Spiritual fiction – Page 7

Random Trilogy Snippets, Part Four: The Biggest Battle is Spiritual (Part Three)

In Part One of these spiritual battle snippet posts from The Prodigal Band Trilogy, a battle between the good and evil spiritual forces takes place at a 1995 concert. In Part Two, the battle is between the prodigal band members themselves over whether or not to “call up” the evil Corion and his Demons in a seance-like experience; the Demons had just given them a ‘song’ to record which would aid in the cause of turning the souls of their fans to evil. Since the forces of Good, the Tooters, gave them another song to counteract the Demons’ song, a standoff ensued between good and evil.

In this Part Three, the Tooters will say something rather ‘prophetic’ to the band’s drummer, Tom, who is looking for answers as to why ‘the witch of the Hovels’ (where Tom grew up) would ‘warn’ the band (or as she called them minstrels) about the Demons. ‘Minstrels’ is a medieval term for musicians; the ‘witch’ originally came from medieval times. She ‘warned’ Tom as well as band leader Jack about the Demons as the two as well as the others in the band and their women watched over singer Erik and bassist Keith who had mild heart attacks, and were physically in hospital beds while spiritually in a ‘void’ as the Demons tried to consume their souls. The Tooters, using another method, would also communicate with Erik’s wife Ger, who had ‘betrayed’ him earlier with bulimia she never told him about and having had an ‘affair’ with her personal ‘trainer.’

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Random Trilogy Snippets, Part Four: The Biggest Battle is Spiritual (Part Two)

To heck with waiting until next week to post this ‘spiritual battle’ part two, The Prodigal Band Trilogy, snippet post. While looking through the novel for snippets relating to spiritual battles between spirit entities or between the band characters and these entities, I found a long snippet that shows why one spiritual side or the other cannot always carry out their assigned task of winning over the people (real or fictional) the spirits are supposed to win over. In other words, there are spiritual battles among the group of people themselves, which hamper the spirit forces’ tasks. In the entire trilogy, it just might be the best example of this spiritual ‘tug-of-war’ among the band characters. All of them—singer Erik, drummer Tom, guitarist-band leader Jack, guitarist-producer Mick, bassist Keith, and keyboard-synthist Bryan—are featured. The long snippet is within Chapter Eight of Battle of the Band.

Having just completed a special ‘World Unity Day’ concert in San Antonio, Texas, the two main song composers, Erik (lyrics) and Jack (music) fall asleep in a limo headed to Houston for another gig as well as an appointment at a recording studio to track a new song. While asleep, the satanic character Corion’s minions called the Demons (Gold, Silver, Bronze) ‘give’ the two a new song, not only to be recorded, but to ‘seal the band’s oath’ to the evil as part of the band’s ‘pact’ with Corion explained early in this first novel of the trilogy. Later that morning the song is recorded, but questions arise as to the origin of the song, a song which has an historical context for both the good and evil sides. The song is called “Song of the Demons” (and I will not post the lyric words in this snippet). Eventually, the six discuss the ‘why’ of being ‘given’ a song ‘of demons’ when one of them brings up a previous event as the band several years before began their nationwide contest-winning tour, when Jack ‘prayed’ for success. Then drummer Tom, the ‘channeler’ of spirits within his entourage of new agers, arranges to channel the spirits to find out the truth of this situation. Also mentioned in the snippet are the Tooters, the good angels opposing Corion and his Demons.

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Random Trilogy Snippets, Part Four: The Biggest Battle is Spiritual (Part One)

Folks, I called my first novel in The Prodigal Band Trilogy ‘Battle of the Band’ for a reason. Not because there are contests called ‘Battle of the Bands.’ But because the ‘battle’ the prodigal band Sound Unltd undergoes is truly a spiritual battle whereby the spiritual forces of good vs. evil wage war to get this band on their sides—while the evil side ‘wins’ the band early, rewarding the band with fame and fortune as long as the band complies with the will of the evil side, the ‘war’ is won by the forces of good: the Creator, the angels known as the Tooters, and the human/spirit being, the ‘witch’ of the Hovels aka Morwenna as the band undergoes their assigned ‘missions of God’ and accepts Christ as Savior.

This snippet set on the spiritual battle features the battles between the Tooters and the satanic character Corion and his Demons (Gold, Silver, Bronze) along with two evil characters possessed by the evil, fake healer and new age cult leader Cole Blessing and his replacement, Mark Besst. The snippets are short. The first one is from Chapter Eight of Battle of the Band; the middle ones follow each other and are within the final chapter of The Prophesied Band, the final two are from Chapter Seventeen of The Prodigal Band. Some of these snippets are featured in previous snippet posts, such as https://omegabooksnet.com/2019/10/30/snippet-of-the-prodigal-band-trilogy-spiritual/

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Random Trilogy Snippets, Part Two: Consequences of Allegiance to Evil

It is not easy to choose random topics for The Prodigal Band Trilogy snippet posts when so many categories and topics have already been ‘snippeted’ if you know what I mean. But I feel it is important to stress messages that need to be written about, and what with this world seemingly turning more and more evil as time goes on, the subject of ‘good vs. evil’ needs to be revisited every now and then.

Allegiance to evil is not the same as doing bad things or saying bad things or hurtful things as part of a lifestyle one has dug oneself into within a spiritual hole leading one to commit random evil acts such as theft or deliberate deception or murder or self-harm or addictions or joining gangs or groups promoting destructive ideas or joining cults, and such. Allegiance to evil means willfully and wittingly doing the bidding of evil physical or spiritual forces for the benefit one ‘sells one’s soul’ to achieve. I’m not talking ‘fame and fortune’ here; I’m talking about things like ‘immortality’ or god-like status or supreme power, things the forces of evil could ‘grant’ one if and only if one gives complete allegiance to this evil, perhaps convincing oneself that this evil is actually ‘spiritual goodness’ because the evil has convinced one of this deception disguised as ‘truth.’

According to the Book if Isaiah, King James Bible (copyright-free), this relates to the notion that the evil, called ‘Lucifer,’ and in other parts, called Satan and names of the various false gods of the day (Baal, Beelzebub, Remphan, Moloch, etc.), is actually deceiving itself. Verses 12 through 15 of Isaiah Chapter 14 explain this as what some Bible teachers and pundits call “the five ‘I wills’”:

{14:12} How art

thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!

[how] art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken

the nations! {14:13} For thou hast said in thine heart, I will

ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of

God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in

the sides of the north: {14:14} I will ascend above the

heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. {14:15}

Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the

pit.

Thus, Satan or Lucifer or the name of this Evil character in my trilogy, Corion, cannot deceive God, called in the trilogy ‘the Creator.’ But Corion can, quite easily, deceive those who owe allegiance and willingly give allegiance to him, especially if the one giving allegiance has also deceived the evil Corion! And no evil character in my novels had deceived Corion more than Crynnwagg, originally the High Priest of the Celtic Druid-hating Crag-Dweller cult that inhabited the mountains of Wales around the time of the Roman invasions under Emperors Claudius and Nero in the 40s and 50s AD.

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How I Wrote The Prodigal Band Trilogy, Part Three

At the end of Part Two, I said that an actual spiritual incident I witnessed, which caused me to commit to Christ as Lord and Savior, inspired me to figure out a way to complete the ‘prodigal band’ story (using the Parable of the Prodigal Son as a guide) so as to create a novel trilogy that could spread ‘the message’ of redemption and salvation that anyone could accept freely, of their own free will. This incident certainly helped me to write The Prophesied Band, which ends with the prodigal band Sound Unltd being given ‘mission of God’ by the spiritual forces of Good. But would the prodigal band, having no idea about how to complete these missions, as well as being either atheist or agnostic toward Christianity and religion in general, be able to truly accept the missions and complete them?

In 1998, The Prophesied Band was published and printed (by a different outfit from the one that printed Battle of the Band), but this time I had far fewer copies printed—a wise decision! During that summer I sold roughly one-third of the number of printed copies at local festivals and writer conferences and made enough money to actually cover the cost of printing. By the following summer, I had sold about half of the book copies, and more than half by the fall of 2000. By then I had another Mac desktop and Corel WordPerfect software knowing that likely the next desktop computer would be using a Windows operating system (for one thing, a new Mac computer is almost double the cost of a Windows computer, and hubby and my kids wanted me to get one with Windows, likely with Windows 98).

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How I Wrote The Prodigal Band Trilogy, Part Two

Sorry this post is late, but last week I was entirely with loved ones from east Texas and at a local spring-fed swimming pool full of catfish, snap turtles and other fish, some of which are endangered, among other activities.

For me, if any plot is going to have some kind of impact encouraging the reading of the novel as well as book sales, the spiritual or ‘good vs. evil’ scenario makes the most sense and is the one I could best handle. Growing up, the genre of horror movies full of good vs. evil scenes and characters made the most impact and were the most entertaining—monster movies, vampires like Dracula, men-turned-monsters like Frankenstein or the Wolf Man or zombies such as in ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and more. Without or without the science fiction aspects, I watched just about every horror movie out there in the 50s and 60s. And every one of them had a good vs. evil theme.

Then came rock music, which isn’t exactly horror (even the movie “Rocky Horror Picture Show” filled with rock music wasn’t really horror!). So this rock band I created wouldn’t exactly fit into some horror scenario. But it could certainly fit into a ‘good vs. evil’ scenario, especially when so many folks, especially Christians, thought all rock stars ‘sold their souls to the devil.’ And it was this ‘sell souls to the devil’ notion that, while it made sense—the Rolling Stones’ song ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ and Jimmy Page’s following of Aleister Crowley and the Beatles following a new age cultist called Maharishi Yogi and more—I realized this to be not quite true for most rockers, in the 60s and 70s and 80s, anyway. I needed proof, and what better way to ‘prove’ this was true or not than to have an excuse to do the research? Just because some preachers said this was true didn’t actually mean this way really true. What I found was that yes, some rockers were avowed ‘devil worshipers’ (Marilyn Manson being the most avowed as a member of ‘the Church of Satan’), and while very few were even somewhat Christian (as time went on a few would make that choice, such as Megadeath’s Dave Mustain and one or two others), it seemed to me that most were not devil worshipers but did ‘sell their souls’ for fame and fortune whether they wanted to or not. They wanted the rock star lifestyle, not devil worship. However, this did lead some into occult practices. Yet their choices often led to dire outcomes, such as drug or alcohol addiction, which my novel band characters engaged in handsomely.

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How I Wrote The Prodigal Band Trilogy (Part One)

This post is not about how, in the 60s and 70s and 80s, I came up with the characters as a gang, and then as a band. This post is about how I developed the final plot involving good vs. evil spirits and entities using the prodigal band for good or evil purposes, how I was inspired this way and how I managed to write the three novels, the final one (The Prodigal Band) twenty years after the second one (The Prophesied Band). How I turned just an entertaining piece about the foibles of rock stardom into a spiritual plot using the Parable of the Prodigal Son of the Gospel of Luke Chapter 15 as a guide. Finally, it is about actually creating the novels using various software including ClarisWorks (for Mac) and Corel WordPerfect, Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat conversions for PDFs on both Mac and PC desktops and laptops. I reviewed the “why” in the previous post; now is the “how.”

As I’ve stated in the previous post, in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, my mind made up the band and female main characters for the manuscript that I had no idea would become this trilogy. Then in the early 90s, I looked up at the stars and was then inspired to begin the writing journey—out here in rural mountain far west Texas, the stars are everywhere in the night sky on a clear night, unlike in urban and suburban areas. But what would be the main plot?

I started putting notes together with bound notebook and pen or pencil beginning with angels called the Tooters “prophesying” that a band would come about and be subjected to a tug of war between good and evil spirit characters as the band succeeded through the 90s and would eventually side with good over evil. Sometime in 1992 and 1993, using an old Atari XE computer which used a floppy disk “operating system” as a “hard drive” and where, once the disk set up the system, you take out the system disk and put in another floppy which holds the file one is working on (and where the new floppy holds about 48 kilobytes of space for the files)… In other words, only one or two chapters could be placed on each floppy disk, and, yes, they were indeed floppy! So using about five disks I typed in the first version of the book I titled “Rock Band” since I really had no idea what else to call the book. After completing this, I printed out a copy from each disk; I have no idea what printer I used. The plot was, in my opinion, weak as well—now why would angels call on a rock band to carry out a good agenda over evil when all the rock band members wanted to do was make millions and party and partake in sex orgies and get smashed on cocaine-like drugs? And then wind up in serious tribulations with seemingly no way out? So, in spring of 1994, I hit an impasse.

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy Controversial Topics Series: Episode Two-Religion

Nothing—according to many pundits and persons—is as controversial as these two topics—politics and religion; politics was covered in Episode One of this Controversial Topics Snippet Series within The Prodigal Band Trilogy. Ipso Facto, Episode Two deals with religion.

While the trilogy books do mention Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and the Druids of Wales (in the context of their practices against their fictional enemies, Crynnwagg and the Crag-Dwellers who were cannibals, whom the Druids ‘tied to oak trees’ as revenge for their rituals against the Druid priesthood youth), only the fictitious New Age cult led by Swami Negran and Cole Blessing, the Church of the Circle of Unity—and its red crystal of Corion, and Christianity are prominent. I made up the Unity Church cult based off the real cults of Hare Krishna (I had a friend years ago victimized by this cult) and Transcendentalism (led by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who influenced the Beatles and others).

I look at Christianity in a different way than most Christians and non-Christians do—a true Christian follows the Way, Truth and Life of Jesus Christ and accepts the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God the Father, and puts these ahead of doing what most folks think Christians do—go to church, tithe, hand out religious tracts, go to ‘mission conferences,’ and engage in conservative politics, among other things… and partake in Communion, baptism, marriages in churches, and other rituals that attach to various denominations (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and other groups not affiliated with these). Yes, I was baptized (three times—as a baby, in a church where I was teaching in the 80s during Bible study sessions, and in a local baptistry). Yes, I do Communion at the local non-denominational church. Yes, I was married in a Catholic church (because my parents wanted it that way…I really wasn’t a practicing Catholic then). Yes, I read the Bible (without which I never could have completed this trilogy!). Yes, I pray. But that is not what makes me a committed believer on Christ. And that is not why God gave me the trilogy-writing mission to tell the world why they should consider accepting Christ as Savior. It is commitment to Christ by one’s own free will and then doing as such, not religious doctrines, dogmas, and rituals, that makes one a true Christian.

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Snippets of the Prodigal Band Trilogy Biblical Reference Series, Episode Seven: God, Not Satan and Not the Elites, Is In Control (and He Even Controls Satan)

The Biblical Reference Snippet Series within The Prodigal Band Trilogy continues with this possibly final post in the series (unless I can come with another one). I am including this because several parts of the three-books-in-one trilogy claim that God is in control, not any person who thinks he or she is in control of local or world events—the so-called ‘world controlling’ elites definitely think they are in control because of their money or power—and not the one who wants to be ‘like the Most High’ (Isaiah 14), Satan/Lucifer, either.

If Satan was in control, would Earth even exist with life on it? Because Satan loves death and destruction. If those Satan thinks he controls, the elites who think they control everything, were actually in control, then why has it taken them so long—thousands of years—to get control? Because Satan deceives them into believing they are in control, because Satan, the ‘Adversary,’ is the ultimate deceiver.

Biblical references show this from the point of view of God the Almighty (the Old Testament Book of Job Chapters One and Two), and His Son, Christ (Matthew Chapter Four).

In Job Chapter One, starting with verse 6, Satan ‘presented himself before’ God, and they converse, with Satan ‘ordering’ God to ‘put forth thine hand’ and ‘touch all that he (Job) hath, and he will curse thee (God) to thy face” (Job 1:11). But God tells Satan, ‘Behold, all that he hath is in thy (Satan’s) power; only upon himself (Job) put no forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord’ (Job 1:12). Sounds to me like God controlling Satan to me, as in the rest of the chapter Satan does all sorts of damage to Job’s resources and even children, but does not hurt Job, who in anguish still refuses to curse God, saying (to paraphrase verse 21), the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. And then comes Chapter Two, where, again, Satan wants to destroy Job and have Job curse God, but God refuses to allow it:

{2:3} And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered

my servant Job, that [there is] none like him in the earth, a

perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and

escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity,

although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him

without cause. {2:4} And Satan answered the LORD, and

said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for

his life. {2:5} But put forth thine hand now, and touch his

bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face. {2:6}

And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he [is] in thine

hand; but save his life.

So Satan brings upon Job ‘boils’ on his skin from head to toe, which Job deals with by scraping the boils among ashes. Job’s wife then enters the picture:

{2:9} Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain

thine integrity? curse God, and die. {2:10} But he said unto

her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh.

What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall

we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.

So what is the point? One, Job, in great pain, still refused to ‘curse God and die’ though Satan ‘knew’ that Job would do such a thing (and did Satan use Job’s wife to try to convince Job to do so?). Two, did Satan take Job’s life after God told Satan not to take his life (when God told Satan to spare his life)? No, because God told Satan not to take his life. Further, why did Satan show up with the ‘sons of God’ (that is, the angels) in the first place? Likely, to ‘prove’ to God that he, Satan, was just as powerful as God and also to tempt God. But God was not tempted by Satan; he used Satan to make a point about Job, that Job would not give in to Satan’s desires. So, did Satan control God or did God control Satan? Did Satan kill Job? No, because God told Satan not to kill Job.

And speaking of controlling Satan, Christ, the Son of God and God made flesh, had a similar encounter with Satan in Matthew Chapter 4, right after John the Baptist baptizes Christ and then Christ gets into the ‘wilderness.’

{4:1} Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the

wilderness to be tempted of the devil. {4:2} And when he

had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an

hungred. {4:3} And when the tempter came to him, he said,

If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be

made bread. {4:4} But he answered and said, It is written,

Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that

proceedeth out of the mouth of God. {4:5} Then the devil

taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a

pinnacle of the temple, {4:6} And saith unto him, If thou be

the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall

give his angels charge concerning thee: and in [their] hands

they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot

against a stone. {4:7} Jesus said unto him, It is written

again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. {4:8} Again,

the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain,

and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the

glory of them; {4:9} And saith unto him, All these things

will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

{4:10} Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan:

for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and

him only shalt thou serve. {4:11} Then the devil leaveth

him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

So, when Christ told Satan, to ‘get thee hence,’ Satan left Him. So, did Satan control Christ or did Christ control Satan? Then, in Matthew 16, Christ is telling His apostles that He is going to go to Jerusalem and be killed, and rise again on the third day (16:21). Then Peter begs Him not to do that (16:22). Then Christ tells Peter:

{16:23} But he

turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou

art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that

be of God, but those that be of men.

Then in Luke 22:3—

{22:1} Now the feast of unleavened bread drew nigh,

which is called the Passover. {22:2} And the chief priests

and scribes sought how they might kill him [Christ]; for they feared

the people.

{22:3} Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot,

being of the number of the twelve [apostles]. {22:4} And he went his

way, and communed with the chief priests and captains,

how he might betray him [Christ] unto them. {22:5} And they were

glad, and covenanted to give him money [thirty pieces of silver]. {22:6} And he

promised, and sought opportunity to betray him [Christ] unto them

in the absence of the multitude.

That is, Satan’s spirit can actually enter people. Since Judas Iscariot was the one apostle who betrayed Christ for ‘thirty pieces of silver,’ it makes sense that Satan’s entrance into Judas would aid this cause, which, as Christ had told Peter and the rest in Matthew 16, was going to happen anyway. So, did Satan enter Judas because Judas wanted Satan to enter Judas, or because Satan was doing God’s will so that Judas would betray Christ, so that Christ would become the ultimate sacrificial lamb? (Remember, we’re talking Passover time here.)

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Parable from Luke 15: Prodigal Son Meets The Prodigal Band (Part Four)

We have come to the end of this sub-set of episodes of Biblical References snippets within The Prodigal Band Trilogy where The Prodigal Band meets the Prodigal Son (from Luke Chapter 15). Part One is here; Part Two is here, and Part Three is here. This Part Four finishes this set and is based on the verses from Luke 15: 20 until the end of the parable. Having spent his inheritance on reprobate living, then having spent it all until there was nothing left, the prodigal son is forced to eek out an existence feeding pigs, wishing he was back home and not literally starving while his father’s servants have plenty to eat. So he decides to return to his father as a ‘hired’ servant. From Luke 15, the Parable of the Prodigal Son:

{15:20} And he arose, and

came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his

father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his

neck, and kissed him. {15:21} And the son said unto him,

Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and

am no more worthy to be called thy son. {15:22} But the

father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put

[it] on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on [his]

feet: {15:23} And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill [it;]

and let us eat, and be merry: {15:24} For this my son was

dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they

began to be merry.