I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of Christians don’t know anything about Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). When it comes to Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA), only a small subset of Christians has ever heard of it, and many fewer believe it. Thanks to the tireless work of a few soldiers of the faith like Russ Dizdar, Patricia Baird Clark, Preston Baily, Diane Hawkins, Kay Tolman, Dan Duval and so many others, more and more people are being exposed to the reality of the human acts occurring in SRA. Yet, I don’t think I’ve heard (or heard of) a sermon on SRA or the spiritual dimensions of SRA in the church – ever. For the church, any focus on the schemes of the Enemy (Satan) seems to be forbidden and unwanted, despite that Biblically we’re told we need to know about them (2 Cor 2:11). [If you’re not familiar with the Bible, you may not know that these obscure notations in parentheses indicate a particular verse in the Bible. If you copy the notation and search for it on the internet, you can read that verse, usually from many different translations of the Bible.]
Satan is a pretty central character in the Biblical narrative. Jesus came to earth to defeat the works of this enemy (1 John 3:8). Clearly, the Bible talks about demons and the need to get rid of them. We know that there are a variety of created spiritual beings, some of which follow Satan and are against God and people in general. Beyond that, we go into the realms of theology and discourses on things that most Christians never hear about. BUT that is not true among Satanists. The power, capacity, and accessibility of evil spiritual beings, the human spirit, and how things operate in evil spiritual realms (second heaven as some call it) are well known. Cults cultivate demonic power, they embed demons into their own and into their victims, and they are well-aware of the heavenly battles going on continually in the spiritual dimensions. Although it’s clear Biblically that there are principalities, powers, thrones, dominions, etc., which are various sorts of created spiritual beings, a subset of which are against God’s plans and purposes, most Christians never think about them; Satanists depend upon them.
Now we have the interface between cult members/victims and the church. Most Christians believe there is no relationship between cults and churches. Nothing could be further from the truth. Satanists hate Christ and Christians. They purposefully invade churches in many, many different ways. Numerous books have been written on this. Unfortunately, rather than highlighting the truth of the demonic taking down Christians and pastors, in particular, many of these books sling mud at denominations and “doctrines of demons” with which they don’t agree. They think they are purifying the church, when they actually are destroying the faith of others. My point is not to do an exposé on church doctrines that may or may not have a demonic origin. My point is to highlight that people loyal to Satanic principles are actively moving in church circles with evil intent. More importantly to this message, churches are filled with people shattered by SRA and EVEN THEY may not know they have personalities loyal to Satan. Given all of the above, today we have extremely broken people looking for relief from pain (often having no idea why they are in torment) in a church that may likely have Satanists as attendees. Furthermore, the pastor and congregation likely have no clue about DID/SRA, and may not even really believe in demons, not to mention know how to get rid of them. Since the 1950s, the world (especially the USA) has been flooded with DID/SRA survivors, and the church, representing Christ, for the most part has done nothing, learned nothing, and in fact, has harmed many.
It may seem like I’m on a rant against the church, but in fact, I love God’s people. I weep for their blindness. I weep for the pastors who are untrained, not listening to Christ, and are otherwise in la-la-land re spiritual warfare. My hope here is to help survivors maneuver through the extreme difficulties of finding God and allowing Him to heal all the brokenness, while at the same time the organized church, some Christian healing ministries (especially deliverance ministries), and even TRUE BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES (applied wrongly) can lead to seemingly irreparable damage to those who are trying to get free. If you’ve read anything of this website, you know that I believe Christ is the ONLY way to be 100% healed from DID/SRA/mind control (MC) in all of its ramifications. Therefore, there has to be some interaction between the survivor and Christianity. Based upon my journey and that of many others, I want to highlight some of the areas in which the survivor needs to be coached.
In my blog DID Healing and God, I wrote about a number of issues in DID and DID/SRA that make finding, trusting, and believing in Jesus very difficult. Here I will expand on some of those themes and give warnings and encouragement. If it takes an average of 7 years in the mental health environment for a person to get a correct diagnosis of DID, your pastor isn’t going to pick up on it. If you don’t know you’re DID, he/she certainly will never see it. If you DO know you’re DID, he/she won’t understand it – unless, of course, the pastor is a member of a cult OR has had special training in this area. Therefore, pastoral counseling should be approached with great caution. There ARE pastors who are getting trained, but they are rare. If you know you’re DID, be up front with your pastor at the start. If they don’t know anything about DID/SRA, refer them to this blog or lots of other resource materials. It beats getting rebuked, abandoned, or otherwise wounded much later. (One would hope this would NEVER happen in a church, but pastors are human and everyone makes mistakes. As we’ll talk about later, forgiveness eventually becomes easier.)
Let’s break this down into two areas where I and others have run into problems. The first area is what I call bad theology (bad theology being defined as theology with which I do not agree – apologies to all who think I’m in error). The second area is absolutely sound Truths of the faith that are just too difficult for extremely broken, divided people to attempt to grab hold. Biblical truth has to come as a person grows and matures in the faith. DID/SRA survivors need to proceed with caution.
Bad Theology
Forget the Past. There are a number of widely-held church beliefs that I believe are wrong, and I found them very damaging in my early walk with God. One of the most widely held beliefs is that when the Apostle Paul said in Phil 3:13, “Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead” (Net Bible), he meant that all that has ever happened in the past is to be left unexamined. [As I and many others interpret it, he meant that all his worldly accomplishments are worth nothing in Christ.] Therefore, the process of examining inner wounds from the past and letting Jesus heal them is considered unnecessary and even ungodly in some church circles. You’ll hear over and over and over again that “It was all done at the cross”, and therefore, no additional healing is required. Many churches and denominations won’t even allow inner healing ministries in their building. Clearly, healing from even simple DID requires an inward journey to find your parts and get healed from the trauma and irreconcilable conflicts that created them. Yes, ultimately it’s the work of the cross that heals, but it’s not an automatic done deal with salvation. MOST Christians could do with a good dose of inner healing ministry.
Depression. A similar fallacy is the issue of depression. Depression in the world is at crisis levels. ALL people with DID deal with depression. Some Christians teach that it is simply demonic, and you just need the demons of depression to go. I agree that demons have a lot to do with depression, but that’s not the sum total of it. Some say that depression is extreme self-focus, and it’s a sin. “If you go before God and seriously repent for a self-focus and not taking “every thought captive to Christ” (2 Cor 10:5), living in the Joy of the Lord, then your depression will go.” I don’t disagree that depression often prevents one from being able to take thoughts captive. Sometimes in depression one is so exhausted, it’s doubtful there ARE any thoughts. No one should be subjected to this sort of theology, especially when there are usually really good reasons for a person to be depressed. At a minimum one needs empathy. Hopefully, over the long-term the parts holding the depression will be identified and healed. With healing, the depression often goes. But not always…..depression is sometimes simply biological and requires medication. That doesn’t mean that Jesus can’t and won’t heal it; it means mental illness is not simple.
Deliverance. There seem to be two extremes in Christianity: those who don’t believe in demons, or at least they don’t ever work to get rid of them, and those who are expelling demons all the time. The former groups are not helpful and the latter, are dangerous. I continue to hear from survivors who went to a Christian ministry (even ones that specialize in DID), who were subjected to someone trying to “cast out” their parts. It’s an insult. It’s confusing. It’s damaging to those who are on the receiving end, and it often causes those parts (whom someone mis-identified as a demon) to hide in deep places for long, long periods, making healing even more difficult. Yes, in SRA and MC, demons are layered into the parts. Furthermore, there are all sorts of connections to higher level demonic beings, BUT ALL parts need to be treated humanely as the people they are. Deliverance is easy and gentle, once all the factors involved are understood. Counselors who know their authority in Christ have many tools at their disposal to free parts from demonic control and torment. None of it has to be scary or abusive. Jesus is our guide and Holy Spirit is our power. I cringe when I hear stories survivors tell of their deliverance experiences in the church. On the other hand, to not even recognize that demons are there will lead to long delays in healing and life-long oppression.
SI. Self-injury is not unique to DID, but it’s very common among survivors. Churches have a lot of problems dealing with self-injury. Cutting, in particular, is Biblically associated with pagan worship practices (1 Ki 18:28), and many believe it opens doors to demonic attachment. Of course, there is a spectrum of levels of intensity of self-injury, but in DID/SRA/MC severe cutting is not unusual, and churches REALLY don’t know what to do with that level of internal pain. So beware. It would be wonderful if such hurting people would find sympathy and empathy in a congregation of believers, but often one finds offense and condemnation. If the self-injury is substance abuse that is somewhat under control, there are churches that can understand that. Physical damage, whatever that may be, is just not acceptable. Now I was told by DID authorities that I (Primary Presenter at the time) had control over my parts and could prevent cutting. [Please see What Does it Mean to be a Personality for a discussion of Primary vs. Alter Personalities.] Not so. Lots of activities were totally out of the Primary Presenter’s control. All of our parts initially were totally non-coconscious (see Lexicon). My point is not to be technical but to say that self-injury is often present and is related to the severity of psychic pain and/or programming. NO ONE should be criticized or condemned if they are seeking the Lord and trying to get healed, even as they struggle with self-injury.
Suicide. The ultimate in self-injury is suicide. Sorry, suicide attempts are a real thing. (It’s been reported that 70% of people with DID attempt suicide; probably most think about it at some time…..or all the time). There are still a lot of Christians who believe that people who commit suicide, no matter what their relationship with Jesus, will go to hell. Those who attempt suicide are resoundingly condemned. Often people who attempt suicide are accused of manipulating others. Indeed, suicide attempts often are serious cries for help. Nonetheless, the secular world is much more understanding of people who feel compelled to kill themselves than is the church. To make matters worse, in DID/SRA/MC even the Primary systems may not know who is suicidal. It may be a suicide program set off by counseling, getting too close to Jesus, or by disobeying the cult as one gets more free. For some, the pain of the process and the lack of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual support leads to the desire to end it. The very people who should be the most supportive, usually are not. Fortunately, there are suicide help lines in almost all communities and Christian survivors may need to seek secular aid if there is no comfort and understanding in the church. God understands. Holy Spirit is there to give comfort at ALL times. One needs training and Godly counsel to be able to access that internal support in the moment, but for those who believe in Jesus, it is there!
Truths but Not Yet
I love truth. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. All who follow Him immerse themselves in Who He IS and His Ways. Reading the Bible daily is standard Christian practice, BUT the Bible can be hard to understand, esp. without a relationship with Jesus. The reason there are thousands of denominations is that people can’t agree on what the Bible says. Most agree that it represents absolute truth, but through the ages, people use their minds, rather than revelation from Holy Spirit, to understand what God is saying. Throwing around Bible verses appears to be humankind’s favorite mechanism for creating a God in humankind’s image. Anything can be proved by the Bible. During the American civil war, slavery was condoned by the Bible. Nothing could be further from God’s heart. I believe that the original words, written by original authors, and the intent of what they wrote, is God’s Truth. Translations, however, are human. Interpretations are human. Revelation FROM HOLY SPIRIT is Truth. Much in the Bible is hidden in plain sight, requiring Holy Spirit to reveal the Truths to the heart. There are layers of meaning. That’s why the Bible is called the Living Word. That is absolutely true.
Scripture has always suffered from worldview interpretation. The world has always been patriarchal. Women were, and in many places still are, property. A good review of this can be found in The Handmaiden’s Conspiracy by Donna Howell. For female (and male) DID/SRA/MC survivors who have suffered the ultimate in objectification (raped, trafficked, programmed, used as breeders, owned as slaves) it’s very easy to read the Bible in a misogynistic context. Women in the Bible are often treated badly. Jesus brings light and hope and equality to women in the New Testament, but it’s hard to love a God that appears to hate women. That God hates women is actually a huge lie, but it’s a major barrier to cross in the healing process. How is that barrier and all the other barriers re gender in the Bible overcome? Knowing God Himself.
God is love (1 John 4:16). As one allows God in (usually with the help of a counselor or prayer minister), one gets to know Him. He is the ultimate in patience, kindness, gentleness, understanding, caring, hoping, helping, loving…… As I got to know Jesus, I would throw Bible verses up into His face and say, “What about this?” Of course, much that I knew and had heard preached on these passages was wrong. Jesus explained Truth to me. His Truth. Eventually, in the spirit He gave me a vision of taking my Bible and burning it. He told me that for the journey He would be my Truth. People say that is heresy, but all that He told me, I later confirmed was in the Bible. It’s just that I couldn’t get beyond my “learning” and all the sermons I had heard which were wrong. Over time, He let me get back to reading the Bible, but by then I was filled with Him, and He was reading it with me. Now the meaning is completely different. Now I LOVE the Word, and I can’t get enough of it. I had been trapped by a mindset of who He was, which was wrong. It was experiencing Him that changed that. No theological discussion can do that. Jesus is the Living Word; trust Him.
Before I give some examples of “Truth but not yet”, let’s talk about another Biblical taboo in MANY Christian circles, even among a subset of survivors. Very few deeply wounded people get healed reading the Bible alone. At times while reading the Bible, Holy Spirit comes in and reveals a truth, convicts of sin, speaks healing words that are not on the page, and great revelation or restitution or binding of wounds occurs. BUT for most of us, the healing journey starts with connecting with the Godhead in some way and asking God to show us what needs to be dealt with. There are numerous “methodologies” out there (Elijah House, Father’s Heart, Theophostic, Immanuel, Restoring the Foundations, Sozo………………………), but they ALL require a living, interactive experience with the Living God. Some people see images. Some people hear God. Some people “know” what God is doing or saying. It’s experiential (see Hearing God). Experience has to be consistent with the Word, but because it’s experiential, it’s deeply personal. This is the foundation of inner healing: God speaking into the heart of a survivor in the place of wounding. But the mud-slinging, finger-pointing, doctrine-bound versions of Christianity shout, “Heresy! Heresy!” Well, the fruit tells the story, but the fruit has to determined when it’s ripe. Many people don’t go the complete journey. They get a partial truth and that little touch of Truth doesn’t heal them, so they say it’s all Hooey. Especially with DID, a partial Truth is likely to touch off a slew of protector programs and make a person worse than when they started. Especially when repressed or dissociated memories start to appear, all sorts of chaos can begin. But in my experience and my surveying all sorts of different but similar healing methodologies, the final fruit is: absolute passion for Jesus, feeling love for the first time, removal of innumerable layers of darkness so that eventually Joy is comprehended, desire for more and more of God, impatience with anything that is shallow and cheap, and a desire to go beyond praise to BECOME worship. But to get there you have to “pass through” the gauntlet of Christianity. Here are some examples of where the path gets hard.
WARNING: IF YOU ARE A SURVIVOR BE AWARE THAT SOME OF THIS MAY BE QUITE TRIGGERING
Death to self: Many times I was told by godly men and women that the long journey to find my parts and get free was a wrong focus. I needed to focus on Christ alone rather than all my faults and parts. “Don’t look at the problem; look at Christ.” “Don’t look at the world; look from the perspective of heaven.” “I must decrease; Christ must increase.” “Die to self.” These are NOT wrong ideas, but they can make you suicidal out of context! They are simply not helpful at this stage of the journey. Especially when you don’t even know yet that you HAVE DID, a lot of internal searching is required to jump kick the healing process. If your programming ALLOWS you to read the Bible, focus on Jesus, and seek a heavenly perspective, great. In severe DID/SRA, that’s rarely possible at the beginning. Don’t feel guilty about it, and don’t let the church make you feel guilty about it. Furthermore, before ANYONE can submit WHO THEY ARE to God, they have to know who they are! They have to know they are a child of God and loved beyond anything they can comprehend. They have to have a sense of personhood and identity (see From Personhood to Identity to Dignity in DID). In DID/SRA/MC that can take a LONG TIME. In the meantime, all these words that get preached at you seem extremely hurtful. The most important “God” goal at the beginning is to find Him and know His heart. All else is irrelevant, and I wish pastors and Bible teachers in the church could understand this.
The Cross and PTSD: What Jesus did on the cross is central to God’s redemptive plan for humankind. The Passion of Christ/ His death on a Roman cross is a bloody, gory mess. Most Christians couldn’t watch the movie with that name. Few Christians recognize Good Friday (the day Jesus was killed) because it’s too hard to think about. Satan thought he had it all figured out. A brutal, agonizing death for the Lamb of God/ Jesus Christ. For those who have experienced the worst of what cults have to offer, the cross can seem “normal”. Read the accounts of what the cartels are now doing to people at the USA/Mexican border. Read the accounts of cult witnesses where people are slowly dismembered to death. Recognize that the Biblical terrors to come that were also reported in wars of the Old Testament – horrific, terrifying ways of killing people – are embedded in the souls and spirits of survivors. I didn’t want to hear about the cross. Millions of people have been crucified or brutally tortured to death through the ages. I saw it. I smelled it. I cleaned it up. I was there. Christians push the cross from an intellectual position. Don’t go there with a survivor. If Jesus wants a survivor to “go to the cross”, He’ll actually take them there IN THE SPIRIT and show them what happened. I and MANY others have gone there by some mysterious mechanism that only God can do. He does it. It’s real. The blood is real. The pain is real. The shame and nakedness are real. The mocking shouts and spitting on Him are real. The despair of His followers is real. Only Jesus can convey how this event changes history and changes everything that happened to us. Ask Jesus about the cross. When you’re ready, He’ll take you there. In the meantime, don’t dwell on things that trigger your terror.
Communion: Communion represents feasting on the blood and body of Jesus. In ancient times some groups thought Christians were actually cannibals. Jesus said that this is Spirit. In churches it’s usually a bit of bread and juice/wine. MANY survivors had to drink human blood and eat human flesh. There is NOTHING about the act of communion that is going to make an unhealed survivor feel like this is a good thing. Some can’t even imagine belonging to a group that does what the Satanists do. How could this be of God???? The theology is very far from the actual. It takes a lot of healing to understand that His sacrifice ended all that Satan can do to us. I don’t even know very many non-survivors who get it. Churches do a ritual. God wants us to feast on Him SPIRITUALLY all the time. Until there is massive healing, skip the ritual. Don’t let the church force you to go there. Let Jesus heal all those cult-damaged places in your body, soul, and spirit. As He does that, you will learn how to “drink of Him”. It’s not evil. Once you are saved, the Godhead lives in your spirit. Communion couldn’t be further from what you may have experienced in a cult ritual. It’s not that the Christian ritual/sacrament is wrong; Christ commanded His followers to do it. It’s just that it should come AFTER one has healed and learned that TRUE communion is done in prayer and in relationship and in love with Him. The act in church is a reflection of a spiritual reality. Do it in church when Jesus tells you it’s safe for you to do it, when ever that occurs on your journey. THEN you will find the comfort and healing and richness that communion can bring to your life.
The Blood of Jesus: Some survivors who are unfamiliar with Christendom think that Christianity is closely related to Satanism because of all the blood and gore. There IS incredible power in the Blood of Jesus, but survivors don’t know that this is a spiritual power, and there is no physical blood in the now involved. I was raised in the church, but in healing sessions I didn’t want to hear, “The Blood of Jesus” repeated over and over. In deliverance, ministers pronounce, “The Blood of Jesus”. Certainly, demons know what that’s all about. Survivors may not, or they may be incredibly triggered by it. So when ministering, be sensitive to this. Talk about it before speaking and invoking the Power of the Blood. Often actual human or animal blood was used to put demons in. It’s scary to think of how a minister is going to use blood to get them out. Most preferable is for Jesus Himself to explain to a survivor what His Blood can do in the spirit realm.
Repentance, forgiveness. Although repentance and forgiveness are central themes in the Christian life and essential to healing, the application of these truths needs Holy Spirit guidance in the deeply traumatized. Unschooled pastors demand repentance and forgiveness, often without explanation as to what these words even mean. At some point in their journey, I recommend that all survivors read RT Kendall’s books Total Forgiveness and How to Forgive Ourselves Totally. Repentance must be examined in the context of spiritual dynamics rather than personal culpability. Yes, I understand that ALL people sin – daily. As survivors we usually have submitted to doing or agreed with doing some horrific things. BUT there needs to be gentleness and God’s perspective on all this before beating up someone who regrets all of it but is not in a position to be “blamed”. Spiritually, repentance is about asking God to take sin (thoughts or actions) off our account. It’s accepting that Jesus already paid for our sins on the cross, and agreeing that He paid for whatever we did knowingly, unknowingly, on our own or under demonic or mind control coercion. Blame/ guilt/ shame etc. have no place in repentance, but on the journey they routinely need to be discussed, healed by Jesus, and related demons, delivered.
Forgiveness can be even more difficult. It’s a process. It’s a choice. To forgive, especially at the beginning of the journey, one goes to God and admits that despite all the wounds a person has given you, you want God to be that person’s judge. Jesus asks us to forgive from the heart; no seriously wounded person starts there. Forgiveness from the heart is a Holy Spirit-led and empowered PROCESS. Even to say “I will to forgive” is a HUGE step. Be patient. Let God deal with the pain. Will to try to get there. Will to ask God to show you how He feels about it. This cannot and should not be a religious event where you are forced yet again to do something that you don’t want to do. God understands. Keep getting more of Him in you and eventually, you’ll get there. On the other hand, it’s wrong to say it’s impossible to forgive from the heart. That’s a lie. Forgiveness from the heart IS possible, with time and healing and knowing what God thinks about the entire situation. Even if the perpetrator is dead, forgiveness frees you from all sorts of ungodly ties that lead to bitterness, hatred, anger, etc. It’s a hard part of the healing journey, but it’s essential and needs to be done with sensitivity and gentleness.
Christian service: God created each of us for good works from before the foundation of the world (Eph 2:10). However, doing Christian ministry when you have DID can also be a challenge. I’ll end with a personal anecdote. A few years into my healing journey, I was finally able to do normal chores at home and take care of my teenage children. I really wanted to be “doing something” for people, so I decided that I should work one afternoon a week at the food bank. My job was to help “customers” go through the various areas of the food bank to pick out the stipulated number of items from each category, such as vegetables, fruit, etc. One afternoon I had helped this huge, tall man in his 40’s go through. Near the end he became offended by something someone else said, and he burst out in anger against women, using very derogatory language. Instantly, a very feminist teen part, who I had no idea existed, came out, yelled at him, and then offered to take up a fight physically outside. I was surprisingly and fortunately able to know what was happening (some coconsciousness), but I had zero capacity to get her back inside. Everyone was staring at us. My coworkers (the good Christian women there) were shocked. I was shocked. He backed down and eventually left. I un-volunteered and never went back. God is more interested in who you become than what you do. There is a time for doing charitable acts. If your journey leaves you destitute and/or with diminished physical/emotional capacity for normal living, no church should be asking you to do anything other than pursue healing. Healing is exhausting, full-time work. Someday there will a time when God Himself will show you where you fit in the Kingdom. Until then, skip the “to dos” of the church and focus on relationship with God.
Wish List
Here’s my wish list for the church in general: Oh that even a few churches in every community were educated about sexual abuse, DID, SRA, and PTSD. Christians need to be able to recognize and provide referrals for appropriate counseling, which to date isn’t even available in most communities. Unfortunately, much of the “spiritual” counseling that is supposedly based upon Christian principles is often seriously contaminated with New Age energy therapies that do more harm that good. Pastors need to be aware of this and have resources available where counseling based upon the leading of the Holy Spirit and Biblical principles is accomplished. At a minimum a church should provide listening without judging, intercession, healing prayer, unending encouragement, and extreme patience with those who are in crisis again and again and again. Living with, working with, and supporting those with DID and deep trauma is TRYING. It takes the grace and power of Holy Spirit. It’s a test to the church to be consistently loving in all things. Survivors have protectors who can be adversarial, demons that can manifest, attachment disorders, lack of boundaries, all sorts of embedded lies, guilt/shame/self-hatred, innumerable broken relationships, lack of trust, often hatred of men, addictions, codependency issues, and on and on and on…….But – God wants the church to be there. Survivors are abandoned, broken, and lost. That’s exactly who the church is called to serve.
Given all that, I pray that anyone reading this blog who is in need of healing can find Christians (in or out of a church setting) to at a minimum pray for them, and hopefully to provide counseling. I pray for lots of survivors. I counsel a few. If you can’t find help in one place, don’t give up, hard as that sounds. NEVER GIVE UP. You are worth working hard to get healed. After escaping, finding the right help is often a huge battle. Sometimes the right help at the start can enable you to escape. Be diligent in seeking help. You are loved by God beyond what you can comprehend. He wants you healed. Fortunately, more and more people are being educated and trained, even in the church. Persist.
Feel free to leave comments and suggestions below. If you would like to talk with me personally, feel free to use the Contact Me page.