Jimmy Akin Podcast

Can a story work when the audience knows none of it is real? Hoshi Sato's first transport goes wrong in Enterprise Season 2, Episode 10, and Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler ask what "Vanishing Point" was for.

Demons are fallen angels, right? The Gospels never say so. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli trace the Greek word daimon from Homer's gods and Hesiod's ghosts to the Church Fathers, and find who first called a demon a fallen angel.

Neelix comes back from the dead and remembers no afterlife. Was his faith wrong, or did he just forget? Dom Bettinelli, Fr. Jason Tyler, and Jimmy Akin take on Voyager Season 4, Episode 12, "Mortal Coil."

Could a confession made through a remote-controlled robot body be valid? Jimmy Akin takes listener questions with Cy Kellett, from the Lady in Blue and chili to time in purgatory, vampire cops and the dirt Adam was made from.

Can a stolen symbiont make a mediocre man great? In Deep Space Nine Season 2, Episode 4, Verad takes Dax from Jadzia. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler weigh what joining really gives a Trill.

Could a pagan god meet Jesus, repent, and go to heaven? Jimmy Akin answers listener Weird Questions with Cy Kellett, from angels outrunning light to an alternate timeline's pope, Atlantis, the mark of Cain, and bison in tornadoes.

The episode that made Worf, and a security team that badly needs retraining. Dom Bettinelli and Jimmy Akin weigh Klingon honor, a death howl, and an extradition with no questions asked in TNG Season 1, Episode 20.

Is every prayer a kind of telepathy? On Halloween, Jimmy Akin takes listener questions with Cy Kellett, from ghosts who never ask for Masses to Star Wars' religious roots, time travel, and whether Daleks have souls.

A charged particle cloud infects the Enterprise computer and it starts pranking the crew. In TAS S2E3, Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler weigh forced 1970s gags against Star Trek's very first holodeck.

Could a priest who traveled back in time say Mass before the Last Supper? Jimmy Akin takes listener questions on Catholic Answers Live with Cy Kellett, from Mary's DNA to Malachi Martin and the Michigan Melon Heads.

Vulcan biology gets its first real explanation, and it nearly kills Spock. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler break down TOS S2E1 "Amok Time" — the salute, the fight music, and two plot holes nobody ever patched.

Can science show the soul survives death? Jimmy Akin announces two fall courses for the Rhine Education Center: one on near-death experiences and reincarnation-type cases, and Introduction to Parapsychology.

Does a blessing survive the water cycle? Could uplifted animals have souls? Jimmy Akin and Cy Kellett take on tickling, Hitler's parents, Revelation's scorpion-tailed locusts and baptism before birth, with Dom Bettinelli.

Two Uhuras, a year apart, and a Scotty who died in one timeline: the Strange New Worlds Season 4 finale (Episode 10) plays like a pilot for Kirk's Year One. Dom Bettinelli and Jimmy Akin weigh its heart against its physics.

A shadow self is the part you hide, not the evil twin, which gives Season 4, Episode 9 away a mile off. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler on the fairy tale, the Rukiya payoff that never lands, and whether Pike commands like a captain.

A man with no heartbeat knew where the nurse put his dentures. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli look at near-death experiences that came back with facts the patient had no way to know, and ask how they got them.

A grieving admiral wants 5,000 people killed to be sure of one cloaked ship, and only Kirk objects. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler take on Strange New Worlds S4E8, and ask why nobody calls it an illegal order.

An EgyptAir 767 fell out of a clear sky off Nantucket in 1999, and two governments read the same black boxes and reached opposite verdicts. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli weigh four theories and one Arabic prayer.

Trelane turns the Enterprise into a soap opera for a school project, and only Pike notices. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler ask whether *Strange New Worlds* S4E7 survives a five-minute bit stretched to an hour.

Could Jesus have incarnated on a Klingon world while he walked in Galilee? Jimmy Akin takes that question and eleven more from patrons — telekinesis, the Mary Celeste, Salem, ley lines — with Dom Bettinelli.

A table tears loose in sickbay and cuts Dr. M'Benga nearly in half — and Nurse Chapel refuses to let him go. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler take on *Strange New Worlds* S4E6, the real-time hour that finally feels like *Trek*.

Early Christians read it in church beside the Gospels; a fourth-century Bible bound it in after Revelation. Then it vanished. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli open the Shepherd of Hermas — a tower, a beast, and a question about forgiveness.

Is Star Trek's puppet episode genius or a cop-out? Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler split over whether Strange New Worlds S4E5's dream-ending twist earns its plot holes, plus a hidden Lucille Ball reference few will catch.

Colored light around every living thing, readable by anyone with the right training — or by a camera at the mall. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli follow the aura from Mesmer to the selfie app, and weigh what happened under controlled testing.

In Strange New Worlds S4E4, Number One gets stranded on a Klingon-occupied world that's basically Casablanca in space. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler debate the shaky black-and-white science and cheer her overdue spotlight.

A flashlight, three discs over a Missouri ranch, and a ray that cured fifteen years of back pain. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli follow Buck Nelson from Ozark farmer to saucer celebrity — and to a twist that isn't funny at all.

Ortegas and Scotty wake up on a drunk planet with no memory of the night before — and a bomb on their shuttle. Dom Bettinelli, Fr. Jason Tyler, and Jimmy Akin call this Strange New Worlds S4E3 comic relief a mid-range Hangover riff.

You are sitting with someone as they die, and the room fills with a light that is not from this earth. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli examine shared death experiences — the cases where a perfectly healthy bystander sees it too.

A derelict starship weaponizes its rescuers' worst fears, and Strange New Worlds S4E2 flatly refuses to explain any of it. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler ask whether an unsolved mystery makes better television.

A monk who sold his soul to write a book in one night, the naked man fleeing Jesus' arrest, and whether Jesus was just an alien with good technology: Jimmy Akin takes on eleven listener weird questions with Cy Kellett and Dom Bettinelli.

This August, I'm teaching a four-week course for the Rhine Education Center on Psi and Christianity. We'll look at telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, mind over matter, and the survival of the soul after death. For 2,000 years, Christians have been wrestling with the very phenomena that parapsychologists study today. Audit it or take it for a grade. Tuition $119 ($109 for Rhine members). Visit RhineEdu.org to register.

Sixty-five million years in the past, Pike can save a planet or keep his own future — not both. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler take on Strange New Worlds S4E1: dinosaurs, Martians, and the ethics of time travel.

Dozens of unrelated children said shining, winged figures stood over them as an EF5 tornado destroyed Joplin. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli weigh cryptids, trauma, folklore, and guardian angels behind the butterfly people.

Radiation from a black hole turns the crew into a shipful of obsessives in Enterprise S2E9, "Singularity." Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler ask whether you can really build a whole plot on a pun.

He spent his career debunking fake mesmerists and mediums — then dreamed his brother's funeral weeks before it happened. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli trace Mark Twain's strange turn toward telepathy and ask what the Catholic has to say about it.

A powerful alien telepath locks Voyager's crew in private hallucinations and then vanishes without explanation. Dom Bettinelli and Jimmy Akin on whether "Persistence of Vision" earns its mystery.

The U.S. government holds real patents for putting voices in people's heads — and thousands say it's happening to them. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli separate the real physics from psychiatry, internet lore, and outright fraud.

When Klingons destroy the conference she was headed to, Kira ends up teaching guerrilla tactics to a demoted Dukat. Dom Bettinelli and Jimmy Akin unpack DS9 S4E14's moral complexity, Damar's debut, and whether Dukat is tragic or just evil.

A Liverpool merchant spent 30 years tunneling beneath his own neighborhood and never said why. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli weigh seven theories about Joseph Williamson and his mysterious underground labyrinth.

A bottomless pit in central Washington, 80,000 feet deep and impossible to fill. In 1997, one phone call to Art Bell turned a piece of local folklore into a national mystery. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli investigate Mel's Hole.

An alien observer who detaches his own body parts puts Kirk and Spock through their paces in TAS S2E2. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler weigh whether "Bem" earns its strange premise — and how this episode named James Tiberius Kirk.

The most famous lost object in history — the Ark of the Covenant — vanished from Scripture before 586 BC and was never seen again. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli examine what it was, trace its history, and weigh nine theories for where it went.

No Christmas special. No showrunner. No production partner. The BBC has put Doctor Who out to competitive tender, and Dom Bettinelli and Jimmy Akin weigh what the shake-up means for Billie Piper, the Timeless Child, and the show's next era.

A giant green hand grabs the Enterprise — and the Greek god Apollo demands worship. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler weigh TOS S2E2's ancient-aliens premise, Kirk's defiance, and the ending that was filmed but never aired.

Does a growing human population dilute demonic influence per person? Plus: the Magi's star, Mary after Pentecost, leavened Eucharist history, God's timelessness, and the serpent of Genesis 3. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli answer patron questions.

A lost communicator on a war-torn pre-warp world forces Archer and Reed to risk their lives over an ethic the Prime Directive hasn't invented yet. Dom Bettinelli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler take on Enterprise S2E8, "The Communicator."

Thousands of star-like flashes flicker across sky-survey plates shot in the 1950s, before any satellite existed — some clustered, some lined up, some on famous UFO nights. Jimmy Akin and Dom Bettinelli weigh five explanations for the pre-Sputnik transients.