Generational Curses Are REAL | Dr. Dan Schneider

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Dr. Dan Schneider, welcome back again for the third time, brother. Thank you for coming, >> Mike. Great to see you again. Great to have great to be back on.

[00:00:10]>> So, for those of you that don't know, so Dr. Dan Schneider is a huge, huge influence on my life. And for those, you know, few people that may not know who he is, um, he's been on three, this is his third appearance. The first one we talked about his two books, Liberto, which had a profound effect on my life, Spiritual Warfare Q&A that he co-authored with Jesse Romero. And today we're talking about sins of the father.

[00:00:32]And so this is a Catholic and biblical approach to generational curses and a very um untouched topic in the world of Catholicism. For to the few people that don't know who Dr. Dan is, he's a Gulf War veteran, former former US Army attack helicopter pilot, theologian, and is involved in deliverance ministry with Father Chad Riper. He's a founding member of the Libro Cristo movement and again author of Sins of the Father. So Dr. Dr. Dan, let's just jump right into it. I got a bunch of questions. So many people get generational curses, generational spirits wrong. What are the most common misconceptions right from the outset that people have around this?

[00:01:11]>> The the main misconceptions is not distinguishing between the sin and the effect of the sin. Because of a sin, it's really only two types of sins.

[00:01:21]There's original sin and actual personal sins. Original sin will set the pattern.

[00:01:27]It's archetypal in the sense that it's every other sin, actual sins will will follow the self-same pattern of the sin of our first parents. So this is why I prefer the I prefer the the the the language of generational curse or generational spirit as opposed to sin because it's used in other circles um as implying there is a sin that I generated in my children. you have a child and you generate the sin of whatever um that means you generated his soul or her soul which is which is contrary to the teachings of the church and so we have to distinguish in Catholic theology between the sin itself I don't generate a sin um but I but the effect of my sins and this is why it's not talked about today because the effect of sin can be vicariously uh felt and that punishment can be felt in those who are underneath our authority and we don't like this whole topic in the modernist mindset of there's been a real o overwhelming it's one of the marks of modernism the rejection of authority and so we we don't like to to talk about that effect of sin and so some of the misconceptions are if I have this and it was brought in really through um a protestant missionary named Kenneth McCall Dr. Kenneth McCall was a psychiatrist uh or psychologist and missionary and he was rightly ke gleaning connections of some sort of had some sort of transgenerational uh ligature. And so his solution was to was to um have liturgy of some kind. I think he was a Methodist or somewhat lurggical uh um uh uh Episcopalian of some kind. And so they would have liturgies. They would have they would use uh charismatic uh seers or sensitives to see and to try to glean from the past. Okay, it was your maternal grandfather on this side and that would did this particular witchcraft or whatever. And so the fallacy though, and they're stumbling on something, but the fallacy is using the liturgy to number one outside of its context when it gets carried into the Catholic Church through charismatic circles. There's now healing masses for the healing of the family tree. And so that that really is contrary. We don't heal a family tree, we heal family members. We don't use the mass to sever the effects of the past, but to make satisfaction and reparation through the infant marriage of Jesus Christ on Calvary represented in an unblooded way.

[00:03:56]This is what the mass is. is not to be used outside of that context. And so this idea that I'm bound by this sin and if I use some lurggical uh action to sever that then I'm free from that. And that's that's some of the fallacies that we see now. They're they're well intended. And a lot of those, you know, Father Deg Grandis uh um uh uh and other other priests uh early in the charismatic and rule that have passed away, they in their writings, they separated and distinguished it the the sin and the effect. But in practicality, it's not really being played out in that way. It's have a mass said for the healing of the family tree to break the chains that bind you to the past. Those chains that bind you that and their language is the effect of the sin that carries down to from the father to the children. Uh and we can unpack that as we go. But that's kind of the some of the misconceptions and because and one of the reasons it gets um criticized particularly by the Spanish bishop's conference as one example which I cite heavily in the book is that if if I'm passively bound by the sins of my ancestors that means I have no personal responsibility for my sin and that's just simply not true. um you know so and so so we have to it makes it undermines the what we need our understanding of of that of of personal responsibility and so this takes back personal responsibility but it also puts it back into the familial and communal aspect that sin has sin is not we don't sin that's one of the the lies that we especially here your your audience is largely men the lie you hear for men is you can fall into this is not really a sin um uh the sin of impurity and masturbation, these other things. It's it's just this private thing. It doesn't affect those around you. And that's simply not true. Sin affects you. It it creates this four-fold alienation. It alienates you from yourself. It affects you and alienates you from God.

[00:05:54]Alienates you from from the environment around you, right? And also your familial construct, your vocation.

[00:06:01]there's there's a a a fissure is created even if that sin is done in private it still has that effect and that's why the original sin is archetypal um Adam and Eve commit the first sin in that and they lose it's a privation of it's of of interior goods they lose the state of grace we call the loss of original justice so God's just God's righteousness is they lose original sin and divine life, they lose original integrity. Their interior faculties are now disordered. Uh they lose original knowledge. They no longer their minds are now darkened. Right? And so sin creates that interior disposition, a punishment for that. There's a spiritual punishment that that Adam and Eve suffered. But at the same time, they're driven from the garden. They're driven from the garden. And now hostility has entered into their relationship. And now they're separated physically, tangibly from God spatially. But and even after that, there's a communal effect. This is right from the catechism, the communal effect and a familial effect. And so, uh, Cain now kills Abel. The the effect of their sin carries down into the children. And so, um, this is embedded into the very nature of sin. And, and as a catechism says that sin has a double consequence.

[00:07:27]there's a spiritual effect and that we see this in the loss of loss of grace in the interior life even the loss of heaven and the pains of hell as a result of grave sins that are unconfessed but even after sacramental confession it says in the catechism even after that the temporal punishment temporal satisfaction needs to be made and so those are the two effects and and um and it says it's not by some cruelty of God this is some you know some sadistic meanness of God It's embedded into the very nature of sin. It has these two effects.

[00:08:01]>> That's a great explanation, [clears throat] I suppose. And you would agree. Another um misconception when they hear the word generational, people tend to think, well, this was this somehow or some way my father or my mother generated my soul. Therefore, this sin was just passed on. When what you're saying, if it's clear, it's the punishment of said sin, not the sin itself. Because obviously we know our parents don't generate our souls. Is that something that comes up often?

[00:08:28]>> Right. So we have to understand redefining we have to take these term terminology back from from misconceptions and and really uh uncritically accepted Protestant understandings of things. Okay. Theology and others ecclesiology by generational.

[00:08:43]There's there there are different types of curses. There's really three types of curses. There's there's natural curses which have no efficacy. You know you cut somebody off in traffic and they curse you. There's no prednatural agency in that. There's there's prednatural curses which are active. We're seeing this more and more common now. Um when and in in the overtness uh of witchcraft um Abramovich uh the you know the Bohemian Grove and everything in between to the to which you know the little witchcraft forums um on the internet etc. Satanism is is more overt. And so we see this act of even in Freemasonry an active working of cursing and occasionally is on the Bible. It was in one of the psalms today in the office of readings that that um the one who curses it was no it was from Job um may the one who who curses to summon Leviathan from the depths. Okay, that's an act of uh uh uh cursing. But this is not what we're talking about.

[00:09:47]No, that that that has crossover to this this topic. But we're talking about a third type of curse where curse uh generational is not actively generated but it's it's it's generated in the sense of inherited. So if you said to if you said to St. Augustine who I I began who really fleshed this out first as a you know doctor of grace who gave us the dog the dogma of the of the original sin. If I said hey let's talk about generational curses. He'd be like what are you talking about? Okay. Can we talk about inherited guilt and how the sins of the father can affect the infants?

[00:10:19]Oh, well, perfectly we can talk about that. So, they would use the phrase inherited guilt that the guilt of the father's sin can be inherited in the same way that an wealth can be inherited, right? If we had the Kardashian inherited wealth and you and I were trust babies, we would just, you know, sit be sitting on the beach somewhere with our soulmate, right? And just party and living the good life supposedly, right? So, inherited wealth, inherited guilt. So, but it falls within the construct of of that. Now, curse with a familial construct isn't like you get on an airplane, somebody sneezes, and you pick up the sin of fornication.

[00:10:55]It doesn't work that way. It falls within the familial construct. So, curse in this sense isn't the active agency of cursing. But what's most prevalent in the scriptures, there are evidences of of active curses. B curs the curse of Balum, Balam's ass, and that whole story in the Old Testament. other there's other ver other such you know stories but for the most part curse in the scriptures is the privation of the two ends that come with blessing provision and protection and so you know Jesus uh if you if you're aware of this in scripture Jesus actually cur does does an act of cursing in the New Testament do you recall where when he curses the fig tree >> oh yeah the yeah of course the fig tree yeah so Jesus summoning Leviathan. Is Jesus summon? No, he he's not doing active. What he's saying is if you do not produce the fruit of what I created you for as your creator, I withdraw my provision and my protection. I withdraw the rains, the nutrients, the protection from the elements, etc. Right? And therefore, you are cursed. You no longer have my blessing, my provision, and my protection. This is even in the language um in and in in the the the um the blessing of a field. We see this um in in the old ritual. There's there's a blessing. I think I have it. Let me see if I can find it. If not, I I I I have it. Um in the blessing of a field um there's one when when there's infestation where they suspected infestation of vermin. Okay. And this is in from Weller in the old ritual. Um, I had a friend of mine who was a farmer and he has hundreds of acres of farms, but this one farm is about 30 acres and he had an infestation of field mice and they were just destroying every every year the crops were being destroyed this one particular field. So he went to his his pastor, rural pastor who happened to be the diosis and exorcist. He didn't know this. And he says, "Can you bless this field? It just keeps getting overrun with field mice." And so um the priest prays this old ritual from the old Roman ritual of a blessing of a field and suspect when there suspected vermin okay infestation. And so the priest actually prays that same language of cursed. May you be accursed vermin of God. If you aren't one to do that which God created you for. May you be accursed. May my provision and protection be removed from you. And so I asked the guy a couple years later, "Tell me about that field. Did they get rid of the mice?" He said, 'I haven't seen a mice in three years, and that particular field produces the most crops, the best producing field of all of my fields, that one particular field.

[00:13:48]Because blessing, we got to understand this as fathers, blessing and husbands, blessing is critical. when Paul Benedict the 16th gave a three homalies in the year of the priest in like 2010 I believe [snorts] um and so he gave three homalies on the rules and duties what's called the moonra the tree of munra the three-fold office of priesthood to preach to heal and to govern when he gets to the the homaly on governance by the priest he likens the office of priest going back to Peter and that same thing applies to you and as husbands and fathers. Uh but Jesus's words to Peter on the sea of Tiberias, do you love me? Feed my lambs.

[00:14:31]Do you love me? Tend my sheep. Right? So feeding provision and tending protection. This is the two ends of the authority structure. This is why the effect of of of a father's sins can carry down in in the form of a curse which is the the privation of that protection and that provision that he is supposed to be providing and blessing his children. And so in the extreme example, we see these things, but in the minor things as well, when you are committing grave sins, even if you're doing it in in privacy um and no one else seems to know about it, you are removing that shield of provision and protection that you should be providing to your family and your children are now vulnerable. And this way St. Thomas, for example, and I won't go deeply into it, but St. Thomas talks about sin has a spiritual punishment and a medicinal punishment. the spiritual punishment you alone are punished for. But on the medicinal end, the temporal side, sometimes he says because the children are part of the bodily goods, the property of the father, the effect of the sin can be experienced in a vicarious punishment in the children.

[00:15:42]>> Thank you for that, Dr. Dan. Now, I wanted to get to the biblical and historical foundations, but that raises a really good question. Um, and I think it I'm going to skip ahead a little bit and then come back to that. In in in your experience, how how are these cur how do these curses play out most typically? So, we know that private sin exposes our families. What does it expose our families to? Okay, so disorder, how is that made manifest in the lives of the children? How do you most typically see this type of thing play out? And if there's an example, that would be helpful for myself and the audience as well.

[00:16:13]>> Yeah. Um, I think let's let's break it down with an example first and then go into the [snorts] some of the particulars. The example I think um I use in the book that I think probably most clearly to helps us wrap our head around this is um the truck the truck driver um who is driving his big rig home from work. He gets into a he he decides, okay, I'm going to stop into the bar and I'm going to have a few drinks. And he, you know, he has one, he has two, he has three. He's well over the legal limit, but it's late. He's going to take the back roads home where there's no police, not knowing there's someone else coming home from work early in the morning. And he gets into a car wreck. Uh runs into a guy, t-bones him, blows three times the legal limit, and um the person that in the other side in the car is is killed. He's he is convicted of vehicular homicide. And so the the cops don't go to the crime scene or the scene of the accident and say, "We're going to make this guy really suffer for what he did. Um, go get his wife, go get his kids, and put them in jail." That doesn't happen in a just society. He alone pays the price for his crime. He alone goes to jail. But what's happens to the what he does does have an effect on his children. Even though he's he alone suffers the crime, it goes on his record. He goes to jail. And so the children now at home without their father suffer the privation of his of his blessing, which is his provision there.

[00:17:49]He's not there to provide for them. He's lost his license. He's not working. He's in jail. And now they the mom has to go to work. She has to work two jobs. They just to make ends meet. The air conditioner doesn't ever come on in the summer. um they're not eating any not going out to eat no there minimum amount of food that they can afford but it but also he's not there to protect mom's not there as much they lack his protection as well as provision and that sense is the effect of the his sin is felt in the children and so see Thomas would say that this is part of the medicinal effect the children suffer the effects offer their suffering for the father and the father sees their suffering and in his repentance offers up his suffering um in reparation for his sins. This is the inner dynamic of it. And so we we see it carrying down. Even St. Thomas says that certain certain families have certain proclivities, I think is the word he uses, certain tendencies. Um and in those um God allows these these defects, these spirits, these vices to continue in a family so that a later generation can drive it from the family line. And it that sounds kind of foreign, but we know this innately. This is why we we get such everywhere I travel, I get feedback like, "Yeah, I know something's going on. I can't quite wrap my head around it. My father was like this. My grandfather was like this.

[00:19:12]And now I'm suffering. And now I'm seeing it in my children, but God is allowing it to to drive it from the from the family line. Think of it this way.

[00:19:20]Going back. Go ahead. I was going to go back to Sinai and redefine define a couple of words, but any comments on >> by all means. No. Yes. So we'll pause that there for a second. That's a really interesting thing because I saw I was doing some work with a you know psychologist many many years ago and we were looking at my family history and my you know the family tree on both sides and there was this history this pattern of infidelity of adultery of fornication of lust and that had in this is well prior to meeting my wife even dating her but this has sort of infected in in me in a tremendous way and then now with my wife you know there's been no infidelity even throughout our courtship we're married and I look back and I'm almost not assigning a higher position to myself, but what you just said like every family line kind of has this mini Christrist that instead of you can't really heal retroactively that doesn't really make sense. You can heal the person, but you almost become like a new link in an old chain of sort of curse spirits etc. Would you say that is somewhat accurate and it takes really like identifying what that is and then militating against it in your own personal life to sort of heal.

[00:20:22]>> Yeah. In the end of the book I go into with you know from father riper's experience um how to identify it identify these things although it's fairly obvious but to get more specific how to identify but let's go back and let me give you the perfect example besides the holy family which is the ultimate example of perfection but besides the perfection of the holy family a a good uh model for um for this is the Martin family of St. TZ of Lassu.

[00:20:49]Um >> you want to see what it looks like in the inverse on a human family.

[00:20:55]>> Um because St. Thomas says that it's both Aquinus St. Thomas Aquinus and Augustine say it's not deterministic.

[00:21:02]St. St. St. Augustus says sometimes in some families in in a lesser degree in a mysterious way God will sometimes allow the effect of the sin to carry down in the children are suffered in the f as a result of the father's sins. Sometimes it's not deterministic. It isn't well my father grandfather was a Freemason and therefore I'm you know or my great great-grandmother was a witch and therefore uh I'm you know it does I'm I'm doomed. It's deterministic. I have no that's a lie. That's just not true.

[00:21:33]It's all in God's system of justice. All in his system of justice, which is different than man's justice. And this is part of the debate with Julian Alonum and and and Augustine in the early church. Julian was one of the heretical movements in the early church. But the Martin family, you know, St. TZ um homeschooled, very well-kept, never really left, very private, very wholesome upbringing. goes into Carmel uh at an early age uh dies there. Doctor of the church because of a profound spiritual uh uh doctrine of a spiritual childhood, spiritual littleness.

[00:22:13]Um two of her sisters or three of her sisters enter into Carmela are also saints. One sister who was the rebel didn't become a Carmelite. They find out later she's blessed. They find out later that she was um one of the caregivers, the the nannies was terribly abusive to her physically and and emotionally. The father even suffered after after the death of his wife, Terz's mother. She died at a fairly young age, suffered went into a depression and suffered some other interior struggles, but the entire family resoundedly grew in holiness. So, so St. Thomas says the same thing. It's not deterministic.

[00:22:52]He says sometimes this does happen in God's providence but he says unless there are obstacles to grace put forth by the children and by obstacles he says a life of virtue and so if you have this pattern and some of that pattern is learned behavior you know >> is learned behavior um imitated behavior but there's also tendencies weaknesses proclivities >> but [snorts] we have to put obstacles to that and so just because these things happened doesn't mean you can't provide obstacles and those obstacles life of virtue um where sin abounds grace abounds all the more and so now the greater graces are pouring out into your family because of the obstacles that doesn't mean you got to be very you don't have to be careful that those tendencies are still always going to be there um you know weaknesses if you will that we have to just be be cognizant of but ultimately Christ is saying hey I want you to be Christ in your family I want you to pick up the cross and I want you to defeat this definitively for me on behalf of your family >> industrial management.

[00:23:54]>> Yeah.

[00:23:54]>> Yeah. So, the one followup I had for that, you had a great uh example about the truck driver. Now, let's say so that's a physical I mean obviously a physical and a spiritual uh privation of the protection that comes with blessing.

[00:24:06]But let's say there's a man that's watching this that behind closed doors is watching pornography. He's married.

[00:24:11]He's got children. Um and let's say his wife doesn't know, his kids don't know, etc. He's not even brought it to his priest. um and he's struggling with this behind behind closed doors. What does that expose his family to? What how does that how do you sort of theologically unpack that? Which is a very practical example because I mean millions upon millions of Catholic men are struggling with this right now.

[00:24:33]>> Yeah. Even more than what's really sad is that, you know, 20 years ago when I was teaching and and um pornography was first really when the advent of the cell phones and these other things, pornography was becoming more widespread and not just you had to go to a CD neighborhood at an old movie theater or go into some really nasty scary place to get pornography or publicly buy it at a gas station or something. the statistics were overwhelmingly like 80 85% males looking at pornography.

[00:25:05]>> And I I want to say, correct me if I'm wrong, we can fact check it, but I want to say those numbers have collapsed to not quite 50/50, but something like 6040 55 45. A lot of women are looking at pornography as well. It's a poison cancer on our society. And it's not a sin that's committed in private. You know, nothing is nothing we do is done in private. It has everything has that like sin has a communal effect as the catechism says that we saw in the life of Adam and Eve. So um when you when you commit a sin especially this particular sin of pornography and masturbation you you create a vulnerability to your family. We have to distinguish between permissions and rights. Um, in the book of Revelation, it says that the accuser of the brethren, right, the Satan is the accuser, accusing the brethren day and night before the throne of God.

[00:25:58]Revelation 12. Well, what's he accusing them of? He'll claim to say, "I have a right to be here." When he when I work cases of of possession, the demon always is saying, "I have a right to be here.

[00:26:10]This person is, you know, I have a right to this person." Which is just which is legally false. If you're baptized by right, your soul belongs to Jesus Christ. It belongs to God the Father through Christ. It's got the indelible mark of baptism. But at the same time, um we don't when we do commit sins, we commit sins. We we we give permission.

[00:26:32]We give permissions. The devil actually has per you've given him you've lowered your shield and gave him permission to come inside your wire. And so um when you look at Ephesians chapter 6 where everybody you know I go to conferences people and we talk about Ephesians chapter 6 and the weapons of warfare.

[00:26:49]It's really cool. He's describing you know spiritual warfare based on the uniform of the Roman legionary of his day which would be occupying Ephesus that people would see. Oh yeah we know what that looks like. We know what the soldier wears. Um but the preface to Ephesians chapter 6 and our weapons of spiritual combat is Ephesians chapter 5.

[00:27:10]Wives obey your husbands, right? And so when we hear that at mass, there's always a little bit of a little bit of elbow going on. Come on, honey. That's the that's the word of God. You need to listen to that. You know, you need to listen to that. That's he's going to preach this. Now the word the Greek word is upotaso with a Latin the Latin literal translation is subordinatio. It means to be subordered under. It's a it's a military term. You know when I flew in Iraq um before the battle lines broke down and we went into urban fighting. We had tank alignment. You know I saw as a helicopter a cavalry you know aircraft. We were right there and we saw all the Iraqi tanks here and behind us were all the American tanks in battle array. That word taso ordinatio means means this battle ordering. It's a military term literally it means to be as a military term to be under the protection of. So wives be under the protection of your husbands. Husbands love your wives. And this is an area that that we we don't we you know we hear about this word love and in the modern church we hear all these homalies about love and love and sugary Jesus with skinny jeans and love and love.

[00:28:27]Paul gives us this love which is agape.

[00:28:29]A love that sacrifices a love that dies to oneself. And so that that was what happens is what Paul says, "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved his church, handing himself over for her."

[00:28:43]And so dying to yourself is absolutely critical. And when you you commit selfish acts or when you commit grave sins, even if it's behind closed doors, the sin of impurity, you take your shield, you take your spear or your your gladius, your your your your sword that you're meant to pro to protect your family and you place on the side and your family now becomes the target.

[00:29:07]because it's ultimately when I'm dealing with these cases of affliction often times it's more than often um the woman is afflicted and the husband won't engage and and I have bad news of saying look this is going to linger until you step up the demon of impurity by the way is also the demon of fear it's very interesting he drives fear and impurity and it's often expressed as anger Right? And we're over there confessing all the anger, but what's driving the anger is this demon of impurity that will cycle back and forth between impurity and anxiety. Impurity, fear, and what we what we're out there expressing is the anger. So, getting back to the deep roots of it, which is what what what are the fears? What's the self-love? What's driving this? But the point is that the wives and children are under the protection of the father. And when the father commits these sins, then they no longer the demon is going to say, "I have permission to be here. He let me in. He's in charge." This is why I talk in the opening of the book about the authority structure in one of the marks of modernism. We we think we we've rejected any authority structure, whether civil, hierarchal, hierarchy, holy, priestly rule, patriarchy, fatherly rule, governance. All right?

[00:30:30]And what's left when you break these down? Anarchy, right?

[00:30:34]Oh, that's a brilliant. Wow, that's brilliant.

[00:30:36]>> And that's and that's what they're and that's the breakdown because if they do that, whether they're doing it in a city, in a culture, in a country, um they're working the same other demons are working the same pattern uh in our families. And so the fathers have to step up and they have to fight back. And they and so I always tell these guys that are struggling with this, look, if you're not willing to do it for yourself, then do it for your wife and your children. Because ultimately, the children are the target. The first thing the demon does is start to to change the perceptions that we have with our spouses, right? Um over the years of living together and struggling this and that and and and you know maybe fights and some some discontentment and struggles and finances, we start to have changes in our perception. The demon could put spins on those perceptions, right? And so we he first creates this fissure between us and our and our wives. But that isn't the goal. If he can break the that bond, you know, when when the legionnaires fought, they fought side by side. The most the most important weapon on the badge on the battlefield is that legionnaire to your right, right? That's your greatest the greatest asset, the greatest weapon you have. And so when you configure and separate the husband and the wife, he he's doing that not just to break up the marriage, he's doing it to get to the children so he can start corrupting them. So I always tell fathers, if you're not going to do it for yourself, do it for the purity of your children.

[00:32:04]Knock this off. Fight this fight to protect your children from suffering these same the same demon of impurity.

[00:32:11]>> I think there's no man alive that doesn't resonate with the military language, even if they've never actually been an illicit soldier. I talk about often the three-fold calling for a man that's a father and a husband. It's the role of priest, king, and soldier.

[00:32:22]Priest blesses and sanctifies his family. The king provides order and then the soldier fights. And it's almost as if you're saying that doing these things, just you said grants permission.

[00:32:31]You're laying your weapon down and you've retreated. You wave the white flag. You've retreated from the battlefield despite your confirmational graces. You being an enlisted soldier for Christ. You've now allowed him inside the wire. You haven't even taken a defensive position, much less an offensive position. And it's like here have a field day with my family. And now just on another note, you can answer this even really briefly. There's this sort of concept I of almost defensive spiritual warfare where in my opinion, and you can tell me if I'm wrong, I'm absolutely open to that. More Catholic men need to take an offensive position.

[00:33:02]You're out there scanning the perimeter.

[00:33:04]You're putting lead down range and you're keeping the enemy outside the wire on your front foot versus always consistently operating on the back foot.

[00:33:11]I think there's so many Christians that operate on the back foot in a defensive position instead of being out there in an offensive position.

[00:33:18]>> Yeah, absolutely. I know, you know, I know you've done you've done combat sports. Anyone that's done combat sports knows if you're passive, you know, me as a former boxer, if if if a fighter if one of my fighters that I've trained, if they get passive in the ring and they're only there's a difference between counter punching, exploiting your opponent when he opens himself up and being passive and just trying not to get hit. Um, if you try to get passive in the ring, you're going to get taken to the woodshed. you know, if you're trying to get if you're trying to be passive, there's a difference between between um the the the principles of judo, which is minimum effort, maximum efficiency, um um controlled violence, explosion at the right time. You know, this, you know, that's that's a princ one of the principles of Judah, being a gentle monster. That those principles apply to fathers. We have to be gentle monsters in knowing when to engage uh and how to engage. But our engagement isn't outward. Our engagement is interior.

[00:34:18]It's how we pray. It's our orientation and prayer. That's what the demon sees and hears. And so, you can't be passive.

[00:34:24]You can't just wait. Well, if he throws something, then I'll I'll try it. You have to stay. You have to constantly be working. You have to constantly, you know, if when, you know, when I'm in the when I was in the ring, you're you're you're you're working off your opponent's rhythm. You're looking for his, you know, his his his timing.

[00:34:40]You're working on timing and distance.

[00:34:42]You're watching his movements. You're creating angles. And that might that might not mean you're not throwing a lot of punches at first, but when the opportunity comes, you have to explode.

[00:34:51]Same thing in judo or jiu-jitsu. You have the opportunity. You have to constantly explode. Rest when you can, you know, steal steal time away when you can and get some rest, but you cannot be passive in the spiritual life. You have to >> that doesn't mean you're stupid because you know I you know you can make you can get so aggressive that you over and he and your enemy is also very good. Uh he's an MMA fighter. He's a he's a striker. He's a judoka. He's a Muay Thai guy. He knows all the techniques. He's been doing it since since beginning of his creation. On day two when God separated the light from the darkness.

[00:35:26]Um, so day two of creation when the angels and the demons were created, he's been working against us, working these these tactics of hand-to-hand combat, if you will. So, um, so, so yeah, not being passive. You have to have a plan. You got to work your plan, then you got to adjust as your opponent adjusts. It's no different in the spiritual life.

[00:35:45]>> Yeah, that's brilliantly said. And I I I try to explain to guys that, hey, like your devotional life has to come in two parts. One, it's prayers of devotion, your rosary, your angel, you know, meditating on the daily readings, you know, your novena, your consecration to St. Joseph, etc. But also the other facet of your interior life has to be prayers of spiritual combat. This is why I recommend to absolutely everybody, not just because you're a good friend of mine and admi admire you is the deliverance prayers for use by the lady book by Ripiger butt liberto because you have to have those two facets of your prayer life. Like every morning I'm doing the auxili prayers. I'm doing these specific set of binding and perimeter prayers, prayers against retaliation. First thing in the morning, these things are on my mind. But then boom, okay, later on I'm doing my prayers, devotion and the rosary, giving, you know, rendering to God what he's owed in my time and my love and my devotion. But it's come got to come in both parts. Would you agree with that?

[00:36:33]>> Well, no. 100%. The demon responds to the imposition of order as much as to the prayers themselves, right? So, you have to be you have to impose order. You know, the the the the in boxing we call it the championship rounds. The last two or three rounds are the championship rounds. Those rounds are won not just in the ring, but they're won six months, three months, two months, three days prior doing that road work uh and and the grind work of getting ready to build the endurance in the gas tank. So, so the same thing you have to you have to do that daily set prayers, perimeter prayer. I can tell you story after story how effective that perimeter prayer is.

[00:37:12]um in the deliverance prayers of laty and I put put that in my book as well laying down a spiritual perimeter around your home around your family um remember the demon go the angels go where they're asked the demons go where they're not resisted so you have to be you have to ask the angels and then the second aspect of that is being specific in your prayers and and also meditation we can't just stop at vocal prayer we have to spend time in meditation meditating on you know this is why in our in our protocol you read the daily mass readings. So it's a good habit to get into reading the daily mass readings whether it's a Latin mass calendar or the novasordal calendar or both. Tap into the lurggical calendar. Read those mass readings the saints of the day.

[00:37:55]What's a lesson I can get from St. Philip Neri today? Can I be joyful? Can I be you know can can I have fun in the Lord too? Can I mortify myself? Can I take myself uh uh uh you know not take myself seriously? um you know and what lessons can I learn from the calendar of the day yesterday our lady um mother of the church. So tapping into those graces as well but doing time meditation as well as as the daily prayers of course the rosary and um you know if you can get I can just tell you from personal uh um testimony that if you can get the full three decade you know three mysteries in a day the traditional three mysteries it's very powerful. You're you're you're stringing a crown around our lady, you know, stringing jewels around her uh and inviting the one who was uh prophesied in Genesis 3:15 to crush the head of the servant. You're bringing her into every construct of your interior life as well as your family. So, devotion to the blessed mother and as part of that prayer life is very critical.

[00:38:58]>> Yeah. You describe her and the rosary as the battering ram of the spiritual life.

[00:39:02]>> Just seems like a good idea. Even if you love our you love our lady.

[00:39:06]>> That's what she Dominic.

[00:39:09]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:39:10]>> Yeah. I I see it what I've seen in in in session. It's like the M60 machine gun.

[00:39:16]Now they've replaced it with the SAW squad automatic weapon, but the M60 and the SAW where they're they're they're rapid heavy lead machine gun fire that just puts lead down range. It makes the enemy stop and hit the ground, you know.

[00:39:31]And so this is what it does. And so, um, the enemy is going to constantly try to come in. There's there's a really neat video. You can look it up. It's Walter Kankite, the the old, I think, um, CBS, uh, news anchor back when news was fairly impartial. Um, he did a story on, uh, the sappers in Vietnam. Sappers are half engineers, half uh, special operations. They're experts in getting inside the wire. And so we our wire is in the jungle days every every every operating you know command cop command operation post uh has a perimeter of some kind. In Vietnam they had strung together claymore mines which was connected by wires and they would the enemy would would try to get inside of that and the sappers would work underneath the concertina wires strung.

[00:40:23]They were experts of getting in and out.

[00:40:25]And what they would do is they would take the the the claymore mind that says front towards enemy, right? You've seen that famous kind of iconic picture. And they would turn it around backwards.

[00:40:38]This happened to a good friend of mine who passed away a few years ago. Vietnam veteran, probably one of the highest decorated Vietnam veterans. Uh top 20 for sure. Um uh good friend of mine. his first night in Vietnam, a sapper came in, turned it this way, then they make a bunch of noise and they the Americans would hit the clack the clacker, you know, and boom, thinking they're blowing the enemy up, but they're actually they turn it around and they kill many of his own a couple of his own fellow guys in his platoon were killed that night at the very first night in Vietnam. Affected him deeply for the rest of his life. But this is what the enemy of souls is doing as well. He's working against us. He wants the father to turn him the father should see himself as a living claymore mind with a t-shirt that says front towards the enemy that way.

[00:41:27]>> Oh, that's that's so good.

[00:41:30]>> But you know what? When you but when you start committing these these deep sins, these sexual sins, you got that t-shirt on backwards.

[00:41:39]>> Guys, if that doesn't illustrate that perfectly, nothing else will. This is why I I wanted you on again. these bangers because guys, they'll tell me all the time that interview with this is this is tomahawk state Catholicism. It's said in a way that is deep but I understand it and I'm gonna go to war.

[00:41:55]Men resonate with that. Claymore mind front toward enemy. Are you wearing that shirt backwards?

[00:42:00]>> That is >> brilliant. Thank you for that, Dr. Dan.

[00:42:04]Okay, another good story and then we'll go back I'll go back to Vietnam one more time. Another story that that my good friend told me what they would do and I know this to be true from our own training. They would um they would take if you and I go walking down the country road somewhere, even if we're walking down a city street somewhere and there's a Coke can on the road, what do you do? What does a typical American kid do?

[00:42:30]>> Kick it.

[00:42:31]>> Kicks it. You know, especially if you're out in the country, you're down a dirt path and you're just down a dirt road and you get a You can kick that can and have a good time, you know, and you can It's just fun kicking the can. Americans kick cans. Well, the enemy knew this and they would take Coke cans and they would take them and put them on the routes that they knew the Americans were I mean, you're talking dense jungle. So, there's different trails that that everybody had to use and not have to beat too much bush, right, if you wanted to make any time. And so they would put Coke cans in these roads, but they would take a little shape charge of C4 and put them in the Coke can, right? Just a little bit, not enough to kill you, just enough to blow your leg off from the knee down.

[00:43:12]And then they would have snipers sitting in the woodline. And they knew another fact that American soldiers do. We're celebrating, you know, Memorial Day yesterday and those that we lost that didn't come back. They knew that Americans would never leave a wounded or even their bodies on the battlefield that we we we take care of our dead and our wounded. And so they would sit in this in the woodline knowing that this guy had his leg blown off. He's f he's screaming and writhing in pain that the Americans are not going to leave him.

[00:43:38]they're not going to shoot him in the head and put him out of his misery. Um even though on a practical level that's the most the safest to do to save everybody else is to is for him to die, right? They know Americans will not do that. And so one by one as they went after them, they would, you know, they would try to pull this wounded guy out who had leg blown off who's writhing in pain and going into shock and they would start sniping all the guys that went after them. So they'd wound one on purpose by habituate by taking advantage of our own cultural habituation and then they would come out and then they would start using him as bait to kill more.

[00:44:15]And that's what it is. When you're wounded psychologically, emotionally, and you're wounded by patterned sins, the demon will habituate you. And you're the guy, and God help your family when you're the guy with his leg blown off, wounded, because the demons are going to now start sniping your wife and your children and everyone around you to cause as much collateral damage as you possibly can.

[00:44:38]>> That's another mic drop, Dr. Dan. That's a perfect illustration. I think again, every guy can resonate with that. Do you want the enemy sniping your family?

[00:44:46]Because that is what you're doing.

[00:44:47]You're blowing your own leg off. You're wearing that shirt backwards and he's in the treeine. Apex predator. Better hunter than any of those men in Nam or any war then, now forever. Yeah.

[00:44:58]>> The apex predator. He is in superior intellect. And he will take you out and take you to the woodshed.

[00:45:04]>> He St. Thomas says that that that um that are our virtues that we we become habituated, right? Either good towards good or towards evil. And so the demon tries to habituate us by by setting us up in certain patterns, by knowing our own patterns, studying us, and then driving us to certain behaviors. So being you're not going to start discerning this unless you're spending time in prayer to start without again, if you go looking for the devil, he'll find you. So, you're not looking for the devil behind every corner, but you're also aware that he's out there and you're looking for certain patterns and behaviors that might be coming in and afflicting you or your family.

[00:45:45]>> Yeah. And for the hunters that are in the in the audience, it's the same thing. You illustrated a perfect example. I believe it was last show that you've been hunting. A master hunter knows how to bugle whatever he's trying to kill and just lure that prey right into his crosshairs and boom, takes him out. Who's the greatest hunter of all time that you think he won't bugle you, but he is actively bugling you right now. you.

[00:46:04]>> And what is bugling, by the way?

[00:46:06]Bugling, it's a mating call.

[00:46:10]>> It's a primordial mating call. Something about us is primordial and our in the natural uh mating. And so this is how he bugles for the most part. This is one of the this is why St. Alphonsor calls impurity the hell's widest gate. Hell's widest gate. And so um so impurity and so this is why we have to get this under control as men. This is the probably the most common of of ways that sin enters into uh individual families through sexual disorder. And I would say in cases of possession that I've seen and been involved with over the years almost everyone 80% if not if not everyone there's some element of sexual deviency or disorder or sexual abuse.

[00:46:53]um talk about patterns 50% Father Riper has reported in his own experience uh 50% of the time of cases where Freemasonry is involved or conversely 50% of the cases where there's sexual um abuse as a child there there's Freemasonry in the family >> think about that think about this too um I was talking to my second interview with Shawn Ryan uh we were chatting and he says, "I don't know what's going on."

[00:47:25]This is what he told me off off camera just privately. He said that, and remember Sean only interviews top tier operators. He's got some other other guests as well. For the most part though, he's talking about Rangers and Seals and Seal Team Six guys and I mean top tier tough guys. Um he said half the men that have come on my show were sexually abused as a child.

[00:47:48]>> Wow.

[00:47:48]>> Yeah. Yeah. So, if you're if that's you, you're the guy, you've had that leg blown off, you have to work on self-healing. You've got to work on on on getting right, getting health and getting crawling yourself out of the out of the kill zone and healing, right? And it's hard. It's hard particularly for for anyone who's been sexually abused, men or women, but it's a very difficult battle. But this is where a lot of the impurities are coming in because of just the over pornography culture that we now live in.

[00:48:23]>> Yeah. That's the war of our times. When you hear a guy say, "I'm in mortal sin."

[00:48:26]You're like, it's you didn't get angry and punch somebody in the face. Um, you know, no, you it was self- abuse of sins against the sixth commandment. Now, to go back to the sort of biblical and historical foundations, there's a couple of things that I found particular. I mean, the whole book was very interesting, but so there's two things.

[00:48:42]one, walk us through the key biblical passages. So, for example, uh you cited Exodus 25:5, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children to the third and fourth generation. Now, how should we interpret this in light of God's justice and mercy?

[00:48:58]>> Yeah. So, um that that particular verse, there's a couple of key key words there.

[00:49:03]Um if you look at um the sometimes you'll say the sins of the father are u I will punish the sins of the father.

[00:49:11]Okay. In the children to the third and fourth generation. Um it doesn't use the the scripture the biblical text the ancient languages don't use the word sins. Actually I put it on the book because it's the common phrase but lit the literal phrase is the injustice. I will visit the injustices the injustice of the father. Sin the the iniquitas is the Latin word that Jerome uses to trans translate literally the Greek term. Sin creates an imbalance. You know, we see the image of lady justice, right? She she she's a scale. The word the word the word for justice Greek is dic d i k a d or a long a dikos means righteousness, justice. Joseph was a righteous man. That means righteous also means balance. And so injustice, sin creates an imbalance, right? And so he doesn't just say that I will punish because the word v the Latin word visitons um is it's nuanced in ecclesial Latin that word means to punish. Okay? But it means um in the sense of hey I heard uh I heard Mike was saying some bad stuff about me. Next time I'm up in Canada I'm gonna have to pay him a little visit.

[00:50:29]Right? What does that mean? We're not having tea. Right? That means there's going to be some there's going to be some rendering of account and that's what visit means to render an account um to to to pay back the Greek word is to pay back epitoom um to pay back the iniquities of the father in the children to the third and fourth generation. And so that's that's what he means. So the so this the effect of the sin can be experienced in this demand of of creating restoring balance because the children are part of us. They're part of us. They're part of our bodily goods. U and so that's that's the contextualization and and we there's discrepancies though. uh in Deuteronomy it echoes this the same thing the giving of the law but also in Deuteronomy it says it is not right for a father to be punished for the crimes of his children or the children punished for the crimes of the father but look at the context here we're talking about iniquities and hating god specifically under the context of violations of the first commandment because we're in the context of the first commandment honoring false gods which we know from other places in scripture Corinthians and Psalms Psalm 965 the gods of the Gentiles are demons and So and so uh but later in Deuteronomy under the civil law >> Moses is giving the secondary the duteros nomos the second law these are laws for civil society ritualistic laws criminal laws societal laws marital laws and un civil society under human law it is not just for the father for the children to to to be punished for the sins it says or the crimes literally of the father and so that's that's kind of the distin distinguishing between between the two uh seeming contradictions. Some will say, "Well, God just changed over time." No, I am the same yesterday, today, and forever.

[00:52:20]Now, he reveals himself in successive stages over time. The ultimate of self-revelation is Jesus Christ, God become man, right? And so, yeah, through progressive stages over time, um, and through the prophets, etc. Um but nonetheless, you know, we see the distinguishing early on between and the interconnectivity between the personal responsibility for sin, um civil laws versus divine law.

[00:52:48]>> Again, I mean, I've said it 10 times, brilliantly said. Now, the other thing that stuck out to me because this was you referred to this many times throughout the book is the concept of avonat, sins of the parents, I believe.

[00:53:00]Can you explain that and how it manifests? So patterns like addiction, broken relationships, occult involvement or even unexplained afflictions in the families. How does that play? Explain that concept of Avon. I believe that's Hebrew if my >> Hebrew of visiting the sins of the father, the sins of the father or the iniquities of the father.

[00:53:19]>> That's the Hebrew. It was just easier to say than the Greek, you know. Um but this is this was was debated early on by the rabbis um leading up to the time of Christ and even in in intertestamental period and and and then in the early church um the debate was was is it only first commandment is it idolatry is it sexual sins and in scripture sexual deviency and idolatry go hand in hand right and they still do look at the the work look at the Bohemian grove what's going on what's taking place there look what's look at doing in some of her work and and the Satan satanic rituals, etc. Um, sexual deviency and abuse go hand inand with idol worship. So, so is it other grave sins? By the time we get to Augustine, it just was kind of flattened out and summarized in Augustine as yeah, no, the effect of the sin of the father can pass down to the children. And so, uh, and it's the effect and it's for salvific or St. Thomas as a medicinal reason. Um and so you know some of those things that we that we see um uh you know sexual sins uh you know um um unbelief, alcohol abuse, child abuse etc. A lot of these things we see patterns and in those patterns we start to try to discern okay what is the pattern? What is the what is going on?

[00:54:40]How do I identify it and [snorts] how do I eliminate this for myself, my family?

[00:54:46]>> And so what are the common signs like in your experience in deliverance and exorcism with father riper that a person like distinguishing between the difference between the generational effects rather than just personal sin or psychological issues or is it usually kind of like in the cases of oppression or obsession there's a combination of natural and prednatural forces kind of working in conjunction with one another.

[00:55:06]>> How does one distinguish?

[00:55:07]>> Yeah. So we don't want to look We we want to be careful and not not to not to look for the devil behind every corner.

[00:55:15]Um you know if you look in scripture for example in in Luke's gospel um Luke was a physician right in the opening of Luke's gospel Jesus laid they everyone they brought to Jesus is Luke chapter 4 everyone they brought to Jesus he laid h laid hands on all the one each and every one that he laid hands on and he healed them all. Right. and many who were afflicted by uh um um and demons were driven by many who were afflicted by evil spirits. And so we see all who are sick, many are afflicted by evil spirits. And this is you know not every illness uh even familiar illness um is diabolic in its origin. We have to be careful of giving too much credit to the demon. Um now there was there another elsewhere in Luke's gospel he says a woman who had been afflicted by Satan.

[00:56:08]Remember the woman that was um crippled for 38 years and she had been bound by Satan for 38 years. Um so we see in her sickness you remove the demon and then the sickness goes away you know. So there are times that it's diabolic but we have to always not assume oh this is diabolic. Uh this is the problem because we start focusing too much on the demon and not on Christ and what keeps us from growing in union with Christ. And so yeah, sometimes it's driven sometimes, you know, and I I would I would I would render an opinion on Luke where he says many of the all and of the many there were probably some that were 100% driven by the demon.

[00:56:52]Remove the demon and health was restored. But in every case of the many where there was human sickness, the demon is going to be there. The predator is going to be there to exploit the the weakened human. The the vulnerability that we present in physical, psychological, and emotional sickness creates a vulnerability to the demon. It doesn't mean he's driving it, but he but he's he's exploiting it. And so we see cases for example of a psychological a psychological obsession can open the door to a spiritual oppression or even obsession. And so what is pornography addiction but a psychological obsession, right?

[00:57:36]>> We had a we had a church lady, typical country, small community church lady, right?

[00:57:44]Rural community did everything.

[00:57:46]communion minister, uh, read at mass, did the youth group, volunteered at the office, cleaned the church on on the week, you know, every week. I mean, she did everything. She was the quintessential church lady.

[00:58:00]Well, she gets uh uh it it comes to out into the open that her husband is having an affair, an affair, and so it crushes her. in a small community. This stuff spreads like wild, you know, gossip spreads like wildfire as you can imagine. Um, and so gossip is spreading around around this what happened. She's so devastated, so psychologically and emotionally affected by this that she went from church lady in six weeks. She was a case. She she she had a mid-level psy diabolic obsession in six weeks.

[00:58:39]>> Wow. just it threw her into such a tail spin because she had built her identity and then that psychological woundedness and the shame the demon moved in quickly.

[00:58:49]>> So you remove the shame, remove the psychological woundedness and the demon dissipates. Other times, you know, there's, you know, like I I give case histories in in the book. There was a woman um who who were working uh um cases um for the local exorcist and leading people through the free Masonic renunciations. And so she started doing some looking into her family history and tells her husband, "Hey, I had some freemason in my family. Maybe we should do the renunciations." He said, "Sure, let's do it." So they do the renunciations. three weeks according to our protocol. three weeks um and once a week for three weeks going to confession and on the third now this woman was I think late 60s 70 maybe um walk with a cane because she had very bad rheumatoid arthritis and so after the third session the the parish priest um does um um prayers of severing at the end and does severing prayers to sever any effects of the free Masonic curse es that are present to her. Um, she stands up, looks around, and these are not kooky people.

[01:00:00]These are friends of mine, okay? This is not just a story I heard. These are people that I know. She stands up, she hands the cane to the priest and says, "I don't think I need this anymore. You can have it." And she walked out.

[01:00:12]And her husband called me and he says, "You're not going to believe it." And I said, "Man, there's nothing I don't hardly believe anymore because it's just crazy this world." Um, he said, "I watch at night. We lay in bed and I watch her toes every night start to stra start to straighten out.

[01:00:28]>> Wow.

[01:00:29]>> And he said after a month she went to her rheatologist and says, "I can't explain it, but whatever you did, there's no more evidence of inflammation uh of rheumatoid arthritis anymore in your joints. I can't explain it." So that was a case where the curse was really deliberately manifesting um and holding in the body. Remove the demon, remove the sickness. But that's that's probably more rare. Um what's what's more common is there's a human sickness and then the demon is just there to drive despair to to drive division, fear, anxiety, um you know, and then all other carnal things that we do to avoid suffering. Uh even even doom scrolling as they the young people say, right? Just hiding from your pain by just looking at videos all day long just to to numb the pain. It could be that, it could be alcohol, could be sex. So the point is is that you exhaust all natural remedies first. All whether it's whether it's psychological because we have people cases that like oh no this is there's a demon here but just because the context is spiritual or the or you know religious doesn't mean it's driven by the demon. Some some things are just you know hearing voices sometimes are just have a natural cause a broken natural cause. So identifying and using all not giving the credit too much credit to the devil you know it's like you know a train blows up and Sweden you know and five it goes off the track and 20 people are killed and it blows up right five different terrorist organizations take credit for that right well the reality is sometimes trains just fall off the track sometimes they're just natural disasters that take place and the demon's not not in charge of everything like he likes to present himself to be so exhaust also those natural remedies first.

[01:02:15]>> So for the people that suspect they're dealing with this in their own family, what are the practical first steps would you say?

[01:02:23]>> Yeah. Um the I think the first step is is working on in the spiritual life working on all the natural remedies first. um you know um what we would call phase zero uh of our protocol working on prayer custody of the mind um um through through through more prayer discipline militate against uh any moral and spiritual defects. Um try to grow in detachment because the demon's going to try to feed off your shame, off your fear, off your anxiety, off your suffering. um getting authority in right order. I had a lady come up to me at a parish uh a year or two ago and said, um, I drove, you know, two hours from here to come see you because I saw you on a podcast five years ago and you talked about the authority structure.

[01:03:14]And okay. And she said, I want to thank you because at that time my daughter was going through a really bad um place and she was she had gender confusion and was wanted to transition to male.

[01:03:27]And so she said, "I um um I just want to know that we listened to that podcast that you were on and talked about the authority structure. We put it we realized there was a deficiency in our marriage. We put it into practice and that teaching >> saved my marriage >> and it also brought my daughter back from a bad place and she's she's not perfectly healthy yet but she's much better than she was 5 years ago." So wow getting that order the authority structure in order there are certain demons I can just tell you that same one of impurity and the same one of fear >> completely crumbles to male authority so the assertion of authority and prayers is critical um when you're dealing with some of these these effects of sins getting right order in the home bodily health something that I think you're preaching um you know uh very well physically grace builds on nature so we we can't be uh out of shape Guys, we have to stay physically fit. We have to be we have to be fit for fit for battle as well. Um getting enough rest. Uh good healthy diet. Most most of us have terrible diets. Good diet, good exercise, etc. Focusing on your vocation. If you're dealing with this stuff, back off all the volunteering you're doing. Focus on first things so that grace can start flowing through that vocational sacrament. particularly for us as married folks uh focusing on getting the marriage in right order and let grace start flowing back through the couple and then to the children um and then avoiding sins of course confession as St. or Father Gabriel Moore says, "One good confession is worth a hundred exorcisms." And then finally, redemptive suffering. Um, embracing this. Uh, this is the part that we don't like to talk about the the the the redemptive value of our suffering. And so that's the that that's our that's the place from which we fight. Um, and then there's other specific things that we can start praying, but we got to start with those very basics.

[01:05:29]>> Incredible advice. Now, what's the biggest takeaway you want readers or listeners to get from this book, Sins of the Father, by 10 books? You can find it on Amazon and you can find it on 10 books. Shout out to Tan. What's the biggest takeaway?

[01:05:43]>> Yeah. So, um when Jesus confronts um Jesus comes down the mountain in in Mark chapter 8 and then he goes and here's a a fight taking place. um he goes over and there's a father there whose child is possessed and so and some of the translations that we have or some of the ancient manuscripts that we have are just as ancient as our new American but they're we don't use them for various reasons um says that the father went to Jesus um with tears with many tears so approaching the lord in in humility and in in te with our tears right that's hard for men. Um, our best prayers are when we are vulnerable and it's hard for us as men to be vulnerable. But what does the Latin word vulner mean? It means wound. To be woundable, right?

[01:06:36]Approaching Jesus with our tears is very important. Jesus goes to the father. He doesn't go to somebody with the PhD or somebody with the charrorism to do this.

[01:06:47]He goes to the father and drives the demon out, right? and he and they ask him h why couldn't we do this right well first of all the father says if you can help me save my son and Jesus says if I can I'm the creator of the universe what do you mean if I can anything can happen to those who believe so faith is what unlocks us so approaching Jesus with humility even in our brokenness even in our holy tears but also with faith with faith. And Jesus when he was confronted in Matthew's gospel, he actually corrects the apostles for their lack of faith. In Mark's gospel, he he he rebukes the father for his lack of faith. So there's this interplay between the church and the faith of the church and the faith of the father. Both.

[01:07:41]However, um Jesus says if this type, this Janos is the actual Greek word. We get the word genealogy. We get the word type. We get the word uh generation.

[01:07:52]This Janos can only come out of spirit, right? This isn't lunacy. This isn't epilepsy.

[01:07:58]Um this type of spirit can only be driven out through prayer and fasting.

[01:08:03]And so prayer and fasting, that combination of prayer like we talked about, but going next level in our prayer is adding the dimensionality of fasting. And I can just tell you from experience, u it works. It works.

[01:08:18]Fasting helps make you a pure instrument. It It's the plus P uh in your of of your prayer rounds going up into the cosmos. Um fasting is is something that supercharges our prayer.

[01:08:31]We've lost it. we've lost it, you know, I've got a chapter in my next book that I'm titling never trust a fat exorcist, right? [laughter] So, and by that I refer to St. Charles Boromeo in the Prrenantana, the writ of exorcism said the priest should be fasting that makes him more effective and it provides him a layer of protection against the diabolic through the the when we subdue our lower passions. If you can learn to to give up meat on Fridays, which is hard for guys like us, and start with that little thing and then start intermittent fasting, you know how it helps you. You know, as as a fitness guy, intermittent fasting is extremely purgative and helpful, but it also helps supercharge our prayer and it makes us more effective in our prayer. So fasting in various forms starting with bodily fasting, you know, and so I had I had a priest come to me. I think I've told you the story. He called me. He said, "Hey, I got this guy. he did this he did this ritual with Satan and he he did this and he performed this ritual yada yada what do I got to do to get rid of the demon and I said I don't know he goes what do you mean you don't know I said yeah he said you're the expert I said well I was just reading a bit about the story about this this this Jewish carpenter one time he was kind of an itinerate preacher and about 25% of his work that he did was actually driving demons out and this guy this itinerant preacher, exorcist, Jewish carpenter said, "This type can only come out through prayer and fasting." And he goes, "Well, man, I'm fasting so much. My clerics are falling off me." And I said, "Father, I'm not talking about him. I'm talking about the guy. He's the guy that did the ritual.

[01:10:08]Deeply offended God, jumped into a pentagram naked, smeared himself in pig blood, did all sorts of sexual deviency, and honored his body in a deviant way to a demon, and summoned that demon into his life. There's going to be satisfaction for that. He has to start doing penance. Now, most of people that listening to us haven't done these things.

[01:10:31]>> We've done other things, right? This is why I put in the end of each chapter a prayer from St. Alphonsus Lagori because if you learn how to pray like he prays, you learn how to pray like a saint and doctor of the church. Doctor of prayer is one of his titles. And so coming to God with tears and and a spirit of penance and so and so praying, offering all things up. Terz of Lassu, think about it. Doctor of prayer or doctor of of of uh the you know of the the little way of spiritual littleness, right? You know, she's also the patron co-patronist of foreign missions.

[01:11:04]>> Never left her home, homeschooled by a seemingly perfect family of saints and blessetss, father, mother, and sisters. dies at age 21 22 in Carmel and she's made co-patron of foreign of foreign missions with St. Francis Xavier who baptized millions and brought millions into the church in the foreign in the mission fields. How can that be? Except for those that small way of perfection brings grace down from heaven. Right? [snorts] When when Paul says, "I rejoice in my suffering. For my body, I make up what's lacking in the suffering of Christ's body, the church."

[01:11:40]What's lacking?

[01:11:42]Jesus [snorts] says, "It's finished on the cross." What is lacking? But he leaves his sight open for our participation in the subjective distribution of those graces, focusing first on our families.

[01:11:53]Because the end of the day, God's not going to say, Mike, how many how many likes and shares did you have? How many books, Dan? How many books did you sell?

[01:12:00]You know, uh, how many how many how many Let's go to chapter three in your thesis. It was really brilliant. He's going to say, "Hey, man, line these up.

[01:12:07]Your wife and your kids. That's who I entrusted to you, right?" And so, we have to do battle with from that positionality, from our position of vocation.

[01:12:17]>> Incredible advice we should all take to heart. I'm going to go and, you know, reflect on much of this conversation.

[01:12:21]Dr. Dan, now finally there's a perfect kind of point to to land the plane on.

[01:12:25]What are you working on right now? What do you got coming up?

[01:12:29]>> So, um, working on a follow-up to the Libra Crystal Manual. I'm working on I've got an academic paper I'm working on first. I'm going to get that finished on the the smell, the aroma of of as as an indicator of the interior life. Um, in part, we see the opposite to be true.

[01:12:46]Um, the stench of sin. The fathers talk about stenches and aromomas as interior markers of the interior life. We know this from experience in exorcism that it's a secondary sign of possession or obsession even infestation of place. I'm working on a paper that kind of academically addresses that. Um uh in looking largely in the east some of the eastern fathers but also in the west Augustine and others. And then um and then I've got some conferences coming up. Jesse Romero and I I know you you're friends with Jess. We started Holy League Institute. So, we're doing putting some classes together on spiritual warfare and then eventually hopefully this summer uh finish up the follow-up to Libra Emanuel. I'm going to work something on the big picture of the battlefield, what it looks like, who are the five generals that rule the earth under Satan. Is there any biblical and petristic support of that premise? And what does this mean for us in the practical experience and in the life of men and women, Christian, Catholic men and women?

[01:13:43]>> That's beautiful. And I want to again I'm going to plug Holy League Institute.

[01:13:47]Jesse Romero is a is a great man. He's coming on the show shortly here too. Um everybody's got to go check out the Libra Cristo book. Uh Dr. Dan Schneider put together, Spiritual Warfare Q&A, co-authored by uh Dr. Dan and Jesse Romero. And then of course the book that we were talking about today, Sins of the Father, a mind-blowing read. You know, like I said, you know, at the beginning, you know, I anything that you write has got a lot of depth, but I did not realize how dense this was and how few people actually unpacked it. So again, my sincere thanks not just for you coming on, but for the work that you do.

[01:14:16]Dr. Dan, God bless you, brother. Thank you again.

[01:14:18]>> Thank you for all you, Mike. I appreciate you, man, and all you're doing. And shout out to all those faithful Canadians up there in Great White North, fighting the good fight of faith. Yeah, it's encouraging. You know, there's a lot of good men. Everywhere I go, there's good men and women everywhere, uh, true and faithful to the church, and I just appreciate you. One of the legit guys out there that I completely trust and know is is, uh, foxhole guy for me. Not many guys that led in my foxhole, but >> Wow. That that's that's a high esteem and high honor coming from you, doctor.

[01:14:44]So, thank you, man. There's a few good Canadians up here and I'm glad to be one of them in your >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's some good ones. Kennedy Hall, there's some other there's some other great there's a lot of good guys up there. We can't We can't We can't let the enemy tell us, "Oh, the church is finished." No, it's not. This country's finished. No, it's not. We have to >> Oh, dude, >> the soldiers are coming back. We talk about this over text all the time. Our lady is rallying the troops, and it's the rough neck, rugged, sometimes, you know, foul-mouthed men that are going to be leading the charge for the faithful.

[01:15:10]So let's continue for to pray for the graces to be poured over the holy father and mother church as a whole.

[01:15:15]>> Yes. Amen.

[01:15:17]>> All right, brother. Thank you. God bless you and thanks everybody for watching.