PRACTICAL OR SECONDARY QUESTIONS
What Jehovah’s Witnesses Teach
Jehovah’s Witnesses teach that spiritism and wicked spirits are a real and dangerous force that humans must guard against. According to their understanding, Satan and the demons actively seek to influence people through spiritistic practices such as divination, contact with the dead, magic, or occult rituals. Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that even possession of an object that may have been related to any of these carries the risk of being tormented by wicked spirits. They believe that such forces are not just harmless superstitions but actual manifestations of demonic activity. Jehovah’s Witnesses emphasize that God’s people must resist by avoiding all contact with spiritism, praying to Jehovah for strength, and using the Bible’s counsel as a protection. Thus, loyalty to God and obedience to his Word are seen as the only sure defense against the influence of wicked spirits.
What the Science Says
As of today, there is no verifiable, reproducible documentation that “evil spirits” affect humans or that humans can communicate with demons. The experiences that some people report that they have experienced in contact with spirits are explained medically and have established diagnoses or may be sleep paralysis. This includes being “obsessed” or hearing voices, hallucinations or the feeling that someone is in the room.
There are some who have reported poltergeist phenomena where furniture falls over or things are thrown around. This phenomenon has been studied since the 1800s, and in some cases where several people believed they had experienced this phenomenon, cameras were set up where it was revealed that it was actually people who threw or bent objects, not spirits (the Enfield poltergeis incident in England, 1970s). There are also a number of examples of videos on the internet that are video manipulated or that you simply see an illusion trick. No scientific publications have been able to present videos that exclude manipulation. Despite many stories and even videos on the internet, no scientific study has ever confirmed that objects are actually thrown around by spirits.
I assume that we have no recognized scientific evidence that demons have a direct impact on humans today.
What the Bible Teaches
We have no Scriptural examples of demons moving or throwing objects being moved, as some believe they have experienced in our time. If this occurs today, it would be a new phenomenon that the Bible has not described before. On the other hand, we have a number of Scriptural examples of evil spirits being in contact with humans. I would like to highlight three examples.
Angels left their proper abode in heaven and created human bodies for themselves to have sex with women on earth in Noah’s day. These demons and their Nephilim sons were immediately killed by the Flood (2 Peter 2:4,5; cf. Jude 6). We have no later accounts of other angels repeating this later in history. Jehovah’s immediate judgment on disobedient angels may have had a preventative effect and made it less attractive to other angels who might want to do the same. To materialize in disobedience after the Flood would be pure suicide. Angels could still materialize into humans after the Flood, but when this happened, the purpose was not to leave their original abode in heaven to live on earth. The accounts we have of angels materializing after the Flood were commissioned by Jehovah (see e.g. 1 Corinthians 1:1). (see Genesis 18:1,2). For example, according to the Bible, hospitable Christians could be visited by an angel without knowing that it was an angel (Hebrews 13:2).
Still, humans continued to have contact with other demons after the Flood. The Bible gives an example of King Saul seeking out a “woman who is a spirit medium” and she prophesied for him by bringing Samuel up because Saul wanted to consult with him when Saul found that Jehovah and the prophets had abandoned him (1 Corinthians 1:1). (1 Samuel 28:8-19). The voice in which Saul spoke foretold that Saul and his sons would be killed by the Philistines the next day, and this was fulfilled (1 Corinthians 1:1). (1 Samuel 31:1-6). According to the Bible account, neither Samuel nor Jehovah could have been spoken to. This is because the Bible says that the dead know nothing at all (Ecclesiastes 9:5,10) and because it was Jehovah himself who had forbidden contact with demons through such spirit mediums. The Bible says that Jehovah had long since abandoned Saul and had stopped communicating with him (1 Corinthians 1:1). (1 Samuel 28:6).
The very last Biblical event in history is described in Acts 16:16-18 where Paul meets “a servant girl who was possessed by a demon, a spear of judgment.” She followed them, shouting that they were Jehovah’s servants and that they were preaching the way to salvation. After a few days, Paul got tired of this and commanded the demon to “go out” and “it went out at the very moment.” This event likely occurred about 50 C.E., before Paul was imprisoned. We have no Biblical or scientific evidence that the demons after this event have had a direct influence over humans.
Everything came to an end with the death of the apostles. As this book has explained, the Christian congregation died out after the death of the apostles (2 Cor. Thessalonians 2:3; Acts 20:29–30; 1 John 2:18-19), the miracles ceased along with the miraculous effect of prayer (1 Corinthians 2:18-19). Corinthians 13:8), and we have no reputable scientific or Biblical sources that confirm the demons’ contact with humans after the death of the apostles. All of this is linked together and ceased when the purpose of the Christian church and the signs of the apostles were proven (2 Corinthians 2:2). (1 Corinthians 12:12; Hebrews 2:3,4).
It would make no sense if Jehovah’s power were to stop working through supernatural phenomena such as miracles, while Satan was allowed to continue with his supernatural powers over humans. That would create an imbalance in the universal trial between Jehovah and Satan, in which Satan would be given an advantage. Moreover, after Jesus’ death, Jesus was given power over heaven and the earth, and this excludes Satan’s power over the earth, as described in a separate chapter of this book.
It seems that we are now living in a time of absence of both Jehovah and Satan. Humans are left to their own devices, as the illustration at Matthew 25:14-18 shows. This is described in more detail in the chapter of this book, which concludes that it is humans who today exercise delegated power over the earth. Jesus will not be present again until He returns to earth to usher in the 1000-year kingdom (Luke 19:15). As the illustration shows, Jesus has given instructions to his servants, and it is up to the people what they will do while waiting for Jesus (verses 16-23, cf. 2 Cor. —1 Timothy 3:16,17).
I look forward to the time when Jesus will return to earth and care for mankind and lead them in a good and righteous way. When that happens, Satan is held in custody for 1000 years (Revelation 20:1-3).
Don’t miss this related study ↓
↑ Back to Top