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In The Presence of the Gods: The Night That Changed Our Lives Forever

This is an experience I do not normally talk about, because I don't want to come off as a bragger. I always say that you can tell the difference between people who have had legitimate spiritual experience and those who haven't, because those who have will not brag, or try to use it to score religious, social or financial points. Those of us who have had real experiences in these realms, don't go around blowing our own trumpets. The only time I tell this story is when it is necessary to describe why my wife and I became worshipers of the Greek Gods. It's not something someone will usually find me discussing or trying to spread around on a consistent basis, because I don't feel the need to be personally validated or convinced of my experience, nor do I care if others believe me or not. In fact, the only reason I am telling it now on my blog and website here is because I feel I should make a reasonable post about it for my readers. They read my life story in my autobiography, but it doesn't describe this massive change, so I am going to tell one of the greatest stories of my personal life.

The Greek Gods are not merely myths as many consider them to be. They were real before and during ancient times, and they remain real in our own time, immortal and deathless, and the rulers of heaven, Earth, and the worlds and realms beyond those. Nothing escapes their authority or their blessings, for it is theirs, and always has been and will be.

The event took place shortly after my wife and I, my fiancee at the time, moved into our first apartment together in North Carolina in the summer of 2009. At that time, she was a Wiccan of ten years and leaned more toward a Norse Pagan persuasion, but she also knew of the Greek Gods and considered herself to have a relationship with Athene. I considered myself to be a "Christian Wiccan," or more accurately, a "Christian Witch." Even though I knew of the Greek Gods as the only alternative religion I had heard of through my years in school, I retained the Christian belief system I had been exposed to all my life and combined it with the emerging practices of magick and witchcraft that I so dearly loved.

Because we had just moved in together and completely left our old lives, we had little money. I was unemployed and my wife only had a part time retail job. So we had to go to thrift stores to get the things we needed for our apartment, which there's no shame in at all. Many times, thrift stores can have very nice things. Although this particular thrift, which shall remain nameless, was unlike any I had ever entered. When you walked in, you could sense that there was just something very, very negative, even perhaps evil, about the place. It just was not a pleasant feeling at all, but rather a feeling of extreme uneasiness. It's not unreasonable to think that such places could possess negative influences, energies or beings because you never know where the items therein originated. They could have been involved in violence and other bad things, or could be the property of a deceased who is very angry that their stuff is being sold. There are several problems that could come with random belongings of others that have been taken or discarded. Nevertheless, we really didn't give it much thought at the time. We just wanted to get a table and chairs for our kitchen, and after a short time, we found a set and went on our way back home.

On into that evening was when things turned weird and terrifying for us. A presence began to manifest in our home which can only be described as a serious and aggressive haunting. Some kind of spirit or negative influence had entered our home, probably having followed or latched onto us from the item we came into contact with and then attacked when we took it to our home. Whatever this thing really was, it made itself known by slamming doors and filling us with fear, saying that it was not going to leave until death was brought on us. Not only could we feel and hear its hostility, we could hear its voice and it talked to us as plain as any person would.

Me being highly Christian, I began an exorcism, calling on Jesus and also Saint Michael, the biggest enemy of Satan, to kick the spirit out. However, not a single prayer of mine worked. In fact, the situation became more and more desperate with each passing minute because the creature grew more and more powerful, or so it seemed. One thing is certain, it laughed at me in everything I did and every prayer I prayed.

My wife told me that she could tell that the spirit feared the old Gods, and how she knew that I did not know. Perhaps she was closer to the Greek Gods than I was at the time. But at this point, I was willing to try something different because nothing I was doing was working. So I decided to turn my prayers to the Greek Gods, particularly to Athene and Apollon. Athene is the great warrior Goddess and defender and Apollon is the God of Light who averts evil and purifies ill. So I prayed to them, my wife joining me, simply asking for them to please help us. After what seemed like a few seconds of praying to these Greek Gods, my wife described an image of a lady with a spear and a male of light appearing and confronting the spirit. To quote her exactly, "Athene grabbed him by his tail," and stabbed him, then Apollon's light filled the area and cleansed away all the impurities. Then, almost as fast as it had begun, the time of terror came to an end.

Needless to say, my wife and I cuddled closely in the bed for the rest of the night, sometimes fearing the spirit might return, but it never did. It was gone, and so was our former religions. The next day, without even verbally confirming it to ourselves, we became ancient Greek. It was a given after our experience, especially with me, because the god I had spent years serving and defending never showed up, while the Gods I had given nothing to, gladly extended their hands in help in our time of desperate need.

I knew that each time I would tell this story, there would be Christians who would not only tell me I wasn't a real Christian, but that what really happened was not that the Greek Gods came and rescued us, but that it was actually Satan tricking us, that he was the one who removed the demon of his to trick us. The theory of this ultimate conman is reverted to sometimes more than the name of his counterparts. But what I found to be interesting about this claim was the fact that Jesus said the exact opposite in the bible, because Jesus plainly stated that Satan cannot cast out Satan, because it would divide his kingdom (Mark 3:22-27). By the words of their very own religious and spiritual icon, no, it wasn't a trick by this alleged Satan, because Satan would not drive out his own presence. The simplest answer is probably the right one, that the Greek Gods are real, they are authorities of goodness, and they came to restore goodness and order once more as they have done for so many years in Greek religious belief.

In the Goodness of the Dodekatheon,
Chris.

I usually find the ubiquity of celebrity death watches on this world wide web of ours morbid, as everyone ought, but there’s no denying that the August 25 [2018] passing of one of the denizens of that list – the gorgon John McCain – made my day. Not just my day, either. For the first time in collective memory, both the extreme left and the extreme right had a common cause to celebrate in tandem:

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[Picture with the text “John McCain is dead” written at the top, followed by a Political Compass in which each of the four quadrants has a picture of a cheering guy and a picture of a crying woman is at the center]

The pundit class always bemoans the lack of ‘bipartisanship’ these days. Well, here’s what you’re looking for, baby! For a couple of days, anyway.

That still leaves plenty of room for the maudlin middle – in both its liberal and especially risable cohenservative wings – to signal its collective virtue via expressions of sycophantic tribute, to placate I know not whom. Or, to put it a less delicate way, the brown-nosing underway in honor of Songbird’s memory is positively nauseating. Here’s a fun drinking game: take a shot every time you run across a news item referring to McCain as a ‘hero’. (Faith & Heritage assumes no responsibility for resulting liver damage or sustained spiritual trauma if you happen to be a Baptist.)

Of course, the cascade of crocodile tears culminated in a week-long funerary jaunt from coast to coast, with stops at every conceivably relevant venue – from the Arizona state Capitol to the DC Capitol to the National Cathedral to the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial to the US Naval Academy. Such an unwieldy procession brings to mind nothing more dignified than one of the Rolling Stones’ interminable ‘farewell’ tours, or perhaps a spurious bleeding Marian icon making a pilgrimage through some of the more superstitious backwaters of rural Italy. At every stop, scads of crowds withstood late summer temperatures to pay their respects to Famous Dead Guy. The unlikeliest of illustrious potentates attended his funeral – all the surviving presidents, plus everyone from Joe Biden to Henry Kissinger to retired Diamondbacks outfielder Luis Gonzalez to Warren Beatty (!!!!) All of this, I might add, for a mere senator. His having been a presidential candidate as well had little to do with all this pomp and circumstance. I don’t recollect similar hosannas being lauded upon the passing of, say, George McGovern.

Well into the month of September, lamestream media outposts on the right and on the left engaged in a pitched battle of dueling banjos to see who could sing this stalwart warrior into Valhalla with the sweetest melody. Things got downright surreal when Stevie Wonder, of all people, dedicated a song to McCain during a concert. No word as to whether radio stations with an 80s format suspended airplay of Tina Turner’s “We Don’t Need Another Hero,” but given the trajectory I think that’s a given.

To paraphrase Creedence Clearwater Revival: Senator McCain, you are one fortunate son, sir. This astonishing national love-in permeated down to the level of us mere plebians. If you dared mention the fact that our dearly departed treasure had more than a couple of black marks on his record, your normie friends and family (assuming you have any) would have reacted as though you had sent your grandmother to live in a tent in the backyard during a polar vortex. “How DARE you???? Don’t you know he was a HERO??? A WAR hero???? What have you done with your life? Show some respect!!! You’re just a damned North Korean!!!!” Sound familiar? Maybe, if they were of a liberal bent, they would have qualified their indignation ever so slightly: “Yes, I didn’t agree with all his politics either, but that’s beside the point now!!! How can you sit there and speak ill of the dead??? You’re just a damned North Korean!!!!” Where do these people come up with their great ideas?

This, of course, leads to a wider theological question: where, exactly, is it written that to speak ill of the recently-departed dead is sin? If we are to affirm that it is indeed found in the Scriptures ‘somewhere’, then we also must reckon God a sinner, as He ordained the harlot Jezebel’s torso to be ‘disrespectfully’ dragged off by dogs after she had not been dead from her great fall even one day (II Kings 9:30-37), to cite just one example. Or could it just be that we don’t find such postmortem criticism cricket? Well, that’s just too bad, isn’t it? Marquis of Queensbury rules have not been canonized, last time I checked.

And leaving aside McCain himself for a second, of what possible benefit can it be to anyone to sing the praises of an unrepentant reprobate who has just passed on? In the New Age-y vernacular of the times, all funerals are a ‘celebration of life’. Who in their right mind would celebrate a life that had been utterly wasted on evil vanities? Anyone who would desire to be memorialized with lying tributes warrants nothing more than an unmarked grave. Such tributes can also be viewed as an egregious violation of the Fifth Commandment. Can any good be brought upon a mother or father by mealy-mouthed flatteries designed to act as the hollowest of reassurances rather than as a summation of a life to be learned from for those who yet walk upon the earth? We honor our ancestors. We don’t worship them.

More to the point of the subject at hand: I can find zero excuse for joining with the Consensus Chorus and lauding McCain as a hero.

It is not heroic to cause a fire on board an aircraft carrier that kills 134 crewmen because you ignited a Zuni rocket on your jet fighter after wet-starting it in a pointless show of bravado.

It is not heroic to get your daddy – the admiral in charge of the US Navy’s entire Pacific fleet – to intervene so that this shameful incident will be expunged from your record.

It is not heroic to get shot down over North Vietnam because you were flying too low – well within radar range – in direct contravention of orders. Again, because you were hotdogging.

It is not heroic to chirp like a canary towards your NVA captors so that you can get an extra Ritz cracker with your daily bowl of fishheads and rats.

It is especially unheroic to agree to broadcast Communist agitprop over North Vietnamese radio – which broadcasts would be duly re-aired on a wider frequency so that Voice of America could intercept them.

It is not heroic to justify this treason later in your career by whining about the ‘torture’ you underwent.

It is not heroic to divorce your first wife because she was ‘kind of a drag’ after undergoing years of therapy to recover from a near-fatal car accident.

It is not heroic to commit adultery against your first wife by jetting off for trysts across the country with your current wife.

It is not heroic to allow yourself to be wined, dined, and bribed by chief savings & loan crook Charles Keating, to blatantly lie about your involvement with him before television cameras, and to gain a reputation as the most unscrupulous of the notorious Keating Five…all in your freshman term in the Senate.

It is not heroic to make your mark in the Senate as its preeminent chickenhawk, gleefully acquiescing in any and every war that serves Israel’s interests, and to codify that status via stupid stunts like singing about bombing Iran.

It is not heroic to submit a bill calling for women to be subject to draft registration.

It is not heroic to have yourself photographed with Syrian ‘freedom fighters’ connected with ISIS, and proudly posting such on your Twitter feed.

It is not heroic to allow the laughably left-wing partisan Snopes to refute most of the above points as ‘conspiracy theories’.

And finally, it not only is not heroic but is exceptionally creepy to insist that everyone who attends your funeral services RSVP beforehand. What are you, a Rothschild?

This is only the stuff that is on the public record, as well. If we are to factor in the doubtless numerous skeletons in his closet, McCain’s life becomes all the more damning. Suffice it to say that while I am not a fan of Donald Trump, he was spot on the money when he said that it takes more than sitting in a tropical prison cell for half a decade to constitute a hero. I can see no good out of pretending otherwise now that Son of Cain is safely ensconced in Gehenna.

I can think of no better concluding remark than that proffered by Mark Dice: “Is John McCain’s funeral over yet?”