the bible - an outdated understanding of mental illness

[hippo]

From personal experience, I have found the fact that the bible only seems to mention symptoms of mental illness in connection with affliction with by demons, which can be scary, difficult to come to terms with and stigmatising as someone who's had mental illness.

Today it is known that many people experience mental illness or breakdowns as a result of trauma or abusive experiences or stress. There are also some physical illnesses that cause mental illness, for example, Lymes Disease can cause psychosis.

Surely, the assumption that is often made that a person needs deliverance and has likely been demonically afflicted because of their sin (ie the fault is with them) is outdated and also potentially harmful.

 

[Gracelands]

It takes discernment. Some people quite clearly are riddled with demons.

 

[hippo]

How do you know? Have you seen them? If they are there, have you cast any out and then seen a longstanding improvement in a person? What if there are just many people with psychological problems and they're made a lot worse by being told they have a demon?

 

[Tainted Scrolls]

The bottom line is, we can't just read the bible and ignore every thing else. If we are overwhelmed by depression, you cannot say "oh its just demons" and "that person needs to get saved"...It is not that simple. Things do not work that way. Psychologist will study the brain and find traumas and could very much help a person suffering from these symptoms. I dislike when Christians disagree with that.

 

[Gracelands]

How do you know? Have you seen them? If they are there, have you cast any out and then seen a longstanding improvement in a person? What if there are just many people with psychological problems and they're made a lot worse by being told they have a demon?

Yeah i have seen the effect of demons on people and the improvement they have when strongholds are broken down. It surprises me when Christians are doubtful of spiritual activity to be honest.

If you read my post again Hippo you'll see that i actually said whats needed is discernment. IMO some mental illnesses are organic and some are caused by spiritual issues.

 

[Lukaris]

When I see how life has cheapened & the level of crime & murder proliferate in a formerly quiet town in which I was born, it is demonic overall whatever sociological explanation one may want to give. The community was formerly basically Judeo-Christian, modern, orderly, & liveable.

 

[Lezard Valeth]

Some very normal people can be the ones satan uses the most. Not all crazy people are possessed and not all possessed people are crazy.

 

[food4thought]

I have about 15 college credits in psychology. I have personal experience with delusions and depression. I say this only to show that I am not simply making statements from relative ignorance.

I was depressed and delusional in the years leading up to my salvation, and I was becoming increasingly paranoid and antisocial. I gave my life to Jesus through reading the Bible and listening to it being taught plainly verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book over the radio. Within months after becoming a Christian, my delusions and depression COMPLETELY evaporated and I began to reach out to people through the church again.

After 3-4 years of growing, I went through a period of doubt regarding what I have believed... over the following months and years of continued doubt my delusions and depression and antisocial behavior returned and increased to the point that I ended up living alone in a hotel room, unemployed, and pretty much right back where I started.

I have since overcome my doubts, and am returning to normalcy more gradually this time, but I have grown stronger in Christ and am realizing that my sin and unbelief left me open to spiritual attack.

How much do we really know of what causes chemical imbalance in the brain? How many people are looking to psychiatry and medication for healing that can only come through Christ? I am NOT saying that all psychological problems/illnesses are cause by demonic influences, or that psychiatry and medication are never the answer... but only that my situation was/is DEFINITELY spiritual and not physical (at least for the most part).

Hope this helps;

Mike

 

[lesliedellow]

From personal experience, I have found the fact that the bible only seems to mention symptoms of mental illness in connection with affliction with by demons, which can be scary, difficult to come to terms with and stigmatising as someone who's had mental illness.

Today it is known that many people experience mental illness or breakdowns as a result of trauma or abusive experiences or stress. There are also some physical illnesses that cause mental illness, for example, Lymes Disease can cause psychosis.

Surely, the assumption that is often made that a person needs deliverance and has likely been demonically afflicted because of their sin (ie the fault is with them) is outdated and also potentially harmful.

Evangelicals can make me cringe. Somebody who is fragile being on the receiving end of their amateur ministrations could make matters a great deal worse. Occasionally, maybe even fatally so.

 

[Iosias]

the assumption that is often made that a person needs deliverance and has likely been demonically afflicted because of their sin...is outdated and also potentially harmful.

 

[FutureAndAHope]

I used to hear voices all the time. They would condemn me, tell me I was going to hell. Try to get me to hate others, and draw others away from the gospel, by proclaiming how bad God was to me, because I was destined for hell. I definitely had a mental illness. Yet God 100% freed me without medication as I realized that God still loved me, and I had power to pray that the voices stopped. I know the voices I heard were demons, they did not even hide the fact that they were, I knew I was hearing demons. Yet I am now 100% free. I believe all mental illness is demonic, even normal christians can be effected by demons, in their emotions, such as anger wrath, sadness, any thing that is not a fruit of the spirit is motivated by satan. Christians should experience, Love, Joy, peace, if a person does not experience these things they need to pray more.

 

[hippo]

I used to hear voices all the time. They would condemn me, tell me I was going to hell. Try to get me to hate others, and draw others away from the gospel, by proclaiming how bad God was to me, because I was destined for hell. I definitely had a mental illness. Yet God 100% freed me without medication as I realized that God still loved me, and I had power to pray that the voices stopped. I know the voices I heard were demons, they did not even hide the fact that they were, I knew I was hearing demons. Yet I am now 100% free. I believe all mental illness is demonic, even normal christians can be effected by demons, in their emotions, such as anger wrath, sadness, any thing that is not a fruit of the spirit is motivated by satan. Christians should experience, Love, Joy, peace, if a person does not experience these things they need to pray more.

I would like to ask if it was through a person praying for deliverance for you that you became free?

 

[4LivingCreations]

From my personal experience, "demons" rather more correctly stated "unclean spirits", are things that have been planted in my mind by unsolicited external means, and that subsequently, I sometimes embraced and empowered.

For example: the mis-association with humor and other people's misfortune. Planted very early by road-runner cartoons, and increased later by joining in ridicule with and against classmates in elementary school.
An unclean spirit that I did not ask for, but manifested.

Some people experience combinations and magnitudes of these unclean spirits that result in them becoming what we call "mentally unstable"

When you can identify these things, and know that they need to be corrected, your "demons know who Jesus is", and your conviction and fear that you must change cries out "are you come to torment us before the time"
And when you come to the realization that those things are not supposed to be there, and that you can turn away from those hurtful ideas and traits, even abhor them, this is for them to request to dwell in the swine. In other words, they are rejected by you and Jesus, as belonging to those who put them in you in the first place, the swine.

In this way, Jesus can cast a lot of demons out of you and cure a lot of mental illness.
For those who are not able to understand these things because of their mental illness, or for those who can only comprehend demons as "external spirit creatures" that "fly into a person and live there", well it might take a miracle in the name of Salvation for that.

 

[FutureAndAHope]

I would like to ask if it was through a person praying for deliverance for you that you became free?

Many people prayed for me over the years, and their prayers helped to direct me to God, but it was only as my own relationship with God was restored that I was freed, I just cast out the devil myself, I believed God loved me and said to the devil no more talking.

 

[intojoy]

From personal experience, I have found the fact that the bible only seems to mention symptoms of mental illness in connection with affliction with by demons, which can be scary, difficult to come to terms with and stigmatising as someone who's had mental illness.

Today it is known that many people experience mental illness or breakdowns as a result of trauma or abusive experiences or stress. There are also some physical illnesses that cause mental illness, for example, Lymes Disease can cause psychosis.

Surely, the assumption that is often made that a person needs deliverance and has likely been demonically afflicted because of their sin (ie the fault is with them) is outdated and also potentially harmful.

Demon possession is not as prevalent today as in the first century. The accounts in the gospels show Jesus bumping into demons at nearly every turn yet in the book of Acts they seem to disappear by comparison. That is because of Satan's attempt to thwart the ministry of Yeshua during His first coming. Satan will unleash his hoard of demons again prior to the second coming. That does not mean people are not demonized today, just the facts of the scriptural record. If a person has mental illness and it can be treated with medication, they are not demonized. If the illness does not respond to medication and if the individual becomes violent and hostile to the mention of Christ or the reading of scripture then it may be the result of demon activity.

 

[korvus]

Evangelicals can make me cringe. Somebody who is fragile being on the receiving end of their amateur ministrations could make matters a great deal worse. Occasionally, maybe even fatally so.

This.

Being delusional myself (and loving it), I consider the idea of demons as just an archetype of the mind in the way the people in biblical times saw things.

Jesus to me is an excellent figure with so much positivity that the acceptance of him becomes like a hypnotism, whether you label it spiritual or not.

Ultimately, Jesus and demons are things, but it's an individual choice whether they're products of the mind or otherwise.

 

[ViaCrucis]

From personal experience, I have found the fact that the bible only seems to mention symptoms of mental illness in connection with affliction with by demons, which can be scary, difficult to come to terms with and stigmatising as someone who's had mental illness.

Today it is known that many people experience mental illness or breakdowns as a result of trauma or abusive experiences or stress. There are also some physical illnesses that cause mental illness, for example, Lymes Disease can cause psychosis.

Surely, the assumption that is often made that a person needs deliverance and has likely been demonically afflicted because of their sin (ie the fault is with them) is outdated and also potentially harmful.

Mainstream churches recognize the need to discern between what is medical and what is entirely spiritual. An exorcism is only done when every attempt to find a medical cause has been ruled out. Further, there are certain factors which are involved so as to determine that an unknown medical cause isn't at work, the most blatant criterion to look for includes inhuman, supernatural strength and speaking in tongues one could not possibly know otherwise.

A medical cause must be ruled out for an exorcism to be done, because the individual's (mental, physical, and emotional) health and safety are to be of paramount importance. Otherwise we end up having such tragedies as that which made the news several years ago in which a girl died from an exorcism gone bad to "cure" her of witchcraft in Africa.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Sketcher]

Are you trying to say that the Bible assumes all bouts of mental illness are demonic activity? Because I would contend that it does not say anything of the sort, and that demons are capable of inflicting mental illness, or some of the symptoms of mental illness.

 

[jak]

Think of your mind as a computer. The nerves and chemical neurotransmitters are the hardware. Conscious thoughts and emotions - including spiritual insights, prayer and so on - are the software, coded into the computer via the hardware.

problems in your computer can arise out of problems in your software or hardware!! So can our mental illnesses and distress come out of problems in our nerves and chemicals - the hrdware, or via the software - thoughts and emotions and spiritual maladies we suffer - but they involve the "hardware", the nerves and chemicals, too.

Demons I would think could be likened to Viruses that attack the system from outside!

the analogy actually holds pretty well - We can expose our computers to viruses by going to shady sites, and similarly, we can expose our minds to demons by indulging in occult-related activities. Just as most of our computer problems are NOT due to viruses. neither are most of our Psychological problems due to demons.

Most Christians are actually pretty balnced on this, It is a rare person who would say all our mental illnesses are demon-caused.

 

[juvenissun]

From personal experience, I have found the fact that the bible only seems to mention symptoms of mental illness in connection with affliction with by demons, which can be scary, difficult to come to terms with and stigmatising as someone who's had mental illness.

Today it is known that many people experience mental illness or breakdowns as a result of trauma or abusive experiences or stress. There are also some physical illnesses that cause mental illness, for example, Lymes Disease can cause psychosis.

Surely, the assumption that is often made that a person needs deliverance and has likely been demonically afflicted because of their sin (ie the fault is with them) is outdated and also potentially harmful.

You watched too many movies.

There are all kinds of demons. Some makes you look and feel very nice and comfortable, no mental illness at all.