Ep 32 | K-Pop Demon Hunters | Strange Encounters with Rick Burgess

0:00You know what they say. Early bird gets the ultimate vacation home. Book early and save over $120 with Burbo. Because early gets you closer to the action, whether it's waves lapping at the shore, or snoozing in a hammock that overlooks, well, whatever you want it to. So you can all enjoy the payoff come summer with Burbo's early booking deals. Rise and shine. Advert savings $141. Select homes only. Hello and welcome to Strange Encounters. The podcast I'm your host, Rick Burgess, host of the Rick Burgess Show. You can hear our show or watch our show Monday through Friday. All those details are at Rick BurgessShow.com. I'm also director of the manchurch.com. This is a men's discipleship strategy that is being used by thousands of churches all over our country and even

1:01around the world. If we can be of any assistance to help you have a men's ministry and a discipleship strategy that is sustainable. Challenging men, but at the same time equipping them, just go to themanchurch.com. My wife Sherry and I also do marriage ministry and my wife does women's ministry. And if you'd like to find out more about those things, go to Burgessministries.com. But today we are focused on Strange Encounters. This is a podcast focused completely on spiritual warfare. Yes, yes, the supernatural. But we're talking about the supernatural through the lens of a biblical worldview. And there's plenty in a biblical worldview involving the supernatural. And our goal, and we are seeing fruit that we are being used by God to achieve this, our goal is to educate because so many times even inside the church, spiritual warfare is something that's

2:07rarely ever talked about. And the problem with that is just because we don't talk about it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And one of the concerns that we had, and I've had many times, is that the Western church is full of congregations that head out into a spiritual battle, unprepared to fight it, to recognize it, to discern it. And so we're hoping to help things we should avoid, things we should embrace, actual preparation and also equipping to fight the battle that is raging around us between angels and demons. And of course, we also serve a triune God that is supernatural. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the beginning of all things. I mean, when you think about that, that the God that we were created by has no beginning. He is the beginning. Everything flows from him. So with all that in mind, we jump into this

3:12episode. And we're going to, a lot of today has been directed by you, the audience, with strange encounters. And you, the audience, have responded in such a way that our partners, Blaze Media, have created a separate YouTube channel for strange encounters. If you'd like to find it and subscribe, and there's plenty of content there for you, long form and short form, you can go to YouTube and search Strange Encounters Rick. If you want to follow us on Instagram, and there's some great stuff there, or on TikTok, some great stuff there too, Strange Encounters pod our Facebook page is facebook.com slash Strange Encounters. So if you only want Strange Encounters content, there's all the places to find it. And of course, our podcast audio only is always available wherever you get podcast, and you just search Strange Encounters. So let's start out with something that has become a reoccurring segment on Strange Encounters. And that's demons in

4:17the headlines. The whole world of Hollywood is extremely dark. We've covered it on past episodes, we have things we're developing now that will cover on future episodes. But we want to be responsible and really do our research. A lot of you are familiar with the actress Candice Cameron Burr. Now that is Kurt Cameron's sister. She was on Full House and has had a very successful career as an actress. And she was talking, this is a story that actually came out the week of March the 11th, 2026. And that's when we're recording this. And she's talking about that she once found herself looking into the very face of the dark and demonic world of Hollywood. She was on another podcast. She's 49 now. And she talked about the underground Hollywood party that

5:19she accidentally attended with her husband, Val Burr. She said, this is a quote from her, I have some really weird embarrassing moments. Although I shouldn't say embarrassing for me, they were more shameful of going to places where I thought like, oh, this person's a friend and I'm going to be cool. And I'm going to go to this party that they've invited me to. And because she had that attitude, what she said was very naive, she found herself and at well, what she described, how does she use her words? An SNM sex thing that ended up being so dark and so demonic, I walked in. My eyeballs were popping out of my head because I saw stuff. I've never seen before in my life. I'm looking at my husband and I'm like, how are we here? What is happening? And we made a hard U-turn and walked right out of there. It was just so

6:19slimy. It was so weird. We had no idea what we were walking into. It was so disgusting and so gross, so dark, so demonic. And she said, honestly, she said, I've never been the type of person that wanted to do anything risky. And I never wanted to use my body or my sexuality to get ahead. My morality meant more to me and my character has always meant more to me than the success that I might garner. And she said, not because I'm trying to be the righteous person, but I genuinely was not the type of kid that just ever felt like I had to compromise my morality to move ahead in the business. And what she's saying is there were moments she got scripts and there were things in the script she didn't want to do, but she also was saying it was clear that if you would go

7:21into this world, and remember, we've had past episodes where other people have said this. And I've even had people that have suggested while doing research on this underground demonic world of Hollywood, which shouldn't surprise us. I mean, look at the fruit of stuff that's coming out of Hollywood. And it's not coming out of Hollywood because that's what feels the seats in the theater are, are gets the most downloads on streaming services because you always hear that. They say, oh, well, we do all these dark demonic things because that's what the people want and all this porn and the things we show. It's what the people want and all this weird sexual stuff because that's what the people want. Well, really, that's not true because we know that really family-oriented movies and shows have far bigger numbers than any of this garbage. No, it's an agenda. It's it's coming from a dark place. And and some have suggested and when you hear this from Candace Cameron Burr, if you ever saw and sadly before I was a follower of Jesus, I did see

8:23the movie with Tom Cruise and the co-Kidman that that had all this type of stuff in it, eyes wide shut. And many people said that Tom Cruise was really showing us this dark pagan demonic world of Hollywood in that movie. And I would not tell anyone to watch it, but I'm just telling you, based on this latest eye witness, it certainly makes you wonder. So so there's your demons in the headlines, but I don't think any of us are surprised that someone who's been into the darkness of Hollywood said it's dark, it's demonic, and it's full of sexual perversion. I don't think any of us are surprised by that. So that that kind of takes us into these other things we want to discuss. You you have to be careful what you expose yourself to. And I know many of us had this attitude that we're we are so far along in our faith that we're above any

9:23influence. I remember talking to a brother in Christ. I don't doubt this person's redemption at all. But I remember we were discussing the filth that comes out of Hollywood and the impact it could have on our lives. And I remember the person saying and they thought they were saying this as if this is something that we should embrace. I took it and said this, I think it's something that we should be concerned about. And the quote was and it was some nasty movie that that I won't give any any attention to. And I said, so you watch that. And and he said, oh yeah, he said that that kind of stuff. I mean, it didn't bother me. And I remember saying back to this brother, but it should. Where's the spiritual sensitivity that that is so grotesque and so immoral? Why is it not bothering the Holy Spirit? And and we had a discussion about it. So be careful if

10:24you're someone that think, you know, you're like, I know I'm I'm I'm redeemed. I know that I'm a follower of Jesus. And I can expose myself to all these things. And it doesn't really bother me. But it should. America leads the world in medicine development. It matters. We get new medicines first nearly three years faster. Five million Americans go to work because we make medicines here at home and not relying on other countries keeps us safe. But China is racing to overtake us. Will we let them or will we choose to stay ahead? When America leads America cures. Let's tell Washington to keep us in the lead. Learn how at America cures dot com paid for by pharma. If we look at scripture and conviction that the Holy Spirit is documented to give everyone who is redeemed. God's very presence. John describes it in the first John is God's very seed has come into your life. So how can you continue to practice sin? Not struggle with sin. Not

11:27not have a tough moment. And we're going to continue to have that in the sanctification process. But the practicing and embracing of sin. And remember and I have an update we've talked on past episodes episodes on how media and what we look at and what we hear does impact us. We now can can report to you that the last Super Bowl that we just had and everything that went on half time and all that garbage. The last Super Bowl that we had a 30 second spot was anywhere from eight to 10 million dollars for 30 seconds of our attention. And how many of us even think that every single person watches or listens to a commercial. They don't, but it was worth that kind of money for how much influence it actually has. So we need to be leery of that. So here's another one that that I want to cover. I was asked about this in emails and you can email strange encounters Rick at Burgess Ministries.com. And it was, can you do in the next episode something about

12:30these healing crystals that you hear so much about? People get these crystals and they do all these weird things with them and they're supposed to bring healing. And so I did some research on the crystals and we don't have any at our house or anything like that. But that doesn't matter. I can still go and do the research. And I'm going to tell you that there's some things in there with these crystals that actually can be good. But then there's things about the crystals that are not good. And I want to try to help you and us to discern these things properly. So let's talk about crystals where they could be harmless. Okay. Well, the Bible calls them beautiful throughout the Bible, including when John sees the vision of the New Heaven, the New Earth, the New Jerusalem, we see stunning examples of God's handiwork. And I'll tell you some of that.

13:31But one thing in Exodus 39, 10 through 13, the Levitical Priest wore this jacket. And on the front of the Levitical Priest, you saw all sorts of jewels and crystals and beautiful and they were stunning and can be stunning. We have these precious stones are very beautiful. And they're there should be glorifying God. And we see them in perfection and Revelation 21, 10 through 21. If you read that, John is seeing the New Jerusalem and these precious stones are all over it. Revelation 22, 1 through 2 says that the river that flows from the throne of God and from the New Jerusalem appears to be like crystal. When you read Revelation 21, as I gave you 10 through 21, you'll see the word crystal there, translucent and all these other gems that are represented as

14:37well. So one thing, if you have these precious stones and you have them for no other reason than just to admire their beauty and admiring their beauty reminds you of the Creator God and how glorious and wonderful and beautiful He is. And you keep it in the same place, the Levitical Priest kept it in and you keep it in the same place. Apparently when God sets things right in the New Heaven and the New Earth and the New Jerusalem, He uses these to decorate it in its beauty. He created these wonderful things. You keep it right there. Honestly, I think you're fine. I don't even see a problem with that like anything else that you have for the glory of God. But then here's where the problem comes in. These crystals like everything. Remember when you did them with spiritual warfare, there's God's intention and then there's Satan and the demons corruption of God's intention.

15:43This is another great example of that. One of them, of course, is an alarming example, easy to see and that sexual purity that we just talked about in our demons and the headline segment. We know God intended intimacy between a husband and a wife to be beautiful, to be holy, to be something that the two of them shared discreetly and not just for offspring, not just for multiplication. It also was intended to be enjoyed by a husband and a wife and still is intended that way. But what happened to the purity of sexuality? Well, there's a corroded grotesque version of that corrupted by Satan and his demons. You can look at these crystals the same way. They were intended to glorify God and reflect the beauty of our Creator. But of course, once again, the adversary comes in and tries to corrupt this. So if you are going into this world and when you go into the world, you're not

16:54using these crystals to glorify God, you think they have some supernatural power for things like healing, good luck charms. This is that new age mysticism with crystals. Now, if that's what's going on, you got problems. That's a no. Scripture forbids all this, Ezekiel 1320. If you want to write that down, it talks about it even specifies having good luck charms and things like that. They also then also become idols, which are an abomination to God. So if you think they have supernatural powers, are you use them to conjure some supernatural power? That's bad. Their beauty is good, but they're not supernatural. Once again, the occult has embraced these crystals. So be careful of that. Due to our enemies, we already have said in the prior episode, due to our enemy 1810 through 12,

18:00said this is the testable to God to use it in a way that would be identified as witchcraft and idolatry. Even the Apostle Paul talks about this in Galatians 5, 19 through 20. This is God's creation and it's meant to be pure, but as usual, Satan attempts to corrupt something that God intended to be beautiful and you've got to walk that line and you've got to walk that line correctly. So remember that. Throughout the Bible, we see them being used as good, but we also see warnings throughout the Bible that if they are used in a way that God finds the testable, you should have nothing to do with them. Like, for instance, look at this. You say, well, I heard that these crystals can heal me. They're healing crystals. Well, the Bible tells you the only supernatural healing

19:05that we have access to is from Christ, the great physician. It's from God, not crystals, not rituals. It's from God Himself. So if you're taking anything that God does and only God does in Scripture and you think something else can do that, you are walking into a very dangerous place. Your heart has to be right when approaching something like that and listen to me. If you start saying these crystals are good luck charms to you, they're healing properties for you, you may actually see some supernatural things happen, but it won't be from God. And I will tell you, you'll be inviting horrible, horrible things into your home. So crystals, glorifying God and his creation and his beauty, good, using them in some new age mystical way for healing powers and

20:09good luck charms and things to calm you or put you in some sort of meditation, bad. Do not go down that road. So next thing I was asked about has a lot to do with programming that children or families may watch and one of them is the very popular Netflix series Stranger Things. Not strange encounters like us, but Stranger Things. Now I will give you complete transparency. I have watched very little of it. So I'm not an expert from a personal experience. I wasn't drawn to it I do have people in my family who were and enjoyed it. I'm talking about solid people who are followers of Christ. And so I did a lot of research talking to them and all this. You may not know this. I'm a child of the 80s. Back in the 80s, there was something called the satanic panic and Stranger Things is based in the 80s. And then I think it transitions over into the 90s and the later

21:11episodes. And that part of it can be a lot of fun. But in the opening scene, the kids are playing dungeons and dragons. And dungeons and dragons, which maybe we need to do an episode that we get into that. That was part of the satanic panic that happened in the 80s. And some people were claiming that the church was was finding Satan in everything and around every corner. But some of the things that the church was exposing really should have been a concern. So some things in the show Stranger Things and I'll kind of break this down. If you didn't know anything about it, there's something called the upside down that represents the evil that is underlying in society. So is the show satanic or demonic? Not really because the separation of good and evil seems to be there pretty clear.

22:15But it can be troubling because there are some scary things in it. It's more science fiction than it is demonic or satanic. But if you're someone like me that you're not going to watch anything that has horror in it, it's not like a slasher movie or anything like that. But there are some images in there that could be troubling. And I'll get to that especially for younger people. Number two, do they take the Lord's name in vain? They do. They use Jesus's name as a slang. There are some things in there that certainly language we would not approve of involving Jesus and God. But do they, but do they mock Jesus? Not really. There's actually an episode when they discuss getting the church involved against this evil force that they're fighting against. Kids should they watch this was the next thing. I would say if the, if the kid

23:18is younger than 15, probably not. I think that probably would be an issue. So I would be real careful with that. Do they normalize sin? Well, it is practice. It is not really condoned. Meaning the goal, of course, in the movie is actually to remove this evil stuff, not embrace it. But now when I say that, you are going to see, and the people who have actually seen it, all seem to agree that there's this weird entrance in this ongoing season of lesbian and a lesbian and a gay character. And everybody that I saw reviews on, I studied them. They all found it to be forced. They found it to be silly. And I did talk to some people that said once

24:18this happened, they turned it off because they knew what was going to happen. It's like this series felt pressured by society to awkwardly enter a lesbian and gay character into the story. It seems more awkward than it seems agenda driven from what I've gathered, but know that that's there. And that is normalized. And of course, you, you got to be aware that there are going to be some some monsters in there that could cause nightmares. They looked a little silly to me. I watched some of that. They didn't, but again, that goes back to the age or the, of the person. Now you are going to deal with astral projection. This was something that became really big in the, in the 70s for a while, leaving one's body and being able to project your spirit somewhere and then come back to your body. Of course, this is something that the satanic church tried to participate in

25:20when, you know, you, you had that movement in the 70s in California. And there's some interesting commentary on that and involving the John's satanic church in California where, you know, they, they attempted this and some of them died and some people say it's because they tried it and could never get back to their bodies. So know that that astral projection is in there to deal with. So a lot of people asked, so what, what are we, what, what do you say? I mean, should we let this enter our home or should we not? I would say it should be under a yellow flag caution more than a red flag, but some of this you may say, I'm not, I'm not even going to try to balance that. And that's perfectly fine. You certainly won't be an error to do that. But, but one thing I can say is that it seems to separate good and evil and not blur them. Now you heard some of the issues

26:20that are in there. Brent Crowe wrote a wonderful book about this kind of stuff called Chasing Elephants. That's these gray areas in our faith and these gray areas in spiritual warfare. And he said, he lays out, I won't tell you the whole book, you can read it for yourself. But he says, when dealing with what entertainment we allow in our lives from a spiritual standpoint, there's questions to ask, does it have any redeeming quality? For instance, saving private Ryan is an R-rated movie and it has some pretty rough language in it and some pretty rough violence. But I have never had a problem viewing that movie or watching it as a family once the kids got old enough because it has a redeeming story of sacrificing yourself for the good of others. So even though it was rated R, I thought it had a redeeming quality to it.

27:21So that was allowed once everyone was old enough. Now, when you're just talking about an R-rating for porn and just foulness, blasphemy, yeah, no, you wouldn't do that. But even the passion of the Christ was rated R. So you have to be careful being really legalistic about it. It's R, I'm not watching it, but then you wouldn't have watched the passion of the Christ. Why is it rated R? Would be kind of the road you would go down and that's kind of the thing that Brent Crow talks about in these gray areas and chasing elephant. Spring is here and the shopping list is long. Time to make a lows run. Buy three bags, get three free of stay green, one cubic foot garden soy. Plus right now, members can earn four times the points on an eligible purchase. Start spring off strong with these deals and more. Our best lineup is here at Lowes. Balance the 325, while supplies last. Soil offer excludes a last and a why. Lowellty program subject to terms and conditions. See Lowes.com slash terms for details. Subject to change. Point booster subject to exclusions and

28:25more terms apply. One time only offer. So there's kind of the assessment from strange encounters on stranger things and and hopefully that can help you. But now I'm going to get to one that we were asked about that I think is really, really problematic. And that is K-pop demon hunters. I think we got a real problem here. This is extremely concerning. If your children are watching this, I would caution you. I'm now bringing a red flag out. And I'm going to tell you why. Unlike stranger things and unlike crystals, I find no way to find a good way to consume this product because it isn't good versus evil. It portrays itself as that. But it is that we have a character, which is a character twist. The way it's supposed to be is these K-pop

29:26female singers become demon hunters and they battle demons. It's an animated movie. Okay. And it was wildly successful and stays wildly successful. There's even I think a live tour of the bands and all that. So be aware of that too. But what we the problems in this animated movie is they do not make it clear that good and evil are opposites and cannot be mixed. They absolutely mix them. And they portray it as that being okay. You must embrace the demon side of yourself. Embrace your sin nature as much as you embrace. It's all part of us. And ultimately, we shouldn't fight it. That it can all coexist. So that's very, very troubling. One of the main characters, I think, that it's Kumi, turns out to be part demon and part human, falls in love with the demon and embraces

30:33her darkness. This mythical barrier that they used to fight against demons. It isn't God. It's a mythical mysticism of some kind, blocking evil. They don't portray that as being Jesus. It's something in the new AG world and it normalizes the supernatural. And also a lot of things, and I wasn't familiar with this, but it's an Asian product. And they're really big in these shamans that are supposed to be spiritual leaders in this religion that involves shamans. A lot of that's in there. The blurring of evil and good is my main concern. Like I said, the main hero is half demon. But as we get through the movie, the hero embraces the demonic side of themselves. There's a

31:34savior type feeling here that you think is going to deal with the demonic before you know it. The embracing of the demonic is okay. I mean, it literally falls in love with a male character that is a demon. Another problem is it uses musical. It uses music as a spiritual weapon. Not God. Music can be powerful. There's no doubt about that. We see even in Ephesians chapter five where Paul is calling on the church to continue to sing songs of praise and him and hymns and that can, it's so powerful, but it doesn't replace the Holy Spirit because music can also be extremely dangerous if worship of God is removed from music. And this movie really uses music to get to the spiritual side of all this. And so this is music being used

32:35to move the kids and to impact the kids in a different direction, not toward God, not toward light versus darkness. And light illuminates darkness. Good should overcome evil. And we should repent and reject the sin side of us. We should reject the dark side of us. No, this animated movie is teaching children and all who are watching it. Don't be so concerned about the dark side of yourself. It's ever bit as much a part of you as the good side of yourself. And you know, don't draw such hard lines. There's a way for good and evil to coexist. And you can embrace both. That's a very, very dangerous message, especially to impressionable children. K-pop demon hunters gets a red flag from strange encounters. It also teaches self-reliance. Accept yourself as you are

33:36even your sin nature. There's no need to repent. And what did Jesus tell us? Repent our parish. What did Peter say at Pentecost? When everybody's hearts were cut by the Holy Spirit and they cried out to Peter, what must we do? Peter said repent. K-pop demon fighters or whatever this thing's called. They would actually tell you demon hunters. They would tell you, don't worry about repenting. God loves you just like you are. And this God is whatever it is. You know, this is one of the things and it goes further. There's concern about even the whole Star Wars series, because the Star Wars series was teaching a dark force and a good force, but they were equal in power and you know, there's a little bit of, you know, you've got to watch even Star Wars, but it didn't go as far as K-pop demon hunters. It glamorizes demons. Hey, there's a red flag.

34:40It glamorizes demons, even the male version of K-pop. These are not good guys. They're actually demonic. And you know, if you're watching this, you could come to the conclusion, if you're in the audience, that darkness can actually be a lot of fun. It's not anything to be concerned about. It could actually be a ton of fun. Look at the demon pop band and all that music. So the main characters I told you falls in love with a demon and then embraces the demonic side of accepts that person as a full demon, full acceptance, but also stops rejecting the dark side even of themselves. This is one of the main concerns I also have with the very popular movie and

35:44now second movie, Wicked. First of all, the fact that the name of its Wicked is a little bit and a little bit of pushback. And I'm not trying to be sanctimonious or legalistic and all that, but I'm just telling you, when young people are influenced by themes that say it's okay to be wicked. It's oak. There's not really a good and bad. There's a little bit of this and all of us. And of course, in the movie's Wicked, finally, we are all considered to be bigots for considering that anything's wicked. And if everybody wants to call me Wicked and everybody thinks I'm Wicked, well, I'll just embrace that and be Wicked. And that's not portrayed as a bad thing. And I know I can already see the comments down here, overreaction, all that. Look, I just told you, I think there's a way to redeem crystals as long as you're not using them in a new AG mystic

36:47supernatural way. I think that stranger things is something you probably could maneuver through. This K-pop, no, but because of the things that we just said, in anything else that has that theme, even something like Wicked, in our home, that was never allowed in our home, because we thought it really sent a confusing message. So I would say the same thing about K-pop demon hunters. It's not entertainment. I really believe that there's an attempt here, whether it is intentional, are there just being used by demons in Satan himself? They're planting seeds into the souls of little children. And I think they're very dangerous seeds. I would not let my children anywhere near this movie. Now, for some of you who've already

37:48done it, and I know there's millions who have, so I think I would probably sit down and have a conversation. Okay, it's not the end of the world. I'm not saying these seeds are going to take root, but I think you need to do your job as a parent of going back and saying, hey, we allowed this into our house. I know we watched it. I want to sit down and talk to you about some of the things that we saw and why we need to be careful of some of that. Okay, I'm not going to tell you a doomsday if it's already come into your home and hey, it's over. I'm not saying that at all. We all make mistakes and need to go back and repent of those mistakes and talk about why we made the mistake and call it a mistake and own it. And then, you know, Jesus is the author of second chances and a merciful and gracious God ready to forgive all who just say, hey, I messed that up. Help me and protect our house that that doesn't take root, protect my children that it doesn't take root there. And you know what? That's some of the best parenting that we do when we

38:52admit to our children that we made a mistake. Okay, so that's all right. So remember the last problem I'll tell you about this. The last problem is, you know, this is all that garbage out there that's being pushed on a generation that self-discovery is the answer. Not Jesus, who is the author of transformation, it's self-discovery. And whatever we discover about self, now think about that, Jesus actually said deny self. Society says no embrace self. You know, you look the self-discovery, man, that's what it's all about. Once you complete self-discovery, that's when you really become the person, you finally embrace who you are good and bad. And who's going to call it bad? If that's just part of you, if you don't harm anybody else and that's just part of your personality then embrace the, you know, embrace the angel and the demon. No, scripture would push back on that

40:00with a very powerful Holy Spirit chuv. Jesus is the answer for our new identity. Jesus is the answer for us to finally become the people that God created us to be, not our own self-discovery. And certainly never under any circumstance by blending and blurring the line between light and darkness and blurring the line between evil and good. So there's the assessment in this episode of a lot of questions that you've been asking us. And you certainly can ask more. It helps us prepare for future episodes. Again, go to YouTube and search Strange Encounters Rick to be subscribing to our YouTube channel, Instagram and TikTok. It is Strange Encounters pod. And then our Facebook page is facebook.com slash Strange Encounters. And we look forward to hearing from you. And we hope,

41:00once again, on this episode of Strange Encounters, the podcast, we've done our part to answer your questions to give you the information you need to make your own decisions. We're certainly not here to make them for you, but we are here to inform you. And we are here to give you the information you need to prepare yourself for your next Strange Encounter.