A reader who wishes to remain anonymous writes in with a personal tale of high strangeness.
First, I don’t usually believe when people tell me about their paranormal experiences. I’ve known so many people who clearly bullshit and lie about things that never really happened (or at least I highly doubt they happened). I’m not saying everyone’s a liar, but in today’s age with the popularity of horror movies and paranormal “reality” TV shows, it’s only natural for so many people to make things up that never happened. Since I have this mindset, I never expect belief from the few people I talk to about these things; a) I have no proof b) I write horror stories and compose scary music, so it just looks like it’s something I’m making up if I were to tell someone.
With that all being said, I’m going to share this story. And it has a lot to do with Christianity and the demonic side of things.
To begin with, I was raised in a Catholic household since birth. However, during my late teenage years I started to doubt the existence of God and wondered if I was just worshipping an unresponsive nothing. Over time I became bitter and resentful. As can unfortunately happen with so many young, confused, impressionable minds these days, I was introduced to the concept of the Ouija Board. At the time, I thought that it sounded interesting and wondered if it could give me an answer since I thought God clearly didn’t exist or was ignoring me. So, I eventually acquired one. Though my intentions were good, I had no idea what I was getting into. As stupid as this may sound, my goal was to somehow ask “the spirits” to wreak havoc on all of the corrupt elite around the world and bring an end to their influence. But you see, when I set everything up according to the directions, nothing ever happened. I tried and I tried harder. Still, nothing happened. Eventually I gave up on the thing and believed it was just as fake as God. I left the Ouija Board underneath my bed (where I kept a lot of useless junk). The board sat there for nearly three years.
Over the next few years I gained a better understanding of the world and returned to Christianity. In addition to that, I became aware of the Luciferian influence on society by the entertainment industry, politicians, etc. One night, my younger brother and I were having a philosophical conversation. It was late during the evening, but at one point we started talking about how Satanism does manifest in even far-right, obscure groups. I told him about how they incorporate a philosophy known as “The Left-Hand Path”, which is basically an extremely individualistic, hedonistic, selfish life. During this conversation, I remembered the board was underneath my bed and I started staring at it (I was sitting on the floor during the conversation). I almost became in this trance-like state and the board’s box appeared to move on its own. Before I was aware, this invisible force of unpleasantness and fear lunged out at me. I don’t really know how to describe it, other than I “felt” it and “heard” it. It scared the shit out of me and I immediately jumped up. My brother wanted to know what the hell happened, so I quickly told him. That night, we ended up taking the board and throwing it in a trashcan outside.
This is what I’ve taken away from the experience: Although I thought my intentions were good initially when I bought the board, nothing ever happened with it. Why? Because evil doesn’t need to attack evil. I was essentially saying to a demon “Hey, could you please kill these really evil people that are ruining the world?” Of course nothing happened! My own soul was in a very dark and dangerous place during that time – the demon didn’t need to do anything. But why did I experience something many years later when I had forgotten about the board altogether and abandoned such silly and immoral beliefs? Because I had clearly become a different person and was being guided by Christ. I also think due to the subject of the conversation I was having with my brother, something demonic felt the need to try to attack me.
Anyway, believe it or not. Take from it what you will. This was the most realistic paranormal experience I’ve ever had.
In case you needed more evidence why playing with Ouija boards is a bad idea, Anon’s story aptly illustrates the disordered desire for control that motivates attempts to invoke such forces.
God is in control of all. He grants us mastery of our individual destinies within limits, and efforts to impose our will beyond those limits are dangerously prideful.
There are powers that lie in wait to take advantage of that pride. Those powers mean us harm, and dabbling with a Ouija board is akin to laying out the welcome mat for them.
God’s mercy is the white pill, which He graciously dispensed to Anon. We can and should be thankful for his conversion.
Take warning, though, that willingly indulging in sin with the presumption of that mercy is no less prideful.
Once I found out what a Ouija board was, I decided there were only two possibilities:
1) It is an overpriced collection of plastic and inked wood pulp that uses fascination with the occult to get people to actually pay for it.
2) It is a way to directly communicate with the demonic or at least put yourself in a state that opens yourself to the possibility of contact with the demonic.
Either way, you're better off playing Candyland or even *shudder* Monopoly.
For the record, I started off believing 1, but changed to 2 after my first trip out of the First World.
"For the record, I started off believing 1, but changed to 2 after my first trip out of the First World."
You can't leave us hanging after an hook like that!
And people who dislike Monopoly usually do so because they use accretions of house rules that most folks mistake for official rules, and which substantially bog down the game.
I actually read the instructions for Monopoly a couple years ago as a refresher, and it was funny how passive aggressive they were about the "real reason" games are boring and long is the house rules (not that they're wrong, of course).
Monopoly is hated because of trophy culture – everyone wins. Of course, the whole point of the game is to drive everyone else into bankruptcy, so adding all sorts of house rules to stave off bankruptcy of course makes it an interminable slog.
For the record, yes, I played Monopoly with a bunch of house rules, but I've played the real rules, and I'm still not a fan. More of a Risk guy, myself (doubly so for non-licensed variants like 2210 and Godstorm).
Now, for the hook. I figured it was self-explanatory that journeying outside the secularist echo chamber of the First World lead to broadening of spiritual horizons.
I don't want to dox anybody, so let's just say it was more than a decade ago in South America and I heard some stories from people who a) would know and b) wouldn't lie. Even intellectually believing in demons, I had a hard time believing it until one night at a church at the edge of town. A woman walked in during the service, walked up to the front row, and began shouting at the pastor. He rebuked her (it was all in a language I couldn't understand at the time, probably Spanish) and she fell to the floor, thrashing. The deacons then came and held her down while everyone prayed. Even a handful of fully grown, blue collar men were having trouble holding her as every muscle seemed to be contracting at once, and then she was just still and peaceful, almost asleep. By the end of service, she was crying and praising Jesus with the rest of the congregation.
But none of that was the kicker. It was a sense I never knew I had, a literal gut feeling that let me know something was very wrong there, even if I had been blind and deaf. It was a queasy feeling, not full blown nausea, but just the kind of tightness in the stomach you get when you see something that stings your soul, like a car wreck. Since then, I have felt that feeling a few times. Fellow Christians feel it, too, but tend to dismiss it as digestive problems. I know what it is, though, and there are some people I give a wide berth to and some places I just never stop, especially if I'm alone.
Monopoly with no house rules, sucks.
Monopoly with house rules, sucks more.
That said, Monopoly is a game that teaches a life lesson. Namely, whoever controls the money or the real estate wins.
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From the Catechism (my bolding):
–2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future.48 Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.–
I notice that the Catechism doesn't waste time over whether this crap works or not. The appeal to the occult is an evil act in and of itself.
Maybe this is why I think the only true hero in the Pirates of the Caribbean films is the Spaniard in On Stranger Tides who, when he has a chalice filled with water from the fountain of youth, declares, "There is but one source of life eternal, and it is not these pagan waters!" and throws the chalices on the ground and stomps it.
In a sense, he's the Faramir we were robbed of in Peter Jackson's LotR films.
That's a surprisingly cool scene from PotC.
Had to shout on the cinema
Viva Dios y viva España!
Read the late Fr Amorth or listen to Fr Ripperger. Both have said the Ouija is commonly involved in many of the legit demonic cases they have had to deal with as exorcists. Like the vampires in the old movies, messing with that stuff is inviting things in that you don’t want in your home.
P.s. have your priest over for dinner and have him bless your house every 1-3 years. If Latin Rite, have your priest use the Usus Antiquor, even if in English, as the new book of Blessings is made up of non-blessings. Literally, hardly any of them ever ask God to bless anything. Also getting four Benedictine medals properly blessed and placing them on the four sides or corners of your property/home is an old practice of protection.
I've also read that G.K. Chesterton in his "no religion" phase as a young man played with one of those. But he quit when he had a strong sensation of evil.
At one church I went to, the priest said that a couple of people tried to get him to bless something in a bag but wouldn't show him what it was, and he (inadvertently?) touched it and felt a "dark energy" and knew it was evil.