10/17/2024
- Show Me Your Mask and I Tell You Who You Are!
Our appearance has a tremendous impact on how we are persevered by others and it has also a powerful impact on what and who we attract into our lives in the natural but also in the supernatural world. Our appearance can inspire and empower our children but it can also hurt and even destroy them.
Halloween is Celtic pagan holiday that started in Ireland, Scotland, and Northern Europe over 2000 thousand years ago. And it is based on a belief that the way people dress and/or the ritual they perform on Oct 31 can attract or resist spirits from the underworld. The Celts believed that at the end of the harvest season and at the end of their year the spirits of the dead would come back and it would rejoin the living. Their lack of spiritual wisdom made them believe that masks could protect them from unfriendly spirits (BuzzFeed unsolved, 2020).
The Bible says that we are engaged in a war against spirits of the dark world “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12). While the Celts didn’t know that they were being tormented by demonic forces that wanted to destroy them we now know the truth and that spirits from the dark world are not our friends and we the power through Jesus Christ to overcome any evil force “In My name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;” (Mark 16:17).
The arrival of some groups of immigrants to an unprepared and trusting America during the 19th century helped to expand the Halloween celebration throughout the colonies trigging a chain of events that helped to awaken witchcraft beliefs and practices in America “Young women believed that on Halloween they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings or mirrors.” (History.com editors 2024). Within a few years Halloween transformed from a silly friendly celebration into a dangerous holiday in which people wore evil masks in order to extort their neighbors for food and money and eventually Halloween became a plague of vandalism and crime in America that took many year to contain (History.com editors 2024).
In the early 19th century the radio and the television were invented and with that many Americans became complacent and many of them even embraced practices of witchcraft and paganism that are an abomination to God. Many Americans abandoned the God that delivered them from the hands of an abusive Empire and that gave them a home called the United States of America, which was promised to their ancestors “When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritism or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD; because of these same detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you. You must be blameless before the LORD your God.” (Deuteronomy 18:9-14)
The book of Mark tells the story about a demon possessed man that lived among sculls in a cemetery, his body had marks from self-harm, and he was friends with the spiritually and physically dead “When Jesus climbed out of the boat, a man possessed by an evil spirit came out from the tombs to meet him. Day and night he wandered among the burial caves and in the hills, howling and cutting himself with sharp stones.” (Mark 5:1-5). Self-harm has become very common in our culture today but instead of using knives people use needles to puncture their skin thousands of times per second in order to create images in the form or tattoos. And during Halloween many people and communities make their homes, yards, and bodies into grave yards with demonic images, with sculls, and grave stones and they hang out spiritually dead people. The combination of these factors and behaviors create an appearance and the perfect environment that will attract and nurture evil forces of autism, anxiety, depression, death, pain, and other mental and physical health disorders.
Our body is our first home and the place we live in is an extension of our body and mind. Therefore, wisdom, caution, knowledge, common sense, and godliness are critical qualities to nourish in our lives and homes so that our mind, body, and spirit, our home, and our children to don’t become exposed to dangerous and demonic music, movies, objects, clothes, images, foods, and/or people that can infuse in them spirits of depression, anxiety, obesity, diabetes, death, anxiety, heart disease, and cancer.
I believe that behind every disease there is a spirits working to trigger a behavior that will ultimately create a mutation that will trigger a disease. By making an intelligent, well educated person or child to become careless about their body, mind, and heath spirits induce them inhale, eat, or inject a toxic substance that will harm his or her lungs and brain forever, and/or to make them betray those who are trying to help them. The book of Luke describes the story about twelve men that lived and followed Jesus’ day and night, the Messiah. Still, one of them Judas managed to betray Jesus Christ the most loving, kind, and pure man that ever lived. Judas’ carelessness and complacency enabled Satan to enter his mind and body and to use him to betray Jesus “Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus.” (Luke 22:3-4)
The spirit of Self-control is a direct displays God’s image in our lives. It doesn’t matter how religious a person may be if they cannot control their mind, body, and spirit it means that they are not under God’s direction “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” (2 Timothy 1:7). I believe that behind every disease that are spirits misguiding, preventing, and/or forcing intelligent and well educated people from exercising and/or from making good healthy choices and these spirits may come into their body and mind by invitation and/or because of carelessness during cultural events such Halloween, while watching evil movies, while listening to wicked music, while hanging out with hateful, racist, bitter, corrupt, abusive, ungodly, disrespectful, careless, and wicked people that don’t maintain a heathy relationship with God.
The lack of care, authority, self-control, self-awareness, but most importantly the lack of God in the lives of the American people in the 1920’s invited and empowered spirits of corruption, vandalism, and violence to take over schools and communities in America. These spirits eventually evolved into power forces of witchcraft and satanic worship that have turned many communities and schools throughout this nation into bloody warzones. The level of violence, su***de, drug addiction, and wickedness that we see in many schools and communities across America and the world today is unprecedented. In 2022 alone there were over 46 school shootings in America (Thomas, S. P. 2023). “Since April 1999, the annual number of school shootings in the United States has ranged from 5 in 2002 to 17 in the first 5 moths of 2018 (SI Appendix, Fig. S1)“ (Rossin-Slater, et al., 2020). Furthermore, the wicked, careless, corrupt, divided, and ungodly appearance that many Americans are displaying in their homes, mind, body, and spirit is enabling spirits of depression, anxiety, autism, and spirits of su***de to cause chaos and destruction in the lives of young children and young adults throughout this nation like never seen before “Between 1999 and 2016, su***de rates increased by nearly 30% in the United States ( Stone et al., 2018 ), making it the tenth leading cause of death nationally (Center for Disease Control, 2018).” (Cunningham et al., 2021).
The Black Death was the deadliest epidemic in human history killing one third of Europeans from 1351 to 1400. It was originated in China and Inner Asia and it decimated armies and communities throughout Europe. (The editors of encyclopedia Britannica, 2024).
Prior and during the Black Death witch craft and other pagan religions became very popular in Europe, however, post Black Death Europeans realized that witchcraft and pagan practices were the source of the Black Death curse that killed millions of man women and children in Europe. (Lumen Western Civilization, 2024). Thereafter, European leaders, the church, and civilians worked together to hunt down witches and to eliminate pagan religions throughout Europe. Individuals accused of being involved in witchcraft and with pagan cults were put on trial and they were hung. Moreover, most of the people involved in witchcraft and paganism were women and by the end to the witch hunt period in Europe approximately 100 thousand people were killed (The editors of encyclopedia Britannica, 2024).
The Black Death and the witch hunt period in Europe triggered a greater influx of European immigrants in the United States from 2000 immigrants per year before 1580 to 8000 per year in the second half of the 17th century (Encyclopedia.com, 2024). While most of the European immigrants that came to the United States during that time were honest people looking for a fresh start after the traumatic Black Death many of those people were criminals, witches, and people involved in paganism looking for a place to hide and to continue on with their wicked and evil lifestyle “While the European witch hunts had more or less declined by the mid to late 17th century, they increased in the American Colonies, particularly in Puritan societies.” Lumen Western Civilization (2024).
The arrival of witchcraft and paganism in the American colonies was marked by the appearance of people suffering from demonic possessions “In the spring of 1692, two young girls from a seemingly inconsequential village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony began to display increasingly disturbing behavior, claiming strange visions and experiencing fits. When a local doctor diagnosed the girls as suffering from the malevolent effects of the supernatural, they set in motion a series of events that would irrevocably alter the course of American cultural, judicial, and political history. The ensuing witch hunt would result in the executions of 19 men, women, and children, along with the deaths of at least six others, and the suffering, torment, and calamity of an entire community.” Katie Brown, (2021). However, during that time American leaders, the church, and the American people were united together, watchful, brave, honest, and godly people and they took that situation very seriously. As a result they eliminated the threat of witchcraft and paganism from every community and state throughout the United States by the end of the 18th century.
Unfortunately, due to complacency and ungodliness by the start of the 19th century the practice of witchcraft, Wicca, and the practice pagan religions re-appeared in America and now it has become a plague in this nation “Wicca and witchcraft are popping up in pop culture these days, from teenage witches on TikTok to a Marvel comic superhero called Wiccan. It has even led The New York Times to ask: “When did everyone become a witch?” (Helen Berger, 2021).
The invention of the television and the creation of motion picture enabled spirits of witchcraft and paganism to pe*****te the heart of the American family to corrupt the minds, body, and spirit of American men, women, and children with cute and friendly movies such as; I Married a Witch (1942), The Witches of Eastwick (1987), The Craft (1996), Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996), Practical Magic (1998), Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), Into the Woods, Disney (2014), The Love Witch (2016), Mary and the Witches Flower (2017), The House With The Clock In it’s Walls (2018), The Little Witch (2019) (Yaa Bofah & Cameron Jenkins, 2023). These movies were Satan’s perfect pathway to transfer magic spells of depression, anxiety, diseases, pain, metal healthy disorders, su***de, addictions, division, divorce, poverty, and ungodliness in the lives of the American people and in the lives of anyone who watched these movies.
Eventually, these evil forces took over the court houses in order to issue orders that prohibited Bible reading in schools. Which would deliver children from these magic spells that make them depressed, suicidal, anxious, and sick. Satan knows that when God’s children disobey his commands and become involved in occult and pagan practices such as witchcraft they lose God’s divine protection “But if you will not listen to me and will not do all these commandments, 15 if you spurn my statutes, and if your soul abhors my rules, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will visit you with panic, (ANXIETY AND FEAR CRISIS) with wasting disease and fever that consume the eyes and make the heart ache. (FLUE, COVID-19, DEPRESSION CRISIS, HEART DISEASE, CANCER, DIABETES)…And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. (AMERICANS IN DESPAIR BECAUSE OF THE HURRICANES WHILE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS RECEIVE FEMA SUPPORT)…I will send pestilence among you, (BUGS ATTACK)…26 When I break your supply[a] of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in a single oven and shall dole out your bread again by weight, and you shall eat and not be satisfied. (OBESITY CRISIS)…29 You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters. (ABORTION CRISIS)…31 And I will lay your cities waste and will make your sanctuaries desolate, and I will not smell your pleasing aromas. (SAN FRANCISCO AND OTHER CITIES DEALING WITH HOMELESSNESS). (Leviticus 26:14-45)
The United States of America and most of the nations of the world are part of the Abrahamic covenant. However, the early Americans and the Founding Fathers made another covenant with God to build and lead this nation based on Godly principals. Unfortunately, many American leaders and people in this nation today have forgotten their roots and they have broken the covenant that their forefathers made with God. While they turn into pagan religions such as witchcraft and demonic practices for help (History.com editors 2024).
The book of Revelation describes Satan as the deceiver who leads the world astray “The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him” (Revelation 12:9). This means that Satan is the hidden power that causes leaders to make unwise decision in order to give money to nations that promote terrorism and that persecute the poor and innocent “I spoke with a former senior intelligence official who said that much of the $1.8 billion cash payoff from the Obama administration was used explicitly to fund terrorism as an additional “screw you” from the leaders of Iran” (Douglas MacKinnon, 2020), Satan is the guide that make leaders move businesses from a Christian nation to communist nations that oppress Christians and that does not support free speech, equality, and justice, freedom of religion …“’Manufacturers never emerged from the 2001 recession, which coincided with China's entry into the World Trade Organization. Between 2001 and 2009 the U.S. lost 42,400 factories and manufacturing employment dropped to 11.7 million, a loss of 32 percent of all manufacturing jobs. The last time fewer than 12 million people worked in the manufacturing sector was in 1941. Clinton had the gall to accuse those who opposed China's entry into the WTO of ‘aligning themselves with the Chinese army and hard-liners in Beijing who do not want accession for China.’” (Jane White 2012), Satan is also the perpetrator that blinds leaders to recklessly allows millions of unknown individuals into their home land without any proper background check “The figures in the video ranged from 10 million illegal border crossings to 250,000 fentanyl-related overdose deaths.” (Will Grant, 2024). Satan is the murderer motivating leaders to promote abortion, specially, late term abortion “There were at least 4,070 late-term (21 weeks or later) abortions in 2021, and many states, like California and Colorado, refuse to share late-term abortion data with the federal government. States like Vermont, Oregon, New Mexico, New Jersey, Minnesota, Michigan, Maryland, Colorado, Alaska, and the District of Columbia (D.C.) have no limits on abortion.” Anderson & Nicholas (2024).
Although, the violent and deadly witch hunt project in Europe and in America in was effective to eliminate paganism and witchcraft, violence and death is not a Christian way to deal with evil. Because the weapons we fight with are based on love, kindness, empathy, and prayer “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:1). Hiding from evil and/or avoiding participating in Halloween events won’t help. However, if the church and if all Christians fast and pray before, during, and after Halloween for the cadies they give out, for the children, for their communities, for the country, and of they also pray for those people practicing witchcraft while trying to cast spells on children there will be a transformation in every man, women, and child in America and in the world.
Nevertheless, I strongly recommend to not let children eat candy given by strangers, however, if they get candy from strangers and if they want to eat it I advise parents to pray over the candy before giving it to them. But it is critical that the Halloween day or trick treating is closed with the “Lords Prayer” together as a family “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours. now and forever. Amen” (Mathew 6:9-13)
The resent influx of illegal immigrant in the United States should be handled with wisdom, knowledge, understating, love, kindness, empathy, justice, and with prayer because we don’t want it to turn into a violent and deadly immigrant hunt. The book of second Chronicles says that if we pray in humility and truth to God and if we take accountability for our sinful behavior God will hear our prayers regardless if is witchcraft, paganism, and/or illegal immigration God will heal, restore, and rebuild our nation great again and extract the evil from the Halloween celebration make it into a Godly holiday that is based on love, beauty, peace, kindness, gratitude, community engagement “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).
Our appearance matters, our actions matter, our beliefs matter, our behaviors matter, our speech matters, because they will promote and/or attract spirits of kindness, love, peace, justice, liberty, and empathy into our home, in our community, in our state, and in our nation. However, if we are not careful our appearance, actions, beliefs, behaviors, and language can also promote and/or attract spirts of hatred, death, disorder, injustice, inequality, abuse of power, sickness, and ungodliness into our home, community, state, and/or nation.
References:
Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV, Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, https://www.biblegateway.com
KVARAN, K. M. (2016). “You're all doomed!” A socioeconomic analysis of slasher films. Journal of American Studies, 50(4), 953-970. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875815002674
Sandhu-Longoria (2023), Costumes, candy, decor fuel $12.2 billion Halloween spending splurge in US: A new record, USA today, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/10/09/halloween-sales-hit-record-12-billion/71121296007/
History.com editiors (2024) Holloween 2024, History, https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween
Rossin-Slater, M., Schnell, M., Schwandt, H., Trejo, S., & Uniat, L. (2020). Local exposure to school shootings and youth antidepressant use. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, 117(38), 23484-23489. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2000804117
Thomas, S. P. (2023). Another school shooting in america: How can we respond? Issues in Mental Health Nursing, 44(6), 457-457. https://doi.org/10.1080/01612840.2023.2220609
Buzzfeedunsolved (2020), The History Of Halloween, https://youtu.be/UyOqOa440l4?si=sQ2ICYFFdA_-fFHi
The editors of encyclopedia Britanica (2024), Black Death, pandemic, medieval Europe [1347–1351], https://www.britannica.com/event/Black-Death
Lumen Western Civilization (2024), The Witch Trials, Chapter 11: The Protestant Reformation, https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-herkimer-westerncivilization/chapter/the-witch-trials/ #:~:text=In%20early%20modern%20Europe%2C%20there,prominent%20in%20the%20American%20colonies.
Katie Brown, (2021), Salvation and Scapegoating: What Caused the Early Modern Witch Hunts? Current PhD Biblical Studies, BA Classics and Religion, https://www.thecollector.com/
Encyclopedia.com (2024), European Migrations to American Colonies, 1492–1820, https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/european-migrations-american-colonies-1492-1820
Helen Berger (2021), What is Wicca? An expert on modern witchcraft explains, Brandeis now, https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2021/september/wicca-berger-conversation.html #:~:text=Ever%20since%20Wicca%20arrived%20in,million%20witches%20in%20the%20U.S.
Yaa Bofah & Cameron Jenkins (2023), Good Housekeeping, Best Witch Movies That Will Make You Believe in Magic, https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/author/228167/yaa-bofah/
Anderson & Nicholas (2024), Kamala Harris’s Extreme Abortion Policies Hurt Women, AFPI, https://americafirstpolicy.com/issues/kamala-harriss-extreme-abortion-policies-hurt-women
Will Grant (2024),Trump attacks Harris over US border policing – was it her job? BBC,
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3gdjjlydp4o
Jane White, (2012), Bill Clinton's True Legacy: Outsourcer-in-Chief, HuffPost, https://www.huffpost.com/author/jane-466
Douglas MacKinnon (2020), Obama should apologize for shameful cash payment to Iran, The Hill, https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/477666-obama-should-apologize-for-shameful-cash-payment-to-iran/
