When you are present at a powerful exorcism in circles like the Faith movement, it is easy to be convinced by the display of power you are watching, and to feel absolutely sure that it is God Who is working and the Evil One who is retreating.

While I believe that there is such a thing as genuine exorcism, I maintain that not everything that looks like it is necessarily what it may appear to be.

Apparent Exorcisms and the Danger of Getting a Fixation on Evil

When I attended the Faith Bible school, I would often witness something that looked like casting out of demons. On some occasions, I practised it myself and saw visible manifestations of power. At one time, I commanded a demon of pride to leave one of the members of our prayer group. The young man appeared to be pushed very hard by an invisible power. He was pushed up against the wall. Something happened right enough — but the young man appeared to be in an even worse condition after this so-called deliverance. He certainly was not proud — actually he was not proud either before his ‘deliverance’!

I saw some of the most dramatic manifestations of what was considered to be exorcism of demons during a meeting of Sandy Brown’s. People were frequently seen lying on the floor jerking and shaking after prayer. In this case, it was strong convulsive jerks that came on the person as soon as the preacher touched them. It actually looked very powerful and impressive.

There was usually no positive change in the people who had been subjected to these powerful manifestations, supposed to be exorcisms — at least, not as far as I could see, though some of them told that they had experienced a feeling of ease. On the other hand, while I was in India, I heard a woman testify that she had got her hearing back after a preacher had cast a spirit of deafness out of her. But this woman did not have any of the kind of manifestations that I saw at the so-called exorcisms at the Faith Bible school back in Sweden.

It has been noticeable that many of the people who have been delivered from what is supposed to be demons have afterwards been bound even closer to the movement. The same has happened to people who were not connected to the movement prior to their deliverance.

Some of the preachers from the States went beyond Hagin’s teachings on exorcism. Sam and Jane Whaley had been battling with the enormous difference between the profession and the theory of the Faith preachers and how they actually live their lives in reality. Sam Whaley believes that sin is present even if we have done everything right according to Hagin’s teaching. This has led him to his later view that it must be demons that are inhabiting the Christians and hindering them in living in the righteousness they have in the Spirit. Whaley even says that he has never met any Christian who is not inhabited by demons!

Jane Whaley says outright: “I have heard many religious demons get disturbed because I said that I have not met anyone who does not need deliverance.” ³⁷

The Whaleys are fully convinced that God has given them a special revelation with a message to all of Christianity. This message is that all Christians are inhabited by demons and that we must cast them out of both ourselves and others in order to reach perfection.

But, as far as I can see, to attempt such a task would be life-long — because, regardless of what we do, the sin-nature is still present in the human heart.

One of the methods of so-called exorcism involves loud screaming, among other things. It is often merely horrific roars and not necessarily words with meaning or the Name of Jesus or such-like. The roars make a lot of people react with dislike when they hear them. But these ear-splitting screams are reckoned to be necessary in order to be delivered from demons.

Another method was also used in the Bible school in Uppsala in 1988. This time, it consisted of powerful drumming and ‘war song’ over a long period of time. Afterwards, it was claimed that many people had been delivered from demons during the drumming.

Since 1990 there has been a split between Hagin and the Whaley’s on account of some disagreement about the methods of exorcism

The teaching on travailing prayer, however, is founded on Hagin’s teaching in his book, “The Art of Prayer.” He writes in the book that travailing prayer involves battling in prayer as though one is about to give birth to a child. Hagin writes that travail involves pain and sighing, groanings, tears and speaking in tongues.

When I was at the Faith Bible school during 1984-85, we were being taught this so-called travailing prayer. We were told that this was the most powerful form of prayer, and that it was an effective weapon in the battle against the spiritual powers of darkness. This prayer would bring something to birth in the spiritual world which would later on be evident in the material world.

Later on, this travailing prayer has been developed in such a way that it has become more violent, and can be described as uninhibited screams and roars. It is being used as a weapon during exorcism, and when the satanic strongholds in the spiritual world are to be broken down.

The type of exorcism we were taught by Whaley, with its loud inarticulate roaring, accompanied by monotonous drumming, was something that was more akin to pagan shamanism than to Biblical exorcism. There are, actually, detailed descriptions of just such methods in books on shamanism. 38

Sometimes, there are things that may appear to be exorcism or be presented as such, but it may not really be so in any Biblical sense. Johanna Michaelsen was an active member in a spiritualist church for a long time before she came to faith in Jesus Christ, and in her book: “The Beautiful Side of Evil,” she writes about her experience of things that, according to the Bible, can only be described as false exorcism. During her time in spiritualism, she witnessed evil spirits being cast out. But she argues that according to Matthew 12:24-28, Satan does not actually cast out his own evil spirits. She used to think, therefore, that it had to be God Who was active in the casting out of demons which she witnessed within spiritism. In her book, however, she asks the vital question: “How do you really know that the demons are actually cast out? Is it possible that they might be deceiving you?” In her own experience, she began to understand gradually that what she was witnessing was merely the play-acting of evil powers, but not genuine exorcism.

In my own case, I had been taught that we had to resist the devil ourselves by aggressively commanding and speaking in tongues; and for a time, I was eagerly practising this. The result was that I ended up in a very serious spiritual crisis. The only thing that rescued me was that eventually I began to thank God and praise Him instead of constantly speaking to the devil.

One of the dangers of reading and hearing about evil spiritual powers is that it causes a fixation on evil that creates fear. The best remedy for this is a fixation on God instead of the devil, and the realisation that Jesus is the One Who has the real power. An understanding of the grace of God is also essential. To resist Satan means to resist his attempts to make us turn away from the grace of God, that is, the unmerited grace that is ours through simple faith in Jesus Christ. It is Satan’s aim to make us depend on our own efforts to win the spiritual battle, and that is exactly what happened to me when I was in the Faith movement. Resisting Satan in a Scriptural way means approaching God and staying close to Him (James 4:7-8). If we do that, we have no need to fear the devil.

Footnotes

37. Jane Whaley, Deliverance, Part 2. Audio Cassette 25 July 1989. Word of Life, Uppsala.
38. Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman, Mircea Eliade, Shamanism.