Demonic · Deliverance tradition · c. 80 CE
The Python Spirit
Also called Pneuma Pythona, Spirit of Divination
The one figure in this tradition whose name is genuinely in the Greek text — and invisible in English, where the KJV renders it 'a spirit of divination'.
Narrow source base
Acts 16:16 describes a slave girl at Philippi 'possessed with a spirit of divination' who brought her owners much gain by soothsaying. The Greek behind that phrase is *pneuma pythōna*, a python spirit, and the reference is to the oracle at Delphi rather than to a snake as such.
The deliverance literature builds on the literal reading: a constricting spirit that works like the animal, tightening its grip a little at each exhalation, and whose particular target is prayer — squeezing the breath out of a person's spiritual life rather than attacking directly. The teaching is a genuine inference from a real word in the text. Whether Luke intended the constriction imagery, or was simply using the ordinary Greek term for an oracular spirit, is the point at issue.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
What the name means
Greek *pneuma pythōna* — literally 'a python spirit'. The word points at Delphi: Pytho was the old name of the site and the Pythia was Apollo's prophetess there, named for the serpent Apollo killed. Luke is describing a girl with an oracular spirit in specifically Delphic language.
Where it was actually worshipped
None. A category in modern deliverance teaching rather than a figure anyone has ever worshipped — these are diagnoses of a condition, and a diagnosis has no address.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- New Testament · c. 50–110 CE
- Named there as
- pneuma pythōna (KJV 'a spirit of divination')
- Rank
- Named Spirit
- Order
- Deliverance tradition
- Base of operations
- None. A category in modern deliverance teaching rather than a figure anyone has ever worshipped — these are diagnoses of a condition, and a diagnosis has no address.
- Era
- c. 80 CE
- Traditions
- Christian, Deliverance & Spiritual Warfare
- Placed in
- The Deliverance Taxonomy
Traits
- Domain
- Divination, constriction, the squeezing out of prayer and breath
- How firm the basis is
- Strong — the name is in the Greek, and invisible in every English version
- Textual basis
- Acts 16:16
- Status
- A category in modern deliverance teaching (1970s onward), not a figure of ancient demonology
Stats
Known connections
Identified with
4 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 4 offices attributed to The Python Spirit, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- divination1
- martial1
- malefic2
2 claims
What is it blamed for?
Harms attributed to this figure by a named text. An attribution is not a diagnosis, and where a claim carries a grading it is about how well it rests on the passage it cites.
Compelled Divination
c. 50–110 CEPossesses a slave girl who brings her owners much gain by soothsaying, and who calls out true statements about Paul for many days.
Paul commands it out in the name of Jesus Christ; it leaves the same hour.
Compelled Divination
1973Taken as the spirit behind divination and occult practice generally, and behind a constricting oppression that squeezes out prayer.
Grading · Strong as a word. Luke's Greek names a specific oracular spirit; the constriction reading is a later extension from the snake's habits.
2 texts
Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names The Python Spirit, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
2 texts spanning roughly 1,893 years
Where the texts differ
- Name: given as pneuma pythōna (KJV 'a spirit of divination'), Spirit of Python
- Rank: given as An oracular spirit; Ruling spirit
Possesses a slave girl at Philippi who brings her owners much gain by soothsaying, and follows Paul proclaiming him a servant of the Most High God until he casts it out. The Greek names it a python spirit; every major English version translates rather than transliterates, so the name disappears.
“A certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us.”
Read as a constricting spirit that works by degrees against prayer and spiritual vitality, on the model of the snake rather than the oracle.
Connections
What is it connected to?
Placement
Where does it sit in the hierarchies?
Afterwards
What did later readers make of it?
Almost unknown outside charismatic circles and very well known inside them, largely because the Greek term is so vivid once pointed out and so completely hidden by the English translations.
Kept in its own section on purpose. Everything above is what the cited texts say; this is what was built on top of them afterwards, and blending the two is how most popular demonology goes wrong.
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention The Python Spirit?
Is The Python Spirit the same as Apep?
What rank is The Python Spirit?
How else is The Python Spirit spelled?
What is The Python Spirit said to do?
How old is The Python Spirit?
Nearest in the corpus
If The Python Spirit is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
The Korah Spirit
Named Spirit · Deliverance tradition
Deliverance teaching names this spirit for the Levite who told Moses the whole congregation was holy, so why did he exalt himself — and was swallowed by the ground.
The Jezebel Spirit
Named Spirit · Deliverance tradition
The most discussed figure in modern deliverance teaching, and a category rather than a being — built from a queen in Kings and a rival teacher in Revelation.
The Absalom Spirit
Named Spirit · Deliverance tradition
Named in deliverance teaching for the son who stood at the gate, listened sympathetically to everyone with a grievance, and stole the hearts of Israel.
The Ahab Spirit
Named Spirit · Deliverance tradition
The passive half of the pair — named for the king who let his queen act and then took the vineyard she obtained for him.
The Familiar Spirit
Named Spirit · Deliverance tradition
The biblical term for a medium's attending spirit — and at Endor, the one occasion where the practice is depicted as working.
The Leviathan Spirit
Named Spirit · Deliverance tradition
Job's sea-beast read as a spirit of pride, and specifically of the twisting of words between people who are trying to understand each other.
The books behind The Python Spirit
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
New Testament
Various · c. 50–110 CE · Koine Greek
Read New Testament in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Wikimedia file page
Pigs in the Parlor: A Practical Guide to Deliverance
Frank and Ida Mae Hammond · 1973 · English
Read Pigs in the Parlor: A Practical Guide to Deliverance in full ↗
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.