“For the last several years, the Catholic Church has noted an alarming increase in the number of exorcisms performed,” Ryan Bethea, The Exorcist Files.

It’s called The Exorcist Files. In its first year, the podcast had over 7.5 million downloads and has been at the top of Spotify charts for upwards of 40 weeks, CBN reports.

According to its creator, Ryan Bethea, the goal of the podcast is to expose to its listeners the realities of the demonic realm and spiritual warfare.

When Bethea initially came up with the idea for the podcast, he was intending to focus on miracles.

However, this changed after he visited the Vatican in 2018, and came in contact with one of the Roman Catholic Church’s leading experts on spiritual warfare and exorcisms, Father Carlos Martins.

Bethea asked Father Martins for a story and the rest they say is history as Martins was featured in the show’s first season.

“The show depicts dramatic recreations from Father Martins’ experience battling the devil to free people from demonic possession,” writes Abigail Robertson.

Bethea is protestant himself and though the stories have a Catholic bend to them he says they are geared toward all Christians.

“There are thousands of reviews on Apple specifically, and you can see people saying, ‘Hey, I grew up Catholic, and I wandered away but wow, this has awakened me to the reality of evil. I can’t afford not to have God in my life,'” Bethea told CBN. “And then others were like, ‘I appreciate this, too. I’m still not sold on God, but if this is at all possible that there’s demons, I want to be with God.'”

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