The Whooping Boy and a Rolling Calf

I was taught very early in my Christian experience what demons are, what fallen angels are, and what spiritual princes are. I had to contend with them all. My first experiences started as a child even before I knew the Lord. I remember we lived in a very dark area at that time; dark in every way. One day my brother was out on the front porch washing his feet in a basin before going to bed. We didn’t have the luxuries you have now. As he was sitting on the porch, he saw a shadow of a man creeping up by the fence. The man lifted up something to throw it over the fence. My brother recognized him in the darkness and called, “Larry, I see you!” The man got frightened and ran back with the thing in his hand. Immediately after this, he went mentally crazy. I asked my mother, “What happened?” She answered, “That is sorcery. The man was bringing something to throw over our fence, so that some spirit would have power to oppress us, attack us, hurt us, or even kill us. As your brother called to him, he made the mistake to run back to his house with whatever he had and the dumb spirit attacked him.” In other words, a spirit is like a dog that you train to attack. If you give him a scent of a person and tell him to attack that person, he goes after him. However, if you make the mistake and turn back with it, he attacks you instead. That young man lost his life.

Another time, and I will never forget this, when I was still a little boy, my Grandfather was sitting at his desk working one night. Suddenly, he heard a sound as if someone was dragging his feet and coming up to his door. As it reached the door, it knocked three times, “Bam! Bam! Bam!” My Grandfather threw the door open to see a boy, who had died a few days earlier, standing there. My grandfather got mad. “Who sent you here?” he asked. “It’s, oh, uh, … it’s my papa. Papa sent me,” was the reply. My Grandfather said very firmly, “Go back to your papa!” The spirit drew back and never came again. Is that a fable? This is what hell is.

I would see different things in the spiritual realm as a boy, until one day I experienced something very peculiar. There was a devil that used to come around our area at Christmas time. From that time I started disliking Christmas, because the devils seemed to have more power at Christmas than at any other time. Look at the statistics of those who die on the road at Christmas time and you will understand for yourself that the devils have more power that day. This devil was what we, in Jamaica’s backward area, call the “whooping boy and the rolling calf.” It was a cow but had fire coming down from its eyes like tears. It would go through the darkness with its chain rattling behind it and a man would drive it. He would flash the whip “pow,” the cow would shout “wooooo,” and people would be terrified. I found out afterwards that this terror is the same terror the terrorists use. They want people to be afraid so that they can possess them. There is power in fear and if they can make you afraid, they can possess you. And so, the people in our area were afraid.

I might have been about twelve years old at that time. This particular Christmas the rolling calf started coming and I started getting mad. It was one little problem I had, I would get angry. I was mad at this thing that it could come and terrify my whole district. My mother and father were in bed terrified, everybody was terrified, and I was mad and decided that I was going to stop it. The saying went that if you went out and looked at the calf, you were a goner as it was going to kill you. But some of the spirits don’t have much sense; they are very dumb. I could show you the nature of them and tell you story after story about how dumb some of them are. And so, I went out to see this spirit, because I knew they said if you saw it, it would kill you. Remember, I was mad and didn’t think it could kill me. I wanted to fight it. When I went out, it was pitch dark. All I could see were two eyes of fire. I went back to my room. No sooner than I went in, the thing with a great racket (it had to make a noise for the noise was to terrify people) jumped our eight-foot fence. It jumped it, the chain made a “drdrdrdrdr” sound, thus terrifying everybody, and it started running around the house. When it ran around three times, it bounced the house. Our house had seven bedrooms and as it bounced it, the whole house shivered. Everybody was awake and frightened and I was mad. I didn’t know what to do. It came to my door and knock, “knock-knock-knock,” three times. Since then, I have learned that spirits always knock three times. I don’t know why and have asked God why it is so, but have not found out yet. But every demon I have known and every devil I have met who comes and knocks, knocks three times.

In this particular instance, I didn’t know what to do, and so I did nothing. It was the story for that night. But guess what? It came back again the next night. This time I knew what to do, because I knew what he was going to do. I knew he was coming to my door to knock and I wanted to meet him personally. I felt like I could tear the thing to pieces. I wanted to see him! I went to the door while he was carrying on his terrifying tricks of running around the house. I opened the door and stood behind it. He came and knocked, “knock-knock…” I jumped out and I tell you I was a ball of fire. That is probably what he saw – a ball of fire. He took off and never came back.