#12719 Can Humans Possess One Another? Purgatory and Ghosts - Jimmy Akin

Catholic Answers Live

Catholic Answers

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2026

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“Can humans possess one another?” This question opens a discussion on the nature of influence and control, including the implications of brainwashing techniques. Additionally, the episode addresses what happens to souls in purgatory at the end of the world and whether it’s morally acceptable to seek the identity of a ghost that may be trying to communicate. Other intriguing topics include the concept of fallen guardian angels and their replacements.

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Questions Covered:

03:40 – can human beings possess one another? For example: would brainwashing techniques done by the CIA and other government agencies with the use of LSD and other mind-altering drugs count as possession? My understanding is that the subject’s personality is changed, and they become very influenceable. Is this a form of possession by humans?
20:07 – My 9-year-old son loves listening to your show. He is wondering if you could shed any light on what might happen to the souls in purgatory when the end of the world comes. Do they get forcibly zapped through the rest of their purification process?
33:21 – If you have good reason to believe a ghost in purgatory is trying to get your attention, is it morally okay to ask them to reveal their identity? Context: a few years ago I was home alone with my newborn daughter on All Souls Day and heard repeated loud rattling sounds coming from the kitchen. The baby began screaming. I calmly walked out and said, “Whoever is bothering my baby, go away.” The rattling stopped and I have never heard it since. I have had Mass said for the soul, and also for one person I suspect it might have been, but I am not sure. Is it forbidden to ask for such knowledge or should I be content to wait?
44:37 – Are there fallen guardian angels, if so do we get a replacement if our intended guardian angel fell?

Transcript

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0:14.5	Music Welcome to Catholic Answers live, Edgar Lujano filling in for Scykell today.
0:35.1	When you hear that music, you know what's going to happen. It's
0:38.5	weird questions with Jimmy Aiken today. Truly a pleasure to be here with you. It's been a bit of an
0:43.8	interesting week here at Catholic Answers where it's been a lot of pre-records and haven't taken
0:48.3	a lot of questions. Well, today we're going to keep that trend going just for this week and next
0:52.9	week we'll be back to take all of your questions all week long. So like I said, two full hours of weird questions with Jimmy Aiken. Jimmy, welcome to the show. Thank you, although today is not a pre-record. We're here live. That's true. It is, it is not, in fact, a pre-record. So that's one positive thing so we can actually interact with people a little bit more on the chat.
1:14.6	Although we don't actually do that too often for the show, which is all right.
1:19.0	Yeah, well, let me ask you, Jimmy.
1:21.0	Before we jump into actual questions, if somebody wants to submit a weird question to you, how would one go about doing so?
1:29.0	Well, it happens in different ways. One of the ways it happens is I occasionally post a community
1:35.2	note on my YouTube page asking, saying, hey, I've got a weird questions show coming up or
1:41.7	recording for weird questions coming up. Does anyone have any weird questions?
1:46.0	And lots of people post responses to that. That's how I get most of the questions, but it's not the only way.
1:53.0	Sometimes people will email. They may email me, in which case I take their question and I put it in a log for use on the next or future weird question shows. They also sometimes email like radio at Catholic.com and you guys forward it to me and then I put it in the log of questions for future weird question shows. And I try to prioritize
2:18.8	the ones that are emailed. So if you email me, I try to, I try to get it in the very next show that we do.
2:27.6	Yeah. I know on occasion, we also tend to get some weird questions whenever we're doing a live show for
2:32.9	an ask me anything.
2:38.5	But I kind of like the idea of just having them all together because then you can always go back and have some fun and just listen to a full hour or two hours of just weird questions.
2:43.4	Well, we'll do that anyway.
	...

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