Mana forbidden...

[MoonFox]

It always seemed very cut and dry when I was younger, and things like other religions and beliefs in magic or ‘mana’ were foreign concepts of fantasy and myth. These days, I’m not so sure. So I come to the point of my question. I was taught to believe that mana is something one has to trade their soul for, or something to that effect, that it was a heinous sin. But what if I didn’t choose or ask for a particular talent or gift that is associated with it?

At age 10 I had always had really terrible, and terrifying nightmares, but there came a particular nightmare that I still remember vividly now, 24 years later, in which when I was about to escape my nightmares by waking, I had my first experience of lucid dreaming. A voice in the nightmare threatened to hurt my family if I woke up. I stated asleep, and saw the dream through to conclusion, but willing my own changes upon it to rescue my family within the dream, and then to fight off the offending dark entity that had pursued me.

For many years after I didn’t have anymore dreams like it. But, I remembered how I took control of the dream. At age 16 the dreams of this intensity started again, upon a night before I had been planning suicide. Before I slept, I dug deep, prayed real hard, didn’t care who or what answered, begging for a sign or something, about why I should bother to keep living. I got it, in a big way. That’s a dream for later discussion though. After that dream I have had increasing frequency of nightmares that just start right in with things I can only describe as demons, calling me by name, stating they’ve been looking for me, and then attacking me in my dreams. The most troubling part is I FEEL unable to wake during these nightmarish attacks, and only through increased practice in lucid dreaming techniques have I been able to fend them off. And yet, when I wake, my body has very mild marks on it, as if the injuries in the dream were real, but their severity is diminished. Along the way, I have also begun unwittingly learning an advanced form of lucid dreaming, referred to as Dream Walking, reputedly a form of Shamanic magic.

For all I’ve learned, experienced, and discovered along the way, I don’t regret this talent which most who pursue it require years of practice and training to just scratch the surface of it. What I wonder is, if mana came naturally to someone, are they still a sinner, or is there an exception for this?

 

[Phalanx]

You should probaly post this in the “Non-Catholic Religions” forum section instead. That’s where you’ll find the pagans, wiccans and those who are interested in these things…

Anywho, its obvious that your view on “Mana” is influenced by fantasy videogames/books. From what I know Mana is a part of some of the Polynesian warrior tribes culture. To a Christian its nonsense. And trying to “dreamwalk” as you call it, controlling wierd dreams and outer body experiences is not wise as it exposes you to the temptations of the occult.

 

[MoonFox]

If I were looking for information from a pagan perspective, I have already found several resources on the matter from that perspective. Many of which could even be considered superior to the appointed forum on this site for discussing their perspectives.

As I mentioned before, I did not pursue any of this. As it is I didn’t even know there was a name for doing these things, or that they weren’t normal for everyone until only a few years ago. Yes, I pursued extensive research into the topic, to better understand, and handle these ‘dreams’. Yes, it necessitated delving into several topics of research that the church doesn’t offer much information on, and frequently dodged answering my questions with questions that often sounded more like accusations to me.

I can tell as much as that I’ve been driven to identify things in these nightmares, that led me to looking into topics like Enochian, demons of ancient Babylonian legend, obscure prophecies, and books that most of modern man has forgotten were ever written, and remain available as reprints from any major book store.

Of these obscure books, I own an English translated copy of The Zohar, several books written by Friar Roger Bacon, and even some by Prof. John Dee.

But back to the actual question at hand, is it possible for me, with all that I’ve learned, studied, and regularly now practice to protect myself from these violently offending dreams, to be welcomed in a church still, and seek council on some of my more recent dreams which seem to have a profoundly Biblical context?

P.S. My information is not heavily influenced by video game concepts. More rather, I have a passion for reading old and obscure books, as well as asking the difficult questions that I’m typically told not to ask. I’m just more studied up on topics that most of the world is ignorant of, either because of choice or fear of learning what supposedly wiser people have gone to great lengths to censor or hide. (I know that sounds very conceited, but it is also true. I hate to blow my own horn quite so much, but I find it offensive to be accused of being unable to separate video game fantasy from reality, given how entirely serious I am being.)

 

[FaustinaJulia]

Greetings Moonfox
I was a practising pagan, wiccan and finally asatruan/heathen during a span from my teens until early February of 2012, by which time I was 51. I do not say this to boast or to claim some huge authority, but to assure you that I am not totally ignorant of what you are going through.

I searched and read avidly due to a number of what may be best termed paranormal experiences in my lifetime. I, too, turned to non-Catholic and non-Christian sources in order to discern what was going on and how best to handle it. I, too, had found various things which I wholeheartedly believed would be better than conventional wisdom and mainstream religions to live in accord with and which seemed to match up with what seemed to be innate abilities which I had been forced to develop due to life experiences.

It was all a lie.

These “abilities” and “teachings” did not help my life to improve. Indeed much of what I firmly believed and swallowed from the teachings led to much grief and degradation in my life and certainly in many ways led to a self-destructive pathway which I traipsed upon fully convinced of the rightness of my choices with no realistic assessment of their true affect on me or the provability of their truth or not.

Here’s the deal. When it’s led you to this exploration and beliefs which you are stating here, the initial encounters you had in dreams were intended to set you up to draw you ever deeper into the occult grasp on your very life and soul. Yes, you are a hundred percent correct that those dreams were inhabited by demons and boy did they ever put on a show for you. Led you right along into the explorations which they wanted you to pursue to ever further entangle you in their clutches. They are smart that way, so don’t let this knowledge make you defensive nor get you down about how you were tricked… they’ve had literally millenia of timelessness to perfect their ways.

If it’s any consolation to you, the fact that you have been so deftly targetted and trapped says that you are a person of some concern to them. It does make one wonder what exactly it is about you that they do NOT want to come to fruition. But then God has been kind as well as he has given you the grace to seek out knowledge from a source based upon the truth of his loving sacrifice for you and for all of us. Take advantage of that if you are a seeker of truth, for the Catholic Church is where you shall find it in our Lord, Jesus Christ.

So, to finally answer your question. You did not know it was a grave sin (or so it seems from your description of things), nor did you voluntarily begin this exploration, but felt coerced, forced and in fact, terrorized when you were most vulnerable, into seeking ways of dealing with an unwanted series of paranormal experiences. In God’s compassion and the wisdom of His Church, to this date, though what was done is grave sin in Catholicism, you have not committed a mortal sin in this situation. This is based solely on the information which you have provided in this thread.

My advice? Begin to go to Mass and to explore the Catholic Church. Bend that wonderful mind to learning the way, the truth and the light and come home to the Lord who has loved you before you were ever conceived in the womb. Talk to your local Parish Priests and to people here in this forum who have walked many of the same paths that you have and then become Catholic. Listen when you are given warnings about the effect of investigating certain occult things and having certain occult objects in your life… for your sake and that of your soul.

God Bless

 

[MoonFox]

Thanks for all that, that was certainly more to the point of what I needed an answered. Truth be told, even as these experiences had already began, and I was struggling with them, I had already been Catholic. There’s a lot of that in Italian families I notice. I even had my confirmation, during those times. But, not even prayer gave me solace anymore from these seemingly targeted dreams. The dreams still occur to present day, but where once I cowered in my dreams, and in all attempts to fight back I felt weak and feeble, now will and imagination are the tools I use to change weakness to strength and to turn emotion into dreamed of power. The most elaborate of these more recent dreams, again targeted the strength of hope I draw from bonds of family. Initially I kept failing to fight back, but when it mattered most, my outrage and focus brought forth within the nightmare, a furious lightning storm to strike down the offending demons.

An explanation I came up with from my own experiences, holds that fear, despair, and doubt make us weak when experiencing nightmares, which are inherently experiences that inspire fear, doubt, and despair. In dreams or ‘The Dreaming’ as I came to call it, a person’s strength and abilities are wholly proportionate to their strength of will, the extent of their imagination, and belief in themselves and ability to do anything within a dream. This is most put to the test in Nightmares.

I suspect I may know of one of my more extreme such dreams that may qualify for making me a noteworthy target though. When I was 21 I had my first experience pertaining to the Book of Revelations. I had at that time, never read it, nor heard of it before. But I did dream it, and in very vivid detail. I only found out about it when someone else saw the entry in a dream journal I had been keeping at the time. Thing is, I had the dream three times , in three nights, each time it began the same, yet each time it ended differently.

One outcome, very classic, favors Heaven winning the Endtime war. The second, favored Hell winning.

The third, even more incredible, and understandably hard to believe, for me let alone a Catholic of sterner faith than I managed to keep, was what I would call a coin landing on its edge. A third party that the dream proposed May or may not survive to exist to that point, gets involved, and essentially undoes prophecy altogether, first defeating the forces of Hell, literally slaying Samael in the process, then driving out Heaven’s forces, and forcing both sides to cease having any influence over the fates of mankind. This third party then tells the survivors of mankind, they are free from the manipulation a of any and all higher powers. The fate of mankind is theirs to write. Praise and worship for doing this is rejected, and mankind is instructed to remember the mistakes of the past well, and do better in the future. Then this third party, a group of five individuals, from different regions of the world, sacrifice themselves, and all the power they wielded to accomplish all this, to restore life and vitality to the blighted Earth.

In all of these, I found myself present in the beginning of each scenario, but see myself killed by one of the incarnations of Samael, before the rest finishes playing out. Only in that third scenario do I survive, as one of the five of that third party. If this third scenario is something I fabricated through lucid dreaming, I am uncertain, though I do recall it seemed more like being swept along as a witness to a predetermined story.

I do realize what that third dream proposes is incredibly hard to swallow. I’m not saying it is in fact prophetic or anything. I leave that determination to wiser people than I. I’m merely stating the most outstanding of my experiences, that seems the most likely reason that me or my soul should be of so much interest to demons.