ZONDERVAN THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUPERNATURAL Copyright © 2008 by Bill Meyers and Dave Wimbish All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan. ePub Edition June 2009 ISBN: 0-310-86160-8 Requests for information should be addressed to: Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Meyers, Bill, 1953 – The dark side of the supernatural : what is of God and what isn’t / Bill Myers and Dave Wimbish. — [Rev. ed.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-310-27924-2 1. Occultism—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Wimbish, David. II. Title. BR115.O3M94 2008 261.5'13 — dc22 2008001778 All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International ® ® Version . NIV . Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other — except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. 08 09 10 11 12 • 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 FOR DIANE AN INSPIRATION FOR US BOTH. OTHER BOOKS BY BILL MYERS WWW.BILLMYERS.COM TEEN SERIES Forbidden Doors TEEN NONFICTION Get Real Hot Topics, Tough Questions ADULT NOVELS Blood of Heaven Threshold Fire of Heaven Eli The Face of God The Wager When the Last Leaf Falls Soul Tracker The Presence The Seeing The Voice KIDS’ SERIES McGee and Me My Life As… Secret Agent Dingledorf Bloodhounds, Inc. The Elijah Project Imager Chronicles Bug Parables TABLE OF CONTENTS COVER PAGE TITLE PAGE COPYRIGHT CHAPTER 1 SUPERNATURAL HUNGER CHAPTER 2 ANGELS—THE GOOD AND THE BAD CHAPTER 3 DEMONS CHAPTER 4 SATANISM CHAPTER 5 UFOS CHAPTER 6 COMMUNICATING WITH THE DEAD CHAPTER 7 GHOSTS CHAPTER 8 NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES CHAPTER 9 REINCARNATION CHAPTER 10 WICCA AND WITCHCRAFT CHAPTER 11 VAMPIRES AND FANTASY GAMES CHAPTER 12 MORE DOORS TO BE WARY OF OPENING CHAPTER 13 WRAPPING UP FOOTNOTES ABOUT THE PUBLISHER SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS CHAPTER 1 SUPERNATURAL HUNGER We all have it—this hunger, this yearning for something more. After all we’re human, and humans are made of three parts… Physical, mental…and spiritual. And between eating and school and eating and work and eating and sports and eating and parents and friends and…did I mention eating?…we’ve pretty well got the first two parts of who we are covered. But what about the third? The spiritual? As a writer, it seems every time I turn around, someone is asking me to come up with a story about the supernatural. And it’s not just movies. Just check out all the psychic TV shows, talk shows, local bookstores, palm readers, or even the Internet. Everybody’s hungry for answers. Especially… TEENAGERS Every day I get e-mails from students with questions—are there ghosts? Are séances wrong? What about the glowing figure in my room? Are Ouija boards bad? What about UFOs? And on and on… Some of these questions come from youth who have read my Forbidden Doors book series. In these 12 books, a teenage brother and sister become reluctant ghost busters and learn many of the truths about the supernatural that we’ll be discussing here. Other e-mails come from students who have been frightened by actual encounters. Still others come from teenagers who have friends caught up in the stuff and want to help. Instead of spending many hours a week answering the same questions over and over, I figured, why not put the info into one, easy-to-use reference book— something you can pull down from the shelf and get a quick overview and answer? So buckle up. In the coming chapters we’ll explore the major supernatural beliefs and practices of today…finding out which ones are real, which ones are bogus, and how to deal with them. REAL OR FAKE As an author and filmmaker, I’ve spent years researching this stuff— interviewing witches, Wiccans, psychics, and the head of the CIA’s psychic research department. I have observed and participated in an exorcism, hung out with a serial killer, with those involved in ghost hunting, and with UFO abductees. I have visited a top psychic lab; filmed miracles in third-world countries; and of course, read thousands of accounts. For the most part the stories of the supernatural are like mist. They vanish into nothing when you try to verify them. But occasionally, there are situations that defy rational explanation and hold up under investigation… There are haunted locations where chains rattle and disembodied voices can be heard whispering in the night. There are people who receive messages from “beyond” through trances, automatic writing, and other means. There are unexplainable things seen in the sky at night. GOOD OR EVIL Evidence proves there is a supernatural world out there. In fact, the Bible says as much. It also says that there’s a good side to the supernatural and an evil side—a side that wants to help us and legitimately fill our hunger…and a side that wants to destroy us. Jesus Christ put it best when he said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). Pretty intense words. Jesus was either lying or telling the truth. And if he’s telling the truth, then there really is a thief out there—an enemy who wants to steal from us, who wants to kill us, who wants to destroy us. The good news is we don’t have to be afraid of the thief, because we really do have somebody who’s on our side, somebody who wants to protect us… somebody who will give us life. The bad news is we have to be smart. We can’t be stupid and go running after everything that’s supernatural. As I tell the high school and college students I work with, “Just because it glows in the dark doesn’t make it good.” In fact, it’s often just the opposite. Our enemy Satan is alive and well, and he’ll use everything in his power to draw people away from God… including supernatural “special effects.” Jesus again put it best when he said, “For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible” (Matthew 24:24). And while I’m in a Bible-quoting mood, check this out: “The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10). SAME OL’, SAME OL’ Lots of times young people are attracted to the supernatural because they have hard lives, or they don’t fit in, or people treat them like dirt. As a result, it’s only