CHARLO, New Brunswick, July 28, 2023 – We know that when we convert, we become a particular target of the devil.

He wants us back.

I’ve known this ever since I was reborn 24 years ago, but lately I’ve come to know it especially intimately.

A very strange phenomenon started occurring shortly after I was born-again. I didn’t really pay much attention to it at the time, as I thought it was just people “misremembering” or getting their dates and other facts wrong. But lately it’s been so in-my-face, I’ve had to consider where it’s coming from, and why.

Here’s the phenomenon – people swear they see me in places I haven’t been, saying and doing things I haven’t said or done. It goes something like this: I meet someone for the first time, and he (it’s almost always a “he”) tells me we’ve met before and names the place. I tell him I’ve never met him before and have never been to that place, but he insists that I must be wrong. He swears I must be wrong.

Now, having a look-alike is nothing new. Nearly everyone has at least one somewhere in the world. But the problem is that my “evil twin” is, well, evil. She does bad things and says bad things, and it gets the guys all riled up. Sometimes she’s incredibly rude, and sometimes she’s lascivious. So when I meet these guys for the first time, they’ve already informed a very strong opinion about me because they think I’m her. Their opinion depends on their interaction with my doppelganger.

For example, it led to a taxi driver becoming obsessed with me and following me around everywhere I went when I visited a city a few years ago. He would lurk outside my windows at night, leaving little clues that he’d been there. I was only able to shake him off my trail when I left town early one morning using a limo service instead of a cab (I figured he’d been monitoring the cab calls on his dispatch radio). The night before I left, he’d written my name using little pieces of wood, laid them on the ground in front of my door, and lit them on fire. I have no idea how he found me at that location. Then there was the guy who swore that I constantly swore at him one summer a few years back while we were staying at a university residence. The only problem is I had never stayed at that residence before and I was somewhere else that summer. When I met the guy for the first time last year at the residence, he flew into a rage and accused me of previously verbally abusing him. Based on this false recollection, the guy has since got me banned from all the residences at that university.

As I said, we become targets once we’re born-again. I’ve learned to take everything in stride and acknowledge that if God permits it, it’s either a punishment or a test. Whichever it is, I accept it, submit to God, and learn from it. I only mention my evil twin today because she’s made an appearance again, this time near a small town where I’ve been staying for the past few months. Her reappearance has finally put the phenomenon front and centre for me. I can’t ignore it anymore or just write it off as someone “misremembering”. I need to see it for what it is and accept that it’s part of my life now.

Another taxi driver I just met swears he talked to me last week at a nighttime event I never attended. He got very sullen when I insisted I hadn’t been anywhere near the event. I have no idea what my evil twin said to him, but he was definitely expecting something more from me than just the fare and a tip.

I talked to God about this phenomenon a few hours ago, wanting to clear everything with him before I publish it. He reminded me that Jesus was also falsely accused of things he didn’t do, and that his accusers contradicted each other with their claims. The same thing happened to Paul and other followers of Jesus, including the disciples. That part of scripture always kind of bothered me because I couldn’t tell whether the accusers were purposely lying or had simply “misremembered”.

Now I believe they were subject to the same spiritual phenomenon as all the people who swear they’ve met me before. Not being under God’s protection, they’re easy prey of the devil. What they’re seeing is not me (obviously) and not even a person: it’s a spiritual hallucination or vision. They think they’re seeing me, but it’s not me. It’s not anyone. Hallucinations and visions can seem very real to the person experiencing them and interacting with them, which is why the guys get so angry with me when I tell them I’ve never met them before. They think I’m playing them for fools.

This phenomenon occurs in every culture in the world and goes under various names like “doppelganger”, “evil twin”, “nemesis”, and “apparitions”. Unfortunately, the appearance of these visions will likely plague me, as a born-again believer, for the rest of my time on Earth. They’ll also likely get increasingly compromising: I have no idea what my evil twin will get up to next. Like I said, Jesus and others in the Bible had to deal with this same issue; it’s just part and parcel of being a child of God. Now that I know what it is, I’m aware of it and I fully trust God to protect me from it.

Again – if God permits it, he wants us to submit to it and learn to deal with it knowing that he’s always got our back.

So, if you happen to see me out and about, saying and doing things that are decidedly unchristian, it’s not me. It’s my evil twin.

Just ignore her.  d: