having a chinese background, it has been incorporated in our culture to believe in wicked spirits and that sort of stuff..i was wondering if any here could enlighten me with some of their knowledge with regard this subject..my mom's core reason of believing that the jws are the true religion is because of the fact that she found peace and she said that 'wicked spirits' stopped attacking her when she became a jw..(she said that sometimes she felt that wicked spirits want to rape her or something while she was sleeping/dreaming?)i sometimes think that this is pure imagination but who am i to judge it is her experience anyways..some say that this may be a medical problem but do any of you believe that this might be true? do wicked spirits/demons really want to 'disturb' us humans? or are there people more prone to these kinds of experiences like based on their sun signs (i remember one saying that pisceans are more in touch with these spirits and stuff)
lucid dream, wicked spirits, demons questions!!
by gotcha 27 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
Mazza
Gotcha, this is a fascinating question. Firstly I have to say that I don't know the answer to it. However, I watched a series by the BBC about the brain a few months ago and it certainly seems that some people are prone to these kinds of experiences. In fact, scientists have been able to produce these reactions in people by stimulating certain parts of the brain with electrical pulses.
You would have beens seriously rivited to this program - I so wish I could remember more to tell you. I will ask David as he saw the program too and we both realised that there are often very rational explanations for what some people claim to be supernatural events.I feel we are only just beginning to unlock the secrets about the brain and how it works. I believe your mother very probably imagines spirit attacks. Mmmm, is she very attractive??? Hehehe - couldn't resist tha (Aussie humor)t. I have never had anything like a spirit attack, and I'm not that bloody ugly :-)))) Actually though I am prone to weird behavior in my sleep. A lot of talking and seeing things and ordering people about. Sometimes I wake up in mid performance, and feel a right idiot. My tendency to let out blood curdling screams upsets my husband a lot when I do it. I mean to say no one wants to be woken in the dead of night with a mad woman next to them screaming their head off. I could always misinterpret this stuff as being supernatural - as I have at times imagined that I've seen things and I often react as if I have. But I know with certainty that I'm asleep and my mind is doing all this stuff (especially when there's a full mood) HOWL!!!!. Hey's it's Halloween tomorrow? What a good sense of timing you have!!
Another aspect of this is: If the demon stuff (according to the wTS) is true, how come the rest of it is such crap? The WTS is basically wrong in just about most of what they do and say, so I tend to think that there has to be a better explanation about the demon stuff for your mom - though I realise that getting her to believe that is another matter entirely.
good luck hehehe!!
Marilyn (who has often pondered the same question - based on what others claim to experience) -
Prisca
Gotcha,
I thought you might find some of the info regarding "demon attacks" when asleep interesting:
. http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=13519&site=3
-
Sirona
Hi
Theres no doubt that this medical condition exists. However, I do believe in the existance of spirits.
As a JW, I felt the presence of spirits just as much as I do now. As a Jw, it used to terrify me because I'd been taught that they are ALL demons. I used to lie in bed and pray because I could feel the entity in the room. Nowadays I think that there are some negative entities, but they are not all negative.
Often, it is all in the mind. If you are fearful you can attract such an experience. If you truly *believe* that saying Jehovah will work, it will! There are many christians who say that using Jesus name works too. Muslims use Allah. Faith is powerful...what we believe in our hearts often affects our reality.
I suppose I sound like Im contradicting myself here...that its in the mind, but they do exist. What I really mean is that I think most so called demon attacks are just imagination (or the medical condition we talked about), but some experiences are verified to be a spirit of some kind. If more than one person experiences it, this adds to the validity, but we cant rule out group hallucination or group hypnosis. People can hypnotise themselves without realising it.
About your mum, gotcha, I think that if she was a born again christian and truly believed Jesus would protect her, she would be similarly protected. Jws imagine they are the only ones who are protected, and have a "we are being attacked" mentality. They tell unfounded stories of their divine protection.
Sirona
-
Abaddon
"some experiences are verified to be a spirit of some kind"
Sorry, you are entitled to believe what you wish, but a statement like THAT is so unscientific as to bely belief.
How do you verify that an experience involved a spirit of some kind?
What proof, other than anecdotal subjective testimony, can possibly be given?
Where is verification or repeatability?
You can believe some experiences involve spirits, fine. I'm not going to mess with your personal reality. But to claim it is verifiable is to claim it is objectively true, which it isn't.
Keep on rocking in the free world...
-
Liberated
Soooo, they call it "sleep paralysis" and others have had it happen
to them. I just know it's scary and frustrating and I've had it
happen before I was a jw and while I was one. (hasn't happened since
I left though, but then it was never a regular thing, and I haven't
been out but a year)Something on my back, like sitting on my shoulders, felt like a hand
grabbed the back of my head, hard. Trying to scream and can't, trying
to move and can't. The first experience was something grabbing and shaking me. I've also had what seemed like a wolf walk across the bed, just once, stiff-legged.I always called them demon attacks. My mom said it was a bad dream
and not to tell my dad 'cause it would spook him (guess he believed
in demons). The sleep paralysis (not being able to move or scream)
has happened to my daughters too. My sister had something choking her
and pulled her hair. But she lived in a haunted house at the time.Libby
-
Seeker
In addition, Carl Sagan's book, The Demon-Haunted World covers this exact sleep situation in great detail. It is clear that such experiences are in the mind, and are shaped by the individual's beliefs. It is a fascinating book, and very liberating for someone who is coming from a background of belief in demons. I've slept soundly ever since.
-
gotcha
thanks mazza, prisca, sirona and abaddon for the input.....i know that most of you might claim the medical aspect of it but i tend to agree with sirona...well it is not only in her sleep that she says she's bothered with this, at times i think it's her being too paranoid but then again how can i truly say that if i haven't experienced what she's gone through...and coming from an asian background i think that culture adds up more to that kind of experience...
i'm not really sure whether people in us, uk, aus which most here come from realize how scary the alleged 'demonic creatures' are here...it doesnt even come close to what you perceive to be evil coz it's more freaky (ex: a girl splitting in two leaving half of the body on a place while flying to some other place to look for a pregnant woman and the tongue will be soooo elongated to penetrate through the roof to eat the fetus) you might say im crazy but there have been some i've talked with who experienced this in the provinces...
to add to that there's this chinese belief that when u add up the birthdate and the time of birth you will get a number and that number will sort of tell if you're a person who can more 'readily' see spirits or that kind of stuff and my mom falls under one of those who can see..you guys might be quite confused but it's really weird here how the culture mixes up with religion...though my mom is a devout jw she tends to agree with the chinese beliefs because it almost always turns out to be credible....but then again maybe what you perceive to be real becomes real..
she also says that watching too much horror films before caused her to have some idea of the looks of those 'wicked spirits' which is sometimes the subject of her dreams! she always dreams of running around with these freaky creatures wanting to kill her and of course blurting out God's name stops it...
-
gotcha
thanks seeker and liberated...i'll try to get hold of the book you're recommending but maybe i'll be the one spooked after!!!
i think that it's the chinese background that's the cause of it all...once we went to singapore and went to this wax museum and my mom and my grandma felt soo freaky afterwards..they claimed that those wax people have some spirits live in them which followed us to the hotel....this for you would be unbelievable but the fact that both my mom and my grandma told each other how they felt the same seems to make it a bit credible...what do u think...? -
Mazza
Seeker, I'd like to read Carl Sagan's book about this. I'm wondering about the occult as experienced in Africa for example. I've seen good travel programs where they spend time in places that practice occult rituals and it can look very spooky. What's a trance anyway?
Gotcha I know what you are saying. Western culture has turned the occult into entertainment and has desensiticed us to quite a degree. I know that some of the ancient beliefs have much greater fear and respect for the so called "dark side". I still don't know that there is any scientific proof to be found for any of it. Asian cultures have many anciant customs but just because they go back a long time doesn't make them any more likely to be true. Look how Chinese men believe powdered rhinocerus horn enhances their sex life. It's crap of course, but like Sirona says - if they believe it then it works for them. We have to be careful of believing second hand information. Unless you've seen someone's body split in two etc, then you should train your mind to be skeptical. Look how that group in the Philipines were touting a cure for cancer by inserting their hands into the flesh of the patient and extracting the tumor. It was all proved to be trickery. I've always been prepared to listen to people who claim superhuman feats, but I make sure I leave my BS detector running the whole time.
Good subject though.....
Marilyn