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)

When I was 16 I went to an agricultural college to do equine studies, awful place stuck in the country. There was a male student probably in his 40s I couldn't be in his company he made me feel so strange.

And I love hearing about all the dogs in this thread who could sense a wrong 'un

Dogs aren't as good as you think. I'm a nice, average person, never harmed anyone. Yet one dog started growling at me, and someone said "ooohh, dog can always tell the wrong 'uns". Turns out dog had a dislike of a certain perfume, which I'd worn that day.

It's good to be wary, but there are plenty of mundane reasons to cause a dog to react to someone.

Years ago a childhood friend of my dp moved to the uk on a contract and was living in a hotel. We went to visit him there one evening and met his new ‘friends’, a bunch of contractors also staying long-term at the hotel. Dp’s friend speaks no English whatsoever, but is a ridiculously naive, friendly and trusting guy - also very generous, and was basically hanging out with these guys in the bar every night buying them drinks. He couldn’t understand anything they said, but dp and I quickly understood they were Not Nice People and wanted to leave. Nasty banter making fun of our friend and us. Can’t remember what prompted it, but one of them made a serious-not-serious ‘joke’ alluding to the fact he’d rape me and my dp. Dp didn’t pick up on it and I was too scared (and utterly ashamed) to make a thing out of it - because by this time I was really frightened of these people - so we couldn’t get away immediately.

Remember being really fearful on the way home that they’d somehow find out where we lived. Ten years later and I can’t drive past the hotel or even see the name of the place it is in without feeling sickened.

Worked with a guy who everybody thought was amazing, people loved to be in his company etc. I could not put my finger on why he made me feel so uncomfortable and nobody could believe why I was saying it. A week before I left, he came to work covered in blood, he had raped and stabbed a teenage girl in a country lane.

There was an online grocery delivery man for one of the supermarkets here. When he first showed up I instantly had the heebie jeebies but brushed it off. The second and third time the same and then the fourth time he made a comment about how he noticed my partners car wasn't in the driveway and he tried to bring the groceries right into the house instead of put them in the porch like usual, I had to almost shout at him not to.
My friend said she has got a strange vibe from him too although he had never done anything she could really put her finger on.
We found a few years later that he had been arrested and convicted of owning child pornography, and he was also found with footage and photos of women and kids in houses he had delivered to, and he had a house that he rented rooms out to women and he had set up cameras in the bathroom!

I'm not a particularly animal lover, but I felt terrible in Seaworld Olando. Like I was going to be sick when I saw the animals were kept.
Also babysat in an old house. One child sleepwalked, there was a crying boy picture, and keys kept falling off the wall. Something felt evil about that house.

@oakleaffy not to go off topic, but I just had to say your post is extremely similar to what I experience with sleep paralysis.

@Opal8 I know exactly what you mean about Stonehenge. I visited on a busy day last summer and it was silent. No background noise at all. I couldn't get over it. You'd expect traffic noise, chatter, birdsong but there was nothing.

@Verbena87 just wanted to say thank you for making that distinction (re. Picking up on difference and reaction being fear, NTs vs NDs, etc.)

Yes a wedding venue my ex and I went to view, lovely old venue in North Wales (for the wedding which never happened🙌). We toured the whole venue, mainly small rooms, until we were shown the top floor which would have been most suitable. As the wedding organiser was giving her pitch I felt absolutely full of terror, turned to ex who asked if I felt it too and we got out of there as fast as we could. Will never forget that sense of evil, we weren’t religious but after a few days of trying to rationalise it went to see a vicar.

We since read that the spot we’d been standing on had been used to hang people. It was 22 years ago, but will never forget that experience.

I believe acts of evil certainly exist - (look back through history if you don’t believe me), though it’s happening all around us all the time, now as well as in the past, and sadly it will in the future, too. I sincerely believe there are people who possess evil traits, and carry out evil acts, though, as SituationCritical says, it’s not always obvious to the majority that it is being carried out until (or even if), the perpetrators are caught and held to account. Whether they are possessed by evil, learn it, or are inherently evil is a moot point, and this is probably a topic for another discussion.

I do believe dogs can sense better than we can.
Many years ago a friend used to spend his school holidays with his grandparents in Ireland, they owned the village garage and their dog would sit outside and passers by would pat her and stop for a chat, nice friendly happy wee dog but my friend recalls there was one man who the dog would back away from
and growl at, everyone was mystified, years later the man was arrested for child abuse spanning decades.

Years ago I lived in a small town in Germany (Weeze), and every Saturday afternoon there was a train crossing that I went over to go to the swimming pool (I’d ride my bike there with my friend). If I mis-timed my journey I’d be stuck at the crossing waiting for a long cattle / freight train to go past that used to absolutely terrify me (i was around 8 so not fully aware of the holocaust at that time).

There is an awful bridge near were we live. Very narrow, gets very narrow under a train track and very dark with a unlit park one side and quite a fair way away some houses. Always frightened the crap out of me, as when a train goes past, the noise could drown out any screams and the dark no one can see you. My dad would always walk me, my mum or my nan under it. Its ways got "history" and stories of horror as its been like it at least from early 19th century. My neice (16) walked alone under it and told me a group of young blokes appeared from no where and were quickly walking to catch her up. I thank my lucky stars a chap in his 40's (prob a local) walked with her and said "I can see them just walk with me" up to the main road and watched her get on a bus. Thank you x

@MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry

Well evil doesn’t exist, so no, but you can certainly form accurate gut instincts about people based on unconscious signs they give off.

Evil doesn't exist? Of course it does.

Definitely had creepy vibes off people and places. I seem to attract the weirdos on public transport and out and about.
I was about to hit a narrow and very busy bit of road so I hopped off my bike and decided to walk the last bit home. Clocked this guy ambling along towards me and just got a bad feeling off him. Somehow he ended up getting me to stop and talk to him for over half an hour, kept offering to walk me home, asked me my address, how long I lived there who I lived with. If anyone was going to be home. Invited me back to his for some casual drugs, persisted in offering to make sure I got home safe even though he'd made it clear it was completely in the wrong direction for him. Just wouldn't drop it. Eventually had to fake needing the loo to get away from him but it was really hot and I had smart trousers and a blouse on. So I just started walking but he kept following me and talking at me. Insisting he take me home. I was getting a bit freaked out by this point so had to jump on my bike and make a dash for it. Took a detour to try and loose him and dashed in my house quickly and quietly so he couldn't see where I had gone. Told my husband at the time and he thought it was suspicious. Lived in a dodgy area and he is a PC. Two months later he asked me to describe this guy to him again and said he matched the description of a guy who'd been to court for murdering some poor girl after inviting her back to his.
One of my OH's best friends growing up turned out to be a massive distributor of the most severe types of child pornography. We had no idea, he was a nice bloke, quiet, but weirdly absolutely terrified of children, almost seemed repulsed by them if you even offered to hand him a baby. My husband was devastated when he found out. Thought he should have known somehow with him being a pc.

I do sometimes wonder if places can hold onto evil. There was a spot in my Nan and Pops house on their landing outside their bedroom that just oozed malice. Felt like something really didn't want you there and that you were being watched and preyed on. I always thought it was me being an overly sensitive child but when I spoke to my brother and cousins as adults, they pretty much everyone in my family they all felt the same, even as adults. After my Nan died my dad had the house "cleansed" by a pastor, he felt something evil had been invited in, because of my Pops association with the Free Masons.
I do think my family have experiences of waking nightmares or sleep paralysis which would probably explain a lot of their horrible experiences of places.
But I vividly remember one night I did feel like there was something vile lurking outside my brother room. Felt a bit stupid but I did tell it to go away. My brother said the next morning he felt like something was trying to throttle him and kill him in his sleep. My dad said he'd felt something disturbing in the house for a few days before then but it had gone by the morning. I get swept along by mine and other peoples emotions and opinions very easily, and always been curious as to why. I do love old places but rarely had bad feelings in them.

Even spirits are very real, you may not be able to see them (although some people and animals do) but they inhabit or hang around people and places. It’s all complex, but the bottom line is, yes, your human spirit (beyond your natural self) is sensing something in the spirit realm and in this case, it wasn’t good.

@oakleaffy by any chance, was this hostel in Kent ?

@TurquoiseDragon

And I love hearing about all the dogs in this thread who could sense a wrong 'un

Dogs aren't as good as you think. I'm a nice, average person, never harmed anyone. Yet one dog started growling at me, and someone said "ooohh, dog can always tell the wrong 'uns". Turns out dog had a dislike of a certain perfume, which I'd worn that day.

It's good to be wary, but there are plenty of mundane reasons to cause a dog to react to someone.

I was being just a wee bit facetious with that post. My own dog doesn't like men in hats. Is he rational? Probably not. I know he's got my back though.

@HappyDays40

I thoroughly creeped out just reading your account! That's utterly hideous!

My dads father was an evil man. We were at my grandmothers house one day and he turned up (he didn't live there anymore). I was only a toddler and my grandmothers dog, who was the most docile animal I've ever known, would not let this man near me. He was snarling and growling and went to bite him when he reached over to me to give me some money. My parents said that they had never seen the dog do this before. It could obviously sense that he was dangerous.

@TatianaBis

And in terms of criminality and the law the term evil is pretty unhelpful

Is it? How do you differentiate between someone who murders one person and one who murders millions?

All it actually means is ‘profoundly immoral’.

Not by employing biblical or mythological terminology that’s for sure.

Evil implies that some people are inherently wicked, almost other worldly, but we know that’s not the case, yeah sure biological psychiatry tells us certain brains are more predisposed to acts of violence and ASPD but it’s not pure nature, there are huge social events that trigger what we’d colloquially deem evil. Distinguishing certain people as evil I think is interesting on a discursive level because I think it implies they are something other than human, and all humans are capable of ‘evil’ acts.

Ps I used to think of certain people like the boys in the bulger case as evil but I went to a seminar by a scholar who wrote extensively on mass murderers and she took objection to the term evil and also to that children are inherently good and innocent.

Yes, this has definitely happened to me a few times. Some of it them may be unfounded, but I always trust my spidey sense. As far as I know none of them committed a serious crime. There was one in particular who was quite pushy with me (I was married and he was not someone in my inner circle), I later met and found out from his ex work colleagues was he was universally hated at work although I never got to the bottom of why this was other than "he was a complete scrote" and he and his wife lived separate lives in the same house and he hated his son.

I have a sixth sense with male "cheaters" as well. I can pick them out easily from just being around them, often with their partners, in social situations.

@Kanfuzed123

The adjective “evil” doesn’t have supernatural meaning.
You just infer supernatural meaning because the noun “evil” can have supernatural meaning.

I also don't believe in "evil" (noun) although people can (and do) commit some vile/evil? acts. Over the centuries the personification of evil was the devil (in Western Christian culture at least) which lead to a lot of scape-goating rather than taking personal responsibility and, in turn, learning from this.

The late great Reverend Desmond Tutu gave a talk at my university and said that using 'evil' as some abstract distant thing isn't helpful and we should always remember that we are all capable of acts of evil. It is part of humanity and keeping an awareness of it is important.