Chapter 9

Negative Soul Ties,

Idolatry and Fragmentation

They are all estranged from me through their idols. ... Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.

Ezekiel 14:5-6

Mental, emotional or physical abuse from key people in our lives causes injurious, often hate-filled, negative soul ties. Such soul ties and the abuse or rejection that causes them also cause a fragmentation, ripping or tearing of one’s heart. It is as though part of our heart is missing. Negative soul ties need to be broken through strong spiritual warfare, and we must be healed from the effects of fragmentation.

Alice: An Unhealthy Attraction

Alice pleaded with us, “I want to discontinue the relationship, but I feel an unhealthy and unwanted attraction to him. I don’t seem to have the will to break away. Please help me to be free!”

For several years, Alice, a lovely black sister, had a male telephone prayer partner. God consistently answered the prayers the two of them prayed together, and for a year or two, it had been a fulfilling and fruitful relationship. Gradually, however, the man had beocame more and more controlling. Also, Alice had discovered sexual uncleanness and dishonesty in his life. In the process of their praying together, their souls had become tied together with invisible chains. Now, Alice found herself unable to break free, and she was crying to God and to us for help.

The first thing Pattie and I did was ask her if she was willing to forgive her prayer partner for his dishonesty, his uncleanness and his controlling methods. Forgiveness is essential to being set free from such soul ties. She indicated that she was willing to do so. We then led her through a prayer of forgiveness for the man. This included praying a long prayer of blessing over him, a sincere “blessing prayer,” because God commands us to bless our “enemies.”

Next, we had Alice pray loudly in tongues. Then, we asked her if she was willing to laugh about the hurts. Laughter, as we have seen, produces inner healing, removes much emotional pain and also weakens the negative soul tie. She said she was willing to laugh in the Spirit.

As Alice was praying loudly in tongues, we laid hands on her for holy laughter. She laughed, laughed and laughed some more, and soon she broke into deep sobbing for heartfelt emotional pains. She was undergoing deep self-travail, which, as we have seen, is the key to deep and quick inner healing. After a short time of this travail, a deep peace came into her heart.

Now Alice was ready to break the soul tie with her prayer partner. A negative soul tie often opens one to an oppressing evil spirit, so we almost always have those seeking deliverance do spiritual warfare through speaking in tongues and through “pleading the blood of Jesus” (invoking the power of the blood) over the soul tie.

We also used an unusual method which the Holy Spirit has given us (and probably others). The secret of it is found in the book of Hebrews:

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit.

Hebrews 4:12

Somewhat as a prophetic act, we have individuals take “the sword of the Spirit” in their hands and viciously cut the soul tie, usually doing warfare in tongues at the same time. We had Alice do this, and soon the soul tie was completely severed.

Next, in the name of Jesus, we commanded the “missing part of Alice’s heart” to return. We instructed her to pray: “In Jesus’ name, I command the missing part of my heart to return now.”

I then said to Alice, “Now take a deep breath (representing the breath, or life, of God), and receive back the missing part of your heart.”

Alice did this twice, and soon she felt a great peace, her pains from arthritis evaporated and the oppressing spirits she had battled for over a year were gone. “I feel a great release and peace deep within me,” she said. “I feel free.” Alice was set free, and you can be, too!

Negative Soul Ties and Idolatry

We are created in need of an intimate relationship with God. When we fail to have a close relationship with Him, we try to fill the void through relationships of various types with people. In doing that, we often develop negative soul ties with some of them.

We also sometimes attempt to fill the void in our lives with things, such as hobbies, sports, alcohol, drugs, sex, pornography, soap operas and even church. This is idolatry, giving to “things” the worship, loyalty or priority which belongs to God.

When we develop harmful soul ties with individuals, we give to them part of our heart or love that should be reserved for God or for others. For example, a strong negative soul tie with a prayer partner can rob our spouse or our children of affection due to them.

We also can pick up negative traits and evil spirits from our soul ties. We thus are often controlled by other people through such negative soul ties, or by things (idolatry), and are not free to love and be loved in a healthy, godly way. These soul ties need to be broken.

The Damage Caused by Fragmentation

We need to focus on breaking the most damaging, strongest soul ties, because these cause a great fragmentation of our hearts. These soul ties usually come from:

1. Childhood mental, emotional or physical abuse by our parents or by other important authority figures in our lives, or from childhood sexual abuse by our parents or others. Emotional abuse includes possessive, controlling or smothering love.

2. Ex-husbands, ex-wives or ex-lovers.

3. Anyone in our lives controlling us, or our controlling them.

4. Any person with whom we had a deep relationship who was involved in the occult. Such occultic soul ties always result in serious fragmentation of the heart.

5. A spiritual leader, such as a pastor or an evangelist, who has hurt us badly or whom we idolize.

6. A church denomination or a cult or even other Christians.

7. Aborted children.

8. Deceased loved ones, if we are still grieving or have been deeply hurt by them.

Childhood Hurts and Negative Soul Ties

In childhood, we develop a strong bonding to our parents. Some of this is good and pleasing to the Lord, but much of it is of a negative nature because of the mistakes they make in raising us. No matter how good you think your childhood was, most likely you have many forgotten or deeply buried hurts from your past. You may have received very little love, or conditional or possessive love. Some of our parents were alcoholics; some had deep emotional or even mental problems. A large number of us have been abused verbally, emotionally and even sexually by one or both of our parents.

Often we identify being loved with earning love by our accomplishments. We feel we must earn love by doing good things or by being a “good” person.

Our emotional pain leads to unforgiveness, bitterness and enormous amounts of rage toward our parents and, later in life, toward others. This causes us to develop strong negative soul ties with our parents, and through these soul ties, we take on their negative qualities, becoming more and more like them. Although many children of alcoholic parents vow that they will never be like their alcoholic parents, the fact is that a great majority of the children of alcoholic parents either become alcoholics or workaholics themselves or marry someone who is.

Those who were abused sexually as children vow that they will protect their children from being abused in that same way, but the fact is that many of those who were themselves sexually abused as children end up doing the same things to their own children or marrying someone who does.

The good news is that Jesus, on the cross of Calvary, has purchased victory for you and me from all negative soul ties and their harmful effects. It comes through forgiveness, inner healing and deliverance.

These childhood hurts also blind us to truth. We see our parents’ negative qualities in God, in our spouses, and in others. This, in turn, causes us to distrust God and everyone else.

Your deep forgiveness of your parents and breaking the negative soul ties with them sets you free to establish healthy relationships with others. If you are married, it enables you to “leave” your parents and to “cleave” to your spouse — to be one in spirit, soul and body with him or her.

Sharon: Grief From Mother’s Death

Your body can be deeply affected by negative emotions, such as bitterness, fear and grief. These harmful emotions can cause or contribute to arthritis, migraine headaches, cancer, stress and depression.

Shortly after her mother’s death, Sharon developed severe chest pains, which continued for five long years. She and her mother had been close, and her mother’s death had been a great heartache for her, physically and emotionally. Furthermore, Sharon wasn’t willing or able to “let her mother go.” This resulted in a strong soul tie with her mother that needed to be broken — if Sharon was to be free from the resultant grief.

Like Sharon, most of us still carry an enormous amount of hidden grief from the death of loved ones. Such grief usually includes a combination of rage, guilt feelings and loneliness from the loss. For example, after twenty years I still had grief over the death of my mother, my father and my grandmother. I still had a soul tie with them that needed to be broken. In recent years, through the “groanings,” the self-travail, of Romans 8:26, the Lord has set me free from these soul ties as well as from the grief, and with these releases He has brought a new peace into my life. He will do the same for you.

We asked Sharon if she was willing to forgive her mother for dying. That may seem like a strange question to many. We have found, however, that most of us have not forgiven our loved ones for dying. We resent their leaving us here alone because we need them.

Sharon was willing to forgive, so we took her through a prayer of forgiveness. We then had her laugh repeatedly (with holy laughter) at the pain of losing her mother. She both laughed and cried until peace came.

As with Alice, we also had Sharon take the sword of the Spirit and cut the soul tie with her deceased mother. We also had her call back the missing, fragmented part of her heart given to her mother. When we asked, “Sharon, how do you feel?” she replied, “I feel whole on the inside. I feel wonderful.”

No prayer had been offered for the healing of the severe chest pains, but none was needed. They were gone. She was totally healed of that condition.

We have a great and awesome God, who does all things well. You can be liberated from existing soul ties with deceased loved ones. You can be free from grief. God wants your life to be one of righteousness, peace and joy.

A Husband and Wife: Both Delivered

A woman was grieving deeply over the death of her father who had died seven years earlier. I laid hands upon her and ministered to her, and she travailed deeply before the Lord. She was totally set free from the soul tie with her father and from the deep pain of her father’s death. A new joy came into her life. Her husband, who was sitting beside her, then became aware of the deep sorrow he still had over his father’s death three years before. He requested prayer, and he too was wonderfully delivered into a new joy. How about you?

Establishing Godly Soul Ties

With Your Marriage Partner

Jesus taught:

A man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh.

Matthew 19:5-6

What does “leaving” your parents mean. It primarily means being set free from overdependence on your parents — emotionally, financially or spiritually. This involves breaking negative soul ties with them. “Leaving” applies to both husband and wife, and this separation, this breaking of negative soul ties, includes ex-spouses, ex-lovers and even some of your close friends.

This doesn’t mean that you should give up good friends or that you are being disloyal to your parents. When God sets you free from negative soul ties and heals you of fragmentation, you will have a more healthy relationship with your parents, your friends and your spouse.

Your first loyalty should now be to your wife or husband. There must be no running back and forth to Mother or Dad — either in person, by telephone, or emotionally. The negative soul tie, the negative emotional bonding with your parents, must be completely broken. You must “leave” them so that you can “cleave” to your spouse. This is the only way you can become truly one flesh with your spouse — united in spirit, soul and body. You will now be joined to your marriage partner with a greatly beneficial, godly soul tie.

Correct Priorities

You must never put your children before your spouse. This includes children from a previous marriage (although you must love them and protect them from an abusive marriage partner). God must be first in your life, your marriage partner second, your children third, your job fourth and your ministry fifth. If your priorities are right, you will have a dynamic, successful ministry, whether as an interceding housewife, a witnessing plumber or a big-name evangelist.

Soul Ties: New Converts and Hungry Christians

For those of you who are new Christians (or for older Christians who desire to be greatly used of God), God wants you to break those soul ties with your former drinking, gambling or even fishing buddies. Unless these individuals become truly converted and sold-out to Jesus, they will be a bad influence on you. Your old habits still have power to pull you back into the “prison” of sin. You should not even enjoy being with those worldly companions. You are a new person in Christ.

You need to become a member of a dynamic Christian church where the Word of God is preached and the power of God is present. You need to find new friends who love Jesus and think and act like you do.

It may even be hard to spend time with certain family members who live, talk and think differently from the “new you.” Their company will pull you down:

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing ... and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. 2 Corinthians 6:17-18

God is calling all of us to walk in intimacy with Him. What a blessing! What a privilege!

Marilyn: Grief for a Dead Son

Marilyn’s son had been dead for five years. She loved her husband and the Lord, but she was in continual emotional pain over the son’s death. The deep grief over her son’s death and her unwillingness to “let him go” had caused an injurious soul tie with him. Her husband said, “Since our son’s death, no one has been able to help Marilyn. She is not able to function as a wife or as a mother. I hope you can help her.”

Marilyn was also tormented by having been sexually abused by her father and uncle as a little girl. This sexual abuse had caused great shame and emotional pain, which led to a negative, damaging soul tie with each of them. Because of these soul ties established as a child, all the emotional pain that accompanied them and the trauma of the death of her son, Marilyn was emotionally crippled. Through these harmful soul ties, she was emotionally chained to the three of them.

Marilyn expressed her willingness to forgive her father and her uncle, and as I said before, this is an important step to being set free from harmful soul ties. Pattie and I then asked her to pray a prayer of forgiveness and a special prayer of requesting the Lord to bless her “enemies,” those who had abused her. We then ministered further inner healing to her for this terrible abuse caused by her father and uncle.

After about thirty minutes of inner healing prayer for the wounds she had suffered from her father and uncle, we next broke the negative soul ties with each of them. As these soul tie chains were broken, a tremendous release took place within Marilyn.

Next, Marilyn was ready for the healing of her fragmented, torn heart caused by both the sexual abuse and the loss of her son. She was ready to “call back” the missing parts of her heart, given or taken by her father and uncle. We did this in the name of Jesus, and a wonderful restoration of her heart took place.

Marilyn was now ready for the emotional healing and breaking of the negative soul tie with her son. After about fifteen minutes of inner healing for the pain of losing her son, with her permission and cooperation, we broke the soul tie with her deceased son, releasing her son to Jesus.

When loved ones die, they take with them part of our hearts. Special ministry was needed for Marilyn’s fragmented, torn heart to be made whole. We called back into her heart the portion given to her deceased son.

“How do you feel, Marilyn?” we enquired.

“Words cannot describe how I feel,” replied Marilyn. She continued, “My husband won’t recognize me. I’m a new person. I feel so free, and I feel such a deep peace.”

She indeed left a new person. Her husband had a new wife, and her children had a new mother.

Lily: Scarred by Sexual Abuse

We live in a society where teenage sex is becoming commonplace among non-Christians and even among many Christians. Pattie and I have discovered that when teenage girls are sexually involved with several boys, in the vast majority of cases, these girls have been molested sexually as children. For them to be free, the soul ties with their abusers need to be broken. This is what happened with Lily.

Lily had been badly scarred by frequent sexual abuse by her brother. A strong spirit of lust had been transferred to her from him, so that during her teenage years she’d had sexual affairs, mostly abusive, with many young men, establishing soul ties with each of them. Lily was now married and loved her husband — as much as she was able to love. Much of her heart was actually missing because of previous “lovers.” She had given each of them part of her heart. Her heart was deeply fragmented.

Early in their marriage, Lily and her husband both became Spirit-filled Christians, but she still found herself with lustful thoughts and desires for others. She cried out to God for deliverance.

Pattie and I first ministered to Lily for deep hurts and rejection from both parents. Soon she fell out under the power of God onto His “operating table.” She cried and laughed, and then came more deep crying for these childhood pains. Under the anointing of the Spirit, we always intersperse these prayers with holy laughter. As we have seen, such laughter produces inner healing and is a powerful tool in spiritual warfare. Sometimes self-pity can begin to come into self-travail, but holy laughter will quickly remove it.

Next on the Holy Spirit’s agenda was to minister to Lily to be free from the shame and the deep scars of her sexual abuse from her brother. She was willing to forgive him. After this prayer of forgiveness, we had her shout loudly in tongues. Then we laid hands on her for holy laughter for the sexual abuse. This is, as we have seen, a powerful spiritual tool for freeing Christians from horrible experiences or fears.

God’s powerful, life-changing truths are usually simple. Use this powerful tool of holy laughter in your life and in ministering to others. It helps to produce deep inner healing, and it triggers self-travail — the groanings, sobbing and crying of Romans 8:26.

As we laid hands on her, Lily immediately began laughing in the Spirit uproariously about the sexual abuse. This holy laughter continued for quite a while, and then she began sobbing in self-travail, producing much inner healing and cleansing. This also caused the beginning of deliverance from evil spirits of lust and rage.

I could sense in the Spirit, by the word of knowledge, that she had deep screams of rage within her. I told Lily the Lord desired her to scream when I laid hands on her. I assured her the Lord would anoint it! She agreed, and under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, she screamed and screamed and screamed. This released immense quantities of rage from within her and led to further deep inner healing. Such anointed screaming, sobbing, mourning or groaning is a spiritual method the Holy Spirit uses to produce deliverance, cleansing and inner healing.

The Word of God says:

Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. James 4:9

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Romans 8:26

Because of the fear of seeming fanatical, it took me months to get up the courage to tell people to scream in the Spirit. Now it seems so normal. Screams have always taken place in times of great revival, during times of deep travail by Christians, and when the fire of God has come upon individuals.

Many of us are full of screams we have buried within us over the years. The Lord wants us to give Him these ashes of our lives that He may give us His beauty and wholeness.

After this, the Holy Spirit led us to lay hands on Lily for more holy laughter. We repeated this Spirit-led procedure several times until we felt the victory in our spirits. The Lord healed her deeply from her childhood sexual abuse.

With much spiritual warfare, we then broke the soul tie with her brother. Next, we “called back” into her heart the missing part “taken” by her brother through his abuse and control.

In the name of Jesus we broke the soul ties Lily had formed with each of these young men she had sex with as a teenager and “called back” the missing part of her heart given to them or “taken” by them.

About three weeks later we received a letter from Lily. She wrote: “My life has taken on new meaning. I am in love with Jesus, and I know He’s in love with me. My prayer life is awesome because I really know that I am in His presence. ... God has really called me to a ministry of intercession through travail and self-travail. Oh, yes ... I am now able to love my husband because I have a whole heart.”

Isn’t that wonderful! Our Father, through His Son Jesus, does all things well. He will do it for you also. You, too, can laugh your way to freedom.

James: An Illicit Soul Tie Leads to Greater Sin

James was the pastor of a thriving church with about three hundred faithful members. His work load was heavy, and he didn’t find much time to be with his family. His wife was hard to communicate with and didn’t understand him. His highly efficient, lovely church secretary did communicate deeply with him. He was able to share so much with her, things his wife didn’t seem to understand. He therefore began to share with her more and more the burdens on his heart that should have been shared only with his wife. This is known as spiritual adultery, and it usually leads to the forming of a strong negative soul tie between the two individuals. It also often leads to natural adultery.

Like most pastors, James overworked, didn’t spend enough time with the Lord or with his family, and needed deliverance from a spirit of lust (a problem with almost all men). A soul tie was being established with his secretary. She was a lonely person and was drawn to him. Soon they found themselves in an adulterous affair.

James loved his wife, his three lovely children and his church, but when he was advised to break off the affair and get rid of his secretary or he would lose everything, his reply was, “I can’t do it. She is life to me.” A powerful soul tie, including a spirit of lust, had gripped him so tightly that he didn’t see how he could be free of it. It had a grip not only on his emotions, but also on his thinking.

James was deceived. He was sure this woman was life to him, when in fact she was death. Sin is like that. It promises life, but brings death:

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 6:23

Because sin had such a strong hold on James, he lost his wife, his children and his church. This same tragedy is being acted out far too often in the lives of pastors, evangelists and other Christians leaders in every part of the world. Marriages, ministries, careers and sometimes eternal destinies are being destroyed, and no one seems to know what to do about it.

How can these tragedies be prevented? And how can they be healed when they do happen? Understanding the need for deliverance from a spirit of lust and understanding the evil nature of spiritual adultery and the resulting soul ties is a big step.

Conclusion

Jesus has come for restoration. His work is:

... to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised. Luke 4:18

We all have many unhealed hurts, unrevealed sin, negative soul ties and fragmented hearts. The good news is that you can be set free just as Lily, Alice, Marilyn and countless others have been. Using just a few of the simple Holy Spirit methods or tools discussed in this chapter will bring tremendous releases into your life and, through you, into the lives of others. You need to Laugh and Cry Your Way to Freedom.