(CP) The documentarian who recently went viral after Tucker Carlson told him he was "physically mauled" by a demon pushed back against sceptics who dismissed the former Fox News host's claims about spiritual warfare.
John Heers, who founded the nonprofit First Things Foundation, told The Christian Post that people who deny the unseen realm are deceiving themselves.
"They do believe it, unless they literally don't think they've ever loved anyone or ever will," he said. "Those people are liars. They do believe in the spiritual. They believe in things unseen. There's never been a human who doesn't believe in things unseen. It's ridiculous."
"You think pride is actually just a series of cellular activities in your brain? No one thinks that. They see pride, and they see love; they see hate. These things are real. So the fact that they don't believe in a demon just means that they've been taught how to think like the Enlightenment taught us," he added.
Carlson was met with ridicule from some critics after a clip posted on Heers' YouTube channel went viral on X last Thursday (also Halloween), which showed Carlson claiming he had "a direct experience" with supernatural evil in 2023.
Carlson told Heers that he woke up one night last year suffocating and bloodied with claw marks on his body in what he claimed was an encounter with a demonic entity.
Carlson said scars from the attack remain, and that it pressed him to read the Bible.
Carlson confirmed to The Christian Post last week that he believes the nighttime demonic attack happened, and pinpointed it to Feb. 20, 2023, which was two months and four days before Fox News fired him without explanation.
"Ephesians 6 is real," he told CP, referencing the chapter in the New Testament that teaches mankind is engaged in warfare "against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."
The clip of Carlson's exchange with Heers will feature as part of Christianities?, a documentary Heers is working on with filmmaker Steven "Scooter" Downey, who also worked on the Tucker Carlson Originals documentaries on Fox Nation before Carlson was sacked.
Heers described the film, which is still in production, as "a massive canvas" that aims to document the various interpretations Christians around the globe have of their faith.
"The reality is, people don't know what Christianity is," Heers said. "Even Christians, they don't fully understand why there are so many [forms of it]. They don't fully understand the differences. They all think it's one big thing, and if you go across the world, it's not one big thing. It's very confusing who's with who and why."
Heers, whose nonprofit First Things Foundation he described as "an Orthodox Christian Peace Corps," said he was raised Episcopalian and wandered down the path of agnosticism before finding his way to the Orthodox Church.
He noted that his journeys have taken him to far-flung parts of the world such as Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Georgia, Mali, Haiti and elsewhere. He observed that most cultures are not as dismissive of the spiritual realm as the West, which he said has been overtaken by materialists who are "Puritans without God."
"They have the same Puritan problems," he said of the reigning materialists. "They come at people, put them in stocks. It's all the same exact thing. They just don't have a God to answer to."
"Any African, when you talk about spirits, nobody goes, 'You're an idiot!'" he said. "They go, 'Yeah, which ones?'"
"Overseas and all these different cultures, everybody knows spirits exist," he added.
Heers said his movie, which is slated for a tentative release next year, will feature reflections on Christianity from "famous and not so famous people," but said "a door opened" through Carlson's relationship with Downey, offering him the opportunity to travel to Carlson's home to seek his insight.
Carlson opened up about his supernatural experience after Heers probed whether the presence of evil is "kickstarting people to wonder about the good," which Heers said is a question he has been asking many people.
"The spiritual world and material world are connected, and Tucker's just trying to figure it out," he said. "And these people [questioning Carlson's story] are jerks, because they're not charitable people. They're uncharitable. It's possible that it happened."
Since the demonic attack in 2023 and his subsequent ouster from Fox News, Carlson has been increasingly outspoken about his belief that the world's political battles are fundamentally spiritual.
"Clarifying for sure," Carlson said of the attack to CP.
