Evil Spirits, Possession, and Casting Them Out
On the reality of unclean spirits, the unrivaled authority of Jesus Christ over them, the priesthood power by which they are cast out, the gift of discernment, and the compassion the Saints owe to those who suffer.
The War in Heaven and the Hosts That Fell
Evil spirits are not myth, metaphor, or the superstition of an unlettered age. They are real beings with a real history. Before this world was, in the councils of heaven, a rebellion arose. Lucifer, a son of the morning, sought to seize the glory of the Father and to destroy the agency of man. He did not rebel alone. A third part of the hosts of heaven cast their lot with him, and they were defeated and thrust out.
“And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”
These are the “angels” cast out with him. Having forfeited their birthright and the privilege of a mortal body forever, they are filled with envy and malice toward the children of God who still walk the path they abandoned. They are the unclean spirits, the devils, who range through the earth seeking whom they may afflict and deceive.
Yet the testimony of scripture is not finally a testimony of fear. It is a testimony of victory. For wherever these spirits appear in the Gospels, they appear trembling before One who commands them with a word.
The Authority of the Savior
When Jesus came into the country of the Gadarenes, He met a man whom no chains could hold, who dwelt among the tombs and cried out night and day. The spirits within him were many, and they knew Him.
“For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, … and were choked in the sea.”
Mark this carefully: the devils could not so much as enter a herd of swine without His leave. Their malice is real, but their power is bounded, and the boundary is the will of Christ. When the man was freed, he sat “clothed, and in his right mind” (Mark 5:15). The same pattern appears in Matthew's account of two possessed men of the same region, who cried, “Art thou come hither to torment us before the time?”
“So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine. And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine.”
A single word—“Go”—and the legion obeyed. This is the measure of His dominion.
By Prayer and Fasting
A father once brought his son to the disciples, a boy seized and torn by a spirit, and the disciples could not cast it out. When the Lord came, He rebuked the spirit and the child was healed. Afterward the disciples asked privately why they had failed.
“And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.”
Power over evil is not a technique to be mastered but a sanctity to be sought. It flows to those who draw near to God in humility, prayer, and self-denial. The Savior also warned that deliverance must be followed by genuine conversion, lest an unclean spirit return: “Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first” (Luke 11:24–26). The house swept clean must be filled with the Spirit of God, or it lies open again.
Moses Commands Satan to Depart
The Savior's authority is delegated to His servants. When Moses, having beheld the glory of God, was afterward confronted by Satan in person—who came tempting and demanding worship—Moses did not flee. Strengthened by what he had seen, he commanded the adversary by the authority of the Only Begotten.
“And now Satan began to tremble, and the earth shook; and Moses received strength, and called upon God, saying: In the name of the Only Begotten, depart hence, Satan.”
Earlier Moses had already declared, “Get thee hence, Satan; deceive me not” (Moses 1:16). The lesson is plain: the adversary trembles, and he departs, when commanded in the name of the Only Begotten by one who is in earnest with God. The faithful do not bargain with darkness; they command it to flee. Yet mark well the words Moses used—he claimed nothing of his own, but spoke “in the name of the Only Begotten.” No man casts out a devil by his own strength, nor by the bare sound of a holy name. The power is real, but it is delegated; and it answers only to those whom God has authorized.
The Power Is Delegated, Not Borrowed — and the Sons of Sceva
The Savior did not leave His disciples to improvise against the powers of darkness. He called them, ordained them, and conferred upon them the very power He Himself wielded. Casting out devils is not a courage one summons or a formula one learns; it is an authority one must receive — the priesthood power of God, delegated by ordination to His servants.
“And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses, and to cast out devils.”
Luke records the same commission in the plainest terms—“he … gave them power and authority over all devils” (Luke 9:1)—and when the Seventy returned from their labors, they marveled that it had happened exactly as promised. The devils obeyed; but mark how they obeyed.
“And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.”
“Through thy name”—not as a charm they had seized, but as a power they had been given. And here the scriptures draw the line with unforgettable sharpness, for there were others who saw the name of Jesus put devils to flight and supposed the name itself was the instrument—that one had only to pronounce it, as a sorcerer pronounces a spell, to wield its power. Seven sons of a Jewish chief priest named Sceva attempted exactly that.
“Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.”
Mark the evil spirit's terrible question: “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?” It confessed the Master, and it confessed the Master's authorized servant—Paul, who cast out devils because he had been sent (Acts 16:18). But the men standing before it carried no authority, only a borrowed word; and the word alone availed them nothing. They came to cast out a devil and were themselves overcome, and fled wounded and ashamed.
This is the difference between priesthood and presumption, between an ordinance and an incantation. The one who is sent prevails; the one who merely imitates the form is mastered by the very thing he presumed to command. Power over evil, therefore, can never be reduced to a formula of words, nor seized by the bold, nor copied by the curious. The name of Christ is not a spell that works in any mouth; it is the seal of an authority that must be conferred, and that rests upon the worthiness of him who bears it. Spoken in faith by His ordained servant, that name puts every devil to flight; taken up by the presumptuous, it is no shield at all. The means, from first to last, is the priesthood power of God—the same power by which the worlds were made—delegated to men and exercised in His name.
Trying the Spirits: The Gift of Discernment
Because evil spirits deceive—and because Satan himself can appear as an angel of light—the Saints are commanded not to believe every spirit, but to test them.
“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”
To meet this danger, God grants a spiritual gift. Among the gifts of the Spirit is “the discerning of spirits” (D&C 46:23), by which the servants of God may know the source of an influence. The standard for judging is fixed and unchanging: whatever invites to do good and to love God is of Christ; whatever persuades to evil is of the devil.
“For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; … for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; … But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, … cometh of the devil.”
The Lord even gave specific keys for detecting deceiving messengers. In Doctrine and Covenants 129, He revealed that a true, resurrected messenger will offer his hand and may be felt; a righteous spirit not yet resurrected will deliver his message but will not offer a hand; and a deceiving spirit, when asked to shake hands, will offer one that cannot be felt—and so is detected. God does not leave His children defenseless against impersonation. He arms them with knowledge, with the Spirit, and with order.
Affliction, Illness, and Honest Discernment
Here a word of sober caution is needed, for the doctrine of evil spirits has too often been twisted by the fearful and the unwise. We must be exceedingly careful never to mistake suffering for sin, nor illness for possession.
Mental and physical illness are real illness. Depression, anxiety, seizure, dementia, and disease are afflictions of the body and mind—not evidence of wickedness, and not, by definition, the work of devils. When the disciples saw a man born blind and assumed his condition must be the wages of sin, the Lord corrected them plainly.
“And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”
Neither this man, nor his parents. The Savior swept away the cruel arithmetic that reads guilt into every wound. Those who suffer are not under condemnation for suffering, and to suggest otherwise is to add the burden of shame to the burden of pain.
The faithful response, therefore, is not to choose between heaven and medicine, but to embrace both. Competent professional and medical care—physicians, counselors, and the careful treatments God has allowed mankind to discover—stand alongside faith, prayer, and the priesthood blessings of the sick. These are not rivals; they are companions. To pray for a sufferer and also to bring him to a skilled healer is not weakness of faith but wisdom in it.
And so we do not diagnose another's sorrow as demonic. We do not whisper that the grieving, the ill, or the troubled are oppressed by devils. We extend compassion, not fear; understanding, not stigma. The genuine influence of evil spirits is a tempting toward darkness and a turning from Christ—not the ordinary trials of a mortal body. Where there is real suffering, the disciple's calling is to mourn with those that mourn, to comfort, and to point gently toward the Healer of all.
Greater Is He That Is in You
Let the final word be victory, not dread. The whole witness of scripture is that evil spirits, however real, are conquered creatures. They trembled before Moses. They begged leave of Christ to enter swine. They obeyed His single command to depart. They will yet be bound and cast into outer darkness forever.
The disciple of Jesus Christ need not live in fear of the powers of darkness, for the One who dwells in the faithful is infinitely greater than the one who rages in the world.
“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”
Greater is He that is in you. The believer armed with faith, prayer, fasting, discernment, and the priesthood of God stands not as a frightened victim but as a victor sharing in the triumph of the Lord. Christ has all power over evil—in heaven, on earth, and under the earth—and He has promised to be with His Saints always, even unto the end of the world. Therefore fear not. Draw near to Him, keep your house filled with His Spirit, command darkness to flee in His name—by the authority He has given—and walk in the unshakable peace of those who belong to the Conqueror of every evil thing.