Evil spirit

“ The evil spirit that comes back to a home from which he has been once expelled, and finds it empty, swept, and garnished, takes to himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, “and the last state of that man is worse than the first.” ”

“ Is he not at heart a demon—an evil spirit? For is he not precisely opposite, in his essential character, to God and to the angels? and is not the opposite of good, evil,—and the opposite of essential good, essential evil? Then, when such a man comes to die, that is, to throw off the material body, and appear in his spirit, where else can he go than amongst his like, that is amongst the evil? ”

“ I felt that some new evil spirit was at large and was seeking a home in a man. My earlier thought came back to me—all spirits are dissimulators, whether they be devils or angels, and we men and women are all angels pretending to be men and women. ”

“ In a more exalted way, appealing to the imagination and the inner spirit, they nevertheless apply the same principle. Certain things are sinful and wicked, certain instincts and desires are temptations, contrived by an evil spirit. If temptations are yielded to, if evil is committed, punishment is sure to follow, if not in this world, then in another, a world beyond. ”

“ But others, and this embraces all of us, are more or less influenced by evil spirits, that prompt and lead to passions, and the lusts of the flesh; and to do many things in violation of the true laws of life and health, and of peace and glory and exaltation, and these evils to which we are prompted through the influence of these spirits are designed, little by little, to bring us into bondage, to sin and death, and to him who has the power of death, which is the devil. ”

“ But when the evil spirit perceives such faith, such honoring of God and such worship, he rages and stirs up persecution, attacks body, goods, honor and life, brings upon us sickness, poverty, shame and death, which God so permits and ordains. ”

“ Certain spirits, by permission, ascended from hell, and said to me, ‘You have written a great deal from the Lord, write something also from us.’ I replied, ‘What shall I write?’ They said, ‘Write that every spirit, whether he be good or evil, is in his own delight, — the good in the delight of his good, and the evil in the delight of his evil.’ I asked them, ‘What may your delight be?’ They said that it was the delight of committing adultery, stealing, defrauding, and lying. ”

“ If God withhold abused grace, and give men over to indulged lusts,—if he permit the evil spirit to do his work on those that resisted the good Spirit,—and if in his providence he lay stumbling-blocks in the way of sinners, which confirm their prejudices, then he blinds their eyes, and hardens their hearts, and these are spiritual judgments, like the giving up of idolatrous Gentiles to vile affections, and degenerate Christians to strong delusions. ”

“ The spirit is brought to that society successively, and at length enters it. An evil spirit when he is in the state of his interiors, is turned by degrees to his own society, and at length directly to it, before this state is ended ; and when this state is ended, then the evil spirit casts himself into the hell where his like are."—H. H., 510. ”

“ Their belief, though not less erroneous, was founded on the records of that page which cannot lie, and which warned them of the existence of one great and mighty spirit of evil, wandering to and fro in the earth, and seeking to decoy the souls of mankind to his abode of darkness. ”

“ If we harbour vindictiveness, hatred, malice, and a spirit that produces evil within us, we are so far given up to the power of evil. But when I say that I am opposed to evil principles and their consequent practices, I use an expression that I think you can understand. ”

“ Certain it is, that in the time of our Lord, the evil spirits had some extraordinary power over the bodies of some men; entering into them as it were, and making them do things hurtful to themselves and others. ”

“ Do the powers of darkness rule over us? Do evil spirits possess and drive on our lives? Is remorse of conscience no longer felt? Are falshood, guile, debauchery, profaneness, perjury, bribery, corruption, and adultery, no longer seeking to hide themselves in corners, but openly entering into all our high places, giving battle to every virtue, and laying claim to the government of the world? Are we thus near being swallowed up by a deluge of vice and impiety? All this is not come upon us, because God has left us without help from heaven, or exposed us to the powers of hell ”

“ You cannot break nor destroy the will. It is influenced and controlled, more or less, by the evil that is sown in the flesh, but not in the spirit, until the body has grown to years of accountability; then evil, when listened to, begins to rule and overrule the spirit God has placed within man. ”

“ On the other hand, those evil spirits, who by long custom, have contracted in the body, habits of lust, sensuality, malice and revenge, an aversion to every thing that is good, just, or laudable, are naturally seasoned and prepared for pain and misery. Their torments have already taken root in them; they cannot be happy when divested of the body, unless we may suppose, that Providence will in a manner create them anew, and work a miracle in the rectification of their faculties. ”

“ Beside this aerial spirit they believe in an inferior one, who inhabits the fire, and of whom they are in perpetual dread, as, though he possesses equally the power of good and evil, the evil is apt to predominate. ”

“ But when they are remitted into their hell, they return to their former state."...
"If evil spirits could perceive that they were associated with man, and yet that they were spirits separate from him, and if they could flow in into the things of his body, they would attempt by a thousand means to destroy him; for they hate man with a deadly hatred."... ”

“ and that an evil life can in no way be converted into a good life, or an infernal life into an angelic life, for every spirit from head to heel is such as his love is, and therefore such as his life is; and to convert his life into its opposite is to destroy the spirit completely. ”

“ Vice and depravity, on the contrary, separate souls from the primitive source of light, and chain them to the abode of the elements: they become evil spirits. The imperfectly good migrate from one body to another, until, by the efficacy of good words and actions, they are finally emancipated from matter, and gain a higher rank. ”

“ The evil spirits associated with man are, indeed from the hells, but when with man they are not then in hell, but are taken out thence. The place where they then are, is in the midst between heaven and hell, and is called the world of spirits—when the evil spirits who are with man, are in that world, they are not in any infernal torment, but in every thought and affection of man, and so, in all that the man himself enjoys. ”

“ And this denial takes place in the thought, from the will to shun evil and live according to the Lord's Word. Evil spirits rejoice and exult when they can induce man to deny the devil and the reality of evil, for then they can work where they love to work, in the dark; and flowing from the dark into man's hereditary love, lead him where they will. ”

“ That which annoys, tempts, stirs us to being irritable, wicked, or mean, is an aggregate of evil thoughts or images received by chance or otherwise into the memory, developed there into vile unions, and new forms like coalescing animalcule, and so powerful and vivid or objective do they become that men in all ages have given them a real existence as evil spirits.
Every sane man living, can if he really desires it, obtain complete absolute command of himself, exorcise these vile demons and bring in peace instead, by developing with determination the simple process which I have described. ”

“ When I see evil spirits working and operating, as I have seen many times, I feel like severing the good from bad, for this people have been broken up and robbed, and our Prophets, Patriarchs, and brethren have been slain, through letting such spirits work in our midst, like the leaven of the devil, until the whole lump becomes leavened with them. ”

“ Now, first, we may learn from this account, that evil spirits are real persons. There is a notion got abroad that it is only a figure of speech to talk of evil spirits, that all the Bible means by them are certain bad habits, or bad qualities, or diseases. ”

“ Out of evil, evil will come. We do not gather figs of thistles. Your life has been evil; your heart is bad. Can good emanate from this? You will go forth to the world in fair seeming, no trace of your sin visible to the eye, and you will spread the contagion of your sin. Listen to me, Myron Holder. ”

“ I know, O God (blessed be thy infinite mercy for giving me this knowledge) that this is the root of all evil. I know, thou madest me, not to do my own will but thine. I know, the very corruption of the devil is, the having a will contrary to thine. O be thou my helper against this most dangerous of all idols, that I may both discern all its subtleties, and withstand all its force. O thou who hast commanded me to renounce myself, give me strength, and I will obey thy command. My choice and desire is, to love myself, as all other creatures, in and for thee. ”

“ I would be glad if my new readers should appraise not only the detestable sinfulness and perversity of a soul warped by the force of evil, but also the great yearning of this soul—the evil evil atones to a certain degree in this truly human feeling; and in this feeling the afflicted man also communes with each one of us. ”

“ To reason, justify, to apotheosize evil, to establish its ritual, to show the excellence of it—is this not worse than to commit it? To adore the demon, or love evil, the abstract or the concrete term of one and the same fact. ”

“ For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornication, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man."—Verses 20-23. ”

“ Your pride, malice, hatred, anger, revenge, lust. Think of your sinful nature, totally alienated from the life of God. How is your whole soul prone to evil, void of good, corrupt, full of all abominations! Feel, that your carnal mind is enmity against God. ”

“ Sect. XV. “How many evil thoughts do we not think every day! How many deceitful and unseemly words do we not speak! How many unseemly deeds do we not do! Thus do we prepare torments for ourselves by crimes and frauds. Since we have walked body and soul in the love of the greedy and shameless Demon of Envy, and the Light of the Five Gods which we absorb in our food every day thereby goes to the Land of Evil. Wherefore, O my God, to cleanse ourselves from sin, so pray we now: Manâstâr hîrzâ! ”

“ How can I speak my gratitude to heaven and thy teaching, which brought me so swiftly, so wonderfully, to prevail with that dread man! I think evil is like the false opal, which needs but the first touch of pure light to shatter it. ”

“ This evil thing winds through all the inlets of the senses, moulds itself in forms, blends with colors, weds with sounds, lurks in anger and guileful speech, clothes itself in scents, transfuses itself in savors, and by a flood of troublous movement obscures the mind with evil desires, and fills with vapor the channels of the understanding, through which the soul's ray might shed the light of reason. ”

“ And then the soul is led into the paradise of endless light. But the soul of the wicked one is met by a hideous old woman, “uglier than the ugliest thing,” who is his own conscience. She says to him: “I am thy bad actions, O youth of evil thoughts, of evil words, of evil deeds, of evil religion. ”

“ Now I do not wish that you should suppose that I minimize evil, that I make light of sin, that I do not properly estimate the cruelties and the wrongs that have devastated the world. I need only suggest to you that you look in this direction and that to see how hideous all these evils may be; how bitter, how cruel, is the fruit of wrong thoughts and of wrong actions. Look at a man, for example, divine in the possibilities of his being, but through vice, through drink, through habits of one kind and another, corrupted until it is an insult to a brute to call him brutal. ”

“ For, say they, the afore-acted Evil that his Soul did in its other Life, brought these accidents upon him, by getting the upper hand of him, and by being too powerful and strong. And those that dye thus, they believe that their Souls turn immediately into Devils. ”

“ Since we approached that world from without, and never felt the pulse of its heart's blood, we had nothing but doubt after doubt when we contemplated the evil that seemed to be in it. Our efforts to explain evil seemed hollow and worthless. ”

“ But I realized that the evil, or the good—for why call love an evil?—had penetrated into the most remote regions of my being, and I realized the energy of my struggle like a person entombed who tries to extricate himself. ”

“ The millstones of envy and malice are weighing down that mortal mind to the depths of its evil nature, where the cankering chains of sin will hold it until suffering balances the account, loosens their cold clasp, subdues the perverse will, and quenches in agony the fires of remorse. Aggravation of error foretells its doom, repeating the pagan opinion, “Whom the gods destroy they first make mad.” ”

“ All thoughts which spring from sinful tempers, are undoubtedly sinful. Such, for instance, are those that spring from a revengeful temper, from pride, or lust, or vanity. An evil tree cannot bring forth good fruit. Therefore if the tree be evil, so must the fruit be also.
3. And so must those be, which either produce or feed any sinful temper: those which either give rise to pride or vanity, to anger or love of the world, or confirm and increase these or any other unholy temper, passion, or affection. For not only whatever flows from evil is evil, but also whatever leads to it ”

“ Notice the profound truth here in regard to the essential and deepest evil of all our evil. 'Your thoughts'; 'your ways,'—self-dependence and self-confidence are the master-evils of humanity. And every sin is at bottom the result of saying—'I will not conform myself to God, but I am going to please myself, and take my own way.' My own way is never God's way; my own way is always the devil's way. ”