The Hype About Aliens, UAPs, And ‘Disclosure’ Isn’t What It Appears To Be
What if UAP sightings and alien abduction accounts aren’t evidence of extraterrestrial life, but of supernatural life?What if UAP sightings and alien abduction accounts aren’t evidence of extraterrestrial life, but of supernatural life?Don’t let ‘Disclosure Day’ doom you to spiritual death by discourse
Steven Spielberg this week will drop “Disclosure Day,” his long-awaited engagement-bait alien movie. On cue, the internet is abuzz — with soyfacing and fangirling, dunking and slop farming, chin-stroking and opining, opining, opining. Somehow, therefore, more, but also dramatically less, needs to be said.
I was early to the disclosure discourse. Five years ago, as the topic began to heat up in earnest, I tried to get ahead of the conversation by focusing on the religious dimension. Back then, that wasn’t center stage. The alien thing was still mostly Joe Rogan- and "X-Files"-coded, disclosure a cause célèbre for freedom-minded individualists sure that the evil secret government was hiding the TRUTH that only heroically skeptical intellectual rebels could force to come to light.
In the coming age, many — even believers — will be deceived.
To me, that felt incomplete. At best. The American experience with “alien encounters,” I underscored, had always been depicted and acculturated religiously — not just as a matter of “having a religious experience,” good or bad, but of actual theology.
Its manifestation as popular culture belied not secular origins but spiritual ones: When your religious belief is that “organized religion” is bad and the only authority you can really trust is your own, you’ll see what’s at stake in the alien debate as the ultimate nature of the universe, one where perhaps everything we thought we ever knew about God and our relation to Him could be completely debunked.
The desire to overthrow the authority or even the existence of the unbroken Christian church, that is, doesn’t stem fundamentally from secular principles. It actually stems from a desire to actualize a much different, ostensibly higher or ultimate, spiritual order.
Among us
That is why in 2021 I emphasized that aliens are so often interpreted as proof that Christianity is not the truth that will save us — that the Christian era is over, Christianity is defunct, a new religion is not only “needed now” but has arrived, whether we like it or not. “The invaders are here,” I summed up the claim, “and they impose on us the responsibility of accepting a new age from which there is no turning back. Humans are but one organism, a weak and inferior one, whose only hope of salvation is in satisfying whatever it is the aliens herald and demand.”
I went on to push back on this master narrative by way of Father (perhaps soon to be Saint) Seraphim Rose. He got ahead of the disclosure discourse decades ago, citing key scholars who showed the overwhelming pattern among “alien encounters” is of experiences impossible to distinguish from encounters over the millennia with spiritual entities — specifically fallen angels. Demons, in other words.
“Aliens,” Rose explained, do not behave like angels, who appear as holy messengers cautioning people at once to not be afraid. Instead, like demons, they zoom around at will, produce terrifying illusions, and violate and persecute victims in their bodies and minds.
Nevertheless, as anyone knows who grew up in the spiritual anarchy of the 1980s — where the lines blurred dangerously between “progressive” Christianity, New Age cults, and straight-up demonic occultism — there was already back then a huge and growing swath of alien believers who nursed a kind of syncretism with Christianity or some kind of “biblical” religion.
That was what troubled Rose the most. Today, many people speak of the Antichrist and the apocalypse, topics very close to Christ’s warning that in the coming age, many — even believers — will be deceived that He has returned or the end is nigh.
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Yes, millions of people may now be catching up to what counted as the frontier of the disclosure debate in 2021. X is full of eager, Spielberg-fueled arguments over whether aliens are compatible with Christianity, with both sides producing scripture, doctrine, lore, and receipts in the now-familiar style of the “global public square,” where every question is debated until it has been pulverized.
Even alien-skeptical Christians, or those aligned with Michael S. Heiser-style caution, can find serious authorities noting that the cosmos exceeds human comprehension. The existence of other rational created beings somewhere in that vastness cannot simply be ruled out.
But that is precisely the point. Some matters are best left to God. The human mind can crack them open with curiosity, only to find itself wandering a vast mental labyrinth — and once there, easy prey for delusion, pride, and disbelief.
Take, for one example making the rounds today, the question of whether He has perfect knowledge of all possible counterfactuals — a question that first made the rounds centuries ago thanks to Luis de Molina, a Jesuit theologian who touched off a furious and protracted round of discourse and debate, an effusion of energy that might well have been better spent in other ways.
What other ways? Well, here is where the new frontier of the disclosure debate appears.
Haunted halls
In theaters right now is a film called “Backrooms.” It’s close to being the opposite of “Disclosure Day,” at least in the sense that “Backrooms” is about the danger, and ultimately the tragic horror, of today’s deepening temptation to understand on our own terms the things that confuse and weaken us the most — things of our own flawed and falsely independent mental constructs.
Today the foremost of these false realities — what the ancient monks called logismoi — is the creepy combination of depression and pride that makes people curious to know “for themselves” what is really good and what is really evil.
Rather than trusting God on this matter or trusting God to sort it out and seeking refuge in humble self-denial of what even secular medicine calls the call of the void, we are all being carried along on a massive wave of belief that we somehow must subject all things to intellectual processing in order for us to function.
Increasingly, we treat human beings as if our only real function is intellectual processing. Everything becomes reducible to intelligence, or optimized as an operation of intelligence. Intelligence becomes the only thing that matters because it is treated as the only thing that truly exists. Everything else — the body, the soul, love, worship, suffering, memory, family, place — becomes merely an expression or construct of intelligence.
Under this view, nothing remains for us to do except intellectualize everything. We keep refining thought, language, and computation until we produce an intelligence so pure and complete that it no longer needs the rest of the human person at all, except perhaps for a time as fuel.
RELATED: ‘Backrooms’ is horror for a self-justifying age
This insane belief has become compelling because it fits the modern mind. It is becoming a new “organized religion,” even among people who most loudly hate organized religion. We entered the current stage of technological development already convinced that spiritual truth could be uncovered, created, or replaced through endless discourse: talking, writing, printing, disseminating, propagandizing, discussing, debating, and filling the world with more and more words.
Eventually, we looked around and saw only language. Not merely spoken language, but language as thought itself. Reality had been swallowed by interpretation. And once everything became words, it was only a matter of time before we mistook the processing of words for the fullness of being human.
In 1962, Beat Generation drug hellion William S. Burroughs, author of “Junkie” and “Queer,” wrote that language is a virus from outer space — in other words, an alien. Any Christian must know that, in reality, the Word, the Logos, is the opposite of a deadly xenomorph. But severed from the divine Word, the merely human word swiftly becomes something alien, monstrous, devouring. (“Time to leave the Word-God behind,” Burroughs wrote in his final doped-up years.)
That is why the frontier of the disclosure debate now expands from the recognition that being sucked into the disclosure debate, by the “Disclosure Day” debate and all the alien debates, is a labyrinth with a minotaur inside our own delusional creation. This is the not-too-cryptic message of “Backrooms,” a message most strongly conveyed in the film by what’s also the cure for our servile and self-destructive yapocracy: silence. Holy silence.
Exorcist fired for saying aliens are actually demons is an ex-Air Force intelligence officer
A Catholic priest who was officially employed as an exorcist has been removed from his role.
The Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., said the firing came in direct response to comments made in late May surrounding UFOs and aliens.
'They can do things that we can't do.'
Cardinal Robert McElroy, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C., said in a press release on Wednesday that Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse, N.Y., would no longer be affiliated with the archdiocese where he was used as an exorcist.
Rossetti recently made comments in a YouTube video saying that his personal belief was that aliens were most likely demonic entities.
"There's no question in my mind ... that probably many, if not most of these UFO sightings, are in fact demons," Rossetti said in a video that has been removed from YouTube.
It has since been noted that Rossetti is a former Air Force intelligence officer who spent six years in service. Rossetti confirmed this in a 2024 interview, describing himself as a signals intelligence officer, while other biographies have also listed him as working in an intelligence capacity.
RELATED: Exorcisms are exploding across America — but nobody wants to admit why
Rossetti is also listed as a former serviceman in an official Air Force document, where he is described as a "distinguished graduate of the Air Force Academy class of 1973."
"They can do things that we can't do, thus the speed and all sorts of things that human beings can't," Rossetti said in his recent video. "They will try to manipulate us."
Cardinal McElroy said Rossetti's statements that linked "UFOs to demonic presence" and his social media activity "gravely undermine the Church’s very precise teaching on the devil, demons, and exorcism."
Rossetti responded to the press release by saying he was "saddened" by the decision and asked for forgiveness if he had not been faithful to the "teachings of the Church's Magisterium."
"I believe it is of the utmost importance to be obedient to the Church, and I will continue to endeavor to subject all that I do and the Center to be thus obedient," he added.
RELATED: EXORCIST: Is America demonically possessed?
The comments come at a time of increased UFO disclosure, which has included a trove of government documents revealing reports of unknown objects like "glowing orbs."
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) in particular has been at the forefront of remarkable claims about aliens and UFOs/UAPs in recent months.
Burchett has claimed that alien aircraft, life forms, and even human-alien breeding programs are confirmed to exist.
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Aliens or demons? Pastor’s viral response to UFO files is calming Christian fears
On May 8, the U.S. Department of War released an initial batch of over 160 never-before-seen declassified UAP/UFO files, including photos, videos, and reports spanning decades. Additional files are set to be released periodically as more documents are reviewed.
The Christian response to the ongoing file dump has been overwhelmingly cautionary, with several prominent evangelical leaders and figures interpreting the phenomena as demonic rather than extraterrestrial. Many have expressed concern that these revelations could shake foundational beliefs about creation or lead to spiritual confusion.
Rick Burgess, BlazeTV host of the spiritual warfare podcast “Strange Encounters,” is among those concerned that these “alien” files could lead believers astray.
Of all the Christian responses to the UFO files Rick has seen, Rick believes Josh Howerton, senior pastor of Lakepointe Church in Dallas, Texas, has had the best.
He plays a viral clip of Howerton’s biblical response of the file dump and the concept of extraterrestrial life.
“If extraterrestrial life were discovered, that does not destroy your faith,” he declared, saying that Scripture uses the plural (heavens) when talking about God creating the cosmos.
Howerton explained that biblical writers understood there to be “three heavens” — “the sky where the clouds are ... outer space, and ... actual heaven — throne room of God.”
“So when Colossians 1 says that ‘He created all things in the heavens,’ if there were things that He created in the second heavens (outer space), well, hey guys, we have a category for that. They're called angels and demons,” he clarified.
“What a lot of people may be calling aliens, the Bible might call things like cherubim, seraphim, angels, archangels, thrones, principalities, demons, and powers,” he added, noting that Satan is unironically referred to in Ephesians 2 as “the prince of the powers of the air.”
Saying that Jesus warned the end of days would mirror those of Noah, Howerton urged Christians to avoid getting sucked into the UFO/alien conversation: “If [demons are] ... what we believe [aliens] are, I'm not going to mess with that stuff. One of Satan's strategies is to get people to devote themselves to myths and endless speculation. ... What's the main thing? To know Christ, live free, and change the world for God's glory. Don't start giving level eight attention to things of level 0.002 importance.”
Rick calls Howerton’s response “excellent.”
“Don't forget that Lucifer and all the demons that went with him, they are supernatural beings. They are not human, and apparently in that supernatural world, angels and demons can do things and appear in various images, things that human beings cannot do,” he reiterates.
Rick believes that Satan and his forces are going to use these UFO/alien files to “rattle the church” and make people “doubt that God exists.”
“There is a great deception coming,” he warns.
To hear Rick’s full breakdown, watch the episode above.
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Pentagon UFO investigator claims UAPs target nuclear sites — and some officials believed they were demons
As the release of the UFO files to the public has finally begun, Pentagon UAP investigator Luis Elizondo recalls his own experiences with recovered materials, secret Pentagon operations, and the terrifying connection between UAP sightings and America’s nuclear technology.
“I actually gave a briefing to a senior member of the Department of Defense in 2017, several briefings, about the material that I’ve personally held in my hand,” Elizondo says, noting that the material found at the time “did not exist” with humans.
Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck is shocked, pointing out that there’s a theme with the sightings.
“Nuclear test sites or nuclear sites, and water, why?” Glenn asks Elizondo.
“It’s not just nuclear weapons. It’s nuclear propulsion, nuclear technology. We’ve seen them over our national laboratory, Savannah River facility. There’s some reports that came out,” Elizondo says, explaining that there seems to be a correlation between UAPs, water, and nuclear technology.
“That’s why my colleagues and I had put forth a plan called Interloper to try to get one of these things,” he says.
The idea behind Interloper, Elizondo explains, was to create a “honey trap” that would be an "irresistible target.”
“We would put this nuclear carrier strike group in a certain area, and then as a UAP showed up, we turned on the lights. We turned on all our sensor data to start collecting information, telemetry and other stuff on these signatures, on these UAP,” he tells Glenn.
However, it was “killed by somebody at a very senior level.”
“There’s some speculation why that occurred. A lot of folks believe it's because we were getting too close to another UAP effort, long-running UAP effort that the U.S. government had going on, and it was put on ice for a little while and they were getting concerned that maybe our group was getting too close to their group,” he explains.
There’s also a group Elizondo calls “Collins Elite,” who are “more radical religious individuals in the government.”
“They had a moral issue with us pursuing this topic. They believe that it contradicted their theological belief system, that these UAP were in fact demons,” Elizondo explains.
“If you studied UAP, then you were going against the word of God,” he adds.
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Glenn Beck’s mind blown: What if aliens are really disembodied Nephilim?
As UFOs, aliens, and disclosure become increasingly popular topics of discussion, a theory is gaining traction among certain Christian circles: that aliens do not exist, and any contact with one is actually an encounter with a demon masquerading as an extraterrestrial.
Glenn Beck has mixed feelings about this theory. While he rejects the notion that any being that comes from another planet is not part of God’s design and is evil, he also believes that many alien and UFO encounters have demonic explanations.
To dive into this subject, Glenn invites Faithwire journalist and supernatural podcast host Billy Hallowell to “The Glenn Beck Program” for a fascinating conversation about several possible explanations.
Hallowell explains that the general consensus, “even among a lot of scientists,” is that “people are seeing something” that is very real. The crux of the alien debate today lies more in what people are seeing: beings from outer space or beings from a spiritual dimension.
The theory that they’re all spiritual beings isn’t without merit, he explains. The Bible “doesn’t just say there’s Satan and demons. It talks about principalities and powers, and there’s some mystery here in what is going on,” he tells Glenn.
Further, it’s plausible to believe that demons can take an alien form when you consider that throughout Scripture, angels “show up in different forms.”
However, the debate gets even more complicated in that not everybody agrees on what demons are.
“Now, the common belief is that demons are fallen angels. ... The other theory is that demons are actually the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim,” Hallowell says.
The latter theory, he explains, draws from both Scripture and the book of Enoch and posits that the Nephilim (the giant offspring of human women and fallen angels) whose physical bodies were wiped in the flood went “looking for bodies, and that’s what demons are.”
Glenn is fascinated by this idea. “You’re saying that they didn’t go away, that this might be the explanation for what we’re seeing?” he asks.
Hallowell notes that according to the theories discussed, these entities — whether fallen angels or disembodied Nephilim spirits — can physically manifest, and some believe this explains why people report encountering beings that look like aliens.
This idea, he says, then leads to another question: “Why would they do that? Is there a deception here?”
Glenn isn’t sure what to believe about aliens, but he is certain that where demons are at work, deception is sure to be at play.
“The whole point of the dark side is deception,” he says.
To hear more of the conversation, watch the video above.
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What if DC’s iconic monuments are actually demonic portals?
America is getting darker. Christians have felt it for some time, but now even some of the nonreligious crowd is noticing it. A shadow creeps across the nation, breeding chaos, confusion, and unmitigated wickedness.
Some want to fight the encroaching corruption with legislation, others with innovation, but Rick Burgess, BlazeTV host of the spiritual warfare podcast “Strange Encounters,” says those kinds of solutions treat only the symptoms, not the disease.
Underneath the rampant degeneracy permeating American institutions and culture is the root of all evil, and until we look it in the face, our country will continue to slide ever deeper into a pit of despair.
On this episode of “Strange Encounters,” Rick discusses America’s spiritual predicament, including the possibility of demonic portals in the U.S., with Tom DiMarco, author of the recently published book “The Only Way Out: A Brief Look at the Driving Forces Behind Today's Chaos and the Only Person Who Can Save Us.”
Rick regularly encourages his audience to engage in what he calls “spiritual housecleaning,” meaning to examine what you’ve brought in or allowed to come into your home. Some things — like Halloween decorations, occult or witchcraft-related objects, and even media or content that promotes darkness — can be invitations of welcome to demonic forces.
But it’s not just individual Christians who need to engage in spiritual housecleaning. The nation at large is in desperate need of it too.
One item in America’s “house” deserving of scrutiny, says DiMarco, is Freemasonry — the world's oldest fraternal organization.
Although it’s presented as a brotherhood promoting charity and personal improvement, DiMarco paints a more complicated picture.
“There's lower levels of the Masons, and it's basically a men's club ... they do a lot of good things, but there's levels, and as you climb up the levels, you get to a point where you're sworn to secrecy,” he says, citing claims of ancient deity worship among some Masonic circles.
The symbolism woven into some of America’s most prestigious monuments is another point of contention, says DiMarco. He points to the Washington Monument and the Capitol building as primary examples.
He explains that the Washington Monument is an “obelisk,” a tall, four-sided pillar tapering to a pyramid top that translates literally to “Baal’s shaft” — a phallic fertility symbol tied to pagan worship of Baal, who the Bible associates with child sacrifice.
The U.S. Capitol building's dome, he argues, represents ancient pagan symbolism tied to a “fertility goddess” (the rounded shape designed to mirror pregnancy).
He further claims that inside the dome's "belly" — in the Rotunda's central fresco, “The Apotheosis of Washington” — six ancient gods are depicted, including figures symbolizing the god of war under names like Astarte, Ishtar, and Isis, whom he says evolved into the modern "Columbia" (as in District of Columbia), with Masonic influence in the naming and design.
On top of that, DiMarco claims that the man George Washington appointed to oversee the initial setup of the federal territory, Daniel Carroll (a wealthy aristocrat with alleged Masonic ties), set up the layout of Washington, D.C.'s monuments and buildings so that, when viewed aerially from the White House, it forms a pentagram — a five-pointed star often associated with occult or Satanic symbolism.
He argues that “the monuments are the compass and the square — the symbol of Freemasonry.”
Even our Statue of Liberty, he says, is modeled after a pagan goddess, “now named Columbia.”
“The second commandment, you know, specifically tells us not to build these things,” says DiMarco. “I think they become portals. They're areas where it's a gateway for these [demonic] beings to gain strength.”
He and Rick say that in ancient Israel, idolatry (worshiping other gods through idols, high places, Asherah poles, Baal altars, etc.) and adopting pagan practices were seen as direct violations of the covenant with God. The Bible repeatedly shows that these practices led to divine judgment — exile, defeat, or curses — while removing them via repentance, destruction of the idols, and returning to exclusive worship of Yahweh were often prerequisites for God's restoration, blessing, protection, and deliverance.
They suggest that if America wants to see “a reign of peace,” like the one brought about by the “good kings” of Judah, we have to follow their steps and remove idols and pagan altars.
“As long as these things are here, we will have war,” says DiMarco.
To hear him unpack his portal theory, watch the full interview above.
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Are Christians watering down hell to make God more palatable?
In our age of "love is love," "live your truth," and "don’t judge," many people, Christians included, are hesitant to speak the truth. We don’t want to upset people, make situations uncomfortable, or scare anyone, so we either dodge opportunities to speak the truth about God, or we soften biblical concepts in hopes that they will be more palatable.
There’s never been a subject Christians tend to temper more than hell. “It's becoming a little more trendy now to try to dumb down the severity of God's wrath on those who reject Him,” says Rick Burgess, BlazeTV host of the biblical spiritual warfare podcast “Strange Encounters.”
On this episode, Rick lays bare the truth about hell and what it means to reject God.
Sometimes “even people within the faith [think] that maybe somehow what scripture says about God's judgment on the unredeemed — maybe we have it wrong. Maybe he's even going to be gracious and merciful to the unredeemed, even though they've rejected the only way to to receive God's grace and mercy,” says Rick.
Others think that “maybe somehow hell isn't as bad as it sounds in the Bible. Sure, they're going to be punished, but it's not going to be an eternal punishment.”
One prominent Christian figure who Rick says is “easing into this camp” is American actor, evangelist, and author Kirk Cameron.
Recently, on his podcast, Cameron rejected the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment — the belief that hell is a place or state where those who die without salvation in Jesus Christ experience ongoing, conscious suffering and punishment forever, without end or annihilation. Kirk said that while he once accepted this doctrine as true, today he leans more toward annihilationism – the belief that the unredeemed face judgment, possibly limited suffering, and then total destruction.
“It fits the character of God in my understanding more than the conscious eternal torment position, because it brings in the mercy of God together with the justice of God. It doesn't leave judgment out. It is just, but it also fits with the Old Testament picture of the fate of the wicked, which is to be destroyed. It is to die, and it is to perish, not live forever in an eternal barbecue,” Cameron said.
“If conscious eternal torment is not a thing, that's actually a great relief, and I would have joy in correcting somebody who says that the reason that they're not a Christian is because of this merciless God who tortures people forever, and I could say that's not what the Bible teaches. Good news. Still not good. You don't want to go [to hell], but there is mercy even in His judgment,” he added, noting that this is what he believes “the scriptures teach.”
While Rick says he has “great respect” for Cameron and believes without a doubt he’ll “spend eternity” with him in heaven, he believes Cameron has some confusion about the character of God.
“It's like he prefers God to be a certain way. And I really, really think that's very shaky ground. … He doesn't want that to be true because what? That makes him think less of God?” asks Rick.
When people try to soften scripture, they’re essentially believing that “God needs a PR agent” to say, "Hey, God, I really think people will get upset with you with this eternal conscious torment thing. You probably want to go with the annihilation of the soul and just kill these people because that'll make you look more merciful,” he says. “I got a real problem with that because I think that God has gone on record about his mercy and grace because of the cross.”
“He's been so gracious and so merciful, He has allowed you to become fully righteous, and the sacrifice and the wrath that should have been poured out on us was now poured out on his son,” Rick says.
But “if you choose to reject God's grace and mercy, then all you're going to get is his wrath and judgment, and that judgment from Him, because He's perfect, will be correct.”
To hear Rick’s full breakdown, watch the episode above.
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Exorcisms are exploding across America — but nobody wants to admit why
From Michigan to Melbourne, exorcisms are rising — an odd trend in an age when Christianity is supposedly retreating.
Odd, that is, if you accept the official story: that faith has faded, churches have emptied, and modern life has supposedly outgrown such concerns. Yet behind parish doors and rectory walls, priests report the opposite: more calls, cases, and urgency.
Evil persists not because it is misunderstood, but because it is minimized.
The demonic, it seems, didn’t get the secular memo.
I began making inquiries recently, speaking with clergy who have dealt with what most people would rather joke about, pathologize, or turn into content. One name surfaced repeatedly: Fr. Michael Shadbolt, a veteran priest who had performed numerous exorcisms and spoke of them with measured calm. I reached out to him for insight. Instead, I received word that he had recently passed away.
Thankfully, there was another source, carrying decades of experience where spiritual and psychological care meet. Fr. Stephen Rossetti, an American Catholic priest and seasoned exorcist, spoke without qualification.
“Yes, requests for exorcisms are on the rise in the U.S. and in other countries as well,” he told me. “There may be many reasons for this, but one obvious one is the decline of the practice of the faith.”
That observation runs counter to the fashionable narrative. The usual explanation for the rise in exorcisms is framed as a paradox: Christianity declines, so belief in demons increases.
But that framing flatters modern assumptions. It treats belief as an all-or-nothing package. Either accept the creed or discard the lot. But human experience has never worked that way.
One doesn’t need to believe in God to believe in evil — it’s everywhere. A loved one consumed by addiction. The husband who revels in beating his wife. The wife who revels in beating her husband. The son who turns on parents with lethal force.
RELATED: Interview with an exorcist: 'God always takes the first step'
Evil doesn’t depend on belief to function. It advances through repetition, fixation, and the gradual loss of restraint. The language shifts with each generation, but the pattern remains. Every day, roughly 137 women and girls are killed worldwide in acts of femicide. Child sacrifice, usually relegated to ancient Peru or remote civilizations, still occurs in parts of Africa today. In the U.S., one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18.
No vocabulary of Pinkertonian progress dissolves these facts. Calling evil “trauma” or “dysfunction” may describe the damage left behind, but it doesn’t confront the force itself. Such language manages outcomes while leaving causes untouched.
The modern world prefers to believe that evil is a misunderstanding, a system failure, or a lack of education. History suggests otherwise. Evil persists not because it is misunderstood, but because it is minimized. It thrives where it is renamed, rationalized, or treated as an embarrassing superstition.
Fr. Rossetti put it plainly, “Increasingly people are not protected by faith, and many are involved in occult practices, which are a clear opening to the demonic.”
That point is crucial. Militant atheism is seldom the starting point. The entry point is engagement with practices the Church has long warned against.
“We have a number of cases of people who drifted away from the faith and then got into the occult,” Rossetti explained. “After a few years, they found themselves afflicted by evil spirits.”
The remedy is clear. “The first thing we do is have them go to confession, start practicing the faith, and live a virtuous life,” he said. “All sin is an opening to evil in some way, and the worse the sins, the greater the opening.”
It is precisely for this reason, Rossetti continued, “that exorcisms are very effective.” However, he stressed, there’s no wand, no instant result. “Sometimes the process takes time. It is typically not one and done,” Rossetti said. After years of spell-casting, curse-making, and demon worship — often misidentified as “self-discovery” or “ancient wisdom” — it can take far longer to undo the damage.
He was explicit about the timeline. “It typically takes three to five years of exorcisms to liberate the person.” The process, he added, is one of conversion and purification.
“An exorcism is not magic,” he said.
The hierarchy is clear and always has been: Christ reigns, angels serve, demons defy — and ultimately lose.
What we are witnessing, then, is not the complete disappearance of belief but its fragmentation. Christianity retreats institutionally while belief itself goes feral. Old anchors are cut loose. New fixations rush in. The vacuum does not remain empty.
Look around. Astrology, once harmless nonsense, has become a personal operating system. It graduated from brainless fun to life-management software, complete with a $3 billion price tag. Tarot cards are sold as “self-care.” Witchcraft is rebranded as empowerment, paganism as wellness. Social media is saturated with spiritual freelancers promising protection, manifestation, and power — usually bundled with a payment link.
None of this is neutral, and none of it is consequence-free. Doors opened casually tend to stay open.
This is where the supposed paradox dissolves. Christianity isn’t retreating because belief vanished, but because belief lost its footing. Structure recedes, so superstition rises. When doctrine disappears, disorder follows. There is no neutrality — only exposure.
For those skeptical because of Hollywood portrayals, exorcism is not a medieval curiosity revived for effect, but a practical response to persistent realities. The Church isn’t inventing demons to stay relevant. Rather, it is reacting to what it actually sees — a culture defined by isolation, instability, and constant immersion in content that destroys self-control and sanity.
Fr. Rossetti was clear on the final point, one that many increasingly resist.
“It is critical to understand that Jesus is Lord and not Satan,” he said. “The big mistake people make today is thinking that Satan is so very powerful. He is not.”
Compared to Christ, “Satan is dust.” He has no authority unless it is surrendered.
Christian theology has never been ambiguous on this point. Satan is not a rival god, not an equal force locked in cosmic balance. He is a created being who rebelled, fell, and was expelled. His power is parasitic rather than inherent. He doesn’t rule a kingdom by right, but lurks in territory abandoned through disobedience and pride.
The hierarchy is clear and always has been: Christ reigns, angels serve, demons defy — and ultimately lose.
That, it seems, is the warning embedded in the rise of exorcisms. Not that evil has grown stronger, but that we have grown careless. We treated the spiritual realm as a curiosity, then a hobby, then a marketplace — and acted surprised when something followed us home.
Fr. Rossetti put it without hesitation: “Jesus is Lord and has smashed Satan’s kingdom.” The tragedy is that many live as though He hasn’t.
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