Episode Details

Are Catholic exorcisms making a comeback? Demand for exorcisms is surging, with the number of U.S. exorcists growing from ~12-24 to about 150 in recent years — yet priests say they’re still overwhelmed.

In this episode, we dive into recent reports on the rise in exorcism requests, linked to occultism, esotericism, and satanism concerns raised even at the Vatican. Despite our strong anti-Vatican and anti-mysticism stance, we make the case that structured Catholic exorcisms are surprisingly effective — and often superior to modern psychology for certain issues.

We contrast safe, regulated Catholic practices with riskier charismatic/Pentecostal approaches (which have led to tragic outcomes). Plus: the surprising power of ritual, placebo without deception, how big “before-and-after” events rewire self-perception, and why evidence-based rituals like exorcisms can deliver durable mental resets.

We also discuss minor vs. major exorcisms, house blessings, our kids’ convergent “basilisk exorcisms,” and why believing you’ve been “cured” can outperform many clinical interventions.

Timestamps below. If you’ve ever wondered whether dramatic rituals can hack psychology better than therapy — this one’s for you.

Make exorcisms big again? Let us know your thoughts.

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Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today we’re going to be talking about the phenomenon of the surge in exorcisms that have been happening with articles like Demand for Catholic Exorcism Reportedly on the Rise.

So we’ll go over a couple articles that talk about this recent surge in exorcisms, and then we will go over why Exorcisms are, and people know on this show we’re generally seen as having a, and I I think it’s important to cite your bias as a pretty anti-Catholic bias. But Catholic Exorcisms specifically are demonstrably a good thing.

They, they should hold

Simone Collins: on. No, we actually love Catholics. We have a bias against C, the Catholic Church and

Malcolm Collins: Vatican.

Simone Collins: Catholicism.

Malcolm Collins: The V, the Vatican. Yeah. Yes.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: We’re anti Vatican channel. Yes,

Simone Collins: yes.

Malcolm Collins: But, but this is one thing the Vatican does very well.

Simone Collins: Yeah, we, we are weirdly, despite being very anti mysticism as well.

We’re weirdly like, yeah, exorcism’s great. This is,

Malcolm Collins: I think a lot of people would be surprised. I don’t [00:01:00] because they know that we’re very anti Vatican and we’re very anti, we’re anti mysticism. Many people would even call our form of Christianity secular in its nature. So they would be surprised that we would be like, Hey, that thing that, like even Catholics get kind of embarrassed about the whole normalization

Simone Collins: of Yeah, you don’t hear them talk about it a lot.

Malcolm Collins: Exorcisms. And I’m like, no, that’s really good. Like,

Simone Collins: well, because we believe in evidence-based interventions and guess what? Placebo works

Malcolm Collins: well. Yeah. Which is what I’m gonna go into. If you’re like, well, I’ve heard all these horror stories about exorcisms, where people died and where children were abused and none of those were carried out.

By Catholics, they were all carried out by Pentecostals.

Simone Collins: Oh, see, I told you Pentecostals,

Malcolm Collins: that’s

Simone Collins: who you gotta watch out

Malcolm Collins: for. It was charismatic Pentecostals too. They’re they’re bad kind. Yeah,

Simone Collins: they’re, they are witches. Just Pentecostal equals witch. I don’t know what to tell you, Malcolm,

Malcolm Collins: that that episode went li