The human soul is one of the most complex creations in the universe. As a biochemist I was always fascinated by the chemistry and physics of the outer body but over the years as a minister, and latterly a deliverance minister, I have been astonished at just how intricate and complex the spirit and psyche are as well. We are truly wonderfully made.
Years ago I discovered through my interest in dreams that when we form a relationship with someone an internal psychic conception takes place. This is represented symbolically to us in dreams and visions as a baby which, over the course of time, can develop into a child and then an adult. This conception is a fertilisation between the psyche of one party and the psyche of another leading to an invisible conceptus in the former that leads to a mental and emotional attitude or disposition. This attitude can live alongside many other attitudes and dispositions within the soul that come to make up the cluster which for want of a better word we call a 'personality' or a 'psychic nature'. This nature is by no means inevitable nor need it be right. Attraction and identification with the wrong kind of people can lead to a psychic fertilisation within the soul that can produce unhelpful and even destructive dispositions (however 'right' or 'loving' they may appear), especially if these attitudes and dispositions consist in believing lies. For when you believe in lies you also open doors to demonic forces.
A psychiatrist friend of mine once described a human being as like a comet consisting of the main core of the personality with a trail of character traits, formed at different times of life, following behind - the comet's tail. It's a rather helpful picture, I think. If you're having difficulties grasping these concepts then perhaps some illustrations will help.
Before I went full-time into the ministry I was a secular educator. I still teach today but only within a church context. Many different things contributed to my love of teaching, not least the gift Yahweh gave me to do so, but on the way I picked up some attitudes and dispositions that I would now consider unhelpful. For years I have had had dreams about the last school I worked at where a considerable portion of my life was dedicated, not surprisingly. However, this was a secular establishment which, in the end, I came to loathe because its spirit and values were so totally contrary to all I stood for in Christ. I stayed on at this establishment long after Yahweh had ordered me to leave and given me numerous warnings about the spiritually destructive forces that controlled it. Not until today did I discover why I remained and why I dreamed so many dozens of times about the place even after I had quit the job. Though I had already identified an idolatry associated with the place - the belief I had to be there in order to provide for my family (refusing to accept that Yahweh could provide for me in alternative ways), there was another aspect I had never even considered.
In my dream this morning I was back at the school. I knew I didn't 'belong' there for I had already resolved that in prayer months before, yet I was 'there' collecting a few belongings that I had overlooked. This time, though, there was a difference, because I was accompanied by a little boy.
What was interesting about this little boy was that he was not one of my biological sons but a miniature image of one of my Biochemistry tutors at Oxford University where I had been educated. He was intellectually a very brilliant man and a secular Jew. Because he was, as it were, my assessor, I was anxious to please and imitate him. I was never able to bond with him emotionally because the relationship was strictly intellectual and, as a professional, he never allowed me to get close. His manner was completely alien to me, a different spirit altogether. He was always polite, interested in my progress, and fair. On the one occasion I did not do my homework properly he gently pulled me apart, quite aware that I had cut corners. I learned as an educator myself to discerm students very keenly, knowing whether they had actually done their work assignments or not and what their motives were. The fact that he could do this with me created a certain amount of fear and thereafter I always gave him my best.
Because I looked up to my Tutor, I formed an intellectual soul-tie with him which coloured the way I subsequently taught at college. A psychic conception had taken place that would remain with me long after I had come to salvation in Yah'shua (Jesus). Whilst I would be a Christian in every other respect, when it came to my profession I would unconsciously switch into this other mode and teach as I had been taught by my Oxford Tutor. Although this was not a sub-personality or alter (which are created as a result of trauma), it was certainly a disjunctive adjunct to my true Christian self, unreconciled to the life in Christ I had generally, and a source therefore of inner tension. This would spill over into my domestic life of fathering too for I would on occasion, without realising it, apply the same standards, methodology and detatchment to my own children's education as my Tutor had once applied to me. This conception was not, however, "in Christ" - this disposition within me had never been given to Him, and I knew I had to do it. Therefore after the dream I simply presented this psychic conception to Him and left him with Him.
The chances are that you relate differently to different people when you are in their company. The chances are that you have a mechanism whereby you "switch off" your Christianity in order to be accepted and liked by the milieu in which, for example, you work. We all unfortunately do it, for whatever reason (be accepted, avoid persecution, etc.). We might be especially attracted by someone and want to impress them in a secular mode so we cultivate a persona or semi-detatched side of ourselves which will be appealing and accepted, and through which we can bond with this person. What happens when you do this is that you atheistically conceive with that person on the psychic level and something is created that hates God and Christ because it is of the world. When your friend, with whom you have bonded, then, for example, makes an anti-God statement, you are placed in a dilemma. The believing side of you wants to come to a defence of the Gospel (as we are commanded to) but the unbelieving conceptus wants to distance from it to maintain the friendship and bond. By such means the soul becomes divided against itself and fights a civil war. If it does this too much, then the Christian part can, over time, be overwhelmed and find itself in a minority within. If enough times passes and you decide to be an unbeliever again in order to maintain your psychic conceptions, you can end up falling away from your salvation altogether. You have become an apostate.
Such 'children' exist within you if you look honestly. You may see them in your dreams. It can easily happen in a marriage relationship where your spouse is an unbeliever, one reason Paul says we should never be unequally yoked to unbelievers. These 'children' born outside of Christ have to be brought to the cross to either be converted or (more likely) destroyed. In either case, it is Yah'shua (Jesus) who does the work, not you. We cannot be double-minded in our attitudes and dispositions - there cannot be healthily two or more centres of being in the soul.
We are responsible for the soul-ties we make with others. We are responsible for what we accept and reject in another's belief system, attitudes or dispositions. We have to choose whether we want to be friends with the world or with Christ, because we cannot have it both ways. I myself have had to face such attitudes and dispositions and bring them to the cross, more so for the sake of my children who look up to me and imitate my ways. I do not wish to curse them by my indifference or carelessness to relationships I form with others, especially if they are atheistic.
Part of us wants to please everyone and have peace with the world around us. Noble and desirable a sentiment though that is, it is not only unrealistic but destructive to ourselves and to those we have influence over. The Bible furnishes us with many examples, perhaps the best one being the strong godly soul-tie between David and Jonathan, and the nearly equally strong but ungodly soul-tie between David and Saul (from Saul's side). In the case of the latter, a psychic child was born in Saul that was actually healthy but which jarred with ther overall atheism of Saul's own soul. David loved Saul, and part of Saul loved David but the other part was satanic and hated him, to the point of wanting to murder him. The psychic child conceived between David and Jonathan was, by contrast, godly and Kingdom-based - it was pure and holy.
We are to bond with one another through such godly soul-ties but must be very careful not to open up haphazzardly because when a soul-tie is formed, we start adopting the characteristics, attitudes, beliefs and dispositions of those we connect to, and to their demons. Paul told followers to imitate his ways because he was a good rôle model and the soul-ties thus generated would have the affect of closely bonding the saints together as echad (one), or a single allegorical Bride of the Messiah suffused with the same Christ-like character traits.
Ask Yahweh about the 'children' in you and bring them to Him one by one so that you too can become echad (one) and whole. If you're not sure they're there, ask Him to reveal them to you. He will most certainly oblige.
