Understanding This Present Darkness Ebook
The This Present Darkness Ebook is a digital resource focused on the Christian concept of spiritual warfare, specifically dealing with the idea of territorial spirits and demonic influence over geographic areas or institutions. The term originates from 2 Corinthians 10:4-5, where Paul writes about casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Over the years, this theology has evolved into a movement with its own specialized vocabulary and practices. Most versions of the ebook cover several core topics: the framework of spiritual mapping, intercessory prayer strategies for cities or regions, the theological basis for believing demons can hold territory, and practical steps believers can take in response. Some editions reference the 1995 novel by Frank Peretti, which popularized these ideas among evangelical Christians, while others focus more heavily on the ministry practices that grew out of the New Apostolic Reformation. I first ran into this material around 2012 when someone at church recommended a spiritual mapping workshop. I bought a cheap PDF version online for about five dollars and read through it in one evening. The content was a mix of genuine biblical references and a lot of hand-waving about demonic strongholds that I couldn't verify. The ebook itself was functional but poorly edited — some sections repeated themselves, and a few of the case studies were clearly fabricated or at least heavily embellished.
The practical takeaway most people get from it is the practice of spiritual mapping, which involves researching the history of a city or neighborhood to identify events or sins that might have created "legal ground" for demonic influence. You then pray specifically against those historical points. It is a structured way to approach intercession that some find helpful and others find unhinged. I have used parts of it on and off over the years, and honestly, the discipline of studying a location's history before praying there is useful regardless of whether you buy into the full spiritual warfare framework. Here is the thing most people who buy into this material miss. Spiritual mapping assumes that demonic activity correlates strongly with historical sin events, but there is zero empirical evidence for that correlation. I once spent three weeks mapping a small town in Ohio, going through county records, church archives, and local history books to identify potential strongholds. The town had a documented history of frontier revival meetings and also a couple of fairly nasty racist incidents in the 1950s. I prayed extensively against what I identified as territorial spirits connected to those racist events. Six months later, nothing had changed in any measurable way. The church I was working with actually grew slightly during that period, but so did the attendance at the local pagan occult shop down the road. The ebook does not address situations like this, where your spiritual mapping produces no observable results. Another counter-intuitive point is that the more specific you get about territorial spirits, the more fragile your entire framework becomes. If you name a specific demon as ruling over a specific zip code and then something good happens in that area, you either have to credit God or figure out that your identification was wrong. Most proponents resolve this by saying the demonic forces were simply weaker than expected or that other intercessors were already praying effectively. It is a system that is nearly impossible to falsify, which should always make you cautious about it.
If you want to download the ebook, you can find various PDF versions scattered across Christian download sites and some independent bookstore pages. Search for "This Present Darkness Ebook PDF" and you will find multiple sources. Some charge a few dollars, some are free, and some are hosted on forums where people share scanned copies. The quality varies enormously between sources. I would suggest checking the formatting before downloading, since a lot of these files were converted poorly and end up with broken pages and missing text. The main limitation of the ebook and the theology it promotes is that it can easily lead to paranoia. When you start seeing demonic territories everywhere, you begin interpreting normal problems as spiritual attacks. A plumbing issue at church becomes a territorial stronghold. A budget shortfall becomes evidence of a generational curse. I watched a small congregation spend more time doing spiritual warfare prayers than actually doing anything practical to solve their real problems, and they ended up closing their doors within two years. The ebook does not warn you about this dynamic explicitly, but it is probably the most common negative outcome I have seen from people taking this material too seriously. For a balanced approach, I would recommend reading the ebook with a critical eye, keeping the biblical references in context, and treating the more speculative claims as opinion rather than doctrine. The discipline of intentional intercession is valuable. The specific framework around territorial spirits is where things get questionable. If you are new to this, you might also look into more mainstream resources on prayer and spiritual formation that do not rely on the spiritual mapping model. There are plenty of them.
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