Maintaining Control While Ministering Deliverance
The next two lessons are a short guideline on ministering deliverance.
There is a more exhaustive teaching on at: Ministering Deliverance
YOU ARE IN CONTROL, NOT THE DEMON
First, when you minister deliverance, you do not want to let the demon be in control of the ministry time. You are the one with authority, so you need to be the one who is in control. This means that you do not want to allow the demon to manifest and put on a lengthy "show." Some of the more typical manifestations include things like wandering aimlessly around the room, vomiting, attempted violence or violent gestures, slithering, etc. We don't have to allow the demon to do those things and we don't have to allow the demon to make the person sick either.
It is true that at times the demons Jesus cast out threw the person down to the ground -- a physical manifestation, as the demon was "leaving." There are two accounts of this in Scripture. Let's look at them and see how Jesus handled the situation when the demon began to manifest.
The first is the epileptic boy that Jesus' disciples could not heal. This deliverance is recorded in two of the Gospels: Mark 9:20 and Luke 9:32. Mark records it this way: "When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth."
If you look back at verse 17, you will see that this was a common behavior for this particular demon -- it did this all of the time. This was how the demon affected the boy. And in this case, the demon began to manifest BEFORE Jesus began to cast it out. I would like to make a comment on that. It seems that some demons tend to "freak out" or begin to manifest when they get around the presence of God.
Sometimes demons will begin to manifest when there is an anointed or powerful service going on. That was the same sort of thing that was happening here. The demon did not manifest as a ploy to keep from leaving the child. It "showed itself" when it got around Jesus because it was overcome and terrified by the presence of God. This demon was not resisting deliverance, because deliverance had not started yet.
The full account of this deliverance is in Mark 9:14-27. From this account, it was clear that Jesus, not the demon, was in control through out the whole encounter. Jesus asked the father some questions about the child's problem. But as soon as a crowd began to gather, he stopped talking to the father and addressed the demon. Jesus did not allow the demon to "put on a show" for the crowd. He immediately exercised authority over the demon to command it to leave, and the demon had to leave immediately. When the demon left, the "spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out" (Verse 26).
It is true that the demon did manifest as it came out, but Jesus did not allow the manifestation to go on very long; He got the demon out very quickly. And this particular demon was one of the toughest demons to cast out of a person -- either it was very strong or it was very strongly attached to the boy. The disciples had tried to cast this demon out and were unable to do so. Even though the very powerful demon did manifest for a short time, Jesus remained clearly in control and never once allowed the demon to be in control of the situation.
There is only one other case recorded in Scripture where the demonized person manifested during deliverance. And this appears to be another case where the demon "freaked out" when it got around God's presence and began to manifest. The account is told in Luke 4:31-36.
Jesus was not looking to cast out a demon, He was preaching a sermon. One of the men in the service was demonized and it began to "freak out" when it heard Jesus preach with authority. So it began to cry out (verse 34), "Ha! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are--the Holy One of God!" The demon made a scene, interfering with Jesus' preaching. Jesus immediately shut down the manifestation and cast out the demon. He said (verse 35), "'Be quiet!' Jesus said sternly. 'Come out of him!' Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him."
In this case, Jesus immediately shut down the manifestation. The demon did throw the man down as it left but did not hurt the man in the process. That is what we call a "parting manifestation." And it is not at all uncommon for demons to do some sort of parting manifestation as they leave. I think of it as a temper tantrum at being evicted against their wishes. But they are not able to harm the person on their way out.
Jesus did a lot of deliverances when He walked the earth. And the Bible only records two times when demons manifested while He was doing a deliverance. In one of those two cases Jesus shut down the manifestation immediately. In the other case, He got the demon out quickly so that it did not have much time to "put on a show." In short, it does not look like Jesus allowed demons to manifest very much during deliverance. And we don't have to let them manifest either.
A lot of people have been taught to encourage the demon to manifest. That is a wrong teaching and a very bad idea. I have also seen a lot of deliverances where a group makes a circle to surround the person. They push the person back into the center of the circle when the person tries to wander out of it. I have also seen deliverances where the person attempts to be violent and two or more people physically restrain the person as they put up a prolonged struggle. I feel that all of these are "out of control" deliverances. We should use our authority in Christ to control the demon, we should not have to physically constrain the person.
A believer should not be ministering deliverance unless they plan to exercise the authority of Christ to force the demon to leave the person. The demon is not going to go willingly; you will drive them out because you have greater power and authority than the demon has -- the authority of Christ. And if you are going to use Christ's authority to force the demon to leave, then you should start exercising authority right from the beginning and take control. Do not give the demon any ground. As soon as it begins to manifest, command it to stop. Forbid violence and forbid making the person sick.
One time I was in Brazil and a man began to manifest a demon as I prayed for him for physical healing. The man literally grew several inches taller, got a very wild look in his eyes, made a fist and began trying to strike me with his fists. I immediately got in his face and told the demon "You will not manifest! I forbid you to do any violent behavior!" I told the demon that it had to obey me. We had a bit of a standoff for about a minute or two, where the demon was snarling and shaking the man's fist at me. It tried several times to hit me but literally behaved like something was restraining the man's arms so that he could not deliver the blows -- they all stopped when his fist got about 6 inches away from me, as if there as some invisible barrier between him and me.
I put my finger in his face, only a few inches from his nose and shook it at him, the way you rebuke a naughty child. I spoke in a very commanding tone and told the demon that it had to obey to me because I came in Christ's authority. I forbid violence and then I forbid it to make the man sick and then I forbid it to cause a spectacle. The demon totally shut down (stopped trying to manifest) within 2 or 3 minutes and assumed a sulking posture. It took about 10 or 15 minutes to get the demon out, but it did not manifest again during the deliverance.
After I was done praying, one of the other ministry team members came to me and told me that this was the same man who had raised a big scene and got physically violent the previous night, and he had to be restrained and dragged out of the meeting. The person who ministered the night before had not forbidden manifestations and as a result the demon had used very violent manifestations to keep control of the situation. But when we used the authority of Jesus to forbid these manifestations, the unwilling demon was forced to obey us. This took away his leverage and it became possible to cast him out of the person.
Let me share another story. When I was in Nigeria, I had a ministry team that prayed with me at our crusades. One of the ladies on the teams encouraged demonic manifestations and tended to draw a crowd of spectators as she ministered. But it is not clear how effective her ministry was. She prayed for a man one night and he did all sorts of very embarrassing manifestations. He came back the next night and asked me to pray for him since the original problem that he went to her for was still there. I began to pray for him and a demon began to manifest. As soon as it began to manifest, God spoke to me and said, "Do not allow the demon to embarrass this man." I immediately got in the demon's face and shut down the manifestations. His whole body would shake a lot from time to time, an evidence of an intense inner struggle. The demon tried to start up the manifestations two or three more times and each time I shut them down again. I asked the man if there was anyone who he needed to forgive because unforgiveness can give demons access to torment us. He needed to forgive his father and once we worked through that, then it was easy to get the demon out. He had many embarrassing manifestations the night before but did not get free from the demon. The next night he got free from the demon, but did not have to have all those embarrassing manifestations.
After the deliverance was complete, someone told me that this man was a president of a large import/export company in the area and that some of the people at the meeting were employees of his. No wonder God did not want me to allow the demon to embarrass him!
But the truth is that it does not matter who we are ministering to, we should never allow a demon to embarrass and humiliate the person we are ministering to. We should not allow the demon to put on a show of strong physical manifestations. God wants to set the person free, He doesn't want to allow the demon to mistreat the person in the process.
Deliverance Ministry Model
We spent the previous lesson looking at why we don't allow demons to manifest in ways that might hurt or embarrass the person we minister to. We take control early in the deliverance session and do not give the demon an opportunity to gain control of the ministry session.
Now let's talk about what a typical deliverance ministry session looks like. Here is the model I use for deliverance prayer:
- Forbid the demon to manifest or to hurt the person or make them sick.
- Get the person's attention and insure they want to be free of the demon.
- Take authority and command the demon to leave.
- If the demon doesn't leave quickly/easily, then look for "hooks" it may be holding on to and deal with them.
- Unforgiveness
- Unrepented sin
- Curses
- Vows/dedications (also dedications made by parents/relatives)
- Generational access
- Witchcraft or occult practices
- After removing hooks, then command the demon to leave.
- Keep the demon from coming back.
We already discussed the first step in the previous lesson. Now we will look at the rest of the steps.
ASSURE THEY WANT TO BE FREE OF THE DEMON
Never assume that any demonized person wants to be delivered. Many do, but this is not always the case. Some people have deliberately invited the demon in because they want something that the demon gives them. If you force the demon out, they will just invite it back again. Others don't necessarily want the demon but they don't want to give up the things that the demon holds on to in their lives. They don't want to forgive or they don't want to give up a particular sin. So they decide that they would rather keep the demon than to give up the things that empower that demon to be in their life.
Sometimes people are very "out of it" when you first start to minister to them. Rebuke the demon and shut down the manifestations. Then get the person's attention. Ask them if they want to be free from this thing. If so, get them to participate with you in the process. I like to either have the person renounce the demon or to command it to leave them. A sample repeat-after-me prayer I use is along the lines of "Spirit of _____, I renounce you and I don't want you in my life any more. I take back whatever permission I gave you to be here and I want you to leave me and never come back."
TAKE AUTHORITY AND COMMAND DEMON TO LEAVE
If the demon is a freeloader, it may leave immediately, because it knows that it has no right to be there. Sometimes when you exercise the authority of Jesus and command it to leave, that is enough. It goes. I usually start by doing that unless God gives me explicit instructions to pray another way. Often when I command a demon to leave, it will put up some token resistance and take two or three or four minutes to comply. I treat the demons about the same way you train a dog. I give the command with authority and then I am unwavering in it. I do not leave room to negotiate. I may spend three or four sentences telling it to go. If it does not comply immediately, I will often repeat the command a second time, reminding it that I come in the authority of Jesus Christ, who defeated the demon when He rose from the dead. I may remind the demon that Jesus' power is greater than his and that because I come in the name of Jesus, it must leave.
I have observed something interesting here. The more you are certain that you have authority to use Jesus' power, the more quickly the demon will obey you. You gain this assuredness through experience. The more times you cast out a demon and watch it leave, the more you become certain that they have to obey you when you command in Jesus name. And as you gain that confidence and assuredness that Jesus' authority really works and that you really are allowed to use it, the less the demons resist before leaving. When I first started doing deliverance, I had to spend 15 or 20 minutes commanding a demon to leave. It would procrastinate, hoping I would give up and let it stay since I was not all that sure of My authority in Christ. Now I have much more experience in using the authority that Jesus gave me and know it works. The demons seem to be able to tell that I know my authority, so many times they spend less time resisting me because they know I am not likely to give up and let them stay.
Sometimes we just exercise Jesus' authority and command the demon to leave and they do. But most of the time, the demon has something they are holding on to, some "legal right" they think they have to be there. And they are much more inclined to resist your command and hold on if they feel they have a legitimate right to be there. So if you command a demon to leave and it doesn't, then you need to find and remove the things it is holding onto. That brings us to our next step.
IF THE DEMON DOESN'T LEAVE QUICKLY/EASILY, THEN LOOK FOR "HOOKS" IT MAY BE HOLDING ON TO AND DEAL WITH THEM
This is basically inner-healing ministry. There are issues in the person's life that have to be faced and dealt with. You can get at most of these by talking to the person -- they usually know if they are harboring sin or unforgiveness. And they are usually aware if they participated in anything occult or made vows or dedications. So if you know the right questions to ask, you can usually find all of these roots through simple interview and do not need supernatural revelation. However, we strongly prefer it when the Lord participates actively in the deliverance session and when He gives us information and directions about how to proceed. If the Lord gives you any words of knowledge or supernatural revelation about the hold the devil has on them, address those first, before looking for any others.
The primary hooks include:
- Unforgiveness. If they are harboring unforgiveness you have to get them to release forgiveness. If they are unwilling to do so, it may be because of the depth and intensity of the hurt, so you may need to minister healing to the hurt and then revisit the forgiveness issue. If they are still unwilling to forgive, you may need to tell them that they probably won't get free of the demon if they are unwilling to forgive, because unforgiveness gives the demon a legal right to them. I usually won't continue the deliverance part if they refuse to forgive, but I will work with them to help them become willing to forgive. At times I have even led people in repeat-after-me prayers along the lines of, "Lord, I know You want me to forgive this person for what they did to me. Something inside of me is making that really hard for me to do. My mind wants to obey You but my heart is really resisting. Please come and help me so that my heart lines up with Your will. I want to become willing to forgive, so please help me get to that place."
- Unrepented sin. They have to repent and if it is a repeated sin, they also have to stop engaging in it. If they are unwilling to do this, then I am unwilling to pray deliverance for them. If I cast the demon out, it will just come back as long as that sin rules over them. Sometimes people will have a besetting sin and they want to stop but keep falling into it over and over again, feeling very repentant and sorry each time that happens. That is not the same as unrepentant sin. That may very well be a demonic oppression in their life -- a symptom of the problem instead of one of the causes of it. In those cases, I ask them to renounce the sin and to ask God to help them be set free from that sin pattern in their life. Then I use my authority in Christ to cancel the enemy's assignment to tempt and beset them in that area.
- Curses. There are three kinds of curses: self curses, spoken curses and ritual curses. We have discussed them in some detail in previous lessons. If the curse is a self-curse, the person must renounce it and break it. If the curse is a curse spoken by others, you must break the curse and have the person do two things: they need to release forgiveness on the one who cursed them, and they need to send back a blessing because the Bible commands us to bless those who curse us. If it is a ritual curse, break it and seek God's direction on anything else that He wants you to do in regard to this ritual curse.
- Vows/Dedications. Vows are where you make a decision that effects how you will live one area of your life, instead of letting God have lordship over that area. You effectively take control away from God for yourself and many times a demon comes along and takes control out of your hands. The vow is often a reaction to seeing something you dislike, such as "I'll never..." (example: "I'll never treat my kids the way my father treated me") or "I will always...," etc. Vows must be renounced and broken.
Dedications are where you are tied to some "deity" or group or organization. This includes seemingly harmless things like fraternity and club memberships that require oaths of loyalty. For instance, many fraternities require their inductees to swear an "eternal vow of loyalty" to the organization. Sometimes parents or other relatives will form a dedication on your behalf. One of the most common examples is Buddhist baby dedications, which are very common in Asian cultures. Sometimes the parents can be saved and the unsaved grandparents will still do a baby dedication without the parents' knowledge or permission -- and that can give a demon a right of access to a person.
Self-dedications must be renounced and I recommend having the person recommit themselves to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in their life (and only to Him). Also all dedications (self-dedications and those done by relatives on a person's behalf) must be broken.
- Generational access -- many families have generational spirits -- demons that have access to family members because of the sins of past generations. The demons are passed down from generation to generation. This is actually a very weak hold on the individual and can be broken easily by putting the blood of Jesus between the generational spirits and the person and canceling their assignment. I also cut off any right of access through the generations that the spirit has to the person. Typically I do each of the family lines as separate prayers -- the mother's family lines and the father's family lines.
- Witchcraft or occult practices. Typically the person has to repent for having "worshiped another god" through occult practices, then renounce the practice and break any ties or controls that it may have given the enemy in the person's life.
- Other. This list is too exhaustive. There are things like soul ties, blood oaths, embracing lies of the enemy, etc. Ask the Lord to reveal anything that needs to be dealt with and ask Him to show you how to address it.
AFTER REMOVING HOOKS, THEN COMMAND THE DEMON TO LEAVE
If all of the hooks have been removed, the demon has nothing left to hang on to, and it must leave. If you are new to deliverance ministry, the demons may test your authority and resist your command for a short period of time, sort of procrastinating to see if you really mean it and will really make them leave. Sometimes when they resist, it is helpful to worship God (maybe one worship song) and get the demonized person to worship along with you. Demon's don't like heartfelt worship.
If the demon resists leaving for more than a short time, then there is a good chance that you haven't dealt with everything that the demon was holding on to yet. In that case, you need to stop and ask God to show you what else needs to be dealt with. Deal with it and then once again command the demon to leave. [When I say a short time, that is 10 to 15 minutes for someone new to deliverance, and maybe three or vour minutes for someone highly experienced and confident in the authority God has given them.]
KEEP THE DEMON FROM COMING BACK
We know that once a demon is evicted, it will frequently try to come back to the person, who the demon considers as it's former home. Jesus told us about that in Matt 12:43-45:
43"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation."
So we want to do what we can to keep the house from being empty. In other words, we want to fill the space the demon occupied with the things of God. This involves leading unsaved people to Christ, asking the Holy Spirit to fill the space the demon vacated so it can't come back, suggesting the person engage in a lot of worship, and play worship music in the background as they do other things, etc.
Also, we should teach the person how to take authority in case the demon does try to come back. If the demon comes back, the person can use their authority in Christ to command it to leave again. Once the person becomes proactive in staying free, it is very difficult for that demon to come and reclaim that ground.
Curse Breaking
Curses are when one person speaks harm against another and a demon empowers the words to make them happen to the person. Curses range in severity from careless words spoken in anger that the enemy comes along and empowers to ritual/occult curses. There are different levels of curses and each level is progressively "harder" to break and requires us to release a greater measure of authority as we do so.
SIMPLE CURSE. This is when something hostile is spoken once (or a few times). The words themselves were intended as a put down or to make the person feel small and they can be harmful to the person's psyche on their own. But when the enemy empowers them, they become a curse. That means that the devil releases some of his resources (sort of like spiritual energy) to make something negative happen in the person's life in response to the spoken curse.
We see this sort of thing a lot in everyday life. Perhaps someone on the freeway is driving and they cut off another driver. The other driver gets mad and swears at them, wishing them harm. The nature of the angry swearing often has words or phrases in it that give the devil an excuse to empower something against the driver. So maybe the demon arranges for something negative to happen to the recipient of the curse -- The person who is cursed gets in a bad mood, or maybe they get a flat tire or someone dings their car in the parking lot, etc. Typically that type of short angry curse is not a very powerful curse, so the enemy retaliation against the person is not terribly strong.
But at times it can be strong. One time I saw a case where someone obviously cursed another driver (using exaggerated hand gestures by sticking their hand out of their window, and by honking for a prolonged time as they tailgated the car in front of them). From the expression on their face and the way their mouth was moving, I am pretty sure they were saying all sorts of curse words at the other driver. A few miles down the road, the driver they had cursed ran off the road and got into a car accident. That is sort of an extreme case, most of the time the enemy empowerment of a curse spoken in anger is not that strong.
Some curses can have an effect on a person's life and the way they think about themselves. A demon comes along and magnifies the effects of the words on the person (plays mind games with them) and can cause them to engage in self-hurting behaviors. This is a bit of an extreme example, but it illustrates the point. I heard the testimony of a high school girl who suffered from anorexia. She had always been trim and healthy. One day at school, one of her classmates called her "fat." She could not get those words out of her mind. Her mind kept replaying the sound of her classmate's voice saying "you are fat." As a result, she began to see herself as fat and she fell into anorexia. She hurt herself as a result of a curse spoken only once over her, because the enemy jumped in on top of those words and distorted her thinking with them. Most of the time the reaction to a one time spoken curse is not that strong, but it does release power to harm and you may need to deal with it by breaking the curse. In most cases, it is usually sufficient to simply speak to identify the curse and then to cancel (or break) it through the power of Jesus.
REPEATED CURSE. A repeated curse is something spoken repeatedly. This will often have strong effects on people, particularly if it is spoken by someone important in the person's life. If a parent or a bigger brother or sister repeatedly tells someone they are stupid, they probably won't live up to their full potential mentally and may start behaving as though they really were "stupid." They do that to line up with what was spoken over them. People who are told over and over "you're worthless" or "you're no good" will usually have self-worth issues in addition to any curse that may have been empowered against them.
These repeated curses can touch on other issues as well. Someone who is repeatedly cursed in their finances may have financial problems. Sometimes a pastor may get hurt or angry when one of their members leaves their church. They may tell the person something along the lines of, "you won't fit in other places like you fit in here." That can be a curse, even though it is not intended that way. It becomes a repeated curse if the pastor constantly talks about them and says that they won't fit in anywhere else. It can also become a repeated curse if the pastor constantly prays for God to bring the person back to his church and not allow them to connect to another congregation. That type of repeated curse can effect the person's ability to fit in and connect in a new church because demons are released to work against the person in accord with the curse.
When there is a repeated curse, you have to do a bit more in ministry. First, you need to get rid of hooks that allowed the curse to land. This may include some inner healing, it may include helping the person repent of sin or it may include helping them release forgiveness. Proverbs 26:2 says, "Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest." I have heard it paraphrased this way: an undeserved curse cannot hurt you. So, when a curse hurts a person on an ongoing basis, that means there is something not right in their life that is allowing the curse to effect them. So, if possible, we want to find and deal with that thing, to remove it from their life so the curse cannot effect them any more.
Second, the curse needs to be broken. You should do this for them in ministry as you pray with them. I recommend that you lead them through a repeat-after-me prayer and have them break the curse, as they need to learn how to break it. If the curse is being repeatedly spoken against them, they will need to break it repeatedly. They won't be able to run to you for ministry each time the curse is spoken, so you need to teach them how to exercise their authority in Christ to break the curse.
There is one more important factor with repeated curses. If the curse is spoken in the person's hearing often enough, they begin to believe it and to incorporate it into their thinking. After a while, they begin to speak to over themselves, or to self-curse. And if they do that, you must also deal with any self-curses the person has spoken against himself.
SELF-CURSES. Self-curses are a form of repeated curses that have a sort of interesting twist to them. The curse is not spoken against them by someone else. The person who is being cursed is the one who speaks the curse against themselves. Then the enemy comes along and empowers their words against them, making it a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.
Here are a few examples of self-curses: "I'm fat," "I'm stupid," "I'm ugly," "I wish I were dead," "I am a terrible person," "I don't deserve to be happy," etc.
Self-curses are broken like a regular curse, but in addition you need to get the person to renounce the curse and also to repent for having spoken these curses against themselves. In addition, you may need to get the person to forgive himself or you may need to help them work through some self-hate issues.
As you minister to someone who does self-cursing, be very careful that you don't do or say anything that the person might perceive as a put down. They have been putting themselves down for a long time, and if you appear to do that to them, most people will simply come into agreement with you and put themselves down even more. Don't allow that to happen, you don't want to empower the curse. Treat the person you are ministering to with dignity and respect and handle the situation in a very matter-of-fact manner. Encourage and bring out the best in them, not the worst in them.
RITUAL CURSE. Ritual curses are curses that are placed with some sort of ceremony or occult practice to bring great harm to a person or to a group. The curse is empowered through the demonic or through witchcraft. It may involve the use of fetishes (demonically empowered objects that carry a curse), which are often buried in the ground, but may also be placed above ground.
A ritual curse is the strongest form of curse, and certain types of occult and voodoo curses can actually kill people. This type of curse is so powerful because it is overtly empowered by the demonic. A lot of people find this type of curse very scary. But in truth you don't have to be afraid to break this type of curse, because you carry the authority of Jesus.
Jesus' authority and power are much greater and stronger than the devil's. However, you should not minister into this type of situation if you are not right with God and being spirit-led. If you have sin or separation from God in your life, you become vulnerable to enemy counterattack. And when you deal with occult level curses, the enemy will almost always counterattack you. That is why you must be right with God and have your spiritual armor on and be in the center of God's will before you break with ritual curses.
The actual breaking of the ritual curse is similar to how you break a repeated curse. But it is a good idea to also have intercessors praying into this. And you should also look to God for clear directions about other things that He may want you to do. For instance, He may want you to remove a fetish -- He will give supernatural revelation of where the fetish is and then you have to go get it and remove it and break it's power. Or God may have you do some other type of act to break a curse.
One time I was walking my dog in the hills by my house and I found an altar where animal blood sacrifices had been performed. The sacrifice has probably been done the night before, because the blood had not totally dried. It was sticky and smelled terrible and there were flies all over it. I went home and called an intercessor friend. We fasted and prayed for 24 hours and then came together to break the curse from the ritual sacrifice. God instructed us to do several things. One of them was to take communion near the altar. Another was to write certain scriptures on wooden stakes and drive the stakes into the ground near the four corners of the altar. God may ask you to do some unusual things to break ritual curses. So be sure to listen to God for direction and do what He tells you to do.
(An epilog to the blood sacrifice altar story. I live in the Oakland Hills where the famous firestorm was. This incident happened a few months before the firestorm. When we finished "purifying the altar" and repenting for the blood sacrifices done there, God spoke to us. He told us, "Since you have repented and cleansed this altar, I will spare this neighborhood from My judgment. If you had not done this, your neighborhood would have been destroyed by fire." We did not understand what He meant at the time. A few months later, the famous Oakland firestorm broke out and many whole neighborhoods were destroyed by the fire. It was not far from where I live. The fire headed towards our neighborhood, but when it came to the border of the neighborhood, it changed direction and moved away. Our neighborhood was not damaged in the fire at all.)
Also, there will be times when God will direct you to "do nothing" in regard to a ritual curse. There are times when God wants to break the curse on his own, just like He protected the children of Israel from the curse that Baalam was hired to put on them.
Finally, we need to be aware that curses tend to have a boomerang effect on the person who pronounces them. In other words, the person who speaks the curse will often discover that the curse comes on them as well. Because of that, we usually plead for protection for the one who spoke the curse; we ask that God will help them to repent and forgive them and release them from the power of the curse they released.
In the event of occult and satanic ritual curses, we may need to ask God to protect/spare the person's life when we break the curse. That is because occult and ritual level curses are usually empowered by a stronger, higher ranking demon. That type of demon tends to get very angry when its power to curse is broken, and they often retaliate by killing the person who evoked the ritual curse. Of course, we would much rather see the person get saved than for the demon to kill them. So we pray accordingly when we break that type of curse.