Hallucinations

Hallucinations

“And I looked up, and behold I was in complete and utter fear of what I saw. The way it swung its asymmetrical arms back and forth….back and forth in a constant, tempting motion. I could only watch in mutter a cowardly whisper in awe of this creature: This must be what hell is like.”

 

 

***When I was little, around 8 or so, my mother use to tell me that I use to see things. She told me that the things I saw (whatever they were) use to put me in a constant bind of fear throughout the nights that I saw them. I would shake and tremble and hold tightly to her telling her to ‘make it all go away’ and point at the thing it was and ask if she too, saw what I was seeing. Out of everything in this book that I write about, I think that this section in particular is the most difficult to bring up, so much that I feel in a rush to get this section over and done with as soon as possible. My mother only told me that there was two instances in which I saw these ‘things’. The other one was when I was around 13 or 14 I suppose, when we were living in the attic of my Aunt and Uncles house after my mother had no place to live. Our Pastor had recently been preaching about hell for like three weeks straight and made many references from a book called ‘A Devine Revelation Of Hell’. I had became curious, got my hands on that same book and began to revolve my life around it. That book changed the way I saw things forever: I would wake up screaming in the middle of the night to make it stop, but when my mother rushed to my side, I could not tell her what I was seeing neither how or why it appeared to me. The only solution was prayer and a bible for me to lay my head on at night. It got frustrating at times but the bible offered me some sort of ‘comfort’ for all evil visions that kept presenting themselves to me. I read a scripture everynight, and slowly I started to mold back into reality, night after long night. When things began to somewhat become back to normal, I asked God on the last night of those hallucinations to NEVER let me see those horrible things again and that I, Joshua Ryan Cannon do promise to serve the God above me and the savior that shed his blood for mankind for the rest of my life. I foolishly made a promise to God that night that I would never fall astray the path of holiness and the Christian way.

            I read and prayed to God everyday, more out of fear, then out of pure compassion for His Word. Times change I suppose and eventually I stopped praying and reading the bible and eventually stopped acknowledging there was even a God to begin with. Up to that point, I had lost everything I had ever learned from that church and pursued a life of crime and vigilance. I had broken the promise I had kept years ago and had constantly been clouding my mind with drugs and alcohol- the promise was broken, and so was the deal. �"J.R.****

 

3109 PERIMETER DR. JEFFERSONVILLE INDIANA

LATE 2007, WINTER

 

“Set The Captive Free?” I looked at the book and laughed. The book was a mid sized paper back edition with a poor marketed title and picture on the front cover. The cover had a picture of someone in a black robe with broken chains being released from a white sword with a pinkish spot on the hand (Jesus). Underneath the person was a pentagram with candles around him, and a chain being yanked by a red fist into flames near the bottom of the book cover. In the upper left corner it said in big capital white letter “He Set The Captive Free.” I smirked a little and looked at Saul.

            “So this book is gonna f**k me up, right?” I said unconvincingly. Saul gave me the book and told me to read it and see. I took it from him and went to the liquor store to pick up another thing of Jim Beam- the half gallon bottles with the little handle on it- yep, that’s the one. Drinking on the way home, I started looking at the book again and just became unsatisfied with its appearance and lack of professionalism for a book cover. I could of done a better job my damn self I thought to myself. The times were getting cold and it was winter. I wasn’t going out as much and decided a good book to read would be something to enjoy. Before Saul dropped me off in his truck, I again asked him if he was serious about this book.

 

“Josh.” He said to me, trying to pronounce his J’s right instead of making it sound like a Y- which I always laughed at him for.

 

“Just read it, if you don’t like it, give it back, if you don’t �"

‘Then I’ll burn this b***h’ I interrupted. He laughed but I only gave an evil grin, letting him know I would. He looked at his clock and told me to let him know if ‘anything’ happened if I read it- that is, “if” anything happened. There wasn’t anything else to say, I took my fifth, threw the damn thing in the bushes and went through the front door. I watched as he drove away in his Ford 150 through the slush and the snow, how the fumes from the exhaust slowly rose above towards the roof tops. I looked at the cover of the book again and laughed a little before heading downstairs in the basement. Downstairs was set up as normal: 2 couches, one against the wall and another counter clockwise facing the wall to the half window to the right, a table in the middle living room and another table by the couch facing the tv where the lamp sat. I flicked on the light, threw the book down on the couch and headed through the back way to get my half gallon I left outside (I usually do this to avoid attention by my grandparents, as I have an established reputation of a supreme ‘alcoholic). I opened up the door to the garage to go outside but started feeling uneasy before opening the door. My grandparents were asleep so it wasn’t waking them up that concerned me. But something was really hesitant upon opening that door. I opened it anyway and went around the back way to go back outside to get the half gallon whisky. The wind was howling a scream and the dead leaves retreated in return, I shivered slightly as I had no coat on, hurried out to grab the bottle and went back inside. I had Pepsi already ready and didn’t feel like going upstairs to get a glass so I chased several shots of whisky before changing into my sweatpants and seeing what was on tv.

            I checked my phone to see if anyone texted me but noone really did: of course, I was always the one trying to see what was up with people unless they wanted me for something- b******s. I sat back on the main couch and started seeing what was on tonight that could set my attention.

            “S**t!” I yelled out, taking a couple more shots of Jim Beam. The burn felt good through the unforgiving cold outside but I still chased it down with room temperature Pepsi. Nothing was on that really caught my attention: just news, bullshit from MTV and BET and maybe some re-runs on the history channel. I got my covers out and saw where I had thrown the book I had just brought in and decided to read it.

            “Saul said itd do the trick” I repeated to myself. “Lets see if hes right. I turned off the tv and the main light to the room and left only the lamp on the night stand on and began to open this book of his. Upon entering the first couple of pages, I noticed it had a warning! In bold capital letters at the top introductory. I liked warning signs, so I read through it. It said that the people of the Brotherhood (whoever the hell that was) and Satan will try everything and anything to prevent anyone from continuing on with this book. The information inside it has some of the top most confidential secrets in the occult revealed and to go further on will increase the readers ‘experiences’ that cannot be explained. It went on to say such things like overwhelming sleepiness, confusion and many other tactics devised from Satan could possibly be used to lure me away from reading the contents in this book.

 

“What one damn minute.” I said out loud again. “Why the f**k would the damn devil try to stop me from reading the s**t I already know? It should be God who doesn’t want me to read this s**t.” I smoked a cigarette and continued to read.

 

Pg. 3-10

 

            Im bored. The book is exactly what it says it was. Setting the captive free. So far so good I’m getting sleepy. Everything it says about the Love of Jesus and God is everything I’ve already been taught and have no further desire to enhance my knowledge on. Things started feeling strange though, unexplainable but at the same time logical things needless to say. Things like the door to the garage would make a slamming noise like someone was trying to push against it from the other side but then again, it did that from time to time whenever the air was turned on upstairs. Only thing was though, was that my grandparents were asleep and I know I didn’t turn the s**t on. I looked around a bit, shrugged my shoulders and continued to read what this lady was talking about. I stopped reading up to the point where it cut off the introductory and was beginning to sink into the main theme the book was really about: Satanism. I opened the first chapter and started reading about this woman that began to tell sort of a sob tale about her life, how her dad was abusive and she came out deformed at birth. The mother tried to pay for the hospital expenses for some sort of cure for her deformity when she was approached by a young nurse that wanted a sample of the baby’s blood- this is where I called it a night, put the book down and started watching tv again.

            Flipping through the channels, I couldn’t help but feel strange. I continued to get more intoxicated and finally fell asleep with the TV on and the lights off. The book lay on the table next to me, face up like it was staring at me so I turned it over on its back side so I wouldn’t have to look at whatever that thing was on the cover (the pentagram with the person in the middle).

 

            “F**k this.” I said and went to sleep.

 

            The next day at school was somehow different: Usually I would drink again before class or skip out and smoke weed during lunch but I felt somehow distant. I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke- I only sat in class like a normal kid. The urge to talk to others was also different- I didn’t want anything to do with anybody. The only thing on my mind was that damn book. For some reason I wanted to know more about what happened to that little girl. People tried talking to me but I didn’t entertain this for long; I just bullshitted them and went along with my business. After school I walked home usually for a block down a long a narrow road towards the end of the street on a cul-de-sac. The winter was really getting worse around this time and the clouds seemed unusually cloudy for some time in the afternoon. I walked faster to get home. Later that night, I began to read the book again, this time like I wanted to read it. Whether or not the book is true or not, I wasn’t in particularly sure but the topic was something I have never came across before: the occult and the paranormal. Reading more and more into the book, I felt myself become drawn to it and I wanted more and more. I caught myself being sucked into this literature and somewhat became ambivalent to it now.

 

“Not again, oh no not THIS s**t again!” I said to myself.

 There was one book that I had the similarities and fascination with and the end of that book did not end to well.

 

“It’s A Divine Revelation all over again…”

 

 This book that I was reading started becoming stranger by the paragraph. The little girl grew up in school a screw up and a laughing stock for her peers- always being made fun of by her deformities until she met another young girl that invited her to a ‘church’- this is where things started getting really screwed up. The so called church was actually planning a summer trip that had God only as a cover up- the real reason behind it all was an introductory to Satanism. The people there in the sanctuary were all different from the church from back home. I read of incantations and hymns and spiritual discordance. She got invited to join but refused and against her will, she was drugged and taken to yet another far away place deep in the woods somewhere. They placed blind folds on her to prevent her from seeing where exactly it was they were taking her. To make a long story short, she became a witch and at was at this point in the book is when I started feeling very uncomfortable, I read ahead anyways. I read about demons and how they are manipulated to do the caster his wishes only to turn against that person and destroy them. Questions I wondered about demons and spirits and incantations were answered and I began to seek for more knowledge in this field. To me, I felt drawn into this strange and exotic world that has been kept secret and out of public eye since the new millennium. I continued through the story, ignoring the tv and the noise from upstairs such as my grandparents getting up to take a piss or something of the sort. Satanism had been revealed in plain color to me and I was magically drawn to this woman and her experience with it- up to a point where I heard the door slam again…and then yet again. I pause, looking towards the corner in the shadows where the door stood- nothing, not even a sign it had been moved. Was it just me? The only light I had on was the night stand lamp and the tv so I couldn’t quit see anything unusual- but neither did I want too. I decided to call it a night and put a thin sheet of paper where my book mark was and laid on the couch, looking at the tv.

 

            All that occult s**t is depressing.                    

I turned the channel on MTV’ the ‘Real World’ and thought nothing of it- pretty soon I was drifting to sleep. I shut my eyes and everything goes blank- nothing but pure darkness. I start thinking of everything I had just read: Satanic meetings, hooded figures in black robes humming chants of the sort, people screaming and demons with hideous faces lurching out at me. I started to feel my hair raise on the back of my neck out of nowhere and started to shiver. It feels cold…but why?

Before I drifted to sleep, I couldn’t help but feel that tonight was going to be a very bad night.

 

 

 

My first experience with this thing happened that night, and the next day at school, I had looked like I had been thrown in a ditch and left for dead. I didn’t shower, I didn’t slick my hair back, I didn’t brush my teeth and I didn’t even eat f*****g breakfast. People started asking me what had happened but I only slapped them away with a wave of inequity. I sat in class trying not to think about what had happened, but I did anyway. Most of the day at school was trying to catch up on the sleep I had never gotten from the night (or morning) before, which got me sent to in School Suspension, which was really good cause now I could sleep and not be bothered by anybody. I kept thinking about it: over and over again and towards the end of the day, I began to regret going back home.

 

“If it happens again, then I aint going back- no f*****g way am I gonna go back to that.”

 

I thought about telling my mom, but she would just say the same s**t she always says to me.

 

 

“Josh, you need to get your life right. Josh, you need Jesus. Josh you need to pray. Josh stop drinking, stop smoking, stop fornicating” blah blah blah. Whatever: I didn’t need to hear that s**t. What I needed to hear was why is this happening to me and not anybody else that so called lives in sin?  Why d****t! Why?!

That night I awakened in my sleep in horror. I felt something pressing against my chest, not much but enough for me to know that something just wasn’t right. I almost didn’t want open my eyes because I was so afraid, so confused what was going on- nothing like this had ever happened to me before, so why now? I open my eyes wide to see not to see a figure in front of me, but a cloud staring coldly back into my eyes, but more like a presence hovering above me. A very dark cloud sat above my chest, moving back and forth and left and right, hovering over my entire body. I try to speak but nothing comes out of my lips. I am confused, staring at whatever this thing was that was unmoved by my recent attempt. Realizing that I could not speak, I now tried to open my mouth, but again- nothing. At this point I am scared shitless. The cloud still lingers over me, and I feel its pressure leaning against my body, and it begins to act violently towards my recent two attempts to resurface to reality. I try to move, but am frozen, try to speak but am silenced.

 

“WHAT THE F**K ARE YOU!” I try screaming with all my strength, not caring if I woke up the whole neighborhood in the process, but again- nothing. The only sound I heard was inside my mind and I felt my body begin to shake slightly, regardless if I had control over it or not. Attempts had been thrown out the window- I was now trying with every ounce of me to make some form or type of movement- anything. I gritted my teeth to the point of chipping a tooth but I kept squeezing and pushing and hoping that maybe something would get through to my nervous system so I could jolt right out of the basement and towards my moms house, where I knew without reasonable doubt that something like this would  never be allowed to happen. After what seemed like an eternity, I gave up trying to move or speak and I just laid there. Never in my life had I felt so defenseless as what I experienced at that very moment. Looking directly into this demonic aura,  I thought back to a glimpse of one of those CSI re-enactments, the one where the victim faces his or her killer in the eyes, staring the cold stoned killer in the face before their last breathe- the difference between me and the other scenario are completely relevant. It doesn’t say anything to me, only emitting a foul and vile thickness in the air.

 

            Thinking and in my heart that this had something to do with God and demons, I tried to recount ever possible thing that I had been taught that would somehow allow me to fight back at this creature. I could only think of the name Jesus. It pounds in my head again and again and I could hear voices in my head replying back to it, saying vulgar and perverse things about God and the Holy Spirit. I couldn’t believe to what I was hearing but the name of Jesus kept ringing through my head like a doorbell that had rung far many times too many. The name of Christ made its way through my mind and into my voice, and I said it through the heart breaking silence- “Jesus…Jesus, in the Name of Jesus.”

            About when I realized that I could speak once again, did the demonic aura disappear. I started to regain breathe again and I could feel my hands trying to spring to life. Without any realization, I swung blindly at whatever it was that was just on top of me yelling in the name of Jesus. I stopped myself, catching my breathe with my fist clenched tightly and shaking rapidly. I don’t think I would have wanted to see my face, because I knew that I must have looked ugly. My eyes were wide stricken, and my breathe sort. I thought I might have been losing my mind and to my knowledge, the tv had somehow turned off, so I turned it back on. Immediately after that, I turned the lamp on as well, following the light to the whole room- I couldn’t believe this was happening to me.

 

 

 

Whatever happened to me that night started happening again, except it happened on multiple occasions this time. It got to the point where I was afraid to go to sleep, so I drank energy drinks and watched re-runs of gangland and anime shows like Yu-Yu Hakusho and Cowboy Bebop until I could hear the birds start to sing getting ready for the new day. Even as the morning sun began to slowly creep its way back over to our hemisphere, throughout the night I would read where I left off for a paragraph or two.

 

            “So far so good.” I turned the page and ran into a title which caught my interest.

“Human sacrifices…” I repeated to myself. I thought about a time in my Spanish class were we had to study the Aztecs and Mayans for some sort of history project (what that has to do with me learning Spanish, I have no clue) and remember running to this. Ironically, the movie Apocalypto came out about the same time I was studying the culture and remember feeling a sense of hatred towards the ignorance of the Aztec society. Why would you practically murder not just one, but thousands upon thousands of people at one time just to satisfy a belief that could not be proven? It got to a point where I dropped my studies and accepted a failure for that assignment- I thought it was pointless. People in class where fascinated, some wanting just a good satisfactory grade just to make the GPA look decent on an overall credit card- but I honestly could give a f**k less about my grades. When I succumbed over those words in jet black bold letters, I noticed that I didn’t feel any hatred but complete fascination. I thought “This isn’t Mayans or Aztecs from the stone ages, this is present in todays society!” It made me furious that the mayans did that to their own people out of ignorance but it was common law to do so- this however was something quit different: this was illegal. But for what? What could possibly make somebody risk their reputation and careers over something like this? Did you gain some kind of ethical power from hell when you shed the blood of another? This to me, seemed a lot more logical then the Mayans because as far as I know, we are an advanced civilized race of individuals that had established laws and regulations. According to this book, there are thousands of different meetings held in thousands of various parts of the country (and others) all participating in human sacrifices.

            I wanted to just stop right there and go to sleep, but a sense of fear kept me from doing so and my mind eerily pulled me closer to this chapter to learn more: so I read.

 

 As read through the chapter, I began to understand why people sacrificed themselves for satan and the benefits that would come from it. I learned that every Halloween a child is stolen and sacrificed for these group meetings. All the missing posters up with childrens faces and all the warnings about people putting drugs in your candy for trick or treating started to make sense. All the lights were on downstairs now, it had gotten that bad. Me and the mystery cloud have come in contact so much, that I decided sleep wasn’t going to happen with me. I felt like a little kid that was afraid of the dark so he kept all his little night lights on thinking the boogey man would never come- what I didn’t know is that the paranormal activity emitting from this book could care less if the lights were on or not. Even with all the lights on in the basement, I still felt vulnerable and unprotected from whatever it was that was trying to scare me.

 

As I read more into it, I began to feel disgusted: apparently after a sacrifice is done, the whole satanic community gets high on drugs and begins a massive sex orgy in celebration. Something about that image just really bothered me. I tried picturing it in my head what it must have been like for the victim: a blade deep in his or her chest and as theyre still gasping there last breath, they see in the corner of their eyes people in hoods drunk and high having sex with demons and each other because their happy that you are dying for satan: I don’t know about you, but that’s fucked up. I had been up for several days with little if any sleep and was finally starting to feel I had lost my battle with insomnia. I laid the book down after finishing several more chapters and began to close my eyes with all the lights on. My last thought I had that night was ‘I gotta hurry up and finish this book”

 

 

 

That night was the night I finished the book. I laid on the couch facing the ceiling when I heard words that sounded something like ACDC with crashes of symbols and instruments banging together with no rhythm. The voices sounded more like screams yet somehow managed in a calm and collective manner. Whatever it was I heard did not sound human. I kept hearing the voices until I finally opened up my eyes to see something I wish I could somehow erase from my memory. In utter horror, I could not speak and I could not move out of fear. If I had moved, I felt my life would have been taken perhaps but that paralyzing feeling stumbled across my entire body like on the night with the dark cloud. In the corner, in my basement were two enormous sized silhouettes pacing back and forth with each other. Moving left, and moving right. They were in rhythm and in step and moved together like they were connected. The lights were not bright enough to reveal their faces but I could see their eyes, and they red like blood, filled with evil and hatred towards me. I knew that whatever it was that I was seeing wanted to torture me or to seriously hurt and kill me. I didn’t try to figure anything out, if maybe this was something that could be explained with logic and science but instead decided that if I did not finish this book and find a way to get this evil out of my house, then I was going to die

            The creatures dancing in front of me as I said were big in size but were twisted and distorted in shape. They replicated that of man, but somehow was mocking the image of man itself: their arms were not even in length and everything about their features were unsymmetrical. They had claws that were uneven as well. As I sat in horror, the voices began to crawl throughout my head as they did when I was asleep. The words were backwards again but I could feel that they were mocking anything that was pure and that was holy to God and heaven. How I knew that I didn’t know but I could feel it. It was if somebody spoke to me in a different language and although I’ve never studied it, I knew exactly what they were saying to me: it was like that.

 

            I could speak this time and called upon the name of God to deliver me but nothing. They moved in a more hostile manner when I opened my lips but I wondered why they only moved side to side and towards me? I didn’t know but I wanted to keep it that way. In a desperate cry for help I did the only thing I thought would be able to maybe somehow make all of this go away: I called my mom.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“Ok….now what happened again?”

 

I explained to my mom at 4 in the morning just exactly had been happening to me since Monday this week- it was now Thursday. I told her about the doors being slammed, the cloud, the fear, the creatures dancing in the back of the room and everything else that came with the damn book. Before I called her, I already knew that she was going to bash me for living the life that I did and by doing that, I pretty much did all this to myself but I didn’t care. I needed her to pray for me and to pray against the evil in this house. Why would God listen to me? I threw Christianity out the window of my life so why help me? So I needed her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t reluctant enough to help me out.

 

“Josh, I’m not going to help you. You did all this, then you can fix it.”  She told me in an angry tone.

 “I’ve been trying to tell you all this time to change your life and now you want to listen? No, it doesn’t work like that Josh. Read your bible is all I can tell you.”

 

After she said those words to me I felt like throwing the damn phone at the wall, but I didn’t. I just sat there in the middle of the night not saying anything to her in an uncomfortable silence. We stood on the phone until she asked if I was still on.

 

“Yes.”

“Read your bible Josh. Really.”

“Whats that going to do?”

“It will set you free.”

I didn’t understand what she meant but I took her advice. Somewhere downstairs, was my old bible from years ago when I went to church with my mother. It was old and abused from the neglect over the past few years. Its pages were crumpled and stuck together and falling apart. By this time, I was nearly finished reading the book Saul gave me and felt I would not read anymore until this problem was fixed with the strange unexplainable activity. The blue bible lay in a criss crossed wooded box where I had blankets and hid my alcohol in along with other things. I flipped through its pages and turned remembered that Mark, Luke and John was about Jesus so I read the verses out loud to myself.

            Upon reading the words within the paragraphs, I started to feel more confident. Even though I was still scared, I knew in my heart that God would not let those creatures touch or kill me. I read the bible until the sun came again to start the day again. The day would go as it had been going for all the week: Go to class to sleep, ignore everybody around me and hope for the best when I got home. My girlfriend at the time thought I was cheating on her because I looked like a pile of a*s and of course this made the situation worse. She demanded me tell her why I never got any sleep but I could not bring my heart to tell her the truth, I mean if anything who could I tell besides my moms? Who the hell would believe me of all people at that?  I was coming to school sleeping to come home to fight and deal with a force that was unseen to the human eye besides mine. Even though I did not want too, I knew that the only way to stop this thing was to revert back to how I was taught when I was younger: I would have to talk to whatever the hell it was that was in the house and command that it leave me alone.

 

On the walk home, the clouds were beginning to move in patterns across the skies, and I could feel it get dark despite that it was only 3 in the afternoon. Immediately when I got home, I read again from the bible but silently this time. I drifted back to sleep to wait until it got dark, which is when all the madness would start to happen. Before that, I decided to finish the last pages in the satan book just to get it out of the way so I wouldn’t have to deal with anymore. When it got to about 9 or 10 at night is when I began to read out loud. That’s what I did for my Friday night. I didn’t drink, I didn’t go out, I didn’t smoke weed or snort pills- I read and I read out loud. Calls being to my phone were ignored, even calls from my mother. I decided that night I was going to get right with God and to repent of all sins I had committed during my slip back into the world. I felt the evil recoil at this and I spoke a little louder, a little bolder with anger in my voice. The fear I felt before began to lift up off of my shoulders and I started to feel some form of peace.

 

I spoke out loud and cursed what it was in the house that had been tormenting me, commanding it to leave and crawl back into hell where it belonged. I cried, I screamed, I stood up and praised God as if I were back in the church itself. I slept that night with the bible as my pillow with all the lights on unbothered. For the first time that week, I could sleep peacefully and not be tormented or paralyzed with fear. The next night, I read again from the scriptures, and turned one light off and again, I could sleep. Slowly after the next few weeks one light after the other began to be turned off as I slowly began to tap back into reality, and for that, I thank God.

I wish I could tell you that I would come home that day to face some sort of demon in the face and be drug through hell or something, but nothing like that happened. Never in my life had I been through something quite like what I experienced that week but my understanding of the paranormal have been determined: there are some things that we as human beings do not need to interfere with. My knowledge of the occult is as accurate as its ever been and to this day, I keep a bible by my side, waiting for anything like that to happen. Unfortunately after that experience I did not convert my entire life back to God but continued down the road for destruction. The book that Saul gave me is gone now. I gave it to a friend and dared him to read it- he never did. I cant discuss everything that was in that book but just know that the world we live in today is more then just the eye makes it out to be. We all know the world is full of murderers and rapist etc but what would you think if I told you all of the bad things we see like war and famine were actually a cover up from whats really going on?

 

            We are so quick to say what is and what is not real these days, and I was just like you. Magic? Human Sacrifices? Demons and hooded figures? Who the hell is dumb enough to believe that? If you had experienced what I had to go through, then there would be no need to question that statement.

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