May 14, 2025 • 52 mins
Despite medical and scientific advancements, evil remains an undeniable reality that has plagued humanity throughout all ages. People may debate terminology--oppression, possession, or demonization. However, evil is not a matter of mere semantics. There are diabolic forces in this world that actively seek the destruction of humanity. Thankfully, the cross of Jesus Christ stands in history as reminder of Christ's victory over the powers of darkness. While also discussing psychological explanations of certain symptoms through the lens of conversion disorders, this episode unashamedly proclaims Jesus Christ as the only hope of true deliverance for those bound by diabolic forces.
This is The Deliverance Dialogues.
Music:
All music sourced copyright-free from Pixabay under the Pixabay Content License.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
It was the middle of the night when my phone rang, and on the
other end of the line I heard a frantic young woman from our
church asking me to please pray.I asked her to calm down and
tell me what was going on. I mean, after all, I'd only seen
her a matter of hours before. Our local church was in revival
(00:30):
and she'd been in attendance at the service that night and had
had a truly powerful encounter with God.
But now, as she's trying to talkto me, I can hear her friends
screaming in terror in the background.
I begin to ask her to please calm down and explain to me what
(00:53):
was happening. And when I did, she began to say
I came to my friend's house after the service, and me and
another friend were both spending the night there
tonight. And when I came in, one of them
started panicking, saying that she could see Ravens and all
(01:19):
these other things. And in the next few minutes, I
began praying for her, and bite Marks and scratches started
spontaneously appearing on her body.
And something flung her to the ground.
And I don't know what to do. Please help me.
(01:41):
I'm Doctor Robbie Willis. This is the Deliverance
Dialogues. Stories like this may sound like
something from a science fictionnovel or maybe even a cheap
horror novel, but in reality, these were three young women
(02:05):
that I knew quite well. Two of them had frequently been
in my and my wife's home for dinner, and all of them were
attending our church at the time.
And while I knew that they had all been been dealing with
different things in their life, I really wasn't expecting a call
(02:28):
like this. Now, the young lady who made the
call who had been at church thatnight, had previously been
involved in witchcraft and a variety of other things and had
sought spiritual deliverance. When she first came to Christ,
she underwent pretty significant, pretty significant
(02:52):
deliverance ministry, which was why she was able to recognize in
part what was going on when she came into her friend's house and
saw their mutual friend in distress.
As I began to inquire about whatled to this moment, they
explained to me, well, while theone young woman was at revival,
(03:14):
the other two had watched a horror movie, I think Child's
Play, Chucky, whatever that old 90s horror film is, 80s,
nineties, whatever the era was. And so I mean, they, they had
some natural reasons to be a little bit spooked, which
naturally leaves you wondering, OK, what of this is demonic?
(03:38):
What part of it is some young women who have just gotten
themselves worked up about thinking that they see things in
the house or whatever is going on, and the immediate question
always is how am I going to assess this?
How do I get to the bottom of what's actually happening?
(03:59):
We're going to unpack this storysome more as the episode goes
on. We're also going to be looking
some at from the word of God in Mark Chapter 9 and we're going
to discuss the findings of a psychiatrist for whom I have a
great deal of confidence. I'm here to join with my Co
host, Timothy Willis. Timothy, as we're opening this
(04:23):
conversation, Today's conversation is a little bit
different. So in our last episode we talked
about dissociative identity disorder and specifically the
possession form of that, which may be understood purely as a
mental health condition or from a spiritual perspective, it may
(04:45):
be understood as some type of demonic oppression or in some
cases possession. It it can be interpreted as
that. But in our last episode we
talked about really the need foran integrated approach to this
kind of healing. And I stand behind that.
(05:05):
And I, I believe that the episode before that, we talked
about bipolar disorder and we shared the story of a young
woman named Jesse who had dealt with both mental health symptoms
and spiritual oppression. But today I want to narrow our
conversation a bit more because I'm concerned that our listeners
(05:29):
may wrongly believe that we are simply saying that demonic
attacks are simply a spiritual explanation for a biological or
psychological condition. And although I am a fan of an
integrated approach to healing, I want to be very clear that
(05:54):
from a biblical perspective, demons are real, and the Bible
clearly portrays them as intelligent entities with a
malicious plan for the destruction of mankind.
They are opposed to the plan of God, to the plan of redemption,
(06:20):
and they themselves live and exist under divine judgment.
Now, whether you believe that ornot, understand this is the
perspective of the New Testamentand is what has been believed by
people throughout Christian history.
(06:42):
And not only that, but ideas about the supernatural far
precede the Christian movement itself.
They go back to the early to theearliest writings that we have
as humans. So what do we do with all of
that? And if demons are real, and if
(07:05):
the supernatural is real, how does 1 differentiate between
what is truly spiritual and whatmay be better understood from a
psychological or biological perspective?
Timothy, what do you think? Up until now, we've really been
talking about, like you said, anintegrated approach where our
(07:29):
perspective is kind of that we're taking psychological, like
psychological techniques and practices as well as spiritual
practices and kind of merging the two as we talk about
demonization. Doctor Richard Gallagher kind of
takes a a different approach. His approach is more black and
(07:51):
white. The book you've been having you
read is called Demonic Foes in that in his in chapter 4, Doctor
Gallagher really breaks down notexactly diagnostic criteria for
demon possession, but what you will typically see in demon
possession. And that includes, you know,
spirits acting belligerently, severe aversion to sacred
(08:13):
objects, as well as like, lots of preternatural elements, as
we've discussed before, where Doctor Gallagher really kind of
deviates from where we've been talking about.
But I think his perspective is, is is important.
Correct me if I'm wrong. He does not really seem to think
that there is much interplay between psychological disorders
(08:36):
and demonization. He kind of applies, you know,
either this is possession or this is psychological.
There's not a lot of in between for Gallagher.
Sure. So, so Gallagher.
And by the way, we've mentioned Doctor Gallagher before, but
just for a quick explanation forour listeners of who he is and
why his voice matters. Doctor Richard Gallagher is a
(08:58):
Harvard educated psychiatrist and is the foremost medical
expert in the world on possession states.
To say it another way, he has evaluated more cases of
purported demonic possession than any medical doctor living
(09:21):
today. Doctor Gallagher is also a
member of the International Association of Exorcists and has
been a featured speaker at the Exorcism School in Rome that
meets annually. You are correct that Doctor
Gallagher sees a clear distinction between mental
(09:44):
health disorders and demonic possession or demonic
oppression, and he lists some other things like obsessions and
things like that to clarify. He would not deny that those
that are being harassed by demons are often experiencing
symptoms that may be impacting their mental health.
(10:08):
He For instance, a person who isdemonically possessed is likely
to be hearing voices. A person with schizophrenia is
also likely to be hearing voices, though they experience
those voices in in distinct waysfrom each other.
People that claim that those that people, people that claim
(10:31):
that there's no difference between the experience of
schizophrenics and the experience of possessed persons,
in my experience, typically don't have a very good
understanding of either condition, just to be honest
with you. Because there are, there are
clear, there are clear distinctions, as Gallagher
himself points out. Now, Doctor Gallagher has been
(10:53):
known to quit when receiving pushback from some of his
colleagues that these possessed individuals whom he has worked
with are simply experiencing some type of mental health
disorder. He has been known to respond
well. I have yet to see a case of
schizophrenia or a social identity disorder 'cause someone
(11:14):
to levitate or speak a language that they hadn't learned.
But I can document many first hand accounts that are credible
of individual of cases where this has happened, right?
I think that's a rather profoundreflection with just enough
(11:35):
snarkiness to have my full appreciation right?
So yes, while he doesn't deny that demonization can cause
psychiatric symptoms, he draws avery clear distinction between
the two conditions. Unlike in our last episode, we
(11:55):
talked about Doctor Dennis Bull who recommends exorcistic
techniques for those who suffer with the possession form of the
social of identity disorder and has observed as a clinician that
that can be very effective without regard to whether you as
(12:17):
the person helping them truly believe they have a demon or
not. Now that's, that's intriguing.
That's not what Gallagher's talking about.
Gallagher is is discussing caseswhere there are clear
preternatural, or some would sayparanormal signs.
You know, you and I have spent alot of time discussing kind of
(12:39):
what we hope that listeners takeaway from this podcast.
And what we're hoping is that you don't come away with an
understanding that all demonization is purely
psychological. We're also hoping that you don't
come away with the idea that everything is purely demonic.
It all lies somewhere in between.
(12:59):
Doctor Gallagher says that there's a spectrum even within
possession. There's a spectrum of
possession. So that's kind of what I think
we're getting at. There's a spectrum to these
things. So maybe on the far end of the
spectrum someone is purely demonpossessed and there's nothing
else going on. On the other side of the
spectrum, there may be someone who's purely experiencing
(13:21):
psychological symptoms and nothing else is going on.
But what we're really trying to get at is those in between
cases. Sure.
And by the way, I am an ordainedsymbols of God minister and our
our fellowship has a position paper that you can access
through our website www.ag.org. You click on position papers and
(13:44):
go look for it. This papers titled spiritual
warfare and the believer and it acknowledges the same thing that
there is a spectrum of demonic activity that is witnessed that
may include oppression or possession or or or a variety of
other things. So this is widely recognized
among deliverance ministers among within, within our own
(14:07):
fellowship. And as as Doctor Gallagher says
there, there is a spectrum of, of influenced activity.
So we we don't want to overly reduce it to, to anything.
Now I'm going to say this and Doctor Gallagher gives the
account of a satanic high priestess whom he worked with
(14:27):
named Julia. That was possessed in every
sense of that word. In fact, Doctor Gallagher not
only wrote about this in his book Demonic Foes, he also
published A peer reviewed article that I referenced back
when I was doing my own doctoralwork, in which he lays out the
(14:51):
the details of of her case and Julia was experiencing a variety
of things down to she could see things that were happening in
locations where she wasn't there.
In a somewhat unusual story, shesends some cats to his house to
terrorize his house and asks himthe next day, how'd you enjoy
(15:12):
those cats when she had no ability to even know where he
lived. Phenomena of levitation was
observed. There's, there's all kinds of
things that were seen in Julia'scase that from his vantage point
were purely preternatural in, in, in nature.
In fact, I heard in a recent interview with the good doctor
(15:34):
that he said Hollywood is currently working on a movie
about about Julia. And I'm certain that they will
give it all the typical Hollywood flair, carefully
removing any references to the authority of Jesus Christ from
that as it goes. Nonetheless, we bring him up
(15:54):
because I want our listeners to understand that these aren't
just things that Christians thatdon't understand psychological
conditions are assigning a certain type of value to.
This is these are conversations that some of the world's leading
mental health experts, psychiatrists are talking about
(16:19):
and that's very important for usto know.
So let's let's take a second. Let's anchor this in some
biblical perspective. OK, so we're looking at Mark
Chapter 9 and Mark Chapter 9 andverse 17.
It says in one of the multitude answered and said, master, I
brought him to you, my son who has a mute spirit.
(16:40):
King James Version says a dumb spirit.
In other words, he had a demon that was rendering him incapable
of talking. Now, the second Timothy, I want
you to explain to us what this would be if we were going fully
from a mental health perspective.
But let's read the story first, verse 18.
And wheresoever he takes him, hetears him, and he foams and
(17:01):
gnashes with his teeth. He Pines away, or in other
words, he becomes rigid. And I spoke to your disciples
that they should cast him out, and they could not.
He answered them, and saith, O faithless generation, how long
shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer?
You bring him unto me. And they brought him unto him.
(17:24):
And when he saw him, straightwaythe Spirit tear him, and he fell
on the ground and wallowed, foaming.
And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came
unto him? And he said of a child.
And oftentimes it has cast him into the fire and into the
(17:45):
waters to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have
compassion on us and help us. Jesus said unto him, If you can
believe, all things are possibleto him that believes.
Straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with
tears, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
(18:10):
When Jesus saw the people came running together, he rebuked the
foul spirit, saying unto him, You mute and deaf spirit, I
charge you, come out of him, andenter no more into him.
And the Spirit cried and rent him sorely, and came out of him,
and he was as one dead, in so much that many said, He is dead.
(18:33):
But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose,
and when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him
privately, why could not we casthim out?
Verse 29 And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by
nothing, but by prayer and fasting.
(18:54):
So when we read this account, you see a lot of things.
First of all, he can't speak, but there's no indication that
anything's wrong with his vocal cords.
He can't hear, but there's no indication that there's anything
wrong with his ears. Not only that, but when this
(19:15):
demon begins manifesting, this young man becomes.
His body becomes stiff and rigid.
He's foaming at the mouth. His father mentions that he's
fallen into the fire, into the water, or more quite literally
that this demon has thrown him into the fire or into the water
(19:37):
and the disciples have been unable to offer help.
And when Jesus cast the demon out of him, the boy falls down
and appears to be dead. Not only that but it says when
he commanded to come out it, it tore him.
In other words, if you ever seena demon go out and you
understand what the language means literally, this young man
(19:58):
falls to the ground screaming inpain and then it looks like he's
dead. So much so that some of the
people standing there said. He's dead, right?
So you can see elements. If we're trying to go from a
natural perspective, he's deaf, he can't speak.
You see elements of dissociation.
He's falling on the ground, he'snot there, he's not coherent.
(20:19):
You see other another voice speaking out of him in this
sense, even though it's not saying words.
He's crying out in agony and yousee that his body is being
physically flung in a variety ofdirections.
Now, Timothy, you are a psychology student planning to
(20:39):
practice as a therapist someday.If somebody comes to you and
they tell you my son can't speakand can't hear, but the doctor
says there's no biological reasons why he can't speak and
hear. What might be an assumption we
(21:00):
would make the DSM 5 details? A type of or like a set of
disorders that it called it called somatic symptom
disorders, one of those being conversion disorder.
And while there's a few different diagnostic criteria
for that, basically what conversion disorder is, is it is
(21:21):
basically saying there are some kind of physical symptoms that
have no natural explanation. So somebody might be
experiencing in this case, blindness or deafness or
mutinous, but there's no explanation for it.
They're having seizures, but there's no, there's no
physiological explanation there.So that would be probably
(21:45):
diagnosed from, you know, psychological perspective as
conversion disorder where they say, you know, your son is
experiencing these set of symptoms, but you know, these an
epilepsy test comes back negative, right?
He, you know, there's nothing wrong with his ears, there's
nothing wrong with his eyes. So it must be some kind of
(22:05):
conversion disorder, purely psychologically speaking.
So, and that's, that's interesting.
And so these terms like conversion disorder, they get
thrown around and, and for people that don't have a
background to understand what we're talking about, we might
assume some things. Now, let me let me say clearly.
And Doctor Gallagher makes it very clear from his perspective
(22:25):
that conversion disorders that are purely psychiatric in nature
do exist. And, and I'm, I'm not going to
doubt that that is the case. However, hear me out here.
If you don't believe in demons and you're looking for a natural
cause only, that's what you're going to end up with.
Gallagher does recognize the reality spiritual warfare.
(22:49):
But what I'm saying is this, anytime that a physical
condition is caused by somethingthat is not physical, under the
right circumstances it could be identified as a type of
conversion disorder. Why do I bring that up?
Because through what's called retrospective analysis, where
people go back and read these old texts trying to apply modern
(23:12):
research to them, there are people who practice that, that
look at this and say, here is a clear case of conversion
disorder, which is why Jesus wasable to heal him, because Jesus
was the original psychotherapistand, and all of these things.
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And, and what they're really saying, even though it sounds
like a big compliment to Jesus, I mean, it sounds like, hey,
yes, Jesus Christ was amazing. He knew how to cure mental
health disorders before modern we, we knew the things that we
know about mental health disorders today.
That sounds awesome. There's a real problem with the
(23:53):
claim though is we are implicitly if not explicitly
charging Jesus was systematically deceiving
everybody he spoke to because atno moment did he disagree with
their established worldview. In fact, it's very clear if you
(24:13):
read the Gospel of Mark that Jesus believed he was dealing
with actual intelligent demonic entities and those writing about
the accounts believed it. Also, a few episodes back we
talked about Mark chapter 5 where the demons leave the man
with the Legion, go into the pigs and drive the pigs to their
(24:35):
death. You're going to be tough for a
conversion disorder to pull thatone off.
Suddenly the pigs have conversion disorder, right?
To be clear, I'm not denying these disorders exist.
What I'm saying is this I have seen with my eyes in real life,
people who were under demonic attack lose the ability to speak
temporarily. I've seen not long term, as in
(24:59):
the case of this boy, but I've seen through my eyewitness
experience. I've seen people lose the
ability to hear while under demonic attack.
I've seen people experience pains so severe that it was
terrifying that anybody watchingthat would have been deemed
(25:22):
valid reasons to seek medical intervention.
Although epilepsy is a medical condition and it is an error to
say that epilepsy itself is demonic in nature, I have seen
people who were experiencing A demonic manifestation that had
(25:42):
epileptic type symptoms on many,many occasions.
I've witnessed this, and I've seen people cured of all of
those things when demons were driven out of them.
So it's important to observe that from the world view of the
Bible, this young man had exactly what they said we could
(26:04):
call the conversion disorder. I'm not arguing with with the
DSM. We we value these types of of
insights. Nor am I saying every conversion
disorder is demonic. What I am saying is that if a
demon took someone's ability to speak and hear, that would
likely be called a conversion disorder in our modern culture.
Is that a fair assessment? I think, I think so.
(26:25):
And I mean, the issue with this kind of retrospective analysis
is you try to now this isn't howpeople think about it, but like
you said, you're discrediting the validity of the scripture.
And you have to interpret scripture through the lens of
that worldview of the scripturalworldview.
(26:47):
Otherwise you risk altering the meaning of the text.
And it's kind of arrogant to believe that you can know better
than the people who were actually living this out right.
It's it's arrogant to believe that you can look back and have
a better understanding of what'sgoing on than the people who
were actually there did. Because we tend to think in the
(27:08):
modern day that we are smarter than these people who live 2000
years ago, just because we have access to a wider array of
research and, and, and maybe we are smarter, but we don't really
know that what we're thinking isright because we can't go back
and actually evaluate these things.
We just have the stories. You're exactly right, and even
(27:30):
believers in Jesus Christ are often guilty of this type of
intellectual arrogance. And what I mean by that, and I
know that sounds like a pretty strong charge, but I've read
entire books that are devoted bybelievers in Jesus Christ who
worship Him every day. I've read, I've read entire
books who absolutely believe that we should quote UN quote,
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demystify or demythologize the Scripture and just recognize
that this was nothing other thana mental health disorder.
And that's all well and good, except Jesus said it was.
It was something else. And if you're going to evaluate
the Scripture like that, then you've got to evaluate the whole
Scripture like that. You can't just pick demons and
(28:15):
call them psychological disorders.
Maybe you need to pick Moses's account of the burning Bush and
call that a psychological disorder, you know?
And so there's the problem is like it went where does it stop?
Where do you decide the line is at?
This is exactly right. And so Francis Mcnutt, who is a
charismatic Catholic exorcist, said it like this.
(28:38):
He said we cannot read the Gospel of Mark and claim that
the the Numa Hagion, the Holy Spirit, is real, but
psychologize the language of Numa akatharta and unclean
(29:02):
spirit. To do so is to RIP apart the
fabric of Mark's account. It is to try to retrospectively
claim that we are personally, weare individually uniquely gifted
to know when Jesus was being literal and when Jesus was being
(29:23):
metaphorical, even when the language gives no indication
that such a distinction has occurred.
And not only is this does this apply to believers, but it's
increasingly popular among non Christians to brag on Jesus
(29:44):
while disregarding his actual claims.
Oh yeah, I believe in Jesus. He was a great teacher, he was a
great therapist, he was a great healer.
Was he the son of God? Absolutely not.
Did your eyes from the dead? No.
Was he the only way to salvation?
Of course not. But here's the thing, to quote
CS Lewis. CS Lewis said Jesus is one of
three people. He's either a liar or a lunatic
(30:06):
or he's the Lord, right? Because Jesus said I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father
except by me. That's an exclusive claim.
He's either telling the truth orhe's not.
If he's lying, then we shouldn't, we shouldn't hold
liars in high regard. Or if he's mentally ill and he
believed that he was the son of God who came down from heaven,
(30:27):
was born of a virgin. If that didn't happen, probably
shouldn't pay a lot of attentionto him.
There is also the possibility it's the one that I embrace that
he is the Lord from heaven, thathe is the Son of God, born of a
virgin, lived a sinless life, cast out demons, raised the
dead, made the deaf hear the blind to see, died on an old
(30:48):
rugged cross to take away our sins, and was raised from the
dead by the glory of God the Father at whose right hand he
sits making intercession. Now if I've lost you, I
apologize that's taken this manyepisodes for you to figure out
that I actually do believe that the God of the Bible is truly
(31:08):
worthy of worship. You know what else throughout
history? Christians.
One of the things Christians were historically known for was
their unbelievable gift for curing demoniacs.
In fact, Justin Martyr riding inthe 100's AD pretty Hacked Off
(31:29):
that the Roman Empire kept on killing Christians, writes in in
one of his apologies. He he makes the claim that it is
well known like he he writes it as a matter of public knowledge
that Christians are gifted exorcists and go so far as to
challenge the Roman authorities of his day to please bring a
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possessed individual down in front of everybody who claims to
be inhabited by one of the Greekor Roman gods.
And let any Christian of his choosing go and challenge that
demon. And he said it will declare
right there in front of everybody that it is no God, but
it is a demon and it fears divine judgement.
(32:17):
Justin Martyr made the bold claim that any believer could be
capable at exposing demonic liesand driving out demons and that
it was widely known in his day. So here's the thing, a lot of
this conversation, this podcast,the Deliverance Dialogues, is
(32:37):
rooted in what might be called therapeutic exorcism.
That is the belief that biblicalprinciples and the power of the
name of Jesus could be applied to bring relief to those that
are suffering and in many cases are incurable.
(32:59):
And I believe that's a that's a conversation we need to be
having is that there are people like the young man in Mark 9,
when this is over, that young man could hear and he could
speak and he could go home with his dad.
You know what you see in that dad in Mark Chapter 9?
He just wanted help for his son.Jesus asked him, do you believe?
(33:21):
And he cries out, he's breaking down.
I believe help my unbelief. There are a lot of people just
like that dad that are literallybegging.
Is there somebody that can help me?
I would do anything if someone can help me.
And I think maybe it's time we stopped fighting back and forth
(33:41):
about well, you believe this andand and I believe this and maybe
we return to some to the biblical Jesus who came so that
people could find find healing and freedom.
Jesus said the thief comes not but to steal, kill and destroy.
I've come that you might have life that more abundantly.
(34:03):
With all respect to the dear doctor Gather, whom I believe
rightly wears the title of the foremost medical expert in the
world on possession states, I believe that's validly given
time. In fact, I'd love to have him on
here to interview and talk to ussomeday.
That'd be amazing. I do find him in my experience,
(34:26):
I'm not a medical doctor. I do find that there is often
some overlap among these conditions.
That is, you do see those that may present as mentally ill that
are also being harassed spiritually.
And you do see those who experience spiritual liberation,
(34:46):
who may continue to, in some cases endure some type of mental
health symptoms. And there's an interplay in that
that is observable. And I don't think that we should
assume, for instance, that because someone is physically or
mentally ill that they are immune from spiritual
(35:06):
affliction. Nor should we assume that if
someone is spiritually afflictedthat they have a physical or or
a psychological illness. With that said, it is absolutely
observable that there are peoplein this world right now.
I live in Johnson County, Arkansas.
There are people in Johnson County, Arkansas right now that
(35:26):
are being tormented in their spirits, their minds, and their
bodies. Much like this young man in Mark
9, he is experiencing torment onall three levels.
His issue is demonic, but it's absolutely affecting his
physical body. His issue is demonic, but it's
absolutely affecting his mental health.
(35:47):
But what he needed was spiritualdeliverance.
There's no signs that this youngman in Mark 9 needed therapy or
a doctor. He needed those demons cast out
and he needed to be whole in Jesus name.
There are still people sufferingfrom this kind of affliction.
So Timothy, when we started our episode today, I started telling
(36:09):
the story about these three young women who reached out for
help. They were up praying and they
called a number of times throughthe course of the night.
My wife and I prayed with them. They were up till like 5:00 AM.
And the one who had just went tothe revival was actively trying
(36:31):
to cast the demons out of one ofthese other young ladies in
particular. And so they ended up with, after
a little bit, two of them were very strongly praying and
engaged in spiritual warfare. And the third one may have been
to, to some extent, they were seeing things moving around the
house. In fact, the one who lived
(36:51):
there, the the one whose house, it was said for quite some time
she had seen things that just looked like shadows that would
quickly move. And she just played off her mind
playing tricks on her or whatever like that.
But on this particular night, there were bite marks, there
were scratch marks, there were bruises that were showing up,
scratches and bite marks showingup on one of the young women,
(37:12):
and bruises spontaneously appearing on one of the other
young women. And so about 5:00 in the
morning, they called again and Isaid, look, you got to get some
rest. We can't, we can't meet right
now. So I prayed for God to give them
some peace and let them fall asleep, which he graciously did.
And they went to sleep right away.
(37:32):
The next day, late that afternoon, they called and said
we're really not OK. Can we come by Timothy?
What I saw that day, I've only witnessed a very limited number
of times there. So these three young women all
come over from me and your mom to pray with them.
And I don't know if you rememberthis or not.
(37:53):
OK. So you can't see him nodding his
head, but he's nodding his head.Yeah.
He remember this. I would expect that it would
leave a profound, pretty, prettymemorable, right?
In fact, I reached out to two ofthese young women.
It's been about 8 years ago. I reached out to these young
women in the last couple of daysand asked, hey, do you remember
this? And, and interestingly enough,
very vivid memory for, for each of them.
(38:14):
So we start praying for them. So they're sitting in my house
and all is well. And then all the sudden, out of
the blue, all three of these young women spontaneously begin
vomiting at the same time in my house.
Now, lest you think that I always interpret everything as
spiritual, I'm just going to saynothing prepared me to respond
(38:42):
the right way to three young women suddenly puking in my
house. And I'm standing there kind of
taken back by what's happening here.
This is not a real glamorous pastoral moment.
OK? We start praying and suddenly
these this, this spirit, or these spirits if you will, it
(39:05):
starts attacking one of them after another.
And so you'd see one of them convulsing on the floor and
screaming in agony with visible signs and things taking place.
And we would command it to stop and to leave in the name of
Jesus. And as soon as it did, another
(39:28):
one of them would start. And it cycles back and forth in
this manner among these three young women.
Maybe you're listening. You're like, I don't believe
that. In all kindness, I was there,
right? This is not about faith.
This is not even about interpretation.
(39:49):
I'm just telling you what I saw.You can assign whatever meaning
to that you choose to, but I'm watching as we would pray and
command these demons to leave one of these girls and as soon
as they would get relieved, it would go to another one.
This goes on for let's say half an hour or so.
I was very disoriented by all ofit.
I'm not going to claim that I handled all this in in the exact
(40:12):
way it should have been handled,because I had no training.
To prepare me for how to deal with three individuals
manifesting demons, taking turnsthrowing up in my living room.
They've got bite marks, they've got scratches, they've got
bruises appearing. They're talking in other voices.
There's all this stuff going on.And so finally we, we gather
(40:35):
everybody together and we lead them through together
collectively, a prayer of repentance and renunciation.
And we take we, we exercise the authority of the name of Jesus
over these spirits, commanding them to go and thank God they
went. Now none of these young women
(40:55):
were mentally ill. None of them were physically
I'll what they were experiencingwere very real, observable
symptoms that were distressing, that were impacting their life
dramatically, causing them to inflict physical harm even
(41:20):
during the sessions of myself trying to bash their heads
against the floor, things like this.
But it had a spiritual root and it had a spiritual cure.
And two out of three of these young women, I, I still know
personally today, Timothy has that you'd have been a child
back then, but you also have relationship with them.
(41:44):
And what's your perspective on all this?
So help me unpack this, because what I want our listeners to
understand is, first of all, that the name of Jesus brings
relief and healing, but second, that while there is some
crossover among all these things, there are very real
spiritual demonic attacks. There is spiritual warfare and
(42:04):
we as believers are called to engage for the glory of God and
for the help of humanity. Yeah, so I mean, I remember this
pretty vividly. I mean, I like you said, I was
there. We were we were all kids, you
know, me and me and the the three young women were around
(42:26):
the same age, right? And The thing is, is it's
exactly like you said it would. It would jump from one to
another. But but whenever they're finally
received freedom, all of that seemed to leave at once.
And I'm pretty close to one of these young women still today,
right? And I can tell you that as far
(42:49):
as I'm aware, she's never, at least one of them has never
struggled with that ever again. It's not something that they've
ever battled since. And so at least for one out of
three, and I can't speak for theother two, but there was long
term freedom, you know, for the last eight years.
Wow and. That that never returned, of
(43:10):
course. Of course she never returned to
the lifestyle that led her there.
She didn't be in the beginning. So I mean, part of that I'm sure
is in her hands as well, but. We often want to ask, so you
know what, what led to these types of afflictions?
And sometimes we have clear causes.
(43:31):
Sometimes we don't know in time.You know, we've talked about
some of those in this case on atleast the part of of some a
background of of witchcraft among all of them.
I would say some childhood traumas that that had taken
place there exposure to entertainment that at least is
(43:55):
not ideal in in some cases wherever 1 lands on all of that
fear inducing entertainment. But yet at the same time, you
don't look at any of these threepeople and just you would you
would not have looked at any of them and found them to be
especially evil, especially wicked individuals.
There were normal teenagers, normal, normal teenagers,
(44:16):
church, normal church going teenagers, if I can say that
even. And while I realized that that
statement may challenge people, These are these are the
realities theologically, we haveto wrestle with how we we
understand some of these things.But practically, the fact is
(44:37):
this is that there are people that are desperately in need of
help. And to quote Pablo Buttari, we
have the right answers to the problems of the soul.
So their cure, if you will, included repentance,
renunciation and prayer. It included a lot of things I
(45:02):
should have. For at least, and again, I can't
speak for the other two, but at least for one of those young
women I happen to know, that deliverance was the only
treatment she ever received for this.
She never went to therapy, she never went to a doctor.
It was just just exorcism. Wow.
So we see that that Jesus still heals, which is is phenomenal.
(45:30):
The trouble is, while I am an advocate for the study of
psychology, I am an advocate of good healthcare.
There's a real danger that we create idols out of both of
those and disregard the clear, straightforward teaching of
(45:53):
Scripture in in some places, which sometimes has the
catastrophic effect of leaving certain people suffering from
their conditions. Right.
So one of my passions is to let people know that when it feels
like they've exhausted all the other options for help, thank
(46:15):
God there is still help available for a second step back
from trying to decipher all the insurance and outs of the story.
And just stop and realize that these are human beings.
They're not cases, they're not test subjects.
(46:36):
They're they're human beings whom we know in real life that
have families, that have back stories, that have dreams, but
that were in very real distress,say, well, could there be other
explanations for some of this? Sure.
(46:58):
Some of there could be. Could some of the scratches have
been inflicted subconsciously? Sure.
Could some of the bruises have been inflicted, you know,
subconscious when a person wasn't realizing it?
Sure, some of them couldn't. As long as we accept the claims
of those that are eyewitnesses, right?
(47:19):
And when we begin to disregard eyewitness testimony just
because it doesn't make sense tous, we got to understand that we
are at that point setting aside the way that we've known things
happen throughout most of human history, right?
So we we got to look and say, OK, how do we see all this and
how do we approach it? I love what Ephesians chapter 6
(47:43):
says and I want to I want to leave us with a couple thoughts
here. Ephesians chapter 6 verse 10
says, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the
power of his might. Put on the whole armor of the
armor of God that you may be able to stand against the Wiles
of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, against principalities, against powers,
(48:05):
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places.
I kid you not. I was listening to a preacher
the other day who was railing against deliverance ministry.
And he said, and I quote, the Bible tells us that we're not
wrestling against demons. We're wrestling against people.
Well, I just want to read the Scripture again real quick in
case anybody missed it. Let's just start over.
(48:26):
Verse 12. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places.
What do we do then? Verse 13 Wherefore take unto you
the whole armor of God, that youmay be able to withstand in the
(48:47):
evil day, having done all to stand.
Stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth,
having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet
shod with the preparation of thegospel of peace, above all
taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to
quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and take the helmet
of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of
(49:11):
God. Praying always with all prayer
and supplication in the Spirit, and watching there unto with all
perseverance and supplication for All Saints.
The historic Church understood that we were in a battle against
evil. In fact, we read from very early
(49:33):
on in the Christian movement that when people were baptized,
baptismal vows that included renouncing the devil were part
of that. In some parts of the church
world, that's still the case today.
I'm reading here from the Book of Common Prayer, the 2019
version, which is the the prayerguide for Anglicans worldwide.
(49:55):
And in this renewal of baptismalvows in this, in this version,
the people are asked, do you here in the presence of God in
the church, renew the solemn promises and vows made at your
baptism and commit yourself to keep them?
The people respond, I do. The celebrant asks, do you
(50:15):
renounce the devil and all the spiritual forces of wickedness
that rebel against God? The people respond.
I renounce them. The celebrant asks, Do you
renounce the empty promises and deadly deceits of this world
that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
The people respond, I renounce them.
The celebrant asks, Do you renounce the sinful desires of
(50:38):
the flesh that draw you from thelove of God?
The people respond, I renounce them.
Do you turn to Jesus Christ and confess him as Lord and Savior?
I do. Do you joyfully receive the
Christian faith as revealed in the Holy Scriptures of the Old
and New Testament? I do.
The question is asked, will you obediently keep God's holy will
(50:59):
and commandments and walk in them all the days of your life?
And the people respond, I will. The Lord be my helper.
I think we would do well to onceagain renounce the devil in the
powers of darkness and affirm our absolute allegiance to the
(51:20):
Lord Jesus Christ, realizing that sometimes he's not just one
cure. Sometimes he's the only cure,
sometimes he's the only help. If there's healing through the
name of Jesus, then maybe real demythologizing and real
(51:46):
demystifying is doing away with the ludicrous claims of those
that are trying to read things into the Bible to subject it to
a modern lens and instead hear the words of Jesus Christ
afresh. Perhaps it's time that we again
(52:06):
read the words of first John chapter 3, verse 8, the
second-half of the verse, through the lens of faith which
declares for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that
he might destroy the works of the devil.
It was the middle of the night when my phone rang, and on the
other end of the line I heard a frantic young woman from our
church asking me to please pray.I asked her to calm down and
tell me what was going on. I mean, after all, I'd only seen
her a matter of hours before. Our local church was in revival
(00:30):
and she'd been in attendance at the service that night and had
had a truly powerful encounter with God.
But now, as she's trying to talkto me, I can hear her friends
screaming in terror in the background.
I begin to ask her to please calm down and explain to me what
(00:53):
was happening. And when I did, she began to say
I came to my friend's house after the service, and me and
another friend were both spending the night there
tonight. And when I came in, one of them
started panicking, saying that she could see Ravens and all
(01:19):
these other things. And in the next few minutes, I
began praying for her, and bite Marks and scratches started
spontaneously appearing on her body.
And something flung her to the ground.
And I don't know what to do. Please help me.
(01:41):
I'm Doctor Robbie Willis. This is the Deliverance
Dialogues. Stories like this may sound like
something from a science fictionnovel or maybe even a cheap
horror novel, but in reality, these were three young women
(02:05):
that I knew quite well. Two of them had frequently been
in my and my wife's home for dinner, and all of them were
attending our church at the time.
And while I knew that they had all been been dealing with
different things in their life, I really wasn't expecting a call
(02:28):
like this. Now, the young lady who made the
call who had been at church thatnight, had previously been
involved in witchcraft and a variety of other things and had
sought spiritual deliverance. When she first came to Christ,
she underwent pretty significant, pretty significant
(02:52):
deliverance ministry, which was why she was able to recognize in
part what was going on when she came into her friend's house and
saw their mutual friend in distress.
As I began to inquire about whatled to this moment, they
explained to me, well, while theone young woman was at revival,
(03:14):
the other two had watched a horror movie, I think Child's
Play, Chucky, whatever that old 90s horror film is, 80s,
nineties, whatever the era was. And so I mean, they, they had
some natural reasons to be a little bit spooked, which
naturally leaves you wondering, OK, what of this is demonic?
(03:38):
What part of it is some young women who have just gotten
themselves worked up about thinking that they see things in
the house or whatever is going on, and the immediate question
always is how am I going to assess this?
How do I get to the bottom of what's actually happening?
(03:59):
We're going to unpack this storysome more as the episode goes
on. We're also going to be looking
some at from the word of God in Mark Chapter 9 and we're going
to discuss the findings of a psychiatrist for whom I have a
great deal of confidence. I'm here to join with my Co
host, Timothy Willis. Timothy, as we're opening this
(04:23):
conversation, Today's conversation is a little bit
different. So in our last episode we talked
about dissociative identity disorder and specifically the
possession form of that, which may be understood purely as a
mental health condition or from a spiritual perspective, it may
(04:45):
be understood as some type of demonic oppression or in some
cases possession. It it can be interpreted as
that. But in our last episode we
talked about really the need foran integrated approach to this
kind of healing. And I stand behind that.
(05:05):
And I, I believe that the episode before that, we talked
about bipolar disorder and we shared the story of a young
woman named Jesse who had dealt with both mental health symptoms
and spiritual oppression. But today I want to narrow our
conversation a bit more because I'm concerned that our listeners
(05:29):
may wrongly believe that we are simply saying that demonic
attacks are simply a spiritual explanation for a biological or
psychological condition. And although I am a fan of an
integrated approach to healing, I want to be very clear that
(05:54):
from a biblical perspective, demons are real, and the Bible
clearly portrays them as intelligent entities with a
malicious plan for the destruction of mankind.
They are opposed to the plan of God, to the plan of redemption,
(06:20):
and they themselves live and exist under divine judgment.
Now, whether you believe that ornot, understand this is the
perspective of the New Testamentand is what has been believed by
people throughout Christian history.
(06:42):
And not only that, but ideas about the supernatural far
precede the Christian movement itself.
They go back to the early to theearliest writings that we have
as humans. So what do we do with all of
that? And if demons are real, and if
(07:05):
the supernatural is real, how does 1 differentiate between
what is truly spiritual and whatmay be better understood from a
psychological or biological perspective?
Timothy, what do you think? Up until now, we've really been
talking about, like you said, anintegrated approach where our
(07:29):
perspective is kind of that we're taking psychological, like
psychological techniques and practices as well as spiritual
practices and kind of merging the two as we talk about
demonization. Doctor Richard Gallagher kind of
takes a a different approach. His approach is more black and
(07:51):
white. The book you've been having you
read is called Demonic Foes in that in his in chapter 4, Doctor
Gallagher really breaks down notexactly diagnostic criteria for
demon possession, but what you will typically see in demon
possession. And that includes, you know,
spirits acting belligerently, severe aversion to sacred
(08:13):
objects, as well as like, lots of preternatural elements, as
we've discussed before, where Doctor Gallagher really kind of
deviates from where we've been talking about.
But I think his perspective is, is is important.
Correct me if I'm wrong. He does not really seem to think
that there is much interplay between psychological disorders
(08:36):
and demonization. He kind of applies, you know,
either this is possession or this is psychological.
There's not a lot of in between for Gallagher.
Sure. So, so Gallagher.
And by the way, we've mentioned Doctor Gallagher before, but
just for a quick explanation forour listeners of who he is and
why his voice matters. Doctor Richard Gallagher is a
(08:58):
Harvard educated psychiatrist and is the foremost medical
expert in the world on possession states.
To say it another way, he has evaluated more cases of
purported demonic possession than any medical doctor living
(09:21):
today. Doctor Gallagher is also a
member of the International Association of Exorcists and has
been a featured speaker at the Exorcism School in Rome that
meets annually. You are correct that Doctor
Gallagher sees a clear distinction between mental
(09:44):
health disorders and demonic possession or demonic
oppression, and he lists some other things like obsessions and
things like that to clarify. He would not deny that those
that are being harassed by demons are often experiencing
symptoms that may be impacting their mental health.
(10:08):
He For instance, a person who isdemonically possessed is likely
to be hearing voices. A person with schizophrenia is
also likely to be hearing voices, though they experience
those voices in in distinct waysfrom each other.
People that claim that those that people, people that claim
(10:31):
that there's no difference between the experience of
schizophrenics and the experience of possessed persons,
in my experience, typically don't have a very good
understanding of either condition, just to be honest
with you. Because there are, there are
clear, there are clear distinctions, as Gallagher
himself points out. Now, Doctor Gallagher has been
(10:53):
known to quit when receiving pushback from some of his
colleagues that these possessed individuals whom he has worked
with are simply experiencing some type of mental health
disorder. He has been known to respond
well. I have yet to see a case of
schizophrenia or a social identity disorder 'cause someone
(11:14):
to levitate or speak a language that they hadn't learned.
But I can document many first hand accounts that are credible
of individual of cases where this has happened, right?
I think that's a rather profoundreflection with just enough
(11:35):
snarkiness to have my full appreciation right?
So yes, while he doesn't deny that demonization can cause
psychiatric symptoms, he draws avery clear distinction between
the two conditions. Unlike in our last episode, we
(11:55):
talked about Doctor Dennis Bull who recommends exorcistic
techniques for those who suffer with the possession form of the
social of identity disorder and has observed as a clinician that
that can be very effective without regard to whether you as
(12:17):
the person helping them truly believe they have a demon or
not. Now that's, that's intriguing.
That's not what Gallagher's talking about.
Gallagher is is discussing caseswhere there are clear
preternatural, or some would sayparanormal signs.
You know, you and I have spent alot of time discussing kind of
(12:39):
what we hope that listeners takeaway from this podcast.
And what we're hoping is that you don't come away with an
understanding that all demonization is purely
psychological. We're also hoping that you don't
come away with the idea that everything is purely demonic.
It all lies somewhere in between.
(12:59):
Doctor Gallagher says that there's a spectrum even within
possession. There's a spectrum of
possession. So that's kind of what I think
we're getting at. There's a spectrum to these
things. So maybe on the far end of the
spectrum someone is purely demonpossessed and there's nothing
else going on. On the other side of the
spectrum, there may be someone who's purely experiencing
(13:21):
psychological symptoms and nothing else is going on.
But what we're really trying to get at is those in between
cases. Sure.
And by the way, I am an ordainedsymbols of God minister and our
our fellowship has a position paper that you can access
through our website www.ag.org. You click on position papers and
(13:44):
go look for it. This papers titled spiritual
warfare and the believer and it acknowledges the same thing that
there is a spectrum of demonic activity that is witnessed that
may include oppression or possession or or or a variety of
other things. So this is widely recognized
among deliverance ministers among within, within our own
(14:07):
fellowship. And as as Doctor Gallagher says
there, there is a spectrum of, of influenced activity.
So we we don't want to overly reduce it to, to anything.
Now I'm going to say this and Doctor Gallagher gives the
account of a satanic high priestess whom he worked with
(14:27):
named Julia. That was possessed in every
sense of that word. In fact, Doctor Gallagher not
only wrote about this in his book Demonic Foes, he also
published A peer reviewed article that I referenced back
when I was doing my own doctoralwork, in which he lays out the
(14:51):
the details of of her case and Julia was experiencing a variety
of things down to she could see things that were happening in
locations where she wasn't there.
In a somewhat unusual story, shesends some cats to his house to
terrorize his house and asks himthe next day, how'd you enjoy
(15:12):
those cats when she had no ability to even know where he
lived. Phenomena of levitation was
observed. There's, there's all kinds of
things that were seen in Julia'scase that from his vantage point
were purely preternatural in, in, in nature.
In fact, I heard in a recent interview with the good doctor
(15:34):
that he said Hollywood is currently working on a movie
about about Julia. And I'm certain that they will
give it all the typical Hollywood flair, carefully
removing any references to the authority of Jesus Christ from
that as it goes. Nonetheless, we bring him up
(15:54):
because I want our listeners to understand that these aren't
just things that Christians thatdon't understand psychological
conditions are assigning a certain type of value to.
This is these are conversations that some of the world's leading
mental health experts, psychiatrists are talking about
(16:19):
and that's very important for usto know.
So let's let's take a second. Let's anchor this in some
biblical perspective. OK, so we're looking at Mark
Chapter 9 and Mark Chapter 9 andverse 17.
It says in one of the multitude answered and said, master, I
brought him to you, my son who has a mute spirit.
(16:40):
King James Version says a dumb spirit.
In other words, he had a demon that was rendering him incapable
of talking. Now, the second Timothy, I want
you to explain to us what this would be if we were going fully
from a mental health perspective.
But let's read the story first, verse 18.
And wheresoever he takes him, hetears him, and he foams and
(17:01):
gnashes with his teeth. He Pines away, or in other
words, he becomes rigid. And I spoke to your disciples
that they should cast him out, and they could not.
He answered them, and saith, O faithless generation, how long
shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer?
You bring him unto me. And they brought him unto him.
(17:24):
And when he saw him, straightwaythe Spirit tear him, and he fell
on the ground and wallowed, foaming.
And he asked his father, How long is it ago since this came
unto him? And he said of a child.
And oftentimes it has cast him into the fire and into the
(17:45):
waters to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have
compassion on us and help us. Jesus said unto him, If you can
believe, all things are possibleto him that believes.
Straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with
tears, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
(18:10):
When Jesus saw the people came running together, he rebuked the
foul spirit, saying unto him, You mute and deaf spirit, I
charge you, come out of him, andenter no more into him.
And the Spirit cried and rent him sorely, and came out of him,
and he was as one dead, in so much that many said, He is dead.
(18:33):
But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he arose,
and when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him
privately, why could not we casthim out?
Verse 29 And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by
nothing, but by prayer and fasting.
(18:54):
So when we read this account, you see a lot of things.
First of all, he can't speak, but there's no indication that
anything's wrong with his vocal cords.
He can't hear, but there's no indication that there's anything
wrong with his ears. Not only that, but when this
(19:15):
demon begins manifesting, this young man becomes.
His body becomes stiff and rigid.
He's foaming at the mouth. His father mentions that he's
fallen into the fire, into the water, or more quite literally
that this demon has thrown him into the fire or into the water
(19:37):
and the disciples have been unable to offer help.
And when Jesus cast the demon out of him, the boy falls down
and appears to be dead. Not only that but it says when
he commanded to come out it, it tore him.
In other words, if you ever seena demon go out and you
understand what the language means literally, this young man
(19:58):
falls to the ground screaming inpain and then it looks like he's
dead. So much so that some of the
people standing there said. He's dead, right?
So you can see elements. If we're trying to go from a
natural perspective, he's deaf, he can't speak.
You see elements of dissociation.
He's falling on the ground, he'snot there, he's not coherent.
(20:19):
You see other another voice speaking out of him in this
sense, even though it's not saying words.
He's crying out in agony and yousee that his body is being
physically flung in a variety ofdirections.
Now, Timothy, you are a psychology student planning to
(20:39):
practice as a therapist someday.If somebody comes to you and
they tell you my son can't speakand can't hear, but the doctor
says there's no biological reasons why he can't speak and
hear. What might be an assumption we
(21:00):
would make the DSM 5 details? A type of or like a set of
disorders that it called it called somatic symptom
disorders, one of those being conversion disorder.
And while there's a few different diagnostic criteria
for that, basically what conversion disorder is, is it is
(21:21):
basically saying there are some kind of physical symptoms that
have no natural explanation. So somebody might be
experiencing in this case, blindness or deafness or
mutinous, but there's no explanation for it.
They're having seizures, but there's no, there's no
physiological explanation there.So that would be probably
(21:45):
diagnosed from, you know, psychological perspective as
conversion disorder where they say, you know, your son is
experiencing these set of symptoms, but you know, these an
epilepsy test comes back negative, right?
He, you know, there's nothing wrong with his ears, there's
nothing wrong with his eyes. So it must be some kind of
(22:05):
conversion disorder, purely psychologically speaking.
So, and that's, that's interesting.
And so these terms like conversion disorder, they get
thrown around and, and for people that don't have a
background to understand what we're talking about, we might
assume some things. Now, let me let me say clearly.
And Doctor Gallagher makes it very clear from his perspective
(22:25):
that conversion disorders that are purely psychiatric in nature
do exist. And, and I'm, I'm not going to
doubt that that is the case. However, hear me out here.
If you don't believe in demons and you're looking for a natural
cause only, that's what you're going to end up with.
Gallagher does recognize the reality spiritual warfare.
(22:49):
But what I'm saying is this, anytime that a physical
condition is caused by somethingthat is not physical, under the
right circumstances it could be identified as a type of
conversion disorder. Why do I bring that up?
Because through what's called retrospective analysis, where
people go back and read these old texts trying to apply modern
(23:12):
research to them, there are people who practice that, that
look at this and say, here is a clear case of conversion
disorder, which is why Jesus wasable to heal him, because Jesus
was the original psychotherapistand, and all of these things.
(23:33):
And, and what they're really saying, even though it sounds
like a big compliment to Jesus, I mean, it sounds like, hey,
yes, Jesus Christ was amazing. He knew how to cure mental
health disorders before modern we, we knew the things that we
know about mental health disorders today.
That sounds awesome. There's a real problem with the
(23:53):
claim though is we are implicitly if not explicitly
charging Jesus was systematically deceiving
everybody he spoke to because atno moment did he disagree with
their established worldview. In fact, it's very clear if you
(24:13):
read the Gospel of Mark that Jesus believed he was dealing
with actual intelligent demonic entities and those writing about
the accounts believed it. Also, a few episodes back we
talked about Mark chapter 5 where the demons leave the man
with the Legion, go into the pigs and drive the pigs to their
(24:35):
death. You're going to be tough for a
conversion disorder to pull thatone off.
Suddenly the pigs have conversion disorder, right?
To be clear, I'm not denying these disorders exist.
What I'm saying is this I have seen with my eyes in real life,
people who were under demonic attack lose the ability to speak
temporarily. I've seen not long term, as in
(24:59):
the case of this boy, but I've seen through my eyewitness
experience. I've seen people lose the
ability to hear while under demonic attack.
I've seen people experience pains so severe that it was
terrifying that anybody watchingthat would have been deemed
(25:22):
valid reasons to seek medical intervention.
Although epilepsy is a medical condition and it is an error to
say that epilepsy itself is demonic in nature, I have seen
people who were experiencing A demonic manifestation that had
(25:42):
epileptic type symptoms on many,many occasions.
I've witnessed this, and I've seen people cured of all of
those things when demons were driven out of them.
So it's important to observe that from the world view of the
Bible, this young man had exactly what they said we could
(26:04):
call the conversion disorder. I'm not arguing with with the
DSM. We we value these types of of
insights. Nor am I saying every conversion
disorder is demonic. What I am saying is that if a
demon took someone's ability to speak and hear, that would
likely be called a conversion disorder in our modern culture.
Is that a fair assessment? I think, I think so.
(26:25):
And I mean, the issue with this kind of retrospective analysis
is you try to now this isn't howpeople think about it, but like
you said, you're discrediting the validity of the scripture.
And you have to interpret scripture through the lens of
that worldview of the scripturalworldview.
(26:47):
Otherwise you risk altering the meaning of the text.
And it's kind of arrogant to believe that you can know better
than the people who were actually living this out right.
It's it's arrogant to believe that you can look back and have
a better understanding of what'sgoing on than the people who
were actually there did. Because we tend to think in the
(27:08):
modern day that we are smarter than these people who live 2000
years ago, just because we have access to a wider array of
research and, and, and maybe we are smarter, but we don't really
know that what we're thinking isright because we can't go back
and actually evaluate these things.
We just have the stories. You're exactly right, and even
(27:30):
believers in Jesus Christ are often guilty of this type of
intellectual arrogance. And what I mean by that, and I
know that sounds like a pretty strong charge, but I've read
entire books that are devoted bybelievers in Jesus Christ who
worship Him every day. I've read, I've read entire
books who absolutely believe that we should quote UN quote,
(27:52):
demystify or demythologize the Scripture and just recognize
that this was nothing other thana mental health disorder.
And that's all well and good, except Jesus said it was.
It was something else. And if you're going to evaluate
the Scripture like that, then you've got to evaluate the whole
Scripture like that. You can't just pick demons and
(28:15):
call them psychological disorders.
Maybe you need to pick Moses's account of the burning Bush and
call that a psychological disorder, you know?
And so there's the problem is like it went where does it stop?
Where do you decide the line is at?
This is exactly right. And so Francis Mcnutt, who is a
charismatic Catholic exorcist, said it like this.
(28:38):
He said we cannot read the Gospel of Mark and claim that
the the Numa Hagion, the Holy Spirit, is real, but
psychologize the language of Numa akatharta and unclean
(29:02):
spirit. To do so is to RIP apart the
fabric of Mark's account. It is to try to retrospectively
claim that we are personally, weare individually uniquely gifted
to know when Jesus was being literal and when Jesus was being
(29:23):
metaphorical, even when the language gives no indication
that such a distinction has occurred.
And not only is this does this apply to believers, but it's
increasingly popular among non Christians to brag on Jesus
(29:44):
while disregarding his actual claims.
Oh yeah, I believe in Jesus. He was a great teacher, he was a
great therapist, he was a great healer.
Was he the son of God? Absolutely not.
Did your eyes from the dead? No.
Was he the only way to salvation?
Of course not. But here's the thing, to quote
CS Lewis. CS Lewis said Jesus is one of
three people. He's either a liar or a lunatic
(30:06):
or he's the Lord, right? Because Jesus said I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father
except by me. That's an exclusive claim.
He's either telling the truth orhe's not.
If he's lying, then we shouldn't, we shouldn't hold
liars in high regard. Or if he's mentally ill and he
believed that he was the son of God who came down from heaven,
(30:27):
was born of a virgin. If that didn't happen, probably
shouldn't pay a lot of attentionto him.
There is also the possibility it's the one that I embrace that
he is the Lord from heaven, thathe is the Son of God, born of a
virgin, lived a sinless life, cast out demons, raised the
dead, made the deaf hear the blind to see, died on an old
(30:48):
rugged cross to take away our sins, and was raised from the
dead by the glory of God the Father at whose right hand he
sits making intercession. Now if I've lost you, I
apologize that's taken this manyepisodes for you to figure out
that I actually do believe that the God of the Bible is truly
(31:08):
worthy of worship. You know what else throughout
history? Christians.
One of the things Christians were historically known for was
their unbelievable gift for curing demoniacs.
In fact, Justin Martyr riding inthe 100's AD pretty Hacked Off
(31:29):
that the Roman Empire kept on killing Christians, writes in in
one of his apologies. He he makes the claim that it is
well known like he he writes it as a matter of public knowledge
that Christians are gifted exorcists and go so far as to
challenge the Roman authorities of his day to please bring a
(31:54):
possessed individual down in front of everybody who claims to
be inhabited by one of the Greekor Roman gods.
And let any Christian of his choosing go and challenge that
demon. And he said it will declare
right there in front of everybody that it is no God, but
it is a demon and it fears divine judgement.
(32:17):
Justin Martyr made the bold claim that any believer could be
capable at exposing demonic liesand driving out demons and that
it was widely known in his day. So here's the thing, a lot of
this conversation, this podcast,the Deliverance Dialogues, is
(32:37):
rooted in what might be called therapeutic exorcism.
That is the belief that biblicalprinciples and the power of the
name of Jesus could be applied to bring relief to those that
are suffering and in many cases are incurable.
(32:59):
And I believe that's a that's a conversation we need to be
having is that there are people like the young man in Mark 9,
when this is over, that young man could hear and he could
speak and he could go home with his dad.
You know what you see in that dad in Mark Chapter 9?
He just wanted help for his son.Jesus asked him, do you believe?
(33:21):
And he cries out, he's breaking down.
I believe help my unbelief. There are a lot of people just
like that dad that are literallybegging.
Is there somebody that can help me?
I would do anything if someone can help me.
And I think maybe it's time we stopped fighting back and forth
(33:41):
about well, you believe this andand and I believe this and maybe
we return to some to the biblical Jesus who came so that
people could find find healing and freedom.
Jesus said the thief comes not but to steal, kill and destroy.
I've come that you might have life that more abundantly.
(34:03):
With all respect to the dear doctor Gather, whom I believe
rightly wears the title of the foremost medical expert in the
world on possession states, I believe that's validly given
time. In fact, I'd love to have him on
here to interview and talk to ussomeday.
That'd be amazing. I do find him in my experience,
(34:26):
I'm not a medical doctor. I do find that there is often
some overlap among these conditions.
That is, you do see those that may present as mentally ill that
are also being harassed spiritually.
And you do see those who experience spiritual liberation,
(34:46):
who may continue to, in some cases endure some type of mental
health symptoms. And there's an interplay in that
that is observable. And I don't think that we should
assume, for instance, that because someone is physically or
mentally ill that they are immune from spiritual
(35:06):
affliction. Nor should we assume that if
someone is spiritually afflictedthat they have a physical or or
a psychological illness. With that said, it is absolutely
observable that there are peoplein this world right now.
I live in Johnson County, Arkansas.
There are people in Johnson County, Arkansas right now that
(35:26):
are being tormented in their spirits, their minds, and their
bodies. Much like this young man in Mark
9, he is experiencing torment onall three levels.
His issue is demonic, but it's absolutely affecting his
physical body. His issue is demonic, but it's
absolutely affecting his mental health.
(35:47):
But what he needed was spiritualdeliverance.
There's no signs that this youngman in Mark 9 needed therapy or
a doctor. He needed those demons cast out
and he needed to be whole in Jesus name.
There are still people sufferingfrom this kind of affliction.
So Timothy, when we started our episode today, I started telling
(36:09):
the story about these three young women who reached out for
help. They were up praying and they
called a number of times throughthe course of the night.
My wife and I prayed with them. They were up till like 5:00 AM.
And the one who had just went tothe revival was actively trying
(36:31):
to cast the demons out of one ofthese other young ladies in
particular. And so they ended up with, after
a little bit, two of them were very strongly praying and
engaged in spiritual warfare. And the third one may have been
to, to some extent, they were seeing things moving around the
house. In fact, the one who lived
(36:51):
there, the the one whose house, it was said for quite some time
she had seen things that just looked like shadows that would
quickly move. And she just played off her mind
playing tricks on her or whatever like that.
But on this particular night, there were bite marks, there
were scratch marks, there were bruises that were showing up,
scratches and bite marks showingup on one of the young women,
(37:12):
and bruises spontaneously appearing on one of the other
young women. And so about 5:00 in the
morning, they called again and Isaid, look, you got to get some
rest. We can't, we can't meet right
now. So I prayed for God to give them
some peace and let them fall asleep, which he graciously did.
And they went to sleep right away.
(37:32):
The next day, late that afternoon, they called and said
we're really not OK. Can we come by Timothy?
What I saw that day, I've only witnessed a very limited number
of times there. So these three young women all
come over from me and your mom to pray with them.
And I don't know if you rememberthis or not.
(37:53):
OK. So you can't see him nodding his
head, but he's nodding his head.Yeah.
He remember this. I would expect that it would
leave a profound, pretty, prettymemorable, right?
In fact, I reached out to two ofthese young women.
It's been about 8 years ago. I reached out to these young
women in the last couple of daysand asked, hey, do you remember
this? And, and interestingly enough,
very vivid memory for, for each of them.
(38:14):
So we start praying for them. So they're sitting in my house
and all is well. And then all the sudden, out of
the blue, all three of these young women spontaneously begin
vomiting at the same time in my house.
Now, lest you think that I always interpret everything as
spiritual, I'm just going to saynothing prepared me to respond
(38:42):
the right way to three young women suddenly puking in my
house. And I'm standing there kind of
taken back by what's happening here.
This is not a real glamorous pastoral moment.
OK? We start praying and suddenly
these this, this spirit, or these spirits if you will, it
(39:05):
starts attacking one of them after another.
And so you'd see one of them convulsing on the floor and
screaming in agony with visible signs and things taking place.
And we would command it to stop and to leave in the name of
Jesus. And as soon as it did, another
(39:28):
one of them would start. And it cycles back and forth in
this manner among these three young women.
Maybe you're listening. You're like, I don't believe
that. In all kindness, I was there,
right? This is not about faith.
This is not even about interpretation.
(39:49):
I'm just telling you what I saw.You can assign whatever meaning
to that you choose to, but I'm watching as we would pray and
command these demons to leave one of these girls and as soon
as they would get relieved, it would go to another one.
This goes on for let's say half an hour or so.
I was very disoriented by all ofit.
I'm not going to claim that I handled all this in in the exact
(40:12):
way it should have been handled,because I had no training.
To prepare me for how to deal with three individuals
manifesting demons, taking turnsthrowing up in my living room.
They've got bite marks, they've got scratches, they've got
bruises appearing. They're talking in other voices.
There's all this stuff going on.And so finally we, we gather
(40:35):
everybody together and we lead them through together
collectively, a prayer of repentance and renunciation.
And we take we, we exercise the authority of the name of Jesus
over these spirits, commanding them to go and thank God they
went. Now none of these young women
(40:55):
were mentally ill. None of them were physically
I'll what they were experiencingwere very real, observable
symptoms that were distressing, that were impacting their life
dramatically, causing them to inflict physical harm even
(41:20):
during the sessions of myself trying to bash their heads
against the floor, things like this.
But it had a spiritual root and it had a spiritual cure.
And two out of three of these young women, I, I still know
personally today, Timothy has that you'd have been a child
back then, but you also have relationship with them.
(41:44):
And what's your perspective on all this?
So help me unpack this, because what I want our listeners to
understand is, first of all, that the name of Jesus brings
relief and healing, but second, that while there is some
crossover among all these things, there are very real
spiritual demonic attacks. There is spiritual warfare and
(42:04):
we as believers are called to engage for the glory of God and
for the help of humanity. Yeah, so I mean, I remember this
pretty vividly. I mean, I like you said, I was
there. We were we were all kids, you
know, me and me and the the three young women were around
(42:26):
the same age, right? And The thing is, is it's
exactly like you said it would. It would jump from one to
another. But but whenever they're finally
received freedom, all of that seemed to leave at once.
And I'm pretty close to one of these young women still today,
right? And I can tell you that as far
(42:49):
as I'm aware, she's never, at least one of them has never
struggled with that ever again. It's not something that they've
ever battled since. And so at least for one out of
three, and I can't speak for theother two, but there was long
term freedom, you know, for the last eight years.
Wow and. That that never returned, of
(43:10):
course. Of course she never returned to
the lifestyle that led her there.
She didn't be in the beginning. So I mean, part of that I'm sure
is in her hands as well, but. We often want to ask, so you
know what, what led to these types of afflictions?
And sometimes we have clear causes.
(43:31):
Sometimes we don't know in time.You know, we've talked about
some of those in this case on atleast the part of of some a
background of of witchcraft among all of them.
I would say some childhood traumas that that had taken
place there exposure to entertainment that at least is
(43:55):
not ideal in in some cases wherever 1 lands on all of that
fear inducing entertainment. But yet at the same time, you
don't look at any of these threepeople and just you would you
would not have looked at any of them and found them to be
especially evil, especially wicked individuals.
There were normal teenagers, normal, normal teenagers,
(44:16):
church, normal church going teenagers, if I can say that
even. And while I realized that that
statement may challenge people, These are these are the
realities theologically, we haveto wrestle with how we we
understand some of these things.But practically, the fact is
(44:37):
this is that there are people that are desperately in need of
help. And to quote Pablo Buttari, we
have the right answers to the problems of the soul.
So their cure, if you will, included repentance,
renunciation and prayer. It included a lot of things I
(45:02):
should have. For at least, and again, I can't
speak for the other two, but at least for one of those young
women I happen to know, that deliverance was the only
treatment she ever received for this.
She never went to therapy, she never went to a doctor.
It was just just exorcism. Wow.
So we see that that Jesus still heals, which is is phenomenal.
(45:30):
The trouble is, while I am an advocate for the study of
psychology, I am an advocate of good healthcare.
There's a real danger that we create idols out of both of
those and disregard the clear, straightforward teaching of
(45:53):
Scripture in in some places, which sometimes has the
catastrophic effect of leaving certain people suffering from
their conditions. Right.
So one of my passions is to let people know that when it feels
like they've exhausted all the other options for help, thank
(46:15):
God there is still help available for a second step back
from trying to decipher all the insurance and outs of the story.
And just stop and realize that these are human beings.
They're not cases, they're not test subjects.
(46:36):
They're they're human beings whom we know in real life that
have families, that have back stories, that have dreams, but
that were in very real distress,say, well, could there be other
explanations for some of this? Sure.
(46:58):
Some of there could be. Could some of the scratches have
been inflicted subconsciously? Sure.
Could some of the bruises have been inflicted, you know,
subconscious when a person wasn't realizing it?
Sure, some of them couldn't. As long as we accept the claims
of those that are eyewitnesses, right?
(47:19):
And when we begin to disregard eyewitness testimony just
because it doesn't make sense tous, we got to understand that we
are at that point setting aside the way that we've known things
happen throughout most of human history, right?
So we we got to look and say, OK, how do we see all this and
how do we approach it? I love what Ephesians chapter 6
(47:43):
says and I want to I want to leave us with a couple thoughts
here. Ephesians chapter 6 verse 10
says, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the
power of his might. Put on the whole armor of the
armor of God that you may be able to stand against the Wiles
of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, against principalities, against powers,
(48:05):
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places.
I kid you not. I was listening to a preacher
the other day who was railing against deliverance ministry.
And he said, and I quote, the Bible tells us that we're not
wrestling against demons. We're wrestling against people.
Well, I just want to read the Scripture again real quick in
case anybody missed it. Let's just start over.
(48:26):
Verse 12. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places.
What do we do then? Verse 13 Wherefore take unto you
the whole armor of God, that youmay be able to withstand in the
(48:47):
evil day, having done all to stand.
Stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth,
having on the breastplate of righteousness, and your feet
shod with the preparation of thegospel of peace, above all
taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to
quench all the fiery darts of the wicked, and take the helmet
of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of
(49:11):
God. Praying always with all prayer
and supplication in the Spirit, and watching there unto with all
perseverance and supplication for All Saints.
The historic Church understood that we were in a battle against
evil. In fact, we read from very early
(49:33):
on in the Christian movement that when people were baptized,
baptismal vows that included renouncing the devil were part
of that. In some parts of the church
world, that's still the case today.
I'm reading here from the Book of Common Prayer, the 2019
version, which is the the prayerguide for Anglicans worldwide.
(49:55):
And in this renewal of baptismalvows in this, in this version,
the people are asked, do you here in the presence of God in
the church, renew the solemn promises and vows made at your
baptism and commit yourself to keep them?
The people respond, I do. The celebrant asks, do you
(50:15):
renounce the devil and all the spiritual forces of wickedness
that rebel against God? The people respond.
I renounce them. The celebrant asks, Do you
renounce the empty promises and deadly deceits of this world
that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?
The people respond, I renounce them.
The celebrant asks, Do you renounce the sinful desires of
(50:38):
the flesh that draw you from thelove of God?
The people respond, I renounce them.
Do you turn to Jesus Christ and confess him as Lord and Savior?
I do. Do you joyfully receive the
Christian faith as revealed in the Holy Scriptures of the Old
and New Testament? I do.
The question is asked, will you obediently keep God's holy will
(50:59):
and commandments and walk in them all the days of your life?
And the people respond, I will. The Lord be my helper.
I think we would do well to onceagain renounce the devil in the
powers of darkness and affirm our absolute allegiance to the
(51:20):
Lord Jesus Christ, realizing that sometimes he's not just one
cure. Sometimes he's the only cure,
sometimes he's the only help. If there's healing through the
name of Jesus, then maybe real demythologizing and real
(51:46):
demystifying is doing away with the ludicrous claims of those
that are trying to read things into the Bible to subject it to
a modern lens and instead hear the words of Jesus Christ
afresh. Perhaps it's time that we again
(52:06):
read the words of first John chapter 3, verse 8, the
second-half of the verse, through the lens of faith which
declares for this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that
he might destroy the works of the devil.
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