I have been following missionary activity in the 10/40 corridor for a little while now and have read and heard about miraculous events in peoples lives. I believe these reports because I know some of the people making them. The head of Gospel for Asia has spoken at my church and is well respected by his peers. He is not a "crack pot" and has no reason to not report what's going on accurately.
Also, we have had former muslims testify at church about an "inner call to Christ" before they ever met a Christian or heard The Gospel.
In the west we can't conceive of these things because we are raised to believe everything has a scientific explanation, but that doesn't make it so. All this conditioning does is make us less likely to see the miracles that occur right in front of us.
You consider black magic as miraculous?
The same is increasing in North America with the increase in immigration from Asia.
These practices open the mind and human spirit to the influence of supernatural spirits; unclean spirits; devils.
Also, there are “philosophies,” such a ZhongYong (”the doctrine of the mean”), supposedly a philosophy, which says, “Don't be too extreme or dogmatic about anything in life——just stay in the “mean” (middle), and this will promote harmonious relationships.” It actually produces an indecisiveness in life, a listlessness, an inability to carry out plans or see anything through. People who were raised on ZhongYong and try to go into business very often fail, or have corresponding mediocre success. Those that try to earn degrees have a particularly hard time. I've heard medical doctors say that these people seem to have some form of adult autism.
That all sounds psychological rather than spiritual, and to some doesn't suggest the presence of supernatural beings.
But Satan is both the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4), and the prince of this world (John 16:11). Satan works in the political sphere, especially in those who desire political power, as well as in the religious/spiritual sphere, especially in those who seek power through religion or spiritual forces.
Where some (even on this thread) will say that the spiritual things of which we speak are actually psychological, I would say, Quite to the contrary! Much of what is called psychological or psychiatric is actually rooted in the spiritual realm, and can be influenced by supernatural spirit beings.
Satan's sphere of influence in the religious realm would include: church/synagogue/mosque/temple pulpits, Sunday School lecterns, Bible/Christian/(any) religious college/seminary classrooms, denominational hierarchies, cult activities, and occult activities, voodoo, spiritism, TaiQi, QiGong, FengShui, Hinduism, Daoism, ancestor worship, saint worship, angel worship, worship of any Biblical personages departed but caricatured by religious organizations.
Satan's sphere as "god of this world" also would include college and university lecterns, or any educational authority where the precepts of God's word are questioned or criticized (e.g. the teaching of evolution, and against the truth of Creation).
Satan's sphere as "prince of this world" would include the political realm: presidents, kings, prime ministers, congresses, senates, parliaments, courts, bureaucracies, etc., etc., etc.
We have lived in mountain barangays (villages) in the Philippines where people worship unclean spirits and use witch doctors, and who are often possessed and controlled by those spirits. We have listened in the dead of night to their screams and wails. They slash themselves with knives and broken bottles, and run naked and bleeding through the jungles. And of course, most of these also go to church on Sunday and take sacraments. Satan and unclean spirits, or devils, don't care---people without the indwelling Spirit of the Living God who open up their hearts and minds to the unclean spiritual world are easy prey to devils.
If it is "psychological," or "psychiatric," then psychology and psychiatrics (if that can be a word) are a part of Satan's sphere as the "god of this world."
It is not so much that we believe in science as it is that we do not believe in miracles. The west has limited its experience of reality by setting limits on the acquisition of experience. This is, perhaps, the reason TV shows about ghosts are popular.
Ridiculous attempts to prove ghosts with scientific instruments only demonstrates the fallacy of a purely materialistic (sic scientific) pattern of thought. It is a kind of reduction ad absurdum, reducing everything to the 5 senses without the benefit of thought.
Christianity is experiencing its greatest expansion in Africa and the East where a recognition of spiritual reality has a firmer grip on consciousness. In the west we interpret this as superstitious and unenlightened. These are intellectual devices that prevent us from experiencing spiritual reality. The aegis for spiritual restrictions in the west is, of course, materialism and, in its later forms, Marxism.
The US's current daliance with so-called progressivism is but the latest manifestation of a rigid, anti-God political tyranny aimed at destroying the human soul. We are long overdue for a Great Awakening.
I have worked with a number of deaf and retarded people who, as adults, learned language for the first time and were brought into a Christian community. Again and again these people gave testimony that God was with them when no one else was, long before they learned about Him from another person.