DIGITAL SORCERY: SCRIPTURAL DISCERNMENT FOR A MIND-CONTROLLED CHURCH

When you think of witchcraft ... what comes to mind?

Many imagine a medieval-era, warty-nosed woman hunched over a bubbling cauldron in a dark forest, muttering something incomprehensible as a black cat watches from a nearby tree stump.

It is almost impossible to take seriously. And that is exactly the problem.

But what if I told you the actual mechanisms of witchcraft occupy our social media, our standard newsfeeds, and often our churches undetected ... would you believe me?

You should. Let me explain.

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THE DEFINITION WE'VE BEEN MISSING

"... for by your sorceries all nations were deceived." - Revelation 18:23b

Here is what witchcraft actually is, stripped of TV or movie stereotypes:

Witchcraft is the process of achieving a desired outcome through the manipulation or violation of others' free will.

Everything else ... the cauldron, the spells, the rituals ... is just the technology of a particular era. The goal has always been the same: get people to think, feel, or act in ways they would not freely choose on their own.

The dictionary defines witchcraft as "an irresistible influence or fascination" ... a starting point, but far too vague to capture what is actually at work (Merriam-Webster, n.d.).

The Apostle Paul was more precise. He uses the Greek word, "pharmakeia" ... translated "witchcraft" ... meaning the hidden manipulation and control of others (Gal. 5:20). Scripture ties it directly to the willful overriding of God's order (1 Sam. 15:23):

Now look at your favorite social media page and ask: how is this possibly related?

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WHAT SOCIAL MEDIA ACTUALLY PRODUCES

"Now some cried out one thing, some another, for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together … And for about two hours they all cried out with one voice, 'Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!'" — Acts 19:32, 34

This passage mirrors what social media feeds us every single day.

Both this biblical account and social media culture show emotional people advocating for outcomes in ignorance and delusion. A modern research study analyzed 35 million Facebook posts and found that 75% of news links were shared without the user ever opening them ... over 42 billion shares driven by emotion and tribal identity, not evaluation or truth (Sundar et al., 2025).

Both produce dynamics where people lose themselves in the crowd. Psychologists call this "deindividuation" ... the collapse of individual judgment and personal accountability when submerged in a collective (Le Bon, 1895/1896). In a crowd, people say and do things they would never do alone. The crowd provides the shield. The algorithm provides the crowd.

Furthermore, platforms are deliberately engineered to trigger emotional arousal before critical thinking can engage ... because outrage and fear keep people scrolling, and engagement is profit. Research shows that social media systematically fuels anxiety, depression, and polarization by amplifying emotionally stimulating and extreme content (Metzler & Garcia, 2024).

The whistleblower-leaked Facebook Papers revealed that Meta knows its users are being psychologically harmed by its platforms, and the company has continued their practices anyway (Horwitz, 2021).

At its core, this is the suppression of rational will by manufactured emotional force. That is not a technology problem. It is pharmakeia operating at a large scale.

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THE CROWD BECOMES THE MORAL CONSCIENCE

"O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?" — Galatians 3:1

Witchcraft has always worked by dissolving individual conscience into collective identity ... replacing personal discernment with group pressure. The numbers are not subtle:

• 62% of Americans say the social climate prevents them from expressing opinions they genuinely hold due to fear of crowd responses (Ekins, 2020).

• 61% of Americans admit to avoiding saying things they believe because others might find them offensive; with the rate rising to 72% among Gen Z (Populace, 2024).

• 41% of Americans have personally experienced online harassment, with half citing political views as the reason they were targeted (Pew Research Center, 2021).

• 73% of internet users have witnessed online harassment directed at others (Pew Research Center, 2021).

Under witchcraft, we sacrifice grace and liberty. People modify their speech, beliefs, and public identity based on fear of collective punishment. Researchers describe a "self-censoring majority" ... where a vocal, extreme minority dominates online discourse while most people fall silent (Burnett et al., 2022).

Paul saw this in Galatia ... a church that once reasoned clearly from Scripture was suddenly unable to think straight (Gal. 3:1). The church was "baskainō" (Greek) ... held under a spell by malicious and misleading words.

Much like the Christians among today's social media users, these sincere Christians were completely unaware they were under the control of witchcraft.

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YOUR MIND IS THE TARGET

"We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ." — 2 Corinthians 10:5

Research shows that heavy social media uses systematically degrades the cognitive capacities that Scripture calls us to exercise: the ability to sit quietly before God, sustained attention, critical evaluation, and sound judgment.

• Frequent exposure to rapid, fragmented social media content overstimulates cognitive processes, leading to decreased working memory capacity and impaired cognitive control (Hilman, 2024).

• Short-form content consumption is linked to "cognitive shallowness" ... a measurable decline in the capacity for sustained, deep thinking (Haliti-Sylaj & Sadiku, 2024).

• Participants exposed to misleading social media posts showed a measurable decrease in their ability to critically evaluate information ... leading directly to impaired decision-making (Aïmeur et al., 2023, as cited in Dethier et al., 2023).

The naive believer who spends hours each day in this environment should not be surprised when they find it harder to think clearly, reason from Scripture, avoid emotional reaction, avoid holding a conviction that costs them something socially, or avoid questioning a narrative the social media mob around them has already decided.

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SO WHAT DO WE DO?

Awareness is the first act of resistance. You cannot guard what you cannot see.

Remember the definition: Witchcraft is the process of achieving a desired outcome through the manipulation or violation of others' free will.

You only need an algorithm, an outrage cycle, a mob mentality, and those people who have either stopped asking themself whether what they feel is actually true, or have no idea how to rationally discern what is true.

Any believer who understands that social media is specifically designed to bypass reason, manufacture emotion, and transfer loyalty from truth to tribe is already standing on clearer ground.

Because here is the thing about a spell: it only works when you don't know it's being cast.

"The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he's in prison."

— Origin disputed; widely attributed to Dostoevsky and Machiavelli

"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." — Galatians 5:1

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REFERENCES

Burnett, A., Knighton, D., & Wilson, C. (2022). The self-censoring majority: How political identity and ideology impacts willingness to self-censor and fear of isolation in the United States. Social Media + Society, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221123031

Dethier, V., Stievenart, M., & Roskam, I. (2023). The impact of digital technology, social media, and artificial intelligence on cognitive functions: A review. Frontiers in Cognition, 2, Article 1203077. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcogn.2023.1203077

Ekins, E. (2020, July 22). Poll: 62% of Americans say they have political views they're afraid to share. Cato Institute. https://www.cato.org/.../poll-62-americans-say-they-have...

Haliti-Sylaj, V., & Sadiku, L. M. (2024). Impact of short reels on attention span and academic performance. Eurasian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 10(3), 60–68. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1454296.pdf

Hilman, H. (2024). This is your brain on social media: How social media use is changing our attention spans. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/385214649

Holy Bible, English Standard Version. (2001). Crossway Bibles.

Horwitz, J. (2021, September 14). The Facebook files: A Wall Street Journal investigation. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039

Le Bon, G. (1896). The crowd: A study of the popular mind. Macmillan. (Original work published 1895)

Mark, G. (2023). Attention span: A groundbreaking way to restore balance, happiness and productivity. Hanover Square Press.

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Witchcraft. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved June 3, 2026, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/witchcraft

Metzler, H., & Garcia, D. (2024). Social drivers and algorithmic mechanisms on digital media. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 19(3), 598–617. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916231185057

Pew Research Center. (2021, January 13). The state of online harassment. https://www.pewresearch.org/.../the-state-of-online.../

Populace. (2024). Private opinion in America: Social pressure index. YouGov. https://populace.org/research

Sundar, S. S., Snyder, E. C., Liao, M., Yin, J., Wang, J., & Chi, G. (2025). Sharing without clicking on news in social media. Nature Human Behaviour, 9(1), 156–168. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-02067-4