The Psychic and The Supernatural: An Introduction
Belief in the paranormal, supernatural, and psychic abilities are on the rise in the world. The current situation with COVID and the global tensions of the day are just some of the many factors contributing to this increase. But even before this upheaval, belief in these phenomena were increasing across the globe.
Many of my fans and readers are well aware of the fact that before I became a horror author, I was a pastor for twenty years. My studies and experiences are actually what led me to write horror. In this series of posts I am going to share with you my discoveries and experiences along the way. I am not writing to try and convince anyone of anything. I am writing to share what I have learned over the years about the psychic and the supernatural, with the hopes you might glean some new information or find some inspiration for some new horror stories.
I am going to break the mold in a few things. When people first hear of a pastor or minister writing about psychic phenomena, they assume it will be labeled “demonic” or “satanic”. Let me go on record now saying that I do not believe psychic ability to be evil. What do I think about it? I will share that with you in this series.
Now, before we get started I want to share two experiences with you and define a few terms.
“Zeke, there have been some strange things going on with my wife…and its just getting worse.” Ray’s voice was low and shaky over the phone.
“What do you mean, strange,” I asked. My curiosity and concern were starting to peak.
He paused. and I heard him sigh.
“Well, sometimes at night, she locks herself in our closet for hours. She sits on the floor and moans and rocks back and forth. Her voice changes from low, growling sounds to high pitched squeals.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“For about a month now. Zeke, I’ve never seen her act this way. I am beyond worried.”
“Yeah, I think you should be. How was she before all of this?" I shifted in the seat at my desk.
He paused for a few seconds, and then began to unfold the story. “Until this point she was just really depressed. There would be times that she would walk around the house with a dazed look in her eyes. Well…not just dazed…but sort of…sort of…evil.”
“What do you mean, evil?”
“I don’t know, man. Dark…distant…hollow…not herself. Then the fits of rage started. She would get uncontrollable. So much so that I couldn’t contain her.”
This was saying something since this guy was a very big, strong man.
He continued. “She would threaten me. She even called the cops on me…”
We both paused for a minute. Then I asked him, “Is there anything else?”
“Yes,” he said. “Many times after these episodes, she has no memory of them. Also, sometimes I hear things moving around at night. I hear noises that I’ve never heard in this house before. I get up to go check it out, and I can’t find anything, or the noises just stop. Zeke, what is going on? This seems demonic.
I agreed. “It does. Here is what we need to do. I am not sure if your wife is possessed or just severely oppressed. I won’t know until I can talk to her. For now, we need to fast and pray. You need to pray over your house and pray over your wife in the name of Jesus. Y’all need to talk, and if she is open, we all three need to get together.”
At the end of our conversation, he agreed to talk with her. He said he would fast and pray with me, and that he would call me back in a few days and let me know her response. A few days later I heard back from both of them. They wanted this to end and she wanted it to stop. So, we set up a time for me to come over.
I walked into the house and could feel the darkness. The atmosphere was different, and I sensed the hate. Something did not want me there.
“Zeke,” Raymond said as he shut the door behind me. “She is having another one of her episodes. When I told her you were coming over, she freaked out and went and locked herself in the closet and started all that moaning and stuff again. I was finally able to get her out. She fought me for a while and then just stopped and went and got in the bed. She is laying in there now.”
I stared deep into his eyes. He was scared. “Well,” I said and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go in and see what happens. But before we do, let’s pray.”
After we prayed, we walked into the bed room. There, lying on the bed, was a woman whose complexion was white as a ghost. She looked like death—she looked exhausted.
“Susan, can you hear me?” I sat on the edge of the bed and placed my hand on her forehead. She was cold and wet with perspiration.
No response. I glanced at the husband. He looked back at me and shrugged his shoulders.
“Susan, I am going to pray,” I said.
Still no response.
I began to pray. As soon as I did, she started to contort and grab at the sheets. She went to remove my hand.
“In the name of Jesus,” I said in a calm but firm voice. “I bind you, you demonic spirit, from touching me. You will not use your strength and you will stay right there in that bed.”
She put her hand down and stayed in bed the rest of the time I was there.
I gazed upon her and said, “You unclean spirit, I command you to come out of this woman in the name of Jesus.”
Her eyes rolled back in her head and she shook. After a few more minutes of rebuking and praying, she went limp and fell asleep.
The husband and I later went and prayed over every room in the house.
About ten minutes later, Susan woke up. She was lucid and in her right mind. “What happened?” she asked. “I feel…different.”
The following is a summary of several conversations I have had with a friend:
“Zeke, you know I’ve seen my brother's ghost?”
“No, man, I didn’t know that. When?”
‘It was months after the car accident. Things were starting to settle down for us, and I was home alone.”
“What did he look like?”
“It was just like a color being. But I knew it was him. I could feel it. It felt just like his presence.”
“Have you seen anything like that since then?”
“No, not like that…”
These instances are just two examples of the personal experiences and testimonies that I have heard from others about the supernatural and paranormal. And I am not alone. In their book, “Paranormal America,” sociologists Christopher Bader and F. Carson Mencken of Baylor University and Joseph Baker of East Tennessee State University report that more than 2/3 of Americans have paranormal beliefs. The website livescience put their findings in a chart above.
Notice that 71% of people have reported that they have had a paranormal experience. Yet this trend is just not only American. According to the Telegraph, a UK news website, reporter Jasper Copping states in his article, “Who you gonna call? Belief in ghosts rising,” that according to a UK survey, “more than half of those taking part (52 per cent) said they believed in the supernatural, a marked increase on the two previous comparable studies, in 2009 and 2005, which both found a level of around 40 per cent. The survey also found that one in five claimed to have had some sort of paranormal experience.”
This belief is also evident when we look at the entertainment industry.
When I was growing up, it was really hard to find a good movie on the supernatural. Now, movies and TV shows dealing with ghosts, hauntings, demon possession, and other elements of the supernatural are a dime a dozen. What has happened? Why, in the past thirty years, have shows and movies dealing with these things, have they become so popular? The Paranormal Activity franchise has earned hundreds and millions of dollars at the box office. Shows about ghost hunting can be found on many networks such as the Travel Channel, A&E, Discovery, etc. The increase of interest is simply staggering.
The cause? It could be that people just like being scared. However, I think it goes much deeper. I find it interesting that as much as militant Atheism tries to stomp the supernatural flavor out of our society, interest and belief in things unseen continues to flourish. We as human beings are created in the image of God. This means that humanity craves to be in relation to the divine and the fascination and curiosity will always be prevalent. We crave the supernatural because we were created with the capacity to be related to God.
The interest in our culture of these things also stems from a rejection of modernism, and an embracing of postmodernism. Indeed, postmodernism has its dangers, but one thing we should be thankful for is that it has opened people back up to spiritual things.
I’ve talked about the supernatural and the paranormal, but what about the psychic?
Research into psychic phenomenon started to become prevalent in America because of a man by the name of J.B. Rhine. He founded the world famous parapsychology lab at Duke University in the 1930's, and is considered to be the father of the modern parapsychology movement.
Psychic ability also become popularized in our culture through the novels of Stephen King. His books such as Carrie and Firestarter featured young female characters who had the gifts of telekinesis. In looking at the previous chart published by livescience, you can see that 41% of people believe in ESP (Extra Sensory Perception).
Up until this point, I have just been throwing around the words “supernatural”, “paranormal”, and “parapsychology”. But what do they mean? Well, it depends on who you ask. For our purposes, I want to tell you how I am going to define them.
Supernatural:
This word can be defined as a power or being outside the scientific understanding of nature. That is a pretty broad definition. For our purposes, I am going to use it to refer to any non-human entity such as God, angels, and demons.
Paranormal:
Some people define this word as just referring to psychic experiences such as ESP and ghost. Others include aliens, UFO’s, Bigfoot, and everything else unexplained. For our purposes, I am going to use this term to refer to ghosts, hauntings, and the experiences that are related to them.
Parapsychology:
Basically, parapsychology is the study of mental phenomena that cannot be explained by natural causes. These phenomena would be ESP related things such as telepathy, telekinesis, clairvoyance, astral projection, etc. This is exactly how I will be using this term. I will also use the phrase “psychic experience” or “psi experience” to refer to them as well.
As this series unfolds, we will explore all these phenomena, and talk about their relation to religion and human experiences. Now, with our terms defined, our next study will bring us into the world of the supernatural
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