THE MYTH:
A woman wakes up during the night with a feeling of terrible evil close by. When she opens her eyes, she sees a man standing in the doorway of her closet. The closet light is on, and he is standing in that lighted patch, staring directly at her. He appears to be a handsome man, with pale skin and jet black hair and dark eyes. But the woman discerns that there is something supernatural about him. Indeed, he is not a real man at all, but Satan himself manifesting in her room! The woman yells, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus!"
Instantly, the man vanishes in thin air.
VARIATIONS:
The physical details of Satan's appearance sometimes vary slightly, but he is always described as "a handsome man".
COMMENTS:
This story is an interesting commentary on Pentecostal psychology. We would think that a woman, waking and finding a strange man in her room, would describe him as "frightening", rather than "handsome". By calling attention to his pleasing physical appearance, it is implied that the woman is actually sexually attracted to the stranger who appears to her while she is alone in her bed. Pentecostals usually view women as being sexually dangerous creatures. While male lust is usually put down to human failing or excessive temptation, women's sexual feelings are viewed as intrinsically evil. The connection is made very directly in the story, since the man who appears to be so handsome turns out to be not a man at all, not even a demon, but Satan himself. Therefore, the lust for men that the woman in the story feels is actually a lust for Satan. If she gives in to it, she might perhaps lose her life, even her soul.
The woman in the story conquers her enemy by her spiritual discernment--by sensing that there is evil afoot and overcoming it with the usual Pentecostal weapon: the "name of Jesus" incantation. The lesson: a woman who is not Pentecostal (and therefore not protected or tuned in to the spiritual realm) is probably a handmaid and consort of Satan.
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