long story short I was a marine and got blown up, so I wasn't a sissy at 20yrs old. anyways, my best friend came back from our platoon's first deployment about three months after me (he didn't get blown up and sent home) and after leave the battalion had a lot of down time (because about a quarter of us were wounded and such, no training). I was athiest, and he was wiccan. He's still a practicing wiccan and does "the craft", I don't mess with many pagan, nature worship or even buddhist rituals anymore, and I definitely don't mess with legitimate "spells" either. a ritual for good luck, asking for some "juice" from a nature spirit/force in the woods to "plug in" while hunting maybe, but not "witch craft". I also believe in spirits now, not overt poltergeists going berserk, but the possibility of being contacted if the conditions are met, and I'm not an athiest anymore. It actually got me going to church too, here's the story.
We're out in town, spending up our lance corporal money, being big bad marine vets (or hoping the girls at the bars think so?), getting tattoos, drinking, eating out to avoid the chow hall.. all of it. He always makes his own meds- no NSAIDS for him, no icy-hot, no caffeine pills. He would brew up his own teas and potion, and they worked! Same for spirituality, he did his own. No church for him, celtic rituals and native american rituals did him just fine. I went to some of those new age/ ecclectic rituals too (the things you get talked into doing as a young guy with time on your hands), and while I'd feel something, I never really "plugged into it". That changed once: we were at a wiccan store, he had picked up some ingredients for some healing potion (aching joints because he blew out his knee if I remember correctly) and I was looking at the myriad books on the shelves killing time. Me being an athiest and being upset by everyone else going to nirvana, summerland, heaven and such, I was mad mouthing it all under my breath. I said it was all bull, and I felt some air flow on my neck, right behind my right ear. I heard something faint. I looked around, and though it was creepy that this happened right as I was murmuring my disrespect, I kept on with it. Same thing, but the airflow had a more tangible "shape" to it, like an airhose in a shop- it was hitting one specific area on my neck, and the noise sounded like a muffled voice. I looked around, on the ceiling for a vent, I put my hand up to the book cases to check for some airflow from an obstructed vent, NOTHING. I can't put it into words, not the feelings I mean, just the event. The second occurence got me really rattled. Immediately after the second time I just blurted out loud something like "this is bullsh**" and it was not pressure on a spot on my neck but two hot points going into my neck, like breath from a nose going to my neck while someone whispered in my ear but it wasn't whispers, it was rageful screaming- muffled and garbled like a bad radio transmission but loud. I told my buddy that we had to leave and he said something about me "holding on" till he bought his ingredients but I just ran out the door crying. I was in the car crying until he came out. He believed the story, claiming that the place was powerful, and that the store owner wasn't just a crazy old woman. Neither of them heard a thing, not a thing. He and I agreed that I shouldn't have aired my disrespect and we were our way in a hurry, peeling out of course. Thing is, I was exposed to death and blood a bit before that happened and not prone to crying. and running, I had extensive shrapnel damage to my left leg that was only about six months old at that point and had trouble even walking. when a spirit targets you, the ability to run is a wonderful thing and I don't know how I got it back for those brief moments but I ran like a healthy man then, and fast. maybe you need to live pious and perfect, maybe you just need to mind your own business? I know that in matters of spirit, just like the real world, you don't provoke. that is my ultimate lesson, I do NOT provoke anything. also, I now believe in something greater than flesh and physical death. I don't understand it all, but I know it's real. there is another side to the world we live in.