ColossiansOne

Demonic · Deliverance tradition · c. 400 BCE

The Spirits of Affliction

Also called Spirit of Fear, Spirit of Heaviness, Spirit of Bondage, Spirit of Slumber, Spirit of Whoredoms

The remaining 'spirit of X' phrases, grouped because the tradition's whole method stands or falls on how they are read.

67attested

Well sourced

InfernalGroup of Named SpiritsChristianDeliverance & Spiritual Warfare

Five phrases, each appearing once or twice: a spirit of fear that God has not given us, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, the spirit of bondage again to fear, the spirit of slumber, the spirit of whoredoms that causes people to err.

Deliverance ministry reads each as naming an entity with a personality and a method. The ordinary alternative reading takes them as Hebrew and Greek idiom for a disposition or condition — the way 'a spirit of generosity' works in English — and notes that Isaiah's contrast is with a garment of praise, which suggests a mood rather than a being.

Both readings are held by people who take the text seriously, and the difference is not about whether the supernatural exists. It is about what kind of phrase this is. Grouping them here rather than giving each its own entry reflects that: the question is the same question five times over.

Identity

Where does the name come from?

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

Spirit of FearSpirit of HeavinessSpirit of BondageSpirit of SlumberSpirit of Whoredoms
Named there as
The spirit of heaviness
Rank
Group of Named Spirits
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. 400 BCE
Traditions
Christian, Deliverance & Spiritual Warfare

Traits

Domain
Fear, grief, addiction, spiritual dullness, compulsion
How firm the basis is
Each is a real phrase; whether any names an entity is the dispute
Textual basis
2 Timothy 1:7, Isaiah 61:3, Romans 8:15, Romans 11:8, Hosea 4:12

Stats

Source base67/100
Standing in the traditionGroup of Named Spirits
Texts naming it3
Powers attributed4

Known connections

Identified with

4 attributed

What is it said to do?

Where these powers cluster

The 4 offices attributed to The Spirits of Affliction, 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.

  • martial1
  • malefic3

3 texts

Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?

When these texts were written

Each dot is one of the 3 texts that names The Spirits of Affliction, 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.

3 texts spanning roughly 2,373 years

Where the texts differ

  • Name: given as The spirit of heaviness, The spirit of fear, Spirit families
  • Rank: given as Disposition or entity; Disposition or entity — the disputed point; Groupings
The spirit of heavinessDisposition or entity

Isaiah promises the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness — a contrast that reads more naturally as mood than as being.

The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
New Testamentc. 50–110 CE
The spirit of fearDisposition or entity — the disputed point

God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Spirit familiesGroupings

Each phrase is treated as a ruling spirit with a family of subordinate spirits beneath it, which is the organising principle of the whole book.

Connections

What is it connected to?

Answered from the sources

Common questions

Which texts mention The Spirits of Affliction?

ColossiansOne records 3 texts naming The Spirits of Affliction: Hebrew Bible & Deuterocanon, New Testament and Pigs in the Parlor: A Practical Guide to Deliverance. The earliest is Hebrew Bible & Deuterocanon (c. 900–100 BCE), which gives the name as The spirit of heaviness.

Is The Spirits of Affliction the same as The Python Spirit?

ColossiansOne records the link as "identified with" rather than as simple identity. All rest on reading a 'spirit of X' phrase as naming an entity. Where texts disagree about whether two names denote one figure, the disagreement is shown rather than resolved.

What rank is The Spirits of Affliction?

The texts do not agree. The Spirits of Affliction is given as Disposition or entity, Disposition or entity — the disputed point and Groupings depending on which source is consulted, which is normal for figures that pass through several traditions — each one assigns a rank from its own system rather than inheriting one.

How else is The Spirits of Affliction spelled?

The name appears as The spirit of heaviness, The spirit of fear, Spirit families, Spirit of Fear, Spirit of Heaviness and Spirit of Bondage, among others. Variation on this scale is the norm: these names cross Ugaritic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin and vernacular transmission, and each step reshapes the spelling. Every profile records the name as each text gives it.

What is The Spirits of Affliction said to do?

The sources credit The Spirits of Affliction with 4 distinct powers or offices, including Binds Spirits, Causes Sickness, Deceives & Tempts and Torments. Each is attributed on the profile to the text that claims it. ColossiansOne describes what the texts say; it does not endorse the claims or reproduce them as instruction.

How old is The Spirits of Affliction?

The earliest attestation in this corpus dates to c. 400 BCE. That is when the name first appears in a surviving text, which is a lower bound rather than an origin — a figure known from three tablets was probably named in many more that did not survive. The Spirits of Affliction is classified as infernal in ColossiansOne.

Nearest in the corpus

If The Spirits of Affliction 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.

Historical depiction of Asmoday, King demonic

Asmoday

King · Goetic Spirit

100

Commands seventy-two legions, one for every spirit in the book. He is the Asmodeus of Tobit, who killed Sarah's seven husbands and was driven into Upper Egypt by Raphael, and behind that the Avestan Aeshma-daeva, the demon of wrath — one of very few Goetic spirits with an ancestry that can be traced.

Infernalc. 700 BCE72 legions
8 sources8 powers
Historical depiction of Astaroth, Duke demonic

Astaroth

Duke · Goetic Spirit

100

The Canaanite goddess Astarte, three thousand years on, made a male duke of hell with her name intact. The Goetia has him discourse willingly on the fall of the spirits, and warns the operator to hold a ring to his face against the stench of his breath.

Infernalc. 1300 BCE40 legions
6 sources5 powers
Historical depiction of Beelzebub, Prince demonic

Beelzebub

Prince · Infernal Court

100

'Lord of the Flies' — a Philistine god of Ekron whose name was almost certainly deformed as a Hebrew insult, then inherited by Christian demonology as the second power of hell.

Infernalc. 400 BCE
6 sources5 powers
Historical depiction of Belial, King demonic

Belial

King · Goetic Spirit

100

In the Hebrew Bible beliya'al is not a name but a word meaning worthlessness; by 2 Corinthians it is a person, and by the Goetia a king in a chariot of fire handing out senatorships. The text says he was created next after Lucifer and fell among the first, and will not answer truly without gifts.

Infernalc. 400 BCE50 legions
7 sources5 powers
Historical depiction of Bael, King demonic

Bael

King · Goetic Spirit

66

First of the seventy-two and, by the Goetia's own account, chief among them — a three-headed thing on spider's legs, ruling in the east and granting invisibility. The name is the Canaanite storm god Baal, three thousand years and one demotion later.

Infernalc. 400 BCE66 legions
4 sources2 powers

Moloch

Prince · Infernal Court

66

The deity of the Tophet child sacrifices in Kings and Jeremiah — or, on a long-running scholarly reading, the name of the sacrifice itself rather than a god.

Infernalc. 400 BCE
4 sources3 powers

The books behind The Spirits of Affliction

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.

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.