Model

The Holy Spirit and the Mind

The Classic Tradition of Imaginative Prayer

My Most Resisted Teaching

Over the last decade, I have taught people about the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts, and different practices to hear and discern God’s voice. One of these practices is the classic Christian art of imaginative prayer, in which a person invites the Holy Spirit to meet them in their imagination. It’s the belief that God doesn’t only speak in dreams, but also in daydreams.

Many are used to hearing God’s thoughts, but this is a way of seeing God’s thoughts. This is very normal, biblical practice. Indeed, the prophets would have called it visions. I personally call it dreamscaping, because when I teach it to people, I have them build a safe landscape in their imagination, and then invite the Holy Spirit to meet them there. But despite this, there is no teaching I’ve ever given that has faced more resistance—and I say that as an experimental theologian who has preached and written on a lot of strange and obscure topics.

The enlightened Western world struggles to trust anything from the imagination. This is very understandable as we don’t want to imagine God said something that he didn’t. But this is a risk for every Christian in every spiritual practice they pursue. As with all spiritual disciplines, Christians must learn not only to listen to the Holy Spirit, but to discern and test the words they hear and see.

Demons in the Mind

Once I started doing exorcisms, I discovered something interesting. I could force the demons to manifest in a participant and speak to me directly out of their mouth and possibly create great chaos, or I could force them to show up in a person’s dreamscape and give me any answers I need during the exorcism. Yes, demons can be chaotic in the dreamscape, but typically less so. In time, I realized that it didn’t matter what method I used to extract information from the demons. Whether they were fully manifested or speaking in the imagination, they had the same exact personality, tone, and responses.

I now only do exorcisms with the dreamscaping method as it has proved itself entirely reliable. When the time comes to kick the demons out, the participant can see them leave their dreamscape, which has been further validated by some being healed from the physical affliction the demons were causing at that same moment.

Yes, this method takes discernment, and nearly all participants don’t trust it initially. Some have experienced immense healing in these sessions and then gone on to think it was all in their head. But this same problem is found in those who have a physical manifestation of a demon, for many of them often go on to convince themselves that they have multiple personality disorder. This is a common lie that demons rely on telling after they’ve been found out.

Discerning the dreamscape

The Holy Spirit often finds a way to validate the dreamscape experience for the participants as they commit to it. The job of the exorcist and the sponsor is to discern the words and images that the participant receives, testing them against Scripture and the character of God to prove their validity. Since these spaces can have God’s Spirit, our spirit, and evil spirits at play, we must help the participant sort out the experience.

Lots of dreamscaping practice helps us do this well. Indeed, it’s often very easy to recognize the Holy Spirit’s voice, for he sounds surprisingly similar from participant to participant. Just like Jesus, the Spirit often tells parables in the dreamscape, using signs and symbols to help us discern what needs counseling and healing. Other times he brings up past memories that needs to be addressed and worked through. Sometimes the participant simply feels something that needs to be addressed. All senses can be activated while dreamscaping to give us hints as to how to get the demons out.

When I do exorcisms these days, I spend almost all of our time talking to the Holy Spirit. I rarely address the demons since the Holy Spirit already has all the answers we need. I typically only address demons in the dreamscape when they get in the way and try to stop the experience. When I address them directly, it’s usually to get information about why they’re there and what’s getting in the way of them leaving. Their answers have to be tested as they do try to lie.

The Core Passage

While there are many Bible verses to support the idea of dreamscaping, the core one that inspired the practice for me is 1 Corinthians 2:10-12. In these verses, Paul creates a dynamic where Christians can know the thoughts of both their own spirit and God’s spirit. Since many people come to know the thoughts of their spirit through their imagination, I believe they have the capacity to know the thoughts of God’s Spirit through their imagination.

For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
1 Corinthians 2:10-12