What I'm about to show you is a video of the first two minutes of Amazon Prime's new show Hazbin Hotel. Most people will watch the video and be able to see how and why it's bad, but I wanted to take a minute to explain just how bad it really is & how deep the evil contained in it actually goes.

To be clear, it's not just a TV show; it's a weapon of spiritual warfare.

Now, the first thing you have to understand is that when we watch TV shows and movies that aren't claiming to be true or historically / scientifically accurate, or aren't claiming to depict or reflect reality, we suspend what is called our critical factor.

The critical factor is actually a psychology & hypnosis term and describes the component of your mind that sits between your conscious and subconscious mind. It not only acts as a bodyguard, dutifully protecting the beliefs you hold in your subconscious mind, but it also makes judgments. In other words, its your critical faculty, hence it's name.

Anyway, when you’re watching a fictional movie or show, you usually let yourself “pretend” that it's real. You know it’s not, but in order to enjoy it, you allow yourself to think of the characters as real people and the situation as a real situation. That’s a “critical factor bypass”, and it’s necessary in order to experience the "enjoyment" we look for.

Fun fact: children don’t have a fully developed critical factor and that's part of why they're so impressionable.

Now here's the thing about bypassing the critical factor: whatever is taken in without first being evaluated by the critical factor goes directly into your subconscious mind. How is that bad?

Well it's not innately bad, but it can be exploited by bad people (ie cult leaders, propaganda experts, advertisers, et al) who want to influence what you think and feel--all without you even realizing its happening.

Where does the video fit into all this?

Pay attention to the themes in the video's storyline. Look at the rhetoric and emotionally-charged buzzwords they use. It's actually beyond brilliant if you disregard how evil it is. But I digress. Look and listen to what they say:

"Lucifer was a dreamer with fantastical ideas for all of creation, but he was seen as a troublemaker by the elders of heaven, for they felt his way of thinking was dangerous to the order of their world".

Note not only the words, but also notice how sad Lucifer looks in the video while the narrator pityingly says all this?

Notice how the female narrator talks about how Adam demands control, Lilith refuses to submit. Oh so inspiring, right?

And of course, Lucifer is drawn in by Lilith's "fierce independence" (you go, #girlboss), and the two dreamers are said to "fall deeply in love"--and you have to almost admire the giddy glee with which the narrator says this. The masterful tones she uses can also be heard when she positively emotes the "magic of free will" that Lucifer and Lilith want to "share" with humanity. So noble!

Are you getting it yet?

Spiritual warfare doesn't waste its time arguing about the historicity or scientificity of the Bible. Spiritual warfare bypasses all that entirely and goes right for the parts of our minds that we don't control but rather control us. It looks to trojan-horse demonic themes and values into your mind all while we sit there and get entertained by it.

Spiritual warfare doesn't look to put you into a re-education camp; spritual warfare turns your living room into one without you even knowing it.

Spiritual warfare doesn't blast out messages on loudspeakers that hang on every street and lamppost; spiritual warfare delivers them right to your phone, playing a catchy little tone telling you to watch and listen.

And the most insidious part of all is how it gets people to dismiss all this because it's just a song, it's just a book, it's just a story or show or video.

Is it though?

For more on spiritual warfare, see this article: https://unitingourprayers.com/articles/culture-war-spiritual-war