Hmmm not sure I agree... as a Christian I can't say I endorse a book like this:
> By recognizing your demons, giving them form, and then feeding them, you can free yourself from the battle. And the paradigm shift from fighting to feeding demons can apply not only to your personal challenges but also to the challenges of the world at large.
If you actually believe demons are real beings, instead of a metaphorical device, this seems like a horrible idea.
Oh yeah, I’m not saying it’s The Answer™, just that it does synthesize the two perspectives you outline here. And to my understanding, the modern practice stems from one that does view demons as real entities, but doesn’t conceive of them the way Christianity conceives of its demons. Allione’s definitely addressed the “why would I feed something evil?” concern and her answer, to admittedly oversimplify it, is along the lines of “they’re evil because they’re hungry.”
Interesting. I suppose I could see a parallel where some of the Saints will pity, and even pray for, demons because they are out of God's light. I would say feeding them has a lot of bad implications though. We should pray for them to turn their hearts back to God.
Great post. I actually started my spiritual journey towards Christ as an atheist seeking healing in IFS. I practiced it religiously for 2 years. Yep, can confirm, it is a pathway to demons.
Yeah I started getting horrible chronic pain issues, and went from doctor to doctor until I realized it was an “emotional issue.” Then I went from therapy to therapy.
Eventually I was healed in Christ, but it took a while!
That being said I don’t think IFS *always* leads to demons, and the idea that we shouldn’t hate ourselves is good. But we don’t have enough love on our own to fill our empty hearts. We need Him to love us as well.
I’m honestly not sure that not all IFS parts are actually demons in disguise. There’s a lot of overlap between certain forms prelest and IFS therapy: experience of false “grace” that increases your hunger for more “healing” without Christ.
Also, for some, a slow ramp up to more and more extreme experiences with “parts” — most people do not meet the “other within” until after a while of practicing IFS.
For similar reasons other practices that promote “healing” outside of Christ are also considered suspect — like the peace one can feel once achieving a state of “no self” in zen meditation. That’s considered prelest, a demonic counterfeit.
Sounds like you did a more directed version of IFS than me, I just basically read some articles on it and tried not to hate myself when I had an angry or sad thought. It was kinda useful. I agree if you go down the whole "path" you're more likely to run into demons.
That being said, question - do you think that anything not explicitly Christian is evil delusion? I'm skeptical. For instance I think some of the eastern religions, while not True like Christ's Gospel is, do have some true beauty of them and truth of God. The book Christ the Eternal Tao covers this in good dept, written by an Orthodox hieromonk.
I can agree that they're "suspect" in that they aren't full revelations, but again I don't think they're necessarily entirely evil or on the level of, say, outright demon worship.
When I asked my own priest about this, he quoted St. Basil the Great to me:
"Let our use of books and learning in every case mirror the ‘icon’ of the honeybee. For such does not visit every flower in the same manner, neither does the honeybee attempt to fly off bearing the burden of the entire flower. Rather, once it derives that which is needful from the flower, it leaves the rest behind and takes flight."
So, too, if we are wise, once we derive from learning what resonates with truth, we too shall leave the rest behind and take flight. For is it not so that when we take a rose we avoid the thorns? So, too, let us approach diverse writings, harvesting the fruits that they offer for our objectives, while protecting ourselves from the damaging elements that may lie within them. In all our studies, let us take with us and take within us only what builds us up, and what leads us in the fulfillment of our mission…” (in RAISING LAZARUS edited by Stephen Muse, p 232-233)
No, I don’t think all teachings outside of Christianity are demonic or born of prelest, the Bible explicitly states that the world religions came in preparation for Christ. Yet also psalm 96:5 tells us that the gods of the nations are demons (Septuagint)
If we find similarities between the truth and what other cultures believed to be true (purity before marriage is an easy one to find) that is a result of the pagans glimpsing at the divine. We agree, the full revelation does not until after Christ but that does not mean that everything in other religions is completely false.
What I will say is that mystical experiences divorced from Christ or even the church should be treated as demonic, or at least a delusion even if it’s arising from the individual. Psychology often wanders into mystical territory without naming it outloud, which is what my grievance is against it. This is extremely important.
And yeah if you just teach yourself to stop hating yourself that’s actually a practice the church wants you to adopt too. There’s nothing wrong with learning that from IFS either, just like there’s nothing wrong with a Hindu staying pure before marriage. That is a legitimately sanctifying act. But I would not define that as a strong IFS practice either, it’s sort of one of the main hallmarks of most forms of psychology. I learned that first through CBT and it was very helpful (a practice I still think is good because it aligns a lot with the Christian spiritual battle rather than wandering into errant mysticism).
> No, I don’t think all teachings outside of Christianity are demonic or born of prelest, the Bible explicitly states that the world religions came in preparation for Christ. Yet also psalm 96:5 tells us that the gods of the nations are demons (Septuagint)
Ok interesting, yeah I can see that. I think I give Buddhism & Taosim a bit more of a pass because some branches, like Zen, don't actually require the worship of spiritual entities.
I agree with most of the rest of what you're saying yeah I think we're on the same page. I do think that spiritual experiences divorced from Christ can be tricky. I did a lot of psychedelics before my conversion, led me to some strange places.
Then again, those experiences eventually led me back to Christ! So idk. Can be a mixed bag, but probably better overall to be cautious.
I would recommmedn orthodoxy and the religion of the future for further reading on this. Even though the aim is not to be in touch with spiritual entities in zen meditation or similar practices, it is still considered deceptive and mystical. Father seraphim rose condemns zen explicitly.
I had a similar experience with sinful seeking of spiritual experiences leading me to the truth. The way I think about these is not that they revealed the truth but that God did despite my sin to rescue me
Wiccans and Pagans sometimes actively personify the Bad Voice, or something like one's own obesity, alcoholism, lechery, etc as a demon and banish it according to the methodology of either Medieval Western occultism, or Shamanism.
Here's an example: When I was a Wiccan, I used to read Liber Pyramidos by Aleister Crowley, which is an initiatory poem. At the beginning you pass by symbolic demonic/dark energies and say: Alas! Who pins me down, who stabs my heart? I am unfit to pass within this pylon of the hall of Maat (balance). Then, you cleanse yourself with water, and anoint your third eye. This helps you to cleanse yourself spiritually, and gradually layer by layer you become empowered.
When you are almost done with the initiation, having been empowered, and you pass by the dreaded faces of the shadow, you say: I know thee, and I pass thee by. For more than thou am I. Or, think about Luke Skywalker fighting his own ego, his shadow self, in the cave.
Why wouldn't they help? They're gods, not demons or ghosts.
I think in European based systems, they started off as natural forces, for example Boann is the spirit of the river Boyne. In Egyptian and Mesopotamian mythology, they created humanity.
Why would they not help the physical locations they are in charge of, the people they created, or the physical or spiritual descendants of their original worshippers.
In the Chinese system, which isn't really the same as Wiccan, gods start off as mortal humans and part of the preconditions of becoming deified is service to all of humanity. This is also the belief system held by Theosophists, I think.
By what method would an honored ancestor who seeks to serve his descendants and all of humanity become a demon?
A dead human who chooses to become the guardian of John Smith's butt crack and fight off colon cancer and constipation is humbling himself to the maximum.
At least in Chinese folk religion - the stories may have been lost about others - gods attain to being gods through their humility and service. A pauper giving away his last penny, becoming the god of wealth.
Why would Lucifer humble himself when he wouldn't even bow down to the first man.
My roommate also says that Perseus was refigured as St George.
I think the way we can solve this whole thing and find the right discernment (as you hint at the end) is to basically answer the question of "where is this coming from?"
Which I think is what you demonstrate here:
> On the flip side, I could say “no this is an evil temptation, striking my brother in anger is wrong, and I will refuse the call of the Evil One.”
Like, it would be VERY different if the reason you wanted to smack your friend was because he was doing something wrong, evil, or unfair. OR if you felt like you were jealous & actually wanted to be more like him. I also like Bradie's protocol where she describes the demons as "patterns of looping thought" that may not be "you", that may emerge like chaos emerging in nature.
Great reply! I fixed the post with the tweet link lol sorry. Noob mistake.
To this point:
> I love this kind of translation exercise (I also love that you contrast these two things on equal footing. Like it's not that one is a religion and one is "pure truth", they're both world views):
Absolutely! This is how the church fathers defended the Gospel against paganism. They took each argument as equal on its face, and didn't nakedly assert Christ's message as better. They proved it through argumentation. I think this approach is how Christians are meant to evangelize.
> this is the real key 🏅 . One extreme is bad, and so is the other extreme. The real question is how do we discern, what does the balance look like?
Yep I love this. My priest always says that the Evil One operates on us through extremes. Christ is found in balance, in the harmony between extremes.
I'm curious for your thoughts on this piece, if you've ever experienced something like it?
> Other times, this process will just lead you through a funhouse hall of mirrors, where you constantly analyze and re-analyze every tiny change in emotion, sift through all your memories for anything with the slightest hint of similarity, and drive yourself mad trying to cobble together some just-so story that explains your “trauma.”
I'm currently cautiously exploring a "why not both" approach to this. Which I suspect you would react quite strongly against. Like yes it's demons and yes they're not part of my self but also they are of God. What does that mean? Can they be safely traded with? Obviously this is very dangerous territory and opens up a Pandora's box of questions. But there's something here that feels important to me personally.
I guess I'm asking myself the question what is the archetypal fight? Is it really good against evil? Angels vs demons? Aren't they all of God? What if "good" were to win? There's something here about reframing evil as that which ends the infinite game. Seeing the archetypal war between good and evil as an infinite war. Both sides lose by winning in the finite sense.
I think rather it moves good and evil from polarity to trinity. Both extremes are evil, and it's their skilful integration and balance that is good.
Which honestly doesn't disagree with you much, if at all. At least on the behavioral points. Some things are evil and outside of ourselves and do not deserve to be fed energy.
Man I wrote a super long response and it got eaten rip!!
Yeah I am actually super cool with this! I’m quite exploratory with my own religious beliefs but I get this feedback a lot that people think I’m a lot more rigid. Not sure if it’s an artifact of my writing style or what hah, something I can work on.
So it is complex in the orthodox worldview you have God allowing a third of the demons to remain to tempt humanity after the Caananites were basically genocided. So there’s a sort of pedagogical element to demons apparently.
Also, you have Saints that will pray for demons and even recommend we pity them. Similar to bodhisatvas.
You have quite a large strain of Universlism in the Orthodox Church too, see David Bentley Hart’s All Shall Be Saved.
Overall I think the basic idea is that these things whether they’re complexes or buried trauma or demons are alive in some sense, and are better modeled as beings than as just a voice in your head. Whether it’s a part of you or not is tricky and then goes into well what is “you.”
And the classic Christian goal is to crucify yourself to allow Christ to be born in you so, idk.
But I guess where it does disagree is that also sometimes there are demons that have colonized me that aren't pure evil. That I have common currency with. Which I think in practice is less scary then in abstract. I could say more about that
Yeah in general I think the word demon is way too charged and scary for people sadly. It’s because they are materialists and spiritual beings existing is destabilizing. It was for me at least
If this is thesis and antithesis, I suspect Tsultrim Allione’s Feeding Your Demons is the synthesis.
Hmmm not sure I agree... as a Christian I can't say I endorse a book like this:
> By recognizing your demons, giving them form, and then feeding them, you can free yourself from the battle. And the paradigm shift from fighting to feeding demons can apply not only to your personal challenges but also to the challenges of the world at large.
If you actually believe demons are real beings, instead of a metaphorical device, this seems like a horrible idea.
Oh yeah, I’m not saying it’s The Answer™, just that it does synthesize the two perspectives you outline here. And to my understanding, the modern practice stems from one that does view demons as real entities, but doesn’t conceive of them the way Christianity conceives of its demons. Allione’s definitely addressed the “why would I feed something evil?” concern and her answer, to admittedly oversimplify it, is along the lines of “they’re evil because they’re hungry.”
Interesting. I suppose I could see a parallel where some of the Saints will pity, and even pray for, demons because they are out of God's light. I would say feeding them has a lot of bad implications though. We should pray for them to turn their hearts back to God.
Great post. I actually started my spiritual journey towards Christ as an atheist seeking healing in IFS. I practiced it religiously for 2 years. Yep, can confirm, it is a pathway to demons.
Hah I also went atheist —> Orthodox. Nice.
Yeah I started getting horrible chronic pain issues, and went from doctor to doctor until I realized it was an “emotional issue.” Then I went from therapy to therapy.
Eventually I was healed in Christ, but it took a while!
That being said I don’t think IFS *always* leads to demons, and the idea that we shouldn’t hate ourselves is good. But we don’t have enough love on our own to fill our empty hearts. We need Him to love us as well.
I’m honestly not sure that not all IFS parts are actually demons in disguise. There’s a lot of overlap between certain forms prelest and IFS therapy: experience of false “grace” that increases your hunger for more “healing” without Christ.
Also, for some, a slow ramp up to more and more extreme experiences with “parts” — most people do not meet the “other within” until after a while of practicing IFS.
For similar reasons other practices that promote “healing” outside of Christ are also considered suspect — like the peace one can feel once achieving a state of “no self” in zen meditation. That’s considered prelest, a demonic counterfeit.
Sounds like you did a more directed version of IFS than me, I just basically read some articles on it and tried not to hate myself when I had an angry or sad thought. It was kinda useful. I agree if you go down the whole "path" you're more likely to run into demons.
That being said, question - do you think that anything not explicitly Christian is evil delusion? I'm skeptical. For instance I think some of the eastern religions, while not True like Christ's Gospel is, do have some true beauty of them and truth of God. The book Christ the Eternal Tao covers this in good dept, written by an Orthodox hieromonk.
I can agree that they're "suspect" in that they aren't full revelations, but again I don't think they're necessarily entirely evil or on the level of, say, outright demon worship.
When I asked my own priest about this, he quoted St. Basil the Great to me:
"Let our use of books and learning in every case mirror the ‘icon’ of the honeybee. For such does not visit every flower in the same manner, neither does the honeybee attempt to fly off bearing the burden of the entire flower. Rather, once it derives that which is needful from the flower, it leaves the rest behind and takes flight."
So, too, if we are wise, once we derive from learning what resonates with truth, we too shall leave the rest behind and take flight. For is it not so that when we take a rose we avoid the thorns? So, too, let us approach diverse writings, harvesting the fruits that they offer for our objectives, while protecting ourselves from the damaging elements that may lie within them. In all our studies, let us take with us and take within us only what builds us up, and what leads us in the fulfillment of our mission…” (in RAISING LAZARUS edited by Stephen Muse, p 232-233)
No, I don’t think all teachings outside of Christianity are demonic or born of prelest, the Bible explicitly states that the world religions came in preparation for Christ. Yet also psalm 96:5 tells us that the gods of the nations are demons (Septuagint)
If we find similarities between the truth and what other cultures believed to be true (purity before marriage is an easy one to find) that is a result of the pagans glimpsing at the divine. We agree, the full revelation does not until after Christ but that does not mean that everything in other religions is completely false.
What I will say is that mystical experiences divorced from Christ or even the church should be treated as demonic, or at least a delusion even if it’s arising from the individual. Psychology often wanders into mystical territory without naming it outloud, which is what my grievance is against it. This is extremely important.
And yeah if you just teach yourself to stop hating yourself that’s actually a practice the church wants you to adopt too. There’s nothing wrong with learning that from IFS either, just like there’s nothing wrong with a Hindu staying pure before marriage. That is a legitimately sanctifying act. But I would not define that as a strong IFS practice either, it’s sort of one of the main hallmarks of most forms of psychology. I learned that first through CBT and it was very helpful (a practice I still think is good because it aligns a lot with the Christian spiritual battle rather than wandering into errant mysticism).
> No, I don’t think all teachings outside of Christianity are demonic or born of prelest, the Bible explicitly states that the world religions came in preparation for Christ. Yet also psalm 96:5 tells us that the gods of the nations are demons (Septuagint)
Ok interesting, yeah I can see that. I think I give Buddhism & Taosim a bit more of a pass because some branches, like Zen, don't actually require the worship of spiritual entities.
I agree with most of the rest of what you're saying yeah I think we're on the same page. I do think that spiritual experiences divorced from Christ can be tricky. I did a lot of psychedelics before my conversion, led me to some strange places.
Then again, those experiences eventually led me back to Christ! So idk. Can be a mixed bag, but probably better overall to be cautious.
I would recommmedn orthodoxy and the religion of the future for further reading on this. Even though the aim is not to be in touch with spiritual entities in zen meditation or similar practices, it is still considered deceptive and mystical. Father seraphim rose condemns zen explicitly.
I had a similar experience with sinful seeking of spiritual experiences leading me to the truth. The way I think about these is not that they revealed the truth but that God did despite my sin to rescue me
Wiccans and Pagans sometimes actively personify the Bad Voice, or something like one's own obesity, alcoholism, lechery, etc as a demon and banish it according to the methodology of either Medieval Western occultism, or Shamanism.
Here's an example: When I was a Wiccan, I used to read Liber Pyramidos by Aleister Crowley, which is an initiatory poem. At the beginning you pass by symbolic demonic/dark energies and say: Alas! Who pins me down, who stabs my heart? I am unfit to pass within this pylon of the hall of Maat (balance). Then, you cleanse yourself with water, and anoint your third eye. This helps you to cleanse yourself spiritually, and gradually layer by layer you become empowered.
When you are almost done with the initiation, having been empowered, and you pass by the dreaded faces of the shadow, you say: I know thee, and I pass thee by. For more than thou am I. Or, think about Luke Skywalker fighting his own ego, his shadow self, in the cave.
Yep I think it’s coming from the ancient pagan and then Christian traditions.
The difference is wiccans and pagans try to rely on their own mettle, whereas we Christians use the power of the life giving Cross.
No they don't, they rely on their patron gods.
Ohh ok fascinating. Huh why would those gods help?
Why wouldn't they help? They're gods, not demons or ghosts.
I think in European based systems, they started off as natural forces, for example Boann is the spirit of the river Boyne. In Egyptian and Mesopotamian mythology, they created humanity.
Why would they not help the physical locations they are in charge of, the people they created, or the physical or spiritual descendants of their original worshippers.
In the Chinese system, which isn't really the same as Wiccan, gods start off as mortal humans and part of the preconditions of becoming deified is service to all of humanity. This is also the belief system held by Theosophists, I think.
Hmm on the Christian conception most gods are actually demons trying to usurp worship from the Most High.
By what method would an honored ancestor who seeks to serve his descendants and all of humanity become a demon?
A dead human who chooses to become the guardian of John Smith's butt crack and fight off colon cancer and constipation is humbling himself to the maximum.
At least in Chinese folk religion - the stories may have been lost about others - gods attain to being gods through their humility and service. A pauper giving away his last penny, becoming the god of wealth.
Why would Lucifer humble himself when he wouldn't even bow down to the first man.
My roommate also says that Perseus was refigured as St George.
love it!! wrote you a response here: https://github.com/DefenderOfBasic/works-in-progress/discussions/64
The important parts:
I think the way we can solve this whole thing and find the right discernment (as you hint at the end) is to basically answer the question of "where is this coming from?"
Which I think is what you demonstrate here:
> On the flip side, I could say “no this is an evil temptation, striking my brother in anger is wrong, and I will refuse the call of the Evil One.”
Like, it would be VERY different if the reason you wanted to smack your friend was because he was doing something wrong, evil, or unfair. OR if you felt like you were jealous & actually wanted to be more like him. I also like Bradie's protocol where she describes the demons as "patterns of looping thought" that may not be "you", that may emerge like chaos emerging in nature.
Great reply! I fixed the post with the tweet link lol sorry. Noob mistake.
To this point:
> I love this kind of translation exercise (I also love that you contrast these two things on equal footing. Like it's not that one is a religion and one is "pure truth", they're both world views):
Absolutely! This is how the church fathers defended the Gospel against paganism. They took each argument as equal on its face, and didn't nakedly assert Christ's message as better. They proved it through argumentation. I think this approach is how Christians are meant to evangelize.
> this is the real key 🏅 . One extreme is bad, and so is the other extreme. The real question is how do we discern, what does the balance look like?
Yep I love this. My priest always says that the Evil One operates on us through extremes. Christ is found in balance, in the harmony between extremes.
I'm curious for your thoughts on this piece, if you've ever experienced something like it?
> Other times, this process will just lead you through a funhouse hall of mirrors, where you constantly analyze and re-analyze every tiny change in emotion, sift through all your memories for anything with the slightest hint of similarity, and drive yourself mad trying to cobble together some just-so story that explains your “trauma.”
I'm currently cautiously exploring a "why not both" approach to this. Which I suspect you would react quite strongly against. Like yes it's demons and yes they're not part of my self but also they are of God. What does that mean? Can they be safely traded with? Obviously this is very dangerous territory and opens up a Pandora's box of questions. But there's something here that feels important to me personally.
I guess I'm asking myself the question what is the archetypal fight? Is it really good against evil? Angels vs demons? Aren't they all of God? What if "good" were to win? There's something here about reframing evil as that which ends the infinite game. Seeing the archetypal war between good and evil as an infinite war. Both sides lose by winning in the finite sense.
I think rather it moves good and evil from polarity to trinity. Both extremes are evil, and it's their skilful integration and balance that is good.
Which honestly doesn't disagree with you much, if at all. At least on the behavioral points. Some things are evil and outside of ourselves and do not deserve to be fed energy.
Man I wrote a super long response and it got eaten rip!!
Yeah I am actually super cool with this! I’m quite exploratory with my own religious beliefs but I get this feedback a lot that people think I’m a lot more rigid. Not sure if it’s an artifact of my writing style or what hah, something I can work on.
So it is complex in the orthodox worldview you have God allowing a third of the demons to remain to tempt humanity after the Caananites were basically genocided. So there’s a sort of pedagogical element to demons apparently.
Also, you have Saints that will pray for demons and even recommend we pity them. Similar to bodhisatvas.
You have quite a large strain of Universlism in the Orthodox Church too, see David Bentley Hart’s All Shall Be Saved.
Overall I think the basic idea is that these things whether they’re complexes or buried trauma or demons are alive in some sense, and are better modeled as beings than as just a voice in your head. Whether it’s a part of you or not is tricky and then goes into well what is “you.”
And the classic Christian goal is to crucify yourself to allow Christ to be born in you so, idk.
But I guess where it does disagree is that also sometimes there are demons that have colonized me that aren't pure evil. That I have common currency with. Which I think in practice is less scary then in abstract. I could say more about that
How do you differentiate between a demon and an angel? I think in general if they serve God they are angels
Also theoretically there can be some gray area between the two
Like this includes hella mundane and safe things I think
Yeah in general I think the word demon is way too charged and scary for people sadly. It’s because they are materialists and spiritual beings existing is destabilizing. It was for me at least