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If you’re interested in the topic of exorcism, the documentary, “The Devil and Father Amorth,” is worth your time.

It’s a professionally made documentary primarily due to the thoroughness of the director. He interviews a broad sample of observers (and participants) around the exorcisms. And, despite his expertise, the director removes all effects and technical obstacles from his subject rather than add layers of them as he did in “The Exorcist.”

If you’ve watched the clip, you’ve heard the voice of one of the possessed women (Christina) at 1 minute, 12 seconds into the above trailer.

I consistently hear three voices every time the one being exorcised cries out. If this is, somehow, faked by the director, it discredits the documentary. However, I don’t suspect there was any sound editing of the ladies voice. To satisfy my own curiosity of the makeup of these “voices,” I captured many of them from the documentary, and you can see their spectral frequency prints, below.

Dissociative Trance Disorder?

When the director interviews a room full of five doctors of various expertise, he’s quickly referred to what the doctors say is “a recognized diagnosis, worldwide”: Dissociative Trance Disorder.1 From the abstract of that paper:

Although dissociative trance disorders, especially possession disorder, are probably more common than is usually though, precise clinical data are lacking. Ten persons undergoing exorcisms for devil trance possession state were studied with the Dissociative Disorders Diagnostic Schedule and the Rorschach test. These persons had many traits in common with dissociative identity disorder patients. They were overwhelmed by paranormal experiences. Despite claiming possession by a demon, most of them managed to maintain normal social functioning.

You can read the full paper, online.

Bishop Barron Isn’t Ready

Robert Barron, a Catholic bishop in Los Angeles, says he wouldn’t speak to the devil like Father Amorth because he’s not at that spiritual level:

Speaking to the devil like Father Amorth? I would never dare do that. I’m not there, spiritually, I think it’s a very dangerous thing…it’s dangerous ground. You have to be really, really, Holy. . . I’m not ready for that; I’d be afraid.

Jeffrey B. Russell’s Says it Best

One of the most insightful comments in the documentary is by Jeffrey Burton Russell, author of “The Prince of Darkness.” Jeffrey says that possession is merely the seizure of your body.

The way they take over your soul is by tempting you to sin. That’s how they get you because you’re using your free will to do evil.

Spectral Frequency Displays

As a musician, I have a good ear for sounds and the ability to distinguish between them.

For example, you know that feeling you get when you’re watching a movie and can’t quite place the voice? I rarely experience that since the person behind the voice is evident to me (If I know who they are in real life.)

To make a more objective visual image, however, I used the Spectral Frequency Display in Adobe Audition to show the “print” of the voices in this documentary.

For reference: human speaking voices for men range from ~85 – 180hz and for women, 165 – 255 Hz. Frequencies above this are usually attributed to harmonics, room echo, or non-vocal-cord sounds produced by the throat. All of those elements are present in the voice prints, below.

The vertical axis is frequency, and the horizontal axis is time. The brightness represents the loudness of the sound source in that frequency range. The bright yellow areas are the primary sound, the orange and purple are harmonics, echo, or non-vocal-cord sounds. The black areas are silent.

Here’s the director’s voice asking a question:

Director's Voice

Here’s Christina answering the Director’s question:

Christina Speaking

Father Amorth praying:

Father Amorth makes a guttural sound during prayer:

Father-Amort-Makes-Gutteral-Sounds-web

Family praying together:

Family Praying

Christina’s first “possessed” voice:

Christinas-First-Possessed-Voice-web

A six-second segment of Christina’s possessed voice:

Christina long segment of possessed voice

When looking at the prints of Christina’s voice during the possession, it becomes apparent why it gives the impression of either three or four voices. Two frequencies are pronounced enough to be heard separately at 1k and below. Two more are at 2k-4k. Her first print is also extraordinary in that it emits harmonics >16khz. No other voice in the documentary does that.

But look at the print when Father Amorth makes a guttural sound during prayer. Strong harmonics appear three or four times just below 3k Hz. This is an important comparison because Father and Christina are in the same room at the same time.

For an additional comparison, I’ve recorded two isolated voice tracks of Janis Joplin. The recordings attempt to isolate only Janis’ voice to be as similar as possible to the Father Amorth and Christina.

Janis Joplin, Clip #1:

Janis Joplin Clip 1

Janis Joplin, Clip #2:

Janis Joplin Clip 2


  1. ”Dissociative Trance Disorder: Clinical and Rorschach Findings in Ten Persons Reporting Demon Possession and Treated by Exorcism” by Stefano Ferracuti, Roberta Sacco, and Renato Lazzari, Dept. Of Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine, University of Rome “La Sapienza.” Journal of Personality Assessment, 1996, 66(3), 525-539, Copyright 1996, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 

Dr. Heiser’s Naked Bible podcast is one of my favorites. With 215 episodes and climbing it’s become a challenge to find which episode mentions a topic of interest. Thankfully, there’s a transcript made of each episode. But how do you search the content of hundreds of separate files?

Like this:

Please support the NB podcast and download the transcripts from Dr. Heiser’s website as they come out. If you need a jumpstart, I’ve put zip files on the Divine Council Forum with all transcripts as of May 24, 2018. I won’t be keeping these up to date so download new transcripts from the NB Podcast site.

Searching Filenames is Easy; Searching File Content is Hard

Searching the contents of hundreds of files is no easy task. The two best (only?) tools for this are Adobe Acrobat Pro and DevonThink.

Acrobat Pro

With Acrobat Pro, there are two options to search multiple pdfs: search a directory or search an index. My searches take five seconds without an index and two seconds with an index. I haven’t used Acrobat to search more than 200 files in a directory but presume the lag time will increase files increase.

DevonThink

DevonThink searches return instantly. An index is built and updated as files are imported and the search time for 215 NB transcripts is not discernible. I have another directory with 1900 files of similar size and the search time for that directory is also indiscernible. Wow.

Recommendation

Both Acrobat and DevonThink are crucial to my workflows. If I had to choose one tool for this job, however, it would be DevonThink. Searching the contents of thousands of files is what it’s designed to do, and it does it exceptionally well. If you need to perform searches like this on a routine basis, the $149 cost is a no-brainer. It comes with the best OCR conversion engine (ABBYY FineReader) which costs more than DevonThink itself, go figure.

Adobe seems to overprice the standalone purchase of their software to encourage users to choose a subscription, instead. Since I use six of the tools in the Adobe CC suite on a routine basis, the $50/month is justified. Your mileage may vary.

A friend and I were privately discussing the challenges of searching scanned paper books by the Greek and Hebrew words they contain. What follows is one of my replies, with personal references deleted, that may apply to other DC readers.

“Yep, I know just the garbled mess you’re talking about.

DevonThink searches the Greek and Hebrew fine for original documents. However, I think you’re talking about how it handles scanned images of paper books containing English, Greek, and/or Hebrew which is the hardest case “out there.” That boils down to OCR engines, none of which can handle Hebrew very well, yet.

The only good news is comparative in that DT uses the best OCR engine (ABBYY FineReader.) Even so, I don’t see the ability to handle niqqud on the Hebrew characters, but neither do any other alternatives.

If you’re starting with a scanned book, using an OCR engine to convert to text, and then exporting the resulting PDF to .docx in order to upload to Logos, I’ve found no workaround other than the publisher doing it for us (and charging more), or the work of someone who knows what they’re doing.

Ideally, the publisher has a digital copy, makes a deal with FaithLife, and FaithLife begins with the digital copy (side-stepping language issues) and starts tagging.

The more I learn, the more I’ve come to respect the amount of formatting work FaithLife has to do. That’s also why I focus on the 5 or 10% of the Divine Council Bibliography that is most urgent for scholarly work.

Having said all that, if you’ve found a few Divine Council resources that tend to be at the heart of your work let’s talk about what it would take to get them formatted, properly, for upload to Logos.

If you’re a MAC user doing research or writing, DevonThink is inevitable. There’s nothing out there that competes. I have DT office pro, and it’s one of those “always running” apps. Spotlight, HoudahSpot, Easyfind, DefailtFolderX, Acrobat, sure. But DevonThink is mandatory, IMO.”

Want to quote a Bible verse without leaving your word processor using one keyboard shortcut?

Quoting the Bible with Keyboard Shortcut

Mark Ward describes two ways to do it.

Yes, it works from within Scrivener, too!

One year ago, I took the plunge into Logos Bible software.

I’d seen it advertised for 10 years but never understood what it was. The hundreds of books in various collections were impressive, but so what? E-books and pdf’s are ubiquitous, nowadays, and I had a dozen Bibles and a hundred other books in Olive Tree, already.

Little did I know, it’s what Logos does with the books that makes all the difference. Every book is indexed and cross-linked with every other book in your library, as well as with powerful language tools. The result is the ability to see your whole library from as many vantage points as the books you have in it.

I wish my entire library was in the Logos format!

Mmm, that’s an interesting idea …

Could My Entire Library be in Logos?

Yes, of course it could. Much of my library is already in kindle; why couldn’t the same books be in Logos? It would be an enormous and ongoing challenge, of course. But I can’t think of a better company to do it.

There are 1575 books in my Logos library and about the same number on the shelf behind me. For space and research reasons, I no longer buy physical books. That’s why my kindle library is at 453 books and growing. Why not have all these books accessible from the Logos software “Engine”? Imagine the wonderful new tools and interactives that might be developed to view math, physics, and biology books!

Logos enables the import of books but they have to be in MS-Word format. No, thank you. Anyway, having the book in digital form is only the start of the work FaithLife does in cross-indexing books with the rest of the library.

Library with a Spiritual Core

For much of recorded history, the words Philosophy and Theology meant the same thing. Since I believe we are spiritual beings having a human experience, I find it natural to have a library (and viewing engine) built around a spiritual core. After all, the Bible was the first book run through a printing press. When you’ve got a large library to digitize, why not start there as Logos has done?

Pervasive Software

I’d like to say the software is central to my workday, but that doesn’t capture it. Logos is pervasive to my work and personal life. I may even use it continuously, depending on what I’m writing about.

Logos has a front page that resembles an online newspaper. For me, that front page has replaced the Drudge report as the first thing I read in the morning.

Logos Front Page
Logos Front Page

Other key features for me, are:

  • All Bible/Theological resources are in one integrated app and synced on the computer, phone and tablet.
  • Familiarity with Notes, Highlights, and Clippings has centralized prep for writing topics, group study, and presentations.
  • Combined with Apple TV and the Logos mobile app, I can prepare for studies and presentations on the desktop and present from the tablet to be displayed to on any TV or Computer monitor.
  • Prayer lists are synchronized across all devices.
  • Forum interactions are displayed on the front page.

Perhaps you can see why I’d love to have my entire library in Logos format?!

Level’s and Packages

Though I care deeply about the true meaning of every passage, I am, to borrow a phrase from Mike Heiser, denominationally apathetic. C.S. Lewis would describe me as a mere Christian. I would argue that such makes me a Catholic, in the true universal sense of the word, but that’s a discussion for another day.

My mere Christianity left me baffled by the denominationally tiered packages offered by Logos. After analyzing each one, at great length and with the help of a seminarian, I went with the “standard” platinum package and then supplemented with the suggestions of a seminarian friend (Thank you, Dennis!).

At the time of purchase, Logos 6 was the latest. The upgrade to version 7 was free, and I also have a Logos Now subscription. I’m not exactly sure about all the benefits of the subscription, but I don’t think FaithLife is, either. They’re trying to figure out how to roll out functionality, quickly, and still remain profitable. Adobe addressed similar challenges with a subscription model, as well.

Training Path

Upon installation, I felt the inevitable overwhelm of the vast resources and tools that FaithLife has been working on since 1992. There’s no lack of Logos training available, but even that can become a source of overwhelm.

It took a year, but I’ve now gone through most of the training available. Even so, it was only last month that I started to feel a sense of competence. To achieve the same in three to six months, I’d recommend taking the training in this order:

  1. 30 Logos videos (Came with Base Package)
  2. View 2 videos a day of the free online pro training videos
  3. Mastering Logos by Danny Zacharias was fabulous (And includes Logos 7)!
  4. Logos Bible Software Training Manual, Volume 1-3 by Morris Proctor
  5. Logos Blog articles by Morris Proctor on Logos.com
  6. Logos Blog articles by Mark Ward and Steve Runge on Logos.com
  7. LT271 Study the Bible with Logos: Jonah 1 (Came with Base Package)
  8. DIY Bible Study course (Came with Base Package)
  9. Repeat.

LearnLogos.com by John Fallahee looks promising but I can’t vouch for it since I’ve not taken John’s courses. He has 40+ hours of Logos 7 training with 1000 videos.

Interactives, 3 of 36!

The Psalms Explorer

Timeline Interactive

Concordance Tool (Make a concordance out of ANY book in your Library!)

You can see them all on the Logos Pro Training page.

Life Applications

So far, I’ve written five articles for which Logos was a key resource. One of them required knowing every New Testament reference made of the Old Testament by both Paul and Jesus. The ability to gather knowledge like that was not possible before software like Logos came along.

The exegetical summaries provide an overview of most commentaries in one place. These enable me to objectively say things like, “Most commentaries refer to X” or “Commentaries are divided on Y”.

The reverse interlinears are the equivalent of light-speed language travel for the Greek and Hebrew handicapped.

The list goes on and on:

  • What does the Bible say about X?
  • What does this passage really mean?
  • What did the church think it meant throughout history?
  • What are the primary story arcs and their relationship with each other?
  • Is this a reference to the Old Testament?

Missionary Work

A young couple in our church are thinking about doing missionary work in the Philippines. If they go, Logos on their laptop and tablets will enable them to travel and work without being anchored to the roomful of books they relied on in seminary.

The videos of their prospective outpost show people traveling for days, by jeep and moped, just to spend a few days with someone with a firm understanding of the Bible. Upon graduation, new pastors may, or may not, receive the treasure of a Bible, a dictionary, and a systematic theology book.

Imagine how the strategic placement of laptops and tablets with a Logos library would transform the renewal of minds in remote places in the world!

Already, but Not Yet!

As of the coming of Jesus, the Kingdom of God is already, but not yet fully, upon us. That’s a fitting metaphor for the way I feel about Logos Software. I’m already using it to great effect, but don’t yet fully understand the software and all it can do.

Given the work that FaithLife is doing to add ever more value and insight to the texts, I suspect the “already, but not yet” paradigm will describe my relationship with the software until Kingdom come!