Catholic Exorcist Reveals the Scariest Thing He's Ever Seen
Inside This Episode
What really happens during an exorcism? In this episode of Maybe God, we sit down with Catholic priest and exorcist Father Dan Rehill to discuss spiritual warfare, demonic oppression, deliverance, possession, and the reality behind Hollywood’s portrayal of exorcisms. Father Dan shares his remarkable journey from Wall Street banker to priest, along with powerful insights into faith, prayer, and the battle between good and evil.
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Transcript
Fr. Dan Rehill: I've been attacked by a woman who, during the exorcism, she was slithering across the floor like a snake. And then she looked up at me and she had the eyes of a snake, like the yellow diamond eyes. And I knew right away, I'm like, "Something's going to go bad here."
When I go into people's homes who have demonic problems, they are filthy and completely disordered. Animal droppings on the rug, flies, cockroaches. It's like there's no order here.
Eric Huffman: If someone's a skeptic and they're still not convinced this stuff's real, what kinds of things have you seen that would leave even the most stubborn skeptic convinced?
Fr. Dan Rehill: The first time I was just called to go pray with somebody, I didn't even know they had a demonic problem. And as soon as I started praying, they just went right up off the couch by their core, their limbs flailing backwards.
Eric Huffman: How do people invite these dark forces into their lives?
Fr. Dan Rehill: The fastest way is to be dabbling in the occult or in witchcraft. You know, they call it other things. They call it new age. You know, I have a spirit guide that I go to for help. All of these things are just portals.
When it comes to religion, people, like, they just want to slide in. "What's the easiest path to get to heaven?" That's not the question you should be asking.
Eric Huffman: Why do you think there's such a hunger? Why are people starving for the kinds of truth and experiences and stories that you have to share?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Well, I don't want to be...
Eric Huffman: Welcome back to Maybe God. Just a heads up before we dive in, today's conversation is not for the faint of heart. You're about to hear from a man whose ministry has led him to have some of the most intense and darkest spiritual experiences imaginable. We're talking about spiritual warfare today with Catholic priest and exorcist Father Dan Rehill. Father Dan, welcome to Maybe God.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Thank you. Good to be with you. Appreciate it.
Eric Huffman: Yeah, I've followed your work for a while. It's really cool to talk to you in person this way. You're a very busy man lately, a very sought-after speaker and podcast guest. Why do you think there's such a hunger? Why are people starving for the kinds of truth and experiences and stories that you have to share?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Well, I think there's a lot of reasons. The primary one I would think is the Holy Spirit is just moving in a way I've not seen my whole life. That's one. The second one is that I think people have woken up to the fact that the government's not going to save us, America's not going to save us. It's just all the things we believe growing up in the last 10 years, I've come to realize was not really what I thought it was, including the FDA, all the government agencies that are supposed to protect us are really not protecting us. In fact, we're looking at things upside down. And I think a lot of people have come to the same realization and they're like, "You know what? There's only one person who really can save me." And that's always been the truth, but I think it's become a lot more realistic in people's minds that it's Jesus or nobody.
Eric Huffman: Yeah, I really think that it's become more evident and obvious to the average person that with the just one round of revelations after another, whether we're talking about government stuff or cover-ups or UFOs even and things that have been in the news lately, it just seems like the institutions we thought we could rely on historically have failed us or are corrupt in different ways, and so people are grasping in ways for God that I haven't seen in my 27 years of ministry. It's very interesting, kind of exciting as well.
Just so people that didn't see you on Shawn Ryan or the other places you've appeared, tell us more about your path to the priesthood, how you became a priest.
Fr. Dan Rehill: It was rather unusual, not the typical way people go. I didn't want to be a priest. I was molested by a priest as a young boy and kind of turned me sour on the church. So I left the church for 22 years and pursued money on Wall Street. That's what I did. So Wall Street banker and was pretty good at my job, made a lot of money, had all the trappings of that lifestyle.
It wasn't until after I got divorced, but it was kind of having that moment where I'm just looking at my life thinking, "Why am I so miserable? I mean, I have all the things that everybody would want and yet I'm not happy." I didn't know the answer then, but the reason was I had no God in my life, which is always an elitist to a life that's really meaningless and full of despair.
I wound up in a little place in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a tiny little village with a friend who wanted me to go on this trip with her. And when I looked at a map, it was right across from Italy. And I figured it would be like Italy with the food and the good wine and the beautiful hotels and the whole thing. Of course, it had none of that.
So this little town called Medjugorje, I had this encounter of Jesus there where I felt completely restored for no good reason. I mean, I hadn't read the confession. I hadn't repented of my sinful lifestyle. I just woke up the first day there and had this overwhelming peace. The Blessed Mother is allegedly appearing there every day under the title of Queen of Peace. And I literally felt it. And I felt a joy in my heart. I just said, "If it feels like this to me, I'm going to stay the whole week." And I did.
I made a lifetime confession to a priest, Croatian priest. At the end of the confession, after he was on me said, you know, "I think you have a vocation to be a priest." And I was completely dumbfounded. Like, "First of all, you don't know me. Second of all, if you really understood my confession, maybe you don't know how to English that well either, because it was pretty salty, not at all like the life of a priest." And he just said, "All things are possible with God."
That's the first time I've ever even had someone make that, not an accusation, but kind of give me that thought that perhaps I am called to be a priest. But I dismissed it. I said, "I'm not called to be a priest." And I went back and I changed my whole life around so that I would be more in step with living the gospel in all the ways that you can. So I had to get rid of some people that weren't great influences and joined the Wall Street Young Catholics Association, made some new friends, started going to Mass daily, going to confession once a month, fasting on Fridays, bread, water, and reading the Scriptures. And within a month, I was really kind of a full-fledged, really devoted Catholic for the first time.
Then I had a spiritual director. This priest approached me and said, "Well, I've never seen you. Are you new here?" And I gave him my whole story and he said, "You should probably have a spiritual director. I'm going to help you." And the first thing he said to do was ask God what God wanted from my life. And I'd never heard that. I'm 60. So when I grew up, I went to a prep school and your vocation counselor gives you an aptitude test. I'm good with numbers, they said, "You should go into something with numbers, banking, finance, economics, something like that." I went off to school to be an engineer and that's how you did it. Nobody ever asked God what He wants. Not in the 70s anyway.
And I've asked my roommates, because I'm still friends with all of them, and not in the... We all did the same thing. We all went into the field that our aptitude test guy goes towards. We all went through engineering. I lived on an engineering floor. And all but one went into something besides engineering. So it's odd that nobody really used the engineering except one of them who became a biomedical engineer. But that was my path.
Then eventually I went off to seminary. It took a long time. It took 12 years because I was dropped by a bunch of dioceses, kicked out of a seminary.
Eric Huffman: Were you a troublemaker or just out of the norm or what?
Fr. Dan Rehill: I was a troublemaker, but for all the right reasons. It was a very liberal seminary. Was teaching basically heresy. It was bad. We were using books that were condemned by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. So, like, why are we taking a class on Christology using a book that's condemned by Karl Ratzinger? Like, why would we do that? There's like a thousand good books written by saints on Christology. Why are we not using any? So it's that sort of thing.
And they just got tired of me whining. And after two years, we parted ways and I went off to become a hermit in the woods of Nebraska for five years. From there, I went back to seminary and finished and got ordained for Diocesan National.
Eric Huffman: Hey there. Thanks for being here today. I'm Eric Huffman, host of Maybe God. If this conversation is helpful to you as you pursue what's true, subscribing to Maybe God is the best way to make sure you don't miss what's coming next. When you subscribe, you'll automatically get our latest episodes delivered to your feed so you can watch them as soon as they're released with no searching and no remembering to check back required. It's the simplest way to stay connected to Maybe God and to keep building on what you're hearing here today. So thanks again for watching. Now let's jump back in with Father Dan Rehill.
Eric Huffman: Wow, long journey.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Long journey.
Eric Huffman: It sounds like it was worth it in terms of preparing you for what you've been up to. It's a lot of your story there. I mean, obviously I grieve what happened to you as a child. Obviously, that's going to shape you for a lifetime in some ways, but I praise God for the ways you've overcome that horrible thing that happened to you, and you've turned it around for good by the grace of God.
You said you were divorced, and I think if I don't ask this question, it's going to come up in the comments, and people are going to wonder why I didn't ask it. How does someone get ordained as a priest who is divorced? The common thing you hear in Catholic churches, especially, is divorce is... You know, if you're divorced, you can't receive Communion. So how do you give Communion if you're divorced?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Okay. So just a few things I want to clarify.
Eric Huffman: Please.
Fr. Dan Rehill: In the Catholic Church, divorce is not something we promote, but it happens, and you can still be divorced civilly and go to Communion if you are not in an active relationship with anybody else. Because in the eyes of the Church you're still married to that man or woman. So if you're living a chaste lifestyle, you can come to Communion and receive the blessing. It's only if you get involved with a second person and you haven't rectified what happened with the first one.
So in my case, she didn't want kids. So that means that our vows were kind of invalid because she was not open to children. And that's one of the reasons... you have to be open to children in a Catholic marriage.
Eric Huffman: Got it.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Because we had a deficit in our vows, promises to each other, the Church nullified that marriage as not valid because she wasn't open to children, and therefore I'm free to either marry or become priest.
Eric Huffman: Got it. That's very helpful. Thank you for the clarification. The other thing that stood out to me in your story is your time on Wall Street working in finance. I'm curious what that time working in finance taught you about the human soul.
Fr. Dan Rehill: It's greedy. I mean, that's just the bottom line of the whole business of money. It's this greed in that industry. It is an industry of such excess, particularly in the '90s. It was insane. New York City in the '90s was like anything was possible. You could make $10 million if you put your blood, sweat, and tears into it. And people did. I mean, I had guys that were... they would get a paycheck on Friday for like $300,000, $400,000, and they would cash it for cash. Who runs around with 300,000 in cash? What are you doing? Oh, we're renting a penthouse at the Plaza for the weekend. We had a big party, come on down. Or they buy a new hot rod or a Ferrari. That was just with one week's money. It was insane. It's a lifestyle that people can't relate to and they shouldn't relate to. It's not normal.
Eric Huffman: It sounds better than it really is, probably. It's something that any person would fall prey to, I think, if that sort of money was attainable. So you can imagine how people get lost in it.
Let's go back to your ministry trajectory. You were ordained as a priest. How long after that did you start to get into exorcism as a calling?
Fr. Dan Rehill: So I'm just in a hermit in a religious community that one of their ministries was deliverance, and my superior was the exorcist of Omaha. It was already kind of in my sphere in that time as a hermit. When I got ordained for Nashville, there were two of us that left that order because it kind of collapsed because the superior wasn't going to follow the rules that Rome was giving it. It's a long story, but basically a bunch of the people split away and left, me among them. So was this other priest.
And when we were in Nashville, Bishop assigned us together at a parish and asked us both if we could continue doing deliverance for his diocese, like we were doing for the religious order. So we both said yes. He then moved back to Omaha after about a year and a half and I continued to do it on my own. And then the bishop died, the new bishop came in and he wanted to know if I was the exorcist. I explained we didn't have one. And he said, "Well, I would like you to do this for us. So go to Rome, get trained to come back and you'll be... I'll give you the faculties to be the exorcist for this diocese." And that's what happened.
Eric Huffman: Are all priests... I think about pastors. I'm a Protestant, obviously. I think about pastors like... That's just in the job description, I would think, for any ordained pastor is some measure of spiritual warfare or exorcism, if we're using that word. I'm just curious, in your framework, is it not all priests who are called to this, or are some especially called to this particular area?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Well, the actual role of exorcists is something that's usually reserved for one priest in a diocese.
Eric Huffman: Got it.
Fr. Dan Rehill: We have two, actually. Chicago has four. They're a lot bigger than we are.
Eric Huffman: And more demonic, obviously. Chicago. I'm just kidding. That's helpful. For people who may be new to this kind of conversation and completely unaware that exorcisms are actually a thing, it's not just Hollywood, what makes exorcism and spiritual warfare necessary? In other words, who is this devil that we're up against, and what are demons?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Demons are just angels that have fallen from heaven because they rejected a plan of God. We believe it was the plan for the Word to become flesh. Lucifer, and we believe about a third of the angels were with him, and when they left, they were disfigured, although they retained their power and their, you know, brilliance. They're very intelligent creatures, much more than humans. And now they kind of work... You can't kill God. I mean, Jesus was killed, but you can't kill God, so they go after His children.
If you remember in Genesis, when Adam and Eve have the original sin of taking the forbidden fruit, God said to the serpent, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between our spring and yours." And the woman is not Eve. Eve is damned for the count. At that point she can't help anybody. He's talking about the Blessed Mother and her children, specifically Jesus and those who would follow Him. And then if you go to the very back end of the Bible to Revelation in chapter 12, the last paragraph says the devil went off to wage war against the woman and her offspring, those who keep God's commandments and witness to Jesus Christ. So that's all humanity. But if you're a Christian, you got crosshairs on your back.
Eric Huffman: Right. And this is all throughout the Bible for anybody that's curious. Spiritual activity, spiritual warfare, dark spiritual forces, Old Testament and New alike. What do you lean to or look to in the ministry of Jesus especially that gives you inspiration or cause to get up in the morning and fight the good fight spiritually?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Well, regardless of who the exorcist is, it's not us that are actually doing the work. It's the Holy Spirit working through us by the power of Jesus Christ and His precious blood. So the closer we are to Him, the more power the ministry will have.
Eric Huffman: Amen.
Fr. Dan Rehill: In fact, my church is called St. Catherine of Siena. She lived back towards the Middle Ages. Remarkable woman. She was the 25th child of the same parents. When the exorcists couldn't drive out the demons, they'd send them to her. And one look from Catherine and they would go, because she was so conformed to Christ that, you know, that power would just fly through her.
So it's really a message to everybody. It's like, you have power of the Spirit of God living in you if you're baptized. And the more that you conform yourself to Christ and His gospel, the more that you're going to be a force to be reckoned with by the devil.
Eric Huffman: That's right. I tell people he'll mostly leave you alone. Lucifer, the devil, will leave you alone if you're not a threat. But the more of a threat you become to the dark forces, like you said, the target's on your back. You just need to be ready. It's not anything to be afraid of or tepid about, but you need to be prepared for battle. That's as biblical an idea as it gets.
And a lot of people that haven't really read the Gospels for themselves, but just think they kind of know about Jesus being this milk-toast kind of high-minded preacher, they'll be surprised when they open the Gospels and find Him waging war with demons in a very direct way again and again. I mean, it's one of His core teachings was to go out and cast out demons. That's what He told His disciples, you know? So this isn't fringy stuff if anybody's watching or listening, thinking, well, this is just sort of hocus pocus kind of fringe Christianity. This is as near to the gospel as it gets.
Although, I would say most people have only witnessed or seen anything about exorcisms in the movies. Everybody's probably seen The Exorcist or The Exorcism of Emily Rose or The Rite or name your movie. I'm curious, from your vantage point as an exorcist who's on the front lines, what do you see, if you have watched those movies, what do you see in those movies that's right? What do they get wrong about the work you're doing on a daily basis?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Well, Hollywood, they over-dramatize things and they overplay their hands on everything. In fact, the actual story of the original exorcist account that the movie was made after. So there was an actual exorcism that took place and they tried to bring that to Hollywood to life. But the original one was a boy, not a girl. So if you've seen the movie, you know, all the weird things they do with that girl, that was all Hollywood. It wasn't even a girl.
Secondly, in the actual account, there was a statue of St. Michael in the room, and the priest saw the Archangel Michael come out of the statue and he did the actual deliverance of the demon from the giant.
Eric Huffman: Is that right?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yeah. And that wasn't over the top enough for Hollywood. They had to do it another way. No, it's insane. It's insane. The closest depiction to the way the demons operate was in that movie that came out a couple of years ago about the guy in prison.
Eric Huffman: Oh yeah, I saw that. What was it called?
Fr. Dan Rehill: What was that called?
Eric Huffman: It's like two actors just the whole time talking across the table.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yeah. I can't think-
Eric Huffman: Look that up for us, DK, if you don't mind.
Fr. Dan Rehill: That is so on point. In fact, the first time I saw it... I actually met the two guys that produced it. And I said, "I can't believe this got made because it's basically giving away all of his secrets. How did this ever get made?" And they said, "It really almost didn't get made."
Eric Huffman: Really?
Fr. Dan Rehill: It took forever. It was bought out by, I think, Disney and Disney sat on it and didn't want to do it. And then another company picked it up. Yeah, it's crazy.
Eric Huffman: Wow. You got a title? It's a movie about a... it's a priest and an inmate who's on death row. Nefarious. That's the name of it.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Nefarious.
Eric Huffman: That was a really good and haunting movie. And you're saying that was as accurate as Hollywood gets with this.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Oh, yeah. They kind of need permission to go into you. And you saw how they tricked the psychologist into giving his permission. So whether you're a Christian or not, they require permission of some kind.
Eric Huffman: Yeah, because we have this armed dignity as human beings in the image and likeness of God.
Fr. Dan Rehill: But he gives his permission and nothing happens right away. And so he thinks, "Oh, this is all a game." It's not until the devil wants to strike when he's actually in that room where he suddenly takes the gun. Yeah, it's crazy.
Eric Huffman: Fascinating. So how many exorcisms would you say you've been a part of? Have you kept count?
Fr. Dan Rehill: I have files. I haven't kept count, but it's generally maybe one a month.
Eric Huffman: Okay.
Fr. Dan Rehill: That's an actual exorcism, the rite of exorcism. Usually, I do deliverance, which is different. Really any priest can do this and even lay people can do this. You have the power to cast demons out of yourself, your spouse, your children. And most people don't know that.
Eric Huffman: What's the difference between an exorcism and deliverance?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Deliverance would be more for people who are afflicted or have oppression problems or obsession problems or vexation or something in the home that's annoying them, whereas possession is when they take full possession of the person's body.
Eric Huffman: Okay. So affliction or vexation, oppression, those are sort of from the outside.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Well, obsession is in the attack in the mind.
Eric Huffman: Obsession is in the mind.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Correct. Correct.
Eric Huffman: Okay. And those are more common than full-fledged possession, is that what you're saying?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Uh-huh, yeah.
Eric Huffman: Okay. And any Spirit-filled believer has power to do that work of spiritual warfare in terms of those things, vexation, oppression, etc.?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yes. I mean, it could get to the point where they need a little extra help from somebody, but typically, the first thing I tell people is, is your life disordered. If you're living a disordered life, that can usually be the open door. So, you know, if you're running around sleeping with different women every night, that's an open door for demons of lust to take over. They invite other demons and you start snowballing to help.
Eric Huffman: Sometimes the permission we give is in the actions we take, not the words we speak.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Absolutely. Yeah. That's right. If you're somebody who's running an arms deal, who is out killing people, you know, you're a murderer, demons can have a field date with your life and it's going to be harder to repent once the demons kind of take root and they attach to you.
Eric Huffman: Yeah.
Fr. Dan Rehill: But one good act of contrition and a heartfelt repentance does a world of good. And then put order into your life. Get up in the morning and pray for 20, 30 minutes before you go out into the world. You know, do some act of charity in your life. Don't just live for yourself. So when you start putting order in, even the physical way you live, when I go into people's homes who have demonic problems, they are filthy and completely disordered. You know, animal droppings on the rug. Food everywhere, flies, cockroaches. It's like there's no order here. And you're literally living in a disordered environment that's inviting more pain and suffering into your life. So, first, let's clean this up, and then we can clean up what's going on inside you.
Eric Huffman: Yeah. Well, you mentioned adultery and arms dealing. I don't know how many arms dealers we have watching in the audience, but what other kinds of openings do people create? How do people invite these dark forces into their lives?
Fr. Dan Rehill: The fastest way is to be dabbling in the occult or in witchcraft. And that actually a lot of people are doing. You know, they call it other things. They call it new age. They call it, you know, "I have a spirit guide that I go to for help." It's really a psychic. All of these things are just portals to help.
Eric Huffman: Okay. Let's make a list then. Just let's name them. So we have a spirit guide, psychics, we have-
Fr. Dan Rehill: Tarot cards, Ouija boards.
Eric Huffman: Crystals.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Crystals.
Eric Huffman: What about-
Fr. Dan Rehill: Curses on people.
Eric Huffman: ...Astrology?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Astrology... studying the stars is not a problem. It's when you believe the stars are running your life is when it becomes a problem.
Eric Huffman: Okay.
Fr. Dan Rehill: So I'm going to read my horoscope to figure out what I should do today. That means I'm not trusting God. I'm trusting in those stars, which, you know, perhaps the stars that you're calling out to are really demons that are pretending to be some kind of other force in nature.
Eric Huffman: Yoga?
Fr. Dan Rehill: No good. Because the poses themselves are like setting up the bat signal to specific demons attached to the poses.
Eric Huffman: What do say to somebody who's like, well, this has been so good for me, you know, this is maybe a psychic told them something that really changed their life seemingly for the better, they heard from a dead relative that everything's okay, or... you know, some people really have had seemingly positive experiences with some of these practices. What do you say to them?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Well, just like in the movie Nefarious, there's always a hook that gets you in and then maybe they're waiting for the right moment and they haven't immediately started working your life. But eventually you're going to have a problem from it.
If somebody dies, well, let's say your mother dies, she's either in heaven or she's in hell. In both places, with rare exceptions... people in hell don't come back. They're just not let out. We believe in purgatory as well. If they're in purgatory, they need our prayers to purgate the damage done by their sins, even sins that are forgiven. And if they're having a great day in the amount of interest that even in seeing their own family members who are on earth, because the glory of God, if our eclipses any kind of love we knew in this life, and with rare exception, they come back.
Now, sometimes God will allow soul purgatory to visit a relative and just to ask for prayers to help get out of purgatory. There's a woman in Austria that's lived her whole life receiving poor souls and having Masses said, and all sorts of prayers and fasting and petitions to get them out.
So what happens? So right now we're having a conversation and in this room, you have a guardian angel, I have a guardian angel, but there's also could be demons in the room as well. Sometimes they're there just to watch and take notes. And they're all around us. I mean, they're out there.
So on your mother's [bedside?], she tells you a secret that nobody has been told. And let's say it's something scandalous, like, you know, your dad really isn't your father, had an affair and it was really this other man, but your father loved you, dah dah dah, and nobody knows. So then you go to the psychic, and the demon tells the psychic the story, and he says, oh, your mother told me there was a secret she told you on her deathbed about your father. And of course, the person's going to be like, "It has to be my mother, nobody else knows."
Eric Huffman: No one would know, yeah. I hear that a lot.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Right?
Eric Huffman: Yeah.
Fr. Dan Rehill: But somebody else did know that. Both your angel knew that, God knows that, and the demon in the room knew that. And that's who you're talking to. It's not your mother.
Eric Huffman: Right. Boy, it can be so deceptive, though, when somebody is desperate for a connection.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yes, of course. In fact, you know how the Ouija board originated?
Eric Huffman: Oh.
Fr. Dan Rehill: They were originally called talking boards and they were developed at the end of the Civil War by a bunch of basically charlatans that wanted to make a buck. And they created these boards and they went around to the widows who lost their husbands in war and said, "We can contact your dead husband." That's how it started. Civil War.
Eric Huffman: Wow. Really?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yeah.
Eric Huffman: I think if people knew that, they wouldn't be drawn to these kinds of things. It's always charlatans, it's always a shortcut that promises big and delivers small in the end. And the other side of it is there's real power and authority in the Holy Spirit of God, as you've alluded to already in this conversation, that could be yours. And it so far eclipses any pseudo power you might access through these other channels. Like, why? Why would you subject yourself to these lesser things when you can have the one real thing, you know, and real connection, real power? I don't understand.
Fr. Dan Rehill: And the thing is, we do have the power of God, but it's not on demand. Like, "I need this right now, do this." God doesn't work like that. He says, "I know what's best for you. You just be available and let me work through you and you'll see things you could have never imagined."
Let give you an example. So three years ago, I'm sitting in a cafe in Zurich, Switzerland, and a young man walks up to me, he goes, "Are you the exorcist from Nashville?" And I said, "I am." And he goes, "I'm heading to Medjugorje because of you, because I heard you talking about this place on whatever show, I don't know what show. And I go, "Well, that's amazing. I'm heading there too. Why don't you join our group since you're alone and we'll get to know each other."
This guy was baptized as a baby, never went to church his whole life, became a Zen Buddhist monk for 10 years. That didn't seem to give him any kind of higher knowledge that he was helping to get. So he went into the world. He was a smart kid, sort of working for Lockheed Martin, got a very, very good job, met a girl, got engaged, living with her in Bermuda, and then starts watching... saw this one episode of whatever I was on, I don't remember what it was, and then starts going deeper into watching more and more videos about the faith and realizes, "I need to go to this place. I'm going to go to that place he went to where he had his miraculous conversion." And that's what got him to Zurich. He was on a layover waiting for the next flight.
And he has a powerful week. And then, you know, I took his name and number, we chatted through texts a few times and then I kind of lost track of where he went. Well, I was back two weeks ago in Medjugorje again with another group and he's there. He bumps into... he's like, "Wow, you're here. What's going on?" He goes, "I just finished my second year of seminary. I'm going to be a Catholic priest."
Eric Huffman: Oh, wow. That is awesome.
Fr. Dan Rehill: But what are the odds, you know that you bump into somebody in the middle of nowhere in Bosnia or Slovenia.
Eric Huffman: I used to believe in coincidences, and then I did ministry for 27 years, and I just don't believe in them anymore, brother.
Fr. Dan Rehill: No, no.
Eric Huffman: I really don't. It turns out there is a hand on the wheel, and He is seeking our best and our good, if we would just trust Him, rather than these other things. There's one other sort of potential portal to demonic activity I want to talk about. You mentioned adultery as one. I think a very common potential portal or opening is pornography, however it's being accessed. And it's men and women alike now. It's not just men that are accessing it. Do you categorize pornography as a demonic opening as well? How have you seen that work?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yeah, because you're abusing a gift that was meant for one thing and using it for selfish pleasure instead of what it was intended for. Plus, you're also piggybacking off of the industry that has these poor people involved in making these movies. Most of them die young. I know people know that, but most porn stars die before they hit 50, whatever. So there's a multitude of problems with the whole thing. And that's the real pandemic. It wasn't COVID. That's the pandemic that is plaguing our planet right now is pornography.
Eric Huffman: Really? You think it's that big of a deal?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yeah. I hear confessions every day. And that's at the top of the list. Every day I'm hearing, I can't break free from this, it's got me. Now, interestingly, I have a friend who's a priest up in... He's in Steubenville, but his community is up in Massachusetts and he wrote a book called 33 Day Consecration to St. Joseph. And this book takes a month to do it, but when I give this book to men and say, "Just do the prayers, with your heart, pray the prayers, asking for St. Joseph's intercession to get you the graces that he had as a virtuous spouse and father. And I'm telling you, he will get them for you."
Eric Huffman: Wow.
Fr. Dan Rehill: I've given away probably a thousand of these books because I keep them in the confessional and just say, "Take one to the people who have this problem." Nobody's ever come back and said it didn't work. It has a profound effect. You know, is the grace coming from St. Joseph? No, it's coming from God, but he's interceding to his son to give the same graces that made him virtuous. And by the way, this is the one man on the planet that God had to choose to represent Himself in raising His Son on earth. I mean, this guy has to be somebody special.
Eric Huffman: He never says a word in the Gospels, but he speaks volumes. I love Joseph's story. That is awesome. I hope anybody watching that's trapped or hung up in this habit of pornography knows that it's spiritual. Everything we do has spiritual underpinnings, but this is a deeply spiritual and dark practice that has more to do with the spiritual world. It's more than just taking the edge off your day or taking pressure off your wife. Instead of approaching her, you just approach your phone. It's deeply spiritual. And we're inviting things into our lives when we do that and are impacting and oppressing us in ways that we don't often see. Because a lot of times I think it's like the frog in the kettle analogy where it's a slow burn and we don't realize we're toast until we're toast.
Fr. Dan Rehill: It's funny because I frequently ask somebody who confesses this, and go, "Well, what are you going to do differently the next time this temptation happens?" And nine times out of they're like, "I don't know." I go, "So you're just hoping, you're just hoping that by God's grace, this temptation will not come back, but we know it's coming back. Because it's not just a thought in your head. It's a demon trying to hook you." And then when they hear that they go, "Well, what should I do?" And I say, "Well, you have to have a plan." You have to be ready before the attack comes. "When does it usually happen?" "I'm on my phone in my bedroom." "Okay. One is stop checking your phone in the bedroom. Can you do that? Let's say you suddenly forget and the phone's there, you have the thought, what do you have to do differently? Get up and do 25 pushups."
Eric Huffman: "Do something else.
Fr. Dan Rehill: "Just jump on the floor. Physically engage your body. And by the time you did the 25th pushup, one, you'll be tired, two, the thought will be gone, and three, you'll actually have replaced a bad habit with something healthy." And, you know, if you keep doing this, eventually the spirits will realize... and in the process you can say, "Lord, temptation is a struggle. It's a cross for me. Take this temptation and convert to grace and go rescue 10 other men who are going to be attacked by this demon of lusts today." And so you're using the cross to smash the devil in the head.
Eric Huffman: That's right. Amen. And I think a lot of guys and women too, probably, that are deep in this battle feel like it's an unwinnable war because they've lost it for so long. It's really quite winnable. And it really is about the first attack and being prepared to fight back against the first sort of triggering moment where the temptation hits you. If you do something other than take the step you've usually taken in that first instance, the battle is almost won every time because you're resisting it.
I heard somebody say once, and I didn't verify this, but I heard somebody say once that lust is the only sin the Bible says to flee from and run away from it. And I think that is a good battle plan is the moment lust enters into your mind or your heart, flee from it instantly and go do those pushups, get on your knees and pray, do something other than what you normally would have fallen prey to. That's a good word.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Whatever your vocation is, you have to be living that vocation. Right? The most famous example in the scriptures of somebody who fell to lust is David. And if you read the beginning of that chapter, it says, "It was the season when kings went off to war and David stayed behind." So, he wasn't living out his vocation as a king. And what happens? There she is.
Eric Huffman: There she is.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Well, he should have been off winning back his land for his people. He's instead involved with her. That leads to him murdering the husband. Can you imagine? Bad enough, she's pregnant with your kid, but now you're going to kill the husband? I mean, it's insane. And this is the one that the scripture says, "This man had the heart of God."
Eric Huffman: Right. Any of us can fall prey. Well, that's fascinating. Thank you for that insight, because I think that's so important, because everyone watching or listening can be susceptible to spiritual attack through any of these openings. And I think lust is at the top of list for a lot of us. One thing I appreciate about the Roman Catholic way, as far as possession and dealing with demonic activity goes, is the process. It's an orderly process you guys have prescribed for millennia, and you're careful about it. I know from my experience with it, and I wish more Protestants were more systematic in the way that I see Catholics being with this, when someone comes to you presenting symptoms of demonic activity or possession, what is the process like? How do you make sure that what they're dealing with is really demonic and not just mental illness or something else?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Well, step one is they get a spiritual intake form, which is pretty exhaustive in its analysis of who they are, what they practice as far as health, religion, their sin areas, any dabbling in the occult, any major capital sins like abortion or murder, anything. Anything. It's all on this form. It's confidential. They give it back to me. I review it and then I give them sort of like a... I call it a scription instead of a prescription. "And here are the things you need to do for the next two weeks. And we're going to put this into your life and see what happens." And if they're Catholic, it means they have to go to confession, they have to start coming to Mass, if they're not going to Mass frequently. They have to start becoming a true disciple.
And so we give them that for 10 days to two weeks. And then I go back to them and say, "How are you doing? You better, you worse, you're the same? What's going on?" Nine times out of 10, they'll be better because they're starting to actually live like they were created to live. In the rare instances that they're not getting better, then it tells me they probably do have some kind of a deeper problem with the demon. And at that point, I will leave with them to pray with them. I'll pray prayers of deliverance, which is not an exorcism, but deliverance. Usually nine times out of ten, that will take care of the people that are at that step.
Then there'll be maybe 1 % that actually need a full-on rite of exorcism. They have to go get a medical checkup and they also have to get a psychological evaluation, which is a full-day eval, it costs about three grand. The church pays for that because usually they're in no situation to. They have usually no job at this point. Then based on the evaluations, I determine if they're ready for an exorcism and then if they are, I will set the date and we'll perform the rite. And there's a bunch of things I do to prepare for that, nobody needs to know that for the purpose of this.
Eric Huffman: I don't know, it sounds interesting, but let's talk about the process of the exorcism when it's necessary, in the rare case that it is necessary. What does it look like when you show up for the rite?
Fr. Dan Rehill: It's always in a church or chapel with the Blessed Sacrament present. That's the one thing when you watch these movies, there is no exorcist in the world that goes out at midnight to a haunted mansion during a thunderstorm to do an exorcism. That's never happened, ever.
Eric Huffman: It's good to hear.
Fr. Dan Rehill: And it never will happen. It's always on the archer, on the church grounds with the Blessed Sacrament. In the daytime, I fast up to the point of the exorcism, so you should schedule them in the morning so I'm not fasting the whole day. I have Mass for the victim before, the rite of exorcism, and then we go through the rite. It takes about 45 minutes to an hour.
Eric Huffman: And what kinds of things, if someone's a skeptic and they're still not convinced this stuff's real, what kinds of things have you seen that would leave even the most stubborn skeptic convinced?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Well, the three typical markings of demonic possession are secret knowledge that they could not know, like a language, a foreign language that they'd never been schooled in, supernatural strength, and a very real and deliberate aversion to anything holy. So sacramentals, church, just going into a church is painful for them.
Eric Huffman: What have I seen?
Fr. Dan Rehill: I've had people levitate off the couch. Right away I'm like, "Well, there's no way that's a mental illness." So we don't even have to do the psych eval because clearly that's... can't do that. There's no mental health world that makes you levitate.
Eric Huffman: So how many times have you actually seen that?
Fr. Dan Rehill: I've seen that twice. The first time I was just called to go pray with somebody. I didn't even know they had a demonic problem. And as soon as I started praying, they just went right up off the couch by the core, their limbs flailing backwards. I've been attacked by a woman who, during the exorcism, she was slithering across the floor like a snake. And then she looked up at me and she had the eyes of a snake, like the yellow diamond eyes. And I knew right away, I'm like, "Something's going to go bad here." And she flew off the floor. She did not use her hands or her feet to get up. She just flew up, grabbed my stole — it's the little piece of cloth that we around our necks — and she started choking with it. And I couldn't get her to stop. She was a tiny lady, but she was... clearly it wasn't her strength. So I look at my bodyguard and I'm like, "Help." And he backs up like, "No, no, no." He was afraid. So I just said in name of Jesus, "Stop." And she fell on the floor. And that ends up there. We picked it up.
Eric Huffman: So you take a bodyguard to these things?
Fr. Dan Rehill: I do.
Eric Huffman: Wow. That tells you what you need to know right there.
Fr. Dan Rehill: You know, I was stupid because we get trained that you don't trust the size of the person because I don't look at her and I go, "What is she? 120 pounds? Of course, it's not going to be a problem." But it's not her strength. So when somebody has possession, I learned this from the crew in Chicago, we wrap them in a blanket, rolled them up, and then kind of keeps their limbs from getting anywhere.
Eric Huffman: You swaddle them.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Restricts their movement. And that works pretty well.
Eric Huffman: I once, a couple of years ago, spoke... one of the first interviews we had on this podcast was Father Vincent Lampert.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Oh, that's the guy who trained me when I came back from-
Eric Huffman: Really?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yeah.
Eric Huffman: I did not know that. Okay. Fun connection.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Great guy.
Eric Huffman: Great guy. One thing he told me that I have thought about and I've taken into pastoral situations where demonic activity is evident is you don't react to the manifestations in an emotional way or a fearful way. Is that something you try to remember as well? I don't know how you would not react to a woman slithering like a snake on the floor, but he's like, "Just don't be alarmed, keep your cool, do what you're there to do."
Fr. Dan Rehill: You just keep going through the prayers. There's a very specific order to the whole rite. And you just keep going. I can go back and repeat something if I notice it had a severe effect on the demon, but you tend to just keep going through the way.
Eric Huffman: Has a demon ever not responded to the name of Jesus or to the... I know you might use holy water or things that are holy. Has a demon ever not cowered at the name of Jesus?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Well, yes, because they don't always leave. Sometimes it takes 10, 12, 15 times before they actually go.
Eric Huffman: What do you attribute that to? Why wouldn't they just retreat?
Fr. Dan Rehill: I mean, it probably would correlate to the victim's openness to that spirit because in some way they let it in. And so they have to get to the point where they really want to close the door and they never come back. Some people have had the demon their whole life and it's become like their friend in a way where they don't want it to really go because then they'll be alone. It's an odd thing to say, but it's weird. Sometimes they have an attachment to the demon because the demon does give them a certain amount of power.
Eric Huffman: Sure. Yeah.
Fr. Dan Rehill: I had a guy fly up from Dominican Republic. He went to a witch doctor and asked him to create a potion that would make him irresistible to women. The guy gives him this potion, he drinks it, and he said, "Immediately, any woman I wanted would sleep with me, even if we were married, even if they were in a committed relationship with somebody. I could have any woman I wanted." And not only could he have them, but he had a heightened sexual experience that was far more intense than anything he had before the potion and so with the woman, which would create this slick addiction they had to this thing.
So he flies up because he wants to be liberated. But in the end, when I tried to do the deliverance, he said, "It's too much. I can't give this up. I'm just too attached to it." And he chose to keep the demon so he could continue having his sexual antics with anybody he wanted. But you can see how they get trapped in these things.
Eric Huffman: Well, sure. It just reminds me of the time Jesus asked the men, "Do you want to be healed?" You have to be a willing agent in the healing that Jesus offers in order for these demons to flee. If you're right at home with the demon, then the demon's right at home with you.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yeah.
Eric Huffman: Fascinating.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Sadly. And the other thing is that once they are liberated, they do have to connect back to God.
Eric Huffman: That reminds me of Jesus' strongman... the strongman parable, right?
Fr. Dan Rehill: And I've had people who they don't have any relationship with God. And I said, "Well, you're going to have to join a church and start worshiping Him, praying with Him." And they don't want to do it. And I say, if you're not going to do it, "I'm not going to do the deliverance because it's actually going to be more harmful to you. If I cast this thing out and then you don't connect with God, they're going to come back worse."
Eric Huffman: Is that what happens? Have you seen that?
Fr. Dan Rehill: That's what happens. Yes. I had an atheist, a lawyer, a woman who invited a demon in, literally she invited into her bed. You know, it progressed over the course of a week where the thing was no longer just making love. It was now raping her and she was terrified of it. And I said, "Well, you have to connect with Jesus. I'm sorry you don't believe in God, but this is... He's the one that's going to do this. It's not me." And she said she would join a church and she would start praying and she didn't. And it came back worse. Went through the whole thing again. "You have to join a church." She promised she would, she didn't, came back at the right time. And I said, "I'm not coming because you didn't listen to me the first two times." So now, "Go join a church, have the pastor call me when he believes you're committed, and then I'll come back." That's what I did.
Eric Huffman: Luke 21:28. Jesus said, "When a strong man with many weapons guards his own house, the things in his house are safe. But suppose a stronger man comes and defeats him. The stronger man will take away the weapons that the first man trusted to keep his house safe, and then the stronger man will do what he wants with the other man's things. Whoever's not with me is against me and anyone who does not work with me is working against me. When an evil spirit comes out of someone, it travels through dry places looking for a place to rest, but it finds no place to rest, so it says, "I will go back to that home that I left." So he's circling back to the parable here. "When it comes back, it finds that home all neat and clean. Then the evil spirit goes out and brings back seven other spirits, more evil in itself. They all go and live there. And that person has even more trouble than before."
So Jesus gave us clear warnings about this phenomenon you're describing, which is someone who wants, they ostensibly want a clean house, but then they don't fill it up with holy things, the holy things of God, and the demons return sevenfold, Jesus said. And that seems to be what you've experienced in cases like this woman. Fascinating.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yeah, they want to be set free, but they don't want to do any work.
Eric Huffman: Correct, yeah.
Fr. Dan Rehill: They don't want to put any effort into it. It's like Christianity without the cross.
Eric Huffman: In your experience as a priest, does it matter how you're living? Is your effectiveness as an exorcist impacted by your holiness or lack thereof?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yeah. The sacraments have power within themselves. For example, at Mass, if I had a bread, wheat bread and grape wine and prayed the prayers of consecration, we say that that will always change into the body and blood because the sacrament operates on its own power, regardless of the priest. I could have just murdered two altar boys and gone out and celebrate the Mass and the Mass would be valid. Or the baptism would be valid if I pour the water and say the words of baptism. However, sacramentals rely on the faith of the minister doing them and the one receiving them. Blessing of holy water. Exorcism is considered sacramental. Your rosaries, when the priest blesses them, it should be a priest who's actually living the life of a good priest, praying, going to adoration, performing his duties properly. Those things matter.
Eric Huffman: Whether you're prayed up and holy or not going into an exorcism, do you still find that it takes a toll on you spiritually? Have you?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yes, even the day before.
Eric Huffman: Really?
Fr. Dan Rehill: So the day before, if I have an exorcism scheduled and it's a real demon, which they almost always are, if we get to that point, it's been determined they definitely have demonic probability in them. The day before I get extremely tired, like a lethargy where everything is like pushing a rock up a hill and I'm exhausted the whole day. And then as soon as the exorcism is over, my normal vitality comes back. It's almost like a warning signal. Like God's letting me know it's going to be a battle tomorrow and you're going to feel it.
Eric Huffman: Yeah. Wow. Oh man. I mean, it's heavy lifting. It's heavy lifting what you're doing. I would assume that the more you do this, the more prepared you are for this. It doesn't surprise you anymore to be exhausted going in to an exorcism, whereas at first, you know, when you're new, it could be something that catches you off guard, but now you know, and you know that God is sufficient, no matter how you're feeling going in. I want to give people some hope and weapons in their arsenal to fight back. But first, I've heard you talk about this generation maybe facing some unique spiritual challenges. Do you think this generation is especially prone to demonic activity or attack because of the way of the world and the culture we're in?
Fr. Dan Rehill: I do. Because the darker the culture, the more we empower the demons. And the more influence they have. You know, Satan's the original influencer before any of these Instagram people. And he's always been influencing people because he doesn't have the right to kill you directly. You know, we know this, that you could have to have permission from God to do that. And God's not going to do that because we're His children, but he can influence other people to hurt us. And that's what's going on. That's what we see. The culture is so sick. We are obsessed with ourselves, the selfie generation, the narcissism, the addictions to all things sinful, sex, booze, pills, all of it. It's just everywhere. We've come to the point where we are putting sin on a pedestal and literally like worshiping it.
Whereas when I was a kid, we had the same problems, not all the same because we didn't have social media, we didn't have phones, but you know, you could go... if you wanted to look at a magazine, you had to go down to the store and buy it and hide it in something and get it home.
Eric Huffman: There was shame about it.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yes. And people were ashamed of these things. Now it's like the Hollywood and Madison Avenue and all of it is just promoting all these vices as something that you want to have. There's nothing like it.
Eric Huffman: And in some ways, I think the Bible would describe it as generational sin. When the longer sin goes on generationally, the stronger it becomes. And I've heard you talk some in other interviews about generational sin and generational curses. What do think people need to know generally about the sins and curses of past generations that we might have inherited somehow?
Fr. Dan Rehill: It depends, you know? I'm finding the biggest problem that I'm encountering the last year or two is with the Masonic curses that come with those oaths fathers and grandfathers have taken to join that lodge. And they start kicking in in the second, third generation. They have all these ailments and maladies that can't be explained, and the doctors can't diagnose. And then I say, "Is there a possibility somebody in your family lineage is a Mason?" They're like, "We have a ring from my grandfather that he was a Mason." "Okay, destroy the ring. And then you're have to pray these prayers to break all those curses from those 33 degrees." And they do it and within a couple of days, all the symptoms go away.
Eric Huffman: Really?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yeah.
Eric Huffman: This is something I think most people have no awareness of. And I confess my own ignorance as well. I know Freemasonry is not good, but when people are, in my congregation even, are like, "Well, why is it not good?" I don't always have a great answer for them. So help us get the lay of the land here, Father Dan, and tell us why this is such a problem. Most people would say it's just a harmless fraternity for grown men to participate in that does some good stuff for people. Why is it a problem?
Fr. Dan Rehill: If only it was. The problem is that you're taking oaths to a higher power that is not God. And so who would that be? It's going to be Lucifer and his gang of idiots. And you're making all these O's and the O's are absolutely revolting. Like you're saying, you know, should I ever do something against the bylaws of this group, may the intestines of my children and their children be fed to the birds. I mean, this really gruesome, horrible, weird. When you're saying that you have to be thinking, well, that's kind of bizarre. Why would I ever want to make that oath? But you know, I'm part of the gang and we have to go through it. It's part of the ritual. So the guys get into it. And the oldest get darker and darker as you go up the degrees. So by the time they figure out this doesn't seem healthy, they were already in neck-deep, and they're kind of trapped.
Eric Huffman: But there's hope, right? I mean, for somebody that was involved in Freemasonry, or they find out that a father or grandfather was, as easily as an oath was made, it can be broken, right?
Fr. Dan Rehill: It can be. Yeah.
Eric Huffman: How does that look? If somebody's watching now and it's occurring to them that this might be going on in their life, what do they do?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Well, they're rather lengthy and they are published out there. One of the best resources that I tell people to go find is a book called Deliverance Prayers for the Laity. It's written by an exorcist named Father Chad Ripperger. In the back of that book are these prayers to break the curses. You know, it costs like 10 bucks on Amazon. So that's a great resource. I think everybody should have it. But you can also Google them, but you're not going to know if you're actually getting the full gamut of what's in there or lately. It takes about 30 to 40 minutes just to pray through them and bring down things. And you have to do some bodily movements at the end and all these things. And it has to be prayed in the presence of practicing a pathway according to the ones that we use anyway.
The bottom line is that Jesus is always stronger.
Eric Huffman: Amen.
Fr. Dan Rehill: It's like playing chess with a two-year-old. A world champion chess player, God, playing chess with a two-year-old, the devil, He's 20 moves ahead, but the devil thinks he's going to win. But in the end, the only way the devil wins is if you let him win. If you keep turning back to God and saying, I want you as my protector, you're my Savior, you are my Lord, I'm going to worship you alone and I don't want any of this garbage, God's going to honor that because He's a good Father. I mean, any good Father would want what's best for their kids. Sometimes we don't believe that, but it's the reality, it's the truth.
Eric Huffman: Amen. Was it Anselm or one of the church fathers said his definition of sin was the refusal to believe that what God wants for us is our absolute happiness? And he really does. And we can trust Him with that. Now, it may not always be easy, and it certainly in the short term there might be trials and tribulations like Jesus promised, but ultimately it's joy and peace and love that God wants for us. This enemy that we dabble in and with, he wants the exact opposite. He wants our destruction. He wants us addicted, miserable, depressed, and all the other, you know...
Fr. Dan Rehill: He wants us in hell.
Eric Huffman: That's right. He wants us in hell.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Misery loves company.
Eric Huffman: That's right. Why don't we land the plane then and talk a little bit about hell? Because that's obviously the goal of any ministry is to help people flee hell itself and run to Jesus. What's your understanding of hell in terms of... you know, what's at stake for people that are in the throes of spiritual oppression and darkness? What is hell? Is it a destination? Is it a place?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yeah, I think it's a place. Personally, I believe it's probably the center of the planet. And it's the burning of whatever. Ironically, we do have saints that have been there and back. The children in Međugorje and I think also the children of Fatima, a lady took to show them how, and they describe it in great detail as just the most heinous, horrible, disgusting, vulgar place they could ever imagine. And the people were not even looking like human anymore. They were so deformed by their hatred of God and they were in such miserable pain, but there was no escaping it. I've heard people say, you know, "Oh, I'd rather go to hell. That's where all the fun people go." Like you have no idea what you're saying. You don't have any idea what you're saying. Nobody's having fun there. It's a miserable place.
Eric Huffman: Yeah. I run into people like that too. And some of those same people are ones who don't believe in hell as a reality because they just think it's unfair or unjust. But given the option of having heaven with God over you or having hell and being your own God, there are people who would choose to have hell and be in control, so to speak, even though that's not really control.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Well, look at anybody in any field who's at the top of their game, whether it be football or soccer or entertainers, musicians, they're almost always people who have tremendous discipline. I mean, there's a gift there too, but there's discipline. And they have to put in the work to achieve the success they have. Even in the world of finance and banking and great lawyers, whoever, you're going to put in the time study, you're going to put in the time researching, you're going to put in the time preparing your case to win.
When it comes to religion, people are like... they just want to slide in like, what's the easiest path to get to heaven? It's like, that's not the question you should be asking. Did Jesus' life look easy? I mean, if God came down to earth and left His throne and was born into abject poverty and became an itinerant preacher roaming around with no home, no bed, why didn't you think you can have all the riches of this life and still be considered a good Christian? It doesn't really work like that. Now, there's rare exceptions. You know, King Edward is a kind of nice saint, but he used his power and his wealth to help the poor and the sick. It's a rare thing.
Eric Huffman: As we close here, Father, you've shared a lot of wisdom and advice for people that might be struggling. A lot of your advice, as you would expect, is the Catholic lane of advice, and I don't begrudge that. That makes sense. But we have a lot of Protestants in our audience as well. I'm a Protestant pastor, and so it's... I do want to ask: what is your familiarity with deliverance ministries in the Protestant lane, and what have you witnessed with those deliverance-type ministries, whether it's good or bad? I'm just curious about your perception of those.
Fr. Dan Rehill: We do have a pastor here in Northern Nashville. I forget his name. I think it's Luke, if I'm not mistaken. He reached out to me for help because He didn't believe demons were real. And he was having a big praise and worship service with like 700 people and he was filming it. And he walked up to this one woman and she turned and he saw the demon in her face, her face contorted and he saw the evil. And what did he do? He ran away from her. And later that night, he said to his wife, "I abandoned my sheep today because I was afraid. So I have to figure this out."
So he looked up deliverance ministers at Protestant and he found one in New York City. So he went to New York City and trained with him, came back and his first night of doing deliverance, he started the service at like five in the afternoon and he came home at like seven in the morning the next day. And his wife said, "No, we are not doing this. You will come home at an appropriate hour. Like 10 o'clock is the cutoff."
So he realized he couldn't do it one-on-one. So then the next week he said, "I'm just going to do glimpses over the whole congregation at once. And all these people started manifesting and screaming and it was freaking people out. And he said, "Well, that's not working. You can't do that." So he was larding by-
Eric Huffman: Trial and error.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Trial and error. And then he came home one night, pulled in his driveway and somebody was driving by and shot like 25 rounds of bullets into his car and his home. One of them hit his daughter's bed, nobody in his family was injured. That's when he took a big pause and said, "I'm not sure if this is related to this ministry, but in case it is, we're going to hit the pause button and figure out what's going on here."
So the trial-and-error way is not the best way. He's a faithful man too. And that's the most important thing is you have to be a person of great faith if you're going to be pushing demons out of people. If you go to, I think it's the 19th chapter of Acts, when you have the sons of Sceva, who said, "Oh, look, the apostles are driving out demons. Let's try it." But they had no relationship with Jesus and the demon turned on them and one is tore all their clothes off and then beat the crap out of them. And they go running out of the house, bloody and bruised, thinking, "What happened? I don't know why this went wrong." It's because you were not prepared for that and you were not equipped for that.
So for people who are thinking, "Maybe I should get into this business," if you're ready to do it, God will let you know. But if you're not, don't go looking to do this. It's not something you want to sign up and say, "Hey, I think this would be cool to do because you can get in trouble."
Eric Huffman: That's right. You can do a lot of harm too to yourself and others if you're not prepared and cautious. And that's one thing I do appreciate about the Roman Catholic Church, and in particular, your approach to exorcisms. I've learned a lot from you and other Catholic priests and sort of specialists in this field. And I have shaped my own approach to spiritual warfare in large part after what I've learned from your church and the process that you lay out, because it's very careful, cautious, biblical, and courageous as well. But I think it's a result of the thousands of years of wisdom that the Catholic Church has gleaned through dealing with people in these situations. So I'm grateful.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Yeah. And mistakes too. We learn from those too.
Eric Huffman: Yeah, sure. What's the best way for people, if they're intrigued by your ministry and your witness here, Father Dan, to find and follow you online and get more information?
Fr. Dan Rehill: Well, there's a website called BeBattleReady.org, which kind of has everything going on, including a resource page with all the prayers and things that you want to know. I have a daily radio show called Battle Ready, which is on every day at 9 a.m. Central. And you can get that through the Radio Maria Play app, which is free. Or if you live in one of the cities that has a tower, like Columbia has a tower where you can just listen to it on the radio, but most places don't. So, Radio Maria Play, or you can go to the website and listen live through the website.
Eric Huffman: Amen.
Fr. Dan Rehill: Radiomaria.us.
Eric Huffman: I hope that folks watching or listening will check you out if they don't know more about your ministry, to find out more. And last question, since I've kept you longer than I thought I would. A very simple question. If somebody, whether they're Catholic or Protestant or not even sure what they are, and they are experiencing some of the things you've talked about, spiritual or demonic attacks, give us some very simple first next steps for someone to start fighting back.
Fr. Dan Rehill: If you really are convinced you have a demonic problem, you can go... We actually help everybody. We don't discriminate. If you're not Catholic, it doesn't matter. I've helped atheists, I've helped Jewish people, many Protestants. Because I'm in the center of the Bible belt here, most of the cases are not Catholics. We'll help you. So just go to your local Catholic church and say you need help with a demonic problem, and usually nine times out of ten, the priest will know who to refer you to. If not, you call the chancery or the diocesan offices for your diocese there, and they'll pick up the ball and help you.
Eric Huffman: Amen. I would add to that, obviously, I'm in a different lane than you. Any faithful church with strong Christian leadership that is Bible-based. Maybe you're not near a Catholic church or maybe you've got baggage with the Catholic church, like any church that loves the Lord and leans on Scripture can help you in terms of first next steps. Just the worst thing to do is nothing and just to be sort of lackadaisical about it. So don't be nonchalant about the spiritual battles that we're all fighting.
Father Dan Rehill, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you for your courage, your tenacity, your tireless efforts to spread the good news and fight back against the darkness. You've inspired me to do the same, brother. So thank you.
Fr. Dan Rehill: You're welcome. I love being here. Thank you.
Eric Huffman: Amen. God bless you.