The Last Exorcism

Cotton.

Well, what's this? I got him.

No!

- What's this? - That would be a troublemaker,

- a little troublemaker. - You think you're going to church?

- Yes. - Jump in the shower, honey.

We're going to church. Going to church. We are going.

Come on, come on, come on.

Want to get the door? Thank you, Justin.

Thanks.

One of the most anointed men of God that I think I've ever met in my life,

- I think you know my son. - Yeah.

I think you know my son. Yeah.

Reverend Cotton Marcus. Let's give another hand for Jesus.

I started preaching pretty young.

You know, my father was a preacher, and every preacher has to have a hook

that's gonna bring the people in, that's gonna get them saved

and, well, frankly, get them in their wallet, 'cause a church doesn't run on love,

and, you know, the child preacher was a great novelty.

So, he started grooming me in order to preach.

Other kids were outside playing, and I'd be learning the Gospel of John.

And by the time he invited me up on the pulpit one Sunday,

you know, as a surprise,

to let the people know and the congregation know

that the Holy Spirit had visited his son,

as spontaneous as that act may have seemed to the congregation,

we were ready.

I'm saying right here, if you want an answer, if you want to know...

- Do you want to know? - Yes!

Look right here! It's right here, brother. Right?

Well, Cotton is quite a character.

He's what you would call a performer, a showman, a...

He's a natural creative.

For example, we have a local theater here, and Cotton writes plays,

and he's making these little mini movies now.

He's built props for them, special effects. Oh, my goodness.

I mean, he entertains like nobody's business.

And, you know, it starts here with us,

but, of course, it carries on into his professional life.

Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Yes, you do!

I mean, so many churches are boring. People don't want to go,

but when Cotton's there, it is never boring.

Folks, I'm here to tell you today that the world is filled

with many, many faces.

- Amen. - Amen.

Right? Now, some of those faces, they're good.

They're right with God. Right?

And some of those faces, they're gonna lie to you.

- You gotta watch out for them. - Absolutely.

So, I'm here to tell you today,

make sure you don't fall for a pretty face, all right?

- Amen. - Amen.

'Cause that pretty face just may indeed be the prince of lies.

- That's right. - Yeah.

'Cause I'll tell you right now, his lies are everywhere.

- Yeah! - Yeah!

It's all about rhythm. And you get them going,

you hallelujah, and blood of Christ.

- They love the blood, and... - They love the blood?

Yeah, I mean, they're practically not listening.

You get them in the right spot, they're not even listening.

- I mean... - No, they're listening.

No, they're so much so not listening, I could talk about anything.

I could talk about my mom's banana bread recipe in the...

- Oh, God, no. - You don't think so?

- See, now you're... - You don't think so?

No, you're underestimating your crowd.

When I go back in there, I will preach a banana bread sermon.

- No, don't do that. That's embarrassing. - I'll bet you 10 bucks.

Do you believe that if you go ahead and allow the Holy Ghost into your heart,

you can be cleansed of all your sins and sit in the kingdom of God?

- Amen. - That is what I'm talking about.

- Can I get an amen? - Amen.

- Can I get a hallelujah? - Hallelujah.

- Can I get a hallelujah and an amen? - Hallelujah, amen.

Do you know if you take two ripe bananas, you put them in a bowl,

and you put some sugar and you go ahead then bake it for 400,

you can go and pull it out and have yourself banana bread?

- Hallelujah! - Hallelujah!

Hallelujah, yes, you can.

Praise Jesus, praise Jesus.

We're in my dad's office, and actually, that's very special,

'cause he doesn't let anybody in his office.

Don't let them see the combination, Dad.

I won't. Yeah.

Yeah, please don't film this combination, sir, it's...

To be honest with you, I'm the only one that knows it.

Me and my accountant.

This is the Hortus deliciarum.

There are about 20 in the whole world.

You can show it to them. Show it to them.

This book describes the various kinds of demons.

Helps you identify them,

and then recommends the process for getting rid of that demon.

We have had exorcists in our family for generations.

Generations. And, we...

How many exorcisms you think you've done with this book?

Hundred and fifty. Hundred and fifty exorcisms, yeah.

The original story of Lucifer is this: Lucifer, indeed, was an angel at one point.

Some people say that he was actually the choirmaster of heaven,

for lack of a better word. He was helping raise hosannas to God,

but he decided he wanted the praise himself,

and with that, God cast him out of heaven.

He took a third of the host of heaven with him,

and those are your demons that you have today.

And then what you have, basically, is the set-up of the entire Bible.

You have the soul of man being fought over.

God wants you to turn to the light of him, and Satan wants to grab your soul.

Because ultimately Satan wants to overthrow God, so you have this clash.

The Bible is filled with demons.

If you believe in God, you have to believe in the devil.

Jesus himself was an exorcist.

Therefore, if you are Christian and you believe in the Bible

and you believe in Jesus Christ, you have to believe in demons.

Mostly people contact me by my website.

Yeah. But this, this is old school. Yeah.

That's from Ivanwood. This is from Georgia.

And this one says, "Please open immediately. Urgent. "

Exorcism is alive and well in the present age.

People think of it as being a scourge of the Middle Ages

that somehow went away and was cured by science,

but the fact of the matter is it's never gone away.

Exorcism today is bigger than it's ever been.

The Vatican used to have, like, 20 or 25 sanctioned exorcists on the staff.

Now they have well over 300, and that's just what they're telling us.

And, you know, they're not telling us everything.

And that's just the Roman Catholic Church.

They get all the press 'cause they got the movie,

- and that's what's sort of culturally... - Right.

But the reality of it

is that exorcisms are performed by every religion all over the world.

As a little boy, I thought this was in every newspaper all over the world.

Tell me what your dad does.

He fights with the demons and the vampires and all the ghosts

and all the monsters.

And fights all the ghosts and the demons and the vampires?

And the monsters.

Do you believe in ghosts?

Does your dad believe in ghosts?

I do not believe in actual demons, no. No.

But when I was doing exorcisms, you know, I acted like I did.

It's not like I saw any demons come out of anybody.

So, for the last something-odd years, you've just been a fraud?

That's your word, not mine. I wouldn't say that.

I would say that for the last couple of years,

what I've been doing is doing what I've always been doing,

which is delivering a service for a person who needs it in a way that they need it.

I'm not saying I'm a doctor,

but I am saying that I helped heal people from what ailed them.

And what ailed them sometimes was the thought in their brain

that they were possessed by a devil,

and if I helped make that thought go away and they felt better, so be it.

I got a life, I got a family to feed. At least that's how I used to justify it.

Well, basically, everything changed when Justin was born.

He was born early, and so there was a while where we weren't sure

our son was gonna be alive,

and then finally, we found out that he was gonna be okay.

And in that moment, Cotton was so relieved,

and he was just, like, "We are so lucky, we are so lucky. "

The best I can do is say, "Thank you, Doctor," you know?

I should have been thanking God, but that wasn't my first thought.

I mean, it just wasn't. And that realization really shook me.

That was a real crisis of faith.

I started to question whether I actually ever even believed in God in the first place.

I just... Boom, you know, I started preaching so early and kept going.

Yeah, I was good, and I got rewarded for being good,

and so who wants to stop that?

So, even when I started to have this revelation

of maybe I don't believe in God,

and yet I'm still presenting myself as a preacher, it didn't stop me.

I mean, I was on autopilot. It's what I do.

But it wasn't easy. You know, it got harder. There's no doubt about that.

He would have quit eventually, at some point anyway,

but there was this one story, this little boy named Victor.

His name was Victor Turoy, from Harrisburg, Texas.

This little boy was autistic,

and he was suffocated to death during an exorcism,

with well-meaning people trying to get this demon out of this child.

I read that article and at the same time, Justin was about this boy's age,

and I started having this recurring nightmare

where I was the exorcist

and I was wrapping a plastic bag around my own son's head.

I was watching my son die every night, and I'd wake up in a cold sweat.

It was not long after that, I was in there washing dishes,

and he came out of the office,

and he had this story about the new pope opening an exorcism academy.

I mean, he was visibly shaken,

and he said, "Do you know how many more people this will hurt?"

You know, and that's when I really decided that I was done.

I had to get out of that. I'm not interested in participating in that whatsoever.

I'm not participating in...

What I want to do is expose exorcism for the scam that it really is,

and that's why we're doing this.

So if I can help expose it for what it really is

and save one kid from having a plastic bag wrapped around his face,

that sounds like God's work.

What I thought we'd do is that we will open an envelope

and we will follow that request wherever it takes us,

and I'll let you follow me,

and that way you can film all the behind the scenes of my exorcism.