The rise of Spiritual Warfare discourse is linked to Pentacostalism - a form of ecstatic Christianity connected to the idea of God giving particular gifts (charismata) such as leadership (on the more mundane end) or tongues, faith healing etc. (the more supernatural end.)

There is also the idea of the ability to discern demons and then deliver people and places from them.

This rise of pentacostalism is connected to a third wave of spiritual warfare in a type of territorial demonology.

Pentacostal modes started really developing in existing denominations after the second world war. The second wave. Known as a period of charismatic revival.

The third wave occurs in the 1990s. It's tied to 'neo-charismatic' movements and individuals - i.e. non-denominational

and interested in evangelising specific modes of Christianity rather than denominations. Spiritual warfare is central to this mode.

They're also tied to an idea of a territorialised demonology.

Demons are seen as being able to control not only people but spaces

These spaces include: houses, landmarks, cities, nations. The bigger the area, the more demons working in collusion to subjugate a particular area.

This is connected to a conception of demonic (and divine) possession as ownership. Related to ideas of legitimate ownership. Demon's therefore hold territory 'illegally, acting as illegal squatters' (Greenwood, 2018)

They hold territory without any legal right to ownership. Because of sin, God has absented the individual so the demons move in...

Rule by demons is associated with poverty, violence and environmental disaster - a series of incidents or systematic issues.

So, the question is within this framework - how do demons get possession.

According to spiritual warfare discourse, the key is sin at both the individual and national (or collective level). Sins open up the space to demons.

A battlefield may be opened up to demonic influence because of the bloodshed - an example on the level of a specific place.

At the wider level, a key sin referred to is idolatory i.e. other forms of religion. This can include a denunciation of Catholics.

Deliverance from demons is connected to a reclamation of space and also time.

It's a question of dominion. This leads back to a prelapsarian conception of Adam's mastery and dominion. The fall led to demonic dominion. The deliverance from the demonic therefore is a return...

to a prelapsarian state - a 'before' the fall.

One of the key aspects of modern spiritual warfare discourse is the idea of spiritual warfare as plastic, adaptable and perfectable.

This is in contrast to the taxonomic discourses from earlier taxonomical models. Defeating them was about finding out name and type. No more!

Now, within spiritual warfare discourse, demonic encounters are often seen as incidences of recconnaissance and data gathering. Through confrontation with the demonic, knowledge is found out about the spiritual realm and can be adding to an ever-shifting conception.

In the US, this discourse of spiritual warfare (and US missionary discourse) this often overlaps with structures of US empire both pre- and post-war with ideas of American global hegemony, access and leadership.

The third wave paradigm developed (particularly in the early stages in the 80s) from Missionaries in South America particularly in Argentina and Bolivia.

Missionaries were encountering local spirits which within the missionaries framework were demonic entities.

'Fighting' and 'defeating' them led to increased knowledge which could be brought back to the US. This is tied to an idea of American exceptionalism but this idea of returning with knowledge also produces the idea of America as fallen.

This historical root of third wave spiritual warfare is connected to the idea of the 10-40 window (based on latitude) as an area which was the demonological frontier, where evangelical Christianity was at its weakest, and where spirits and demons held most sway.

It's linked to areas that were seen as hostile or non-conducive to evangelical teaching - communist, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu majority areas and nations.

This was rewritten as a spiritual frontier between areas of spiritual control or influence.

This was a form of spiritual mapping and the 'destiny of the Christian version of the US was manifest' (Holvast 2008) was seen as tied to US increased influence in these areas and the spread (or attempted spread) of evangelicalism

This spiritual mapping lead to a joining of soteriology with development - poverty was linked to salvation and spiritual status rather than systematic problems.

Missionary outreach was therefore connected to ideas of civilising and salvation.

@demonologian will now give three examples of how that played out in Japan, Haiti and Hawaii

The first example was Japan which has a critical place in the 10/40 window.

They explain Japan's resistance to Christianity through a retelling of Japanese history.

They present Japan as being under a reign of demonic control.

This was tied to the idea of Japan as a closed country, the influence of Shinto and other indigenous traditions.

Before the closing of Japan, Christianity (Catholic) was spreading. The closing of Japan led to the missionaries being pushed out.

The common narrative is that they were pushed out is because it was 'too foreign'.

It's popularity with the populace would suggest otherwise.

On the other hand, there was very much a problem with Portuguese slave traders capturing and enslaving Japanese people.

There is therefore perhaps a more political reason for this sending away and resistance to the missionaries.

This sending away though is read as part of a demonic victory. The native spirits (read through spiritual warfare discourse) were seen as demons.

We then have the 45 -52 occupation of Japan as 'seven wonderful years' and 'the most serious setback' to Japan's ruling spirit's within this spiritual warfare narrative. Emperor's renunciation of divinity and the Shinto/State separation was framed as the reason for the boom.

This, of course, ignores the historical ordering of events but... meh.

The reason for Japan's quick recovery after WWII is read then as connected to the defeat of native spirits.

The boom, of course, didn't last. the economy collapsed in the 1990s with the collapse of the bubble economy.

It is, however, in spiritual warfare narrative linked to Akihito's 1990 ascension and the use of the ritual of daijosai (a Shinto ritual where the emperor unites with

the sun goddess). According to Evangelical Christianity and spiritual warfare discourse, this is read as an invitation to the demons to return. (The indigenous Japanese spirits and deities are being read as demonic - the Japanese cosmology is being ignored)

So consistently, Japanese history is linked to a particular narrative of history as the rise and fall of native 'demonic' powers.

There is a rupture/reversion of the temporal order expected by these spiritual warriors.

The demonic should be defeated so their return is a rupture of the proper order.

This rupture plays out also in Hawaii and Haiti

Haiti has long been central to American (US) demonologies and sovereignty regimes. The Haitian immigrant has often been figured as a threat to spiritual and racial narrative orders. Haiti as a country has been subject to regimes of US sovereignty and border policing.

There is an idea of a place that needs to be contained and policed by American policy and influence.

Guantanamo actually began as a waystation for Haitian migrants into the US. It was originally a border policing facility.

This special place in demonologies and ideas of sovereignty are connected to Haiti's political past and specifically the revolution (1791-1804). This is particularly connected to the ritual at Bois Caiman at its invocation of spirits to help the enslaved people's win.

The revolution was ultimately successful leading to the first Black Republic in the hemisphere.

This narrative of the ritual is important in the narratives of Haiti but also in the narratives of spiritual warriors where it is reread as a form of demonic pact.

A contemporary missionary says that 'Boukamn denounced God because He could not deliver them from slaver' and so 'gave the country to the Voodoo spirits' (Lane).

Of course Lane doesn't dwell on the implications that it was apparently demons that were willing to overthrow slavery

and overthrow the French imperial regime because, apparently, god was unwilling or unable.

What it does is frame this pact as demonic and the reason for Haiti's poverty - not global power relations and ostracism by Europe.

Poverty is tied to its national origins and particularly this idea of demonic influence. Haiti is seen as a rupture in the racial, cultural, and religious order (that Christianity was superior and had superseded previous religious forms)

Elizabeth McAlister (2014) also notes that this idea of Haiti as founded in a demonic pact is essentially a 'backwards mirror image' of the US as a Christian nation.

There is, of course, the narrative of US exceptionalism and the idea of its place and power as the result of it being God's chosen. Haiti is represented by this system as at the bottom of the global order because of 'signing the nation over' to 'demonic powers'.

This solidifies and validates particular global power relations and seeks to naturalise American power and hegemony.

This is connected then to ideas of pathologised geography with Haiti has a place that needs to be policed and quarantined because of a 'corruption'

Another example of this idea of demonic rupture from Spiritual Warriors is found in their discourse around Hawai'i.

If Haiti is a rupture to be policed, Hawai'i figures as a fear of rupture connected to US control.

@demonologian is drawing from Ing (a missionary) and his 1999 view of Hawai'i. Ing paints Kingdom Nationalism (the idea that Hawai'i should have sovereignty over itself rather than being part of the US) as a 'direct attack on Christianity.'

Ing's argument is that by 1890 '95% of the Hawaiian race was saved' but no returning to 'ancient demon religions'. Again indigenous beliefs and native spirits are understood as demonic in the spiritual warfare framework.

Ing's framework is ahistorical and inaccurate.

Ing's inaccuracy is quite telling. It's connected to the way he frames sovereignty particularly in relation to the US and the ideas of demons asserting or reasserting power whenever US power is thwarted or challenged.

He admits that the annexation of Hawai'i was unjust and 'requires asking for forgiveness' but there is no mention of material restitution or any return of autonomy.

You'll often find this narrative around settler colonialism. There is an idea of the native populations as particularly open to demonic influence because of a colonial past. BUT this rarely features any narrative of restitution.

The sins of the colonisers are seen as resulting in poverty, destitution and other ills but the settlers themselves are rarely if ever pictured as falling on the colonisers - instead it falls on the colonised groups. The white settlers should ask for forgiveness but...

there's no need to DO anything about it and they have been magically immune to the consequences of their action.

There's also an difference in the way demonic influence or inheritance is imagined re. white settlers or indigenous groups.

For white settlers, this inheritance is seen as individual (e.g. an aunt or grandma who was a practitioner) but for colonised groups, it's seen as a group or collective inheritance or subjugation to demonic influence.

So... to review!

The demonic her is used as a sign of rupture of the 'proper' ordering of temporal and territorial space

'Proper' is tied to maintenance of specifically US and Western power as the apex of soteriological/developmental world order.

Spiritual warfare becomes involved in (colonial) worlding. Worlding is the cultural and material work by which believers shape reality and also (according to Spivak) a form of epistemic violence turning the 'uninscribed earth' of the colonized into the 'world' of the colonizer.

Essentially, country's like Japan, Hawai'i and Haiti, have their beliefs and cosmologies erased and placed within the 'world' of spiritual warfare and demonic discourse.

Their spiritual entities are read as real but not true - they exist but they are not what they claim

Native beliefs are viewed as 'uninscribed earth' to be rewritten by spiritual warriors as demons and the information is used to inform their 'world'.

The worlds of the colonized are being subsumed and buried within the frameworks of spiritual warfare.

Demonology becomes a tool of epistemic and material extraction, rendering as 'world' (kosmos) the beliefs of the colonized once rewritten (and in which the spiritual warriors are at war) and sentencing to hell, under the earth, the existing cosmologies.

Part 2!

We're now going to look at how this narrative of rupture (connected to US power) plays out in contemporary discourse

There's an idea of the US within spiritual warfare narrative of the US as privileged but also deeply vulnerable - it is a singular target of demonic forces

It is pictured as the seat of divine authority of the earth and so American power and 'purity' should be maintained.

American hegemony and influence should be maintained but also its identity as Christian (in ways that are bound up frequently with whitness and capitalism).

Threats to the US are therefore framed as threated to 'the whole world, humanity itself' (Ahuja 2016)

America is frequently positioned as a metonym for humanity or global interests. The interests of American citizens are often represented as the interests of people across the world. This is particularly the case after the Cold War (unipolarity).

There is a blurring between narratives of divine omni-presence with narratives of the global reach of US power. Divine authority and US political influence become increasingly blurred in these discourses.

This general framework ties in with America's 'imperial statecraft' and the need to 'segregate and eliminate' enemies within and without: 'inner' and 'outer' wars (Pal Singh 2017)

There is a rigorous divide between 'good nations' and 'bad nations' and within the country between acceptable groups and those that need to be controlled or eradicated.

In spiritual warfare this ties in with narratives around the war on terror, institutional reform and protest

The War on Terror

Post 9/11, asymmetric war becomes a core image of demonic rebellion in spiritual warfare narratives. It's written as a form of demonic rebellion. The war in heaven becomes a lens to read the war on terror and vice versa

Reference to the books 'Stealth Attack' and 'Lucifer's War' for these references.

Satan is read as the 'first terrorist' and his revolt as the 'first insurgency'. The War on Terror becomes read as a spiritual battle for divine/demonic influence over certain areas and powers.

In Linda Rios Brook's book 'Lucifer's War' she connects spiritual warfare to the war in Afghanistan which she pictures as a war 'over views about God'.

She frames the Afghan population as a metonym for humanity - consumed by a conflict they did not invite

By positioning the Afghans as humanity, the US is pictured as divine and Muslim 'terrorists' as demonic and outsiders (outsider influences). She frames the war in Afghanistan and the War on terror as literal manifestations of spiritual warfare

With her rhetoric she subtly delegitimises Afghan resistance and non-US alignments as either demonic or merely human. The US is positioned as a stand in for divinity and any resistance thereto is positioned as illegitimate or even illegal.

Brooks is one of the few books by spiritual warriors which admit to a colonising underlying narrative. She does it to defend the US against charges of colonisation though...

'Unlike the US' god and the devil are colonizing forces.

She pictures the demonic as attempting illegitimate colonisation. Divine power in the region would be legitimate. The US in this rendering, although an avatar of the divine, is NOT a coloniser in contrast - they're just an instrument

The Leviathan State!

The Divine calling of the US is often consciously split from the US state as an actual institution and leads to right wing conspiracy conceptions of big government. The US state is pictured as a demonized 'leviathan state' (Clark 2012 - a spiritual warrior)

This Leviathan is seen as working behind the scenes and is associated with state authority and institutionalised power.

Leviathan isn't just about institutional power but about attempts to alter this power especially re. racial and economic injustice.

Wallnau, a Texas preacher and Trump support, writer of 'God's Chaos Candidate' which pictures Trump as a modern Cyrus (the non-Jewish leader who freed the Jews in Babylon). This allows for a narrative in which Trump can still be God's tool without being a believer.

He is being used by God to further a religious and political agenda with which they are aligned.

Wallnau claims that Leviathan is connected to the media focus on 'race, confederate statues, and talk of "white supremacy"' (his quotes)

all this brings about the 'divisive spirit at work in the 1860s and today, beginning with the riots and demonstrastions of the 1960s'. I.e. he's a civil war and apologist who casts the Civil Rights movement as essentially demonic

This conception of Leviathan has precendent. Frierson in Poole (2004) argued that Leviathan was the spirit 'ignoring precedent and experience of mankind' and remaking law in 'spirit of the 19th century'.

Leviathan therefore is linked to state power but also to those challenging hierarchies which privilege white, rich people in favour of minority groups. It's seen as interfering with naturalised racial and economic hierarchies.

We see this Leviathan discourse playing out in discussions of contemporary protest movements like BLM or Occupy.