A Rationalist has A Troubling Question That Will Not Go Away
This is my story. I have long been seeking a rational explanation for it. I hope that some of you can give me some in sights into it.
When I was a teenager as far as I can recall, about 14 years old I lived with my mother next door to my grandmother's house. One of my uncles who was going through divorce and had turned to alcohol for comfort was living at my grandmother at the time, since he had been unable to keep a job due to his alcoholism.
I came home from Pilgrim Holiness sunday school class one evening and went to Gran's house. In those days we would be given a 'golden text' to learn and meditate on during the week. intent on doing so I picked up this black 'bible' laying on Granny's table. On flipping through the pages I saw a few chapter headings that were similar to but different from biblical books. One had a name like 'Esterius', if my memory serves me correctly. There were one or two similar names that closely mimiced biblical names. I had read a school book called 'Legends and Myths of Greece and Rome', so immediately I started to think that I was looking at a Greek bible. I flipped to the front to read the foreword and saw words like 'Dedicated to our Master The Prince of Darkness" In horror i flung the book out of my hand back onto the table and called my grandmother and showed her the book.
Granny furiously confronted my uncle about this book and asked him to remove it from her house. He agreed but instead,as we later found out, merely hid the book in a wardrode.
A few months later I was at Granny's house lying in bed beside her. I suddenly had this strange feeling that I was floating about three ( 3) feet above the bed. I had felt no sense of how I got there. As soon as I felt it I shouted to my grandmother to tell her what was happening. Before I could get pass the word 'Gran' we heard this yell of terror from my uncle, who was in his bedroom. Granny asked him what was the matter. (I don't think that at that instant I was still floating.) My uncle's answer was chilling. These were his words " Satan is attacking me". The sequence of what happened next is blurred. I remember granny grabbing the bible and repeating "The Lord is my shepherd and rushing to my uncle's bedroom. As I passed my uncle's open bedroom door there he was lying spreadeagled on his bed.Facing the ceiling, the wooden bedstead was bouncing up and down which explained the strange clattering which was heard from my grandmother's bedroom. I rushed out of the house with the speed of Usain Bolt. To this day, my granny who passed many years ago has never mentioned the matter to me since that day. My uncle died tragically in a dibetic coma, brought on by alcohol abuse. He continued to have a tortured existance, until he died.
I often wonder what was the significance of it all? As a rationalist I do not know how to interpret this.