Today we see that casting out demons from people and places or the more moderate practice of chasing away their influence and temptations by prayer and blessings is big business. At an extreme, people are forking out a fortune to evangelists and clergy and others to banish cancer or avert cancer striking.
I wonder did Jesus get paid? It is telling and worrying that the gospels won’t say one way or the other. Was Jesus charging for treating demons or preventing them getting in the first place? He blamed the victim if the demon came back in Matthew 12 so he had a loophole that looks very suspicious. Occultists like that try to put the "demon" in or make the person think they are demonised.
The use of the term unclean spirits stigmatises the person with problems. The implication was that the spirit being in a person sullied and defiled and degraded that person. Jesus validated that disgusting term.
The Jewish religious teachers who knew a thing or two about religion said of Jesus in Mark 3:22: ‘He is possessed by Be-el’zebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.’ They could not call him possessed unless they thought he really was. And in the real world the flock may go along with religious leaders but think very differently to them so it is a reflection of the mood among the lay persons too. To call him possessed was unnecessary. It could be read as tough love, an indication of compassion and denies Jesus could be responsible for his actions. If they wanted to slander Jesus effectively they would have said, "He is an unwitting disciple of the prince of demons and that is how he casts out demons." Going too far is self-defeating.
The gospels say the Jews suggested that Jesus’ exorcisms were just tricks of the Devil. Jesus responded they were not for Satan could not cast out Satan and destroy his own kingdom. This tells us that the Devil cannot have a kingdom without possessing people, which implies that most people must be demon-possessed. Since he tempts all, perhaps he must possess all to some degree at least. People can blame the Devil and not themselves then for their sins. The response proves that Jesus used fear and terror to unduly influence people, so that they hardly knew what was real.
Commonsense told Jesus that a Devil could cast out demons under certain circumstances for he would only be sending them to somebody else anyway. Jesus lied. Jesus said that whoever is not against him is for him. If so, then whoever is not against the Devil is for him.
Not once did any gospel verify that anybody Jesus was cured of a Devil stayed cured forever. Jesus said a demon will come back if a man is not holy enough which is a good excuse for an aspiring exorcist who fails. He must have needed the excuse. Jesus was a false religious leader.
If and when one of them does exorcisms, it is enough to prove or indicate that he is using the Devil to do them assuming the Devil exists. Jesus even went as far as to say that anybody suspecting that the Devil was doing his miracles would never be saved so he was going to make sure that people would be afraid to think critically about his miracle exorcisms and his other miracles by extension. He was the one that said the Devil is very crafty. It takes one to know one.
Jesus went as far as to imply the accusers themselves had an unforgiveable sin - they blasphemed the Holy Spirit. The claim that this sin refers to an ingrained inability to repent is nonsense. How can that be called blasphemy which means saying sacrilegious things? Luke is clear that the context is blasphemy as in blasphemy. The idea is that that they insulted God so gravely that he will not forgive them even if they want it. They now belong to the demons themselves.
The gospels suggest that Jesus' family suspected he was himself possessed.
Mark 6:17 uses a term meaning arrest in reference to John the Baptist. Mark 12:12 uses the term for Jesus.
The term is very strong. It appears in Mark 3:21-35. We are told that Jesus’ relatives - and we can be definite that there were others - were reaching for him to take him by force. Matthew and Luke were embarrassed by this term and left it out. Mark has Jesus claiming he had no honour even in his own home. The way the text gives the mother Mary a special mention means she was urging others to seize him. Verses 31-34 are singling her out for a mention showing she was the driving force. She is mentioned first. In a patriarchal society, this is telling. It is an unmistakeable hint of how forceful she was.
Later Jesus laments that a prophet even in his own house is starved of honour in Mark 6:4-6. He specifically mentions his hometown, his relatives and those who he played with as a child. Again the latter would include relatives. Jesus in this story is said to heal a few at his home place but is shocked at how stubborn his listeners were and he could not get over it. They must have been terrible indeed for the gospel is clear that Jesus knew what kind of darkness lurked within people and their groupings and even the Jewish leaders.
Be clear, if they were arresting him they must have had people with them the equivalent of the police today.
They called him insane which meant possessed and they were clearly dismissing his exorcisms. They committed the unpardonable sin Jesus talked about so he disowns them and says the people who love and follow God’s message are his mother and brothers and family.
Why didn’t they arrest him then? Or did they? Did the gospel just neglect to tell us?
You may wonder how this squares with John saying that Mary wanted Jesus to do something about the wine running out at Cana much earlier. She didn’t mean a miracle. It is alleged that Jesus turned water into wine. John 7:4-5 undermines the Cana tale by having Jesus' family tell him he needs to stop being discreet about miracles and start showing himself to the public as a wonder worker.
The Cana story shows that Mary despite Jesus' age felt she need to assert control over him. He snaps at her. That could indicate she felt there was something wrong with his head.
The demons Jesus cast out of the Gerasene demoniac (Luke 8) pleaded for Jesus to send them into pigs rather than send them back to the abyss and he obliged. They went into the pigs but the pigs then drowned themselves. The demons Jesus put out of the Gerasene man were wrong to think he was going to send them back to the pit – they didn’t realise he was going to give them the bodies of the pigs. It is not said that he meant for the pigs to drown themselves. But that is what happened. And we can be sure Jesus must have known that the pigs would go berserk. If you put mad demons into pigs what do you expect? Jesus facilitated the possession of the pigs. It is strange how people fear Satan sending demons to them when the Bible says Jesus controls what they do!
Jesus cured only those who were in his presence. If you were a blind man and you got to Jerusalem a day late you didn't get cured. Jesus was cruel for upsetting vulnerable people like that. Curing those in his presence shows he was healing them not because he cared about them but because he wanted to show-off. He is like a teacher who buys sweets for the children when half of them have gone on a nature walk. If the children are sick or disabled you can see how much worse it is.
Jesus made out that we are more likely to sin than do good. The Church says we were born sinful and that the effects of this make sure we will struggle with sin all our life. This demolishes the freedom defence. It says evil and sin are our fault not God’s for we abused his gift of free will and he couldn’t stop us. God supposedly gave us free will so that we could love him or hate him. If so, then he should not be making us biased towards sin or creating weakness in us that is drawn to sin. We should be able to live sinless lives even if many of us don’t. Jesus’ evil God ordains sin and evil to take place.
The Devil wanted Jesus to jump off the Temple and arrange for angels to catch him safely to convert the people. The Devil was not asking Jesus to focus on show for he never said that. He was not asking Jesus to convert the people the easy way for he never said that either. He was just asking Jesus to try and force God to save him. That was why Jesus replied that nobody must tempt God. If Jesus had been God or the Son of God gifted with miracle power he would not have been tempting God to save him for the power was under his control. By working miracles, Jesus had given into this temptation. The Devil won.
Matthew 10:13 tells us that Jesus believed that his powers worked by magic. In it, Jesus tells the disciples that if they confer peace on a deserving house they are in it will be blessed with peace but if the house is undeserving the peace will come back to the disciples.
This makes no sense unless the prayer that confers the peace is really a spell. A spell is sending magic energy out of you. Jesus wants the disciples to cast spells for peace and the spell will bless them themselves by coming back to them if there is nobody peaceable who will let the spell work. Jesus gave the disciples this power so he was claiming he did his wonders by magic.
This would bring him under condemnation for the Torah condemned all magic-making as being opposed to God and deserving of death. Sorcerers even ones who did mostly good were banned from the midst of the Hebrews.
Christian circles hear about this creature, a former angel, who is no the chief architect of evil in the universe. Satan. He may appear as an angel of light as the Bible says. Jesus said it is the heart that counts and we are told Satan is pure malice inside. He has loads of minions. Jesus is reported to have cast demons out in the Bible. Oddly, why does Satan himself not possess any of these people?
Acts 10:38 has Peter saying that Jesus went about healing those oppressed by the Devil. But that is a very broad expression. The gospels blame demons for different illnesses. Satan sent them to do it. Jesus in the Gospel of John never mentions anybody being possessed but he complains a lot about Satan lying to the people. Nothing at all says Jesus exorcised Satan himself.
It is suspicious that Catholic circles claim to have verified exorcisms that put Satan out, and the exorcism rite assumes he is possessing the victims. It's very boastful to do what Jesus himself never claimed to do. It looks like possessing people is too much of a distraction so Satan who has to manage chaotic demonic armies does not waste time on it. There is another possibility. If Jesus casts out only the stupidest or most pathetic demons and not Satan then whose side is he really on? This looks too deliberate. The Jews had a point when they doubted that his exorcisms were really holy and inspiring. There is something evil about somebody making out a person has a demon when the demon is so easily to fake.
Jesus treated his miracles of healing as signs of his power over the devils. For example, a story about his curing a victim of epilepsy by getting a devil out says that some illnesses are the work of demons. Christians boast that they do not believe this is true of every illness. They fear the trouble that would come from doctors and psychiatrists if they said they did believe it. But surely if somebody is sake it is safer to treat them as if a demon is involved just in case? The lies that Jesus' doctrine about demons has led to shows he should not be worshipped the way he is.
Christians reason that Satan cannot heal anybody though he may make it look like he did. They point to how the magicians of Egypt could copy some of God's wonders. Eg they could turn water to blood. They could do stunts but as for doing good with their powers they failed. They could not treat the plague of boils in Exodus 9 at all. There Moses fires soot up in the air and God turns it into some kind of acid that gives them boils. The Christians think Satan was supplying power to those magicians while the power of Moses was really God's power. Christians are reasoning strangely for aren't they saying God miraculously hurts people? That is what I would worry about, not the failure of the magicians to heal.
In light of the inconsistencies, troubling implications, and theological contradictions surrounding Jesus’ exorcisms and miracles, it is reasonable to question the source and purpose of his actions. The gospel accounts not only leave room for doubt but also suggest a figure whose behavior and teachings could align more with manipulation and magical thinking than with divine authority. If these stories are taken at face value, they raise more concerns than they resolve about Jesus’ moral integrity, his relationship to evil, and the true nature of his power.