Found Sheep, it would be very difficult to chalk up your experience in service to a hallucination. If it was, the other sister was hallucinating the same thing at the same time. As interesting as the question is about why these kinds of events happen at certain times and not others, it's also curious that they seem to plague some people, while others, even with the same belief system, never experience them at all.
Why do I no longer get attacked and persecuted by the demons, since I left JW,s ?
by pedal power 151 Replies latest jw friends
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HintOfLime
The Watchtower ingrained in us the belief that if you leave the "Truth", that you're making yourself subject to harrassment by demons and Satan.
Yes.. a cruel thing. Good parents comfort their children, teaching them that blowing curtains and the occational "bump in the night" (typically due to thermal contractions) aren't things to be afraid of - that the "Boogeyman" doesn't exist.
In WT culture, ALL authority figures in a child's life conspire together to tell the child that the Boogeyman IS real, is a terrifying magical thing with near limitless magical powers, and that it IS out to get the child. The only 'out' the child has is to use the "magic words" ("Jehovah" is magic!) and subscribe to the religion.
Thank goodness those good JW's don't lie to their children about things like the "Tooth Fairy"! That might mess a kid up!
- Lime
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unshackled
Hey mostlydead...first time I think I've seen you on the forum. Just want to say love your avatar and user name. Miracle Max from Princess Bride. Classic.
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Morbidzbaby
@ mostlydead and FoundSheep: I have a personal belief about those things. It's not for everyone, but I think that when we die, our energy doesn't die with our physical body. Some might call it a "spirit", but whatever, I think it has a scientific basis that's yet to be discovered. Whatever energy a person put out when they were living is what is carried on after the physical body dies. So, a person who was an ass or a mean-spirited person in life and liked to torture others for their own amusement, would find pulling a trick like what FoundSheep experienced to be quite funny. A person who was pure evil, such as a murderer or rapist, would continue to be so after death and find their thrills in torturing people in whatever ways they can, considering their limitations without a physical body.
Some will find this belief ludicrous, and that's okay. I don't think they have to do with any "god", good or evil. I think it's something that just "is".
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Walt Whitman
I can remember the demon/Satan indoctrination from an early age (1960s onward). I heard so many experiences from the platform and from JWs about demon experiences. From this thread it's obvious that people might not want to rationally appraise their "supernatural experiences." For some reason they're too important to investigate and relinquish.
I remember as an early teen spending the night at a worldly best school friend. (They lived a few houses away, the father was a college professor/anthropologist and my mother liked them.) To my horror the older sister brought out her new ouija board and wanted us to play. I reluctantly acquiesced. When it came my turn to ask a question, I asked "When will the world end?" With our hands together, it said "1975." Holy crap!
That night I was sure demons would consume me and steal my brain. Well, I awoke in the middle of bad dream and discovered I couldn't move. I was frozen. I tried to call out to Jehovah, praying for forgiveness for messing with demonism. I felt pressed to the bed, totally immobile. Eventually I could move. I gathered my things together and walked home in the early morning leaving a note on my friend's kitchen table saying I was feeling ill.
I was sure it was a demonic experience. Some years later I was educated that it was a common case of SLEEP PARALASYS. A period in the sleep state where the body is immobilized. I have had one subsequent sleep paralysis experience. I was worried about one of my grown sons. In a dream he was calling out to me, as a child, I awoke to go to his aid -- but was completely paralyzed, unable to move.
The mind and brain are complex and its perceptions are beyond us. Demons are part of that ancient mythological part of the brain that tries to make sense of the unexplainable.
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Band on the Run
I don't understand someoone mentioning the experience of not real, spooky creatures, used to depict the worst fears of humanity and not giving details.
Schizoprehnia, esp. psychosis and delusions seems an obvious answer. Demons never bothered me. I certainly feared them.
You don't casually say The Emperor from Star Wars visited me today to have me join his minions.
Demons are fantstical. They don't exist.
OBviously, you think so. Please describe the experience in detail and why you feel you were selected.
People undergo horrific traumas, such as rape, starvation, murder, genocide,, and yet no one reports demons.
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Band on the Run
I journeyed to Woodstock and even the music festival at Bethel many times. No demons!
If so, Americans would report them in France or No. Korea.
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JonathanH
Funny thing about demons is they always seem to obey the rules and logic of the beliefs of the people that "experience" them. That alone should be a tip off that demons are a result of psychology, sociology and culture rather than an emperical fact of reality. Demons disappear or relenquish control if you say "jehovah"....if you believe they will, they will cower and hide from a cross as long as you think the cross is holy and has power over demons, they will refuse to enter your house if you sprinkle lambs blood on your stoop if that's what you think keeps them out.
Even the objects or circumstances that summon demons vary depending on religious belief, but every one of them is correct, because for those people it did "summon demons". A copy of the New World Translation summons demons for fire and brimstone baptists, and a tract on hellfire and brimstone will summon demons for a JW. A JW would claim that a cross summons demons, while the baptist successfully expels demons using a cross. And it's amazing that exorcists of every religious denomination seem to have success in expelling demons....of the people that believe they can expel demons.
If the only consistent thing about undocumented "mysterious" occurences is that it seems to always line up with the prejudices of those experiencing them, then it's a safe bet that it's not a matter of reality, but one of psychology and culture.
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JonathanH
Now before you put too much stock in your own experiences, think about other people who have supernatural experiences that you would find absurd.
Watch this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ0373FD5f4
To us, this looks like insanity and stupidity. Nothing supernatural about it. But if you interviewed the people in this church, they would probably remember things differently. They would probably remember all sorts of wierd things happening that they couldn't explain (though to be honest, I agree there are some wierd things happening that I cannot explain in that video), all sorts of supernatural occurences. But when we watch that video we just see ordinary people seduced by their culture and psychology to experience wierd things that are totally real to them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3ggIkJxSps&feature=related
Or this video of an exorcism of a gay teenager. It's a kid rolling around on the ground while people yell at him. And these people are 100% convinced that this was a real exorcism and it worked. That this was a true example of demonic possession. If you asked them do you think they would say "Well, sure I mean, I was there and it looked like it was just a kid rolling around while we praised god." Or would they say "I know what I experienced, it was real. You weren't there and wouldn't understand. The spirit filled the room and the demon was shouting at all of us, and the poor kid was contorting in unnatural ways and floating off the ground. I know fantasy from reality, I'm not stupid, I was there. This was real."
Actually seeing these things on video, knowing full well that these people believe 100% that they were experiencing something supernatural, do these things look remotely supernatural? Or do they look mundane, and kind of sad and creepy? For those here saying they experienced all sorts of these things, what would a video camera have shown people on youtube? Wierd astonishing events, unexplainable except through slick hollywood special effects? Or just some people acting wierd, and creeped out before resorting to their superstition of choice to save themself? Not to single you out Found Sheep (I think you're a lovely person), but Would we actually see an unburnable book that relinquishes to the word "Jehovah" or would we see a woman freaked out burning a book and saying "jehovah" to herself? People's supernatural experiences always seem amazingly natural when caught by the cold detached eyes of a videocamera, rather than filtered through the incredibly biased and fragile memory of the person that experienced it.
Edit: lol, I like this Benny Hinn compilation set to momma said knock you out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWOTNpKxE3k&NR=1
Just another example of people that would totally claim that unexplainable supernatural things were happening, but was just psychology and culture at work.
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Rocky_Girl
The first time I said the rosary (after leaving JW obviously) I had my eyes closed and could see a white face staring at me about 3 inches away, so close that I felt suffocated. When I stopped praying and opened my eyes, it went away. When I started again, it came back. My JW mom said it was a demon who was praying with me to an idol. The nun at the church told me it was Mary showing herself and welcoming me into Christ's love. My Rabbi says that it was just a leftover image in my head after closing my eyes and the suffocated feeling was because I was nervous about praying differently than I was raised. Which one sounds reasonable? I do have a good demon story from childhood, though.