Demon possesion, bunch of crap or?

by raven 61 Replies latest jw experiences

• 

  Island Man

  zeb: I have had demonic experiences.

  I believe you have had experiences that you erroneously interpreted as demonic.
  
• 

  LisaRose

  I do not believe in demons, I think they were invented by early man to explain things they didn't understand. I believe people who say they have seen demons are simply experiencing hallucinations brought because of being in a transitional state between sleep and wakefulness or hypnagogia.

  From Wikipedia

  Hypnagogia is the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness tosleep: the hypnagogic state of consciousness, during the onset of sleep. In contradistinction, hypnopompia denotes the onset of wakefulness. The related words from the Greek are agōgos "leading", "inducing", pompe "act of sending", and hypnos "sleep".
  Mental phenomena that occur during this "threshold consciousness" phase include lucid thought, lucid dreaming, hallucinations, and sleep paralysis.
• 

  David_Jay

  One of my best friends is a Catholic priest. He just retired a few days ago, but prior to this he worked at the diocesan pastoral center for his archdiocese. Though his work there was focused on annulments, he did discuss several times about their church's process on exorcism and demons and ghosts, etc.

  To make this short, exorcisms in the Catholic Church are rarely performed for "demon possession." They more often take place to sanctify something or someone, dedicating the person, place or thing to the service of God.

  Demon possession, according to the Church, is extremely rare. Most cases can be explained away to medical problems, pychological disorders, lucid dreaming, anxiety, even plain ole attention getting and/or lying.

  When the very rare "demon possession" case has occurred, exorcism for the person occurred only after all medical and scientific avenues have been exhausted, and do not mean that a medical or scientific explanation still doesn't exist or cannot explain the situation far better than attack by evil spirits. It can often be the last recourse in a series of last recourses.

  Those extremely rare situations, like the famous case in the 1940s of the alleged possessed Lutheran boy that inspired the film "The Exorcist," with eyewitness testimony of disinterested parties experiencing what some may call horrific paranormal experiences, are far different from the experiences described or defined in Watchtower terms. If there is something genuine to these or any other situations, it would surely be far different from what JW theology speaks of.

  In my experience there is nothing real that some people will refuse to accept as true, even in the face of evidence, and nothing so false and lacking so much evidence that others will not readily accept as true, even die for, even though there is no support for their credulity.
• 

  Anders Andersen

  On another (general topic) forum I have encountered an active JW while answering JW question in a 'less propaganda, more facts' way.

  We started a discussion, which turned into a long, ongoing (and pleasant) conversation about all kinds of topics.
  This kind person really wants so save me (his lost brother)...but of course he has trouble swaying an atheist as there is no evidence for God's existence.
  

  So he asked me if I would be willing to see some videos that prove demons exist. Because if demons, then angels and God. He was quite hesitant, fearing that I might be pulled into the dark side of demon possession by these videos, or that I would be bullied by them at least.

  I expected exorcisms, possessed people, and the like.
  What I got was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI7uHI1x09A&list=PLDECA889975B1C648
  A series of magician performing illusions, edited together with some comments to 'prove' demons did it.
  I have painstakingly researched each illusion, gave him thorough analysis how the illusions are (or could be) done, and included the links to where he could buy most of the props needed.
  
  Still he insists that some of the illusions must be done by demons.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fWVAN0Er_4 is the final one, where demons must be doing the changing, or at least slow down time(!). Unfortunately for him, there is a perfectly natural explanation.

  JW attribute all kinds of perfectly normal events to demons, and the rest to God.

  • Scary stuff = demons
  • Bad stuff = Satan
  • Nice stuff = JW
  • Good stuff = Jesus/God
    

  Something bad happens: this proves demons/Satan exist!
  Something good happens: this proves God exist!
  

  
  No arguing with that perfect logic.
• 

  Vidiot

  Two words.

  "Sleep paralysis".

  Google it.
  
• 

  freemamaof3

  I remember having bad dreams as a child and my mom telling me it was demons attacking me. I was so scared all the time. I was afraid to sleep alone in my room. I had to have a light on all the time. I cant imagine telling my kids something like that to scare them. I prayed to Jehovah so much as a kid to protect me from demons. I am so angry at my mom for that fear. It was unnecessary. And cruel.
• 

  truthseeker

  If you take away the fear, the cult indoctrination, then you have experience. It is the height of ignorance to say we're all imagining these things or our brain chemistry is unbalanced. We only see a small part of the EM spectrum. I personally have seen a materialized humanoid form while I was wide awake and in the home of a JW elder and his family. I've seen and heard other things. I can't prove it to anyone because I can't replicate the phenomena. It just happened. I don't expect anyone to believe me.
• 

  Anders Andersen

  Thanks for sharing. I do believe you have had these experiences.

  As for the explanation of their nature or cause, I won't quickly assume those were demon experiences. Just like I don't readily assume that those who experienced an abduction by aliens were actually abducted by aliens. (I hope this analogy doesn't offend you)
• 

  truthseeker

  Anders Andersen,

  I have not had an alien abduction! No offense taken.
  

  The "thing" I saw was about 6ft tall, in my bedroom, the hall light was on and when I looked at it it had no human features. I watched it leave my room. Freakiest thing I've ever seen.

  I wasn't asleep either or lucid dreaming.
  
• 

  Heaven

  The brain controls everything. I suggest feeding it useful information and not religious claptrap. Take a critical thinking course. Alter the way your brain thinks.
  

  I used to have horrible nightmares about Armageddon, for some reason my version was being drowned by a tidal wave deep inland (I don't live anywhere near any major coastline). Once I discovered Armageddon was a fantasy dreamt up by religious wackos, those nightmares stopped. The 'falling off the cliff' dreams have also ceased.
  

  With my Dad's dementia, he was seeing things that weren't there. Like the house being on fire several times at 2 and 3 in the morning (so why wasn't the smoke alarms going off?), or the several drug deals that were happening on my street (NOT).

  He also told me he forgot to feed the cows and was so distraught over that. I assured him it was ok as he sold them years ago.

  Every mystery ever solved has turned out to be NOT magic.