Satanism

A new study is giving new meaning to the phrase “this city would eat you alive.” Scientists from the University of Miami say sharks are not avoiding the local shoreline. Instead, these predators are spending plenty of time quite close to the sights and sounds of the city.

On a global scale, the world’s coastlines are urbanizing at a rapid rate. So how is that impacting local aquatic life? Researchers decided to investigate by tracking the movements of sharks around the Miami shoreline. Considering the loud noises, chemicals, and bright lights, the research team fully expected the sharks to avoid South Beach like a bad habit. That’s not what they saw.

Researcher Neil Hammerschlag said, “Since other studies have shown that land predators are urban avoiders, we expected sharks to be too. We were surprised to find that the sharks spent so much time near the lights and sounds of the busy city, often close to shore, no matter the time of day.”

Plenty of animals, like pigeons or raccoons, thrive in cities. Meanwhile, “urban adaptors” spend some time in urban areas, but still largely rely on the great outdoors. On the other end of the spectrum, we find most land-based predators like wolves. These animals, called “urban avoiders,” want nothing to do with civilization.

Study authors once thought that sharks are urban avoiders, but ultimately concluded they act much more like urban adaptors. Sharks are closer to the beach than you might think.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Satan, the roaring lion, is also closer than you might think. He constantly prowls looking for the unwary to devour (1 Pet. 5:8) and we need to be aware of his schemes (2 Cor. 2:11).

Heath Adamson shares the story of his deliverance from the occult and addiction in an article in CT magazine. Even as a child, the spiritual world was real to him because of his involvement with the occult. Heath remembers watching a chair slide across the floor and a candle floating off the coffee table. His experiences with the supernatural led him on an all-consuming quest for answers.

Then in eighth grade a female classmate sensed in her heart that God was whispering Heath’s name. The whisper said something to the effect of, “Pray for that young man. You are going to marry him one day.” They struck up a relationship, but when the school year ended, they went their separate ways. She attended church, but Heath had regular encounters with the demonic realm, became addicted to numerous drugs, looked like a human skeleton, and lived life in quiet desperation.

Heath then writes:

In my junior year of high school, I asked my physics partner about religion and he invited me to church. I actually went and one Sunday night, I lay in my bedroom thinking about who God was and what the truth could be. I felt like God himself had come into my room. I remember saying out loud, “Jesus, you are who you say you are.” Deep inside, I believed he loved me the way I was. God’s presence was so real that I could almost feel him breathing in my face.

I told my physics partner I would go back to church with him on a Wednesday night. I said, “Remember when the pastor asked if people wanted to ask Jesus to forgive them. Well, I think I need to do that.” At the end of the service, a volunteer pastor said a prayer and shared the gospel. I was the only one who responded. That night, when I embraced the grace of Jesus, my body was supernaturally and instantaneously healed. My substance addictions vanished.

The very next day, I discovered something incredible in the mailbox. Inside was a handwritten letter from the girl who dared to listen in eighth grade when God touched her heart. It just happened to land in the mailbox the day after I met God. After I married that amazing girl, I found her prayer journals. That’s when I discovered how God used the prayers of her and others, often whispered when no one was watching, to help soften my hardened heart.

Looking back at my salvation, I am the product of a girl who dared to believe when God whispered, an invitation to church, and the power of prayer. And most of all the Savior who stepped into my darkness and, instead of turning away in horror, showed me who he was and who I was created to be.

While the United States is gradually becoming more spiritual and less religious, polls show that belief in the paranormal is on the rise. Polls conducted in recent decades by Gallup and the data firm YouGov suggest that roughly half of Americans believe demonic possession is real. The percentage who believe in the devil is even higher, and in fact has been growing: Gallup polls show that the number rose from 55 percent in 1990 to 70 percent in 2007.

But why is belief in demons on the rise when belief in Christian faith is declining? It seems that people seek spiritual fulfillment through the occult. Carlos Eire, a historian at Yale said, “As people’s participation in orthodox Christianity declines, there’s always been a surge in interest in the occult and the demonic. Today we’re seeing a hunger for contact with the supernatural.”

Adam Jortner, an expert on American history at Auburn University, agrees, “When the influence of the major institutional Churches is curbed, people begin to look for their own answers. ... At the same time that there has been a rebirth in magical thinking, American culture has become steeped in movies, TV shows, and other media about demons and demonic possession.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

This situation could actually lead many back to the church. As secularization creates a gap where people begin to seek out the demonic, more and more are returning to the church seeking freedom from demonic oppression in the form of exorcism.

The story has a semi-biblical tone: A man and woman together in a garden come across a serpent. The serpent awakens them to their own mortality and their lives are changed forever.But that's where the similarities end, because in this story, the man grabbed a shovel to decapitate the snake—a 4-foot-long Western diamondback rattlesnake—after it spooked his wife. And when he went to pick up the severed head, it sank its fangs into his flesh and released a near deadly dose of venom.

About two miles into the drive to the hospital her husband began having seizures, lost his vision and, unknown to them, began bleeding internally. So she met up with an ambulance and then a helicopter, which flew the 40-year-old to the hospital as his organs were already shutting down.

"A severed viper head certainly can deliver a dangerous bite, as can the unsecured head of a recently 'killed' snake," Harry Greene, a biology professor at Cornell University, told NPR.Greene suspects he was injected with a powerful dose of venom. Living snakes typically strike quickly and rear back from whatever threat they perceive, but because the one in this instance was dead, it most likely latched on until someone forcibly removed it.

Possible Preaching Angles: Temptation—dangers of; Satan—He is like a snake with a severed head. The cross has stripped him of life but he still has limited power to hurt and destroy.

A news story reported on an Irish priest and exorcist who is asking his superiors for help after noticing a dramatic increase in demonic activity. Fr. Pat Collins said he has been overwhelmed with the number of requests for exorcisms in Ireland. In an open letter, he urged his bishops to train more priests to deal with the demand. Collins said that it's "only in recent years that the demand has risen exponentially."

Collins' comments are on par with those of other exorcists throughout the world, including the International Association of Exorcists (IAE), a group of 400 Catholic leaders and priests, which has reported a dramatic increase in demonic activity in recent years. The IAE said the levels of demonic activity throughout the world had reached what they considered a "pastoral emergency."

Collins said that anyone who doesn't see the need for more exorcists is "out of touch with reality." He added,

What I'm finding out desperately, is people who in their own minds believe—rightly or wrongly—that they're afflicted by an evil spirit … [And] when they turn to the Church, the Church doesn't know what to do with them and they refer them on either to a psychologist [or another church leader] … and they do fall between the cracks and often are not helped.

In his book No Country for Old Men, award-winning author Cormac McCarthy has one of his characters, Sheriff Val, explain why he returned to his childhood belief in a real devil. The Sheriff said:

I think if you were Satan and you were sitting around trying to think up something that would just bring the human race to its knees what you would probably come up with is narcotics. Maybe he did. I told that to somebody at breakfast the other morning and they asked me if I believe in Satan. I said well that ain't the point. And they said I know but do you? I had to think about that. I guess as a boy I did. Come the middle years my belief I reckon had waned somewhat. Now I'm starting to lean back the other way. Satan explains a lot of things that otherwise don't have no explanation. We're not to me they don't.

Editor's Note: No Country for Old Men is also a movie, but this quote was taken from the book, not the film.

When farmer Bruce Grubb saw what he perceived to be a potential threat to the people and animals on his farm, he acted decisively. Only in hindsight did he realize his fears were unfounded.

Police in the area received a frantic call from Grubbs, explaining that there was a tiger on the loose on his property, which he noticed on his way to check on his pregnant cows. "I got the fright of my life," Bruce Grubb said, adding later: "I was worried it was going to eat all my cows before police managed to shoot it."

Grubbs call prompted authorities to send armed officers, also checking in with a local wildlife agency to ensure there had been no recent tiger escapes. After a 45-minute standoff, officers realized that the life-size tiger was, in fact, stuffed. They later returned with the tiger in tow, to be used as a workplace mascot.

Besides enduring some teasing on social media, the farmer took the episode in stride. "I drove up to it with my truck, and that's when I knew it was a toy," said Grubbs. "I feel a bit silly for calling the police, but I thought it was a real emergency."

Police inspector George Gordiner gave a gracious final word: "Our ultimate aim is to protect the public and keep our officers safe when faced with uncertain situations. Until you know exactly what you are dealing with, every option has to be considered … we appreciate that it was a false call made with genuine good intent."

Potential Preaching Angles: Don't be fooled about who or what your true enemy is. The enemy of our souls has no power over us. Don't be fooled by false teachers with illusions of authority.

Watching YouTube videos can teach you a lot of things. For British doctor Charlie Fry, it taught him how to survive a life-threatening shark attack. A beginner surfer, Fry found himself blindsided by a shark on a vacation to Australia and did exactly what he saw pro surfer Mick Fanning teach in a YouTube video-punch the shark square on the nose. "I thought it was a friend goofing around. I turned and I saw this shark come out of the water and breach its head," he said. "So I just punched it in the face with my left hand and then managed to scramble back on my board, shout at my friends and luckily a wave came, so I just sort of surfed the wave in."

Fry said afterwards that he didn't even notice until he got to shore that his arm was punctured and bleeding. "I didn't really notice it at the time because when you're surfing, all I'm thinking was: 'I'm about to die. I'm literally about to die,'" he said. Luckily, thanks to quick thinking and a productive YouTube search, the new surfer's injuries were not serious and he'll live to surf another wave.

Potential Preaching Angles: James 4:7 says, "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." 1 Peter 5:8 says that "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." Imagining Satan as a lion (or shark) to be avoided might be easy, but we must also view our daily temptations on equal ground: flee from them, before they devour you.

NPR (National Public Radio) journalist Scott Simon has always avoided using the word "evil" when covering terrible events around the globe. He claims he was "of a generation educated to believe that 'evil' was a cartoonish moral concept." But then he watched, with his daughters, some of the sickening images from the chemical weapons attack in Syria in April 2017 that killed scores of people, many of them children. Simon writes:

We watched in silence. I've covered a lot of wars, but could think of nothing to say to make any sense. Finally, one of our daughters asked, "Why would anyone do that?" I still avoid saying "evil" as a reporter. But as a parent, I've grown to feel it may be important to tell children about evil, as we struggle to explain cruel and incomprehensible behavior they may see not just in history. … but in our own times.

I've interviewed Romeo Dallaire, commanded U.N. peacekeeping forces in Rwanda in 1993 and 1994 when more than 800,000 Tutsi Rwandans were then slaughtered over three months. Dallaire said that what happened made him believe in evil, and even a force he called the devil. "I've negotiated with him," he told us, "shaken his hand. Yes. There is no doubt in my mind ... and the expression of evil to me is through the devil and the devil at work and possessing human beings and turning them into machines of destruction. ... And one of the evenings in my office, I was looking out the window and my senses felt that something was there with me that shifted me. I think that evil and good are playing themselves out and God is monitoring and looking at how we respond to it."

William Friedkin directed the 1973 movie The Exorcist. It became one of the highest-grossing films in history, was a major pop culture influence, and was labeled by critics and voters as one of the scariest movies of all time. But in an issue of Vanity Fair, Friedkin admitted that he had never witnessed an actual exorcism. So Friedkin, who considers himself an agnostic, traveled to Italy and watched a real exorcism. When he returned to the U.S. he showed the video to two of the world's leading neurosurgeons and researchers in California and to a group of prominent psychiatrists in New York.

After watching the video, Dr. Neil Martin, chief of neurosurgery at the UCLA Medical Center, said:

There's a major force at work within her somehow. I don't know the underlying origin of it … This doesn't seem to be hallucinations … It doesn't look like schizophrenia or epilepsy … I've done thousands of surgeries, on brain tumors, traumatic brain injuries, [etc.] … and I haven't seen this kind of consequence from any of those disorders. This goes beyond anything I've ever experienced—that's for certain.

Dr. Itzhak Fried, a neurosurgeon and clinical specialist in epilepsy surgery, seizure disorder :

It looks like something authentic. She is like a caged animal. I don't think there's a loss of consciousness or contact … I believe everything originates in the brain. So which part of the brain could serve this type of behavior? … [But] can I characterize it? Maybe. Can I treat it? No.

Friedkin was surprised by the neurosurgeons' response:

They wouldn't come out and say, "Of course this woman is possessed by Satan," but they seemed baffled as to how to define her ailment … I went to these doctors to try to get a rational, scientific explanation for what I had experienced. I thought they'd say, 'This is some sort of psychosomatic disorder having nothing to do with possession.' That's not what I came away with. Forty-five years after I directed The Exorcist, there's more acceptance of the possibility of possession than there was when I made the film.

The Washington Post ran a controversial op-ed piece titled, "As a psychiatrist, I diagnose mental illness. Also, I help spot demonic possession." The subtitle read, "How a scientist learned to work with exorcists." The author, Richard Gallagher, is a board-certified psychiatrist and a professor of clinical psychiatry at New York Medical College. Dr. Gallagher wrote:

For the past two-and-a-half decades and over several hundred consultations, I've helped clergy from multiple denominations and faiths to filter episodes of mental illness—which represent the overwhelming majority of cases—from, literally, the devil's work. It's an unlikely role for an academic physician, but I don't see these two aspects of my career in conflict. The same habits that shape what I do as a professor and psychiatrist—open-mindedness, respect for evidence and compassion for suffering people—led me to aid in the work of discerning attacks by what I believe are evil spirits and, just as critically, differentiating these extremely rare events from medical conditions.

Is it possible to be a sophisticated psychiatrist and believe that evil spirits are, however seldom, assailing humans? Most of my scientific colleagues and friends say no, because of their frequent contact with patients who are deluded about demons, their general skepticism of the supernatural, and their commitment to employ only standard, peer-reviewed treatments that do not potentially mislead (a definite risk) or harm vulnerable patients. But careful observation of the evidence presented to me in my career has led me to believe that certain extremely uncommon cases can be explained no other way.

So far the article has generated nearly 3,000 comments, mostly from people whose worldview does not permit the reality of demon possession or even the existence of demons.

While California finds itself in the middle of a severe draught, farmers are using any method possible to secure water, even "witches." Water witches are so called because of their alleged ability to find water springs buried in the earth without the use of technology. "Water witches have been a fixture in California agriculture for about as long as people here can remember. Everyone knows of someone who's used one or a person who had 'the gift' or at least thought they did. Even John Steinbeck immortalized the role of the dowser in his seminal novel East of Eden, set in California's Salinas Valley."

While many scientists object to the idea that these "dowsers" have any kind of actual talent or gift, the tradition continues. When people get desperate for help they will turn to anything, even a man walking around an orchard with a stick, for help.

In his book Organic Church, Neil Cole describes a number of missional communities that go where the people are, rather than have the people come to them. Such church communities meet in various places, including pubs, community centers, and simple living rooms. One particular church Cole describes meets in a coffeehouse. After the small band of people experienced some growth, they immediately decided to send out their own missionaries to start a church in another coffeehouse called Portfolios. Cole describes Portfolios as "a coven for witches, warlocks, Satanists, and vampires [people who have decided to live life according to the typical vampire narrative—sleeping in coffins, filing their teeth to the point of being fangs, and only coming out at night]." Despite the darker setting, Portfolio's soon became the site of surprising kingdom growth. Cole writes:

The first person to become a Christian at Portfolios was Manuel. Tim, one of our team members, was an excellent evangelist. He sat across the table from Manuel and opened his Bible to Romans 6:23; he gave it to Manuel to read for himself. Just then, Joey, a recruiter for the occult and part of the coven, came and sat next to Manuel. Joey likes to talk and has a foul mouth, so Tim prayed silently, "Lord, keep his ears open and his mouth closed." Joey didn't say a word.

Then Jack came and sat on the other side of Manuel. Jack is an atheist philosopher who loves to talk but doesn't ever get very far. Tim prayed the same silent prayer, and Jack didn't say a word.

Finally, "Psycho Saul" came up behind Tim. Psycho Saul is the leader of the vampires. He is tall, thin, and pale, and he dresses all in black with a long black trench coat and long frizzy hair down his back. Saul leaned over and whispered to Tim, "I just want you to know that I have my sword with me." Tim answered, "Oh, that's nice; I have mine, too," pointing to his Bible. "Manuel is reading it now." Then Psycho Saul leaned over again and said, "No. I really do have my sword." And he opened his trench coat and there, handing from his belt, was a double-edged sword. Tim prayed silently again, "Lord, keep his ears open and his mouth closed, and don't let him cut my head off." …

Manuel glances up from his reading at that moment with a confused look on his face. He read it again, and suddenly the lights went on in his eyes and a smile came across his face. He understood that the wages of his sin was death, "but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord." At that moment, Joey got up to leave. Jack rose from the table and walked away, and Psycho Saul took his sword and left.

From that moment, Portfolios became holy ground. Manuel was baptized at a beach within a week. Within a few weeks he was baptizing his first convert at the same beach. He baptized another convert a few weeks after that. Within a short time, a second church was started from converts from Portfolios. Then, a short time later, a third was started out of the rich, dark soil of this pocket of people.

Selfishness and immorality are far more consistent with Satan's strategies than drinking blood or drawing pentagrams.