The Satanic Panics and the Development of My Spirituality

This is a response to my friend Mago's comments on my last post.
These accusations of Satanism against anyone who isn't a Christian certainly are anti-enlightenment. I used to attend the Unitarian church in my 20's because it didn't have any of the "Bible-thumpin'" that comes with most Judeo-Christian churches, but I stopped going there because of the scoffing attitude about anything spiritual in their case. I personally believe that there isn't only the life and death of the body, but that certain forces survive physical death and there are certain forces that modern science cannot yet measure. However, I did learn some good lessons in my time there. One minister talked about how as a child growing up in a Southern Baptist church, he was actually told that too much knowledge was a bad thing. God did not want humans having too much knowledge. Many narrow-minded people still subscribe to this unenlightened point of view and are greatly afraid of anyone who doesn't want to.
I was in high school when the "Satanic Panics" in the 1980's were in full swing. It is evident to me now that this was an American epidemic. Anyone who listened to "the devil's music," aka hard rock, was of course killing babies, puppies and kittens on the side. Not to mention the orgies we had. Boy howdy! We would spread the blood of our victims over our naked bodies and have sex all night!
NOT!
We did drink a lot of beer and smoke a lot of weed, though.
Honestly, I wasn't even a Pagan at the time that I was accused of being a Satanist. I was a church-going Catholic! A church-going Catholic that loved rock music. But I was also one rebel spirit, and I figured if I were going to be accused of being a Satanist, I might as well check it out. Not that I ever sacrificed anything, mind. Any blood used in my ceremonies was my own.
I'm a bit reluctant to discuss it, but I got the hell scared out of me quite early on and demons attempted to possess me during weak times in my life from that point on until 2005 when my spectral friend and co-author came along and started chasing them away. However, in spite of my fear that I was going to hell, I could no longer bear the intolerance of the Christian religion that I had grown up with, and began investigating Wicca when I was seventeen after a friend did a Tarot reading for me. He was not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was able to give me an incredibly accurate reading, and I was intrigued. I found the Pagan path to be one of peace and enlightenment where you could explore many possibilities. Sadly, I have in my time met more than one intolerant Wiccan, and this is why I am a solitary practitioner and a student of all religions. I have raised a son who is open-minded, tolerant, and fortunately, free of the bonds of guilt and fear that still affect me at various times in my life. He certainly would not have gotten a hurt feeling at being accused of Satanism by some narrow-minded mutton-head. He would have laughed at them. So it would appear that in this troubled life of mine, I have managed to do one thing right.
So I thank you for your comment on the last post, because it gave me this opportunity to explain a little more about myself and my beliefs. Sometimes I find that hard to do in an honest way.

Disagreeing With Respect

I will not be linking to the post that I made these comments on because I don't want anyone attacking the person who made them. However, she made some statements that I felt were very black and white about certain things that were good and evil and I didn't agree. She mentioned Ouija boards, Tarot cards and channeling as ways for the Devil to get in and steal your soul. So here is what I said:

I must respectfully disagree about certain of these things. I don't believe that the Universe is quite as black and white that there is only one positive deity and one force of evil. That there is a force of good and a force of evil is true, in my view, but there are gray areas. I did dabble in the dark arts in my youth and got the hell scared out of me, which is a good thing, because there are demonic forces that would have been more than glad to f**k me over even worse than I already was. However, I haven't experienced much of good from Christianity or at least the folks that practice it. I've been confronted with a lot of judgment and narrow viewpoints that I can do without. Which is to say nothing against Jesus Christ, who I have nothing but admiration for. I did not have very many positive experiences messing about with the Ouija board, so I stopped doing it. However, for me, reading Tarot cards has been pretty well nothing but positive. I just think it's a little too black and white to say "all this is good and all this is bad." There are some things that are gray areas and can be used either way.

I didn't say this in the comment, but I'll say it here. I don't channel for the same reason that I don't use the Ouija board. In my case, there is a weakness in my psyche that allows some nasties to invite themselves in through these passages, so I ain't gonna do it. This is not to say that either channeling or Ouija boards are in and of themselves evil, just that for someone whose defenses aren't extremely strong, they can open doors for some real asshole entities.

The spirits that I communicate with do NOT come into my body. They "talk" to me just as anyone in a body would, except that they communicate through thought and feeling rather than a voice. When allowing my co-author to "speak" through me, I will go into a conscious trance if he has a lot to say. But he does not control my thoughts or actions in any way. And he does not in fact wish to do so. He has never asked to do so. In fact when he initially met me, I was very prone to attempts from demonic entities to possess me. I would wake at times speaking in a guttural voice that I didn't understand and thrashing about, clawing at the air. I was not able to control this. This has only happened once since meeting him, and he returned quickly and chased the would-be possessor away.

There was only one occasion when I first met my co-author where I was very tired. I was resting in my parents' basement, and there was in the past a doorway that energies had been coming through into the house. In defending me from one of these entities, the "Dead" personality briefly ended up in my body, and he was more unsettled by the experience than I was. He hadn't intended for it to happen and was profusely apologetic. He leapt out as if he'd been a cat that had fallen into water and "looked" about as frazzled when I saw him in my mind. Except that he was so rattled, I would have found the whole thing rather funny.

Just in case anyone is interested, this particular personality does not especially care for being called Dead at this point. He says that "it's a little bit obvious, isn't it?" Furthermore, he considers it to have been an unfortunate choice of nicknames, all things considered. However, he's aware that this is how everyone knows him, so he isn't especially insistent on fighting the tide. He says that he may become more so as time goes on, and somewhat likes the name "Shadow." He half jokingly says that "I will most probably reincarnate as my own relative, and will revive the music that I in this life wrote. So again I shall be stuck with this idiot name that I gave to myself. Now, here is proof that the Universe or what have you has a very wicked sense of humor."

All this being said, I don't have any reason to slam the beliefs of others. However, I think a bit of education is necessary. The Universe is not black and white. There are shades of gray to be certain, and many, many other dynamic colors, energies and entities as well.

Blessed be,

Lily and Friends