The Exorcist's Bestiary

After hours of conversation about overcoming a demon of shame, something flipped. My participant was there one second and gone the next, as a familiar expression of annoyance overtook their face.

“Why did you just manifest demon?” I asked with intrigue. My heart began to race as I realized we had finally gotten far enough to annoy the demons. Perhaps my participant was finally ready to release their shame to Jesus, forcing the shame demon to leave once and for all.

But it was not Shame who manifested at that moment—it was one of the demons higher up the chain of command. This one never cared much for talking. His purpose in manifesting was simply to stop my participant’s progress. If he was in the way by manifesting, then my participant wasn’t listening to me anymore and changing their beliefs about shame.

I made the demon unmanifest and informed the participant that we were getting somewhere. I gave them a prayer to repeat after me about releasing their shame, but the demon remanifested to stop them from finishing the prayer. This struggle went back and forth for awhile, so the demons devised a new plan: put my participant to sleep. They konked out hard. With much effort, I was able to wake them up, but the demons just put them right back to sleep.

This roadblock brought an end to the day’s session, but not to our progress. When my participant woke up in the middle of the night, they decided they were done with Shame and began to fight him. With much effort, they won the battle, and I woke up to celebratory texts. Shame was finally gone.