Kathy,

     I in no way considered your reply defensive but even if it
were, that would be normal.  I still bristle up myself any time
anybody says anything about my daughter even after all she has
put us through in the last 20 years.  Parents do that because
they love their children and they should, in fact, be protective.
I also freely admit I could certainly be 100 percent wrong in
everything I say.  After all, I've never even talked to your son.
Plus, I am no professional.  In the last two years, I have been
trained by a man who has literally thousands of hours of
experience and now only works with clients which suffer from mind
control programming and Satanic Ritual Abuse cases.  He was a
pastor for 19 years and he also has a double PHd and a Masters in
family counseling.  Right now I am personally working with sexual
abused people,  and those with multiple personality disorders or
what is now called Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID for
short.  Additionally, as might be expected, people like this have
been demonized as well.  This does not mean, on the other hand,
they are demon possessed.  It simply means there is demonic
influence in their lives which has come about through
circumstances beyond their control, such as traumatic events, or
through deceptively implanted lies they now believe about
themselves.  Furthermore, I am no child psychologist.  On the
other hand, I have written about many areas of my own life as a
child where demonic influence literally effected my life without
my knowledge and created a spiritual blockage that made my entire
adult life as a Christian function through performanced based
spirituality.  You have read such stories here on this list.  I
make them public here, and on my website, simply because I trust
it will help others find the truth.

     After allowing my last message to go out, I realize
suggesting I would handle it differently would likely sound
arrogant and pompous, so it was a poor choice of words, but I
didn't mean you were actually not handling it correctly now.  I am
speaking now as a father who made hundreds of mistakes, most
likely, in handling my daughter over the years.  The truth is, you
must do whatever you think it takes to help your children and that
is regardless of what anybody says or thinks.  I have nothing to
boast of as far as raising children is concerned.

     In your case, you are dealing with an adolescent so this
makes you, as the parent, responsible.  You have no choice,
therefore, but to handle certain situations in a legalistic
manner.  In my daughter's case, she is an adult.  I can no longer
deal with her as I once did but fortunately, as her father, I
still have spiritual authority in her life even if she chooses to
disregard that authority.  In the case of your son, you and Greg
have no choice, for example, if he runs away, to turn him into the
police as a run away.  If you don't, you may become financially
responsible for anything that happens.  My daughter ran away two
times and the third time I kicked her out of my home when she was
fifteen.  In all three cases, I went to the police and filled out
a run away form which put her into their computers.  The third
time, even though I told her to leave, I turned her in because she
was still under age and I told her this ahead of time.  She was
picked up by the police one night three months later as a result.
Fortunately, she had committed no crime but was just riding home
with the wrong people.  She lied about her name, was discovered to
be lying, and the police called me to come and get her.  She had
to attend an all day class that time instead of going to jail.
So, in short, you are legally responsible for dealing with Chris
in a manner compatible with the laws of society.

     Nearly all kids like building a fort or clubhouse or a place
away from their home.  So, to some degree, it's normal.  I did the
same thing Chris is doing when I was younger and my 8 year old
grandson is building his own little place in our backyard, too.
He, too, wants his grandma and grandpa to see the work he is done.
That, in the case with your son, is a good thing and the more
compliments he gets on his work, the better it will be.

     I loved guns, too, when I was a kid.  Lots of boys make their
own, as did I, and I had ever toy gun know to mankind, I think,
back during my younger days.  So far, so good.  There is nothing
out of the ordinary here.  Yet, something is wrong with his
overall behavior.  Fortunately, he is still growing and will
likely grow right out of the neurological underdevelopment the
medical records report.  That's a big plus.  Still, if that was
all there was to it, then psychological behavior techniques and
physically, such as rule setting and boundary settings, would be
sufficient.  In short, disciplinary means would solve the
behavioral problems.  Since this alone hasn't worked and you have
already explored the physical and chemical and psychological
avenues, then there is only one left.

     In today's psychological world, the approach is to do one of
two things.  define it as a behavioral problem and proscribe
behavioral modification techniques by which the client should live
by, or discover a physical causation for the symptoms they see.
The most popular treatment for this, of course, is related to a
chemical imbalance.  If you were to carefully detail all of
Chris's behavior without any medical records showing neurological
reports and the like, they would very quickly consider him to be
bipolar based upon his overall behavior.  Bipolar disorders are
diagnosed as a chemical imbalance so they are treated medically
and with behavioral techniques to assist the person in living life
the best they can.  We, on the other hand, don't want Chris to
live his life the best he can but we want him to live in the best
god has for him.

     So now, let's say, therefore, Chris is diagnosed with
whatever disorder or developmental deficiency they think he has.
There is nothing wrong with that.  As Christians, on the other
hand, we know there is more, a whole lot more, which is
spiritually based in our lives.  This is true even for one who is
not a born again Christian because God has made it very clear, He
wants to have a personal relationship with us on a one to one
bases.

     In a sense, and perhaps I am exaggerating here, we have
reversed engineered how even we as Christians approach problems.
In my case, for example, two years ago, I became physically and
emotionally dysfunctional to the point I could not have even held
down the simplest of jobs.  I was having anxiety and panic
attacks, hearing voices, and wanted to die.  As a Christian, I
knew the source but I did not know anyone to help me discover the
source.  I knew the voices I heard were demons from experience yet
I could not make them go away.  Later I discovered why.  The
problem was not casting out the demons; it was discovering why the
voices in my thoughts had the right to speak to me at all.  Once
that was located and exposed to the light of God's Word, the
demons left me alone in those areas I had been deceived.  Why?
they had no more legal right to speak to me.  However, a chemical
imbalance was induced from the enormous stress put upon me at that
time.  If God's hand had not been upon me during those days and
weeks and months, I surely would have died.  I no longer have
anxiety and panic attacks nor do I hear voices.  I still have a
physical after effect of dizziness, which is being medically
treated, but it is so much better than it was a year ago, I can be
nothing but thankful for what God has done and I have no doubt it,
too, some day will be gone.

Kathy, I know you and Greg will likely not agree with what I am
about to say but I hope you will keep it in the back of your mind
anyway.  All you have been facing with Chris has been
orchestrated to keep all of you spiritually off balance.  The
enemy isn't out to kill us as Christians because he knows we will
go straight into the presence of the Lord.  His plan is to screw
up our lives to the point we cannot minister to others and, in
fact, our messed up lives becomes the mess of somebody else who
doesn't know their identity in Christ as well as they ought, and
who, in turn, becomes screwed up as well.  Diabolical, isn't it?

     I know I have not addressed what I would do so I will now.  I
would do exactly what you guys have done to get a complete picture
of what I was facing.  Concerning Chris and his activities, I
would discipline probably the same way you guys are.  The areas I
would be most careful in, however, related to the discipline,
would be those things which he does that are beneficial to his
development.  His hobbies in other words and his artistic
abilities.  I am not suggesting he be allowed to do whatever he
wants without paying a price if its wrong or breaks your rules.  I
am not suggesting he be allowed to do what he likes and forsake
his homework.  Everybody, needs to learn responsibility.  In fact,
I likely would have done nothing different than you have done thus
far.

     The problem all of us have faced in the church is what to do
when we have these situations come up with which there seems to be
no spiritual or Biblical answer.  We have all been led down the
path that such should be left to the professionals; doctors,
nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, etc.  That's all fine, of
course, but if we just want a life controlled by behavioral rules
we follow, we will eventually discover we have missed it
spiritually and emptiness and dissatisfaction will be what's left.

     The spiritual element in this situation appears to be
singular in nature but could be a collection of events related to
the original.  Let me tell you a story that a counselor friend of
mine told me about one of his own clients.

     A man came to him one day and said he had a problem.  The man
was a faithful church member and loved the Lord with all his
heart.  He began discussing his feelings with my friend.  This was
a grown man, now, so keep this in mind.  During the opening days
of the counseling sessions, this man said that he had become
afraid of the dark.  He was so afraid, in fact, that he now slept,
as a grown man, with a light fully blazing away in the room every
single night.  Additionally, as the sessions continued, he
reported that he had a horrible fear of heights.  He was a roofer
by trade so this made life sort of difficult for him you might
say.  Finally, the man said to my friend one day that he even had
been having not just bad thoughts but evil thoughts.  As they
talked, my friend had a glass a water sitting on his desk for
himself.  The man asked him if he would please remove the glass
from the desk so he could not see it.  My friend said, Why?  The
man in his office said, because, I have the feeling that I would
like to break that glass and kill you with the glass shards.  My
friend removed the glass.  The man confessed that during church
recently, he felt an evil thought come over him that he wanted to
get up and go kill his pastor as he preached.

     So what do we have here?  A nut case for sure.  Right?  I
mean, he is mentally ill because he wants to now kill people.
Right?  I mean, it sure looks that way, doesn't it?  Should my
counselor friend have suggested he go see a psychiatrist right
away?  Should he have turned him in to the authorities?  In most
states, if a client says they want to do bodily harm to
themselves or to anyone else, by law, you must turn them in to the
proper authorities immediately.  Otherwise, you become liable if
they in fact do harm themselves or someone else.  In the forms I
filled out while seeing a psychologist, it was state law that I
answer two questions.  Have you ever wanted to kill yourself or
have you ever even had homicidal thoughts?  If you said yes to
either, you were admitted to the nearest psych hospital.  What do
you think my counselor friend did in this case?  He went to the
source.

     As they talked about these things, the Lord led my friend to
the source of this man's problems.  He had gone to see the movie
The Exorcist.  He confessed that the movie frightened him so much,
he could no longer sleep without a strong light on in the room.
He soon became frightened of high places and the other evil
thoughts eventually came to the forefront.  Was this man demon
possessed?  Just about everybody I know in church circles would
say yes.  He wasn't, though, at all.  He was being demonically
tormented in his thoughts.  Why?  Because he gave place to the
devil and we are commanded by God not to do that.  My friend
showed this man the problem and the Scriptures relating to his
situation.  Once the lies of the enemy were exposed, the man
prayed and told the demonic personalities to leave in the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ.  The results?  He no longer wanted to kill
anybody, he no longer needed a light on in his bedroom at night,
and one day, he reported as he worked on a roof, he realized
something else was fixed.  He stood up and walked right over to
the edge of the building and looked straight down.  Laughing, he
returned to his work.  He was no longer afraid of high places.  So
what do we have in this story?  Lies implanted by the enemy to
keep a perfectly harmless Christian man screwed up emotionally.
But what if it isn't sin related?  I have written several personal
stories about that myself, some even recently, so I won't go into
that but it works the same way even if sin isn't the original
cause.  You need not sin to have demonic thoughts impressed upon
your thinking.

     When Chris, for example, says, I have a dead brain, that is a
lie, is it not?  It certainly isn't the truth.  What is the truth
then?  He is a growing boy and his brain is just fine.  If a child
says when they are disciplined, Nobody likes me, or, you don't
love me any more.  That's a lie.  This is when the truth must be
spoken to counteract the lies of the enemy.  But what happens if
the lies have been implanted without our knowledge?  Then we have
a powerful tool called intercessory prayer which allows us to be
led of the Holy Spirit back to the original source of the event
where the light of Jesus Christ and His Word will exposed the lie
hiding in the darkness.  When the lie is exposed and replaced with
the truth of God's Word, the darkness will flee because it has no
more right to be there.  I have prayed with people who have been
deceived by the enemy at ages all the way back to the moment they
were born.  How can this be?  That's easy.  Those around them at
the time have some demonic influence going on in their own life
and the enemy takes advantage of the child.  You show me any
person who is afraid of the dark as they grow older, or is afraid
of flying, or is afraid to cross the street, or is afraid their
house is going to burn down, or is afraid they will be hit by a
car if they cross the street, or has violent and frightening
nightmares, or has an abnormal phobia of any kind, and I will
prove to you through intercessory prayer that there is an original
source.  The original source, by the way, may not be demonic in
any way but the fear that is generated gives place, or room, for
deception to be implanted.

     So, Kathy, I am just suggesting not to overlook the obvious
and that is the spiritual element.  Take care of that first and
you will mostly likely discover that a great deal of the rest
solves itself.

     The bottom line?  Find someone who knows how to use
intercessory prayer to find the original source.  If such a source
is found and exposed as the original event, the result will be
permanent, perpetual, continuous, and effortless change.

Phil.