Dealing with the Spirit of Heaviness (depression)

Derek Prince (1915-2003) was a Bible teacher with a Ph.D. in philosophy. He discovered that the more highly refined and cultivated a person’s mind is, the more vulnerable that person can be to the adversary. That is because the intellectual trusts his mind which can be used against him but the spiritual man has the mind of Christ to be guided by his thoughts and purposes. 

So in my random theological studies, I came across his testimony regarding how he overcame depression. His story began in the mid-1950s when God was a manifold blessing in his ministry. But almost day and night during this period of his life, he was surrounded by an awful sense of depression. It took the form of a dark, heavy cloud that would descend over him—pressing him down, closing in on him, and shutting him off from normal communication with other people including his family. Ironically, the more successful he became in his ministry, the worse the oppression grew. 

The Breakthrough 

The light at the end of the tunnel came forth when he partook in the words of Isaiah 61:3, “the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness”. Suddenly, as he read those words—the spirit of heaviness—the Holy Spirit indicated to him, "That’s your problem. It’s not you. It’s not a mental or a psychological condition. It is a spirit—it is a person that hates you, that dogs you, that is unseen. It is a person without a body that has followed you even from boyhood. That person knows your weakness, to know exactly when and how to attack you most effectively. You are fighting a person, an unseen demonic person. It is the spirit of heaviness." In modern English, we call this the spirit of depression.

Set Free 

As led by the comforter, the solution to his problem came from a prayer derived from the amalgamation of Joel 2:32 and Isaiah 61:3. He called depression the spirit of heaviness and claimed God's promise. This was his prayer: “God, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, according to Your Word, I’m asking You to deliver me from this spirit of heaviness.” When he prayed that specific, scriptural prayer, he was delivered! The pressure was lifted!

Wearing the Helmet  

God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers. Derek quickly realized that it is one thing to be delivered and another to stay delivered. So he had to learn how to protect his mind against thoughts of pessimism, morbidity, and depression. This would be made possible by always wearing the helmet of salvation. It is a helmet that ensures faith in God and hopes in Him and protects his mind against all the dark forces of pessimism and depression.

Breaking the Chains 

Throughout his ministry of delivering people from prolonged & serious depression, Derek concluded that almost every case was connected with involvement in the occult. That was true in his situation. Before he became a believer, his involvement in the occult had been quite extensive, particularly in the field of yoga. It took him years to see the connection between his involvement with yoga and the spirit of depression. If your depression or hopelessness is a demonic problem, then step number one is deliverance from the demon. Once that is dealt with, step number two is to begin a “retraining program”—to bring your thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

Brother is the Highest Accolade

The highest accolade you can give to somebody is call them brother because the original people don't have really many schools that really bestow these degrees and things on people. There are people who exist in the community who can literally tell those people who have earned those degrees in some of those places where they bestow those degrees; they can tell them to take those degrees and make them into toilet papers. There are people who don't have degrees themselves who can tell other people who are in their same fields to take their same degrees and make them into toilet paper. For instance, Professor John Henry Clarke. He is the world's foremost African scholar and he did not graduate from high school. He was an autodidact who slightly learnt under shaker and if he can't be called Dr then we are crazy. Alot of our black minds don't have these white man's credentials because they're incharge of giving them

Culture; The Preventive Factor Against Schizophrenia

It is lonely at the top (Ferriss, 2012).

To the degree that someone is out of touch with reality, it is to that degree that they are out of their mind. Conjestina Achieng’s son, Charlton Otieno, has opened up about his mother's struggle with mental illness that adversely affected her well-being. She was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, or paranoid schizophrenia, a chronic mental illness in which a person loses touch with reality. The boxer's son speculated that his mother's illness could have been the result of loneliness and not a concussion because her X-ray tests revealed that she had no brain damage that could have been caused by punches she might have received while boxing (Oduor, 2022).

"Culture is identity made flesh." - Dr. Amos Wilson

In this society, we emphasize individualism, but in reality, there is no such thing as an individual. That is a social fiction that does not exist in reality. Individuals are a synthesis of social experiences; they are a unique combination of us as a result of interacting with others and having undergone social experiences; they are our unique way of expressing our social relations, but who we are and what we are are a result of social relations. It is not something that is unique to us and is not shared on some level with others. The very fact that you speak a language means that you have a shared identity on some level. If you were a complete individual, no one would understand what you were saying. You would not fit in an audit system or society. Imagine you could be a complete individual if you were alone in space, but what would be the point? Even the concept of "individual" can only achieve its point within a social structure and in terms of relating socially with someone else. Otherwise, it is pointless. It is the society that creates the individual. 

So, identity is a cultural product. It is the incarnation of ecological and cultural practice. Identity is culture-made flesh. It is an instrument for expressing social power. What makes us individuals is our unique way of integrating, expressing, and relating to the community, through shared social knowledge, techniques, resources, and values. The material we individualize is an essence, social material made available by a social system; a set of social relations. In other words, we are individuals in our ways of dealing with and relating to social things, not individuals in and of themselves, lest we speak our language. Do you want to see the ultimate individual? Take a look at the schizophrenic in full flight. He speaks his language, lives his entire existence disembodied, and has no idea where his body ends, and his mind begins. He is everything and everyone; an echo chamber that echoes everyone he meets. He can't distinguish himself from anything else; he's locked in his world, locked away from reality, and therefore he has to now be taken care of by others because he becomes a danger to himself and sometimes others. 

The social system is not out there. It is within each of us. The individual is a social creation, which is why individuals in different societies differ from individuals in other societies since they individually represent their social groups. When someone is not socially defined, he becomes antisocial. The disintegration of a social system often leads to individual disintegration; people begin to lose their minds, sense of self, direction, purpose, and meaning when society unravels. People commit suicide during economic depression and other times, such as when jobs are lost. When the social system fails, all those self-made and self-determining people all over the world come crashing down. It is that social structure that builds the infrastructure of the individual, and now you're going to have some jokers try and make you think that you can be a person totally unto yourself and that the essence of freedom represents atomized individuals with no relationship to community and no communal obligations and so forth.

Ultimately, an identity and a personality are cultural instruments, and it is through this identity and personality that the culture expresses itself, is perpetuated, has an impact on the world, expresses itself as power, and defends itself as power, hence defending its members. When people are detached from culture, they stand alone, undefended, and vulnerable, and opponents can now destroy them (Wilson, 2018). 

References

1. Wilson, A. (2018). Dr. Amos Wilson Culture & Problem Solving. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMb4zEaouHI&t=2123s

2. Oduor, M. (2022, June 13). Conjestina Achieng’s son painfully recalls how he watched helplessly as his mom’s health deteriorated : K24 TV. Www.k24tv.co.ke. https://www.k24tv.co.ke/lifestyle/conjestina-achiengs-son-66357/

3. Ferriss, T. (2012). The 4-hour workweek : escape 9-5, live anywhere, and join the new rich. Harmony Books.