Brynne Larson and Tess and Savannah Scherkenback are all-American girls from Arizona, who enjoy martial arts and horse riding. But something sets them apart from most teenagers - they perform public exorcisms and often appear on TV chat shows.

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The girls are now karate black belts, but because of their particular Christian beliefs, they have also decided to do battle, they say, against evil spirits or demons. They believe that these demons can possess a human being and cause suffering, depression or addiction.

"A demon can't just come into anybody whenever it chooses too, God doesn't allow that," says Brynne.

"What happens is when someone sins or does something, or something's done to them that allows the demon to come into them, that's called the legal right or the reason that it's there."

The girls have been trained by Brynne's father, the Rev Bob Larson, who says he has performed over 15,000 exorcisms. They have appeared alongside him in America and overseas, including the UK.

"Every single country has a specific kind of demon," says Tess, 18, who loves music and reading. The girls believe that the UK in particular is a hotbed for "witchcraft" because of the popularity of J K Rowling's Harry Potter books. "The spells and things that you're reading in the Harry Potter books, those aren't just something that are made up, those are actual spells. Those are things that came from witchcraft books," says Tess.

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The girls' mentor, Brynne's father, disagrees with critics who say it's dangerous to teach teenagers to perform exorcisms. "We think it's OK to train teenagers to get drunk and have sex, but to do moral things for God, oh let's not train them to do that," says Larson. He asks for a voluntary donation of a couple of hundred dollars or pounds when he and the girls perform a one-to-one exorcism, and rejects the idea that spiritual services have to be free of charge. "Money and motives, anytime someone is in God's work it always comes up," he says. "People will pay thousands of dollars to go to drug rehab or to pay psychiatrists but there's this idea that spirituality needs to be for free. "The average megachurch pastor in America, it's not uncommon for them to make up to $1m a year. Well I can assure you we are nowhere near that."