Idols, Dolls, and Dark gods Oh My!
I’m sure you’ve heard this one before. A haunted doll moves in the night, and terrorizes a family into insanity doing everything short of going full Chucky on the hapless owners of its horrifying visage. As you might guess with this being in my What Goes Bump in the Night Series, I’m going to argue that there is far more truth in this concept than anyone of us wanted to believe or comprehend, and I’m going to use a proper biblical perspective to do it. So strap in boys and girls let’s delve into a classic horror and ghost hunting tropes.
I’m sure you’ve heard of idolatry in the Bible. There is a massive amount of the sin so numerous it makes counting stars look like child’s play, but if you don’t know ancient people would make idols or engraved images of varying types to represent their gods. This could be anything from a detailed statue to a wooden carving of some sort. The important thing for our purposes is a belief of the ancients that most people overlook.
Ancients didn’t believe that these statues were alive or the gods themselves. If an idol was destroyed in a storm or war they may think that it is a sign of destruction, but they didn’t think those gods were now dead. If they wanted to communicate or commune with said gods all they had to do was make another idol. What ancient peoples believed instead was that gods could inhabit the idols they made.
Inhabit? Or possess harder than a melodramatic stripper hired for a pretty face in a ghost hunting show who’s secretly a Wiken plant? I lean towards what we commonly refer to as possession nowadays. A foreign presence enters into a doll, ghost demon or what have you, and it moves or does other disconcerting things in front of a hyperventilating new age yet hip ghost hunter.
This plays into a story I recently heard about where a haunting in a certain house where some friend of the family gave the worst advice imaginable. Not the usual “it’s fine to feed the squirrels” kind of bad advice, but more the “coolant for your car is overrated and the lack of it won’t totally blow your radiator in hundred degree weather” kind of bad advice. In this case the moron suggested giving whatever was haunting their home a peace offering, or what all of us in the religiously minded world would accurately call a sacrifice.
Great, what’s the best way to make sure an entity won’t leave you alone? Worship it like a god of course. With an idol for it to inhabit. These idiots even lit candles in a makeshift ceremony. Why not just draw some pentagrams on your floor, and kill some chickens while you're at it? Modern people have to be the least logical, dumbest people in existence.
Let’s worship the demon or entity torturing us. I’m sure that will convince the gremlin to leave us alone just like giving bank robbers what they want will clearly make them stop bank robbing and taking hostages.
Bringing things back to the story, for whatever reason the house owner thought that a tiny cat statue was the right “gift” or more accurately sacrifice to give on their makeshift altar since she was obsessed with cat figurines. If you know anything about history more warning lights should be going off as several ancient entities were into the whole cat representational idols. Needless to say things did not end well in this story, no help from the church or priests either who they called to help. Churchians really are worthless.
This story however is not an outlier. This is purely anecdotal, but I can think of countless ghost stories about “paranormal” investigators doing everything short of sacrificing a virgin on the Summer Solstice in an attempt to trigger a response from whatever spiritual entity they’re hunting. Everything from the haunted doll island in Mexico where you’re encouraged to leave a doll to appease the spirit of a dead girl to the creepy clown museum hotel right here in America.
It’s fascinating to me that modern ghost hunting and ill advised do it yourself ceremonies like the one mentioned above involve ingraven images just like the ancient civilizations before them. Moving dolls, cursed toys, and the like are very common. We may as Christians be tempted to write these off as simple fantasy of those stripped of their religion and purpose desperately trying to find something otherworldly to fill the void, and that maybe true, but to ignore the similarities to ancient idols would make us the stooges not the materialists.
As previous posts in What Goes Bump in the Night have pointed out the Bible, and its surrounding writing are quite clear on the fact that many of these gods were real entities. Whether demons, evil elohim gods, or something in between, many of these idols were not worshiped out of sheer superstition. Their power is negligible next to God with capital G’s power, but to ignore what they can do is asking for the forces of darkness to have free reign over your life.
So when I see extremely convincing doll moving videos online a part of me wonders exactly what is going on in these situations. We know that many of these “gods” were some form of spiritual being, and that they could inhabit idols, maybe even make them move. Today we have dolls and other “idol” like contraptions that have been known to be “haunted” or possessed or shall we say inhabited by ghosts or something like them. Sometimes they even move, cause wild supernatural activity in the home or building they are kept in, and even, depending on the case, seem to understand what's going on around them.
It seems to me that real possessed dolls are a modern manifestation of the old idol system cleverly disguised to the modern eye as grandma coming back for a chat. A brilliant move if you’re an ancient dark god looking to dup modern mortals into unwittingly worshiping you, and handing themselves over to your wims.
Understand something important about all of this. They require your permission, to varying degrees based on their power, to mess with you especially if you are a believing Christian. But don’t underestimate them or their minions.
There is a story in the Bible about the disciples casting out spirits in Jesus’ name, but one possessed individual could not be freed no matter how they prayed. Eventually Christ cast out the spiritual evil personally, and his disciples asked him why they couldn’t cast out this particular beast like all the others before it. Jesus' response is telling.
He said that some of these monsters required more faith. Christ is alluding to the hierarchy of the wicked. The difference between a low ranking demon attempting to sow distrust between you and your wife with petty tricks, and a dark god handing out power treats to anyone willing to sacrifice a baby on his altar Moloch style. Both can be defeated by God’s power; one is a little easier to handle then the other.
Remember, even men who walked with Christ can be overwhelmed by dark forces above their pay grades. If you belong to God there is only so much they can do, but don’t ignore their power either. Worshiping such beings gives them more power, especially dark rituals and sacrifices.
It’s not a complicated concept. If you worship something you belong to it, and it calls the shots and can do whatever it wants. That includes torturing you into insanity in a merciless haunting if the being feels so inclined. Moreover, sense depravity gives them power just as prayers and good deeds boosts our side of this cosmic war so evil is encouraged to ever greater depths
When a burglar enters your house you don’t try to appease him. Give him gifts and beg him to leave you alone, and he’ll take the goods and come back for more as often as he likes knowing full well you won’t stop him. He might even bring friends. No, you shoot burglars on sight. If they survive, they know you’re a hard target not worth the effort.
Sticking with this analogy, if thieves do try to break into your home, and you succeed at driving them off do you then take down your wall and sell your guns assuming you’ll never need them again? Of course not! We all know they might come back, or another set might try their luck if your defenses seem weak. Demons, dark gods, and the rest work the same way.
Just like keeping your doors locked you always need to stay strong in prayer. Jesus made things clear when he said that a driven out spirit will roam the earth before returning to his original host. Seeing life now in order he’ll come back with friends, and possess him harder than cheesecake at a one pass buffet.
So if you have driven out demons always be prepared for their inevitable return or attempt at returning. You don’t belong to them or their masters so don’t worship them by keeping idols around that they’ve chosen to possess. Don’t try to talk to them in EVP sessions or with Ouija
Boards. Cast them out without hesitation.
That was your public service announcement from a man who grew up in the jungle, and has seen a thing or two and read even more. So be strong and courageous sons of God. We don’t belong to the gods of this earth, and they are doomed to die like men while being judged both by those they oppressed and by God with a capital G himself. In the words of Paul “Even the demons believe, and they shutter.”
So gentlemen, always be wary of the next new agy hip ghost hunting method or trend. You never know when a certain monster from the other side is using it for its own nefarious goals.
Trust in God and hold the faith for they are doomed and they cringe at the thought. Keep up the fight and keep your eyes open for the wicked and their schemes, and always be mindful of what goes bump in the night.
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