By Jason Charles on 4/19/2017 (7 years 248 days ago) Theology & Religion
This article is a how-to-guide on identifying and removing spiritual strongholds in one's life.
While the Gospel narratives record many episodes of demonic activity in people's lives, it is not fully revealed as to how these individuals got that way in the first place. In this article I will attempt to explain both the beginning circumstances and also the thought processes that very real spiritual entities utilize to compromise people of all kinds. Then we will discuss a variety of Biblical prescriptions towards bringing oneself back from the dark abyss of spiritual attacks.
The Failure of the Mental Health and Pharmaceutical Approach of Treatment
Psychiatrists have a spectrum of labels they use to classify mental and emotional dysfunction in their patients. Terms like Anxiety & Panic Disorders, Bipolar Disorders, Depression, Eating Disorders, Schizophrenia, Substance Abuse, Dissociative Disorders, Multiple Personality Disorders, etc are all seen as chemical imbalances within an individual that can only be treated with chemicals. This approach has done nothing to resolve the spiritual health crisis we have in our culture and only serves to enrich Big Pharma. A brand new study released just this week from the CDC attests to this failure,
"Researchers from NYU’s Langone Medical Center analyzed almost a decade’s worth of data and found that more than 8.3 million Americans ― or an estimated 3.4 percent of the adult population ― suffers from a serious mental health issue. The latest data is a departure from previous reports on the CDC’s survey, which estimated that fewer than 3 percent of American adults experienced serious psychological distress, according to the study’s authors."
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"One of the more dismal discoveries from the report is that access to professional help for mental health issues is deteriorating. The study found the 9.5 percent of people surveyed in 2014 did not have health insurance that provided access to a psychiatrist or counselor, a rise from 9 percent in 2006. " (Huffington Post)
There are many reasons why mental health is seriously deteriorating in this country, but it is mainly due to the establishments refusal to entertain a spiritual cause to their patients often times bizarre behavior. Many of the patients themselves frame their struggles as being of a demonic nature and still the mental health community refuses to even take into consideration a spiritual cause. While their patients themselves exhibit classic signs of competing personalities and agendas at war within a single being, they simply chalk it up to chemical imbalance.
The Bible's Truth on the Realities of Demons
While the world refuses to address mental, emotional and physical dysfunction as a spiritual issue the Bible tells us otherwise. In fact when you analyze all of the types of demons that Jesus himself confronted you see these demons mimic almost exactly the common behaviors associated with mental disorders as labeled by the psychiatric community. One of many examples in Luke 4:35 we see a man with a unclean devil crying with a loud voice much like "Tourette's Syndrome," "Anxiety Disorder," or even "Schizophrenia." In Mark 5:9 we meet a group of demons named Legion that surfaces in much the same way as "Multiple Personality" or "Dissociative Identity Disorder."
In Mark 9:20-21 we have a fascinating story, that I feel gives us a real clue as to how demons are able to create strongholds in people's lives' to the point of total control. In this story you have a demon the disciples could not cast out that physically tries to harm a poor child. The father upon finding Jesus reports that the demon has left his son dumb and deaf, and when it seizes him it will try to cast him in open fires or into the water in attempts to kill the young boy. The only question Jesus asks the father is, "How long is it ago since this came unto him?" wondering when the demonic attacks began. The father simply states "Of a Child" in Mark 9:21. The question posed by Jesus and the father's answer is incredibly important seeing this is the only instance where we find Jesus concerning himself with the origin and kind of a demon. He told the disciples in order to remove these kind of demons it requires fasting and prayer.
So in truth Jesus himself indicates that there are many different kinds of demons, all of them exhibiting different bents of character and natures that attach themselves to different individuals for different reasons. We see spiritual leaders in the synagogue in Mark 1:21 being possessed, we see grown men becoming wild like Legion living in caves, breaking fetters and chains, crying and cutting on himself. In Acts we see a woman possessed with a spirit of divination rebuked by the Apostle Paul in Jesus' name. Luke 8:2 speaks about Mary Magdalene who had 7 devils. The Biblical fact is all fallen angels are different. They all have different ranks, strengths, abilities, kinds, and proclivities that differ greatly between one another. They choose different human targets, they can be singular or can even be found in groups demonstrating a wide degree of diversity among their members.
Back to Mark 9:21 the father of the demon possessed boy says that this started when he was a young boy. Jesus thought that it was important enough to trace the arrival of this demon back to when he was a young child, before rebuking it and casting it out.
We see how people struggling with identity issues, whether they are homosexual, transracial, transgender, or transhuman often trace these identity crises back to their childhoods. Whether being exposed to some sort of traumatic event, information that left permanent emotional scaring, or even sexual abuse there is almost always something that set up a pattern of behavior that led them down often times destructive paths. Indicating an extremely fractured being. These childhood traumas become the foundation for the enemy to build on creating entrenched strongholds of thinking and behaviors that left unchecked run the risk of destroying individuals.
These verses help us understand that there are demons of all types, they have different methods of control, and can elicit different behaviors and thinking that leave their hosts completely decimated on a spiritual, emotional and physical level. What I aim to do is show you how this cycle of abuse is allowed to propagate down through generations.
Traumatic Childhood Experiences
There is a large amount of literature that looks at the effects trauma has on the psyche of young children and the damage that trauma ends up causing. This correlation is well known in the field of psychiatry. This is also why so many New World Order social engineering programs target children via government funded public school systems. Yet they do not look at how traumatic events can be orchestrated by the demonic realm in order to open children and even adults up to a lifetimes worth of demonic influence. They don’t even consider the possibility, but the truth is, someone that is already demonized and damaged almost has a history of traumatic events.
For example a pedophile will often look for opportunities to act out on their own demonized nature, by isolating a child, and then criminally molesting and abusing that child. Doing so they set up a traumatic situation in the mind of the child in the same way someone else did to them. So what happens is one thoroughly demonized person commits a crime against a small child or young adult, setting the stage for that child or young adult to perpetually reference that traumatic event in their past as an experience that forever shapes their thinking and behavior.
This is the goal of demons. They seek to comprise an individual through a traumatic event that then creates a damaged sector of their being in which they can begin to work from, bringing that person further and further under their influence and power. Demons are very methodical in their strategies, they understand they have to artificially create a situation that can harm the innocence of a young person. So they direct already damaged people to damage others as a means to create additional hosts for more demon entities. Demons work in conjunction with one another to utilize a network of damaged and compromised individuals to create a new generation of damaged and compromised individuals. This is a cycle that has been perpetuated on our species for eons. The enemy has thoroughly perfected this methodology.
The Demonic Feedback Loop
What these demons are doing is exploiting loopholes in the human psyche. Having been on this earth for thousands of years they are very much aware as to how the human mind and behavior works. They also are very much aware of the fact they need physical hosts to act in this physical world. This is their body-of-work, creating an endless supply of damaged people to work out the designs of their master Satan.
The aim is to create feedback loops inside the internal dialog of a targeted individual that will perpetually be referencing the traumatic events in their lives. A perfect example of this would be people who have been molested as a child, going on to question their sexuality and giving themselves over to a lifetime of perverted and destructive sexual practices. This individual having experienced a horrible traumatic event in their past begins to reflect on this event. As they engage their internal dialog the enemy who is fully capable of injecting sentences, words and even imaginary inside the mind of that individual begins to twist their thinking and view of that experience. That person believing that their internal world and dialog is free from outside influence begins to believe the twisted perspectives as if it was their own private interpretation. Nothing could be farther from the truth. So the feedback loop begins. The demonic realm utilized a demonized person to perpetuate a crime on that child, and then the thought demons go to work on the internal dialog. They are constantly forcing that individual to reference that circumstance through the back and forth of their internal monologue looking to convince that person they too are a pedophile, homosexual or worse a violent person with a barrage of injected thoughts that constantly obsesses over this thinking as if it was their own. This feedback loop was artificially created, the traumatic event was orchestrated against them by devils, and then the resulting thinking and obsessing is also orchestrated by devils, but because that victimized person was unaware of the demonic influence that started the thinking believes that they are the source of these thoughts and behaviors.
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Breaking Free
A powerful verse as to the realities we face in this world in terms of spiritual warfare is in the book of 2 Corinthians. The Apostle Paul through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit perfectly articulates this methodology of demonic attack and also how we war against such things. He states,
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; 2 Corinthians 10:3-5
In this verse, we see first that we all walk in the flesh, we see only the outside appearances of the world, but he reminds us that our war is not with this world but with the spiritual world. God also looks to pull down demonic strongholds, imaginations and knowledge that exalts itself above God and His Holy nature. We finally begin to bring our entire beings under the authority of Christ by disciplining our thought-life.
Devils Know that Thinking Shapes Reality
I want to take a second and look at the importance this verse places on our internal dialog and thought-life. Paul states that we must bring every thought that passes through our brain into captivity and obedience towards Christ. This demonstrates that not all of our thinking is our own. That phrase captivity evokes quite a bit of imaginary in the sense that we are to be like a jail-keeper of our own minds. We must internally interrogate every small, seemingly insignificant stray thought. Probing it as to where it came from and the impact it will have on our beings. Paul is telling us straightaway that not everything that passes through our brains in the form of thoughts, feelings and imagery comes from our own minds, that much of it is injected inside the mind of people as a means to twist their thinking.
Let's analysis this statement, our minds are not our own. We tend to believe that what goes on in the back of our brains is totally private and is just a stream of our own internal consciousness as we reflect on the world around us. This is not a Biblical truth, this is a worldly truth. Think about some of the thoughts that bounce of the walls of our brains, if you are anything like me sometimes random things float through my mind that literally take me back as to the wicked nature and depravity of a thought. These things happen throughout the day, but nobody looks to analyze these thoughts as to their origin. Incredibly evil things pop in and out of our minds constantly. Simply become aware of every word that passes through your mind and you will discover often times that what seems like a natural flow of consciousness is really interrupted from time-to-time with something overtly or subtly evil. Whether it is lustful, inappropriate, violent, angry, judgmental, or internally self-defeating, when analyzed these thoughts don't feel right to us. They don't feel like that they originated with your own being, they seem alien, but we are left to deal with the ramifications of such a thought going through our head. Most everyone has witnessed this in their own minds, the difference between healthy people and people who are under the control of a demon is, a healthy person doesn't take these thoughts seriously. They instead let them go as being a stray thought without consequence. An unhealthy person will obsess on these thoughts, they will turn them over and over wondering if these thoughts are a reflection of who they actually are to the point of convincing themselves that their core nature is reflected in these depraved thoughts. So when we see people exhibiting violent, sexually depraved and destructive tendencies what we have to realize is that they are being internally convinced that this is who they are as a person, to the point of actually acting on that conviction. The moment a person is so entirely convinced that they are of an evil nature that they act out on such desires and thinking, at that moment they become a vehicle of demonic control. This is why Paul tells us to take every thought into captivity, he understands the capability of the enemy to implant thoughts and imaginations that shape our behavior. A stronghold in person is a negative association the enemy uses to create that endless feedback loop that convinces a victimized person of their inherent wickedness in hopes they act out on that conviction in the physical world. It is little wonder that the mainstream psychiatry establishment has failed in curtailing this trend towards extremely psychologically damaged individuals our society is producing. Drugs mask, inflame or even create an environment for devils to work. The Pharma approach is actually demonically designed to help leverage more sophisticated levels of demonic influence over an individual through the use of psychoactive drugs, not heal them from it.
Conclusion
The internal thinking will be negatively shaped by three things in this world, our traumatic experiences, devilish thoughts, and also the devilish culture that places import on things such as sex, violence, and power. These are 3 vector points the enemy has cultivated in people's lives that can create negative associations powerful enough to leverage physical control. This is the meaning behind the verse in Ephesians 2, when Paul speaks about the course of this world and the prince of the power of the air. The "air" being the spiritual substrate in which human passions and thinking are demonically controlled from.
Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Ephesians 2:2-3
The language we use and the matrix of thinking that our awareness passes through will either be a worldly matrix, or a Biblical matrix, there truly is no middle ground. To combat any level of control the devil may have over an individual we must work to bring Biblical discipline to the mind. We first have to recognize that past traumas where perpetuated as an attack by the enemy, and we are not to be blamed for such things, our minds are not private they are susceptible to demonic inventions, and that our culture purposely obsesses over wicked things in an effort by the enemy to validate and reinforce the demonic thinking in our hearts. Click these links to Sign-up for our Newsletter and Like Us on Facebook!
So in summation laugh at the absolute crap that goes in and out of your brain, it is not you, so stop obsessing over it. This will immediately lessen a demons capabilities, power and ability to convince you that every thought you have, has its origin in your core being. Realize that if you have been victimized, that whoever committed that atrocity was under the control of thought-demons who selected you to victimize in hopes it will yield fertile ground to start sowing evil imaginations, and finally understand also that the world is just a macrocosm of the mind of Satan himself and in no way should you define yourself and your value around its influence. Your trauma, your thoughts and your culture are artificial constructs of the enemy. Reject them as such, and begin to fill your mind with songs of worship, verses, loving thoughts, and praise for God. There is never a void in our minds, so therefore we have to battle evil thoughts with holy thoughts, debauched imagery with pure imagery, and corrupted desires with Godly desires. Most importantly submit your heart to the authority and saving Grace of Jesus Christ. Jesus came to set the captives free, and absolve you of your spiritual crimes against God, nature and your fellow human beings. If you are in the midst of a trauma based, demonic feedback loop truly this is the first and foremost thing you need to do, you need God's Holy Spirit to guide you towards restoration and healing.
Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you. Philippians 4:5-9
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