study. You know, where even being addicted to hard drugs. Something as simple [00:39:00] as moving from the context of being in a war environment to the context of being in a home front environment. Like being back at, at, at the, as a civilian it made like 80% of people lose their addictions.

Mm-hmm. Now that’s not to be like a hardcoded thing. You can switch so much your perception of yourself. And I’ve often argued this is one of the areas where something like gender transition can have benefits to an individual. Why they might see benefits initially is because they have changed their contextualization of how they see themselves.

Now, would it be better to just give somebody who has gender dysphoria exorcism? Of course. Now they can contextualize, oh, I got through this thing. I’m on the other side of it.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Thoughts? You were about to say something.

Simone Collins: Mm. This, this kind of well, in general, I think more broadly, if people are like, well, I have doubts.

Just look at the placebo effect. It’s so clear that,

Malcolm Collins: hold on. I’m wanna go way to the placebo effect because somebody can say. I have doubts about this. Yeah. I don’t believe in this. Mm-hmm. I [00:40:00] know it’s only working for these people because of the placebo effect, therefore it won’t work on me. To which I would refer to them the 20 20 10 study.

Placebos without deception. A randomized controlled trial in irritable bowel syndrome. Yeah, patients were explicitly told they were giving inert sugar pills. Yeah. Like a sugar pill with no medication. They were told yet, still improved significantly. The,

Simone Collins: the, well now to be fair, they were told basically this is the, a sugar pill.

The placebo effect is something that has been found to be helpful for some people. But that’s what we’re doing here. So they,

Malcolm Collins: they had,

Simone Collins: I think that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. A 59% versus a 35% effect. Huge difference.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Super huge. Yeah, super huge.

Malcolm Collins: So,

Let’s

Simone Collins: talk also, you see this, and I, I mentioned this to you as, as well, and we’ve talked about this on other podcasts.

Th there was one study that I love that did proper sleep analysis on people. We’re

Malcolm Collins: gonna go into a n