Not everyone loves Hawthorne
The Hawthorne district is generally thought of as vibrant, if tending a bit too upscale these days. It's got bookstores, bakeries, a perfume store, a cat store, a coffee store, clothing stores (including one that sells both studded Goth wear and evanescent angel wings) and the Goddess Gallery. A bit of something for everyone.
According to a self-described Christian from Lake Oswego, it's also got evil.
In an article titled "Is the Northwest Spiritually Healthy?," the Christian News Northwest raises the question of whether the geography of the Pacific Northwest -- specifically its ley lines -- has anything to do with its reputation for being "spiritually black."
To quote from the article:
...Northwest believers are going to take proper spiritual authority over their region. They say the Christian community needs to repent for complacency that has allowed pagan worship practices to be strung like a web over the Northwest.
Author and spiritual mapper Carl Townsend of Lake Oswego works with Mission Portland. ... While he does agree that occultism and mysticism are evil forces working in the Northwest, he said ley lines also can be applied as a Biblical principle.
... Townsend said lines were clearly established in early Portland and the entire Northwest from the Willamette Stone benchmark in Portland's West Hills. He noted that even today, these lines clearly mark lands, which are spiritually darker than others. He said Portland's Hawthorne district is one of these areas.
"Hawthorne has always had evil forces within it starting with the Hawthorne Insane Asylum and currently with the witchcraft and other dark forces that are currently practiced openly within the neighborhood," Townsend said.
Well, there you have it. Not only is the Hawthorne district a spiritual sink but ley lines are to blame.
Footnote: Towsend and a couple of other dudes, one of them a former president of Multnomah Bible College, spent some time in the early '90s with church census data trying to map communities. I think the purpose was to see where the unchurched actually live, the idea being that few of them would be found in the neighborhood of Hawthorne. (This is wrongheaded on a couple of levels: Churchgoers do live in the area, for one, and spirituality always counts toward the good, whether its expression is accepted by "Christians" or not.) Anyway, during this time, Townsend said, he was attacked by "evil forces." A rare virus paralyzed him from the neck down, but he says prayer pulled him through. Then his wife died of leukemia.
Here's the trouble with do-it-yourself Christianity: How can you tell whether the viral attack was the result of evil forces? Maybe God was trying to send another message.
According to a self-described Christian from Lake Oswego, it's also got evil.
In an article titled "Is the Northwest Spiritually Healthy?," the Christian News Northwest raises the question of whether the geography of the Pacific Northwest -- specifically its ley lines -- has anything to do with its reputation for being "spiritually black."
To quote from the article:
...Northwest believers are going to take proper spiritual authority over their region. They say the Christian community needs to repent for complacency that has allowed pagan worship practices to be strung like a web over the Northwest.
Author and spiritual mapper Carl Townsend of Lake Oswego works with Mission Portland. ... While he does agree that occultism and mysticism are evil forces working in the Northwest, he said ley lines also can be applied as a Biblical principle.
... Townsend said lines were clearly established in early Portland and the entire Northwest from the Willamette Stone benchmark in Portland's West Hills. He noted that even today, these lines clearly mark lands, which are spiritually darker than others. He said Portland's Hawthorne district is one of these areas.
"Hawthorne has always had evil forces within it starting with the Hawthorne Insane Asylum and currently with the witchcraft and other dark forces that are currently practiced openly within the neighborhood," Townsend said.
Well, there you have it. Not only is the Hawthorne district a spiritual sink but ley lines are to blame.
Footnote: Towsend and a couple of other dudes, one of them a former president of Multnomah Bible College, spent some time in the early '90s with church census data trying to map communities. I think the purpose was to see where the unchurched actually live, the idea being that few of them would be found in the neighborhood of Hawthorne. (This is wrongheaded on a couple of levels: Churchgoers do live in the area, for one, and spirituality always counts toward the good, whether its expression is accepted by "Christians" or not.) Anyway, during this time, Townsend said, he was attacked by "evil forces." A rare virus paralyzed him from the neck down, but he says prayer pulled him through. Then his wife died of leukemia.
Here's the trouble with do-it-yourself Christianity: How can you tell whether the viral attack was the result of evil forces? Maybe God was trying to send another message.
posted by Fran at 12:50 PM
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