It is however many years ago that it takes to put you back to the Witness years ...
You come home from doing some grocery shopping, with a gallon of milk in hand. You place it on the counter, and turn to open up the refrigerator door. When you turn around, it is in a new place, several feet from where you remember. You think "that is odd", but figure your memory must be failing. You grab it and place it in the frig and go back to putting away the rest of your groceries.
A few minutes later you are done and you decide a glass of milk sounds good. So you open the fridge, pour a glass and put the milk away. You turn around and the glass has tipped over and spilt. Okay, you think this is weird. Again, you credit it to some clumsy mistake and clean up the mess and go back to the frig for that milk again. This time you pour and make sure that you carefully avoid spilling again. You keep an eye on the glass this time as you place the milk back into the fridge. It is still there, and the glass is full!
You go to pick it up and it slides away and off the end, as if some unseen force has grabbed it and taken it away. The fridge opens and the gallon of milk drops out and pours all over the floor until it is gone.
Being a good little Witness you think "demons" and begin praying out loud that Jehovah save and protect you. You are dripping in the sweat of panic, and standing in milk and broken glass. Everything is calm again. You are crying and scared to death though, so you continue praying and walking from the kitchen. You go to the living room and sit, thinking that demons have attacked you. You do not move for hours, until you fill calm enough to watch some television to calm nerves.
The television comes on and you flip through channels to the news. The news lady comes on and says, "we have a consumer warning this evening, if anyone has purchase milk today. Please check to make sure that it is not this brand, as people have been becoming deathly sick from drinking it." You sit in shock and walk into the kitchen, and pick-up the empty milk carton and sure enough, it was the brand they mentioned.
... what am I getting at here. Well from my experience as a Witness and even with some Ex-Jw's. I have noticed a tendency to think anything from the spirit realm or associated with it, is "demons." It is as if no Witness, even though they believe in angels, would accept something like the above event as helpful. Rather they would see it as evil, and pray for help from "Jehovah."
Now in my experience and exit from the Witnesses, and Christianity. I have noticed that most religions accept the fact, to some degree, that their is a spirit realm and after life. What I find interesting with that though, is that Witnesses seem to be the main ones you consider that evil. Anytime something happened, it was "demons", without even looking into the facts.
So I was wondering, how do you feel about the spirit realm now. Are you like the Witness of your past, as shown above, who had things happening, but could not figure out the warnings. At least until it got more bold and noticeable. Or, are you like the Witnesses who saw the news and realized something was trying to help them, and keep them safe from something they did not know about yet?
This really has many applications, and I am interested in seeing what people think. Does the spirit realm affect our life in the physical life, or is it all demons playing mind tricks?
Just wondering
Edited by - kenpodragon on 30 September 2002 19:36:51