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Experience with my dad that I still have nightmares about 25 years later.

By Holly.

This happened circa 1998.

I was about 13.

We lived next to a fenced and heavily wooded area behind one of our local YMCA's.

Being that we lived in a large city, there was a ton of crime and a few bodies had been found in these woods over the years.

We had an extremely religious Christian neighbor that my dad was close with as they were both single parents.

She told my dad that there was a demon that lived in these woods.

As a result of negative energy from all the violence those woods had seen.

I wasn't allowed to go back there but I still would.

Never at night though and the few times I did I would hear footsteps behind me or feel complete dread the whole way home as I only used them as a shortcut to walk home sometimes from a friend's house.

I know this sounds silly, but even in a lit up city.

Those woods were.

So dark.

I get that.

Woods are supposed.

To be dark.

And what a stupid thing to say, but this was a different kind of.

Darkness.

I don't.

Know how to describe it except for saying they just felt evil.

Anyhow, 1998, thirteen years old.

I didn't have the easiest upbringing.

My dad was in a constant state of anxiety.

We were poor.

My dad always owed money to somebody and my brother and I were pretty much neglected, as all teens in the 90s seem to have been.

I love my dad very much, but there was always some kind of negativity or hardship in his life, which in turn was reflected onto my brother and me because we lived with him.

My mom moved out of state when I was 10.

There was literally no solace and I lived a stone's throw away from these woods.

It first started with the reoccurring nightmares.

A blackness would seep out of the woods like fog.

I could never get away fast enough.

It would envelope me and drag me into the woods.

I had this dream every night for months.

My dad was convinced we were under attack whereas I thought it was just him and the neighbor freaking me out with their theories.

One night we were sitting in the driveway and my dad's beat up old Volvo.

We were having an argument.

I don't even remember what it was about now, but we were going back and forth just being nasty to one another and I'll never forget it.

My dad said every time we do this we just feed this thing that lives out in the woods.

I laughed at him.

I remember saying something to belittle him, just can't remember word for word.

But it was something that pretty much made fun of him.

And the thing in the woods.

At that very minute, something started beating on the trunk of the car.

It felt like.

Two fists coming down on the trunk, over and over.

We both screamed.

It got louder and harder at that moment.

I threw my.

Arms around my dad and I said.

I love.

You, I'm sorry.

And he said the same, almost like a chant it became.

And as we said the words to one another, the blows to the trunk became softer and lesser until they disappeared all together and we were both in tears.

Later, when he inspected the car, there were dents that looked.

Like fists.

On the back of his trunk.

I know the car was already beaten up to hell, but those were not there before.

My dad has since passed away, but even if he were alive he would never talk about this.

The few times I tried to bring it up over the years, he shut the conversation down just as fast as it was mentioned.

We moved shortly after that.

I still believe in my heart and soul that those woods have something evil living in them and I live 3 miles away from them now sometimes.

I feel curious.

Enough to try to go back and record to catch something, but then again, I'm so terrified to even think about walking into those woods at night.

Holly, thank you so much for.

Sharing.

Your horrifying story with me and allowing me to share it on the show, although it was horrifying also, it kind of did like bring your dad and you back together.

At least I don't know long term question mark, but at the time at least it kind of helped you guys see eye to.

Eye.

Because of the fear that you had.

Very, very scary, but also kind of sweet.

So was it a demon?

Do demons bring people together, you know, is or is the demon in the forest like shaking their fists?

Like, damn you.

No, The power of love, that's my one weakness.

You know, we'll never know.

So I have a lot of thoughts about demons, which I want to get into in a second.

But before I get there.

Something.

That jumped out at me was the the trunk of the car, how it had like fist indentation marks on it.

You know, that's really scary.

What does that especially what does that while you're arguing in the car, like, come on, read the room, read the room.

We're busy.

So I don't know if anyone out there has an idea of what could have been pounding on the trunk of the car while they were arguing inside of it.

Let me know.

Also, the timing.

That was really SUS.

That was really SUS.

That's the timing.

Anyway.

Let me know if you think, you know, what could have caused that.

What, like what?

What wildlife could have been banging on the trunk of the car like that?

Let me know Madam strangeways@gmail.com Right?

So let's.

Get into demons.

If you've OK, listen, if you've listened to the show before, which I hope you have.

If not, welcome.

Welcome.

To Madam.

Strange ways.

If you've listened before, you may know that I feel a certain way about demons and the people spreading demon propaganda and demon mongering, if you will, for lack of a better term.

So part of what I do this podcast for is to undo some of that fear and anxiety for you in the event that you do happen to get really scared of the thought of a demonic presence out to get you.

Or if demons really freak you out and they keep you up at night after you've watched a scary movie and there's demons and you're thinking, well, gosh, demons are everywhere.

They're invisible and they could be anywhere at any time.

Oh my God, like, and if that stresses you out, I feel you.

I get you because that used to be me.

That used to be me.

And I'm not going.

To lie sometimes that is still me.

All right.

So it's it's I'm in remission.

I am a recovering demon, scaredy cat, all right.

But what helped me and what I hope also helps you is researching to really understand, like, what is a demon though actually, like, what is a demon?

So like for me, OK, when I was a kid, you know, and I believed in demons because I was told to believe in demons.

So for me as a kid, you know, listen, I didn't really understand what demons were.

I just knew they were really scary.

So even though I, I knew quote UN quote that they were real and I knew that they could even be in my bedroom at night and like lurking and watching me sleep, I understood that.

But what I kind of just accepted was that like, well, hell is real.

Obviously.

Satan's real, obviously.

And Satan is the demon king, and the demons do his bidding, and they're real.

And they're actively trying to harm me or my family or my loved ones in the pursuit of, I don't know, demonic Glee.

Is this like Monsters, Inc?

Is that the plot for Monsters Inc?

Except then the demons don't eventually figure out that laughter gets them more demon juice?

I don't know.

But what I couldn't have told you as a child was what a demon actually was.

Like, maybe I maybe I would have said that like, evil spirit, they were OK.

Maybe I would have said that like, demons were evil spirits sent by Satan.

But like, what does that mean?

You know, I, I think I just assumed that demons had been around forever plaguing humanity.

I mean, honestly, I don't know, man.

Because looking back, I sure didn't ask myself any of these questions.

Not a single one of them.

And I bet that there's a lot of people who also haven't asked themselves these questions either.

So let's do it.

Let's ask what are demons?

So when you hear the word.

Demon you could.

Be picturing Lucifer and Asmodeus if you're a Supernatural fan, for instance, or Pizuzu if you've seen The Exorcist, or Baphomet if you follow the Satanic Temple, or Mephistopheles if you're a fan of the musical Cats.

Oh no, that's, that's Mr.

Mustophiles.

That's not mephistophiles, you see.

OK, anyway, there's Valic, if you've seen The Conjuring, though he wasn't a nun.

There's Lilith, the first wife of Adam, who was painted as a demon for wanting and achieving agency over her own body directly in defiance of God.

And she's actually in a ton of modern media, from Supernatural to Evangelion.

To True Blood.

And has been hotel so she's a very popular demon.

Demons in general are very popular in modern media.

Yeah.

So basically, you're probably picturing A malevolent, intelligent agent of chaos who is hell bent on causing human suffering.

Now, some of us may be picturing A malevolent, intelligent agent of chaos who is also very attractive and charismatic.

Let's put that to the side.

Let's unpack that on another day.

All right, let's come back to that later in another episode.

For now, Scary.

OK, scary bad.

Not scary good.

You're probably picturing that a demon's soul motivation is causing harm or even possibly death if the demon ends up possessing someone, which is a thing that demons can do.

So, in a nutshell, when you think of demons, you may find yourself afraid of something.

You're just not sure exactly what, only that it would be bad.

For instance, going out into the scary dark forest outside of Holly's home.

Maybe you'll come back out alive.

Maybe you'll be murdered.

The result of leaving the woods is unknown, and that's what you're afraid of.

You're afraid of the unknown.

You don't know what's going to happen when you go in there, but what might happen might be bad.

So you're just afraid of the unknown, right?

Well, as it turns out, modern humans really aren't that far removed from the ancient.

Humans of 6.

1000 years ago, maybe even 12,000 years ago or more, because it's suggested that belief in demons started as far back as the Paleolithic age, which is very far.

It's very far away so they didn't call them demons back then though, and they believed in a wide range of unexplained spiritual phenomena, not all of it bad, some of it even good.

And reminder Christianity was not there yet, it would not be showing up for quite some time, so just keep that in mind.

From an anthropological perspective, demons result from human fear of the unknown.

That is straight up, I was going to say a fact, but I don't know that.

I guess that anyway, whatever, it's as close to a fact as we're going to get.

That is what anthropologists presume demons stem from, is a fear of the unknown, which makes a lot of sense in the context of the scary dark woods.

Right.

Like I said, like if you go into the woods, maybe you'll come back, maybe you won't.

You don't want to get murdered, so it's best to just stay out of there.

But also, there's a feeling that you're feeling when you're looking at those woods and you're considering mortality and what?

How what do you, how what do you call that feeling?

How do you do you assign something to it?

Yeah, maybe you do.

So in ancient Greek religion and mythology, specifically around 400 BC, they still didn't have demons in the way that we understand them now, but they did have something called daimons spelled Dai.

Mon.

S So daimons weren't evil by default.

They could be good or bad, but more specifically they were kind of more akin to like like a guiding spirit or like a lesser God.

And diamonds were not servants of the Christian Satan, which still has not been written into existence by the way, or still not there yet.

That would come with the New Testament around 100 AD ish.

Because even though the word Satan shows up in the Old Testament slash Hebrew Bible up, Satan actually wasn't a proper noun in the Old Testament.

It was more like a title referring to an opponent.

So anyway, sometimes it does seem that diamonds and Greek culture were actually.

Closer to ghosts.

Who might give spiritual guidance?

Think Obi Wan's ghost or Mufasa.

Sometimes though, OK.

Sometimes though they could be more like Hamlet's father.

Hamlet's father's ghost, which spoiler alert doesn't didn't Well, diamonds could be good or bad.

They were not always bad, in fact some even thought that diamonds were randomly assigned a human at birth to live inside.

Like they cast lots to figure out which diamond was going to be assigned to which human.

Kind of sounds a little bit like a soul to me, which is a whole nother conversation and also involves the Roman views on what their version of diamonds were, which I am going to hold myself back from doing because I think I'm going to have to do a deep dive on demons.

Let me know, do you want to hear more about demons?

Let me know I'm out of strange.

Was at gmo.com.

Anyway, Fast forward, Fast forward just a little bit to the Hellenistic period of ancient Greece, which was the space of time between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra the 7th in 30 BC.

Yes, there were many Cleopatra's, but the Cleopatra, our Cleopatra, who Cleopatra is named after was number 7.

And just so you have your bearings in time, just keep in mind that the Roman Empire came right after Cleopatra's death because Egypt was a Ptolemaic Kingdom, akaa Greek Kingdom ruled by Cleopatra, who was Macedonian, and Macedonia was a part of ancient Greece and by the way, Alexander the Great also from Macedonia.

And so when the Roman Empire defeated Cleopatra's naval fleet and invaded Egypt and OK, you know what?

I really am just going to have to do another separate deep dive on Cleopatra or like Ancient Egypt, I don't know.

Let me know madamstrangeways@gmail.com.

Let me know so I can continue.

Anyway, moving on, Demons, we're talking about demons, demons, demons, demons.

During the Hellenistic period of Ancient Greece, for the very first time, diamonds were split into good versus evil categories and got their own names.

So there were noble spirits.

Agathodimon.

This is terrible, I'm sorry.

Please let me know.

Let me know how I mispronounced this Madam strangeways@gmail.com Agathodimon versus malevolent spirits.

Caco diamond.

This was probably due to influence from Zoroastrianism, an ancient Iranian religion that leaned on good versus evil and even had its own concept of demons called Daiva.

I let me know Madam St.

truth@gmail.com.

So there's even something similar to the Christian concept of the devil in Zoroastrianism, which is called the principle of evil and not like the principle of your school because that's Prince of pal.

This is Principal Prince E play ple OK, the principle of evil, kind of like the devil who creates and leads the Davos.

And yes, I hear you shouting.

Of course, Iran is relevant in this situation because they were very easily able to influence ancient Greece and Rome because Iran was part, How did I say it before?

We're just going to move on because Iran was a part of Alexander the Great's empire, which ran from Greece all the way to India.

And I've said before, I know Dan Carlin, I'm no Tony Soprano.

Also I'm no Bill Wertz.

OK, so please forgive me for oversimplifying history here and possibly for getting small details wrong.

Hopefully the gist is correct.

So the concept of demons as servants of the devil entered the Christian tradition via Judaism, which was also influenced by Zoroastrianism as I understand it.

So as Judaism spread through Greece, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh translated foreign gods as malevolent diamonds.

So the Greeks read this.

They said, what do we, what word do we use to translate foreign gods from Hebrew?

I know we'll call them malevolent diamonds.

OK, that's a choice.

So from there, Christianity took this and.

Ran with it.

Looking around and calling any Pagan gods and goddesses, including Greek and Roman deities, diamonds.

The bad kind because of course.

So by around 800 ish AD Daimon became demon.

And even now to this day we still specifically use demon to mean evil spirits under Satan's rule.

Specifically under Christian dogma.

Speaking of Christianity and medieval Christianity, demons and spirits were generally considered to be fallen angels.

So nature spirits like fairies from Irish and Scandinavian folklore were often explained as angels who remained neutral during the War of Heaven.

Which seems like just like a really weird deal.

Really weird detail to include, but like, OK.

Later though, Protestants changed their mind on that stance and decided that actually fairies are evil and also demons.

So there you go.

Jumping from then to the late 1400s when Europeans started to when Europeans, gosh, words are hard, When Europeans started to colonize North America, we see those European colonizers applying the same logic to any indigenous spirits and deities too, calling them demons, hence demonizing the indigenous peoples whose land they wanted.

So historically, the demons that so-called demonologists like Ed Warren referred to could apparently range from fairies to Aphrodite.

Oh, Speaking of Aphrodite, remember the God Pan, often depicted with the legs and horns of a goat, cloven hooves, a beard, Mischievous.

Yeah.

Sound familiar?

Uh huh.

Pan influenced art imagery of the devil and he was in fact called an evil diamond before it became demon.

Interesting.

So if it seems strange to you that we went from a sort of laissez faire attitude towards these diamond types of spirits to the Satanic Panic in the 1980s where people were falsely accused and then literally jailed for unsubstantiated and totally fictionalized instances of satanic ritual abuse of children?

And don't even get me started on Pizzagate.

Yeah, it is strange and not cool.

Strange, bad, strange, gross, strange, scary, strange.

According to scholar Joseph Laycock, who is one of the co-authors of one of my favorite books, The Exorcist Effect.

During the Satanic Panic, patients hypnotized by therapists to recover memories of Satanic ritual abuse often seemed to be recalling scenes from movies such as Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, and The Omen.

So they weren't even remembering real things.

They were remembering things that happened in movies and mistaking them as actual memories.

So is is that kind of what we're doing when we hear word that a demon might be wreaking havoc on our lives or lurking in the woods outside our house?

Is that kind of what's happening there?

Is that we're picturing modern and terrifying depictions of demons, or maybe our bodies are even recalling the way that we felt fear and stress and anxiety while watching a horror movie involving a demon.

I mean, just remembering listening to the soundtrack that is specifically meant to put you on edge and scare you so that you are properly primed to be terrified when the director wants you to be.

Is that what's happening?

Is that our bodies are just remembering that whenever we think of demons?

And is that why we're all so scared of demons?

Or is it really just actually fear of the unknown?

It's some food for thought, but as always, I want to remind you that even when you are scared of demons, you can feel afraid, but that doesn't mean you're in danger.

Thank you for joining me for more true strange stories of the unexplained.

Remember that you can feel afraid and not be in danger.

You're safe.

Here with me probably please.

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Strangeways is produced and narrated by me, Madam Strangeways.

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Isbymarina.ryan@marinamakes.co Cover art is by Andrea Chisel Roldan at Cult of Teddy.

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See you soon, she said ominously.