The Core Issue

Just what is wrong with psychic therapies such as the Akashic Records, Reiki, Kundalini healing, psychic empath, psychic mediums, crystal ball gazers, Tarot card readers, astrologers, and more? Aren’t these people merely hoping to help others be healed and comforted? How about the life coaches who use mystical and occultic processes to do their work? 

Based on our experience and connections with these ‘therapists,’ many are indeed attempting to help others. There are, however, the competing goals of money to be made and status to attain, but those are inherent in the pursuit of most career fields. 

So then, just why are we taking issue? Let’s begin with something Jesus said: 

“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” 

(Matthew 18:20). 

Throughout the centuries, Christians have understood this verse to mean that when two or more believers in Jesus are together for worship, prayer, or praise, then He is present with them. The same dynamic is true for those who gather to practice or participate in occultic, psychic, mediumistic, or like activities. Yes, we are saying that when this happens, there will be a demonic, satanic presence, which can result in possession by evil spirits. 

This result is even more likely to occur when various forms of meditation are employed. Kundalini healing by drawing and balancing energy fits this, as do “mindfulness” processes whereby a person slips into a passive, altered, or shamanistic state of mind. This can occur whether one is alone, with a single psychic therapist/healer, or in a group. The Wiccan circle, where spirits are summoned for protection, is another example. 

For fifty-plus years, we have engaged in what is called “deliverance ministry.” Visit any online bookstore and type in my name, and you will find three books we have written on the subject. They are A Manual of Demonology and the Occult (Kent’s master’s thesis, written in 1972 and published by Zondervan Publishing House in 1973, updated and republished in 2021), then Deliver Us from Evil: How Jesus Casts Out Demons Today, and The Deliverance Handbook. 

Rather than trying to sell books here, we are trying to claim serious 13 

attention and credentials for our ongoing work in this area. Over these years, we, along with many others, have engaged in the very Biblical ministry referred to as deliverance ministry. Hundreds of times, including now in the pandemic era via Zoom, it has been clearly discovered that demonic spirits entered a person during various practices: with tarot card readers, those using the I Ching, gathering in the Wiccan circle, practicing meditation, being initiated into Transcendental Meditation or into Krishna Consciousness, consulting a crystal ball gazer or a medium, doing deep breathing mindfulness exercises, and more. This becomes clear when a person recognizes what has happened, often after becoming a born-again Christian, realizing they have had a demonic, evil spirit indwelling them. 

Deliverance events can be quite difficult, because the Faustian tradeoff about a demonic presence is that it gives a person both power and knowledge. The Faustian “deal” is one’s soul in exchange for gifts of power, money, and/or knowledge. On several occasions, we were requested to do deliverance with a person who made his or her living as a psychic or a medium. Right during the deliverance ministry, the person would refuse to continue, because the demons in them warned them they would lose their power and knowledge if they were cast out. No longer would they find out about past or future events on the part of their client, as it had been portrayed, nor would they be able to clear the energy, as was supposed, and open up the blockages. And the result would be that they would not be able to continue to engage in their often very lucrative practice. Their very livelihood would be eliminated, and their status demoted. 

The satanic realm has a counterfeit for the spiritual gifts and work of God’s Holy Spirit. These demonic versions are very real, not imaginary, and it is no wonder that occultists, psychic therapists, mediums, and clairvoyants are convinced they have ways to contact the ‘other’ world and to convince their clients that it is all real and wonderful. 

The price that will be paid when demons turn the gift into a ball-and-chain is not worth whatever may come by way of the psychic therapist or their clients. Unless the demons are cast out and the person becomes a follower of Jesus, the cost is an eternal one, and that is being forever separated from God and from all that is love and good. The cost is hell itself. 

2 Corinthians 11:12–15 

[12] And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. [13] For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. [14] And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. [15] So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds. (ESV)