Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out.
Unveiling Pornography's Demonic Curse
About this episode
Neil Kennedy, founder of Five Star Man and author of Defeating Ishtar, joins Philip Cameron for a raw and revelatory conversation about pornography's spiritual origins — and why willpower alone will never break its hold. Kennedy draws on ancient Mesopotamian history to identify Ishtar, the goddess of porn, as a very real demonic principality operating in the modern church. "Porn is sex with demons," Kennedy states plainly, tracing the spirit's lineage from the Babylonian goddess Inanna through her biblical name Ashtaroth, and connecting her tactics directly to the doctrine of Balaam warned against in Revelation 2 and Numbers 25. Kennedy explains that Proverbs warns the spirit of adultery hunts wounded men — yet considers strong men her trophies. He unpacks how Ishtar's ancient temple worship, conducted through gala priests (men dressed as women), mirrors disturbing patterns visible in today's culture. The conversation turns urgent as Kennedy notes that children as young as eight are now regularly exposed to pornography, and that Ishtar's agenda is explicit: to turn masculinity into femininity and reduce men to what Proverbs calls "a piece of bread." This episode is essential viewing for pastors, men's ministry leaders, and anyone seeking genuine freedom from pornography addiction. Deliverance — not discipline — is the answer. Get the book and explore men's ministry resources at fivestarman.com/books.
Part of our Strongholds collection of conversations.
Quotes worth sharing
“Men most of the time think that porn is really a private matter. It doesn't really harm anyone. It's just a nice little private vice that he has that he's trying to manage. What I show in this book is the adultery is the manifestation of the fallen heart that the man has with God. But when he has sexual relationships with porn, he's literally — porn is sex with demons. So he is having idolatry, he's having sexual relationship with a demon goddess. And you can't discipline yourself out of this. It requires deliverance.”
“Here's what one of her manuscripts says — it says, 'My Ishtar, mistress of battle and conflict, turn his masculinity into femininity.' And that's what's happening today, right now. That's what's happening in our culture. Ishtar has been unleashed on the American culture and on the church. And it is to emasculate men, turn them into a weakened vessel, so that they are dominated and controlled, and they are reduced — as Proverbs says — they're reduced to a piece of bread.”
“Barnacles can't survive in fresh water and they fall off the boat. And what we need is the fresh water of the Word and the blood of Jesus. This is not something you'll win over by mental ascent. This is something that will take place and victory will come through deliverance.”
What's Discussed
Neil Kennedy, founder of Five Star Man and author of Defeating Ishtar, reveals that pornography is not merely a moral failure but a form of spiritual idolatry rooted in the ancient Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar — known biblically as Ashtaroth. Drawing on Proverbs 20:5, Revelation 2, and Numbers 25, Kennedy connects the doctrine of Balaam to the seductive strategy now operating inside the modern church. He argues that self-discipline cannot defeat what is fundamentally a demonic principality, and that genuine deliverance is required. Kennedy also highlights how Ishtar's agenda — documented in ancient manuscripts — is the emasculation of men, a pattern he sees playing out across Western culture today. Five Star Man reaches over 250,000 men in the U.S. and 100,000 in Brazil.
- Five Star Man Ministry Overview
- Origins of the Book Defeating Ishtar
- Ishtar as the Goddess of Pornography
- Doctrine of Balaam and Sexual Entrapment
- Ishtar's Agenda to Emasculate Men
- Children's Early Exposure to Pornography
- Deliverance Over Discipline as the Answer
- Altar Calls and Mass Deliverance from Addiction
Scripture in this episode
Episode Transcript
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Intro
Philip:Hello, my friend. My name is Philip Cameron, and this is Daily Faith. And if you're watching us for the first time, we are so glad you could join us. We have got a word for you from the Lord today. I think we're gonna be talking with stuff that you don't hear spoken about, but needs to be spoken about in the church, I believe it is.
Philip:I'm from Scotland and the fishing boats in our harbor in Scotland, every few years they'll take them up the slip, up into dry dock, and they'll be covered in barnacles. And what a barnacle does, if there's enough of them, it weighs the ship down so you use more fuel and you can't get the harvest of fish that you need, because the barnacles are affecting the whole — how the ship acts and how the ship exists. And what we're gonna be talking about today is one of the barnacles that is pulling the church down and destroying people's futures.
Philip:And my dear friend Neil Kennedy is with us, and we're gonna be talking about his book. I think you're gonna love it. So stay tuned for that. For those that don't know us, we have a mission outreach that's been going on over 33 years ago. I adopted a wee boy in Romania, and that led to me going back and going back and rebuilding the orphanage where they came from. And then we went to a country called Moldova, where we discovered, after being there for a number of years, that in that place when a young girl in the orphanage turned 16, they were put on the streets and traffickers got them and used them 30 to 50 times a day.
Philip:And we built a place called Vara Village. It is the most beautiful place you've ever seen in your life. It's right on the largest lake in all of Moldova. And we found it had been built but hadn't been finished because they poisoned the lake with chlorine. They wanted to kill algae, and they killed the lake. And all of these houses just laid derelict, and we bought them, and they are full today. Every bed taken with young people that we've rescued from the orphanage, put them back in school, told them about Jesus.
Philip:And these kids have turned from orphans to sons and daughters to missionaries. And the mission work that we do now in Eastern Europe is done by them. They are the ones that go and care. And this year, this last past year, when Russia invaded Ukraine, our young people — we had a home in Odessa, and it had been there for under six years. But when the war broke out, our kids went up and began to feed the refugees. Hundreds of thousands of refugees left, millions left Ukraine.
Philip:And it's a pretty crazy thing that's going on. I just got these photographs today. This house that you're gonna see in this picture right now — that house right there — the lady with the silver hair works here in the States. She's part of our staff. And the lady on the right is the house parent that's been there over the last six years. And we just bought that house. We signed the paperwork today. And that house can hold 24 Ukrainian girls. Whatever happens in Ukraine, if the Russians win this hellacious war, then that house will be needed. If they don't, it'll be needed by the kids that have been turned to orphans by the war. Thousands upon thousands of people are dying. And we are right in the middle of it. We are feeding and caring and loving for people constantly.
Philip:And just recently we had a phone call from a pastor in Eastern Bulgaria, and his wife was from Moldova. And she'd been watching the outreach that we've been doing in Ukraine. And when the earthquake — I'm stunned at this — one of the worst natural disasters in the history of mankind took place just over a month ago in Turkey. And the news never discusses it. When they dug out 20% of the buildings, they found 50,000 dead people in the buildings. And it's just never spoken about. And this couple called us in Moldova and said, can you help us?
Philip:And we released a bunch of our kids and one of our vans to drive from Moldova through Romania, Bulgaria, into Turkey, picked up my son Andrew in Istanbul, and loaded that van up. We set up a whole bunch of tents — I think it was like 48 or 50 tents we built and paid for — and built them as a tent village. And also we found a warehouse where they were putting out 40-pound boxes of food. And that's our van from Moldova all the way in Turkey. And they ran back and forth and ferried hundreds and hundreds of these boxes.
Philip:And we've just heard from the pastor saying that all the tents are full and all the food is gone. And we're believing God to go back there again, and we would love you to help us. I got a video the other day that really spoke of what our kids are doing. Every young person you see in this video was once an orphan, hated and despised by the whole world they lived in, told by the staff in the orphanage, you'll never be anything. You're garbage. Your mother didn't want you. Your father doesn't want you. You'll never amount to anything. But the grace of God changed their story. And I think you'd be blessed. Watch this.
Despair, lived one day at a time, takes an eternity. As we here live our blessed life, can you imagine living an existence that threatens to kill you every second, every minute, every hour, every day. The wail of sirens, warning of missiles all through the night, causes every nerve in your body to scream.
There is no water, no power, no heat. The village as you remember it no longer exists. The streets and homes only survive in your mind.
The menfolk are all gone, alive or dead. You don't know. Fear is your neighbor, the guest at every meal, your bedfellow every night.
The young men and women from Moldova have come. They tell us there are new codes and other things. Why do they care? Why have they come to hell? We'll go and see if what we heard is true.
Grace is waiting, kindness and love. A moment to smile. The strangeness of a hug. It's true. They are here waiting for us in the middle of darkness.
The love of God meets the broken, and hope is born again.
Philip:That is the third container we sent in three months. And those kids, our kids, right in the middle of a war zone — one night they called me and they held their phone out the window, and I could hear the wail of the sirens warning of a missile attack. Heroes, every one of them, from nothing. And a garbage existence, because people like you gave, became part of our family and said, we'll give a dollar a day. You can change our life for a dollar a day. You can help us go back and go back again.
Philip:Every Thursday we feed a thousand people in Odessa. We buy bread and fish and we give it out. Every week these kids go into this war zone. And we just want you to know that you can be a part of something that's bigger than the world you live in. God's looking for people to extend their arms around the world. And if you'd like to help us, you can get in contact with us — really simple. You can make a check out to Orphan's Hands, P.O. Box 25, Clinton, Tennessee 37716. Very simple. You can go to DailyFaith.tv — there's a giving page right there, click on that.
Philip:And you can send a gift right this minute. Or you can call — a live person will pick up the phone if you'll call 833-Daily-Faith. And by doing so, you can be a part with us in helping. That old song, I love it — O to be His hand extended, reaching out to the oppressed. Have you ever seen oppressed people? You just saw them in that video. The old man at the beginning — I don't know if you understood what he said — the Russian soldiers came to him and said, where's your wife? And he said, well, she's in hospital, I don't know where, she's in hospital. And they said, we will find her, and watch and wait until you see what we do to her.
Philip:They were going to kill him. Can you imagine living in a world like that? And right in the middle of that, a bunch of orphans show up in some vans full of food and hope and clothes and care and love and the gospel. You can be a part of that. Please help us. P.O. Box 25, Clinton, Tennessee 37716.
Philip:In the name of Jesus, I am so delighted to have a friend with us today called Neil Kennedy. This is a great man of God. He has an amazing ministry that I want to tell you about. If you are a pastor, you need to get involved in this man's ministry, or better still, you need to get this man's ministry involved in the men of your church. And I'm so thrilled to have Neil with me today. Neil, God bless you. Thank you for joining us on Daily Faith, and we love you very much. Tell us what Five Star Man is about, because maybe a pastor is watching who has never heard of this, and they need to have this in their church.
Five Star Man Ministry Overview
Neil Kennedy:Well, about 13 years ago the Holy Spirit spoke to me about resurrecting authentic manhood. And he told me to focus on men's purpose, and men would cast off what constrained them. And those two statements led me to start a movement called Five Star Man. Five Star Man is not the ranking of a man, but it is the identification of five purposes that every man has within them, based on Proverbs 20 verse 5 — the purposes of a man are deep waters, men of understanding draws them out. So as we begin to focus on the message speaking to men's purposes, we found that men would cast off the things that have been hindering them and holding them back.
Neil Kennedy:And so this movement has grown. We have hundreds of churches. We have tens of thousands of men, not only here in the US but also in Brazil. We have about a hundred thousand men in Brazil that are already part of Five Star Man. We have a quarter million men here in the US that already are a part of our Daily Champion and all of our efforts. And so fivestarman.com is where everyone goes to really walk through the process of pursuing biblical and authentic manhood. It's really exciting to see what God is doing with it.
Philip:Well, I encourage — if you're watching today and you're a pastor — they have a ministry and a program that can be integrated into your church. We preach in several churches, the same church, and I watch the impact that this has on churches when Neil isn't there. And it's a lasting legacy ministry that you can have in your church. And men are under attack today. This entire system of government and all of this stuff that's going on in the world has targeted men.
Origins of the Book Defeating Ishtar
Philip:If they can destroy the man, they destroy the family — the husband. And that's the whole point of it. And you've written a book, it's entitled Beating Ishtar. And if you look at the cover, it's a dark book to look at, and it has an amazing message. And I want you to share with us today how — what — how did God bring you to write such a book as this, on this subject that is so necessary today in the church?
Neil Kennedy:Well, it's interesting — you know, this is my 12th book. And over the 13 years as I've written books to encourage men, strengthen men, and focus on men's purposes, I kind of withheld from writing anything about porn, although it's always been a collateral in our message and dealing with it. And we've seen a lot of men delivered from porn addiction and so forth. But I was actually invited to a church — they actually hosted me and put me up in a log cabin up in the woods. And it gave me a lot of time to pray and reflect on my next book. And the Lord just really dealt with me about — it's time to get a message on this incredible enemy of mankind called porn.
Neil Kennedy:And so I sat down, I prayed about it, outlined it, wrote this book in 10 days, uploaded it to publishing, had it in my hand within one month. And wow, it has really been phenomenal to see, because the first three chapters, Philip, really address the real issue that we're dealing with. And the reason it's called Beating Ishtar is Ishtar is the goddess of porn. You know, the Bible says that we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but we wrestle with principalities and powers of the air. And so we know that we're up against a spiritual force, but for the most part the efforts to defeat porn have been by self-discipline.
Ishtar as the Goddess of Pornography
Neil Kennedy:It's — men need to man up and be more disciplined, be a stronger character. But Proverbs tells us very emphatically that the spirit of adultery is hunting for wounded men. And she considers strong men her trophies. And I see this in all of my relationships of dealing with men. There are a lot of men that are wounded. They were either molested as a child, they were exposed to porn early on by either a father or grandfather or uncle, whatever the case may be. And there's wounds and they're weakened, and she laughs at destroying them.
Neil Kennedy:But she really values going after strong men. It's haunting that everyone kind of laughs and scoffs at the man who falls to the spirit of adultery. But the reality is we're dealing with a very powerful demon goddess that dates back all the way to the early Mesopotamian era, where her name was originally Inanna, and her most popular name is Ishtar. Her biblical name is Ashtoreth. Philip, if you really dive into this, you discover that this goddess in her temples — the worshiper would come to her temple, her cult center, pay the fee, give their offerings to either the priest or the priestess. And when I say priest, it was actually specifically a gala priest, which is a man dressed as a woman.
Neil Kennedy:Does that sound familiar? And the worshiper would go into a bed chamber and copulate with the priest or the priestess, because a priest is simply the physical representation of the spirit — the manifestation. So they would copulate with the priest or the priestess, but in the imagination of the worshiper, he was having relationship with Ishtar herself.
Neil Kennedy:And so this is what this book deals with, in that men most of the time think that porn is really a private matter. It doesn't really harm anyone. It's just a nice little private vice that he has that he's trying to manage. And physical adultery is the actual sin. What I show in this book is the adultery is the manifestation of the fallen heart that the man has with God. But when he has sexual relationships with porn, he's literally — let me say it this way — porn is sex with demons. So he is having idolatry, he's having sexual relationship with a demon goddess. And you can't discipline yourself out of this. It requires deliverance. And so that's what men are dealing with, and they don't even know it.
Doctrine of Balaam and Sexual Entrapment
Neil Kennedy:There's a biblical example — when the angel is writing, the Spirit is writing to the angel of Pergamum, the messenger of Pergamum. He says, you are in the city where Satan lives, where Satan has his home and his throne. And he talks about the good things that they've stood for and stood against. However, he says, here's what I have against you — you have been putting up with a doctrine of Balaam. The doctrine that Balaam taught Balak on how to entice and entrap the Israelites.
Neil Kennedy:When you go back to Numbers 25, and you see this story — Balaam is a prophet. He's not the prophet of God, but he is a hired gun, so to speak, that Balak hires. So he can somehow spiritually defeat the Israelites. He knows that he can't do it physically because the Israelites have already beat his cousins, the Ammonites. And so the Moabite king Balak hires Balaam and says, I need you to curse Israel. And Balaam says, I can't say anything other than what the Lord God says I can say. Even though he's a witch, a sorcerer, he knew that there was a restriction. He could not spiritually bless or curse who God has blessed.
Neil Kennedy:So as he tries to curse Israel — you know the story — he constantly is blessing, and Balak gets upset because he says, I'm paying you good money so that you can curse these people so that I can defeat them. Balaam runs out of opportunity and he says this: look, I can't curse them, but here's a doctrine — you can entrap them, you can entice them, you can defeat them this way.
Neil Kennedy:And he did that when they were in the Acacia Grove. He got the Moabite women to begin to seduce the men of Israel by two things — by having feasts, gorging on meat that had been sacrificed to their gods. Primarily the Moabite gods were the god Baal, above Shamor, or Ashtoreth. Ashtoreth is the biblical name for Ishtar. So what they began to do is they began to have sexual relationship with Moabite women, feasting on the food and gorging on the meat of the sacrifice, and then having sexual relations. This entrapped the Israelites so that they could be defeated.
Neil Kennedy:Now in Revelation, what the warning is is the same teaching that enticed the Israelites is now in the church. And everywhere I go, I see men who confess themselves to be believers in Christ, and yet they're constantly being seduced by porn. Paul said, would you, being filled with the Holy Spirit, connect yourself with a prostitute? And the Greek word is porn, and the goddess of porn is Ishtar. She's a ruthless, ruthless entity. Here's what one of her manuscripts says — it says, my Ishtar, mistress of battle and conflict, turn his masculinity into femininity.
Ishtar's Agenda to Emasculate Men
Neil Kennedy:And that's what's happening today, right now. That's what's happening in our culture. Ishtar has been unleashed on the American culture and on the church. And it is to emasculate men, turn them into a weakened vessel, so that they are dominated and controlled, and they are reduced — as Proverbs says — they're reduced to a piece of bread.
Philip:And what's amazing is that it is so pervasive. I mean, it's in every — it's in videos, it's in commercials. It is saturated. The entire society. Children's cartoons. Everywhere. When I was a kid, you know, someone brought a magazine to school and you were behind the school wall, kind of thing. Today, every young person has a device in their hand that is two clicks or one click away from seeing everything. I was talking to a pastor the other day and he said, by the time a child is eight years of age, they've been exposed to pornography. So this seed is being planted. This barnacle that I spoke of earlier is being thrown on our young people before they even get to manhood. And let's face it, Neil, it's not just men anymore.
Children's Early Exposure to Pornography
Philip:Women are hooked on pornography too. So it's a double vice that is destroying the church.
Neil Kennedy:Yeah. Ishtar is fluid, meaning that she goes after women just as much as she does men. In fact, she's bisexual. Not only that, she had an ancestral relationship with her brother Utu. And so this vice — this woman — is so damaging. And when I say that, I'm speaking of a very real entity, a very real spiritual force. This is not mythology. This is real. We're not talking fantasy. We're talking a very real spiritual warfare that's going on in the heavens and manifesting on the earth. And we're denying it, and we're trying to just counsel ourselves through this, where we really need to have deliverance.
Deliverance Over Discipline as the Answer
Neil Kennedy:This last weekend, Philip, when I was speaking, we had people running to the altar, throwing down all kinds of things — they were drugs, nicotine in various forms, anything that represented an addiction — they were leaving at the altar. It was a Holy Spirit move where dozens were saved, but the altars were just filled with people being delivered from addictions.
Altar Calls and Mass Deliverance from Addiction
Philip:Neil, if you love your pastor — if you're a pastor watching — you need to order a box of these books. You need to get in contact with Neil's ministry and say, we have got to face this in our church. I've been to Herculaneum and Pompeii in Italy many times, and the main theme of those cities was pornography. They were destroyed with Mount Vesuvius, the volcano. So this has permeated society. We just now have much more access to it because of electronic means. And it is everywhere — in the church, in your church.
Philip:And this book, Beating Ishtar — I want you to get it today. You can get it by going to fivestarman.com/books. There it is — fivestarman.com/books. And I challenge you, order a box of them, get Neil to come and speak in your church, because I believe that he can speak and bring deliverance and clarity and cleanse this.
Philip:When we were talking in the beginning, I saw this boat that I've been telling you about in Scotland. We have these fishing boats and they take these high-pressure hoses and they wash the boat and they clean it — they bring fresh water. And barnacles can't survive in fresh water and they fall off the boat. And what we need is the fresh water of the Word and the blood of Jesus. This is not something you'll win over by mental ascent. This is something that will take place and victory will come through deliverance.
Philip:And Neil, we are almost out of time. Thank you for coming today. Any last words? We've got about 15 seconds.
Neil Kennedy:Well, I just love you. I appreciate what you're doing. Love everything about Orphan's Hands and what you guys are doing — it's just incredible. I'm always humbled to have a conversation with you. I speak blessing over everyone that's watching, and I pray deliverance over everyone that's watching.
Philip:Thank you. Thank you for watching Daily Faith. Bye-bye for today. God bless.
Common questions
What is the book 'Beating Ishtar' actually about?
Neil Kennedy wrote it to expose pornography as a spiritual — not just moral — problem. He argues that porn is rooted in the ancient demon goddess Ishtar (also known as Inanna or Ashtoreth), and that when a man engages with pornography he is literally having a spiritual-sexual relationship with that entity, making it an act of idolatry that requires deliverance, not just self-discipline.
Why does Neil Kennedy say willpower alone won't beat porn addiction?
Kennedy points out that Proverbs says the spirit of adultery actively hunts wounded men and considers strong men her trophies, meaning this is a powerful demonic force — not just a bad habit. Because it's a spiritual bondage, he says you can't discipline yourself out of it; it requires genuine deliverance.
Who is Ishtar and what does she have to do with pornography?
Ishtar is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess whose worship literally involved worshipers paying to have sex with priests or priestesses in her temple, imagining they were having relations with the goddess herself. Kennedy traces her name through history — Inanna, Ishtar, Ashtoreth — and argues she is the same spiritual entity behind pornography today, making modern porn consumption a continuation of ancient idol worship.
What is the 'doctrine of Balaam' and how does Kennedy connect it to porn in the church?
Kennedy explains that Balaam, unable to curse Israel directly, taught the Moabite king Balak to entice Israelite men through feasting on food sacrificed to Ashtoreth (Ishtar) and sexual relations with Moabite women — entrapping them spiritually. He says Revelation warns that the same doctrine is now inside the church, seen in the way believers are constantly being seduced by pornography.
Does Kennedy say pornography only affects men?
No — Kennedy says Ishtar is 'fluid,' meaning she goes after women just as aggressively as men. He describes her as bisexual in nature, and Philip echoes this by noting that women are increasingly hooked on pornography as well, making it a vice that is destroying both sexes in the church.
Topics
neil kennedyfive star manpornography addictionspiritual warfareishtarmen's ministrydeliverance