I've been thinking of a while now that I really should write up a list of all the "strange coincidences" that I notice. Things which seem to me to be too much of a coincidence to be purely caused by random chance. There are so many of them, and I often forget about them not long after they happen.

I believe that these kinds of things happen all the time, but most of the time we're too busy (or whatever other reason) to notice them. I believe in the existence of a spirit world, which lies behind and surrounding the material world that we can perceive with our physical senses, and that these types of occurrences are is a natural conclusion of that.

I've noticed more of them since starting Bible college. I'm not sure if that means more of them are happening, or if I'm just more aware of them. I think it's probably both reasons.

When Objects Start Flying Across the Room

I was feeling quite sick this morning. I got up at 4.30 a.m. Unneccessarily. Meaning that I had no reason to get up — other than the massive chest pain which would not go away, and is somewhat better if I don't lie down. I'd been waking up from it about every 30 minutes, and eventually the pain got too intense to keep lying down, even though I was very sleepy. I've got a thymoma (a tumour of the thymus gland, almost certainly benign rather than malignant/cancerous) and also a minor hiatus hernia (where the upper part of your stomach protrudes through the diaphragm muscle that pumps your lungs). Both of which can cause chest pain. Also my whole body felt sick all over, probably mainly due to the slackness of my diet over the preceding few days. And general lack of sleep.

Last night, after my day of Bible college, I was reading and praying a lot of spiritual warfare material. More than I have for a while, and more intensely in some ways than ever before. I'll quote some of it on this page and other pages eventually... This type of philosophy includes the idea that people in general — and sometimes particularly God's servants, attempting to do the spiritual work of God in this material world — will be attacked by entities/beings from the spiritual world.

So this morning especially, I had the thought that perhaps part of the unusually extreme pain I was in was a type of spiritual attack. I left it pretty much there — not being one to jump to conclusions that don't seem to be fully enough verified in concrete reality. My general thought was, well, maybe I am under spiritual attack, or maybe not — but either way I have some physical issues that I know how to work on (like improve my diet, take medications, sip sodium bicarbonate solution, and some special exercises for the hiatus hernia, etc...), which will help improve the problem.

My final thought on the matter was that I'll 100% definitely believe that I'm under spiritual attack if and when objects ever start randomly flying around the room. Like in one of those "exorcist" types of movies (or some of the real life spiritual warfare stories).

After a couple of hours my chest pain had reduced enough that I could go back to sleep (which was good since I'd only had two and a half hours, and the day before that I'd got up at 4.30 a.m. for Bible college and got home at 11 p.m, and the day before that got up at 5.30 a.m. for a "church thing" (as I described it to my family) after 4 hours total sleep. After that I had a good sleep till noon, which is very rare for me (like maybe once or twice a year I can sleep in that late). Then I got up and started studying since I have been feeling quite behind in my Greek and Hebrew.

Then, almost immediately after I started studying, the chrome end, along with the entire insides of the 0.5mm clutch pencil I was using, suddenly detached themselves from the inside of the pen, lept out, and rapidly flew across the room.

I'm not kidding.

I found most of the parts on the floor a metre away from my chair, but I still haven't found the spring (which is lighter and went further). When I have a good look for, and find all the parts, I'll take a photo of them and add it to this page.

The (mostly) white part in the front of this picture is the part of my pencil which flew across the room. I added the photo a long time after first writing this web page — I still don't have the spring to include in the photo.

The first thought I had was to my earlier thought of just before falling asleep, that when objects start flying across the room I'll believe I'm under some kind of spiritual attack.

Note that this has never happend before that I can remember — that is, I don't recall another time when the insides of one of my pencils (or pens or anything like that) suddenly jumped out all by themselves and flew across the room).

Note also that the pen itself must have somehow suffered an internal failure, so that there could be a fully scientific and material explanation for this, which has nothing to do with the spirit world. So it wasn't like 100% totally completely unexplained "telekenesis" (or whatever the correct term for spirits moving physical objects is — I'll look it up later). After inspection, I noticed a tiny crack had appeared in the left end (on the photo above) of the white plastic inner section, where the smaller metal part joins it, and this is what caused the pencil to break apart.

But it did happen, for the first time ever, pretty much immediately after I had the very clear and distinct thought, also for the first time ever, that if/when objects ever start randomly flying across the room, like in those exorcist movies, then I'll pay much more attention to the idea of spiritual attack.

The main conclusions that I drew from the experience were:

• I'm meant to pay more attention to the idea of spiritual warfare in general.
• This would include reading more of the books I have, and doing more of the things they recommend — much of which is praying certain types of prayers that are well described in the books.
• Eventually I'll write up more about this (including the books and example prayers, and spiritual warfare in general).
• I'll (finally) start writing a list of things that seem like highly unsual coincidences that I notice happen (like this one).

Note also that I don't think these kinds of things as amazingly weird, rare, terrifying experience like you might imagine from watching too many TV horror movies. I think of them as ordinary experiences that happen all the time, but we don't notice them. I think of the entire dark side of the spiritual world (that is the Devil and his legions of demons and all that) in the same way. Pretty much in an anaolgy to the world of germs (and viruses, etc). Which are all around us, but we can't see them with our own senses. And many of which are extremely dangerous, and even deadly — BUT, if we practice the right kinds of hygeine, and live in the right way(s), we have very little to fear from them.

Be subject therefore to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

In terms of the physical world of germs, the right kinds of hygeine are keeping clean, taking out the garbage and anything else that's rotten, and keeping away from infected people (or at least if you're with infected people, taking precautions to not become infected yourself).

In terms of the spiritual world of dark forces, I think of this pretty much just the same. The "keeping clean" refers to living "clean" in the ways described in the Bible — living the ways that God instructs us to. In fact, for me, this is one of my primary motivations to live right in the eyes of God. That is, to not become the target (and then the victim) of these kinds of demonic influences.

To sum that up, I don't think of this (i.e. negative influence from the spiritual/demonic world) as an amazingly rare, strange, alien thing to be utterly terrified of (like it's portrayed in many movies) — but a completely normal, everyday, ordinary thing, which requires a particular kind of lifestyle (i.e. following God's instructions in the Bible, including living "clean" in terms of how God instructs us to live) to avoid having problems with. And it requires paying some attention to living right. Especially when living in a mostly secular, non-Christian world/society that's so "worldly", and so heavily under the influence of these kinds of forces (i.e. living contrary to God's instructions for us in the Bible).

I'll put a link to my soon-to-be-created list of "coincidences" page here, when I get around to starting it. Which should be sometime pretty soon. But I really need to go back to doing actual study now...

I also need to look for the spring and see if I can put my pencil back together so that it stays together.