Wizards, Witches, Souls, Demons, Familiar Spirits.

[Rex]

The bible talks about all of these things. How is one suppose to take these type of passages?

 

[Performance Park]

I take them as truth when the Bible declares it.

One of my favorites and quite hard to take sometimes:

1 Samuel 15:23 (King James Version)
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.

Anyways, there are witches, wizards, and such operating and according to the Bible, we are to stay FAR away from those things as they are not from/of God.

Soul - Everyone has one...

Demons - Yep, all throughout the Bible. I don't want nothing to do with them. I hope I am on their "Most-Hated" list one day though!

Familiar Spirits, Unclean Spirits, Etc. - As a Christian we are to "try" the spirits (test them if you will) to be sure which spirit(s) we are listening too. Obviously, the only one I want to listen to is God, the Holy Spirit.

 

[Feathers in Hair]

Interesting! I didn't know the Bible discussed familiar spirits. (I was just reading "Good Omens", which feature a Witch Finder who has never read any of the bible except that which pertains to not suffering witches.)

When the Bible discusses witches, do you think they meant those who practice Wicca and Pagans? Or were they discussing something else?

 

[Rex]

Interesting! I didn't know the Bible discussed familiar spirits. (I was just reading "Good Omens", which feature a Witch Finder who has never read any of the bible except that which pertains to not suffering witches.)

When the Bible discusses witches, do you think they meant those who practice Wicca and Pagans? Or were they discussing something else?

FIH I'm not really sure what is meant. I just find it very strange that these are even mentioned. I wish I had more grasp on the subject. Hopefully someone will share some light on this for us.

How about you Scott? We know the Catholic church still does exorcisms(sp?) on these "demons". What is the thought on these passages.

 

[Circle_One]

FIH I'm not really sure what is meant. I just find it very strange that these are even mentioned. I wish I had more grasp on the subject. Hopefully someone will share some light on this for us.

I'm not at all surprised that Witches are mentioned, there were, of course, practioners back then and I'm not surprised that they are mentioned in a bad light either. As mentioned, we are not thought to be "of God" and so are thought "evil" by a lot of Christians even today as we were back then.
And Feathers, I think in a lot of respects, many Christians do mean Wiccans, Pagans, etc. as well when discussing Witchcraft in such a bad way. It's what they've been taught to think. Anyone who practices magick is thought to be not "of God", because Magick itself does not come from a source pertaining to the Christian God.

 

[Circle_One]

Oh, and I've got to add here, the term "Wizard" is not the term for a male Witch and so if it is used in a context in the bible where a Wizard is someone performing Magicks, it's being used in the wrong context because that is not what a wizard is. A "wizard" is nothing more than an illusionist, a pretender to supernatural knowledge and power.

 

[Scott1]

How about you Scott? We know the Catholic church still does exorcisms(sp?) on these "demons". What is the thought on these passages.

414 Satan or the devil and the other demons are fallen angels who have freely refused to serve God and his plan. Their choice against God is definitive. They try to associate man in their revolt against God.

2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future. Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

2117 All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.

 

[Nick Soapdish]

So is there really a demon inside me urging me to be sinful in my ways? Or are those urges the result of biochemical reactions in my head? I'm not sure why it cannot be both.

As many of you probably know, quantum physics suggest events are not deterministic, but rather probabilistic. At the most fundamental level of our understanding of the Universe, things seem to happen randomly. Science knows nothing about why one probabilistic outcome occurs and not another. Is there some cosmic dice somewhere, or are there simply determinants (like spirits) that are beyond our ability to measure?

With regards to demons and other spirits, we should consider them to be persons without a material body. I don't know exactly what that means, but I figure that we can deal with issues related to sin more effectively if we regard the temptation for sin to originate from a person. In the end, I believe that is the most important message we can get out of the Bible on this matter.

 

[Rozs]

We must not practice those kind of things. (Wizards, Witches, etc.)

Deuteronomy 18:10-13

10 Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in [a] the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, 11 or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD , and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. 13 You must be blameless before the LORD your God.

 

[Halcyon]

Soul - Everyone has one...

I've always found this strange, it seems to me like christians believe the soul to be separate from us, something that we own and can be taken from us. I've always thought of it AS us, what we really are inside an earthly shell. Am i wrong?

As for demons, i've tried out many different paths in my search for the truth, once while i was in my short lived chaos magick phase i decided to open a gateway, problem was i didn't really know what i was doing. Anyway i did a short ritual type thing of my own design, but nothing came through, probably because i didn't specify what i wanted to communicate with. About an hour later, after i'd had my dinner, i started to feel very strange like i was coming down with flu but the symptoms came on very fast. I felt disorientated, sick and feverish. I thought it might have been my food, but food poisoning (especially from a veggie pizza) shouldn't affect my brain and shouldn't act so fast. After about three hours i suddenly realised i hadn't properly banished the portal and anything that might have come through, i staggered back to where the portal was and properly closed it, then banished any entities that may have crossed over.
About 30 mins later i felt fine. So what was it, demon possession, a strange and short lived illness or completely psycological? My personal thought is that it was a malignant entity, as far as i'm concerned nothing's impossible.

 

[Master Vigil]

From my experience, christians don't understand spirits(familiar or nature spirits) and those who deal with them intimately, and thus are afraid of them. And when christianity is afraid of something, it makes it evil (or from satan). Most people are like this, when they can't see in the dark, they think something is there to kill them (or something). I believe the bible deals with these issues based on the culture within which it was written. And should not be taken as authority on the subject.

 

[cardero]

The bible talks about all of these things. How is one suppose to take these type of passages?

I understand these passages with the speculation that BIBLE cultures didn't understand the different psychological disorders like that we know about today or the different rituals or preferences of worship that some people practiced and it was tempting and more convenient to attach demons or wicked spirits to these events because they did not have other explanations to describe or control these behaviors.