This was originally a magazine article.

Introduction

For me, exploring and experiencing strange lands and otherworlds are in my blood. The unusual is everyday for me, yet I have always maintained a healthy scepticism. My experiences confirm to me that not much (if anything) that we are pressed to believe in is true, or even, what it seems. Life is full of contradictions and I strongly suspect that this is how it is meant to be.

There are lots of things that have come to us via religion that I have the deepest respect and regard for. All religions hold elements of truth and vast stores of authentic wisdom. The best of them are simple truths, not hard to understand. Only three words, attributed to Christ, tell us about all that we need to do to experience paradise on Earth:

“Love one another.”

Then there are other teachings that have ridden in through religions carried in the saddlebags of conjured demons that cultivate the very opposite of love; and every despair and woe can be traced back to these. Basically they feed on people’s need for matter to matter, for their own matter to matter. From the fear of loss of standing to the dread of oblivion, the terror of death these ever looming inexorable spectres draw even more agents of the Darkness to prey insatiably on the unforgiving who pray for the unforgiven. Darkness breezes through every inch of this world when it likes and virtually unmolested even in the places human beings believe have been raised to praise the Light.

I’d like to share with you three personal stories of my own where I encountered dark inclinations and sinister agendas present at three different churches in rural England.

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