Magnus Raven - A Guide to the Paranormal

A Guide to the Paranormal

A Book for Ghost Hunters, Exorcists,Parapsychology Researchers and Those ExperiencingProblems

By Magnus Raven

Copyright 2012 Magnus Raven

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

Preface

H ave you ever had an encounter thatyou consider paranormal, meaning that what you experienced cannotnecessarily be explained in terms of currently accepted scientificparadigms? Many people have, and you can rest assured that you arenot alone.

Human history has many descriptions ofencounters with non-human entities that seem to be, if not moreintelligent than the humans themselves, in any case moreintelligent than mere animals. These entities are described aseither displaying superhuman abilities (such as the ability tocommunicate telepathically or to move through a wall) or knowledge(such as in using or giving some device or object that providedfunctionality which could only have been included by a moreadvanced civilization). In many other encounters, however, theentities have spoken very little, as if their intention was tosomehow carry a message in the mere appearance.

The multitude of these encountersexperienced by humans throughout history has resulted in manyadditional words in the human vocabulary such as "banshee","demon", "ghost", "ghoul", "orb", "poltergeists", "spirit", "shadowperson" and so on. Although in some cases the term used was chosenbased on how the entity looked like, how it happened to behave, orwhere it was seen, these terms are today used by some as a basisfor a taxonomy or classification system for paranormalentities.

This book provides an alternativemodel explaining these entities together with an answer tofollowing and other questions:

1. What drives paranormalbehavior?

2. How are different forms of paranormalbehavior related?

3. What behavior may demons actually beengaged in during an exorcism?

4. What abilities do spirit beingshave?

5. How can I put a stop to someparanormal activity that is currently bothering me?

6. Why a particular exorcism may notalways work?

The model in this book is taken fromthe Bible. The approach used is to have each chapter build upon theprevious one, and each chapter bases its conclusions on reasoningfrom the scriptures. This is the same approach that Apostle Paulused, as noted in Acts 17:2-3 which reads (New InternationalVersion, 1984):

As his custom was, Paulwent into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned withthem from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that the Christahad to suffer and rise from the dead

As we can see from Paul'sapproach, he did not attempt to appeal to his listeners' emotionsbut to their sense of reasoning. This is related to the principlethat we should not allow any conclusion to satisfy our emotions ifthe conclusion has not satisfied our intellect first. Although itis of course not possible to satisfy our intellect in every singlecase, as sometimes our research may result in more questions thatwe are not able to answer, this is still a good principle to have.

I also do not claim that myinterpretation of the Bible is infallible. It should be rememberedthat the early Christians from Berea were commended in the Biblefor their eagerness to study the sacred scriptures to confirmwhether the things they had been told about Jesus was supported bythe scriptures (Acts 17:11). The Berean Christians were not willingto accept something as truth simply on the grounds that they havebeen told so.

It would also be imprudent to believein what someone says about the Bible simply because of somesupernatural signs done by the person or in his presence. Even insuch a case the listener should consult the Bible to determine ifthe message in the Bible supports what speaker claims to be thecase.

Going back to the Berean Christians itis good to note that, although early Christians are mentioned inthe Bible as having performed some miracles, the Berean Christianswere not commended for believing simply because of the miracles.Whether the Berean Christians personally witnessed any such acts ornot, they wanted to check the sacred scriptures and make their owndecision.

This book also does notadvertise any particular denomination but just represents theinformation that can be found in the Bible and what is known fromthe human history. If the described model does not fit well withwhat you have determined to consider as 'truth', I am only askingthat you consider whether this information seems reasonable .

Whether something was reasonably possible is,after all, a standard that is used in court cases to determine whathappened in cases where explicit evidence is not available. Thesame question of reasonability can thus be applied to theinformation we can obtain from the Bible as well, and even toquestions such as whether God exists. After all, no humans werepresent on earth when life first appeared so we cannot expect tohave first-hand knowledge about the creation. I will have to leaveit to you, dear reader, to decide whether reasonability can also beapplied to the contents of this book.

AN IMPORTANT NOTICEREGARDING POSSESSION AND EXORCISM:
This book discusses possessions, exorcism, and other conceptsrelated to the human experience with paranormal, from a Biblicalpoint of view. Every viewpoint that in this book is expressed asbased on the Bible will also list at least one Bible scripture(Bible book, chapter, and verse) that the viewpoint is based on.This allows you to confirm my writings from your ownBible.

There are two points Iwant to make about possession and exorcism inparticular.

The first point is that,if you are concerned that someone whom you care about is possessed,it is prudent to first look for other possible causes. Even in ourmodern world people suffer from mental and emotional problems thatactually have deep-rooted and complex physical causes. Sometimespeople who suffer due to these types of causes can exhibit veryunusual behavior.

The second point is thatno case of exorcism recorded in the Bible never included violenceagainst the possessed individual. When Jesus or his apostlesexpelled demons, they never had to hit or otherwise physicallyabuse the demonized person.

If someone is proposing toyou to expel a supposed "demon" through some form of abuse of thepossessed individual, you should reject their services. Abuse ofchildren, and those who are otherwise dependent on other people'scare, should especially never be tolerated! Violent abuse is acrime that should be reported to the authorities.

NB: I have chosen to use multiple different Bible translations andversions for this text. After all, many people have their favoriteversion and some of the readers might feel unhappy if this book didnot solely use their favorite version. Please feel free tocross-reference the citations with your favorite version. If you donot have a Bible to compare my citations to, you can find manydifferent versions online, for example at http://www.biblegateway.com

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Spirit beings 101 ,provides background information on Satan and the other spiritbeings. What are they and where do they come from?

Chapter 2, What drives the behavior of Satan and thedemons? , discusses what motivates Satan andthe demons to act like they do.