Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 21

Thread: Spiritual Warfare?

  1. #1
    Jr. Member Avarin's Avatar
    Reputation
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Posts
    15
    Pronouns
    male
    Religion
    Universalist Pagan, Jungian, Alchemist, Martial Artist
    Location
    Colorado
    Phrase
    Oh, to sail the sea of worlds, to die and again be reborn

    Spiritual Warfare?

    I'd like to share a short story as it has been on my mind lately

    Many (who are in America now) probably have heard of the school shooting in New England.

    It disturbes me to think that an autistic kid could be capable of such violence. As someone who has been in the mental health circus I feel bad for the shooter because he is a victim as well.

    (I dont know any of your political leanings but I am a conspiracy theorist not a dem/rep/other) And what disturbs me more is Obama's all to horrible acting and his fake crocodile tears about the whole incident.

    I personally doubt this was a false flag attempt, but the extreme left will no doubt call for gun bans and whatnot.

    But that is not the point (sorry for getting political )

    My mother is hugely into spiritual warfare (abet not in a crazy overzellos sense) and allot of it makes sense to me.

    Do you as pagans think there is a kind of a good force or an evil force?

    I've been wrestleing with this information and how it fits into my worldview as pagans dont beleive in the devil and by extention that there could be an actual quoute "Spiritual War" at all.

    I believe in the devil. Yet I veiw him just as I veiw Yawey/God: as just another pantheon abet the Abrametic pantheon.
    Some of you (If you are honest) believe in demons maybe the devil is just a demon king or like a Sauron/voldomort like super evil guy.

    I cant help but feel *something* in my bones that evil may be a palpable entity with intelligence. I feel that the world is getting darker, and that spiritual forces are behind the veil so to speak....

    It maybe just a feeling....

    I'm not sure. what is your opinion on this

  2. #2
    Silver Member Caelia's Avatar
    Reputation
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Posts
    2,160
    Pronouns
    female
    Religion
    Kemetic
    Location
    Kansas
    Phrase
    Ferocious as a furby

    Re: Spiritual Warfare?

    When tragedy hits we want to make sense of it all. We want to believe that this isn't the work of someone human. But that's the truth of it: this was the work of a human. He may have mental illness or some other issue of sorts, but that's all there was to it.

    As I understand it, spiritual warfare isn't what the New Apostolic Reformation makes it out to be. It's about one's personal struggle. I guess if one wanted to argue about spiritual warfare in this mess it's about how one reconciles horrible deeds and religion.
    my etsy store
    My blog


    "...leave me curled up in my ball,
    surrounded by plush, downy things,
    ill prepared, but willing,
    to descend."

  3. #3
    Member Pallas's Avatar
    Reputation
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Posts
    44
    Pronouns
    female
    Religion
    New Age Pantheist
    Phrase
    In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.

    Re: Spiritual Warfare?

    I think everybody feels the world they currently live in is getting darker because we just haven't experienced what it was like before. I agree we're reaching peak of tensions for our time, this definitely isn't the Golden Age. These terrible things happen every single day, sadly, it's just what the media decides to freak out about. I was particularly sympathetic to this incident today though, which is out of character for me. (I felt a great attachment and pain to it for some reason, perhaps the fact they were children) No attack is more justified than others, but this was very different than the usual high school student shooting fellow students.

    It's so unimaginable that I almost too want to say it had to be some sort of evil. Today in China a man stabbed 22 children outside of school, which is something most people didn't hear about.

    So I won't denounce what you have to say. It seems like some really bad vibes have been happening. It could be coincidence, people getting overly paranoid of 2012 or really some dark energy has been doing bad things lately. While these killings were announced I had many people close to me become ill as well all at once and unrelated. So you could be onto something. We all should send lots of positive energy to the earth!

  4. #4
    Sr. Member
    Reputation
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Posts
    296
    Pronouns
    male
    Religion
    Chaote: It varies.
    Location
    Reston

    Re: Spiritual Warfare?

    I believe Hanlon's Razor:

    Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
    Funny, when people are allowed to simply stew in mental illness and domestic violence, stupid things result - like shootings. This is a natural result of our unwillingness to meet the needs of our fellow citizens. Nothing more, nothing less.

    Obama? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrjWALYlH0A
    "A true initiation never ends"-Robert Anton Wilson
    http://www.hermetic.com/crowley
    "Reality has become a commodity"-Stephen Colbert 1/29/07
    http://www.chaosmatrix.org/
    "Sometimes, when you can't breathe, there are people there to breathe for you" - Aesop Rock
    http://upholdingmaat.wordpress.com

  5. #5
    Sr. Member Louisvillian's Avatar
    Reputation
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Posts
    296
    Pronouns
    male
    Religion
    Cultus Deorum Romanorum
    Location
    Kentucky

    Re: Spiritual Warfare?

    Quote Originally Posted by Avarin View Post
    Do you as pagans think there is a kind of a good force or an evil force?
    No. Good and evil are human creations, human terms. Nature and the gods do not follow such narrow, boxed-in things. They are outside of it. I don't know if I would say "above" it, but...significantly different enough that human morality and right-and-wrong do not apply.

  6. #6
    Live and learn anunitu's Avatar
    Reputation
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    11,309
    Religion
    stregheria

    Re: Spiritual Warfare?

    It has always seemed to me that the "Devil" is a convenient way to excuse human behavior,remember Flip Wilson's famous line "The devil made me do it" If one wants to not take responsibility for ones action,then you can always blame the evil on an outside force. Many religions give us an out if we desire,Confession of sin,and the slate is wiped clean at least in the eyes of the person and their church. Humans do bad things all by themselves and need no outside demon to set them on this course.

    Good and evil reside inside all of us,and it is a matter of our personal will and strength as to what we can/would do when under stress.
    MAGIC is MAGIC,black OR white or even blood RED

    all i ever wanted was a normal life and love.
    NO TERF EVER WE belong Too.
    don't stop the tears.let them flood your soul.




    http://www.paganforum.com/image.php?type=sigpic&userid=186&dateline=1330020104

    my new page here,let me know what you think.


    nothing but the shadow of what was

    witchvox
    http://www.witchvox.com/vu/vxposts.html

  7. #7
    Sr. Member toxicyarnglare's Avatar
    Reputation
    Join Date
    Dec 2012
    Posts
    329
    Religion
    Pagan
    Location
    US

    Re: Spiritual Warfare?

    I do believe there are negative and positive energies that affect our lives, but for the most part, I believe the human condition is that of being variable. It is imperfect. Once we become human, many people lose sight of what is important because our emotions can take control of us. It's within our very existence.

    That said, this school shooting was awful. Just plain awful. It shook me up quite a bit today, and my whole workplace was solemn as we began to hear about the tragedy. I nearly cried myself watching the news in our break room, and a few of my coworkers were blatantly crying, so I wouldn't put it past the president to cry to these events either. We may place the blame of these tragedies on many different things to try and rationalize what happened, but sometimes, what happens doesn't make sense. And that's what makes the natural world the way it is.

  8. #8
    sea witch thalassa's Avatar
    Reputation
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Posts
    11,256
    Religion
    relational theophysis and bioregional witchery
    Location
    coastal Georgia
    Phrase
    *a little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika*

    Re: Spiritual Warfare?

    Quote Originally Posted by toxicyarnglare View Post
    I nearly cried myself watching the news in our break room, and a few of my coworkers were blatantly crying, so I wouldn't put it past the president to cry to these events either.
    I don't know a single parent that managed to think about this with any seriousness today without crying.
    “You have never answered but you did not need to. If I stand at the ocean I can hear you with your thousand voices. Sometimes you shout, hilarious laughter that taunts all questions. Other nights you are silent as death, a mirror in which the stars show themselves. Then I think you want to tell me something, but you never do. Of course I know I have written letters to no-one. But what if I find a trident tomorrow?" ~~Letters to Poseidon, Cees Nooteboom

    “We still carry this primal relationship to the Earth within our consciousness, even if we have long forgotten it. It is a primal recognition of the wonder, beauty, and divine nature of the Earth. It is a felt reverence for all that exists. Once we bring this foundational quality into our consciousness, we will be able to respond to our present man-made crisis from a place of balance, in which our actions will be grounded in an attitude of respect for all of life. This is the nature of real sustainability.”
    ~~Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

    "We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes--one indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximal freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way."
    ~~Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History

    "Humans are not rational creatures. Now, logic and rationality are very helpful tools, but there’s also a place for embracing our subjectivity and thinking symbolically. Sometimes what our so-called higher thinking can’t or won’t see, our older, more primitive intuition will." John Beckett

    Pagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible

  9. #9
    Nihilistic Goddess Medusa's Avatar
    Reputation
    Join Date
    May 2005
    Posts
    10,292
    Religion
    LaVeyan Satanist
    Phrase
    A Clockwork orange

    Re: Spiritual Warfare?

    Quote Originally Posted by Avarin View Post

    (I dont know any of your political leanings but I am a conspiracy theorist not a dem/rep/other) And what disturbs me more is Obama's all to horrible acting and his fake crocodile tears about the whole incident.
    Oh hell no. No one has called you out on your nonsense? Well let me help you out with that. Obama is a PARENT of two children. Who are probably higher up on the danger level then most of the average kids. To think that he doesn't feel for those families or those children? What nonsense.
    Satan is my spirit animal

  10. #10
    Sr. Member Threshold's Avatar
    Reputation
    Join Date
    Nov 2012
    Posts
    131
    Religion
    Pantheism

    Re: Spiritual Warfare?

    I don't believe in spiritual warfare. I don't believe good/evil are entities.

    Duality is one of the languages of the human mind that helps us organize information. As mortal and finite, it is a survival mechanism, but I do not think it mirrors Ultimate Reality...but then this event IS human, so to apply good/evil is appropriate. Those are concepts that allow us to process it and react and integrate it.

    As humans, our day to day challenges are more important than Ultimate Reality. The warfare is in our own minds and hearts, but it is real enough. It matters. BUT, in my manner of thinking...just like other metaphors we use to order things in our head it is still useful to remember that these things ARE metaphors.

    I think much foolishness results when we fall in love with the metaphors and stop looking beyond them to what they were meant to represent. When we attribute such acts to the work of demons...many people stop right there and begin shadow boxing rather than addressing that which the metaphor of demons stands for.

    That is my experience.

    There have always been horribly antisocial people. Angry people. Fearful people. People who's rage manifests in stealing others of that which they themselves feel denied of.

    But now we have automatic weapons and large groups of people conveniently congregated for mass slaughter. We also have media to channel it into our homes and minds at a level that was previously impossible.

    But all throughout history such atrocities have taken place. So much of it in broad daylight, in front of people's faces, involving vast numbers of people both to execute it and as victims of execution. Every day many children die of horrible child abuse, starvation under governmental regimes that control food and aid supplies, in wars where they are handed automatic weapons and told to kill. This even is extra horrible to us because it reminds us that we are not immune. Wealth and "freedom" don't excuse us from reality.

Similar Threads

  1. Your spiritual experiences
    By Cobra in forum Catacombs
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: 09 Apr 2014, 15:38
  2. Spiritual family?
    By CR.Archer in forum Catacombs
    Replies: 8
    Last Post: 19 Nov 2013, 10:45
  3. Spiritual Overload
    By Jinx in forum Catacombs
    Replies: 10
    Last Post: 24 Sep 2013, 10:13
  4. Spiritual texts?
    By ths91 in forum Pagan Traditions & Discussion
    Replies: 17
    Last Post: 06 Apr 2012, 17:20
  5. Spiritual Path
    By TwinLeaf in forum Pagan Traditions & Discussion
    Replies: 8
    Last Post: 26 Jan 2012, 22:00

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •