“You just tell the demons to go, and they go,” a person who had never done an exorcism informed me after I taught on the topic at an event. “That’s how Jesus did it in the Bible. You have authority.”

This quick form of exorcism is rarely ever my practice anymore. In my early days of exorcism, every time I found a demon, I would tell them to leave, which would end their manifestation. But after this, I would say, “Demon, if you’re still there, you need to show yourself.” Sure enough—it would re-manifest. I assume one of two things happened to create this moment:

• The demon pretended to leave and simply ended the manifestation.
• The demon left for a moment and was able to come back due to its unsevered connections to the participant.

Having had this happen enough times in deliverance ministry, my general rule of thumb is to simply counsel my participants through the themes and memories the Holy Spirit brings to their minds. At the end of our session, I ask the Holy Spirit if there are any demons he’s ready to remove. When it’s time, he always lets us know, and we happily remove them. Jesus teaches us why it’s important to make sure the participant is ready for this moment:

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. (Matthew 12:43-45)