Happy...

NEW YEAR OF THE HORSE!

The Year of the Snake is finally over.  And I couldn't be happier.  Snake years are important, but hard.  They are characterized by secrecy and karmic comeuppance.  Snakes are sneaky.  I don't know anyone who escaped being bitten by tragedy this year.  

Time worked funny too.  It seemed to rush by in slow motion.  Problems mounted and resolution was hard to come by.  Snake years can be a ruthless and dogged struggle.  Special opportunities can appear, but patience and shrewd attention to detail are required to make anything happen.  People born under this sign tend to be good with money.  And Snake years can be financially prosperous, but it will probably come at a cost.

Luckily, we can finally bid adieu to the Snake.  It will be another 12 years before we are again locked in his coils.  Give yourself a pat on the back for surviving a relentless year.

I welcome the Year of the Horse with open arms.  Horse years are about determination, action, and forthright communication.  Hang on to your hat because there will be no time to waste.  The year of slogging through the muck on your belly is over.  It is time to grab the reins and gallop into the future.  Just be careful not to get trampled.

Gung hay fat choy!

(May prosperity be with you!)

The Devil Made Me Do It

i. of ii.

This is probably the oldest excuse in the book.  For centuries, millenia even, people have claimed that evil spirits were really at fault for their own wrongdoing.  But can this ever be true? Is there a devil? And, if so, can he intercede directly into human affairs?

No one argues that good and evil exist.  We really just argue about what form they take.  It could be said that God is creation and Satan is destruction.  Humans embody both, since we also have the power to create or destroy.  In the Bible, it says, "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him" (Genesis 1:27).  Thus, it is within our power to create heaven or hell on earth.

In all of creation, we alone were given the power to name and be named.  However, omniscience and immortality were not part of the bargain.  William E. Channing said, "Absolute power was not meant for man." In our race to obtain dominion over the planet, we have been tempted to forget the tenuous nature of our mortal existence.  We will always be plagued by the minions of death, whether they come in the form of sickness or worse.

A long time ago, someone told me a very strange tale.  It was about the Vatican.  Everyone knows about the wealth of the Church.  I have seen it with my own eyes.  Corridors that seem to stretch for miles are filled with stock piles of rubies, pearls, and sapphires.  Most of these gems were big as robin's eggs.  It was breathtaking.  And I'm not even mentioning the exquisite furs and plush velvet robes.  All I could think was: if this is what is available for public display (albeit under five inches of glass), what might be hidden away? What must the secret vaults contain?

According to legend, there is a secret room hidden deep within the ancient walls.  Supposedly, this is the room that the Swiss guards are really there to protect.  The jewels are just for show.  What is in this room? Some speculate that it is a book.  Others whisper that it is something else entirely. 

It is also said that upon his coronation, every new pope is taken to a room and there he learns how the world will end.  Is it the same room? It would seem to follow that it is.  But can such fanciful tales ever be true? Or do these stories serve only to perpetuate the mystique and grandeur of the Catholic faith? I guess we'll never know.  

Personally, I like that the Church has these secrets and mysteries.  It is a reminder that we are not meant to know everything.  However, I do know one thing.  The Church believes in demonic possession.  So much so that it has developed highly effective methods to deal with it.  The Catholic Church has been training its clerics to perform exorcisms for hundreds of years.  

One of the reasons that priests are uniquely qualified to perform exorcisms is because of their vow of celibacy.  Over the course of history, many religions required that their practitioners be celibate.  Why? It is important to be a pure vessel to channel nature or connect with the other realm.  It is a calling that requires great sacrifice.  It is not for the faint of heart.

Recently, Paranormal Witness aired an episode called "The Exorcist."  It followed the story of Father Vince Lampert and how he became one of the preeminent exorcists in the United States.  During the course of the episode, the showrunners made a dangerous error.  They chose to broadcast the proper names of several demons.  I will not repeat them here.  Be it upon your head if you hunt this stuff down.

I do not know of a field of study that is more dangerous than demonology.  Demons imperil the soul.  An exorcist must possess nerves of steel.  He must also be steadfast, brave, and spiritually gifted.  It's a one-in-a-million sort of formula.  Father Lampert fits this bill.  Apparently, he is continually besieged by requests for exorcisms.  But he is only one man.  We all need to exercise vigilance over our own souls.  There are far more demons than exorcists.

The movie, Paranormal Activity, did a good job of illustrating a demonic haunting.  It was a bit over-the-top and extreme, but you got the idea.  I was surprised to see that they got the footprints right.  Not something you ever want to see, but they did a good job.  One thing I did not agree with was the psychic who advised the victims to stay in the house.  He made the case that the entity was too powerful to run away from.  Well, yes and no.  I realize that the victims had to remain in the house to serve the purposes of the film, but bad advice is still bad advice.

Unfortunately, there are few sources of accurate information about how to deal with an extreme haunting, so I want to set the record straight.  My advice is to get out.  Get to where people are.  It is true that a powerful entity might follow, but you will buy yourself time.  The entity will have to expend energy to re-assert dominance in a new location.  And demons are lazy, so give yourself a fighting chance.

It is sad to say, but some people are marked.  By heredity or weakness or vice they are marked.  Secrets can be powerful enough to evoke the darkness.  Then there are those who choose to invoke it.  Not knowing the traffic laws will not get you out of a ticket.  It is the same with spiritual laws.   Demons can be invoked by spiritual intemperance.  Choosing to be ignorant of spiritual rules will not redeem your soul from jeopardy.  Tempting fate is a dangerous game.

Physical dependencies can also weaken not only the body, but the soul.  The similarities between possession and addiction can be unsettling.  There is no faster way to destroy your life and create hell on earth.  People who are lost to the throes of gambling, hard drugs, or mental illness would probably have a lot to say about demons.  

Our bodies and souls are in our keeping.  Destroy the body and the soul will follow suit.  We are in every way capable of destroying the light and dwelling only in darkness.  And the darkness is not a place to be alone.  It is where the shadows are free to consume your mind, your heart, your soul. 

Where is the line between bad behavior and demonic influence? To be honest, I'm not sure.  It is a winding, twisted, tenuous affair.  We are all capable of good and evil.  We don't need to be marked for possession in order to engage in truly heinous acts.  Regardless of the genesis, once someone forfeits their soul, dark things will find them.  They will become nothing more than a puppet for things that dwell in the shadows.  Full possession is not necessary when whispers will do the work.  Why break through a window if someone has left the door wide open?

What the...

Holy jumpin' jellyfish were they thinking?

I do not claim to be an expert on the paranormal.  I write about topics that I find interesting.  I also share what I have learned through personal experience.  In my opinion, claiming to be an expert on the paranormal is a subjective designation.  There are no longitudinal studies or peer-reviewed research papers that can be used to rank yourself as an expert.  And hauntings do not lend themselves to the gathering of empirical data.  When dealing with a haunting, what you choose to do either works or it makes things worse.  There is no other way to measure the results.

I am a little skeptical of people who characterize themselves as paranormal experts.  There are people who I respect because they have the skills and knowledge to help others.  At the end of the day, hauntings are dangerous.  People who are haunted feel terrorized in their own homes.  When they reach out for help, they do not need the services of people who are only interested in aggrandizing themselves.  Hauntings are not appropriate for testing theories.  Do what works or get out of the way.

Recently, I watched an episode of "The Haunted."  The family who was profiled had a very serious situation on their hands.  They were being held hostage by a powerful haunting entity.  They had experienced a substantial reduction in their quality of life.  Their once happy home was now filled with sickness, financial problems, mental instability, and too many things that went bump in the night.

The family took action.  They moved away from their beloved home.  Normally, this course of action will nullify a haunting.  There are few haunting entities powerful enough to follow someone to a new location.  But they do exist.  Unfortunately, this family was being victimized by a very powerful haunting entity.

Things improved dramatically for the first few months.  Then, practically overnight, the nightmare resumed with even greater intensity.  At this point, they reached out for help.  I felt for this family.  They had done everything they could to rid themselves of the problem.  As near as I could tell, they had done nothing to make their situation worse (i.e. Ouija boards, seances, etc.).

Somehow, their case caught the interest of two paranormal experts.  In other words, two people who make a living publishing books and delivering lectures on paranormal phenomena.  The female expert claimed she was a vampirologist.  Does such a thing exist? Has Harvard instituted a School of Vampirology that I don't know about? Hmmm... maybe its an online degree program.

Anyway, she went on to describe vampires as haunting entities who form damaging parasitic relationships with living people.  I can get on board with that.  It's an interesting take on the our current perception of vampires.  A little vague, but valid.  To further expand, I believe she was excluding human generated residuals.  Basically, her definition could include any of the following non-human entities (in descending order of terrible):

Demons

PK manifestations

Shadow people

Poltergeists

Her male counterpart explained that he had extensive experience studying and dealing with hauntings. At this point, I'm thinking that the family might have lucked into a solution.  After interviewing the family and examining the house, the experts decided that the family needed to participate in a ritual in order to send the entity packing.  It is what I would have suggested as well.  

Ritual is not to be used lightly, but sometimes you have to pull out the big guns.  The night of the ritual, the experts show up armed with sage, salt, and holy books.  I'm sitting on the couch thinking that they have a fighting chance at this.  Then, the experts did something that blew my mind.

They drew a protective circle with salt, but they purposefully left the circle open.  Leaving a circle open is beyond useless.  In fact, it is better to do nothing at all.  Salt, especially black salt, is threatening to haunting entities.  To invoke the strength of a boundary and then not carry through will aggravate the haunting entity.  It will also reinforce that you are irresolute and weak.  Truly, it is a recipe for disaster.  

In real world terms, it would be like paying for a gym membership and never once getting on the treadmill.  Basically, you are paying to not work out.  All you've done is create an emotional and financial drain.  In other words, you were better off before you tried to take action.

But they didn't stop there.  They had the family sit outside the open circle holding candles.  Inside the open circle (read: funnel), they sat some poor soul who claimed to be a psychic.  Then, the ritual commenced.  In fact, I'm done calling it a ritual.  This was a sacrifice, plain and simple.  The experts were either not willing or not capable of solving the problem, so they offered it a new victim.  They knew the oldest trick in the book.  When all else fails, make an offering.  Divert the problem elsewhere.  I was appalled.  Apparently (and not surprisingly), the attempt was successful.

At the end of the episode, the family talked about how grateful they were to be free of the haunting entity.  For their part, the experts were smug and self-congratulatory.  Nothing more was said about the wayward psychic.  I guess they are saving her story for another episode.  I think they should call it 'Vampire Hot Potato: The Aftermath.'