To: Aquinasfan
My oldest son had a rather extraordinary experience just about a year ago.
He was travelling back and forth with a group of other high school kids between our town and another town to practice with a regional singing group. Seven kids from our town were in this group so they would caravan over in two cars.
One night, one of the kids pulled out an amulet and began talking about the powers it possessed and gave to him. Turned out all the other kids had amulets as well. After awhile, the first kid sort of fell into a trance and began chanting and talking. One other kid in the car began to do the same.
Now you have to know my son. Nothing phases him.
Anyway, the first kid had been in a trance for about fifteen minutes -the longest, according to the group, any of them had ever been under a spell of this 'spirit'.
The other kids became very concerned and pulled over. The second car also pulled over. All the kids got out and were watching this one kid in the back seat. They were all freaking out. They couldn't couldn't get this first kid out of the trance and they all started talking about how they needed to get this kid to another kid's house because that kid would know what to do -how to break the spell and stop the channelling.
As my son describes it, at that point he calmly pulled out his rosary, and began praying it. The first kid, speaking in a gutteral voice, grabbed my son by the throat (the finger markings were clearly visible the next day) and shouted, "Shut up, creep, your prayers won't help you now."
My son says at that point he had never in his life felt so at peace. He smiled at the first kid and said, "Liar." Slowly, as my son prayed the rosary, the first kid calmed down and then gradually returned to normal.
The kids got back in their cars and came home.
My son quit the singing group the next day. He also contacted our parish priest, talked about it with him(our priest is convinced this was a true encounter with the demonic) and informed both the priest and his mother and I that he had been thinking and praying for some time about his vocation and now believes he has a calling to the priesthood.
Of the kids there that night, two have graduated and gone into the military. Three swear to my son they have thrown their amulets away and attend their respective churches regularly, now. One is in jail on a drug possession charge. And the first kid, the one in the scariest trance, has moved to California to live with an aunt.
After the ... incident --- I informed all the parents of what their kids were involved in.
I needn't have bothered. All showed little concern. Convinced this was just a bit of teenage knavery.
31 posted on 07/07/2003 12:34 PM PDT by AlguyA