WHERE DID ALL THE DEMONS GO?
About forty-five years ago in my area, most kids
were still walking to school and it was no different for me. But then again, in another way, things were
quite a bit different for me. One
morning, while on my way to school, I was troubled by a thought that most likely
not bothering the vast majority of my fourth grade classmates… “What would I do
if I were suddenly confronted by a demon before I got to school?”
Would I remember what to say? If I could remember what to say (“In the name
of Jesus Christ I command you to depart!”), would I have the courage to say
it? And, if I had the courage to say it,
would my delivery be convincing enough for the demon to comply with my command?
Yes, on that morning, I was probably unlike anyone
else in my elementary school.
We had joined WCG in the late 60s and it seemed
like every minister had at least two or three stories about casting out demons back
then. Even elders seemed to have such
stories. Those stories were really interesting but they were also pretty
troubling for young kids like us. We
didn’t want to be confronted by any demons… No way! And that was what was bothering me that
morning every time I approached a tree, “What if one jumped out from behind that
tree and threatened me, would I be able to protect myself?”
Years later, I have occasionally wondered, what
happened to all of those stories about demons?
Although there were many stories told during the late 60s and early
70’s, the numbers declined in the 80s and declined even further in the
90s. Now it is hard to recall any such stories
over the last decade or so.
Did they stop bothering people in the various
COG’s? Or, maybe was it that the number
of incidents had been exaggerated, imagined or fabricated in the first place? Perhaps a little like Big Foot sightings
during the 70s? It seems we hear of fewer
of those sightings now too.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Anonymous
There are a lot of demon problems in the PCG. So many, that the ministry has warned us not to even discuss demons with each other! There are some freaky possessed people at HQs, but the ministry tell us that they're watching those people! Bull!
ReplyDeleteI too remember those stories during the 60's, 70's, 80's, but the PCG said that only the ministry is able to properly discern those things!
Really? What happened to plain common sense?
SING ALONG TIME! - Sing to the tune of "WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE" (Peter, Paul & Mary)
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYii6nxhvUk
Where have all the Demons gone,-- long time passing?...
Where have all the Demons gone,-- long time ago?...
Where have all the Demons gone?...
PACK AND FLURRY picked them up everyone!
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Oh, when will they ever learn?
Seeing as how the alcoholic leaders of the ACoGs confused mental illness with demons, it's not difficult to ascertain that the wrong question is being asked.
ReplyDeleteAnd they aren't just alcoholics, they have some mental disorders as well -- you know, like narcissism.
I didn't have to go far to find demons, they lived in my house, my mom was demon possessed, at least so said many ministers. My dad said maybe she is demon possessed but it is only a weak demon of little power - this was so I wouldn't be too scared. The powerful demons were not interested in us, but in people like Hitler, and this demon was probably only interested in us because we were in Gods church. I worked on all the techniques to discourage the demon from attacking me - super mental strength and discipline. One minister said that an easily hypnotised person would be easy for a demon to possess and we should never agree to be hypnotised. I hoped I was a person who could resist hypnotism.
ReplyDeleteI was only 10 or 11 and a lot of my friends at school would hold seances, I tried to avoid it, but curiosity got the better of me and one day in my friends garage a group of us held a seance. Well I don't know if it was my personal connection to the dark side, but there did seem to be contact, in fact it was extremely frightening and we all ran out of the garage screaming.
My mom was mentally ill and never in the church. In fact she hated it so much that whenever a minister came around she started screaming and acting like a mad woman. It all was very embarrassing for me. She never accepted anointing or praying or anything, but when our dog was sick she begged my dad to get a minister to come and anoint him. This was in the early 60's - yes there were demons then. In my mothers case she was mentally ill but I doubt if that was anything to do with a demon, I think we all drove her crazy by being in the church.
When I came to Pasadena in the mid 70's for college the demon stories were rampant around the campus. Levitating toothbrushes, lights coming on in the night, closet doors opening and closing by themselves. Demons supposedly lived in the dorm at the corner of Del Mar and Orange Grove that eventually was Tkach Sr. home. Demons were found in the auditorium and in the basement and attic of Mayfair. Terrace Villa had demons in it too. This doesn't even take into account the strange noises in the Hall of Ad. Demons were supposedly angry at the church for preaching the "truth" so were constantly on the warpath. Demon's held a lot of power in the church, certainly more power than Christ ever held.
ReplyDeleteTalk about being god-haunted, I was raised a fun-dies-mentalist nothern Baptist. We were just one or two steps from Quakerland with an odd obsession for anything Amish. Even when the extended family was Holy Roman Catholic, that was the only time we seemed to get along. Baptists and Catholics trying to out-do each other in the tales of the darkside. Although I remember the Catholics winning in the area of having the spookier stories of demons and possible possessions, us Baptists just saw this as more proof that we were on the right track. This never seemed to convince them though, especially with those Chick Tracts.
ReplyDeleteAs for my time with CGI, the topic of demons rarely came up. Was it because someone had to many skeletons in his closet? I don't know and I no longer care. I'm sure that the increasingly neurotic branches of Armstrongism will tend to obsess more and more over demons. But, isn't it in that Bible that they claim to belive in that we are not to overly concern ourselves with the spiritual realm of angels and demons? Do you remember the 21-day delay of God's answer to prayer? I still remember Ron Dart's sermons like "tracks of the devil" where he painted the picture of angels and demons fighting with light sabers and jedi-like mindpower. It's all to funny looking back at it now.
drive-by-philosopher
After a long tiresome and unfruitful day at work, Dilbert comes home to his talking dog.
ReplyDelete"What's up Dilbert, a bad day at work?"
"Yeah...the endless arguing...bad vibes...nobody wants to get along with each other..."
"Well, I have the perfect solution for that!"
"You do? Please do tell."
"Whenever someone troubles you with a disagreement and misunderstanding you only need to remember to say "BAH!"
"What? That doesn't make any sense?!"
"BAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
ReplyDelete“Where Did All The Demons Go?”
Some went into Gerald Flurry, some went into David Pack, some went into Ronald Weinland, and so on. In the so-called COGs there is seemingly no end to the places where they can go. Oh, the places they'll go!
All the demons must be hanging with the Germans.
ReplyDeleteI don't get too close to the COGs but, it seems that there has been a recent famine of the word on Germans too. The COGs have really lost their ability to scare the shit out of kids - they must have all become dirty Laodiceans.
I remember one minister playing around with the words demons and democracy. In a demonocracy, he said, people demonstrate. Presumably he felt the same way about Demoncrats. Funny...this year all those nutty demons seem to have gone over to the other side...
ReplyDeleteThey're hanging out with Zeus & Apollo, Osiris & Horus, Odin & Thor, Mithra, Ahura Mazda, Quetzalcoatl, and all the rest of the ethereal beings that humans have stopped bothering. When we stop bothering them, they stop bothering us.
ReplyDeleteFortunately and actually we can be grateful we live in a time when we can recognize such things as epilepsy, schizophrenia and multiple personality disorders due to abuse and emotional trauma for what they are and not demonic superstition. Demons are figments of the superstitious mind caught up in ancient ignorance perpetuated.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's all we are going to say about that...I mean, that's all I am going to say about that. Not we....I, I......
:)
I remember once when I was still an Armstrongite I was reading a horror novel and I thought maybe it was inspired by demons. Being an Armstrongite sure makes one scared of such things.
ReplyDeleteWhy can't they just write a novel about such things if the idea fascinates them?
When I started reading church literature in the 1960s, occasionally i would feel a drilling sensation in my mind. It felt it was coming from the outside edge of my brain. Out of curiosity once, it relaxed my mind to see what would happen. It almost possessed me, I could feel it. I had to struggle to push it out of my mind. Later as a church member, I had others tell of the same drilling experience, explaining it was demons trying to possess them. I accept this explanation. Demons are real.
ReplyDeleteConnie, how can you believe in God, but not in demons?
ReplyDeleteAs a real Christian (not the Armstrongite type), I must believe that demon influence is a real thing. The evil thought -- and planning -- we end up hearing about behind mass shootings would, to me, be evidence of it. If you believe otherwise, as already expressed here, I respect that. (I learned to give such respect AFTER leaving WCG Land.)
ReplyDeleteIn the Armstrong Dimension, however, everyone was overly obsessed with the "demon thing." They imagined they were in a sealed bubble where none could get in and, therefore, everything should always run smoothly and be in harmony. If there was ANY trouble at all -- perhaps some embarrassing incident with a member's behavior -- it was because someone let that influence in. You'd hear a self-righteous member declare that someone around here must have watched an entertainment program on TV before the Sabbath was over or held back part of their tithe.
Then there were the people who had had an encounter with a possessed individual. An "experience" with demons was something to brag about, something that made you a superior church member -- they thought. One older man I happened to sit with for a while went on and on and on about what was heard, how some of what was heard was directly at him, and so on. I can only think he wanted me to see him with awe. (I had no such reaction.)
By the way, 2/18 5:43, I believe it was Gerald Waterhouse who had the "clever" connection between DEMON and DEMOCRACY. Others here might confirm that memory. And my apologies to others of you here who had no need to be reminded of that man and his seemingly endless ego trips about what he knew and no one else did. "Humorous" digs at everyone not in the church (and some in) that weren't funny, only very MEAN, were a big part of it. (And don't forget "If Herbert and Garner Ted aren't the 2 Witnesses, you can throw away your Bible!") Let's see . . . I wasted, I think, about 12 hours of my life listening to Waterhouse drivel. Now, THAT was spending time in bad influence!
Why would demons bother with the ACoGs?
ReplyDeleteThey all seem to be in Satan's camp these days, so why waste the effort...
Unless they are more comfortable with the ACoGs, seeing as how the Armstrongists seem to be filled with every sort of evil.
Is there such a thing as an alcoholic demon? It would fit right in with the standard ACoG congregation....
In the heyday of my experience with Armstrongism, I used to have very vivid nightmares in which I was suddenly propelled by demons from my bed in prone position and smashed into the wall across the room. There were also nightmares about somehow becoming a teenager again, and returning to that awful period of child abuse. I understand now that such symptoms can be part and parcel of Post-Traumatic Stress.
ReplyDeleteThe very idea that Jesus would allow His Christian children, or his prodigals to become possessed, or harmed by demons is contrary to His character, or to what He does. The WCG, and Armstrongism had a basic package of fear which included various tools which were useful in keeping church members in line. Most of this was worst, worst, worst case scenario stuff that HWA pulled out of thin air, like a revival of the holocaust, a super new depression, horrendous weather patterns, unspeakable disease epidemics, and nuclear war. Members lived in fear, believing that the only protection was to be in good standing with the church, and to do everything the ministers said. This, of course, counters what we know from early church history. The strongest ones in the faith were actually the ones who were martyred. So if it were God's true church, Armstrongism should have been teaching, "Here is what is probably going to happen to you if you become part of our group. You'll have protection from Satan and his demons, but you could be persecuted and martyred, just as many of our brethren before you."
So much for truth in advertising. And the consequences are that most of the people in Armstrongism were motivated into their belief system by desire for a protection, yet another thing that their church could not deliver.
BB
yes, thanks for asking. I have degrees in theology, english, and computer science and have researched and sought for the truth for over thirty years.
ReplyDeleteFrom fifty plus years personal experience in religion and that research and much prayer I can tell you that like so many things in this false world that the evidence shows that angels and demons do not exist.
They come from the greek and earlier pagan religions and are as fanciful and hallucinatory as ghosts and goblins. Man chooses to be good or evil and he credits or blames other imagined influences for his own good works or emotional problems.
Life comes from Life (giver) but so-called helper or fallen spirits is straight out of sumerian, akkadian, babylonian paganism - all borrowed by judaism, christianity, islam, etc.
World religion is almost totally false and what really matters in terms of human conduct is morality, lovingkindness, and thankfulness - these qualities bring the same to the doers - as in the 'law of attraction' and 'do unto others...'
This is what my decades of education, reason, and sincere seeking has shown me.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteConnie, how can you believe in God, but not in demons?
February 18, 2016 at 9:15 PM
I do believe that there is God, and also a Satan with cohorts. However, the COG has had a demon behind EVERYTHING , and anything that was not of COG was considered to be evil, worldly and satanic. Life is more complex than 25 word explanations and this applies for just about everything.
Many Christians of many stripes have simplistic , condensed and childish formulas in trying to create a "unified field theory" for life and existence. Im afraid it is not that easy, and that existence is more dynamic and complicated than any of us imagine. No, mankind, of and by itself is evil enough. Oh, Im sure Satan tinkers with it all, but frankly, Im convinced that human kind does just fine on its own.
One cannot be superstitious. Good and Evil lands on us all, often by luck or circumstance. A mature Christian realizes that there is still a lot of mystery to how it all works. The basics, like the 10 commandments are relatively easy to understand, are universal and profound. I haven't mastered them completely yet, so I will send for lesson two in the course work, once I do.
WHERE CONNIE WENT AWRY DEPARTMENT...
ReplyDeleteI have always enjoyed "Twilight Zone" and "Outer Limits" reruns. Campy, black and white, out of date, but very cool. I have heard that church members were forbidden to watch such because they were portals to demon influence.
I have even watched a few episodes of Bewitched, Munsters and Addams Family on TV LAND and had a couple of chuckles , so I must be really doomed to Hell!
ReplyDeleteConnie Schmidt at 9:05 AM said...
“WHERE CONNIE WENT AWRY DEPARTMENT..."
"I have even watched a few episodes of Bewitched, Munsters and Addams Family on TV LAND and had a couple of chuckles , so I must be really doomed to Hell!”
Bewitched! That is just horrible!
Go tell your husband and master that you have been a very naughty girl and that you need a good spanking. For further information on how to do this, he can consult Rod Meredith.
I once had an encounter with a powerful spirit being in the 1970s. I wasn't responding to my calling the way God hoped, so one night whilst in bed, I felt a type of strong heat or radiation next to the foot of my bed. I knew it was there, 'It' knew I was there, but I said nothing, and nothing happened. It couldn't have been an ordinary angel, otherwise the experience would be common. You are mistaken truth seeker.
ReplyDelete