In 1597, King James VI of Scotland published Daemonologie, a treatise defending the prosecution of witches and laying out the reality of demonic influence in the world. Far from the caricature of religious hysteria, Daemonologie reveals a structured, deeply informed worldview that recognized spiritual warfare as real, organized, and often seductive in its presentation. He categorized demonic activity into several forms:
- Witchcraft – the deliberate pact with demonic spirits for power, knowledge, or revenge.
- Sorcery and Enchantments – the use of charms, spells, and objects to manipulate natural or spiritual forces.
- Necromancy – attempts to speak with the dead, which he insisted were actually demons in disguise.
- Divination – seeking secret knowledge through astrology, omens, or “familiar spirits.”
- Possession and Obsession – direct influence of demons over the human mind or body.
Daemonologie is a sober theological warning: demons often appear not with horns and blood, but with light, healing, and hidden wisdom—enticing the soul to turn from the truth of Christ to the lies of forbidden power.
The very categories King James outlined are not relics of a forgotten age. They have simply been rebranded and normalized in modern culture. Witchcraft now flourishes under names like and Wicca, paganism, and New Age spirituality. In more overt forms, such as Thelema, chaos magic, and Satanism, which openly invoke demonic entities and embrace rebellion as virtue. They are practiced and promoted online, in New Age shops, and festivals where you can get your fortunes read through tarot cards.
Sorcery and enchantments now manifest through the use of spoken spells, candle rituals, smudging, and altars—often marketed as tools for “manifestation,” “protection,” or “cleansing.” Necromancy has returned in the form of mediumship, ancestral veneration, and spirit channeling, where demons pose as the dead. Divination thrives through tarot, astrology, casting runes, automatic writing, and scrying. Demonic possession—whether minimized as “spirit attachment” or glorified as “channeling higher beings”—is no less active now than in the days of Christ.
American Colonies and Witchcraft: The Reality Behind the Trials
In 1692, in the Puritan village of Salem, the unseen war King James once described became visible again. Modern historians dismiss the episode as “mass panic,” but the record tells a different story. The Salem witch trials were not born of superstition, but of genuine witchcraft entering a Christian settlement. Tituba, an enslaved woman from Barbados, practiced and taught forms of divination rooted in African and Caribbean paganism.
Her methods likely drew on Voodoo (Vodou), with its ancestor worship and spirit possession, as well as elements of Hoodoo, which emphasizes charms, spells, and practical magic to influence daily life.
Eyewitnesses in Salem gave chilling testimonies. Reverend Samuel Parris, in whose household the outbreak began, recorded in his notes and sermons that the afflicted girls “did complain of grievous torments by invisible agents, and did shriek out, cry, and writh most fearfully.” Their contortions and fits defied natural explanation, as described by one observer in John Hale’s A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft, “their tortures were such as no natural distemper could produce, nor could be counterfeited by art” (paraphrased).
The Salem girls practiced divination by using sticks and stones to ask questions of spirits and foresee the future, while performing incantations that acted as charms for protection, guidance, and influence. Tituba herself admitted under oath that she had seen “a tall man from Boston” who demanded her service, and that she had signed “the Devil’s book” along with others in the village. She spoke of animals and spectral forms that tormented the children. When asked how she knew the Devil, she replied simply, “He told me so.” Her confession, far from a fabrication, mirrors the demonic structure outlined in Daemonologie.
The court records also describe phenomena witnessed by sober adults. John Indian, Parris’s servant, claimed he saw the specter of Sarah Good. Several ministers, including Reverend John Hale of Beverly, testified that they saw objects move and bodies convulse “as by unseen hands.” Hale later wrote, “I was present when they were grievously tormented, and I am persuaded the Devil had a hand in it.”
“These infernal arts are but the devices of Satan, to ensnare the souls of men, and to corrupt the ordinances of God with delusions, visions, and phantasms.”
— Samuel Willard, A Brief History of the Errors and Heresies of the Time (1683)
Witchcraft Through the Ages
Throughout Europe, convulsions, apparitions, spells and other manifestations were frequently documented in cases of witchcraft and possession. In 1582, Ursula Kemp of Essex, England, was reported to writhe violently, scream, and bite herself while claiming torment by spirits—behaviors noted in her trial records (The Essex Witches). Jeanne de Brigue, a French soothsayer tried in 1390, was accused of using divination to locate lost objects and was taught by her godmother to control a demon named Haussibut. Similarly, Petronilla de Meath, an Irish woman burned at the stake in 1324, was accused of casting spells, sacrificing animals and making potions with her mistress, Dame Alice Kyteler.
While there are those that may find demonic possession and witchcraft to be farfetched or reduced down to simple hysteria, the Munich Manual of Demonic Magic, or Liber incantationum, exorcismorum et fascinationum variarum, demonstrates that late medieval practitioners approached these practices with seriousness, structure, and intent. This 15th-century grimoire from Germany, preserved in the Bavarian State Library, provides detailed instructions for invocations, exorcisms, necromancy, and enchantments, showing how individuals sought to summon or control spiritual forces.
The practice of divination and witchcraft has been well documented long before the medieval era—truly, there is “nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). For thousands of years, these practices have been seeking to twist, destroy and counterfeit Gods’ revelation and authority. In ancient Egypt, priests and oracles claimed supernatural insight through trance and ritual, while in Canaan, prophetesses and so-called seers purported to reveal hidden knowledge. Even in ancient Rome, the Sibyls, such as the Cumaean Sibyl, were consulted for guidance and prophecy.
Yet Scripture explicitly condemns such practices: “Let none be found among you that useth divination, or a regarder of times, or that regardeth the flying of fowls, or a witch, or a charmer, or that counselleth with spirits, or a soothsayer, or that asketh counsel of the dead” (Deuteronomy 18:10-11). What appeared as divine wisdom or foresight was often a veil for demonic deception, drawing humanity away from God’s truth and subtly promoting rebellion against His Word.
“Those pretenders to wisdom, who would find out the secrets of nature and heaven by their own dark arts, without the light of Revelation, are but fools professing themselves wise.”
— New England Puritan Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (1702)
From Condemnation to Acceptance
As the centuries advanced, the same forbidden arts merely changed their outward form. By the 1800s, what had once been condemned as witchcraft began to reappear under the guise of Spiritualism and occult experimentation. Séances, automatic writing, and trance-mediumship became fashionable among the educated classes of Europe and America. Notably, Georgiana Houghton (1814–1884) produced intricate spirit drawings and watercolors while in a trance, claiming to receive guidance from spirits, demonstrating how ancient necromantic practices had been repackaged as art and enlightenment.
By the early 1900s, occult societies such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley’s Thelema openly combined ritual magic, Kabbalah, and invocation. Practices once secretive and condemned were now celebrated in parlors, salons, and clubs, presenting the old serpent’s promise—to “be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5)—to a curious and credulous society.
Aleister Crowley, often dubbed “The Great Beast 666,” was a British occultist and ceremonial magician who emphasized the pursuit of one’s own will and the breaking of conventional moral boundaries, encapsulated in his doctrine: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” His teachings formed the foundation of Thelema, a spiritual philosophy promoting individualism and the rejection of traditional religious constraints.
Crowley’s influence extended beyond occult circles; he was reportedly involved in espionage during World War I, using his occult persona as a cover for intelligence activities. According to historian Richard B. Spence, Crowley was recruited by British intelligence to infiltrate pro-German circles in the United States and in the early 1930s, he reportedly met with British intelligence officials in Berlin to provide information on Nazi activities. Crowley’s dual life as an occultist and alleged spy exemplifies the complex interplay between esotericism and intelligence operations in the early 20th century.
What does the occult have in common with intelligence gathering and spy agencies, you might ask? Both are driven by the same desire — to perceive and manipulate realities that are hidden from ordinary sight. In Daemonologie (1597), King James VI described how witches were reported to “transport themselves to any such place,” yet he explained that this supposed flight was not physical but spiritual. He wrote that “the devil alludes the senses of the witches, making them to suppose that they pass through the air, whereas they remain still in one place.” This insight reveals how witchcraft sought unnatural perception—visions and travel beyond the human limit.
This insight was later deceptively misconstrued tricking the public into believing that witches physically flew on broomsticks. In reality, as King James explains, the power granted by demons allowed witches to perceive distant places and events in their minds’ eye, not to defy the laws of nature physically. By exaggerating these accounts into tales of literal flight made witchcraft seem more sensational—a fanciful story for children, rather than real and dangerous magic.
Centuries later, similar pursuits re-emerged under new names. During the Cold War, intelligence agencies such as the CIA launched Project Stargate and other psychic research programs, attempting to cultivate “remote viewing”, also known as Extra Sensory Perception (ESP)—the supposed ability to perceive distant or unseen locations through mental projection.
America and Britain are, unfortunately, not the only nations to engage in occult practices at the governmental and institutional level. Russia has reportedly trained military “paranormal soldiers” who are able to “extract information from a state of so-called altered human consciousness,” and perform telepathy using combat parapsychology developed by the Soviet Academy of Sciences. The Institut Métapsychique International in Paris has long conducted experiments with paranormal phenomena under laboratory conditions. Austria, after World War I, became a “center for mediumship and psychic research.” In the 1930s, experiments in long distance telepathy were carried out in major European cities.
The link between Demonic Possession and Mental Illness
Besides institutionalized satanic witchcraft, there is the very real threat of demonic possession affecting ordinary men and women. The case of Robert Westman, the 23-year-old trans identified person responsible for the shooting in Minneapolis, illustrates how spiritual corruption can manifest in violent ways. In the days before the attack, Westman posted a manifesto online with disturbing images, including a horned demon in a mirror, accompanied by pleas for help. These signs suggest the presence of spiritual oppression, echoing Scripture’s warning that we wrestle “not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world” (Ephesians 6:12).
None of this is written to stir fear, but to expose the works of darkness that the world has too long ignored. Scripture commands, “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Ephesians 5:11). In one sense, the openness of this in modern culture makes them easier to identify; yet their normalization makes them far more dangerous, for what was once condemned is now celebrated. The powers that once operated in secrecy now parade openly under the guise of “science,” “psychology,” or “spiritual exploration.” and the manifestations of possession now persist under the guise of “personality disorders,” and “mental illness.”
Following this, it is impossible to ignore the role of modern psychology in reintroducing occult ideas under a scientific veneer. Carl Jung, though hailed as a father of psychoanalysis, ventured deeply into spiritual darkness. He engaged in séances, automatic writing, and claimed to communicate with a spirit guide named Philemon, whom he described as a “wise old man” who revealed hidden knowledge to him. Jung’s writings on the “collective unconscious” and “archetypes” drew heavily from gnostic and alchemical traditions, blending pagan mysticism with psychology. Jung even went so far as to write what he called a “sermon for the dead,” a text intended to communicate with and guide the spirits of the deceased.
For Christians navigating a world steeped in occult deception, discernment must begin with Scripture. Pastors and church leaders, rather than immediately attributing sin, violence, or rebellion to psychological causes alone, should first consider the spiritual dimension and the possibility of demonic influence. Exorcisms and deliverance ministry remain vital tools, and Scripture makes clear that all believers share in this authority through Christ.
As 1 John 4:4 reminds us, “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” Every Christian, whether clergy or laity, is empowered to confront demonic oppression, resist deception, and pray for the afflicted. This authority is rooted in our shared priesthood: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal Priesthood, an holy nation, a people set at liberty, that ye should show forth the virtues of him that hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9)
Darkness may persist, but the light of Gods’ truth shines brighter still.
God bless you, dear reader.
Behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of the wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and innocent as doves.
— Matthew 10:16
One response to “From Salem to the CIA: Sorcery and Demonic Possession”
Great article! A lot of research done here.