When People Convulse During Prayer—Is It God, the Devil, or Are They Faking?

The shaking is real. The question is what's moving underneath it.

You’ve seen the videos…

A person drops to the floor. Their body starts to shake. Sometimes it’s an adult. Sometimes—it’s even a child. Someone stands over them, praying, commanding, and the whole room swells with the drama of it all.

And you’re left staring at your screen with a knot in your stomach, asking the question nobody wants to say out loud:

What am I actually looking at?

Is this God? Is it fake? Is it something else entirely?

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The Question Nobody Wants to Explore

Right now, most people are picking a team.

One crowd defends every second of it as the undeniable power of God. Another crowd mocks all of it as manipulation and theater.

Pick a side, share the clip, move on.

I don’t want to do that. Because I think both teams are skipping the harder, more honest question: what are we actually looking at?

So let’s slow down and think—not to tear anyone down, not to defend anyone either, but to see clearly. So you’re neither deceived nor cynical.

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You Won’t Find Convulsions in the Bible—Right?

Actually, you will.

Here’s the first thing the skeptics have to reckon with:

The violent, physical reaction is right there in Scripture.

When the spirit saw Jesus, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. —Mark 9:20

That’s not a modern ministry inventing drama.

That’s Mark, describing a boy who convulsed and foamed the moment he came near Jesus. And in Mark 1, the man in the synagogue—the unclean spirit cries out and convulses him as it comes out.

The unclean spirit, throwing him into convulsions and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. —Mark 1:26

So we can’t just wave the physical stuff away as fake.

The Bible shows us bodies reacting during genuine spiritual conflict. Now—in both these cases, it’s a demon reacting as Jesus confronts and casts it out, and we’ll come back to what that does and doesn’t tell us.

But the point stands: the physical reaction itself is real. That happened.

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The Body Does What the Body Does. We Need to See What’s Happening Underneath It.

But here’s the part the other side needs to hear—the ones ready to call every fall a move of God.

Several different processes can make a body shake, stiffen, or collapse. Functional seizures, panic, hyperventilation, and vasovagal fainting are all real conditions that can produce involuntary physical reactions. The point isn't that every shaking person is experiencing one of these. The point is simply that outward manifestations alone cannot tell you what's happening underneath.

And here's how these things spread through a room. It's like yawning.

You see one person yawn and you feel it pull at you, even when you’re not tired. In some settings, fainting and shaking can spread through a crowd by expectation, suggestion, and social contagion—almost like a yawn passing through a room.

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It Happens at Concerts, Too

And if you think this is uniquely spiritual—it isn’t. Not even close!

There’s a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most respected medical journals in the world, about mass fainting at rock concerts. Doctors interviewed dozens of teenage girls who collapsed at a show and classified the faints as hyperventilation and panic. The journal itself noted this has been a recognized phenomenon since the time of Elvis Presley and the Beatles.

Think of Beatlemania. Thousands of teenage girls fainting, weeping, hyperventilating, crying so hard they made themselves sick—purely from the emotional and physical intensity of being in that room. No altar. No laying on of hands. Just overwhelming emotion doing to a body what overwhelming emotion does.

You see the same thing in packed schools.

In 2011, at a high school in Le Roy, New York, students began twitching and convulsing with symptoms that looked neurological—and doctors ruled out toxins, drugs, and infection. It spread student to student, with no physical cause anyone could find.

You see it in the dancing manias of medieval Europe—in Strasbourg in 1518, hundreds of people danced in the streets for weeks, some until they collapsed, and no one could say why.

You see it in trance states across cultures that have never opened a Bible.

The falling, shaking body is a human phenomenon before it’s ever a Christian one. Which means the shaking itself proves almost nothing about its cause—not automatically God, and not automatically fraud.

You have to look deeper than the trembling.

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My Uncle, and the Man Who Told Me to Fall

Let me tell you two things I’ve seen with my own eyes.

My uncle is deaf. Years ago, he went to a large healing event, where the minister moved down a row of people, laying his hand on each one.

One by one, they began falling backwards, and it was coming closer and closer to him.

When the minister finally laid a hand on his head, my uncle—who felt absolutely nothing—fell backwards anyway. Out of embarrassment. Out of the sheer pressure of the pattern coming down the line.

Is he still deaf? Yes. He is.

Years later, when I first started walking with the Lord, a friend invited me to a Holy Spirit conference—apostolic, charismatic, powerful worship.

They came through the crowd laying hands on people, and all around me, people were falling. And I remembered my uncle. And I made up my mind: I was not going to fake anything. When a man laid his hand on me, I stood there. He prayed again, pressed a little harder on my head, and said, “Fall.” I think he was getting frustrated. I didn’t fall. Eventually he moved on.

I don’t want anything fake about my relationship with the Lord. Not one thing.

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But That Same Day, Something Else Happened. Something Real.

Here’s what makes it complicated—in the best way.

That same day, I sat down at a prophetic ministry, where strangers pray for you and tell you if they sense anything from God. I had nothing on me that gave away my life or my interests.

And a woman I had never met prayed over me and said I had “come out from amongst them”—that I’d come out of a family of unbelievers. Which was true. And then she said something I’ve never forgotten. That God would do something, and that He would use me as part of it, with one word at the center: media.

At the time, I couldn’t understand what she was talking about. I had no plans for it, no reason to expect it. But in the years that followed, my whole life quietly bent toward proclaiming the Good News through media—and I’m still living inside that word today. Even these very words you’re reading are part of it. She couldn’t have known any of that. But God did.

Same building. Same day.

One man trying to force a manifestation that wasn’t real—and one stranger speaking something so real it took ten years to fully bloom.

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The Backache at the Intersection

One more. I was walking with a young man who told me he had a gift of healing. And honestly? In my head I thought, this guy is full of himself.

So I challenged him. I’d had a backache for about six months. “Pray for me,” I said.

He stopped me right there on a busy street corner. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad is the pain?” A nine, I told him. He prayed. “How about now?” And genuinely—it had dropped to about a six. He looked at me, completely sure of himself: “Let’s pray again.” He prayed. “Now?” A four.

Maybe it was the placebo effect. I honestly don’t know. But a few weeks later, the pain that had been there for six months was completely gone.

And here’s what I’ve come to believe: if the prayer led to a placebo, I’ll take the placebo and the prayer. If the prayer led to some natural, biological calming of my body—then thank God for the prayer that led there. God made the body. He made the mechanism. So if prayer is what pulled that mechanism into motion, I’m not going to call it less than God just because I can name the biology.

It’s God using the very wiring He installed.

Stop worshiping the explanation.

Look at the fruit—and look at the tree producing it.

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The Light Bulb Over My Bed

Which brings me to the reason I took a healing prayer course in the first place.

My wife had suffered from severe allergies for twelve years. Twelve years of flare-ups. Twelve years of nights she couldn’t sleep. And I wanted to be equipped to pray for her.

But here’s what happened first.

A couple of weeks into the course, I was lying on my bed one night, and I looked up—and noticed the light bulb above me had burned out. And I realized I had no idea how long it had been dark. It had completely skipped my eyes. And instead of looking outward to fix it, for some reason I looked inward, and asked a question I’d been avoiding: Is there something broken in me? Something burned out I’ve walked past a thousand times? Something I’ve been hiding from?

No convulsing. No foaming. No crowd. The quietest moment of my life.

Just the light of God, gently turning inward, healing something in me first.

And then, out of that healed place, I prayed for my wife.

Friends, within a few days, she realized the flare-ups had stopped. It has held for three months now—no flare-ups. And the nights she couldn’t sleep? She sleeps like a baby.

Twelve years of suffering. Changed with a prayer.

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I Get the Cynicism

Now, a lot of us have our arms crossed on this whole subject—and for good reason.

The televangelists. The private jets. The white suits. The “sow your seed” for a miracle while the money piles up and sick people go home still sick. My own uncle paid hundreds of dollars into one of those nights and drove home exactly as deaf as he came.

There’s an old joke. A man goes up on stage to a healing televangelist, who asks, “What can I pray for?”

“My hearing,” the man says.

The televangelist grabs his head, shouts, prays loud and hard for five whole minutes, a crowd pressing in around them.

Finally he leans in: “How’s your hearing?”

And the man says, “I don’t know. It’s next Wednesday.”

Laugh—it's okay! And the cynicism it comes from is fair. The abuse is real. The showmen are real. The greed is real.

But don’t let the counterfeit make you throw away the real thing. A fake twenty-dollar bill doesn’t prove real money doesn’t exist. It proves the real thing is valuable enough to be worth faking.

The counterfeit points to an original.

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So, Back to the Convulsions

So let me come all the way back to those videos. The shaking. The falling. The bodies on the floor.

Do I believe some of those convulsions lead to true, lasting healing?

Yes. I do.

I've seen people genuinely set free—the fruit undeniable on the far side of it. From despair toward joy. From chronic anger toward growing peace and self-control.

And do I believe some are just the body’s physical reaction—expectation, emotion, adrenaline—with nothing behind them?

Yes. That too.

I’ve seen the empty version, the manifestation with nothing underneath it. My own uncle stood up from one, still deaf.

And here’s the part we don’t like to say out loud: in some settings—especially where Christ is nowhere in the room—that same convulsion may not be a spirit leaving at all. It may be part of a spiritually dangerous experience rather than genuine deliverance, leaving a person no freer than before, or worse.

Same outer reaction. Three completely different things underneath: genuine deliverance, an involuntary physical response, or a spiritually unhealthy experience.

Think of a lemon. Squeeze it over a beautiful salad and it brings the whole dish to life.

Squeeze it onto dry pavement and nothing happens—it evaporates in minutes.

Or squeeze it into your little sister’s eyes, and you get crying, shouting, chaos through the whole house. Same fruit. Same juice. Three completely different outcomes.

The convulsion is the squeezed lemon. By itself, it doesn’t tell you what is happening underneath. It is only the outward expression; everything depends on whose hand is holding it, and what’s actually moving through it.

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So How Do You Tell?

Let’s be honest.

The Bible does show that violent physical reactions can accompany genuine spiritual conflict—the boy in Mark 9 convulsing and foaming, the man in Mark 1 crying out as the spirit came out.

But in both cases, it happens as the spirit is confronted and cast out by the authority of Jesus. The outward reaction alone can’t tell you its source. It only tells you something is happening. Not what.

So how do you tell? Not by the intensity of the reaction, but by what follows.

You look at the fruit.

But fruit isn't the only test. Scripture also tells us to test the spirits (1 John 4:1), examine what is being taught (Acts 17:11), and ask whether Christ—not the experience—is being exalted (John 16:14). A powerful moment is never enough by itself. Truth matters. Character matters. Christ being exalted matters.

When God truly moves, what follows is life: love, joy, peace, freedom that lasts—the lemon over the salad, every guest at the table glad they came.

When it’s counterfeit or empty, you get chaos or nothing at all—sting and noise, a household in an uproar, and when it’s over nobody’s actually been fed. Or, like juice on hot pavement, it evaporates the moment the excitement is gone.

You don’t judge the healing by how loud the squeezing was. You judge it by what ends up on the table.

And here’s the catch: you often can’t see that while you’re still in the room.

Real fruit ripens slowly.

I didn’t know my wife was healed the night I prayed—I knew a few days later, when the flare-ups had simply stopped, and I’m surer now, three months on. So don’t rush the verdict. And don’t let one letdown slam the door on all of it, either.

One unanswered prayer doesn't prove God never heals, just as one testimony of healing doesn't prove every claimed miracle is genuine. Neither experience defines our theology. Scripture does.

So stop staring at the convulsion as if it’s the verdict. Look underneath.

Look at the fruit. Look at what’s still standing months later.

Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. — 1 Thessalonians 5:19–21

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What Do You Actually Do?

You’re in that room, bodies dropping, and someone lays a hand on you: “Just let go.” What do you actually do?

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Don’t perform.
You never have to manufacture a reaction to prove God showed up. If something real comes, don’t fight it. If nothing comes, don’t fake it. I stood in that room as a young man and refused to fall—I didn’t want anything counterfeit with God. It didn’t offend Him. He met me anyway, that same day. He’s after your heart, not your choreography.

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Don’t be afraid of it, either.
If something rises up—warmth, tears, a trembling you didn’t plan—don’t slam the lid on it out of embarrassment. Test it by its fruit, not by how it looks. God moves quietly in some, dramatically in others. Don’t despise either one.

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Keep your eyes on Jesus, not the manifestation.
Watch where the spotlight points. If the glory keeps landing on the person up front—if it looks like the power flows from them, if the room is built around their name, their touch, or their gift—be careful. Jesus said we recognize false prophets by their fruit. So don't just examine the person on the floor. Examine the person leading the room. Are they humble? Do they preach Christ? Do they submit to Scripture? Is there repentance? Or is the ministry built around personality, power, and money? The healing was never theirs to give. Ask yourself: is this pointing me to Jesus, or to the person with the microphone?

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Take it home and watch it.
Don’t reach your verdict with the music swelling and the crowd leaning in. Go home. Wait. See what’s still standing in a week, a month, three months. Real fruit survives the car ride home.

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And if it’s someone you love on that floor—stay.
Lead with compassion, not ridicule. Don’t rush to slap a label on it. Love them through it, watch for the fruit together, help them look back later with honest eyes. That’s what Jesus did—He drew near first.

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The Only Question Left Is Yours

Are you open to God’s healing power—however it comes?

Someone will always criticize the way your healing arrived. Too loud. Too quiet. Too strange. Too ordinary. The critics don’t even agree with each other—one calls it fake, the next dangerous, the next not spiritual enough.

But God is vast. He heals through the storm and the silence, the doctor and the deliverance, the public trembling and the private tears on your pillow. His mercy has more doors than we have objections—and not one needs a critic’s permission to open.

And listen to this. If healing doesn’t come in the way or timing you asked, it doesn’t mean you lacked faith, refused God, or failed to receive. Some of the most faithful people I know are still waiting.

God’s timing is not a verdict on your heart.

And don’t let anyone tell you medicine is second-class healing. The insulin, the antidepressant, the surgeon’s steady hands, the counselor’s patient work—all of it can be the Great Physician working through physicians.

God isn't threatened by a pill bottle. Every good gift ultimately comes from Him—including the wisdom that makes medicine possible.

So don’t let embarrassment, or a sense of what’s “proper,” or anyone’s expectation of what it’s supposed to look like rob you of the thing your soul is aching for.

And when you go back to those videos of people convulsing—the ones that sent you here—take one question with you: does the spotlight land on Jesus, or on the person holding the microphone? That question will serve you better than any critic’s verdict.

Whether it comes as a quiet moment on your bed or something loud you never expected—would you just say yes?

Not to a method.

Not to a spectacle.

To Him.

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A Prayer

Oh God,

Heal me. Make me whole—body, mind, and spirit.

Heal the things I can name, the pain I’ve carried so long it feels like part of me. And heal the things I can’t even see—the broken places I’ve walked past a thousand times, the bulb burned out over my own head that I stopped noticing. Turn Your light inward. Show me what You want to touch.

I won’t tell You how to do it. If it comes quietly, I’ll receive it quietly. If it comes loud, I won’t be ashamed. If it comes through a doctor, a medicine, a friend, a prayer, or a moment alone at night—I’ll call it what it is: You. Healing me.

I’m open. I’m Yours.

Have Your way.

Amen.

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