Can playing a video game get you demons? It depends on the game and how obsessed you are with playing it. I have cast out demons from people who were possessed because of video games. Of course, all video games aren’t evil. But many of the most popular ones are. It’s all part of a $70 billion industry often built on emotional attributes of aggression and dispassionate murder. Here is what’s really dangerous. The demons you may get from video games can hide undetected for months, even years. Consider the recent case of Adel who became possessed from the game RuneScape.
RuneScape isn’t as popular as it used to be, but 200 million accounts of the game have been created. At least one million still play it regularly. It’s the world’s largest and most updated free MMORPG—Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. The name is taken, in part, from the Nordic divination practice of using runes, small stones engraved with occult symbols, to tell the future. To Adel, ten years ago, RuneScape was just a way to pass time. One of her game creatures was a dragon. As a young teen, she didn’t understand spiritual warfare and didn’t know that the dragon is a symbol of the devil, as biblically stated in Revelation 12:1-9. Adel’s transgression, though in ignorance, was an open door for Satan to enter. But until she came to me for an encounter, because of troubling issues in her life, she had no idea that her problems were demonic. A dragon demon, Leviathan, had been hiding all those years, seeking ways to spiritually derail her life. Think of it. We cast out a demon that secretly inhabited this young woman for a decade, all because of the video game RuneScape!
Here are the common spiritual mistakes gamers make.
- Obsessive playing may lead to neglect of real-life relationships. I have counseled many troubled marriages where one partner, usually the husband, spent inordinate amounts of time gaming which caused negative relational and financial effects on the home.
- Excessive emotional investment in the identity of evil characters/creatures. To some gamers, their emotional connection to evil characters provides an open door for demons based on virtual soul-ties.
- Using demonic characters with names of occult mythological beings. A shocking number of Christian gamers think nothing of adopting characters such as witches and sorcerers or taking the side of mythic demon-gods like Poseidon, Thor, Zeus etc. These players sometimes commune with evil spirits inadvertently.
- Violent behavior by game characters is encouraged to win at any cost. Gaming violence may include impaling, spearing, decapitation, disemboweling, and desecration. Gamers may argue that such behavior is fictional but imagine Christ playing a gaming screen and annihilating a virtual character with incinerating eye lasers.
- Committing fictional acts of virtual sin which fail the standard of Matthew 5:28 “Whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart,” Jesus said. Sin always begins in the mind first as a vicarious enticement. Our thoughts are to be held captive to the obedience of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:5). James 1:15 warns, “When desire has conceived [in the mind], it gives birth to sin.”
As I said, not all games are equally egregious, but few of the most popular ones are free from demonic intrusions. Obsessive gamers who play without spiritual discretion, run the risk encountered by Adel and need to quit NOW! Gamers beware! You may be tormented by a demonic creature or character that you aren’t aware is satanic. Play indiscriminately if you will but play at the risk of your soul.
