Demonization

Heath Adamson shares the story of his deliverance from the occult and addiction in an article in CT magazine. Even as a child, the spiritual world was real to him because of his involvement with the occult. Heath remembers watching a chair slide across the floor and a candle floating off the coffee table. His experiences with the supernatural led him on an all-consuming quest for answers.

Then in eighth grade a female classmate sensed in her heart that God was whispering Heath’s name. The whisper said something to the effect of, “Pray for that young man. You are going to marry him one day.” They struck up a relationship, but when the school year ended, they went their separate ways. She attended church, but Heath had regular encounters with the demonic realm, became addicted to numerous drugs, looked like a human skeleton, and lived life in quiet desperation.

Heath then writes:

In my junior year of high school, I asked my physics partner about religion and he invited me to church. I actually went and one Sunday night, I lay in my bedroom thinking about who God was and what the truth could be. I felt like God himself had come into my room. I remember saying out loud, “Jesus, you are who you say you are.” Deep inside, I believed he loved me the way I was. God’s presence was so real that I could almost feel him breathing in my face.

I told my physics partner I would go back to church with him on a Wednesday night. I said, “Remember when the pastor asked if people wanted to ask Jesus to forgive them. Well, I think I need to do that.” At the end of the service, a volunteer pastor said a prayer and shared the gospel. I was the only one who responded. That night, when I embraced the grace of Jesus, my body was supernaturally and instantaneously healed. My substance addictions vanished.

The very next day, I discovered something incredible in the mailbox. Inside was a handwritten letter from the girl who dared to listen in eighth grade when God touched her heart. It just happened to land in the mailbox the day after I met God. After I married that amazing girl, I found her prayer journals. That’s when I discovered how God used the prayers of her and others, often whispered when no one was watching, to help soften my hardened heart.

Looking back at my salvation, I am the product of a girl who dared to believe when God whispered, an invitation to church, and the power of prayer. And most of all the Savior who stepped into my darkness and, instead of turning away in horror, showed me who he was and who I was created to be.

While the United States is gradually becoming more spiritual and less religious, polls show that belief in the paranormal is on the rise. Polls conducted in recent decades by Gallup and the data firm YouGov suggest that roughly half of Americans believe demonic possession is real. The percentage who believe in the devil is even higher, and in fact has been growing: Gallup polls show that the number rose from 55 percent in 1990 to 70 percent in 2007.

But why is belief in demons on the rise when belief in Christian faith is declining? It seems that people seek spiritual fulfillment through the occult. Carlos Eire, a historian at Yale said, “As people’s participation in orthodox Christianity declines, there’s always been a surge in interest in the occult and the demonic. Today we’re seeing a hunger for contact with the supernatural.”

Adam Jortner, an expert on American history at Auburn University, agrees, “When the influence of the major institutional Churches is curbed, people begin to look for their own answers. ... At the same time that there has been a rebirth in magical thinking, American culture has become steeped in movies, TV shows, and other media about demons and demonic possession.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

This situation could actually lead many back to the church. As secularization creates a gap where people begin to seek out the demonic, more and more are returning to the church seeking freedom from demonic oppression in the form of exorcism.

A news story reported on an Irish priest and exorcist who is asking his superiors for help after noticing a dramatic increase in demonic activity. Fr. Pat Collins said he has been overwhelmed with the number of requests for exorcisms in Ireland. In an open letter, he urged his bishops to train more priests to deal with the demand. Collins said that it's "only in recent years that the demand has risen exponentially."

Collins' comments are on par with those of other exorcists throughout the world, including the International Association of Exorcists (IAE), a group of 400 Catholic leaders and priests, which has reported a dramatic increase in demonic activity in recent years. The IAE said the levels of demonic activity throughout the world had reached what they considered a "pastoral emergency."

Collins said that anyone who doesn't see the need for more exorcists is "out of touch with reality." He added,

What I'm finding out desperately, is people who in their own minds believe—rightly or wrongly—that they're afflicted by an evil spirit … [And] when they turn to the Church, the Church doesn't know what to do with them and they refer them on either to a psychologist [or another church leader] … and they do fall between the cracks and often are not helped.

In his book No Country for Old Men, award-winning author Cormac McCarthy has one of his characters, Sheriff Val, explain why he returned to his childhood belief in a real devil. The Sheriff said:

I think if you were Satan and you were sitting around trying to think up something that would just bring the human race to its knees what you would probably come up with is narcotics. Maybe he did. I told that to somebody at breakfast the other morning and they asked me if I believe in Satan. I said well that ain't the point. And they said I know but do you? I had to think about that. I guess as a boy I did. Come the middle years my belief I reckon had waned somewhat. Now I'm starting to lean back the other way. Satan explains a lot of things that otherwise don't have no explanation. We're not to me they don't.

Editor's Note: No Country for Old Men is also a movie, but this quote was taken from the book, not the film.

NPR (National Public Radio) journalist Scott Simon has always avoided using the word "evil" when covering terrible events around the globe. He claims he was "of a generation educated to believe that 'evil' was a cartoonish moral concept." But then he watched, with his daughters, some of the sickening images from the chemical weapons attack in Syria in April 2017 that killed scores of people, many of them children. Simon writes:

We watched in silence. I've covered a lot of wars, but could think of nothing to say to make any sense. Finally, one of our daughters asked, "Why would anyone do that?" I still avoid saying "evil" as a reporter. But as a parent, I've grown to feel it may be important to tell children about evil, as we struggle to explain cruel and incomprehensible behavior they may see not just in history. … but in our own times.

I've interviewed Romeo Dallaire, commanded U.N. peacekeeping forces in Rwanda in 1993 and 1994 when more than 800,000 Tutsi Rwandans were then slaughtered over three months. Dallaire said that what happened made him believe in evil, and even a force he called the devil. "I've negotiated with him," he told us, "shaken his hand. Yes. There is no doubt in my mind ... and the expression of evil to me is through the devil and the devil at work and possessing human beings and turning them into machines of destruction. ... And one of the evenings in my office, I was looking out the window and my senses felt that something was there with me that shifted me. I think that evil and good are playing themselves out and God is monitoring and looking at how we respond to it."

"I think the Joker killed Heath Ledger." So writes attorney Jay Gaskill in his review of The Dark Knight, a film about the superhero Batman. On January 22, 2008, six months before the movie's opening, Heath Ledger, who played the villainous Joker, was found unconscious in his Manhattan apartment. The medical examiner reported that the 28-year-old had died from an accidental overdose of a lethal brew of prescription drugs.

Reviewers lauded Ledger for his "electrifying" performance. Ledger's character is more than a sociopathic master criminal. Reviewers use the language of the supernatural, calling him "demonic" and "diabolical"—"a hound fresh out of hell," "a vivid, compelling picture of … evil," and "like Satan." Michael Caine, who plays Batman's butler Alfred, said that he found Ledger's performance so terrifying and disturbing that he sometimes forgot his lines.

Reportedly, the Joker role had taken a decided toll on the actor's health. For weeks, he was unable to sleep, averaging only two hours a night. He told a New York Times reporter that even after taking two sleeping pills, "I couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still going." He also told a reporter that "the only way that I can act" is to climb inside the skin of the person he was playing. For The Dark Knight, he spent a month alone in a hotel room to work on his character and voice, perfecting an unhinged cackle that sends shivers up the audience's spine. But by immersing himself in the role of the Joker, Ledger might well have gazed too deeply into the abyss.

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you." This famous but unclear quote by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has at least one interpretation: if a person gazes too long at evil, it will become a part of him. Did Ledger fall prey to this?

William Friedkin directed the 1973 movie The Exorcist. It became one of the highest-grossing films in history, was a major pop culture influence, and was labeled by critics and voters as one of the scariest movies of all time. But in an issue of Vanity Fair, Friedkin admitted that he had never witnessed an actual exorcism. So Friedkin, who considers himself an agnostic, traveled to Italy and watched a real exorcism. When he returned to the U.S. he showed the video to two of the world's leading neurosurgeons and researchers in California and to a group of prominent psychiatrists in New York.

After watching the video, Dr. Neil Martin, chief of neurosurgery at the UCLA Medical Center, said:

There's a major force at work within her somehow. I don't know the underlying origin of it … This doesn't seem to be hallucinations … It doesn't look like schizophrenia or epilepsy … I've done thousands of surgeries, on brain tumors, traumatic brain injuries, [etc.] … and I haven't seen this kind of consequence from any of those disorders. This goes beyond anything I've ever experienced—that's for certain.

Dr. Itzhak Fried, a neurosurgeon and clinical specialist in epilepsy surgery, seizure disorder :

It looks like something authentic. She is like a caged animal. I don't think there's a loss of consciousness or contact … I believe everything originates in the brain. So which part of the brain could serve this type of behavior? … [But] can I characterize it? Maybe. Can I treat it? No.

Friedkin was surprised by the neurosurgeons' response:

They wouldn't come out and say, "Of course this woman is possessed by Satan," but they seemed baffled as to how to define her ailment … I went to these doctors to try to get a rational, scientific explanation for what I had experienced. I thought they'd say, 'This is some sort of psychosomatic disorder having nothing to do with possession.' That's not what I came away with. Forty-five years after I directed The Exorcist, there's more acceptance of the possibility of possession than there was when I made the film.

The Washington Post ran a controversial op-ed piece titled, "As a psychiatrist, I diagnose mental illness. Also, I help spot demonic possession." The subtitle read, "How a scientist learned to work with exorcists." The author, Richard Gallagher, is a board-certified psychiatrist and a professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College. Dr. Gallagher wrote:

For the past two-and-a-half decades and over several hundred consultations, I've helped clergy from multiple denominations and faiths to filter episodes of mental illness—which represent the overwhelming majority of cases—from, literally, the devil's work. It's an unlikely role for an academic physician, but I don't see these two aspects of my career in conflict. The same habits that shape what I do as a professor and psychiatrist—open-mindedness, respect for evidence and compassion for suffering people—led me to aid in the work of discerning attacks by what I believe are evil spirits and, just as critically, differentiating these extremely rare events from medical conditions.

Is it possible to be a sophisticated psychiatrist and believe that evil spirits are, however seldom, assailing humans? Most of my scientific colleagues and friends say no, because of their frequent contact with patients who are deluded about demons, their general skepticism of the supernatural, and their commitment to employ only standard, peer-reviewed treatments that do not potentially mislead (a definite risk) or harm vulnerable patients. But careful observation of the evidence presented to me in my career has led me to believe that certain extremely uncommon cases can be explained no other way.

So far the article has generated nearly 3,000 comments, mostly from people whose worldview does not permit the reality of demon possession or even the existence of demons.

In an interview with New York magazine, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia explained his beliefs about the reality of the Devil. After mentioning his belief in a real heaven and hell he interjected, "I even believe in the Devil." The interview continued (with interviewer in bold):

You do?

Of course! Yeah, he's a real person ….

Have you seen evidence of the Devil lately?

You know, it is curious. In the Gospels, the Devil is doing all sorts of things. He's making pigs run off cliffs, he's possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn't happen very much anymore … It's because he's smart.

So what's he doing now?

What he's doing now is getting people not to believe in him or in God. He's much more successful that way … I mean, c'mon, that's the explanation for why there's not demonic possession all over the place. That always puzzled me. What happened to the Devil, you know? He used to be all over the place. He used to be all over the New Testament. What happened to him? He got wilier.

Isn't it terribly frightening to believe in the Devil?

You're looking at me as though I'm weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the Devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the Devil! It's in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the Devil! Most of mankind has believed in the Devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the Devil.

Erwin Lutzer wrote in "A Contested Universe”:

Recently I watched a program on the Animal Channel that showed a herd of buffalo and six lions. The lions were plotting to have a buffalo for dinner. Well, they found one buffalo that had strayed from the herd, maybe a couple hundred yards, and they went after that buffalo. So how do a few lions stop a buffalo? One lion grabbed the heel of one back leg of the buffalo, the other on the other back leg. And they just hung on until that buffalo slowed to a stop. Then one lion hopped on his back, another went after his stomach. And from there on you can just visualize what happened. It was gruesome.

But here's what shocked me. There were perhaps 100 buffalo, if not more, all standing and staring and watching this go down. I don't know if buffalo can think. But if buffalo could think, you know what they're thinking? Boy, am I ever glad that's not happening to me! Imagine if this herd had decided we're not going to let those lions get away with anything, and together they ran thundering in that direction with their horns down. Those lions would have scurried away immediately. The lions would never have a buffalo for lunch, if the buffalo stuck together.

There's a lesson for us there. First of all, Satan separates somebody from the herd. He makes them mad at the church and Christians, or angry because of some other reason. Once they're away from the herd, he intensifies his attack. And then when we hear of the spiritual/demonic struggles that a person faces we say to ourselves, Boy, am I ever glad that's not me! What we have to do as a congregation is to hang together. We have to close in and say we will not allow the devil to do this to our people.

I think God wants us to humble ourselves, not just before him, but before others. Many people have been delivered from strongholds when they begin to share, and other people intercede for them. It's in community that God grants victory. The spiritual resources are ours; we just have to use them.

As significant as demonic influence may be, it is never the primary issue in someone's life. It may be a deadly, destructive consequence or fruit, but it is not the root problem. Charles Kraft has a helpful analogy. He says demons are like rats that are attracted to garbage. The problem is the garbage, consisting of things like our persistent sinful behaviors, our reactions to our emotional wounds, and sinful generational influences and patterns. These are the issues for which we are responsible. When we deal with them, when we get rid of the garbage, then the rats won't have anything to feed on, and it's easy to make them go away.

It is startling to think that Satan can actually come into the heart of a man in such close touch with Jesus as Judas was. And more--he is cunningly trying to do it today. Yet he can get in only through a door opened from the inside. "Every man controls the door of his own life." Satan can't get in without our help.

When I suspect demon oppression, I usually pray silently. Demons, as spiritual creatures, can "hear" whether I speak aloud or not.