DEMONS

"I saw mostly dark impish creatures in the rafters, and in corners of churches growing up. I wasn't alone in this. A number of people won't set foot into churches because of the dark entities invisible to most living in the buildings. As a rule the average Baptist, Methodist, AME, and fundamentalist denominations do not spiritually clean their buildings. People often come into church with dark entities attached to them. Demons are cast out, and often hang around in the building because it is receptive to them.

You see the practice of spiritual cleaning was not taken up by Western Christianity from the ancient Hebrews. The Hebrew practice of spiritual cleansing had been seen as the Devil's work for a long time. In fact bathing was condemned by church father's in Europe for centuries. Traveling and stealing in countries around the world the Christian missionaries condemned spiritual practices of cleanliness  and outlawed those practices.

I am stronger now, and know a few things I didn't know as a child and a young man. It is still pointless, in my experience, to talk about these things in the church. People are still gripped in old European traditions of thought and belief in the Black church." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 8.26.12

Angels in the Rafters by Sarah Jenkins