The Exorcist's Bestiary

“Uncle Andrew, you see, was working with things he did not really understand; most magicians are.”

C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew, 51

It might surprise many to hear that C.S. Lewis had a temptation toward the occult, but this doesn’t strike me as odd. The man enjoyed fairy tales and mythology. He was an academic, and academics are inquisitive about how the world works. He had a friend who was involved in the occult, and so I imagine he had heard plenty of stories. He once voiced this temptation in his autobiography.

“…for the first time, there burst upon me the idea that there might be real marvels all about us, that the visible world might be only a curtain to conceal huge realms uncharted by my very simple theology. And that started in me something with which, on and off, I have had plenty of trouble since–the desire for the preternatural, simply as such, the passion for the Occult. Not everyone has this disease; those who have will know what I mean. I once tried to describe it in a novel. It is a spiritual lust; and like the lust of the body it has the fatal power of making everything else in the world seem uninteresting while it lasts. It is probably this passion, more even than the desire for power, which makes magicians.”

C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 56-57

Some might scoff at Lewis, thinking he should be beyond this temptation, but it’s not uncommon for those who believe in the supernatural to want to understand it better. Lewis recognized this in himself, which helped keep him safe from it. The rest of us aren’t always honest with ourselves.

After years of deliverance sessions, I have generally resolved to know only what the Holy Spirit wants to reveal to me about the inner workings of the supernatural. When I first started this ministry, I’d often question the demons directly to figure out what kind of damage they had caused the participant. But there was one particular session that evolved into a demon telling me the names of all the other demons in the participant’s family, and this eventually gave me pause. I had asked for this information, but was I allowed to know it? Sure, the demon may have been lying to me (as they tend to do), but if it wasn’t, was this information any of my business? Was I, in a vague sense, practicing the occult during a deliverance session by extracting secret information out of a demon that wasn’t really mine to know?

Since then, I’ve worked extra hard to stay focused on the Holy Spirit during deliverance sessions. When demons show up, I usually just move them out of the way to get back to the Holy Spirit. He always tells me exactly what I need to know to remove each demon—and typically no more than that. Though there have been times when he has been gracious enough to give me extra revelation so I can do supernatural ministry with a clearer understanding.

The occult is forbidden to Christians because it’s not for us to know, not because it’s fake. But we do have a supernatural God whose supernatural Son sent us his supernatural Spirit to help us move forward in the supernatural in the ways that God has ordained as appropriate. May the Holy Spirit always be our guide as we press forward in his ministry—supernatural or otherwise.