GOP gubernatorial candidate claims he 'met Satan in person' during exorcism

Victor Marx, a nonprofit ministry leader and the Republican Party's gubernatorial nominee in Colorado, claimed to have encountered Satan personally during an episode of "spiritual warfare," according to resurfaced audio.

"Hey, I've met the devil. I've met Satan in person, through a person," Marx said during a two-part episode of his podcast in 2020. "And guess what? He's a bully and a coward and he's the father of lies."

Marx, a U.S. Marine veteran who founded the Colorado Springs-based All Things Possible Ministry, went on to claim that he witnessed a 15-year-old girl named Kristi exhibit signs of possession when he was leading a Bible study at a maximum-security youth prison in Texas.

@talkingpointsmemo Victor Marx gives a detailed description of an alleged "demonic" encounter. #colorado#demons#audio#podcasts#devil? original sound - Talking Points Memo

"In fact, we were doing a Bible study first, and this girl started manifesting a demon. It was so real that all the other locked-up girls, all the other gang members, they all kind of huddled in a corner. And then the guards were like, 'Do something, man,'" he said.

When he accompanied the girl back to her cell as she was manifesting, Marx said he was "nervous" about the situation because he had "never really dealt with something that intense."

Marx said when he ultimately commanded the demon "in the authority of Jesus Christ" to offer his name, the spirit identified himself as Satan. He joked that it could have been one of Satan's "little workers" assuming the name because he was insecure.

"Long story longer, that girl did get delivered," he said, adding that her father had been a satanist and that she had gotten pregnant at 13.

"Pray for Kristi. She gave her life to the Lord, and she's got a lot of struggles, wouldn't you think? She has PTSD from her past trauma, but Jesus is never going to give up on her," Marx added.

Marx, who narrowly won Colorado's Republican gubernatorial primary in June, has offered other harrowing stories in the context of his upbringing as a survivor of child abuse. During an interview with Shawn Ryan in 2023, he claimed his stepfather forced him to murder a man when he was 7 years old.

"Yes, I was made to shoot a man who I watched get buried, and that affected me deeply most of my life," Marx said, according to CPR News. "Which is why I went to 123 visits to a trauma specialist. And I've been on Depakote, Depakine, Prozac, so I've been on the medications. But I think I'm living proof that you can rise above being a victim and be victorious."

After serving three years in the Marine Corps following the Beirut barracks bombing in 1983, Marx worked in ministry in California, operated a martial arts gym in Hawaii and served three years as an assistant for the late Dr. James Dobson at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs.

Marx's nonprofit ministry focuses on "hunting predators as well as rescuing, restoring and empowering women and children who have been held captive by traffickers and other abusers," according to its website.