Auditing Spirits

We have been warned that there are deceiving spirits among us, as there were at the time of Joseph Smith. Unfortunately, deceiving spirits are usually treated as one of those problems “somebody else” suffers from, and we therefore fail to identify those working on us.

On that note, I’ve been thinking about how they might expose themselves, so we might identify them and drive them off from ourselves. it is our responsibility to test what we receive, and verify that it is of God. Some indicators are more obvious, some are more subtle. Thinking of the current social climate we live in, here are some considerations I think can help us.

• Is the revelation, experience, etc. you receive from the other side scriptural? Is it found there? Is it in perfect harmony with what is there? Or does it contradict scripture? Or, is it not even found in scripture at all? If you receive revelations unbound from scripture, what might that point to?


• Most if not all of us have spiritual theories and notions that move beyond what is clearly expressed in scripture. That being the case, do you receive spiritual experiences that tell you your thoughts, hopes, speculations, etc. are right? But without correction, clarification, expansion or corroboration which reveals their connections to or presence in scripture?


• Have you taken the experience, revelation, etc. directly to God (or back to Him) after the fact, to verify that He indeed was the source? And have you received a confirmation from Him that He was indeed the source? How do you know it came to you from God?


• When asked how you know a thing revealed to you is true, is the only answer you can offer something to the effect of “I just do”? If you can only answer “I just know,” do you really know? What exactly is it that you know? Do you know that what you received in an experience or revelation was true? Or only that you had an experience or revelation, and you merely assume or believe the content is true? In other words, on what do you rest your “knowledge” that the content is true?


• When someone else questions the validity of what you’ve received through a revelation or experience, what is your response? Are you at peace with your knowledge and their disagreement? Or do you get defensive? Is it possible that deceiving spirits, having managed to plant a seed in a person, have a vested interest in maintaining that seed? And that they would drive away anything that might uproot that seed? Using anger, pride, guilt, etc. to protect it?


• Does your revelation or experience fill you with pride or vanity? Because you have received something from heaven that others haven’t? Perhaps something even the prophets haven’t received? Or spoken of receiving?


• Are you emotionally attached to the content of the revelation or experience? Meaning, if it were from a deceiving spirit, could you let go of it? And let go of the idea that God sent it? Or is the thing you’ve received so meaningful to you that you could not bear to let go of it, now that you have it? Thereby preventing you from critically examining it, due to the risk of losing it?

There are many more indicators than these, but again, these are the ones that struck me to consider specifically in our current social and cultural environment. Some may be more or less fitting in certain situations than others. 

I don't think we should just trust anything and everything we receive from the other side. Investigation is not doubt, and blind trust is not faith. We need to find the deceiving spirits among us, and cast them off before they thwart or destroy us. And it doesn’t matter what deceiving spirits you identify in others if you fail to identify those afflicting your own soul.

For further (and better) discussion of this topic, you should also consider reading this immensely solid post written by Denver Snuffer on his blog years ago, which, if anything, is even more relevant now than it was at the time he first published it.