The concept of the spirit world can be intricate and often evokes fear and unnecessary trepidation among ordinary people. One of the mandates of Christianity is to cast out demons, which belong to the spirit world (Mark 16:17-18). Therefore, for Christians, it is necessary to grasp the significance of the spirit world to handle it properly. The complexity of the spirit world can unnecessarily invite the inclusion of superstition and ignorance into it. Unlike physical things that are easily understandable by ordinary people, spiritual concepts are viewed as complicated. A spiritually informed person may be viewed as superior. General spiritual understanding varies across cultures, religions, and philosophical traditions and can be classified as follows:
Religious and Spiritual Contexts: In many religions, the spirit world refers to a realm, parallel to the physical world inhabited by ancestors, angels, demons, or other supernatural entities that are inexplicable to physical humans. This is often associated with the realm of the dead, where the spirits of the deceased are assumed to reside.
Paranormal and Occult Traditions: Some believe that living individuals can communicate with spirits through various means, such as mediumship or channelling. In such cultures, the spirit world is an integral part of ancestral worship, where ancestors are believed to continue playing an active role in the lives of their descendants.
Philosophical and Metaphysical Perspectives: The spirit world can represent a realm of consciousness, energy, or vibration that underlies the physical world. This view is often linked to concepts like the collective unconscious, astral planes, or the multiverse.
Ignorance and superstition play a role in dramatizing spiritual misinformation. One often hears people, out of ignorance, declaring: “I don’t believe in demons,” when manifesting ignorance to such things. Rather, such a person ought to honestly state: “I do not know anything about demons” and be open to knowing about them, instead of just declaring disbelief, but refusing to confront them. That should be the starting point. Refusing to believe in what one does not know enslaves one to it. What a person fears, enslaves them. Perhaps the greatest demonic spirit can be reduced to fear. Where fear is dominant, demons are rampant, taking advantage of a person’s ignorance.
From this cognition, one can observe that the spirit world is divided into two: Knowledge and ignorance. Jesus is the light of the world. Any person who truly believes in Jesus is enlightened to be able to cast out demons. This is what justifies the mandate for Christians to cast out demons. Only an enlightened person is capable of casting out demons, as demons cannot torment an enlightened individual.
Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.” Also, there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?” Then the man in whom the evil spirit leapt on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.
This became known both to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus, and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds. Also, many of those who had practised magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totalled fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed (Acts 19:13-20 NKJV).
Knowledge is power. Without knowledge, a person can be easily manipulated by others, taking advantage of their ignorance. The sons of Sceva attempted to feign knowledge that they did not possess. Fortunately for them, they learnt a good lesson that pretending to be what one is not can be dangerous. Knowledge is the most important requisite and is accessible to anyone willing to seek it. Remaining in the comfort of superstition and ignorance leaves one vulnerable to abuse by criminals.
The starting point is appreciating that there is nothing superstitious about Jesus. The sons of Scava attempted to manipulate Jesus’ name on superstitious grounds. This is just as some religious cults rape women in the name of Jesus. The abused people would be deceived and manipulated due to their ignorance. The endemic deception, drawing multitudes, arises from those taking advantage of people’s ignorance. John described such deceivers as antichrists.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. You are of God, little children, and have overcome them because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error” (1 John 4:1-6 NKJV).
Therein lies the eternal key: “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.” Only the superstitious believe that Jesus is different from us. These deceivers seek to exploit uninformed individuals. Those drawn into this falsehood are deceived and largely unwilling to entertain different viewpoints. Out of ignorance, they are emotionally driven to violently attack those with the truth, labelling them as heretics. The key to identifying them lies in their emotional rejection when refusing to examine anything not resonating with their confused beliefs. They would be emotionally agitative to cover up their ignorance. Even Jesus faced a similar phenomenon.
My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.” Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, “Many good works I have shown you from My Father. For which of those works do you stone Me?” The Jews answered Him, saying, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy, and because You, being a Man, make Yourself God.”
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”’? If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” Therefore they sought again to seize Him, but He escaped out of their hand (John 10:29-39 NKJV).
Typically, such individuals, in this case, the Jews, exhibited a reluctance to listen to Jesus as He elucidated His knowledge. This contrasts with those who seek to understand the unknown without emotion, taking the time to examine the message without necessarily evaluating the speaker. The manifestation is that the deceived, burdened by ignorance, hesitate to confront the truth, preferring to gloss over it rather than face it directly. Their statements often convey belief or disbelief, rather than understanding or lack thereof.
Unbelievable to the informed is that this world is full of those who choose to remain ignorant rather than confront the unknown. When someone says, “I don’t believe in God,” that person would essentially be saying, “I do not know God.” Instead of confronting the fact that they do not know God, they dwell in the assumption of knowing God, thereby choosing not to believe in Him. The same applies to those who claim not to believe in demons. The fundamental truth lies in the reluctance to face the unknown. The human problems seem to be centred on the unwillingness to confront issues. Jesus is the light that humanity refuses to acknowledge.
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone practising evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God” (John 3:18-21 NKJV).
There is no better way to express it than the way Jesus did: “For everyone practising evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.” The intriguing aspect is that such individuals are the last to admit practising evil. They do not even know what evil is, due to their refusal to confront the unknown. They, therefore, remain in darkness, disguised as light—which, essentially, is knowledge—while darkness signifies ignorance.
All evidence suggests that humanity’s problems stem from an unwillingness to confront the truth, as Jesus asserted. Pride can be regarded as the root of all evil, as those unwilling to explore the unknown are often marked by pride. The Pharisees were proud individuals who saw themselves as superior to others. They disdained Jesus for revealing their ignorance, which undermined their perceived superiority. The story would have been different if Jesus’ knowledge had come from those held in high regard. Demonic forces are manifested in multiple facets of confusion. This contrasts with the divine principle, which is unified and undivided.
According to the dichotomous principle, destruction fragments an intact object into various pieces, while construction implies maintaining the unity of purpose. Thus, Satan is manifested in fragmentation, due to his destructive tendency. Demonic forces are numerous and appear in various forms, manifesting in fragmentation. This stands in contrast to a coordinated method, manifested in construction, resulting in a single entity. In essence, the spirit world is governed by two dichotomous principles, which portray construction and destruction—summarized as life and death.
Destructive elements embrace a demonic principle, aiming at annihilation. Uninformed humans passively partake in destructive objectives due to ignorance. Conversely, informed humans can contribute to order and positive traditions by participating in constructive processes. A person may inadvertently engage in destructive processes under the guise of constructive ones, which is the essence of confusion born out of ignorance. This underscores the paramount importance of knowledge as the most vital acquisition in this world.
“I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know My sheep and am known by My own. As the Father knows Me, even so, I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd” (John 10:9-16 NKJV).
Jesus is illustrating a divine structure, represented by the spirit of oneness. One cannot be in the Father without being identified as the Father. The principle of oneness rejects the idea of division, although with different components representing the entire unit. Jesus’ purpose helps humans appreciate this magnificent divine understanding. The only obstacle towards understanding is pride, depicted among those unwilling to confront the truth. Such individuals, often in positions of authority, passionately block those under their influence from accepting Jesus’ truths because they regard themselves as more important.
Andrew Masuku is the author of Dimensions of a New Civilization, laying down standards for uplifting Zimbabwe from the current state of economic depression into a model for other nations worldwide. A decaying tree provides an opportunity for a blossoming sprout. Written from a Christian perspective, the book is a product of inspiration, bringing relief to those having witnessed the strings of unworkable solutions––leading to the current economic and social decay. Most Zimbabweans should find the book as a long-awaited providential oasis of hope, in a simple conversational tone.
The Print copy is now available at Amazon.com for $13.99
Also available as an e-copy at Lulu.com for $6.99