--Hello everyone. New member, first thread--just wanted to get some opinions on some things and kinda' introduce what it is that brought me here. I'm not really sure if there will end up being a quesiton in here, but there may also end up being several. All in all, I just want to get some insight from people with the types of perspectives that generally characterize this forum's userbase X D
--In 2004/05, the internet really started to take off. I was raised in a Christian household and grew up in a small town, so I didn't really have any external influences except what I saw in movies, video games, etc., and we all know the views expressed in the mainstream are very generalized and somewhat sterile. I still remember the first time I ever went on Wikipedia. I was looking up "the Divine Comdedy," which is an epic poem by the legendary Italian poet, Dante (he has a last name, but like Beyonce and Slash it's hardly necessary). I actually didn't know what to make of that poem--I was so young and so...uninformed or underexposed (like everyone before the internet) that I actually thought it was a true story in some strange way, probably because the majority of my exposure to Christianity had been the book of Revelation (it has dragons and crazy things going on, so of course it caught the attention of a 15 year old, especially when he'd been told it was all "real"). The entire thing just blew my mind, and I couldn't wrap my head around how all of this was supposed to be taken seriously...So, I decided that instead of just taking it all at face value, I'd test it out. One of the things my mom had always brought up for some reason (probably because we all watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer a lot) was that the Book of Revelation said witches, warlocks, and anyone who practiced magic would be cast into Hell without question as such things were an abomination before the Lord. I figured that must mean such things as magic were actually real in some way, because why would God condemn make believe fairy tale nonsense? Therefore...what better way to see if this was all really real then, well, magic.
--I apologize if this is way, way too long already...I just...I wanted to be as clear as possible. This is all the truest thing I could possibly tell anyone, and it's been the single biggest factor in my life since...well, since it happened 14 years ago. Again...maybe I just wanna' know what others think, or maybe if they'd experienced similar things, or maybe...Well, I don't know, but here I am, and I hope you're all still with me.
--So then I...between the years of 16 and 18...got really, really into the occult (I still am, just in a much different way). It was all basic introductory, The Craft level "dabbling," though--nothing serious at first. Candles, sigils, seances, braiding hair, burning incantations...so on and so forth. It really didn't get too intense until we got a Quija board, and I know...it's a board game made by the people that make Monopoly, but we sure as hell treated it like...well, like most people treat it (I think that's what makes it more than just a board game).
--We started using the Quija board, like, every day. We would consult it before doing even mundane things like going to the store or out to eat. We'd break it out at parties, and in our spare time (which was all the time because we were in high school) we'd take it to graveyard and talk for hours; there was this big black tomb stone with a single name in huge, white letters--BEKO--that we sat beside every time (we did this so often we could find our way there in the dark without any issues whatsoever).
--A lot of weird things happened...but I just shrugged it all off because I didn't actually see any of it. One time, for instance, I was sleeping with my girlfriend...She was 16 going on 17 and I'd just turned 18, so I'd moved out into a friend's apartment and was staying in their extra bedroom. I was falling asleep, but she was wide eyed with the blankets up to her chin, whispering to me in a panic: "El, there's something in the room."
--"What?"
--"A shadow--I don't know, but it's just staring at me."
--"Where is it?"
--"At the foot of the bed."
--"Oh...as long as it's at the foot of the bed, it's fine," I'd told her. "It's only a problem if it's beside the bed."
--I don't know where I'd heard that, but that just goes to show how...uncaring I was about the whole thing--unaffected, really. I knew what I wanted, and it wasn't shadows or weird noises or power bumps or anything like that--I wanted to know if the devil was real, and by extension if God was real...then I could know--truly know--that it was a good idea to be a Christian. I just wanted to know.
--Another strange thing, just real quick, was when I'd decided to move out of that apartment. We'd packed everything up and, again, my girlfriend and I were lying in bed, talking about what was gonna' happen next. This odd tapping sound kept happening as we were talking, but we ignored it until finally she was like, "What the hell is that sound?" Getting up to investigate, and I swear this is true, we realized it was the Quija board's little planchette thing knocking against the inside of the box (my girlfriend had made a special board for us in shop class out of high quality wood with a fancy box, almost like a wooden briefcase). We were...mildly amused by this...and just kept talking, eventually falling asleep.
--Then...well...after we'd gotten a little more serious about the magic we were doing--we'd moved into "ceremonial magic," and the "highlight" of that was my girlfriend and I breaking into this old abandoned mansion on the hill overlooking the town (K.C. Hall in Tonopah, NV--I'm totally serious) and spending, like, eight hours straight drawing this incredibly detailed and complicated sigil for an evocation taken from the Lesser Key of Solomon (I don't know if this is related, but every attempt that's been made to renovate and reopen/resale that place has failed miserably, losing people millions in some cases)...Yeah, after that...
--I had a friend named Rena...and her boyfriend, who she'd met online, came down from Reno to see her--we called him "Twitch." He came over to our apartment, and without even knowing the guy at all he came out from the bathroom and immediately said, "Dude, your house is haunted. I was washing my hands and saw this black shadow over my shoulder--like, really." Like before, though, I didn't believe him--I thought his girlfriend, Rena, had told him about what we were in to and he was messing with us. After all, I'd
--In 2004/05, the internet really started to take off. I was raised in a Christian household and grew up in a small town, so I didn't really have any external influences except what I saw in movies, video games, etc., and we all know the views expressed in the mainstream are very generalized and somewhat sterile. I still remember the first time I ever went on Wikipedia. I was looking up "the Divine Comdedy," which is an epic poem by the legendary Italian poet, Dante (he has a last name, but like Beyonce and Slash it's hardly necessary). I actually didn't know what to make of that poem--I was so young and so...uninformed or underexposed (like everyone before the internet) that I actually thought it was a true story in some strange way, probably because the majority of my exposure to Christianity had been the book of Revelation (it has dragons and crazy things going on, so of course it caught the attention of a 15 year old, especially when he'd been told it was all "real"). The entire thing just blew my mind, and I couldn't wrap my head around how all of this was supposed to be taken seriously...So, I decided that instead of just taking it all at face value, I'd test it out. One of the things my mom had always brought up for some reason (probably because we all watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer a lot) was that the Book of Revelation said witches, warlocks, and anyone who practiced magic would be cast into Hell without question as such things were an abomination before the Lord. I figured that must mean such things as magic were actually real in some way, because why would God condemn make believe fairy tale nonsense? Therefore...what better way to see if this was all really real then, well, magic.
--I apologize if this is way, way too long already...I just...I wanted to be as clear as possible. This is all the truest thing I could possibly tell anyone, and it's been the single biggest factor in my life since...well, since it happened 14 years ago. Again...maybe I just wanna' know what others think, or maybe if they'd experienced similar things, or maybe...Well, I don't know, but here I am, and I hope you're all still with me.
--So then I...between the years of 16 and 18...got really, really into the occult (I still am, just in a much different way). It was all basic introductory, The Craft level "dabbling," though--nothing serious at first. Candles, sigils, seances, braiding hair, burning incantations...so on and so forth. It really didn't get too intense until we got a Quija board, and I know...it's a board game made by the people that make Monopoly, but we sure as hell treated it like...well, like most people treat it (I think that's what makes it more than just a board game).
--We started using the Quija board, like, every day. We would consult it before doing even mundane things like going to the store or out to eat. We'd break it out at parties, and in our spare time (which was all the time because we were in high school) we'd take it to graveyard and talk for hours; there was this big black tomb stone with a single name in huge, white letters--BEKO--that we sat beside every time (we did this so often we could find our way there in the dark without any issues whatsoever).
--A lot of weird things happened...but I just shrugged it all off because I didn't actually see any of it. One time, for instance, I was sleeping with my girlfriend...She was 16 going on 17 and I'd just turned 18, so I'd moved out into a friend's apartment and was staying in their extra bedroom. I was falling asleep, but she was wide eyed with the blankets up to her chin, whispering to me in a panic: "El, there's something in the room."
--"What?"
--"A shadow--I don't know, but it's just staring at me."
--"Where is it?"
--"At the foot of the bed."
--"Oh...as long as it's at the foot of the bed, it's fine," I'd told her. "It's only a problem if it's beside the bed."
--I don't know where I'd heard that, but that just goes to show how...uncaring I was about the whole thing--unaffected, really. I knew what I wanted, and it wasn't shadows or weird noises or power bumps or anything like that--I wanted to know if the devil was real, and by extension if God was real...then I could know--truly know--that it was a good idea to be a Christian. I just wanted to know.
--Another strange thing, just real quick, was when I'd decided to move out of that apartment. We'd packed everything up and, again, my girlfriend and I were lying in bed, talking about what was gonna' happen next. This odd tapping sound kept happening as we were talking, but we ignored it until finally she was like, "What the hell is that sound?" Getting up to investigate, and I swear this is true, we realized it was the Quija board's little planchette thing knocking against the inside of the box (my girlfriend had made a special board for us in shop class out of high quality wood with a fancy box, almost like a wooden briefcase). We were...mildly amused by this...and just kept talking, eventually falling asleep.
--Then...well...after we'd gotten a little more serious about the magic we were doing--we'd moved into "ceremonial magic," and the "highlight" of that was my girlfriend and I breaking into this old abandoned mansion on the hill overlooking the town (K.C. Hall in Tonopah, NV--I'm totally serious) and spending, like, eight hours straight drawing this incredibly detailed and complicated sigil for an evocation taken from the Lesser Key of Solomon (I don't know if this is related, but every attempt that's been made to renovate and reopen/resale that place has failed miserably, losing people millions in some cases)...Yeah, after that...
--I had a friend named Rena...and her boyfriend, who she'd met online, came down from Reno to see her--we called him "Twitch." He came over to our apartment, and without even knowing the guy at all he came out from the bathroom and immediately said, "Dude, your house is haunted. I was washing my hands and saw this black shadow over my shoulder--like, really." Like before, though, I didn't believe him--I thought his girlfriend, Rena, had told him about what we were in to and he was messing with us. After all, I'd
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