{"id":15734,"date":"2026-11-10T16:43:53","date_gmt":"2026-11-10T21:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=15734"},"modified":"2026-11-10T16:43:53","modified_gmt":"2026-11-10T21:43:53","slug":"are-demons-real-new-data-reveals-americans-experience-with-spiritual-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/are-demons-real-new-data-reveals-americans-experience-with-spiritual-attacks.html","title":{"rendered":"Are Demons Real? New Data Reveals Americans\u2019 Experience With Spiritual Attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_15737\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15737\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15737\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/11\/Spiritual-Battle_credit-Adobe-Stock.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15737\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Spiritual warfare is a real part of the human experience, and the Bible explicitly details how events in the spiritual realm affect people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms,\u201d Ephesians 6:12 (NIV) reads, with verse 13 continuing: \u201cTherefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The question isn\u2019t if people will experience spiritual warfare; it\u2019s when. A new survey from the American Bible Society (ABS) explores what Americans believe about spiritual warfare, specifically measuring how many people believe they have faced such attacks (<a href=\"https:\/\/cbn.com\/supernatural\">watch CBN\u2019s documentary \u201cInvestigating the Supernatural: Angels and Demons\u201d today<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Dr. John Plake, editor-in-chief of the State of the Bible series and chief innovation officer at ABS, told CBN News that around 1-in-4 Americans report facing spiritual warfare.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe saw real difference here across levels of faith participation,\u201d he said. \u201cAbout a fourth \u2014 26% \u2014 of American adults say they\u2019ve had that experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/x2kOv7bWgjg?si=zWMbx7DfzUJkr-tg\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The topic itself is quite fascinating, as Plake said it\u2019s sometimes hard to quantify what a spiritual attack denotes. And since there\u2019s not \u201ca lot of deep data\u201d there\u2019s not qualitative information to help understand what respondents believe a spiritual attack looked like or entailed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sure these people do have stories that they can tell about times when they felt like the negative experiences that they were having couldn\u2019t be attributed just to natural causes, that there was some form of spiritual opposition that was going on,\u201d Plake said. \u201cAnd to see that incidence be that high, I was pretty fascinated by it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Another factor ABS was able to screen for was people\u2019s reaction to a perceived spiritual attack \u2014 and those statistics were equally interesting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo 74% of people who [said they faced attack] said that the way they respond to spiritual attack is that they pray,\u201d Plake said. \u201cI think that makes a lot of sense, right? When spiritual attacks come, you may not be in a particular context where it\u2019s easy to do much else, but you can always pray.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The second-highest percentage was 36%, who said they declare Christ\u2019s authority.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is this kind of sense that \u2026 they\u2019re aware they\u2019re in a spiritual battle, that their opposition isn\u2019t \u2026 the person who may be opposing them at the moment,\u201d Plake said. \u201cBut actually, there\u2019s a spiritual thing going on here, and so they declare Christ\u2019s authority.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Next came the 24% who said they listen to praise and worship music, but then there\u2019s the smallest \u2014 and most concerning \u2014 percentage: the 15% who said that they meditate on or quote Scripture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would have hoped that would be a little bit higher,\u201d Plake said. \u201cAnd I think it also presents an opportunity for pastors and church leaders to recognize, \u2018Hey, there are a lot of people, particularly in the church, who are having these experiences, and how can we equip them biblically to respond when they\u2019re facing these kinds of spiritual attacks or moments of opposition, or even when there\u2019s a need for a miraculous healing?&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For more on this topic, watch \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/cbn.com\/supernatural\">Investigating the Supernatural: Angels and Demons<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>This article originally appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.faithwire.com\/2026\/11\/05\/are-demons-real-new-data-reveals-americans-experience-with-spiritual-attacks\/\">Faithwire<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spiritual warfare is a real part of the human experience, and the Bible explicitly details how events in the spiritual realm affect people. \u201cFor our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":462,"featured_media":15737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Are Demons Real? New Data Reveals Americans\u2019 Experience With Spiritual Attacks<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A new survey finds 26% of Americans say they&#039;ve experienced spiritual attacks, revealing how Christians respond through prayer and faith.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/are-demons-real-new-data-reveals-americans-experience-with-spiritual-attacks.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are Demons Real? 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New Data Reveals Americans\u2019 Experience With Spiritual Attacks","og_description":"A new survey finds 26% of Americans say they've experienced spiritual attacks, revealing how Christians respond through prayer and faith.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/are-demons-real-new-data-reveals-americans-experience-with-spiritual-attacks.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2026-11-10T21:43:53+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/11\/Spiritual-Battle_credit-Adobe-Stock.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Billy Hallowell","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/are-demons-real-new-data-reveals-americans-experience-with-spiritual-attacks.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/11\/are-demons-real-new-data-reveals-americans-experience-with-spiritual-attacks.html","name":"Are Demons Real? 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