Hey guys!

Stephen here. Had to use new name to register with all the newness and all.

Funny, I was drawn back to SP today and now I see why.

I really have a lot of respect for both your positions, Shasha and w.c. Part of me wants to open up and be inclusive; the other part is more conservative because of my own experiences with evil supernatural entities. So I kinda understand both points of view.

Just today I saw this guy in a coffeee shop who I happen to know is a Christian. He pulled out a book on "Pauline angel magic" and the alarm bells started ringing in my ears. I also heard a story the other day of demonic activity amongst Christians in a certain church in Glasgow and it struck me that there is so much confusion and lack of insight and discernment about these issues in the Church, especially, I'm afraid, in charsimatic/pentecostal circles where the energies raised and shared open up spiritual realms way beyond our ken.

What I'm seeing is the vastness of the spiritual realms touching human spirituality in a variety of ways - from simple confusion about fallen angels to encounters with beings whose "allegiance" is altogether more difficult to pin down. Both the stories you guys tell concerning Roman goddesses and Kali worship interest me immensely and only magnifies the sense of how unknown the unknown really is. When one considers this in relation to the complexity of our own psyches, it's easy to see how and why there is so much confusion.

One thing I would pick up on is w.c's point about how these forces and/or entities respond to love. Sometimes here too the response can be ambiguous. When I try to pray with love over my own energetic instabilities or a perceived supernatural presence, or when someone else prays with me over same, the response in my body/psyche is often similar in its unsettling nature. Difficult to tell what's going on. Difficult to know just how or when to pray.

And if the outer spiritual realms are a web of confusion and complexity, so is the nature of the self. Right now I'm going through this weird "there is no me" thing. Very strange, very frightening, God is distant, I'm in a void and yet all I seem to have is faith. Faith is really all we have. And so if I'm faced with inner psychic upheaval or demonic/angelic supernatural presence, I have to return to that faith or try to find it somehow. I have to yield to the God of love and his Son the Lord Christ. Even this, however, gets mixed up and messed up with a kind of naive openness to spiritual phenomena, which is why, I'm afraid, all the dangers of new age "angel magic" and what not are infiltrating the church.

Having said that, I'm finding too that the received Christian wisdom on such things is sadly lacking when weighed against experience. How does the church account for the kind of thing w.c. experience, or the strange karmic events and synchronicities which unfold over our lives, or experiences of the self beyond what's understood as self (I'm talking parallel universe phenomena or interplanetary experience.) No wonder people are drawn to new agism.

All of this goes to show why dialogues like this are so important, why there has to be an openness to new spiritual experience/ encounter, somehow balanced with a conservatism that emphasises our faith in a triune God and the events of Calvary. The Eucharist is so important. It's incredibly nourishing and stregthens our own ability to actually see and perceive and discern in a riot of spiritual actuality.

Glad to find you guys still here and at it. Hope I've added a little to your discussion, which is, as I say, hugely interesting and supremely important in this day and age.

Lots of love,

Stephen.

Stephen! What a trip!

I was just thinking two nights ago while I was re-reading some old threads, "Now Where is Stephen? He would be interested in this discussion..."

W.c.'s story certainly opens my eyes to a world of possibility that I had not considered. The supernatural worlds are too many, too wild and I'm too sensitive to do any dabbling therein. I tend to be too scattered in my attention at times and need the Eucharist to keep me grounded. What does the Father want of me today? Plus, I'm greatly benefitting from guidance and prayers of my spiritual director. Praise God. I leave her apartment singing in tongues, just pours out of me.

Yes, what you say in your post is interesting; thanks for your response. I'd like to respond more specifically but gotta go for now.

Peace, Shasha

Stephen:

Good to hear from you. It's been many months.

I'm fine with personal testimony, Shasha. And while I understand your reluctance to re-enter cosmic explorations, it seems this thread has an unspoken premise about other faiths, and not at all one that assumes the real possibility of a legitimate participation in Divine Presence without self-deceit. We may nod to the possibility, but that's not the same thing as a serious consideration. Again, nobody can take responsibility for what they don't experience, but we need to claim our limits. Your being traumatized by a guru who appealed to Kali isn't the last word on Hinduism. I know you're not explicitly saying this, but do feel this is the conflicting spirit of the thread.

I'm reading through Ramakrishna's biography, and a book entitled "The Sword and the Flute: Kali and Krishna: Dark Visions of the Terrible and the Sublime in Hindu Mythology."

Much more to read before I try to detail some of the permutations of Kali's mythos, but here are a few points the author suggests are important:

Traditionally, Hindus have always sought an understanding of the Divine's presence in the most grisly or cataclysmic events, many of which they had little control over; these extremes of love and hatred, bliss and misery, peace and torment, poverty and wealth, weren't the polarized field of good versus evil which fundamentalist Christians conceive, but the Divine making Him/Herself known as inseperable from those events which were more powerful than people themselves.

I would not, for instance, view tornados and earthquakes as the wrathful hand of God. But if I were trying to make sense of such horrendous loss, elements for which I had no escape, I might seek the presence of God from within those events I have no control over. If you keep losing your family to pestilence and fire and flood, and your appeal to God provides no relief, well . . . . So yes, it can make much sense, and not just to protect one's religious sanity, but as in how a person might actually discover the Divine hidden in the worst of pains. We ourselves have the crucified, resurrected presence of Christ in any pain we experience if we trust and open to Him in this way. "If you can't beat 'um, join 'um," is apparently not a metaphor within some Hindu traditions. And we can even see God almost appearing in this sort of way to Moses, and to Abraham and Isaac, emerging from a time when sacrifice wasn't completely internalized, as the world hardly acommodated such musings, or perhaps even subjectivity as we know it. Not to justify human blood sacrifice, but to understand how it became a metaphor for internal surrender to the Divine Who, in order to be at least as powerful as those terrifying elements to a suffering people, had to be as deadly as She was loving. And this is what I think the author sees in Kali as he explores the history of her development in Hindu mythology.

As for Ramakrishna, Kali was his Mother, and he was her child. More on that later.

quote:

Originally posted by samson:
...What I'm seeing is the vastness of the spiritual realms touching human spirituality in a variety of ways - from simple confusion about fallen angels to encounters with beings whose "allegiance" is altogether more difficult to pin down. Both the stories you guys tell concerning Roman goddesses and Kali worship interest me immensely and only magnifies the sense of how unknown the unknown really is. When one considers this in relation to the complexity of our own psyches, it's easy to see how and why there is so much confusion.

One thing I would pick up on is w.c's point about how these forces and/or entities respond to love. Sometimes here too the response can be ambiguous. When I try to pray with love over my own energetic instabilities or a perceived supernatural presence, or when someone else prays with me over same, the response in my body/psyche is often similar in its unsettling nature. Difficult to tell what's going on. Difficult to know just how or when to pray.

Good points, here, Stephen. I do believe, however, that prayer is our only hope of wading through this kind of confusion. And knowing when to avoid the temptations of wanting or needing answers to issues that are not our business to meddle.

OTOH, it may be our calling/gifting to go after truths about the supernatural world, in which case Christ Jesus will surely supply us with the support. The end result will necessarily bring Glory to God by building up His Church. I don't think I'm one of those called or anointed in this respect so maybe I could follow my own advice and stick to my day-time job.

In fact, I'm reading Shengold's book, "Soul Murder: The Effects of Childhood Abuse and Deprivation." Now there's clear-cut evil that virtually nobody wants to deal with, a most wicked principality on it's own.

What I like about gathering testimonies of conversions to Christ, which is how/why I began this thread, is that they show a variety of how different personalities, from various walks of life, emerged from and integrated their brushes with deception in the supernatural. Any one experience alone can be interesting, but the multiple case approach provides data for establishing more solid patterns of what is reality-- not that outliers can't point to unusual realities worthy of discovery also.

So, I'm in the data collection stage of researching false gods/ conversions to the Lord. Thank you for your input... and diplomacy.

Good to have you back.

quote:

Originally posted by w.c.:
... legitimate participation in Divine Presence without self-deceit. .

"

Can you unpack this for me, w.c.

That a Hindu's experience of God, when it leads to increased virtue, can be treated by Christians as a legitimate example of transforming grace even when the form it takes is incongruent with our own images.

quote:

Originally posted by w.c.:
... Your being traumatized by a guru who appealed to Kali isn't the last word on Hinduism. I know you're not explicitly saying this, but do feel this is the conflicting spirit of the thread.

I don't think you've understood me here. My experiences surrounding Kali worship were not traumatizing. I was not abused at all. I've been somewhat vague because it's TOO PERSONAL, not too painful.

Even so, your point is well taken. I don't mean to cast aspersions on Hinduism, as a religion or Hindus as people. There are beautiful people all over the world. Any woman who holds her baby with any glimmer of love and wonder is reflecting God's nature--whatever else they're believing about who God is/isn't.

I understand and appreciate your compassion toward Hinduism. There needs to be your input here to remind me to check my biases.
I got that.

I'm not uneducable (just can't spell).

quote:

Originally posted by w.c.:
That a Hindu's experience of God, when it leads to increased virtue, can be treated by Christians as a legitimate example of transforming grace even when the form it takes is incongruent with our own images.

Of course, w.c. Have I said sth here that suggests I believe otherwise? My conclusions about the Kali I experienced don't negate this.

peace to you, Shasha

quote:

Originally posted by Shasha:
I do believe, however, that prayer is our only hope of wading through this kind of confusion. And knowing when to avoid the temptations of wanting or needing answers to issues that are not our business to meddle.

Absolutely. And for me it's quiet prayer, silent, still prayer which strengthens the inner man. When there is an upheaval, I've found that prayer can exacerbate the situation. Most times I've found it best to pray when energies/presence have calmed down a little.

I remember just a few years ago there was scandal in India over child sacrifices in a Kali cult. That and a few other testimonies put me off reading Ramakrishna's autobiography, which I felt inclined to do a while ago, although I know that he and others took a more enlightened approach to the deity.

I just wonder, w.c., if you think the OT injunctions forbidding the children of Israel from worshipping false gods and creating idols have any relevance here, particularly when it's implied on numerous occasions and I think expressly stated by Paul that such idols had demons/fallen angels etc associated with them.

I'm not averse to the idea that there are non-angelic beings, perhaps gods/goddesses, who are in service to God - the Psalms for example mention "gods" in that way. I just wonder too what mythology actually reveals about the deities/beings themselves, given the clearer light it sheds on the inner workings of a culture. And how are we to view atrocity as an act of devotion in relation to said being, given that Jehovah supposedly instigated some of his own in the OT? More about the perception of a particular society as they explore the divine, I think. And yet, that such atrocity as mentioned above could be carried out in Kali's name in the modern age sends shivers down the spine. I'm inclined to think that sacrifice not only mirrors inner sacrifice, but has some impact on the being/deity associated with it, so that it resonates energetically/karmically as well as mythologically/symbolically.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: samson,

Stephen:


The relationship between internal pain and external atrocity, after enough development of interiority in a culture (or the subjective sense of identity) would be based upon the presence of the Divine in any pain of the soul, not as the cause of the catastrophic event. But the elements all seem, from the Hindu pov, to express cosmic energetic presence, not unlike the archetypal figures or beings that arise from within the subtle body. We've discussed/speculated upon the history of this on a thread re: the evolution cf consciousness. And so atrocity, depending upon the anthropology of the time, wouldn't be viewed necessarily as an act of God againt His people, but experienced with a sense of stark wonder and fear for the cosmic presence imbedded in the physical world (see Rudolph Otto's "The Idea of the Holy"). Of course, we do see Israel lamenting God's punishments meeted out through various calamities. But how different is this really from a cancer patient who knows the disease can't be overcome, but chooses to surrender to the dying process, which can reveal the felt sense meaning of the cancer for its hidden psychospiritual qualities and messages? Again, if you suggest this to somebody not already experiencing their pain in this way, it's just plain cruelty, just as it would be to suggest to a survivor of an earthquake that something Divine is not yet realized about their loss.

And so our contracted filters tend to create the impression that cosmic presence is an epiphenomenon, that ancient cultures were simply not organizing their experiences in a brain-mature way; whereas it may be, in some way, us who are not seeing the richer aspects of the picture.

I'd say that little which is fallen is evil, but all evil is obviously fallen. But even these fallen creatures, angels, were originally good and are still loved by God. They, of course, refuse that love, and have mutated into their current forms. But this is why evil really isn't that powerful, although present and willing to take its opportunities where human pain turns into corruption. I take issue with fundamentalist Christians because, among other things, I think, in some psychological sense they assumes evil to have a kind of originating power; otherwise kundalini, as you've pointed out before, would have to be known as a cosmic power, and as such, an evil, rather than the energy of the subconscious which most of these folks have a strong aversion to in the first place (or they probably wouldn't be fundamentalist).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: w.c.,

Good discussion!

Taking things into a more "theological" direction, one must (in the Catholic tradition, that is) recall that everything created by God is good, and that would/should include metaphysical/spiritual creatures as well. They are all "sacramental" and revelatory of something of God's goodness, beauty, wisdom, etc. So there's just nothing "out there" or even within that is intrinsically evil, per se.

There are corrupted creatures, however, some of whom are in full rebellion against God, and this is where moral evil enters the universe. They can be found in the human race and undoubtedly in other orders of creation, including angels and other intelligent non-humans. The intra-psychic world also includes these "creatures," who live by the life of the soul, which has been wounded and corrupted by sin even while retaining something of its innate goodness.

So I think the bottom line in all of this comes down to discernment. Where do these various influences seem to come from and where do they lead? Once one has come to Christ in faith, there is the additional standard of evaluating things in terms of how they seem to effect our relationship with Him. Even with these guidelines, however, discernment can be difficult, and sometimes what seems to be an "angel of light" can turn out to be something deadly, and this is the caution I hear Shasha sharing. The converse is true as well, as w.c. reminds us in his post above. So it's complicated, for sure, but at least our faith helps to shed light on these issues.

"I just wonder, w.c., if you think the OT injunctions forbidding the children of Israel from worshipping false gods and creating idols have any relevance here, particularly when it's implied on numerous occasions and I think expressly stated by Paul that such idols had demons/fallen angels etc associated with them."



Stephen:

I'm not one to cherry-pick scripture, but it makes sense that any truly evil spirit would be averse to love, and certainly to the name of Jesus and especially His presence. Whoever the writer of I John was (perhaps the apostle John, but most scholars are uncertain of that but commend the notion of one who knew him) had a particular heresy he was addressing, but generically it seems to apply to our discussion:

"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God . . . . "

It sounds like the author, perhaps the head of the Johannine church community, was already dealing with Gnostic notions among those who hadn't seen Christ in the flesh themselves, or perhaps had little contact with the original disciples or apostles. The letter is dated circa 100 A.D. Raymond Brown believed this letter written by either the same writer who wrote the Gospel of John, or more likely someone else within that community of believers.

In any case, I find it interesting that the concern is less with spirits themselves than with whether or not those spirits acknowledge Jesus Christ's incarnation as God, and all that follows from that. I'm not sure if "spirits" simply allude to the schismatic group of people who apparently denied the incarnation or held Jesus's authority to be at his baptism instead, as Raymond Brown mentions. But with caution we might say that a spirit which recognizes Jesus as God Himself might also be in the service of the truth, which leaves open the door to "helpers" apparently outside the historical Christian tradition, as I've described from my own experience. That much might comport with the "gods" mentioned in the Psalms (Psalm 82: the gods surround the throne of God, are seemingly part of His Divine counsel).


This Roman goddess was certainly pointing me upward beyond herself to Jesus Christ as God who "really is spiritual food."

And regarding angels, which are less controversial for us Christians than the "gods," here are the scripture references that are the basis of the church's traditional understanding for their role in human life:

"See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven."

Matthew 18:10 -11

"Man is also chastened with pain upon his bed, and with continual strife in his bones; so that his life loathes bread, and his appetite dainty food. His flesh is so wasted away that it cannot be seen; and his bones which were not seen stick out. His soul draws near the Pit, and his life to those who bring death. If there be for him an angel, a mediator, one of the thousand, to declare to a man what is right for him; and he is gracious to him, and says, "Deliver him from going down into the Pit, I have found a ransom; let his flesh become fresh with youth; let him return to the days of youthful vigor," then man prays to God, and he accepts him, he comes into his presence with joy. He recounts to men his salvation, and he sings before men, and says "I sinned, and perverted what was right, and it was not requited to me. He has redeemed my soul from going down into the Pit, and my life shall see the light."

"Behold, God does all these things, twice, three times, with a man, to bring back his soul from the Pit, that he may see the light of life." Give heed, O Job, listen to me; be silent, and I will speak. If you have anything to say, answer me; speak, for I desire to justify you. If not, listen to me; be silent, and I will teach you wisdom."

Job 33: 19-33


Then there's Peter's escape from prison via the help of an angel (Acts 12). Once freed, the angel departs, and he goes to the house of Mary, mother of John. When the servant girl recognized Peter's voice at the door, "she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, "Peter is at the door!" "You're out of your mind," they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, "It must be his angel."


Now, it seems that this gathering of disciples was a mixture of men and women; but I have to wonder at the continual incredulity, which I'd very likely be guilty of as well. Some of these folks may have been some of the male disciples who didn't believe the women when they told them of Jesus' resurrection. The women are in each case treated as crazy or weak minded. I wonder if Peter's appearance reminded them of this, with not a few guarded chagrins from the women present.

And then there is the beautiful distinction between Jesus Christ and the angels in Hebrews 1:

"In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word . . . . .

"For to which of the angels did God ever say, "You are my Son; today I have become your Father?"

"And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, "Let all God's angels worship him."

"In speaking of the angels he says, 'He makes his angels spirits, and his servants flames of fire.'

"Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?"



And so angels still minister to us, but know their place and their purpose in turning us to Him.

And in the church's traditional teaching, angels can touch and influence the imagination, the senses, and the intellect, but not the will. We would never say to them, or other helpers "Thy will be done."

And then there's is Daniel 10:10-13.

I knew nothing of this passage, or of Daniel (not a big Old Testament reader), until a dream a few years ago. I'm in an open-air sanctuary, temple-like, with pools of pure water, and see the most beautiful beings, who actually look like elegant women. At first I'm sexually aroused, but as they turn toward me and come nearer, the arousal turns into fear and awe and embarrassment and sorrow; the nearer they get the more radiant, and there is their holiness, without gender. It's hard to describe this, except perhaps like being before royalty that you know holds power over your life, as a human before the non-human supernatural. I can't stand to look at them. Maybe there are three. As they near I fall to the ground and bury my face. I'm gently tapped on the shoulder, and hear a whisper in my ear:

"Daniel 10:10."


There was just tremendous comfort in this (afterwards), and the angel seemed to want me to know I could trust what I was seeing, given my Thomas-like tendencies. And although they were holy, I knew they were't God, or Christ, and there was no sense of worshiping them - they represent something beyond themselves - only in being small in their presence.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: w.c.,

Here is some of Raymond Brown's commentary on Paul's warnings in Colossians chapter 2:

"Combining these elements, many would describe the false teachers at Colossae as Jewish Christian syncretists in whose "philosophy" were combined (hellenized) Jewish, Christian and Pagan elements: a "self-devised religion . . . In it angels were associated with the stars and worshiped on feasts, at the new moon, and on the Sabbath almost as deities, who rule the universe and human life - elements in a cosmic pattern that people must follow in life. (As "sons of God" in the heavenly court, angels could be understood as similar to the deities of the Greco-Roman pantheon.) This syncretism could incorporate believers in Christ under the proviso that they rated him as subordinate to the angelic principalities and powers. After all, Christ was flesh while the principalities are spirits."

And so Paul seemed concerned with the order of things, i.e, in not confusing creature, and elements and powers of the universe, with the Creator made flesh, which may be a reference to variations of Hellenistic philosophy that lingered on in this Greek church, just as he criticized the Jewish Christian teachers in other churches for imposing circumcision. Some heretical church leanings had Christ purely spiritual, and others had Jesus subordinate to principalities and powers. Paul was a busy guy!!

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. for in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everthing he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and thorugh hm to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." (Colossians 1: 15-20)

Again what I'm seeing are wicked spirits active at the fringes of Christianity, rather subtly masquerading and even acknowledging the incarnation, so that there are Christian psychics, Christian mediums, Christian angel magicians who believe in Christ at a certain level but dabble with spirits too. There's obviously a false front here as the spirits themselves I've encountered are frighteningly wicked, and yet they offer things that one would associate with Christian experience, particularly mystical experience - lots of out of body stuff, ecstacies, astral travelling etc. So then many young or naive Christians see the "Christian" appellation and, because of their craving for experience or phenomena, are drawn into these "angel of light" systems and are inevitably burned rather badly.

The "Christ" test gets tricky because the front man or woman, the minister to these spirits, acknowledges Christ's incarnation, believes in Him at some level, even attends church (I know of one woman who actually preaches, but who's stories of encounters with spiritual beings are extremely dubious).

This is all very similar to new age practitioners who commune with spirits of light which are actually evil or demonic. (I had a massage from a woman who later told me about her spirit guide and was myself severely assaulted by her guide that night).

And so there is an impure alloy filtering into Christianity. Many non-Charismatic fundamentalists actually recognise this but go so far as to condemn any form of contemplation or meditation because of its supposed links with eastern religion, the occult etc. Nonsense, yes, but at least they recognise the dangers inherent in things getting mixed up so.

Discernment for me is a spiritual gift that comes to some with maturity in the church. That discerment has to acknowledge and accept things like your own goddess experience, w.c., and take into account the vast range of beings in service to the divine. I believe every spirit has its own energy, vibration, if you like, and most wicked spirits are detectable. It's just these frontmen, the guise they put on, their claims on belief and Christian teaching which stumbles many. And the "good things" that many supernatural beings offer - cf Shasha's experience.

As I say, a lot of the confusion is within the charismatic movement, where they refuse to acknowledge Kundalini because of its eastern associations and serpent symbolism, yet are so open to any supernatural beings pulled into their energy because they believe that energy to be Holy Spirit. It's all so ironically twisted.

I'm not sure I followed all of your post regarding Israel and the "relationship between internal pain and external atrocity". I do come from a place where I regard a lot of early seeking within the community as primitive (except in the cases of a few individuals whose communion with God was rich and profound and enlightened). By "cosmic presence in the physical world" are you referring to energetic principles/archetypes or supernatural entities? For me atrocity could be either or a mixture of both at different times. (I'm not talking about natural calamity so much as human atrocity). Kali for instance I'd regard as a supernatural being, not a cosmic force or aspect of God, and so I wouldn't discount her involvement in a lot of atrocity carried out in her name. And just how much the ancients were aware of cosmic or energetic forces, I'm not sure. Much of what happened around them, I believe, would be explained by external supernatural personalities which may or may not have been involved.

Just a quick response before I leave for work:

I'll read your post more carefully. But I see Christians, fundamentalist and otherwise, more likely than non-religious to neglect exploring the inner psychological landscape through bodily sensing. I say bodily sensing is crucial here because through it one sees the archetypes for what they are, and aren't. It is my experience that once this is experienced over a period of time then the breadth or population of evil spirits decreases significantly.

And if evil were as empowered and omnipresent as some descriptions make out, then I'd think we'd see a frequent struggle with it during the dying process, which I can't attest to over many years of doing hospice work. We could say, of course, that God is active in seeking the lost sheep and that those dying are more in touch with their longings for Him, thereby closing the door on evil influence more than in other circustances. But I just don't have your experience Stephen, or Shasha's. Not to the degree or frequency you both describe, although I have experienced evil a few times - enough to know it isn't to be confused with archetypes, etc . . . .

I don't mean to suggest that the psychic world is generally overflowing with evil spirits. Unfortunately, this has only been my own experience. Although I have read testimony of the saints, from Ignatius to Elder Joseph, who record visions of legions of demons with whom they are engaged in conflict. I'd say too that body awareness has helped me combat evil forces in that I'm able to detect subtle energy shifts and pre-empt attack or avoid the fiery darts as it were, and, as you suggest, distinguish between spirit presence and archetype. A lot of evil is detectable physically - certain blends of cold and hot energy, usually tinged with a sensation of filth or dirt and a sense of physical invasion. And yes, I'd say God's grace is very much present at the time of dying, therefore preventing an intrusion of evil.

It was my experience in the past that the evil I encountered was fully able to masquarade as good as long as I didn't challange that goodness. That goodness was displayed as loving, kind, purposeful, powerful etc. but it did demand my full submission.

It was only when I questioned its' goodness and withheld my full submission that its' true nature began to reveal itself. I don't know what would have happened had I not questioned its' goodness or had I submitted fully to its' authority - perhaps I would have become possesed?

But once I turned away from and declared that the power was evil it manifested as fully evil and depraved. There was no doubting it then, but without the grace of God I may never have seen the other side of the coin.

Therefore it is hard for me to go along with an understanding that evil will always manifest as evil and be turned off by love. This power could appear all-loving and give ecstatic bliss but at its' heart it was evil.

In like manner false gods like Kali may never have to display their inner-nature as long as there devotees do not question their goodness and given their spiritual history and framework they may never feel the need to?

Jacques:

Are you referring to something inside you, or to another presence outside yourself? I would think that anything truly good, such as an unfallen angel, would accept a person's resistance without demanding submission. And so questioning the goodness of something, or resisting it in order to see its response, would be like questioning the motives of any other person whom we don't trust. That person might actually be trustworthy, and if their motive is true and good will understand our fear and reluctance and certainly not be demanding, but wait and be patient. An unfallen angel isn't going to be pushy, which we can see from biblical narratives. That much is probably true most of the time even for fallen human beings with good but imperfect intentions.

But an important question would be whether or not this something you describe, which appeared as good, was inside your psyche, or experienced as another presence outside yourself. Declaring something outside yourself, such as an unfallen angel, evil, won't make that presence evil or pushy. But if you declare something inside your psyche evil, this might simply be fulfilling the wish of another part of you that is committed to the resistance of that first part, but out of long-standing and unrecognized fear. I mention this distinction because it goes to the heart of what I believe is weakest about the church over its long history, and why the church in many parts of the world is dying, at least in its membership.

So let me digress and explain, which I've done before. I've been meaning to post something about this again as I've been struggling to find a church home.

Something essentially good inside us can contain a vulnerability that another part of us is frightened of; this other part, if we're identified with it, can seem our primary identity, rather than another part of us in pain as well. A good example of this would be addiction, really of any kind. In addiction there is usually an inner scenario like this:

There is the traumatized part, the critical judgemental part that wants to overcome the addiction, and of course the part of us that seems most like the addictive hunger itself (We usually don't experienced the traumatized part consciously at first, but only this distorted hunger which we call the addiction, although the two parts are closely related). The part we experience as the hunger we mostly are merged with when in the midst of the addictive behavior, having exiled the critical resistant part as well as the traumatized part. But when we're seemingly in control of our addiction, or even surrendered to God about it, we are likely merged or identified with the critical part, as long as the energy of the hunger hasn't ovecome us. But it does eventually overcome this controlling, critical part, and we collapse again into the addictive behavior as the pain of longing re-asserts itself, and wonder about our faith in God and why he doesn't heal us. But He can't, and won't, heal us, as long as any part of us is being exiled. An exiled part has fallen outside His touch, as we have willed it banished. He won't go where we resist Him, and since any inner part is ultimately good in its longing for love, our resistance to it is also a resistance to the Source of Love. Moreover, because we're not usually aware of having banished this traumatized, needy part of us, we are more likely to despair over God's lack of response, and even postulate some evil force impeding our faith, or blame ourselves, further polarizing the critical part we're merged with (and therefore unware of) and the young, traumatized part (which we're also unware of). This traumatized part, which is related to the behavior of the addiction in its own way, but not as obvious, has never been allowed to speak or show itself as a presence in body awareness. And it is this deep vulnerability, often arising from infantile attachment hunger, that can easily seem like a possession or something truly frightening in its various, projected guises. I've seen this myself: a starving, anguished baby forlorn of his mother's love, and wishing to die, is the real truth of the matter, but it is much more easily dealt with as an addictive hunger which can numb or mood alter the situation. There is such horrendous pain in this, that all other parts of the psyche serve to keep it at bay, even if this precious part must be imprisoned in the basement of apparent evil. And yet, if this traumatized part, along with the others, can be held within body awareness with compassion, such that we aren't merged with or exiling any of the parts, but in relationship to each of them, then the growth, in quite a viscerally felt way, emerges from within the pain itself. In the place we least expected, growth and forward, integrative movement comes.

This is important for Christians, as it is actually surprisingly rare to find parents in the church who have healthy attachment relationships with their children. The church's immature psychology lends itself to families who want to maintain their dysfunctional home environments and religious affiliations that don't challenge them in any really deep way re: character alteration and exposing family secrets. This is a sad and even depressing state of affairs, since there is little in the church's history, except Jesus' words about children and his embrace of them as models of receptivity, to commend it as an exemplar of healthy parent-child relationships. Of course, you occasionally find some folks who deal honestly with their own woundedness, like Jean Vanier, Henry Nouwen, Thomas Keating, etc . . . And there are many others, and some like Phil who've had a fairly secure attachment relationship with parents and who don't suffer so much in the way I'm describing. But my point is that the church, early on, developed a poor and destructive relationship with the body, and therefore with the inner psychological terrain. We encounter this as kundalini, or the emerging subconscious realms, whenever there is any prolonged commitment to interior prayer. Little surprise the church didn't explore this with depth, as it is the energy of attachment and differentiation which earlier eras resisted to preserve their role/shame-based ethnic identity systems. And so interior life can actually be polarized life, where some or much of our psychological landscape can become a war zone of passions so distorted over time that resisting them seems the only sane course. This can lend itself easily to minunderstandings of evil, which I believe the church as floundered in for centuries.

Now don't misunderstand me here. I'm not saying evil is an illusion. I've encountered it, and it isn't an exiled inner part, even though fallen angels are in essence good as God created them to be. But their loathsome, horrific, sadistic qualities aren't, so far as I've experienced, the same as the loathsome, shame-based inner parts of the psyche that do respond positively to compassion as long as we aren't trying to fix them or banish them. Yet, an inner part that has been rejected, wounded, distorted, needs time to show all its faces, just as child who has developed what we now call "Reactive Attachment Disorder," needs, time, lots of time, to trust the vulnerability which only means further destruction to him. Opening to that vulnerability needed for attachment seems like suicide, and involves the re-living of unbearable anguish, and so the rageful, even murderous resistance in the child to foster parents and therapists continues until an opening ripens from tremendous patience, a maturity the biological parents don't have or the attachment breakdown wouldn't have occured. Contacting this child's pain with love only invites him to more vulnerability, and so his rage may increase in response to love. Yet who would call this evil? But this is just what we do when lacking the loving presence to tolerate and accept such distortions in ourselves. It is a Catch 22: If we had the compassionate tolerance, we likely wouldn't have the terrible distortion. But we can develop this quality, although there's nothing in the church that I've seen which facilitates either the distinction or the hard practical work toward this kind of healing.

Many in the church embody this sort of pain, and so resistance to the inner parts has this same life and death urgency, whether we're doing theology or praying for God to heal a part of us that would only become further banished if He did (He'd further awaken the longing of it if He touched it, and being merged with a part so critical or abasing toward the traumatized part, wouldn't exactly leave us feeling blessed!).

And so if we resist an unfallen angel, for instance, that angel isn't going to throw a fit or show impatience. But if we resist an inner part (often times an unconscious, habitual response that takes only a second or two), we can wound and incrust it further, and in response this part may appear quite angry or even more hungry and therefore less trustworthy. And so opening to these parts of the soul can infame us even more deeply with pain and longing which the church poorly understands. If we haven't explored the terrain of these wounded parts, and are deep into our devotion to God through a life of prayer, we are more likely than not to be projecting our exiled psychological life into our belief systems regarding good and evil; but since the power of these exiled parts is beyond our understanding or conscious recognition, they fuel the distortion quite easily.

The best work I've seen in dealing with these distortions comes from Ann Weiser Cornell and Richard Schwartz, who developed their models independently and have recently discovered each other's work and begun collaborating:

"The Power of Focusing," "The Radical Acceptance of Everything," "Internal Family Systems Therapy."

I'll say more in detail later on about how I think the church perpetuates this pain.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: w.c.,

That's an excellent, substantive post, w.c. -- should be required reading for all adult Christians.

quote:

But my point is that the church, early on, developed a poor and destructive relationship with the body, and therefore with the inner psychological terrain. We encounter this as kundalini, or the emerging subconscious realms, whenever there is any prolonged commitment to interior prayer. Little surprise the church didn't explore this with depth, as it is the energy of attachment and differentiation which earlier eras resisted to preserve their role/shame-based ethnic identity systems.

That's pretty much how Michael Washburn understands K in his book, "The Ego and the Dynamic Ground." One does need to repress in order to fabricate an acceptable ego structure.

quote:

And so interior life can actually be polarized life, where some or much of our psychological landscape can become a war zone of passions so distorted over time that resisting them seems the only sane course. This can lend itself easily to minunderstandings of evil, which I believe the church as floundered in for centuries.

I would say, here, that, at least on an "official" level, Catholicism has a highly nuanced process of discernment, at least with regard to cases where exorcisms are being considered.

I think, too, there's a deep understanding of human nature and its requirements for healing to be found in those traditions dating back to the desert fathers/mothers, and the later spiritual directors, confessors and others who cared for souls. There really is a healing of the psyche going on, too, in dark night transition periods.

- - -

The link below is interesting in that a psychiatrist reports some successes using exorcisms as part of his healing practice. Yes, yes, I know that introduces more complications to the discussion, but I've often wondered whether the alienated/repressed parts of our psyche don't provide "hooks" of sorts for fallen spirits to work their mischief.
- http://www.fortea.us/english/p...iatria/evolution.htm

Phil:

I would say letting the Holy Spirit literally come into the wounded part(s) as it is localized in the body- not with the intent to heal (which can be another part wanting to fix), but so the wounded part can experience love just as it is, which does heal without fixing, would accomplish the effects of exorcism without suggesting hypnotically that a part is evil, or to be further exiled. And it would be necessary to let all the parts, as they come into awareness from being exiled, have this experience as they're ready. I've read Scott Peck's work on exorcism, and although it's also been my impression that evil can latch onto these deep wounds, such evil is averse to real love (human and supernatural) and especially averse to the way love and intimacuy expose the false self necessary for evil's embodiment. I'll read this psychiatrist's work and respond more fully.

Thanks for the question w.c.
I'll try to answer as best as I can but the truth is that I'm not sure myself. Let me explain:

All of my major encounters with evil have been during times of drug use. This makes it extremely difficult to analyse what actually happened. While it would be easy to simply write the experiences off as drug induced it is equally possible that the drugs simply opened me up to encounter with the spirit realm.

Let me describe a few of the experiences and please feel free to highlight anything that may appear obvious to you regarding the situations.

As a brief background, I was born in a nominal protestant home. We attended sunday school from very young but my parents didn't attend church and Christianity was not discussed much at home besides perhaps saying grace at family gatherings and a little more emphasis during Christmas. At age 15/16 I began to doubt my Christian upbringing and began abusing drugs. I very quickly merged my drug use with my spiritual search and began to believe that drugs were the key to encountering the divine.

1) After smoking marijuana in a field near my home I got up and started walking home. Suddenly a voice or voices in my mind began cursing God, the Church, Pastors and Christianity. The more I tried to stop the voices the louder they became. I started singing songs from Sunday School and this quieted the voices but as soon as I stopped singing the voices would return. I continued to sing for a very long time and eventually the voices stopped.

2) I had a significant spiritual experience one night (also under the influence of marijuana and ephedrene) in which I felt the presence of God and a inner voice that shared many revelations with me regarding myself and my mission - At one stage I felt torn apart and I felt as though I were experiencing the scripture describing Michael and Satan fighting over the soul of Moses. When I looked into a mirror my face was deformed and ugly, I closed my eyes and opened them to an even uglier face and then a third time again. After this my face was again normal. The experience ended well with a command to love and preach the gospel of pantheism and love. After that I often felt this mystical connection with God in everything and would preach to everyone who would listen.

After a time I felt this presence ask me to commit completely to it and "sell my soul" to the truth I was preaching and experiencing (this experiencing was combined with a degree of power through telepathy and other powers). But at the same time I had started seeing evil during times of intoxication (distorted faces, goat legs on people etc.) and had begun doubting my message and experience.

One night the voice (never audible - always inner-voice) came particularly powerfully and demanded a choice. I was on the verge of saying yes when i experienced a vision of a Hindu God manifesting through some of my friends. I suddenly became convinced of the evil of my experiences and once I rejected them I came under severe attack by the inner-voice accompanied by various evil visions. The attack continued for 24 hours and only after I had attended church the following day and talked to a pastor did it slowely begin to end (Though it took many months for all effects to cease).

3) I stopped using drugs for many years and then had a relapse about a year ago. At first it seemed okay but within a week or two the inner-voice returned. I smoked some marijuana and immediately felt bonded to Satan. I heard an inner-voice condemning me to hell and had to pray without ceasing in order to still the voice. If my focus slipped the voice would again begin raging and condemning And I had to cling to God's grace and forgiveness in order to find peace. This was the last of these major experiences.


I agree that it is very possible that it could all have been in my own mind accompanied by spiritual powers awakened by drugs/kundalini. But it could also be that my encounter with drugs opened my up to evil spirits and they used my drug induced mind to attack me during my vulnerability. What do you think w.c., others?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Jacques,

Jacques:

I wouldn't be one to reduce such stories to neurochemistry imbalance or psychological wounding or attachment deficit, necessarily. Drug abuse could activate these, though it could, it seems to me, do just what you're describing regarding evil. The will seems to be critical as far as how one might become possessed, but it is also central to psychological wounding and/or attachement trauma/loss where archetypal energies are awakened once a healing process begins.

In the Gospels we see Jesus driving out demons, at times, but not always. He confronts Martha for being what we might call today the matriarch with a selfish martyr complex full of a sense of inadequacy and jealousy (my read of it), and Peter is continually struggling with jealousy and inadequacy himself, and even has Jesus rebuke him for his inadverdent allegiance with Satan's intent to impede the path of the cross for our redemption. But in neither of those cases is Jesus casting out demons, it seems to me. Peter is piereced painfully with Jesus' love for each of his denials; this seems like letting Jesus into the wounds. And it is my impression Jesus supported separation and individuation in a time when such notions violated the most hallowed sense of shame-based family alliances which ran through every aspect of Jewish and Roman culture in one form or another. When was the last time you heard a sermon over Jesus stating he came not to bring peace, but a sword, to the end that a son will leave his father, and a woman her mother (and not for marriage)? I've never, ever, heard the passage treated.

So my guess is that once an evil spirit has been recognized, or thought to be an influence, we can open ourselves to God's love, call on the name of Jesus, have others pray over us, but also do the work of healing via psychotherapy where it is needed. My concern, of course, is that little happens in psychotherapy to directly engage these exiled parts. Only a few types of psychotherapy knowlingly engage the soul in this way, such as Richard Schwartz' "Internal Family Systems Therapy." This is a rather new development in the field, along with Ann Weiser Cornell's work, and something called Hakomi, say in the past 15 years or so.

Most folks in therapy won't even know they are engaging the "felt sense" of a problem, and it isn't likely a therapist will know what this is even if the client is sensing inside her body (it isn't meditation or hypnosis). A therapist might respect the silence and introspection, but seek to interpret it, or engage in conversation "about" what the client is feeling, rather than further facilitate the inward movement of attention so that the various parts can speak through the inner sensing process. Eugene Gendlin first discovered the "felt sense" when he was researching the effectivness of psychotherapy at the University of Chicago in the late 60's. Through several psychological tests it was clear that some percentage of clients were experiencing measurable resolution of problems, and others not. So he and his graduate students set out to discover why. They audio or video taped hundreds or thousands of sessions of clients working with psychotherapists of various persuasions. Gendlin expected to find the therapist's style or personality the reason for success, but it turned out to be none of these; rather, it was what the client was doing in the session that made the difference, and nobody had a name for it at the time. Gendlin named it the "felt sense," as it is was an easily recognizable behavior on the tape recordings, and set about learning how to teach it. From this "Focusing" was born.

So I'd certainly recommend something like Focusing for those who've traversed psychotherapy and found themselves still with old conflicts. Grace, of course, is needed even as human capacities are exercised, but unless these wounded parts are respected in a certain way they will go on getting our attention in destructive ways. Most psychotherapies offer little or nothing for this inner drama.

My concern re: exorcism is stated in a previous post to Phil, although it may have its place and be integrated without casting a wounded part of the soul into further exile. That would be a crucial distinction, which I'm not sure is recognized. It seems like exorcism is often the last resort when traditional therapies are failing to "fix" something about the person. I'm not a big fan of how this is wielded by the Roman Catholic Church, especially when its pastoral sensibilities are often so poor. I agree with Phil that there is some good theological anthropology for a theoretical model, but don't see much developed at a practical level. And I'm not persuaded the church fathers would have even known the difference between psychological woundedness and evil, since they were deeply emmeshed within the psychology of their cultural systems in an unquestioned way. The shame-based honoring of parents probably blinded them to any intentional musing over childhood woundedness, and its encounter via the interior life of prayer was probably treated as an aspect of temptation; hence, the body gets abused, since it embodies the life of these parts of the soul. The inner parts stay separated, or alienated from each other, so that there isn't any threat to the family and church systems expressing cultural identity. The church's long history of abusing those alienated from it, such as in the Reformation and counter-Reformation periods, shows how steeped it is in resisting what is alienated within its own soul, at least in the existential way I'm describing.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: w.c.,

quote:

Originally posted by Jacques:
...
I agree that it is very possible that it could all have been in my own mind accompanied by spiritual powers awakened by drugs/kundalini. But it could also be that my encounter with drugs opened my up to evil spirits and they used my drug induced mind to attack me during my vulnerability. What do you think w.c., others?

Hey Jacques,

What a horror you've lived through! So happy to know you've come under the Father's protection now. May Lord Jesus protect your family and guide you to be the kind of father and leader you're called to be.

About the drug induced vulnerability to evil, yes, I think that is a reasonable conclusion to draw. If I had a chance to sit down and talk with you further, I'd ask more questions, of course, to maybe help determine other factors. But off hand, I'd say it's certainly possible.

In fact, there is some evidence to support the drug-evil spirits connection. Have you ever heard of Father John Carapi? Not sure of the spelling. He's a convert to the Lord after years of big-money, sex and drug corrupted lifestyle. He reports being on the shipping docks where drug-lords prayed satantic verses over the drug shipments coming in. Just think of the evil intent of those who grow/make/distribute drugs. What demonic force is operating in them besides psychological greed/sociopathy that compels them to promote the destruction of so many lives through addiction?

I also recall a psychic write about how he was standing outside of bar one night and was able to see entities waiting to enter into the bodies of drunk men as they exited the building--apparently easy prey for inhabitation in their intoxicated states.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jacques:
...Therefore it is hard for me to go along with an understanding that evil will always manifest as evil and be turned off by love. This power could appear all-loving and give ecstatic bliss but at its' heart it was evil.
...QUOTE]

w.c. has acknowledge that in theory evil can manifest as an "angel of light," but I join you in calling into question his criteria for determining whether it is the evil of a repressed and split-off part of one's psyche or an external evil. w.c. is suggesting (if I understand correctly)that real external evil does not respond to love whereas the wounded, split off parts do. It's this 'respond to love' bit that is tricky.

There can be many different kinds of love, right?

One can be blissfully 'in love' with a goddess, bow to her 50 times per day, enjoy her sexual intercourse at will, have a love-feast of sorts with her and all of this will certainly not repel her! Those who have genuinely encountered the love-sex bestowing 'form' of Kali will attest to this--if they dare talk about it!! But this kind of love is more of an addiction or a seduction and not how we're called to give love to one another.

So, your point is well-taken here Jacques.