Thursday, February 9, 2012

Readers' Question: Satan Cast Out Satan?

Question:
According to Jesus, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?

So how do you explain exorcism performed by both Catholic and Protestant ministers. If they are Antichrists as you claimed how it is they cast out demons from those who are demon possessed?

Question conceptExorcism, why would Satan cast out satan?

Answer:
The first thing you need to understand about exorcism is that its practice is not restricted to the Christian religion (i.e. faith and worship). Many systems of belief in the supernatural or paranormal have practices of the rituals of exorcism. Major religions such as Catholicism, Protestantism, Taoist-Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism, all have various teachings and practices that relate to exorcism. In many of these religious beliefs, exorcism involves rituals that ranged from the simple reading and chanting of their scriptures to the very elaborate. And in some religions, inviting Spirits possession is part and parcel of their religious practice and celebrations. There are also those who claimed to communicate andor form alliances with spirit entities and ghosts of departed souls.

The word exorcism is not the appropriate word to use in the context of what the Holy Christian Scriptures recorded that JESUS cast out demons from those who were demon possessed. Exorcism is a different word in the Greek text that carries a different meaning. JESUS cast out demons (Matthew 8:16; Mark 7:25 - 30) from those possessed by demons HE did not exorcise demons or perform exorcism.

If you have ever witnessed any exorcism rituals perform by the various religious faiths today, you should be able to note that these exorcism have no semblance to the casting out of demons carried out by JESUS as recorded in the Holy Christian Scriptures.

But if you haven't, then doing an internet search might yield some accounts of exorcism and demonic possessions. If you do research this online, be sure to understand and bear in mind that many accounts of demonic possessions are either fraudulent or are false claims by delusional or psychotic persons.

Real demonic possession though not common, do take place. Some demonic possession are from direct desire and invitation by those who are possessed, either temporary or regularly. There are also those where demons forcibly take possession of unsuspecting individual against their freewill. In the Gospel accounts of JESUS casting out demons, they belong to this latter category while in the Book of Acts, the Apostle Paul was recorded to cast out a demon possession of the former category (Acts 16:16 - 18).

While real cases of demonic possession may not be common, demonic activities and manipulations of humankind and their corrupting influence on human activities and thinking are however very common and pervasive. The Christian Holy Scriptures recorded that the whole world (or nearly all of humankind) is under the sway and influence of Satan the Devil and his demons.

We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.
1 John 5:19


Two Main Demon Possession Types.

Not all demonic possession are the same. Generally demonic possession can be classified under two main categories.

  1. A strategic, agenda driven demonic possession. (see below for two recent examples of this reported as exorcism in the News).
  2. A need driven demonic possession.


In the first type, demons working in concert with Satan the Devil take possession of a person or even an object to forward the Satanic agenda of deceiving mankind into all sorts of illogical as well as insane system of beliefs. This is done primary to prevent them from learning the truth about GOD and HIS purpose for all mankind when HE create mankind, male and female, in HIS Image and Likeness. This is also to prevent mankind from really believing the message of the Gospel of the Kingdom of GOD and in believing to gain redemption and salvation through repentance to enter into the New Covenant instituted by the MESSENGER of the Covenant, LORD JESUS CHRIST, as the sacrificial LAMB of GOD.

In the second type of demonic possession Spiritually unstable demons do so to seek rest and comfort from the distress of their Spiritual decay.


Below is a summary of some important things to understand about the Spiritual realm of Angels and Demons in order to understand demonic possession, when and why they happen as a relatively rare event in the world of man. For the more complete discussion of the Spiritual realm of Angels and demons and how they related to mankind please read the chapter ‘Angels, Demons and Man’ of Bible 101 – The Holy Bible Expounded’ by this author.


Some Important Things to Understand about The Spiritual Realm of Angels and Demons.

In our modern “enlightened” and “civilized” world, most of non “religious” mankind do not believe in a personage that is the source of all the evil in the created realm. Even among the many religious faiths and spirit based systems of faith there are quite a number who do not believe in such a personage who is the source and embodiment of evil. Also, even in many religious faiths where such a personage is mentioned in their religious scriptures, those who really believe that such a personage is either the source of evil or the embodiment of evil have really no perspective of such a personage in their lives and the course of this world of mankind. For them, Satan the Devil and the concept of a powerful Spiritual personage running around instigating evil in the minds of men and women is something that has no relevance to their conduct of their own lives. And like the proverbial pot calling the kettle black they go around branding as Satanic all those religious faiths or system of beliefs that are different from andor oppose theirs.

As free will independent minded personage ourselves, we should understand at least partially how the Spirit-minds of Angels work. That is they are like us having thoughts and emotions. That means like us they function continually and are not machines that are turned on and off to perform some specific task. That also means that like us they feel, reason and contemplate. All these means that they are not static or passive but are active and dynamic; doing things, carrying out task and pursuing individual goals. Today (2012 C.E.) the world population is estimated to be around seven billion. The Holy Christian Scriptures indicated that Angels out numbered mankind numerous times over.

And just as is in the world of humankind we have personages with different skills, power might, talents and intelligence, so also it is with the Angelic realm. But Angels were created to minister and serve GOD directly and indirectly carrying out duties and assignments. The Spiritual domain is a Kingdom with GOD as the absolute SOVEREIGN ruler and Angels holding various offices and ranks in the administration of the Kingdom of Heaven.

In human society we find all manner of people with varying degrees of intelligence and sanity, so it is in the realm of Angels. In the world of mankind the vast majority of people are not fully sane, and a fair number are having psychological issues in their lives while some are totally mad or insane. Psychological issues are caused primarily by emotional instability in the Spirit-minds and affect both Angels and mankind.

Through the course of time from their creation, some of these Spirit personages whose minds are not too different from that of mankind began to entertain evil and totally self focus thoughts. This lead to the eventual corruption of their thinking and logical reasoning and some became demented or deranged. The term or name demon’ refers to demented state of the Spirit minds of these one time 'Sons' of GOD. While both the original text in Hebrew and Greek are not precise in the meaning of the word translated as demons or devils in the English translation of the Holy Christian Scriptures, they also referred demons as unclean Spirit to illustrate a state of defilement or corruption (decayed from a physical and carnal perspective) or degeneration. The more accurate rendering will be ‘demented’ or ‘deranged’ to denote a Spirit-mind that is no longer sound or sane. We can draw a general comparison of such degenerated Spirit-minds with the members of mankind who are psychopaths whose minds are no longer fully sane. Just as in the world of man those who are of unsound minds falls into two general types so also the realm of Angelic beings. These are those who are very destructive in an evil cunning sense and then those who are mostly illogical and unstable having lost most of their sense and perspective of reality.

For a more complete discussion of psychosis in both Angels and mankind please read the chapter ‘Angels, Demons and Man’ of ‘Bible 101 – The Holy Bible Expounded’.




Some interesting news report on exorcism that have left me greatly incredulous at how seemly easy (not to say that it should be difficult) it is that these supposedly powerful spirit beings are “exorcised”. Please click on the title links to view the recent news report (these links may no longer be available)  in the respective online news publications:

Case 1 (Added 2018 01 05, for those who think this author can be believed, it might be interesting to note that all the records of this Case 1 has since disappeared, all entries of this Case 1 had mysteriously vanished, from the files which I maintained as record of all references which I posted in this work.)
(Be sure to see the photo in the last article on how the demons were finally exorcised, the original link may no longer be valid so be sure to do an internet search under the link titles):
Paranormal experts fail to get rid of ‘ghosts’ at grandma’s house (thestar online  Saturday January 8, 2011)
Australian to chronicle family’s ghostly encounter (thestar online Monday February 21, 2011)
'Kung fu' spritualist in exorcism bid (The Daily Chili Saturday 10, March 2012)
Mysterious fire woman pays debt of gratitude to spiritualist (thestar online  Tuesday June 7, 2011)
More mysterious fires in the family home (New Straits Times December 3, 2017)
Ghostbuster can’t heal busted hearts (thestar online  Wednesday June 8, 2011, this article has since been taken down by the publisher and may require an account to access)

Case 1a
Supernatural Encounters (Video several locations featured on CNN)

Case 2 (news story title should have read as Pope traumatized and scared the crap out of demons claims new book):
Pope exorcised two men in the Vatican claims new book (the Ttelegraph Saturday 10 March 2012)



Superstitious Beliefs And Some Reported Paranormal Encounters


Case 1 (Superstitions beliefs of the social order):
Baby girl killed in exorcism ritual (Borneo Post Online 7 August 2012)
Three-year-oldgirl suffocates to death during exorcism (The Sun Daily 6 August 2012)
Religious rituals which cause harm or death forbidden (thestar Online 8 August 2012)


Case 2 (Reported paranormal encounters)
Mysterious hands appear in Mount Kinabalu photo (thestar online Published: Friday June 12, 2015 MYT 2:32:00 PM, This item was given nation wide coverage. The event was reported to have taken place some days after a series of earthquake hit the area and a an even earlier incident of indecent behavior on top of the state highest peak: 4 Foreigners sentence for posing nude on Malaysia peak a global news story covered by the major international news network.)


Case Study (Local Beliefs And First Party Accounts Of Paranormal Encounters. Read this as an analytical study following the order sequence as laid out below and see if they make any rational sense of these accounts. If you so wish you can check back here a few months later — sometime towards the end of 2015 C.E.  — to read the prognosis by this author on the inconsistency and how to make sense of these accounts on the assumption that there is some basis and truth to them.)
Forest spirits: Strange tale from the forest (star2 online Published: JUNE 13, 2015)
Forest spirits: Hikers and campers share their eerie tales (star2 online Published: JUNE 13, 2015)
Related (Local Beliefs And First Party Accounts Of Paranormal Encounters)
They see ghosts (thestar online Published: Saturday April 15, 2006)
Speculate no more about spectres (thestar online Published: Saturday April 15, 2006)
Don't fear the forest (thestar online Published: Saturday April 15, 2006)
Supernatural survival tips (thestar online Published: Saturday April 15, 2006)
Forest spirits: Don’t break these taboos (star2 online Published: JUNE 13, 2015)
Lost hiker mystery: Did ‘orang bunian’ kidnap Teo Ming Lean? (star2 online Published: July 10, 2015, and Part 2 in July 13, 2015)



Please Note: Externally sourced references are quoted as is without any assessment being made by this author on whether they are authentic or fraudulent. Readers are to make their own judgment call.


Unanswered Questions

I have intentionally left out one major key issue that needed to be addressed pertaining to this question of ‘Satan Casting Out Satan’. This I have done in order to see if those seeking to understand this question could see the missing coverage and post some questions. Obviously those who were seeking the answers to this question didn't seem to miss these key issues. Perhaps its was just not that important to them after all, which surely expose their self deception in posting this question pretending to want to serve, obey and love GOD. This is as I have also exposed in all the evil religions that claimed that they are the true religion of the GOD of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob while they implicitly as well as very explicitly have been blaspheming (insulting and maligning) GOD in their evil doctrines and teachings.

Nevertheless to complete this discussion, I shall at an opportune time raise these key issue and discuss them. But if you rather read the answer now, it is in another post (a very long post, so this read is not for the impatience), you can read this unanswered question in the post, ‘Reader's Question – Why Do Innocents Suffer If GOD Is Just’.

Anyone who think they know what these key unanswered issues are, please feel free to post them in the comments or write to this author through the contact form on the right hand side of this page.


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Note:
1. Words in italic referenced titles or proper names where this applies, otherwise these are personal notes to selected people who are familiar with them.
2. I have intentionally left out many scriptural references as anyone who wants to prove or disprove what is written here should read the Christian Bible thoroughly and extensively (from cover to cover at least three or more times).
3. The various chapters and articles discussed here are by no means exhaustive of the doctrines, prophesies, subjects and answers to questions on the Christian Holy Scriptures.
4. Scriptures quoted are from New King James Version unless otherwise indicated.
5. Please bear in mind that this stuff here is for foundation understanding and some 'deeper' verses and advanced doctrines are only introduced in the later (those from 2014 C.E.) posted discussion as well as to the later updated posts.
6. The word or term 'man' is used throughout as a reference to man specifically as well as to all mankind (male and female) according to the context in the same way as the Christian Bible used the term.
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Updated: 2018 01 05
First Posted: 2012 02 09