Presence of evil

[beachcitygirl]

Aibu to ask if you've ever felt yourself in the presence of evil. Following on from
The intuitiion thread.

I once met a friend of my ex in a coffee shop. The man was nothing but civil & friendly. Soft spoken & was an ex police officer. My then husband was there also.
I went to the loo & spent ages as something about him made me feel afraid. I stress it was just a feeling. Zero untoward behaviour.
Many years later he was arrested & found guilty of violent rape.

Has anyone else ever sensed evil? (For want of a better word)

Sorry for your mum @Alexandra2001. Does she really believe some other power entered her attacker? I think for victims this is often a more comfortable conclusion to come to than accept that the person really wanted to hurt/kill them.

If evil doesn't exist, than neither can 'Good'

That’s not the comparison. It’s good and bad. Bad exists.

@Fluffycloudland77

I feel an oppressive force in Somerset. There’s just something that feels heavy about it.

I’m ok driving through it but we stayed overnight once and I did not like it at all.

Of course, the locals know that if you drive west of Cheddar you fall of the edge of the world…

@Kanaloa yes I knew the men in the photos were evil anyway but looking at certain (not all) of their faces was not pleasant because they just looked nasty & thuggish - yes they were 'just people' but they looked like the kind of men you would cross the street to avoid.

But a couple of them, although just as evil, just looked more ordinary and so I didn't get the shivers or sense of evil looking at their photos.

So I suppose as well as judging people on prior knowledge we also judge them by their looks.

And behaviour...
I've had certain patients (I work in a hospital) where several of us thought x patient is weird / creepy by their behaviour and they've turned out to be a paedophile or similar.
But that's from their actual behaviour giving cues.

To be totally honest I can't say I have ever sensed evil where I have had absolutely no prior idea or indication of evil.

Basically I am a person who doesn't believe in spiritual stuff or religion. I think science can explain everything in the world or will eventually.

Parts of the mountains where we live give an uneasy feeling and there’s a few routes I won’t walk with the dogs. I used to come across Jimmy Saville often when out walking and he made my skin crawl, this was long before his death and back then we told DD to give him a wide berth if she ever met him. There’s a valley where I walk often and I find it serene, calm and peaceful to be there, DH however hates me going there, he says evil lives in the heather 🙄.

@HippyMoon

This was a really interesting thread to read before the Meghan Markle shite started - pack it in ffs!

Well said.

My sisters and I wouldn’t join church choir when we were little as we felt there was something weird about the vicar. He was only ever nice to us and we liked to sing but there was a creepiness we could sense. Our folks couldn’t get what we meant but didn’t make us go. Years later he got done for paedophilia - with boys, as it happens. He killed himself in prison.

Not seen the Meghan hate but I don't have any negative opinions on her as she seems to have made Harry happy.
I think a lot of people don't like her because she's mixed race, American, dares to speak her mind.

A former colleague in his 40s was investigated and eventually admitted to having had sex with multiple underage girls, mostly his pupils.

I had absolutely no idea. Didn't feel anything was 'off' about him before I knew, didn't look back and think of anything that should have been a sign, didn't feel any kind of emanating creepiness when I had to have brief contact with him after it all came out. I never particularly liked him, but it was only ever for normal annoying coworker reasons. Meanwhile I can think of loads of people who've given me the creeps, but almost certainly had nothing wrong with them apart from being a bit socially inept and sometimes lacking awareness of people's need for personal space. (Don't get me wrong, I still avoid those people for my own sake, but I'm pretty sure they're not all paedophiles!)

Don't kid yourself into thinking you can 'just tell' by looking at a person. Sometimes you can't.

You do have to be careful with intuition - can be unconscious bias too.

@Lifeisaminestrone
Yes unconscious bias is the term I was looking for earlier!

I sense vibes off people yes not so sure about evil as such but I know what you mean.

@MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry

Sorry for your mum *@Alexandra2001*. Does she really believe some other power entered her attacker? I think for victims this is often a more comfortable conclusion to come to than accept that the person really wanted to hurt/kill them.

If evil doesn't exist, than neither can 'Good'

That’s not the comparison. It’s good and bad. Bad exists.

I remember helping him to cut some wood when i was 5yo, i couldn't hold it properly and the wood slipped, he hit me teeth down with the saw on top of my head, i was showered in blood..... was he evil? yes.

Fathers who beat the fuck out of their kid and wife aren't just bad, something else if going on.

In answer to your question, yes thats exactly what she believed.... he could come home and the place would be spotless aside from a magazine on the coffee table, that would be enough to completely flip, smash up anyone and everything in sight.

We were middleclass, lovely house in a posh part of London, he had a great job, no known MH issues or money worries.

Fortunately Mum left him after that and i ve never seen or heard from him since

There was a guy who worked for another company in my office building. I got the lift with him a few times and just couldn't wait to get out. I don't know why, he just made me feel so uneasy. He's was not unpleasant, said hello when we ( colleagues) bumped into him, smiled when it's appropriate to smile, exchanged appropriate small talk, but he just made me feel cold and uneasy. I thought it was just me. Didn't mention it to colleagues because I didn't want them to think I am "woo" or weird. And, as far as we know, he's was just a neighboring office worker.

One evening there were building drinks on the roof terrace, most of my office where there, he was there with colleagues and people from a few other companies. Most people had headed off. He was still there and I was still there with another female colleague, must have been around 20-25 people left. All good. Then, two of our senior male colleagues came back, they'd left together to head home and been gone for about half an hour. We asked why they'd come back and they made up some bullshit about having forgotten stuff in the office. They waited until I and female colleague wanted to leave and walked us to the taxi station then left again. Strange, but nothing was said.

About a year later we were having drinks all together and had had a bit to drink, we were talking about our building and the fact that this guys company had moved out came up. The male colleagues who'd came back to fetch us that evening mentioned that they were both glad he'd left and I asked why - their reply was "no idea but we talked about him when we left the roof party and decided to come back to make sure you two were okay, because his vibes were off". Conversation went on and another colleague admitted she'd nearly wet herself with fear when she bumped into him in the shared building kitchen one morning.

Up until that point no-one had ever mentioned him. At that point we of course googled the shit out of him and found absolutely nothing untoward.

Is he evil or not ? No idea. But he gave off serious "malaise".

@SommerTen - there achieved something today.

Re a sense of evil. I went to a death camp and the whole time I was there I wanted to leave.

It was a very strange feeling. It was very eerie and very few visitors but those whole three hours were an unpleasant experience. The thing I couldn’t understand too, was that the camp was on the main road and next to the town. It wasn’t even hidden so I don’t understand how no one could have guessed / felt what was happening there.

It's funny how subjective this all is. A previous poster talked about how she got creepy vibes from Dolphin Square in Pimlico. Over 10 years ago I spent a lot of time there as I was seeing someone who lived there. Apart from finding it a bit posh and stuffy, I never ever noticed any bad vibes at all. Although the place was so anonymous, it didn't surprise me that dodgy goings on had happened there!

@ParkheadParadise .

Fathers who beat the fuck out of their kid and wife aren't just bad, something else if going on.

Sorry you experienced this but I totally disagree with you.

@MorningStarling
I’ve had exactly the same at Newhaven fort but thought it was my claustrophobia
I don’t live in the SE any more but also had something similar on the under cliff walk from Rottingdean to Saltdean

@TatianaBis
I agree. As far as I can see, there are a lot of evil acts committed in the world and always have been. What else can torture,rape, murder, genocide, tyranny, slavery and serious child abuse be called but evil?
I also believe in the existence of the supernatural and the preternatural personification of evil, the Devil and his demons because I'm a Christian but I know many people don't. That does not mean that there is no evil though- see the above.
I'd suggest people who claim there's no such thing as evil do a bit more reading and research. M. Scott Peck's "The People of the Lie" is a good one and I'd also recommend reading about the Cluster B personality disorders and the "Dark Triad" personality traits.

[quote 2Gen]@TatianaBis
I agree. As far as I can see, there are a lot of evil acts committed in the world and always have been. What else can torture,rape, murder, genocide, tyranny, slavery and serious child abuse be called but evil?
I also believe in the existence of the supernatural and the preternatural personification of evil, the Devil and his demons because I'm a Christian but I know many people don't. That does not mean that there is no evil though- see the above.
I'd suggest people who claim there's no such thing as evil do a bit more reading and research. M. Scott Peck's "The People of the Lie" is a good one and I'd also recommend reading about the Cluster B personality disorders and the "Dark Triad" personality traits.[/quote]
P.S. and " The Gulag Archipelago" too!

No, never

I still feel guilty about something that happened many years ago. I was a very young mum. I lived in a tower block and I would often share the lift with a youngish dad and his daughter who was about 8-10 years old. I used to look at them and think to myself- she is being sexually abused by him. I did nothing about it because there was no substance but just my feeling and I was young. Anyway very sadly I found out years later that I was correct. He was abusing his daughter and her little friend. The friend told and it all came out but this was years later. I think about that poor little girl to this day.

I also believe in the existence of the supernatural and the preternatural personification of evil, the Devil and his demons because I'm a Christian but I know many people don't. That does not mean that there is no evil though- see the above.
I'd suggest people who claim there's no such thing as evil do a bit more reading and research.

Oh dear.

@MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry- Ah come on now, don't be disingenuous!
Does someone have to do something horrific to you or a loved one before you cop on? Surely not! If someone deliberately ran you off the road and left you for dead, I'm pretty sure you'd deem that an evil act- because it would be!

@MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry

*I also believe in the existence of the supernatural and the preternatural personification of evil, the Devil and his demons because I'm a Christian but I know many people don't. That does not mean that there is no evil though- see the above. I'd suggest people who claim there's no such thing as evil do a bit more reading and research.*

Oh dear.

What's the "Oh dear" for! I'm a Christian, have you a problem with that? If so, it's your problem, I'm not apologising for it!