- Thousands of witches are plotting

a spell against president Donald Trump.

CBN news has reported witches have been

increasing their political involvement

since the president was first elected

back in 2016.

Now this comes as witchcraftis on the rise in America.

Investigative journalist, Billy Hallowell

delves into this strange phenomenon of

supernatural activity in his new book,

"Playing With Fire" a modern investigation

into demons, exorcism, and ghosts.

In that book, he explores shocking stories

of deliverance through the lens of faith,

he tells CBN News' The Prayer Link

it's a subject the church cannot ignore

and must be equipped to handle.

- Why do you think the world

and the church sometimes tends to

avoid or even ignore the topic of demons

and spiritual warfare?

- Yeah, I mean I can'tthink of a topic that

is spoken about more in scripture, right,

especially in the new Testament

and talked about less in churches

and I think now I don't wanna say that's

every church, right,because lots of churches

do a wonderful job dealing with this

and talking about it but I think

we know overall that thisis a topic that's avoided

and we did a surveyfor "Playing With Fire"

where we went out

and talked to church leaders.

So these were volunteers and pastors

and we asked them, do youbelieve that demons exist?

Of course the vast majority said, yes.

Do you believe that demonsare impacting culture?

The vast majority said absolutely.

And then we asked the question,

are pastors in churchestalking enough about this?

And 78% said no.

And so it was a really fascinating moment

to again look at this issue

and say we are not speaking about it.

So to answer the question, I mean,

I think there are a lot of reasons why

it's a very difficult topic,

it feels strange for people to address

and I know there are lots of stories

I encountered in writing"Playing With Fire"

of people who have gone for help

they've gone to their church

and they've said, Ihave something going on,

I can't explain it

and they're not givenany assistance or help

and so that, that's atroubling piece of the puzzle.

- Yeah, it does.

- That really leads meto my next question,

Billy, you know, do you think the average

pastor feels equippedto take on these issues?

- You know, I think the average pastor

probably feels as though they know a lot

about it after reading it, I think there's

for some people perhaps a disconnect

between the real world practice of what

you do, right, what goes into deliverance

or exorcism or however you want

to frame the language

and how do you perform that?

Again, lots of pastors know how to do it

when we ask the question there were almost

20% of the churches where the leaders

we spoke with who said, listen,

we have a deliveranceministry at our church

but that's a pretty small percentage.

I feel like every pastor should be

equipped to deal with this so that

people aren't dancingaround going to other

denominations, going to other places

because realistically outside of

the charismatic world, the only place

people really knowwhere to go would be the

Catholic church, they have a very top down

way of handling this.

And so I think it's hard to answer

because we know ourchurches are very split,

you know, for non-denominational churches

but I would say that if there's an issue

that Hollywood is talkingmore about than we are

and of course they're notdoing it the right way

but they're talking more about it

then that's convicting since it's

a very big biblical issue.

- Let me get to this question, Billy,

you know it's coming, Halloween, you know,

it remains a controversialtopic within the church

do you think it should be celebrated?

Or do you think it's something that

may open up people to demonic influence

as you just talked about?

- Well, I think it's really important

to look at what you'retalking about here, right

you were talking about witches who

are looking at October,this is a time of year

where evil is given great focus

and where Halloween itself, the roots

of Halloween are all about trying

to knock down the barrierbetween the living

and the dead, right, that'swhat it was all about.

And so you flash forwardinto the Halloween

we have now I think people have to do

what they feel most convicted on

and so for a lot of people there

are a lot of Christianswho have alternative

Halloween celebrations, right,

churches have harvest festivals

and there's all sorts of other events

that go on in a sense, that's still

observing Halloween, it'sdoing it in a different way.

There are families thatstill trick or treat

in their community but they don't allow

their kids to engage in the evils of

the holiday when it comes to costumes

and other events.

And so, you know, Ithink people have to do

what makes them feel comfortable

within their faith, pray about it

but I think what we really need to do

beyond anything else cause I know this is

one of the most controversialquestions, right,

Halloween is that we need to make sure

that we are leading with helping

our kids understandwhat Halloween really is

and that these are real things, this is,

I mean the stories that I encountered

in writing this book were so stirring

and really unbelievableeven though in my mind

I knew all of this was true.

Obviously as a Christian,really coming around

to saying listen, this is real,

you need to avoid these things,

you need to not partake in them

and let's find a healthyway, whether that's

a harvest festival, whether that's trick

or treating in a very contained way

to observe it

and turn it on its head,don't allow it to be

what the roots of it really are

make it something else.

- [Man] You can see the entire

interview with Billy Hallowell

and much more this eveningon The Prayer Link.

It begins at 6:30 Eastern standard time

and of course you canfind that on the CBN.