The Cult Chronicles/Demons and Devils, Oh My!

Where it all began

Have you ever seen a demon or felt the presence of the devil in your room? No?Do you believe in demons? Not sure? If I share a demon tale with you will it change your mind about their existence?

Back in the day, almost everyone seemed to believe in demons, a dark spiritual parallel world where evil spirits did their work of casting spells, drawing us into the occult, weakening our resolve to do good, and tempting us with perversions.

Needless to say, I grew up with demons all around me. Vivid tales designed to terrorize were my bedtime stories. My parents painted a picture of a spirit world that was as real as the temporary world where I resided.

These days, I seem to be meeting or reading about more people who don’t believe in demons, but it’s surprising how many still do.

In fact, people often seem more willing to accept a demon story than say a scientific study of almost any kind.

Recently, I read the news story Right-Wing Pastor Greg Locke Organizes ‘Massive’ Book Burning and memories flooded my brain.

Unless you’re a reader not just a title skimmer, you won’t catch the rest of the story. And, unless you’ve been in a cult, the title won’t set off warning bells of a specific kind. You’ll have no idea how bizarre human behavior can become under the right circumstances. Yes, the preacher man will be burning books but he’ll also be burning the gateway to the demon world, books being only one avenue. There’s a whole list of items that he was determined to burn in order to close that portal to hell.

Witchcraft and demonic possession are still very much alive among his cult of followers.

Needless to say, my everyday life as a kid was as much about that unseen world of demons and devils as it was about fixing lunch or doing my homework. Just reading the title of the news story set off alarms. Lots of things can trigger memories, but if you’re a cult survivor, memories often result in reactivating the emotional response even pain in our bodies that we initially experienced. I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD. Something I rarely mention to people.

My experience has been, however, that many people have no point of reference for my stories. They simply can’t relate and as is normally the case when humans can’t relate, they move on.

So, while many of my peers were dating, going to school dances, dressing for the prom, buying pretty clothes from the Sears catalogue, playing board games, riding their bikes, hanging out with friends, I was sequestered in a permanent lockdown situation, guarded against the rest of the temporal world but also constantly aware that I could never get away from the demon world.

Do you need a few examples of just how much demons occupied my thoughts?

Fine, here goes. I promise you, however, that back in the day, there wasn’t one person that I knew who would have discredited my stories entirely. They would listen with wide eyes, highly hesitant to dispel these superstitious tales.

Once, my dad told my sisters and I that our grandmother was demon possessed.

He was certain that the demon had left her body to inhabit the body of her Manchester Terrier named Inky. Inky was old and very thin. In the dim lights of the room his eyes appeared to glow as our dad revealed his eery suspicions. We loved our grandmother and Inky. This proclamation tore at my very fiber of beingness. If my own grandmother could be demon possessed, the woman who baked cookies and welcomed me into her home, then no one was safe.

We were admonished in our adolescence that when undressing for bed at night to do it quickly as demons were watching.

They were hoping to lie with us. In fact, it was suggested that undressing beneath our long nightgowns was a safety measure we should take. Yes, demons and sexual desire often worked hand-in-hand. Sex was inherently bad. The brethren, I eventually found out, generally couldn’t resist, often resulting in aberrational and deviant behaviors.

My mother once spotted the devil in our basement as she descended the stairs to do the laundry.

He was lurking in the back near the coal room just beyond our furnace. From that day forward, I was afraid to enter the basement, even though that’s where our playroom was located.

We were always praying to God to protect us from the devil, often dramatically so.

Picture the whole family kneeled on the living room carpet as my dad raised his hands to the heavens pleading for his god to send a band of angels to surround us.

It seemed no matter how much we might want to serve god, the deck of cards were stacked against us.

The demon world was inhabited by a legion of devils, all intent on stealing our souls. This was the essence of our bedtime stories. Once, my mom and dad woke me up in the middle of the night, eyes wide, wild desperation in their voices as they relayed a message from god to me. If I didn’t give in to God’s will that very night, he would leave me forever and if I lived to a hundred never call upon me again. I was twelve and they were convinced that I was attracted to the outside world, unwilling to follow a godly path. Needless to say, having been awakened from a deep sleep at the witching hour with the hallway light casting shadows into my room, the sound of terror in my parent’s voices sent chills down my spine.

I rolled out of bed onto my knees, weeping and repented.

Of course, ouija boards and tarot cards were tools of the devil. Seances were of the occult. But so was music and books and worldly attire. The mainstream world was Lucifer’s invention, deliberately designed to woo us into his realm of sensual pleasures, supplanting our virtuous thoughts with misinformation designed to destroy our souls.

We weren’t allowed to read books or watch movies or listen to the radio, because the devil used all of that to warp our thinking.

We were only to listen to our illustrious leader. Oh, and I was supposedly extra fortunate because my dad was the leader of the cult. He was the chosen one. God had handpicked him as the final prophet of the last days. The truth had been lost from the face of the earth and God was rallying one last call to salvation before the rapture of the believers took place and the sinners were left behind to suffer the great tribulations.

How does a child find their way out of such a plight? How was it even possible to think for one’s self?

Furthermore, I never met another human in all those hard times who could look at me and say …

“Teresa, there is no such thing as demons. There is no god listening to your prayers. Lucifer and God are not fighting over your soul, because they don’t exist.”

That was never an option. How different things might have been for me.

Instead, I left the cult thinking that I didn’t have the strength to live a righteous life and that the devil had won. My family disowned me. I was eighteen with no money, driver’s license, car, job, and civilian friends trying to establish a “normal” life for myself.

Demons continued to visit me at night for many years.

It took time and effort to rewire my brain which had been subjected to heavy indoctrination for years. And, I did it without any real support because deep down inside everyone I met were still afraid that maybe, just maybe there really was a parallel universe with demons and devils.

All these years later, a news story suddenly reminds me how susceptible our brains are to our culture’s stories.

With all the progress that has been made, the stories that our fathers, mothers, grandparents, great grandparents, great great grandparents, ministers, clergy, books, and movies have told us have had a lasting effect. We’re superstitious, easily confused, readily willing to latch on to the absurd, and ripe to be exploited by the snake oil salesmen who are packing a bunch of Bibles in the trunk and selling empty promises drenched in fear to anyone overwhelmed by the challenges of being alive.

We’re cavemen with cell phones.

We still live in a superstitious world, but I long for a Star Trek world instead. That’s what I needed years ago. I needed a Spock. I needed someone, anyone, who could think beyond the cultural limitations of a demon possessed mentality, but there was no one to be found.

Everyone was either a convert or hedging their bets.

That’s one reason why cult leaders always find a following. There’s still too many brains wired to respond emotionally not logically to our cultural stories.

And, there’s always an opportunist waiting in the wings to capitalize on our fears.

Teresa Roberts is a retired educator, author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.