Initially Screening the Client
We're continuing on with our series in House Blessing and Exorcising a Home with Demonic Activity, if you missed the first article, you can find it here in
Part I. Let's continue on with the second installment.
Your team or your church just received a phone call that a house is under demonic attack. What do you do? The very first thing you need to do is treat the situation as a crime scene. It is your job as the leader to be the skeptic and determine that the situation is NOT demonic. There are two things in the past four years that have increased my workload for my ministry. Those two things are paranormal shows and churches getting into low-level (demon) deliverance. By low-level deliverance, I mean curse breaking, bondage breakers, and so forth. Low-level deliverance means you are dealing with low-level demons, and nothing from the angelic realms (exorcist territory). With the rise of paranormal shows my workload increased because people started believing that the noise their washing machine is making, as it is slowly dying, is sign of demonic malice in their home. In the low-level deliverance arena, Christians are no longer taking responsibility for their own sanctification and transformation anymore and are blaming EVERYTHING on demons. Just to throw out an example, “I am cheating on my wife, I need deliverance!” I mean, seriously? Or, my husband needs deliverance because he isn’t a Christian. Deliverance has become the MAGIC bullet for all the Christians problems. Deliverance is a component of the sanctification process of the soul but God expects you take some sort of responsibility in your own life! I receive many phone calls from husbands who are unfaithful and blame it on demons. I instruct them, through my counsel, that they can take a Cleansing Streams 10 week course, that I instruct, and have them speak with their pastor. They always insist they JUST need DELIVERANCE. I don't work with people like this. It shows me they have no intention of taking responsibility for their own sinful behaviors. Which is what breaking free from bondage is. Everyone who contacts me insists they need deliverance or an exorcism. For many, if they led the Christian life they pretended to walk, the demonic torment would leave.
Discern Mental Illness from the Equation
Christians are also blaming demons for medical issues. True sickness, decay, and death are of the enemy, but I have seen people rely on deliverance and blame demons for their children or loved ones mental illness. We had one individual who O.D.ed on home made drugs. This person was brought down in the prime of their life and was barely able to function properly as they used to. We had family members insist it was demons. The fact of the matter was the individual needed long term medical care. When the person was brought to me, my team and I would pray for healing in the mind and not cast out demons. People have brought loved ones to me with mental illness issues and told me that other deliverance teams held the person down to cast demons out of them. Obviously, not all the church body belongs in deliverance ministry. Some need to work more on themselves then deal with the sins of others.
Just be aware that when you get these e-mails and calls you need to be thorough. I am a Christian counselor who works with Ritual Abuse survivors. From experience, I know what questions to ask people, many times, when they’re shouting demons, demons, demons! There is something else going on mentally and spiritually. Remember, exorcism is pastoral care for the soul. As an exorcist you need to make some hard calls as to whether the person coming to you needs psychologist, a counselor, or an exorcist. 85% of the time it’s the first two choices. I am pretty established in the San Francisco bay area, so I get referrals from Christian counselors and on occasion from psychologist who deem the situation paranormal. Which helps me, because they already did the leg-work in the investigation for me. Experience helps a lot too. Many cases are extremely weird and you need a firm understanding in the spiritually weird. By weird I mean I have repeatedly seen and worked with things most pastors would call me a liar and not believe exists or happened. Most pastors also believe the devil is powerless. He is not. He is defeated - but not powerless! If you don't understand this then you seriously lack a comprehension in the dominion of your spiritual authority.
Discern Dissociation Triggering from Demonic Manifestation
Another issue is dissociative identity disorder, (D.I.D.) or what I call the frustration of the deliverance minister. Many women I have worked with were D.I.D., which is a fracturing of the soul through severe trauma. Different identities can be triggered and many times deliverance ministers think these parts or identities are demons. They’re not, they’re fragments of a human soul. Some of the women I worked with have horror stories of being thrown out of the church by their own pastors. The pastor couldn't discern the D.I.D. triggering from a demonic manifestation. If you have D.I.D. do not let anyone use deliverance ministry on you or any other form of church inner healing ministry. Only a hand full of ministries currently understand this. I have seen some paranormal shows where I could see the person was D.I.D. and people were portrayed as demonized.
Make Them Come to See You
If you have discerned over the phone something is valid about what's going on, you're next step is to arrange a meeting with them. Never run out that day or that night. This isn't urgent care! The recommendation I can make is to insist the person, or people under oppression to come to your office and see you.
I am also a minister that teaches and ministers with
Cleansing Streams Ministries. I have recommended to people
to take Cleansing Streams classes and to go to the retreats. I have seen a
lot of the same problems over and over again. The reason I recommend
Cleansing Streams is because it teaches people to take authority and
responsibility over their own problems. This is how you get set free and
stay set free. Again, many people think deliverance is magic curse
breaking. The truth of the matter is Christian's keep returning to their own vomit and stay in
bondage. For the ones I do recommend this ministry to, when they blow
off my advice to go to Cleansing Streams I am usually done with them.
They don't want to take responsibility over their own life and actions.
Many people are obsessed with their own demons and want you to drive out and prayer for them. Not to get healed, but for you to drive out on your day off, usually a Saturday, and waste your time with them. This is demonic. These people have a comfortable relationship with their demons. They feed off people coming to pray for them so the demons bring these people the attention they need. Learn this now. Some Christians like their demons. These are spirits of distraction and they are everywhere! I weed these out by making people come to the counseling office to meet me. The spirits of distraction don’t
usually want to come to an exorcist’s office. So they decline the offer and my Saturday is free once more. Typically, I never hear from them again and they move on to the next deliverance ministry. They always call on weekends and they want urgent care. But it’s never urgent enough for them to come see you. They sound urgent in the phone call and they make their home sound like it’s
Bobby MacKey’s Music World with all the demonic activity going on.
I have had a few that did show up to the counseling office, but they controlled the conversation so you could never get a word in edge wise. Put a 2 hour cap on your meeting so if this happens, you have an exit strategy. The sign of this distracting spirit is always talking and never allowing you to pray for the them.
Inexplicable Torment Proverbs 25:2
As you mature in your ministry you will learn there are some cases that are simply inexplicable. For the novice deliverance minister, whenever they get flustered they will blame the unexplainable spiritual attachment on a lack of releasing forgiveness. The fact of the matter is, God is sovereign. We aren't always owed an answer as to why severe torment is taking place. I have worked with some very devout followers of Christ who have been horribly tormented by demons. Cases do exist where an individual didn't open up a doorway through sin and they are under demonic attack. These cases are rare. Sorry to bend halos, but good Christians can have demons. Why? We don't know. Perhaps it is for some inexplicable trial from God for which we're not supposed to understand? I don't know. An example of such a torment is the late Padre Pio. He was Roman Catholic priest who had mystical experiences with God and yet the demonic would horribly torment him. These cases do exist, I have seen them, and I refer to Proverbs 25:2 when I don't have an understanding in these matters. God doesn't owe us answers.
When It's Time to Consider the House Blessing
You will get smarter as you minister more. The initial contact, the client call or e-mail is important. They need to prove to you they have a situation going on before you act. When the party has started turning me towards something is going on in their lives I invite them in for a meeting. Usually, if the situation is demonic, there is a spirit attachment and it will manifest in some form in the office session. If this occurs, I will schedule a house blessing. Usually, we do as much work as possible in the office visits, then move to the house blessing. If we can shut down the spiritual attachment in the office, the house activity usually subsides as well.
A lot of information about the crime scene can be assessed from the office visit. It is extremely important that you bring in the person who the activity is centered around to sever the spiritual attachment. You must speak to that person alone and not let a spouse or a parent come in to the session with them. You need to hear their story and you need to hear it straight from them. You will find out a lot by just having the person alone with you and another minister in the room (I like having a woman minister with me it helps balance the session as well as put women and children clients at ease). You will gather more information in just letting the client speak and tell there story. If there is spiritual activity, never start out with a Bondage Breaker style session with a questionnaire. The questionnaires steer you to a probable solution. I have come in behind deliverance ministers who told me
this and that was going on based on the answers from a Bondage Breaker's style question matrix. Only to completely miss, for example, the individual was molested by a family member at a very young age. And that was the root cause of the spiritual attachment and not a gypsy curse or a ghost in the house. It took 2 long hours for this individual to tell us what was going on. From that they were able to discern what was going on. And for the first time they put together that their older sibling was being molested by their step father, which is what caused the sibling to molest them. The realization wasn't put together by them until they told us their story. We were able to set them free from the spiritual activity in their home because the root cause were spirits of molestation and perversion. They were generational curses manifesting in the physical and tormenting. We have done a lot of significant warfare in the office and shutting down activity by just listening to the individual tell their story. Sometimes the spirit will manifest when the person stumbles into the part of the story the spirit started the attachment at. Never lead the person in their story. Just sit back and listen and take notes.make note of all the ungodly beliefs that come out of their mouth too. Such as, "I always felt like I should never have been born, or I felt I was never good enough", and so forth. It's not uncommon for the story session to take up to 2 hours. Usually, a person is set free by just divulging the truth to someone. For this reason, we don't let spouses, family members, parents or anyone in with us during the session. It could be one of those family members who are the root of the bondage and spiritual attachment. The session is about creating the space for the individual for the truth to surface. I hope the light bulb is going on now as to why the paranormal psychic and the paranormal lead exorcist as not effective in severing spiritual attachments. Jesus came to heal the broken hearted. By His wounds you were healed. Your job is to sever the demonic attachment from the mind and heart. The true office of the exorcist is pastoral care for the soul (mind and heart).
We don't do a lot of house blessings anymore. When the attachment is severed in the office session we work with the individual to sever it completely. We use our own book, A Field Guide to Spiritual Warfare to work with these individuals and help them stand in their own spiritual authority. That's how the victory in the battle comes, when the person makes a stand against their own demons. Churches don't teach spiritual authority. My opinion on that is because it is something that is caught and not taught. I remember in my early days as a deliverance minister. I met people who read every book backwards and forwards on deliverance on deliverance. They were full of advice, but they were ineffective in deliverance ministry or never expelled a demon. This is because they don't understand their own authority in Jesus Christ. Whenever, I speak with people on low level deliverance ministry they always ask have you read this book or that book on routing demons and demonology? I tell them no, because I understand who I am in Christ and the extent and dominion or my spiritual authority. Besides, most books out there now are all re-hashes of old books. I don't but deliverance books anymore. Buy a book on intercessory prayer or something, you will benefit greater in the long run.
Like I side, we don't do many house blessings anymore. Usually, if there is ritual defilement (possible heavenly realm incursion by forces of darkness) or an existing spirit in the home, we'll form the house blessing posse~. In the early days, we were called out to a lot of homes, because of paranormal shows influence, that were NOT haunted!!!! It got to the point where I could put together a posse~ for an office prayer session, but no one wanted to go bless a house. We blessed many a spiritless homes. My team consists of Christian mystics and we can sense and see spirits. My wife and I go through open homes for sale on weekends just to have some fun with our discernment skills.
We went through one local home that was for sale, it was around a hundred years old. I stopped in one room and felt a heavy oppression. I quietly got my wife's attention to come over to the room I was in. She said, "What?"As to why I called her over. Then in a moment, she said, "Oh wow! I feel that!" At that moment another women walked in the room, "Oh? Feel what?". I just shrugged and said, "Feel the warmth of the paint on the wall." The woman looked at me like I was nuts.
There is one house on my local walk that I know is demonized. To the point, I know that it has objects moving. I can feel it every time I walk by it. I tried talking to the care taker of the property once, but he blew me off. Wasn't a very friendly guy.
So when I tell you there were no ghosts in some of the homes we blessed – there were no ghosts! And a lot of people call us without the consideration that we’re not compensated. So it was a waste of our time for a lot of house blessings. Never run out to do a house blessing! Treat it as a crime scene and collect information first. Now on the other extreme I have been on phone calls and skype where you could hear the demonic activity.
These are a lot of notes on how to handle the initial phone call. I would like to make a few comments on exorcism and the pastoral character involved in this ministry. It is not for everyone.
Some Comments on Being an Exorcist
Keep in mind, you start in the deliverance side of the ministry and God
will promote you to the exorcist side through time (God's timing and not by a What Would Jesus Do exorcist correspondence course) and His training
through the Holy Spirit. You need to be walked through this by Him. I warn people who said someone prophesied over them to a
calling of exorcism. Always test the spirits and ask God for His confirmation. Exorcist are NEVER
called they are DRAFTED into warfare. This is very dangerous work, for both the exorcist and the people you are working with. You need to keep in consideration, too, that you are under a constant heavy, unbearable state of warfare against you as you battle for someone else, or in our case, a lot of people.
Many times an exorcist is called to be an intercessor to come along side and pray in warfare with some who is struggling to gain back their compromised will. Intercession can be intense and God may grant you the spiritual favor of feeling this individual's burden. This mystic favor can stay with you until there is breakthrough with intercession. Exorcism is not a game or the next level in your spiritual warfare development. It is special forces warfare. Many are a called - and few make it through the boot camp training process.
These are long term battles and the enemy will do everything he can to destroy you, mentally, physically, and financially. You have only your faith that Jesus Christ will deliver you through this intense battle as you work with Him to assist others in overwhelming supernatural battles. These are supernatural battles and you must understand what that means to walk in the supernatural. When you are attacked, you are like a sniper behind enemy lines. If you take a hit, you must know how to extract the bullet and patch yourself up. That was no metaphor. The spiritual can manifest damage in the physical. You can't call your pastor at 2:00 AM when your deep in battle and the canon volleys are flying. You're special forces. There was a download right there that many of you need to go back and read. You must be covered by a church, and you must be solid in your walk with Jesus. When I walk in for prayer ministry or a house blessing, I don’t look like the usual exorcist, with the big cross in my hand. I usually show up with my Bible and a small bottle of anointing oil. I have the faith and the trust that Jesus is going to do something no matter where he sends me. I just have to make sure that this is a battle he is sending me into. Always pray to be released into every battle!
Most of all you must walk in humility. Humility is a life long sanctification process and it means talking responsibility and authority over your own sins.
To my other exorcist brothers and sisters in Christ out there – may God bless you and your families for all that you are doing.
Well, that's it for today. More to come.
Feel free to comment, slander, throw stones, or ask questions below.
Enjoy!
Rev. Mike
For further reading on the topic of spiritual warfare get your copy of,
A Field Guide to Spiritual Warfare - the Power to PULL the IMPOSSIBLE from the HEAVENLY REALMS
In episode 115 of Tales of Glory, we dive into Chapter 12, Soul Ties, in my book A Field Guide to Spiritual Warfare—The POWER to pull the IMPOSSIBLE from the Heavenly Realm. So, what exactly is a soul tie? Are they Christian New Age, or are they real? Where are there Biblical references to soul ties in the Bible? When should we break soul ties? How do we break soul ties? What is the difference between a sexual soul tie and one from a non-sexual relationship? Can we get ungodly soul ties from mentors and ministers? We cover these controversial topics in episode One-One-Five of Tales of Glory!
