Breaking Unhealthy Soul Ties: Do Your Relationships Produce Bondage or Joy? (9 page)

Col. 3:2–3, 5

The Fear of Death

The
fear of death
becomes a means of exercising control and creating unnatural dependence. This
fear of death
opens one to create soul-ties with the person(s) that alleviates that surging fear.

Some obvious candidates for that unhealthy soul-tie role, even among otherwise discerning Christians are:

• doctors, chiropractors and other “health experts”
  
• attorneys
  
• pastors
  

Additional possible candidates more likely to be employed by the undiscerning, or non-Christian, are:

• gurus, and leaders of cults
  
• psychics
  
• occult practitioners
  

A fear is often implanted that implies the person cannot live, financially or physically, without the assistance of the controller.

A variation on this
fear of death spirit
is the fear of causing the death of the controller. A parent may use the fear of death as a weapon, “If you don’t do this for me, it will kill me.” “You may kill me by moving away.” “It would kill me if you...”

Fear of death causes the common ailment of insecurity. A small child depends on an adult for his or her very life. When the adult is undependable or inconsistent in his or her behavior, the child can easily come to
fear for his life
.

This fear translates into adult insecurity and is evidenced by many kinds of torments:

• anxiety in any new situation
  
• embarrassment
  
• fear of rejection
  
• fear of the future, disease, poverty, disasters
  
• nervousness
  

An adult friend, mate or other authority figure may enter the scene who offers security through acceptance, worldly knowledge or spiritual counsel. This person can serve as a positive soul-tie leading the insecure one to the True Companion who “will stick closer than a brother,” Jesus. If however, this individual seeks only to control the other, or does not refuse his or her over-dependency, then the insecure person, motivated by fear, becomes bound to another in an unhealthy way.

God is love. In love we find the answer for fear, as Jesus so often said, “Fear Not!” And Scripture reminds us:
If God be for us, who can be against us?
(Rom. 8:31b).

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because
fear hath torment
.

1 John 4:18a

The man who has been freed of the fear of death can face anything...

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

Rev. 12:11

Attempted Manipulation through
a Threat of Suicide

This weapon of the
fear of death
or
fear of loss
, and the accompanying witchcraft it brings with it, comes in a variety of disguises. In more than twenty-eight years of ministry, my wife and I have frequently encountered attempted manipulation and witchcraft from those wanting to usurp control over us, over our ministry or over our Christian businesses. We have had people try to put us in bondage to them in a variety of ways. One example of the bizarre ways in which witchcraft was attempted against us was the case of Ella.

Mary, a longtime close spiritual friend who had received salvation and the Baptism in the Spirit in our prayer room, brought another woman, Ella, to see me at our Christian bookstore. Both of these women were in their late thirties. However, when they arrived, Ella was acting like a little lost puppy. I sensed that she was up to something and suggested that we go back into the warehouse where we could talk in complete privacy. Ella sat on a box of books, waiting like a plaintive zombie, as Mary began, “Poor Ella is extremely upset, and she has told me that if you won’t hire her to work for you as a clerk in the bookstore, she will kill herself.”

After a moment to catch my breath and recover from the shock of such blatant witchcraft and manipulation, I responded: “Come on, Mary... think for a minute of what you are saying. Obviously, I couldn’t hire her on that basis. If I asked her to do something she didn’t want to do, she’d just threaten to kill herself. Besides, you know that this is witchcraft.” Had we given in to this, Ella would have established a tie with our souls stemming from our fear of her instability.

Mary paled, gasped, and blurted out, “Oh, my gosh you’re right; this is witchcraft. You shouldn’t hire her under any circumstances.”

Today, twenty years later, Mary is still counseling and ministering deliverance in her church, yet, even she was sucked in by Ella’s story. Witchcraft can be very subtle and compelling and may even sound logical at first. This is another reason that the Lord in His wisdom has provided the supernatural gift of
discerning of spirits
(1 Cor. 12:10) and admonishes us to
try the spirits
(1 John 4:1) to see whether they are really of God.

...he that is spiritual judgeth all things...

1 Cor. 2:15a

Soul-Ties of Grief

In many cases, harmful and unhealthy adult soul-ties develop through the death of a loved one, a close friend or a relative. This is especially true if the death was sudden and unexpected, or if the individual battling the soul-tie was present at the time of death.

Unnatural grief is often rooted in feelings of guilt. It is expressed in the thought life as, “somehow I should have done something more for the deceased,” or “Perhaps I might have prevented the death.” Suicide almost always affects the survivors in this fashion. The normal period of grief can last from weeks to a year or two. Caution should be taken against any unnatural grief which lasts longer than that, lest it develop into a soul-tie with the dead party. If not dealt with in a timely manner, there will almost always be a spirit of death, death-wish or suicide that comes upon the grieving survivor.

Soul-ties can be created with dead relatives through bondages of obligation, or bondages of fear. For example, seeing grandpa in his coffin, or being forced to kiss him goodbye at his wake may bring recurring nightmares, or visitations at night.

Most of us have heard stories of ancestors who died of “heartbreak” upon losing a child, or some other tragedy. This can still happen today. Excessive or prolonged grief leads to heaviness, despair, heartbreak, and death. Soul-ties of grief with a deceased loved one often manifest with symptoms of pain in the area of the heart, and may be mistaken for symptoms of heart attacks.

Many ministers have encountered this type of soul-tie in women who have had abortions. They have a soul-tie of guilt with their deceased child and often overcompensate by vehemently or violently opposing abortion.
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The unconfronted spirits of abortion frequently open these women to other death spirits, such as murderous hate or suicide.

Sometimes a soul-tie with the dead can develop into a sort of “communion” with the dead person, feeling the person’s presence, or seeing them repeatedly in dreams or visions. On one occasion a young woman, a full–blooded Native American, came for deliverance. During the session, her deceased Hopi grandfather spoke and chanted through his granddaughter as we ministered deliverance to her. She shared with us that she had been taught to revere her grandfather who had been a tribal witch doctor, and thus a soul-tie had formed.

It is not uncommon for demons to manifest as deceased relatives. They may masquerade as the relative to deceive, as in a séance, or to promote belief in reincarnation. Or, they manifest during deliverance when the spirit of the relative or ancestor has been passed down. If the curse and the accountability for the sins of the ancestor can be passed down for generations, it should not surprise us to find that demons of those personalities can be passed down as well.

On another occasion a young male college student came for deliverance. He shared in my prayer room that he was barely able to function. He explained that he went to school in the morning and hid behind the racks of books in the library until it was time to go home. “I don’t think that is a normal way for a college student to act,” he concluded.

I agreed. We began delivering him of demonic spirits. At one point his grandmother spoke through him in her voice. It was clearly the voice of an old lady, not that of the young man. Later, his mother also spoke through him in her voice, as did several aunts. There were numerous apparent soul-ties that had allowed these entities to enter his personality, meaning his soul. When he first came for help, he appeared to be somewhat effeminate, which should not have been surprising with the female entities within him. He had failed to resist the strong female influences in his life, through laziness or fear, and also through, in his case, preexisting inherited spirits. Often we let other people run our lives and make decisions for us, even though we realize we should be making such decisions for ourselves.

In several sessions, we cast about two hundred spirits out of him, and he later told me that he cast out another six hundred at home on his own. Today he is married, the father of several children, and is active in his church.

These two cases illustrate several obvious door openers for soul-ties and demonic intrusion: reverence, fear, awe, or worship of another person, dependency on another, or simply refusing to assume responsibility for oneself. The young Native American girl had been taught to revere her grandfather, the witchdoctor, and thus a door was opened for spirits; the young man allowed himself to remain dependent, and to idolize the female figures in his life. Worship of anyone or anything other than Jesus Christ is a serious door opener.

Super-Spirituality Manipulation

Super-spirituality manipulation is practiced by an individual in the church, or outside it, who professes to be more spiritual than others (i.e., you), who claims to have a close relationship with God and to hear from Him regularly and directly with guidance for others. (Note that this is not very logical: whom is God most likely to speak to about “you” but you?) Recognize that false prophets give false words from the Lord.

A Soul-Tie Can Exist With Oneself

When a young child suffers the actual or perceived loss of a parent, or feels that the love of the parent has been lost, a soul-tie can develop with himself. These conditions may arise through death, divorce, illness, prolonged separation, being ignored or rejected, hospital stays, etc.

The result is the accepting of a
little girl
or
boy spirit
, which reflects a stunting of the emotional growth, and an internal soul-tie with either a portion of herself that existed before the time of loss, or the creating of either an imaginary, idealized child who is happy and loved, or an idealized parent to fill the void in her life.

The real child lives in a state of grief because of her separation from that ideal happy child, and the idealized absent parent. The functioning is very similar to that of a soul-tie with an actual person.

The little girls involved, or boys, are often reluctant to grow up and face responsibilities.
They seem to feel if they can remain a child, or child-like, they will be excused from the difficult parts of life and people won’t expect too much of them.
They simply remain dependent. However, dependency is also one of the key invitations to soul-ties, so such children are especially vulnerable.

In severe cases the child may create more than one “alter-ego” and even give them names by which to identify them and differentiate between them. These are referred to as multiple personalities or “alters.” We have seen them cast out, resulting in dramatic changes.
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Remember, demons seek to fragment the soul of an individual from the time of his or her conception.

O LORD my God, in thee do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and
deliver me
: Lest he
tear my soul
like a lion,
rending it in pieces
, while there is none to deliver.

Ps. 7:1–2

This passage not only indicates the distinct danger of a soul being torn into pieces and fragmented, but also indicates the solution to the problem, deliverance!

When Satan removes or arranges the removing of a piece of the soul, he does so for a reason: to replace that vacated area with something else, a demon (cf. Eph. 4:27). This is another wile or method employed by the enemy in gaining a “place” within the individual. He would love to so bind an individual with soul-ties that he is unable to respond to the Lord’s call, or to feel ineligible or disqualified to respond.

Satan Perverts Godly Soul-Ties

Unfortunately, we frequently hear of the downfall of ministers through sexual sins. What we have discovered with regard to soul-ties helps in understanding and explaining this prevalent phenomenon. When any man attempts to help a woman, or when a minister counsels a young divorcee, soul-ties often form. On the woman’s part there may be soul-ties of dependency and of looking to the one who is providing assistance and godly wisdom as her male counterpart, or head, fulfilling the role voided by her absent husband. There are other factors but this serves to illustrate her potential vulnerability.

On the male part, there can be a familial soul-tie as that of a father to daughter, brother to sister, pastor to member, teacher to pupil, or that of friend to friend. These are all godly forms of relationship. However, if the man and especially the pastor, is not on guard (and is unfamiliar with the potential dangers of soul-ties) he is vulnerable to crossing the line. If he does, he allows these godly relationships to become something distorted. The danger is that the loving
spiritual
ties which already exist may merge into
carnal
. Then the friend-to-friend tie becomes a lover-to-lover tie. A knowledge of soul-ties helps us to be on guard against crossing the line. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Pastor Win Worley encountered and cast out a spirit that identified itself as a “good soul-tie breaker.” Satan opposes and seeks to destroy all good soul-ties, especially those in marriage, or within the Body of Christ. Pastor Worley observed that there were seven spirits that seemed to be in subjection to and working with the “good soul-tie breaking spirit.” Among them were fear of rejection, fear of hurt, deception, dependency, mistrust, hate, and jealousy.