Was It a Werewolf?
We were bouncing along a state highway in Pennsylvania in the late summer of 1973 on the way home to New Jersey, and my mind was shrouded in apprehension. As a college student, I had become a Christian only a few months before, and now I was wondering why much of my initial get-up-and-go peace and joy had got up and went. I wasn’t suffering from a serious trial and was still rejoicing in my new salvation, but I felt a vague sense of foreboding, a heaviness that wasn’t exactly depression but more like oppression. I had been deeply involved in drugs and the occult and felt like the remnants were still clinging to me.
My friend Joe, who, like me had taken a journey through the occult to Jesus, informed me that although the devil no longer had power over me, he wasn’t happy that I had been set free from his dominion and I could cause his domain some future trouble. In other words, I was a demonic target in a way that I had not been in the past when I was the devil’s duped servant.
We had begun our trip with my physical healing in mind. Our prayer leader had a gift of healing, and I knew from past involvement in the occult that miracles of a supernatural nature were possible. I had a hip replacement due to a bone tumor and wanted to throw my cane away and run in the fields with the wind at my back.
She suggested a shrine up in Canada where there was a wall of canes and crutches from people healed of their maladies. And although I did not receive a brand-new hip, we still had a soothing time on our way back, staying in Laurentides Park near the St. Lawrence River in Quebec. We slept on open ground and stared at the crowded stars that suddenly put on an aurora borealis display for us—blue and green and moving mighty fast. On the journey we had also decided to burn some record albums like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath that, at least for us, had produced some bad fruit. Going to the shrine we probably both looked like a couple of homeless people with our long hair and scraggly jeans.
But all those experiences weren’t enough to bring back the peace and joy I coveted. Joe assured me that on our way home we would stop by his campus in Pennsylvania, and his Christian fellowship would pray for my deliverance from oppression. It was now late and we were both tired, so he suggested we get out the sleeping bags and pull over into an enclosed area off the side of the road surrounded by trees.
The moon peeking in between the trees gave us limited light, and as we spread out the sleeping bags, I felt nature call. But I was feeling other mischievous forces calling as well and was nervous about the thirty-yard walk in the dim moonlight to the outhouse in the distance.
As I arrived at the outhouse, I slowly opened the door to make sure no malevolent creatures or people were inside, and sat down on the stool. I noticed a small window on the upper right hand wall and then heard a rustling noise in the bushes outside. It could be anything or anyone, and it could be after me. I didn’t want to give myself away and open the door, so I decided to peer through the small window to check what was behind the noises.
What I saw immediately staring back at me was so frightening, I quickly grabbed my pants with one hand and my cane with the other. Joe was by the car preparing our scaled-down campsite when he was startled by a cry of horror and the sound of a door flying open. The moon shone on a frantic figure with long hair wildly flying and a cane moving swiftly up and down toward him.
“I’ve just seen a werewolf!” I screamed.
Now he was sure I needed a demonic deliverance. But as I drew nearer, I stopped in my tracks, tilted my head, and put my hand on my chin, stroking my beard.
“Wait, that was me!”
From the depths of my being came a howl of laughter. As I was still ten yards away, Joe was beginning to think he needed to get me to his campus prayer group quickly. But I was quite in my right mind.
I had just realized that the outline of the features and growth of hair that I had seen looked a lot like me. Joe had described me, with my dark features and eyes, as a Christian version of Charles Manson, the serial killer. What I thought was a small window in the outhouse that I looked through to check the strange noises was really a small mirror! We both laughed until we fell asleep, and the next day I received copious prayer from his friends at college to lift the oppression caused by my spiritual enemy. I went home feeling free again and decided it was time to get a hair trim, much to the relief of my parents, who had to live with me during that summer.
It’s not that long hair or beards are wrong, but what I needed was to discard more of the old Jim and put on the new nature, renewed in the image of Christ. When we least expect it, that old nature that we thought we had vanquished can pop out and scare us.
We will be sinners to the day we die, and that sin will at times hurt ourselves and others. But we have the assurance that God is both forgiving and perfecting us as we cooperate with His grace. I’m a good bit older now and the outward man doesn’t have the youthful vigor, but the wasting away is accompanied by the unceasing sanctification of the new me.