Glancing through an old bound volume doing a bit of research, my eyes happened to alight on an article about evil spirits and what they are up to on the earth today, made for interesting reading....
February 1st 1994 Watchtower
Reports from around the world show that Satan and the demons are as malicious as ever. Some people they strike with illness. Others they harass by robbing them of sleep or by giving them terrible dreams or by abusing them sexually. Still others they have driven to insanity, murder, or suicide.
So am I right in thinking that the society believes that evil spirits can make people ill?? I had no idea... Or that they can cause insomnia? Or that they are sexually abusive? I remember a later WT article, possibly 1999 or 2000, perhaps it was even an Awake, forgive me for my bad memory, which had the title something along the lines of Can Evil Spirits Make You Sick, I think it went into healing and blaming spirits for illness and how this was not right, can anyone remember the article and the point it was trying to make? Does it differ from the article above mentioned? Basically I would just be interested to know the current societys standing on the question of whether illness can be caused by evil spirits.
Also when I read that passage through it struck me as ironic that the JWs have caused many of the problems that they blame Satan and his demons for.
For example -
Illness - How many JWs end up ill through mental strain and depression?......
Robbing them of sleep - How many JWs toss and turn because of the turmoil they feel, pushed to go out on service, pushed to shun loved ones, worries about not only pleasing Jehovah but also the organisation.......
Causing nightmares - How many JWs, especially the little ones, had bad dreams after looking at the pictures of Armageddon in the publications and hearing from the platform that the flesh of their non JW loved ones would be plucked from their bones or rot off their bodies and their eyes would be pecked out....
Sexually abusing - I don't think anybody can deny that a problem exists in the society on this point....
Insanity, murder and suicide - Sadly we know that these things have certainly occurred due to the effects of being a JW......
I think they ought to put their own house in order before they start laying the blame for all these problems at the door of Satan and his minions......
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Another point I gleaned from the 1994 article mentioned above was the twisted JW view of the world -
The news is bloated with stories of drugs, murder, bombing, psychopathic cannibalism, massacres, famine, and torture.
Bloated?? Psychopathic cannibalism?? I didnt realise I lived in such a bad world, I am not that naive to think that everything is rosy, but I am also not going to accept that the world is as evil as the society makes out. It is as though the society want to frighten people into staying. Since leaving I have come to realise that the majority of people are not like the scripture so often quoted in Timothy 3:1-4 which says - 'But know this, that in the last days critical times hard to deal with will be here. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money...... need I go on? To the contrary, I am finding a lot of good people out there, and especially in here ;)