Month: April 2021

A husband and father in Brazil, Rico Ledesma, age 41, has undergone massive amounts of plastic surgery and dental implants to transform his body into a replica of an Orc, a demon from J. R. R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.” (Orcs were fictional humanoid monsters, such as a goblin.)

To accomplish his paranormal appearance, Ledesma covered 85% of his body in hideous tattoos, split his tongue, chopped off part of his ears, surgically placed eight subdermal piercings under his skin, disfigured his nasal septum, tattooed his eyeballs black, and spent over $500 to implant two giant tusks in his lower jaw. Other parts of his body were scarified with a hot iron. No serious Christian could doubt that Rico Ledesma is demonized.

His wife, who calls herself Krishna Insomnia, adoringly embraces Ledesma’s appearance. In fact, she has done most of the tattooing herself. Her own face and body are covered in dark black inking. His young daughter adores her father and sadly has likely inherited his demons. In one photo with clues to his intentions, he wears a hat with the words “Orc Infernal” and a T-shirt with an upside-down cross and hands displaying the horned image of Satan worship. Now, he has signed a contact with a major Hollywood film producer to make a movie.

I’m no fan of Tolkien, though I realize that he was a friend of C. S. Lewis and a professing Christian of Catholic persuasion. But frankly I’m troubled by his use of occult imagery in “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.” I wonder if his upbringing in South Africa and his parents’ lack of understanding witchcraft in that part of the world set him up for demonization. (There is an interesting story of an African servant taking him, as a child, overnight to her village.) No one  can question Tolkien’s literary brilliance. But if he’d had an understanding of spiritual warfare, he might not have lavished such significance on characters like Gollum, who is obviously demonic. Nor would he have written fantasies about “good” fairies. Sadly, many video games are replete with demonic characters taken from Tolkien. “World of Warcraft,” for example, has appropriated Orc demons who drink blood from beings known as Legion.

Beware the characters of video games. Have nothing to do with Orc beings. Understand that fairies are demons in disguise. Take a more careful look at “Lord of the Rings.” And pray for the soul of Rico Ledesma who, without Christian conversion and deliverance, has a lifetime of spiritual torment waiting him, more awful than all the pain of his inking, piercings, and disfigurations.

The verdict is in. Guilty on all three counts in the murder of George Floyd. Ex-police officer Derek Chauvin, minus a successful appeal, will spend the rest of his life in jail. But why did it happen? President Biden weighed in saying that what happened was the result of systemic racism. No one denies that America has a horrible past of racism, particularly in parts of the country where slavery was enshrined. But if racism were truly “systemic,” “institutional” to America, there never would have been an abolitionist movement and a civil war to free the slaves. Perhaps we need to look deeper into the spiritual context of what is happening. It is Satan who poisons the hearts of people with prejudice whenever he has an opening through personal sin or generational curses. I’ve cast out many demons of hateful bigotry who infested because of what I call the “curse of the slave master” — Caucasian Christians whose ancestors practiced human bondage.

Which brings us to the George Floyd verdict. Floyd was a troubled soul. He had five criminal convictions on his record. In 2009 he served a five-year prison sentence for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. His own girlfriend testified during the Chauvin trial that they used meth and opioids. When Chauvin attempted to arrest Floyd for supposedly passing a counterfeit bill, Floyd resisted arrest. His alleged drug dealer sat next to him in the car. The whole world knows what happened next, the knee on the neck, Floyd’s unheeded cries for help, and his death.

We’ve all seen photos of what appeared to be an insensitive and smug look on Chauvin’s face as Floyd struggled for life. If Floyd had a checkered life, what about Chauvin? His parents divorced when he was seven. He failed to graduate from high school. During his police career of 19 years, he had 18 complaints filed against him. He once yanked a woman out of a car for driving 10 miles over the speed limit. He had been charged with multiple felony counts of tax evasion. While working security at a nightclub he was known to be overly aggressive, especially with black patrons. Chauvin clearly had his own personal problems that may have abetted his arrogance leading to the death of Floyd.

All that Satan needed to do was bring these two troubled souls together and cause Chauvin’s internalized anger to boil over for a moment. That could have led him to kill Floyd and set off a firestorm of social chaos. What if all of this was meticulously orchestrated by Satan, aided by a seed of racism in Chauvin’s heart? How different things might have been if both these men had been committed Christians walking with the Lord. What if they both had been through inner healing and deliverance? Or if they both had attended a multi-cultural church and worshipped with the understanding that, “He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26). What if “I can’t breathe” were not a rallying cry for injustice?

In case you haven’t been keeping track, here is the latest American kill count for the past week:

Austin – A man killed three people at an apartment complex. Authorities described it as a “domestic situation.” The Austin police chief said the former detective knew and targeted his victims.
Kenosha – Three people were killed and two injured after a shooting at a tavern.
Chicago – A 7-year-old girl was killed and her father wounded in a shooting while sitting inside a vehicle at a McDonald’s drive-thru.
Columbus – A woman was killed and five were wounded after a shooting at a vigil for a homicide victim.
Detroit – Four people were shot at another shooting vigil.
Washington, D. C. – Three men and a teenage girl were shot for no apparent reason.

There have always been crazed killers and insane shooters. But in recent weeks America has experienced an orgy of mass murder. Is this confluence of killings serendipitous or systematic? I’ve learned as an exorcist that evil is never random. I am amazed by the meticulous planning of the devil who fulfils curses by linking multiple evil events over large swaths of times spanning centuries and even millennia. When we see clusters of killings, such as the recent murders in America, we can conclude that demonic intelligence is behind what appears to be tragic happenstance.

I am not suggesting that, for example, the eight victims in the shooting at an Indiana Fed Ex shipment center were themselves evil. I am saying that the killer was demonically motivated.
If I confronted any of these recent killers for just 15 minutes, I could define the reason for their actions. My claim is based on more than four decades of dealing with people infected with murderous curses. We won’t stop mass killings by firearm control or confiscating every sharp or blunt instrument, whether it’s a gun, a knife, or a baseball bat. Demon possessed people driven to kill will find a way. In the background of every murderer there is an ancestor who killed; parents who were abusive or neglectful; instances of sexual abuse and domestic violence. No heinous act is merely an individual expression of rage. It is always linked to the past. It generally involves an embedded curse of anger and violence.

Murder is instigated by the devil. Jesus said in John 8:44 that Satan is a murderer and has been from the beginning. In the past impulses to kill were somewhat restrained by societal moral codes based on Judeo Christian teachings. That moral consensus is gone, and the devil is freer to induce killing compulsions. The answers to stemming violent crime includes better mental health awareness; increased control of drug trafficking, lowering the tone of political and racial rhetoric; providing people with violent tendencies better opportunities for counseling. But these remedies alone will not solve the problem of callous killers. That is a spiritual matter which only the gospel of Christ can address and only prayers of deliverance can control.

His mother gave birth to him on a kitchen table. As a child he was orphaned, homeless and alone in the world. His father was adulterous and was once sentenced to death by a military court. He was finally banished for life from his native Greece. His mother was mentally ill and was committed to an insane asylum. His sisters married Nazis. When he married, he was almost penniless and possessed little more than the clothes on his back. He never had a real home until he married at the age of 26. Six years later, that home would be Buckingham Palace. His wife was the soon-to-be crowned Queen Elizabeth II. He would henceforth be known as consort to the Queen, Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh. This past Saturday, April 17, 2021, his funeral was held in Windsor Castle and he was buried near there.

In the lore of literature, it is the princess who lives a fairy tale. But this time the fantasy belongs to Prince Phillip. How could his happy ending have come from such a miserable beginning? The answer is in his devotion to God, country, and queen. He was an example of selfless service. He was married 73 years to one woman and served her needs unswervingly. She said that he was her “strength and stay.” The Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the Church of England, rightfully declared him to be “and outstanding example of Christian service.” He regularly held talks at Windsor Castle regarding the importance of clergy serving in modern society. He was originally baptized in the Greek Orthodox Church but converted to Anglicanism when he married.

Did he go to heaven? God alone knows, but there are few world leaders today of whom it can be said that they speak and live by Christian values. You can say that about Prince Phillip. What is important to remember is what he overcame at the beginning of his life. His story might have been filled with womanizing, alcohol abuse, sacrilege, and all sorts of bitterness and anger. Instead, against all odds he overcame his ignominious beginnings to set an example of courage, fidelity, and decency. Many politicians, and not a few church leaders today, could learn from that example. As a deliverance minister, I can think of many world leaders on whom I’d like to perform an exorcism. Prince Phillip was not one of them.

In case you haven’t heard, the so-called Satan Shoes marketed by rapper Lil Nas X have been recalled. The shoes, modified Nike Air Max 97 sneakers, were decked out with a Satan-worshiping pentagram and an upside down cross, plus an injection of human blood in the soles. Lil Nas X got his 15 minutes of fame, but the original shoe manufacturer Nike wasn’t amused. Nike is one of the most politically liberal American companies and previously took heat for promoting former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who started the campaign of athletes refusing to stand for America’s national anthem. But apparently the idea of shoes in the name of Satan was too much even for Nike. They sued the rapper for trademark infringement and won. Not only that, but the distributor of the shoes MSCHF Product Studios Inc. also agreed to buy back all the sold sneakers to remove them from circulation. That’s one small step for Nike, a giant leap for Christian values.

As bad as America’s moral climate is these days, apparently there are still some lines people don’t want to cross. Making light of Lucifer is one of them. The devil is regularly treated frivolously in movies and on television, but Satan Shoes were just too creepy. According to a Barna poll last year, more American’s believe in the devil than believe in God. Today just 51% of American adults believe in an all-powerful Creator, down from 73% in 1991. But today 56% believe in Satan. In short, it seems that people are genuinely concerned about the evil supernatural, but many don’t believe in a God who is able to do anything about it.

As an exorcist I want to affirm that the devil and demons are real – and they can be defeated by the power of Jesus Christ. We have 700+ videos posted on YouTube that bear existential witness to this fact. The depths of demonic evil are beyond human comprehension. Just this last week, a New Mexico drug dealer was stopped. He then pulled out a gun and executed the cop. The killer was first arrested at age 13 and had 9 previous criminal violations on his record. In Los Angeles, three children under the age of five were stabbed to death by their mother. In Florida a 75-year-old woman and a six-year-old boy were killed in a hit and run by a woman high on drugs When captured she said her name was Harry Potter. Satan is having a heyday, but I continue to trust in Romans 5:20 which says, “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.” And I’m grateful there are no more Satan Shoes. I just hope that no one gets the bright idea to market Lucifer Loafers.

Is your house haunted? Do you sometimes feel an unnatural cold? Are there spooky sounds with no logical explanation – footsteps, doors open and close on their own? Perhaps you’ve felt a presence or seen dark shadows out the corner of your eyes. Some people tell me of seeing a figure standing at the foot of their bed in the night. Others hear heavy breathing, groans, shrieks, even screams. Do objects move on their own or disappear and re-appear in a different location? If it is a real ghost and not your imagination, what can be done? Here are five steps to getting rid of an evil spirit that frightens you.

 STEP #1: Check out your faith status. Are you a Christian? If the apparitional presence in your house is a demon, only the power of Jesus Christ can drive it out. Preferably, don’t do this alone. Matthew 18:19 mandates prayers of agreement as being the most powerful.

STEP #2: If you are not the first occupant of the house, apartment, trailer, or whatever your living quarters, who lived there before? Did any acts of violence, such as murder or suicide occur there? Were the prior occupants involved in the occult? It may be difficult to find out these facts but try. What you may discover could be the answer to your haunting.

STEP #3: Clean house. Throw out anything that could attract evil. Some examples are pornography, Buddhas, non-Christian religious art like mandalas or Haitian voodoo paintings, Masonic regalia, occult books like The Satanic Bible, New Age paraphernalia (crystals, sacred stones etc.), or artifacts representing pagan beliefs.

STEP #4: Go through the house with holy anointing oil. Start at the furthest extremity (including basement or second floor). Demons are supernatural beings, but when they enter our time/space material world they are somewhat bound by our physical realities. Consequently, the must enter through an opening. Going room to room, anoint the sides of each window, the lintels of each door and any opening. End up at the front door, the symbol of ownership and right of entry. Anoint the door and command anything evil still present to leave by the authority of Jesus Christ.

STEP #5: You may also want to walk the property on which the dwelling sits and anoint the four corners to cleanse the surroundings as an extra step of protection.  

There are other considerations to cleansing a haunted house. Check out our 500-page “Larson’s Book of Spiritual Warfare” for more detailed instructions. I encourage you strongly to schedule a spiritual encounter with me, in person or virtually. The house may be possessed because you have demons and that gives them a right to stay. Or there may a curse that needs uncovered. Take action now and remember that, if I may paraphrase 1 John 4:4, “Greater is he who is in you than he who is in your haunted house.”

Can you enter heaven if you have demons? To traditional evangelical Christians, this question is a contradiction. To Calvinists, it is an oxymoron. They assert that Christians can’t have demons; therefore, if you have demons you aren’t a Christian. Furthermore, only the elect of God can pass the pearly gates, and God wouldn’t choose someone for heaven who is filled with demons. The corollary would be that if you manifest demons, like those in the Bible (foaming at the mouth, catatonic seizures, displaying supernatural strength) you’re not qualified for heaven. (You know how it goes, “God and the devil can’t dwell together in the same human vessel.”) I assert that there will be a lot of people in heaven who entered by rapture or resurrection, who had demons on earth and left them behind at the trumpet sound (1 Corinthians 15:52).

The question I pose in this blog speaks to the heart of the “Can a Christian have a demon?” controversy. The training that students receive in our International School of Exorcism settles this matter from a biblical and practical standpoint. My purpose here is to emphasize the tragedy that any Christian would pass from death to eternal life and only then shed their indwelling demons. How sad that they never knew exorcism was available to all who are tormented by Satan.

I deal daily with Christians who manifest demons by speaking in demonic tongues. Blasphemies fill their thoughts. Their eyes roll back in their heads. Some scream obscenities, exhibit violent outbursts, even slithered like snakes on the floor. These same people are baptized Christians. They read their Bibles. They profess a deep love for Jesus. But they have been told that their faith is phony by those in the church who pass over the New Testament miracle of casting out demons by saying, “This was only for the time of Christ and the apostles and ended with the canon of Scripture.”

No Christian should die before being delivered of demons. No Christian should be raptured without first tasting the goodness of God. (“Taste and see that the Lord is good” Psalm 34:8). No Christian who struggles with spiritual oppression should ever be told that their quest to be exorcised is faithless folly. Every Christian can, and should, be set from evil spirits and enter into God’s presence NOW! They should be ready to meet the Lord without having to shed the excess baggage of demons.