On this the Feast of St Michael the Archangel, a.k.a. Michaelmas, I paid Kat of Dona Nobis Pacem to burn a deck of tarot cards on my behalf.
When I was young, my mother warned me that astrology, tarot cards, Ouija boards and such left their users wide open to attacks by evil spirits, and somehow, even during my angriest rebellion against Christian teaching about sexuality and many other things, I still pretty much kept my distance from the occult. Sadly this was not so for Kat. She did fall into idolatrous practices and ended up spending a lot of money of occult books and paraphernalia. Now that she has returned to the Catholic faith, she didn't want to sell them to anyone who would actually use them for their intended purpose, this being objectively evil, though she does need money, so she has been selling her occult items to people who share her desire to see them destroyed.
See the fruits of her enterprise!
And look here for updates. That eliminates a few portals by which evil spirits can possess people, hallelujah!
As of this writing, plenty of items are still up for sale.
Saint Michael the Archangel,
Defend us in battle
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil;
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
And do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host,
By the power of God, thrust into hell
Satan and all evil spirits
Who wander through the world
For the ruin of souls.
Amen.
29 September 2007 in Liturgical Year, Spiritual Warfare | Permalink
--- ...Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Amen
Re: Money Well Spent to Make the World Less Open to Evil Spirits I understand what you're saying but I'm one who would've been burning all my old books but I've just been ripping them up, dumping coffee grounds on them and making them totally unappealing to anyone who might happen upon them. I don't see dumpster diving here like I did in Madison WI (you wouldn't believe what college students throw out).
I was thinking of this verse;
Acts 19:19 DRB
(19) And many of them who had followed curious arts brought together their books and burnt them before all. And, counting the price of them, they found the money to be fifty thousand pieces of silver.
Of the friends I have where I live who are still in the occult, one had found such books in the library of the Catholic school they were going to as a child. I was in 5th grade going to a parochial school checking out books on ESP, ghosts, Loch Ness, anything... I was drawn to it all. I have to wonder, had all that reading material not been accessible to me would I still have made that dumb choice of buying a ouija board at a game store by me in my 20's?
I didn't have a normal childhood, t I know Normal is a place in Illinois, also a street in Buffalo... other than that I'm not sure what normal is. I know there was a time before I really dabbled where I seemed to understand occult should be avoided but I was drawn too much to it. Had I not been feeding my mind with the occult garbage, would I have become so deeply entrapped in it?
When I used to do automatic writing I was convinced they were spirits of the departed. I've destroyed those old notebooks too... each 'spirit' had it's own hand writing... one that pretended to be my grandmother and the handwriting looked like hers, and they pretended to be others. I used to end up giving readings, my friend and I would go to Dennys, she had her tarot cards, I just did automatic writing unless I was actually 'hearing' them which I did for a time.
I suppose for those firmly grounded in their faith, none of the trickery from the deceiver would sway them into occult but those like me who really had no clue... I believed in God but I kept wandering why CCD didn't address the rest... the rest that 'I knew' like people visiting after they died and the like. Had those books not been around I would not have continued to open the door further to Satan in my life.
I remember when my paternal grandmother was in the hospital after a stroke and I kept praying for her to make it yet she seemed to keep slipping further away. We had one person in the family who was into the New Age who laid crystals on her... and once I heard my mom was coming to visit in the hospital I ended up back on the bus heading 90 miles away back to where I was living at the time. I had a lot of guilt about that. When I received the phone call that she had passed away I was devastated. In those days once I got into ouija & automatic writing I really thought I was talking to my grandma. Yet I still had that small part of me (perhaps that still small voice) questioning if it really was what it claimed to be.
I wanted to believe I really was talking to my grandma, I wanted to believe I could talk to anyone on 'the other side' just like John Edward talked about in Crossing Over... but I know now I wasn't talking to anyone I knew but I was talking to demons. They're so subtle, patient and convincing.
Think about it this way, should we encourage publishing different ways for people to commit suicide, or different ways to create a bomb or tips on how to be a successful terrorist? Is it knowledge the world really needs? The world has enough garbage, I didn't want to keep adding to it.
Last edited by HasahZ, 11/8/2007, 1:55 am
--- ...Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Amen
Re: Money Well Spent to Make the World Less Open to Evil Spirits My motivation for destroying my old books was to not have them around and become a temptation again and to not put that garbage back into the world. There’s enough garbage in the world, I don’t need to add to it. Honestly I still have my old crystals, they sit in a box and I still seek God on if I need to toss them or not. When they’re out and displayed they’re pretty to look at and I’m one that loved rocks as a child. I loved looking for fossils and crystals fed my curiosity to that. I no longer believe they have the attributes I once believed in from my New Age days… for example, I don’t believe an opal will magnify emotions or amethysts will enhance psychic awareness, or hematite for blood, etc. I just see them as pretty rocks. Then I think maybe I should ask my priest, then again I wonder how much of those dabbling days is safe to say to people in real life? Then AGAIN… if they’ve ever been near a new age, pagan, wiccan etc store, setting, gathering etc all of it would make sense to them.
--- ...Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Amen
Re: Money Well Spent to Make the World Less Open to Evil Spirits Be quick to listen, slow to speak… from Proverbs. Rethinking my response to this and leaving my first two responses…
I was reminded of an eerie quote I remember after having done a report on cults in junior high school/or middle school as we called it. I know Jim Jones quoted someone, it wasn’t his own quote (though the internet isn’t helping me at the moment… will find it), “Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” I was also reminded about Fr. Mitch Pacwa suggesting if one wanted to learn what the New Age movement tries to promote they could purchase used books/not new so they’re not supporting the movement itself etc.
I surely do not want to be responsible for starting a wave of wanting to torch New Age type books and places and it would be more that a skeptic wiccan would raise an eyebrow at since they do often promote remembering the burning days. Me personally, I wanted to destroy all the New Age literature I had. I’m thankful now I didn’t do the same to the Catholic material. I’ve yet to find my old rosary from high school but I have one I’ve been using, have several rosaries, just had my ‘favorite’. Even in those anti-Catholic days I still had a green scapular here that I remember now was from a co-worker somewhere between 1995 to 1998.
The article was a blog entry by someone who left the occult who wanted to get rid of their own books but not pass them on into the world and who needed money so offered the option of people paying for a book and receiving a picture of one burning. I am not attempting to tell people to go out and start burning all the new age occult etc shops that they see. I hope this post will never be taken in that context. I destroyed my own books before because I don’t want to be an empty room again where the spirit that left wanders around seeking for a place to rest and comes back to find an empty room bringing 7 more spirits worse than the first. I truly believe I lived that verse and do not ever want to be back in those new age occult days.
Last edited by HasahZ, 11/8/2007, 5:29 am
--- ...Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Amen
Re: Money Well Spent to Make the World Less Open to Evil Spirits
quote:
I surely do not want to be responsible for starting a wave of wanting to torch New Age type books and places
I'm sure you don't, Hasah. Reading your initial post I never considered that you were advocating for others' personal property to be destroyed.
quote:
Me personally, I wanted to destroy all the New Age literature I had.
I understand this. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with you destroying the literature you bought, paid for, and owned. It was yours to do as you thought best.
Re: Money Well Spent to Make the World Less Open to Evil Spirits
quote:
Portia01 wrote:
quote:
I surely do not want to be responsible for starting a wave of wanting to torch New Age type books and places
I'm sure you don't, Hasah. Reading your initial post I never considered that you were advocating for others' personal property to be destroyed.
quote:
Me personally, I wanted to destroy all the New Age literature I had.
I understand this. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with you destroying the literature you bought, paid for, and owned. It was yours to do as you thought best.
It absolutely is his right to do as he wishes with his own property, and I support that.
However, by advertising a site that burns books, he is advocating, howver inadvertantly, the burning of books, and that IS one of the ways the Nazi's used to stop the spread of things that they did not want people to know, learn etc., because they had decided to legislate morality for all. In this country we do not legislate other's morality.
The Ouiji Board can very much be a portal and can be a way for things to come in that should not. I still do not advocate mass burnings. I do advocate information and knowledge. People need to be responsible for their own informed actions.
Re: Money Well Spent to Make the World Less Open to Evil Spirits
quote:
However, by advertising a site that burns books, he is advocating, howver inadvertantly, the burning of books, and that IS one of the ways the Nazi's used to stop the spread of things that they did not want people to know, learn etc., because they had decided to legislate morality for all.
I understand your point, but she linked to a site that advocates buying an occult book and burning it. Once you buy the book, it's your personal property to do with as you will. Nobody is advocating to destroy any one else's personal property. No one has to buy a book to burn either. Personally, I wouldn't. But I have destroyed books before that were my own personal property.
Re: Money Well Spent to Make the World Less Open to Evil Spirits I simply go back to that verse in the Bible about how those that converted burned their books and scrolls. You know, I had posted how Catholics and Protestants alike burned Bibles, ones that had errors... to not allow the error to live on.
I used to so embrace many things from the New Age, Occult, etc. Was I ever fully Wiccan? No, I had a difficult time with many things I read from Wicca though I used to do candle spells. I don't think a day went by where I didn't do automatic writing. Yeah, my friend and I had definitely opened a portal and when I read that one article by a priest explaining it the same way... I felt comfort knowing I hadn't lost it back then. I would have burned my books had I been able... I don't have a shredder and they dont' really make those book shredding capable.
One of those books I had about Natural Magick (I think it was that spelling & not the normal way), all about going to the creation instead of the Creator... and a very warped version of viewing the creation. Some of the things I'd read about in those exploring days... ingredients of different spells... the whole notion of casting spells etc.... that's going to sources other than God, attempting to be our own god or replacing God. I believe it was Destiny of Souls that talked about 'the time between lives' for the reincarnation 'idea'... I don't believe in reincarnation anymore either... I think that was the book that said the Bible was just written to scare people... that's when I stopped reading it... the book, not the Bible. That junk was all poison in my life, I see that now, I didn't see that then. There's many ways to destroy unwanted books. Again in no way was any of this ever a suggestion to do a Nazi type action.
Personally I believe the world would be much better off without the junk but all I can do about it is keep praying. I pray for my friends still lost in the occult, in Wicca, and the rest.
It was freeing to destroy that junk, again these were books I owned, had paid money for and didn't want to see them fall into someone else's hands. It was all junk leading away from the Truth of Jesus, the Cross, God... just garbage. If I were ever to set foot into a New Age shop again it would NOT be to attempt to destroy the place but I'd bring a Bible, tell them about Jesus, maybe even bring the Passion of the Christ movie with me... show them the crucifix... this is what Jesus did for me, you and everyone else... that's all that would be real there, what Christ did on the cross... not spells and amulets, not chakras and meditating on the 'centers' or how to get in touch with our 'spirit guides'... been there, done that and never going back.
___
I'd never go after anyone else's property and burn it. One of my still wiccan friends had a sister that did that to her property and it only pulled her further away from Christianity. Jesus and the disciples didn't spread the good news by bonfire.
I had something I cherished purposely burned in a fire before, something I'll never forget but it left it's impression. I'm not promoting such actions at all.
Last edited by HasahZ, 11/9/2007, 2:52 am
--- ...Bless my enemies, O Lord. Even I bless them and do not curse them.
Amen
