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The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper
The Whole Story: The Exorcists. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired November 23, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:00]
DEAN: Episode of "THE WHOLE STORY WITH ANDERSON COOPER," "The Exorcist." It's one whole hour, one whole story. It's airing next at 8:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific right here on CNN. You can also watch tomorrow on the CNN app. You'll see David's original reporting he was just talking about.
Thank you so much for joining me this evening. I'm Jessica Dean. Remember, if you're in the U.S. you can now stream CNN whenever you want, wherever you are on the CNN app, you can visit CNN.com/Watch for more on that.
Have a wonderful. We'll see you back here next weekend.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to THE WHOLE STORY. I'm Anderson Cooper.
When you hear the term exorcism, you probably think of movies and TV shows where priests dramatically expel demons. But the Catholic Church says exorcism is a formal ritual rooted in the bible. These religious rites are still performed regularly today. But are they actually on the rise?
One Catholic exorcist who has never spoken out publicly before told us he's performing more exorcisms now than ever, with multiple requests every week. Our team reached out to all 196 Catholic dioceses around the U.S. to see if they are also seeing a rise.
And in this next hour, CNN's David Culver will tell you how they responded and explore what exactly happens during an exorcism, and why it sparked a debate over psychological distress or the belief of spiritual possession even within the Catholic Church. He also looks at how other Christian faiths performed their own rituals, sometimes called deliverances, and speaks to the people who say it's helped change their lives.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A tunnel.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got a tunnel.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got a tunnel.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK. That's my favorite one. Who is that?
I had reached desperation in my life countless times before. I had tried in the past to take my life. Like I said, I just was broken. And there was a spirit who had such a strong hold on me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go, in the name of Jesus Christ, come out of her.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The spirit was a demon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come out of Abbie.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Leave her all the way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: See, demons come in to trauma. They come in to the trauma in your life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go, go.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was beaten up as a child.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go! Go!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We'll have to fight all our lives because Satan is always going to come against us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out! Get out of here!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're infected by demons.
DAVID CULVER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a Friday night in Phoenix. And here I am, walking into a place I never thought I'd find myself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let her go.
CULVER (voice-over): Over several months we keep coming back to Arizona.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Come off her. Come off her.
CULVER (voice-over): Home to one of the fastest growing Catholic dioceses in the country. Here we also find family churches, a hotel conference room, even a garage all used as believers see it to expel demons.
What we're witnessing here some call deliverances, others call exorcisms. They can look different across different Christian denominations, and at times it can be controversial.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is where we have the healing for the children's deliverance.
CULVER (voice-over): Even carried out on the very young.
Can it get violent with kids?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh yes. Some of them have to be held down.
CULVER (voice-over): But the version most of us know dates back centuries and is rooted in the Catholic Church.
And we're headed now to meet with two Catholic priests who are exorcists. But the thing about the Catholic Church is they don't advertise this and show where they're exorcist priests are. Instead, it takes a lot of digging.
(Voice-over): Catholic exorcists are appointed quietly and rarely named. Most people never know who they are.
The bishop doesn't want them to talk publicly, doesn't want us to reveal their names, show their faces so we can just for now have a conversation.
(Voice-over): That conversation lasted nearly two hours. The next day, one of the priests, with his bishop's approval, agreed to speak with us on camera.
This is the first time I've actually interviewed an exorcist.
(Voice-over): We sit down at a church far from his home parish.
We're not showing your face and revealing your name. There's a desire to keep a shroud of mystery but for practical reasons, if you would.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes, for reasons of safety and protect people, protect ourselves and protect others.
CULVER: And then the question folks might ask is, who are you protecting yourself from?
[20:05:01]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As a priest, I believe I faced some hostility, well, we as Catholics called the world.
CULVER (voice-over): He's been an exorcist since 1999, and this is the first time he's spoken publicly about exorcisms.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It began about 26 years with a young lady in the parish. She lived out in a ranch. We visited the ranch to do the exorcism. It went very quickly, very dramatic.
CULVER: What does that look like?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was as if a flash of light, almost red in color, came out of her, went through the window and the young woman says, I think he's gone. I said, so do I.
CULVER (voice-over): Since that first exorcism, he says, the demand has only increased. Can you give me a sense early on, 26 years or so ago, what were you
seeing as far as the request for exorcisms and what have you seen since?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What there has been is a surge in requests.
CULVER: How often every week or month back then versus now?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would say when I began, maybe there were three to five every one to three months. And now I'm going to guess it would be three to five maybe every week.
CULVER: It's, I assume, nonstop for you then.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is. I find that Satan is very astute.
CULVER (voice-over): We reached out to every diocese and archdiocese across the U.S., and out of the 48 that responded, more than two dozen say they have seen an increase in inquiries for exorcisms over the past two decades. At Arizona State University, we meet professor Michael Ostling.
MICHAEL OSTLING, PROFESSOR OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES: Exorcism has been part of Christianity from its beginning.
CULVER (voice-over): He studies everything from the roots of Christian belief to how people across cultures understand the supernatural.
OSTLING: The very first thing that Jesus does, according to the gospels, as part of his ministry, is an exorcism. A person who is possessed by an unclean spirit starts yelling and Jesus says, be silent, and the spirit departs from the man. That's when the crowd says, oh, this guy has got something going on.
CULVER: And that's why Christianity today still holds on to this because it's rooted in the tradition leading back through the gospels.
(Voice-over): Some of the earliest images of exorcisms date back to the Middle Ages, like this painting from the 1200s, which depicts a Franciscan priest expelling demons from a city. In the 15th century Italian painter Antonio Vivarini portrayed a priest casting a devil out of a woman.
OSTLING: The experience of being possessed is an experience that we find across the world, in many cultures, but many, many modern Christians don't take literal exorcism seriously. They do see it as something pretty worrisome, a bad way of treating mental health issues, something ripe for abuse, something that is itself a form of abuse.
CULVER (voice-over): The Catholic exorcist sees it differently. For him, an exorcism is an act of charity, accompanying people who feel isolated in their suffering.
What can you say about the demographics of folks who have come to you? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of people are victims of trauma, especially
childhood trauma, being raised in an extremely dysfunctional household where there might be verbal and physical and emotional abuse.
The worst I have seen that has opened portals to demonic influence, where a person is totally innocent is when they were sexually abused as children. Sexual abuse open horrible doors to Satan.
CULVER: Do you see a lot of that?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, very, very common. Very common.
CULVER: Sex abuse even within the church?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
CULVER: And has that been something that you as a priest, as an exorcist, has had to deal with somebody who was a victim of another priest?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I dealt with perhaps two or three persons. Yes.
CULVER: And what is that like?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's very sad. The immediate reaction is, you know, is guilt and then as they mature and realize someone did this to me, someone more powerful than I am, hurt me, they get angry at the church.
[20:10:02]
But by the time they come to see me as a priest, what they're asking for is healing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are your feelings when it comes to this specific topic?
CULVER: This sounds really cliche, but it's definitely curiosity that drives it. I'm a practicing Catholic. I don't know much about exorcisms. It was something that I was often just aligning with, and I think most of us do this, Hollywood and the portrayal of whatever would happen around Halloween and, you know, the extreme horrors that come with it. My biggest concern is that we were going to step into a space that could be seen as exploitative.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't need to go chasing devils.
CULVER: But then when you're actually in the midst of it, you see the humanity.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It beat me up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How old?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thirteen.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CULVER: Have you seen "The Exorcist"?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did see it. I did see it. I saw the TV version because I was afraid to see the --
CULVER: You were afraid to see "The Exorcist."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes. It was cut. I wouldn't say the one in the movie house because I knew that it wasn't cut. Those kinds of exorcisms with all that drama are very uncommon. They do happen, but they don't happen every day.
CULVER: In 25 plus years, how many exorcisms do you think you've carried out?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going to guess less than a hundred that I would call formal exorcisms. The use of the official rite of exorcism.
CULVER (voice-over): When the Catholic Church believes there's a genuine demonic possession, the exorcist says you qualify for a formal or full exorcism. But he says the person must possess superhuman strength, speak or understand languages they've never studied, and reveal secrets about people or events they couldn't possibly know.
All other exorcisms, he says, are called minor and are essentially prayers for protection and healing. It does not mean the church believes the person is possessed.
As you've kind of looked and said, there is an increase overall of requests.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
CULVER: The majority of those require minor exorcisms.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Minor exorcism. Exactly.
CULVER: Would you say, as you assess it, the full exorcisms are also proportionately on a rise?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes.
CULVER: When was the last full exorcism that you carried out?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two days ago.
CULVER: Can you describe some of the things that you've seen in the most extreme cases?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Levitating, coming off the ground.
CULVER (voice-over): Vatican officials tell us Catholic exorcisms cannot be reported, and each bishop decides how exorcisms are handled in his own diocese.
[20:15:08]
Some lean in, others keep the practice at a distance. To see how a major diocese navigates that divide, we meet with Bishop John Dolan inside Saint Mary's Basilica in Phoenix.
BISHOP JOHN DOLAN, SAINT MARY'S BASILICA: You know, exorcism and demonic stuff.
CULVER: Yes, for sure. Yes.
DOLAN: I've been really, really tried to downplay that as much as possible because I find especially inner city people who come in and think they're possessed, they're just not. They've got so many other issues.
CULVER: Are there cases that you know of where exorcism has been necessary in recent years?
DOLAN: Well, we've had people who have come forward. Yes. There's something not demonic, but there's something more, oh, it could be, but --
CULVER: It could be that somebody is possessed, do you think?
DOLAN: It could be, but it could very well be that they're just -- it's something that the psychiatrist is missing.
CULVER (voice-over): The Vatican updated its rules around exorcisms in 1999, and encouraged every diocese to have access to a trained exorcist and to properly screen for other illnesses.
DOLAN: The uptick on the number of exorcists is probably the wrong way to go. I really do believe that the uptick on more psychologists and psychiatrists is where we should be going. I don't need to go chasing devils. We're losing sight of something that we have savored within our church forever. Faith and science work together. They don't have to fight against each other.
CULVER (voice-over): For Bishop Dolan, the priority is strengthening mental health support in Phoenix, a focus shaped by the pain and loss his own family has endured.
One of nine, right?
DOLAN: One of nine. Yes. Yes.
CULVER: And where did you fall in the nine?
DOLAN: I was number seven.
CULVER: You and your siblings close?
DOLAN: Yes, we were a beautiful family. And then they grow up. Tom, he died by suicide when he was 19. My sister Teresa and her husband then took their life and died by suicide six years later. Then a few years later, Mary started showing signs of depression and suicidal ideation, and she died in 2022. So she was the last to die.
CULVER: That was so recent.
DOLAN: Yes. Yes. After I had arrived here. I was just deeply saddened when my sister Mary died, even though we knew that it wasn't a matter of if, but rather when. I received countless, countless letters. Most of those were just my prayers are with you. I can't imagine what that was like. And then a few would say, I hope this person isn't in hell. And things of that nature. And it was like, oh, toss it.
CULVER: Do you think there's something genetic or something in the family?
DOLAN: I don't know, I find myself at moments with depression, but I don't know if it's like a blue funk. I don't have suicidal ideation or any of that.
CULVER: You're a Catholic family. Is there any immediate sense of this is the devil, this is evil, these are demons.
DOLAN: No. Surprisingly, none of that came through and it was never offered by any of the priests or anything. You know, my sister Teresa, she taught art in Catholic school and was a regular churchgoer. So it isn't about a lack of prayer. Sometimes it's just a mental health thing.
CULVER (voice-over): In 2022, Bishop Dolan opened the Diocesan Office of Mental Health Ministry. A bridge to professional counseling and care.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We walk alongside and we connect people to resources.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We get a lot of calls, just, you know, about depression, anxiety, substance abuse is a very big one. You know, people are losing their jobs.
CULVER: Would you say there's a surge of demand?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The demand is huge. Anything that you see related to mental health is the tip of the iceberg to what's actually going on out there.
CULVER: Do you get people that are saying that there are demons within them?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have people coming in, you know, demand an exorcism or the spiritual support in the first step is to connect them to their mental health support.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I mean, it definitely happens. One typical example was a woman who was persistent. She needed to have an exorcism. She was calling on and off. Two months later, she went into the hospital and got help.
CULVER (voice-over): Across Arizona, people are reaching out for help in different ways, and in Tucson, Bishop Gerald Kicanas knows what it means to meet folks where they are.
BISHOP GERALD KICANAS, TUCSON, ARIZONA: We run the full border between Arizona and Mexico.
CULVER (voice-over): Back in 2014, he stood at the border wall celebrating mass and passing communion to migrants through the steel beams.
[20:20:04]
KICANAS: Well, I think the church has a responsibility to speak out about issues in our society.
CULVER (voice-over): And yet there is one subject he's never addressed on camera.
You've never spoken publicly about exorcisms. And I guess it's not like a dinner table conversation. Really?
KICANAS: No.
CULVER: Is it fair to say that some bishops might be more willing to allow them to take place, while others may shy away from it?
KICANAS: Some would feel that this should be done always. Some may feel sometimes. Some would say rarely, because it's always hard to distinguish what this person is struggling with.
I think psychiatrists and psychologists would realize that there are limits to what they can do with therapy and with drugs, and I think this is why the church has had exorcisms, because there have been people who can't explain what's happening to them, and the church is there to pray alongside of them, to comfort them, to heal them.
The reality is, someone is hurting. Someone is suffering, and the church needs to be there. Thats where we belong.
CULVER: If people see this as a scam. They should be sneaking mental health treatment. They shouldn't be coming to an exorcist. How do you address that?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is known as the real exorcist. Give Dr. Larson a big hand clap as he comes up.
CULVER (voice-over): Here it is a Friday night in October and we find ourselves with Bob Larson at a hotel ballroom in Scottsdale, Arizona.
BOB LARSON, EVANGELICAL SELF-TAUGHT EXORCIST: CNN is with us here tonight. People, when they saw the sign at the door, turned around and went the other way.
CULVER (voice-over): Larson isn't Catholic. He's an evangelical, self- taught exorcist.
LARSON: Come out in the name of Jesus. Come out.
CULVER (voice-over): And he's been carrying out exorcisms publicly.
LARSON: I defy you in the name of the living God.
CULVER (voice-over): Including in hotel ballrooms for decades.
LARSON: Who are you? Who are you?
CULVER (voice-over): He was the first, he says, to provide one-on-one exorcisms virtually.
LARSON: You will be struck with judgment.
CULVER (voice-over): Unlike Catholic exorcists, Larson charges a fee, he says, to help support the ministry.
LARSON: I'm going to do a video. I turn the ring light on.
CULVER (voice-over): His private sessions, both online and in-person can now cost hundreds of dollars an hour.
LARSON: Most of you know who I am.
CULVER (voice-over): This night, however, is free of charge. But his many books, such as "Dealing with Demons" are on sale in the back.
LARSON: And that's the one thing people don't think about. Traumatization and what it does to the human soul.
CULVER (voice-over): While listening to his message, we're struck by one thing in particular.
LARSON: And it's that trauma that demons work on.
CULVER (voice-over): Like the Catholic exorcist, Larson believes many cases of demonic possession are caused by childhood trauma.
LARSON: I want to say to you tonight, if there's something you have harbored and you've carried with you inside you your whole life, tonight is the night to talk about it.
CULVER (voice-over): It's then we begin to hear crying from the front row. Larson, flanked by two towering helpers and his own camera crew, approaches a woman named Aurora.
LARSON: Why are you crying? What is the thing that is going on in your life tonight?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was a trauma and he beat me up and he was all wet in blood.
LARSON: How old?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thirteen.
LARSON: Now look at me. I'm going to help you through this.
CULVER (voice-over): Larson then appears to speak through Aurora to the man who allegedly abused her. This, he says, is the demon inside.
LARSON: You're an evil man. You're evil. Why did you beat that child?
CULVER (voice-over): Aurora starts speaking. It's as if the man or demon as they see it is speaking through her.
LARSON: Do you understand me? Do you understand me?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
CULVER (voice-over): Larson then appears to dig beyond childhood trauma, examining Aurora's heritage.
LARSON: Is it the Native? The Mexican? Or the Irish? Which is the curse that set this woman up? Look at me.
CULVER (voice-over): Minutes later, Larson begins the actual exorcism.
LARSON: Come out in the name of Jesus. Come out, come on, help me out. Go, go!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out!
LARSON: Come out in the name of Jesus!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jesus saves.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get out!
LARSON: Go, go! Come out of her. Come on, be serious about this. Go, go. Help her back up. Be seated. OK. Restore the dignity that you deserve and you had before that beating as a 13-year-old.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.
LARSON: We're going to take a little break. It's a good time to stop by the table back there and get our book. Start reading them. Please consider scheduling a session.
CULVER (voice-over): A few weeks earlier, we visited Larson at a Scottsdale office.
LARSON: So this is where I do my virtual exorcism. There's my notes on you, but this is where I do my podcast.
CULVER: This is -- you do a podcast as well.
LARSON: That's the podcast.
CULVER: You're a full multi-platform.
LARSON: Well, why not? Wouldn't Jesus have done that?
[20:30:02]
CULVER: The Jesus podcast would probably be pretty popular. If people start to, you know, question if you're doing something that's like, you know, they should be seeking mental health treatment, they shouldn't be coming to an exorcist, or they see it as a scam, how do you -- how do you address that?
LARSON: If somebody needs psychiatric help, and I say this to them often. I'm not even sure you have demons. And if you did, I couldn't do anything about it right now. You need medication. OK, well, some of these people, they don't want to hear that. But there is that portion of the population for whom the answer is an exorcism.
CULVER (voice-over): Still, we wanted to find out more about Aurora.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have to excuse my room, but see, it's all full of Bob's books.
CULVER (voice-over): The woman who Bob Larson exorcized.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I used to have a big cross here.
CULVER (voice-over): So we go to her home in an upper middle class Phoenix suburb. She's a single mom and grandmother who says she spent years working as a bank teller and then a hairdresser and a real estate agent. Eventually, she says, building her own financial independence. She's also a devout fan of Bob Larson.
You started to learn about Bob Larson a couple of years ago through his book?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw him on YouTube. That's how I learned about him, and then I got this book.
CULVER: "Curse Breaking." Is there, as you see it, is there an overlap between mental health, like when people need -- you mentioned depression. Do you suffer from depression at times?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.
CULVER: Never?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, no, I don't suffer from depression. No. You do deal with anxiety sometimes, but those are small demons.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A mental illness, the separation of one from the other is not always clear.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go, come out of Abbie.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's really nothing left for me to do.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:36:59]
CULVER: Hi. David.
DAVID PAPPAS, EXORCIST: Hey, nice to meet you.
CULVER: Nice to meet you. But I think it probably will be nicer for you to meet somebody else. I just wanted to pass over the phone to somebody you might recognize.
PAPPAS: Oh, hey. How are you?
CULVER (voice-over): What you're seeing play out here is a man meeting his idol, Bob Larson, for the first time.
LARSON: What an honor to meet you, sir. Great.
PAPPAS: Honor to meet you.
CULVER (voice-over): The moment says a lot about Larson's influence and reach, especially when it comes to those following in his footsteps.
LARSON: Well, come by and see us sometime, and we'll visit for a little bit.
PAPPAS: Oh, I love that.
LARSON: OK.
PAPPAS: Thank you so much.
CULVER: All right. Thanks, David. We'll see you. All right. Bye.
LARSON: Oh, man.
CULVER: Do you get that a lot? A lot of folks who --
LARSON: Yes. But they have a special. You didn't see this guy. He just, you know, looks like just kind of an average guy. And here he is.
CULVER: And you inspire him.
LARSON: Following, trying to follow what we're doing and trying to kind of get demons out of people. That's just -- that is, that's amazing.
CULVER: Are you guys are headed off to church?
PAPPAS: No. The church is right here.
CULVER: Oh. Makes it convenient, right?
PAPPAS: Yes. Right here, man.
CULVER: Is this your garage? PAPPAS: Yes.
CULVER: And you've made it into a church?
PAPPAS: Yes.
CULVER: After we hung up on the Facetime, he looked up at his wife and he said, I want to meet him. And then he started crying.
PAPPAS: And what gets me emotional about it isn't the fact that he wants to meet me. It's the fact that, you know, God is opening a door through him and his obedience to allow stuff like this. Even if it's little or big, it allows other people to walk into it.
Come on for now, come on.
CULVER (voice-over): This is Pastor David Pappas in action at another church.
PAPPAS: Leave her heart. Come off her heart.
CULVER (voice-over): With help from Larson's books and YouTube videos.
PAPPAS: Go all the way out. Fire and Holy Ghost. Fire in her stomach.
CULVER (voice-over): He says he essentially taught himself how to be an exorcist.
This is very new.
PAPPAS: OK.
CULVER: This is -- I'm Catholic, so, you know.
PAPPAS: OK. OK.
CULVER: Exorcism is something obviously you hear about in movies. There's always something that's --
PAPPAS: Yes. It's not like that.
CULVER: And Dr. Larson uses exorcism.
PAPPAS: Yes, yes.
CULVER: Do you ever use exorcism in your wording?
PAPPAS: I haven't personally. Sometimes the word exorcist push people away. Sometimes I don't even use deliverance. Sometimes I'll say freedom because it's less invasive.
CULVER: Does some of this, do you think, David, like border mental health and mental health treatment? Does it overlap?
PAPPAS: That's a tough question.
CULVER: Yes.
PAPPAS: Like a lot of times I would say, you know, people come here and they're desperate. I would say you ask the Lord, you talk to your doctor, you get with what you need. And if you need help, I'm here to help you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need help.
PAPPAS: Amen. Well, let me pray for you. OK?
CULVER (voice-over): And like Larson and the Catholic exorcist.
[20:40:02]
PAPPAS: You come out of her. Stop tormenting this woman. In the name of Jesus Christ you leave her.
CULVER (voice-over): Pastor David is not a medical professional. He says his work is strictly spiritual.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You want to ride your roller coaster? Are you ready? Go. Oh, you ran over your cones.
CULVER (voice-over): From the outside you'd struggle to see the pain Abbie and Connor Smith have been carrying.
CONNOR SMITH: We actually met through Hinge.
ABBIE SMITH: Like a dating app. Can you get me one long piece?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoa.
C. SMITH: We got married fairly quickly, and then he came along pretty much immediately.
A. SMITH: Oh, that's your jeep.
CULVER (voice-over): Abby hopes that sharing her story might help someone else, so she lets us in.
A. SMITH: After having him, I got really bad postpartum. I had tried in the past to take my life. This last time I was just right about to do it, and I -- it was desperation. It was loneliness. It was -- and it was almost a feeling of I don't care anymore. Just sitting in my shower, just like I can't go anymore.
That's OK.
CULVER (voice-over): Abbie believes having demons cast out of her on a regular basis has kept her moving forward.
PAPPAS: I've been reached out to by CNN. They're doing a documentary on deliverance, so just a heads up because at like 7:30, they'll come up in here.
CULVER: Do we notice the moon? Full moon. I can hear the service is underway, so we'll step in.
PAPPAS: Rejected them.
AUDIENCE: Rejected them.
PAPPAS: In Jesus name.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, I'm so sorry. Come inside.
PAPPAS: And say, by the blood of Jesus Christ.
AUDIENCE: By the blood of Jesus Christ.
PAPPAS: All the trauma, all the rejection, all the abandonment, all of that would leave, come out. Come out.
A. SMITH: She's in me.
PAPPAS: Come out of her all the way.
A. SMITH: No.
PAPPAS: Come out of her. Go. Go. In the name of Jesus Christ, come out of her.
A. SMITH: Help me.
PAPPAS: Go, go! Come out of Abbie.
A. SMITH: No!
PAPPAS: Go. Leave her all the way. Go! Your time is up. Come out of her!
A. SMITH: So, man, it's still a little bit new to me, too, but, so, like, that was the Jezebel spirit, so I might sound crazy, but, like, I could see her in the spirit when we're doing it, but, like, I knew she needed to come out.
CULVER: Jezebel, a demon. That's a demon?
A. SMITH: Yes. She -- yes, she's a --
C. SMITH: Hey, babe, do you mind me?
A. SMITH: Yes. You can go ahead.
C. SMITH: So, it got to the point where she kind of wasn't in control of herself. And wait, like, I called the sheriffs and they took her for a mental evaluation in the hospital. Like this was something they deemed enough to force somebody to go.
CULVER: And that's a very low moment then for you to have to call law enforcement.
C. SMITH: At that point, it was a danger to our son. PAPPAS: Go, go, go. Come out of her all the way.
A. SMITH: I was taking pills. I was taking like prescription plus drugs.
CULVER: A lot of folks would say, you know, traditionally, OK, try rehab, try to go to --
A. SMITH: I've done that.
CULVER: You've done all of that.
A. SMITH: I never went to any rehab but I have done, I've been in the hospital before. I've done like intensive outpatient. I've done personal counseling, I've done group counseling. I've done AA a couple times.
PAPPAS: Go. Every one of you go, go.
A. SMITH: This was my last call. I remember being in the car and I'm like, Lord, I can't do this. I'm lying to everybody, and I just remember, like, what have I got to lose? So I reach out to everybody in Arizona who did deliverance.
PAPPAS: Take a deep breath. Go. You all right?
A. SMITH: Yes.
PAPPAS: OK.
CULVER (voice-over): The Catholic exorcist says many of the people he treats are also battling suicidal thoughts and addiction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Young lady on drugs attempted to commit suicide at the time, I was seeing her and worked with her maybe the last four years. Today I received a card just thanking me, saying, you know, after four years I continue to recover.
CULVER (voice-over): He tells me that over four years he administered multiple exorcisms on that woman, while he says she also saw her mental health provider.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I make it a stipulation. If I'm going to work with you, you can't stop seeing your psychologist or psychiatrist on your own.
CULVER (voice-over): Whether a person has both a mental health condition and demonic possession, versus having one or the other, he says takes time to discern. And there's a process.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the first few years, most of the exorcisms, they were more -- I don't know, the word I want to use is spontaneous. Now they tend to be more evaluated.
[20:45:11]
CULVER: You require some of the individuals that come to you to have a doctor evaluate them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes, yes, yes. Mental illness can easily, especially like an example is schizophrenia. Often one of the symptoms of people who are suffering with schizophrenia is they hear voices. And of course may be the illness that is provoking that and not Satan himself, but mental illness. The separation one from the other is not always clear.
BRO. MIKE SMITH, ARIZONA DELIVERANCE CENTER: This is where we have the healing for the children's deliverance and healing service.
CULVER: Can it get violent with kids?
M. SMITH: Oh, yes. Some of them have to be held down.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:50:30]
CULVER: When I looked up Arizona Deliverance Center. Watch your step here. Somebody is lying down. It's strange to reconcile what they do in delivering individuals. Putting people essentially through exorcisms to purge demons at the same time see a Google review of 4.3 and some 87 comments.
Hi, how are you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come out in the name of Jesus. Come out. We need you to come out. Witchcraft come out in the name of Jesus Christ. Go away right now in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Freedom, freedom. You see, more and more of God's glory with degree of freedom. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every hold of the enemy be broken.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Lord.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Every hold of the enemy be broken.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Jesus.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Loose out. Let it go. Loose out. Let it go. Come out of her right now in the name of Jesus. Out in the name of Jesus. In the mighty name of the Lord Jesus Christ, be free.
CULVER (voice-over): Jamila is an English teacher who's been coming to the deliverance center for about a month.
You were pointing to your head. Were you feeling a pressure?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I've been going through a little bit of demonic oppression over my head. And then when he prayed over me it kind of like loosened and like, my mind was clear. But I'm still new to this. I'm not entirely sure how all this works yet.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm reflecting of the enemy. You got to go. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, receive your freedom.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out of her.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Receive life right now in the name of Jesus. Receive life right now in the name of Jesus.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's different ways that the purging can happen. It's either coughing, yawning, crying. Sometimes throwing up. Never had that done yet.
CULVER: Is it demons or?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mostly it's like -- the demons come out through your breath.
CULVER: The demons come out through -- when you exhale.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When you exhale, when you cry. It comes out in your nose, your ears.
CULVER: Anything that's physically leaving you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Light and life to you right now.
CULVER (voice-over): Michelle Boyd says deliverance has helped rid her of addiction, hearing loss and various mental health conditions.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had struggled with an addiction of opioids and I was able to get delivered to that, and I have no temptations to go back to it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The breath of the Almighty has given me life. Be free. Be free. Receive life right now in the name of Jesus.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Jasper, get over here. Get over here. Come here. I think it started way when I was in second grade, I think.
Come here, Jasper.
I was bullied a lot, especially by teachers. I was placed in special ed. They thought I was slow. I used to deal with depression a lot. I think it was somewhat like a bipolar issue.
CULVER: When did you start taking medication?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A year and a half ago. I had my psychiatrist help me taper them down. The more I tapered down off of them, the more I realized I didn't need them anymore. I stopped taking them per, you know, psychiatrist approval.
Come here.
CULVER: Brother Mike, does he encourage you to not take your medications or that was your choice?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That was my choice.
M. SMITH: This cabinet up here, when somebody has an addiction or something, they get rid of their drugs or their cigarettes.
CULVER (voice-over): Brother Mike Smith is the man behind the Arizona Deliverance Center. He has a wall full of certifications ranging from rehabilitation counselor to job placement specialist. All of this, he says, has prepared him to serve the people who come through his doors.
The demographics of the folks who come in here, what walks of life are they coming in from?
M. SMITH: It's kind of a skewed end, low-income. They don't have any money. They don't really have any hope, and they don't really have a future.
[20:55:04]
CULVER: Is this a last resort?
M. SMITH: Yes, for several people, it's the last resort before they're institutionalized or before they go homeless.
CULVER: You don't see yourself as a mental illness treatment center, right?
M. SMITH: No, no, it's more of a spiritual island of, you know, this is really a healing center, not a church.
CULVER (voice-over): But what exactly does healing mean? Brother Mike talks about miracles that he says have taken place here.
M. SMITH: One guy comes here, he got healed of schizoaffective disorder through this ministry years ago. So he was mentally ill. Now he's cured.
CULVER (voice-over): The kind of stories that spark faith for some and a lot of skepticism for others.
This is a bookstore you have here?
M. SMITH: Yes. Books on mental illness, healing, deliverance, exorcisms. This one here was on how to cure mental illness and Christians. This is the most important book I wrote.
CULVER (voice-over): To be clear, Brother Mike is not a medical professional and doesn't claim to be one.
Does that cure as you see it, can it involve modern medications?
M. SMITH: Yes, it's a combination.
CULVER: So you don't say push away your medication, you're cured?
M. SMITH: Oh no, no.
CULVER: And you have services just for young people.
M. SMITH: Yes. Parents bring their sick kids, if you sexually abuse or physically abuse or emotionally abuse a child, that is an opening for a spirit to enter the kid's body.
CULVER: How many folks do you think have an underlying trauma at that level?
M. SMITH: Well, almost all of them. It's just disturbing to see kids in pain, but it's an enormous relief to see them healed.
This is where we have the healing for the children's deliverance and healing service.
CULVER: And how many would fill this space?
M. SMITH: Oh, we don't normally get more than 25.
CULVER: And children, you're talking about, they can be very --
M. SMITH: Preteens.
CULVER: Preteens.
M. SMITH: Preteens, yes. Third grade, second grade, first grade.
CULVER: These are little kids.
M. SMITH: Yes. Oh, yes.
CULVER: Can it get violent with kids?
M. SMITH: Oh, yes.
CULVER: Really? And what does it look like?
M. SMITH: Punched out, screaming, biting. Do you ever see that cartoon when you were a kid? The Tasmanian Devil?
CULVER: Oh, yes.
M. SMITH: OK.
CULVER: Is that what it's like in there?
M. SMITH: Yes, that's what it's like in there. Some of them have to be held down, you know, to keep them from hurting us or them.
CULVER: There have been some cases that, children included, have lost their lives through deliverances.
M. SMITH: Yes. No, we don't do that.
CULVER: Have you heard of those cases? M. SMITH: I've heard of them, but we never had one.
CULVER (voice-over): Just this past May in Fort Pierce, Florida, investigators say 6-year-old Ramil Pierre's mom told them that her little boy died while she was trying to cast out demons in a home exorcism.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She believed she was being told by God to basically exorcize demons out of the child's body.
CULVER (voice-over): Authorities believe he suffocated to death.
Understanding exorcisms today, how would you frame it in this modern era?
OSTLING: When we have a lot of religious pluralism, a lot of religious diversity, exorcism, which has sometimes in the past been a arguably healthy therapy, especially, let's say, for young people. I worry that that is no longer as true as it might once have been. A young person undergoing the normal things that young people do, figuring out who they are and how they want to live in the world, are treated by their family or their church or their community as possessed by demons. That can become very coercive, that can become very dangerous.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Good boy.
CULVER (voice-over): And yet, for someone like Michelle, it's a practice where she says she not only finds healing, but also connection.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I used to deal with a lot of isolation issues.
CULVER: Have you found friends at the Deliverance Center?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, gosh, yes, I have. I found friends at the Deliverance Center. I found friends over Facebook that goes on the Zoom calls and stuff for deliverance. I have more friends than I ever thought I'd have now.
CULVER (voice-over): Michelle has been out of work for more than eight years now.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm thinking about probably starting to teach guitar.
(SINGING)
CULVER (voice-over): We didn't come here chasing spectacle. We came to learn why some turned to casting out demons when nothing else seems to help. What we found was something many of us might relate to. The desire for relief, for connection, and for a way forward.
