Monday, November 3, 2008

The demon lover.

Along with dragons and fairies, one of the figures in myths and folk-songs is the 'demon-lover'. This is the cruel spirit who entices a woman or man to their destruction by wooing them when in some sort of disguise, so that their unhappy victim is carried away and realizes too late that they are doomed. It's a cruel type of tale, but like other things in folklore it reflects reality. Apart from mourning the sadness of it, those tales serve as a warning. They can be an allegory of real life.
This is just one true-life story I've heard about a 'demon-lover'. It happened in New Zealand some years ago. I should point out, the race of the people involved is irrelevant. It's just that there was a detailed newspaper report about it.
A troupe of musicians was touring New Zealand. They were African, playing some sort of traditional music. At one of the places they performed, a girl in the audience was carried away by the overtures of one of the musicians, and went home with him for the night. The woman was a Maori, which is relevant for this reason: she identified with the African man, seeing him as part of a dark-skinned race that had been mistreated by white people in the past. In her own words, she felt she had found a soul-mate.
The two of them slept together that night. The travelling musicians moved on the next day. Whether or not the girl was hoping to hear from him again I can't recall. What followed was, she found that she had contracted HIV from him.
That was bad enough. More was to follow. There was an inquiry, with a view to prosecuting the man for knowingly endangering others by having unprotected sex. At the inquiry it came out that there were half a dozen women, from parts of New Zealand, also infected by the same man. It seems he was a deceptive charmer. Part of the cruelty of it was that each of the women had felt the same way: they had met a man who they immediately felt close to, and identified with.
It was observed by the journalist that the women were all in some way vulnerable. Either they were lonely, or came from a disadvantaged background, or their appearance was such that not a lot of men would be physically attracted to them. All of them had fallen into this wretched trap - thinking they'd found a man who cared, and finding that he had wrecked their lives.
It's not only men who do the damage and women who suffer it. One case reported from Queensland in Australia, and one from Ireland went the same way. A woman stranger came to a town, proceeded to entice as many men as she could into having sex with her, and it turned out that she was HIV positive. She passed it on to some of the men who fell for her trap.
The demon lover is part of real life. On the one hand, I can feel deep sympathy for the victims. They succumbed to a temptation that many humans find hard to resist: finding love, or at least some momentary affection. On the other, this shows how people can be destroyed by letting themselves be duped. The people who sprung these cruel traps committed what could be called crimes of spite. But the ones who fell for them could be called fools to themselves. Is that too harsh? Don't worry, I'll admit now there was a time when I could have gone down that way. Before I was a Christian, and aware of God's counsel to all humans, I might have been duped by a woman who seemed to like me - especially when I was lonely and unsure of myself. Once I became a Christian, then I was no longer such a sitting duck for the 'honey-trap'.
It's a miserable thing to see that happen to those New Zealand girls, and yet it is avoidable. If they knew that their value comes from God, and not another human flattering them, they need not have been cut down that way. If those Australian and Irish men knew that God valued them, they should have known better than to let themselves be drawn to their own ruination that way. Some people still don't get this. They still try telling us that to get a life, grab everything that's going. Have fun. Live for the moment. Go out for a rage and don't worry about what could happen. And it can end in misery. If my son or daughter was one of the victims of that sort, while I could cry for them I could be incredibly angry with them too. They should have known better.
Pray that people hear and respond to the Word of God. It won't only save the human soul, though that's reason enough. It can stop vile things happening in this life, to the physical body, as well.

5 comments:

Farrah said...

Very true and very sad.

Marshal Art said...

It's natural to want to be viewed in a positive manner by those we feel are attractive, either physically or charismatically. After a period in which I was "whipped" over a woman, I realized that I was a chump in waiting, and I didn't much care for that. I'm a bit more discerning, and even better, I'm married to a woman that I love because I consciously chose to love, rather than as a result of some "head over heels" type of infatuation. We've been together around 25 years because we both knew who we were and who the other was. Imagine, being loved because the other chose to love you rather than because they couldn't help themselves. A total choice. We don't suffer from the "need" from which those in your story suffered. It's liberating. Know who you are, know what you believe, and don't compromise on either. Don't just look, but see and it's much harder to be taken for a fool.

jel said...

Hello Andrew,

that is very sad too hear!




hope all is well your way!

MindyMork said...

Andrew, this is very sad and there was a time when the first discoveries of HIV or AIDS disease started to be known to this part of Asia....there were those who just wanted to infect others to sort of revenge...or not sure what they want .... just they want to pass on the misery....like it those days...leprosy was a deadly disease and no healings and the sufferers are "cast outs" they have no peace in them and they just wants others to suffer as well sort of suddenly they became cruel and mean....as most of them do not have the Holy Spirit or God with them....Well, why is it as the world advances and technology improves....so does the diseases....all kinds of viruses springs up or are sort of "born" and as we find cures for one disease another disease appears out of nowhere and becomes incurable and a danger to the whole world again when we thought it was safe again.....Sigh...i guess.....nothing beats being in Heaven!!! So we must work harder for God and ensure our paths are right to reach our eternity destination! God BLess!

Jenny B. said...

The whole time I was reading this, I was thinking of "La Belle Dame Sans Merci." It's a poem someone wrote a long time ago (I forgot who), where a woman lures knights to love her, then betrays them. Their armor gets rusty, etc. There's paintings of it, too. A good warning to heed!