A Brief Take on Witchcraft and Evil

By Timia Cobb
Web Content Assistant Manager

My grandmother was always religious. Her belief in God was never translated correctly to me. I believed God to be an entity that watched you at all times and granted your wishes if he liked what he saw.

I remember attending church with my grandmother every Sunday when I was little. My hair in braids, wearing lace socks and poofy dresses. I remember sitting in a pew, turning to my grandmother and asking if God was a ghost. She laughed and said I needed to pay attention more when we attended church.

While I was being dragged to church, I learned more about God. I also learned about demons and witches. Since I was a child, I had to be aware of dark entities, hexes and witchcraft. It was something I had been taught to be horrified by. However, by the time I was a teenager the superstitions and folk tales my grandmother had told me didn’t affect me as much as they did when I was a child.

As I grew up my relationship with God changed. God became like a friend to me. A friend who was a goody-two shoe but was also an amazing listener who didn’t talk that much. I didn’t believe I needed to go to church to have a relationship with God, when in my mind he was always with me, ready to talk.

Although, that changed when I was 17 and decided to attend church with my grandmother. A prophet was visiting her church for the week. Yes, an actual prophet, or that’s what everyone attending my grandmother’s church believed. His sermon was like something out of a southern horror film. A small church filled with people craving guidance only to be advised by a man disguised as a savior of the lord. Sadly, not everyone saw him the way I did.

He would pick people out of the churches and yell at them, telling them their future and what God expected of them. He would shout and bless them. Each one of them would scream, speak in tongues then shut down from feeling the holy ghost.

I tried to keep my head down but it was obvious my grandmother wanted him to pray for me and after her insisting, he finally did. He told me to come to the altar, I remember the way he looked at me as if he knew what I needed or wanted but all I saw before me was a fake. He swiped prayer oil onto my forehead in the shape of a cross and began to pray.

Before he could end his prayer he stepped away from me as if I had burned him and simply said, “I know you see them.” I didn’t have the chance to process what he said, he started yelling to everyone in the church, yelling that I see evil. That I see demons and it was my job to stop them from growing stronger.

I knew this man was insane, he was feeding everyone lies and I wasn’t like his followers who would easily believe every word he said. That’s what I told myself but a part of me was bothered by what he said. Why had every other person been told things that would affect or better their lives while I was told that I see things, demons at that?

I didn’t let it get to my head and quickly disregarded what he said but my family would not let it go. After the service my grandmother and great aunt rushed to me, saying they always knew I was blessed, explaining how when I was younger I would talk about people they could never see. How I would mention women with sewed mouths, men in corners or spiders on the ceiling.

I didn’t recall any of the things they mentioned to me except the spiders. One night when I was seven or eight, I couldn’t sleep because everywhere I looked, I would see spiders, in my bed, on the walls, etc. The only way I could go to sleep was if my grandmother prayed for me and kept the lights on. To this day I still sleep with the lights on because I am afraid of the things I see in the dark.

I didn’t want to believe it but I couldn’t exactly ignore the shadows I see and the statements my family had made. To this day I don’t know what the truth is, do I truly see demons and evil or did I succumb to the lies of a false prophet?

I know only this, I have always been able to read people easily. If they were good or if their intentions were bad. I was raised to believe that witchcraft was bad, but I generally believe not all of it is. I just know that I see people for who they are and sometimes, they might not be good people.

Featured Image by Timia Cobb