Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith

OK I will describe it again as I remember it. At this time, roughly 1995, I was involved in a charismatic church of believers which had an energetic and exciting time surrounding it. They cast demons from people and I personally witnessed several such performances (sorta like Benny Hinn staged) in the early days after I was saved.(thats another story, but the subjective experience was real to me).I lived alone in a one bedroom apartment in a building of roughly 40 units. One of my friends from church had moved in with me and stayed in the living room area of the apartment. His family has been Holy Rollers for many years. His Mom "saved" him when he was ten... He is similar to you in his belief that Gods reality overrides all science and evidence and secular wisdom. Of course, both of us were witnesses of these deliverances, and of this night it is understood to this day that it actually happened as we thought it had then.Here is how it was described by me in another thread a couple years ago. Feel free to ask me any questions.

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I guess that I will jump in on this one! My motive is not to try and prove or disprove anything, but merely to recount a firsthand experience. About five years ago, I and my friends were active in fellowship and communion with other Christian Believers. We were praying together in agreement, and we were becoming at peace with our relationships to each other, the world in general, and God as we knew Him. One night, I was asleep. My roomie came home with two friends. At 2 a.m. they were praying in the other room. I then heard a commotion and shouting! I observed that an electrical feeling was present in the air and that my hair on my arms was standing on end. I also became very restless and an inner unction to pray was felt.
Afterward, going out to see what the commotion was, I saw one of the guys with deep blood red eyes biting himself and emitting deep growls.
Several explanations came to my mind for why this was happening.
1) Bad acid.
2) Trying to get attention
3) mentally ill. Or...my last explanation? Perhaps supernatural.
Mind you, I was still a skeptic. One of the others spoke to him and said that "we plead the blood of Jesus over you!" Out of this guy came what may have been several different voices at once. There were no tricks. No wires. I am certain of the authenticity of this moment.
These voices cryed out "The Blood! No! No!" Now I know that you all think that I was fooled, and I cannot claim that I wanted to believe that this was true at that time either. I WAS scared! Scared because I felt not in control. Yet I knew that what I heard was a real event and it sounded very otherworldly! Everyone was genuinely shook up. This was one event among several in my life that has caused me to wonder about the supernatural and the possibilities of such as reality.

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Thanks for responding.
I wish you wouldn't even try to characterize my views on science since you get it completely wrong. But anyway.I get the impression that this event spontaneously occurred, brought about by prayer perhaps? That is, it wasn't an intentional attempt to cast demons out of this person, they simply manifested spontaneously? It doesn't sound like anyone really knew how to deal with the situation and the demons were not cast out, is that true? Do you have any knowledge of what happened to this man after that?I know you are more interested in the topic of experiences of the supernatural and their reality, but I take all that for granted and am interested in the phenomena of demon possession and how to deal with it. I've never fully trusted the charismatic accounts of these things, though I'm not sure I could clearly say what bothers me about them, but I've actually thought they are more likely to CAUSE demon possession than cure it. And I haven't witnessed such a thing myself, but I found a book that sounds saner than most on the subject that I may order. Not a charismatic but a Baptist who was only nineteen or so when he first encountered demons in a neighbor and didn't know what to do about it, couldn't get anyone to help him, and the man died soon afterward from a "heart attack" that didn't really fit the symptoms of a heart attack. A rather abrupt introduction to the phenomena though it took him many years and more experiences before he committed himself to learning about it. I think there must be a lot of demon-possessed people around these days.I put myself on Inactive but of course as usual I end up wanting to talk about something. We could continue this by email, but maybe it's OK here. What do you think?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Since I'm here for the time being, I'll chime in that my father grew up on a farm not far from Calgary that his father, who had come from London, had homesteaded. My grandmother's family had come from Scotland to eastern Canada and went across Canada in a covered wagon to Alberta, where she met my grandfather.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

It was very unplanned and it did spontaneously occur...at nearly 2 am, IIRC.
Jason ended up going to the army, getting married, not sure where he is at now or if he is a believer. His mental health seemed ok even then, but he himself said that his family had a generational history with the occult. Not sure of the specific details. I do recall him not really knowing what had happened to him...as if he were watching a movie of himself--at the time. We can continue through email or PM here.

So in summary, you and your pals had been attending a series of what you guys call 'charismatic' church services were demons were driven out and ills cured in dramatic ways. Then one of them that had been 'saved' by his mother (who dabbled with the occult) at 10 years old, got involved with a prayer circle at 2am and had a fit.Are you remotely surprised that that happened? I dunno, you guys amaze me constantly.A couple of weeks work in a mental hospital would cure you of this nonsense, you'd realise what contortions the mind can put people through when just a bit out of whack. Amongst many others, I've met three Jesus's and one seagul who was convinced he could fly if only they'd unclip his wings. I've seen devils and extraordinary fits involving self-harm and wall climbing attempts. I've witnessed a guy try to gouge his own eyes out because they showed him terrible things. Nothing is unusual in mental wards.I once did a road trip with a friend and we tried to drive without stopping for 2 weeks. After 4 days my friend who was driving woke me up and got me to drive to a motel. He said he'd just seen an American Indian canoe with seven Indians in full war paint and feathers overtake him in the fast lane - paddling down the freeway. Clear as day, absolutely real. He slept for 18 hours.Put all this nonsense behind you, there are always real world explanations for these thing. You're back in the superstitious past were mental illnesses were demons, devils and the supernatural. We now know better. Well most of us anyway.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

Yeah, that's like when I, as a student, did community service in what we called a mad-house (unlike America, in my country community service is a voluntary system of assisting people with problems and not court ordered at all). I met lots and lots of Elvises trying to climb walls in buildings. Demon possessed? No. Just chemical imbalances in their brains.

No. You failed to connect the dots. You merged several stories together. Its not as black and white as you think. But I get the mental health angle...I studied psychology for 3 years at college. But as I have pointed out before, those of you who demand evidence have ruled out the possibility of anything more. Believers have not...based on subjective experience. So I will say that it *could* be explained, but not that it *must* be explained any differently.

I feel certain that any one of us could have passed a psychological assessment---had it not be based on the claims we experienced that night.But for the sake of a sane argument, I won't say that you are wrong. All I know is that I was reasonably fooled quite convincingly.Add By Edit: This is where Faith and I likely would part company regarding our beliefs. She would argue that since demons are mentioned in the Bible there is no reason to think that they are not real.I would likely commit the unpardonable sin of questioning the Bible. But I won't take the position that most of you take and doubt it. Nor would I doubt that Jesus is alive and that God is real.We all choose where to take our stand. Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Which bits were wrong? Come on Phat you immediately thought it was demonic posession didn't you? And still do I'm betting. It was a purely religious reflex, it wouldn't cross a non-religious person's mind that it was anything but a mental thing.

Is it? That sounds like the Bart Simpson Defence: "I could do that but I don't wanna." I could swim the Atlantic Ocean but I don't wanna. Maybe it has more to do with capability than God's whim.The question remains: If God could do things the right way, why does He choose to do them the wrong way?

It isn't that we have ruled out the possibility of anything "more". It's that an evidenced conclusion comes first, "I don't know" comes after that and spooky-woo comes way, way, way, way, way, way, way after that.I have seen dozens of instances of "speaking in tongues" and my conclusion is "I don't know". There are a number of possible explanations, none of them supernatural.I have also seen a few instances of drug induced "temporary psychosis".I'm a very long way from having to fall back on anything "more".

If there is a lot more you'd like to describe then let's do it in PM, but the only other question I have at the moment is whether you had any other experiences of demon possession?People can certainly live normal lives even with demons, as Jason apparently did, since they often affect only one particular part of a person's personality, but he'd be a lot better off if delivered from them, and maybe that can still be done. It seems that demons manifest most frequently when they are challenged by biblical truth, which is what probably happened at your place that night.The man I mentioned who discovered his neighbor was demon-possessed had been trying to share the gospel with him, and at some point quoted 1 John 4:1-6, which caused the man to stiffen up with his eyes rolled back in his head, and voices to come out of him.Later in his life he was a pastor who had a young woman in his congregation who came frequently for counseling even though she seemed to be helped on the previous occasions. But it would only help her depression for a short period, and then she'd come back. He hadn't dealt with demons since the neighbor incident but decided to see what would happen if he quoted 1 John 4 to her. She stiffened in the chair and her eyes rolled back in her head and she started screaming profanities, and that's when it became clear he had a case of demon possession on his hands. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I've thought for years that many cases of mental illness are probably the result of demon possession.Phat said he and his friends heard many voices coming out of this one friend. Ever heard that? How do you explain that away?

all my line of questioning was leading towards is what behavior was expected in this hypothetical Heaven we are talking about. I maintain that there is a certain protocol...which is why the dogma has satan being cast from heaven already. Of course, even that is up for discussion...Job has him walking to and fro elsewhere..(Job 1:7" From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.").but he does show up for the board meetings. For the purpose of my question, what are the acceptable forms of behavior in Heaven? Can we do our own thing (freewill in heaven?) or...more likely...do we play by club rules...willingly?

I had the experience of "speaking in tongues" when I was in the charismatic movement for a few years. I was praying out loud for some reason, not something I normally do, and these other sounds just started coming out. I was not controlling them, they just happened. They had a definite pattern that would repeat itself over and over. At first I assumed "Oh, I finally got the gift of tongues, great" but as I kept speaking these sounds over the next few days it just did not feel right, didn't feel like worship at all as it is claimed to be. It kept being easy to just let the sounds roll, but I also was distrustful enough to suppress them. Since I was not doing it, was not controlling it, I have to call it "supernatural." It could be demonic. But the Chinese Christian leader Watchman Nee wrote a book about the charismatic phenomena as "soul power" that he understood to be powers possessed by Adam and Eve that were lost at the Fall but may still persist in fragmented form in some people. That would include psychic powers, mistaken by charismatics as the "gift of prophecy," and so on. I don't know but if this is a demon I'd like to be delivered of it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.