Exorcism - A Christian Manual (6 page)

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Medium
: A person that lets spirits enter them and speak through them.

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Séance
: A procedure used to summon and communicate with the dead.  Many use spirit boards or other methods to contact the dead.

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Channeling
: Voluntarily allowing spirits to temporarily possess a person and speak through them.

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Root doctor
: A person that uses roots, plants, and herbs to put spells on people and also uses them to ward off spells and heal.  Generally these are used in voodoo practices.  One brief note should be mentioned here about hybrid beliefs.  There are many pastors that I have talked too that have church people that believe in Jesus and use root doctors, or some other form of voodoo (very strong in the South).   I have found that some church people use spells and herbs to protect them from evil and they see nothing wrong with it; they use evil to fight evil.    

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Ghosts
: These are believed to be the dead that have not gone on to heaven or hell, but in reality they are demons.  More of this will be discussed in house cleansings.

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Spirit Guide
: A person voluntarily asking a spirit being (an angel, a great wise person from the past, a god) to come and give advice when they need it.

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Crystal Healing
: Using crystals to heal or change energy balances within a person or a space.

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Astral Projection
: Purposely having the spirit leave the body to travel to other destinations. I once knew a psychic that could travel a 1000 miles and watch a friend put her children to bed and be able to call her later and tell her what she read to the children.

Many people have occult objects in their homes and they are not even aware of it.   They go on vacation and collect paintings or statues from other countries or collect religious symbols from many religions and have no idea that they have evil spirits attached to them.  Spirits can attach to anything where they have been given authority. 

For example, a man came to see me because his wife was ill and had been sick for months and was deteriorating.  They went to several doctors and all they could come up with is that she had some virus and would eventually get over it.  Well, things were not getting better and they were both concerned that she was dying.  I conducted a spiritual history and did not find any occult involvement or any major sin.  I visited their home and my eyes were drawn to a painting in the living room and felt uneasy.  I asked them where they got the painting and they said that they bought it in England from an antique dealer.  The dealer said the painting was old and supposedly was done by a person that practiced black magic and was thought to have gone insane sometime later.   They bought the painting as a conversation piece.  I immediately asked them when they bought it and they said 1 month before the symptoms started.  I told them that the painting needed to be destroyed and we needed to break the authority of the demon that inhabited the picture.  They agreed and after we prayed and destroyed the painting her illness disappeared.

To deal with occult activity before the exorcism there must be an exact history of any occult involvement.  In addition, they must repent of this activity.  If they do not see occult activity as wrong the evil will stay.  Next, they must get rid of any occult objects and cut ties to anyone that practices in the occult.  Finally, the exorcist must know the depth to the occult involvement because the deeper the practices the more difficult the exorcism will be.  Here is an example of different degrees of occult involvement:

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Dabbling in the occult for fun without knowing what it really is, like a teen playing with an Ouija board or reading a horoscope daily;

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Going to a psychic to get answers to a problem, having their palm read, or having a tarot card reading.  You know something supernatural is going on;

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Knowingly seeking spiritual power to hurt or manipulate someone.  For example, going to a root doctor to cast a spell on someone to fall in love with you;

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Being a spirit channeler, a witch, or a psychic.  You know you are contacting spirits from the other realm;

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Knowingly making a pact with satan and/or practicing black magic or necromancy.

Trauma

Demons can move through trauma, like sexual abuse, and attach to the victims.  For example, if an adult male rapes a woman, the two become one and the evil from one moves to the innocent female victim.  In some cases inner healing may need to be done before the exorcism to heal old emotional wounds, and thus enable the client to forgive the offender, which may expel the demon.  There are several areas that need to be assessed:

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Is the trauma still bothering the client to a large degree?

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Were there any emotional, psychological, or behavioral changes for the worst after the trauma?  Here, you are looking for clues to which demon is involved by looking at the negative changes the client went through after the trauma (addictions, rage, self-mutilation, fear, depression).

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Do they have memory blocks for long periods of time?  This would have to be over 2 years of memory after the age of 6.  Most people cannot remember more than 20 seconds of their life before the age of 6.  This is because language is not fully developed and building long memories requires an extensive vocabulary.  This is why we tend to remember 1-2 second snapshots under age 6.  If there are extensive memory blocks it can either mean that there is brain damage or there are painful memories that the client does not want to see.  Repression is the concept in which the mind blocks painful memories because the client cannot face the pain of them (Freud, 1967).  Repression helps in the short-term as it allows the client to move forward in reality.  But, in the long-term, the person develops negative behaviors because the emotional pain is still trapped and leaks out into other areas of functioning.  For example, a female client came in for counseling and feared the dark, was afraid of bushes and trees, hated men, and feared sudden movements.  She stated that she couldn’t remember anything seriously bad happening to her but could not remember anything between the ages of 20-25.  After working with her it was discovered that when she was coming home from work, she was attacked from behind by a man, hiding behind a bush, who then beat her and raped her.  She didn’t remember the rape and assault but it still caused all sorts of fears inside her.  If there are large memory gaps, counseling may be needed first before an exorcism.

Unforgiveness

God places a tremendous value on forgiveness and on us forgiving those that have wronged us.  Jesus died on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven…”Then He took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you.  This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins,’” (Matthew 26:27-28).  Since God forgives us so much, all of the time, and gave His Son unto death so that we can be forgiven, we must then forgive others and value forgiveness in the same way.  If we do not forgive others it serves as a foothold to let demons work in our lives…”’In your anger do not sin’: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold,” (Ephesians 4:26-27).

When we refuse to forgive, anger festers, and gives birth to hate.  When this process starts, evil sees an opening and moves in to make us bitter and possibly even violent.  This is the complete opposite of the ways of God who seeks to bring more peace and healing.  If we refuse to forgive others then God will refuse to forgive us…”For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins, ” (Matthew 6:14-15).    If anger is attached to unforgiveness which attracts evil, and if we refuse to forgive others, we then become alienated from God, and then unforgiveness will isolate and open us up for demonic attacks.

A thorough history must be done to determine how much unforgiveness is there.  If there is even a twinge of anger towards anyone it should be removed.  For those that have been seriously wounded by others, forgiveness is a process not a one-time event.  It may mean that you have to forgive 1000 times in order to completely forgive the other, and that is fine.  As long as the heart is willing to forgive it may just take time for complete resolution of the emotional pain.  I would not expect that someone that has gone through a rape will forgive someone at the same rate as someone that has their toe accidently stepped on.  So assess the willingness to forgive in all areas before the exorcism and do not look for perfect forgiveness to signal that the person is ready for the exorcism.

In addition, the old saying ‘forgive and forget’ is not true.  Forgiveness does not mean that God takes an eraser and wipes out the memory in your brain.  True forgiveness means that you remember the infraction but the memory doesn’t bother you anymore.  Finally, do not believe that ‘time heals all wounds.’  Time makes everything worse-an unhealed memory actually festers and causes the condition of the person to deteriorate.  There is a lot of research out there to prove that traumatic memories come back after years and are just as painful as the day they happened (Ehlers, 2013).  Simply hoping that bad memories will just fade away will not happen.  They only fade in power because we resolve them and let them go.

Can a Christian Have a Demon?

The answer is yes.  Demons can attack anyone.  Demons attack angels and are at war with them…”And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back,” (Revelation 12:7).  Demons can attack humans as well.  For example, James is writing to Christians and he says in chapter 4 verse 7…”Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”  This means that the devil will attack and we are not immune to his entrapments (Macnutt, 1995; Sumrall, 1994).

Christians can be attacked, Christians can be partially possessed, but Christians cannot be fully possessed.  The reason why they cannot be fully possessed is because the Holy Spirit dwells within a Christian…”Peter replied, ‘Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,’” (Acts 4:38).  The Holy Spirit is always occupying a part of the life of the Christian and satan cannot possess what God owns.  Christians can sin and can get to a bad state in a partial possession, but they can never be fully possessed.       

The Exorcism Interview

These questions are to serve as a guide to help you in the assessment process.  Please, do not just read these off without paying attention to the client.  Be alert to when the Holy Spirit quickens you to an area that needs special attention.  For example, if one question appears to be a problem area (like a history of violence) and the Holy Spirit tells you something is wrong, but the client denies it being a problem (“I’m in control of my anger now”), you might want to probe deeper into the subject area by asking more questions (“Has your anger gone farther in intensity than it should have?” “Do you feel a force inside of you pushing you to be violent?” Are others frightened by your temper?”). 

Remember, the presence of bad circumstances does not automatically mean that a demon is present.  You must have the Holy Spirit reveal the demon to you. 
Christians are called to endure suffering.  Sometimes, it looks like God has rejected someone because their life seems so bad, but in fact they are right where God has called them to be.  For example, Paul was imprisoned, almost all had abandoned him, and he suffered greatly.  In 2nd Corinthians 11:16-29, Paul reveals that 5 times he received from the Jews the 40 minus 1 lashes, 3 times he was beaten with rods, once he was stoned, 3 times he was shipwrecked, and he spent 1 night in the open sea.  Many people would say that Paul was cursed because of all of his troubles and God was not with him.   Yet, Paul was absolutely in God’s will. 

We must see that suffering does help us, when we submit to God and live through it God’s way.  For example, Romans 5: 3-5 states that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character, and character produces hope.  So there is good in suffering.  However, many fight against God and end up becoming bitter by the suffering.  Others believe that a demon is present because of the suffering and try to cast a demon out, but nothing happens.  This is why we must know if there is a demon present.  Amorth (2002) believes that the only way to know if a demon is present is to start an exorcism prayer.  I believe that God can reveal the demon to us without waiting to see if there is a manifestation.