The Exorcist's Bestiary

Once C.S. Lewis began to believe in the supernatural, there was a temptation he had to face. He writes about this dynamic in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy.

“…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… 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.”

Perhaps it was this scenario that led him to write one of his most popular books, The Screwtape Letters, which imagined an older demon teaching a younger demon the proper ways to screw with humans. But then again, writing this book was not a passion project for him.

“Of all my books, there was only one I did not take pleasure in writing,” Lewis said. “They were dry and gritty going. At the time, I was thinking of objections to the Christian life, and decided to put them into the form, ‘That’s what the devil would say.’ But making goods ‘bad’ and bads ‘good’ gets to be fatiguing.”

Lewis dedicated this book to his dear friend J.R.R. Tolkien, who was embarrassed by it. This was in part because Tolkien didn’t think Lewis had any business writing religious works, but perhaps it was also because of his disdain for studying the ways of the enemy too intensely. In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien makes this characteristic the downfall of Saruman, who “long studied the arts of the Enemy himself.” It is through these studies that Saruman transitioned from a good angel to a fallen angel. Originally, his studies helped him fight the enemy. But in time, those same studies illustrated Elrond’s critique that “It is perilous to study too deeply the arts of the Enemy, for good or for ill.”

Of course, Tolkien may have been referring to the study of the occult and not necessarily the lies of demons, so maybe he didn’t have the same critique of Lewis that he had of Saruman. But whatever the case, the temptation lies there for many—including Christians. Once we realize the supernatural is real, we can get caught up in the desire to understand how it works, which can trip us up without noticing.

Some come out the other side trying to blend the occult with Christianity, like Lewis’s good friend Charles Williams, which was probably not helpful for his temptation. In deliverance ministry, some get too focused on extracting information from demons rather than asking the Holy Spirit what they need to know. After one church began engaging in deliverance ministry, they attempted to gather information from the demons about how the spiritual realm functioned. Over time, they began sharing this information in their church and even revised some of their doctrines.

As I’ve continued to grow in deliverance ministry, I’ve learned that the Holy Spirit will tell me what I need to know to cast each demon out. He will not often tell me much more than what I need to know (and even when he does, the information doesn’t make much sense). Yes, there are moments when we need to deal with the demons directly, but those moments are discerned with wisdom and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. For He is our wonderful counselor, and he will teach us what we need to know to help people find freedom.