Easter is one such time. In the group that I grew up in, during the daytime I was allowed a normal experience. Easter was a celebration of springtime, of lengthening days, and the new flowers signaling winter’s end. I often enjoyed playing with waving palm branches during Palm Sunday, and hunting for Easter eggs on the church grounds. And of course, every year a small Easter basket appeared with a chocolate rabbit or lamb.
But at night, the holiday time was celebrated in a very different manner. The preparation leading up to it often lasted during the week before (there was no school during Easter week when I was a child, in the years before “Spring break” became common. Most schools let out for a week to ten days during this week). The events of this time were quite painful, and including brutalization, sexual abuse and other rituals surrounding fertility rites, culminating at the end of the week with a mock crucifixion. Often a child would be chosen to undergo crucifixion in a grim mockery of the Christian celebration, and the adults would state that this ritual was an offering to debase the Christian tradition and show its lack of meaning.
I do know that young boys were chosen for this ritual, and it was horrible to see.
At times, a mock “resurrection” ceremony might occur, but the resurrector was not Jesus, but a demonic entity who would enter into the person brought to a near death state.
The spiritual roots of these ceremonies were created to allow the passage of the demonic into the participants, and to “seal” them as they participated in the ceremony. At times, a golden chalice was passed between participants, and the child’s blood filled the cup that participants drank.
I am finding in my healing that more and more of what was done to me involved dark occult ceremonies as a child, such as I describe here. These ceremonies allowed the entrance of the demonic, and one of the hardest parts of the group programming to break has been the hold that these memories, and the spiritual destruction that ensued, has had on me. Part of my own healing process is involving undergoing deliverance, and replacing the gruesome, negative spirituality of my childhood with a faith that includes love, mercy, and forgiveness, the antithesis of the harsh and punishing ceremonies that I saw. One of the most important tasks for the survivor when remembering these types of events, (and anniversary dates often bring memories) is to find healing and self-forgiveness for participating, and to reach out for a belief system that can replace the negative. For me, that belief is Christianity, and my hope is that others will know its comfort during this difficult time of year.
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