“I’m not good enough.”
“Nobody likes me.”
“No point in trying. May as well not bother.”
“There’s no hope.”
Demons exist. They are literal, non-human entities that occupy space and time. Thankfully, most of them are also incredibly stupid.
A Description of Demons
Imagine that you are a grumpy person. Maybe you don’t need much imagining? You are short with people. You are uncharitable. You always assume the worst in others and default to the idea that everyone is out to get you. You are spiteful, jealous, and mean. You are also 27 years old.
Okay.
Now what will you be like when you are 40? How about 50? 65?
80?
There are two paths open to all of us. An easy one and a hard one. The easy path is the path of complacency. It doesn’t involve change. It doesn’t require any introspection on your part nor wondering if you need to be and do better. Most people choose this path, thinking, amongst other things, that it is the safest. After all, if you don’t change anything, nothing can get worse. Right?
Wrong.
That’s not how life works.
Life is either growing and developing or it is dying. You are either becoming or you are un-becoming. There is no in-between. In eternity there is no middle ground. The 27 year old grumpy woman doesn’t remain just as grumpy as she was at 27 in the intervening years between then and 62. If she has chosen the path of complacency, you will find, invariably, that she has decayed. Morally decayed. Spiritually decayed. She will be a far worse than she was at 27. She will be more bitter, more unloving. She will be a more mean and spiteful person than she was when she was young. You see this all the time out in the world. Spoiled old people. Horrible sight.
The awful features we display in youth, unchecked, will spread. Spread as surely as tooth decay. That’s one reason God had to take away our immortality. Death is a mercy you see. For imagine that you had not 80 or 90 years to spoil but eight or nine hundred. What about eight or nine thousand? How horrible of a person could you become in that time? How full of regrets? How full of old grudges? If you think it through you will see that after a long enough period there would be nothing left of you but those sorts of things. Eventually the decay and the rot takes over the whole. As C.S. Lewis said, at a certain point you would cease to exist. The grumpy would be all that was left. Nothing but your anger and bitterness and spite, blessed with immorality. All of your sins going on forever, like a machine.
Most demons are like this.
Once upon a time in the long ago perhaps they were beings of radiant light. But that was in another aeon and any trace of their former selves is very hard to discern. Whatever it was that plagued them most, whatever sin most ate away at them, has devoured the whole of their being. They are no longer plagued by lust they are Lust. They no longer are plagued by wrath they are wrath. They are no longer plagued by despair they are despair.
They’ve become creatures running scripts. Perhaps you’ve heard them talk to you.
“Nobody likes me.”
That sentence, that and that alone is all that can pass through some demons’ minds.
“Nobody likes me. Nobody likes me. Nobody likes me. Nobody likes me. Nobody likes me. Nobody likes me. Nobody likes me. Nobody likes me. Nobody likes me. Nobody likes me. Nobody likes me. Nobody likes me.”
Forever.
Like a machine.
That’s what hell is. That’s why people who have encounters with The Darkness often report the queer sound of machinery in the background. Scripts. Automatons.
“Nobody likes me. Nobody likes me. Nobody likes me.”
Have you ever felt a thought come into your head that didn’t seem like yours? Maybe you’re driving on a country road in the middle of a pleasant autumn day. The birds are singing. Your favorite song is playing. All is well.
What if you just turned the wheel right here and drove off that cliff?
You recoil.
Where did THAT come from?
It wasn’t you.
Was it?
Or you have a bad day at work. Nothing serious. Just your typical sort of bad day that everyone has from time to time. And you know, maybe your wife is short with you on the phone because she’s had a bad day too.
You could get out of all this if you just killed yourself.
Where did that thought come from?
You really think that’s you?
Maybe sometimes. Sure. But make no mistake there are spirits roaming the earth repeating to themselves some variant of “I wish I was dead. I wish I was dead. I wish I was dead. I wish I was dead.” Over and over and over again. You can hear them sometimes. You know, when you get in a low enough spot. Demons are a bit like bacteria in that way. If you’re healthy and happy they can’t get to you as much. But when your immune system is down, when you’re already feeling depressed or sad or angry… they can get a foot hold. Their whispers all of a sudden sound just a little bit louder.
“Nobody likes you.” “You’re not good enough.” “No point in trying.” “Just kill yourself.”
As I said, most demons are incredibly stupid. They have decayed to the point where they are more or less mono-opinionated. Shades wandering the earth muttering the same horrible mantra to themselves over and over again. As mentioned, that’s what hell is. If you go there, that will happen to you. You will become something that used to be human, muttering to itself “I deserved better” or “she shouldn’t have said that” over and over again forever. What you deserved better than or what she said or even who she was you will eventually forget. But you will remember the bitterness. You will remember the spite.
That and that alone.
The worm that does not die.
And what is the solace for such a shade? Such a ghost wandering the earth in pain?
Well, obviously it is to find someone to share the burden of its misery.
Misery, after all, loves company. If you just remember that phrase you will understand a demon’s every motivation.
You see Sadness is lessened when it is shared. Mostly, this is a good thing. The fact that sadness can be shared and thereby ameliorated is why we are able to “be there” for our friends in times of sorrow. Having a shoulder to cry on makes the crying hurt less. Everybody knows this. And “being there” for someone that is still alive is a good thing.
“Being there” for a shade isn’t though. Because the shade can’t get better. Because there’s nothing except sadness inside a shade. Because they are each of them bottomless wells of despair.
That doesn’t mean they won’t still try to climb onto you. To take hold of you. To possess you. The feel a little less pain when they do this. By stepping up on you they can climb out of hell just an inch or two. And, in the process, they also push you down. It’s a bit of a spiral. For the more you’re pushed down the more reachable you are to other, lower demons. Before you know it you’ve got a Legion of spirits attached to you. A legion of parasites. Each of them making themselves feel just a tiny bit less sad by off loading their sadness onto you.
“There’s no hope.” The demon whispers.
You nod as the thought enters your mind.
Good. Thinks the spirit. I’ve been vindicated. I was right.
“There’s no hope.” It says again.
Again you indulge it.
The grows stronger. Like an addict encouraged by his friends that nothing bad that’s happened to him has in anyway been his fault.
Such demonic influence is very bad for you. It is, in fact, what destroys the world. The shades pull you into a spiral of self indulgent lies that pull apart your life, your relationships, your health, your sanity, and your soul.
Demons are real.
Thankfully, Angels are too.
The Difference Between Angels and Demons
There are of course many differences between angels and demons. From the standpoint of practical self defense however, only one really matters. This is that demons are intrusive and Angels need permission.
The shades, the decayed, they don’t care about your boundaries, your consent, or your personal autonomy. They just reach out and try to climb onto you. If they find a foothold, they take it. If they don’t they just move on. Demonic possession and attack is strangely impersonal. You’re either a suitable host or you aren’t. They don’t really care. What you want to happen is wholly irrelevant to them. Like drowning men they reach for anything and don’t care who they pull down with them.
Angels on the other hand, respect you. God has given you your life and your free will and they will not violate it without permission. They are happy to help and intervene in your life (usually and most directly by quieting the voices of the shades).
But… you have to ask.
It really is that simple. Demons attack whether your want them or not. Angels have to be invited.
A word of caution here.
Certain branches of Christianity, especially certain denominations of Protestantism, are very wary of communicating with any spirit besides God. This hesitancy is not for nothing. Communicating with spirits is fraught with peril as the demons are legalists. The old fiction trope where the protagonist summons a spirit with a magic circle and just the right runes and incantations is true. Any opening you leave for a bad spirit will be exploited. The deeper levels of your self often require explicit permission to enter and you may inadvertently give such permission to a demon without knowing. The danger is so great that I caution people to never even speak to “ghosts” or other alleged spirits in a haunted house. You know, “Is anybody here?” and “What’s your name?” and other questions you see people asking in those Ghost Hunting shows. Bad idea. Don’t do that.
On the other hand, you do have angels assigned to help you. (“See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.” — Matthew 18:10) Speaking to these angels is usually safe provided you are speaking to them directly and without ambiguity. They are assigned to you to protect you physically until it is your time to die and to remind you of the higher path that you should be pursuing. When a demon whispers in your ear “you are worthless”, the angels are there to remind you that that isn’t true. The old image of a demon and an angel on opposite shoulders is a more profound truth than you might have expected to find in an episode of Looney Tunes.
But again, you have to let the angel know that it’s okay to help you, in what capacity, and how much. Angels don’t barge into your life. It’s not their way.
I said earlier that demons are literal, non-human entities that occupy space and time. It should be pointed out just how literally I mean that.
When I say they occupy space and time I mean that they actually wander around. Like, on the ground and stuff. If you are fortunate (or unfortunate, your pick) enough you will have seen them once or twice in your life. Shadow people. The shades. I knew a man who had them frequently in his kitchen. If you turned the right way sometimes you would catch a glimpse of them. I tried to convince him to get his house blessed but he declined. Thought doing so would make him weird. His life didn’t go well.
Certain substances and states of mind allow you to see them better. Psychedelics, hard drugs, near death states, deep meditation, sleep paralysis, and so on. Meth heads see them fairly frequently and it appears that different drugs allow you to see different “species” of demon. People on meth often see the kind with green eyes. Normally the brain is tuned to the “correct” frequency, the one we associate with sobriety. But the above means of achieving altered states of consciousness induce a change in that frequency, just as you would change the frequency on a radio. You end up “tuning in” to other realms. Certain people, so called “sensitives” or psychics are naturally attuned to detecting the spirits better than most of us. Of course, a large percentage, perhaps the majority of those who call themselves psychics are charlatans. In fact most of the actual psychics in the world deny this part of themselves and choose to ignore or downplay it because it seems too strange or too scary. Nonetheless, if you are such a person consider this ability a gift. Those who perform exorcisms often employ a sensitive to aide them. Such people are vital to spiritual health.
Physically Protecting Spaces
The locality of spirits is disconcerting to some. We imagine that a spirit doesn’t have to be any specific place, and perhaps that is true. But facts on the ground imply heavily that many spirits have strong affinities for certain places, whether or not they strictly have to be there. The love abandoned buildings for example, or any place where there is a general air of decay. This is of course why old empty houses quickly begin to feel unsettling or creepy. They will likewise recede into the shadows under the light of day, recoiling from the physical light, but will slither our into the open more after the sun goes down. They like to congregate on porches and door steps, hoping for any sort of (often unintentional) invitation to come inside. Some cities are also more haunted than others. You can practically feel the spirits in New Orleans for example, or in the woods outside of small towns in New Hampshire.
The fact that shades are often localized in a certain space means that spaces themselves can be protected. To a degree anyway. Holy images, crosses, and the like, can repel spirits just as they do vampires in the movies. The mechanism for this repulsion is straightforward. Just as a burn victim may shrink from looking in a mirror or an abuser react violently at the accusation that he is such, physical icons of Goodness remind the shade of how far they have fallen and how ugly they have become. Such reminders are unbearably painful, which is why some of the saints have said that the sign of the cross can make demons catch on fire. The fire, of course, is their resentment. The removal of holy images from public life, especially public buildings has long been a goal of the demonic and allows them to proliferate in public spaces much more freely.
More powerful still than images are prayers, especially prayers from the Bible like the Psalms, said aloud. More effective still is the name of Jesus, which they hate, and many demonic attacks can be stopped in their tracks simply by uttering the name of Jesus over and over again. The 23rd Psalm is also very powerful. Having one’s house blessed is helpful to the point of being a necessity as many lingering spirits which hide and whisper from the corners can be cleansed by such rituals.
Some might think the above is superstition, to which I answer that it certainly can be. There is a mode of religion which places its faith in all these outward signs and symbols and not on the God whom they represent. Such a mode of religion creates a false sense of protection in its adherents and ironically thereby makes its adherents amongst the easiest of targets. This is why, sometimes, nuns or monks or priests or pastors or other holy people who are outwardly very devout may be inwardly quite twisted. Often such people have been deceived into a kind of ineffective superstition instead of a genuine faith.
Above all, the most important step to defending yourself from the demonic is to know that they are real.
Demons exist.
“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist,” is no trite platitude. It is the gospel truth. If you are fooled into thinking that all those evil thoughts and desires that come into your mind are your own. That they are your genuine self. You will fall for all manner of lies. Your life will disintegrate as will your soul. The demon will whisper in your ear that your wife does not love you and you will believe it. The shades will tell you that you can never ever afford a child and you will agree and abort your baby. The shadows will tell you that you deserve more that she does and you will grow spiteful and bitter.
Demons exist.
Angels do too.
Be careful out there.
cool piece but have to disagree re the spirits of new orleans. yankees (like me) like to believe there's some mysterious soul to nola...if only they could grasp it. but then i lived there for three years and realized there is no soul. there's just nothingness. banal, boring nothing. that's why everyone leaves.
what's going on w the woods of new hampshire? never been.