This lasted for quite some time. I was plagued by hideous, dark thoughts, and after thrashing around and growling in effort, trying to throw this thing out of myself, I finally managed to get rid of it. So far, my faith has been strong enough to deal with this. Is this imagination, a father's projection of his fears of losing his child, or something more? I apologize for this seeming insane; I question my sanity myself.
Michael

Dear Michael:

This isn't something I often write about because I don't want to frighten anyone, but I feel it's my duty to help people by sharing what I've learned.

First I want to reassure you that you are not crazy. When I was harassed by a demon, I thought I was crazy too, and realizing that I wasn't losing my mind was the first step in getting free. Of course, unless someone has had direct personal experiences with demons, the whole subject seems totally nuts. Since a belief in demons can be found in every culture throughout recorded history, however, I think we'd be foolish to dismiss the idea of demons out of hand.

What you describe is very familiar to me. In fact, I went through something similar when my first child was born. This began with me seeing (in my peripheral vision) a dark, hulking demon crouching behind furniture in the corners of the room. It then progressed to'night terrors,' in which I felt a demon crouching at the end of my bed or sitting on my chest.

Much of the worst activity occurred when I was sleep-deprived because my son was a newborn. Instead of attributing these experiences to hallucinations due to sleep deprivation, I believe these things happen when we're exhausted because our consciousness is always in an altered state and we're weak and vulnerable.

There are several elements in your story that are common to demonic attacks. First, when a child is born, a portal opens between this world and the spirit world so that the child's soul may enter the physical. Sometimes dark entities slip through this portal to enter this realm. I've also come to believe that when people who are destined to do great things are born, they may be opposed by forces of darkness. This just makes sense: if we knew a demon had been born, we'd no doubt try to either thwart it or convert it to'our side' of love and light.

Often people experience demonic attacks when they are moving from a life that is somehow immoral toward one that is closer to God. I'm not suggesting that in serving your country, you were doing anything immoral, but certainly being at war is a dark experience. I imagine demons would be drawn to war zones where there is plenty of fear and other dark energies to feed on.

After leaving the war behind, you say you began to reach out to God with your heart and develop greater faith. It's very common for people to be attacked by dark forces when they are in the process of devoting themselves to the light. You might label these'fear attacks,' for their goal is to make you terrified in order to prevent you from becoming so spiritually empowered that you will become immune to dark influences. In a way, this sort of thing can be a good sign: since evil only attacks its enemies, it means you are making tremendous spiritual progress.

Further, as we grow in wisdom and faith, we can attract attention from dark forces. Imagine that the whole of humanity is running a marathon, and that there are invisible beings hoping for and perhaps betting on certain factions to win. Now imagine that you decide to pledge yourself to run for'the good guys' and you begin pulling ahead of the crowd. The forces who want darkness to win would naturally try to trip you up. This is why folks in the middle of the pack would be ignored, while those who are picking up speed may be attacked.

The goal of dark entities is to make us afraid, which keeps us under their power. In order to do this, they can read us like books and look for our weak spots. So if we grow to a point where we aren't afraid for ourselves but we would be terrified for our children, they will hit us below the belt. I feel this is what happened with your son: your fears for him were the'weakest link' in your armor of faith.

Though we'd like to believe that children are invulnerable or off limits to this sort of attack, that is sadly not true. While babies can be born with dark entities already attached to them, it sounds to me like you already had this demon on board, and it only suggested it was latching onto your child in hopes of getting to you. You are its true target, and when it felt it was about to be shed, it began trying desperately to hold on.

One way to conquer your fear of this entity is to view all it is doing as acts of desperation. It's trying so hard to scare you because you have grown in faith and are close to setting yourself free. There are many former columns archived at Muse-Net regarding how to deal with this. Here are a few that may prove particularly helpful:

I'm running out of space here, but I want to assure you that you can take steps to be free of this forever. The key is to lose your fear and embody love. The divine never battles evil, so if a battle is being waged, you can bet it's between two dark forces. In this case, the battle would be between this dark entity and your own fear.

If you can send this demon love and compassion, it will want nothing to do with you. This is easier said than done, of course, but it can be achieved. It's how I got free from the demon that harassed me some twenty years ago when my son was born, and how I've remained free ever since.

I'm happy to hear that your faith has been strong enough to carry you through all of this, because your faith the most powerful tool you have. By transcending fear and embodying faith and love, you will become invulnerable to lower entities.

- Julia