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Deliverance, demonic possession, and mental illness: some considerations for mental health professionals. 

This paper outlines an unconventional treatment for mental illness, the exorcism or deliverance ritual used by Pentecostals and some other charismatic Christians. Deliverance beliefs and practices are based on the assumption that both mental and physical ills result from possession of the sufferer by demons, and are to be treated by the expulsion of those demons. Deliverance practitioners claim to treat schizophrenia, ADHD, and Reactive Attachment Disorder, and believe that these problems are related to sins either of the person in treatment or of an ancestor. Clinicians and counsellors dealing with clients who partially or completely espouse deliverance beliefs may need to understand their worldviews and to discuss their belief system before managing to engage them in conventional mental health treatments. Unusual ethical problems may also be met in the course of such work.

Keywords: faith-based interventions; faith-based mental health theories; evidence-based practice; professional ethics; deliverance practices

Religions contain within them the seeds of psychologies, in the form of statements about the nature of human beings and about their right or wrong conduct. These seedling psychologies include views of mental illness, its causes, and its treatment, and may emphasise either supernatural or natural causes for mental disturbance. In the Western world, mainstream Christian and Jewish groups generally consider natural factors as primary in mental illness and mental health interventions, in spite of their acknowledgement of the importance of spiritual or supernatural phenomena. Pentecostal believers, on the other hand, emphasise the role of the supernatural in both causation and healing of mental and physical disorders. These disorders are considered as due to demonic possession, and effective interventions are thought to require expulsion of the responsible demons by means of deliverance (exorcism). Some Pentecostals are said to reject medical and psychological treatment for mental illness, and to consider such treatment to have the potential for exacerbating the disorder, even in cases of serious depression or of schizophrenia (Harley, [23]), but others accept the use of secular treatments while at the same time requiring that interventions have some congruence with Pentecostal beliefs.

The present paper will address beliefs about mental illness and deliverance as they have been outlined by Pentecostal authors and by members of other groups who are committed to the deliverance concept (for example, some Roman Catholics and Anglicans of charismatic types). Although Pentecostalism lacks hierarchical organisation, tends to be highly congregational in nature, and has frequent schisms, a number of concepts about deliverance appear to be shared by most groups that would claim the Pentecostal category. Mental health professionals attempting to work with deliverance-believing clients, or to cooperate with deliverance ministers, need to understand the deliverance background in order to meet potential challenges in both practical and ethical realms.

The need for psychologists and counsellors to understand deliverance beliefs is underscored by the existence of an estimated 80,000,000 Pentecostals in the United States (“The new face of global Christianity”, [42]) as well as by the rapid growth of this belief system in Latin America and Africa. Some older works suggest that there have been significantly higher six-month and lifetime rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders among Pentecostals than among mainline Protestants (Koenig, George, Meador, Blazer, & Dyck, [27]). Where this large population is concerned, deliverance beliefs and practices may have serious implications for treatment of mental health problems.

Among those sharing charismatic beliefs (not all of whom are Pentecostals), opinion varies about the need for psychological or psychiatric training, or other education, for those working with the mentally ill. Anglicans and Roman Catholics make deliverance the task of ordained clergy and expect them to consider psychological and psychiatric concepts before taking a supernatural approach. Pentecostals, however, who have little hierarchical organisation, may use psychological terms and concepts but do not consider them essential to the task of casting out demons, nor do they consider any form of ordination or training to be necessary. Any Christian (as defined by Pentecostals) is thought to be able to deliver a sufferer from demons and thus from mental illness, although individuals have differing abilities for this work. Mainstream mental health professionals working with believers of these types need to have sufficient understanding of deliverance principles to be able to tolerate these views, so different from most of their own perspectives, and to anticipate their influence.

The present paper will outline some of the historical background explanatory of the deliverance belief system, and will explore some aspects of deliverance-oriented mental health practice. Because many Pentecostals and related groups believe that treatment of mental health problems cannot be complete without deliverance, psychologists, psychiatrists, and counsellors can expect that their contributions to treatment will be in cooperation with a deliverer; this paper will include a discussion of the ethical problems that may result from this cooperation.

Historical background and evolution of Pentecostal beliefs

Pentecostalism is usually considered as an aspect of evangelicalism, a Protestant Christian movement that began in the 1700s with groups like the Methodists (Bebbington, [ 4]). Evangelical thinking stresses the need for conversion (being “born again”), the reliance on biblical authority, an emphasis on Jesus’ death and resurrection as the primary factor in salvation, and the importance of actively spreading the gospel. Pentecostals share the belief in the critical nature of personal conversion and on the final authority of the Bible. However, in addition to a focus on Jesus’ death, Pentecostals adhere to a pneumatological soteriology (Ngong, [35]), in which the works of the Holy Spirit are seen as central to salvation and to life events. These include such gifts of the Holy Spirit as casting out of demons and speaking in tongues.

As is well-known, traditions of exorcism date back to ancient times. Roman Catholic rituals for exorcism were formulated in the seventeenth century, as were those of the Church of England (Malia, [32]). However, the capacity for deliverance (the expulsion of demons), as a gift of the Holy Spirit, and one among several gifts said to have been received by the Apostles at the event celebrated as Pentecost or Whitsunday, was not an aspect of these rituals. Neither were the gifts, which included “speaking in tongues” as described in the New Testament, part of the periodic religious revivals experienced in North America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Pentecostal practice of glossolalia apparently emerged in about 1830 as a practice of a British millennial Presbyterian group known as the Catholic Apostolic Church (Ellis, [16]). At about the same period, the Holiness Movement developed out of Wesleyan Methodism; this group stressed an experience of conversion in which the presence of the Holy Spirit was felt, and the experience of “signs and wonders” was expected (Poole, [37]). Pentecostalism proper, which is usually dated to a revival meeting in Los Angeles at the turn of the twentieth century, held that this experience was shown to be genuine only when the individual spoke in tongues. The gradual development of this belief in the influence of the Holy Spirit, and the symmetrical belief in the powers of demons, followed a folkloric pattern rather than emerging as an organised, hierarchical set of religious beliefs.

The practice of “pleading the Blood” for purposes of healing and deliverance, mentioned later in this paper, appears to have begun in a 1907 London prayer group headed by Catherine Price. An important Pentecostal figure, H.A. Maxwell Whyte, whose mother had been a follower of the prophetess Joanna Southcott, joined this group in 1939. By 1948, Maxwell Whyte was running a charismatic ministry in Toronto and using deliverance to treat arthritis and homosexuality, among other things. His 1959 book The power of the Blood described the use of pleading the Blood for the purpose of casting out spirits (Ellis, [16])

During the 1940s and 1950s, some Pentecostal groups, like the Assemblies of God, became more mainstream and marginalised the “gifts” that had been characteristic of the movement. From about 1960, however, there was an increasing influence of Pentecostal/Charismatic beliefs and practices among both Catholics and Protestants; a 1972 report of the Church of England discussed appropriate use of exorcism and suggested that some events resembling mental illness could be caused by demonic possession (Malia, [32]).

Other factors like the rise of “prosperity theology” (Roberts & Montgomery, [39]) and missionary efforts in Africa that brought in themes of African traditional religion also contributed to the developing syncretism that combined deliverance beliefs with psychological concepts (cf. Betty, [ 6]). An example of this syncretism is a paper in which Euteneuer [17] listed a number of risk factors for demon possession, but noted that persons who have been subjected to Satanic Ritual Abuse require the care of a therapist skilled in treatment of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Another example is the use of “Theophostic” (Bidwell, [ 8]), a treatment that expels demons in order to remove “lie-based thinking.”

Because of their folkloric and syncretic nature, deliverance beliefs and practices are dynamic and show continuing influences from both religious and psychological or psychiatric sources. Pentecostals on the whole are little influenced by mainstream religious positions, and have been described as taking “an eschatological position that feared ecumenical contact” (World Council of Churches, [49]). However, Pentecostal groups’ influence on each other is exemplified by the visits made to churches in the United States by Helen Ukpabio, the Nigerian “lady evangelist” and accuser of child witches (Ngong, [35]); advertising for her planned 2012 “marathon deliverance” at a church in Houston stated her expertise at helping those under attack by “mermaid spirits” (“Marathon deliverance,” [33]).

Pentecostal beliefs and mental health

The estimated number of Pentecostals in the United States – equivalent to one out of four people – and the history of adverse effects from deliverance practices (discussed later in this paper) suggest that we need to examine the specifics of Pentecostal thinking about mental illness and its treatment. A better understanding of these points may be of help in understanding the attitudes of a large group towards conventional psychological approaches to the prevention and treatment of mental illness, and may thus contribute to related public health efforts as well as to the effectiveness of work by mental health professionals.

Although much Pentecostal teaching occurs in small, private groups, there has been sufficient agreement to support a number of publications about the nature of demonic possession and deliverance, and the positions advocated by these publications appear to be acceptable to many Pentecostals. The most popular of these is Pigs in the parlor: The practical guide to deliverance (Hammond & Hammond, [20]). The same authors have published A manual for children’s deliverance (1996/2010). A similar guide is Deliverance for children and teens(Banks, [ 3]). These and a series of Internet sites are sources of information about Pentecostal approaches to both mental and physical illness. The following section will outline relevant Pentecostal beliefs as described in those sources. (However, it is quite possible that between the time of writing and the publication of this paper, further schisms will have created some differences in the thinking of Pentecostals, especially in the United States and Canada, where Pentecostal beliefs seem to be particularly volatile.)

Causes of mental illness

In the Pentecostal view, mental illnesses, including autism, bipolar disorder, depression, Reactive Attachment Disorder, and schizophrenia, all have their direct causes in the presence or “indwelling” of demons who have entered the victim’s body. These demons, who are servants of Satan but not usually Satan himself, are spiritual in nature, but can operate through material bodies, and are thus parallel to the Holy Spirit, which can also enter a body and cause behaviours like speaking in tongues. Behaviours caused by spiritual entities show the presence of those entities; just as speaking in tongues indicates the presence of the Holy Spirit in the speaker, disturbed behaviours are indicators of the demonic presence.

The type of mental illness manifested by an individual depends on the type of demons influencing him. Hammond and Hammond [20] provide four pages of names for groupings of demons, including spirits of bitterness, rebellion, strife, control, nervousness, and paranoia. In each case of demonisation, there is considered to be one ruling spirit, or “strong man,” and it is essential that this one be addressed, but also that every one of the subordinate demons be expelled as well.

Hammond and Hammond [20] devoted an entire chapter to demonic causes of schizophrenia, which they regarded as “split personality.” Mrs. Hammond described being awakened from sleep by a revelation in which God described the nature of schizophrenia.

The Hammonds’ description of schizophrenia is typical of Pentecostal thought in its selection of specific demons who cause a problem. In addition, it characteristically points to experiences or conditions that invite the entrance of specific demons. Mrs. Hammond continued her description of her revelation by discussing the indirect causes of schizophrenia:

Schizophrenia can be demonically inherited … demons seek to perpetuate their like kind. It is easiest for them to do this in a family. For example, suppose the schizophrenia nature is in the mother. The demons will pick out one or more of her children to feed down through. The schizophrenic mother feels rejection … She is the one who touches, handles, and fondles the infant. The rejection within herself creates problems in her relationships with the child. So, the child is opened for rejection by the mother’s instability. I repeat, schizophrenia ALWAYS begins with rejection. (p. 144)

Read without the reference to demons, this view of mental illness may appear simplistic, but not completely unlike a conventional but strongly environmental approach to psychological disorders; however, understanding the claimed role of demons makes it clear that the Pentecostal system shares little with conventional, naturalistic approaches.

Mrs. Hammond’s reference to rejection in early life and the entrance of a demon into the individual typifies the Pentecostal view that experiences and circumstances open “ports of entry” for demons, who are attracted by certain situations. In some cases demonisation follows the person’s intentional participation in sinful actions; in others, the sins of related persons cause the attraction of demons to an individual; in still other situations, demons are attracted by events that are neither intentional nor sinful, but accidental. Demonisation is not always preventable even by the most committed Pentecostal. Of the circumstances thought to create mental illness by attracting demons, some, but not all, have been posited as potentially disturbing by conventional psychologists.

Adoption

Adopted children are considered very likely to be afflicted by demons. Although the child himself may never have experienced thoughts or behaviour that created vulnerability to demons, Pentecostals hold that the circumstances under which adoption is likely to occur attract demonic interest (Banks, [ 3]; Hammond & Hammond, [21]). These may include the death of a parent, after which spirits of abandonment and fear may make their entrance. More often, the child who is to be relinquished for adoption has already been exposed to demonic activity, produced when a conception occurred out of wedlock or in a spirit of lust.

The mother’s consideration of abortion also invites demons to enter the child and the womb itself (although spiritual in nature, demons appear to experience some constraints of time and space and thus may preferentially affect certain body parts). According to Hammond and Hammond [21], “A spirit of death gains a legal right to a child yet in the womb if the mother and/or father attempt or even contemplate an abortion” (p. 86). In the opinion of Banks [ 3], the demonic dangers of abortion extend also to contraception by means of IUDs, foams, and contraceptive pills “that work by inducing an abortion” (p. 83).

Childhood trauma

Pentecostals consider demons to enter during traumatic events, and stress the possibility that this will happen during early life. The use of drugs in childbirth is questioned; apparently referring to Pitocin, Hammond and Hammond [21] state that when “the mother is given the drug patosium to induce labor, the drug passes through the placenta into the baby affecting the nervous system with adverse effects upon his emotions” (p. 86). Birth traumas are given special consideration, as they may have attracted “spirits of birthing trauma, oxygen deficiency, and death” (Hammond & Hammond, [21], p. 87) that remain with the afflicted person into adulthood, causing intellectual delays. Physical, emotional, and sexual abuse all attract demons that distort thought, emotion, and behaviour, as do other experiences of fear.

Sickness and death

Experiences of one’s own illnesses or those of other people and of pets, or of deaths, are thought to invite demonic entry through grief, abandonment, loneliness, and insecurity. These spirits may remain with the affected person from childhood into adulthood, and bereavement even in adulthood may lead to similar demonisation.

Occult experiences

Association with any aspect of the occult is thought to attract demons. This includes stories or movies involving magic or witches, Ouija boards and tarot cards, having one’s fortune told or palm read, and dressing in costumes for Halloween. All “New Age” practices are considered occult, and Pentecostal schisms may include references to schismatic practices as occult in nature (Ray, [38]).

Curses

According to Banks [ 3], a curse is “a demonic force brought to bear upon a person or family by the words, will or actions of another individual” (p. 84). The other person may create a curse by ill-wishing or by specific behaviours or words that are hostile to the cursed individual, the latter explanation of mental illness being congruent with the concern of mainstream psychology about experiences with hostile interactions.

Some curses are also considered to be generational in nature, so that an individual is demonically attacked because of actions or experiences of parents, grandparents, or more distant generations. Generational curses are likely to involve occult activities of the ancestor or prohibited sexual practices. Adopted children are particularly likely to suffer from generational curses, because they inherit from a “double lineage” (Banks, [ 3]) with evil spirits potentially coming to them from both adoptive and biological parents.

Results of demonic attack

What are the results of demonic possession? They may include an extensive list of physical and mental ills, including infertility, obesity, asthma, seizure disorders, ADHD, and schizophrenia. Alcoholism and drug use in adults, and disobedience or nightmares in children, are attributed to demonic activity. Deliverance, or expulsion of the demons, is expected to cure these and other conditions, and even Pentecostals who accept some medical intervention would deny the possibility of a complete cure without deliverance (Legako & Gribble, [29]).

Some African Pentecostals have in recent years emphasised the belief that children may be demon-possessed and as a result may be dangerous to others as well as suffering their own symptoms. These “child witches” are thought to be stubborn and resistant to schooling, and to plot with other children and with evil spirits to do harm to people and property. They can “drain” adults’ happiness and prosperity and cause electronics to fail (Wilson, [47]). The “child witch” belief has not so far been a major part of Pentecostalism in the United States, but in 2012 a Houston church planned a “marathon deliverance” involving the Nigerian Pentecostal minister Helen Ukpabio, who is known as an accuser of “witch children” (Ngong, [35]). Her books and a film, The end of the wicked, have encouraged this type of belief. Whether Ukpabio has already influenced beliefs among US Pentecostals, or whether she will do so in the future, is not known.

Treatment of mental illness by deliverance

As would be the case for any conventional psychotherapy or counselling technique, deliverance techniques address mental illness, educational, and behaviour problems by both diagnosis and intervention.

Discernment

Diagnosis of demonic presences begins with reports of problems and with very general clues to the presence of demons. For example, demonic possession can be indicated by behaviours a person cannot control, by extreme mood changes, by cravings for power or the practice of manipulation, by persistent bad habits, and by a pattern of being victimised (Legako & Gribble, [29]). Some descriptions of demonic possession stress altered appearance of the victim’s eyes, which may be red in colour or “almost black like shark’s eyes” (“Warning signs of demonic … ,” [45]). Animals may appear frightened of the person, and there may be incontinence.

The diagnosis of which spirits are responsible for these or more specific problems involves the process of discernment. Discernment is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Biblically described as having occurred at Pentecost.

Discerning of spirits is the supernatural ability given by the Holy Ghost to perceive the source of a spiritual manifestation and determine whether it is of God … It implies the power of spiritual insight – the supernatural revelation of plans and purposes of the enemy and his forces (Boshart, [ 9]).

Discernment, which is most often an ability shown by women (Franklin, [19]), may proceed by way of a word of knowledge.