Entry Point Number 3: Trauma

In their distress they cried to the LORD, who saved them in their peril;He brought them forth from darkness and the shadow of death and broke their chains asunder.  (Psalms 107:13-14)

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Trauma is the same way.  An experience that may not be a big deal from your perspective could be a very traumatic experience for someone else.  These traumatic experiences can have a severe impact on someone’s spiritual life and become an entry point for an evil spirit.

One of the most common examples of this is grief.  Grief can come in many forms and from many sources.  Generally, grief is relatively brief and progresses through the 5 stages without complication.  Other times, however, the grief becomes a perpetual state of extreme mourning.  It could be the loss of a significant person in one’s life, the loss of one’s identity, or the loss of anything else that one had become dependent on for a sense of well-being.  

While there are certainly psychological causes that may lead grief to escalate into this extreme trauma, it is also possible for an evil spirit to use the grieving process as an entry point for the purpose of oppression.  In either case, the grieving period can seem to continue without progression through the stages of grieving.

In the cases of traumatic experiences, it is often beneficial for the person to work with a counselor and a spiritual director in tandem.  A counselor can help the person sort things out from a psychological perspective and use tools such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to help the person learn to cope with the trauma.  In the meantime, a good spiritual director can help the person discern the spiritual impact of the trauma and find God in the midst of the pain.  Any evil spirits identified can be renounced and spiritual wounds can be exposed to the Light and Truth of Christ for healing.

Furthermore, we can find ourselves living in a spiritual bondage caused by trauma and not be aware of it.  Between the veil of denial sewn by the evil spirit and our own psyche’s ability to adapt, we live our life believing the way we feel is just normal life…ignorant of the fact that a higher level of freedom is available in Christ.  In spiritual direction, we often uncover the traumatic experiences that have been buried in years of denial and find a new spiritual life and freedom when the bondage is released.

Entry Point Number 2: Curses

When we think of curses, we often think of witches, warlocks, and voodoo priestesses. But, the curses we have in our lives are usually either self-imposed or come from comments (often innocent comments) made by those in our everyday lives.

It is common for tweens to gain weight prior to a growth spurt.  Imagine if a female tween had a grandparent or other impressionable relative that made jokes to feel more comfortable in certain situations.  If this relative made some innocent (albeit ill-advised) comments about the tween's weight to be humorous, the message she internalized could end up being an open door for an evil spirit to start influencing them.  This could lead to depression, anorexia, addictions, or even suicide. 

Some of us may directly relate to the tween example.  Regardless, most of us have had similar experiences during fragile times that have left emotional impressions.  If you are carrying a spiritual weight related to those experiences, there may be some influence from an evil spirit involved. 

Curses can be self-inflicted as well.  Perhaps we failed a big test in school and came away with an internalized message that we are not good enough.  Or, perhaps a crush we had in school rejected us in front of our friends and we internalized a message that we are ugly.  These are other opportunities for an evil spirit to begin influencing our lives and hold us in spiritual bondage.

A spiritual director can help us:

·         explore these painful moments in our life and expose them to the Light and Truth of Christ

·         understand what part we played in receiving the curse (i.e., agreement with a person of authority in the case of the tween example, or a fear of rejection in the case of the self-inflicted example)

·         renounce the evil spirits that are involved in how the curse is made manifest today

Entry Point Number 1: Unconfessed / Repeated Sin

Those who conceal their sins do not prosper, but those who confess and forsake them obtain mercy. (Prov 28:13)

Sin takes us right back to the Garden of Eden.  It is an act of disobedience and rejection of God’s will where we, like Eve, exercise the will to become "like gods," knowing and determining good and evil (Gen 3:5).  No one is a stranger to sin in and of itself.  We all do it…every day.  Anyone who claims not to sin is suffering from denial and could possibly be under the influence of a demon.

Where the problem comes into play is how we react to sin in our lives. Here are some common reactions of which a demon can take advantage:

“Oh well.  God will forgive me.”

This reaction can start innocently enough whereby the person is contrite about the sin with the intention of a deeper conversion to Christ.  However, an evil spirit can take this mindset and influence the person to a position of presumption, which means the person may start to expect forgiveness without a contrite heart or have no intention for a deeper conversion.  The person may even begin to believe they can save themselves without the grace of God.

“Well, everyone else is doing it.”

This kind of insidious relativism is rampant in our culture and easy to fall into without realizing it.  It is particularly rampant in circles of addiction.  An addict will often use this as an excuse to indulge in their vice.  Eventually, it progresses to the point where the person no longer pauses to make the excuse.  They often begin to add another vice to their addiction.  Why they would do that…because everyone else is doing it.  Beware non-addicts, you are just a susceptible to this trap as the addict is, even if the result isn’t as evident as something like alcoholism or drug abuse.

“I don’t believe it is wrong.”

Most likely, this one starts out as one of the other two in some, way, shape, or form.  The bottom line is there is generally only one truth, but millions of perceptions of that truth.  For example, abortion cannot be both morally acceptable and morally unacceptable.  That’s an extreme case, but very illustrative.  It applies to every other moral decision we make every day.  We tell ourselves it is not wrong to tell the little white lie.  We tell ourselves it is not wrong to talk about someone behind their back.  Like other evil spiritual influences, the more things we are convinced are not wrong, the more open we are to accept that other (more morally questionable things) are not wrong.  Eventually, we don’t really know what is right or wrong any more.

For the sake of brevity, I have only given three examples, but there are plenty of messages evil spirits give us to convince us to not confess our sins.

The best defense against this exposure is to have a properly formed conscience and to examine your conscience every day.  When you have identified a sin (especially a major, or mortal, sin) confess your sin to someone right away. 

There are various resources to help you form your conscience and there are a variety of methods to examine your conscience.  A good spiritual director can help you sort through these options and be a companion as the Lord guides you through this process.

A note on confessing your sins to others, this post is not intended to become a theological debate regarding going straight to God to confess sins vs confessing to another person.  The idea of talking through these issues with someone else is based on sound psychology and on the practices of what works in 12 step recovery programs.  Consider the following from the Alcoholics Anonymous version of Step 5:

• “Some people are unable to stay sober at all; others will relapse periodically until they really clean house.”
• “Most of us would declare that without a fearless admission of our defects to another human being we could not stay sober.  It seems plain that the grace of God will not enter to expel our destructive obsessions until we are willing to try this.”

In my experience, the excuse that I can confess my sins directly to God is really just a coping mechanism for fear….fear that I would be rejected if someone else was to find out who I really am.  Fear is an open door for an evil spirit to influence.  If you don’t already do so, start confessing your sins to someone else (someone you can trust to keep it in confidence).  Overcoming the fear to be vulnerable with someone else to confess your sins is often very spiritually liberating.

Mental Illness or Demonic Oppression

Now the snake was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made.  (Gen 3:1)

Richard Gallagher, a board-certified psychiatrist and professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College, recently commented on how many patients who suffer from mental illness are likely suffering from demonic possession.  I agree the role of demonic influence in our society is greatly underestimated, but the actual occurrences of full possession are quite limited.  Demonic oppression, on the other hand, is extremely common.

Demonic oppression is exactly what it sounds like; i.e., an evil spirit oppresses the person.  There are two very clear examples of this in the Bible.  The first example is the temptation of Eve, in the Garden of Eden (Gen 3:1-24), and second is the three temptations of Jesus in the wilderness (Matt 4:1-11).  Eve fell to the temptation of the evil spirit and came into spiritual bondage.  Conversely, Jesus was able to renounce the evil spirit and therefore gain spiritual deliverance (i.e., freedom).  

Demonic oppression can be the root cause of a number of many mental/psychological issues, including: depression, codependency, anger, anxiety, rebellion, compulsion, and addiction, as well as a variety of sinful behaviors.  It can even lead to physical ailments and disease.  It is often characterized as a heaviness on the heart, feelings of being distant to God, and otherwise feeling spiritually dead.

The good news is that we can renounce the evil spirits, similar to the way Jesus did in the wilderness.  We will discuss renouncing evil spirits in more detail as part of future posts.  In the meantime, it is helpful to understand how we leave ourselves open for demonic oppression and can even put ourselves at risk for full possession.

According to Neal Lozano, these are the most common entry points used by evils spirits for the purpose of oppression:

·         Unconfessed / Repeated Sin

·         Curses

·         Trauma

·         Family Sin

·         Occult Activities

·         Rebellion/Disobedience

·         Lies/Denial

·         Sexual Intercourse Outside Marriage

In future posts, we will discuss how each of these entry points items are used by evil spirits as well as some spiritual tools at our disposal to ensure these entry points are no longer exploited by the evil spirits. 

Bear in mind that evil spirits are cunning and baffling, just as we saw in the Garden of Eden with the temptation of Eve.  Doubt and denial are among their most powerful weapons.  They plant seeds of doubt that cloud judgement of yourself, of your faith, and (worst of all) of God.  Meanwhile, they sew a veil of denial that can lead to a life of self-deception, spiritual blindness, and pride.  This is where a good spiritual director, or other trusted spiritual advisor/companion, can help to encourage you through the moments of doubt and cut through the denial that shade you from the full Light and Truth of Christ. 

Once we accept that spiritual oppression is a very real and a very common factor in our lives, we can begin to understand how spiritual influences are made manifest in our lives.  Based on this understanding, we can then begin to identify and renounce the associated evil spirits and make the necessary changes to prevent further influence.  In short, we can achieve true freedom in Christ!