Witchcraft / occultism

Description

Deuteronomy 18:10–12 clearly forbids divination, sorcery, enchantments, mediumship, and consulting the dead. The Bible does not present these practices as neutral ways of gaining knowledge or as an innocent path to spirituality. Their common element is the pursuit of supernatural knowledge, power, guidance, or protection outside God.

Derek Prince and Frank and Ida Mae Hammond treat actual occult involvement as an important area of spiritual opening. Prince distinguishes, among other things, witchcraft connected with the use of spiritual power for control, divination involving the pursuit of supernatural knowledge, and practices that use rituals, spells, and objects as a means of entering the spiritual realm outside the Holy Spirit.

This includes, among other things, fortune-telling, tarot and other divinatory techniques, mediumship, séances, summoning spirits, attempts to contact the dead, the Ouija board, ritual magic, spells, spiritism, occult initiations, conscious satanic practices, and the use of spiritual techniques intended to provide power, knowledge, protection, or influence.

Different motives may lie behind such involvement. Sometimes it begins with curiosity and fascination with what is hidden. At other times a person is looking for answers about the future, protection, healing, help in a difficult situation, or a way to gain greater control over their life. Over time, initial curiosity can lead to deeper and deeper use of the same spiritual source.

What matters is what the person actually participated in. This may include personally performing practices as well as knowingly using the services of a medium, fortune-teller, ritual practitioner, or other forms of spiritual help that appeal to sources opposed to God. Related initiations, oaths, dedications, and objects intended for rituals or worship may also be significant.

In the teaching of the Hammonds and Prince, such involvement may lead to spiritual deception, fear, bondage to the practice, and an opening to further demonic influences. A person may feel an increasingly strong pull toward additional practices while at the same time moving away from trust in God and seeking guidance from another source.

Prince also points to the connection between rebellion and witchcraft, referring to 1 Samuel 15:23. Rebellion rejects God’s authority, while witchcraft seeks spiritual power or control outside His order. In this sense both lead a person toward independence from God and toward drawing from another spiritual source.

Turning away from occultism should be as concrete as the involvement itself. It includes confessing one’s participation before God, repentance, and renouncing the practices in which the person took part. If oaths, spiritual commitments, or dedications were made, they can be revoked in the name of Jesus Christ. Objects intended for magic, rituals, or worship should be removed, and conscious agreement with using that spiritual source should be broken.

A person can then declare their exclusive belonging to Jesus Christ. Where demonic activity connected with former involvement is discerned, that influence can be renounced and commanded to leave in the name of Jesus.

“There shall not be found among you (...) a diviner, a soothsayer, an enchanter, or a sorcerer.”
Deuteronomy 18:10

Sources

Deuteronomy 18:9–14; Acts 16:16–18; Acts 19:18–20 — forbidden practices, a spirit of divination, and abandoning magic after conversion.

Derek Prince — “The Nature of Witchcraft”; “Cult and Occult — Satan’s Snares Disclosed”; “Witchcraft Unveiled”.

Frank and Ida Mae Hammond — “Pigs in the Parlor” — groups concerning occultism, witchcraft, and divination.