Ghost Stories & Paranormal Encounters

Demons… an evocative word, to be sure, and one we’re all familiar with. In our modern age, it almost seems paradoxical that the spiritually minded hears about more and more ordinary people having run-ins with these legendary entities, and yet this seems to be the case. Perhaps it’s due to our increased ability to communicate and hear news from increasingly far-flung areas of society… perhaps there are no more “demonic” encounters than there ever have been, we’re just hearing about ones we wouldn’t have in the past. Or maybe the troubled times in which we live has given rise to an increase in demonic activity.

No matter what the cause, dealing with demons is something we very well may have to do at some point in our lives. Just like so many things in life, there are good and bad ways of dealing with these experiences, and the choices we make can make the difference between a temporary inconvenience and a terrifyingly life-shattering encounter with the unknown.

Definitions

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” – Indigo Montoya

Before we get into how to deal with such an experience, it helps to understand just what a “demon” is. They actually fall in two distinct categories: Sentient spiritual beings who have been mistakenly lumped into a mish-mash of demonic lore, and fairly nasty experiences of a distinctly destructive variety.

As for the first category, such “demons” are ones that most average people will never meet. Interaction with them is not accidental, and usually as a result of some sort of ceremony performed by a Western ceremonial magician. Again, these are just spirits, and not really malevolent. They’re not as philanthropic as angelic forces, and thus those approaching them must show some care, but they’re not out to “get” you. I wouldn’t have even included them if it were not for various occult literature that mis-labels them as “demonic” (Crowley’s translation of the Goetia comes to mind).

The second sort of demon, the nasty kind, are what most refer to when speaking of “demons” in general. They are malevolent, nasty, and quite evil. I have encountered them personally. Far from being “Satan’s minions”, they are actually human creations.

Have you ever walked into a room where there has been a bad argument, intense grief, or even physical violence, and felt something “not right”? There were no outward signs of disturbance, and personal knowledge of the event may be long in coming, and yet you feel extremely uneasy and out of sorts just entering. This, my friends, is what is known as “Negative Energy”. It is the psychic residue left behind by intensely negative emotions, and can cling to an area for days unless dispersed. Some particularly strong occurrences, like mass murders or battles in war, can leave traces for decades, even centuries, afterwards. Most often, however, the negative energy gradually dissipates, and the area becomes neutral again. It can be actively cleared by someone trained to do so.

Sometimes, however, that pocket of negative energy doesn’t dissipate. Perhaps it’s because it’s constantly reinforced by other negativity being heaped upon it (like in habitually abusive households), but it only sits and festers. It’s free-floating negativity inspires even more negative feelings by people around it, and thus, instead of fading away, the negative energy only grows. It can even break free of a particular location and drift about, finding people far away from it’s point of origin.

One of the basic laws of hermetics, and of the world of the paranormal generally, is “like attracts like”, and in keeping with this these free-floating pockets of negativity are attracted to people facing a lot of negativity in their lives. The person’s anxiety and/or depression then feeds the negativity, or “demon”, which then grows stronger and thus engenders even more negativity. Most of us send these things packing of our own volition…we come to some sort of realization, feel better about things, and the “demon” goes off to find someone more in tune with it’s dismal state.

Dealing With A Demon

“Luke: There’s something not right here… I feel cold. Death.
Yoda: That place… is strong with the dark side of the Force. A domain of evil it is. In you must go.
Luke: What’s in there?
Yoda: Only what you take with you. ”

Now that we’ve defined just what a “demon” is, there are a few points to keep in mind:

* Being pockets of free-floating negativity, demons do not have an agenda. All they have is a natural tendency to gravitate towards negativity.

* They do not have a will. They are not out to “get” you.

* Humans are affected by them due to our tendency to respond to our psychic environment (negativity breeds negativity, etc.).

* Due to their nature of being pure (if negative) energy, demons are a blank slate, and will reflect back the expectations that others place on them.

This last point is the most important to remember when dealing with demonic negativity. “Demons”, as they are, are a blank slate. They’re not thousands of years old, nor are they former angels “fallen” into an unsavoury state. They are a ball of negativity with infinite possibilities. They can, however, become imprinted with strong emotions and begin to feed those emotions back to their source.

In short, they are what we make them.

Sometimes, the “demon” encounters someone of some untapped psychic ability, and actually manifests itself as unsettling psychic phenomena…disembodied banging, frightening apparitions, cold spots, even levitation of objects. These events, frightening to the uneducated, trigger abject terror in the unrealized psychic, and the “demon” gets a supercharge of negative energy. This leads to even more phenomena, and chaos reigns. Some things that have been labeled as poltergeist phenomena have been, I believe, mis-labeled pockets of negativity that got super-charged by their environment.

If this untapped psychic comes from a particular religious tradition that holds these things to be torments from the devil, then that expectation as well is fed to the demon along with the negativity. Being a “blank slate”, as I’ve said, these demons begin to feed this expectation back to the focus of their attachment, and take on the guise of a classic “demon”.

Here’s something I noticed a long time ago: Have you ever noticed that, in accounts of so-called “demon hunters”, that the demons that they run across fit perfectly into their cultural paradigm? In other words, Catholic demon-hunters encounter Catholic demons, protestant demon-hunters find protestant demons, etc.

When you consider the true nature of such entities, this outcome is entirely predictable. A ball of negativity attaches itself to someone, that person has some untapped psychic potential, and paranormal phenomena start to occur. This frightens the unrealized psychic, and somewhere they start to fear the possibility of “evil spirits”…perhaps they read a book written by some pseudo-scientific hack with an agenda to push (there are many), or maybe some well-meaning friend brings up the possibility. Or maybe they’re generally afraid of the supernatural, and jump to the “evil spirit” conclusion all on their own. Once they start to fear such a possibility, they then begin to feed the negativity, or “demon”, with their expectations as to just what an evil spirit would act like. The demon sends this expectation back in spades, and a downward spiral begins.

What I find most disturbing are those cases where people are somewhat frightened by “spirit activity” in their house, and bring in the wrong “investigator” to see “what’s going on”. This “investigator” (I put quotes around the word because the hacks really don’t deserve the title) then frightens the living hell out of the house’s residents by telling them that the spirit in their house is “evil”, and most likely “demonic”. They’re not talking about “demonic” in the actual sense, but usually through the filter of some religious agenda. Reading these peoples’ cases, you’d be amazed at just how interested high level “demons” are in wrecking suburban housewives’ laundry rooms.

What is most disturbing about some of these cases is that they started out as a garden variety haunting, not an actual demon… perhaps unsettling to the uneducated, but hardly malevolent. By the time these unconscionable hacks are finished, they’ve whipped the atmosphere into a whirl-wind of fear and terror, and turned a psychic firecracker into a neutron bomb. If the people involved are even marginally psychic, their untapped talents are turned against them, and they’re lucky to escape without serious psychological scarring.

The most important thing to remember, if you think you’ve attracted a negative entity into your life, is that they can only give back what you put into them! That’s why I put the quote from The Empire Strikes Back at the beginning of this section…it’s not only a great scene from a great movie, but it’s also amazingly indicative of how negativity works in the psychic world. (Note: I’ll now geek-out for a moment for those who, unbelievably, haven’t seen this movie yet). In the film, Yoda has brought Luke to a place on Yoda’s home world of Dagobah where the “dark side of the force”, I.e. evil, is particularly strong. After the above exchange, Luke goes to take his weapons with him into the tree. Yoda tells him he won’t need them in there, but Luke takes them anyway. Ultimately Luke has a traumatic experience in the tree, but it’s one he brought upon himself by not trusting the powers of good, and relying on man-made weapons.

Luke charges an already negative atmosphere with his own fear and distrust, and reaps the results. Those who are dealing with real-life negativity should know that, if they charge the situation with their own fear and negativity, then it will be thrown back at them many times over.

If, however, they refuse to “feed the beast”, as it were, and deny the negative entity their own power, then they can shake, perhaps even destroy, the negative entity currently attached to them.

Now, some who favour more “traditional” methods of dealing with demons might say “If demons aren’t minions of Hell, then why does exorcism work on them?” To this I say: sure, exorcism can work…sometimes. However, the reason that it can work is that the people who have been feeding the negative energy in a given situation, instead of feeling powerless and put-upon, finally feel empowered, and can cut off the flow of fear long enough to sever ties with the entity. The rite itself is incidental. That’s why, however, Catholic people respond best to Catholic rites, protestants to protestant rites, etc. The few times I saw mis-matched exorcisms (Catholics witnessing protestant deliverance ceremonies, protestants being exorcised, etc.), they have rarely worked. The rite wasn’t faulty, it’s just that the subjects, the people involved, felt culturally alienated from what was going on, so it had little benefit for them.

Avoiding Psychic Hiroshimas

The most important thing to do if you believe that you’ve attracted a negative entity, or “demon” to yourself is not to panic. Don’t get wrapped up in fear and trepidation about what’s happening. This is important: the last thing you want to do is feed it your energy.

What you want to do is to surround yourself with positive energy…joy, happiness, peace, etc. Doing so will not only starve the entity, it will also drive it away. If you feel capable, a good old-fashioned banishing might be in order. Always do so in your religio-cultural paradigm (though watch out for techniques that re-enforce it’s power…don’t call it things like “demon”, diabolical, infernal, etc… instead, call it what it is: negativity). However, sometimes driving it away from yourself is the best you can do. If it fails to find a suitable “feeder”, it may eventually dissipate anyway. Always remember, you may not be dealing with a real “demon” anyway, so make sure you do nothing to turn a garden-variety psychic event into a psychic explosion.

Remember, it’s all in your control.

Written by Taliesin Govannon, Copyright 2009 all rights reserved and used here with permission. Taliesin also writes for www.TaliesinGovannon.com check it out.