BAHAHAHA! Yeah, my dad LOVED to "chat" with them, aka try to convert them while they tried to convert us, lol. They usually caught on after about half an hour, when we were just getting started. Oof.
My mom once literally chased the JW ladies down the street to invite them in for tea and convert them. We were legit blacklisted from both the JW and Mormon missionaries after my mom had one of the Mormon boys rethinking his faith after an hour talking to her.
My partner went out on the porch in his boxer shorts when some JWs knocked on the door. He was very friendly and animated. They were polite. He's a big hairy monster except for his head. We're still on the JW blacklist more than 15 years later.
I'm a pro tarot reader. The other night I was set up at a public park, having a great night, until 3 fundies came up to my table, sat down, and started "witnessing to me" (berating, insulting, accusing me, telling stories of "allowing demons in"). I'm a survivor of religioud trauma. The was so triggering, I packed up and left.
That pisses me off so bad that I want to come up with a seriously good comeback. But I'd do the same thing. In my imagination... I would say something like, "If you want my time, you're paying for it." Then charge them to evangelize me while I either ignore them or occasionally drop some deconstruction knowledge on them. Real me? I'm fucking out of here. Emotionally unsafe feeling to the max.
I had a relative a few years ago go on Facebook and condemn everyone for letting their children go trick or treating. He then extolled his virtues for taking his children to the harvest festival at their church instead. What's more heathen than a HARVEST festival?
Haha, "we celebrate Samhain (pagan harvest festival) rather than All Hallows Eve (day before All Hallows/Saints Day, a Christian celebration of people so #Christian they get a halo)." I do love trying to work out the mental gymnastics behind this....
@@Waspinmymind As long as you don't associate anything occult or religious (in a pagan sense) to it, I don't think there's anything wrong with it (for Christians, I mean). Birthdays predate Christianity, but I don't know any Christian who has problems with celebrating them (but they probably exist).
I grew up in a Christian family where we celebrated halloween and loved to watch horror movies. My dad was the head elder of his church and thought Knott's scary farm was cool. He would take my mom to horror movies and took me to horror movies after she died and got me addicted to horror movies. So when someone told him that halloween was evil he thought it was strange. I was taught that demons could not get to Christians because they had the Holy Spirit. I grew up never fearing demons and thought it was strange that people were into spiritual warfare and label all sin as demonic instead of taking responsibility for their own sin.
This. I grew up in a faith which doesn't believe in demons, the devil or any sort of spiritual warfare, and I was also always taught that the evil which people do comes from their own choices and free will. So, FWIW, it also always seemed to me like a way for people to avoid accountability and taking responsibility for their own actions by just blaming it on demons.
Me too. Growing up as a conservative Christian we always celebrated Halloween, even when we lived in Indonesia, where only our group of foreigners participated. We were asked to avoid costumes that might make the Indonesian neighbors think we were worshipping demons as they did (animist cultures). So avoid witches and ghosts, but there was a logical reason behind it.
For a long time one of the main reasons I was CERTAIN of Christianity was an experience with demons in early childhood. I KNEW demons existed because I had seen them hovering over my crib as a toddler, leering down at me. Who wouldn't believe after an experience like that? It wasn't until I started having night terrors as an adult that I realized the truth.
@@noahbossier1131 I forget the formal term for it but there's a stage between sleeping and waking some people can get caught in that includes many characteristics of REM or dream sleep: images, paralysis, excited brain activity, often fear. This has taken the blame for many "experiences" of demons, night hags, and alien abductions, and has been shown to be responsible in sleep labs. Any imagery is as real as a very vivid dream and seems to be drawn primarily from cultural/religious stories (hence huge-eyed greys, figures kneeling on chests, and demons at bedside). Some mind state like sleep paralysis.
@@TheNarrowGate101 the truth that human brains hallucinate all kinds of stuff on a fairly normal basis. Everyone with a brain sees and hears things that have no source, because it is better for your survival to be paranoid than it is to be oblivious. People who don't perceive dangerous predators, or stalking strangers intent on murder don't survive to pass on their bad perceptions.
I used to suffer from sleep paralysis, and I can absolutely 100% believe that, depending on people's various belief systems, sleep paralysis can easily be interpreted as demonic presences, alien abductions, MK Ultra mind control, etc. I've had experiences of seeing tall, pale, faceless figures surround my bed, feeling myself levitate and float down the hall outside my bedroom, having cold skeletal hands wrap around my ankles and yank me off the edge of the bed, and so on...every time, it's inexpressibly terrifying beyond belief, but nonetheless I always snap awake and am in my bed, alone, right in the same place that I was. It was years before I spoke to a doctor who diagnosed it as sleep paralysis and told me it's a perfectly normal (albeit terrifying) experience. But I've never stopped thinking of just how easily I could have wrapped the whole experience in a magical, spiritual or conspiratorial framework, and I just feel really lucky that my upbringing was such that I never considered that it was anything but really weird nightmares.
As a child, I used to hallucinate "demons", fire, hell, dead pets, my parents, etc at night. I thought I was seeing real demons who were there to drag me off to hell for thinking my friend of the same gender was hot. I didn't realize until I was older that I was just experiencing some sort of vivid hallucination.
I was not a fundie. We were in church every Sunday and my parents were very religious but we still went trick-or-treating, and our church even had a Halloween party with a costume contest. The one thing we weren’t allowed to do was dress up as anything scary or evil, including witches. My grandmother in particular was very against witches and would not even let us watch Sabrina the Teenage witch at her house. She definitely believed in demons and spiritual warfare and believed that Harry Potter was causing children to turn to devil worship. She was and still is a nut job. Now that I’m an adult, I completely embrace witches, since the term witch has been used by the patriarchy for centuries to punish women simply for being women. If my daughter wants to be a witch for Halloween, I’ll fully support it.
@@ntrlnwrmz how do people like you find threads like this? Do you even watch the video, or do you just troll the comments looking for people to mess with? Do you really believe that a totally unsupported assertion about reality--in this case an assertion that cant be backed up with evidence because none exists--is supposed to be persuasive to the OP or others reading the comments? Or, do you make comments like this just to get off on the possibility that you can lightly trigger someone's religious trauma and ruin their day? Where do folks like you _come_ from??
You start by saying you were not a fundie, but it sounds like maybe your grandma was? It jumped out at me, this statement, and then stories that sound quite like 'fundamentalist' culture, but perhaps your grandma just had a 'thing' about witches? I'm glad your daughter isn't growing up in fear of 'witches,' that's a messed up thing to put on a kid in my opinion! I remember growing up with a Catholic grandma, who I loved to tell everything to, and to talk to about the world in general, but how awkward it could be as a kid when her social values clashed with those of my immediate family... she was very diplomatic, and never tried to change my mind, but also made it clear when she couldn't agree with me about something. It's a level of tact I gave up trying to attain years ago! Ironically, I ended up entering into full communion w the RCC as an adult, a few years before that grandma died; but I am still a very liberal Catholic. And, as it should be for everyone, a lot of my values changed and evolved as I grew up...
Halloween has always been a sore spot for me. It's always been my favorite holiday. We moved down to South Carolina and got involved with Bob Jones University when I was 8. Halloween was one of many harmless things that was suddenly completely verboten. I followed most of the new rules my parents suddenly had without protest out of pure fear, but Halloween was one thing I absolutely would not give up. I celebrated privately for years, at first just with a string of lights, a few of our decorations from up north, and a bag of candy corn. As I got older I started to build my own secret horror movie collection, which naturally factored in to my celebrations. My parents just moved out of state a few months ago and my brothers and I took over their old place, so I plan to eventually take full advantage of the 1/4 acre we're renting and have the kind of Halloween display that will make my neighbors complain about the excessiveness of it.
Oh my, I was taught to say “Get Behind me…”etc until I thought, Wait, What? Why am I addressing any evil spirit verbally?? Im comfortable enough in my Christian world, with the St Michael prayer and Rosary as my “protection”. Peace and Love, y’all.
This reminds me of a really old song that my mom sang (she passed away last year but I still have recordings she made of her singing her favorite songs). The lyrics are: Well, I should have been home hours ago I always lose track of the time I'll just hold up this wall while I try to recall A thought from the back of my mind Oh yeah I remember, it began with a wink When you caught me looking at you So don't ask me if you can buy me a drink I know what you're trying to do Lead me not into temptation I already know the road all too well Lead me not into temptation I can find it all by myself I've the best of intentions, Lord, I mean to be good And stick to the path I should go But seems the harder I try, the further I slide 'Til I'm lost down that same dead end road Now you're a good lookin' thing, and that must be the best Proposition that I've had all day But there's no need for subtlety, darlin', just get thee Behind me and I'll show you the way Lead me not into temptation I already know the road all too well Lead me not into temptation I can find it all by myself
I relate to this alot. My mother claimed to have seen several demons throughout my childhood. I spent alot of time in fear and creating reasons for this or that to be a sign of an evil spirit...pretty sad when I think about it. I was always told to say the name 'Jesus' out loud cause the demons were scared of the name Jesus or something lol
I read as a kid that there's a Chinese goddess (I confess almost total ignorance of Chinese religious tradition, I just learned this one idea from a New Agey neo-pagan book full of miscellaneous goddesses from all over the world and all through time) who, when someone who believes in her says her name out loud, would bring protection to them and ease the believer's fears. I tried saying her name myself sometimes when I was scared as a kid, but not being acquainted w the deity in question, not to mention having an actual anxiety disorder, it didn't help much (and while it probably wouldn't matter, I was almost certainly pronouncing the name wrong too!)... as it happens, I was raised _mostly_ liberal protestant (my dad was a sort of eclectic spiritual agnostic though -- he's the one who got me the goddess book), and ironically, I think the idea of saying the name of Jesus out loud to comfort myself would have felt kind of 'idolatrous?' when I was young? I wouldn't have used that word when I was a kid, but the idea sounded uncomfortable and 'wrong' to me. Funny how that works, and how _many_ different interpretations of Christianity there are! I was never taught to believe in demons or the devil, only human evil... I have had experiences that make me wonder if there _might_ be an 'unseen realm' that some people are sensitive to, but I can't help being very skeptical of those experiences... and ultimately, if there _is_ such a realm, it doesn't seem to effect this world enough for it to be all that important! I remember growing up in fear too, mostly from the anxiety, and it sounds from your comment like you have detached yourself from some of the scarier teachings ofyour childhood... I hope things are easier and better for you now, it sucks to be constantly looking over your shoulder, whatever the cause! Sorry to ramble, your comment just got me thinking I guess!
And to think, even though my parents were fairly conservative Christians when I was growing up, when I had a nightmare, I got a spoonful of honey. Mom called it "nightmare medicine". It worked. They attend a much more liberal church now and I am non practicing.
I loved Halloween growing up, but then we went to a Pentecostal church where it was "the devil's holiday." I'll never forget my mom saying we got weird looks when the church van dropped us off early on in my time there and we had Halloween decorations up. I didn't really celebrate Halloween again until I was an adult. Throughout the years, I'd try to say it's fine, but grown adults would argue that it was inviting demons in. The pastor swore that witches were coming in to take photos of him in service to cast spells on him. (I never saw them, and I love how magic is both fake and real in their world.)
My halloween memories as a fellow fundie included handing out tracts and using trick or treating to “meet the neighbors” so we could try to evangelize to them….as a teenager i went to “journey to hell” christian haunted houses which were usually a story about someone killed in a car accident (by a drunk driver of course) and their afterlife experience.
@@JP2GiannaT I love love love that episode!! That's exactly what I was thinking of when I read this comment, too! Hehehe! "Grandpa's eating the baby!" "Sorry son, we can't do anything about it because EVOLUTION!" LOLOLOL!
There's a documentary out there that I think is called "Hell House," and it actually follows a fundie youth group as they create and open one of those haunted hell houses! It's really good, IIRC, but also pretty darned disturbing and gory, as well as containing some truly shocking misinformation about things like contraception, abortion, premarital sex, drugs, etc. Trigger warning: Watching it made me sooooo grateful to have grown up in a faith that didn't believe in demons or hell, because I could absolutely see an experience like that being profoundly traumatic for a fundamentalist Christian teenager or kid: they literally claim stuff like "dressing immodestly will lead to being gang r*ped, trafficked, forced into having an abortion, dying of AIDS and going to hell." Truly horrifying IMHO...just not for the intended reasons.
Watching this, it felt as if you were describing my very own childhood in this video. I grew up terrified of demons, and for a while I felt like they were always with me. I too had a lot of long nights sitting there afraid, and I was constantly rebuking demons under my breath to point where it was distracting and disturbing to others. "Why are you always whispering? It's creepy" 😅
This is child abuse, even if unintentional. My five year old granddaughter is going a “zombie” stage. I think she saw one in a video game or video and it freaked her out. Now she’s on the look out! Of course, I, her mom, and the other adults in her life, reassure her that there are no zombies. Imagine if we said to her, “That’s right, honey, you better watch out for them, and tell them that Jesus is on your team!” How awful that little children everywhere are essentially being taught that zombies are real. Poor babies.
Oh good lord. I dressed up as Mary, Esther, and Deborah at soooo many "Harvest Festivals". I have definitely played that fishing for candy game and judged/envied Trick or Treaters. Oh...and I've had more nightmares involving demons and even the rapture than I care to remember. I *clung* to the teaching that Christians can't be possessed, but the whole spiritual warfare concept was a constant source of terror, especially at night. One of the biggest reliefs of leaving Christianity was leaving all the fear behind.
My guess about the flashing lights: There's a little switch in the frame of your doorways. When your door is open, the interior lights come on. When the door is closed, they automatically turn off. The switch, probably, momentarily got stuck. If it ever happens again , try some lubricant like WD40. BTW, interesting channel.🙂
A really weird other possibility is something got in the walls and was wiggling the cabling, either of the censors or of the lights. Source: had a ninja mole problem in one of my houses because my genius mother would wage war on garden snakes that dealt with the mole problem, one (or possibly more) got into the walls and wound up managing to climb into the wiring. ended up causing an electrical fire chewing something they shouldn't have.
loose connection in the electrical panel. My last car did it all the time. Very annoying, but my mechanic finally fixed it "oh yeah, that fuse was a little wobbly." Like gee, thanks, I"ve been complaining about it for 2 years.
Or maybe the door wasn't properly closed. Or maybe your boyfriend was messing with you and was too afraid to speak up after he saw you freak out like that 😄
I DARE for a Christian to try an argue that THIS woman was “never a true believer” 🙄🙄🙄 because you know they love to pull that card when you’re a former believer turned atheist
@Jay Jay Can you prove that? What is that based on? Because I don’t think you would accuse an adult who used to believe in Santa Clause as a kid that they “never really believed” just because they were smart enough to let that belief go
@Jay Jay would you have thought the same of say, someone who truly believed and was raised in Hinduism and was converted to Christianity? Did they not once believe they followed the true God with all their heart? Would you apply that same logic?
God, I relate to this video so much. I grew up homeschooled and my father was a fundamentalist, later turned evangelical, southern baptist preacher. I remember being terrified of demons and going to hell. Being so scared of the mark of the beast that I slept with the back of my right hand over my forehead to protect me from getting it on the back of my hand or forehead. I remember banishing demons and smashing my shins into furniture running away from some unseen force as well! I'm trying hard to deconstruct years of damage and it's so hard finding someone that understands. Most people hear about my childhood and just imagine a little girl that went to church and learned bible stories. Like some Brady Bunch level tv show. They don't know the half of the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. They don't know what it was like to become so accustomed to it that it becomes a normal experience of childhood. Deserved as well. Or what it was like to watch neighborhood children play from your window and cry because you aren't allowed to join them. They don't see the years of learning how to cope with crippling anxiety and emotional issues. They just see the human who either A) seems well put together because they HAVE to be or B) is barely keeping it together and falling hard down a path of self destruction. I fluctuate between the two- not as bad as I used to but, nonetheless, I continue to fluctuate between the two. No one seems to understand. So, thank you. Thank you for making these videos. Thank you for being a beacon of hope that deconstruction is possible. Thank you for helping me feel understood and less alone in this.
You are definitely not alone. But as you mention, most people find it hard to believe, and even harder to admit. We used to believe childhood was carefree, all children happy and without a concern in the world; many people had/have to believe that.
My family are from the UK and I don't think they're as bad as your family were, but watching these and reading comments from Catholics who had an easier time growing up has made me realise that my family were actually fundamentalists. I can relate to a lot in this video. Especially fear of the dark and thinking you can see things. We didn't have any alternative Halloween celebrations like you described in the video, so naturally my sister started 'light' parties where they would proselytize to the children in the guise of good natured non-scary Chrishtun fun. I stopped believing very early but had the fear of God, the devil, and demons so intrinsically installed in me that it gave me Psychosis, and Halloween is definitely a triggering time. Which sucks, because I love dressing up!
I grew up conservative Catholic in the USA so I relate to some but not all. I don't understand the Protestant view of demons. Their view of demons seems to be a demon just makes people depressed or start grunting or gives them sinful thoughts. In traditional Catholicism, the stories of demons are scarier. Things like people crawling up walls, levitating, people trying to kill themselves and throw themselves into fires, stories of Ouija boards, physical activity, people's complete wills being taken over. So to us, when something goes bump in the night, or someone is just depressed we don't feel alarm because our stories of demonic activity are much more extreme.
Thank you for your videos! Your voice means so much. One of my earliest memories is attending a church play in which "sinful" teens (youth group actors, including my cousin) were enticed by demons, only to be dragged off stage to hell. The final scene was a person thrown into a coffin, and them pounding on the lid to be let out while demons carried it away. I had terrible nightmares every night and I was only four years old! Everyone around me believed in demons and hell, so nothing they said calmed me down or made me feel safe. Finally, one night my mom held me close and said, "You know how much I love you? Well, God loves you even more than that; He wouldn't ever let that happen to you." And in that moment, I quit believing in hell, demons, or a devil outside of the awful things we do to ourselves and each other. Tender moments were pretty rare in our household, so hearing my mom talk so explicitly about love really moved me. I am still a Christian, but attend a more progressive denomination that prioritizes loving others, rather than scaring the daylights out of little kids! (One of those denominations that we were taught were not *really* Christians because they didn't believe exactly like we did.) As weird as it sounds, I think attending that ridiculous play at age four and my mom's tender response were the most formative moments to come out of my religious upbringing. Funny that this is probably the only effect that play had in the world and it is so different from what they intended. . .
The demon talk/fear was me when a friend of mine talked to me about her church. She was told by adults that they saw demons crawling in people etc. I was such a sensitive and imaginative child. I went to church with her once. I was terrified to go to sleep thinking demons were crawling on my headboard or in the bathroom like you. My mom was so different than your dad. My mom was spiritual and had strong faith but not like your parents. My mom comforted me and did not let me go to church with that friend anymore. She told me God was love. And she lived by that.
Oh, I feel this so hard. I was brought up in a fundamentalist cult (long since raided by ATF & FBI and disbanded!) but grew up secretly loving Halloween. They pushed the whole 'harvest festival' thing, but I loved the whole spooky vibe, and since I had embraced the knowledge that I was going to hell when I di3d, I figured I should try to make friends with the entities I would be spending eternity with, ya know? [Side note: I had the whole 'thoughts are the same as deeds, if you hate someone it's just like you murd3red them' pushed on me. I hated my abusers, therefore I had murd3red them in spirit, and murd3rers went to hell. By the time I was 13 I'd given up on any chance of redemption because prayer was boring, fasting just made me hungry and cranky, I refused to submit myself to the authority of any man because holy shit were they stupid fuckers, and proselytizing was embarrassing and I hated it. So, doomed and damned. And this was the EASY part of my childhood.]
I grew up in a non-Christian home, and come from a heritage that doesn't believe in demons, the devil or spiritual warfare in general. So I was shocked when I moved into an apartment owned by a fundamentalist pastor and his wife, and the lease actually specified that "there are to be no Halloween decorations or celebration/recognition of Halloween in, on, and/or around the property." The landlord solemnly explained it to me as "not wanting to give demons or dark powers the opportunity or invitation to enter and infest the property." I more or less just ignored that clause, because firstly Halloween is my favorite holiday, and (having grown up with parents who were both residential real estate managers) I knew that it was actually *highly* illegal for a landlord to impose any sort of religious restrictions on a tenant, since it violates the Fair Housing Act. But for years I only thought it was that one landlord who was so incredibly frightened of Halloween...it wasn't until several years later that a fundie friend of mine explained that this fear of Halloween is actually quite standard in fundie culture. I'm also deeply curious as to how the modern fundamentalist Christian belief that demons can't possess Christians came about, since the Catholic Church has taught the exact opposite for many centuries. I'm always fascinated by how so many present-day fundamentalists seem to genuinely believe that the RCC and orthodox churches are not Christian, and thus they believe that literally NOBODY was "doing Christianity right" for well over a thousand years!! How do they reconcile that with the historical reality that Catholic and orthodox churches were the ONLY versions of Christianity extant for so many centuries?? A friend who was a fundie Calvinist actually once told me, with no sense of irony, that "real Christianity" only began after the reformation! Coming as I do from a faith heritage that sees our religion as having been practiced in an unbroken line for thousands of years, it's so odd to realize that there are so many Christians who apparently sincerely believe that *nobody* was "doing Christianity right" until modern fundamentalism evolved in the 19th or even the 20th century! Does this mean that such folks truly believe that no self-professed Christians were actually saved until just over 100 years ago?
It's my favourite when people mention Harry Potter and immediately denounce the author idk but that series has become some kind of anti-trans dog whistle for some people and it sucks :( I love your channel btw it's really interesting to find out more about what super religious Americans are like, I was raised catholic in Ireland so it wasn't even remotely as intense as yours but some of the experiences you talk about make me feel less alone and I relate so hard to your sibling Annie. Thanks so much for sharing ❤️
At present, people are hating on the author for objecting to the anti-woman aspects of the radical Trans movement. No offense to anyone, but when I hear that Caitlyn Jenner, who left Bruce behind a few years ago at age 65, is as much of a woman as I am (a biological female for all my 65 years), I don't know whether to laugh or feel angry. I support J. K. Rowling and other gender-critical women.( I am also a political liberal who supports equal rights for all, just to be clear.)
@@lisamcdonald2877 Whew. I was just passing by, in the neighborhood you know, and I saw your comment, and I just found it really morally questionable. Can we talk? I'm gonna talk at you: Caitlin Jenner was _never actually a man_ . I think of it like this: if she'd been born w a hole in her heart, no one would be up in arms about surgically repairing that situation as soon as it was diagnosed. Sometimes something a child is born with isn't caught right away, but it's moral and correct to fix it when it is, especially if the person with the issue wants/needs the procedure done (or, I guess, if you're a Christian Scientist, or have some other religious reason why you can't alter a boilogical abnormality, then maybe at that point its not moral and correct, but i feel like most of us want to close the hole in the baby'sheart...). And to be clear, I don't think anyone is really _exactly_ suggesting that Caitlin, having been treated as a man for most of her life, is 'just as _much_ a woman' as your presumably cisgender self, so much as they're saying that her womanhood is _as much a central part of her identity_ as yours clearly is... but of course, _her_ womanhood exists in the context of having been overlooked and misunderstood for most of her life, so it's not supposed to be the same _experience_, just a similarly intimate and vital part of her identity. I get that it sounds absurd, but if you think about all the invisible identities and disabilities we accept that people are born with, is it really that strange? Okay, if you've never thought about it, at first blush, maybe it does sound strange, but when we accept that whatever our initial feelings, that's still someone else's lived reality, what right do we have to harass or demonize them over it? Why are we doing this? As for JK, it's not so much that she tweeted a few "un PC" things about Trans people. She has thrown herself into a quasi fascist political movement aimed at making it as physically and emotionally and legally difficult as possible to just exist as a Trans person in her country. She may claim--hell, she may even believe--that this will protect someone, some group or other, but the people writing the laws for the most part have no such illusions, and are unquestionably trying to serve a regressive political agenda aimed at enforcing their vision of acceptability onto the whole population. Rowling has repeatedly refused to let Trans people or their cis allies explain why her new friends have views and aims that are actually causing harm, and doubles down on her talking points frequently whenever she is challenged or even asked for clarification. And it's not like she's a private person squicked out by something she doesn't understand, she's a very rich, powerful, influential public figure who gives a lot of time and energy to the practice of demonizing an oppressed group. I enjoyed the HP books when I was in college, and I read them to my kids, but a)they don't hold up as well as we thought they would, and b)actually, its kind of grotesque to read the 7th book when you know that the author now believes in separating one group of people from the rest of the population and restricting their rights because of a condition they were born with and have no control over. Grotesque, I tell you! If youre still reading, I'm curious, could you outline what you mean by the 'anti woman' aspects of the "Trans movement?" (Is it the bathroom thing? Tell me it's something more nuanced than the bathroom thing...) I may sound impatient, but I do want to know what you see as "anti woman" specifically. I'm not even chomping at the bit to refute it, I just wonder what you're talking about. You also say at the end of your comment that you believe in equal rights... that interests me in particular, because social conservatives in the US are proposing, and even passing, laws in many states restricting the rights of trans people to access public facilities, to access medical care, rights pertaining to their educational opportunities, as well as rights to public and official recognition and social dignity. That's all happening apart from the _special_ atrocities being planned for children who identify as trans/a different gender than that assigned at birth in the state of Texas, whose parents can now be criminalized for accepting their children as they are. So when you say you believe in equal rights, are you suggesting that you believe all of these existing and proposed laws are wrong, but that you can't take Trans people seriously for some personal reason; or are you saying that everyone _except_ Trans people deserve equal rights? It's confusing how you've written it. If your belief is the former, is there some basis on which you feel Trans adults, Trans children, and the families of Trans children in Texas don't qualify for equal rights? Can you defend that assertion? If you're wondering (I'm not a conplete fool, if you're even still _reading_ ...), I'll tell you: I am cis myself, but this issue is still deeply, _blood_ personal to me, and having seen your comment on a day when I have the time, I won't ignore it. I take the prejudiced-sounding things you say seriously.
@@katefriend4085 She believes that equal rights for trans people is an attack on womanhood because she doesn't think they are people. With this type you always get the, "I don't hate {group}, I just {explanation for disqualification of personhood}"
As a Pagan, I also believe in demons, but in a different way. I sometimes have nightmares about them, but I always overcome them with my strong will. It’s interesting how demons are a constant in most world cultures and beliefs
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
I wasn't a fundie, or even a Christian growing up but I relate to being terrorfied. My mum taught me to say the lord prayer when I felt unsafe and I would lie there for hours repeating this prayer to myself to calm my anxiety
Just found your channel. Know exactly what you mean about the demons. I was raised up in the Foursquare church. I've always loved the darker side of life(horror,true crime,serial killers, conspiracy theories). My dad and stepmom would go through my backpack and wake me up if they anything they didn't approve of(mostly horror book). Dad would lecture me about it. Then bag it up and put it outside (to keep the evil out of the house. That's the craziest memory I have. Still love all that shit. Their both dead now and I miss them so much.
My mom did let me participate in Halloween, with some restrictions. Namely, I was not allowed to dress up as anything 'evil' (devil, witch, ghost, anything from a horror movie, etc.) most years I went as a princess, angel, fairy (I knew nothing of the fae), disney character, or bible character (in 11th grade I made my Esther costume, save for the wig, had to buy that) I was allowed to do Star Trek if I wanted. I usually went Trick-or-Treating in my maternal grandma's neighborhood, sometimes I'd also go through my paternal grandma's neighborhood as well. We would stop by the church for their 'harvest festival' and 'trunk-or-treat', I believe my mom still participates in.
This is so traumatizing! I was raised Catholic, and I do recognized some of the fear for the dark. However, I wasn’t ever afraid of angels. They were described as a warm hug or light by my parents. But we celebrated Halloween and was one of our favorite holidays, and my parents openly recognized that a lot of Catholic practices came from older religions. I could dress up as anything except a Devil. Admittedly, it was when I went to Catholic school I didn’t want to be a Catholic anymore. I’m now agnostic but consider myself culturally Catholic as some of the traditions still have importance in my life. I go back and forth between my feelings on the spiritual, but listening to you, I’m glad my parents didn’t install the ideas your parents did. Catholic doctrine on demons is scary enough without the added fears of demons being around all the time.
I can relate to Ella’s fear that an angel might pop up. I was raised strictly Catholic with a mother who worshipped the Virgin Mary who was alleged to appear to people from time to time. As a small child in bed, I was afraid to open my eyes in case the Virgin Mary would be standing there.
Fellow Catholic here. My parents didn't stray into what's described above, but we hung out with some people who borderline did. You definitely can abuse Marian theology, and some Catholics do.
6:43 !! Holy sh!t!! Yes, I am very late to this party, Halloween in August is kind of ridiculous, but the algorithm recommended this video to me today for some reason, and...I want to say I'm amazed and so sorry that your dad told you there ever could be demons in your house! I mean, I'm familiar, somewhat, w fundie culture, so not exactly shocked to hear it, but still dismayed and disappointed. Talking to kids about things like this is complicated, isn't it? As a (very liberal, I promise!) Roman Catholic, we actually have a day of the year where some of us bless our houses or like office/work buildings, and make a chalk mark over our doors to sort of symbolize that blessing. (Apparently, one is supposed to have the priest do the blessing and the chalking, but "Fr José" is a very busy guy; I do it myself. I'm pretty sure G-d gets what we're going for, and I assume it's just as good!) When I talk to my kids about serious stuff, I stress that I don't think demons are real, that the "devil" is not really much of a Bible character, and his "fall from heaven" is more of a legend than a Bible story, but that unfortunately, evil _is_ real, and although it's actually kind of rare, it can be hard to spot and difficult to combat... but at the same time, if one of my boys is anxious and talking about the house being haunted for some reason, or they're playing a game where they're hunting a demon, I point to the mark over the door, and tell them firmly, "that stuff can't get in here." And _if_ that stuff is real, I really don't think it can. I also try to see if I can draw out what is bugging my kid that they are attributing to the supernatural. Sometimes they don't want to talk, or sometimes they just have an uncanny feeling, or feel generally out of control because thats a big part of childhood, but I don't just 'leave it,' because suggesting that it's 'normal' to worry about haunted houses suggests that they like, really could be. I don't know if a chalk sign over the door would have made Childhood Ellie feel safer, but I felt like sharing this because I wish you, and all children raised in Christianity, had had some kind of assurance of God's ultimate power over evil...that's what the good news _was_ ! I understand from this and others of your videos you no longer believe in any of this, and I _don't_ mean to question or undermine that, I just found this part of your story especially sad, and wished you had been comforted as you wanted to be and deserved to be when you were small and did believe! (Also, I'm trapped inside rn by circumstances, and bored out of my mind, but this video is actually great company!) Thank you for your stories, I find them all very entertaining and edifying!
My granny would tell me that me being restless/tired/overwhelmed in church as a kid was caused by demons trying to stray me from hearing God's word. I would get upset and cry and want to leave and she would say to me, fight the Devil. Really I was undiagnosed autistic. But I guess to people like her, that counts as a demon too. She also believes I am trans because of demonic influence.
I identify with the wacko Charismatic shit SO HARD. My parents were so deep in that kind of thing. Spiritual warfare by praying against spirits of blasphemy, spirits of death, etc. and getting so caught up in this, like, combat prayer, where we weren't just asking god to save us from demons, we were personally doing battle with the demons. Of course, it seems silly in hindsight, but I used to be TERRIFIED of demons. I wasn't afraid of being possessed, I was afraid of being killed by them. Somehow I had an image in my head of me getting rent limb from limb by a demon while I was going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and we were constantly cautious of even saying the wrong thing that a demon might latch onto. Additionally, my father was super deep into the idea of generational sin; the idea that if your ancestor committed some heinous sin, it would stick to your family and god would punish all of you for decades. I really hated the idea of god punishing me for something that my ancestors did decades ago, and I think that feeling of betrayal was the start of my leaving religion behind.
I left Christianity a few weeks ago. I'm suffering from PTSD and anxiety/depression. I went through so much trauma and I only was "in the faith" for a few months. 😭
I've been accused of demonic possession so many times by my family, i can't remember much about them except for really specific details like saying it wasn't really me talking it was the demon inside me and it feels incredibly painful to think back on because I've never gotten any kind of apology for this and they still believe demons are real
I know this is an older video, but I grew up fundie. No holloween, Pokémon is evil, purity camp, the whole 9 yards. I was also born on holloween and was obsessed with it much to my families dismay. Pastors loudly would pray over me to cast the demons of rebellion out. Despite my devotion in other ways. I tormented myself believing I was giving in to the ways of the flesh and falling out from under God's umbrella of protection. I remained enthralled by the spooky candy holiday.it felt like the entire town was celebrating my birthday. I also had hallucinations regarding demons and spiritual warfare and was instructed on how to cast them out and pray a room clean. They took the form of ethereal figures, and banshees for me. Did you ever find out if there was more to the visions and nightmares for mental health? Is it just extreame fundie fear? Or is there more to it?
Ironically the faith tradition i came from (which i am no longer a part of) basically taught me that though demons are real, the only thing they can actually do to you (at least if youre a Christian) is frighten you and the best thing to do is ignore them. There was even an idea that becoming too concerned about demons was a good way to be pestered by them. I was led to believe that the main reason to pray is to seek comfort and avoid fear bc you are protected at all times, and you just need to remind yourself. Oh, and to avoid temptations... yeah, bc Temptation was the main thing demons did, I'm recalling. They encouraged you to think about and act on your own "sinful" wants and desires. That was the main way they negatively impacted people. In my tradition, the time when exorcism was required was for if they attacked non Christians, but any Christian had full authority and ability to cast out a demon if there was one present. Though im still a Christian i don't subscribe to a literal belief in them. I view the inclusion of demons in the new testament as the cultural view of the time for how disease and some mental illness worked, making jesus casting out demons just anothe example of him miraculously healing people of illness. But in my own belief i view all of that as symbolic of psychological struggles and intrusive thoughts, if i include it at all in my practice. but understanding those ideas, especially intrusive thoughts, through a healthier, more accurate lens, makes everything easier.
One of the things that drives me crazy as an ex fundamentalist is that not only did demons terrify me but I was taught that because I was a Christian, they were targeting me constantly. I truly believed that the devil was constantly watching me waiting for me to slip and then he could drag me to hell
Omg….I feel for the person sitting next to you two on the plane. I was cringing as I remembered how I read “Battlefield of the Mind “-Joyce Meyer….and spent hours praying for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds! I’m so grateful to be out of the cult.
Something I find endlessly interesting is how high control groups redefine words, or in the case of christian-speak just give grammar a good jumble! "Praying for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds" is absolute word salad in any other context. lolol
I’m so happy! I’ve felt so alone in my lack of nostalgia for Halloween. No one else I’ve ever met has ever understood. I’m a weird, broken outcast. Thank you for your videos! ♥️
I'm a witch so you KNOW I clicked on this SO fast! lmao But, to tell a little story about myself: I was never allowed to celebrate Halloween as a child but then when I got older, I started researching the history of the holiday (I call it All Hallow's) and eventually brought my findings to my family (this wasn't until college, however) and they were actually very surprised by the truth of the matter. Since then, we've celebrated Halloween in our own way whenever I'm home (I move around a lot due to my husband's job) and that really means a lot to me
Ok this is my third comment now but holy crap I'm just now remembering this book about how demons are trying to drag you away from god all the time and went as far as to say how it's satanic/sinful/worldly to get a knock at the door and think "oh I wonder who's here?" instead of thinking "I wonder who the lord has sent to me?" 😂 that DEFINITELY wasn't super traumatizing as I grew up with adhd and wild frequently forget to think of God in every possible instance
My parents taught me the same prayer, and also to call on god to send Michael to protect me. Lots of nights spent terrified and praying that prayer over and over again filled my childhood and teenage years.
I had a friend growing up who wasn't allowed to celebrate Halloween either. Her family also called Easter "Passover" (even though Passover is a different religious holiday) because the word Easter sounded too close to the name of a pagan goddess. When we were kids, she also accused me of not having been truly baptized because the church I went to growing up didn't do it the way her Baptist church did. Needless to say, her family has some weird beliefs. She was an atheist for a few years but now she's gone back to Christianity and while I'm glad her beliefs offer her some comfort, I'm a little worried about her.
I'm now learning the fear of demons is sometimes a lack of accountability of the perpetrator. "I banish the demon stealer of stuff before I leave the house for the purpose of making me late for work or church out of my home." If you notice you are constantly having battles with said demon in your home, and no one else is...find a spot to keep your belongings upon entering your home. Make it a point to do it everyday, and said demon may go away.
Oh. I went to some of those alternatives to Halloween. For ours it was suggested that you had to dress as a religious character. One year, someone came as the devil. They technically fit the description!
It's surprisingly hard to find people talking about the Halloween issue on TH-cam thank you for making this. Came here after seeing a slew of ex friends I still follow on social media talking about how they won't let their kids do Halloween and if you do you're celebrating Satan etc. It makes me so sad
I was raised in a protestant/fundie household. As a result, I am an atheist trying to make it in a world without magical thinking. Here is a recent example: I just went on a backpacking trip by myself & one of the campsites was in the forest. Staying in that tent by myself is one of the hardest things I have ever done. Everyone said "don't worry! You have bear spray & cougars shouldn't bother you!". But I was not worried about the predators in the forest. I was worried about the leaves. That's right, the leaves. There were faces on them all day, like bugs had chewed faces out of the leaves on the trail. I must have found upwards of 20 of these nearly-identical leaves while hiking to the campsite, then my campsite had three more of the earie looking faces. I was so freaked out, I had to take all of the leaves out of the site & walk them somewhere else. My phone died before I went to bed. I had nothing to distract me until morning. I woke up in the middle of the night to tapping on my tent, and I started praying. I never built secular coping skills surrounding fear as a child, so sometimes when I feel like I am close to death or demons, I reluctantly pray. Morning came, I started hiking. I turned a corner & came face to face with a black bear on it's hind legs. Turns out bears really are scarier than leaves, I just didn't know it yet!
I totally relate to this. I couldn't celebrate Halloween either. Instead, my parents would take us out to Pizza Hut while the trick or treaters were out. I feared Halloween since I did think that the demons were out and about on that night so I would quickly run to the car and make sure that the windows were rolled up so that the demons wouldn't get in. My birthday is on November 1st so I would be in bed, totally covered up except for my head so that the demons wouldn't get to me until after midnight when I could breathe a sigh of relief since it was my birthday. However, it still wasn't just Halloween in that I was scared of demons. Like you, I thought some of them would come to my room and yes, I would pray the sinners prayer over and over again in the hopes that it would finally stick. This happened to me even as a teenager. I was so traumatized. I'm still a Christian (I became a Catholic in 1999 since I didn't want to be in my fundie/Baptist church anymore. However, I encountered fundies in the Catholic Church too so there's still a lot of stuff I need to deconstruct) but I'm no longer afraid of this stuff. In fact, Halloween has become one of my favorite holidays and I love dressing up for it, yes even as a 44 year old :)
My heart alway broke for the kids forced to miss out on Halloween. Halloween is SO much fun! I’m sure your daughter is having a great time being Elsa, or Wonder Wonam, or whatever! That being said, you make an beautiful tree!😊
I was terrified of demons when I was a Christian. I would chant 'Dear lord Jesus be in this room' when I was scared. It never worked and I was just perpetually terrified until I became an apostate during the pandemic when I finally read The Bible for myself.
i did not grow up christian at all, but i did grow up with pretty bad anxiety and ocd, and i absolutely relate to the “evil presence” feeling of getting up to go to the bathroom at night as you described. it wasn’t necessarily christian demons in particular that i was scared of, but ghosts, monsters, and other ghouls of variety. i would always check behind the shower curtain before using the toilet. i am sure being raised christian/fundie would have absolutely wreaked havoc on my mental health.
I played the same fishing game at church as a kid! There was a event called “party on the block “ and did “trunk or treating”in the parking lot. I always loved it. I even volunteered one year. Our dad didn’t allow us to dress up though.
It's astonishing how similar our upbringings were. I now honor my child self's desire for dress up and play on Halloween, and it's honestly my favorite holiday now because there's no pressure for family gathering or gift giving, just fun with friends
i was not raised religious, but i am incredibly afraid of the dark/monsters and i cannot imagine how much worse this would have been if i had grown up believing that demons were real and wanted to kill me
I grew up in one of those liberal Christian school kids, went to a CRC church. I got go out trick or treating and I was dressed as a witch one year. We had contact with fundies, we had some homeschool kids attend some classes in high school. Had some people in my family go through a fundie phase. I generally had a great childhood and my family dynamic was very different than yours. My mom seemed to be in charge of our family and she was very reasonable and caring. I was put off by organized religion because of their treatment of the LBGTQ community. Though to be fair I see a lot of positive changes in my parents generation. I still consider myself a Christian and part of it is because of demons and spirits. Our childhood home was haunted, modern science can’t explain the things I have seen. I believe there is something beyond the physical world…
I've always loved Halloween/Samhain, but was not allowed to Trick Or Treat, until I was 8/9 years of age. Not nearly as bad as your situation, but I am grateful that my Grandmother (R.I.P.), thought Halloween was awesome, and not celebrating it for "Satanic" reasons was silly. I'm sorry you didn't get to know the joys of such a great holiday, especially as that's a wonderful, fun thing to pass on to children.
I used to have really bad sleep paralysis, my mom told me that my grandmother had sent the demons after me to torment me. I think she actually believed it. At least I hope she did, because if not, it would be a tremendously cruel thing to say to your kid.
Back in the 1990s my co-workers & I often had the local talk-radio station on. A DJ from the classic rock station would make " crank " phone calls to this station. If the talk-radio station had some on-air glitch or mishap, like playing a commercial & the hourly news at the same time, the DJ would call in & give the talk-radio host a hard time about it & would say, " Demons Be Gone! Demons Be Gone!".
Biblically accurate angels are scary they have too many eyes. I was raised atheist but I relate to your fear of demons as a kid. I had my own ways of banishing monsters as a child and would also run back and forth from the bathroom in case the Jersey devil or something was hiding in the living room.
This whole series is so validating. At the same time, it's helping me to see just how deeply I fear metaphysics because of the danger of irrefutable belief. Do you know of any discord channels or support groups for queer ex-fundie folks? I think I could use one.
I remember being terrified one night, and trying to cast out what I believed was a demon, the way I’d been taught in church. I felt so betrayed when the terrible feeling didn’t go away. They promised me it would work, and it didn’t.
Oh that photo of you dressed as a tree is so sweet! In Shakespeare’s Macbeth the trees move on the Castle (well it’s actually camouflaged soldiers) and we the line ‘until Burnam Wood rise up against duncenane hill’ At school if they did that play I always wanted to be a tree!
I forgot about the clothespin fishing rod. I loved that when I was kid. And I can totally relate to the fear for demons/evil spirits, I'm 26 and I'm still getting past that.
I grew up fundie and we did celebrate Halloween, but it was something that I always felt an immense amount of guilt about. My mom grew up agnostic in a large city and Halloween has always been one of her favorite holidays. Her husband grew up anabaptist in the rural Midwest did not celebrate Halloween. So it always felt like this conflict between them and my siblings and I were constantly reminded by our patriarchal figure that Halloween was full of demons and that this was to indulge my mom, the sinner, and that each year he might decide to not let us go trick-or-treating. We had the same costume rules (modest and nothing that went against our family's interpretation of the Bible) and the excuse for letting us trick-or-treat and dress up was that we were to be a beacon of light for all the sinners around us. Any decorations or costumes that had to do with death, magic, or horror we were constantly being told that was Satan in action and to avert our eyes. Because all the other fundie families I knew didn't celebrate Halloween and did alternative "Harvest Festivals" at the church, I just felt tons of guilt and shame mixed with a child's normal enjoyment of candy and dress-up and I used to wish each year that we could go to the church instead. It was really confusing and to this day I still don't enjoy Halloween because of the way it was so complicated and guilt-ridden for me as a child. My family also talked a lot about demons. How anything wrong with our family was caused by demon warfare. We named them and would say "Get behind me Satan!". As a small child I used to believe demons were always hanging out on our garage roof ready to pounce my siblings when we played outside. My youngest brother had imaginary friends from an early age and a vivid imagination and claimed to be able to demons. My mom believed him and thought the imaginary friends were demons so had our church pray over him and then some ladies from her Bible study explained this "gifts of the holy spirit" thing to her and how we all have some kind of spiritual gift that becomes stronger in us as our walk with Christ becomes stronger and that my brother had the gift casting out demons. Still to this day, even though neither my brother nor I are Christians, she will talk about how he protects her home from demons with his presence. But yeah, so weird how atheists and other people in the secular world can have fun with this stuff and not believe in it and they are bad, but Christians who avoid Halloween are the ones constantly living in their own horror film and fighting demons all the time and do believe in magic and fantasy.
Electrical problems in cars can be complicated especially if it’s a used car. My family had an early 90s Crown Victoria with rear air suspension. After filling up the trunk with too much camping gear then emptying it the rear raised drastically. The car eventually settled but after that the lights would turn on and off while the car was turned off every couple of minutes. The ABS would act up even if the tires weren’t locking. The car couldn’t hold a charge and we scraped it. A previous owner added something electronic which I think was a garage door opener or something but when they removed it they did it poorly and left some things connected that shouldn’t have been.
I (hubs mandated) never allowed our kids the joy of Halloween either. So sad - many regrets. Oh god, I remember the ‘turning out the lights’ part. As a kid I went trick or treating and one of my Halloween costumes was Billie Jean King, lol - lesbian. OMG my nationalistic mom let me do that?!? Oh - and the Left Behind series fueled a sharp increase in sales of Range Rovers, lol! Your vids are helping me so much! The lights? Electrical malfunction. One last edit: you celebrated Halloween Every. Single. Day. LOL!
I've just found your channel and I just wanted to let you know how thankful I am to have found you! I so identify with the trauma around the unhealthy obsession with demons. At 43 years old, I'm still trying to deal with this trauma and scars left behind, due to my Fundie family's obsession and fears around this crazy obsession.
oh man okay so im an ex-fundie who was raised in a pretty conservative household. i also only went trick or treating once -- also when i was 17! sometimes we would go to "harvest festivals" at church, but most halloweens my parents would turn off the porch light, all the lights in the front of the house, and then bundle us all down into the basement to watch a movie together. as a chlid i was terrified of satan, and i had this recurring fear that if i closed my eyes in the shower he would turn the water into stinging ants (????????). NO clue where that particular fear came from but it dogged me for most of my childhood. i had vivid nightmares a lot as a kid which i ALSO attributed to demonic influence. i haven't thought about this in years, but my mom would pray with me before bed and ask god to place "a hedge of angels" around me to protect me. sometimes she or my dad would put a tape player with worship music playing softly in my doorway to help me relax and fall asleep. i was afraid to rebuke demons out loud bc i thought that if i did there was a chance they could say to me, "jesus i know, and paul i know, but who are you?" and then things would be worse for me. i also had this... i'm not really sure how to explain it... but i would be sitting in bed in the dark and i'd feel distant from myself, and i'd repeat my full name over and over and over again bc i was afraid that a demon would/had/could possess me and i wouldnt be myself any more. so i'd repeat my name over and over to try and feel more anchored in myself/assure myself that i hadn't forgotten who i was supposed to be. i can remember in high school being at a youth group camp and i mustve been in early high school? and some of the older girls in the dorm room werent from our church and they were talking about demons and i had to crawl into bed with some of my friends to be able to fall asleep, i was so scared! honestly despite being out of the church for almost 15 years, my fear of demons has only really started abating in the last few. phew, thanks for letting me use your comments as a diary haha! it's really, it feels really good to hear you talk about these things similar to what i experienced. thanks!
Unfortunately, I can relate to this so hard. My brother was schizo-affective (he died when I was 21 and he 23, unfortunately), and I was convinced he was possessed. So was our mother. He did many things that were just downright terrifying and creepy - like our mother would always lament that he didn't have a good relationship with God and told him she wished he had a closer one (which is a dangerous suggestion for a sick mind), so on Mother's Day, in a manic state, he literally nailed a block of wood to his hand and told her "you wanted me to be closer to God, so look, I'm like Jesus now". He got 5150-ed for that and spent time in a psychiatric hospital. And the crazy thing is, he actually did this thing with his vocal cords kinda like they do with Mongolian throat singing, where you layer two sounds so it sounds like you're speaking with two voices so I was convinced that it was a demon speaking with him. I'm really glad that I fought to have him committed, even though I also believed he was possessed. I just thought that he'd be safer there. I was right. Also, when I was a kid, I stuck my finger into an empty lamp socket and got electrocuted... and I thought it was Satan biting my finger. I was terrified. But instead of knowing about electricity, that's what I believed. Also, I saw an angel once, if anyone wants to hear about that.
I’m not a mechanic or anything but if you were already in this mindset and has been primed by all the indoctrination about demons, you may have dozed off driving, dreamed the flickering, and woke back up in the matter of a few moments. I’ve had two similar(ish) things happen to me on road trips and both times I pulled off, got a nap in, and was fine going forward. Just my 2¢, love your channel and all your bravery
As someone who was raised in a split household (Atheistic on one side, Anabaptist on the other) and took witchcraft to be my spiritual practice of choice at 8 years old (to the present day) the descriptions of demonic/angelic warfare in Evangelical households are endlessly fascinating to me. Its really flirts with things that feel like magical practices. I cant help but see the irony in the Anti-Pagan world view. Thank you for sharing your story.
the experiences of “expelling” the demons was very relatable when i was growing up. whenever i had nightmares, my mom told me i could banish them away by just saying “in the name of the lord, go away/i banish you”. i also remember going to trunk or treats at my church rather than going trick or treating. i don’t remember ever going trick or treating till i was about 10 or so. even the name “halloween” felt “sinful” to say! we’d call it fall festival, and we also had rules about dressing up as witches/devils/anything “ungodly”. it’s so strange how much i can relate to this video and a lot of other videos from your channel. keep up the amazing work!!
Glad found this channel. All the things you mention alone with my childhood and upbringing if my conservative Christian parents. Had similar experiences from religious stress and trama but now feel happy and better. I still believe in God but I am no longer a Christian anymore or read the Bible much
Listening right now while gaming. Trans woman here. I enjoy the Harry Potter series in the same way I enjoy Lovecraftian stories. I enjoy the books but holy shit I have issues with the person.
I'm still very much in love with the stories, and very cringe about the author. I won't financially contribute to her work, but not tossing the books or movies I already own. The myth of the gender binary cuts out too many people.
I am so sorry you went through this. I can relate. I was taught the same stuff. I used to live in fear of the dark. Not because of monsters but because of demons. Then I had a night terror at age 10, when I thought I actually saw demons. Which led to my mother to believing I was demon-possessed and led to her having the "demons cast out of me". That was fun.
Hi Elly. Thank you for sharing your experiences. As a mostly non-religious Jewish person, I am fascinated by everything you describe. It is so far outside my life experiences that I have previously had no context for what the world was like in those types of churches.
Thank you for your stories. I too learned that my nightmares and fear indused night terrors were PTSD and nor demons. I still have nightly stress dreams but I no longer see my "demon"
Only tangentially related... Watched an interview with a Catholic exorcist, and he was the most milquetoast, chill guy ever. "Yeah, I exorcised a demon out of that lady. Then I went to Dairy Queen and got a chocolate milkshake and went home." Totally just nonchalant about it, very different from the panic I'd seen growing up. It's over on Pints with Aquinas, worth a watch.
I have seen green smoke a couple times. In my case it is due to migraine aura. I have chronic, severe, genetic migraine and it is a disorder from HELL. My nervous system is shorted out, kind of like the lights in your car. Personally, if my car did something like that, I'd assume there was a mouse nest in the wiring. I live on a nature reserve and if I don't drive my car regularly, rodents move in and set up housekeeping. It cost $400 to have one of these nests dug out of my dashboard. When I turned on the fan, hot and cold mouse nest blew out the vents. LOL! ;-)
When I was in SPARKS we had the same rules about Halloween costumes. One kid straight up showed up dressed as Satan. The church didn't want to bug him about it because he was a visitor. Well played kid
Also! On another note! ...it baffles me how religion can warp people's minds and make them believe all sorts of things and they never look deeper into their beliefs or what they're told. They simply...accept the teachings of their church leaders and I've NEVER been that kind of person. I grew up questioning EVERYTHING and I guess that is why I'm borderline atheist and no longer Christian now lol I ask too many dang questions and church leaders get mad at me for that, I suppose. I've actually been asked to leave a church before because of my interrogation-level questioning xD But that's neither here nor there lmao
Oh mate... cult wars are wild... when you are a fundie and the JWs come to your door...🔥💃🤯 it’s like the meme of Spider-Man pointing at himself🤣🤣🤣
Yes exactly!!! 😂
BAHAHAHA! Yeah, my dad LOVED to "chat" with them, aka try to convert them while they tried to convert us, lol. They usually caught on after about half an hour, when we were just getting started. Oof.
My mom once literally chased the JW ladies down the street to invite them in for tea and convert them. We were legit blacklisted from both the JW and Mormon missionaries after my mom had one of the Mormon boys rethinking his faith after an hour talking to her.
My partner went out on the porch in his boxer shorts when some JWs knocked on the door. He was very friendly and animated. They were polite. He's a big hairy monster except for his head. We're still on the JW blacklist more than 15 years later.
My dad invited them in every time
I'm a pro tarot reader. The other night I was set up at a public park, having a great night, until 3 fundies came up to my table, sat down, and started "witnessing to me" (berating, insulting, accusing me, telling stories of "allowing demons in"). I'm a survivor of religioud trauma. The was so triggering, I packed up and left.
You know what I would have done? Not have left but would have askes if they wanted a reading, lol
That pisses me off so bad that I want to come up with a seriously good comeback. But I'd do the same thing. In my imagination... I would say something like, "If you want my time, you're paying for it." Then charge them to evangelize me while I either ignore them or occasionally drop some deconstruction knowledge on them. Real me? I'm fucking out of here. Emotionally unsafe feeling to the max.
Do you actually believe the tarot stuff is some kind of magic hocus pocus or is it just a novelty?
Did any of the cards you pulled correlate with their rudness? I wouldn't be shocked if the devil card came out
I’d have just started dealing cards and reading for them. Guarantee they would leave.
I had a relative a few years ago go on Facebook and condemn everyone for letting their children go trick or treating. He then extolled his virtues for taking his children to the harvest festival at their church instead. What's more heathen than a HARVEST festival?
Haha, "we celebrate Samhain (pagan harvest festival) rather than All Hallows Eve (day before All Hallows/Saints Day, a Christian celebration of people so #Christian they get a halo)."
I do love trying to work out the mental gymnastics behind this....
I know, when she said they dressed up as seasons I was like, sounds pretty pagan to me!
Christians harvest too so why not be festive about it? I don't see how that's heathen.
@@mrwensveen Harvest festival is pagan in organ. It would be kind like celebrating winter Celsius instead of Christmas.
@@Waspinmymind As long as you don't associate anything occult or religious (in a pagan sense) to it, I don't think there's anything wrong with it (for Christians, I mean). Birthdays predate Christianity, but I don't know any Christian who has problems with celebrating them (but they probably exist).
I grew up in a Christian family where we celebrated halloween and loved to watch horror movies. My dad was the head elder of his church and thought Knott's scary farm was cool. He would take my mom to horror movies and took me to horror movies after she died and got me addicted to horror movies. So when someone told him that halloween was evil he thought it was strange. I was taught that demons could not get to Christians because they had the Holy Spirit. I grew up never fearing demons and thought it was strange that people were into spiritual warfare and label all sin as demonic instead of taking responsibility for their own sin.
That's pretty epic/k
This.
I grew up in a faith which doesn't believe in demons, the devil or any sort of spiritual warfare, and I was also always taught that the evil which people do comes from their own choices and free will.
So, FWIW, it also always seemed to me like a way for people to avoid accountability and taking responsibility for their own actions by just blaming it on demons.
Me too. Growing up as a conservative Christian we always celebrated Halloween, even when we lived in Indonesia, where only our group of foreigners participated. We were asked to avoid costumes that might make the Indonesian neighbors think we were worshipping demons as they did (animist cultures). So avoid witches and ghosts, but there was a logical reason behind it.
@@TracyBerglund1 Hah! I also lived for awhile during my childhood in a country that didn't do Halloween! So I totally hear you!
In other words your dad was the cool Christian
For a long time one of the main reasons I was CERTAIN of Christianity was an experience with demons in early childhood. I KNEW demons existed because I had seen them hovering over my crib as a toddler, leering down at me. Who wouldn't believe after an experience like that? It wasn't until I started having night terrors as an adult that I realized the truth.
What was the truth
The Truth that demons exists?
@@noahbossier1131 I forget the formal term for it but there's a stage between sleeping and waking some people can get caught in that includes many characteristics of REM or dream sleep: images, paralysis, excited brain activity, often fear. This has taken the blame for many "experiences" of demons, night hags, and alien abductions, and has been shown to be responsible in sleep labs. Any imagery is as real as a very vivid dream and seems to be drawn primarily from cultural/religious stories (hence huge-eyed greys, figures kneeling on chests, and demons at bedside). Some mind state like sleep paralysis.
@@TheNarrowGate101 the truth that human brains hallucinate all kinds of stuff on a fairly normal basis. Everyone with a brain sees and hears things that have no source, because it is better for your survival to be paranoid than it is to be oblivious. People who don't perceive dangerous predators, or stalking strangers intent on murder don't survive to pass on their bad perceptions.
I used to suffer from sleep paralysis, and I can absolutely 100% believe that, depending on people's various belief systems, sleep paralysis can easily be interpreted as demonic presences, alien abductions, MK Ultra mind control, etc.
I've had experiences of seeing tall, pale, faceless figures surround my bed, feeling myself levitate and float down the hall outside my bedroom, having cold skeletal hands wrap around my ankles and yank me off the edge of the bed, and so on...every time, it's inexpressibly terrifying beyond belief, but nonetheless I always snap awake and am in my bed, alone, right in the same place that I was. It was years before I spoke to a doctor who diagnosed it as sleep paralysis and told me it's a perfectly normal (albeit terrifying) experience.
But I've never stopped thinking of just how easily I could have wrapped the whole experience in a magical, spiritual or conspiratorial framework, and I just feel really lucky that my upbringing was such that I never considered that it was anything but really weird nightmares.
As a child, I used to hallucinate "demons", fire, hell, dead pets, my parents, etc at night. I thought I was seeing real demons who were there to drag me off to hell for thinking my friend of the same gender was hot. I didn't realize until I was older that I was just experiencing some sort of vivid hallucination.
I was not a fundie. We were in church every Sunday and my parents were very religious but we still went trick-or-treating, and our church even had a Halloween party with a costume contest. The one thing we weren’t allowed to do was dress up as anything scary or evil, including witches. My grandmother in particular was very against witches and would not even let us watch Sabrina the Teenage witch at her house. She definitely believed in demons and spiritual warfare and believed that Harry Potter was causing children to turn to devil worship. She was and still is a nut job. Now that I’m an adult, I completely embrace witches, since the term witch has been used by the patriarchy for centuries to punish women simply for being women. If my daughter wants to be a witch for Halloween, I’ll fully support it.
Makes sense. Not a good look.
There were and still are witches that worship the devil so maybe that's what your gma was so focused on.
@@ntrlnwrmz how do people like you find threads like this?
Do you even watch the video, or do you just troll the comments looking for people to mess with?
Do you really believe that a totally unsupported assertion about reality--in this case an assertion that cant be backed up with evidence because none exists--is supposed to be persuasive to the OP or others reading the comments?
Or, do you make comments like this just to get off on the possibility that you can lightly trigger someone's religious trauma and ruin their day?
Where do folks like you _come_ from??
You start by saying you were not a fundie, but it sounds like maybe your grandma was? It jumped out at me, this statement, and then stories that sound quite like 'fundamentalist' culture, but perhaps your grandma just had a 'thing' about witches? I'm glad your daughter isn't growing up in fear of 'witches,' that's a messed up thing to put on a kid in my opinion!
I remember growing up with a Catholic grandma, who I loved to tell everything to, and to talk to about the world in general, but how awkward it could be as a kid when her social values clashed with those of my immediate family... she was very diplomatic, and never tried to change my mind, but also made it clear when she couldn't agree with me about something. It's a level of tact I gave up trying to attain years ago! Ironically, I ended up entering into full communion w the RCC as an adult, a few years before that grandma died; but I am still a very liberal Catholic. And, as it should be for everyone, a lot of my values changed and evolved as I grew up...
Halloween has always been a sore spot for me. It's always been my favorite holiday. We moved down to South Carolina and got involved with Bob Jones University when I was 8. Halloween was one of many harmless things that was suddenly completely verboten. I followed most of the new rules my parents suddenly had without protest out of pure fear, but Halloween was one thing I absolutely would not give up. I celebrated privately for years, at first just with a string of lights, a few of our decorations from up north, and a bag of candy corn. As I got older I started to build my own secret horror movie collection, which naturally factored in to my celebrations. My parents just moved out of state a few months ago and my brothers and I took over their old place, so I plan to eventually take full advantage of the 1/4 acre we're renting and have the kind of Halloween display that will make my neighbors complain about the excessiveness of it.
Oh my, I was taught to say “Get Behind me…”etc until I thought, Wait, What? Why am I addressing any evil spirit verbally?? Im comfortable enough in my Christian world, with the St Michael prayer and Rosary as my “protection”. Peace and Love, y’all.
This reminds me of a really old song that my mom sang (she passed away last year but I still have recordings she made of her singing her favorite songs). The lyrics are:
Well, I should have been home hours ago
I always lose track of the time
I'll just hold up this wall while I try to recall
A thought from the back of my mind
Oh yeah I remember, it began with a wink
When you caught me looking at you
So don't ask me if you can buy me a drink
I know what you're trying to do
Lead me not into temptation
I already know the road all too well
Lead me not into temptation
I can find it all by myself
I've the best of intentions, Lord, I mean to be good
And stick to the path I should go
But seems the harder I try, the further I slide
'Til I'm lost down that same dead end road
Now you're a good lookin' thing, and that must be the best
Proposition that I've had all day
But there's no need for subtlety, darlin', just get thee
Behind me and I'll show you the way
Lead me not into temptation
I already know the road all too well
Lead me not into temptation
I can find it all by myself
I relate to this alot. My mother claimed to have seen several demons throughout my childhood. I spent alot of time in fear and creating reasons for this or that to be a sign of an evil spirit...pretty sad when I think about it. I was always told to say the name 'Jesus' out loud cause the demons were scared of the name Jesus or something lol
Tbh, if I saw a real demon, I would also scream Jesus
@@eddie-roo Ah but you see. She wasn’t seeing real demons.
I read as a kid that there's a Chinese goddess (I confess almost total ignorance of Chinese religious tradition, I just learned this one idea from a New Agey neo-pagan book full of miscellaneous goddesses from all over the world and all through time) who, when someone who believes in her says her name out loud, would bring protection to them and ease the believer's fears.
I tried saying her name myself sometimes when I was scared as a kid, but not being acquainted w the deity in question, not to mention having an actual anxiety disorder, it didn't help much (and while it probably wouldn't matter, I was almost certainly pronouncing the name wrong too!)... as it happens, I was raised _mostly_ liberal protestant (my dad was a sort of eclectic spiritual agnostic though -- he's the one who got me the goddess book), and ironically, I think the idea of saying the name of Jesus out loud to comfort myself would have felt kind of 'idolatrous?' when I was young? I wouldn't have used that word when I was a kid, but the idea sounded uncomfortable and 'wrong' to me.
Funny how that works, and how _many_ different interpretations of Christianity there are! I was never taught to believe in demons or the devil, only human evil... I have had experiences that make me wonder if there _might_ be an 'unseen realm' that some people are sensitive to, but I can't help being very skeptical of those experiences... and ultimately, if there _is_ such a realm, it doesn't seem to effect this world enough for it to be all that important!
I remember growing up in fear too, mostly from the anxiety, and it sounds from your comment like you have detached yourself from some of the scarier teachings ofyour childhood... I hope things are easier and better for you now, it sucks to be constantly looking over your shoulder, whatever the cause!
Sorry to ramble, your comment just got me thinking I guess!
And to think, even though my parents were fairly conservative Christians when I was growing up, when I had a nightmare, I got a spoonful of honey. Mom called it "nightmare medicine". It worked. They attend a much more liberal church now and I am non practicing.
I loved Halloween growing up, but then we went to a Pentecostal church where it was "the devil's holiday." I'll never forget my mom saying we got weird looks when the church van dropped us off early on in my time there and we had Halloween decorations up.
I didn't really celebrate Halloween again until I was an adult. Throughout the years, I'd try to say it's fine, but grown adults would argue that it was inviting demons in. The pastor swore that witches were coming in to take photos of him in service to cast spells on him. (I never saw them, and I love how magic is both fake and real in their world.)
My halloween memories as a fellow fundie included handing out tracts and using trick or treating to “meet the neighbors” so we could try to evangelize to them….as a teenager i went to “journey to hell” christian haunted houses which were usually a story about someone killed in a car accident (by a drunk driver of course) and their afterlife experience.
THOSE ARE REAL?!?? I legitimately thought that concept was made up for an episode of King of the Hill...
@@JP2GiannaT I love love love that episode!! That's exactly what I was thinking of when I read this comment, too! Hehehe!
"Grandpa's eating the baby!"
"Sorry son, we can't do anything about it because EVOLUTION!"
LOLOLOL!
There's a documentary out there that I think is called "Hell House," and it actually follows a fundie youth group as they create and open one of those haunted hell houses! It's really good, IIRC, but also pretty darned disturbing and gory, as well as containing some truly shocking misinformation about things like contraception, abortion, premarital sex, drugs, etc.
Trigger warning:
Watching it made me sooooo grateful to have grown up in a faith that didn't believe in demons or hell, because I could absolutely see an experience like that being profoundly traumatic for a fundamentalist Christian teenager or kid: they literally claim stuff like "dressing immodestly will lead to being gang r*ped, trafficked, forced into having an abortion, dying of AIDS and going to hell."
Truly horrifying IMHO...just not for the intended reasons.
I would love to go to one of those! I'll look for one this Halloween.
christian isekai
Watching this, it felt as if you were describing my very own childhood in this video. I grew up terrified of demons, and for a while I felt like they were always with me. I too had a lot of long nights sitting there afraid, and I was constantly rebuking demons under my breath to point where it was distracting and disturbing to others. "Why are you always whispering? It's creepy" 😅
Haha funny and so relatable
This is child abuse, even if unintentional. My five year old granddaughter is going a “zombie” stage. I think she saw one in a video game or video and it freaked her out. Now she’s on the look out! Of course, I, her mom, and the other adults in her life, reassure her that there are no zombies. Imagine if we said to her, “That’s right, honey, you better watch out for them, and tell them that Jesus is on your team!” How awful that little children everywhere are essentially being taught that zombies are real. Poor babies.
Oh good lord. I dressed up as Mary, Esther, and Deborah at soooo many "Harvest Festivals". I have definitely played that fishing for candy game and judged/envied Trick or Treaters. Oh...and I've had more nightmares involving demons and even the rapture than I care to remember. I *clung* to the teaching that Christians can't be possessed, but the whole spiritual warfare concept was a constant source of terror, especially at night. One of the biggest reliefs of leaving Christianity was leaving all the fear behind.
My guess about the flashing lights:
There's a little switch in the frame of your doorways. When your door is open, the interior lights come on. When the door is closed, they automatically turn off. The switch, probably, momentarily got stuck. If it ever happens again , try some lubricant like WD40. BTW, interesting channel.🙂
A really weird other possibility is something got in the walls and was wiggling the cabling, either of the censors or of the lights.
Source: had a ninja mole problem in one of my houses because my genius mother would wage war on garden snakes that dealt with the mole problem, one (or possibly more) got into the walls and wound up managing to climb into the wiring. ended up causing an electrical fire chewing something they shouldn't have.
loose connection in the electrical panel. My last car did it all the time. Very annoying, but my mechanic finally fixed it "oh yeah, that fuse was a little wobbly." Like gee, thanks, I"ve been complaining about it for 2 years.
Or maybe the door wasn't properly closed. Or maybe your boyfriend was messing with you and was too afraid to speak up after he saw you freak out like that 😄
I DARE for a Christian to try an argue that THIS woman was “never a true believer” 🙄🙄🙄 because you know they love to pull that card when you’re a former believer turned atheist
@Jay Jay Can you prove that? What is that based on? Because I don’t think you would accuse an adult who used to believe in Santa Clause as a kid that they “never really believed” just because they were smart enough to let that belief go
@Jay Jay would you have thought the same of say, someone who truly believed and was raised in Hinduism and was converted to Christianity? Did they not once believe they followed the true God with all their heart? Would you apply that same logic?
@@Ojo10 you seem to be assuming that logic is involved in these accusations
God, I relate to this video so much. I grew up homeschooled and my father was a fundamentalist, later turned evangelical, southern baptist preacher. I remember being terrified of demons and going to hell. Being so scared of the mark of the beast that I slept with the back of my right hand over my forehead to protect me from getting it on the back of my hand or forehead. I remember banishing demons and smashing my shins into furniture running away from some unseen force as well! I'm trying hard to deconstruct years of damage and it's so hard finding someone that understands. Most people hear about my childhood and just imagine a little girl that went to church and learned bible stories. Like some Brady Bunch level tv show. They don't know the half of the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. They don't know what it was like to become so accustomed to it that it becomes a normal experience of childhood. Deserved as well. Or what it was like to watch neighborhood children play from your window and cry because you aren't allowed to join them. They don't see the years of learning how to cope with crippling anxiety and emotional issues. They just see the human who either A) seems well put together because they HAVE to be or B) is barely keeping it together and falling hard down a path of self destruction. I fluctuate between the two- not as bad as I used to but, nonetheless, I continue to fluctuate between the two. No one seems to understand. So, thank you. Thank you for making these videos. Thank you for being a beacon of hope that deconstruction is possible. Thank you for helping me feel understood and less alone in this.
You are definitely not alone. But as you mention, most people find it hard to believe, and even harder to admit. We used to believe childhood was carefree, all children happy and without a concern in the world; many people had/have to believe that.
Homeschooled Southern Baptist PK here as well. You're not alone 💙
My family are from the UK and I don't think they're as bad as your family were, but watching these and reading comments from Catholics who had an easier time growing up has made me realise that my family were actually fundamentalists. I can relate to a lot in this video. Especially fear of the dark and thinking you can see things.
We didn't have any alternative Halloween celebrations like you described in the video, so naturally my sister started 'light' parties where they would proselytize to the children in the guise of good natured non-scary Chrishtun fun. I stopped believing very early but had the fear of God, the devil, and demons so intrinsically installed in me that it gave me Psychosis, and Halloween is definitely a triggering time. Which sucks, because I love dressing up!
I grew up conservative Catholic in the USA so I relate to some but not all. I don't understand the Protestant view of demons. Their view of demons seems to be a demon just makes people depressed or start grunting or gives them sinful thoughts. In traditional Catholicism, the stories of demons are scarier. Things like people crawling up walls, levitating, people trying to kill themselves and throw themselves into fires, stories of Ouija boards, physical activity, people's complete wills being taken over. So to us, when something goes bump in the night, or someone is just depressed we don't feel alarm because our stories of demonic activity are much more extreme.
Thank you for your videos! Your voice means so much. One of my earliest memories is attending a church play in which "sinful" teens (youth group actors, including my cousin) were enticed by demons, only to be dragged off stage to hell. The final scene was a person thrown into a coffin, and them pounding on the lid to be let out while demons carried it away. I had terrible nightmares every night and I was only four years old! Everyone around me believed in demons and hell, so nothing they said calmed me down or made me feel safe. Finally, one night my mom held me close and said, "You know how much I love you? Well, God loves you even more than that; He wouldn't ever let that happen to you." And in that moment, I quit believing in hell, demons, or a devil outside of the awful things we do to ourselves and each other. Tender moments were pretty rare in our household, so hearing my mom talk so explicitly about love really moved me. I am still a Christian, but attend a more progressive denomination that prioritizes loving others, rather than scaring the daylights out of little kids! (One of those denominations that we were taught were not *really* Christians because they didn't believe exactly like we did.) As weird as it sounds, I think attending that ridiculous play at age four and my mom's tender response were the most formative moments to come out of my religious upbringing. Funny that this is probably the only effect that play had in the world and it is so different from what they intended. . .
The demon talk/fear was me when a friend of mine talked to me about her church. She was told by adults that they saw demons crawling in people etc. I was such a sensitive and imaginative child. I went to church with her once. I was terrified to go to sleep thinking demons were crawling on my headboard or in the bathroom like you. My mom was so different than your dad. My mom was spiritual and had strong faith but not like your parents. My mom comforted me and did not let me go to church with that friend anymore. She told me God was love. And she lived by that.
Oh, I feel this so hard. I was brought up in a fundamentalist cult (long since raided by ATF & FBI and disbanded!) but grew up secretly loving Halloween. They pushed the whole 'harvest festival' thing, but I loved the whole spooky vibe, and since I had embraced the knowledge that I was going to hell when I di3d, I figured I should try to make friends with the entities I would be spending eternity with, ya know?
[Side note: I had the whole 'thoughts are the same as deeds, if you hate someone it's just like you murd3red them' pushed on me. I hated my abusers, therefore I had murd3red them in spirit, and murd3rers went to hell. By the time I was 13 I'd given up on any chance of redemption because prayer was boring, fasting just made me hungry and cranky, I refused to submit myself to the authority of any man because holy shit were they stupid fuckers, and proselytizing was embarrassing and I hated it. So, doomed and damned. And this was the EASY part of my childhood.]
I grew up in a non-Christian home, and come from a heritage that doesn't believe in demons, the devil or spiritual warfare in general. So I was shocked when I moved into an apartment owned by a fundamentalist pastor and his wife, and the lease actually specified that "there are to be no Halloween decorations or celebration/recognition of Halloween in, on, and/or around the property." The landlord solemnly explained it to me as "not wanting to give demons or dark powers the opportunity or invitation to enter and infest the property."
I more or less just ignored that clause, because firstly Halloween is my favorite holiday, and (having grown up with parents who were both residential real estate managers) I knew that it was actually *highly* illegal for a landlord to impose any sort of religious restrictions on a tenant, since it violates the Fair Housing Act.
But for years I only thought it was that one landlord who was so incredibly frightened of Halloween...it wasn't until several years later that a fundie friend of mine explained that this fear of Halloween is actually quite standard in fundie culture.
I'm also deeply curious as to how the modern fundamentalist Christian belief that demons can't possess Christians came about, since the Catholic Church has taught the exact opposite for many centuries. I'm always fascinated by how so many present-day fundamentalists seem to genuinely believe that the RCC and orthodox churches are not Christian, and thus they believe that literally NOBODY was "doing Christianity right" for well over a thousand years!! How do they reconcile that with the historical reality that Catholic and orthodox churches were the ONLY versions of Christianity extant for so many centuries?? A friend who was a fundie Calvinist actually once told me, with no sense of irony, that "real Christianity" only began after the reformation! Coming as I do from a faith heritage that sees our religion as having been practiced in an unbroken line for thousands of years, it's so odd to realize that there are so many Christians who apparently sincerely believe that *nobody* was "doing Christianity right" until modern fundamentalism evolved in the 19th or even the 20th century!
Does this mean that such folks truly believe that no self-professed Christians were actually saved until just over 100 years ago?
It's my favourite when people mention Harry Potter and immediately denounce the author idk but that series has become some kind of anti-trans dog whistle for some people and it sucks :( I love your channel btw it's really interesting to find out more about what super religious Americans are like, I was raised catholic in Ireland so it wasn't even remotely as intense as yours but some of the experiences you talk about make me feel less alone and I relate so hard to your sibling Annie. Thanks so much for sharing ❤️
Upon re reading there's lots of other shit that aged horrendously like Hermione's house elf abolishonist (SPEW) subplot for starters. 😬😬😬
At present, people are hating on the author for objecting to the anti-woman aspects of the radical Trans movement. No offense to anyone, but when I hear that Caitlyn Jenner, who left Bruce behind a few years ago at age 65, is as much of a woman as I am (a biological female for all my 65 years), I don't know whether to laugh or feel angry. I support J. K. Rowling and other gender-critical women.( I am also a political liberal who supports equal rights for all, just to be clear.)
@@lisamcdonald2877 Whew. I was just passing by, in the neighborhood you know, and I saw your comment, and I just found it really morally questionable. Can we talk? I'm gonna talk at you:
Caitlin Jenner was _never actually a man_ . I think of it like this: if she'd been born w a hole in her heart, no one would be up in arms about surgically repairing that situation as soon as it was diagnosed. Sometimes something a child is born with isn't caught right away, but it's moral and correct to fix it when it is, especially if the person with the issue wants/needs the procedure done (or, I guess, if you're a Christian Scientist, or have some other religious reason why you can't alter a boilogical abnormality, then maybe at that point its not moral and correct, but i feel like most of us want to close the hole in the baby'sheart...). And to be clear, I don't think anyone is really _exactly_ suggesting that Caitlin, having been treated as a man for most of her life, is 'just as _much_ a woman' as your presumably cisgender self, so much as they're saying that her womanhood is _as much a central part of her identity_ as yours clearly is... but of course, _her_ womanhood exists in the context of having been overlooked and misunderstood for most of her life, so it's not supposed to be the same _experience_, just a similarly intimate and vital part of her identity. I get that it sounds absurd, but if you think about all the invisible identities and disabilities we accept that people are born with, is it really that strange? Okay, if you've never thought about it, at first blush, maybe it does sound strange, but when we accept that whatever our initial feelings, that's still someone else's lived reality, what right do we have to harass or demonize them over it? Why are we doing this?
As for JK, it's not so much that she tweeted a few "un PC" things about Trans people. She has thrown herself into a quasi fascist political movement aimed at making it as physically and emotionally and legally difficult as possible to just exist as a Trans person in her country. She may claim--hell, she may even believe--that this will protect someone, some group or other, but the people writing the laws for the most part have no such illusions, and are unquestionably trying to serve a regressive political agenda aimed at enforcing their vision of acceptability onto the whole population. Rowling has repeatedly refused to let Trans people or their cis allies explain why her new friends have views and aims that are actually causing harm, and doubles down on her talking points frequently whenever she is challenged or even asked for clarification. And it's not like she's a private person squicked out by something she doesn't understand, she's a very rich, powerful, influential public figure who gives a lot of time and energy to the practice of demonizing an oppressed group. I enjoyed the HP books when I was in college, and I read them to my kids, but a)they don't hold up as well as we thought they would, and b)actually, its kind of grotesque to read the 7th book when you know that the author now believes in separating one group of people from the rest of the population and restricting their rights because of a condition they were born with and have no control over. Grotesque, I tell you!
If youre still reading, I'm curious, could you outline what you mean by the 'anti woman' aspects of the "Trans movement?" (Is it the bathroom thing? Tell me it's something more nuanced than the bathroom thing...) I may sound impatient, but I do want to know what you see as "anti woman" specifically. I'm not even chomping at the bit to refute it, I just wonder what you're talking about.
You also say at the end of your comment that you believe in equal rights... that interests me in particular, because social conservatives in the US are proposing, and even passing, laws in many states restricting the rights of trans people to access public facilities, to access medical care, rights pertaining to their educational opportunities, as well as rights to public and official recognition and social dignity. That's all happening apart from the _special_ atrocities being planned for children who identify as trans/a different gender than that assigned at birth in the state of Texas, whose parents can now be criminalized for accepting their children as they are. So when you say you believe in equal rights, are you suggesting that you believe all of these existing and proposed laws are wrong, but that you can't take Trans people seriously for some personal reason; or are you saying that everyone _except_ Trans people deserve equal rights? It's confusing how you've written it. If your belief is the former, is there some basis on which you feel Trans adults, Trans children, and the families of Trans children in Texas don't qualify for equal rights? Can you defend that assertion?
If you're wondering (I'm not a conplete fool, if you're even still _reading_ ...), I'll tell you: I am cis myself, but this issue is still deeply, _blood_ personal to me, and having seen your comment on a day when I have the time, I won't ignore it. I take the prejudiced-sounding things you say seriously.
@@katefriend4085 She believes that equal rights for trans people is an attack on womanhood because she doesn't think they are people. With this type you always get the, "I don't hate {group}, I just {explanation for disqualification of personhood}"
Being raised Catholic we celebrated Halloween on the 31st, All Saints Day on the 1st, and All souls day on the 2nd.
As a Pagan, I also believe in demons, but in a different way. I sometimes have nightmares about them, but I always overcome them with my strong will. It’s interesting how demons are a constant in most world cultures and beliefs
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
I wasn't a fundie, or even a Christian growing up but I relate to being terrorfied. My mum taught me to say the lord prayer when I felt unsafe and I would lie there for hours repeating this prayer to myself to calm my anxiety
I feel you. It’s a false sense of security, that’s what it is.
Just found your channel. Know exactly what you mean about the demons. I was raised up in the Foursquare church. I've always loved the darker side of life(horror,true crime,serial killers, conspiracy theories). My dad and stepmom would go through my backpack and wake me up if they anything they didn't approve of(mostly horror book). Dad would lecture me about it. Then bag it up and put it outside (to keep the evil out of the house. That's the craziest memory I have. Still love all that shit. Their both dead now and I miss them so much.
My mom did let me participate in Halloween, with some restrictions. Namely, I was not allowed to dress up as anything 'evil' (devil, witch, ghost, anything from a horror movie, etc.) most years I went as a princess, angel, fairy (I knew nothing of the fae), disney character, or bible character (in 11th grade I made my Esther costume, save for the wig, had to buy that) I was allowed to do Star Trek if I wanted. I usually went Trick-or-Treating in my maternal grandma's neighborhood, sometimes I'd also go through my paternal grandma's neighborhood as well. We would stop by the church for their 'harvest festival' and 'trunk-or-treat', I believe my mom still participates in.
This is so traumatizing! I was raised Catholic, and I do recognized some of the fear for the dark. However, I wasn’t ever afraid of angels. They were described as a warm hug or light by my parents. But we celebrated Halloween and was one of our favorite holidays, and my parents openly recognized that a lot of Catholic practices came from older religions. I could dress up as anything except a Devil. Admittedly, it was when I went to Catholic school I didn’t want to be a Catholic anymore. I’m now agnostic but consider myself culturally Catholic as some of the traditions still have importance in my life. I go back and forth between my feelings on the spiritual, but listening to you, I’m glad my parents didn’t install the ideas your parents did. Catholic doctrine on demons is scary enough without the added fears of demons being around all the time.
I can relate to Ella’s fear that an angel might pop up. I was raised strictly Catholic with a mother who worshipped the Virgin Mary who was alleged to appear to people from time to time. As a small child in bed, I was afraid to open my eyes in case the Virgin Mary would be standing there.
Uh oh... yes, Catholics know better than to "worship" Mary...honoring is what is given...nothing more, nothing less...
Fellow Catholic here.
My parents didn't stray into what's described above, but we hung out with some people who borderline did. You definitely can abuse Marian theology, and some Catholics do.
But why would that be scary for you? Wouldn't you have had a favorable idea of Mary?
6:43 !! Holy sh!t!!
Yes, I am very late to this party, Halloween in August is kind of ridiculous, but the algorithm recommended this video to me today for some reason, and...I want to say I'm amazed and so sorry that your dad told you there ever could be demons in your house! I mean, I'm familiar, somewhat, w fundie culture, so not exactly shocked to hear it, but still dismayed and disappointed.
Talking to kids about things like this is complicated, isn't it? As a (very liberal, I promise!) Roman Catholic, we actually have a day of the year where some of us bless our houses or like office/work buildings, and make a chalk mark over our doors to sort of symbolize that blessing. (Apparently, one is supposed to have the priest do the blessing and the chalking, but "Fr José" is a very busy guy; I do it myself. I'm pretty sure G-d gets what we're going for, and I assume it's just as good!)
When I talk to my kids about serious stuff, I stress that I don't think demons are real, that the "devil" is not really much of a Bible character, and his "fall from heaven" is more of a legend than a Bible story, but that unfortunately, evil _is_ real, and although it's actually kind of rare, it can be hard to spot and difficult to combat... but at the same time, if one of my boys is anxious and talking about the house being haunted for some reason, or they're playing a game where they're hunting a demon, I point to the mark over the door, and tell them firmly, "that stuff can't get in here." And _if_ that stuff is real, I really don't think it can. I also try to see if I can draw out what is bugging my kid that they are attributing to the supernatural. Sometimes they don't want to talk, or sometimes they just have an uncanny feeling, or feel generally out of control because thats a big part of childhood, but I don't just 'leave it,' because suggesting that it's 'normal' to worry about haunted houses suggests that they like, really could be.
I don't know if a chalk sign over the door would have made Childhood Ellie feel safer, but I felt like sharing this because I wish you, and all children raised in Christianity, had had some kind of assurance of God's ultimate power over evil...that's what the good news _was_ !
I understand from this and others of your videos you no longer believe in any of this, and I _don't_ mean to question or undermine that, I just found this part of your story especially sad, and wished you had been comforted as you wanted to be and deserved to be when you were small and did believe! (Also, I'm trapped inside rn by circumstances, and bored out of my mind, but this video is actually great company!)
Thank you for your stories, I find them all very entertaining and edifying!
As a child who had frequent night terrors, I was convinced I was being haunted. When I stopped believing, the night terrors stopped too
My granny would tell me that me being restless/tired/overwhelmed in church as a kid was caused by demons trying to stray me from hearing God's word. I would get upset and cry and want to leave and she would say to me, fight the Devil. Really I was undiagnosed autistic. But I guess to people like her, that counts as a demon too. She also believes I am trans because of demonic influence.
I identify with the wacko Charismatic shit SO HARD. My parents were so deep in that kind of thing. Spiritual warfare by praying against spirits of blasphemy, spirits of death, etc. and getting so caught up in this, like, combat prayer, where we weren't just asking god to save us from demons, we were personally doing battle with the demons. Of course, it seems silly in hindsight, but I used to be TERRIFIED of demons. I wasn't afraid of being possessed, I was afraid of being killed by them. Somehow I had an image in my head of me getting rent limb from limb by a demon while I was going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and we were constantly cautious of even saying the wrong thing that a demon might latch onto. Additionally, my father was super deep into the idea of generational sin; the idea that if your ancestor committed some heinous sin, it would stick to your family and god would punish all of you for decades. I really hated the idea of god punishing me for something that my ancestors did decades ago, and I think that feeling of betrayal was the start of my leaving religion behind.
I left Christianity a few weeks ago. I'm suffering from PTSD and anxiety/depression. I went through so much trauma and I only was "in the faith" for a few months. 😭
I've been accused of demonic possession so many times by my family, i can't remember much about them except for really specific details like saying it wasn't really me talking it was the demon inside me and it feels incredibly painful to think back on because I've never gotten any kind of apology for this and they still believe demons are real
I know this is an older video, but I grew up fundie. No holloween, Pokémon is evil, purity camp, the whole 9 yards. I was also born on holloween and was obsessed with it much to my families dismay. Pastors loudly would pray over me to cast the demons of rebellion out. Despite my devotion in other ways. I tormented myself believing I was giving in to the ways of the flesh and falling out from under God's umbrella of protection. I remained enthralled by the spooky candy holiday.it felt like the entire town was celebrating my birthday. I also had hallucinations regarding demons and spiritual warfare and was instructed on how to cast them out and pray a room clean. They took the form of ethereal figures, and banshees for me. Did you ever find out if there was more to the visions and nightmares for mental health? Is it just extreame fundie fear? Or is there more to it?
Ironically the faith tradition i came from (which i am no longer a part of) basically taught me that though demons are real, the only thing they can actually do to you (at least if youre a Christian) is frighten you and the best thing to do is ignore them. There was even an idea that becoming too concerned about demons was a good way to be pestered by them. I was led to believe that the main reason to pray is to seek comfort and avoid fear bc you are protected at all times, and you just need to remind yourself.
Oh, and to avoid temptations... yeah, bc Temptation was the main thing demons did, I'm recalling. They encouraged you to think about and act on your own "sinful" wants and desires. That was the main way they negatively impacted people.
In my tradition, the time when exorcism was required was for if they attacked non Christians, but any Christian had full authority and ability to cast out a demon if there was one present.
Though im still a Christian i don't subscribe to a literal belief in them. I view the inclusion of demons in the new testament as the cultural view of the time for how disease and some mental illness worked, making jesus casting out demons just anothe example of him miraculously healing people of illness.
But in my own belief i view all of that as symbolic of psychological struggles and intrusive thoughts, if i include it at all in my practice. but understanding those ideas, especially intrusive thoughts, through a healthier, more accurate lens, makes everything easier.
One of the things that drives me crazy as an ex fundamentalist is that not only did demons terrify me but I was taught that because I was a Christian, they were targeting me constantly. I truly believed that the devil was constantly watching me waiting for me to slip and then he could drag me to hell
Me too!!! I was told the enemy was having its way with me and anxiety was an energy i needed to cast out. Gave me even worse anxiety
You unlocked a core memory takin about demons and having your back exposed climbing off the bunk bed. I still hate having my back exposed smh
Omg….I feel for the person sitting next to you two on the plane. I was cringing as I remembered how I read “Battlefield of the Mind “-Joyce Meyer….and spent hours praying for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds! I’m so grateful to be out of the cult.
Something I find endlessly interesting is how high control groups redefine words, or in the case of christian-speak just give grammar a good jumble!
"Praying for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds" is absolute word salad in any other context. lolol
Wait,i remember that book! I read it at 10
I’m so happy! I’ve felt so alone in my lack of nostalgia for Halloween. No one else I’ve ever met has ever understood. I’m a weird, broken outcast. Thank you for your videos! ♥️
I'm a witch so you KNOW I clicked on this SO fast! lmao But, to tell a little story about myself: I was never allowed to celebrate Halloween as a child but then when I got older, I started researching the history of the holiday (I call it All Hallow's) and eventually brought my findings to my family (this wasn't until college, however) and they were actually very surprised by the truth of the matter. Since then, we've celebrated Halloween in our own way whenever I'm home (I move around a lot due to my husband's job) and that really means a lot to me
Ok this is my third comment now but holy crap I'm just now remembering this book about how demons are trying to drag you away from god all the time and went as far as to say how it's satanic/sinful/worldly to get a knock at the door and think "oh I wonder who's here?" instead of thinking "I wonder who the lord has sent to me?" 😂 that DEFINITELY wasn't super traumatizing as I grew up with adhd and wild frequently forget to think of God in every possible instance
My parents taught me the same prayer, and also to call on god to send Michael to protect me. Lots of nights spent terrified and praying that prayer over and over again filled my childhood and teenage years.
I had a friend growing up who wasn't allowed to celebrate Halloween either. Her family also called Easter "Passover" (even though Passover is a different religious holiday) because the word Easter sounded too close to the name of a pagan goddess. When we were kids, she also accused me of not having been truly baptized because the church I went to growing up didn't do it the way her Baptist church did. Needless to say, her family has some weird beliefs. She was an atheist for a few years but now she's gone back to Christianity and while I'm glad her beliefs offer her some comfort, I'm a little worried about her.
I'm now learning the fear of demons is sometimes a lack of accountability of the perpetrator. "I banish the demon stealer of stuff before I leave the house for the purpose of making me late for work or church out of my home." If you notice you are constantly having battles with said demon in your home, and no one else is...find a spot to keep your belongings upon entering your home. Make it a point to do it everyday, and said demon may go away.
The fear of demons has also been with me for a while. I’m still getting over it after moving out of my parents home.
Oh. I went to some of those alternatives to Halloween. For ours it was suggested that you had to dress as a religious character. One year, someone came as the devil. They technically fit the description!
It's surprisingly hard to find people talking about the Halloween issue on TH-cam thank you for making this.
Came here after seeing a slew of ex friends I still follow on social media talking about how they won't let their kids do Halloween and if you do you're celebrating Satan etc. It makes me so sad
I was raised in a protestant/fundie household. As a result, I am an atheist trying to make it in a world without magical thinking. Here is a recent example:
I just went on a backpacking trip by myself & one of the campsites was in the forest. Staying in that tent by myself is one of the hardest things I have ever done. Everyone said "don't worry! You have bear spray & cougars shouldn't bother you!". But I was not worried about the predators in the forest. I was worried about the leaves. That's right, the leaves.
There were faces on them all day, like bugs had chewed faces out of the leaves on the trail. I must have found upwards of 20 of these nearly-identical leaves while hiking to the campsite, then my campsite had three more of the earie looking faces. I was so freaked out, I had to take all of the leaves out of the site & walk them somewhere else. My phone died before I went to bed. I had nothing to distract me until morning. I woke up in the middle of the night to tapping on my tent, and I started praying. I never built secular coping skills surrounding fear as a child, so sometimes when I feel like I am close to death or demons, I reluctantly pray.
Morning came, I started hiking. I turned a corner & came face to face with a black bear on it's hind legs.
Turns out bears really are scarier than leaves, I just didn't know it yet!
I totally relate to this. I couldn't celebrate Halloween either. Instead, my parents would take us out to Pizza Hut while the trick or treaters were out. I feared Halloween since I did think that the demons were out and about on that night so I would quickly run to the car and make sure that the windows were rolled up so that the demons wouldn't get in. My birthday is on November 1st so I would be in bed, totally covered up except for my head so that the demons wouldn't get to me until after midnight when I could breathe a sigh of relief since it was my birthday.
However, it still wasn't just Halloween in that I was scared of demons. Like you, I thought some of them would come to my room and yes, I would pray the sinners prayer over and over again in the hopes that it would finally stick.
This happened to me even as a teenager. I was so traumatized.
I'm still a Christian (I became a Catholic in 1999 since I didn't want to be in my fundie/Baptist church anymore. However, I encountered fundies in the Catholic Church too so there's still a lot of stuff I need to deconstruct) but I'm no longer afraid of this stuff. In fact, Halloween has become one of my favorite holidays and I love dressing up for it, yes even as a 44 year old :)
You have a very slow voice and it's really relaxing to listen to, I love your videos they are amazingly informative and interesting
Nice video. BTW the candle was flashing in the background!😱
My heart alway broke for the kids forced to miss out on Halloween. Halloween is SO much fun! I’m sure your daughter is having a great time being Elsa, or Wonder Wonam, or whatever! That being said, you make an beautiful tree!😊
Omg. I feel so seen. This is crazy.
I was terrified of demons when I was a Christian. I would chant 'Dear lord Jesus be in this room' when I was scared. It never worked and I was just perpetually terrified until I became an apostate during the pandemic when I finally read The Bible for myself.
i did not grow up christian at all, but i did grow up with pretty bad anxiety and ocd, and i absolutely relate to the “evil presence” feeling of getting up to go to the bathroom at night as you described. it wasn’t necessarily christian demons in particular that i was scared of, but ghosts, monsters, and other ghouls of variety. i would always check behind the shower curtain before using the toilet. i am sure being raised christian/fundie would have absolutely wreaked havoc on my mental health.
I played the same fishing game at church as a kid! There was a event called “party on the block “ and did “trunk or treating”in the parking lot. I always loved it. I even volunteered one year. Our dad didn’t allow us to dress up though.
"And also...Hufflepuff pride." YES.
I identify as a Ravenclaw personally.
It's astonishing how similar our upbringings were. I now honor my child self's desire for dress up and play on Halloween, and it's honestly my favorite holiday now because there's no pressure for family gathering or gift giving, just fun with friends
i was not raised religious, but i am incredibly afraid of the dark/monsters and i cannot imagine how much worse this would have been if i had grown up believing that demons were real and wanted to kill me
I grew up in one of those liberal Christian school kids, went to a CRC church. I got go out trick or treating and I was dressed as a witch one year.
We had contact with fundies, we had some homeschool kids attend some classes in high school. Had some people in my family go through a fundie phase. I generally had a great childhood and my family dynamic was very different than yours. My mom seemed to be in charge of our family and she was very reasonable and caring. I was put off by organized religion because of their treatment of the LBGTQ community. Though to be fair I see a lot of positive changes in my parents generation.
I still consider myself a Christian and part of it is because of demons and spirits. Our childhood home was haunted, modern science can’t explain the things I have seen. I believe there is something beyond the physical world…
I've always loved Halloween/Samhain, but was not allowed to Trick Or Treat, until I was 8/9 years of age. Not nearly as bad as your situation, but I am grateful that my Grandmother (R.I.P.), thought Halloween was awesome, and not celebrating it for "Satanic" reasons was silly. I'm sorry you didn't get to know the joys of such a great holiday, especially as that's a wonderful, fun thing to pass on to children.
Thank you for your content, Elly! It makes my life brighter.
I used to have really bad sleep paralysis, my mom told me that my grandmother had sent the demons after me to torment me. I think she actually believed it. At least I hope she did, because if not, it would be a tremendously cruel thing to say to your kid.
Cruel even when she did truly believe it.
Honestly I can’t imagine my childhood Halloweens without my Grandma Witch sending me and my sister a spooky goodie box
Back in the 1990s my co-workers & I often had the local talk-radio station on. A DJ from the classic rock station would make " crank " phone calls to this station. If the talk-radio station had some on-air glitch or mishap, like playing a commercial & the hourly news at the same time, the DJ would call in & give the talk-radio host a hard time about it & would say, " Demons Be Gone! Demons Be Gone!".
Biblically accurate angels are scary they have too many eyes. I was raised atheist but I relate to your fear of demons as a kid. I had my own ways of banishing monsters as a child and would also run back and forth from the bathroom in case the Jersey devil or something was hiding in the living room.
This whole series is so validating. At the same time, it's helping me to see just how deeply I fear metaphysics because of the danger of irrefutable belief. Do you know of any discord channels or support groups for queer ex-fundie folks? I think I could use one.
Did you find anything? Let’s start one.
I remember being terrified one night, and trying to cast out what I believed was a demon, the way I’d been taught in church. I felt so betrayed when the terrible feeling didn’t go away. They promised me it would work, and it didn’t.
Oh that photo of you dressed as a tree is so sweet! In Shakespeare’s Macbeth the trees move on the Castle (well it’s actually camouflaged soldiers) and we the line ‘until Burnam Wood rise up against duncenane hill’ At school if they did that play I always wanted to be a tree!
I forgot about the clothespin fishing rod. I loved that when I was kid. And I can totally relate to the fear for demons/evil spirits, I'm 26 and I'm still getting past that.
I grew up fundie and we did celebrate Halloween, but it was something that I always felt an immense amount of guilt about. My mom grew up agnostic in a large city and Halloween has always been one of her favorite holidays. Her husband grew up anabaptist in the rural Midwest did not celebrate Halloween. So it always felt like this conflict between them and my siblings and I were constantly reminded by our patriarchal figure that Halloween was full of demons and that this was to indulge my mom, the sinner, and that each year he might decide to not let us go trick-or-treating. We had the same costume rules (modest and nothing that went against our family's interpretation of the Bible) and the excuse for letting us trick-or-treat and dress up was that we were to be a beacon of light for all the sinners around us. Any decorations or costumes that had to do with death, magic, or horror we were constantly being told that was Satan in action and to avert our eyes. Because all the other fundie families I knew didn't celebrate Halloween and did alternative "Harvest Festivals" at the church, I just felt tons of guilt and shame mixed with a child's normal enjoyment of candy and dress-up and I used to wish each year that we could go to the church instead. It was really confusing and to this day I still don't enjoy Halloween because of the way it was so complicated and guilt-ridden for me as a child. My family also talked a lot about demons. How anything wrong with our family was caused by demon warfare. We named them and would say "Get behind me Satan!". As a small child I used to believe demons were always hanging out on our garage roof ready to pounce my siblings when we played outside. My youngest brother had imaginary friends from an early age and a vivid imagination and claimed to be able to demons. My mom believed him and thought the imaginary friends were demons so had our church pray over him and then some ladies from her Bible study explained this "gifts of the holy spirit" thing to her and how we all have some kind of spiritual gift that becomes stronger in us as our walk with Christ becomes stronger and that my brother had the gift casting out demons. Still to this day, even though neither my brother nor I are Christians, she will talk about how he protects her home from demons with his presence. But yeah, so weird how atheists and other people in the secular world can have fun with this stuff and not believe in it and they are bad, but Christians who avoid Halloween are the ones constantly living in their own horror film and fighting demons all the time and do believe in magic and fantasy.
And we did Halloween, Christmas, etc! ❤️
Electrical problems in cars can be complicated especially if it’s a used car. My family had an early 90s Crown Victoria with rear air suspension. After filling up the trunk with too much camping gear then emptying it the rear raised drastically. The car eventually settled but after that the lights would turn on and off while the car was turned off every couple of minutes. The ABS would act up even if the tires weren’t locking. The car couldn’t hold a charge and we scraped it. A previous owner added something electronic which I think was a garage door opener or something but when they removed it they did it poorly and left some things connected that shouldn’t have been.
I (hubs mandated) never allowed our kids the joy of Halloween either. So sad - many regrets. Oh god, I remember the ‘turning out the lights’ part. As a kid I went trick or treating and one of my Halloween costumes was Billie Jean King, lol - lesbian. OMG my nationalistic mom let me do that?!? Oh - and the Left Behind series fueled a sharp increase in sales of Range Rovers, lol! Your vids are helping me so much! The lights? Electrical malfunction. One last edit: you celebrated Halloween Every. Single. Day. LOL!
Halloween was soooo bad. Geezus Chrust, I hated being the only kid at school who wasn't allowed to dress up
I've just found your channel and I just wanted to let you know how thankful I am to have found you! I so identify with the trauma around the unhealthy obsession with demons. At 43 years old, I'm still trying to deal with this trauma and scars left behind, due to my Fundie family's obsession and fears around this crazy obsession.
oh man okay so im an ex-fundie who was raised in a pretty conservative household. i also only went trick or treating once -- also when i was 17! sometimes we would go to "harvest festivals" at church, but most halloweens my parents would turn off the porch light, all the lights in the front of the house, and then bundle us all down into the basement to watch a movie together.
as a chlid i was terrified of satan, and i had this recurring fear that if i closed my eyes in the shower he would turn the water into stinging ants (????????). NO clue where that particular fear came from but it dogged me for most of my childhood.
i had vivid nightmares a lot as a kid which i ALSO attributed to demonic influence. i haven't thought about this in years, but my mom would pray with me before bed and ask god to place "a hedge of angels" around me to protect me. sometimes she or my dad would put a tape player with worship music playing softly in my doorway to help me relax and fall asleep. i was afraid to rebuke demons out loud bc i thought that if i did there was a chance they could say to me, "jesus i know, and paul i know, but who are you?" and then things would be worse for me.
i also had this... i'm not really sure how to explain it... but i would be sitting in bed in the dark and i'd feel distant from myself, and i'd repeat my full name over and over and over again bc i was afraid that a demon would/had/could possess me and i wouldnt be myself any more. so i'd repeat my name over and over to try and feel more anchored in myself/assure myself that i hadn't forgotten who i was supposed to be.
i can remember in high school being at a youth group camp and i mustve been in early high school? and some of the older girls in the dorm room werent from our church and they were talking about demons and i had to crawl into bed with some of my friends to be able to fall asleep, i was so scared!
honestly despite being out of the church for almost 15 years, my fear of demons has only really started abating in the last few. phew, thanks for letting me use your comments as a diary haha! it's really, it feels really good to hear you talk about these things similar to what i experienced. thanks!
Thank you for sharing your experience. A lot of what you said really spoke to me.
Unfortunately, I can relate to this so hard.
My brother was schizo-affective (he died when I was 21 and he 23, unfortunately), and I was convinced he was possessed. So was our mother. He did many things that were just downright terrifying and creepy - like our mother would always lament that he didn't have a good relationship with God and told him she wished he had a closer one (which is a dangerous suggestion for a sick mind), so on Mother's Day, in a manic state, he literally nailed a block of wood to his hand and told her "you wanted me to be closer to God, so look, I'm like Jesus now". He got 5150-ed for that and spent time in a psychiatric hospital. And the crazy thing is, he actually did this thing with his vocal cords kinda like they do with Mongolian throat singing, where you layer two sounds so it sounds like you're speaking with two voices so I was convinced that it was a demon speaking with him. I'm really glad that I fought to have him committed, even though I also believed he was possessed. I just thought that he'd be safer there. I was right.
Also, when I was a kid, I stuck my finger into an empty lamp socket and got electrocuted... and I thought it was Satan biting my finger. I was terrified. But instead of knowing about electricity, that's what I believed.
Also, I saw an angel once, if anyone wants to hear about that.
Cannot wait till ur next video. I may or may not check for one like twice a day. 😆😆😆
I’m not a mechanic or anything but if you were already in this mindset and has been primed by all the indoctrination about demons, you may have dozed off driving, dreamed the flickering, and woke back up in the matter of a few moments. I’ve had two similar(ish) things happen to me on road trips and both times I pulled off, got a nap in, and was fine going forward. Just my 2¢, love your channel and all your bravery
Girl…we had the same childhood. And I wonder why I have anxiety today
As someone who was raised in a split household (Atheistic on one side, Anabaptist on the other) and took witchcraft to be my spiritual practice of choice at 8 years old (to the present day) the descriptions of demonic/angelic warfare in Evangelical households are endlessly fascinating to me. Its really flirts with things that feel like magical practices. I cant help but see the irony in the Anti-Pagan world view. Thank you for sharing your story.
the experiences of “expelling” the demons was very relatable when i was growing up. whenever i had nightmares, my mom told me i could banish them away by just saying “in the name of the lord, go away/i banish you”. i also remember going to trunk or treats at my church rather than going trick or treating. i don’t remember ever going trick or treating till i was about 10 or so. even the name “halloween” felt “sinful” to say! we’d call it fall festival, and we also had rules about dressing up as witches/devils/anything “ungodly”.
it’s so strange how much i can relate to this video and a lot of other videos from your channel. keep up the amazing work!!
It's that time of year again. Happy Halloween from Toronto. I love all your videos
Glad found this channel. All the things you mention alone with my childhood and upbringing if my conservative Christian parents. Had similar experiences from religious stress and trama but now feel happy and better. I still believe in God but I am no longer a Christian anymore or read the Bible much
Listening right now while gaming. Trans woman here. I enjoy the Harry Potter series in the same way I enjoy Lovecraftian stories. I enjoy the books but holy shit I have issues with the person.
Watch the video by "shaun" on the Harry Potter, it's very interesting
I'm still very much in love with the stories, and very cringe about the author. I won't financially contribute to her work, but not tossing the books or movies I already own. The myth of the gender binary cuts out too many people.
I am so sorry you went through this. I can relate. I was taught the same stuff. I used to live in fear of the dark. Not because of monsters but because of demons. Then I had a night terror at age 10, when I thought I actually saw demons. Which led to my mother to believing I was demon-possessed and led to her having the "demons cast out of me". That was fun.
Hi Elly. Thank you for sharing your experiences. As a mostly non-religious Jewish person, I am fascinated by everything you describe. It is so far outside my life experiences that I have previously had no context for what the world was like in those types of churches.
Thank you for your stories. I too learned that my nightmares and fear indused night terrors were PTSD and nor demons. I still have nightly stress dreams but I no longer see my "demon"
Only tangentially related...
Watched an interview with a Catholic exorcist, and he was the most milquetoast, chill guy ever. "Yeah, I exorcised a demon out of that lady. Then I went to Dairy Queen and got a chocolate milkshake and went home." Totally just nonchalant about it, very different from the panic I'd seen growing up.
It's over on Pints with Aquinas, worth a watch.
I have seen green smoke a couple times. In my case it is due to migraine aura. I have chronic, severe, genetic migraine and it is a disorder from HELL. My nervous system is shorted out, kind of like the lights in your car. Personally, if my car did something like that, I'd assume there was a mouse nest in the wiring. I live on a nature reserve and if I don't drive my car regularly, rodents move in and set up housekeeping. It cost $400 to have one of these nests dug out of my dashboard. When I turned on the fan, hot and cold mouse nest blew out the vents. LOL! ;-)
When I was in SPARKS we had the same rules about Halloween costumes. One kid straight up showed up dressed as Satan. The church didn't want to bug him about it because he was a visitor. Well played kid
I had no idea that you had to deal with all these messages about demons. I'm so sorry! ♥️
"Hey hubs wake up and pray for me, I gotta take a shit." - Elly
Also! On another note! ...it baffles me how religion can warp people's minds and make them believe all sorts of things and they never look deeper into their beliefs or what they're told. They simply...accept the teachings of their church leaders and I've NEVER been that kind of person. I grew up questioning EVERYTHING and I guess that is why I'm borderline atheist and no longer Christian now lol I ask too many dang questions and church leaders get mad at me for that, I suppose. I've actually been asked to leave a church before because of my interrogation-level questioning xD But that's neither here nor there lmao