The time when the Georgia Pentecostal preacher done got Slain In the Spirit

It happened in Marjorie Taylor Green’s Congressional District . . . in the town, where she formerly lived before done getting a divorce!

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect & City Planner

We live in surrealistic times, where our daily lives seem to have become part of a science fiction disaster movie about the Apocalypse. First there was the Pandemic, then the devastation of western North Carolina, then the catastrophic wild fires in Hawaii and southern California . . . most recently it was teams of anonymous, twentyish, quasi-official hackers taking control of entire departments and agencies of the federal government.

For some people in the United States, particularly in Appalachia, surrealistic religious practices have been part of their lives since the late 1800s. These denominations began when a group of Methodist churches, primarily in northern Georgia, broke away from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South and formed Holiness denominations. In 1906, a particularly extreme form of Holiness movement appeared in Los Angeles, California and spread across the nation. They called themselves Pentecostal Christians.

Driving the Satanists out of the Shenandoah Valley

Remember Susan Karlson in The Shenandoah Chronicles? On the left is a snapshot that I took of her the first time we met in June 1991 . . . at the Wendy’s Restaurant in Front Royal, Virginia. She was two weeks from turning 26, but looked like a college freshman. That was her professional problem. She was newly minted FBI special agent, but no office wanted her, because she looked too young and pretty.

I now know that she was using an alias name and that the Juris Doctorate diploma from the University of Minnesota on the wall of her townhouse was a fake . . . but she was a very intelligent attorney . . . just not from Minnesota. She grew up in a Swedish-speaking part of Finland that was stolen by the Soviet Union in World War II. Hence the reason that she was fluent in Finnish, Swedish, Russian and English at age 25 . . . a very valuable asset for Uncle Sam . . . in the right job. She was just not suited for being stationed in a small FBI office, somewhere in a federal courthouse building in the small cities, where fledgling special agents are assigned.

So, the FBI placed her in a covert operation, working alone, in Winchester, VA. She opened a real estate law practice out of the house provided her in the worse neighborhood of Winchester, where she was supposed to attract wealthy clients, involved in organized crime. She attracted very few clients period, so had lots of time on her hands.

Despite growing up in a Swedish Lutheran Church, Susan joined a store-front Pentecostal church, which was focused on driving the Satanic cults out of the Shenandoah Valley. Along with the famous psychiatrist and author, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, I owned one of the farms that was experiencing night time attacks by what appeared to be black-clad Satanists. They were killing livestock and vandalizing farm buildings.

Susan’s “church” offered to perform ceremonies on the farm, which would drive away the demons. I figured that any help would be better than nothing. I owned a federally-licensed cheese creamery and Dr. Kubler-Ross had repeatedly complained in the national media, but up to that time, the FBI had not done anything.

Susan and her friends that I met at Wendy’s drove out to our farm then prayed as they sprinkled “holy water” from Israel on the farm’s boundaries. Susan then asked me to stand with her in the center of the front pasture, where she chanted a ritual in some strange language, anointed my head with olive oil from Israel then took some of that oil on my head and rubbed it on her head. She later confessed that she had performed an ancient Hebrew royal marriage ceremony in which she sanctified us for her anticipated joining of our souls.

Soon, the FBI relocated Susan to a posh townhouse in a gated community, east of Winchester and moved her to the Counter-Intelligence Division. She started attending a Lutheran church and put-aside the Pentecostal mumbo-jumbo. There were many occultists in the Valley and even in her church, but sprinkling water on fence lines was not going to expose them. However, the mass vandalism and livestock killings had been done by rogue U.S. Army soldiers from Fort Detrick, Maryland . . . working for a Texas real estate speculator.

There is much more to this story, which you will have to read in the book to understand. Let it suffice to say that we started working together as part of a big U. S. Department of Justice investigation. I was not paid a red cent, but like in my earlier services for the U. S. Navy, was promised a major professional opportunity as a reward.

We were personally involved in four real life events that became on-going plots in the X-files TV series, plus one X-Files program was entirely about an experience I had with a mega-wealthy international mining mogul in his terrifying mountaintop mansion in Virginia. He had invited me to his mansion to discuss designing a residential community, but once there, he repeatedly ask me if I was a federal counter-insurgency agent. (NOPE!)

The FBI had nothing to do with that nightmare, but in the TV version, Special Agent Scott Mulder visited the evil mansion with red carpets and red curtains . . . and walls festooned with the heads of animals. I cringed when watching that show. So many memories were stirred up out of oblivion. It was accurately based on my testimony at the Georgetown Hearings.

I was the most scared that I have ever been in my life . . . that evening in the mountaintop mansion. (Scene from the X-files)

Actually, I was friends with the real X-files couple, who were middle-aged, Ph. D. historians and high-ranking FBI employees. They were highly regarded and working covertly in the basement of the National Museum of American History.

Ten years and two children later, I still did not know Susan’s real name and had never seen where Susan lived in the Atlanta Area. We did get to nourish each other and attended Roswell United Methodist Church most weekends, but never spent more than a week together. (Mexico- July 2000) A nanny took care of our daughter and then later, our son, while Susan was with me.

Being courted by a hard core Pentecostal

In 2000, Susan was transferred to Washington, DC from the Atlanta Regional Office. From then on, I didn’t even know who she worked for, where she worked or where she lived. I have never seen our children. All I know is that our daughter looks like the gals in my mother’s family and our son looks like a blond Viking with “high cheek bones.” Susan had hard intelligence that the Satanists wanted to kill our children, because they were destined to be great enemies of Satan. Sounds like a movie, but that was the actually the situation, as explained by an investigator with the Georgia Department of Children and Family Services.

When she could get away to Jasper, GA where I lived, Susan posed as various women on internet dating sites. She used photos of women in other countries, whom she knew were deceased! She would show up at my house in varying hair colors and clothing styles. She encouraged me to see other women in between, so no one would guess that we were in a long term relationship.

I did not see Susan from early August 2000 till Christmas 2001. She never called and seldom e-mailed me during that period. I now know that she was working in the investigation of rogue FBI administrator, Robert Hansson, a long-time Soviet spy.

During the Robert Hansson period, one of those “other women” contacted me on the Christian Mingles dating website. She was 32, recently divorced, part Creek Indian . . . seemed safe enough – a college accounting professor . . . attended church every weekend . . . mother of a cute six year old daughter.

Once she thought that I was sufficiently hooked, the professor began trying to convert me to Pentecostal Christianity. One Sunday morning, she announced that she would buy me breakfast, if I would attend her Pentecostal church in another town. I agreed.

Initially, the service was little different than that of any evangelical church. They had a rock band to accompany the music. After about 20 minutes of singing traditional Protestant songs, the service changed radically.

Sandy stood up and shouted “Praise the Lord!” . . . after I spoke in tongues. (Swedish)

It was time for the Speaking of Tongues! People would stand up and utter gobbledy-gook. Then someone else would stand up tell us what God had said. I decided to test what appeared to be hokum. I told Sandy, “I feel the Spirit!” Sandy whispered, “Praise the Lord!” So, I stood up and said the first part of the Lords Prayer in Swedish.

Fader Vår, som är i himmelen . . . Helgat varde ditt namn.

Immediately afterward a middle-aged man in the sanctuary stood up and shouted, “The Lord has spoken to us. He commands us to buy a new van for the preacher and his family, so they will be safe, when they do the Lord’s work.”

Sandy immediately went into a trance, stood up, raised her arms to heaven and shouted repeatedly, “Praise the Lord.” I mumbled, “Yep, praise Lord Satan” . . . but Sandy didn’t hear me.

The sermon

The sermon was the last straw for me. The preacher repeatedly quoted a single sentence or part of a sentence from the Old or New Testament . . . paused for a couple of seconds . . . then stated something that might have come out of Mein Kampf or the type of speech that a KKK leader might give at a cross burning. It was pure, unadulterated blasphemy, but no one in the congregation seemed to realize what was going on. They soaked in the political propaganda like all his words were straight from God.

Music as a form of brain-washing

The final song of the church service was downright bizarre. The musical notes were clearly designed for something akin to hypnotism or mind-control. The tune was repeated over and over again, but at an increasing tempo. I could see most of the congregation going into trance . . . like a science fiction movie. What were these people up to? Then at the peak crescendo, the music stopped and everyone stood silent and blank-faced like zombies.

Church members would collapse to the floor after being touched by the preacher

Being slain in the spirit

The congregation began singing a beautiful old Protestant hymn. There was nothing seemingly wrong with that. Members then began slowly walking up to the front. Many denominations do that. It is named an “altar call,” where people claim to rededicate their lives.

Except in this church, the preacher began tapping those who came up front on the shoulders . . . whereupon they collapsed on the floor and appeared either unconscious or dead. Then other would cover their bodies with sheets of cloth. Say what?

Sandy explained that this was called “being slain in the Spirit’ or being “struck by the Spirit.” It symbolized the death of the old soul and the rebirth of the new soul. Okay, that’s fine, if that is what they want to do . . . but what about the symbolism of the preacher having god-like powers to kill people?

Then I remembered the time that I shorted out the U. S. Navy’s device for measuring body electricity. I rubbed my shoes back and forth against the church’s carpet.

Then I walked up front with Sandy. It came my turn to be touched by preacher. When the preacher touched me, there was a sharp crack! of static electricity, which startled all the folks around us.

The preacher fell back and landed flat on the carpet. He was knocked out cold. I looked around and decided that I ought to play possum too. With the help of several members, he eventually awoke. However, for the rest of the service . . . which he ended quickly . . . all the time, repeatedly glancing at me with a sweaty, red startled face.

The preacher followed Sandy and me out into the parking lot . . . but kept a safe distance. He still had that “What the heck happened?” look on his face as we drove away.

The Aftermath

Rev. Craddock was a nationally famous preacher, whose sermons filled Cherry Log Church to standing room only. Several times, he mentioned to Sandy and I that he looked forward to joining us in Christian marriage. Like me, he didn’t know that Sandy was legally married and just “playing single” with the help of those little pills. Thank God I didn’t tie the knot!

Sandy was apparently told that they didn’t want me back in her Pentecostal church. We began attending Cherry Log Christian Church, which was a satellite church of Peachtree Christian Church, where long ago, I had been a deacon. Yep, that’s the same “Cherry Log” that poet James Dickey wrote about! The entire congregation were warm and friendly. They assumed that we were living in sin and about to get married . . . but Sandy only visited with me for a couple of days at a time.

It turned out that we were being sinful. I learned that Sandy was not divorced. She was not even legally separated. However, by that time I was addicted to her.

There was literal addiction behind her high-energy persona. I discovered that she was taking some sort of pills that were not in a prescription bottle. She was addicted to something else stronger . . . hence the reason that she would only state two or three days at a time, even though it was summer vacation at the university.

I was still addicted to her libido, but erased any ideas of a long term relationship. Then she cooked a meal for me and added what was in her pills. I quickly felt really weird and instantly knew she had drugged me. There was a major confrontation. Out the door and out of my life she went.

I continued for awhile attending Cherry Log Christian, hoping to meet a nice woman, I could settle down with . . . who was there all the time. I was beginning to wonder, if I was just a baby daddy to Susan, plus someone to spend holidays with for R & R. Maybe I was.

Alas, without the perky, sexy, drug addict at my side, not a soul at Cherry Log Church would even speak to me. I was now a pariah to them. They figured that there was something wrong with me for not being able to hold on to that nice gal, Sandy.

Susan eventually reappeared in my life . . . for three more years . . . then ghosted me again.

It’s a jungle out there!