Demons / Urban Legends! Which Is It????

by Big Jim 55 Replies latest jw friends

reagan_oconnor

When I was about 14, recently baptized and a new auxillary pioneer, I went out in service with a few girls from my hall. One of the women with us was a demon freak... she was "sensitive" to things "posessed by the demons." She'd had a pillow that "talked" to her son, telling him to commit suicide, and she attempted to burn it, but "it wouldn't burn." (All of this is in quotes b/c I don't know for sure if it happened, b/c I wasn't there. I called her Sister Exorcist behind her back.)
Anyway, we stopped at one of the girls' houses to use the bathroom (her mom is a pioneer, her dad an elder). Jes had recently started associating again; she'd been hanging around a girl who whose family were JWs, but the girl started getting into witchcraft, drugs, etc. We'd been talking in the cargroup about experiences that Sister Exorcist had had "getting rid of the demons." She told how she's walked into people's houses, holding her Bible, saying prayers out loud... oh yeah. She was a peach to take on return visits.
We were standing in Jes' bedroom and I started hyperventilating. Freaking out, crying, screaming... I had a panic attack. Well, Sister Exorcist starts walking around her room, throwing things away, praying out loud... it was a scene.
Jes found some of her friend's withcraft magazines and marijuana stuffed behind her waterbed. Which validated this whole thing in Sister Exorcist's eyes.
I don't know what it was, but part of me thinks that I just got scared from all the "demon talk." After all, I was only 14. I do believe that the demons can affect people; I just don't know why they'd want to waste their time on me.
"I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul."
Free2Bme

Dunno about demons but my friend used to live in a house with weird stuff going on. Toys moved by themselves round the kid's room and my friend was held down on her bed by a force that violated her (she was frightened to death!)
I used to stay over once a week and woke up in the middle of the night to see a cloudy figure stooping over me.
I can't explain any of it but it sure is scary when it happens!
Free
Skeptic

doubtingsister,
Your experiences seem to be because of a sleep state. Some people will see/hear/feel weird things when they are going to sleep or waking up. When the brain is in a state between sleeping and waking, you can see and hear things.
In Canada, we have "The Hag of Newfoundland". In a sleep state, a person "wakes" to find an old hag sitting on his chest, choking him. Others see or hear aliens, demons, etc.
These experiences are completely real to the person who gets them. They will swear the experience is real.
It seems to happen most often when someone is sleeping on their back. No one knows why. The best "solution" is to sleep on your side, i.e., do not sleep on your back.
The next best solution is to know that the experiences are not real, though they are often very frightening and seem so real. There is also nothing wrong with a person who has these experiences. This is a perfectly normal brain function, and more people have it than you think.
Apparently, the choking sensation, or the feeling that someone is pressing on their chest is also related to the muscle paralysis we have during sleep (this keeps us from falling out of bed). When a person is in this sleep state between sleeping and waking, the muscles may be in their semi-paralysed state.
Hope this provides some comfort.
Skeptic magazine and Skeptical Inquirer magazine often have articles on this.
Richard
vsecret939

Ok, alot of people keep talking about being alseep and dreams.
That's ok for a lot of occurences, but what about the incidents
that happen when more than one person are involved. As with my incident that I posted earlier, both me and my husband saw what happened. Now, did we both have the exact same dream at the exact same time. I don't think so, and if we did, that would be freaky enough on it's own. I just don't feel that to blanket dreams as the cause of all these incidents is right. I don't know if it is demons, but there has got to be another explanation.
victoria's secret
patio34

Liberty,
I had the same thought recently about no mention of demon possession or rarely a mention of demons in the OT and then in the NT, it is VERY common. I had a thread back in March called "Demons and Possession--a new teaching?" that had some very good points.
My theory is (and I don't care enough to prove it) is that this was the influence of the Persians and Romans, etc. and that was a very prevalent view back then, demons ruling the "air" and possessing everyone. It clearly doesn't follow the OT, as I don't think there is one mention of a demon possession or exorcism.
Patio
d0rkyd00d

very interesting topic guys! I love this kind of stuff, though it scares me to death. anywho, i don't have any scary stories for ya.
=( However, i seriously doubt the entire demon excuse for it. Why would demons waste their time in trying to make you believe in ghosts, or scaring you into praying to Jehovah? As for the waking dreams bit, i've become very interested in them since i love alien stuff, and each case seems pretty closely related to waking dreams. it's amazing what ur brain can do...the power of belief is an amazing thing. There are many things on this earth we don't understand, and that scares us. what we don't understand scares us beyond belief. my question to ghosts: why don't they appear in wide open places in broad daylight? are they afraid of the light? are they afraid of places people aren't scared of? such as busy parks and such? just a thought. one question i'd like to ask is, what about witchcraft? does anybody here practice it, and if so, does it work at all?
"No cool quote yet. but i'll think of one soon."
TR

I've never experience demon/ghost 1. Never experienced anything that I could remotely say might be paranormal in nature. Satan must already own me.
TR
"cults suck"
SlayerLayer

LOL...TR...he does.
Sorry guys, the whole "night time" only theory doesn't fly with me. If you read my earlier post, you read many things that happened in broad daylight right in front of my entire family.
I don't believe that ghosts are going to just walk around town popping in and out of shopping centers yelling "BOO!". I do believe that they get attached to places or things and hang around them in a state of confusion. Who really knows though. Just my theory. But I do know what happened to me was real.
"Forget the tribe, my pants have spoken."
teejay

I just read this thread and thought I'd add my thoughts. I have always
wanted to experience two things -- a tornado and a demonic experience.
Okay, so I was a stoopid kid.
When I was about 19, late one night my younger sister woke up my mom
and I with screams of "Help, get it off me" and similar expressions. I was
the first to get to her room, flipped on her light and saw that my sister's eyes
were shut tight. She was holding her arm as far away from her as she could.
She was having a nightmare.
It wasn't long before I convinced her to open her eyes and look for herself to
see that there was nothing there. It took some doing, but she did. Eventually
she calmed back down, returned to sleep, and the house settled back down
to the normal stillness of the night. That's the closest I've ever come to 'demons.'
I have serious doubts that they exist, and if my own experiences (or lack of
them) are any basis for definitive conclusions, then I'd have to say they
don't. Many of the so-called demonic incidents that I've heard my whole
life (including many here) I can explain as dreams, dream-like states,
chemical reactions in the brain, and other explainable physiological effects.
There are exceptions.
Like slayer's. Man, I don't know what happened to you, but stories
like yours are compelling... makes me wanna say "hmmmm." Scott Peck
in People of the Lie tells of two separate exorcisms in which he claims
to have seen manifestations of the Prince of Darkness himself, but i don't
believe in him, either. Of these more credible stories I have to say "I don't
know", but I'm comfortable saying that. Since I also tend not to believe in
any sort of afterlife, finding a logical explanation for these events isn't easy.
I believe that there are things that are beyond our explanation at this
point in time.
Like a streak of light I saw not long ago when the news people were out
reporting on some event. Two different cameras in different parts of the city
happened to capture this streak of light that moved impossibly fast. Based on
the amount of airspace it covered and the amount of time, I'd guess that it
traveled about five miles in about two seconds. One of the newsmen blurted
out, "what the heck was that?" when he saw it for the first time and was
caught off guard by the sight. What was it? I don't know.
Questions like that, and "Are there demons?" I file away in a little box in
my mind. Maybe one day I'll find an answer.
todd
p.s. I haven't lived through a tornado, either, but not long ago I came
close to realizing what was once a lifelong dream. It was the first time
IN MY LIFE that I actually got scared by the weather -- not easy for this
43-year-old man to admit. I have a daughter now, and standing between
her and an F5 whirlwind made me feel very, very small. If all that was to
save her was me, then I figured that her chances for continued life were
not good. I've decided that seeing one on TV is close enough for me.
rem

Slayer,
Is it possible someone was playing a prank on you? Maybe your sibling? Not sure how he/she could pull that off, but I know me and my brother and sister would do things like that to spook each other out. During storms, me and my brother would take a camera and flash it in the window to make my mom think it was lightening. It used to freak her out - it was fun. She always wondered why there was no thunder, though.
Maybe after all these years someone will fess up? Just a thought. I think there has to be a more prosaic explanation than spirit creatures. I remember my brother and I used to spook ourselves out and we almost knew we could see little men walking in our hallway. They looked like shadows on the wall. I know now (and even then) that we were just scaring each other and they really weren't there, but it did seem real at the time. I think my brother might still believe it really happened. Brains are really funny.
rem

Demons / Urban Legends! Which Is It????

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