Skeptophilia (skep-to-fil-i-a) (n.) - the love of logical thought, skepticism, and thinking critically. Being an exploration of the applications of skeptical thinking to the world at large, with periodic excursions into linguistics, music, politics, cryptozoology, and why people keep seeing the face of Jesus on grilled cheese sandwiches.

Monday, June 17, 2013

Demon-B-Gon

I usually try not to spend much time on stories from people who are simply delusional, but this one was too good to pass up.

Paul Schroeder is a frequent writer for UFO Digest, which should put you on notice right from the get-go.  He made a brief appearance in Skeptophilia a couple of years ago, with a claim that a Reptilian had visited him in his shower, causing "unprovoked sexual urges and negative ideations."  But Schroeder hasn't made the pages of this blog with near the regularity of, say, Diane Tessman or Dirk VanderPloeg.

This time, though, Schroeder seems to have a winner, with a piece called "Self-help Against Demons."  In it, we learn how to detect a demonic presence (I wouldn't have thought it'd be that hard, what with the sulfur and brimstone smell, not to mention the appearance of a giant half-naked guy with wings), and also how to get rid of said demon once he shows up.

He starts off with a bang -- literally:
Lightning flashes in a thunderstorm, which hit trees and go into the ground, act as a food media, a power grid for demonics to utilize and to manifest.  When kaleidoscopic colors and animated figures storm your mind's eye, when you close your eyes to retire to sleep, you are with a demonic, standing gauntly by your bedside.

They use this animated psychic fascination to keep children awake all night, night after night, to weaken them towards jumping onto and then into, children's energies field.  Demons and other nasty spirits, often visit, but don't normally reside for long in our 3-D physical dimensional plane of existence.  Since demons do not have a corporeal, earthly form, it is very energy costly and quite difficult for them to wander freely, or to have their full destructive force, in our physical dimensional world.  But they CAN and DO hitchhike around, bound to human- others' energies.
So that's why horror movies usually seem to involve thunderstorms.  I'd wondered why, for example, evil ghosts always waited until night fell, and the storm started up, before appearing.  If what they're trying to do is terrify people, I've always thought it would be far more effective for a spirit to appear in broad daylight, right in the middle of a tenth-grade biology class, for example.

I know that's what I'm going to do, if I ever get to be a ghost.

Be that as it may, Schroeder tells us that it's easy to get rid of a demon, once it appears:
It is remarkably true, as is much, in wrongly scorned and forgotten legends, that ghosts and demons cannot cross a running stream.  Running water creates a subtle yet powerful electrical current, that will easily de-manifest them.  One beset with demons can easily surround one's feet with a running garden hose to break connections.  Underground streams, sewers, water mains, and below pavement conduits exist, and in much the same fashion, function as major obstacles to demonic motility and mobility.
Man, I bet Faust wishes he'd known that!  Of course, he lived in the days before garden hoses, so that might have been a problem.  But if running water is all it takes, I wonder if you could just pee on a demon?  If I were a demon, I'd find that highly discouraging.

In other good news, Schroeder tells us that demons can't stick around for long unless we let them:
(D)emons are vested with temporary powers to be used here - unless and until they can find a way to gather more energy.  For them, it is much as swimming is, for us; one can dive down deeply into the water and hold one's breath for some time...  After a short while, out of oxygen, we need to come back to "our world" breaking the water's surface.

It's the same for demons.

Demons "hold their breath"to come into our world for a time, but can't stay for long.  A major exception is similar to swimming.  Just as longer dives are enabled with breathing apparatus, a demonic can have longer stays in our existence if they have energy.
Given that there's not much we can do about lightning storms, we have to be careful about our own "negative energy," Schroeder says:
To keep demons from affecting you, control your energy.

Visualize that you have large extension (imagined) arms, that lightly brush your body's skin, from top to bottom and back again; this astral exercise changes the magnetic field of your body and affects a demon like a magnet affects iron filings on a sheet of paper, dislodging EMF connections.

Avoid anger and unlearn fear and remain calm as a heavy stone dropped into a deep lake; abandon resentments and grudges; let absolutely nothing ruffle your feathers.

Evil spirits need negative energy, so starve a demon of all negative energy, effectively suffocate it from this world, a diver with no oxygen.

Negative energy is the engine that makes it work.
Well, that seems like good advice for a variety of reasons, even if you don't weigh in "suffocating demons" with the rest.

So, anyhow, that's our self-help advice for the day.  Stay away from lightning strikes, always have your garden hose handy, and accentuate the positive.  Sure seems like an easier solution than the Catholic Church's answer, with all of the exorcism rituals, and having to remember to say "Vade retro Satana," and all that.

On the other hand, I think if a demon ever shows up in my house, I'm gonna just try peeing on him.  So be forewarned, Beelzebub.

2 comments:

  1. Humans are 3/4th water. 62% of that is intracellular fluid, so humans are water head to toe.

    What is the purpose of saying "a demonic" instead of "a demon"?

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    1. I hadn't thought about the fact that humans have such a high water content. So why doesn't just running away work? Wouldn't that make us "running water?"

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