It's a question most people in charismatic circles don't want to ask out loud. But I've had too many conversations to keep avoiding it. Over the years, I've received somewhere between a dozen and two dozen testimonies from credible, genuinely born-again believers who say they received a demonic impartation through the laying on of hands from a false teacher.

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So what do we do with that? And what does Scripture actually say?

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I'll be honest: I've wrestled with this for over five years. My co-hosts Michael Rowntree and Michael Miller have too, and we haven't all landed in the same place. These are my views. But I think the question is worth sitting with, because the stakes are real.

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What Is Demonic Impartation, and Is It Biblically Possible?

Let's start with the honest tension. Jesus promises in Luke 11 that if we ask the Father for good gifts, he won't give us a demon. He'll give the Holy Spirit. That's not a promise I'm walking away from.

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But here's what I think we often miss: that promise is made to people who are genuinely asking the true Father, through the true gospel, for the true Spirit.

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What happens when someone isn't doing that?

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Paul couldn't be clearer in 1 Timothy 4:1: "In later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and the teaching of demons." He's not talking about fringe cults operating outside the body of Christ. He's talking about doctrines that emerge inside it.

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And in 2 Corinthians 11:4, he warns the Corinthian church that they're already tolerating "a different spirit" because false apostles have crept in preaching another Jesus. False teachers operating in an antichrist spirit. Real supernatural power. Not from the Holy Spirit.

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This isn't ancient history. We're watching it happen now.

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How Does Syncretism Open Believers Up to Demonic Bondage?

Books like The Physics of Heaven explicitly encourage Christians to reclaim New Age practices as spiritual tools for the church. Courts of Heaven teaching instructs people to spiritually travel to heaven, find secret books written about their destiny, and gather testimony from dead saints. That's functionally necromancy, something God's law explicitly forbids. Teachers like Bob Jones coached people into altered states of consciousness through breath work to trigger heavenly visions — the same technique found in kundalini yoga, not Scripture.

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When you practice Gnostic or New Age techniques under a Christian label, you're not seeking the Holy Spirit. You're practicing syncretism. And Deuteronomy 12:30-31 is direct about where that road leads.

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Paul's language in 1 Corinthians 10:20-21 is the hinge point. The Greek word he uses for "participation" with demons is koinonia, the same word used for Christian fellowship. You can't drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. Mixture isn't just theologically messy. It's demonic fellowship.

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Does Receiving Prayer from a False Teacher Put You at Risk?

So when someone approaches Kenneth Copeland — who teaches that believers are gods and that faith is a force we wield the way God does — are they actually asking the Father for the Holy Spirit? Or have they been led to a completely different altar?

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I think it's the second one. And I think what's being distributed at a counterfeit altar is not what people believe it is.

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Now, I want to be careful here. I can't say with absolute certainty that receiving prayer from a false teacher guarantees demonic impartation. Michael and Michael would push back on how far I'm taking this, and honestly, that pushback is worth hearing. We're still working through this conversation together.

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But what I can say with confidence is that Scripture warns us, repeatedly and seriously, to test the spirits, guard the gospel, and refuse fellowship with what is false.

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How Does Knowing the Gospel Protect You from False Spirits?

The promise of Luke 11 stands. God will always give good gifts to his children who are genuinely seeking him. But the question isn't whether God is faithful. The question is whether you know the true gospel well enough to recognize when you're no longer standing before the true God.

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That's not a footnote. That's everything.

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As Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:16, watch your life and your doctrine closely. The gospel is your discernment grid. It's how you tell the real Holy Spirit from a counterfeit one. It's how you know whether the altar you're standing at is giving out something true.

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Know it. Hold it. Measure everything by it.

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It's not just the message that saves you once. It's what keeps you safe every single time someone asks you to come forward.

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Want to go deeper on this topic? Watch our full-length discussion on The Remnant Radio YouTube channel. And if you're ready to build a serious theological foundation in both Word and Spirit, check out the courses available in our Word & Spirit School of Ministry.

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