Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
How To Get Rid of Demons
As I've mentioned before I am not a demonologist, not do I want to be. Though the spirit world is highly intriguing, the side-effects of getting involved with spirits can be terrifying at their worst. I don't have a step-by-step guide to getting rid of demons, but enough people have asked that I think it's only appropriate to try to answer.
Evil Spirits 101
The first thing to understand about demons and other spirits is that they don't truly exist in our plane of existence. That is, they do not have a corporeal, earthly form. We, on the other hand, do. This is a key advantage for humans.
As you may have noticed from demonic stories, demons don't get to wander free at full force in our world. If they did they would have destroyed and corrupted everything by now. Instead, they only have temporary power that can be used here - unless they find a way to gather more.
Think of it like swimming. We can dive down into the water and hold our breath for some time. While we're there we can make a mess of things, or simply see what's going on. After a short while, though, we run out of oxygen and need to come back to "our world" on the surface. This appears to be the same with demons. They can "hold their breath" and come into our world for a time, but they can't stay for too long.
The exception comes in a similar way as swimming. Just as a diver can go for longer dives with a breathing apparatus, so can a demon take longer stays on our plane of existence if they have a way of doing so.
So what is the "oxygen" that demons need to stay longer? The answer is energy. Spiritual energy is by far the strongest, though spirits have been known to drain batteries, heat, and light among other sources. Energy is energy in a sense, but comparing spiritual energy to electricity is like comparing a nuclear reactor to a car battery. Both can power a light bulb with ease, but they're still not in the same ballpark in terms of strength and range.
To put it simply, demons feed off of energy. Now, just as electricity is polarized (positive or negative), so is all energy. This is exactly what people are referring to when they talk about positive and negative attitudes. We largely ignore these types of personal or spiritual energies because they can't be measured very well on a scientific scale. All that means is that we don't have the technology or understanding needed to measure them, not that they don't exist. If you don't believe me, try getting a dog to listen to you. Smart dog owners know that you don't have to say a word, you just have to change your energy and your dog will pick up on it much better than if you are yelling commands.
The key to keeping demons from affecting you is to learn how to control your energy. Evil spirits need negative energy while positive spirits need positive energy. It's just like a battery - it doesn't work backwards. By starving a demon of negative energy you are effectively suffocating it from this world, just like a diver with no oxygen. No matter what techniques you use to do this, the key is to remember that removing negative energy is the engine that makes it work.
Controlling Your Energy
Controlling your personal (spiritual) energy is actually pretty simple. As yogis and zen masters can tell you, it takes a lot of practice to get really good at it, but what doesn't? No matter how good or bad you are at controlling your energy, you can always get better, so there is absolutely no reason not to start practicing this today (especially if you are concerned about evil presences around you.)
Some emotions come from subconscious responses to stimuli, but most of our emotions can be controlled with our thoughts. In fact, even the subconscious responses can be trained over time using this same technique. Just as a karate master knows how to block a punch before he has time to think about it, your subconscious can be trained to automatically respond in a certain way. That comes later, of course, but it isn't really any different from what we're talking about here - controlling your thoughts is the key to controlling your energy.
So how do you control your thoughts? It starts with awareness. Start becoming very aware of your responses to certain things. What makes you smile? What makes you angry? Does somebody do something that instantly annoys your or sets you off? What are you afraid of? Start noticing your emotional response and try to put it into words. Why do you feel this way? What logic is your mind using to justify this emotion? Challenge it. Most of the time if we dig deep enough we can see that our fear, anger, anxiety, and even depression is unjustified and blown out of proportion.
Being aware of these irrational thoughts and fears is the first and most crucial step to getting rid of them. They can be replaced with positive thoughts and responses just by "rewiring" your logic and connecting the stimulating events with either positive or neutral responses. It's surprisingly simple, yet far too often ignored.
So back to the demons... Demons feed off of negative energy, so if you get rid of the negative energy the demon has less power, less time in our plane, and thus less effect on people and things that exist in our plane. Understanding this is VITAL to keeping evil away. Energy attracts like energy, so if you are putting out positive vibrations, you will not only be attracting positive vibrations, but you'll also be repelling negative ones!
Don't Fear The Reaper
Fear is the #1 source of negative energy. In fact, if you trace most other negative emotions back they turn out to be a sub-form of fear. Think about how you react when you are in a scary situation. Psychologists call it a "fight or flight" response. When faced with danger or fear you get an adrenaline rush that helps you do one of two things - either stand and fight or run away. Both are survival instincts, and neither is inherently good or bad. The problem though is that the emotions that come with fighting tend to be anger and fear, and those that come with running are mostly fear. All negative feelings.
This is how demons get their power. As I mentioned, they start of fairly weak in our plane of existence. Just tourists on a bus passing through. They can watch what's going on, but they don't have much effect over anything. Give them a day pass, though, and they'll mix in like they belong.
If you let demons scare you, anger you, or consume your thoughts you are effectively giving them the exact energy they need to get stronger. This is foolish! Luckily energy is not permanent though, and it takes a lot of energy for a demon or other evil entity to exist in our world. Even if you've fed the beast for years with your fear, anger, anxiety, and sorrow... stop. Resolve to rid yourself of the negative energy, no matter how long it takes or how hard it seems. At the very least get to the point where your reactions to scary events and feelings are neutral. Clear your mind and tell yourself that everything is just fine. If you know how to meditate, this is the perfect time to use it. If you don't know how to meditate, learn.
Over time you can actually make yourself unafraid, and with more time you can view spirits with a detached curiosity rather than a terrified reaction.
Keeping Evil Out
Some people use rituals to cleanse people, places, or things that are believed to be cursed. What's important to remember is that it's not actually important what item or ritual is used, but that you believe that it works. Like I said before, it doesn't really matter what method you choose to get rid of a demon because it's all coming from the same basic premise - getting rid of negative energy and replacing it with positive (or at least neutral) energy.
The reason many catholics choose exorcism rituals is simply because that's what they believe works. Other religions use other techniques because they believe that those techniques work for them. The key is knowing that positive energy is ALWAYS more powerful than negative energy. If you believe that all things are connected in the universe through our energy, as I do, then it becomes pretty easy to realize that you have an incredible amount of energy at your disposal. The energy that created all things is still in all things (even scientifically speaking everything and everyone in our universe is, at our cores, just collections of energy).
This source energy is called different things by different people - God, Source, Flow, Tao, etc. It's not really important to define it, only to believe that it exists. If there are rituals that make you feel powerful in a positive way, include those while you transform your energy and the energy surrounding you in a positive way. It's the belief that you are stronger than the demon (which is true) that gives you true power.
Clean Up Your Life
Part of ridding your life of demons is learning to face your own "demons". That is, identifying and confronting the things in your life that are negatively out of balance. It starts with something as simple as cleaning your house - it is well known that messy or dirty surroundings attract negativity and by extension evil. If you are lazy, exercise. If you are overweight, go on a diet. If your boyfriend abuses you, leave him. I know this doesn't sound like great demon-fighting advice, but it is, in fact, the best advice you're likely to get. It's much harder to clean up your mind when your surroundings are a mess. As you go through and sort out your thoughts, go through and sort out the rest of your life as well. It doesn't have to be overwhelming - that's another thought that can simply be challenged and changed.
As physics will tell you, momentum is a great way to sustain the direction of energy, so start making positive changes RIGHT NOW and build on them - a little every day. Ignore the negative things in your life and they will go away. Choose positivity in everything you do and soon you will be nothing but positive energy.
I guarantee demons will have no interest in you anymore.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Voices From Nowhere: Strange Disembodied Utterances?
oices From Nowhere: Strange Disembodied Utterances?
“Don’t move.” The sound of the woman’s voice was plain and audible, whispered quietly from directly behind him. Nick had just gotten out of bed, and standing beside the door leading into the hallway, he did the first thing that came to mind: he answered her.
“Okay,” he said, a little unnerved, expecting maybe to hear further instructions from his mysterious visitor. He had heard nothing more for several seconds, and finally jerked around to see who had been issuing early-morning orders from behind him someplace. And yet, to his surprise, there was no one there. Later that day, he asked if his roommate had perhaps been host to a visitor that Nick hadn’t been told about, but his friend denied receiving any such visit, and said he had heard no voices earlier that morning. Perplexed, Nick had to resolve that, despite clearly hearing a woman’s voice telling him not to move, there must have been no one present to have actually told him this!
On occasion, strange phenomenon such as this does tend to occur, particularly as one awakes from a sleep state, where disembodied voices can be heard so lucidly as to create the certain impression in one’s mind that they are not alone. And yet, on further inspection, more often than not there actually is no one else with you… thus, could such voices merely be products of the imagination? Or might there be something more to such odd utterances from beyond?
A few Halloweens ago, I had been invited on my friend Jeffery Pritchett’s radio program as a guest during a panel discussion of weird and creepy subjects fitting for the season. At some point, we came around to the subject of odd occurrences that happen during, prior to, or just after a deep sleep. My own experiences in this regard have been rather minimal, but I do recall another of the guests telling a particularly odd story of his own, in which similar to my friend Nick, whose story I described above, this gentleman had recalled awaking from a deep sleep and hearing a voice. As the story went, he had been completely awake and aware of his surroundings, but still lying in bed, when he heard a “witchy sounding” voice proclaim, the child is born! Needless to say, this had been a fairly unsettling occurrence for the fellow to have at 8:45 in the morning!
Of course, in a more clinical sense, the sudden appearance of disembodied voices could potentially be related to such things as psychosis just as well–namely the onset of a condition such as schizophrenia. While audible noises can often indicate the presence of mental illness in this way, in the two cases listed here, neither of the individuals seemed to have any history with mental illness, nor did the strange “visits” with odd early-morning voices continue.
Then again, reflecting on the numerous instances where people awaking from a sleep state have experienced the common phenomenon known as sleep paralysis, it may not be that unusual for audible hallucinations to occur when on the verge of waking. But again, my friend “Nick,” whose story I discuss above, involved him not only waking up, but getting out of bed and approaching the door leading out into the hallway of his apartment before a voice ordered him not to move. Are there other strange faculties of the mind that could contribute to this sort of phenomenon on occasion, and if so, why is the early morning so conducive to strange disembodied voices and other odd utterances?
Hearing Voices: Psychosis or Spirit?
Hearing Voices: Psychosis or Spirit?
“As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied.” Acts 9:3-5, excerpt from The Holy Bible, NIV edition.Religious stories are full of people hearing “voices” from the unknown and interacting with spiritual beings. We marvel at these stories, wondering what it would be like to receive prophetic messages, wondering why it suddenly stopped happening. Or did it? There is a place between dreaming and consciousness when some of us hear, well, “voices.” Perhaps distinct words and phrases, perhaps mumblings. Be honest with yourself; how many times have you heard people talking or someone calling your name when no one else was physically present?
Ron Coleman brings up this point in his effort to normalize the experience of hearing voices. Auditory hallucinations, if you want to get technical. Ron should know. He has heard seven voices since his early 20’s and has come to live at peace with them. Too many individuals, says Ron, are wrongly diagnosed with Schizophrenia because they hear voices. If you heard mostly negative voices all day, every day, at some point your reaction to them would look similar to the behavioral criteria for Schizophrenia.
Our society today doesn’t seem to tolerate people who converse with themselves out loud very well. That alone seems indicative of some serious mental disorder that we should avoid. Yet, most of us probably speak to ourselves, or speak to a higher power, or speak to something out there. We may even hear whispers from the “other” dimension. If Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus happened today, how do you think you would react to it? Awe, Disbelief, Fear? Realistically, he would be slapped with a diagnosis of paranoia and sent for mental health treatment. But…treatment for what?
Perhaps the spiritual experience is becoming so forgotten and foreign that it seems abnormal. I sometimes wonder how far the pendulum can swing before we lose our sense of mystery and possibility. It’s almost as if Reality and Spirituality are on opposite sides of a continuum that continues to be stretched like a long piece of taffy. Yet, beyond our perceptions and judgments, do the voices we secretly hear make us delusional, or do they just make us human?
*Want to learn more about Ron Coleman? Find his blog here.
Trauma, abuse, repression or what conservative Christianity calls demons
Trauma, abuse, repression or what conservative Christianity calls demons
After writing my last post about the evil I see inside of my eyes, I had an interesting revelation this week: I spent my entire Christian life afraid I was possessed by demons.
This is not a fear I would even admit to myself, which is why it’s taken nearly two years of being an ex-Christian for me to finally be able to put it into words. Admitting it would have made it real; it could have made it so if I wasn’t by chance actually possessed, I would be by saying those words.
I’ve written about demons before. Demons were everywhere, around every corner of our house, lurking in the bedrooms, I could always feel their eyes peering out from the walls.
There former owners of the house left rather scary hints behind of what went on there when they lived there. The main being, in the closet of the master bedroom, there were two small parallel holes in the wall. Holes that, if you kneeled, were the exact distance apart to be eyeholes. And these eyeholes? Went all the way through to the bedroom next to it. (This was a mobile home, so walls of course were thin, flimsy wood paneling. Easy to do something like this).
I didn’t understand the full ramifications of what those holes in the walls meant, but I understood the terror that they created for me. They had their own personality in my mind, evil and menacing, and I couldn’t go into my parents closet because of it, and I was relieved when my brothers finally accumulated enough junk to hide them. But that personality I saw in them? I also saw in myself. Those dark empty holes felt like a reflection of my own eyes.
My mother, of course, believing that everything has spiritual ramifications, used this as more evidence that there was something wrong with the house. The former owners had left behind their demons. We had “prayer warriors” come and pray through the house, “anointing it with oil” (vegetable oil), while they prayed to “bind” the demons and rebuke them.
This never took though, because it wasn’t just these holes in the wall. It was also us, the more I think about my childhood the more I’m certain that “demons” was my mother’s way of avoiding what was really going on. If you have a child too terrified to go into her room, if she has night terrors, and sees figures walking through her room at night, if all your children are fucked up, screaming at you, screaming at each other, if your husband is off spending money on alcohol and sex and then coming home to scream and beat on you and your kids, how much easier to believe that it’s demons that can be prayed away. Demons are something you can fix with God and faith alone. How much harder to admit that dealing with this takes far more work than a simple prayer
Our house was scary and wrong. I lived in a perpetual state of chills and terror, not just cowering from my father and brother but also the million eyes of the demons. It became something we lived with like we lived with each other, like we lived with the million ways our house was falling apart because there was no money to fix it. The plumbing is messed up and there are demons in my bedroom. The washing machine broke and there are demons in my parents’ bedroom. It became a common occurrence for my mother to talk about how she woke up in the night and there was a demon. And soon my brothers started seeing them, too.
I never did. Oh sure, I saw (what I now believe are hallucinations) silhouettes of figures, darting across rooms, but there were also bats and stoves chasing me, the strange mental breakdown a child goes through when they’re that stressed and traumatized.
But I always saw them in my mind’s eye; grinning and red, crouching low enough to peek through those holes, watching and waiting everywhere I went.
The problem with being an abuse victim repressing the hell out of everything is that you don’t know where anything comes from. Your head is full of rape knowledge and violent fantasies and it feels like it just arrived there. The amount of hours in my life I have devoted to rape fantasies is staggering. There’s a certain comfort I gain out of imagining someone shoving me against a wall, my head cracking open against it, and then again, again, again, until I’m lifeless – I constantly imagine going back in time and doing this to my childhood self. I have obsessively absurd dark thoughts even when I’m not trying to, they are the background noise of my life, constant fantasies perpetually looping in my head in as I go through the day-to-day. And I’ve had them all my life. Things like imagining a crown of bullets through a person’s head, all shiny metallic and slick with blood. Imagining that my skin is paper and I tear it off to fall in a puddle of blood. Being hacked with an ax and splintering apart like a tree. Being tied up and dragged against concrete, a trail of blood and skin left behind. These are just the off the top of my head – my current obsessive dark thoughts. I could fill books if I named them all.
But I didn’t know why I had these thoughts. Or what to do about the fact that they made me feel, well, kinda good. A strange kind of cathartic relief. And it makes sense when you think about the real life horror you’re trying to process. If you’ve ever read or seen anything horrifying enough to make your skin crawl, being a survivor is a lifetime of that skin-crawling horror magnified, and eventually you need some outlet to relieve the pressure. But when you’re repressing, you don’t have that logic. You don’t believe you’ve gone through anything traumatic, so instead you see these things as proof of your evil. You can close your eyes, and imagine horrific, graphic fantasies, and feel this strange mix of better-and-worse, and no matter how much you tellyourself that was the last time you’ll think that way, you know you’ll do it again. So you think, I’m evil, I’m a monster. Or, in my case, you hide your secret fear. I’m possessed by demons.
And with demons everywhere in my house, that fear seemed 95% more likely. How could demons in such close proximity resist someone as horrible as me? I tried desperately not to think about them, trying to build up “spiritual walls” around my thoughts to keep them out, but we all know what happens with I will not think about this thoughts, and eventually the fear and anxiousness would burst out in uncontrollable thoughts. Thoughts like Demons, please come into my life, which I would instantly beg God against, no, no, please God, I didn’t mean that I swear, don’t want that, Jesus help me, I rebuke you, demons but once the thought was there, it was hard to break the pattern.
When I was a kid, I heard voices, in a sense. All the mental tracks in my head, the You are worthless hate and destructive type thought patterns, the terrible things that I thought about other people, were not my voices. They were a man and a woman, they were well,my parents really. They weren’t self-hating, exactly, because I didn’t know that they were mine. My life was so fractured that I believed myself to be a happy, content person like everyone said I was, and these voices existed separate from me. I was unable to control them or get rid of them, and they sounded nothing like me to begin with. They spoke their terrible things in harsh, creepy voices, in unison. If that sounds like a traumatized kid with repressed memories then you probably weren’t raised in a family that idolized Frank Peretti as writing spiritual truth where repressed memories were lies of the devil, and demon possession sounds exactly like cheesy movie dramas of legions of voices speaking together. If you were raised in that family, like I was, then my voices were the very definition of demon possession.
I spent my life certain that if I looked in a mirror I would see demons leaping out from me. This is the evil behind my eyes, the evil lurking inside of me. The months before I stopped being a Christian but was heading that way was filled with the worst panic attacks, where I would lie in bed believing that God had completely abandoned me, and all that was left were the demons to consume me. And when everything has the power to be demonic – books, movies, music – every brush is capable of putting more demons in your life, everything I did became a battle to not get myself possessed and tormented by demons further.
I think that’s now why I’m so obsessed with this idea of being a Satanist, even if my beliefs probably don’t line up with any definition of that term. Why I need the joke that I am Satan’s spokesperson, his right hand person, why I pray to him constantly. Why I prayed for demon possession. I need the catharsis of realizing that I’m okay, that none of these fears have ever been true. I need the power that comes out of facing the demons and realizing that they were never there. To use a silly analogy, I need the ability to be Pinkie Pie laughing in the face of the scariness.
I may still be terrified of the evil inside of me, but the fear of demons lurking around every corner has almost completely vanished. I no longer feel their presence, they no longer have their claws in my shoulders. My violent thoughts and self-destructive voices may still be constant, but they are now mine, and when I do hear voices, I can now acknowledge that they are stress and trauma induced, my brain being fucked up and crazy. I can now see the evil of my childhood was the evil of sexual and physical abuse.
Unfortunately, Christianity had an answer for that too, so there is not a day that goes by that I don’t wonder if I, as a rejecter of Jesus, am simply no longer a threat to them. I’m so possessed that they don’t have to bother reminding me of it. I’m so possessed and corrupt and have become so evil, that there is no longer any spiritual or moral compass for me to recognize it anymore.
This is the first time I’ve been able to admit this to myself. I suppose that says something about how far I’ve come away from this thinking that I can finally see it and say it now. I have always believed there were demons inside of me, controlling me. Always believed I was evil enough that my life was opened up to the devil, he had taken me, and all I was was the sum of the demons inside of me.
This is not a fear I would even admit to myself, which is why it’s taken nearly two years of being an ex-Christian for me to finally be able to put it into words. Admitting it would have made it real; it could have made it so if I wasn’t by chance actually possessed, I would be by saying those words.
I’ve written about demons before. Demons were everywhere, around every corner of our house, lurking in the bedrooms, I could always feel their eyes peering out from the walls.
There former owners of the house left rather scary hints behind of what went on there when they lived there. The main being, in the closet of the master bedroom, there were two small parallel holes in the wall. Holes that, if you kneeled, were the exact distance apart to be eyeholes. And these eyeholes? Went all the way through to the bedroom next to it. (This was a mobile home, so walls of course were thin, flimsy wood paneling. Easy to do something like this).
I didn’t understand the full ramifications of what those holes in the walls meant, but I understood the terror that they created for me. They had their own personality in my mind, evil and menacing, and I couldn’t go into my parents closet because of it, and I was relieved when my brothers finally accumulated enough junk to hide them. But that personality I saw in them? I also saw in myself. Those dark empty holes felt like a reflection of my own eyes.
My mother, of course, believing that everything has spiritual ramifications, used this as more evidence that there was something wrong with the house. The former owners had left behind their demons. We had “prayer warriors” come and pray through the house, “anointing it with oil” (vegetable oil), while they prayed to “bind” the demons and rebuke them.
This never took though, because it wasn’t just these holes in the wall. It was also us, the more I think about my childhood the more I’m certain that “demons” was my mother’s way of avoiding what was really going on. If you have a child too terrified to go into her room, if she has night terrors, and sees figures walking through her room at night, if all your children are fucked up, screaming at you, screaming at each other, if your husband is off spending money on alcohol and sex and then coming home to scream and beat on you and your kids, how much easier to believe that it’s demons that can be prayed away. Demons are something you can fix with God and faith alone. How much harder to admit that dealing with this takes far more work than a simple prayer
Our house was scary and wrong. I lived in a perpetual state of chills and terror, not just cowering from my father and brother but also the million eyes of the demons. It became something we lived with like we lived with each other, like we lived with the million ways our house was falling apart because there was no money to fix it. The plumbing is messed up and there are demons in my bedroom. The washing machine broke and there are demons in my parents’ bedroom. It became a common occurrence for my mother to talk about how she woke up in the night and there was a demon. And soon my brothers started seeing them, too.
I never did. Oh sure, I saw (what I now believe are hallucinations) silhouettes of figures, darting across rooms, but there were also bats and stoves chasing me, the strange mental breakdown a child goes through when they’re that stressed and traumatized.
But I always saw them in my mind’s eye; grinning and red, crouching low enough to peek through those holes, watching and waiting everywhere I went.
The problem with being an abuse victim repressing the hell out of everything is that you don’t know where anything comes from. Your head is full of rape knowledge and violent fantasies and it feels like it just arrived there. The amount of hours in my life I have devoted to rape fantasies is staggering. There’s a certain comfort I gain out of imagining someone shoving me against a wall, my head cracking open against it, and then again, again, again, until I’m lifeless – I constantly imagine going back in time and doing this to my childhood self. I have obsessively absurd dark thoughts even when I’m not trying to, they are the background noise of my life, constant fantasies perpetually looping in my head in as I go through the day-to-day. And I’ve had them all my life. Things like imagining a crown of bullets through a person’s head, all shiny metallic and slick with blood. Imagining that my skin is paper and I tear it off to fall in a puddle of blood. Being hacked with an ax and splintering apart like a tree. Being tied up and dragged against concrete, a trail of blood and skin left behind. These are just the off the top of my head – my current obsessive dark thoughts. I could fill books if I named them all.
But I didn’t know why I had these thoughts. Or what to do about the fact that they made me feel, well, kinda good. A strange kind of cathartic relief. And it makes sense when you think about the real life horror you’re trying to process. If you’ve ever read or seen anything horrifying enough to make your skin crawl, being a survivor is a lifetime of that skin-crawling horror magnified, and eventually you need some outlet to relieve the pressure. But when you’re repressing, you don’t have that logic. You don’t believe you’ve gone through anything traumatic, so instead you see these things as proof of your evil. You can close your eyes, and imagine horrific, graphic fantasies, and feel this strange mix of better-and-worse, and no matter how much you tellyourself that was the last time you’ll think that way, you know you’ll do it again. So you think, I’m evil, I’m a monster. Or, in my case, you hide your secret fear. I’m possessed by demons.
And with demons everywhere in my house, that fear seemed 95% more likely. How could demons in such close proximity resist someone as horrible as me? I tried desperately not to think about them, trying to build up “spiritual walls” around my thoughts to keep them out, but we all know what happens with I will not think about this thoughts, and eventually the fear and anxiousness would burst out in uncontrollable thoughts. Thoughts like Demons, please come into my life, which I would instantly beg God against, no, no, please God, I didn’t mean that I swear, don’t want that, Jesus help me, I rebuke you, demons but once the thought was there, it was hard to break the pattern.
When I was a kid, I heard voices, in a sense. All the mental tracks in my head, the You are worthless hate and destructive type thought patterns, the terrible things that I thought about other people, were not my voices. They were a man and a woman, they were well,my parents really. They weren’t self-hating, exactly, because I didn’t know that they were mine. My life was so fractured that I believed myself to be a happy, content person like everyone said I was, and these voices existed separate from me. I was unable to control them or get rid of them, and they sounded nothing like me to begin with. They spoke their terrible things in harsh, creepy voices, in unison. If that sounds like a traumatized kid with repressed memories then you probably weren’t raised in a family that idolized Frank Peretti as writing spiritual truth where repressed memories were lies of the devil, and demon possession sounds exactly like cheesy movie dramas of legions of voices speaking together. If you were raised in that family, like I was, then my voices were the very definition of demon possession.
I spent my life certain that if I looked in a mirror I would see demons leaping out from me. This is the evil behind my eyes, the evil lurking inside of me. The months before I stopped being a Christian but was heading that way was filled with the worst panic attacks, where I would lie in bed believing that God had completely abandoned me, and all that was left were the demons to consume me. And when everything has the power to be demonic – books, movies, music – every brush is capable of putting more demons in your life, everything I did became a battle to not get myself possessed and tormented by demons further.
I think that’s now why I’m so obsessed with this idea of being a Satanist, even if my beliefs probably don’t line up with any definition of that term. Why I need the joke that I am Satan’s spokesperson, his right hand person, why I pray to him constantly. Why I prayed for demon possession. I need the catharsis of realizing that I’m okay, that none of these fears have ever been true. I need the power that comes out of facing the demons and realizing that they were never there. To use a silly analogy, I need the ability to be Pinkie Pie laughing in the face of the scariness.
I may still be terrified of the evil inside of me, but the fear of demons lurking around every corner has almost completely vanished. I no longer feel their presence, they no longer have their claws in my shoulders. My violent thoughts and self-destructive voices may still be constant, but they are now mine, and when I do hear voices, I can now acknowledge that they are stress and trauma induced, my brain being fucked up and crazy. I can now see the evil of my childhood was the evil of sexual and physical abuse.
Unfortunately, Christianity had an answer for that too, so there is not a day that goes by that I don’t wonder if I, as a rejecter of Jesus, am simply no longer a threat to them. I’m so possessed that they don’t have to bother reminding me of it. I’m so possessed and corrupt and have become so evil, that there is no longer any spiritual or moral compass for me to recognize it anymore.
This is the first time I’ve been able to admit this to myself. I suppose that says something about how far I’ve come away from this thinking that I can finally see it and say it now. I have always believed there were demons inside of me, controlling me. Always believed I was evil enough that my life was opened up to the devil, he had taken me, and all I was was the sum of the demons inside of me.
Delivered from Demonic Oppression
September 8th, 2012
Dear people, I have been reading the posts here, as I am searching for information for my bi polar friend. I just want to tell you that I was set free from probably so called schisophrenia (if I went to a psychiatrist they would say so, I guess). It was something horrible which started when I came back to my Lord Jesus after 15 years of very sinful life. I was filled with Holy Spirit after a prayer and shortly after that, my problems started with my mind. I started hearing voices in my head telling me to kill myself, screaming at me to stop praying, mocking my God etc, I started getting heavy depression, parlising fear, confusion of the mind, running thoughts, my brain was like it was squized by metal belt, I was also being hit with various pains in my body. I was terrified and did not know how to stop it. The more I prayed the more I was attacked. I found help nowhere. After many months of this battle I gave up on God, stopped praying and reading my Bible. Immediately all my troubles stopped and I came back to my sinful life. I did not go to a doctor because I knew it was spiritual battle and nothing else. Listen to me all the people there!
After 8 months of living in my previous peace I was virtually dragged to the church by Holy Spirit and there, I was dramatically warned by Him to come back to God. My battle lasted two years, during which I was taught by Holy Spirit how to fight the devil and those attacks on my mind. One night, I was on my knees crying to God to help me and He came, He delivered me from depression, oppression of my mind and all those mental problems! I was delivered from evil spirits who were causing it! It was real deliverance done by Lord Jesus alone, as no chirstians knew how to do deliverance! I have been set free by my Lord, Jesus Christ, it was miracle!. All my problems were caused by sins, even if I repented, demonst had power over me which was borught on myself by involvment in new age, reiki, hypnosis, tarot cards etc, all things that are forbidden by God! Hear me people, God is real, satan is real, and every word in the Bible is truth! I don’t believe any mental illness is caused by whatever, we are all lost withouth Jesus. I am not maniac, deluded or whatever you can call me. God gave me back sound mind because I repented and was seeking Him with all of my heart. Read the Bible, read Old Testament as well, you need to know God very well and what He wants from you. He wants you to love Him and He wants your heart. My God is powerful and just and He is Holy. He said – cursed is the man who trust in the flesh. Yes, there are generational curses, sins of the fathers etc, It is not easy and just fun to be a Christian. If you treat God seriously and honestly He will deliver you from all your troubles. Yes, you have to prove that you are honest, maybe you need to cry rivers of tears at His feet like I did, but if you draw to Him, He will draw to you and show you His might and glory. This story is very long but I cannot write all details here for lack of space, but hope somebody will read it and get some hope. Repent from all your sins, ask God to give you wisdom to teach you and be humble. He is your God and He said – God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble…Proverbs 3
Jesus Christ can heal you from panic attacks, from depression, mental illnesses and everything if you show Him that you really need Him. Repent from all your sins and stop deceiving yourself. It’s not about going to church on Sunday and singing songs, it’s about studying scriptures, praising, worshipping, talking to Him, crying to Him, treating Him like your only reliable source of love, life and help. Jesus Christ is the Son of God and He is the Healer and Deliverer, He proved it to me so many times. This is my testimony for Jesus and whoever does not believe in Him is deceived because He paid with His blood to rescue us from the hands of the devil, to destroy the works of the devil and to save us from hell. This is real people, this is not a game, this is massive battle for your souls. Whoever needs deliverance go to www.omegamanradio.com They do it online. I love you people and oh how much I would like to help you, if you only believe what I am saying you will be delivered.
Ps. I wrote it very quickly but it if needed I will rewrite it as more polished.
After 8 months of living in my previous peace I was virtually dragged to the church by Holy Spirit and there, I was dramatically warned by Him to come back to God. My battle lasted two years, during which I was taught by Holy Spirit how to fight the devil and those attacks on my mind. One night, I was on my knees crying to God to help me and He came, He delivered me from depression, oppression of my mind and all those mental problems! I was delivered from evil spirits who were causing it! It was real deliverance done by Lord Jesus alone, as no chirstians knew how to do deliverance! I have been set free by my Lord, Jesus Christ, it was miracle!. All my problems were caused by sins, even if I repented, demonst had power over me which was borught on myself by involvment in new age, reiki, hypnosis, tarot cards etc, all things that are forbidden by God! Hear me people, God is real, satan is real, and every word in the Bible is truth! I don’t believe any mental illness is caused by whatever, we are all lost withouth Jesus. I am not maniac, deluded or whatever you can call me. God gave me back sound mind because I repented and was seeking Him with all of my heart. Read the Bible, read Old Testament as well, you need to know God very well and what He wants from you. He wants you to love Him and He wants your heart. My God is powerful and just and He is Holy. He said – cursed is the man who trust in the flesh. Yes, there are generational curses, sins of the fathers etc, It is not easy and just fun to be a Christian. If you treat God seriously and honestly He will deliver you from all your troubles. Yes, you have to prove that you are honest, maybe you need to cry rivers of tears at His feet like I did, but if you draw to Him, He will draw to you and show you His might and glory. This story is very long but I cannot write all details here for lack of space, but hope somebody will read it and get some hope. Repent from all your sins, ask God to give you wisdom to teach you and be humble. He is your God and He said – God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble…Proverbs 3
Jesus Christ can heal you from panic attacks, from depression, mental illnesses and everything if you show Him that you really need Him. Repent from all your sins and stop deceiving yourself. It’s not about going to church on Sunday and singing songs, it’s about studying scriptures, praising, worshipping, talking to Him, crying to Him, treating Him like your only reliable source of love, life and help. Jesus Christ is the Son of God and He is the Healer and Deliverer, He proved it to me so many times. This is my testimony for Jesus and whoever does not believe in Him is deceived because He paid with His blood to rescue us from the hands of the devil, to destroy the works of the devil and to save us from hell. This is real people, this is not a game, this is massive battle for your souls. Whoever needs deliverance go to www.omegamanradio.com They do it online. I love you people and oh how much I would like to help you, if you only believe what I am saying you will be delivered.
Ps. I wrote it very quickly but it if needed I will rewrite it as more polished.
Hearing Voices is NORMAL CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
http://www.1prophetspeaks.com
http://www.1prophetspeaks.blogspot.com
1245 words
It is NORMAL Christian theology to hear voices.
Jesus said "my sheep hear my voice" John 10:27.
Everyone hears voices as thoughts in our heads. They come from the spiritual realm. The word 'inspiration' means 'a spirit goes into it'.
The book of James chapter 3 says there is wisdom from above and wisdom from below. From God and angels, and demons.
Both can talk to us.
God has been talking to everyone on earth in their thoughts, for 2000 years by the Holy Spirit which Jesus sent from Heaven.
Our conscience is God. Our intuition is usually God.
SCHIZOPHRENIA is a nonsense label used by atheist psychiatry to falsely call Christians and anyone with spiritual beliefs and experiences mentally ill.
Schizo-affective is also nonsense.
SCHIZOPRENIA is NOT a “Serious Mental disorder”
http://www.1prophetspeaks.blogspot.com/2013/01/schizophrenia-is-not-serious-mental.html
Mental illness AND physical illnesses are caused by demonic spirits whose 'assignments' are the names of those diseases.
Jesus rebuked them and gave his followers authority to do it. It works. I have rebuked Canc-, asthma-, depress-.
Jesus healed people as a testimony that he was the savior and God heals today for the same purpose.
All drugs which affect the mind are openings for demonic spirits.
This includes Caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, pot, lsd etc and all psych drugs.
Psych drugs CAUSE mental illness for this reason. They cause suicide, homicide.
The only chemical imbalances in the brain are CAUSED by the drugs, not a supposed Illness.
Demonic spirits transmit, like germs, through verbal and physical contact.
I have picked up spirits of depress- by touching someone who had it. I rebuked it and it left.
Sitting in earshot of people talking and drinking coffee, alcohol, or smoking, one can pick up these spirits.
Caffeine makes people manic. It is an opening for spirits of confus-, agita-, addiction.
Alcohol is an opening for spirits of depress.
Nicotine is a BIG opening for negative voices, demons which harass people by saying negative things. Smoking makes this worse, not better.
The last thing mental patients need to do is smoke; it creates the very thing they are seeking treatment for.
Sitting near cigarette butts makes one vulnerable to having demons talk in your thoughts. If you pray and ask God a question near them, you are likely to have a demon answer, with something negative.
It is important to only pray in spiritually clean places. NOT coffee houses, bars, or near any music.
All music transmits whatever spirit 'inspired' it.
Most pop music is spiritual poison. The people running the music business are devil worshippers. They have prayer rooms in the record labels where they pray demons onto the masters of the records. This causes mental and physical illness.
Not only listening to it, but having it near one, gives authority for the spirits to affect our thoughts emotions and bodies. When the stuff is removed, the oppression leaves.
See article
Illuminati mind control in psych drugs, music and education
http://www.1prophetspeaks.blogspot.com/2012/04/illuminati-mind-control-in-psych-drugs.html
John Todd was a illuminati bloodline family member who became a Christian in the 70s.
He gave his testimony on youtube
Demons behind the music business - John Todd
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otti-82jEAc
He says the Illuminati are devil worshippers. He ran the record labels. He was on the council of 13, which answers to the Rothschilds who answer to Lucifer, the devil. He says the Rockefellers, the foremost illuminati social engineering family in the US, work for the Rothschilds. Others have said the same thing.
I also know one of the Rockefellers and while praying God told me it is true.
David Rockefeller’s agenda for 50 years has been world government.
Nick Rockefeller told filmmaker Aaron Russo that they wanted to microchip the entire planet for control.
The bible warns about the Antichrist world leader in Revelation who will make people take a mark on their hand or forehead, without which no man can buy or sell. It IS microchips.
They have been sneakily chipping people for years as vaccines.
Carl Sanders, who is a Christian minister, http://www.trumpet.net
Says during the 70’s he was an atheist and helped design chips for the government. He told me they tested them on military in the first gulf war.
In l996 in Florida I heard a radio announcement that the government was thinking of testing them in jails and mental hospitals. They were already doing it.
It is normal protocol in jails to make someone get a tb shot to avoid solitary.
I ended up in a jail where they told me this and a cold chill fell on me - a spiritual warning of something demonic. I did it, and later realized what had happened.
My dentist x-rayed my arm and we both saw something.
The word inspiration means “a spirit goes into it”
Whatever spirit inspires a book, music, art, symbol etc will be transmitted by having it near us. This affects our thoughts, feelings etc.
Having books by atheists is an opening for demonic lying spirits, spirits of unbeli-.
(it IS a spirit)
All negative emotions are caused by spirits that cause that emotion.
35 years ago in College, I studied various culture’s philosophies of how music affects people.
The Hindus and ancient Greeks both had the idea that certain scales invoked various spirits, which caused certain emotional states.
Christian theology supports his. Spirits are either from God or the other side.
People feel more peace outside in nature. One of the reasons for this is that it is spiritually cleaner. We feel peace because that is God’s spirit. His spirit brings peace.
When we read a bible, we are abiding in God’s word and that brings his peace.
Jesus said “my peace I give to you, not as the world gives, I give to you.” John 14:26
See
Spiritual Wisdom Revised
It has more about how to assess one’s environment for openings for demonic oppression.
http://www.1prophetspeaks.blogspot.com/2012/12/spiritual-wisdom-revised.html
Sin is also an opening for demonic oppression. When we sin we open ourselves to mental and physical illness.
When we repent, the demons lose authority to attack us. We can be healed of any disease after addressing the spiritual issue.
When Jesus healed people he said
GO AND SIN NO MORE or a Worse thing will come upon you” John 5:14
This happened to me.
I got a sexual disease after sleeping with 2 people one weekend.
Later, after being saved, I repented for the fornication. I felt heat go through my body. God spoke to me, saying
Don’t do it again or it will come back.
I DIDN’T and it didn’t.
I proved I was healed by drinking a whole can of cocoa, which used to provoke an outbreak of it. Nothing happened. That was 20 years ago.
see articles, free books at
http://www.1prophetspeaks.com
http://www.1prophetspeaks.blogspot.com
Do you believe God speaks to you? He Does in your thoughts
http://www.1prophetspeaks.blogspot.com/2010/09/do-you-believe-god-speaks-to-you-he.html
SCHIZOPHRENIA is NOT a "serious mental disorder"
http://www.1prophetspeaks.blogspot.com/2013/01/schizophrenia-is-not-serious-mental.html
Autistic kids are prophets in training
http://www.1prophetspeaks.blogspot.com/2013/02/autistic-kids-are-prophets-in-training.html
Every family has a resident prophet
Prophetic Message to Gays
Spiritual Wisdom Revised
How to be healed, saved & born again. Jesus heals
Nick Rockefeller, microchips & the new world order
Message to families of mental patients
Manual for Transformational Healing-God’s Answer to Psychiatry
(exposes atheist psychiatry & their genocide by drugs which are Deadly By Design & tells how to heal mental and physical illness through prayer and worship)
Contents
JAMES STACEY
Deliverance and Healing from Schizophrenia
The following precious testimony is from a 63-year-old former pastor who suffered from schizophrenia for over 26 years, and was gloriously delivered from his demonic hell by living an active faith in the power of the blood of Jesus Christ.
Having left behind 15 years ago the demonic oppression he lived with so long - as a born again Christian (no less) … he now has a purpose for living he never had before. James desires to be used of God to help others find freedom from the same demonic bondage he once was held captive to.
"To be delivered and healed from schizophrenia," say some deliverance ministers, "is the most difficult of all demonic oppressions to overcome, and those suffering with this psychotic disorder rate among the most unreached people in society."
However ... brother James and his wife, Tina, are devoting the rest of their lives to set others free from this tormenting and debilitating work of the devil -- to the glory of God.
We’ll tell you how you can contact their ministry/website at the end of this amazing, Jesus-glorifying testimony...
On May Day 1990, a 26-year-long fight ended when Jesus Christ enabled me to command evil spirits to get out of my life . . . and minutes later I was healed in my mind through the power of God physically penetrating the center of my head.
I was helped in achieving deliverance through the wonderful help and support of Tina Winterburn, now my wife, age 61, as of this writing. I met Tina through a U.K. Christian Dating Agency, (Christian Friendship Fellowship), in the autumn of 1987.
Tina, a former Operation Mobilization missionary and a practice nurse, wanted to walk away from the relationship the day she found out I was schizophrenic. Who could blame her?
But three months into the relationship, I had a real vision from the Lord in my bedroom. In the vision I saw Tina in a bridal gown, with her father by her side, and the Lord said to me: “Enough is enough!”
From that moment, I stopped working as a deacon at my local Assembly of God church in Chesterfield, (Derbyshire). I cut down on newspaper reporting in my spare time, and I began to pursue Tina -- believing I had the backing of heaven behind me.
A few months later, she took me out for a meal. At that time she told me there was no point in continuing our relationship, and it would be our last meeting.
I dug my heels in and refused to let her go without the promise of another meeting.
In the weeks of our separation, Tina began to ask the Lord if there was a way out of my psychotic condition, which first began to affect my life greatly starting back in 1964 when I was working as a journalist.
Further . . . she enlisted the help of friends and intercessors up and down the country to pray for the light of God’s word to penetrate my mind.
Meanwhile, I was launching my own prayer offensive. Having overcome the withdrawal periods of being without medication (I haven’t had a tablet or injection since the Lord spoke to me in 1988), I used my tea breaks and lunch breaks at work to pray and get strong in God’s Word (The Holy Bible).
One day I walked into the toilet at Royal Mail, Sheffield and told the Lord that I was going to draw aside there to meet Him until He broke the satanic power that was crippling my life.
While my colleagues were having their bacon butties, I went straight for the toilet area where I could have more privacy and sent up my petitions to God.
Sometimes the presence of God descended mightily, and I bathed in His nearness – I was often reluctant to go back to my desk when He did that, it was so precious.
Tina - both deliverance minister and sweetheart rolled into one - thought freedom for me would be brought nearer by taking me to the “Battle Belongs to the Lord” conference in Brighton, England in 1990 (Arranged at the time by Ellel Grange Ministries.), so we went. While there, we heard some wonderful new teachings and insights about bondages and satanic strongholds even in Christian lives. It was an incredible eye-opener, and a great occasion for infusing us with hope to see this bondage over my mind broken.
It was on May Day, 1990, that I received the assurance from the Lord that by the end of the day I would be free.
During a leisurely stroll on the Clent Hills, Tina pointed out that my problem was one of schizophrenia. She said it in a matter-of-fact way, but no sooner had she spoken that revelation but what the Holy Spirit said to me, “That’s right. That’s what it is.”
I found myself in total agreement for the very first time. It was as though light and truth from the Holy Spirit flashed into my mind and I could see myself as I really was … for the very first time. No more disagreement or opposition from me, but a simple acceptance of what she had said, and the Holy Spirit confirming it inside me! Glory to God -- revelation had at long last penetrated my darkened understanding.
Arriving back at her home, I was moved to ask if we could pray together. It proved a mighty time of aggressive intercession during which the Lord moved into our praying and carried me heavenward with powerful pleadings. I told God I was so angry with the enemy of my life, satan and his demons, for having messed it up all these many years.
It was earnest petitioning coupled with a desperate cry for help, to me so urgent and real, that I told Tina in an aside … to be quiet … because I was really talking with God and getting through, and it was important to unburden my heart and share my need at such an intimate level with Him.
I came out of that prayer more powerful than when I went into it, and I also received an assurance from the Holy Spirit that the evil power was going to get cast out even if I had to do it… and by the end of the day, I would be free.
Let me back up a little: for several weeks I had felt an excruciating pain around my right knee. In communion with God, He told me there was a nest of demonic spirits located there. (Strange in a way to me at the time that a bondage affecting my mind was located so far down in my body, but sure evidence to me how long the demons had been there, and how deeply entrenched they were.)
I didn’t know anything about casting demons out of myself! I didn’t know anything about breaking demonic strongholds off my life … let alone out of my very body. So - I asked God to help me get them out and the immediate reply of the Holy Spirit was: “Blast them out!”
So … using a cassette of praise choruses, I sat on the settee with my right leg resting on an upright chair, minus my sock and shoe. I played triumphant praise music as loudly as possible from the cassette recorder into the area around my right knee where the pain now seemed muffled.
I challenged the demon’s legal right to be in my life. I pleaded the blood of Jesus Christ over myself and my leg especially, and asserted the Lordship of Christ over my life . . . telling the demons they had no legal right to be occupying my life, because Jesus Christ of Nazareth had died for me – having paid the penalty for all my sins, and that my body now belonged to Jesus Christ, not satan.
I declared boldly that they had been pigs in the parlor of my life for far too long and now had to go.
I commanded the demon of schizophrenia to leave my life and go to the dry and waterless place, and then it happened! There were two movements across the middle of my right leg, followed by a third, which was distinct from the other two -- all going down my leg and out through my bare foot, which provided a sensation of release.
Immediately … I knew they had left! I believe the demons – who do not like the name of Jesus being praised - were falling over each other to leave! I also believe the three movements represented a “nest” of spirits being exorcised, and were demons of schizophrenia, a religious spirit and suicide.
Healing followed within minutes when I placed my hands over my head in three places. After thanking God for helping me cast out the demonic powers, I now asked Him "to heal what has been knotted up in my mind for so long." While I was still praying, the power of the Holy Spirit overtook me and hit my head in the center like a laser-beam. That night God fulfilled his promise found in Isaiah 65 verse 24: "Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear."
Last year, I released my testimony for the glory of Jesus in a book, titled: Schizophrenia Defeated - in which are contained revelations about the schizophrenic illness. I throw light on the burning question: “Is schizophrenia in the genes, or is it demonic?”
Concerning the origin of schizophrenia, I believe the evil power in my life was definitely demonic; there is ample evidence of that. It may be profitable to argue about the source of the psychotic disorder – to ask: Does the illness start from cells disturbed in the womb, or as some suggest, is the origin in the expectant mother contracting some sickness or, as I believe, is it rooted in a demon of rejection? My mother, whose life was plagued by rejection, had wanted me to be a girl, and this desire fed down to me while in the womb. I lived normally for over 20 years until all hell broke loose at the age of 24 when a bondage from the pit of hell swept into my life.
I know of no other lasting and effective way for schizophrenia to be defeated than by using the power of prayer in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth - the Son of God, and applying the authority of the blood of Jesus Christ (that He shed at Calvary). There is more than sufficient Bible evidence to support how powerful the innocent, shed blood of Jesus Christ at the Cross of Calvary still is today, and people experienced in deliverance ministries (whom God uses to tear down demonic strongholds in others and literally casting demons out of people when necessary) have learned first hand the same thing. Missionaries and pastors have cast demons out of possessed people in third world countries for years, by pleading the blood of Jesus over them. Demons have had to respond to the command of faith made in Jesus' Name and leave countless enslaved people … so I’m on solid ground with God, to the glory of Jesus Christ.
Until there is discernment and recognition of the satanic powers behind the condition, and a determination to deal with it, I see little hope of freedom being found and the condition of schizophrenia overcome. All the medical community can mostly do at best is use drugs to sedate people who are afflicted with it, and observe them existing with life-long unproductive lives, sadly … enslaved in emotional and spiritual torment.
There is clear evidence for the Church about the existence of demons in the book: Schizophrenia Defeated (many can’t make up their mind whether genuine born-again Christians, like myself, can still have evil spirits enslaving their lives). It is one of satan’s best-kept secrets in my estimation in the Christian community, as all Holy Spirit empowered deliverance ministers will agree with.
I have now purposed to devote my time to give hope to schizophrenics that they can enter into freedom through the power of the Holy Spirit just like I have.
The following precious testimony is from a 63-year-old former pastor who suffered from schizophrenia for over 26 years, and was gloriously delivered from his demonic hell by living an active faith in the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. Having left behind 15 years ago the demonic oppression he lived with so long - as a born again Christian (no less) … he now has a purpose for living he never had before. James desires to be used of God to help others find freedom from the same demonic bondage he once was held captive to.
"To be delivered and healed from schizophrenia," say some deliverance ministers, "is the most difficult of all demonic oppressions to overcome, and those suffering with this psychotic disorder rate among the most unreached people in society."
However ... brother James and his wife, Tina, are devoting the rest of their lives to set others free from this tormenting and debilitating work of the devil -- to the glory of God.
We’ll tell you how you can contact their ministry/website at the end of this amazing, Jesus-glorifying testimony...
On May Day 1990, a 26-year-long fight ended when Jesus Christ enabled me to command evil spirits to get out of my life . . . and minutes later I was healed in my mind through the power of God physically penetrating the center of my head.
I was helped in achieving deliverance through the wonderful help and support of Tina Winterburn, now my wife, age 61, as of this writing. I met Tina through a U.K. Christian Dating Agency, (Christian Friendship Fellowship), in the autumn of 1987.
Tina, a former Operation Mobilization missionary and a practice nurse, wanted to walk away from the relationship the day she found out I was schizophrenic. Who could blame her?
But three months into the relationship, I had a real vision from the Lord in my bedroom. In the vision I saw Tina in a bridal gown, with her father by her side, and the Lord said to me: “Enough is enough!”
From that moment, I stopped working as a deacon at my local Assembly of God church in Chesterfield, (Derbyshire). I cut down on newspaper reporting in my spare time, and I began to pursue Tina -- believing I had the backing of heaven behind me.
A few months later, she took me out for a meal. At that time she told me there was no point in continuing our relationship, and it would be our last meeting.
I dug my heels in and refused to let her go without the promise of another meeting.
In the weeks of our separation, Tina began to ask the Lord if there was a way out of my psychotic condition, which first began to affect my life greatly starting back in 1964 when I was working as a journalist.
Further . . . she enlisted the help of friends and intercessors up and down the country to pray for the light of God’s word to penetrate my mind.
Meanwhile, I was launching my own prayer offensive. Having overcome the withdrawal periods of being without medication (I haven’t had a tablet or injection since the Lord spoke to me in 1988), I used my tea breaks and lunch breaks at work to pray and get strong in God’s Word (The Holy Bible).
One day I walked into the toilet at Royal Mail, Sheffield and told the Lord that I was going to draw aside there to meet Him until He broke the satanic power that was crippling my life.
While my colleagues were having their bacon butties, I went straight for the toilet area where I could have more privacy and sent up my petitions to God.
Sometimes the presence of God descended mightily, and I bathed in His nearness – I was often reluctant to go back to my desk when He did that, it was so precious.
Tina - both deliverance minister and sweetheart rolled into one - thought freedom for me would be brought nearer by taking me to the “Battle Belongs to the Lord” conference in Brighton, England in 1990 (Arranged at the time by Ellel Grange Ministries.), so we went. While there, we heard some wonderful new teachings and insights about bondages and satanic strongholds even in Christian lives. It was an incredible eye-opener, and a great occasion for infusing us with hope to see this bondage over my mind broken.
It was on May Day, 1990, that I received the assurance from the Lord that by the end of the day I would be free.
During a leisurely stroll on the Clent Hills, Tina pointed out that my problem was one of schizophrenia. She said it in a matter-of-fact way, but no sooner had she spoken that revelation but what the Holy Spirit said to me, “That’s right. That’s what it is.”
I found myself in total agreement for the very first time. It was as though light and truth from the Holy Spirit flashed into my mind and I could see myself as I really was … for the very first time. No more disagreement or opposition from me, but a simple acceptance of what she had said, and the Holy Spirit confirming it inside me! Glory to God -- revelation had at long last penetrated my darkened understanding.
Arriving back at her home, I was moved to ask if we could pray together. It proved a mighty time of aggressive intercession during which the Lord moved into our praying and carried me heavenward with powerful pleadings. I told God I was so angry with the enemy of my life, satan and his demons, for having messed it up all these many years.
It was earnest petitioning coupled with a desperate cry for help, to me so urgent and real, that I told Tina in an aside … to be quiet … because I was really talking with God and getting through, and it was important to unburden my heart and share my need at such an intimate level with Him.
I came out of that prayer more powerful than when I went into it, and I also received an assurance from the Holy Spirit that the evil power was going to get cast out even if I had to do it… and by the end of the day, I would be free.
Let me back up a little: for several weeks I had felt an excruciating pain around my right knee. In communion with God, He told me there was a nest of demonic spirits located there. (Strange in a way to me at the time that a bondage affecting my mind was located so far down in my body, but sure evidence to me how long the demons had been there, and how deeply entrenched they were.)
I didn’t know anything about casting demons out of myself! I didn’t know anything about breaking demonic strongholds off my life … let alone out of my very body. So - I asked God to help me get them out and the immediate reply of the Holy Spirit was: “Blast them out!”
So … using a cassette of praise choruses, I sat on the settee with my right leg resting on an upright chair, minus my sock and shoe. I played triumphant praise music as loudly as possible from the cassette recorder into the area around my right knee where the pain now seemed muffled.
I challenged the demon’s legal right to be in my life. I pleaded the blood of Jesus Christ over myself and my leg especially, and asserted the Lordship of Christ over my life . . . telling the demons they had no legal right to be occupying my life, because Jesus Christ of Nazareth had died for me – having paid the penalty for all my sins, and that my body now belonged to Jesus Christ, not satan.
I declared boldly that they had been pigs in the parlor of my life for far too long and now had to go.
I commanded the demon of schizophrenia to leave my life and go to the dry and waterless place, and then it happened! There were two movements across the middle of my right leg, followed by a third, which was distinct from the other two -- all going down my leg and out through my bare foot, which provided a sensation of release.
Immediately … I knew they had left! I believe the demons – who do not like the name of Jesus being praised - were falling over each other to leave! I also believe the three movements represented a “nest” of spirits being exorcised, and were demons of schizophrenia, a religious spirit and suicide.
Healing followed within minutes when I placed my hands over my head in three places. After thanking God for helping me cast out the demonic powers, I now asked Him "to heal what has been knotted up in my mind for so long." While I was still praying, the power of the Holy Spirit overtook me and hit my head in the center like a laser-beam. That night God fulfilled his promise found in Isaiah 65 verse 24: "Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear."
Last year, I released my testimony for the glory of Jesus in a book, titled: Schizophrenia Defeated - in which are contained revelations about the schizophrenic illness. I throw light on the burning question: “Is schizophrenia in the genes, or is it demonic?”
Concerning the origin of schizophrenia, I believe the evil power in my life was definitely demonic; there is ample evidence of that. It may be profitable to argue about the source of the psychotic disorder – to ask: Does the illness start from cells disturbed in the womb, or as some suggest, is the origin in the expectant mother contracting some sickness or, as I believe, is it rooted in a demon of rejection? My mother, whose life was plagued by rejection, had wanted me to be a girl, and this desire fed down to me while in the womb. I lived normally for over 20 years until all hell broke loose at the age of 24 when a bondage from the pit of hell swept into my life.
I know of no other lasting and effective way for schizophrenia to be defeated than by using the power of prayer in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth - the Son of God, and applying the authority of the blood of Jesus Christ (that He shed at Calvary). There is more than sufficient Bible evidence to support how powerful the innocent, shed blood of Jesus Christ at the Cross of Calvary still is today, and people experienced in deliverance ministries (whom God uses to tear down demonic strongholds in others and literally casting demons out of people when necessary) have learned first hand the same thing. Missionaries and pastors have cast demons out of possessed people in third world countries for years, by pleading the blood of Jesus over them. Demons have had to respond to the command of faith made in Jesus' Name and leave countless enslaved people … so I’m on solid ground with God, to the glory of Jesus Christ.
Until there is discernment and recognition of the satanic powers behind the condition, and a determination to deal with it, I see little hope of freedom being found and the condition of schizophrenia overcome. All the medical community can mostly do at best is use drugs to sedate people who are afflicted with it, and observe them existing with life-long unproductive lives, sadly … enslaved in emotional and spiritual torment.
There is clear evidence for the Church about the existence of demons in the book: Schizophrenia Defeated (many can’t make up their mind whether genuine born-again Christians, like myself, can still have evil spirits enslaving their lives). It is one of satan’s best-kept secrets in my estimation in the Christian community, as all Holy Spirit empowered deliverance ministers will agree with.
I have now purposed to devote my time to give hope to schizophrenics that they can enter into freedom through the power of the Holy Spirit just like I have.
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