The Great Gospel of John
Volume 8
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord and His adversaries
- Chapter 32 -
The Lord explains the nature of possession.
I said: "Your experience is true, and I Myself have set several people free of such diseases in the land of the Jews and also with the Greeks. Indeed, there are such people who are possessed for a certain time by evil spirits, but only for what their body is concerned without being able to harm the soul of such a possessed person in the least.
2
The evil spirits who possess the flesh of a person are actually souls of deceased people who once lived a wicked life in this world, and this while they knew very well that their actions were bad.
3
Possession only happens with people whose faith in a God and in the immortality of the soul has disappeared.
4
These incidents which are happening during times when faith is continuously diminishing and which look very serious, are allowed, so that the unbelievers are receiving by that a strong warning to show them that their unbelief is useless and that there exist a certain continuance of life of a person's soul after the falling away of the body, and certainly also a God who is also in the beyond very well capable to chastise the wickedness and the foolishness of the people.
5
Despite his evil resistance, the wicked spirit who possesses the flesh of a person, experiences humiliations that he can hardly bear, and then it becomes gentler and lighter within himself. Those who witness such conditions are as it were pulled away with force from their all too materialistic and dark behavior. They begin to think about the spiritual, and their way of life improves.
6
And so, this very serious looking case that is occurring among the people in times of the greatest lack of faith has definitely also good sides, as you certainly have noticed with your Illyrians.
7
The 2 priests who formerly knew how to bind the people to themselves with all kinds of magical deceits and who did not believe in anything themselves, but who still gathered important treasures, changed their mind totally through this possessed person and they desisted for the greatest part from their deceits, for the evil spirit thundered to them already many times that they were very miserable cheaters and that he was much better than they who in their powerlessness wanted to fight against him.
8
The 2 priests believe now without questioning that the soul continues to live after the dead of the body and they believe now in one God, for on several occasions the spirit said in their face that he himself as an evil spirit is much more important than 10.000 legions of their imagined idols with whose help they wanted to drive him out, but that there was only one true God to whom he would obey if He would order him to leave the fleshly house.
9
The other people heard this also, and because of that, also their faith has changed and improved, and for this reason such a possession is not always that very bad as if unjustly allowed by God and as human reason is imagining.
10
And possession never occurs at all with people who have a living faith full of light, because the soul of man and also the spirit within are penetrating the body in such a way that no strange and perhaps also evil spirit can penetrate a pure flesh that is permeated of spirit. But when the soul of a person has become dark, carnal and materialistic, and by that is also afraid and scared, sick and weak, so that he cannot offer any resistance to a strange intruder, then it can easily happen that the evil souls, who, after withdrawing out of their body and are mostly residing in those lower regions of this Earth where people of their kind are living in the flesh and are performing their evil practices, are sometimes penetrating into the body of a weak person. Then they mostly are residing in the most sensual lower part of the body and are trying to express themselves outwardly as strange and always evil spirits by means of the flesh of the possessed one.
11
Yet, as far as the soul is concerned, the possessed one never suffers any harm, as I have directly indicated since the beginning. And so, possession, as also already said, is not as bad as people think.
12
However, when you will encounter such possessed people in the future, you should lay your hands upon them. Then the evil spirits will leave the possessed one. If you encounter however someone who is possessed by a persistent spirit, threaten the spirit, then he will obey immediately the one who has seriously threatened him in My name and in full faith. For wherever My teaching is proclaimed by you to the people, it is not necessary that also the devils from the flesh of a possessed one have to establish the completely shattered faith of the people. Where angels are teaching, the devils must be driven away.
13
Concerning that Illyrian possessed person however, and also his community, he is still alive and is now freed from his affliction, and his community believes now in one - although still unknown - God, as well as in the immortality of the soul. And when someone of you will soon go there in My name, he will have it easy with the people and also in the wide environment of that country to convert the people to the true light of faith and destroy their superstition. Did you, Agrippa, understand this very well?"