Even today, I get stopped by people who watched my two interviews here and here with Zachary King, and still have questions for me. As most of you know, Zachary King was a full-blown Wizard with the World Church of Satan. There are never less than two, and never more than ten, Wizards in the world at the same time. No, Zachary was not some two-bit “satanic priest” who got his credentials of the internet. He was recruited… and then later became a very good Catholic. His conversion story is both harrowing and hopeful.
Now, some of my friends still doubt the authenticity of his account, and that is fine. But they should know that I spoke to him off the air for about six hours before hitting the “record” button, and I never sensed any of his stories were falsified. As ex city-paramedic, I’d like to think I’m pretty good at telling when someone is lying to me. But as to my interactions with Zach King, I never got the sense I was being lied to by him… fantastic as his story may be.
Before recording, King told me how as a satanist, he visually saw lots of demons with his own physical eyes. But once, after our recording, I asked if he ever saw angels. He said yes, and relayed how he was once on a project as a satanist in Detroit. On that “mission for satan,” King happened to see enormous angels of light that frightened him. I asked him why he didn’t convert immediately when he saw such good and beautiful and strong angels. I will never forget his answer. Zach King told me he believed that the demons were there to protect him, and the angels were there to hurt him.
Of course, Zachary believed the lie from the demons for years that they would ultimately help him. But what astonished me about his answer was this: Even after seeing the total ugliness of the demons with his own physical eyes (for years as a satanist) and even after seeing the beauty of the angels with his own physical eyes (at least once in Detroit) he still believed that demons were morally better than angels.
Perhaps this explains why child-groomers in the public-schools would be so afraid of a smily and non-threatening “detransitioner” like Chloe Cole. It explains why Planned Parenthood workers might be afraid of a little old-lady praying a Rosary outside a child-killing center. It explains why normy-Catholics might be afraid of the big-bad traditional Catholics (albeit 2% of the world’s Catholic population, all being kicked while we’re down!) The answer is that these fears are not so much intellectual, as they are spiritual. The reason why leftists are afraid of good people is the same reason Zach King as a satanist was afraid of angels: Leftists think we conservatives are here to hurt them and the demons are there to help them. But it’s a lie they have come to believe.
Now, of course, leftists think we conservatives are the ones following demons (if they even believe in such preternatural-realities.) So, I’m not saying leftists actually believe or know that they themselves are “siding” with real-live demons. But we need to evaluate why “the right” and “the left” today have such radically different “discernment of spirits,” as St. Ignatius of Loyola called it five hundred years ago. I believe most “woke” people have misaligned their own “Discernment of Spirits” either due to sin (original or actual) or miseducation. But while “discernment” seems to be found in the intellect, it’s actually much deeper: It is found in the soul or in the intuition.
St. Ignatius describes one group of people who “go from one mortal sin to another.” This is clearly a reference to people who are not living in sanctifying grace. For St. Ignatius, the other category is people choosing to live (or at least striving to live) in sanctifying grace. However, for the sake of easy-reading, I’m going to use the more juvenile term “good person” and “bad person” for these two categories below. Yes, I realize there are many theological and anthropological nuances I’m missing in painting with such broad strokes. But I’m going to parse this out in bite-size terms…
Below, the bold word are mine. The italicized words are those of St. Ignatius of Loyola:
How Demons Affect Bad People:
314. In the case of those who go from one mortal sin to another, the enemy is ordinarily accustomed to propose apparent pleasures. He fills their imagination with sensual delights and gratifications [of sinning] the more readily to keep them in their vices and increase the number of their sins.
How Demons Affect Good People:
315. It is characteristic of the evil spirit to harass with anxiety, to afflict with sadness, to raise obstacles backed by fallacious reasonings that disturb the soul[s]…of those who go on earnestly striving to cleanse their souls from sin and who seek to rise in the service of God our Lord to greater perfection.
How Angels Affect Bad People:
314. Making use of the light of reason, [the angel] will rouse the sting of conscience and fill them with remorse.
How Angels Affect Good People:
315. It is characteristic of the good spirit, however, to give courage and strength, consolations, tears, inspirations, and peace. This He does by making all easy, by removing all obstacles so that the soul goes forward in doing good.
Notice that who we call “good people” above are not only those who have never committed a mortal sin, but rather are those who are striving to live in sanctifying grace. What do I mean by striving to live in sanctifying grace? I mean the baptized who live lives in Christ Jesus of Faith and Hope and Charity and who (should they be so unfortunate as to commit a mortal sin) get up and go to confession with great confidence in Jesus’ great Mercy. These are who I assert (in a rather juvenile manner) are the “good people” or the “good Catholics.” (By the way, the best way I know how to hone-in on accurate discernment of spirits is to pray 5-15 decades of the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary every day.)
So be encouraged, because all good Catholics reading this site should understand here that an intense old-school saint like St. Ignatius reveals to us (with the full approval of the Catholic Church and numerous old-school Popes who commend his “Rules of Discernment”) that if you feel any sense of “anxiety” or “sadness,” it is most likely the work of devil (or environmental factors or natural dispositions.) And even if you don’t believe the account of Zachary King (as I do) we still have proof above from a great saint that if while seeking after God, you sense what St. Ignatius names as “courage, strength, consolations, tears, inspirations, and peace,” then it is most likely coming from an angel (or even God Himself, as St. Ignatius explains elsewhere in his Rules of Discernment.) This should all be of great encouragement to you all in knowing that all of heaven is rooting for you, even as the enemy of human nature throws obstacles in your way.