Hi  The devil has got to be around somewhere because of the way this world is ,children being ill treaten and animals,the main innocents of life who have never sinned,so why should they suffer,the devil has got a lot to answer for,but his time is becoming limited as God is going to intervene and get rid of the devil forever

I know the devil exists because ive done battle with him and God protected me all the way through it and that devil showed me a dark hole which absolutly had this foul stench coming from it,this is when i left my body and Gods beautiful white light was around ,like a wall in front of this devil,so its the way that Gods good far outways the devils evil,God wins ,that happened just after the devil and the dark cloaked figures entered my bedroom,i was put through hell by the devil but God helped me win with his love for me.

God is the only hope and salvation we have,Gods the one who protects us from the devil,if we ask him to,he is there by our side with his protection of love and light.

The bible mentions the devil,so does Jesus ,when he went to the boy who was possessed and Jesus said to this boy,"Get away satan and as jesus touched him,the boy was cured because jesus had told the devil to get lost,as the devil has no power over jesus or God.

I beleive that God will throw this devil into the abyss with all his fallen angels and the sooner the better i say.

I know some of you don't beleive the devils around but the bible and jesus talks of him ,so hes got to be around.i admit that we can create our own hell,but why do we create our own hell because the devil is trying to increase his army,but the love of God steps in and helps us to overcome these hells we create ,so the devil loses.

When i sat in front of my computer the night the devil challenged me,was because i said to the devil,that i did not beleive in him,i loved God and i told the devil that he would never win God in battle and so the devil came the same night,and God was my protector that night,there were dark cloaked figures in my bedroom,then the devil.I wittnessed the devils existence that very night,so he  is around.

The devil has no power in the spirit world but thrives on the hate and pain and violence in the physical world

Love and God bless   Love Juditha

Most people set their mind on the flesh, rather than the Spirit, causing them to act like the Devil.

I'm not a big believer in a literal independently existing Devil Juditha, and i think it does matter.

I'm drawn towards the view as Elite says that what looks like the work of the devil/evil is in fact just a manifestation of our distance from God - of our inability to live in love. Many of us out of the ignorance, fear and selfishness that results from this distancing do things we shouldn't do.

Everything from individual acts at the family or workplace level, right up to national and world leaders terrorising their own people, allowing the destruction of our environment by huge and powerful commercial interests fronted by their pals, failing to act on difficult issues like the environment out of a self interested fear of losing power, getting people fired up against hyped 'threats' from others or simply attacking others to steal what they have.

I'm sure this orientation extends into the afterlife (at least into certain lower realms), giving rise to the possibility of separated entities much like devils or whatever. But since this is all part of Creation, of the great plan they surely can differ from other beings only by their separation from God, not by an inherent 'devilhood' or whatever - they got there out of their own unwise acts, which led to more misery, which led to even more unwise acts, which .....

Some cast evil as a necessity to create the conditions in this reality which enable us to learn to love. Buddhism captures this nicely by pointing out that the deities (which ultimately are aspects of our own consciousness/selves, and hence of God) can manifest in both wrathful (or destructive) forms as well as benevolent.

Where this apparently fine distinction matters is that it completely reformats the situation, and the nature of the required actions.

It's not a battle, and its not about winners and losers. Because its only by discarding wrong behaviours ('not doing') and acting with love towards others (and that includes tyrants, despots, so called devils and so on as well as your nasty supervisor) that we can reverse this situation.

We can't even judge in this game, because judgement is itself is just a respectable form of aggression that seeks to cut others off from love. And that's before we get to discussing the fact that we generally don't have the wisdom to distinguish good from 'not good' (I don't like the 'evil' word - it carries such a charge, such prejudgement)  - we all to one degree or another see things through a selfish lens, and as a result often can't see the greater good in acts we feel threaten us or our ego. Or simply don't have the knowledge and wisdom to see what's needed in a given situation - how to perfectly express love.

Aggression (even in the name of God as history has repeatedly shown, and as current events in the Middle East are again showing us) can only lead to like responses, and consequently to an escalation and a worsening of the situation. To the creation of ever more 'devils'....

I'm with you, Vajra. That the devil always loses is the he!l of it all

I've noticed that the very few "self styled devils" I've encountered always turned out to be angels who had been misled, or people-spirits who had gotten frightened and adopted a predatory style. In my opinion, to be a "devil is simpy a pathological state, but it can generally be cured.

What amuses me is that we tend to crucify holy people like Jesus, but we always feel sympathy "for that poor devil" in his problems. Strange world.
dave

I think the concept of the Devil is something Christianity pretty much came up with as he is insignificant in the Old Testament (despite a few small references to Satan and Lucifer, which bear little resembleance to the Christian Devil). Probably from the start IMO he was invented to give people someone other than the supposedly perfectly loving God to blame for bad things (such as the existance of sin - although I don't think Christianity ever makes it very clear what the balance is between sin that is from man's "fallen"nature and - incorrectly used - freeewill, and disobedience, and that which results from the Devil's influence). However, parts of the Bible also admit, as you would expect from an omnipotent God, that pretty much everything happens with God's consent - one OT verse even says I create good and evil, as far as I remember. we can't just blame the Devil for  every bad thing - like earthquakes or child deaths etc, I don't think. The tendancy to see all good as from God and all bad from the Devil is actually maybe more like Zoroastrianism or the Manichean heresy, seeing the world as a combat between two powerful opposing forces of good and bad.
Personally I doubt there is a specific being from whom all evil emanates, but I may be wrong. Also what is good and what is bad can sometimes vary according to your perspective. To us "bad"is anything that makes us suffer, but whether the universe sees it that way i don;t know.

Juditha:

How do you know it was the devil who appeared to you? I've seen spirits appear in all kinds of creepy looking costumes, and sometimes I ask them where did you get the halloween mask?

Spirit energy doesn't look like anything in particular. For whatever reasons, spirits cause their energy to appear in different ways.  Sometimes they do so while sending visual messages, sometimes they cause themselves to appear in a particular way. Often in a manner that derives its origins from what biological organisms look like. For example, creepy eyes, horns,  a tail, scars and such. What could body based features possibly have to do with who/what a spirit really is? Such imagery is used because unfriendly spirits realize people are often scared by such imagery.

What matters more than the imagery is intent.  Even intent doesn't matter if the person they try to influence can't be influenced.  As long as you stay commited to God and Christ, I don't believe an unfriendly spirit can cause you harm. It isn't worth while to be afraid of them. One just helps them in a con game when they take such an approach.

Even if a spirit says it is the devil this doesn't mean it is the devil. Could be a spirit who is either lying or deluded.  The Bible doesn't say anything about the origin of the devil (or satan), nor one consistent viewpoint of who he is. The imagery based on a red guy with horns and a tail comes from a fictional story by Milton.

Perhaps there is some ring leader when it comes to negative minded spirits.  However, it doesn't make sense to over estimate such a spirit's power when nothing establishes that such a leader, whatever name it might go by, actually has significant power.  It is more of a matter of whether or not a person allows his or herself to get in a position where he or she can be misled or influenced in a negative way.  

Hi recoverer  Just before i went to bed that night,i remember i felt uneasy because i had said to the devil that he would no way win against god,and i was thinking just before i went in my bedroom that the devil was going to take revenge on me for what i said ,so this could have helped me into beleiving the devil was in front of me,i know that i couldnt move my body through that experience.

Love and God bless   Love juditha

Juditha:

The fact of how you couldn't move your body sounds like a classic case of pre out of body paralysis. This happens to many people without a being such as a devil having anything to do with it.

What is important is how you were protected once you went out of body. I believe your friends from the spirit World, including God and Christ, were trying to tell you that you have nothing to worry about as long as you choose to live according to God, Christ and love. So jump for joy, because you are safe! :)

On more than one occasion I've told myself that even if there was such a being as a devil I don't have to worry, because nothing can stop a person from choosing the light if this is what a person chooses. No being ever responded to me after thinking in such a way.  Perhaps you had the experience you had, so the God's light part of the equation could be shown to you, so you no longer have to worry your dear heart about the matter.


wrote on Aug 9^th, 2007 at 4:34pm:

Hi recoverer  Just before i went to bed that night,i remember i felt uneasy because i had said to the devil that he would no way win against god,and i was thinking just before i went in my bedroom that the devil was going to take revenge on me for what i said ,so this could have helped me into beleiving the devil was in front of me,i know that i couldnt move my body through that experience. Love and God bless   Love juditha

Hi recoverer Thanks for explaining to me why i could not move my body,it was my very first experience of out of body and i realise now that God and christ were looking after me.

Love and God bless you     Love juditha

You're welcome Juditha:

This is how it happened for me the first time I went out of body years ago.

I woke up one night and my body was in a state of paralysis. I hadn't heard of out of body experiences, so I didn't understand what was going on. I tried to gain control of my body by lifting my right arm. I saw it raise, but then realized that my physical arm was still by my side.

I then looked accross the room and saw a spirit being coming towards me. He wore like a monks gown. I then shot out of my body and flew around the building I was in a bit.

The next day I went to the library, for some reason grabbed a book off of a shelf without having any idea what it was about, and it was about astral projection.  It explained all about paralysis. I thought  "Wow, that's what happened to me last night!"

Albert

P.S. I really like the picture of Jesus you posted.


wrote on Aug 9^th, 2007 at 5:03pm:

Hi recoverer Thanks for explaining to me why i could not move my body,it was my very first experience of out of body and i realise now that God and christ were looking after me. Love and God bless you     Love juditha

:) Well done Juditha for staying with the thread - i was a bit afraid I might have caused offence on the devil issue...

Hi Albert-
Similar thing happened to me as a kid - scared me spitless. Now I recognize that there is a sleep phase inwhich we naturally undego paralysis - Jouvet in his book Tthe Paradox of Sleep" tries to make sense of the paralysis, but it sounds to me that he's doing everything he can to avoid the possibility that there is something metaphysical happening.  
dave

I think the mode of evil stems from the beliefs in being "greater or less than" someone.  When someone believes that they can ONLY receive power by "Stealing" it from someone else and that their poverty is a result of somebody stealing their success, then "evil" things are bound to happen.  Unfortunately, there is the belief system that our creator is a King who created us ONLY to have lesser subjects to rule over and who is insecure in people's opinions about "him".  This is my opinion and take only the parts that work for you.  I can't force you to paradise after all.

Hi vajra  You have not offended me at all,you have as much right as me and all of us to write on here your thoughts and your beleifs on the subjects on here. :)


Love and God bless you       Love juditha

 

Dave said:
"What amuses me is that we tend to crucify holy people like Jesus, but we always feel sympathy "for that poor devil" in his problems. Strange world."

I think if someone is surrounded even only faintly with the scent of perfection, uncloudable happiness, then us people react often with "Well, let's put him/her to the test and see how lucky he/she really is", while "that poor devil" makes remember us of our own devil-like tendencies/parts and our fear we could fall down the ladder once as well, and hope someone/something is going to save us then.

Persons with an aura of "holy" are appearing much more afar than "devilish" persons, as the latter are easier to figure out, while the holy ones are more a mystery. Therefore, the curiosity when approaching holy people could lead to dirty research methods.

Just my spare time psychology...

Spooky

:) Thanks J.

I suspect as well Spooky that the genuinely holy person is a threat to many - he/she (probably mostly by example)  speaks of the need for and can be a very powerful catalyst for change. And much as Dave says is as a result of not having predictable appetites is not easily manipulated using the normal 'tools'.

Which threatens individual egotistical personalities, and the self interest driven institutions they create by undermining the way they actually work, build and maintain their power.

Individually, collectively, psychologically and materially the egotistic have lots invested in maintaining the status quo, and will aggressively attack when it's threatened.

On sleep. One marker in meditation of getting deeper in I find is this not quite paralysis. I can move, but it requires an effort of will, and there's a slightly stiff feeling in the hands and fingers which afterwards feel much the way they do on wakening after sleep.

I always think of the Monroe description of focus 10 -  'mind awake, body asleep'. It feels like this is pretty much true in physiological terms.

I think it was Monroe that described it as a necessary disconnection - so that the body doesn't move while we are convinced we are doing something active in a dream........

Dave:

Albert? Who's that? Just kidding. ;)

Interesting enough, I didn't experience a lot of fear when my first out of body experience took place. Not even when I saw a spirit. Eventhough I hadn't heard of astral projection, I was spiritually minded at the time. This probably made a difference.  I considered this to be yet another spiritual experience that I happened to be having at the time.

At the time I hadn't read any spiritual books, and was in the Army. When my service period with the Army ended I returned home and expected people would understand what I was talking about when I shared my experiences. What I understood seemed so natural. I'd tell them things such as,  "just because we can perceive the World, this doesn't mean that it actually exists," or I'd tell them about going out of body. I soon learned that there are many people you can't share spiritual experiences with. 


dave_a_mbs wrote on Aug 9^th, 2007 at 10:26pm:

Hi Albert- Similar thing happened to me as a kid - scared me spitless. Now I recognize that there is a sleep phase inwhich we naturally undego paralysis - Jouvet in his book Tthe Paradox of Sleep" tries to make sense of the paralysis, but it sounds to me that he's doing everything he can to avoid the possibility that there is something metaphysical happening.   dave

Greetings all,
I just registered and the first thread i was reading is related to what made me start looking for answers to begin with. Speaking of the out of body experience, As far back as i can remember, I am partially awakened in the night. I seem to be caught between a dream state of mind and what i would consider realty. I feel as though i am being held down, and the harder i try to sit up the harder it becomes. I feel as though i am being suffocated( I think Thats how its spelled).What gets me is I seem to be caught between 2 different worlds cause i am seeing people at one point as i go in and out of my sleep state, and feel as though my arms are being held down, and after some struggle i free myself and at times come leaping up out of bed. Like i said, it has happened frequently throughout my life. Some months more times than others.I have heard many say that this is a spirit who is attracted to my energy and is trying to enter my body. I was hoping maybe to get some other point of view as what may be occuring.
I am a very Black and white sort of person when it comes to  most things, so to say I am imagineing it or their is a logical explanation, you would think i would agree with due to my personality's overall appearance. but when you get to know me I am actually a very spiritual person and believe their is some sort of spirit world and an afterlife,actually this seems logical to me that their is one, and what is happening to me is related. I finally have began to search out my answers which is what brought me to this site. This website happened to be the first link on the page from my first search for answers.
I have r4ead over some of the threads and realize how much knowledge and and help is being offered, so i felt i must share my story and see if anyone has a thought about it. Thanks again

Hey there,

don't be just offended by what I am saying now, but I think the devil (or kind of a nihilistic principle, in a state where we find ourselves just too comfortable easy blinded by all that glitters, that is not gold at all...) for us is sometimes necessary, just to know where we really belong. Kind of remembers me of the dialogue between the Lord and Mephisto (who in this case is you could say a servant of hell, the nihilistic principle arguing against the creation, seing humankind as a plague, and like to play with humanbeings for his own joy), where it turns out, that this kind of devil is the one, that makes people move out of their state of being easy to please with words, not able to grow out of himself, maybe to reach out for a higher self, he pulls people into sin, tries to teach them the wrong way away from god. But in spite of this all, the Lord states during this dialogue, that man knows his roots, knows to tell wrong from right, so it is really like the headline of this topic, that devil(s) exist but the Lord has to win in the end, because the devil is only a part of creation, and creation is meant to have a good ending for the righteous one, who can rely on doing good and reminding himself during acting bad, that his purpose on this earth is to act in a way, he can create something positive, so devil himself can just be a part time fellow, but has always just the purpose to tickle and plague, maybe this leads to misbehaviour, but just in the moment of aknowledging wrongdoing is really wrong, the Lord himself has won.
So the devil is just there to tempt, to confuse, to tear apart, to destroy, but it is our very quest not to be overwhelmed by him, according to from whom we come and what our quest is, to fulfill his plan.
In a dualistic system there have to be contradictions, but this contradictions in this case just belong to our mind, good and bad as part of our everyday life, so we are daily determined to avoid the bad/devil (fears, ego, lazyness) to give our very best to grow (would be the good).
From my position, I tend rather to believe like it is written on the top of my post, that everyone, be it earlier or later,  begins to live our lifes according to state positive things, so the devil fades... .

The devils we know best were just mentioned before, egocentered behaviour, me myself and I as my only friends, whatsoever, if we can overcome them, at least the good part of creation won one more time, and on and on, depends on how many people kind of "repent", but from the point that the good part always wins, it has to be everyone, who was/is/will be born.

So there's nothing to worry about, Juditha, as the devil fell apart from god, he cannot have the power to gain control over the creation, not even to disturb the relation between god and his children.

Love,

pulsar