DEMONS OF SLEEP PARALYSIS AND CONVERSION OF AN EX-CATHOLIC
Whoever is born into a traditional family in my country is Catholic. In my family tree we have Catholic atheists, umbandistas [a syncretic Afro-Brazilian religion that blends African traditions with Roman Catholicism, Spiritism, and Indigenous American beliefs], atheists and others. There was never was a relative who was an evangelical Christian.
I was always an example of a fervent Catholic. I went from being an altar boy to a teacher of catechesis. I went from being a youth group director to becoming a Diocesan seminarian for two years in city of Paranavaí, Paraná, Brazil.
I entered the seminary with the aim of serving and knowing God more deeply. At the seminary I wanted to clear the doubts that prowled my mind. I wanted to know about the validity of the baptism of children and the idolatry of images practiced by the church.
I realized that I had stirred the hornet's nest. Priests and bishops accused me of being a heretic and sowing seeds of Satan in the seminary by my questioning the Catholic faith with the Bible.
They expelled me from the seminary. They said I was not welcome in that institution. I was very frustrated. I entered the seminary with the conviction of finding and serving God. I found out that God was never in that place.
I was labeled a seed of Satan because I had a form of knowledge that opposes the Catholic truth. Because of that, I was expelled from the seminary.
I plunged into the deepest abyss of depression. My world ended up in an immoral way. The church I believed to represent God brought me accusation, frustration, and pain for many long years. I lost my faith. I plunged into the darkness of the night in search of pleasure and relief for my soul. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll were my motto. Alcohol, drugs, prostitution, and nightclubs started to be part of my daily life with the frustration caused by my Catholic faith.
To make the most of what I had left of my life, I decided to live without rules. I decided to make my own rules for decades to remain in the muddy sea of sin. Little did I know that the wages of sin are death in this time.
I started to suffer from the paralysis of sleep, a fact that I had never suffered before. Daily at three o'clock in the morning, my body was still and motionless. I tried to scream, I punched the wall for help but it seemed that no one heard me.
At that moment I heard the sound of a whirlwind coming from another dimension. That whirlwind opened a dimensional portal and something horrible manifested itself in the darkness of the room. My body remained immobile but my subconscious could hear everything.
Taking advantage of my paralysis situation, that evil spirit that sometimes had the shape of a giant spider sometimes has the shape of a black wolf penetrated my flesh and lodged inside my body.
I was a practicing Catholic. I started to pray Ave Maria and the Salve Regina.
[Salve Regina means “Hail, Queen.” The words are the beginning of an ancient Latin hymn, the Salve Regina.]
To my amazement the more I prayed those Catholic prayers the more easily that spirit of darkness penetrated my body. I have been praying to “Mary” for years and receiving demons without knowing what those prayers were and what they have been doing to me.
I looked for help and the only one I knew, that is, the prayers to “Mary” were without a solution. I went to seek help in Kardecist spiritism. I also found no answer. I tried consulting fortune tellers from the Candomblé, the Umbanda and the Gypsy.
[Candomblé and Umbanda is a syncretic Afro-Brazilian religion that blends African traditions with Roman Catholicism, Spiritism, and Indigenous American beliefs. The Gypsy people in Brazil are descendants of the Romani people expelled and exiled to Brazil from Portugal in the 16th century. There are fortune-tellers among them. Wikipedia]
Nobody could help me. Every day my professional economic and my emotional psychological situations got worse. The strong depression took away my desire to live, to study, to work and to dream for a better life. My life became hell getting out of bed in the morning. It took a tremendous effort to do that.
I changed the day for the night to see whether the nocturnal animals that hated light and loved darkness would manifest. Due to the disturbance of the demons, I see them in the alcohol, drugs, prostitution, pornography and in morbid places. I was driven to the tendency to commit suicide.
My life turned into chaos. I suffered mental tortures daily. Death was the only solution to acute depression. It took away my desire to live socially. I avoided people who were normal. I started to isolate myself and took refuge in alcohol. I decided to quit my job believing that changing the environment and living in another region could bring relief for my soul.
I went to live in another city but the attacks continued in a more intense way. The demons did not give respite. They manifested themselves in the form of a black wolf and terrifying bats. I asked for a transfer of job. I moved house. However, the spirits of darkness accompanied me wherever I went.
So the beginning of the year 2000, I was going through the worst existential crisis of my life. I thought to myself if there is a God responsible for the creation of the universe then He is responsible for the least suffering. I decided to kill myself that Monday. I decided to put an end to my life. I tied a rope on the ceiling of the room and put a chair for me to stand. I had decided to put an end to my miserable and humiliating situation.
Just then, my sister arrived from work at 2 pm so I decided to postpone my suicide and take a walk in my neighborhood. In front of my house there were two masons working on a construction site.
One of the boys called me and asked me, “Brother, why are you so sad and depressed?”
I said, “Everything in my life has been a great disappointment - love, unemployment, the financial failures, etc.”
The boy then warned me, “You need to have faith. Jesus could restore your financial and emotional life. You need to know Jesus.”
I said, “I already know Jesus. I even have His picture in my wallet.”
The boy then exclaimed, “This is not Jesus.”
I replied, “This is the Jesus of the Bible. What is the true Jesus? I am from a Catholic family and I was a Catholic seminarian. I have also known Jesus.”
But he answered with love and meekness, “You need to know Jesus. You need to look for an evangelical church that preaches the true gospel.”
The boy asked me to look for help in one of the evangelical churches near my home. I decided to challenge the Jesus of the believers and prove to that boy that his Jesus was the same as the Catholic Church. I decided to go to the night service in the evangelical church near my home.
Coincidentally it was precisely the church that I hated the most as I was a devotee of Our Lady. I was afraid because I believed I was cheating on my church and my patron saint. I confess that it was not an easy task to enter that church. My pride spoke loudly. I was afraid that some friend could see me entering that church.
After three failed attempts I ended up entering and sat on the last bench. Then a pastor invited me to return to the service at 19:00 that same Monday. I went to the service at 19:00. I sat on the last bench with shame being afraid that someone I knew might recognize me there.
I sat in that church that I used to hate so much. The worship started. A woman manifested with a demonic spirit called Pomba Gira in front of me.
[Pomba Gira is the name of an Afro-Brazilian spirit evoked by practitioners of Umbanda and Quimbanda in Brazil. Wikipedia]
The woman must have been about thirty years old black with hard hair and skinny. The woman started to curse curses against the Pastor with a throaty voice. Her voice got thick and angry. Her hair was spiked like punk hair. Then she punched on the wooden bench as if it were made of cardboard. She was holding that bench over her head threatening to throw it on the pastor.
I was amazed seeing that skinny woman lift that huge weight so easily. Her face was distorted. Her voice was like a demon. I always said in the past that this was just a theater put up by the pastor to hoodwink the people. I had to swallow my words as the supernatural happened there in front of me. I grew up listening to people stating that the demonic demonstration was all set up as a theater just to raise money from the gullible. However that demonic manifestation happened before my eyes. That woman was not fake. It was real. I could see it with my own eyes.
I went home with some doubt and curiosity in my head. That same night at three o'clock in the morning I was attacked by sleep paralysis again. That whirling noise broke through the dimensional portal in the spirit. It was possible to see that demon on top of the bedroom ceiling was similar to a bat.
When that evil spirit flew towards me with the intention of invading my paralyzed body, the act they had been doing for decades, I remembered the shepherd expelling demons from that aggressive black woman and with much faith, I said, “Demon, in the name of Jesus get out at once.”
The demon exploded and disappeared in the middle of the darkness. I woke up from paralysis and I started thinking about Jesus before realizing that prayers to Mary had more easily opened the way for the demon to come into my body.
Now I rebuke that demon, the demon that influenced the darkness in the name of Jesus. That demon in the form of a black werewolf is frightening and has long pointed teeth and incredibly sharp claws. Just by hearing the name of Jesus he quickly fled desperately to another dimension.
I got up on my knees to pray. I thanked God for deliverance and for offering me the opportunity to defeat my enemies.
I thought to myself if I had been praying to Mary and still was attacked by demons, I was being deceived. So I want to find out the truth once and for all. I don't accept being cheated anymore.
On Tuesday I went to that church again at 7 pm. I was determined to find out the whole truth of my failures. Once again I stayed in worship. People manifested with demons and testified the healing of a child.
I came home. Again at three in the morning, I woke up with my body paralyzed but my subconscious remained awake as usual. I heard the whirlwind noise and that evil spirit in the form of black smoke so black it was possible to see him in the darkness. He is motionless looking at me. My soul hopped inside of me. The fear in me was very intense. Those beings were showing a lot of hatred and evil against me. My situation was desperate but I looked at him with fear.
I said, “Demon in the name of Jesus take everything that is yours and go back to hell where you came from in the name of Jesus.”
The demon exploded and disappeared in the darkness of the night. So I looked at the clock past three o'clock in the morning. I knelt down and prayed to thank God for delivering me from all that dreadful to me. I slept peacefully knowing that God took care of me. Even while sleeping, those demons could not touch me.
The fourth time I went to the service I was determined to clean everything up. As usual, the same things happened. When the service ended, I came home full of faith. I was sleeping when a huge tongue like a cow tongue licked me. I woke up and thought it was a dog or cat. However, there were no animals at home. I opened my natural eyes and saw a black wolf in a black smoke walking inside the room. I did not hesitate to quickly expel that demon in the name of Jesus.
I thought it was funny: those horrible demons used to cause me to panic but now I had authority over them. The game had finally changed.
On Thursday, I made the same route to the church but now more relieved and with faith, I went home and went to sleep. At three o'clock in the morning, in the spirit I saw a person's hand and forearm appear over my head. The hand was gleaming white and exuded power and glory. A wonderful glorious vision emanated from that hand.
Suddenly that hand took my scalp and started pulling towards my chest. I felt a relief of coolness in that part of the forehead. And then the place of the head went white with a pure slight sensation of freedom and coolness came over me but that hand stopped moving my scalp. For a moment I was desperate to feel that when I heard a beautiful voice like many waters crying fervently inside me, “Lord Jesus, please save me. If You set me free from my sins, I will follow You.”
I didn't know how to pray. That prayer could only have been done by the Holy Spirit. The voice was beautiful and soft. When I finished crying out that luminous hand continued to touch my skin. I observed my physical body on the bed. I saw a vision of my body. It was leprous, full of wounds and worms coming out of malignant tumors. My body was similar to a corpse in an advanced state of decomposition. My body resembled a black bear and the foul smell of garbage. Fortunately that powerful hand continued removing that horrible and leprous skin with all its worms and tumors.
I noticed that my body turned white like snow similar to the purity of that hand. I looked at my face and realized how beautiful I was. It was perfect and similar to the celestial angels. It was incredible how I was beautiful and perfect when I had turned into a horrible monster in my previous sinful life.
I woke up and went to pray again thankful for the liberation. On Friday I made the same path to the church. I came back from the service and went to sleep. This time I had an interesting view. I was taken in spirit inside a hospital room. It was a rectangular room all white. In the center of the room, there was a rectangular table covered with a towel.
Quickly my eyes stayed at the height of the table. A towel started to move like a shopping escalator. At the beginning of the towel, there was dirt, stain, filth. All kinds of dust, soot, garbage were there. The towel continued to move and after that stain, I noticed a bright red bloodstain. It is not common blood. It was very different blood because although it was a crimson red, it has a lot of shine and power.
The towel kept moving and now everything else of the towel was clean and white with the whiteness of snow. I woke up from that vision and I was wondering what was the meaning of it all. Inside me blew a wind that said, “The black spot dirt represents the life of sin and depravity from your adolescence to your present age. All the bloodstain represents the blood of Christ that was shed on the cross for your sins. The clean towel represents that your sins were all blotted out of forgiveness. The blood was shed to blot your sins out and to keep you clean.”
The night before when I searched endlessly every night without ceasing, God promised in the Isaiah 1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Then I understood that God was confirming His redeeming work in my life. At that time I was changed from being an enemy and sinful creature to be a beloved son of God the Father.
I went to the service of that church every day of the week, always at 7 pm. On Sunday worship starts at 8 am and ends at 11 am. As usual spiritual manifestations will take place during the service. When it ended, I sat there reflecting on all that madness that was happening to me. I thought what would have happened to my soul if I had not found Jesus. If Jesus exists then everything He said about hell is also true. The billions of souls who died without knowing Jesus would be condemned to suffer for eternity and my Catholic family my closest friends none of them knew Jesus. Truly how am I to speak of salvation to them without hurting them?
At that moment, my eyes were swept away in the spirit to a place very far from the earth where I could see perfectly the entire extent of the universe. It was possible to see all the planets, stars, constellations, and galaxies. I observed the Divine glory similar to white smoke embracing and germinating the whole universe. It was a fantastic vision of the infinite power of the Creator.
Immediately in the distance, a huge ball of floating light appeared. The ball was pure as snow. It has life in itself. Lights and glory were flowing from its inside. It was something phenomenal that was impossible to report. The closer that glorious snowball came the more transparent it became. It was a supernatural phenomenon.
When it arrived, I could see the silhouette of a Man inside it. Instantly that cloud of glory that surrounded that Being completely dissipated to the point of revealing all His details and beauty. The Man had appeared more sublime. He wore a white and gold dress. His body was the essence of perfection. The sleeves of His robes had beautiful golden details. Everything about Him was perfectly beautiful and reflects much power and glory. His face was indescribable beauty. All the symmetry of the face was perfect. His eyes were passionate blue. His hair was white that reflects the glory of holiness. There are no words to mention such beauty and holiness.
I stood there paralyzed looking and contemplating that Being so beautiful and majestic. I wanted to talk to Him and confess all my sins but my body was immobilized before that most majestic Being. The most sublime Love materialized two meters away from me and was laughing at me. I did not understand how Someone so powerful could be happy with someone so despicable.
As I wanted to ask for forgiveness for everything but my words could not come out. A lot of joy and happiness came out well in the form of a ray of light and penetrated my spirit bringing the cure and freedom for my internal pain. Immediately that Man came towards me and hugged me lovingly in a way that I was never hugged.
When He hugged me our bodies became one. I was moved into Him to feel the purest and most sublime love filling every cell of my body reviving my soul as I felt His loving arms and His squeezing hands. When He hugged me, it was such a magnificent feeling as if He was plunging deep inside my heart. It was like the ocean transporting the purest love I felt inside.
For a moment, I could see my heart beating and accelerating with joy that I accepted myself. As the Lord walked away and looked into my eyes, He said, “Son good that you returned to the Father's house. I was so homesick for you.”
I was amazed and astonished how Someone so splendid could miss a despicable worm like me. Then those eyes having radiance looked into the depths of my eyes. He kissed me on the cheek and was slowly moving away until I was covered by the floating snowball. I stayed there watching that admirable Being who loved me so much.
When He was more distant, abruptly it became a small ball of light and like a bullet shot from a revolver that ball entered my heart. I felt that ball of light entered and settled inside my heart as if it were His new home. A great joy refreshed my heart. This whole event did not take more than 3 seconds in human chronology.
In a blink of an eye, I was again inside the church in flesh and blood. I started to cry copiously because at last, I found Jesus the Creator of life. He didn't want to know about my sins. He just loved me deeply.
Quickly I remembered the situation of my family and friends who didn't know Jesus. I cried bitterly and then I knew now how bad it is to live in the matrix of religions and not to know Jesus and the plan of salvation by grace. I came home stepping on clouds going alone with a heart full of joy. Finally, I discovered the reason for life and the end of my depression.
I turned on the TV to pass the time. Gugu's bathtub program was on TV and it had an actress named Luiza Ambiel wearing a thong with her butt showing. My soul was repulsed in disdain for that nude and pornography scene. I believe that the Holy Spirit also felt the same thing. Before I loved watching that sensual show and diabolical scenes but now I felt disgusted and contempt because I realized that such malicious scenes are aimed at destroying families in the service of hell by spreading pornography inside the homes. I turned off the TV.
On that cold Sunday, April 16, 2007, I read the church newspaper. Suddenly I felt a strong kick in the heart that my heart stretched and became as big as a basketball. I was unexpectedly feeling ecstatic.
Coldwater was rising at the bottom of the heart. Then two threads of water went up together to the top of the heart and each one moved in a direction causing my heart to be washed. This fact was phenomenal. My heart was being purified and receiving cleansing of my life's frustrations.
At that moment I felt a desire to read the Bible but I did not own a Bible. I did not know the books of the Bible because until then I was a Catholic who used the Bible as an open amulet in Psalms 91. I looked for and found one small Gideon Bible hidden under the mattress.
I opened the Bible in the Gospel of John 7:38 at random and John 7:38 says, He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
I was amazed and ecstatic that the Holy Spirit led me to read that verse that confirmed the truth of the Gospel, the Redeeming work of Christ.
That Sunday I gathered all my CDs, posters of rockstars, t-shirts of the bands I loved so much. I threw away the images of Catholic saints, some pyramids and amulets and everything that was not compatible with the gospel. That Sunday was the fundamental milestone to transform my life. To know Jesus was the only good thing that happened in my life.
Translated from Brother Nelson video.
