Real Ghost Story: Enter Not the Dark Forest – Part One – โTherefore, be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devourโ. Evil will attack the mind and attempt to weaken a personโs resolve and moral clarity. Evil knows how destructive feelings of fear, guilt and shame can be to a personโs psychological outlook so they are itโs primary weapons. Destroy someoneโs self-esteem and confidence and you take their strength and vitality with it.
Evil wants nothing more than to create misery and suffering in the world. Itโs effects are being felt almost everywhere on the earth to a greater or lesser degree, either directly or indirectly. Even the happiest most contented person must contend with evil from time to time. None of us are immune or untouched by itโs effects. Death, sickness, war, crime, poverty and the destruction and desecration of the earth are itโs hallmarks.
Evil is also a contagion. It feeds off negativity and bounces back and forth gaining power and momentum as it does so, spreading as fast and far as mankindโs spiritual and moral โhygieneโ will allow. This may explain why there are so-called haunting hotspots like the Naval Ship USS Hornet, as dark energy tends to clump together like soap bubbles in a bath compelled by surface tension to merge and form larger bubbles as it does so. The following story revolves around a fellow I knew a long time ago and illustrates why it is not wise to dip so much as a toe in the devilโs bath waterโฆ
D. was bought up in poverty, abuse and a broken family. An inevitable product of the โwelfare stateโ but nonetheless not a bad bloke really. We drank together and had some real fun times but eventually his negative side got the better of me and we parted ways beneath somewhat of a cloud unfortunately. I was about 23 and he about 19 when we met, so there was a slight age gap but his tough upbringing made him older than his years. I had on the other hand come from a relatively fortunate and spoilt background, although not without itโs problems, so we were kind of yin and yang. I got along well with his girlfriend too and we often partied into the wee hours back at their place.
Anyway, I got to know him fairly well over the years and he was one of those people who had many interesting tales to tell and who told them pretty well too. Made my life look quite dull, really. But I lapped them up eagerly, absorbing every word with great relish, in particular the story of his mother who had haplessly wandered into the Dark Forest โ the dark forest of Black Magic and Devil Worship; a world that allows free entry but only lets you leave at a price. Sometimes that price is your life and/or your soul. Luckily in this instance the cost was minimal, but traumatic and far reaching nevertheless. For every cause there is an effect. For every disturbance there is a ripple. Sometimes that ripple can return to itโs source in the form of a giant rogue wave multiplied a thousand-fold in itโs destructive capabilitiesโฆ
Like many directionless lost souls, D.โs mother, who began innocently enough with tarot cards and astrology, decided to take things up a notch with seances and magic, and other things, believing all the while she was in control and could quit any time if she wanted to โ ha ha. Her self-delusion, however, was soon to be found wanting after some very frightening experiences, which I cannot in detail recall, but frightening enough for her to attempt to suddenly sever all ties with her black magic past, destroy all her paraphernalia and seek the assistance of a church in a state of mortal terror and on the cold rusty razorโs edge of a complete nervous breakdown โ not a good way to be. Especially when you have just seen the devilโs face appear and hang motionless, just staring at you, in the flames of the fire you had just lit to destroy your charms, trinkets and spell books in the backyard on a sunny afternoon in suburbia โ and then to return to the kitchen only to find that one of those particular trinkets had been carefully placed, perfectly intact and brand-gleaming-new on the counter next to the fridge, as if to say, โSurprise !โ
So she had the people from whatever church she went to for help come and bless and exorcise the evil from her home and life and thenceforth became a fervent church-goer herself, dragging her poor kids, each one with a different dad, behind her. I would like to hope this ended up having a positive influence on the children in some way and maybe it did โ going to church that is โ but I think the emotional damage these kids carried occurred long before witchcraft came onto the scene. Like I said, you donโt need direct contact with the devil to suffer the effects of evil. Evil is alive and well in the hearts and minds of ordinary everyday people who for whatever reason have allowed it to reside and grow within them to the point where they can no longer control it or even desire to. I think we have enough on our plates already without adding fuel to the fire so to speak, by attempting to harness or control these forces or โPrincipalitiesโ that are beyond even our ability to imagine let alone comprehend.
Part Two – And so to part two, a story once again centering on my old mate, D. It seems some people just canโt avoid coming across weird and bizarre phenomena even when theyโre not looking for it, as was the case when D. and his girlfriend moved into a housing commission flat many years following the incident with his mum. It was a high density public housing area with not nearly enough street lights and alot of crime which so often goes hand in hand with the poorer districts. The semi-detached house seemed nice enough and neither D. nor his girlfriend even suspected there might be something still living there. Something that would make itโs presence known soon enoughโฆ
They were both struggling on unemployment benefits and casual cash-in-hand work at the time and so could only afford a mattress on the floor for the time being. I recall being there one night drinking and so on when D. mentioned he thought there might be a ghost in the place. Naturally my ears pricked up as I enthusiastically implored him to โtell me moreโ! And so he told me how one night, laying on the mattress, on the floor, he looked up toward roughly the middle of the wall opposite and noticed a circular spot of light just floating there. It didnโt move yet itโs origin could not be explained. There were no lights on in the house, not even a digital clock radio and no light from the sparse street lights getting in either and there was no moon to speak of. He checked that. But after a while he fell off to sleep under the quilt next to his girlfriend, slightly perplexed but not particularly alarmed.
The next night it wasnโt a light he noticed but this time a strange shadow on the wall. A very dark shadow. About the size of a man. It was blacker than black, he assured me โ blackerโฆ thanโฆ black! At which point it started moving across the opposite wall and onto the wall to his right, coming nearer and nearer, his heart pounding in his throat, eyes wide and white in the darkness. He launched himself out of bed fumbling desperately for the light switch, thinking there was an intruder, his next move was to grab the baseball bat from behind the door. But there was no one there. Only his girlfriend, dazed and blinking, wondering what the hell was going on. He tried to explain but she just dismissed it as a nightmare or hallucination bought on by smoking something he probably shouldnโt right before bedtime, perhaps.
Some days passed with no events until D. decided to check out the crawlspace to see what was up with the air-conditioner which had not worked since their arrival. What he found was a writhing sea of aircon ducts none connected to each other but strewn about in worm-like chaos as if suddenly and inexplicably abandoned midway through installation. With plenty of time on his hands and some mechanical know how he determined to connect it all up and get the thing going in time for Summer. Only thing, the first time he tried to get started up there his torch went dead, fresh batteries and all, so he had to abandon the task. I was there a couple of days later and upon hearing his bad luck offered to go with him to buy a new torch and some duct tape and help him out if possible. So up we squeezed through the man hole ready to survey the carnage and formulate a plan when suddenly the new torch faded down to nothing leaving us both in the darkness. It was a little unnerving and I felt a pressing need to get back down out of there. From what I had heard so far I was beginning to think there was something to all this and had just witnessed for myself the second torch in three days go completely flat in the space of a second.
A week or so passed and D. and his girlfriend were fast asleep on their makeshift bed when D. suddenly awoke to feel something heavy on his chest and cold hands around his throat! Someone was strangling him! But just as soon as this realisation cemented itself in his semi-conscious state the pressure on his chest subsided and the invisible hands fell away leaving him paralysed with fear, gasping for breath, not sure of what to think or do. Needless to say he did not get any more sleep that night. When I heard about this I said he should get a priest or something because that sounded like an evil spirit to me. Either that or get out of there. They got out of there. The aircon duct remained an untouched shambles gathering dust in the dark until the house and many neighbouring houses were unceremoniously bull dozed a few years later as part of a social renewal program. I dread to think what this thing was and how it came to be there and whether it remains on the land where that house once stood. I am in no hurry to find out.
Part Three – Believe it or not there is a part three. As I said some people seem destined to encounter the unexplained and this encounter happened to D. long before the witchcraft incident. He was only about 8 years old and living alone with his mum at the time in a house that has also since been demolished to make way for a highway underpass. This particular house had a cellar which he remembers being very cold and the dank air thick with foreboding. The further he tried to advance into the cellar the worse the feeling became until he found it impossible to go any further. He recalled, in fact, never being able to reach the other end before turning and fleeing in unexplainable fear and revulsion.
One night he recalls getting out of bed to get a drink of water. On his return from the kitchen he was suddenly stopped in his tracks. From out of the closed cellar door a vaporous apparition was seeping, emerging, making itโs way slowly but deliberately toward him. Terrified and frozen to the spot the ghost or thing continued closer and closer until it was right in front of his face upon which it passed straight through him and out the other side! He said he just screamed. Screamed and screamed in utter terror until his frantic mother came in to the living room to see what was wrong. I am not sure if she believed him at the time or not but a few years later she most definitely would have.
Should we dismiss such tales or should we interpret them as warnings? In my mind it is proof that the spiritual world exists and it should be as a sign to everyone that death is not the end. But will it be a good end? Will we go to a heaven or to a hell or remain in an eternal purgatory trapped on the earth forever not even aware we are dead? Will we be re-incarnated to blindly repeat our mistakes and suffer the whole thing over and over again until there is finally no earth left? What then? Scary food for thought. I believe the internet is going to increase awareness of these phenomena and encourage many people to start asking similar questions and begin their search for the truth.
At the very least, may it steer the ignorant and vulnerable away from foolish โotherworldlyโ pursuits they are neither equipped nor qualified to deal with. Forgive me for my forthrightness but I personally think a good place to start would be to start believing in Jesus. Denounce all that is of the darkness, that which corrupts and deceives and prevents us from finding happiness and peace within ourselves our God and each other.ย Enter not the dark forest, my friends, lest you lose your way and become swallowed up; where no one can hear you, where light does not reach you, where you can never be found and where the worm never turnsโฆ
Source: paranormal360
