The spirit of fear is an actual demon spirit that either causes or aggravates a pre-existing feeling of fear in a person. This fear is similar to, but not exactly the same as, a natural feeling of fear. When taken to an extreme, demonic fear can lead to all kinds of life-altering phobias that may diminish quality of life.
Extreme and sustained fear can even lead to insanity.
What is the difference in natural and demonic fear?
Let’s distinguish the two by first looking at natural fear. I’ll begin by mentioning the source of my observations.
I’m not a medical doctor, psychiatrist, or therapist. I’m a Christian deliverance minister with considerable experience helping people get rid of feelings of fear and actual demons of fear through biblically-based wisdom and supernatural ministry in the name and authority of Jesus Christ.
I cast out demons of fear by the power of Jesus Christ, Who is Lord of all and risen from the dead.
A Quick Look At Natural Fear
Natural fear can be healthy.
It is the feeling of impending danger. It’s what tells us it’s a bad idea to go past the danger signs to get as close to the edge of a cliff as possible to get a remarkable selfie. Often we hear of people who disregard this natural fear and end up trading their lives for a thrilling photo.
We all have varying degrees of natural fear that we inherit at birth as humans. It appears, however, that our common fears, such as fear of falling, diversify and develop as we grow older. For whatever reasons, some grow fearful of height. Some of dogs. Others of enclosed spaces. The possibilities are endless.
These fears may develop with no discernible originating source. One day the person just discovers, “Nah, this spider business is not for me! Too many legs!”
No problem. You don’t have to like spiders.
Or maybe we do know when the fear began. You watched a horror movie that starred a bunch of big, fat spiders. Ever since then you don’t like them.
Again, there’s nothing out of the ordinary about this.
Yet, sometimes whether the source of our fear is known or unknown, it can grow to the point of being more than a nuisance. It can become irrational, controlling, or even tormenting. At this stage one should consider whether the fear has become supernatural.
In other words a demon is involved.
A Quick Look At Supernatural Fear–the Demon of Fear
When I speak of a spirit or demon of fear, I am being literal.
There is a such thing as a demon of fear. The Bible speaks of demons of infirmity (Luke 13:10-16), demons of muteness (Matthew 9:32-34), demons of error (1 John 4:6), and many, many others.
This is not the article to explore the vastness of the topic of demons and what the Bible says about them. Instead, we’ll focus on the spirit of fear.
This particular spirit specializes in causing or aggravating feelings of fear. If it causes it, it may orchestrate fear situations that scare the person to such a degree that a fracture occurs in the soul. He then rushes in and lives in the person, manipulating from a place of darkness and overwhelming strength.
When a demon of fear only aggravates fear, he finds a person who has already been compromised by it. If the damage is sufficient enough to provide an opening, he rushes into it and operates from a position of darkness and overwhelming strength.
So whether a demon causes the initial fear, or simply opportunistically takes advantage of a pre-existing fear issue or event (such as a car accident), the result is the same. The demon is supernaturally energizing feelings and thoughts of fear from within the person.
These demonically energized feelings and thoughts of fear may lead to tormenting phobias that compel the person to live with secret inner torments. Or the fear may grow to such a degree that it can’t remain hidden.
Christians and non-Christians are subject to attack from demon spirits. For more information concerning this topic, read my article: If You Don’t Believe Christians Can Have Demons.
The Reason I Wrote A Novel About the Spirit of Fear
In my ministry, I have found that some demons are exceedingly prevalent in our society. One of these is the spirit of fear.
Jesus once looked out among the needy multitudes and said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore that the Lord of the harvest will send forth laborers into His harvest” (Matthew 9:37-38).
The numbers of people needing deliverance from demon spirits are so high, it’s mind-boggling. There just aren’t enough workers available to meet the need.
For this reason, I’ve used both fiction and non-fiction formats to instruct people how to help others and how to be helped.
Below I’ve included the first chapter of my spiritual warfare novel, The Spirit of Fear. I hope it leads you to read the book so you’ll become more acquainted with how this spirit operates. Hopefully, this will help you get delivered.
I encourage you to both read the chapter and the book. If you’re on Kindle Unlimited, you can read it free. If not, the ebook version is really inexpensive.
(Sign up for a free Kindle Unlimited membership here if you don’t already have it.)
If you read the Amazon reviews, you will quickly notice a trend that most readers of my spiritual warfare thrillers consider them thrilling. So you’ll be ministered to in an entertaining way.
Enjoy! Oh, and you can read the book description here on Amazon.
Blessings to you!
He peered suspiciously from behind her eyes at the old woman sitting across from his human home. There were a number of things about the old woman that unnerved him. Foremost was she was at peace.
He had never seen her before, but he instinctively knew that her peace was deep. It was no shallow stream coursing through the self-delusion of knowing and serving a Christ of her own imagination.
No, this old woman was an old warrior who had suffered much and whose peace was yet as deep as the ocean. It filled the immense valleys and covered the highest mountain peaks of harsh life, persecutions, and disappointments beneath its rolling waves.
He knew that kind of peace only came from a deep trust in the enemy’s words. And that kind of trust only came from experiencing His faithfulness. This old woman and her Christ-centered peace was everything he despised. His eyes narrowed at the threat.
The old woman’s eyes moistened with joy and gratitude. She looked up from reading Oswald Chambers’ classic devotional, My Utmost for His Highest. Her tired, kind eyes landed on a beautiful, little blond-haired girl with a delightful smile. The little girl’s entire face brightened into a smile that rivalled the sun.
He looked at this trading of smiles and knew what would come next. His vile body was always in a slight tremor, something that came with his nature. But his permanent slight tremor heightened into an involuntary shaking that he strained to control.
Too much or too little, depending on the situation and company, could be the difference in victory and defeat. Perhaps even the difference in staying put or being cast out.
The old woman looked across the café at the little doll’s mother who was smiling adoringly into her daughter’s little face. “She’s absolutely beautiful,” said the old woman. “What is her name?”
The mother’s beautiful face immediately changed into a portrait of terror, as though she were frozen on a train track watching the train’s menacing approach. Then just as suddenly as the terror had replaced the smile, a smile replaced the terror.
But the old woman had lived long enough and had seen enough pain to know the terror was real and the smile was forced.
Get out of here! Take Amanda and get out of here! Now! She’s going to hurt you and your baby! Pangs of fear followed the foolish, but powerful thoughts that were trying to compel the mother to inexplicably run away.
Only with the greatest of camouflaged effort was she able to not literally run out of the café with her child and get lost in the crowds of walkers, joggers, and bike riders who were enjoying the concrete trails of the Atlanta beltline on a sunny Saturday morning.
But the strength of the thoughts were crushing her will. She knew that she was maintaining control only from one excruciating moment to the next.
Elsie certainly knew she had problems with fear—big ones—but she had no idea she had problems with spirits of fear. Therefore, she could not have known that the general sense of fear she carried at all times, or that her periodic eruptions of tormenting fear, were actually manifestations of something far more sinister and destructive.
Demons.
They had been in her family for four generations. The door of fear opened on a Tuesday morning in January, 1917 at 10:53 a.m. Elsie’s great grandmother, Lucille, was all of six years old when it happened.
“Hal, I don’t want you to go. I don’t want you to die,” she had heard her mom protest to her father through tears. Why should he have to go to Europe to fight someone else’s war?
“I’m not going to die. I promise you, Edna Mae,” he answered.
“How can you promise me you won’t be killed? The whole world is at war. What will happen to our little girl if you die, Hal? We don’t have nobody but you.”
Hal’s and Edna Mae’s little six-year-old daughter had overheard the conversation from another room in the tiny farm house. Her hand shook as she rolled a white lily back and forth between her trembling fingers. She was no match for the swarm of fear spirits that roamed the nation in those days energized by talks of America entering the Great War.
Fear of Death, Fear of War, Fear of Loss, Fear of Losing Parents, Fear of Abandonment, Fear of Starving, and others rushed through the open door of the child’s magnified fears like the mad waters of a hurricane rushing through the open doors and broken windows of an unprepared beach home.
Once in, they buried themselves deep in her mind and personality. She carried these spirits the rest of her life. They were there when her own child was born in 1930 during the Great Depression.
The Great Depression had begun as a stock market crash in 1929 and had developed into the most devastating economic downturn the nation had ever suffered. Chronic unemployment, widespread homelessness, painful hunger, and debilitating hopelessness all contributed to the party atmosphere within the kingdom of darkness.
Open doors were everywhere during those days. Any demon who couldn’t find a person to invade was beyond incompetent and deserved to walk through dry places.
Mary Beth was not born in nor raised in a Christian family. Her parents considered themselves Christians—they were born in America, weren’t they?—but that’s as far as it went. There was always so much to do around the house.
So Mary Beth was born with two strikes against her.
First, she was born with the spirits of fear that had inhabited her mother.
Second, since she had no proper Christian spiritual covering from her parents, she was susceptible to further attack and infestation from the seemingly unlimited waves of Great Depression demons that fed upon the unprotected and unwary like hungry locusts descending upon inviting crops.
Mary Beth gave birth to Judith, who inherited the spirits of her mother and grandmother, and who later married and had three lovely daughters of her own—two of which were fraternal twins—before she developed phobias that made it all but impossible for her to go outside.
Elsie, the most strong-willed of the three girls, was one of those beautiful twin daughters. She pressed her head upward against the fear that was trying to keep her from looking into the old woman’s face.
“She wants to kill your baby!”shouted Fear of Failure.
He was the lead demon inside of her. What he said didn’t make sense, but then much of what spirits of fear said didn’t make sense. The object was not to make sense, but to control.
Elsie lifted her face with the slightest grimace of a smile forced by social custom. What was happening to her? Why did she feel like her body, no, her body and mind were trying to separate and float off into space in a hundred different directions?
“Her name is Amanda.” Elsie felt as though she had just wrestled with a crocodile to get those four simple words out of her mouth. What’s happening to me? Her panic was rising.
“Amanda,” the old woman smiled, nodding her head, her heart flooding with love for this tormented mother. She put her book down and walked towards the woman to join her at her table.
“What now? What now?” came a panicky voice from the horde of fear demons inside of Elsie.
“Shut up! I’m trying to think.” Fear of Failure clenched his teeth. His quick calculations were fueled by his own panic. Fortunately, he wasn’t a stranger to this kind of trouble. But he had never been in this kind of trouble with Elsie.
She was one of the better victims he had dominated. No Christian friends. No Christian neighbors. No Christian acquaintances. And best of all, she had no interest in God. Any god. God didn’t exist. She just wanted to live her life and be left alone. “Hide!” shouted Fear of Failure to his comrades.
“That’s it? Hide?” answered one.
SMACK! The blow was heavy across his head. “Now shut up!”
The old woman had come upon the lead demon before he could get Elsie out of there. So he resorted to a tried and true tactic of spiritual warfare.
Silence.
Christians couldn’t cast out demons they didn’t know were there. Of course, there was always the probability that this old intruder was like most Christians—ignorant of spiritual warfare, and a believer in only parts of the wretched book they called the Bible.
Yet, the peace that seemed to ooze out of the pores of her deeply wrinkled skin made him wary. She had obviously believed enough of God’s word to produce peace.
Perhaps she was one of those rare saints who believed what the wretched book said about casting out demons. The thought of being discovered and cast out made the decision for him—SILENCE!
Elsie knew the fear she felt of the approaching old woman was ridiculous. She looked at her face. It had been around a long, long time. In fact, the face seemed to have come as an afterthought to the wrinkles that owned the fleshly terrain.
Oddly, however, the woman’s face emitted an endearing and comforting softness that was at odds with the fear Elsie felt draped over herself. Actually, the woman was covered in peace. Elsie could feel it coming from her. And for some reason, this peace terrified her.
“Children are a gift from God,” said the smiling old woman as she pulled a chair and sat next to Elsie.
Elsie smiled politely, but not without effort. She hoped her face didn’t disclose her unease. But she didn’t believe in God, and had a rather strong resistance to the idea of God. She had an even stronger resistance to Christians pushing their religion on others.
But it wasn’t the woman’s presumptuous statement about God, or her forwardness in inviting herself to sit at her table, that disturbed her. Under other circumstances, minus the talk about God, she would have welcomed the old woman’s company.
Rather, it was the conflicting emotions she felt right now of tormenting fear and soothing peace. Fear was all over her; peace was all over this woman. And most baffling was that her fear feared this woman.
Elsie’s eyes squinted thoughtfully as the old woman looked down at her daughter. The fear in me is afraid of the peace in her. She didn’t shake her head, but she did wonder at this nonsensical conclusion. “Amanda’s three,” she offered, fighting through her feelings.
The old woman gleefully slapped her own thigh. “Three years old. Of course, you are.”
“I can ride a tricycle,” said the little girl.
Elsie saw the old woman’s eyes light up. An involuntary smile appeared on her face in response to the woman’s interest in her daughter.
“The bike with three wheels?” asked the old woman, as though this was the greatest accomplishment she’d ever heard of.
Amanda’s blue eyes went as wide as the sky. “It has two little wheels in the back,” Amanda’s speech turned excited and her little voice skipped, “but, but, but, the wheel in the front is bigger.”
The old woman threw her head back. “Oh, that’s just marvelous! An angel as little as you, and you can ride a tricycle—three wheels.” She clapped her hands lightly.
“Can you ride a tricycle?” Amanda asked the old woman.
“No. I don’t think so,” the old woman answered with a chuckle.
“If you don’t think you can, you can’t,” said the three-year-old.
The old woman looked at Elsie and gave a smile that said she was going to try to get more from her toddler. “I’m too big to ride a tricycle.”
“If the tricycle is too little, get a bigger one. You can ride a big one,” she said.
“If I ride a big tricycle, I may fall off and hurt myself,” the old woman answered.
“Riding tricycles are fun. If you’re too scared to ride, you won’t have fun.” The toddler turned to her mom. “Right, Mommy?”
Her daughter’s words touched something in her heart that made her eyes glisten with moisture. “That’s right, Amanda.” She rubbed the little girl’s long, blonde hair and moved as though she was preparing to leave.
“I’m not scared. I can do anything!” the little girl proclaimed, remembering what her auntie Anna had told her.
“Isn’t it amazing?” said the old woman. “Out of the mouths of babes Thou hast perfected praise.”
Elsie’s mouth tightened in an attractive half-smile that said she wasn’t familiar with what the woman was saying.
“Sometimes God speaks through the little ones, the most unlikely people. If you’re too scared to ride, you won’t have fun,” the old woman repeated. Her face grew sad, her eyes moist.
“Amanda’s words can apply to so much of life, can’t they?” she said. “How often do we let fear keep us off the tricycle? Relationships, businesses, occupations, we settle for something far less than what we really want because we’re afraid. Afraid of failure. Afraid of rejection. Afraid of ridicule. Afraid of this. Afraid of that.”
Elsie’s smile as she looked into the face of the old woman wasn’t really a smile. It was the frozen leftover of the smile that was there a few moments ago. What she really was feeling were competing waves of fear and peace, depression and hope, a sense of opportunities forever lost and opportunities waiting to be found.
She didn’t know the connection between this old woman and what she was feeling, but she knew they were connected, entwined. She could leave this old woman’s presence and escape the unexplainable discomfort she felt. But not without also leaving the peace and hope that emanated from this woman and that somehow had found their way into her soul.
The old woman sensed the thoughts going on inside Elsie. She put her other hand atop the hand that was already resting on the young woman’s hand. “What about you?”
“What do you mean?”
The old woman looked into Elsie’s eyes. “I’m very, very old.” She chuckled. “Even older than I look. I’ve seen a lot. I’ve talked to a lot of people. Some have listened. Sadly, most have not. There was a woman,” the old woman’s face brightened, “God smiled when He created her.
She continued. “He had such an exciting and fulfilling life planned for her. He put gifts within her, music and singing and lifesaving gifts.” The smile faded until it was no more. “The thief stole them all through fear. Now she’s only a shell of what God created her to be, and it’s sucking the life out of her.”
Elsie was unnerved at the old woman’s speech. She could’ve labeled it odd. She could’ve labeled it religious gibberish. Her soul exhaled the breath her mouth was afraid to release. She could’ve labeled it an x-ray of her life.
She had always loved music. She could sit and listen to it for hours. All kinds. It didn’t make any difference what style. It was all beautiful, euphoric, mesmerizing.
As a child, Elsie didn’t understand the nuances of timbre and pitch and melody and rhythm and tempo. But when she closed her eyes and listened to songs or instrumentals, her spirit drank in and celebrated what her mind didn’t understand.
Music and song were like powerful drugs that entered through her ears and took her to a world of rapturous bliss.
From what she had heard from her father and grandfather and others, and from some tidbits of conversations she had overheard, her mother and grandmother had the same love of music.
They had once had beautiful voices and each had achieved above average skill on the piano and guitar, even Granny. Elsie had taken this musical penchant a step farther and had become quite good on the xylophone.
The irony was that with all of this love of music and skillful ability in the family lineage, Elsie’s grandmother and mother had both abruptly stopped playing and singing.
One could never get a straight answer from either of them as to why they stopped. But others in the family said it was because of fear. Both of them somehow developed an irrational fear that if they didn’t abandon music and singing, something tragic would happen.
They had no idea what that tragedy was; just that it was bad. Even odder was the fact that Granny and Elsie’s mom were both thirty-six when they gave up music. Elsie’s thirty-sixth birthday was coming up shortly.
The old woman’s troubling speech had pushed away the large stone of a secret family tomb, allowing embarrassing light to shine on corpses that hadn’t died of natural causes. Songs and musical ability weren’t the only corpses strewn about on the cave’s dirt floor. Now the light shone brightly on another body.
Elsie had always wanted to be a neurosurgeon. Of course, as a child it was “brain doctor.” She had everything she needed to achieve this goal. She was a whiz in math, science, chemistry, and biology. Great study habits and a wonderful memory gave her a head start.
Everything was going as planned. Great grades. Great MCAT scores. Acceptance into a great medical school. Graduating from medical school at the top of her class. Acceptance into a great neurosurgery residency program.
Then the unexplainable fear.
Then the heartbreak of dropping out of her residency when she was close to completion.
Then the humiliation of retraining to become a registered nurse.
Almost a neurosurgeon. Now a nurse.
“Me and Amanda have somewhere to be shortly,” said Elsie. This time she made definite moves to leave.
“Where, Mommy?” asked Amanda.
“Nice meeting you,” said Elsie as she wiped off the table.
“Nice meeting you, too, Elsie.”
Elsie put Amanda in her stroller and looked at the old woman for a final polite farewell. “Have a nice day?” she said graciously.
The old woman smiled at God’s creation. “Elsie,” she called.
Elsie looked back at the old woman.
The old woman’s voice was weak from advanced age. “Fear has determined to destroy you. Don’t let him steal who God created you to be. Don’t let him destroy you the way he’s destroying your mother and grandmother. God can help you.”
Elsie stood there chilled in her bones. I didn’t tell you my name.
She was frozen in place in surprise and dread. How did she know she had a problem with fear? How did she know Mother and Granny had a problem with fear? And why did she talk about fear as though it were a person? She called it him and he.
Elsie answered her own questions by quickly pushing her daughter out of the café and onto the sidewalk. The old woman’s words echoed hauntingly in her mind as she tried futilely to shake off the encounter.
Fear has determined to destroy you.
Don’t let him destroy you.
The spirit entered the room and stood before Terror. He trembled, but not because his nature as a fear spirit demanded it. No, his shaking came from his fear of being summoned to the office of Terror.
He had done nothing lately worthy of commendation. So he must’ve done something wrong. What had he done wrong? It had to have something to do with that old woman.
Terror sat behind a large, dark desk that had nothing on it but his two large hands, which were balled into fists, and a globe of the world on a stand. Behind him on the wall was a map of the world. Different colored pins were stuck in various places.
The high-ranking demon’s face resembled a human man’s face. But a human could only get such a face if he lived through a bad fire.
Fear of Failure looked Terror in the eyes and dropped his own in shame. He didn’t know what he was ashamed of, but he was certain that he had done something worthy of shame.
Terror spoke with accusation in his low, clenched-teeth voice. “I am told that the woman, Elsie, met someone interesting.” The demon’s thick fingers rolled heavily on the desk.
“She met an old woman.”
The agitation on Terror’s face was proof that he wasn’t impressed with Failure’s abbreviated response.
“The old woman is a Christian.”
Terror looked at Fear of Failure with utter contempt. First, a five-word answer. Now a six-word answer. “What you lack in competence, you excel in brevity. Are we at the place where you actually tell me something I don’t know?”
“The old woman was full of peace. Like she really believed the cursed book.”
Terror was still not impressed.
“She knew things about Elsie. She told her that we were trying to destroy her.”
Terror’s eyes narrowed in growing anger. Fear of Failure was running out of things to say.
“She told her that we had destroyed her grandmother, and that we were working on her worthless mother.”
Terror stood and looked down menacingly at the demon he towered over. Fear of Failure was no weakling demon. He was large and powerful. He had long claws and long teeth. But standing before Terror, he was the jackal. Terror was the lion. King of the jungle.
Fear of Failure’s words rolled rapidly out of his mouth. “I don’t care who this woman is or what she says or does. We will destroy Elsie.”
“How?” Terror demanded.
“The usual—lies,” he answered. “Lies, lies, and more lies.”
Terror wanted more. It showed in his eyes and in his icy silence.
“We’ll try to increase—”
“You’ll try?” Terror challenged.
“We’ll increase her bondage,” Fear of Failure corrected himself.
“How?” pressed Terror.
Fear of Failure didn’t dare follow his feeling and roll his eyes. He’d wake up blind and with his eyeballs rolling around on the floor if he did.
“We’ll speak directly to her mind. Sometimes we’ll whisper. Sometimes we’ll shout. We’ll deceive her with logic and illogic, facts and fantasy. We’ll go rational and irrational. Our irrational lies have worked really well in her mother and grandmother. They’re working well in her, too. We’ll keep going with the irrational lies.
“We’ll talk to her through people. We can count on her family to support us. They all belong to us, and they’ve got big mouths. Always in her business. Always got something to say. None of it from the enemy.”
“How do you know?” Terror was leaving nothing to chance.
Fear of Failure had recovered some of his confidence. He almost smirked as he answered. “Always negative. Always looking for the bad. They’re full of death. No light in them.” Fear of Failure saw that Terror liked this. Nothing like a good family.
“And the husband?” asked Terror.
“He’s fed up with her and her family,” said Fear of Failure.
“He’s lasted longer than you led me to believe he would. He should be gone by now.”
“He’s showing signs—” began Fear of Failure.
“Get rid of him,” ordered Terror.
“He’ll be gone soon,” promised Fear of Failure.
“How soon?”
“We have a plan in place,” he lied, hoping that Terror didn’t ask for details.
Terror wanted that vacant director’s position at Fear Academy. He couldn’t afford to get a blemish on his record, especially not when he was being considered to take over the academy. “Is there anyone around Elsie who could cause complications? Any Christians anywhere. Any—where?”
“Not a one, my lord. Not—a—one.”
“What about that wretched sister of hers—Anna?” asked Terror.
“They don’t talk to one another,” said Fear of Failure. “And whenever they do, it turns into a knock-down, drag out fight. That Anna’s something else. Too angry with sinners to help any of them. She complains about Elsie, but she doesn’t pray for her. We don’t have to worry about her.”
“Make sure you keep her complaining instead of praying.”
“Of course. Of course,” said Fear of Failure. He let himself smile. “And I respectfully remind you that our girl is an atheist. She doesn’t believe in God.”
Now Terror smiled. It had been the goal from day one of the Garden of Eden to deceive the human idiots into not believing in God’s character. One of his eyes arched in satisfaction. But who could’ve anticipated the ease in which they had been able to convince the enemy’s creation that He didn’t exist. The fools believed they popped out of nowhere.
Terror sat down. His anger temporarily satisfied. But they did need to be careful. “That old woman…” Terror’s eyes peered into the vast expanse of his experience. “Be on the lookout for her. She was not a coincidence. She knew too much.”
He thought some more. Words from the cursed book came to mind. Great peace have those who love Your law. “I don’t like her peace,” he said with a gravelly voice. “Hard to control people like that. Now go make a trophy of this Elsie.”
Some of Eric’s Spiritual Warfare Novels
Eric’s Non-Fiction Books About Demons
Other Articles Related to Demons
- If You Don’t Believe Christians Can Have Demons…
- 10 Mistakes We Make When Casting Out Demons
- How Much Should You Pay For A Demon to Be Cast Out?
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