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SPIRIT HOUSES!       DO 1409       22/2/83
--How to Handle'm!--Exorcising Houses!--Good & Bad Birds!

       1. IN MANY PARTS OF THE WORLD WHERE HEATHEN RELIGIONS ARE PRACTICED, THE PEOPLE SET UP STATUES OR IDOLS IN THEIR HOMES OR OUTSIDE THEM to worship & pacify the spirits, sometimes with a complete house or temple! Almost all Homes in Thailand have a small "spirit house" on the property with a statue in it that is supposed to be the representation of that Landlord's particular deity.

       2. EVEN THE CATHOLICS IN MANY PLACES SEEM TO THINK THEY NEED A LITTLE SHRINE inside or outside their house for protection. I suggest that instead of insulting & offending the landlord by removing this house, you could exorcise the spirit-house & put a statue or picture of Jesus in there instead. It would be a testimony, a witness, & yet show them that you are somewhat customary & that you realise that some kind of spirit needs to hover over the house. Well, we have our Spirits, Jesus & the Holy Spirit & the Angels!

       3. THAT HEATHEN TEMPLE THAT MWMI HAD THERE, OF COURSE WAS A LITTLE DIFFERENT STORY BECAUSE THAT WAS A WHOLE TEMPLE FILLED WITH IDOLS! But what the early churches sometimes did, in fact it was a very common practice in Early Christian Rome, was just to clean out the heathen temples of all their idols & pictures, paint over them & completely renovate the temple & make them into temples of worship for the Lord & cover the walls with new paintings, & even fill them with new images! Of course this is not the best, but you could even get a little statue of Jesus or a little picture of Jesus to put in the house & consecrate it, after you've cleansed the house from the evil spirit & thrown out the old idol or given it to the dear landlord for his safekeeping if he wants to keep it, & then just tell them the truth, that you have a special patron Spirit of your own, that you would prefer to use your own guardian spirit & put it in there instead. It could even be a testimony to the neighbourhood!

       4. THE ONLY POSSIBLE LIABILITY WOULD BE THAT IT WOULD IDENTIFY THE HOUSE TO ANY PASSERS-BY AS BEING CHRISTIAN, which might invite or aggravate attacks by the Enemy or unfriendly neighbours. But I mean, one way or the other, they're going to know, your neighbours are soon going to know that that house is full of Christians! There's no place in the East you're going to get by without them knowing that, & usually you're a lot of Westerners as well, & they would immediately have missed the spirit house which everybody else has, so it's going to be identified anyhow, sort of negatively that, "Oh well, that's a bunch of those Western heathen devils!"

       5. IF YOU TAKE AWAY THE SPIRIT HOUSE, THAT IS LIKE AN AFFRONT TO THEIR RELIGION, BUT IF YOU WOULD TRANSFORM THE SPIRIT HOUSE INTO A LITTLE SHRINE OF JESUS instead, it's like an acknowledgement that the property needs some kind of spirit house & some kind of spirit, so why should they complain about your particular preference of spirits? I mean most of them worship a whole different pantheon of idols & spirits in all those heathen religions, & nearly everybody in every household has got their patron spirit, or actually patron devil! Why shouldn't you have your favourite good Spirit? It's like becoming one, conforming to a custom, & if your preference happens to be a Christian saint or Jesus instead, well, you know, that's personal preference. But you're sort of fitting in, at least, to an established custom, which would be considered broken or violated or sort of insulted by just throwing out the spirit house, if not an actual sacrilege or desecration!

       6. BUT INSTEAD YOU COULD HAVE A LITTLE SPIRIT HOUSE OF YOUR OWN INHABITED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, WHICH COULD BE VERY WELL REPRESENTED BY A MADONNA! Catholicism is probably the predominant Christian religion in most Oriental countries, if there are any Christians at all, so they're probably accustomed to that & used to that. I wouldn't be surprised if Catholics have their own little shrines out front, even on some of these foreign mission fields in the Oriental fields where there are so many heathen religions.

       7. IT WOULD BE SOMETHING WORTH INVESTIGATING TO FIND OUT WHAT'S THE CUSTOM OF OTHER CHRISTIANS, WHAT DO THEY DO? Try to fit in as much as you can & conform & become-one as far as you can go without compromising your convictions & religion, & that way actually it becomes a testimony. All the houses & homes that I have seen in Catholic countries who were ardently Catholic always had a little Madonna shrine out front or a Christ statue in the front yard or some saint, & I thought it was really a very good way of their testifying to every passer-by that this is a Catholic home. Since many people are so superstitious in the Oriental countries, they're apt to just as well revere & fear your particular choice of spirit as their own. I would do a little more researching, investigating on the matter, & find out what the Catholics do. Catholicism is also a very established religion recognised even in Oriental countries, & therefore if it's a custom of Catholics to have their own little shrine out in front of their homes instead of spirit houses, in such countries you'd just look like another Catholic & maybe you wouldn't stand out as something weird or different.

       8. AS FAR AS I'M CONCERNED, A MADONNA CAN REPRESENT THE HOLY SPIRIT if you just consecrate it & pray over it & dedicate it & declare that that's a statue of the Holy Spirit! That's one possibility, if it's a fairly accepted or tolerated religion in that country. In many of the Oriental countries Catholicism is an accepted Christian religion & there are expected to be a few Catholics. So without even taking down the spirit house & going to all the trouble to buy a Catholic shrine & all that, which would be a little expensive, you could just take a little statue of the Madonna & stick it in there instead of the Buddha or whatever it is, & have exorcism rites over it & the whole house & every room & around it on the property, & then have a dedication of the new emblem.

       9. NOT ALL TALISMANS ARE EVIL! THERE ARE GOOD TALISMANS which could be representative of good things, such as Madonnas & statues of Christ etc. You could put in a little statue of Jesus, or even if you can't get a statue of Jesus, almost any place where they sell Catholic goods at all you can get a statue of the Madonna. But if you can't do anything else, you could take a picture & paste it on the inside wall where it can be seen. If you don't have any pictures of Jesus in that country, well, you can cut one out of the Magazine, colour it & stick it in! (Maria: Do you think that not getting rid of the spirit house would make it more difficult to get rid of the spirit that lived there?)

       10. I DON'T THINK ANY EVIL SPIRIT IS GOING TO WANT TO LIVE IN A SPIRIT HOUSE WITH A STATUE OF JESUS OR THE MADONNA! To have to be confronted with that all the time, I think that's enough to make any one of them want to leave! Well, they've got to leave anyhow if you have an exorcism & command the evil spirit to leave, cast it out of the house & off the property! (Maria: And don't come back!) Yes, they've got to go! In which case by the way, it would be well to know the NAME of that particular deity or god that is supposed to be inhabiting that idol or image or whatever it is within that spirit house. If it's a Buddha or whatever it is, just call it by name & cast it out! If the owner of the property doesn't object, at least persuade him that you have your OWN patron saint or your own patron Spirit you'd like to put in there instead, &, "Here, would you mind keeping this idol of yours, you can keep it!"

       11. LET THE LANDLORD HAVE IT!--AND PRAY THAT THE EVIL SPIRIT GOES WITH IT! If he wants it, let him have it, right? There are lots of Catholics in Thailand & even quite a few Protestants, because Westerners, since they have been there, have done quite a bit of Christianising, so that's one reason why it's such an open country to our missionaries. They're quite pro-West for one thing, pro-U.S. & somewhat U.S.-occupied, & so they're very Christian-tolerant, & Buddhism being the major religion, it's a much more tolerant religion than is the militant demonic Hinduism!

       12. THE HINDUS ARE ONE OF THE WORST, THEY GET DEMONIC & DEMON-POSSESSED & THEY GO ON RAMPAGES & HAVE MASSACRES, & that's what's going on in India right now. It's almost always the Hindus because the Hindus are a lot like some Muslims, it's a virtue to kill people in the name of your religion, & Hinduism is an old demonic pantheon of demon gods & idols, & they've got thousands of them, maybe millions!

       13. WHEREAS BUDDHISM ORIGINALLY WAS NOT INTENDED TO BE A RELIGION AT ALL, IT WAS A PHILOSOPHY or sort of a theosophy & just a sort of a way of life, a moral code taught by Buddha, similar to Confucianism. But you'll notice all these people always eventually get into some kind of idolatry. Sooner or later it turns into idolatry. If it's not the true religion, the Devil always turns it into some kind of idolatry eventually. Originally I'm sure they only had those pictures or statues of Buddha just as an honour to their teacher of philosophy. But of course in the primitive animistic Oriental minds it was quite soon associated with the spirit of Buddha.

       14. INSTEAD OF THE IDOL JUST BEING IN HONOUR OF BUDDHA IT BEGAN TO BE WORSHIPPED. The same thing happened to those pictures & images of Mary & Jesus in Catholic churches. They were only supposed to be honoured, & they'll tell you to this day that they're not worshipped. Enlightened Catholics in places like Protestant countries will say, "Oh no, we don't worship those things, we just put them there as an honour to them!" They'll even fire back at the Protestants, "Well, you've got pictures of Jesus, what's the difference?"

       15. SO "JESUS HOUSES" WOULD CERTAINLY BE A NEW TWIST! I never heard of anybody else doing it, so we could be unique! It would be a lot less trouble to the property owner, the landlord & probably not offend him as much or worry him as much that you were completely breaking the tradition, & taking away the protection of the property, but that you were simply changing spirits & retaining the little spirit house, which probably would be a problem to remove etc. After all, we're almost always only temporary renters. Just ask him if he would be so kind, or let him even remove it himself if he doesn't want heathen hands to touch his idol or image & desecrate his shrine.

       16. ASK HIM TO KINDLY REMOVE IT SO YOU CAN PUT IN YOUR OWN, & PUT IN A STATUE OF JESUS INSTEAD! I'd certainly prefer a statue of Jesus to a statue of Mary, but I would say maybe that if the Catholics are real strong in the country, it's a more hidden identity. I think removing the whole thing is a little drastic, & then not putting anything in its place! I'm sure neighbours & the landlord & the community would miss it & they would think, "Well, that's a dangerous place to be, I'd better not even go in their yard, they're not protected by any kind of spirits!" Whereas if you have a representation there, of your Holy Spirit, what's the difference?

       17. CHRISTIANS HAVE PICTURES, SOME EVEN HAVE STATUES OF JESUS & MARY, WHICH WE COULD CONSIDER THE HOLY SPIRIT, SO WHY NOT? Why not, if it has a little idol in the thing, ask the landlord himself to remove it, the idol, not necessarily the whole spirit house. That's a job & he probably wouldn't like it. But tell him that you have your own patron spirit that you would like to honour & place a figure of it or a representation of in the spirit house. Because those spirit houses are almost always nearly all honouring different spirits & have different idols & statues & deities. They've got so many gods that they've got a tremendous variety, so it wouldn't be to them anything unusual that you had a different one!

       18. IT'S SORT OF LIKE BECOMING-ONE IN A WAY, not completely breaking the tradition & not totally offending them or removing what they consider the protection of their property, after which they could hold you responsible for anything that happens to it, any damages or fire or anything. Whereas if you simply substituted your own Deity & guardian Spirit for theirs, & just ask the landlord himself to kindly remove it, & you have one of your own you want to put in there, at the same time you're not breaking the tradition or making yourself too conspicuous by not having one.

       19. AT THE SAME TIME YOU COULD MAKE IT A TESTIMONY & A WITNESS! "Oh, what spirit do you honour, what spirit do you worship?"--"Well, we worship the Spirit of Love or Jesus or the Holy Spirit." And if you have a nice little statue of Mary she could represent the Holy Spirit, or a statue of Jesus. As I've said before, I think a lot of these visions & representations that people have had of Whom they thought was Mary was not Mary at all, it was the Holy Spirit that they saw in dream or vision or apparition or whatever. But Mary is a beautiful figure usually, a lovely statue, easy to find & cheap, just a small little figurine.

       20. WHEN YOU'RE MOVING INTO A NEW HOUSE, YOU NEED TO EXORCISE BOTH THE GROUNDS & LIVING QUARTERS! We used to do it room-by-room with my Mother, that was our common custom. We would march around the whole house in the yard, completely circle the house like the Walls of Jericho, & sing Hymns & pray & cleanse the property of evil spirits, then would go from room-to-room inside. We usually went from room-to-room inside first, & then we went around the yard outside, walked around & sang & prayed, but if you think that would attract too much attention you could just walk around silently & whisper prayers silently, & then you could do the same thing with the spirit house. You could even stand around in a circle & hold hands around the spirit house & exorcise the demon, cast it out completely & command it to leave the property, & if you know the name of the image or the idol or the deity, you could do it by NAME.

       21. AND THEN HAVE A DEDICATION & CONSECRATION CEREMONY OF DEDICATING & CONSECRATING THE HOUSE TO THE LORD, as well as the little figurine of Jesus or the Holy Spirit in the spirit house. Now the Catholics themselves do this sort of thing. You've seen it on television in Catholic countries where the Bishop or the Priest goes through the house & shakes his Holy Water in every room, shake-a-shake-shake, shake it up, & prays & consecrates every room & dedicates the new house.

       22. WELL, WE USED TO DO THAT, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, WHEN I WAS YOUNG, I can remember us doing that when moving into a new house. We had an exorcism, what amounts to an exorcism, we didn't go too wild about it or yelling or screaming or shouting or doing like some of these exorcist evangelists do. I mean, they yell so loud in exorcising demons you can hear them for blocks! Well, you don't want to attract too much attention or offend people or identify yourselves, but you can have a quiet little definite ceremony, & you should, always! We used to do it, & I think in moving into new quarters, new or old, new to you, you should exorcise the house, every room, & then walk around the house & exorcise the property, & by all means exorcise the spirit house!

       23. THE LORD IS GIVING US A LOT ON THIS LATELY BECAUSE YOU'RE GOING TO RUN INTO IT SO MUCH AS YOU'RE LIVING IN COUNTRIES WHERE IT'S RIFE, so I think that would be a good substitute without causing the landlord too much trouble or offending him or even worrying him about what might happen to his property if he removes the spirit house! But instead, ask him if you can substitute your own guardian Spirit, that you honour another Spirit & you would like to place it in the spirit house. Then after all the exorcism ceremonies you could have dedication & consecration rites which is nothing in the World but just praying & joining hands & then asking the Lord to dedicate it all to His use & sanctify the property & protect it. Just pray over it & ask the Lord to consecrate it & make a definite rite of it, a definite ceremony, a specific exorcism & cleansing of the property.

       24. THIS WAS QUITE COMMON IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. IN FACT IT WAS EVEN A PART OF THE MOSAIC LAW, that when certain houses became infected with disease or some kinds of mold & stuff on the walls of the houses, apparently some of those were demonic! So they used to come in & have what amounted to exorcism rites & cleanse the house, have the Priest of the Temple come & do it. It shows you sort of how Old-Testament Catholicism is, but at the same time I think it is a very good idea for modern Christians to do it, especially in these heathen countries that are full of devils!

       25. YOU NEED TO TAKE DEFINITE STANDS, BE SPECIFIC NOW IN THESE HEATHEN COUNTRIES ABOUT EVIL SPIRITS & DEMON-GODS ETC. Even when you go into these temporary properties like NAFs, GAFs etc., the first thing you ought to do is exorcise the buildings & the property, have an exorcism ceremony to drive out the demons & the devils & the heathen gods & deities & ghosts & evil spirits every time! Every time now, even now when we move into a house, if we haven't actually gone room-to-room, although sometimes we have, or marched around the house, at the first dinner we've had a joining of hands & praying over the house, that the Lord would cleanse it & dedicate it & consecrate it to His use, a sort of mild form of exorcism. Perhaps you're not being quite as specific as you need to be in these heathen countries, but I'll tell you, you need to do something! You need to be specific!

       26. NOW JUST LIKE THE LAYING ON OF HANDS OR THE ANOINTING OF OIL OR THE CALLING FOR THE ELDERS of the church, having a public prayer for somebody who is sick, all of these are testimonies & witnesses of your faith & they're also in obedience to the commandments of the Lord, as well as the partaking of the bread & wine at Communion. All of these are first of all showing your faith by obedience to God, if it is a commanded rite or a commanded ceremony or a commanded ordinance, as they're called. We have a few & we have Communion, we have the laying on of hands for the healing of the sick, we believe the bread is a symbolism of the Body of Christ for healing.

       27. THE CONSECRATION OF A NEW HOME IS THE NEAREST WE COME TO ANY OTHER KIND OF SPECIFIC CEREMONY or rite in which we have any particular so-called liturgy. Our liturgy is simple prayer that any child could pray or a song or Psalm & a dedicatory Scripture reading. You could have it before you move into the new property, as soon as you get control of it, as soon as you get the key, before you do anything else, as soon as you get the key & can go in. We did that physically & literally on one property, the team spent a week cleaning it up & killing the varmints & literally sanctifying the whole place, purifying it, purging it of all its Devil's pests, & I'm sure they had lots of prayer about it, & it took them two weeks before we were willing to move in!

       28. IF MY MOTHER & I USED TO DO THAT IN HOUSES IN THE UNITED STATES, WELL, IT'S CERTAINLY MORE NECESSARY THAN EVER IN HEATHEN COUNTRIES that are rife with superstitious religions, like the Orient, & even Latin American countries. So I think that's very needed & perhaps we should make it a more recognised rite of the Family. We don't necessarily have to call it exorcism, I think the Catholics call it Dedication or Consecration of a new house. There's an old song I used to love to hear sung a lot of times when they used to have house-warmings.

       29. THAT'S REALLY HOW THE AMERICAN & ENGLISH "HOUSEWARMING" ORIGINATED. It was supposed to be a dedication, consecration, sort of a positive exorcism of those houses. They used to have a party, you know, & invite friends & neighbours to come in & all, in Christians' homes. I've been to some several times at Christian homes, that were moving into their new homes. They had the preacher come & have prayer & have a little dedication ceremony in Protestant homes, like the Catholics, & I remember they used to have that beautiful song, "Bless This House!" That could be a beautiful song to be sung at such a ceremony!:
       "Bless this house, Oh Lord we pray!
       Bless our Family day by day!"

You could probably find it in an old hymnal somewhere. It's a beautiful song, & you could pray & have a Scripture reading.

       30. "SOLOMON'S DEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE" WAS A SCRIPTURE THEY OFTEN USED in Protestant churches & homes, where the pastor prays a prayer for the dedication of the House of the Lord, etc. Or we don't even have to have that, but I mean for a Scripture reading, it would make a nice Scripture reading. There are a lot of verses in the Bible about the house, the house of the Lord, the Lord's house, the Lord's temple, etc. Of course we believe the Lord's house is our bodies & that definitely the human temple is the body, is the temple of the Holy Ghost. But after all, the house you're living in, you templise it, you occupy it, the Holy Spirit occupies you, but you occupy the house, making it a temple also, & you certainly don't want any other unwanted occupants, undesirable, unwanted, unwelcome, uninvited guests!

       31. BECAUSE MANY OF THESE DEMONS & GHOSTS ARE ACTUALLY BOUND & CONFINED TO CERTAIN PLACES, SPECIFIC PLACES & PROPERTIES, UNLESS YOU COME IN & EXORCISE & RELEASE THEM! Now we've had several experiences like that in our visions & revelations: "The Chinese Cemetery" was one of the greatest, & "The Singapore Sailor", "Treasure Ship" & others.--"Al Capone", "Ahntahkahmon"--who else?--"Where Poppies Grow"! (1264, 1262, 614, 1421, 1411, 368) I'm talking now about where the spirits were released. Also in a way, the man in the cafe in Tenerife whom I prayed for as he died, yes, that was a prayer for him that he would be taken care of by the Lord, & he seemed to appreciate it, he looked back & smiled!

       32. IT'S FUNNY, OTHERS I'VE SEEN GOING UP IF THEY WERE CHRISTIANS. I've seen them up like as high as the ceiling or the roof or up in the air above us. But he was sort of disappearing into the pavement, which apparently shows he must not have been a Christian or wasn't ready to go up to that Heaven, but was going sort of downward to some Limbo or other place, at least for awhile. But at least he looked thankful that I was praying for him!

       33. JESUS PRAYED FOR THE SPIRITS IN PRISON, WE PRAYED FOR THE SOLDIERS IN FLANDERS' FIELD & we have had a lot of incidences of that. The Catholics of course are firm believers in that, & the Mormons are firm believers in prayers for the dead. They even use the Scripture in Paul's writings where he says, "Why else do they pray for the dead, if there's no Resurrection?" (1Cor.15:29) In other words, why pray for the dead if there is no Resurrection? So apparently we do have some power along that line over even the souls & spirits who are in prison or Limbo or Purgatory or Hell or wherever they are, or if they're bound to certain properties or graveyards or places or houses, that we can pray for them that they be released, & not always necessarily evil spirits.

       34. SOMETIMES THEY'RE HUMAN SPIRITS WHO ARE GOOD GHOSTS OR NOT TOO BAD, I mean they're just human & maybe they've done something that displeased the Lord so that they had to be bound to that property long enough to watch what happened afterward, or to even be a punishment on their descendants for their sins, to spook them & haunt them, or upon people who were unjust or treated them ill, they stay on & haunt them & spook them as a part of their punishment, the living's punishment, those that are still alive.

       35. (MARIA: MAYBE OUR PRAYERS EVEN HELPED RELEASE THE SPIRITS OF THE GODDESSES & GODS THAT HAVE HAD TO BE BOUND FOR SO LONG!) Oh, that's another whole subject! Look at those gods & goddesses that I've had to deal with! (Maria: Some of them weren't necessarily really good ones.) They weren't all that good, but we did release them, like Mocumba! She's still worshipped as a goddess, as even like an evil goddess in Africa & in South America, particularly Brazil! Yet she came to me for help & I loved her, she loved me, & she actually eulogised me in a beautiful poem! I mean that was a marvellous experience! We felt like it was sort of the opening up of Africa!

       36. AND THEN ON THE CONTRARY THERE WAS THAT AFRICAN DEVIL GODDESS WHO WAS TRYING TO STRANGLE ME TO DEATH! That evil black goddess of Africa was trying to squeeze me to death, so the Voice said, "Use the knife, stab her in the back immediately, quickly, kill her, quick!"--which I took as being symbolic of the Word, & I had to plunge the knife into her back to loose her hold on me! (Letter No.201) Well, there's a sample of an evil spirit, an evil goddess that I had to get rid of!

       37. BUT MOST OF THOSE GODDESSES CAME FOR HELP & TO PRAY NOT ONLY FOR THEMSELVES BUT FOR THEIR PEOPLE, to appeal to us to release their people, or them & their people, & to send missionaries to their people. (Maria: Like the spirits in Tenerife begged for help for their descendants!) Oh, those spirits in that old, old ancient building, that bar with all those ancient archaeological artifacts hanging on the walls that dated back for hundreds of years! They cried out for help! Look how Atlanta came & prayed & appealed for her people, & Taurug & so many!

       38. WE'VE HAD SO MANY SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES WITH SPIRITS! There again, it's sort of like most of them were not very evil, but they weren't necessarily saved, they weren't the Saved, nor were they incorrigibly evil. They were of that "Third World" group! (No.1423) In this case perhaps we'd say the Third Underworld or the Third Spirit World, the Spirit Third World, who were sort of in Limbo or hanging in-between the other two worlds & waiting to be prayed for, delivered or helped. So there have been human spirits like that that we have dealt with, & there have apparently been angels.

       39. WHO WOULD YOU SAY SOME OF THESE GODDESSES ARE? ARE THEY DEPARTED SPIRITS? HUMAN SPIRITS PERHAPS? OR WERE THEY SOME KIND OF ANGELS WHO NEEDED RELEASE? (Maria: Yes!--And who, after many many hundreds of years, maybe have learned & reformed somewhat & repented, because maybe it seems like some of them were rather bad to begin with.) Yes, in fact that's a standard Catholic doctrine about Purgatory, but of course they emphasise the human aspect of it, that it's human spirits. But some of those spirits I have dealt with didn't seem to me like they were necessarily human spirits, but they were goddesses or angels of the spirit realm to begin with.

       40. I DON'T KNOW OF COURSE, MAYBE THEY WERE HUMAN SPIRITS. Taurug had lived before as a human being, perhaps Mocumba lived before. Maybe Atlanta was somebody who'd lived before, although she was fish-looking, but maybe that was part of her punishment, to be confined to the waters there & look like a fish, in order to try to help & guard her people & appeal for help! (Maria: The Chinese Princess evidently had lived before.) Yes, apparently a lot of those, I think most we have dealt with, were those who have been human beings & lived before, most of the cases we've dealt with in the matter of praying for their release, have been former human beings. Perhaps a few of those goddesses were maybe angelic spirits before, I don't know. Maybe even they were formerly bad, & now being repentant, were asking for forgiveness & release. I would say that in a sense about Mocumba: I mean it seemed that formerly in her rites & the way she is worshipped even today, that she had been an evil spirit, what do you think?

       41. THAT BLACK IMAGE OF A WOMAN THAT THAT PRIEST FOUND WASHED UP ON THE SHORE IN TENERIFE & NAMED CANDELARIA, WAS MORE LIKELY A STATUE OF MOCUMBA THAT HAD FLOATED OVER FROM AFRICA or came off the prow of some boat! He took it & said it was from Heaven & consecrated it & declared it was Mary, & they started worshipping it as a Christian idol! Well, at least it was better than worshipping Mocumba! (Maria: Once you were this, now you're that--Presto chango!) Yes, this has been almost a common practice of Catholicism on the foreign field, they have tried to even use some of the old heathen holidays & celebrations & even their gods & goddesses & repainted them & changed them over into Joseph & Mary & Jesus etc. They tell the story of a Catholic priest who went to India & evangelised the people, got them all converted & used this heathen temple for a church & had a fence built around it & just declared it was a Christian church & that they were now all Christians, & used the same temple & painted over some of the paintings & statues & idols.

       42. WELL, THIS WAS A COMMON PRACTICE OF THE CATHOLICS SINCE THE DAYS OF ROME, NOTHING UNUSUAL, NOTHING SHOCKING ABOUT IT! Why not? It's an available building & for the people that have to have a church & church worship, why, that's a very handy thing to have, it saves a lot of money if you use existing property & an existing temple that the people already consider holy & religious, & it's not quite such a wrench! They're going back to the same building to worship, only they worship a new God now. That's a little slower transition & transformation, maybe it's a little easier on them psychologically, we don't know how many people like that are really saved unless they really have received Jesus & are full of the Spirit. They may be in their own minds going back there worshipping the same god, even if there's a Catholic priest up front officiating!

       43. I WOULD SAY THAT YOU CERTAINLY NEED TO PERFORM CLEANSING RITES ON ANY NEW PROPERTY YOU MOVE INTO, OR EVEN WHEN YOU GO FOR A NAF OR TO A CAMPGROUND OR TO A MEETING HALL OR KITCHEN. Some of those mischievous devils can do a lot of tricks, they can knock something poisonous into the pot or throw it in or whatnot! So it really pays to pray, & I think you should even have a team go in advance to get the place ready before the Family arrives, to perform exorcism rites over the whole property, over the buildings, in the buildings, in each room, kitchen, meeting hall, & march around the outside of the property, swimming pool, everything, & ask the Lord to cleanse it from all evil spirits & cast them out & send them away, & since you're doing the commanding, you have the authority, you have the responsibility for where they go.

       44. DURING THE SHOWINGS OF "THE EXORCIST", THAT FAMOUS MOVIE ON EXORCISM, it was reported that people inside the cinema frequently threw up during the exorcism rites, which is a common reaction of being delivered of an evil spirit! Often they throw them up right out of their mouths! Vomiting up the evil spirit is a very common thing, it's a physical reaction or a physical manifestation of what's happening. In the Bible some of the evil spirits threw the human being down violently & tore them about & they had a fit before they would leave, they had their last fling right before Jesus or the Apostles! They cast the person to the ground violently before they would leave, trying for one last blow. Inside those cinemas where "The Exorcist" was being shown people frequently had fits or vomited, some of them ran out of the building throwing up because of the exorcism rites of the movie. Imagine the power of the Word & prayer to produce such an effect on the audience.

       45. ALSO, IN THE WHOLE SURROUNDING AREA, SOMETIMES FOR SEVERAL BLOCKS AWAY, THERE WAS A SUDDEN INCREASE IN CRIME & VIOLENCE & ACCIDENTS & ALL that sort of thing, a sudden unexplained increase in the crime & violence & accidents, because, although through the prayer & the exorcism ceremony in "The Exorcist" the spirits were cast out of the people who were listening & watching in the cinema, they were just cast out outside & not told where to go, of course, by the movie, so they just went into the surrounding territory all around the building or usually within about two or three blocks. They just went into the nearest possible hosts, apparently, houses & people, resulting in a sudden flare of violent crime!

       46. (MARIA: IN OTHER WORDS, IF YOU DON'T WANT THEM NEXT DOOR AT YOUR NEIGHBOURS, YOU'D BETTER TELL THEM EXACTLY WHERE THEY CAN GO!) EXACTLY! I didn't want that demon goddess Ashraf inhabiting our neighbours next door or across the street or anywhere near, so I exiled her as far away as I could think of at the moment, clear across the way into that lizard, & lo & behold, I had had that very vision of her as in a lizard with its back to me at the end of "Ashraf"! And I didn't even know the significance of it, imagine now, two years later, when I actually performed the exorcism on myself! I was thinking how, now that I knew what God wanted & had obeyed all these other things about getting out this series of Letters on it, & now that I knew what to do & what to call it as well, as Sphinx & Ashraf, etc., I was planning on going down to dinner that night & have you all lay hands on me & do it specifically then. (Maria: Yes, you mentioned that.) But I had such a pain in my belly right then it was like she knew what was going to happen & she was resisting it, you know, like she was going to do all the dirty work she could before I could get her to leave!

       47. SO I DECIDED, WELL I CAN'T WAIT! I JUST GOT SUCH A SUDDEN PAIN IN MY STOMACH I COULDN'T WAIT! I thought, well, why should I have to endure this until even Maria gets back to the room or much less until the Family is together tonight at dinner? I'm just going to lay my own hands on me as I was sitting here just like this. I laid my hand like that & my other hand on top of it, two hands, laying on of hands, plural, & rebuked her in Jesus' name & by her name called her by name & cast her out & specifically ordered her to go clear out there to a vacant lot somewhere & inhabit some evil creature or serpent or snake or a lizard! Two years before I had seen her in the form of a lizard with her back turned to me, now isn't that something! The Lord was prophetically giving me what was going to be the end of the matter years later. Isn't that wonderful? I was fulfilling a prophecy & vision without even realising it, & I didn't even remember that at all until I read the "Ashraf" thing!

       48. WELL, THESE THINGS EXIST & THEY'RE VERY REAL & WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO FACE THEM & USE OUR AUTHORITY & BE SPECIFIC & CALL THEM BY NAME & TELL THEM TO LEAVE & WHERE TO GO, so you'll be sure they don't go someplace that's going to cause you trouble next door! Tell them where to go so that they'll be far away & they aren't going to cause you any more trouble, & they have to obey because we have that authority over them! It seems to be especially effective if you know their name, so it might be more effective if you find out the name of the god or goddess of that little spirit house on your property before you move in, have a team go there & pray before you move in! As soon as you get the key, go there & cleanse the house, not only clean it up & cleanse it of the rats & mice & roaches & varmints, the Devil's physical pests, but clean it up from his spiritual pests as well!--And let the Landlord himself remove the idol, if you don't want to cause the landlord too much trouble or offence. "According to your faith be it done unto you." (Mt.9:29) Each case & each situation has to be judged on its own merits. I'm just suggesting several solutions. You could just do like MWM & have the whole temple removed to another property, with the permission of the landlord. When people are going to insist on doing their demon worship anyhow, why, you might as well get it off your property & let them do it somewhere else. But if the landlord is unwilling or you think he might be hesitant about removing the spirit house itself, ask him to at least remove the idol or the image with his own hands so you won't have to touch it or desecrate it in his mind. Let him remove it & tell him you have your own patron saint or protective spirit or guardian angel, & you prefer to put him or her in there.

       49. THEN BEFORE THE FAMILY ACTUALLY OCCUPIES THE PROPERTY, SEND A TEAM AHEAD OR HAVE THE WHOLE FAMILY GO THERE & HAVE EXORCISM RITES! They could either march around the property first & then room-to-room, or room-to-room first & then around the property, & particularly around the spirit house. Maybe hold hands in a circle around the spirit house & exorcise that, & perhaps suggest to the landlord or even before, when he gives them the key, before they occupy the property, that he go there & remove the image. And then come & consecrate it, exorcise it, place your own little representation in there, a figurine of Jesus or the Holy Spirit, dedicate it, have prayer that the whole property should be cleansed & dedicated to the Lord, consecrated for His use, sanctified, purified & holy, set apart for the Lord & His children & His guardian angels & good spirits, etc.--Amen?

       50. I'M SURE THAT THE FAMILY HAS PERHAPS OCCUPIED MANY HOMES WITHOUT THIS SPECIFIC RITE & WITHOUT ANY LITERAL EXORCISMS or knowingly. But if I know the Family, they've had their first dedicatory prayers & certainly have dedicated the house to the Lord, consecrated it to His use in their first prayers within that building, & without it being a formal rite of exorcism, they might have been performing the same purpose just as effectively just through their simple prayer, even at the Family table or the first night or whatever, as we almost always have, as you recall. Our first night together in the new place at the Family table we have almost always prayed over the house & asked the Lord to cleanse it, & we've joined hands & prayed for the Lord to dedicate it & consecrate it to His use, & protect us & keep us & deliver us from anything that was not of the Lord, right?

       51. SO WHETHER YOU DO IT FORMALLY OR INFORMALLY I'M SURE THE LORD HAS BEEN FAITHFUL & PROTECTED YOU & CLEANSED IT & HELPED YOU, even if you didn't make it too specific. But I think what the Lord is leading us along the lines of now, is that in these evil demon-infested countries where worship of the Devil & his demons & his deities & evil gods & goddesses is rampant & rife & the order of the day & the religion of the country & most of the people, we need to get more militant, more aggressive, more specific & go on the attack, take the offensive & hit the thing head on immediately & immediately ask for deliverance & clearance! That's funny that word should come to me, ask for clearance, ask for clearance from the Lord before you even move in, & be sure it's going to be a safe house!--Amen?

       52. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WOULD I MOVE IN WITHOUT HAVING SPECIAL PRAYER! You know some houses that we have gone to, that I have walked around from room-to-room & prayed & asked the Lord to cleanse it & cast out anything that was not of the Lord, any evil spirits or ghosts or whatever, & dedicated it, consecrated it to His use, & to protect us while we were living there. Praise the Lord! Thank You Lord!

       53. AND I ALWAYS LOVE TO SEE THE GARDEN FILLED WITH BIRDS! It's almost like a sign from the Lord that they're His little guardian angels, His little protecting spirits, & at least they're a sign that the place is safe! If it's safe for the good birds, it's safe for you! Now sometimes that depends on what kind of birds. Some of those devil birds of Sri Lanka & Singapore, I didn't think they were all so good, & they sure bothered me! I cursed them & prayed them away!

       54. BUT THE SPARROW SEEMS TO BE ONE OF GOD'S FAVOURITES!--EVEN JESUS MENTIONS THE SPARROWS! He says that not even one of them falls to the ground but what your heavenly Father knoweth it! (Mt.10:29) So He must have a special love & care for the sparrows, a type of you & me! We're just little people, not very important to the World. The sparrow is the commonest bird in the World, it just seems to be everywhere & inhabits every country every place we've ever been in, except some of those places where they had so many of those demon birds, like Sri Lanka & Singapore! They seemed to have a preponderance of demon birds & those so-called "kissing lizards" & demon birds with those horrible sounds they make, or those black crows, the ravens, symbols of death, in Sri Lanka, or those demon birds that we had to go out & shoot slingshots at in Singapore! Have you noticed there were virtually no sparrows in either place?--Hardly any sparrows at all until after we had lived in the house for awhile, then the good birds began to come!

       55. IT'S ALMOST AS THOUGH THE BIRDS REPRESENT THE EVIL SPIRITS OR THE GOOD SPIRITS, that certain birds either represent evil spirits or they are possessed with evil spirits, like they themselves are even spirits just like a person demon-possessed is a demoniac, he's a demon in the flesh, so the birds seem to be very symbolic of spirits, very spiritual symbols! Remember in some of those dreams & visions I've had, remember the evil bird-heads & faces that I saw in the "The Crash" (No.284) in which we talked about going South, about the money that dwindled etc. They looked like hawks & eagles & birds of prey, those awful demon faces that I saw! I know they were evil spirits, but they were represented by birds, bird heads! Some of the demon gods of Egypt were represented by bird heads & in some of these other religions too, evil-looking birds, birds of prey, predators, evil birds, bad birds!

       56. WHEREAS TO ME, THE SPARROWS HAVE BEEN ONE OF THE COMMONEST REPRESENTATIONS OF GOOD SPIRITS & I love to hear them chatter in the morning! They're out there, isn't that funny, they come to my window in the morning here just like they used to in London! Now they don't do it any other time of day. They come here on both sides, this one & that window & that window, & they chatter away like it's almost like I can understand what they're saying, "Wake up, David! Wake up!--Time to get to work!"--Just like clockwork about 6 o'clock every morning, just as the sun rises! You've heard them, they get in right inside the window casements right next to the window & they chatter away & make a big fuss! It's cheerful, it's happy, but it sure is noisy!

       57. REMEMBER HOW THEY USED TO DO THAT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW IN LONDON? But to me it's positive, it's cheerful, it's encouraging, like they sort of represent the good spirits that are here around us. Who knows but what maybe they are good spirits & inhabited by angelic guardian angels who are flying around our garden! And since we have come here--there were hardly any birds here when we first came. The place is just full of them now! The sparrows--I think we've probably got more sparrows in our yard than anybody, just full of them! We've several times had beautiful songbirds, mockingbirds come & sing beautifully!

       58. IN SOME POOR COUNTRIES THE BIGGER BIRDS DON'T ESCAPE VERY EASILY, BECAUSE THE PEOPLE NEED THEM FOR FOOD, & birds are a great delicacy to the Chinese, you know, & the fowler was common in Bible times, even catching small birds to eat. In fact the Devil was symbolised by the fowler, you know? (Ps.124:7) And we were symbolised as the fowls, the birds, & the Devil was out to capture us, & there is a Psalm, something about escaping the net of the fowler (Psa.91:3). So to me the birds are a sign of the presence & blessing of the Lord, & symbolic of His spirits, good spirits!

       59. DID YOU KNOW THAT THEY USE BIRDS FOR SENSING POLLUTION & GASSES ETC? If there is any poisonous gas in the air at all, they used to use them in the War, send them out to the front-line trenches, in World War I & II both, because the birds were the first to be affected by any kind of poisonous gas & they were the first to keel over! It will kill them before it kills anything else, before sometimes humans even sense it! They used to keep birds in little cages in many of those places where they had dealing with poison chemicals, poison gasses, & still do as far as I know.

       60. AND AS ANYBODY KNOWS, YOU CAN ALWAYS TELL WHEN THERE'S A STORM COMING, THE BIRDS KNOW IT FIRST & THEY GET ALL EXCITED & CHATTER & CHATTER all kinds of warning messages & chatter, chatter, chatter, & they start flying around like mad, like almost total confusion! It really activates the birds, until they then apparently, when the storm strikes, go into hiding & they don't come out until the storm is over. Then they come out with cheerful sounds, happy & cheerful, come out & eat all the new seeds that have fallen down, the new bugs that come out, & they're all happy & cheerful! They have definitely warning cries, they chirp with warning sounds & warning shrieks & cries when there is danger! They'll do that also so they're almost like watchdogs, if strangers approach a property! Lots of times I'm sitting out on the porch & when people come nearby they'll sort of get all excited at first! Then all of a sudden if there's really serious danger, they'll stop dead still, all of them dead quiet, not a sound, just like they're listening, & that silence almost wakes you up! If the first chatter & all that warning chirping doesn't get your attention like that, that the trouble is coming, then all of a sudden they're dead still--the trouble is here, look out!

       61. THAT'S ALSO THEN A SIGN, THE SCIENTISTS SAY, OF WHEN THERE'S ANY KIND OF IMPENDING NATURAL DISASTER, earthquake, volcanic eruptions, storms, whatever--one of the first signs of it is the agitation & excitement in the animal world & amongst the birds! And in case of the birds, sometimes they will totally flee, there won't be a bird left or a bird around anywhere! They flee the storm or whatever is happening, & they go someplace else, the Lord protects them that way. He apparently speaks to them & they know the signs & signals or they feel it, something instinctive or psychic or intuitive, & first they get all excited & they fly around like mad, then they flee!

       62. SO ANY PLACE THAT HAS NO BIRDS I'M A LITTLE LEERY OF, ESPECIALLY GOOD BIRDS! I don't like the bad birds, so even our garden here has been cleansed & freed, & all these good-spirited little birds have come in to inhabit it, & I love to hear them, all day long they're chattering away out there flying around, it's really wonderful! I love it! I love the birds! I just can hardly imagine that when I was young with my gun I used to shoot birds! You remember I had that horrible nightmare that time after I'd shot all those sparrows, had even been commissioned to shoot them by the farmer, I had that horrible nightmare about having shot all those birds, & I felt the Lord really spoke to me as a warning not to do it anymore, He didn't like it, & I never shot another good bird! People were always telling me, "Oh, the sparrows, shoot all the sparrows you want to, they're pests, noisy little pests!"

       63. JUST IMAGINE, THEY'RE NOT THINKING THAT SPARROWS ARE GOOD BIRDS OR DO ANY GOOD! Why, they clean up your lawn, your garden, they eat the insects & the worms, & of course they'll eat anything else they can get ahold of too. They'll eat your grass seed you put out to try to plant grass, but they don't know what you're trying to do, & they figure you're throwing it out there for them, so they eat it up! And of course if you feed them bread crumbs, why, they'll always come, but that's not too good, because that makes them lazy, & besides bread crumbs may not be good for them. My Mother used to love to go out & feed them bread crumbs, she was always feeding the birds on her porch. She had a special little pan for bread crumbs then she had a little bowl of water, a little bird bath. Remember the old-fashioned bird baths? Every garden used to have a bird bath, sort of a fountain for the birds to wash & drink in, & her little back porch garden you know was hardly anything, but there were always birds around, until they started picking on her fruit, & then she didn't like that! Then she started driving them away & stopped feeding them, ha! Well anyhow, thank God for the good spirits & the good-spirited birds!

       64. SO THAT WE, THROUGH PRAYER & SPECIFIC EXORCISM & CLEANSING, DEDICATION & CONSECRATING RITES, CAN READ THE SCRIPTURES TO INSPIRE FAITH & THEN HAVE PRAYER, maybe a little talk on it before the Family moves in, & remind them of these things, maybe even read this Letter, & then consecrate the place, cleanse it, consecrate it, dedicate it to the Lord & make sure all evil things or evil spirits have been removed! So those would be my suggestions regarding any new property you move into, new or old. (Maria: If the landlord's not around to take the idol away, you could just store the idol somewhere after you exorcise the spirit from it, just put it away somewhere out of sight.) Amen. Yes, I'd sure put it away some place far removed from the house out in the back garden or garage or somewhere, & make sure you prayed the spirit out of it & commanded it not to come back or any others to enter it, either, but it's better to get rid of the idol completely.

       65. (MARIA: IS IT MORE IMPORTANT TO GET RID OF THE IDOL ITSELF THAN ITS HOUSE, WHICH YOU HAVE GIVEN A NEW OCCUPANT--JESUS OR THE HOLY SPIRIT?) Yes, of course! The spirit house is nothing but a symbol of their care & provision for the idol, a home for their spirit god. So if you cleanse & replace it with your own, like you're replacing the last people in the big house with yourselves, after definite exorcism prayer & cleansing, it should be just as safe for its new figure as the big house is for you!--Amen?--So GBAKY from the evil spirits of the Enemy! We're here to cast'm out & fill the place with the new loving Spirit of God & His Love!--Amen? That's our job! Do it!

       
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family