Where to begin David? This is an incredible story of your unwavering effort to overcome a significant challenge (PTSD) over the years. The quest involves searching for answers, asking for help, receiving help from various sources, self-examination, and connecting to the spiritual sources of healing. PTSD doesn't normally disappear with one ritual and I would suggest that your efforts over the years and any of the good things you've done for others culminated in the inspiration you received to do the ritual that night (possibly coinciding with an important astrological transit...the planets also represented in the sephirot). Incredibly you were guided to take spiritual matters into your own hands and make good things happen.
There's much I would love to unpack with you regarding ritual, intention, preparation and creating a protective field to invite wanted energies while keeping harmful ones out. From my own experience of a spiritual crucifixion that expanded my consciousness I will say that it's likely you were very spiritually 'open' after your healing experience and required extra protection during your post-healing integration period to venture into a world that is largely unprotected. These entities feed off emotional energy such as fear, disgust, hate, despair etc. They attach to those who are holding more light too only when that person is vulnerable and too open.
Demonic possession is much harder to exorcise than entities and tends to require more than an invocation of protective forces to break the bond. I agree with Oren - it's problematic that entities and demons are terms used interchangeably when they require different strategies to eliminate them. Dealing with a dubbuk is more difficult than dealing with an entity masquerading as dead Aunt Betty.
I think it's wise that you're continuing to invoke and honour the benevolent forces will continue to build your protection and support healing/purification. Working with the tools of the physical and non-physical world can go a long way to expanding our consciousness, purifying our mind, and alleviating the pains that manifest as mental health issues and physical illness.
I hope readers can receive your message about the importance of considering non-physical influences of health and that not every influence is going to have a neat and tidy explanation. Sometimes it just is.
Thank you for sharing your experiences - the good and bad - that illustrated the complexity of spiritual work and its potential in our lives.
As we yids say - Kol Hakavod for the return of good mental health and may your practice and investigation into the depths of the mysteries be fruitful, healing, and enlightening.
I really appreciate all your encouragement and support, Nathalie.
Regarding this point: "it's problematic that entities and demons are terms used interchangeably when they require different strategies to eliminate them."
Yes, that's very true. There certainly are a variety of spirits out there and just boiling them down to "demons" is an oversimplification. When we were experiencing these entities coming on Wednesday and Thursday night I started searching to try and figure out what sorts of entities they could be if not outright demons. My ChatGPTing seemed to suggest that they could be characterized as "shadow people."
There’s also something at our local library. I suspect many spirits like to hang out there. One seems to follow me home much of the time when I go to pick up my holds.
I don’t know… Turns out that is a category of “entities” some “paranormal researchers” have described and it does sort of match the description of what we’ve been sensing. One of them seems to be trying to get into the apartment right now.
I think “shadow people” are just demons. They’re sleep paralysis demons specifically, maybe somewhat different from other kinds of demons. If you see one that’s not a good sign at all, since in my experience they just try to rape people and seemingly try to kill them. If you see those it seems like it’s always because they think your soul is weak and they’re about to try to drag you off to Hell in your sleep (their judgment is almost certainly not always accurate or people wouldn’t report them. They don’t seem to be able to reliably tell when people are sleeping. The goal seems to be to try to find people who are dead or dying though.) I think your ritual opened you up to lots of bad things. I think you messed up somewhere. I think if demons rape you you’ve already way crossed a line so the ritual you did with tarot cards and Jesus and the Devil probably already had something messed up. If the “shadow people” sleep paralysis demons are basically beating on your door during the middle of the day then that sounds like a huge issue. I don’t know very much about spells and whatever but it sounds like you definitely messed up somewhere to me. I would guess you weren’t supposed to try to literally summon the Devil into a circle to meet Jesus. I thought the Devil was already everywhere, if anything you were probably supposed to go to him. Like I would guess the way from the mind to Jesus would be actually to get out of your head if anything, since the Devil is already in the world.
The thing is this though: I feel so much better now most of the time and my PTSD symptoms are mostly in remission. I’m not suicidal all the time. And these demonic/spiritual attacks some days is a mild annoyance in comparison. It really feels like they just realize that my soul has been cleansed and there is room for them to get on board now if I don’t recognize them and push back.
'This “possession” seemed a little different, though. Most notably, for some reason I was stuttering wildly as I tried to talk—a problem I’ve never had. It seemed like this was an expression of a different demon inhabiting me than the ones I’d lived with for years.
I still had to get through the day, though, and for whatever reason, more article assignments were coming in faster than usual. I didn’t have time right now to spend hours engaging in ceremonial magick again, especially doing something that would leave me exhausted.
Very worried about me, Sally took Jasmine outside, as a dog regularly demands, saying pointedly that maybe I’d feel better when they came back in. Feeling sick, I could only mutter, “okay."
Then, sitting here at my desk in the living room, where I’m sitting now as I type this, I decided to try something easier than the experience of being tortured to death.
I grabbed my large metal ankh again that I’d use to summon Thoth. This one:
I gripped the ankh tightly, as though on a roller coaster, and I yelled out, “Thoth, I invoke thee! Thoth, I invoke thee! Help me! Free me of this demon!”
And then the giant bird-headed man who towered over me showed up again. He seemed casual, as though this were no big deal: just a minor ailment that he, as the god of medicine, knew how to handle.
And then he did what he had done previously when I invoked him. He reached his beak down and ate both of my eyeballs. This then “opened my third eye” in the middle of my forehead. He then reached his beak down through that and pulled out what seemed like a big worm. He swallowed it like it was nothing and grinned at the opportunity for a midday snack.
I saw this as I had seen all such experiences: in my mind's eye. But I felt a very real rush of relief nevertheless, and returned back to the self I’d been before going out to get those damn library books on Wednesday. In fact, I felt fantastic. By invoking Thoth, I had not only gotten rid of the demon, but now took on his own qualities, myself. I started laughing and rose from my desk to dance around the room, shocked that it had, once again, been so “easy” to cast out a dark force that had tried to get me to kill myself.'
The beginning of this makes it sound like you got possessed by a worse demon, though. What "seemed to be a big worm" was also probably not. Why would Thoth eating it turn you into something more like Thoth? That was probably the kundalini snake or something imo. Disclaimer: I don't cast spells and do ceremonial magick, I just know of a few esoteric ideas.
Since I can’t edit my reply, in my experience, “shadow people” are just the sleep paralysis demons. It’s definitely actually demons. I kept writing on my blog off and on how I think a nuclear war is going to happen soon and it’s going to happen when the system of debt-driven consumerism collapses. The PRC and basically BRICS economies will collapse when debt-driven consumerism collapses, and when that happens, Russia and/or North Korea (though luckily North Korea doesn’t have ICBMs yet) will nuke everyone, because apparently they tried to in 2022, but the PRC told them no. When rich people in consumer economies of mostly North America and Europe can’t buy things from PRC and other BRICS countries on debt anymore, then the PRC collapses, then Russia can nuke everyone whether North Korea has ICBMs yet or not, but North Korea getting ICBMs would make it way worse. I think it’s super interesting that you saw a bunch of demons at shopping centers and around the cars of people going to and from shopping centers, because that’s basically the whole problem. I think the demons are seriously scoping out the souls of greedy materialist idolators (the Bible even calls greed idolatry) to try to find who they’re going to drag off to Hell. I saw like basically just Satan with outstretched wings in my mind’s eye when I was watching the Super Bowl, but I haven’t been to enough shopping centers to see a bunch of demons there, only one specific grocery store, and I noticed a little bit of the presence of that but not a ton, probably because it was a store for mostly just groceries and consuming food is pretty innocent. When I go to stores for non-food items I’m sure I’ll notice a lot more so thanks for making me want to look.
I find it interesting that something akin to demonic possession shows up repeatedly across many unrelated healing disciplines; see overview here: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-others-within-us (The author tries hard to figure out a rationalistic explanation for the phenomenon, but he discusses the cases dispassionately.) My wife is currently studying Cranio-Sacral Therapy, and the founder of that method, Dr. Upledger (a Western-trained surgeon), reports having encountered hostile entities (and other, more benevolent entities) during his work. (Tangentially, this essay by Eric S. Raymond might be interesting: http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/dancing.html)
I am tentatively willing to call the entities "demons," given the discussions in the Talmud etc., though the English word carries a lot of baggage.
(One comment about the Tree of Life is that a lot of the discussions of it in Western magickal traditions are superficial. I would not say that Malkhuth represents "the earth and the physical world," or at least not that alone. One can cautiously draw a limited analogy to Yin and Yang, in the sense that these two attributes are not static, but are relational and dynamic; Thing A can be Yin in relationship to Thing B, but Yang in relationship to Thing C. Similarly, the sefirot describe not merely spiritual locations, but relational processes. I am no Kabbalist, but I've done enough reading to wince at most Western discussions of the sefirot.)
Thanks Oren! Yes, I certainly understand how/why Orthodox Jews would wince at how we western occultists have appropriated the Tree of Life over the centuries! :) I know that there's much more to it than this more superficial approach. And I plan to dig into it more in the coming years.
Hey David. You pointed me to your article a week ago or so, regarding brain/psychotherapy. And no psychedelics? Other than that, crazy indeed, but good crazy. There will be people from neurology/neuroscience realm that will be able to offer some possible explanation though - but sadly can't recommend anyone as I am working more along the lines of your typical experiences.
I think ceremony does stuff that is impossible to quantify, and I say that as someone who tends to be more “skeptical.” I’ve experienced stuff like this too, and it is powerful.
David. Even though I am not well versed in the experiences you endured, this is one of the most enlightening and interesting articles I have ever read. I am most impressed by how you made your private life so public with the goal of assisting others in need. We need more like you. Well done. Congrats.
This whole story reminded me of this. The part where Thoth pulled out the worm probably was like the kundalini serpent or ouroboros. People who claim to have kundalini awakenings are probably wrong too. I have read kundalini is just prana, aka, it's just energy, if you're alive, you already have kundalini. The negative aspect of Thoth is probably to sort of remove the head from the body. The meaning of the Devil is probably that you don't need to summon Satan, Satan is already there, tell Satan to flee, don't invite him in when he's already there. Like satori in this note, satori is practice, there isn't a satori moment. That's my two cents.
I hope all is well. I have friends with spiritual experiences similar but different. One such I wrote a song about, changing her name on her request:
"My friend Phoebe was a rationalist
But paranormal curious
Got visions vivid details
What her classmates saw next day
Approached it like a science
Moving trinkets off of tables
With her mind, which now was doubting what was real anyway
The spirit world slipped open
Knew some tricks to make them talk
Taunting her of suicide
Heads of Egyptian gods
Living out her truth - took in a broken winged Crow
But so self consumed - found the bird in the porch - Froze!
Witches can’t fly, but I know how… watch!
Freedom to ignore consequence
Extended to dirty dishes
Stuffed inside an unplugged freezer
Spawning maggot dreams
The Christians she met crossed her out,
Or stupidly thought it was sweet
But gnawing despair
Feeding off her,
Drove her to her knees
She would make no promises, no deal to ever change
Figured what’s to loose if she’ll die this year anyway?
A prayer to not sure where, to take away this damn, war
Fought inside her head, as colors froze on the floor
Witches can’t fly, but I know how… watch!
Instant in the morning
Felt the sponge in her brain squeezed and drained
The colors returned soaking
Proof that someone cared to clean
Is it sin she stole a Bible
When who owned it wouldn’t read her a thing
Of anti-gravity love come to fix her broken wing
Love accept us on the floor!
But don’t leave us frozen on the floor!
Are you my broken winged crow?
You’re welcome to my upside down home,
Leave dirt to walk on windows
Hold on, we’re leaving the ground!"
All this to say, she has a bit of a different darker take on the motives of these Egyption gods based on her experience. They may not be who they appear to be. And I don't want to come off as one of those judgement pricks, but out of genuine care and concern, maybe hang out in the Hebrew prophetic books a bit and wrestle with their warnings about other gods and occultism practices. I just don't want you to become like my friend who suffered a worse mental health state in the end through experimenting with these practices and Egyption gods.
Peace brother. May the one true God keep your PTSD away.
Oh boy, that's a dangerous question, I can definitely nerd out about the OT books! The best of course is the whole thing in context, but I feel there's a few passages to just consider meditating on.
1.At the end of Jeremiah's ministry he was put into a very awkward position being asked by the remaining Judeans whether or not to go down to Egypt or stay in the Babylon occupied Judea. He told them to stay, they got pissed and kidnapped him to go to Egypt with them, and in Jeremiah 44 he gives his final warning to them and they give their final response.
2. The story of Naaman and Elisha in 2 Kings 5... I feel it relates a lot for your search for healing and Naaman's response to healing is worth pondering.
3. The first 3 or 4 chapters of Hosea tell one of the most provocative performance art requests (definitely not Christian radio friendly!)... God telling a prophet to marry a prostitute and then buying her back when she leaves him to go back to prostitution. It's one of the most tragic but beautiful allegories in the whole Bible God uses to paint a picture in very human terms what it feels like when he is "cheated on" but also of his relentless love to keep buying us back (chokes me up as someone trying to break a 2 generation curse of adultery and broken homes).
After that I always recommend my person fav of Micah as a nice TLDR version of prophetic books, as it nicely summarizes most of the themes of the major prophets but in only 7 chapters... I saw a bit of a narrative arch in it and it inspired me to make a whole rock opera based off it (which I have been posting a graphic novel version of the lyrics to on my Substack as "How to Cure Snake Oil"... of course it's more of a poetic and personified interpretation... like Hebrew Midrash... but it could be a nice companion to chew on the text in a different light.)
So yeah, like I said, I definitely get too nerdy, and musical on the subject (just trying to be Weird Al of prophetic books!) but I'll shut up now, haha! Peace to you on the road ahead :)
Yeah I don’t want to be judgmental either but it seems like it’s Asmodeus basically following him around now. However, I don’t think I’d say Egyptian gods necessarily have to be demonic. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis like writing about Norse and Greek gods and they’re the pinnacle of American evangelicalism, I don’t think Egyptian has to be demonic just because it’s Egyptian, that seems kind of racist. I just think people need to be in the right frame of mind. I think most pagan entities can be something good or bad depending on the same context, but I don’t think it’s the same being if it’s good or bad. I think after doing the Devil ritual Thoth definitely became like Asmodeus or something if it wasn’t already. I don’t think he was supposed to do a Devil ritual like that. I mean, didn’t Jesus tell Satan to go away, not invite Satan over? I think really, Satan is already there, you don’t need to summon Satan, just tell Satan to go away, that’s the proper Devil ritual.
Bob, no reasonable person would say that a Christian reading the Bible aloud and calling on Jesus as part of an exorcism is in any way being "friendly" with demons.
You aren't being reasonable here. You should be happy for me that my PTSD symptoms are gone and that I regard EVIL demons as being the cause behind it. Not lecturing me about how I am somehow friends with these demons who have been making my life miserable.
While Bob Hannaford here is annoying, why did you basically ask Satan to show up in your magic circle and torture you to bring you closer to Jesus? You also got worse symptoms after you did the ritual. I don’t think you’re necessarily trying to worship Satan or anything but why didn’t you rebuke Satan from torturing you? The demons would’ve fled. I think you got some interesting information like the demons at shopping centers, but you also seem to have dismissed that as just oh, there are innumerable demons, or it’s “shadow people.” I thought the Talmud was just a bunch of people arguing over Judaism and you have to do a lot of hermeneutics to back up any viewpoint with it. I’m sure there are innumerable demons out there, but I also do think they’re targeting shopping centers and shoppers in their cars literally specifically in anticipation of events that are going on. I saw with my mind a big demon with outstretched wings manipulating people when the Super Bowl was playing on TV at ironically a church building people were meeting in. I haven’t been around enough shopping centers since then but if people are seeing the sleep paralysis demons around shopping centers that doesn’t seem ordinary at all, that just confirms my observations that yes, the world has come dangerously close to being nuked over consumerism in 2022 and it’s getting even closer to being nuked over consumerism so all the shadow demons are coming to look for souls close to death to drag off to Hell.
It is not at all worship of demons. It is exorcising of demons. I have never worshipped demons. None of the Christians I have shown this article to have accused me of worshipping demons. I'm sorry Bob, but I don't think you know what you're talking about here.
I am not so arrogant as to imagine that I will get through to someone such as yourself who has demonstrated a desperate desire to do absolutely anything to avoid worshiping the actual Jesus of the Bible rather than an imaginary Jesus.
But if you should ever get to a point where nothing is working for you and you are desperate, call out to the Jesus of the Bible, first commit yourself to follow him only, rejecting all others, and then ask him to show you He really is.
The Jesus of the Bible calls us to reject everything except Him in order to truly follow Him.
God has always said that He is a jealous God and will not tolerate the worship of other gods, which would obviously have to include the god who is “self.”
Ultimately it is not worth it to seek mental and physical relief from suffering if we use it to live for our own imagination of what is right.
Only living for God, regardless of any suffering we may have to endure, will be rewarded in the end.
Which version of the “actual Jesus of the Bible” is the one correct one? The Catholic? The Baptist? The Mormons? They don’t all worship the same Jesus. That’s the problem I’ve know since I was a teenager.
Where to begin David? This is an incredible story of your unwavering effort to overcome a significant challenge (PTSD) over the years. The quest involves searching for answers, asking for help, receiving help from various sources, self-examination, and connecting to the spiritual sources of healing. PTSD doesn't normally disappear with one ritual and I would suggest that your efforts over the years and any of the good things you've done for others culminated in the inspiration you received to do the ritual that night (possibly coinciding with an important astrological transit...the planets also represented in the sephirot). Incredibly you were guided to take spiritual matters into your own hands and make good things happen.
There's much I would love to unpack with you regarding ritual, intention, preparation and creating a protective field to invite wanted energies while keeping harmful ones out. From my own experience of a spiritual crucifixion that expanded my consciousness I will say that it's likely you were very spiritually 'open' after your healing experience and required extra protection during your post-healing integration period to venture into a world that is largely unprotected. These entities feed off emotional energy such as fear, disgust, hate, despair etc. They attach to those who are holding more light too only when that person is vulnerable and too open.
Demonic possession is much harder to exorcise than entities and tends to require more than an invocation of protective forces to break the bond. I agree with Oren - it's problematic that entities and demons are terms used interchangeably when they require different strategies to eliminate them. Dealing with a dubbuk is more difficult than dealing with an entity masquerading as dead Aunt Betty.
I think it's wise that you're continuing to invoke and honour the benevolent forces will continue to build your protection and support healing/purification. Working with the tools of the physical and non-physical world can go a long way to expanding our consciousness, purifying our mind, and alleviating the pains that manifest as mental health issues and physical illness.
I hope readers can receive your message about the importance of considering non-physical influences of health and that not every influence is going to have a neat and tidy explanation. Sometimes it just is.
Thank you for sharing your experiences - the good and bad - that illustrated the complexity of spiritual work and its potential in our lives.
As we yids say - Kol Hakavod for the return of good mental health and may your practice and investigation into the depths of the mysteries be fruitful, healing, and enlightening.
I really appreciate all your encouragement and support, Nathalie.
Regarding this point: "it's problematic that entities and demons are terms used interchangeably when they require different strategies to eliminate them."
Yes, that's very true. There certainly are a variety of spirits out there and just boiling them down to "demons" is an oversimplification. When we were experiencing these entities coming on Wednesday and Thursday night I started searching to try and figure out what sorts of entities they could be if not outright demons. My ChatGPTing seemed to suggest that they could be characterized as "shadow people."
I just read this, and I think there are innumerable demons at shopping centers specifically. Consumerism/materialism is demonic.
You are correct. I’ve felt that at times.
There’s also something at our local library. I suspect many spirits like to hang out there. One seems to follow me home much of the time when I go to pick up my holds.
Shadow people 😂- ChatGPT says some funny things.
I don’t know… Turns out that is a category of “entities” some “paranormal researchers” have described and it does sort of match the description of what we’ve been sensing. One of them seems to be trying to get into the apartment right now.
I think “shadow people” are just demons. They’re sleep paralysis demons specifically, maybe somewhat different from other kinds of demons. If you see one that’s not a good sign at all, since in my experience they just try to rape people and seemingly try to kill them. If you see those it seems like it’s always because they think your soul is weak and they’re about to try to drag you off to Hell in your sleep (their judgment is almost certainly not always accurate or people wouldn’t report them. They don’t seem to be able to reliably tell when people are sleeping. The goal seems to be to try to find people who are dead or dying though.) I think your ritual opened you up to lots of bad things. I think you messed up somewhere. I think if demons rape you you’ve already way crossed a line so the ritual you did with tarot cards and Jesus and the Devil probably already had something messed up. If the “shadow people” sleep paralysis demons are basically beating on your door during the middle of the day then that sounds like a huge issue. I don’t know very much about spells and whatever but it sounds like you definitely messed up somewhere to me. I would guess you weren’t supposed to try to literally summon the Devil into a circle to meet Jesus. I thought the Devil was already everywhere, if anything you were probably supposed to go to him. Like I would guess the way from the mind to Jesus would be actually to get out of your head if anything, since the Devil is already in the world.
The thing is this though: I feel so much better now most of the time and my PTSD symptoms are mostly in remission. I’m not suicidal all the time. And these demonic/spiritual attacks some days is a mild annoyance in comparison. It really feels like they just realize that my soul has been cleansed and there is room for them to get on board now if I don’t recognize them and push back.
'This “possession” seemed a little different, though. Most notably, for some reason I was stuttering wildly as I tried to talk—a problem I’ve never had. It seemed like this was an expression of a different demon inhabiting me than the ones I’d lived with for years.
I still had to get through the day, though, and for whatever reason, more article assignments were coming in faster than usual. I didn’t have time right now to spend hours engaging in ceremonial magick again, especially doing something that would leave me exhausted.
Very worried about me, Sally took Jasmine outside, as a dog regularly demands, saying pointedly that maybe I’d feel better when they came back in. Feeling sick, I could only mutter, “okay."
Then, sitting here at my desk in the living room, where I’m sitting now as I type this, I decided to try something easier than the experience of being tortured to death.
I grabbed my large metal ankh again that I’d use to summon Thoth. This one:
I gripped the ankh tightly, as though on a roller coaster, and I yelled out, “Thoth, I invoke thee! Thoth, I invoke thee! Help me! Free me of this demon!”
And then the giant bird-headed man who towered over me showed up again. He seemed casual, as though this were no big deal: just a minor ailment that he, as the god of medicine, knew how to handle.
And then he did what he had done previously when I invoked him. He reached his beak down and ate both of my eyeballs. This then “opened my third eye” in the middle of my forehead. He then reached his beak down through that and pulled out what seemed like a big worm. He swallowed it like it was nothing and grinned at the opportunity for a midday snack.
I saw this as I had seen all such experiences: in my mind's eye. But I felt a very real rush of relief nevertheless, and returned back to the self I’d been before going out to get those damn library books on Wednesday. In fact, I felt fantastic. By invoking Thoth, I had not only gotten rid of the demon, but now took on his own qualities, myself. I started laughing and rose from my desk to dance around the room, shocked that it had, once again, been so “easy” to cast out a dark force that had tried to get me to kill myself.'
The beginning of this makes it sound like you got possessed by a worse demon, though. What "seemed to be a big worm" was also probably not. Why would Thoth eating it turn you into something more like Thoth? That was probably the kundalini snake or something imo. Disclaimer: I don't cast spells and do ceremonial magick, I just know of a few esoteric ideas.
Since I can’t edit my reply, in my experience, “shadow people” are just the sleep paralysis demons. It’s definitely actually demons. I kept writing on my blog off and on how I think a nuclear war is going to happen soon and it’s going to happen when the system of debt-driven consumerism collapses. The PRC and basically BRICS economies will collapse when debt-driven consumerism collapses, and when that happens, Russia and/or North Korea (though luckily North Korea doesn’t have ICBMs yet) will nuke everyone, because apparently they tried to in 2022, but the PRC told them no. When rich people in consumer economies of mostly North America and Europe can’t buy things from PRC and other BRICS countries on debt anymore, then the PRC collapses, then Russia can nuke everyone whether North Korea has ICBMs yet or not, but North Korea getting ICBMs would make it way worse. I think it’s super interesting that you saw a bunch of demons at shopping centers and around the cars of people going to and from shopping centers, because that’s basically the whole problem. I think the demons are seriously scoping out the souls of greedy materialist idolators (the Bible even calls greed idolatry) to try to find who they’re going to drag off to Hell. I saw like basically just Satan with outstretched wings in my mind’s eye when I was watching the Super Bowl, but I haven’t been to enough shopping centers to see a bunch of demons there, only one specific grocery store, and I noticed a little bit of the presence of that but not a ton, probably because it was a store for mostly just groceries and consuming food is pretty innocent. When I go to stores for non-food items I’m sure I’ll notice a lot more so thanks for making me want to look.
I find it interesting that something akin to demonic possession shows up repeatedly across many unrelated healing disciplines; see overview here: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-the-others-within-us (The author tries hard to figure out a rationalistic explanation for the phenomenon, but he discusses the cases dispassionately.) My wife is currently studying Cranio-Sacral Therapy, and the founder of that method, Dr. Upledger (a Western-trained surgeon), reports having encountered hostile entities (and other, more benevolent entities) during his work. (Tangentially, this essay by Eric S. Raymond might be interesting: http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/dancing.html)
I am tentatively willing to call the entities "demons," given the discussions in the Talmud etc., though the English word carries a lot of baggage.
(One comment about the Tree of Life is that a lot of the discussions of it in Western magickal traditions are superficial. I would not say that Malkhuth represents "the earth and the physical world," or at least not that alone. One can cautiously draw a limited analogy to Yin and Yang, in the sense that these two attributes are not static, but are relational and dynamic; Thing A can be Yin in relationship to Thing B, but Yang in relationship to Thing C. Similarly, the sefirot describe not merely spiritual locations, but relational processes. I am no Kabbalist, but I've done enough reading to wince at most Western discussions of the sefirot.)
Thanks Oren! Yes, I certainly understand how/why Orthodox Jews would wince at how we western occultists have appropriated the Tree of Life over the centuries! :) I know that there's much more to it than this more superficial approach. And I plan to dig into it more in the coming years.
Hey David. You pointed me to your article a week ago or so, regarding brain/psychotherapy. And no psychedelics? Other than that, crazy indeed, but good crazy. There will be people from neurology/neuroscience realm that will be able to offer some possible explanation though - but sadly can't recommend anyone as I am working more along the lines of your typical experiences.
I've explored the psychedelics a fair amount too - https://www.godofthedesert.org/p/psychedelic-zionism-explained-10
https://www.godofthedesert.org/p/11-effective-ways-to-repel-the-dark
Right now Amanita Muscaria is my drug of choice here.
Thanks for reading!
I think ceremony does stuff that is impossible to quantify, and I say that as someone who tends to be more “skeptical.” I’ve experienced stuff like this too, and it is powerful.
David. Even though I am not well versed in the experiences you endured, this is one of the most enlightening and interesting articles I have ever read. I am most impressed by how you made your private life so public with the goal of assisting others in need. We need more like you. Well done. Congrats.
That means so much to me. I really appreciate it, James.
Happy three years anniversary, David! 🎉 Also, I must say, this was a fascinating article to read. There's a lot to unpack here.
That sounds like such good news! I hope that your cured state endures.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
https://substack.com/@martialx/note/c-91749488
This whole story reminded me of this. The part where Thoth pulled out the worm probably was like the kundalini serpent or ouroboros. People who claim to have kundalini awakenings are probably wrong too. I have read kundalini is just prana, aka, it's just energy, if you're alive, you already have kundalini. The negative aspect of Thoth is probably to sort of remove the head from the body. The meaning of the Devil is probably that you don't need to summon Satan, Satan is already there, tell Satan to flee, don't invite him in when he's already there. Like satori in this note, satori is practice, there isn't a satori moment. That's my two cents.
I hope all is well. I have friends with spiritual experiences similar but different. One such I wrote a song about, changing her name on her request:
"My friend Phoebe was a rationalist
But paranormal curious
Got visions vivid details
What her classmates saw next day
Approached it like a science
Moving trinkets off of tables
With her mind, which now was doubting what was real anyway
The spirit world slipped open
Knew some tricks to make them talk
Taunting her of suicide
Heads of Egyptian gods
Living out her truth - took in a broken winged Crow
But so self consumed - found the bird in the porch - Froze!
Witches can’t fly, but I know how… watch!
Freedom to ignore consequence
Extended to dirty dishes
Stuffed inside an unplugged freezer
Spawning maggot dreams
The Christians she met crossed her out,
Or stupidly thought it was sweet
But gnawing despair
Feeding off her,
Drove her to her knees
She would make no promises, no deal to ever change
Figured what’s to loose if she’ll die this year anyway?
A prayer to not sure where, to take away this damn, war
Fought inside her head, as colors froze on the floor
Witches can’t fly, but I know how… watch!
Instant in the morning
Felt the sponge in her brain squeezed and drained
The colors returned soaking
Proof that someone cared to clean
Is it sin she stole a Bible
When who owned it wouldn’t read her a thing
Of anti-gravity love come to fix her broken wing
Love accept us on the floor!
But don’t leave us frozen on the floor!
Are you my broken winged crow?
You’re welcome to my upside down home,
Leave dirt to walk on windows
Hold on, we’re leaving the ground!"
All this to say, she has a bit of a different darker take on the motives of these Egyption gods based on her experience. They may not be who they appear to be. And I don't want to come off as one of those judgement pricks, but out of genuine care and concern, maybe hang out in the Hebrew prophetic books a bit and wrestle with their warnings about other gods and occultism practices. I just don't want you to become like my friend who suffered a worse mental health state in the end through experimenting with these practices and Egyption gods.
Peace brother. May the one true God keep your PTSD away.
Which books should I read?
Oh boy, that's a dangerous question, I can definitely nerd out about the OT books! The best of course is the whole thing in context, but I feel there's a few passages to just consider meditating on.
1.At the end of Jeremiah's ministry he was put into a very awkward position being asked by the remaining Judeans whether or not to go down to Egypt or stay in the Babylon occupied Judea. He told them to stay, they got pissed and kidnapped him to go to Egypt with them, and in Jeremiah 44 he gives his final warning to them and they give their final response.
2. The story of Naaman and Elisha in 2 Kings 5... I feel it relates a lot for your search for healing and Naaman's response to healing is worth pondering.
3. The first 3 or 4 chapters of Hosea tell one of the most provocative performance art requests (definitely not Christian radio friendly!)... God telling a prophet to marry a prostitute and then buying her back when she leaves him to go back to prostitution. It's one of the most tragic but beautiful allegories in the whole Bible God uses to paint a picture in very human terms what it feels like when he is "cheated on" but also of his relentless love to keep buying us back (chokes me up as someone trying to break a 2 generation curse of adultery and broken homes).
After that I always recommend my person fav of Micah as a nice TLDR version of prophetic books, as it nicely summarizes most of the themes of the major prophets but in only 7 chapters... I saw a bit of a narrative arch in it and it inspired me to make a whole rock opera based off it (which I have been posting a graphic novel version of the lyrics to on my Substack as "How to Cure Snake Oil"... of course it's more of a poetic and personified interpretation... like Hebrew Midrash... but it could be a nice companion to chew on the text in a different light.)
So yeah, like I said, I definitely get too nerdy, and musical on the subject (just trying to be Weird Al of prophetic books!) but I'll shut up now, haha! Peace to you on the road ahead :)
Thank you, I'll check those out. Have you read Abraham Joshua Heschel's book on the prophets? I really enjoyed it.
I heard about it... was recommended by Tim Mackie of The Bible Project and on my list to check out eventually.
Yeah I don’t want to be judgmental either but it seems like it’s Asmodeus basically following him around now. However, I don’t think I’d say Egyptian gods necessarily have to be demonic. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis like writing about Norse and Greek gods and they’re the pinnacle of American evangelicalism, I don’t think Egyptian has to be demonic just because it’s Egyptian, that seems kind of racist. I just think people need to be in the right frame of mind. I think most pagan entities can be something good or bad depending on the same context, but I don’t think it’s the same being if it’s good or bad. I think after doing the Devil ritual Thoth definitely became like Asmodeus or something if it wasn’t already. I don’t think he was supposed to do a Devil ritual like that. I mean, didn’t Jesus tell Satan to go away, not invite Satan over? I think really, Satan is already there, you don’t need to summon Satan, just tell Satan to go away, that’s the proper Devil ritual.
You’re right.
I shouldn’t be lecturing you.
I should only be giving advice to those who are open to it.
It is foolish and prideful of me to think that I could help to save anybody from themselves or Satan.
I will try to keep to just praying for you.
Bob, you've misread the whole article. And you aren't listening to me when I'm trying to correct you for your errors. So your advice is all worthless.
Jesus has saved me from Satan. That's what the whole article is about. And it's why all my Christian friends I've shared it with are thrilled by it.
Any reasonable person would say that what you described is clearly flirting or fraternizing or behaving in a friendly way with demons.
Nothing about the way you describe your interaction with demons indicates that you think of them as evil.
Bob, no reasonable person would say that a Christian reading the Bible aloud and calling on Jesus as part of an exorcism is in any way being "friendly" with demons.
You aren't being reasonable here. You should be happy for me that my PTSD symptoms are gone and that I regard EVIL demons as being the cause behind it. Not lecturing me about how I am somehow friends with these demons who have been making my life miserable.
While Bob Hannaford here is annoying, why did you basically ask Satan to show up in your magic circle and torture you to bring you closer to Jesus? You also got worse symptoms after you did the ritual. I don’t think you’re necessarily trying to worship Satan or anything but why didn’t you rebuke Satan from torturing you? The demons would’ve fled. I think you got some interesting information like the demons at shopping centers, but you also seem to have dismissed that as just oh, there are innumerable demons, or it’s “shadow people.” I thought the Talmud was just a bunch of people arguing over Judaism and you have to do a lot of hermeneutics to back up any viewpoint with it. I’m sure there are innumerable demons out there, but I also do think they’re targeting shopping centers and shoppers in their cars literally specifically in anticipation of events that are going on. I saw with my mind a big demon with outstretched wings manipulating people when the Super Bowl was playing on TV at ironically a church building people were meeting in. I haven’t been around enough shopping centers since then but if people are seeing the sleep paralysis demons around shopping centers that doesn’t seem ordinary at all, that just confirms my observations that yes, the world has come dangerously close to being nuked over consumerism in 2022 and it’s getting even closer to being nuked over consumerism so all the shadow demons are coming to look for souls close to death to drag off to Hell.
God requires that we worship him only.
If what you have described in this story is not worship of demons I don’t know what is.
A very wise man once said attention and love are the exact same thing.
It sounds like you have been giving a lot of attention to demons lately.
God said love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength.
It is not at all worship of demons. It is exorcising of demons. I have never worshipped demons. None of the Christians I have shown this article to have accused me of worshipping demons. I'm sorry Bob, but I don't think you know what you're talking about here.
I believe that The Roman Catholics and Protestants have always worshiped the same Jesus. Although there are other serious doctrinal differences.
The Mormons are not even remotely close to a Christian faith by any reasonable measure.
Well, I am still a protestant. So therefore I am worshipping the same Jesus. Thus you have nothing to worry about regarding my soul.
I am not so arrogant as to imagine that I will get through to someone such as yourself who has demonstrated a desperate desire to do absolutely anything to avoid worshiping the actual Jesus of the Bible rather than an imaginary Jesus.
But if you should ever get to a point where nothing is working for you and you are desperate, call out to the Jesus of the Bible, first commit yourself to follow him only, rejecting all others, and then ask him to show you He really is.
The Jesus of the Bible calls us to reject everything except Him in order to truly follow Him.
God has always said that He is a jealous God and will not tolerate the worship of other gods, which would obviously have to include the god who is “self.”
Ultimately it is not worth it to seek mental and physical relief from suffering if we use it to live for our own imagination of what is right.
Only living for God, regardless of any suffering we may have to endure, will be rewarded in the end.
Which version of the “actual Jesus of the Bible” is the one correct one? The Catholic? The Baptist? The Mormons? They don’t all worship the same Jesus. That’s the problem I’ve know since I was a teenager.