Thanks for the quotes, that's very helpful.

I note that you say “Jesus referred...” and “Paul also referred...”. I would prefer to say that the author of John's gospel and the author of Acts (Luke?) have Jesus and Paul saying... I wasn't surprised that your Jesus quotes all come from John. We are once again faced by the ongoing synoptic problem – why are Jesus's statements in John so different from the other three gospels? How do we know they are genuine? Are they merely the views of the author put into the mouth of Jesus?

Are there any equivalent statements in Mark, Matthew, and Luke?

There is a problem with Acts, as I have discussed before, although I'm sure you disagree, that Paul swears an oath in Galatians that some of the contents of Acts are a lie. The book is often perceived by neutral scholars to be a piece of early Christian propaganda. So I wouldn't necessarily accept any words that are put into Paul's mouth there.

Regarding 'spirit', unfortunately in English the word has many different meanings. It may mean the ghost of a deceased human, it may mean any non-physical entity, and more besides. Yet it also figures in the term Holy Spirit. This, as far as I'm aware, is a cosmic, divine force/energy, way above and nothing to do with the spirits you describe which can deceive. These would obviously be lower-order malicious beings.

I hadn't yet seen your replies – Medium's notification system is not perfect. I'll have a look at those.