Please note I am a born again Christian myself and believe any incidents described below are very few and far between and many are helped by the beliefs that I am outlining. This is not an anti Christian thread or an anti deliverance thread or an anti belief in demonic forces against the Christian church thread, -just it makes more sense if you know how things may work in the kind of church I suspect they were involved with.
I just tried to read through the threads and eventually realised there was not a lot more at the end than the beginning except the religious angle. I kept thinking I was gettng to the end........Here are my ponderings......thoughts......
Sheri had told people that she was a witch, I think you are more likely to do that in the context of telling someone 'I was a witch, but now I am a Christian.' However you might, as a witch or a deluded mentally unstable person say that to your neighbours, or even just to freak neighbours out for fun. However, if you are involved with a church, and I read somewhere they were going to church and prayer meetings, then that is a perception you would want to correct.
They were both attending religious help for their marriage. Bibles and stuff are left open on the table. If you are religious like that then the thing you are likely to take with you is a BIBLE. Was there a Bible in the car? If there wasn't then that would be the thing you are most likely to take on a prayer meeting or prayer walk and most Christians who were involved in the kind of Christanity I think they may have been would leave everything BUT their Bible for a prayer walk, and the first thing they would do is go and pray on the land about the land they were thinking about buying. Were there any Bibles missing?
Whatever her psych problems, the video shows someone who may have a past which may contain the belief they were a witch, and a present where they could well believe they would come under some kind of oppression from demonic powers/demons or even need some kind of deliverance from them. Sherilyn may have been a witch who had changed and become a Christian and that explains all the demon stuff. The couple would both believe that the demons associated with witchcraft would want to get them back. OR the SO who is more into the Christian stuff may believe that their SO needs help to get rid of demons. That explains all the house stuff with demons on the roof. It is not actually as disturbed so much as a belief system that may not have had time to settle down.
Bob clearly believes there is some kind of demonic attack; so the lovely house may not then have been very appealing because it was under what he believed was a demonic attack; and possibly Sherilyn is spraying the things they intend to take with them and the area they intend to go to with the idea in her head that this will somehow protect the family or the possessions. You may not want to leave all you have under normal circumstances, but sometimes people do give up all they own for the sake of their faith and go live a simpler life - yes could be cultish but it is not always a cult inspired decision. They are possibly making a religious statement. 'I leave it all behind.' That means the money being left is not actually so odd.
I could not say for sure what happened here, and in NO way am I implying the Christian church is bad, or even that the belief in demons within it is wrong, but sometimes mental health issues and a belief in demonic issues coincide. It is always a difficulty for Minsters of religion to know where one ends and the other begins because ministering to both and in both ways can be helpful. Without care and training in counselling etc, it can go wrong. Or it can go wrong because the person will not accept help and referrals etc to mental health services.
(When I saw the notes in the video I was reminded of a case that happened years ago in the UK where a guy who was convinced he needed help for deliverance from evil spirits (but had not had this or was in the church type process) of getting it strangled his wife in bed, during the night. In that case the likelihood is that the person was actually mentally ill and there is a difference -or so I believe, although it is not as simplistic as that.)
Could one or other of them become so convinced of the power of the demonic in the house that they wanted to escape. Could they have decided to give up all possessions and follow the Lord? Could they have then misguidedly walked off into the forest believing they would be able to survive?
Maybe also given there is some kind of evidence of a new beginning, they just wanted to go and live a simpler life according to biblical principles, but one or other of them felt pushed by some kind of power to end it all for them?
Or even more simply they could have decided to go pray in the area about it and wandered to far? That would also explain why they left everything and the dog.
S seems to have believed she had some kind of supernatural power. A Christian minister would not be happy to hear that someone believes they have powers because deliverance ministry in itself is considered a specialist field for someone with a lot of experience and never associated with dead people's powers- the Minister is more likely to have thought S delusional. I do think that whatever happened, S may have been acting weirdly because of her mental state and her beliefs. The difficulty is with delusional people seeking religious advice, that they then refuse the psychiatric help they need and often also come off their meds because in their delusion they are doing what God says. Bi polar people tend to see things as black and white and react accordingly. There is none of the grey middle ground so that 'go sell all you have" does not hear 'look after the needs of your child in a sensible way."
The best friend's description of S is more like someone who is not taking their meds than someone on illegal drugs. The couple may have some drug taking past, but usually people seeking religious help do not want to stay on drugs. I do not think they were taking anything unless they were really new converts.Even then it is likely they would try not to.
I do agree that Maddyson looks terrified in the photo - and if they were talking demons and stuff in front of her she might be. I can imagine a child hearing parents talking about the need to pray for an area and hearing a belief that there might be spirits in it being very terrified if they did not understand the power of God to remove them. That would make sense of her body language and her facial expression in the picture. Whatever was happening up there I doubt if the conversations between mummy and daddy were making a lot of sense and it is pretty scary anyway to learn you are leaving your nice house to go live in the woods! Just being in those woods she might be scared.
A change from anti to pro Christianity might explain the change in what S wrote about B. Maybe even a positive faith statement. Sometimes that is done to state the positive over a negative in Christian circles.
I think there is a strong possibility that the religious stuff plays into this somewhere. However I think that it may be mixed with mental illness and in the end with all of that they could still be lost in the forest.
Just....if you went for a prayer meeting which I think given the way they were apparently going, is a possibility) then you WOULD more likely leave the dog, your cell phones and your money -probably.
I think they are lost out there and just have not been found, but that a second possibility is that one of them killed the other two and committed suicide.
It may be that this is what the mother thinks and why she kept quiet - because she may have realised this was very possible given things she had picked up on.
