Originally Posted by
peaceandgrace 
As I progress further into my spirituality and my faith, I continue to wonder about the origins of evil. What is evil? How does it manifest itself?
I have sensed the presence of pure evil in my AS. Once was when he was 19 and I drug him back home after he became psychotic in a hell hole of an apartment in our state Capital.
His psychosis was drug induced, and maybe related to mental illness. Who knows. But, he hugged me that first night he came home and said he had to keep telling the voices in his head to shut up. As he hugged me, he yelled "SHUT UP!" to his voices and his voice was what I call evil. I was chilled to the bone.
I have felt evil in the poisonous words he has emailed me when he is in the deep throes of his addiction. It's as if the evil comes off of the page.
Does anyone know what I am sensing? I've seen his eyes dead and malevolent.
Is this what is meant by the word evil? I know serial killers and rapists are evil, as are governments who commit genocide. That isn't hard to fathom.
But, do y'all believe drugs have the ability to create that evil presence I've felt so very often in my AS?
with compassion,
Peaceandgrace
Dear Peaceandgrace: I've had this in the back of my mind for a few weeks now - and it relates directly to your post above. I've been kind of afraid to speak of it as it is borderline "whackadoodle". But I'll just put it on the table. When my AS was in the ICU, the night after he was extubated, he was completely unable to sleep in spite of the heavy doses of ativan every hour (they were doing a withdrawal protocol). He was hallucinating constantly and whenever he would close his eyes as if to drift off, they would immediately pop back open as if he had seen something frightening. This continued on for 48 hours. I know because I was there. At one point he tried to speak to me, but his voice was so raspy and whispery (due to being on the vent previously) - that I had to move my ear very close to his lips to try to understand what he was saying - I still don't know what he said, but I'll never forget the "presence" and the malevolent deadness in his eyes. The wry smile on his face was straight out of the Exorcist movie. I'm not kidding. I thought he said something like "this is my demon face" or "want to see my demon?". I couldn't really hear his voice. Anyway, I grabbed his face in my hands and commanded the presence to "depart from my son in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ".
Nothing dramatic happened. Everything remained the same although the "presence" never showed itself again. I remembered the story about the disciples that couldn't cast out a certain demon and inquired of Jesus as to why, and He said that "this kind only comes out with fasting and prayer" or something like that. Since we were in a Catholic hospital (perchance - it happened to be the assigned trauma center - none of the family is Catholic), a priest came by the first night. He said, somewhat matter of factly, something about demons controlling Js behavior. To be honest, I wasn't really listening that hard, as I was so traumatized by the horrific events. I wish I had asked him to pray for J - specifically, but this was before the extubation and the event I described above.
I honestly don't know how I feel about all of this. Most of the Christians that I have known that believe in demons and regularly pray against them, have been like I mentioned above, a bit "whackadoodle" and so I have tended to reserve judgement on the whole matter. I believe there are definitely forces of good and evil in a constant conflict that we can't see, all around us, but my understanding of this is fuzzy at best and I don't delve into it much. I also worry that it will become a distraction for the true work of growing in faith love and obedience, which is the real goal, and which ultimately vanquishes evil in ones life.
Anyway, I am simply thinking out loud with my morning coffee and warm puppy curled up beside me. I had a long 13 hour shift at my work yesterday, and am off today, so am being a bit of a bum.
Thanks for reading (way too long, sorry). 70X7