Oppression

I've toyed with the idea, but I'm coming to believe it now. I am oppressed. I'm suspecting that the dark presence I feel, hovering, louring, is some actual entity. Demonic.

My sins are not so great that I could be possessed. But my righteousness has never been great, and in any case it is as filthy rags. In some circles there is the idea that there are generational spirits. If any family might have such a thing, it would be mine. I was talking to my brother yesterday, whose conversation frequently revolves around our father, and he asked if I'd read the old man's journal. Never heard of it. The story of his unhappy childhood. Grew up in Montana, had a horse, that teenagers sodomized and later stoned to death. Just one of his stories. Well, I don't suppose I need to hear that sort of thing. But it would be hard to understand how such events would not be witnessed and applauded and urged on by actual demonic spirits. That cling to grief and fear and rage the way flies swarm to feces and rotting flesh.

There was a time, years ago, during my marriage, when I would walk into a room and feel a host of alien emotions. Turns out I was feeling other people's emotions. Empathy is a real thing, apparently. It's not a foolish idea. If we can smell other people's smells, why not sense their feelings? -- whether as a purely psychological and subconscious process of subliminal cues and consequent resonances, like sympathetic vibrations -- or as something on a more spiritual or soulish level? And if we can sense on a physical and personal level the emotions of others, why not the unseen presence of angelic beings, faithful or fallen -- and of beings not angelic at all, but purely and always malevolent?

Jesus believed in demons. No metaphors about it. Bald statements that assumed their reality. Conversations and interactions. Did something change in the ensuing two thousand years? He saw Satan cast down. A third of the heavenly host, apparently, rebellious. Not demons, but fallen. Who looked upon, later, the daughters of men, and took them for "wives". As current events are reminding us, marriage is between one man and one woman, for the biological purpose, generally, of procreation. Angels manifest in this universe as men -- if they can eat with Abraham, if we can be their hosts without knowing their nature, then how are their bodies not genetically human? It's their spirit, their nature, that's not human.

What offspring from such an alien union? Mighty men of renown, giants in the earth, nephilim, hybirds, who posses the genetics but not the spirit of humanity. Real humans, in those days, upon their death went to Sheol -- Abraham's Bosom, or Tartarus. What of the nephelim? No place for their spirits to wait. So upon their deaths they roamed free, and being physical, carnal, they sought to regain flesh. They still do. Any flesh will do, even that of swine. Hence, possession.

I can't say about the movie, The Exorcist. Don't know if innocent children can be possessed. Seems unfair, since they haven't reached the age of accountability. But they get diseases. That's not fair either. They are molested and abused, by parents even, and that's not fair. So that it should happen on a literal spiritual level -- why not? It's one of the jobs of parents, to protect their children, from every manner of threat. Some parents don't even teach their children to wash their hands. So, yes, I suppose children can be possessed. But I'd expect some egregious sin must accompany the act.

We have skin, to protect us from invasive bacteria and the accompanying infection and disease. We have a soulish skin as well, commonly called the aura, with its chakras and halos and whatnot. Its protective function can be damaged. Drugs and violent emotion and illness can weaken and tear it. Spiritual neglect can do the same. We can be sick in our souls, and greater illness can follow.

So, yes, I may be oppressed. The black presence I feel approach out of nowhere to settle over me like a thick canvas sack, it may be real. I don't know. I hadn't thought I was important enough to merit special attention. But vampires drink blood because of their own thirst, that has little to do with the victim.

I've had this idea before. But it's sort of hard to believe. I've never had any manifestations. No dramatic visions, of sneering faces looming out of the dark. Just intimations. I've seen them in the faces, in the eyes of people I've met. But that's easy to explain away. On the other hand, we are told that there is a war going on. And as we know, there really shouldn't be any non-combatants, since in this particular war of which I speak civilians are the targets. That there are spies and traitors can be no surprise. We see it reflected after all in our mundane politics. As above, so below.

So I have to learn how to pray. I've felt disqualified for years, like a fallen bishop, once holy and wise and learned and good, who gave himself over to the flesh -- defrocked and disgraced, cast out from the sheep and living with pigs. That's how I've thought of myself. It's not necessarily a bad thing, spending years in the tormenting wilderness. Sometimes that's the only way arrogance can be humbled.

Often I end these things by undermining what I just written. I have my reasons, I'm sure. But this one is a sort of prayer. And you know how we're supposed to end prayers. I'll leave it at this: sheep need shepherds, because of their own foolishness, and because of the wolves. Shepherds, with their rods and their staffs, are dangerous men. The staff was for guiding; the rod is a club, for breaking in the heads of wolves. Sheep can't do that. So that's it then. There is no I rebuke you Satan, all dramatic and emotional, despite what puffed up people on television like to pretend. The proper formulation is, May the Lord rebuke you.

So that's where I'll leave it. Because I know that, of all men, I should not call on myself, for rescue.


J