Tales of the Unexplained

Hello and welcome to another episode of Inside Out. Actually, this is a unique episode of Inside Out. It's the first of a series of episodes that we're going to do that are going to be a bit shorter than our other episodes, but they're also going to be personal stories. That we thought you might find interesting. And I am here with the guy who is going to offer up a personal story that we can discuss. Once again, here is Ian Wilkes. How are you, Ian?

I am doing well, Jim. Unfortunately, this is not Greg Prince. It's me. You're stuck with me for these stories.

That's all right. That's all right. Well, Uh, what's on your mind?

So I have been going through my journals, my, uh, pre-mission journals and the journals that I kept when I was serving in Scotland back in the '80s. And as I've gone through the journals, uh, the material in there has reminded me of some very interesting, and at times very strange, weird, and wonderful experiences. It's almost like the tales of the unexpected. Some of the experiences are quite bizarre, quite strange. Um, from a spiritual, uh, perspective, uh, there is experiences I've had which range from the experience that I had with Newbie Kipps, which is a recent episode we did, which is very enlightening and quite profound, certainly for me, and allowed me to experience a glimpse into some unseen extraordinary universal power and energy of goodness and graciousness and, uh, and, and, and a power that exists, uh, in my life for sure, and is very real to me at least. Um, to others, perhaps not so much, but certainly to me. And I've described some of those experiences in our Newbie Kipps episode that we did. And, and for our listeners and, and, um, and viewers, if you're interested in that, uh, it's on the, uh, Inside Out catalog. So as I'm going through the different experiences in the journal, different journals, uh, did you keep a journal?, uh, uh, religiously on your mission, Jim Bennett?

Uh, every stinking day.

Right. I did. I had to keep a journal. And what was interesting by, you know, these letters we used to write for President Banks every week.

Yep.

Which I thought was, uh, it was, it was, was okay. Yeah. It was kind of a, uh, felt it more administrative to let President Banks know what we were doing. I could see the value in doing that. At the end, I thought this was very clever. He gave me, uh, gave me back all those letters, which I thought was great. And did he give you back those letters?

I think so. I don't remember or what happened to them, but I think they did.

I've got them and they're now part of, I think it's very clever. It's like writing a journal cuz every week we used to write, uh, the, you know, the mission president a letter, let him know what's going on, any issues and challenges, et cetera. And when I got them back, they were just, you know, 2 years' worth of letters. So, you know, over 100 letters there. And I used to write quite a bit of detail. So some of them are quite long. You probably got quite— President Biden's got— probably got quite bored reading some of my letters. I think he, if he was struggling to sleep, he'd probably read one of my letters, but I got into quite a bit of detail. But when I got them back, there was a lot of valuable detail, Jim, in those letters, which I've kept, and those, uh, the material in there has reminded me of some very interesting experiences. So I'm gonna get into one right now for me. So I came out, uh, into the Scotland Edinburgh Mission from the MTC in London, having been completely trained to deal with all the issues in Scotland. I'm being sarcastic there. You probably can sense a little bit of sarcasm. Um, where the MTC frankly did not really prepare me for life as a full-time missionary in Scotland, you know, being from England and then serving a mission in Scotland. That was interesting. And I arrived in Scotland in the, uh, late winter of 19— sorry, 1987. This is a few months before you came out. And I was trained in Dumfries and had some profound experiences in Dumfries and didn't want to leave. Dumfries. I was there for 3 months and got so close to the members and, and just felt this deep connection. I was quite emotional actually when I left. I, I drove, we drove up to Edinburgh, um, and I was in the car, uh, looking out the window and, and kind of crying softly, privately, like a panni couldn't see me. I just didn't wanna leave Dumfries. I got so attached, uh, but I, uh, uh, was called, uh, was reassigned to Dumfermline. And so I was, uh, heading up to Edinburgh to meet with my new companion. And you know when on your mission you used to get those letters, you know, the moves, they call them moves, and you get this letter and you, I think President Banks was, thank you for your service in, in Dumfries and you are hereby reassigned or assigned to serving the Dunfermline Dundee state zone, right? And who are required. Was that my end or yours?

That was my end. Sorry.

Sorry.

I can turn, let, let me make a note of when that was.

There was, I thought it was mine. I could, if it's mine, I could, I'll just turn my phone off to make sure so there's no, um, interruption. Okay. Okay. We're off, right? Um, and so I arrived in Edinburgh early morning. We actually get up at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. It was early morning. I got there about 7 o'clock, something like that, 7:30. And, uh, I was going to be assigned to Elder Jacobs. Do you know Elder Jacobs?

I know him very well.

Well, Elder Jacobs, as you know, is one of the finest missionaries ever to serve Scotland. He and I are lifelong friends. I have enormous respect for him, uh, the fact that he put up with me for, uh, that time together in Dunfermline. And later, by the way, Jacobs and I served in Inverness. It was his own— it was my senior companion. I, I think I'd been in Inverness for a month or two and Jacobs arrived, and he was, um, this is the second time I'd, uh, served with him. For me, it was a great blessing. Probably for him, it was a great curse having to serve with Elder Wilkes twice. You know, what have you done so bad to be put together with Elder Wilkes again? So anyway, we met in— I met Jacobs for the first time in Edinburgh, and we then drove a Vauxhall Chevette. You know, those old Chevette '80s cars. In, uh, in Scotland that we had those mission cars, very old. Um, we used to name them. Ours was called George. I think it was called George. Ours is a blue Chevette and it got around the mission quite a bit. So we, um, we got dropped off actually.

It—

we didn't have a car in the family. We got dropped off, uh, by the APs. And the APs was Elder Holland, Matt Holland, It was the junior AP and Elder Samson. You might not know Elder Samson.

I do. I didn't know Elder Samson.

Right. This was, I think this was like May 1987. So we were dropped off and we were, uh, what is termed back then as whitewashed into an area. Do you remember that term?

Sure. Means that there, there wasn't a companion that had been there. Both of you were going into the area cold.

That's correct. And we'd replaced Elder Blazard and Elder Collins, Spencer Collins. You know those guys?

I do.

Yeah. So Elder Blazard, Elder Collins had served there and had some interesting stories to share, um, with us months later about the area. And Elder Jacobs and I arrived in, uh, Dunfermline for the first time. And so we went around meeting some of the members. We met with the bishop, uh, we met. An individual that had a profound experience on my life, and his name was Jackie Watson. And we've met his son, Daryl Watson. Uh, I got very close to the family, and Daryl's been on to Inside Out. He was a, uh, a former mission president serving in the Netherlands, and, and he came on many months ago, and he's a wonderful man. Um, and Daryl and I and Scott Jacobs and, um, another wonderful individual called Paul Lynch, who came back off his mission at the same time as Darrell did when we were serving in Inferno. I think Darrell just come back. We used to go out tracting with Darrell a lot and Paul Lynch and, and Scott and, and Elder Jacobs and I rather. And we had some just wonderful experiences. We got very close to the families, including the Watson family and the bishop. It was a great ward, Jim, a very, um, wonderful ward. And, um, but the ward was, was, had issues, uh, with anti-Mormon, uh, opposition. Uh, there was people producing pamphlets and leaflets in the area, and they, uh, would sometimes come into the building and try to distribute these pamphlets. This is not the main story I'm gonna share, but these are the, these are some of the incidents, some of the situations that we experienced. While serving on our mission. There's a lot of opposition to the Mormon Church back then in Dunfermline. We came across a lot of leaflets and pamphlets, as I'm sure you did. But anyway, we, we'd just been in, been called into the area. We were getting to know the members. And when the first thing you do when you arrive, uh, at the new flat, you know, you get the keys, you pick up the key at Edinburgh, you drive up, getting to the plant. Uh, you then look at the, uh, there's a book, a record book, and you read it and you've, and I think Elder Blas and Elder Spencer Collins had done, had been very diligent and they wrote a letter listing all the individuals that they'd been teaching and the members to connect with. It was like a bit of a handover report. Did you ever experience those or did you ever get involved in them? Right.

Sure.

Well, so these two missionaries, Blazet Collins, were very diligent, very organized, very efficient, had provided kind of a handover report, you know, with names of investigators, teaching pool members. It was just wonderful and very, very helpful. So very quickly we got, uh, involved with the members and those individuals again, very quickly, early on within days. One of the areas that Collins and Blazard asked us to look at or to open or to develop was a place called Galgetty Bay, which you may not have heard of. So Jacobs and I, it's a big housing complex. I, we call it the estate in, in, uh, England. In Scotland, they call schemes. They're not called estates, called a housing scheme.

Uh, mm-hmm.

Or complex, and it was a big housing estate or scheme that the Mishas had not fully developed. And Scott and Elder, I keep calling Elder, uh, uh, Jacobs and I felt prompted to go to, um, tract, knock on doors of this estate. And so like most, uh, experiences on the doors, we were getting very little or no interest. People would come to the door, not interested. Uh, we tried to teach them about the gospel or Jesus Christ. They said, I've got my own church I attend, not interested. Um, usual, uh, responses, very little interest. One door we knocked on within a few days of going into the area, a lady came to the door and we were expecting a similar response., but she let us in and I've got her name. I wrote her name down in the journal. I won't mention the name because I want to be respectful to her. I don't know if she's probably still alive or her family's still alive, but it's probably not a good idea to mention the name. So we went in and we had a, we delivered the Holy Ghost dialogue, if you remember that, and we had a first discussion about Joseph Smith. It went really well. This lady was an, you know, we were in our 20s. She, we would describe her as an old lady, but she's in her 50s. She was in her 50s and I'm older than 50s. So I'm very old, right? Uh, you are, you are just a young wee whippersnapper right now. I'm, I'm older than you. But this lady was very, uh, interested and very receptive. And we said, uh, Could we come back? And she said yes. So Elder Jacobs and I was thinking, you know, we have a baptism because the pressure to get, you know, to baptize people was pretty intense. You know, we were back then with President Dunn, we were baptizing 9 with a contingency of 155 missionaries or 140 missionaries. 9 is not very impressive at all, as you all know. So there was a lot of pressure to baptize, but more importantly that Jacobs and I, who took the work very seriously and we're really not frankly interested in doing this for baptisms. We weren't like that. I think most missions weren't like that, in my opinion. We were interested in bringing the gospel into these people's lives. And so we came back and we had, I think it was a second discussion. Can you remember what the second discussion was? I'm trying to remember.

Second discussion ended with a challenge to baptism.

It, it, that's right. I can't remember the, the, I've got copies of these discussions. I should familiarize, refamiliarize myself with them, but there were great discussions and you had to memorize them. And there was a challenge and we invited this lady to get baptized and she said that she would, that she was, uh, very interested in, um, in, uh, joining the church and, and renewing a relationship with Christ. These were almost like the role plays, Jim, that we did in the MTC. It was like textbook. It went really well. I mean, she had some questions. She's very smart, very intelligent, and it seemed to be going well. Again, I'm an going on memory here and going on some of the notes in my journal. Anyway, we told President Dunn and said, yeah, this is, this is great. And we'd even, I think, I'm not sure if we had a date set, because when you challenge somebody for a baptism, you have to set a date. Very important that, right? And I think we had a date. And so we even informed the bishop that we think we could have a baptism coming up. And they hadn't had one for a while. So that was interesting. So anyway, we went back the third time. This is like the week after. I think we talked two discussions that week. Yeah, I think with people you try to get a couple of discussions in the week, wouldn't you? Right? And then the next week we went back for the third discussion. Can you remember the third discussion? Was that the priesthood one? The restoration of the priesthood? I think it was.

I don't remember. Um, what the way I remember the discussions is by the commitments we got from them. Right. So the second discussion was baptism. Third discussion was attend church. Fourth discussion was the sticky one because that was chastity and tithing.

Yeah, I remember that one.

Uh, fifth discussion. No, no, wait. Chastity and word of wisdom. Fifth discussion was tithing. Sixth discussion was accept a calling.

Right. Yes. And I think third discussion, there was quite a bit on the restoration of the priesthood. In a bit more detail, the restoration of the church. So again, my memory fades. Anyway, we knocked at the door. She came to the door, but her demeanor was quite— so this is the third time this lady, uh, who was committed to getting baptized, if I've got my story correct, came to the door and opened the door and we greeted her with the usual, you know, warm greeting. And she seemed, she looked very down and depressed. And we said, is everything okay? She says, come in. And so we then, uh, sat down on the couch and we started asking her how she was and how she feels. She says she, she's had some, uh, new or different experiences since she's been investigating our church or learning about our church. And we said, well, what do you mean? She says, well, I feel differently and I've got voices in my head. And at least that's, she seemed to allude to that, that she was, she could hear something in her head. And these voices had begun since we had started teaching her. At least these are the notes in my journal. And we said, well, I can't remember if it was myself or old Jacob said, well, that's probably the Holy Ghost, uh, telling you that, you know, what we're teaching is correct. And he says, well, no, these are different messages and, and, and it's a spirit she's not familiar with. Oh, I said, and Jacob may have said, um, you should get Jacob on because he, he can give his side of the story here and probably filling some of the gaps. But we said, well, if it's not the spirit, it's probably opposition. It's probably, um, uh, Satan telling you not to join the church or some words along those lines. So you're being, um, advised by some unfamiliar spirit not to join the church because that's what Satan doesn't want you to do. I can't remember if we actually used those exact words, but that was the message, uh, that I, that I remember. Remember. So she seemed very troubled. She was sat in her, the single chair. We were on the couch as you're coming in, turn right, you sit down. And she looked very uncomfortable. I said, look, if you're not comfortable meeting with us today, then we will come back. She said, no, she'll be fine. She says, I'm going to go in the kitchen and take some medication. So she went to the kitchen and she came back and she looked pretty rough, and I can't remember if it was Jacobs or I suggested or offered to give her a blessing, which I thought was very appropriate. So I think it might have been Jacobs, who was the wiser, more experienced missionary of the two between us, to offer a blessing, and she accepted. So I went into the kitchen. Or Jacobs did, and got a chair. We brought the chair into the front living room and she sat in this chair and, and Jacobs was the one who delivered the blessing. So we laid our hands on this lady's head. She, um, seemed again very down and quite depressed and we felt strongly the blessing would help for sure. So Jacobs laid his hand upon her head and I laid my hands Kahn Jacobs, and he then commenced with this blessing. Within seconds, her body started to tremble, move, and shake while she sat on the chair. And I interpreted that as being spiritual. I, I, I couldn't make sense of it. I couldn't understand what was happening. I, um, but she's probably feeling something physical. You know, she's got two missionaries in her room, hands laid on her head. She didn't really know us that well at all. I would've met her 3 times by this, this stage. And we're giving her this blessing. And it, it, it was hard to understand what was really was going on, but it was some physical, emotional reaction to the blessing for sure. And as the blessing continued, she started to speak during the blessing. And the is— the problem was it wasn't her voice. It was a deeper voice. That you wouldn't expect from a very, she was very petite, very small old lady. Seemed old at the time. And I heard some voice or voices, um, that she was uttering. I don't know the words. I can't remember those. It was words that I just didn't recognize, but she was uttering these sounds, these, these voices. And I'm kind of freaking out. You know, my eyes are closed. I'm freaking out. And I open one eye to see what Jacob is doing. He's got his eyes closed, still continuing with the blessing. And, uh, as he is giving the blessing, he speaks words, I believe, again, I'm trying to remember, um, of trying to cleanse her soul, some kind of, releasing her from the adversary, from the opposition. I'm not saying it was an exorcist, but I guess in some ways it was, or could have been, or at least part of exorcising this unfamiliar spirit or something that was in her that was speaking to her. You know, we are two young missionaries. We are spiritual. You know, what we teach is to some extent supernatural. We believe in a Satan, don't we? We believe in Satan was cast down. We believe that a third of the hosts of heaven that rejected Christ's plan was cast down. We teach that those spirits, and go and correct me on the doctrine here, Jim Bennett, that those spirits are here, and here is the telestial kingdom. When we talk about the temple and the terrestrial kingdom, in the temple, in the pre-1990, at least, and maybe the, it's the same today, that the world in which we live is the telestial kingdom, is it not?

Yeah.

And that those spirits, including Satan, the third of the spirits that were cast down, are in fact here, and that they are in a second dimension, the spiritual dimension, which we cannot see. But nevertheless are real and that their goal is to influence, uh, people to make poor decisions or to influence them, to tempt them. Uh, the other goal and objective according to the doctrine of the Mormon Church is for these evil spirits to possess the bodies of Adam and Eve, which is taught in the temple. And that those bodies are our bodies even today. You know, we are offspring of Adam and Eve. That's what we teach. And that one of the goals and objectives that the spirits are so desperate for a physical body that they will do anything to possess a human body. I, I think about that, um, and help me on this, that scripture where Christ himself, um, exorcised an evil spirit in an individual. And that, that evil spirit, I think, went into the body of a pig. Body of a, of a legion of pigs, or legion, or is it a legion of spirits?

I think a legion of spirits were cast into, um, a, a herd of, I don't know if herd is the right word, but a whole group of pigs and they all ran off a cliff.

That's the story. My interpretation is that is that it was a legion of spirits, so multiple spirits, uh, multiple, uh, pigs, and the spirits were so desperate. Again, this is what I was taught when I was in the church. They were so desperate for a physical body and the power of Christ compelled them to leave this individual's body and they immediately start possessing these pigs and these pigs ran off the edge of the cliff. That, that's the story that we understand. And this is my, this has been taught to me before this time on my mission, before I was in Newfoundland. So these things I'm basically aware of. I think it may even learn them in seminary, you know, a few years before. So I have a basic understanding of, of the plan of salvation, the role of Satan, these evil spirits that have been cast down. And the goals and objectives of those evil spirits, which includes but not limited to possessing, uh, human bodies, the, the, the offspring of Adam and Eve, which we are. And so as I'm, as the blessing proceeds, and it wasn't a long blessing, but it seemed long at the time, Jacob is trying or attempting to free through his words, his blessing, this lady of this ailment, this spiritual ailment, this, um, unfamiliar spirit influence from this individual. Uh, but not using, um, any specific text or pre-transcribed language. This is, you know, when you give blessing, this is all made up from your heart and mind. It's whatever impressions come into your heart and mind at the time, depending on the situation. And as missionaries, as members of the church, as priesthood, again, it's only a man can do this. I think women can do this, but only a man can perform a blessing like this, I understand. That those impressions come to you if you are worthy, and you have a spiritual connection with God that he inspires you to say and speak certain words in a certain way. And if you're in tune, then you'll speak God's words. I felt enormous pressure, by the way, at times when I was giving blessings or et cetera, to make sure that I was speaking the words of God and not my own, my own words. And I, often wonder how many blessings Ian Wilkes gave that were from Ian Wilkes compared to, you know, were they really inspired? I think they were inspired, but I wonder how many blessings I gave that were just my words. So anyway, back into the story here. So here we are in this very unusual, strange, and bizarre experience where Elder Jacobs is administering this blessing. This woman is uttering words I don't know what they are in a voice that is not hers. Short. And about halfway through the blessing, which was quite disturbing, one of her hands lifted up and reached over on the top of my hands and tried to remove one of my hands. So we've got hands on top of the head and, and this is an audio, but you can see through the video that, you know, what I'm doing. I've got my hands on my head and her hand, one of her hands came up and tried to lift my hand off. And I, I, I'm like, what the heck is going on here? At the same time, or just a moment later, her other hand came over and tried to push her hand back down on top of her hand., you know, on top of my hands and Jacob's hands back onto her head. And this is freaking me out. And later when Jacob and I talked about it, it freaked him out as well. Like, this is the most bizarre, strange, unusual experience I've ever had. You know, I'm a young missionary, I'm in my early 20s, I have no idea what I'm doing here, and this We're administering a blessing and this lady is clearly disturbed and impacted by this event, this experience. Anyway, as Jacobs continues, it's a very powerful blessing, by the way. He, I should get Jacobs on, he might remember what he said, but he was a very spiritual individual. And I, I, I think he spoke words along the lines of releasing her from this, um, internal toil and struggle. I, I don't recall if it was, he didn't use words like casting out evil spirits, nothing like that, but it was words that was, I think were quite relevant to what is a very strange quite, quite extreme, unusual experience for sure. And so when he, um, closed in the name of Jesus Christ, her hands dropped, as I recall, and she didn't go limp, but her body seemed to relax. Uh, hands fell to the side and she seemed to, um, relax and this, I'm trying to make sense of this in my own mind. My eyes opened, my eyes looked at Jacobs. He's looking as startled as I am. Can you imagine, you know, can you imagine what you think having just having that experience? And I looked bewildered. He looked bewildered. And we put our arms on her shoulders and we said, are you okay? And she, She looked up and smiled, looked back at us on the chair and smiled. She said, thank you. Um, in my mind I'm thinking, um, are we gonna talk about what happened or not? Anyway, she, I, I took the chair, or one of us took the chair back to the kitchen. Uh, this lady stood up, um, sat down in that single chair opposite and looked normal, uh, looked a little bit more, uh, you know, looked happier, a bit more settled, uh, not as depressed, not as dark, you know, one of us taking the chair back to the kitchen and she looked like her regular self. And so we came back into, well, I came back in from the kitchen back in, we sat into the living room, we sat down and she, um, looked okay. And I'm thinking, again, are we going to talk about what just happened? And we didn't. She just said, thank you for that. I needed, um, a blessing. I needed to experience that. Thank you. And again, I want to try to remember this as accurately as I can because the details are important. At that time, Jim, when she seemed more relaxed, we were saying, look, this is, this has been, um, uh, a very, uh, important meeting, but that we would go now and that we would come back at a later date. She says, I'm just going to get some water. So she went to get some water and she came, so she went to the kitchen, Jim, and she drank some water. She came back and she sat back down in this chair and she had something in her hand that I couldn't quite make out. And as she's sitting down and Jacob's just kind of bringing this whole thing to an end, something very weird and frightening happened. She, uh, leaned, leaned over slightly and with her right hand grabbed this thing that she'd brought from the kitchen and in a split second threw this thing that was in her hand across the floor of the living room towards our feet. And it hit, it, it, I think it, it hit Jacob's, it came close to me. It might have hit Jacob's foot. He can comment on this. And as I looked down, it was a knife, a kitchen knife. That she had slung across the floor at us, towards us. And we stood up and like, what, what's going on? What's, what, what's happening? What are you doing? And then she told us to get out. In a very angry voice, told us to get out. And all that happened in split seconds. She'd come back from the kitchen, sat down, looked calm, leaned over, flung this thing across the, uh, the, the, the living room floor. And it happened in such a flash of a moment, and then we realized, looked down, to see what it was, and that it was a knife. It was just the most strangest, bizarre, bizarre experience. We stood up quickly, of course. You know, we, we were just, we panicked. What the heck's going on? She, her demeanor had changed. Um, and you can guess what we did then. We left very, very quickly, very abruptly, and we shot out of that place. We've, I've never left a place so fast, never exited a building, a house so quickly as that. And we left and we walked, I can't remember, we walked or ran away from the house, um, and got as far away as we could from that place. And I remember, I think we sat down on a bench, park bench somewhere, or a bench in, in that estate, just heads down, trying to make sense of the most strangest experience we ever had. And I, I couldn't make sense of it and Jacob couldn't make sense of it. And we were laughing, uh, out of fear. We were like, what, what the heck was that? I wouldn't, wouldn't say laughing. It was more of a hysteric, really scared that you've actually laughed. A little bit hysterical. I don't remember doing that, but we were, it was just the strangest experience and we were, um, also upset and a little bit hysterical as young missionaries and I'm not sure hysterical is the right word, but we were very, very unhinged. Maybe that's a better word. And what the heck happened? What was that? And so we called President Dunn, told him what happened, and he said, you just had an encounter with an evil spirit that you'd cast or tried to cast the spirit out or something along those lines. And we, of course, never went back. This lady, we never met her again. She never got baptized. We never went back. And this has got about a page and a half in my journal, which is quite, Quite a big entry actually in, in my, um, in my journal. And that was one of several experiences, uh, that I'd had. Uh, uh, that is, you, you think that might be one-off. For me personally, there were a few experiences that were very unusual and bizarre, and I'll, I'll share more as we, uh, later. That you never forget about. You never forget about something like that. I wrote it up, we talked about it, we shared it with other missionaries. They couldn't believe what happened. President Dudd had talked to other missionaries about it. The, the story got around the mission, um, to some extent what happened. Um, a lot of missionaries' experiences were fairly regular, but there were many times across, you know, all those missionaries where they'd encountered individuals or experiences that were quite extreme and quite profound that they couldn't explain. You know, you're knocking on all these doors, the Mishras are meeting thousands of people. You don't know what's behind that door or who's behind that door. Sorry. You don't know who you're dealing with or what mental health issues they've got or what their is going on in their life. You're then having a conversation about spiritual things. You're asking them to trust you. These are emotional conversations. These are spiritual conversations. Mishras are very effective at building trust very quickly, as you know. You know, you can build trust pretty quickly within 2 or 3 meetings. You feel like you're kind of becoming friends. They open up, they share, and they, they share all their experiences often. Um, you know, by the time they're baptized in the church, they're your lifelong friends and you've only known them for a, you've only known them for a few weeks, right? So I think these experiences are, uh, not uncommon. I think they happen often. Some missions probably experience them more than others, but, um, yeah, that was something that I've never been able to explain. I'd love our listeners to comment on this and Tells what they think what happened. I suspect these are, this lady was suffering from some mental health related issue, psychological, some event happening in her life. And I do not discount the supernatural side of this at all. I think had I not lived as long as I have now, then I might assign all of them and most of these types of experiences, about a few of them. To mental health of the individual, or maybe, you know, an imagination or something, or maybe an exaggeration of a story. Or again, I go back to the mental health thing cuz people have all kinds of experiences on mental health or they react to some kind of medication, right? Some kind of hallucination. Um, but because I've lived and experienced some of the things that I have, I assign this experience to the supernatural. Those are things that happened in that experience that I can't explain. I'd love to get Jacobs on and I, you know, to correct some of the record or improve it or fill in some of the gaps. I think two, two memories of, this is a long time ago, isn't it? Over 30-odd years ago. But that's, um, I've never forgotten that experience and I've had a few of those experiences. In Scotland, which should not be a surprise considering, you know, how many people you meet. And again, people start to open up and share all kinds of stuff, you know, as you're getting to know them. So that's, that's something that, that's an experience that features quite prominently in my memories of the Scotland Denver Mission. Um, so I'm gonna ask you a question, probably unfair to ask, probably too much to ask. Can you make sense of any of that? Does any of that— can you relate to that? Did you have anything like that on your mission or close to that or even like that?

Um, yes, I did actually. And, um, But as I look back on it, I had assigned, I think, very much a supernatural explanation to something that was very clearly mental illness. And I, I, I'll tell this story fairly quickly. Uh, but I served in Dundee, Scotland, um, twice. Once, uh, with Elder Hiscock, the late, great Christopher— he went by Jordan by the end of his life. He didn't like the name Hiscock. But he's since passed away. Wonderful, wonderful human being. And I was 7 months into my mission when I served with him. I was still a junior companion. And then over a year later, I returned to Dundee as a zone leader. And the first time I was in the Dundee, um, Third Ward, I think. And then the second time I was in the Dundee Second Ward, which is that wonderful Leith Ward, Leith Road Chapel. It was the only functional ward in Scotland that I remember. I mean, you go to this ward and it was like everybody in that ward was, uh, it was like a Utah ward almost. It was fully staffed. Everybody was competent. Nobody was crazy. It was, uh, so I really, really enjoy my time there. We've talked to, we've interviewed, um, um, uh, Roy and Emma, her last name used to be Campbell. What's their last name now?

Han.

Han. Yes.

Hun. Yeah.

Yes. Um, they were in that ward. That family was in that ward. Uh, they still, I think, live right across the street from that building. Anyway, so what in my— when I was there with Elder Hiscock, we knocked on the door of— in this really rough area. Uh, the bishop actually— I can't even remember what the name of the area was, but the bishop pulled us aside and says, I understand— Beachwood, I think it was called. Says, I understand you're tractoring in Beechwood. I don't think you should be tractoring in Beechwood. It's too rough an area. However, I came from Beechwood, so maybe it's not that bad. I thought that's a really weird thing to say, but we were in this really sort of rough area. It was one of these areas where we used to play, um, spider yo-yo. Did you ever play spider yo-yo? No, I don't know that. You get into one of these, uh, you'd have to be buzzed into one of these apartment flats or block of flats. I'm not sure what the Scottish term was, but you know, there was a, there was a German elder who used to just buzz somebody and they'd say, who is it? And he'd say, it's Elder Easter. And he'd get buzzed in and he'd be able to knock on the doors that way. But these, in, in these rougher areas, these were really kind of tenements. These were, these were really And there were spiders in every corner. And you used to take your umbrella and get the spider and get it on the tip of your umbrella and cast it down like a yo-yo. And it would spin its web and then climb back up. And you'd do that again as you were walking up the stairs. So this was just a really sort of rough area. We knock on the door and an elderly woman answers. And she was very sweet and she let us in and her grandson, His first name was Alex. I can't remember what his last name was. So like, he can't sue me. Uh, I'm betting he's still alive. He was about our age. Uh, he came in and we placed the Book of Mormon with them. And then we tried to go back and nothing happened. They, we, I don't know what happened. I think maybe I was transferred. Because I was only in Dundee that first time for about a month. So that's probably what it was. I was going to say we kept trying to go back, but I don't know if that's true. I just think I was transferred and I don't know whatever happened. Well, I do know what happened because that's the second part of the story. So when I went back, uh, over a year later, um, I was as a zone leader. I was on splits with the missionaries assigned to that area, and we went back to Beachwood. And I didn't recognize the flat when we knocked on the door, but we knocked on the door and it was the same flat, and it was the same woman. And she said, "Oh, I can't believe you're back," to me. You're back. Please, please, please come in. And I said, oh, okay, sure. Nice to see you again. I mean, it was really kind of surreal. And we walk in the door and there is her grandson again, and he is holding the copy of the Book of Mormon that I gave him over a year earlier. I mean, what are the odds of that, that I'm knocking on the door and there's this guy and he's got the Book of Mormon and he's sitting there, he's holding it, cradling it like it's some kind of treasure. I, I, I, I, he was like stroking it like it was a cat. I mean, it was just really, really strange. And I was like, Oh, what is going on here? And the elderly woman says, yeah, Alex has been obsessed with this book ever since you gave it to him. Obsessed to the point of he's not been able to do anything. He's quit his job. He has— I mean, he's been living with me. Uh, and, and as I, as we try to talk to Alex, there is clearly something very wrong. Um, I mean, he's, I mean, he's not— his eyes are sort of glazed over, and he's talking about the Book of Mormon in really strange ways that have nothing to do with the actual book. He's like, yeah, this book helps me Uh, it keeps the daggers away. It, you know, it was just, just bizarre and it was terrifying. And I thought, I just thought, I don't know what, what's going on. And at the time I said, oh, he must be possessed by an evil spirit. And I mean, that's the, and I said, well, And the elderly woman says, "It's what I think too, and I think you've been sent here to cast it out. Would you please cast out the evil spirit that's taken control of my grandson?" And nobody tried to move my hands off his head as I gave him the blessing. And I don't even know who I was with. I can't even remember. I think maybe it was Elder Cram. If that's right, but it wasn't my companion, and I don't remember who I was with, but I gave the blessing, and then the elder I was with joined me, but I'm the one who was the voice, who gave voice to the blessing. And in the course of the blessing, I said that he had, um, he had fallen for Satan's counterfeit. Of what the spirit was and that he had been, uh, I don't know if I said, used the word possessed, but that he was under the influence of an evil spirit. And by the power of the holy Melchizedek Priesthood, I commanded that spirit to depart. At the end of the blessing, he had calmed down considerably. And he said, I feel strange. But his vision was sort of clearer. He wasn't sort of glazed over. The elderly woman was very, very grateful. And I took that as Jim Bennett, exorcist. Jim Bennett, I was so spiritual and so mighty, and I've been sent by the Lord. To cast out this evil spirit. Um, in the course of these conversations, of that whole experience, she brought up the fact that he had suffered a head injury not long after we had given him that Book of Mormon. And I sort of kind of dismissed it at the time. I was like, oh, well, he suffered a head injury. Well, you know, great, but clearly he's possessed. And I look back on it now and I go, clearly, I mean, I don't, Ian, I don't discount the supernatural. Just as you say you don't discount the supernatural. And it may very well be that there was a spiritual component to this. But looking back on it very, very clearly, this was a function of actual physical brain damage. That this was a damaged kid that I went in and just went, "Oh, look, look at me. I am the mighty missionary. I have the priesthood. I have cast out the devil." And, you know, The coincidence to it is still really, really uncanny. The fact that I ended up on that doorstep again over a year later, and that it was me, and that he was actually there with his Book of Mormon sitting there in the room. I mean, it couldn't have been scripted any better. If I were writing a horror movie about evil spirits, Uh, that's how I would write it. But at the same time, I just, I look back and go, when we, when we sort of mysticize, um, actual physical illness, because I, the, the way, the way he was acting was very much the way somebody who has suffered brain damage would act. And hopefully the blessing was somewhat helpful to him or gave him some kind of comfort, or hopefully there was a spiritual element to him that— to it that may have made him seek help and seek medical attention. I don't know. I have no idea what happened after that. Um, I think I was gone out of Dundee for the second time not long after that, so I— there was never a follow-up, but It's very hard for me now to sort of look back at that experience and try to sort of sort out what is spiritual, what is physical, um, how much of that do I still believe in terms of the evil spirits and all that kind of thing, because, uh, my faith now at this point Whenever I hear anybody blame anything on Satan, I, my eyes kind of roll into the back of my head a little bit because I think, look, I am perfectly capable of sinning all on my own. I see Satan too often used as a sort of excuse or escape valve. That, oh gosh, uh, well, you know, I was tempted by Satan. Well, no, you were— I mean, maybe you were, sure, but the responsibility for your actions lies entirely with you. And you knew better and you did it anyway. And Satan didn't possess you or take control of you beyond your willingness. To give up that control. So that's my evil spirit story. So it's, it's, I think, somewhat similar to yours, but in some ways, I think, very different because I think it's very, was very clearly the product of mental illness and brain damage. I mean, did you, Did, did your woman, did you know anything about her medical history? No.

No, that's the thing. Uh, she, she may have, we don't, well, the answer is I don't know. We did, we didn't know. No. What this conversation does though, in a way that no other episode has addressed in Inside Out Catalogue, is a series of very important and thoughtful questions. And you've touched upon that very, and articulated it really well there. And that is, what's the difference between something spiritual, supernatural, and mental health? How can you know the difference? Is there a correlation? Are they connected? Are they not connected? You know, we've met people, as you did at times, I'm sure, who were, taking drugs, often illegal drugs. Um, I met somebody in Scotland who was taking LSD, lysergic acid diethylamide, and this is a hallucinatory drug, as, as you probably know. Um, from what we know about drugs, and I know very little about stuff like this, I'm probably the least educated on stuff like this. But there's a relationship between seeing things, experiencing things, feeling things based on circumstances, life's pressure, could be financial, emotional, lost a loved one, you miss them so much, so desperately, your imagination can play tricks and you might see them, or you think you might see them, or you might see them, right? You may actually see them. It could be supernatural, it might not be, it could be drugs related, it could be a reaction to medication. This lady could have gone into the kitchen and taken some medication or had been on medication. Who knows? We don't, we don't know. And so it's, it's very difficult. You know, it's like in the, um, go back in history where, again, help me on this, I'm not an historian, but didn't Jordan Smith, culture, location, geography. Didn't they used to take magic mushrooms, eat magic mushrooms?

There's a school of thought that says that. I don't, I haven't seen any sort of persuasive, I haven't really seen any evidence that that's the case. The, the accusation— accusation maybe is the wrong word— the assertion is that a lot of the visions that people had in the Kirtland Temple particularly came as the result of wine that had been spiked with magic mushrooms. But again, we don't have any documentation of that. I think that there are a lot of people that sort of assume They're looking for some kind of naturalistic explanation for a lot of the Pentecostal sort of things that happened in the early church that absolutely don't happen in modern General Conference. Magic mushrooms would certainly make modern General Conference more interesting, I would assume. But it's, uh, I mean, we don't, we don't have any documentation of that, but certainly magic mushrooms existed back then, and certainly it was possible, but, but there's no documentation as far as I know.

Interesting. And, and, and of course it goes back to what I was saying earlier. It raises a number of questions between the relationship of spiritual, supernatural. Is it, is it not? Is it the imagination? Is it drugs? Is it depression? Is it some kind of me mental health related issue? And, you know, is it, uh, some hallucination that you've had, a dream that you've had, a nightmare that you've had, something that's plaguing you, you've lost a loved one, the whole myriad of different circumstances which could generate something, you know, imaginative or not. And I don't have any answer of how to discern that apart from, and this is where I come down on this pretty clearly in my mind at least, the Newbie Kipps experience, and I've had a few of those, I've only shared the Newbie Kipps, is different for me at least because I went from one expert feeling and experience almost immediately into a whole different feeling that I couldn't control. That was the point I was trying to highlight on the Newbie Kipps episode, which I don't know if I did well enough, but I, I, I had this, it was like Alma, uh, 36, where at one point Alma's wracked with pain and torment and anguish from his sins. And a moment later, literally a moment later, is filled with exquisite joy. And that was my, uh, experience of new bekips. I went from this to this. The thing is, I had no control, Jim, or power or influence on my own to make myself feel better than I did. Otherwise, I'd have done it sooner. If you go into that episode, people who haven't listened to it yet, it was a period of trauma, spiritual, emotional trauma that I was experiencing. Desperately wished I could change, um, at that time, which if I'd have had the power independently to do that, then I would have done that. Why not? But I didn't. And that Nübeck Kips happened in the way that I experienced, and I had no control influence over that. So that is something that I can't put down to, um, you know, I was not on any medication, nothing like that. Um, I can only put it down to the good grace of, of God and the power and the energy in this universe that is benevolent and, and wonderful and extraordinary and mysterious, but is real to me at least. So yeah, this, the, the, the, these conversations, these experiences that you and I had on our mission and prior or since, they raise a lot of questions. And again, I really, you know, we, we, we've covered so many topics on different episodes. And often we ask and invite feedback and input, but I really would like to get folks' thoughts on this. And what's your, what's been your experience and how do you make sense of these kind of strange, wonderful, bizarre, odd, mysterious, unexplainable experiences that, that we have? Are we, are we missing something? But I always appreciate and value people's insights. So yeah, so that, um, and it'd be, I think it'd be very interesting to get Scott Jacobs on, uh, to first of all hear his life story. He's quite, he's quite the individual, as you know. And for him to kind of just discuss this briefly to make sure that I, um, well, be good to get his perspective on it. He might think, well, something different from yours.

I'm betting he would do it. He would, he would come on. I don't, I don't know if you knew this, but I first met Scott Jacobs when I was probably 3 years old. Um, uh, he, he and I were in the same ward, uh, as that I moved out of when I was 6 years old. But his father and my father were very good friends throughout their entire life. And when I met Scott Jacobs again, really for the first time, because I don't remember meeting him as a, as a little kid, but The first thing, uh, I said to him was, my dad knows your dad. And we would say that to each other every time we bumped into each other. And then after our missions, when my father ran for the Senate, Scott Jacobs came and worked on the campaign with me. So I worked very closely with him, uh, on my father's campaign. So I, I have a very long history with Scott Jacobs, and I think we could probably persuade him to come on.

This is somebody that you and I hold in high esteem, is one of the most wonderful individuals on the planet and one of the finest mushers that Scotland has ever been privileged to, um, to have for sure. He's just a wonderful guy. So I'll, so I'm gonna reach out to you, Scott, cuz we are talking about you and I'm going to invite you onto the Inside Out and I, um, I'm excited. I hope that you'll accept. So Jim Bennett, uh, kind of, uh, Concludes my thoughts on that. Any, uh, you're leading this conversation, but so back to you.

Well, no, I, I, uh, I hadn't thought about the Alex story for a very long time and now I'm going to go think about it some more because, uh, it, it really, I, I had sort of just left that, uh, undisturbed. Uh, I, I can remember even at the time feeling somewhat unsettled and thinking, Now, Elder Bennett, are you sure that isn't just mental illness? No, no, no, of course it isn't. You are the righteous mighty exorcist, Elder Bennett. And now, of course, for almost 40 years, I mean, you said 30 years on. I mean, this was in 1987 and 1989 for me. So, um, that's 39 years ago, isn't it? Almost 39. Yeah. Yeah. We're, we're closing in on 40 years ago. Uh, but with that much hindsight, I'm thinking, oh, uh, there's a lot I still need to learn. And there's a lot that I need to, uh, the unexamined life is not worth living. And I find myself examining my life, uh, a lot more the older I get, but I very much appreciate your story. I think it's. It's, it's just really helpful to be able to go back and revisit things that were so defining for us in ways that I think we now sort of reinterpret with, with the amount of experience that's taken place since. So anyway, thank you all very much for listening to this and very much appreciate all of your, uh, all of your feedback. Please feel free to join us in our livestream where you can comment while we are talking, or send us an email at insideoutfeedback@gmail.com. And we look forward to talking with you next time on our next episode of Inside Out. Thank you very much, Jim Bennett.

Jim Bennett.