Father Malachi Martin & Ed Dames - Nov 15, 1996

Father Malachi Martin, the 76-year-old former Jesuit and Vatican insider, returns to discuss the passing of Cardinal Bernardin, the political pressures facing Pope John Paul II, and the internal battles over the future of the Catholic Church. Art Bell then engineers a remarkable meeting of minds by bringing Major Ed Dames, the former military remote viewing operations officer, into conversation with the priest who once called remote viewing nitroglycerin for the soul.

What unfolds is a surprisingly respectful theological and philosophical exchange. Dames shares how the techniques gave him a precise understanding of angelic and demonic presences, while Martin explores the dangers of entering the middle plateau between the natural and supernatural without proper spiritual grounding. Both men find common ground on the reality of dark entities encountered in this work, and Martin expresses genuine willingness to collaborate with Dames on future exorcism cases.

The episode also features Martin's candid assessment of Vatican geopolitics, the pressure campaign to force the Pope's resignation, and his views on birth control, evolution, and the nature of faith itself. It remains one of the most theologically rich broadcasts in the archive.

Key Moments

Transcript

Dames: trained officers showed possession-like symptoms: Ed Dames recounts that members of the armed forces approached him in the 1980s saying officers trained in remote viewing had developed symptoms matching possession as described in Malachi Martin's books, and that imbalanced trainees experienced serious problems including senior officers losing stability.

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RV became a substitute religion for senior brass: Dames states that a major general, a two-star general, and a senior intelligence executive - men in their 50s and 60s without spiritual grounding - let remote viewing become a replacement for religion, lost their balance, and had to be relieved of authority, including his own commanding general.

Transcript

Soldiers who took lives break apart spiritually: Dames tells Martin that soldiers who have taken human lives in combat carry a 'storage area' of denial, and when remote viewing opens that closet, they break into pieces and stay broken - often permanently.

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Martin: cardinals pressuring John Paul II to resign: Martin lays out the central thesis of Windswept House - that for five to eight years, powerful cardinals and bishops in Europe and America have been pressuring the 76-year-old, ailing John Paul II to legally resign, and have drafted a document for him to sign that would govern incapacitated popes.