Aunt Felicita and her Voodoo-like ways
Nov 11, 2022 22:29:35 GMT -5
Post by Radrook Admin on Nov 11, 2022 22:29:35 GMT -5
Aunt Felicita and her Voodoo-like ways
By Radrook
I was recently watching one of the latest versions of the classic King Kong films, where the primitive natives of Skull Island are beating drums, gyrating their bodies, showing the whites of their eyes, and grimacing gruesomely in their effort to make Kong appear.
Of course, voodoo practitioners can be expected to behave in that disturbing way. After all, they haven’t been illuminated by the truths taught by Christianity. In short, they are dwelling in darkness, and can be expected to conform to that darkness with its lord of darkness, the Devil. But such behavior is not expected from persons claiming to be followers of Christ.
Unfortunately, there are some who claim to be Christians and who nevertheless regularly display that exact behavior. Now, at age eleven, I had never observed that kind of macabre display, neither from pagans nor from professed Christians. But unfortunately for me, that was soon to change when we went to visit my Aunt Felicita, on my fathers side of the family, in San Juan Puerto Rico. .
She was a Pentecostal married to a husband who was 100 times more dedicated to his denomination than anyone I have yet encountered. A man who truly wanted to serve Christ and whose biblically-based decisions to serve Christ seemed to constantly annoy my aunt Felicita.
For example, he would turn the other cheek, never retaliate, but respond with kindness. If questioned, he would cite scriptures proving that Christ told us to behave that way. Yet, despite his full dedication, I never once saw him displaying any kind of behavior similar to the one that the natives in the King Kong film had.
But aunt Felicita turned out to be quite a different story. The first thing I noticed about her was that she would suddenly slam the palm of her hand against a wall, the dinner table, or any other available, flat surface, and yell “Barkay!” right in the middle of an otherwise normal conversation. She would also occasionally speak as if possessed by some entity whom she invariably claimed to be Jesus Christ. I remained unconvinced because I had difficulty imagining Jesus depriving people of their free will in that way. In short, her mental stability began to concern me.
“Why don’t we all attend church tonight!?” she kept enthusiastically insisting very often out of the proverbial clear blue.
“Some other time,” my father, her brother, kept responding.
“You are all going to burn in the lake of fire forever if you don’t!” she kept warning.
Since that threat didn’t seem to motivate my parents into complying, I figured that it couldn’t really be that serious. However, the more they didn’t comply with her demand, the more erratic her behavior seemed to get. She began claiming that she had visions of demons invading her house and angels arriving from heaven sent to forcefully evict them. For some reason, she went to great pains to describe the gruesome demons in detail but not the holy angels. On and on it went, until I really just wished to get back home to Newark NJ where I wouldn’t have to listen to all her constant drivel.
Well, the time to leave was getting near, and that’s when it happened. One moment my father was criticizing me as usual, I responded in frustration, and his sister, my aunt suddenly yelled “Barkay!", dropped to the bedroom floor, and began frenetically rolling back and forth as if propelled by some unnatural force. Then to my horror, she rose up slowly as pale as a ghost, limp dark hair drenched in sweat, eyes rolled back in her head showing only the white, and began contorting her body in voodoo-like ways. To my horror, she extended her arms in my direction while making clutching motions with her boney hands, and started slowly approaching me. My mother hugged me to her chest protectively, but on she came until she was kneeling right in front of where we was sitting.
“Do you know who I am? I am the Lord Jesus Christ,” she proclaimed in this deep, manlike voice.
“Why are you disrespecting your father? Ehhhh?” she suddenly screeched at me.
I figured that staying near her wasn’t such a good idea, and that my parents weren’t going to do me any good against this supernatural force, so I cut loose and bolted out of the house into the darkness outside. I didn’t have any particular destination, but just wanted to put some distance between us. I turned left on the dirt path in front of the house while imagining that my aunt was hot on my heels. Then, after running approx. 200 feet, I saw it. A silhouette of a male figure slowly walking in the semi-darkness towards me with a limp. So I came to a full stop. I squinted to get a better look and noticed something unusual about the shape of the head, as if three large, long, curved horns were protruding. So I decided to take my chances with my aunt, did an about-face, and bolted back up the dirt path. To my surprise, I found her sitting serenely with my parents as if absolutely nothing unusual had happened. I was shaking and crying from the sheer double terror.
“What happened?” my hitherto recently-demonic-looking aunt asked calmly.
After I described what I thought I had seen, and my father had gone out to investigate and found nothing, she said:
“Do you know why that happened to you? Eh? Do you?"
"Because I talked back to my father and don’t go to church!” I responded in order to prevent her from coming at me with another terrifying voodoo-like performance.
“That is right! That happened to you because you were naughty with your father and because you don’t go to church. Do you want to go to church now? Are you two going to take him to church now?” she said to my parents:
“Yes Yes! I’ll go to church! I’ll go to church!” I answered before my parents could react. Of course, my parents finally agreed to attend as well after that demonstration.
The next day, late in the evening, we were present at church as promised. Everything looked calm, and I felt that I was under the protection of Almighty God. A fervent sermon was given. Fiery testimonies were provided expressing faith and describing miracles. Songs were sung enthusiastically accompanied by piano and the slaps of tambourines. Then the call for converts to approach the stage to give themselves to Christ began.
I was watching all this with interest, when suddenly, some women began dropping to the floor and rolling down the aisle. Then the man near me began uttering strange unintelligible sounds with a quavering voice followed by many others and behaving similar to the way my aunt had the night before.
Instead of feeling that I was in a church, I suddenly felt that I had been led into a trap. I concluded that my aunt had taken me there so they could finish the gruesome ritual she had performed the day before. For a brief moment, I considered bolting for the exit. But then I imagined that they would either intercept me on the way there, or else follow me outside and converge on me in the darkness, you know, hunt me down like in the film The Body Snatchers. So, trembling fearfully for my life, I just stood horrified and endured the situation the best I could.
Results? After getting back home, I just wasn’t the same. I became a very nervous kid who feared the darkness and flinched fearfully at shadows. I became afraid to be alone in the apartment lest some supernatural force would attack me. I found that I could no longer sleep with my bedroom lights off and had developed a morbid fear of this huge crucifix with a glowing green Christ on it which my parents had placed on my bedroom wall. Had to have it removed. I promised myself never to be exposed to that kind of experience again. I’m sure that back at her home, my Aunt Felicita felt she had done an excellent job in evangelizing. Instead, she had made me a nonreligious, nervous wreck.
Of course, voodoo practitioners can be expected to behave in that disturbing way. After all, they haven’t been illuminated by the truths taught by Christianity. In short, they are dwelling in darkness, and can be expected to conform to that darkness with its lord of darkness, the Devil. But such behavior is not expected from persons claiming to be followers of Christ.
Unfortunately, there are some who claim to be Christians and who nevertheless regularly display that exact behavior. Now, at age eleven, I had never observed that kind of macabre display, neither from pagans nor from professed Christians. But unfortunately for me, that was soon to change when we went to visit my Aunt Felicita, on my fathers side of the family, in San Juan Puerto Rico. .
She was a Pentecostal married to a husband who was 100 times more dedicated to his denomination than anyone I have yet encountered. A man who truly wanted to serve Christ and whose biblically-based decisions to serve Christ seemed to constantly annoy my aunt Felicita.
For example, he would turn the other cheek, never retaliate, but respond with kindness. If questioned, he would cite scriptures proving that Christ told us to behave that way. Yet, despite his full dedication, I never once saw him displaying any kind of behavior similar to the one that the natives in the King Kong film had.
But aunt Felicita turned out to be quite a different story. The first thing I noticed about her was that she would suddenly slam the palm of her hand against a wall, the dinner table, or any other available, flat surface, and yell “Barkay!” right in the middle of an otherwise normal conversation. She would also occasionally speak as if possessed by some entity whom she invariably claimed to be Jesus Christ. I remained unconvinced because I had difficulty imagining Jesus depriving people of their free will in that way. In short, her mental stability began to concern me.
“Why don’t we all attend church tonight!?” she kept enthusiastically insisting very often out of the proverbial clear blue.
“Some other time,” my father, her brother, kept responding.
“You are all going to burn in the lake of fire forever if you don’t!” she kept warning.
Since that threat didn’t seem to motivate my parents into complying, I figured that it couldn’t really be that serious. However, the more they didn’t comply with her demand, the more erratic her behavior seemed to get. She began claiming that she had visions of demons invading her house and angels arriving from heaven sent to forcefully evict them. For some reason, she went to great pains to describe the gruesome demons in detail but not the holy angels. On and on it went, until I really just wished to get back home to Newark NJ where I wouldn’t have to listen to all her constant drivel.
Well, the time to leave was getting near, and that’s when it happened. One moment my father was criticizing me as usual, I responded in frustration, and his sister, my aunt suddenly yelled “Barkay!", dropped to the bedroom floor, and began frenetically rolling back and forth as if propelled by some unnatural force. Then to my horror, she rose up slowly as pale as a ghost, limp dark hair drenched in sweat, eyes rolled back in her head showing only the white, and began contorting her body in voodoo-like ways. To my horror, she extended her arms in my direction while making clutching motions with her boney hands, and started slowly approaching me. My mother hugged me to her chest protectively, but on she came until she was kneeling right in front of where we was sitting.
“Do you know who I am? I am the Lord Jesus Christ,” she proclaimed in this deep, manlike voice.
“Why are you disrespecting your father? Ehhhh?” she suddenly screeched at me.
I figured that staying near her wasn’t such a good idea, and that my parents weren’t going to do me any good against this supernatural force, so I cut loose and bolted out of the house into the darkness outside. I didn’t have any particular destination, but just wanted to put some distance between us. I turned left on the dirt path in front of the house while imagining that my aunt was hot on my heels. Then, after running approx. 200 feet, I saw it. A silhouette of a male figure slowly walking in the semi-darkness towards me with a limp. So I came to a full stop. I squinted to get a better look and noticed something unusual about the shape of the head, as if three large, long, curved horns were protruding. So I decided to take my chances with my aunt, did an about-face, and bolted back up the dirt path. To my surprise, I found her sitting serenely with my parents as if absolutely nothing unusual had happened. I was shaking and crying from the sheer double terror.
“What happened?” my hitherto recently-demonic-looking aunt asked calmly.
After I described what I thought I had seen, and my father had gone out to investigate and found nothing, she said:
“Do you know why that happened to you? Eh? Do you?"
"Because I talked back to my father and don’t go to church!” I responded in order to prevent her from coming at me with another terrifying voodoo-like performance.
“That is right! That happened to you because you were naughty with your father and because you don’t go to church. Do you want to go to church now? Are you two going to take him to church now?” she said to my parents:
“Yes Yes! I’ll go to church! I’ll go to church!” I answered before my parents could react. Of course, my parents finally agreed to attend as well after that demonstration.
The next day, late in the evening, we were present at church as promised. Everything looked calm, and I felt that I was under the protection of Almighty God. A fervent sermon was given. Fiery testimonies were provided expressing faith and describing miracles. Songs were sung enthusiastically accompanied by piano and the slaps of tambourines. Then the call for converts to approach the stage to give themselves to Christ began.
I was watching all this with interest, when suddenly, some women began dropping to the floor and rolling down the aisle. Then the man near me began uttering strange unintelligible sounds with a quavering voice followed by many others and behaving similar to the way my aunt had the night before.
Instead of feeling that I was in a church, I suddenly felt that I had been led into a trap. I concluded that my aunt had taken me there so they could finish the gruesome ritual she had performed the day before. For a brief moment, I considered bolting for the exit. But then I imagined that they would either intercept me on the way there, or else follow me outside and converge on me in the darkness, you know, hunt me down like in the film The Body Snatchers. So, trembling fearfully for my life, I just stood horrified and endured the situation the best I could.
Results? After getting back home, I just wasn’t the same. I became a very nervous kid who feared the darkness and flinched fearfully at shadows. I became afraid to be alone in the apartment lest some supernatural force would attack me. I found that I could no longer sleep with my bedroom lights off and had developed a morbid fear of this huge crucifix with a glowing green Christ on it which my parents had placed on my bedroom wall. Had to have it removed. I promised myself never to be exposed to that kind of experience again. I’m sure that back at her home, my Aunt Felicita felt she had done an excellent job in evangelizing. Instead, she had made me a nonreligious, nervous wreck.