My horrible truth Witchcraft in my family

[FlickerOfLight]

Hello,

I write this with the heaviest of hearts. For I have uncovered a horrible truth and I am not processing it well.

I have actually been on here before writing about witchcraft, demonic possession, evil spirits and unclean spirits. I had studied many years on these subjects. Endless roads of darkness. Evil symbols, witchcraft spells, conjuring spirits; i looked down all these dark hallways in search of an answer.

My family has always been plagued with toxicity, tragedy, chaos, hauntings of our homes, strange deaths, familiar spirits, super secretive, tons of money (and I do mean tons) and so and so on. I could write ten books on these things alone. I started searching for answers, and as I was growing in my own spiritual walk, and understanding of how God is actually working in and through us, learning and growing in his word, I start to question certain "spirits" within my family.  Without getting into all that, I'll just say something along the way made me come to a question.

Has witchcraft been used in my family; and if so, are we under some sort of curse or evil spirit that are in control of my family somehow? 

I was clueless to any real witchcraft. I studied and learned what it really looked like. How it works. What affect it can have. How to determine if witchcraft is involved and even how to combat it. I explore every level from an academic standpoint, with my faith and understanding of God, and His Holy Spirit.

After a long search, I came to some more questions. The more I looked the more and more it was looking like it was a major possibility that witchcraft had been used in my family somewhere along the line. I started to dig around looking and thinking, "who in my family would possibly do that?" 


I authored a thread on here around this time. We discussed, at length, demonic possesion, evil spirits and witchcraft in that thread. The thread lead me to more digging and finding more evidence of magic. At this point I am exhausted mentally, physically, spiritually to the max. It had all become too much and taken a tole on me in a way that I knew I had to step away from looking into all that dark stuff which had me in dark thoughts. So I stepped away. I shut it all down. Even wiped it from here because it was too disgusting for me to leave it like that. I had to clear it from my life; completely.

I had let it go....and was staring to feel better about it all.

Ive been talking with my mom a lot more about her childhood. We were raised strict southern baptist. Everything was a sin and we were all going to hell. My granny was the one that made sure we were always in church. Now, my granny was a very quiet lady. Never hugged me, never told me she loved me, or made me feel like she cared about me or liked me at all; or any of us for that matter. She supplied our needs. Fed us. Took care of our basic needs. That was it though. I never even remember her talking to me. I didnt feel loved or liked by her, but she was my granny. I thought it was all normal. I never really saw any true light in her even though she was very much a church goin type.

As I am wondering who in my family could possibly do such a thing my granny was the last person I ever would expect.


My mom told me two stories now that have changed all of that.

My granny was involved with witchcraft. 

My mom wouldnt divulge much. She has always been extremely secretive. Now I know why. She let slip enough that she fully admitted to at least one spell, "at some cabin deep in the woods we werent aloud into, where granny met with a lady who used to tell garnnys "fortune" (never in a million years would I ever believed this). granny had a bag of stuff with her." is what my mom said.

I was explaining to my mom how these spells work, and how, for a powerful spell you had to sacrifice something; something you love; for certain spells. Basically, you had to offer something up as a bargaining chip.

When i told my mom this it was like a flash of lightning hit her. Her eyes swelled up and she began to cry.... She looks at me and says, "I think it was me, she sacrificed up to something." I could tell by the look in her eyes that she was piecing something together. Now, to be perfectly honest, sadly my mom is a liar. Always has been. A master manipulator that abused the shit outta me. I began this search wondering if she hadvan evil spirit. In that beginning thought and research I started to stumble upon with craft as a possibility. Knowing my mom would never fully tell me the truth, I knew she was still hiding a lot.
(I came back and added this: the type of spell I'm referring to in this particular case is the type of spell that will allow a n evil spirit to dwell in someone. From everything she told me it's what it sounded like to me)

I dug a little more and with a few more questions, I am 100% convinced that witchcraft was used. Finding out it was my granny has floored me. It has broken me for the moment. It has hit me so hard it has rocked my mental health.

I do not know how to process this. there is so much more to this story, but you'll have to take my word for it, and this is all I can think to write at the moment; there is much more to this. I am sure of this though. It is no longer a doubt in my mind. Three years I have been searching for this answer. Those two stories made everything make sense. I find this horrible truth when I had given up and moved on thinking no one in my "christian bible thumpin family" would ever mess with witchcraft.

I was wrong. 

This is too much to process.

I dont know what to do now.

Thanks RN. All I could think to do was write this out. This is an awful realization, that I almost wish I hadnt searched for. Im not taking this well (thats partly to do with my last post. no one to talk to about it).

[Infolurker]

May the power of Jesus and the covering of the Holy Spirit light the darkness. There are many who had fallen into darkness and have found salvation through the only salvation, Jesus Christ.

There are thousands and thousands of these video stories on New Age & Witchcraft. So many people have been saved and awakened. 

[FlickerOfLight]

May the power of Jesus and the covering of the Holy Spirit light the darkness. There are many who had fallen into darkness and have found salvation through the only salvation, Jesus Christ.

There are thousands and thousands of these video stories on New Age & Witchcraft. So many people have been saved and awakened. 

I'm saved. No worries. I know Jesus. I'm not into witchcraft at all. Or magic. 

I thank you for that though. I do understand. It's a dark topic. One I never thought I'd have to even consider. 

I still love my granny. This does not change that.

Jesus is Lord of all.

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

First off, a sin is a sin, they are all the same.

Witchcraft is considered a sin, as is divining and necromancy. However, often these words have a different Biblical meaning. For instance, sorcery in the New Testament is translated from the Greek word pharmakeia which relates to potions and poisons and is the root word of pharmacy. Also, witchcraft is often associated with pagan worship, particularly the Wiccan religion. Of course, paganism is a sin anyway, but it isn't witchcraft.

[FlickerOfLight]

First off, a sin is a sin, they are all the same.

Witchcraft is considered a sin, as is divining and necromancy. However, often these words have a different Biblical meaning. For instance, sorcery in the New Testament is translated from the Greek word pharmakeia which relates to potions and poisons and is the root word of pharmacy. Also, witchcraft is often associated with pagan worship, particularly the Wiccan religion. Of course, paganism is a sin anyway, but it isn't witchcraft.

Agreed that witchcraft is a sin. I never thought differently. 

I may have put that wrong. I never turned to witchcraft. I was studying on demon possession/casting out evil spirits. I had wondered if a family member was either possessed or oppressed by an evil spirit. I am a Bible scholar and am continuing my studies on my own. I had taken a course in possession and oppression and was already very familiar with this subject. I pondered if depression or narcissism could be possibly an oppression of an evil spirit on a person. I had also saw some things, and heard some things along the way about my family. I sensed witchcraft might have been used by someone in our past, from certain things I had picked up on. I didn't know anything about witchcraft, except what I had seen in movies. I approached from a scientific method/academia stand point to learn how to recognize witchcraft and when it has been used. After learning a good bit I came to realize there were signs of witchcraft in my family. Then the conversations I had with my mom confirmed it. I never in a million years thought my granny would ever even mess around with that stuff. From what I have learned, it sounds like she was very desperate, or possibly in a situation where witchcraft had been used against her, or her family. That is the only logical explanation I can come up with.

But yes...I know that if my granny messed with witchcraft, it was a sin.

Jesus forgives sins.

(I may have misunderstood your meaning a bit though. I remember learning that about pharmacy, and even how there symbol is of an evil origin. What I really learned is how much we have all been looking at witchcraft and demonic symbolism our whole lives...without even realizing it. Completely unaware of the "magic" that's been being used on us all. Even worse is knowing how a lot of people are worshiping magic and evil spirits without even knowing it. Having know idea that spells are being cast on them. I'm glad I've learned what I've learned. I know my enemy and all his weapons now.)

[Ninurta]

I know for fact that "witchcraft" has been used in my family, but I don't sweat it. As a matter of fact, all of my sisters claim I'M a witch, because I sometimes know things that I shouldn't. But I'm not a witch... it's just a thing.

What has always bumfuzzled me is what constitutes "witchcraft". For example, how is the "magick" involved in expelling evil spirits any different from the "magick" involved in summoning them? I've seen videos of a lot of exorcisms and house cleansings and whatnot. There is always some guy or gal, often in robes, roaming around, tossin' crosses for talismans and throwing "holy water" all over the place, all the while chanting magickal incantations intended to expel evil spirits... so how is that different from the rituals, talismans, incantations, and  stuff used to call them in in the first place?

Is "magick" sometimes NOT "magick", even though it involves the exact same processes and materials? Is it only "magick" if it's the other guy doing it?

There are a whole lot of religions around these days, most of them pointing their fingers at all the others and saying "y'all is EVIL!", and I can't fathom why, if they are themselves doing pretty much the same things as all of the "y'alls" that are doing evil.

I reckon it's just a human thing. Way back when, in the Middle East, there were also religions abounding, and all of them thought that all of the rest were doing evil, even though they were mostly all doing the same thing, just for different "gods". Sometimes, a "god's" territory was measured in miles, and ended as soon as you got to the boundary of the next kingdom over., because that kingdom had it's own god or gods.

Mountain folk don't, or at least they didn't used to, when I was young, draw as stark a line between witchery and Bible-totin'. Everyone had their own little brews for what ailed ya, and if you didn't have one, the Granny Woman that lived alone in the cabin in the woods... you know, that old woman that knew the use of every herb, plant, and combination thereof... probably had a cure for what ailed you. It didn't mean she was cavorting with Satan, it just meant that if you were sick, she might be closer than a trip to the big city for a doctor call.

There were lots of spells and bindings and whatnot handed down among generations, and no one believed they were going against God to use them. If they did, they wouldn't be using them.

Some of them even used Bible verses for magicking. Let me tell you a little story.

When I was real little, 2 or 3 years old, my mom was washing out a fishbowl in a bathtub when it broke, and the glass sliced her wrist pretty deep. There was blood all over the place. She screamed for Dear Old Dad, and he came running in, saw what had happened, grabbed her wrist and recited a particular verse out of Isaiah I believe. I was too little to remember the event, but mom swore, and still swears to this day, that him reciting that verse caused her to stop bleeding long enough to get everything wrapped up and carted off to the emergency room for real live doctorin'. She believed in it so strongly that she marked that verse in her Bible, in case any of us young-'uns ever got to leaking out way too much blood.

Is that "witchery"? I dunno. Is God just waiting and hankering to smite us real good over it? Again, I dunno. I reckon that'll be between us and God when we get to the Pearly Gates.

If your mom lived and breathed long enough to birth YOU, then I doubt there was any "sacrifice" of her by your granny. I don't think folks can be sacrificed against their will unless they are killed in the process. Joe down the street can't just up and sell my soul to the Devil without my say-so and agreement. Oh, he could tie me across an altar and cut my throat I suppose, but that isn't a sacrifice of my soul, or of ME. It's just a sacrifice of my body, and bodies are only temporary and fleeting anyhow. They break down and get out of repair with some regularity, and when the warranty is out on them, they get sent to the junkyard... but that is not the end of that person - it's just the end of the vehicle, not the driver. Once my soul was freed of that body, well, Old Joe would learn whole news ways of fearing, for the rest of his natural and unnatural life, and the Devil would be nowhere to be found if he knew what was good for him.

On top of that, your Granny is in control of her destiny. Whether she makes it to heaven or not is not for either you or I to say, that's between her and her Dear Lord. There have been many a person who has done horrific things early on, and then done a turn around later in life and skidded in past Home Plate. We are not the judges of that, only God is.

So, there is always hope!

.

[FlickerOfLight]

I know for fact that "witchcraft" has been used in my family, but I don't sweat it. As a matter of fact, all of my sisters claim I'M a witch, because I sometimes know things that I shouldn't. But I'm not a witch... it's just a thing.

What has always bumfuzzled me is what constitutes "witchcraft". For example, how is the "magick" involved in expelling evil spirits any different from the "magick" involved in summoning them? I've seen videos of a lot of exorcisms and house cleansings and whatnot. There is always some guy or gal, often in robes, roaming around, tossin' crosses for talismans and throwing "holy water" all over the place, all the while chanting magickal incantations intended to expel evil spirits... so how is that different from the rituals, talismans, incantations, and  stuff used to call them in in the first place?

Is "magick" sometimes NOT "magick", even though it involves the exact same processes and materials? Is it only "magick" if it's the other guy doing it?

There are a whole lot of religions around these days, most of them pointing their fingers at all the others and saying "y'all is EVIL!", and I can't fathom why, if they are themselves doing pretty much the same things as all of the "y'alls" that are doing evil.

I reckon it's just a human thing. Way back when, in the Middle East, there were also religions abounding, and all of them thought that all of the rest were doing evil, even though they were mostly all doing the same thing, just for different "gods". Sometimes, a "god's" territory was measured in miles, and ended as soon as you got to the boundary of the next kingdom over., because that kingdom had it's own god or gods.

Mountain folk don't, or at least they didn't used to, when I was young, draw as stark a line between witchery and Bible-totin'. Everyone had their own little brews for what ailed ya, and if you didn't have one, the Granny Woman that lived alone in the cabin in the woods... you know, that old woman that knew the use of every herb, plant, and combination thereof... probably had a cure for what ailed you. It didn't mean she was cavorting with Satan, it just meant that if you were sick, she might be closer than a trip to the big city for a doctor call.

There were lots of spells and bindings and whatnot handed down among generations, and no one believed they were going against God to use them. If they did, they wouldn't be using them.

Some of them even used Bible verses for magicking. Let me tell you a little story.

When I was real little, 2 or 3 years old, my mom was washing out a fishbowl in a bathtub when it broke, and the glass sliced her wrist pretty deep. There was blood all over the place. She screamed for Dear Old Dad, and he came running in, saw what had happened, grabbed her wrist and recited a particular verse out of Isaiah I believe. I was too little to remember the event, but mom swore, and still swears to this day, that him reciting that verse caused her to stop bleeding long enough to get everything wrapped up and carted off to the emergency room for real live doctorin'. She believed in it so strongly that she marked that verse in her Bible, in case any of us young-'uns ever got to leaking out way too much blood.

Is that "witchery"? I dunno. Is God just waiting and hankering to smite us real good over it? Again, I dunno. I reckon that'll be between us and God when we get to the Pearly Gates.

If your mom lived and breathed long enough to birth YOU, then I doubt there was any "sacrifice" of her by your granny. I don't think folks can be sacrificed against their will unless they are killed in the process. Joe down the street can't just up and sell my soul to the Devil without my say-so and agreement. Oh, he could tie me across an altar and cut my throat I suppose, but that isn't a sacrifice of my soul, or of ME. It's just a sacrifice of my body, and bodies are only temporary and fleeting anyhow.Once my soul was freed of that body, well, Old Joe would learn whole news ways of fearing, for the rest of his natural and unnatural life, and the Devil would be nowhere to be found if he knew what was good for him.

On top of that, your Granny is in control of her destiny. Whether she makes it to heaven or not is not for either you or I to say, that's between her and her Dear Lord. There have been many a person who has done horrific things early on, and then done a turn around later in life and skidded in past Home Plate. We are not the judges of that, only God is.

So, there is always hope!

.

You know, I was just saying this to someone today.

Jesus turning water into wine. How is this not magick?

Giving sight to the blind. Raising the dead. Speaking in angelic tongues. Prophecies. 

These all fall under magical in my opinion. Heck, God creating the universe, and all of us. I mean, that's all a form of magic. And I'm starting to learn that. 

Ffs, the phone in our damn hands.....magick; in a way.

After having a few days (and again, I wrote there is more to the story. I had tracked something in particular that I haven't shared here), I have come to accept, pretty much as you have stated it here.

I'm starting to accept this. This was more of my strict as iron on us kids, and years of manipulation from her, and the abuse she put on me and my sisters, hearing how perfect she was, and how we could never live up to her standards-- lifetime of hearing all of these, and then to find this out. This was a slap in the face moment for me.

I never feared it.

He who is within and all that.

It was more like, everything I thought I knew was a lie, kind of moment. It helps me process to write. I chose to share this in hopes of some sage advice. 


I came to these same conclusions, pretty much in the last day. 

I see my granny in a whole new light now, but still not sure what to think. I know she loved Jesus. She's the reason why I know Him. She was the one that had us in church when we were real little. As I've stated there is so much more to this story, more personal stuff that links up with my OP. 

I admit that I've been naive. I had my head in the clouds for a very long time in life.

[Ninurta]

...
I came to these same conclusions, pretty much in the last day. 

...

Well, I've been laying off to make a post in this thread for a couple days, since you first made the thread. BUT, I didn't know quite what to post, so I've been letting it percolate through my brain for that whole time. Apparently, you've been doing some percolating on it, too. Might be that we just tapped into the same 'lectricity circuit.

I believe it was Carl Sagan, or maybe it was Asimov... I misremember just who it was... who said something along the lines of "a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." But I wonder... is the converse not possibly true? Could magic simply be a poorly understood technology, or perhaps a different form of technology altogether?

I can "water witch". I learned it a long, long time ago. There's no sacrifices involved, nor any incantations, spells, rituals, or calling on spirits. Nothing like that. it's just me and a pointer, usually a forked twig cut from a live tree, although I have copped out and used coat hangers and the like upon occasion. The fact that I can use different materials tells me that it's not in the pointer, and it's probably not in me, either... it's something in the "fields" between the witcher and the Earth where whatever he's hunting for resides - it doesn't have to be water. I've found arrowheads with it, too. It can be anything you're looking for, anything you concentrate on.

But it works. Of that I have no doubt. I've found all sorts of things using it. I've had the pointer twig wring so hard in my hands that it wrung the bark off of it pointing at something. How does it work? I don't have a clue, and I'm the one doing it. Is it "witchery"? Not that I can tell - I don't call on any spirits or gods, I don't mumble any spells or incantations to make it work, it just does.

So why do they call it "water-witching"? It's just another tool in the tool box... and maybe a "technology" so poorly understood that it's indistinguishable from "magic", poorly understood even by those who can use it. Going back to your cell phone analogy, I don't know how they work, either, but I know how to push the button to MAKE it work!

.

[FlickerOfLight]

...
I came to these same conclusions, pretty much in the last day. 

...

Well, I've been laying off to make a post in this thread for a couple days, since you first made the thread. BUT, I didn't know quite what to post, so I've been letting it percolate through my brain for that whole time. Apparently, you've been doing some percolating on it, too. Might be that we just tapped into the same 'lectricity circuit.

I believe it was Carl Sagan, or maybe it was Asimov... I misremember just who it was... who said something along the lines of "a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." But I wonder... is the converse not possibly true? Could magic simply be a poorly understood technology, or perhaps a different form of technology altogether?

I can "water witch". I learned it a long, long time ago. There's no sacrifices involved, nor any incantations, spells, rituals, or calling on spirits. Nothing like that. it's just me and a pointer, usually a forked twig cut from a live tree, although I have copped out and used coat hangers and the like upon occasion. The fact that I can use different materials tells me that it's not in the pointer, and it's probably not in me, either... it's something in the "fields" between the witcher and the Earth where whatever he's hunting for resides - it doesn't have to be water. I've found arrowheads with it, too. It can be anything you're looking for, anything you concentrate on.

But it works. Of that I have no doubt. I've found all sorts of things using it. I've had the pointer twig wring so hard in my hands that it wrung the bark off of it pointing at something. How does it work? I don't have a clue, and I'm the one doing it. Is it "witchery"? Not that I can tell - I don't call on any spirits or gods, I don't mumble any spells or incantations to make it work, it just does.

So why do they call it "water-witching"? It's just another tool in the tool box... and maybe a "technology" so poorly understood that it's indistinguishable from "magic", poorly understood even by those who can use it. Going back to your cell phone analogy, I don't know how they work, either, but I know how to push the button to MAKE it work!

.

We are on the same wave length throughout all of this. I keep bobbing my head reading your posts, going, yup yup yup.

First, and real quick. The water witching. I remember how some people really did think that was some kind of sorcery. 
Some said science was sorcery.

I did an OP on ATS titled "electricity is the devil" and how people when they first saw lights go on they thought it was dark magic.


Okay, so a thought about magic. Something I came up with a long time ago actually, but it fits.

This is a Levitical law. A "jealousy law"

Check this out. Tell me this doesn't sound like magick to you all.

Then the Lord said to Moses, 12 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure— 15 then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah[a] of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour olive oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder-offering to draw attention to wrongdoing.

16 “‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. 17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse[b] among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”

“‘Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”

The priest is to write these curses on a scroll and then wash them off into the bitter water. 24 He shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial[c] offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.

29 “‘This, then, is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray and makes herself impure while married to her husband, 30 or when feelings of jealousy come over a man because he suspects his wife. The priest is to have her stand before the Lord and is to apply this entire law to her. 31 The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences of her sin."


Now, I don't know about the rest of you, when I first read this I thought to myself, damn, that sounds like magick to me.

[Ninurta]

The Leviticus passage definitely sounds like a magickal ritual, but it could also be viewed as an early psychological test.

My first wife was a psychologist, and I have long maintained that pyschology is nothing more than pseudo-scientific sorcery...

You see, if the woman believe strongly enough that the "bitter water" which was converted from "holy water" is going to mess her world up because she was unfaithful, she's gonna hesitate to drink it, and a canny priest is going to pick up on that...

.

[FlickerOfLight]

The Leviticus passage definitely sounds like a magickal ritual, but it could also be viewed as an early psychological test.

My first wife was a psychologist, and I have long maintained that pyschology is nothing more than pseudo-scientific sorcery...

You see, if the woman believe strongly enough that the "bitter water" which was converted from "holy water" is going to mess her world up because she was unfaithful, she's gonna hesitate to drink it, and a canny priest is going to pick up on that...

.

The ol placebo affect. Good thought.

Here's another that had just come to mind, and I had actually jumped back on to post.

There are two books of the infancy and childhood of Jesus. In Thomas's version when Jesus is a little boy he is playing down by a river with some other boys. Jesus is making little figurines of birds out of the mud. It happens to be a sabbath. Some of the parents see Jesus doing this and start to chastise him that he is making idols on the sabbath. They charge towards him to smash up his evil idolatry, and just as they get to him, he claps his hands together and the birds become real and fly away chirping. 


On another occasion, and because of this the other children in the neighborhood weren't aloud to play with Jesus anymore. So, one day Little Jesus is walking along looking for someone to play with. As he comes to a house he see two woman crying. He asks what they are crying about. They say they've just lost their young sons, and that that is their bodies burning in the oven (they were cremating the bodies of their sons). Jesus says to the oven something like, "little boys, rise, come and play." Just then the two little boys rose from the ashes and ran off with Jesus to play. 


My point, even as a child Jesus was ridiculed and called evil for His abilities that others didn't understand. I saw these stories pretty magickal as well. 


If I laid my hands on a blind man, speak some words and restore his sight today, in front of millions of people, would they not call it magic?


You got my wheels turning, Ninurta. Lol

[Bally002]

The Leviticus passage definitely sounds like a magickal ritual, but it could also be viewed as an early psychological test.

My first wife was a psychologist, and I have long maintained that pyschology is nothing more than pseudo-scientific sorcery...

You see, if the woman believe strongly enough that the "bitter water" which was converted from "holy water" is going to mess her world up because she was unfaithful, she's gonna hesitate to drink it, and a canny priest is going to pick up on that...

.

'Strewth' and 'Crikey' Mate,  

Gonna have to wrap my Grey matter around this one.

I always thought it was because they had a few roos loose in the top paddock!

Well cobba there you go.

Kind regards,

Bally)

[BIAD]

Whether this true story falls under the heading of 'Witchcraft' or perceived as a lesser manner of enchantment
due to a particular way of phrasing, I just don't know. But it did happen and I mean no offence to the
seriousness of the poster of this thread.


Around the mid-seventies, I was had just about got the hang of being a teenager and was lounging around on a
grassy bank one Sunday afternoon, talking rubbish with my friends and pretending I knew how my life would map
out, when an older boy who I'd never seen before wandered over to where we were seated.

Sunday being the time when everywhere was closed and there was always a feeling of waiting, waiting for school
to start again and the world to wake up from its accepted 'day-of-rest'. Introducing himself as John, he spoke easily
to us wary kids sprawled on the grass and somehow got around to mentioning he played a guitar as a hobby.

It was strange because my friend had just decided to take up the practice and I was hoping my mother would try
to stretch her very limited housekeeping money to buying me a guitar so that I could keep up with my peers. But
it was a doubtful hope, my father regularly drank away any chance of having money to save for possible birthday
or Christmas gifts and in a cramped household of five children, it looked like I wouldn't be strumming along with
my friends anytime soon.

John had a beguiling way about him and when pressed by his partially-interested audience about who he was and
where he was from, John said he visited a community in a church that held an odd word that I'd never heard before
and would be only-too eager to help us become proficient in the art of the guitar.
'Pentecostal'... that was the name of where he implied such a gift waited.

However, since this abode of enigmatic worship offered a place to hang-out in the evenings as a sort-of youth club,
we lethargically agreed that -if we were ever in the area, we might drop in and see what he was up to. Turning to
leave, an older member of our group asked him again for his name and John gave it in full. Smiling straight at me,
I discovered that this confident fellow had the same surname as myself.
.....................................

As a cold January night walked beside three youngsters grumbling to each other that maybe this evening would
the time when the easy-going character who'd appeared when the weather had been warmer, would show us how
to play the instruments now strapped to our backs, the tall spire of the Pentecostal Church loomed moodily out of
the darkness and the half-open doorway below spilled out its inviting illumination.

We'd been coming here for weeks and even though the sparsely-adorned tall-ceiling hall offered table-tennis and
a pool table to entertain its young patrons, we'd grown weary of the payment for such leisure. John had advised
us that those who used the place for more reverent reasons would be easily appeased for their expenditure of such
sport equipment by hearing us sing a religious ditty at the end of each evening. There was an old battered piano
in the corner and John was always happy to bring music to our gruff reluctant tones.

We weren't into all this faith-stuff and even though my mother had -should I suggest 'semi-religious issues' due
her own weird upbringing, the only dedication I knew was towards enticing girls for a quick smooch behind the
bike-sheds at school, creating a decent bird's egg collection to boast to my friends about and attempting to grow
pubic hair. I'd venture the focus of my cohorts fell along those same lines, too.

But just as every other night we'd wandered into that draughty room, our unused guitars would lean against the
heavily-painted wainscot and the ability to pluck more than a couple of chords went unchallenged. We'd grunt
out that Jesus wanted us for a sunbeam or unenthusiastically moan 'Praise Him' as John banged away on the
tone-flat piano and we'd glance at each other with silent signals that tonight was the last time we'd come here.
.....................................

"Just in here and then I promise to teach you the guitar" John said quietly as he ushered us into a room where
a line of hard-back chairs waited. It had been a Friday evening and although we were still too young to trip-the
-light-fantastic in a place Petula Clarke proclaimed was called 'down-town', the three of us knew that the end
of the week demanded more than just paying vocal tribute to an alleged bearded miracle-worker who'd died
long ago.

My two friends had already complained that the wooden instruments we lugged down to this place of worship
were once again being ignored and we'd all agreed aloud that maybe it was time to call it a day on John's earlier
pledge to turn us into Glam-Rock stars. For the first time, I noticed this wily young man -of the same surname
as myself, look unsure and nodding in understanding, he waved a hand to accompany him to a door we'd never
seen opened.

The room was bright and there was a lectern parked on a small wooden stage. One of those foldable trestle
tables that sometimes help when wallpapering -another practice that rarely occurred in my parents' little home,
sat below the podium and beside this, six people stood around mumbling to each other.

One may recall at school that being in a year above another meant quite a lot. One may be only a month or
so younger than a fellow pupil, but that gulf held a high regard based on possibly better fighting capabilities,
further knowledge regarding that puzzling topic of sex and answers to questions to a future not yet formed.
Peering over that this group, I recognised two of these strangers near the sagging trestle table were once
from my own place of education, but now belonged to a strata far higher than we usually encountered.
One of them had been an older brother of a fellow-classmate, now he and his friend had become adults.

Following John's silver-tongued direction, we warily sat down on the wooden chairs and a moment later, the
sextet of older people approached and with mild smiles of greeting, took positions on the remaining seats.

Just as kids before us had done, we schemed with our eyes at each other and nodded our replies to unspoken
warnings. Would this night be when un-strummed guitars would be wielded as brain-bashers against this small
collection of crafty sodomites...? Would we escape this potential scene of debasement and race out into the
night air with loud admonishments on our lips towards organised religion and poor musical commitments?
Sunbeams or not, we waited with coiled muscles at the ready.

There was no goat's blood solemnly sipped from a gold goblet, nor was there (sadly!) a naked nubile female
cavorting her adoration across the herringbone floor for a horned deviant who carried a pitchfork. There was
simply a bearded-man sitting beside John -not, I presume the hairy gent we'd sang about earlier, who merely
began chanting with words that sounded like they came from the bible.
You know...? a lot of 'thy, thee' and long sentences that could easily be shortened.

With sideways glances at each other, we outremers of guitar-prowess arrived at the conclusion that we had
been duped once more, this wouldn't be the night for string-tightening or searching for plectrums in our jean
pockets. As the others began moaning their accord with the words of reverence, we sat there and I privately
wondered what John's smile would look like if I had the audacity to just rise, snort my mockery at the whole
situation and swagger out to retrieve the guitar-shaped waste of my mother's money.

That was when the pair of young men I had recognised earlier beat me to it. Suddenly, the older brother of
the lad I knew and who was a whizz on the football field, bolted upright and began screaming gobbledegook!
A second later, his friend emulated the act and spurted out a similar idiom of undetermined verbage, both
craning their necks to point their heads towards the magnolia-painted eaves above. My friends and I watched
in awe as the bizarre ramblings roared around in the room and during this frightening loquaciousness exhibition,
John leaned over and whispered to us "they're speaking in tongues".

I wasn't the first, but I strongly competed for second place as all three of us rushed out of the room. Absently
grabbing our useless instruments from their usual resting-places, we ran from the craziness and eventually
gathered our breaths under a gas-lit lamp-post closer to the alleyways we'd grown up in.

"Was that the Holy Spirit...?" one my friends panted as we stood in the gloom with hands on our knees and
our voice-less guitars threatening to clunk down from where they were strapped and bang some sense into
our respective heads. "...Was that God?" The chilly night hunkered with us, waiting for a possible answer and
the spluttering gauze from the overhead lamp was the only sound that reminded us that the madness we had
witnessed was no longer a threat.

Mustering a confidence worthy of the charlatan who'd hoodwinked us into believing we would one day strut a
stage with screaming girls wanting more than just our music, I gave them my best sage reply.
"Nah... I go to the same school they went to and I can't talk like that".
.....................................

Just like many reading this, my attic is full of junk. Most of it is boxes of forgotten playthings belonging to my
now thirty-odd year-old son and others are just dusty memories that were once considered important. But up
there in the dark and spider webs is that scratched un-tuned acoustic guitar and the odd time that I've noticed
it leaning against a grinning lion and an unopened box of a Lara Croft figurine, I think back to that night at the
Pentecostal Church.

No matter how much this life slyly hints that the unknown awaits to loosen our bowels just as we think we
have a bead on what we're doing here, that talking-in-tongues-thing I still just can't accept. I mean, come on...
I went to the same school as them.

[FlickerOfLight]

Whether this true story falls under the heading of 'Witchcraft' or perceived as a lesser manner of enchantment
due to a particular way of phrasing, I just don't know. But it did happen and I mean no offence to the
seriousness of the poster of this thread.


Around the mid-seventies, I was had just about got the hang of being a teenager and was lounging around on a
grassy bank one Sunday afternoon, talking rubbish with my friends and pretending I knew how my life would map
out, when an older boy who I'd never seen before wandered over to where we were seated.

Sunday being the time when everywhere was closed and there was always a feeling of waiting, waiting for school
to start again and the world to wake up from its accepted 'day-of-rest'. Introducing himself as John, he spoke easily
to us wary kids sprawled on the grass and somehow got around to mentioning he played a guitar as a hobby.

It was strange because my friend had just decided to take up the practice and I was hoping my mother would try
to stretch her very limited housekeeping money to buying me a guitar so that I could keep up with my peers. But
it was a doubtful hope, my father regularly drank away any chance of having money to save for possible birthday
or Christmas gifts and in a cramped household of five children, it looked like I wouldn't be strumming along with
my friends anytime soon.

John had a beguiling way about him and when pressed by his partially-interested audience about who he was and
where he was from, John said he visited a community in a church that held an odd word that I'd never heard before
and would be only-too eager to help us become proficient in the art of the guitar.
'Pentecostal'... that was the name of where he implied such a gift waited.

However, since this abode of enigmatic worship offered a place to hang-out in the evenings as a sort-of youth club,
we lethargically agreed that -if we were ever in the area, we might drop in and see what he was up to. Turning to
leave, an older member of our group asked him again for his name and John gave it in full. Smiling straight at me,
I discovered that this confident fellow had the same surname as myself.
.....................................

As a cold January night walked beside three youngsters grumbling to each other that maybe this evening would
the time when the easy-going character who'd appeared when the weather had been warmer, would show us how
to play the instruments now strapped to our backs, the tall spire of the Pentecostal Church loomed moodily out of
the darkness and the half-open doorway below spilled out its inviting illumination.

We'd been coming here for weeks and even though the sparsely-adorned tall-ceiling hall offered table-tennis and
a pool table to entertain its young patrons, we'd grown weary of the payment for such leisure. John had advised
us that those who used the place for more reverent reasons would be easily appeased for their expenditure of such
sport equipment by hearing us sing a religious ditty at the end of each evening. There was an old battered piano
in the corner and John was always happy to bring music to our gruff reluctant tones.

We weren't into all this faith-stuff and even though my mother had -should I suggest 'semi-religious issues' due
her own weird upbringing, the only dedication I knew was towards enticing girls for a quick smooch behind the
bike-sheds at school, creating a decent bird's egg collection to boast to my friends about and attempting to grow
pubic hair. I'd venture the focus of my cohorts fell along those same lines, too.

But just as every other night we'd wandered into that draughty room, our unused guitars would lean against the
heavily-painted wainscot and the ability to pluck more than a couple of chords went unchallenged. We'd grunt
out that Jesus wanted us for a sunbeam or unenthusiastically moan 'Praise Him' as John banged away on the
tone-flat piano and we'd glance at each other with silent signals that tonight was the last time we'd come here.
.....................................

"Just in here and then I promise to teach you the guitar" John said quietly as he ushered us into a room where
a line of hard-back chairs waited. It had been a Friday evening and although we were still too young to trip-the
-light-fantastic in a place Petula Clarke proclaimed was called 'down-town', the three of us knew that the end
of the week demanded more than just paying vocal tribute to an alleged bearded miracle-worker who'd died
long ago.

My two friends had already complained that the wooden instruments we lugged down to this place of worship
were once again being ignored and we'd all agreed aloud that maybe it was time to call it a day on John's earlier
pledge to turn us into Glam-Rock stars. For the first time, I noticed this wily young man -of the same surname
as myself, look unsure and nodding in understanding, he waved a hand to accompany him to a door we'd never
seen opened.

The room was bright and there was a lectern parked on a small wooden stage. One of those foldable trestle
tables that sometimes help when wallpapering -another practice that rarely occurred in my parents' little home,
sat below the podium and beside this, six people stood around mumbling to each other.

One may recall at school that being in a year above another meant quite a lot. One may be only a month or
so younger than a fellow pupil, but that gulf held a high regard based on possibly better fighting capabilities,
further knowledge regarding that puzzling topic of sex and answers to questions to a future not yet formed.
Peering over that this group, I recognised two of these strangers near the sagging trestle table were once
from my own place of education, but now belonged to a strata far higher than we usually encountered.
One of them had been an older brother of a fellow-classmate, now he and his friend had become adults.

Following John's silver-tongued direction, we warily sat down on the wooden chairs and a moment later, the
sextet of older people approached and with mild smiles of greeting, took positions on the remaining seats.

Just as kids before us had done, we schemed with our eyes at each other and nodded our replies to unspoken
warnings. Would this night be when un-strummed guitars would be wielded as brain-bashers against this small
collection of crafty sodomites...? Would we escape this potential scene of debasement and race out into the
night air with loud admonishments on our lips towards organised religion and poor musical commitments?
Sunbeams or not, we waited with coiled muscles at the ready.

There was no goat's blood solemnly sipped from a gold goblet, nor was there (sadly!) a naked nubile female
cavorting her adoration across the herringbone floor for a horned deviant who carried a pitchfork. There was
simply a bearded-man sitting beside John -not, I presume the hairy gent we'd sang about earlier, who merely
began chanting with words that sounded like they came from the bible.
You know...? a lot of 'thy, thee' and long sentences that could easily be shortened.

With sideways glances at each other, we outremers of guitar-prowess arrived at the conclusion that we had
been duped once more, this wouldn't be the night for string-tightening or searching for plectrums in our jean
pockets. As the others began moaning their accord with the words of reverence, we sat there and I privately
wondered what John's smile would look like if I had the audacity to just rise, snort my mockery at the whole
situation and swagger out to retrieve the guitar-shaped waste of my mother's money.

That was when the pair of young men I had recognised earlier beat me to it. Suddenly, the older brother of
the lad I knew and who was a whizz on the football field, bolted upright and began screaming gobbledegook!
A second later, his friend emulated the act and spurted out a similar idiom of undetermined verbage, both
craning their necks to point their heads towards the magnolia-painted eaves above. My friends and I watched
in awe as the bizarre ramblings roared around in the room and during this frightening loquaciousness exhibition,
John leaned over and whispered to us "they're speaking in tongues".

I wasn't the first, but I strongly competed for second place as all three of us rushed out of the room. Absently
grabbing our useless instruments from their usual resting-places, we ran from the craziness and eventually
gathered our breaths under a gas-lit lamp-post closer to the alleyways we'd grown up in.

"Was that the Holy Spirit...?" one my friends panted as we stood in the gloom with hands on our knees and
our voice-less guitars threatening to clunk down from where they were strapped and bang some sense into
our respective heads. "...Was that God?" The chilly night hunkered with us, waiting for a possible answer and
the spluttering gauze from the overhead lamp was the only sound that reminded us that the madness we had
witnessed was no longer a threat.

Mustering a confidence worthy of the charlatan who'd hoodwinked us into believing we would one day strut a
stage with screaming girls wanting more than just our music, I gave them my best sage reply.
"Nah... I go to the same school they went to and I can't talk like that".
.....................................

Just like many reading this, my attic is full of junk. Most of it is boxes of forgotten playthings belonging to my
now thirty-odd year-old son and others are just dusty memories that were once considered important. But up
there in the dark and spider webs is that scratched un-tuned acoustic guitar and the odd time that I've noticed
it leaning against a grinning lion and an unopened box of a Lara Croft figurine, I think back to that night at the
Pentecostal Church.

No matter how much this life slyly hints that the unknown awaits to loosen our bowels just as we think we
have a bead on what we're doing here, that talking-in-tongues-thing I still just can't accept. I mean, come on...
I went to the same school as them.

That is one of the most profound stories I had ever heard. Very neat, frightening, and a thousand questions came to mind as you had me engulfed in the story. I was on the edge of my seat.

I grew up in a pentecostal church actually. And no offense at all. I completely and totally get it.

I had to break completely free of any religous mindset. 

Okay, so about this boy. Was he someone that you saw after this? I was wondering the whole time if you were actually dealing with a demon for a while.

Then the end and I wasn't sure.

I am very familiar with tongues.

I'll give some insight. 

Demons speak languages that are not of this world at all. They can posses people and that person appear to be speaking in tongues. And they are. It's just not the Holy Spirit speaking. It's a demon speaking demon talk.


The Holy Spirit would never frighten you like that, nor present himself like that. That's not even what you all were looking for. You wanted to be rockstars. You didn't ask to be a part of any gifts or receiving of anything spiritual or Godly.

In my honest opinion, and I hope I don't offend anyone, but I think you witnessed a demon possession. Or a flat out demon.


Religion is a very dangerous thing.


Baptism of the Spirit, speaking in tongues from being filled with the Holy Spirit would never look or sound anything like this story.

This from my experiences, anyways. Tongues is a highly debated highly misunderstood gift.


Thank you for sharing that awesome story though. Wow. That was riveting.

[BIAD]

...Okay, so about this boy. Was he someone that you saw after this?
I was wondering the whole time if you were actually dealing with a demon for a while...

Thank you!

As I grew older, I did see these two older people from time-to-time. The original person -the brother
of my classmate, I saw just a couple of times around the town. But a few years ago, I saw the other
imbibing with great verve in a bar with a couple of women!


It always bothered me how the whole 'tongue-speak' set-up was constructed in front of three youngsters
who had connections with family-relations. Fallout of ridicule may have been beyond the pair who performed
the act, but I personally knew a brother and close-cousins to both of them.

[GeauxHomeLittleD]

What constitutes witchcraft is a matter of perspective. My mother was a practicing witch for years as was I but neither are now. I never made a "pact with Satan", only Satanists do that. The Bible is very wishy washy on the subject. It tells you "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" and yet sings the praises of Solomon and he was a bigger witch than Aleister Crowley! 

As long as you're not trying to harm anyone (follow the Law of Three) I have no problem with witches. They are just people with different beliefs. I'd hang out with a witch before I would hang out with "snake handlers". I wouldn't lump all witches together anymore than I'd lump Pentecostals with Moonies. Intent is what matters.

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

Interesting read Rogues. I have nothing to add because I am completely ignorant of the the subject.

I had very dear friend that was into witchcraft. I did not judge her, and I did not love her less because it.

She was odd, but most of my friends are odd, so I guess that says more about me than them.

She developed a sudden, very lethal and rapid form of cancer, and died in her mid to late 50s. I truly miss her.

[FlickerOfLight]

What constitutes witchcraft is a matter of perspective. My mother was a practicing witch for years as was I but neither are now. I never made a "pact with Satan", only Satanists do that. The Bible is very wishy washy on the subject. It tells you "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" and yet sings the praises of Solomon and he was a bigger witch than Aleister Crowley! 

As long as you're not trying to harm anyone (follow the Law of Three) I have no problem with witches. They are just people with different beliefs. I'd hang out with a witch before I would hang out with "snake handlers". I wouldn't lump all witches together anymore than I'd lump Pentecostals with Moonies. Intent is what matters.

I've come back and changed this.

I had shared a brand new thought, and after writing it out realized I haven't found the right words yet. I've erased it and will come back to it when I find the right words for it.

[FlickerOfLight]

I would like to add a thought to the OP while i have it. 

First, I'd like to say that I meant no disrespect to anyone. 

When I wrote this I was in a moment of feeling everything I had been told was a lie. After my dad passed and I was now taking care of my mother, and we I am now Living alone with her for the first time, and with my dad gone, I realized how much of a buffer he had been, and how much he had shielded me from. Secrets started to be revealed little by little. I started to learn more about my family history. I had decided I wanted to know where I had come from. I always knew there was more to the story, but after learning some of it, I became confused for while; even as to who I was, and where I came from.

I had been manipulated and lied to my whole life. This had been clear for as long as I can remember. I could never understand why.

I could never understand why things were the way they were. I had always wanted things to be different. I wanted to truly connect with my mother for the first time. I started to ask about her child hood and I learned some things that were really neat and cool, and some things that made other things make sense. As I went along the history, little by little, I started to understand more and more. Like putting a puzzle together without the top (not knowing what the picture is), and little by little the pieces start to come together and you start to see what the image is. 


This has been a roller coaster for me. I realized I really didn't know where it was I had come from (or so I felt). Things were so secretive, and I never knew why.

Now I know. And this has a lot more to do than simply what's in my OP. This runs deep.


What I had come to while pondering on all of this for a couple days is----I love my granny. I love my mom. I have and feel total compassion for their story. I just had no idea, of any of this, and how deeply things ran on that side of the family, and why I have always felt completely! uncomfortable around that side of it. I had one aunt who I absolutely adored, and was quite close to. She was always very secretive, but would divulge a little here and there, but we could always tell there was more that would blow our minds even further, if she had told us everything. After she died about a year ago, thinks started to come to light.


I accept these things. I have come to compassion for them. I forgive my mom. I love her and I understand.
I love my granny and absolutely understand. She was in a very tough spot. I appreciate all that she did for me.

This knowledge changes nothing for me except opening up a new door of understanding.


I am very glad I was able to hash this out here. You all were great!

[Schmoe]

Sheesh, I'm sorry you had a grandmother like that.  To never tell your grandchild you love them, I don't understand it.  My father was the same way, I can't remember an "I love you" until I was well into my late twenties.  He was the same way with my brother and sister.  He was pretty much a grumpy fuck all the time.

What made you go down the route of believing witchcraft was involved though?  I don't have a strong opinion on witchcraft, I know practically nothing about it.