Goodbye Kansas

Fair warning on this one: we're going head first down the rabbit hole and Kansas is going bye-bye. So here's your blue pill. If you keep reading, it's your own risk.


Ok. So I've written before about my condition. I am highly sensitive to lots of things. While you might sneeze, I'll have flu like reactions. While you might have indigestion, I go to the hospital. This makes holidays with obligatory feasts and ample treats particularly difficult. I often have weird dreams following food that my body doesn't want, so what follows could be related. But it struck me much different. Those dreams have a particular tone and themes. This was like other dreams I've had, if we want to call them that, but not like my usual body signals.

You might want to apply a rational interpretation to what I'm about to relate and that's fine, I've done that too. There could very well be more of gravy than of grave about this, to borrow from Mr. Dickens. But I'm not convinced that's all there is to it. In my experience, nothing is ever just this or that, but inextricably linked with everything else. So I'm going to write it as I experienced it and leave it there. Red pill down...diving into the hole.

You may have read about my past experiences in spiritualism. When one does that, certain things change and don't go back.  Like many things in life, once you cross a line, you can't uncross it.

So last night, through a series of dream events, I found myself on a dock in a swamp with a couple unidentified people. There was a stroller with a baby in it. Somehow it was brought up that it was now widely accepted that it was not Lucifer who had been responsible for a certain unclear historical event involving a baby, but in fact, Lilith. I was alarmed at the mention because in spiritual realms to mention is to court the presence of, and in waking life...ok, we'll go with that...in waking life I had encountered lilith before and she is terrifying in the true sense.

Just then, as the dread of how she might appear was coming on me, a snake-like tentacle glided up on the dock from the water. The end had been cleaved off like an octopus in a Japanese restaurant. I yelled to the others that she was here and quickly kicked the writhing thing away only to find another reaching up. They grabbed the stroller and turned it over, spilling what had been the baby into the water, but fortunately it was now only blankets. (Thank God! My dreams are not always so sanitized.)

My heart quivered within me as a white shapeless molten form rose up from the water with the serpent arms. It quickly began to take a female shape as if moving through stages of plasticene scuplture until even the snake tails became human arms. There she stood with black hair and hellish eyes, a demonic half-smile on the well-formed mouth. She was larger than a human by at least double and stood in the swampy water while still extending above my head where I stood on the dock.

She addressed me familiarly. I quickly remembered in my fear that the only course was to resist and call for help. Demons have no inherant power, they are merely self-negations, perversions of created things. So in reality, they can only decieve and frighten. But if you've never encountered one like this, trust me, that fear is enough to make you forget your wits.

Therefore, rather than answer a single word and open the door for her, I rebuked that she was not wanted. Like Saruman in LOTR, if you let them speak, they'll get in your head in a heart beat. Like Gozer, you have to clear your mind. Or since that's impossible, you have to fill it with truth and higher power, which they can't combat. So I continued to shout that I was a son of Jesus (not sure where that wording came from) and that she had no power over me. She had no power here. That was all I could yell and I clung to it fiercely while trying to stay between her and the others.

She fought back with everything she had and the battle lasted several minutes.

 As I gained some confidence I began to thrust my presence forward at her, like a spiritual shove with every affirmation and rebuke. Finally, she turned and fled, gliding over the water to a nearby road. I turned to chase her, wanting to kill her once and for all. She flew into a box truck, like UPS, only white like a bread truck, and drove away.

I quickly gave up pursuit realizing that it was not for me to kill one like her. Only to resist...which I had done...and she had fled...SHE had FLED! The mother of demons that had engendered such fear on my part had fled at my resistance! The original succubus that had plagued me for so many years in various forms had been driven out of my mind...in very literal dream imagery!

I woke with a start thinking I had only just drifted off to sleep, but it was morning. The battle had taken all night, but it was over.

Is this a bit of badly digested food? A phantasm of my hypersensitive body? Maybe, but maybe that pharmacaea opened the door for something more. Is the demon driven out? Is the hold broken on me? It's too soon to tell.

But I think it was Black Elk who said that you can tell a dream from a vision by how well it stays in your mind when you wake. This has shaken me to the point that I had to look more into it this morning.

I dared to look up lilith and to my surpise, I found she is often portrayed as partly serpent. I tell you, no where in my memory does that reference occur. I can't even recall looking for images of her. She is also often drawn with a certain dark-haired appearance, which she had assumed in my encounter. I'm not making conclusions. I can rationally surmise an explanation that still perfectly suits the outcome.  But you know what? I don't really care what really happened, or what "real" even means. I care only about True, and in any case, this is a true story. Ding Dong the witch is gone! And I'm celebrating that for all it's worth. Thank God for deliverance and I pray it's for good!

War

I recently heard someone speaking about Deliverance, with a capital D.  I hadn't heard of it before.  Honestly, I ended up in a position to hear him speak completely unintentionally.  Anyway, the word with a capital D refers to, the speaker said, "the casting out of demons." Yep.  I'm not kidding.  It's a thing.  He wasn't making that up.  I check everything.

So as he presented it, it's a system of counselling that focuses on removing demonic influence from people's lives.  To his credit, he was not at all pushy and delivered his talk in a very matter-of-fact and non-spooky way.  He did not come off as a charlatan.  I'd have walked right out.  I think he legitimately believes what he's saying and considers himself more reasonable than many he knows in the field.  Since he could approach it in a rational manner, I felt he deserved a fair hearing.

He didn't go into detail about the process, partly because he didn't want to spook people out (he said this) and partly (I think) because he had a seminar to plug and a 'ministry' to support.  Though he didn't ask for money.

He gave a few stories, but mostly just talked about the background principle.  The stories were sufficient to make me think.  I have enough experience of the spiritual to safely admit demons and other spiritual forces do exist and influence people. But the background principle is what didn't sit well.

He pulled verses from the Bible that seemed a bit out of context and misinterpreted.  But as is my bent, I began to consider what might be true in it.  Was I the one misunderstanding?  He admitted demons aren't behind every problem, but claimed they could be behind any problem.  He alluded to some sort of contractual type scenario in which people can, knowingly or not, give demons access to themselves.  He claimed that Jesus could save a soul, but that the body and spirit might still be "infected" as he put it.  The focus of Deliverance is to break those contracts and make people as free and healthy as possible.  He said that there was a process people had to participate in.  Alluding to some 'steps' and such people had to take to be sure they stay free.

I left mostly denying it, but with enough doubt that I had to consider more fully.  I talked it over with my wife and son.  I asked God to tell me what is true.  I even wrestled with it in dreams for a couple nights.  I debated calling a mentor of mine and discussing it with him.  Was I right?  What if I wasn't?  Could I be suffering from some seemingly medical ailments because of the doors I'd opened in my past?  What about beneficial suffering; the "thorn in the flesh"?  Wasn't Jesus sufficient?  Why wouldn't he cleanse everything?  Could I take the chance on that?  Was it worth the chance?  It didn't fit with my understanding of the universe, but it did echo many of the things I encountered and heard from people in the Spiritualist world that I had dabbled in fairly extensively years ago. 

So finally, I decided to look it up.  Though I was a bit scared of creeping myself out.  The speaker had said it was easy to find on the internet.  So I did a late night search and was quickly provided with an article from an ex-Deliverance counsellor who shed all the light I needed. Thank God for answering.

This long article described the Deliverance movement in such verbatim detail to the speaker that I had no doubt they were talking about the same thing.  In fact, they quoted the same people, same verses, same vocabulary.  The article described it as very real.  He had seen many amazing things happen.  But still he left it.  The reasons he left it encapsulate my very difficulties.

I'm not going to try to digest the whole article for you.  Look it up yourself if you're interested.  What resonated with me was, for one, that the Deliverance movement is a 20th century invention.  It claims roots to ancient times, but no more than Wicca can claim to the ancient pagans.  In other words, it's a modern supposition of what might have happened, and not a true religious tradition and therefore does not have the weight of history and community of consent behind it.  But more importantly, Deliverance is essentially a works-based faith.  Freedom is not obtained by the work of God.  It's made possible by that, but people then have to get the right prayers, the right lifestyle, the right program to be fully free.  And then only so far as they keep it up.  Further, it adds chains to people with the concept that when a demon returns, it brings more with it and makes the end condition worse.  Thus someone who is struggling lives in eternal fear that they may not only go back to the torment, but it may get worse.  And if you've never experienced spiritual torment of this kind, let me tell you, it's enough to make you high dive into concrete.

The article described it like a spiritual protection racket that Satan himself backs by putting on good demonic shows.  "Sure, cast me out, but watch how much of a fight I can put up. Get proud, feel special, feel afraid."  It's like the Fight Club assignment to pick a fight and lose.  It puffs up the counsellor and terrorizes (in the Terrorist sense) the victim who now has to look around every corner for the evil he knows "can get him at any time".

So is there another view that allows for demons and their influence but avoids this false paradigm of Spiritual Warfare?  Yes!  God is sovereign over all things.  Christ has put all powers beneath his feet.  The head of the serpent has been crushed.  Evil in fact, doesn't exist.  Philosophically proven, it can't.  What we call evil is the negation of a created thing which God called good.  A thing's evilness is exactly proportional to the degree it departs from what it was created to be.

There are far more verses in the Bible supporting this worldview.  Jesus sets free.   Nothing can harm me except as God allows and that means it will only be for my good, like chemotherapy that makes me sick so I can get well.  Or like physical training hurts so my muscles grow stronger.  The demons have no inherent power.  Only the illusion of it.  So what more would they want than to be attributed the power to control and manipulate us.  Sure they'll exploit it!  If we want a show, they'll be happy to oblige. 

Better to learn what Sarah had to learn in Labyrinth.  Not how to defeat her demons, but that they had no power over her in the first place.  With that it's all over.  This is echoed in my own life: dreams, studies, experiences, and reasoning.  It is the only way.  It is the Truth. 

Demons are real, but the conflict is not.  It's a bluff, a farse, a simulation of the Matrix.  God is sovereign and the truth is what is real.  As in War Games, we have to learn that, "The only winning move is not to play."

Rough

This has been a pretty rough weekend.  It happens.  Not that anything particularly bad has happened.  In fact, some very good things have actually occurred and it may get better still before it's over.  Truthfully, I wouldn't be surprised if the bad has been simply because the good was on its way and certain goods illicit spiritual resistance.  Perhaps in the amazing God way, the resistance furthers the good in spite of its intent to do the opposite.

Still it has been rough of a kind I haven't had in a long time.  It started building a while back with tensions in a part of my family.  That didn't go well at all and the best that could come of it was an open acknowledgement of the problem on my part and a refusal to sit under it any more.  This nonetheless hurt to do and revealed to me something about the relationship which I have long known to be the case.  I don't blame anyone here...really.  I don't think anyone meant for these things to happen, but there has been a long history of unspoken disappointments on both sides.  The long and short is that it awakened deep fears and pains in me.  Deeper than I knew.

Add to that a recent occurrence with another part of my family which piled on to already great tensions and hurt.  I was not involved directly and the conflict is between others, but I see the wounds and the aftermath.

Then add in some difficulties arranging certain upcoming events, sickness in some of the family, minor injuries in others, and top it all off with a supposedly all natural, safe, vitamin energy drink which might as well have been crack in a system like mine that can't tolerate anything beyond primitive whole foods, and you have the perfect makings of a bad head.  It doesn't take much for my demons to see an opportunity like this and they are all about exploiting it to full advantage.  This leaves me a tremoring wreck of doubts, fears, anger, confusion, and sadness. 

Of course most of the time, I can put on a brave face and go about my day, and for years I've managed pretty well.  But this weekend I kept losing it at random moments.  Fortunately I was alone each time.  But perhaps this is not fortunate because then no one sees the state I'm in, which only serves as fuel on the fire when they cast a weird glance and simply go about their business oblivious to the tortured captive crying out from behind my eyes.  This is of course fully exploited by my tormentors who keep whispering accusations and lies to me.

In my stronger moments, when chemicals aren't altering my awareness and mood, I can brush past these gaseous scavengers and don't give it a second thought.  But times like these, I am reminded of my sins and flaws and weakness.

Even still, I am more aware of God with me and in others than I have been in the past.  My tribe is still expanding, my influence and reach is growing.  In fact I happily confirmed one more in my family this weekend.  Even in my throes, God is able to work through me, confirming yet again that what good is in me is not of myself. 

And about midway through writing this, I was able to experience the peace and quiet joy of confession.  I have long heard from my Catholic friends about this, but have never really had the opportunity to experience it.  Of course, I didn't talk to a priest in that sense, but appealed to the natural priesthood of a trusted sister who was able to listen, and demonstrate absolution in her acceptance of what I am writing here, only to a level of detail which I will not write here.

Thank God for all he is.

Loser

Ok, so I have been a bit gripy in the past few posts. It's been a rough month so far. I'm starting to feel like I'm over it though. Certain things really rub me the wrong way because for me, my faith is a very real and active thing. There is a lot of religion that I find silly, or just plain wrong. What I find foolish or misunderstood, I don't adhere to at all. If people want to follow something that only affects themselves, I am content to let them work it out on their own. That stuff doesn't bother me.

But when it comes to things that I do believe, I truly believe them. There is no middle ground on those, just like I have no doubt that I am typing on this keyboard and sitting in this chair. And just as I have no doubt that Japan does in fact exist because I have been there. Just as certain as these things are, so are the things I believe about Christianity.

When someone starts trying to teach others things that I do not believe to be true. Things that go utterly against the character and nature of what I hold dear, I have a hard time. It isn't about intolerance, as I have said above. I respect people's rights to believe and to think for themselves. But just like no man would suffer someone to insult or defame his wife or children, so I feel about my God.

Why is this so serious for me when so many can breeze in and out of churches and it never really burns them down into their core? I don't know. I can speculate, but I'd prefer to speak from what I know.

I am a loser. Plain and simple. The lost sock. The guy who just doesn't get it. The one that stands on the outskirts. The one who doesn't like what everyone else likes, or talk like everyone else talks. I have seen the futility and the wrongs in this world and I have seen my inability to change myself or anyone else. My inability to do anything about the wrongs. My inability to make sense of it all. To someone like me... and I am not alone, there are many of us... there are few choices. Nihilism and hedonism are two of the biggest choices. My dark and ascetic nature leans more toward nihilism, the lack of belief in anything, than toward hedonism, simply because I can't lie to myself like that. To seek pleasure is to live blind to my speeding end and the pain around me.

It is a depressed and bleak existence. But what else is there with no good, no God, no hope. I unfortunately, could not blindly ignore the obvious and hide in my trinkets and drugs and sex and fun. I have sucked on a gun barrel more than once. I know what a knife blade feels like on my wrists. The only thing that kept me from doing it was the simple phrase, "what if the Catholics are right?" What if I did it and there was suddenly a God there condemning me to hell for eternity because of my suicide? I was already in hell, I couldn't take it for eternity, even if there was a glimmer of hope. Give me oblivion or heaven. So I lived in a way that disregarded my health. I would not eat. I would not wear a seat belt, even when I had a jeep with no doors. I hung out in seedy places, just waiting for my number to come up. I cut myself to make the inside pain ease by feeling it on the outside. I carved designs in my skin. I worked at a nursery and pruned roses bare-handed and carried cactus by the stalks, letting the needles pierce deep in my shoulder and hands. I smashed my head into mirrors just hoping they would shatter and cut me. I was walking dead. Then came the psychosomatic illnesses. The feelings of wretching and dying in the stomach. The spasms. The worst pain ever and it wouldn't stop. I probed into the occult, looking to see if there was something beyond this misery and pain. There I met more misery and pain. I began to be tormented psychologically. Demons tailed me and mocked me openly. I even came within inches of killing someone for cutting in line once. My hands shook so bad I could barely hold a fork, so I ate even less. Reality began to unravel. My death was coming, I could tell.

And then one day in desperation, I broke, with a soul scream so deep that it rippled shock waves through the room, crying out for help. I was at the end of myself. And suddenly Jesus was there. He was real. He was holy. His presence like a nuclear bomb. And with a whisper from him the demons were gone, the world blew away, and I was in perfect peace. I thought I was finally in the oblivion I sought, but slowly the world reformed and over years I learned to breathe and walk and eat again in a new world, in a new way. The Bible suddenly made so much more sense. It was informed by my experience. I can hear the depth and desperation in the words...by grace you are saved...I bear on my body the marks of Jesus...mercy, not sacrifice.

The old me is truly gone. I have participated in the regeneration of man by merging with Christ. My soul is his. I gave up myself into oblivion and found that there is no void...only Him. And he gave my soul back to me, repaired. The me he created was reinstalled, my spirit, my soul. My body and mind are still in process. They are still imperfect and still sometimes wracked by the terrors I have known.

But deep in me, when I turn silent and contemplate reality, there is my savior, his holy wind surrounding me. The one that owns me. The one that reformed me from the ashes of my own destruction. There is no sex, no meditation, no flow closer or more complete than this presence. Without him, I am lost. I know the horror of my self and of the world.

So you see, for me, Jesus isn't about making my life happy. It isn't about success, or complying with religious prescriptions. If that were the case, I would have no hope. It's too late for me in that. But as much as someone may believe those things, I know they aren't true. I hang entirely on him. I couldn't possibly deny him. And I would gladly go to my death over it. So I can't bear to hear anyone who claims to represent Jesus say or do things that would turn souls like me away from who He really is.

It's hard to say these things. Hard to commit them to writing. I seriously thought I was psychotic for a long time. But they have been confirmed. They are true. Perhaps this month has been about teaching me just how true and burning off some latent fears about expressing this part of me.