It is essential, then, that the believer, who is spiritual, should understand that deceiving spirits of Satan can create a counterfeit of the human spirit in the psychic realm of the soul. They do this, by getting access to the outer man by guile, by enlisting his interest in the phenomena then shown, and then producing other desires and feelings in the man than those of the Spirit. When these other feelings—which may appear spiritual—get a hold, they may become strong enough to silence, or overpower the true spirit-action or true spiritual feelings.

If the believer is ignorant of the tactics of the enemy in this way, and allows himself to be misled by deceiving spirits, the true spirit-action is easily allowed to sink into disuse, by the man following the counterfeit spiritual feelings, lured on by his psychic experiences, thinking he is “walking after the spirit.”

When the true spirit-action ceases, the evil spirits may suggest that “God now guides through the renewed mind,” which is an attempt to hide their counterfeit workings, and the man’s disuse of his spirit. At the same time comes counterfeit light to the mind, followed by counterfeit reasoning, judging, etc., and the man thinks he has light from God, because he is unaware that he has ceased to “walk after the Spirit,” and is now walking after the mind and the self.

Another danger of the spiritual man lies in the subtle attempts of the deceiving spirits of Satan to get him to walk after the flesh (i. e., body), under the belief that he is still walking in the spirit, by creating feelings in the body which the man thinks are “spiritual.”

To defeat these wiles, the believer should understand that all physical consciousness of supernatural things, and even undue physical consciousness of natural things, and all physical feelings of whatever kind at the time, should be refused, as such divert the mind from “walking after the Spirit,” and set it upon the bodily sensations—and such sensations have nothing spiritual in them, no matter what is claimed.

Undue physical consciousness is also an obstacle to the continuous concentration of the mind, and in a spiritual believer an “attack” of physical consciousness made use of by the enemy may break concentration of the mind, and bring a cloud upon the spirit; therefore the body should be kept calm, and always under full control.