The Exorcist's Bestiary

As an exorcist, I hate it when people are demonized. Of all the gossips in the world, there are none less provable and more destructive than, “I think so and so has a demon of [insert theme here].”

With this one sweeping statement, the image of God in front of us becomes inhuman and diabolical. We begin to weave a tale in which everything they do is guided by some sinister supernatural force. We think that to be around them is to be in the presence of a demon. In time, the person becomes to us as a demon and they are cast out of our churches and lives.

Many have been destroyed by spiritual realm gossip. We speak of what we do not have eyes to see and we stake our claims on an invisible realm we hardly understand. The Bible hardly says anything clear or direct about it, and even when it does, we’re left scratching our heads. (“Jesus, what do you mean demons go through waterless places when you cast them out?”)

Yet supernatural Christian gossip prides itself above demonstrable evidence. We simply claim that our gossip is true, because God gave us the gossip, at which point, anyone who disagrees must take it up with God.

Again, one of my main jobs in ministry is to work with people who have demons, and I aim to do that without demonizing them. People are not demons—they’re people. Demons are just pesky little voices trying to steer the person’s decisions in bad directions. The sessions I hold with such people are organized as much as possible around variations of one basic question: “Holy Spirit, what do you want the participant to work on today?” Whatever the Spirit reveals to the person about themselves is where we put our tenderness and focus as we heal through the pain that the demon is holding onto.