by embeth2525 84 Replies latest jw friends
Since I believe in the scriptures I accept the existence of spirits or angels with the good angels being very good, and the evil angels being very evil and dangerous beings
But why not consider that the Bible, when read in context, might just uses descriptions such as demons or angels symbolically. Like parables, or a different sort of writing common in ancient times. Could it just be a way of describing good and evil propensities in all of us?
Does anyone know about the research of Dr Michael Persinger, of the Laurentian University, Ontario, in using subtle magnetic fields on the temperal lobes to induce the sympoms of the paranormal?
steve
I don't doubt that there are people that see things that can be exsplained in other ways but I also believe in the spirit world . When the things that occurred to me happened it was at a time when I was not involved with religion at all nor was a focusing any mental energy in the direction of religious beliefs . I have also seen the movie Beautiful Mind and know that I don't suffer from illness such as that . I believe there are people involved with spiritism and divination , I really believe they try to put people under spells . It's pretty clear it's what people did in biblical times as well . I think religions love to use a form of voodoo to manipulate it's members including the WTBTS .
Sirona,
Not to discount your experiences in any way, but have you seen Final Cut? I found it very interesting. Robin Williams' character had no idea he was implanted with the recording device. He had been traumatized by a memory his entire life. If you haven't seen it yet, I won't spoil the end, but suffice to say that we currently have no way to record our thoughts in image format.
Our memories can be affected by a phenomenon explored by Gestalt wherein, as he explains, our brains will fill in the gaps of information and freely replace or substitute elements of memory with elements from experiential expectation or elements from reality. Final Cut has many wonderfully poignant examples of that human trait. It is the same mental phenomenon that allows cartoons to convey the impression of movement through a rapidly cycled series of still frames.
It is possible that your memory of the dream was revised to match the scene you visited, and that is why it is impossible to prove what you believe is really what happened. But you sincere belief would be enough to convince any lie detector or hypnotist, and could be untrue anyway.
Respectfully,
OldSoul (of the "humans are strange critters" class)
Old Soul, that is what I was trying to communicate in my post about sleep studies. These people would swear things happened...yet we were observing them the whole time and had them hooked up to recording equipment monitoring their brainwaves, heart rate, etc.... But just because they swore what happened was true...it was not the reality of the situation.
I"m not posting this as any response to a single individual, rather as a broad example.
I believe that demonic infuence depends upon your enviroment in which you are raised.
My mother was involved with demonic practices long before our family converted to JW;s, My mother from an early age was fasinated by the paranormal, the occult, clarivoyance, esp, and for some reason my mother was infuenced by the demons on a regular day to day basis. I know to some this may seem bizarre, but I am not kidding you I am telling you the truth. For whatever reasons my mother was deeply involved in demonic practices, she was in fact a terrifying individual. I grew up in fear. constant fear. She thought it was funny to terrorize us. I use to day my mom was evil. My mom was 15 when she had me. Her life was a real shambles. My grandma worried about me constantly. She would take care of me for many many years while my mother was busy with her beliefs and neurosis. My grandma was the single most stable thing in my life and without her I know I would have probably flipped out to reality. My grandma was not a JWs she was an Anglican and I would go to church for many years with her. I thank God for her.
My mother on the other hand was busy with the beat nick style of life, pre hippie age, and she would go to coffee houses and have her fortune read and she would also do the same for many others. She could predict things that were frightening. She predicted the death of my great grandparents as well as her best friends father. One night she was awoken abruptly and told my father who at the time was sound asleep and she woke him and told him that her best firends father just died. Early that morning her friend came to our apartment and told my mother that her dad passed away in the middle of the night and my mom said she know. She explained to her friend the details.
My mother would be able to influence persons to do bad. She scared many a friend away. She regularly played with the Ouija board. She would terrify me at night and tell me that the black gloves would take my sheets off in the night, I know now that that was'nt true, but when your a kid it can scare you alot. Her desire to know all that was impossible for others to know was her driving force. She was always right about her predictions. The more she forseen the deeper she became involved with demonism.
When my father decided to sober up and take a good look at our family life he knew he had to do something drastically. Life was fearful for us. She would never let up about demons and Satan. Upon studing the Bible my mother realized she had some changes to make and it would indeed be a war of pure hell. The more my mom became involved with the organization the greater her attacks from the demons. She was sexually assulted in bed by a demon. She would see evil angels in our basement, she would see objects fly around the room. She was fearful and that fear rubbed off on all of us. My sister began having problems with the demons the same way my mother was. She could be as scarey as mom. The committee prior to elder arrangments, placed the congregation book study in our home and said prayers regularly in our home, just to get some relief from the demonic influences in our house. My mom played the Kingdom Records LPs from the 60's day and night year in year out until there was some peace in our home.
I hated it all and I couldn't take it, Our home felt like it was filled with an evil force and a heavy feeling that made you feel like your heart was in your throat or your chest was so tight and the horror was real very real. I know that I beiieved in the demons but wouldn't give into anything. I tried to stay away from home as often as I could, but mostly that was impossible as now being witnesses my mom felt her mother, my dear dear grandma was demonized. My mom had demonizm on her brian dialy. Much of it was self inflicted I knew that, My mother was a fanatic.
She started throwing away everything that anyone gave us believing everything was demoniized. Man she was paranoid and she made me feel that way. I remember one year grandma gave mom a beautiful amarillis plant, with the trumpet flower. It was a red one. Any way its given around christmas and this plant grew so fast my mom believed it was demonic. The trumpet flower was blood red and huge in size. The more she dwelled on it the more convinced she was it was from the devil he made it grow that fast. She implored me to throw it down the building incenerator as no one else wanted to touch it. That is how crazy she was. Nothing was allowed in our home from an outside person. Mom would take things from time to time from grandma and then throw them away. Had grandma knew she would have been devestated. I know I was. I would cry silently in my heart. Not knowing what to think say or do for fear of reprecutions from my mother and father.
My grandma bought me a set of books encyclopedias and Iknow they were expensive and grandma worked really hard all the time on her feet. Anyway to shorten this my mom took every last thing that her mother had given us over the years and took them to grandma's and told her that she couldn't keep these things in our home as she believed her to be possessed by the demons. My grandma I could tell was devasted. I wanted to hide in another room or even die. It is only recently that I told my aunt Mary that mom was a fanatic about demonic things. Auntie said she well remembers the day her sister (my mom) returned everything back to my grandma. My aunt said grandma cried for along long time because of what mom did. But she didn't hold it against my mom. She prayed my family would realize that being JWS was the wrong thing. I am the only one who has left the organization and my grandma died before I did this and I wish I had done it earlier, but I feared my father to much.
She spend alot of money on those books alone, but my mother was so blinded by her fanatism she couldn't see the truth that in no way grandma was demonized.
I can tell you that the happiest day of my life was when I moved out and went to Montreal to live. But they made me take my 16 year old sister with me so she could keep tabs on me and tell my parents everything I did. I hated them for that. I resented my parents beyond belief. I wondered how could Jehovah God allow a family to be so cursed by demonic influence. AS the years passed and with many many year of therapy I saw for myself that my mom brought much of her grief upon herself. Today my mother is still a fanatical, neurotic JW and its a pity and I feel pity for her. But until she realizes that the demonns aren't after her all the time she might in fact enjoy life. Because she made our lives a living hell.
I know this is long but please bear with me. I know that many of you don't believe in the evil forces of Satan. I for one do because I have seen what they have done to my mother. although i know much of it was brought upon my mom by herself. Her constant speaking of the devil made for a perfect audience in and out of the kingdom hall. My mom thrives on telling these stories. So she keeps it alive in her, never letting it go.
HOw I ever turned out to be normal is beyond me. But as I said thank God for grandma in my younger years her stability and her faith carried me through. She was the first person who ever took the time to teach me about God and to pray and i know in my heart of hearts the she was more of a christian than my parents ever were.
Demons aren't silly they are real, since the dawn of civilization belief in the occult has existed in every aspect of life. Look at Eygpt and the hieroglyphs. Look at the american natives they to believed in demons and devils, in every corner of the world people of all religion pagan or otherwise has and have strong roots in demonism.
I don't think I will ever forget that terrors of my earlier life but I can honestly say that I am so glad I have now the ability to know that evil only begets evi just as love begets love and even though i was not a witness I knew God loved me and I really knew that somehow I would survive this trama of life. And I did. Even being a JW for 38 yrs I survived it all.
love Orangefatcat.
I have seen ghosts, but those are merely folks who need to get out in the sun more to get a tan.
ROFLMAO@144
Beautifully said, O.F.I don't think I will ever forget that terrors of my earlier life but I can honestly say that I am so glad I have now the ability to know that evil only begets evi just as love begets love and even though i was not a witness I knew God loved me and I really knew that somehow I would survive this trama of life. And I did. Even being a JW for 38 yrs I survived it all.
Orange Fat Cat....
Can you relate what YOU actually saw... did you see objects fly around? Did YOU see these ghosts?
I'm curious...but I would like to know what you experienced 1st hand not what someone else said happened. If I may be so bold as to ask :)
Thanks!
@megadude, you don't seem to know enough about satanism, sorry. as i said, satanists DON'T believe in satan, the temple of set believes in some pre-satanic deity, defined in the egyptian god set, who doesn't come close to the christian concept of satan. NOTHING to do with it. they are no satanists.
@greendawn: you got it completely wrong. satanists don't believe in a impersonal evil force (and they wouldn't refer to "satan" as "evil" either, well they would, but just for fun), satan is a principle to them. in other words, the principle "do what is the best for yourself, for the people you like and for the society you live in". that's probably what jesus actually wanted to tell us (if he ever lived). satanism got NOTHING to do with magick. it's more of a philosophy (like buddhism) than a religion.
yes, sometimes those stereotype "satanist" rites with blood and stuff are practiced. but not because of some religion, but of the stereotype christianity has created. thus teenagers who are sick of christian churches see this as a good way to show their disgust. the downside is, it keeps those prejudices upright.
Oldsoul,
Thanks for the info. I will certainly look up that phenomena. No, I haven't seen that film!
So you're saying that it is possible that I substituted memories and think that those things actually happened? I'm not discounting that theory when it applies to events which were experienced by ONLY ME and noone else at the same time. However, how would that theory stand up against the times when a group have experienced the same thing at the same time? Did we all substitute our memory of it?
Also the time when I saw the friends little girl - something I knew nothing about - and she confirmed the child died and the age of the child I saw matched 100%.
As far as the dream, I woke up and told my hub, THEN I drove to find out about it. So I couldn't tell him what the house was like in the dream before going to see the house as per your theory.
I cannot discount that this theory may explain certain childhood experiences, because it is so long ago. However, within the last couple of years I was having a conversation with my sister and told her about a strange dark figure with red eyes who used to stand in our bedroom door, and she cried "Oh my GOD! I saw him too! I assumed it was a nightmare!" (in fact, as a child, I'd assumed it was a nightmare aswell....so we shared nightmares then....?)
I've studied psychology at degree level, so I know that the brain can do very complex things. It can distort memories etc. However I also believe in the spirit world and I can't explain it away by saying my brain made it up. I mean, before I studied the occult I had experiences with strange symbols and stuff, then when I started reading occult books I found out what they meant!
Sirona
