| Topic: |
Religions > Bible |
| User: |
"martus" |
| Date: |
11 Dec 2006 07:09:33 PM |
| Object: |
White magic, sugar coating the path to hell! |
This Pagan's a real witch
By LAUREN SONIS
Staff Writer
PALM COAST -- When you're driving down Interstate 95 and a dragon
appears above your windshield, you might want to keep your eye on the
road and never mind the disconcerting sight.
For Jill Pagan, that statement couldn't be more true. You see, the
41-year-old Palm Coast resident and editor at the Parkeast Literary
Agency is a witch.
No, she doesn't fly through the air on a broom. But Pagan says she
casts spells, hears the trees talk and can communicate with the dead,
though not all of her late relatives talk to her.
On the surface, Pagan looks a little witch-like with her long dark
hair, golden skin and bright green eyes. But her voice occasionally
breaks into more of a squeak than a cackle, and her magic focuses on
love and compassion, not the devil.
Sometimes the hardest part about being a witch is getting people past
the word itself.
When she was a child, the kids at school used to call Pagan a witch,
even before she called herself one. She doesn't know what started all
the taunting, but it hurt her feelings, being ostracized. So she
decided she could either take it or have some fun and chase the other
children. Overall, the name-calling helped her become more self-aware.
But there have been bumps in the road.
In third grade, Pagan tried a "neat trick" called astral projection,
where she left her body. But she said her spirit left for too long and
she wound up in the hospital, convulsing.
"I didn't know how to anchor myself," she said.
But Pagan read up, and now she pictures a golden thread as she rises,
leaving a trail to easily lead her back to her body.
Once she turned 12 or 13, Pagan came out of the broom closet, as
witches call it, and told her parents about her craft.
They accepted the news in stride. Just stay out of trouble, they told
her.
Nowadays Pagan loves to dance and go camping. She edits supernatural
manuscripts with a twist of science fiction at her mother's agency.
Three years ago, she married loan officer Randy Pagan, a Catholic whose
last name coincidentally is Pagan.
They met at work, at an investment company blocks from where the Twin
Towers once stood. Jill told him of her witchy ways on their first date
around Halloween. She was dressed, of course, as a witch.
Being married to a witch has its own challenges. Randy jokingly asks
her to please stop attracting animals to their Palm Coast home. They
live in front of a wooded lot, and snakes, owls, rodents and the like
come forth. The other day Randy spotted a squirrel chasing a rabbit.
Since they've known each other, Randy, 48, said other odd things have
happened. Sometimes he'll wake up in the middle of the night and see a
figure at the foot of his bed. But he has gotten used to it.
"There's never a dull moment," he said.
And he and their daughter, Eva Pudick, respect Jill's beliefs.
Pudick, 18, is majoring in secondary education at Florida Atlantic
University.
She's Jewish but not particularly religious. Religion wasn't something
she and her friends regularly talked about growing up, but if they
asked, she'd tell them her mother was a witch and that was that.
"I respect her and what she wants to do," Pudick said.
Jill Pagan serves as one of five board members, or elders, of The
Garden Tribe, a group of about 40 pagans hailing from Volusia, Flagler,
Duval and St. Johns counties. The tribe meets for pagan high holidays,
pizza and introspective rituals, lately focusing on giving up on ego
and realizing you are part of the divine.
Druid beliefs with borrowings from the religion of the Lakota Native
Americans make up much of Pagan's religion. But pagans in general come
from all walks of life, and witch and pagan aren't synonymous. Pagans
often share a belief in multiple gods.
The Garden Tribe meets in Pagan's backyard on Belvedere Lane, making
their way along a thorny path into a spiraling circle. There, an altar
stands in the middle, bedecked with baubles and statues. Ornaments
adorn the circle's perimeter, symbolizing the east, north, south and
west.
"The road to the divine is riddled with self," Pagan said. "The whole
idea is compassion, compassion, compassion."
________________________________________________________________________________
Reminds me of the old adage, you can attract more flies with honey then
excrement, sugar coating white magic does not change the direction of
the path, it is still rebellion against God and even those that are
practising black magic say there is no difference and it is mostly
novices with their consciences warning them where there path is heading
that practise white magic.
In the occult there is a Left Hand Path and a Right Hand Path
symbolising black and white occultic practises.
It is interesting that in Christianity there also is a left hand path
and a right hand path, the left hand path are those that attached
themselves to the powers of the demonic and are represented by the
goats. Who represents the two paths of the occult but the goat god
Baphomet and the two paths in the occult in truth are only the one
path and will find themselves on the Left Hand of Jesus.
The right hand path in the occult leads to the left hand path of the
occult when the novices no longer listen to their consciences which are
telling them where they are heading. What is the point of gaining
riches only to find oneself in hell.
Matthew 25
The Sheep and the Goats
31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with
him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations
will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from
another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put
the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are
blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for
you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me
something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I
was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you
clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you
came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you
hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When
did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and
clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit
you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for
one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are
cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and
you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite
me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in
prison and you did not look after me.'
44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty
or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help
you?'
45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for
one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to
eternal life."
End times:
http://mart1963.tripod.com/docs/16-SATAN.html
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| User: "martus" |
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| Title: Witchcraft(devil playing) sends you nuts! |
16 Dec 2006 02:39:03 AM |
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The Dark Backward: Demons in the Real World
by Tom Hoopes
"The lunatic is on the grass. The lunatic is on the grass."
It was an hour before midnight. Ten-year-old James was in his bedroom,
alone, when he was suddenly gripped by terror. A Pink Floyd song rang
out through the empty room. The radio turned on by itself.
"The lunatic is on the grass. The lunatic is in the hall."
James lay paralyzed, locked in that helpless state that is itself as
terrifying as whatever causes it. He wanted to move or cry out but
couldn't. So he just listened.
"The lunatic is in my head. There's someone in my head, but it's
not me."
This was James's first direct experience with evil, but it wouldn't
be his last. "That would become something that would be common," he
remembers. "I'd have a feeling of something scary being present.
Then something weird would happen."
First the presence, then the strange thing. It would recur that way
throughout his life.
This is the first phase of demonic activity, the devil's first
tentative steps into a life. For all the victims of demonic activity I
spoke with, this sort of thing is common. And like James, they all
wished to remain anonymous.
One victim felt the evil presence as a physical weight; another saw a
grotesque person. One saw nothing-literally-in one part of a room,
"like a pitch-black sheet had been pulled down."
Another victim-a well-known Catholic leader respected for his
pragmatism-said, "My most frequent encounters involve black shadows
and figures that I see out of the corner of my eye.... I'll see
something in my peripheral vision. It's almost always in motion. When
I turn my head, the figure will melt quickly into a fluid-like shadow
and then flow away through the edges of the room or along the ceiling.
I see these things frequently, almost every day." His encounters are
cinematically frightening, involving infestations of crows, carpets of
spiders, cats gathering to stare at him from his front porch, objects
flying through rooms in his house, and inhuman figures standing in
darkened hallways.
The evil presence manifests itself through senses other than sight, as
well. "I occasionally hear things, voices sounding far away and
choppy," one victim said. "I sometimes get overwhelmed with a
sulfury smell," described another.
A friend of one of the victims listed these manifestations: "He'd
get an oppressive feeling. Sometimes he'd see a grotesque, impish
figure, a short, really nasty-looking demon. When he described it to
Rome's exorcist, Father Gabriel Amorth, he said, 'Oh, that guy.'
Other times, he'd just hear screaming. Deafening noise. I don't
know what you'd want to call it. The wailing of the damned."
But there was one phenomenon that all the victims have experienced:
"I could feel something there, looking at me."
James felt that presence again on a visit home from college. He was
awakened at 1:30 a.m. with the feeling that someone was approaching the
front door. He went downstairs, and soon one of his sisters walked in,
drunk. He talked to her in the living room, warning her about drinking
too much.
That's when the presence came. Then the strange thing.
The phone rang, and he picked it up. A female voice said, "Don't
even try to talk to her. Just leave her alone."
He hung up and talked to his sister anyway. But, before long, the
presence returned.
"I knew the phone was going to ring," he said. He reached for it.
"Then it rang."
It was the same voice, but distorted, "like she had marbles in her
mouth." Emphatically, the voice commanded, "I told you not to talk
to her!"
He cut his lecture short.
James's parents consulted the Jesuit Rev. John Hardon about his case.
"He told me that there are three orders of reality," said James,
whose family confirms the account (Father Hardon died three years ago).
"There is the divine existence. Just below that is the preternatural
world, the world of spirits, angels good or bad. Then there's the
natural world, where we live. But human beings also participate in the
preternatural."
Father Hardon told him that some people are more attuned to the
preternatural world. "They kind of sense things better," James
said. "Things like what I just explained to you."
Things like demons.
He Wants to Be With You Forever
When I agreed to do a story about demonic activity, possession, and
exorcism for Crisis, I thought it would be fun-a spooky thrill. I'd
write the article, warn about being too preoccupied with the subject
matter, and be done. Instead, I got sleepless nights, horrifying
conversations with those who have been involved in exorcisms, and a new
point of view on the demonic world.
Skeptics have fought a losing battle against belief in the devil for
years. "What are the Church's greatest needs at the present
time?" Pope Paul VI asked in November 1972. "Don't be surprised
at Our answer and don't write it off as simplistic or even
superstitious: One of the Church's greatest needs is to be defended
against the evil we call the Devil."
There's an age-old battle between philosophers and poets about the
nature of evil. The pope sided with the poets. "Evil is not merely an
absence of something but an active force, a living, spiritual being
that is perverted and that perverts others. It is a terrible reality,
mysterious and frightening."
The Vatican has issued updated norms of exorcism as recently as 1999.
Demons are an inescapable part of the Old Testament. They are named
there: Lucifer in Isaiah, Asmodeus in Tobit, Satan in Job. And the New
Testament can almost sound like the story of Christ the Exorcist, come
to earth to end the reign of that strongman, Beelzebub. In St. John's
words, "The reason the son of man appeared was to destroy the works
of the devil."
Some manner of belief in demons is part of every religion in every age,
and the diabolical world haunts moderns with no religion, too. Most
horror movies work by suggesting that there's another layer to the
world-one we don't often see-that is filled with darkness.
Puncture it a little, and chaos pours out.
Some of the stories I'll tell involve contorted bodies, glowing eyes,
levitation, and other Hollywood aspects of demonic activity. But I
decided to focus on James's story, which is terrifying in a more
typical way. It's filled with ambiguity, punctuated occasionally by
bursts of darkness. And it has left him spiritually weary. Because the
truth is, the victims of demonic activity don't live in carnival
haunted houses. They exist at the edges of a malaise. They're anxious
or depressed, disoriented in their spiritual lives or slowly losing
their minds-always wondering if the thoughts filling their heads are
really their own.
"I don't experience them as clever 'fallen' angels," said one
of the victims I spoke with. "I'm not sure I sense a great deal of
intelligence there, at all. It's like they're working on some kind
of animal instinct."
Catholic writer Mark Shea has pointed out that the devil, in rejecting
the ultimate good that is God, rejected secondary goods, like
intelligence, as well. But that doesn't mean he isn't clever-the
late exorcist Malachi Martin once said that the one thing an exorcist
must never do is try to reason with the devil. But as a
conversationalist, he's probably not like the demons in the Screwtape
Letters. He's more like the captured alien in Independence Day: a
highly developed insect who answers the president's careful
negotiations by saying, simply, "Die."
So why dwell on the diabolical world at all?
Paul VI explained, "This matter of the Devil and of the influence he
can exert on individuals as well as on communities, entire societies or
events, is a very important chapter of Catholic doctrine which should
be studied again, although it is given little attention today."
In three different ways, I found that to be true.
First, the stories I collected add up to a giant neon sign saying
"Stay away from witchcraft" and other occult practices. When I
asked exorcists if witchcraft is a gateway to more serious demonic
activity, they were incredulous. Gateway? It's directly dealing with
the demonic! Nearly everyone they treat has been exposed in some way to
Ouija boards, spells, hexes, "white magic," or tarot cards-the
stuff your local chain bookstore fills its shelves with because it
sells so well.
Second, even if you're never tempted by witchcraft, recalling the
nature of the demonic world can be a moral "Scared Straight"
lesson. Try this: The next time you face a temptation, remind yourself
that you're cooperating with the malevolent will of a highly
developed insect that hates you yet wants to be with you forever.
You'll find your old reliable sins lose a little of their allure.
And third, I found that these aren't simply horror stories. Horror
stories work by attacking hope. But we aren't helpless when we face
the devil. "The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite," says
the Catechism of the Catholic Church. "He is only a creature,
powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature."
Modern-day saints like Blessed Mother Teresa fought the devil and won.
The devil tried to possess Mother Teresa when she was sick in the
hospital, Father Amorth told the National Catholic Register. An Indian
exorcist kept him at bay.
We can take comfort in the fact that God never allows more for a soul
than it can handle and that it's only after we invite demons in that
they cause us serious problems.
Or when we leave ourselves wide open to them by spending time with
witches, like James did.
Because if the first phase of demonic activity-the presence of
evil-comes at the devil's initiative, the second phase comes at our
own.
There are two common ways the devil enters a person, one exorcist told
me. "The basic one is through sin. The person turns away from God and
commits sin frequently. The devil finds a willing victim. He finds a
friend. Conversely, there's the person who is good, and the devil
goes after him. The devil tries to wear the person down."
'He's Ready to Meet You Now'
"This is not a pleasant story," James began.
He was 20, at home near St. Louis on winter break from college, when he
had a frustrating experience at a meeting of a Catholic community (in
charity, we'll keep its name out of it; it's not a well-known
group). He felt out of place and unfulfilled at the meeting, so he left
early to go to his friend Vanessa Jabali's house and take her out to
a movie. But when James arrived, he found her mother had other plans.
James had known Vanessa since the fifth grade. The Jabalis were an
all-female household-Mrs. Jabali and three daughters-who seemed
wealthy even though the father was absent. If you asked their religion,
the Jabalis would tell you that they study their ancestry and then
would refer to the "Yahwist" accounts in the Old Testament, the
stories of animal sacrifice and scapegoats.
Mrs. Jabali told James to wait while she made cookies. Vanessa's
sister, Isabel, joined them. "She spent 20 minutes preparing them,
but they were not warm," James said. He ate them, though no one else
did.
"She started talking to me about Moses and how he was a woman, and
how Moses had horns like in the sculpture, and all kinds of really
weird stuff," James said. At one point, Mrs. Jabali put both of her
hands in front of her face, palms out, not touching, and said, "All
of the sudden you open your eyes and you see what's going on." She
waved them apart.
"I was sort of entranced," James said. To this day he doesn't
know if the cookies were drugged. "She keeps talking this stuff, and
I'm getting confused and disoriented."
Vanessa planned to drive James to the movie. But they did not go to the
movie.
"We went to a house," James said. As he sat in the strange building
with Vanessa, he felt a strong presence of evil. Soon Mrs. Jabali and
Isabel arrived, and James was in the same company he had been in
before, only ten miles away, in an unfamiliar house.
Mrs. Jabali turned to James and said, "He's ready to meet you
downstairs if you want."
She didn't explain who "he" was. James tried to pray, but
couldn't. His mind was distracted. But he said there was no way he
was going downstairs.
They sat longer, making small talk. Mrs. Jabali looked at ease. But she
would occasionally repeat her invitation, more insistently.
"He's ready to meet you downstairs if you want, James."
"Finally, after about five more invitations to go downstairs and meet
'him,' we left that place and went to a movie," James said. But
he doesn't remember the movie at all... except for one part, "where
they cut a goat's neck and started dancing around it."
At the end, he stumbled into the car. "Did you like the part about
the goat?" asked Vanessa, laughing. Then she said, "We're going
back to that house."
That was too much for James. "I had an inspiration to order her, not
ask her, but tell her, 'Vanessa, take me home.'"
"No," she said.
"Vanessa, take me home," James repeated.
Vanessa turned to her sister and, as if James wasn't even there,
asked, "Well, what do I do now?"
"You have to do whatever he says," Isabel said.
"Well, what do you do when this happens with Joel?" Vanessa asked,
refer-ring to her sister's husband.
"I just beat him with a bat," Isabel said. They sounded utterly
serious, as if they were trying to scare James.
Vanessa took him home. But the strangest part of the night was still
ahead for James.
'Forget God'
As soon as James got home, he decided he would drive back to the
religious community where he had started out, on the other side of St.
Louis. "It was late at night," his sister, Caroline, told me. "He
said goodbye, and it was the sort of goodbye that seemed to mean,
'Goodbye forever.'"
James was barely in a condition to drive. "I don't know if I was
drugged or cursed," he said. "Cars were whizzing by me. I was just
trying to drive straight. By the time I got there, I was really
scared."
He woke the priest and laypeople who lived at the community and told
them, "I think God wants me to live here." The priest explained
that people don't receive vocations out of fear and left to get some
clothes for James to change into: He had wet his pants.
James sat staring at a crucifix on the wall, getting more and more
agitated. Finally, he shouted, "Forget God!," and ran out into the
hall. He pushed past three men and headed toward the chapel.
There, several men of the religious house witnessed James stand on a
pew and do a back-flip. They called for others to help them. And they
called the police.
James made a dash toward the sanctuary, breaking the chapel's
Epiphany statues on the way. The men intervened.
"I went after the tabernacle," James told me. "I wanted inside
it. I just wanted to get to Jesus in the Eucharist."
He never did. Six men held him down. He broke free from them. They held
him again. Soon, a police van arrived. James was put in a straitjacket
and thrown into the darkness of the vehicle.
"In the paddy wagon, I was certain I had died and gone to hell. That
was the deepest, worst psychological thing I'd ever experienced. It
was so heinous and evil," he said.
"But I could still hope. And I could pray." His Catholic education
told him that would be impossible if he were really in hell.
The next thing he remembers is the psychiatric ward, sitting in front
of a blue light. "They put some drug in me and said I'd be asleep
within ten seconds. I spent that night in a rubber room. I didn't
sleep at all." Usually in such a case, a patient will spend months in
the hospital. But a Catholic doctor interviewed him and gave him a
clean bill of mental health-a diagnosis that Father Hardon would soon
affirm. James was in the hospital for only a week.
Possession
I shared these and other details of James's case with Rev. Herman
Jayachandra.
Father Jayachandra, 59, is pastor of St. Martin de Porres parish in
Boulder, Colorado. A priest and exorcist from India, Father Jayachandra
is quick to point out that he is not the official exorcist of the
Archdiocese of Denver, but that he only helps victims of diabolic
activity with the knowledge of the archdiocese or at its request. The
archdiocese vouched for him as a priest in good standing.
Diabolic activity generally falls into one of four categories, he told
me. The mildest forms are infestation (as in haunted houses) and
obsession (when a person is harassed by the devil either by intense
temptations or in a particular area of a person's life).
Oppression-an external attack by evil spirits on a person-is worse.
"The spirit could cause discouragement or weariness," said Father
Jayachandra, "or it can put up external shows to frighten the person,
such as shaking a person's bed during his sleep at night."
The rarest and most serious form is possession. "Partial possession
means in a certain part of the body," he said. "Full possession
means the devil takes control over the consciousness of the person. It
uses the mouth of the person to speak. It uses the hands and legs of
the person to do violence. It uses the mouth of the person to abuse and
blaspheme."
There are three kinds of exorcisms. First, there's the liturgical
exorcism that is incorporated in every baptismal ceremony. Second,
there is so-called private exorcism, or simple exorcism. It can be
performed by any of the faithful and can be as simple as the words,
"Be gone, Satan."
The third kind of exorcism is the solemn, "public," or formal
exorcism. This ritual is only carried out with the specific
authorization of a bishop. It's a serious matter, but it's a
sacramental, not a sacrament. That means its effect is not infallible,
and it may have to be repeated more than once.
One internationally known exorcist spoke with me but asked that his
name not be used. His is a scary line of work. He told me he does a lot
of research before suggesting a formal exorcism. "If the
psychiatrists and the medical doctor have all said the same thing and
given the person a clean bill of health," the priest said, "I will
do what's called a provocation. I'll provoke the devil into
manifesting himself, if he's there."
He has a few chosen methods of provocation.
"Most commonly, I'll put the Blessed Sacrament in a pix," he
said. "When I go into the room to see the person, unbeknownst to
them, I will carry the Blessed Sacrament. If the person is possessed,
they know right away that I have it. They'll say, 'No, no! Go away!
I can't go near you! He won't let me! He won't let me!' Or,
with a prayer, we'll sprinkle holy water. The person will react and
say, 'Stop that! Stop that! It burns! It burns! Don't do that!
Don't do that!'"
James was never possessed. After all, he went toward the tabernacle,
not away from it. He was probably oppressed by a demon, Father
Jayachandra said, and it was likely caused by witchcraft. James's
case reminded him of one exorcism he performed on an intermittently
possessed person. "It became very violent at a certain point. The
possessed person jumped into the sanctuary and pushed down the statue
of the Blessed Mother," he said. "I ended up putting iron grills
around all the other statues."
James was exorcised, too. Many years after the incident with the
Jabalis, and after other episodes, James's brother brought him to a
priest who performed a simple exorcism on him. Without ever mentioning
the devil, or using the word "exorcism," the priest asked James
questions, gave him some tests, and then, almost as if it were an
afterthought, said some prayers over him, including prayers in Latin.
Father Amorth pointed out that since an exorcist doesn't want to
encourage dark thoughts in a subject, he'll often perform his work in
an almost casual way that won't alarm the victim.
I also talked to Andrew Walther, who has brought two different people
for treatment to Father Amorth, author of An Exorcist Tells His Story.
He told me about one of them, whom we'll call Leonard. Father Amorth
thought Leonard's case was brought on by a witch's hex, too.
Walther knew Leonard as one of the many college students abroad that he
was working with. But Leonard started reporting strange incidents.
"He told me he was having a nightmare, and when he awoke he was
completely unable to move, because there was a demon sitting on top of
him, with glowing eyes."
Leonard prayed, and the demon went away. But eventually, it returned.
Leonard called it "an aggressive, depressing presence."
Walther brought him to Father Amorth, and with Walther present, the
exorcist performed a solemn exorcism.
"Father Amorth removed a bottle of holy water, a St. Benedict cross,
a vessel of oil, and a stole from his briefcase, then, touching Leonard
with the stole, he began to pray in Latin."
The prayers included the litany of the saints. At one point, the
exorcist demanded that the demon reveal itself. The rite lasted about
ten minutes, and Leonard felt greatly relieved afterwards.
"Father Amorth told Leonard he wasn't possessed, but that he might
be afflicted by a weak hex and that he should come back the next
month," Walther said. "He wanted to know if there was witchcraft in
the family. He said not to be distracted by the devil's harassment,
but to pray before the Holy Eucharist-especially if he could find it
exposed-to pray the rosary, and to go to Mass and confession
often."
According to exorcists, possession often happens through some form of
witchcraft.
In India, Father Jayachandra said, "I had many cases of witches
casting spells and hexes over people. People became obsessed, and some
became possessed."
He was eager to point out that witches have no real power over the
devil, though.
"The devil, after using a witch to the best interest of both,
eventually will kill her indirectly," he said, driving her mad so
she'll die quickly in an accident or slowly from not being able to
care for herself.
Rev. Charles Carpenter, 58, a priest in Alamos, Mexico, told me he used
to be very skeptical about claims of demonic activity. But 25 years in
Mexico changed his mind.
"People frequently consult what are called 'adivinos,' and
'brujos.' At first, I gave very little credence to the power of
these persons," he said. "But then, over the years, I saw the
effects in certain persons who consulted them."
'Am I Crazy?'
Shaking beds, shrieks from the underworld, glowing eyes. Exorcists have
seen it all. But they haven't seen it often.
Usually, they encounter patients like James. Harassment and oppression
are the most common form of demonic activity and, in a way, the most
frightening. The devil doesn't enter at some definitive point in time
and then make a clean departure.
He hangs around, untiringly, for months-or years.
After James's back-flip incident, his sister, Caroline, was working
as a dispatcher for a security company, sitting up late by a phone that
never rang...except when James was talking to her on one line. Then,
she got interrupted frequently by calls on the security line, strange
calls-adults laughing like children, nonsense words in weird voices,
or ominous noises that are hard to describe.
Father Jayachandra told me of victims he treated who answered the
telephone to hear, "I am with you." Or, in a deep, odd voice:
"I'm going to help you."
"Perhaps the devil uses a human person under its control" to make
the calls, he said.
Demons hound the victim, never letting him rest. Never letting him
forget.
James (and a witness I spoke with) described how, months after his
incident, a grotesque person, a homeless woman with blank eyes,
approached him.
"I have a message for you," she said ominously, then relieved
herself, making a puddle under her dress.
James took it as his tormenter reminding him of what he did that
horrifying night.
James's life is filled with such stories. They are frightening but
nonetheless leave a doubt: They could be explained without any
reference to the demonic world. Is he hexed, or is he paranoid? Is he
being harassed by demons, or is he losing his mind?
He's not sure. That's the kind of triumph the devil usually claims:
not destruction, but the misery of self-doubt.
Mental illness is not diabolical activity. Yet there is a relationship
between the two, Father Jayachandra said.
An Exorcism in India
The following is a transcript account of an exorcism Rev. Herman
Jayachandra performed on a twelve-year-old girl at Our Lady of Mount
Carmel in Kolvel, India, in 1984.
There were about seven men and women assisting me. We all fasted for a
day and a half. We wanted to fast for two full days, but we couldn't
do that kind of severe fast.
We all went to confession to another priest. One day before the
exorcism we spent time before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer: one hour
in the morning, more than two hours in the evening. We got ready with
crucifix, rosary, Bible, and the relic of St. Anthony.
I said Mass before the exorcism with my helpers present. I put on a
surplice and a purple stole. The evil presence in the room was
oppressive. I stood in front of the possessed and asked the helpers to
tie down her legs and hands. Then I invoked protection on the possessed
and my assistants, making the sign of the cross and sprinkling Holy
Water. Then we knelt down and recited the Litany of the Saints.
Many prayers followed that. Then I summoned the spirits to come out. I
asked the names of the Evil Spirits. They said their names were Kali,
MallankarunKali, and Patrakali. I asked why they came to her. They said
they were sent by a magician to disturb her and possess her so that the
girl would never get married. They were sent by the enemies of this
family. At a certain point the girl levitated toward the statue of the
Blessed Mother. We pushed her down. Eight people could not match the
strength these three demons had.
Then we had many Scripture readings and sang powerful songs of praise
and worship. Then we laid hands on the possessed. Once, it got hold of
the crucifix, using the girl, and was about to break it into pieces.
One of the rules of exorcism is to take care that no holy article is
desecrated by the devil. I commanded in Jesus' name to give it back
to me. It gave it back. There followed the Profession of Faith, then
prayers enjoining and commanding the evil spirits, then reading some
psalms, prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, then rosaries and then
singing.
We repeated the same process twice a month. Then the spirits got
weakened gradually. Even then it took six months for all three to
leave. They shouted and yelled before they left. They hopped in front
of the tabernacle and made promises they wouldn't come back again in
front of the tabernacle. All three demons did the same thing. You
remember Our Lord said this kind of spirit will not go without great
fasting and prayer. This was the same type.
"Smaller psychological problems, if not taken care of, can cause
mental illness," he said. "But in my experience, demons could
aggravate somebody's psychological problems to cause mental
illness." And vice versa. "Mental illness, in my experience, leaves
someone more likely to be oppressed, though not necessarily
possessed."
Each of the victims I spoke with said the same thing: "I thought I
was crazy." And in each of the cases-I admit-I wondered the same
thing, too.
All the same, one exorcist told me, "I've never found a person who
needed an exorcism in a psychiatric hospital."
James's sister Caroline wanted to be sure I pointed out that most
people who know James see nothing at all wrong with him. But James
suffers greatly, she told me. "There are times when he's very angry
at God for letting this sort of thing happen to him," she said.
"He's wanted to be a priest but figures there's no way."
James's case shows the devil's true nature. The devil is an
oppressive, energy-draining weight on the spirits of those afflicted by
him. He isn't into artful repartee, he doesn't play the fiddle, and
he can't make you a rock star. He won't keep his promises. And he
hates you beyond imagination.
How to defend against him? "Grace is the decisive defense," Paul VI
said.
Perhaps the best approach is the one James's brother Glen takes. He
allowed James to take shelter one night at his house. All the doors
were locked, then appeared to unlock on their own. Didn't that scare
you?, I asked him.
"I never had any fear," Glen told me. "I know that, basically, as
long as you're in a state of grace, God's going to give you
anything you need to get by."
_______________________________________________________________________
"The devil, after using a witch to the best interest of both,
eventually will kill her indirectly," he said, driving her mad so
she'll die quickly in an accident or slowly from not being able to
care for herself.
Saw a woman like this, she obviously use to tell peoples future for a
living but now she was homeless and could not stop from telling people
their future. She walked around and pointed her crooked finger at
people and then told them their future and with the other hand she was
dragging her suitcase around.
End times:
http://mart1963.tripod.com/docs/16-SATAN.html
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