Tell us about the time your printer got possessed!
Right!
So, once upon a time, in my first year at University (adult transfer student, Religious Studies, Jesuit university), I was writing a final paper for my Historical Jesus class on the topic of whether Jesus was perceived as possessed by his contemporaries, and, if so, in what way.
So, naturally, I was digging through JSTOR and such for existing papers on possession in the relevant time period and in Hebrew scripture, Hellenic lore, etc.
Every time I tried to print out one of these academic papers on the topic of possession, my printer would one or two pages in and then start printing in tongues, like
"We may extrapolate from this context tha anilte ycintɨ ȳȥǵǓ ʘɊǢʋ ɩǺʈ Ƞɇ ʩɝ"
I'd sigh, look at whatever the last properly printed page was, put the misprinted page back in upside-down, and pick the printing back up from the next full page. Two, three pages... aaaaaand weird gibberish printing. Almost but not quite like clockwork.
Finally, FINALLY, ONE paper printed completely correctly all the way through! Aaaaaaand I realized upon reading it that it wasn't about "Possession in the Bible" in the sense of divine/spirit/demon occupation of mortal bodies, but rather, "Possession in the Bible" as in ownership of objects.
Two more papers to print, yet, and sure enough, as soon as the topic was spirit possession, the printer would get a couple pages in and go back to printing in tongues.
I did manage to get a clean printing of the assignment itself, though that, too, required printing one or two pages at a time at most.
I told the story to the pastors in the Campus Ministry. They were rather alarmed, both by the story, and by my taking it all so casually.
I explained to the Interfaith Pastor that I'd chosen the topic because of my own training in possession trance techniques - including banishing - and was therefore not worried I couldn't handle an inanimate object getting seized by spirits.
Of course, after the class was over, we got rid of that printer. If nothing else, it deserved to retire, poor thing.
I still have the printouts. I don't want to have to print those papers again on any new printer, just in case.
But I did get a very good grade on the assignment!
