Origins

Where do demons come from? From where do they derive their power? Why do some people worship them as gods?

A lot of people talk about "my demons" or "my struggles", and it seems that people believe that these are things they will carry for the rest of their lives. Words matter. We want to be very clear that we believe there is victory through Jesus Christ, and that demon powers can be overthrown through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

This is the Deliverance Dialogues.

P.S. Some creative license was taken with the intro, enjoy!

Music:

All music and sound effects were sourced from pixabay.com under the Pixabay Content License.

Episode Transcript

(00:06):
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also after
that, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and
they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who
were of old men of renown. It's raining water from the sky.
You never seen anything like it.The Mad Men in the square went
on about this for years, built aboat.

(00:28):
Everyone ridiculed him, laughed at him.
No one's laughing. No, the water's up to your
knees. It's cold.
You can hear people screaming, begging the gods for help.
It won't matter. What can the gods do?
They'll wash away, dying along with everyone else.

(00:49):
Psalms 82 tells us that the Lordsays, I said you are gods, son
of the Most High, all of you. But you shall die like men and
fall like one of the Princess. Arise, O God, judge the earth,
for you shall inherit the nations.
What are demons? Where do they come from?

(01:11):
Why do people worship them as gods?
I'm Timothy Willis. This is the Deliverance
Dialogues. When it comes to demons, we
don't have widespread agreement on what they even are.
Even inside the Christian faith,there's a lot of different ideas

(01:34):
about what we mean by this word demon.
With that said, it's pretty evident in modern culture that
Satan is alive and well, and theconcept of demons, even in our
very scientifically advanced society, has not gone anywhere.

(01:56):
In fact, even those who will deny theologically or
ontologically the existence of demonic entities as intelligent
life forms of some sort can't find a better word to describe
certain inner struggles. Now up until now, Timothy, this

(02:21):
podcast has primarily addressed different aspects of mental and
spiritual health. We've looked at how the
possession state impacts people in various ways.
We've interpreted that through aspiritual perspective.
We've discussed biological causes of trans and possession

(02:44):
States and we've discussed mental health perspectives.
Today we're going to take a little side Rd. you might say,
into trying to answer the question, what are demons?
What are we even talking about? And does the Bible offer any

(03:06):
insight into this? Now, Timothy, when we first open
up this conversation, what's thefirst thing that jumps out to
you? Like you said, up until now,
we've really focused on this practical side of things.
We've really, you know, talked about what can I as a minister

(03:27):
or as a therapist or even just as a person do for my spiritual
health or the spiritual health of the people who are seeking
help from me. And those are important
conversations, I would dare say the most important conversations
that we have to talk about, right?
But this conversation is maybe not just as vital, but it's also

(03:50):
very important. What we're talking about here.
The buzzword for it, you might say, is demonology.
That doesn't mean we're going todive into the occult side of
things. We're not.
We're not obsessed with the occult like some people tend to
get, but what we are going to talk about is just kind of the
fundamental background that's kind of in our minds as we're

(04:11):
discussing these things. So the different perspectives
that we want to look at, the different perspectives on where
demons come from, what they are,where do they derive their
power, What the one of the questions we want to ask is why
do people worship them? Like Paul says in his letters
that people were worshipping demons as gods, these are all

(04:32):
answered through this lens of demonology.
And so we're going to spend the next couple episodes on.
Yeah. And, and, and this is The thing
is that words matter. So some people might think,
well, why does it even make any difference to discuss this?
I mean, at the end of the day, our primary focus on in the
deliverance dialogues is talkingabout helping people find
freedom and healing through Jesus Christ and through the

(04:55):
application of spiritual principles that are informed by
solid understanding of mental health realities and the impact
trauma. However, while we do want to
help people find freedom and healing, the reality is that it
it makes a lot of difference what we mean by certain words
that we use. For instance, in our culture, a

(05:16):
lot of people refer to my demons, my struggles, these
kinds of things. And when you start listening,
it's pretty evident that they just think those are things
they're going to carry around for their entire life.
There's debate on whether this quote is authentic to him, But a
quote that's often attributed toGK Chesterton says fairy tales
were not written to teach children that monsters are real.

(05:39):
Every child knows that monsters are real.
Fairy tales were written to teach children that monsters can
be defeated. Another version of that says
says they were they were writtento teach children that Dragons
can be defeated. Here's the reality is that when
we talk about spiritual warfare and engaging with the demonic, I

(06:01):
want to I want it to be clear that we believe there is victory
through Jesus Christ and that demon powers can be overthrown
and have been overthrown throughthe death, burial, and
resurrection of Jesus. So as we dive into this, we're
going to look at a few differentperspectives.

(06:21):
We're going to discuss the theological perspective.
We're going to discuss some psychological perspectives.
We're also going to discuss somekind of pop culture perspectives
on what demons are. As we dive into the theological
perspective. Perhaps the most well known and
maybe even still the most popular in the Christian world,

(06:43):
at least today, is what we'll call the traditional view.
And that is the idea that when you go back to Genesis chapter
3, you see the serpent in the garden, which overtime becomes
associated with Lucifer or Satan.
And as the, the story of the Scripture unfolds, it's, it's

(07:04):
very clear that the great Satan of humanity is embodied through
this serpent that deceives the human race.
In the very beginning when I wasgrowing up, I I thought that
basically everyone believed thatSatan was a fallen Angel who led

(07:26):
1/3 of the angels in rebellion against God.
And now those fallen angels havebecome demons that possess and
torment people. And I was just sure that the
Bible clearly, definitely articulated that.
There's actually only one passage in the Bible that gives

(07:48):
us exactly the idea that I just articulated.
And that's found in the Book of Revelation when we read that
Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the
Dragon's tail drew a third of the stars of of heaven.
And so we're we're seeing that has been interpreted to say that

(08:10):
when the Dragon's tails are drawing 1/3 of the stars of
heaven, that's been interpreted throughout a lot of church
history as a third of the angelsfalling from heaven with Satan.
Now this idea has been developedin a lot of different ways.
Some people, based on some particular interpretations of
things that we read in the book of Isaiah, surmise that Satan in

(08:33):
his pre fallen state was. Some will even say an Archangel
named Lucifer that may have beenover the worshiping angels, the
choir he's referred to as the anointed cherub, these kinds of
things. I guess what I'm saying is that
the Bible gives us a lot of different details like this, but

(08:55):
it really doesn't present a cohesive statement that this is
what demons are, or that that's exactly who Satan is.
Well, and it's, it's really interesting that you've keyed on
this, this topic, because it really is true that a lot of
people, Christians and non Christians tend to believe that

(09:16):
this fallen Angel worldview is just the the Bible.
Like a lot of people that I talked to, that's just the only
like position they've ever heardof.
Correct me if I'm wrong. More so than coming directly
from the Scripture, it more comes from Roman Catholic
tradition. It, it, it is a development of,

(09:39):
I would say Catholic tradition, but I would want to say
lowercase C It's not just specific to Roman Catholic
tradition. That is the the tradition, this
fallen Angel tradition of demonic origins develops very
early in the, the progression ofchurch history, right?
So when you're reading the fathers, when you're reading a

(10:02):
lot of these early materials, these ideas are being wrestled
with, but they're not the only ones that are being wrestled
with. Actually, in a little bit when
we talked about the Enochian view that actually seems to be
being advocated for by Justin Martyr and some other fathers
along the way mentioned that. But as time progresses, the

(10:22):
Enochian view, which we haven't really unpacked yet, but we will
in a minute, falls out of favor.And this idea of Satan as the
figurehead of evil, it emerges more clearly in Catholic
tradition. And I'm certainly not saying
it's wrong, but I do think it's important to realize that's not

(10:42):
the only idea that's out there about what spirits are.
Are there fallen angels? The short answer is yes, there
are. And are they in rebellion
against God? Clearly there are.
But when we're talking about demons that take control of
people, the conversation gets a little bit more complex.

(11:04):
So where do we go from there? If the fallen Angel tradition is
not the only one, what's the alternative?
Well, what's what's some kind oftimes called the Enochian
tradition taken from the book offirst Enoch, also known as the
book of the watchers, has been recently re popularized through
the writings of Doctor Michael Heizer, who wrote such books as

(11:27):
the unseen realm, Reversing Herman, Demons, Angels and he
while he was living, he had a podcast called the Naked Bible
Podcast where he discussed a lotof this.
Doctor Heiser was a gift to the body of Christ.
While I didn't always see eye toeye with him, he was a scholar

(11:48):
in his own right that brought such tremendous insight to the
Scripture. So when we opened, you
introduced the concept of the flood and you read to us from
Genesis chapter 6 Timothy. I want to come back to that as
we Segway into the Enochian viewbecause this is very important.

(12:08):
So second Peter chapter 2, versefour and following we read.
For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but
rather confined them to Tartarus, and delivered them
into chains of darkness reservedfor judgment, and did not spare
the ancient world, but preservedNoah the 8th, a preacher of

(12:29):
righteousness, when he brought aflood upon the ungodly world,
and reducing the cities of Sodomand Gomorrah to ashes, he
condemned them to destruction, having made them an example who
were to be ungodly. If we move over to the book of
Jude, we read something very similar in Jude verse 6.

(12:56):
We read and the angels who did not keep their own domain, but
rather having left their own habitation, he has kept with
everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the
great day. Why are we reading this?

(13:17):
Because the the the clear reference back to God's
judgment. When you trace the logic of both
Jude and Peter, they're following a common logic is that
God judged the world under in the time of Noah, God judged
Sodom and Gomorrah, God judged angels that sinned.
So then the warning is if we don't turn from sin and evil,

(13:38):
God has a consistent pattern, a pattern of judgment on
ungodliness. However, I want to read just a
little bit further in Jude because important for our
conversation about demonic origins.
Verse 14 of Jude. Now Enoch the 7th from Adam
prophesied about these men, saying, Behold, the Lord comes

(14:01):
with 10 thousands of his Saints to execute judgment against all,
and to convict all the ungodly among them, about all their
ungodly deeds which they have admitted impiously, and about
all the harsh words which ungodly sinners have spoken

(14:22):
against him. That is almost a word for word
quote from the Book of First Enoch, also called the Book of
the Watchers. So something I've noticed is
that you just said it, that Peter and Jude are both quoting
the Book of Enoch, and yet the Book of Enoch's not included in

(14:45):
the scripture. Why?
What's going on there? That's a great question,
Timothy, and not everyone agreeson what the proper place of the
book of First Enoch is in regards to Christian theology.
However, while while sometimes Ihave conversations with people,
they just want to say, well, it's not the Bible, so it
doesn't matter. I want to say, OK, let's push

(15:08):
the brakes for a second. And I want to point out that the
Apostle Peter references First Enoch as fact.
Jude quotes First Enoch word forword, and there are places where
Jesus Christ appears to be referencing some Enochian theme.

(15:28):
So here's what we know. There were early Church fathers,
some of them that believed that Enoch could have rightly had a
place in the Bible. In fact, the Ethiopian Bible
includes Enoch in its Canon of scripture.
For the most part, that's not the direction that the church
world went. And unlike many who suppose this

(15:50):
is some kind of great conspiracyto suppress truth, that's not
really my understanding. If you look at how these
discussions played out in the early church, there are valid
conversations that surrounded the place of books like First
Enoch. Here's what we know for sure,
though. The apostles, at least some of
them, clearly valued it as containing some truths that we

(16:14):
need concerning the the consistency and the nature of
divine judgment. Within that, Jude and Peter very
clearly valued the insight of First Enoch concerning the role
of fallen angels that are confined to chains of darkness.

(16:37):
These references, when you then go and read what First Enoch
actually says, it's kind of mindblowing.
So why does that tie into Genesis 6?
And why is Peter when he mentions this, drawing an
illusion back to the flood? Because what First Enoch is, is
what might be called a, a, a retelling of the flood story.

(17:00):
It's a retelling of Genesis 6 through a worldview that's
intended to provide an origin story for demons.
That's one of the big things that's that's happening in
what's called the Book of the Watchers.
Now, there's really not any, at least not many scholars that
believe that Enoch actually wrote the book of first Enoch.

(17:20):
This is what's called a pseudepigraphor writing.
In other words, someone else wrote it and ascribed it to
Enoch. However, it is very old.
It's, it's written most, most people believe that, that the
book of the Watchers is written somewhere around 250 BC.
So you're, you know, a solid 250years before Jesus Christ when

(17:42):
this book is written. And when the Dead Sea Scrolls
were discovered in 1947, what was wild there in that Qumran
community, among all these scrolls of the Old Testament
texts, you also found copies of the book of First Enoch.
And it makes sense because the Qumran community is this

(18:07):
apocalyptic community that was living there.
A lot of people believe that John the Baptist may have very
well grown up there, that believe they are preparing the
way for the dawn of the Kingdom of God to be birthed on planet
Earth in a very real way. Spoiler alert, they were right.
Maybe not like everybody had envisioned.

(18:28):
So Enoch is, is, is helping us understand the role that evil
spirits play in in this whole saga.
In a minute we'll read a quote from there to to kind of see
what happens, but basically whatEnoch does.
Enoch leans into the language ofGenesis chapter 6 where it says

(18:51):
simply that the sons of God, theBenaiah Elohim, looked upon the
daughters of men and lusted after them.
They take wives among them in their offspring become Nephilim.
The King James Version translatethat translates that word giant,
and these become men of renown, men of old.

(19:12):
Genesis 6 just kind of tells us that and almost seems to move
on. First Enoch goes, we're going to
have to talk about that. How does this tie?
Back in with Heiser, I know we mentioned Heiser but but what
does Heiser have to say about this?
Doctor Heiser's book The Unseen Realm is subtitled Recovering
the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible.

(19:34):
So for Doctor Heiser, why it matters is because he wants us
to see that these Old Testament texts that like Genesis 6, that
are really easy to just read past, actually have deep
theological insight and they're anchored in a worldview that's
not secular, A worldview that isdeeply supernatural.

(19:55):
So if Genesis 6 is an origin story for demons, which let me
just read this, So what happens in in the Book of the Watchers,
Enoch's version of Genesis 6? Is that these angels that like
these angels that came down ontoMount Hermon, they're teaching
people sorcery, they're teachingthem all kinds of secrets, you

(20:19):
might say, that are forbidden. Then they have these children
that are nephalem. And here's a direct quote I want
to read from the book of First Enoch.
It says this. And now the giants who are
produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil
spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their

(20:40):
dwelling. Evil spirits have proceeded from
their bodies, because they are born from men, and from the holy
watchers is their beginning and primal origin.
They shall be evil spirits on the earth, and evil spirits
shall they be called. And the spirits of the giants
afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, do battle and work

(21:05):
destruction on the earth, and cause trouble.
They take no food, but nevertheless hunger and thirst
and 'cause offenses, and these spirits shall rise up against
the children of men and against the women, because they have
proceeded from them. So in the Old Testament
worldview, if you see the Nephilim as the offspring of the

(21:28):
watchers, quite literally the sons of God or the sons of the
Elohim and women, then what thatmeans is when you see this race
of giants appear over and over again in the Old Testament,
they're called the sons of Anak,they're called the Anakim,
they're called the Nepheline, they're called Zanzamine.

(21:48):
There's a lot of these different, different words that
are given. But what were intended, and Dr.
Heiser helps us understand this,what were intended to recognize
is that then the battles that Israel is engaging with, with
these beings, they're warring against in their mindset,
supernatural beings. There's a reason why it's
repeated multiple times in the Old Testament that Israel

(22:10):
destroyed King Ogg of Bashan. This is why because he's viewed
as this demon king, this God that is undefeatable, and yet
Yahweh through his people topples Aug of Bashan.
When Aug dies, everybody melts in fear.

(22:32):
They're saying if Yahweh can overthrow Aug of Bashan, nothing
is impossible. So what Doctor Heiser develops,
and you you quoted in in our beginning, you quoted Psalm 82.
He develops this concept that the word Elohim is used
throughout the Old Testament. And while it is applied at times

(22:55):
to Yahweh God, to the creator God, it's not always used in
that way. It is applied in numerous Old
Testament texts to a category ofdivine beings that the ancients
would have viewed as gods. Now I'm going to put a lowercase
G over that, lest anybody doubtswe do believe in one creator

(23:18):
God. But from the perspective of
humanity, Doctor Heiser teaches us that there there were these
Elohim, these lowercase gods, angels, if you're more
comfortable with that word that ruled and governed in specific
ways throughout the earth. We see hints of this like in the

(23:38):
book of Daniel when we're when we read about the Prince of
Persia that Michael the Archangel and Gabriel were
engaged in battle in, right? There's a spiritual power that's
over Persia that they're engagedin warfare against.
So you see simultaneously that there is this one set of beings

(23:58):
that are engaged in spiritual warfare.
But then from the Enochian viewpoint, their offspring, the
giants, just like they were thorns in the flesh of the
Israelites in the Old Testament and of humanity in the Old
Testament after they died, the book of sees their spirits as
then becoming demonic entities on the earth.

(24:19):
Is this true? I don't know.
But what I do know is that Peterand Jude are both lending a
little bit of credibility to this idea.
So when they're letting the church know you are engaged in
warfare, for them, it wasn't a new battle with demons.
It was the same battle that had been going on since all the way

(24:41):
on the other side of the flood. And if on the other side of
Noah's flood, it was vital that humanity not side with the
demons. It's really important that we
still don't side with the demons.
And we get into this, the secular worldview, the pop
culture worldview. We'll kind of offer some balance
with that perspective. There are all kinds of spiritual

(25:04):
powers out there, but there are some of them you don't really
want to align yourself with. So, Timothy, I'm sure that this
all could sound a little bit of hocus pocus to our listeners.
However, remember, the Bible's not a naturalistic, secularistic
book. It is a supernatural book

(25:25):
offering a supernatural perspective on life.
What's interesting is that although some people push back
and say do you actually believe that the average person today
believes the universe is talkingto them and that they are
manifesting things. Interesting enough that word
manifesting historically was used to talk about something

(25:45):
that a demon was doing through you, and now people are just
openly saying I manifested this.Interesting thought, dear
friend. Sure.
And I mean, but you know, we've mentioned this before.
We live in a world that's very spiritual, but not necessarily
Christian, you know? So I think, I think it's exactly

(26:05):
this almost a mystical nature ofthe Bible that does appeal to
people. There are Bible scholars, many
of them who if they were to listen to this podcast today,
they would say, oh, oh Robbie, you should, you should study
more. And you would know that the sons
of God are simply the descendants of Seth.

(26:28):
This is the godly line of Seth that were cohabiting with the
ungodly line of Cain. First of all, I would like to
point out that that view does not appear until the 4th century
AD and doesn't really gain teethuntil the 5th century.
All the Jewish scholars leading up to the time of Christ believe

(26:52):
that the sons of God were angelsin some manner or another.
That was the view of the early church pretty much exclusively
for the first couple of 100 years.
And just because we're embarrassed to talk about it
doesn't mean it's not what the early church believed.
Also, explain to me, please, whythe supposed godly line of Seth

(27:17):
and the ungodly line of Cain, which, by the way, nowhere in
the Scripture does it tell us that this type of cohabitation
actually happened. That's what we call, in
theological terms, isogesis. We're reading an interpretation
we're more comfortable with intothe text.
In what way does that yield a line of giants?

(27:37):
And in what way does that bring about the flood of Noah, the
judgment of God on planet Earth?And it's inconsistent with later
mentions of the sons of God, like we quoted in Psalm 82, when
he's now cursing these sons of gods to sons of God to die as
mortal men, or later when he mentions the divine when the

(28:00):
when the divine council is mentioned in Isaiah.
That's not the line of Seth. Not at all.
And Psalm 82 really sounds like our creator God is talking to a
group of beings that he sat in authority over planet earth and
saying, I gave you a place, but you didn't look after the

(28:22):
orphans, you didn't look after the widows.
You exploited people for your own being and that for your own
well-being and now you're going to die like men.
So also this is really interesting how that does tie
back in to the traditional view,because one of the traditional
views of the fall of of, of Satan, the fall of Lucifer and

(28:42):
the fall of the angels is that it was revealed that God was
going to give this place of dominion not to angels, but to
mankind. And that when the angels knew
that God was going to give a place of dominion to humanity
that they believe was rightly theirs, it provoked jealousy in
the hearts of some of them who rebelled against God.

(29:04):
Now the Bible doesn't say that, but it is interesting how all
these different views kind of come together to give us a
common theme that is very supernatural origin.
Here's what we know. All the ancients did believe
when you're talking about the Christian worldview, they they
did believe that demons were malicious spiritual beings that

(29:25):
are actively seeking to thwart the plans of God and to bring
about destruction in the human race.
The things I'm talking about arenot just inventions of Christian
theologians that are dreaming upthings.
In fact, some of the I want to call them conspiracy theories,
but that's not really the right label.
There's a lot of talk today surrounding some very old

(29:49):
religious ideals that have been contained throughout the ages in
mythologies and stuff and such. So if you hang out on YouTube or
TikTok much, you've come across conversations about the
Anunnaki, which are always tied in with the nepheline.
Sometimes the the alien conspiracy theorists pull all of

(30:10):
this together. Why is this?
Why this conversation? Well, because as a lover of
mythology myself, when you read old Babylonian writings, when
you read Mesopotamian mythology and Sumerian mythology, you do
see this race that in some literature is referred to as the

(30:30):
Anunnaki, which has an interesting linguistic tie to
Anak, which is what's used in the Bible.
The sons of Anak, you, you do see the ancient mythologies
talking about these beings, these gods, if you will, coming
down from the sky and teaching secret to humanity.

(30:51):
You see all this unpacked in Greek mythology where you have
gods and demigods and all of this.
So when Genesis 6 mentions it, who's writing Genesis 6?
Moses, he's educated as an Egyptian, right?
He's a very familiar, I would say, with these ancient claims.

(31:14):
It's not that the Bible doesn't know all this stuff.
Instead, what the Bible's doing is correcting it in some ways.
So God is giving a perspective that the ancient mythologies
didn't give us, not clearly at least.
And that is that these beings that came down from the sky did

(31:36):
so in rebellion against the Creator God, and that the fruit
of their efforts was that humanity was plunged into chaos
and God our loving Creator dealtwith what was happening by
stepping in on behalf of humanity.

(31:57):
There are theologians that believe that even the flood of
Noah itself was largely a judgment against this mixture of
demonic influence and humanity. Now, that's a whole long
conversation in itself, but we know this.
The Bible is is demonstrating tous something we don't get in the

(32:20):
Pagan mythologies, and that is aloving God who's longing to
reveal himself to mankind and isfighting for the human race in a
very distinctive way. That's the story of redemption.
That's the story that Jesus Christ is going to continue, how

(32:40):
he's come to truly bring God to man, not in the false way that
the false gods purported to do, not as the fallen angels did.
And by the way, whether you withthe Enochian view or the
traditional view, essentially you still have fallen angels.
You just have a a little bit of a different explanation for the

(33:02):
how in some ways there. So there's a lot of there's a
lot of interesting tie insurancethere.
I mean that that we could we could go on for hours about the
supposed Anunnaki about aliens, about all these things.
But I really love the beauty of the biblical view that we never
get distracted. The Bible just simply says these

(33:22):
became the men of renown. So we're acknowledging, I think,
and and nobody throw anything atme if you disagree with me.
We're acknowledging what will later be unpacked in mythologies
about these demigods who accomplished unbelievable feats.
But rather than chasing those trails that historically led to

(33:43):
the vilest acts, actually those who worship the Pagan gods
became as evil as the Pagan godswere.
Those that went after these demigods also became less than
what they were originally created to be, and people
worship the creature more than the creator.
So instead, the Bible cuts through all of this and reminds

(34:05):
us that God, our Creator, Yahweh, God through his Son
Jesus Christ, has always had a plan to redeem the human race
and that demons were meant to beconquered so that man could be
what we were always created to be.
So that's kind of a just a brief, brief look, a brief

(34:28):
introduction at some of the theological ideas beyond this.
However, when we talk about demons, not everybody speaking
theologically, some are not doing so in any way.
Some are looking at this more from a psychological
perspective. So, Timothy, I'm going to let
you introduce maybe the psychological perspective about
demons as the word is used in our culture today.

(34:51):
You know, we've, we've mentionedthis a little bit.
We talked a little bit about, I don't know if we talked about it
earlier, we might have talked about it before the podcast, but
we talked a little bit about people saying, OK, my demons,
right? The thing that I'm struggling
with right now, I'm battling my inner demons.
And that's honestly not just pretty language.

(35:12):
I don't know if everybody knows exactly where it comes from, but
I would identify that coming mainly from depth psychology,
specifically from the work of Jung.
So Jung was a psychologist in the 20th century and Jung really
focused in on the dichotomy between the ego, which is this

(35:35):
Control Center in the the psychein the self, and then the
shadow, which is a part of the ego.
But it's like the dark side of the ego.
And I'm not a Jungian psychologist, so I'm I'm going
to go very light on Jung here. But he essentially says that if
you neglect the shadow. So if you neglect all the worst

(35:58):
things about yourself and the things that you don't want to
look at, the things that make you uncomfortable when you think
about them, about yourself, thateventually that shadow will
overtake and possess you much inthe same way that a demon would,
the theological kind. And now the, everything that you
hated about yourself is in the driver's seat.

(36:21):
And now you're this shadow beingright.
And, and you're, you're possessed by your own shadow.
And so I think this is a lot of the, the, the language people
are pulling from when they talk about my demons, because there's
these things a lot of people don't want to recognize about
themselves. Maybe it's things that they've

(36:41):
done, maybe it's aspects of who they are, but ultimately
everybody's got a shadow. Everybody's got the things they
don't want to talk about so. Just to make sure I'm
understanding what you're saying.
And then I and then I want you to continue because it's
intriguing to me. Shadow possession from a, a
psychological viewpoint is basically like I repress my

(37:07):
anger about a situation. I'm not willing to acknowledge
that, but it's kind of brewing in the background.
So then at some point I become possessed by my own temper, so
to speak. Or I, I have these phobias or
these fears maybe from back in my childhood, but I don't want
to deal with them. So then this fear overtakes me
and I can't function. Is that kind of, is that kind of

(37:29):
what you're saying? Basically, so I I think so Jung
was a little more abstract in his theories.
He he got into a lot of stuff that I don't understand yet.
I'm still reading and trying to understand.
He got into a lot of stuff aboutarchetypes, which I think we
will eventually talk about, yes.And he talked a lot about the

(37:50):
collective unconscious, which was part of the shadow that
possessed you. I think out of all the depth
psychologists that I've read, I think Doctor Steven Diamond
explains it best. He kind of took the idea of
shadow possession from Jung and ran with it.
And he he made almost like a, a practical application of Jungian

(38:11):
psychology. He wrote a book that you
recommended me first called Anger madness in the diamonic.
So intriguing in in that book, basically Doctor Diamond gives
he allows for this kind of phenomenon that he calls
diamonic possession, right. Doctor Diamond is not a

(38:36):
believer. He he does not believe in
demons. In fact, he says so explicitly
in his book, but he believes that when a person represses
their, their anger. So anger is the the biggest
example that he used, but but a strong negative emotion when
somebody pushes it back and sweeps it under the rug and

(38:59):
says, no, I don't want to talk about that.
I'm just not going to think about it.
And they and they push it down and they push it down.
Eventually that's going to bubble over and possess you.
He gives the example of mass shootings and Dr. Diamond says
that in his belief, most mass shootings that seem to happen
for no reason, like with no motive behind them, just random

(39:22):
killings, are some form of diamonic possession.
It's when that repressed angerfully just takes over and
and someone snaps. That's pretty amazing.
And what's what's wild to me is of course, the word diamonic is
it's taken from the Greek word diamond, which is where we get
the word demon in the Bible. And I fully understand why

(39:42):
Doctor Diamond is making the distinction because that's
that's important to him. And it is it is educational in
in its own way. At the same time, it's very
interesting to me that even in our very advanced society, we
really don't have a better word to explain why people do what
they do than to say it was a demon in some capacity.

(40:03):
Well, and a lot of times, and this is something that Young and
Diamond both identify, is peopledon't want to take
responsibility for their own actions.
It's hard to take responsibilityfor your own actions when you do
something that goes against yourvery core beliefs that that is
difficult to accept and, and a lot of times it ends up just

(40:25):
getting pushed away. You know, you don't want to
think about the times when you violated your own morals.
You don't want to think about the times when you did something
so wrong that you can hardly even imagine yourself doing it.
You know, so you're sweeping under the rug.
And that's exactly what you know, Young and Diamond say is

(40:46):
problematic. You know, Young talks about
integration. Integrating the shadow is a big
part of Jung's writings. And while that doesn't look like
embracing your dark side exactly, Jung says that you have
to identify the shadow. You have to identify these,
like, really strong negative things you don't like about

(41:08):
yourself and eventually get themout by acknowledging that you
did those things. They're a part of you, you know.
And so only by acknowledging their existence, only by
recognizing that there there's aproblem, can you ever get
healing. And I think that's similar to
spiritual deliverance. It very much is because in

(41:28):
spiritual deliverance, one of the things we talk a lot about
is repentance. The the need for acknowledging
where I have some actual guilt in my life.
Guilt is related to things I've done that were against the law
of God. Shame is a distortion of of my
image where I start to see that I'm broken, there's something

(41:50):
wrong with my identity. But guilt is action oriented.
And the things that you're saying that we see this even in
leadership theory, there was a book written called Overcoming
the Dark Side of Leadership. And the the theory in it is very
much consistent with what you'retalking about, that if leaders
don't identify our most toxic tendencies, we're almost

(42:12):
destined to eventually be overtaken by them.
We've got to acknowledge those things so they can be redeemed
in some meaningful way. And realize, you know what,
there's some stuff in the closetthat sometimes we've got to deal
with in order to move toward a healthy place.
Well, in a lot of times, real spiritual possession by a demon

(42:37):
with an identity is wrapped up, and we've talked about this a
lot. It's wrapped up in your own
self-image. Also, demons love to utilize
shame in order to like attack you at the very core of who you
are. Diamond is mainly identifying

(42:57):
diamonic possession from a purely psychological level.
Yeah, Young's not really Young recognizes a spiritual level to
it. And I, I think that's important
because I think there is a spiritual aspect to all of this.
Yes, the, the, the really dark things about you are still a
part of you. But then if you've got something
whispering in your ear, bringingthat up every time you like, sit

(43:21):
down and things get quiet, then it's probably a little bit of
spirituality there as well. Very, very true.
And while I'm not a Jungian expert by any means, and there's
key areas where he and I would have parted from each other, he
thought the occult was somethingthat you could learn from
exploring. And I think it's a good thing to

(43:41):
leave alone. But nonetheless, a lot of his
writings yield pretty, pretty important insight for the study
of psychology. Doctor T Craig Isaacs, who we've
mentioned on here before, DoctorIsaacs is a psychotherapist that
practices in California. And also, he is an Anglican

(44:02):
priest who is on the board of the Society of Saint Michael's,
which is an order of exorcist for the Anglican Church in North
America. Doctor Isaac's reflects in his
book In Bondage to Evil. He reflects at length about
Young's thoughts. And he talks about, on the one
hand, the things you're discussing, how people can

(44:23):
become possessed by the shadow, or some people call that
possessed by the complexes. And so whether we're talking
about fear, anger, trauma, things that Doctor Diamond calls
diamonic powers, these are very real things and those have to be
addressed by being health integrated into your mind in a,

(44:44):
in a healthy way. People, one thing whenever we've
seen this is people don't have ahealthy view of sexuality and
they're repressing some strong feelings, temptations, thoughts
that they have and they don't want to talk about them to any,
to anyone. Sometimes those things have a
tendency to overtake them and they act out in very tragic

(45:07):
ways. And so we we see this in a lot
of ways, although I don't track with what some psychologists
think should be done with that the phenomena is observable.
Dr. Isaac's also noted and you mentioned and we don't have time
to explore it at length, but that Young also talks about
archetypal possession. And so Young identified some

(45:27):
archetypes which are to put it very, we're going to dumb it way
down for the moment for my sake here.
But as I understood it, basically, so one of the
archetypes was like the old the old man or the old sage.
Another is the witch is a commonarchetype.

(45:48):
Help me out, Timothy. There's another one or two that
he mentions pretty commonly. Young identifies so many.
Yeah he he does, but a lot of the ones he identifies with the
shadow would be the old man, thewitch.
I think the adversary is one of them.
Almost like a Satan figure. Yeah.

(46:09):
So basically, as I understand what he's saying, these
archetypes are figures or idealsthat some would aspire to either
positively or negatively. And in some cases people can be
really overtaken by the seemingly powerful cosmic

(46:30):
forces. I call those demons, by the way,
right. And so while shadow possession
in psychological terms is addressed through integrating
your life experiences together, according to Doctor Isaacs at
least, even Young identified certain circumstances in which

(46:54):
people had to be liberated from having been really overtaken by
these archetypes to an unhealthyextent where they weren't
functioning well anymore. So in some in extreme demon
possession, what we see, whetheryou're viewing it from a
spiritual or a psychological lens, is that the individual's
personality has been lost, theirown sense of agency has been

(47:18):
given up, and they are not fullyin control of their own
decisions in any meaningful way.So now somebody's got to
intervene and offer help. And, and Doctor Diamond
actually, like we like I said, he's not a a believer, but
Doctor Diamond allows in some cases for exorcism to be used in

(47:39):
those cases when someone's personality is is being taken
over by something wholly other then he says, OK, well, you
know, exorcism may then be an effective tool if it's within
the person's worldview. Yes.
So, so here's the reality is that even in psychological

(47:59):
terms, there are there are moments when it's vitally
important for people to confronttheir demons.
And while I don't think anger and fear and such like this are
rightly demons and we'll, we're going to do a follow up episode
on demonology where we talk about some demons by names and
then the supposed spirit of fearor spirit of anger or fill in

(48:23):
the blank. And we'll kind of unpack what
may be and what may not actuallybe demons from a biblical
perspective. But for the moment, let's just
say it like this. Regardless of what these things
may be called properly, humanityknows that they are experiencing
them as demons in a very real way.

(48:48):
That's their experience. That's the only way that they
can describe that in in a real meaningful way.
So we've talked about the theological perspective.
We've talked about the psychological perspective.
There is one other that I feel like we need to mention before
we before we wrap up today. And then this episode may run a

(49:10):
little bit longer than some, butif so, it's it's a conversation
worthy of unpacking. And the good thing about podcast
is if you get done listening to us talk, you can just push
pause. No, you can't.
You can't push. You're not allowed.
OK, Timothy says you cannot pushpause.
Don't do it. Stop that.

(49:32):
Don't pause us when I cut the whole thing.
So there there there is another perspective about demonology,
and I would call that the pop culture or the paranormal
perspective, right? Our culture is very obsessed
with paranormal activity right now.

(49:52):
So in pop culture, a lot of people seem to think that they
have it's cool to talk about ghosts and all these kinds of
things, and not even all Christians agree on what ghosts
are. My views actually pretty
one-dimensional. My understanding of the
scripture is that ghosts are familiar spirits that are

(50:14):
impersonating loved ones, and they have pretty solid historic
information and are pretty good pretenders.
However, whatever one believes about that, conversations about
ghosts and demons are very common in modern culture.
What's interesting is even amongthe spiritists, there are these

(50:37):
ideas that they think there's good spirits and then there are
malicious spirits. There are some things that even
the paranormal folks think you should leave alone.
What that tells me is that there's built into humanity this
idea that there's got to be someobjective way to measure these
things. It can't just be what I think or
what you think, because how do Iknow if I'm right?

(51:00):
Nonetheless, today lots of people I read, I read a piece
not long ago that noted that what's interesting is that
exorcism and house cleansings and things of this sort is still
something that's being requestedby a lot of non Christians that

(51:20):
are reaching out to ministers saying I need help.
So I think as Christians, we're going to have to get better at
addressing some of this stuff. And I'm just going to say, I
know that in our world today, it's pretty popular to think
that burning sage and getting your crystals and all that stuff
is going to cleanse your home. But here's the reality, if you

(51:42):
ever have a real demon move intoyour house, you can burn all the
sage you want and you can line your walls with crystals, but
there's going to have to be somepower that is superior to those
to actually deal with it. And so the reality is this.
I'm not telling people not to play with ghosts and demons and
witchcraft because just because I think it's evil, I'm saying

(52:06):
it's a good way to get hurt. Is the reality.
There are powers in this world and there are.
They are not all all good. They're not all healthy.
That's the testimony of the Scripture as well.
There's good and there's evil forces at work in this world,
and we are fools if we think that things are spiritually
neutral. So there, there's the, so the
pop culture version basically would go like this.

(52:29):
There are ghosts, there are spirits, there are powers.
But the interpretation of what that means seems to be largely
up to the individual, right? I think that's a little bit
complicated, to say the least. So we have the the theological

(52:51):
view, we have the psychological view, we have what I'm calling
the pop culture or the the paranormal view.
But how do we bring all that together?
What does it? What does it matter?
Regardless of what you believe demons are, the Bible actually
does present a pretty clear solution.

(53:13):
Now, I can appreciate the psychological perspectives call
to address some of our quote demons in healthy ways.
There are times when people needto acknowledge what has made
them such an angry individual. There are times when it's
healthy to find a healing from our traumas and realize that the

(53:37):
things that have made us crippled with panic and anxiety
are at times issues that could be meaningfully addressed
through counseling or other ways.
Nonetheless, the scripture is very clear about what Jesus did
for us. I love the book of Colossians,

(53:57):
where it tells us that having spoiled principalities and
powers, Jesus made a show of them, openly triumphing over
them in the cross. Ephesians unpacks in very
similar form for us that we wrestle not against flesh and
blood, but against principalities, against powers,

(54:19):
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places.
And so we're told to respond to those spiritual powers by
putting on spiritual armor and through the name of Jesus
Christ, through the power of theHoly Spirit, through the Word of
God, through prayer, The New Testament anticipates us being

(54:41):
victorious over demon powers in the Book of Revelation.
While everyone may not may not agree on what it means, what's
very clear is this. If you read it, the theme is
that the Kingdom of God is at war with the Kingdom of Satan,
and the Kingdom of God will prevail.

(55:02):
There will be a day in which righteousness is established in
earth and wickedness is finally dealt with in a meaningful way
once for all. Jesus Christ is ruling and
reigning and whatever you believe demons are, if you read
the New Testament and you read the Gospels, you will you will

(55:22):
see quickly that they were terrified of Jesus Christ and
they still are. So we began today talking about
the days of Noah, the flood of Noah, the old Gods lowercase G.

(55:43):
So what does that mean to us? Why does it matter?
Well Matthew chapter 24 verse 37says this.
As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of
Man. For as in the days before the
flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in

(56:06):
marriage until the day Noah entered the ark, and did not
know until the flood came and took them all away, so will be
the coming of the Son of Man. The Scripture explicitly teaches
us that in the days of Christ's return there will be a

(56:29):
recapitulation of those ancient realities that brought about the
flood, that the the things we see on earth are going to be
very much like what were happening there in Genesis
chapter 6. If you studied history and
you've studied the old Greek, Greek gods and all those

(56:50):
mythologies, you would quickly conclude that Olympus has
fallen, the old gods are dead. Zeus no longer flings lightning
to the earth, and no one's looking to Prometheus for power.
Their stories have become memories in the pages of

(57:13):
mythology, long memorialized by ruins that testify that the gods
are dead, toppled by the power of the cross that came in
preaching one God who sent his only son to die for humanity so

(57:35):
that we might be reconciled to aloving God who lived not for his
self to display his own power, but who lives for us.
But now, now I fear as I look around, that the old gods have
returned. Right here in Arkansas, people
are worshipping the old Norse gods.

(57:56):
Odin, Thor. It's not just the stuff of
Marvel Comics. There are people making blood
sacrifices now, calling out to these false gods for power.
There are people that are rediscovering the old Greek
gods, making sacrifices to Poseidon.

(58:17):
We are once again in a spiritualconflict.
We're not only metaphorical or psychological demons, but
historic demons, biblical demons, ancient demons are
facing the human race, the United States of America, and
people right here in Johnson County, Arkansas, where I live.

(58:39):
And there must be a response to liberate people from the
clutches of the destructive false gods that decimated
humanity throughout history. And that response must still be
the cross of Jesus Christ that demonstrates that the weakness
of God is greater than the strength of men, and the

(59:02):
foolishness of God is greater than the wisdom of men.
The death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and
the mighty name of Jesus still drives out demons.
Justin Martyr once challenged them to bring out one of those,
one of those possessed individuals that claimed to have

(59:25):
one of the old God speaking through them.
And he told them that they couldpick any Christian they wanted,
and they would command that God to admit who it truly was, and
it would confess in front of everybody that it was merely a
demon. One of the great offenses of the
early church is that they took those that have been worshipped
as gods for generations and revealed that they were defeated

(59:48):
demonic foes who feared the Day of Judgement.
If there's a message that I wisheveryone could hear today, it's
that the false gods that people are once again worshipping are
going to bring them into destruction.
Are going to lead them into a possessed demonized condition.

(01:00:11):
But those gods are still defeated, they're still false,
they're still demons, and there is still victory in the name of
Jesus Christ. The Deliverance dialogues is all
about making sure people know. However you explain demons,

(01:00:34):
they're all defeated through Jesus.
There's healing and there's freedom in his name.
If it's liberation that you need, that comes through the
name of Jesus. But guess what?
If it's integration of the mind,Healing from anger, healing from

(01:00:55):
fear, healing from broken ideas about lust and sexuality, the
Bible's been speaking very boldly to that for a very long
time now as well. And there is healing through the
name of Christ. Join us next time on the

(01:01:30):
Deliverance Dialogues for a discussion of the spirit of
Python And New Testament demonology.
A man from Trinidad sat down beside me, took my notes and
began heavily critiquing what I was preparing to preach.

(01:01:52):
He says if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not
fear the result of 100 battles. If you know yourself but not the
enemy, for every victory gained,you will also suffer a defeat.
If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb
in every battle. He sees demons as the ones that
lie behind seduction, behind irrational fear, behind the all

(01:02:16):
that is created that captivates people with the spirit realm.
And he sees demons as being behind the murder of those who
are truly godly and trying to call people to the truth.