Demonology: Temptation and Demonic Obsession

Ok, it’s been awhile – sickness and holidays have kept me busy, so I apologize for the delay in continuing.

A NOTE OF CAUTION:   dealing with the demonic is not something to take lightly.  You should not engage the enemy if you are a paranormal investigator or a ghost hunter.  Also, these signs, (and there are a lot) should not instantly be taken to believe the demonic is a factor.  It is just as dangerous to plant to idea of demonic possession into the mind of someone who is experiencing mental illness or a physical malady.

In the last post I talked about the Five Levels of Diabolic Influence
1) Temptation
2) Obsession
3) Oppression
4) Possession
5) Infestation

I want to go in-depth with these so you can see how they play out.

1) Temptation  – This falls under the “ordinary” level of influence.  If you’re a human being, you’re always subject to temptation.  The enemy will appeal to the flesh through out (environmental) and in (mental) lusts and desires to hopefully get you to act.  Every sin begins as a thought – never forget that – and those thoughts can and will be used against you.

The next ‘levels’ are considered “extraordinary.”

2)  Demonic Obsession – This is when an individuals thoughts are relentlessly hitting them through the influence of the demonic.  A person’s mind becomes fixated or obsessed with a thought or a series of thoughts.  You see a lot of this happening with the free and anonymous access to porn that most of us have.  This can manifest as suicidal thoughts, thoughts of homicide, hurting others, addictions that come out of nowhere, etc.

An interesting idea that the Early Church Fathers tell us is that “Satan has a particular hatred for women, because it was through a woman (Mary) that his head was crushed. (Gen. 3:15-16).  Also, women are often victimized a lot more than men and statistically speaking, most cases of documented possessions are women.

How do you tell if it’s demonic or psychological?  First off, a complete psychological evaluation must be performed by an actual psychiatrist.  More often than not, this step weeds out the mental illness and finds the problem there.  If the person in question is released by the psychiatrist and they can find NO reason for the condition, then we begin to look to the demonic.  A hand diagnostic tool (though it’s not always telltale) is that if prayers are prayed over the person and they return to a normal state of mind for a few days, it’s probably not psychological.  Not saying that God doesn’t heal mental illness, but more often than not, a true mental illness will persist unabated.

Obsession can also manifest itself as a complete and uncontrollable infatuation with demons, Satan, or the occult.  This person may dabble in the occult, constantly credit everything to Satan or demons, or be preoccupied with excessive searching for demonic interaction (Ouija boards, scrying, ghost writing, seances, necromancy, dowsing, black magic, voodoo, etc.)

Interestingly, you can see this play out on paranormal TV shows or ghost hunting shows.  I’m reminded of an episode of Ghost Adventures where the host is looking for a way to be possessed or to be scratched or hurt by the demonic, and he won’t let it go.  Also, that same host bought a house because it was supposed to be the most haunted house on the market…he was/is constantly seeking out this kind of thing.

Moral of the story:  don’t let your curiosity with the darkness lead to your downfall.  Don’t let yourself become obsessed.  I’m reminded of this quote:

“If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back at you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Next post will deal with Demonic Oppression.

Demonology: The Five Levels of Diabolic Influence

What we have had a tendency to do as a people is to de-mythologize the New Testament.  By that, I mean that we say demonic possession or affliction doesn’t happen anymore – those were just cases of mental illness that we didn’t have the knowledge to deal with yet.

I used to think that, by the way.

But look at this Scripture in Luke:

²¹ At that very time Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits, and gave sight to many who were blind. (Luke 7:21, NIV)

And here in Acts

³⁸ how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him. (Acts 10:38, NIV)

Scripture is very meticulous in differentiating between actual illness, mental or otherwise, and demonic activity.

In Jesus’ earthly ministry we clearly see how Jesus demonstrated that demonic entities are in fact, a reality.  What he taught us about demons and how to deal with them gives us a lot of valuable information about the attack plans of Satan.  We don’t have time to go through it, but just read back through the gospels and you’ll see that a pretty hefty percentage of Christ’s earthly ministry involved a demonic attack of some sort.

These didn’t just “disappear” after the resurrection, but from Acts, from the Epistles, from the early church Fathers, and all through the historical record we see the same things still happening today.

There are what theologians call the Five Levels of Diabolic Influence.  The first is called the ordinary level, the remaining four are called the extraordinary level, meaning, if it gets to this point, there might be trouble ahead for an individual.

The problem is, that most people do one of two things – they don’t come forward with their issues out of fear, or they assume they’re nutty and hope no one will notice while they suffer in silence.

Also, in our age there is a great comparison to how a demon is to be viewed.  Think of a terrorist.  They instill fear, they try and subjugate by force and fear so you’ll ignore or run away.

Here are the five levels

1)  TEMPTATION – this one is what is called ordinary.  You are fair game in the realm of temptation – that’s why it’s so critical to learn to stand against it and recognize it.  Every human being is subject to this one, even Jesus was (Matt. 4). Remember, every sin begins with a thought, and every past sin remains in your memory.  Since demons have been around for before you were created, and they exist on a higher spiritual level in some aspects, they know what goes on in your brain.  As a result they will can go back into your memory, no matter how long ago, and pull that out as a temptation.  Normally these temptations are areas you’ll already know you’re struggling in, like anger, sexual purity, lust, greed, etc.

The rest are called extraordinary levels

2) OPPRESSION – To oppress means to “crush or come against.”   This is a purely external attack.  Think Job.  The enemy can bring health decline, financial ruin, negative circumstances, loss of a job for no reason, and relationship failures for no reason, church issues, uncalled for fear, etc.

3)  OBSESSION – This is where you’ve opened a door and now the demonic has access to your internal being – your mind.  In this area, we are referring to an “out of character” sudden attack of obsessive thoughts. In other words, you are unceasingly bombarded by a certain thought or action. There are also usually out-of-character emotional responses that can accompany this stage.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Now you have to be careful here because not all mental problems are caused by Satan.  In fact, a vast majority are not.

4)  POSSESSION – This is the goal.  Demons CAN possess the human body.  There are two types of possession as well.  There is FULL POSSESSION, in which a person’s entire body is controlled by the demonic entity and PARTIAL POSSESSION which is where the entity treats you as a mouthpiece of sorts and uses you to speak unknowingly on their behalf.  Demonic possession is a condition in which one or more demons inhabit the body of a human being and take complete control of their victim at will.  Contrary to popular belief, most cases of possession happen willingly – meaning there are people who LIKE and WANT to be possessed.

However, possession can also occur unwillingly, through participation in occult practices, unrepentant sinful habits, and curiosity into the area of the occult.

Can Christians be possessed?  The short answer is no.  When you are baptized you are forgiven of sin and filled with the Holy Spirit, so you cannot belong to Satan.

This does not mean that Christians cannot be influenced or attacked by the enemy.  Usually through the oppression and obsession stages this will try to happen.

A Christian cannot be possessed…UNLESS…they step outside the protection of the Spirit and engage in practices that willingly go against God while putting themselves in extreme danger.  Using Ouija boards, séances, necromancy, anything where you ask a “spirit” to speak to you and reveal something…then you are complete and fair game because you are ASKING and GRANTING permission.

5)  INFESTATION – this is your typical haunted house scenario.  This is where people start paying attention that something not normal is happening.  This is when the preacher is usually called!  Doors slamming, objects moving, loud pounding, materialization, walls that seem to bleed, destroyed religious symbols, throwing things, levitation of incredibly heavy objects…that’s all pretty standard in this phase.

Now, these phases don’t necessarily happen in this order, but these are the five categories of diabolic influence.

That’s enough for today, next post we’ll cover the signs of demonic possession.

Demonology: Organization and Basic Activities of Demons

In my last post I touched on the origins and traits of the demonic.

Now, we’re going to look at how they are structured.  Remember, Satan is nothing more than a lying imitator, and as such he has organized his “kingdom” in such a way as to mock God.  Ephesians 6:12 gives us the organization or the demonic:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  – Ephesians 6:12, NIV

Let’s break this down.

Principalities (Authorities):  A principality is the territory or jurisdiction of a prince.  Satan has placed a ‘prince’ over each principality.  The prince of the Persian kingdom is brought up in Daniel 10:13.  Ever wanted to know if/how Satan functions on a national level?  Here it is – a principality.  He uses it to direct the affairs of a nation through a territory organized and terrorized by his minions.

Powers and rulers of this dark world:  These two groupings of demons work in the social, political, and cultural systems of the world.

Spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms:    These demons are often organized in groups that vary in size.  For example, Mary Magdalene had seven demons in her before meeting Jesus.  Luke 8:30 mentions a “legion” of demons.  In the Roman Army, a Legion referred to 6,100 soldiers and 726 Cavalrymen!  In the case of the demon possessed guy in Luke 8:30 the demons were united in their purpose, which in this example was a total possession of the man.  The same is true in Matthew 12:45 and in the case of Mary Magdalene who had seven demons (Luke 16:9).

The Bible teaches that man has a body, soul, and spirit.  There are three major kinds of demons that attack the body and spirit of people. In Militantis, Fr. Jack Ashcraft breaks it down like this:

1. Evil or unclean spirits: They are responsible for immoral acts, unclean thoughts, oppression, possession, depression, and other tools of Satan which we’ll study later.  They afflict the mind and actions (Matt. 10:1; 12:43; Mark 1:23-26)
2. Spirits of Infirmity: These spirits afflict the physical body (Luke 13:11)
3. Seducing Spirits: These demons afflict the mind and spirit of man, influencing him to believe lies, false doctrines, etc.  These demons seduce people to believe a lie and be damned to Hell.  They are demons behind cults, false teaching, false Christs, and the occult.

Demons follow orders given by their ‘king’ Satan.  We can sum up the activities of demons by understanding first and foremost that they are always directed against God.

They are against God’s plan of redemption, against Jesus, against His Church, and against believers.  Satan uses his demons to accomplish this strategy throughout the world.  Demons extend Satan’s power by promoting lies and evil.  They affect individuals, governments, nations, and the world system en masse.  They spread insurrection and lie about God and humanity.  They bolster idolatry, false religions, bad teaching, and can blind people to the truth of the Gospel (John 12:40; 2 Cor. 4:4).

These demons can sometimes attack unbelievers and can drive them to commit the most unspeakable actions like murder, incest, violence, suicide, etc.  They can affect the mind with emotional and psychological problems and the body with physical illnesses and pain.

Demons attack Christians by what is called  “diabolic temptation, obsession, deception, depression, and oppression.” They will try to keep a person locked up to sinful habits and fears/anxiety.  They accuse and slander you as well as excel in creating division in the Church.  They hone in on your spiritual walk with Christ and fight against the Church.  They also can attack your physical body.

Unbelievers are defenseless against the attacks of demonic entities, but Christians have the Holy Spirit and powerful spiritual weapons at our disposal: Prayer, communion, worship, the Scriptures, and the redemption provided through Jesus Christ!

We’ll tackle all of this in-depth as we continue our study!

Post comments if you have any questions!