The Exorcist's Bestiary

Question: Honest question, why would (or do) demons use the language of whomever they inhabit to talk amongst themselves? The conversation in your recent post clearly wasn’t meant for that person to hear, so wouldn’t they be conversing in “demon,” whatever that is?

Answer: In this particular story, the participant was told in a vision that a new, big attack was coming. Then, we employed our own strategy the next day or so. They then had a second vision of the demon’s plans in shambles. When they were lying in bed later that night, I assume it was the Holy Spirit that allowed them to hear the demons conversing as a second sign that we were on the right track. Whether the Holy Spirit interpreted it into English for them (like tongues) or if the demons were talking in English, I don’t know. Their attacks have been on an English-speaker for many years, so it may just be that they are used to speaking English by now.

If the demons in the Gerasene demoniac were afraid to be sent out of the country, it may be that demons train for specific regions they’re assigned to—which in this American case, often requires English. Since the Bible shows different gods reigning over different countries, it may be that the minions of those principalities and powers are used to working within cultural dynamics, which include things like local language. I don’t have all the answers to the metaphysics of it all, and the Holy Spirit doesn’t usually care to explain the fine details of the spiritual realm to me. Therefore, I just write the experiences of how they go down.

Language goes a lot of different ways in exorcism. I’ve been mocked by demons in a few stanzas of perfect Latin. I’ve met demons with Greek and Arabic names related perfectly to the themes they represented. And even the Holy Spirit has given my participants Hebrew words they didn’t know that directly correlated to the inner healing work he was doing in their lives. (Indeed, the Holy Spirit just gave a participant such a word this morning.) So language continues to be an interesting dynamic in this ministry.

Hope these jumbled suggestions help.

Reply: yeah that helps clear up my thoughts pretty well, actually. That makes sense, too. I hadn’t thought about the little g gods reigning over certain areas and or cultures. I always tend to think of demons as universal. Thanks.

Answer: Yeah, the Daniel 10 passage is the most helpful for that thinking. There’s a god-demon reigning over Persia and a god-demon reigning over Greece. So that can imply the possibility of them using areas and cultures.