The beautiful side of evil pdf

I have three pages left, and I read this in one sitting. When she turned into Hermanito, Pachita took johana masculine mannerisms and gained the ability to perform what is commonly referred to as psychic surgery. Johanna Michaelsen is a noted author, researcher, lecturer and authority on the occult.

He had begun to attend seances in an attempt to reach out to his son who had died unexpectedly. She states she is Charismatic and believes johwnna all the gifts of the spirit. Once she knew that these things were wrong, she renounced all affiliation with the occult and occult practices.

Johanna Michaelsen apparently also had a beahtiful adverse association with Hal Lindsey, the influential pre-trib rapture and once saved always saved teacher! Simply that it opened my eyes in my youth to the darkness that surrounds us reaching depths of unfathomable wickedness. Rather than being the last time of seeing occult activity at any church, it would become the norm. I have known those who claim to be against witchcraft and new ageism than practice it at places of worship.

Such doctrinal lunacy, however, perfectly fits the theology of Hal Lindsey and all those who believe in the lie of eternal security once saved always saved.

This was a non-fiction book about a lady, Ms. As a young child she saw things that others did not. I looked straight up into a pair of beady little eyes that glinted at me over the top of a nasty looking beak. We stepped into the darkness of a small waiting room: empty but for an old metal desk and the sound of falcon talons digging into wood. The entrance to the operating room was shielded by another plastic cur tain. Norah held it aside for me.

I was immediately overwhelmed by the smell in the room; musty dead roses and raw alcohol. The electric. The Lord's Prayer, which I had been quietly repeating over and over since we had arrived, was now screaming in my head. I stood in the doorway, unable to proceed, and looked around me.

The small room was lit by a single bulb which dan gled from the ceiling. Eight or ten people, including Dr. Carlos, stood about talking quietly. Against the bare cement wall on my right was a medicine cabinet. Past it, a rickety door opened onto the courtyard. To my left was a small wooden table cluttered with rolls of cotton and bottles of alcohol. The focal point, however, was a large, tiered altar which filled the left hand corner of the room. It was covered with dozens of jars and vases crowded with rotten roses.

A picture of Christ on the cross and a large wooden crucifix stood surrounded by white candles. Next to the crucifix, in the center of the altar, was a bronze statue of Cuauhtemoc, the Aztec prince who had defiantly borne torture and death at the hands of Spanish con quistadores.

At its feet lay a pair of surgical scissors and a rusty hunting knife. My eyes turned to the right side of the room. There, on a cot, sat a wise old woman.

A worn blanket was wrapped about her legs. She was smoking a cigarette as she talked to Tom, who sat before her. I watched as her stubby hands made frequent though tired gestures to emphasize a word or phrase. They moved often through her short grey-black hair, then over her face, which she now rubbed as though exhausted. I stepped forward and looked closer, unable at first to comprehend what I was seeing on those hands. They were covered to the wrist in dry, crusted blood. Norah and Kim went forward to meet the old.

The left one was half closed as though from a mild stroke. I felt suddenly naked as her gaze focused on me. It was as sharp and piercing as that of the falcon on her lintel. Her gruff voice acknowledged my presence; then the eye turned again to Tom and I stepped back to the center of the room. I turned to look again at the altar. Waves of soft light now seemed to be coming from the image of the war rior and the crucifix beside it.

After all the years of terror you have now brought me into a temple of light. Let me serve you here, Lord. With an effort I looked away from the glowing altar. At the third touch a light shock ran through my fingers. My breath drew in sharply. I felt strangely light, detached. Even the Lord's. Prayer, which had been repeating over and over in my head almost of its own accord, grew still and silent.

The man took me by the hand and led me to the old woman on the cot. No word was spoken for many seconds. Then a blood covered hand reached for one of mine and pulled me closer. I'm not sure, Pachita ," l answered. We'll see. Aunt Dixie died soon after Mama was born. Dixie was Mama's grandfather's sister. Most of the family had been frightened of her and her strange powers. Yet there was a time when she was acclaimed by the crowned heads of Europe, including Victoria and the Prince of Wales.

Her picture appeared in newspapers of Europe and America for over fifteen years. Born Dixie Jarratt in Milledgeville , Georgia, she discovered her extraordinary gifts one night after at tending a performance by Lula Hurst, one of the first so-called "electric wonder" girls who became quite the fashion in Georgia before the turn of the century.

Ac cording to one newspaper article, the "Little Georgia Magnet's" performance lasted about two hours, during which she would, for example, place her hands upon a chair, and without clenching it, raise it from the floor. A dozen men were unable to put that chair on the floor or break her hold without twisting and jerking it. Nor were they able to lower a billiard cue held between her fingers or raise it from the floor when she placed it there. She would lay her hands on a raised umbrella of steel frame, and the cover would suddenly rip off as.

In yet another test, she would, with one hand, raise a chair on which sat a large man, and hold it in her palm balanced on an egg. The article went on to say she had "many other tests and in no city where she appeared did anyone who witnessed her performances doubt the genuineness of her strange powers.

Often during a seance, faces of the dead would materialize on the wall and the entire house would shake and rattle as though in the grip of a giant terrier. She would awaken from her trance with a blinding headache and no memory of the events that had transpired. One ancient family member recollected that she could find lost articles and had tremendous strength while in a trance. She died sometime in the 's, alone, forgotten and a pauper. It wasn't until June of , two years after it was all over, that I learned of her prediction: Someone in the third generation-my generation-was to inherit her talent.

Our colony was located on the outskirts of Cuer navaca-still at that time a charming old-fashioned town nestled in a green valley forty-five miles south of Mexico City. Papa had built our large, modern ranch style home there six years before when the colony was just beginning.

Many Americans and Europeans were building homes there now, but to get into town we still traveled twenty minutes on dirt roads that became treacherous bogs in the long rainy season. It would be another year before telephone lines reached us. Papa's greatest concern, however, was the fact that a large settlement of squatters had recently taken over an enormous tract of land about a mile northeast of us.

The land was owned by a group of Americans who had. The squatters were mostly fugitives from the neighboring state of Guerrero-murderers and thieves and refugees from clan wars who simply swarmed in with their families and took possession of the land under a provision of the Revolution: "The land belongs to the one who works it," and "Possession is nine points of the law.

The police were hesitant about entering the squatters' settlement now since a number of patrolmen had been killed in ambush. Even the Mexican army had not been able to rout the outlaws. The squatters left the foreigners below them pretty well alone, but on Saturday nights we could hear many of the men cavorting and singing through our streets, firing their guns in drunken abandon.

Papa had recently had a run-in with one of these outlaw vaqueros. The man had moved his cattle onto land that belonged to us. When Papa found out, he stuck a.

The vaquero could have shot Papa dead before either had blinked twice. He had the reputation for it. But he saw the deadly gleam in Papa's eyes and evidently found himself respecting this brave but obviously crazy gringo. Unbeknown to Papa, the vaquero had been teaching me how to milk those "filthy cows," and I was sorry to see them go. After this confrontation Papa took to firing his gun every week or so to remind everyone within hearing.

On this particular night, however, Papa was remind ing me how to use a gun for a more specific reason. He and Mama were going out for the evening. Kim and I would be left alone in the house for the first time. We always had at least one live-in maid to care for us, but the latest one had been called home unexpectedly the day before and there had been no time to replace her.

Let's make sure everything is locked up anyway. He bolted the windows and then went into the suite Kim and l shared to make sure both doors and all windows were secured there as well. The ritual was repeated upstairs in the living room and ser vants' quarters. She looked so lovely in her soft cocktail dress. You keep Houdini in with you, Johanna. He thought it made poor Hungry sound ferocious and exotic, l sup pose. I've got the keys with me," Papa said as he kissed my forehead.

He then pulled the front door shut and locked it from the outside. This was the only key to that dead bolt. Bye, Daddy! Time for bed. The hours went by quickly. Then, footsteps.

Mother's sharp high heels followed by Papa's heavy tread thudded down the six stairs that divided the living room from the bedrooms. Houdi sprang up and began growling softly. The high heels stopped at my mother's room. The door was yanked open, then slammed shut. Then my father's footsteps stopped at his room; that door was also jerked open then slammed. Kimmy sat up, startled, and rubbed her eyes. Oh, shut up, Houdi! Outside l could hear Hungry frantically howling and barking.

No answer. It was empty. There was. I hurried back to my room and picked up the gun. He stopped at the threshold and, snarling viciously, backed away, refus ing to go further. Kim whimpered softly in her sleep and tossed restlessly under the covers. I reached the top and stopped. I felt a dead, clammy chill as if I had stepped suddenly into a giant ice box filled with dead fish.

The presence of something evil permeated the air and I began to shiver. The front door was standing wide open. I walked hesitantly across the room and shut the door. Soft, low laughter began to echo in my head, a kind of laughter I had never heard before and which filled me with terror. Slowly, deliberately, I moved into a corner chair and pointed my gun towards the door. I looked down at my watch: 1 1 p. Thirtyfive minutes later a car turned into our driveway. I heard the sound of the heavy metal gate being pushed open then pulled shut as the engine was shut off inside the carport.

I sat in my chair and waited, gun pointed at the door. I ran to the door and flung it open, the gun still in my hand. Are you all right? Papa was a New Yorker, and despite having pro duced the first Inner Sanctum mysteries on radio he was still pragmatic when confronted with something of this nature in his own home. Something else has moved in. Can't you feel it? Mama said nothing, but hugged me close for a long while. The being who moved into our home that night was not a pleasant one.

He seemed to take a grim delight in frightening me. One night, several days after his ar rival, l awoke suddenly from a deep sleep. A voice was groaning softly as though in pain. My eyes shot open. There, at the end of my bed, suspended in mid-air, floated a grotesque head, severed , oozing blood and gore at the neck.

The thick black hair and heavy beard were matted with blood and the mouth hung limp and open letting the groans escape it.

Then the groans changed to a soft, deep laugh that slowly faded with the head. On other nights l would walk into my room and see. After a few seconds it would fade away, while the same slow laughter surrounded me. Over the years several maids quit and many refused to spend the night in our house, saying that "something gave fright" in it. Yet it apparently never manifested itself to Mom and Dad. There are other memories of those years-happier memories of trips to the local pyramids to collect ar rowheads and rocks, of hugging soft kittens and romp ing through lush green gardens with assorted dogs as we "helped Mama" tend to her hibiscus bushes.

There were days spent in the sunshine by the pool with Dad dy and lively games of checkers in which he sometimes let me beat him. And I will never forget the sound of Mama's faint Georgia accent, barely perceptible as she read from Charlotte's Webb or Stuart Little, but which burst forth in all its unintelligible glory when confronted with the Southern-fried tales of Uncle Remus.

To her great disappointment, she never got past the first few pages with us, and I was a sophomore in college before I finally figured out what a "Bre'r Rabbit" was. I also remember ballet classes, enchanting but for a broken leg acquired at the age of seven while practicing fire-bird leaps in the garden after rehearsal one eve ning, and the memory of a flubbed recital which is best left unrecounted.

But mostly I remember the nuns. The then austerely garbed sisters of the Sacred Heart of Mary arrived in Cuernavaca in time for me to be enrolled in the third grade. The nuns were formidable in their habits and seemed to move about the antique panelled halls and marble columns of the school in an aura of untouchable dignity and holiness, an illusion further enforced by mandatory curtsies to be rendered at every encounter.

Underneath the blanket of that impression lived warm, caring women who, for the most part, did their best to prepare us for the world in general and college in particular, in light of which I will forever bitterly re sent having been forced to graduate the year before Sister Sarah taught her World Literature class. Bishop Pike and his family spent a month in Cuer navaca in , the summer I was fourteen.

The Senior Warden of our church to whom the privilege of hosting the Bishop would normally have fallen was ill, so the task fell on Daddy, the Junior Warden of St. The two families seemed to take an immediate liking to one another and spent a good deal of time together during that month. I remember lively evenings in our home during which the Bishop discussed the subject matter of some complex book he was writing while Father offered highly creative, if not altogether ap propriate suggestions for titles.

The Bishop brought three of his children with him. Connie, a year or so older that I, was attractive, slender and very popular with the American boys who had come home from school for the summer. The Bishop's two sons fell into the typical "preacher's kids" category.

Chris was thirteen and didn't seem to like me in particular. He once took my finger and twisted it un til I cried. The more disturbing of the two, however, was Jim. At seventeen he had a dark, brooding air, which could erupt easily into violence when he had. It was hard for me to understand what seemed to be such overt rebellion and dramatic public outbursts. I was frightened of him, yet felt a strange af finity for him. I sensed in him the same unanswered cry for help I carried within myself.

I thought of him fre quently during the next few years. In February of young Jim was dead. He shot himself while on drugs in a New York hotel. His death and the widely publicized display of psychic phenomena which followed proved to be a turning point in my life. My heart leaped when I heard that the Bishop was attending seances in order to contact his dead son.

I wasn't the only one experiencing bizarre phenomena! Perhaps in the Bishop's search I would find the key that would help me understand and deal with the beings who surrounded me.

I now eagerly read any book or article I could find on the occult. Strange dreams of myself in different forms and different places came to me as I slept and I would hear a voice within my mind tell me these were memories of different incarnations.

My thoughts were filled with death and the peace it could bring. There were times I felt imprisoned by my body almost as though I had been dropped into it by mistake, and I yearned to be free of it, although I never would have dared to take my own life. The deeper I studied, the more aware I became of the spirits' almost tangible companionship; not all seemed to be evil.

I saw dark figures by my bed, heard their soft voices cal ling to me, telling me what people were thinking, thoughts which often betrayed what their mouths were saying. The resulting distrust and dislike I felt for most people gradually deepened into solid contempt. Yet my feel ings were generally masked in such outward com posure and serenity that an old Spanish priest once. She reached out to me as one might to a frightened kitten. Her concern and companionship made the black depression of my last two years of high school almost bearable.

During this time school had become little more than a necessary evil. I plodded through my classes, having basically lost interest in anything that was taught. I per formed because it was expected. Then one day during my senior year in high school, the subject of witchcraft was brought up in class.

Was it real? Most of the girls expressed skepticism. Is it so improbable that there are those who see them and have, perhaps, learned the secret of harnessing these forces?

Perhaps even some of us here are learning to do that," I added softly. There was an uncomfortable pause before the nun in charge of the class cleared her throat and dismissed us for our break.

Do they really work? Can you help me get him back? She performed a strange ritual alone, deep in the forest, using two clay dolls she made, a magic circle, a short wooden stake and a fresh , raw sheep's heart. Mysterious incantations com pleted the ritual. Her boyfriend, for better or worse, was back within the week. Frankly, it seemed a bit ex treme to me; witchcraft was something l had always been afraid of because of what to me were its obvious satanic overtones. Besides, a lot of the ritual struck me as being somewhat ridiculous and overstated.

But if Terry need ed a ritual and was desperate enough to think a boyfriend worth the effort, then why should l stand in her way. That weekend l received a call from Terry. All was ready. Just one small problem, though-this business about the sheep's heart. Was that really necessary? It was. Well then, could l help her locate one. You must find it yourself. That's part of the ritual," l told her, admitting inwardly that the sheep's heart was every bit as repulsive to me as it was to her.

Terry tried for days to coax me into helping her. What had initially amused me was now beginning to ir ritate me. Finally one morning l turned to her, interrup ting another of her pleas for help , and said, "Terry , you've been bothering me with this long enough.

You would do better to leave me alone and to watch out for your hands! The skin up to the forearms had been scrubbed and scoured until it was raw and angry looking.

The explanation was simple enough: She had been dying a friend's hair the night before and the gloves had leaked. But the look on her face plainly said she felt I had hexed her and was to blame.

In any case, it was the last I heard of the sheep's heart. Later, however, several of her friends approached me in the hall. One of them suddenly held up a cross to my face with all the earnestness of Doctor Von Helsing before the countenance of Dracula, just to see if I, perhaps, was a true witch after all and would fall writhing to the floor at the sight.

Ironically, it was the cross I clung to in the midst of the agonizing loneliness and despair I felt closing in on me from every side. As for Terry, she dropped the subject altogether, but when I contracted infectious hepatitis in an epidemic at the school a month later, she sent a note on a card jok ing somewhat nervously about the hex she had placed on me in revenge.

The woods stood thick and dark behind me as the sun dropped slowly out of sight, the cue for countless frogs and crickets to begin their night ly recital. I had not been at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia three weeks before I again succeeded in having myself labeled the one thing I knew I was not-a witch.

On that first day of class, Dr. Bryce ' paced up and down the room critically eyeing the freshman troop of would-be actresses and directors who sat before her. You must become interested in all that which stimulates your imagination, in that which is dif ferent. Bryce stopped, then turned and stared at me for a moment, as did the rest of the class.

Some girls from my acting class sat next to me and began speaking about Dr. Bryce-what a fascinating person she was, what a fabulous sense of humor she had, how exciting her class was proving to be. Do you know much about it?

We really want to know! My au dience was with me all the way. Then one girl asked if I could cure warts. There was an enormous one on the finger she held in front of me. Just give it a couple of weeks. I forgot the whole thing until one afternoon two weeks later when I was accosted by a girl with a strange expression on her face.

She looked vaguely familiar. For what? It fell off last night, and within the two weeks. Thanks a lot! I looked down at her extended finger. Sure enough. The silly thing, which I now remembered vividly, was indeed gone. I knew I had nothing to do with it, but if she wanted to think I had, that was fine with me. Word of my power over protruberant viral appen dages that's "warts" to you spread quickly through the campus, and "witchcraft" came to be the most like ly explanation for what had occurred.

After all, I did dress mostly in black and spent long hours walking alone in the woods collecting mysterious herbs and leaves used as decorations on my desk , and I did have a statue of Mephistopheles on my dresser, a gift from my parents' shop and a takeoff on my mother's graduate school motto: "He must needs go whom the devil driveth" and I did speak of the occult to Dr.

Bryce on the first day of class. Besides, it was obvious she liked me that alone might have sufficed to build their case against me. Then , of course, there was the matter of the subject of my freshman term paper. I had elected to write on voodooism in Haiti-an unfor tunate choice, I will admit, but then it was the only in teresting subject I could think of at the time.

Worst of all, I was in theater and loved cats. What more proof could anyone ask for? Witchcraft was the only possible answer. By now I had collected a small group of par tisans who reported these conversations to me.

My initial reaction of frustration to all this began to give way to amusement. It is rather fun to watch them squirm, though. It had been over a month since I had been aware of its presence.

Perhaps I would never see it again. The prospect of that made me breathe a little easier. Then it happened. It was cold and silent in the theater that October evening. Everyone on campus had gone to dinner. I had been working for over five hours straight and was tired, but decided to work overtime in order to com plete some props needed for rehearsal that night.

Bryce had appointed me properties mistress for the first show of the year, an original musical. I did not wish to incur her inimitable "heads will roll" invective which I knew, however much she might like me, would be forthcoming if the "realistic" gray fish needed for the monger's stall were not ready. The forfeit of hot dinner seemed a small price to pay for the keeping of my head.

The tiny workshop behind the enormous stage was filled with the stench of stock paint simmering on the burner. I switched it off and gave a final stir to the bub bling grey brew. Just a few more touches and those mackerel would fool anyone at thirty paces. I turned to reach for my brush and stopped.

The temperature in the room suddenly dropped. I shivered. I glanced around the room to see if perhaps I had left a window open. They were all shut. Then I. What are you doing here-Get out! There was no one there. Then the voice seemed to be com ing from the stage: "Get out-this is my time. Then I saw a large glowing ball of light pulsating slowly in the darkness at center stage. The woman's voice came again, screaming hysterically now.

I didn't know this was your time. I'm leaving. I turned and walked slowly down the steps that led from the stage into the auditorium. As I reached the back of the auditorium , the voice from the pulsing light screamed again. I was halfway across the courtyard when I felt an icy stare cut through my back. I glanced over my shoulder and whirled around.

There, in the doorway through which I had just come, stood a woman in a long white dress. She stared at me for a moment and then threw her head back and laughed. I turned and ran. There was scarcely a time when I was in that theater alone a situation I now avoided as much as possible that I didn't hear the same shrill laughter, usually ac companied by loud footsteps or the sound of rustling skirts.

There were times when others with me sensed that same presence. Donna, a fellow acting student, was one of those. We had both been cast in Enid Bagnold's The Chalk. One evening a few days before tryouts I felt a sudden compulsion to draw vine leaves. When I read the play and saw that Madrigal, the protagonist, spent many hours drawing vine leaves on altar candles, I knew the part would be mine even though I wasn't much of an actress. I spent so many years feeling I was not part of my body and wanting to disassociate myself from it, that now when I needed to convey to an au dience the inner being and soul of the character I was portraying, it refused to respond with ease to my com mand.

I was having an especially difficult time making myself heard in the back rows, so this night Donna of fered to stay after rehearsal and help me work on my projection.

The curtains on stage had been drawn shut. I stood on the wide apron, center stage, while Donna settled into a seat in the back of the theater. We had been working on a scene for several minutes when I heard a sound like a sigh and soft footsteps directly behind me on the other side of the curtain. The feeling someone was about to reach out through the part in the curtains and place a hand on my shoulder was overwhelming. Abruptly I spun around and flung aside the folds. As the curtains parted, Donna and I saw a filmy white figure retreat into the darkness.

Then soft footsteps and a softer high pitched laugh like the one I had heard before echoed as it withdrew. That was the last time Donna offered to work late with me in the theater. I tried to appease the hatred of this phantom woman with offerings. Several times I gathered small bouquets of colorful leaves and wild flowers which I left on stage for her.

I've brought you these. Please, can't we be friends. Then fear and anger would swirl around me in. Thanksgiving came quickly that first year at Wesleyan. I spent it with my mother's sister, Dorothea, and her family. Aunt Dot in her warm, gentle manner immediately made me feel at home. To ease the trauma of my first holiday spent away from my parents, she gave me a gift , a Ouija board. I heard of it through my studies but still had not realized how easily they were obtained in the States.

As soon as I returned to Wesleyan I showed the board to Katy' and Jill ' , who roomed together down the hall. They were as eager as I to try it, as was my roommate, Ruth '. We spent many hours working the board in a dimly lit room. The sense of a presence would surround us-then the marker would begin spelling out messages.

It was all amusing and seemed quite innocent until one evening the presence that arrived was overwhelming in its feeling of evil. The water pipes in the room began to bang loudly and bright lights seemed to flash at the doorway. I looked up and saw the same misty white-garbed woman I had seen at the theater. That experience, plus the fact that some ugly predic tions which the board had made about one of the girls present had very nearly come true, frightened me so badly that I vowed never to use the board again.

There was something dangerous and sinister about it. It was no innocent toy. I had sworn all the participants in the board ex periments to silence, but, not surprisingly, word of the strange occurrences spread through the campus.

She was certain I had hexed her and she would die. Girls would spot me coming down the hall of certain dorms, and doors would slam on either side. Early one morning a friend awoke to see me stand ing outside her window. She was about to ask me in, when she suddenly realized her window was on the second floor. I was in my room at the time, asleep.

In my dream I could see her lying in bed, awakening with a start as she looked out her window. Unfortunately, the president of the college heard of the commotion, of which I seemed to be the source. One morning I passed him in the cafeteria. I hear you're indulging in the powers of the occult, my deah" he drawled.

Yoga in the Church? She confronted her spirit guides a short time sise, and realized the evil behind their beautiful exteriors. Simply that it opened my eyes michealsen my youth to the darkness that surrounds us reaching depths of unfathomable wickedness. There are lessons in this book that are timeless, and worthy of a read. Lists with This Book. As she grew older, she became involved in Silva Mind Control now known, I believe, as the Silva Method where she learned to meditate and enter a trance-like state where she would communicate with spirit guides.

Wickedest Man in History Aleister Crowley. Browse all BookRags Study Guides. An excellent book that is packed with information and about the life of the author. Chapters 2, 3 and 4. This is far different from working as a medium after learning the occult is wrong. The thing that most struck me was the overall theme: Dec 30, Rosabella Knightley rated it really liked it Shelves: As long as we allow ourselves to entertain the thought that the Devil is not active, we are open to his deceptions.

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