A Mind under the
Attack of the Evil Spirits
If we carefully examine the mental experiences
of a Christian we shall see that not merely is he narrow-minded but that he
contains many other defects too. His head, for instance, may be teeming with
all kinds of uncontrollable thoughts, imaginations, impure pictures, wanderings
and confused ideas. His memory may suddenly fail; his power of concentration
may be weakened; he may be obsessed by prejudices which arise from unknown
sources; his thoughts may be retarded as if his mind were being chained; or he
may be flushed with wild thoughts which revolve unceasingly in his head. The
Christian may find he is powerless to regulate his mental life and make it obey
the intent of his will. He forgets innumerable matters both large and small. He
carries out many improper actions, without knowing why and without so much as
investigating the reason. Physically he is quite healthy, but mentally he does
not comprehend the explanation for these symptoms. Currently many saints
encounter these mental difficulties, but without ever knowing why.
Should a person
discover that he manifests the abovementioned signs, he needs to check out a
few matters to determine the origin of those signs. He need only ask himself a
few questions: Who controls my mind? Myself? And if so, why can I not control
it now? Is it God who manages my mind? But according to scriptural principle
God never governs the mind for man. (We shall enlarge on this principle
subsequently). If it is neither I nor God who regulates the mental life, who
then is in control? It obviously is the powers of darkness who foment these
mental symptoms. So whenever a child of God notes that he is no longer able to
govern the mind, he ought to perceive at once that it is the enemy who is
managing it. One fact which we must always bear in mind is: man possesses free
will. God’s intention is for man to control himself. Man has the authority to
regulate his every natural endowment; hence his mental processes should be
subject to the I power of his will. A Christian ought to inquire of himself: Are
these my thoughts? Is it I who am thinking? If it is not I thinking, it must
then be the evil spirit who is able to work in man’s mind. Since I will not to
think (and my mind usually follows my will) then the thoughts which presently
arise in my head cannot be mine but rather are those which emanate from another
“person” who uses the ability of my mind against my own will. The person should
know that in case he has not intended to think and yet there are thoughts
arising in his head, he must conclude that these are not of him but of the evil
spirit. To determine whether an idea is of himself or of the wicked spirit, a
Christian should observe how it arose. If in the beginning his mental faculty
is peaceful and composed and is functioning normally and naturally according to
the circumstances he is in, but suddenly a thought or a complete idea (having
no bearing on his present circumstances or the work in which he is engaged)
flashes across his brain, such inordinate and lightning quick thought is most
likely the action of evil spirits. They are attempting to inject their thoughts
into the believer’s head and thus induce him to accept them as his own. It is
unmistakable that the notion which the evil spirits introduce into man’s mind
is a matter he has not thought about at the moment and which does not follow
the trend of his thinking. It is entirely “new”—something he never thought of
himself. It has arisen abruptly and all by itself. When one gains this kind of
thought it is well for him to inquire: Do I really think in this manner? Is it
really I who am thinking? Do I want to think that way? Or is this something
which simply becomes activated in my mind all by itself? The child of God
should determine whether or not it is he himself who does the thinking. If he
has not originated the idea but on the contrary opposses it, and yet it abides
in his head, he then can assume that that idea issues from the enemy. Each
thought which man chooses not to think and each one which opposes man’s will
come not from the man but from the outside. Oftentimes also one’s brain is
abounding with sundry ideas which he is helpless to stop. His head is like a
thought machine, operated by external force; it continues to think but is
impotent to desist. The believer may shake his head repeatedly, yet he cannot
shake off the thoughts in his mind. They come to him in waves, rolling
unceasingly day and night. There is no way to terminate them. He is not aware
that this is but the activity of the evil spirit. He ought to understand what a
“thought” is. It is something which his mind grasps at. But in the case of
these unmanageable thoughts it is not that his mind is grasping at something
but rather that something is grasping his mind. In the natural course of events
it is the mind which thinks about matters; now it is these matters which force
the mind to think. Frequently a person wishes to set aside a matter but some
external power keeps reminding him of it, not permitting him to forget and
forcing him to think on further. This is the perpetration of evil spirits. To
summarize, then, we should investigate every abnormal sign. Aside from a
natural cause such as sickness, all other abnormal indicators have their source
with evil spirits. God never interferes with the operation of man’s natural
ability; He never abruptly mixes in His thought with man’s nor does He abruptly
restrict or destroy the functioning of man’s intellect. The lightning cessation
of all thoughts as though the brain has become a vacuum, the flashing
interjection of thought at complete variance with the trend then current in the
mind, the hasty severance of memory as if a wire had snapped leaving the mind
paralyzed: all these are the results of the operation of the enemy. Because the
evil spirit has seized hold of the organ of thought, he is able either to force
it to cease functioning or by loosening his grip to let it work again. We must
recognize that natural causes can produce only natural symptoms. Flash thoughts
or loss of memory are entirely beyond the ability or control of our will and
are contrary to natural cause and effect: they must therefore be inspired by
supernatural evil forces. In his letter to the Ephesians Paul is found writing
about “the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (2.2). It is
very important to know that the powers of darkness work not only outside but
inside the man as well. When men work they can at most do so with their words,
gestures or bodily movements; the evil spirits, however, can work with all
these but even more. They can act from the outside in the same way as man acts,
but they can work additionally from the inside. This means that they can
squeeze themselves into man’s thought life and work therein. Man is not capable
of doing this: he is unable to enter another man’s brain, subtly making many
suggestions and confusing this matter of the source of the thoughts; but the
evil spirits can. They possess an ability in communication which man does not
have. They work initially in man’s mind and then reach to his emotion, for mind
and emotion are closely knit: they operate first in the mind and from there
they arrive at man’s volition, because mind and will are intimately joined too.
The manner by which these enemy spirits operate is to plant covertly in man’s
head notions which they enjoy so as to accomplish their aim, or, conversely,
they block thoughts which they do not relish so that man cannot think them
through. The Bible distinctly indicates that the powers of darkness are able both
to impart ideas to man and to steal them from him. “The devil had already put
it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him” (John 13.2).
This shows that Satan can put his thought into man’s mind. “Then the devil
comes and takes away the word from their hearts” (Luke 8.12). This attests that
Satan removes whatever word man ought to remember and causes him to forget
everything. These two verses reveal the two-fold operation of the evil spirits
upon the mind of man, either to add something to, or subtract something from,
his mind.
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