The day was hot and dusty; the desert landscape bleak and unforgiving. Hazy mirages of cascading water shimmered and swayed in dull blue and silver striations on the horizon, tantalizing but tenuous through the thick film of unreality.
Up ahead my guide Ishmael paused and turned to face me, smiling at my inability to keep pace. His robe sparkled in the sun, impossibly white against the gritty landscape. So white that it could easily fade to nothing, along with his whole countenance. The only thing that kept us tethered to the same plane of reality was his bright blue braided belt. If I could only concentrate on the belt, I could walk on his path for as long as I needed.
"Where are we going?" I asked when I caught up.
"Damascus," Ishmael said as he turned back to the rocky trail.
Ishmael looked to be late middle aged. A full white beard and shaggy white hair sprouting around the edges of his fur-lined cap. Deeply tanned and creased facial features. He carried a tall wooden shepherd's staff. A biblical prophet right out of a Hollywood movie.
"Why are we walking to Damascus?" I questioned. "Couldn't we just start at Damascus?"
"Sometimes the journey is just as important as the destination," was his reply.
We walked on and I spent my time wondering what it was I could learn by walking on a desolate desert road that wasn't even really there. And then Ishmael was gone; I had lost him.
And I was back in my own world. I was walking a secluded trail but I was alone. The weather was hot but moist here, seeping with humidity. Cabbage palms and tall scraggly pine trees crowded the trail. Oak trees dripping with Spanish moss spread out beyond in clammy meadows, dank with the odors of rotting vegetation recycling into new growth.
The loud drone of cicadas permeated the landscape. An armadillo, stirred by my steps, rustled and ran beside me just off the trail. A second one darted from a clump of low bushes and joined the first in a mad scamper back into the safety of the bushes.
The ubiquitous white peacock butterflies preceded me on the trail, flittering low amongst native grasses. Bright yellow sulfur and southern white butterflies flew higher, guiding my way. A solitary yellow-spotted swallowtail butterfly darted by my face, circled behind and flew in front of my eyes again. I once asked Ishmael if there was any significance to all the butterflies I see. I encounter many more butterflies than a person would expect to see.
"Butterflies are how we gesture we are with you." Ishmael was referring in the plural to himself and my other guides. "They are around you because we send them so you know our warm feelings for you. They will surround you when you come. Your own little society of mascots."
I knew I wasn't far from my destination and I needed to be prepared. I carried my iPod with me in a pocket of my cargo shorts. I slipped the headphones on and started the pink noise. I also had selections of white noise and something called Brownian noise on my playlist, but I found pink noise to be the most effective. It took a couple of minutes, but I finally started to hear the familiar refrain of, "We are with you. We are with you."
It was my father who had suggested I try to use the iPod to hear him and my other guides. It took me weeks to train my ears, but finally I started to discern voices in the rhythms behind the noise. It was a crude manner of communication but it allowed me to communicate with my father and other guides in real time.
Off to the right of the trail I spotted the brown structure of a rustic horse corral. The thick pine logs still looked to work as a serviceable construction, but it was terribly overgrown with vines and bushes.
"Use your camera," became the refrain on my iPod. I paused on the trail, a little confused.
"I heard 'use your camera'. Is that correct?"
Usually it would be my father to whom I talked, and he would repeat a phrase until I deciphered what he was saying. Then I would repeat it back for validation.
"That's right," he confirmed in a repeated refrain.
So I did as he suggested and removed my little Nikon digital camera from the belt pouch. I pointed it at the corral and started to snap photographs.
A chilling, spine-seizing scream erupted from the trees on the other side of the corral. The screams continued in short, staccato bursts. The only way to describe the screams would be a cross between a hyena and a howler monkey.
I didn't stop walking; I continued to snap photos in the direction of the screams as I passed. I tried to control my pace, telling myself to not panic and to not demonstrate any fear. And as abruptly as they began, the screams ceased.
I tried to match the screams to any known animal in the Florida wilderness. It was not a bobcat; I'd heard bobcats before and it was no match.
The chances of a Florida Panther being in the area were slim. But, although I had never encountered a panther in the wild, I had heard plenty of cougars, which are technically the same species, and I knew it was not one of those, in any event.
Pigs vocalize in similar short rhythms, but with a nasal grunting sound, and this was more a screech.
Coyotes were just beginning to migrate into this part of Southwest Florida, but if there were any animals' cries I was familiar with, it was coyotes, this after many years living on the edge of a remote suburban canyon in Southern California.
All birds of prey call out in a much higher register than what I had just heard. No, these were screams I could not identify.
I continued to snap photos back toward the corral until the bend in the trail took me out of sight.
"What was that?" I asked out loud.
"It was a demon," was the refrain in my headphones.
"Why did you have me taking pictures?"
"Because it's shy."
"Oh, it doesn't want to be seen in a photograph?"
"That's right."
"Is it afraid of me?" I asked, hopeful.
"No," was the simple repeated reply.
"Would it attack me?"
"Yes."
"So, it's not shy about attacking me, but it doesn't want its picture taken?"
"That's right."
"Will you protect me from it?" I questioned.
"It will not be allowed to interfere."
I noted that was not really an answer to my question but I let it go because I was nearing the barn.
The abandoned barn was my destination that afternoon. I had stumbled across it a few months previous to this and felt immediately drawn to it. I thought it was beautiful; even without any standing walls, just a few teetering pine support posts holding it together. The corrugated metal roof had collapsed in one corner from the weight of a thick mat of moss covering the entire roof. It was decrepit and creepy, barely remaining standing at the edge of a dark oak meadow. It was glorious.
My compulsion to investigate this rustic ruin and what I had discovered there—and discovered about myself—had guided me down this strange road I was now traveling.
I was still nervous about the supposed demon I had heard, so I kept snapping pictures as I approached the structure.
Even ordinary cameras are able to photograph in a broader spectrum of light than our eyes can perceive. So quite often they will capture images that we did not see at the time. On this occasion I captured an image of the demon that I had heard. I did not see or hear it as it circled and crossed the trail ahead me, but when I later reviewed the photographs, there it was: a dark, amorphous shape with two shining eyes crouched on the dirt floor of the structure.
At a later time I asked about the nature of demons. My father explained that demons are natural Earth spirits that have never been alive in the flesh, a class of spirits often referred to as Elementals. They developed naturally on the Earth and fill a specific role, that of absorbing negative energy that accumulates when despair or hate and evil abound. This actually benefits humankind by keeping that excess negative energy away from people and maintaining the natural balance between good and bad energies.
Despite their essential role, demons can be quite malevolent, influenced as they are by negative energy. So they should be feared. A demon can appear in any form. They are able to feel a person's deepest fears and present themselves in a form meant to be most frightening. But it takes a lot of energy for a demon to scare or attack humans, so a demonic attack is actually quite rare. The black misty shape I caught on camera is the form that takes the least amount of energy for the demon to maintain. But even this form is invisible to almost all people. I did not see it myself; it was only caught by the camera.
I arrived at the barn and stepped under the roof onto the dirt floor, not sensing anything unusual. I positioned myself in the center and took out the digital recorder I always carried with me. I asked how many earthbound spirits were gathered at that location. The first time around I had found 75 spirits gathered there. This time, just over a month later, I was told there were 794 spirits waiting for me. Of course, I didn't know the number until I listened to the recording later. I am not psychic and did not hear anything at the time.
I began by introducing myself. "My name is Joe Lofgreen. I have been guided here by the spirits who travelled to this place with me. We have all been sent here by God to bring you the greatest blessing you could possibly receive, and so you can do the most important thing you could possibly do for yourself. And that is to cross over to the higher realm where you belong.
"If there are spirits that have gathered here since the last time I was here, I am here to help you cross over..."
My presentation was interrupted by the same terrifying screech, but this time it was right behind me. A loud, cold shriek that seemed to permeate my skin and electrify every nerve in my body. I spun around, expecting to see some animal, or at least some physical creature poised for attack. But there was nothing.
Another scream erupted from thin air, but a few feet further away. This was probably the only thing that kept me from running away—at least it seemed to be retreating. And the screams continued but in a steady withdrawal, into the trees and off into the Florida swamp.
I thought I recovered nicely from the frightening interruption. I assured the spirits there was no danger and that we were all protected by my spirit guides and the other spirits and angels who were gathered there. I continued on with the crossing event and eventually convinced all but twenty-two of the 794 earthbound spirits to cross to the spirit world. So, even if the demon caused a slight delay, it did not really interfere with my main goal of crossing as many of the earthbound spirits as possible.
It was normally a relatively easy hike from the barn back to where I had left my car at the entrance to the Deer Prairie Creek Preserve outside of Venice, Florida. The date was June 8, 2013, my fifty-ninth birthday. Just a couple of hundred yards from the barn the trail crossed a creek over a small bridge. As I approached the bridge I heard a rustle in the bushes lining the creek and saw the faint blur of a small shape rush at my legs. I danced out of the way and thought I must have avoided whatever it was because I did not feel anything or see it when I looked back. It happened so fast I wondered if I had seen anything at all, but I knew I had heard the rustling from the bushes. And I felt my eyes had not played a trick on me. Something nearly invisible had tried to attack me. I just hoped my spiritual protectors had been prepared for whatever it was.
Halfway back to the car, however, I started to feel excessive fatigue and I could feel fluttering palpitations in my chest. I slowed my pace. The irregular heartbeats were not yet racing full-force but I knew it was only a matter of time until I would get the full brunt. The palpitations were not an unusual occurrence for me because I have atrial fibrillation. Some who suffer from A-fib can continue to engage in normal activities, but for me it was usually as if my heart wanted to jump from my chest. The pounding would debilitate me sometimes to the point where I could not even get out of bed. But it never lasted more than a few hours. On this occasion, however, it knocked me down for three days.
When I was able, I asked my spirit guides if the severity of the attack was caused by something other than the routine afflictions of my disease. Besides using my iPod, I also was able to communicate with my guides by asking questions and recording their replies with a digital recorder. In fact, I had a regularly scheduled time at 4:30 every day to speak with them. Just as a camera can record a broader spectrum of light than most people can see, a recorder can also imprint a wider frequency of sound than our ears can hear directly.
At my 4:30 session I was given the following explanation, "It wanted to kill you. It was a real demon that was never born in the world. It was after you. It travels through the water. It attacked you because of what you can do. It lusts for the energy of those who are trapped."
"If it was the demon, why couldn't you prevent it from attacking me?" was my next question.
"We are always with you. We always surround you. We are protecting you from any evil spirits that want to harm you. They would kill you if we let them. They really hate you because you are a real prophet and you will become a man who will talk to God."
Since I wouldn't listen to the recordings until after the 4:30 session, it would be the next day before I could ask any follow-up questions. "If you are protecting me, how was the demon able to attack me?" I questioned as soon as I had the chance.
"The demon was not strong enough to defeat you. Your aura is very powerful and it became trapped. In this way it is cleansed."
I had already known that earthbound spirits that change their minds midway about crossing could become trapped in my aura and be tethered to me until they were ready to cross. Now I was learning that demons could also be trapped when they attack me, and that my spirit guides allowed it to happen so the demon could be neutralized. And unlike the tethered spirits, of which I'm generally unaware, the demons could actually have a physical effect on me.
I again reflected on how quickly my life had been flipped over in a one hundred eighty degree somersault, and set me upon a path I would have never expected. My guides had never actually asked me if I wanted to continue down this path, but I guess they knew they didn't really need to. I was well aware that I must have agreed to the whole thing before I was even born into this world.