It’s one thing to read about God’s love, but it’s a life changing experience to feel it. God is Spirit so you have to experience Him through your spiritual senses, and not just through someone else’s written testimony (e.g. the Bible), or spoken testimony (e.g. someone gets healed but you don’t). If you cannot experience God, then the blockage is always caused by sin, although the type of sin (e.g. fear, unbelief), and whether the sin was committed by you (e.g. an inner vow to not see) or against you (e.g. a generational curse) is different for every person.
Recent spiritual blockages are caused by a spiritual attack, whereas long-term blockages are the result of a spiritual injury. You can suffer from multiple spiritual attacks and injuries simultaneously, totally blocking you from God and the healing He provides. This article gives you as an intercessor a strategy of how to diagnose whether the person’s blockage is due to an attack or an injury, and then choose the best healing method for that spiritual blockage.
Removing Recent Blockages
The first thing to check when the person’s spiritual sense is blocked is to check if they are under spiritual attack.
There are several ways to test whether a person is under spiritual attack, but one of simplest is to ask them, “Are you at peace?” If they are worried, confused, agitated, distracted, feeling a strong emotion or an unexplained pain in their body, then they will have difficulty hearing God. Use a stabilizer tool to calm them down, and if necessary, follow up with an an unblocker tool to remove the demonic attack that is stealing their lack of peace. If the blockage remains, then it’s likely due to a past injury to their spiritual sense than a current attack. This indicates that you need to use a healing method to heal the injury.
If the person was at peace, then ask them whether their spiritual sense was recently lost, or if they have not been able to see and hear for a long time now. It’s actually quite common for a person to be able to hear and see, but as they approach a stronghold, their spiritual senses suddenly shut down. This indicates a demonic attack, and you should use an unblocker to restore their spiritual senses. But if the person is under not under any obvious attack and still cannot spiritually see or hear, then that indicates that they have an injury to their spiritual sense, and you need to proceed to a healing method to restore it.
Healing Injuries to the Spiritual Senses
It is fairly common for a person to be able to spiritually hear, but not see, and vice versa. The strategies in this flowchart use the person’s working spiritual sense to follow God in order to heal the other sense. If both seeing and hearing are blocked, then you have to resort to a cognitive healing method that does not use either sense.
If the person can see even just a little in the spiritual realm, then use a visual healing method to improve their spiritual seeing and hearing. We recommend visual healing methods when they are available over aural ones because they are generally faster—we can see and process more things simultaneously by sight than we can do so with our hearing, both in the spiritual and physical realms. However, if the person cannot see, then check if they can hear from God. If so, you may use an aural healing method to heal their spiritual sight instead.
Auralization
Sometimes, you still may be able to use a visual healing method for a person who is visually blocked through a process called “auralization”, the hearing version of visualization. The following table compares the two mediums:
| Medium | To imagine is to | I can imagine his |
|---|---|---|
| Video | Visualize | Face by visualizing it |
| Audio | Auralize | Voice by auralizing it |
People auralize a visual healing method by asking questions of Jesus instead of looking directly. The following table pairs a visualization question that you ask the person with the aural equivalent that the person asks Jesus themselves:
| Visualization | Auralization |
|---|---|
| You ask the person: | Person asks Jesus: |
| “Can you see Jesus?” | “Jesus, are you there?” |
| “What is Jesus doing?” | “Jesus, what are you doing?” |
| Works if the person can see | Works if the person can hear |
The visualization questions requires the person to spiritually see for themselves to answer your question, something they cannot do if their seeing is blocked. The person gets around that problem by asking Jesus to spiritually see for them and tell them the answer.
If the person is unsure of their auralized answer, you still might be able to salvage a visual healing method by spiritually looking yourself and then having the person verify what you see through a series of yes / no questions. For example, if you are using the Whiteboard visual healing method, instead of asking the person, “What is left on your whiteboard?” when they cannot see it, take a look at their whiteboard and then have the person ask, “Jesus, is there a book left on my whiteboard?” The person then only has to hear a “yes / no” answer for the whiteboard to work.
When the Person Cannot Spiritually Hear or See
Sometimes the person is totally blocked and cannot spiritually hear or see. You are then left with cognitive healing methods to deal with the known sins in the person’s life. Cognitive methods rely on what the person can remember and bring to mind about issues of sin without being led by the Spirit. You may lead the process through the Story Method, a list of directed questions, or a tool like a checklist of sins.
Healing enough of those injuries will eventually enable the person to recover some of their spiritual hearing, but they typically would be unsure whether they are hearing from God. As they get more practice in hearing God and can better recognize His voice, then you can switch to an aural healing method to be led by the Spirit. He knows all things including the unknown issues in the person’s life that are blocking their spiritual senses. Healing those injuries will eventually recover the person’s spiritual sight, then you’ll have access to the full range of visual, aural, and cognitive tools to allow Jesus to consecrate the person and completely deliver them of their sins.
Take-aways
Deal with attacks before injuries
The first step in any healing strategy is to stabilize the person. Neutralize spiritual attacks before going after their stories of sin.
Keep going with what you have
You have to heal multiple injuries to the spiritual senses to restore them. Use the tools you have to diagnose and heal what you can.
Work towards accessing more tools
Use cognitive methods to restore hearing. Use aural methods to restore seeing. Use visual methods to deepen healing.
Auralize visual tools
Access visual tools before the person can see by auralizing them—ask Jesus what He sees if the person cannot spiritually see themselves.
Further Reading
Hurting Too Much to Hear God is a case study of these principles in action where a totally blocked person was able to recover her spiritual hearing and seeing. The Story Method is an example of a cognitive healing method to use when nothing else works, while the Whiteboard Method is an example of a visual healing method that can be auralized. What Are the Spiritual Senses and How Can I See God are the theological foundations for this article, while Who Is Involved in Healing and How Do I Know I’m Hearing From God explain your role in helping people to recover their spiritual senses.