A priest assigned by the Catholic Church to confront something most people no longer believe in. Gabriele Amorth, often referred to as the Chief Exorcist of Rome, claimed to have performed tens of thousands of exorcisms and warned that cases were increasing. Not as symbolism. Not as metaphor. As something real, external, and active.

This episode looks at what that means when it comes from inside one of the most structured institutions in the world. It also steps back and asks a harder question. Why do so many belief systems, across time and culture, include ways to fight something like this? Not just describe it. Not just fear it. Fight it.

From ancient ritual to modern practice, the pattern hasn’t disappeared. It’s adapted. And if conversations around non human intelligence continue moving into the open, those older systems may not stay in the past. They may need to be looked at again, not as superstition, but as early attempts to deal with something people believed could interact with them.

Whether you see it as belief, misinterpretation, or something else entirely, the structure remains. And that alone makes it worth paying attention to.