Between Two Worlds
Is it possible to live a fruitful life while existing between two different worlds?
I’ve been plagued with this question for years with it becoming more pressing within the last several months. I used to be able to shake the tension this question elicits and quiet the voice in my head by meditating on the words delivered by the apostle Paul:
12 because our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. -Ephesians 6:12 (LEB)
As someone who grew up in the church and spent a great majority of my life devoted to its cause, the eschatological tension that desires all of my focus is no longer relieved by what I now consider the obviousness of the scriptures. My faith now requires more than familiar Bible verses that attempt to cool my inflammatory thoughts about the world we live in. Thoughts that have burdened my mind for years as I exist within two worlds.
The seam —as I like to call it— is a place where our natural and supernatural worlds join together. I’ve been trapped in this place since my childhood. Growing up in one of the most haunted places in the country —Plattsburgh, NY— shaped my perspective of what we call reality in ways that are hard to explain. When you experience real demonic oppression that has been objectively proven, you enter a place in life that most never visit. It is a place where theists and atheists have much to say as experts while lacking any real exposure.
For instance, over the years I’ve heard sermons that touch on or attempt to teach about spiritual warfare, providing counsel in ways that are more harmful than helpful. I’ve met countless people that believe “Satan” has somehow deemed them so important that he is meddling in their affairs because life is not going according to plan. I’ve seen very devout believers make claims that all you have to do is use Jesus’ name to “shoo” away all the evil demons in your home —completely forgetting the episode when Jesus’ own disciples failed at this task as all demons are not the same. Many of these individuals if not most, are well meaning and strongly believing followers of what I refer to as The Way. However, I’ve yet to ever meet anyone that can attest to real, physical manifestations of dark spiritual powers operating in their life aside from those I grew up with while living in New York. I chiefly believe this is because the supernatural powers of darkness operate more territorially as places of influence are deemed critical for gaining a strategic advantage. As most believers will never experience the horrors of demonic oppression, it is difficult to talk with them about real spiritual darkness aside from trading familiar Bible verses —which ultimately leads to surface-level discussions when real nuance is what’s demanded to understand the world we live in.
I’ll never forget a conversation I had with a pastor many years ago as we stood outside of his church plant. While conversing about spiritual evil and my childhood haunting, he stated, “I’m a pastor and to be honest, if someone in my church ever had this problem in their home, I wouldn’t know what to do.” It shocked me to hear him respond in such a way, but I respected his honesty. The truth is he’s not much different than most believers as most believers have never truly wrestled with demonic oppression. In my experience what many believe to be demonic activity are difficulties of life that automatically become attributed to spiritual warfare in an ethereal kind of way: illness, divorce, death, financial ruin, job loss, etc. All of these things simply get filed under “Acts of Satan” due to their inherent destructive nature. Life is often unfair, cruel and unforgiving, but that doesn’t make these parts of life demonic by default. The truth of the matter is you really have to be one of the unluckiest of the unlucky to draw the short straw that ushers a demon into your bedroom as a child.
Believers aren’t the only ones that often miss the mark on the true cosmic nature of our reality. In my experience non-believers are often too quick to write off supernatural events that can’t be explained by modern-day science in a peer-reviewed, double-blind orchestrated study —not realizing entities within the supernatural realm don’t respond like dogs to a dog whistle. Many atheists are highly convinced that supernatural encounters are simply a result of several things: vivid imagination; faulty wiring in the brain; a mental manifestation of something one truly wishes to see; a dream; a lie about something that never happened; a lack of scientific understanding about something that has a reasonable, natural explanation. In some cases I believe these things can absolutely be true, but in others like mine, they are absolutely not true. Growing up I wished one of these was an explanation I could’ve tethered myself to in order to ground my sanity. No such lifeline was made available.
As one might guess, talking to non-believers about spiritual matters can also be difficult. However, the irony is I’ve actually had better conversations with non-believers concerning this topic. They’re often quite skeptical individuals to start with so when they personally experience the unexplainable in a way that shocks their belief system they’re not so quick to ignore the possibility of otherworldly phenomena. As they’re not operating from a systematized theological backdrop, they lack the ability and urge to needlessly map misunderstood Bible verses to every supernatural event, leading to deeper discussions about the phenomena itself and its worldly effects.
Unfortunately, the perspective and worldview that I hold are radically nuanced in such a way that it proves near impossible to find true connections with other people. Standing in a crowd of one million humans wouldn’t resolve the feeling of isolation I’ve come to know since my youth. Every encounter is like an out-of-body experience where I can see myself interacting with others while at the same time questioning the validity and importance of the reality the interaction is taking place in. It’s a bit like experiencing the red pill while everyone around you is content with the blue pill. The tension to expose the madness never disappears either. I’m often confronted with the task of red-pilling everyone and exposing myself as a crazy spiritualist or saying nothing while half-committing to the engagement. Committing wholly is not possible. To do so requires fully jettisoning the knowledge of what’s behind the curtain and pretending all is well. At a minimum this requires blue-pilling myself, at least temporarily.
Existing within the seam has placed me on an island that most people never set foot on. Being on such an island makes it incredibly difficult to connect with others, to fold into society, to form relationships. It also makes it difficult to not think too deeply about everything without becoming like “one of sorrows”. Being given an opportunity to see behind the curtain is a blessing and a curse. As society spirals out of control, the curse feels weightier. I’m grateful that God saw fit to pair me with a wife and bless me with children. I believe He authored my story in such a way to provide a semblance of balance for the isolation I would carry for my entire life. The fact that my wife has been all-in and supportive of the “crazy guy with dark thoughts” has always perplexed me. I do truly believe Yahweh has a way of imparting certain wisdom and understanding to people about spiritual things, even if they’re not aware He’s working in such a way in their own lives. I believe this lends credence to the idea that there are very real spiritual forces at work amongst the human race. It also gives me hope when things are dark.
Humans —created to be spiritual beings wrapped in flesh— possess what I can only explain as an internal frequency that is tuned to the spiritual things of God. For reasons I can’t explain, it appears that some people just seem to “get it” while others struggle to find the coherence in the intertwining of the natural and supernatural realms. Existing within the seam has shaped my understanding of the entire human race —specifically, what it means to be human and what it does not mean. The anthropological definition of what is human in our modern world is very narrow and broadly accepted. In this definition, humans are typically defined and classified as Homo sapiens and bipedal primates. This at the simplest level. At the more complex end of the spectrum, humans are touted as exceptional beings with extraordinary cognitive faculties due to our large brains, setting us apart from all other creatures on the planet. Yet nothing seems to account for our own base-level perceptions about life itself. For instance, why do humans care about purpose? Where do we get our intuition about things that are existential? Why do we desire order, law, and justice? Why do we desire meaning? Why do we desire shared objectives among societies? Why is love necessary? Why is life worth living if in the end it’s as if we were never here to begin with?
These are just a few questions that have emanated from the souls of humans since the dawn of man. They are questions anthropology can’t answer —its framework unable to address anything outside of human characteristics, culture, language, societal behaviors, and what is known as biological evolution. On the things that truly matter to us all, it is found wanting, and the seam exposes this wanting more acutely.
When you’ve been made aware of a world that encroaches on your own, you begin to wonder how much of your world is real. Not in a physical sense, but in terms of its operation, the rules that govern it, the knowledge that we all possess, and what the underlying drivers are for it all. The curiosity begins to beg more questions. How much and what parts of our world are fabricated? Who are the real controllers of these fabrications? Are there agendas and if so, what are they? What can’t we see? What have we been made to see so we ignore what we should see? Are there unseen causes behind the events in our world or are all events caused by humans? I firmly believe the entire species is living in exile, and I’m not simply referring to the Garden event. However, that’s a story for another time…or timeline.
Each day my mind is filled with questions that challenge the reality around me. In my pursuit to seek out what it means to truly be human, I question the value of much of our efforts. So much of what we do is mundane and cyclical. From the brilliant mystery that is God comes the wonderfully crafted complexity of the image bearer who spends the majority of his or her day commuting and working a job that they hate. The reprieve from a day’s work is to transform into a never-ending scrolling couch potato who has been sucked into the void of distraction, lies, and entertainment. How much of life is really about being busy instead of extracting the most out of ourselves to truly better the world? Do we all now live to simply maximize pleasure while being entertained? Was the complexity of man really needed for such a simple end result? Is this what God intended or intends today? I believe every man, woman, and child should be asking what the true purpose of humanity is, because it can’t be what we’re doing now. What we’re doing now isn’t working.
According to a 2023 study by Harvard Graduate School of Education — On Edge: Understanding and Preventing Young Adults’ Mental Health Challenges — 58% of young adults (ages 18 – 25) reported that their lives lacked meaning, purpose, and direction. Half of the surveyed young adults reported this had a negative impact on their mental health, with one respondent stating: “‘I would really like to have some sort of meaning from working towards a goal or cause that betters humanity as a whole. I see the world falling apart and no direction for humanity, and I’d like to do something about it.’”
How do so many people within a highly developed modern society arrive at such a concerning dilemma? In a time where —thanks to many technological advancements—opportunities appear to be endless, so many are struggling to find purpose and a reason for being. What changes over the course of a young person’s life that shifts their perspective from imagining themselves as being anything they desire to questioning the point of their existence? Deep, societal introspection is needed to begin to answer such questions, but it all starts with the individual.
The prognosis for the human race looks bleak, and what makes the situation more concerning is that the cure is only found within the seam —a place most people have never experienced and for some, a place they’d rather not. The seam is where deception is brought into the light. It is also where the tension exists. The tension that challenges one’s will to live inside of the fabrication. Inside of the seam is where the soul and flesh wrestle as the flesh attempts to convince the person that their concerns are overstated. The seam is where the darkness that infects the human race hides. The seam is where one must go —ridding themselves of this world’s shackles of the mind— in order to remember what was lost. It is where a free people see they are held captive in exile.
The seam is not for the faint of heart. Living in it is akin to walking a tightrope between city skyscrapers. It takes a tremendous amount of God-given faith, courage, and strength. It is a place where beauty meets horror. Where the light clashes with darkness and where truth wrestles with the lie. The seam is a place of peace and war, rest and unrest. It is where hope is challenged and where the dead meet the living. The seam is where the soul yearns to go, but the flesh fights against it with all its might. It is the void and the pit in the stomach that aligns with the sense that something is off. The seam is a place where some of us had no choice, but to be thrust into it. The seam is also the place where others will have to overcome the desires of the flesh in order to willingly enter.
While most people will never experience dark spiritual forces manifesting in their homes, it is still quite possible to enter the seam. It starts with challenging the notion of what it means to be human. Are we nothing more than bipedal beings waiting for a future spiritual exodus? The seam calls us to ask ourselves how we can best image our Creator, not how we can best serve our own needs. The seam challenges the idea of man-centered objectives and causes one to align with divine, higher-level responsibilities. The net result of this alignment will ultimately benefit greater humanity and all of creation.
As you go throughout your day, challenge all that you do. Challenge the validity and value of what you commit your hands to. Ask yourself if you believe there’s more meaningful work that could be done. Assess how your time is spent and the distractions that seek to pull you from higher-level responsibilities. Write down one of those distractions and a plan to tune it out. Be radical and try shutting down screen time six hours before bedtime. Evaluate what this does to your mind. Meditate on the things you love and the things you hate. Ask yourself whether these things are your own ideas or ideas you’ve been indoctrinated with. Assess your mental state and whether your mind is able to truly wind down and find peace. Or is it programmed to run like a machine from sunup to sundown seeking constant stimulation? Eventually you’ll find the tension, and when you do, press into it and all that is uncomfortable and foreign. Because it is in that place —the seam between two worlds— you’ll find the edge of reality.
Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed it, please restack and share it. Feel free to leave comments as I’d love to hear your thoughts. - Gideon
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