I-Doll

By J. Andrew Taylor

          There are few universal fears (not including the phobias) that everyone can relate to regardless of culture, personal experience or psychosis.  To name a few, there is the fear of the dark, reptiles, clowns and dolls.  It is a general rule that the majority of humans are afraid of the same things.  Yes, some people keep snakes, and dolls, but I believe that they do this as a way of controlling their inherent fear and that fear becomes a tolerance at best and an obsession at worst.  Let’s focus on the fear of dolls.  Why do most people put the fear of dolls so high on their list of personal fears?  The answer is just a little disturbing, but here we go nonetheless.

          Every culture no matter how remote and every civilization has in one way or another created images and endowed that image with “life” in some way.  As long as mankind has been on Earth, civilizations have made statues or images of either animals or human to depict their gods or human kings and queens that where considered “divine”.  The Assyrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Aztec, Incan and Mayan are just a few of the major cultures that have done this profusely.

          Every religion throughout history has created images of gods and treated them, in one way or another, as if the idols somehow exhibited either the best or worst of every human emotion, thought or spirit.  As “modern” people, we run the danger of distancing ourselves from those ancient peoples and attributing their idol worship as “naiveté” or “primitive” religious beliefs.  I say, YES.  This practice is both naïve and primitive; and by that I mean that it is a basic, in-born and primitive human inclination.  As proof of this, I submit that you yourself have either witnessed, or practiced it.

          When an angry mob wants to protest and symbolically “kill” a political leader, they first create an effigy of that leader and usually mutilate or burn that image.  The practice is also seen in the Voodoo religions in the form of dolls that are mutilated and tortured in place of a real person.  Another familiar case in which we recognize “life” in a doll is the ventriloquist’s dummy.  Sure, we laugh at and like this doll, but the fact still remains that we see human characteristics in it that is separate from the performer.  The list goes on.  The fact is that there is REAL POWER in these practices.  There is a spiritual truth here.  You may yet feel a distance from those practices and judge them archaic or antiquated.  Remember, if you will either yourself or your own children playing with dolls and stuffed animals; and to them, they are “real”.

          If you have ever watched a little boy playing with action figures or a little girl playing tea party with her dolls and having conversations with them you will understand what I mean.  To the little girl for example, every single one of her dolls has a distinct personality and “voice” and she communicates with them as if they were ‘real’.  Now, the question here is a little “spooky”.  Did the little girl simply “imagine” the doll having a voice, or is there an entity that somehow “claimed” that doll as its own image and infused its spirit into the doll and therefore gave “life” to the doll.  My answer is simple.  There is a reason that the word “image” is in the word “imagine”.  The two go hand in hand.  This habit of attributing “life” to dolls is pervasive in popular culture.  The “Toy Story” movies come immediately to mind.

          Further still, here is a quote from the much loved novel; “A little Princess” by Frances Hodgson Burnett:

          “What fascinated Ermengarde the most was [Sara's] fancy about the dolls who walked   and talked, and who could do anything they chose when the human beings were out of          the room, but who must keep their powers a secret and so flew back to their places ‘like   lightening’ when people returned to the room.”

          And because of this, there is a real reason most humans would list “fear of dolls” very high on their lists of spooky things.

          Mankind has always had an inborn fixation with created images and endowing them with human characteristics i.e. emotions, thoughts, spirit etc.?  The answer is that we ourselves, are created images that have emotions, thoughts and spirit.  God created us in HIS image and endowed us with such things that make us HUMAN. We are “spirits inhabiting a physical form”. Demonic spirits are jealous of our relationship with God and, having no physical form themselves, crave status as “spirits in a physical form” and jump at the chance and have for ages past, encouraged fallen man to provide them with those forms; i.e. graven images, idols, ‘divine’ statues and dolls.  The ultimate prize to any demon is to actually possess not just a created image, but to possess a human being instead.

            Did you ever see a doll’s innocent face and imagined that you could ‘feel’ a spirit behind those staring eyes looking back at you?  Somehow our spirits ‘feel’ a living thing inside the graven image.  How many ‘scary’ movies have been made where a dolls face gave you the creeps just by looking at it?  There may be a reason for that feeling. This is the same thing that the ancients ‘felt’ when they worshipped those statues and idols as gods.  Their spirits could ‘feel’ the living thing in the image.   Let me end by saying that NOT ALL man-made images ARE inherently possessed, but that all have the POTENTIAL for it depending on the spiritual significance we assign to them.  I believe that God knew this when he commanded us:

Exodus 20:4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.”

We have been warned.

Sleep tight