Of Demons and Angels

"We were so worried about our dad on Saturday.  He was thrashing about and yelling things.  Totally not like himself.  He was possessed.  But then someone from our church came and prayed.  And the demons tormenting him left.  So we've kept up the prayers and he's been okay." 

I had never personally heard demons discussed in a literal manner before.  Metaphorical ones, sure.  And many friends believe that angels watch over them, especially deceased love ones.  But real demons?  No.  And my logical, rational mind kept thinking, "It's not unusual for dying people to have terrors and outbursts.  And then, with medications, they do settle down."  Just Google end-of-life anxiety.  It doesn't happen to everyone, but it happens, in varying degrees, some much more powerful than others. 

I think I underestimate the number of people who believe the supernatural world is as common as the natural one.  For me, it's just entertainment on television, our favorite series "Supernatural" about ghosts, werewolves, vampires, angels, demons.  Like "X-Files" and "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" with two handsome brothers kicking butt with heart and humor each week.  But these two sisters as hospice truly believed a demon had inhabited their father on the way to hospice and had made him act out until the special prayers exorcised the demons.

And they weren't even Catholic!  I had only thought of exorcisms with respect to the Roman Catholic Church (when I wasn't thinking of the 1970s movie or our tv show.)  I checked in with our chaplain, the priest, who said there was a huge belief in demons in the evangelical church.  These Christians believe in deliverance (yep, I hear banjos and I haven't even seen that movie!), the idea of being delivered from demons via prayers and such and of needing to actively avoid being contaminated by demons.  This is why you hear that Harry Potter, Halloween costumes, rock and roll, yoga, etc., are tools of the devil.  There are even lists, like the one that appeared in my inbox recently:

I think I can tick off more than a few of those, including Eastern Religions, Meditation, Vegetarianism, Postmodernism, LOTR, Video Games, Harry Potter, Halloween, Fornication, Rock Music, and, yes, I've even seen Twilight!  And I have experienced, at least once, Palmistry, Tarot, Ouija, Wicca, Earth Worship, Divination, Dungeons and Dragons, too.  But I've never been a vampire or a werewolf (Lycanthropy.)  

I must admit to some cultural and spiritual prejudice--I really never believed people actually thought music invited the devil.  It's like a superstition out of the dark ages. Yes, the kids have friends who can't celebrate Halloween because it's satanic, but I figured that was a one-off.  How wrong I am, how small my world sometimes.  

And I don't really know what to do with it all.  I don't believe in demons, just like I don't believe in hell.  To be fair, I don't just reject the negative; I don't believe in angels or heaven either.  My world is decidedly not supernatural.  

But what if the supernatural is just the natural we haven't come to understand yet?  What invisible forces exist that we don't understand, like Chi or Chakras?  We've only recently come to understand x-rays, bacteria, atoms, radio waves, microwaves, Wi-Fi; and yet, we do not give them a second thought.  I'm still not saying I believe in demons or heaven.  But what don't we know?

Just this week, the NYTimes published an article about the Placebo Effect and how there might actually be bio-chemical processes unrelated to prescribed medicine or surgeries that can result in healing.

And how do I explain my own healing?  I've written (here and here) about how my physical therapist used alternative treatments to heal my back injury when a variety of specialists in the tri-state area couldn't.  I did benefit from what she would call spiritual healing--a combo of accupressure, chakra alignment, Integrative Manual Therapy.  It won't surprise you that she believes in angels and demons.  I suppose I could call it the Placebo Effect, but I really can't explain it and am often uncomfortable reflecting on it, or more importantly, the implications of it.  If I can sit and walk because of energy healing, do I need to believe in angels and demons?  I can't make that leap.

But to push against my beliefs and expand my experiences, I recently attended a Reiki workshop at hospice.  Reiki is a type of energy meditation and healing that is frequently used by various caregivers in hospitals and hospices.  One of the chaplains at my old hospice used to offer it.  And yes, my PT has been trained in Reiki, too.  I know and believe in the benefits of Buddhist meditation so I thought I would learn more about Reiki, which does include chakra cleansing (chakras believed to be energy wheels in the body, represented by the colors of the rainbow, backwards, purple to red), which is beyond my usual rationalism.  It was an intriguing day, not only for the instruction, but also to hear from my fellow students--who believe not only in spiritual healing and energy work, but also angels, demons, ghosts, past-life regression, auras, Tarot, psychics, and mediums.  My mind couldn't wrap around those things.  BUT then I had a Reiki session from one of my classmates and she was drawn to my lower abdomen--completely without knowing of my multiple abdominal surgeries and three recent trips to the ER for severe abdominal pain.  Coincidence?  Educated guess?  And then, when I received attunement--yep, the instructor tuned me towards the chi--I saw these amazing flashes of deep blues, greens, and purples quite unexpectedly. 

Our teacher repeatedly said that Reiki was not dualistic, i.e. not good and bad, it just was, based on chi, the Chinese theory on energy in the body ("ki" is the Japanese spelling.)  She assured us that we could only do good things with Reiki, not hurt anyone.  Which is akin to believing in angels but not demons.  How does that work?  If Reiki can be used to help or heal, how come it can't be used to hurt?  Especially since it is isn't specifically considered a good force, just a natural one?  Nature causes hurt, depending on your perspective, but in itself is a neutral, balanced force--I watched a beautiful Cooper's Hawk devour one of our yard squirrels yesterday; neither good nor bad, in sum, just natural (certainly, from either the hawk or squirrel's vantage point, it would have been a good dinner or a bad evening!)  I think I'm overthinking it all.

But it does seem to keep popping up for me, even with regards to our upcoming trip to Thailand.  I've been reading about the animism that flows through Thai life, in addition to Buddhism and Hinduism, a belief in spirits everywhere.  We have even watched two Thai movies recently, Pee Mak and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, which heavily featured ghosts.  A belief in spirits participating in everyday life is so common that, I read, taxi drivers put icons or altars on their dashboards and trust in spirits, to the point of not wearing seatbelts.  Que sera, sera. I checked in again with our Catholic chaplain, who does wear his seatbelt (and has also officiated at an exorcism, which was a force of evil like nothing he'd ever seen, certainly beyond any psychological issues that people bring to him regularly, he told me.  He doesn't see demons appearing regularly in the world, and certainly not because of yoga or music), and he said that God expects us to help ourselves.  Which reminds me of that story of the man dangling from the side of the cliff and praying to God for help, but refusing the climber and then helicopter that comes to his aid, saying he's waiting for God; when the man gets to heaven and confronts God, God said, "I sent you a climber and a helicopter!"  Or a seatbelt.  

Whew.  That's a lot.  And it's all been swirling around in my head.  Still, I tend to see the world as more natural than supernatural.  And I'm really more concerned about the human community in our world than anything else (both how we fare as people and what we do to the Earth and each other); that's the work in front of me.  But that human community includes people who believe in a whole range of forces.   I don't have a tidy way to sum it all up beyond this poor paraphrase:  there is more in the world and in people's beliefs than is dreamt of in my imaginings.  

Summer Fun: My Mantra

"The heart may freeze or it can burn
The pain will ease if I can learn
There is no future
There is no past

I live this moment as my last
There's only us
There's only this
Forget regret
Or life is yours to miss
No other road

No other way
No day but today."

--"Another Day", Rent (Jonathan Larson)

We've been singing Broadway musicals here recently, from Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, and a few from Rent (which the kiddos are too young to see just yet.)  And so when the time came for me to pick a mantra for my Summer Soul Camp experience--a week-long, web-based spiritual community that focuses on recreation and renewal for adults, i.e. "camp," created by Heather Bruggeman of Beauty That Moves (you'll recall that I've taken several of her classes before, including 30- Day Vegan, Whole Food Kitchen, and the winter "camp" Hibernate)--I chose one of the lyrics from Rent:  No day but today.

It's the modern, NYC/Broadway equivalent of carpe diem, and has a catchy tune, if you know the song, making it easy to remember throughout the ten-day experience.  And I've needed it.  As I mentioned here earlier this week and perhaps a few times before, my back is in a frustrating place.  From the high of our trip to England through the challenges of the five-week tour season at the historic house and to the multiple end-of-year activities, including the kung fu tournament near Phillie, up to and including my new aqua therapy routine, my back has gone from great to good to eh.  I've worn my brace more and taken more pills, both painkillers and muscle relaxers (I've never missed the NSAIDs I'm allergic to so much), than I have in years, which isn't a great sign.  But it's not as bad as it's ever been, not nearly so--I can still drive and sit and walk, and even fold clothes, feed the cats, and unload the dishwasher (and yes, I still feel grateful about those things everyday), so it's really all relative.  It's just taking all my learned mindfulness skills to work through the discomfort and inconvenience in order to continue to enjoy the summer without being limited by pain and fear.  That's no small task sometimes, especially at the end of the day.

And the mantra has helped.  While it could be perceived as hedonistic or narcissistic, the mantra to me speaks of staying in the present and not worrying about the past or the future (or the past repeating itself in the future, for me).  It reminds me to do what I can today, both things that are fun and enjoyable and those that help make me feel better.  And when the pain comes, focusing on the here and now, as emphasized in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), eases its sting.

I haven't been able to do every camp activity--I didn't make the market tote or the prayer flags, yet--but I have been trying to embrace the idea of adult R&R through simple, focused activities.  So today, even with some discomfort and later my brace, I explored the full range of summer possibilities with the kiddos:

• opened up the house and turned off the AC because it was only 65F overnight;
• went to aqua therapy and then extra swimming with the kiddos;
• played several games of cards, including Slap Jack, War, and Slamwich, their new favorite;
• read several chapters in Lark Rise to Candleford, the semi-autobiographical, nostalgic, rural 19th-century trilogy from England (as seen on PBS, though I'm told the show isn't much like the book);
• sketched in the yard with the kiddos for half the afternoon--Sis did some imaginary garden designs, Bud did Star Wars characters, and I did our garden statue of a cat;
• made broccoli and cheese quiche and Dutch babies with our CSA-box eggs;
• went for a post-dinner walk in the cool breezy air;
• decided last-minute to go to the town concert on the green, which was inexplicably not happening despite flags and a sign announcing it . . . .
• so we went for consolation ice cream, which we ate in the front yard while watching the sunset, surprisingly undisturbed by mosquitoes, until Mama got home late!

What a wonderful summer day!!

And thanks to Heather and the camp community for helping me tap summer's potential.  Even though camp ends soon, I know its effects will last til school starts . . . and beyond.