I remembered two events in my life, which seemed to be a proof that evil can be real and can have effect on you even when you think that it's not there, even when you don't judge it as evil.
1. About 12-14 years ago, during my early years of knowing God (I was not a Catholic at that time), I used to be a tarot cards player. I played it for myself and for others. Many people that I know came to me for help and I never charged anyone of them for I thought I was doing something good for other people. When I played the card, I always asked God to guide me. This happened for years, five or six years maybe. But then I met a Christian lady, she tried to persuade me that I should stop playing it because it is evil. Of course, I didn't believe her. I told her "God is the Father of Heaven who creates the rain and sun for everyone, I believe that God loves all religions and all beliefs as the same. And I always asked God to help me before I play it." Then she kindly said, "This is not a tool that God recommend anyone to seek Him, my dear. How do you know that the one answering you on the other side is God?" I didn't believe her but I did think about that a bit. I still kept on playing the cards. Then I started to have this bad dream about me bringing blood and monsters into a land of beauty, I am the one destroying that land of peace and beauty. I didn't understand that dream. I kept asking God what why did he send me such a dream. Then, after several months, a terrible event happened, it was so terrible that my eyes finally opened to the truth.
I will not write the details for it is very personal and hurtful. All that I will say is that I finally realized that the tarot cards had been recommeding me to do something harmful to another two Christian friends and harmful to myself, and I had never known that it was harmful until one day that the truth hit me in the eyes. I lost so many tears. But it did open my eyes and I started to see the connection, started to see how the tarot cards can really be evil. So one day, I put it on the bed, and prayed to God whether I should destroy this thing. The power of the evil was so strong that it put so many thoughts into my head about how I should not do it. This card is a way that you can help other people, if you throw them away, what would you say to those people who come to see you? Blah blah blah...the devil kept on talking in my heard. But then I prayed to God, if You really want me to throw this away, please let me open a page of the tarot guidebook and see something evil in it. I randomly opened a page, it was a page on the description of "Evil" card. And there was a sentence saying..."evil is actually nothing bad, it is just pampering yourself a bit with the pleasure of the worldly stuff like luxurious things, good food, good clothes and all that money can buy, which is something that human need to do some time in life."
Then I said to myself, "That's a total lie! Evil is bad, now I know that it's bad!"
I finally threw the card away and promised God that I will never play it again in my entire life. And I never did.The amazing thing was that after I threw it away, I felt so much light and so much presence of God surrounding me whenever I sat down and prayed, it was very, very noticable that I did not have have any doubt left in my mind. Getting rid of the cards was absolutely the right thing to do. I had been such a fool for all those years!
2. About 4-6 months before I first came to Catholic Church, I roamed the internet and found this website. I don't remember the exact name anymore but it sounded like a spiritual research organization. The look of the website is very clean, formal, like something that you can really trust, like it belonged to knowledgable scholars and scientists. The website had many interesting information on it, like how evil are working within us and bringing us suffering in this world if we don't progress in spiritual growth. I also found that they offer free course of sprititual growth online, so I jumped in, out of curiousity. And the fist step required in the course was "After you pray a prayer from your own religion, chant this particular verse 10 times. It will help clear away the bad karma from your past, including the bad karma of your ancestors." I was reluctant for a while. But after checking it out and found that the verse is just the name of a guru in Hinduism, I considered it for a few days and then decided to try. It was a very, very short verse. I started to chant it, one time, two time, three time, four ...and suddenly, a strange power or energy went right into my fourhead, just between the eyebrows, right at the location where some people say it is the Third Eye. I could feel it very clearly. I was not imagining it for sure. There was this power getting into my forehead while I was chanting the verse. I felt that it's weired. I didn't know whether I should be afraid or should be amazed. I didn't remember if I finished chanting it 10 times or not. But the next morning, I started seeing stains of blood around my house, on the wall, on one of my clothes, and I felt the terrible fear inside of me all the time, as if there are something scary near me, or within my house. Still, I was foolish enough to go and check out more information from the website. They said "if you start seeing blood around your house, it is very normal. Many people who take our course see them too. It is just a sign that your ancestor sins are beling cleared away." So...I tried to ignore what I see, ignore my own fears.
That night, God gave me a warning dream that I am forever grateful for. The picture of this dream was so vivid, so real, and the message was so clear. I and my family were in a bedroom with no walls surrounding us. We had a door, we had the four poles of the wall, but there was absolutely no wall to protect us on four direction! The door and the poles were useless then. And I felt in the dream that there were many beasts roaming around outside, they could harm us anytime. We are out of protection!! I woke up from that dream and I understood right away what it meant. I have put myself and my family in a dangerous situation where God might not be able to protect us if I continue on with this evil thing. I cried and cried and told God how sorry I was, how stupid I was, and that I would never do such a thing again. Now I realized that the chaning was evil. I asked God to save me and my family. Then I went on to Youtube and played all the hyms and praise songs. I sang all those songs...I sang and sang until I felt the light shine inside of me and cleared away all the fear. Peace has returned to my heart again and I felt that God had mercy for me and I am saved now. I went back to sleep. The next morning. There was no more blood stain, no more fearful feelings. Everything returned to normal. And I am forever thankful to God, for saving my life, although I did a very, very stupid thing.
After these two events, I tried very hard to be careful not to get involved with things like that again. At this point of my life, I no longer go to see fortune tellers, no longer let any other influences to obstruct my path with God, including all evil movies and medias. When I slipped, God disciplined me right away.
When I thought back to these past events, it was clear that evil can be real and can have effect even when you are blind to see it as evil, even when you thought it is something right.
So, I will stick to my rule. I will not have anything to do with it. Discernment is important and I still need to continue learning. But I will not judge or condemn the people who do this kind of evil things, I will pray for them.
I believe that no matter what, God will protect his children, as long as we don't run and offer our life to the devils or go play with them, we'll be safe.
Right now, I also have a new question. If we are trying to save those under dark influcences by prayers, will that mean we announce our self as the enemy of Satan and he will start attacking us? That is something I need to know because I've been praying hard for those under the darkness of this sort. I just felt that it is an important thing to do. Don't know if it will cause any effects though. But maybe it is something God encourages me to do because once I started praying, God sent me more people to pray for.
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