Grave sucking is a Christian necromantic trend coming out of some of the more hyper-spiritual Charismatic and Pentecostal churches. Grave sucking (also known as grave soaking or mantle grabbing) is when a person goes to the resting place of a dead revivalist, faith healer, apostle or prophet and begins to pray or call up the spiritual anointing of the dead so that they may be filled with the same power.
Even with all the contradictions and strange miraculous stories in the Bible I don’t know where this fringe-ritual within Charismatic culture gets this idea. The only story in the scripture I can think of is when a dead guy was thrown into Elisha’s tomb and he was immediately resurrected (2 Kings 13:21). But that had nothing to do with an anointing or prophetic call being passed on. I assume this ritual comes from this story mixed with other stories and scriptures about one character in the Bible anointing another with their spiritual gift or prophetic promise (2 Kings 2:9-10) (Numbers 11:24) (Acts 8:17). And New Mystic evangelists like John Crowder and New Apostolic revivalists like Todd Bentley have been open about their grave sucking experiences, thus influencing the more hyper-spiritual Christians looking to have supernatural experiences.
One of my friends I use to do street ministry with told me about his grave sucking experience. He and a few others from his Vineyard church drove to Fort Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California where Aimee Semple McPherson is buried and “soaked” over her grave and felt the anointed power go through his body.
Below is a video example of grave sucking by members of the Bethel Church in Redding, California
The Absence of Christ 
What! This is weiirrrd…
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It’s nothing more that witchcraft at its best. We go to the giver of life to get life not the grave. Mantels are given through the one that paid the price to give all. Elijah was FULL of the life of God. It settled in the marrow of his physical bones and was released when the dead touched life. We can’t get God’s ” stuff” his power, his mantle or anything else unless we pay the price. Going to the cross is one – salvation is free but power and authority with God comes from going THROUGH THE CROSS. There is a difference. If God is not our sources it’s soulish or demonic. People need to get a grip!
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How fascinating…I’ve never heard of “grave sucking” before. As a (former) devout catholic I was busy focusing on other asinine supernatural things, like the intervention of the saints, demons/exorcism, eating the body and blood of christ, etc. Your blog is a quite an education on the more charismatic sects. It’s all so crazy I can scarce understand how I bought into it on any level…but I most certainly did, for over four decades. Egads.
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Another weird thing is, somehow mainstream churches condemn this practice but then when bethel does it it’s ok for some reason? Consistency,…not a really a christian trait I guess…
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I would be surprised if other Churches thought that it was anything other heretical or downright demonic. They would be very unlikely to endorse it.
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Well I’ve met some people/organisations…they actually gave it a pass just because it’s bethel…now ok maybe I did put it a little out of proportion. But it does exist. Having a name carries just as much power it does in the church world as it does in the rest of the world.
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I am flummoxed.
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Benny Hinn has admitted he has does this periodically at the grave of Kathryn Kuhlman.
Whatever this is, it is not Christianity. In the past Christian authorities would likely have been getting the bonfire built to deal with folk who acted in this way.
I suppose these folk could not criticize the catholic practice of praying to saints, which so frowned upon in Protestant circles.
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Let’s make the distinction between necromancy and wasted effort: both apply to grave sucking and the latter applies to praying to (Catholic) saints…I say that as one born & raised a Catholic but have been a believer in Jesus as the Way, Truth & Life (The Gospel, just to clarify). “Witchcraft is as rebellion” and we are also told to be “wise as serpents, gentle as doves”. So, as true followers, let’s rebuke anything to do with graves, other than the fact that Jesus conquered death and left his grave, resurrected, glorified thereby offering true eternal life through his sacrifice; no works-based futility such as that of Catholicism. The more one learns of these bizarre and occultic practices in the Body of Christ (as in the church, believers, so there’s no room for misunderstanding), the more alarmed we should be: Where is the discernment on the part of Bethel Church and worse yet, why do they promulgate such aberrations & heresy, that can lead to more chaos and embarrassment, for the church. No wonder so many non-believers, think Christians in general, are nutty!
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In regard to the graves they visited. Smith Wrigglesworth is a real hero in Pentecostal circles in my native Australia. Almost a cult figure. I have Wrigglesworth’s complete works which includes his account where he claims to have raised someone from the dead (restored the life to someone who had died).
Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones suggested that Evan Roberts went off the rails a bit near the end. He apparently decided he could only do what ‘the spirit’ told him. This lead him to become almost paralyzed into inaction. He would go to a church where he was scheduled to speak but would only speak, if moved by the Spirit. He would have come come to see him, but would only meet the, if moved by the Spirit. In Dr Lloyd-Jones’ opinion he had taken things too far.
I was interested in the concept in the video of releasing the anointing. I went along to an Eddie Coe ministry teaching session (a sort of poor man’s Smith Wrigglesworth). He was telling us to do things like release our anointing on people in supermarkets and the like. Seems more like hocus pocus than Christianity. But when one is in the maelstrom it is often hard to look at matters objectively. In retrospect things look differently.
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I read a biography of Smith Wrigglesworth when I was in high school or college. It left me utterly confused. The circles I ran in had no miracles. And here was this guy who seemed to be swimming in miracles. Rather than make me doubt the biography, it made me doubt the depth of my devotion. “If only I were closer to God, then I’d be seeing and doing these things!”
What is your take on these claims about his life? Are people lying? Truthful but deluded?
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I had a similar experience when I read some Colin Urquhart books in my early 20’s. It seemed was operating in a type of Christianity I never knew.
But my view of Colin Urquhart diminished in the last few years after I read a book where at the end he mentioned a web site that he was setting up. He then went onto say that because this was ordained by the Holy Spirit it would last unlike other sites that were not spiritually anointed. I was reading the book about a decade after it was released so eagerly went on the web to access the site only to find it no longer existed. This really through me, because I thought he was as close to God as anyone and the fact this bold claim had been false really shook me. It caused me to question everything else he had written that I had previously take as ‘gospel’.
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Charles as an aside back in 2010 I was having a debate with someone regarding whether spiritual gifts were for today. I thought God settled the matter for me as follows, with an extract from a note I wrote at the time:
Fair to say my view has changed since then.
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It is so harmful for those who experience something to then generalize and say everyone should. God eager to answer? Does not match my experience at all.
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Charles, sometimes Christians suggest that those who walk away from the Christian faith have rejected God. But I would counter that. Based on the testimony of most de-converts I would conclude that if God did actually exist then it would seem that it God who has rejected them, not they who have rejected God.
That of itself provides part of my ‘proof’ that God does not exist.
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Calvinists would say it’s God who has rejected us, right?
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I suspect Calvinists would say we were not part of the elect. But it is hard to reconcile that with the idea of a loving God.
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That is so weird, I really don’t understand how even a fundamentalist Christian could believe that. So they think that the corpse of a person, their physical body, has some sort of power they can harness or tap into (through 6 feet of earth)? Because I thought the whole thing was their body is just a wasting shell and their real essence was the soul which then should be in heaven, where’s the spiritual stuff left over? Or do they think the grave, the physical place, has some sort of spiritual power? Because that also seems kinda pagan or something. If they can get power from the dead why is it necessary to go to their grave? I knew Christianity was a death cult, but that’s way more far out there than anything I dealt with in the church. Maybe they haven’t really thought it through and are just convinced because some leader told them they “felt” something. Even the almost deification of dead church leaders seems a little at odds with mainstream Protestantism to me. Maybe they’re going full circle back towards the way the old Catholic church treated this stuff? Very Dark Ages, disturbing on several levels.
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This goes to show how stupid people really are and how gullible and quick to follow a false teaching church, which is 90% of the churches out there, totally clueless to the real Yeshua.
Here is a couple question to ask yourself and to know if your church is clueless.
1.) Do you believe that Yeshua (that is Jesus’ real name by the way) Died on a Friday and was raised 3 days and 3 nights later on a Sunday? Try counting those days. (spoiler, he was crucified on a Wednesday)
2.) Do you believe that Yeshua ate the actual Passover meal with his disciples?
If this is what you and your church is teaching then you do not have the real Christ, you have been punked and don’t even know it.
If you want proof then just email me and I will send you a wonderful document for only $500, I’m just kidding, I don’t want anything, ever, just to spread the truth, because it will MAKE you free.
Put something like Passover Truth in the subject line so I can pick out your email from the spam I get on a daily basis, here is my email, take out the # signs and spaces. #luminaapv3# #@gmail#.com
and yes I know it is a weird email address, it was actually named after one of my vans I had.
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