This is the beginning of a short series where we will look at various topics of the paranormal and Fortean variety and see if Christian Scripture has anything relevant to say about them.
First on our paranormal plate is Ghosts!
Since The Sci-Fi Channel’s hit TV series Ghost Hunters hit the airwaves a few years ago investigations into the paranormal has gained in popularity. Seems like people are paying attention and a week does not go by lately when you see a news report of a local haunting. Here is one from my Youtube page that I recently put up that features an apparition caught on a security camera from a North Carolina High School:
As the popularity of Ghost hunting spreads it forces many people to take a hard look at their views of the afterlife and re-examine them in accordance with their long held traditions and religious faith. To many there is a conflict between the way they view subjects of the paranormal and what the teachers of dogma in their faith dictate.
A few weeks ago I received a letter from a woman who felt conflicted with her beliefs in the paranormal and her church’s view on the supernatural:
Pastor Swope,
I have been struggling with my beliefs in the paranormal, ie.ghosts, spirits, demons, ufos, etc. My fascination with this subject has me questioning if God would or does approve? I truly believe that after death, we go somewhere, we are energy and energy cannot die, our souls evolve to a higher plain, albeit ,heaven or hell. I was raised catholic and consider myself Christian. Some Christian teachings forbid any affiliation or belief in ghosts, they insist all is demonic. I would like to know what your belief is on this subject. I am a huge fan of the show "Ghosthunters" and never miss an episode, am I sinning? Throughout my life strange things have happened to me that defied explanation, during my teenage years(I am 51),while babysitting is Levittown,PA, Red Rosa Gate to be exact, there was a spirit living in the house that played strange games, and scared me more often then not. My parents bought a home in Maine shortly after I was married with children, and their house was haunted, my Mother insisted it was the former resident, an old woman. Could this indeed be demonic in nature and tricking us to believe they are friendly spirits? I I would be very thankful to get your opinion on this subject. I don't want to anger God with my beliefs!
Sincerely,
K.B.
I have known many Christians who struggle with their belief in the paranormal and church teachings. But what does the Bible say about Ghostly apparitions? What are they? Is it heresy to believe such things?
Many Evangelical and Fundamental Christian writers (I would call them Theologians but with many it is quite evident that they have not had training in Biblical Scholarship past Sunday morning Bible School) claim that the popular concept of a ghost and spectral hauntings are unbiblical. Many Catholic Theologians would agree with this view. But in the whole of Christianity these beliefs vary quite broadly. I have many friends and associates that think all ghosts are actually demonic spirits mimicking the behavior of expired human beings in order to lead people astray from “pure” Christian faith. Others believe that Ghosts are merely residue of a past life and does not have anything to do with the actual person’s soul or spirit. And I have a few friends who are avid Ghost Hunters in their own right and can determine true hauntings from apparitions and discern wayward spirits from demonic entities.
Gladys and Syd Marklin had been Missionaries Bogota for over 37 years when they had the weirdest and most disturbing experience with the supernatural in their whole career.
They have had much experience with battling demonic forces and have preformed numerous exorcisms while working in Colombia. While Bogota is a large modern city there are pockets of “the old religion” of animism and practitioners of the occult throughout this urban center. The Marklins specialized in counseling and delivering people from the dark forces in which they unwittingly had become ensnared. Their specialization as Exorcists made them the ‘go to” people of both other Missionaries and indigenous ministers as well when there was any hint of demonic activity. They had the spiritual gifts to both deliver victims of demonic bondage and lovingly nurture them back to wholeness of body and spirit. Mrs. Marklin is a gentle and gifted counselor who can pinpoint spiritual issues at work within her clients and with encouragement and care helps them through the recovery process. During a tough time in my life I had the privilege to be blessed by her insightful counsel and not only was she spot on and authoritative but she was also gentle and understanding as well. We shared many tales together, and her personal stories of demonic possession and deliverance were both spiritually terrifying and gracefully poignant. The most startling and uplifting of all happened just before they left the Mission field for the last time. Just a year before their retirement a local Pastor asked them to visit the small town of Une to meet with a fourteen year old girl named Tabora.
Bad luck seemed to dodge Tabora since she was a child. She was born and raised in the city ofCaqueza. Her mother had died in childbirth and for that very reason her father and siblings not only resented her, they would physically abuse her.
One of the first paranormal Missionary tales I had ever heard was given in a Missionary meeting in late 1983. It is a tale that was told to the Missionary by a indigenous church leader shortly after the Missionary had witnessed a series of disturbing supernatural occurrences in a remote village. It is a very old tale of a Shaman who had amazing power. According to the indigenous Pastor this story supposedly took place in the middle of the 19th century.
Kafil was a wise and powerful Shaman in the Tanzanian town of Singida; for years he helped his villagers by healing the sick, mediating in disputes and offering help wherever he could. When Missionaries set up camp in his town he at first viewed them with distrust and as outsiders who were rivals and that wished to take away not only his peoples faith in his power but he felt they wanted his people to abandon their culture as well. He hated these Missionaries and often preformed rituals that would drive them away and cleanse the land from their influence. The Missionaries noticed some strange phenomena such as a massive invasion of insects, doors that would open by their own violation in the middle of the night, and a strange illness that afflicted the Missionary children. But no matter how hard he tried and whatever his ceremonies afflicted the strangers with, they just refused to leave. In fact although they were deeply affected by his attacks it seemed that the longer they resisted and rose above the calamities the more people listened to their message and converted.
Kafil decided that he needed some help. In a nearby village of Mgori there was a powerful wizard named Asani. The stories of his power were legendary in the area, it was said that he had made some dark deal with diabolic spirits of the underworld to gain unimaginable power. It was even whispered that he could kill an enemy just by speaking a single word. Kafil had made a choice long ago to avoid Asani and his malevolent ways for he wanted to help people and not destroy or control others like his dark counterpart. But the Missionaries had to be stopped. Not only were people flocking to the Missionaries to hear the story of their God of forgiveness, they were starting to believe and embrace this new religion and Amri was fearful that his power and livelihood would soon fade. Since he had no other training or skills Kafil feared that he would soon have to live the life of a beggar.
So Kafil made the trek to Mgori one afternoon to talk to Asani and to see what they could do to rid their land of the Westerners. Asani sat outside the doorway of his home drawing symbols in the sand, as Kafil approached Asani did not look up and before Kafil could say a word Asani spoke. “Our enemies do not fear common tricks. They will only leave when the power of our spirits are revealed by death and blood.” A bit shaken Kafil asked what exactly the dark sorcerer had in mind. “How it will be done is in my power, I only need you to bring me hair from one of the foreigners, a newborn calf and a cup of your blood.” The evil shaman stood up and finally looked at Kafil with a piercing gaze, “Until you bring me these I cannot help”. And after saying this he turned and walked into his mudbrick house.
The term spirit in paranormal circles is a little different from the term as used in Christian Systematic Theology. The term for spirit or ghost in the original ancient Koine Greek of the New Testament is the word Pnuematos, which literally means wind. It connotates an unseen power or force, and in the Christian Church it usually refers to the Spirit of God otherwise named the Holy Spirit. I like the old fashioned term Holy Ghost, it just sounds more mysterious, although I have never heard anyone speak of the Ghost of God. I think some people would be afraid of the Theological implications of that term.
But I digress.Pnuematos is not just limited as a term for an aspect of the Trinity, it is also used as a term for the unseen aspect of human personality akin to the soul. It also is used as the term for a disembodied entity or force that can harass or possess individuals.
In the Christian Church the Holy Spirit is the loving and empowering persona of God made real to the individual. Depending on the individual church’s doctrinal beliefs the Holy Spirit helps you to live a Christ like life or can empower you with supernatural gifts or the power of miraculous signs and wonders.
Funny thing is though, sometimes there is a spirit that embodies the congregation of a local church, but it is not the Holy One.I’ve been in a lot of different churches of various denominations. I’ve traveled all over the eastern United States in Christian drama groups and in special outreach teams to teach and council lay leaders of various congregations. I’ve had the opportunity to preach to thousands and to only a handful.
Sometimes you run into the oddest things…
I gave a Sunday Morning message to a church in upstate New York that had an odd reputation. The Saturday night before my speaking engagement after a dinner with a few fellow clergy, one local elderly pastor took me aside. He wanted to warn me.
For a few years in the 1990s I was involved in The United Methodist Church. One of the positions I held during this time was as “Lay Ministry Coordinator” at Asbury UMC in Erie Pennsylvania from fall 1996 till the almost end of 1997. I ran the Education Department and Youth Groups with the goal to train leaders who would eventually take over my various positions and responsibilities.
I had some great times at Asbury UMC, some of them were a bit bizarre and a few were paranormal.
The Pastor that I worked with had a young teenage daughter who loved spooky stories, and I told her some of the strange experiences that I have had over the years while I worked with her and the other kids in the Youth Group. After a few months the other Pastor asked me not to tell these tales to her anymore. He thought they might be having an impact on her.
And it was beginning to frightened him.
For she was beginning to see ghosts in the Church Cemetery which was adjacent to their parsonage.
I could have dismissed this as youthful fantasy if there were not so many other stories to back up her claims.
One of a Missionary’s duties is to convert others to whatever faith group they are commissioned from. With some groups that is the standard by which their success is measured- how many converts they made during the year. However every once in a while a Missionary will see one from their own flock convert to animism or fetishism. This is one such case from the country of Burkina Faso in which the end results were both startling and terrifying.
The Christian College that I attended, Nyack College is situated on the eastern hillside of the Hudson River in Rockland County, New York. It’s a hodge podge of buildings from different eras. Some of the most beautiful structures are the old Tudor style buildings the northern part of the campus. That part of the campus used to be the former Clarkstown Country Club. It was home to one of the most unique and eccentric individuals of early 20th century Manhattan high society, Pierre Bernard- otherwise known as Oom the Omnipotent. He was the founder of the first Tantric society in America the Tantric Order of America and it’s publishing house the Tantric Press. He also founded the new York Sanskrit College in New York City in 1910 and finally the Clarkstown Country Club in 1918. At the time the Country Club’s library was, in its day, the most renowned private library of materials related to the study of Indian philosophy and religion in the United States.
He is called the father of American yoga, being the first to popularize Yoga and Tantra in The United States. His nephew Theos Bernard became the first western Lama and a Tibetan Buddhist scholar after frequent visits to Tibet to study under various gurus and acquired the title “The Great White Llama”. At the Clarkstown Country Club Pierre received visits from a host of New York’s elite and famous, from the Vanderbilts to acclaimed symphony conductor Leopold Stokowski.
But Oom the Omnipotent also had a darker side.
He was a practitioner of sex magic and an avid occultist. In 1910 he was accused of kidnapping two young girls for sexual indecencies.
Deep in the West African savanna of Burkina Faso near the small mud brick and sheet metal village of Koro there is a mystery.
The place is called Dafara. It is an anomaly in the flat landscape that stretches for miles in all directions. It is as if the earth collapsed here, like God punched a hole in the ground and the darkness came flooding in. The local missionaries call it “The Rocks” because the hundred meter diameter hole in the earth is edged by sharp shale cliffs. There is a single trail that leads through the dense foliage to the bottom of the ravine that gently angles down into a scene that is both other worldly and frightening.
The first thing you notice is the stench. It is a dank putrid odor of blood, bile and rotting gore that permeates the entire valley, the odor of death. The second thing you notice is the blood. At first glance it looks as if the entire floor of the ravine is covered in dark thick blood. Every rock has been used to carve the animals brought down the path for sacrifice, and it is not only covered in the thick ink of life but indistinguishable pieces of flesh and bone lay scattered about as evidence of the hecatomb butchery that befalls the victims of the sacred god that dwells in the dark recesses of the watery abyss that dominates the center of the chasm.
I write a blog on the unexplained and paranormal. In this article I take a close look at the new wave of paranormal Demonologists that litter the landscape of up and coming Investigative Teams. Here's the link:
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