How Cats Keep Evil Spirits Away
I’ve always found the legends and mythologies surrounding cats to be quite interesting. Some cultures believe that they rule the underworld. Some believe they steal your breath while you sleep. Still others believe it is a bad omen for a black cat to cross your path.
The most interesting to me is the rumour that they help to keep your home free from ghosts or evil spirits. I have a simple and satisfying theory based on my own experience as to how cats may have acquired this useful ability. I shall introduce this theory to you via two anecdotes:
1) Between moving out of my parent’s basement and moving in with my girlfriend I had an apartment completely to myself. At night, when I turned the lights off and climbed into bed, I took any noise very seriously. Creaking boards, taps on the wall, moaning, all these noises stirred me to nervous wakefulness.
In order to convince myself that the noise was not anything to worry about, my mind would immediately begin to search for things could have caused it. Was it the building settling? Was it the wind? Was I still dreaming when I heard it?
For the lifeless taps and creaks, these answers were sufficient to calm me. With the noise identified as a simple, inanimate physical event, I could go immediately back to sleep.
Once, I was plagued by a soft but persistent noise that was quite obviously very alive. To me, it sounded like a person standing in the room with me scratching themselves or quietly leafing through a book.
I rose on several occasions, jumping out of bed at the sound to claw at the wall in search of the light-switch. Over several exhaustive searches of the room, I became increasingly agitated as I failed to find signs of anything that could be making this noise.
I’ll cut this story short and tell you that the culprit ended up being a moth that had been trapped between my window and the screen. Once identified, calm relaxation resumed.
2) After moving in with my girlfriend and her cat, it took me a little time to adjust to the presence of a small animal in my home. At night, on hearing the cat walk past my door, I would be startled out of light sleep only to say to myself: “Oh. It’s only the cat.”
As time went on, I became used to bumps in the night, creaking floor boards, taps at the door and even soft whining. On hearing any of these potentially frightening noises, I wouldn’t even flinch.
These days, I’m so used to cat noises in the night that even if I hear a sound that seems unlikely to be a cat, I conveniently explain it away as feline tinkering.
The point I am trying to make with these two anecdotes, if you haven’t guessed already, is that a cat is an easy scapegoat for the noises of the night. I don’t mean to crap on anyone’s beliefs or take any sort of stand on whether or not ghosts exist. I am merely pointing out that there could be a ghost moving up and down my hall each night, causing the floor to creak and even occasionally knocking things off of shelves and I wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep because I have an explanation.
However else you might claim that a cat banishes evil spirits, I’m going to take a stand here and say that this is the most common and effective way in which they do so: Not as vigilant guardians of their owners or a threatening deterrent for ghosts, but as a convenient explanation for things that go bump in the night.
I just recently adopted a cat on New Years to complete my little “family”. (I already have a rescued 45lb German/Border Collie dog) I’m like you were, I live in my first two bedroom apt alone and I’m… well I wouldn’t say “superstitious” but I heed caution where it need’s be. I put a line of salt by my front door and patio door and keep a cross close by in rooms should I get scared at night. Recently I have started having really horrid nightmares that feel demonic related and whenever I wake up from them I look to my dog to see if she is startled or can feel anything. If she’s calm, I can fall back asleep. I had always heard cat’s, for some cultures, can keep away evil spirits/see them and that ghost don’t like the sounds of bells either so that actually played a factor when I adopted Sake and why she has a little bell on her collar. It’s not so I can find her, it’s too keep away evil haha! Anyway, this article definitely runs parallel to what’s going on right now because should I hear anything or wake from a nightmare I know the cat’s around and roaming the house so I feel at least a bit safer, even if it’s only for peace of mind.
That’s great. You’ve combined superstitious precaution with common sense. Hopefully the nightmares go away!
While I understand totally the concept of the scape cat, I have had 2 experiences where that just didn’t work.
In the first, I didn’t own a cat, but one would get in bed and curl up with me anyway, I just couldn’t see it. Though that sounds creepy, I always felt safe and slept well when the invisible cat that I shouldn’t have had came to bed. While i understand skepticism on flesh and blood cats fending off evil, it makes perfect sense to me that a spirit kitty may be just the thing to do exactly that, though that may not always make it to the myths.
The next was the bat. Me and mom were doing house remodeling, and it was getting late so I was relaxing at this very computer after a hard day of insulating old walls that had once been a log cabin farm house turned 3 bedroom country home. The 3 cats were removed to mom’s trailer up north so our mouser wouldn’t get stuck in a wall or roll in fiberglass when we weren’t looking. After the spirit cat and growing up with cats then living with them with roommates, the crinkle crinkle noise was dismissed automatically as a cat playing in plastic. Unfortunately, it was a bat that got stuck in the house, and a large one at that with a wing span over a foot, witch proceeded to dive bomb us, thinking we were hostile. I like bats, but not when they panic in a small space.
Thanks for sharing your stories!