I avoided watching the TV show Stranger Things for about eight years. My wife had no interest —when I suggested it, she rolled her eyes. “Ugh. No thanks.” So one night while riding my exercise bike I decided to give it a try. By episode three, I was in.
After hearing me and another guy at our home church casually discussing it, my wife was curious enough to give it a try. So I rewatched the first three episodes, this time with her, and by episode three she was also in.
If you’ve never heard of Stranger Things, it’s a Netflix show set in the 1980s that’s kind of a cross between E.T., X-Men, and The X-Files, and it’s certainly not for everybody.
Now, let me throw out a big disclaimer: Unless you’re highly knowledgeable about spiritual warfare and have solid grounding in Biblical truth, I don’t recommend watching it. Read the Parent’s Guide on IMDB and you’ll know what I mean. It’s certainly not clean fare.
If, however, you’re discerning about the reality of the supernatural realm and the interplay between humans and the demons, then there are some important concepts Stranger Things touches on. I’d like to discuss them here. It might influence how we see ourselves and our mission in Christ, and may provide some vehicles by which to engage our secular friends and acquaintances. With these kinds of shows—Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Avengers, The Book of Eli, etc—you need to consider the concept of mixture to remain grounded in Christ.
But one of the things Stranger Things gets (perhaps inadvertently) right is the existence of what it calls the Upside Down.
The Upside Down
Stranger Things opens with a group of four kids living rather ordinary Gen-X childhoods. When one of them goes missing, the search for him unravels a mystery involving a parallel dimension which they soon refer to as the Upside Down.
Those who enter the Upside Down see everything they’re used to seeing—their homes, the city streets, parks, their school—but it’s all tainted with an eerie darkness and floating dust, where monsters who’re usually invisible lurk in plain sight. Things that exist in that supernatural realm are suddenly visible, and our protagonists have to deal with them. Sometimes indirectly, sometimes face to face.
As the characters learn more about the Upside Down, they learn that what happens there effects the surface realm they normally live in, though most people will never actually see it.
Now, let me emphasize: This is a secular TV show, not a Christian allegory.
Stranger Things is not remotely Jesus-adjacent and in fact there are several instances in season 4 especially where it takes shots at the so-called “Satanic panic” trend of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Some may argue that Stranger Things is a potential conduit toward unholy mixture, and one that Christ followers should avoid. I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, depending on the individual. Pray on it.
That said, there are several Biblical concepts that Stranger Things broaches:
- Trauma opens doors to supernatural oppression, psychologically and physically.
- The enemy knows our history and uses it against us.
- Fear, shame, and isolation are his main tactics.
- Highly discerning individuals are often marginalized as mentally ill.
- Self doubt leads to greater withdrawal and even more confusion.
- Our beliefs about our identity direct how we respond.
- Demons lie to breed disunity and strife.
- Battles we see in the flesh are often manifestations of what’s happening in the spiritual realm.
- Love is the most powerful weapon we possess.
- Music has profound spiritual impact that we don’t fully comprehend.
I could go on, but hopefully you’re getting the picture.
We are spiritual beings, and likewise our battles are highly if not mostly spiritual in nature. And while not every situation has a demon driving it, a crap ton of situations do have demons driving them, especially in our minds and our understanding of identity, relationships, and healing.
The Right Side Up
One night while discussing the Upside Down with my wife, she mentioned that given how the enemy perverts everything that’s true, the Upside Down in Stranger Things is kind of a perversion of the true spiritual realm, the Right Side Up, if you will.
So what‘s going on in the spiritual realm around us right now, as you sit here reading this? We may never know but sometimes God grants His people the ability to see in the Spirit, to glimpse into the heavenly realm, and there is Biblical precedent.
For those who don’t know the Bible: Moses and Elijah were historical figures by the time Jesus walked the Earth, legends of the faith and long since departed from this world. But when the eyes of Jesus’s disciples, Peter, James, and John were opened to it, the supernatural realm was suddenly visible to them.
After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.
— Matthew 17:1-3
That was hardly the first time in history humans got a look into the Right Side Up. Here’s another example:
When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked.
“Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.”
Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
— 2 Kings:15-17
We tend to think of the supernatural realm as something up in the clouds, divorced from the here and now, when in reality—and similar to the Upside Down of Stranger Things—it’s actually all around us, every day, everywhere. We need to get accustomed to that, rely on the Holy Spirit to reveal it, and deal with whatever needs dealt with, even if we cannot see it.
The Battlefield
Modern medicine attributes mental illness to a (possibly mythical) chemical imbalance in the brain, and prescribe mind-altering drugs to temporarily mitigate the troubles. As with all of the enemy’s lies, there’s a little truth mixed in with this one. The enemy didn’t invent the brain, so he cannot control it, but he knows the science of how it works much better that we do and he can manipulate it.
Yes, brain chemistry is a real thing, and yes the physical things we feed our bodies (and by extension, our brain) can have profound effects on mental health; every parent and teacher understands the reciprocal relationship between food, exercise, and academic success. However there are mountains of evidence and testimonies that posit mental illness is also often a spiritual issue requiring a spiritual solution.
In those cases, drugs merely mitigate the manifestations of demonic attack, and certain drugs thin the veil between the natural and supernatural, making victims more susceptible to even worse oppression than otherwise later on.
When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.
— Luke 11:24-26
If we understood the Right Side Up, we might learn to recognize the signs and know that many of these afflictions are a direct result of spiritual oppression. And we might stop spinning our wheels with unnecessary drugs or inadequate therapies and deal with the underlying cause.
Another example is music.
In Stranger Things, a heavy correlation is placed on music—the sounds and frequencies themselves and the associations surrounding it—and the existence of strongholds. This is a topic we should probably tackle in much greater depth another time but suffice it to say, there is a reason why music plays such a prominent role in the Bible. Every worship leader tasked with using it should understand that significance, and should also probably study its effects much more stringently than is commonly done.
A Sunday morning worship set can be a powerless talent contest or a tsunami that topples skyscrapers of oppression. A simple verse sung off-key can have more impact than a ten-piece band of polished musicians; it all depends on the heart posture, and how well we understand the Right Side Up.
If we knew how anger, yelling, gossip, lust, drug use, unforgiveness, ungodly declarations, and oaths formed legal standing for demonic attack in the heavenly realms, we might alter the way we pray, and counsel, and love others through their battles. By living with our radars attuned to the Right Side Up, we’re better equipped to deal with whatever the enemy throws at us.
God is not a legalist, but the enemy is
In the later seasons of Stranger Things we’re introduced to Vecna, a character who uses the shame and trauma of a person’s past to isolate and torment them to death.
“Where others saw order, I saw a straitjacket. A cruel, oppressive world dictated by made-up rules. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades. Each life a faded, lesser copy of the one before. Wake up, eat, work, sleep, reproduce, and die! Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for it all to be over. All while performing in a silly, terrible play, day after day. I could not do that. I could not close off my mind and join in the madness. I could not pretend. And I realized I didn’t have to. I could make my own rules. I could restore balance to a broken world: a predator, but for good.”
— Vecna, Stranger Things
Again, the enemy cannot create anything. He didn’t create the heavenly realms, he merely distorts it for his own purposes.
Those who don’t know Jesus but are too discerning to dismiss the paranormal out of turn are more easily seduced by the supernatural. They may dabble with powers they don’t understand and for a time, can be empowered by it.
Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.” Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?” Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.
— Acts 19:13-16
A number of history’s most notorious serial killers have a background in the Satanic, and any effective deliverance ministry can affirm that secret societies like the Masonic Lodge are often at the heart of demonic strongholds.
There are those who dismiss psychics, witch doctors, mediums, shamans, and those who practice “the dark arts” as kooks and shysters. Those on the front lines of deliverance however, who understand the Right Side Up, know that things like astral-projection, blood oaths, curses, etc, are real, and that there is a Biblical method for dealing with them.
There is a cost in the heavenly realms for making agreements with the enemy; he will enforce them, and it’s crucial for God’s servants to know how to counter that. One thing we can do is imagine that every time we intercede in prayer, we’re entering the courtroom of heaven.
There stands the accuser, trying to enforce some kind of legal indictment on his prey.
Accuser: “He’s harboring unforgiveness.”
or
Accuser: “The doctor said she’ll never have children and she agreed with it.”
or
Accuser: “His family made a blood oath on his behalf.”
In the Right Side Up, the Holy Spirit can expose those indictments, and tell us how to address each count. We know that these accusations, even if true, don’t cancel our salvation in Christ; nothing can prevent that if we give our lives to Him.
But these legal claims by the enemy can, and often do, explain why living the Christian life is often such a messy, difficult slog. What we choose to believe about ourselves matters in the Right Side up. We’ve got unseen enemies all around us, just waiting to use our missteps against us and thus marginalize our effectiveness.
And never forget, he is a liar. He will lie to us every day about everything, goading us to accept a false reality, an Upside Down. And worse, he convices many of us to declare it over ourselves, and over others.
Now ask yourself: What am I passionate about? What am I talented in?
Chances are, those are things you were uniquely designed to thrive at, for His glory and your joy. The enemy knows it, and he will do anything to thwart that assignment.
If we don’t understand the Right Side Up, we don’t realize the everyday battles raging around us and perhaps don’t have the knowledge or tools to deal with it. This is especially true with new believers, or those in churches that deny the operation of the Holy Spirit.
But when we do understand the Right Side Up, we learn to see the battlefields around us and realize we can affect them in the courts of heaven. The authority of Jesus and the superiority of His angels over the demons mean the enemy can only ever operate when we allow him to by ignorance, laxity, or complicity.
Yes, complicity. We often do the work of the accuser against ourselves, or against our friends.
With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.
— James 3: 9-10
In the Right Side Up, instead of agreeing with the enemy, we can take those lies into the courtroom of the Father who holds the gavel, submit our defense (the Word of God), and enforce the truth that cancels every claim of the enemy.
We enter that courtroom and tell the Accuser,
“Jesus paid the penalty. The accused is forgiven, his case was dismissed. Now go back to the shadow and leave him the hell alone.”
We can even add:
“And now I command you, Spirit of Infirmity, to depart and submit yourself for judgment in front of the throne of the Almighty.”
Sometimes it’s that simple. Other times we may first need to walk that person through forgiveness and renunciations. The Holy Spirit will give us the proper defense for whatever claim the enemy is using. It’s on us to recognize it and enforce it.
This takes practice, courage, and a willingness to look beyond simplistic notions of an admittedly complex system; even the most dialed-in Christ followers admit they don’t fully grasp it. But we keep at it. We keep studying God’s Word, keep holding counsel with one another, and keep asking what the Holy Spirit would like to reveal to us every day.
Perhaps like Elisha or his servant, you’ve seen glimpses of the Right Side Up, or like the kids in Stranger Things, you’ve wrestled the perversion of the Upside Down. Either way, count yourself enlightened: You know there’s more around us than humanistic perceptions that refuse to square with experience.
What are we willing to do with that knowledge? Have you met Jesus, or have you only ever known the lies of Vecna? The Accuser will do anything to keep you from stepping out of his influence, and take on his lies as a false identity, an empty promise of a pseudo-spirituality full of hidden costs.
You’ve got some inside information that much of the public, even a sizable portion of the Christian public, doesn’t grasp. Jesus is not a tame Lord. Yes, He offers freedom, salvation, and unlimited life to all who call on Him, and comfort and peace for the broken hearted. But he also imparts supernatural power to strike fear into the enemy, the kind of wrath that causes demons to tremble at His name. And He offers all of it to you, and strangely all for free. All it costs you is everything.
If your heart is pounding reading this, and you’ve never given your life to Jesus but you want to, you can do it right now. All you have to do is pray something like this:
Jesus, I give my life to you.
I believe you lived, died on a cross, were buried, and rose from the dead.
I believe you are the risen son of God and I choose to follow you all the days of my life.
I repent of my sins, and accept the forgiveness you purchased on my behalf.
I ask, Jesus, that your Holy Spirit enter me and direct me from now on.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
If you just prayed that prayer, email me or comment below for some next steps. We’d love to connect with you about it.
You can follow me on Telegram, Substack, Truth Social, GETTR, Gab, and X. You can subscribe to receive new posts to your inbox for free, as well as get information on our books and other endeavors.
Our writing is a donor-supported ministry. If you enjoy our work, please consider a paid subscription in the amount of your choice. If you’d like to make a one time contribution, feel free to Buy Me A Coffee or visit our donations page at Copperlight Wood.
If you enjoyed this article, you may enjoy these as well:
·