Demonic attack appears to be a gradient that begins with coercion from presumably unwitting human servitors but gradually transitions to direct spiritual assault aimed at self-destruction.
I was only 13 years old when I pressed send on the first explicit photograph I shared with Dan, a handsome and popular boy who was three school years above me.
The fact he’d started to text me had made me feel good. We never dated — he only ever messaged me after 8pm — but I had always wanted to be liked, and the more the older boys paid attention to me, it seemed, the more the popular girls had time for me.
The morning after sending that first photo of myself in my underwear, I felt dirty. But I didn’t want to lose Dan’s attention. I’d had one boyfriend before — Joe, who was my age and very sweet — but we broke up when I started to receive more attention from older boys.
Dan, it turned out, liked me so much he wanted more photos. More explicit photos. The requests became demands and when I didn’t deliver…
Predatory on the one side and stupid on the other, but hardly unexplicable or indicative of homicidal evil, right? However, the subsequent developments, which materialists would erroneously dismiss as mere psychological aftershock, are illuminating.
I told myself I was a messy, attention-seeking, dumb, teenage girl. I was the trainwreck that went from model student to stupid slut. But in the end I didn’t think I had the guts to actually end it. Back at school I took all the insults — the fired spitballs, the rolled-up notes saying ‘SLAG’ — and the only way I found any relief was to go somewhere alone and take out the blade I’d unscrewed from a pencil sharpener. I made bright-red cuts across my arms and up my torso. I wanted to feel the sting. I wanted to watch as the blood kept oozing.
Men and boys under demonic pressure tend to resort to drugs and alcohol. Women and girls tend to resort to gluttony, starvation, or bloodletting. In both cases, the result is to open themselves to direct demonic influence that eventually results in oppression or even possession.
The photos damaged her, but the blame broke her. Her mental health began a dangerous downward spiral, taking her to a dark and terrifying place. She started to hear mean, accusing voices laughing at her, calling her names, and we, the people who loved her, couldn’t reach her. While driving at 60mph to a desperately hard-won appointment at Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, she suddenly opened the door and tried to get out. The ‘people’ told her it wasn’t safe in the car.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it.
When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”
“You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.
Matthew 17: 14-18