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I have delayed posting on this thread because I find the whole subject so distasteful.

As a Christian, I find the whole enterprise of "spiritual warfare" - There isn't a single thing to be said in its favor. It's a colossal waste of time and energy, prone to inject a lot of hysteria into a congregation and enable the "warriors" to become heroes in their own eyes, without accomplishing anything. It doesn't preach the Gospel, feed the hungry, love one's neighbor, or do anything else Jesus says we Christians should be about.

The neighbor to be loved is the cranky housewife next door, the ill-mannered co-worker, the homeless fellow who smells bad, and so on. There is no particular love of neighbor in seeking to "deliver" someone from "a spirit of make-up," "a spirit of smoking," etc. Not through the ugliness that "deliverance" usually entails.

That said, Jesus didn't invent the concept of demonia. It was already present in the culture into which he came - a society rife both with messianic pretenders and with exorcists. Where it came from, I certainly don't know. Most of the "exorcisms" in which Jesus himself engaged may be taken as healings of what we would today regard as various bodily illnesses, psychoses, epilepsy, etc.

Some years ago, there was a thread on which some folks speculated that Elijah may appear by means either of gilgul or of sibbur. I dissented, having read some accounts of apparent cases of sibbur; not one case involved any good for human beings or society. Jeffrey Dahmer and BTK both regarded themselves as cases of sibbur. The question also rises in the stories of Ted Bundy and Joseph Edward Duncan III. Demonia, if it occurs, is probably as rare as individuals like those just named.

Such cases are light-years distant from the congregation member whom the pastor decides must be delivered from her "spirit of wearing jewelry."

Whether or not there is any such thing as a "demon," the world of discarnates is populated by personalities, some as good, others as evil, as any human being who ever lived. Arthur Goode, who I feel certain was not a case of sibbur, is "out there" somewhere right now.

There is simply no point in seeking to engage such spirits; not at all. When Desiree Washington went to Mike Tyson's hotel room, what was she thinking? That she'd make a gentleman of him? Better to have just stayed away completely. So also with any inclination one might have to engage the nasties. All of us have better things to do.

Ezekah's (11/19/07 15:18:48) post to Sachs (link) seems to me to speak to this situation also.