Sabbatical, Part 2

 

Listen to audio

continued...

So, I have a cat's skull in a cigar box on my back porch. This is not as creepy as it sounds. I found it in an old shed on my property which is full of junk, but which is also falling down. There were a few other bones scattered nearby, but not all of them. So, my plan is that, as I slowly work on cleaning out that shed and tearing it down, I will try to collect all the bones and give them a proper burial.

One night, I was sitting on the porch reading a book, when I started to hear a clicking or tapping sound which I could not identify. The harder I listened, the more it began to sound like teeth chattering. As soon as I processed that thought, I slowly turned my head toward the cigar box. Yes, that's where it was coming from. I rolled my eyes, projected the thought,
"That is disrespectful,"
and carried on as if nothing had happened.

Another night, my old friend, "Laney", had come to spend the night with me. (Yes, she was aware of the situation here.) We went to a Scottish festival the following day. Neither of us got any sleep that night, however. I had left the shades on my bedroom windows up. I don't usually do that, but it was a nice night. The moonlight was streaming in beautifully.

While we were trying to sleep --I in my bedroom, and she on the sofa-- one of my cats repeatedly ran back and forth between the two bedroom windows. He was crying pitifully. He looked as if he saw something outside that was very frightening. I know that really happened. Laney called out to me, asking if he was okay, and what he was crying about.
Here's the part that might not have actually happened:
As he was "crying," it sounded, to me,  like words.
It sounded as if he said, to whatever was outside,
"I know her, but I'm not gonna say anything else about her."
I think that was a hallucination. I think.

Anyway, we somehow, miraculously, got up early and made it to the festival. Demon was chattering away the entire time, as usual. I think I did pretty well at not letting on that anything was out of the ordinary; and I didn't hate being in a crowd that much at all, for a change. At one point, Laney and I were eating some barbecue and watching a woman clog. (It's a noisy dance, similar to tap dancing.)
Demon said,
"Yeah, you hardwood floor warriors, trying to give Satan a headache."
I nearly laughed out loud about that one.

Then, as Laney and I were watching a family's parade, and commenting to each other that some of the guys were pretty cute, demon said,

"Kilts on parade!
Cute suits displayed!"

It was to the tune of "Bulls on Parade" by Rage Against the Machine. But, that one was not as funny, because that one was a double entendre. 'Cute suits' is us, to demons.

As I mentioned, I've been applying for jobs and doing some work from home. Demon has been cracking jokes accordingly. One of the jobs I did involved writing some lesson plans for a teacher. Once I began work on that project, I noticed a peculiar new pattern emerge in demon's speech.
He would say things like,

"Fuck yourself.
Yes, you should fuck yourself, if you think that you can just do anything you want to do, and not love demons."

or

"Blog post mini-soup.
Yes, that was not that bad of a blog post you used to write. Satan says you do beautiful word choices."

It wouldn't make sense, as is typical, but it sounded like he was trying to... announce a topic? As I pondered this, demon explained,
"So what.
Yeah, so what if this demon announces a topic and then lectures you on it?"

One day, as I was applying for jobs, out of nowhere, I heard demon say,
"What? What do you want? This is The Department of Demons. What do you want? What is your problem? Why do you keep calling The Department of Demons?"
I had to laugh about that one, too. I said (thought),
"Oh? What's this? You got a job?"
Demon replied,
"Yes, this demon got a job post. So what? The Department of Demons is not that good at customer service, but we always deliver our products on time."

Another day, as I was updating my resume, demon, who had been quiet for a while, said,
"Do they know about your power...
[long pause]
point... [pause]
proficiency?"
PowerPoint proficiency. That one was a groaner.

Yet another day, I was doing some research, and using a website which is about the polar opposite of anything you'd ever call 'user-friendly.' I was frustrated. Demon came along and commented,
"Martin Luther King Jr...
could have built a better website than that...
and they didn't even have computers when he was alive."
I had to laugh about that one too.

As I was supposed to be on a vacation of sorts, one day I decided to binge-watch the entire Twilight series. Let's just say that it hit me differently this time, from when I first watched it years ago. Apparently, demon enjoyed it. During one of the battle scenes, he exclaimed,
"Motherlover! You do not want to order a pizza from the Cullen family! No! Not unless you want blood as the sauce, and body parts as the toppings!"
Demon had started this thing about "truth soup." It's a new catchphrase. If someone is telling the truth, they're "spraying truth soup." I had never thought about what the opposite of truth soup would be. Well, I found out during Breaking Dawn. Demon commented,
"That Irina, she spray everybody with lye (lie) soap!"
*groan*

I did do some research during this sabbatical, on a quasi-related topic; Indian burial mounds. It's a long story, for another day, about why that's related to demons; but, for now, suffice it to say that some people believe that the giants (or Nephilim), some of whom became demons, were buried in them.
So, that said, I tried playing piano for the first time in many years. I have sheet music for "Shall We Gather at the River?"
If you don't know it, it's a very oldtime Southern Baptist song. The refrain is:

Shall we gather at the river?
The beautiful, the beautiful river?
Gather with the saints at the river,
that flows by the throne of God.

So, I'm playing this song, poorly; and I'm trying to sing it to myself in my head to keep the correct rhythm, when suddenly I hear:

"...Gather with the haints at the river,
that flows by the Nephilim mound."

another time, he said,

"...by the throne of Zod."

In mid-July, I participated in a scientific study about psychics. I don't think I'm at liberty to tell you much specific information about it, because the research facility is keeping the identities of participants anonymous. But, since I am anonymous anyway, however, I will say simply that the researchers were looking for common dna markers among self-reported psychics; and that I won't get individual results. I will have to wait until a paper on the findings is published and read it for myself.

I turned back to Science, to a degree, because I reasoned that if prayer is not going to remove this problem, I suppose I'll just have to figure out how to do it myself. (Like everything else!) I chose that study to participate in because at least those researchers are studying the right sorts of things. The idiocy surrounding this topic --in all sectors-- is truly baffling.

There are plenty of academics out there who are researching psychic abilities, but nearly all of them fall into either one of two categories. There are the ones who are trying to prove that psychic abilities are mental illnesses, and particularly that mediumship and telepathy are actually schizophrenia. Well, guess what? They're exactly right --about the 'this is schizophrenia' part. I'm convinced of that now. But they're exactly wrong in their assumption that schizophrenia is a mental illness; but they're far too arrogant to ever admit that something that can't be documented and proven using the scientific method (like demons) could possibly be true. So, fuck those guys.

The other group are the true believers; but they are only interested in testing psychic abilities by making psychics perform parlor tricks. They conduct fruitless and stupid experiments like, 'Guess the symbol on the back of this card.' Then they produce meaningless and worthless results, like, '20% of the psychics we tested were accurate at rates at least 10% higher than chance.'
So what? Who cares? That probably only means that their demons like them. Fuck those guys too.

I only found two groups who are testing anything that actually should be tested, and that might actually produce some useful results. (I hate scientists.) The group I volunteered for might actually pinpoint some genetic mutation that all us freaks have in common. And just maybe, that discovery could lend a clue as to how to fix it. There was another group who were scanning the brains of psychics. That might also be a worthwhile pursuit; but they are in another state, and I have stuff to do.

I thought I'd check in with the New Agers again, too, while I was exploring all my options. Among the plethora of books about how to gain psychic abilities, I found one book which was supposed to contain a chapter about closing your chakras --which is, according to that book, supposed to tone down psychic abilities. It was not at all helpful. YouTube is the same way. Every other video on there is about how to increase psychic abilities. I found only one YouTube psychic who has anything to say at all about how to turn it off. Isn't that telling? Anyway, her method was basically to envision a switch being turned off, and then believe that it's off. I guess her demons must like her too; because if that would work, then all my exorcisms and prayers and rebukings, which I truly believed would work (at first, anyway) would have worked. So, fuck the New Agers too.

Back to demon, he took a turn for the nasty once more, not very long at all after those comedic --or merely annoying-- performances. Apparently he returned to his strategy of messing with my family and our pets. I suppose he has accepted the fact that he can't scare me; so, he has to resort to another form of torment.

In July, my cousin Stephanie (whom, if you'll recall from previous posts, has also experienced hauntings and exhibited clairaudience) received her first telepathic message. She sneezed, and the demon said (in her head),
"Bless you."
She also heard a phone ring that had not actually rang, and felt someone breathing on her face when no one was around. Additionally, in early July, Stephanie adopted two dogs; a puppy and an older dog. She told me that she had noticed more paranormal activity in her house since acquiring the dogs, and that she knew that sometimes the older one was seeing something that she did not see.

Stephanie told me that via text message, because I had not seen her, at that point, in over a year. She was planning to bring her family on a camping trip on my family's property.  (We live in the mountains.) Of course, I was invited; but we both wondered what would happen when we got together for the first time since the majority of this shit had transpired.

Well, it was a hoot.

...to be continued