This article is the introduction and first article in a series built for the purpose of describing Spiritual Strongholds and how to build them, for the defense of God’s people their families, God’s Church, our towns, schools, and any other application I did not realize. It’s also like to result in the publishing of a book with the same name and intention. Delaying the content getting out there while I meander through the publishing process seems wrong. And given the events this article shares, there is clearly a need for the content of the book. We are all in very grave danger. It really is time to place the sentries and start fighting back through prayer. The enemy is clearly operating without remorse. Enjoy. May God bless you and enlighten you through the text below.

Build the defense – Introduction

Ephesians 6:10-18

It’s all fun and games until a door into a room of the occult opens to your side immediately after you completed a puzzle. It all seemed so innocent while extremely complex in design and intention of deception and a healthy dose of creepy while wondering WTH is going on, fun night in an “escape room”. Behind that door is a room filled with the everything occult that one can possibly imagine while inducing vomiting

It had a oijie (I don’t care how it’s spelled) board, tarot cards, books about palm reading, and the requirement that each of these things be utilized to continue to be able to play the game and maybe escape from the escape room. The books even had really pretty invisible text written into them where our “clues” were found only under the creepy black lights of the room.

A group of Christians, out on a “fun night” with their bible study group has just been put on camera, display, and made a mockery by the ones who set the trap. We were made into their freak show.

Thankfully, the Holy Spirit, my wife and our guardian angels were at work knowing what was coming and what would be required to prepare us to come to the defense of our friends in the middle of a storm of intentional spiritual destruction.

Escape rooms have always given me a bad feeling. I have only participated in one prior to last night, and it was a mystery murder story with a huge amount of history of the county where my family originated. It also didn’t have secret doors, with secret codes and a whole host of terrible. There was nothing vile. I had no interest in the game, but took huge interest in the material. The one last night was vile and demonic.

Earlier that day, I had come across a miniatures model in a tabletop game store of “Minotaur Labyrinth Protector” and it gathered my attention. I felt an urge to ask God to guide me in the store. What is it that He wanted me to see or do in that store on this day? I picked up a Warhammer 40k set on an impulse buy when my son revealed to me the miniatures included in the box, in addition to flying space marines with rocket launchers for guns, were called “Heavy Intercessors.” Sold. They have huge cannons for armaments.

My son and I returned home, and my wife asks, “What’s that?” I said, “heavy intercessors” with a grin. I had to clarify a bit more. Clearly God was trying to tell us something about the requirement of heavy intercessor prayer warriors. We didn’t realize that he was talking about tonight.

We already had a bad feeling about any sort of escape room, and both my wife and I began strangely filling our pockets with the various tools as we prepared to depart for the evening. We were both of the same mind without really discussing it. She felt compelled to not empty her pockets of anything, but actually to add other various prayer reminder things to her “Catholic Emergency Kit” That was a joyful experience that I now appreciate far more upon reflection.

I grabbed the Holy Water bottles, rosaries, stack of patron Saint cards, Benedictus medal, crucifix that was in my breast pocket behind my Knights of Columbus pins. Consider what the physicality of a soldier preparing to go out on a combat patrol would be doing? I am a veteran, so this interaction of the physical and spiritual is completely natural to me. It’s also how God shows me the angelic/spiritual realm and how my intercessory prayer life appears. This will become relevant later in this text.

While driving into Reno, I had a thought that what if these escape rooms are actually something like a labyrinth of the owner where they keep you inside and try to confuse you about what’s going on and make it difficult to get out? The conversation on the way to the location was very similar to the preparation for our departure where we were both of the same mind again That was a joyful experience that I now appreciate far more the night after and day following.

When we arrived and walked in, we were greeted by one of those 15 foot tall skeletons that look really strange for a Halloween decoration at Lowes. The first time I saw one, it weirded me out. I wasn’t quite sure why I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I would never buy one and often wondered why they were now selling Nephillum skeletons for halloween. It’s May and apparently they forgot to take down the statue. The lobby was decorated with numerous objects and iconography that lead me to jokingly say, “what could possibly go wrong?” One member of our party chuckled somewhat knowingly. It was so bizarre that they had a sit-down old school Pacman game. I also witnessed one of my friends and members of the party clear the Pacman board two times in a row without dying. I have never witnessed such a feat. He ended up being one of the ones who terminated playing the game.

We got the instructions from the creepy young man who called himself our Game Master. We were then lead back into the labyrinth and that’s when red flags started going off in my brain and everyone else’s for that matter. The Holy Water came out, the rosary came out, the Benedictus medal came out, and the prayers for angelic protections started flowing.

It is worth noting that my Benedictus medal is blessed by the Cardinal of the Society of Hospitallers, the Pope and is a 3rd degree relic 21 times over. The rosary carries a blessing of the priest at the Saint Michael the Archangel Church where my really bizarre started in February 2022, and carries a 3rd degree relic status 22 times over. It has come in contact with two relics of the cross upon which Christ was crucified. It is irrelevant if you do not believe in the truth of the relics of Christ, His Church, and His Saints. I had no idea what it is about until after I started to learn about Catholicism. They make 100% sense to me. Make no mistake, the demonic knows the power they carry. If they didn’t, the demonic rebels masquerading under the guise of the protestant revolution would not have bothered destroying as many of them and the churches that housed them as they did. Read about the history of the Basilica of Saint Martin of Tours in France for an example.

Anyway, I’ll save you the full story of the events of the escape room , because it adds nothing. That said, there are a few concepts and learning points to take from our experience. Because of the intentional actions and steady revelation of the requirement to play the game master’s game, we all got really bad feelings about it. None of us paused to listen to what we were all verbalizing. Danger. Go to prayer. The game was called Freak Show. It may seem like the freaks of the show are supposed to be the characters painted around the room, but what really occurred is the party of Christians were put in the game as the freaks of the show.

The deception and redirection of the environment by the game master was one an execution by a master of games who knew exactly what he was doing.

The designer of the game is the far more worthy adversary. The owner of the lands of the game is one of profound spiritual power and should be considered more dangerous than a murderer on the run from the law. This one will hide in plain site while they’re building the right combat environment to set the entire town on fire. What was required of the participants after each code was cracked or lock broken was the steady progression toward the occult and mandatory participation in order to continue playing the game.

I had been saying through most of the game that what was occurring was not ok and that it was dangerous and wrong. I finally threw down the tools of his game after realizing the tools of his game lead to a Ouije board. I said I would rather lose than play. My wife refused to play, and continued to pray in the room that was opened with the others. I walked out and went to prayer. I sprayed more Holy Water over their grounds openly saying that if you’re going to use us in their ritual, I would do the same.

The second thing to take from this was just how intentional the ones who built it are with their construction. It was complex. It was everything one would visualize as a spiritual trap for a human being. It was nothing like amateurish. Anyone who were to fall into this trap and not have the protections of Christ would be in SERIOUS danger spiritually.

I am 100% certain that the only reason our party did not become full participants and beneficiaries of the gamemasters’ Freak Show was because of my wife and my prayers and actions together. The use of the tools of the Catholic heavy intercessors for our friends and ourselves in the midst of being ensnared in a trap of the demonic with our prayers of protection holding the line in obstinate defiance of the sorcerer’s games while refusing to participate any further once the danger of the game was fully revealed is what prevent a much larger catastrophe for them. I have never felt the call to go to confession since my Baptism a month ago, but it was clear in my head that night. I was going to confession tomorrow for the sin of presumption of protection. We failed to follow the guidance of Ephesians 6:10-18 and it left us vulnerable as a individuals, and as a group. Interestingly, the game master constantly sought to find ways to divide our group.

He offered to show us the rest of the game after we had failed to escape his game. My wife bolted out the door, I got up and quite clearly said how interested I was in not seeing anything more. It was a manner that would usually offend someone. This young sorceror’s apprentice did not even flinch. He knew exactly what he was doing. I left the building after spraying Holy Water in the lobby. Then the group allowed him to take their pictures in the lobby.

Dinner was mediocre Mexican food and left me belching sulfurous terrible for the next 12 hours. I have never experienced this sort of sulfurous belching before last night. It seems to have finally resolved 24 hours later, after a 16 hour fast, confession with a priest, eucharistic communion, and daily mass,

Did I mention it was also a full moon last night? Nothing to see here though. Who actually believes in that stuff? What we choose to believe does not change what is truth.

There were 97 reviews online all of 5 stars while rejoicing in the fun and having played all of their games. It is heart breaking for the families of the victims of this spiritual assault and abuse of innocent people. I dropped a 1 star and warned those who might be lured into the trap without fully knowing what they were consenting to.

What I also realized today is the truth of what this place is and the activities the masters of games are engaging are a sort of seed planting for the future that Christians should recognize as a tactic. Few will recognize the tactics of the enemy and how they will mirror the tactics of God’s grace. Seeds of evil have been planted in the lives of many people in this place. Our entire group will now have to reconcile after the organizer walked us by our trusting hands into the temple of the demonic. He said he didn’t know, but he also did little more than watch from the back. I suppose he felt bad and he shared it with my wife, but there was never an apology or acknowledgement of remorse or confession and repentance for leading Christians into such a den of dangerous sin. Someone started the oiga board. Another finished it. All but three were having a great time and solving all their puzzles while desiring to escape the room not realizing the only escape from the room came when the game master opened the door. What the game lead to was the opening of a door that leads into another room. It was labeled The Ring Leader. Freemasonry does exactly this. It isn’t until the 33rd degree that they reveal the great architect is actually lucifer. By that time, the rites and rituals of freemasonry has caused the immediate excommunication of themselves from the Church for engaging in sorcery. Immediately. Protestant churches don’t have a mechanism to deal with what occurred last night. A sincerely repenting heart is critically important in any act of reconciliation with Christ, but we knowingly went in and ignored warnings, we didn’t pray, we only went in under our own strength ignorantly under the presumption of protection cuz Jesus. Presumption is sin.

Being Catholic has given me a deep appreciation for what Christ did for us, does for us, and will do for us. He bled for all of us last night while we recklessly ignored His saving grace that awaited us after we were done with our fun night. Today was my first confession since Baptism. It was also my first confession ever since first Baptism washes away all the sins of our past. It only took me 26 days to find my way into a place and situation of my own somewhat choosing by choosing not to leave immediately to absolutely know the place I need to be at the very first opportunity was a confessional. What I did find amazing was how freeing it really was confessing it in that manner and then having the priest pray the prayer of absolution over me and then give me a penance that was almost unjustly small. The amazing part of God’s grace is, why would we expect anything less than that response from a loving father when we have the intention of confession of our own sins and to own them rather than lie to ourselves about them and run from them. It’s probably the most important that we know we must go to confession for what just occurred that is when the penance actually begins in the spiritual realm.

The disgusting reality of the consequence of this deception is that those victims will not be able to connect the dots of their lives coming unraveled a few years later with the time they had a fun night where they actually made a pact with an evil spirit while participating in the ouija board ritual, and they hadn’t realized it.

I would not be surprised if the freak shows are made available on internet sites for people to watch in something like a demonic porn thing. The demonic loves to make us live in shame of our sins to separate us from God and his grace.

The tale written above is also a superb example of how enemy spies operate to infiltrate a country, corporation, government etc. Their soul task is subterfuge without their target’s sovereign having any idea they are at work while ruining the target from the inside. They will only destroy when they absolutely have to, because if they destroy their targets and informants, they have to start over. No one likes starting work over. They will inadvertently destroy what it looks like for those who live within the target realm. The spies will also seek to prepare it the target to be conquered with much less physical resources in the future. Things like sabotage, propaganda, etc are the tools of this particular form of espionage.

This place and those who are party to it are engaging in a much more dangerous form of espionage. It is the spiritual sort of infiltration and preparation of what’s to come in the spiritual and physical for the what happens in the physical has already been decided in the spiritual.

In case one has never read or never really understood the importance of Ephesians 6:10-18, read it again.

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and shaving put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the enemy; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,

Every day, we are living out the reality of this Bible passage in all places, in all activity, and in all choices. Think about the narrative above and see if you’re able to apply it to other situations where after prayerful reflection, one may realize they have been victimized in other ways. Then, read the rest of the material presented. After reading the material, come back and read the passage again. See how differently you see it with newly opened eyes.

Doing the research late last night, I am quite certain was a physical labyrinth with a spirit of a minotaur labyrinth protector. It was a bit odd that my attention was alerted to the minotaur lore at my friendly neighborhood game store. God meets us where we are, and He is everywhere we invite him, and everywhere we don’t while waiting for us to ask him to help us.

Still think all that mythology stuff is mumbo jumbo?