Sleeping Pill Dragons

That time I took a sleeping pill and saw demons

Let’s rewind to the summer in between my freshman and sophomore year of college. I was 19 and newly new age. I’d just watched and read The Secret a few months before, which means that I was in the first few months of believing that I could completely control my reality with my mind. I could manifest anything I wanted, if I just believed it enough.

The theory seemed to make some kind of sense to me. I had been pretty pessimistic throughout high school with all my health problems and eating stress. So, it made sense to me that if I could start to think better thoughts, maybe everything would get better?

So you’re saying I’m miserable and unhealthy and addicted to food because I am not thinking and believing the right thoughts?

So you’re saying that all of those prayers that were answered, were only answered because I manifested them?

So you’re saying that I’ve been misunderstanding God this whole time? And that God is really… me?!?!

I’ve been answering my own prayers?!?!?!?

At the start, this information was exhilarating. If true, I could literally get whatever I wanted. I just needed to know how to make myself think and believe only positive things. I just needed to rewire my brain to manifest everything I desired.

Fantastic.

My first conclusion, was that all my focus on how unhealthy I was, and how addicted to food I was, was only perpetuating my misery and disfunction with food and health. All I had to do was believe I was healthy and skinny and not addicted to food. So, I decided that I was going to stop being a raw vegan, and instead just manifest the health and beauty.

My mantras:

I am healthy.

I don’t care about food.

I don’t eat a lot. Etc.

What I’ve since learned, is that The Secret, and all related new age teachings, are on the surface beautiful and peaceful and filled with light and love and happiness. But they are actually covertly satanic.

The Secret is Satanic

Really. The belief is that you are God. That there is no right or wrong, only bliss. Only pleasure. Only getting everything you want, if only you (fill in the blank).

In theory, new age practices and beliefs are supposed to bring you freedom from trauma and sadness and attachment. You are supposed to become more peaceful and loving, but also, if you do it right, you manifest anything you want (wealth, health, etc).

In practice, new age beliefs end up being very self-focused. I need to heal. I need to be happy. I need, and should, get everything I want.

The Secret was the gateway. Soon after I started with manifestation, I dove headfirst into all sorts of new age healing practices. I now see that they are quite occult. I was unknowingly turning my back on God, the creator who loves and protects and guides me. And instead, I was turning to myself, and (unkowingly) to demonic spirits, who promised I could control my life. The promise was that I could get whatever I wanted, but I now see that as a sort of demonic contract. Serve us. Serve yourself. And you can have whatever you want. I certainly didn’t see it that way back then. But that is what it is.

And I don’t mean metaphorically. For a long time, it made sense to me, that the secular/cultural metaphorical use of the word “demons” was correct. Oh, demons are just our trauma. But, no.

Weirdly, and strangely, I now know that demons are actual spiritual beings.

I now know that those new age practices open up doors to the demonic. It is consent for dark spirits to enter your life.

Another thing that opens up doors to the demonic? Drugs.

Drug Dragons

That summer, when I was 19 and starting my accidental journey into the occult, I was really struggling to fall asleep one night. And ridiculously, it was because I couldn’t stop thinking about my crush* from Seussical. Yes, I was in a professional production of Seussical the Musical. I was a playing a Gertrude McFuzz. He was playing Yurtle the Turtle.

As I lay there, I was stuck on wow what a great three sentence conversation we had earlier today. I lay there for an hour, and my brain just wouldn’t shut off. So, I thought: tonight is the night. I decided to finally take the short-acting sleeping pill my dad had offered me from his prescription, just to see if it helped. It seemed I had inherited his insomnia, so he pitied me and offered me some relief: a pill to try out some time. He had given it to me weeks before, and I put it in a little plastic baggy in my makeup bag, and was saving it for such a night as this.

So I got up out of bed, rummaged through my toiletries bag, and found it. After swallowing it, I lay back down in bed. Pretty soon I could feel the drowsiness coming over me, trying to pull me into sleep. Buttt I wasn’t ready. Because, of course, I will still thinking about what Yurtle the Turtle had said to me that afternoon. And I wanted to keep thinking about it for just another minute. And so, I resisted the sleeping pill. I resisted the sleep that it was trying to pull me into.

All of a sudden, I was seeing…. Dragons. Chinese dragons, specifically. Chinese cartoon dragons? They were flying through the air, diving all around me. And there were many of them. My little 11 year old sister was sleeping in the twin bed next to me. We shared a room in our house at the shore. And I was now on drugs. And I had to tell her about the dragons.

“Margaret! Margaret wake up! There are dragons everywhere!!!! EVERYWHERE! I have to go tell Shane.” She sat up, extremely confused, as I walked out of the room.

My brother’s room was on the first floor, so I walked downstairs and tried to open his door to tell him about the dragons. But his door seemed to have no doorknob. “Shane! Shane! You don’t have a doorknob! Why don’t you have a doorknob?” He opened the door, half asleep, very confused. How did he do that with no doorknob? The dragons were different now. All around Shane, I saw different creatures. Even darker and scarier looking than the cartoon chinese dragons I’d been seeing all around the house.

“Caroline. What the heck?”

“Woa Shane. There are demons all around you.”

All of a sudden, my mom was angrily grabbing my shoulder. “Caroline WHAT are you doing? Are you drunk?”

Margaret had woken up my mom, telling her, “Caroline is drunk!”

“No! No. No I just took dad’s sleeping pill and now there are dragons everywhere.”

“Did you drink alcohol and then take a sleeping pill?”

“No! I didn’t! I had one beer like 4 hours ago. And then I took the sleeping pill but didn’t want to go to sleep! Now there are dragons!”

She made me chug a glass of water, extremely angry with me for being drunk or high or whatever I was, around my young sister.

And Shane? He wasn’t happy. Because whether I was high or hallucinating, or whatever I was, I had just told him there were demons all around him.

What’s particularly interesting to me, looking back, is I had no concept of demons at the time. Not at all. Demons were not in my lexicon. They were not things I thought about or believed in. At this point, my belief system it was all love and light, man.

But I saw demons on that sleeping pill. Was it pure hallucination? Sure. Easily. Or, is it possible, that some drugs “thin the veil,” and let you see manifestations of what we cannot see with our naked eyes? I don’t know if that is what was happening that night, but I do believe that sometimes, drugs let you see beyond the veil, into the spirit world.

And all these years later, it was the realization that demons are real - not metaphorical, but real and active, that made me a Christian again.

In defense of my brother, (who was surely upset and freaked out for a long time about being told “there are demons all around you”…) if I was seeing beyond the veil, I don’t think it is any sort of indication about my brother. Especially because now, I believe demons are everywhere, constantly trying to work their subtle manipulation and torment.

There are times in our lives when we may be more welcoming to them, usually unknowingly. Very few people are knowingly and purposely satanists, or communicating with the demonic. Most people who invite in demons, think they are inviting in good spirit guides, or other benevolent spirits. Or don’t realize they’re inviting in anything at all.

There were many times when I invited demons warmly into my life, completely not realizing it, through various new age practices, and a willingness to be open to a spirit world I thought was inherently good and safe. I believed that everything in the spirit world was inherently good.

But… it seems clear to me now, that demons always hang around, ready to pounce. Ready to take the slightest invitation. They’re ready to torment. Ready to confuse. And loving every inch we give them. They torment new agers, they torment Christians. (Especially with confusion. Confusion and temptation are their greatest tools against Christians.) Demons infiltrate secular institutions. They infiltrate churches. Christians just have a stronger defense against them, if they are wise to it, in Jesus and the Holy Spirit. But that doesn’t mean that demons don’t try. It doesn’t mean they don’t wait to pounce again, any chance they can, when you turn away from God.

Don’t turn away from God. Keep turning back.

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