Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Demonic door-to-door brush salesmen.

Corby Stephens posted a call for people to give up their stories on demonic possession. Most people responded with first or second accounts similar to the Hollywood-famous flying Ouiji board scene from so many of the horror movies it produces. A few posts were about eerie people resembling a page out of the script from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. As crazy as their accounts sound, I am one of those who fall in the camp believing them to be possible - without the gratuitous green vomit and rotating heads.

It's interesting to note that there’s a growing movement to communicate with "the dead" built into modern culture.

Shows like Ghost Hunter and Most Haunted seek to communicate with the spirit world by informal seances called vigils. Through EVPs they get frightening results. They also have called on mediums for guidance.

Outside reality TV there are plenty of other shows that indicate that society has gone over the top to put "romance" in necromancy: Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, Ghost Whisperer, Medium and Supernatural to name a few.

The internet is also full of ghost hunting podcasters and specter-seeking clubs who use questionable techniques to contact the spirit world. Very dangerous stuff. It's about as safe as taking down you're dad's 1960 chemistry set, mixing all the powders and potions then quaffing it down in the name of science.

Only a few times on any of these shows have I heard mention that demons, acting like the liars they are, will play the part of impostor to misguide and even hurt people. But that’s usually before a showdown between some silver-bullet toting vigilante and a shape-shifting Balrog, which presents the thought of demons as believable as the existence of a Keebler elf.

Perhaps the society we live in is so washed out with political correctness that the demons don’t really have a desire to present themselves. Doing so would risk being discovered and it’s easier, and perhaps even more of a game, to sit back and watch us stumbling to our own ethical demise.

The society as a whole has the spirit of Satan. I mean that in the most literal definitive sense. It is working in opposition of God. That's where the majority of demonic power appears evident.

In all of this, I have a question. If the media is so bold as to teach that necromancy is romantic and exciting, why aren’t churches just as bold to acknowledge the issue.

Demons were real and problematic in the days of Noah. They’re seemingly more subtle today, but sometime in the near future it will be the days of Noah all over again. Did God put a restraining order on them or are they strategically hiding since it’s nearly impossible to believe in them without also believing in God?

Even more astonishing is that throughout the Bible, demon possessed people freely went into the synagogues (Mark 1:23) and hang around Jesus to be exorcised (Mark 3:10-12). If demons really had all that much power over their host, what would compel them to get so close to God? Was it just to stir up a little trouble with Jesus the same way they did through the possessed girl towards Paul in Macedonia? I know arrogance is a sin, but that all seems to go beyond sin into stupidity. Maybe demons have wised up over the years and learned they can do more harm by remaining unseen than in the Hollywood limelight.

Labels: , , , , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home