Okay, we are alive. How this is William Ramsey. Welcome to William Ramsey Investigates. On today's show. I have a very special guest of returning guest. We spoke back in September of twenty twenty two about a book I was interested in, and the full title of the book we talked about two years ago is It's Not about the sex. True stories of human trafficking from a law enforcement officer, a survivor, a brothel madam, and an advocate. And the
book has become even more timely now. We were just kind of chatting in the pre show about so much as in the news, and like I was mentioning to him some of my recent experiences I had staying at a hotel and also just hearing other stories. I think it's the head of the DHS as a homan or
something that's going to be a new guy. Like all of these places where they're builders are building new apartments or something like that, they have kind of their own sex workers attached to these projects and things like that, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. And it's incredible that you pay taxes to have your government kind of bungle these things, but that's not what we're gonna We're gonna kind of mention that today. But the reason for this interview is that John D. Girolamo has has
published a new book. And if you're watching this on x rockfin or Rumble, the full title of this book is It's Not about the d E V I L Devil spelled a little differently, it's not about the devil or not about the Evil. Subtitle is true Stories about fighting evil in the modern world. A police officer battles online predators, abortion doctor transforms into your pro life advocate, and the extorcist team confronts diabolic forces. So it's broken
into three parts. And I was just kind of reading through his website, which is it is not about dot com. So it's all the words it's not it's it's I T I S N O T A B O U T dot com. So he's an author speaker. He has two other books. One is It's Not About the Badge, Real Cops, Real Stories join their Journey, and the other one is It's Not About the Predator Parents Guide to Internet and Social Media Safety, which is very important these days. I just hear so many stories, just even recent stories
through pau person online. Somebody told crazy stuff and then you know, these horrible events occurs. So there's a lot of that. It ties into this book. It's not about the devils. So John di Jirolama, welcome back to the show.
Hey, thanks for having me. Really appreciate to be back.
Excellent. So for people we haven't talked in a couple of years, maybe you can just for people who haven't heard our earlier interview, maybe you could just do an overview of your career. I have some of the stuff that you had at the back of the book about the book and that you're a member of the Christian Author's Network Christian Indie Publishing Association also speaker. Like I said, maybe you can just do an overview of your background and what led up to writing this new book.
It's not about the double so you know I wrote the first book. It's not about the badge featuring police officers during the kind of the George Floyd twenty twenty type of era where I really I didn't feel like police officers were given a voice, and I wanted to do that, and so I wanted to get the human side. Who's that person behind the badge? And one of the guys I was interviewing would ask easy questions at the end, you know, what's your favorite song, what would you do
if you want the lottery? And he just sort of stopped stone cold and said, I'd quit my job and hunt down human traffickers. And I was kind of stunned by this response, And at that moment, I knew that I had my next book, and more importantly, I didn't know anything about human trafficking. So it's sort of set me down this path to find out more and tell
the stories of real people from different perspectives. And as you mentioned, there's kind of four different ways, you know, to kind of look at that issue and just the terrible atrocity that we have. And for me, you know, human trafficking is one of the most evil things that somebody can do to another person. And I started speaking about it and I was getting questions, and I realized
that the online portion of human trafficking was growing. But also predators online are looking for a bunch of other stuff besides human trafficking. You know, they may want to meet, they may want to export your child, or they might want more content. And so so then I put together this I would just say common sense, you know, fifty plus page book that that kind of just gives parents an idea of what's going on. And that led me to my latest book, which was, well, Who's the Ultimate Predator?
It's really Satan and the Devil's real and a lot of secular society wants to discount that. They don't want to believe that, And I wanted to feature three people who are fighting evil in their own unique way, and that's what I came up with. So so I think it's some some pretty interesting stories about this modern evil that we're seeing, right.
And there's a lot of it out there. There's a lot of different things. A lot of things are happening online. Now that everybody is online, it's become a way for good things to happen, Like you and I can talk and cheer information and cheer books. But there's also a darker side, right, a darker side to the web.
Yeah, and kids are getting online earlier and earlier than ever before. You know, it's not just high schoolers. You know, how many times have you seen a three or four year old playing with some iPad or their parents phone or something like that, And so they have no idea how to navigate the online world. I mean, you wouldn't let your eleven year old wantunder the mall by him or herself, So why would you let that child wander the internet when there's a lot more danger out there right right?
And there's a lot of danger, a lot of catfishing, a lot of fake names, a lot of fronts, a lot of strange things like I followed the seven to six four group really dark satanic, like super dark, spiritual evil. But they get people on very benign sites. So your kids could even be on Roadblocks, right, and that they strike up a conversation there. So there's a lot of places that you may think that are safe but aren't.
Well yeah, and that's one of the big myths for parents is you know, ABC Males, Roadblocks, places like that that might be age appropriate doesn't mean child safe. And so programs like Roadblocks have cat features and they advertise chat play with you know, people from all over the world. World. Well, where do you think the predators are hanging out? Right?
They're going to where the kids are, And so an unsuspecting parent may may find that their kid is being chatted up by a predator from who knows where, right.
And it could be anywhere. I mean, and you kind of on your first section of this book, you just show that some of these people can just be your average guy, you know, down the street, right, the average benign looking guy down the street.
Yeah, it's it's it's really hard to tell just by looking at somebody, you know, it's it's I mean, yes, there's definitely the you know, the pedophiles that are you know, never leave the house in their parents' basement, you know, all day. But many times they're functioning members of society. They have jobs, they are married, many times may have kids themselves, and so you just can't really look at it.
And you could see headline after headline of somebody who seems like a normal member of society, and yet they might be collecting, you know, child pornography pictures, they may be trying to meet somebody. And the police officers that I interviewed and the one featured in this book, you know, they arrested somebody who was exactly that just looked like a very normal member of society.
Right, So these guys could be anything, but there's usually a long it gets worse than wors. So there's like a grooming process. So back in the day before the internet, the grooming process when in person, but this takes place online, right.
Yeah, exactly. And what they're going to do is they're just going to, you know, throw as many darts and see what sticks. Because somebody who reacts to an online inquiry or a friend, work press, something like that, that's
who they're going to zoom in on. And you know, the kids today, they've grown up on the internet, grown up on it, and they view a friend online as the equivalent of a friend that they might have in their in their class, you know, somebody that they see in person every day, they see that as the equivalent. And that's not you know, our generation, we know that there's a difference between an online person that you've never
met and somebody who you see every day. But today's team, they they kind of see that as a bit of a blurry line. And if you if you talk to teens and different surveys that I've seen, you know, it's a high number that have met somebody who's a stranger online in person, or have chatted with that person, sent pictures things like that. It's a really high percentage that should really terrify every parent.
Yeah, and it's much more common dating takes place online now out for younger people meeting people all that stuff. Like you said, so, who do you know if this person is real? I know people who've gone out to meet these people in howdy they say they are or they have fake you know, pictures or things like that, So it's really dicey. And then you throw in, you know, a thirteen fourteen year old child on roadblocks, and some of these are really bad, Like, it gets very very dark,
and there's a lot of what it can be. You can be blackmailed, and it leads to some of these kids doing you know, hurting themselves and all kinds of stuff. And then there's like a what a lot of people don't know what you mentioned in your book is there's like squads of online pedophiles competing against each other, which is really sick.
Yeah, and what most parents don't realize is it can happen really really fast. So and I talked to multiple police officers about this. So, for example, one of the ways that they will target boys, which sometimes surprises a parent. They think they're just after females, but that's really not true. So what someone will do is they'll create, typically a fake profile of a a good looking college age girl. This person will send a friend request to a teenage
boy and chat that person up. And the next thing, you know, this good looking, you know, college age girl is sending explicit pictures. It's probably a freak profile. They probably downloaded this from a pornography site. But they sent us to this team to get his attention and have said, look, I've shown you, now you show me. And so that team is then pressured into sending a picture explicit picture
of himself. He does, and then immediately that person can extort for money and if they pay, they will meet ask for money once again. And if they don't pay, if they're seeing what you know, social network that you're in, they will absolutely follow through with the threat of exposing this picture to you know, to that social network, making it come. And what the police officers have told me is that scenario I just described twenty four hours can
happen twenty four hours. So the parent might think, hey, yesterday their kid was fine. Today, their moody, disturb upset, stress, they have no idea what happened, and yet it could be so fast that the parents really have to have that awkward conversation with their teens and say this is real, this can happen, and if it does, if you get caught, if you make a mistake, please come to me the parent.
Don't think that you're in it alone. But so many teams, you know, they don't talk to their parents, or maybe they're not supervised, maybe they come from a difficult household. And now this team is feeling very isolated and lonely, and as you mentioned, there's gonna be a lot of self harm associated with this because the teen doesn't know what to.
Do and leading to suicide. I mean, it's a terrible thing. It can happen, So yeah, very.
Serious, absolutely, it's it's really it's really tragic and evil what these predators are doing to get, you know, a few hundred bucks out of a team.
And there's people online. There was a guy busted in Texas. He was a teenager and his life was grooming and abusing other children online. He literally spent ten hours a day doing it on these on these what on these sites, Like I've done other shows on this, he's on Roadblocks and Fortnite and other things like that that are very inocuous or tain. I guess you wouldn't think anything's going on.
But then he says, come here, I've got a discord channel or I've got some other channel or telegram, and then it gets worse and worse and worse, just like you said in these like you said, it's what happens to boys too. A lot of them are women and they just get led down and it's almost like how much can they get away with?
So, yeah, the disturbing the disturbing trend is when you've got really a child on child type of situation. It's you know, they're definitely the adult pedophiles out there, But the disturbing trend you talk to counselor psychologists, et cetera, is it's the teenager on a younger child.
Yeah, that's pretty bad, and now it's going to get more sophisticated. Chuck in the chat says they've been faking profiles even more with AI audio video or pick. Yeah, so throwing some AI in there. Wow, So people really need to be careful. Really do they really need to keep an eye on their kids and what they're up to and who they're talking to. And also, Tom think, don't you think it's information or telling them the risks online are important.
Yeah, you really have to talk to your child about what they're doing online and who are they talking to, and letting them know that there's dangers, there's risks and if they do run into trouble to come and come and talk to the parent. And it starts early, you know, if you you know, talk to a lot of different experts.
They're telling you to have to start the conversation at around age seven, because not only are a lot of seven year olds online, a lot of these kids have you know, Chrome books at school, and the schools will tell you they're safe. I've talked to people who will tell you that's absolutely not safe. But the other risk that parents don't realize is, hey, maybe you're really controlling what your child is looking at because they're only seven
or ten. But then they go over a friend's house and who knows what they're seeing over there, And there's plenty of stories out there about his being exposed to all kinds of things, including pornography through just hanging out. Spreads.
Right, No, it's incredible and I think it's good. Like a lot of these states are starting to have sign ins checking age for pornography things like that, which I think is a good change. I'm surprised they did it with some of these legislation wasn't there in the past, but I guess they're catching up. But the public has to figure out, like be very careful. There really are a lot of pregators out.
There and horrible.
Stories like but that's not the only the kind of the content. You also cover kind of the perils of kind of you know, people who have had abortions and then become pro life, and also exorcism, right, can you talk a little bit about.
That, Yeah, sure, so. So the other two stories are you know, real people individuals that that I interviewed, got testimony, looked at case files. One of them was an abortion doctor who has a has a story of how she
transformed into a pro life advocate. It's it's a very compelling story that's decades long in the making for her and and how she really it parallels how she came back to the church and it's a it's it's it's a very christ centered story of how her relationship with God really helped her realize not only what she was doing was wrong, but to speak up about it because
her personality was not to engage in conflict. And yet now decades later, this person has testified in front of a state legislature about abortion laws things like that, and it and it just you know, goes through that transformation where you know that that person had a miscarriage, you had to do abortion recovery, met people along the way who had similar stories. So I think it's really going to resonate with the readers to see you know, gaining strength through this transformational journey.
Right, And it's in the news like this was a huge issue like women's rights and things like that in this last election twenty twenty four. So it's kind of like a more thoughtful inquiry than something is shrill where they're going to kind of take away your rights or whatever. You know, it's going to be the handmaiden's tail or something like that. Like it seems like that.
And that's the environment that you know, doctor Wheeler has had to live it, right, is this you know, out and be proud about your abortion. And her journey was really seeing the value of human life and in returning to the church and really you know, coming to the conclusion that supporting women through unplanned pregnancies. That's how you help women, It isn't, you know, pushing them towards an abortion.
And it's just the cultural situation that we're in that you see this, you know, be proud about your abortion, you know, things like that. So those are those are tied in there. So it's to me, it's not a political statement per se. It's this person's journey. She gets very personal, very upfront about all of her you know, triumphs, failures, et cetera. And it's told from the first person point of view. It's the only chapter like that, so she's
literally telling you her story. And it's like you're having a conversation in your living room and doctor Wheeler is sitting across on a chair telling you that story. So it really, you know, it's really that personal in depth, and I think you really get to know the person. And I think it resonates with readers.
I mean, and I think so, I mean, there's just there's so much craziness going on around that subject. I've never seen anything like it, So I think it's sensible rational reading of this book will help anybody else. But you also kind of talk about I mean, as a Catholic kind of this another thing that's happening, like the occult. These people are tampering with things and getting in trouble, looking into the darker side of things.
Right, Yeah, So the third chapter is all about spiritual warfare. And you know, most people learn about exorcisms or evil influences from Hollywood, which news splash. I'm most people realize that's not a great source. And so before writing this book,
I didn't know anything about extorcism. So I really wrote it for the non expert, and I was able to interview the guy who co wrote the training manual for exorcists, so I've got a really great source and we go through his story on how he helps while it's you know, happening in the room when they're performing in exorcism, but it's all the stuff that happens before, during, and after. And you kind of touched on that be occult. I mean, that seems to be more popular than ever and we're
seeing a decline in church attendance. You know, celebrities the media seem to make front of Christians all the time, and we as humans are kind of built to have this higher power relationship with God. And if you're not doing that well, that vacuum is going to get filled. And so a lot of people think, you know, the occult is funding games, it's no big deal. But if you think about it from a high level, from a Christian point of view, if you invite God into your life,
he's going to respond. But if you invite the demon into your life, well he's going to respond as well. And a lot of times people get in a little bit over their head when it comes to the occult, and quite frankly, they're marketing it to a lot of young people, which is of TikTok, you know, one of the most popular places that especially young females go, and it gets a lot of views and they're just presenting this as this you know, you know, kind of fun
and games type of situation. But it's really opening the door and if you invite the diabolic into your life, you're going to have.
Problems, right, And I mean that's the real kind of the you mentioned Hollywood and talking about this, but the real story of exorcistm is based on a real book in the Midwest called The Possessed or Possessed, and it's about a real exorcism. Like that's really the guy was taking around the Ouiji board, and I actually read an interesting article through What's the Treasure at school in Omah Creighton that they had they like went back and did a retrospective. I'll send you the link. I'll put a
link to that article actually in the show notes. But they did a retrospective about the actual priest who conducted that extorcism, like they had like real spirit like negative spiritual events happen. It's really something else. Let me see if I can find it. But yeah, maybe you can talk about your story because you mentioned a guy whose name I didn't hurt, Gabriel a morph and maybe you
can talk. I actually had another guy on about exorcism and ask him an interesting question about the Catholic Church. Why does the Catholic Church continue or maybe have a specialty of exorcism or other churches don't. And I think I think because it goes all the you know, it goes all the way back to Peter and Christ, you know Christ, I think that it's a different heritage. I think would you agree with that?
Yeah, I mean there's plenty of examples in the Bible where where Jesus meets somebody who is possessed by a demon and and liberates him. So it goes back to the time of Christ and has kind of followed through. But yeah, the you know, what most people don't realize about modern day exorcisms is that there is now a little bit more of a training to actually get get priest to know what they need to do. It isn't
just a a situation where you have an apprentice. And so I I received a copy of this Screaming Manual, and so a lot of the concepts in the book, a lot of the the plot line is based on real cases and what they actually do and and finding out what's going on. And so there's some some surprises for me, and I think there were some there would be some surprises for the average reader. So for for example,
there's a complex vetting process. I mean, you don't just walk into a church and say, hey, I need an exorcism and they throw some holy water on you and you're and you're good to go. Uh, there's a you know, mental physical exams. They do a pretty complex vetting process, and it takes a lot of time. It takes months, typically two to actually liberate that and one of the reasons why is typically if you have the situation, which is pretty rare. So I want to be clear that
you know, a true demonic possession is rare. Most of the cases that come to the church, it's something else. It might be a diabolic affliction, it could be a mental health issue, et cetera. Less than one percent are really true possession. But when that does happen, what the priest has to figure out is how did you get here? Right? Did you go and get involved in yourself in the occult? Did you invite a demon in? Do you have you know, habitual mortal sin? Are you pursuing vices instead of virtues?
And typically all that stuff has happened beforehand. So what the priest has to figure out is how many demons are there, because typically it's more than one, and there's a hierarchy of demons, just like there's a hierarchy of angels, some more powerful than others. And the priest has to figure out why is that demon there and is the person still attached to that to that sin or vice, because you're not going to get liberated from a demon unless you are turning away from that behavior and turning
towards building your relationship with Christ. I mean that's really why it takes so long, because so many people they've gotten to this habit of all this you know, essentially bad behavior, and they don't want to give it up. And if if you don't give it up, then you're not going to get liberated. And you know, one of the one of the kind of the scenes in the book is is the main character, you know, asking the
question why would someone not want to get liberated? And the answer is is because they don't want to give up their sinful lifestyle or the rejection of God, et cetera. And until you do that, you know, nothing's going to happen. And essentially it's all through the power of Christ. The priest doesn't have any special powers. It's all through Christ. But if you're rejecting God, you know you've got a conflict there and it's just gonna it's not going to get resolved. Right.
So a lot of times these people invite this evil spirits or whatever into their lives, right, I mean, there's some kind of connection there that there's some invitation or something happens. It's not like they're just walking down the street. It's either through their vice, greed, lust, something like that. And then it compounds and gets work. Right, then that involves priest.
Yeah, you're not going to catch it sitting next to somebody, you know, in a stadium watching the football game. It's it's really going to be what you're doing, and you know it's it's there is some complexity there because I don't want the listeners to think that everything is the devil made me do it, you know, type of behavior. Most of the time, we're our own worst enemy. Most of the time, it's us choosing the wrong behavior. Most of us know right from wrong, but it's not always
easy to choose that path. So you're right, it really is an invitation. And it's also how often you do it. You know, you might have, you know, played with Luigi board twenty years ago in college one time. That doesn't mean that all of a sudden you're going to have a bunch of diabolic affliction. But if you do that often and you keep doing it it, you know, it's like any other risk of behavior, you keep doing it and more likely that something bad is going to happen.
I mean, things can happen bad that from one thing, but those those are really rare. So it's really your day to day behavior and your rejection of God. You know, so many people are are in that state of mind where they're rejecting biblical values. They blame God for all their problems, and so that just the lights of the devil.
And some of these guys, like the people afflicted, don't even know what's happening to them. Because I think that's the same thing that happened with this real life story, is the victim didn't remember that much. Is that do you you find that to be the case?
Yeah, you know, I interviewed some people who who were were actually possessed, and they talk about how their mind
is never quiet. There's this sort of running diabolic dialogue in their head, and you know, they so it just really infests into that person's psyche and they may they may not really have complete control of everything what's going on, and they're they're just getting this constant commentary that's influencing their decisions, influencing their temptations and ultimately their behavior.
Right, And the I think you wrote in the book, like ninety percent of like you said, of the they do an investigation, but most of the people aren't don't require this kind of special intervention by a priest ran.
Yeah, it is pretty rare that that you're going to need a full blown exorcism, you know, that type of situation where where you truly are possessed by by the devil, but but you can get tempted, Uh, you can get influenced, and and so that can absolutely affect a lot more people. And uh, and it's harder to diagnose because you just don't know, you know, how much is you know, something going on in their head or what kind of influence
they're they're under. But you know, I think a lot of you know a lot of people are just easily tempted by the devil. And and it's sometimes it's just too easy to pick that wrong path. And once you go down that path, it's it's hard to go back, right.
It's just kind of like the way we're in. But also these the Catholic priests know a lot about demonology too, so they're not much different. There may be a more mod version, but they're kind of almost like demonologists or demon hunters too. Would you agree with that?
They definitely have to know, you know, know what they're doing in order to deal with these situations. And and so you're seeing individual dioceses assign an exorcist team so they can they can get trained, they can they can know what they need to do, you know what they can't do, and they typically try to find the most virtuous priests that they can. And it's not something where you engage with the devil. You don't have conversations with
a demon. You're essentially looking to channel the power of Christ and looking to counsel that person to turn away from, you know, from their vices and turn turned towards God. It's kind of that simple. But that doesn't mean it's easy for that person for sure, right, I.
Mean, it's really something else. Yeah, and these I think these are becoming more common and there's actually much more in the common culture of these stories about exorcists and exorcism and the right and these things like there's other I mean, it's amazing because there were some of those people in the West Coast too, like Santa Clara University. I remember growing up around in that area, and so people really need to be aware of this and it's
not really does happen to people. It's not fictional, like there's so many true stories that and going all the way back probably in time too, the new testament that people really need to be careful. But we are at the thirty five minute mark, John, is there anything you'd like to add or anything I'm missed? And where can people find the book?
Yeah? So the way that I categorize this book is it's dramatized nonfiction. So it's real stories based on interviews, testimony, case files. But there's plot, and there's the dramatization of what's going on in these individuals lives and so there's action, dialogue, emotion. I worked with these people. I went back and forth editing with their particular chapter, so I feel like it's very accurate and true to their story because it was collaboration.
But it reads like a fast paced fiction novel. And I think all the different stories, I mean, readers are going to see a little bit of themselves in the people profile. So I think it's going to resonate. The books sell on Amazon as well as Carnes and Noble Online. I do have a website which is www. It is not about dot com where they can get more information.
You can get in contact with me, but that kind of you know, it really is trying to show, you know, how people are standing up against the evil in our society. And I've got three examples, and I think people will will enjoy the read.
Yeah, I think they will too. And I think that's very timely, like this human trafficking and all this occultism that's around and everything. I mean, you got to people need to be aware of the stuff. So I'm glad you wrote the book. And the best place to reach you is your website or your email address, your emails John ddauthor at gmail dot Comrade.
Yes, and that's the listed on the website.
That's it in the four books. And you can see the website and see it again. And I'll put up our earlier interview from two years ago, so I'll put that up before this one. But the author again is Don G. D Jirolamo d I G I R O L A m O. And the full time of the book that he just publishes, it's not about the devil, true stories about finding evil in the modern world. So thank you so much for your time.
Yeah, thank you, thanks for having me. And is there great to have an opportunity to connect with your audience.
Yeah, awesome, thank you thanks so much. To stay there, stay there, Okay,