Demonic Obsession - Torment in the Church

I wrote in the Field Guide to Spiritual Warfare, how the Holy Spirit would have me in different seasons of learning. One season was on the streets, where people would walk up to me and have the spirits oppressing them identify themselves. We had this experience recently, on the streets, we were training seminary students in street ministry. The seminary students were able to approach one individual, but a ministry friend of mine, Katie, and myself, were growled at by this person and his spirits told us to stay away from him. The spirits in this individual could see our authority in Christ. It’s good to see it’s not just me, but the Holy Spirit is raising up our friend Katie too.

The Holy Spirit will lead you through seasons to reveal the supernatural to you. And many times in this season the Holy Spirit will break you -to make you usable in the new area He is training you in. If God is training you to work in the supernatural he has to break you of your own soul-ish shortcomings and to release God out of your box you put him in. In this season God is revealing to me a dark leprosy in the church, demonic obsession. Demonic obsession is dangerous torment that sits between oppression and possession. Obsession, is dark, and horrible, and it’s probably in every church in one form or another. As deliverance ministers we miss this, because quite frankly, I think we’re getting too caught up in deliverance and methodologies we don’t see what is standing right there in front of us. Pure and simple torment.

Father Gabriele Amorth, in An Exorcist Tells His Story, defines demonic (diabolic) obsession.

4. Diabolic Obsession. Symptoms include, sudden attacks, at times
ongoing, of obsessive thoughts, sometimes even rationally absurd, but of such nature the victim is unable to free themselves. Therefore the obsessed person lives in perpetual state of prostration, desperation,
and attempts at suicide. Almost always obsession influences dreams. Some people will say that this is evidence of mental illness, requiring the services of psychiatrist or a psychologist. The same could be said of all other forms of demonic phenomena. Some symptoms, however, are so
inconsistent with known illnesses that they point with certainty to
their evil origins. Only an expert with a well-trained eye can identify
the crucial differences.

What I have witnessed in demonic obsession is that it attacks the person under its influence day and night non-stop. At night time there are horrible dreams on the tormented soul. During the day, there is shame or fear, either from the dreams, or from abuses or sinful behaviors, revealed constantly by the enemy. Some traits M16 ministry has observed while working with people in demonic obsession are:

1. The people seem to be self-isolated by the torment. Initially, the individual is going to church and appears to be a strong Christian. Supernatural events occur in stronger frequencies now and the church may be puzzled as to how to help this individual. In most cases, the church becomes frustrated with the individual in the early stages of obsession and tries to avoid them. The enemy starts speaking to the individual and is high lighting how the church is avoiding them.

2. In the cases of demonic obsession we have been involved in, psychological trauma, was the doorway to the demonic obsession. Trauma includes, physical abuse as children, ritual involvement, rape, and living in a house with demonic activity, to name a few. There are more entry points but I refer you to these to give you a general idea of how the demonic obsession gets its toe hold on the person.

3. People in demonic obsession, in half the cases, are led into believing they will be self-delivered from the torment. This happens in stages, remember, the enemy is picking up every fumble by the church and reminding the person of the failure. Stage 1. The person is having difficulty finding a home church because healing isn't coming to them. The church leadership is frustrated by the individual and believes they are only seeking sympathy prayer. In most cases, the individual has an unknown affliction doctors can't identify and which leads others to believe the individual is lying for sympathy. Stage 2. The person starts believing the enemy has infiltrated the church and has witches attending or even praying for others in service. The enemy is increasing the torment now. This is the beginning of the spiritual and mental isolation of the individual. The enemy gives false prophecy about healings and warns the individual not to seek prayer. Usually the false prophecy comes in the form of warnings the individual accepts. At this point the person is compromised. The enemy is constantly speaking to them and they believe it is an angel (beware of angles of light masquerading...) or even Jesus. Now the person is becoming isolated from their family members and those living with this person are at whits end.

4. The individual believes there are places in the house where evil spirits reside. So they stay confined to parts of their house or a bedroom. Some people believe their next door neighbors are members of witch coven sent to spy on them.

5. Torments include physical, psychological, and spiritual attacks. The attacks become relentless, they're real but seldom physically manifest to other people. The goal is make the person appear insane while at the same time driving the person to insanity (or the appearance). The attacks are relentless and the person soon starts giving warning signs of, "I can't live like this anymore", "They're coming for me." and other warning signs to be cautious of when you hear them spoken by these people. The demons end game is to have the person end their own lives.

6. Individuals seem to seek out tainted homes. Many times, an individual will flee a home, where they know there is activity, only to land in a home that also has unclean spirit activity. The problem here is that ghost hunters are called in. Ghost hunters don't know how to cleanse a home with spiritual leprosy. Reading the ritual romana (rite of exorcism) by untrained clergy is useless. Ghost hunters do not have the level of expertise in the supernatural they self-elevate themselves to have.

Case in point, exhibit A. Paranomral team playing exorcists.


Bringing in a ghost hunter in this scenario (a Christian should never be involved in or bring in a ghost hunter in the first place) is dangerous. The ghost hunters have no understanding of spiritual authority. We have worked with ghost hunters in cleaning them up after such mishaps. Some demons they thought  were expelling went home with them!

What you must ask yourself is –why were the ghost hunters called out to the home in the first place? Because people under the torment of demonic obsession are seeing the demons or are hallucinating that they are seeing the demons. In demonic obsession if they are hallucinating they are seeing demons it is still from a demonic source. The demons could be hijacking the person’s spiritual vision and leaving their imprint there in the person’s mind. The demons are relentless at tormenting the people in this manner and the person usually develops a paranoia. These are aspects ghost hunters do not understand at all and their K2 meters and toys will not register this. Man’s equipment can not measure into the spirit realm. We only pick up what the demon’s want us to pick up on electronics.

7. The forms of paranoia include, spiritual voices, which convince the person no one in the church can help them. Paranoia that I have seen includes that people in the church are witches or that next door neighbors are members of the occult. The paranoia can run so deep that the people inflicted with this are living a horrible John Carpenter horror movie, like "They Live". Everyone around them is part of a conspiracy with demonic roots.

What is interesting is that these people won’t talk with church counselors or pastors. Why? Because the root problem was supernatural and these people know it. The church may already be showing signs of being burnt out on these people. The root cause of the obsession may be supernatural. They may have been physically attacked as a child, by a demon. Even the parents of these people will attest to the incident. Or the person lived in a house with spiritual leprosy – occult rituals took place or there is spiritual activity in the house. Since the church already beleives the person is faking illness for sympathy prayer - and these people know when the church thinks this, they are certainly not going to beleive the supernatural root to it. Because an individual appears crazy, a pastor or counselor may shut the person down. Which is why the pastor or counselor doesn’t hear how the root of the problem planted itself in this person. Worse yet, the church doesn’t believe the enemy is real and has powers. This is common in the church’s age of reason. Also, these individuals have already been through sessions of church counselling.The demonic root was never mentioned or dealt with.

These people, who are tormented, have an ounce of sanity left to remember what happened to them when the obsession took root was very real. This is what they are clinging to when they seek help.

We get quite a few of these individuals in our ministry because we have seen the supernatural. When we hear these people’s stories we know what is being revealed to us is truth and we know in the spirit where to weed out the hallucinations.

Treating demonic obsession is difficult. The free will is compromised and is focused on the demonic activity. I am talking about Christians who are being tormented by this. You can minister to these people and slightly turn their spiritual boat in the right direction only to have it snapped back in the wrong direction 5 minutes later. It’s frustrating since the person you are working with will totally drop into limbo everything you worked with them on.

These people need laying on of hands by seasoned combat veterans in spiritual warfare. Internet prayers won’t work. And it will take several to many sessions to get this person on course. They need to repent for diverting their attention from Jesus to the demonic activity. If you get this far with these individuals,  some snap out of it and some don’t. It’s free will. They need to want to wake up. And as ministers we can’t be enablers or crutches to these people. We have to make them responsible for their own actions right out of the starting gate. A person in demonic obsession will try to dictate to you how their healing process should go. This is the spirit running interference. The spirit will also try to be a spirit of distraction to your ministry and don’t allow them to do this. Ministry is not at the beck and call of the demonic. Identify when this is occurring and shut it down.

As I mentioned, obsession can be a difficult torment to evict and it’s the power of the Holy Spirit that brings healing to the situation. It is best to work hands on with these people, in this manner the demons can’t interfere with the prophetic ministry when you are in the same room. Prophetic ministry over the phone, is not as successful, because the spirits are swatting at the prophetic, like flies, on the other side of the phone. This is because the person in torment is allowing the spirits to do this. Demonic obsessive people try to dictate the deliverance. They are convinced in their own minds they know how to deliver themselves or get delivered –which is the lie of the enemy. And then the next second they remind you of how depressed they are and they can’t go on living their life in this manner. It’s synonymous to a tire stuck in mud and it’s the power of Jesus that pulls the person out of the mud.

The sign of demonic obsession is usually horrible nightmares night, after night, after night. Ministry team members trained in dream interpretation, such as John Paul Jacksons, Streams Ministries, is crucial to identify and work with these people on their dreams. This is where the individual must take responsibility and pull themselves up out of the victim mentality and fight. The obsession, through the demonic, makes the individual believe that Jesus won’t help them –or why won’t Jesus help me? The truth of the matter is – He is trying to help but an obsessive focus is placed on the enemy and now the problem is not left to the resurrecting power of the work on the cross. This is the primary operative of the obsession to lead the person away from Christ. The person can become consumed by the obsession to the point the enemy has convinced them help from God will never come and they should end their own life. We pray for the Holy Spirit to protect these individuals whenever we encounter them. They can be fine one second and snap into obsession and have thoughts of hurting themselves. It's how the demonic works.

The church must rise up in her authority and deal with the enemy. If it is in your church then you are called to deal with it. We tend to avoid the obsessed because we don't like the behavior of these people. They're weird and they say things that make us uncomfortable. The best course of action is to step into your authority and take action by laying hands on these people and praying for them. But I only recommend to do this if they approached you first for prayer. Don't go and seek them out. Healing comes when the individual is in submission to God in their will and they want to be healed.

Holy Spirit I pray your church to wake up from the sleep a spirit has put over it. And reveal the tormented in the pews. Highlight the people who are in torment and let the body of Christ embrace these lost children to find their way home. Reveal to us in the prophetic what is needed to bring healing to our brothers and sisters. In Jesus Name I pray. Amen.

Addendum:
Single most request for help with M16 has been with demonic obsession. We consistently get requests from people who believe they are living in a town and are single handedly taking on covens of witches or secret diabolic societies. If you're a Christian and you're going through this you must first stop and understand who you are in Jesus Christ.

1 John 4
4You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. 5They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. 6We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Philippians 1:28
28 Don't be intimidated by your enemies. This will be a sign to them that they are going to be destroyed, but that you are going to be saved, even by God himself.

Stand firm and banish these thoughts from your head and take every thought captive. It's all a mind game by the enemy.

We always respond to requests by those being attacked by the occult. The wording tends to stand out and differ from those being attacked by the occult than those who have fallen for the lies of demonic obsession. When you see the truth the lie is broken and you are set free.