I can't seem to find an explanation on this site about cases of Demon Possession. This may sound like a strange topic, but you can't just ignore it and say that demons are just our own fears etc. Thats what Bruce's answer was on the FAQ about "bad guys." But lets look at the reality of this phenomena. There are documented cases of people being possessed by very REAL and very negative entities. These people are reported to speak in languages they don't know and even levitate! You can't just say that demons aren't real when the evidence is there!
Why are these people possessed and why do they have an aversion to HOLY objects like crosses, holy water etc.

Sorry for sounding a bit ticked off, but this is really bothering me!

Patrick

What about levitation? Is that just in their mind?

I don't mean to sound rude, I am just a natural debunker.

Pat

Pat -
  Varja is coming from a perspective where reality is not objectively true; its just created by the mind of people.
  Many other people disagree.  I think that if I jumped off a cliff, and I disbelieved in gravity, I would still fall to my death.  I would say that objective reality is true; yes subjective states and views come into play, but some things are there and are just actually really there.
  I think that some demons do objectively exist also.  Not just projections of our mind but actual negative spirits that have never lived as a human.

First of all, my common sense tells me that things aren't set up so that another being can take over another being's will just like that. If I weren't right about this, one would think that possesssions would happen much more often than they do.  Regarding the frequency, it is interesting that preachers who emphasize demon possession, end up doing exorcisms on a regular basis, while preachers who don't emphasize demon possesion, don't have to perform exorcisms. If a person acts as if he or she is possessed, it is very important to determine whether or not he or she is actually being messed with by an "evil" spirit. Otherwise an exorcist will end up supporting a person's state of delusion. I believe that people who have worked in the mental health field for a while, are well aware of how people can become deluded in all kinds of ways.

I'm not suggesting that confused/negative minded spirits (I won't say "evil" without quotation marks because I believe everything comes from God and is inately divine) never attach themselves to people and influence them, but let's be reasonable about it.  A person's psyche is a mixture of various thought patterns, many of which contradict each other.  How can a negative minded spirit that doesn't even have control of its own collection of thought patterns, take over the entirety of another person's conflicting thought patterns?

Some might say a negative minded spirit doesn't take over the thought patterns of a person. It takes over the will center of a person. This sort of perspective is likely to come from a person who believes in satan and such.  Going along with their line of thinking, and therefore, assuming that God is the designer of everything, does it make sense to believe that God designed things so that "evil" spirits have the ability to take over the will center of another person whether or not they agree for this to take place? If one answers yes, then what is the point of teachings such as "as you sow, so you reap"? With this way of thinking it simply comes down to whether a person loses the numbers game that causes he or she to become a defenseless victim. Related to this, I find it interesting that the people who perform exorcisms don't become possessed by "evil" spirits as they do so, nor do the people who know a person who "might" be possessed. One would think that if "evil" spirits have the ability to take over the will centers of people whenver they feel like it, the people who are in some way associated with the first person to become possessed would also get possessed. Or are "evil" spirits a bunch of lone wolves?

I've had a number of spiritual experiences which have clearly told me that negative minded spirits are able to influence people "only" when people hand them the key in some way. Perhaps a person is a drug addict or alchoholic, a spirit with a similar mind set is energetically attracted to such a person, and because of a similar mind set, is able to influence the person it attaches to.

Perhaps the same thing happens to a person who is really angry and hateful. His or her vibration/mind set attracts a spirit with a similar mind set. When this negative minded spirit tries to influence a person this person isn't able to resist, because this person hasn't developed the ability to draw on a way of thinking that will enable he or she to live according to love.  Or in other words, it isn't usually possible to go from being a negative minded person to being a loving person just like that.

Going by my "experiences," negative minded spirits try to influence a person by sending a person negative thought patterns. I've had no problem resisting them when I've received them, because they were so opposite of my way of being.

My experiences and common sense have shown me that if a person chooses to live according to love and light, there is nothing a negative minded spirit can do to change this.  Certainly, a person needs to be careful and make certain he or she isn't tricked by a spirit who tries to deceive them.

It is also a matter of vibrational rate. A spirit who vibrates at a slow level isn't going to be able to over power a person who vibrates at a higher level. I didn't come to this conclusion simply by reading sources that state that this is so. A number of experiences have showed me that this is true.

One time I was in an expanded state while meditating. I couldn't get myself to expand any further. My spirit guidance showed me the image of a creepy looking demon like critter. This concerned me a bit. I heard my spirit guidance say, "you never look behind them." Right away I understood what my guidance meant. If you really consider what a creepy image is all about, there is nothing there. Spirits don't actually look like the creatures you see in a Hollywood movie. What does light energy have to do with imagery that is based on biological organisms that have wierd looking eyes, fangs, scars and such? Absolutely nothing. It is all a matter of the imagery a spirit chooses to project when it tries to scare and intimidate a person. They do so with the hope that a person will forget to tune into love. A negative minded spirit obtains power only when we give it the power. When we believe in them more than we believe in the light, we hand them the key.

Patrick, Varja, Recoverer, and others
Just a coupe quick thoughts - if you want to read a great book, try People of the Lie by M Scott Peck.  Peck is probably best known for The Road Less Traveled, which is another great book.  Peck became a Christian after being a psychologist (or was it psychiatrist?  I get those mixed up) and saw multiple cases (although rare) where there was no other psychiatric explanation than demonic possession.  In other words, he was convinced by sheer evil and circumstances of his direct experience/observations that this was supernatural in origin; which led him to think there must be supernatural good as well, which led to his conversion.

Secondly, there have been posts by Varja and Recoverer lately that have a tone or a sentiment similar to this:

Quote:


First off I want to say I respect what Varja and Recoverer have to say, and we can agree to disagree.  The problem as I see it though with saying something like this is that it makes God responsible for evil (if everything directly or indirectly comes from God in the sense of being willed by God).  Or it denies there is evil, which is absurd (I don't mean that offensively, I mean the idea is absurd).  I am just now checking on CNN's website and I see something about the continuing political turmoil in Pakistan.  I read a story yesterday in the L.A. Times that was talking about lawyers being beaten and imprisoned for trying to stand up for the rule of law.  So if everything comes from God and is innately divine, either A/ God wants lawyers in Pakistan to be beaten and imprisoned, or B/ there is no difference between being beaten/imprisoned and simply living life in peace and leisure.

Or, we could discard the premise that 'everything comes from God' and go with something else, like God gives us free will and evil comes about by the choices that people make (such as Musharraf becoming more dictitorial).

I guess the real problem I have is saying something like 'everything comes from God' trivializes the suffering that people have through the consequences of truly evil actions.  Telling a lawyer in Pakistan that this is God's will, or that being beaten and imprisoned is the same as living in peace, are both not good options.  But maybe I am reading too much into one sentence.

Pratekya:

What are the circumstances with a case or two Scott Peck dealt with? Did the people involve do something to make themselves open targets? I've heard of people who deal with things such as black magic having problems. Were there clearly any signs of something other than a negative minded former human spirit being involved? Certainly it is possilbe for a negative minded former human spirit to have negative thoughts towards God, Christ,  etc, if it doesn't have a clear idea of what God and Christ are all about. Heck, there are even people who have such thoughts all on their own. I do not believe that a being could have negative thoughts toward God and Christ if it had a clear understanding of what God and Christ are all about.

Regarding the evil that is seen in this World, I don't doubt it exists.  My feeling is that when our spirits take on the role of being human, we are provided with the option to either create in a positive direction or a negative direction.  If our creative energy didn't have the freedom to go either way, it wouldn't have the freedom it needs in order to create.  Unfortunately, some people, partly due to how their overall influences add up, end up creating in a negative way.

I've shared the following experience before. Early on during my kundalini unfoldment process, one night I was shown a lifesize heavy metal rock dude. I could see kundalini flowing within him. He said I use my kundalini for evil. Next I saw a lifesize demonic image of myself.  Next I saw the face of Jesus Christ. The message was clear. If I'm going to go through the kundalini unfoldment process, make certain I do so according to the spirit of Christ. The process I've gone through has caused layers of my subconscious mind to be revealed. It can be quite surprising some of the things our minds create.  I would not had been able to make it through the cleansing process I've been going through, if it wasn't for the fact that I've opened myself up to the spiritual support of Christ and others (God, higher self).

I've found that any of us have the ability to create in a manner that is really negative. That's why people are able to respond to a movie such as the Exorcist so strongly. Not because a demon jumps off of the movie screen and creeps them out. Rather, the movie stimulates them to use their own creative energy to create a negative feeling.  By the way, I watched the Exorcist recently (only my second time), and some of those scenes were kind of silly. I could tell that they were staged.

Some people seem to believe that evil comes from an omnipresent fallen angel. I don't believe in this for several reasons. For one thing, the original versions of the book of Isiah don't speak of a fallen angel. They speak of a fallen physical king of Babylonia. It wasn't until third century that fallen angel language was added.

More importantly, I've experienced higher realms and divine love, and there is no way that an angel created by God is going to fall when exposed to such divine wonder.  In order for a spirit to fall, it needs to be exposed to negative influences. Where would negative influences come from in a heavenly realm?  And even if an angel did fall, its severed connection to God would cause its vibrational rate to go down, and hence its spiritual power.

Some might say that the book of Revelations speaks of a fallen angel that takes a third of angels with him by swiping his tail. Outside of the fact that it is hard to believe that an angel would have the power to do such a thing,  the manner in which this angel is spoken of is clearly symbolic as much of the rest of the Book of Revelations. For example, a red dragon with seven heads, ten horns and a long swishing tail isn't to be considered literally. John was simply communicating to his fellow Christians of the time via letter, in a symbolic manner.

I'd like to conclude with what Arthur Yensen had to say, in one of the oldest near death experiences recorded (he had it in 1932).

"Do you believe in the devil?

No, but if there is one, he would have to be an insane angel who was crazy enough to fight with God, which would be as futile as for us to try to stop the sunrise."

I agree. A being who knew what God is about, would understand how futile it would be to stand up to that which created "everything." Certainly an angel would know what God is about.

Regarding negative minded alien spirits, I doubt they conform to our theologies.

Hi all  I really beleive,there is evil spirits out in this world who work for the devil in everyway,if it was not for the fact that these exist,the world would have nothing but love existing,but its the  evil spirits that can come through and possess a person and also the evil spirits that exist in living people and they do exist in living people

All im saying here is that evil is here amongst all the good in this world and the light of God is always trying to shine through this as these evil spirits create the black clouds that cover the world but the light of god will always overcome the dark clouds and i remember watching the exorcist and when the priest ordered the devil to come ourt of that child,that evil spirit through the preist out of the window,so evil spirits have got a certain amount of power,only the priest was not mental and the evil spirit still chucked him out of the window,so possession can happen to someone who is normal

Love and God bless   Love Juditha

Hi dave and recoverer I agree with what you have written but a lot of people,when they see someone commiting a bad deed ,they put it down to the devil and evil spirits because thats sometimes the only explanation they can find in themselves to explain it away and im guilty of thinking that myself sometimes.

Deanna was crying to our priest today and asked him,why dont God get rid of all the evil people on trhe earth and our priest told her that if she thinks that God will come down on earth and take away the people that get up his back ,then it wont happen and God has left it up to us to get through the good and the bad"Hence freewill"

Our priest said there are too many people what do bad things in the world and then turn round and say that it was the devil,its just there excuse for doing it.

I told our priest today to read about Silver Birch as he says much about god and our priest said where does he live and i said"No hes dead "so the priest said "Well how can he write books and i said he dont write books but the medium does who Silver Birch comes through to tell the medium about god and the spirit world and the priest told me i was very disallusioned and looked a bit like he thought i was mad.

The priest said his mothers dog dont know anything because he's a dog and i told him that his dog will tell him exactly what he thinks of him when there both in the spirit world as his mothers dog can communicate with him and the priest said"I hope not,i forgot to feed him this morning and i laughed because he gave me a look as if to say i should seek physitriatic help.

Love and God bless   Love Juditha