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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2011 9:25:46 GMT -6
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2011 13:52:12 GMT -6
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2011 17:17:54 GMT -6
That's pretty much what I say too
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Post by paulette on Apr 16, 2011 14:16:59 GMT -6
Anything is possible. It seems though that only Catholics are possessed - by demons. Our coastal Salish and also Kwaquituil Indians have winter ceremonies which are NOT witnessed by outsiders. What happens (as I've heard from First Nations elders and also in reading the fine print under pictures in their museum at Cape Mudge) is that in the depths of the winter a spirit enters the Big House - it is cannibalistic and wild. It leaps around throwing blood on people and biting others. It is dangerous.
The job of those responsible is to not expell this energy (as Christians speak of expelling demons) but to dance them down into a tired state so that their energies are balanced and useable to the people.
One can imagine that in historical times of deeper winters, cannibalism might have loomed for a small starving group of people. Certainly going crazy in the dark and cold would have been a threat. This allowed for the re-intergration of the energy without expulsion of a person or shaming due to the circumstances of breakdown.
The Winter Dances I only know are performed for modern persons who are drug or alcohol addicted or mentally ill. In the case of the addicted ones, they may be kidnapped in what is a family spiritual intervention. What actually happens - I don't know. I have read that they are successful - perhaps as successful as any treatment modality. Obviously the person understands that his or her whole community has come together out of concern and that the family has paid a LOT of money to put on the event.
In most hunter-gatherer tribes and groups of people, spirits were neither all good nor all bad. Many were Tricksters - like Raven, Lokki, Coyote - who if the person came humbly (and the spirit felt like being cooperative) might help someone. Or not - they might merely be lured out in the wilds and die. The Tomtom of the Netherlands - if appeased with a bowl of warm milk would guard the farm and cows. If not, he drank the cows dry before they could be milked. Pixies, Hobgoblins, Brownies...one never knew...Even the Sidhe/fairies - might invite a human in for a night of dancing drinking and he would return to find everyone he knew long dead (Rip Van Winkle and others).
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2011 13:00:12 GMT -6
I do find it odd that the Catholics have such a problem with demons...or maybe it's just that the rest of the population is hopelessly possessed and it's become the norm for us
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Post by skywalker on Apr 18, 2011 20:34:55 GMT -6
Very possible, Jo. I've seen some weird people in my time, and some of the horrible things that people do nowadays makes you wonder if they have any humanity left in them. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of people are possessed. Maybe it's just the Catholics who recognize it and try to do something about it.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2011 10:02:48 GMT -6
We chalk a lot of 'inappropriate' behavior up to mental conditions. Pedophilia among dozens of others..even murder. Sometimes I wonder..are some of these cases some sort of possession or is it really brain chemistry gone bad. Is there an entity (wicked minded one) who isn't corporeal but who can 'hitchhike' into bodies if the mind is susceptible? Incubus and succubus come to mind and maybe this is where the idea of devils and demons originate. It seems entirely possible to me that God..thinking his children were not particularly worldly enough to understand certain concepts..created the bible in terms that mankind of the day could grasp. Course that doesn't much explain Revelations which geniuses of our day can't grasp. I'm gonna have to take that one up with God..get back to you on it ;D
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Post by skywalker on Apr 19, 2011 13:25:52 GMT -6
Be sure and invite him to join the forum. W e can use all the help we can get.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2011 14:24:28 GMT -6
Well then we'd have to invite a couple of witches to smudge some sage..and one of every other religion and you know they'd never get along But..hey..that's YOUR department..I'll start working on invitations ;D
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Post by paulette on Apr 19, 2011 19:29:17 GMT -6
You think you don't already have witches?
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Post by skywalker on Apr 19, 2011 22:24:10 GMT -6
I say invite them all over and if they start causing problems I'll boot them off! The ones who are nice can stay...even if they are witches.
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Post by bewildered on Apr 19, 2011 23:03:34 GMT -6
I say invite them all over and if they start causing problems I'll boot them off! The ones who are nice can stay...even if they are witches. How about weirdos? Do I qualify?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2011 4:18:57 GMT -6
I say invite them all over and if they start causing problems I'll boot them off! The ones who are nice can stay...even if they are witches. My sister's a witch... No joke. She is.
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Post by skywalker on Apr 20, 2011 6:01:12 GMT -6
I say invite them all over and if they start causing problems I'll boot them off! The ones who are nice can stay...even if they are witches. How about weirdos? Do I qualify? You haven't been booted yet BW so you must be one of the nice ones. ;D
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Post by skywalker on Apr 20, 2011 6:03:56 GMT -6
I say invite them all over and if they start causing problems I'll boot them off! The ones who are nice can stay...even if they are witches. My sister's a witch... No joke. She is. Did you invite her to the forum? We welcome witches here...as long as they are not like the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz.
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Post by paulette on Apr 20, 2011 10:01:39 GMT -6
We chalk a lot of 'inappropriate' behavior up to mental conditions. Pedophilia among dozens of others..even murder. Sometimes I wonder..are some of these cases some sort of possession or is it really brain chemistry gone bad. Is there an entity (wicked minded one) who isn't corporeal but who can 'hitchhike' into bodies if the mind is susceptible? Incubus and succubus come to mind and maybe this is where the idea of devils and demons originate. t ;D Re: chalking bad behavior up to mental conditions. Ah...all tests done to try to screen for pedophilia are NOT USEFUL. There is only one that is semi-useful - you hook up a device that reads tension to a male's part that gets tense when aroused and then show the person pictures of children. EVEN THAT DOESN'T WORK ALL THE TIME. Some sex offenders are mentally not physically stimulated by what they see or do. Trust me on this - its an area of expertise that I work in. Ditto murderers - if a person has very poor impulse control and is hurting animals and people from an early age they get noticed. But many many murderers slide through life without any one suspecting what they are capable of. Because they don't SHARE that info. Except now with computer file sharing - sometimes they do and happily, sometimes they are sharing with undercover police men. The stats are: schizophrenics are no more (or less) violent or murderous than the general population. Bipolar folks commit financial and crimes of embezzlement and various schemes - because they have the energy and appetite for it. Depressed people do kill themselves and sometimes their families. But so do jealous people. Jealousy is not a diagnosis of mental illness (maybe it should be at some level). We have a man in this province who, one year ago convinced his estranged wife to let him spent some time with his young children. He had never been wildly inappropriate (she knew he had mental health issues and kept having children but that's another story). Anyway...the first day he took them to the park and they all flew kites and ate hotdogs and had a great time. The second afternoon while she was at her mothers - he violently killed them all. He was not charged because he was mentally unfit to stand trial. This year he wanted day passes - to go on outings to Tim Hortons and such. They were granted until the wife (who lives in the town he is being kept in) screamed and shouted. They asked him why he thought he was no longer a danger and he said, "Because I have no more children." This apparently was an acceptable answer - until she protested that he still had an ex wife and ex mother in law and ex sister in laws. What I'm rambling on about is that we can not easily pick out pedaphiles, murderers, extortioners. We get the clumsy acting out ones. Not the quiet resolved ones. Maybe their brain chemistry is the SAME as ours. They just somehow have convinced themselves that they can do what they want to do. As children many kids say, "I hate you! I wish you were dead!" We say to ourselves, "They don't really mean that." And we explain to them that hate means I'm mad at you and dead means I don't want to play with you anymore, or, I'm tired. One of the heaviest things Jane Gooddall learned about chimpanzees was that 1. they are a lot like us in their emotions and family bonds and personalities and 2. they murder and eat infants and adults caught out of their home range and recently - a human baby out of a mother's backpack. Normal is what normal does...
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Post by bewildered on Apr 20, 2011 13:56:32 GMT -6
Great post, paulette. You are touching upon what is perhaps the greatest problem we face in the world today: psychopathy.
I don't think psychopathy is a disease, a disorder, nor a possession of any sort. It would be a disease or disorder if the frame of reference was a pathology of an otherwise normal human being. There is no evidence to support the notion that psychopaths are actually human beings at all. They might wear "body clothing" that looks just like yours...and most are able to mimic human emotion in a cunning and convincing manner...but make no mistake. They do not actually experience emotions, nor do they understand them. It's chilling. A psychopath can kiss you one moment, then attack you the next. It's a seamless transition for them.
It is by no means simple or easy to identify a psychopath, as their primary goal is typically deception and obfuscation. The problem is further compounded by our tendency to project our own inner, subjective model of experience into others. It is this tendency, in fact, that a psychopath uses as their cloak of subterfuge to move amongst us undetected, some for their entire lives.
In a nutshell, psychopaths are predators of humans.
One area of confusion: psychopathic wounding. As I stated above, a psychopath's state is not pathological to them...it is normal. To us, however, it is toxic and diseased. It disrupts our ability to cope with emotions effectively, for being affected by a psychopath invariably results in psychopathic wounding. By extension, the disruption of our belief center and other harm done to us by a psychopath can produce sympathetic pathologies in our own selves. We can then manifest psychological pathologies that resemble psychopathy. An example of such a thing might be seen in narcissistic wounding, where the child of a psychopath has been damaged cognitively by their predator parent. This is the most common form, I think.
EDIT: I should add that the parent can be wounded themselves, and pass that on to their children. This can also be reflected in a larger organism such as a society or culture. Our own is great example. America is a culture ruled and shaped by a pathocracy: psychopaths stalking the halls of power. The media exalts them, entertainment glamorizes them, and psychopathically wounded people seek to emulate them.
It is a sad feature of reality that most of us have, in one form or another, been the prey of a psychopathic predator. Not all psychopaths prey upon humans by murdering us. Some seek to control us and have us do what they want. Others feed off the emotional energy created by turmoil, and so seek to engender crises in our lives where they are present and "help." The M.O. of psychopathic predators is as varied as there are psychopaths in the population, and believe me...they are more numerous than you might think.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2011 21:56:46 GMT -6
I'm well convinced that all of us have the same basic chemical processes in the brain. Religions would talk now about Cain and Abel..but..by all accounts they were the same. We're the same. Something stops the better percentage of the population from acting on the urge to kill. Couple of times..I think I might have been able to kill. Both times family members were threatened. I recall a rage so strong that I'll bet I could have lifted a piano. It only lasted a second but it terrified me. Some I think..enjoy that horrendous rush of adrenalin and something else I can't define but never want to know again. I have heard that in serial killers the sensation of killing is like a strong drug high (similar to heroin). One interviewed described it that way. So with most drug highs you have to use more and more to get the same effect and that would explain why serial killers escalate I guess.
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Post by paulette on Apr 22, 2011 14:00:17 GMT -6
I think the literature bears out your theories about escalation Jokelly. I also believe as you do that we all have to potential to do violent things and mostly don't - some don't unless they are drunk and/or altered by some chemical or other.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 22, 2011 15:07:21 GMT -6
I'd have to agree with that also Paulette. My parents were both alcoholics (best reason I can think of not to drink) and between the two of them my mother was extremely violent..with rages that increased her strength enormously. My father was more of a booze brooder..he just shrunk inwardly. She was frightening if something triggered it. Beer wasn't a catalyst but any hard liquor was so I'd have to say that it alters the chemistry in some brains dramatically. It doesn't effect me that way or my sisters but it did her father and her siblings. It would be interesting to know why it does cause violence in some and not others.
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Post by skywalker on Apr 22, 2011 19:49:47 GMT -6
I don't think that alcohol causes violence, I think it just releases it. Alcohol lowers a person's inhibitions whaich allows them to do things that they normally would stop themselves from doing. Your mom must have had the violence in her for some reason...maybe something happened to her as a child that caused her to have a lot of repressed anger. Who knows?
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Post by paulette on Apr 23, 2011 0:31:33 GMT -6
Alcohol, the great dis-inhibitor. Makes people sing Kareoke (even if no one claps), give passable speeches (or not), dance, and at times - lash out, say terrible things (that have some truth to the sayer) and worse. I agree with Skywalker - alcohol does not make people violent unless they are already primed to be violent. The best way to learn cruelty and violence is to experience it - as trauma (such as war) or in the first wars - that children experience while growing. I dated/loved a man recently back from Viet Nam in the early 70's . He was smart and sexy and an outsdoors man. When he got to Name his platoon kept being killed because the point man didn't see what he needed to see - the dew knocked off the grass alongside the trail, the silence of the jungle....
He NEVER raised a hand to me or anyone else I believe. However, one night I brushed against him in his sleep and he pinned me and if he hadn't of woken up - I would have been strangled. This didn't have anything to do with drinking - if we HAD been drinking it could have been a terrible event. People who have experienced being hurt and having adult anger flung at them usually go one of two ways - they learn to take it (and partner with someone who dishes it out). Or they dish it out themselves. WHAT gets dished out may depend on a person's blood alcohol limit.
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