Marlon James - Cast Them Out

 

 

So, it's teenage Christian summer camp. [audience laughter] But I'm not a camper, I'm the camp marshal. What that usually meant was that whenever there were congregations of people of different genitalia, [audience laughter] I would show up with a ruler and just go, “Make space for Jesus.” [audience laughter] My genius was that I could appear anywhere. [audience laughter] If somebody with male genitalia ended up anywhere near somewhere with female genitalia and they move within 11 inches of each other, I showed up in between and went, “Make space for Jesus.” [audience laughter] 

 

And I was pretty good at this. But it wasn't until one service where I realized what my true talent was. It was 6 o'clock, it was the second service, it was two services because were devout like that. And in the middle of church, in the middle of this service, a 14-year-old or 15-year-old girl starts screaming. She's screaming, she's hollering, she's running around the church. If you know anything about my church, that is normal behavior. But she's screaming at a pretty high volume. And the guest preacher, who's from Texas, so I figure he knows his stuff. [audience laughter] He comes towards her touch her and she just yells and runs straight out of the church. She dashes out of the church. And without even thinking, I dashed straight after her. 

 

She collapses. She collapses to the ground, and I catch her and I'm holding her down. And the pastor comes up and says, “By the power of Jesus, I cast you out.” This little 14-year-old girl develops the strength of a linebacker. I am holding her down, and he's praying and he's casting out demons and he's saying, “By the spirit of Jesus, I cast you out.” And she looks at me and goes, “I'm not coming out.” [audience laughter] Before I could lose my shit, [audience laughter] the pastor says, “No, by the authority of Jesus, I cast you out.” He does some more authorizing and lays hands. [audience laughter] 

 

She squeals, she screams, she shouts, and then she just collapses in my arms and opens her eyes, and she looks straight at me and straight at the pastor. She was fine. She was a 14-year-old girl again. And with that, I became a junior exorcist. [audience laughter] 

 

Now, there are things you need to know about demons. Demons don't possess you. They influence you. Most of the time, they can't read your thoughts. But most of the time when they're talking, you think it's you, and demons don't need you to believe. I was very good as a junior exorcist. I was the devil driving muscle. But even during that and becoming really, really good at this, there were always things that were plaguing me and things I was struggling with. 

 

It's 2 o ‘clock in the morning and you're on a website you shouldn't be on. I am having all these feelings, and I'm having these things that I'm seeing and I'm seeing all these men and they're always naked. And I'm thinking, I'm having all these struggles, these demons and I'm thinking, I can't wrestle from all this sexual sin, so it must be demons. There's this abundant life I'm supposed to be living in church and I'm not living it. Demons. I am thinking of George Clooney and he's not wearing any clothes. [audience laughter] It must be demons. [audience laughter] 

 

But more than that, I realized something that I wanted to be a normal person so badly. Actually, that's not true. I didn't want to be a normal person at all. I wanted to want it. I didn't want marriage and a family and kids. I wanted to want that. I didn't want to be acceptable. I wanted to want acceptance. I didn't want to wake up in the morning with my family and we're eating Cheerios and I asked, “How's band practice?” I wanted to want these things. I wanted to be normal so badly, it didn't care if I wasn't happy. I got to the point where I realized as a junior exorcist that I needed to be exorcised. 

 

So, I called my best friend at the time, who conveniently was a pastor, and I said, “I think I need to be delivered.” Because in charismatic churches, we call them deliverances, not exorcism. I know your thoughts squeal like a pig. [audience laughter] My exorcism date was set up and I headed to another church, because word couldn't get out that the exorcist was being exorcised. [audience laughter] So, I went to this other church. There was a room. It was a small, 12 feet by 12 feet room, it was beige. There were small windows at the top. It looked like prison. I was thinking, even at that point, I can leave. I can go. I can get out of this place. Nobody will know. Nobody will care. 

 

Just when I'm thinking that, a man and a woman come in and they sit down. Looking at them, sitting down made me look at the floor. And on the floor, were two big black garbage bags. And the man says to me, “Tell me about yourself.” I have a script when everybody, anybody asks me that. I go into how “I love my dad, but I hate him. We're not together. We're not close. I've come to a certain point of acceptance of him and I don't hate him. I just dislike him very much.” I was very, very pleased with this answer. “I was a sexually confused dude with daddy issues,” like half of the audience here. [audience laughter] 

 

I was very satisfied with this answer. And then, he said to me, “Tell me about your mother.” I froze. It never occurred to me at all to think about my mother. It just came all at once that everything I was living at that time, the lie I was living, the ways in which I was not being myself was all in this effort to never disappoint my mother. I realized at that point, my entire life was built around the sham of not displeasing my mom. I opened my mouth to say all of this, and a scream came out. I couldn't stop screaming. I couldn't stop bawling. I was crying. I was shaking. And the two pastors immediately jumped up and started speaking tongues I've never heard. 

 

I started to cry and choke so much that I started to vomit. They grabbed the first garbage bag. They were screaming. They were laying hands out sometimes and pulling hands off. I just couldn't control myself. And I said, “If people knew the real me, nobody would love me.” And he was like, “All love is in Christ. That's a lie from the pit of hell.” And then I'd say, “There is no life of the man in the church, you're all morons.” And he was like, “That is life from the pit of hell and so on.” And then I said, “He sees men naked every time he prays.” And that was the first time, it was my voice. It was coming out of my mouth, but it was spoken in the third person. And that's when literally all hell broke loose. 

 

They grabbed me. They started to again pray and lay hands. I am crying. I'm choking. At one point, the woman who up to this point has not really said anything, looks at me and says, “You have to cast them out.” And two things hit me. One, as an exorcist, I'm usually the demon caster. So, the idea of casting out my own demons made no sense. And the second thing is, she said them. She says, “Yes, you have many demons in you. You have to cast them out.” And she led me in this prayer and I went, “By the power of Jesus, I cast you out. By the power of Jesus, I cast you out. By the power of Jesus, I cast you out.” And I said that eight times, because there were eight demons in me. 

 

Afterwards, when it was all done, she just held my face in her hands and smiled. And the male pastor said, “It's over.” And he said, “You're free. You're going to go home now and I want you to purify your life. I want you to not give the demons entryway.” Because another thing about demons, once they leave you, they come back with seven. 

 

So, I went home to purify my life. I got rid of TV, which was the first time I found out that my cable was canceled four years earlier, so that really wasn't very hard. [audience laughter] And then I said, also get rid of that demon rock music. And that was horrible. But Patti Smith had to go. Elliott Smith, go. Kurt Cobain, gone. Pearl Jam, they could stay. [audience laughter] I actually did feel pure. I felt pure. I felt cleansed. I walked with my head held high. I really actually did feel better. And then, the demons came back, lust and thoughts of sins and Jake Gyllenhaal naked. [audience laughter] But something was different, because one of the musicians I did not throw away was David Bowie. 

 

David Bowie has a song called Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide. The really magical thing about that song, is everything you hate about yourself when that song starts becomes everything you love about yourself when that song ends. And I realized something, demons can't possess you. They influence you. Demons don't need you to believe. Do I believe in them? I did believe in them at a time, in the same way I believe that Gabriel García Márquez realism is no magic, it's real. 

 

But something else was different. I think, yeah, sure, maybe there are demons, but maybe you have a chemical imbalance, or maybe you're a boy who likes boys or you're a girl who likes girls, or maybe you realize that biology isn't destiny. And maybe you realize, like I did, that maybe the thing you needed to exercise for me was my church. Because normality, in a lot of ways, is a myth and I was so obsessed with being normal. I realized something and it hit me almost like a whisper that maybe the reason you're not normal is that you're not here to do a normal thing. That one I learned in church. Thank you.