The idea that mental illness and disease are caused by invisible energies or ancestral curses is not biblical. Christian ethics and moral theology emphasise personal responsibility, human dignity, and relational restoration rather than inherited guilt.
Photo: [link]Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona[/link], Unsplash, CC0.
Outside, a boy in sweatpants lies on the ground. It’s cold; others around him are wearing winter coats. He moves uncontrollably, grimacing, shouting. A woman with a microphone —“the Apostle”— prays loudly over him, commanding demons to leave his body. He shakes, she screams, his mother watches.
After a while, the boy quiets. The anxiety subsides, as it often does after an intense panic attack. The “Apostle” declares: “He is free!”
What are we witnessing? A boy with an avoidant gaze, likely struggling with severe anxiety and tics—perhaps autism with comorbid anxiety—is being treated as though he is demon-possessed. The leader claims the cause of the boy’s condition is a generational curse, triggered by his mother’s use of tarot cards in her youth. It later emerges that her grandmother had also shown interest in fortune-telling. According to the “Apostle,” this is explanation enough for the child’s autism.
But it doesn’t stop there. The “Apostle” further claims that the same amount of money the mother once “sowed into Satan’s kingdom” —by buying tarot cards and crystals— must now be given to God’s kingdom in order for the boy’s deliverance to be complete. In other words: she is to give money to the ministry of the “Apostle.”
All of this is filmed and uploaded to her social media accounts, receiving thousands of likes.
[destacate]One of the Bible’s clearest themes is that each person is accountable before God for their own actions—not for the sins of their parents or grandparents[/destacate]As a counsellor at a youth clinic and former MST therapist, I work closely with families and their young people navigating mental health challenges such as anxiety, autism and trauma. What I see in this video is not deliverance —it’s spiritual gaslighting. What is in reality an anxiety reaction is reinterpreted as demonic possession. What calls for psychological support and medical evaluation is instead met with exorcism —and financial exploitation.
This treatment is justified by a doctrine that has no support in the Bible nor in Christian tradition: the doctrine of generational curses.
The teaching of generational curses is based on the idea that sins and curses are passed down through the bloodline —sometimes manifesting as illness, mental distress, or “demonic ties.”
This idea is not supported by the New Testament, and even the Old Testament challenges it. One of the Bible’s clearest themes is that each person is accountable before God for their own actions—not for the sins of their parents or grandparents.
“The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child.” — Ezekiel 18:20
[destacate]In New Age circles, people speak of “energetic blockages,” “ancestral trauma,” or “carrying generational guilt” — often accompanied by rituals, visualisations, and financial offerings[/destacate]This same message appears in Jeremiah 31:29–30, where God says people will no longer speak of children suffering for their fathers’ wrongs. It is individual responsibility and God’s grace —not spiritual or genetic guilt— that determines a person’s destiny.A favourite proof text among proponents of generational curses is Exodus 20:5, which says God “punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” But this is not a promise of spiritual punishment — it is a description of consequences. Sin often has social and psychological effects across generations. That is not the same as saying children are demonically affected because their grandfather sinned.
To twist these texts into a system where illness and disability are seen as demonic punishments from earlier generations — and where money is needed to “break” the curse— is nothing short of spiritual abuse.
The idea that mental illness and disease are caused by invisible energies, karmic bonds, or ancestral curses is not biblical. It stems from occult and New Age traditions. In New Age circles, people speak of “energetic blockages,” “ancestral trauma,” or “carrying generational guilt” — often accompanied by rituals, visualisations, and financial offerings (Heelas, 1996).
When this way of thinking infiltrates Christian settings and is dressed in words like “deliverance,” “sowing,” and “spiritual warfare,” the line between gospel and manipulation becomes dangerously blurred.
[destacate] It’s easy to dismiss these examples as extreme US American aberrations, but the reality is that the doctrine of generational curses is also spreading within European Christianity[/destacate]This is not to deny that Scripture acknowledges spiritual forces or that Christians may, at times, encounter real spiritual conflict. But when every psychological or neurological condition is interpreted through a strictly demonological lens, theological discernment gives way to superstition — and pastoral care turns into coercion.
It’s easy to dismiss these examples as extreme US American aberrations, but the reality is that the doctrine of generational curses is also spreading within European Christianity. In prayer groups, pastoral counselling courses, and social media ministries, it has become common to speak of “spiritual inheritance” and curses that must be broken.
Participants are sometimes urged to map their family history back several generations to uncover hidden sins thought to affect their lives today.
This is not historic Christian pastoral care — it is a spiritualised form of guilt transference that risks worsening people’s suffering instead of bringing them freedom.
Researchers studying charismatic movements in Northern Europe have observed that deliverance-style ministries influenced by global Pentecostalism increasingly frame personal and mental challenges in terms of inherited spiritual bonds, even within mainstream Nordic Christianity (Moberg & Skjoldli, 2018).
When a child receives a diagnosis such as autism, that can already be challenging enough for the family to process. To then be told that the child is cursed because of ancestral sin —and that the solution is to give money to a self-proclaimed apostle— is not just harmful theology. It’s spiritual coercion dressed in religious language.
When a child is diagnosed with autism or struggles with anxiety, they don’t need deliverance — they need understanding, structure, and support. Families need hope, not blame.
Scientific research increasingly confirms that trauma can affect future generations —through both epigenetic changes and family dynamics such as attachment and emotional patterns. This means that the suffering of one generation can echo into the next (Yehuda et al., 2016).
But these echoes are not curses to be broken by public exorcisms. They are psychological and biological realities that require understanding, therapy, and healing relationships.
[destacate]From a theological perspective, Christian ethics and moral theology emphasise personal responsibility, human dignity, and relational restoration rather than inherited guilt[/destacate]To seek truth in these matters is not to lack faith — it is an expression of Christian wisdom and love. Recognizing the real impact of trauma, and addressing it with care, is a deeply Christian way of walking alongside the wounded. Shortcutting this process by diagnosing someone as “cursed” or “demonized” on the basis of their ancestry is not deliverance—it is distortion.
In my years as a counsellor —and as a former MST therapist— I’ve seen the impact that evidence-based approaches can make. Therapies like Multisystemic Therapy (MST) involve the whole network around the young person: family, school, peers, community (Henggeler, 2011). They don’t look for demons in the past. They build relationships, change harmful patterns, and restore dignity.
From a psychological perspective, this systemic approach reflects ecological theories on human development, which emphasise the multiple layers of influence surrounding an individual (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).
From a theological perspective, Christian ethics and moral theology emphasise personal responsibility, human dignity, and relational restoration rather than inherited guilt. As Josef Fuchs argues, Christian morality must begin with the individual’s concrete situation and the call to love and responsibility —not abstract systems of collective punishment (Fuchs, 1983).
As Christians, we are called to walk in truth and grace. That means rejecting false teachings —and refusing to spiritualise mental illness. The Church should be a place of refuge, not re-traumatisation.
[destacate]The Church is called to be a healing community. A place where both inherited neurodiversity and emotional wounds are met with grace, support, and compassion[/destacate]I believe in the power of prayer. I also believe that spiritual deliverance can be real. But true freedom doesn’t come through manipulation, theatrics, or magical thinking. Humbug sets no one free.
We should not shy away from evidence-based methods. If anything, we should welcome them —especially when they align with the Christian view of human dignity, healing, and responsibility.
The Church is called to be a healing community —a place where both inherited neurodiversity and emotional wounds are met with grace, support, and compassion.
It’s time we stop promoting practices that have more in common with superstition than with Scripture.
Let’s offer something better than shame and superstition. Let’s offer compassion, clinical wisdom, and the hope of the gospel.
As Jesus said:
“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:36)
Carl Lindahl, youth counselor and prison chaplain in northern Sweden. He writes about faith, ethics, and culture from a Christian perspective.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design. Harvard University Press.
Heelas, P. (1996). The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the Sacralisation of Modernity. Blackwell.
Henggeler, S. W. (2011). Multisystemic Therapy: An Effective Treatment for Serious Juvenile Offenders. Guilford Press.
Moberg, J. & Skjoldli, J. (Eds.). (2018). Charismatic Christianity in Finland, Norway, and Sweden: Case Studies in Historical and Contemporary Developments. Palgrave Macmillan.
Fuchs, J. (1983). Personal Responsibility and Christian Morality. Georgetown University Press.
Yehuda, R., Daskalakis, N. P., Lehrner, A., Desarnaud, F., Bader, H. N., Makotkine, I., Seckl, J. R., Bierer, L. M., & Binder, E. B. (2016). Holocaust exposure induced intergenerational effects on FKBP5 methylation. Biological Psychiatry, 80(5), 372–380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2015.06.010
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