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Rock Reads: Under Spiritual Siege: How Ghosts and Demons Affect Us and How to Combat Them by William Stillman
Reviewed by Kevin Wierzbicki
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Don't get the idea from the book's subtitle that author Stillman drives from town-to-town with a trunk full of demon-slaying gear looking to do away with the malevolent entity of-the-week like Sam and Dean Winchester on television's "Supernatural." Unlike the wild fantasies of the TV show, the entities that Stillman talks about combating here are very real, or at least conceived as such by a great many. Stillman has been psychically sensitive his entire life and the early part of the book explains how he figured this out and devotes time to subjects like "How Spirit Communicates" so that readers can determine if occurrences they might consider to be merely unusual are in fact something more (later in the book Stillman addresses the fact that not every weird happening is spirit-related.) Stillman delineates the difference between a spirit (entity living beyond the Earth plane) and a ghost (a discarnate person who can't or won't leave the Earth plane) and notes an important difference between the two; ghosts often retain their human emotions which means that some of them can be quite nasty, with male ghosts in particular being the worst of the lot. Stillman relates in brief anecdotal form some of the ghosts he's encountered over the years before moving on to talking about demons, who are thought to be entities that were never human that have rejected God or any Heavenly benevolence. Stillman doesn't spend time on moralistic rants but he does point out that those with, for example, substance abuse problems or a fondness for pornography are creating conditions that are ripe for demonic interference. Like the book's title indicates though, the purpose here is not to scare the daylights out of the reader; it is to show that there are wide-ranging instances of negative interaction with the great beyond that can be countered with positive means of protection. Those means include committing to a higher power, meditation and prayer, holistic health, using visualization to create prosperity and gratefully acknowledging the benevolence that comes from spiritual guardians and protectors. Good advice even for those with the most mundane of spiritual concerns, and firm ground for those who are indeed under siege.
