TBE 2
Fighting Demons: The Intersection of Martial Arts and Exorcism

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TBE 2: Martial Arts Instructor’s Lifelong Battle with Demons
[music]
Justin Daubenmire: Welcome to The Blind Exorcist. Exposing the darkness, revealing the light. I’m Justin D, your host. This is episode two. We got somebody so cool. I am super excited to have this person with us. Remember what I told you in episode one. I’m going to have people on here that are normal functional people that were demon-possessed, and now are walking in complete freedom. I have with us a Tae Kwon Do instructor, Diane Berry. She’s a Tae Kwon Do Self-Defense Instructor with more than 40 years’ experience. She’s the grand master instructor of the Full Force Ministries Champion Marshall Arts Association.
That’s a mouthful. [laughs] She’s the 2012 inductee of the Midwest Women’s Marshall Arts Hall of Fame of Excellence. She’s also a Christian counselor and an exorcist. Yes, baby. Very cool. She’s an ordained minister with Spiritual Freedom Church International. If you don’t know what that is, this is the exorcism center for Dr. Bob Larson. People worldwide come here to Spiritual Freedom Church International. It’s in Scottsdale, Arizona. This is where Dr. Bob Larson performs many of his exorcisms in person. Diane, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and hanging out with us. Welcome to The Blind Exorcist.
[applause]
Diane Berry: So happy to be here with you, Justin. Thank you for having me on.
Justin Daubenmire: Thank you.
Diane Berry: Looking forward. Excited to do this.
Justin Daubenmire: We’ve been trying to connect for a couple of weeks and finally we’re here.
Diane Berry: Right, yes. Getting those schedules to meet, but praise God, we’re doing it.
Justin Daubenmire: That’s right. Tae Kwon Do. Now, correct me if I’m wrong. Is that a South Korean style of martial arts or is that North Korean? What is that?
Diane Berry: You are correct. It’s from South Korea. Tae Kwon Do, basically they’re South Korean words. I do want to say this quick because sometimes people look at the martial arts, “Isn’t that demonic?” Well, some of it definitely can be, but that all depends on the instructor and the type. It basically means you can take each word and translated it foot, hand, or mind, or of the way of the hand and foot, meaning how to defend yourself with your hands and feet.
Justin Daubenmire: That’s awesome. Is it a defensive or offensive style of martial arts?
Diane Berry: Martial arts was originally created for defense, so it was created for defense, primarily within the militaries of countries for defense.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, so you’re going to come in pretty quickly and get down to business. Right?
Diane Berry: Again, it depends on you the practitioner. Now, if there’s a good instructor, a good teacher, they’re going to be teaching their students. My new beginners make a promise that they’re going to use it properly, that it’s not too used to be a bully and to show off.
Justin Daubenmire: To be honorable with it.
Diane Berry: Yes. It’s for self-defense and I’ve given them examples of what that is, what that means.
Justin Daubenmire: Absolutely. You’ve done this for 40 years?
Diane Berry: Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: You had to start this late teens early 20s?
Diane Berry: Yes. Mid-teens. I know that you and the audience would be interested to know my beginnings. My very, very beginnings, a lot of times when I share it usually starts when I started my formal training just a few months before my 17th birthday, but going back way, way before that, to a toddler, I saw Bruce Lee as Kato [music] on the television show.
Justin Daubenmire: Oh, yes, The Pink Panther.
[laughter]
Diane Berry: Not The Pink Panther. No, The Green Hornet.
Justin Daubenmire: Oh, The Green Hornet. Well, I seen Cato in The Pink Panther.
[laughter]
Just to interject here, if people are listening to this and you’re like, “What’s The Pink Panther?” They were comedy movies that came out and Cato was a Japanese martial artist that used to beat the crap out of the detective. You’ll have to find it. It’s out there. It’s probably late ’70s, I think that came out.
Diane Berry: More of the later generations are familiar with Jet Li and, oh, I just lost my train of thought.
Justin Daubenmire: That Jackie guy.
Diane Berry: Jackie Chan, of course. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, but you go back to the ’60s and ’70s, Bruce Lee was the man.
Justin Daubenmire: Absolutely.
Diane Berry: He was the one who made martial arts popular, not just in the States, but I believe around the world, an incredible–
Justin Daubenmire: You know what I found interesting about Bruce Lee? I apologize. Not to interrupt you, but he developed his own style.
Diane Berry: What Bruce Lee did, it was called Jeet Kune Do, but he did have formal training and he took the formal training that he received and he believed that you just can’t rely on one martial art for defense because, man, there’s a lot of pride within the martial arts and it’s like, “Oh, mine’s the best. Mine’s the best.” He’s even made some of his movies about that. He drew from the different martial arts and put them together to create Jeet Kune Do.
Justin Daubenmire: That’s cool.
Diane Berry: My teaching and that my instructor believed in that. We got to be able to defend on your feet with hands only, with feet only on the ground if necessary, with weapon, without weapon. You can’t just be limited.
Justin Daubenmire: Well, that’s when we get into the whole MMA. The amount of training that these guys do in today’s times, the amount of different types of martial arts from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to Tae Kwon Do to whatever. It’s crazy, the amount of stuff. Let’s swing back to your early teens. You’re 17, and you sign up for what?
Diane Berry: Well, first I got to share my beginnings because it’s really interesting.
Justin Daubenmire: Keep going. Sorry.
Diane Berry: It’s fun. Anyway, so like I said, Bruce Lee, he was the man. Then, of course, Chuck Norris came along, but before then there was an in-between. Going back as a toddler, that show came out and aired in 1966 to 1967. I was only a toddler, but yet I have these memories of watching this incredible guy do these incredible feats of self-defense and the moves he was doing, the kicking and jumping, and I was mouth open jaw dropped as a two-and-a-half-year-old. [laughs]
Justin Daubenmire: Yes. Absolutely.
Diane Berry: Then I had that interest. It was, I believe, a God-given love within me for the martial arts because God knew one day he was going to use that to draw me to him because my instructors helped to lead me to Christ. Out of the Islamic Muslim religion, I came to Christ.
Justin Daubenmire: Wait a minute. Out of the what?
Diane Berry: Then it became a ministry. Go ahead.
Justin Daubenmire: I was saying they helped you get saved out, and you said out of what?
Diane Berry: The Islamic Muslim religion.
Justin Daubenmire: The Islamic Muslim religion, so you were Muslim?
Diane Berry: Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: That’s interesting. We’ll get into that a little bit later. I have some questions about that, but let’s say you are 17. Are we good to jump to this spot or you got a little bit more?
Diane Berry: Not yet. I want to share this. Anyways, that love was there, but there was also a subconscious need to defend myself because of trauma and things I suffered in my formative developing years. That created in me a subconscious need to defend myself. That’s what I saw in Bruce Lee.
Justin Daubenmire: Got you.
Diane Berry: I didn’t realize it until years later. Now then, the television show Kung Fu came out when I was–
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, with the blind guy, like me.
[laughter]
Diane Berry: That went on for a few years and I was just captivated. It came on past my bedtime, but as a kid, I would crawl up and get out of the bed. I’d go into the bathroom.
Justin Daubenmire: What was that dude’s name, was it Grasshopper?
Diane Berry: They’d have it on in the living room and I had such an interest, I would crawl up on the bathroom sink, and through the hallway and the mirror be able [chuckles] to see the parts of the program.
Justin Daubenmire: Wow.
Diane Berry: There was that. Then, of course, Chuck Norris came along and fell in love with him and all that he did, and all the Bruce Lee movies. As a child, my uncle and cousins were training, both Tae Kwon Do and Judo.
Justin Daubenmire: Oh, judo is really cool. A lot of blind people are into judo because it deals a lot with your hands and grappling, and blind people are all about that.
Diane Berry: Yes, that’s such a good point, the feel of the body using your–
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, absolutely. Now, just as an aside, I mentioned this to you one time, but I took one year of a Japanese style called Goshin Jutsu. This was an offensive and defensive martial art style. I loved it. I’d went through my divorce, so I had to stop. I lost transportation. There was a lot of weapon training in that. I don’t know, I loved it. It was cool.
Diane Berry: How old were you when you did that?
Justin Daubenmire: I’m going to say I was 40 years old, 39 years old. I went down to the dojo. I talked to the sensei. I think they get up until a 10th-degree black belt under this style of stuff. It’s brutal, man. We’re talking knives, bow staffs, all that stuff. Like you’re saying, he would bring in a guy that was trained in a style of Kung Fu, but it was grappling, almost like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but it was Kung Fu. I don’t remember the style.
He would integrate floor time because, like you’re saying, you just can’t learn one martial art. This Japanese style, Goshin Jutsu, it’s Karate. It’s all about hand and foot and all that kind of stuff. I enjoyed it. I was only able to go for a year. They have a belt and then you get stripes for every segment of that belt. The white belt was the very first belt, and I had three out of four stripes on it, so I was getting there. I’m rolling on mats and I’m blocking and kicking and different types of martial arts, but I enjoyed it. Phenomenal workout.
Diane Berry: You got to do that. Without sight, you were able to do that.
Justin Daubenmire: Without eyesight, yes. The instructors were really good. I didn’t get far enough to spar because you have to get your white belt. The next belt up, you start sparring where you put the headgear on, and things like that. I didn’t get that far. It was more hands-on-hands with the instructors, initially. I learned a decent amount, like tate shutos, this chop you do to the neck to make them go [chuckles] unconscious for about four seconds, and different hand movements, all kinds of different blocking.
The stance was really rough, man. I don’t know what Tae Kwon Do is like, but our feet would be about a shoulder-width apart, and we would have to lower our butt down probably two foot off of the floor. We were lowish, and, boy, my thighs. Oh my gosh, it was brutal, but anyhow.
Diane Berry: Yes. The Japanese arts are good for those nice, low stances. I love watching the traditional katas or disciplines behind them. Did you practice the katas?
Justin Daubenmire: Yes. I don’t know how many. There’s 10 black belts. You can go up to a 10th degree, so there’s tons of them.
Diane Berry: Right, right.
Justin Daubenmire: The brown belt, I know a lot of it was knife fighting. It was awesome. I enjoyed the weapons fighting and learning and studying the bodies. Even in my home, I picked up a bodybag so that I could practice my kicks and my strikes, and I loved it. Like you, I shared that passion as a child. Now, your era was a little bit before mine. I was born in 1972. I grew up on Chuck Norris. Very little Bruce Lee.
It was a little bit before my time, but I was aware of him. The big movie for me as a kid in the ’80s was The Karate Kid. We’ve seen that, but I was always drawn to martial arts. I enjoyed it. I loved it. I wasn’t able to take it as a child. I wish I could have, but I was raised in a Christian home that, “This is evil. It’s Eastern mysticism involved in it and conjuring of demons for different types of moves and you’re not going to get involved with that.” There is elements of that in it, but like you said, it just depends on the instructor.
Diane Berry: Now, I want to share two things, one so those who don’t know what kata is. It’s a Japanese word. It’s a pattern of defensive movements, is all that means. Then, in Korean, it’s poomsae or hyung or [unintelligible 00:15:25]. All means pattern.
Justin Daubenmire: Oh, okay.
Diane Berry: Then, with the bringing in the Eastern philosophy and stuff, or, I should say, not the philosophy but the dangerous false religions, some instructors who don’t know any better may do that, but some people confuse it with yoga, which is not a martial art. That is an action that was created as a Hindu religious practice to where their gods and demons to where those poses are doing that.
No matter how anybody practices yoga, you can’t get away from that because that’s its origin, where martial means military. Yes, martial is military. The martial arts, military arts of self-defense, created a way of defending with your hands and feet. A block is a block. A punch is a punch. That in itself is not demonic unless the person themselves is using it for the intent of evil. It’s not like yoga where a stance or posture is meant to call upon the dangerous false demonic gods.
Justin Daubenmire: Right. A lot of people don’t understand that in Western culture. This is just an aside, so we’ll get back into the Tae Kwon Do in a second, but in yoga, it was derived in the Hindu religion to summon their gods, which are demons, and to be possessed, to come inside of them. They’re formulating these poses to conjure demons. A lot of people, again in Western culture, don’t understand that. They say, “Oh, I’m not doing that,” but the root of it is evil.
Diane Berry: Exactly.
Justin Daubenmire: That’s something that people don’t understand, that when you get involved with something, it is a root, and if that root goes back to evil, you are exposing yourself to that root, to that evil. Now, unfortunately, the sensei that trained me was into Tai Chi, and I didn’t understand that at the time. I had no clue what that was, but it’s demonic.
Diane Berry: Right.
Justin Daubenmire: You’re dealing with an energy force and a sense of energy that is not godly.
Diane Berry: Right.
Justin Daubenmire: I had to work through that, actually, in my exorcism.
Diane Berry: That chi.
Justin Daubenmire: To resolve that, yes.
[music]
Diane Berry: I can lead up to now to when I was 16 and started. As a youngster, my cousins and uncle were training and I constantly begged my parents to train. They would always say, “No. It costs too much money.” I constantly would bug them. My uncle started informally to teach me and my siblings a little bit, and in his basement we would do some lessons, but nothing formal with [unintelligible 00:18:31] advancement.
One day I remember. I remember this so clearly in my head. I think I was eight years old or nine years old. In the back seat, we were driving and we were leaving my cousin’s house and visiting the Judo school that was right near them. Again, I was begging my parents, “Mom, Dad, please. I want to take Karate.” At the time, we just called it Karate.
They were, like, “No. It’ll cost too much money.” I remember that day, Justin. I said to [chuckles] myself, “Okay.” I just sat back in the car and I said, “When I get old enough and I have a job of my own and my own car, I’m going to do this. I’m going to train.”
Justin Daubenmire: Good for you.
Diane Berry: Then, it was something that God put in me, you know, so that’s what happened. As a teenager, the paper route, saving money.
Justin Daubenmire: Oh, wow. Okay.
Diane Berry: Then, I was 16, working, doing office work for the family. My brother and dad were running a tool and die shop, and I was doing the office work. I had a job. I had a car. Back then, you could drive legally by yourself at 16. I began to phone for martial arts schools and I’d get different people answering. I was, like, “Oh, I can’t even understand this person.” [chuckles]
Then, finally, I called one, oh my goodness. I knew right away this is the place. It was right in my hometown. Even he was so friendly and kind and everything. I had the connection there, started at the Academy of Martial Arts in my formal training, and this training. The rake was in Tae Kwon Do Chung Do Kwan, but the learning, we had all sorts of visiting instructors. Judo, Jiu Jitsu, Kuk Sool Won. I learned Hapkido, the art of Hapkido of the pressure points, twisting of the joints, regularly throughout my training.
Justin Daubenmire: Oh, yes, the whole wrist thing. When I was taking the Goshin Jutsu, they talked about how that style– This sounds crazy, but when a person would die, they would dissect the body to research the tendons and everything, the positionings of them and everything so that they can develop that style. I’m almost sure it was the style you just mentioned.
Diane Berry: Hapkido.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes.
Diane Berry: Twisting of the joints.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, that was integrated in the Goshin Jutsu, too. We’re twisting the wrists certain ways and different things like that. Pressure points, like you were saying.
Diane Berry: That’s a Korean art, too. It’s not uncommon for a lot of Tae Kwon Do practitioners to also have the Hapkido training, and I had the regular instructor. He was both certified in his black belt ranks within his different black belt dan degree ranks in both Tae Kwon Do and Hapkido, so I was learning that a lot. Then we had the arnis stick fighting, just lots of wonderful, different stuff that I was so thankful.
Justin Daubenmire: You said the Academy of Martial Arts?
Diane Berry: Correct. Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: Okay, so this was not strict straight up Tae Kwon Do. It was a mixture.
Diane Berry: Right. It was a mixture.
Justin Daubenmire: Good for you. You picked a good school too.
Diane Berry: Yes, yes. Praise God. Yes, the certification was Tae Kwon Do. Shortly after I came into the school– I don’t know how much you want me to get into, like a little bit of my testimony of coming to Christ, but I’m going to share a little bit about that and how that relates to my martial arts training.
Justin Daubenmire: Sure.
Diane Berry: Senior Grandmaster Edward B. Sell. He is a military man, Air Force man. He was the highest ranking non-oriental or non-Asian black belt in the world at that time. He maintained the genuine, authentic title of that until he passed a few years back. He was the Senior Grand Master of the organization. His wife, now she’s Grandmaster Brenda J. Sell. She runs the organization now. They were both Born Again Christians and just booming, powerful evangelists. He preached the Word with power and authority.
Justin Daubenmire: Wait, wait, this is interesting. I got to interrupt you for just a minute. You got a lot going on here, girl. Here’s what I’m looking at from the outside looking in. You’re into Asian arts. You’re raised Muslim.
Diane Berry: Right.
Justin Daubenmire: Your instructors are Christian.
Diane Berry: Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: There’s a lot going on here. How old are you right now?
Diane Berry: 16 at that time.
Justin Daubenmire: Okay, 16 years old. [music] What is your ethnicity?
Diane Berry: Lebanese.
Justin Daubenmire: Lebanese? Okay. Well, my best friend growing up was Lebanese. Had all kinds of awesome Lebanese food, all kinds. They introduced me to stuffed grape leaves with lamb meat.
Diane Berry: Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: Loved it.
Diane Berry: Yes. My mom made them regularly.
Justin Daubenmire: The other thing they were real big on, I don’t know if this is something that they came up with or if this is an actual Lebanese dish, but they called it Lebanese salad. It had tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, and these whole heads of wheat, like the wheat in the field. They would have this wheat inside of this thing. Have you ever heard of anything like that?
Diane Berry: Yes, I have. There’s also the fattoush. I don’t know if you ever had that, but I love that.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, they introduced me to Mediterranean. His father was Lebanese, and his mother was Italian, so I was eating good, man. Your parents, both Lebanese?
Diane Berry: Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: Okay. Were they from Lebanon, or were they born here?
Diane Berry: They’re both 100% Lebanese in ethnicity. My dad was born in Lebanon. My mom was born here.
Justin Daubenmire: Wow. Fascinating. This is a strict Muslim family?
Diane Berry: Growing up, we went to the mosque regularly. We went to the mosque on Sundays as I was growing up. We abided by not having the pork. Back then, the city that I lived in wasn’t highly, highly Muslim populated. Today, it’s one of the most or the most populated in America.
Justin Daubenmire: Where is that located if you don’t mind me asking?
Diane Berry: The Detroit area.
Justin Daubenmire: Oh, in Detroit. Okay.
Diane Berry: Dearborn, which is a neighbor of Detroit. The hometown of Henry Ford. That’s the original motor city.
Justin Daubenmire: Got you. Was your father, coming from Lebanon, a very strict Muslim or was he kind of like, “I go to the mosque here and there, and maybe I’ll read the Quran, but not really practicing it.”
Diane Berry: My parents didn’t do the routine prayers that my grandfather did even if we were on vacation somewhere. If he was in the country visiting with us and we were someplace in the park, he would stop and do his prayers and stuff. Back then, I had a hunger and thirst for God. Not knowing back then that Islam wasn’t the way to find God. I admired his devotion and dedication and that stood out to me, and that spoke something to me.
Justin Daubenmire: That dedication you’re talking about, I have two friends that are Muslim. One is in Singapore, and he is a very strict Muslim. He abides by it. He just doesn’t talk it. I mean, he walks it. My other buddy’s in Indonesia. He’s a raging alcoholic.
Diane Berry: Oh, wow.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, it’s interesting because he’s a raging alcoholic, and he’s telling his friend from Singapore, we’re all friends, but he’s teasing his friend in Singapore saying, “Oh, you’re going to come over here and tell me I’m a sinner?” [laughs] It’s interesting to watch these two guys in the same religion. One follow strictly, and the other one maybe he might here and there, but rarely and he’s an alcoholic.
We keep trying to get him in AA to help him out, and he’s just not interested. It was an interesting concept for me to be exposed to because I always thought that if you’re Muslim, you are a strict Muslim. I didn’t realize that there are people who kind of just– No different than Christianity. There are Christians who might go to church every three months and just don’t really practice and put forth effort and things like that.
Diane Berry: Right. Some people, they just sadly, and that deception is I was born this way. They think that was God’s plan. Not realizing, no, that there’s a devil, a real devil, a real satan that has come to steal, kill, and destroy. He is a deceiver, and what better way to deceive the masses away from God is to create false religions? That’s where the Quran and these false religions and stuff came from.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes. Okay. Let’s swing back to your training. You’re 16 years old. You’re in Asian martial arts being trained. You’re Muslim at the time. Your instructors are Christians.
Diane Berry: Yes. I wore the little golden Quran around my neck since the time I was born and my mother pinned that on us, me and my siblings, the little Islamic symbols and stuff. For me, it was almost like a protection. It helped me to feel close to God but not realizing that this isn’t of God, and I wanted truth.
Justin Daubenmire: You were a truth seeker.
Diane Berry: Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: Diane, I got to tell you, that’s how almost every person, say, 20 to 35 years, 40. Even into my age. I’m 48. I’m sorry, 49. They’re truth seekers. They want to find truth. A lot of these people that are in college today around this time, a lot of them are coming out of Christian homes. They’ve not seen exorcism. They’ve not seen the power of Jesus Christ. They’ve seen nothing supernatural in the church. What they have seen is go and have a cup of coffee and a doughnut, hear a boring sermon and fall asleep and leave. They start seeking thinking there’s more out there because they’ve never seen the supernatural power of Jesus Christ in their life, so they’re seeking and seeking, so they start getting into the new age practices where they are going to experience supernatural phenomenon. We’ll get into supernatural phenomenon a little bit when we discuss your exorcism, but this is a legitimate point here. You were a truth seeker. You’re raised in a Muslim family, but you’re seeking truth, and then you got this Christian instructor teaching you martial arts. When did you first get introduced to the concept that Jesus Christ was God and not a prophet?
Diane Berry: Now, that was an incredibly difficult process and took a whole lot of baby steps.
Justin Daubenmire: It would have to.
Diane Berry: Yes. [music] Senior Grandmaster Sell, he wasn’t my personal instructor. He was in another part of the country running the organization, but he and his wife, they’re both evangelists, and she was the highest ranking woman black belt in the world from Tae Kwon Do. They would travel into military bases, into prisons, and they would do these dynamic martial arts demonstrations, and then preach the Gospel and lead prisoners in the military, the service people to the Lord. [sound effect] They were called the Sell team.
Justin Daubenmire: Wow.
Diane Berry: This was their ministry and their children and his brother Master Ray Sell, who was my personal master, he would train me when he was in town. Then the instructor and under him was my personal instructor, and later they had both came to Christ and were evangelists. I was just getting the word coming at me. This is a big thing. See for me, and like most people, I felt the void inside of me. There was a hole. Some call it that God-shaped hole that only God can fill.
I was looking for that. Part of the reason why it was so powerful and strong for me, I believe, was because of the abuse and trauma that I endured in childhood. There was this brokenness that was there and this wanting God from the time I was a little child crying myself to sleep at night, praying, “God, do something. Change this. Change this world. Use me Lord,” and I would also pray for him to take me out of here. Just don’t let me wake up. Let me die.
Justin Daubenmire: Okay. Let’s pause there just a minute. That’s a lot. You’re covering a lot of territory here. You’re a young child. You’re going through abuse and at the same time, you’re praying to a God, something, to bring help to you and to help change this situation.
Diane Berry: Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: A lot of people in that same situation don’t even consider God. In fact, they hate him because they believe that he’s caused it. He’s allowed it. Why would I want to serve a God, no matter what religion, if he’s going to allow this type of stuff to go on, and so it’s just interesting to me that your perspective is, “I’m in pain. I’m suffering. I’m going to find truth. I’m going to find is there a God? If there is, who is He?” That’s quite interesting.
Not to cut you off. Feel free to jump back where you want to go, but I keep wanting to come back to this because I know when I’ve talked to my Muslim friends, it’s interesting because I can talk with these Muslim guys and we’re mature enough to where we discuss our religions and the differences. I’ve learned so much from them. Likewise, they’ve learned so much from me because we’re not trying to recruit each other when we’re discussing it.
Because of that, our defenses are lowered and we’re logically and intellectually discussing the differences. That’s how I learned that in the Muslim religion, they believe in Jesus Christ, hands down they do, but they believe simply that he was a prophet, and that he was not God in the flesh, that he was not God, just a prophet and a great profit. They believe He was a great prophet, so this is a huge transition. You’d mentioned this was done in baby steps, but can you remember the first time this concept was introduced to you that Jesus Christ was God, not just a prophet? Can you remember who told you this and what was your reaction?
Diane Berry: Getting to that was so hard and my testimony on that is quite long. We don’t have the opportunity for that right now, today, but perhaps, in the future, that is something that we could do to dive into that.
Justin Daubenmire: Who was the person that introduced that to you, though? That’s my question. That concept. Who did that?
Diane Berry: I heard it through life. I went to school. At that time in my city, we were, other than maybe a couple of relatives, the only Muslim people in the school. They were all Catholic or Christian. They all believe Jesus was God. All of them believed Jesus was God, but yet I was taught at home and I was taught in the mosque. It was pounded into my brain, into my head. I heard it over and over again growing up. Jesus is not God. Jesus is not the son of God. Jesus did not die on the cross.
I constantly heard this stuff, but yet I’m also hearing the beliefs of others and seeing images of Jesus on the cross and stuff. It’s out there, and I remember as a kid going to my mom on a few occasions. She’d be busy doing whatever, washing dishes, cooking, and I’d say, “Mom, did Jesus die on the cross for our sins?” She would stop and she’d look at me. She’d always give me the same answer, the same deceived answer, and it was, “No. We as Muslims believe that God would not do that to one of his own, that he put Judas in his place,” and I would get that answer.
Justin Daubenmire: That’s another interesting thing that I learned from my Muslim friends.
Diane Berry: Justin, it never set well with me because I kept going back asking, but go ahead.
Justin Daubenmire: No, that concept, that Jesus Christ, I learned this from my Muslim friends that they believe that Jesus Christ was not crucified, that God would never do that to his own prophet, and so in place of Jesus Christ being killed, Peter was dressed up. Now, this is serious, man. It’s what they told me. Peter was dressed up to look like Jesus, so people were deceived and Peter was the one actually crucified.
Diane Berry: That’s interesting. They say that. I was taught Judas, that it was Judas, that God put Judas in his place.
Justin Daubenmire: Oh, I’m sorry. Yes. Judas. You’re right. Judas. Not Peter. Judas. [laughs]
Diane Berry: God made Judas to look like him. Here’s the thing. Here’s the devil so that those that are listening understand that how the devil works and deceives is by attacking the very point of salvation.
Justin Daubenmire: Correct.
Diane Berry: The religions of the world say, earn your own salvation, your good deeds will cancel your bad deeds. All? No. The Bible tells us our own righteousness is a pile of filthy rags to the Lord, that we can’t save ourselves.
Justin Daubenmire: Correct.
Diane Berry: We can never be equal with God. We can never do enough good works to take away our sin, so anybody who’s trying to be their own Messiah, their own God that they actually think they’re going to be pleasing to God. No. It’s Jesus, that he was without sin, without blemish. He was the only one qualified, the only one that could become that sacrifice and take upon the sins of the world to take away our sin if we believe in that and call Him God.
Justin Daubenmire: How old were you when you transitioned to becoming a Christian and deciding to leave the Muslim religion?
Diane Berry: Hearing different things here and there about Christianity, about Jesus through different people throughout my life here and there, that God used to plant seeds in me. Then within my Tae Kwon Do training, hearing the preaching come, and I remember being at a seminar. Senior Grandmaster Sell was in town and his wife, Grandmaster Brenda Sell, they were doing a seminar at a campground.
My brother, who was a student under me, I was getting ready to promote him within his black belt ranks. He went to the seminar. Now we’re going into so many years. This is maybe 1984-ish now. I think by then, I had reached second-degree black belt. We’re at the seminar, at the end. He was there for a couple of days. My dad and I went to pick him up, and so Senior Grandmaster Sell, being the evangelist that he is, he’s not going to let these hundreds and hundreds of people leave, his students leave, without preaching the gospel.
He has his black belt students, his master students under him, all of the [unintelligible 00:40:13] ranks, the under blackbelt ranks all lined up for the awards ceremony. The presentation’s at the end of the seminar and he has this big giant wooden cross. He was very dramatic and he had the hammer and the nails. My dad and I are off in the back on the side.
I think we even had the video camera that day. Listening and he’s preaching the gospel. He’s sharing testimonies from his life, how God did miracles to help him heal him of different things. Then he’s sharing what Jesus did and he’s hammering, and how Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and about His resurrection. That Jesus is the way. You got to understand what God did because I respected this man more than anybody on the planet. More than any human being that was alive, I respected Senior Grandmaster Sell. I had read his manual and things. I was like, “Wow, I’m listening.” God used him to get my attention. He had this big, powerful, deep, booming voice, which also got my attention.
Justin Daubenmire: Got your attention. Yes.
Diane Berry: I’m taking it in listening. He gave a salvation call to people that wanted to receive Jesus and people were. Then, at the end again, my religious upbringing was powerful. The devil had these strong barriers up, so I said to myself, “Well, that’s what you believe. This is what I believe” That’s how it ended, but God planted a huge seed that day because that really got me seeking and wanting truth even more.
Justin Daubenmire: Got you.
Diane Berry: Justin, I went through this period of time. I don’t know how long. If it was years, I don’t know. I know I had already been seeking and wanting the truth, but then I’m hearing him minister and preach, but I had been praying, “God, I want the truth. If it’s through Muhammad, if it’s through Joseph Smith, if it’s through Hare Krishna, if it’s through Buddha, if it’s through Jesus, whatever it is, God, show me the way.” Every time I said that name Jesus, something inside me went off and it was like there was a draw there.
Justin Daubenmire: Got you.
Diane Berry: Then the Lord was using the 700 Club and I would tune into that Christian show and they would share the gospel and pray for people to receive Christ. These are some of the baby steps. Now, a big one was me accepting Jesus as the Son of God. My personal instructor would quite often have on evangelistic videos and tapes in the school. I was hearing the gospel that way through powerful evangelists. I began to understand some of the terminology and things.
Justin Daubenmire: Cool.
Diane Berry: One day my instructor says to me, out of the blue, I walk in and he says to me, this is my personal instructor. He says, “Even the Quran says that Jesus was born of a virgin.” That right there, God used that to give me the revelation that if Jesus was born of a virgin, that would make him the unique son of God in no other way than any other human being could be. I was then able to accept him as Son. Now, Son of God, Son of deity, son of The King makes you a prince, makes you deity, makes you a God. Back then, I didn’t make those connections.
I didn’t realize by accepting him as Son, that I was also acknowledging him as God. I didn’t know that then, but in my baby steps, I accepted him as Son. On the 700 Club, when they would pray, “Jesus, I believe you’re the son of God. Jesus come into my life and heart,” guess what? Now I could do that.
Justin Daubenmire: Okay. Let’s say you’re a Christian now. What is your degree of black belt that you’re at?
Diane Berry: At that point, when I finally–
Justin Daubenmire: I mean today. Let’s fast forward to today.
Diane Berry: Today, seventh degree.
Justin Daubenmire: Seventh degree. How high does it go in Tae Kwon Do?
Diane Berry: Officially, 9 degrees, but 10 can sometimes be honorary.
Justin Daubenmire: I got you.
Diane Berry: They give Senior Grandmaster.
Justin Daubenmire: You’re pretty high up there.
Diane Berry: Yes. Very high. Especially for a woman, it’s unusual. It’s not common.
Justin Daubenmire: Let me ask you this. You have a dojo that you instruct at, or do you instruct in a church or in a YMCA? Where do you instruct your students?
Diane Berry: It’s been different locations through the years. God has had me in lots of different churches, homeschool groups. I do have a Dojang, which is a Korean word for training area. Some pronounce it Dojang. My system is Dojang or Japanese dojo, right in my home. I do have one. At the church that I serve with sometimes, we do lessons there as well, and homeschool groups. It’s been a lot of different through the years and I’ve taught at the commercial school, ran a commercial school myself for a while. There’s been a lot.
Justin Daubenmire: Cool. Okay.
Diane Berry: Oh, and then you asked it integrate, yes. Finally, when I did really truly accept Jesus that he died on the cross for my sins, which again, maybe another day we can share more of that awesome testimony, how God got me to that. Then after that, when I got filled with The Holy Ghost, received that infill in the baptism of The Holy Ghost, I couldn’t keep quiet. I began to just share. I was a very introverted, reserved person. I was very private. I didn’t share things with anybody. I didn’t share anything about my journey looking for truth. Everything was just very quiet. I was praying and seeking. When I got filled with that Holy Ghost, you could not keep me quiet.
I was sure in the gospel. Our martial arts school, the Tae Kwon Do school, a good enrollment of a hundred. We probably have a good hundred people walk through the building every year. We had that enrollment within our books on a regular basis and I would begin to share. So many people, especially young people began to receive Christ Our Savior, give their hearts to Him. Then, within so many months, the Lord began to minister to me. He began to speak to me very clearly. Diane, if you don’t teach them, they’re going to die. Read then the [unintelligible 00:46:55]. You got to teach him. They’re going to die spiritually.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes.
Diane Berry: Anything living must eat to stay alive. I knew they needed to learn the word of God. Through some encouragement through services at my church, it took me a while to even get involved in church because of the distrust and everything. Finally, I did and began to form, we called it the Word Warriors. Word, as in the word of God. Warriors, Christ’s soldiers, a children’s Bible church.
Justin Daubenmire: Okay. I got a question for you. You teach self-defense as well. Is this primarily something that you teach to younger women and college students?
Diane Berry: For me, it’s all together. Tae Kwon Do is self-defense [unintelligible 00:47:40] together, but there are some times where it may just be a self-defense course to where we’re not getting into the ranking advancement, or maybe we would do a day or two seminars through our seminar where we’re giving info. Within the Tae Kwon Do curriculum, the Lord had me revise it to where, as the students would move through the ranks, they were getting discipled in Him. They were memorizing scripture for each rank. They were reading books of the Bible for each rank. They were doing Bible review sheets. They were doing written assignments. We had prayer Bible devotionals in our classes. It was very awesome. [music]
Justin Daubenmire: Okay. Let’s fast forward now. You’re a Christian. Let’s go ahead and just set aside the Tae Kwon Do, and you’re a Christian.
Diane Berry: Yes. 1985.
Justin Daubenmire: 1985. At a certain point in your life, you came to the realization that you were demon-possessed. Right?
Diane Berry: Correct.
Justin Daubenmire: Can you explain to the listeners how you became aware that you were demon-possessed? A lot of people, I think, in today’s times are demon-possessed and they don’t know it.
Diane Berry: I think I knew even before I was a Christian. I do want to share for the audience, rather we say demonization or demon-possessed. Some people look at, when they hear the word possession, especially Christians or even non-Christians when they hear possessed, they think that all the demon, the devil completely takes over you like the Hollywood-type stuff and you do all this crazy stuff. No. The Bible uses the word demonized or possessed, meaning owning a part of your soul. Not your whole being. Not your [unintelligible 00:49:29].
Justin Daubenmire: Yes. Possession implies ownership. The devil doesn’t own you when you are possessed, or as the Christians say, demonized, which is a better word than possessed, but be it demonized or demon-possessed, we have a demon.
Diane Berry: Right. Exactly.
Justin Daubenmire: When did you first identify that you were demon-possessed? In my case, it was when I was physically attacked by a demon. I physically was attacked by a demon. I was like, okay, “I’m demon possessed.” Also, when I was a young child, I was molested at age seven, and I instantly had an addiction and looking for drugs at seven years old. This type of demon was passed on to me, so there were hints of demon possession through my childhood, through my teenage years, but when I was physically attacked by a demon, then I knew I’m demon possessed, I need help. In your case, what were some of the symptoms you experienced that showed you you were demon-possessed?
Diane Berry: Yes, I will share that, but I think it would be really good for listeners to know before, we lose some of them by some people saying, “Oh no, a Christian can’t have a demon,” that they understand that we are a trinity. God is a trinity. He made us in His image. We’re a trinity. We are body, soul, and spirit. It’s the spirit of the human being. When you become a born-again Christian, the devil can’t touch that, can’t get inside that. That is your true identity where Christ dwells. If we think about what the soul is, our mind, our intellect, our imaginations, our emotions, oh boy, tell me that the devil can’t mess with that.
It’s [unintelligible 00:51:16] we got these different parts to us. That’s where the devil messes and gets in.
Justin Daubenmire: Correct.
Diane Berry: For me, I’ll start by saying this. I could see the demons rise up in people. I would see it in their interior, I could see it in their eyes, my own relatives. Sometimes I would even run in fear and hide because I saw the demons rise up, and I would run for my life. I could see that within them.
Justin Daubenmire: It’s interesting because the eyes are the gateway to the soul. As exorcists, that’s the main thing we focus on is the eyes. I don’t, being blind, but sighted exorcists focus on the eyes because oftentimes you can see demons manifest in people. Their eyes completely dilate black. Their whites are almost completely gone. What you’re explaining is that you’re seeing this in the eyes of relatives, correct, and you’re running?
Diane Berry: Yes. Within relatives, family. Depending on what that demon is, whether it’s a demon of anger, of hate, of rage, they have their different distinct looks. I remember as a kid, seeing a couple of my relatives go at it with each other, ready to kill each other. I saw the demons rise up within them of hate, and rage, and murder. Anyways, for me, I know that through my life, there was the torment, there was the suicide. I wanted to die. I made constant attempts on my own life. The day I became consciously aware of the world, I know it’s different for people of different ages, but for me, it was age four.
It was like, somebody turned the light on inside my soul and said, “Hey, kid, take a look around and tell me what you see.” What I saw, wasn’t pretty, wasn’t good, and I wanted out. I said, “God, why am I here? Get me out of here.” I was actively, but secretly suicidal. The devil had me in this isolated bubble to where the thought never occurred to me that I could reach out to somebody for help. That I could go to somebody and say, “I want to die. I don’t want to live.” That never–
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, it makes sense because you’re four years old. You didn’t have that capacity, as a very young child.
Diane Berry: Or even later in life, even as an adult, it took me, “Oh, it was because the devil had purposely did that.” There were things that took place in my life that brought spirits of isolation.
Justin Daubenmire: Okay, so what you’re telling me if I’m hearing you correct, at a certain point in your life as a Christian, you’re recognizing isolation and suicidal thoughts as something that wasn’t really you?
Diane Berry: Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: It was something inside of you triggering these [unintelligible 00:54:22].
Diane Berry: I didn’t know that then, though. That came later, but if we go into my teen years, I think when I hit about age 12, I changed. My whole personality changed, Justin. I went from being the shy, bashful person to rageful, angry. That’s when the demons started to manifest. Very angry, rageful. In those first few years of my teens [unintelligible 00:54:53], I would, all of a sudden, and some of this I didn’t do when others were around, I would have fits of rage and violence almost like supernatural strength when my parents, the people of my family was out of the house.
I would have one of these attacks because all of the rage that was just piled up, build up in me from abuse, and so, the entire living room set, I would flip it all. The huge couches, everything that was there, just flip it all over. Just going through these fits of rage. Then when I was done with my fits of rage, I would put them back in place. At times in my bedroom, I’d go into, again, these rages. Rage was a big one that I carried, and I would go into these coughing fits and blood. I would be coughing up blood, and blood would be all over my closet door.
Again, when I would finish going through these demonic manifestations of rage and stuff, I would just clean it all up, and I never told anybody. This is part of my testimony that I haven’t even really shared much in my [unintelligible 00:56:04] shared nothing.
Justin Daubenmire: Thank you so much for sharing this because it is very personal. Thank you. What’s interesting about this is that in our time today, in today’s times, they would observe this psychologically. They would say that this child doesn’t have a demon of rage. This child simply has anger because of the abuse she’s went through. They would rationalize it, totally discard the supernatural. They would look and say, “Okay, this girl was coughing up blood because maybe she bit the side of her cheek or whatever.” They’re getting rid of any type of supernatural phenomenon.
You’re a 12-year-old child and you’re picking up couches that are three cushions long, and whipping it, throwing it over, right? This is supernatural strength that you had.
Diane Berry: Yes. 14 years old through that timeframe, and yes.
Justin Daubenmire: I just want to point that out for listeners that–
Diane Berry: Exactly. Oh, that’s what my parents–
Justin Daubenmire: Real quick though. In today’s times, people want to normalize demon possession as psychological. Every bit of it’s psychological, and it’s not.
Diane Berry: Right, yes. That’s what my parents thought because I got to the point where I was hurting people. Then one time, let’s see, yes, because I was getting out of control, and I was hurting people, and I was lashing out, I was throwing things and I didn’t care, my mom would say, “What are you doing? You could hurt somebody.” I go, “Yes, I want to.” Because it was getting out of control, they took me to see my psychiatrist or a psychologist at that time. I was 15 now. This time I’m 15, and I did not want to be in this psychologist or psychiatrist’s office.
I did not want to be there, but they said, “No, you got to go. You got to get this anger under control.” That’s all they knew to do because it was pretty bad, and it had to be pretty bad for my parents to take that route.
Justin Daubenmire: Sure.
Diane Berry: I had a psychologic reaction to where the first time my voice, I had lost my voice. I couldn’t even speak, and that–
Justin Daubenmire: Do you believe that was a demonic manifestation? Because that is quite common where they can mute somebody.
Diane Berry: Yes. I believe that because the enemy didn’t want me getting help in talking, and so on, that that was part of that as well.
Justin Daubenmire: Right, and that’s another thing, and I apologize, I just want to throw this out there. When demons are inside of a person, in their soul, in their emotions, their mind, and so forth, they don’t want expelled. They’re always trying to prevent a person from getting help, even if that is psychologists, which, by the way, we’re not saying that psychology, counseling, and therapy is wrong. If you listen, to the first episode of my podcast, I get into this a lot. We’re about the use of psychologists, therapists, and counselors. What we’re trying to convey here is that Diane has demon possession as a young person, and they’re trying to solve a supernatural problem with natural remedies, and oftentimes it doesn’t work.
Diane Berry: Correct. Sitting there in that office, I don’t know, it might have been, I think I might have had two visits. I remember really expressing to my parents. Even though I wasn’t a talker, I didn’t express many things, but when there was something that was pretty serious that I wanted, I would. I’d say, “I do not want to go. I do not want to go anymore. They told me that “If you can get your anger under control, you won’t have to go.” That’s what I did, but not in a healthy way. I got no healing of emotions, no demonic freedom. Nothing, no deliverance, nothing was expelled from me.
I took everything, and I turned it inward. I took all that anger, all that rage– What I did was I began to teach myself that any time I felt like hitting somebody or throwing something at somebody, I would stop, and I would draw it in. I can remember in, I think it was 10th grade, yes, I would have been 15 at the time, sitting in, I think it was biology or chemistry, and this teacher had a knack. He was what you would call the type of teacher that liked to nag the students. I’d have to say that he had his own demons because of how he would antagonize the students.
He would just dig into you, dig into you, dig into you. He wouldn’t let anything go. It was demonic, though, how he would do it. One day he decided he was going to start on me. I’m sitting there in the front row, and he’s leaning in. I felt my hand reach for my big, thick science book to whip at his face. [sound effect] I went to do this, and I went to do that, but then I– This was in that transitional period where mom, dad said, “Okay, get your anger under control. You won’t have to go see this guy anymore,” this doctor that I did not like at all, “You don’t have to go anymore.”
I stopped my hand, and instead, I used my words, and I told the teacher to shut his mouth. And that did not go over very well but, it went over better than had me throwing the book at his face, of course. He said “You need to apologize or you’re going to go–” Anyways, that was that. I began that process of just pulling everything inward, personality switch.
Justin Daubenmire: Oh, personality switch? Okay.
Diane Berry: Yes. I was dissociative.
Justin Daubenmire: Go ahead. Say that again.
Diane Berry: I was dissociative.
Justin Daubenmire: Dissociative, yes. Dissociative disorder, absolutely. Very common in people who have been through trauma.
Diane Berry: That’s how young people survive, yes.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, that’s how young people survive. They disassociate and split off. It’s an act of, really, God’s mercy, the way I look at it. It’s a survival skill and people are very intelligent. They don’t realize this as children, but they split off. As exorcists, we encounter that quite often, where demons will actually be within disassociative parts of a person.
That’s a whole can of worms we can get into maybe another time, but it is interesting. You’re 15 years old, and you understand that you have demons, you are experiencing manifestations where uncontrollable rage, your experience–
Diane Berry: Oh, and I got to say this because this just came back to me, another that I knew something was up, the darkness that was in me, because of how people would react. I remember walking in a community building, a civic building, and people around, if I would be walking down the stairs, and I could feel the darkness manifest in me, and people would literally just move. They’d move away. [chuckles] They knew something was not right. They moved away. Again, that was that transitional period too, that I was trying to get things under control.
Justin Daubenmire: That’s another thing too that’s a common symptom of demon possession or demonization, is sensing and feeling presences. Like you’re mentioning, you would feel this overtake you coming down the steps, and it is demonic. It’s a manifestation, and it’s tangible enough to people. They really don’t know what’s going on, but it’s tangible enough that they’re getting out of the way. You’re coming down these steps, and you sense something come on you, overtake you, people recognize–
Diane Berry: Rise up in me, yes.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, rise up. That’s right. That’s a good way of putting it, rising up is oftentimes symptoms. Especially, in my case, with addiction, it would rise up within me and overtake me. It was like, I can’t say that I couldn’t stop it, but it felt so compelling that it was almost impossible to stop it, so that’s a good way of putting it. These are symptoms of demonization, is this rising up feeling, something taking over you. It was tangible enough to the people on the steps with you in this building, that they got out of the way. They might not be able to define it.
Diane Berry: Yes, I think that one person in particular, just, they knew. They didn’t want to be in my path. It’s like I felt like lashing out. That’s how I felt.
Justin Daubenmire: That’s what happens is, when demons are in you, they can manifest and bring up things inside of you that you go with. Then sometimes they make you feel like you need them, which is a bizarre concept. Working with people as an exorcist, not everyone wants to get rid of their demons. You would think they would because they’re suffering and being tormented by it, but if you take somebody that’s extremely, let’s say, insecure, and they’ve got spirits in them that they can leverage to seduce somebody for attention or to have sex with them-
Diane Berry: And power. You have the power and strength, yes.
Justin Daubenmire: -yes, they don’t always want to get rid of them because they don’t see the immediate results of the torment, but they’re the ones at night where they can’t get to sleep. They’re the ones with racing thoughts, and they’re the ones with the mood swings, and depression, and don’t know why. A lot of times people don’t put two and two together, that, “Hey, I’m, demon-possessed, I’m demonized, and this is the negative consequences.” Oftentimes it’s emotional, depression, anxiety, and–
Diane Berry: Exactly. So many suffering from anxiety disorders, and they don’t realize that that can be traced back to a trauma, or more than one trauma that can be healed, plus the demons that have most likely gotten in there and [unintelligible 01:07:00].
Justin Daubenmire: Gotten in through the trauma, yes. Like I said in Episode 1, and if you’re listening to this one and you’ve not listened to Episode 1, jump back over there when you’re done listening here, check out Episode 1, when I was molested, demons entered me. Tangibly, I felt them come in me. This is, any type of trauma that you experience in life, demons take full advantage of it. Molestation, rape, incesting, neglect, physical abuse, anything like this, demons can leverage and come inside of a person. Then oftentimes, it does happen in childhood for many people, myself included, that I’ve worked with, and probably you as well, that this is where these things enter and we learn to live with them as though they’re normal or psychological. Not get rid of them.
Diane Berry: Yes. I knew the stuff I was going through wasn’t normal. I had a draw to occultish things too, but I am very grateful the Lord kept me from getting too deep into that. I wanted power. I wanted to control. Why? Because I had a need to protect. That subconscious need was in there to protect. Then I had this attraction, like the gore, the horror, I like the violence. I liked that stuff. When I turned 16, there was such a complete personality change type, the opposite, to where I couldn’t stand that stuff anymore, the gore, the horror I would [unintelligible 01:08:38] that.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, it’s another interesting concept you’re bringing up, where when demons are inside you, they’re going to draw you to, at some point, occultism of some type. It’s just inevitable. If you have demons, you’re going to be drawn to occultism of some type, whether it’s psychics, whether it’s mediums, whether it’s supernatural things in movies that you can’t get enough of. Demons need to reinforce their possession. They need to reinforce their existence inside of you. The way that they reinforce that is by having you participate in things that reinforce their stay, their legal right to be within you.
For some, that can be going into occultism. For others, it can be fully investing in rage, and murder, and things like this. It’s a concept.
[music]
Justin Daubenmire: You’ve had miscellaneous symptoms of demonization, demon possession, and all of a sudden, at some point in time, you realize I need an exorcism, correct?
Diane Berry: Yes. I knew that, yes, [unintelligible 01:10:08].
Justin Daubenmire: Okay. In my case, I didn’t know of any exorcists. In my case, for 30 years I was tormented by demons because I didn’t know of any exorcists. I came to Bob Larson and he exorcised me, and I’m 100% free now, praise God. In your case, how did you find an exorcist, and who was it if you don’t mind me asking?
Diane Berry: This is going to be interesting, and this may go in a direction that you didn’t expect. Anyways, I got to share my little bits of my story here.
Justin Daubenmire: Okay.
Diane Berry: Knowing from the stuff from the childhood, the teen years, and all that was going on, and then when I became born again and I’m serving Jesus, and again, the audience needs to know that someone can be on fire for God, being used of God, and still be demonized, still have demons that possess parts of their soul as it was with me and as it is for, I’m going to say the majority of people, whether they know it or not.
Justin Daubenmire: Right.
Diane Berry: You have to be brave enough to dive into it and let God do that deliverance. Anyways, God was using me in a huge way in evangelism discipleship, but I would come home after all of that and the switch would take over. The personality switch, the alter identities, the dissociative identities. The demons would arise, and I would literally walk in the door from a joyous time of ministry for God, saving people and doing wonderful things, and I would [unintelligible 01:11:57] just collapse against the wall. Just my whole body would just collapse, slide down the wall onto the floor, my head down between my knees.
Justin Daubenmire: [laughs] I’m not laughing at you. I’m envisioning this in my mind’s eye.
Diane Berry: Yes, but it would be–
Justin Daubenmire: Now, listen, this is what’s crazy.
Diane Berry: Okay.
Justin Daubenmire: This is how, and listen, many people are like this, Diane. They go to church, they love Jesus Christ, they’re happy. As soon as they get in the car, they fall into a depression, and they don’t understand why because they got the demons.
Yes.
Here you are at church, fired up in ministry. You come home, and you’re slumped against a wall falling down, and I’m assuming of complete depression, is that correct?
Diane Berry: I would grab my head. It was depression, but more just, it was torment, utter torment.
Justin Daubenmire: Oh God, oh yes.
Diane Berry: I could feel it on my brain on my mind. I wanted to die.
Justin Daubenmire: People don’t get this, that demons torment. This is their number one thing. They tormented me for 30 years. Coming into my room, choking me, throwing me out of the bed. The emotional swings that I’d have from complete happiness to depression and not understanding why. This goes back to my point, and I’m sorry to interrupt you, but man, this goes back to everybody wants to normalize demon possession. It’s not. My swings, my anxiety, everything when I went through an exorcism, and I mean, fully exorcised, gone. 100% gone.
Now,no more anxiety, no depression, no mood swings. None of this stuff, all my addictive behaviors gone because they were induced by demons. Now, that’s not to say everyone with anxiety, and depression, and things like this, that it’s induced by demons. There is, hands down, people that have mental illness and need help.
Diane Berry: You, what though, Justin? When you say normalize demonization, that can be taken two different ways. I think that needs to be explained.
Justin Daubenmire: Sure.
Diane Berry: Because the first time I heard you say that before, I took it to mean the opposite of what you mean it to mean. I first took, and other people might think that too, thinking it to mean that demonization is normal, which, in a sense it is, but that’s not what you’re saying. You’re saying that people are taking all the psychological things and just making that all normal and ignoring that. No, this can be demonic, so, [unintelligible 01:14:47]
Justin Daubenmire: Correct. Yes, that’s a good point, good clarification. You’re absolutely right. What I’m saying is that they are taking demon possession and saying it’s psychological.
Diane Berry: Right.
Justin Daubenmire: Because everybody immediately goes to psychological, they ignore the demon possession, and by ignoring demon possession, they’ve normalized it. In other words, they make everything that’s, demon possession be psychological. For example, when somebody goes into a school, pulls out a gun, and shoots down a bunch of students, when does that become somebody that’s demon-possessed, and overtaken by an evil spirit?
Diane Berry: I know. It’s so obvious. Yes, it’s so obvious.
Justin Daubenmire: Immediately, everyone, “Oh, he’s psychologically unsound,” and so forth. No one ever stops in today’s times, this is my point, they never stop and say, “Is this demon possession? Is this someone who’s demonized doing these types of things?”
Diane Berry: Here’s the thing, people in other parts of the world, most other parts of the world, they know that. It’s as clear as the nose on their faces.
Justin Daubenmire: Absolutely. You get out of Western countries, you get in Africa. I tell you what, that– What’s the name of that little island off of Africa? Madagascar.
Diane Berry: Okay.
Justin Daubenmire: When the Lutherans I believe it was, went there and brought the Christianity, and when they become a Christian there, the first thing that they have to do, now, I was told this from another exorcist, I’ve not researched it, but it’d be worth researching if you’re listening to this, but what I was told was that when they become a Christian, the first thing they do is go through an exorcism because they understand that there is so much demon possession, and also ancestor worship, and all of their gods and sacrifices, and everything that they do with the animals and things like this, and the witch doctor that they visit, and all this.
They have no problem believing that their spirit belongs to Jesus Christ, but yet there are demons possessed in areas of their mind that need expelled. They have no problem with it whatsoever.
Diane Berry: Exactly, yes.
Justin Daubenmire: Okay. You’re pulling your hair out, sliding down the wall. This is torment, that’s the best way of putting demon possession.
Diane Berry: It is. When I say I wanted to die, I’m not saying that as an expression as somebody would. I mean, literally, if I had a gun in my hand at that moment, I would have used it. That’s the reason why I never owned a gun for self-defense.
Justin Daubenmire: Right. Thank God, yes.
Diane Berry: If someone that takes the right coursing and training in that, that’s, I believe a good thing, that right to bear arms for defense. I’m just remembering now as a kid in my parent’s closet, there was a rifle and stuff. There are times when I was at home alone, I’d go mess with that, but was mostly, it was locked, but it was a rifle. It’s hard to use that on yourself. There was-
Justin Daubenmire: You’re tormented?
Diane Berry: -yes, many suicide attempts on my life throughout, but everything was done privately and quietly, and nothing has been–
Justin Daubenmire: Again, this goes back to where people psychologically say it’s your trauma. Certainly, some of that is in play with it, but the demons leverage trauma.
[music]
Justin Daubenmire: The demons leverage trauma. They love trauma.
Diane Berry: Explain what you mean by, leverage trauma.
Justin Daubenmire: Okay. If somebody is traumatized, let’s say someone is sexually abused, demons will use that to inflict more pain on a person. They will exaggerate that, not saying that it’s not god awful, I, myself was molested, but demons come into trauma, and they magnify it. They take a magnifying glass, and they blow it up a million times, and they make you feel that pain at that magnitude with the intent of you killing yourself. That’s the ultimate goal of demon possession. Jesus said it best, “The devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy.”
Yes.
That’s it. Jesus also said about the devil that he was a murderer from the beginning. When people are demon-possessed, demons are there to kill you. They’ll kill your emotions, they’ll kill your relationships. How many people I know that’s been through three and four marriages, and they’re demon-possessed and don’t even know it? They just, “Oh, well–” These demons kill [unintelligible 01:19:37]. Kill your finances, kill your physical health, kill [unintelligible 01:19:41]. It’s all about death. Ultimately, they want you to kill yourself, or they’ll kill you, whatever, and mission accomplished because that is their nature.
They are bent on killing people, bent on death, and it’s sad but true. It’s like what I heard Dr. Larson say one time, he’s never, in 50,000 exorcisms, ever heard a demon say, “I’m sorry for what I’ve done,” because they’re not, so–
Diane Berry: Yes, the Bible tells us that– Go ahead.
Justin Daubenmire: No, go ahead.
Diane Berry: That Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. You were quoting the Bible verse, John 10:10, and the remainder of it is, first, it tells us that Jesus says the devil has come to still kill and destroy but Jesus says, “I have come, that you might have life and life to the fullest.”
Justin Daubenmire: To give you [unintelligible 01:20:32], yes.
Diane Berry: It wasn’t just because I accepted Christ as my Lord, my savior. I’m serving him, I’m born again. I’m filled with the Holy Ghost, I’m working for the Lord, and all of that, that didn’t get rid of my demons. They were in the soul. I needed to have trauma and things heal to get to those demons. Another way that I knew that they were there is I could be in a conversation with somebody, and I could hear the voices [voices] saying things about bad things.
Justin Daubenmire: [laughs] Right.
Diane Berry: I knew it wasn’t me, I knew [unintelligible 01:21:20] voice.
Justin Daubenmire: I’m laughing because everybody, in Episode 1, I keep saying this, I apologize, but everything you’re saying, I said in Episode 1. That’s why I keep bringing this up.
Diane Berry: Oh, okay.
Justin Daubenmire: Is that I had all these voices and all this chatter in my head. Chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter. All this noise, noise, constant noise, and I’ll never forget after being fully exorcised, this didn’t happen right in the beginning or halfway through, no, no, no. At the very end, I’m sitting in my Lazy -Boy chair, and for the first time ever, it dawns on me that my mind is quiet.
Diane Berry: Praise God.
Justin Daubenmire: I was in such awe of this, Diane. That’s the only way I could tell you. I was in such awe because I’d never experienced it, and I thought, “Oh my gosh, all the chatter was gone.”
Diane Berry: That’s awesome. [unintelligible 01:22:16]
Justin Daubenmire: So often people think this is another sign of demonization is when you got all these thoughts, I’ve actually had people tell me, “Hold on, Justin, I’m going to go smoke some marijuana to get the voices to stop.”
Diane Berry: Whoa.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, I’ve actually had people tell me that. They’ll tell me they don’t know what the voices are from. These are functional people that are college educated and have careers, and they’re successful in their careers but they’re not crazy. They say, “I know I’m not crazy, but I have these voices in my head, and they won’t shut up, so I’m going to go smoke some pot and try to quiet them down. I’ve had other people tell me that the voices keep talking at night and they can never go to sleep, so they’ll do a double shot of some type of liquor, or they’ll chew up three and four melatonins to try to knock themselves out, to get rid of the voices.
This is what you’re talking about. These voices are saying all kinds of crazy things about this person you’re interacting with.
Diane Berry: Yes. Now, I knew when it was the demon, but sometimes in your case, and then in so many other people’s cases, and in my case, that’s, quite often, there was a disassociation as well, so there’s the dissociative identities as well that were stuck in trauma. We talked about [unintelligible 01:23:42].
Justin Daubenmire: That can get tricky there. yes.
Diane Berry: Yes. When a child has nowhere to run if they can’t physically get away from abuse, where are they going to run? Inside their head.
Justin Daubenmire: Exactly.
Diane Berry: If the brain, their mind has that intellect and creativity, it’s going to compartmentalize that abuse. They’re going to split up. It’s not happening to me, it’s happening to somebody else.
Justin Daubenmire: Right, it’s survival.
Diane Berry: That allows them to continue to [unintelligible 01:24:07] catatonic vegetative state.
Justin Daubenmire: To survive, yes. Your demonization just is worsening at this point?
Diane Berry: It’s starting to, yes, surface. It’s starting to come up because now I’m getting older, I’m getting more mature. Now the dissociative identities that are holding all this abuse, the memories and stuff within me, and the demons are behind that as well. This was happening, and I do recall of incident where, when I was in bed, they came. It was four spirits. One was very large, principality type came at the end of the bed, and then there’s three others like bats hovering on. My bed is against the wall, and so they were like trapped me in.
I remember them like taking their, whatever you want to call them, whatever their parts of the body, waving them, and it’s like it locked me up. It completely bound me to where I could not move at all.
Justin Daubenmire: Again, back to Episode 1, you’re saying the same thing, you had demonic sleep paralysis. This is not neurological sleep paralysis. This is demonic sleep paralysis.
Diane Berry: Yes, and I knew what they looked like. The big, tall one as tall as the ceiling, kind of like a Darth Vader type dude, which actually is based on demon principalities, that character was at the end of the bed and then there were these three smaller ones on the side like bats. That paralyzed me, and I couldn’t move at all as I’m trying to say, “Jesus” and my lips, I couldn’t say it, and I just kept trying to.
Justin Daubenmire: [laughs] Those punks, they’re punks. They shut your mouth so you can’t say it. I experienced the same thing. I remember–
Diane Berry: Yes. My mouth, and jaw, and tongue was all locked, but I kept forcing it. “Jesus, the blood of Jesus.” I kept forcing, and the more I said it, the looser my lips and my tongue got. Eventually, I began to [unintelligible 01:26:14], ‘”The blood of Jesus, Jesus, in Jesus’ name, the blood of Jesus.
Justin Daubenmire: Oh my gosh.
Diane Berry: Then they went, but the reason why they could come and do that too is because I was demonized from within. The demons, they were in my soul.
Justin Daubenmire: Exactly. This is what I was telling someone the other day, and that when you’re experiencing things like this, it’s because you’re demon-possessed, demonized. When you’re demon-possessed demons come around you.
Diane Berry: Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: This is symptoms of being demon-possessed. I had someone wake up, and they love coming at night. I’ll tell you that right now. They love coming at night, the devil and the demons.
Diane Berry: They’re Cockroaches, they like the darkness. Turn on the light.
Justin Daubenmire: They love the darkness. They’re not going to fool you much in the daytime, but darkness–
Diane Berry: Depends on the spirit. I’ve had some clients testify when they have incubus spirits, they don’t leave them alone. They won’t leave them alone.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, the same thing happens, but I was telling someone that’s the deal. When you see a glass move across the counter without it moving, or you wake up with bite and scratch marks and things like this, it’s because you’re demon-possessed and you don’t know it.
Diane Berry: Exactly.
Justin Daubenmire: Anyhow, I had the same experience. They came in my room, a demon standing at the end of the bed paralyzed me, and I could see it. I could physically see it. I couldn’t see any other part of the room, not my bed, not me, nothing, but I could see it. Him and I were looking at each other eye to eye, and he demonically caused sleep paralysis on me. I was so mad that I was looking at this thing. I remember I wasn’t afraid, concerned a little bit, but not afraid. I said, “You’re going down.” I was so angry. I said, “You are going down,” and he muted my mouth, and jumped on top of me, and attacked me, and same thing, “Mm mm, mm mm,” trying to say, “Jesus.” [laughs]
Diane Berry: Right, [unintelligible 01:28:17] that happens to lots of people.
Justin Daubenmire: I’m like, “Your going down punk!” because–” Yes, and what’s amazing is this is how powerful the name of Jesus Christ is, is that when you get it out of your mouth, eventually, boom, they leave.
Diane Berry: Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: That’s why they mute your mouth because it’s supreme power. People talk about the devil, and witchcraft, and Wicca, and all these things having this power. They have a level of power, but it’s not supreme.
Diane Berry: Right.
Justin Daubenmire: The supreme power is Jesus Christ, and this is proof of people who experience things like this, where these spirits come in and paralyze you, forcing you, trying to force you to not say the name of Jesus, and as soon as you get it out, boom, they’re gone. They just do that to terrorize people anyhow. Torment. They want to torment.
Diane Berry: Yes, and to see what they can do.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes.
Diane Berry: How far they can go with that till that person stands on their authority in Christ. You mentioned the witchcraft and the certain level of power, but Jesus trumps it all. He defeats it all.
Justin Daubenmire: He already has.
Diane Berry: They’re all defeated. They’re all going to have all these demons, that from this, the occult and all that, they’re all going to be in the lake of fire forever.
Justin Daubenmire: Absolutely.
Diane Berry: Those serving that are on the losing side.
Justin Daubenmire: I think there’s many reasons why people get into the occult, and satanism, and Wicca, and different types of new age practice, and things like this. A lot of people are sincerely seeking, but again, I go back to the point that the reason people are seeking is because they’ve not seen supernatural power from Jesus Christ.
Right. That comes through the illustration of exorcism. You and I know that in the early century churches, that’s the number one way they led people to Jesus Christ, through public exorcisms.
These guys are back in the Greek and Roman times where they’re worshipping all kinds of gods and people are demon-possessed, and here comes these Christian apostles coming in and casting out demons publicly. All of these people see that supreme power and become Christians.
Diane Berry: Praise God.[crosstalk]
Justin Daubenmire: The art of exorcism in today’s times, especially in our Western culture, has been lost. God is reviving that, but this is what’s going to lead people to Christianity. Not having a cup of coffee and a doughnut in church and playing cool music. That’s not going to reach people who are into the new age, to occultism, and things like this. They want supernatural, they want to see the supernatural power of Jesus Christ. This is–
Diane Berry: Then I have to say that’s why Dr. Bob Larson has chosen to publicize when he’s able, and that’s what Jesus did. Jesus did none of this stuff, private.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, exactly.
Diane Berry: It’s like how does God get the Glory? It’s a testimony unto God’s power.
Justin Daubenmire: That’s right, absolutely.
Diane Berry: I was like, “Wow.”
Justin Daubenmire: Okay, so who–
Diane Berry: People learned– Go ahead.
Justin Daubenmire: Go ahead.
Diane Berry: I was just saying people learn from it, and it draws them to God, and it lets them see that “Hey, I can get help too.”
Justin Daubenmire: Absolutely.
Diane Berry: If everything was just done quiet behind closed doors, oh my gosh, can you imagine? Now we wouldn’t even have the word, God. We wouldn’t even have the Bible if that was the case.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes.
Diane Berry: Things were done out front and open and written. God made a point to have them recorded in the Bible so we could have them.
Justin Daubenmire: Right, exactly. Yes.
Diane Berry: It all makes sense. I’m not saying that every exorcism needs to be broadcast to the public. No, there are some things that are private, but when we can and when people are okay with it, that’s a good way to get that [unintelligible 01:32:03].
Justin Daubenmire: Sure, absolutely.
[music]
Justin Daubenmire: All right, so let’s get back to you and exorcism.
Diane Berry: Sure, okay.
Justin Daubenmire: Who did you contact? How did you have your first exorcism session? Let’s focus on your first exorcism session.
Diane Berry: I’ll share my failed exorcism sessions, okay. [chuckles]
Justin Daubenmire: You had a bunch of failed ones, huh?
Diane Berry: Not a bunch. Okay, so because of the depression, the suicide, the torment, because it was so powerful, overwhelming, and I was getting to the point to where I wasn’t functioning good, memories started to emerge in me because I started to get a little older. I was getting into my late 20s, and so on, and so things were surfacing within me.
I had a wonderful pastor at the time who understood dissociative identity. He doesn’t believe though that Christians can have demons. He will teach against that, but yet I knew differently because I knew what was going on inside me.
When he would say that to the congregation, I’d be sitting there, I go, “No, yes, I can,” because I knew I was demonized, and I knew I knew the Lod, I knew I was saved, that I was born again. They weren’t in my spirit, they were in my soul.
Justin Daubenmire: Right.
Diane Berry: Two different things that people really got to understand and the Bible does distinguish between them. My gosh, if we want to, we could list off the different people in the Bible that knew the Lord that had demons. Anyway, so began to see a Christian counselor. She knew pretty quick that I was demonized, but she herself wasn’t an exorcist.
She was able to lead me through renunciations, things I never did in my life. Things I was never taught [unintelligible 01:33:59]
Justin Daubenmire: Okay, that’s a good start.
Diane Berry: Yes, so renunciations of Islam, and the different teachings and different occultish things, whatever. We started to go through that and inner healing. We were working with dissociative identities. We begin to work through that, but she knew the demons are in the way, especially the ones of isolation that would prevent me from really being able to open up and talk. She’d have to just pry things out of me. I was just so lost in this isolation. She made an appointment for me to see a man, a minister who does exorcisms. We set this up one day to meet at a church, but yet I was so still locked up.
My dissociative fortress was so strong, and I was so distrusting of people. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know him, but he was very gentle, very kind. He was trying to ask me things and do things, and I just couldn’t be open with him. I just wasn’t able. I was not able to tell him what was going on inside in my mind, what I was seeing, and all that, and so we didn’t get anywhere with that. That was a failed attempt because I was so locked up within myself. We continued to work on, with her, the things that we could do in the way of the soul healing, and memories and trauma.
Justin Daubenmire: Got you.
Diane Berry: Then I had a friend, a really good friend of mine. He was my Taekwondo and hapkido instructor. I had my regular personal instructor with a master over him, then the Grand Master over him. Then this other man who frequented our school regularly, he was a missionary and a missionary overseas, so he knew Christians could have demons.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, exactly.
Diane Berry: Him I trusted because I knew him since I was a teen, started at the Taekwondo, and we’d have wonderful, long conversations about Christ all the time. They were doing care meetings at his home as part of the church ministry, the little home care group, cell groups as some call them, him and his wonderful wife. I could open up a little bit more with him and talk. One day after the meeting, we sat together with his wife to try to deal with these demons, you know?
Justin Daubenmire: Yes.
Diane Berry: He’s trying to go after them and everything. I think I was hearing Legion at the time, and there was definitely legions within me. He was trying, but I was still too reserved, too much of a– People’s personality really plays into this a lot, and especially when the devil has somebody really bound up. I was so wounded , and from my formative years of development as a baby from the things that I had suffered and endured, it was a purposeful isolated bubble, where things of abandonment were suffered, that the ability, not just the ability, but the inclination, the thought that I could reach out for help, call out for help because those cries were completely unheard, unanswered, and so, therefore, I didn’t have that within me if that makes sense.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes.
Diane Berry: Anyway, so, I wasn’t to the point to where the dissociative barriers are still to strong, are literally a fortress, which is a whole other story. Anyway, he couldn’t–
Justin Daubenmire: Was he able to expel any?
Diane Berry: No.
Justin Daubenmire: Okay.
Diane Berry: We couldn’t get them to manifest. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t let him out.
Justin Daubenmire: Got it, so who was the–
Diane Berry: Justin, it was self-deliverance with me and the Holy Ghost.
Justin Daubenmire: Okay.
Diane Berry: That’s why I said this was going to take an unexpected turn [chuckles] for you because of, again, my personality makeup, plus the things that the Lord wanted to teach me and show me. I learned so much from Dr. Bob Larson. In term of endearment, I still call him, Pastor Bob, going back all those decades from his radio show, talk back, and learning from him.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes. You had some of his books, I’m assuming on like the curse breaking and your–
Diane Berry: Oh yes. I learned a lot from him on things to do when I got his tapes back then, the VHS tapes, that you have to get to the point of the pain to get to the demons. I learned about the strongholds of the demons and legal rights, and so I had this info, this teaching, and so, together with the Holy Ghost, you know we’re going to go to work, but I think the first real one happened, one was deliberate with God, but for me, it was like spontaneous.
I wish I could remember I thought I would have tried to look at one of my journals, but there’s so many, to try to find the date and how old I was. I don’t really remember.
Justin Daubenmire: Got it.
Diane Berry: The first time it was a spirit of rejection, the Lord had brought healing regarding horrible abuse from childhood. There was many, but this was one, in particular, that was a real defining moment within my life and a real defining moment in a negative way, which completely stole my identity and crushed my will, my desire to live, and destroyed one of my most important relationships that a child can have. When the Lord brought the healing to that, and you rescued me from that situation, through the inner healing and then I was able to, for the first time in my life, even though I was a Christian for many years to that point, I was for the first time ever able to accept Jesus or God as my father, as my heavenly father. He just wrapped me, like I crawled into his lap and his big feathered arm wings just wrapped over me. It’s like I lived there ever since. Right after that, I received the healing of the trauma that took away now that legal right of that particular demon, that demon of rejection that came in as a result. That demon had been with me since that time, and that thing rose up.
I could feel it rising up in me, coming up and then manifested, and I can’t remember if I went through naming it. I said, had I thought to try to search through my journals but even if I would’ve looked through my journals, there are so many journals and trying to find this would not be easy. Understand that came from memory.
Justin Daubenmire: That’s great though. You brought up a good point that the healing removed the legal right of this spirit of rejection, this demon of rejection, and because it’s right had been removed now it’s being forced to leave. I just want to point out, and this is no bash on what you went through because it’s legit, it worked. For many people, it requires an exorcist to work with them to cast out the demons.
Diane Berry: It does. I agree.
Justin Daubenmire: I’ve worked with people and even myself included where we’ve renounced things. I renounced this, I renounced that, but the demons are never kicked out so they’re still there. They don’t have a legal right but they’re still there within the person’s mind until they’re forced to get out. There are times where self-deliverance can work. I, myself personally have had minimal luck doing that myself personally. Praise God that, that worked for you. I know that it does work for people, but for me, man, it just didn’t work. Maybe for smaller things, you know what I mean? but oh, my gosh, man.
Diane Berry: Having the exorcist, someone trained there it is better especially when there’s generational stuff and you got to break curses going back, you got to really interrogate the demon, find stuff out sometimes it’s soul transference. That’s where you need a trained individual. After that experience right when that thing left, oh my gosh the way I felt the peace of God, just in God’s love, it was like, oh my gosh.
Justin Daubenmire: That had to be wonderful.
Diane Berry: It was just amazing.
Justin Daubenmire: Oh that had to be Wonderful. What other benefits did you notice? That was just one demon that you got rid of and was expelled. I’m sure there were a lot more, but just from the rejection alone, that’s a very powerful spirit that many people have. It really does go back to childhood for many people the rejection. What other emotional benefits did you recognize, obviously, the feeling of love but were there any other emotional benefits that you found just by that one spirit being removed?
Diane Berry: Some of the self-hate and stuff like that, Unworthiness. Some of that went with that-
Justin Daubenmire: Praise God.
Diane Berry: -but because things were so heavy and involved with me and so much disassociation, a lot of things I had to work through, there were many different layers and levels that I had to get through with unworthiness, that spirit, or the hate, the self-rejection and all. The suicide was the toughest for me to overcome. The next, for me big spirit that was dealt with was Baal. I know so many pronounce it, Baal. Exorcists have found, Dr. Bob Larson has found, and there are books on this that have found through doing deliverance and healing, that people that have come through sexual abuse, that spirit of Baal and Jezebel have to be renounced, that’s their kingdom, that’s their domain.
They operate on other stuff too but that is a big one. I would go back and forth sometimes in dealing with my healing and sometimes I would go, “This is just too much” and I take a break and one day I remember I forget exactly what year it was, but I came in a face-off with God. He actually let me know very clearly that if I’m going to go any further in Him, if I’m going to get any closer to Him, I’m going to have to deal with my past. I’m going to have to let Him heal me, the disassociation. I had to make a choice and it was like, how much do I love God, do I want to go further? The answer was absolutely because I couldn’t live without Him. I made the decision I’m going to plow through and it was hard.
Justin Daubenmire: Well, that is one thing with disassociation is there comes a point where you have to trust God more than that disassociated part, and be willing to give that up and say that I’m not going to trust in that more than God. That’s personal to every person that has any disassociated parts. Sometimes people don’t even know they have those until they’re psychologically evaluated, and diagnosed with it.
Diane Berry: Then there’s the protector one. You got to get to the protector and that’s what it was for me. I remember one of the journal entries starts very clearly. One of the first times that I began the dissociative barriers began to fall and my journal entry starts off. I met Mr. Protector today. He was in the room with the other children. He was there protecting, and we couldn’t get to the ones that experienced the abuse, the trauma until we dealt with this big, massive individual that looked like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulder, that was trying to perfect everything. He had to surrender to Christ, get a new role, and get a new assignment in God. That was like a major thing.
Justin Daubenmire: I bet, yes.
Diane Berry: God showed me one day, my dissociative, the structure as like a castle or fortress because that’s what they are, it’s built to protect. It’s like the bricks of that castle, that fortress are these associative identities. One day he showed me a soul and my core identity, the part of myself just chained on that wall. Just chained in there, and we had to work with the dissociative parts, bring healing, let Jesus rescue and then deal with the demons in order to save that part of me, and we’re getting into allot here and it’s deep but.
Justin Daubenmire: That’s okay. How long did it take before you were willing to give up all the disassociated parts, get the demons removed attached to them, and get to a freed state? Another way of putting that is how long did that process take, a year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years?
Diane Berry: I don’t know the number, many years. My journals could help me to find but many years.
Justin Daubenmire: More than five years?
Diane Berry: Oh, gosh. Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: I’m just trying to give the listeners an expectation that if they’re disassociated and they’re recognizing this and that there could be demons attached to these.
Diane Berry: It depends on everybody’s different. If someone’s just dealing with a couple that’s different, but if somebody suffered extreme trauma, especially in their formative years of development then that’s my gosh, you know, it depends on what type of abuse and how often.
Justin Daubenmire: That’s a good point, and this is a very advanced topic of exorcism, which is disassociated identity disorder. This is something that’s really deep in advance, but it is a reality for many people, they disassociate going through trauma as a very young child to protect themselves otherwise, they would crack mentally. This is a way that the mind protects itself so that it doesn’t crack. It’s a survival technique and this is unfortunately, what Diane went through as a young child. She’s explaining here that she worked through that.
As she was able to allow these disassociated identities to let go as a protection, then those memories come back into the core of her personality and she remembers and has to work through them at that point. Very involved process. I didn’t have much disassociation. Going through the loss of my eyesight, I believe I did. I worked on that a little bit because of the trauma of going through the pain and everything of losing my eyesight. Not emotional, I’m talking physical, they, oh my gosh, man. They froze my eye one time and the pain was so excruciating. I remember I was coming home from the procedures about an hour and a half drive-
Diane Berry: How old were you?
Justin Daubenmire: I was 16, and I’m punching the roof as hard as I can. I remember pulling my dad’s hair from the back seat because I was in excruciating pain. I remember my body physically made me pass out to preserve it. That’s how bad the pain was. It physically made me black out.
Diane Berry: You were 15 or 16. What did you say?
Justin Daubenmire: Yes, 16. That was just one episode of what I went through with the loss of my eyesight. I just figured with that type of trauma, that young of an age, I had to have a disassociated part. I went to my exorcism with Larson and said, “Let’s work through this just in case. I really don’t know but if there is, let’s work through it because this is severe trauma that I experienced,” and so forth. Setting that aside, really we’d work through that but outside of that, just for an exorcism, I’m getting at 48 years old first time ever, it took me 14 months to get complete freedom.
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Justin Daubenmire: This is a concept that I think it’s worth mentioning based on the level of your trauma, based on the level of everything you’ve interacted with, everything that you’ve interacted with in your life, the level of your demon possession can take a decent amount of time. Often times it’s not a one-and-done thing. In today’s society, people want it to be this McDonald’s mentality, pull up, I want an exorcism, I’m done and move on and it’s not that easy.
Diane Berry: Thank you. Well, you’re bringing that up how people want this microwave-type stuff they don’t realize, especially, and it’s strange when somebody has lived a life of sin where they’ve slept around, now you’re getting those demons and they expect, let’s just finish this in one day. No.
Justin Daubenmire: No way.
Diane Berry: It doesn’t happen. Then sadly, there are those that may not have lived some type of horrible willful sinful life, but because of their ancestry there’s stuff in their– or they’ve been victims of abuse.
Justin Daubenmire: Exactly. How I explain to people, you didn’t get here overnight, you’re not getting out overnight. That’s the reality and you have to accept that. That this is work, it takes effort, but for me personally, the 14 months was nothing because the torment that I was under, the pain of that was greater than the discomfort of having to go through 14 months. When I say discomfort, I mean the time because we want things done so quickly, but I didn’t care. The pain was bad enough. I wouldn’t have cared if it took two years or more to get rid of all the demons because the pain and the suffering and the torment was that bad.
I didn’t care. I was going to do whatever I needed to do to get it done. In my case, it was 14 months, and other people’s cases, it could be eight months, it could be six months, it could be three months, it could be five years. It just depends on really you, your cooperation, your willingness to fight your willingness to go through with it, your level of dedication. Are you applying everything that the exorcist asks you to do, and so forth. Not everyone has that type of fight and it is a fight, you have to be tough to get to the end.
Diane Berry: Yes. I don’t think we shared this yet. That deliverance for the listener’s deliverance is the process of leading up to an actual exorcism, which is the expelling of the demon. Deliverance meaning breaking the soul ties, doing the renunciations, the soul, all of that. Then when going through exorcising the demon, weakening the demon, interrogating the demon and all of that, finding out it’s legal right.
Justin Daubenmire: The easy part is kicking the demons out, I say that tongue in cheek. It can be very involved, but when I work with people and I’m sure you do too, after they’re done with an exorcism, I encourage them strongly to go for counseling because left behind are dysfunctional thought patterns. It’s almost like if you had dogs come in your house, 25, 30 dogs, you get rid of the dogs, but there’s still pee stains everywhere, poop is laying all over the place.
Diane Berry: That’s how it was with me with the suicide spirit, That was the hardest one for me to get rid of. I’ll share about a couple of others, but there were a number of demons just horrible, the trauma and that the actual demon that I didn’t learn until I got rid of most of the others, because everything was traumatic for me. I said, “God, this is ridiculous. Why does everything that happens in my life have to be traumatic? Why?” Then finally, he let me know, there’s a spirit of trauma that I picked up might have even been with me from birth because that was a traumatic birth. I almost didn’t survive. Anyways, I had to get rid of that but even though with the suicide, even though we got to the point to where– I’m fast forwarding past a lot of exorcisms.
Justin Daubenmire: Sure. Absolutely.
Diane Berry: Even though, got to the point to where the soul healing was done, the parts of me that wanted to die are now rescued and healed and processed things and all of that. The reasoning it’s not there, the wanting to die, and we dealt with the demons. Even though all that’s done, there’s still the pattern, the habits of the mind, so because my mind was stuck in this groove of every time something went wrong, I would think or say, “I just want to die.” I had to learn to control my tongue. The book of James talks about that. Controlling the tongue and tells us life and death are in the power of the tongue and we eat the fruit of it.
Any time I would think or say these negative words, I would right away, I’d catch myself like, “Oh no, I renounce that in Jesus’ name” because demons, man, they come faster than sharks on blood. In Jesus name I renounced that, those words, renounce that stuff.
Justin Daubenmire: Like the old Jaws themes.
Diane Berry: If any demons, if I’d given any demons access, I’d cut them off in Jesus’ name. I had to. It took me, oh my gosh.
Justin Daubenmire: Long time. I’m the same way. I’m no different. There were patterns in me that when the demons were expelled for me personally, I went to counseling for eight months after my 14-month exorcism, because I wanted to process through and identify the dysfunctional thought processes that these demons have left behind. Now I could identify some of them, but I actually got together with a cognitive behavioral therapist and I said, “I want to identify systematically the dysfunctional thought patterns left behind from these demons.” That’s what he led me through for close to eight months.
Diane Berry: Praise God.
Justin Daubenmire: I would also pray to the Holy Spirit, “Give me an awareness when this comes up.” It’s so automatic like you’re saying out your mouth, man, I just wish I could die or what it’s like automatic because you’ve done it so much. The Holy Spirit would start prompting me inside and thank God for the Holy Spirit because he would help me catch these patterns and eventually, they fall off because it’s just like a habit. If you don’t keep doing something for what, two to three weeks, it’s going to fall off.
Diane Berry: Those are what we call in deliverance a stronghold. Very briefly for the audience or those that aren’t aware, the difference between legal rights and strongholds, the legal right is how the devil gets in, whether it’s willful sin or ancestral sin or cult practice, abuse, trauma, addictions. These are how the devil gets in, but they can be taken away by simple renunciation. The legal rights can be taken away by renunciation, but the strongholds are those mindsets, the emotions and those are [crosstalk]-
Justin Daubenmire: The thoughts and patterns and behavioral patterns.
Diane Berry: Exactly. That’s what needs to be dealt with through that soul healing and inner healing. I do want to briefly mention motives, the motives for the healing and deliverance, and exorcism. For me, it got to the point to where I was in a standstill with God. It was like, is he really my God? How much do I love him? Do I want to endure? This is part of my taking up my cross and dying to myself. It is for anybody. When you begin to allow the Holy Ghost to show you what’s inside you and to put that on the cross, you’re dying to yourself when you start to do that, so get rid of the demons.
Justin Daubenmire: A lot of times people want you to do the work as an exorcist for them and it doesn’t work that way. You have to roll up your sleeves and you’re just as much part of the process as the actual exorcist. The exorcist is like a coach.
Diane Berry: Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: Coaching you through it, but ultimately, it’s your will that’s going to get you free. That’s really what it boils down to. I’ve worked with people where, “Oh, yes, I want to do this. Oh my God, I got to get rid of this.” Then they show up one or two times and that’s it, they drop off because they realize, “Hey, wait a minute, I got to do work here.” [laughs]
Diane Berry: It has to do with that finished work of Christ. Do we want it applied to our lives? Do we want any of it to be in vain? That was one of my prayers. It was just something I try to get across to people and my clients. Yes, some people just begin to seek this type of freedom and healing and deliverance and exorcism because they want to be free. They want to live a better life. They’re in torment. That’s a lot of times what initiates it and that’s normal, but we got to also realize that this isn’t just about us. This is about God. This is about His work, His kingdom, His finished work on that cross, Jesus suffered immensely.
He was beyond recognition of a human being. Why do we want any drop of his blood to be wasted? I want everything that he’s done to be applied to my life. God, whatever you got to do, do that in me. Don’t let nothing be wasted. Give us this day, our daily bread. That’s a part of that right there.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes. Absolutely.
Diane Berry: Also, then what does that allow? That allows him to take us, to fill us with his presence. The more we give up those rights to the enemy of our soul, the more the demons leave within us, the more the healing, the bad thoughts and feelings all that goes. The more of Jesus we have, the more we become formed into his likeness, that bride without spot and wrinkle, that Christ is coming back for. The more we allow him to do that, now we can be used more by him. The more territory we allow him to take in us, the more he can use us to take territory for his kingdom.
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Justin Daubenmire: Let’s touch on one more thing and then we’ll wrap it up. You mentioned this, and it’s a fascinating concept, the ancestral curses and being born with them. Explain that to the listeners. What is that? Now, in your case, you believe that you were born with ancestral curses on your life, is that correct?
Diane Berry: I believe abuse was there. Most likely suicide was already there. Trauma was probably already there because of knowing my family.
Justin Daubenmire: You’re saying that those demons were present in the family history of the family?
Diane Berry: Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: I believe myself personally, I was born with demons. Now, my father’s German, my mother’s Irish. There was a lot of ancestral evil on both sides of those family lines. I explain it to people like this, my father and mother, they gave me brown eyes, brown hair, Caucasian skin. They gave me my skeletal form. They genetically passed all this stuff on to me, right? Who’s to say they can’t spiritually pass on demons to me at birth?
Diane Berry: It’s so logical.
Justin Daubenmire: It is, and people are so afraid of this. They also try to look at it logically and say that there’s no way an innocent, beautiful baby could be born with demons. I wish that thought was correct, but it’s not because many people I work with, including myself, were born with curses on our lives that weren’t broken. My father German, my mother, Irish, they never broke any curses. They were first-generation Christians. They were the first people to become Christians and then I was born.
Diane Berry: Yes. When a parent wants to abort a child, but they end up not, quite often that child carries that spirit of rejection.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes. Absolutely.
Diane Berry: Even the spirit of murder can–
Justin Daubenmire: Murder as well. Yes. I know people who the mother was pregnant and said “I wish I wasn’t pregnant with you” because maybe they weren’t able financially to afford it, or maybe they weren’t ready for it just in general in their marriage and that baby was born. They can sense that and born with rejection on them and feeling unloved their whole childhood, and then as adults, they really can’t figure out why they never felt love from their mother. It’s because you had a curse spoken on you.
Diane Berry: Exactly. Yes.
Justin Daubenmire: Yes. Interesting stuff. Well–
Diane Berry: You want me to share quickly two of the other major exorcisms that stand out in my mind?
Justin Daubenmire: Yes. Then we’ll go ahead and wrap it up and offer some encouragement and contact info and call it a wrap.
Diane Berry: Sounds good. I appreciate this time, Justin.
Justin Daubenmire: Oh, no problem. Go for it.
Diane Berry: Awesome.
Justin Daubenmire: You have two more exorcisms that, stick out. Go ahead. Tell us about those.
Diane Berry: Oh, like I said, there’s been a lot where I’d be in the presence of God and things will come up and because there’s so much, but anyways, two distinct ones, and again, this was self, this was with me and the Holy Ghost. He also used others to trigger it, to get it started how God tagged teams. One happened to be one of my Taekwondo students who also happens to be a charismatic Anglican minister.
Justin Daubenmire: Cool.
Diane Berry: This is going back some years, many years ago and in my conversations with him and so on, he knew and he was someone I could trust a little bit and he was another man I was able to open up to and trust with some prayer. He’d even prayed with me once regarding this. Again, I was too locked up at the time to really let it happen. I was still learning to trust but he gave me a gift, a book and I forget the name of the book. In the book, it talked about the Kingdom of Baal, that if you’ve ever been sexually abused that you need to renounce this kingdom because that’s this kingdom and Jezebel as well.
Anyways, I come home with the book. I was very grateful for it and I sit down and when I have the book in front of me, God supernaturally opens the book to a particular chapter way towards the back. My eyes start to fall I started reading. It’s teaching about the Kingdom of Baal and how sexual abuse victims need to renounce. As soon as I did that, this sucker, if I can call him that comes, that thing starts to manifest, comes up in me and erupts with, I mean, it was–
Justin Daubenmire: Growling and all that carrying on.
Diane Berry: -I could feel such a darkness. Such a darkness from this spirit. It was horrible, dark. It was mean, yes, ugly like murder. Oh my gosh and we got rid of that thing and then God filled me with his presence. Then another time this was a spirit of infirmity. I was at a church service and there was a beautiful, sweet, like a motherly spiritual mother to many in the church who was a prophet.
Justin Daubenmire: Watch out for him a lot of times they got demons, dude. [laughs] Go ahead though. I’m sorry.
Diane Berry: A prophetess of the house. I went up she was praying with me. She was talking to me nice and casual. She says “You know, when you go home, you want to read–” I think it was in Isaiah, the Book of Isaiah. I forget what chapter, wish I can remember right now, which chapter it was. I don’t know if it was 60 or 53, I have to look that up. She said, “When you go home, read this.” I did, I came home, I sat in my recliner and I opened up and I begin to read. All of a sudden, the Lord used that for the spirit of infirmity because that chapter was about that.
Justin Daubenmire: Are you thinking about Isaiah 53 where it’s talking about by his stripes you’re healed?
Diane Berry: I know that that’s that chapter, but I don’t think that was the one.
Justin Daubenmire: Got it. Never mind. Go ahead.
Diane Berry: I think it was in the 60s, but anyways somewhere in those chapters, but anyways, so I’m going through it and then the spirit of infirmity begins. It just comes up. It rises up in me and so God freed me from that one and I get filled with His presence. Again, I’m sharing things that are not the common type like you said earlier, most of the time we need that exorcist, that other person there, but God did a tag team.
Justin Daubenmire: Praise God. That is awesome.
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Justin Daubenmire: Well, Diane, I would like to thank you so much for coming onto the podcast here. I am definitely sure many, many people have been challenged by what you’ve shared, encouraged, inspired. That’s a good thing. Do you want to share a few closing thoughts to encourage people that maybe they’re torn, like I don’t know about whether I’m demon-possessed and they’re on the fence. Maybe they are Swade a little. Maybe they’re not. What words of encouragement can you give to somebody that might be, like I said, on the fence about whether they should go get help, or just leave it alone?
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Diane Berry: I want to say to people, don’t let the terminology and wording scare you. Don’t get caught up in that. I’ve seen the enemy continue to constantly use that to keep people from learning or getting help. If there’s demons inside you, you got to get rid of them. When we come to Christ and we get born again number one, you got to start there. If you don’t know Jesus, you got to say, “Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for my sin. I believe you arose from the dead on the third day. Live your life for me and ask God to forgive you to make you a part of his family so that spiritual birth brings your spirit to life.
You’re now born again, but you still have this. You have your flesh, the soul, your emotions, your intellect, your imaginations, your feelings, all of that. The devil can live there and mess with that. Logically, you’re going to realize that somebody within your bloodline, probably more than one person and many have committed something, some act that had the enemy, gave the legal right to the devil to enter your bloodline. Deliverance is always– It’s something that should be done as soon as someone comes to Christ. This country and part of the western world is just messed up in whatever reasons whether it’s pride, whatever they’re messed up regarding that, but other parts of the world, it’s just common. Go for it.
You said at the beginning of the show, but I’m also a Christian counselor. Besides having the training in direct deliverance and exorcism, I don’t want people to be psyched out or fearful of this term. Exorcism is just to cast out. That’s who Jesus was. Don’t allow the devil to use Hollywood to mess up your thinking listeners regarding that, please. Again, don’t get caught up on terms. I have to stress that because too many people do and it keeps them bound.
Justin Daubenmire: If you’d like to contact Diane, you can reach her by email at soldierofhope85@gmail.com. That’s soldierofhope85@gmail.com. I’ll also be putting a link to her Full Force Ministries webpage on the blog post for this podcast. Visit my website, justind.com, and find this blog post for this episode, and you will find the link to her Full Force Ministries webpage.
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Justin Daubenmire: And you never know, you may be demon-possessed and this is the first time you’re coming to the realization of it. If that’s you, I’d like to invite you right now to go to my website, justind.com and book a session with me and let’s get rid of your unwanted guests and start moving you toward freedom and a quiet mind. Thanks for listening. Until next time, God bless.