August 9, 2010
-
Hauntings and Imprints
BEDA with a late start
I had committed to BEDA (Blog Every Day in August) with my friend Shanella. We’ll be encouraging each other to push on through. I didn’t find out about it until Friday, so I’m starting a little late. I had been contemplating writing quality, shorter entries for a long time. Something I had never put into practice here on xanga, but started doing on another blog. Now that I have some experience under my belt, I’d like to give it a whirl by committing to write every day. Let’s see how this goes.
Today’s topic: Hauntings and imprints
I had a conversation with a friend about a month ago about ghosts and hauntings and demons and imprints. We didn’t get very far into the conversation because I teased him a little bit about it. But it got me thinking. There are two schools of thought regarding the spirit realm. 1) It’s real. 2) It’s all imaginary.
As a Christian, I believe it to be real. However, my views on it are significantly influenced by what the Bible has to say about it and my own personal experiences, which are extensive. Therefore, imprints and benevolent ghosts are foreign ideas to me. Demons and such are not. I won’t get into specifics here, but I will describe something based on current events. I recently moved into a new house.
I have noticed when I spend the night at an unfamiliar place, I am, for lack of better word, affected at night. Specifically, when I am sleeping. Sometimes it occurs in the form of a freakish dream. Other times it occurs in the form of physical movement within my room. Other times, it’s significantly worse.
Fortunately, my first night here wasn’t one of the really bad cases. And in the past, prayer and spiritual warfare has always successfully eliminated the sensations/dreams/and other unnamed symptoms. The answered prayer is yet another confirmation that Jesus is a Savior and greater than the other forces in the spiritual realm. And so I prayed last night. And the sensations went away.
Tonight will be night #2. I am interested to see what comes of it. I have full faith in my God to protect me through this. I expect it to be better than yesterday.
What are your experiences with the spirit realm? Have you had any? If so, what are your thoughts?
Comments (4)
hard topic =) I believe what’s in the bible … God will protect you!
Now I’m reading you and Shanella and I’m really looking forward to your blogging commitment for August.
We were just talking about this topic on jalixx3′s blog. What a wonderful God we serve that He protects us and gives us peace.
I agree with Shanella.
Not to be lazy (though I am), but I’ll reprint in a bit of my comment on a recent similar discussion:
If I remember my own stance on the paranormal correctly, I believe I don’t rule out the possibilities.
The thing is, the Bible never sets out to give a comprehensive cosmology. Ezekiel and John describe strange beasts and multi-winged angels, and Daniel has his chat with the messenger-angel which reveals some interesting tidbits, and Jude and Isaiah hint at all sorts of tantalizing possibilities… but the only time any of this stuff is codified and set out into neat and tidy charts and graphs are in extra-biblical accounts. We don’t KNOW whether cherubim outrank seraphim, we don’t KNOW that the Day-Star mentioned in Isaiah is the same as the serpent that tempted Eve which is the same as the Satan/Enemy/Devil of the New Testament, we don’t even KNOW that the demons are the same as the “dragon’s angels” of Revelation. So much interpretation and conjecture and tradition goes into connecting those dots.
So if we are going to take the stance that “if it’s not in the Bible it doesn’t exist,” we may be doing the universe an injustice. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio… Besides, you have all those things the Bible hints at but doesn’t explain: nephilim, zi’im, ay’im, lilith…
On the dead, spirits, hauntings: I do not believe that all ghost sightings are demonic in nature, necessarily. Many do seem to be, and demonic activity is a familiar thing to Christianity. But many “ghosts” simply seem entirely unaware of observers, entirely unthinking. They do things like endlessly walk up and down stairs, run spinning wheels, pace… in short, they do things they did in life. Many don’t interact with observers at all, they show no cognizance of being watched.
We understand so little of how Time works, and chances are it isn’t half as linear as we think it is. Can these sightings of “ghosts” be places where Time has worn thin, and we see glimpses of the past? Perhaps our own spirits (for we are, as Screwtape insisted, amphibious creatures, being part material and part spiritual) can leave some sort of “echo” in places we visited often, or in places we felt strong emotion? (I remember when I visited the concentration camp at Dachau–I swear the entire place felt creepy, unnaturally still.)
Nothing in Scripture would support this, really, but neither would it rule it out.
With the dead or with the fae, I’m not really concerned by my lack of understanding as to how they work or what they are. After all, that’s the whole point of “supernatural”–an umbrella term for that which we cannot yet understand. To quote Cymrugirl, “We are still infinitely ignorant.”
I’ve had only brushes with the supernatural in this regard–a few instances which I’m sure were demonic, several which were more of a “creepy feeling” which never got explained. I don’t know.