It's the age-old story with us. The real power of demons is in language: lying narratives that they sucker dupes into accepting as true.
I was reading the Catholic lectionary yesterday and this verse jumped out at me:
"And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God." Eph 6:17
The SWORD of spirit (pneuma in Greek-- wind or breath) is a metaphor for the power of the pneuma to act in our human realm: through words. Our actions are controlled by which words we accept and internalize as truth.
This corresponds to the sword of Jesus's mouth in Revelation:
Revelation 1:16 (NIV)
16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
It is the power of words that affect human action. Similarly, for demons to have power in our realm, their "breathy influence" must be distilled into words that we hear (or read) and then decide to accept or reject. There's no woo-woo here-- demons cannot affect us unless they use words. They present their wicked narratives to us in a variety of ways: media, government, academia, other people spreading lies, even hearing voices (words). But we always have the God-given freedom to accept or reject those words.
We see this power at work today in all the lies circulating around that are accepted by way too many people (including the institutional churches): transgenderism, klot shots, climate change, etc. ... pick your favorite lie. Stupid, self-impressed, and arrogant people dismiss God's truth revealed to us in scripture, refusing to submit to it. They reject the living waters of God's instruction but then they turn around and drink from the poisoned well of the lies of this world (i.e., institutions). Then they act on the lies by attending drag queen story hours, taking the bioweapon klot shots, etc. As the Apostle Paul teaches us, they will receive "in themselves the due penalty for their error."
We protect our minds from these demonic narratives by immersing our minds in God's life-giving narrative in scripture according to the Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox canon. The quotes on your excellent link give many examples of this. I would add Moses' teaching in Deuteronomy:
Deuteronomy 28:14 (NIV)
14 Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.
Where the "other gods" refers to the source of lying, unscriptural narratives, whatever, whoever, or wherever that other source is. We don't need to speculate about that as theology and metaphysics does because this removes us from what the real fight has always been since the development of language: a narrative war of the world's lies vs. God-revealed truth. The institutional churches have been seduced by sophistry and are so busy staring off into metaphysical space or being conciliar with the wicked narratives that they're not even in the fight.
As the ecclesia-- those called out by the scriptural words-- our call of duty is to submit single-mindedly to God's instruction, to conform our lives to his instruction, and to speak out (with words) against the world's lies regardless of the consequences to us.
It's the age-old story with us. The real power of demons is in language: lying narratives that they sucker dupes into accepting as true.
I was reading the Catholic lectionary yesterday and this verse jumped out at me:
"And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God." Eph 6:17
The SWORD of spirit (pneuma in Greek-- wind or breath) is a metaphor for the power of the pneuma to act in our human realm: through words. Our actions are controlled by which words we accept and internalize as truth.
This corresponds to the sword of Jesus's mouth in Revelation:
Revelation 1:16 (NIV)
16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
It is the power of words that affect human action. Similarly, for demons to have power in our realm, their "breathy influence" must be distilled into words that we hear (or read) and then decide to accept or reject. There's no woo-woo here-- demons cannot affect us unless they use words. They present their wicked narratives to us in a variety of ways: media, government, academia, other people spreading lies, even hearing voices (words). But we always have the God-given freedom to accept or reject those words.
We see this power at work today in all the lies circulating around that are accepted by way too many people (including the institutional churches): transgenderism, klot shots, climate change, etc. ... pick your favorite lie. Stupid, self-impressed, and arrogant people dismiss God's truth revealed to us in scripture, refusing to submit to it. They reject the living waters of God's instruction but then they turn around and drink from the poisoned well of the lies of this world (i.e., institutions). Then they act on the lies by attending drag queen story hours, taking the bioweapon klot shots, etc. As the Apostle Paul teaches us, they will receive "in themselves the due penalty for their error."
We protect our minds from these demonic narratives by immersing our minds in God's life-giving narrative in scripture according to the Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox canon. The quotes on your excellent link give many examples of this. I would add Moses' teaching in Deuteronomy:
Deuteronomy 28:14 (NIV)
14 Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.
Where the "other gods" refers to the source of lying, unscriptural narratives, whatever, whoever, or wherever that other source is. We don't need to speculate about that as theology and metaphysics does because this removes us from what the real fight has always been since the development of language: a narrative war of the world's lies vs. God-revealed truth. The institutional churches have been seduced by sophistry and are so busy staring off into metaphysical space or being conciliar with the wicked narratives that they're not even in the fight.
As the ecclesia-- those called out by the scriptural words-- our call of duty is to submit single-mindedly to God's instruction, to conform our lives to his instruction, and to speak out (with words) against the world's lies regardless of the consequences to us.