After the Fire Demon that got his poor dimensional portal burnt up happened, I thought I would be done with demons for this trip.
Nope.
I was riding with my brother and his wife today. They had just picked me up from the coal cabin I was staying at and were taking me to Grandma Schlachter’s house to spend the rest of the afternoon before either of them had to go to work. We drove down Hwy 245 past the small house they used to live in on our way.
It is a neat little farmhouse with a garage, outbuildings, and barn. It is a very sweet little setup. I liked it.
But then Bobby (that’s my brother) said: “I am so glad we moved. The old lady was getting to be too much for me.” I pressed him a little and he told me that they thought the place was haunted. He said something about being driven crazy by ghosts when my sister-in-law piped up and said “It wasn’t a ghost, it was a DEMON”
Now, let’s do a little setting-of-scene here. It will help you understand what is going on as we drive through Santa Claus (yes, that is really a town), Indiana.
My sister-in-law wants desperatly to be a good 7th Day Adventist-slash-fundamentalist. Nevermind the fact that she has a mouth like a sailor, married a muslim in her first marriage, a rabid atheist (that would be my brother) in her second, or can’t distinguish any particular version of the bible. Forget that she has only the loosest grip on any theology whatsoever. She knows what she wants to be and grasps at straws blindly to get there. It makes for some interesting (if uncomfortable) family dinners to say the least.
So I look at her and say “Demon?”. “Yeah, a Demon! Amir (that is her son by her first marriage) said that it would blow in his ear! And I felt it too!”
Now. I grew up around a LOT of fundamentalists. The world was always ending, the end was coming, the coming was at hand, the end is nigh, et-cetera, et-cetera, et-fucking-cetera. I am used to this kind of talk.
As an adult, I have found that it doesn’t work to directly counter what the person is saying. What you have to do is engage them without insulting them or discounting the ridiculous thing that JUST CAME OUT OF THEIR MOUTH.
Needless to say, it is a battle.
So she mentions that she both believes in demons and thinks one was haunting her at the place in Spencer county.
Another aside: This is the same sister-in-law who told me that she doesn’t believe in medicine or pharmacology because “You know where we get the word “phamacology” and “pharmacy” don’t you? We get it from the Latin word for evil magic.* Why would you want to give your children evil magic?” Did I mention that she is an RN and is going for her PA? Yeah. That.
So knowing that she had a love of etymology and that it was important to her in making theological decisions, I thought it would be a good time to say:
“You know where we get the word ‘demon’? It comes from the Greek word ‘Dæmones!’ (‘ΔΑΙΜΟΝΕΣ’); which were not evil spirits, but rather neutral or positive spirits. In fact, Plato said that at Socrates’ trial he [Socrates] attributed his inspiration to his daemones.” {You, as a reader, can read more about Socrates’ trial here.}
She said: “Well, they must have been wrong or not know what they are talkin about!” She believes that the English language has been around “at least since the Romans”.
I said that it wasn’t until the Christian era we came to understand demons as malevolent or dark. Well, she wasn’t having any of it. She looked at me as if I had just said: “Follow me to the dark side and let me rape your children while you eat the flesh of your mother. ” For. Serious.
And that was where demons in the real sense came into my sabbatical for a second time in as many weeks. Personal demons? Well, that is a totally different story. They are an everyday occurrence.
*We really don’t. Here is the etymology for the word pharmacology/pharma derivatives. They are Greek in origin. Considering it comes from the period after Christians destroyed nearly ALL of the world’s learning, well, I am surprised that we got this far <insert more rant here>.
And just for fun: